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There was a distant siren screaming in some other part of the ship. Bob could barely hear it over the wild noise his vains were making, pumping blood through his head. He sank down on the floor with his head and back resting against a bulk in the hangar. The hangar was quiet and peaceful with a light fan in the cealing pushing a cooling breeze over Bob. He was sweating after the run he had made. Bob felt like crying. How could this happen! Only hours ago he had been playing cards with three of his best friends in the mess. He had been losing all evening, but still he had been enjoying himself.
It had all happened so quickly. There had been loud explosions for a couple of minutes. Leela's peaceful voice had ordered them to stay in the mess with a couple of defence units. Jeff, Michael, Derek and he had all been quite calm in the commosion and tumult around them. There were about 50 men in the mess at the time of the attack. They had no idea what was going on. Rumours were going wild over the mess-terminals.
Leela were sending encrypted messages to some of the officers in the area. Bob was worried. Leela usually did not encrypt her messages. Some men were trying to get out of the mess but Durandal was not responding. He didn't say a word.
After about 20 minutes a door opened to hangar 52. No message from Leela about this, odd. The mess went abruptly quit. Everyone was stearing at the pitch-black hole in the wall. The hangar was large, around 500 meters across. Bob could see faint glowing lights bouncing up and down in the distance. He thought he could hear funny noises comming from the same direction and footsteps from hundreds of people. He estimated the lights to be at least a hundred. All the doors in the mess opened and Leelas calm as ever voice sounded over the speakers. She told everyone to seek cover and defend themselves the best they could.
For a few seconds everyone was just standing there stunned by disbelief with dumb looks on their faces. The two defence units rushed out the hangar door to intercept the incomming threat. Some people started to run or walk away and back up against the wall opposite to hangar 52. Leelas voice came on again.
"The Marathon is under attack by hostile unknown forces. The enemy is approaching from hangar 52 through 64. I suggest everyone get out of mess 3 and seek cover"
It took another couple of seconds for this message to sink in. Everyone had a twisted worried looking expression on their faces. Could this all be a bad joke? Bob knew Leela wouldn't joke about serious matters such as this one, but someone could have hacked into the computer system and pulled of the biggest ugliest joke ever. Bob hoped to God this is was all a big hoax. There were no aliens. There couldn't be!
The defend units were spraying out their salvos all over the approaching glowing hoard coming closer all the time. Bob thought he could make out shapes in the dark, lit up by the defender machine guns. Several of the shapes collapsed on the cold dark hangar floor. He could see the glowing staff looking weapons swing down sending out yellow projectile looking fire towards the defender units. Most projectiles missed, but half a dossen of them collided with one of the defenders sending it flying backwards in a cloud of fire. The unit slammed into the floor and exploded. The explosion picked up one of the aliens, tearing it appart spreading out green goo all over the floor and up in the air.
People were screaming all around Bob, fleeing for their lifes. Bob was pushed down on the floor. Someone stepped on his left leg, the pain burned through his spine. He thought he had broken it but was too stunned to check. He just kept stearing out into the hangar.
The aliens were only about 50 meters away now and were beginning to project fire at the humans in the mess. Derek grabbed Bob by the arm and tried to drag him away. Bob heard a projectile fly by just above his head and struck something soft with a spluttering noise. Dereks grip around his arm slacked and Derek fell over him into his lap. Bob jerked his head, stearing into Dereks neck where his head was supposed to be. Instead he could only see pieces of Dereks brain and skull. Blood was projecting out from what was left of Dereks throat. He could feel Dereks body jerk in his lap, spasmodic movements before he went slack. Bob felt his stomach complain and threw up into the neck of the body in his lap. Vomit ran out over his shirt and down on the floor. Bob was still in shock and didn't move. He just sat there with vomit running down from his mouth.
The aliens entered the mess. Most of the humans had run away but a few was still there armed with stools, forks, pots and pans. One of the humans threw a knife at one of the aliens and hit him right in the face. The alien gave out a loud scream and gripped the knife in his face. Goo was spraying out from the back of it's head where the egg of the knife was sticking out. The alien collapsed but more were pooring in through the door to the hangar. The humans in the mess were quickly taken care of by the remaining aliens. The aliens shattered away after the humans that had fled. Three aliens were left to guard the mess.
Bob was still sitting in the same spot. The aliens probably thought he was dead sitting there covered with blood and vomit. The guarding aliens were enjoying themselves by ripping of human heads and shooting them away over the floor with their glowing staff weapons. One walked over to Bob and looked him up and down. He raised his staff to chop of Bobs head. Bob came out of his shock. Probably because of the distress he felt from the thought of dying. He pushed out a leg and kicked the alien infront of him. The alien slipped on the vomit and slammed down on the floor, his staff weapon breaking in the fall. Bob raised himself up on shaky legs. One of the aliens swung his staff sending out a projectile towards Bob. Just as the projectile was to hit Bob, the alien which had slipped on his vomit got up on his feet infront of Bob. The projectile caught the alien between it's botton cheeks. The aliens groin-plate lit up with a sparkling light. The alien screamed with fury and pain. The alien unleashed itself on it's comrade, groin-plate oasing with smoke and fire. The third alien guard tried to shoot his furious comrade before it did something stupid. But in his hurry he didn't aim very well and shot the wrong alien, which head sprayed out over the wall behind it. The alien with it's burning groin-plate also collapsed over it's headless comrade. Bob hurried over to the headless alien and grabbed it's still intact staff weapon. The third alien tried another shot towards Bob but missed. Bob ran towards the alien and hit him over the throat with the staff. There was a crunching noise as the staff hit the throat. The alien put both it's hands over it's throat and made stange noises, then collapsed on the floor.
Bob let the staff drop to the floor and just stood there watching out over the mess. Blood and goo covered the walls and the floor. There were a few stains here and there on the roof as well. Bob could hear running footsteps comming closer. He decided to run. He had run and run and run for hours until he collapsed in the hangar with his head and back resting against the bulk.
That was what had happened. He had avoided everything which could have been a threat on the way, sneaking in the shadows. He hadn't met one single human or alien on his way. He had mostly run through narrow sevice corridores to avoid sentient contact. He didn't know which sides of the ship had been attacked or if the attack was already over. He should be somewhere in the middle of the ship now. Probably the most safest place. He felt dizzy, sleepy, tired and dirty. The roof fan felt so good on his soaking wet skinn. His throat was dry and he was thirsty, but that didn't matter now. He was so tired, he could just rest here for a little while.
He woke suddenly. He had hoped it was a dream, but he still sat there with dry sweat, blood and vomit sticking to his skin. His throat was still very dry and a bit soar, and he had an awful taste in his mouth. He could hear clanking footsteps coming closer. A head popped in around the corner with a flashlight attached to the helmet, taking in the view. The flashlight went over Bob then came back and stopped on him. Bob got up to his feet with shaky legs. This was one of the Marathon security officers, Bob was sure. Bob felt happy and relieved. In his happiness Bob started making his way over the the security officer in his green engineer overall. Bob could see the security officer pulling back a little. Odd, why would he be afraid of him? The officers visor plate was were messy with goo, and he might mistake Bob for an alien. Bob decided to speak to the officer to calm him down.
"Thank God it's you" Bob screamed in a cheary voise.
Bob could see the officers gun light up and a metallic cylinder rushing towards him. The cylinder landed infront of Bob and exploded. Bob was picked up in the air. He could see his own genitals being rippid of and fly away up in the air as the explosion separated his legs from the rest of his body. He landed in a heap of blood and half fried meat. He could see the officer walk over to him and look down on the heap on the floor. The officer studied him for a while, then shrugged and walked away.
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