SPACESHIP ZOMBIE CRUISE

FILE ENTRY 18.0

Dr. Jett Mintaka

At Neptune Shores, communication is still cutoff from the rest of the solar system, but Dr. Mintaka knows that once their situation becomes known, it will send shock waves throughout the Federation. According to Grayson Flux, Space Venture HQ learned about the destroyed comm arrays via the Celestial Sea before the outbreak occurred. It's a fluid situation and with the cruise ship departed for Earth, they have no way of relaying how far the space station has descended into chaos.

Dr. Mintaka winces as he leaves the medical bay, leaving the maelstrom behind closed doors. In the outer corridor, sick people line the walls, some unconscious, others sweating, mumbling, and begging for help. With his limited resources, he can't cure them or offer them comfort. He can only think of the greater problem threatening the station. Communication with the Federation.

To begin with, Flux thought it was simple enough to fix the comm arrays. In a secondary transmission, spaceship officials reported to HQ that repairs were underway, but Mintaka knows all work has ceased on the space station. No one knows where the virus originated, but if someone brought it in from the Celestial Sea, or if it had made the jump from the station to the cruise ship, he suspects that soon enough, they'd lose communication with the ship too. Last he heard, the ship was in route to Earth at two percent the speed of light, expected to arrive at the Interplanetary Space Station in seven days, with his son onboard.

He halts halfway down the hall, an invisible scalpel slicing his heart open. But he steadies himself, bringing his emotions into check. His son will have to fend for himself. He's well equipped to do so, in the Way of the Sword.

Dr. Mintaka resumes course down the corridor. It's eerily quiet, save for the sobs of the infected.

He increases pace toward the door leading into the main stairwell. Under the quarantine, security should have the exit under guard. He had ordered the passageway blocked in and out, but when Mintaka arrives, he finds it deserted and the stairway as dark as the space outside the station. He can think of only one reason the guard left his post. There had been a breakdown in the system or the chain-of-command. Something made the man flee. He could be dead, or something worse.

Mintaka reaches into the pocket of his lab coat and removes a pair of reading glasses, puts them on his face. The frames have a special feature. With a double tap on one side, he can power up a pair of bright LED lights. But the lenses have another feature.

He doubled taps on the other side of the frame and activates night vision. The view shows the stairwell in a greenish shade, with blackness around the edges. The dark steps are hard to see, but he's able to feel his way down with his shoes, touching the surfaces with his toes and heels. Mentally, he controls his rapid heartbeat and uneasy breathing, leaning on his Samurai heritage. The art of Kendo. The Way of the Sword and the discipline of martial arts. He's older and out of practice, but it's still there. It never left him.

To assist his descent into the stairwell, he grazes his fingers over the handrail to his left. A doorway creaks somewhere down below. Feet skitter across the floor, then stop. Silence.

Mintaka freezes, breath steady, nothing to protect him but his hands. He should've found something for self defense before he entered the stairwell. Anything. A pole. A rod. Even a shock stick, something. Anything.

But he has nothing.

So he takes a step. Pauses. Controls his breathing. Takes another step down.