Last chapter. The Heaven's Wing

"Do you think this could be the same contagion that had altered the dog, or are we dealing with two different, uh, I don't know what you'd call them...pathogens?"

Maya adjusted her scanner, cross-referencing the data from both the mutated dog and the altered human. "It could be the same pathogen," she said, still analyzing. "The mutations are extreme, but the timeline complicates things. This happened days ago, so distinguishing between the effects of a singular contagion or multiple agents at play is difficult." She glanced toward the remains of Ryan Carter, then back at her screen. "Whatever this is, it’s capable of radical biological restructuring. If it’s the same infection, it seems to affect different creatures in different ways."

Meanwhile, Douklan moved across the hall, stepping carefully over shattered debris. He searched for any identifying markers on the next door but found none—no labels, no signs of what lay beyond. With no further indication of danger, he cautiously triggered the door’s mechanism.

The door slid open, revealing a dimly lit corridor leading to a series of rooms. Two were clearly freshers, and the other four were staterooms. As Douklan and the others stepped inside, their suit lights illuminated the grim reality within—eight human bodies, scattered across the floor and bunks, twisted in various stages of decay. The air filtration system had preserved them unnaturally well, their expressions frozen in agony.

As Hank moved to examine the room, a flicker of movement caught his eye. His head snapped toward Ryan Carter’s body—just in time to see it and the suit he was wearing dissolve into nothing, like ink washing away into the floor.

Mercer will check the staterooms.

Douklan will check the ones opposite the ones Mercer is checking. There's absolutely no chance that any of the things that the crew needs to find are here in these little rooms, but it pays to make sure that there's nothing antagonistic or dangerous left behind to surprise them later.

Hank says, "Maya? Did you just see what I did? Are there any traces left?"

Maya swept her scanner over the spot where Ryan Carter’s body had been, adjusting the device to its most sensitive settings. There was nothing. No biological residue, no heat signature, not even the faint chemical markers a decaying body should leave behind. "It’s gone," she said, her voice quiet with unease. "As if it was never there at all."

Without further comment, Mercer and Douklan moved into action, each taking a side of the corridor. Mercer methodically checked each of the staterooms along the left, Douklan covering the opposite side. Though it was unlikely that anything crucial to their mission would be hidden in these tiny personal quarters, they both didn't want to leave any unchecked space behind them.

The rooms were grim, filled with the stillness of death. Every stateroom held at least one body, some slumped in bunks, others collapsed on the floor. A couple showed signs of having been moved, as if dragged or propped against walls. One body had even been partially eaten, ragged chunks of flesh torn away, though whether by a dog or something else was impossible to say.

Most, however, appeared to have died in their sleep — faces slack with no indication they even had time to react to whatever killed them. It was a quiet, chilling reminder of how quickly everything on this station had unraveled.

Corbin keeps a look out towards Bay 11 while the other search the room. He's ready to move as soon as they're done.

"Nothing we can use." Douklan reports. "Just more dead bodies. Some of them have been chewed, which means that it wasn't a dog. It must've been an...altered human...or an alien." Douklan moves to the next bulkhead in the direction of Bay 11. "Let's keep going."

I guess Douklan and Mercer check the next door down on the "top" wall, which I assume in another set of bedrooms, then move to the door on the "right" side of this passageway. "I'm just glad you were here to witness this, too!"

Hank and Maya move to keep up with the others, since there isn't anything else to do where they are. He'll make sure they are between Corbin and the lead group. I assume Erin is supporting Douklan and Mercer; Hank is ready to help Corbin immediately if needed.

Corbin stood at the rear, keeping his rifle up and his eyes locked on the passage.
Without hesitation, Douklan moved to the next bulkhead, leading the way toward Bay 11.

Hank and Maya followed, settling between Corbin at the rear and the others at the front. Erin moved alongside Mercer, her rifle at the ready.

Then, the sound came — sharp and metallic, reverberating through the walls, a groaning crash of metal shifting against metal. It came from behind them, from the direction of the powerplant. The noise echoed through the corridor, followed by a dragging, scuttling sound, something scraping along the deck, the walls — something moving. Not just moving, but advancing.

It was coming.

Mercer will turn and get between the noise and the party, waiting to see what turns the corner.

Hank thinks, Oh, great. Another Ryan?"

Since Mercer has moved back to join Corbin, Hank moves forward so we can check the end door of the corridor. It will be good to know what's in front of us with something approaching from behind. (Not the one pointed to by the blue UP arrow, but the one to its right. I assume Douklan has already checked the room pointed to by the blue UP arrow.)

Oh bother..., Corbin thinks at the loud noise. He sees Mercer join him in facing 'whatever' is coming. Tapping his comms, Corbin feels like expressing a thought. "So, we really need to pick up the pace finding the Heaven's Wing. Mercer and I are cool walking backwards as long as it takes, but if we, I don't know, suddenly need to run. It'd be nice to know where or what we're running to and maybe having some prepared backup when we get there. You know, just a thought."

Hank says to Erin, "Let's check the next door, too, to speed things up." The open the door at the end of the corridor to see what is on the other side. Maya will stay between Hank/Erin and Douklan.

Douklan moved quickly to the northern door, pausing just long enough to give it a manual check before triggering the panel. The door hissed open, revealing another utilitarian hallway beyond — staterooms, conduits running along the ceiling, and a few doors branching off to the sides. The space was eerily quiet, and no immediate signs of threat leapt out at him. No movement, no gore-smeared walls, just the cold sterility of an abandoned station. Not worth lingering. He glanced back toward the others and gave a quick signal before moving back.

Hank, his mind still echoing with the metallic screech from the powerplant, exchanged a glance with Erin. "Let’s check the door at the end of the hall too," he said, trying to keep them moving, keep them from bottlenecking in one place. Erin gave a sharp nod, her rifle already raised as she approached the panel with him. Together, they opened the door.

The hatch slid aside to reveal yet another section of the station — a long hallway lined with more doors than they’d seen so far, each one a potential answer or ambush. Some doors stood partially open, others sealed tight. The overhead lights flickered faintly, bathing the passage in uneven, stuttering light.

Meanwhile, back at the rear, Mercer stepped up beside Corbin, forming a wall between the team and the approaching noise. The two stood side by side, weapons raised, bracing for whatever rounded the corner.

And then they emerged. Two of them. Identical.

The creatures wore the same tattered station uniform, its fabric clinging like a second skin, stained with unidentifiable fluids and frayed at every seam. The black, oily flesh beneath gleamed under the flickering lights, wet and unnatural, as if perpetually coated in slick tar. The patches of fabric didn’t just sit atop the flesh — they were fused into it, melding with the skin in a grotesque union.

They were perfect copies of each other. Same height, same gait, same jerky, inhuman movements.

Their limbs were wrong — arms stretched a fraction too long, fingers extended into curling, claw-tipped appendages that twitched erratically, like insect antennae sensing the air. Their heads cocked in unison, necks cracking audibly with the motion. Twin pairs of glowing green eyes locked onto Mercer and Corbin — not eyes in the traditional sense, but solid pools of eerie, pulsating light. No pupils, no sclera, just that endless, malevolent glow, like bioluminescent predators lurking in abyssal depths.

They didn’t speak. They didn’t need to.

Corbin goes cold, So this is it, then.

Laser Rifle on auto, he fires at the Ryan on the right.

Mercer doesn't say anything, he doesn't need to. He moves forward an attacks.

Satisfied that there's nothing likely to hide starship parts, Douklan closes the side door. His gun comes up as soon as he hears the firing from Corbin and Mercer. "Shit - it looks like we've got a couple more of those monsters!" he communicates to the others, so they know what's going on. "Let's fall back and see if we can seal some bulkheads to slow them down."

Corbin went cold, fingers tightening on his laser rifle as if it were the only solid thing in the world right now. So this is it, then.

His rifle barked out a stream of red-hot energy pulses, lighting the corridor in sharp flashes as they lanced toward the Ryan on the right.

Mercer, silent and purposeful, surged forward in perfect tandem. His vibroblade hummed, a low vibration felt more than heard, as he slashed in a precise arc — cutting through the air just as Corbin’s shots hit home.

The creature jerked, oily skin blistering where the energy bolts struck, leaving black, sizzling patches that should have bled — but instead just...dissolved. Mercer’s blade bit deep into its side, and for a heartbeat, it resisted. Then, with a sickening slurp, the thing lost all cohesion. The creature’s form collapsed into a puddle of slick black ink, the edges writhing before it evaporated entirely, leaving only a faint smudge on the floor. As if it had never been there at all.At the opposite end of the hall, Douklan gave the northern staterooms a final glance — a sweep to confirm there were no hidden compartments, no promising machinery tucked into a corner. Nothing. Satisfied, he stepped back into the main corridor, letting the door hiss shut behind him.

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Douklan's finger rested on the trigger, but he held off firing — Mercer and Corbin were still in the line of fire, and the angle was too tight for a clean shot. For now, he tracked the second creature’s movements, waiting for an opening.