The team's violent entry was met with silence. Some of the lights were still on and the place was a wreck. They had entered on the short end, with only 25 feet of wall on either side of the door and 200 feet of plant floor curving subtly to the right. Equipment and cables lay scattered over the ground. Rylan did not see any bodies yet, but he smelled blood mixed with the lubricant tang from leaking machinery. A soft alert chimed eerily, jangling tense nerves. Something was still operating. Nalas, Khaled, and Jerich finished their advance up each wall and the center. They crouched ahead behind some upended storage containers, peering into the half light as the rest of the team found cover. The whispers of their boots and the crackling of their swords were the only sounds.
Jerich looked back to him, expecting orders. The Sweep Teams had a system of hand signals when silence was necessary. It was not a language, but a prearranged set of orders. Rylan gave the signals for Jerich to take Nalas and Khaled forward, make contact with the anomaly, and then fall back. He wanted to flush the creature out while the rest of them secured the hose. If one of them got lucky and tagged it with their weapon, all the better.
As the sergeant's team advanced toward the center of the plant, Rylan swept forward with the others towards the long curve of the outer wall of the plant. Pools of blood and torn body parts poked around corners and hung on broken shelves. Whatever was in here was indiscriminate. Everyone's head was swiveling, alert for any disturbance that would give away the presence of the anomaly. The hose had just come into view midway along the back wall amongst some debris when the first crash broke the tense silence.
Rylan heard shouts from the forward team as machinery began to tumble. The howl Rylan heard was like wind ripping through mountain crags. Abandoning stealth, he sprinted the remaining distance to the hose, directing Josen and Pali to stow their blades, uncoil the thick, cloth tube and get the water flowing. He and Lana covered them as they worked, ears more than eyes fixed on the commotion in the distance.
A sharp crack followed by a scream erupted just as Jerich and Nalas' backs came into view, sweeping their charged weapons before them. Khaled arced through the air and landed in a pile of spare parts fifty feet to Rylan's right, his shield broken in half. The former Stalker did not stir. The Commander risked a glance behind him. Josen was turning the valve wheel and Pali had both hands on the flattened hose. He exhorted them to hurry. At the same time he pulled out one of his flares, flat gray, and threw it out between himself and the approaching remnant of the forward team.
“Flares!” he called out and Lana's gray followed his. Jerich and Nalas were lost in the haze, but sparks flew as their charged blades licked at the smoke, marking their backward progress.
The outline of the anomaly coalesced in seconds as it rampaged, sweeping the area with its limbs and flinging anything in its path aside. Seris' prediction was true: it was protean. A humanoid body sat back, surrounded by tendrils of hyper dense Air that trapped the smoke in pockets as they formed and reformed, wrapping it in an coruscating, shifting shell. Rylan watched as a tentacle whipped around the two men, sneaking behind as it feinted to their front. He called out a warning too late. Nalas' legs were swept from under him, but instead of falling he turned the fall into a backwards roll, coming up swinging his gladius. The translucent appendage meant to finish him reared back from the blade, somehow sensing the danger.
Rylan heard a shout behind him as the hose opened up. Pali and Josen together aimed the stream of water at the anomaly, striking it dead center. The water passed through in certain points and beaded in the dense areas. The entity paused and swept up, recoiling into its central form. Jerich and Nalas reached them now, their shields cracked; faces and hands bleeding from cuts and abrasions. The sergeant staggered and fell.
“Nalas, Lana, now!” They charged forward as he readied his dagger to throw, hoping the beast was distracted. All it would take is one touch from a charged weapon, according to the reports, and it would burn. The anomaly's confusion was short-lived however, and Rylan's eyes widened in horror at what he saw next.
The impossible thing reared up even as Nalas and Lana neared. It seemed to twist and wring itself tight before spinning with incredible violence and sending each bead of water out from itself like an arrow. Rylan threw his shield in front of his face and braced. The sound of a thousand water droplets impacting their plate armor was like tearing metal and the force of the wind sent him skidding across the deck and slamming into the wall. Training forced the hand with the charged blade wide, keeping it away from his body. It smoked now from contact with moisture. He could feel a hundred little wounds covering him wherever his now pocked armor was not.
Something flexed under him. It was the remains of a grease board, used by the technicians for announcements and settling arguments involving planar calculus. It read, “Crew 2 Shift 1: 4 years, 361 days straight.” He grimaced and pushed himself his feet. Jerich was still down, Nalas and Lana were nowhere to be seen. Josen was slumped against the wall, bleeding. He looked up and saw Pali through the anomaly; it was like looking at a broken mirror underwater in fog. It had her suspended twenty feet in the air, the gray-laced coils shimmered with moisture and held her like a python. Rylan threw his dagger.
The weapon trailed sparks as it spun through the smoke. The anomaly jerked its head around as the blade passed right through the center of its humanoid torso and ignited it. The purest Fire fed on the raw elemental Air like ants swarming on sugar. The entity spasmed as its entire form immolated, flames running down ghostly limbs. There was a final alien shriek that brought Rylan to his knees followed by the thud of Pali's body hitting the ground. Through the now sluggish mist he saw her armor and clothing fused with flesh where the anomaly had gripped her. His spent dagger was buried in her chest.