Please R & R!
"Morgue's right through here." Ashley whispered as they continued down the hallway. All three ignored the message scrawled in blood on the wall MAKE US WHOLE, and the severed arm lying underneath it.
"Chen, take point. Haines, cover. I'm rear guard." John ordered. Ashley nodded and punched the door pad. The Morgue Door hissed open, and Ashley and John moved inside. What they found was shocking, to say the least.
"What the…where are the bodies?"
The walls were slick with blood, and sheets had been thrown to the ground as if the ones they were covering had decided to get up and take a walk. But other than that, all of the metal beds for recent arrivals were conspicuously lacking corpses, and the wall storage units had their doors either ripped off or swinging back and forth. Ashley walked up to a pool of blood and what looked like bits of skin and bone "This is the morgue, correct? There are supposed to be bodies in the morgue, yes?" She was starting to get a bit hysterical.
"What is this? HorrorFest '12?" John shook his head in disbelief. Owen walked up to one of the still-closed freezer cabinets. There was a thumping from within. Owen motioned to the others and pointed at the cabinet. John nodded, and brought his arm-cannon up to bear while holding his Pulse Rifle in his other hand. Ashley had her rifle ready and armed.
"On three…one, two, three…" John swung the cabinet door open and pulled out the slab. He instantly recoiled. On the slab was…something. Blood trickled off the slab and dripped to the floor. The body itself was a nightmare. The lower jaw had split apart, forming two clicking mandibles. The eyes were bloodshot, and the skin was cracked around the forehead. Two long blade-like bone structures jutted out of the palms, and the forearms were basically just bone and a few shreds of flesh.
"What the…" The creature went berserk at the sight of Owen. It swung its blade at him and he was slammed against the wall before diving out of the way. The slab was only halfway out, and the creature began trying to crawl out of the cabinet, but its legs were still inside.
"Corporal, stay back!" John barked. He raised his right arm, the one with the oversized gauntlet, and began charging the weapon. Basically a militarized overpowered version of the mining Contact Beam, the weapon was good for one thing. Punching through stuff in a violent manner. The creature stood no chance, and was blasted to bits.
Owen stood up, wincing as he felt his side. While the armor took the brunt of the blow, the force of it had transferred to his body. A few were cracked, definitely, and his left shoulder hurt from hitting the metal wall.
"What the hell was that thing?" Ashley asked, her voice a whisper. John walked over and prodded the corpse with his Pulse Rifle.
"Whatever it is, it's dead now." He chuckled "Corporal, if you want samples, I suggest-" His voice was cut off as the ceiling vents were smashed open. A cascade of bodies began tumbling out, and once they hit the ground, they stood up and began advancing on the trio.
"Open fire!" The three let loose with their rifles. Dozens of rounds disappeared into the horde, but they wouldn't die. Smoking holes in their heads did little to stop them, and neither did shots to the torso.
John snarled and charged up his arm cannon. But for every creature he destroyed with it, two more took its place. The gun's slow rate of fire also didn't help as there were simply too many of them for the Lance Corporal to take on at once and he had depleted his first battery charge within minutes. Soon, the marines found themselves forced back towards the autopsy room. Ashley and Owen found themselves behind John as the big man tried to shield them from the creatures. He was quickly overwhelmed and had six of the slashing ones on him, trying to break open his suit. The heavy AEGIS Suit proved its worth. They couldn't get in, but on the other hand, he couldn't shake them loose. And though it was armored, the constant hacking away by the monsters was starting to strain the suit to its breaking point. Ashley and Owen watched in horror as one of them succeeded in puncturing his left gauntlet and skewering him through the forearm. John screamed in pain and tried in vain to shake them off. Then the morgue doors opened.
Something bright and silver was tossed into the room. Owen recognized the incendiary charge as it fell and dived back, taking Ashley with him.
There was a bang, and then twenty monsters were running around, either killed or blinded by the blast. "Come on!" shouted the women at the doorway. She was bleeding from a cut to her forehead and had what appeared to be a RC-DS Remote Controlled Disk Ripper in her hand. She fired a blade from it and sliced apart the arms of the creature about to bear down on Owen. The thing screeched and hit the floor, dead.
Owen paused, glancing at John, who was struggling under a mound of bodies. "GO!" The marine roared, crushing a creature between his arms "That's an order, Private!" Then a fresh wave of monsters swarmed over him and he was lost from view.
Ashley was frozen with fear, but Owen gripped her wrist and pulled her along with him through the temporary passage that the woman had created. He fired blinded over his shoulder. A head exploded, but instead of the thing dropping dead, it just began swinging its arms wildly, hitting others of its kind who moved out of its way. Owen couldn't afford to dwell on that fact. He was already close to reaching Ashley's stage of terror as it was. Once they reached the woman, she slammed her first on the door pad and sealed the morgue shut. For a second, they thought they were safe. Owen took a glance at the woman. She was in her mid-forties with dirty-blond hair caked with blood and filth. The same blood-soaked state went for her clothes as well. She wore a ripped doctor's coat; the only evidence that it had been a doctor's coat was her nameplate. The rest of the item of clothing was ripped to shreds. Underneath that, she had the standard medical RIG. As she rested against a wall for a second, Owen saw that she was missing her ring and pinky fingers on her left hand, and there was a deep slash wound in her left side.
A bladed arm managed to squeeze itself between the doors. Then the doors burst open and dozens of the creatures ran out. The woman moaned and grabbed her Ripper.
"Follow me!" She ordered. Ashley and Owen ran after her. The creatures roared as one and chased them. Owen tossed a grenade behind them, and winced as the explosion deafened his hearing.
They reached the end of the corridor. Owen opened the door and the three of them ran inside. He closed the door behind them, before he and Ashley shoved a cabinet in front of it. They were in the morgue lobby. The corpse of the receptionist lay at her desk. A dozen more corpses, those of Earthgov marines, littered the floor. There was a lift at the far end. The woman tried to open it, but the doors remained shut. "Shit…Vera, the lift's not working. We need an exit, stat! I've got Necromorphs rushing us." She said urgently into her RIG. An image popped up of a middle-aged Hispanic woman. She wore a soldier's RIG, minus the helmet.
"Hang on, I'm hacking the lift controls. It'll take a minute…" The cabinet shook as the things on the other side began massing against it.
"We don't have a minute!" Owen snapped "Sooner or later, those…Necromorphs will get past that door!"
"That's not our only concern…" The woman whispered. She began glancing at the vents "They use the vents to get around." To prove her point, an overhead vent burst open and a different Necromorph leaped out. This one reminded Owen of a freakish mermaid, with a long tail and a sharp barbed claw at the end. Its mouth was filled with oversized fangs, and it had two powerful arms.
"Take, take, take!" Owen barked. He and Ashley opened fire with their Pulse Rifles. The creature hissed and recoiled, but otherwise didn't seem affected.
"Go for the arms!" The woman shrieked, as she fired a Ripper disk at a bladed one that had broken in through a wall vent. She severed its right arm and then its left, and the Necromorph fell dead to the ground. "Dismemberment's the only way to kill them!"
Owen growled. He switched his aim, instead going for the whip-like tail at the rear of the creature. As it sprang at him, he opened fire. The tail was blasted off and the creature fell to the ground. Owen stomped his armored foot down on its arm, dismembering it. The Necromorph went still.
"Slashers! Two more of them!" The woman screamed. Owen couldn't hide his hysterical laugh. Slashers? That was an apt name for them.
"Hey, mystery woman, how long till that lift arrives?" Owen called back. The soldier on the RIG link looked up.
"I need a few more minutes!" Owen cursed under his breath and resumed fire. His Pulse Rifle clicked empty. There wasn't time to reload with the creatures coming straight for him. Screaming expletives, Owen grabbed his flamethrower and let loose a stream of flames, bathing the room in hydrazine gas.
The two Slashers screeched as Owen put out a nonstop stream of blue fire, incinerating them. Another five Slashers leaped into the room and ran at him, ignoring their burnt comrades. Owen bathed them in flames while Ashley took them apart with her Pulse Rifle. They could have held out like that indefinitely had her rifle not clicked empty at that moment. She popped out her clip before turning to Owen.
"Last one?" He asked. She nodded. "Same here. Use your sidearm!" Ashley brought out her divot pistol and began blasting away. The smaller weapon wasn't as accurate, and she ended up with a lot of body shots instead of the limb shots that she wanted.
"Got it! Get moving!" Owen could have kissed the female soldier there and then if he could. They rushed into the lift and frantically closed the doors. The last thing they saw was a Slasher running for them. Then the doors closed and the lift began to ascend.
[HIGH-SECURITY TRANSMISSION]
[TO: FLEET ADMIRAL STANTON, J.]
[FROM: VICE ADMIRAL LOCKWOOD, K.]
[SUBJECT: LOSS OF CONTACT]
[Jackie, as you well know, we sent the USM Orpheus to investigate Kreemar after both the Bellerophon and the Jerusalem dropped out of contact. Both disappearances involved unknown forces attacking their vessels. We had hoped that the Orpheus would not suffer the same fate, but we were wrong. She never reported in once dropping out of shock space. I will update you and the Security Council with more news once I get it.]
USM Jerusalem
In orbit of Kreemar
"Sir, I'm detecting movement from the Bellerophon's secondary array." White glanced over. One of his junior officers was waving him over.
"What is it, Lieutenant?"
"There's faint movement over by the secondary array. I'll try to bring up a sensor image." After a few seconds, an image popped up over the main viewer. It was blurry and low-quality, but definitely of a few dozen human-shaped beings.
"Can we enhance this image?" Benson asked. Weiss shook his head.
"Negative. The high metal content of the asteroids is wreaking havoc with our scanning systems. This is the best my people can do for the moment."
"Could be survivors. They could be trying to use the comm array to hail us." Hernandez suggested. White nodded.
"Ensign Straw, bring us in for a pickup. Have Squads 1-5 ready at the airlocks. If they're hostiles, we shouldn't have any trouble eliminating them."
"Aye sir." The Jerusalem fired up its engines and moved closer to the stricken vessel.
"Approaching the secondary array…" The Jerusalem hovered over the larger vessel's secondary comm array. The array was a series of antennas and dishes in the center of a deep bowl-like structure, with a wide brim. As the ship's shadow covered the dish, none noticed the surface of the array crack open and move.
"Open Bay 1 doors." White ordered "Set us down, Ensign." There was the whine of hydraulics as the Jerusalem's landing struts extended and the ship used its docking tethers to attach to the hull.
"Alright, I want Decon units at-…" The ship shook violently and White was thrown off his feet. He flew over the railing from the officer's platform and landed next to Chief Weiss.
"Sir, are you…" The ship shook again, and those who hadn't had the sense to strap themselves into their seats were thrown around the deck. White managed to grab onto a holo-display. Hernandez hit the floor beside him. His neck was at an awkward angle.
"Commander! Are you alright?" White leaned down and felt Hernandez's pulse. Nothing. Somberly, he closed the man's eyes "Rest in peace, Raphael."
"Status report!" Benson roared. Her forehead had a nasty cut from her impact with a bulkhead, and her uniform was covered with blood, though it was unclear if it was hers or not.
"I don't know sir, there's…" Straw's voice trailed off as the bridge darkened. A large tentacle, the size of a sequoia tree, was blocking the light from the sun as it slithered across the bridge viewport.
"What the hell?"
"Lord, protect us…" White murmured, clutching the cross beneath his jacket uniform. Then the ship was flung away from the Bellerophon's hull. Suddenly, its trajectory was stopped violently. There was a groaning sound and then the bridge erupted into fire. Consoles exploded, killing the crewmen occupying them. Overhead beams crashed to the floor. The emergency bulkheads began slamming down over the viewports.
"Sir, I'm reading increased pressure mid-ship!" Straw called back to White, who had taken a dead communication officer's station "It-ARGH!" Her console exploded and she dropped to the floor, her face blackened and smoking. White stared at her body grimly before bringing up the ship-wide intercom.
"This is the Captain. All hands, abandon ship! All hands, abandon ship!" White keyed up a link to Earthgov Command "Command, this is Captain Leonard White! We are under attack. Something grabbed ahold of the ship and is tearing us apart, I repeat, something-…" SSS-BANG! A beam slammed into White's forehead and he hit the deck, knocked out cold.
The Jerusalem, struggling in vain in the grips of three powerful tentacles, stood no chance. After a few agonizing seconds of hull plating groaning and creaking, the tentacles that held it mid-ship squeezed tight and the vessel was torn in two. Bodies spilled out into the cold vacuum of space and the aft section was engulfed by an explosion as the reactor core detonated. The forward hull was sent adrift, spilling air, debris, and bodies as it floated beside the Bellerophon.
"No…" Owen sank to his knees. Ashley just slumped against the wall and hung her head. They were standing in one of the outer corridors, watching the Jerusalem's demise through the corridor-long viewports. The lift doors had opened just as the tentacles snapped it in two. Owen numbly opened his RIG and prepared a log.
[PERSONAL LOG]
[PVT HAINES, OWEN]
[TYPE: AUDIO]
[Personal log, Owen Haines. April 9th, 2512. 1530 hours. The Jerusalem's gone. The thing that destroyed it…I didn't even get a full glimpse of it. But it definitely has at least three giant tentacles that it used to rip the vessel in half like a piñata. First John…now this. There were over 200 good men and women aboard that vessel. Now they're all dead. Jesus, what the hell is going on? That was our ticket home. We're stuck aboard this Godforsaken hellhole.]
[LOG ENDS]
"Come on, we need to keep moving." The woman urged them. John turned to her and stood up.
"No. What we need are some answers." He motioned to Ashley. In a flash, the woman was on her knees and Ashley had her pistol pressed against the woman's head. "What the hell is going on here? What were those things? Were they the crew?" If the woman was afraid, she didn't show it.
"Yes, they were." She glared at Ashley "Would you put that thing away? I'm on your side!" Ashley just growled. Owen bent down and stared at the woman face to face.
"We're asking the questions here. Let's start with your name." The woman glared at him.
"Dr. Sandra Pallas. Senior Medical officer aboard the USM Bellerophon."
"Where's the Chief Medical officer?" Ashley asked.
"Same as half the people aboard this vessel. Killed himself. Just took his service weapon and went out muttering about 'convergence' and 'make us whole'." John motioned for Ashley to lower her weapon. Pallas stood up cautiously, eyes narrowed at John. Finally, she extended her hand. He shook it. Just like that, they were allies.
"What's the situation?" John asked. Pallas sighed. Her eyes were rimmed with fatigue and the smell coming off of her suggested two days' worth of sweat and blood.
"Where to start…we have eighteen assorted crewmen and soldiers barracked in Cargo Hold One. There was one full squad of marines left, but they were ambushed in the Mess Hall. Then there was that CEC vessel. We tried to hail them and warn them away, but that thing got onto our secondary array, so they didn't hear us. Most of their boarding party was killed before their shuttle returned to their ship. There were a few stowaways aboard their ship."
"CEC vessel? You mean the O'Reilly?" Ashley asked. Pallas nodded.
"Poor bastards. The ship drifted for almost a day before they started moving. We assume that they managed to kill their stowaways. Began heading for the edge of the system just as you arrived. A Uni ship shocked into system as they were attempting to leave. Blasted them to bits all over the entry area. The main hull survived. I think there could have been survivors, but that doesn't give much comfort I'm afraid." Owen glanced at Ashley in alarm. Earthgov vessels all had a designated shock area for vessels to safely shock in and out of systems. If the O'Reilly had been destroyed there, it would be the equivalent of blowing up an airplane on an active runway. Any further investigating ship would collide with the debris upon de-shock, receiving major damage if not getting destroyed itself. If there were survivors onboard the O'Reilly, then they would be killed the moment that happened.
"After the Unitologist sneak attack, we thought it was over. But then reports started circulating of the bodies around the crashed barge rising from the dead and…changing. Security teams managed to contain the situation there, or at least we thought. What we didn't know was that they were using the vents to get around. Within hours, there were reports of biological contaminations on every deck. Pretty soon, all of our countermeasures were at the point of failure. The soldiers were getting slaughtered. Most of the people affected by the blast from Perseus Station went over the edge and killed themselves. They just added to their ranks. Things went to shit once the bridge situation occurred."
"What do you mean, 'bridge incident'?" Ashley asked.
"Once the Engineering Deck was overrun, Captain Romanoff ordered the self-destruct system be activated. The senior officers were split on the decision. There was a mutiny led by Commander Wallace against this. All communications with the bridge cut off after that, but we were able to deduce that four or more bridge officers were shot, judging by the last transmission that the Security Office got from the bridge. No word on the Captain or the XO."
"We have people scattered all over the ship. Are you saying that they're in danger?" Owen asked. Pallas stared at him sadly and nodded.
"With the tram system offline and internal comms, there was no way for us to get a message to your squadmates about the Necromorphs." Pallas said "I've never seen suits like the one your friend was wearing. What were they?"
"Classified prototypes. That's all I can say for now." Owen said. Pallas scoffed.
"Really? The whole world's gone to shit, and you still care about whether something's classified or not?" Owen shrugged.
"Rules are rules." Pallas just rolled her eyes and began walking down the corridor.
"Come on. Cargo Hold One is this way."
Owen and Ashley slung their empty Pulse Rifles over their shoulders and popped their helmets back on. With Ashley holding her Divet pistol and Owen using his flamethrower, the trio made their way down the hallway. As they reached the end, where the corridor turned to the left and deeper into the ship, they heard a crashing sound from up ahead. Pallas tensed. Then the shadow of something large and lumbering appeared around the corner.
If the previous Necromorphs had been creepy, this one beat them in the terrifying aspect. Its body had a melted appearance. Its hands were reshaped into three large talons, and its face was melted, with two gaping eye sockets, and a giant hole for the mouth. The flesh beneath the chin was melted together. Both legs were fused together into one limb, and the intestines/muscles of the lower torso had been recombined into a second unwieldy limb.
"Doc, any advice on dealing with this one?" Owen asked, readying his flamethrower. Pallas had her Ripper ready to fire. It was the lighter one-handed version of the mining tool.
"Stay away from it, and avoid the…" The Necromorph reared its head back and spat a globule of bile at Ashley. Owen grabbed her and pulled her to the ground, the acidic puke barely missing them.
"…vomit." Owen stood up and growled.
"Right, these things are starting to get on my nerves." He muttered to himself. Then he addressed the Necromorph "Hey, Puke-face! Puke on this!" He let loose a burst of flames. The Necromorph recoiled, but remained upright. Gritting his teeth, Owen increased the intensity of the flames. Finally, the Puker erupted in a fountain of flesh and acid and burst apart.
"What the hell was that thing?" Ashley asked. Pallas kicked the burnt remains as if she still wasn't sure that it was dead.
"We call it a Puker. It fires a long-range adhesive vomit ball similar to a stasis burst, and a corrosive stream of vomit at short range. That, you never want to experience. If it gets the chance, it'll puke right down your throat, or rip you to pieces with those claws. I saw three doctors receive that fate." Pallas winced as a screech echoed from the opposite direction of the corridor. They wisely decided to keep moving.
The walls of the corridors were covered with the fleshy compound that the squad had encountered earlier. Owen stepped around it where he could. He swore that it was breathing. The smell coming off it didn't help much either.
"So Doc, I have to ask." Ashley piped up after an hour of silent tense walking "Why Necromorphs?"
"Chief Boland found the reference in some obscure government report on Aegis VII. Same thing happened there. Whole thing was heavily blacked-out though. We were running a decryption program on the file when they broke into the Med Bay." Pallas paused, and then turned around and fired a blade past Owen's shoulder. The Slasher that had been sneaking up behind him screamed as its arm was torn off. Owen yelped in surprise and with more reflex than intention, slammed his flamethower into the Slasher. It recoiled, and that gave Pallas enough time to sever its other arm, killing it.
"Geez…how much further?" They entered a large half-octagon large two-level room, with a balcony ringing the second floor. Five large doors were set in the middle of each wall segment. Like the elevator lobby, the floor was littered with the eviscerated bodies of dozens of E.D.F. marines and Necromorphs, though the marines far outnumbered the Necromorphs. Owen scrounged around and found a few more clips of pulse rounds. He tossed half to Ashley. Pallas continued walking.
"Just through that door." She indicated the door with the words CARGO HOLD ONE over it. "There's a short corridor and the security lobby." Suddenly, they heard banging noises coming from the second story balcony. Then the lights dimmed and orange alert beacons began flashing. A loud droning blare filled their ears.
"What the hell?" Pallas cursed. Their RIGs glowed and activated, and an image of the female soldier from before appeared in front of each of them. She was panting heavily and typing furiously into her keyboard.
"Shit…biological contamination alarms just went off. I'm tracking movement, a lot of it, heading your way." They heard one of the vents on the second floor break apart. A second one followed. Then another, another, and another…
"Can you shut it off?" Owen asked. He trained his rifle on the balcony, moving back and forth, trying to catch movement in the darkened room. Ashley did the same.
"I should…damn it! Someone's overridden my authorization codes! This could take a while." Owen saw a shadowy outline and fired. His burst briefly illuminated the balcony. Even in that small area, there were at least a score of Necromorphs. Dozens of glowing yellow eyes peered down at them from around the balcony.
"No obvious cover spots." Ashley muttered to Owen.
"Stay by the door. On the off chance she gets it open-LOOK OUT!" A Slasher leaped over the balcony and charged Ashley. A few short bursts from Owen later, the Slasher lay in three separate pieces on the ground. As if on cue, the others began pouring over the balcony by the dozens. Owen and Ashley opened fire, spraying dozens of rounds into the mass.
Pallas fired off another Ripper blade before her improvised weapon whined and powered down. Owen tossed her his Pulse Rifle and unslung his flamethrower, bathing the area in front of them in blue fire.
The Necromorphs recoiled, a few dozen of them incinerated by the powerful weapon. However, Owen's previous attempts to burn the Corruption and the fight in the elevator lobby had eaten up a good deal of the hydrazine fuel. After another burst of flames that set a Puker on fire, the flamethrower sputtered and stopped working.
"I'm out!" Owen hissed. Ashley, continuing to lay down fire, turned so that her back was facing him. Owen slung his flamethrower over his shoulder and grabbed her Divet. A few bursts from it took down another Slasher, but it too eventually ran out of ammo. In desperation, Owen fired a Stasis round at a Slasher about to leap on him, and used his combat knife to slice it apart. The knife gave him an idea.
Another Slasher ran at him. Owen used his Kinesis Module to pick up the fallen Slasher's blade and hurl it at the next Slasher. The Slasher was thrown back with such violent force that it was impaled against the wall. It struggled for a few seconds before going still.
Owen tried it again. The next Slasher didn't die right away, but the second blade that impaled it did the job. But that was still too slow. Soon, they were surrounded on all sides by the Necromorphs and pressed up against the door.
"There, I've got it!" The doors hissed open. Not wasting a second, they crawled under them while they were still lifting. The moment all three were through, the doors slammed shut, crushing the Slashers trying to get through.
[PERSONAL LOG: KELLER, JACK]
[TYPE: AUDIO]
[UPDATE: NO HOPE LEFT]
[This is Jack Keller, the last survivor of the shuttle USG Serpentine, out of the USG O'Reilly. Two of the bladed ones managed to hijack our shuttle on the way back. They caused quiet the ruckus once we got back to the O'Reilly. Slaughtered Sam and Charles before we cut them apart, not to mention damaging enough systems that it took us a day to make repairs. Then that Uni ship showed up. We barely managed to launch the Serpentine before it turned the ship into a Swiss cheese block. I wish we could have warned the other E.D.F. vessel away. Our shuttle lost most of its systems during the escape, and our comm array was one of them.]
[…Major Lack is taking us on a course for Perseus Station. There are five us on onboard the shuttle. Lack, myself, Evelyn, Zoe, and Sergeant Quinn. We don't know if anyone else survived. The fact that the O'Reilly's sprawled out right over the entry shock area doesn't give me warm feelings. I don't want to go back to Perseus. I was born there. My older siblings and my mother are…maybe were…members of the Church of Unitology there. Statistical data suggests that with the number of people there, there are bound to be secure sectors that haven't been overrun by those things. We've got cutters, Line Guns, a few Contact Beams, and two Rippers aboard the shuttle. There are a few Pulse Rifles as well, but from our last attempts at using them they waste too much ammo in trying to sever the limbs so we're not bringing them. Our goal is simple: Find a Shock-capable craft and get the hell out of here. Keller out.]
[LOG ENDS]
Stay turned for next chapter!