Dead Space: The Catachrista
Chapter One: Welcome to the USG Catachrista
AN: So, I kinda put my Assassin's Creed story on hold for this. I've finally gotten the chance to the first Dead Space and I'm loving it. Unfortunately, I'm playing it on my beta's PS3 and I'm not in the least little bit a Sony fan. I love X-Box, but that's not the point. Around Chapter 9 (I think) I got this sudden urge to write a non-canon fic. So, I'm using all OCs for this story. Please keep in mind that science fiction is not my strong point, not at all. I'm using the game and Dead Space wiki to write this. If I get something wrong, let me know, don't flame me. Every writer needs help in order to improve their work.
'Welcome CEC employee, to the USG Catachrista. We hope you enjoy your stay...
The Greeting was the same for every ship, only the name and order of the words were changed. Every Planet Cracker Class, or PCC, was pretty much the same. Some were older, some newer. Like the Cata. This was the second PCC I'd worked on and it was one of the newest. That didn't make it any less of a pain in the ass for Engineer to work on. Oh no, the new ones were the worst.
My name is Halo Torrentz. When I transferred to the Cata two years ago, I was just another Class 1 Engineer trying to be heard. Hell, I'm still just a Class 4, but it's better then being someone's piss ant. I transferred to the Cata at the request of two of my cousins. They wanted me closer so they could keep an eye on me. At the grand old age of 25 you'd think they'd leave me to my trouble. Nope. They get me into more.
I honestly was getting sick of PCC's. Yeah, sure, I always had work to do and the pay is great, but I was getting damn bored. What, with me being stuck to one side of the ship at all times and all. It had to be the deserted side, too. The only people I ever saw were other Engineers and my cousins. What fun is there in that?
Did I mention that my RIG suit was pieced together? Damn dangerous shit if you ask me. They keep putting me on hold for a new one. I'm too damn short for the RIG suit they put me in. I stand at a whopping five two and my RIG suit is a whole 4 inches longer than is safe. Fucking peachy, right?
Enough of all that. About two weeks ago we picked up on a distress beacon heading straight for us. Soon after that we picked up an escape pod. When the techs opened it up there was no one inside, just some gross looking shit. It was almost like whoever was inside exploded. How do I know? They had me and three other Engineers on standby- just in case the tech crew couldn't crack it.
My mom's step-brother used to say 'Shit rolls down hill.' He couldn't have been more right in that moment. We all watched as the stuff inside the pod 'popped'. Almost like it was the swamp sludge from back home. Only, it seemed alive- moving around like it was looking for a place to go. Then, like out of some b movie, it shot something out and pulled Tommy -one of the tech guys- into the swamp sludge looking stuff.
I felt like someone had forgotten to clue me in. Was this some really bad joke? Was I supposed to laugh? Cry? Shoot? I backed up instead. Just in case this was a joke. Sounds bad of me right? What would you have done in my shoes? Shoot? But what if it really was just a bad joke? How bad would you feel for killing someone? I thought all this over pretty damn fast and I decided to do nothing.
Well, that was until what-used-to-be-Tommy came at me. Or should I say, came out swinging really long blade looking arms at anything that was in its way. Something told me that the joke was over and something really bad was going on. I wanted to stand and fight it, but the LE had other plans.
Jacobs- the Lead Engineer- grabbed my arm and pulled me out of there. Anyone that was on the flight deck that didn't follow was left with what the fuck ever that thing was. I slid down the wall next to me and twitched. Yep, I twitched. This whole situation seemed like something those bastard Unitologists would do.
"Would you look at that shit. Those bastards really are crazy." I lifted my head and looked up at Jacobs, waiting for him to continue. "Those damn idiots are running at it. Almost looks like the damn rock worshipers are trying to hug it."
My right eye twitched and I stood up to look out the window. There they were, letting the thing kill them. I'd say there were around 8 of them. I sighed. Poor dumb bastards.
When the infection started two weeks ago, no one really knew what they were in for. At first we thought that just shutting the door would be fine, then they started coming through the vents. We shut down the vent system leading in and out of the flight deck and little over half of the mining deck. Some parts of the ship were left without air and had to be evacuated before everything was shut down.
Fifty odd crew members were unaccounted for and little over 100 were confirmed dead and reanimated. Whatever this shit was, it didn't know how to leave well enough alone. Things got worst a week after the outbreak. The stuff from the pod had somehow started spreading to the 'safe' parts of the ship.
My good friend Anthony was feeling the stress and got the bright idea to take a flamethrower to what the crew had started call 'The Corruption'. An hour and a whole canister of fuel later, he had cleared away a five foot space. Granted, he had a good idea, but that shit reeked.
They set us -us being the Engineers- to work with flamethrowers. We were outfitted with standard Engineer gear; plasma cutter, force gun, line gun, stasis packs, and the like. Every now and then some smart ass- me included- would manage to salvage a power node out of the crumbling remains of the corruption.
On one occasion something rose out of the sludge on Jacobs. He found that the Plasma Cutter work well... once you figured out how to kill them. Jacobs ordered us to cut off the limbs. We also noticed that another Unitologist was missing after each incident. No one was all that bothered by it. The missing idiots that is.
After a while the bastards... I mean the higher ups got brave and decided to open short corridors for burning. I was one of the first to be thrown into one of these hell holes. What was I saying about no longer being a piss ant?
From time to time something came out at us, then we started naming them. We realized that the things were, uh, evolving? Well, it was more like the corruption was getting creative and spitting out even weirder shit. In two short weeks we wished the whole fucking ship would explode.
It was one of those nice off days I got sometimes to hang with my cousins when word came in that I was needed in the restricted section of the crew deck. They figured that so long as I was already there I wouldn't mind being called in. Fucking bastards.
"Halo! Over here." Anthony had been called in a bit earlier to work on a section of wall that the corruption had managed to claim.
"What in the fucking hell could be so important that I have do work on my off day?" Ok, I'll admit I was being pissy, but what would you do if you only got one off day every two weeks?
"Well aren't we just sweet today?" Anthony eyed me like I was about to murder him. "Jacobs wanted you to fry the corruption on the other side of that door. We can't open it up for Thomas to start working until you do."
I glared harder at him. "Why me? Why is it always fucking me?"
"Because you're the smallest person on the team and I've already tried to get through." He scratched the back of his head and smiled. "It doesn't look like anythings in there. Nothing tried to take my arm off, so it looks like a go."
I grumbled and started for the door. "Miss! Miss, please wait." I cocked my head to the side and turned around. Medical personnel. Figures. "I'm so sorry to interrupt your work, but I need you to do a favor for me." Oh hell.
"Listen lady, I really need to go through that door before the corruption get any ideas. I have some hacking and burning to do you know." I put my hands on my hips and glared at her. Sometimes I forget that people can't see my face through the class 4 RIG suit.
"I know and I'm so sorry for interrupting you, but I need data from this stuff and I'm not allowed in there. I need a sample of the corruption and video documentation for research. I was wondering if you could get it for me?" The woman offered up a cam and a glass vile.
"No. I'm not risking my ass for your research..." I peered at her name tag, "Dr. Vanzle." I turned to go, but she grabbed my arm.
"I tried to do it the nice way. Halo Torrentz, get my sample and get my footage. That's an order." I ground my teeth together. So she was that Vanzle. Just. Fucking. Peachy. But I wasn't budging
"Get me a new RIG suit and then I'll get your fucking research shit. My job is bad enough without some back room bitch trying to get me killed." Can you really blame me for that one? I hate taking orders as it is, but I really hate it when someone wants me to put my head on a chopping block for them.
"You will do-"
"Fuck you, bitch. I'm not putting my ass on the line for your fucking science project. I'm not your fucking piss ant. Go get some no life tech crew member to do it." I was bristling at this point. Anthony grabbed my arm and pulled me off to the side.
"Halo, I think you should do it. Scrape her sample of the side of the door, take the cam, and send her on her way. You don't want to fuck with her. You could lose your job over what you've already said." He was right of course. I walked over to her grabbed the vile and safety canister, walked to the door and scooped up- more like scraped- some of the corruption. I then put it into the canister and gave it back to her. Vanzle smirked and attached the cam to my helmet.
"You'll be hearing from someone about your suit within the week. Just bring the cam by the medical deck when you're done." With that she walked away. I blinked a few times and looked at Anthony.
"What the fuck just happened?"
"She's my cousin, Halo." He grinned when my eyes went wide.
"Anthony Sikes, I should throw your ass in the flight deck!"
I really didn't like having my back to the open hall, but I had to get the door open. I kept hearing the corruption pop behind me and I didn't like it one bit. An orange glow started covering the walls around me. I turned quickly only to find a new creature behind me. It was sickly pale and only had one leg. It limped along using a glowing orange pod at the end of one arm to walk. I shot the pod with my cutter- since when was that a good idea?- and hit the wall behind me. Just as I stood up from the explosion to see if I had killed it another was coming out of the vent at the end of the hall. I shot the pod off it's arm as it neared me then went for the leg and other arm. It was dead.
Nothing else came out of the vent and the pod didn't explode. I had a new toy for Dr. Vanzle to play with. I pulled out my ripper to deal with rest of the corruption around the door. When enough of it was gone the doors slid open. The smoke was clearing as I walked out with my trophy and I found myself in front of what looked like a firing squad. It was almost like they'd pulled together the whole security personnel to deal with me.
"Just fucking peachy." I muttered.
"Halo!" Anthony and Thomas ran to me. "What the fuck happened in there?"
"Exploder." I held up my prize and grinned. "I finally got to name one. It was an ugly fucker."
Anthony started laughing and Thomas shook his head. "Well," Thomas groused, "You could have given it a better name." I smacked him and walked past. "So Anthony, care to escort me to your cousin?"
With my explosive trophy in hand, we managed to make it to the medical deck in record time. Of course, I had to lower the pod into Dr. Vanzle's line of vision just to get her attention. After that she forgot us again as she gushed over the pod. Then she realized she needed to ask me questions about it.
"So I understand that it's the Engineering crew that gets to name them. What do you call this one?" Vanzle was only half paying attention to me.
"Exploder." I muttered, then yawned. I had been here an hour. Now i was bored out of my fucking mind. Vanzle murmured something, then her brows crossed.
"Wait, why exploder?"
I almost laughed at her. "That thing," I nodded at the pod, "Packs a nasty punch. I was 10 feet from the doors when I shot the pod on the first exploder. It exploded and slammed me into the doors. It hurt like a bitch. It seemed to fit."
Vanzle nodded. "If I showed you pictures taken from the security cams still working in the quarantined decks, could you tell me what they are? Or help me name them if you've never seen them?"
I thought about it for a moment. "Will it get me my RIG suit faster?"
"Yes."
"Let's do it then."
"What's this one?" Vanzle asked, pointing to the first creature we'd seen on the flight deck.
"Well, we'd considered calling it Tommy, after the tech guy and first victim on the flight deck, but then we decided to call them slashers. That's all they really do. Slash and bite." Not a laughing matter, but for some reason it seemed funny to me.
"Stop that Halo. What about this one?" She pointed to a creature on the wall with no obvious purpose.
"We call those 'Poor dumb bastards'. Harmless. Now this one on the other hand," I pointed to a much creepier thing on the wall, "We call guardians. They spit out these things," I pointed to small things on the ground in front of it, "Which we call pods. Their only purpose it to protect the guardians. Why? I have no idea."
She started to point to another one. "Leaper. Jacobs named that one. It leaps at you or tries to impale you with it's tail. This one is a divider and these little things on the ground here are swarmers. Dividers sound a bit like whales. If you hit them enough their head and some other body parts come off and attack. The main body is dead at that point. The swarmers try to overwhelm thir victim and rip them to shreds." I yawned again.
Vanzle smiled and closed out the files. "We'll pick this up some other time. I know you have to be tired. Yawning and all."
I laughed and made my way down to the crew deck. Damn was I tired. And I still didn't like that woman.
As I said, please have patience with me. I'm having fun with this and I don't want some asshole to ruin it. Review damnit!