//------------------------------// // The Action of Falling // Story: Extra-Vehicular Activity // by alamais //------------------------------// You run obliviously through the inner bulkhead door, but some instinct tickles your brain, and you duck to the right, your momentum almost sending you tumbling. The black, bony claw that was swiping at you whiffs through the air, missing by only a hoofwidth. A monster, similar to the one on the ship, but different. More streamlined, with a lower gait. It looks fast. You skid to a halt, facing it, and it crouches like a cat ready to pounce. You smirk. "Come on, then!" It jumps at you, and it's pretty fast—but you're faster. You hop up, your wings giving you a boost over it, and give it a good downward buck in the head as it goes by, hearing something in its head crack. A graceful landing is marred by your hind boots slipping when they hit the floor. You hear the off-balance creature slam into the equipment that was behind you, and turn back to face it. It's already starting to stand up. A crack in its—skull? carapace?—is evident where you kicked it, with a splatter of foul yellow blood oozing from it. Then you notice that the machinery around it is smoking slightly, wherever the blood has sprayed. You finally focus on your overlay to see familiar warnings about corrosion on your hind boots and legs, though the repair systems seem to be handling it this time. "That crap is your blood?! What the hay?!" You growl at it, as it simply turns towards you, and sets itself to attack again. "Oh, heck no!" You jump before it's ready, springing into full flight, rising quickly towards the ceiling. It watches you rise, then jumps onto the chamber wall, easily clinging to the ribbed internal structures, climbing towards you as if the artificial gravity didn't mean a thing to it. You grimace, before swooping into the forest of equipment, dodging around contraptions that were a curious distraction just a short while ago. A jink to the left to avoid the torturous 'unstable lens array' from earlier. A dive below a spider-web of cables that feed into a featureless white cylinder. You recognize the dripping crystals, and the same feeling of being watched makes you angle yourself to give it a bit more distance. Then the space you were just occupying is filled by another creature of the same type lunging out from behind the crystals. It grabs your rear hoof in a grip that feels tenuous, but it's enough to pull you back to the floor. You slam your forehooves down, and lever your body around, yanking yourself free. As you keep spinning, your forehooves dropping down, you flick out a wing to smack the thing in its ugly face. Its reactions are absurdly fast—you feel its jaws snapping shut, almost catching a primary feather. In the slowed-down time of this fight, you have the leisure to notice that you can see the hole you left in the ceiling from here. It draws your attention only because another of these horrors is dropping from it, already pointed in your direction. You lean forward, and push off with your forehooves, another flick of your wings propelling you towards the door. You force down a panicked thought of what you could possibly do if one of these things is waiting for you there, and just focus on dodging around the last few columns of machinery in your way. As you approach the door, you line yourself up with the melted hole in it, and crouch. You use every muscle in your body to propel yourself through, tucking your legs in as you pass through the small airlock-like space between the two thick bulkheads. But there's nothing inside waiting for you. You stretch out your forelegs and catch the edge of the far door, swinging yourself around to a stop right next to the controls. You stare at them, trying to remember what worked back at the door you opened, but then you fall back on your usual method of just randomly pushing buttons. Your lucky streak continues, as the two-part door begins to slide in from the sides with a hiss. You start backing away, but then a pair of claws reaches through, pushing against whatever motors are in place. It's not enough, and you wince at multiple heavy crunches as the creature is crushed between the edges, its blood spraying out, instantly smoking and beginning to melt through the door. Time to go. You take wing, pounding at the air, quickly reaching maximum speed and not slowing at as you duck through bulkheads. None of the monsters are evident here, but whether it's through a newly melted door or the serviceways, you know they're coming. Your marker on the airlock is a welcome sight, and you slow a little, taking the landing easy. You’re not exactly quiet with your heavy breathing, but the airlock looks clear. Re-enabling your grips, you run back onto the ship. Another quick comparison of control panels next to the pressure doors, and you punch two buttons on the airlock controls. The yellow lights start flashing again, and the same sort of countdown as before shows up on the screen. "Dangit," you mumble, "why does everything have to be on a countdown on this stupid ship?" You look nervously at the airlock, then turn around and move into the aft cryovault. It's as you step through the pressure door that you realize the feel of walking hasn't changed like it should have. Apparently the artificial gravity has returned to the ship. You turn your grips back off, and quietly slink through the rows of lockers. It takes you a minute to find your way, and you hear the airlock door start to close as you find your discarded helmet. Sitting back against a locker, it's quick work to knock away the brittle, half-melted parts of the faceplate. You put the helmet back on right over your new hat, squinting through the hole. A few taps of your PDA enable in-depth repairs. As you're glancing at system messages, you suddenly feel like you're falling—the gravity has turned off. You squint your eyes shut for a moment, then shake off the feeling, retrieve the shard of alien glass, and press it in front of your face, hoping the 67% left on your UEC meter is enough for this. The faceplate is encompassed in a soft blue glow, and the glass begins to melt, the edges blending together and the curve beginning to match the original material. Your view is blurring a bit and skewed by the magical glow, but you can still see well enough to notice the shadows coming from around the doorway. You tense up and look around as well as you can, then upward: at the air vent you once looked down through. When you look back down, one of them is already turning the corner towards you. You snap your wings, driving yourself upward, slamming into the ceiling. You fumble for your pry bar, but have to duck aside to dodge the alien flying towards you. It crashes into the vent, knocking the cover loose, and you dive at it as it's flailing around. A hoof towards its center of mass sends it flying away, but there's another one heading your way from deeper in the room. Snagging your hooves around the opening, you pull yourself inside and flail away from the vent. The monster reaches it, trying to climb into the tight space, and you kick off of a flailing claw, tucking your wings tight and flying away down the vent. A couple of turns later and you're back at the junction, and— There's one already in there—probably went straight up from the airlock. It pounces on you, hissing, claws swinging, and you flail, meeting each swing with a countering hoof, yet having to pull your punches so you don't make the darned thing bleed. You try to kick away, but it gets a grip high on your hind leg and it's like a steel vice. You feel something tear and bruise deep in your thigh, and are convinced it could rip your limbs right off if it really tried. It opens its mouth and you flex away on instinct; not a moment later, a disgusting secondary jaw snaps out, cutting through where your shoulder just was. You lash out, punching it right in that extended mass of bone and teeth, and it it lets out a shriek. Quickly pounding on your PDA as the monster regains its focus, you give it a firm tap on either side of its head. A blue shock, and it writhes—not knocked out, but stunned enough that its grip on your leg loosens. You push it away and manage to direct yourself towards the downward duct in the junction. Passing through, you notice a control panel, and two quick pokes close a pressure seal in the air duct. You allow yourself a shuddering sigh. Then the gravity turns back on, and you're falling. You frantically try to reorient yourself with your wings, but there's no time. As you slam into the floor of the Deck 4 air duct junction, your right wing is still pointed down. You feel a snap, and everything goes red. And then, dark.