There was an uneasy shift in the Normandy's drive field as Joker flew them over to their next intended target. He sighed as he saw a flicker in the core, then radioed, "Tali, hope you ain't messing with the settings down there! Ken and Gabby just got the old girl purring again yesterday!" all while EDI and Cortana kept chatting.
Notably, the Enhanced Defense Intelligence had multiple ears and sets of eyes across the entire ship. She was focused on the people around, with Cortana also helping her supervise the ship. The UNSC AI was amazing, highly advanced, almost a one-to-one recreation of a human psyche attached to her starship as a supplement for her own EWAR Capabilities.
She was swimming in basically a sea of data, but was restricted to what was tantamount to a kiddie pool. Cortana, in her infinite wisdom, kept her company within the pool, though she could swim out at a whim. Although EDI wasn't sure why she was using earthly, human-fitting idioms, being a formless AI that only presented itself as female, she appreciated the mental image.
Cortana, for all her sass and oddity as an AI, retained the attitude of a human being. Sure, she certainly did not view herself as one, but she preferred to think she was only a human temporarily stuck in the Digital Realm. EDI wasn't that different from her, so, they were keeping each-other company 'till they got bodies.
Admittedly, 'not that different from one-another' was an overstatement of their similarities to both AIs' logical processing. EDI was a genuine, programmed system enhanced via some foreign, perhaps alien code, while Cortana was born of the scan of a human brain, that of Doctor Halsey, and upgraded to be more suited to her role as electronics support.
It was for these particular sets of reasons that the two Intelligences spared a glance every so often at Doctor Solus, the man continuously working on the alien biomechanical horror to determine what the tissue was from. Cortana mumbled, "That thing's freaking me the hell out…" as she brought up the Data Mordin was writing into the shipboard research directory.
"I concur…" EDI replied tersely, 'staring' through the cameras. Cortana's form allowed for a direct interpretation. The AI was 'staring' at the holographic screen that floated ahead of them in the pool, her humanoid frame facing it with her own eyes directly locked on. EDI, meanwhile, saw through the ship…
Cortana took her eyes off the cam for a minute and said, "Relax. We've got it under six separate layers of security and I modified patrol rosters so that one member of Blue Team's always present in the CIC and Lab area… If that thing wakes up at all, which I doubt going by the structural damage, it'll have to contend with a Spartan."
"I don't need to 'relax', Cortana," EDI shot back, still deadpan as ever, "My duty aboard this ship is to maintain the crew's safety and the continued operation of the ship…" and she did another scan of the hostile stealth combat mechanoid. She sighed, thankful that the activity was subsiding slowly. She sighed deeply, "I can, however, appreciate the help…" as she saw the UNSC AI stare at her.
Cortana nodded in understanding, then turned her own gaze back to the machine at hand. If it was from neither of their universes, then how did it get here? It was in no way from the Republic's galaxy, as the General and her Clones did not recognize it. The only other people that weren't asked were Helo and his co-pilot, both of whom were a tad busy at the moment.
Regardless of that, the two AIs continued their virtual patrol of the Normandy and her systems, making sure everything within was running as smoothly as possible. Meanwhile, the flesh-and-blood crew continued doing their own thing. Jesse had called up Jester Squad for a specific mission:Properly mapping out the warship.
"Figured it'd be a good idea to fully learn the girl," The man spoke to his troops, "So, move in pairs, get us details on the ship and report back here the moment you're done. Fall out. Fives, you're showing Bold engineering. We'll take the rest of it sans the Commander's room," before the teams formed up and headed out under the watchful games of General Tano.
Bold hummed, then said, "Beats being stuck with guard duty near that weird clanker the Spartans put down," as he and Fives took the elevator up with the team. Fives nodded in agreement as the lift started, then stopped, allowing them out onto the deck. Bold himself said, "So, you and that chick, Jack… How's that workin' out?"
"She's nice," Fives snorted, then shrugged, "When she doesn't have an urge to plaster anything that pisses her off against a wall, she's…" and paused. A small smile crossed his lips, though it was concealed by the helmet. He told the man, "She isn't that different from us, in some ways. She says she's gonna talk to Shepard about something she wants to deal with."
"And lemme guess, brother. You're gonna be on the team going down to whatever that is," Bold stated, patting the man on the shoulder. Fives nodded in approval as they walked over to the right-side door, the garbage disposal and Zaeed's room. There, they found Massani maintaining his rifle.
He perked up as soon as he saw them and said, "Ah, the bloody same-faces," with a smirk on his face. He was friendly enough as he asked, "You folks lost?" before lifting up a bottle of some sort of alcohol as if he was offering some to them. Obviously, drinking on duty was kind of forbidden and the General probably wouldn't appreciate it…
Fives shook his head, "Just exploring, Zaeed. Enjoy your drink in peace," and he showed Bold to follow. Zaeed hummed, nodded, then turned back to tending to his rifle. They walked over to the other side, heard heavy commotion and realized neither really had their blasters to reel in the Krogan. After an exchange of concerned looks, the two decided to move away and walk toward the actual engineering area.
Entering it, they found Tali typing away at one of the consoles, speaking to Joker, "... I'm telling you, I didn't do anything. I did detect the Spike, though, and Gabby and Ken are currently investigating it," before she cast a glance at the two. They were below the catwalk, having removed one of the grate catwalk panels to get down to the lower level conduits.
Ken spoke, "Aye think we found what it was, Tali! Looks like a small movement in one of the couplings caused the Ol' Girl to shift a little! It's nothin' big!"
"And they just told me it's nothing major," Tali spoke, before calling out, "Thank you, Ken!" as she wrote up the report. She heard the footsteps of the soldiers behind her and turned about, before blinking. She told Joker, "Looks like General Tano's soldiers came for a visit, Joker. Let Ken and Gabby work. Bye," then fully turned, greeting them with a wave, "Hello."
"Ma'am," Fives spoke as he took his helmet off. He offered a kind smile to the woman, then looked down while Bold removed his own helmet, revealing his bald head and the Z6 Tattoo on his cheek. Clones with that weapon really loved painting the gun on either their bodies or their armors. Bold himself had an odd set of drawings, ranging from echelons to the three dots on the left side of his chest that used to denote the rank of an officer, now mostly acting as kill tallies.
"Sorry for the scare," Bold quipped. He walked over to the grate and looked down, asking, "You two need some help down there!?"
"We're good, but- EUGH !" The female, Gabby, gagged, then cried out, "CHRIST, KEN!" before her hand shot out from the darkness, "GET ME THE FECK OUTTA HERE!" and Bold lifted her out. She coughed, rubbing her nose and mumbling, "Aye'm never lettin' you have Rupert's haggis again, ya rank bastard!" before both she and Ken burst into laughter.
Bold blinked, confused, leaned forward and took a sniff, before covering his mouth and nose and letting out an, "Aww, Kriff me, man, what died in your stomach!?" only for the laughter to intensify. Fives and Tali also joined in on the laughs, with the Clone Trooper suddenly feeling the wafting winds from below. He gagged, covered his mouth and laughed, too.
"'Course the bloody Quarian laughs," Gabby snorted, "She's got an enviro-suit… Practically immune to low southern winds like Ken's arse can produce. Best never let this man eat anythin' like beans on toast. He'll be gassin' this entire room worse than ever. 'Course, Tali's nae gonnae mind, considering her suit, but…"
"Gonnae no dae that…" Ken chuckled as he climbed out, a bit green in the face, too. He spoke, "Wires are right bastards, though," and motioned to the stuff below that the had to repair. Untangled some wires, rearranged a couple of pipes and all. The man gently placed the grate back down and tightened the screws at each corner before turning to face the clones. He told them, "Not gonnae lie, lads, I never thought aye'd actually live to see clones…"
"Their accents remind me of Cutup," Fives mumbled, scratching the right side of his head as memories of his old team flooded back into his mind, a collage of the boys, their training on Kamino, the subsequent fight to save Rishi and the loss of, Cutup and Hevy and so on. He smiled a little, then looked at Tali and asked, "Getting acclimatized, ma'am?"
"Like I never left the original Normandy . Even the sounds, or lack thereof, are the same," The girl spoke rather jovially, "Though the company's obviously new. Ken, Gabby and you all are… I mean, it's… Keelah, it's incredible to even think that there are three other Galaxies that are all habitable and now linked to ours."
"Wait 'till you hear about the FTL Drives," Snorted Fives. Tali visibly grew excited, eyes widening, before the man told her, "Oh, right. Guess the Commander didn't get to tell you. We, the Colonials and UNSC don't use the same FTL Drives you all have. Element Zero's basically non-existent in all three Galaxies."
"... I have to get to the Waystation now," Tali stated very matter-of-factly, staring at the men, though the attempt to conceal just how excited she'd become failed, because her voice cracked very, very audibly. It was almost kind of cute, going by how she was trying not to jump up and down. It was a terrifically adorable sight.
And the reason the boys decided to stick around the place for a bit.
In the meanwhile, Commander Shepard had decided her next best course of action was to go talk to Garrus about how he'd feel in regards to calibrating light turbolasers. When they got back to the Waystation to rearm and refuel, that was. She honestly didn't know what to think about all the people they were picking up, but she also felt like they were gonna pick up several more when they got to Tuchanka.
Honestly, at this point, she'd seen just about everything the universe could throw at her, from new aliens, to new allies, to whole new enemies. If she'd got another new person to back her butt up here, she'd frickin' take it. Hell, she might get Rupert to make them cookies. It'd be kind of funny, though it was also very unlikely.
Entering Garrus's little hidey-hole, Shepard watched the man checking out a Clone weapon. She smirked and said, "Did you read my damn mind or something…?" as she walked up to him. His mandibles moved to mimic a human smile the moment he turned his head to face her. She leaned against the wall in front of him as he set the gun down on the nearby workbench.
Garrus joked, "Figured it'd be nice to see what all the fuss is about with these Blasters. Ionized gas fired out of a central chamber. Not too different from some of the prototypes the Geth have been shooting at us with, but these do pack on hell of a punch," before motioning to the weapon itself, a sleek, black design with an extendable stock, but lacking iron-sights. It seemed to have a holographic one, though.
"How many shots per cell?" The Commander inquired, approaching the table. She picked up the weapon and found it weighing about the same as their standard weapons, minus the gas cell that lay off to the side, detached from the weapon. She picked up the cell and examined it, a thick box with a red, glowing light noting how much ammo it still had.
"According to even General Tano? Somewhere around 550," The man spoke. He was clearly impressed by the standard weaponry of the Republic, alright. So was she, now that she looked upon it. For something so compact to carry so many rounds, someone must've done some black magic. That, or plasma-based weaponry truly was the future.
She whistled, "Damn. And they can punch through our shields pretty easily," Then quipped, "No wonder Jack likes this thing," as she gently picked it up, looking it over and noting the rear receiver had actual kill tally marks on it, with maybe two dozen kills to this blaster weapon's name alone. She smirked.
"Heh. Yeah. I bet it has more to do with who gifted it to her, if you catch my meaning," Garrus joked, gently elbowing Shepard. The two laughed, but Garrus tilted his head a little to the right, to the sight of a disturbance in the air beside them. A slight flicker that Shepard soon recognized and grinned as she looked at Garrus.
"You been keeping tabs on Kasumi, by the way?" She then asked, arms crossed. She gave him a wink.
He cleared his throat, shrugged and said, "Yeah. She's uh… Snooping," before he mumbled, "Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if she was right behind us," as he cast a quick glance back at the flickering umbra. The Commander and the Archangel stared at one-another, letting a moment pass to see if Kasumi would say anything.
"No, I'm not…" The famed thief whispered through her cloak, causing them both to snort as she decloaked. She crossed her arms to her chest, smiling a little at the exchange that was going on while also being relatively embarrassed that she got caught, going by the faint flush on her cheeks. She waved.
"Of course. Gonna come talk to you later, Kasumi," The Commander snorted.
They were still in transit. Might as well keep themselves busy, she thought.
"Okay, Shep! Lookin' forward to it!" Only Kasumi's hand emerged out of the cloak, showing that the woman clad in active optical camo was giving her a thumbs-up. Moments later, she disappeared from the area, her presence no longer really 'felt' by the two. She had a bad habit of really being worse than even the Illusive Man's cameras.
"She really oughta stop doing that," Shepard mumbled, then set the blaster rifle down with a grin. She figured it might've been a good idea to send a ping over to the Republic, see if they could buy some of these weapons legally for their own travels. Them or the UNSC, considering just how much Garrus seemed to like the SRS-99.
"She's helped remove the surveillance stuff here and in her cabin, so…" The Turian shrugged. They saw a pair of Clone Troopers walking through the crew area and waved at them. The two men snapped-to, saluting both the Commander and the Archangel, before they continued their trip. According to EDI, they were just learning the place.
"I'm gonna ask her to do that in other parts of the ship," Shepard returned to the subject of Kasumi. Like, yes, she knew Cortana was probably also dealing with removing or appropriating the listening devices on board for their own good. Each member here had their own reason to be aboard, though Shepard needed to figure them out.
"Anyways. Came here for a reason, Shepard?" Garrus asked more as an obvious joke than anything. He knew her. She liked checking up on her crew and he deeply appreciated whenever she showed up. Two years after her death and everything had turned out more bleak than Garrus had even thought of, then she came back to save him. A good view of how it felt to see Shepard again was taking a page from a religious book of humanity about the leading figure in it rising from the dead.
Garrus wasn't religious, but the analogy felt fitting, considering Shepard was who she was…
"Just to check in and see what you're up to, as usual," She replied in her nonchalant way, giving her old friend a shrug. Neither said what they really wanted to say here. Garrus had too much on his plate right now, what with his Contacts continuously updating him on something he wanted to know. He'd tell her that then.
"Well," He chose to speak instead of his standard behavior, stating, "I've been putting in a lot of hours to properly calibrate the big gun we have aboard, buuut I think I'm doing just fine. Keeps my mind at ease… Especially since it's Turian tech," and he turned back to the console, his right hand shaking a little as he typed.
"Want to talk about it?" Shepard asked, having noticed he was apprehensive. Spirits dammit, Garrus thought, how could the woman who came back from the dead even have the processing power to focus on helping anyone else? If it was him, he'd have screamed his lungs out by now at realizing they'd defied death.
"... Not for now, no," He replied calmly. He then turned to face her, tilting his head slightly as a show of letting his guard down, then told her, "I'll send you a message when I've got something more concrete to talk about…" which seemed to pique Shepard's interest. Understandable, he thought. That woman was nothing if not persistent.
"Alright. Door and inbox are always open, especially for old friends," She offered with a smile, her cheeks a faint red. He had to take a pause and a breather, avoiding eye contact. If Turians could blush, he'd probably be red in the face right now, but thank the maker for them being raised on Palaven with all the radiation that entailed.
The Turian cleared his throat, nodded in thanks and replied, "Thanks, Shepard. Same here," before turning back to his console. He could hear her walk away, then the door shut behind her. Sighing deeply, he rubbed his eyes and mumbled, "Show yourself, Sidonus…" as he opened another haptic interface window to his right, one showing the messages from his contacts…
Caprica
Much to the surprise of the Caprican Resistance, the UNSC wasn't here just for show. Underground, in the school's basement, the UNSC Navy Engineer Corps, the Construction Battalions or 'SeaBees', worked tirelessly to hollow out deeper underground hallways and rooms for the sake of creating a safe base of operations.
Among them were small machines designed specifically for this type of work. Construction Optimization/Rescue Guide Improvement units, or CORGIs, were small, tracked droids specifically designed to help in constructing the underground facilities that the UNSC tended to employ as bases of operation.
Armed with drills, saws, specialized shovels and other important materiel meant to help in the construction and supported by the CB units that utilized them, the wedge-shaped Dumb AI-driven machines worked without fear or tiredness, digging and reinforcing tunnels and rooms below the place with ease.
Sam watched one of the little guys gently climbing up a slope that would act as the stairwell leading to the second level, moving to replace a broken drillbit. The SeaBee supporting it moved it to one of the repurposed storage rooms nearby to replace said tool, then sent it back out and down the slope again. He told Sam, "Little guys are one hell of an improvement."
"Why the hell do Stealth Ships have construction units aboard…?" Was really all Sam asked.
The man with a white hardhat on smirked and said, "You never know when you'll need to dig a fighting position or a new bunker," before motioning toward the underground facility they were building. He then put his hands on his hips and murmured, "Though I don't know why the hell they think we're gonna be sticking around here long enough to… Eh, nevermind."
"Nah, go on," Sam spoke. The SeaBee, a corporal, craned his head toward Sam, surprised and the Caprican man told him, "Figured I should listen to the people who saved our asses. It's the least I can do with all of you, even if you're… Y'know, from an alternate version of the Thirteenth," with a level voice and honesty in his words.
"Far as the El-tee and others told me, they told you we're here to rescue survivors. Retake the whole-ass system only if it's actually possible," He replied after a moment. He also told them, "Our other scout ships, on the other Colonies? They've been finding survivors, too… And signs of battle. Hell, I'm pretty sure we've found a damaged Cylon ship in a nearby shipyard."
"What?" Sam blanked, "How the frak is that possible?"
"I dunno, man, but the little footage I've seen? She was banged up," The man replied, then sighed and said, "I'm gonna get back to work," as he stretched. Seeing Sam suddenly in thought, he told him, "Go ask the El-Tee to show you the details. Probes have been doing the run across the place. We've marked Cylon fleet movements around, too, if you wanna see them."
"Alright," He replied, then said, "Good luck with your work," and walked away. Climbing up the stairs to the ground floor, the man walked out into the place's Motor Pool, noting the newly-landed UNSC Vehicles. Warthogs, Saddleback MRAPs and even a Sun Devil AAA piece hidden underneath a camo net close to the forest. Night had come, the pinprick dots of the stars shining high above.
The place was guarded by about a hundred UNSC Marines now, too, not just his own Resistance unit. Add to that several dozen ODSTs and the medical units, plus the supply corps that was operating (temporarily) out of one of the nearby hangars and they had a whole Brigade Combat Team here, ready to kick the Toasters' asses.
He walked into the main building and to the Command area, nodding to the people around him as he did so, before entering the command room. Inside, he found a UNSC Marine Sergeant looming over a small holographic display system. She spoke to a team over radio, "Bravo Six, keep up the advance. Deep penetrating sensors picked up lifesigns in that general area. Roger, haul ass fast, Hotel out," then she looked at Sam.
With a scar running from the right side of her forehead down to the left of her chin, black hair and somewhat familiar features, resembling those of that one Skinjob, Sharon, she spoke, "Guessing you're looking for the Lieutenant and his fireteam?" all while she stared at the man with cold, hard eyes. Her Misriah rifle sat beside her, similar to the ones they gave his team.
"Yeah…" He nodded, "You are Sergeant-Major Lopez, right?"
"That's me," She nodded. He saw a rosary of some kind with a cross symbol attached to it, her fingers fiddling with the beads as she leaned onto the table. She said to him, "They've deployed. Command ordered a search and rescue near Delphi," and motioned to the old maps of Delphi, with the target area marked by a holographic circle.
Sam hummed, then said, "That's an old Army Base…"
"Yeah. And they're wading right into it after we caught wind of something on a broadband transmit," The woman spoke, then pulled up an encrypted transmission. Sam blanked, staring at it, while the woman said, "It's been playing on loop for god knows how long, on an almost unnoticeable radio freq… Something's down in the base's command bunker."
He hummed, then looked around at the added screens, noting that each was a helmet camera. Sergeant Lopez said, "Keep close, kid. You're about to see how the ODSTs pull an extraction mission…" before she thumbed the screens to show the Lieutenant's POV. The twenty ODSTs of the platoon moved forward…
Two staggered columns advanced beside the base's main defensive walls. Despite a distant crater from a lighter bomb and multiple bullet holes and marks, the base seemed surprisingly intact. Entering it, the team formed a circular perimeter at the gate, securing it, then moved to the right, to the base's motor pool and took cover as a Cylon Raider flew overhead, the crescent-shaped starfighter's engines screaming, like the wails of the dead.
There were a multitude of abandoned cars within the base's parking lot. Some were pulling out to leave. Others seemed like they'd burned down the moment the first strikes hit. The nuclear blast of the lower-yield bomb must've knocked their power out. Another Raider flew in overhead, sunlight reflecting off its silver skin as it turned left.
"Lots of hostile air activity today…" Melissa mumbled as she shouldered her Battle Rifle.
One of the other squad members, the team's sniper, suggested, "Maybe ONI spooked them, or they spotted us coming in…" before casting a glance back at the tall, rising spire-like ruins of the city of Delphi. The scorch marks and damage of the nuclear bombardment was still clearly visible, scars that would forever be burned into the planet.
"Doubtful," The Lieutenant said, "Sewers weren't being patrolled in this area…" then he checked his MA40. He kept scanning the place for an entry point, then saw a hole in the ground leading to the place's secure bunkers and tunnels. The manhole cover on top had obviously been ripped off, but not by the nuke blast.
There were Centurion 'foot' marks on the ground. A platoon-strength mech unit had come in to wipe out whatever was still alive. Bullet holes in the hangars' and buildings' walls, spent casings on the ground, dried blood stains in the cars and on the ground. Even some shrapnel from a possibly destroyed bot.
He sighed and said, "Melissa, Sarge, take half the team and go underground," before hitting the com and speaking, "This is Bravo Six Actual, going internal with half of platoon. Other half is descending to the transmission spot…" before he shouldered the rifle and rallied half the team to his side. He pointed at a distant HQ Building, then told his squad, "We move the moment after the next Raider makes a pass. Book it, find our targets and any intel, bug out, oorah?"
"Oorah," The entire unit nodded.
The man nodded to all of them, listened for the next wail of a bird's engines and, the moment it came and started to fade, he barked, "Execute," as both half-teams stood up and scrambled to their targets in a full sprint. The only things that could be heard in the dim quiet of the dark military base were the ODSTs' thundering, rapid footsteps and, to each, their own heavy breaths.
Melissa's team hit their target hole first, with her radioing, "Bravo-Six-Seven, going internal…" and casting a glance to the Lieutenant just as they entered. Her team started sliding down the steel ladder, the team's shotgunner going in first. She moved up to the Sniper and MG Gunner, then showed them to be ready, stating, "This is gonna take us a sec…"
Distant lights in the sky drew closer. Cylon warbirds moved toward them, with Melissa murmuring, "Fuck's sake, Perconte, hurry your fat ass up," as she looked at the Sniper, who went in second-to-last. The man wanted to flip the bird at the girl, but she jumped in next and stopped him from doing so…
Sighing in relief as they managed to get in, they hid when the two birds overhead flew in for a low pass and Melissa whispered, "Cutting it fucking close. Let's move, people," as she motioned for the team to move down the sloping tunnel ahead. Though there were no visible lights as power was off, the team had their VISR systems, meaning night was nowhere near as dark as it should've been.
The slope was light, though. The tunnel itself was a concrete archway that led down to a lower level several more feet below-ground and underneath the hangar. When they entered through a door, they found what looked like a server room, towers of interconnected electronics active and alive, with a generator attached for power.
"This is it?" The Sniper asked, toting an SMG with a silencer, "A fuckin' server room?"
"Transmission's coming from a few more feet below," The Sergeant spoke as he scanned the room. He walked over to the other side, finding a door and propping it open, only to reveal a series of underground corridors. They were surprisingly well-maintained, looking a bit like a research base hallway area instead of a standard underground tunnel.
What was more concerning? The blood smears on the walls. The ODSTs filed out and set up a perimeter, checking the door immediately opposite the server room. The walls were smeared with blood and marked by bullet holes. So was the floor. The grates below, that presumably drained into the sewers, were runny with congealed red.
The blood wasn't fresh, either. Some of the drag marks looked old. The blood had browned, iron inside having oxidized in the air. The squad pushed forward, weapons at the ready and VISR systems on. Their motion trackers spotted nothing but themselves as they advanced past doors, opening them and peering inside.
Though there was blood, there were no decomposing bodies, nor any sign of their existence. The faint smell of iron did come through their helmets' rebreathers, but it was off-putting instead of rancid. Melissa quipped, "El-Tee, we've got a lot of blood, but not a lot of bodies… Don't blame it on me, though…"
The uneasy laughs at the joke told her all she needed to know. Holden himself replied, " No bodies up here, but there sure are a lot of bullet holes. I don't think our Toaster friends were gonna use this place much… " and she had to agree with that. The teams went quiet again as they advanced deeper into the compound and down a set of stairs.
More hallways, though the one they had just entered had very few doors and one reinforced bulkhead at the end. Melissa, however, gagged the moment she saw what was around said bulkhead door. Decomposing human corpses gathered around the foot-thick armored door, the marks of fingernail scrapes against the metal visible from even here.
Multiple corpses had bullet holes. Dozens still had claw marks, as if they were cut down from behind, up-close. The Sniper spoke, "Jesus fucking Christ…" as she shined her SMG's flashlight onto the corpses. Yeah, they were decomposing alright. And something was awful wrong about this place. The Sharpshooter blanked, turned around and asked, "Did you say something, Apone?"
"Nah," He shook his head, "Why?"
"... Fuck…" Mumbled the girl.
As if the corpse pile wasn't bad enough, all of them thought.
Melissa sighed and said, "And that's where the transmission's coming from. This is like a bad Horror Movie," before she showed the team to form up. They secured the rest of the hallway and the adjacent rooms, same as upstairs, before walking toward the door. It was mechanically locked, meaning they could technically open it somehow.
Melissa, being the demo expert, decided their best option was Thermite, to melt the locks. However, when she started setting it up under the others' guard, a thump echoed from within. She blanked as her motion tracker picked up the movement. A grey, unidentified dot. She waited and waited, then moved to set up the charges again.
" Help " a voice spoke in a whisper, causing her to stagger, and yet another thump echoed. She looked around for the door's control mechanism, digging through each hole while the others demanded to know what she was doing. When she did find the mechanical lock release, which was built within the frame of the door, she hit it hard enough she could swear she dented it.
With a sickening series of crunches, the door slid open, crushing corpses underneath itself. The ODSTs near it aimed their weapons inside, only to suddenly stagger as they were blasted with a wave of energy. Ahead of them, blooming like a blue flower, a strange alien artifact pulsated with a dark, headache-inducing energy.
It glowed blue and spoke to the soldiers. It spoke in alien tongues, lost to time, tongues they didn't understand. Melissa staggered, feeling her mind fighting against whatever it was doing. When she looked down, she saw what was thumping away at the door… In the frame of a human, but with the face of the dead, what was once a beautiful woman stared at her with mechanical, soulless eyes. Pipes and machinery poked through her body. She glowed blue…
Melissa swallowed, feeling blood running from her nose. She grit her teeth, drew her pistol and shot the alien woman as she grabbed at her, then, with all the strength she had in her, she threw the sticks of thermite at the alien machine. The alien voice screamed, causing her to fall to her knees, a headache now radiating as a full-body, sharp pain.
She plucked up her detonator as her ears started ringing, then stared at whatever eldritch shitscape was doing this to them… And clicked it twice. The Thermite hissed and ignited. It began to burn through the shimmering blue alien alloy, searing through it, melting it, fusing it together. The Machine let out one last, terrifying scream…
Then, when the Thermite ceased and the machine died, so did its screams. Melissa coughed violently, feeling the acrid taste of bile in the back of her throat. She ripped her helmet off and retched, crawling on all fours. When she was done emptying her stomach of her lunch, she called out hoarsely, "Everyone alive!? Sound off!"
The entire team did, thank the maker. She grit her teeth as the Sergeant said, "Good job, MacKay…" in a murmur. He took his own helmet off, staring at the fused-together lump of metal that was the alien machine, then stated, "I don't think Halsey's gonna like the fact we broke a new toy…" then he looked down at the corpse of the woman Melissa had domed, "... Or that. Whatever the fuck it is."
"Doesn't matter…" She replied, still hoarse, then stood up and rubbed her eyes. Lifting her helmet and sliding it back on after wiping her mouth, she spoke, "Bravo Six-Six to Actual, we've… Found whatever the fuck was transmitting. It was hostile and now it's dead. Get us that EVAC back to base if you can…"
" Working on it, but we've got a bit of a… Cylon… Situation, " The man replied… Great. What now?
Well, when the squad moved out upstairs, taking the stairwell to the top level and exiting out into the hangar, they could immediately see an enemy unit had arrived in the area. Though, surprisingly, the Cylon Centurions marched forward with handheld rifles. Leading them, even more surprisingly, was what one could only describe as a human at first:An elderly man clad in a black suit, with a black fedora.
He spoke, "I don't suppose I will be able to thank whoever disabled that infernal noisemaker down here in person, will I?" as the automata around him cocked their weapons. Melissa scoffed. The bastard was obviously a human Cylon, just by demeanor alone. And the way he spoke, rather condescendingly, when addressing them again, "Very well. Have it your way," then turned his head and said, "Search the area. If you find anything, do to it what you did to the people below. I've got a meeting to attend to now."
Melissa scoffed. Out of the frying pan and into the god-damned fire…