It was Porthos who answered first, easy words from a tight jaw. "Any of that blood yours?"

Vicks glanced downward at his red-soaked uniform; he found himself missing the garish orange it used to be. "Not much of it," he answered at last, slowly and hesitantly, his fingers still twitching in the air.

Then Abel noticed the plasma cutter, a simple but effective engineering weapon that could generate a pulse stream of ionized plasma to cut metal. And other things, he realized, feeling his stomach roll as he looked at the torn body on the floor. There was a charge in the air, a faint smell of singed skin and hair, and the plasma cutter's three sight-lasers twinkled harmlessly against a nearby monitor.

Porthos didn't look as wary as Abel felt, but he stayed in the doorway. "What happened?"

Vicks licked his lips and drew a shaky breath. His back was straight, rigid. "Kellion attacked me. One minute we get a call to check out system errors, next thing I know we're hearing weird noises and then he- he lunges at me, screaming nonsense and clawing at my neck. Guy fucking lost it." He finally wiped his hands on his pants, smearing the mess across his palms. Sweat dripped from his hairline down one side of his face, clearing a line of blood. He laughed, but the sound was forced, uneasy. "I know you've always joked that hallucinogenics would be the death of me, man, but the shit I've seen this week…"

Porthos snorted and finally took a seat at one of the stations, seeking rest even if the tense line of his shoulders never eased. "What the fuck is going on, Vicks?"

Abel looked curiously between the two, surprised by the familiarity in their exchange. "Do you know each other?"

Porthos merely shrugged, but Vicks' answering smile was telling, albeit shaky. "Porthos here has a real taste for the finer things in life, you know?" He exhaled through pursed lips before his expression grew self-deprecating. "And some of the less than finer things, you might say."

Abel looked to Porthos for some kind of explanation, but the man only scowled past his coloring cheeks and repeated himself. "What's happening?"

Vicks' humor disappeared, crushed under the weight of reality. Darkened by the shadows that clung to his eyes. Wordlessly, he reached over and tapped a few keys, and the idling computer screens suddenly revealed different rooms across the Sleipnir.

They saw mayhem.

Every screen showed savagery like an evolutionary process; men running and screaming; predators leaping from the walls; slashes and bites, rips and tears. Soldiers fought, and soldiers died. And corpses were transformed, reanimated by slithering beasts who pumped biochemical changes into the DNA of fallen men.

Porthos, Abel and Vicks watched in silence, each of them feeling separate but harmonious terror. They wore disbelief like they wanted it, like denial might remove the threat, lessen the violence, but their fear was more, overriding and enlightening.

Abel had to swallow before he spoke; he recognized those who were being slaughtered, called some of them friends. "They're… being turned. The monsters are us."

Vicks nodded and pulled up another screen; video feed showed fighters being attacked in the lifts as they tried to flee the gym and head for the flight deck. "The navigator labs were attacked first," Vicks murmured, lighting up another cigarette without thinking about it. He changed feeds, pulling up a security schematic. "See this line? It connects medical to the labs above and below. This is where we are, and this," he pointed at a series of flashing dashes, "is the malfunction Kellion and I were responding to."

"Right above the morgue," Abel realized, and Porthos blanched.

"Bingo." Vicks flicked the end of his cigarette and chewed on his lower lip; smoke curled away from his nostrils. "My guess is that all of this started there. Then the aliens, or whatever they are, traveled through the vents, along this shaft, and made their way to Floor 5."

"Do you think this is some attack? A pre-planned virus or- something?" Porthos asked uneasily. "Without those labs, we lose our entire intelligence system."

Vick didn't mull it over very long; his eyes reflected the live feed, the ongoing maimings. "They don't look like they have a plan to me," he muttered. On-screen, the one of the creatures roared, spittle flying from a swollen tongue, its movements twitching and bestial. "Honestly, I think they just went for the highest concentration of noise and people. Which is why the fighters are now getting the worst of it."

They watched as a group of fighters wrestled one of the monsters to the floor, watched as a set of long, broken teeth ripped out the throat of the nearest black-clad solider.

"That's Bazin's fighter," Abel croaked, and his observation was immediately followed by Porthos' bilious, "Turn that shit off."

Vicks changed every screen to series of blueprints. His smoke shortened.

Abel fidgeted. He popped his knuckles, swallowed tightly, and found his eyes trained on the plasma cutter. "The malfunction you were going to investigate- could it have caused the elevators to lock?"

Vicks shrugged. "Maybe. Probably."

"If we can get off this floor, we can reach the others; we'll be safer in a group." Abel paused, added quietly, "I have to find Cain."

"There's no point," Porthos told him. "Your fighter isn't going to last any longer than the rest of them."

"You don't know that-"

"Fuck if I don't! You saw the same video as me. Some of them aren't even armed!"

"I can still try. I'm sure as hell not going to assume the worst. Aren't you even worried about Phobos?"

Porthos rolled his eyes, but before he could reply, Vicks interrupted, dragging out the words in his foreign drawl. "As dangerous as it will be, we need to get to the flight deck. We have to get off the Sleipnirbefore it's too late."

Abel and Porthos exchanged looks, then Porthos scowled. "What do you know, Vicks? You're not telling us something. What the fuck is all this?"

Another cigarette, another shaky light. "Just… rumors." He blinked once, twice, slowly, deliberating his words. "This isn't my first rodeo in Colteron space. Shit gets around, and there have been stories. Tales of the same thing we've been seeing, of monsters, of crews going mad, never making it back." He frowned, chewing on the end of his cigarette before inhaling. "Just ghost stories! That's all I thought they were. Legends to spook rookies."

"But what caused this?" Abel insisted. "Is this an attack, or something else? I've never heard of anything remotely like this."

"I'm not sure. But… Fuck," Vicks whispered suddenly. "Fuck. That rendezvous with Hypatia last week. I traded contraband with some of their crew. They told me about some of the shit that had been going on. One guy apparently cut his own throat with a butter knife. It's like it spread or something. A contagion or- or, fuck."

"Why did we rendezvous?" Porthos asked quietly, suspicion stealing his brass.

Vicks' laugh was short and bitter. "Supply exchange and 'mechanical evaluation', like our own engineers didn't know what they were doing. It was a piss poor excuse, but it's not my place to say so; not any of maintenance's place to challenge central command."

"Check the logs," Abel suggested. "Find out what we picked up."

Vicks motioned to one of the computers. "Be my guest. I doubt you'll find anything through this station, not down here."

Abel nodded, thinking along the same lines, but he began typing anyway.

Porthos watched Vicks burn through another stick. He suddenly craved his own, and when he motioned silently, Vicks kindly passed one over.

"Amazing," Vicks murmured after he lit up, almost fondly, "how easy it is to rob you fuckers of your cigarettes when you're high; you Earth boys can't ride your drugs."

Porthos grimaced at that, knew he had been the victim once or twice to inebriated gambling. "I'd gladly go sober if someone could wake me up from this mess."

Vicks grunted and glanced back to the plasma cutter; his eyes followed the inoffensive lasers, reflecting blue. "Convergence."

Abel flinched; the typing paused, resumed.

Vicks tracked the movement with a subtle glance, then turned back to Porthos, who looked like he was trying to remember something important. "It's been in your heads lately, hasn't it? In your dreams. Your nightmares.

"All the aggression and anxiety attacks, they're like some pernicious infection. You've been feeling it lately. We all have. Nausea. Headaches." Porthos looked away, and Vicks went on like he hadn't seen. "Everybody tried to pretend it was just stress, but that's bullshit. Men have been breaking down all week. We pay attention, you know? Us maintenance. We're around when you guys don't think we are; we're here even if you ignore us. You've all been twitchy, eyeing each other like nervous animals. And everyone's feeling the same way. Something's wrong. Something's wrong with us. Sometimes, when I'm by myself, I swear I can hear…" His stare grew distanced, and his lips continued to move, spreading words on whispers, before he shook his head. "We have to get to the flight deck. We have to get off the ship."

Abel's tone was small. "I can't access anything from the exchange with the Hypatia. I'd have to get to the CIC."

"It doesn't matter," Porthos reasoned without bite. "Vicks is right. We need to reach the deck. That'll be your best chance to find Cain, too." And Phobos, he thought.

"First we need to get those elevators back online. Unless we can use one of those ladders?"

Vicks shook his head. "Nah, that'll only lead us further into storage from here." He sighed and ran one hand over his face, then grimaced at the stickiness. "I'll get the doors back online."

It didn't take long, and Porthos stared uneasily as the light above the morgue turned blue. "Hey, Vicks," he asked as they left, distantly wondering why he had ever let Phobos convince him to transfer, "how many shots do you have left?

And Vicks, who held the plasma cutter in a white-knuckled but familiar grip, whispered, "Only seven," and glanced back one last time at the body of the other maintenance worker on the floor. It didn't move. Couldn't. But his back burned as though he could feel Kellion watching.