"Tails," the vixen called out softly to get his attention.
He could hear the pity in her voice, despite being wrapped in an overwhelming sense of urgency.
"Tails," more forcefully this time.
His eyes were still glued to the monitor. Unsure of what to do. The kit's mind refused to come to grips with the fact that this thing, this leviathan, was the girl he had spent the last three years of his life loving. This wasn't the type of situation he was trained to deal with, none of this was.
"Tails!" Fiona was screaming now.
The USG had drilled quick logical thinking into every employee, and for good reason. When you worked on propulsion systems capable of moving small moons, you had to be light on your feet and quick to respond to problems. This, however, seemed more distant than a problem even if it required the same level of attention. Tails resolved himself to refuse to deal with this, to confront the problem for what it was.
It's Cosmo… He reminded himself again, and she's going to tear apart this ship.
The slap, if it could be called that, somehow managed to hurt through the plating on his helmet. He went as far as to raise a paw to his face as he attempted to caress what he was sure was a red cheek.
"Tails," the red-furred fox said as she locked onto his eyes, "we need to help Isaac."
The blow had brought him back face to face with reality. He decided to nod in agreement.
"Do you think you can keep up?" the kit asked of his newest colleague.
The stare she returned suggested that she might have been insulted.
"Good," Tails retorted before grabbing his newest Plasma rifle off the desk.
This problem was well past what any pesticide could control. Cosmo was going to have be pulled out by the roots. It pained him to think about, and he could only hope that this madness had spared her the pain of such a grotesque transformation. The thought of having to live through such a conversion was painful, made even more so with the realization that some part of her might still be attached to this gargantuan beast.
The kit sprang from his chair with fresh purpose coursing through his veins. He had failed to protect Cosmo, the least he could do was provide some dignity. If this thing truly was her, it was no way to exist. She was nothing more than an animal, cornered and thrashing about.
"Hey, slow down there," Fiona called after him. "What's the plan?"
"To save Isaac and get off this stupid ship."
"But," the vixen hesitated, "What about Cosmo?"
"I told you we need to save Isaac."
She was still coming to grips with what he had a minute ago. There wasn't anything that could be done. Tails was the last person that wanted to admit that, but even he knew Cosmo was lost to something he still didn't understand.
Palming the door to the hydroponics room, Tails took a deep breath. The stale recycled oxygen of from his suit's respirator did little to calm his nerves.
Forgive me, the kit may have whispered out loud, but couldn't be certain.
The first few seconds all happened too fast for to remember. As soon as he entered the chamber he found himself under attack. A stray branch-like tentacle threatened to flatten him against the wall. Thankfully, he was still a fox, his instincts bordered on precognition.
Without hesitation Tails unleashed a blast of plasma, forcing the Leviathan to retreat its wayward appendage. A moment later he found a round orb barreling down on him. The three-pound seed would have broken every bone in his body had he not seen it coming. However, the spore tore past him before exploding into splintery mess when it collided with the pillar behind him.
"Miles?" Someone shouted.
"Isaac," Tails replied back, "What are you doing here?"
"I can't leave without her, this was her lab."
Tails had no idea that she also worked as a botanist aboard the Ishimura. Their circumstances were uncomfortably similar.
"What about you?" the man inquired after releasing a volley ordinance from his own plasma rifle. "What are you doing here?"
"Looked like you could use a hand," the kit lied.
A branch lashed out with ferocious speed, forcing the two dive their separate ways.
"What's the plan?" Isaac could be heard from somewhere.
Outside of Isaac's line cutter, there wasn't much between the three of them that would do enough damage to defeat their foe. Unfortunately, that had a limited range, and there was no getting close enough to use it. Tails, however, wasn't ready to give up just yet. There was more than enough explosive material in the room, it was just a question of putting it to use.
Raising the gravity tether, the kit reached out with his paw for the oxygen tank bolted to the other side of the room. At over hundred pounds, it was far too heavy to move without a RIG suit. With a flic of his wrist he sent canister tumbling end over end toward the monster. It was far from a perfect throw, landing somewhere at the base of the creature.
Before he could raise his plasma rifle, the kit was forced to duck out of the way of another seed.
"Damn it," the kit swore under his breath.
Getting an angle was hard enough, and the monster was doing its best to corner him.
Fiona, however, had been paying attention and was arguably a better shot. Without hesitation she squeezed the trigger on her weapon.
In sensitive grow environments, precise levels of oxygen were a necessity in order to achieve higher yields. The tanks were used to supplement the atmosphere on an as needed basis when the air recyclers were unable to keep up. Oxygen also had its downsides. In its purist form, is just waiting for a flame, or in this case a super-heated ball of plasma. The explosion was enough to send them all to the ground, its flame licking all of their suits with palpable amounts of heat.
A roar of pain erupted from the other end of the grow room as the three of them advanced.
"Who's that?" the man asked motioning to the other fox.
"Fiona," the vixen replied, "chief security officer."
Isaac's chuckle was unmistakable, even over the creature's shriek.
"Everyone's comedian I swear… rub in later, tough guy," she said before ducking behind a water supply pipe. "This thing isn't dead yet."
Don't say it like that, Tails wanted to protest, but thought better of it.
If it had been bad before, it was worse now. This beast had seen fit to throw a tantrum that could very well tear the ship apart. Tentacles flailed wildly, destroying almost everything in their path.
"I think we pissed it off," Isaac concluded while reaching for another tank, "I'd say that's a start."
Without giving it much thought, Tails mimicked the man.
If one will not do, why not two?
"One," the kit shouted.
"Two," the man echoed as they each heaved the containers toward their target.
"Three," Fiona responded with far too much glee.
This time they knew what they were in for. Shielding their eyes and ducking low, they let their armor shrug off the ensuing blast. What they were not ready for, however, was the damage caused to the spinning drum. It grinded to a halt, sending them all tumbling backwards.
There was no artificial gravity to speak of in this part of the ship. It relied entirely on centrifugal force. Now that the giant cylinder was no longer spinning. Everything was free to float wildly, and with such a violent stop, there was no shortage of large objects to avoid.
Tails had managed to click his magboots on, but getting them to hold was something else. Not all of the surfaces in this room were magnetic. To keep the grow drum light, the floors were mostly made out of carbon fiber and other non-ferrous surfaces. With some luck he managed to catch his toe on a support pillar. With his free hand he reached out grabbing hold of the vixen by her ankle. The force threatened to pull his arm out of his socket, stretching the limits of what his suit was physically capable of.
"Gotcha," he grunted through the pain.
Looking on he watched his partner get her bearings before a panic look washed across her face. With a finger she frantically pointed behind him. Tails was scared to look, but he could feel the object bearing down on them.
An entire grow chamber had come loose from the floor and was now tumbling end over end in the dead space between them and the ship. There wasn't much debate about what an object that large would do to them.
Without much though he tossed Fiona his pulse rifle to free up a much-needed paw. Quickly he turned in in the direction of the large structure that was bearing down on them and activated the stasis unit. If Tails didn't know better, the gravity defying materials struggled to rein in control of the runaway green house. It seemed to skid to a stop inches from the beam Tails had managed to anchor himself on.
Meanwhile, Fiona was doing her best to keep the now even angrier beast at bay, wielding both weapons from a comparatively upside-down position. The plasma rounds lit up the room with a blue hue, shredding any branches that ventured too close.
"Where's Isaac?" the kit shouted.
The vixen did little more to acknowledge his question that nod in a direction well on the other side of the giant cylindrical room. He was pinned to a wall by a storage locker, struggling to free himself. It was too far for the kit's gravity tether to engage, and Isaac had no leverage to use his.
With the only remaining tool he had left, Tails freed the Plasma cutter from his belt and took careful aim. He knew his modifications would have raised the effective cutting range, but he wasn't sure by how much. The arch of super-heated gas leapt from the conductors and raced across the room. Perhaps no one was more surprised than Isaac to see the blue bolt cleave the locker in two. With half as much weight on top of him the man was able to pull himself free.
Nothing about uprooting this monster was easy. It was fighting from an entrenched and fixed position. Gravity was of little consequence to it. To the three of them, however, the lack of it was about to make everything even more difficult. Returning the plasma cutter to his belt, the kit used both of his free hands to heave Fiona towards to the grow pod. Even though the stasis had worn off by now, it was at the very least a stationary platform, too heavy to move under her weight.
As she floated by, she released his weapon back to him before giving him a small salute and uttering a very sarcastic "Cap'n".
No doubt she was a little upset with him for having made a lot of decision in the past couple of minutes, none of which he had bothered to confer with her on. The most recent one involved throwing her in the direction of their enemy with no warning. But to her credit, she was keeping up quite marvelously.
She's a soldier, Tails lamented to himself, she's used to being a pawn in someone else's battle.
At least he had saved her life quite a few times already.
And she mine, he felt the need to remind himself.
Crouching down, the kit compressed himself ready to spring forward. It was a quick trip of no more than ten feet through the gravity-less air. Grabbing hold of the pod's frame, he once again found himself next to the only other fox in the room.
"I've spent half my life training for zero-g combat," the vixen began when he arrived next to her. "Perhaps you would be interested in what I think?"
"Does what you're thinking involve blowing a hole in the ship?"
"Does what you're thinking not?"
"A hole big enough to fit… that thing through is going to cause some serious structural damage to the ship. We still need to find a way off before we go tearing it apart."
"Then how the hell are we going to get rid of it?"
"Isaac," the kit motioned to her. "He's got the tool we need, but we have to get him close enough to use it."
Fiona looked up, or was it down, Tails was starting to have trouble remembering. The engineer was scrambling, mag boots clanking away against the frame of the ship's deck.
"That monster is going to tear him apart if we don't do something."
"We need to get its attention."
"Easy enough," she responded before peeking out from behind their cover and unleashing a fresh torrent of blue plasma.
The beast roared, redirecting its branchy tentacles in their direction. Each impact felt like a tree slapping the side of the grow pod they were leaning against, and even more problematic was that the leviathan was more than strong enough to move the untethered structure.
In the distance, the kit spied another container that had broken loose. He twisted and contorted his frame until he lined up the jump. Once he began his flight, there was no turning back, not changing directions. He would be out in the open and vulnerable.
"Keep it distracted until I make it across."
The vixen nodded.
His heart was pounding as he floated through the dead space between him and his destination. Each thump echoing off the lining of his suit louder and louder, Tails was convinced it might explode. Zero gravity training was a must for anyone who was working on space ships, but the training hardly ever emphasized how difficult some things could be. At this range, if his jump was off by more than a degree he would sail past his target.
With his feet safely on something that felt solid again, the kit turned to check on his friends. The leviathan's attacks continued to push Fiona and her cover ever closer to the grow room's ceiling, threatening to crush her. It was his turn to distract the beast.
Reaching for a piece of spear-like scrap metal, the kit twirled end over end to find the sharpest point. His gravity tether happily attached to the material, waiting for his next input. Plasma rounds had done little more than burn the creature, perhaps a javelin would do more.
With a flick of his wrist he sent the sharpened metal end into the belly of the beast. Nearly half of it disappeared into its trunk. The low-pitched growl was up until recently like nothing he'd heard before. Quickly, the creature turned all of its attention to him. Vines thicker than his thigh lashed at him from all directions, each attempting to take hold of him or break him in two.
"Isaac," the kit shouted at the top of his lungs. "Hurry up!"
The man was moving as quickly as his gear would allow him. There was no shortage of obstacles. Since the grow room's sudden loss in centrifugal force, all manner of debris cluttered the room, some moveable, others not.
Tails did his best to fend off the branches, scorching them into retreat with his plasma rifle until it chirped for a new battery. Reaching for his tried and true cutting tool, the two-tailed fox began to prune the overgrown monster, but to his surprise with each severed branch two more sprouted up in its place.
That's not good, he decided. What will happen when Isaac cuts it off at the base?
If he didn't know better, they were about to find out. The man was nearly there, his Line Cutter in-hand, charged and fully extended.
"Isaac! Wait!"
There was no mistaking the sound of a thousand splinters snapping simultaneously. The monster froze, its limbs wafting in a non-existent breeze. Silence feel on a room that had been anything but.
Tails let out an inquisitive, "hmm, I was just starting to think that wouldn't wor…"
But he had spoken too soon. The creature stirred again, its bark-like surface slithering through the air searching for its lost appendages. As it gathered them, it twisted itself into something even more menacing. A maw formed, easily capable of swallowing the three of them whole.
Isaac stood for a moment in awe of the creature unfolding before him. Slowly the man began to back away, realizing that his weapon, no matter how mighty, was not enough to slay this leviathan.
The beast's growl was deafening, its resolve doubled, and Isaac the newest target. Having not learned his lesson the first time, the engineer took to dismantling all the incoming branches only to discover that they were multiplying faster than he could destroy them.
"Tails!" a voice barked at him from across the room.
Fiona had leapt from her perch high up on the room, destined for what appeared to be a dislodged floor grate.
"What are you doing," he muttered to himself, "that doesn't have enough mass to absorb your landing…"
But he could freeze it, just like he had the grow pod. His stasis unit would bind whatever he hit to physical space around it, stopping it dead in its tracks for a few seconds. Timing would be everything. Holding his wrist out, Tails lined up the shot the best he could and squeezed.
The cloud of stasis coated the panel and when the vixen landed she rebounded from the surface, taking off in a new direction almost instantly. Her flight path took her right over the top of the massive creature, but with its attention still focused on an increasingly desperate engineer, the crimson fox didn't appear to be in any immediate danger.
Tails could see Fiona reach down to her boot and remove something small.
Please don't tell me that's what I think it is.
A red light blinked into existence before she hurled the device downward and into the leviathan's open mouth.
His instincts told him to hide, to run for cover, to do anything but stand there and watch, but the kit was unable to tear himself away.
"Cosmo," he cried out softly.
A light so blinding it made the bark look like nothing more than a paper shell erupted from inside the monstrosity, hurtling log sized splinters in every direction. His suit flashed warnings about the pressure and heat, but he ignored them, instead watching in awe as the Cosmo he loved was once again erased at a molecular level.
It was hard to tell if it was his ringing ears or their victory. The room was silent again. Even the whispers were at bay. The three of them had prevailed over the most horrific creature the Ishimura could throw at them.
"Tails," the vixen next to him proclaimed.
He didn't respond. Instead he stared into the charred space that once house a leviathan. There was no coming back from that.
"Tails," she said again, this time in a softer tone, "we did it."
We did… I'm sorry Cosmo.
"Tails, are you okay?"
Finally, a question he could answer, "No."
"There wasn't any other way," she tried to assure him. "It was her or us."
"I know," he agreed, but that didn't stop it from hurting.
"You were pretty good out there, are you sure you don't have any training for this type of thing?"
"For battling the undead?" he quipped, "Yeah, I'm pretty sure."