There was no huge monster, no giant demon waiting on the other side.
There was only a lot of blood and bits of bodies and a carpet of shell casings in an antechamber that led to the CO's office, the control room, and the armory. They quickly secured the area, and found that the armory and control room were also locked down, though the CO's office was open. Kyra checked it out while telling Pace to get the control room open. She wanted in there, wanted to see if there were more puzzle pieces waiting, because at the moment they still hadn't quite finished getting their feet back under them.
The CO's office was expansive, the back wall made entirely of glass, God knew why. The view was just of the constantly blowing snow. Probably it could display other things. The CO himself, a tall man with pale, pale skin and no head, was sprawled across his huge desk. She wondered which one of the ugly things had gotten him in the end. A quick search of the office turned up nothing in particular, and by the time she returned to the antechamber, Pace was in the process of finishing up his job. She joined the others at the door.
"Ready," he said.
"Do it," Kyra replied.
The door opened up. As soon as it did, someone shouted in pure fear.
"Identify yourself!" Kyra snapped.
There was a pause, and she heard shaky breathing. Then, "Oh God, are you human?"
"Yes. United Nations Marine Corps. I'm coming in," Kyra replied.
"O-okay," the voice replied. Whoever he was, he was terrified. Which, Kyra supposed, wasn't an unreasonable reaction to everything happening.
She went into the control room, pistol ready, and took a quick look around. The control room was a rounded room with a glass dome for a ceiling. Workstations studded the walls to either side of her, ultimately leading up to a raised dais at the opposite end of the room. The dais sported a circular desk atop it and that was where a helmeted head tentatively poked up, peering cautiously at her. The control room had been hit, though not terribly hard. Some of the workstations sparked and sputtered, most were dead, and there were a handful of Marine technician corpses scattered around. She slowly walked into the room.
"Who are you?" she asked.
The man swallowed and slowly stood. "Uh...Parnevik."
"Rank?" she asked. Then she looked back over her shoulder. "Pace, get that armory open. North, cover his six."
They both snapped off quick responses and headed off. Linaweaver joined her in the control room, both of them coming to stand in the center of the room.
"Staff Sergeant," the man said.
For just a second, she thought he was addressing her, then she realized he was answering her question.
"You are a Staff Sergeant?" she asked. Everything about the guy screamed terrified Private, maybe PFC. She tried to tell herself that everyone had a breaking point, but it wasn't just fear she was reading on his face. There was guilt there, too. Abruptly, before he could respond, she realized that she was looking at a UAC Marine.
"Yeah," he muttered.
Kyra sighed. "Just...bring me up to speed. What happened here? Is Director Carpenter or Doctor Blair still alive?"
"I...don't know," he admitted. "I don't even know what the fuck is going on. These things...I don't know what they are or where they came from."
"Jesus fucking-okay, move out of there," Kyra said, marching up around to the back of the raised dais. He complied, quickly dismounting the central workstation, and she took his place. It seemed to be largely intact, at least. She began working it. "What have you been doing?" she asked while she tried to see what still functioned.
He sighed. "Hiding, mostly. I-these things...wait, you're, like, a real Marine?"
"Yes," she replied curtly.
"What, um, what are you doing here? Where's the UAC response team?"
She looked up. "You don't know?"
"Know what?" he asked anxiously.
"What happened here is happening everywhere. All over the entire world. Billions of people are dead. The demons are everywhere, in every city," she replied.
He stared at her, slack-jawed, issued a strangled sound, and abruptly his eyes rolled up and he collapsed, passing out.
Kyra sighed. "Wonderful." She went back to work.
Linaweaver crouched by him and began taking his helmet off and checking over him. "I'd like to cut him some slack but…"
"But fuck the UAC," Kyra said. "Shit! A lot of their systems are fried right now. But...okay, here. It looks like I can still open up a line with Command Control, over in the primary structure. Let me just see…" She typed for a moment, and finally got a stable comm line linked. "This is Staff Sergeant Morgan of the UN Marine Corps to anyone over in Command Control, respond immediately. Over." She waited.
"I hear you, Staff Sergeant," a voice replied. It sounded like an older man, surprisingly calm, and she immediately hated him. She didn't even have to ask herself why because she already knew: he reminded her of Jensen. And even before he spoke again, she knew who she was talking to. "This is Doctor Blair. May I ask why you are here, Staff Sergeant? This is UAC property and although we have a contract with the military, I was led to believe that in the event of an emergency, it would be UAC Marines responding, not UN Marines."
"Okay, so does no one down here know what's happening?" she asked.
"I don't know to what you are referring. If something has happened in the outside world, I'm afraid none of us do. We're a closed station, even before the communications blackout and the...incident occurred."
"This incident of yours is a worldwide event. There are demons everywhere, from Tokyo to Timbuktu. Casualties are in the billions and we are losing. Now, my superior was contacted by Director John Carpenter…" She paused, realizing this wasn't tracking. Carpenter had contacted Taggart with knowledge that was supposed to help with the global war against the demons. How could he know but no one else did? She shrugged it off after a second. Wouldn't be the first time one or a few people knew something when everyone else didn't. "Is he alive?"
"Yes, unfortunately," Blair replied dryly.
"What does that mean?"
"Director Carpenter has turned against us. If what you are saying is true about the state of the world...then this has wider implications than I originally anticipated." There was a pause, then a soft sigh. "I suppose you already must know our greatest secret then: that we allowed them into our world."
"Yeah. With teleportation tech. I just came from Europa, where the same thing happened, and I know for a fact this has hit Phobos, Deimos, and Mars. And the Moon."
"Good lord. It must have been a simultaneous invasion through all the gateways...that would certainly explain some of what has happened."
"So how has Carpenter betrayed us?"
"By 'us', I mean humanity. He has been working with the demonic forces. He opened the gateway here. He turned off our primary defenses. He allowed this to happen. His actions have led to the death of nearly everyone on this base."
Somewhere in the back of her head, Kyra had always wondered if something like this would happen. And yet...how had a deal even been struck? She could hardly imagine the fucking fiends or the pinkies sitting there negotiation with a human. They didn't even seem physically capable of such an act. But she knew there had to be something bigger, some kind of intelligence, behind this invasion. There just had to be, it was too well-coordinated.
"Okay, let's say I buy that. But I was sent down here to retrieve data crucial to the war effort. That's what Carpenter said he had. Does such data exist?"
"I believe so. I'm not sure myself, but it's possible he had access to information I didn't. However, it's also possible that he was lying."
"Fine. We're coming over to Command Control right now to take a look for ourselves."
"Just a moment there, Staff Sergeant."
Kyra resisted the urge to punch one of the screens. Blair had an infuriatingly calm and superior air about him, even when it was just his voice over a comm link.
"What?" she snapped.
"At present, I am locked up in Command Control, and I will let you in and assist you in looking for this data, but not before you do two things for me. One of which is imminent and extremely beneficial to both of us."
"You know we could just cut our way in, right?"
"I have no doubt, but it would be time-consuming and difficult. At present, we don't have a lot of time."
"Why, exactly?"
"That's the first thing I need from you. We have a small nuclear reactor on site, providing our power, and one of its cells is currently destabilizing. If the problem is not corrected within the next two hours, the resulting explosion will most certainly destroy the outpost."
"Maybe next time lead with that!" she snapped.
"Noted. Now, based on my information, there should still be a technician capable of dealing with this nuclear threat alive. Our personnel tracker indicates his vitals are strong and his present location is underground. His name is Powell. I'm sending you a data packet that has his present location. He hasn't moved in the past half-hour, though I'm not sure how long that could last, nor am I particularly confident in the current state of the communications, so you should hurry. Retrieve him, and apprise him of the situation, he will be able to lead you to the nuclear plant and repair the damage promptly," Blair explained.
"What's the second thing?" Kyra asked.
"Kill Director Carpenter. He's dangerous. The demons have...done something to him. He's stronger now, and faster. He's here, in the Control Module with me. I'm not opening the doors until I have confirmation that he's dead."
"Fuck. Where is he?"
"I told you, in the Control Module."
"Yeah but where? That's a whole building."
"I don't know."
"Why not? You know exactly where the tech is."
"I believe he has the capacity to somehow block the sensors. As I said, he has been changed by the demons."
"Then how do you know he's in the building with you?"
"I saw him on the cameras."
"Fine. We'll get this dealt with, just have that data ready."
"Understood, Staff Sergeant."
He cut the link, making her growl in frustration again. She looked at Linaweaver, who had been listening closely while tending to Parnevik, who was still out.
"What do you want to do, Staff Sergeant?" Linaweaver asked, standing.
Kyra thought for several moments, considering the situation. "I'm taking Pace and tracking down that technician. I want you to take North and Parnevik and track down Carpenter. Don't kill him, not unless it's incredibly obvious that he's been compromised by the demons. Like, if he's got glowing eyes or claws or some shit. I'm not sure about Blair. Something feels off about this...but maybe he's telling the truth. Either way, track down Carpenter and secure him. I'm not willing to kill him based just on Blair's word."
"Understood, Staff Sergeant. But…" He looked down at Parnevik. "Really?"
"Hey, worst case scenario, you can use him as bait."
Linaweaver laughed. "Yeah, I guess so. Okay, we'll get this done."
"Armory's open!" Pace called from the antechamber.
"Perfect," Kyra said, and set off towards it.
"I really hate basements," Pace muttered as he finished coming down the ladder and landed with a soft grunt after hopping off.
Kyra muttered in agreement as she looked around. She was feeling better because the armory hadn't been completely cleaned out, and now she was restocked on not just her shotgun, but her chaingun had been refilled with a big box of ammo. But those better feelings were definitely tempered by the fact that she was descending into the sub-level of Strata Station. All the buildings were connected by tunnels that were largely used for movement between them during snowstorms, and storage.
It already looked like the place had been hit just as hard as everywhere else. The ladder had let out into a small access corridor. Kyra quickly pointed to the two doors on the left while she went right, and they checked out the nearest doorways to see where they led and what was behind them. Time was a factor, but she didn't want anything sneaking up on them if at all possible. There was nothing but crates and shelves beyond the doors, and in one case a corpse with all four limbs ripped off, (nowhere to be seen), lying in a huge pool of blood.
She and Pace moved through the door at the end of the corridor and came out into a much larger tunnel that was packed with all sorts of crap along the sides. Mostly bigger crates and a few forklifts and pallet packs and other bulky pieces of equipment. God, did any of the UAC bases have their shit together at all? Was it always shitty lighting and mazes of crates and barrels of toxic fucking shit everywhere? They were the biggest, most financially successful corporation in the history of the human race, could they seriously not afford to take the time to properly sort all this fucking shit out? But she already knew the answer to that.
You didn't get to be the most profitable corporation in history by being reasonable. You cut every corner you could, even when you didn't need to. You bled everyone but the money men at the top as dry as a bone and then threw them out when they were used up, because there were a hundred million more like them, not only available but eager just for the opportunity to be mistreated and worked to death because you and those that had come before you had spent not just decades but centuries engineering a society designed to produce such a population. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer had been a common saying before even her grandfather had been born. It had only gotten far, far worse as the years wore on.
Kyra tried to retain her focus as she and Pace navigated the crate maze, careful of ambushes. But it was hard. She hadn't realized just how much being back in a UAC facility would make rage sweep over her in a red haze. At this point she was going to have PTSD-adjacent triggers every single time she saw a fucking UAC logo or heard some fucking businessman or administrator or corporate investor spewing their boilerplate doublespeak.
Though fuck was it satisfying that so many of them were surely not just dead now, but that they had died brutally and painfully.
She didn't like to think of herself as bloodthirsty, but after going through all she'd gone through, there was definitely a darker side to her at this point. And honestly, she just didn't feel guilty about wishing pain, suffering, and death on the rich fucks who not only hoarded so many resources, but did it at the expense of so many others.
Kyra's focus was forcefully snapped back into place as she came around a large stack of crates and spotted movement at the same moment she heard a wet snap. Dead ahead, maybe fifteen feet away in an open stretch of corridor, was a maggot. It was crouched or hunched or whatever over the corpse of a technician and the first thought that entered her mind was: fucking PLEASE do not let that be the man we're looking for.
The thing was feasting and she had no problem marching forward a few paces, shouldering the shotgun, and shooting it in the back. One of those cancerous tumor-looking things exploded, spewing blood and bony spikes everywhere, and the beast let out a shriek of rage as it staggered. She fired again, blowing another gory hole in its gray flesh, and it collapsed. At the same moment, a chorus of similar shrieks sounded and from under, beside, around, and over the uneven wall of crates she could see about fifty feet ahead of her, a small army of maggots crawled.
"Aw fuck!" she snapped, enraged yet again that she'd lost her assault rifle. "Pace, get up here!" she snapped, moving forward a few more paces.
The pair of them stood side-by-side and opened fire as a good twenty of the hideous bastards began coming towards them, crawling along the floor, writhing in that awful, twisty way they did as they came forward. She pounded out the shells as fast as she could, pumping the shotgun with a vengeance, and blew half a dozen heads off in blasts of eviscerated demon pulp. As the last shell went out, Kyra began seriously considering switching to her chaingun as she rapidly shoved another eight shells in.
The maggots were closing in faster than they could put them down.
As she just began to make the decision to make the switch, a new figure emerged from the crate maze the maggots had initially come from. The bare basics she managed to glimpse in the view she tossed at the new figure confirmed it was a Marine, though whether UAC or UN she couldn't immediately tell, but it didn't matter because whoever it was hefted an SMG and began spraying bullets into the back of the maggot horde. The new player made them all pause, all of them seemingly abruptly indecisive about whether to press the attack or fall back on the newcomer. That couple of seconds of indecision cost them their lives.
Kyra finished reloading and opened up again. With Pace and the other Marine, they managed to blow away the group in half a minute.
"Who goes there?" Kyra called as she hastily reloaded again.
"Collins!" the figure replied as he also reloaded and began jogging over.
Kyra let out a sigh of relief. Another teammate alive. Thank fucking God. And their demolitions expert to boot.
"Damn good to see you," Pace said as the bulky Marine joined them.
"Right back at you," he replied, a broad grin forming on his face behind the glass of his helmet. His eyes had a somewhat worrying glaze to them. She'd seen it before in the eyes of men and women who were in danger of losing themselves to a blood frenzy, where the only command that came down from the brain stem was: Kill! Kill! Kill!
"You seen anyone else? Any locals? Or Weldon?" Kyra asked.
"A few, yeah. Locals," he replied, glancing around. "One guy, another Marine, got taken down by some of those ghostly motherfuckers." He sneered. "Fucking UAC trash. Another guy, a medic, he almost shot me. He actually seemed to know his shit, but he refused to work with me. Said he couldn't trust me. Couldn't trust anyone. He might still be down here, somewhere."
"Any technicians?" Kyra asked. Collins shook his head. "All right. We've found everyone but Weldon. Burrows is KIA, the others are topside, working on another problem. Right now, we need to track down a technician to help keep a nuclear power cell from going critical." She paused. "Pace, worst case scenario, could you handle it?"
He shook his head. "I don't think so. I might be able to, wouldn't know for sure until I actually saw the thing, but don't count on me as your Plan B."
"Understood." Up ahead, something growled menacingly. "Come on, let's go find this guy and keep ourselves from blowing up."