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The Swarm War

Chapter 9

Varrus was mesmerized by the screen "How is that possible?" He grumbled to himself. "There are supposed to be over a thousand people here they can't possibly all be dead." He them remembered something unsettling "if I'm the only thing alive then what the hell was that thing that attacked me?" Pondering this new revelation he decided to do a little research on what happened here.

He got up from his chair and made his way towards the center console again and brought up the map function. He then puzzled out the rout to the closest information terminal which was only a few floors deeper into the base. "Once more in to the breach." He said his voice reverberating of the metal walls. Half way to the exit the shutters on all the doors and vents smashed down with a BANG and the light in the room started to emit the orange hazard Hue.

WARNING BIOLOGICAL CONTAMINATION DETECTED BEGINNING QUARANTINE PROCEDURES.

A harsh electronic male voice intoned.

LOCK DOWN WILL BE LIFTED ONCE CONTAMINATE IS ELIMINATED.

"What's going on?" Krystal asked Lupa.

"This is where it starts to get serious" she replied.

"Oh so your saying all the shit that happened early was the easy stuff." Falco sarcastically butted in.

"Indeed you are correct Falco" she said seriously "Now pay attention it is about to get very violent." She said forebodingly. Back on the tape Varrus was looking around confused and upset.

"What now!" He shouted angrily. "Seriously every ti..."

and was suddenly interrupted when one of the vents was dented outwards when a obviously heavy object slammed into it. "Ooh...shit" he mumbled turning his attention to the source of the disturbance. After two more consecutive hits the vent exploded in a shower of shrapnel as something crashed into the metal grating of the floor. Varrus finally got a good look at his enemy for the first time. He was terrified his heart beat monitor skyrocketed upon the unveiling of this new danger. The creature approximately five and a half feet tall was a twisted corrupt vision of the human form. Jutting from both shoulders were two of what could only be described as some sort of bladed limbs almost like spider legs. It's appearance only more terribly enhanced by the flashing hazard lights that basked it in ominous light.

"What in gods name is that!" Peppy exclaimed the rest of the team looked on in horror as it began to move.

Meanwhile on the recording Varrus took this in all in the span of a few heartbeats. By that time it had already dragged its diseased carcass off the floor bellowed at him and charged he used his genetically modified reflexes and barely managed to dodge it's reckless attack spinning to face it he unloaded his rifle in to its back. It fell to the floor with an inhuman shriek and started twitching believing the foe defeated he turned his back to it and looked for another threat.

Seconds later his carelessness was rewarded with a sharp pain in his leg. It seemed that the monster wasn't down for the count as it had dragged its mangled body to him and brought one of its bladed limbs down and into his protected calf smashing right through the heavily armored leg and deep into his muscle. He turned around roaring in rage and brought his other legs heel about and smashed into the abomination so hard it dented the floor plating. Falling to one knee it seemed that he would get no respite as another vent burst releasing another one of these monstrosities. Without hesitation he reloaded his rifle and sent another barrage of lead down and into its chest bringing it down. He took a moment to see if it was dead and was horrified to discover that it as still alive and crawling steadily towards him. So he drew his sword and limped over and hacked it to pieces. Satisfied it was finally down for the count he sheathed his sword reloaded his rifle and scanned the room for another threat. He was not disappointed as another brace of vents buckled and finally exploded unable to prevent the onslaught of creatures from spilling into the room.

Varrus began to methodically cut them down firing controlled bursts into there extremities bring them down in a pile of flailing limbs. Without remorse he primed a incendiary grenade off his bandolier and tossed into the dogpile of the damned causing it to burst into a raging inferno completely scouring them from the face of existence. The fires slowly petered out shrouding the room once more in darkness and flashing orange lights.

At the end of that firefight the starfox crew were unsure as how to respond to what they just had witnessed. They had never before seen such atrocious creatures these were the stuff of nightmares easily the most terrifying things they had ever laid eyes on. "What...were those?" Slippy whispered clearly unnerved.

He went unanswered as they watched Varrus who was once more searching for threats. Moments later the hazard lights turned off and regular lighting was restored and the lockdown lifted satisfied the assault was over he limped towards the nearest chair to tend to his injury. With a groan he eased himself on to the steel backed chair and brought his left hand to his affected limb. He hissed in pain at the sight his adrenaline having faded and feeling returning to his body.

The sight sickened the viewers as his leg was severely wounded. His bone exposed to the light it was never meant to see. Blood was periodically gushing from his calf and staining the floor.

With a pain filled moan he reached into one of his many pouches and grabbed a hypo spray to disinfect. With a burst of chemicals and a hiss of pain that task was complete and so he grabbed a tube with a nozzle from the same container as the hypo spray. He violently jammed it into the visible wound and pressed on the plunger which began to fill the wound with a thick white foam. He exhaled in relief and put away the medical supplies. He reached into the adjacent pouch and pulled out a armor patch. (A bendable piece of metal that can form to any hole in your armor.) Placing it on the rent in his armor he took a portable welding torch from his apparently limitless pouch of wonders and sealed the breach in his armor.

Falco was surprisingly interested in the equipment he was seeing and was curious. "What is all that stuff?"

Lupa was standing next to him "that is the survival pack every one of the pretorians carried them on every mission the went on. It was meant to keep them operation capable for extended periods of time." She explained. The now enlightened avian brought his attention back to what he was watching.

He looked around and gathered up his energy. Satisfied that his wounds were tended to Varrus made his way out of the charnel house of a COC. He now focused his efforts on locating the terminal that would hopefully provide a answer to the insanity of the past few hours. Now even more cautious he slowly made his way to his new destination eyeing all of the vents and doors mistrustfully. He took the time to think while he was walking like how in the hell was he going to get out of here? Or how was he to stop these things from spreading or what the hell they even were? Deciding that it was pointless to question without more information he focused once more on the path ahead tightening his hold on his weapon.

After a few minutes he discovered a barricaded room suspicious of an ambush he warily headed towards it. Standing outside he saw that the sign next to the door read mess hall. He was curious to see why it was barricaded maybe the scan was wrong and there were other people alive. With hope swelling in him he moved the barricade with extreme effort and motioned to open the door.

He pressed the button next to the door and it slid open slowly with a screech of abused metal. He was horrified at what was unveiled. Before him was a room of horrors. There must have been a hundred of the creatures feasting on a squad of dead soldiers in the middle of the hall and roaming about.

Fox and co where speechless the things were shredding into the pile of warriors with abandon blood was leaking out of the pile. To make matters worse there was an even bigger pile farther into the room there must have been made up of a quarter of the base and there were even more of the fiends there as well. The damaged door was almost his undoing. The noise garnered the attention of the monsters that were up to this point oblivious to his arrival. In some disturbing form of synchronization they all turned to him in unison. The sight chilled his blood he hastily closed the door and reapplied the barricade. "That room was occupied" he muttered to himself.

Despite the situation his comment made the viewers laugh softly to themselves. "Well at least he has a sense of humor" Falco said

Lupa was "sitting" down next to Fox and Krystal "That is the last joke you will hear for a long time."

At that time Varrus was backing up from the door when a ominous SMASH was heard and the barricade shifted slightly. Needing no more persuasion he hastily beat a retreat from the door and back tracked too his path towards the information terminal. Praying that the barrier would hold he resumed his journey and walked for a little while before coming upon an lift. He went inside and pushed the button that would take him to his destination. Unfortunately there was just enough power for the terrible elevator music to play. Without hesitation he drew one of his blasters and shot out the speakers without a word.

A minute later he arrived at his destination and exited the lift to be welcomed by a gruesome sight. A corpse was attached to the wall adjacent to the elevator door by a three foot barb. It was a soldier his armor was painted gold and blue it was heavily damaged and gouged on several places. Varrus solemnly made his way to it and retrieved its ID.

MERIC LANIUS

MASTER SERGEANT

ID:5228794

It seemed that he was heading towards the elevator when he was impaled. "You almost made it brother" Varrus said sadly "I will avenge you" he spoke to the corpse his voice as lethal as poison. Rage burning in he heart he continued with a fire in his step. He traveled down countless bloody hallways eyes almost straining out of their sockets looking for hidden danger.

Eventually he spied the terminal and made his way to it. He logged in to the database and pulled up the last days logs. It talked about the discovery of the obelisk and how shortly after people all over the base reported hallucinations. The next entry talked about the disappearance of the bodies in the morgue . At this point Varrus was pretty sure these were some type of undead. The scientists discovered that the obelisk emitted some sort of signal that was designed to reanimate the dead somehow. By that point it was too late and the undead started to attack. The entries all went down hill from there and soon become indecipherable as the writer was apparently driven insane by the signal the artifact exuded. Finally figuring out what in the hell was going on he decided on his next course of action.He had to destroy the obelisk and hopefully that would put an end to this undead plague.

"Really zombies?" Falco said unbelievingly "you've got to be joking."

"I'm afraid it's deadly serious those things are at least the reanimated dead." Lupa explained.

"I think she's right Falco" fox said "there is no other explanation."

While they were talking Krystal was watching Varrus as he read up on the situation. She couldn't believe how he could keep going even after fighting though all these horrors. She was certain that she would not have been strong enough to survive the ordeal he was in. He was so brave she thought and so strong.

Her thoughts were interrupted when Varrus suddenly grunted in pain and fell to his knees. It was so sudden it caught Starfox completely by surprise. They watched horrified as he dropped his rifle and brought his hands to his chest he grabbed feebly at a huge barb that impaled him from his back and out threw his chest plate. He coughed up blood all over his HUD and the heart beat monitor was howling erratically.

They watched silently as he struggled with the object imbedded in his chest. "Oh my god!" Krystal chocked out barely able to speak as her heart had felt like it stopped. She could not find the words to express how she felt at that moment. She knew he was still alive but she could not "believe" he was. That wound seemed fatal for all intents and purposes.

"Holy fuck!" Fox exclaimed He was stunned as it had happens so fast. He couldn't believe how this guy was still alive. "What the hell happened!"

His question was answered when from out of the shadows a new version of the "undead" revealed itself. It was half of a human body. Just the upper torso, and sticking out of its waist was some form of organic spike launcher. It growled at its prey and moved closed to end him. Varrus weakly scrabbled at the grip of his blaster "Fury" that was belted to his waist. He finally got purchase and whipped it out as the creature lunged at him. His blaster spat out an ionized laser straight into it's approaching face sending it reeling backwards. Without hesitation he kept blasting it until his pistol overloaded. The creatures body was partially disintegrated satisfied in its annihilation he put away his blaster and picked up his rifle.

Coughing up more blood he got to his feet vision obscured by the blood on his visor. He looked everywhere for a place to hide in case more of those things showed up. He stumbled into a room that seemed to be crew quarters and sealed and locked the door his vision going blurry. He teetered around before collapsing in a pile of heavy armor on to the small bed in the room. He wrapped both hands around the invading spear and pulled it out with a grunt. It exited his body with a shower of ruby red blood. The droplets spraying all over the walls and floor. He grabbed weakly for his medical pouch and pulled out the spray and foam tube. Using them on both holes in his body he dropped them onto the floor carelessly and pulled out two more armor patches he managed to attach the frontal patch and fumbles around for a minute before applying the back patch. Scratching at the seal of his helmet as soon as it was broken he ripped it of and dropped it to the floor where it rolled to a stop next to the medical supplies. Luckily for Starfox it was still in position to see him. They watched as he collapsed in exhaustion on top of the bed. He was breathing shallowly and erratically. Soon he drifted off into troubled sleep.