The corridors were dark and quiet. Jason was the only person walking them that he could tell. Where was the crew? Who had been manning the guns that had blown up his ship? He rounded each corner gun first, eyes second, body third, ready to squeeze off a shot to blow the head off of any crewmen he saw. But he never saw anyone. A feeling of dread settled in his stomach. Something was wrong. Seriously wrong. A set up? The thought was like a thunderbolt over the dry plain of Jason's mind. This could all be a setup. If the ship's power core overloaded, he'd never make it out alive.
He tried his best to stay calm, making his way to the front of the ship. The answers would have to be there. Up ahead was a large door, with two circular windows set into each side at head-height. There was an eerie glow emanating from the windows.
Jason's walk slowed to a stop. He edged forward the last few steps, and looked in the door. And quickly withdrew. Row on row of people, all Navy, were in strange-looking lab beds. They had appeared to be sedated. The entire crew looked to be in that one room. The question was, was this something the Navy was doing, or had someone taken the ship? If it was the former, Chris Murray would probably still be at the bridge with his command crew. If the latter... well, he was here now. He might as well check.
Peeking in once again to make sure the room was devoid of any conscious life, Jason found the room to be otherwise empty. Pressing a button that opened the door, he walked in slowly. His pace quickened as he started to the head of the row, but then stopped suddenly. Something was... wrong, with them. Terribly wrong. He couldn't place it, they all looked normal, but there was something off. He shook his head and went up and down all the rows, checking their faces for Chris Murray's; his picture had been attached to his file.
Not finding a trace of him, he figured that this must be the Navy's work. Steeling his resolve for what he'd find on the bridge, he continued on.
He didn't stalk the halls, now that he knew where the crew was. He silent-ran. The ship had gone from just dark to a ghost ship. And then he ran headlong into hell.
From a side door, a... thing... exploded. It flew out of the doorway in a flash, too fast for Jason to track. It was about ten meters ahead, and it rebounded off the far wall. Like jelly, it reformed into a six-foot tall, blue monster. And it flew straight for Jason. There was no way in hell he could get his gun up in time, so he just sidestepped to the left and turned clockwise a bit, slamming it with his shoulder. The force of it was shocking, and Jason flew backwards with it.
His back hit the ground, the beast on top of him. In a feat of strength and skill, Jason grappled the thing off of him, all the while it reaching for his head. He had a bad feeling that he'd not survive it grabbing his head, so he kept it away. Instead, he rolled over to the top, it fighting the entire way, and forced it down to the ground with his bare hands. It's two appendages flailed at his head, but he held it down. Barely. He figured that crushing where a human's windpipe might be (which was what he would normally do in this case) wouldn't be too effective, so instead he held it there with his right arm and all his weight, and drew his gun out with the other.
As soon as he took his left arm off, the thing shoved Jason off. He flew backwards a few feet before hitting the ground on his back and skidding a foot or two. His left hand already on his gun, he quick-drawed and kept squeezing the trigger until the monster stopped moving. Breathing hard, he got up and staggered over, looking down at it.
My god, that's a Nomad... was all he thought. He had heard of what happened when Nomads got a hold of your head. They took over your body. Scary thought, that. The crew must have been taken by them, but that still doesn't explain why Chris Murray wasn't with them and why they were held in human technology. Shaking off the questions that were irrelevant, he continued to the bridge.
There it was. The door to the command center of the LNS Tundra. Behind it was probably Chris Murray, whatever state he was in. He had to get him. He had taken a care crossing the rest of the ship, listening harder than when he had first boarded. The ship had turned into a death trap, everything pointing at a setup meant to kill Jason. But he was alive so far, and that was what mattered. And he intended to come out on top.
He contemplated the door. It seemed easy enough, walk up and open it, but there was more involved. What would happen? Would he get shot down by someone waiting for him? Would a Nomad or five jump out of nowhere and rip him to shreds, if not possess his body and take him back to the Legion to infiltrate them? Would there be anyone alive left aboard? There was no window in this door, and no way to know.
Sighing, and realizing he was getting no where with this worrying, he moved to the door and opened it, gun going through first. It was empty, devoid of life. At least he hadn't been killed as soon as he opened the door. Cursing, he was on the point of leaving when he saw another door off the bridge, to his left. The Captain's office, briefing room, whatever you want to call it. Figuring he had nothing to lose, he walked over and opened it.
Behind a metal desk in the shape of a half-circle sat Chris Murray. He had a Liberty Navy uniform on. He was medium build, with brown hair and blue eyes. Soft skin.
"Ah, I've been waiting for you Mr. Moore. You and I have thing we have to discuss."
"The only thing we're discussing," Jason said with a gruff voice, gun pointed at his head, "is what the hell is going on, and who Robert Foster is."
If Chris was perturbed by the gun to his head, he didn't show it. "Mr. Moore, you'll find that toy useless. What happened here was that 'Nomads'" he said, investing scorn in the word, " have taken the ship. And as to the identity of Mr. Foster, I can only give you another hint."
"If Nomads have taken the ship, why are you still here and not with your crew?"
Chris tsked below his breath. "Come now, Mr. Moore, surely you are smarter than that? When they took the ship, only me and my command crew was conscious. The Navy was running deep space experiments, very top secret stuff, and couldn't afford it to be even close to anyone else."
"Wait a minute... if this is top secret, why are you telling me?"
"Because, Mr. Moore," he started, eyes glowing blue, "I'm not Chris Murray."
Jason took a step back, but if 'Chris' noticed, he did nothing. "You see, Mr. Moore, the gun was useless. Now, Robert Foster. Yes, Chris knows of him. Here is what he knows: your next hint would be on Planet Kyushu, in a seedy starport bar. That's it. Now, you'll find that quite useless," three Nomads bounded to the door, "as you're not leaving this ship alive. At least, not as yourself."
Once Navy High Command stopped receiving reports from the LNS Tundra, and once they confirmed that they couldnt raise Chris Murray on secure channels, they knew something was wrong. Billions of tax dollars were invested in the project. Thats not something you just write off as lost. So they sent out a team of Libertys best to investigate. The team was sworn to secrecy, and was given explicit orders from the High Command itself that they were to only report to them what they found. Launching in four Raven Claws, with two people in each, from the Battleship Missouri, they were cleared to pass through Zone 21 faster than any other ships on record.
Once in Alaska, they moved to the LNS Tundras last known coordinates, somewhere in grid B-6. On arrival, they found nothing but a faint engine trail leading north. They followed it for some kilometers before coming on the drifting hulk of the Tundra. Carefully bringing their ships to dock with it, they cut through the minimally damaged airlocks to enter the ship. Once everyone was on board, the commander of the unit (one John McMurdy, a stocky man in his forties) led them to the bridge. They passed the same room full of people that Jason had passed, and went in to investigate. The people were undisturbed except for the blue cancerous objects growing out of their bodies.
Sounds of disgust came from the unit. They had been informed of the experimentation, but this hadnt been anywhere in the explanation. It also appeared that the hibernation beds had been compromised, or opened prematurely then resealed. McMurdy led his team deeper into the ship. And there was the corpse of a Nomad. Everyone was instantly on alert. It appeared to have taken several old-fashioned .44 projectile rounds. The team was on edge, now. They quickly and quietly moved down the dim and deserted corridors, pretty much all hope for a smooth mission out the window.
They reached the bridge, and saw nothing out of the ordinary. A trail of blue blood from the door to their right to the door they came from and down the hallway they had just exited was all that showed any disturbance to the tomb-like room. McMurdy motioned his second, Gideon Kimmich, to open the door, and all that that entailed. He would open the door, and lean backwards, giving everyone behind him a clear firing arc while keeping him from taking the shots that were involved when opening a potentially hostile doorway, that someone with a high-powered rifle might be aiming at.
The door hissed open, and Gideon leaned backwards. Inside was a mess. Behind the table was a man, presumably the captain, with his face punched in with what looked to be enough force to have broken his skull like an eggshell. Around the room lay the various corpses of four Nomads, three of which had the same .44 projectiles lodged in their bodies. The fourth one looked to have taken its wounds from hand-to-hand combat, but all McMurdy knew was he didnt want to meet the guy that had done that.
Stepping aside for privacy, he activated his comm signal to report back to Navy High Command. He didnt think they were going to like this
As soon as the team passed through the first corridor, the door nearest the airlock slid open, and Jason’s head hesitantly peaked out. His leg had a bloody bandage around it from a gash, and his head felt like it was about to split open. He was in no shape to fight a girl scout, let alone a few elite troopers. After the fight with the Nomads, which he could remember so vividly, he had limped down the hallway, blood dripping from the gash in his leg. Afraid to stand still in case there were more Nomads, he had ducked into the first room and pulled out his emergency med-pack. Quickly dressing the wound, he checked to see if he had any more ammo, but he knew he didn’t. With a curse, he holstered his gun, and set out at a brisk limp to the airlock.
He knew there was no ship waiting to take him away – yet. However, this was obviously a very expensive project the Navy had put on, and he doubted they’d give it up without a rescue op. That meant all he had to do was wait, let them run around the ship while he just took their ships. First, though, he wanted to make sure this hurt the Navy something fierce. Heading to the nearest computer console set into the wall, he put a small device to the screen and keyed in the number “4013”, which instantly overrode all the security features. He sent the entire database to the techies at Monterrey base, hoping they could make something of it. Then, he took out some explosives from his bag and got to work rigging the ship.
Once done, he waited in the room nearest the airlock, waited until he heard the quiet steps of a strike team. He waited for the faint noise to dissipate into the distance, and then gave a small count of fifty. Sliding the door open, he stole himself into one of the Raven Claws. Already familiar with the controls, he moved to disengage the docking clamps, but his hand froze. All across the back of his hands ran veins – veins that were glowing blue. His hand started shaking, and the other joined it as he raised both of them to eye level. They both had veins that were glowing blue. My god…
* * * * *
As the three Nomads practically materialized in the doorway, he spun into action. At the height of his boxing career, Muhammad Ali could throw a 90 mile per hour punch. Jason was no Ali. He could only do 70. With all the force he had, the fist traversed the two feet separating him and “Chris”, smashing his face in. Jason spun and started shooting. Bullet after bullet ripped into the Nomads, and apparently they didn’t like the MOX-tipped rounds so much. Unfortunately for Jason, he didn’t know that while he may have killed Chris, the Nomad inside of him wasn’t dead.
Gun out of ammo, he moved to holster it, but was hit from behind with enough force for him to lose his breath. Rolling over, a fourth Nomad was reaching out and… grabbed… his… head. Jason’s vision blurred and he tried to yell, but his lungs were out of air and his throat was too tight to emit any sound anyway. Some force moved his left fist into the side of the Nomad, which snapped off of him like a barnacle coming off the hull of a ship, which is to say it resisted tooth and nail. The force that almost imploded Chris’ skull only made the Nomad roll over, hands coming off of Jason’s head.
Jason rolled over and jumped on the Nomad, punch after punch landing on what appeared to be an unconscious lump. It didn’t fight back. Why didn’t it fight back?
* * * * *
Now Jason realized that maybe the Nomad had already transferred to him, at least mentally, but the body had yet to enter. That thought scared Jason more than anything else. What if the Nomad was already inside of him? He shook his head. It didn’t matter; he would find some way to get it out of him. A strange laughter in the dark recesses of his mind sent a shiver down his spine. That hadn’t been his thought.
Jasons veins stopped glowing, and he lowered his hands back to the controls. Hitting a sequence of buttons that disengaged the docking clamps, he slammed the throttle and flipped the glass cover over the engage cruise speed button open. Pressing it down fast, he flew to three kilometers before taking out the detonator and setting it off. Nothing happened. He pressed it again in frustration, not expecting anything to happen. The way he saw it, there were three things that could have gone wrong. One, the team could have found the bomb. A few advanced military-grade scanners might be able to pick it up. Two, he could have made an error in rigging it. Not likely, giving that he had done this sort of thing hundreds of times. Three, something like the wiring was defective. Most likely, but he still didnt like that he didnt have a contingency for the first one.
Looking in the rear-view cam, a small screen to his left, he saw the Cruiser power to life and engage engines, missiles launching from the turrets. Cursing, Jason slammed right on the controls, and waited for the missile to get closer before jinxing left hard and launching a counter-measure. Missile evaded, quite a few more to go. Apparently the team had seen him and managed to power up the cruiser. Jason sighed; these guys were professionals. Then, the most unexpected thing short of a Rheinland Battleship decloaking in front of him happened. A Nomad Battleship decloaked behind him. It launched weapons on the cruiser and disabled it. Then, it kept flying forward, on an intercept course, appearing to prefer a kamikaze to finishing it off with its impressive guns. The two ships collided in what should have been a massive crash with explosions to boot, but the only thing that happened was that the battleship kept moving, dissolving around the cruiser. It stopped, and the cruiser was now sitting halfway inside the battleship.
My god, Jason whispered.
Now that the cruiser was disabled and the battleship was ignoring him, he slammed the engines to maximum, stressed them to 120%, anything to get away from that horror scene. He could hear the screaming.
The ship floated through space, having passed through Alaska and Zone 21 again, floated in the badlands. A Raven Claw with Navy markings caught the eye of the first Rogue patrol to pass it. They called in a gunboat to tractor it to Buffalo, where they broke open the docking clamp to the rear-bottom of the ship. Climbing in, the misfit group of Rogues moved as they thought highly-trained marines should, giving a half-decent show of it. Once to the cockpit, they found an unconscious Jason Moore. He wore the flight suit of a Hellfire Legionnaire, so they quickly passed him to a flight of Hacker Daggers on the base. They moved him to Beaumont, where they gave him to another flight of Daggers, who took him to Alcatraz, and so on until he reached Mactan.
There they handed him off to the medical unit, but soon he was transferred to Monterrey Medical, the most advanced hospital available to the Lane Hackers. So Jason found himself lying in a hospital bed, with a couple dozen doctors looking over him trying to see whats wrong.
Jasons eyes cracked open slowly. He could see that he was in a generic hospital room, which was to be expected. Why, he couldnt remember. It was expected. He tried to move his arms, but noticed with dim acceptance that he was restrained with steel bonds. Again, expected, again, no memory of why. He contended himself to sit down and watch the ceiling. Shadows played gaily ((maturity, people means happily)) across it, almost like children playing tag in a playground.
He could hear voices, voices of doctors looking over charts, debating what could be the problem. Surprised voices, surprise over the sedatives wearing off so fast, rushing of bodies. People over him, putting a mask on his face, turning dials that administered more drugs to him. Darkness once again.
All Jason could do was listen as the doctors talked in a frenzy. Then it paused as a new figure entered the room. Jasons eyes slid open to see thin man, about six feet, one-fifty, one-sixty pounds maybe. Graying brown hair. He had a tired look on his face, as if stress had wore him down to the point of not caring, and he had wrinkles before his time. The doctors snapped to attention.
The man walked over to look down at Jason. Hello Jason, Im Supreme Commander Aralie. And you, as far as we can tell, are resisting a Nomad infection. He pulled out a gun.
Now, our policy is to shoot Nomad infested people. However, the doctors tell me you have some sort of immunity, and given time youll be able to fight it off. Aralie paused, then asked a question. Have you ever been to Alaska before?
Jason was about to croak no, when his throat seized up. He couldnt say it. He tried again, and a flash that took him to a distant time and place played across his vision. For a moment, he was somewhere else. Too fast for more than impressions of it, definitely no way to tell where it was. He tried to say no again, and the flash came again, only longer this time. The doctors were staring at the heart monitor with worry, it was starting to go erratic. The beeps were coming too fast, Jasons heart should have burst, but on the third try the flash didnt go away. It wasnt a flash, it was memory.
Mr. Moore, I assume youre aware of what this all entails, an aging man said, each word iron dragging over gravel.
I do, sir, Jason replied. He sat across from him in an interrogation room, though he didnt know where it was. Some space station, probably, by the recycled air.
Thats good, son.
Flash.
Jason was lying in a bed, doctors frantically trying to stabilize him.
Flash.
What you do is for the good of all Sirius, the same old man said. What we all do is.
He paused, pushing his glasses up his nose. His face was full of wrinkles. What I am about to tell you can never leave this room.
Flash.
Aralie was standing over him, saying something. Jason couldnt make out the words.
Flash.
We have secretly been working with the Order, he said. For some reason, it didnt even surprise Jason. We know that they are the first line of defense against the Nomad threat, which is more real than you believe.
Flash.
The doctors were sticking some sort of tube in his arm. Everything moved in slow motion.
Flash.
We are going to enhance you to complete your tasks. When we are done, you will have several prototype defenses against Nomads. Their telepathy wont affect you. They wont be able to possess you, as long as you have the will to fight. Enhanced strength in case it comes down to hand-to-hand combat.
Flash.
Two doctors struggled to fight a mask over a now thrashing Jason.