You know the drill, a new chapter means a new part of the game. I think we can rule this out of the horror-genre, considering Hillary is in it. I mean, the woman's damn near impossible to scare! Anyway...
...Why's it always me?
January 6th
MSV Ishimura, Cygnus-system
Flight Deck, Tram station
12:47
So far, the team had advanced from the fight without further encounters. There seemed to be a sort of understanding, either with the ship or between the monsters, that fighting a large group of armed people was a bad idea.
The sounds had come back though.
They were not the sounds of people screaming anymore though. Thát had started and stopped in a mere fifteen minutes' period when Jane's team had arrived on the ship. Had she known what they would be walking into, she would have contacted Alliance Command to have them turn the ship, innocents and all, into debris. What she had seen so far, what she was constantly hearing through the walls, was hell itself in physical format.
Howls, like an elephant with its throat torn out, resonated through the corridors, coming from both above and below at the same time. There was a constant scratching in the walls, like something or someone was trying to get through. More than once, a vent-fan had been kicked from the wall, snapping the entire team around to point weapons at the hole.
There never seemed to be anything. Only ghosts in the dark.
"I hate this place…" Corporal Adrian muttered, adjusting his rifle to rest against his shoulder.
"Oh really? I kinda like it here." Hillary deadpanned, offering the corporal a flat look through her visor; "Just needs some paint and a few less dead guys running around."
"Shut it, Pennyloafer. My back still hurts, and I'm not in the mood for bullshitting."
"Sorry, mum. Great Metalbending by the way. Real Toph-ish." The private bit back, then seemed to think better of her words; "But really, cool armor."
"Can you all please just shut it?" Jane ordered, causing her people to shut up faster than a Volus' purse, if they even used those; "Now, Vincent. This is your ship. To get to the bridge, how'd you proceed from here?"
The chief of security glanced around, her eyes stopping at the apparent office on the other side of the rails. Through wide glass-panes, they could see what seemed like a security-station, complete with chairs, some still-running software and holographic displays.
"Our best bets would be to find a way into that security-station, get the trams sent here and use it to get to the bridge." Unfortunately, there always was a catch; "However, the activation-cards will likely be with the personnel supposed to man that place, but if we're lucky, the databoard should work just fine." Jane hated when people used the 'if we're lucky' phrase. That was when people always started dying around her.
"Let me guess… they're zombies too, and we need to kill them to get the cards?" Jane sighed, idly checking her shotgun's condition. She'd found that rifles weren't much good against the undead, and blowing them apart with her shotgun seemed much more cost-effective.
"I'm not ruling it out. Far as I know, the infection started from the flight deck around the time you guys arrived. I'm hoping people have somehow held out, but… Fuck, my ship's getting boarded by fucking space-zombies, and I can't do shit about it."
"Reminds me of just about every mission I've been on so far." Tequila muttered. Her Pulse Rifle was in her hands again, though her Katana was loaded, safety off and the gun was prepared to be drawn and fired within the blink of an eye.
"Alright…" Vincent muttered, pulling her Omnitool up. A 4D map of the immediate area, corridors and rooms was shown; "Well, at least the nav-systems are still up. Means the bridge is still active. Wanna bet they're getting comms up sometime soon?"
"Not really. Still, Hammond and Daniels have an N7 and an Aspect with them. They'll be fine, right?" their Service Chief asked, his voice betraying the fact that he was worried about his mentor. The two guards, Chen and Johnston, had stayed with the Kellion, so at least Jane knew where she had them.
"Aspect?" Vincent said, looking at the Chief. Thomas seemed to realize he had said too much, and promptly followed Jane's advice to shut up about matters related to "shut-up-it's-secret" stuff; "Never mind…"
"We can call the tram from over there, right?" Jane asked, glancing around the room. Vincent nodded; "Good. Then we go… this way" Jane said, pointing out a set of corridors they could follow to get to an elevator that would take them to the security-station. While it was tempting to simply attempt crossing the tracks, the small EOD-lights revealed they were active, which meant electrified.
Which also meant no jumping across.
"That'll take us almost all the way back to the lounge" Tequila said, her eyes going between the tracks and the map; "What if we made a bridge across instead?"
Her question caused Jane to glance at the corporal, then to the track, back to the corporal, and then to remember just what Tequila was capable of. Jane could have smacked herself for forgetting it, considering what the corporal had pulled earlier.
"Why are you still a corporal?" Jane asked. Tequila merely shrugged;
"Dunno. So, do we go across or the long way-that-will-get-us-killed?"
"Think you can do it?" Jane asked. There was a good ten meters across the track. Tequila scoffed at her question, a gesture Jane would normally take offence at. Normally though, dead people didn't attack living people, so that point was kinda moot.
Tequila grabbed the corner of the wall next to the tram. Her fingers clawed into the metal and pulled, ripping the metal from the wall like a piece of tapestry. Once more, Jane found herself awed by the powers of what Roku called "Chi", as the corporal ripped a section of the wall, bolts and all, and dropped it on the ground.
Adrian whistled, clearly impressed; "Fuck me… how'd you do thát?"
"Cartoony powers." Hillary said, seeing as Tequila remained silent. Jane was thankful that Vincent seemed to respect her wish not to reveal how they did it, as Admiral Fisher had declared it a classified subject, as well as plastered everything concerning it with enough red- and yellow tape to cover Arcturus' hull.
"It'll do." Jane said. Tequila nodded and carried the piece of the wall to the edge of the platform. She placed the metallic plank on the edge and let it drop, then kicked her end into the ground hard enough to fuse it with the platform. The other side scraped against the windows of the security-station, dragging long lines down the reinforced glass-panes; "Fisher, take point through the window and secure the room."
For once, Thomas didn't as much flinch at her command as growling at it. The reaction reminded her too much of his response to her order on Virmire, that he was to charge in alone. In hindsight, she knew it would still be the way of entry to cost them the least casualties, but on the other hand, it had resulted in him being incapacitated for the rest of the invasion.
"Right…don't die while I'm gone, okay?" He muttered, tapping a boot on the makeshift bridge to test its durability. To his obvious annoyance, and Jane's satisfaction, the metal held. Setting another foot on it, he was not fully on the bridge, with nothing between him and the electrified tram-rails but a thin walkway of warped metal.
"Just clear the room. Don't go beyond it." Jane reminded him as he stopped by the window. The Service Chief looked at her in clear annoyance, something she had gotten used to over the months, and bashed in the window with his bionic hand.
Thomas jumped onto the floor, fire already burning at the tips of his fingers. He wasn't going to be caught by more of those mutated fucks running around. Truth be told, he was still utterly terrified of them, of what they represented. Just like the human husks, he found the remnants of their former features, the noses, eyes and remaining strands of hair, to be far more freakish and horrifying than even the hulking abominations made from Krogans.
The room itself wasn't as big as he would expect the control for a shipwide tram system to be. There were three booths, with overturned chairs, and enough blood painting the floor to fill a bucket or two. Most of the blood went into a trail that ended in the broken vent-outlet on the wall, while a set of footprints revealed someone wearing boots had left the room through one of its two doors. And for some reason, bloody handprints were all over the vending-machine in the corner of the room, as if the last wish of a dying man had been to try his luck at the contraption.
"It's clear!"
He turned his attention towards the door in front of him, active and unlocked from what the panel suggested. There was something, a sound, coming from behind it. He could hear someone mumbling and crying. Someone's alive!
Wasting no time to wait for the others, and even though he was technically disobeying an order, Thomas slammed the panel and rushed through the door the moment it opened. He ended up in a short hallway, dimly lightened by a few more-or-less broken lamps in the ceiling. There was a long trail of blood on the floor, leading towards where the sound came from.
At the end of the hallway, a legless man was slumped on the floor, sobbing and heaving for his breath while clutching something Thomas couldn't make out in the distance. In front of the man, another of the creatures was sprawled on the ground, arms, legs and head lying around it like it had been sliced clean off its body.
"Talos…fuck…" He whispered as he ran to where the man was slumped, instantly kneeling down next to him after kicking aside the grotesque remains of the monster; "Hey, hey are you… fuck, not "okay" can you hear me?"
The man kept sobbing, pointing an obviously broken hand at something on the wall next to him. As he brought out what Medigel he had to spare, Thomas glanced at the man's point of attention. It was blood. Blood on the walls. This just went to Fucktown of creepy.
The blood on the wall was written letters. Large, scrawled letters made from blood. In the dark, it was hard to see what the letters said, though Thomas really didn't care right now. As he tried administering Medigel to the man, he saw what the letters had been written with.
The entire left hand of the man had been cut or ripped off, leaving him with a bloody stump that revealed a bit of bone sticking out as well. Despite his religious orientation, Thomas was unable to resist the curse;
"Jesus Christ…" He fought down the bile even as he dosed the man's bloody stumps with as much Medigel he could spare. The door he had come through hissed open, revealing Ashley's more than annoyed figure running through, rifle at the ready when she saw him, and uttered a similar curse;
"Jesus Christ, Thomas. Don't fucking run…" She trailed off as she saw him trying to treat the man. As Thomas focused his attention on her, he didn't notice the sobbing had stopped. When he looked back, the reason was evident.
The man had died.
"Fuck… I don't even…" Thomas growled, kicking the wall in frustration. A man had just died in his care, and he hadn't even realized it, wasting Medigel on a corpse; "I don't even care. Fuck this ship, what the fuck did we even come here for?"
"Apparently, Alliance Command just thought they needed a comms-array fixed." Ashley muttered, briefly eyeing the "dead" monster at their feet; "You can always complain about lack of info when we get back."
"Yeah…" he huffed, idly glancing at the still unreadable letters. Figuring they were the man's dying confession, he might as well pay his respects by reading them. The flashlight in his Omnitool revealed, that the letters weren't exactly a confession.
"CUT OFF THEIR LIMBS!" was written in still liquid blood, with thin, red trails running from a few of the letters. The marines both stared at the writing on the wall, so to speak.
"Well… either he had a dying wish for revenge..." Thomas muttered, glancing between the dead man, the dead zombie and the letters. When his eyes found the dead man, he once more noticed something odd, lying in the man's lap.
"Or, he wanted to pass on a piece of advice. Now that I think of it, they did seem to go down rather quick when we shoot their arms and legs off…" Ashley seemed to reach an epiphany at the same time as him, only Thomas was more focused on the odd tool in the corpse's lap.
"I noticed… what's… Hey, Ash?"
"What is it?" She asked, turning to look at Thomas, who had picked up the tool. It weighed a bit more than his modded Carnifex, and looked like a sci-fi electric drill. There even was a trigger where he'd expect it on the thing. Being the person he was, Thomas aimed the tool at the wall, not wanting to accidentally shoot someone.
A blade of plasma appeared where he'd even have expected something like a projectile to exit. Instead, it was more like a chainsaw of azure plasma, held in place by some unseen force, magnetic field most likely. The entire thing whirred like a chainsaw would, but without the sound of metallic teeth. Both stared at the tool in more than a little shock;
"Okay…this is unexpected. Why would a security-guard have a lightsaber?" Thomas muttered. Despite the situation, he couldn't help but feel a little awe at the thing in his hands. It looked like some worn tool, but it was made of fucking plasma! Far as he knew, no one knew how to make plasma-weapons aside from the geth.
"A what? Never mind… I don't… actually know what thát is." Ashley sounded just as confused and amazed as he was; "Better take it back to the group, let Jane see it. Maybe Chief Vincent knows what it is."
Thomas nodded, unable to form something intelligent to word, and extinguished the tool, or was it a weapon? As they entered the security-station, Jane appeared in the middle of a conversation over a vid-link, Clarke's face showing up on the other end without his protective faceplate covering his visor. Vincent though, had seemingly given up getting through the static between her and the bridge, and turned to look as they entered;
"Where the hell did you go, Fisher?" She demanded. Thomas would normally be tempted to say that she wasn't his superior, but the situation had choked all humor from him.
"I heard someone cry. Found a dying man and… he died, but…" Instead of saying more, Thomas instead held up the weapon/tool he had found on the dead man, allowing Vincent to take it.
"Where'd you get this?" She asked, more curious than sharply, though a note of hesitation was also in her voice.
"On the dead guy. What is it?" Ashley said. Vincent answered by turning on the device, bathing the immediate surroundings in a blue hue. There were some muffled gasps and whispers from the Normandy-crew, but the two security-officers seemed completely familiar with the weapon or tool, Thomas still wasn't sure what it was for.
"It's… a prototype mining-tool, the plasma saw, I think the miners called it." There was something about the way she said it, like she knew more but would say. Apparently, Thomas hadn't been the only one to pick up on this.
"Ehm, quick question, please." Adrian said, stepping closer to Vincent and the saw; "Just when did we get plasma-tech cheap enough to make chainsaws with the stuff? I mean, I've only seen it in big guns so far, not… the size of a handgun."
"We didn't." Jane said, taking the tool from Vincent; "Chief, where did the Ishimura get these saws?"
"Only the Captain and the log-officers know who supplies the ship. You'll have to ask them."
"Yet, you knew what this was?"
"It's a mining-tool. Most of the lower-deck crew have them issued."
"So low-deck hands get… you know what? I'll just ask the Captain when we find him." Jane stated, implying that something illegal was going on. Seeing how the dead were walking, Thomas couldn't care less if someone was robbing banks on the ship, he just wanted to get out alive. Jane though… he never really felt like he knew what she was going to do. Instead of continuing the interrogation, Jane turned to the computer dominating most of the tram-side wall; "Okay… Vincent, this thing works?"
"It's powered alright, and the activation-cards are in… but the data board is fried." The woman followed the last bit with a muttered curse; "I don't know about you, but fixing systems isn't my strongest suite."
"I bet Tali could have fixed this shit faster that you could say "Keelah"… Okay, ideas?" Jane said. As none came up, she contacted the other team. For some reason, inter-team comms seemed to work, while inter-ship comms were fucked and fried.
"Clarke, Daniels?" Jane called. On cue, Isaac's face, though now hidden behind his faceplate again, came up on the screen. Thomas didn't miss the scratches on the plate, like a claw-mark.
"Clarke here. We ran into more of the fucks, but I think we've figured out how to kill them now."
"Pray tell." Jane said
"It's the limbs. Dunno why, but if you shoot off their arms and legs, they die. You can waster a ton of time trying to shoot them in the body, but the limbs does the job." Thomas sighed. It had been one of the things he was going to tell Jane, but might as well come from the eccentric N7. Jane simply nodded, as if she had known this already;
"Good work. Clarke, do any of you know what to do about a fried databoard for the tram-system?"
"Databoard… Databoard… one of the crew hands nearby should have a spare. Look for a technician, that's your best bet." Clarke said. Thomas looked around on instinct, but naturally didn't find a technician. He'd have noticed an extra body when he entered the room the first time.
"Good. How's things going on your end?"
"We're in Medical, I think… took the long route when dead guys started popping out of the walls. These things really don't give a shit when you shoot them." The N7 said. Jane nodded, then held the saw in front of the screen, allowing Isaac to see it as well; "Well… I'll be damned."
"You know what this is?" Jane asked, sounding just as surprised as Clarke seemed. Thomas' eyes widened as the engineer nodded; "How?"
"Three years ago, prototype plasma-technology was stolen from Lockheed Martin Corporate Technologies. The plans were never found and Chinese agents were suspected of the crime… Seems like there's more going on here."
"Agreed. Let's rendezvous at the bridge, then we can contact the Alliance and chat up the Captain. Shepard out." Jane said, then cut the transmission and turned towards the others; "Well, you heard him. Find a technician, dead or alive, and get a spare databoard. Don't. get. separated. You hear me?"
"Yes ma'am." The entire team, Vincent and Pendleton included, answered. Far as Thomas was concerned, he wasn't ready to trust someone who apparently knew something shady was going on, but Vincent had every bit as much desire to survive, so he decided to screw the ethics of it and just follow orders.
"We've got two doors, two options. One group takes Aquila, the other takes Fisher. Alenko, you're in charge of Fisher's team, Boss, you take Tequila's. Make up your own teams, but do it quickly. Vincent. You, Pendleton and I will remain here to hold the room. In case of an emergency, be ready to move. Understood?"
"Yes ma'am." Another round of affirmatives. Thomas felt it was unnecessary and time-wasting, but didn't bother commenting on it. Great, I'm a team-pick… and Kaidan's my boss. Guess it could be worse.
He almost smacked his own face at the thought. There really was little that could be worse than submerging into the corridors of a ship under attack by the undead. It's the fucking Scourge of Lordaeron here, just waiting for Arthas to… Not thinking that through, not thinking that through.
Too many "impossible" things had already happened for Thomas to dare even think about Arthas suddenly turning up. Instead, he watched Kaidan as the Lieutenant picked out his team, then followed as they proceeded through the door at the end of the room.
Of course, Thomas was put in front, along with Kaidan who led them. The team consisted of him, Ashley and Hillary, while the rest went with Boss. Immediately behind the door, they came to a parting of the corridor, with no real guide as to what path to pick. Kaidan seemed to do a mental coin-toss, then gestured for the right. Thomas, meanwhile, looked left, and found a pair of sickly yellow eyes, staring at him from the darkness. When he shone his flashlight at it, nothing was there. What…
He could still feel the malicious eyes burning at the back of his skull when he turned to follow the team, but once more as he looked back, nothing was there. I'm seeing shit… bloody eye is acting up… but fuck if this ship isn't scary.
"Stay together people. Remember, go for the limbs." Kaidan said, his voice the usual rock of calm. Thomas sometimes wondered just how the man did it, remained calm no matter what. He'd actually share the man's calm if they had taken the plasma saw with them, but noooo, Jane needed that for study while the teams were out getting their asses zombified.
They stopped at the first door they got to, Kaidan using hand-signals to make the team form up, then palmed the interface, pointing his shotgun at the door. The door hissed open, revealing a descending ramp leading forward as far as Thomas could see, as well as a human arm lying discarded on the ground. How did this place go to hell so fast?
Kaidan ordered them forward with hand signals, taking point down the ramp. Thomas was about to follow when the sound of running, scuttling feet came from above. Pointing his own shotgun upwards, Thomas was jumped in almost the same second as his finger touched the trigger. Hypersonic pellets flayed the dead body as it hit him, then fell off him and tumbled down the ramp. Acting on instinct, Thomas pumped shots at both the body and the vent it had fallen from, tearing the torso apart and embedding pellets in the metal above him.
"FUCK!" He shouted, kicking the dead man as if he had done him personal offence. In a way the dead guy had, since landing on people wasn't exactly polite. Thomas was fairly sure Scorch would have made a joke about this.
"Relax, Chief. It's just a normal dead guy. You know, no fangs and shit?" Hillary asked, grinning as she nudged the body out of the way with her boot.
"I fucking… I knew that. Just… this place is getting to me."
"Just stay calm and move. We work as a team, we get through this." Kaidan said, not having lost his calm despite the events just taking place.
"Good thing you didn't say 'everything's alright' or 'looks quiet for now'." Hillary muttered, her own rifle ready, as was the underslung shotgun.
"I've seen enough horrors to know what one-liners to avoid, private." Kaidan said with a thin smile in his voice. Thomas blinked at the casualness of the lieutenant, but shook his head and proceeded. There was a reason Kaidan had survived so far, as well as why he was a lieutenant. The man was a biotic powerhouse, and remained calm pretty much through everything the galaxy had tossed at him so far.
As they reached the end of the ramp, the team rounded a corner and came to a new door. There was no marking or text above it, so Kaidan followed the same procedure as earlier and opened the door. This time, he waved Thomas through first. Fuck me… this is going to end inn tears, I know it.
The room they entered wasn't a room at all. It was the mile-long corridor beneath the trams, extending for hundreds of meters in each direction before corners made it impossible to see the end. Near the left side of the door, a barrier of some sort had been set up, making advancement in that direction troublesome. Kaidan led them right instead.
An unnatural howl echoed down the long corridor, causing the hairs on Thomas' back to stand straight, and his knees to shake just a little;
"Ho-ly crap." Hillary for once sounded worried. Her usual brash attitude replaced by obvious fright.
"That sounded big and definitely not friendly. I think we should move out of the broad and wide corridor." Thomas said, speeding past Kaidan until he came to a new door. This one was active alright, but seemed to hold a new challenge. Something in the mechanism was fried, causing it to open and close with the speed and power of a cleaver. Even Thomas was apprehensive about touching it.
"Can we shut this thing down?" He asked, looking at Kaidan. The lieutenant seemed to mull over their options, while Hillary and Ashley were studying a decapitated corpse by the door. The head was visible on the other side, giving a hint of what had killed the guy. While Ashley seemed disturbed by the cause of death, Hillary picked up something unusual from the wrist of the corpse.
Thomas noticed what she was doing, and eyed the gadget already in the process of being strapped to the wrist of the private. He had no idea what made Hillary's fingers practically stick to anything shiny. Far as he remembered, that hadn't been the case on Eden Prime. Then again, five days wasn't the world to get to know people.
"The fuck is this thing?" Hillary asked, waving the weird wrist-device around on her right hand. It looked most of all like a six-panes heat sink held by a small computing-device. Accidentally, the thing went off as she waved it towards the snapping door, resulting in both Kaidan and the door slowing down to an almost comical speed; "Okay… this is fucked up."
"Jesus! Kaidan, are you alright?" Ashley exclaimed, moving to touch the lieutenant. Thomas stopped her;
"Don't. We don't know what just happened, so don't touch him." Behind her visor, Ashley's eyes snapped between her team-members, close to panicking at Kaidan's condition. The lieutenant was saying something, but whatever Hillary just did had slowed him down to a degree where his words came out too slow to understand. Kaidan was their only biotic present, so he could only help himself.
"Kaidan. Thumb up if you can hear me." Thomas said, speaking as slowly as he could. The lieutenant slowly raised his hand and the thumb went up, though it was clear the action was tiring him out.
"Fuck! I'm sorry, I'm sorry I didn't mean… I didn't know…I don't know what I just…" Hillary started, reducing her voice to a more and more frustrated state as she started piling guilt at the gadget. While she shouldn't have just waved something around, Thomas agreed that no one could have foreseen the thing being some sort of biotic amplifier or something. Just what the hell do they have on this ship? Plasma-weapons, biotic wrist-gadgets?
Luckily, the effect wore off after a few frustrating seconds, leaving Kaidan momentarily stunned, but otherwise unharmed.
"What is that thing?" He asked, the tone in his voice ordering her to hand over the device. For once, probably because she had just unwittingly attacked a superior, Hillary respected authority and obeyed without hesitation. Kaidan gave the device a once-over, seemed to consider something, and then pointed it at the door.
As had happened when Hillary had triggered it, the device emitted a biotic surge of energy that wrapped the moving part of the door in a stasis-field, slowing it down for all of seven seconds, before it wore off again. Kaidan triggered the thing again, but this time received no reaction from it. Thomas stared at the scene. Okay… I am seriously fucked up confused now.
"So… it's run out of juice?" Ashley suggested. Thomas glanced around, noticing a strange sort of device fastened to the wall just next to the door. 'Stasis recharge' was written on it with easy-to-read white letters. Kaidan seemed to notice it as well, and held the device, now on his wrist, over the small recharger. Nothing happened.
"Okay, I'm open to ideas." The lieutenant said, casting a glance around. Whatever had made the sound earlier was big, and they were frustratingly exposed as it was. They also still needed to find a databoard and get back. Seeing how Kaidan and the others were trying to figure out the recharger, Thomas pulled up his Omnitool and opened a connection to the captain, and by extension the only two people who knew what was what on the ship.
Jane's face appeared seconds later, her helmet decorated by a new, long scratch across the visor, though it hadn't cracked the glass.
"Fisher? Status."
"Captain, we've found… okay, we're directly beneath you, I think. We've come across a malfunctioning door. We're working on it, but we've found a sort of biotic module. Hillary just accidentally put Kaidan in a stasis for a few seconds… whatever's going on here, they've fucked science way more than even Anna could come up with." This seemed to make Jane contemplate her words, before she as much physically as verbally hauled Vincent to the screen.
"What've you found?" The Chief asked him. Thomas was starting to get the feeling that the woman knew a lot of things she hadn't told them. As long as it was limited to some messed up corporate secrets, Thomas really couldn't care less.
"A biotic module that non-biotics can use." Thomas said, as Kaidan finally managed to figure out the recharger for the device. Vincent scratched her upper lip for a moment before she seemed to come up with the answer.
"The stasis module, I think. Either that or the kinesi…what can it do?" Vincent corrected herself halfway through saying something else. Thomas frowned behind his helmet. While he didn't care for corporate secrets, if the Chief was holding back something that could help them, he'd be seriously pissed. Still, he answered her;
"It stops things from moving."
"Stasis then. It'll link with your armor, but without your own stasis-generators, you'll probably be spending some time at the rechargers." Yeah, no shit. It was clear Vincent wasn't surprised at the fact that biotic gadgets were laying around, even less so that they existed. As Thomas was trying to figure out if he actually outranked the woman, or the other way around, Kaidan froze the malfunctioning door, gesturing for them to move through in the seconds-long window.
"Moving up a ramp now… no sign of…" Thomas trailed off as a series of heavy, running sounds came from above. The team froze in place, weapons pointed at the ceiling as well as just about every opening big enough for a grown man to squeeze through.
Soon enough, the sounds faded into the distance, as if the team wasn't worth making a meal of. Figures… they'd love to zerg-rush us when we're all together, but split up, it's suddenly 'oh noes, they haz guns'…
"Okay, we should take one room at a time. I'll take point. Ashley, Hillary. Thomas, watch our six." Kaidan ordered them forward. That's when the lights died, flickering off with heavy, metallic claxons.
"Fuuuuuck… what now?" Thomas groaned, his left hand holding the shotgun while his right was already casting a green hue around him from the dancing flames in his hand.
"Stay calm. Just a system giving out." Ashley said, putting a hand on his shoulder; "Ships like these have back-up generators for every sections. Give it a few seconds."
"Afraid of the dark, Chief?" Hillary mocked, her rifle's flashlight illuminating a patch of the opposite corridor; "I mean, what's the worst that could happen?"
Thomas wanted to punch her for tempting fate, but decided upon aiming his shotgun at where one of the vents had just been kicked out, the heavy metal breaking on the floor. His heart hammering in his throat, the night vision in his helmet didn't show anything but the broken vent.
"I fucking hate jumbscares." Thomas muttered as the lights came back on. Where there had been nothing before, not a human leg lay discarded beneath the broken vent, white bone protruding from the limb; "And I'm not afraid of the dark."
"Right."
"Form up, people." Kaidan brought them back into the mindset, and they entered the first door. Behind it was a much larger room, centered upon a mechanism with two mechanical, crane-like arms meant to somehow interact with a tram sitting on the tracks. The group stopped at the entrance.
"Spread out, check your corners and stay away from the vents."
"And shoot before asking. Got it." Hillary said, pulling the barrel for her shotgun. Thomas decided he needed one of those. As the team moved through the room, they received an incoming call from command, in this case Jane;
"Listen, there's more shit to the heap. The databoard isn't our only problem, we've also got a broken tram blocking the rails. There should be a tram-maintenance station somewhere on your side of the tracks, the broken tram should already be sitting ready for replacement there."
"You a psychic, Shepard? We just entered the repair-station." Hillary chuckled, then tapped the active console for one of the crane-arms. It slid out, grabbed a handle on the tram and pulled, but didn't do much else.
"Good. Call back when you've fixed the damn thing... Team two just called in… they've found the databoard. Shepard, out." Transmission ended, Kaidan looked at the rest of the team and shrugged;
"Well, that's one less burden. Let's see if we can't figure this out. Thomas, see if there's a console for the other arm." He gestured at the other side of the room. Thomas' lips pulled into a sour line as he marched for the connecting ramp;
"Why is it always me who must do the damned things?" He muttered. Hillary snorted with laughter;
"Because you're the one with the biggest tænder and the grimmest tøj." She pressed out through the inappropriate laughter. The entire team, Thomas included, stared at her in shock. He was the only one who really understood what she had said though.
"What… did you just say?" He really wasn't sure if he should suspect her of being a jumper as well, or be pleasantly surprised at her taste in television. The private just shrugged, giggling as she ripped open a locker and raided it for Medigel, of all things.
"Hey, I do have good taste in comedy. The classics always beat the modern crap anyway."
"'Grimmest toej'?" Kaidan asked, looking confused at the two youngest marines on the team. Thomas knew he really should be tensed up and scared shitless at the situation, but this was so surprising that he found his fears overwhelmed by shock.
"It's a Danish comedy show. Older than your grandparents… huh, didn't realize those guys were still popular." He sighed the last part as his fears started seeping back in, reminding him of the surrounding death and chaos.
As he reached the start of the descending ramp, Thomas instinctively jumped back as the vent across from him was kicked out, followed by one of the undead crewmembers. It roared, almost laughed and gurgled in bestial rage as it flexed its bladed arms and started running towards him.
Now that the room was illuminated, Thomas realized that it wasn't as much the fear of the creatures that had stunned him before. It was what they represented, what they had been. It was like the Reapers and their husks. Psychological warfare at its most basic, force the enemy to shoot at their friends. Was this the Reapers' doing?
He didn't as much hear the shouted warnings from behind him, as much as they were registered as voices in the background, part of the background noise. The charging monster took all his attention, but for once, Thomas wasn't cowering in fear. He saw the monster, and he saw the human it once was. He also saw that it was a disgusting abomination.
Then the monster saw his burning fist pummeling through its head, before Thomas' boot kicked it back down the ramp, followed by a shotgun-blast to each limb. As sudden as it had appeared, the undead was now just dead.
"I'm fine." He called back, to the obvious relief of his teammates who had been on their way up the ramp when he killed the undead crewmember. These things really need a name aside from zombies and 'undead crewmembers'…
"Good. You see a console over there?" Kaidan called as Thomas reached the other side of the room. Kaidan, meanwhile, had taken up a place at the controls for the entire machinery; "Looks like the second arm's malfunctioning. Hillary, watch for more hostiles, Ashley, take my place."
The lieutenant then stood next to Thomas as he tried for the second time to activate the malfunctioning arm. The arm itself wasn't malfunctioning, but the claw supposed to grab the broken tram clearly was. Okay… fuck, how to solve this… like a fucking mini-game.
Kaidan solved the problem surprisingly easy. When the malfunctioning claw grabbed the tram, he hit it with a surge of the stasis-module. In the moment the claw slowed down, Kaidan signaled Ashley to activate both arms.
"Well… that's one way to do it." Thomas muttered. On the other end of the room, Hillary shot open a locker that signaled 'locked' with a small, official red light. Locks had never really bothered her, and a zombie-ship wasn't going to be the first time she stopped due to a locked locker (because wasn't thát just a delicious wordplay?). Inside the locker, a small, heavy clip of metal was the only reward. Still, it looked like something important, so she snatched it from the container.
Just then, the vent next to her blew open, and another of the undead fucks jumped out. It was on her before she even had a chance to aim her gun at it. Instead, she was forced to grab both its arms with her own hands, discarding her rifle over simple defense.
"Fuck! A little help here?" She called, panic entering her voice. She knew they wouldn't be in time, as she was on the far side of the room from even Ashley, who just had to prance over to check on her boyfriend. So (and she had gotten out of similar situations before, though not with the guy being undead) she slammed her helmeted head into the face of the attacker, stunning it enough for her to move her legs beneath it and kick it off her.
Even as bullets started biting into its back, the undead would-be rapist came at her with barred, (though now broken because fuck the thing) teeth and flailing claws. Hillary grabbed her rifle, pumped the shotgun before she blew the legs away under it. As it clawed towards her, the firing from the rest of the team stopped.
"You know… " She said, blowing one of its arms off. It still kept moving; "I've seen plenty of way scarier shit on the streets than you. Zombies? Bitch please, try pushers or drug-addicts." She grinned, then blew the remaining arm off. The zombie fell dead.
"Whooo! That just pounced out like fourth of July." She yelled, adrenaline riding her system. She then stomped its head in, spreading mush and decaying brain all over the floor; "And now it's dead."
She could see Thomas palm his helmet where he stood, and could hear him mumble something about her not taking things seriously. She grinned again, loving the reactions she could prod from her poor, unfortunate sap of a superior, (and she took things plenty seriously). He was just too easy to provoke.
Kaidan tried to ignore the obvious conflict between the two, even Ashley tried calming Thomas down. Hillary sauntered towards him, her weapon at the ready as the lieutenant contacted Jane (because John was the one she would call Shepard. He'd been the one to save their asses on Eden Prime after Thomas had gotten them out of the colony) to tell her that the tram was fixed. Apparently, so was the computers for the tram, and no one had died in the meantime. Goody.
"Alrighty then. Race ya back to the control-room?" She asked, suppressing a giggle as Thomas slapped his own helmet again. Who was to decide that just because the ship was loose with the Evil Dead (badass movie, she'd seen it three times.) she couldn't have a bit of fun?
"How about we just focus on making it back in one piece, then we can always try racing each other to the tram?" Ashley said, a little annoyed with her. It had always been like that, and Hillary wouldn't have it any other way. 'Sides, her brother got to bitch around, taking the piss on people and complain about his bones. Sure, he didn't like her either, never even publically acknowledged her, but she was fine with that too. She'd had a fucked up life, sure, but then again, normal lives were boring.
As the team exited the room, they all bumped into Thomas, who was staring at the ceiling. Following his gaze, they saw something new, crawling on the other side of the ceilings transparent ducts. It was less human than the regular zombies, with something like a tail waggling around behind it.
"Oh God… is that its spine?" Ashley muttered. Thomas fired at the undead, only for his pellets to embed themselves in the transparent metal. The creature seemed to take offence though. It snarled at them, then jumped into one of the vents leading upwards, gone from view. Thomas, next to her, took his shotgun down;
"I… think we're dealing with more than just regular zombies here."
Hillary's pov is sort of an experiment to me. Her mind, as a lot of you might have guessed, is a bit less... normal, than the rest of the crew. Hence she can often have some sort of inner monologue with herself. (And isn't thát just handy?)
Also, I am currently blessed by the fact that one of my readers ' ' is doing some fanart for the story. It'll likely replace the front for either Book 1 or this one, not sure yet. Probably this one though.
Well, that's it for this time. I'm off to co-write "into the Terminus" with tmroc now. I suggest you give the story a try, even if it seems a bit odd in the first chapter. Funny story, it's actually a side-story of sorts to this one :)