Play By Post: Alien Lost Souls Part 4 - Between a Rock and a Hangar Bay

Part 3 ended with Manni staring down the xenomorph with nothing but a gut full of fear..

Manni:
Manni looks at the screwdriver and shakes his head at his 'Weapon'. He gets on his comm "I'm about 50 meters from the aft air lock near some pipes, the creature is black, slender body with a long tail and thin arms with sharp talons. I need help fast" Manni looks at the creature and not liking either of his choices he tries to escape.

The creature is obviously toying with Manni, as it leaps in front of him blocking his escape back to the Glorious. Manni is reminded of what a cat would do when pouncing at a helpless mouse.

The creature reaches out and grabs Manni with both of its supernaturally strong arms and hoists him up, his feat dangling in the air. The crushing grip is painful, but the pain is forgotten as he is pulled towards the grinning maw.

Its grinning maw, opens up to revel a row of razor sharp blades for teeth. And to your horror, a smaller second mouth starts to protrude outwards, snapping!
The smaller mouth suddenly shoots out like a piston and snaps against Manni's helmet visor, its teeth glancing off, leaving a scuff mark mere inches away from your face!

"Oh my God" Manni screams as the creatures extra mouth glances off his helmet. He contemplates head butting the creature but doesn't want to possibly crack his helmet or kick it and hopes it looses it grip.

The pathetic kicks of Manni do little to hurt this horrific creature. But his flailing feet did cause it to falter and loose its balance.
The creature stumbles and falls backwards just a bit, dropping Manni in the process.

Not believing his luck that the creature dropped him Manni again tries to escape by running back to the ship.

Manni was able to manage to escape around the corner, able to see the Glorious and the station. Manni was able to see running towards his general direction. Debrah, the other working roughneck, who first went inside of the station with the others.

As Manni continues to run to the ship he is breathing heavy and using up more oxygen than he should. As he see Debrah coming out of the ship with the pipe spanner he yells on his comm, "Debrah, get back in the ship and get ready to close the hatch!!"

Debrah:
Manni! She shouts, Are you Ok? She runs towards him. She is holding in her hand a large 48 inch spanner.

Just as Debrah and Manni make their way towards the Airlock to the Glorious, you see Bjorn approach from the station airlock, a large .357 magnum revolver in hand.
Debrah obviously concerned about her buddy, and co worker. Grabs Manni by his arm and assists him back towards the airlock of the shift.
She can then see the scratches and scuffs on Manni's visor.
Holy Shit!? What did that? pointing towards the the gouges along his helmets visor.

Seeing Bjorn approach, she continues talking to Manni. Manni, where is Tammy? The pilot?

Manni:
"Shut the airlock!!Shut it now! It's right behind me!" Manni is almost hysterical as Debrah helps him into the airlock.

Now inside the Glorious Hangar

Bjorn:
Keeps a wary eye peeled behind them with his gun at the ready, scanning for anything coming for them.
"Are you trying to get yourself killed Debrah?"

Debrah:
Looking at Bjorn, Debrah responds.
I know, I know, but I had to do something!! What did you expect me to do? My friend here is calling out for help.
Bjorn scans the area where Manni was running from, but does not see anything. Other then a few scattered tools on the ground around the tail area.

Peter:
Peter asked loudly.. And Tammy? Where the hell is Tammy?! Walking over to the two roughnecks.

Rebecca:
The hired scientist, Rebecca. Walks towards the group, who had been preparing her work area since the ship landed.

In what seems like a very cold, flat tone. She speaks cooly, at first it sounds like she is only speaking to herself.
A creature, here? On this asteroid? There is little, or no atmosphere. Fascinating!
Pausing  for a few seconds, she seems to be thinking. She inspects the scraped exosuit helmet.
Were you able to retrieve any type of sample? Can you describe what it looks like?

Manni:
A sample!" Manni yells at the scientist, "I was lucky to get back here alive! It was humanoid in shape, black with a large weird shape head and a snapping protruding mouth. He had a strong grip, I barely got away from his claws!"

Bjorn looks back and forth between the two and then opens a comm channel to Matt.
"I don't know what is going on, but Manni definitely has signs of contact with something.  Look sharp out there."

Matt:
Matt replies over the radio.
Should Jack and I head back to you guys? he responds, We can figure out how we are going to handle this.

Debrah:
"Are there any weapons in the ships locker?" Debrah looks around nervously.
"If there is a dangerous creature loose out there, we will need weapons, and protection".
"I want someone watching my six, if I'm going to have to go back into the station to restore the power."
"And Peter, I am officially activating the HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT BONUS sub-clause in my contract."

Peter:
Peter franticly walks over to Manni, concern and worry clearly visible on his face, "What do you mean she's just lying there?! Is she dead?".

MUTHUR:
There is no hiding the obvious scar to Manni's exo face shield. Now that people are a little closer helping him, you can see that there is some form of Goo, over his suit.

Peter:
Pausing briefly to get a good look at Manni he turns his gaze toward Susan, and suspicious of her motives on this job he sternly asks "Do you know what the hell is going on?". His instincts tell him she knows something about this place, maybe something that can help Tammy. If she tries to withhold any information he feels confident he can convince her to talk, enlisting the help of his crew if needed.

Manni:
Manni looks at the Captain, "She wasn't moving, she was laying in a pipe not moving and the creature was crawling over her towards me! I wasn't able to check her body but if she's not dead it would be a miracle!"

Rebecca:
Dr. Delphine stares curiously at Manni and the substance on his suit. "Mr. Young, please remove your helmet and suit—carefully—and leave them here. I need to make sure this substance isn't toxic or contagious." She gestures to a table near where her equipment is being set up. "It's not ideal, but it'll have to do," she says quietly, more to herself than anything.

Seemingly unconcerned by the prospect of alien creatures, she stands and walks over to Manni, one hand on her hip, the other holding a pen and tapping her lips with it. "You do realize it's impossible for another organism to be on this rock without someone having brought it here. I am going to need you to describe to me exactly what you saw, including where you saw the pilot."

Manni:
Manni makes eye contact with the scientist, "It had a dark slender body with a large smooth head, with a long whipping tail, thin arms ending with long point razor sharp talons. It seemed like it's teeth glinted, like steel blades.""Tammy was about 50 meters away in what looked like some large surface pipes coming from the direction of where the station is located. They were  are about 6 feet in diameter, and were covered in some form of grating, one of which was damaged and bent outwards away from the entrance."

Rebecca:
"Interesting." Delphine purses her lips and stares at the man for an uncomfortable length of time. "You say this—animal—is exposed to the vacuum and still alive? Such a thing shouldn't be possible." She looks down to a clipboard and begins to hastily scribble some notes, followed by the rapid tapping of keys as she enters information into her computer station. Then she looks with distaste at the setup around her. "This setup is completely inadequate for these purposes," she mutters. "We will need the station online. Manni, focus: Was Tammy alive? Was her suit intact? Where did you see the creature last and what was it doing?"

Delphine's blue eyes are lit up with a furious energy. This sort of discovery, of what sounds to be a previously undiscovered species with deep sea dweller-like ability to survive zero-atmos conditions, is the thing scientists can only dream of. If she can pioneer the cataloguing and successful analysis of such a discovery, she would be set up for life. The look in her eyes speaks of the greatest scientific discovery since the invention of space travel.

Manni:
"All I saw was her legs in the pipe and the creature crawling over her to get to me. After it had grabbed me and tried to bite through my helmet I kicked it and it let loose of me. I took off running as fast as I could to get back here." Manni keeps thinking of his ordeal and not really want to relive it as he talks to Rebecca.

Matt:
The airlock connected to the station opens up with a hiss into the hanger.
Matt was able to see everyone standing around Manni, and Rebecca standing near by him talking.
What the heck is going on? Is everyone ok? he paused. Peter, where is your pilot?
He walks over and stands next to Bjorn.

Rebecca:
"We need to go out there right now and obtain that creature. Ah, lock it down. We'll see as well if Tammy is still alive." She taps the pen to her lips, then writes down a note and circles it on the clipboard.

alien? lab?
import, ICC quar.?
vacuum? data

Rebecca looks at her colleagues as if gauging them, studying their reactions. "It is imperative that we first capture this organism." She decides to try a tack that she knows will appeal to most of these roughnecks. "You want shares? This is either a company asset, or it will be, and this could be our discovery. Our paycheck. Shares? How about we all own our own little slice of interest, instead?"

Matt:
Matt waited for Rebecca to finish.
This could very well be the reason why we are here. We were told to investigate this area for a reason. This has to be it?
He looks over at Rebecca,
It is imperative that we get to the main frame and get what ever data we can, and secure it first. Stressing the importance of his mission.
Capturing this creature, is a high priority indeed. But I want to make sure, that we know what we are dealing with first, before we start looking for some space space monster.
Still looking at Rebecca.
While we were inside, we think the power to the station was turned off manually, and we should be able to get power up and running. And then I can get access to the mainframe.

Rebecca:
"Sounds like we simply need to restore power to whatever station was here first." Rebecca shrugs as though it's a simple matter. "But make no mistake, Mr. Leshainko, capturing this creature is top priority. Not only is it a threat, but its very existence could change our lives as we know it." She stands, clipboard in one hand, the other folded across her chest. "Weyland-Yutani wouldn't be out here without a reason. This asteroid offers no resources. They built that station to study or access something."

Matt: Matt replies solemnly.
I do not think you are wrong..
He quickly turns towards Peter..
Do you have status update for me?