You can see the crashed part of the lift now. The body from before left a bunch of blood, but there's no sign of the corpse itself. Looks like something heavy crashed down on the lift's carriage, and you'd rather not think about if someone was inside when whatever it was hit.
“Shit... what the hell did that?” a soldier asks, pointing his gun at the carriage to get some better light on it.
“Stay focused, we need to cut through Food Processing to get to the core,” 4-2795 says, releasing his magnetic lock to the wall of the shaft.
You use your jets to follow as he jumps into Food Processing, then make way for the nearest soldier to enter. The silence is aggravating, the only noise the sound of metal boots hitting the floor and a low hum from built-in computer systems.
The lights flicker every now and then as you all plod down the halls, trying to ignore bloodstains on the walls. The bodies are mostly gone, which you thank God for. The smell is still there, though. The smell is everywhere – even with your helmet seals on you'd probably still be able to smell a smidge of it.
When there's a crashing noise from around the corner, everyone's guns are up before you blink.
“You two, take point and make sure the coast is clear,” 4-2795 orders, checking the clip in his rifle as he does so.
They both nod, one crouching behind the corner. He points his rifle around the corner and glances, then gestures for the other to move ahead. The other starts making his way down the hall, rifle not even flinching.
Then the claws break out of the vent and stab him through the head and chest, his gun firing off wildly as he tries to respond before the claws twist his body round, making him go limp.
The rest of them open fire, but have to duck when the claws begin to drag the soldier's corpse into the vent. The rifle's still firing, and it fires shots your way.
As the claws and corpse vanish down the vents, the nearest soldier moves up and opens fire after it. 4-2795 quickly grabs him, keeping a good distance between the vent and the both of them.
“Pull yourself together!” he yells at the soldier.
“What the hell was that?” you yell in response.
“We don't know. Something that got in via medical. All we know is that the damn things don't die easy. If you see another, aim for the limbs. Especially the arms. We need to keep moving before more of them get here,” 4-2795 says, pushing further down the hall.
Even as you all follow, you can smell the tension amongst your allies. Whatever the hell it was that was on the Sprawl, it wasn't human. And you're all in the middle of it, with no support.
You turn to the nearest soldier and start a private comm “How many people actually made it out of medical?”
He's silent for the time being, then responds quietly “You don't want to know.”
As 4-2795 rounds another bend, you hear a squishing beneath your feet. You look down, and there's flesh sprawling across the floor. Then you notice it's half-way up the walls.
“Looks like the meat farms are overgrowing. Probably got a power spike when the government sector went into lockdown,” 4-2795 says quickly, a little too quickly. “We'll need to reach a tram that heads over to the reactor core, should be just through this meat farm bank. Everyone keep close.”
The squishing is worse than the clanking, and that smell is getting worse. 4-2795 just keeps looking straight ahead, gun ready, like he's gleefully unaware that you're all stepping through pounds of flesh. If you had just ignored him when you met you could be off station by now, probably in an evac shuttle.
“I'm picking up movement sir,” a soldier half-whispers over the comm.
“Lets keep up the pace then,” 4-2795 responds, not even flinching.
“I'm getting multiple readings now sir,” the soldier says, a little panic in his voice.
“We're nearly to the access route, keep it together!” 4-2795 says. He then stops, the flashlight on his gun highlighting a doorway. “Walt, get this open.”
As the soldier walks up, leaning his weapon against the wall, he begins accessing the command terminal. The lights begin to flicker.
“Sir, I'm getting more readings-”
“Everyone form a perimeter, weapons ready,” 4-2795 orders, keeping his eye on the hacking soldier.
“Almost got it sir,” Walt reports. “If I got a dollar for every door I've had to hack today...”
“Movement is getting closer but I'm not seeing anything,” the other soldier reports, glancing about in confusion.
“Alright, door's unlocked. Lets get-”
That's when one of the soldiers yells out. He's got arms wrapped around his leg, pulling him down. Two of the soldiers open fire, but the first one gets whipped about so much that they hit him instead. His helmet goes flying off as the arms pull him off into the dark, the last thing visible is a hand, stretched out.
4-2795 is already through the door and you run for it, and you nearly fall over when an arm stretches out for you. A hasty shot you and you severe it, ducking as 4-2795 and Walt open fire. The other soldiers are trying to fight it off, but one's even got the arms wrapping around his neck, the just keep growing in lengthy.
The last remaining one runs for the door but 4-2795 slams it shut in his face.
“Let him out-” you then see a spike pierce through the door as the soldier screams.
“He was already dead,” 4-2795 says, reloading his gun.
As Walt opens the next door, you can see the tram on the other side. It's strewn with bodies.
“I don't like the looks of this...” you can see some of the bodies aren't right. They look... rebuilt. It's like someone had grabbed them and torn their limbs every which way then tried to put them back together.
“Whether you like it or not is beyond my concern, the core is going to go off any minute and I doubt whoever sent that RIG log made it by now-” he begins to say as a loud screeching growl echos through the tram tube.
“Walt get us moving!” 4-2795 orders, pointing in one direction in the tube.
“On it sir,” and the tram starts, speeding faster than you know it's supposed to.
Another loud growl goes off, this one angrier.
“Do you think it's the engineer from before?” you ask as you and 4-2975 move to the one edge of the tram.
“Don't know, but if it is then he's picked one big bastard to pick a fight with. I haven't heard anything sound like that before-” another growl goes, and an explosion.
“Walt, how much longer till we reach the juncture?” he asks.
“Not too much longer sir, half a minute at most,” Walt says, slowing down the tram.
As you reach the juncture, 4-2795 practically flies to the door. As he enters an access code, you and Walt run down a catwalk, signs leading to the core. As you enter the main chamber, you can see not too far off someone in an engineer RIG fighting off a huge... hell you don't know what to call it. It's big, ugly, and got more puss coming out of holes than you've ever seen.
Suddenly an arm from the ceiling comes down, crushing the huge thing. The engineer whips out a plasma cutter and opens fire on its head, blowing up part of it in the process.
The thing tries to clamp its jaws around the engineer but he jumps back.
“Come on you bastard! I can do this all day!” the engineer yells. There's something off about his voice, it doesn't seem right.
“Hey!” Walt begins to say when an arm stretches out of the jaws of the beast, grabbing the engineer around the waist.
“Fuck! Shoot the thing!” 4-2795 orders, opening fire on the beast's eye.
It retreats down into the core, the engineer's helmet flying off.
“...shit, at least he killed that thing. That's got to have been what was overheating the core,” Walt says, opening up his helmet to spit. “Now what sir?”
“We should probably try and get in touch with command. They might still be able to pick us up if we hurry,” 4-2795 says.
They head back to the tram while you stay there for a minute, just looking at the giant abyss leading to the core. As you start to turn around, you can hear some coughing and a yelp.
You turn and can see the engineer. It's a woman, she's torn up a bit but somehow she just pulled herself out of there. You start looking for a way to reach from the catwalk, you've got a spare med kit and she just saved all your asses.
“Director Tiedmann, this is Vandal. It's done... I stablized the reactor. But I'm hurt. Pretty bad. Director? Anyone? Please? Please.. My name... my name is Karrie. Karrie Norton. Can anybody hear me?” she starts transmitting into the RIG.
You manage to slide down, landing on a broken computer terminal. You can hear the chips crunch beneath you as you land.
“RIG 438642 I presume?” you say, holding out a hand as you near her.
Uh...Is this based on Dead Space?
Yes. Yes it is.