April 27th, 2367/Stardate 44318.6 - USG Ishimura - medical deck
Takeshi felt like a magpie. Sure, they were all DEAD, but still, he was stealing things.
Why did this feel so right when the captain was nearby, putting the undead where they belonged?
"Some of these things might come in useful for R back on the Ra Cailum." Chris said as she flung a body onto the tracks, not exactly interested in showing respect as… well, the undead would just make it rise again.
Some winged fucker did that right in front of them. They kept firing until they were BOTH ashes.
"Yeah… still a bit weird here," he mentioned as he found something new.
That still begged the question… where was the captain?
Necromorphs fled for their unlives as Ron had created a double-barreled FLAMETHROWER with thermite filament fuel.
"ASH AND CINDERS!" he declared, torching everything he came across while cackling with mad glee.
Regardless, they had come across numerous technologies: stasis units, kinetic grip devices, even a freaking remote rotary saw.
Takeshi kinda liked the pulse rifle they picked up from that security guard when they got to medical.
"Ah! More survivors!" said a voice over the PA. "Have you come for sanctuary?"
Takeshi glanced at Chris and whispered, "Sanctuary?" before turning towards the ceiling. "Answers, more like," he replied to the voice. "You're the first person we've actually met on this ship apart from our captain."
"Ah. The insane one." said the voice, with some disdain for the one killing the undead. "Take a seat. I will see you shortly."
"I get the feeling we should just ignore him and explore the deck." Chris said before they heard the screaming of the undead at the tram station. "Uh-oh."
"Thanks a lot, CEC. YOU PIECE OF SHIT!" snapped someone before the doors opened and revealed a man wearing a slightly more armored up RIG and a strange pistol-like weapon. "FUCK!"
"FRIENDLIES!" both cadets shouted before they saw one of the slasher things marching behind him. Takeshi shifted to the side to make sure the man was out of his line of fire before firing at the slasher thing. Thus far, the only thing they knew was that the best way to deal with these things was to take out the limbs - if you kept them from moving, they were no longer a threat.
And phasers were good at that. One poor bastard on Qo'nos One learned that the hard way. Burst fire tore it to pieces, making it slump on the deck.
The stranger looked at them. "Thanks." he said. "…can you spare one of those? Plasma cutter's great and all, but those…"
"Another one! This is good." said the voice. "I'm a doctor. Are you here for sanctuary?"
The armored man looked up. "Is Nicole Brennan here?" he asked, hopeful.
"You're not here for sanctuary?" asked the voice. "Are you that selfish?"
"How about you unlock these doors and I'll look for her myself?" the stranger said, somewhat snarky.
"So you're going to be stubborn. You might let something in." the voice said. "Or out."
"Hey, we can easily unlock the doors the hard way," Takeshi says, adjusting the phaser. "Something is telling me that the guy on the PA is bad news."
Then the doors unlocked. "Uh-oh." Chris said.
"We'll handle it." said the man. "Isaac Clarke. Engineer."
The two took a second to realize that was his name. "Uh, Cadet Takeshi Yamato." Takeshi said. "We… came here from another ship."
"I guessed. Looking for my girlfriend, Nicole." Isaac explained.
"Came across a vague distress signal from this thing, investigating with our captain," Chris said. "We learned that these things are… zombies, basically, and he took off into the ship, yelling 'suffer not the undead to live' and other such phrases."
"PURGE THE UNCLEAN!" echoed in the vents, followed by cackling and what sounded like terrified undead screams.
Isaac chuckled. "I like this guy. He's got the right idea." he said. "I need ammo and there's a store over there. So…"
The cadets stepped aside.
USS Ra Cailum
"SOMEONE'S enjoying himself." Murasaki said as she finally filtered through the gravimetric interference. "There are a lot of motion contacts fleeing from the Captain's signal. No lifesigns, so they're either robots or zombies."
"My bet's on zombies." Jade said before snapping her fingers.
"SUFFER NOT THE UNDEAD TO LIVE! PURGE THE UNCLEAN!" came the manic voice of their captain. "GET BACK HERE SO I CAN CARBONIZE YOUR UNDEAD ASSES!"
"…Yeah, it's zombies," Sakura said. "Actual zombies, rather than those Kobali bastards. Those idiots are practically zombies, even if not everyone agrees on that."
"Explains why he's having fun." Corpsa said dryly before the sensors picked up a contact. "And here comes the welcoming party: Cardassian warship, Galor-Class, Type-3A configuration… with plasma torpedo tubes. Romulan plasma torpedoes. As in the red death torpedo. Cheap bastards can't even afford replicators to make cheap plasteel for their weapons, can they."
USG Ishimura
Takeshi dumped as much flammable liquids on the THING attached to the wall as possible.
"Just when I think this ship can't get any crazier, it throws these things at us," he said, continuing to burn it.
"Yeah, this thing wasn't here earlier." Isaac confirmed. "Look, I'm picking up a message coming from the chemical lab. You guys are good at killing these things."
"Can't hold a candle to Mr Bodycount." Chris snarked before they heard a loud, angry scream, Isaac snapping to attention.
"Aw, crap, not another one of those things!" he said before a door was smashed open, revealing a massive, armored, gorilla-like monster, roaring.
"YOU DON'T GET TO RUN!" cried a familiar voice before Ron leapt at it from behind and started hacking it apart with manic GLEE.
"Ah. There he is," Takeshi replied. "Captain Ronald Pinkerton, aka the deadliest son-of-a-bitch we know."
The thing screamed before the captain decapitated it, smiling. "Most fun I've had in about six months." he said. "Trap."
Takeshi blinked. "Trap?" he asked.
"There's no one in the chemical lab. I know that's where you're heading." Ron said. "I was on my way, but a quick scan of the room has nothing in there."
"Scan?" Isaac asked, Ron holding up a tricorder. "We should go check anyways. Other survivors might be tricked."
"Like those guys over there?" Ron asked, gesturing to patients on the other side of the massive imaging machine. "Point taken. Let's get there and shut it off. I'll be Mr Murder."
"We'll work with Mr. Clarke here," Chris replied, as they made ready to go to work.
The team entered the lab, seeing a hologram of Dr Brennan on a loop.
"Called it~" sang the captain, before Isaac walked over to the console and shut it off, shaking his head.
"Message shut down by: Isaac Clarke."
"Just a trick." the engineer muttered, Ron walking up and patting him on the shoulder reassuringly, proving that, for all his bloodlust and hate, he was still human.
"Isaac…" came a voice, making all of them look before a hologram of the doctor approached. "Make us whole again…"
"The fu-"
Pulses of energy hit all four of them, and they seemed to freeze.
"Isaac Clarke." said a man, approaching them as they were unable to move, the stasis field clearly modified to allow their brains to process…everything. "Doctor Brennan's nearest and dearest. We were colleagues, you know." He forced Isaac's arm down. "Doctor Challus Mercer."
Mercer then looked to the three strangers, regarding Ron with a GREAT deal of wariness, even in stasis. Wise option. "Are YOU the reason the Marker won't begin?" he asked, before laughing. "That's it… Convergence isn't stalled. She's meddling!"
He orbited them like an evil bearded Gible. "How is the question. But even if I was to ask, I suspect you aren't the talkative type." he addressed Isaac. "And I haven't fully explored the cause of death as the missing factor. Dismemberment… you might be onto something."
Ron started to move much faster, like only one quarter speed opposed to one-one-hundredth, having activated his motion accelerator.
Mercer took this as a hint to GTFO. "Try to relax, Mr Clarke. Convergence is so close." he said, heading to the door. "Maybe YOUR death will tip the balance."
As the sounds of pounding were heard from the door opposite the one Mercer left, they were answered by a roar of RAGE from Ron, as he un-froze a second before everyone else.
"COCKSUCKING BASTARD!" he snapped before a containment tube exploded, the others unfreezing to notice it a moment later, before it roared at them. "THOSE ARE MY PEOPLE, FUCKFACE! YOU WILL NOT TOUCH THEM!"
He tackled the monster, knocking it into a wall and beginning a beatdown so brutal, Jade would feel jealous.
Takeshi and Chris winced as they watched the beatdown. "Uh… wow…" Takeshi said quietly.
"Finally, maybe this will work." came a voice over a comm link. "Isaac, you there?!"
"DANIELS! Open the door to the chemical lab! NOW!" Isaac yelled as Ron ripped the arms off the creature and started stabbing it with its' own blades.
Takeshi was morbidly fascinated with the violence before the captain stuck it to a wall, then ripped off the legs to keep beating it, cackling all the while. He didn't want to stare, but couldn't look away.
It was like the tales told about train wrecks in the 20th and early 21st centuries.
"The door's open! GO!" said the voice, Daniels, even as the creature began to REGROW its' arms.
"OH THAT'S ELEVEN LEVELS OF BULLSHIT!" the captain declared before they fled the room, the creature detaching itself from the wall.
"Isaac, the signal-"
"It was a trap by a fucking Unitologist: Docter Mercer." Isaac snapped.
"You've got three unknowns with you, including someone I think is insane," said the woman. "He took on those things!"
"Ronald Pinkerton, girly." Ron replied. "And there's nothing more fun then making sure the dead stay in the ground with FIRE. But I think we're going to need something that goes up to 2500 kelvin in 10 seconds. My flamethrower ain't THAT hot."
"I don't think ANYTHING manmade and portable can get that hot!" Chris replied.
Ron gave her a dry smirk. "A SHAME I'm not beaming anything over from the Ra Cailum…" he said cryptically.
Isaac liked these guys. He explained some of the basics of the Church and they voiced loathing. More the crazy captain then the other two.
"Unwise, Mr Clarke." Mercer's voice came over the PA.
"Go fuck yourself, you religious nutcase!" Ron snapped. "When I find you - and I WILL find you - I will rip off your head, shit down your neck and FEED YOU TO YOUR PET!"
"My prognosis of you, sir, is that you have anger issues. You need a counselor." Mercer said dryly.
"I'm taken, fuckface." said the captain. "Now why don't you come here so I can END YOU?"
"I have far better things to do… Ronald, was it?" Mercer said before a vent popped and the 'hunter' jumped out. "Ah, it appears my hunter took your attack seriously."
It stalked towards them, but the captain launched himself at it, sword in hand. "PURGE THE UNCLEAN!" he roared.
"We need to unlock the deck! He can handle himself!" Isaac said as the hunter learned who was at the top of the pecking order.
Isaac and his companions ran into the ER, necromorphs falling before their varied weapons as they went to work.
They heard nothing but enraged, gleeful screaming from the captain, even as he and the hunter went into the vents to continue their fight. Isaac REALLY liked this guy's work ethic.
"Mercer's office." Chris said, opening the door, finding… a winged thing pinned on the desk like a religious object. "GAH!"
"I think it's dead." Takeshi said, disproven when the proboscis twitched, but it remained in place. "OK, maybe not dead. But at the same time, I think this Mercer guy is certifiably nuts."
Issac activated a holo-switch, locking the door as the system reset. "Door protocols corrupted. Rebooting." said the computer. "Please standby."
Then the 'body' on a gurney twitched, revealing himself to be alive, but just barely. "Who's there?!" he gasped.
Issac spun. "Oh god. Hold on!" he said, unwilling to lose another survivor. "I can help!"
"Not…me…" the man groaned. "Save… Hydroponics…"
"Hydroponics?" Takeshi asked, unsure what was going on.
"Air's poison… she just needs… liquid nitrogen…" he coughed, clearly on his last legs. "Save us…"
"Your life support system-" Takeshi asked.
"It's based in hydroponics. The plants clean the air." Isaac explained.
"Shit! Isaac, he's right: I've checked the air levels in hydroponics: the air's toxic." 'Daniels' said, sounding more then a LITTLE scared. "There's something in food storage, too big to be something they grew."
"He said he needed liquid nitrogen." Isaac mused. "To kill it? Kendra, I need to get to cryogenics."
"I'll open the other door in the chemical lab-"
At that point, there was a hissing noise. "Uh-oh…" Takeshi said.
"LOCK YOUR HELMETS!" Isaac shouted, the air meters on their RIGs showing 60 seconds for him… and 50 for them. "FUCK!"
Ron, being… BORG… was immune to the gas, but it made him an ANGRY Gible.
"MERCER!" he yelled, the necromorphs fleeing from him, instinctively knowing who was boss. Even the hunter. "WHEN I FIND YOU, FUCKFACE-"
He fell down a vent, tumbling two full decks before a tentacle latched onto his ankle.
"OH, SCREW YOU!" he snapped before it dragged him through the vents, trying to kill him.
Plasma cutter fire slammed into the pulsating tentacle, the glowing weakpoint popping and dropping him to the deck.
"Ow." the captain said simply.
As he stood, he turned in the direction of the fire to see… a woman. A blonde-haired woman. Her hands held the plasma cutter in shaky hands, panting. A needle was nearby, filled with what appeared to be an overdose of morphine from the injector marks, but it had shattered.
"You're… not Isaac." she said.
"As in Isaac Clarke?" Ron asked, looking at her. "Who the hell are you?"
The woman looked to her side, listening to…something before looking at him. "Doctor Nicole Brennan, senior medical… fuck it. The Ishimura's fucked." she said.
"Isaac's girlfriend!" he said cheerfully. "He's on board."
She looked at him in horror. "What? No, no, no, he can't be on board!" she exclaimed.
"He is. And alive." Ron said slowly, before she turned to… something.
"I know. I know, Octavia, he can't be here." she said. Ron narrowed his eyes before accessing the tricorder's sensors. Something was causing mental issues. He was immune thanks to all the Borg garbage in his head, regulating his systems.
But she was suffering from high-level dementia. "Doctor Brennan." Ron said, getting her attention. "I need your help. I need to understand how this shit started. Talk me through it. Can you do that?"
After a few moments, she began to explain the situation. Apparently, the ship had picked up something called a 'Marker' from the planet below, and it had started driving the crew insane. Some of them eventually turned to murder and suicide, and then… then started moving again.
The Borg ran into something like this. Aberration 1254, the so-called 'Brethren Moons'.
They exterminated them by luring the entire collective to a star system by mimicking a 'moon birth' and setting the star to nova.
…it explained his immunity.
"Doctor, we need to destroy this ship and the Marker." Ron said. "The crew, the majority of the crew, will have lost their minds. …You, yourself, have been affected, but you're more stable."
"You think I haven't noticed?" she retorted. "I'm seeing my boyfriend's dead mother."
"And we'll help you get through that, but first, I need to get you and anyone still sane OFF THIS BOAT before I dump it into the sun." he said, before Nicole clutched her head. "Fight it, doctor. Isaac is looking for you. And I will NOT let you two die before you see each other again."
He was a romantic. Sue him.
"…Ok… I gotta ask." Chris started as she looked at the necromorphs in the cryotubes. "HOW?!"
"I wish I knew," Takeshi replied, shaking his head. "But if the medical research expert is having problems figuring it out, no way I'M gonna be able to."
"Medical research expert?" Isaac asked.
"Training specializations," Takeshi replied. "I started on a flight track, but I've been showing a bit more aptitude for command training recently. Chris here is on a medical track."
"More researcher than surgeon," Chris added. "I'm better at finding medical cures and solutions than administering them." She returned her gaze to the creatures in the tubes. "But the question was meant more as HOW THE FUCK DID MERCER GET THESE THINGS IN THE TUBES?!" she exclaimed. "They kill on sight, or at least they TRY to, unless they run into the captain!"
"Oh, they walked in." came the voice of the doctor as a shutter opened. "The children of the Marker were quite willing to listen to my requests. That said, seeing my hunter unleashed was ALMOST worth losing my other patients."
"PATIENTS?!" Chris snapped. "You mutilated them! We heard about your 'experiments'! 'Don't worry, it's been sterilized'?! You sick FUCK!"
"Your objections are not my problem. You, that… MONSTER and Doctor Brennan have delayed me long enough." Mercer said, clearly fearing the captain. With good reason.
Isaac fumed. "If you hurt Nicole, I swear-"
"I have shown nothing but courtesy to Doctor Brennan. She gave me the insights on how to perform my greatest creation." the doctor said, sounding somewhat offended. "Can you say the same?"
"At least we're not murderers," Takeshi snapped in reply. "Unlike you."
"But speaking of courtesy…do I have you to thank for fixing the Ishimura's engines?" asked Mercer before MORE tubes were unshielded, revealing MORE of those things. "Our homecoming will be… TRULY DIVINE. And I doubt even you could stop a Convergance event fueled by the entire population of Earth."
A loud ping broke through the RIGlink. "Hey, fuck face." said the voice of the Captain. "Have you bothered checking outside? MY SHIP is one thousand kilometers away. You try anything, this ship burns."
Takeshi knew that was true. Whatever was powering this thing, protecting it? The Ra Cailum could easily overpower it.
"You take these things to Earth, it's all over!" Isaac said to Mercer.
Who did not care. "Only for the faithless." he dismissed. "Humanity… will be made WHOLE, Mr. Clarke. With… or without you. And I'd say you've chosen your side."
The doctor turned to leave and the hunter burst out of a vent in front of them.
"MADRE DE CHRISTO!" Chris cried.
Of course, Ron soon followed after it.
"HOLY SHIT!" yelled Issac as Ron tackled it, yelling as it knocked it to the floor.
The hunter seemed to realize this, then screamed in decomposing terror. To be fair though, Ron WAS the scariest thing on the ship.
He tore off the thing's limbs, beating it with them before Isaac had an idea.
"Cover me! We can freeze the damn thing!" Issac said as he rushed into the now-open control booth, activating the freezing cycle.
Ron rolled out of the containment block before it closed on the hunter, resulting in a LOT of screaming from the creature.
The creature was then frozen, and sent to 'storage', wherever that was on this tub.
"Your timing is impeccable, Captain," Takeshi said after a moment.
"What are you talking about?" Ron asked as he got up. "I was chasing it."
Takeshi STARED as he remembered that, on the Ishimura, he WAS at the top of the pecking order. "Horrifying the horror…"
"Look, I'm going to go fix the comms array, upload this thing's database into the Ra Cailum and then I'm going to order this thing filled with quantum torpedoes and turned into a miniature big bang." the captain said. "…Also, I found your girlfriend."
Isaac dropped his plasma cutter. "…What-"
"She's FINE. A little out of her mind thanks to that zombie-field generator in the cargo hold, but she's ok." Ron cut off before picking up the blade arm of the hunter. The thing twitched in an attempt to kill him. "So, mind fixing the air supply so we can evacuate everyone off this tub with my ship's transporters?"
"Yes, sir, we'll get right on it!" Chris said, wanting to get away from the guy who scared the undead.
Isaac followed, leaving Ron in the cryobay.
Ron the True Fan: Who is at the top of the horrifying pecking order? The one who's ENJOYING the whole situation. Also… FUCK canon.
Takeshi Yamato: Indeed. We're saving Nicole this time, though when Ron finds her she is hearing and seeing Isaac's mother in her head. Eh, Federation medtech'll deal with it.
Ron the True Fan: Take, after all the crap on that ship, they're all going to need help. Except Ron: he's ENJOYING himself. Think about that for a second: the undead are RUNNING AWAY from him. They're not supposed to feel fear. Chris and Takeshi are going to need help just from the mind-shattereing idea that their captain horrifies the horrors.
Takeshi Yamato: True enough. And, of course, the Cardassians are showing up to throw a wrench in things.
Ron the True Fan: Endgame. Fuck the Hive Mind. Fuck the Moons. The BORG dealt with the Trek-version of them.
Ja Ne!