“Captain on the bridge,” Ensign Antoinette Marie De Borbon standing to, the rest of the bridge crew looked at each other in confusion, her twin sister following suit. A second later Knight Lyon and Captain Hawkins appeared on the bridge amidst sour-tasting mist. The rest of the bridge simultaneously stood and saluted.

“Carry on.” said the Captain in response, “Good to be back.”

He walked towards his seat and almost collapsed in it, still exhausted from the engine room fight.

“Sit reps.” The captain laughed inwardly at the unintentional pun.

“Main Engines are completely disabled.” Lieutenant Herrard reported, “Auxiliaries are still Twenty percent functional.”

“LS guns are still inoperable we still have about fifty percent of our missile load out Captain,” Ensign Antionette responded.

“How about our visitor issues Ensign Amelie?” Hawkins asked.

“Sector Alpha through Geronimo are still largely unsecured Captain,” Ensign Amelie responded, “Fireteams three through eight have cleared up to Sector I, although GEOMs still keep counter attacking through the mainway to Sector N.”

“We have to assume that the GEOMs have infiltrated personnel,” said the Knight, still looking malnourished, “Always check blood samples and green tags.”

“Yes sir!” the bridge personnel replied in unison.

“Herodutus Fleet status Herrard,” The Captain inquired, “what’s left of us Lieutenant?”

“Main Flagship Citadel and Galleon Poseidon are at critical condition. The Vasily and Epitome have been largely successful deflecting GEOM boarding attempts. Fleet squadron Four, Frigates Simmons, Lothar, cruiser The Flamboyant and carrier New Arabia came out of radio silence after flanking the GEOM moon fleet Captain. Looks like Rear-Admiral Ruslan had something behind his sleeve after all sir.”

“Speaking of the Admiral,” The Knight interjected, “Has he come with radio contact with the Marshall since we left for the engine room?”

“Yes sir, he said something about holding position and clearing our breaches.”

Lyon groaned and leaned against one of the Bridges balustrades. “Yes, we can’t dock with other ships. We risk compromising them too.”

“Someone attach the Knight to an IV line please.” Hawkins commanded.

One of the bridge assistant personnel ushered the Knight towards the elevator.

The Captain and the Knight caught sight of each other. Lyon knew he would have to explain soon but the Captain knows that clearing the Marshall is top priority right now. The Captain then nodded and Lyon responded with a thumbs up.

“You know Lieutenant,” Private Enriquez said, clearing a corner before a stairwell, “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“That’s Private Enriquez talk for I love you Ma’am.” Private Gordon mused, covering their rear.

Shizuka can’t help but smile. The privates have started to open up to her more ever since she volunteered to stay and help the fire team get back to Sector N. She surprised herself when she told the Knight and the Captain that she would help fireteam team eleven get back and clear Sector A--one of the forefronts of the Shifter breaches. Checking her console, she was trying to backtrack Master Lord Knight Octombrie’s prior directions.

“Do we take a left or a right Ma’am?” Private Enriquez asked.

“Right,” The Lieutenant answered without looking up. There will be another stairwell at the other end of this corridor. We were clearly being directed away from something below and above us.”

“Are you sure it’s a right Ma’am?” Private Bacon asked nervously, staring at the corridor lit by intermittently powered lights.

“Yeah, why?”

The Private shakily pointed at the hallway with his rifle, shadows were dancing with each blink of the LED lights.

“What do we do eltee?” Enriquez whispered, the fireteam slowly backing towards the stairwell.

“Ensign Amelie,” Shizuka radioed. After a brief paused the Ensign’s voice chirped.

“Ma’am.”

“Do you have reading on the floor we are on? Deck eight Sector Alpha.”

“Patching scans Ma’am.”

The Lieutenants console loading screen shimmered for a few seconds then bore the bad news. Cold blue spots with bright red cores littered the corridor in front of them and behind them.

“We have blobmen,” The Lieutenant briefed.

“Then we just blow them up like we did on the engine room.” Private Enriquez rasped. She fished for one of her grenades on her belt but Gordon’s hand stopped him.

“We can’t grenade them here Enriquez.” He said with a cold stare.

“He’s right.” Shizuka seconded the notion, “Deck 8 is one of the Engine room’s storage depots. Fuel is packed in these rooms.”

Enriquez gulped and slowly hooked her grenade backed to her belt, “So where do we go Ma’am?”

“Amelie is working on a route for us, checking on immediate routes.” She assured. The Lieutenant’s console beeped and the Lieutenant pointed towards the stairwell, back down towards the Engine room.

The privates answered the officer’s nod with theirs and silently descended the stairwell. Weapons raised, senses alert; the ruddy red emergency lighting on the stairwell emphasizing the anxiety on Lieutenant Shizuka’s face. They reversed slowly, trying to muffle the sounds of their boots hitting the steel staircase to the bare minimum. Even though the blobmen are one of the easiest to fight from the GEOM variants since all you had to do was destroy their cores which would be easily done with explosives or with bullet sprays. But fighting the Blobmen in a volatile environment was a different case. They had to be really accurate to shoot a one inch diameter brain core on each one of them while making sure not to shoot any of the stored fuel.

The Lieutenant signaled at the dimly lit corridor on the immediate right which runs underneath the floor where the GEOMs were. The route on the officer’s console leads them further down and avoids deck passing through Deck 8 entirely. At least if they had to fight somewhere else they won’t have to worry as much blowing up the Ship.

They’ve reached halfway point of the corridor when Private Gordon, leading point, signaled the halt sign. The women crouched and Shizuka walked up to him.

“What is it Bacon?”

The Private pointed with his gun. Something was jittering one hundred paces down the corridor near one of the side doors. The sound of cracking bone and squelch of blood confirms that it’s definitely a turned GEOM. Shizuka weighed their options, they weren’t equipped for stealth ops and the corridor was too narrow to slip past it. They also can’t risk shooting it with the weapons they have else they alert the GEOMs above them cutting off their return path.

“Amelie,” Shizuka radioed, “Can you close Deck nine corridor door number six?”

“Yes Ma’am.” Her console chirped in reply.

Shizuka nodded to the others and led the team towards the GEOM. “On my signal Amelie.”

The officer once again looked towards the two privates who confirmed that they have caught up with her plan. Shizuka steadily avoided one upturned fire extinguisher and shimmied past a trolley. They were several feet away from the monstrosity. Any closer it would sense them. Shizuka saw the bottom half of the uniform of what once was a maintenance engineer, now she was just another meal and another body for the GEOMs to infect.

“Now!”

As the trio started running the door number six hissed and sandwiched the GEOMs head. Successfully pinning it to place and rendering his jaw useless to signal the other parasites of their presence. It thrashed and flailed trying to get free from the door’s hold.

They were almost at the corridor’s corner stairwell when Amelie warned them of the GEOM movement above them. They were moving towards the door locked GEOM’s frenzy. They needed to be fast and ascend four flights of stairs and also be quiet enough to not attract the parasites.

They hurriedly went up the stairs, two at a time and securely placing their foothold to avoid the telltale clank before taking another step—looking like cranes walking from spot to spot when fishing for food. Private Enriquez almost couldn’t contain her laughter watching the other two’s awkward rushing.

They were almost past Deck 8 when a group of squelches echoed on the stairwell.

“And we need to get past at least seven more decks like these?” Enriquez grumbled, out of breath.

“I thought you like your seven decks?” Gordon teased and was answered with a gut punch by Enriquez. Gordon crumpled into a heap.

“Smart ass.” Enriquez sneered.

“What was that?” Private Porter nervously asked. His fatigues drenched in sweat. Transporting nine GEOM eggs two at a time through one section length of hallway was playing tricks with his mind. Every hum, clank or whine the Private heard it all too loud.

Sergeant Parks tried to drill into the boy that he had to keep his head together or risk losing his head, to the GEOMs or to his own gun. Private Dawson on the other hand kept to his own like he always did, silently pushing the trolley—their second helping of eggs.

A hollow thump sounded behind them and Private porter jumped, shooting a spray into nothing. Sergeant Parks pinned the Private by the neck and relieved him of his weapon, throwing it to Dawson.

“You are going to get troopers killed Porter!” Sergeant Parks spat as he increased his pressure on the private’s neck, “You are going to get ME killed!”

The private struggled for air before the Sergeant released him. Porter collapsed all fours and gulped air with throaty breaths.

“Push the cart Porter.” Parks commanded, “At least that will distract you a bit.”

The private slowly stood up and started to lankly push the trolley. When the hollow thump from earlier was followed by a series of quick similar sounds. The Sergeant thumbed the safety of his weapon and Dawson did the same. Porter shakily gripped the handle bar of the trolley looking all around him

“Steady Dawson.” Sergeant Parks mumbled.

Private Porter’s rifle was still slung on Dawson’s shoulder. His fingers twitch, aching to grab the rifle, His feet poised to run.

“Don’t even think about it Porter,” The Sergeant said without looking at him, snapping the private momentarily from his panic.

“Sarj Please can I have my weapon back?” He pleaded, his sweaty palm oiling the trolley handlebar, “they could be coming any second now!”

“Quiet!” Parks hissed, “I can’t hear them with all your bawling!”

As the noncom said that one of the ventilation ducts of their heads burst open and poured out its alien contents, three pulsating blobs dropped just a couple of meters behind them. Sergeant Parks almost instantly fired at the dropping parasites, his bullets ripping parts of the blobs from their main bodies with squashes and splashes. Private Dawson followed suit, his well grouped shots hitting the one of the blobs directly in its brain core while Porter crouched behind the trolley panicked eyed. After a several more volleys and a new clip of ammunition, Sergeant Parks and Private Dawson Successfully eliminated the remaining two blobmen.

“Is That all of them?” Asked the cowering Private.

Before the Sergeant could spat at his cowardice, wall vents on either sides of the corridor burst with oozes of varying disgusting colors.

“Does that answer your question!?” Dawson yelled.

“GO! GO! GO!” Parks shouted, starting to push the trollied eggs, almost clipping the Private Porter with the trolley’s edge.

“Move Porter!” Dawson said as he dragged the frightened soldier through his collar, “Get up! Get up!”

Coming to his senses, the beleaguered private stood and ran. The sergeant was howling some sort of battle cry while using the trolley as a makeshift battering ram, crushing blobs with disgusting squelches as part of their bodies went under the trolley’s wheels. Dawson stamped on the more whole chunks whenever he could.

Porter looked behind him, the blobs where almost filling the corridor behind them to the brim and were coming to them like a rising wave. The smell of fetid flesh and syrupy ichor grew stronger as the parasitic wave gained on them. Dawson tripped on what looked like a doorway jam, the panicked porter ran pass him not giving him a second look. But rather than running away from the mass of solidified gestation, the Private ran towards the door console. Entered the closing sequence but massive vault door didn’t budge. Thinking quickly he opened the communication channel to the bridge.

“Hello! Hello! Is anyone hearing this! Close Sector Alpha door four! GEOMs on our tail!”

Dawson peeked through the gap the huge blob was just a few meters from where he was, he had no time to relay another message to the bridge or outrun the blobmen. The Private raised his weapon and hip fired whilst yelling obscenities. Another two rifles burped bullets.

Dawson looked behind him and saw Porter and the Sergeant firing their weapons on full auto. Dawson patted his left shoulder, the strap of Porter’s rifle gone. He must have dropped the rifle when he tripped. The two were now parallel to him firing covering barrages.

“Get on that comms Dawson!” Parks shouted, “We may have x-rays behind us too!”

Dawson nodded and raised again the bridge channel.

“Anyone! Please close Sectio—,” Before the private could finish his sentence the door hissed down.

Through the door porthole they saw the seething mass slam into it, cracking the glass.

Porter gulped but said nothing. Private Dawson only nodded. The sergeant gave Dawson a heavy pat on the back, surprising the private who had to hold the side console for support from the impact.

“Quick thinking there Private,” He commented, “Almost left you there, good thing Porter here pulled my attention.”

The two privates nodded to one another, a pact of forgiveness and respect between soldiers.

“That won’t hold long.” The sergeant said pointing at the door with his chin, “We have to dispose the gags quick before we clear any more of these bastards.”

Porter gulped heavily but said nothing. Dawson only nodded in return.

Just another normal day for the foot.