Summary: Corporal Josh Riggs starts the ride of his life, encountering the closest thing to a living Hell, and while he's seen battles and taken lives before, he's never seen this much blood and gore in his life. It'll take everything he knows to get out alive, if he can.
Note: It's been awhile. Sorry for the wait but here it is, just in time for Devil's Night and Halloween, something for those who care about this story to read. Give me a review and let me know what you think so far. Happy Halloween.
Heading over to the entrance terminal he took a look at the map, showing that the Cargo Bay was of course at the very back of the Shinano, meaning the fastest way to get there would obviously be the tram. Loading up his contact beam he holstered it very hesitantly as he felt there was someone watching him, yet he wanted to avoid any causalities if he went gungho. Walking through the bloody ship he noticed quite quickly the power was out and backup was hardly even holding on, rendering it nearly pitch black minus the advertisements strewn around. In the distance he thinks he sees something, and with a flick of his mounted light he sees something alright, but inhuman.
"Hey you, turn around and out your hands where I can see them", he orders. The 'person' does turn around rather quickly, and his hands are up, but there aren't his hands. "*Blarhg", the mutilated creature runs at him ridiculously fast. Without a choice he shoots it in the head with his contact beam, exploding it, but it doesn't solve much. Looking over the body, he examines it briefly, the arms being scythes of flesh and tendons and the blades themselves being bone. Suddenly it lurches up and swing erratically to Josh's confusion. Knocking it back down to the ground, he steps on one of the arm and rips it off, rather easily. "*breath*, breath", he pants.
"cough, cough", he hears from around the corner. Investigating, he leaves the dead corpse lying in the hall and sees a man lying in a pool of his own blood. Josh holsters his gun and kneels down to check the wound as the man speaks up but only in a low tone he can manage, "cough...Please…". Riggs takes out a med pack but the man pushes it away, "Please...just, cough, listen. Can't live much longer. The marker...in the Cargo Bay. It's...dangerous. A mutiny happened...everything went south, losing people's minds. They...we, killed each other. Some made it out but...killed anyway, cough, except one". The man starts to go but the Corporal shakes him a little to stay with him, "Larcy...she is...important. Don't recall her but, she came out of nowhere. Drawn out cough, Dying...can't speak no more. One more thing...you need to...to...cut off the limbs. Take this, Plasma Cutter I found, it'll be more useful. They only die from...mutilation. Please...mutilate my body...don't want to changeeee". The man dies and Josh stands up, just shaking his head. Taking a look at the tool he just got, he stores in his other holster, and decides to just keep headed towards the Cargo Bay.
Finally getting to the tram he notices it's out of power and won't be moving anytime soon. With no other option, he heads off to maintenance in order to solve the problem. Despite being a soldier he did decide on an education in engineering and being a mechanic before settling in the military, so at least he could restore power if nothing else. Heading to a nearby terminal to report in to his superiors, he then encounters something worse than the last bladed monster, a bloated one. It claws across the terminal screen as Josh backs up to make distance. The monster comes at him rather slowly due to its weight but Riggs does note not only what the man told him, but that ripping the arm off actually killed the last one, so he aims for the legs with the plasma cutter.
Blasting off the legs, the creature can no longer walk, but instead it kills itself by cutting open its bloated stomach with its claws. In an instant, little fleshy parasites crawl out and towards him. With quick thinking on the fly he takes out the contact beam and holds down the trigger, exploding all the tiny creatures into a mass of goop splattering the walls. He wipes himself off, "Just what in fuck are these things", he asks himself. Going to the terminal there is luckily power on for it, so he contacts his superiors, "static, Report Corporal. Have you made it on board the Mushashi"? He shakes his head, "Negative sir, I rerouted to the Shinano for the time being". His boss is displeased, "Why have you defied orders soldier"? He explains the situation, "I received a distress call from the Cargo Bay of the ship. Just about everyone on board is dead, or dying. Some kind of alien lifeforms aboard have killed most of the crew". His boss sighed, "The Musashi was your priority. But I suppose investigating any of the ships is a good start. If you find out anything else, report back to us immediately. That's an order". They salute to him and he ends the call.
Entering the maintenance area, he steps on something, an audio log. Plugging it into his RIG he gives it a listen, "This is the log of Reginald Sanders. I don't know what's happening to the crew, but they are all starting to act...out of it. Yesterday one of the forklift drivers just walked out of the Cargo Bay and began to smash his head against the wall. We had to restrain him, but he received a sever concussion before anything could be done. As for myself I swear I hear voices in this place now, like it's, haunted. Sounds ludicrous considering this ship was built mere months ago, but...I don't know. Pipe dropping, Who's there?! Wait, what are you doing here? You're supposed to be in the Cargo Bay helping the others. You're lost? Fine, I'll help you back but...smash".
Riggs is mostly unphased by the recording, having already seen real monsters, a murder simply doesn't get his blood curdling, especially having killed himself in the line of duty. But to his actual surprise he does find a body near the tram circuits he intends to fix, with the name tag, 'Reginald Sanders', his head smashed in at the back of the skull. Taking a look at the circuits it seems just a few wires are loose and the circuit board itself needs to be replaced due to damage. Connecting the wires, he walks off to the storage room nearby to search for the spare part. Then he hears something again, pipes falling, but also the vents above him shifting around as if something was up there inside them.
Taking his contact beam out to be ready he hears something behind him and aims to see another of the skinny monsters running at him. In midair as he is about to get slashed he shoots the creature to the ground, "I thought I killed you already". He then notices the eyes are glowing and the skin is black and decayed. Pulling out the plasma cutter he shoots at the arms and legs but it takes about three shots this time to end the decaying bogeyman. Walking over and just in case, he picks up the scythe arm and impales the monster with its own 'arm', definitely killing it, but then Josh thinks to himself, "How many of these things could there be on this ship? What if the other ships are just like this one"? Languishing at the thought he decides to just keep his mind on the mission for now and get the parts for the tram. Opening up the storage closet easily, he wasn't expecting what was on the other side, a massive tentacle. Gripping him by the leg it tosses him into the ceiling then hard to the metal ground, making woolly mammoth sounds, "Fuck"! Losing his contact beam, he take out his plasma cutter, and the first thing he notices is a huge yellow zit in the middle of the abomination. He shoots at it but it seems ineffective at first, until the creature tosses him against another wall in pain. Getting the hint he shoots more and more at the tentacle until he eventually sees the source, a massive gaping maw of teeth that looks like a hole in the ground, meaning this thing is its tongue.
As he's dragged closer to the mouth he takes a deep breath and shoots the pustule more times than he can count, until the thing bursts, chopping the tongue in half. The mouth itself roars in agony and seemingly dies, but Josh doesn't take the risk, and with some pent up anger, he takes on of his grenades he packed with him and tosses it down the throat of the thing. Blowing it back to hell where it came from presumably, the thing is definitely dead now, to his relief. "Mother Mary, God, Lord Jesus Christ keep those thing away from me". Walking back the way he came he takes the circuit board and recovers his contact beam and heads back to maintenance to install the part. With minimum trouble he is successful and wastes no time heading for the tram.