Crisis At Jupiter Station (2.3)

They watched as the door shut the last few centimeters, and the creature returned to its perch, like a giant spider on a web. Sarah stood up a bit shakily and looked down the hall. There was a creature latched onto every door.

"What about Jed?" Alice asked in a small voice.

"He should be fine in that room," Sarah stared sideways at the creature barring the door into Jed's room. "Dad will know what to do."

"We can't get Jed out?" Alice asked.

"I don't think we have time!" Sarah replied, glancing down the hall where five of the creatures rounded the corner and started toward them. "We need to run!"

She grabbed Alice's hand and pulled her down the hall as they ran toward the elevators she knew had to be around the turn of the hall. She was wrong. Looking to her left and to her right at the intersection she saw no immediate options.

"Great!" Sarah exclaimed, smacking her head with the palm of her hand. "The elevators are in the center spoke!"

"Huh?"

"Remember, Alice, what you said when you saw the pictures of the station?" Sarah asked, leading her sister down the hall and to their left.

"Uh-huh. I said it looked like a pile of bike tires."

"Yeah," Sarah replied as they turned down another hallway which headed back toward the center, "the elevators run up and down the center."

At the end of the hallway, the elevator door opened as they approached. Sarah and Alice stepped into the elevator car and watched as the creatures came to a stop right outside the closing door.

"Command Hub, please," Sarah commanded.

"Authorization code," the computer voice requested.

"Do you know it?" Alice asked.

"Dad said that if we needed to find him, we were to tell the elevator. Do you remember?" Sarah asked, looking down to her sister.

"Beta Alpha 990!" Alice answered.

"Authorization code confirmed," the computer voice stated as the car began to lower. A few moments later, the car came to a stop. The doors did not open, instead, the car began to turn, causing the two girls to brace against the walls for balance. After a full 180 degrees spin, it stopped. The doors now opened, and the children looked out into a large room filled with many computer terminals and chairs.

"Hey, girls!" Jack Gatores called as he made his way around a few of the computer terminals on the other side of the room. "How does the new station look, eh?"

Sarah couldn't think of what to say. How was she going to explain to her father what they had seen so he would believe it?

"Where's Jed? The two of you didn't get into another disagreement, did you?" Mr. Gatores stood with his hands on his hips and cocked his head in an expression of questioning amusement.

"Jed is trapped," Alice exclaimed, her voice betraying her fright.

"Trapped?" Mr. Gatores bent down and put his hands on his knees to look his youngest in the eye, "Where's he trapped? Maybe we can find him on the cameras. Want to help?"

How am I going to tell Dad this isn't a game, Sarah thought in exasperation.

Alice nodded her head, and Mr. Gatores picked her up, setting her on one of the stools.

"Dad, there's something you should know," Sarah began.

"Hold on just one second, cupcake," Mr. Gatores replied as he pointed out a button on the console in front of Alice. "Push that one there, and you can look for him on the first deck."

"Now, you had something you wanted to tell me about?" Jack asked, turning from the viewscreen for a moment.

Sarah bit her lip as she saw the large screen in the front of the room turn to a view of the upper deck where they had been only a few minutes before. She pointed past her father at the viewscreen. Mr. Gatores turned and frowned at what he saw.

Nearly a hundred of the flat, coral-headed, tentacled creatures were walking up and down the hallway. Many of the doors had creatures latched firmly on the frames. They hung like spiders just like the one Sarah and her brother and sister confronted. They all seemed to be waiting, their teeth gnashing in apparent hunger.

"What are those creatures doing in here?" Mr. Gatores asked in a stern voice, to no one in particular. "I'll need to call for a containment crew to be dispatched from Space Command Central. We'll need to get these things cleaned out of here."

He walked over to another console and typed out a message. Pressing another button, he then turned back toward the girls.

"Alright now, please don't go up to level one. We don't want to find out whether these creatures are friendly or hostile."

"They're not friends!" Alice said, sliding off her stool.

She fell to the floor and dropped down to her hands and knees, then stood back up, brushing her hands off on the seat of her overalls.

"Whoa! That was a mighty big jump, young cadet. Next time don't forget your parachute!"

Alice giggled and saluted her father.

"Dad, this is serious," Sarah began.

"I know it is, dear. But those creatures are doing no one any harm, as long as they stay up on level one. I can't possibly catch them all myself, anyway."

"No Dad, Jed is trapped up there!" Sarah replied in consternation.

"So -- you two weren't playing about that part, were you?" The girls shook their heads. "Alright, so exactly where is he?"

"Level one," Sarah replied. "He's in one of the apartments a few doors down from the recreation room."

"Which one? What color was the carpet in the hallway?" Jack added, "There are four recreation rooms and the color of the carpet will tell me where he is."

"Blue!" Alice exclaimed.

"Okay." Mr. Gatores tapped a few buttons into the computer console nearby.

"Access code," He mumbled to himself as his fingers danced across the console.

The two girls looked at the front viewscreen as views from various rooms flashed by.

"Ah. There he is."

He pressed one button and tapped another.

"Jed? Can you hear me, son?"

Sarah watched as Jed looked around in confusion for the origin of his father's voice. He walked in a small circle in the middle of the living room where the girls had left him.

"Dad?"

"Yeah, it's me son. You okay, sport?"

"For now, but there are some strange creatures up here. I think one is chewing through the door," Jed replied, looking warily over his shoulder towards the door.

"Okay, don't move. We'll be there to get you out in just a few minutes."

Mr. Gatores released the button he'd been holding and turned to another computer.

"You two girls stay here, where it's safe. I'm going to go and get Jed out of there. Sarah, you like to read, see if you can find anything in the station's archive files about these creatures."

"Yes, Dad," Sarah replied as she moved to the station archives.

She sat down on a stool in front of a console with an inset screen. Her head moved back and forth as she scanned each of the files in turn. Alice stood up on tiptoe as Mr. Gatores bent down to kiss her forehead. As their father stepped into the elevator to go after their brother, Alice walked over and climbed up on a stool beside her sister.

*****