"I'd be lying if I said I expected to nearly have a second casualty tonight. I thought I'd be done with writing for tonight, having caught up with most of what I needed to say while we were back in the casino. Looking back, I'm wondering how, in my then-unstable state, I managed to even come to the conclusion I needed to write down anything. More surprising is that I was able to write at all. But, sitting here in this gunk I'm now more than certain used to be living at one point- And may still very well be- I realize that if all else fails, I should try to record these events somehow. If we don't make it- And let's be honest, odds are getting lower the further we push forward- then hopefully someone will find this, and have some idea as to what's happened he [Rest of section unintelligible, stained with blood]
The above is a perfect example of what I meant by having a second casualty. Findish's condition is deteriorating... I'd be lying if I said I particularly expect him to survive much longer. I don't think we'll have the medical capabilities available, and I don't think he'll be in any condition to drag to Kovcheg. If Kovcheg's even safe anymore. Bloody fucking zombies. Who would've thought?"
As Rommel pushed into the room, he had several thoughts running through his mind all at once. All of them had no answers that could be discerned immediately, and the metaphorical train of thought ran out of tracks. Having derailed, it crashed, and maimed or killed all of the passengers on-board. That having been done, his head was now pounding, every particle in his brain wailing in agony, having been victimized by the train of thought's crash.
He dragged Findish into the room, and set him down against one of the weapon racks for a moment. Findish gave an exasperated sigh of relief, undoubtedly because having been dragged that far was more than a bit of a pain. His helmet trailed upward towards the lights. The man was visibly avoiding looking in the direction of his mangled leg, most likely because he knew that once he was sure of just how bad it was, the pain would be immensely worse. Knowing was better than not knowing, unless knowing meant panic.
Rommel himself sat down atop a crate that was marked as containing an AIE-486H, which would've been great if it was already assembled, and they wouldn't have to haul it to some position where it would actually matter, and be able to use it to any effect. For now, the thing would have to simply function as a bench. He let his head fall back, feeling his helmet sinking into the organic crap that coated the walls. He didn't care.
He glanced toward Miller and Almec, still standing. "Close that damn door, will ya? Might as well make sure," he said tiredly. Miller punched the red button next to the door, and it swung shut. The locking mechanisms sounded, and then all was quiet for the most part. The only sounds Rommel could hear were his own heavy breathing, his blood pumping, and the disgusting movements of some of the pulsating sacs on the walls.
He didn't trust those after the incident in the tunnel. He knew what was in them. He just didn't know when they would come out.
He glanced at Findish out of the corner of his eye. The man's armor was visibly crushed around both his thigh and his calve. Mostly around his calve. That was without factoring in his chest and arm. His bad arm was bent at an angle that nobody needed question whether or not it was healthy. They were snapped in multiple places, definitely. Rommel did not doubt that bone would be visible, having impaled through the skin.
Despite that, he hoped that wasn't the case. His hopes didn't seem to be getting him very far tonight, however. Rather it seemed that ever time he got his hopes up, had any form of idea, he got the exact opposite of the intended results. He certainly had been hoping that the tunnels were free from the infection, but they weren't. In fact, they were worse than the surface.
In retrospect, he should have realized this to begin with. The tunnels would lead directly to the Supercarrier if they had taken the other route. More likely than not, they'd blown through the massive ship there, too, and made a much more direct route before they had even exited the ship on the surface. They had been infesting the tunnels before they had even encountered the first infected person. He couldn't remember the guy's name for the life of him anymore, which suited him just fine
It was starting to make a little more sense as to how it was spreading so fast. The further he delved into it, the more he didn't like the conclusions he was drawing. Because now he was faced with the cold, hard reality of it all. "Son of a bitch," Rommel said out loud, not particularly caring whether or not heard him anymore.
Everyone looked toward him, waiting for a continuation of what he was going to say. With the exception of Findish, who continued staring blankly at the ceiling. The only indication that he was alive was his breathing, which was comparable to the villain of an old science fiction movie. That, and the hacking coughs he occasionally unleashed.
"The spores were coming out of the ship before we even knew what they were. Nobody cared. Above the ground, underwater, everywhere. They've been at it so long that anyone in the Goddamn city- And parts beyond- would've started inhaling them hours before we even had a clue as to what was happening," Rommel explained, glancing at his chest. He traced over the deep gash through his armor. It filled him with unspeakable rage, a hardly contained fury. He wished that he hadn't been out of time, or he would've popped the giant himself.
"Jesus Christ," he heard Almec say. "Everyone in the city was breathing that shit without even thinking. Hell, it's probably in the Goddamn water supply if it's down here... Damn it, if that's the case, then that means-"
"That it's probably spread across half the continent by now at least. That's without factoring in the footmobiles, who've undoubtedly gained access to transportation fast enough to move from city to city." Rommel sighed. "I hate to say it. But I'm thinking-"
"Don't say it, Rommel."
"- That the message at Kovcheg is no longer accurate," he said, pointing at Dom threateningly. "And that the only reason that message is still running is because it's some kind of trap. Either by the Goddamn Office of Naval Intelligence, or by the parasites themselves."
Dom pulled off his helmet, crossing the room from where he was standing to Rommel's position. He took Rommel by both shoulders, and pressed him against the wall. The man wasn't nearly as big as Rommel. He could easily have stopped him, or removed him. But there was no malevolent intent behind it, it was all just panic. "What are you saying, Fullmetal?"
Fullmetal. Dom only ever called him that when he meant business by it, or had to. Usually it referred to the fact that he was a Spook, and had a better understanding of how things were working than anyone else did. This was no different, Dom was trying to pull information out of him that he didn't know. Or what Rommel assumed could be true.
"Look, I don't fuckin' know, but ONI don't exactly stand for Overly Nice Individuals, alright?" he spat. "They're the fuckin' Gestapo of the UNSC. For all we know, they're rounding up the civvies to put 'em down so the Goddamn infection can't spread." It wasn't a completely unheard of tactic. To the organization that could feel no consequences, genocide seemed a small price to pay for making ends meet.
Another topic he tried not to think about. Sometimes Humans and the Covenant weren't really that far apart.
Dom released him with a bit of a shove, but he certainly did not back off. His emerald green eyes stared at Rommel accusingly. He didn't want to consider that the UNSC might do that, but he knew it was true. "You said something else. That the parasites might be doing it. What's that all about?"
Rommel shook his head slowly. "It's possible, but I don't know how possible."
"Well then explain the possibly possible thing as best as you can, so we have an idea as to what sort of traps we might be possibly walking into," Dom said bitterly. Rommel didn't care for his tone of voice, but he couldn't particularly blame him, either.
He licked his lips under his helmet. He had a metallic taste in his mouth. Blood. When had he been bleeding? He prodded at the edged of his mouth with his tongue, and found that he'd busted his lip at some point. Not exactly inconceivable. Now that he knew it was there, however, it was going to bug the crap out of him.
It was amazing the things that ran through one's mind when under stress that had nothing to do with the matter at hand.
"If it's not ONI rounding up the civvies to ensure the infection doesn't spread, either by protection or persecution," he began, chewing at his lip, "then it's the infected, rounding up cattle for the slaughterhouse. And they've become smart enough to keep that tape rolling so that anyone who does receive it walks right into their clutches."
Dom swore vividly, and walked off. He very nearly tripped over Findish, who grunted a few unintelligible, but nonetheless decidedly unappreciative words over the matter. Rommel just shook his head, checking his rifle. He remembered he hadn't used his MA2B, and so he didn't need to reload it. He sighed, then glanced at Findish. He moved over toward the man, then sat down next to him. The man looked toward him, his visor still depolarized from earlier.
It had more blood on it than Rommel had recalled. He gave a loud, wet cough, which filled up the visor even more. Rommel grimaced, then took the man's head in his hands. He tilted the man's head to the side, then popped the seals on the suit that made the system sealed and pressurized. He gingerly lifted the helmet up and off the man's head, then set the bucket down in the man's lap.
The man's eyes were completely red. He wouldn't have doubted it if he had popped a blood vessel or something along those lines. Crimson droplets formed in his nostrils, and streamed down from them to the man's mouth, and down his chin. His mouth hung slack, the inside of it a red that it shouldn't have been. He was definitely bleeding internally, fortifying Rommel's assumption: He'd probably punctured a lung, or torn up his insides some other way. "How you holding up?"
The man coughed again, loudly. "I feel like shit," he groaned, coughing loudly again. He still hadn't looked at his leg, best as Rommel could tell.
"You look like shit," Rommel stated. "But at least you're alive." The man groaned, but said nothing. He frowned behind his visor, then looked around at all the different weapons. He wondered how the blasted things had managed to get in this room and spread this... Whatever it was. It was a matter that bothered him, because it meant that somebody else had to have already been here.
As he looked around, he could see a few of the weapons were missing. Maybe the armory wasn't fully stocked. It wasn't particularly obvious as to whether or not some presence had been here and taken them, apart from the fact that something had obviously gotten in here before to let in the parasite. Then came another thought that bothered him particularly badly.
He could get into just about anywhere he wanted by using a butchered version of his UNSCMID, a privilege of being part of the Office of Naval Intelligence- throwing the fact that he ranked low in it to the wind, mattering only in that he wasn't told everything- with the exception of some highly restricted areas. This rule applied to virtually every Spook, apart from the obviously incredibly high ranking.
And so the seed of another thought was rooted deeply in his mind:
Most hive-minded beings had a collective intelligence. These things were definitely hive-minded, if ever anything in the universe was. That meant that if one of them picked up a new trick, then all of them should have picked up that trick. If one of them learned something important, all of them knew the very same important thing. If one of them had a particular goal in mind, all of them had the same goal.
That brought a very interesting concept forward. A question he could not answer as of now: Did the parasite retain the host's memories? Did they gain the knowledge their host previously had? If that was the case, then they were becoming more doomed by the minute. That meant that if someone who was particularly knowledgeable, high-up in the military domain, were to become infected...
Then the parasite would know everything that the individual knew.
Which could have easily explained why these... Things were capable of going where they wanted, or getting into this room. He inwardly damned the idea, but it made sense. Especially if they had already gotten to Kovcheg- If that was the case, they would've already infected many high-ranking individuals, who had knowledge on subjects that Rommel didn't even know existed.
In other words, they were screwed.
Rommel took a moment to rummage through his combat webbing again, producing an old, leather-bound book that appeared so ancient, one was not to doubt if he explicitly said that it was as old as the universe itself. Stamped across the front of it in big, black block letters, clearly visible, was the word FULLMETAL. Below it, toward the bottom of the page, was a crudely scrawled, barely legible, extremely faded Ed Rommel.
To him, it almost seemed symbolic, speaking to him in volumes.
Almost.
He turned the thing over, glancing at the old lock on the side. It required a key. It didn't serve much purpose to lock it, it would've been broken easily if someone felt they wanted to see the contents of the old thing that badly. Not that there was anything all that important inside, the only contents were the thoughts, feelings, ideas, and sketches of an old soldier who might have been a little too sentimental for his own good that had been collected over the past forty-something years. The lock served only for him to know when somebody had invaded his private sanctum.
He drew three more objects from the same pouch: An architect pencil, a block eraser, and a key.
He first used the key to unlock the book, then turned to a fresh page. All of them were yellowing with age, but yet half of the book wasn't exactly used. The reasons for this was that he often had little of importance to record. He had already used the book once earlier today, while he was drifting in and out of consciousness back at the casino. Looking back, he was astonished he had managed.
But today, he found that keeping updates was important.
He began to make notes of anything he found to be particularly important to the moment. Where they were, what their condition was, their plan, his thoughts. Anything in particular that came to mind. Suddenly there was a loud cough next to him, and an entire section of what he had been writing disappeared, instead replaced by red spatters.
He glanced at Findish, who looked sincerely apologetic. At least, as much as he could manage to. "Sorry," the man said. "I didn't mean-"
"That's alright," Rommel said patiently. "Not something you could help." Although you could've not been looking over my damn shoulder. That was alright, too. His fault for deciding to write while sitting right next to the man. He jotted down a final note, locked the journal, and stowed it along with the rest of the items he'd removed.
He then removed his rucksack, and opened it up. He began to rummage through it, pulling out his spare magazines. He'd marked each one for containing regular or Shredder rounds. Mixing them up would be horrid. He began to open the ammunition pouches that he'd used, and began to cram new magazines into them. He had plenty of ammo in case he needed it. He left the rucksack lying next to Findish.
Standing up, Rommel looked about the room. "Okay, let's see here. What sorts of pretty things can we get to make the bad guys go away?" he mumbled, more to himself than anyone else. He whistled quietly as he began to make his way through the aisles. He had an MA2B, that was a good start, he supposed. He found one of the things he was looking for, and grinned wickedly at it, at the same time chuckling a bit. "Hey, Findish? You're gonna be carryin' my ruck if I'm gonna have to drag you around. Start packin' anything you wanna keep into it."
The man coughed sharply, most likely out of surprise. "Now why in the Hell would I do that? Only ammo I got in mine is for the SRS99 n' for the M7. I can't snipe anymore, boss," Findish said, his voice cynical and weary at the same time. Rommel had taken all this into account, but didn't particularly care all that much. There was the sound of rattling coming from where Rommel had gone, and he couldn't see down that way.
"Because," Rommel said, the rattling continuing, "I'm not going to be able to carry it anymore. I've got to make room."
"Oh, God, Rommel, don't tell me..."
The giant of a man stepped back around the corner from the aisle he'd wandered down. He now stood with a huge device in his hands. A massive, cylindrical tank was strapped to his back, with a tube that extended from it to the device in his hands. Bandoliers of forty-millimeter grenades were looped around his belt, as well as over his shoulders. He was inserting a grenade into a slot on the left of the thing.
As Rommel toyed with the object, a blue flame jetted out of a small nozzle in front of the larger nozzle. "Hey, look at that. Still works," he said, a hint of glee put into his voice. He killed the flame, and then shifted the NA4 flamethrower in his hands. He looked toward Findish, rolling his shoulders a little.
"Jesus Christ, Rommel. A flamethrower?" Findish groaned in disbelief.
"You guys keep usin' that guy's name like he's somebody important," Rommel said darkly. It was a less-than-well-hidden fact that Rommel had no religious allegiance. His reasoning was complex. He claimed he was an Agnostic Atheist, which essentially was to say that while he was not entirely against the idea of any particular deity existing, he had not found any evidence nor had any good reason to believe one existed.
Given his long career and personal experiences- This one now falling in step with the rest- this was a perfectly rational view, as far as he was concerned. One of his common arguments was that if God loved Humanity so much, he wouldn't have created the aliens that now formed the Covenant. Another common statement was that if God created man in his image, he didn't want to know who he used as the basis for the same aliens.
He wished the best toward anyone with positive views, and was not generally negative toward them for it. However, given the fact that today he was not encountering regular aliens, but instead alien zombies, he felt that his lack of patience and general criticism was perfectly natural.
Findish looked up at Rommel disgustedly. He did not share the same views, though he was very flexible in his own. They had, on multiple occasions, had arguments on the old "No Atheists in Foxholes" slogan that had propagated so long ago. He glanced over the man slowly. He still had his MA2B, which was magnetically attached to the tank, angled in such a way that reaching it would not be difficult.
After a while, he finally broke his gaze to go into another coughing fit. As he finished, the man glanced down at his legs, and at his arm. He frowned slightly, narrowing his eyes in disappointment rather than despair. "Looks heavy," he said, wiping some of the blood off his face with the back of his hand.
"You don't know the half of it," Rommel said, still rolling his shoulders. He shifted his feet back and forth, adjusting his stance. He couldn't decide how he wanted to stand that would be most comfortable while he was carrying the thing. Then again, there was nothing comfortable about a flamethrower anyhow.
Miller appeared from another aisle of weapons. He was now carrying an XM510 Multishot Grenade Launcher, and had traded off his old M7S in favor of the MA5. He wasn't quite as heavily outfitted as Rommel, but he was better outfitted than he was before. The M7S wasn't good for much other than simple work. It hadn't proven to be much help to him thus far. He looked up from his own weapons towards Rommel. "NA4? They still have those?"
Rommel shrugged. "Dated, impractical, but lethal. Planet's not exactly high on the UNSC's totem pole for defense. Probably scraping the bottom of the barrel to get what it has," he said casually. He repressed the urge to comment on the fact that the planet only had about fifteen thousand military units altogether, which wasn't a very high amount. The total forces on the Supercarrier more likely than not were enough to outnumber the total forces of the planet. The total number of hostiles now most definitely did. He turned back to Findish. "So, you gonna help me out, or not?"
"What the Hell do you need me to carry that for?"
"Because flamethrowers, unlike standard firearms, are a real bitch to carry around, and a pain in the ass when you run out of gun juice. With a standard firearm, you can reload. With a flamethrower, you need to refill the tank, a luxury I won't have, or you can refill the tank, another thing that isn't an option," he said, rolling his head, his voice picking up the tone as though he were explaining it to a child. "So, when this thing runs out of fuel, I'm going to want to be able to pick up another weapon and keep enough ammo for it in reserve to be useful for long periods of time."
"So I'm being reduced to a Human pack mule that can't walk."
"Can't walk, can't shoot, but can make a damn good ammo supply," Rommel replied.
Findish looked away, as though he couldn't even believe what he was hearing. Rommel shrugged in response, and knelt down beside him, setting the flamethrower aside. The man didn't even have a rucksack on him, which was probably for the better. "Look. I didn't mean nothing by it. But you ain't gonna be able to do your job, and we're gonna need help," he said slowly. He didn't add on the fact that they'd need even more help if they were going to have to keep him protected.
A long silence followed.
The man sighed loudly. "I don't even know why you guys are bothering to keep me around, I'm dead weight. But fine. Get the damn thing on me, and I'll carry it 'til I'm dead."
"That's the spirit," Rommel said. He turned the man around, and took the rucksack- which he'd left lying there for that very purpose- and clipped the thing to the back of the man's armored vest. "Done. Now, if everyone's rea-"
There was the sound of locks being undone that broke the silence. Everyone brought their weapons to bear, and pointed their guns at the door. There was the sound of the door opening, but the damn thing wasn't moving.
There was another door somewhere in the room that had just opened.
Someone or something was in the room with them.