Scott
"Daniels still isn't answering her coms. What's your status? Did you find Nichole?" Hammond asked into my ear. I paused as I looked at the Shock pads in my hands.
"Can he see me, or is this some of the game's timing bleeding through into the reality that is this world?" I thought as I finally answered.
"Her office is empty. No sigh of her," I answered as I stored the pads in my pocket space. "Found the shock pad I need, though. Now all that's left is the hydrazine tank, which I just got a location on."
"Good," Hammond said. "Hurry, Scott. I don't like what I'm hearing out there," he said before cutting off the call. I snorted as Millie changed the power from the pad to the doors.
"Sure thing, boss," I said to myself, "Not like I was stabbed and nearly overrun by these things. How about you, Hammond? Have you been needing to kill to survive? No? Are you just sitting on a quiet deck? Yeah? Well fuck you," I mumbled out as we exited the shock pad room and started back to the medical deck entrance room.
"Was he bitching at you again?" Millie said as she, like me, kept her head on a swivel.
"Yep, he's getting scared by the creaks and groans of the ship and nearby necros," I answered. Millie looked up at me at that.
"Are you telling me he's just sitting around while we are literally knee deep in these fuckers?" she asked, and I nodded, making her growl. I shared her anger at the fact that he could be here helping, and instead is just standing around doing nothing, which is annoying. I know I already told the man I'd get it done, but that's just the gamer in me wanted to skip the dialogue as fast as I can so I can just complete this shit. He's had to deal with one necro, and even then, it's just Chen, whom he doesn't even kill. Shaking my head, I just let my thoughts stay on the here and now.
We quickly find ourselves back in the main room after dealing with a small ambush of two necros in a hallway, and I head over to the shop to repair my suit's few holes, which thankfully doesn't cost anything, given the need for engineers to be able to do their jobs. Upgrading the suit? That's a luxury, so it costs money. Thankfully, when I got Millie situated, I found the ten grand monthly paycheck the company gave me had a decent one to five transfer for dead space credits. So that gave Millie a new suit, and both of us upgrades when I first hit the shop. Her suit also came with the stasis and Telekinetic module, so that was a nice bonus.
After the shop fixed my suit, I made sure to sell the semiconductors that Millie found, earning a nice chunk of change so far. It was nice as I'd rather not spend any more of my company allowance just yet, after all. With that done, we headed down to the zero-g therapy station for the hydrazine tank.
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*Thump...Thump...Thump* sounded down the hall as we entered the hallway to the Imaging & Diagnostics wing of the medical deck. Millie raised her gun, but I waved it down.
"Not a necro, just a crazy," I said and walked slowly down the hall with her right next to me. When we rounded the corner, we saw the shadow of the man thumping his head against the glass of the wall. When we got closer fully smashed his head hard enough to finally crack his skull open and kill himself.
"Sweet Lilith, is this what that Marker would have done to us?" she asked as we walked past the self-mutilated man.
"Yeah, at the end of this game, my character goes insane and builds a new marker for the current one. You... probably would have just gone mad and killed yourself, given your outsider status to the story of the game. Or, would have been my assistant in making the damn thing, considering our closeness?" Honestly, I don't know."
"Fuck, any chance you could upgrade that mind resistance to full immunity?" Millie asked, and I checked my app.
"Nope, need another twenty-five, only got eleven right now," I answered. She cursed, and we both just kept moving into Diagnostics. As we entered the next room, the one holding the futuristic CT scanner.
"What the?" Millie said as she took in the layout of the room. It was a two-level open concept, much like the maintenance storage room for the tram motherboard. The only difference was that it just didn't make sense. "Why is the CT scanner so big, and bisecting the room like that?" Millie asked. She was right, of course, as the CT scanner was a massive orange glowing thing that, when not in use, seemed to separate the bottom of the room into two sections for no reason.
"No fucking idea, other than it looked cool, I guess," I answered as I used telekinesis to push the bound corpse into the machine, opening the other side of the room for us. After that, we scoured the bottom floor, plasma cut open some security-locked storage boxes, killed a few necros that showed up out of vents, and then shoved in the spare fusion battery nearby to activate the elevators. Taking it to the second level of the room, we encountered another crawler variant and a few more bipedal necros before moving into the upstairs hallways.
I even managed to bypass a security-secured door, as unlike the tram control room, this door wasn't reinforced. It was just locked down digitally, and thus fell to me to cut through the side and hotwire the door open. Looting the extra supplies into my pocket space, we finally made it to the fun part of chapter 2, in my opinion. Instinctively activating coms with Millie, much to her confusion, I opened the door. With a hiss of the hallway depressurizing and Millie jumping in surprise, the door opened, and we found ourselves looking into a space breached hallway.
"Entering Vacuum," The ship's AI announced as we walked into the debris-filled and ripped-open corridor. As we did, all outside sound ceased as our suits locked down and supplied us with our oxygen from the O2 compression tanks of our suits. Our displays popped up a timer for how long the tank would last before it needed to be refilled. As such, I never stopped moving as I walked through the ruined corridor, enjoying as Millie rubbernecked at all the floating boxes and scrap metal that clicked off of us as we walked.
"Having fun?" I asked as I telekinetically pulled a bronze semiconductor to me from a shelf that we passed.
"Azmodus's cock ring, this is amazing!" Millie said with childlike wonder. I even saw her try to jump from the ground, but her suit's magnetized boots kept that from happening. "Aww, Scott, how do I turn them off?" she asked, and I shook my head.
"Millie, we can't play space, we don't have enough air," I said. I heard the huff from Millie as I'm sure she was pouting from my reprimand. "Besides, I'll show you something better in the next room," I offered, making her rush quickly to see what the next surprise was, her gun still pointed ahead and ready for the next threat. I chuckled as we exited the breached hallway and entered the zero-g therapy, a large sphere-shaped room with two doors on either side.
"Okay," Millie said as she looked at the slowly brightening room as a sensor picked up our presence and activated the lights. "So what do you want to show me?" I smiled to myself as I leaned down and grabbed her wrist, helping pull up her holo screen. I showed her, through navigation, the rather fun fact about our suit. As she read over the info, she gasped in an ever-increasing octave as she activated the suit's built-in space walk thrusters. Immediately, the suit's magnetic boots disengaged, and Millie was thrust into the zero-gravity room with a happy giggle.
I watched her fly in a spiraling motion back and forth as she slowly got the hang of the thrusters. I laughed as I activated my thrusters and, using implanted muscle memory, flew to assist the Imp in not banging into the side of the room as she kept spinning around. "Don't lose your head, Mills. There is still danger around every corner," I said, making her instinctively flick her head around at the massive room. "Good, now you enjoy the room and get a handle on the flying while I grab the tank." She nodded and giggled again as she started to fly off to the other side of the room.
She was a wobbly mess, but I could see the woman learning fast, the physical prodigy that she was. With a final look at the room for any new threats, I left my companion to enter the small storage room that held the hydrazine tank. It was a quick affair as I grabbed the tank and looted the room for a few items of ammo, receiving a call that was once again right on time.
"Still holding this position. What's happening there?" Hammond asked after I accepted the coms call. I opened the door back to the zero-gravity room and watched Millie laugh and giggle as she flew and bounced across the room, getting better and better by the second.
"I found the hydrazine and am finally heading to the morgue for the captain's RIG," I answered.
"Alright, good, be careful with that tank though, don't need to add your death with...Chen's" Hammond said sadly.
"I'll be careful, Hammond, next call to you will be after I get the RIG," I said as I stored the tank in my pocket space.
"Confirmed," he answered and ended the call, allowing me to launch myself into the room to go get Millie, enjoying the moment of flying myself, as no necro made itself known, allowing a moment for some destressing for us both, even with the stress defense doing wonders already.
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Hammond
I sighed as I ended the call with Scott and once again tried to call Daniels. As the single rang out over and over, I prayed for the woman's safety. If not for Scott saving Johnston, who had called in with me to confirm her safety aboard the locked tram, we would be the only three left of my unit. I gripped my hands tight as the call didn't connect again, making me fear even more that we had lost the tech specialist.
"No, she was hand-picked for this mission; she must have found somewhere to hide," I said to the air as I gazed out at the bridge's window. "Maybe she found help like Scott did," I thought as Johnston's words about this Millie he was with were anything to go by. To find a survivor in this mess who could assist was good. God knows how paranoid I've become now that Daniels and I have been separated. Every creak just sent me up a wall, and every thud earned a flinch from my body. Shaking my head, I tried to keep calling Daniels as I had nothing else to do until Scott called back with the RIG's clearance code, when I nearly fell as the ship lurched to the side.
Switching who I was calling, I quickly sent out a call to Scott. "Shit, Scott, did you feel that?" I asked.
"Yeah, and I don't like it," Scott said with the sound of his suit's thrusters active.
"I'll check it out," I said and ended the call as I grabbed my pulse rifle. I wasn't sure if...Chen was still out on the bridge proper, but better safe than sorry. As I opened the door from the captain's nest, though, I was more than sorry as I had to duck out of the way of a swipe from what was once Chen. I didn't think as I unloaded into the thing, making it stumble back, but not doing any damage as it just shrugged off the fresh wounds in its torso. "Jesus, what the hell are you!" I shouted as I had to dodge again as it took another swipe at me. I had to think about getting away from the thing, as I kept firing at the damn thing.
Gazing around the room, I saw we were in the escape pods and got an idea. Backing up while pumping my last few rounds into the thing, I slammed the controls for the escape pod behind me, hearing a hiss as it depressurized and cracked open. With that done, I looked at Chen, who seemed hell bent on killing me, and soon enough, he rushed me in a dead sprint. I waited as he got closer, looking for when the thing would fully commit to a stab or something.
I got what I wanted not a moment later as it leaped at me, blade arms fully ready to stab right through me. With a nervous half leap, I dodged out of the way of the open escape pod, slamming my hand on the close button as I fell onto the ground. With another slam and hiss, the pod was sealed, and what was one Chen screamed in rage as it attacked the vacuum-tested safety glass from inside the pod. I gasped out as I got back to my feet and called back Scott.
"Hammond, you okay?" I heard Scott shout as I could hear the fire of his plasma cutter. He was fighting something.
"God. Took one step out of the Captain's Nest, and Chen-that...that thing-he almost got me. I'm fine, though. I trapped him in a damaged escape pod. He's snarling like" I started to say as I looked at the grotesque creature desperately trying to break the glass and get to me. "This is fucked up. Hurry, Scott!" I said, ending the call as I just watched the monster. "Chen...what happened to you?"