Symbiotic ship

Current operation: Pre-Quarantine

About twenty minutes after she arrived in quarantine Sarah heard an announcement calling her away. With a heavy heart, she glanced once more at Tyrone's still figure and walked out the door. In a daze, she worked her way to C6-4. Fortunately, quarantine was on deck 6, so it was only 2 decks down. In her daze, Sarah didn't think to use the lifts. She sat in the back of the room as the rest of the security and engineers filed in. There were fewer people now than there were before. James stood at the front, looking frustrated.

"As I am sure you are aware this, organism, is proving much more resilient than we suspected." James said in opening. "It appears that attempts to eliminate the organism through physical means only angers it, leading to injured crew members. Contrary to the opinion of our head of security, matter accelerators do NOT eliminate this life form." He glared at Carlos, who locked eyes with him. "Currently the organism is content to stay where it is, except," He paused. "It's making its way to the engine."

There was a clamor of confused conversation. Sarah heard phrases of "The engine?" "That's not possible." "What does it want?" "Problem solved." A few more minutes of chatter passed before James motioned with his hands for the group to settle down.

"While this seems self-defeating, as the organism will simply destroy itself in the core, we must remember that it must get through cryo-storage before it gets there, and we can't just wake everyone up to move them. We have to find a way to stop the organism."

Mark the pods. A voice said. Sarah looked around, but couldn't tell who had spoken. The voice sounded familiar, but she couldn't place it. "What happens if it reaches the core?"

Carlos looked surprised to see Sarah, though it might have just been he was surprised she was alive. James paused a moment to consider if her question was worth answering.

"Most likely it will burn up. If it does breach the engines we'd be without power, but considering how hot those engines are, that's not going to be a problem." James paused. "The cryo-storage, that is the problem."

"Sir?" A voice spoke up. "What about the animal cryo-storage?"

"What about it?" James asked. He tapped a few buttons on the tablet before him and an image of the ship appeared. "It's a layer above the human cryo-storage, but it's safe for now."

"Not exactly." This came from Howard. "There wasn't enough room. Some of the animals were in the upper decks, floor 20 I think." He paused. "We had some dogs, some cats, a couple mice, nothing harmful. We were careful to only have things that would not be harmful if they were to wake up." His face looked sad. "Unfortunately, without the waking sequence, they'll all be dead. We might not have any pets in the new world."

That earned a groan from the audience. Sarah, however, was confused. In a burst of memory she recalled that if the subject in a cryogenic storage had certain chemicals and nanomachines in their blood, keeping their cells from bursting. However, without the right start-up sequence, the rising temperature would trigger the nanomachines' wake up sequence, starting with the limbs. Without oxygen, the limbs would become necrotic, and the subject would die. However, she had just seen a dog.

"Maybe it follows the path of least resistance." A voice suggested. "We just put some extra plating to prevent it from hitting the cryostorage, and make it go around."

"It's going through metal like it's nothing, that's not going to do a thing you moron!" Carlos yelled at the speaker.

"It's better than nothing." James said. "We are dealing with an unknown threat. Assuming that it follows the regular laws of nature, we may be able to find a way to guide it. Regulations state that, when encountering an unknown phenomenon, we must follow what we know before speculating on what we don't. Furthermore, we need someone to examine the creature. Any volunteers?" Sarah's hand shot up. If the look she gave her own arm was any indication, she was more surprised than the man standing next to her. She grabbed with her other arm, trying to pull it down, to no avail. "Thank you, Sarah, anyone else?" Sarah pulled on her arm, it was stuck as if in tetanus. Finally, it relaxed and flopped to her side.