ship
to escape from the hellhole that it had existed in. It had been
attacked and threatened with death by Don, and had escaped for its
life.
He wondered if
they could now capture and study it!
He was
startled at it being Dan, and how they had met him, as an unknown
member of the crew, who had appeared out of the darkness of the
desolate world, in a spacesuit, and that they had brought it
back.
The power of
it was tremendous and it could have killed them all easily, even
with Major Ripley holding the weapon on it.
Kruger gave
descriptions of its figure as he had first seen it to the president
on the media – shown to just about everyone aboard – seeking the
truth about what had taken place – and seeking adventure, which
they had mostly joined the voyage for.
Major Ripley
was then brought in, and helped him out with vivid details, from
the location of his quarters.
It was
incredible that he had finally given his thoughts on what he had
suspected back there, and that it was a new form of alien.
He expressed
his confused thoughts at what it had wanted, and about what it had
been up to and what it was capable of.
He had clearly
even gone to the bar to see the mess that it had created, and to
question the people there about the incident and what it had looked
like, in its true form.
The
president questioned him intensely about it, to find out what he
wanted. He had to take the responsibility for such an incident and occurrences, and he
reassured everyone aboard that he and they would do everything that
could to capture it, and perhaps study it, and at that moment they
were building up a special task force to seek it out, and it was to
be lead by Colonel Pratt, of the Military and Space Forces, and it
would be based at the Military and Space Forces control center, and
that he was the second highest military authority there, under
General Chisholm, head of the Military and Space Forces, and the
security of the entire spacecraft.
General
Chisholm made an appearance and warned everyone aboard of the
dangers of the alien intruder, and gave the location that was below
the bar to avoid, and told everyone to remain out of its path, and
to stay in groups and to kill it if they had to, and he then
introduced Colonel Pratt, who was at the Military and Space Forces
control center, located at the center of the spacecraft.
He gave as
much information as he could, and showed everyone his task force,
and that they were all busy at work organizing men, and the
information people were giving them.
It was then
that Kruger started to realize that the thing was actually a great
danger. He had known it as Dan, and in its unnatural state. Yet he
had never properly communicated with it! It had been a human, or
copying a human, and had not shown anything of its true identity,
and he could not realize just how much danger it was, and what it
intended to do.
People had
been clearly startled by it, and he could not decide if it was to
do with its extraordinary form that it had taken, or if it had
started to defend itself from attacks against it, or was the thing
a deadly menace, and intended to capture them and the
spacecraft.
They just did
not fully know what its motives were. They had caught it and forced
it to reveal its identity, and Don had threatened it with a
powerful weapon, and perhaps destruction.
The issue of
Don was brought up by the president, who could not understand his
identity, and he asked Colonel Pratt to identify him, and about his
mysterious appearance there in the sixth vehicle, which he had
remembered had been told earlier, when it had been discovered.
Colonel Pratt
recalled his discovery and admitted not being able to get any
proper explanation, due to the records and people’s memories being
tampered with.
The whole
affair was a muddled mess, and Don was contacted at his quarters,
for them to query him.
Don was his
normal calm self, even after, and throughout, the incident, and was
just out of his shower, with