The shattered edge

[arvg]

Fifteen minutes of walking had them standing in a passageway as high and wide as a stadium, Alvarez was in the lead shining the light mounted to his SMG around him. "Comradas, this place is playing tricks with my mind... does it look to anyone else like the walls are moving?"

Pasha, a few steps behind him grunted, puffing heavily on a cigarette and looking like he'd rather be anywhere but there at that moment, "Da, there's a fog flowing through all the nooks and crannies..."

Doctor XiaoBei rested a hand against his temple, "Yes, they've been shifting for... some time now. I feel dizzy..."

Alvarez took a step backwards looking grim. "Doctore, we should, perhaps, fall back, si?"

He watched XiaoBei worriedly; with all the Coalition was undergoing at that time. The BHG threat, the Reapers, and the Corsairs... the arrival of the Redemption class Du Gaulle, and now the alien derelict Xiaobei had become the most indispensable man in the Coalition. The Doctor had to be kept safe at all costs, and the Colonel was growing skittish.

Brooks returned to the group after scouting ahead, his face as white as a sheet. "You'd better brace yourselves," he swallowed with difficulty. "I found our missing marines... but it's a little hard to take." He swallowed again, as if to keep from vomiting.

One by one they went to join him at the entrance to the next compartment, from which an intense light shone. XiaoBei caught the edge of the hatch to steady himself when he saw what was there.

In large translucent tanks wired with various life support systems floated the various pieces of the ambushed marine teams in a tiny sea of sluggish nutrient fluid.

They drifted lazily, here an arm, there a head-sightless eyes wide open-a severed hand bumping gently against a stripped torso. The fluid was filled with fine strands glowing in incandescent greens. Tiny amoeba-like globules flocked to the body parts and away from them again, feeding and providing oxygen and removing wastes.

Alvarez gestured to his soldiers. "Establish a perimeter! I have no desire to meet the creature that did this, hermanos, not without all our guns at the ready." Pasha sprinted to take a covering position, while Winters moved to the other side, keeping her weapon up.

All, that is, but Brooks, who was about to pluck out a leg by a white, wrinkled foot that had bobbed to the surface. "We can't just leave him like this!"

XiaoBei grabbed his jacket, hauling him back with surprising strength. His voice climbing an octave. "Don't touch him! Who knows what the solution is? You want to end up pickled in there too? No? Good! then make yourself useful and draw a specimen with this..." he produced a complicated looking device from his bag. "Be careful!"

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