OOC: I may have been inspired by some of the other posts in this thread. Thanks to Macisikan also, for helping me to improve this post.
IC:
M/V Golden Flower
Somewhere in the fringes of New Kazakhstan County, CREThe airlock of the
Golden Flower opened up with a slow hiss and a series of “ka-chunk” sounds. A beeping sound and an automated, tinny sound of “Welcome aboard” could be heard, spoken in both Mandarin and English.
The party being greeted was a group of individuals, bearing the sigil of the Immigration and Common Border Authority. They had come here on a mission--to figure out why a merchant ship which had visited the Scythian Khaganate to run guns to them on NORINCO’s behalf now was floating listlessly in a major spacelane, causing a collision and forcing the intervention of the authorities to get the ship out of the way. Initial scans had detected something onboard the ship--lifesigns for sure. So, the ICBA decided to take control of the situation.
The team onboard had a mix of equipment types. Some of them had rather large suits of armor, looking like some sort of mix of technological knight and cybernetic wonder. Others wore the familiar M1 Helmet, with a respirator that covered the face, coveralls in navy blue with name and ICBA insignia with a powered metal exoskeleton and satchels full of equipment. Blasters and shotguns were the name of the game--boarding actions were dangerous affairs, and many of the men in this party had been veterans of many a stop in space that turned violent.
One man in this party--a man with respirator--was one Warrant Officer Joseph Fredricksen, a man whose expertise was in all things medical and biological. As such, Fredricksen’s wargear included an Academica Sinica GP-1 Bioscanner. Looking more like a toy flute with a screen on it, the GP-1 was a scanner probing enough to spot contraband of all sorts and precise enough to separate the contraband from the legitimate equipment. However, it had a particular affinity for scanning for biological matter that should or shouldn’t be there as well as for medical maladies of all sorts, complete with a linkup to all known databases available to the common Dornalian. It would come in handy.
The investigation began with Fredricksen and his party going one way, and another ICBA team going the other way. The pointman of the Fredricksen party, a man in power armor named Sergeant Martinez, called out into the hallways as was standard ICBA procedure, keeping his shotgun at low ready.
“IMMIGRATION N’ COMMON BORDER AUTHORITY! WE’RE HERE TO RENDER ASSISTANCE! IS ANYONE HERE?!”
There was of course, no reply. Martinez called out again, as the party moved forward.
“ALRIGHT! WE’RE COMING THROUGH!”
The search was slow and steady at first. Captured on bodycam footage, there wasn’t much to find in these opening moments. Electronic door control panels seemed to flash on and off. The ICBA inspectors knew that in these sorts of conditions, it was always better to just use a manual control, or even a special ICBA breaching crowbar and a guy in powered armor to open a door which wouldn’t budge. And so, one closet door was opened with a sonic screwdriver. And then, there was a peek into a utility room resulting from another door opening, this door jimmied open with a powered armored boot to the door lock. And finally, there was another opened door, opened in a more civilized manner with the manipulation of a manual entry crank near the door entrance.
All of this produced nothing. No sounds, no movement. Just flickering emergency lights broken up by the lamps on the policemens’ helmets.
What the policemen could find was simple enough, although it wasn’t helping the men and women of law enforcement find out what happened to this place. Clothing and goods seemed to be right where they were left. Rooms were messy. There was half-eaten food left out on desks and nightstands. At times, there was any number of fluids and foods spilled on the floor due to the inevitable jolt of colliding with another vessel.
The only constant was there there was no one around. Just the ICBA officers, the flickering lights, and the deafening silence only occasionally broken up by the officers’ footfalls, the sound of power armor mechanisms moving, and the odd bit of radio report from the other search teams and Dispatch, the main contact onboard the CRICBS
Kurtzmann who was speaking to the teams. Confusingly, this man was not the same as Search Leader, who was right now onboard the ship also.
At any rate, Fredricksen tuned his Bioscanner to work at a more probing setting, to look through the various rooms and to hopefully save some time in regards to what was beginning to be a tense, yet repetitive search. And yet so far, there was nothing to be found in the immediate vicinity.
Then, in one room, Martinez the pointman could be seen turning to the team and motioning for them to come in, with a hearty, “I’ve got something here!”
Fredricksen entered the room along with the others, each of which took up positions inside of the room to watch a particular corner of the room. The room appeared to be someone’s quarters. However, there were no living beings here, only two dead men. You didn’t need a scanner to figure out how one man died. The man in question had a 1911A1 pistol next to him, and well…the man
used to have a head. Now there was blood and efflua instead.
The other man, however...well, that was a bit more unusual. Fredricksen noted the man’s pallor. He was black all over, and had clear signs of bleeding out of his nostrils and his eyes. He died, the other man having evidently emptied several shots in the bleeding man’s midsection. The thing that struck Fredricksen was that the corpse had a twisted, crazed grimace on his face.
Just as Fredricksen got closer, the Bioscanner began to pick up a lot of signals. Fredricksen was confused at this--there didn’t seem to be anything there at first. It was then that he noticed something on the man’s coat. Perhaps this was setting off the machine? Time to figure it out.
Motioning to one of his squadmates, Fredricksen said, “Gonna need some light here!”
To Fredricksen’s surprise, when the man brought forth a light upon the corpse, there appeared to be a fungus of some sort on the man’s body which had emerged from around the gunshot wounds, and had spread all over to the man’s neck and upper thighs, covering the whole midsection. One which had grown unusually quickly, and one which looked to be still growing.
One of the ICBA officers asked the obvious question, with a quiver in his voice.
“What the fuck is that?”
Fredricksen shrugged, looking at the mold with a puzzled look as he tried scanning it over and over. The machine kept telling Fredricksen that there were no hits on any known Dornalian or others’ databases. Fredricksen hoped this was just due to poor reception--the fact a disease was not on the databases was generally not a good sign.
“Wish I could tell you. Scanner’s not coming up with anything. I mean, it’s fairly obvious one guy shot the other and killed himself. But this?” Upon the word this, Fredricksen pointed at the dead man with mold upon him. “This is weird. Dunno why it happened either, but one thing’s for sure. Mold, or any type of fungus for that matter, is not supposed to grow that fast.”
Fredricksen then said, speaking into his microphone with some disbelief, “Dispatch, this is Search 2-3. Time--21:45 Zulu. Suspected murder suicide. One casualty has extensive necrosis, and evidence of bleeding from nose as well as contamination with fungus of unknown origin. Will continue search with rest of party, but advise immediate dispatch of forensic processing with appropriate biohazard protections on our coordinates. Over.”
Search Team 2 proceeded onwards and out of the room, as a couple of men teleported into the room, bedecked in protective gear and inspecting the scene.
***
The dimly lit hallways with lights that flickered were not getting any brighter, and that palpable, only-occasionally-interrupted silence’s return was not entirely welcome amongst Search Team 2’s ranks. The party proceeded in single file, Martinez taking point again and reloading his boarding shotgun in case anything jumped out at the team. As he did so, he never took his eyes off of the barely illuminated reddish-blackness. This big of a ship with this little activity? It was hard to believe that no one had survived.
And frankly, there were still no answers to be had as to why any of this came to be. Well, none except for the unusual fungus--but spacers picked up all sorts of gribblies in outer space, right?
Well, that notion, if it was present amongst the squad, began to gradually fade away as the ICBA men moved through the halls, going through the motions of opening doors, checking rooms and running bioscans using Fredricksen’s Bioscanner. Mainly, this was because the rooms themselves began to yield more signs of what had happened.
Martinez called out once more.
“HEY! ICBA! ANYONE HERE?! COME OUT! WE’RE HERE TO HELP!”
There was of course, no reply. Well, no reply except for a creaking. Martinez leveled his shotgun and aimed at the source of the creak. It seemed to come from behind a door. He waved for the others to follow, and soon, they were stacked up next to the door.
The creaking seemed to increase, and then fade, and increase again.
Then, on Search 2-1’s signal, Martinez cranked the manual opening lever, opening the door with some speed. A
whoosh of air could be heard, and Martinez threw a flashbang inside. The flashbang popped and a flash of light emerged, before the team moved in to sweep the room, each man taking up a position inside the room as per standard ICBA protocol.
After a few minutes of frantic looking about, things calmed down, as Martinez and the rest realized there was no interloper here. A chorus of “clear!” could be heard from each man, one after the other. Search 2-1 directed the others to begin searching the room. His annoyed tone suggested they needed to find some way to justify this wasted time.
Martinez himself found the culprit. This time, it was a rather large...cat. A housecat by all indications. It seemed unusually fat, and it was curled back, resting on a rickety wooden shelf and nursing the pains it got from the flashbang. It also had fur which was falling out, and necrotizing black skin and bleeding out of its orifices.
The pointman lowered his shotgun, and breathed a sigh of relief--only for the cat to wake up, with a crazed look in its eyes, and a “RAWR!” The cat then suddenly leapt onto Martinez, blood drooling from the side of its mouth. Martinez grabbed the cat and after a brief struggle, pulled it away from his face--using just the right amount of power armored force--and then put it on the floor. The cat then scurried away, growling and seeming discombobulated as it moved erratically.
Fredricksen looked at the cat, and then frowned. Looking around the room, he saw a well used kitty-litter box, which had lots of red fungi blooms growing within it. Shaking his head, Fredricksen stood up before commenting out loud, “That cat had the same symptoms as the other dead guy we saw earlier. And there’s that red fungus in the litterbox.”
“Maybe it’s a fungus that affects both cats and humans?”, one of the team asked.
“Maybe,” was Fredricksen’s reply. “But how and why…..”
Search 2-1 cut off the inquiry with a stern, “We can figure it out as we do our search. Come on.”
***
The cat incident was just the beginning. By now, Fredricksen’s comms were beginning to pick up, and although infrequent, the other Search Teams were beginning to make their own reports. They were brief, but the details echoed a lot of what Fredricksen had seen. Bodies with necrotizing skin and bleeding out of random orifices. Red fungi. And frankly, both of that sort of thing on human and animal alike.
The Bioscanner, in the meanwhile, began picking up more signs involving the red fungi. Indeed, some corpses--those in advanced stages of decay--had what looked like entire forests’ worth of red fungi on them. If there were any other dead bodies, they too were covered in red fungi. Any houseplants, or animal corpses, or even leftover food? Red fungi.
The lights in the hallways began flickering even more now, with the red lights of the emergency lights becoming less and less visible. But even under those conditions--which were combated through shining their lights onto the walls and the hallways--the Team began to see more signs.
Namely, it looked like there were reddish-green stains on the walls. There was the requisite red fungi on the walls, but also signs that the thing feeding the fungi was blood.
“Well,” Fredricksen said, as he kept walking and walking...until he felt something squishy and hard under his feet...and then, trying to navigate it, tripped and fell over.
He found himself face to face with a member of the ship’s security who was sprawled out on the floor. But this man wasn’t going to be telling any tales soon. Especially not when he was missing the left half of his head, and the other half was in a decayed state with bits of flesh hanging off of it, the red fungus consuming what was left.
Fredricksen leapt up, panicked as the others shone a light upon the body.
As it turned out, there was more than one body. The team’s light captured the fact that there were now several corpses in like condition followed by a number of other corpses with necrotized skin and fungal blooms on, all of which were surrounding a door which had been forced open to a room which was marked “Captain’s Quarters.” The walls had holes, burn marks, and other telltale signs of violence all around, along with drying blood stains now used as fungus fodder.
Search 2-1 looked about, and knelt down, contemplating the way the bodies were arranged and looking at the environs before declaring, “Looks like these gentlemen died in a struggle guarding the captain….against those guys.”
Another man then declared, “Think they had a mutiny?”
“A mutiny maybe,” 2-1 thought out loud, adding with a shake of the head, “But these men with the black, necrotized flesh….they’re like the ones that we saw earlier.” Turning to Fredricksen, he asked, “AIn’t that right?”
Fredricksen nodded, saying simply, “Correct. I mean, whatever’s infected this crew….it looks like there were infected and non infected individuals, and something about all this drove the crew to kill each other. I mean, that red fungi had to be there for a reason….it’s just not coincidental.”
“Fungus which acts as a hate plague, maybe?” one man asked.
“Maybe, but it’s too early to tell. I’d rather get some science types out here to really break this down,” 2-1 said with a sigh. “Either way, this shit looks like it’s getting crazier by the minute--keep on your toes.”
Martinez, meanwhile, looked inside the opened entrance and called out to the rest and said, “What the hell--guys, you better take a look at this!”
The party turned, and then nodded, going to where Martinez was, peered inside. One man’s eyes widened, and 2-1 could be heard saying, “Jesus” in sheer disbelief.
The room was a large one, fit for a captain. And, it was a room which, under the red glowing lights and the ICBA team’s own lights, was encrusted with red fungi from top to bottom. It was like looking at an underwater coral reef, but instead of coral, there was lots of fungi. Fittingly, the Bioscanner began ticking and issuing warnings about hazardous levels of materials within. Luckily, all concerned had HAZMAT protection of some sort--the T-60 power armor suits used by some team members had built in NBC protections and the respirator-powered exoskeleton-coverall combo Fredricksen used was sealed tight against any gribblies in the air. Still, the sight was an astonishingly terrible one.
Under the red fungus there used to be things like medals, logbooks, pinups of gata models and a computer workstation. Now there was only a sea of red. As the team entered, there appeared to be a large collection of holes in a wall directly across from a room which had its door open a crack, and body parts and intact bodies on the floor. They were long since consumed by the fungus, but given the scene outside, it wasn’t hard to piece together the fact that some sort of fight had taken place.
Fredricksen radioed to Dispatch, out of astonishment at the sight, “Dispatch, this is Search 2-3. Are you seeing this?”
“Copy, Search 2-3. Be advised, we are witnessing other such feeds from Search Teams 1, 3 and 4, over.”
“Copy, Dispatch. We’re dealing with a major--”
Then, a thump and a rattle. Martinez raised his shotgun, and gestured in the direction of a room with its door open a notch.
“Standby Dispatch”, Fredricksen said.
2-1 nodded, and soon, stacking up in single file, Martinez kicked down the door.
The light from Martinez’s helmet showed a rather nasty sight. The object in question was a pump action shotgun which had evidently tumbled out of the hands of the body holding it. Well, what used to be a hand, before it rotted off of one of several corpses inside the bathroom. The several corpses in the bathroom, some consumed by red fungi and some others with necrotized flesh, were scattered all about, but arranged in such a way as to make it clear that whatever happened, someone was attacked whilst they were in the bath.
One of the corpses looked to be leaning back inside the tub, which now looked like a swampy mess caked with red fungus with a serving tray that once held a hamburger and a magazine which was now being rotted away. Next to the dead, reclined corpse, was a Beretta Model 92, held in the remnants of a rotted hand now consumed by red fungus. Bullet holes in the walls as well as evidence of shotgun blasts--one of which destroyed the sink--made it clear that some sort of struggle occurred in the bathroom. Who won was hard to say, especially given the fact no one got out alive. And did I mention the Bioscanner was going off the charts? After all, the fungus was consuming the whole bathroom.
Martinez recoiled at the sight, muttering a mere, “Fuck!” as he looked away from the dead men in the tub. Fredricksen looked in, and said, “Dispatch, Search 2-3 here. We’ve got multiple casualties and it looks like whatever did this is proving to be a major biological hazard, over.”
“Copy, Search 2-3. Search Leader requests you continue search and documentation of the unknown infection, over.”
Fredricksen looked up at the rest of the team, and asked, with some concern, “Did you guys get that?”
2-1, who was wearing power armor, nodded and said with a sigh, “Yeah. I got it.” Turning to the rest of his team, the squad leader motioned to the others and declared, “You heard the men. We push on.”
And so, they left the captain’s cabin and began moving further, with more of the red fungi in the halls and more signs that what happened here was very, very wrong.
But the worst was yet to come.
***
The journey eventually took the teams into the cargo bay.
Search Team 2, upon agreement with the other teams, opened the cargo bay entrance with a hand-operated crank, which opened a pair of blast doors. Team 2 stacked up on both sides of one of several entrances into the cargo hold as the door opened, all parties anticipating any potential attack. Given the sights they had seen so far, with mutineers, multiple deaths and a red fungus that seemed to be consuming the ship and inducing violence amongst the crew, anything could happen at this point.
After about 30 seconds, 2-1 radioed the other teams that he was going in, and the others acknowledged this with indication they would do likewise.
The inside of the cargo bay lay exposed to the team, and what was there made everyone keep their heads on a swivel, their motion detectors set to active, and Fredricksen’s bioscanner set to the widest and most probing ping setting possible.
Like any good cargo bay, the bay would be full of crates and other items, all of which seemed to form a maze that only those inside would be able to comprehend. In this case, there was a seemingly endless number of crates of all shapes and sizes. The logos on some of the crates and containers indicated that they were full of Scythian-made goods. There were also other logos as well. The NORINCO logo with the Red Star and the August 1st logo could be seen prominently on a number of crates which were marked “Returned Items” or “Top Secret--DO NOT OPEN!”. This made sense. What ICBA knew of the
Golden Flower indicated it would be coming back from Scythian lands with a consignment of goods to be serviced under warranty as well as a number of items marked as “sewing and knitting machinery.” What sort of sewing and knitting machines needed to be classified was beyond the ICBA men, but it was clear the whole thing had been some sort of ruse.
At any rate, like the rest of the ship, it was filled with that infernal red fungi. The fungi seemed to grow positively wild in this place. It grew on the sides of the crates and containers. In some instances, it seemingly grew from the inside of the containers, although it was clear there had been some tampering with the crates and shipping containers. Some of the containers were marked as being food products, and Fredricksen knew that molds and fungi loved unrefrigerated spoiled food. And, it seemed to grow between containers, forming a bridge or even in one area a complete jungle canopy. There were also signs that the infection had even leapt onto the cranes and other machinery; Fredricksen figured that some men who died inside their machines provided new ground for the fungus.
And if the ominous red fungus covering the crates somehow
still did not show there was a problem…
...then the shadow Martinez saw out of the corner of his eye would definitely show there was a problem. Martinez held his hand up in a clenched fist, and the team stopped. He made a few gestures, and Fredricksen soon fell in line with the rest, maintaining a tight formation as they began a more attentive, paranoid sweep of the area.
Weapons were drawn, eyes were opened and no sounds were made, save for the odd notification from Fredricksen’s Bioscanner and the motion sensors. The scanner was going nuts, detecting lifesigns not just from the fungus but also amongst the crates. That didn’t help things, especially as in this growing red jungle, no one could see where was what.
For several minutes, no one spoke as they navigated through the maze of crates. Not even the radio chatter came back, save for the chatter from Dispatch. Everyone seemed laser focused on trying to watch the crates--nooks, crannies, and all--to try and figure out if something was there.
Something was out there, and it was not the ICBA teams.
***
Time seemed to slow to a crawl inside the maze. Team 2 was now approaching a particularly narrow, thickly infested part of the cargo bay, and at one point, 2-1 had to use a sonic screwdriver to break down the wall of fungus and crates blocking his path.
Still, there was so far no sign of anyone, save for the signs on the motion detectors and bioscanner.
Then, out of the corner of Fredricksen’s eye, he saw a figure move. He turned and aimed his shotgun at the figure with one hand and held his fist up with the other to stop the movement of the team, but the figure vanished as soon as he turned.
Shaking his head, Fredricksen turned and looked about at the team.
“Thought I saw something. Stay sharp.”
“No shit,” was Martinez’s reply.
The party continued to move on….and then Fredricksen saw the figures move again--and heard footsteps. Looking around, he heard creaking and the repeated pitter patter of crawling and running. 2-1 stopped the team, and everyone looked around for where the movement was coming from. But given that there were so many moving figures around somewhere near them, it was hard to pinpoint what direction it was coming from.
And just as suddenly, the movement stopped. The team began moving again, this time, huddling near one of the containers as they sought to minimize the angle at which someone could ambush them. Something out there was toying with them, trying to get them to become sloppy. To make mistakes. ICBA’s people were, to their credit, not giving in.
As they approached a large crate...Fredricksen felt something kick him in the head, and wrap itself around him within a matter of seconds, before a sharp pain in his side came.
***
“SON OF A BITCH!”
With that shout, the fight was on. Fredricksen tried to fight the creature off, as did the other guards. The entity screamed all manner of incoherent obscenties, screaming about “It HURTS! IT HURTS! MAKE IT STOP!” as it tried to dig into Fredricksen. Fredricksen did not lack fighting strength, due to his powered exoskeleton. Grabbing onto the creature, and finagling a position, Fredricksen eventually executed an over the shoulder toss--with another man’s help--sending the creature onto the floor.
The creature was smarting from the blow, revealing itself to be what used to be a human being in some sort of industrial jumpsuit covered in blood and with black, necrotized flesh, much like the men the ICBA men had seen before out in the halls. He had a knife in one hand, and it was dripping with blood. If they needed an answer as to what happened out there exactly, the presence of a crazed man who was evidently being driven mad by some sort of disease provided as strong an answer as any.
Howling and screaming in incoherent terror, the man tried to rush the party, only to be dropped by two blasts from Fredricksen’s shotgun. The blasts sent him sprawling on the pavement, albeit twitching. The party then took cover, and Fredricksen soon found himself at the attention of 2-1 who was trying to evaluate him for wounds. 2-1 muttered, as Fredricksen felt the pain now that the situation was over and began noticing the bleeding and pain, “Jesus H. This is bad. He stabbed you good in the side--thankfully, we’ve got a ship nearby whose crew can keep you from dying. Hold on.” Picking up his radio, 2-1 began to discuss how they needed to beam Fredricksen out, as he was stabbed in the side and likely needed immediate medical attention.
As Fredricksen was being examined by 2-1, the call was then interrupted in a very dramatic fashion. Namely, a loud howling could be heard--and a hail of loud CRACK-ZING sounds and a series of blue bolts flew at a nearby crate, ripping it to shreds of hot metal and fire. The bursts were delivered at random, but it was enough to catch the Dornalians off guard. And in the case of one of their men, to disintegrate him using sheer physics.
2-1 motioned for everyone to get down, as he peered out into the distance.
To his horror, a large platoon of men similar to that of the man they just killed was forming on top of the crates and outside of the nooks and crannies of the crates. Their numbers were growing--even if their bodies looked positively ready to fall apart.. Worse yet, many of them had their arms ready to go, and seemed to recall how to use them.
Adding fuel to the fire was that it appeared to Fredricksen that multiple members of the forming mob had a Model 918 Squad Automatic Weapon, a weapon which was generally good at ripping holes into cover and reducing humans to atomized ashes. The rest were wildly firing pistols, rifles and shotguns, and several of them just seemed to be charging at Search Team 2, intent on doing some sort of bodily harm.
Indeed, the sudden uptick in violent shouting and gunfire which seemed to erupt from other parts of the cargo bay suggested that Search Team 2 was not the only squad under attack--nor were these the sole survivors of what had once been a merchant crew.
The squad began blasting back at their assailants as they attempted to withdraw. With animalistic ferocity, the men with the Model 918 squad automatic began firing long, wild bursts at Search Team 2, screaming at them as the others began running like men possessed at the team. The team itself began a desperate run, keeping in formation as they began to cover each others’ escapes. Fredricksen found himself leveling his shotgun at the frenzied foe, firing over and over again as waves of 00 buckshot flew into the ranks of those howlers that got too close, as he ran backwards.
As they fled, the squad leader shouted into his comms.
“Dispatch Actual, this is Search 2-1, we’re under attack, repeat we are under attack. We’re attempting to reach a safe exfil point, prepare to beam up. Repeat, prepare to beam up! OVER!”
“Copy Search 2-1. Keep us advised, we’re working on a solution, over.”
The team kept moving back, trying to find the cargo bay exit they had went through. Loud, blazing firepower could be heard from both the ICBA men and their infected foes, and bullets, gauss slugs and blaster bolts whizzed past the team as they tried to make good their escape. And it was looking good….until a loud WHIIIIRRRRRR---CREEEEEAAAK---THUD! Was heard.
Turning around, it looked like the infected crew had tipped over a forklift and a large shipping crate, so as to block their exit. The squad looked at it, and then looked back at the horde, and then looked back at the debris blocking their path.
Search 2-1 then shouted, “Let’s go! Move that shit!”
The men in power armor bullrushed the debris, beginning an effort to remove the debris as those with mere exoskeletons began firing away at the horde to provide cover. One of the ex-crew punched Fredricksen in the face, and then tried to bite him before Fredricksen sundered the man in half with blasts of buckshot.
Still, the horde kept coming, and it was proving fairly obvious that Fredricksen would be out of ammunition soon. Then, the fortutious cry of, “I’ve got it open! RUN!” from one of the power armor troopers, who had shoved aside the junk and pried the door open enough to make an exit.
All of Search Team 2 ran out of the cargo bay and into the halls again. As the squad tried to get into cover, Search 2-1 could be heard calling for evac again….and this time, the squad beamed away…
….into the ICBA ship. The other teams had made it as well, and before long, all personnel breathed a sigh of relief.
Then, came the realization that they were not in the transporter room, but in the inside of a large tent, set up somewhere in the cargo bay. Fredricksen saw the men around him--men in white protective suits, with scanners and other medical equipment, all of them with the CDC and ICBA logos, although the ICBA men had additional insignia corresponding to those customs personnel responsible for handling biohazards which entered the CRE. Men and women were being stripped down to their skivvies, and their equipment--all of it--being swabbed and run under scans.
Fredricksen asked simply, trying not to double over from the pain of being stabbed in the side and putting as much pressure as he could on the wound dressing, “What happened? What’s going on?”
One of the men in a white protective suit--this man was from ICBA--said, matter of factly as he escorted Fredricksen to a bed for examination, “Well, Warrant Officer, I’ll be frank with you. Everybody saw that footage the Search Teams took, and well….we’ve initiated Code Black Quarantine Protocols.”
“Code Black?
Code Black!?” was Fredricksen’s reply. The tone of his voice signified that indeed, Code Black was a very bad signal to hear.
“That’s right,” the man said with a sigh. “We’ve sealed you folks off from the outside world, as well as this whole vessel. And frankly, until we get the go-ahead to do so, you fellas are going to be here for a long, long time. We’ve also disengaged from the
Golden Flower, although a ship will be sent in to put that vessel under quarantine and contain the infection inside, and sterilize as needed.” The man quickly added, “Can’t have zombies gumming up the works after all.” Gesturing to Fredricksen’s armor, the man then said, with a tone that brooked no resistance, “Alright, now. Take off your wargear. We need to address that stab wound, you're lucky to be alive as is--and we want to make sure you stay that way.”
“Well.”
***
As that occurred, a signal came from the regional ICBA office. It was routed on the most secure ICBA contact channel possible to all the relevant federal agencies. THe words were simple.
- Code: Select all
“Unknown infection found. Patrol vessel [i]Kreuzmann[/i] is currently under quarantine per Code Black protocols, as is M/V [i]Golden Flower.[/i] Advise CDC, ICBA Health and Safety Inspectorate, and any and all relevant agencies to prepare personnel to visit the above-mentioned ships and to perform research on any and all samples gathered, as well as to provide information on the M/V [i]Golden Flower[/i]. So far, last known destination was the Scythian Empire. Infection is a fungal disease of some unknown nature. Will continue to monitor for updates.”
As this occurred, a copy of the message quietly, somehow and some way, fell into the grip of a most Compassionate Hand. But that’s a story for another to tell.