Part 34

    Another screech from the Conglomeration as he left the room, trotting back the way he had come. And another screech. "You lost bud, you can't get me," he threw back over his shoulder at the creature. Weird that it kept crying out though, he figured something that size would break through the wall or something rather than call out. 

    Then he heard the snarls coming from a ways away down the hall to his left and it snapped into place. 'Of course, the fucking thing is calling for help.' And with that thought he bolted, arm swinging like a useless piece of hose. He was going to have to figure out how to fix that if he survived the next couple of minutes. He made it back to where he left Graves and... He was gone. He could have sworn he had left him right here. Right past the sparking light and the corpses. There seemed to be no sign of the man either, there was no footsteps or drag marks through the detritus and gore on the deck. What a weird development. 

    The snarling behind him kept him from being distracted by this for long. 'This probably isn't a problem. I'll find him on the way to-' and the thought was cut short by one of the fungus monsters rounding the corner behind him. Then another. Then another. He ran.

    'This is terrible, who runs this much?' More snarls behind him. 'Right, people trying not to die.' He was following the lines to take him to Engineering. He had to set the self destruct before he went to the escape pod. He couldn't let these things get down to Earth. Whether they got down on the escape pod, or they spent time up here first before the station's orbit decayed and it fell out of the sky and crashed, that couldn't happen. It would ruin life. And if a bunch of these things gestated or spored or whatever they did, then there would be more of them to fight off on the planet and that would be an issue.

    A left and a right then straight on for a bit, constantly ducking under hanging wires, leaping over corpses groups of mushrooms and other obstacles. He was going to make it. He was going to run into that blast door. 'Why is that blast door closed? Wasn't it open when I left?'

    He slid to a halt, before smashing into the doors. Okay, okay, this was something that he could deal with, he could get past these doors somehow. He looked around as the sound of snarling, screeching, and tearing talons became louder and closer. To the right of the door was a scanner to open it, dead as doornails. Above him were pipes - small, possibly electrical or gas - and a vent. Following the vent back along the hall, he noticed where it had fallen away from the ceiling, hanging at an angle where he could crawl into it and possibly access Engineering.

    Fuck. He really didn't want to do that, but there didn't seem to be any other access, and there was zero time. Fuck. Okay, okay, okay.

    He ran back to the opening in the vent and got to his knees, peering up into the vent. Nothing there he could see, though it got dark a few feet in. 'No time like the present.' And as he shoved his upper body into the opening and started the long, stifling, awful crawl through the ventilation system, a thronging mass of roiling flesh, gnashing teeth, and tearing claws rounded the corner and started down the hall toward him.