A day in the eyes of...-First Person Fortnight

When someone mentioned something about ‘Hunter/Killers’ my neck hairs stood on end. With all that happened and all I’d seen since we were revived from stasis I had no idea what to expect next, but my first thought was to ask what exactly they were, but in all the tension I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. Before I even knew what was happening for sure Phil summoned Bill and got us enough weapons to arm everyone, and in what seemed like an impeccably timed movie effect, the HKs were on us, standing up to everything we threw at them, until the Huzards swarmed in as the unlikely heroes, literally tearing apart at the seams. The next thing I know we were all pointing guns at each other.
While I carried enough weaponry myself to kill each STCP agent in the corridor, (if the need arose, which was unlikely), without repeating myself I could only hold two guns at once, which only just evened the odds as I had two guns pointed back at me. I’d had my share of standoffs, but they never lose their rush, if you could call it that. People pointing pieces of lethal, unforgiving weapons at each other’s persons does have a rush, in a frightening, nerve wracking way.
The situation in general was frightening and nerve wracking. Things seemed to be well in hand for us until Jay pulled off the agents masks to find his wife. At first I didn’t recognize her, as we had never actually met, but after a moment or two of Jays shocked mumblings and Cass’ mixed expressions it came to me and I remembered her face from a photo at the funeral procession after the Hymenopteran hive was destroyed. Apart from that I didn’t know anything but the fact that she was killed in an explosion in engineering.
At that point I blinked and simply accepted the new fact that I was in corridor with two people that should have been dead more than three million years ago but in fact weren’t, rather than try to straighten out how that was even possible in my head. That was something I could find out later. For the moment I was more concerned with the fact one false move from any of us could result in all of our near simultaneous deaths. Suddenly Justin popped out of existence only to be replaced a moment later by a man I didn’t recognize, who was also a man I saw take a plasma bolt to the head not even make any sign of pain. Almost immediately everyone sprung into motion.
One of the two agents I had been pointing a gun at turned to see Jay rounding on Katrina, while the second ducked down to avoid a swift crack to the jaw from the butt of a gun. After the quick change of standing positions nothing had changed, and the STCP Commander said exactly what both myself and I’m sure at least a few others were thinking. “Lets talk about this like civilized adults.” He said, calmly lowering his weapons slightly. I started to gingerly lower my own weapons as a few of the others followed suit and lowered theirs.
I replaced Katrina’s cuffs, and to be honest wouldn’t want it any other way. As far as I could tell she was the most likely to stir up trouble out of the Agents, followed closely by the other woman, and the rest I couldn’t tell. The commanders seemed reasonable enough and they seemed to follow his lead fairly closely, save for a man with the name ‘Chambers’ stitched in his nano suit, him at the time I couldn’t tell. He either had an itchy trigger finger or was easily spooked.
We headed for the promenade and I was the one who had to lead Katrina there by the hand cuffs. Jay was never far behind from us, staying only far enough away to keep out her reach. Something I’m sure was against his first instinct, but was probably the best idea at the moment. Cassandra was never far from him either, and I got the feeling that she was very worried, and even possibly a bit confused, which was rare in my experience with her. Beyond rare in fact. I had never actually seen her so obviously worried before. I could tell from the way they interacted, that Jay and Commander Takanawa knew each other well, and I could tell the man was no fool. He was an excellent commander at that. I’ve met commanders who would rather gamble with their chances in a standoff than suggest negotiation. I, too, noticed little things in Katrina’s eyes as we passed through various parts of the ship on the way to promenade, almost like faint memories that were stifled out a moment later by whatever grudge held so strongly.
We finally reached the promenade entrance and found it to be nicely repaired and several of the shops reopened by the rodent like life forms evolved there. “Come on,” Wolf said, “Parrots is this way.”
“I thought we were going to have tea?” Seymour questioned, maybe a bit disappointed from the sound of it. And so we trudged on past the entrance and headed deeper in the promenade. My body began to ache heavily again and it was at that moment I became away aware of something strange. The shops were open, yes. Inside there was plenty of business, yes. But I didn’t notice a single being in the streets. I had a sense of either impeding danger or impending strangeness, which often seemed to be one and the same on this ship. Endorphins flooded their way abnormally fast into my blood stream and I felt my body numb over the pain, my strength returned and felt like I could concentrate again, almost tranquilly, just same as I had for the last almost two years of my conscious life.

<Tag! So what do we find as we go deeper into promenade? What happens next? Anyone but me and Alex notice this unknown something called the strangeness? What other question should be answered?>

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