Just so you know, I've finished this story and am currently working on a second one, which takes place around the same time that Dead Space 3 begins, on the New Horizons Colony as Danik as his men attack.
Also to clarify-I mistook Jackson Nichols for Roland Kaufman at one point. Kaufman is dead, but Nichols is still alive.
"Not detecting any movement beyond this door." Owen said, peering through the crack. They were in one of the corridors in the logistics department. The half-glass walls were tinted. "Let's take a look." Ashley shook her head.
"The fact that it's even open should be sending alarm bells through your head right now." She hissed. Owen just waved her off and pried the doors open. He tossed a glow-ball into the room. Nothing happened. The ball just illuminated a few dead corpses and scattered papers. Owen settled down in front of a computer.
"Alright, cover the door. Give me a chance to hack into the mainframe." He had lost his master console back in the room with the two Brutes, so this was going to take a while. Ripping a panel off the back of the monitor, he began slicing into the systems. Every time the little white circle turned blue, it meant he had reconnected a circuit. After several missed attempts where he shocked himself, he finally succeeded.
"Okay, downloading data to my RIG. We should be-…." Owen was cut off as the ship shuddered "What the hell?"
"That wasn't an asteroid." Ashley said. Another tremor caused them to stumble "That was cannonfire. Something's firing at us. Some-UMPH!" Owen looked up and saw Ashley hit the deck, floored by the rifle butt of Colonel Abraham Ford, commander of Squad One.
"Ford? What the…" Ford fired his Pulse Rifle, hitting Owen in the shoulder. His armor held, but the impact knocked him back. Groaning, Owen tried to stand up, his shoulder screaming in pain. Kenna Masters, Ford's second-in-command, ran forward and kicked him in the chest. The impact hit him right where the Slasher had bruised his ribs. Owen couldn't keep his cry of pain from escaping his lips. Another kick knocked out any of the fight he had in him. He was swiftly disarmed, his mass of weapons tossed aside.
"Private, I guess I underestimated you." Ford hissed "You must have more guts than I imagined to have survived the massacre we sent you into. And then disobeying my direct orders to download classified data?" Alarm bells went off in Owen's head.
"Y-you…you deliberately had Squad Three go to the aft of the ship?"
"Deliberately? It was our orders. Eliminate all witnesses and report back. I must say, Squad Two didn't put up much of a fight. They were so glad to see friendly faces, that none of them saw their executions coming. Didn't foresee the Jerusalem blowing up though. We had to eliminate a few of the Key Subjects since there isn't enough room to bring them to the Israel aboard the Executive Shuttle. I was hoping that you might not have to share their fate, but then you just had to bring up those classified orders."
"Why? Why are you doing this?" Ashley groaned. Squad One's burly demolitions expert, Tyler, Owen believed his name was, kicked her again and she went down coughing.
"This whole 'rescue mission' was a scam. The damn Unis activated the Marker. We need to take control of the situation." Owen coughed, still on the floor, and glanced underneath a desk. One of his Colts had been knocked out of its holster during that initial tremor, and was lying underneath it. If he could reach it…
"We couldn't risk the infection spreading. So, when we got wind of the plot, we had the Bellerophon shock in-system to initiate Base Contingency Zero. Of course, it was hit by the EMP, and then that Unitologist attack, not to mention the mutiny that prevented Captain Romanoff from doing his duty." Owen suddenly scrambled forward, hand outstretched for the pistol. He found himself flying through the air, away from the pistol.
Owen's trajectory was halted, and he was slammed hard into the ground, before being lifted up and slamming into the ceiling. This repeated several times before he was stopped. With his face puffed and bloody, Owen glanced over to see Ford smiling coldly at him. His hand was outstretched and he had some kind of uber-kinesis/stasis weapon that he was using to hold Owen immobile. He activated a dial and Owen winced as something in his left ear popped and blood began trickling out. Ford stopped the device and Owen fell to his knees.
"Wha-who are you?" Owen grunted, "You aren't Colonel Ford, are you?"
"No." The impostor said. "The real Colonel Ford met an untimely death shortly before joining your crew. Skytrams can be such dangerous places. The rest of his squad…well, let's just say they're all one big happy family." This drew sniggers from the other members of "Squad One." Owen shuddered, remembering how a squad of marines had been mysteriously transferred to some obscure outpost and replaced with a team handpicked by the newly appointed Colonel Ford.
'Ford' let Owen drop. "If you're not Ford, then who are you?" Owen gasped, trying not to black out from the pain. Masters chuckled.
"No, no, Mr. Haines. We're the ones asking the questions." Masters chided him. She took out a knife and held it to Ashley's face "For every answer you give us that we don't like, I make one cut." Ford punched him hard in the face. Owen, reeling from Ford's telekinetic beating, was lifted up and tied to a chair.
"First question: How much do you know?" Owen spat a ball of bloody spittle into Ford's face. Ashley cried out as Masters made a light slash across her cheek.
"As you can see, your friend suffers for every slight you give us." Ford chided him "Now answer the question."
"There was some sort of attack on the station, like you said, by the Unitologists." Owen said through gritted teeth "It released those Necromorphs. Somehow, they got onto this ship after the Unitologistis attacked it. They either had some stowed away or a device that turned people into Necromorphs."
"Continue."
"This ship was sent to destroy Kreemar if necessary. Base Contingency Two. Eliminate all witnesses and secure Key Subjects and key scientific personnel. When it failed, the Jerusalem was sent to do the job instead. But first you had to extract any operatives you had aboard the vessel and retrieve any and all necessary data relevant to…the Markers?" Owen tried to mask the hesitation in his voice. Outside in the corridor, peering over the bottom of the window, was Lance Corporal Allen. He saw Ashley's face and his expression grew clouded with rage. He motioned to Owen and pointed to either side of him. So Lena and Jackson were there as well. Luckily, Ford didn't sense anything wrong.
"Interesting. How do you figure?" Adrenaline began to pump through Owen's system. They could survive this.
"Come on! Altman and all that crazy shit back 200 years ago? There's no other explanation as to why the Unis would go rough all of a sudden. There's a Marker aboard that station, isn't there? Just like they say there was one aboard Titan Station."
"You are wrong there, Mr. Haines. There is a Marker on the colony, but not on the station itself." He spoke as if chiding a small child.
"Well pardon me, dickwad." Ashley screamed as another cut was made to her cheek.
"That's going to leave a scar. Now, Mr. Haines. My second question is this: How many survivors are still aboard this ship?" When Owen didn't answer, Ashley cried out again. Owen didn't speak. If they learned about Sergeant Dawes and her people…he didn't know how many other EarthGov Intel officers were aboard.
"The next time you do that, I will take an eye. How many survivors are still aboard?!" Owen closed his eyes as Ashley screamed as her eye was gorged out. Tears of rage formed underneath his puffy lids and he strained against his restraints. John looked like he was restraining himself from breaking through the window. What the hell was he waiting for?
"I'm going to kill you, you son-of-a-bitch!" He roared.
"Calm down, Private. Tell me, have you had any recent mood-swings? Bursts of anger, or hallucinations?"
"No, it's not that time of the month and wrong gender." Owen snarled sarcastically "Why don't you go and take a look for yourself if you're so curious. You'll find what we call a pair of balls and a pointy thing called a dick, all of which you seem to lack, dickless."
"There's no need for foul language, Private. Hmm…so you are immune to the shard's effects. Shall we-…" The ship shook violently, much more than it had during the cannonfire.
"What the-…" Ford activated a RIG link. On it was a bloody old man with a captain's uniform. He was besheveled and there was a gunshot wound in his shoulder. "Captain Romanoff, what are you doing?"
"You can't take them away, boy! The infection will spread beyond your control. Those men and women are a risk to everyone, and taking them back will cause more outbreaks. This will not happen! I will not allow it!" Romanoff snapped. He pressed a button, and the link cut out. Owen believed that the captain looked quite mad, foaming at the lips and with bloodshot eyes. So he had survived the mutiny on the bridge.
"Romanoff?! Damn you, you-…" That was as far as Ford got before the world exploded. Monitor erupted in sparks, and ceiling panels were shaken loose. The walls crumpled and jagged beams of metal erupted from them. One skewered Masters, entering through her hip and exiting through her shoulder. She struggled for a few moments, blood pouring from her mouth before she went still. Then all hell broke loose.
The moment Ashley was free from Masters' grip, John punched through the window with his AEGIS gauntlet and began blasting the treacherous members of Squad One with his Gauss cannon. Lena and Jackson popped up, firing off bursts before ducking back down again. John jumped over the half-wall and grabbed Ashley before jumping back over it again. Jackson stood up to do the same for Owen, but Masters managed one last act and threw her knife and it lodged between the armor plating on his shoulder. He cursed in pain and fell back over the wall. Masters chuckled and her RIG flatlined, but Jackson had been incapacitated. Time to improvise, Owen thought.
Ford was distracted, firing at the other members of Squad Three. Owen stood up as best as the chair would allow him and swung his body violently into Ford. Ford was knocked off-balance and hit the deck.
Just then, two of the ceiling vents broke open and three Pukers popped out. One fired a blast at Owen, who turned himself so the acidic bile melted through his restraints. Kicking the remains of the chair free, Owen grabbed his discarded Plasma Rifle and blasted the Pukers to pieces. However, more Necromorphs began to pour into the room.
"Private, time to go!" John snapped. Owen nodded and was about to run towards his fellow soldiers when he felt something hard and heavy smash against the base of his skull and then everything went black.
[PERSONAL LOG]
[KELLER, J.]
[TYPE: VIDEO]
[SILENCE]
[Keller is sitting, lying against a wall. The camera pans around to show two covered bodies. Blood stains on the sheets suggest dismemberment.]
[KELLER: I don't…I don't give a fuck anymore. Let them take us. Hell, I don't even know if you're going to see this, whoever you are.]
[He stands up. It becomes visible that there are several deep cuts to his right cheek and his left hand is missing its pinky.]
[KELLER: Lack's shot went through Williams' head and cracked a viewport. Caused us to crash. Kilmer and Quinn's suits weren't sealed, so they decompressed. The shuttle broke apart on impact. Barely made it out. Don't know what happened to Lack. His body was flung somewhere down there.]
[The camera pans down to a railing next to Keller. Below is the lobby of a residential building. There are still dozens of security officers standing in protective circles around groups of terrified civilians. Others are on their own, taking down as many Necromorphs as they can. It is chaos.]
[KELLER: The bullet bounced off his helmet plate-lucky bastard-knocked him unconscious. Wish I could say the same for the other two. Had to dismember them so the bat-like ones wouldn't turn them. Then the Bellerophon went and punched a hole through the Upper City. The bow is lodged in the Lower City. The Necromorphs are going through the vessel into the Upper City. It's all coming apart.]
[MARCUS: We can still get through this.]
[Marcus appears onscreen. She is missing her right pinky, and has a long gash running from her forehead down to her neck.]
[KELLER: What's the point?]
[MARCUS: The point is to hold onto hope. Without it, we're already dead. Someone has to spread the word. That these things are real and they can happen anywhere.]
[KELLER: There won't be a soul left to hear. It'll be just…silence.]
[LOG ENDS]
Darkness…movement.
"Keep moving…"
Ford? The bastard.
He was being dragged. He could hear screams. Smell smoke…
"Jesus, did you have to hit him so hard? Would have been easier if he could walk."
Captured...WAKE UP!
Sense came back to Owen in one drowning painful moment. He groaned. Whoever was dragging him stopped. He slammed his head backwards. It impacted with metal. There was a grunt. Corporal Tyler.
"Now, now, Private. There's no need for that." Ford. Owen spat in the direction of the voice. He received a kick to his ribs.
"Lynn, that's enough! Do you want him alive or not?" Lynn…ah, Simone Lynn, the melee expert for Squad One.
"Sir, I'm picking up the RIG signal for another potential Key Subject. Number A-342. Someone named Evelyn Marcus. She's still alive."
"Marcus? Her ship was the O'Reilly? How did she survive?"
"I don't know. But she's…right above us."
Owen glanced up. There was a terrace across and above the hallway he was being dragged down. Both seemed to overlook a large residential complex lobby. There were two people there.
"Go and get her. Eliminate the other." Owen had to act fast.
"Ms. Marcus, run!" It hadn't been loud enough for her to understand, but it was enough to get their attention. The girl looked down at them. A boy was next to her. They seemed to be in their late teens to early twenties. Owen activated his suit's audio amplifier and set it to maximum volume.
"Run, right now! Get-…" Ford tried to kick him in the ribs. Owen rolled aside and managed to struggle into a standing position. Tyler and Lynn began firing their rifles at the pair. The boy across the hallway aimed what looked like a Plasma Cutter at him. Owen immediately realized what the boy intended and turned sideways. A blast sliced through his cuffs. Another one destroyed the ones on his ankles. The boy fired at Ford, but he blocked it with the same strange energy field. Still, that gave Owen enough time to punch Ford and steal a weird silver device from his belt. Before they could stop him, he dashed into an elevator and sealed the door. Behind him, he heard vents breaking and Ford, Tyler, and Lynn screaming, accompanied by the sound of bloody dismemberment. Breathless and with his ribs on fire, Owen activated it to go to the level Marcus and the boy were on. He injected himself with two Large Med-Packs and his RIG levels went back up to the green.
He stepped out and found himself face-to-face with a Slasher. Owen yelped and instinctively struck out, forgetting that the device was in his hand. A beam of red energy shot out and bisected the Slasher. Wide-eyed, Owen stared at the device.
"No way…" Owen examined the object more closely. There was a handgrip, with a self-recharging energy battery located just in front of the grip. The barrel was an octagonal tube with ridged grooves at the top. It didn't look like any weapon that Owen had ever seen.
Suddenly, his RIG blared to life.
[TRANSMISSION LOG]
[FROM: UNKNOWN SIGNAL]
[SCANNING ID TAG…]
[ID FOUND: KELLER, J.]
[TO: HAINES, O.]
[HAINES: Who are you?]
[KELLER: My name is Jack Keller. Who are you?]
[HAINES: Private Owen Michael Haines, formerly of the USM Jerusalem.]
[KELLER: I'm from the USG O'Reilly. Engineer, Class 2.]
[HAINES: The O'Reilly? How did you-never mind. How did you end up here?]
[KELLER: Long version or short version?]
[HAINES: Short. I'm going to have to move pretty soon.]
[KELLER: Ship got hit by Unitologists. We barely managed to make it out in a shuttle. Ended up over here. Turns out whatever was on the cruiser had also made its way onto the station. They were able to contain it in the Lower City for a while, but there was a Unitologist uprising, so P-Sec was forced to blow the connection pylon. Then that ship smashed through the Upper City and now the Necromorphs are using it to get up here.]
[HAINES: Be careful, there's some people who want that girl you're with.]
[MARCUS: Me? But why?]
[HAINES: Same thing with me. Something about 'Key Subjects' and not being affected.]
[KELLER: Yeah, our commanding officer started losing it after we arrived here.]
[HAINES: The same goes for most of the crew aboard the Bellerophon. I believe it has something to do with the Marker. Your girlfriend and I must have some sort of immunity to the dementia it's causing.]
[KELLER: Marker? Like what happened at Titan Station?]
[HAINES: How do you-…nevermind. I've just accessed a terminal. There are several complexes in Government Sector marked as Clearance Level Onyx-Two. My guess is they would be connected to the Marker. Meet me there. I'm sending you a route through your RIG.]
[KELLER: Thanks. Good luck, Haines.]
[LOG ENDS]
Lance Corporal John Allen wasn't having a good day. First he had lost half of his squad to the strange creatures roaming the Bellerophon. Then Haines had been kidnapped by that rat-bastard Ford and his phony squad. It was a miracle that they had survived the impact. However, they had discovered the remains of Dawes and her group of survivors amidst the wreckage. Their sanctuary had proved a death trap, their massive equipment crushing them in the impact. Dawes had begun to reanimate as a Spitter, so John put her out of her misery. From the barely-functioning map kiosk that Kaufman had accessed, they determined that they were somewhere in the waste disposal tunnels that ran through the Lower City. They smelled like hell. Yep, it wasn't a good day.
"Alright, keep a tight formation." John ordered. At least his remaining men were still okay. Amirsaleh had found a heavy-duty medpack and now her leg was better, though running still caused her some minor jolts of pain. While Chen's eye was a goner, they had stopped the bleeding and placed a medi-patch over the socket to prevent infection.
"Man, this is disgusting." Chen muttered. They were wading waist-deep through raw sewage, and their suits' olfactory blockers weren't working. "I'm going to need a bath after this. Maybe ten."
"Corporal, if we get back to Earth, I'll pay for you to take a month's leave at Paradise Island." John said. "How much farther, Nichols?"
"Just a few hundred meters and then we'll come out in what should be one of the emergency access tunnels. There's a lift to GovSec. The route to the drop ship bay should be relatively straightforward from there."
They trudged through the foul-smelling muck. What made it worse were the occasional human limbs they found floating amidst the feces and frothy urine. John tried to not gag.
"Did you hear that?" Chen asked. John called a halt. He listened. All his suit's sensors detected were the echoes of dripping and the rattle of pipes.
"I don't hear anything." Amirsaleh said after a few moments.
"No, it was sort of like a weird clicking sound."
"Ashley, you're hearing things." Nichols muttered. Then they all heard it. John shone his headlamps down a side tunnel just in time to see something dash away.
"It's one of those stalking things that Owen and I encountered." Chen said, fear in her voice.
"Keep a tight formation." John whispered. His helmet unfolded and covered his face. "Ambush formation." Nichols took the rear, while Amirsaleh and Chen remained behind John.
There was a sudden screech from behind them. Nichols' Gauss cannon powered up and he blasted the charging Stalker. More screeches echoed through the tunnels.
"Move it!" John roared. They charged forward. Dozens of Slashers and other Necromorphs appeared from side tunnels further ahead. The four dodged their attacks, blasting them as they went.
Amirsaleh was grabbed by a Leaper; Nichols flattened it with a swing of his arm. A Slasher tried to gut Chen, but a blast from Amirsaleh's shotgun took it down, blasted both arms off. John mowed down Necromorphs with his FANG, clearing a path.
They entered a large squarechamber. The water was shallow in a narrow path that led to the far end. The dark areas to the sides indicated deeper levels. A raised platform had a door set into it. There was one end of a two-station rail system with a dusty white Earthgov tram car. "That's it!" Nichols yelled. The group charged towards the door. As they climbed out of the muck onto the platform, there was a screeching noise that shook the room.
"What was that?" Chen whimpered.
"Nichols, get that lift operational." John ordered. Nichols nodded and began hacking the door. Suddenly the platform shook again. They looked out onto the water.
A massive Necromorph rose from the muck. It had a large body that reminded one of a centaur, except it had four massive claw-bladed arms instead of four legs and instead of a torso with two arms it just had a large mass with dozens of long spindly tentacles that had sharp spikes at the end. Its face reminded John of the time he had come face-to-face with a tarantula that crawled into his home in Australia and ended up right in front of his face when he woke up. That wasn't a memory that was particularly pleasant. What were worse were the still-recognizable human faces embedded in the torso, their faces twisted and frozen in silent screams. Then more of it forced its way out of the muck. John did a quick calculation and risked a glance through his thermo-visor to make sure. Yep…what they were seeing wasn't even a third of it. The wriggling mass below suggested large tentacles the size of sequoias.
"Shoot it!" John and Chen let loose with their weapons. John's FANG pumped dozens of bullets into the creature's maw, but they just made it angry. It prepared to crush them with one of its massive arms, but Chen fired at a yellow glowing spot on its elbow and the creature reared back in pain. Furious, it curled its tentacles in preparation to strike.
"Got it!" The lift doors opened. They piled into the lift not a moment too soon. The Behemoth slammed a tentacle into the lift doors just as they closed, shaking the lift but otherwise doing no damage. The lift began to ascend. Roaring in fury, the Behemoth sunk back beneath the waves.
"What the hell?" Nichols whispered in horror.
"Those Brutes were big…but that thing…did you see the faces?" Chen said. John nodded dumbly.
The lift doors opened to a pristine corridor, the plastic wall panels and their half windows polished to a shine. The bright full-ceiling lights lit the entire display…including the path of blood leading from the pool by the lift doors to the sealed bulkhead doors ten meters ahead of the quartet. Chen bent down to scan the blood pool with her RIG's wrist scanner.
"Four sources here…" She aimed it at the streaks leading down the corridor "Two of them there." She glanced up at the ceiling and the smashed vent cover "The other two sources go there." They all moved away from the vent. Nichols fired a pair of Detonator mines at the covering.
"Footprints in the blood." John noted. He peered at them with his HUD's imaging system "My RIG's reading them as standard EarthGov Security Suit soles. The two lift guards must have been dragged through this bulkhead by the rest of their patrol." He ripped a panel off a maintenance board and rewired a few switches. The bulkhead hissed open. Beyond was darkness.
Wordlessly, Amirsaleh and Nichols tossed two flares into the gloom. John removed a glowball from his belt and tossed it after the flares. A bright glow emanated from the sphere and with a whir of gears, it stopped its trajectory and shot up to the ceiling, creating a dull illumination of the entire room. It was some sort of executive lounge. There were two sets of walkways ringing the room above this level, and a hanging VIP lounge on the top level, connected to the walkways by three ramps. The holographic advertisements for BubbleFizz, Dante's Restaurant, AstroLounge, and other places were flickering and sparking. What worried John was the green-white webbing covering the walls and ceiling. In many areas, the webbing was stretched, as if around an object. A human-shaped object.
"Stay together. The moment you see one of those things, retreat to the corridor." John murmured. He glanced at a sizeable hole in the wall "Remember we're not alone in here."
"Where are all the bodies?" Amirsaleh asked. Nichols motioned for her to shut up and walked over to one of the lumps in the webbing and used his combat knife to cut it open.
"Jesus!" Inside was a comatose man wearing the tattered remains of an expensive suit. Several weird fleshy barbs were sticking out of the webbing and into his body. Amirsaleh ran over and pulled out her med kit. She shone a flashlight in his eyes. They opened. The pupils were clouded over, with a red tinge added to the edges of the eye.
"What the hell…" The man screamed. All around them, screams came from the other cocoons. Webbings ripped as faces broke free, those of men, women, and children. Then the man began to shake as his body changed. His right arm broke apart and reassembled into a long bone-blade.
"Get away!" John ordered Amirsaleh. She turned to run, but the man's arm broke free of the webbing and tripped her. She screamed out as her lower leg separated from her thigh. With another roar, his face split apart into four pieces. The flesh on the underside of each was covered in sharp fangs arranged around one circular maw. His arm was mutated, the hand bones completely shattered and reformed into one long bladed limb. His other arm and legs broke free, all transformed into identical bladed limbs. Two more bladed limbs, appearing as if they had been formed from pieces of his rib cage, also burst out. With a final exertion, the man freed himself from the cocoon and landed on all six bladed legs. Standing over the whimpering corporal, the Spinner roared and stabbed Amirsaleh through the hand. She screamed in pain.
"Lena!" Chen ran forward and peppered the Spinner with bullets. It responded by spitting a wad of webbing at her. The sticky substance clung to her rifle. Chen managed to rip part of it off, only for the removed webbing to cling to her arm. Finally, she removed it, only to be head-butted by the Spinner and thrown against the wall.
Snarling, John and Nichols dashed forward. Using the hydraulic motors in their AEGIS suits, the pair grabbed three legs apiece and literally pulled the Spinner apart. By now, more Spinners were starting to free themselves from their cocoons.
"Retreat! Back to the elevator!" John ordered. He turned, only to hear the boom of the Detonator mines exploding. Two dismembered Leapers fell out of the vent, followed by several dozen living Slashers that began marching towards them. Nichols began blasting them with his Gauss cannon and Pulse Rifle. Chen, groaning but conscious, joined him in blasting the Necromorphs.
Thinking quickly, John grabbed a large round table and ripped off the top before running his carbon-steel dagger around the edge, making it razor-sharp. Holding the top like a discus, he threw it at the Necromorphs. The makeshift saw-blade decapitated them. As expected, the Slashers went berserk, swinging their arms wildly and hacking each other apart. But that wasn't the end of it; dozens more Slashers, Pukers, and Leapers came out of the vent.
"Retreat!" John glanced around them…more tables would only slow them down. There wasn't enough furniture to create a barricade, nor was there enough time. And with the Spinners all around them, they wouldn't be safe. The fire control system…maybe…yes, it might work.
"Get to higher ground!" John ordered. Nichols picked up the unconscious Amirsaleh and together, he and Chen dashed towards one of the stairwells, blasting more Spinners that popped out of their cocoons. The moment their feet left the floor, John took out an incendiary grenade and tossed it up in the air. It exploded, and the resulting fire and smoke triggered the overhead sprinklers. Water began raining down on them all. It began to collect on the ground floor, forming a knee-deep pool. Because of the damage caused by the Bellerophon, the automated system that would shut the sprinklers off was disabled. John hurried after his companions before taking his FANG and shooting at an overhead light fixture, specifically the metal bracket holding it to the ceiling. After a few well-placed shots, the light fixture came loose and fell to the floor, its cable attached to it. It bounced off a table, shattering the casing, and landed in the water. Immediately, arcs of electricity began to crackle off the surface of the water. The Necromorphs screeched as they were fried. The water would eventually stop rising once it reached wall-vent levels, and instead begin spilling into the vent systems. Hopefully that meant a few more fried corpses.
John reached the second-story balcony. Amirsaleh was sitting against the wall while Chen was cauterizing her knee stump by pressing an opened energy cell from her rifle against it. Amirsaleh whimpered, but endured the pain. The smell of burnt flesh filled the air.
"How bad is it?" John asked. Nichols shook his head.
"She's lost a lot of blood. No way she's going to be walking on her own anytime soon, much less fighting." Nichols gave John a meaningful look.
"I'm fine!" Amirsaleh said, and she tried to stand up. Almost immediately she fell to the floor. John put a comforting hand on her shoulder, but he knew the inevitable. Amirsaleh was now a liability. Even if they carried her, with the amount of blood she lost and the lack of any medical facility to treat her, her chances of survival were less than 5%. But John's mind wandered back to his dead comrades and in that moment, he made a decision.
"I'll carry her." John said. Nichols nodded. "Jesus. Amirsaleh's out of the fight, we have traitorous marines, a crashed ship, and god knows how many other things. What else could possibly go fucking wrong?!" Then the lights went out.
"You've got to be fucking kidding me!"
[SECURITY LOG]
[TYPE: AUDIO]
[AUDIO RIG SIGNATURES: PALMER, T. (PVT.), SILVERSTEIN, H. (SGT.), GREY, T. (Col.)]
[Palmer: Damn it! I shot her four times and she won't go down!]
[Grey: I told you! Go for the limbs! It's the only way to take them out!]
[Palmer: I'm running low on ammo.]
[Silverstein: Sir, Gate Two has been breached! There are Unitologists inside Atrium Two! Those things are coming in through the vents inside Atrium Three!]
[Palmer: What the hell?! We're surrounded!]
[Grey: Radio Barrett and tell him that Government Sector has been breached on all sides. Initiate Base Contingency Two. Eliminate all Key Subjects not secured by Oracle Team and begin evacuation of all Level Seven Clearance and above researchers.]
[Sound of shattering metal.]
[Grey: Damn it! All units, retreat to the Spire! We're closing the gates in ten minutes whether you're inside or not!]
[LOG ENDS]
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