Chapter 10: CHIOCES & CONSEQUENCES
"Toombs," Sergeant Hicks called out as he came into the room just outside the quarantine zone. Helicks had gone over the talk with the Armory Sergeant only to return, wearing a suspicious frown. Toombs suspected he had gone over to talk about the new guy and that neither hicks or the Armory Sergeant had liked the look of him.
"Yes, Sergeant." he said, turning to acknowledge Hicks, but expecting a knife in the gut. He stood in a room surrounded by the enemy. He had to play it cool. Everyone glared at him through masks of furrowed brow suspicion. No one knew him. No one could recall when he arrived. Who's the new guy they all murmured when they thought Toombs wasn't listening. They didn't trust him.l
Sergeant Hicks motioned to the door at the back of the room and added, "Go inform the men we have an intruder on board."
Toombs thought his instruction was a sarcastic trick. They knew he was an imposter. As soon as he turned to leave someone would shoot him in the back. But after a few moments, nothing happened. He made to leave the room, then stopped, feeling guilty for hoping they hadn't found Eve in the sarcophagus Bays. He hoped they had found Riddick.
A hand slapped him on the Bach of the shoulder and Hicks yelled, "Toombs, get moving!" He reeled around, hand darting instinctively to his side arm. Hicks looked down at his hand, right eyebrow raising as a suspicious frown took hold of his face.
Hicks pressed his face into Toombs and snarled, "What the hell is your problem, soldier? Do you know how to follow orders?"
"Yes, Sergeant. No problem, Sergeant." he said, releasing the sidearm.
"Then go inform the men there is an intruder on board."
"In what area should I tell them he was last seen?" Tombs stomach flopped, but he held himself fast, hoping no one caught the fact he knew the intruder was a man.
Hicks could barely speak. He would not have his orders questioned. "Deck 7, section B. Starboard corridor."
Toombs took a sideways step, walked around Hick's to the door at the rear of the long room and said, "Yes, Sergeant. 7B. I'm on it." Then he exited the room, leaving Hicks fuming as the door closed between them. He was glad to be out of the room and away from Hicks. But he needed to find a safe place to hide until he could get into the quarantined area.
He walked down the long hall, came to a partially open door and ducked inside. The narrow room was deep and the lights were off. The only illumination came from the corridor lights spilling in from out side. "Riddick," He whispered softly into the short-range microphone on his collar, fumbling around for a light switch. His hand found the switch. He closed the door, turning on the light, unaware of the tiny crack at the bottom of the door. "if you can hear me." he continued in a whisper. "They know you're here. You need to be careful."
"And here I thought you didn't care." Riddick answered.
Toombs cracked the door open just enough to squint through. Half a dozen armed guards patroled the corridor. They were arching for the intruder. They were after him. "Of course I care." he replied, closing the door. "Do you have any idea how much you're going to be worth after this assault gets out? The Necros will pay anything to get their hands on you."
"Always the entrepreneur." Riddick said.
"Now, if I can just get Kearyn to go along."
Riddick laughed and asked, "How'd that last payday work out for you?"
"Not so well." Toombs admitted, having lived through the ordeal on Crematoria twice. "They mutilated Eve, converted me," and to Riddick's surprise, Toombs added, "and they killed Kera."
"You should have just taken the..."
"Yeah. Yeah. I know. I should have taken the money." Toombs cut in, finishing Riddick's sentence. "But you're wrong. I shouldn't have put anyone in danger to begin with. For what it's worth, if I'd known..."
"Don't get sappy on me." Riddick said, cutting him off before he could apologize. He knew the blame for what happened to Kera rested on him.
A voice in the corridor shouted, "Did you see which way Toombs went?" Tombs placed his ear against the door, listening to the voices outside.
"Who?" a confused voice asked.
"The new guy, dammit!"
"No Sergeant."
"Tell the men if anyone sees him again to fire on sight." The voice paused and then answered an unheard question. "Because he's the goddamn intruder, that's why." It was the Sergeant from the armory, he had obviously recognized Toombs name. "No, I don't care if he is wearing our armor. It's a disguise. If you see him, kill him on sight."
Toombs stepped away from the door, peering around the tiny storage room to see if there was another exit. He scowled. Great, he thought. I trapped myself in a room without an alternate exit. "Shoot," he said, wedging a folding chair beneath the door handle.
Riddick taunted, "Really, who says shoot, anymore."
"They're looking for me."
"Get out."
Toombs looked to the ceiling, located the square air vent near the back corner, and vaulted the table beneath it. "I got it."he blurted, tearing the vent off its housing. The heavy cover crashed to the floor. "Dammit." he growled, wriggling inside the opening, trying to get inside before it was too late.
The door to the room burst open. The folding chair flew into the room with a crash and a guard stormed in, weapon on his shoulder. "In here." the guard called out, and a herd of heavy footsteps raced towards the room.
Toombs fired wildly at the voice, hitting the man just below the left knee, sending him cartwheeling back out of the room as the door slammed shut between them. He barely wriggled the rest of the way into the open vent before the door burst open again and three heavily armed guards stormed in behind a hail of gunfire. They took positions behind some heavy cabinets by the entry preparing to fire again. But when they jumped out, Toombs had already made his escape into the ductwork in the ceiling.
"Should we go in after him?" one man asked?
Sargent Hicks shook his head as he walked over to the hole and peered up into the ceiling. "No." he answered. "That duct leads into the quarantine zone and nobody's going in or out of there for a while."
The Sergeant from the armory entered the room and said, "Post a guard in this room and tell him to shoot anything coming out of that ceiling vent."
Sergeant Hicks nodded, turned to his men and said, "Dunmore, stay here and watch the vent. You know what to do if he comes back."
"And if he doesn't?"
"Then he's trapped in there with all the other rats."
Toombs turned away from the opening, dragging his weapon behind him as he crawled along inch by inch. He tried moving quietly through the ventilation shaft, but each time he advanced, the surrounding tin buckled beneath his weight, giving away his position. After a half hour of nervous crawling, he finally came to a vent cover above a lab full of people whispering something he couldn't make out.
"Shepard, do you think he's here?" a short stocky man asked a much taller man sitting in a white lab coat. The seated man was almost a whole head taller than the speaking man.
Shepard stood up, looked around at the others in the room and said, "Ask me again in a couple of minutes."
The short man's face wrinkled inquisitively and he asked, "Why in a couple of minutes?"
"Because if this isn't Kearyn's doing, we'll all be dead from whatever contagion actually escaped." Shepard said, patting the shorter man's shoulder.
Before Thomas could continue, the ceiling grate fell out, bouncing off a lab table and hitting the floor with a tremendous crash. The commotion nearly scared half the people in the room out of their wits. A second later, Toombs fell unceremoniously from the ceiling above, crashed hard onto the table and fell to the floor atop the grate. His unsecured weapon landed at Thomas' feet.
"Don't worry, Kearyn sent me to make sure you're safe." he said, clutching his bruised ribs and gasping to catch his breath. Toombs pulled himself to his feet, staring around the room at the open-mouthed faces as Thomas eyed the stray weapon. "I wouldn't." Toombs warned, hand sliding over the grip of his sidearm.
"Don't believe him, Shepard. It's a trick." Thomas snapped, stepping away from the weapon on the floor. "Remember, Kearyn said he wouldn't be in Necro armor."
And to everyone's surprise, Toombs armor changed in an instant. "I see Kearyn finally got the biomorphic epidermis to work." Shepard said, walking over to examine Toombs suit with great interest. "He always does such painstaking work." Shepard held out his hand and said, "My name is..."
"Shepard," Toombs said, not actually trying to be rude.
Shepard nodded a quick affirmation and asked, "Is Kearyn nearby?"
"No, he's still on the Rapier. And a small force of armed men went over to secure it. It's uncertain what his condition is at this point." he said, checking the door to ensure it was secure.
Thomas turned to Shepard and laughed all knowingly, "Apparently, he doesn't know much about Kearyn."
Toombs motioned for two large men nearest him to help push a desk in front of the doorway. "After the day I've had. I'm uncertain I ever knew him at all." Tombs admitted, sitting down at a nearby lab table and dropping his rifle on it with a crash.
Thomas snickered, "I guess we should welcome you to the resistance."
"The resistance," Toombs replied, as if he were missing something. "Kearyn said nothing about a resistance."
Thomas grinned at Toombs with a smile that announced he'd recently had a few teeth knocked out, and said, "Don't feel left out, I was here for over a year before I met Kearyn and it was nearly as long again before any of us riddled out what he was doing. I mean, nobody would believe one of the founding fathers of the Necromonger faith would plot to overthrow the counsel and bring down the faith."
"Necroism is no faith. It's just genocidal lunacy cloaked in the guise of religious fervor. The Lord Marshall's are nothing more than false prophets who profess murder and death." Toombs replied in an unusually forceful tone, dripping with malice and disdain.
Thomas whispered in Shepard's ear, "Do you think we can trust this guy?"
Shepard stood next to him with an expression showing he was trying to decide if he could trust Toombs or not and answered quietly, "No idea. But I trust Kearyn and he trusts him. So, that's good enough for me."
Thomas watched Toombs with a grimace and added, "I can't tell if this guy's trying to convince us or if he's trying to convince himself."
Shepard leaned over and whispered, "Guilt can have a way of making someone question their values."
Thomas quickly turned and replied, "How can you tell he's guilty?"
Shepard patted him on the shoulder and said, "Everyone's guilty of something, including us."
Thomas hung his head and answered, "I suppose so."
Toombs ranted on, unaware of the conversation taking place right in front of him, "None of them care about anyone but themselves; they just want a free pass into heaven."
____________________________________
From her perch atop the massive steel structure, Eve had become the eyes and ears of the battle. She focused on the flow of troops, subverted their attempts to flank Riddick and channeled troop movement right at Riddick's position. She was in control of the entire ship with one crucial exception; after locking herself in the sarcophagus bay, she had soon forgotten about the two men who were still patrolling the bay beneath her.
A voice screamed out from somewhere down below. "Up there on the gantry!" A moment later, the sounds of gravity rifles firing filled the bay, and Eve barely evaded the incoming blasts. The shock-waves grazed the side of her face, twisting her to the side.
"Dammit Coulson, you missed," a voice snarled, half in anger and half in fear.
"I didn't see your shot hit its mark either, Martinson." Coulson snapped back, still aiming his rifle at the thing standing on the gantry above him.
Eve panicked and ran about five feet before the cable tethering her helmet to the computer bus stretched taut. Her head snapped back, sending her feet rocketing high in the air above her torso. She floated like an autumn leaf suspended on a gentle breeze, and then the artificial gravity reached up and slammed her back down onto the steel gantry. The air exploded out of her lungs as she crumpled on the steel beneath her. Monster or not, even she had limits to what she could withstand. She held her throbbing head as tiny stars filled her eyes and the room spiralled around her.
Coulson grinned up at the giant thing as Martinson aimed at it. "Do you think you can hit the damn thing this time?" he asked, slapping his barrel.
"Nice, smartass." Martinson blurted, sneering over his sights, preparing to squeeze the trigger. "If you're such a crack shot. You shoot it."
"For fuck' sake. Shoot already." Coulson said.
Martinson pulled his trigger. The blast from his gravity rifle hit Eve broadside, throwing her off the edge of the gantry, her limp body plummeting towards the floor far below. Then, without warning, the tether stretched tight and her body jerked to a violent halt. A blood-curdling scream of pain exploded from her mouth as the sound of snapping vertebrae filled the bay. Eve hung by the neck with her feet twitching wildly beneath her swinging body.
"Good hit," Coulson said, "Solid hit." He slapped Martinson on the back.
"Should I finish it?" he asked, rifle still trained on the swaying beast.
"That's up to you," Coulson answered, "I'm not going near it until you make that pinata pop."
Eve dangled 20 feet in the air by nothing more than a thin chinstrap looped beneath her disjointed jaw. Her twisted neck stretched into an unnatural position, completely at the mercy of the guards below. A faint rattling moan came from Eve's mouth as her left foot twitched ever so slightly.
"It's still alive." Coulson warned.
Martinson raised his rifle one more time, took a careful bead on his target and watched with a superior sense of amusement as his target swung like a pendulum. At the same moment he squeezed the trigger, Eve's chinstrap tore free, and she plummeted towards the floor.
"Dammit," Martinson snarled as the shock wave from his rifle went over her head, sending the helmet sailing off into the eerie shadows of the bay far beyond. The two guards watched as Eve's body bounced off on top of a drop ship and rolled out of sight somewhere under the ship.
"Great," Coulson grumbled sarcastically. "How are we going to know if it's dead?"
Martinson lowered his weapon and answered, "One of us is going to have to go down there and make sure it's dead."
Coulson backed away, shaking his head, and said, "Not me. You missed it; you check."
Martinson reached out, grabbed him by the facemask and said, "Tell me something. What did you say to the Lord Marshal to convince him a cowardly puke like you was worthy of conversion?"
"Fuck off."
Eve lay face down in a pool of sticky blood, right arm flopped unnaturally behind her back and head flopped off to one side, pain coursing through her body like water over a failing dam. Eve heard voices coming from somewhere above. She had to get to safety. Mustering all her remaining strength, she flopped onto her back and landed in a pool of chunky gore, giving out another blood-curdling scream.
CouIson backed away, glaring at his comrade through a mask of sheer terror and spat, "To hell with that."
A jagged bone protruded through the ragged meat of Eve's long sinewy arm. The pain shooting through her limb narrowed her vision to a pinpoint. She was moments away from darkness when someone called to her.
"Over here." A child's voice came from a few feet behind her.
Eve's eyes exploded with terror. She knew she couldn't defend herself and thought this must surely be the end. She turned her head to the side as a searing pain coursed through her broken neck. Her teary eyes searched the area where the voice came from. But no one was there. But she had heard a child's voice. A familiar little girl's voice. She struggled to move. They were coming; she had to move. The deafening sounds of agony filled the bay once more than Eve wrenched her shattered arm out from beneath her broken body. It h at her side.
Slowly the room closed in around her and then, just before it faded away, the voice came again. "The grate near the bottom of the stairs, pull it off. Crawl inside quickly."
"Who's there?" she stammered, looking back at the great.
"They won't follow. Go Now!" the little girl said.
Eve focused the rest of her energy towards one task, crawling to the grate on the wall at the bottom of the stairs. Her useless legs streaked a thick trail of sticky blood behind her broken frame as she pulled herself along with the only good limb she had left. She reached up, clutched the cover, and attempted to pull it off the wall, weeping in agony and frustration. It wouldn't budge. She tried again and again. It wouldn't budge. She wept in fear and pain and frustration. But no matter how hard she tried, one arm would never be enough. She dropped her arm in her lap, sobbing in defeat. It's over, she thought.
"Hey," a voice came from the stairs in front of her, and she bared her teeth with an exaggerated hiss. Martinson stood on the last step, holding his rifle at the ready. He smiled down and said, "Where are you going, ugly?"
Anger exploded from somewhere deep inside Eve, giving her the power to launch her tail at his face. Martinson stumbled backwards, landed in a sitting position on the fourth stair up and snarled in a pissed off voice, "Now, that wasn't very nice. I just wanted to put you out of your misery." He raised his rifle, stared down at Eve over the top of his sights and asked, "Any last words?"
Eve could feel the rage welling up inside her and, in a moment of desperation, slammed her outstretched tail back through the grate and with all her might tore it from its housing, hurling it at Martinson's chest. His eyes grew wide, blood filled his mouth, and he gagged violently as a thick stream of dark red syrup oozed from his gaping lips. His gravity rifle fell from his grip. Eve watched it bounce on the floor at the bottom of the stairs. He gripped the grate, sticking out his chest plate, trying in vain to pull it out.
"It hurts doesn't it, lovely?" Eve asked. The pain draining her limbs kept her from acting on her more primal desires. But they were there. Oh yes. They were there.
Martinson's eyes widened in terror as he fell forward, landing on his knees in front of her feet, his last gurgling exhale covering her feet in a thick blanket of sticky red mucus. She coiled her tail around his lifeless body, flung him up over the railing high above as a warning to anyone else who might think about coming down the stairs. "Why do these assholes keep getting blood all over my feet?" she said to herself, pulling her broken body up into the ductwork.
Martinson's twisted corpse landed in a broken heap at Coulson's feet. He toppled over, landing on his backside, and crab walked backwards away from his dead comrade. Dead eyes sunken into a frozen expression told the story of Martinson's final few moments. Kearyn had not been exaggerated. Eve had made the last moments of his life a living hell.
Coulson leapt to his feet, spurred on by foolhardy rage. He ran to the top of the stairs with his trembling rifle against his shoulder. Saw the giant creature heave its giant body into the darkness of the ductwork below. He raged down the stairs, slipping on the bloody mess covering the lower platform, and tumbled headfirst into the open grate. He Shoved his trembling rifle into the darkness where Eve had escaped, and screamed, "You killed him!"
Before Coulson could take aim, a long black arm reached out, grabbed him by the front of his armor and repeatedly slammed him face first against the vent frame. He lost his grip, watched his weapon hit the floor beside him, struggling desperately to free himself from his relentless attacker. But his efforts were for not.
Eve slithered forward, glowered out from the edge of the opening, and screamed at Coulson in a rage. She watched him struggling helplessly, wearing an evil sense of glee, and slapped him on the cheek with her tongue. He went limp. A play thing in her grasp. She dragged him waist deep into darkness, content in the knowledge the last thing anyone would ever see of Coulson would be his boots hanging from the blood drenched ductwork.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone