Space Odyssey: Spectre-Chapter 66: Metal Scarecrows
"Okay, tell Sergeant Steel to stay in the engine area and send him a proper weapon." Captain Cornwall responded to the chief engineer then he looked to the person in charge of weapons systems, "have those with combat experience at the rear cannons sweep the entire ship. Tell them to look for something that looks like a metal scarecrow, and to treat hostiles with extreme prejudice."
"Engines are operational, do you want me to start a maneuver?" Salem asked as she began preparing the engines.
"Yes we are going to do maneuver five and then maneuver twenty-two. I will give you the signal when we begin. We need time for the other ships to get ready." Captain Cornwall told her as he began sending out messages.
"Yes sir, I will warn you I have only flown something this big in simulations." Salem informed the captain. There were chuckles from the rest of the bridge crew.
"There is no better learning experience than on the job." The older woman who was at the communications station informed her.
Salem smiled, "then I will make the best effort to meet expectations."
"If you don’t satisfy our expectations we will die. But no pressure." The older man at the weapons station joked as well. The pair were older soldiers who had not raised much through the ranks but had become experts in their respective fields. Salem was reading their minds so she could tell they were just trying to get her to relax.
"Okay the other ships are ready. Start the maneuver." Captain Cornwall informed Salem.
"Yes sir, beginning maneuver-" [ORDERS RECEIVED: KILL BRIDGE OCCUPANTS.]
The thought that interrupted her own train of thought was not coming from any of the people on the bridge. She stopped what she was doing and spun her chair around. Quickly scanning the nearby minds and looking toward a floor grate where the thoughts were coming from.
"We have a contact." Salem pulled her gun from her hip holster. Earlier when it was only suspected that there was a saboteur a security team brought the entire bridge crew sidearms. She was glad they had now that she could sense the intent to kill from that grate. "Under that grate-"
Salem did not get a chance to finish explaining as the grate in the floor was sliced open and a metal scarecrow. That was likely similar to the one that Jace had encountered down in engineering. Its limbs were skinny black metal with gears and moving parts. While its central portion was armored with red lights leaking out of spots and out of the sockets where the eyes were supposed to be. In its mind it was doing the equivalent of screaming the same thing over and over again. [KILL KILL KILL KILL.]
She quickly started firing the Pyre pistol while other members of the bridge crew pulled out their sidearms and began letting loose their rounds into parts of the metal scarecrow’s body. It screeched as Salem’s shots began colliding with its head then there was a plume of blood as she shot through its opened jaw.
As it dropped to the ground the crew stopped firing and Salem stepped forward as she was catching more thoughts from its mind, [BODY DISABLED. INITIATE SELF-DESTRUCT PROTOCOL. 10. 9.] Salem fired several more shots into its head and the countdown stopped.
She sighed and looked at the captain. "I apologize captain, I heard it’s thoughts. It seems these things have a way to self-destruct."
"Okay, get to your station. We are starting the maneuver." The captain answered, unbothered by the interruption, as he nodded to the communications officer. "Tell the medical staff to send someone to pick this thing up."
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"Private Charlie, we need more bandages, gauze, and antibiotics. Go across the hall to the storage room and procure some from them. Here take this note." The temporary ship doctor handed her a note before waving her off.
She had experience with first aid so she has been helping treat minor injuries in the infirmary. So far there had been nothing serious but the staff were preparing for the worst. Which is likely why she was being sent to get more things to fix minor injuries and problems.
She walked out of the medical bay and walked down the hall passing a few security officers that were patrolling. She could tell that things had picked up because she could see at least two different patrols while in the same hall. One of them, the pair she was walking towards, waved her down.
"What are you doing?" The man in the front asked. He was in infantry armor and had a rifle in hand. It was strange seeing them fully armed and patrolling the halls. Especially when they were in high alert mode with enemy ships firing on them.
Honestly she figured they would not have been this comfortable if this ship did not have the latest in shielding technology that Specialist Hielo had been talking her ear off about in the barracks. She figured it would have been more explosions and ship shaking.
"Going to the storage room. The ship doctor asked me to pick some things up from there and she gave me this note." Freya answered with a quick salute while she handed them the note with the other hand.
The security officer looked over the note before nodding and handing it back. "Very well be on your way." Then the patrol kept moving while Freya continued on her way. Entering the storage room a moment later.
There was a single person at the reception desk and they appeared to be more bored than anything else. So when she walked in with a note his gaze lit up in excitement.
"Please tell me that you are here to transfer me!?" He asked in excitement. He appeared only to be a year older than her.
Freya shook her head as she handed him the note, "unfortunately not. I am only here to pick up medical supplies. The ship doctor is stocking up in case of injuries."
"Okay, let’s see what you need." He seemed to lose all air of excitement as he sighed.
"Bandages, gauze, antibiotics, and whatever else is on that note." Freya informed the man as she moved over to grab a cart that she would use to move the things she came to pick up.
"Let’s see…" The man began walking over to a shelf with a set of boxes. He pulled down four boxes. Two were labeled gauze and two were labeled bandages placing them on the table. Then he took the cart from Freya. "Stay there, I need to go into the back to get antibiotics and the other drugs the ship doctor is asking for."
The man moved toward the back of the shelves pushing the cart he took from Freya as he went. It seems the storage room was well maintained. But like herself a number of people were probably placed in other positions by the emergency orders they received.
She casually looked around while she waited for a few minutes for the manager to return with a cart of goods. When he returned he put the other boxes he set aside in the cart as well before he began typing on a console that was set up inside the reception desk.
"Okay you are all set." The manager told her. Freya pushed the cart out the door and started moving down the hall.
As she got closer she stopped as she could hear loud noises coming from the medical bay. The door slid open and she saw a dark figure in the middle of the room, one of its arms was a sword that was covered in blood. While the other arm was firing blue lasers around the room at people that were hiding behind anything they could find. It was standing over the temporary ship doctor, who was bleeding from the abdomen.
Next to Freya by the door was the corpse of a security officer. His head is missing and his bloody neck stump is spurting blood into the air. Their rifle was resting in their arms, he likely did not even get a chance to aim his gun. But the security officers were moving in pairs, so where was the other one?
Then she noticed the bisected body bleeding profusely from the other side of a metal table. It looked like this thing cut through both their infantry armor and their rifle as well. It was a gory sight seeing a person cut from the top of the head to their crotch. fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm
Freya quietly picked up the rifle from the headless security officer. After confirming that it was still operational Freya moved behind the cart she was pushing and got in a position to spring off the floor. The thing was distracted at the moment as it was cutting an arm off of a nurse that decided to fight back with a metal pole that was lying around.
Freya took a breath and then rushed forward pushing the cart with all her strength into the back of the deadly robotic thing.
CRASH!
There was the loud collision of metal on metal as Freya pushed the cart and the thing that was killing people into a metal table that had a bunch of surgical tools prepared on. The thing’s head started clicking and spun around, surprising her for a moment. Then its sword arm and gun arm both began spinning around as well.
Freya was much quicker than this mechanical monstrosity as she raised the rifle she borrowed and unloaded several shots into the laser gun arm, only stopping when there was a pop and the gun arm went slack.
The monstrosity then swung its sword arm leaning forward in an attempt to slice her head. Freya leaned back but kept her feet braced against the ground and the cart, keeping the monstrosity pinned between the cart and the metal table. She then used her metal cybernetic arm to grab the sword and then pulled with all her strength. There was a moment of metal screeching before the monstrosity’s arm came off completely and this time she could see the gears popping out the shoulder socket of the monstrosity.
Freya looked at the arm for a moment and noticed a lack of electronic parts. "SCREEEE!" It began screaming as its jaw lowered. Freya frowned for a moment before tossing aside the mechanical arm and raising the borrowed rifle, releasing the rest of the magazine into the monstrosity’s head. Only stopping when the rifle began clicking, the clear indication that she was out of ammo.
There were several sparks as pieces of metal began breaking off the monstrosity’s head revealing the white bone of a skull and then that shattered to reveal a brain and blood. As the monstrosity went limp she looked over what she saw for a moment and frowned. The brain had wires strewn through it that were dimming in color. This thing was at some point a human.
Freya realized it was really quiet and looked around. Everyone was frozen in shock while several of their colleagues were on the ground bleeding, possibly about to die.
"What the hell are you doing?" Freya asked. "We have injured people, get to work on patching them up and start saving lives like you are supposed to." She looked over to a young nurse that looked like he was about to faint, "you!" She pointed at him. "Contact security and tell them we were just attacked by whatever that thing was."
Then she began looking around for something to store the monstrosity’s body in. Like a body bag. The corpse would have to be studied later, especially because something felt sickeningly off about that thing. She would have to get Hielo and Jace to take a look at its mechanical parts when she got a chance.
