Apollo
A-1 deck
Corridor number a-1-23
"Slap... slap... slap..."
With a soft sound of footsteps, three figures suddenly darted into the secluded freight corridor.
Bryce walked in front, followed closely by Elisa. Lin Xi brought up the rear.
They left in a hurry, and their bodies were stained with a lot of blood.
"We need to hurry, otherwise—"
Elisa looked nervously at her personal terminal on her wrist and then spoke.
However, before she could finish speaking, the lights above their heads began to flicker rhythmically.
A few seconds later, the entire spaceship went dark.
"Damn it."
Elisa let out a curse.
Following her words was a cold announcement from the central system—
Attention all crew members, the following is an important notification from Captain Taran Ida. Former First Officer Elisa (ID 2734), Senior Medical Officer Bryce Drake (ID 2411), and Senior Botanical Researcher Linshi Drake (ID 4211) have violated Sections 23 (R-787), 41 (R-113), 116 (R-1), and R-14 of the Intra-Board Flight Act. All violations have been recorded. Therefore, their official crew status is hereby revoked, and they are designated as "Defectors," codename L, danger level A. This designation is effective immediately upon receipt of this notification. The ship is placed on emergency standby. This notification has been triple-confirmed by Captain Taran Ida.
A monotonous electronic mechanical sound echoed through the cluttered passageways of the spaceship. Then, after a rhythmic flicker, the ship's lights switched to the distinctive red color characteristic of emergency situations.
"Damn it, did that guy add all my violations to the list? How dare he?! My resume is completely ruined."
Elisa said, her face ashen.
Before this, she was somewhat terrified, after all, she had been quite frightened. However, after hearing Taran's report, all the trembling, incoherence, and fear... vanished.
She stopped in her tracks, staring in disbelief at the source of the sound, a flash of furious rage instantly appearing in her eyes.
"I'm going to kill that guy, I swear I'll definitely kill that guy—"
Elisa turned her head and looked at Bryce and Lin Xi.
If she had previously shown a hint of fear when mentioning Taran, now, her mention of Taran was filled with nothing but utter murderous intent. Even Bryce involuntarily flinched when he met Elisa's gaze.
Bryce gave Lin Xi a look, then mouthed to her with a wry smile, "Taran has really angered her this time."
Lin Xi shuddered, then nodded.
Elisa has always been a legendary super elite, her resume is so beautiful that it could serve as a template for the life of a star captain—but the violations that Taran has now added to her (and Bryce and Lin Xi) have completely ruined this carefully maintained resume.
If she is lucky enough to return to Earth, she will never be able to board any spaceship again for the rest of her life, not even as a passenger.
Considering how carefully Elisa had always protected her resume, Lin Xi was certain that Taran had indeed gotten himself into big trouble.
However, if there's anything more troublesome than Elisa's resume being ruined...
Oh, and these troubles are yet to come, one after another, one after another.
Give me your hand.
Bryce had already taken a small laser scalpel out of his pocket before the briefing was even over.
He grabbed Lin Xi's wrist and then moved his fingers slightly. The personal terminal on Lin Xi's wrist went black and then fell to the ground with a thud.
Bryce then did the same thing to Elisa as he did to himself.
"Code name L? It seems that even though Taran has turned into an insect, his cunning hasn't changed... Now even normal crew members can shoot us dead if they encounter us."
As he cut off his personal terminal, Bryce muttered with a wry smile.
"I bet that guy has been waiting for a day for a long time."
"So what should we do next?"
Without a word, Lin Xi fired and destroyed the three terminals the moment they hit the ground. He had to do it to prevent his identity from being discovered by those people.
However, without personal terminals on a large spaceship like the Apollo, they were practically trapped in a hamster ball.
All access control and devices on board need to be transcoded or operated through personal terminals.
"I don't know. Maybe we can kidnap a few ordinary crew members?"
"Bryce said painfully."
“That would violate Article 1 of the Spaceship Law…” Elisa began instinctively, but stopped halfway through her sentence. “Okay, never mind.”
She paused for a moment, then couldn't help but ask, "So where do we kidnap the crew?"
"Shh-"
Lin Xi suddenly spoke up, stopping Bryce and Elisa's conversation.
"Someone...someone is approaching."
He said softly.
Bryce immediately gripped the gun in his hand, but Lin Xi reached out and pressed his hand against the muzzle of the gun.
"No……"
He murmured.
“There are a lot of people…they are searching for us like a carpet search…”
Bryce followed Lin Xi's example, frowning as he listened carefully to the sounds around him, but the intricate passageways and the ever-rumbling spaceship components almost completely masked any overly subtle noises.
“I didn’t hear anything,” he said.
Lin Xi's expression turned somewhat unpleasant.
He didn't hear Bryce's muttering because he was in a strange state of mind.
The discovery of their approach was less based on subtle movements in the surrounding environment and more because Lin Xi suddenly recalled their presence in his mind.
Now, what Lin Xi can feel is the “feeling” of hundreds of individuals approaching him.
His throat was a little dry, and his tongue felt like it had a coin in it, filled with a bitter taste.
"I feel very uncomfortable."
Lin Xi spoke to Bryce and Elisa, her expression showing some pain.
“I don’t know how to say it, but my gut tells me we have to avoid them… I doubt those people have any basic sense of reason…”
"but--"
"Our guns are running out of power. I think we need to find a way to avoid them."
Lin Xi repeated it.
"But we can't keep hiding any longer."
Bryce shook his head and peered out from the corner of the wall into the corridor, where there was still no one.
Bryce tried hard to recall the map he had memorized in his mind.
He had never realized how old the Apollo was—a newer spaceship would at least have more passageways. Yet the Apollo perfectly adhered to the design features of the Age of Exploration.
To prevent the space pirates who were rampant on the shipping lanes from rushing straight to the bottom of the ship after breaking in, the decks of the Helios were almost all independent of each other, with only a few elevators serving as passageways.
This was considered a clever design at the time. After all, controlling the elevator would perfectly limit the space pirates' activities inside the spaceship.
However, Lin Xi and his group are now almost driven to the brink of despair by this design.
They had tried several elevators in different locations, but perhaps to capture them, those elevators were surrounded by heavily armed mercenaries.
Meanwhile, more and more crew members with unusually strange behavior were wandering around the deck of level A-1 like ghosts, searching for any clues about Lin Xi and his two companions.
For example, like this now.
A thorough, exhaustive search.
The mere mention of that word made Bryce furious, wanting to smash that arrogant guy with the butt of his gun until he bled.
"Maybe we can give it a shot? Those crew members seem a bit slow; maybe they're not so difficult to deal with after all."
The feeling of being driven into a dead end like a rat in a gutter is absolutely awful.
Bryce became increasingly irritable.
"No, I think we should listen to Lin Xi. I feel terrible too."
Elisa frowned, her expression showing discomfort.
A few minutes later, the scene that finally came into their view proved that taking cover was indeed the right decision.
A monster slowly crept along the corner of the wall. The monster looked like an enlarged centipede, its countless thin legs leaving a fine, rustling sound on the ground.
What's disgusting is that a human face is embedded in the body of this fat, dark worm.
"My God, Eric?"
Elisa glanced at it once and then looked away.
She covered her mouth tightly and mouthed the words to the two people beside her.
Lin Xi sincerely admired Elisa's ability to judge people. In his eyes, the only word to describe that distorted face was "horror." He had no way of knowing who that face had belonged to before.
However, if what Alyssa said is true, Lin Xi can only mourn for that guy.
He remembered Ali, Taran's personal assistant, who was very intelligent but unfortunately a little too eager for power and profit.
He was very good at this; his handsome face had led to many romantic affairs on the ship. However, now, all of that man's ambition and masculine instincts had vanished into thin air.
Just seeing Ali wriggling on the ground in such a strange way filled Lin Xi with an indescribable sense of revulsion.
For a moment, he could almost feel the last remaining soul inside the grotesque, deformed body of that enormous creature.
Pain and despair, followed by a sense of resentment that is gradually being pulled into chaos—it's a pity that human emotions are being inevitably devoured by the insect's instincts, bit by bit, until they are completely gone.
"Empathy"—nothing could be worse than feeling the same way about a monster at a time like this.
Lin Xi's palms were damp with cold sweat.
He took small breaths to try and maintain normal breathing.
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