Doom Space 1-9

The events of the last few years raced through Isaac Clarke’s mind as the Brother Moon filled the Terra Nova’s bridge windows; The Ishimura, Titan Station, and finally the events on Tau Voltanis and the race to get off that dead world to warn Earth.  Somewhere in the background Carver was shouting something at Isaac, but the fact that they were moments away from crashing made anything he had to say irrelevant.  Time seemed to slow down as the ship began what was probably going to be a catastrophic crash on the surface of the ancient, unknowable space born horror.  As the chair Isaac had braced himself against was ripped out of his hands as he catapulted forward, he had a moment to notice the way the bow of the ancient vessel began to buckle and splinter on impact, the spider’s web of cracks the played across the window he was rapidly approaching, and perversely the sudden energy spike in the Shock Drive.

That’s odd; Isaac had time to think calmly.  Time reasserted itself, the window rushed up to meet Isaac’s helmet, and then-

Light.
Light and pain.

In a millisecond that seemed to stretch years Isaac felt as if every particle of his body had been ripped apart and scattered at unimaginable speeds.  With a jolt the pain disappeared, leaving in its place a sense of dislocation not unlike a full body sleeping limb and vertigo.  A second lesser impact drove what little air he had in his lungs from his body.  After some inner searching he realized the blinding light was coming from a bright set of lights above him, that he was laying on his back, and someone nearby was speaking.

“-ansport complete.  No ardent energy detected.  Tether source unknown.”
“You mean they didn’t come from Hell?” replied a second voice.

“That is correct,” the first voice replied.  “An energy spike originating outside known quantum frameworks was detected at the exact moment the tether was recalled.”

The voices sounded…odd, electronic.  Further, the first voice was definitely coming from some sort of speaker in the room while the second was coming from only a few feet away.  Blinking to focus his eyes Isaac rolled his head to face the speaker, and then blinked again at what he saw.  A large, obviously mechanical figure was approaching him while a second figure dressed in bulky green armor stood behind the first not quite pointing a large double barreled weapon at Isaac’s head.

“How unusual,” the mechanical standing over Isaac said.  “Who are you and just where did you come from?”

Isaac answered both questions by retracting his helmet and vomiting on the pristine metal floor.

“I’m going to be brief,” Director Samuel Hayes said a short while after Isaac’s unexpected arrival.  An awkward introduction had followed, accompanied with Isaac’s panicked warnings about the Brother Moons and all that came with them.  “We are in the middle of a crisis.  Under normal circumstances you would be held and evaluated until I knew exactly how you managed to arrive here, but as it stands I’m forced to ask for your help containing this situation.”

“There’s no time for that!  Earth is under attack!”  Isaac yelled back.  “I’m surprised the Moons aren’t here right no-“

Hayes cut Isaac off sharply.  “Mister Clarke, focus please.  Earth is not under attack.  There are no rogue stellar bodies orbiting this or any other planet in the Solar System.  And I have never heard of an Earthgov, church of Unitology, or anything that fits your description of these Markers of yours.  However if we do not deal with the current situation at hand things will be a great deal worse for everyone.”

“But where did they go?!”  Isaac cried.  “They were there!  I saw them!  Hell, I crashed into one!  Weren’t you listening to me?”

“I was, and to answer your first question I suspect ‘they’ didn’t go anywhere, you did,” Hayes replied with forced patience.  Vega, have you made any headway on locating the origin of Mister Clarke’s signal?”

“Yes Director,” the nearby console replied, making Isaac jump.  He knew it was just a computer responding but saying he was ill at ease was a monumental understatement.  “I am still compiling data but every indicator I have points to an origination point beyond our current space time boundary.”

“In short, you’re not in Kansas anymore Mister Clarke,” Hayes continued.  “Back to the matter at hand; if you are as accomplished an engineer as you claim your presence here is a godsend.  My silent companion here, while very adept at combating the invaders, lacks the technical knowledge that would make possible at least one course of action that will mitigate the damage done to the equipment in this facility.  Equipment that I must stress is vital to the survival of the human race.”

“Let me make sure I understand what you’re telling me Director,” Isaac replied hotly.  “I’ve been ripped from my…what…dimension?  I’ve landed here in the middle of an invasion by literal demons from literal fucking Hell, and if I don’t help clean this up we’re all dead?”
“That’s a gross simplification of the situation, but accurate enough for now,” Hayes replied with a trace of humor in his voice.  “I can’t force you to help contain this, Mister Clarke, and for the record I’m reasonably sure my companion in the next room will be able to handle anything he runs into.  I’m asking you, for the good of mankind, to help me contain this with a minimum of damage to this facility.  If you don’t want to get involved, fine, I understand.  But if you turn me down that will be it.  You will receive no support from myself and will be all alone in the face of what is to come.”

“But I don’t know how anything here works!”  Isaac protested, stalling for time to come to terms with what he was hearing.  “I don’t-“

“Vega and I can walk you through anything you require assistance with,” Hayes overrode Isaac yet again, voice turning hard.  “We are pressed for time.  I need an answer, and I need it now.  Are you going to help us and yourself, or are you on your own?”

Isaac frantically looked around the room, feeling trapped and lost.  He was in over his head, he knew that.  He wasn’t just up shit creek without a paddle, he was didn’t even have a boat and the creek was about to turn into a water fall.

“Alright, fine!  You win!” Isaac snapped.  “I’ll help sort out and ‘contain’ you’re damned problems!  Just tell me what I need to do to get out of this shithole alive!”

“Excellent.   Welcome to the team,” Hayes said, his voice back to the calm and composed tones Isaac had first heard when he arrived.  “Let’s get you introduced to your partner in this endeavor and get the two of you on your way.”

Isaac hesitated as Hayes turned away towards the only door out of the room.  The physical effects of the teleportation were beginning to wear off, leaving in their wake a mounting sense of just how much and, paradoxically, how little had changed in his situation.  On the one hand, there were no Brother Moons attacking Earth, no Necromorphs, and no fanatical religious sect set on prying anything from his mind at present.  However he was right back where he always seemed to be, knee deep in an unbelievable situation with no escape in sight except to wade in deeper and hope he didn’t go under in the process.  Taking one last desperate look around to try and find another way, any other way that would get him out of this situation that wouldn’t see him dead or stranded with no help in sigh, Isaac grudgingly followed along behind the robotic Director.

By the time he’d caught up with him, Hayes had already passed through the door and entered the next room which Isaac saw was some sort of air lock and prep room.  Sturdy lockers lined both walls with a metal work bench running up the middle of the room and a set of benches flanking the heavy hatchway behind him.  Standing at the work bench roughly half way between the entrance and exit to the chamber was the figure in green armor Isaac had spotted when he first arrived here, wherever ‘here’ was in the greater sense of the word.

“This is Isaac Clarke,” the director said addressing the second person in the room.  “He will be accompanying you on your mission and handling the more technical aspects that you two may face.  And this,” Hays said turning back to Isaac, “Is someone that I have every faith will be able to see you safely to the Argent Tower.  Don’t ask me what his name is, if he has one he hasn’t spoken it to me.  I’ve taken to calling him Praetorian.  The denizens of Hell call him the Doom Slayer.  Beyond that everything about him is a mystery.”

Isaac slowly stepped forward to get a better look at Praetorian, he supposed.  The thought of calling someone Doom Slayer in any serious manner was, for the moment, too absurd for him to seriously consider.  He was larger than he’d first thought; a full head taller than Isaac himself, though still dwarfed by the Director.  His dark green armor was unlike anything Isaac had seen, like something out of an intranet show or something.  The only thing Isaac could see that gave any indication that Praetorian was actually a ‘he’ and not another robot was the vague, distorted outline of a facial features behind the faceplate and the faintly reflected lights of a heads up display.
After they’d entered the room Praetorian had turned to regard Isaac, head tilted slightly to one side, a large partly disassembled belt fed rifle temporarily forgotten on the bench in front of him.  What Praetorian thought of him, if anything, Isaac couldn’t tell.  He didn’t say anything or give any sign of approval or disapproval at the news that Isaac would be accompanying him.  He just looked Isaac up and down, seemed to take note of the ad hoc nature of the weapons on Isaac’s hips, stared at him for a long moment, then turned his attention back to the reassembly of his mammoth rifle.

“Don’t take it personally,” Hayes confided in Isaac.  “In all the time I’ve known him he has yet to say a word to me either.”

“And how long has that been, exactly?” Isaac asked.

“About four hours and sixteen minutes.”

“Wonderful,” Isaac said in place of cursing.  “Let me guess, you don’t know what we’ll l be up against out there either?”

“That I do know.  To be brief, an advanced force comprised mostly of the lesser denizens of Hell and the possessed remains of the Mars facility staff.  If you move quickly enough and we’re all very fortunate you will also encounter Olivia Pierce before she reaches the top of the Tower.  I’ll fill in the details as you get closer but we’ve wasted too much time as it is.  Vega just spotted Doctor Pierce boarding the maglev tram and is headed there now.”

There was that feeling of being in over his head again; too much information too quickly in a new situation.  The last time Isaac had felt anything like this was right after first stepping foot on the Ishimura.  Isaac leaned against the work bench’s surface to steady himself and suppressed the urge to rub his eyes.

“On the wall outside the door is a personal computer.  Take it.  I’ll have Vega log it as yours and give you access to the base network as well as security clearance.  While the two of you move to stop Doctor Pierce I’ll return to my office and do what I can to delay her and assist you on your way.  Godspeed, both of you.”

The far door slid open, Praetorian finished reassembling his rifle, Isaac reluctantly reactivated his helmet, and the three of them moved out into the facility proper

The doors snapped shut behind Hayes, the last to step out of the airlock. Isaac compulsively glanced around the large bay he found himself in, performing his usual check for vents or anywhere else a necromorph was likely to jump out of. He was glad to see Praetorian sweeping the room as well with rifle at the ready. There's nothing quite like having your paranoia and unease justified.

The room was some sort of guard or duty station, larger than the apartment he and Ellie had shared back on Luna, most of the far wall taken up by a security kiosk and the other two walls taken up by heavy metal hatchways. Without a word to Isaac or even a backward glance Hayes turned to the right hatch and stalked off, presumably heading off to his office complex. And there on the wall next to the door they had emerged from was a computer pad, as promised. Plucking it from its bracket on the wall Isaac turned to start toward the hatch labeled Transit, not surprisingly the one opposite from where Hayes was headed, when a blow to the chest staggered back a step.

He reflexively grabbed what had struck him, and found himself gripping Praetorian by the wrist, who was in turn forcing a large bulky pistol onto Isaac. “No way, keep it,” Isaac began. “I've got my....own...” he trailed off. The moment Isaac had gripped the pistol Praetorian turned toward the Transit hatch and jogged off. Juggling the tablet and pistol awkwardly Isaac followed the green armored figure deeper into the complex.

They didn't get far before being hit with the first attack.

They quickly traversed a short hallway, descended a flight of stairs, and had just entered a large console filled room when it happened. There was a far off howl, Praetorian snapped his rifle around to the right, a flash of red light, and they were upon them.

The red light dissipated around two huge bone gray shapes, both of them already charging straight at Isaac and Praetorian, with a small horde of shambling figures moving rapidly up behind them. While Isaac was taking in the situation, Praetorian was already moving. His rifle thundered deafeningly in the enclosed space, drowning out the crashing of his boots as the lunatic charged straight at the oncoming horde. He was playing a stream of high caliber bullets across the whole lot of them, firing indiscriminately at both the charging Things and the mass of pale bodies behind them. The lead thing lunged to one side in a bid to dodge part of the rifle burst and to clear a console blocking its path straight to Praetorian. The second one decided to bypass the impediment entirely and jumped high into the air, easily clearing the obstruction and, as part of the jump, raised its arms over its head with clear intent to pile drive them into the green armored aggressor.

Acting on reflex Isaac pointed his left hand at the airborne Thing and triggered his RIG's stasis module. The Thing's meteoric descent as abruptly slowed to a crawl, and it was hard to say who was more surprised, Praetorian or the other Thing; Praetorian stumbled half a step before reversing direction and vaulting the console to charge straight into the oncoming rush of pale figures. The second Thing snapped its head around to focus on the newcomer, lowered said head, and charged straight at Isaac. It moved in a straight line, barreling straight in towards him.

Perfect.

The familiar grip of his plasma cutter met Isaac's hand, his thumb toggled the modified tool to a horizontal setting, with a detached sense of calm, he took aim at the charging figures left knee. The first shot blackened the ossified tissue of the creatures lower thigh. The second burned though the epidermis to expose charred muscle and tendon. The third and fourth burned the creature to the bone and through said bone respectively. With a bone rattling howl the creature toppled to the side, crashing into and wrecking a guard rail before rolling to a jarring halt. Isaac, however, wasn't done.

Thumbing the pistol back to horizontal he took aim again, this time on the creature's left elbow. A trio of shots crippled the limb, leaving it still attached but dangling useless. Isaac rushed to the left, closing the distance with the immobilized creatures wounded side. It was still recovering as he stepped level with it's hulking shoulders and raised his boot. His RIG sensed this motion and Isaac felt the familiar pressure of his grav boots engaging.

The creature looked up at him and had time to open it's mouth before Isaac dropped the boot square on its bony face, right where the eyes would be if it had any, the combined force of the blow and gravametric shearing drove it's head back down onto and crushed it against the metal deck below.

Isaac pivoted on the spot, grinding the foul remains of the creatures head further into the metal deck and sighted on the second demon that he had tagged with stasis just in time for it to the blue aura to abruptly dissipate and the creature to crash to the deck fists first. It stumbled as time reasserted it's self on it and everything seemed to jump around the room. Recovering it sighted on Isaac, bellowed, then did something that caught Isaac completely off guard. It lunged forward and again slammed it's fists into the ground, only this time it had a trick up it's nonexistent sleeves.

Red and orange light trailed off it's fists and forearms, light which exploded in a thunderclap as it impacted the deck and generated a shock wave that knocked Isaac backwards and sent him sliding across the deck. Isaac was momentarily stunned and blinded by the combined force of the strange blast and the abrupt stop he made when the back of his head struck the wall that had been behind him. Frantically blinking the dancing spots out of his eyes he groped blindly for the plasma cutter that had been knocked from his grip and spinning away. His vision slowly cleared showing the creature striding across the room straight at him. Isaac tried to get to his feet and move away but only succeeded in flopping onto his side.

The creature hooked a foot under Isaac's shoulder and flipped him over onto his back . It leered down at him and raised it's foot over Isaac's head, clearly intending to do unto Isaac as Isaac had done unto its former companion. In desperation Isaac groped for another item strapped to his waist, raised it and pulled the trigger. Isaac panicked as nothing happened for a half second, the creatures foot began it's meteoric descent, then a second thunderclap filled the room and the creature disappeared from Isaac's vision.

He struggled to his feet using the wall behind him and belatedly realized he had in his panic grabbed his contact beam. His hopes that the thing was dead from the shot was dashed when he saw it flailing around not far away. The his had not been clean; instead of striking the creature center of mass as he had intended it had glanced it's hip. The results were no less devastating for the hit though. One leg had been nearly sheared off by the impact, with the other flopping uselessly, the bones in its pelvic region and lower back pulverized into powder by the impact. He raised his arm again, charged a second shot, and sent the thoroughly dead, pulverized creature sailing across the room. Isaac ran over to his plasma cutter, scooped it up from the deck, and turned to survey the rest of the room to find Praetorian standing over the broken remains of the pale figures looking as surprised as an anonymous pile of armor can.

Isaac shook his head to clear the last of the haze from his eyes and surveyed the carnage in the room. The two creatures he had fought were very thoroughly dead; one was nothing but crushed bone and pulped tissue from the nose up and the other was lying rag dolled on the other side of the room bent in impossible angles. Across the room Praetorian looked like he had fared better than Isaac. He stood knee deep in the dead, figuratively speaking, holding one limp corpse by the neck with the rest strewn across the deck and in a couple of instances the walls around him. A fair number of the mutated humanoid figures bore gunshot wounds but most looked to have been bludgeoned, smashed or broken until they stopped moving.

For his part the Praetorian simply stood and stared. It looked from Isaac to the modified tools clenched in his fists, to the broken remains that made up Isaac's tally, then back to Isaac. He straightened back up to his full height from his fighting crouch, letting the dead mutant drop to the deck, then surveyed the room around him. He cast one last long look at Isaac then turned and moved towards the next doorway. Isaac sighed and cycled the power cells in his contact beam and plasma cutter. No rest for the weary, he thought to himself. Or is that no rest for the wicked? Either way it appeared a breather was out of the question. It occurred to Isaac as Praetorian punched the door control with more force than strictly necessary that unless he could come up with a way to replace or recharge his energy cells soon things were going to get dicey.

The next encounter took both of them by surprise

One second they were advancing down yet another wide hallway, the next Praetorian was sailing through the air. Blind sided by something big, red, fast and with entirely too many horns and teeth it followed up the charge with a leap straight at the dazed Praetorian. The maintenance hatch the shaved gorilla had barreled out of was now disgorging a mass of mutated figures and something new, something brown that hopped and bounded along the floor and walls. The jackhammer report of the massive auto rifle told Isaac that his companion was still in the fight and could probably look after himself for the moment.

Isaac back peddled down the corridor in the face of the oncoming horde and reached for his hardware. He belatedly wished he'd had a chance to give his weapons a once over before setting out. The contact beam and plasma cutter made the trip alright, now he just hoped the rest of his handiwork was as robust and that the oncoming figures weren't tougher than they looked. He raised his arm, sighted at the center of the horde, and triggered the device clamped around his right wrist.

The saw blade shot out of it's housing and jerked to a stop at the end of its kinesis tether. The first rushing figure ran straight into the rotating blade, and what a blade intended to saw through rock and steel did to flesh was a sight. The rushing figure offered little resistance to the spinning saw blade, collapsing in a welter of gore well short of Isaac. He whipped the blade across the oncoming figures, painting the corridor and himself with fans of red and black. Whatever the pale figures were they were no tougher than the necromorph horrors Isaac was sadly used to dealing with.

The happy state of affairs couldn't last forever. A red ball of what looked like fire came sailing out of the back of the horde, forcing him to cut the kinesis tether and roll to the side. Without the buzzing saw holding them at bay the pale ones surged forward again. Isaac scrambled back to his feet and readied another blade, only to be struck from behind and sent tumbling. He was dimly aware that he could no longer hear gunshots, only demonic howling and the stamping of clawed feet.

The situation was bad, but he wasn’t dead yet.

Acting fast, Isaac triggered the thrusters built into his RIG on full burn.  In a zero-G environment this would have sent him careening almost out of control across the chamber.  Under gravity the effect on his positioning was less impressive, the burst of thrust ‘only’ enough to slide him along the floor from whatever had just hit him from the side and blinding anything unprotected that happened to be staring straight at the plasma jets.  The mutated, pale swarm was largely unaffected.  Evidently whatever happened to them had removed their dependence on eye sight.  The two red demons and the fireball throwing brown ones were another matter, all of them flinching away from the painfully bright arc lights.

Isaac kept the thrusters burning until he felt his shoulders strike a bulkhead.  His gambit having paid off, Isaac climbed back to his feet for the second time in as many fights and steadied himself with an arm against the wall.  Lacking the time ready another implement Isaac sighted the Ripper on the nearest of the two red demons and fired off another spinning blade, dragging the buzzing saw along the nearest of its double jointed legs.  The blade bit deep and, to Isaac’s amazement and concern, stuck fast.  The thing howled in pain and tried to turn to charge him again, hobbled by the sharp blade lodged in what passed for its knee.

Sighting on the lodged blade, Isaac highlighted it on his RIG’s HUD and activated his inbuilt Kinesis module, ripping the blade free in a spray of shredded meat and bone shards.  The blade flew across the intervening space and jerked to a halt beside Isaac’s left hand.  Grinning manically Isaac whipped said arm around in an arc like he was tossing a discus, and in a way he was.  The RIG’s computer interpreted the gesture, translated it to a burst of kinetic force, and hurtled the blade faster than the eye could follow straight at the unwounded red demon.  The flying blade struck at an angle above the thing’s right eye, barely slowing as it neatly clipped the top of the demon’s head off before continuing on to carve a path through the pale mutants and bury it’s self in the metal wall behind the lot of them.

The half decapitated demon ran on another two strides before going limp and crashing to the floor, spilling dark grey brain matter from its ruined skull.  The wounded demon had recovered its footing after having the blade ripped from its limb and was still hobbling straight at Isaac with single minded determination, considerably slowed to not much faster than the pale creatures that had by now shambled level with it.  Isaac had lost sight of the brown fireball throwing demons, which while probably not a good thing could be dealt with when they reappeared from wherever they had gone.

His back to the literal wall, Isaac decided it was time to move.  Firing off one last Ripper blade, right into the wounded demon’s face this time, Isaac sighted on a gap in the pale mass, crouched, and activated his thrusters a second time in a rocket assisted leap.  The leap turned into a body check when one of the brown demons leapt from its hiding place at the back of the pack to intercept Isaac’s escape.  The two of them tumbled through the air and Isaac crashed to the ground once again, this time tangled with a clawing, biting THING.  He brought his fist back and smashed it into the demon’s face, again and again, the Ripper mounted to his wrist adding force and sharp edges to the blows.

After more blows than was probable necessary the demon stopped thrashing, either dead with a broken skill or concussed into submission Isaac neither knew nor cared.  His focus shifted now to fighting his way clear of the limp form and regaining his feet before being overwhelmed.  He had barely started this task when something large blocked the lights above and grabbed him roughly by one of the armored plates on his chest.  Instead of being struck, burned or crushed however the form hauled him to his feet and spun him out of the way.

Praetorian, green armor covered in swaths of bright crimson, launched himself once more head long into the pile of mutated figured, rifle gripped by the barrel in one hand like a club and a horn off of the crimson demon who’s attack heralded the beginning of the ambush in the other.

Isaac quickly scanned the room behind him to make sure he wasn’t about to get blindsided again.  The glance revealed a lack of anything living; the red demon that had tackled Praetorian was thoroughly dead with its head caved in by repeated blows.  The presence of unspent rifle rounds and broken pieces of said rifle neatly answered what it had been bludgeoned to death with and why Praetorian was no longer using the gun in its intended role.  Lying scattered around the larger demon was a mix of several of the smaller fireball throwers and numerous pale mutants.

Pivoting on his heel he turned back to the melee into which his companion had started.  Isaac raised his weapon to assist, then lowered it a moment later.  The chaotic nature of the melee would have made hitting his intended target difficult, besides it didn’t look like Praetorian actually needed the help.  He was laying into the figures mobbed around him with the stock of his rifle, delivering bone crushing blows at a rate that Isaac knew he couldn’t match.  Somewhere along the way the green armored behemoth had traded the demon horn for a whole mutant, who he was using as a mix of shield and a second weapon.

Isaac took the momentary respite to catch his breath and keep an eye on the other doors in the room.  He would be very surprised if all the howling and shooting hadn’t attracted the attention of whatever else may have been lurking in the area.  He had been surprised too many times already, and whatever else he was he liked to think of himself as a fast learner.

Turning back to scan the rest of the room, Isaac saw the last of the demons collapse to the metal deck bent into unnatural angle.  Praetorian let his meat shield slip from his grasp and, after regarding it for a moment, tossed the ruined rifle off into a far corner of the room.

“What now?”  Isaac asked.
Praetorian half turned to face him, like he had forgotten Isaac was there.  He regarded Isaac silently before giving him a single, short nod.  A nod of approval, Isaac hoped.

Isaac was about to repeat his question when something inhuman bellowed far off in the complex.  Praetorian spun to face the direction the sound came from, and after a moment set off at a jog.  Sighing and trying to ignore the burning ache that had taken hold of his body and the copper tang of blood in his mouth Isaac forced himself into motion after him.  Taking a mental inventory of what he had on his person, Isaac hoped they would be able to avoid too many more fights.  He hadn’t had a chance to restock after the fight in the engineering compartment of the Terra Nova and was running uncomfortably low on power cells, or to rest for that matter.  He didn’t know how long he could keep up with the seemingly tireless companion he found himself with.

That scene seemed to repeat itself, with minor variations, over and over again.  Sometimes Isaac and Praetorian would get the drop on a group of demons and their minions.  In such cases a thrown grenade or two would herald their attack, injuring the more powerful hell spawn and scattering the weaker ones around the room, sometimes in pieces.  Other times they would be taken by surprise, either by being attacked from around blind corners or unseen side corridors, more often by the sudden appearance of demons just appearing in flashes of light around them.   However the fight began it ended with Isaac wondering how much farther they had to go.

It all quickly ran together in Isaac’s mind.  He didn’t think he could pick out any one specific moment in the long slog toward that maglev transit terminal in his mind, the whole long trip blending together into a chaotic series of snap shots of frantic fighting and horrific inhuman figures being blasted, crushed and broken by Isaac’s repurposed engineering tools and Praetorians weapons and fists.  Finally after what felt like days but his HUD informed him had been less than two hours Isaac stood under a sign which proclaimed the dim but perversely clean and orderly atrium to be the North Station Transit Terminal.

The far wall looked at first glance to be large floor to ceiling windows looking out over a stunning clear blue lake with soaring snow-capped mountains rising in the background and deep green pine forests marching up toward the snow line.  The effect was spoiled by the knowledge that no such vista existed on Mars, a line of bullet holes that had stitched their way across one of the ‘windows’, leaving a gap and flickering images and static snow right in the middle of the vista and a pool of old partly dried blood on the floor.  Other than those minor inconsistencies it really did make a convincing facade of being a pleasant transit station.

“Hey, hold on a minute,” Isaac called to Praetorian who was making for the doorway labeled Departures.  When he didn’t slow his pace, or even look around at the shouted words, Isaac ground his teeth in frustration.

“Hey!  I’m talking to you!”  Isaac shouted.  “Stop damn it!  Wait!”

Where the merely loud words got no response, the shouts finally got a response.  Praetorian halted his determined stride and turned back to face Isaac, the shotgun he had picked up Isaac didn’t know where cradled in his arms.  What he thought of the interruption Isaac didn’t know for sure, but if his body language was anything to go off it was less than pleased.  He radiated disapproval and barely restrained aggression, or as much as a mute pile of scarred, pitted, blood spattered armor plates and an anonymous blank visage can.
Before Isaac could speak again, the voice of Director Hayes seemed to come from nowhere.  “Why have you stopped?  We’re running out of time.”

“Look, Hayes, I’m running low on supplies and I’m exhausted,” Isaac replied.  “I haven’t eaten anything in two days and frankly I can’t remember the last time I had a chance to sit down, let alone sleep.”

“I understand your tired Mister Clarke,” Hayes answered consolingly.  “But we really don’t have-“

“No, fuck you,” Isaac shot back, cutting Hayes off.  “Aren’t you listening?  Much longer I’m going to be a burden instead of a help.  You want me to carry out complex repairs or whatever on equipment I’m unfamiliar with when we get to wherever we’re going?  I can tell you right now, given how I am now, it isn’t happening.  I can barely see straight anymore!”

Hayes was silent for a long moment.  Long enough that Isaac wasn’t sure he was going to reply.  He started to draw in a breath to keep yelling when Hayes finally replied.  “Alright Mister Clarke, you’ve made your point.  Doctor Pierce locked out the maglev; Vega can’t call a car until the lockout has been lifted.  There’s a refuge chamber in the next hallway.  You can rest there while your companion continues on to the main transit terminal and turns control back over to Vega.  It will take longer without you I’m afraid but there’s no helping that it seems.”

“Thank you,” Isaac replied, finally moving towards the doorway and following Praetorian into the next hallway.  “What am I looking for?”

“The hatch on your left,” Hayes replied.  “It’s an engineer’s workshop that’s been hardened to act as a shelter in the event of disaster.  There should be food and water there at least.”

“Right,” Isaac grunted.  He slapped the control panel next to the indicated door, which proved to be thicker than it looked as it swung inward.  He cycled the door behind him after stepping though and looked around the room.  It looked…like just about every other engineer’s closet he had been in and used.  Small, dim, a work bench, a stand of lockers along one wall and a bench along the other with boxes that Isaac would bet his next month’s pay would contain tools mixed with odds and ends.  Digging around in one of the lockers turned up a stack of prepackaged food and bottled water.

Isaac briefly considered tearing open one of the food pouches and eating, but in the end settled for draining one of the bottles and putting a dent in another.  Food could come later.  For now, sleep was the top order.  He double checked the door was secured and locked, used the kineses module to move the work bench to block the door because his paranoia had not steered him wrong yet, then lay down on the floor under the bench.

“Get some rest,” Hayes said over the tablet strapped to Isaac’s thigh.  “As soon as I have control over the transit system I’m sending a maglev to get you to the Ardent Tower.  I’ll have Vega keep an eye on the hallway and alert you if anything comes by.”

Isaac grunted a nonverbal reply and shifted around on the metal floor to get comfortable.  He thought about looking for a set of coveralls or something to use as a pillow, but sleep claimed him before he finished the thought.