SENJO<br/><br/>The Leftenant came over and bent to look at the monitor. A few other marines came around too, curious. I scrolled through the plain text file - no graphics, nothing embedded, no diagrams or maps. Just written information.<br/><br/>I ran it fast up the screen, speed reading then stopped.<br/><br/><strong>"Normal colony reporting. Nothing unusual. Construction. Mining. Terraforming. Voting for a Mayor. Children. Breathable atmosphere after three point eight years. The birth of the first child on-planet after four point three years. Standard company colony practice, all calendars run on Earth referenced reckoning. Hm. The colony took delivery of a number of pet dogs. Their chickens and cattle did not do well and died. Mayor voted back in for a second term. This is five point two years after planetfall."</strong><br/><br/><strong>"There's nothing unusual at all in the first five years of the colony's life. It would seem logical that the creatures we have encountered are not native to the planet."</strong><br/><br/>I scrolled more. Then an entry came up that made me stop and read more carefully.<br/><br/><strong>"The Company established a training facility here. Yes. Here. <em>"Article 948-H of our colonial contract has been activated….This  article dictates that in return for their sponsoring of our colonization efforts Weyland-Yutani has the authority to construct corporate facilities on the planet’s surface so long as they do not interfere with the colonization process. W/Y will be building an executive training facility here on LV-1875."</em> That entry is five point five years after planetfall."</strong><br/><br/><strong>"The two facilities were kept separate. Though... the W-Y security guards began fraternizing with the younger female colonists. There's some friction reported here."</strong><br/><br/>I scrolled further.<br/><br/><strong>"Six point two years. The W-Y facility was taken over by a Dr. Stetton and a large shipment of supplies and staff landed. A Dr. Paxton was in charge before that. The Mayor of the colony voices his doubts that the company site is a training facility. The ATMO shielding sensors and the colony's seismic sensors reported a lot of activity at the facility at that time."</strong><br/><br/>The next entry caused me to stop speed reading and pay attention.<br/><br/><strong>"Six point seven years. Reports of explosions at the W-Y facility. Also a bad storm. The colony lost it's main transmitter dish in the storm and lost all contact with the facility. That was forty-nine days ago. There's a... there's a medical report of a man named Rosco being sedated. He was claiming to have seen dragons outside the compound. Black dragons. This is forty-three days ago. Here."</strong><br/><br/>I pointed to the entry.<br/><br/><em>"Mayor’s Log F210<br/><br/>We’ve sedated old man Rosco, he was ranting about a heard of dragons running out last night! Can you believe it dragons for God’s sake! He went on and on about how they were black and scary and they were led by a “REALLY fucking big one” and how he ran off before they could grab him."</em><br/><br/><strong>"The pet dogs all went missing. The colonists let them run outside mostly and within five days of the Rosco dragon incident they all vanished. This log entry suspects the W-Y facility has taken them for testing. To me that isn't logical. If they required live animals for testing they would ship them in."</strong><br/><br/>Within two or three entries things got serious.<br/><br/><strong>"Thirty-seven days ago. The colony doctor - a Dr. Groves - was sent over to the company facility to make enquiries about the missing dogs. When the doctor returned he was scared and reported that it looked like the facility had been attacked. Broken windows, main doors open... Hm. The next day the Chief of the Town Watch was sent over with several Constables. Nine men. Armed with flashlights and shotguns. They didn't report back. Last report was they had reached the facility and were heading inside. A second group of men went out after two days. Here."</strong>I pointed to the screen. Marines crowded round.<br/><br/><em>"Mayor’s Log F219<br/><br/>Almost midnight now. We made it back about 10 hours ago… God I wish I could forget what happened… We made it to the facility without any trouble. Once we got there we saw Dan’s crawler sitting there just fine. We checked it out and there was nothing wrong with it… nothing except for the fact that we found Dan inside with some… some thing on his face… it looked like a big spider with a tail. It had its arms or legs or whatever wrapped around his head and its tail around his neck. We tried pulling it off but the fucking thing was holding on tight! We had no choice but to leave him there while we checked the building. We went into the lobby and looked around… the place was quite like a tomb. And I think that’s just what it was… a big tomb… we found the other guys inside the lobby… what was left of them anyways, they all had their… God… they had holes in their chests with the bones bent outwards. Like, like something was pushing OUT from INSIDE. I don’t know what kind of animal or gun could do that to someone. We decided to haul ass back to the colony. So we loaded up half of us in my crawler and half in Dan’s as soon as we got back we rushed Dan into Doc Groves’ office and told Groves we needed to get the thing off him… Groves did his best, he used to be a doctor for the military he even served in combat before he retired, but he couldn’t pull it off or pry it off, so he decided to just cut the thing off Dan. Dan’s wife gave him the ok... So… so Groves started to cut. He said he was going to cut along what looked like it’s spine in the hopes of causing its nerves to relax. It looked like it was going fine until the thing started bleeding. Its blood was acidic! And not just a little… it was dangerously acidic. Groves got some on his hand and lost two fingers. Dan… it ran down the creature’s back and tail onto Dan’s neck… we couldn’t save him… He’s dead. We don’t know what kind of disease the body might have so we incinerated it along with the creature which was still attached. The supply ship is scheduled to arrive the day after tomorrow. We are going to put the colony under full lock down until then. There are probably more of these things out there… what the hell were they doing over at that facility, experimenting with spiders?!?!  <br/><br/>Mayor’s Log Entry F223<br/><br/>The ship didn’t show up yesterday, it should have been here by now. I get the feeling that it’s been stopped or rerouted or something. We’re still on lock down and we can stay that way indefinitely, thank goodness we are self sufficient. I fully intend to keep us locked down until someone shows up. Everyone’s a little jumpy but considering everything they are doing well. The general thought process is that it sucks that Dan and the others are dead but with the colony on lock down those spider things can’t get in and at least no more of us will die.<br/><br/>-  Carthag Vankatov, Mayor of Jackie’s Hope."</em><br/><br/>Next entry, things began to get bad.<br/><br/><strong>"Then they attacked. Rosco's Black Dragons. The next few entries report of the outside of the facility being tested by the dragons. Crawling all over the roofs of the structure. They came out at night in the main."</strong><br/><br/><strong>"Entry of twenty-six days ago. The Mayor reports twenty-eight colonists missing. They vanished in the night from their homes in the Hab Block. No-one heard a thing. The rooms had deposits of a strange slime on them. Here's how they got in."</strong>I indicated the next entry.<br/><br/><em>"Mayor’s Log Entry F227<br/><br/>Afternoon, we found how they broke in. They got in through the side hatch out by the vehicle garage. Even though the door was closed and locked! The power for that door is supplied by a line that runs along the side of the building. The creatures cut the power! How did they know to do that? Once they cut the power they just slid the damn thing open like it wasn’t even there. Then I guess they went inside found the Hab block and grabbed our missing people. Everyone’s almost at a panic. They don’t want to stay in the Hab block and I don’t blame them!! I’ve got the entire maintenance team working right now they are welding that door shut along with any other that can be opened like that. Every other door that can have its power killed from the outside is being locked. Every weapon we have has been issued out to someone. I’ve decided to allow anyone who wants to sleep on the 2nd floor instead of in the Hab block to do so. Almost everyone has decided to sleep in the control room with the blast doors closed."</em><br/><br/><strong>"The next few entries describe the destruction of the colony. The next day the creatures showed enough intelligence to smash every external camera. The creatures attacked again the next night. The colonists had a lot of guns. Issued from the armoury plus personal pistols and even hunting rifles. There was a battle at the north east blast door. The colonists... lost. Small arms were not powerful enough to stop the creatures. Even wounded they kept coming. Half the colonists were armed and in that fight. Only two or three got away to the blast door of the command centre. The creatures left before daylight. The Mayor questions if they do not like sunlight."</strong><br/><br/><strong>"That day the colonists voted to abandon the colony and take the tractors and crawlers and all the supplies and split up and try to make it away from this sector of the planet. The Mayor agreed to stay behind and make noise to keep the aliens focused on the colony buildings while the rest escaped."</strong><br/><br/>I looked through the last few entries.<br/><br/><strong>"It didn't work. The aliens ignored the colony and split up into packs and went after the crawlers. One by one the individual families were overwhelmed. The last entry is sixteen days ago. The Mayor stayed holed up in the command centre."</strong>I pointed at the final log entry on the screen.<br/><br/><em>"Mayor’s Log Entry F237 <br/><br/>They haven’t come back for me….the monsters..they have been leaving me alone, maybe they forgot about me? Maybe they are just waiting? I don’t know. And I don’t care anymore. I’ve had to see and hear all of my friends die around me. And now I’m just tired, I want to rest…I NEED to rest….I’ve got a single pistol here. David gave it to me before he sealed the doors. There’s only one clip but it’s more than enough for what I need…..If you’re reading or listening to this then for the love of God run! Get off planet now while you still can!<br/><br/>-  Carthag Vankatov."</em><br/><br/>I sat back from the monitor and let the others read.<br/><br/><strong>"The logical conclusion is that Weyland-Yutani was experimenting on something over at their company facility. They were not able to contain it and it overran their security then came to the colony and destroyed that."</strong>