Uroboros: Resident Evil V

Chapter Forty: Taking Control

Bang! Bang! Since the helmsman and the navigator were busy at their stations, Sheva decided to take out the other two first, since they were just kind of standing there near the radio and security board. So she took a deep breath, swinging her pistol toward the nearest one as she came out of hiding, sending a bullet into his head. The security board operator collapsed onto the panel, somehow silencing all of the alarms on his way down to the deck, and then the young woman quickly aimed at the radio operator just as he was reaching for a nearby rifle, pulling the trigger just as he was starting to aim at her.

Ratta-tatta! A short burst came from the rifle as the radio operator fell backwards against his console, each bullet sparking as it struck the metal wall of the bridge, and then the infected man just kind of slumped down onto the deck, where some discolored blood started to come from the wound in his head. By this time the helmsman and navigator were grabbing their own weapons, so the young woman started pulling the trigger of her pistol again and again while ducking behind one of the central consoles.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Her shots went wild, two of them hitting the navigation console, while the third missed the navigator completely, instead hitting the helmsman in the arm just as he was pulling his own trigger. Ratta-tatta-ratta-tatta! Unable to aim his rifle properly after the 9mm bullet slammed into his arm, the helmsman only managed to hit the navigation console several times, including a couple shots that went into the back of the navigator's neck. This made it easy for Sheva to finish him off with one more pull of her trigger while leaning out of cover.

The young woman was about to aim at the helmsman right after, but instead found herself having to duck back behind the console after the infected switched hands and started shooting back. He was a lot less accurate than he probably was usually, thanks to using his off hand, but it was still good enough to keep Sheva from being able to return fire. While she tried to find an opening, the navigation console was sparking and smoking from being repeatedly shot, and the thing was actually starting to burn by the time she came up with an idea.

Smoke was slowly filling up the room, allowing the young woman to go unseen as she got down and crawled across the floor around the other side of the sparking console. The helmsman was reloading now, quickly slamming another magazine into his AK-47, before aiming once again toward the navigation console. The infected man kept his weapon ready, snarling while taking a cautious step forward, only to grunt and bend forward after a gunshot sent another bullet slamming into his stomach.

Bang! Having crawled around the other side of the navigation console, Sheva remained on the floor, rolling onto her side in order to shoot the infected man in the stomach… and then in the face as soon as he bent over far enough for her to get a clear shot. Well, that was it, the young woman thought while getting to her feet, the bridge had been taken, and… they would never know where the ship was headed, since the navigation console was showing nothing but a cracked, darkened screen while black smoke rose from the top.

"All right, now to stop this ship." She said to herself, looking around at the bridge. "Okay… how in the hell do I stop the ship?"

Looking around at the bridge, there were so many different consoles and button that she wasn't sure where to even start looking for… for what, the reverse lever like with the rotors on an airboat? Could a ship this size really be that easy? Okay Sheva, think… there were only four people up there manning the bridge, so one of them must've controlled how fast they were going, so this search should've been a lot easier now as long as it hadn't been the navigator. Radio had nothing to do with ship's speed, nor did security, so it had to be the helm.

Rushing over to the large, old-style wheel in front of the window that overlooked the top deck, the young woman found that there was a lever next to it that had words like FLANK, FULL, and STAND written on the plate. There were two sets of such words, each one dominated by a section that said AFT and another that said AHEAD, with the lever currently set at full, so… full speed ahead, did that mean? Testing the lever out, she pushed the release button and moved the lever back to stand, and nothing happened.

For a moment Sheva thought she had done something wrong, but several seconds later the young woman felt herself get slightly lurched forward while the slight vibration in the floor underneath her feet became fainter. Were the engines slowing down? Was that how to do it? A slim dead zone sat between the aft and ahead sections, so she moved the lever into that position, and a few seconds later the engines stopped completely… she had done it, the cargo ship was adrift, and at least now Uroboros would be delayed until the BSAA could send more reinforcements.

It worried her that the ship was adrift now, but then again they were dozens of miles out to sea, so it was unlikely that it would run aground or something, and with her part of the mission accomplished, it was time for the young woman to see how the others were doing. Still having to keep up radio silence so that no one knew where she was, Sheva figured that she could just look out the giant window that was in front of her… until feeling a bit silly when she remembered that this window looked forward while Josh and the rest of the new team were at the back of the ship.

Shaking her head, the young woman was about to head back toward the stairs she had used to come in, when something out the window caught her eye. A short distance away from the bridge tower, there was movement on the deck as two figures moved into the white beam from one of the nearby lights, and at first Sheva thought that they were just more of the infected, but that was when she noticed that one of them was dragging the other… and that the second one had his hands cuffed in front of him.

"Chris?" She said to herself, squinting to get a better look at both of them. "Oh my God, Chris!"

Her partner was still alive, shirtless and being pulled along by none other than Albert Wesker himself, and… and she had to do something. At first she thought about shooting out the glass and trying to snipe the blond man from there, but without the alarms to mask noise, he would definitely hear the glass breaking and then be able to dodge her shots again. No, the young woman had to get down there and sneak up on Wesker if she wanted to save her partner, and as much as she wanted to call Josh for backup, it would give her position away if the blond man was listening in.

Right, she was going to have to do this herself, so Sheva reloaded her pistol, but then holstered it in order to get her rifle ready as she headed back down the stairs, and out the door back onto the ship's top deck. Distant gunfire could still be heard coming from back where the new team was fighting off the infected, but there was no time to help them, as the young woman crept her way around the base of the bridge tower, which was actually a bit bigger around than she thought.

So far there were no more infected around waiting to ambush her, so Sheva got all the way around the tower to where a strange sight awaited her… along with a really bad smell. Upon reaching the front of the bridge tower, the young woman was shocked to see that not only was Chris being hung up onto some kind of hook by the handcuffs around his wrists by Wesker, but that there was a massive pile of dead bodies just stacked there behind them. Seriously, there had to be dozens of infected bodies just tossed in the middle of the deck like it was nothing, but whatever the blond man was planning, he wasn't going to get to finish it.

Tat! Aiming her rifle carefully at Wesker's chest and pulling the trigger, he must have seen her because he leaned to the left in order avoid the shot… allowing the bullet to strike the shoulder of Excella, who Sheva hadn't even noticed was there. The woman jumped a little, not seeming to understand that she had been shot again until she looked down and saw the blood starting to stain her white dress, and then falling over backwards while making a strange kind of gasping… clucking sound?

"Situational awareness, Excella." Wesker coldly commented, his arm blurring for a second as he grabbed Chris by the neck. "Nice try, sweetheart, but how about you come out here where we can see you?"

He was squeezing her partner's neck hard enough to make him go red in the face, sending a clear message that if the young woman didn't come out of hiding, that he would probably just kill the Agent right there in front of her. Sheva wanted to take another shot at him, or maybe at Excella to try and force him to release Chris, but from how uncaring Wesker was acting after his own partner had been shot for the second time… she knew that there was no other option but to come out… walking into the beam of light and then putting her hands up after setting the rifle down.

"Kill her!" The wounded woman growled as she tried to get up. "Albert… kill the bitch!"

"Now, now, my dear, let's not be hasty." The blond man calmly replied, letting go of Chris's neck in order to walk toward his partner. "After all, why would I kill this girl, when that honor should rightfully go to you?"

As soon as Wesker was away from her partner and next to Excella, Sheva reached down and picked up her rifle as quickly as she could, aiming it at them just in time to see the blond man reaching down to help her up… but then turning her arm so that he could use a small hypodermic needle to inject something into her skin. The injector had just fallen out from up his sleeve as if he had planned on using it in that manner all along, and then Wesker vanished in a blur of movement as he ran away, but making sure to smirk at the group first just as the wounded woman began to cry out in agony.