Chapter Ten
Medical Log
Dr. Domus, G. (Medical Examiner)
Report of death on ship
Subject: Captain Mathius, B. It is my sad duty to officially pronounce Captain Benjamin Mathius dead. Reports of the exact circumstances surrounding his death are conflicted, and beyond the scope of my role. I can only report on the body.
The subject was in generally good health for his age, though a cursory blood test indicates his leukocyte count was very low, with eosinophils in particular almost non-existent. His pre-flight physical exam showed no such problems, indicating rapid onset; however, it is unlikely this had any effect on his death.
Multiple contusions on the arms and hands, indicating a brief struggle pre-mortem. Slight contusions around the ribcage, suggesting his chest was restrained in some way. Cause of death was a single prolonged trauma to the ocular body which continued on through the cavity wall, and finally into the frontal lobe, causing rapid neurotrama, seizure, and death.
The force required to puncture the ocular cavity in this manner is great, and the possibility of self infliction correspondingly low.
I therefore have no alternative but to record a preliminary finding of UNLAWFUL DEATH. Whether deliberate or accidental is beyond my jurisdiction.
Isaac almost threw up the second he stepped into the morgue. If the science labs had been a mess before, it was nothing compared to the state the morgue was in.
Gurneys had been tossed around carelessly. Some were lucky to still be upright. There were three corpses on the floor in varying rates of decay or mutilation. Nearly a dozen morgue locker doors were wide open, slabs extended and empty. Blood covered nearly every surface; smatterings of gore in places. There were scratches on the walls, the lockers.
The autopsy bay on the far side of the room was sealed. Glass walls allowed Isaac to see into the bay, but the door was locked, barring him entry. There was a body on the slab in the bay. The man was elderly with grey, almost white hair and beard. Age lines decorated his face, and he was dressed in the standard officer uniform of the CEC; Captain's rank insignia wrapped around the cuffs of the uniform. Something, a syringe Isaac noted when he was less than a meter from the glass, had been thrust through his left eye. Only half of the syringe was visible. Isaac shuddered.
He switched his comm. on and tied in with Hammond. "I've found Mathius." He examined the edge of the glass, looking for weakness.
"What state is the body in?" Hammond asked. "How did he die?"
"Needle to the eye, it would appear," Isaac said. He punched the glass as hard as he could; attempting to shatter it. It didn't budge. "Looks like the needle punched right through to his brain."
"Instant death," Hammond muttered. "Can you reach the body?"
"The door to the autopsy bay is locked, and the glass looks unbreakable. I could try shooting it?"
"Give it a go."
Isaac took a couple of steps away from the glass. Then he turned, raised the plasma cutter, and then squeezed the trigger. The blast slammed into the window and dissipated, seeming to dissolve into the glass itself. Isaac frowned and fired three more times. By the third shot, however, all he'd managed to do was cause a small crack to appear.
"At this rate, it'll take two full charge packs to blast that thing open," he grumbled. "I've got that, but—"
Suddenly, he was cut off. There was a scrabbling sound above, moving toward the autopsy bay. He looked up, but saw nothing clinging to the ceiling. Whatever it was must have been travelling through the vents. It was probably another one of those aliens, he figured. Instantly, his defences went up, and he looked around to make sure that none had snuck into the morgue behind him.
Something dropped down behind him, and he spun again toward the autopsy bay. Something large and fleshy was in the bay with Mathius's body. Isaac rushed over to the glass to get a better look at it—it was behind the slab.
It reared up; unfurling from the ball of flesh it appeared to be. It was long. Its insides appeared to be little more than bone and some muscle. Large flaps of flesh extended from either side, looking from his view like bloody wings with something akin to hands at the ends. There were no arms or legs, and where the head and neck would have been was just an extension of the body, encasing small feelers and sacks.
The thing spun around in the air slowly, its wings beating to keep it afloat. A strange crooning issued from somewhere in the creature's midsection. It set Isaac's nerves on edge, his teeth clamped together to force down the scream that bubbled its way up his throat. Then it was facing Mathius's body, and it stopped. The crooning grew louder, and its wings beat stronger, propelling it toward the corpse.
"Get away from him!" Isaac shouted, angry.
"Isaac? What's happening down there?"
"One of those things is going after the Captain's body. I can't stop it!" Isaac pounded on the glass again. It turned and "looked" at him. "Get away! Shit!"
The thing turned back to Mathius. It was within reach now, and its wings enveloped the body, the hand-like appendages gripping the shoulders tight. Isaac watched as a long, sharp-tipped appendage extended from somewhere around its "head". When fully extended, it reached at least a meter, and it was crooked slightly. The proboscis jerked once, fast. The tip disappeared into the Captain's skull, buried, and still the proboscis pushed deeper.
A small section of the appendage was a little less fleshy, a little thinner it appeared, than the rest. Isaac could almost see through it. Something appeared to be pumping through the appendage and into the Captain's skull.
"Oh, fuck!"
"Isaac?" Hammond sounded on the verge of panic.
"Hammond, I think I just worked out what the fuck these things are!" he shouted, taking first one step, and then another away from the autopsy bay.
"They're alien, aren't they?"
"Uh, not quite. They're us. Or, well, the crew. The Ishimura's crew."
"What?" Incredulity. "Are you sure?"
"Positive. That thing just pumped something into Mathius's head," Isaac replied. He bumped into something, and turned to see it was an overturned gurney.
When he looked back up at the autopsy bay, he saw that the winged creature had moved away from the body now, its stabbing appendage disappearing back into its body. Now that he'd considered it, his examination of the creatures he'd found thus far seemed a little more forthcoming. They did appear humanoid. Most ran on two legs, and the long, bladed arms could very well have ended in five-fingered hands instead. The ones with the tails had human-like arms.
And the smaller creature he'd seen in the growth labs … no, he couldn't bring himself to think it. It couldn't have been.
Mathius's body jerked once on the slab, drawing Isaac's attention. He watched as the back arched and there was a loud crack of snapping bones. Another crack, and then another soon followed.
"KYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYNE!" The voice was guttural, barely human. But it was coming from Mathius. It was the only thing he said before he went slack again.
"What the fuck was that?"
"That … was Captain Mathius."
"What?" Hammond demanded. "Are you saying that he's coming back to life?"
"Think about it, sir …" Isaac could barely keep the panic out of his voice. He watched as Mathius's skin darkened, cracked, sloughed away to reveal muscle and tendon and raw flesh beneath. "If this was an alien occupation of the ship, we'd have seen a lot more bodies as the crew was slaughtered. Where are those bodies? If the crew was still alive somewhere on board, don't you think they'd have contacted us by now?"
It hurt him to say that. He didn't want Nicole to be dead. There was still a good chance she was holed up somewhere, as much alive as the scientist in the growth labs had been before that mutated thing had killed him. Perhaps she cowered somewhere the creatures weren't likely to look for her. Or perhaps she was somewhere with other survivors, armed and waiting for rescue.
"Fuck!" Hammond swore. "Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck!"
A guttural groan came from the open-locked jaw of Mathius's corpse. A loud ripping followed—material, Isaac realised. The Captain's RIG was ripping down the sides. The flesh of his arms was stretching and melding into his sides. The arms themselves seemed to drain, to flush away, as they joined into the torso. A couple of small cracks, and the forearms were suddenly sticking out through the captain's stomach, withered and vein-y. The groan had morphed into something of a bubbling hiss now, as bony scythes punched through the flesh of the shoulders and extended up and out. A final two cracks sounded, and Isaac watched as those straight scythes bent forward at what would have been elbows on normal arms. The chest and abdomen caved inward slowly, as if the insides were being sucked away, leaving only the flesh and bones. All the white hair on the captain's head and face fell away from the skin, truly dead.
By now, there was nothing left of Mathius that was recognisable. The transformation ripped through the RIG as though it were nothing. It rolled sideways, falling off the bed and bracing itself against the floor with its bony scythes and its feet. Its neck, longer than Mathius's had been, craned until black orb eyes stared straight at Isaac, measuring, hungry.
It howled at him; an angry sound, it drilled straight through the suit and froze Isaac in place.
With its blades, it shoved against the bloodstained tiles and righted itself. It howled again, and then lunged forward.
"No way!" Isaac breathed in disbelief. The creature's blades drilled straight through the glass. Its body followed through with a powerful shove, and the glass gave, shattering outwards. Shards bounced against the tiles, and off Isaac's RIG.
He swung his arm up, bringing the plasma cutter to bear on the mutant's head. But he wasn't fast enough to pull back on the trigger before one of those powerful scythes slammed flat-sided against his wrist, knocking the cutter away from the firing zone. It jumped on him, pinning him painfully beneath its weight and an overturned gurney. His RIG absorbed most of the impact, but not all of it, and he hissed in pain.
Hammond was screaming in his ear over the comm. now, but Isaac ignored it. He couldn't waste time to switch off the audio, but neither could he afford to be distracted. This thing was faster than others he'd come across so far. And stronger.
The mutant-Mathius was snapping at him now, jaws coming together repeatedly only centimetres from the faceplate of Isaac's RIG. When Isaac couldn't bring the cutter back around to get off a shot, he worked with his legs instead. He wedged them up, planting his feet against whatever he could, and then pumped his legs with as much strength as he could.
It howled as it sailed through the air and slammed, full-bodied, into one of the support braces for the glass wall. But Isaac was marginally quicker. He swung his arm back around, plasma cutter in hand, and aimed a full blast at the thing's chest. It recoiled, howled, and came at him again. He blasted again and again, to no effect. It just kept coming at him.
When it reached him, Isaac planted his feet against it again, grabbed one of its scythes with his free hand. He pushed off with his feet while pulling with his arm, and used the mutant's weight and momentum against it. It sailed over his head and landed somewhere behind him with a deafening crash and a wail of pain.
Quickly, Isaac pushed up to his feet and dashed over to where the glass had shattered. He spun around to see that the mutant-Mathius's limbs were tangled up among the frames of two toppled gurneys. It screeched and wailed, flailing as it tried to pull itself free. Something shifted to Isaac's left and he swung around and blasted the limbs off another of the things. It wasn't as fast as the mutant-Mathius, and its limbs came away easily. It fell to the deck and didn't move again.
Then he remembered the flying creature.
It was there—across the morgue, across even from the mutant-Mathius. Its wings were wrapped around another exposed corpse on the floor, its hook-hands grasping at shoulders. The proboscis extended from within its body.
Determined, Isaac took aim with the cutter and blasted once. The plasma sizzled through the vulnerable appendage and it came free. The winged thing fell to the ground, thrashing and screaming in pain.
Isaac turned back to where the mutant-Mathius was and barely acknowledged the dark, looming figure in front of him before a blow to the chest sent him flying across the autopsy bay and crashing into the wall. Again, his RIG absorbed most of the impact but not all. His teeth came together to stymie a pained hiss. Pain shot up his spine from the small of his back and nestled somewhere between his shoulders.
He shook his head to dislodge the sensation and looked up to see the mutant-Mathius charging him again.
He looked around frantically; his plasma cutter wasn't in hand anymore. He spotted it a couple of meters away, and knew he wasn't going to reach it in time. He tried anyway, lurching across with arm outstretched to grasp it. His fingers brushed against the grip for less than a second before the scythe of the creature pinned him against the wall again. The blade was turned inwards, so that it was the blunted edge pressing against Isaac's chest plate. The other blade lashed out with such speed, Isaac could barely follow it. He thought he was done for, until he heard a wrenching sound as the blade punched through the wall just over his shoulder. He looked at it, and then up into the horrible face that had once been a great leader. It stared back at him. He couldn't tell if it was from interest or hunger. He didn't particularly want to find out.
Acting on instinct, he brought his arm up in a blurring movement. It connected with the elbow join of the wicked scythe that had pierced the wall. There was a loud crack, and a horrid screech of pain from deep in the mutant's throaty area. The blade pinning him to the wall lost its pressure, and Isaac shoved it away and rolled to the side.
He reached the plasma cutter before the mutant recovered. Then he was back on his feet, aiming for its good arm. He blasted it off with a precise shot just above the shoulder join. It clattered to the ground. As the creature wailed in pain, Isaac blasted off its other arm and one of its legs.
But it was still moving when it hit the deck. Though it had only the one leg and no other limbs with which to propel itself forward, it thrashed around, trying to get to him.
"Sorry, Captain," Isaac said softly before he squeezed the trigger again and again and unloaded the rest of the plasma charge pack into the mutant's head and chest. Its anguished wails were silenced, and it lay motionless on the deck in front of him.
He stood there for a few minutes, absorbing the enormity of the situation. It pressed down on him like a set of weights, threatening to overwhelm him. But it was his resolve that saved him from succumbing and crashing to his knees on the deck. But still, he just stood there.
He didn't know how much time had passed before he finally heard Hammond's voice again, concerned, worried. "Isaac? Fuck this, I'm coming down there!"
That tore him from his anguish, and he blinked, clearing his mind. "No," he said. "I'm fine. It's just … he was my Captain once. He might have already been dead when that thing changed him, but it doesn't change the fact that I just cut him to ribbons."
"You said it, Isaac. It wasn't Mathius anymore. That thing you saw putting something in to his head did that." There was a pause. Hammond was giving him time to absorb that. "It was self defence, Isaac. You or him. You chose."
"I guess."
"Is the Captain's RIG still intact?"
"More or less. The mutation all but shredded it. Give me a second."
Reluctantly, he crossed the short distance between himself and the corpse. He nudged it once, twice with his foot to make sure it was dead—from what he'd seen so far, these things reacted, rather than used intellect. If it was still alive, it would have done something. When he was sure, he knelt down beside it, laid the plasma cutter on the floor by his leg, and pulled his helmet free.
The smell assaulted Isaac instantly; rotting flesh and blood and something else that he couldn't identify. He put his left hand over his mouth and nose to filter most of the smell while running his free hand over the body. The flesh was tough, unyielding beneath his fingers. Wounds from blasts of the plasma cutter oozed thick, dark blood onto the tiled floor. It was starting to pool around Isaac's knees. He fought the urge to get up and just walk away.
His hand came away gripping to the tattered remains of the Captain's left sleeve. The RIG's controls were still attached just above the rank stripes.
"I've got Captain Mathius's RIG," Isaac said into his comm. He heard Hammond breathe a sigh of relief over the line. "I'm transmitting the codes to you now."
He found a catch on the panel and hooked it up to his own RIG. Then he initiated a data transfer straight to Hammond, wherever he was, and hoped that the right information was being sent. He didn't have time to waste trying to find it himself. He got back to his feet, picking up the plasma cutter and his helmet, and walked out of the autopsy bay.
The door he'd come through was locked now, but the one near the door into the autopsy bay—which was still locked—was now unlocked. He shook his head. It was starting to seem like a maze to him.
"Codes received," Hammond said. There was a pause has he checked something, and when he spoke again, his mood sounded a little better. "And they look good; thank God. I'll start accessing the Captain's records right now."
"What about Nicole?" Isaac went through the door into a lift and hit the ascent control on the holo without waiting for the door behind him to close.
"I intend to keep my word, Isaac," Hammond promised. He sounded a little put out that Isaac would even have hinted that he'd had no intention of doing so. "But I need to find out what the hell happened to this ship. I'll check personnel records later and see if I can find out what happened to Nicole. Head to the tram station, and I'll contact you there with an update."
"Right." He shut off the comm. and waited as the lift carriage shot up through the decks.
It stopped, and the doors opened to admit Isaac back to the clinic. But now, he was directly opposite of the anteroom leading back to the security station. Nothing much had changed since he'd passed through on his way to the morgue. Some of the pooled blood on the floor seemed to have expanded; the bodies from which they originated still drip, drip, dripping.
He passed through the anteroom without incident and through the winding halls back to the security station. It hadn't changed at all in his time away. At least that offered some sign that the mutants hadn't progressed here and lay in wait somewhere. After passing through the ruined barricade he'd burned through earlier, Isaac turned almost immediately to his right and keyed the door release.
Isaac's comm. trilled to indicate an incoming transmission, and he keyed the visual as he proceeded down the hall to the tram station. "Isaac!" Hammond was panting, almost out of breath. It made Isaac's hair stand on end and he gripped the rim of his helmet tighter.
"What's wrong Hammond?" he asked at once.
"Somehow … one of them found a way down to the Captain's Nest!" Shit, Isaac thought. That's where Hammond must have retreated to when he and Daniels had been attacked on the Bridge. "I managed to contain it in a damaged escape pod. Lifting the executive lockdown."
There was a pause. "I found the deck logs. Whatever is happening around here, it came from the planet when they cracked it open. It spread to the colony, and reached the ship! Isaac …" Hammond was shaking his head now, his brow creased. "This isn't an infection. It's some form of alien life."
"It can't be. Not with what I saw in the morgue. I saw one of those things change Captain Mathius into a monster."
"It could be both. I don't know. I'm still looking into it. But if you saw that, then it could be part of the alien cycle. I don't know. I just don't."
"That's pretty fucked," Isaac said irately. He stepped out through the second door and was once more on the tram platform. It took him no time to cross the deck and step into the tram. He was just about to key in the Bridge as his next destination when Hammond's expletive stopped him.
"Shit!" he swore. "We've got bigger problems. The ship's engines are offline and our orbit is decaying."
"Why?"
"I don't know, for fuck sake!" Hammond snapped. "Sorry. Get over to the Engineering deck ASAP, while I stay here and figure out what the problem is."
"On it."
So instead, Isaac keyed in Engineering and sat down on one of the seats as the door clamped shut and the tram took off.