Dead Effect

Yep chapter 2 already...Can't say i'm impressed but eh, i never am.

Side note: I'm just finished a few minutes ago, it's 3am, i'm tired but can't sleep. So don't be surprised if the quality isn't that great. That said, it's done, so hopefully it's still a good read .

Dead Effect

Chapter 2

"Keep you're armour sealed, we have no idea if the oxygen is still on." Melina warned as she finished examining her assault rifle. The squad around her offered a series of confirmations as they did the same. "We have no idea what's aboard, something, or someone triggered the distress signal, so expect hostiles, just don't start shooting until were sure."

Finally, the airlock cycled and the doors opened with a loud rumble. The squad was silent as they examined the corridor beyond. The lights flickered on and off randomly, occasionally giving a glimpse of gray steel floors and walls, and deep red stains, likely blood.

"Looks like someone had a party." Jack muttered, before the squad carefully ventured forwards. No bodies were found initially, which unnerved Shepard somewhat; after all, with all the blood here, surely someone would have died at this point.

"Looks like they moved the bodies…But why?" She asked quietly, though no one knew the answer and kept quiet. Pushing the thought aside, the squad slowly advanced further into the hallway, the constant flickering of the lights cast eerie shadows across the interior of the ship, and once or twice one of them would see a dark shape retreat out of sight, though assumed it to be a trick of the poor lighting, and their own nerves.

Eventually the hallway split into three separate passages, and the group halted. "Which way?" Tali spoke up, her gaze snapping from one choice to the next; all of the corridors were more or less pitch black with only a few overhead lights still clinging to life.

"Much as I hate to say it. We'll have to split up, I have no idea which way leads where." Shepard finally offered, before picking the center path and shouldering her rifle. "Remember; don't shoot unless you're sure their hostile."

She shook her head slightly as she advanced, Shepard had no idea why she was enforcing that order so much, but something about this mission just put her on edge. Maybe it was the lack of resistance so far making her paranoid.

Tali and Jack fell into step behind her; the others split up and took the other paths.

More poorly lit corridors followed as they slowly twisted and turned like some form of macabre rat maze, only with no lights and blood stains everywhere. "Keelah, what could have done this?" Tali asked, her voice faltering slightly as they came across a rent in the wall, it looked like something sharp had been driven into the steel plates and dragged for several feet, leaving a sizeable cut in what was easily a foot thick metal wall.

"I don't think I want to find out." Jack replied, her eyes narrowing as she ran a hand along the damage. "Must be fucking tough to rip through reinforced metal though."

Shepard nodded slightly, before shifting her gaze back to the corridor ahead. The lights flickered yet again, and she could have sworn she saw something dart behind the wall ahead of them. "Keep you're eyes open, this place is perfect for an ambush."

An hour ticked by with little change, the other squads continued to report in. Though aside from a few rooms that had been ransacked during what was assumed to be a mercenary attack on the Ishimura. With no sign of the crew or even what attacked it, they had little to go on.

"Shepard, we've got something…And it isn't pretty." Garrus' voice crackled over the comm. and caused the trio to halt.

"Found one of the crew?" Shepard responded, though she knew the answer would be something much worse.

"Possibly, or what's left of him. Something appears to have gone to work cutting him up." Melina cringed, but said nothing for the moment. "From what we can tell, it looks like something cut his arms off, one of his legs are missing too…Few bullet wounds on what's left…Either whatever attacked the ship are sick…Or their thorough about it." Just the description alone made the commander ill, though she composed herself and simply nodded.

"Alright, see what else you can find, and stay in touch."

"Got it comma-" Garrus' voice suddenly grew distant and weak, obviously he wasn't talking to her, but the comm. was still open. "You hear that? Sounds like it's coming from the roof." Shepard spared a glance towards the others; they too were listening to the conversation.

A loud clang filled the comm., closely followed by several people shouting. "What the hell-open fire!" Gunfire filled the comm. and drowned out the yelling, and a few seconds later the comm. simply cut off entirely.

"Garrus? Garrus what the hell just happened?" Shepard spared a glance over her shoulder again, Tali was shifting from foot to foot nervously, and Jack was double checking her shotgun. "Miranda, what the hell just happened?" She demanded, knowing the Cerberus agent had gone with the turian.

Silence, hell. "Thane?" He too didn't respond, what happened that would suddenly silence a whole team in a matter of seconds?

Nothing good she'd wager. "Zaeed?"

Finally she received a response. "Were still here. No idea what happened to the others, were still searching this area, no sign of hostiles."

Shepard finally breathed a sigh of relief, on one hand she was still worried about Garrus and the others, but on the other, she trusted them to fight off whatever the hell had attacked.

With a quick gesture, she led her own squad forwards. Silence had descended following the chilling transmission, and now the eeriness of the ship, was even more unnerving.

Just as the squad was beginning to relax, if only a little, a loud clanging sound overhead greeted them. In a heartbeat all three had their guns trained on the ceiling, Garrus' final words still ringing in their ears.

The sound soon gave way to a loud growling as whatever it was ventured closer, and the trio carefully spread out to avoid it dropping on their heads. Shepard, despite her best attempts, noted her hands were shaking slightly as she waited for whatever was up there to strike.

And just as soon as it had arrived, the sound of it moving through what she assumed was a vent died away into the distance. "What was that…?" Tali finally asked, both Sheaprd and Jack simply shrugged.

"No idea, but it didn't sound too friendly." Shepard shivered, before lowering her rifle. "Best we don't stick around for it to come back though."

Aside from a few scattered transmissions from Zaeed's team, they had heard little since. Melina was beginning to grow worried, for all her mental reassurances that Garrus could handle himself; surely he'd have contacted them by now.

The corridor finally gave way to a door, and a simply press of the button in the center opened it with a dull groan.

The inside wasn't much better then the last. It lacked blood but they hadn't seen that in a while, and aside from a few shelves and scattered crates, the interior was bare and empty. A second doorway greeted them on the far side, and Shepard, faced with no other choice aside from turning back, began to inch forwards.

She swiftly halted when the sound of something crawling through the vents caught her attention. "Great, knew our luck couldn't last." Jack growled, her shotgun snapping up towards the only section of the vent that was covered by a see through grate, rather then metal plating.

Whatever it was rushed forwards, the feral growls they'd heard before growing louder.

It stopped right before the grate however, and as Shepard raised her own rifle, she could see a pair of eyes gleaming in the darkness, watching her closely. She didn't fire however, instead giving it the benefit of the doubt.

"Warning: Foreign contaminate detected, lockdown initiated." A computerized voice suddenly pitched in, the lights abruptly cut out plunging them into darkness for a second.

Just long enough for the grate to be ripped open and whatever it was to drop into the room with them.

Before Melina could act, yellow hazard lights snapped on and forced some illumination back into the room. Glancing upwards, she saw the grate was gone, downwards; she found the mangled remains of the metal fixture at her feet.

"It's in the room!" Tali gasped, her head snapping left and round as she tried to find whatever was now hiding in the darkness.

Shepard slowly began to back towards the door they'd been heading for, she had no intention of running, but if they could escape into a narrower corridor, it would give the, whatever it was, less room to move.

"Just keep slow." She carefully waved the others over. Though they only made it a few steps before a loud terrifying howl deafened them. Snapping around, Shepard finally spotted the creature as it began to advance on them.

"Holy…What the fuck is that thing!" Jack yelled as she stumbled back a step. It looked, vaguely human, but in the place of its arms, dangerously scythe blade like appendages jutted out of it's shoulders and twitched slightly in anticipation. Its mouth hung partly open in a hungry snarl, and its eyes darted from person to person, clearly trying to decide who was the best option for it's first attack.

Before she could react, the monster made it's choice and sprung forwards, it's scythe like arms swinging in a wide arc towards Shepard's chest. She barely managed to leap backwards and avoice being cut in half. "Shoot it!" She called out, her rifle snapping up to her shoulder once again. By this point however, both Tali and Jack had opened fire.

The biotics shotgun boomed once, and the beast was slammed into the door next to Melina, it didn't get up after that.

"What…The hell…Is that thing?" Shepard gasped, her rifle lowering as she studied the corpse.

"It looks human…But keelah, what could have done such a thing to a person?" Now that she had a closer look, it was still mostly human; the arms weren't the only difference though. It's shoulders seemed oddly positioned above it's head, as she kicked it onto it's side, she discovered a third arm was mysteriously forming out of it's torso.

"Sick is what I'd call it." Shepard mumbled, before turning away from the sight and heading for the door.

She only made it two steps, when a flash of pain suddenly rushed up her leg, and she screamed as whatever had struck, twisted abruptly, the pain suddenly growing worse.

With a sharp yank she hit the floor with a thud, her rifle clattering away. Twisting slightly, and ignoring the pain that accompanied it, she managed to see the source of the pain. Namely the previously thought dead creature having surged to life and driven one of the blade like appendages through her leg.

Tali was quick to shoot it again, her own shotgun booming once, twice, then three times, and still the creature continued to snarl and squirm, the bullets seemingly having no effect.

Snatching her pistol, Shepard began firing blindly at it as well; it was beginning to stand at this point, and was dragging her leg first with it. Finally a shot struck it's shoulder, and the human-like thing howled in pain as another blast from Tali severed the arm completely.

Jack finally lent her support as well and with a second shot the other arm that was threatening to strike Shepard was blow clear across the room.

As abruptly as its second life started, it suddenly collapsed and stopped moving.

Melina was quick to crawl away from the thing, just incase it found a third wind and came back for more. Though with its arms now missing she had a feeling it wouldn't be so quick to attack a third time.

Wincing in pain, she paused to examine the wound; it had gone right through her armour and leg. "Damn it!" Her suit was already applying medi-gel to the injury, but even then it wouldn't help. She'd have a limp at best for the rest of the mission until they could get back to the Normandy and receive proper medical attention.

Jack extended a hand for Shepard and swiftly pulled her upright. Luckily the gel had already taken effect, and while it hurt to put weight on her injured leg, at least she could stand for the time being.

"Whatever it is, I'm sure it isn't the last." Tali whispered, her shotgun still trained on the corpse in case it chose to move again.

"Guess we now what happened to Garrus and the others…" Shepard commented bitterly, if these things could sneak around in the vents then it wouldn't be hard to have gotten the drop on squad. She still had a feeling they were alive though, and she wouldn't give up until she found them, one way or another.

"Lets go. I'd rather not stay here and wait for them." Tali spared the body one final glance, before shaking her head and moving to open the door. This one was locked, though it didn't take her long to hack the controls.

"It's strange…These doors use a different system to normal human equipment." As the door slid open, she raised her shotgun once again, nothing lay beyond but another darkened corridor.

"We'll have time to worry about that later, lets just..." Shepard trailed off as she saw something move in the corridor behind Tali. Her eyes narrowed as she tried to spot it, the lights were almost completely out, and only one or two still remained defiantly on, though this only led to more shadows.

"Tali…" She slowly raised her rifle as something moved again, out of the corner of her eye she saw the qurian stiffen slightly, realizing to late what was wrong.

Everything happened in the blink of an eye. One moment everyone was still, the next something leapt out of the darkness, the tentacle like creature looked for lack of a better term like it was made entirely of muscle, no bones or skin present.

Before Shepard even had a chance to register the horrible sight, the thing had coiled around Tali's leg, and with a hard tug, pulled the engineer off her feet to slam painfully into the deck, a yelp of pain was all she managed to make, before it suddenly yanked on her leg again, and Tali was dragged literally kicking and screaming from the room.

"TALI!" Shepard leapt forwards in a vain attempt to grab the qurian's hand, but she was gone long before she'd even made it close.

Snatching her discarded rifle from the ground. She ran as fast as her leg could carry her, Jack close behind.

In the distance, she could hear Tali shouting, several gunshots, then silence…