"Clear," Jack said as he finished scouting the abandoned maintenance room he'd come into. He was glad to be out of the damned sewers.
He maintained watch while the others got up out of the narrow shaft one by one. The room looked like it'd been hit brutally hard. Blood ran in trails along the floor, where it looked like corpses had been dragged for some reason. There were spent shell casings, pieces of corpses, and debris scattered everywhere. But, probably the most frightening aspect of the room was the disturbingly low light level. The lights overhead were dim and weak.
Jack tried to recall what the Computer Station looked like. If he remembered right, it was a tall, upright, strangely structured building. It appeared to have something like three main levels, and now they were at the bottom. As he approached the door, Jack wondered how bad it was. He opened the only door in the room and looked out, then got an idea of how bad it was. The corridor beyond was pitch black, and what little of it was revealed by the maintenance bay's thin light showed only dented metal and blood.
"Well, this sucks," he muttered, leaning out and peering left, then right.
"Yep," Blackmore said, joining him. "It sucks more because on the way over, it occurred to me that we should probably take a look at the mainframe. There's gotta be a lot of information stored here and we should probably have a look at it."
"Yeah, I guess so," Jack replied morosely.
He wasn't looking forward to spending any amount of time in this place, let alone more time.
"Also," Blackmore continued, "we should be able to access the base's LifeScan through here. We'll be able to determine if there are any other survivors on this moon."
"That would be good to know," Jennifer said.
Jack sighed heavily and flipped on the flashlight at the end of his shotgun. "Well, let's get started," he said.
His ammo situation hadn't really improved. Currently, his SMG and one of his pistols were spent, totally dry. He'd left the last remaining magazine for his pistols in one of the sidearms, in case of emergency. The chaingun was reloaded, but he wanted to keep that for emergency too. The shotgun was loaded, but it only had one more reload left. He'd found some ammo down there in the sewers, but he'd expended a lot getting to the Computer Station. He felt like he was kind of constantly riding the edge of ammo depletion.
It was pretty stressful.
Jack took point again, heading for the left for now. It seemed to be his specialty. As he moved down the darkened passageway, playing his light across closed doors and broken vent grates, he thought for the hundredth time that it was a goddamned miracle he was still alive. Phobos Base had death written all over it in eight dozen different languages. He reached the end of the corridor and hit the access button.
The door opened to reveal an Imp in the process of walking towards him. Jack didn't even give it a chance to shriek. He was already aiming his shotgun at the right height, so he just adjusted the aim a little and squeezed the trigger. The Imp's head, caught in the beam's light, vaporized in a thick, chunky plume of dark gore. Further on in the pitch black room, Jack heard several more hisses and about half a dozen spots suddenly lit up with the awful red glare of hellfire. He snapped out a curse, aimed, and fired at the nearest one.
The Imp fell, a hole in its chest, but he was already moving, making way for the others to give him some damned backup. The others spilled into the room and they managed to clean it out in record time. They put down the half-dozen Imps that had been hanging around, then the small squad of Z-Sec zombies that arrived to investigate all the noise. Once they were sure they were alone, at least for the moment, they searched the area. It seemed they'd come to a very rudimentary central nexus for the bottom of the facility, which was very threadbare and utilitarian. The walls were a stark, slate gray concrete, or probably it was made of regolith from Phobos's surface. It was cracked and covered in ash and blood.
Jack played his light across the right wall and spied three pairs of silver doors. Elevators. Their ticket out of the lowest level. And of course none of them worked. But he figured that would be the case. What was more annoying was when he tried the door that led to the stairwell and found that it was firmly locked, and it would take a lot of firepower to get through it. A few moments later, after checking out a security room and booting up a terminal that was still running on minimal power, they confirmed that, yes, there was another lockdown in effect.
He was beginning to suspect that it was mandatory.
"All right," Blackmore rumbled as he finished investigating the ruined security center. "We've got a miserable task ahead of us. We're going to have to find a pair of keycards and restart a pair of auxiliary generators if we're going to raise this lockout and make any progress. Gather round," he said, still standing before the terminal screen.
They gathered round him.
"As you can see, we're in the guts of the building. The first floor is all maintenance and utilities. The first generator is on the far side of this water reclamation plant. Ward, you and Taylor will hunt it down. And keep your eye out for any keycards. Unfortunately the tracking system is out. Thompson, Jenkins, and I will make our way through this heat exchange and power distribution plant to get to the second generator."
"Affirmative," Jack replied, not looking forward to another long walk through the dark.
They split up. At least he had Jennifer with him. They made their way back down the original corridor they'd emerged from and walked to its opposite end. Jennifer got into position, gun aimed at the door, while Jack opened it up. She fired once, her shotgun booming loudly in the confined space, then gave the initial clear. They walked into the room beyond. Their lights punched holes in the darkness, revealing a large, confused network of piping and machinery. Lots and lots of places for nasty hostiles to hide.
They began making their way slowly through the proliferation of pipes and equipment, their flashlights casting bright reflections off the shiny chromed surfaces and making the shadows swell and shrink and sway. Jennifer was in the lead and Jack was backing her up, shotgun ready. They crept down the center of the room, listening intently for signs of life, moving around a large workstation covered with sticky notes.
Suddenly, there was a light, somewhere up ahead.
A light like an open flame.
"Lost Soul," Jennifer hissed, then aimed, fired, and popped it.
A general roar went up. Jack cursed, spun to his right and pounded out a round, blowing the arm off an Imp. He pumped the shotgun and fired again, blowing a second Imp in half as the shot took it in its midriff. He grunted in pain as an explosion of heat smacked him in the back. Spinning around, he saw an Imp was dangerously close to him. He stuck the shotgun in its mouth and squeezed the trigger. Its head came apart like a watermelon with a grenade in it. He and Jennifer worked their way slowly, meticulously, through the water reclamation plant, and put down a good dozen Imps by the time they reached the generator room.
Once they got inside the small side room and cleared it, Jack fed the last eight of his shells into his shotgun and swapped for his pistol.
"Okay, guard the door, I can handle the generator," Jennifer said.
"Got it," Jack replied, closing the only door in the room and taking watch. A few minutes of silence passed as Jennifer worked to bring the generator online.
"So," she said suddenly, without apparent provocation, "I, uh, like you."
He glanced briefly at her. She was crouched, face hidden, hands buried within an open panel on the side of the generator.
"I like you, too," he replied, unsure of what else to say.
"No, I mean, like...for more than just the sex or as a friend. I mean-what I'm trying to say..." She heaved a sigh. "I'm bad at this shit. I haven't met someone like you in a really long time. A good-looking guy who's smart, capable, and competent, can fight like hell, respects me, is confident without being arrogant, and is awesome in bed. What I'm trying to say is that you're a real catch, and when we make it out of here, I'd be interested in a real relationship."
"You're wrong," he said, finally.
She looked back at him, startled. "What?"
"You're not bad at this. That was clear, concise, and to the point. And I'd be very interested in a real relationship," he replied.
She let out a short laugh and grinned, then turned back to the generator.
"Good. I'm glad we got that sorted out."
Suddenly, there was a pop. Jennifer cursed and pulled her hands back. At the same time, the lights flickered and came to life, banishing the darkness and turning the pitch black, nightmarish environment into a place of bright lights and nowhere near as many hiding places. "There," she said, closing the panel and standing up, "done."
"And we got ourselves a bonus," Jack said.
She followed his gaze, curious, and saw what he had seen. Across the room, on a foldout table, discarded among a handful of tools and spare parts, was a blue keycard. Jack crossed the room, grabbed it and pocketed it.
"Maybe our luck is starting to change," he said.
Their radios crackled to life. "This is Blackmore. We need backup. We're in the power distribution chamber. Over." He punctuated each sentence with a burst of gunfire.
"We're on our way," Jack replied, already making for the door.
They hit the heat exchange barely a few minutes later, finding a string of dead zombies, and could hear the sounds of the rest of their squad battling it out amidst a haze of gunfire. They sprinted through the room, sweeping the area with their gazes and muzzles, finding it empty, then burst onto the scene seconds later.
Blackmore, Thompson, and Jenkins were crouched down behind a series of workstations in the center of the room, being attacked from all sides by a clutch of Z-Secs. Jack and Jennifer got to work. Deciding it was high time to put his chaingun to use, he let the shotgun hang and brought the big silver bastard into play. There were a trio of dark-armored jerks off to his left, fairly exposed, unaware that new players had entered the field.
Their last mistake.
Jack aimed and let loose.
A hail of bullets, like the wrath of God, slammed into them and punched a dozen holes each into their bodies, practically shredding them. Jack turned the array of bullets onto another pair of them that emerged from a side entrance and painted the silver walls with their blood. He ended up completely draining the thing dry by putting down another eight Z-Sec monstrosities. The others finished off the last of the zombies.
"Now that's what I call backup," Blackmore said, coming up from behind his cover. "Good job, Marines."
"Thanks, Sergeant," he replied.
"Secure this ammo. I'll go get the generator," Blackmore said, and headed off.
The four of them worked quickly, and Jack managed to find another three magazines for his pistol and three more for his depleted SMG. He let the spent chaingun hang and reloaded his secondary sidearm and the SMG, selecting it as his primary weapon for the moment. By the time they'd finished up, Blackmore had the secondary generator back up.
"Any luck with any keycards?" he asked.
"Yep, found a blue one," Jack replied.
"Perfect. Now help us find the other one."
They spent another fifteen minutes hunting through the area, and finally ran down a red security card clipped to the belt of a dead Sergeant at the back of a bathroom, sitting in the final stall, his head blown off. From there, it was a simple procedure to get back to the security center, raise the lockout and then take the stairwell up to the top.
They had to seal their envirosuits when they got to the very top of the Computer Station. Much like Command Control, the most important, and sensitive, control and information was at the very top. It was a bit like an air traffic control tower, only most of the room was taken up by a huge, solid block of equipment, machinery, mainframes, and technology. Workstations ringed the exterior of the room and there was a narrow walkway in between the workstations and the tech core. The reason they had to seal their suits was because the windows were broken out and the atmosphere was totally compromised within the room.
The first thing they did was get into the databanks, the hallowed digital vaults of Phobos Base. Blackmore apparently had a penchant for skirting the edges of protocol and settled in to work. At the same time, Jennifer took up residence at another workstation and tried to fire up the LifeScan. Unfortunately, it wouldn't work.
"Run a diagnostic," Jack suggested.
"Yeah, hopefully it's something minor," she murmured. They had to talk on the shortwave radios now that their suits were sealed.
A minute later, they had their answer. She sighed. "Okay, I can fix it. But I've got to get up into that core there," she said, pointing at the huge block of tech in the center of the room. "I just have to do a quick replacement."
"Sergeant?" Jack asked.
"Take care of it. Ward, provide backup," Blackmore replied, distracted.
The pair of them headed to the tech core and walked around it until they located a small maintenance lift. It was just big enough to admit the pair of them. They lowered it and found the platform caked with flash-frozen blood. Cautiously, they stepped aboard and rode it up. It was slow and ominous. At first their view was just of a wall of intricate circuitry beneath a layer of Plexiglas. Then, slowly, they were finally raised up to where they were going. Jack discovered that there was a whole sort of attic above the tech core.
It was poorly lit and very obvious that several someones had met a brutal end here. Jack played his light across the tight area. The ceiling was low, giving the whole place a claustrophobic feel. Several frozen corpses were scattered here and there. They left the service lift and moved slowly through the dark area.
They passed a dead Imp and then a dead Z-Sec. The Imp had been riddled with bullets, one eye ruptured, turned into a bloody crater. He found himself wondering what had killed the Z-Sec zombie as they passed it.
The zombie's gloved hand shot out, suddenly, wrapping around his ankle.
Jack let out a startled shout and blew the thing's head off.
"Everything okay up there?" Blackmore asked.
"Uh...yeah...yeah, just a zombie," he replied.
"Understood."
"You okay?" Jennifer asked.
He let out a small, nervous laugh. "Yeah. I'm fine. I've had worse scares...I think."
They finished walking through the cramped space and Jennifer found what she was looking for. She pulled a repair kit off the wall, knelt before an open panel, and went to work. Jack found his gaze wandering to her ass, which still looked fantastic even in armor and an envirosuit. He blinked and shook his head, making himself focus. He kept watch until she made the repair, closed the panel, and stood up.
"Okay, that should do it," she said.
They headed back to the lift and rode it down. Once they'd returned to the floor, they moved back to the workstation and she booted it up.
"Okay, I've got LifeScan," she reported. "Running it now, maximum range. It's going to take a little bit."
"We've got time," Blackmore replied. "I've found what's left of their data archive and I'm downloading it now."
"Have you found anything interesting?" Jack asked.
"Mostly more of the same, but I'm finding references to what appear to be an outpost built beyond the gateway, inside the other dimension. And I also found a partial report about specimens. Capturing them, specifically. It's obvious that they knew a lot about this and they've been doing research of some kind for awhile now."
"What a surprise," Jack muttered.
"Uh, guys, we have a problem," Thompson said suddenly.
Jack looked up. He and Jenkins had been standing guard. Immediately, he saw the problem. There were Lost Souls outside the broken windows. A lot of them.
"Shit," Blackmore muttered. "How long on that LifeScan, Taylor?"
"Thirty seconds," she replied tersely.
"Great. All right, no one move. We'll try to ride this out," Blackmore replied.
The seconds began to tick by. Jack felt every one of them. He had his hands on his SMG, staring intently out of the broken windows. He could easily see a good two dozen of the flying, flaming skulls now, and more were appearing all the time. Where were they all coming from!? It seemed to take forever before Jennifer spoke again.
"LifeScan is complete. Confirmed: we're the last five souls on this rock," she reported, her voice flat and grim.
"Great. Well, at least we didn't leave anyone behind and we don't have to worry about friendly fire," Blackmore replied.
"I think our game is up, guys," Jack said. The Lost Souls were drifting closer now.
"Okay, screw it, I've got enough data. Fall back," Blackmore replied.
They began moving towards the exit, but as soon as they did, the Lost Souls began making beelines straight for them.
"Go! Go! Go!" Blackmore yelled, firing and bursting one of the nearer ones in absolute silence. Jack kept moving, leading the retreat as he'd been closest to the door. He reached it, hit it and moved beyond, securing the room. He kept watch as the others hurried in through the door, firing the whole way. Once the last one through, Thompson, was clear, he closed the door and locked it. He let out a long sigh of relief.
"Okay," Blackmore said. "Get ready people, this is the endgame. Stay sharp and we'll all get out of this alive."
Jack hoped that the man was right. They began to head for the last tram to the Phobos Anomaly.