All the little lost boys and girls (Update: 26/5/12)

[AgentPalpatine]

In previous portions of the story, we have seen references to the "old" Imperial technology, and Halos were tied to the Imperial regime prior to it's fall. The Planning Board has been around since the Imperial era, and Halos have gone to serious efforts to keep those ties quiet.

Silence is presumed to have sufficient firepower to "resolve" the DROP, "silence" any witnesses to a 600 year old secret, and to depart with whatever the planning board wants to retrieve. The agent is aware that the DROP has a warship parked outside.

Silence almost has to be an old Imperial warship that was kept intact at the end of the war, and carefully kept in reserve for this exact sort of issue, an "ace in the hole", so to speak. If Silence has enough firepower to get past the defenses, deliever sufficient personel to clean out the DROP, all without detection, then Silence must be extremely powerful, which would be in keeping with the known level of Imperial technology.

I seem to recall another story, since removed from SD.Net, involving a secret group that kept super-warships on hand to clean up messes. I think they were called "Secondary Asset Tracking" or something along those lines.

Bladed_Crescent, I also miss the Children of Heaven series. I was wondering if you could send out some quick stories set in that 'verse, possibly the "Omega Files", stories of the secret war waged in the darkest reaches of space. Not sure if that would cause any issues for your publishing rights.

[Darth Nostril]

My best guess was that his beloved creations are the eyes in the dark, doing their best to contain the infection aboard the DROP.
Until Bladed dropped those hints that they are raiding outside the Mists, maybe they're not so benevolent anymore.

[Swindle1984]

On a side note, I'm sitting in a huge, empty auditorium waiting for my next class.

There are two glass windows looking into empty rooms (one's an observation room, the other a projection room), both of which have been locked and unoccupied for years, judging from the amount of dust and the dates on the notebook I can see inside. One is right behind me.

The A/C vent above me literally sounds like someone breathing through a respirator or gas mask. It's got a weird, wheezy inhalation-exhalation thing going on. I could try to record it, but I don't think my mic would pick it up.

I also left graffiti of my own on the chalkboard at the front of the auditorium.



I'm easily amused.

[Swindle1984]

She had no time, the enemy were right behind them.
This isn't DnD where you've always got time to loot the corpses, in this world you've got to keep moving to stay alive.

If you've got time to apologize, explain, and then make a posthumous promise to his corpse, you've got time to be grabbing magazines off his cooling body while you talk.

[avatarxprime]

I have to say Bladed_Crescent this is a wonderful story. I really admire your writing talent.

Besides complementing you I also wanted to put some theories down on the mysteries of DROP 47.

So, we know there are the 3 big projects, the F-2, R-3, and I-series and they relate to Umbra, the Obelisks, and the "sliver".

First, there was the Obelisk. Discovered by Hadley-Wright and shipped off to DROP 47 once they let the Imperium know what they found. The Obelisk was the beginning. More than one exists based on commentary throughout the flashback chapters. Next, there was the discovery of Umbra by the Razorback. Umbra was found within the Mists themselves, possibly on one of the hypothetical planets rumored to exist in the Mists. At some point during this time (likely before the first Obelisk was found) Imperial scientists discovered the Disruption field that pervades the Mists. This disruption field represents the link between the Mists, the Obelisks, Umbra and the sliver. They all share it, with each being capable of producing a stronger one than the item before it (not 100% on where the sliver fits in though).

What's interesting is that apparently the Obelisk and Umbra (at least) can enter an "active" state where they produce a vastly stronger field than normal. The field itself is capable of vastly reducing the effectiveness of technology based sensors caught within its area of effect. This effect on technology can also be dampened with technology, DROP 47 had technology which repelled the disruption field, as referenced in flashbacks. The field also has the ability to generate increased aggression and feelings of madness in most living beings. This can also be hindered through the use of medication (further assisted by the repelling field), but this is not described as a permanent solution. The mental destabilizing effects of the field appear to correlate with exposer. The longer the subject is exposed the more off-the-deep-end they go. When removed from exposure they return to normal (the rate at which this happens is unknown).

This mental effect is important because it relates to the first of the 3 secret projects, the mystery of F-2. The oldest of the projects, the F project appears to have revolved around study of the sliver, and to a lesser extent the Obelisks and Umbra (once the sliver had been discovered/extracted/recovered). Called F-type contamination in the flashbacks the mental instability effect of the disruption field was considered something with serious military applications all by itself. The F-type contamination becomes far more interesting however when the R-type is introduced.

With that, let's move on to just what is R-3. Headed up by Senior Researcher Black, R was all about developing and refining the R-type infection. Exposure to this infection results in the development of the Turned/Ribbons. Whether the R-type can function without the F-type or vice versa to create a Ribbon is currently unknown. The only straight forward reference to R-type infection is that when combined with the R-type, the changes brought on by F-type contamination are considered irrevocable. Whether this means that sufficient exposure to F-type contamination on its own will result in a Turned or whether that simply creates the altered mental state and requires R-type infection to produce the physical changes is unknown.

R-type infection results in vast physical alterations to the body of the infected individual. In most cases they lose all previous sense of identity and succumb to a feral, animal-like state. Larger and older types of the Turned/Ribbons seem to develop greater intelligence. An exception to this appears to be the recently (by all accounts from the available material) are the "Crying girl" strain. They seem to experience the smallest degree of physical alteration and retain some amount of intellect and individual personality. Leviathan type Ribbons seem to be controllers, or at least have some semblance of leadership over whichever Turned frequent their "garden." Other known types include flying infectors (the bat-winged things), Praetorians, hunters/stalkers, scouts, and the flytrap. They appear to be creating their own ecosystem and present some form of intelligence. Whether that intelligence is highly directed or some kind of emergent phenomenom remains to be seen.

Now, that just leaves the I-project. Up to the I-7 series by the Fall of DROP 47, this project was headed up by Everett Hayes, Shannon's great-grandfather (most likely, the author might still throw some kinda curveball at us). Both the I and R projects were developed as a result of discoveries made by studying Umbra. This is interesting because the I-series and R-types seem to be complementary. Whereas R-types are the madness induced by the Obelisks et al made flesh, the I-series are all immune to the effects of Umbra and the like, and instead are used to kill the Turned. However, they do have there own built-in desire to kill and eat everything. It is unknown where this is natural to them or bred into them as a result of Imperial intervention (the desires have been referenced as both directives and instincts), but they can be controlled/repressed through force of will. Senior Researcher Hayes taught the I-7s to NOT eat human flesh.

The I-series seem to have been designed to counter the R-types. This is interesting since the information to create both came from Umbra, so whatever civilization created Umbra and the other mystery constructs likely used all of the above as some kind of WMD. The I-series are believed to be immune to R-type infection as well as the mental instability created by exposure to F-type contamination.

The I-7s, and there descendants, are most likely the Eyes in the Dark (EITD). They possess control of Vigil (DROP 47's AI) as would be expected based on Hayes' final actions. They are technologically very advanced, which fits with them having taken control of and then improving upon Imperial tech. The hunters are referred to having to needing to suppress the desire to eat humans, something Hayes tried to instill in his "children" as seen in Chapter 1 with him being pleased to hear no one was feeding. The EITD do, however, feed on Ribbons. They go so far as to consider them a delicacy. This fits in with the I-series being meant to fight off the R-types. The EITD also possess a counter-agent for use on Ribbons. In an earlier flashback chapter (Chpt 12 I believe) they make reference to trying to develop a counter-agent to F-type contamination.

My best guess was that his beloved creations are the eyes in the dark, doing their best to contain the infection aboard the DROP.
Until Bladed dropped those hints that they are raiding outside the Mists, maybe they're not so benevolent anymore.

I wouldn't be so hasty. The EITD refer to a person they call Father, with Father telling them to stay in the Mists where it is safe since the New Ones would pose a threat to them without the Mists affecting their minds (likely due to them being so small in number). This fits in with what we know about Hayes and what he wanted for his "children." Also, they are probably raiding ships outside of the Mists in order to get parts/food/whatever else since 600 years is a long time to keep mining away at the resources of a DROP, even one as big as 47. That's probably why they are so concerned over "the birth" and getting them to happen faster. Each birth is probably a reproductive cycle of crafting the next batch of EITD, or possibly their shipborne technology given the talk of Hephasteus Engine. They do talk about the "Attendants" having such limited supplies to work with based on the Reavers' predation which they need to remain secret.

That's all for now, I have some other thoughts bouncing around about all of the mysteries of DROP 47 (the Imperial/Mist-related ones at least), but I think I'll hold off till we get a bit more information or some line of discussion makes it feel more germane.

[Bladed_Crescent]

Wow, quite a lot to respond to. A lot of guesses and theories, too. I'll try to hit the salient points, but I'll probably miss some. As a quick overview, most of you are way off base. Some of you aren't. And therein lies the rub, yes?

Surely the Planning Board is after the instructions on how to make the supersoldier types mentioned as the goal of the research in the flashback to when the place was operating, or one of the attempts in an effort to backwards engineer their own.

That theory begs a question. I don't think I'll be telling you what that question is, though...

One assumes that Silence is some sort of stealthy long-term observation ship with a team or former team of specialists aboard.

One would then have to ignore the fact that this is the first time the Planning Board has authorized the use of Silence, then. It's its first time out of the playpen, so to speak. If it were a ship and were to be deployed in the manner you suggest, it would be fairly useless fairly quickly. (Even if we assume it's fully automated, remember that what the Mists are known for is their unrelenting and unerring ability to fuck up mechanical/'electronic' systems)

My vote for the agent is Emily, based on her having hidden evidence of another of her team having been there - the patch she found in the tribe's trophy room, which she knew Shannon would recognise.

I guess we'll have to see, won't we? I'll try to make the reveal suitably surprising*.

*ah heh. Ah heh heh heh heh.

I can't help but think the original researcher is still somehow involved with the entire affair.

If by "involved" you mean something akin to his legacy, then yes. Otherwise, Darth Nostril's summation of Everett Hayes's fate is on the mark.

The person who put him out of his misery refers to him as her father, which I assume is not literal but it may be.

That person is entrusted with 'saving' the rest of his 'children' and I think it's reasonable to think that she or her descendants will at some point encounter at least part of the main group.

Oh, I think you can rest assured of that.

Heh.

There's also the suggestion that Halos can go really, really wrong under the right circumstances, which I'd like to see more on.

Oh, you have no idea.

The Planning Board has been around since the Imperial era, and Halos have gone to serious efforts to keep those ties quiet.

Actually, Halo's association with the Imperium is well-known. It's not something they advertise, but all you have to do is crack a history textbook to find that out. They built weapons for Earth, remember. Really fucking scary weapons. *cough* Sin Eater *cough*

After their conquest/liberation/annexation (currently, they're an independent star nation; no other state controls Halo territories) at the Coalition's hands, they were in a bit of a bind, but they've been on their best behaviour ever since and haven't really done much with their technology (we'll get a look at why next chapter). They'd never use it for themselves (and if they did, every other nation in the galaxy would freak the fuck out - there'd be little chance of Halo and its handful of systems gaining any ground before thousands upon thousands of nations pounded it flat).

Remember, Halo never wanted conquest for themselves or had any ambitions of it* - they supported the Imperium because they believed that Earth would be victorious and helping them win as quickly as possibly would reduce the death toll in the long run. Of course, that's a fine hair to split with the people who've had hundreds of millions and more killed by the weapons you designed...

Bladed_Crescent, I also miss the Children of Heaven series. I was wondering if you could send out some quick stories set in that 'verse, possibly the "Omega Files", stories of the secret war waged in the darkest reaches of space. Not sure if that would cause any issues for your publishing rights.

I don't either; hence why I've flip-flopped on trying to decide whether or not to post some short, non-main plotline stories.

My best guess was that his beloved creations are the eyes in the dark, doing their best to contain the infection aboard the DROP.
Until Bladed dropped those hints that they are raiding outside the Mists, maybe they're not so benevolent anymore.

That would presume that they were ever benevolent.

And I've got a future chapter (had it on back-burner for 20+ chapters) all but done that will be a little more than a hint, oh yes.

If you've got time to apologize, explain, and then make a posthumous promise to his corpse, you've got time to be grabbing magazines off his cooling body while you talk.

I came up with a list of reasons why this doesn't follow, but I'll condense it down to the two major points:
-Calvin was already ammo critical long before he reached the top; he didn't have anything worth taking
-you're assuming that the person in this scenario is a wholly rational actor, unencumbered by pesky things like emotion, sentimentality and not being more than slightly crazy

A lot

Nope.

Well, to expand on that: You've got some interesting theories in there and a good collation of the hints and information I've been putting out, but it seems DROP 47's secrets still remain hidden, for now. Rest assured, we'll find out more about the R-types and I-series and the respective roles their creators wanted them to play.

Dun dun dun.

Next chapter should be up some time today.

[Bladed_Crescent]

Day three, and you know you'll never be free.

Coming up: in space, they can hear you scream.

Chapter 40:

Day Three:

He didn’t look well.

That was an understatement, really. Hooked up to several IVs and wrapped in bandages and regen swathes, Petty Officer Jason Veers was far from the picture of health. His skin had turned waxy and pale and, despite his injuries and the sedatives he’d been pumped full of, he was twitching and fidgeting. They’d had to give him tranquilizers – he hadn’t been able to sleep and when he had, more often than not, he’d suffer from night terrors, calling out for Mackenzie. Even now, every so often, he’d whimper her name.

The woman chewed on her lip as she watched the medical feed on her datapad. Primal had decent software security, but ‘decent’ wasn’t good enough when pitted against her equipment. She skimmed over the preliminary medical reports, shifting her attention between those and watching Veers. Normally, he’d only be at the first stage, but it hadn’t been any simple R-type that had bitten him: it had been an infection form. Those had been among the first variants to develop and they carried a particular strain of the R-series – one which didn’t follow the normal pathology. That made the petty officer’s condition doubly dangerous, especially since there was no hard data on an infector-form’s R-series. There were suggestions, educated guesses and assumptions, yes. But nothing concrete.

She drummed her fingers on one leg, thinking. It wouldn’t be too hard to come up with an excuse to visit the frigate’s medical bay and causing a glitch in the monitor systems would also be relatively easy. It was the human element that was the problem. Veers wasn’t in quarantine – until there was some sign of communicable disease, he wouldn’t be – but he was under constant observation. As far as most of the expedition knew, he’d only been mauled by some animal. As far as the upper echelon knew, he’d been attacked by feral survivors. And by the time anyone knew differently, it would be too late.

This shouldn’t have happened.

The woman allowed herself a brief moment to again curse her associate’s overzealousness. They should have been expanding further; instead – with the exception of a few damage control parties and the teams searching for Mackenzie – Colonel Paclan had insisted that his troops reinforce a perimeter within the hangar and its surrounding sections. They would have encountered the R-types regardless, but they should have done so on their terms, and definitely not so early.

Well. It wasn’t all bad; Paclan’s plan to more thoroughly secure the hangar would provide better a better bulwark against attack. Most attacks, the woman corrected herself. The downside to that was that if anything attempted to breach those defences, Primal’s commanders would surely try to report that back to Artemis HQ.

She couldn’t allow that. DROP 47 was too important. Even if it cost her her own life, the station’s secrets could not get out until she was sitting in the command core and Silence was on its way. Until she and her benefactors had the station in their hands. And until that moment came, she was expendable. Just like everyone else here.

Still... it was tempting to drop an anonymous message or fudge of the test results enough to get Veers put into isolation – but that would only make her job harder. Yes, causing a malfunction in the quarantine system would be easy. Unfortunately, it would be the kind of ‘easy’ that would get noticed by Primal. True, attention was preferable to letting Veers’s condition progress, but only if there was no way to do it clandestinely.

She’d just have to see how things progressed and wait for the right oppurtunity.

~

Jonas Mandell was craving a roll of red mist right about now. Instead, Primal’s Chief Medical Officer rummaged into his pockets for a packet of gum, popping one of the minty shells out of its blister and chewing on it intensely. “I don’t God-damned know,” he said at last.

Daisy Luttenbaker looked up from her reports. “Don’t know what?”

The doctor pushed himself away from his own desk. “I don’t God-damned know what’s happening to him,” he said at last, looking through the window that allowed Primal’s small medical staff to look out on the handful of beds that made up the frigate’s ICU. Currently, only one was occupied.

“It’s a miracle he didn’t bleed out by the time the Ables got him back here,” Mandell said, chewing savagely on his gum. “We got him transfused, we patched the holes in his organs, re-inflated a collapsed lung, shot him full of antibiotics, antivirals, immune boosters and nanohealers and every known preventative short of a bleeding which leeches.”

The nurse nodded. “Yes...”

Jonas stabbed a finger at his assistant. “So you tell me why something’s chewing him up from the inside out. Something that’s survived every damn thing modern medicine can throw at it.”

“He’s improved, somewhat. We’ve slowed it down.”

“Yeah. Good. Fifty thousand credits’ worth of medical care and we’ve ‘slowed down’ some fucking bug.” Mandell popped a second piece of gum into his mouth. “Fucking Imperium.”

Luttenbakker blinked. “You think this is Imperial?”

“Well, what the hell else would it be? We’re right smack-dab in the middle of Candy-fucking-land, Daisy. The place that no one ever thought existed in a place no one in their right mind wanted to go. What kind of work do you think the Imperials were doing here? I’ll tell you,” he said before Luttenbaker could get a word in. “The kind of work that even they were afraid of.”

Mandell chewed on his gum for a few moments. Veers was running a fever that should be cooking his organs and shutting them down, but his system was in hyperdrive. Even under the sedatives, his metabolism was higher than normal. Heart rate, respiration – even his spleen and bone marrow were pumping out a torrent of blood cells and lymphocytes. Everything had been cranked up to eleven, and even with the high-nutrient drip they’d put Veers on, his body couldn’t sustain that kind of stress for long. Sooner or later, he’d crash.

And there was no way Mandell could see to stop it. He’d run blood screenings and was carrying out metagenomic analyses looking for the agent that was doing this. He’d found something, all right.

But he had no fucking clue what it was, how it was doing what it was doing, or how to kill it.

In the meantime, all he could do was throw money, time and medicine at it to slow it down. “Well, as long as he’s out, I suppose we’d better run another body scan. Let’s get him into the IMSIS.” Daisy nodded and headed out of the office to prep Veers for the procedure. Mandell stayed a moment longer, finally letting out a defeated, mint-flavoured breath.

Money, time and medicine. All he could do.

That, and hope he didn’t run out of gum.

~

“Yep, it’s a hull breach.”

Peter Weiss swore. “I don’t get it. This entire section was perfectly pressurized yesterday.”

His work partner, Lloyd Loblaw, looked down at Weiss and shrugged. There was still enough air in this section to be breathable, but both men were wearing clear plastic oxygen masks and vacuum-proof gloves, their once-spotless white-and-blue uniforms bearing shoulder patches indicating that they were part of Hadley-Wright’s technical specialist division. Not just engineers – Weiss himself was more of a scientist, holding advanced degrees in archaeological engineering, with a specialty in Imperial systems. Loblaw didn’t have as rarefied a pedigree as his partner, but the dark-skinned engineer had been one of the first technical teams aboard the Nightingale and one of the few survivors of that debacle.

ITS Nightingale, registry number 12-77459-83, had been an Imperial Solace-class hospital ship. Big, expensive and well-equipped, Solaces were also quite capable of doubling as mobile medical research facilities. In the latter phase of the war, this potential – coupled with their lack of defences – had made them favoured targets of Coalition raiders. There had never been a proven incident of a Solace – indeed of any Imperial hospital ship – carrying out bioweapons research, though some had claimed that that just meant the Imperials were careful about concealing or destroying evidence. Coupled with rumours of Imperial medical ships being sighted around planets experiencing outbreaks of plague, the Coalition had decided to... revise its rules of engagement when it came to Imperial shipping, much to the chagrin and disgust of the ‘Founding Three’.

In Weiss’s opinion, seeing medical ships around neutral planets (or hostile worlds that their governments couldn’t respond to in time) wasn’t quite as nefarious as the Coalition’s version of history claimed. In fact, it was probably equal parts humanitarian motive and obvious political maneuver intended to garner support or deprive the Coalition of it. For all its faults, the Imperium had actually – and frequently – done decent things for people who weren’t part of its core systems. Sadly, this fact tended to be overlooked by most historians – though perhaps not unjustifiably so, since Earth did launch a war that killed trillions and conquered nearly a quarter of the galaxy before they were defeated.

Whatever the reason though, Coalition fleet command had looked the other way while its advance guards were shooting down hospital ships. The Nightingale was one such unlucky vessel; beset upon by several Coalition destroyers, the hospital ship had suffered severe damage to its stardrive and, it was assumed, had been destroyed when it activated its slip systems.

Twenty years ago, a deep-range prospector had discovered the iced-over hulk of ITS Nightingale, three thousand light years from its last known position. The damaged drive hadn’t warped the ship into oblivion, but it had malfunctioned, killing most of the crew and passengers as it slipped, further crippling the vessel’s major systems. Primary engines, communications, main power and life support had gone out – it was only Imperial technology’s robustness and redundancy that had kept Nightingale running on backups and batteries. A Coalition vessel would have been destroyed by the slip... and any that had somehow held together through it wouldn’t have had any operational systems left.

That had been little comfort to the surviving crew who died, drifting through a ship no longer capable of creating its own gravity, freezing as the heat leaked out of their gashed hull, gasping as their air ran out and their damaged environmental systems were incapable of replenishing either.

Despite its state, few intact Imperial ships had ever been recovered and a multi-national salvage operation was immediately launched. Which almost immediately bogged down in bickering, internecine strife, theft and sabotage, culminating when the Azure Sphere launched a lightning raid and ran a half-dozen destroyers through the blockade, blasting Nightingale and the five hundred men and women of the survey and technical teams aboard her into atoms. Such was the way of things now. Rather than risk their enemies getting some decisive edge, a nation would rather destroy finds like Nightingale. Still others did it out of reflexive hatred out of all things Imperial, sometimes extending this revulsion to anything from Earth. Priceless artworks smashed and burned, expatriate families hounded and killed. The Argosy Republic was even suspected to have discovered and destroyed a fully-functional Lethe-class dreadnaught. A Lethe! Only the Acherons had been more powerful, and only a handful of those had been built before the Imperium’s final collapse.

Too much history had been lost to fear and hatred. Too many secrets.

The Halos had been wise to stay quiet since the Imperium’s fall. There were plenty of nations who coveted their technology and knowledge, but there were others who wanted to make sure nobody else had it or could ever use it against them. The possibility of someone getting their hands on another Sin Eater was too great, too terrifying. Everyone wanted one, but just as much nobody wanted their neighbours to have one, either.

That was why Hadley-Wright had to be so careful here. DROP 47 – the last outpost of Earth. Broken, yes. But it was still here. It still worked. And if anyone else decided that it needed to stay in the past...

“What do you expect?” Loblaw’s question interrupted Weiss’s reverie. “No one’s been doing proper maintenance on this brick for more ‘n’ half a thousand years. Bits are coming off, popping out...”

Weiss snorted. “Sounds like my first wife.”

Lloyd chuckled. “Really? Sounds like my third.” He pointed to a ceiling panel, a grated vent cover large enough for a man to climb into. “Here. The air’s getting pulled through here. There’s probably a breach in the vent siding somewhere, opening right into one of the cracked sections.” He set up a stepladder and climbed up, examining the vent. “Shouldn’t be too hard to take this off. Then – damn, but I hate crawling – just squeeze in and seal the crack. Air’s dropping too slowly for a major breach.”

“Well, hurry up then,” Weiss replied, checking his PDS. “Franks wants us to move into the lower annex. There’s some power flow that indicates the capture webs there are still running.”

“That’s a hell of a thing to leave on,” Lloyd mumbled as he pulled out a screwdriver, the bit whining as it tugged at the rusted screws holding the vent cover in place. “Why the hell are the tractors still working? I mean – yeah, I know Imp tech’s s’posed to be the best there is and everything, but those are pretty complex systems. On Nightingale, they were completely worthless.”

“Some of the landed ships have severe stress fractures from being webbed,” Weiss pointed out. “You only get that kind of damage when the ship fights against the tractor.”

Loblaw paused, looking back at his companion. “That’s a hell of a thing,” he muttered.

“Yeah.”

“Uh... right. So, hull breach.” The engineer pulled down the vent, handing to Weiss. “Just hold that a moment, wouldja? I have to get my ass in here.” He patted his tool kit. “Uh... now where did I put that fuckin’ patch?”

Peter was already holding the patch kit out to his partner. Most of his fellow educated specialists would have objected to being paired with the less-than-refined Loblaw. Weiss didn’t; though Lloyd’s saltier language (and shaky grasp of proper enunciation) shone through more often than not, he was an honest sort of man. Dealing with his fellow academics and their cut-throat approach to politics and publishing rights had worn on Peter, leading to his departure from academia. In joining Haldey-Wright, he thought he’d find a environment free of back-biting. Unfortunately, it was much the same, only instead of fights over funding, grants and sneering at each other’s research, the megacorp’s people seemed just as determined to scramble over each others’ backs, like rats escaping rising waters.

“Thanks, Pete,” Loblaw grunted, again forgetting that Weiss hated having his name shortened. Lloyd climbed up the stepladder’s last few rungs, lifting himself up into the vent. Weiss heard the other man’s elbows and knees banging on the walls of the air shaft as he settled himself into position. “You got me?”

Peter nodded, checking Lloyd’s tracker sig against his schematics. “I got you. Thirty meters straight, then twenty to your right. That’s a flow valve for Embarkation Three. It’s vented, so the valve might have sprung open a little.”

“That sounds about right. Air flow’s moving in that direction.” Loblaw grunted as he pulled himself through the tunnel. “Should have gotten a maintenance bot to do this.”

“You can always ask Halsey to change her mind.” To keep every survey team from running off with one of the expedition’s limited supply of mechanical assistants and leaving none available in case of emergencies, Director Veronica Halsey had restricted the use of drones – the bots would only be released for work on vital systems or jobs too dangerous for a human to do.

Primal had its own supply of combat, scouting and repair automatons, but the mercenaries were following a similar procedure – they’d deployed scouting droids to examine and clear out several of the passageways leading into the hangar, but were holding onto their supply of drones just as tightly as Halsey was managing Hadley-Wright’s stock.

Loblaw grunted. “I’d have a better chance of finding an actual Predecessor ruin.”

A few minutes passed as Lloyd elbowed his way to the junction and patched up the breach. “There, that should just about – now, what’s this?”

“What’s what?”

“It’s a – I don’t know what it is,” Loblaw’s voice clicked through the comm. “We have anyone else working in this area?”

“I don’t think so,” Weiss pulled up the day’s work orders. “Nothing’s scheduled. Why?”

“I think I can hear someone moving around.”

“Too big to be a rat?”

“Too big to be a rat.”

“Okay, let me check.” Peter switched channels. “Control, this is Weiss, Team Twenty-One.”

“Control here, go ahead Twenty-One.”

“Is there anyone in...” Weiss rattled off the section. “We’re dealing with the hull breach and Loblaw says he hears movement in the vents. He doesn’t think it’s vermin.”

There was a brief spat of muffled conversation before Control came back on. “Stand by, Twenty-One. We’re sending Baker Three and Four to your position.”

Weiss relayed the information to Loblaw. “You sure that’s a good idea? What if it’s that missing PO?” Lloyd questioned.

“What if it’s not?” The mercenaries weren’t saying anything about what had happened to their man, but the rumours were flying. Something had torn that petty officer up and it was still out there. For his money, he was betting that it was probably the offspring of someone’s pets, long since gone feral on the station. Of course, that also brought up the question of what they’d been eating in the interim and what happened to their owners...

A chill went up Weiss’s spine, one that had nothing to do with the cool, thin air in the chamber.

“Yeah,” Loblaw’s voice clicked back. “Wait. It’s getting closer.”

“Lloyd?”

“It doesn’t... it doesn’t sound right. I think I should... yeah, I think it’s time to go.”

Weiss’s comm crackled. “Peter, this is Ilsa.”

“Go ahead.”

“You guys aren’t in the lower annex, are you? We’re getting movement and our watchdogs want to pull us back.”

Peter frowned. “No, we got diverted for a patch job on Deck 27. We haven’t gotten down below yet.” He paused. “We’re hearing something in the vents, too.”

“Uh...” Ilsa’s voice trailed off. “Yeah, uh... I think we’ll be heading back to Primal. See you in a few.”

“Yeah, okay.”

~

“Sir,” one of the control station staff looked up, turning to catch the captain’s attention. “The outer perimeter’s picking up hits. Teams and sensor stations.”

Captain Darryl Shelby rotated his command chair towards the panel of status monitors set onto the rear of Primal’s bridge. “What kind of hits?” he inquired.

“Motion, sir. Lots of motion. We can’t localize half of it, but it seems to be on almost every front.”

“Direction?”

“Straight towards us.”

Shelby stood, striding over to the bank of situation monitors. The rating was correct. But that was – it should have been – impossible. “Notify the colonel immediately. Tell our teams to prepare for contact and pull the civilians back aboard the ship, now.” As he watched the plethora of contact markers on the sensor board, something unpleasant trickled though Darryl’s gut.

He was a ship-driver, not a mudfoot like Colonel Paclan. Anything to do with infantry tactics or groundside strategy was well outside his area of expertise – but he didn’t need any special training to see that this situation had just gotten a lot worse. “Ready the Ghosts,” he ordered. “Get them outside. Don’t wait for the colonel.”

This wasn’t a random encounter with some animal or long-lost survivor. It was an attack.

~

He could hear it behind him. Scrabbling and scratching of fingers against the metal of the vents, the heavy, liquid, gurgles of a phlegm-filled throat. It didn’t sound like anything Lloyd had ever heard before, and certainly not something that he wanted to hear now. Especially since it was getting closer.

“Pete,” he said. “The mercs close?”

“Very,” Weiss replied. “You?”

“Almost there. So’s this thing.”

Lloyd couldn’t hear whatever Peter said in response; the awful, spine-rending sound from the thing pursuing him drowned out all else: a deep, gargling moan, mindless and bestial, issued as it caught sight of him. He craned his head over his shoulder – no mean feat in the cramped air shaft – and saw the silhouette of something slithering towards him.

“Jesus Christ!”

The engineer pulled himself towards the vent, the glimmer of light only a few meters away, but it seemed like kilometers as he scrabbled with all his strength, hearing the hissing, moaning thing getting closer with every breath. Then: salvation. His hands found the lip of the open vent and he pulled himself to it. “It’s behind me!” he screamed, about to launch himself to safety-

-something grabbed his leg.

~

“We’ve got you!” Weiss was shouting, his hands tight around Lloyd’s wrist, trying to pull him free. One of the mercenaries had the engineer’s other hand as the second fired into the air shaft, trying to discourage whatever had taken a hold of Loblaw.

Lloyd was screaming: prayers, curses and pleading all blended into an inarticulate howl of terror and pain. Blood was spraying from his mouth, spattering the inside of his mask. Filthy dark liquid oozed out of the holes Baker Three’s bullets had made in the shaft casing, the hungry moans of the creature savaging Lloyd all but lost beneath the man’s own cries. There were other sounds coming from inside the vent, wet snaps and ripping and Lloyd was still screaming...

“Help me!” Loblaw howled the words through the tears and cries as his attacker fought for its prize. Lord in heaven, there was a full clip of bullets in the thing and it was still fighting them!

Baker Four and Weiss lurched as Loblaw was suddenly jerked several inches back into the shaft. It was fighting and winning. “Help me!” Lloyd screamed again, frothing at the mouth, his face all but hidden under the blood pooling in his mask. “Don’t let me go! Jesus Mary Joseph Allah it’s got me it’s got me-”

“Shoot it!” Peter shouted wildly, unable to think of anything else. They’d already shot it, it was still there! “For God’s sake, shoot it!”

“I am!” Baker Three snarled back, emptying another clip into the ceiling. “Fucking die already!”

Weiss was losing his grip, protesting arm muscles crying out in agony.

Sensing victory, the thing heaved again and Loblaw was dragged further back into the shaft. Weiss’s hands came free and staggered, making a leap for Lloyd’s outstretched gloved hands, but with only one foe pulling back, the thing lurched once more and Baker Four lost her grip as well.

Lloyd’s fingers caught on the lip of the open vent, the edges digging into his skin through his gloves. His eyes, wild with agony and terror, caught Peter’s for an instant before some twisted arm reached out and wrapped around the engineer’s face. “Help me! Help me! Please, Pete-” Loblaw screamed as he was pulled into the darkness, his final, plaintive cry devolving into something no human should have ever made.

“No! No!” Peter cried, unwilling to accept it. He dashed for the ladder, knocked over in the struggle. Why weren’t the mercenaries doing anything? “We have to go after him, we have to-”

Someone grabbed him, pulling him back. “We have to get out of here,” Baker Three was saying, his voice clicking through the speaker on his helmet. “We have to go.”

“We can’t leave him! We have to go back for-”

“Motion sensor’s gone wild,” the mercenary interrupted. “We’re getting hits across the perimeter. Two other teams have gone dark. We have to get out of here. Control’s ordering all teams back to the hangar. Whatever that thing is, it’s got friends.”

Without waiting for their charge to process this, Baker Three grabbed the scientist in a fireman’s carry. As he was hauled out of the chamber, Weiss was sure that he could still hear Lloyd screaming.

~

“War-war-warning,” the AI’s stuttering voice abruptly crackled from speakers and damaged comm systems, echoing through the hangar, catching the attention of every worker, scientist and soldier. “Biological con-contaminants. Ants. Detected in-in hangar-ar area. Area. Quarantine sys-systems in North-4 hangar-ar are n-n-non-operational. Please. Please evac-ac-ac-uate the area. The area. Immediately.”

A blare of static followed the announcement. Then, into the confused silence, a young woman’s giggle followed, her voice soft and playful. “Do you think I’m pretty?”

[Darth Nostril]

And the plot thickens

Oh for anyone in a deserted wrecked anything, be it gas station or space station: survival tip #2 Don't Look Back.

[Night_stalker]

Well, looks like DROP 47s welcoming committee is wasting no time at all.

Rule #3: when in doubt, empty the magazine.

[Darth Nostril]

Nope, rule #3 is Blow Shit Up.

Emptying magazines is for last ditch stands only, that's like #15, oh and remember to save a round for yourself because you are way beyond any hope of rescue.

[Bladed_Crescent]

And the plot thickens

Oh, there should be some more thickening coming...

...that, and a whole lot of bleeding and screaming.

Well, looks like DROP 47s welcoming committee is wasting no time at all.

Welcome to Acheron.

The staff will be with you shortly.

[chthonian]

This, right here, is serious awesome. Also, I'm not going to sleep now for about a week. But it's worth it.

One wonders why the Planning Board is so willing to throw humans into DROP 47. They seem to know at least something about its inhabitants; there must be some ulterior motive for them using clueless contractors and a few deep cover agents, as opposed to a whacking great transport, full of drones covered in armor covered in guns covered in yet more guns.

[AgentPalpatine]

It appears that the Planning Board is very very very conservative when it comes to deploying assets, particularly the level of assets required to deal with DROP 47, which has defenses that require an insider at the control center to effectively shut them down.

It also appears that the Planning Board requires "silence" from all parties (ie, termination) before they will commit to anything.

I'm hoping the Planning Board has an office "Secondary Asset Tracking"*

* I'm working from memory of Children of Heaven. I'm sure Bladed_Crescent will correct me if my reference is wrong.

[AgentPalpatine]

A thought occured to me on the existance of the Planning Board. I was working under the assumption that the Planning Board was Halo in orgin, sort of a shadow government (or an overt government). Since Halos are long-lived and appear to have a structured society, it would not be that surprising.

However, there are some points that suggest the Planning Board might not be Halo. It's operatives are not Halo citizens, their operatives show signs of decades of training, and since Halo is known to be full of pacifists, the training of these operatives may have been somewhere else.

A weak theory is that the Planning Board is the old Imperial government, a shadow organization waiting centuries to regain access to old imperial weapons and to rebuild the Empire. Also, we have a reference to the "founding three" (of the Imperium?) governments, and since Earth is gone, there might be a 3rd government we hav'nt heard from yet.

Like I said, a weak theory.

[LT.Hit-Man303]

Bladed_Crescent I have read what you have writen so far and I can tell you I'm most impressed by this story.
It is well thought out, the characters are well fromed and the setting is just right for a good SF/Horror story even though it's not quite up to my standards of horror/action it is none the less a very fine story.
So much so it has inspired the seeds of a simlure if more grim and bloody story in my mind.
You know you have the beganings of a good SF/Horror/Survival game in this story, make a few tweeks here and there so as not to use copyright matter and I think you would have a winner of a game.

I can't wait to read more.
LT.Hit-Man

[Bladed_Crescent]

One wonders why the Planning Board is so willing to throw humans into DROP 47. They seem to know at least something about its inhabitants; there must be some ulterior motive for them using clueless contractors and a few deep cover agents, as opposed to a whacking great transport, full of drones covered in armor covered in guns covered in yet more guns.

For the first question: obviously, they want something from it. Somethings, even. Which are worth spending a lot of lives and fortune over a great period of time. Now what, I wonder, is/are those something(s)?

And the Planning Board does know more than a bit about the drop, but as we've seen, their information isn't always up to date. Comes with the territory - if you can only insert agents into an area once every few years/decades, anything that comes out will of course be dated and not wholly reliable. Unfortunately, there's no easy remedy to this - they can't get more information without sending more expeditions - which is problematic for several reasons on its own.

i) expense - although hiring Artemis and financing the two main expeditions was change to Hadley-Wright, enough missions and that petty cash starts adding up really quickly

ii) public image - DROP 47 is, by and large, considered a myth - if it gets out that a company (whether a cat's-paw, cutout or active associate of the Planning Board) is throwing money away, it's not going to make them look all that good - imagine if Exxon started funding drilling rigs that were looking for Atlantis's buried ruins. "You're spending money on what?" This also leads into:

iii) attention (galactic) - remember, there is no longer any major unified galactic government. The Imperium is six hundred years dead and the Coalition broke apart shortly after. If one nation thinks 'hey, maybe there's something to this DROP 47 business', others won't be far behind - whether they want it for themselves or to destroy it. In either event, the last thing the Planning Board wants is for the myriad nations of the galaxy to realize that a, uh, "significant paradigm shift" is sitting in the proverbial backyard.

iv) attention (local) - this is also bad, and we'll get into why later in the story. As it is now, I think you'll be able to form your own ideas about that.

Now, for the second part: recall that "whacking great transports full of drones covered in armour and guns" have also been sent to DROP 47, both by the Planning Board and others crazy enough to roll the dice - Kerrigan noted the ship graveyard on their way into the bay, and there are doubtless more on the other docking arms and those that were destroyed and exist only as part of 47's debris field. There is also the Coalition warship and if anyone had any idea what to expect from the Imperium (and be armed accordingly), it would be the Coalition.

So, a huge-ass starship is no guarantee of success - in fact, I'd wager that more often than not large vessels tended to run afoul of clause iv...

It appears that the Planning Board is very very very conservative when it comes to deploying assets, particularly the level of assets required to deal with DROP 47, which has defenses that require an insider at the control center to effectively shut them down.

Quite so, some reasons for which are outlined above. As far as 47's defences go, that's part of it. The other is the necessary sending of an 'all clear' signal.

A weak theory is that the Planning Board is the old Imperial government, a shadow organization waiting centuries to regain access to old imperial weapons and to rebuild the Empire. Also, we have a reference to the "founding three" (of the Imperium?) governments, and since Earth is gone, there might be a 3rd government we hav'nt heard from yet.

Actually, the 'Founding Three' line refers to the founders of the Coalition. They're pretty much the archetypal characters from any TV/novel/comic series that require uniting many nations against the Evil EmpireTM. The starry-eyed idealist, sarcastic tech girl and world-weary mercenary... etc.

Bladed_Crescent I have read what you have writen so far and I can tell you I'm most impressed by this story.
It is well thought out, the characters are well fromed and the setting is just right for a good SF/Horror story even though it's not quite up to my standards of horror/action it is none the less a very fine story.

Thanks - glad you're enjoying the story.

[Bladed_Crescent]

Yes, I (and the story) still live. Vacation and birthday make for a slower pace of writing.

In this chapter, the survivors enter the outskirts infested region, slowly but steadily getting closer to their goal... as is something else.

Coming up: Primal finds itself under attack while treachery's afoot.

Chapter 41:

They knew, of course. In such close confines, it was impossible to hide Shannon’s momentary breakdown and as she stepped out of the control cab back into the passenger compartment, she could see that everyone’s attention was on her. Emily’s blue eyes were concerned, the petite woman looking as if she wanted to come to Shannon’s side, but was unsure of what she’d do or say when she. Louis’s hazel eyes were steady, but tired – all of them had been running on nothing but adrenalin for too long, but him most of all. It was in Lutzberg and Bujold’s stares that there was... something more than concern, more than uncertainty.

Behind Shannon, Abigail bristled like a loyal hound, staring down any challenge to her ‘little sister’. Shannon rested one hand on the Darkknell’s vambrace, smiling up at the taller woman. Abby nodded and stepped past the corporal, though she deliberately brushed against Bujold’s seat, the armour plate on her thigh scraping against the brittle plastic mould of the bench.

“We’re almost there,” Shannon said. “Nine, Four – we’ll secure the tram station. Once that’s done, the rest of you can disembark.”

~

Jane wrenched her blade from the twitching ruins of a scouting breed, the gleaming metal slick with foul blood. She’d turned off the disruptor field. It sang to her, hissing when it touched flesh, shrieking when it encountered metal or armour, fizzling and spitting when condensation on the cooling pipes above dripped onto it. But even unpowered, it still had a keening melody as it moved through the thick, humid air. As it cleaved through resisting meat and defiant bone, trails of dark, polluted blood streaking down its length.

Beautiful.

The trooper stood, leaving the hewn corpse-thing behind, already rebuilding itself. “Ghosts,” she said into her squad channel. “Respond.”

There was only the answering whisper of white noise.

“Respond,” she repeated, more forcefully.

Again, silence.

“Respond.”

“Alive?” a voice snapped back at her. Corporal Cynthia Black. “Lieutenant still alive?”

“Yes. The others?”

“Could be dead. Could be alive. Unknown. Lost contact when Kerrigan vented. Found station. Following directives. Not alone. Eyes in the dark are watching. Hunting.” Cynthia made a noise like some predatory animal. “Hunting.”

“Enough,” Godfrey interrupted. During their station on the DROP, Cynthia’s grasp of language had been slowly but surely eroding. “You remember our mission?”

“Yes. Seal the breach. Contain infection. Prevent spread. Too many carriers. At first.” A carrion-eater’s chuckle. “Not so many now. Lots of blood, lots of screaming. Not just from me. Finding kill sites. They fought back. Didn’t help. Many hunters out. Can’t be many left.”

“You remember our mission?” Jane repeated. “You’ll follow?”

A pause. “Yes. Will follow Lieutenant Godfrey.”

“Good. Continue hunting. Find survivors. Destroy only those you can confirm to be infected. Safeguard all others.”

Another pause. “That is not the mission,” Cynthia said, a note of challenge in her voice.

“It is now. New mission, corporal. Will you follow, or will I have to find you?”

Cynthia made another feral noise but acquiesced, a predator bowing its neck to the pack’s alpha. “Will follow.”

“Confirm your orders, Six.”

“Hunt. Kill infected. Protect others.”

“Good. Move towards Northern Atmospheric Processing. Be warned: the local Leviathan is agitated.”

Black clucked her tongue. “Lieutenant Godfrey’s been busy. Will we get to play too?”

“If you’re good.”

Cynthia all but purred as she closed the channel.

~

“We’re clear,” Louis reported as the mercenaries finished their sweep of the tram station. Like the others, it was a fairly small loading/unloading platform for personnel rather than cargo. As the car pulled into the station, it had been obvious that the loading terminal was currently uninhabited, but it paid to be thorough. There was nothing clinging to the ceiling, nothing hidden in the shadows. Shannon was tempted to tell the civilians to stay here and secure the tram station, but this position wasn’t like the other boarding zones – the vents weren’t barricaded, the doors were open and several ceiling panels had been put out, lying broken and dented on the deck. There were too many avenues of attack in what was obviously a well-travelled area.

Someone else had been here, too.

There was a large, dried pool of blood on the floor, where several bodies – there was too much blood for a single kill – had been dumped, red drag marks streaked over the deck, leading out one of the open doors. “Oh, of course,” Abigail cursed as she realized that whatever had taken the bodies had chosen to do so done the one corridor they needed to go.

Above the door, faded to near-illegibility, were several lines of text, denoting the areas of interest that this particular passageway led to. One of them was their goal:

OR H HY R OP ICS

Scrawled over the dull, washed-out text, someone had hastily smeared another message in white paint, itself flaked away into almost nothing, but, like the words its author had attempted to blot out, there was enough left that the message could be read.

THE GARDEN GROWS

And, beneath it, a long-since redundant warning.

YOU SHOULDN’T BE HERE

“Three,” Shannon caught Abigail’s attention. The soldier pulled her attention away from the words over the door, looking to where the medic was pointing. There, just beside the door. Overshadowed by the more dramatic writing above the opening, someone had scribbled a few lines just above the broken door console. DROP 47 had been visited by dozens of ships. Thousands of people with thousands of cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Abigail couldn’t read half of the sporadic messages on the walls, but something about this particular script looked familiar.

The Darkknell cocked her head back at her ‘little sister’. “What’s it say?”

“I don’t know. I think...” Shannon hesitated, touching one hand to the side of her helmet. “I’ve seen it before. I know what it is. I just... can’t remember.”

“You can’t remember?”

“No,” Shannon’s head came up. “I know I should. I want to... but I can’t. I don’t... I don’t think I’m supposed to.”

Abigail resisted the urge to scratch at her neck. She didn’t know what to say to that. “This place isn’t secure,” she said at last. “We need to keep moving.”

Grateful for the switch in topics, Shannon bobbed her head in agreement.

~

Louis took point, St. Cloud’s shotgun held tightly in his hands, shaking only slightly as he moved through the corridors. Abigail brought up the rear, protecting their three civilian helpers from ambush, while Shannon followed Louis, straining her senses to pick up any trace of a nearby foe. The enemy was here, of course – the cries and calls of the Turned were louder, echoing through the many hundreds of meters of empty corridors that ran throughout this section, playing havoc with any attempt to localize them by sound. By the same token, the mercenaries’ motion trackers were still just below the cusp of usefulness thanks to the station’s sensor-scattering bulk, struggling analysis software straining to differentiate substance from signal and throwing up false echoes and sensor ghosts in the process.

There were no lights here. Whatever sources of illumination this section had once had had burned out long ago and none of the station’s maintenance units had survived to carry out their upkeep and unlike the inhabited sections of the north arm, there was no one crazy enough to attempt to the same here.

Mossy growths the colour of dead flesh slopped out of air vents, nestled in moist corners, spiderwebs of dark veins branching out along the walls. Insects buzzed about and, once or twice, small animals scuttled away from the approaching survivors, tiny gleaming eyes staring out from their hiding holes. The air stunk. It was stagnant and heavy, growing increasingly humid as the survivors travelled deeper into the infested section. Stirred only occasionally by fitful environmental systems, the clunking and clanging of struggling machinery echoed through the hallways, along with the feral cries of the station’s mutated inhabitants.

The beams from the survivors’ flashlights played over the hallways, the cones of light weaving back and forth through Shannon and Abigail’s green-tinted blacklight vision. Imposed on Shannon’s HUD was a schematic of the station, a pulsing red light showing their target.

“Contact,” Abigail said abruptly. “Point sources ahead. Definite contacts.”

Shannon nodded, using hand signals to keep the civilians back as she and her fellow mercenaries filtered ahead, moving cautiously. Despite the weight of her armament, Abigail moved like a wraith, cat-footed and predatory. A few yards ahead, they could hear movement: the scrapes of feet against metal, slurping breaths and smacking, chewing noises.

Trailing at a distance, Emily and Armin shared a worried glance as they approached the source of the sounds. The young woman flashed the frightened petty officer what she hoped was a confident smile, even as her hands longed for the comforting weight of a weapon.

Over a dozen meters up the next corridor, there were two men in torn fatigues, so worn and stained that it was impossible to tell what they’d originally been. As the light from Hernandez’s torch passed over them, they looked up, reddened eyes glinting in Shannon’s blacklight. Crouched over a pile of corpses, strings of meat hung from their mouths and they scrambled away, loping on all fours like animals. There was an oddness to their movements – beneath the stained and ragged clothes, they were like the Watcher’s long-dead lover, like every damned soul from Primal. Changing into something else.

Turning.

Abigail tracked the once-human things, but held her fire. One leapt into an open maintenance panel, scrambling up the pipes like a spider, swiftly vanishing into the space between bulkheads. The second was close on its comrade’s heels, but paused as gangly arms reached into the shaft, turning its face towards the mercenaries. Its lips had split, giving it a too-wide grin filled with stained teeth. Once a man, it had had hopes. Dream. Fears, ambitions, loves and hatreds all its own. Now, it was only a thing that wore that man’s skin and stared back with ever-hungry eyes.

To Shannon’s left, Louis had gone pale, his breath quickening. His finger tightened on the shotgun’s trigger. Carefully, the Halo reached out and pushed the barrel down towards the deck. “Hold your fire,” she ordered softly.

“It’s...” Louis stared, seeing a man in a burned suit, half his face rotted away. Reaching out towards him. “Don’t you see that? Don’t you see him?”

“Please...” the apparition begged, reaching out with its hands. One normal, one burned and decomposing. “I don’t want to die here. Don’t let me. Help me. Please. You were supposed to help us.”

“I...” Louis stammered, unable to answer the dead man, trying to force the image from his mind. You’re not there. You’re not there. You’re not there. He squeezed his eyes shut.

“Nine.” Hayes’ voice was firmer and Hernandez seized it like a lifeline. When he opened his eyes again, the hall was empty, the second thing having followed the first into the crawlspace.

Louis gulped in a breath of the foul air, fighting the urge to vomit that came with it. “I’m good.” He looked over at the corporal. “I’m good.”

He couldn’t read anything in Four’s helmet, but the Halo’s head tilted in a nod. “Okay.”

~

Three men, each stripped naked and dumped like garbage. Two of them had been killed with a single shot to the back of the head, the third’s chest was cratered from a shotgun slug. Shannon took samples of their blood and tissues, but there were no matches to either Primal or Kerrigan’s crew. More of the station’s inhabitants; like the other ferals, they showed signs of malnutrition and past injury. More recently, their skin was criss-crossed with ugly stab wounds, epithets in the local tongue and at least two other languages carved crudely into their flesh. Bits and pieces had been cut from the bodies: the mens’ ears, noses, fingers, toes and genitals had all been severed. There was no pattern to the violence, nothing except an expression of rage.

“Are they Masks?” Emily asked, her voice hushed. “Are they?”

Shannon shook her head, lifting up one of the dead men’s hands. His palm was red. Not from blood, though – bright red paint. Acrylic. The one who’d been killed with the shotgun had a red palmprint pressed over his face – not his own. Too small and thin-fingered; a woman had applied this... war paint? “No,” she replied. “I think we’ve found the Red Hands.”

None of the other two men had the marking that this one did – a badge of command? “He was killed in a firefight,” she said, looking over the bodies. “The others surrendered; they were executed.” She frowned. Beneath the nails of the second executed man... she took a small pick out of her bag, scraping out the substance and scanning it with her lume. Flakes of skin, blood and white paint. She checked the other man. Nothing.

“This one fought back. After their commander was killed, they were told they’d be spared if they surrendered. That was a lie. When his friend was murdered, he jumped one of the enemy. The entry wound is at a different angle; that one,” she pointed at the other executed man. “Was shot while he kneeled. This one...” she took a closer look at the back of his head, confirming her suspicion. “Yes. He was pushed to the ground, the barrel against his skull.” Even under the scent of the blood and gunpowder, she could detect another scent. Once the bodies had been dumped here, they’d been urinated on.

Shannon stood. “There are five DNA types. There was another man here,” faint trails of blood and misshapen footprints led further up the hall. Something else had come calling, but unlike the other visitors, it had wanted its meal to be take-away. “Traces of blood on the others – there was a woman, too.” Shannon gestured to the dried pool beneath the piled corpses. “None of this is hers. If she was killed, she wasn’t dumped with the rest.” She didn’t look at her people. They knew what was on the other side of that if.

Nothing here is pure.

“But why dump them here?” Emily asked, her eyes still on the naked bodies. “They could have left them at the tram station. Why drag them this far?”

“Too easy to find,” Abigail answered, pre-empting Shannon’s reply. “Whoever did this didn’t want these poor bastards’ friends to find them that quickly.”

“Blood feud,” Shannon put in. “There’s a lot of spite in this. These wounds, the cutting – it was all inflicted post-mortem. They’ve been dead for a while, killed around the time Kerrigan put in, but only dumped here in the last few hours. That’s probably why they’re still here, but the scent’s going to draw more Turned. We need to keep moving.”

“We need to get out of these hallways,” Lutzberg grumbled.

Shannon nodded. “I know.”

~

It was confirmed: anomalous car movements; heading into the North Arm’s largest hive. Some Lost Ones had, long ago, attempted to seal that hive off from the rest of the station. They’d failed, but in the doing, they had crippled many of Vigil’s links throughout the entire section, making access and computer control throughout the North Arm much less reliable than elsewhere. It was frustrating. For some.

-desperate mice, scurrying and squeaking-

Barring damage caused by the Ribbons’ infestation, restoring control to that section would be relatively minor – but well outside the skill sets of the Lost Ones and most New Ones. Frankly, there was no pressing need for them to attend to it. The current state of affairs served them quite suitably. Even with its limbs hewn from it, Vigil knew who it belonged to.

-hungry-

However, there was still the matter of the overridden transport system. That, coupled with the New Ones’ recent visit to the Watcher’s little fortress made them a great deal less certain that this was simply some random, unaware flailing.

-they might understand-

That particular Lost One was a thorn.

-cut it from the branch, uproot the plant that carried it and burn the soil-

They would quicken their pace.

-faster-

And if the old man was watching through this his many eyes, they would give him something to watch, a reminder of who the cairn’s masters were.

-blood-

~

On Shannon’s map, this place was marked as a nursery – an incubator facility for seedlings where they could be germinated and grown before they were large enough to be moved into the hydroponics facility proper. In fact, it was one of several such complexes surrounding the multi-deck garden facility. You could grow sprouts in hydroponics itself, but these were also botanical laboratories where scientists could experiment with growing times, productivity and nutritional content in closed conditions.

Located between two parallel corridors, each of which led from the hydroponics complex back to the tram station, the nursery was also connected to several small offices, none of which had been in use for a very long time. In its heyday, the facility would have been a small, unassuming footnote to the station’s primary research complexes.

Now, it was a fire-blackened mess. No one expected food and oxygen-growing plants to pose much of a risk to health, but a full-purge quarantine system had still been installed. And, decades or centuries ago, someone had activated it. The bulkheads were charred, metal tables and chairs warped by the heat, their cushions reduced to ash, plastic dishes, pipettes and other miscellanea melted into unrecognizable slag. Nothing had grown here since.

“Seems defensible,” Louis said as he came down the lab’s stairwell. “The upper level only has one point of access and it’s still in a security lockdown. No one’s opened that door for... well, longer than any of us have been alive.”

“Must have tripped when someone activated the purge,” Abigail mused, pushing a heavy, deformed table up against the door the survivors had entered from. Outside in the hallway they could hear the warbling cries of hunters and the clank and clatter of grotesque bodies moving through the air ducts. The other hallway was silent, which was what you’d expect from a vacuum. Some of the offices were still pressurized; others had been decompressed in the same half-assed attempt at cutting off hydroponics from the rest of the DROP. Blast doors had closed on multiple levels – not so much isolating the Turned as funnelling them through specific chokepoints. By the same token, any attempt to get through to hydroponics would require using those same corridors – not something that would improve one’s life expectancy. As Bujold and Lutzberg wrestled another bit of furniture into position, Abigail turned towards Shannon. “Four?”

The redhaired woman was hooked into a data terminal, comparing the data on its monitor to that on her IDS. “The sections beyond are sealed with blast doors,” she said, not looking up as Imperial text flowed over the flickering computer screen. “Part of the quarantine. I can’t rescind those orders without command clearance. I can’t get that until we get into the station’s core.”

Abigail knew that tone. “But?”

“But the blast doors in the decompressed sections aren’t part of that directive. They were sealed with a general security order.”

“Is it part of that parasite program you mentioned?”

“No, this is clumsy. From the footprints left behind, someone hacked into the local network’s security protocols and triggered the lockdown. I can override it, but,” Shannon made a noise. “I can’t do it from here. The security shutdown is only part of the problem. As long as the door sensors still register each section as being pressurized, they’ll stay shut. I’ll have to open each section by itself.”

“Can’t you turn the environmental systems back on?” Lutzberg queried.

Shannon shook her head. “Not from here. This terminal’s outside the firewalls and it doesn’t have the authority to access those kinds of systems. I might be able to get through eventually, but I’m not a software specialist. There could be additional security precautions buried in here to prevent just that.” She called up a holographic map on her IDS. Some distance away and just off the decompressed hallway was a small room, a pulsing ‘goal’ marker set inside it. “There’s a small security/administrative substation nearby. If that terminal’s still working, it’ll have the access we need. We use it break the lockdown or restore environmental. Abigail and I are the ones with sealed suits, so we’ll go. Can you work on it from your end?”

The petty officer nodded. “Sure, yeah. I can do that. Not sure how much headway I’ll make – I’m not rated on Imperial tech – but I’ll see what I can do.”

“Good. Do what you can. We’ll contact the rest of you when we’ve got the doors opened and you can come through,” Shannon said. Louis and Emily looked distinctly unhappy to be left behind, but the rebreathers they had weren’t for use in vacuum. The relief coming from Lutzberg was almost palpable and Bujold... he was happy not to be going. His face was carefully blank, but it was in his eyes.

Hernandez gave Hayes and Hutchins an assuring nod, tired eyes above a wry, lopsided grin as he gave them the traditional Artemis wish for luck in EVA operations. “Breathe deep.”

Shannon nodded. “I’ve sent you a copy of the station’s layout. I marked where the ‘oasis’ is. You can use the time to plan out how we’re going to get there.” She said we’re, not you, if we don’t come back, but Louis understood all the same.

“Breathe deep,” he repeated, clasping each woman’s forearm in turn.

“Be careful,” Emily said softly, coming forward. For a moment, she looked as if she were going to give Shannon a hug, but instead took one of the mercenary’s hands in hers. “We’ll be waiting.”

Shannon nodded. “We’ll come back soon. I promise.”

As Abigail turned to follow Shannon into the offices, her voice clicked through on a private channel. “We’re not really going to bring them through with us, are we.” It wasn’t a question; she already knew what Shannon was going to do.

“No,” the Halo confirmed. “We’re not.”

[LadyTevar]

After playing New Vegas and stalking though Vault 22, this has gotten even creepier. I'm starting to see the Turned as a gross mix of ResEvil T-virus and Fallout FEV.

[Night_stalker]

After playing New Vegas and stalking though Vault 22, this has gotten even creepier. I'm starting to see the Turned as a gross mix of ResEvil T-virus and Fallout FEV.

I'm pretty sure that for the Turned, the T-virus would be like the common cold for them.

I have to say though, this is a nice turn of events. I shudder to think as to what's in the garden, as they added in a very clear DO NOT ENTER sign out front. That leads me to believe that whatever happened there, happened when people could still write legible English, so it could be at least 600 years old. That worries me considerably, as it's had a lot of time in the dark to evolve...

[Xon]

After playing New Vegas and stalking though Vault 22, this has gotten even creepier. I'm starting to see the Turned as a gross mix of ResEvil T-virus and Fallout FEV.

At least it isn't from the Redlight/Blacklight virus family.

[Bladed_Crescent]

After playing New Vegas and stalking though Vault 22, this has gotten even creepier. I'm starting to see the Turned as a gross mix of ResEvil T-virus and Fallout FEV.

Haven't played F:NV - meaning to get the first Fallout 3 - and my experience with RE is limited to 4 and 5 of the games (plagas ahoy!) and the movies, so I have only the barest understanding of the required context there.

I have to say though, this is a nice turn of events. I shudder to think as to what's in the garden, as they added in a very clear DO NOT ENTER sign out front. That leads me to believe that whatever happened there, happened when people could still write legible English, so it could be at least 600 years old. That worries me considerably, as it's had a lot of time in the dark to evolve...

To be fair, most parts of the station have a very clear 'do not enter' sign. In fact, as we can recall from chapter 2, the station itself has one of those...

As to what's inside the garden? Oh, you'll find out. Very soon.

As to it's age? Oh, it is very old. And it grows.

Fun/useless fact: in the original draft of this chapter, I made a reference to a "gatherer's garden", but changed it when I figured I'd ripped off paid enough homage to Bioshock elsewhere.

At least it isn't from the Redlight/Blacklight virus family.

I've only played halfway (?) through Prototype at the moment. There's only so much of Alex Mercer's terrible dialogue and douche-tastic personality I can endure for any set period of time. But for her (to date) 1 scene, Elizabeth Green is pretty creepy.

"What are you?"

"I am your mother."

That said, the ___light virus seems pretty damn nasty, but I'll let my audience determine/rank the various 'fucked-upness'. I've had some scenes planned for months (which will probably be months more before they come out) to show a new angle to the Imperium's research and exactly why the Coalition was right to be so terrified, even over rumours.



Next chapter on final edit; should be up with 24 hours.

[Xon]

Redlight is so nasty because it is a "virus" directed by a human level mind capable of on-the-fly adaptations and actually capable of creating entire decoy "infected" while chosen carriers infiltrate the Military forces looking for information and a way out of the quarantine. And Blacklight is a goddamn superhero virus.

The entire Hunter line? Redlight spawned those knockoff's from older Blacklight samples, from the initial Blacklight outbrake before Mercer got up off the operating table.

The Supreme Hunter, what happens when a Redlight viral mass got a hold of a mid-game Mercer/Blacklight sample.

And later game Mercer kinda gets less anoying.

[Bladed_Crescent]

In this chapter, we begin to see what those messages Primal sent out involving the word 'ammunition' were about.

Day four and you eat, even though you'll crave more.

Coming up: even in the void, they are watching you.

Happy Halloween!

Chapter 42:

Day Four:

Even here, amongst the girders and support beams, broken gantries, bracer arms, catwalks and small-craft landing pads that formed the periphery of the northern arm’s hangar, the sound of gunfire was almost deafening. However, if someone were to find themselves in a particular spot amidst the naked beams of metal, they might be able to pick out a single voice amidst the cacophony, a voice that was very close indeed.

“Which one, which one, which do I choose? Which will win and which will lose?”

Broken by a shuttle’s frantic build to escape, a mangled section of catwalk hung limply from the wall, its own weight slowly but surely straining the cables and rivets holding it in place. It would eventually break, but not today, or even tomorrow. Even with the additional weight on it.

“Fred’s too tall, of that I’m certain. He’d only be good for hanging curtains.”

One of the station’s many technical areas opened nearby, just inside the loading terminal that itself led onto the broken catwalk. This small chamber allowed service drones and personnel to maintain and operate some of the hangar’s minor local docking systems such as directional lighting and controls to extend, retract and move the nearby gantries to line up with an incoming vessel’s airlocks. More vital systems – such as the bay’s gravity, capture webs and internal defences – were operated from the control deck, which was some distance from here. This position hadn’t been selected for its technical usefulness, though; it had been chosen because the terminal was convenient to a luggage carousel which, in turn, was easily accessed via several maintenance tunnels and large air ducts.

“Sam’s too short to help with the chores. I might just lose him under the floor.”

The catwalk bowed a little, softly groaning as its weight shifted towards the broken end, claw-tipped feet and talonned fingers moving with surety over the metal. Toes dug in, legs tensed and then a shape launched itself off the crumbling walkway and into the abyss. It was the void’s for an instant only: a story below the crumbling gantry, a landing pad with a large shuttle, its door blown in by a shaped charge, provided a new perch.

“David’s too fat to be a good lover. Under him, I think I’d smother.”

The sound of gunfire was louder now: staccato rattles of rifles and carbines on burst and full auto fire, thuds and cracks of pistols, roars of shotguns, snarls of plasma and the shrieks of lasers. And there was screaming, of course. Shouts of encouragement, curses and even cries of agony. Ozone and cordite tickled the senses, the heady scent of blood beneath it, calling and cajoling.

“Bill’s too thin and wouldn’t stay. A good strong wind and he’d blow away.”

They’d formed a perimeter. Caltrops and crates. Wire and explosives. Tangling, maiming, shredding, killing. Holding. Only for a moment in the station’s life, but still holding for that moment. None of them looked up. None of them noticed the barest flickers of a lithe form’s darting movements, dropping one level closer to the newest of metal tombs.

“Will I be married in the spring or the fall? Will I even be married at all?”

A hunter had broken through the perimeter, its bullet-riddled bodied pulsing and writhing in an attempt to repair itself, but it simply couldn’t do so fast enough. That fact didn’t even register on its mind as it seized the nearest prey-thing, mouth splitting open and a sharp-edged radula of a tongue shredded its way through fabric, opening skin and flesh in seconds. A storm of metal tore the hunter apart, but it had already made its kill. Through some coincidence, glassy, fading eyes caught sight of the figure perched high above, a torn throat struggling for words as a shaking arm tried to point. And then, a rattle and rasp. Blood bubbled from greying lips and the prey-thing stilled forever.

“Which one, which one, which will I choose? Who will win and who will lose?”

Lips turned upward as red eyes drifted over the battlefield, listening to the sounds of it, inhaling the scents of it. Yes, the mind behind those eyes thought as it selected a target. That one.

~

“Talk to me, Shelby.”

Primal’s captain shook his head. “It’s no good, colonel. Our friends are still sitting out there.” He paused. “We don’t have many probes left, sir. We can’t keep sending them out – they’ll just keep picking them off.”

Colonel Paclan glared at the spacer, but any remonstration he could think off died before it ever reached his tongue. This wasn’t Shelby’s fault. In fact, the man had saved a lot of lives by getting Godfrey and G Squad out as quickly as he did; the Ghosts were a lynchpin of Bravo Company’s defences, shoring up the lines wherever they weakened and pushing those... those... things back time and again. “There’s still no word from home base?” he asked instead.

Shelby exchanged a quick glance with the frigate’s comm officer. The woman gave a minute shake of her head, the captain facing his superior once more. “No, sir. We can’t even tell if our messages are getting through to them.”

With an inarticulate snarl, Paclan shoved himself up from the console he’d been leaning over. Hundreds of millions of credits in military hardware, a crew of experienced, battle-hardened soldiers as well as some of the finer minds in the known galaxy and they were completely helpless, pinned in place. The colonel turned towards the bank of screens in the back of Primal’s cramped bridge. Too many of those biomonitors were flat-lined, too many more jumped and danced with adrenaline and combat drugs, while others slowly but surely eroded to nothingness as the men and women under his command fought and died to throw back this latest sortie. It might not have been as large as the first swarming assault, but it was still bad enough.

Bravo Company had made them pay, though. Oh yes. Over half the attacking force had been cut down before they’d even made it across the bay and the gantry Primal was docked to made a perfect chokepoint, funnelling that obscene horde into a killing field. But they kept coming. He’d seen things with their legs shot off dragging themselves onwards with taloned and scythed hands. Monsters whose nerve cords and bones, whose muscles and flesh needed to be pulverised under sheer weight of fire before they stopped moving and even then... arms and legs sprouted slithering, grasping tendrils. Decapitated heads sidled over the gore-strewn deck, shattered bodies pulling themselves together again and again.

After the second attack, they’d begun to send out flamer teams to sweep the carcasses with fire, burning the twitching bodies into bubbling, charred ruins... but they had to venture out beyond the protection of the barricades to do so. So far, he’d lost three people to enemy snipers – if you could call them that. Spitting mucous-bound balls of acid that could burn through armour in moments, or others that – he didn’t even know how they did it – heaved or spat or volleyed spears of bone with stunning force. They weren’t that accurate, but the force of the blow was enough to knock a man knock, just long enough for something that had been playing dead to leap on him...

Watching his people die – more than once, he’d wanted to pull the troops back inside the ship, using its own armour and weapons to defy the attackers but the truth was that Primal’s defences were intended to engage fast-moving targets up to thousands of kilometers away; they’d never been intended for this kind of close-range action and the ship itself simply didn’t mount enough guns to secure the bay, not when the enemy could slither along the walls, drop from the ceiling or skulk on the underside of the catwalk. They’d set up machine gun nests and other defensive positions on the frigate’s hull, but that still didn’t completely redress the situation. If he didn’t want those things banging on his airlocks, he needed to keep his people out there, holding the line.

The colonel dug his fingers into his palms, tasting the backwash of stomach acid and coffee in his mouth. What he wanted to do was gather everyone and evacuate. But he couldn’t do that, oh no. Sitting just outside the hangar, shadowed by the Mists was another vessel, just as large as Primal. Even from this distance, it was nearly impossible to get any detailed readings through the Mists – and the newcomer’s destruction of Primal’s probes didn’t help – but they made it clear that whoever they were, they certainly weren’t here to help.

They’re out there, a nagging a little voice whispered from inside his mind. Waiting for you. What do you think will happen if you try to leave? They’re not coming in. They know what’s happening. They know and now they’re waiting for you. Watching.

A sudden scream distracted Paclan and his head came up. Wasn’t this sortie almost over? His eyes darted over the monitor boards – there. Something had landed amidst the crew of one of the frigate’s weapons nests. The feed from Private Uday’s helmet cam spun crazily as a vicious backhand smashed the man off his feet-

-Sergeant Greene was shouting, raising her pistol towards the attacker-

-it grabbed private Ferguson by the helmet, hurling him into Greene and toppling both soldiers-

-a woman, it was a woman with fingers like knives-

-Uday was pulling himself up to his feet, reaching for his rifle-

-Greene and Ferguson were a tangled pile of confused, thrashing limbs-

-Corporal Levit was alone, raising his weapon and firing-

-her head snapped back as one of Levit’s bullet’s caught her high in the temple and she staggered, but didn’t fall-

-it was only a grazing hit-

-Paclan was shouting for his troops to assist the weapons team, but it didn’t matter, they wouldn’t get there in time-

-she moved, how could anything move that fast-

-Levit wasn’t in body armour, just a flak jacket and her claws tore him open-

-he fell as a bloody ruin, dying but not yet dead-

-she grabbed him and her lips moved. “You’re my choice.” Then she was gone. Except for the blood on the ship’s hull, there was no trace that anything had happened, that anyone named Corporal Alex Levit had ever been there.

Paclan’s knuckles were white, fingernails digging into his palm. The killer had gotten away with her prize.

Of course she had.

It took several moments before he could think clearly once more and several more moments before he could trust himself to speak, the sounds of battle slowly dying away, his response teams reporting in. “Send out the clean teams,” he ordered at last. “Send the wounded to the medical camp and get the engineers to rebuild the defences.”

This was the third attack they’d beaten back. There’d be another. And one after that. And one after that.

All of this was so damned useless.

~

What had once been an empty sickbay was now crowded, the overflow spilling out into the adjoining sections. They’d even had to set up a triage center outside the ship. There weren’t as many as there could be – it was guns against an angry mob, but it was an angry mob that sprinted faster than any human could, leapt and clawed and absorbed wounds that would have killed any other adversaries. Some got through. Not many, but enough.

Mandell chewed on a fresh piece of gum. His surgeon’s smock was covered with blood, sleeves smeared with it. His hands stunk of latex and antibiotic powder, a pair of filthy gloves added to the mound piling out of a waste receptacle. The casualties from this latest attack had been brought in. Six. Only Six. Not counting the luckless corporal Levit, of course.

Private Danielle Aberdeen. First-degree acid burns. Prognosis: optimistic

Sergeant Richard Hahcanthy. Dislocated shoulder, severe puncture wound to chest cavity, three broken ribs, hemothorax and respiratory distress. Current condition critical.

Lieutenant Linda Wu. Decapitated. Current location: morgue.

Corporal Hamish Nagashido. Blunt force trauma to skull. Concussion. Intracerebral haemorrhage, fractured occipital and parietal bones. Prognosis: wait and see.

Private Andrew Goely. Multiple puncture wounds and combination lacerations to the torso and throat, compounded by two bullets in the back when a panicked comrade attempted to shoot the thing attacking Goely off the unfortunate private. Now, he’d be lucky if he survived the hour.

Specialist Charles Price. Severe neck trauma and blood loss. Current location: right beside lieutenant Wu.

The doctor stood, making his rounds through the crowded ICU, ignoring the soft chirping and thrumming of biomonitors and medical machinery along with the pained breaths and pleas of the dying. Janice Siegerlester stared at him from her bed, the same question on her face that had been there ever since they’d bring her to him. Jonas felt his own eyes dart furtively away from the corper, her gaze burning a hole in his back. She’d lost her arms, both of them hewn from her body in a single strike. That could be fixed. Not with Primal’s meager medical reserves, but cloned limbs, regenerated tissues, prostheses... she could have her arms again.

If there hadn’t been something in her bloodstream eating her from the inside out. She’d asked him one time and one time only... and hadn’t spoken since. He couldn’t look at her, couldn’t face her. There were other patients, other people to take his mind away from the corper’s wordless plea. Don’t let me die like this.

“You’re lucky,” he said when he arrived at the last bed, where Veers still twitched in his drug-induced coma, his over-charged metabolism starting to spiral into a final collapse. “You haven’t had to see any of this.” His jaw worked and he fumbled in his pocket for a fresh piece of gum, but the package was empty. Damn.

“Excuse me, doctor?” a woman’s voice inquired and Mandell suppressed a sigh. Another question he couldn’t answer, another plea for a friend or brother, sister or lover. Another face he’d struggle to forget.

He turned. “Yes, miss...?” he recognized the woman; she was from Hadley-Wright’s biosciences division, but her name escaped him at the moment. “What did you need?” She didn’t looked injured. “If you’re hurt, see Luttenbaker or one of your own staff please, I-”

“I want to help,” she interrupted, looking around. “Medicine isn’t... I mean, I took a few courses before I switched to Biosciences, but if you need an extra pair of hands...”

It was the simplest offer, but Mandell still had to keep from weeping at it. “Yes,” he managed to say after a moment. “Yes, I can use the help. Thank you.”

~

She pressed the needle into the man’s flesh, and a soft sigh escaped him, his eyes clouding over as the drugs took effect. Mandell’s nurse had washed the mercenary’s wound twice, but the acid was so concentrated that even the remaining traces burned relentlessly, and the woman nodded at the merc’s mumbled words of thanks, clapping his hand once before tucking it back onto the bed. The man’s breathing evened out as he drifted to sleep. Across the room, Luttenbaker gave the newest volunteer an approving nod.

The frigate’s small medical bay was packed with the injured and the dying; they’d had to convert one of the nearby cargo bays into a makeshift field station, which Hadley-Wright’s own medical staff were supervising – Mandell received the most urgent cases, but it wasn’t really the people here she was interested in. Moving up one bed at a time, she got closer and closer to her target, offering encouraging words she didn’t believe to people she didn’t care about. This mission had gone to hell quickly. It was only luck that the I-series were here, otherwise the colonel would have cut and run hours ago. As it was, they were stuck here.

Her associate was finally doing something useful; he’d fought well on the line today and was starting to spread the belief that ‘turtling up’ wouldn’t save them – they needed to get to the station’s core. Better late than never and frankly, it didn’t matter if only one member of the team survived to get there – as long as she was that one. For her part, she’d been whispering in a few ears as well. Right now, her fellow corpers were so demoralized, they’d clutch at anything that would help them out. Less than one day after contact with the inhabitants and they were ready to curl into the fetal position.

Things were bad, but she had the benefit of a well-defined goal to aim for. It was still possible to get it done... just more difficult. She’d find a way. She had to.

The next man didn’t react to her presence at all, staring up at the ceiling and mumbling what sounded like a prayer against evil over and over, but as she listened, she realized that that was only part of it. The rest was something all too familiar, though she’d never experienced it personally – the half-mad whisperings and hushed rantings of a mind crumbling under F2’s influence. “It’s calling,” the merc whispered in a voice numb with horror, set upon by demons only he could envision. “It’s calling out and it’s so angry. Screaming in chains, scratching at the coffin’s lid.”

The woman nodded absently. Calling, watching, screaming, singing. Dead gods, demons, a guardian angel. Love, hate, desire, anger. It was always different, but always the same. Some took longer than others to succumb and some... some were immune. But for those who weren’t... stress did play a role, and the last day had been very stressful for some.

She touched a hand to his cheek. He was burning with a fever. “I’m sorry,” she said under her breath, so low that even if he realized she was there, he couldn’t have heard her. “For what it’s worth, none of this is personal. You just had the bad luck of getting picked.”

The man didn’t answer, still lost in his own world. “It knows we’re here. It knows our names. It’s calling, always calling...”

She patted him on the shoulder and moved on.

~

A nightmare. She was having a nightmare.

Twitching, muscles jerking, fighting, can’t stop.

She was dreaming, that was it. Wake up.

Burning, skin melting, bubbling, thick liquid everywhere, can’t breathe.

Wake up.

Cloying, dark and soft and wet and moving, can’t see.

Wake up.

Shaking, everything shuddering, sloshing and shivering, hands flailing, can’t stand up.

Please wake up.

Walls everywhere, finding them, beating against them. No openings, can’t get out.

She was somewhere dark and wet, filled with something too thick to be water. It burned every part of her. Hands and feet. Breasts and buttocks. Lips and vulva. Nostrils and throat. Eyes and ears. Thrashing, kicking, trying to make it stop, but it didn’t, it didn’t-

Noises. Muffled, words that weren’t words, the sound of something scratching, whispering in more not-words, can’t hear.

She wanted to scream, wanted to scream and never stop, but her lungs were full of the painful not-water, choking her and forcing her to breathe it, eating her from the inside out. Is it eating me?

Ripping. Sloshing, then spilling. Air on her face. Something – someone – reaching for her, something wet against her mouth, salty, can’t turn away.

A voice, the first she’d heard in hours, days, weeks, years. “Sister.” She’s so hungry. She wants to reach, to grab what’s being offered.

Tasting, chewing, stretching with arms, can’t fit them through the opening, trapped, being fed, can’t move.

Feeding now with a hunger she’d never felt before. She wanted, needed to eat, wolfing down wet gobbets of food – she didn’t know or care what it was, just that she needed more, slurping it out of her sister’s hand. I have a sister?

Eating, licking stringy bits off of claws, cutting lips and tongue in her urgency to feed. Stomach swelling to bursting, but still needing more. Pushed back into the not-water, sealed inside again.

More.

Please give me more.

~

She’d finally come to the end of the beds. Just past the woman with no arms and the blank-eyed stare. “You’re really suffering, aren’t you?”

There was no answer, not that she’d expected one from Veers. The woman kept an eye on his readings; even with the sedatives pumped into him, his sleep was fitful, rising to just below consciousness before falling to comatose as the R-series in his body battled the many treatments attacking it. His organs had started to break down, a hideous network of filaments growing throughout his body, entwined into every system, slithering up his spine into his brain. The slickribbons. Half-alive, half something else. “I’m sorry this happened to you,” she said. “It’s not your fault.” Unlike the hallucinating mercenary, even with gloves on, she didn’t try to touch Veers. “But it still happened. I think the others realize it – that you’re going to die. But they don’t want to give up on you.” A beat. “If you were awake, you’d be tearing at your own skin from the pain. It won’t stop. Not ever. Not until you die.”

She took a quick look around. Mandell and Luttenbaker were with other patients, and the handful of other volunteers were elsewhere. The only one watching was Siegerlester and the dismembered woman met her compatriot’s eyes evenly, knowing what she was going to do, if not why. Janice nodded once, then stared down at herself, at the ruined stubs of her arms and the ashen colour of her sweat-slick skin, the way her veins stood out against it, looking back up at the other woman. She didn’t speak, but the question was obvious.

The woman nodded in response. Siegerlester’s mouth opened in a smile of desperate hope. She closed her eyes and turned away from Veers’ bed, still smiling and shaking a little as she eagerly awaited her turn.

Contrary to Mandell’s belief, the R-series wasn’t impervious to biological or chemical agents. But it was extremely resilient to virtually all forms of attack, just as its creators had intended. ‘Resilient’ and ‘invincible’ were not synonymous, though. With more time and better facilities, the woman was sure even the merc doctor could have found, at the least, a stopgap solution.

Fortunately, she had access to the work of people who’d had both of those in spades and the syringe in her pocket was the culmination of six hundred years’ worth of improvements on that. She pulled the cap off, giving the glass tube a tap with one finger, stirring the contents. She reached out, turning over one of the petty officer’s arms. Even against the latex of her gloves, his flesh felt hot and clammy. He’d been moved further up into the ICU and either through complacency or forgetfulness, hadn’t been bound again. Mandell and Luttenbaker either assumed the petty officer’s somnolence would continue, or there was so much going on that they’d forgotten he was supposed to be restrained. Even more reason that he had to die now and hang the consequences.

She didn’t have a eulogy to give and her apology – such as it was – had already been offered. There was nothing else to do but exchange one life for many.

The woman leaned in, the insistent beeping of the biomonitor suddenly drawing her attention. Maybe it was the scent of all the blood in the air, stirring some subconscious process in the petty officer’s mind. Maybe he’d somehow sensed her presence. Maybe it was nothing more than the horror-movie cliché coincidence it appeared to be, but Jason Veers was waking up. He started to jerk, lips moving in an attempt to form words. His arm twisted out of her grasp, nearly knocking the syringe out of her hand. The woman grabbed him again, holding his arm tightly. “Stay still,” she hissed urgently, about to inject him. Just for one second.

“Hold him!” Dr. Mandell suddenly shouted as he noticed the petty officer’s awakening, shoving his way to the woman’s side. “Damn it, Veers was supposed to be restrained!” he accused blindly. “Daisy, get me another dose of sedrobarbital!” At the doctor’s touch, Veers started fighting even more, wriggling his arm out of his would-be killer’s grasp a second time.

Restraining the urge to swear, she tried to hold him in place. Even now, Mandell was holding Veers by the shoulders, not looking at her...

The petty officer’s eyes opened, sclera reddened by burst capillaries. Ignoring Mandell’s attempts to calm him, he wrapped his arms around the doctor and jerked his head forward, sinking his teeth into the other man’s throat. Mandell’s cry of pain ended in a wet gurgle as Veers began to chew. He was distracted and the woman jabbed the needle into his forearm, emptying it in less than a second. She’d hit muscle, not the blood vessel she’d been aiming for.

Veers flung Mandell away – there was no time to see if the doctor was still alive – and lunged at her, but his body was numb from the drugs and he fell off the cot, floundering on the ground. He screamed then, from a mouth dripping with arterial blood, a wordless cry of hatred and pain from a mind that wasn’t quite sane any longer. He grabbed at her ankles, but she kicked him back, his hands finding Siegerlister’s mattress, pulling himself up.

The woman grabbed Luttenbaker as she tried to rush to Mandell’s aide. “Get back!” she snapped at the nurse. “Stay away from him!”

“Security!” the medical technician shouted into her comm. “Security to Medical ICU, now!”

Grinning with a mouthful of pink teeth, Veer took another step towards the women. With the syringe still protruding from his arm, he began to claw at his face, leaving bloody welts as his fingernails dug into his skin. “I don’t... I don’t understand,” he said, that rictus never leaving his lips as he mutilated himself. “Where’s Gemma? Where is she?” Then, as if some switch in his tormented brain had just flipped, he clawed his wounds wider and screamed. “It hurts!” His jaw worked as if chewing on something and he leaned over Siegerlester, drool spilling from his lips. “I want her back.” As he bent down, the woman could see the strange shape of his back, the protrusions of flesh tenting his hospital gown. “You took her from me,” he whispered hatefully, saliva pattering onto Janice’s terrified face as his hand closed around her throat.

Luttenbaker tried to lunge, to save the helpless woman as Veers strangled her, but her companion held onto her, still dragging her away. Like the other mercenary, Veers was beyond reason.

“I want her back,” he said, almost calmly as the light dimmed in Siegerlester’s eyes. Then: “I want her back!” he shrieked, jerking the woman up and, like Mandell, tearing out her throat with his teeth. As he let Janice fall back to the bed, there was a strange mixture of terror and relief on the woman’s face. She’d gotten what she wanted, but in the worst way.

Veers bent low, coming up with a surgical scalpel that had spilled from Mandell’s pockets as the doctor struggled with him. “You took her,” the petty officer repeated. “Where is she?”

The doors hissed open.

The security team didn’t even bother with a warning. Thunder clapped inside the cramped ICU, a half-dozen red blotches blown across the front of Veers’s gown and he toppled to his knees. “I’ll find her,” escaped his stained lips as he fell over, red eyes staring up from the floor at the woman who’d killed him. At least, she hoped that was what she’d done. If she’d gotten a vein like she’d aimed for...

Whispering comforting words to a shaking Nurse Luttenbaker, she escorted the woman out past the security team, though her attention was still on the slumped form of Petty Officer Jason Veers, still glaring at her from behind his tainted eyes.

[LadyTevar]

Jason Veers. Cute.

A nice chapter up for Halloween.

[xt828]

I didn't even notice that when I read it. Nice.