Alien: Isolation

Chapter Three: Axel

With her fall stopped for only a brief moment when she slammed into a large pipe, where she tried to, and failed to grab onto it, Ripley's landing was somewhat softer than expected when she landed on the next deck down. She coughed and struggled to sit up, cursing to herself as the dust that had been kicked up from her fall slowly cleared, and the first thing she saw was that there was no visible way to get back up to where she had been. The second thing she saw was that her fall had been broken by what looked like a pile of luggage, and as that luggage fell to the floor, the third thing she saw was that she was on a stopped conveyer belt.

Cursing to herself as she got up, and thankfully nothing seemed to be broken, she looked around, but with only a few lights flickering, most of her environment was shrouded in darkness. Well, the nice thing about conveyer belts was that they had to go somewhere, most likely between a docking terminal and any ships that were currently docked. However, since there were no ships around, aside from the Torrens, the terminal would have to do. The other nice thing about conveyer belts was that even if they were stopped and there was no light, one could still navigate them by touch.

So she did, crawling down the belt, while also navigating around fallen sections of the hull or ducts, and realizing just how bad the condition of Sevastopol Station was. It was like the whole place was falling apart, but how could that be? It was like everyone had just up and left months ago, but with all this luggage waiting to be transported onto a ship, where had they all gone? More dust was kicking up as she crawled along, ducking under nonfunctioning check points until finally reaching the end of the belt, and finding herself in yet another room that was illuminated by only a few lights.

"Hello?" Ripley called out. "Is anyone here?"

No answer, probably meaning that this area had been abandoned as well; no passengers waiting in the rows of benches, and a grand model of Sevastopol proudly displayed in the center of the room as if it were an exhibit in a large museum. Of course, with as dark and quiet as this place was, it was starting to feel like a museum... well, if it was closed, and all the lights were off... and it had been neglected for a few months. The model of Sevastopol was a good representation, she thought as she walked past, although it didn't have any of the recent damage included, but there was obviously no one in the terminal to help her, so it was time to move on.

There a small security station past the model and up a small set of stairs, but it was empty when she walked in, and there was no power going. It was doubtful that any useful information could be gotten from a small terminal station like this anyway, so she would have to find help elsewhere. But where? There was a large door behind the security station, and at first Ripley was discouraged since there was no power to open it, but then in a flicker of light from beyond it revealed that the door was stuck open just a little bit. It was a tight fit, and thankfully she had a build that was just slender enough for her to squeeze through. But that didn't mean that there wasn't plenty of grunting and struggling going on that she was glad no one was there to see.

This next area was much larger, and better lit, giving her hope that this time there would be people around, until she realized that the light was coming from the massive windows where the gas giant could be easily seen. No, this place was just as abandoned as the rest; nothing but a courtyard full of empty restaurants and small shops like one would expect to find in the terminal of a remote station like Sevastopol... but then an explanation was offered when the increased lighting allowed her to see a notice that had been posted on the door of every one of them.

It was from Seegson Corporation, a smaller competitor of Weyland-Yutani that owned and operated the station. The notice was full of flowery, corporate talk, but the primary message was that Sevastopol was being officially decommissioned. Well, that explained why nobody was around, but there still had to be a sizable maintenance crew around to oversee the decommissioning, which would be the only reason that Marshal Waits and his people were still there. The notice also went on to explain that the station's A.I. Core, a computer system apparently named Apollo would still be there until the last phase, as well as Seegson's 'Working Joe' Synthetics... whatever those were.