Quarantine (The Shadow Wars Book 7.5) (4 page)

The crewman began pounding on Allan's faceplate with his bare, bloody fists. Allan reached up to try and fend off the attacks, which were more powerful than he expected them to be. Typically, someone using their bare fists against power armor was a one-way fight, with the power armor always winning, but this guy was adding even more cracks to the visor and making minute but visible dents in his helmet.

Abruptly, the crewman stopped trying to break the helmet and instead tried to pull it off. That sent warning signals through Allan like he'd grabbed a high voltage open conduit. With a burst of strength, Allan shoved the hostile off and scrambled to his feet. The deranged crewman let out an insane shriek and stood up, already coming for him again. Allan made a fist, pulled it back and punched the man in the jaw as hard as he could. There was a solid
crack
that filled the air and the man flew backwards a few feet, somehow not falling over.

Allan watched in sick horror as the man straightened up. His jaw was dislocated, hanging at an awkward angle, blood pouring from the ruined mouth.
And he kept attacking
. Allan backed up as the man ran for him. At the last second, he grabbed one of the man's outstretched arms, yanked him forward and brought his elbow down on his forearm. There was another painful cracking noise. Allan swung the man around and threw him into the nearest wall. He backed up, breathing heavily, and watched the man bounce off the wall.

The crewman came at him again.

“Are you fucking
kidding me
!?” Allan shrieked.

He sidestepped and the insane crewman, off-balance no doubt due to his sickly broken arm, stumbled past him, across the room. Allan quickly looked around, hunting for some kind of weapon beyond his gauntleted fists, which should be have been enough. Something caught his eye: a length of steel pipe laying on the ground among other debris from the broken-open lockers that surrounded the both of them.

He quickly reached down and wrapped his bruised fingers around the pipe. Hauling it up, he hefted it, liking the feel and weight of it in his grip. The crewman was coming for him again, blood dripping steadily from his wounds. What was
with
this guy? Allan raised the pipe over his head, waited a second, then brought it down in a tight, vicious arc. The metal connected solidly with the man's skull and cracked it.

The fight ended there.

The crewman collapsed to the ground, twitching briefly before becoming wholly still. Allan stumbled backwards, the adrenaline leaking out of him now that the battle was over. He hit a wall and slowly slid down it, his metal armor squealing as it ground against the wall. Allan didn't let it bother him. He was in pain, confused, too tired to be terrified now. Five minutes was all he allowed himself to get his breath back and calm his mind.

When the five minutes were up, Allan slowly got back to his feet. Okay, first thing was first, he wanted to check this crewman out. Something was
wrong
with the man. He had flashes of Greg's story about the Undead and the Augmented. This guy hadn't struck him as either a man-machine or a zombie, but there was definitely
something
strange about him. Approaching cautiously, he studied the features of the crazed
Stygian
crewman.

As he had noted before, his uniform was definitely ripped, burned and bloodied. He seemed to be a technician, not a solider. His eyes were vacant and blood-filled in death, wide and wild and staring. His face was smeared with blood and grime. Allan stared at the corpse a while longer, trying to coax some kind of clue from it, but he could see none. Physically, the man was just that: a man. Sighing, Allan turned away from the corpse.

Now what?

He became aware of a steady, gentle beeping, at the edge of his hearing. His suit, he realized. It was fractured and compromised in several places. He supposed that repairing his armor, primarily his faceplate, would have to come next. Looking around, he spied open lockers that held EVA suits. Perfect. They should have what he needed. First thing was first, the faceplate. As Allan moved over to the nearest collection of lockers and began sorting through them, a thought struck him, and he activated his radio.

“This is Gray to anyone, do you read?”

Nothing. Allan tried three more times as he hunted through the locker. There was nothing but dead air on the radio. A tremor of fear rippled through him. There was a good chance he was the only one left alive, the only one to complete the mission. He found a replacement faceplate and tried to at least take some comfort from that. Working quickly, he went through the appropriate steps necessary to disengage his own cracked faceplate and secure the new one. Once that was done, he located a suit repair kit and ran a suit-check.

After determining where the fractures were, he spent the next five minutes sealing them up. The routine procedure had a calming effect on him, smoothing out his frayed nerves. He found a dozen fractures altogether, most of them small, the largest one on the outside of his right thigh. He was surprised the suit had held up as well as it had. While he worked, he wondered about what had happened. It seemed that the most obvious scenario was that, for whatever reason, the
Stygian
had opened fire on the speed ship.

If anything else had occurred, Allan supposed it didn't matter. What mattered was that he was alive, intact and on the enemy ship. Now he had to complete his mission. After running another suit-check and confirming that his armor was back up to snuff, he moved over to an oxygen tank mounted on the wall, hooked up and drained it dry filling his own tanks back up, just in case. When that was finished, he laid eyes on a terminal that still glowed in the weak light of the locker bay and moved quickly over to it.

Booting it up, he was immediately disappointed to see that the general database was in total disarray. He couldn't access practically any of the normal functions. All he could get was a map of the ship, which would have to be good enough. Allan stared at the map for a long moment. He wasn't too far from the bridge, it turned out, and that's where any and all data or secrets would most likely be kept. Perhaps the mission wasn't a
total
loss.

Allan began to leave, but then stopped, remembering that he had no real weapons. He stared at the bloodied length of pipe lying on the floor where he had abandoned it, glinting in the dull light. Sighing, he retrieved it.

It would have to do.

Chapter 04

–
Not Quite Dead
–

Allan stood before the single exit to the locker bay and hesitated, his finger hovering over the button that would open the door. Several thoughts were running through his head at that moment: his need to find a weapon, wondering what Callie was doing, if anyone else had survived, his experiences back on Lindholm. A random jumble of thoughts. But covering it all like a malaise was fear. It was almost inexplicable, at least to him. His stoicism, born of the atrocities on Lindholm, granted him a new level of fearlessness. In a larger sense, he didn't care nearly as much about his own life as he had once before. He wasn't wholly unafraid to die, but he was much closer to it. On top of that, he still had his bravery, which was only tempered by his recent experiences.

He still had his fear, but the level of apprehension he was currently feeling made him freeze up. He shouldn't be
this
afraid. Allan took a deep breath and let it out, briefly fogging up his new faceplate. He could do this. He
had
to do this. Pressing the button, he tightened his grip on the length of pipe and watched the door slide open.

A bit of dim corridor was revealed. After waiting a moment, Allan stepped out and looked first left, then right. The hallway was short, ending in T junctions at either side of him. He was alone. Despite this, Allan hesitated, lingering in the doorway, taking in the aftermath around him. It was immediately and painfully obvious that something had gone wrong on the
Stygian
. Pausing further, he tried to pay attention to the details afforded to him.

There were two bodies in the corridor with him. One had been pumped full of holes, as though someone had unloaded a full magazine from an assault rifle into the poor bastard. The other had its skull bashed in, and not just once, either, it looked like the assailant had just kept hammering away at the body long past the point of death. Allan approached the first body, the one riddled with holes, and stared at it.

This man was a young crewman, head shaved, facial features ruined by the bullets, the uniform signifying that he'd been a technician. Frowning, Allan briefly followed a separate train of thought as he considered this corpse. What was it that drove these men? What was it that kept them working for Rogue Ops? A lack of knowledge? Money? Fear? Or maybe they just believed that whatever it was they were doing was the correct course of action, ugly though it might be. Not for the first time, Allan wondered just what exactly their endgame was.

He moved over to the other corpse, an older security officer, beefy with muscle, which hadn't apparently meant much. His boots squelched in the blood as Allan shifted. In the two weeks following the rescue of Matheson, Allan had made a point to read up on the mission reports from Arctica, Dis and Syberia. He wanted to know everything about Rogues Ops, about his enemy. He'd memorized the characteristics of each enemy faced down.

The three bodies he'd encountered so far on the
Stygian
didn't match up with anything here. Not the decayed, hollow look of the Undead, nor the metal-flesh look of the Augmented, or even the red-vein appearance of the Mutants. The violence was dissimilar from that encountered on the unnamed planet, so he could, (hopefully), safely rule out the cyborgs. Which was good, he did
not
want to have to fight those creepy things again.

There really wasn't anything physically anomalous about these bodies. So what had gone wrong? Had they just lost it for some reason? Cabin fever? They all attacked each other like stark, raving mad lunatics? Allan winced as he suddenly felt a spike of white-hot pain sear through his skull. At that same moment, he became aware of the fact that his hair and right cheek were both hot and wet. He must have initially been brushing it off as sweat, but now he recognized it for what it was: blood. He was bleeding, a head wound.

Not good.

Allan stood up and recalled the map he'd memorized. It took a moment, also not good. Along the route, he'd made sure to note important locations: armories, infirmaries, the engine room. There was an infirmary along the way to the bridge. It seemed as though he'd have to pay a visit. Allan turned and began walking down the corridor, his hands aching for a gun of some kind. He made it to the end of the corridor and cautiously peered around the next corner. Nothing but another grim stretch of flickering metal. He waited a moment, then stepped out.

He'd made it about five steps when an ear-splitting shriek echoed down the passageway. Allan froze, tensing, preparing for something to come at him. Sizing up his environment, he realized that there were any number of places an attack could come from. Behind, ahead, the dozen or so doors lined up along the walls, even the ventilation grates overhead. Allan waited for another tension-soaked minute, pipe raised, ready to swing. The scream died away and nothing else happened. No footfalls, no sudden hostile appearance.

Allan let out his breath in a long sigh and kept going, picking up the pace this time. As he continued through the bloodied passages, he decided to try his radio again. Activating it, he called out into the lonely darkness.

“This is Gray to anyone, can you read me?” He tried to keep the fear out of his voice, which wasn't as hard as he thought it might be. There was no telling who might be listening in...though, if the rest of the ship was like this, then he didn't have that to worry about. Silence mocked him yet again. He sighed and left his radio on, just in case.

Another long, lonely howl that was almost utterly inhuman but still just human enough to be truly chilling rang out as Allan neared the infirmary. A fresh wave of terror rolled through him. Riding on the tail of it, a second one came, followed by a much shorter shriek that sounded like anger. Allan stopped, listening, as what was unmistakably a fight broke out. There were grunts, the heavy meaty thuds of something being slammed into flesh and muscle, more screams. They almost sounded like apes hopped up on some kind of battle drugs.

This went on for several minutes before finally there as a loud, wet snap, followed shortly by a long howl that might have been triumph. Was it the
crewman
fighting each other, Allan suddenly wondered. It must be, both of the combatants had sounded human. Or maybe it was just his frightened mind filling in the blanks. He couldn't tell where the sounds were coming from, due to the odd acoustic nature of the ship around him.

Allan realized he'd been standing still for far too long, and his head was really beginning to hurt. He set off once more, his metal boots clanging down the corridor, announcing his presence to anyone or anything that might be nearby. Allan reached an antechamber that served as a crossroads in the corridors. Thankfully, all of the other corridors were hidden behind closed doors. He walked over to the left-most door, stepping over a man whose face had been bashed in with a blunt instrument, and hit the access button.

The door opened to reveal another length of empty corridor. This one was properly lit at least. At that thought, Allan found himself wondering how bad of shape the ship was in. What if the reactor was damaged, counting down to a meltdown? What if oxygen was running out? All the more reason to get to the bridge quicker, he supposed. Allan hurried down the corridor to the first door on the right: the infirmary. Finally.

He opened up the door and looked inside. Two people, a woman in a crimson-stained white jumpsuit and another thin man in a black uniform, were milling about inside on opposite sides of the room. Allan hesitated, wondering how to handle this. Right away, he could see that whatever had afflicted the original man he'd encountered also seemed to have a firm grasp on these two. The way they were quietly muttering to themselves, the ruined state of their uniforms, the awkward, jerky movements.

His decision was made for him, however, when the woman in the white jumpsuit turned, looked at him and let out a piercing shriek. Allan shouted in surprise. She began racing for him, leaping over an examination table in between them as though it were the easiest thing in the world. When she came within arm's length, he hauled off and smashed the side of her head in with the pipe. Bone crunched, blood flew and her body was picked up and tossed a few feet away. Allan began turning to face his second attacker, which he'd heard shout at roughly the same time as the woman, and then he felt a tremendous force crash into him.

Both him and the insane crewman landed on the floor. Luckily it wasn't a perfect tackle and they'd landed separately. Allan took the opportunity granted to him, threw himself atop the demented Rogue Ops tech, grabbed his neck, lifted his head half a foot off the floor and then smashed it as hard as he could into the metal deckplates. There was a sickening
crack
, but still the man thrashed and struggled. Allan raised it once more and slammed as hard as he could. There was another disgusting noise, and then the man stopped moving.

Allan let out his breath in a heaving sigh and slowly stood up, still shaky from the adrenaline. He took a quick look around, saw no one and hurriedly retrieved his pipe. He made a face as he held it up. There were bits of gore and a lot of blood dripping off of the end. Frowning, Allan looked around and finally walked back over to the woman who wore white. He wiped as much of the viscera off on her uniform as he could, then briefly felt a wave of guilt. He was basically desecrating a corpse. He'd learned a lot about respect for the dead in his career. Allan finished the ugly task and then began another one: looting the bodies.

He patted down both, but came up with nothing. Sighing, Allan stood and surveyed the infirmary. It didn't inspire confidence. Blood smeared the walls, there were bodies on most of the examination tables, which looked like they'd all taken a beating. Allan turned and walked over to the door he'd come in through. He poked his head out and looked around the corridor outside. Finding it empty, he pulled his head back in, closed and locked the door. After that, he walked across the room to the only other two doors in the area.

The first led to a small office and storage area, largely untouched by the death and destruction. The second was an extremely bloodied shower area. A trio of corpses, all of whom looked like they'd had a free-for-all with nothing but their hands and determination, lay in a tangled heap on the ground. Allan stared at the violent scene, again wondering what the hell had gone wrong, and finally left and closed the door.

Feeling possibly the most secure he had since coming onto the
Stygian
, Allan moved over to the examination table that the insane female medic had leaped over to get to him. He hit the access button and frowned when nothing happened. Hitting it again elicited a burst of blue-white sparks. Allan took a step back reflexively, then sighed. It was obvious that something had gone wrong with the table. He took a look around the infirmary. There were another nine examination tables, and none of them looked to be in good condition.

He wasted a good ten minutes sorting through them all, trying to get them going. They were all broken. Some simply refused to turn on, others produced utterly random results. Reluctantly, he decided he was going to have to do this himself. Unfortunately, he had no idea how to tell if he had some kind of brain damage, a brain-bleed or cracked cranium or concussion. As far as he knew, there
was
no way to just eyeball it.

Now came the very unhappy part.

He needed to take off his helmet.

Allan spent a minute trying to think his way around actually doing it, examining the problem from all angles. Ultimately, he surmised that there was no way around it. He'd have to take off his damned helmet. The last time he'd tried to do this...this morning, he realized, it hadn't gone so well. Had it been only this morning that he'd failed at taking that shower? Allan thought for a second and decided that yes, it had only been a few hours ago.

Losing track of time was either a bad sign or just something he did at this point. Allan set down his pipe, (after taking another quick look around the infirmary), and took a deep breath. He let it out slowly, whispering to himself that he could do this. He reached up, placing his fingers on the latches, and froze. More blind terror, something that made him want to just cut loose, run away, bolt screaming through the corridors and join the other psychos. Allan gritted his teeth and flipped the first two latches. Quickly, before he could reconsider it, he flipped the next two and took off his helmet. He expected some madness to descend on him, something to take him over and turn him insane, his head to explode...
something
.

But nothing happened.

Allan let out a small laugh. He was fine. Trembling, yeah, and maybe kind of sick to his stomach, but he was okay. Setting down his helmet next to his pipe on the counter that he stood before, Allan glanced over the medical kit he'd opened. Time to do this fast. Allan gently probed his skull until he'd found a matted mass of coagulated blood on his scalp, just behind his temple. He sighed, grabbed a bottle of antiseptics and prepared for the worst. Before he could think better of it, he dabbed some on a pad of gauze and pressed it to the wound.

Brilliant, sharp pain exploded through his skull and groaned sickly. Allan finished up as quickly as he could, then taped a fresh gauze pad over the wound. Working as fast as he could, he injected himself in the neck with a general antibiotic/anti-viral stimulant, tossed the needle aside and replaced his helmet. He felt a bit better, especially now that he had actually managed to take his helmet off, but he knew he wouldn't be able to leave it off for long. It was progress, at least. Maybe in a few weeks he'd be able to take a real shower.