Okay, gentlemen, thanks for coming. We’re going to have to make this quick because we’re going to have reporters here any minute and we all need to be on the same page when the questions start flying. This is all highly sensitive information and we have to continue handling it that way, especially when our crews’ loved ones start calling. The boys in Analytics looked over the latest data from the space station and came up with a single conclusion: those astronauts are fucked.
The latest secret transmission from Commander Baines included the following information:
- Pilot Hicks and Officer Michaels are dead. Their bodies were eviscerated, likely by the horrifying lizard beast that escaped last week from Dr. Morgan’s lab. Baines is convinced fusing the DNA sequences of a T-Rex and a chameleon and bathing it all in pure solar radiation was a severe error in judgment; Jones in Analytics doesn’t disagree. With O’Hara, Wang and Sanchez missing and presumed dead, this brings the body count to 21.
- The Rotation Algorithms were taken offline, so now the artificial gravity is of course deactivated throughout the space station. This has created additional problems as the liquid waste disposal system began working in reverse and has been expelling its contents throughout all areas of the station.
- Security officers Montoya and Wood are nearly out of plasma ammunition, but are working on a rudimentary slingshot system for the remaining crew members.
Nothing else has changed. We still have 25 people alive up there. For those not here at the last report, I will give you a rundown of what we’ve got.
Now, we know there is no disposable silver anywhere on the station, so if Alvaro, Philips, and Stern manage to escape from their makeshift prison in the galley, there may be significant difficulty in subduing or killing them. I still have Mr. Chang looking into who signed off on Dr. Morgan developing a lycanthropy ray in space “for the medical benefits.” The full benefits remain to be seen at this time, but the ray did reduce cancer cells in the stomach of mice by 12%, so I suppose there is some progress there. I just hope it was worth the accidental transformation of our guys into space werewolves.
Remember that station psychologist Dr. Belmont may have made some headway in the mystery of why crew members began seeing ghosts of loved ones and recently dead crew. Her first theory of space dementia may still hold up, but it doesn’t help that the factory that made 30% of the station’s interchangable components stands on an ancient Indian burial ground in Montana. I have the gang in research calling on some local natives in the area to see if they can shed some light on this and find out what incantations, if any, can be used to dispel them. With no news about Dr. Belmont, we can assume she’s still working on the problem or she’s dead.
The entire eastern wing of the station was evacuated after the botany lab was overrun by gigantic sentient vines. Our lead in that section, the coincidentally named Dr. Botany, suffered from vine burns on his arms and legs, but otherwise escaped unharmed. He reported that mixing Earth soil with irradiated moon dust may have attributed to this gross mutation. We ordered the engineers to only detach that section of the station if the vines begin to extend their reach beyond that wing. In the meantime, I have Dr. Botany working with the station’s translator, Joan Dawson, to devise a way to communicate with the vines.
Dr. Morgan’s lizard beast has a steel-like hide and the plasma weapons proved ineffective against it. So the beast has already taken the lives of 12 crew members, and it will likely never be taken down unless Baines can lure it into an airlock. It does seem to hunt and kill the fattest and slowest crew members, so the thinner, more athletic crew members have made strides to stay away from them.
Finally, the really big problem on our hands is that Baines’ second-in-command, Lieutenant Mallory Singh, has supposedly been possessed by the spirit of Bal-Luna, ancient Queen of the Moon People. She has holed up in the command room and has completely taken over the station’s computer systems. She claims to be very upset we have invaded her “territory” by positioning the station “so close to the moon,” which is still just in a standard Earth orbit. She insists on complete fealty from the rest of the crew and has made very specific demands. As of right now, the crew has 32 hours to sacrifice someone in her honor and allow her to take Baines as a husband, otherwise she will initiate the station’s self-destruct sequence. Dr. Belmont says it’s space dementia, but that doesn’t explain Singh’s sudden telekinesis, speaking in unknown space tongues, taking the lives of Kolchak, Goldstein, Ramirez and O’Malley with her Moon Beam Death Stare, and her control over the independent rotation of the moon on three axises. And she can probably pull off destroying the station, considering she has all of Singh’s knowledge. In 32 hours the station will be directly over the United States and if it explodes, it will likely land in parts of Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin, if the gang in Telemetry has their numbers right.
We’re still checking, but this is probably the worst disaster the space program has ever faced, and it is likely no one will make it out alive. So, let’s be conservative about the information we communicate until we figure this thing out.
Thanks, everybody. I think a good thing for us to do is pray for everyone’s safe return. But, really, understand everybody up there is pretty fucked.
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