The Sacrifice

"Hold on honey."

Security Sergeant Gabe Weller pulled the cover of the circuit panel away from its housing in a spray of blue sparks and discarded it to the side, leaving it on the floor of the shuttle hangar. He stared at the network of wires and circuitry for a while before he reached inside, deciding the best way he was going to do this. He was a soldier, not an engineer after all, and one wrong move might result in his head getting blown off.

It was only meant to be a routine sweep, when his team had been deployed that morning, to investigate a disturbance in the mines. But after coming across the dismembered remains of several miners and maintenance staff, he knew that it wouldn't be that simple in the end. And after he had heard frantic screaming from the RIG audio links to his fellow squad mates and seen distended shadows erupting from the shadows, his optimism had been shattered entirely.

It was back. They were back. The nightmares that had haunted him for the last three years, since the Ishimura, since the colony of Aegis VII, had been bought vividly back to life. Human beings twisted and shaped into horrific new forms, charging at him, screaming in distorted human voices- the voices of their previous owners- looking to rend him limb from limb. It was a miracle that he had managed to survive for this long, when he thought back to his initial terror which froze him to the spot. Though the position on Titan Station had been a good, solid post to hold; the long periods of inactivity had dulled his military senses. But when he saw the familiar contorted shapes coming after him his experiences on the Ishimura came screaming to the forefront of his mind, and he managed to fight back.

He knew now why he had made it this far- he knew exactly what he was fighting against, knew exactly how to deal with it. And he had something very important to fight for, to reach. Two things, to be more precise.

Lexine...

If anyone had told him that they would get married in the future, he would have laughed it off. The first time he had met her- hiding underneath one of the work stations at the P-Sec HQ on Aegis VII- he feared her fragile and scared demeanour would prove to be a headache for himself and McNeil, but she had proved herself to be strong-willed, ensuring that the entire group kept together on their trek back towards one of the shuttles, and during their escape from the Ishimura too. And she had saved his life as far as he was concerned too, so he had grown somewhat fond of her by the end.

By the time they had arrived at Titan Station, they had all agreed to try and put the incident behind them and move on with their lives. For Weller this meant signing up for the Sprawl Security force, his previous military background making him an ideal candidate for their ranks. But for McNeil, it meant returning to Earth and retiring. Considering the fact that he was missing one of his arms, Weller didn't exactly blame him, and bid his old friend farewell. He still remembered Nate's final words just before he boarded that shuttle.

'Gabe, look after Lexine.'

It was the least he could do, all things considered. He knew that Nate was fond of Lexine too- perhaps more than Gabe was- and didn't exactly want to let his old friend down. Though he and Lexine lived in different areas of the Spawl, they saw each other at least every other day, where they always had plenty to talk about. After enough time, they had even discussed the situation on the Ishimura- their nightmares, their past fears; everything. Lexine was certainly surprised that bull-headed Sergeant Weller could be as emotional as he had been during those talks.

And as that old saying went; one thing lead to another. And before he knew it, they were husband and wife. He wondered what McNeil would have said if he had been there when it happened. And now they were expecting their first child- in fact she had been at the Titan Memorial Hospital for her one month check-up when he had called her, warning her to get out of there and head for a shuttle, though the blaring alarms of quarantine prevented that.

He remembered the look on her face when he mentioned they were back. She knew full well what he referred to, and was desperate to be proved wrong. But after running through the mines and gunning down what used to be the rest of his team, he knew that they wouldn't be getting off that lightly. Considering how fast the Ishimura had gone to hell, he didn't want to take any chances. After seeing new varieties of these things too, he was even more driven in getting to her in time and whisking her away to safety.

And there was the other reason too- the reason that only he knew about.

It began with the Unitoligists, and that arsehole Eckhardt on the Ishimura. Weller had seen that log the man had sent himself, detailing why they were so interested in Lexine to begin with. She was the only one that appeared to be immune to the effects of the Marker itself, which drove everyone else around them to insanity- the chaos on the colony had been proof enough of its devastating effects. It certainly explained why they didn't experience the freakish visions whenever she was with the rest of them. Whatever reason the Church needed her for, it was vital enough for the Chief Executive to shoot Weller in the side, just before he was subsequently killed by one of the legless creatures.

And it seemed Lex was still of interest to other groups on Titan Station. On his way back from the mines, Weller had received a general transmission from Director Tidemann, ordering for the facility to be scrubbed and for all 'key subjects' to be eliminated. Why the hell he would order someone to be killed in the middle of this whole mess was beyond him, but when he realised that Lex was one of these subjects, he had been spurred on even quicker than before. And Weller's CO, Vic Bartlett, had done a good job in informing him why exactly she was so important, after trying to ventilate him with a security gunship.

'They only left you alone so you could get her pregnant!'

Why the hell would they want their child? Could it be because of her past immunity to the Marker's effect? It seemed a likely conclusion to make, even as he followed Bartlett through the remains of the Hospital, always one step behind.

But what disturbed him more were those men in white who had spirited Lex away- the two men who seemed abnormally calm considering the chaos surrounding them, speaking in a well-bred, condescending manner. Their starch white uniforms also acted as a stark contrast to the blood-splattered rooms and hallways he had fought through, dotted with severed limbs and butchered bodies. And one of them had brought Bartlett to his knees with a simple wave of an arm- a fact that only added further to their mystery.

Though it hadn't helped them in the end- their remains littered the floor of the shuttle bay not too far away from where he currently stood, as they had been killed and transformed by the bat-like creatures, yards away from the shuttle they intended to spirit Lex away on. The same shuttle where she was currently hidden, waiting for him to hack into the circuits to manually open the shuttle bay doors. Since Gabe was currently wearing his standard-issue patrol RIG, the task had fallen to him. And since it was inevitable the creatures were close, time was of the essence.

He twisted his fingers inside a bundle of wires, watching the small screen to his right carefully to see how much time he had left before the automatic anti-hacking systems kicked in and jolted him with several thousand volts worth of electricity. He pulled a thick bundle of red and black wires out, creating a burst of blue sparks, but lighting up one of the circles on the display, showing he was part way through the hack.

But then his fingers brushed against a fuse casing and a burst of electricity jolted through his gloves and into his flesh, causing him to withdraw his arm suddenly in pain, the fingertips of his right hand burned black by the sudden shock.

"Son of a bitch!" he cursed.

"Gabe! Are you allright?" asked Lex's concerned voice suddenly, through his audio link.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he replied, after a few moments of shaking his hand frantically. "Just a little shock, that's all"-

And that's when he felt the hand clamp down on his shoulder, making him almost jump out of his skin, before he was wrenched around and away from the circuit panel.

He stared into the bloodied face of Victor Bartlett, the Colonel's blue eyes wide open and gleaming with a manic energy, mouth twisted up into an arrogant sneer. Gabe cursed the fact he had forgotten about his former commanding officer, left unconscious on the floor of a holding cell in the psyche ward- his spine unit lit with a single, blinking red square.

"Just following orders," he sneered, before raising his right hand and revealing the pulse grenade he held, thumb hovering over the activation plunger.

Fuck!

Gabe's hands immediately went up and grabbed onto Bartlett's wrists, trying to prise the madman's hands off of him, and more importantly, off of that grenade. If he set the damned thing off then and there, both of them would have been reduced to smoking body parts. And Gabe was not going to let one crazy bastard end it all here, after everything he had fought through to get this far.

His former comrades, reduced to twitching, spasmodic beasts that sprinted after him at impossible speeds.

The toddlers reduced to wailing, crawling, bloated sacs filled with explosive ooze.

The animal-like creatures that stalked him from afar, before charging out of nowhere, screaming like demonic sirens from the pits of hell.

He had killed countless of these creatures, feeling indestructible, him and McNeil both as they strived to get off the Ishimura in one piece. And now the leering, sweaty face of Victor Bartlett looked set to wipe the slate clean in a hideously destructive last act. In his insane throes Vic kept a tight hold on both Gabe's collar and the grenade, fully committed towards vaporising his one time comrade in arms, after being denied his original objective at the very end by the men in white.

Feeling rage boil up in his body, Gabe pulled his right arm free and smashed into Vic's face, breaking the Colonel's nose and making him stumble back, releasing his hold on Gabe's suit, before a second punch forced him to his knees, his spine bar dropping further down into the yellow zone. At that moment, Gabe Weller wanted nothing more than to make Victor Bartlett suffer; suffer for trying to gun him down in a security gunship, make him suffer for going after the one person who meant the most to him in the universe.

Vic tried to glance up, but Gabe's fist smashed into his cheek, breaking the bone and forcing him down once again, his spine bar dropping into the blinking red zone. Weller grabbed onto the back of Vic's collar and pulled him up, ready for one final strike, but just before he could complete this act the red mist cleared enough for him to detect the faint beeping sound of a pulse grenade that had just been armed, the intervals between the beeps becoming shorter and shorter. He froze in mid air, the realisation hitting him like a ton of bricks.

Holy shit-!

The grenade went off a second later with an ear-splitting eruption, intense white light filling the inside of his helmet, incredible heat searing his skin, even through his protective RIG suit.

It seemed like an eternity, but in reality was more like a few seconds, before he came round and found himself staring at the floor of the shuttle bay. He could detect the buzzing of electrical circuits somewhere close by, and the distinct aroma of burnt flesh.

"...Gabe? Gabe!"

He ignored the far away voice for a few moments, seeing several warning sigils flashing inside his RIG's helmet, the top one indicating that his helmet integrity had been compromised. He could detect the faint chill of air on his right ear, and brushed that side of his helmet with his hand, detecting a jagged hole. The grenade blast must have sheared it clean away. A few feet in front of him lay the smoking remains of Bartlett's torso and the control panel he had been trying to hack into moments beforehand.

"Gabe! Gabe! Are you allright?" cried Lexine's desperate voice through the audio link.

"I'm here, I'm here," he grunted, pushing down on his hands and rolling onto his back, wincing with pain in over a dozen areas as he moved. "It was Bartlett. He set off a grenade...tried to kill us both, the crazy bastard!"

"Oh my God! Are you allright?"

Even as she asked the question, he noticed the other warning sigil showing that he had suffered major trauma and bleeding to one of more major parts of his body, and was auto-administering pain killers and anti-coagulants as a result. He glanced down, and saw that his right leg had been ripped off from below the knee, blood jetting out onto the deck. He was already lying in a pool of blood two feet wide and constantly growing.

That's not good, he thought sardonically.

"Gabe!"

"No- I'm not allright," he replied to her finally, gritting his teeth and biting back a particularly aggressive remark, the type that he would normally have used three years ago- but he wasn't that person anymore. "The blast took my right leg off. I reckon I've only got a few more minutes before I'm done for."

"Oh my God," whispered Lexine's voice, close to breaking. "Hold on Gabe, I'll"-

"Lex! Don't!" he yelled immediately, the suddenness of his outburst causing another jolt of pain to course through his body. He then began to reach around with his right arm, grabbing for his pulse rifle. "You know fine well if you're caught out in the vacuum, you're as good as dead!"

"But Gabe-!"

"Don't argue!" he seethed, finally taking hold of the pulse rifle and pulling it closer into his body. "Look, I can see the fuse covers for the bay doors from here, if I shoot them out then the bay doors'll open and you can pilot the shuttle out of here." He was surprised by how calm he was staying despite the fact he only had one leg now, the blood flow now reduced to a stream, though he felt very light headed now, as his RIG continued to administer painkillers and other drugs intended to maintain his condition. But they weren't designed to deal with a severed limb, and without medical treatment, he would be dead very shortly.

In other words, he was screwed.

"No Gabe, I am not just leaving you out there-!"

"Damn it Lex, just listen!" he yelled this time, the pain threatening to overwhelm his senses now as the morphine shots wore off. He leaned back, desperately trying to ignore the angry warning sigils that flashed constantly in his upper left HUD. He swallowed slightly before speaking again. "Look, it's too late for me, but it isn't for you. For both of you...you and the baby can still get out of here."

"Gabe..."

"Listen, before McNeil went back to Earth...I promised I'd take care of you," he admitted, being the first time he had told her about the last words the two old friends had shared before going their own separate ways. "And God knows he'll never let me hear the end of it if anything happened to you." He winced and pulled himself back a little, so he was supported on his elbows and rear somewhat, giving him a wider view of the hangar bay, and more importantly, of the four yellow fuse covers set into the main doors. With the circuit panel down, the fuses would be exposed one by one, and once they were all down the main doors would open.

"...okay," came Lexine's voice after a long pause, "I'll prep the shuttle for launch...I love you Gabe."

Gabe was silent for a while, his vision becoming cloudy, before he replied. "I love you too."

Then the familiar sound came, snapping him out of his foggy haze. It was the sound of a human voice, distorted into a monstrous mockery of its former self. Gabe shook his head and propped himself further up on his elbows, aiming his pulse rifle forwards.

A couple of seconds later, what used to be a maintenance worker ambled around the corner of a stacking crate in the bay's far left corner, his human arms hanging uselessly at his side, replaced by the talons erupting from his shoulders. The lower jaws had been torn away by jutting fangs, blood and other vital fluids dripping down the front of its work jacket. Its dead eyes fixed on Gabe, closing in for the kill. He didn't give it the chance.

His first salvo tore its legs from underneath it, and it hit the ground with a wet smack, and then he fired again, chewing off its head and one of its arms and killing it. He didn't have much time to celebrate though when he saw two more appear from the opposite corner, one of them wearing the soiled remains of white medical scrubs. He opened fire, cutting off one of its arms and forcing it backwards. Before its talon could hit the ground he snatched it out of the air with his kinesis and launched it at the second monster, spearing it through the middle of its torso and pinning it to the bay doors, leaving it hanging like an ugly butterfly. He then turned back towards the first monster and fired again; tearing its other arm off and felling it like a rotten tree.

He always found it funny how creatures that could take such punishment to the torso could fall so easily when both of their arms were severed, but it was a fact that had saved him a lot of ammo and trouble in the past. And right now, he only had about a clip and a half of ammo for his pulse rifle, as well as the plasma cutter he had found while escaping the mines.

Out the corner of his eye he saw one of the fuse covers retract suddenly, exposing the glowing tubes, flowing with energy. Quickly as he could manage, he turned the aim towards the fuse and fired, blowing it apart in an instant, causing a few of the lights in the bay to short out.

Three to go...

He heard a strangled shriek, and looked in time to see a painfully thin creature come limping towards him, one of its arms reduced to a swollen, glowing sac filled with explosive potential (or as Gabe came to call them, 'the-most-obvious-weakspot-in-history'). He couldn't help but chuckle to himself as he lowered his rifle and fired a single shot.

The creature erupted into a cloud of blood and mangled limbs, taking two more clawed creatures with it and spraying everything in site with deep crimson and other foul-smelling fluids. A few seconds later, the second fuse cover retracted into the wall, and he sighted his aiming lasers towards the glowing circuitry. But when he tried to pull the trigger, his vision faded and his aim slipped, a few shots stitching an angry line across the surface of the bay door instead.

Damn it! Focus Gabe!

He shook his head, ignoring the glaring warning sigils that threatened to swamp his vision. "I know I've suffered severe trauma!" he yelled angrily in response.

He aimed again, and this time his shots shattered the fuse tubes, sprinkling glass onto the floor of the hangar bay. That left just two more to go, but the small holo screen above his rifle shoved he only had 20 rounds left in this clip. And sure he may have had one more clip left for the rifle, but reaching around for it would have only made his injuries worse. It would have been easier to grab the plasma cutter from his belt instead, though he only had a few shots left for it-

He didn't really have the time to deliberate though, as he could hear the screams and shrieks closing in all around him, the bangs and thuds coming in from the vents all around him. A pair of the child-monsters charged from straight ahead, and he fired his rifle almost on impulse, easily slicing through their weak bodies and dropping them to the cold steel floor. Behind them came two more clawed creatures, one of them wearing shredded maintenance clothing and the second one clad in the remnants of security armour, its movements spasmodic as it advanced, its arms and legs bent backwards unnaturally, spikes erupting from the palms of its hands.

Left with no choice, Gabe pulled the underside trigger on his rifle, and a grenade erupted from the barrel, spinning end over end before exploding in front of both monsters, reducing them to shredded flesh and bloody mush in an instant within a burst of bright light. His holo-screen's counter blazed red, and he dropped the rifle to his side, grabbing for the plasma cutter instead.

"Come on you bastards, I can do this all day," he seethed through gritted teeth, despite the fact half his body felt as though it were on fire.

As if accepting that statement as a challenge, yet another monster dropped into view from above, out of the ceiling vent. He promptly raised the cutter and fired two shots, ripping off its arms and letting it fall to the floor like a sack of rotten meat.

"The shuttle's prepped for launch," came Lex's voice in his ear suddenly. "Gabe..."

"Don't worry about me!" he shouted suddenly, firing upon another, ripping off its legs and an arm to make sure it wouldn't get up again.

A third fuse emerged from behind the groaning steel of its cover sliding back into the bulkhead, and Gabe's head turned towards it, his movements feeling light and floaty as he turned, another side effect of his severe blood loss. He dragged himself back a little more on his elbows, before lifting the plasma cutter and firing off a shot that only scoured the steel to the side of the glowing fuse tubes.

"Damn it," he grunted, knowing he couldn't afford too many misses like that. Firing again, this time he was on the mark, destroying the fuse in a spray of electricity and shrapnel. He dropped the plasma cutter hard onto the steel flooring, reaching around for his pulse rifle and pulling it close to him. He then fumbled around his person to find his last ever pulse clip, snapping the weapon's barrel open and inserting the clip inside, snapping it closed again: his ammo counter blinked blue on 50 once more even as his body screamed again in protest.

He glanced to the side quickly, towards the shuttle, most of its exterior lights now glowing and its engine turbines firing up. It was almost ready for take off, and he just needed to hit one more fuse when it appeared. She would be safe soon...they would be safe.

More angry roars coursed through his ears, as did the sound of once-humans barging through the vents, looking to rend him apart. A few moments later, more vent covers exploded, raining metallic shrapnel across the hangar bay, and dropping out of the shadows. These things had been human once, with their own lives, jobs, friends; and families: and now they were just rotten shells of their former selves, driven to tear apart anyone else they could get their hands on. It wasn't a fate he would wish upon anyone else, and yet they were all forced to deal with it: both on the Ishimura and now.

And now he had something to fight for to the bitter end. He propped himself up on his elbows once more, ready to tear into the rotting bastards once again. He'd kill every single one of them with his bare hands if it meant his loved ones getting away from the chaos.

He turned and fired at one, tearing one of its brittle-looking talons off, before snatching it out of mid-air with his kinesis module and firing it into the sternum of a second creature wearing the shredded remnants of a doctor's uniform. It flew backwards and was left pinned to the wall, besides the earlier victim of similar treatment. More continued to swarm all around him, forcing him to quickly switch between targets as he fired in three-shot bursts, desperate to conserve his ammunition for that last, elusive fuse.

His vision was darkening once more, going out of focus. The dead faces pressing in seemed to call to him, urging him to give up and just accept death, rather than prolonging the inevitable. It almost reminded him of the Ishimura, tip-toeing through those abandoned passages, hearing whispers on the edge of his hearing, alternating between taunts and pleas for help that was never coming. Except now those voices wanted him to join them, to leave the land of the living.

"No!" he yelled to himself, his vision returning in time for him to shoot the head off yet another monstrosity. The inside of his helmet burned a constant red now, both from blood splatter and various warning sigils. He had become almost accustomed to the tinted vision now, as though viewing the world through a veil of blood.

He shot another one down, taking its knees out, just as he saw the glowing fuse out of the corner of his eye.

That's it!

Everything else around him became secondary as he edged his targeting beam towards the fuse, seeing that he had 12 shots left. He'd have to make them count, even as his aim wavered and fell about 10 feet to the side. The baying roars smothered his senses, threatened to block everything else out.

Damn it, focus!

He shook his head slightly and fired, the first few shots scorching the area around the fuse casing, and forcing him to realign his aim again before he could squeeze that trigger. He guided the bucking pulse rifle up towards the blinking fuse, a cry rising in the back of his throat as he did so.

The final couple of rounds were true, and the fuse exploded into a shower of bright yellow flaring sparks. Most of what remained of the lighting in the hangar bay flickered out, and then a couple of seconds later the bay doors opened.

There was a catastrophic decompression as the hangar was exposed to the ravages of space, and then the monsters still remaining in the hangar and were pulled out, their screams of rage drowned out by the noise of the vacuum effect taking place, quickly followed by anything else not nailed down. A second later Gabe's rifle was ripped clean from his hands and he felt himself pulled along the metal decking several feet, before his hand curled around an impression in the floor and he stopped dead, his shoulder nearly being dislocated as he dangled precariously.

He turned his head in time to see Lex's shuttle launching from its holdings, vanishing out the bay doors and into the void of space. As it went, he opened his audio log one more time to send a message- the last time he ever would.

"Goodbye Lex...I love you."

And with that, the bay doors closed, and he felt his body fall onto the cold, unforgiving floor plating, leaving him alone. Now that they were safe, all of his fight had left him, and he let his arms fall at his sides, the life leaving him. The darkness began to encroach upon his senses, even a she heard the muted sounds of his wife screaming his name frantically through the video log.

Somewhere far away, he heard the all-too familiar voice of Nathan McNeil joking with him, like they used to so many years ago. He would miss that one-armed bandit.

Sorry Nate...looks like we'll have to catch up for that drink some other time...

Darkness descended, but he didn't mind.

They were safe.

A/N: *shuffles nervously into the room* Hello again.

Yes, another one-shot. You'll be sick of these sooner or later. But anyway, I don't normally download DLC for most of my games, but I got the Severed DLC for DS2 after hearing that it focused on Gabe and Lexine, and I rather enjoyed Extraction to begin with (I played it through the Collector's Edition of DS2 that I got). And even though it was only a couple hours long, I still quite enjoyed it, even if the ending surprised me a lot (even if that final last stand sequence was pretty epic to say the least). And Gabe was my fav character from Extraction as well, so I just naturally had to write something about it and publish it on - only to be beaten to the punch by at least two other people. Oh well.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this, and R & R as always please. All feedback is appreciated. *shuffles back out of the room and quietly shuts door*