Gaiden: Resident Evil SIV

Chapter Twenty Six: Targets Extracted

Well, so much for trying to gain control of the ship, Barry thought as he and Leon were forced to walk back down the stairwell from which they came, albeit now limping a bit and moving a lot slower than they had been able to before, thanks to the beating they had received. Wrists bound behind their backs with zip-ties, with the barrels of assault rifles sticking into them to stop any plans for escape or resistance, there was nothing that the bearded man could do to help himself or Lucia, who was being carried under the arm of one of the bigger armored men.

Her boots were still off, allowing Barry to see that R-002 was indeed stamped onto the bottom of her arch, but why the hell would that be there? Not that there was a lot of time for questions while being marched all the way back down to the main exterior deck of the ship, where it was still raining just as hard as it had been before. Where had these men come from? Where were they being taken? The bearded man thought he had simply heard the Captain wrong when he said for them to be taken to the sub, but then…

"All right, we're back." The Captain said, touching his ear. "Open the hatch."

Sure enough, right up against the starboard side of the ship, there was a large black submarine bobbing up and down in the water, where no one would ever have been able to see it unless they knew exactly where to look. One of the metal emergency ladders bolted to the hull of the Starlight allowed them to move up and down with ease, but it wasn't until the next flash of lightning that Barry was able to figure out exactly who these people were.

At the same time that a hatch was swinging open on top of the submarine, the distant lightning illuminated a clearly painted logo on the side of the black hull… the red and white logo of the Umbrella Corporation. So that was who these people were; another retrieval team sent in from the company to clean up their mess… with he and Leon about to become part of that mess when the armored men forced them to kneel down on the wooden deck boards right next to the railing.

"Have you gotten anything from that computer Cora left for us?" The Captain continued as Lucia was carried down the ladder toward the sub. "I want to know who these two assholes are, just in case they're important… the company pays 'double' for important."

"Yes, Sir, the one with the beard is Bernard Burton." A voice replied over the radio. "He's cost the company a lot of money since '98, but he's also a dipshit with no valuable Intel. But hey, the other guy matches the picture that Captain Cora sent to us when she radioed: brave, pretty, dumb as a box of rocks… don't kill Leon, that's her UBCS guy."

Suddenly everyone, Barry included, looked at the Agent with surprise, before the men aiming their rifles at him slowly lowered them. The masked Captain muttered something about needing to be debriefed, and then ordered his men to take Leon onboard and have him looked at by the ship's surgeon. With that, the Agent was cut free of the zip-ties, helped to stand up, and then assisted in going down the ladder, where he disappeared from the bearded man's sight.

The good news: Apparently Leon and Lucia weren't just going to be shot outright. The Bad news: Now Barry was alone, still zip-tied and on his knees, being stared at by the Captain and his remaining two men. They had been so distracted with Lucia, and… somehow thinking that Leon was a member of Umbrella's suicide force, that they hadn't noticed him trying to break free of the zip-tie. It was a really thick one, so getting his wrists free was not an easy task, especially with the threat of being killed at any time.

"All right, you piece of trash." The Captain said, folding his arms and scoffing a little. "Before I have my men shoot you in the legs and toss you overboard, you're going to tell me every important piece of information you know. What does the computer say we can use for leverage with this dolt?"

"It says that his family is his biggest weakness, and has been used to break him before." That other voice on the radio replied. "He has a wife, Kathy, and two daughters, Moira and Polly, current location… Canada."

"I bet it doesn't say what happened to the last guy who threatened my family, does it?!" Barry demanded, feeling the zip-tie give a little. "You worthless fucking Umbrella cowards! How about you untie me, and fight me like a man, you…

Whack! His words were interrupted when the armored man standing next to him suddenly hit him in the side of the head with the stock of his rifle, making the bearded man cry out as he fell against the guardrail. Whack! There was no crying out this time, since the wind was knocked out of him when the rifle stock was rammed into his ribs, this time making him sink the rest of the way down onto the deck. Whack! Barry had just started trying to sit up, when he got a real close look at the stock of that rifle when it caught him right between the eyes, and this time he stopped moving.

Well, not stopping moving completely, but just kind of slowly rolling over onto his side while the whole world seemed to spin a little in front of his eyes, and hearing the echoing sound of the armored men laughing at him through their gasmasks. Maybe the bearded man was going crazy, but for a minute he found himself noticing that there were times when it was actually preferable to face viral-monsters instead of normal humans in these situations. While BOW's were certainly frightening and deadly, people at times could be so twisted and evil that he would have rather been fighting off the zombies.

"All right, I'm going back to the sub." The Captain said, clearly becoming bored. "Once you're done with him, steer the Starlight farther out to sea, and then we'll sink it in international waters. Oh, and boys… you'll get a bonus if you can get our friend here to tell you his family's exact location."

With that, the Captain moved onto the ladder, and climbed all the way down to the waiting submarine, where he vanished into the open hatch just like Leon and Lucia. A moment later the hatch swung closed with a loud clang, and then the Umbrella submarine began to move away from the Starlight's hull. It didn't dive, instead remaining on the surface so that Barry could see it getting smaller until finally vanishing into the darkness.

"How long do you think it'll take to make this wimp sing like a bird?" One of the two remaining armored men asked. "I can't wait till he starts crying and gives up his family to save himself… they always do."

"I can't wait to put zip-ties on his wife." The other one laughed. "I bet she's hot… hot chicks always marry losers, and I know she'd do 'anything' to save her daughters… and once I'm done with her, maybe I'll zip-tie 'them', too."

As much as the bearded man wanted to jump up and kill them for talking about his family like that, the blows he had taken were making it difficult to do anything at all, as well as the zip-tie… which was giving way slowly but surely. Yeah, good, keep laughing, you assholes, he thought while twisting his wrists as hard as he could, his bonds were giving more and more, and any minute now he would be free to… wait, who was that over there standing behind them? Oh no… oh no, no, no, no!

"Hello." The overly calm voice of Amanda Pricely said, causing the two men to turn around. "I do not remember you here from before… are you here to rescue me?"

Barry was not surprised when the two men slowly lowered their weapons, because if he had not known the truth about R-005, he would have been just as hesitant to shoot such a beautiful young woman. But she wasn't a woman at all, she was a deadly, shapeshifting monster… not that he was going to tell them that… not while it was giving him the time he needed to finish freeing himself… come on… almost broken…

"Cora said there weren't any other survivors." The first one whispered to his partner before looking back at her. "Yeah, sweetheart, we're here to rescue you, so, uh… why don't you do us a favor and keep your hands where we can see them, and come on over here?"

Amanda did as they said, her facial expression still blank as she kept her hands out to the side, walking slowly toward them, until they finally advanced the last few steps toward her, but… apparently she didn't like the idea of having her hands zip-tied. No sooner had the bonds been in place, when the blonde woman's whole body distorted, quickly changing back into the beast's true form, and lifting the first armored man off his feet as he was stabbed right through the armor with its three remaining stomach tentacles.

They tore through his armor and body as if they were made of paper, the blood-soaked pointed ends of the tentacles sticking out through his back while he flailed around, making gasping sounds while his rifle fell from his hands. Ratta-tatta-ratta-tatta! Once his partner got over the initial shock of seeing this, he aimed at the monster and opened fire, peppering its massive body with bullet holes that each leaked out some of its bright green blood.

Snap! Barry's bonds were broken just as the beast tossed the first armored man over the railing, the noise of this and him hitting the water muffled by the continuing gunfire as the beast was driven backwards. Green blood splattered down onto the deck boards, only to be quickly washed away by the storm, and although the bearded man was trying to use this distraction to escape, he found that moving at all was a little more difficult than he planned. He was still dizzy, and his whole body was sore from the beating he and Leon had taken, so he had just managed to use the railing to pull himself to his feet when the armored man's rifle went click.

The monster's wounds closed up almost immediately after the gunfire stopped, but instead of running away, the armored fool stood where he was, fumbling around with clumsy, nervous hands as he tried to reload. Barry, on the other hand, only stopped long enough to pick up the other rifle that had fallen near him, and he had already taken several steps away by the time that the last armored man started to scream.

These screams did not last as long as the bearded man had hoped, stopping after the armored man was tossed overboard, soon to be devoured by the Starlight's giant rotors, but there was no time to feel sorry for him. Even without turning back, Barry knew that the beast was coming for him now, hearing the loud noise of its heavy footsteps going thump-thump-thump slowly across the deck while he tried to find some means of escape.