Cargo Bay

“Oi! Hal!”

Due to the hearing protection, the eighteen-year-old only caught a fraction of the superior calling him. He was focusing on moving a cargo box into position on the storage shelves.

“HAL!” That got through; Hal pulled off the hearing protection as he powered down the loaded.

“Come on, Hal, the shift’s over,” the older man who was too stout to fit in the exoskeleton called. “You don’t wanna be locked in here by mistake again.”

“Thanks, sir,” Hal replied, though he didn’t have the heart to tell his superior that he enjoyed the overnight isolation where he could sing to his heart’s content… and his ear’s torture. Hal parked the loader in an out-of-the-way corner of the storage facility and unhooked himself from the large mechanical apparatus.

In the break room, he was packing up an electric guitar he always practiced with during the work breaks. Everyone in that facility knew each other, so there was no thievery. Hal could leave his guitar smack-dab on the table and it wouldn’t be touched.

Just when he zipped up the case, the station emitted a creak zipping through every support beam, as if the station were hit hard by a sudden impact. What followed was a thunderous shift, and very temporary failure of the artificial gravity. It was enough to send Hal, two other workers, and everything not nailed down flying across the small break room.

—

The snarling of some distant, unknown creatures shook Hal awake. His hand felt sprained on account of its near-death-grip on the handle of his guitar case.

The lights still functioned, so Hal got a well-lit look at his two co-workers. Both hit the wall on their heads. Neither were moving. The only thing that was moving was some savage-looking man pounding against the door to the break room. Thank goodness the… person… didn’t have a lanyard to access the break room.

“Guys?” Hal called to the co-workers, “Guys, there’s a weird guy outside.”

No response. Hal was afraid of the worst. He was hesitant to touch either of them due to that fear.

“Come on guys, get up.”

Hal tapped one of them, then the other. Both started to smell.

“… Oh crap…” Hal began to shiver as he hugged the guitar case with his rather imposing build. The entire scene of a very masculine eighteen-year-old hugging a guitar case like a safety blanket would look downright comical. At least, it would… if not for the immediate threat of being trapped in a room with only sub-par lunch break leftovers, half a box of nutrient bars spilled around the place, two corpses and some insane thing right outside, pounding at the admittedly tough door.

On the plus side, the door wasn’t going to be breached any time soon. Hal had time to mentally steel himself for an eventual escape.

“OKAY… okay… I can do this… I’m a rock star… This is practice for a crazy fan,” Harold hopped on the spot to get pumped up, “A crazy fan… Not killing… uhm… incapacitating… temporarily… so security could collect him and- oh who am I kidding? I need to kill that thing to escape…”

Hal stamped the metal floor in frustration. He has to kill that thing. It looked human, but at the same time not. It looked like an abomination. The last thing Hal wanted was for that ugliness to scar his beautiful rock star face.

“Okay, run through the plan once more,” he muttered, “Lanyard, door opens… then what…?”

Hal put down the guitar case and gripped at two legs of the knocked-over table. He hoisted it up and set it up tabletop against the door. Hal then picked up his guitar case and readied it for a strike like a battering ram. After much hesitation, Hal worked up the courage to plant the lanyard against the key-reader next to the door. As the information processed, Hal slipped the lanyard back in his pocket and gripped tightly onto the guitar case.

The door slid open, and the thing charged in, only for its gut to get caught against the edge of the table. As the thing’s torso and head leaned forward from the inertia, Hal held on tight to the guitar case as he swung it down with all his might.

He barely felt the hit. The sheer weight of the case and overall force applied turned the creature’s head into chunks that tore away from the torso. The rest of the body went completely limp over the edge of the table, while blood, brain, and bits of bone made a gruesome mess on the floor.

Hal began to hyperventilate, having never seen this kinda crap before. However, he knew he had no time to lose. With one strong arm, he tugged on the table to move it aside so he could escape. Thankfully, there appeared to be no one entering the area from the entrance on the opposite end of the cargo bay. There were figures passing by, but no one was entering- probably on account of the closed door. Harold could swear he could hear screaming from far away.

With no immediate stress, two dead co-workers and one dead thing, Hal had an opportunity to think of a plan so he wouldn’t join any of them any time soon. He saw the exoskeleton of the loader- which, when properly equipped, could be rated for air lock work. The particular loaded he was using was not equipped for it, but the modifications needed were in the warehouse. Plus, the exoskeleton itself would make a fine defence against more of those things.

Hal carefully stepped towards the loader, making sure to peek around corners of shelves to make sure nothing was around.

From what Hal could tell, there was no living person throughout the rest of the warehouse- at least, none nearby enough to hassle him while he got suited up. Hal gripped tightly on both his guitar case and the card key needed to access the suit’s functions as he approached the suit proper. After loading up the guitar case and the recovered nutrient bars in the storage slot behind the seat, Hal hopped in and switched on the systems.

He checked the battery charge. 52%, a decent charge, if unexpected. Then again, there was not as much heavy lifting during the recent shift. Hal recalled that that much of a charge would grant him about seven hours of movement without using the loader arms.

The loader glided along the floor on small, sphere-like wheels. The humming, heavy-duty electromagnets near the base kept the loader from tilting when making hard turns, and also allowed the suit to remain attached to the station during exterior jobs. Hal directed the mech to the modification station, and activated the automated system. Pretty soon, the exoskeleton was covered in a space-grade material and sealed-up like an exo-suit.

There was a distant crash. Though the exo-suit muffled sound like a beast, Hal was still able to hear the world outside of the suit. It sounded like someone busted the door open somehow. Hal did not want to find out. He had to get to the safest place he knew: The isolation of space. With that safety, he’d be able to access one of the exterior terminals and communicate with the station AI. Hopefully it would have some kind of information.

As the exo-suit ran tests, the humming of the electromagnets seemed to attract the attention of whoever broke the door open. There were a few people carrying blunt objects, but they were paying attention to the unarmed people that looked as much of a mess as that first thing Hal encountered.

“Come on, damnit!” Hal cursed as the safety protocol during the exo-suit tests prevented his control. There were people getting killed out there, and he couldn’t do anything. Curse his timing! Two out of the three were tackled and being mauled. The last one was losing his lunch and his cool. Even from a distance, Hal could tell through the suit’s HUD that the poor guy was shaking.

Finally, the tests were passed, and Hal got control of the loader. Gliding along the floor, Hal lowered the arms to waist level. Hal soared past the last guy and rammed both loader arms through the two things. “Yes! Saved! Man, that was awesome!” Hal whooped as the things slipped off of the now-bloodied loader arms. “You okay, dude?” He called to the last survivor as he confirmed that the freaks were no longer moving.

Hal did not realise two things, however. The first was that the space-grade exo-suit limited clear communication from him to anyone through the short-wave radio, a channel exclusively used by loaders like his own, as well as other authorized equipment. The second was that the two killed survivors slowly rose up, despite having their necks chewed to pieces. Hal turned around just in time to see the two new freaks maul the last poor man.

“No… Goddamnit NO!” Hal pounded the arm rest. The two things rose up as they shifted their attention to the humming electromagnets. They stumbled in their approach while the third poor soul squirmed as he bled out. There was no saving that poor man, let alone the gratitude of the poor man. I'm supposed to be a hero…

Hal slapped himself. He had to focus; he needed to get outside and get in contact with the station AI. He needed to get to the safety of outer space so he could get his bearings.

Knowing he had to do it, he moved the exo-suit forward at full speed. He shoved right through the three of them. The bleeding out guy probably would have turned into one of the freaks like the other two just did.

He heard muffled sounds as more entered the warehouse. Hal turned to find more weird-looking savages. There were a lot of them. Hal doubted their bare hands would be able to do any damage to the exosuit, but he didn’t want to risk it. Hal directed the exo-suit to the airlock. He had to get out of here.

Once inside the air lock, Hal realised that he couldn’t actually activate the doors on his own, unless he was outside of the suit. As the savages started pouring in, Hal pulled the controls to the side, causing the loader to spin on the spot. The loader arms clipped at the things, but the sheer number of them caused the loader to stall. He was about to be swarmed after losing momentum when the doors automatically shut, and the air lock depressurized when the outer doors opened. The AI apparently automatically did this sort of thing.

As the outside sound faded and the freaks were launched out into space, Hal finally could hear nothing but himself… and he realised he was still hyperventilating. Normally, this amount of hyperventilation would cause him to pass out, but his synthetic lungs were strong.

“Come on, Hal,” he told himself encouragingly as he directed the exo-suit out of the airlock and onto the flat surface of the exterior, “I’m safe now… I’m safe now…” He repeated this to himself until the air lock door closed far behind him. By that time, he finally calmed down.