The interior of the armory was a wreck. The tentacles that covered the tunnel leading here had infested the room as well, crawling in through vents, pushing aside covers and consoles as they hungrily spread over the mid-sized chamber.
But the pulsing tendrils were the least of the structural concerns here. The entire rear half of the floor had collapsed into a ruin of twisted parasteel, a yawning hole leading away into darkness. Marie spotted the tell-tale singes left by uncontrolled plasma explosions - it looked as if a stock of plasma batteries had cooked off, though the damage was more extensive than Marie would have guessed such batteries were capable of.
And they are supposed to be stable - unless tampered with...
The rest of the room was hardly in better shape. A large chunk of the destroyed floor had been flung toward the door, crushing whatever had stood in the center of the room previously.
Beside the ruin, storage containers stamped with the insignia of the ship's security services lay smashed and scattered all over the floor. Rows of lockers covered the walls - most of the doors had been ripped off the hinges, either during whatever struggle took place here, by the explosion at the far end of the room, or by the alien tendrils which had snaked their way inside through cracks and openings.
But Marie hardly paid attention to the debris and destruction - once she had verified that room was unoccupied, by human or monster, she zeroed in on the station in the corner to her left.
It contained a RIG station. An apparently functioning RIG station, still holding a stock of security RIGs, if the indicators blinking on the cracked display could be believed.
Such a RIG would certainly be preferable over the surgical suit she was wearing, which was never designed to resist the teeth and claws and tentacles of nightmare monsters. Though now that she thought of it - those weren't exactly the type of dangers a security RIG was designed for either. Still, the more armor between her and the jaws - and other parts - of those creatures, the better.
Marie eagerly walked closer - when something odd in her peripheral sight made her halt her steps and whirl around, weapon at the ready.
No attack came - but Marie's heart still beat faster as she recognized what she was seeing.
A body.
Beneath the rubble of the floor panel in the middle of the room, half-pinned and buried under twisted parasteel and crumbled debris lay a body. A human-shaped body, Marie noted in a detached way, wearing the very type of security RIG that she was looking to acquire.
She stared at the shape for a long moments, but it did not stir.
Cautiously, Marie stepped closer to get a better look - then reeled back as she felt her gorge rise at what she saw.
The helmet of the RIG - worn by what Mare was now certain was a very definitely deceased security officer - had been badly damaged and twisted around on the RIG's shoulders. While the body was lying on its back, the view port of the cracked helmet was presumably staring at the floor beneath it.
A mangled body was hardly enough to shock Marie at this point.
But the sight of the familiar thick yellowed slime oozing out of the RIG's visible joints and cracks was enough make her back up in disgust.
She watched the thing warily for a while longer, but nothing changed - and she could not afford to waste more time on hesitation.
Marie is carrying:
Pulse Pistol
Surgical Blade
Strange Vial
Marie's Surgical RIG Condition:
Fully functional
Comments