Exploring the few things in the room with the large desk made me think that the main room for this entire compound was that torture room behind me; besides from few screens, showing my team breaking the deserter's bodies. Nothing was inside the desk drawers, other than papers that could contain code words, after I found they were blank, now were lying on the ground discarded like used tissue paper. Ra'Va and Anna were as well exploring this room opening few remaining compartments or looking what's happening on the view screens. I saw Sonya standing outside the room, I approached her not knowing how to say what I was about to say.
Wiping the sweat from my bald head, preparing my mind, the words just didn't come through. What was I about to do? Pupa is dead. I don't know how to express myself without the constant burden of irony in my every word. I'm accustomed to feel myself in pain and misery but not dishing it out to others. Not to innocent people that did me no wrong. Thousands of scenarios were in my head, thinking where this might go, I felt my lips open up, mouth moving, I could not see or feel my face. What expression was I having? Was it appropriate? A sudden squeeze on my hand, a familiar feel of Anna's skin made me feel quite relieved.
Sonya had a face that showed several different emotions at once until her head dropped down and tears started appearing in her eyes. I took her hand and led her to a chair beside the now ransacked desk, now it was her turn to ask million questions, looking first at me, then Anna, then the strange creature Ra'Va.
"How did it happen? Why?" Tears streamed down. I assumed she was quite close to Pupa.
It took me several minutes to bring her up to speed, how these things happened. When I started to explain why he died, she started to have angry look on her face. I incriminated myself, explaining what and why I did what I did. Blaming myself for his death and half of it was true. It was not my fault, but I still felt responsible, repositioning myself was too fast, not allowing enough time for him to do the same. In short I AM to blame in this situation, my men depend on me, depend to lead them, and make sound judgments that will never bring harm to them in any way. I can argue all I want that I could not know what they would do, bring my own feelings up, making me less responsible, but that would just be a blatant lie. To myself, my team and Pupa's parents. Oh Gods I have to tell the parents about this.
We were silent for few minutes, I was hoping that the passage of time would lessen the impact of the insensitive nature that I was about to bring up. I knelt right in front of her, "Listen Sonya, I need your help. I know this is insensitive of me right now but we have a job to do, Commander had a Data Link here I need to know what's on it. Can you do it?"
She looked at me, first I thought I saw a scowl on her pretty face, but a moment later and she nodded, "Of course Boss." She stood up and went behind the desk, taking some devices from the inventory on her back, plugging them in on several input openings on the table. She started to work after sitting down.
"I'm not blaming you, Boss." Her voice was quiet, she was still staring at the holographic display in front of her.
"I'm not saying you are, but considering that I am your commanding officer I am feeling responsible. I can't even begin to apologize for my inadequate preparation." My head was low, I could feel the eyes of Anna and Ra'Va on my back. Anna squeezed my hand it made me feel better but still my heart ached.
"Does he have any relatives?" I asked Sonya.
"Yes, mother, father and 2 siblings, a brother and a sister." She answered, her eyes never moving off of the screen. Now she was looking at myriad of other screens that opened immediately after a loud ping had been heard.
"Did you do it?" I asked full of anticipation.
After waiting for few seconds her eyes went wide with amazement, "This here... Seems like they recently encountered a strange abandoned ship. Scavenged the parts from it and found some medical supplies. The journal on his Data station says that it's has been infested by some sort of biological contamination, few remains of the crew that have been found had been partially consumed."
"Consumed?" Anna asked. Looking at the streaming text that Sonya had been studying so far.
"I have a Vid preparing to stream, the next few lines just ramble on what he had seen the, and I quote here, 'enhanced medicine' was doing to his soldiers. Some on their enhanced versions would claw thru metal and rock like it was nothing. Having no pain or morality, whatever morality they had left apparently the medicine striped away, the only drawback it would seem was the subject needed to be dead."
The video started suddenly while she was explaining what she has been reading.
The picture was shaky at first, typical for the sort of outdated cameras found on top or on the sides of some older weapons, then it steadied as the person who was controlling the camera started to get accustomed to all of the debris on the ground. After a while the team he was with, a team of 5 men, so far that I could see, started showing their emotional distress at random sounds that they started to hear on the empty husk. After a while they started to see strange tearing, damage from firearms and random blood spurts that were on the walls or on the floors. The soldiers were visibly shaken, and wearer panned the camera to the left when a sudden loud clang, which startled us and the people that were in the video. I laughed lightly at my apparent nervousness, when the camera focused on the body that was near some unknown room. The body was unusually contorted as in apparent death scream, whites of the eyes could be seen from where the soldier was standing. He started walking and after 10 steps he was near the body, mouth hanging open, even more than before, added macabre and silent dread to the feeling in the room we were in, I could only imagine what the soldiers were feeling. Nobody was speaking, which was another obvious flag that they were out of their element.
Strange growth was showing on the body across all of its wounds, purple, orange and green. It reminded me of moss growing on the side of rocks back home, but the moss appeared to breathe. Rising and falling. As if it actually took in air of its own. There was further evidence that this was not an isolated incident. Further down the hall a room that was apparently arranged as a med bay, had huge chunks of the moss growing all over the place, again wherever the damage was done, on the walls, floors or the tables and beds.
The video cuts off with static, another drawback of old relics, and transitioned into what it seemed storage bay, since crates upon crates could be seen lined up across the room while the one they opened was right in front of them. The crate contained 10 vials of the same liquid I saw on the arm of the soldier that rose after his death.
