Helios
A-1 deck
Corridor No. A-1-23
“Snap… Snap… Snap…”
Following the sound of subtle footsteps, three figures suddenly rushed into this remote freight channel.
Bryce walked in front, followed closely by Alyssa, and the last person was Lin Xi.
They walked in a hurry and their bodies were covered in blood.
"We have to hurry, or else—"
Alyssa looked at the personal terminal on her wrist nervously and said.
However, before she could finish her words, the lights above their heads began to flicker regularly.
A few seconds later, the entire spacecraft suddenly went dark.
“Damn it.”
Alyssa uttered a curse.
Immediately following her words, there was a cold announcement from the central system—
All crew members, please note that the following is an important notice from Captain Taran Ida. Former deputy captain Alyssa ID identification code 2734, senior medical officer Bryce Drake ID identification code 2411, senior plant researcher Lin Xi Drake ID identification code 4211, the above three people have violated the "Intra-system Flight Law" 23 R-787 regulations, 41 R-113 regulations, 116 R-1, R-14 regulations... All violations have been recorded, and the official crew status is hereby deprived. The identity is determined to be "defector", code name L, dangerous level A. After this notification, the identity determination will take effect immediately. The entire ship enters an emergency alert state. This notification has been triple-confirmed by Captain Taran Ida.
A dull electronic mechanical sound rang out in the cluttered passage of the spacecraft. Then, the lights on the entire ship flickered regularly and turned to the red color that is unique to an emergency.
"Damn it, did that guy add all the violations for me? How dare he?! My resume is completely ruined."
Alyssa said with a livid face.
Before this, she was still a little panicked, after all, she was really scared before. However, after hearing Taran's report, all the trembling, incoherent speech, and timidity... disappeared.
She stopped and looked at the place where the sound came from in disbelief, and a gleam of fury instantly flashed in her eyes.
"I'm going to kill that guy, I swear I'm going to kill that guy—"
Alyssa turned her head and looked at Bryce and Lin Xi.
If she couldn't help showing some fear when she mentioned Taran before, now, she only had murderous intent when she mentioned Taran. Even Bryce couldn't help but shrink when he met Alyssa's eyes.
Bryce gave Lin Xi a look, and then he mouthed to her with a smile: "Taran really pissed her off this time."
Lin Xi shuddered, then nodded.
Alyssa has always been a legendary super elite, and her resume is so beautiful that it can serve as a life template for a star captain - but the violations that Taran has added to her (and actually Bryce and Lin Xi) have completely ruined this carefully maintained resume.
If she were lucky enough to return to Earth, she would never be able to board any spaceship again in her life, not even as a passenger.
Considering how Alyssa had always protected her resume, Lin Xi was sure that Taran had indeed caused her some trouble.
However, if there is anything more troublesome than Alyssa's resume being ruined...
Oh, these troubles are still to come, and they come one after another.
"Give me your hand."
Bryce had already taken out a small laser scalpel from his pocket before the briefing was over.
He pulled Lin Xi's wrist and moved his fingers slightly. The personal terminal on Lin Xi's wrist turned black and then fell with a bang.
Then Bryce did the same thing to Alyssa and himself.
"Codename L? It seems that even though Taran has turned into a bug, his insidiousness has not changed... Now even normal crew members can just shoot us to death when they meet us."
While cutting off his personal terminal, Bryce muttered with a wry smile.
"I bet that guy has been waiting for this day for a long time."
"So what should we do next?"
Needless to say, Lin Xi shot and smashed the three terminals the moment they fell to the ground. He had to do this to prevent his identity from being discovered by those people.
However, without personal terminals on a large spacecraft like the Apollo, they were almost completely trapped in a hamster ball.
All access controls and devices on board need to be transcoded or operated through personal terminals.
"I don't know. Maybe we could take a few of the regular crew hostage?"
Bryce said painfully.
"That violates Article 1 of the Spaceship Law..." Alyssa started talking subconsciously, but she stopped talking halfway. "Okay, just ignore what I said."
She paused for a moment, then couldn't help asking, "So where do we go to hijack the crew?"
"Sh ...
Lin Xi suddenly spoke up and stopped the conversation between Bryce and Alyssa.
"Someone...someone is approaching."
He said softly.
Bryce immediately clenched the gun in his hand, but Lin Xi reached out and pressed on the muzzle of his gun.
"No… "
He murmured.
"There are a lot of people... They are combing us..."
Bryce also followed Lin Xi's example. He frowned and listened carefully to the movements around him, but the intricate passages and the always roaring spacecraft parts could almost cover up any sound that was too subtle.
"I didn't hear anything," he said.
Lin Xi's face turned a little ugly.
He didn't hear Bryce's muttering because he was in a strange state.
It was not so much the slightest noises in the surroundings that made Lin Xi notice the approach of those people, but rather the fact that their traces suddenly appeared in his mind.
And now, what Lin Xi can feel is the "feeling" that hundreds of individuals are approaching him.
His throat was a little dry, and it felt like he had a coin under his tongue, full of a dry taste.
“I feel very sick.”
Lin Xi said to Bryce and Alyssa, with a somewhat painful look on her face.
"I don't know how to put it, but my instinct tells me that we have to avoid them... I doubt if those people still have any basic sanity..."
"but-"
"Our guns are running out of power. I guess we have to find a way to avoid them."
Lin Xi repeated it.
“But we can’t hide anymore.”
Bryce shook his head and leaned his head out from the corner to look at the corridor. There was still no one there.
Bryce tried to recall the map he had memorized in his mind.
He had never realized that the Helios was so old—if it were a new ship, it would at least have had more passageways. Yet the Helios followed all the design features of the Age of Exploration perfectly.
In order to prevent the interstellar pirates who were rampant on the waterway at the time from rushing straight to the bottom after breaking into the spacecraft, the decks of the Apollo were almost all independent of each other, relying entirely on the few elevators as passages.
This was a clever design at the time. After all, as long as the elevator was controlled, the space pirates' activities in the spacecraft could be perfectly restricted.
However, now, Lin Xi and his team are almost forced into a desperate situation by this design.
They had tried elevators in several areas, but perhaps in order to capture them, those elevators were all filled with mercenaries armed with guns.
At the same time, more and more crew members with extremely strange behaviors were wandering around the deck of A-1 like wandering souls, looking for clues about Lin Xi and the other two.
Just like now.
Carpet search.
As soon as he mentioned this word, Bryce became so angry that he wanted to hit the arrogant guy with the butt of his rifle until he bled.
"Maybe we can give it a try? Those crew members seem a little slow, maybe they are not that difficult to deal with."
It's a terrible feeling to be herded into a dead end like a gutter rat.
Bryce became increasingly irritable.
"No, I think we should listen to Lin Xi. I feel bad too."
Alyssa frowned and showed an uncomfortable expression.
A few minutes later, the scene that finally appeared in their sight proved that dodging was indeed the right decision.
A monster was slowly moving along the corner of the wall. It looked like an enlarged centipede, with countless thin legs making a dense friction sound on the ground.
The disgusting thing is that such a fat and dark insect has a human face embedded in its body.
"Jesus Christ, Ally?"
Alyssa took just one look and then retracted her head.
She covered her mouth tightly and mouthed to the two people around her.
Lin Xi admired Alyssa's ability to judge people from the bottom of his heart. In his opinion, the only word that could be described on that deformed face was "horror". It was impossible for him to tell who that face belonged to before.
However, if what Alyssa said was true, Lin Xi could only mourn for that guy.
He still remembered Ali, Taran's personal assistant. He was a smart man, but unfortunately he was a little too keen on fighting for power.
And he was good at it, his handsome face had allowed him to have many romantic affairs on the ship, however, now, all the man's ambitions and masculine instincts had vanished into thin air.
Just by seeing Ali wriggling on the ground in a weird way, Lin Xi felt an indescribable resistance in his heart.
For a moment, he could almost feel the remaining soul inside the huge, grotesquely deformed body.
Pain and despair, and then the unwillingness of being gradually pulled into chaos - it's a pity that human emotions are inevitably being devoured by the insects' instincts, bite by bite, until they disappear completely.
"Empathy", there is nothing worse than empathizing with a monster at a time like this.
Lin Xi's palms were wet with cold sweat.
He took small sips of air so that he could maintain normal breathing.
The author has something to say: I couldn't help but laugh out loud when I saw everyone's sympathy for Number One in the comments.