Garret had encountered three more bodies. Two had died with a broken neck and the third stabbed through their throat. The evidence pointed towards one simple conclusion - execution - most likely taken out to ensure they would not repair the ship and return it to full operational status. To Garret, this was a sound and logical form of attack. If he had been the one to invade and cripple a ship, then he would eliminate the engineering staff quickly and quietly as possible. The rest of the ship would then be ripe for the picking.
These deaths presented a far more serious meaning. Garret recognised the handy work of a professional killer and furthermore, he or she was still most likely onboard. There was nothing more to learn on this level. He had to move up to the passenger deck.
There had been very little to indicate what this ship's mission was. Garret knew that a ship like this should have had more engineering staff. He allowed for the possibility that some staff may have left the room to conduct repairs around the ship, but from what he had seen so far the ship appeared to be in good condition. It was more likely that all the engineers were accounted for and dead. The ship was operating with a skeleton crew. The mysteries continued to mount up.
The layout of the ship was relatively simple and straightforward; each deck was long and straight. Although there were minor areas which offshoot to either the left or right, it would be hard for anyone to hide on this lower section of the ship. It was time to move on. Garret recognised the Seridian words used for stairs, written above closed doors at the end of the corridor. Although the word translated better into English as 'elevation', Garret had seen it enough at staircases in other Seridian buildings to know what would be behind the door.
He pressed the access button, his rifle held up ready to shoot anything that might be on the other side. He stood to the side as the door opened quickly glancing over his shoulder to ensure the area was clear. He then turned his body to continue on his chosen path. Before him, a small narrow helical shaped staircase rose from the ground. His eyes scanned upwards; there was a tactical disadvantage to his position but he had no other alternative. He placed his right foot on the first step and proceeded up; his pace had increased to get him from this tight space into a more open area.
He reached another the door that opened to the main deck of the Seridian transport. These ships did not have any private personal sleeping quarters. The ship's layout was simple. This middle level was for the sole use of passengers. Garret hoped to solve the mystery as he emerged from the narrow staircase into the opening of the deck. From what he had encountered so far, he expected to find more dead bodies. It was not long before his expectations were realised.
There were random seats spread sporadically throughout the deck; Garret immediately recognised the layout as something that he had seen before in a past mission briefing. The layout of this deck varied depending on the use or purpose of the ship. Most of the ships he had encountered to date had different layouts to this, used for transportation of large numbers of Seridian civilians. Seats would normally run through the length of the deck with a narrow passageway running through the centre. However, this irregular layout meant something completely different. This ship was transporting people of importance, or at least it was.
Garret stepped past three Seridians lying dead on the floor. The pattern in which they had fallen was different now. These people knew they were being attacked and had tried to react to it. As Garret continued to move forward, he recognised minor burn marks on the wall of the open deck. Seridians used directed energy weapons like humans, although they based their technology on particle beam emission rather than maser technology. The style of both weapons was different, but their capacity for death and destruction emulated each other. The burn marks on the wall were consistent with super high-energy particle beams, and as such, the Seridians themselves were responsible for the attacks.
Garret turned the body of the closest Seridian to his feet. She wore the uniform of a Security Officer. Her weapon was drawn and looked like had been discharged. As Garret examined her a little closer, he could see the horrific fatal wound; a cut mark stretched across her throat. Her blue blood stained the carpet, still fresh and wet. Her life had only recently ended. Garret discovered more security officers all killed by a similar manner; a perfect cut mark stretched across their skin and deep into their windpipe. It was a simple but effective form of execution, one which Garret himself favoured. He made a quick examination of the scorched burn marks on the walls. The angles of fire made it clear that they originated from the security guards and not the killer. Garret was so confident that he lowered his maser rifle and returned it to its storage position attached to his back.
It was only now that he started to feel a slight wave of panic. It was not the location, nor the fact that dead Seridians surrounded him. What panicked him was way the killer was going about their executions. They were killing in the same manner Garret would have chosen himself; this unknown assailant could just as easily have been Garret himself.
Garret stood back up from his crouched position, reached around to the small of his back and pulled out his most favoured weapon. The kukri-curved blade was drawn; this time Garret knew he would not have to spill his own blood before placing the weapon back in its scabbard.
The guards had fallen as if they were approaching the attacker. They were moving to the front of the ship, in the same direction from which Garret himself had entered. So who the hell were you protecting? The possibilities seemed endless. It was someone important, but that was as much as Garret could piece together from the limited clues on offer before him. He knew now that he had to change his approach as he continued to walk through the ship. He no longer moved as the cautious soldier. There was now a look of complete determination shaping his facial features; he had no wish to wonder aimlessly about this ship waiting for the attacker to emerge. He was ready to face them as one brutal killer to another. He was now on the hunt. This was how he had survived the last mission while others in his group perished. They were all excellent Foot Soldiers, just as Garret was. However, Garret for the greatest part of his life, knew he was slightly different to other humans. He was never hesitant with the thought of killing another person. If it benefitted him to kill, then he would kill. His eyes looked down at his uniform, covered in the memories of his true nature. The combat suit was still drenched in the alien blood of men and women he had slaughtered on his last mission. There were areas of his face and neck smeared with the blue liquid. He knew in his heart that he was a murderer and he was happy with that.
Finally, he found what he was looking for. It was the last dead body on this level, a female Seridian sat in a chair and her head slumped down with her hair covering her face. She was not wearing the uniform of a Security Officer or any other Seridian styled military outfit. Instead, she was dressed in civilian clothing, a feminine cut business suit. The females of the species were anatomically the same as human females; their body shapes were identical and adapted through their own evolutionary pattern to be the bearer of offspring.
Garret used the base of his knife's hilt to raise the head of the dead Seridian woman, he reached his left hand and gentle used his fingers to push her hair that obscured her face to one side. Although he had expected to find her dead, he did not expect to see such a gentle face disfigured in the manner that he was now observing. Unlike the others, her death had not been the result of a slashed throat or stabbing. She had been tortured and slowly executed. Her eyelids were cut off, presumably so she could not look away from her attacker. The skin on her arms was cut open, the pattern was random but clearly done to maim and inflict as much pain as possible. It did not take long for him to uncover the fatal wound. He pushed away the blood drenched ripped blouse to see that her heart had been cut out from her body.
It was only when his eyes returned back up to her face did a wave of realisation come over him. He examined the disfigured, grey-skinned face and then some things started to ma
ke more sense. He had seen this woman before. Never in person but in the collected intelligence data Earth Central had gathered on their enemy. He could not remember her name but he was sure she was, or at least had been, a member of the Seridian Government. This fact was enough for him to rationalise the structure and purpose of this ship; it was set up to transport someone important and the security personnel where included to protect her. They didn’t do a very good job, he thought to himself.
He allowed her head to drop back down gently into her chest. He activated the modular unit attached to his wrist containing a torch. Although the emergency lighting had provided enough light to make the surroundings of the room visible, he used the torch for a more purposeful reason. He shown the light, first at the open wound where the Seridian's heart had once been and then used the torch to follow the splattered blood trail that was created as the killer had left the scene with the organ in hand. He had taken a trophy of his victim; Garret had met Foot Soldiers that had taken small trophies of their victims but it was not a practice that he believed in.
The trail led to another door, and a staircase that led to the top and final level. The line of blood on the floor, created from the disembodied heart, started to fade as it approached the door but it was enough to convince Garret the he would find the person who had caused this carnage on the command level.