Subnautica - Cave of Secrets

Cave of Secrets - Part 10

"Step one," she said to herself, "here we go." Knowing there was a crack under the left gamma, she quickly slipped the smoke bomb in, pushed the button, and then put on a rebreather that would act as a gas mask. She crouched low and ran behind the base as she watched a stream of people and TSF guards run choking out of the building. Once she was certain no one was left, she snuck into the base. She walked directly to the computer room where the monitor flipped up as she approached.

"Step two," she muttered. She inserted the USB drive and was greeted with a password screen. Grabbing the slip of paper she got from the Code Center, she typed in the characters she had written down. "-37°C=B BZ," she said, "that should do it."

The computer screen blinked blue before being replaced by the alterra symbol. A loading ring formed around it and the symbol started turning. Next came the annoying jingle of Alterra, the weird robot voices singing in a 1940s style voice"

"Aaaallllllllttteeeeeerrrrrrraaaaaaaa"

"I swear I can hear that picture at this point," Sam said to no one in particular. The loading symbol finally disappeared, and a seemingly random stream of zeros and ones replaced it. In the top left-hand corner of the screen she saw the percentage of the file downloads.

When it got to 100%, she was confronted with two options:

1.) Copy files to USB drive

2.) Replace files in location

"We don't want Alterra to get their files back, now do we," she said as she selected the second option. When she removed the drive, the bomb immediately started ticking.

"Step three" she yelped as she placed the bomb in the corner and raced out. Sprinting back to the cave she held up the USB drive in victory. Placing it in the main monitor, she accessed the files and started to read. She stumbled across one that looked particularly interesting.

"It looks like this file belongs to Winchester himself," Sam exclaimed. "The experimentation of the bacterium was done to create a biological weapon directly for him! They experimented on rock grubs and found out that every single rock grub was infected with it Kharaa." Inhaling sharply she continued, "They said it controlled the brain, and if they could figure out a way to control the Kharaa they could create a biological weapon!" Sam stumbled backward from the screen, and put her shaking hands to her mouth. "No," she said, "no, no, no..."

"Yes," said a strange voice behind her. Sam spun, and standing in the doorway was a man dressed in a khaki suit, a blue tie, and a starwal fur draped over his shoulder. In his hand he held a sphere.

"Otero Winchester," gasped Sam.

A hint of a smile tugged at the corner of the man's lips. "I see you've discovered my little..." but he never got the chance to finish, as a beam of ion energy came from the background and hit him square in the chest, breaking through his metal organs. Turning, Sam saw Craig McGill standing, steaming with anger.

"I guess that's that then," he said, darkly. He was breathing heavily as he looked at the rest of the team. "Winchester and I have a personal rivalry. When I got off Boreal Nine, and I refused to give him my starwall, he killed it for that fur."

Just then, Maida then came rushing out of her room. "Look at this! A new bulletin from The Independent!"

The Independent. ALTERRA's only free newspaper in federated space! We have received notice that Alterra has officially surrendered from the war. This happened as a result of Winchester being...

"It's over," Sam whispered as the control room exploded into cheers, "it's really over."

                                                                                   ***

Sam and Robin were back home on the precursor home world. Robin added a bedroom for Sam onto her base and they were now living together, just like they used to. Two days after the surrender of Alterra they were on the couch watching a movie when there was a knock at the door.

Sam looked at Robin and raised an eyebrow. "Expecting company?"

"I'll get it," Robin groaned. Opening the door she was greeted by a man dressed entirely in black. When he took off his glasses they realized it was Riley.

"I came to give you the news," Riley shifted his stance, "Al-An's consciousness stopped at 10 AM this morning."

Sam stood in a stunned silence, and Robin broke out in tears.

"Al-An is dead."

It was at this moment when Sam realized her life could never be the same again.