T-043 Alien skitter

Threshold Institute · Case file T-043

Number

T-043 in the catalogue

Kind

Creature

Class

Class II: dangerous, and held in a cell

Found

Year 41, month 3, day 14

Where found

The launch site's hangar, in the cargo hold of the agency's third flight home from the planet

Status

Uncontained at the launch site and on the planet

Now

At the launch site and on the planet

Part

Part IV: The planet and the pollution

Containment procedures

The skitters in the Institute's keeping are held together in one sealed cell, the pack they came with; held apart they stop eating and die within the week. The cell is lit day and night, after the rift stalker's rules (T-002). Feeding is done through a hatch by two staff, never one, and never with a back to the glass. A skitter that screeches is to be treated as a call: every member of staff on the level stops work and checks the cell's seals before going on.

Field guidance for the launch site and the planet: skitters never come alone. Count the pack before the first shot, and expect the rest to come at whoever fires. Fight them from a doorway, not in the open.

Description

A small, quick creature from the planet, about the size of a dog, low and many-legged, its hide the colour of the planet's dust. It hunts in packs that keep together and move as one body. When one is hurt or sees prey it screeches, and the rest of the pack come running at once. Each one alone is frail; a pack is not.

Discovery

The agency had flown to the planet since year 38 and kept a colony there since year 39, in a secret partnership with the Institute, which had its own people aboard every flight and took charge of everything the flights brought home. Kerstin Holm, the Institute's liaison, had flown three times.

On the third flight home she sealed the cargo hold from the inside on the second day and logged the reason in one line: something is moving among the cargo pods. The flight came down on the launch site's pad at dusk, eleven hours late. The agency's ground crew wanted the hold opened on the pad; Holm refused, and the agreement gave her the right to. It was opened in the hangar with the big door shut, by a response team trained by Mara Okafor. Nine skitters came out of the pods at once. The team took seven and lost two men. Two of the nine were never accounted for.

Addenda

Addendum T-043-1

Holm's flight log, the third flight home (extract)

Day 2. Scratching in hold B, between pods 14 and 15, during the night cycle. Agency crew say it is the cooling lines. I sealed the hold at 04:10 by the Institute's authority and noted it in the agency's log as well.

Day 5. The scratching has moved. It is everywhere in the hold now, and it stops whenever someone stands at the hatch. I do not think it is one thing.

Day 9. Landing. I will open nothing on the pad.

Addendum T-043-2

Incident report, Year 41, month 3, day 14, the launch site's hangar

Filed by Mara Okafor.

The team went in under full light, in pairs, as for the stalker. The pods opened on their own when the hold's hatch was released. The first skitter was hit at once and screeched, and the other eight were on the shooter before he could fire again. We lost Haas and Lindqvist in the first half minute. Seven taken, five dead and two alive; two more went under the hangar door's seal and out into the yard.

Note by Tomas Rehn, head of research: a skitter is never alone, and a screech is a call. The rules for the planet's creatures start here. This is the first threshold in these files that did not come through T-001 or grow out of it.

What followed

Note added Year 41, month 12: the hangar's night crew report screeches in the yard. The two that got away are a pack now. Holm, asked what the colony thinks of them, answered that the colony has a name for a bigger kind as well (T-044).

Previous fileT-042 Endless BatteryPart III: Going through (the objects) Next fileT-044 Alien spitterPart IV: The planet and the pollution

In the file

• People: Tomas Rehn, Mara Okafor, Kerstin Holm, Haas and Lindqvist.
• Places: The sealed level, The cells, The launch site and The colony.

In the game

The note you find in the game:

Year 41, month 3, day 14. Taken at the launch site's hangar from the cargo hold of the space agency's third flight home from the planet, which Kerstin Holm, our liaison aboard, had sealed from inside on the second day: something was moving among the cargo pods. The hold was opened in the hangar with the big door shut, nine skitters came out of the pods at once, and the response team took seven and lost two men.

Small and quick, it never comes alone: skitters hunt in packs that keep together.

When one screeches, the rest come running. The launch site's hangar and yard are full of them, and on the planet they roam the open land, the abandoned colonies and their nests.

Held in a sealed cell with the pack it came with. Status: uncontained at the launch site and on the planet.

Today it is found at the launch site and on the planet.

It goes down after losing 1000 ml of its 3200 ml of blood. How it hunts and where it turns up: see the zombies page.