Jennifer opened her eyes slowly and the red light on the ceiling was so blinding that tears rolled down her face.
Her metabolism had almost ground to a complete halt due to having spent such a long time in cryogenic sleep. If it hadn't been for her sleep pod feeding weak electrical currents to stimulate her muscles on a schedule every day, her muscles would have atrophied very badly a long time ago.
Jennifer, who was wearing flesh-colored underwear, climbed out of her sleep pod in a taxing manner. She gradually woke from her dazed state and only then she heard the entire room was filled with emergency alarms from the central computer.
"Father, how long have I been sleeping?" Jennifer cradled her forehead as asked, still feeling rather dazed.
"Dear Captain Jennifer, you've been asleep for two years and three days. Today's date is December 24, 2309 A.D. We are now 78 years and six months away from reaching our destination at the Andromeda Galaxy." A synthesized voice devoid of all emotion was heard blaring throughout the room as soon as Jennifer started talking.
"Why are you waking me?" Jennifer was feeling confused. "Are we in some sort of emergency?"
"Yes, Captain Jennifer. Area seven and area three are damaged. Area nine is unstable. The engines are running at only 40 percent," the synthesized voice replied.
"What happened?" Jennifer's expression changed drastically. The dazed feeling she had on her face disappeared without a trace immediately.
"An unidentified flying object was detected at 300 light-seconds behind the ship 20 minutes ago. The ship was attacked by matter ejected by the unidentified flying object and the ship's integrity is compromised, requiring emergency repairs."
Jennifer's face immediately became pale and she continued to speak with a rather baffled tone, "Illustrate the appearance of the unidentified flying object for me right away."
"Understood, Captain Jennifer." The electronically synthesized voice answered and a huge insect-like, spindle-shaped ship with a black outer shell was projected holographically right before her eyes. That ship's body was pulsing every second. This is no ship, this is some huge space creature.
"Xenomorphs!" Her face became immediately ashen and all of her hopes were squashed by the projection she saw before her eyes. She found everything to be rather unbelievable. "It can't be. The ship was escaping the Mars colony at a fraction of lightspeed, and it has been two years since then. We are long out of the Kuiper belt. How is it possible that we still ran into a xenomorph battleship?"
"Dear Captain Jennifer, I'm unable to comprehend your question. Please give your orders immediately." The central computer of the spaceship paid no heed to what she just said and simply continued in a deadpan manner.
The young woman who was the captain took a deep breath and gave another order, "Father, wake all personnel on board the ship at once. Repair the engines as quickly as possible. I want to proceed with another round of acceleration to shake off the biological battleship behind us."
"I'm sorry, Captain Jennifer." The ship's central computer, who was called 'Father' answered regretfully. "We have lost all contact with the crew of the ship a month after the ship took flight."
"What!?" Jennifer was astonished. "What the hell happened?"
"A xenomorph seemed to have made its way into the ship through a crevice when we were escaping the Mars colony. It attacked all crew and gained control of the food stores at area eight." The central computer then continued, "This xenomorph was unusually clever and managed to evade all surveillance to the ship and was discovered only when it attacked the sleep pods. We have lost contact with all crew members since then."
"…" Despair was seen in Jennifer's eyes. If that were to be the case, then there was probably no way she would be able to escape the catastrophe alive.
"However," the central computer then continued. Its anthropomorphic programming made it sound somewhat hesitant. "I found the first sign of human life in area eight just moments ago…"
…
Zhang Heng found a door that was ripped open by a xenomorph in the hold and noticed that things looked rather eerie.
That room had over a dozen objects that looked like coffins that were broken violently. The lower half of those coffins were made of metal and were connected to the floor while the upper half was made of some kind of translucent reinforced glass cover.
One could tell from the structure of the coffins that they could be opened and shut, yet the covers were all broken and shattered, and there was dried blood inside those coffins.
Zhang Heng noted that those coffin-like objects were probably the sleep pods found in the Alien plane, which would inject some kind of fluid to protect the human body from the cold while the human was sleeping within, before lowering the temperatures inside to near zero degrees Celsius to achieve cryogenic sleep with the occupants.
He knocked on the shattered reinforced glass lightly and it became apparent that there seemed to have been a xenomorph prying the covers open while the people in the room were sleeping. All of the occupants that formerly occupied the sleep pods were probably reduced to food or nursing rooms for the xenomorphs.
Then again, having found one such room filled with sleep pods made it possible for him to confirm that he was in a spaceship and the spaceship was floating in space.
Just when Zhang Heng was still steeped in his thoughts, sudden beeping sounds were heard without warning from the door of the room. The beeps sounded very out of place given that his surroundings were dead silent due to no one being around in his surroundings.
The beeps didn't come from something moving around or bumping into anything as well, it sounded like some kind of electronic signal. He learned of its nature before long and hesitated for a bit before eventually pressing on a flickering green button.
A young female voice was heard from the speaker not far away from that button. "This is the ship's central command. Crewman, report your serial number immediately. I repeat, report your serial number immediately."
Zhang Heng was stunned as he didn't anticipate hearing the voice of another human given where he was. That was the first time he encountered a human from the Alien plane ever since he began on the mission issued by the Dimensional Star. Additionally, there was nothing like the Marker, which was capable of inducing hallucinations in people, in that plane. All of that meant that the voice he heard at that moment came from a living human.
"Report your serial number immediately, crewman!" That young female voice on the other end continued saying.
Zhang Heng only snapped out of his thoughts at that moment and pondered for a bit before replying to her, "My memory seems to have been damaged from the sleep and I'm unable to remember my serial number."
"Then report your name and take off your helmet." The young female voice was heard yet again and she sounded rather overbearing and frustrated.
Zhang Heng frowned and replied in a rather irritated manner, "I told you that my memory is damaged and I'm unable to remember who I am. I'm not going to take off my helmet. Don't you know how the facehuggers get to their victims? They are running all over this ship. Don't you think it's very dangerous for me to take off my helmet in a place like that?"
The voice disappeared from the room immediately after hearing what he just said as if the person on the other end was thinking of something. The voice was heard in the room yet again after about half a minute. "Alright, you win. Whoever you are, at the very least, you are definitely not a xenomorph. I now have very bad news to tell you. There are now only two survivors left on this entire ship, and those two survivors are you and me. I'm in the control room of the ship and the xenomorphs won't be able to do anything to me for the time being. You, on the other hand, are in danger, as the xenomorphs could attack you at any given moment.
"It's obvious to me that you're trapped in here as well. Work for me and I'd ensure that you get to stay alive. How about that?" The voice was heard again after seeing that Zhang Heng didn't answer.
"Yeah?" Zhang Heng looked around him for a bit and eventually found four black micro cameras placed in the four corners of the room respectively and asked, "Could you find out where all of the xenomorphs are in the ship?"
"That's impossible, the xenomorphs mostly go about their business in the ventilation ducts and there is no surveillance equipment installed in there." The woman continued, "Furthermore, my ship is a commercial ship and we don't have any weapons on board. You won't be able to get on my ship so easily otherwise."
Zhang Heng realized that the voice on the other end took him for a thief, a space pirate, or something of the likes which explained why she didn't get suspicious about him being in the ship in the first place.
"Right now, there is something wrong with the ship's engines and there is a xenomorph battleship tailing us about 300 light-seconds away. The speed at which it moves suggests that it would be able to catch up to us in about 30 hours. Even if you're able to evade attacks from the xenomorph in the hold, do you think you would stand any chance surviving the ship being wrecked apart?" That woman's voice was heard once again. "Your only chance to survive is to work with me."
Zhang Heng was stunned, right then he truly understood how the Dimension Star assigned difficulty ratings to the missions issued.
He initially thought that the xenomorph chestbuster in his body and xenomorphs lurking about in the spaceship were all the obstacles in that mission. He didn't realize that the true trump card was a xenomorph battleship right outside that was tailing the ship he was in.
Most people would have been probably rendered utterly dejected and despaired after hearing all of the extreme conditions. Instead, Zhang Heng simply took a deep breath and put his mind to work on the problems.
First, he had to ensure that the xenomorph in his body wouldn't burst out of his chest within the next 30 hours. Secondly, he had to evade the xenomorphs lurking about in the ship while going to fix the ship's engines to enable them to shrug off the xenomorph battleship right behind them. If he were to fail in either of those two tasks, he would definitely be doomed.
He figured that he sorted out all the crucial information at that point and pointed at his chest suddenly and said loudly, "No, you may be mistaken. I now have a chestbuster inside of me and it is going to burst out of my chest in just a few hours. Unless you're able to delay the time that thing bursting out of me, there's no reason why I'd wanna help you before I die."
"The chestbuster would usually mature and burst out of the host within 24 hours after being implanted by the facehugger. How long have you had that thing inside you?" The young woman asked instead, seemingly having never anticipated such a turn of events.
"Six hours," Zhang Heng replied.
"It's just six hours. You have more than enough time to fix the engines. I could provide you with a med pod and help you extract that chestbuster inside you after. How about that? That's your only chance for staying alive," the woman elaborated.
"I'm unable to trust you, just like how you're unable to trust me." Zhang Heng shook his head. "You definitely know of a way to delay the chestbuster from bursting. I'll need you to tell me that before I could consider working with you."
He needed to stay in the Alien plane for 36 hours. According to his experience, 36 hours would be more than enough for the chestbuster to mature and he would meet his doom before that. However, the Dimensional Star would not issue a mission where the chance of survival was non-existent, which meant that there was definitely a way to delay the chestbuster from bursting.
The only chance that he could acquire such a way apparently lies with that woman.