Phobos Labs started out bad.
As soon as he stepped off the tram, a solid wave of stench hit him. It wasn't blood or death or spilled guts. It was burning, an acrid smell, a caustic thing that invaded his sinuses and ate right up into his brain. His eyes watered up and that nearly got him killed, because as he was trying to get his sight back, a bullet scorched by overhead.
"Down!" Jennifer called, and he dropped to one knee, giving her access to whatever stupid bastard had thrown a bullet his way.
As he activated his suit's filters, which didn't cut the smell out completely but made it somewhat more manageable, he raised his SMG and found himself staring at what he at first took as a human in black armor. Whoever it was, they were covered head-to-toe in the metallic stuff and they moved like a human.
"Stop shooting! We're not zombies!" Jack called.
The man, or woman, whoever, acted like they hadn't heard. The black armored foe, wielding a pistol, continued opening fire on them. Jennifer punched a round through their visor and shattered it in a spray of glass and gore.
"Who the fuck was that?!" McGee snapped.
"God, what's that smell?" Jenkins groaned.
"Shut up!" Blackmore barked. "Ward, Taylor, get out there, see who that is. We'll cover you," he ordered.
Both of them left the relative safety of the tram, coming out onto the platform, which was bathed in a broken light that flickered every now and then. They moved slowly across the platform, checking the shadows and corners for hostiles, but they seemed to be alone.
"Check it," Jennifer whispered.
Jack nodded and moved forward, crouching by the body. He disengaged the helmet. He'd never seen a design of armor like this before. As the helmet came away, he gasped, dropping it. The features of a zombie were staring up at him.
"Report," Blackmore called.
"It's a zombie," Jack replied.
"Shit," Jennifer whispered. "Where the hell did these fuckers come from!? It moved like a human!"
Before anyone could respond, the main door that led into Phobos Labs suddenly opened up. Three more troopers in black armor rushed into the room. Two of them held pistols, one held a shotgun. The shotgun barked and Jack heard glass shattering somewhere behind him. He immediately began backing up and opening fire at the same time. He managed to tag one of them in the neck with his SMG. It went down long enough for someone to score a hit through its visor. Jack managed to get back to a stack of storage crates, where he knelt. The others were firing at the zombies from back in the tram. Jennifer had gone the opposite direction.
Another three of the dark armor clad assholes stepped in.
Three of them began advancing on Jack and the tram, while the other two headed for Jennifer, who had made it to a maintenance closet on the opposite side of the platform. What were these things!? How could the zombies get this smart this fast!? No time for that. Jack hosed the trio advancing on him down, emptying the magazine in his Raptor and then falling back. It seemed to do the trick. They were distracted enough to be put down under a rain of fire from the tram. Jack switched to his shotgun and stepped out.
"Hold fire!" he shouted as he rushed across the tram platform.
He got to the pair of zombies, which were still facing away from him, and leveled his shotgun at the back of the first's head. He squeezed the trigger. The slug shell fucking demolished its head, helmet and all. Everything above the neck disappeared in a plume of gore. While the first was still falling, he readjusted his aim, cocked the gun and repeated the process. Both zombies tumbled, headless, to the floor.
Jack spun around and faced the door they'd all come through, waiting. Phobos Base seemed to be holding its breath. A few seconds passed. Nothing else came through the door. A few more seconds passed. Jack made quick hand signals to Jennifer and she joined him back on the platform. They moved cautiously up to the door, covering it, and checked it out. The lobby beyond was vacant, and it also explained where the godawful stench was coming from. There'd been some kind of toxic spill. A glowing green liquid created a miniature river across the center of the lobby, lengthwise. They'd have to jump it if they wanted to get over it.
"Clear," Jack said.
"Everyone okay?" Blackmore asked.
"No..."
Jack glanced back. Jenkins was on his knees, clutching his stomach. His gloves were bloody. "Aw shit," he muttered. "You got it here?" he asked.
Jennifer nodded. "Yeah, go."
Jack jogged back across the platform and stepped into the tram. Baker was checking out the wound. "Punched right through your armor," she muttered. "Bullet's still in there." She shook her head, looked up at Blackmore. "I need to get him to an infirmary, to see if any of his organs have been hit. I don't think so, but if I'm not sure, he could die."
Blackmore seemed to consider it for a moment, then he nodded tightly. "Ward, help Baker get him to the nearest infirmary. There should be a sign posted in the lobby. Everyone else with me. We're gonna strip these guys for ammo and then proceed straight to the core. I want into that tower," he said, looking around at them.
Jack didn't like splitting up, but he supposed they didn't have a lot of choice in the matter. He helped Jenkins to his feet.
"Here, hold still," Baker said, taking off the man's helmet. "This'll help with the pain, get you to focus." Before Jenkins could react, Baker stuck him in the neck with something. Jenkins hissed in pain and looked ready to punch the medic as Baker tossed away the needle and secured the man's helmet again. "Thank me later," she said.
"What's the opposite of thank you?" Jenkins growled. "Pretty sure it still ends with 'you'."
Jack chuckled. "Come on, we need to get a move on."
The three of them left the tram, passing by Blackmore and McGee, who were policing up the ammo from the corpses, and Jennifer, who was standing guard by the door. She gave him a tight nod and wished him luck.
He hated to be apart from her again.
No choice in the matter. They had a job to do, even as fucked as the situation was, they still had objectives to complete. Jack took in the ruined state of the lobby as he led the way. The two security kiosks were shot to shit. This lobby seemed different from the others. There was just one door, dead ahead, and no entrance desk. This must be an extra layer of security, Jack reasoned. There was only one way to go, so he went.
He took a running jump and managed to make it over the spill. Whoever the hell had decided to store this many barrels of toxic crap in the entrance lobby to Phobos Base was a moron. He moved over to the door while Baker and, (painfully), Jenkins leaped over the glowing green slime. They moved through the next door, which admitted them to a larger, even more open area. In the center was a familiar circular desk, but there were no doors, just five large openings leading dead ahead and to the left and right.
Jack spotted a pair of more familiar zombies hanging out inside the circular desk. Neither appeared to be armed, so he raised his SMG, took careful aim, and squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened. Cursing, he realized with a flash that he'd forgotten to reload. Frustrated, he let the SMG hang, pulled out his pistol and capped both of them, then quickly holstered the pistol, ejected the spent mag of his SMG and slapped a fresh one in. How could he forget something so basic!? It was such a goddamned fucking rookie mistake.
He didn't have time to bask in his own fury at himself, as a shotgun blast seared by and buried itself in the desk.
"Hostiles!" Baker shouted. "Left side!"
But the shotgun blast had come from the right. Cursing, Jack finished his reload and spun right, spying another pair of those black-armored assholes, as well as a Demon stomping up behind them. He opened fire while strafing back the way he'd come, trying to find some cover. He was too exposed out here. He managed to shatter the visor of one of the creeps, trying to also keep tabs on whatever was happening behind him by sound alone and trusting Baker and Jenkins to take care of it. As he drew a bead on the second zombie, something interesting happened.
The Demon reached the zombie. Jack expected it to make its way around the zombie, but it either didn't have the mental capacity for such basic problem solving skills or, more likely, it didn't give a shit who or what was in its way. It bumped into the zombie with a growl, which caused it to immediately turn around and opened fire, pouring half a magazine of red hot death into the pink thing's gaping maw.
Jack watched in amazement as the Demon went down. He rewarded the victor of that little skirmish with a spray of lead to the back, putting the thing down. Turning around, he saw that Baker and Jenkins had cleared up their side of the resistance: a trio of Imps. Once he saw the immediate area was clear, Jack moved over to the two corpses he'd produced and patted them down. One of them didn't have shit and from the other he managed to salvage just a single magazine for his pistol. Sighing, he straightened up.
"You guys will never guess what I just saw," he said.
"What?" Jenkins asked. Baker was studying the area.
Jack pocketed the magazine. "Two of them just turned on each other. A zombie just killed a Demon," he replied.
"No way," Jenkins replied. He seemed to be doing better. Whatever Baker had forced on him must be working well.
"Yep."
"Come on, guys. Infirmary is this way," Baker said, pointing down the direction Jack had been fighting in. Jack took one more look around before following. All of the side tunnels led out and away, curving out of sight. The one dead ahead ended very abruptly in a huge door that looked very firmly closed and locked.
Of course, Jack was sure that that's where they were going to have to get into.
Sighing, he headed off after Baker and Jenkins down the other path. From what he remembered from his look at the map, Phobos Labs had four wings on it, coming out from a central core, which was where they would ultimately need to get into. They were heading down the bottom right wing, towards the infirmary.
It was, mercifully, near the end of the large corridor they were in, and not all that far away. They managed to make it there without running into any more hostiles. Baker got the door open and Jack swept the room beyond with this SMG, making sure it was safe.
"Clear," he called.
Jenkins disappeared into the door and Jack moved in after them. He closed and secured the door behind them. When he turned around, Jack again studied the infirmary: it was a bloody mess. The storm that had ripped through Phobos Base had hit this place particularly hard. Blood had been spilled so violently that it stained the ceiling. Examination tables were dented and damaged, and some of the larger pieces of medical equipment bled blue-white sprays of sparks periodically. The floor was covered in blood, bodies, and medical supplies.
"Hell of a mess," Jenkins murmured as Baker led him over to the most intact looking examination table left.
"Lay down," Baker said.
While the medic tended to the situation, Jack moved around the infirmary. He wanted to check out the back rooms, as he had spied a trio of doors along the walls. Blood squelched under his heavy boots as he crossed the room. The first one turned out to be an office that was mostly untouched, save for an overturned chair and a few bullets that had found their way inside and buried themselves in the wall. He moved on to the next room, finding a storage area that was also basically undisturbed. Almost secure now.
Jack moved on to the third door. He opened it up and stepped slowly inside, seeing a room of white tiles, a bathroom, and a shower area. There was a hell of a lot of blood in here, and-
He screamed as something shrieked and jumped him from the side. Whatever it was, it was a heavy son of a bitch and he crashed to the filthy floor, SMG flying from his hands. Jack managed to get onto his back, thrashing violently, and found himself staring up at one of the awful Imp creatures. It snapped its big yellow razor teeth right in front of his visor. He heard movement somewhere else and figured Baker was coming to help him out, but he already had a plan. Barely managing to shove up with his left forearm into its chest, he grabbed his pistol from its holster, put the barrel against its stomach, and began squeezing the trigger.
Jack screamed as he emptied the magazine into the awful thing, blowing a gory hole through its stomach and splattering its alien guts all over the place. The beast let out a prolonged shriek that was louder than the gunshots and nearly blew out his eardrums. As the gun clicked empty, it died and fell against him.
"Little help?" he asked.
The thing had to weigh three hundred pounds.
"I got it," Baker said. Suddenly, the weight was rolled off of him. Gasping to get his breath back, Jack sat up and shakily reloaded.
"Goddamn," he muttered, ejecting the spent mag and slipping a new one in. "I hate those damned things."
"Don't blame you, you okay?" Baker asked.
Jack checked himself over, but other than some bruising, he seemed to be okay. "Yeah...yeah. I'm fine," he said, getting to his feet. "Um...I'll be okay. See to Jenkins."
"All right," Baker said, giving him one last, appraising look before disappearing from the bathroom. Jack took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Too close. Way too close. He looked down at the corpse he'd made.
Damn, he'd nearly blown the thing in half.
Getting control of himself, he retrieved his SMG and then carefully cleared the rest of the bathroom. There was nothing and no one hiding in the stalls, though he did find a severed head in one of the urinals. There was something almost darkly comedic about the sight. Finishing his search, Jack returned to the main room.
"How's he doing?" he asked, taking a seat, glad for a chance to rest.
"He'll live," Baker grunted. "Getting the bullet out now."
"You've got a touch like an elephant-ow!" Jenkins snapped.
"There we go," she said, holding up the remains of a bullet with what looked like a pair of needle-nose pliers. She dropped it on the floor. "Now, quit bitching and let me patch you up."
Jenkins groaned and groused, but mostly held his peace. Baker cleaned the wound, then patched it up tight, then injected him a few times and had him put his armor back on.
"All right, the stuff I gave you should hold up pretty well. It's a foaming agent. Even so, be careful. Don't move any more than necessary. I also gave you a shot of painkillers and antibiotics and antivirals. You should be fine."
"Thanks, doc," Jenkins replied, getting his gear back on.
Jack activated his radio. "Sergeant, we've patched up Jenkins, how's things on your end? Over," he asked.
"Not good. The control core is locked down tight and the only way we're getting in is by releasing four manual locks. There's one at the end of each wing. You should be near one of them. Look for rooms marked SEC and then a number. You'll be handling SEC three and four. We'll take care of the other two. Out," Blackmore replied.
"Wonderful," Jack muttered, getting up and checking over his gear again. He looked over at Baker. She was already moving to a nearby terminal and firing it up. A moment later, she had a map of the immediate area on the screen. "There, we aren't far from the first one," she said. Jack and Jenkins joined her and studied the screen.
She was right, it was basically down the corridor.
"Well, let's get it started," Jack replied, turning and heading back across the infirmary. He was glad to be leaving the room.
It had kind of an evil feel to it. He opened the door and cautiously checked out the area beyond. The main corridor remained empty. They hurried down the rest of its length and came to the security center at the end of the main passageway. Jack glanced out a window as they passed by it. He found himself staring at the vast, gray desolation of Phobos and suddenly wondered what could survive out there besides the Lost Souls.
He shuddered. Those things were seriously creepy.
They breached the security station, finding it to be a bit larger and more intricate than the simple kiosks they'd been searching so far. Jack took in the battered and bloodied state of the area, the broken screens and dead bodies spread out across the metal floor, the spent shell casings everywhere. They crunched beneath his boots. As he looked over the ruined area, his eyes came to rest on a lone mug that had Live for the Weekend stenciled across it and he felt his sanity slip a notch. He wasn't entirely sure why, but it hit something deep and hard inside of him.
Maybe it was the nature of the universe, of reality, itself.
It was something he had been wrestling with for his entire life. He had seen situations go from happy to hell in no time flat far too many times, and often there was no warning. The most he'd been able to do was become a Marine, train himself, get in shape, sharpen up his reflexes and reaction time. But even putting all that aside, how many people here had just been regular people, wanting to just get by? Life was hard enough as it was, even just getting through the day sometimes, without the threat of hellish chaos looming on the horizon.
He looked at one of the corpses as Baker set to work lifting the lockout, her boots squelching loudly in the abysmal silence, and wondered who this man had been before. What were his hopes? His dreams? His fears? His favorite color and breakfast? How were his relationships with his family? A thousand questions came and went and he knew that none of it mattered because he was no longer a person, he was an object.
A stiff, still thing on the metal deckplates of a forgotten security station in a blood-drenched facility on Phobos.
Jack shook himself, trying hard to get a grip. He'd had small crises like this before, though none quite this powerful. His brain was under serious stress and the slightest thing could send it spiraling out of control. And it was worse because this situation was so far beyond the pale of crazy shit he'd put up with before that he still didn't really know how to deal with it. He supposed, as he reigned in control, there was just one thing he could do.
Keep going.
"Got it," Baker said, standing up. "Let's go."
They left the security center and quickly made their way back down the central corridor. Jack's eyes drifted to a variety of closed doorways they were passing by. He couldn't help but wonder what horrors were hidden behind each. He was glad to be passing them by. They reached the main entrance area again about the same time the others did. Each group nodded to each other in passing as they moved along to take care of their own objectives. Soon, Jack found himself leading the trio down another huge metal passageway.
This one was definitely different. Probably the most obvious difference was the fact that it ended at about half the length of the previous corridor. At least the way between here and there was clear. Jack couldn't help but feel that something was waiting for them. He readjusted his grip on the SMG as they made the final approach on the door. Making quick hand signals to the other two, he had them move over to the left side while he took up position on the opposite side. The door was large and steel, shining brightly beneath the lights.
Jack hit the access button.
The door slid quickly up into the ceiling. He peered cautiously around, then snapped out a curse and fell back as a round scorched by his helmet, nearly ending his life.
"Hostiles!" he snapped. "Those black-armored zombies. I think there's around a dozen in there," he said.
"On it," Baker replied. She leaned out, aimed and fired, then pulled back. Jack heard one of the things go down and as he leaned out and mimicked Baker's actions, putting down one of the dark-clad enemies, he began to feel a bit better. This was something he understood. This kind of warfare was something he'd trained for, dealt with and lived for years now. He leaned out and sighted another one. They were spread out across the room beyond, which appeared to be some kind of research bay. The room was pretty large, at least fifty meters across, with rounded sides. The floor was dotted with workstations, terminals, and huge pieces of equipment that he couldn't even begin to guess the functionality of.
The armored zombies were scattered across this huge bay, taking shelter behind the workstations and equipment. Jack had to give it to them: they were pretty skilled at combat. They were also seriously creepy, and now that he was around them again, he began to hear them talking to each other. They spoke in deep, guttural voices and...after a moment, he realized that they weren't speaking English. He had no idea what language they were speaking but it was almost demonic. He emptied the rest of his current magazine, managing to tag another one of them, then pulled back around and swapped it out for a pistol.
The SMG was spent. He needed to scavenge more ammo for it.
As he leaned around again, he saw something brand new happening. Behind the zombies, a door was being forced open by sheer, brute strength. Even as he watched, it burst open to admit a half-dozen Demons. The huge, shaved gorillas began stomping into the room. Inspiration struck and he aimed for their general cluster and emptied the magazine into them. This had the desired effect as they descended on the zombies in a murderous rage.
"Hold fire!" he called, crouching and watching intently.
The zombies, now being attacked from the rear, spun around and opened fire on the Demons. The battle raged for about two solid minutes. Jack watched one Demon march right up to a zombie, knock its gun aside, grab the former human and bite down hard, taking its head, helmet and all, clean off. The body stumbled away, hands clutching reflexively for the one who had killed it, then crashed to the deckplates in a widening pool of blood.
Another pair of zombies converged fire on another Demon and the two streams of SMG rounds punched straight through its hideous face and burst the back of its head in a plume of dark gore. The fighting went back and forth, but in the end the zombies managed to win out. Though at terrible cost to themselves. By the time the last Demon fell, there were only two zombies left, and they were quickly put down by Jack and the others.
"Okay, let's get to it," he said, coming out after ensuring there were no further surprises.
They moved hastily across the lab, navigating across the battlefield and in between the ruined terminals and sparking equipment. Within five minutes, they'd located the second security center, cleared it, and raised the lockout.
"Sergeant Blackmore, we've completed our objectives. Over," Jack said as they began making their way back to the central room.
"Affirmative, Ward. Same on our end. Converge back at the lobby. Out," Blackmore replied.
Jack let out a soft sigh. Progress.
They were making real progress now.
"Aw, horseshit!" Blackmore snapped, kicking one of the swivel chairs and sending it flying across the room.
Jack understood how he felt.
They'd managed to make it into the control center of Phobos Labs...and found that it was pretty much trashed. No big surprise there. It looked like someone had gone on a shooting spree. In fact, Jack was beginning to suspect that perhaps the zombies had come through and ruined as much of the equipment as they could, intentionally. Now there was an awful thought. Despite this, they'd persevered and Blackmore had had McGee, who had extensive communications training, get to work on the comms array and figure out how bad the situation was.
Apparently, it was pretty bad.
McGee had just reported that the comms array was damaged.
"How do we fix it?" Blackmore asked, reigning in his temper.
"We have to get to the communications tower itself...which is on the surface," McGee replied. She sighed and stood up from the computer she'd been checking out. "However, if you can get me there, I can fix it."
Blackmore nodded slowly. "Fine. Ward, Taylor, gear up. The four of us are going out there and fixing this damned thing," he said, looking at Jack and Jennifer.
Jack suppressed a sigh.
Could this day possibly get any worse?