The platform turned out to basically be a dead end.

It encompassed a glorious stretch of land perhaps thirty feet by twenty between the walls and the acid moat. The crusher itself, which ceased motion as it reached its apex again and dripped down blood and entrails steadily for the first few moments, had nothing of any real value on it. Although Jack personally considered four dead Barons of Hell very valuable. As they finished scouting out that particular little piece of real estate, Jack felt his hope diminish slightly. There was hopefully more on the other side of the room, but…

How did they get there?

There was no way over the acid moat and it was too far to jump, well except at the side near the weird elevator, but the platform opposite it was elevated far too high. Theoretically they might be able to jump from the elevator to that other platform, but to what end? This is what Jack pondered as he and Cortez returned to the lift.

"Now what?" Cortez asked.

"Bidwell, where's the communications booster we want?" Jack called up as they reached the base of the elevator. It felt weird to even call it an elevator. It was more just a big pillar on a piston that shot up and down if you stood on it.

"Behind the blue door," Bidwell replied. "And I believe I have located the blue keycard."

"Where?"

"Directly across from us, across the acid, up here. There is a gap in the pillars here. Theoretically, we should be able jump it..."

Jack laughed. "I guess it's time to turn theory into reality. Step aboard and bring the lift down for us. There's nothing down here."

"On the way."

Bidwell stepped aboard and even though he was ready for it, the stoic man let out a small shout of surprise as it dropped down. Watching it lower from the bottom was even more dramatic. Why the fuck did it move so fast? Jack and Cortez hurried aboard, and it shot back up again just as Jack stepped inside, narrowly avoiding crushing him in the process. It jerked back up and locked into place. "All right you two, off," Jack said.

They stepped off.

"What are you doing?" Cortez asked.

"I'm going to make this jump, grab the key, then jump back. Ideally," Jack replied.

"Be careful," Cortez muttered.

Jack nodded. He waited a little bit, then took a few steps forward until he was at the edge. The pillar lift remained where it was. What the fuck activated it? It wasn't motion. Did it know the difference between someone stepping aboard and someone still on it? Well, if he fucked it up, his suit would probably keep him from dying. He just had to not fuck it up. Jack moved to the back of the elevator, took a few deep breaths, let them out slowly, then made his run. He sprinted across the small space afforded to him, leaped through the small gap granted to him, and sailed across the trench below him. He landed with a small thud on the other side.

And nearly stepped on the blue keycard, which lay on the metal plating as though carelessly tossed there, in the process.

He wobbled as he tried to both stop himself from running into the wall opposite him and trying not to step on the card, and landed hard against the wall, putting his hands to stop him. His weapons clattered against his armor as he did. Turning, he quickly scoped out the situation. The narrow pathway on this side of the room was now beneath and ahead of him. He could jump down and investigate those weird cage rooms that had held the Imps, and now held only corpses, but what would be the point in that? There didn't seem to be a way back up, anyway, as it was a good eight foot drop down there. Ignoring it all and happy to be done with the room, Jack snatched up and pocketed the keycard, then took another running jump.

He screamed as he landed on the lift and it immediately shot back down to the bottom floor.

"You all right?!" Cortez called down, poking his head over the edge.

"Fine!" Jack called back through clenched teeth. He'd forgotten it would do that. A few seconds went by and it rocketed back up to its starting position. Cortez and Bidwell made way for him as he hastily stepped off the damned thing.

"Okay, I got it, let's get on with this," he said, trying to control his pulse as he navigated his way back through the room of tech pillars and got back to the door with the blue trim. They readied themselves as he slotted the keycard and punched the button. The door slid up with a soft whirl and revealed...a simple, short corridor. It extended away from them, made of dark plate-metal, and turned sharply to the right. There was a lonely corpse in there, a technician with his head ripped off, and nothing else.

Jack moved slowly down it, coming to the turn, then he slowly looked around it. Stymied, he saw that the corridor dead-ended not five feet away.

"It's a dead-end," he muttered, stepping around.

"There's a switch here," Cortez said. Jack glanced back down the way he'd gone, where the two other men lingered. There was a recessed area, fairly shallow, that he'd automatically passed off after seeing that it was empty, if a little shadowy, but as he moved back and checked it out, he saw that it in fact hid another one of those big silver-plate two button combos. The glass button on the bottom was lit now with a red light. No, not buttons, he realized, but on-off lights, with a switch beside them. He must have accidentally flipped the switch when bumping into that last one that had saved his life.

"Okay, I'm going to flip it. Cortez, back by the door, Bidwell, other end of the hall. Be ready for anything," he said.

The men nodded and moved into position. Jack flipped the switch. There was a loud click that still made him jump, even though he was expecting it, and down by Bidwell's end of the passageway, there was a whoosh.

"A section of the wall just dropped, and I see another hallway up above, in the ceiling. It's a lift," Bidwell said.

"See any hostiles?" Jack asked as he and Cortez joined him.

"No."

"Let's get aboard."

They did just that, and as they stepped onto the square of metal, it shot back up into place, granting them access to another corridor. More bland, dark plate-metal. The corridor extended a dozen feet and turned left. They followed it and moved down the stairs they found there. Another pair of stairs led back up directly across, and to the right, embedded in the wall, was a human-sized door trimmed this time in red.

"There's where the booster will be," Bidwell murmured.

"Great," Jack growled. He looked up the other set of stairs, the way yet gone. "I guess we've got to go track down another keycard. Fucking hate these things. I had enough of keycard-hunting back on Phobos and Deimos."

"They're a pretty popular security feature, it seems," Bidwell replied.

They set off. As they reached the top of the stairs and turned left, they found themselves looking at another corridor that terminated in another broad door five or so meters away. Jack hesitated for a moment, then called up his map. "Hold on," he muttered as he zoomed in on their present location and studied it for a second.

"What is it?" Cortez asked.

"Studying the map. I want to know if this is part of Haydenfield," he replied. As he looked it over, he realized that so far the only thing that was out of place was the big room with the crusher and the acid trench. That almost put him at ease, but he didn't let it. Just because they hadn't changed the physical layout didn't mean they couldn't change other aspects. "Well, it looks like it belongs, but I don't trust shit anymore. Come on."

They set off again, moving down the corridor and coming to the door. They opened it. A curious thing awaited them. It was a good-sized room, but about three-quarters of it was taken up by a huge metal platform in the center. Narrow alcoves of space just big enough to walk along were left between the edges of the platform, which was too high to see the top of from where they stood, maybe fifteen feet up, and the walls of the room. To their left was just an empty alcove, dead-ending. Ahead was a narrow stairwell, ascending up and turning left.

"All right, Cortez, with me. Bidwell, stay down here and watch our backs. I really don't trust this fucking place," Jack muttered.

"Same," Cortez replied.

The two of them slowly ascended the stairs, listening hard and keeping a sharp eye out for anything looking to get the drop on them. Haydenfield was turning into a real fucking nightmare, and after those four Barons apparently teleported into area, he wondered if he was safe anywhere now. If any of them were.

He doubted it.

They reached the first landing and looked up the next set of stairs. There was pretty much just more of the same. Jack stood there, staring at it for a moment. "All right, Bidwell, come up to this next landing."

They waited for their fellow Marine to come up and once he was in position, Jack and Cortez kept going. It looked like the next stairway, which turned back to the left, would be the one that let them out at the top of the metal platform where, hopefully, they might find the red keycard. Or at least another pathway of some sort. After they found the keycard, they could open the door, track down the booster, activate it, and–

A large panel in the wall directly to their right snapped up.

Twin roaring shrieks trumpeted.

Jack screamed his own shocked rage as he snapped to face this new threat that had been thrown into their face like scalding coffee, and screamed again, this time mostly in fear, as he saw that two Revenants had been concealed within the compartment hidden behind the panel. He reacted blindly, purely going off of instinct, and raised his rifle, flipping it to automatic as he leaped across the small gap between the stairs and the compartment the two skeleton monsters resided in. Landing in front of one of them, he stuffed the barrel right up into its face and squeezed the trigger. The thing's roar was drowned out by the Taskmaster going at full blast, rattling through every single round in its magazine. When it was empty, there was no more skull.

The Revenant collapsed into a pile of tawny bones.

Jack turned as he grabbed for his shotgun, knowing that he had to deal with the second one before it dealt with him.

A freight train crashed directly into his chest.

He screamed, or tried to, as the air was driven from his lungs and a shockwave of pure pain radiated out from the epicenter of the impact site. The skeleton had punched him square in the chest. He was picked up by the sheer force of the hit and thrown across the compartment. Slamming into the wall, he collapsed to the floor, gasping for breath as he feebly tried to get back to his feet. The Revenant bore down on him.

"Hey, you bony fuck!" Cortez screamed.

The Revenant roared as it turned to face him, preparing to launch a pair of rockets. He and Bidwell opened fire. They poured bullets into the thing, sending it stumbling backwards from two direct lines of rounds, and by the time they were empty and reloading, it was dead. The eight-foot horror dropped alongside its brethren.

"Thanks," Jack gasped as he struggled to his feet.

"Holy shit, man, you've got a hell of a dent now," Cortez muttered.

Jack tried to look down at his chest, but his helmet prevented it. He got back over to where Cortez and Bidwell were, then had Cortez angle his faceplate down a little so he could look at himself in the reflection. He winced at the sight of his chest armor. There was indeed a solid dent in it, but it wasn't pressing against him, or at least not enough to interrupt his breathing or be painful. "I'll have to replace it at some point, but that's for later. Come on," Jack muttered as he headed up the stairs. He was still reeling from that surprise attack.

Two Revenants! Hidden in a fucking wall panel!

What was next?!

He didn't want to know, but apparently for now he didn't have to. At the top of stairs, on the raised platform, was a corpse. A dead woman in yellow armor. She didn't have any guns or ammo on her, and it looked like she'd bled out from a dozen bullet wounds, probably crawled up here to die after a Chaingunner or a pack of zombies had gotten her. Jack felt a sense of remorse as he finished patting her down, but it was lessened somewhat as he found a red keycard in one of her pockets. "Thank you," he muttered as he took it.

"Got it," he said, turning back to the others.

They left the room, hurrying back down the stairs, with a sense of relief. Jack took the lead again as they approached the door with the red trimming. He pulled it from his pocket and had Bidwell cover their ass while Cortez aimed at the open door, stepping to the right as much as he could while still having a clear view of what might lay beyond the door. Jack slotted the keycard and the panel chimed in the affirmative.

"You ready?" Jack asked.

"Check," Cortez replied.

Jack hit the open button. The door slid up into the ceiling. He waited. "Clear," Cortez said. "Just a tech hallway."

"Definitely sounds like what is suppose to be there," Bidwell murmured.

"I'm going in," Jack replied.

Cortez shifted aim as Jack stepped in front of the door and looked down it, his rifle at the ready. Indeed, a corridor about ten meters long with an oddly high ceiling and walls of exposed technical guts, mostly circuit boards and wiring, extended away from him. There was a piece of technology at the end of it, a metal pole about ten feet tall with all sorts of technological protrusions sticking out of it. Connected to it via thick cabling, off to its left, was a single console.

"Bidwell, is that it?" Jack asked.

Bidwell moved up to join him and Cortez covered the rear. "Yes, I do believe that is it."

"How long will it take?" Jack asked, staring at it.

"I'm not sure. I'm vaguely familiar with the device. I need to actually look at the program and see what needs to be done. From what I understand, it's more complicated than just flipping a switch," Bidwell replied

"Okay, let's go. Cortez, watch our six."

"Understood."

They began to move down the long corridor. After the increasing frequency of wall panels popping open, Jack's paranoia was growing faster than ever. It was difficult to keep it in check. He wondered why this corridor had been gutted of walls, leaving the technological innards of Haydenfield exposed. Maybe it was easier this way, or maybe this was how it was supposed to look, or it could be laziness, or even a side effect of the hellish invasion. He continually scanned everywhere he could see, but there didn't appear to be monsters in the area.

They reached the end of the corridor without hearing or seeing anything hostile.

"Okay, Bidwell, see what you can see," Jack said after checking behind the console and finding nothing but about two feet of space between it and the wall. While the technician got to work, Jack and Cortez watched his back. Cortez stood watch while Jack poked around, hunting for hidden panels or secret trapdoors or anything else that might be concealing a monster. He couldn't dissuade the tension that began to swell within him. They were in a dead-end, which was itself pretty bad, tactically speaking, and everything looked fine.

A minute passed. Then three minutes. Then five.

Jack could find nothing. He gave up and checked over his guns, making sure nothing was wrong with them, more of a nervous habit than anything else. Bidwell toiled away silently, punching at the keys, muttering to himself occasionally. Finally, he stepped away from the console and over to the device in question. There, he began to work on it. Jack watched as he pulled off a panel, revealing a keyboard, and punched in a code, then replaced the panel. He moved behind it and began to do more things that Jack couldn't see.

"How's it going?" he murmured, looking back at the door.

"Almost finished," Bidwell replied. Another minute went by. Jack tried to release the tension building up in his musculature.

A loud click sounded and something began to hum.

"Done," Bidwell said.

Jack began to turn towards the man, eager to leave. That was when he heard one of the last sounds he wanted to hear just then: the distinct sound of a wall panel sliding up sharply. It coincided with movement he saw behind Bidwell.

"Move!" Jack shouted as he stepped to the side of the booster, but it was too late. All he managed to do was get a perfect view of a Demon that had been behind that wall panel grabbing Bidwell by his armored shoulders with its clawed hands, denting the metal with its great strength, yanking him forward, and then chomping down.

It ate his head whole, helmet and all.

Bidwell somehow managed not to scream at the end.

Jack screamed, though. He screamed in bloody red rage as he aimed his Taskmaster, flipped it to full automatic mode, and cut loose. Somehow, even through the red haze of his livid fury, he managed to keep in mind that he could not hit the device that Bidwell had just activated, and he didn't. He put every last motherfucking round in that magazine into the burned-pink skinned Demon, pouring gunfire into it as it roared, and even after it had died. And he would have resumed fire after reloading if Cortez hadn't appeared at his side, grabbing his arm.

Jack snapped his gaze over to the other Marine, breathing heavily, trembling and sick with adrenaline-fueled anger.

"It's dead," Cortez said quietly.

Jack exhaled sharply and looked at the Demon. There wasn't much left of its face or chest but bloody, raw, chewed-up meat.

It lay on the metal floor with Bidwell's headless corpse.

Jack's radio crackled. "Ward, can you hear me? This is Anderson. I'm showing that one of the boosters has been activated, over."

Jack cleared his throat and keyed the reply button. "Yeah...Ward here. We did it." He hesitated, swallowed. "Bidwell's KIA."

"Fuck," Anderson snapped. He paused. "That's not going to make this next part any easier. We need that other booster activated...do you think you could replicate the process, Ward?"

"I don't know...maybe. It looked complicated," Jack replied numbly.

"Damn. All right, wait one." Silence reigned for close to two minutes. While it did, Jack took the man's supplies. He passed the Raptor to Cortez, as well as the ammo, and split the pistol ammo between themselves. "Okay, I've managed to track down another member of the squad, a tech, who isn't too far from where you need to go. PFC Harper. We talked briefly on the radio. He seems to have gotten himself trapped somehow and says there's a lot of monsters around."

"What kind of monsters?" Jack asked.

"Didn't say and now I can't raise him. Now for the bad news...is Cortez still kicking?"

"Still here, jefe," Cortez replied.

"Good. I just received a distress call from another Node and you're the nearest one, so you're the backup I need to send. I'd send both of you, but we really need that booster on," Anderson explained, sounding genuinely regretful.

"Understood," Cortez said, sharing an unhappy look with Jack.

"I'm sending updates to your maps to get you to where you need to go. Get there as fast as you can, the clock is ticking." He sounded like he wanted to say more, but someone shouted on his end of the line. "I have to go. Good luck. Out."

The link was cut.

"Well...shit," Jack muttered, looking down again at poor Bidwell.

"Yeah...come on, we gotta hurry," Cortez replied.

The two men began making their way out of the tech hallway so that they could drill deeper into the dark heart of the forsaken starport.