Dead Space: Valor in Laughter

by Kishin

"Pray for the dead...."

USM Valor. 2508.

Aegis VII system. 1345 hours Normal Time

Location unknown. RIG Ship-link disconnected

Along the empty deck hall was a spark. An insignificant spark, common amongst the millions already sprouting from the ruined conduits along the walls, all except for its longevity. Floating through the air ondeck fuming with decay and blood, the small glowing sprite split into two entities, one that grew into a flat disk that vomited out metallic debris amongst the bodies on deck, and the other a continuity of its original form.

Wandering off, the small spark continued to float about as its spawned portal spewed what seemed like a wreckage on the deck. The debris exiting the portal evolved in size from specks of dust to chunks of scorched titanium as large as human beings, which were also abundant on the deck for comparison. For a few more moments, nothing exited the portal, but the abrupt appearance of a single body had broken the mere seconds of stagnant silence. With the final body's exit, the portal closed onto itself into oblivion, and the aforementioned spark waited.

The reinforced backpack attached to the portaled body popped open, and Pinkie stretched herself in her surroundings.

"Junebug, you didn't tell me you could use magic!"

The body groaned, "I can't. I thought you got us out of the tram. And what magic? Magic doesn't exist!"

The pink pony smiled, "Nope! And magic's real! We just poofed out into nowhere. You can't explain that!"

"Well then, I owe one helluva drink to whoever got us out."

Then a soothing voice that Pinkie had learned to revere and trust from birth had originated from the floating spark,

"Nice to see you safe, Pinkie. And no, thank you. I do not drink strong alcoholic beverages."

Upon hearing the familiar voice, Pinkie pounced up and screamed, "Princess Celestia! What happened to you? You're all tiny and small and cute and glowy and-"

"I'm sorry, Pinkie Pie, but I only a few more moments to pass this message through. Discord's portal is starting to magically weaken the Adjutor Equus I've sent. Doctor Whooves advised me to teleport you both closer to what he decided to designate as the Engine Room. That's where I'll meet you both, as it's the only place that I can gather enough energy from the machinery to teleport us back to Equestria. And as for you, human, I commend you for your actions to protect Pinkie Pie, but I assure you neither your technology or will can stop me from finding you if you let anything happen to her. Farewell....."

The sprite then disintegrated into a fine dust that disappeared into the air of the deck.

"Was that small thing your ruler. I've seen and heard crazier stuff, but still...." Joon asked.

"No, silly filly! She's really tall, almost as tall as you! She did something to herself in a way that I have absolutely NO idea how, like usual, and I just nod like this anyway," Pinkie shook her head up and down. "...and I just go with it!"

"You have quite a life back in...what was it? Equestria? Not exactly a place I would like to go to with the royalty threatening me and all, but it must be quite lively over there," Joon commented, dusting himself, and finally noticing that his suit was inactive.

Obliviously, Pinkie Pie answered, "Yup! Back in Ponyville, you meet all sorts of ponies! But personally..."

Pinkie Pie looked around as if someone was eavesdropping, and continued quietly, "...I think some of them think I'm annoying....and talkative."

Joon stopped giving his RIG a look-over, admitting a silent acceptance of his current state, and looked at Pinkie pointedly.

He carefully watched his wording, "No, why would they say that?"

"I don't know," Pinkie shrugged matter-of-factly.

"Well, then. I think I might take a little trip there after all. Gonna have a few words with everybody over there that think you're annoying."

"Don't do that! That's mean- Wait. You said you'd come, even though you said you wouldn't? YAY! I get to show you to all my friends and I'll get to see you everyday and then you'll get into a fight with the Princesses after something you did to protect one of us inadvertantly causes a town brawl and then you'll help us fight off ultimate, near-invincible evil beings and-"

"Whoa there, Sparky! Watch the conjunctions! I said I might," Joon responded. "Anyway, we gotta get to the bridge and have a nice chat with a certain Commander before we get down to Engineering. I can't access any decks with my....uh...present status. But....I'd like to find out more about this Equestria. Can you tell me about it while I reboot my RIG. I think some of the magic, or whatever it was, in that teleportation spell-thing that your Princess cast disrupted the electronics in my suit."

As the marine retrieved his Seeker Rifle from the debris, took out his PDA from his pack, and proceeded to connect a RIG support bus wire from the PDA to his RIG's port, Pinkie blurted out everything she knew about her home.

"Well, at Ponyville there are houses with thatched roofs..."

"Yeah," Joon blankly replied. His faceplate reflected the hundreds of lines of code displayed on his PDA.

Pinkie continued, starting to count off her home town's attractions with an increasing amount of pink hooves that were appearing out of nowhere, "And market vendors, bakeries, my friend Twilight is in charge of a library, my other friends Fluttershy has a cottage where she takes care of animals, Applejack runs a farm, Rarity owns a dress shop, but she always says that it's a boutique or something like that. Rainbow Dash is in charge of the weather service-"

Joon asked without looking up, "Oh so your friend predicts the weather?"

"No, Dashie creates the weather. She has to get rid of clouds and everything!"

"Uh-huh, yeah. Keep on going. I'm listening."

"And the majority of Equestria is covered by the Everfree Forest, which has all the monsters and scary trees living in it-"

"Oh God, what I would give to see a tree nowadays."

"You don't have any trees?"

"No, we razed them all down for fuel, resources, and urban/industrial development. Though I have heard of biological reserves existing on a couple of planetary stations....." he trailed off.

"Ok, done," Joon announced as he entered a start-up sequence coding from the PDA to the suit. The RIG's natural blue light appeared in the back of his spinal section and the "eyes" of his helmet. He stared at the pony in front of him standing and trotting around in a circle with all four hooves planted on the deck.

"Would you look at that? You can walk again. I'm guessing that wound healed up alright?"

"I guess so!"

"Do you want me to be your personal camel again, or-"

"It's fine!" Pinkie laughed, not even knowing what a camel was.

Joon opened up Valor's schematics to discover their location, and said, "Alright then, I guess we can.....Pinkie, remind me to thank your Princess very, very much for me."

"Why?"

Joon, with Pinkie following him, jogged down the passageway, ignoring the debris and astounding number of human corpses on the deck, and reached an open entrance revealing a large, accessible compartment of the ship where navigational and communication stations lay empty and surrounded the room.

"She just teleported us directly near the bridge deck," Joon breathed with a hint of disbelief.

"And according to my RIG, Cadigan should be around here. But where is everyone? Hello! Hello? Anyone alive-"

The bridge security bulkheads behind Pinkie and Joon shut behind them and locked with a thud. As artificial gravity shut off, the air recycling system began to vent the atmosphere inside the bridge. To counter this, Joon magnetized his boots and dropped onto the deck, dragging Pinkie Pie to the floor also, and his RIG automatically switched his oxygen supply to his reserve tank.

But, wait. The atmos vented. Pinkie isn't going to be able to breath. Oh shit, what am I-

To his surprise, or lack of, Pinkie pulled out what looked to be a SCUBA tank and a breathing apparatus from her mane and placed the apparatus on her snout, giving Joon a temporary emotion of relief.

Joon commented, "Pinkie, has anyone told you that you're amazing?"

Pinkie giggled, "I know! Teehee!"

Joon's RIG then recieved an incoming transmission from Cadigan RIG. Feeling a need for vengeance overcome his present emotion of relief, Joon answered the request for a video communication within an instant.

Cadigan's voice rang out in Joon's helmet speakers, "You are a very hard man to kill. You know that? But this is only delaying the inevitable, Gunnery Sergeant. You will NOT disrupt my operation! You hear me? I'm going to watch you die this time from oxygen deprivation. No more quick and easy routes! If I want to get something done, I guess I'll have to do it my fucking self. This means watching you slowly choke in your own carbon dioxide and waste, and how sweet it'll be when I finally watch you croak and rot! And the Marker? It will finally be within our grasp without any of your interference."

On the other side of the transmission, Joon could hear the burstfire of Pulse Rifles and Divets and distant blood-chilling screams.

"Doesn't sound like your having much of an easy time. Have you even boarded the Ishimura yet?"

"I don't need criticisms from a dead man. And especially not from a man who killed his own wife and unborn child."

Joon responded, "What?"

"You don't remember? How yeah, you probably don't, you psychotic invalid! They say that in times of trauma, we modify our memories. You, apparantly, are not above this. You think I'm lying? Well, dead man, get ready to be proved wrong!"

A side video opened and shared the screen with the current holo-vid of Cadigan. Joon recognized it with a hazy memory as a recording from an ORACLE scope system. And he especially recognized the mission recording when he heard the exact same conversation he had 3 years ago, and when he noticed the same faces he once saw float behind a reticle. But everything after that point, Joon could not compare to his own memory, as what happened on the recording was the absolute opposite of what Joon peceived on that fateful day.

The insurgent (Joon remembered his name to have been Grey...Grayson?) was holding Anne behind the heated blades of a plasma saw. The recording device in the ORACLE system confirmed a lock on Grayson's RIG signature. As Joon was given the order to fire, Anne attempted to escape from the insurgent's grasp, resulting in Grayson tugging her to the center of his body mass, right in the way of the targeted Seeker round.

In the recording, the ORACLE prototype attempted to compensate for the sudden movement and obstruction of the target, but Joon had already pulled the trigger, and the Seeker round was forced to continue on its originally-targeted and incorrect trajectory, through both Anne and Grayson. Their bodies both tumbled down into the urban sprawl of Charybdis. Far from what Joon percieved had occured.

The recording ended with a concluding screen of static.

No...none of that happened. I didn't kill her. Grayson was successfully neutralized. Damn it, I did NOT shoot her....didn't I?

Joon uttered, "That didn't happen. You tampered and modified the footage. I didn't kill her! Or her child!"

"Oh, then you're saying that the few dozen witness reports and morgue autopsies were just lies too? Or the fact that I watched you make the fucking shot! I was on the Reqiuem, in command of that fucking mission! You're saying that I lied to you? You lied to yourself, asshole! You fucking killed your wife! You fucking killed your unborn child! And the Marker? It's just manipulating you with hallucinations of her!"

Cadigan chuckled satisfactorily, "And do you know what YOU admitted on your post-incident report? That Grayson's body had a fucking muscle spasm. That his arm pushed the plasma saw into Diane Mercer. That you had nothing to do with her death. Au contrair, you had everything to do with it. And you know what we were going to do to you while you were in stasis? You weren't going to a mental asylum. Oh no, EarthGov especially wanted to see what made you tick. They wanted to take apart your brain. They wanted to see how you managed everything the Marker threw at you, how you stayed the most sane of all the patients. And rightly so. But too late now. You'll just be another casualty. Now you know why an end to your miserable existence will benefit EarthGov and the rest of the universe. See you in hell, Gunny."

The vid-conference ended with the following appearing projected by Joon's RIG.

Transmission End

Ignoring the rapid ticking of his oxygen counter, Joon collapsed sluggishly on the bridge deck to his knees.

Pinkie Pie, as Joon could see something change in her eyes when she looked at him, started to step towards Joon hesitantly.

"Junebu-"

"Don't call me that. In fact, don't even talk to me at all. I don't deserve any sympathy," the marine responded with a hollow, emotionless voice.

"Is it true what he said? Are you really....crazy?" Pinkie asked with fear and uncertainty clinging heavily to her tone.

"How should I know? You know when I mentioned that I was considered Section 8, but I didn't bother to tell you what it meant?"

"Yeah."

"It means that I'm mentally unfit for duty. Hallucinations, memory blackouts, the whole sha-bang. I see her Pinkie. Anne. And she always reminded me that something was up. That something was wrong. That what I did was wrong. And you know what? She was right."

Joon unslung his Seeker Rifle and slammed the butt down onto the deck. He then retrieved his PDA and his last concussion grenade and directed both of them to Pinkie Pie.

"I think it will be better for the both of us if you take these, and leave me behind. Prime the grenade, and destroy some of the venting around here. You'll be able to escape and the PDA has a built-in navigational Waypoint that will guide you to Engineering."

Pinkie looked at the two objects held out towards her for a few seconds, and looked back at Joon.

"But...what about you?"

"Oh me? Gonna do something that'll ease my conscience for quite a while."

Joon cocked the bolt on his Seeker Rifle and loaded in a Seeker Shell into the chamber. He placed the barrel towards the area in front of his helmet, where his eyes would be located on his face, and positioned the Seeker Rifle so he would be able to grip the trigger with his thumb and the rifle would be targeted for a clean headshot directed at his own helmet. Joon made certain that even with his present cranial protection, the Seeker Shell would be able to penetrate his helmet.

"Go. Now. You're better off without me. I can't keep this up Pinkie," Joon gritted thorough his teeth, his voice shaking.

"But-"

"Damn it, I can't live with myself anymore! Not with everything that I'VE done! Everyone I've met ends up dead because of me. And I can't let that happen to you. So, go. You'll be home soon. And as for me, I'll be able to see her again. Not some shitty disillusionment, but her...the real her. And hopefully...." Joon hiccuped and didn't bother to wipe his eyes. He wouldn't have been able to with his helmet on anyway. "....she'll forgive me."

He looked at the immobile Pinkie, and heaved out, "Why am I still seeing you here?"

"I'm not leaving you here. I would be a bad friend if I did," Pinkie worriedly added.

"You wouldn't be leaving me if there's nothing to leave behind, right? Just another body to add to the furnishing of this God-forsaken ship..."

"Don't! If you do this, it won't solve anything! Granny Pie always told me that you have to face your fears rather than run away from them! When I was a little filly and-"

"I don't think singing is going to solve anything either."

"Sure it will!"

"Pinkie just leave! This isn't going to be my proudest moment."

"No."

Joon couldn't take it anymore. His patience and emotional threshold was wearing thin as he finally shouted, "I told you to leave, you fucking demented horse! I want out, and I actually have the decency to let you have a fair warning before I blow my brains out across the bulkhead! Don't you understand?! I...NEED...TO DO THIS!"

He gave a wet sob and dropped the rifle. Joon covered his faceplate with his gloved hands. Through his weary, blurred vision, he viewed on his HUD that he only had around two minutes left before his reserve oxygen depletes.

Pinkie, seemingly oblivious to the insult as she knew (somewhat) that her friend was distressed, hooked a hoof around Joon's neck, and tried to comfort him, "You know, us ponies say that the best of times always come after the worst of them. That's why I always try to smile and laugh when times get tough. You always know that something good will come out of it. And this...." She gestured to the rifle and everything on the bridge (including some of the twitching bodies).

"...It's just all just part of those bad times."

Joon choked, "A bit optimistic here aren't we?"

"Why not? You can't get any lower than you already are!" Pinkie brightly answered.

"Gee. Thanks. Now hand me back my Seeker Rifle."

"What about all the humans on the space-boat-thingy? And what this Holy Crayon-"

"Marker. Now how about that rifle?"

Pinkie ignored his request, "Yeah, that thing. How can you think only about yourself when this is hurting other ponies, errr people. What if it ends up hurting others on other planets...and other space-boat-thingies! That's not very nice of you."

Joon paused. He couldn't believe that her logic actually made sense. It just needed a rough shove to get it through his thick skull.

"You know, how come you tend to say the most reasonable advice whenever the craziest things happen? You're usually a lot more random than this."

Pinkie replied, "I blame my brain for it. Ya hear that, brain? I'm gonna get up there and rustle your jimmies if you don't start acting like normal!"

"And there we go," sighed the Gunnery Sergeant again. "I suppose you're never gonna let this go are you?"

Pinkie Pie repeated with a cheerful laugh, "Nope!"

Joon hissed, "Fuck it. Getting too old for this. You know that I'm going to end up regretting this later, right?"

"Yup," Pinkie Pie rasped through her SCUBA respirator. How IS she talking through that thing anyway? Never mind. I have a feeling that the more I question things, the more confused I'm going to get.

"Service with a smile. Heh, I'm never gonna get that these days, so I better stick around, won't I?"

"Nuh huh. I'm not gonna let this go that easily! I want something in exchange!"

Joon got up and lifted an eyebrow, "Yeah, I'm not taking my RIG off. Wanna see what 3 years on a ship does to your figure?"

"Not that! Although...."

"Pinkie!"

"You have to promise me that you'll come to Equestria with me. What you need are some the most friendliest-ical-tastic friends that you could possibly have, and I have plenty of 'em! Princess Celestia and all the others will be so happy to meet you! That, and you need to quit being so mopey!" Pinkie exclaimed with delight.

Joon began to edge out, "Pinkie....."

Sensing a rejection to her proposal, Pinkie busted out the big guns...the puppy-dog eyes.

Joon sighed. "I can only promise one of those. Being depressed is part of my charming charisma. I can't simply just stop doing it," he joked.

"Pffff. Whatever you say, Junebug!"

"Hey!"

Pinkie ignored his protests and said, "Now repeat after me: Cross my heart, and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!" She ended her spiel with a hoof to the eye socket.

Joon copied her wording and actions, and just had to ask, "What's this for? And please don't do that eye thing again. It's kinda creepy."

"It's for a Pinkie Promise! And nopony EVER breaks a Pinkie Promise!" she emphasized.

"Fine. But you have to do something for me, too. Two things actually."

"What is it best friend-o-buddy-o-mine?"

"First, personal space." In response, Pinkie Pie stepped away an exact centimeter from Joon.

Why do I have a feeling that the one centimeter she gave me is the only thing that I should really expect from her?

"Second, whatever happens from here on out, follow my directions to the letter-"

"But I don't have to follow them to the number right?"

"....and the number."

"Awwwwww."

Joon continued in a whisper, "And do exactly as I say. Things are going to get a little...hectic. Cadigan probably thinks that I'm getting suicidal-"

"Which you were!"

"Shhhhhh! Never bring that up again. Ever. That was a low point for me and I never want to get back to it."

"But you didn't say that I needed to do a third thing."

"Well, you do now. If I start acting like that again, kick me in the groin. Hard. Like you did when you first met me."

Joon quickly retrieved his Seeker Rifle and wandered around on the bridge deck, looking under and over displays for something. After some searching, Joon found and activated a thick, short pedestal embedded near the navigational station.

Feeling every rapid tick from his oxygen counter prick his ears, Joon hurriedly removed the paneling and plunged his fingers through the wiring. Delving into the side of the pedestal, Pinkie Pie watched Joon tear out a box, contained within it were electrically-surged, spinning disks.

"What are you doing?" Pinkie Pie inquisitively asked.

"AIs in the past used to only run on the basic Three Laws of Robotics. Though, over the years, we found out that any sort of artificial intelligence was going to need a lot more than three basic behavioral mandates to keep humans safe from....certain anomalies. So we had to make entire disk drives for AIs, especially ones in charge of military naval crafts like Valor, that contain hundreds of millions of algorithms that forces robotic and conceptual AIs to act a certain manner and do certain things in specific situations. Right now, I'm removing the quarantine safety protocols that the Ship Safety AI is in charge of.....manually."

A verbal retaliation from the now-malfunctioning Ship Safety AI escaped through its speakers with an increasingly low-pitched tone.

"I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't let you do that."

Joon growled, "My name's not Dave."

He brandished his Seeker Rifle and fired the entirety of his clip into the containment housal unit, effectively destroying the AI beyond repair.

With the AI's housing as useful as ballast on a space-worthy ship, literally, oxygen began to vent into the bridge and the safety bulkheads slided open to reveal the now-usable exit. Out from the halls echoed a furious torrent of noise of what was occuring in the lower decks, and pressured coolant rushing through the pipes embedded in the walling. And by the shouts of surprise, Joon decided that whatever was happening to the remaining crew members was quite dreadful.

Joon recieved a signal from his RIG that questioned whether he would like to answer a vid-transmission from Cadigan, to which he immediately authorized.

Abruptly, Cadigan's roars polluted the bridge, "What did you do? What the fuck did you do? The safety bulkheads just opened by themselves and they won't close. You disabled the safety systems haven't you? You bastard. You killed us all!"

"Better us than everyone back home. Get it through your deluded mind that the Marker isn't all it's cracked up to be," Joon reasoned. "I'm coming for you, Cadigan, if the Necros don't get to you first."

"Good luck finding me then. And hopefully you'll get to meet up with the rest of your insane patient-mates down there. Cadigan out."

As Joon's RIG dropped the transmission, he looked to Pinkie Pie.

"Come on, Pinkie. Let's end this. I gotta get you home."

Comments

[Kishin]

If this was too fast-paced, sorry. You guys waited so long for something, and I didn't want to dissapoint you guys. Also, if this is taking WAY too long to get to the Dead Space canon, again I'm sorry. Planning to get out some more chapters out today, as I pretty much have the story finished. (Just need some editing).

[Mordecaiser]

y'know
all 67 crew members onboard the valor died
save for 2 marines
one isaac encountered pinned to a ceiling
and one Isaac saw escape through a hatch

[bronystrongwing]

1598237 Joon isn't technically a crew member, he's a patient, plus his RIG is registered as dead on the Valor's computers.

[ZxxsomeonexxZ]

Hahaha! Was that a hal9000 reference I saw?

[Connorcooper]

1598237
one was found holding his own severed leg don't forget