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Description
The First Alarm
A lone figure walked through the bowels of the ship in the darkness across from him, just for a brief moment I caught a glimpse of metal. The blade shot from the abyss and breached my suit right below my lungs. He yelped in pain as the flavor of copper washed over his taste buds. The blade was pulled upward by unseen hands which opened the wound farther, spilling fresh blood over the deck. Then a bloodcurdling scream broke over all the open channels, its' source was only ten feet away from the armor clad figure. The pressure on the blade lessened and as I removed it I saw why, whoever had attacked me had their arm severed at the elbow. The armor automatically sealed itself and sprayed stabilizing foam to hold the wound closed. The figure took a few short breaths and walked off into the darkness. The door's pneumatic system kicked in and shut the door behind him. As it did the room was shrouded in darkness and my HUD kicked on the night vision pulled out my custom pistol, a mateba 6 autorevoler with a pearl inlaid handle and swept the room. What the figure saw before him made his knees weak and his stomach roil. The walls were covered in blood and bits of organic matter. The floor was littered with scattered body parts, he ripped off his helmet and the room went dark as he vomited, the taste of bile passed my lips and hit the floor and he wiped away the remainder from his lips, a sound reverberated from somewhere in the room. He Tugged the helmet back on and heard the "click, hiss" as the helmet resealed. He brought his gun to where the sound had originated and was sorry he had put his helmet back on. Before the man stood his "attacker", well not so much stood as pinned to the wall. There were three twenty-seven inch spikes driven through his abdomen, his chest, and his neck. Above that his head had been severed in a jagged cut that still bled. The man reached out and checked for the info plate and when he pulled back his hand he found it unscathed so he ran a data scanner along it and found it was his fellow officer and friend Jose Palamino. All of a sudden the internal speakers in the helmet crackled and the ship's A.I. interrupted his revelation. "Nicholas, I need a sit- rep right now", she said in a tone that was a mix of anger and frustration. I don't know Isabella but shit just keeps getting worse down here" Nicholas said with a hint of pain in his voice. Nicholas took a painkiller and a stim-pak out of his medkit and the relief would only be temporary. "Well you'd better get up here quickly, I'm reading multiple flat lines throughout the crew roster", she said in an exasperated tone. Nicholas turned and ran towards the door which opened soundlessly and into the hallway. As he entered the hall he saw something moving to his left. He brought his gun to bare and let off three rounds. The bullets struck their target with precise aim and he was rewarded with the sound of the bullets exiting and striking the bulkhead. He walked over to examine his "target" and instead found a beautiful young woman. She was still breathing so he rushed to her side and knelt beside her. "I'm so sorry, please let me fix you up "He said in a shaky voice and held up his hands. Nicholas holstered his gun and pulled out his field medkit and started removing the things he needed. She was very beautiful with red hair and green eyes that looked like polished emeralds, and her skin was pale and freckled except along her left side where the bullets had left their marks. Nicholas slowly pulled off portions of her uniform which marked her as one of the ship's engineers and grabbed some antiseptic and gauze. The wounds themselves weren't too bad; they were through and through and didn't hit any organs. She was passing out from blood loss so to keep her focused he started asking her questions. "What's your name", he asked her in a calm even tone. "My name is Tessa Birmingham, and I'm an engineer on the USEF Najikama" she said in a broken and shaky voice. The conversation continued like that as he patched her up. "My name is Nicholas Adern and I am the leader of the security force on the ship". As he finished patching her up and put her uniform back on her. He put her on his back and carried her along down the hallway away from the room where his friend now lay in pieces. We arrived at the lift and found the doors were disabled, so he set her down on the wall parallel to the lift and used his mechanical arm to pry open the doors. He grabbed her and placed her in the lift and punched in the code for the bridge and forced the doors shut. She began rasping so he gave her a shot of morphine to ease her pain. Nicholas turned as the door opened onto a scene of carnage. People were slumped over at their consoles; their bodies were broken and ravaged in a hellish way. Pools of blood covered the floor and consoles in a red sheen that filled the room with a crimson glow. He left her sitting on the floor of the elevator, drew his gun and swept the room to check that it was clear. Finding the area clear he made his way to the center of the room where he found the captain writhing in his seat. He grabbed his shoulder and shook him. The captain fell out of the chair and split into two as he hit the floor, making yet another pool of blood and gore. Other than that nothing else moved in the room so he walked to the ship's A.I. holotank. "What the hell happened here Isabella everything on this ship is going FUBAR and I want to know why" he said in a tone harsher than intended. "I have no idea. That particular information is missing from my data archives, but I did hear that there is a top secret cargo on the ship". As she finished speaking he ejected her memory core and inserted it into the empty slot in his holomatrix port in the armor. "The ship is now running on a skeleton crew, no pun intended sir", she said with a tone of synthesized humor. "Yeah, but somehow I don't think that we're alone on this ship". As he walked towards the lift, he had no idea how right he was. He headed back towards the lift as Isabella gave him a sit rep."Crew casualties are at 1,500 with only ten percent of the crew remaining alive on the ship", she stated with a vocalized sorrow clearly evident in her voice. He entered the lift and the doors shut behind him and he found Tessa wide awake now and was staring at the carnage through the port holes in the lift door. "Wha... what happened here?" she asked is a shaky tone. Ignoring her further questioning he asked her if she was feeling better, physically at least. He felt it was time to fill her in on what he knew so far. After he finished she gave him a dismayed look and he parted to one side to show her the carnage behind him.

Description
The First Alarm
A lone figure walked through the bowels of the ship in the darkness across from him, just for a brief moment I caught a glimpse of metal. The blade shot from the abyss and breached my suit right below my lungs. He yelped in pain as the flavor of copper washed over his taste buds. The blade was pulled upward by unseen hands which opened the wound farther, spilling fresh blood over the deck. Then a bloodcurdling scream broke over all the open channels, its' source was only ten feet away from the armor clad figure. The pressure on the blade lessened and as I removed it I saw why, whoever had attacked me had their arm severed at the elbow. The armor automatically sealed itself and sprayed stabilizing foam to hold the wound closed. The figure took a few short breaths and walked off into the darkness. The door's pneumatic system kicked in and shut the door behind him. As it did the room was shrouded in darkness and my HUD kicked on the night vision pulled out my custom pistol, a mateba 6 autorevoler with a pearl inlaid handle and swept the room. What the figure saw before him made his knees weak and his stomach roil. The walls were covered in blood and bits of organic matter. The floor was littered with scattered body parts, he ripped off his helmet and the room went dark as he vomited, the taste of bile passed my lips and hit the floor and he wiped away the remainder from his lips, a sound reverberated from somewhere in the room. He Tugged the helmet back on and heard the "click, hiss" as the helmet resealed. He brought his gun to where the sound had originated and was sorry he had put his helmet back on. Before the man stood his "attacker", well not so much stood as pinned to the wall. There were three twenty-seven inch spikes driven through his abdomen, his chest, and his neck. Above that his head had been severed in a jagged cut that still bled. The man reached out and checked for the info plate and when he pulled back his hand he found it unscathed so he ran a data scanner along it and found it was his fellow officer and friend Jose Palamino. All of a sudden the internal speakers in the helmet crackled and the ship's A.I. interrupted his revelation. "Nicholas, I need a sit- rep right now", she said in a tone that was a mix of anger and frustration. I don't know Isabella but shit just keeps getting worse down here" Nicholas said with a hint of pain in his voice. Nicholas took a painkiller and a stim-pak out of his medkit and the relief would only be temporary. "Well you'd better get up here quickly, I'm reading multiple flat lines throughout the crew roster", she said in an exasperated tone. Nicholas turned and ran towards the door which opened soundlessly and into the hallway. As he entered the hall he saw something moving to his left. He brought his gun to bare and let off three rounds. The bullets struck their target with precise aim and he was rewarded with the sound of the bullets exiting and striking the bulkhead. He walked over to examine his "target" and instead found a beautiful young woman. She was still breathing so he rushed to her side and knelt beside her. "I'm so sorry, please let me fix you up "He said in a shaky voice and held up his hands. Nicholas holstered his gun and pulled out his field medkit and started removing the things he needed. She was very beautiful with red hair and green eyes that looked like polished emeralds, and her skin was pale and freckled except along her left side where the bullets had left their marks. Nicholas slowly pulled off portions of her uniform which marked her as one of the ship's engineers and grabbed some antiseptic and gauze. The wounds themselves weren't too bad; they were through and through and didn't hit any organs. She was passing out from blood loss so to keep her focused he started asking her questions. "What's your name", he asked her in a calm even tone. "My name is Tessa Birmingham, and I'm an engineer on the USEF Najikama" she said in a broken and shaky voice. The conversation continued like that as he patched her up. "My name is Nicholas Adern and I am the leader of the security force on the ship". As he finished patching her up and put her uniform back on her. He put her on his back and carried her along down the hallway away from the room where his friend now lay in pieces. We arrived at the lift and found the doors were disabled, so he set her down on the wall parallel to the lift and used his mechanical arm to pry open the doors. He grabbed her and placed her in the lift and punched in the code for the bridge and forced the doors shut. She began rasping so he gave her a shot of morphine to ease her pain. Nicholas turned as the door opened onto a scene of carnage. People were slumped over at their consoles; their bodies were broken and ravaged in a hellish way. Pools of blood covered the floor and consoles in a red sheen that filled the room with a crimson glow. He left her sitting on the floor of the elevator, drew his gun and swept the room to check that it was clear. Finding the area clear he made his way to the center of the room where he found the captain writhing in his seat. He grabbed his shoulder and shook him. The captain fell out of the chair and split into two as he hit the floor, making yet another pool of blood and gore. Other than that nothing else moved in the room so he walked to the ship's A.I. holotank. "What the hell happened here Isabella everything on this ship is going FUBAR and I want to know why" he said in a tone harsher than intended. "I have no idea. That particular information is missing from my data archives, but I did hear that there is a top secret cargo on the ship". As she finished speaking he ejected her memory core and inserted it into the empty slot in his holomatrix port in the armor. "The ship is now running on a skeleton crew, no pun intended sir", she said with a tone of synthesized humor. "Yeah, but somehow I don't think that we're alone on this ship". As he walked towards the lift, he had no idea how right he was. He headed back towards the lift as Isabella gave him a sit rep."Crew casualties are at 1,500 with only ten percent of the crew remaining alive on the ship", she stated with a vocalized sorrow clearly evident in her voice. He entered the lift and the doors shut behind him and he found Tessa wide awake now and was staring at the carnage through the port holes in the lift door. "Wha... what happened here?" she asked is a shaky tone. Ignoring her further questioning he asked her if she was feeling better, physically at least. He felt it was time to fill her in on what he knew so far. After he finished she gave him a dismayed look and he parted to one side to show her the carnage behind him.