Last chapter. The Heaven's Wing

Corbin didn’t look up from the exposed mass of cables and grav-lift harnesses as he answered, his voice firm. "Only if someone goes down or if one of those things comes at me directly. Every second I’m not working delays us getting the hyperdrive out. If we’re going to leave this place, I have to stay on this."Hank gave a tight nod, then turned to Mercer, who was already checking his sword and sliding a fresh power cell into his laser rifle. Without another word, Mercer headed south with him, taking position near the southern entrance to hold the line.

That left Douklan alone heading through the north door after the robot, his weapon ready, eyes sharp.

---

Douklan followed the battered security robot through the northern door, weapon raised and nerves taut. The corridor ahead was bathed in the crimson hue of emergency lighting, casting long, warped shadows down the walls. The flickering lights highlighted scorch marks, clawed panels, and torn bulkheads—signs of the chaos that had recently passed through.

They rounded a corner into the testing wing’s main corridor, and then Douklan saw it.

A hulking form filled the hallway ahead, moving with a slow, brutal confidence. It stood nearly ten feet tall, with a muscular, red-tinted body stretched grotesquely under patchy remnants of lab restraints. Its arms were long and thick as tree trunks, ending in wide, clawed hands that scraped the walls as it moved. Each of its feet had four hooked talons that gouged the floor with every step. Its head was a warped mass of sinew, with a gaping vertical mouth lined with tusks and twitching mandibles, drooling something black and glistening.



The robot halted, optics pulsing a warning color. It opened a narrow chest compartment, revealing a retractable firearm. The barrel extended, locking with a mechanical hiss, and the security unit began to fire with precise, controlled bursts.

The bullets struck the beast’s chest with dull thuds, but before the second volley could land, the creature raised one massive, clawed hand.

There was a sudden distortion in the air—like a heat wave on asphalt—and the robot was thrown off its feet in a burst of telekinetic force. It slammed into the door dozens of meters away, the metal buckling inward with a crash of broken servos and shattered limbs.

The creature roared—a horrible, resonant scream of rage and unnatural hunger—shaking the walls and echoing into the darkened corridor beyond.

Douklan stood alone before it.

Mercer says over comms, "Douklan, you may want to use that Lab to your left as cover." And then out loud just to Hank. "We have to get over there, right? Let's go through the lab and use the doorway for cover."

"Oohhhh, that's a big demon-looking thing!" Douklan reports on the comm as he runs and tries to open the door to the Lab - hoping that the much-smaller door should slow down the huge monster. "It took out the robot with its mind!"

If the door opens, Douklan will fire to damage it/draw its attention, per the rolls below, then duck through the door into the Lab.
If the door won't open that easily, then Douklan will try to duck down behind whatever is labeled as "Holo" on the map rather than taking a shot.

Hank says, "OK, I've obviously watched way, way too many holovids. Is this thing is just the combined essences of the defeated Ryans that are all Voltron-ed into a single entity?"

To Mercer, "Let's cut through the cryopod room and attach through the medical center door. That should get us way closer to Doulkan and give a good line on the creature. Also, it'll let us make sure there aren't any other nasties in the cryopods."

Mercer immediately starts moving with Hank to back-up Douklan. "I don't know, maybe it is an amalgamation of all the creatures from the Animal Testing Facility. Maybe it is a nightmare made custom for us. "

The lab door hissed open just as the monster roared again—deep, guttural, and furious.

Douklan didn’t wait.

He squeezed the trigger on his rifle and sent a burst of plasma bolts into the creature’s shoulder. The impact scorched the sinewy flesh and made the thing stagger half a step—but it didn’t stop. It turned, slowly and deliberately, toward him.

"Just enough to really piss it off…" Douklan muttered.

He didn’t waste a second more. He darted through the lab door, letting it slide shut behind him with a tense hiss. The corridor shook again as the monster growled and took another lumbering step forward.

Then Douklan’s nerves screamed.

The air shimmered, and burned. He didn’t see the flames—but he felt them. A wave of heat radiated from within his own skin, searing through his chest and up his spine. His scream was guttural and involuntary as he dropped to one knee behind a row of shattered lab desks, fighting through the white-hot agony boiling under his flesh.

It’s burning me from the inside! - he thought In the engineering bay, Corbin froze mid-motion, fingers still tangled in hyperdrive cables. He stared toward the corridor where Douklan had gone, jaw tightening. He slammed the grav-lift controller down, muttering, "Damn it, damn it," and stood.

"I’m going," he said, already jogging toward the corridor. Mercer and Hank were already sprinting through the cryopod chamber, eyes flicking over the darkened rows of stasis tubes as they moved. Nothing stirred inside—but the sounds of combat up ahead spurred them faster. Hank’s rifle was already up, and Mercer’s blade was drawn.

"No more splitting up," Mercer growled.

Mercer takes one side of the doorway and let's off a burst fire.

Hank joins in the firing ...

Using burst fire.

Edit: Rolling damage in case that hit.

As soon as the demonic thing comes into view again, Douklan tries to hit it with some more plasma.

Another Burst.

Corbin comes around the corner and stops, gazing at the, well the thing. "What the fuck did you guys find?"

Raising his laser rifle he fires.