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Chapter Three

Jack and Vasquez kept to the front of the team as they cleared each room they came across. It was eerily silent, no noise except for the gentle hum as the vents pumped in oxygen to the building and buzzing of the lights in the wall. It had been ten minutes since they left the other team with Kyle and O'Neill went off and attempted to reactivate Reese. They had come across several Human bodies that had appeared to have been used for egg incubation and were now hollow husks, shriveled up and seeming like skeletons with only the skin wrapped around the bones. The hallways were relatively dim with red lights in the corners flashing once in a while in the corners of the intersections. Jack sniffed the air, smelling the musk of the team he was with along with the smell of death, rotten corpse's and blood stained walls. This was unusual to him, the Aura Station Incident, the first one to occur with this parasite, the infected didn't just vanish or hide, they came at survivors in waves trying to eliminate them and grow their ranks. He pondered what was going on when Vasquez raised his left paw in a fist, signaling for them to stop.

"What is it?" Jack asked.

Vasquez scanned the corridor in front of them, then glanced at Jack and made a gesture for the team to prepare to fire. "We have company." He replied.

Jack looked down the corridor and immediately the smell of decaying flesh hit his nose and he could see slight movement. "The hell?"Jack said as he raised his pistol.

Vasquez placed his paw on the earpiece in his left ear and tapped it three times, signalling for the back of the team to prepare for flanks. "Don't recall ever seeing that in the training." Vasquez said.

Jack shook his head as the creature slowly came into view, moving slowly, but with a purpose. It seemed like it was a Rionux, a rhino-like creature found on Aegis, with it's skin turned inside out, and long tongue sticking out sliding across the floor with three huge horns on its snout. Where the four eyes should have been, appeared to be sewn shut but appeared to flicker as if there were eyes underneath scanning the area. "The hell is that thing?" Jack heard one of the team members say. Just then, the creature stopped and seemed to single in on the hushed voice. It started to move at a faster pace towards the group, not running, but more of a speed walk. Jack bared his teeth as he realized what was going on. The thing was using sound to locate its target. But what was the tongue doing moving about the ground. Jack took several breaths to calm himself, as he took aim at the creature's head. Vasquez counted down from three with his left paw as he hefted the plasma rifle towards the creature's head, once he reached zero, the entire group began firing. Streams of red and blue bolts sizzled towards the beast, striking it dead in the head melting the flesh away and any other exposed part of its body. The beast let out a bellowing ghoulish howl as it began to charge the group, ignoring the strips of flesh that burned away on it, blood beginning to spray out of the wounds as it stumbled hitting the walls on its charge.

"Oh crap!" Jack shouted as he and Vasquez rolled to the side, barely avoiding the creature in the cramped hallway. Jack could hear howls of pain and anguish come from the team as some of them got caught in the way. Jack turned to see that five of the team members had gotten trampled, bloody smears in the ground, while one was impaled through the horns, blood spraying out. The members face, a Fox, looked at Jack, Vasquez and the rest of the team with fear and shock as the thing jostled her into the air and opened its mouth, slamming it shut on the bleeding torso and the Fox gave out a blood curdling scream as she started trying to punch the thing, but eventually went still.

"Lindsay!" Shouted Vasquez as he fired at the creature's rear. "Gods damn you!" He screamed at the top of his lungs as the rest of the team refocused fire. The creature whipped around, bellowing in pain as it flung the body in its mouth around, slamming the head against the wall crushing it and eventually the legs and upper torso fell to the ground, being chomped in half. It spun around and bellowed as it's tongue whipped out and slammed against one of the members in the hallway, a Human, and began to drag him in towards its mouth.

"No you don't!" Jack yelled as he aimed the thick tongue and fired several rounds at it, severing it. The Human scrambled back to his feet and quickly backed away firing at the creature. After what seemed like an eternity, the creature finally fell to the ground, it's flesh blackened and stripped from the continuous fire. The remaining team members stood there, panting as they gathered themselves. Jack walked up to the creature and knelt next to it examining it closer. The tongue that he had severed with gunfire appeared to have what seemed like small spikes on it and a thick saliva that seemed to stick to whatever it touched. The eyes were indeed sewed shut and there were two holes on the back sides of it's head that must've been the ears. "The hell were they working on down here?" Jack mumbled to himself as he slowly made his way to the back of the best. The back of the head was gone, a black mass oozing out. "Jack to Terra." Jack said as he tapped his ear piece.

"Terra here." Terra responded.

"We have a new type of infected. Appears to be a Rionux from the Aegis planet. Sending photos and injecting probes to give you all that you need." Jack said as he knelt down and pulled a small syringe from one of the many pockets on his pants and slammed the needle into the things hide. The fluid inside of the syringe was pure white with black spots swarming around inside of it, as he pressed down to inject the fluid, the black spots began to move quickly and vanished into the body.

"Copy that Jack, getting data now. Will have answers in the next few minutes." Terra responded.

Jack sighed and nodded as he stood back up and tapped the communications off.

Vasquez walked up to Jack and looked at him, his eyes filled with sorrow. "Were you able to contact Terra?" He asked.

Jack nodded, "Yes, the probes are injected now, they will send the data then disintegrate the body. She says she'll have answers here in the next few minutes."

Vasquez closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Let's get moving." He said, sorrow in his voice.

Jack stood up and placed a paw gently on Vasquez's shoulder and gave him a gentle smile, "It'll be ok man."

Vasquez nodded as he turned around and began walking to the front of the group, Jack following suit. After a few more minutes of them walking down the various corridors, they came across two doors and Jack pulled up the 3D map of the complex and nodded to Vasquez and they proceeded through the doors. Upon entering, they came across a disturbing scene. Blood was sprayed all along the walls and the various tables that were set up to allow staff members to eat with trays of food spilled along the greyish metal floors and some of them on the tables still with gore on top of the trays and food. Multiple bodies littered the floor, all chewed up and almost unrecognizable with a few of them shrivelled up hollow bodies indicating egg incubation. The team stuck close together as they scanned the room for anything that was alive or dead. A few minutes passed as they had secured the room.

"Any sign of Doctor Coroner?" Vasquez asked.

"Negative, no sign of the Doctor sir." Replied a Human.

"Osman said he'd be here." Jack stated.

"Yeah well, we have a developing situation here Jack, the good Doctor might be dead or could have went to a different location." Vasquez said.

Jack sighed as he began to examine the shrivelled up bodies, checking the ID's on those that had one, ensuring that they weren't him. After two full minutes, he came across a nearly devoured body and checked the ID. Damn it! He thought as he read the name Eric Coroner. "Found him!" Jack yelled and Vasquez came over.

"Shit." Vasquez said as he saw the body. "Check it, see if the data card is there."

Jack checked and found a small square card tucked away in the body's pants back pocket. "Got it." Jack said and stood up.

Vasquez nodded and tapped his ear piece and said, "O'Neill, we have retrieved the data card, Doctor Eric Coroner is confirmed dead. How goes it on your end?" There was static and Vasquez tapped his earpiece again and said, "Major O'Neill, do you copy?"

After a few seconds of static came Kyle's voice. "We read you, O'Neill is currently preoccupied. We have reached the AI's core. The situation is worse than we thought. She has been corrupted by the parasite, upon investigating deeper into the core we have found biomass surrounding half the AI's core and I am attempting to clear her. However it seems like the physical biomass is what is linking the AI to a hivemind. We are currently sealed in the Core Room by the AI and her corrupted personality has activated the defense systems leading to the room and killed a majority of the team."

Jack cursed under his breath as he tapped his ear piece, "Do you need us there?" He asked.

"No, don't go near the Core Room, if you do the AI may attempt to kill you. Currently her operational side has locked a vast majority of the infected in rooms and is confirming that there are two groups of survivors within the Quarantine Rooms. You guys need to reach them and get them out. We will stay here and attempt to remove the biomass and get Reese back to operational standard. We may need reinforcements down here as well." Kyle responded.

Jack's paws curled into fists as he growled. "You sure?" He asked.

"Damn it babe! Just get those people out of here and report the situation! For the time we are fine!" Kyle responded back, annoyance in his tone.

Jack's ears lowered and he nodded, "Got it, keep us updated on the situation." He said and the comms went dead.