Yet another chapter.
For a change, this one doesn't happen from the viewpoint of neither Jane nor Thomas, our otherwise established centers of focus. I'm thinking each chapter covers roughly 1/3 of each in-game chapter, to offer perspective.
Also, you guys watched the latest "Game of Thrones"? Won't spoil, but daaaaaaaaaaaamn, brutal.
Temple
January 6th
MSV Ishimura, Cygnus-system
Engineering Deck, tram-station
14:11
"Engineering, everyone off to make room for new passengers, and beware of pick-pockets." Hillary grinned, hoisting her new toy on in her right arm, while her rifle was held in the left. She was seriously contemplating simply putting it on her back, but until she'd seen the effectiveness of her new zombie-killer, she'd rather be safe. She was gleeful, not moronic, contrary to what some people seemed to think ('Some people' being the men of the group, oddly enough.)
Engineering was a bit less bright than the bridge, multiple lights here flickering on and off. There was a bit of blood on the floor, still wet enough to make it slippery when walking on the surface. Before anyone managed to speak, Kaidan's Omnitool chimed. Hillary liked the guy, and hadn't even wanted to prank him, despite sufficient openings for a joke, such as his butt-chin.
"Alenko? Listen up, we've got a problem." Jane's voice came over the channel. Hillary groaned, but it was Thomas who spoke first, though not to Jane;
"Not another one?" He sounded just as deflated as Jane, though her tone held a bit of "I'm pissed off" as well. Figures, redheads always seemed the aggressive type.
"What is it, Captain?" Kaidan asked, apparently completely calm. Well good for him, that meant she could be allowed to groan in annoyance as much as she wanted to. And she did. Because problems were annoying. Especially on a Zombie-ship.
"Every single escape-pod just launched, with no one onboard."
"Well… that sucks." Hillary muttered. It sucked for the poor bastards still alive around the ship, and it sucked for themselves too, if they couldn't fit everyone on the Kellion. What if someone had stolen the damn thing while they were gone? Chen and Johnston seemed like twitchy-itchy types. Hillary would bet they were going to turn tail when the first zombie crawled out of a duct.
"There's more." Jane said. Leaning forward, Hillary could see that other woman, Kendra, standing next to the Captain, armed with a handgun. Since when… oh right, she said something about Clarke owing her. Must've had a gun then too. Figures.
"Isn't there always?" Kaidan asked, sounding a little annoyed. (A little being far less than what Hillary was, but she wasn't going to comment on that.) The lieutenant seemed to mull things over as Jane looked off-screen for something, then back;
"Eighty-seven percent of the crew has flat-lined. If what we fear is correct, then you're looking at nearly a thousand of those things running around on the ship."
"Well that's just great…" Hillary muttered, then actually processed what Jane had just said; "A what? A thousa-… This is how I die…"
"Told you, we're fucked." Adrian muttered from next to her, a smug tone to his voice. Great, now there was someone making fun of her.
"Nobody's fucked, if we just focus and keep an eye out. These things like to use the vents to sneak up, so keep an eye on whatever openings you see in walls, floors or ceilings." Vincent snapped, glaring at the two complaining marines.
As the team went through the first door they found, a narrow corridor, not broad enough for two men to walk side-by-side, turned and led them into a new room. The room itself was fairly large, about the same size as the tram-station. It was dimly illuminated, but appeared relatively safe.
At the center, a corpse was slumped in the chair meant for keeping track of passing traffic on the other side or shatterproof glass. The corpse was dressed in the same type of hardsuit worn by Vincent and Pendleton, only a darker color, as well as a mask-like helmet covering the dead man's face, but leaving ears and hair free.
"Great… more dead guys." Hillary muttered, stepping closer to the corpse. This one really seemed to be nothing but a normal, good old fashioned, dead body. There were no extra arms, no fangs, no intestines hanging from gaping hole in the stomach (although he really reeked like he'd been dead for a month already), and no evil eyes trying to glare at her from the darkness; "But, at least it's a regular dead guy."
"If they killed him, why didn't he turn?" Kaidan wondered aloud. Hillary glanced at the lieutenant for a moment, then back at the dead guard. She noticed something lying at his feet, a datapad, of all things. Guy was reading when the walking dead jumped him? Poor bastard.
"Personal Log, Acting Chief Engineer Jacob Temple. It's been two days since they pulled that planet open… since all those things on the colony started. The panic, the riots… They were nothing compared to what came after. Our friends, our co-workers, started coming back…Changed…Coming back to kill us, to drag us away. Rucker disappeared this morning, and I have to assume he's dead. My crew, they're starting to crack. I'm trying to keep an eye on them, but right now… fuck, we've got bigger problems. We're hemorrhaging fuel, and now the primary engine is laboring. Danvers and I are going to reach the fuel depot to try and fix it. Temple out."
The room was silent for a moment as the audio ended, leaving more than one pair of eyes to glance at the dead body slumped in the chair. Hillary wasn't sure if a sigh of relief or a snort of annoyance would be fitting here. Okay, so the dead guy apparently wasn't this "Temple" person, since he and someone named Danvers was trying to reach the fuel depot (props the same place she'd be heading before long to fix this shit), so at least there might be someone else alive around. On the other side…she'd felt sorry for a guy she thought was someone else. Great, lets all just confuse dead guys now, shall we?
"If they're at the fuel depot, they won't be far from… wait, the man mentioned the colony. This is at least two days old, but…" Kaidan muttered, then turned to Vincent as she was trying to ascertain the identity of the dead guard; "Vincent, just how long has it been since the planet-crack took place?"
"About… two and a half days. But this guy looks like he'd been dead for at least a whole day." Hillary leaned in again, noticing what the Chief meant. More than a few places, the bare skin was bloated, a clear sign of necrosis and post-mortem decomposing. She wasn't very tempted at all to peek under the guy's mask.
"That long? How long ago did crew start dying?" She asked, looking up from the dead guy. Vincent furrowed her brow, as if she was considering something important.
"First confirmed death was… Nurse Higgins, I think. One of the patients from the colony, Harris, killed her before he was restrained. Doctor Mercer wanted to examine him for… shit, I don't know." The chief shook her head.
"Regardless, we need to get the engines back up, and if we're lucky, we'll find Temple on the way." Hillary cringed slightly at the spoken "if", but refrained from speaking. If she was going to do something un-soldierly, she might as well save it for when she could tease Thomas. Still, she didn't really mind him all that much. Guy did save my life, so…
Vincent raised her hand, some sort of light flickering to life in it, and her Omnitool displayed a map not unlike what Jane had showcased at the briefing. The Chief only looked at the map for a few seconds, before it was turned off again. Without a word, Vincent took the lead towards a door to the right. Yep, and now the mangy, angry chief of police gives us the silent treatment.
Hillary gave her Ripper a test-spin, just to be safe, as Vincent palmed the interface for a door with "Machine shop" digitally portrayed above it. The open door revealed a ramp going straight downwards, into a much less bright (and significantly much more creepier) part of the ship.
Down below, corpses were strewn about, human and a few zombies alike. The humans lacked arms, legs and even heads, while the closest dead zombie was sprawled on its back near a broken-open gate, limbs bent awkwardly to the sides. The floor was slick with blood as the team stopped, frozen at the sound of something moving in the closest room. Considering the situation, Hillary barely even bothered lifting an eyebrow at the (far too cliché and expected) slowly rolling canister coming into view. She looked back to where Kaidan was standing.
"Vincent, Thomas, check it out." The lieutenant whispered, gesturing into the room where a few suits were visible, hanging from notches on the wall. The marine and the guard nodded, no words spoken as one held the plasma saw, the other fire, and entered the room.
While the pair checked the room in silence, the rest of the team remained just outside, weapons pointed in all directions as they waited for the all clear. Hillary glanced at the dead zombie, eyeing a chance at seeing how effective her new toy was. Let's see if… maybe I could saw off the legs…
She pointed the Ripper at the zombie, resting the single laser-dot on the thing's legs, and pulled the trigger. There was a fair bit of recoil as the blade was launched. Then there was horrible roaring and screaming as the zombie, now missing both its legs, tried leaping at the group. It ended up falling flat forward, starting to haul itself forward instead.
"Fucking A!" Hillary shouted, even as guns and biotics flared towards the zombie. She (despite being just as surprised at the rest, and a little shocked as well) kept pressing the trigger as the blade sliced through the dead-yet-moving body, spilling intestines, arms, bones and blood on the floor until the thing simply dropped dead again. As the room fell silent again, she gently patted her Ripper; "Down, girl"
"Well… okay, lesson learned. Don't trust them to be dead unless they miss every single limb." Chief Ashley (and she would always be Chief Ashley, because she was a hardass, badass commanding officer) said, lowering her weapon. Hillary noted with no small amount of pride and glee, that just about no one had managed to shoot before she had ripped the fucker a new one. Yeah, I'm thát good.
The group, now wary of supposedly sneaky undead, proceeded through what seemed like a workshop, complete with a large contraption labelled "Bench" with large neon-letters just above a sign warning people to watch their fingers, complete with a grizzly picture and everything. There were also a lot more corpses, as well as another one of the Engineer Temple's audio logs. Hillary shuddered, hearing the meaty sounds of a man pulling his own teeth out before being knocked unconscious by a door.
"Just what the fuck is happening on this ship? I mean, okay, so the dead are coming back, mutated. Seen that before, I have. But what the fuck is up with the living ones?" No one had an answer, leaving her to mutter and curse under her breath as they entered a much bigger room.
"Okay… heights and darkness. Just who the fuck designed this ship?" Thomas cursed, tapping a foot against the floor. The solid ground was gone, replaced by a catwalk that (at least to Hillary) seemed sturdy enough. The sound, was what got to her, not the view. The constant noise, grinding machines, metal stretching, something or someone stomping around, knocking shit over.
Whatever answer someone would have given him was cut short, as the sound of something scuttling along the floor alerted the group. Weapons up and searching, it was Hammond who saw the source first;
"Son of a bitch…" The man growled. Following his eyes, Hillary saw another one of the crawlers (because they crawled instead of running, so "crawler" it was) scurrying along on the underside of the catwalk, paying little attention to the group of armed humans, aside from a brief stop that lasted for about as long as it took to sneer, then scurried on.
"Is it just me, or are the monsters kinda wary of us now?" Clarke asked, rifle held to his shoulder as he followed where the creepy zombie had gone. As the team passed by a locker labelled "emergency supplies", Hillary opened it, curious as she was despite the situation.
"Fuck me sideways." She muttered, grinning behind her helmet. Aside from a small canister of Medigel, there was a shredder-module, lying nice and politely in the locker. If given the chance, maybe she could find a way to smack it on her rifle. Shredders did a lot more internal damage than usual, so it'd be kinda stupid to just leave it. Also, it says "emergency". I think a ship-wide zombie-attack warrants "emergency"…
"You said something?" Thomas asked as he walked by her, likely trying to discern what she had grabbed thís time. Guy really was a bit too uptight about the law and all that. Still, he'd saved her life on Eden Prime, so while she'd tease him at every given chance, lying wasn't something she did. At least, not very often.
"Mmm. Found some Medigel and a shredder-module." She said, holding up the small part for a weapon; "S' the same thing as on your Carnifex, just for rifles… I think. Need a workbench and less dead guys around to fit it."
Apparently, honesty from her side took him a little aback, as it was a whole second before he answered. A long-ass second where the rest of the team slowly proceeded, though Ashley glanced back at the two of them. Worry not, Chief oh mine. Thy boyfriend I shall keepeth safe… or something like that.
"Huh." Granted, while Thomas was a good guy, it wasn't always the brightest light bulb shining between his ears. Instead of trying to respond to a one-word sentence, she stuffed the module in a pouch on her belt, hefted the Ripper back up and jogged to keep up with the rest of the group. Turning right, she and Thomas had just caught sight of the team again, standing by a small holographic display, where Kaidan was pulling something downwards, she couldn't see what.
Just as she was ahead of the Chief, about to turn left by the safety rails, a vent broke above her, followed by an angry snarl even before she felt the kick of a human-ish body impact her own.
"FUCK!" The impact was somewhat lessened by the fact that the attacker had misjudged the jump, and one mutated foot hit the rails instead of her, resulting in an organic blade piercing the catwalk instead of her midsection. Even as she tried yanking the Ripper (inert, thank God) from beneath her, the Necro (and it was a rather fitting name), had yanked its blade free and was swinging it at her face; "Oh shit…"
The Necro's head, and most of its upper body, suddenly took a flight backwards, as a shotgun was pressed into its face and a trigger was pulled. The shot was followed up with a blast of fire hitting the remaining (stumbling like a fucking drunkard) torso, sending it after its head and shoulders, tumbling into the darkness below.
"You okay?" She was pulled to her feet again, her shoulders sore from the fall. Thomas had saved her life. Again. And people were nearby. And they'd seen it. And there went my excuses for teasing the bastard… He'll never let me live this down.
"Yeah, yeah I'm fine. I could have taken that one out too, you know." She bit her lip beneath the helmet, grateful that no one could see. Stupid Thomas with his stupid firebending, saving her stupid butt. She could save her own butt, thank you very much.
"I know. Just didn't want you to get too far ahead." Thomas said, an obvious attempt at a joke. A joke. He'd been scared piss-less when he'd seen the Necro's the first time, and now the sunovabitch was making jokes. He's spent way too much time around Jeff.
"Are you okay down there?" Ashley called, the concern easy to hear. She'd always been like that, sort of the admonishing and berating, but caring, mother of Dog Squad. Donkey had sort of been the dad, even if the Chief never fell for his obvious attempts at charming her panties off.
"We're fine. One of them jumped us, but nothing happened." Thomas called back. Hillary found herself a little grateful that he hadn't mentioned who had gotten jumped. Fuck, I'm going to end up liking this guy, aren't I?
"Good. Okay, there's another one of these stations on the other side of the ravine." Isaac said, pointing at a lift hanging from a set of rails, just ahead of the two marines; "Problem is, it's only big enough for three people, four if you really squeeze it."
"What's the stations for?" Thomas asked.
"Each one controls the change of fuel-tanks. Seeing as nothing has happened yet, and the power is still flowing, I'm guessing Temple's team never made it to that point." Clarke didn't say it, but Hillary could hear what was left unsaid in his voice. Temple's team hadn't made it. They'd probably been some of the Necro's she'd been shooting at already. Fucking fantastic.
"Thomas. You, Pennyloafer and Clarke take the lift across. The rest of us hold here till you get back. The ravine is narrow enough that we can provide some fire-support across it." Kaidan called down from the raised station, his flashlight illuminating where they needed to go. Short or not, that was an awfully long way away from the others. Great, fucking fantastic. Divide and conquer, and we're doing the dead bastards' job for them, splitting up like this.
Clarke, being the biotic left the station to head for them. As he was somewhere midway, the sound of a vent breaking and a Necro roaring in hunger and rage joined in with the belching fire of a rifle. Then, all was silent.
"Clarke!" Someone from the station yelled (it was fucking hard hearing who with those helmets), though no one moved.
"It's okay. They really need to stop roaring before attacking." The N7 huffed as he came into view, fresh blood spattered across his armor; "Completely gives them away."
Isaac Clarke, Hillary thought, had to be the single most insane man on the face of the galaxy, (if that was even a real wording, she didn't care). Sure, she herself wasn't panicking when the dead attacked, but Clarke seemed to actually find it entertaining. Sick sunovabitch…still, it's nice to see skills following bravado.
"You actually enjoy them?" Thomas exclaimed, aghast. Hillary held her tongue, since Thomas had just spoken her mind for her, (and wasn't that just odd?) so she instead opted to give the Ripper a test-spin.
"Enjoy? Kid, they are the living dead, mutated corpses of murdered innocents. I'd have to be sick in the head to enjoy any of this." The N7 sounded honestly dumbfounded at the question. As if he hadn't even considered it himself.
"Right, I didn't mean… you just sound so fucking calm about it." Thomas shot back, technically at least the same rank as Clarke (though even Hillary knew N7's usually carried the authority of a lieutenant, regardless of actual rank). They were just thát badass. And in Clarke's case, thát mental.
"Experience, Chief. Experience and more gruesome fights than you would bother counting." Clarke replied, huffing as he dragged the tram towards them with a biotic pull. As it came closer, it became clear that they might have to dump some… cargo.
A corpse, clad in the same uniform as the security-officer back at the security-station, was sprawled on what little space the tram offered. Hillary stepped on as the first, offering the corpse an apologetic nod before she heaved him (and he really looked quite young, maybe even younger than her) over the rails and into the darkness below. This is so fucked up… I should be dumping dead Reaper-troops or Batarians into a pit, not my own species.
She suppressed a wince when, in the silent room, the meaty thwack of the corpse hitting the ground below could be heard for a single, painful instant. Fuck… I didn't train for pulling around dead humans. I trained to handle dead aliens and shit, not…Fuck, just keep your game-face on.
The Ripper in her hands somehow was a soothing factor in the situation, even as she refrained from cradling it around Thomas. There was no way he was going to see her weak. He was the one with all the emotions running around, falling in love with her Chief. Fuck, why am I thinking about- get it together. Jeff's just going to laugh his crippled ass off if he saw me like this.
She still had breaking his arm on her 'to-do' list. The idiot had been the cause for Shepard's death because he hadn't managed to pull his fingers from his butthole and get into an escape-pod. Fucking idiot.
"Weapons up, we've got a reception." Clarke's voice broke through her thoughts, causing her to snap from the floor to their destination. At least five of the Necrotic asshats were running around, flailing blades, roaring like monsters, and generally just being complete dicks to her mental health.
"I guess that means Temple's team's part of 'em?" She didn't even wait for an answer, instead spinning up her Ripper. For something meant as a mining tool, the thing was remarkably efficient at killing the undead.
"Fisher, I'll hit them with a stasis, then you and Pennyloafer reduce them to Shish Kebab. Got it?" Clarke said in a low voice, enough that the team on the station wouldn't be able to hear him.
"Got it. You up for it, Hillary?" the Chief asked, nodding as he glanced at her. Hillary patted the Ripper, grinning behind her helmet;
"Ask and thou shall receive an asskicking" At her nod, Clarke hit the assembled Necro's with a stasis-field wide enough to trap the whole group in the gravimetric prison. As the tram came within two meters of the slowed-down monsters, Hillary grinned darkly behind her helmet; "Rip 'em a whole lotta new assholes!"
At the same time as her weapon shot out the first blade, Thomas unleashed blasts of emerald flame from his hands, each punch washing over the undead crew with burning punishment (and wasn't thát a delicious wording?). The result was the chewing and slicing of steel through dead flesh, followed by killing everything with fire. Fuck that, 'Kill it with fire!' so much needs to be on his armor. I wonder if I can get something to stitch it on his uniform while he's slee… that'd mean seeing Chief Ashley naked. No thank you.
Still, the notion of inscribing the phrase on the Chief's armor was still valid and (in her eyes) a good way to shake him from his constant 'follow the rules, be boring' stupor. Fuck it. For now, she was doing just as much killing, even if she lost two blades when Thomas "accidentally" melted them. Fucker.
"Clear." Clarke called as the last Necro pretty much crawled in on itself to escape the clinging fire (seriously, what was Thomas spraying them with, napalm?), and the tram made it the last bit of distance towards the other side; "Alright. Keep your guards up and cover each other. When we get to the station, I'll finish the refueling while you make sure not to die horribly."
"Yeah well, same to you, old man." Hillary shot back, stomping down on the burnt remains of a skull, splintering it and sending fragments and fangs in every direction. Isaac sputtered behind her, causing her to grin like a complete goof. Thank God for the helmet.
"I'm only thirty-nine!"
"Damn, thát old? I thought it was somewhere near thirty or twenty-nine." Oh, but she enjoyed unnerving men, whether it be her vocabulary or her blunt inquiries, or simply tha casual insults (those were the funniest)
"Shut up…" The N7 muttered. Hillary's grin only spread as she heard Thomas choke on his own amusement. Achievement unlocked: Make Mister Thomas Hotman laugh on a zombie-ship. Yep, now I just need to make Alenko blush and I'll have the whole set.
Still, that could wait. Which she didn't really mind, as they traversed the stairs and ramps towards the last station.
"I still don't get it. What even started this whole-" Thomas started, walking next to her. She was only just turning around when something flung itself through the air, impacting on the Chief's back with a meaty thwack and a high-pitched scream, throwing the man to the ground. Almost instantly, he started simmering green, though the mutated (and fucking hell it really was) baby on his back only seemed to grow ever more pissed at getting its hands and feet burnt.
Snapping to action, Clarke levelled his rifle straight at the undead infant, pulled the trigger and unleashed the underslung shotgun straight into its dead face. It didn't kill it, merely threw it straight off Thomas's back, leaving a quad of singed claw prints on his armor. Hillary snapped around as another high-pitched scream joined in as well as a gurgling roar, signaling not one, but two new arrivals, just as Thomas reenacted the age-old tradition of kicking a midget, sending the now-dead baby flying into the nearest wall with a fresh and meaty thwack that sounded a lot like snapping bones. Well fuck, it was dead and that was it.
"One for each, Chief. Want me to take the undead diaper-stain?" She asked. It was because she found it curious as to the appearance of babies on the ship, but also (and fuck those who claimed this, she'd deny it) because she wanted to spare Thomas from having to kill what he might still see as a baby.
Didn't really matter in the end, as the baby flung itself straight at her, a trio of barbed tendrils shooting from its back. I've seen enough Hentai to know where this is going.
Recoiling slightly as the undead toddler hit her face-on, she was greeted by the high-pitched scream, only now up and close, and much more annoying than before, as it clung to her helmet (also it seemed the undead didn't bother removing genitals. Who'd have thought?)
From what she could hear (since her vision was sorta obstructed) Clarke had visitors too, namely one of the Crawlers. Fuck it, she could keep playing Hug's-a-lot with this thing. Forcing a hand between the belly and her visor, she pushed the screaming baby-Necro from her face and threw it away. It hit the ground hard enough to kill a regular infant, then leapt right at her again. This time, instead of landing on her helmet, it landed on the spinning blade of her Ripper. The blade sawed through the dead body like through so much plywood, showering Hillary and her immediate surroundings with gore, blood and fragments.
As the dead body dropped to the ground, Hillary looked around to take in the situation. Thomas had of course disposed of his opponent, plus two more that had dropped in without her seeing them (not her fault, taking a baby-Necro to the face kinda made it hard to see), and Clarke was in the process of, very brutally, tearing the tail off the (now one-armed) Crawler, before stomping its head in.
"Well… that was fun." Due to the adrenaline running in her veins, she wasn't entirely sure if it had been one of the men or herself speaking, but she agreed somewhat to the sentiment. Especially because seeing Thomas brushing one of the tendrils from his shoulder was grin inducing.
"Anyone wounded?" Clarke asked, checking where one of the Crawler's claws had apparently gotten stuck in his shoulder. At the comforting 'no's, they made it the final bit to the station, where Clarke pulled the lever. Hillary was almost disappointed that nothing happened at that (well, except for the whole 'fuel' thing. Thát worked), but decided not to voice her annoyance. Just because something was terribly anticlimactic didn't mean it was bad.
It was a little unnerving though, as the entire trip back went without a single mishap, (except for when Thomas shot her an obvious stink-eye for taking credits from a locker) and they made it back to the rest of the group.
"Alright, what's next?" Thomas asked, relaxing his grip on his shotgun. Vincent was the one to pull up the map of the deck.
"We need to get the engines back online, or we're going to hit the planet. Found another one of Temple's logs. Apparently, he suspected someone of sabotaging the systems." The Chief said, apparently remembering something uncomfortable (because what could possibly be uncomfortable on a zombie-ship?).
"Great, now humans are fucking us over too?" Pendleton exclaimed, angry with no one in particular apparently.
"Humans always fuck each other over. Nothing stops thát, not a park full of dinosaurs, not an alien invasion and certainly not a ship full of zombies." Hillary drawled, unable to resist taking advantage of the obvious naivety needed to be surprised at humans doing some of the backstabbing too. She just couldn't see the "why" of the scenario.
Instead of taking the longer route back, the team followed what seemed to be shortcut to the engine-room. The route led them to end up on the outside of the security-station where they'd found the dead body in his chair. What they saw, made Hillary cringe.
A new creature, definitely not resembling a human, was flapping through the air towards the dead guard, behaving like some form of fucked-up bird.
"The hell is…" She started, but trailed off as bile caught in her throat. The bird-thing grabbed a hold of the dead guard, and then fucking speared his head with a long tendril coming straight from its own mouth, allthewhile it flapped and remained in the air, pumping some sort of liquid into the dead man's head. Grime and blood stood in a fountain from the mask, as fangs broke through from the inside. The uniform was torn and shredded, and the skin turned black faster than the eyes of the team believed.
The flapping creature then released the corpse, which began roaring and stumbling, shedding the finals remains of its humanity before taking off at a sprint towards the closest vent, shattering the fan blade in the process. And it was gone.
A storm of emotions and disbelief must have flooded the mind of every member of the team, though it ended up summarized when Nicolai opened his mouth;
"What… the fuck."
Hillary found that statement very fitting. 'What the fuck' indeed.
