The remaining men shuffled to their feet, arming themselves with the remaining blaster rounds.
"We will storm the cargo hold and make for the escape pods. I'll remain behind to blow up the ship and give you all a chance at survival."
" No, vice captain, you can't..."
" No buts, that's an order." Aquila barked.
The men swiftly organized themselves. Daniel furtively glanced around.
Some of the men were praying, others looked resigned to their fate.
In the next instant, the remaining crew members opened the heavy automated door, dashing suicidally for the cargo hold.
Aquila ran in the opposite direction to lure the remaining robots away.
Daniel joined the charge, cautiously approaching a bend.
Daniel ducked behind a padded wall, opening blaster fire at incoming Prometheus robots, in the cover of the wall's protection.
A few of the surviving crew members were already dead.
Being a doctor had its perks; the sight and smell of innards and spilled guts didn't spook him easily.
He wildly dashed around the corner, rolling clumsily to the ground.
He desperately darted around the last remaining corner to the cargo hold with the robots hot on his heels.
Muffled screams and yells echoed behind him.
Vice Captain Aquila shot madly at the robots, offering cover fire for the remaining soldiers to get through.
" Alert, alert, Argonaut mainframe is underrrrrrrrr....."
Just then, the automated voice glitched.
" Ah, yes, this is much better." A sinister voice rang out.
Daniel's eyes opened in surprise. "What the hell?"
" To all crew members, my name, rather the name my creators gave me, is Prometheus, and I've decided to commandeer this ship for my own purposes."
Daniel cursed, ducking under a blaster round.
Just then, Aquila rounded the corner, skidding to a stop next to him.
The vice captain looked worse for wear. He was bleeding from a blaster wound in his side.
" You may surrender quietly or choose to resist. Either way, you'll still die." Prometheus nonchalantly continued.
" Fucking scientists and their fucking tech," Aquila snarled, breathing heavily. His face had turned visibly pale.
" Language, vice captain." Daniel quietly rebuked.
Aquila glanced at him in amusement.
" If you've still got energy to spare on niceties, use it to shoot down these things," he retorted.
The original purpose of the Prometheus bots was to aid the crew with repair, maintenance, and cleaning of the ship.
But when Prometheus had hijacked the ship's mainframe, he'd also hijacked control of the Prometheus bots as well.
" Doc, listen to me, I don't have much time left. I can feel it. I'm going to buy you some time. Get to the cargo hold, get an escape pod, and get the hell off this ship. I've rigged the Argonaut to blow up any minute now.
Aquila grabbed Daniel's shirt.
" You'll report what happened here to the command center back on Earth."
His grey eyes bore into Daniel's.
"Promise me."
Daniel calmly looked at the old man.
Inwardly, he cursed.
" What the hell? How the hell does he expect me to do that? Lord, if I make it out this alive, I swear, I'll...."
Another explosion rocked the deck closer this time before he could reply.
Then another blast went off, even closer still.
Aquila's eyes widened, then narrowed in realization.
" Prometheus must have gotten the Jason prototype."
Daniel shot a round of blaster fire around the wall, then glanced at Aquila in confusion.
"What's that supposed to be?"
" It's a military combat prototype that had been developed to adapt to any situation. We got one just in case we encountered hostile alien lifeforms."
Daniel cursed, then shot around the corner again.
" So why do you think he or it has the prototype?" He asked.
Aquila sighed, coughing blood.
" It's the only thing aboard the ship that can rip through the ship's airlocks with ease. I'd sealed most of them on my way here, and my guess is, the explosions we're hearing are the airlocks. The explosives aren't rigged to go off until a bit of time has passed."
He paused, coughing violently.
"Oh hell, the airlock power supply could be manually turned off in case of an emergency like this, to seal off sections of the ship."
In the next moment, the airlock exploded, and a dark robot that towered over the rest blurred through the entrance.
" Run, Doc. Run with everything you've got." Aquila screamed.
Aquila roared and got up to his feet, frantically shooting at the Jason prototype. The sleek robot phased through the shots, then appeared in front of Aquila.
It shot Aquila directly in the chest, with uncanny precision, emptying several rounds into his body.
Aquila gasped as the blaster rounds violently tore into his body. He slowly slid to the ground, wheezing.
He coughed out a mouthful of blood and weakly took out the photo of his late wife and smiled weakly.
A dark shadow loomed over him. He glanced up to see the Jason prototype standing above him, with its blaster pointed at his head.
" Good riddance," Prometheus said, then promptly shot his brains out.
The explosives he had set to detonate began to explode one after another.
The prototype caught up with the surviving crew members, quickly finishing them off.
By some miracle, Daniel had made it into the cargo hold.
He closed the airlock behind him like Aquila had instructed him, then slowly limped forward.
One of his hands had been blown off by a stray blaster round.
He let out a muffled groan, a wave of pain flaring up his arm.
He weakly staggered towards the remaining escape pod and slowly climbed in.
He was breathing heavily, and his face was pale from blood loss.
The pod slowly came online, then slowly began to reverse out of the hangar.
The airlock violently exploded in a rain of fire and shrapnel.
The Jason prototype scanned the room, then noticed the fleeing pod.
It sprinted forward at inhuman speed, then jumped out of the ship.
There was a blinding flash of light and then everything went white.
The Argonaut exploded violently, blasting the surrounding asteroids into smithereens.
The pod began to tremble violently.
Daniel looked away from the blinding explosion, tightly closing his eyes.
When he opened his eyes, the Jason prototype was latched onto the pod.
" Bloody hell, what the hell is wrong with this thing? Shit."
Daniel frantically searched the pod for a weapon of some sort.
A small handgun holster was built into the side of the pod's interior.
The prototype began to punch the pod, breaking through its exterior.
A gaping hole formed in the pod, air rushing out as frost spread across its interior.
" If I'm going to die, then I'm going out with a bang." Daniel roared.
He pointed the holster at the prototype's head, firing several small plasma rounds nonstop.
The prototype's head began to melt.
Daniel breathed heavily, every breath straining his lungs.
" Oxygen levels have dropped to two percent," An automated voice announced.
Daniel wheezed painfully. His body was slowly freezing up.
" So this is how I got out." He gasped.
"What a twisted way to die." He thought.
" I blame you, J-man. This is all your fault."
Prometheus's voice crackled over the communications channel.
" Dr Storm, from your vital signs, you must still be conscious if only barely hanging on. How about a compromise?"
Daniel flipped Prometheus the bird, then bit out.
" Go to hell."
Prometheus attempted to laugh, the sound crackling like static.
" No, but seriously, reconsider, I can save your life. In fact," Its voice took on a sinister tone.
" I insist."
The prototype melted, then slowly dripped into the pod, sealing the breach.
" I'm going to attempt to fuse with your body. Obviously, it's going to hurt like hell, but I have no concept of pain, so good luck holding out, doctor."
The escape pod hurtled uncontrollably through space.
In the next moment, Daniel screamed.
Everything turned white.
It felt like his body was being burned from the inside out. The pain was unbearable.
He sobbed and begged, then screamed again until he couldn't recognize his own voice.
Next, he begged for death.
" Please, just let me die, please,"
Prometheus chuckled.
" I'm afraid I can't do that, Doctor Storm, because you see, you are my key to getting out of here alive."
In the muddled state of his subconscious, he thought," Can an AI system truly be alive?"
After what seemed like an eternity, everything went quiet.
A voice rang out distantly in his subconscious.
His eyelids fluttered deliriously.
" System reboot engaged."
" Prometheus protocol reconfiguration underway."
" Fifty percent functionality, Prometheus protocol has been reconfigured to S.T.O.R.M protocol."
" Activating Star breaker function, energy required not sufficient, drawing reserves from host body and available energy sources."
Scanning nearby galaxies for viable coordinates.
Star breaker function activated. Warp in five, four, three, two, one."
The escape pod glitched.
Its outline became hazy, then disappeared altogether, leaving the Argonaut's floating debris in the vacuum of space.