It's the Marker, Tails realized as he listened to the chilling silence of space.

The Markers he had dealt with never produced Electromagnetic waves in a frequency that would interfere with radio waves, but if he had to guess, the one aboard the Ishimura might. They would need to get it off the ship before any of their short-range radios would be of use. He could only hope that the more powerful antennas on the Ishimura might be able to punch through the interference and reach one of the USG's outposts.

Tails eyed the level of oxygen being projected onto the glass in front of his eye. It was steadily falling. RIG suits had enough air to keep someone his size alive for nearly ten minutes before requiring a refill. If he was lucky there would be an O2 station nearby, if not he was going to need find another airlock and head back inside.

"Where did you go Isaac?" the kit asked to no one but himself.

The man had been further aft on the ship, repairing the satellite arrays, but now he was gone.

"Did he finish already?"

If he had, then the best direction to go would be towards the bridge, not the stern. From there they would have full control of the Ishimura and unfettered access to send any communications they wanted.

The metal clank of his magnetic boots engaging and then disengaging with each step was out weighing the sound of his own breathing. Moving towards the airlock that he had left through, the kit steadied himself. As far as he knew there wasn't much that could violently kill him out here, but inside an untold number of creatures were hiding, waiting for their chance at fresh prey.

Tails nearly tripped as the vent exploded in front of him. Instinctively shielding himself from the debris now flying freely through space. He was only able to make out the tail of the creature that exited the Ishimura.

"How can they…" the kit began before remembering these things were already dead.

Not even the vacuum of space was enough to kill, let alone impede the hellish fiends. The blade wielding creature ran at him, threatening to slash him to pieces. Ducking low and dodging its swipes, he tripped the necromorph sending it tumbling off the ship and into the endless abyss. With no way to control itself, it would drift endlessly.

The sound of something hitting his suit was as unmistakable as the pain that came with it. Fighting off the urge to howl, the two-tailed fox looked down to find an oddly shaped dagger buried in the thick armor protecting his shinbone.

In all the confusion, his suit had nearly mistook the sudden jolt as a sign to jump, releasing both feet from the Ishimura's hall. Tails was dangling by just the tip of his magnetic boot, flailing his arms to move back towards the ship. Droplets of his blood began to float by, reminding him how dire of a situation he was in. If his RIG was punctured enough for him to bleed through, then it meant he was losing air.

Reaching for anything that might help, the kit's paws once again found his Plasma Cutter. One of the blade whipping infants had snuck up from another angle and was in the process of winding up another throw. Thankfully Tails was able to sever its tentacles with a ray of molten gas before the creature was able to fling any more bone fragments.

With his mag-boots once again gripping the hull of the Ishimura, he broke out into a full sprint towards the creature, brining his right foot into the belly of the deformed alien. It was no different than punting a football, except this one would never slowdown. As it sailed endlessly into the distance the two-tailed fox smiled to himself in satisfaction. With such a bleak outlook there were only little things like imagining scoring a goal with the carcasses of an undead mutant left to make him happy.

Another glance at his O2 revealed he had about thirty more seconds before he needed to begin holding his breath. Thankfully, the airlock was only a hundred feet away.

As the door behind him shut and the room cycled oxygen back into the atmosphere he freely breathed a sigh of relief. His suit was beginning to replenish its depleted tanks, although that did little to mend the hole in suit.

When the inner door opened, Tails found himself looking down the business end of a line cutter. The mining tools were all types of dangerous, capable of carving up large boulders into more manageable sizes. No doubt it worked equally well for separating limbs from bodies.

"Don't shoot," he squeaked helplessly, still blinded by the flickering interior lights of the Ishimura.

"Miles? Miles Prower?" a gruff but tired voice asked? "What are you doing here?

The person standing before him was too tall to be Fiona, leaving only a select few possible contenders.

"Isaac," Tails said with a palpable amount of relief, "I finally found you. I've been trying to catch up for hours."

"Why would they send more people into this hell?"

"They don't know what's going on here. We need to get word back so they know to nuke this thing, maybe the planet too."

"Not until I find Nicole. I'm not leaving here without her."

Tails wasn't going to argue with him there. He still had plans to save the person he loved. Leaning against the hull, the two-tailed fox slumped down until he felt his tails mashed against the deck.

"Nasty things," Isaac muttered as he took note of the dagger sticking out of the kit's leg.

Just touching the blade sent waves of pain up his body, but Tails knew he would need to remove it.

"You need to pull them out quickly," the human remarked as he knelt down to the two-tailed fox's level, removing a pair of pliers from his work belt. "Trust me, I know."

Bracing himself for the inevitable, Tails clamped his jaw shut. Isaac sunk the teeth of his tool into the bone fragment and pulled. A fire erupted in his leg as the dagger pulled free. It took all his concentration not scream at the top of his lungs.

"You'll need to weld your armor shut if you want a clean seal," the man said, holding up the tiny blade for the kit to see.

The tiny bone fragment had serrated edges to ensure it did the most amount of damage possible. If he hadn't been wearing his armor it may have cut his leg near in half. Taking a small repair strip from the his own work belt, Tails peeled back the protective plastic cover and slapped it on the gash in his suit. It only took a second for the reaction between the metal to occur, briefly melting and refusing the steel that lined his shin. Patches like these could save lives when a suit lost pressure during a space walk.

Looking up, the kit accepted his associate's hand, "There's still too much electromagnetic interference for our short range radios to work well, but if you repaired the arrays we might be able to get a message out. I took care of the jammer."

"Hammond should already be doing that," Isaac replied as he flicked the switch for his helmet release. "He's on the bridge now."

When the steel folded out of the way, Tails could finally see the man's blood shot eyes. If he had to guess, it had probably been two or three days since Isaac had slept, perhaps longer.

"He's still alive?"

"I think so," the all but defeated man said in solidarity. "Him and Kendra, but our radios go in and out so I never know. It's scary doing all this alone."

Tails didn't have the heart to agree with him. He had only been trapped on the ship for eighteen hours, nowhere near the same amount of time as Isaac. Even then, the kit hadn't been alone the entire time.

"Have you fixed the gravity centrifuge yet?"

"No," he lamented, "and I didn't want to, but now we don't have a choice."

Tails nodded, "The whole power core is offline. If we don't re-stabilize the orbit, you won't have time to find Nicole."

And I won't be able to find Cosmo.

"Can you handle the engines alone?" the man asked. "I am fairly certain I can get the centrifuge back online."

It was a fair question. Depending on what was wrong, the kit would need a team of people to help. With just himself, he could be walking into a huge mess and not have the tools or the strength to fix it. Thankfully the ship's diagnostics had indicated that the engines only needed new fuel rods, something he stood a chance of completing.

"There won't be enough power to run the centrifuge until the engines are up and running."

"I know, but we have less than four hours until we become barbecue. If anyone can fix a multistage fusion reactor in that amount of time, it's you."

Under normal circumstance he might have blushed, but now wasn't the time. This was about survival, and the kit's modesty wasn't going to prevent him from agreeing.

"Will you be alright on your own?" Tails asked as the man turned to leave.

"Will you?" Isaac inquired as his helmet folded back around his face.

With a nod, the two-tailed fox watched him go. Every time he found someone to share his pain with, they disappeared into the fatal abyss, leaving him alone to fend off the armies of undead.

"And Miles," Isaac shouted from the other end of the hallway, "the voices… don't listen to them."

I know…

And just like that the whispers once again began to tug at his ears. Isaac had been gone no more than five minutes and already his fur was standing on end, a tiny choir of harmonious spirits speaking softly into the dead space around him.

"You better hurry, Miles," came an all too familiar Seedrian.

"I know, Cosmo," Tails said, ignoring the splitting headache that was forming at the top of his skull, "If I don't refuel the engines, we'll all die."

"No, silly, you need to move faster."

The kit was still trying to catch his breath, fatiguing himself wasn't high on his list of things to do.

"Run," she said, but this time with grit as if she might hurt him he didn't.

The two-tailed fox upped his pace to that of jog, fearing the Cosmo in his head and what she might do.

"Don't you want to save her? Isn't that what you're here to do?"

"Yes," he replied reluctantly, assuming she was talking about the real version of herself.

"Then run!"

He nearly fell to his knees in pain, but instead focused on putting one foot in front of the other. If running would make the pain in his head go away, then he would find the energy to run the entire lengths of the ship.

Breathing hard, he barreled down the corridor, unsure of where he was even going. Cosmo had told him to run, and now he was running. The control she had over him was second only to his own, but her ability to inflict pain was making him wonder if she wouldn't soon be in command.

He was sprinting now, back the way he had come after he had been pulled onto this desk by whatever freakish creature lived in the walls. Tails was only able to catch a passing glance at the projection of the Marker, wishing for a chance to study it again. However, he knew there was no stopping whatever it was that had worked its way inside his head. Cosmo was merely a front for something else, or at least so he hopped.

Skidding to stop on the stainless steel floor, Tails had arrived in front of a sealed bulkhead. It wasn't until he placed his palm on the door that he realized the pounding headache was gone.

"Cosmo?" he asked aloud as he entered what appeared to be a mess hall, "Do I need to keep running?"

Nothing but a blood-curdling scream answered him. If he didn't know better, it was Fiona. Removing his plasma cutter, the kit approached the kitchen slowly, unsure of what he might find.

Amidst scattered cookware, the vixen was doubled over holding her head, screaming obscenities at someone who didn't seem to be in the room.

Is this what I look like when I talk to Cosmo

He longed to comfort her. Doing his best not to startle her, he approached the red-furred fox with apprehension.

When he came within reach he called out softly to her, "Fiona?"

However, Fiona didn't appear to be in the driver seat. She lashed out at him with a steel fist far faster than he could have anticipated. The blow sent him backwards five feet onto his back, leaving him wondering why he had ever bothered to call her a girl.

Anyone that can hit that hard… he lamented as he tried to pick himself up off the floor.

Unfortunately the vixen was on him again, picking him up off the floor as if he were just a mere toy.

"Enough is enough, Scourge," she screamed in his face.

"Fiona, please," he begged, not knowing what she was going to do next, "wake up!"

With a heave that he might have expected from someone twice her size, she sent him sailing into one of the massive refrigerators. The stainless steel door absorbed some of the impact, but nowhere enough to make it pain free.

Stumbling upright, Tails searched the room for his less than cooperative partner. Thankfully it appeared as if the episode she was having had finally subdued her. The vixen was now on her knees, begging for the scourge to end.

Wanting more than anything for things to get better, Tails was sad to find a hideous creating rounding the corner behind her. It was the very same hulking necromorph Tails had run into when he was retrieving the captain's codes. Despite being covered in plasma burns, it seemed to be sizing Fiona up as if she was its next meal, but the fox was in no condition to fight.

Pulling the trigger on his Plasma Cutter, the kit let loose with his first shot, severing the creatures left arm. All at once it switched its hungry gaze to him. It was difficult to meet such cold eyes with anything but fear.

Now you've done it, he thought to himself. I've just traded my life for someone's who's going insane.

It charged at him with alarming speed, to the point where his only option was to immediately dive out of the way. Had the kit's tails actually been outside of his armor, he probably would no longer have them. Tails could feel the blades scrape down the back side of his armor as he rolled away.

Rebounding onto his feet as quick as his reflexes would allow, the two-tailed fox leapt over a counter, hoping to put some space between him and the incredibly large necromorph. Unfortunately it plowed threw them as if they weren't there at all.

The Ishimura's kitchen was thankfully no different than most, complete with an unusually large set of knives. Pointing his wrist at the magnetic holder, Tails activated his kinesis unit, bringing him not one, but three freshly sharpened daggers.

Turning to face his enemy, the kit flung the set of blades at his foe at near bullet like speeds, ripping off its other arm in the process. Despite now being considerably less formidable, the undead creature didn't let up. In a last move of desperation, the two-tailed fox picked up a cleaver that lay buried in a wood block.

As it threatened to tackle him to the ground and gnaw on him with its teeth, Tails swung his newest weapon with every ounce of strength he had left, severing the creatures head just above its shoulders. It teetered a moment as if it still wanted to continue before falling to the ground, coating his armor in a fresh layer of blood.

All the fox could do was stand still and listen to the beat of his own heart. It was racing so fast he was sure it was going to leap out of his chest. He had stared his own mortality in the face once again, proving that his will to live was greater than whatever hell could throw at him.

Stepping over the carcass of the fallen necromorph, he made his way back over to Fiona, who was still curled into a ball, screaming in agony, trying to fight away the visions that haunted her. Kneeling down next to her, Tails place his paw gently on her shoulder in hopes that he could help the vixen find her way back to the real world. Shivering beneath his touch, the fox rustled as he tugged on her armor.

"Don't listen to them," Tails whispered softly in her direction.

With a staggeringly deep inhale she snapped awake in his arms, tears in her eyes. It took her a moment to realize where she was and who was holding her.

"Tails?" Fiona asked sitting up, "You're alive?"

In an instant, the normally unwavering red furred fox threw her arms around the kit and gave him a hug the likes of which had never received.

"Yes," he managed underneath her suffocating squeeze.

How is she so strong?

"After that thing grabbed you, I was sure I would never see you again."

"So you went looking for a snack?" he joked as he looked around the kitchen.

"I – I don't remember. I've never lost control like that before. The last thing I was doing was shooting at a…" she stopped when she saw the dismembered and deformed creature at the other end of the kitchen, "that. I guess I owe you again huh?"

It was odd to see her so vulnerable. Her demeanor had been ice cold and impenetrable before.

"You were yelling about a scourge?" he pried.

It seemed fair that he knew what he was up against if she lost it again.

Looking away she lowered her head, "Was I?"

"Who was he?" Tails asked, taking a seat on the floor next to her.

"My ex," she relented with a sigh, "and a grade-A asshole. The kind that girls like me can't live without."

"Is he onboard too?" Tails asked nervously, scared that this person could be even more of a problem.

"No," Fiona answered, shaking her head. "He died over a year ago."

Tails was glad he had his helmet on. Even then he suspected his look of shock shone right through it.

Does that mean Cosmo is dead too? Or is just the person her mind is using against her?

"So that's why you took this job?"

She shot a warm acknowledging smile back at him, "That and I was trying to get away from all this."

"What? You mean your old job had space zombies too?" Tails laughed lightheartedly, assuming she was kidding.

"I thought it was some type of virus," she confessed, "but now I know that's not true."

The sheer look of dumbfoundedness must of have conveyed the, "what?" Tails only managed to sputter.

"I was working for a mercenary group. It was all pretty ordinary protect the scientist on one of the outer rim planets kind of stuff."

"But then they found something?" the kit asked, seeing where the story was going already.

"A Marker, just like the one they brought aboard the Ishimura. Dr. Robotnik and his team were researching it for its links to Unitology. One by one they all started to go insane, and a few even began to mutate into those things."

"And you escaped?"

"Barely, but Scourge wasn't so lucky. Do you know what his last words were? What he whispered in my ear right before that fat slob Ivo put a bullet through his head?" Fiona asked in such a way that he knew he was getting the answer whether he wanted it or not. "Don't listen to them."

That's what I told her right before she woke up…

"I have never been sure if he was talking about Robotnik and his team or if it was the insanity… I'm still not. Was he talking about the voices in his head? Or did he know something else? Something that Robotnik would lie about?"

It was impossible to know for sure, so Tails continued to stare at her, waiting for the vixen let go of the past.

"All I could do was move on," she sighed, "chalk the whole thing up to some bad science. That was until I saw Robotnik's team was researching a Marker on the surface. I pleaded with the captain not to listen to them, not to let that thing anywhere near the Ishimura, especially after what happened on the colony. But he assured me that their work was safe, that nothing bad could happen. I don't think I need to tell you which one of us was right."

So how was that? Enough action? Does this need more back story or has there been enough? Anyone want me to turn the heat up a little?

Cheers,

M.D