Starbound: A Space Odyssey 128 Lenny's Situation 8

Because Forge Umbra was an Apex, her senses were also extremely developed, worse only to almost all Florans and a few Avians.

Her ears caught the faint sound disappearing of those machines that normally no one would have been able to hear because of the usual noise of busy days in station and no one actually cared about it. But, now that there was complete silence in the laboratory, she heard the small noises disappearing out of nowhere.

As for why her expression changed, it's simple.

Life Support System...

Without oxygen, most people in the station will die. Only Novakids, Florans, Glitches and people with some kind of oxygen tanks would survive.

While Novakids also need oxygen, they can easily survive long periods of time without it, from hours to days, depends on the Novakid and it's age. Be it on outer s.p.a.ce or underwater, they can survive in all harsh environment as long as it has some kind of inflammable gas. In underwater, Novakids can absorb small particles, even molecules, of these gas in the water.

Florans, on the other hand, normally live by breathing oxygen, but if they are deprived of the resource, their body immediately start to produce oxygen using carbon dioxide and water, present in their blood, to generate the energy necessary to keep them alive through the process of photosynthesis using the pigment, chlorophyll, that makes the Floran skin green. Because of the extended use of water in their body, higher than normal, they get weaker, a lot weaker, but this defense mechanism enable them to survive in harsh environments. While normally a Floran breath through their lungs, their skin doesn't stop their work as it keep recycling the dioxide carbon produced by the Floran, but the recycling is very low because the are no need, in a oxygen rich environment, only when thrown in a harsh environment that the body automatically reduce the usage of lungs and start giving the skin the work. This is one of the reasons, beside the cultural one, that Florans dislike using armors and full clothes.

The difference between Florans and Novakids, in this aspect, is the fact that the later could survive in outer s.p.a.ce for hours without any device or protective suit, while Florans would die like all the other 5 sentient races, and penguins. As for underwater, Floran's skin also can absorb molecules of dioxide of carbon deep underwater, and even filter oxygen molecules present in water, making Florans also able to survive in such environment.

As for Glitches...they are robots...no need for breathing.

If the invaders really turned off the Life Support System, things were about to get very serious.

Forge walked up to the door and carefully opened a little to peek outside.

The corridors were dimly lit by the emergency light, but with her superior eyesight, she could see clearly the lifeless bodies lying in blood pools all around the floor.

It was a ma.s.sacre that happened there.

Without any type of weapon, the scientist were slaughtered by the invaders after they dealt with the guards.

Forge could still hear the sound of screams and gunshots echoing in the empty corridor.

She felt a chill and had the urge to throw up once again, but she closed her mouth with her hand and forced it down.

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She couldn't stay there, she had to leave as soon as possible for the escape pods that were about the in the middle section of the s.p.a.ce station, in an equal distance from the furthest floors on each extreme of the station.

If the invaders really turned off the Life Support System, the people of the station were completely screwed.

Turning it off won't only affect the Recycler, but also the Heating of the whole station.

With this building being in the outer s.p.a.ce, the temperature won't drop immediately and sudden, it would take a while, a few minutes to hours.

As there was no air in s.p.a.ce, temperature exchange with the outside was very limited, losing heat was only possible via radiation, that's why it would take very long time until the temperature inside would drop to levels that would make it impossible to survive without protection, of course it was different for Novakids, Penguins, Glitches and Apexes since they have better protection with lower temperatures.

In the end, turning off the Life Support System was a death sentence for those that were unprepared, such as the scientists and other staff members of the station, the guards not so much because of their armor that was already coupled with all types of protections.

Although she was sure that the invaders had the escape pods under their control, she still had to risk it.

Now that she calmed down a little, her mind went back and she thought about the actions and words of the invaders.

The logic conclusion she came up with, was that they were searching for something or someone in the station, they weren't aware of where it is, and after getting what they wanted they would certainly leaving nothing behind, not a single trace that could track the a.s.sault of the station back to them.

Killing everyone was the best solution, erasing all witnesses.

While it's possible they could blow up the whole station, Forge thought that it wasn't viable because the amount of firepower and explosive needed to accomplish such action was way to high.

Forge opened the door and carefully walked out.

She crouched and silently walked down the corridors towards the emergency stairs.

As her feet dragged her forward, she could the sound plop sounds when she steps in those puddle of blood.

All around her were corpses of people she lived together with for more than 5 years.

People she considered her family, people who sheltered her and taught her after she escaped from the Miniknog's clutches.

Holding her tear back, she crawled forward without stepping in any of the bodies dropped in the floor.

Her forlorn shadow casted in cold floor by the dim emergency lights slowly disappeared in the end of the corridor...