The Communications Center

Time: 0500, March 12th, 2154

Location: Colonial Communications Relay

__________

Donna checked in to work the next morning to find that the nightshift, Todd Duncan, hadn't showed up for work. That was odd, considering usually if someone didn't show up you had to pull a double shift. The door closed behind her as she walked in to start her day, and she sealed it with her card to make sure that she wouldn't get any surprises once inside. There were rumors, after all, of nefarious things happening in Lucy's Lament.

The first thing she did was fire up the autobrewer and set it to coffee. She needed a cup to start her day. NEEDED. Then she checked the relays for the night to see what messages had been recorded.

There was nothing.

This was puzzling, as even out in the middle of nowhere the Company typically checked on them at least every six hours or forwarded some sort of push message or whatever. Plus there was a ship that was supposed to be arriving soon, she remembered; shouldn't they be checking in too?

She checked the relays only to find that she was locked out. She switched frequencies, channels, checked her connections; she was genuinely locked out like she had lost her radio permissions.

That was odd. Her brow furrowed.

Something moved in the back of the room, back behind all the towers of servers and UNICOM Radio Towers.

"Todd?" She asked. She told AUNTIE to turn up the lights as she walked back that way, the AI didn't respond. "Todd? AUNTIE?"

Nothing.

Perhaps, she thought, there had been some sort of cosmic storm, a flare or something, that had fried some systems, but then remembered that, of course, Todd wouldn't have been effected. She felt her guts drop in worry and anticipation. Fuck.

"Todd, dammit, stop being stupid!"

She came around the corner to find something like a dog sized beetle digging into the communications equipment with razor sharp claws on the front of its body that looked like scythes.

She covered her mouth and stepped back out of the way and listened to it work. The radio shrouds popped with every puncture issued up from the thing, and electronics cracked and fizzled. She wondered for a second if everything was going to catch on fire, but decided she didn't give a fuck.

She had to get out of there.

She didn't know how it hadn't heard her when she was calling for Todd, and AUNTIE, but thanked God that it hadn't. And how hadn't she heard it?

She also didn't care. It hadn't, she hadn't, she was getting the fuck out of dodge.

She returned to the door and inserted her card but her heart sank down with her guts when she realized that the door wasn't reading the chip. She froze. Behind her, near the radio relays, the creature was making a sound... Something like sniffing...