Chapter 1: Do No Harm
January 23rd, 2311. 1704 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 1, Containment Airlock 2
4 Minutes after Outbreak
With one last burst of speed I hurled myself through the airlock doors just before they slammed shut, landing hard on my side. Hands—warm and mercifully, blessedly human—pulled me up from the cold, poly-steel ground.
I staggered up onto my feet, heart threatening to tear its way out of my chest. My lungs heaved as I forced them to draw in breath after shaky breath. The hands belonged to Sarah, thank god. They were human hands—human fucking hands.
"Paul?" she asked fearfully.
I stared into her eyes and slowly shook my head. Letting go of my arm, she crumpled to the ground and let out a wracking sob. I knelt down and put my arm around her shoulder, wincing in pain as the scratches rasped against her labcoat.
Two pairs of armored boots appeared in the corner of my vision. "Were there any survivors, sir?"
I looked up to see Rake and Jay. They were armored in full kit, full-faced helmets on, with their Lancers pointed at the containment airlock door behind me. A few meters back stood Fly and Soph, their Lancers aimed down the corridor beyond us.
"I'm not sure."
I stood up and looked behind me at the containment airlock. "Doctors Singh, Messner and Landry were directly at ground zero, as were about a dozen lab technicians. The rest of the Lab workers may have been far enough to have had a decent head start."
At the mention of Paul, Sarah let out another sob and wrapped her arms tighter across her knees. Now was not the time to freeze up, not when there were potentially billions of lives hanging in the balance.
I bottled up that fear and uncertainty for the storm that I knew would come and took five seconds to calm myself down.
"Containment Airlocks 1 and 3 were also on the first level of the lab, there is a possibility that the majority of the lab workers got out there," Soph interjected. "I've been trying to raise the fireteams at the other Containment Airlocks but I'm getting nothing but static."
"Fuck," I cursed. "Assume containment has failed. We're scuttling the Hippocrates and abandoning ship."
Around me the marines nodded. Fly walked over and quickly injected me with a synthstim. I nodded in thanks. Immediately I felt a cold rush of relief as my heart distributed the cocktail of anesthetics and cell regenerators throughout my body. The pain of the scratches began to dissipate. I knelt back down where Sarah still lay.
"Sarah, I need you to get up," I said, gently but firmly.
She looked at me with tear-stained eyes, lips trembling. "We have to follow containment breach protocol. We need to destroy this ship and retrieve a copy of all the existing data on Project Prometheus. It might be the only thing that'll save us if these things manage to find a way off the ship."
She nodded and her sobs began to cease. Jay gently helped her to her feet.
"What's the plan, sir?" Rake asked.
I held out my hand and Rake pressed a spare Predator into my palm. I checked the magazine and quietly cursed at my lack of armor.
Venomously suppressing the growing fear in my chest, I spoke as confidently as I could. "We have two main objectives. The first main objective will be the retrieval of the Prometheus Data from the archives up on Deck 7. The second main objective will be the activation of the Hippocrates' self-destruct sequence up on the bridge. Secondary objectives will occur after the main objectives have been achieved and will include re-integration with surviving ship forces and extraction. Captain Farragut and the rest of the command crew will likely be holed up on the Bridge, it's the most defendable part of the ship."
"What about survivors?" asked Jay. "Will we be conducting any Search and Rescue?"
I took a second to consider the situation. It would take a ship as big as the Hippocrates some time to be fully compromised. Regardless, we had not received any incoming transmissions, crew-to-crew, or ship-wide alerts in the last 6 minutes, which meant that either communications were nixed or that there was no one left to send them. The second option was highly unlikely with over 1000 people on board, while the first option puzzled me. They wouldn't have tried to take down our communications. If anything, they'd leave them up, broadcast a distress signal to try and lure in more ships.
"Our main priority cannot be to rescue survivors, Jay," I emphatically stated. There had been a total of one hundred and seventeen lab workers, scientists, and support staff working on the Prometheus project. I had personally witnessed three of them being… changed. The rest I didn't want to think about. "We need to stick to established protocol or we might be dealing with a lot more deaths on our hands."
He nodded morosely and rigidly shouldered his Lancer. We started to hear loud bangs and muffled voices from the other side of the airlock, causing Sarah to shudder. Rake and Fly both turned their Lancers toward the door.
"Only four scientists have the implants for direct access to the complete Promethean Data from the archives," I continued. "Three of them are KIA."
I checked the heatsink on the M-3 Predator Rake had handed me. "The Captain won't initiate the self-destruct sequence until that data has been secured and moved to a safe location. We're going to escort Dr. Messner to the archives, retrieve that data, scuttle the ship, and grab a ride back to the Excalibur. Questions?"
The marines shook their heads. Shit was fucking going south at an alarming rate. Unexplained variables ate at my mind, the foremost being what happened to our communications. They had gone down maybe less than 5 minutes after the outbreak began. I pushed that issue to the back of my mind. The Hippocrates had an incredibly complex communications suite that would require expertise and tools that my team and I did not currently have. I had to focus on what I could and had to accomplish.
"Alright button up your shit because we're moving out. The archives are approximately three-hundred-and-twelve meters away and six decks up." At my prompting, the marine began double-checking each other's armor and weapons. "Soph, any word from operatives Percival or Kitiarian?" I asked.
Soph looked up from her omni-tool and shook her head. "Negative Sir. I've also been trying to get a comm. link through to the Jaegers on the Excalibur but so far I'm getting nothing."
"Good work. If you manage to get a call through to them, advise them that we're enacting containment breach protocols. Tell them to keep minimum safe distance and to refrain from opening any and all life pods that they may pick up until they have been properly vetted. They should know better, but a reminder never hurts."
The banging behind us grew louder. I couldn't tell if the groans were human or if they were… them. I could hear Jays gloves tighten around the barrel of his Lancer while Sarah had clasped her hand to her mouth. The situation was bad. While the airlock here had successfully been sealed off, we could not guarantee the same at the other two airlocks. Our inability to raise the other fireteams only worsened the odds of us not encountering trouble on our way to our objectives.
I looked at the faces around me. Jay was either praying or cursing under his breath while Sarah looked to be in near catatonic shock. Soph was tapping away at her omnitool trying to re-establish communications while Fly swept his Lancer back and forth down the corridor beyond us.
In debilitating moments such as these, I liked to play a little mind-game with myself. I liked to assume that the people around me were all the assets I had to complete the objectives. I liked to assume that Percival and Cade were dead, that the whole ship was compromised and that everyone in this galaxy would die if I decided to stop here.
I flipped the safety off the Predator that Rake handed me. "Alright, let's move." I ordered. "We don't know how long that door will hold."
"Damn sir," Rake laughed, "What is this, a video game?"
January 23rd, 2211, 1712 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 1, Pedestrian Corridor 3A
12 Minutes after Outbreak
I ordered the marines into a diamond formation with Sarah at the center. Access to the Prometheus Data in the Data Archives would require not only the codes but also the neural implants active in a living, breathing scientist. Some cynical R and D coat must have at some point in time decided that it was just too easy to torture a scientist for the codes, murder them, and then rip the implants out.
Not that I would know firsthand, I'm just making assumptions.
With the other three head scientists dead, we needed Sarah alive. And that complicated things. I mentally reviewed her CV in my head. Undergraduate and Masters at the University of Terra on Bekenstein from 2200-2206, Ph.D degree in Xenoscience Technology from the Everest Institute of Technology on Eden Prime in 2209, married the unfortunate Dr. Paul Messner that same year, and had been with the Systems Alliance Research and Development Section ever since. Slim, attractive, probably had never fired a gun in her life. She'd be one more snag in a situation full of deadly, sci-fi horror clichés.
The corridors were eerily silent the further and further we moved away from the airlock. In contrast to the mainline ships in the Systems Alliance Navy, space was not a premium on the SSV Hippocrates. Designed in 2200 and fully constructed in 2204, the SSV Hippocrates was the one-point-two kilometer-long mobile headquarters for the Systems Alliance Research and Development.
More akin to a giant, floating hospital than a warship, the Hippocrates was filled with long corridors, branching rooms, and large, equipment-filled spaces where the various research departments conducted most of their work.
Every time we passed by a room I would signal Rake to perform a quick, cursory check for survivors or useful kit, afterwards I'd seal it so that nothing could ambush us from the rear. At intersections I'd have Soph drop a DNA-triggered proximity mine that would erupt if anything that didn't possess the DNA of a council species walked near it. Otherwise we ran into no survivors. Not surprising.
"You'd think there'd be more people around, panicking." Jay said.
"No," I admonished. "There's approximately a thousand people on the ship. one-twenty of those are security personnel, thirty-four are bridge crew, a third are maintenance, and other than the one-hundred odd personnel assigned to the Prometheus Project who should have been on the Science Deck, the rest are probably in their respective labs."
Rake turned to me. "Any other R and D projects we should worry about, sir?"
"Zombies", I joked weakly. To Rake's left I heard Fly let out a snort. Maybe he was just being nice, maybe his sense of humor was shit. Either way, I appreciated the recognition.
But my crappy attempts to diffuse tension were as I said, crappy. Sarah had gone quiet, hadn't spoken a word since she'd learned of her husbands' grisly fate.
Soph was still trying to re-establish communications with the rest of the Hippocrates in-between her periodic perimeter sweeps while Fly and Jay were otherwise silent and focused on ensuring that our six was cleared. Very professional. The marines I picked from the Excalibur's compliment were definitely the most professional of the bunch.
I could tell the lack of sounds and the lack of hostiles were not exactly comforting, but rather grating, on the nerves of my team. I brought my fingers up to my amp. I could feel the eezo charge that emanated from it. The L7 amp was in working order, as was the Barrier I was currently having it project around me.
I doubled checked my M-3 Predator Heavy Pistol, ensuring that the heat sink was properly loaded and free of flaws. I'd get 12 rounds before it had to recharge, with maybe six reloads left in the ammunition block.
I fell a few steps behind Rake and Soph. Despite the pervasive uneasiness gripping the marines, I knew that each of them had their issues buttoned up and wouldn't break when we encountered whatever those things were. As the operative in charge of this fiasco, it was up to me to shore up our weak points. I fell a few steps back to walk beside Sarah.
"How are you holding up?" I softly asked.
"I'll make it, thanks," she replied firmly. While a part of me admired the brave front she'd put on, I knew that deep down she had to be ten times as scared shitless as the rest of us were. Zero military training, cushy lab job, I could probably count the number of times she'd been in life and death situations on my third hand and I most certainly did not have a third hand.
Nonetheless, she seemed amiable to my attempts at conversation, if only to distract herself from the smothering silence that seemed to blanket the corridors of the Hippocrates.
"So what did you do before all this? C-Sec? Systems Alliance Marine Corps? N7?" she asked.
"No, nothing like that, and operative Percival was the N7," I replied. She cocked her head at me in disbelief.
"You're not ex-military?" she probed further. "Hard to believe, you certainly seem like the type."
"He's not ex-military- at least, we don't think he is," Rake interjected. "We've served with him aboard the Excalibur for the last six months and he's been pretty tight-lipped about his life story."
"Pretty much your typical Spectre operative," Soph sighed.
"Very mysterious," smiled Sarah. That was good. If she could smile then maybe the trauma of losing her husband and our current situation might not be overly debilitating.
"He's cultivating an aura of intense mystique to establish and reinforce authority," Fly stated in a flat, monotone voice. "It's what they teach you that in 'Spectre 101'."
Sarah laughed at that, Jay shook his head but I'd bet he was smiling underneath his helmet.
The tension dropped noticeably after that. That was good. As well-trained as these Systems Alliance marines were, our current situation would render even an experienced Spectre operative a little trigger-happy. With neither Sarah nor I possessing protective armor suits or kinetic barriers a little tension relief could go a long way towards me not getting shot in the ass.
I checked the ship schematic on my omni-tool. two-hundred-and-seventy-six meters and six decks up to go. Although we had not yet encountered anything or anyone, something felt wrong. I could feel it gnawing at me, although maybe not in small, little bites but rather in large, ravenous chunks.
My head was on a swivel, my eyes constantly darting back and forth, up and down. I could swear that I heard something faintly scratching from somewhere nearby, and a soft, almost indiscernible chittering that seemed to come from all directions at once.
I didn't know whether or not the Marines heard it but I refrained from asking in case it caused Sarah to lose her composure. The marines would be expecting hostile resistance anyways, no need to make the situation any more volatile.
Apparently they did, because Jay eventually spoke up.
"Sir, do you hear that?"
The ship suddenly groaned and all of a sudden the lights in the corridor flickered and went dead.
I immediately kicked Sarah's legs out from underneath her, causing her to elicit a yelp of surprise. I then expanded my barrier to encase the entire marine fireteam. I fanned my pistol down both ends of the corridor while I used my other hand to press Sarah firmly down. The marines, to their credit, activated their Lancer rifle lamps and immediately trained their rifles behind and in front of us.
I could feel Sarah tense up beneath me in preparation to scream. I quickly moved my hand from her shoulder and pressed it against her mouth. All around me the marines trained their rifles down either ends of the corridor. The chittering had stopped, nothing but deep, heavy breathing from the marines and muffled, panicked breaths from Sarah. She grabbed onto my legs and squeezed.
We stood there, silent, for what felt like an eternity. After about 30 seconds, we relaxed. Nothing had attacked us, but the lights were still not on.
"I'm betting something must have happened to the generator, a lot of the local power readings are showing up dead on my omni-tool, sir." Soph quickly tapped a few more commands into her omni-tool,
"I'll need to find one of the main access consoles on this deck to get a better picture, those should still be running on their own internal power."
"The back-up generators should have kicked in by now," Fly frowned. "They're located in separate rooms specifically so that direct damage to either of them wouldn't cause a catastrophic loss of power throughout the whole ship".
I nodded. "I'm starting to think its sabotage. First communications, then power, someone had to have hit the back-up generators first and then the main generators."
I pulled Sarah up from the ground. "The generators are 100 meters and 2 decks apart, we might be looking at more than one saboteur."
"Sir, what about the main objective? Can we still access the Data Archives while the power is down?" Rake asked.
I shook my head. "As far as I remember, the Data Archives has a fail-safe lock that would have activated as soon as the power went down, were probably going to need to turn the generators in one of the engine rooms back on first."
"I'm also starting to read marginally lower oxygen levels in our surrounding environment, I think life support is down as well," Soph reported.
"So someone cuts off our communications, then they shut down our generators, and now they want to asphyxiate us," Jay listed. "Try to make it less obvious man."
"Life support can take a backseat on the priority list," I assured him.
I checked my omni-tool for the current oxygen readings. "Assuming a crew of around a thousand remains, we'd have enough oxygen for another six hours before we start feeling the effects."
I pulled up a schematic of the ship, studying it. "Now might be a good time to consider fixing communications. All of the sabotage seems to be aimed towards eliminating the inhabitants on the ship, it's logical to assume that the lifeboats would be their next objective. If that's the case, we're going to need communications to call for evac and extraction."
"Working on it sir, from what I can see from my omni-tool diagnostics, communications aren't down but jammed." She typed a few commands. "With some luck I might be able to re-establish short-range communications between helmets and portable comms, maybe a 50 yard radius."
"Good work," I nodded. Nothing had attacked us for 2 straight minutes. "We should keep moving, everyone turn your external lamps on."
The chittering had stopped for now. The lights allowed us to see maybe fifteen meters in either direction, but no more than that. I had dropped my expanded barrier, robbing us of its soft, purple glow. I did not want to waste my energy when all the signs screamed that I'd need it for later.
The air around us felt heavy, like a thick, wet blanket. Sarah had stopped hyperventilating, but she maintained a tight grip around my arm. Slowly, we continued our journey down the corridor.
January 23rd, 2311, 1726 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 1, Containment Airlock 1
26 minutes after the outbreak
I think I was the first to smell it. I'd been in enough warzones and had kept enough of an eye on the ship schematics to know what large amounts of blood smelled like and to know that we were slowly approaching Containment Airlock 1.
Beside me, Sarah wrinkled her nose, unsure of what the smell was. I transferred my Predator to my right hand to free up my left for the hand gestures I'd need to access my biotics. There were no more intersections or rooms between our current position and Containment Airlock 2, so I gestured for Soph to drop two more proximity mines behind us and had all the marines train their rifles down ahead of us.
Compared to the containment airlock I had come through, Containment Airlock 1 was a relatively large room, almost 30 by 40 meters. It possessed five large doors, I cursed as I noticed that all of them were left wide open.
The largest doors were the airlock doors themselves, leading to the Prometheus Lab. The next led to Containment Airlock 3, another was the one we had just came through, a fourth led to the Data Archives, and the last led to the ships' Main Central Passageway. In the darkness I could see the outlines of the security booth flanking the lab entrance, a few storage lockers, and a couple of single-occupant decontamination suites.
And bodies.
We cautiously stepped into the room, each of the marines and I covering one of the entrances into the airlock. The beams of light emitted from the Marine's rifle lamps swept across the room, gracing us with brief glimpses of the bloody carnage that lay strewn about. The walls were drenched in a mixture of blue, green, and red blood. I could hear blood dripping into the mesh grating built into the floor of the room.
Sarah moved closer and grabbed my arm. "Oh my god," she whispered hoarsely. I trained my flashlight on the corpse of a turian security personnel slumped in-front of one of the security booth.
"I..I recognize him.. I think his name was Grolina," Sarah stuttered.
"Grelinus," I corrected, reading the name inscribed on his chestplate. I walked closer to get a better look. Behind me I could hear Sarah retching. I knelt down to examine the casualty. His chestplate was pierced front-to-back —a bloody hole with a diameter of maybe ten inches if I had to say. His left leg was missing below the knee, his mandibles flared open in a silent scream. An M-8 Avenger Assault Rifle lay beside him.
"What the fuck could have made that hole, sir?" Jay asked. He was starting to get unnerved. The rest of the team were also starting to crack, I noted. While their Lancers were kept firmly aimed at the doors their helmets jerked from side to side, maintaining as much of a visual on the room as possible.
"I don't know. Too much tissue trauma for it to be a large-caliber weapon, and the wounds don't match the capabilities of those things I saw at ground zero of the outbreak."
I gestured to Fly, "Come over here Fly, what do you see?"
Fly moved towards the corpse while I trained my Predator at the door he was covering.
He quietly inspected the body. "You're right, the entry wound is way too large for it to be a mass effect slug, even a modded one. The arteries and muscle tissue are shredded, not simply pushed aside. The wound must have been caused by something serrated, not smooth".
I nodded. "No heat scarring on the edges of the wound and on the armor either. I think we can also rule out heat-based beam weaponry," I finished. "Rake, do a brief check on the other KIA's."
Rake moved towards each of other corpses in the room. "They're all turians, sir, members of fireteam 2-1." He knelt down to get a closer look, his Lancer propped up on one shoulder. "Wounds similar to the ones you're describing. Large-bore entry wounds in the stomach, thighs, and… face."
"Poor bastards," Jay lamented. He nudged a spent heatsink beside one of the bodies. "At least they put up a fight."
I frowned. That didn't make sense. "There's human and salarian blood too present in the room, but only turian KIA's."
Sarah turned to me. "Could they have just been wounded?" she asked.
I sincerely doubted it given the quantity of blood coating the floor and the walls but I reassured her that it was still possible. As on edge as the marines were, she was probably close to the precipice of absolute panic.
"Sir, there's a main access console in the security booth, permission to try and re-establish comms?" Soph asked.
"Do it," I ordered. "And try to get us a diagnostic on the generators and on life support."
"Roger that, sir." She saluted.
She set her Lancer down where she could easily grab it, linked up her omni-tool to the main access console and began working.
I ordered the rest of the marines to form a perimeter, ensuring that the airlock door leading to the science lab was vigilantly watched. Rake began moving the bodies off to the side so they wouldn't be a walking hazard and began stripping them of any useful gear.
Rake handed me a utility belt with a couple of sticky grenades and a few synthstim packs attached to them. "These might be useful, sir," he replied.
I thanked him and clipped it around my waist. From the dead turians I appropriated two Talons – 8 inch-long standard issue combat knives issued to turian recruits upon the completion of their military training, curved like a raptor's talon, edged for both stabbing and slicing.
Upon further inspection, one of them had a name carved into the handle. I gently placed that one back onto the belt of its owner and grabbed an unmarked one off another of the bodies. I stuck those into my belt.
Jay came out of the security booth with a suit of dark grey armor worn by the ship's security personnel. It was bulky and heavy—much heavier than I was used—but it had kinetic barriers. Produced by Devlon Industries, it was both heavier and offered less protection than the standard marine combat armor produced by Hahne-Kedar that Rake and his team wore, and much shittier than my custom Rosenkov Materials Armor. Worst, it lacked the built-in Tactical Cloak that I had on my personal suit.
I quickly stripped down and began putting on the armor. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Sarah watching furtively for a few seconds before averting her eyes.
The armor was comprised of a black undersuit made with a tough titanium microweave upon which you could clip on the modular armor pieces. I attached the heavy cuirass to my torso as well as the armored greaves and boots but I refrained from wearing the heavy pauldrons or the armguards, leaving my bare arms exposed. This would allow my arms more mobility in the use of my biotics and in aiming.
I was in the middle of triple-checking my M-3 Predator when I suddenly heard footsteps coming from one of the entrances. I immediately moved in front of Sarah and trained my pistol down that corridor. The marines picked up on my movements and in less than a second four more weapons were pointed at where I was aiming, bathing the entrance that led to Containment Airlock 3 in bright, white light.
"Friendlies!" shouted a flanged, turian voice. A couple seconds later a group of ten people filed cautiously into the room. Eight of them were clad in the armor of the Hippocrates' Security Personnel, a ninth was a salarian garbed in a Scientists uniform, a patch on his left shoulder marking him as part of the Hippocrates' Biology Research Division. The last was an asari with purple facial markings. Her patch listed her as a member of the Medical Research Division.
Four of the security personnel were turians while the other four were humans. They gripped their Avengers tightly, nervously eyeing the broad swaths of blood on the walls and the ground and shooting brief, furtive glances at the row of corpses we had set aside.
A large, imposing turian with a bent mandible and dark red face paint strode forward. His armor insignia marked him as a Sergeant in the Turian Hierarchy Naval Marines.
"Sir, Sergeant Vidanor Mardinus, of the THNM, currently in command of fireteam 2-2 aboard the SSV Hippocrates. Are you one of the Spectres' the Council sent?"
I nodded. "Give me a situation report, Sergeant Mardinus."
The turian straightened up. "Corporal O'Neill, have two men guard each entrance and secure the perimeter," he ordered. A short, Caucasian male of about 5'9 saluted and proceeded to direct the rest of the security personnel. Satisfied that the perimeter was relatively secured, Sergeant Mardinus turned to me and began his report.
"We heard the alarms start up and the Containment Airlocks doors started to close," he began. "We received a message from the bridge stating that a Code Black had occurred in the Prometheus Lab and to await further instructions, we lost communications soon after."
He glanced backwards and nodded towards the two scientists. "These two came running down to the airlock."
The asari scientist took another look at the blood-spattered walls and shuddered. The salarian scientist stepped forward and held out a hand. "Dr. Jaelen Veers, SSV Hippocrates' Biology Research Division, Chief Scientist for Project Eden," like all salarians, he spoke rapidly, "This is my colleague Dr. Rentea T'lana, SSV Hippocrates Medical Research Division."
His words began to betray a note of panic. "You were the Spectre attached to oversee the Prometheus Project were you not? You were at ground zero, did you see a salarian scientist? Grey, dark blue irises, two rings on the left horn?"
He made to grab my shoulder but I slipped away. "His name was Tago, Dr. Tago Veers, did he get out? Did you see him get out? He's my brother," he pleaded. The asari beside him pulled his arm away from me and entwined her fingers with his, her eyes filling with sorrow.
I kept my face as carefully composed as possible. "I'm sorry Dr. Veers, if your brother was in the Lab at the time of the outbreak and you didn't catch him outside Airlock 2 then chances are he didn't make it. I'm sorry for your loss."
He gaped at me, silent and wordless, a rare feat for any salarian. Fuck, I hated doing shit like this to people.
"I know this must be hard," I continued, "but there will be time to mourn him later. We need to follow containment protocol, and that means we need to secure the data from the archives and destroy the ship. I'm going to need your help to do so."
Dr. Veers nodded slowly and moved away. The asari glared at me before following him. Jay shot a furtive glance towards me and moved over to the grieving scientist, offering him a drink and a protein bar. I sighed and shook my head.
Sergeant Mardinus had been watching our conversation silently and patiently. After Dr. Veers moved away, he resumed his report.
"After the lights went off, we decided to move towards Containment Airlock 1 to try and link up with Fireteam 1-1. Looks like you found them, poor bastards," he gestured sadly at the row of bodies. He turned his attention back to me, "What about fireteam 1-3?"
I shook my head. He went quiet for a minute, closing his eyes before straightening back up and saluting. I had always admired turians and their commitment to duty. This turian had clearly had friends on both fireteams and in spite of their loss maintained an air of professionalism and duty that was on par with even the most stoic of Spectre operatives. I would need to lean on him if I was to get everyone out of this shitshow alive.
"You mentioned containment protocol, sir?" he inquired further.
I nodded an affirmative and outlined the plan for him. "Protocol dictates the retrieval of the Prometheus Data from the Data Archives."
I gestured to Sarah, "Dr. Messner is the last remaining scientist with the access codes and the neural implants required to retrieve that data, that makes her safety top priority."
The turian looked at Sarah, his mandibles twitched as they appraised her and made note of her lack of armor and combat experience.
"After the data has been secured," I continued, "We're going to the bridge to activate the self-destruct sequence, upon the completion of which we will evacuate via the lifeboats to the SSV Excalibur."
"Sounds good sir, we've got your back," Sergeant Mardinus acknowledged. "Any idea how we can re-establish communications with the bridge?"
I nodded behind me to where Soph was still working at the main access console. "I've got Specialist Croft working on that problem."
Soph chose that minute to look up from the console. "Sir, in regards to that problem I may have found a temporary solution."
She looked down and tapped a few more lines. "I wasn't able to remove the jamming signal. It may be an external signal or could possibly be originating from somewhere on the ship. I was, however, able to establish a separate channel free from the signal. I'm sending the channel codes now." Everyone's omni-tool lit up as Soph linked us to the channel.
"Unfortunately there's two problems," she continued, "first of all the channel has extremely limited range. We can communicate helmet to helmet about fifty yards away, but nothing exceeding that. Secondly, I couldn't encrypt the channel. Surviving ship forces will have access to it, but also potentially the saboteurs. I'd advise against sending out sensitive information over the channel," She explained.
"Any chance we could contact the Excalibur?" I asked.
"50 yards away, sir."
I smiled and Rake shot her a 'Good Job'. We now had twelve armed combatants, thirteen counting myself. The asari would possess biotics—I made a mental note to ask her for her specialties—while I could count on the salarian to have some background in both offensive and defensive tech. We prepared to move out from the Airlock through the entrance that would lead to the Data Archives.
A loud moan coming from beyond the open doors leading down to the science lab caused all of us to stop dead in our tracks. We all bunched up in the center of the room. I immediately forced Sarah down again, aimed my Predator towards the sound and prepared to throw up a barrier.
The lights from a dozen rifle tac-lamps all converged on the entryway, but all of them failed to illuminate more than fifteen, maybe twenty meters into the darkness. I noticed the flares on the belt of Corporal O'Neill and made a dimming gesture to Sergeant Mardinus.
He nodded and rasped a brief command into his armor mic. His fireteam turned off their lamps. The marines picked up on what they were doing and shut theirs off too, engulfing us in darkness. All three of the scientists were breathing heavily in fear, but both Dr. Veers and Sarah remained thankfully silent, while I could see Dr. T'lana start to emit a low blue glow in preparation to use her biotics.
I holstered my Predator and grabbed the flares off of the Corporals belt and activated them. I tossed them one at a time, one for each of the five entrances to the airlock. They began to emit a soft red light that illuminated the room in its entirety, giving us a complete visual of the entire room.
"What is that?" Sarah pointed. Out of the darkness of the Prometheus Lab shambled something straight out of our nightmares. It was—used —to be a human. Its tattered lab coat was covered in dried red and blue blood.
His flesh seemed half machine, I could see sharp metal spikes jutting from his back. His skin, once black, was now interspersed with metallic patches of blue wiring and open wounds that bled a mixture of sickly blue fluid and bright red blood.
His eyes were gone, replaced by dead metal prosthetics that emitted an angry red light. A series of large metal talons about a foot and a half long erupted from its right forearm. His stomach was bloated and seemed paper thin, a dull blue light emanating from inside it. I could see his stomach shifting and convulsing as if it were alive. I had never seen anything like this, not even from pictures of the Reaper War
It opened its mouth wider than I thought possible, ripping open the human flesh that remained around its jaws. Inside I could see more blue light, illuminating the sharp, jagged mixture of metal and human teeth that lined the inside of its mouth.
It let out a ghastly howl and ran at us. I was the first to react, having seen these things at ground zero. I pumped two shots into its chest, right where the human heart would be. It dropped and fell to the ground without a sound. All around me the marines and the scientists let out a collective sigh of relief. I turned to check on Sarah while Cadmus motioned to one of his men to confirm the kill.
The man decided to walk over and moved to prod it with his boot instead of shooting it in the head. Fucking idiot. Before I could yell at him to back away, the Corpser raised its arm filled with metal talons and drove it into the thigh of the unfortunate marine, coating the face of the Corpser in a spray of arterial blood.
The marine fell to the ground and began to scream. The Corpser quickly crawled on-top of him, it's gaping maw inches from the marines face. I winced, expecting it to take a big chunk out of him.
Instead, the Corpsers thin, bloated stomach, which had been emitting a ghostly, blue light, suddenly ripped apart. Guts and innards spilled out onto the pinned marine alongside half a dozen hand-sized objects.
Bathed in the red light of the flares, I could barely make out their shape. They were like hand-sized, mechanical tarantulas, each of them a made nearly entirely of metal. They erupted from the stomach of the Corpser and scuttled their way up the torso of its victim. A pair of them held the marines mouth open while the rest crawled inside. After a few more seconds, the marines cries stopped and his struggling ceased.
The whole nightmare had lasted maybe seven or eight seconds at most. The death of the marine snapped me out of my state of shock. I raised my Predator and shot the Corpser two more times in the head, hopefully destroying its brain. The Corpser slumped over the body of the dead marine, the blue and red lights emitting from its various orifices finally ceased.
More moans—more than I could count—began coming from the science lab. Out of the darkness and bathed in the light of the flares came another Corpser, then another. Two became a dozen, a dozen became twenty, with what seemed like more on the way. I could hear Jay muttering a quick prayer behind me, while Sergeant Mardinus began slowly chanting in turian.
The dead marine suddenly began convulsing. I immediately set my omni-tool to record. The marine began emitting a faint blue light from various parts of his body. Parts of his skin started sloughing off, revealing cold blue metal beneath. Jagged metal talons tore their way out of his arm, while large metal spikes erupted from his spine.
Finally, his eyes snapped open, revealing angry red orbs. He rose to join the horde of Corpsers. This was not how I saw these things being made back at ground zero. I recorded the whole process and prayed to god that I'd be able to deliver this to proper authorities.
"Headshots!" I shouted. I made a flourishing gesture with my left hand. My biotic amp at the base of my skull sizzled to life. A dark purple energy sphere with a shimmering violet corona erupted from my left hand and shot towards the front ranks of the Corpsers, its mass-reducing effect lifting three of them off their feet and causing them to float and swirl helplessly in the air.
I took aim and shot all three in the head before throwing my left fist forward like I was throwing a punch. My biotic amp sparked again and out from my left hand shot a bright blue orb of energy that collided with the swirling purple sphere.
The mass effect fields from each of my biotic abilities interacted violently with each other, producing a large biotic detonation. This flung the three Corpsers I had initially snared into several of their brethren, disrupting their front lines and buying us a moment of respite.
The remaining Corpsers began to charge at us. Rake was the first to open fire, spraying the legs of the first wave with his M-7 Lancer and causing several of them to tumble. Beside him, Soph and Fly began firing bursts into the heads of the downed Corpsers while Jay tossed a grenade that ripped two of them apart and wounded several more. Sergeant Mardinus and his men began firing indiscriminately into the crowd, buying us time to coordinate an effective counterattack.
I saw Dr. T'lana throw out her right arm, a blue orb of energy similar to the one that I had cast shooting out and hitting an approaching target. The Corpser started to howl it was covered in what looked like bright blue flames that began disintegrating its torso. Dr. Jeers activated his omnitool and threw out a scorching ball of fire that collided with the Corpser that Dr. T'lana had hit, causing a power detonation that tore it and another Corpser standing nearby apart.
For a minute, it looked like we might survive when suddenly a swarm of the mechanical spider creatures erupted from the stomachs of the Corpsers we had shot. I cursed and made a hand gesture towards Jay to begin firing on them but before we could shoot all of them they had already crawled up onto two of Sergeant Mardinus' men. The two turians began screaming as they began crawling into their mouths. A third marine began running towards his friends, trying to pull the Crawlers off of them, but a Corpser drove its spiked arm into her chest.
Rake and his fireteam continued hammering into the remaining Corpsers. I threw out another singularity and warp biotic combo that detonated and destroyed a few more. Sarah, bless her heart, had grabbed a pistol from Jay's belt and had begun doing her best to shoot the legs out from the Corpsers.
But more and more came out of the science lab. For every lethal, human-cyborg zombie we put down, another seemed to come out of place. The light from the flares coating the bodies and the spent heat sinks in dim, red light.
Then out of the darkness came Dr. Rabhu Singh, one of the former lead scientists for the Prometheus Project.
Except it wasn't Dr. Singh, not anymore. While similar to the Corpsers, he was bigger. Almost three feet taller and twice as wide, with more wicked-looking spikes on his forearm and thick metal plates covering his torso and head. What had been Dr. Singh also possessed an over-sized synthetic arm covered in long, sinister metal tubes. Unlike the Corpsers, he was quiet, advancing slowly towards us while its smaller brethren surged forward in an attempt to tear us all to shreds.
I immediately shifted my fire to what had been Dr. Singh but my bullets failed to penetrate the plates covering its head. Soph, Jay and Rake all shifted fire to the doctor while Sergeant Mardinus and his men tossed a few more grenades in an attempt to buy us some breathing room from the Corpsers. Their Lancer fire also failed to penetrate the thick plates that covered Dr. Singh.
One of the security personnel let out an angry shout and charged towards the hulking monstrosity, screaming curses and firing his rifle.
"Keep away from his arm!" I screamed, but before the marine could halt his suicidal charge, Dr. Singh lashed out with his hand and the tubes on his arm entered the chest of the marine.
The marine stopped and began shaking. Unlike the short latency period that followed being infected from the Crawlers, he immediately began changing, patches of metal appearing where his flesh fell away, eyes red, teeth-ridden maw gaping wide in a ghastly howl. Dr. Singh released the newly-formed Corpser, who turned and began to run at us.
I pumped three bullets into the head of the ex-marine and was preparing to once again utilize my biotics when my comm. set crackled to life.
"Friendly coming up on the enemy's six, watch your fire!" a voice ordered over the radio.
A large, armored shape came running out of the darkness of the Science Lab. His armor was jet black, and he had a red stripe and white running down his right arm.
On top of his armor he had activated his signature bright-red tech armor that served as added protection. I saw him drop two inferno grenades that incinerated a dozen Corpsers and brightly illuminated the room, giving the rest of us a clear view of his little stunt.
Former N7 and Spectre Operative Lancelot Percival sprinted straight towards Dr. Singh. He leapt up and grabbed onto the Changers' metal spines with his free hand while his other ignited his omni-blade and drove it deep into the neck of the former scientist.
For the first time this fight, Dr. Singh began to howl in pain. I was not to be undone. As Dr. Singh raised his cable arm in an attempt to change Percival, I made a closing-fist gesture with my left hand. A white blue field erupted around Dr. Singh, immobilizing him.
I sprinted forward and jumped up onto Dr. Singh as Percival had done, using the metal plates around his legs and torso as purchase. I jammed my Predator underneath his unarmored chin and emptied the rest of the clip into his head. With a shudder, Dr. Singh toppled over and grew still, his lights flickering off. As it died, the rest of my marines and the surviving ship crew finished off the last Corpser, and the room fell silent.
I held out a hand and pulled Percival to his feet.
"You're a sight for sore eyes," I grinned.
He shook his head and depolarized his faceplate. I could see him smiling up at me. He pulled me into a bear hug.
"Thought you were dead," he said. "I can't believe you made it out of the labs."
"What, you doubted me?" I aimed a kick at the head of what used to be Dr. Singh. Unlike the first marine who'd died, I trusted my plot armor to keep me from the same, gruesome fate. "Better question is, what the hell were you doing in the Labs?"
Percival looked hurt, "I went to get you the fuck out! I had to literally cut my way into the lab with my goddamn omni-blade. Then the lights went out and I had to fight my way through a bunch of those things. Heard the gunfire, figured you were somehow involved in that, and here I am," he finished.
"Yeah, well you're fucking late," I sniped. "Where's my armor?"
"Cade grabbed it before he ran off. No idea where he went, we lost communications soon after we split up. I'm willing to be he's either at the Data Archives or the Engine room."
"Shit," I cursed. I spent a few minutes bringing Percival up to speed.
He listened intently, going silent for a few moments after I had finished. "We need to get to the Data Archives then, which one's the VIP?" he asked.
I gestured at Sarah, who shyly introduced herself. Percival smiled reassuringly at her before nodding at the other two scientists.
"And them?" he asked.
"Doctors Veers and T'lana, Biology and Medical," I explained. "This is Sergeant Mardinus and his second-in-command, Corporal O'Neill," I pointed at what remained of Fireteam 1-3, which consisted of the grizzled turian marine, his second, and a young, scared-looking turian that looked barely out of basic.
"And you already know the marines from the Excalibur," I finished by gesturing at Rake and his team.
"Good to see you sir," Rake greeted. "I'm starting to like the odds now that you're here."
Percival nodded and raised his voice. "Alright ladies and gentlemen, we work together, we check our corners, and we all make it out of this alive."
I quietly refrained from rolling my eyes at his little speech, company morale and all.
"The Data Archives is a near straight shot through that door, so let's move out and get this done."
Standing at nearly 6'5 and 220 lbs, garbed in black N7 armor and made bigger by the addition of his tech armor. Lancelot Percival cut a heroic, larger-than-life figure. Absolutely ruthless in a fight and with a combined ten years of N7 and Spectre experience under his belt, I had seen Percival charge headfirst into batarian slaving facilities and take on Krogan Warlords with nothing more than a pistol and his murderous intentions.
His bravery and his dedication to duty had catapulted him through the ranks of the Systems Alliance into the ranks of the N7 and later the Spectres. Combine that with model-good looks, deep blue eyes, and wavy, blonde hair, he was the poster child for the galaxies finest.
Of course, Percival had his weaknesses. The first was his stupid, pretentious name.
The second was his hearing. At least when compared to mine.
I heard that same scratching noise that had followed us throughout our journey from airlock 2. It was stronger now, and seemed to be coming from directly below us in the maintenance catwalks that ran below each deck. I turned to the rest of the group.
Although the rest of the marines seemed unaware, both the turians and the salarian, with their superior hearing, were now looking around, trying to pinpoint the source of the noise.
The metal polysteel deck that was nearly two feet thick ripped apart in the center of the room and out crawled a huge, metallic monster.
Nearly twelve meters long, it had the shape of a giant, metallic lizard, two strong hind legs and four smaller, thinner forelegs, each of them terminating in massive, metal claws. Like the other creatures, its flesh was a patchwork of metal plates and skin.
I could see that its body was made from a fusion of different species, like some dark twisted chimera. Each of its four forelimbs was what used to be a salarian that had been mechanically zombified much like how the Corpsers were. I noticed that the salarian that comprised of its right front-most leg had two rings embedded in its horn cartilage.
Fused human Corpsers made up the torso, while its head seemed to be comprised of a Krogan, a thick red headplate covering its forehead. In lieu of a gaping maw, the krogans arms had been transformed into two long pincers surrounding a small, human mouth.
A soft, chittering sound emitted from the beast. Coiling around it like a snake was a tail that was long and sinuous, made of jagged metal and flesh. It left no doubt in my mind what had killed the original fireteam posted here.
Corporal O'Neill was the closest to the beast. The chimera whipped its tail around and drove it straight into his chest, lifting him into the air and throwing him across the room. Then and there I decided that we couldn't kill it, not conventionally.
We all started retreating. I ripped a sticky grenade from my belt and chucked it at its head. The grenade detonated, blowing one of its pincers clean off. The Chimera chittered in rage, then turned its six mechanical eyes in my direction. It started moving towards me.
Rake ran in front of it, firing his Lancer and spitting hate at the monster. The Chimera raised one long forelimb and batted Rake aside. I raised my left hand to use my biotics to reduce his mass, hopefully alleviating the impact. Despite my efforts, Rake hit the side of the wall and slumped to the ground, unmoving.
"Fall back through the doors!" Percival bellowed. He grabbed Rake by the collar of his armor and started dragging him away. The Chimera jumped into our group, scattering and separating Sarah and I from the rest of the survivors. The marines and the scientists, along with Percival, retreated through the door that led to the ship's main corridor. I grabbed Sarah and dragged her through the door to the Data Archives.
The Chimera paused for a brief, critical moment, uncertain of who to follow. Percival and I both shot at the mechanical servos that held our respective doors open, and I'm guessing we both sighed with relief as our doors both slammed shut, separating us from the abomination of flesh and machine.
I looked at Sarah, who stared back at me.
We were alone.
