Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer

The veins on the security chief’s cleanly shaven skull visibly throbbed in rhythm with his pounding heart. “Captain,” he protested, “our top priority should be to defend the station’s vital sections, not the habitat ring. If the aliens get into engineering, and gain control of life support, we’ll have no choice but to surrender.”

“If you haven’t noticed, Chief,” replied the captain, “they don’t appear to be interested in anything other than killing the crew and their families. And if we can’t figure out how to stop them in the next few hours, there won’t be anybody left alive to surrender. Now, report on what you’ve learned since the alpha shift briefing.”

Apparently, no amount of logic would change the captain’s mind, so he decided to move on. “According to the video feeds, the aliens are about the size of large dogs. We estimate that there are twenty of them on board. They carry “hand” weapons, but prefer to kill using a stinger-like projection on their heads. They are as fast as the devil. They can cover a hundred meters in a few seconds, and change direction quicker than you can aim your 3P. I don’t even know if a phaser shot will be effective, because we haven’t hit one yet. We need to capture or kill one of them, so we can figure out where they’re vulnerable, assuming they even have a weakness.”

“Do you have a plan to accomplish that, Chief?”

“Aye, sir. But, admittedly, not a very good one. I’m going to use myself as bait, and when the little bugger comes in to sting me, I’m going to shove a six inch hunting knife up its ass.” He reached behind his back and unsheathed an antique twenty-first century serrated steel hunting knife.

“That sounds like a suicide mission, Chief, not a plan,” remarked the captain.

“If we don’t get some intel, sir, we’re all dead. Just make sure I don’t die in vain.” Without waiting to be dismissed, the chief turned and headed toward the auxiliary access corridor.

“Hold fast, Mister,” ordered the captain as he jogged after his security chief. He caught up to him as he opened the four inch thick clear-steel decompression door. “You’re not going out there.”

The chief turned to face the captain, holding the knife in a threatening manner. “My mind’s made up, sir. Now, wait here until I bring you an alien.” He shoved the captain against the far bulkhead and closed the transparent door. The captain watched as the chief walked down the 50 meter long corridor, hiding the knife behind his back. As he neared the far end, the hatch blew off its hinges. Before the chief could react, an alien plowed into him head first, burying its stinger into his abdomen. The impact knocked the knife out of the chief’s hand, and it ricocheted down the corridor, stopping at the base of the decompression door. The alien retracted its blood soaked stinger and streaked toward the captain at unbelievable speed. Luckily, for the captain, it slammed into the unseen door and rebounded to the deck, twitching erratically. The captain opened the door, grabbed the chief’s knife, and buried it into the alien’s torso. A cold, bone chilling blue-green fluid squirted upward onto the captain’s face. “What the…” He turned to Command and Control and yelled, “Quickly, lower the station’s temperature to -20C. These bastards are cold blooded. They’ll slow down to a crawl if we make it cold enough.”

Twenty minutes later, with fog billowing from his nostrils, he simply said, “Okay men, let’s go hunting.”