Aldo

“The experiments have been largely successful. The viral reanimation of dead tissue was every bit the breakthrough that we thought it would be. There remains the problem of control. We’ve finally broken the code on how the creatures identify each other. They use smell, much like animals. We’ve identified a certain putrid-smelling pheromone that they exude through their skin and have been able to replicate it in the lab. We were able to eliminate the smell without sacrificing the usefulness of the formula. For the layman, it basically protects the recipient from the attention of the virus. We’ve added this new formula to the serum we give to all our members. Testing has been positive with no additional side effects or any degradation of the serum’s primary benefits. I’ll continue to search for an answer on how to control these creatures.”

“And later he writes,” added Aika as she continued to read.

“A warning to those following my work. All my research revolves around rats. I’ve been in contact with Dr. Hargrim who has started human trials on the surface, but neither he nor I have let the experiments survive longer than a month. We’ve both discovered massive seemingly uncontrolled mutations within the cells of both rats and humans after natural expiration. It is currently unknown whether this is due to the nightcore’s proximity or not. Beware if you decide to conduct long-term experiments. We don’t know what results you could get, and they could be extremely dangerous.”

“Well,” she added. “Considering that this plague has been spreading for most of a year, I’d say that sounds fairly ominous.”

“Agreed,” cut in Reece. “And what is a 'nightcore'?”

“No idea. I don’t see any other references to it,” replied Aika after she quickly scanned through the rest of the document.

“Okay, well...If we’re able to make it to the surface alive, who knows what we’ll find down there," said Reece. "Was there anything else?”

“Just one more passage that could be useful,” answered Aika. “On the last page, Aldo wrote something valuable… I’ve finally created a strain of the virus that shortens the onset of symptoms from a week to only a few hours for those that survive being bitten by an infected patient. For those that expire, it’s even more exciting. Upon death, a corpse will arise as an infected within a minute of expiration. And later it reads,” added Aika. “I feel our time is almost upon us. We can finally rid the world of useless mouths to feed and replace them with compliant soldiers and laborers. We’ll take our place as the rulers of a new world. A new world where only our progeny will exist, as every heathen man will be rendered sterile. That’s just about everything that seems to be relevant.”

“Wow, screw him,” breathed Pasha, “The guy was an insane asshole.”

“Yeah,” added Reece, “And what he’s talking about is happening right now.”

Naeva looked at them all with her eyebrows raised. “It’s good to have at least a part of the explanation of what is going on, but I don’t think it necessarily changes anything for us in the immediate future…”

Naeva paused, thinking to herself before continuing, “except that we can’t allow the commander and his group to leave this station unopposed. If they decide to take the shuttle and leave, one of us needs to sneak aboard and try to stop them.”

“The idea has merit,” added Aika, shrugging helplessly. “I agree we can’t let them make the situation worse.”

“Well, let’s worry about it when we can do something about it,” said Reece, tempering their sentiment.

“Fine,” they both agreed, Pasha nodding as well.

Not much changed after their discovery and all the information that they had gleaned from it. They bided their time and continued to wait for the commander to contact them. It started with a couple more days. A week passed. The week became two, which turned into three. After four weeks…still nothing. Reece tried to pay careful attention to everything that Sora did to see if she was up to something. Despite his observation, she gave no indication of doing anything nefarious.

“Alright,” growled Reece in frustration. “Either they don’t need to eat or they somehow stockpiled food on their half of the station. This stalemate could go on for months or more.”

Naeva and Pasha both nodded in agreement. Sora sat silently as she usually did during their discussions. She was fine one-on-one, but she was nearly a mute in groups of more than two. Reece chalked it up to her natural shyness.

“Agreed,” added Aika, “We need a new plan.”

Pasha shook his head, “Well, my ideas are usually either crazy or just bad. You guys need to come up with something.”

“Alright,” Reece thought out loud. “We need to get access to control. Not just for shuttle access, but also to see if Ground Control has attempted to re-establish contact. We’ve got no ears over here. I think we need to sneak someone over there.”

“I’ll be the one going,” announced Naeva, cutting in. “And before anyone begins arguing with me, my mind is made up. I am the obvious choice. I know the layout of that section of the station. I know how and where to sneak onboard. And I can stay out of sight better than any of you.”

Reece, Aika, and Pasha tried arguing with her anyways. In the end and despite Reece’s continued reservations, Naeva won out. She would be the one to infiltrate the other side of the station. If the others chose to leave Zhengzhou Station with the shuttle, she would stow away aboard it.

“How are we going to determine if, and when, they might leave? If it’s true that they’ve all been given that serum, they don’t have to worry about the plague at all. They could leave anytime. So why haven’t they?” Reece asked as he attempted to change tack.

“That’s a good point,” agreed Aika. “We need to find out what they’re up to.”

“We can repair either of the doors. They’re only disabled from our side. But does that buy us anything?” replied Reece.

“Well, if we sneak Naeva over, we’ll need to reseal the door. But it’ll be dangerous. We’ll lose contact with her once she’s on the other side. How can she get back?” offered Aika.

“I have an idea,” Reece announced. “Angel rigged up an internal comms circuit for the EVA suits. It operates independent of the station’s comms. I can remove the devices from the suits, and we’d have a secure comms channel.”

“Nice,” Naeva smiled. “I think we have a plan.”

The rest readily agreed. They were all becoming a bit stir-crazy with doing nothing while the enemy crew members were surely up to something on their side of the station. They decided to get started right away. Reece headed down to the EVA airlock to fetch the comms unit out of the EVA suit. He also found one in the too-small suit and claimed it as well. It only took him a few minutes to free the devices from the suits. Angel had inserted them so that they could be removed if necessary.

Reece again lamented that Angel had gotten himself killed trying to be a hero and was now gone, thinking the world had lost a true genius in the engineer.

Once back, Reece handed one of the units to Naeva and showed her how it worked.

“One question,” asked Pasha as they tested the comms units. “What if we open the door and they are waiting on the other side? The commander still has that pistol.”

“Good point,” offered Aika. “We’re going to need weapons of our own, just in case.”

“What do we have for weapons?” asked Naeva. “I thought this station was completely devoid of weapons.”

“That’s true,” said Pasha. “That pistol was the first weapon I’ve seen on this station if you don’t count the kitchen knives, pruning shears, scissors, and the like.”

“Well, if you don’t mind waiting a couple of days, I could probably fabricate a sword and a couple of spears,” offered Reece. “Knifemaking was a hobby of mine after college, and I even made a few swords and daggers. We’ve got everything I need here on the station. They won’t be pretty, but they should do the job. And it’ll be a lot better than facing off with nothing but dinnerware and gardening implements.”

“I thought all of our tools were in the engineering module,” mentioned Pasha.

“Fortunately, I still have the tools from my repair kit and the welding torch answered Reece. “And luckily, Angel rigged up a grinder in the garden to keep the pruning shears sharpened. That should be all I need for some rudimentary blades.”

“Do you think you could make a katana?” asked Aika with a hopeful look on her face.

“If you draw out the dimensions, I can make anything you’d like. I can use the cutting torch to give it the rough dimensions and grind it down to a fine edge. As I said, it won’t be pretty. I’ll leave it to you to figure out the handle, just tell me what size to make the tang, so that the handle fits properly. While you’re at it, could you see if you can find something that I can use to work into spear hafts?”

Aika nodded and she and Naeva went in search of materials. Reece retrieved his tool bag and welding torch. Since the grinder was already set up in the garden module, he decided to set up there. He grabbed a few steel rods from his kit and got to work melting a pair of them together to make a rough blade. An hour later, Naeva and Aika arrived with the poles off one of their bunk beds. They were made from a steel-based alloy, but they were hollow. That gave them the perfect weight.

“Those should work nicely,” Reece commented when he saw the ladies carrying in the bed parts.

Aika approached him with a drawing of a katana blade. She had laid out all the dimensions that he would need to create the basic shape. She had disassembled one of the pruning shears and handed him the handle in two halves, with three thick bolts to affix them back together through the tang of the katana he was about to make. Usually, tangs were thin so that the handle could be wrapped around it. The shears’ handle was set up for something thicker so that the bolts wouldn’t compromise the integrity of the tool.

“I can work with this,” Reece told Aika. “But I’m going to need your help.”

Reece explained what he needed and he and Aika started working on the blade. He handed Aika a pair of welding goggles and donned a pair himself. Reece thought she looked funny but cute in the bulky eyewear as he handed her the torch. She was to heat the steel rods and Reece would move them to one of the metal tables to hammer into shape.

They didn’t have a forge, so they’d have to make do. Luckily, the torch could literally melt the steel if they wanted it to. So, Reece let Aika heat the metal for as long as he dared before pulling the metal over to the table and quickly hammering it into shape.

It took a while to get the hang of it and they made a few mistakes that took some time to correct. However, about four hours later, they had a solid blade. Reece dipped it into a pail of water for what must have been the tenth time to cool and harden it and they admired their hard work together.

“Looks pretty good, if I do say so myself," smiled Reece, proud of what they had accomplshed. "We make a good team. Nice work. What do you think?”

“Considering the circumstances, yeah,” she replied while examining the blade. “I think this turned out better than I could have possibly hoped.”

They were both tired and had begun to sweat from the heat of the torch, but they still had the spears to fabricate and the handle to affix to the hand-made katana. Once that was finished, Reece still needed to grind all of the blades down to give them a fine cutting edge. He sighed at the amount of work still ahead of them.

They took a break to eat and rest before getting back to work. By the time they finished, they’d stripped down to their undershirts which were soaked in sweat and blackened from the day’s work. Their muscles were stiff from doing the same thing for hours and they were exhausted. Bits of metal and powered metal-coated their hair and skin. But their efforts had produced a passable katana and two functional spears, all of them solidly fashioned and sharp as razors.

They smiled at each other, both satisfied with the fruits of their labors. More than that, they were just glad to be finished. They cleaned up the mess they had made and stowed everything in the garden. Once they had finished cleaning up, they each headed for a much-deserved shower.

Reece entered the gym module for the showers there, expecting Aika to continue to the women’s barracks and those showers. He struggled to peel off his soaked undershirt. As he pulled it off, he tried making sure there weren’t any metal slivers hanging on to the material. He didn’t need any hidden wounds that might become infected. He heard the door open and close behind him as he removed the rest of his clothes.

Assuming it was Naeva, Reece loudly stated, “We’re finally finished, but I need a shower. By the way, I think they turned out great.”

“I know,” came Aika’s reply as she flew past him to turn on one of the showers. “I was there.”