SPaMG: Graveless Yard

    The two ear-mounted spectacles of light aimed their power towards the foggy hallway, a mist of gases that had escaped from the ventilation perfuming the airless corridor, bringing Jessie’s view to only a few meters ahead, his iron glare not daring to aim away from the task at hand. His weight was lighter on this world, as the gravity was not strong enough to be comparable to an inhabited world, but there was still enough to take damage from a fall, and the jump back down into the engine would definitely break a bone, even with his extensive training. He traversed the maintenance shaft, its cramped, one-man space not exactly comforting to him; at least Jessie wasn’t too claustrophobic, if anything, the openness of the engine had him more worried than the cramped hall, as at least here he can see the walls. Through many splits and exits, he traverses through the repair-way, having to go up and down a few ladders in order to reach the next destination. He knew which direction to head, making it easy to avoid the wrong path. Jessie came across an aisle that’s been clogged by debris; something probably exploded and caused the wall to collapse in on itself, no matter. He looked to his right, an exit was only ten or so meters away, an exit that led into an open, non-repair hallway. Jessie peeks out from the entrance after kicking down the fragile metal, looking down both ends of the trapezoid-shaped passage.
    “Hm. Something seems off…” Suspicion leaves the man’s mind aroused and in need for answers, but that wasn’t his priority. The co-captain steps out from the narrow passages and resumes traveling in the appropriate direction, having to crouch under and through some of the half-sealed blast doors, or just use the smaller, secondary hallways to go around. “For an attack cruiser that got taken down in one hit, this place sure is empty…” As Jessie reached to his ear to make a call, he noticed something odd further-down the corridor. A single, red spotlight. It seemed to be peering over and fidgeting with a mechanical body. The robotic corpse was illuminated in a red glare, letting the rifle-wielding man distinguish the body’s Vanguard armor. The being had teared open the armor’s torso and was doing something with the machine’s innards; repairing them? “Elo…?” Jessie mumbled out to himself, knowing that he wouldn’t be heard by the figure. However, its head quickly snapped towards him, the entire hall now bathed in holographic red. The man’s only saving grace was the locked maintenance shaft to his right, because despite how it was still sealed, the opening had a groove in the wall to make room for its control panel, which provided just enough cover.
    The thing’s movement had ceased and began to bore its vision, leaving Jessie to attend to his raising heartbeat without even so much as a breath. Several seconds pass and he remains still, only moving when the eye returned to its former occupation. He gently leaned over the corner to watch whatever this foreign thing was doing to the corpse, but corpse was an outdated term. The body’s right arm gently lifted into the air and its half-broken eye flickered on. The LED that gave the glowing port its Vanguard-red had been broken, leaving the eye to emit a solid white hue. Jessie’s pupils shrunk as he witnessed the droid come back to life, but life was just as outdated as a term as dead. It wasn’t alive, the automaton pulled itself from the ground, wobbling and unable to hold its head straight; was it the damaged circuits? The abomination stood up and made an attempt to walk, but the mere way it moved was disgusting. Its arms were pulled back like a chicken’s wings and it stepped with a limp, its chest having to lurch forward with every little tip-toe. He leaned back against the groove, processing just what exactly he saw. That was a Sapient-class droid! But had it been turned into a mere Drone? If it was dead then its A.I. had to have died too, and a droid without an A.I. shouldn’t be able to function without a command, but it had also been acting on its own! The veteran gagged to himself and nearly puked in his mask, having to swallow his lunch once again, only now it tasted of bitter acids. That’s when it clicked.
    “Nemesis…” The human managed to mutter to himself, shrunken pupils now shaking with fear. That doctor; she had been taking the bodies and turning them into these freakish things! It shouldn’t have even been possible to reanimate an intelligence, but does that corpse even have one? He had never seen anything like this, even through all his years of training and war. However, he hadn’t even realized that the red glow took hold of him.
    “You called?~” The human-esque cyborg stood right next to the opening, leaning over to stare down at Jessie as if he were a child. He jumped and slammed back against the locked door, now cornered by the woman as if he were in a monster movie. She let out a few, wide-mouthed chuckles, all of which were muffled by the emptiness of the air, or lack thereof. “I didn’t expect to see you here, Veteran.~” Her voice was sizzly and full of fuzz, perhaps she had done something to get into Jessie’s comms; he didn’t really care about that detail.
    “Why are you here!?” The Vanguard officer shouted, his rifle aimed directly at the woman’s face. She continued to perk that damned smile as if the gun wasn’t even there, which only intimidated the man even more.
    “To be frank with you, I’m not too sure myself.~” Her right hand lifted and reached towards the white patch of cotton that masked her empty eye, only to pull it off. As expected, there was just an empty cavity, but there was also something odd. She reached into the gaping socket and removed a small chunk of metal, roughly the size of two fingers paired together. It glowed a blue hue and its edges fizzled like soda, but did not deteriorate. “My Shard began to fizz once I flew by this dead world, so I decided to come investigate it, while also collecting more tools and such for my children. Why it decided to do this when it did I am unaware of, but perhaps you have the answers I need.~”
    Jessie began to hyperventilate; in all his years he had never seen something so traumatizing, well, the occasion wasn’t exactly common at least. Nemesis giggled and reached out, preparing to grab the frozen man, only to be stopped as a sudden shout filled her head. He lifted the rifle and gave a powerful scream, pulling the trigger pulverizing the wretch. She was forced back against the opposing wall, the force causing the floor to vibrate with reverb. The man gulps and runs from back whence he came, not caring to look back at the abomination-birthing creature. Dead, white eyes all blipped into existence; every vent, door, and other opening was flurried with them, almost as if they wanted to horde around the poor veteran. Soon, a multiple of figures appeared down the end of the central corridor that he raced through, leaving him bubbled in mechanical corpses. He twitches to the left and cocks his rifle, having no choice but to gun his way through the smaller opening. The bodies fall, but continue to twitch and ravel in perpetual agony.
    “Davy-Davy-Davy-Davy-” Jessie taps against his communicator, making a desperate attempt to speak with his higher-up. A few moments pass until reassuring click pops in his ear; she picked up!
    “Oh hey J-”
    “Davy! You two gotta get out NOW.”
    “Why? We’re alre’dy at the bridge.” Jessie begins to pants and wheeze, perhaps because of his out-of-shape state.
    “L-listen! Just grab the box and go!”
    “Uhh, meet’cha at the ship?”
    “Yes! Just go!” Abruptly, Jessie hung up, leaving a gaze of one-eyed confusion plastered onto her face. She looked up, eyebrows tightened in a stern worry.
    “Elo, did’ja pick up on that?” She looks over to the young bot who had been digging through various old pieces of metal, the ship’s controls being pried and mangled open.
    “Of course! D-do you think Jessie may have activated the security system?” He sat on his knees, only turning back for a brief moment as he carefully dissected the ship of its wires and complicated bits, tossing them into the empty metal pack along his spine.
    “I’unno, but J usually doesn’ freak out like that.” The human shrugs and bends over towards the console, pulling out a large, cylindrical object from it’s socket. The item and socket resembled the port in Elo’s on-ship computer, probably since they do the exact same thing. “Well, I got th’ box. Should we get a move-on?” The twos’ attention was diverted over towards the central door, it being the same shape as the large halls that the co-captain roamed. Davy and Elo exchanged a few, rapid, small-pupiled double-takes between each other, their heads slightly twitching as they do so. Something had been banging against the opposing end of the door, something violent, and while they could only hear muffled bumps, the ground vibrated from the strength...
    “M-maybe it’s Jessie…?” Elo slightly whimpered and lifted himself back onto two feet, looking to his armed captain for protection. The captain took a step back, both of her eyebrows pressed down and a beam of intimidation occupying her visible emotion and at the same time was also making sure to keep the automaton behind her.
    “I don’t like this…” She armed her hard-hitting pistol, its miniature bayonet lively and ready for anything. The banging stops, but just devolves into a metallic whine. The horizontally-split door slowly lifts, its upper portion cracking as a hand lifts its mass. Whatever was behind it was still concealed, well, aside from the red orb. It was an eye, glowing and red, only around the pupil was a smaller circle of raw blue material... It spoke.
    “Daaaaaavyyyy…~”