Chapter 2

Isaac examined the phantom ships airlock and wondered "What am I doing?"

These thoughts turned to dust as he made his way through the lock and was greeted by familiar face which was obscured by the faulty lighting of a vessel that has seen better days.

"Isaac, you made it. We have been looking for you for months"

"Carver?!, thought you died at the moon?!" the dim lights suddenly flickered back into life revealing a hardened face which had an additional scar running across his forehead

"yeah nearly. Uni bastards picked me up. I only got out when they thought I was dead and they threw me out with the garbage at Resurgere which is where these guys found me"

"That's rough. So what's going on why did the Unis tell me they got Earth"

A door slid open with surprising smoothness considering the rest of the vessel. A short dark figure emerged with a round face which was full, cold and expressionless.

"Isaac Clarke. The so called marker killer" The man stopped and released a thoughtful hmpf sound as if to express his covert thoughts.

"Tau Volantis exists only in the highest circles of Unitology. However Aspera is now a holy site and the truth has been altered to suit their needs. You are the chief heretic in their eyes, the man who destroyed the second marker and robbed humanity of its faith. Earth is safe for now but much of the other colonies have been destroyed"

"And that's why we are here. They found our outpost. Converted some of us by making them kill the heathens, My shipmates, my friends were there."

"God" Isaac said in a subdued and unbelieving tone. "But who are you guys?"

"I'm Colby and I am the Captain of this rustbucket" The cold faced man said.

"Captain somethings screwing with the impulse drive" Said a seemingly distant crewman.

"Alright Clarke you're suited, go take a look" Colby said with confidence.

A minute later Isaac made his way to the side of the vessel and quickly spotted an out of place panel.

He moved close so he could reinstall the panel only to notice something moving in the corner of his eye.

"Uhh guys I think I've found the problem. I got some 'uglies' attached to the ship"

"Don't tell me, Blast em" Colby blasted over the RIG

That'd be great but all I've got is a stare and harsh language"

"There's a plasma cutter close to the forward exhausts of the engine block" Colby directed him.

Isaac jetted over to the engine block finding a cutter which moored by a wire and at it's base was written the word "HUNGRY" in blood. Isaac realised that there had been some maintenance work being done before the hapless worker fell to the void of space or pieces of him anyway.

Isaac shook his head for a moment and proceeded to the primary exhausts. He saw the problem, wild rabid bloodied and distorted visions of humanity.

These were different from his earlier encounter. They had spiked tendrils for limbs which seemed to grip onto the hull leaving scratch marks but were nonetheless very tight in their grip.

One of the creatures saw Isaac and raised its head which opened only to launch a projectile towards Isaac which caused him to move laterally. And subsequently retaliated, firing the cutter which cut through it's fore-right hand tendril which spun off into space. Isaac fired once again this time at the head of the beast severing it from the body only for it to bounce off the hull.

Isaac saw another and fired, executing a similar destruction.

He saw a loose drive mask which he promptly reattached to its rightful place.

"OK I got it. So where are we heading to now?"

"Mars" Carver said

"Mars?! what's there?!"

'Site 8. It's a research base built by the Oracles, hidden right in plain sight, right in the colony" Carver responded with hesitance.

"What. Oracles. I thought Earthgov built them"

"They did after they figured out what Tidemann was doing on Titan. Right now the cult is taking the domes. They're converting or killing everyone so they can get to it"

By this time Isaac had boarded the ship

"ALRIGHT SOMEBODY TELL ME WHAT'S ON MARS THAT'S SO IMPORTANT?" Isaac reacted angrily. He looked as if he could strike Carver.

"Isaac take it easy" Carver tried to calm Isaac down

"HOW?! 6 YEARS I'VE BEEN OUT OF MY MIND" Isaac seemed to calm down with sobriety "I lost everything and now we've lost home" Isaac sighed "Even Ellie's gone" and Christ, you want to go to the ass end of the system which is crawling with unis.

Colby intervened "Clarke, she didn't give up. She went back to New Horizons"

"It's funny the Unis weren't so bad at first. They sealed off the colony. It all all changed when they rediscovered Aspera. Here see for yourself"

Colby played a transmission "Carver. I found the Unis... I've been here a few weeks" Ellie sounded hesitant and looked up towards the centre. "They changed just like Isaac said. It's happening all over again" "I found a file fragment from the Ishimura. It points to a location called Von Neuman. I think it's a Mars settlement" The roar of a necromorph leaped in forcing Ellie to move hurriedly, firing her plasma cutter at the side of the screen. Then static.

"That was taken from the ruins of Titan station. So you see why we decided to find you and why we need to go to Mars. Any chance we have of stopping this, is a chance we HAVE to take" Colby sounded commandingly.

The Shockdrive wurred and roared into life turning a formidable warship into a tiny blue speck hidden amongst the corona of the bright blue emission.

Isaac shifted his attention once more to Colby "I destroyed the moon on Tau Volantis, why are there still Necromorphs running around?"

Colby briefly fidgeted in his seated position "That was just one of several moons and Isaac; they do know where Earth is and they are coming. I was told by Carver that Ellie was searching for a way to destroy these things for good and we think that she may of found it"

"Any idea what "it" is?" Isaac responded.

"Nope. But I do know that Earthgov or rather members of were looking for a way to harness the marker signal. In fact I know this because I was one of those looking for it"

"Oh god. what so you're a part of that recovery mission for the O'Bannon?"

"Yes I was on-board the Abraxis. It was my job to organise the transport of special materials for the overseer for Project telemore. Of course he was doing it without approval or even awareness from Earthgov"

"I thought I were going to provide humanity with limitless energy and genetic research which would advance ourselves beyond imagining. In the end all we were doing was what the marker wanted"

"Exiting shockspace in 3..2...1." The shipboard computer sounded.

The two men who held their suspicions high of one another had become united in their impulse to witness the Mars colony.

"Sweet mother of..." Carvers mouth remained open for several of the longest perceivable seconds.

Carvers awe and horror was spawned by the vast plain of destruction. Ships that had once plied the trade lanes between Earth and Mars had become shattered hulls turned into nothing more than scrap metal hulks.

One of the crew began to do a LADAR search and found various contacts. It turned out to be part of a planetary containment system which consisted of four high powered missile and mass driver satellites capable of destroying everything in their view.

"Goddamn it, go dark and stay out of range" Colby shouted in a tone that had broken the calm and mild mannered man who seemed to be unbreakable.

Colby called out to the satellites identifying himself as the captain USM Weka. All he heard was static but during his hails his pilot located the central control station for the satellites.

"If we take out the CCS we could disarm the satellites and land. But we'd have to go EVA to reach it. Me and Isaac can do it" Carver said.

Isaac scoffed "Figures. We'll need a booster pack in order to close the gap"

"Right we'll keep you updated and come get you when you're done" Colby said.

Moments later Isaac and Carver seated themselves in the mounted boosters. An eery silence had filled the airlock with Isaac breathing a small sigh along with the sentiment of "Every damned time"

The airlock depressurized and a spinning red light turned itself on. Moments later Isaac and Carver found themselves hurtling through the debris field. The pressure started to mount as the spinning chunks of metal came closer but were dodged by the adept piloting of Isaac. His own breathing which steadily grew as they got closer to the CCS became frantic. He couldn't hold it any longer and yelped out a mighty scream whilst dodging the debris."Isaac, eject now goddamn it"

At that moment both Isaac and Carver jumped out of the booster pack which left them spinning. Once they had stabilised their motion Isaac witnessed the booster pack ramming and indeed puncturing part of the Station.

"lets hope that wasn't too important" said Isaac.

Isaac and Carver entered the airlock with their boots gripping tightly to the floor as the pressure was restored.

"You do know this place had crew. Right?" Said Carver.

"Yeah. I know" Carver said bitterly and with equal expectation.

"Carver. You go up to weapons control and I'll head to the C&C room"

Isaac proceeded along a tight one lane corridor. He could hear scratching although it wasn't coming anywhere close. It sounded as if it was from outside. The scratching became louder and louder until it felt as whatever it was was scratching his helmet.

He started to sweat as his breathing became more quicker. A brief moment passed when he heard nothing but silence. Isaac moved slowly along the corridor. One step, two steps, three steps and as he took to a fourth step. Boom! Crash! the corridor walls started to collapse as if to be the inside of a garbage compressor.

He looked to the rear only to find that the section corridor behind was being squeezed. "Got to get out of here"

As he ran the squeezing followed almost as if it were trying to keep pace with his frantic running.

As the door approached to the crew quarters he made a final effort. Just as he was neared the door the corridor gave way to space only reveal a mass of tentacles covered in what seemed to be human teeth crawling its way in.

It immediately retracted after Isaac blasted it off with a shot from his Plasma cutter. A moment later it ripped apart throwing Isaac into the open narrowly missing an enormous jaw which was bristling with razor sharp teeth. Isaac quickly turned around to face the beast.

"Oh my fucking god" An enormous mass of necrotic flesh faced him it's centre consisted of three irregularly sized pustules surrounded by serrated tentacles. The jaw was located at the top of the monster and seemed to close on the centre which by such an action would encase the central pustules.

All hope seems to be lost. Isaac was almost out of ammunition and his o2 tank wasn't going to last.

But then one of station missiles came into his view, it had been partially absorbed by the creature with it's detonation cap exposed. He also saw that there were some portable booster rockets that he used on Titan station.

He Tk'd the rocket and set it off using his cutter. It passed thought the mass of tentacles which were desperately trying to knock it out of the way. The rocket landed perfectly on the missile which blew a whole in the hole in the creature sending a mass of dead flesh and blood into a stream facing which veered towards Isaac landing various pieces onto his suit.

A moment later the pustules in the centre started started to erupt and explode which left what could only be described as a crater in the beast.

In it's dying moment it fired a small swarm of projectiles similar to the "nest" at Isaac at which point he fired his boosters towards the door.

"COME ON!" He shouted

The swarm was gaining ground and promptly impacted the door as Isaac had barely enough time to pass through and hit the panel in order to close it.