Uroboros: Resident Evil V
Chapter Forty Three: Deck Ten
Hissing loudly as he applied a large amount of burn ointment onto the reddened parts of his skin, Chris tensed up for a moment before sighing heavily with relief, while Sheva was having the same reaction. Since he was shirtless and couldn't reach his back, the young woman had to do that part for him while joking that she wouldn't tell Amelia, but both of them were still in too much pain from the blast from Regia SOLIS to laugh much more than a light chuckle. Thankfully, there had been directory signs leading them to the ship's infirmary, where both the ointment and a medical supply of refrigerated water had been found, allowing the two BSAA agents a moment of relief after what just happened.
The shocking part was that upon descending the stairs down into the lower decks, they discovered that the Uroboros monster hadn't just spread itself across the top deck, because that same black ash was covering the stairs as well as the floor on the next level below. Remembering how the flames from the red grenades had traveled across the whole creature's body back in the underground lab as if the whole thing were flammable, the Agent figured that the same thing must have happened when it was burned by the satellite. However, now that they were three levels down, the ash was still present on the deck, and there wasn't a single infected in sight.
Clothes and weapons, all burned and corroded by the monster's black slime were discovered all around, though, as if it had sought out every organic being on the entire ship in order to sustain its rapid growth. In some areas there had been alarms going off when the tendrils must have caused damage to some of the bulkheads during the search, and in others the fire suppression sprinklers were going off, slowly washing the black ash away… while the walls everywhere were peppered with dozens of bullet holes as if the infected had been fighting for their lives.
"So what are we going to do now?" Sheva asked, putting a little more ointment on the back of her neck. "We've got the injector, but this ship is huge, so how are we going to even find Wesker, let alone sneak up on him?"
"I don't know." Chris replied, still breathing a little heavy while sitting on a metal chair. "But he probably thinks we're dead, and this ship isn't going anywhere, so we've got a little time… unless…
It seemed that the Agent was on a roll for stupid and dangerous ideas, because another one popped into his head after looking around the infirmary, specifically at the emergency ship wide address system. His partner was right, this ship was huge and there was no way for them to search the whole thing before the blond man found some crazy new way to move forward with his plan, so Chris thought about it for a second… before asking the young woman to stay quiet as he got up, and walked over to the intercom.
"Wesker!" He yelled after pushing the button, causing his voice to echo there and out in the hall. "Hey, Wesker, guess what? You missed! You've managed to kill everyone else around here, but you keep… missing… the… target! But you never were a very good shot, huh?"
"Chris… still alive, are we?" His enemy's voice replied after several seconds of silence. "I swear, you Redfields are a bit like cockroaches, aren't you? Well, have fun licking your wounds; I'm about to move on to the next phase of the operation, and there's no more time to play, so… goodbye, Chris."
If the blond man had some other way off the ship, then there was no way Chris could stop him from carrying out his plan, meaning that he had to find a way to make his enemy stay put for a while. Communications were still down from the satellite blast, so there was no way for him to call for backup, nor could Regia SOLIS be used again… although Wesker probably didn't know that. So instead of allowing the conversation to end, the Agent went on the offensive, loudly declaring that the blond man wasn't going anywhere, unless he was capable of making his escape within the next five minutes.
"Tell me where you are so we can end this once and for all." Chris continued, no longer yelling but with an intense tone. "Face me right now, or the next blast from Regia SOLIS will fry this ship like an egg, because I'd rather die than let you spread that shit all over the world… and you know I'm not bluffing."
"Hmm… perhaps you're not." Wesker's voice replied after another long silence. "Very well, I'm in the starboard cargo bay on deck ten… do not keep me waiting."
"Are you crazy?!" Sheva exclaimed once the system was turned off. "Now he knows we're coming, and if I remember right, Wesker beat the shit out of you last time."
This was true, but and they may have lost the element of surprise, but at least now they knew where the blond man was, and as a bonus, he didn't know that the young woman had survived, too, which gave them another advantage. If Wesker thought that Chris was stupid enough to come after him alone, and the blond man definitely thought he was, then maybe it was possible to have the young woman sneak up on him during the upcoming fight. If the injection worked the way Jill claimed it did, then all they had to do was stab Wesker with it, and then… well, hopefully something good would happen.
Feeling a lot better thanks to the ointment and water, the two BSAA agents left the infirmary, and looked for another directory sign, having to go back to the main stairwell in order to find it. There was no label for the starboard cargo bay, but deck ten was below them, and getting to the right level was a pretty good start. God damn, there was still a good amount of black ash covering the stairs and decks as they went farther down, finally stopping a couple stairs down from deck eight, but there were still no infected around.
"They must've all tried to fight off Uroboros." Chris commented, looking up and down the corridor upon reaching deck ten. "Just when you thought the worst thing out there was a mind controlling parasite, right?"
"It's like all of these terrorists are trying to out-do each other." Sheva replied, kicking a little of the last bit of ash with her foot. "Umbrella had the T-Virus, but then Los Illuminados said oh yeah, well we got Las Plagas. Apparently Tricell wanted to play, too, so they stepped up and said, oh yeah? Well we got somethin' that'll eat both zombies and plagas, so fuck both of you."
Again, the young woman was right, but the most frightening part about how greedy and evil all these terrorist groups were, was that they didn't seem to realize how hard it was to keep BOW's contained. For example, as bad as the outbreaks were in the Spencer Estate and Raccoon City, they had been accidents. Umbrella never intended to destroy Raccoon City, they just kinda ran with it once the viruses got loose… kind of like Excella Gionne probably never intended to get swallowed up by her own creation.
Eventually, after walking what felt like was along the entire length of the ship, the directory signs began to mention the cargo bays, both port and starboard. The starboard one was where they were headed, so they turned at the proper junction in the corridor, and then down another short metal staircase to a door that was marked as STARBOARD CARGO. It had been a while since the trail of black ash ended, meaning that the Uroboros monster hadn't even gotten close to this area, and therefore it was possible that there could still be more infected people beyond the door along with Wesker.
Taking a deep breath and then turning the latch as slowly and quietly as he could, Chris pushed the door open just enough so that both he and Sheva could see through the crack into the room beyond. A large open chamber was the first thing he saw, brilliantly illuminated with overhead fixtures as if it were a warehouse, and yeah, there were a bunch of armed infected men inside. Teams of four were pushing large carts over toward something that at first the Agent thought was a large black boat, but then he realized that it was some kind of cargo jet.
What the hell was a cargo jet doing in the lower levels of this ship, he wondered? And more importantly, how had it gotten in there in the first place? There must've been a way… maybe the far wall opened, since the kind of thrusters mounted on the vehicle's wings were the ones that allowed for vertical takeoff… yeah, had to be that, because there was no runway, and this deck was ten floors down. But why a plane like this, and what were the infected loading onto it?
"Chris, look at those carts." The young woman said. "Those long things stacked up, are those… Chris, are those missiles?"
He had to squint a little because the carts were so far down and away, but yeah that was what it looked like. About nine feet long, and thin like an old Sidewinder, each missile was colored black and stamped with the letters UR, followed by a dash and some kind of serial number. One after another, the missiles were unloaded from the carts and carried up the plane's cargo ramp, but he couldn't see what happened to them after that. From the back, the Agent couldn't tell if the plane was fitted with launchers, but that didn't matter right now, since he was finally starting to understand what Wesker's plan was.
"Jesus, that's a lot of missiles." Chris commented, leaning in just enough to see some more. "So what's he going to do, fly around and just start shooting large cities with Uroboros missiles? No, can't be… that kind of plane doesn't have the fuel capacity to reach more than a few from here."
"You're right, it doesn't." A deep voice replied from behind, making a knot form in his stomach. "Want a closer look?"
Balling up his fist and turning around while swinging, the Agent wasn't fast enough to land the punch before Wesker caught it in his hand, and then he saw white for a second when the blond man head butted him. Before Chris could recover, his enemy raised his leg and booted him in the chest, lifting the Agent off his feet as he was sent crashing right through the door, landing on the grated metal platform that was above the cargo area. Grunting in pain when he came to a stop hard against one of the guard rail supports, Chris looked back into the corridor to see that the blond man had turned his attention to Sheva.
The young woman kicked at him, but he grabbed her ankle, and then Wesker lifted it up as high as he could, while stepping on her other foot so that she was forced into a kind of vertical splits that sounded really painful by the way she was crying out. Now closing his own fist, and slamming it into Sheva's stomach, the blond man let go of her leg, only to grab her by the back of the belt before she could collapse… and then tossing her right at Chris just as he was starting to get up.
Even though the young woman was small built, the Agent wasn't able to catch her in his weakened state, so when she collided into him, the force of the impact caused both of them to fly backwards… tumbling over the guard rail, and falling down into the cargo area below.