The USG Bloodstone, a city sized vessel, drifted silently through space, its interior devoid of all life. In its service, the station had been used as a prison to keep the “scum” of society away. The rapist, the murderers, anyone who we judged to threaten our little society. The plan was definitely sound. Convicts couldn’t break out of space, and they could still be made to work while there. It was what the Earth Defense Force(EDF) fed everyone, and we gladly ate it up, content to return to our own blissful ignorance.

In truth, the USG Bloodstone was a ship used to house a newly discovered Marker, objects of alien origin capable of feats not yet understood by humanity.

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Markers are objects of alien origin, capable of feats not yet understood by humanity, such as resurrecting dead tissue within a certain proximity of the given marker. This "necro" tissue would suffer mutations, and be capable of movement on its own. In addition, it would be hostile to any other lifeforms not resurrected by the marker.

The EDF had long since been researching a way of reverse-engineering Marker reanimation capabilities. They wanted to find a way to resurrect dead tissue, without the unwanted mutations nor unwarranted hostility.

Because the very nature of Markers seemed hostile, with them landing on planets, and essentially initiating genocide once enough natural deaths occurred, the EDF deemed it too dangerous to be studied on a planet.

So what better place to do it than a supposed prison station? It was spaceborne and safely from Earth and any of her colonies, and came with testing subjects to boot!

By maintaining strict control of deaths on the station, and quarantining corpses before resurrection occurred, they could effectively ensure an uncontrolled outbreak would never happened like in the past.

Or so they thought.

This would of worked if Markers were a one trick pony. Unfortunately, this was not the case.

Markers could emit multiple fields of "influence" around them. Each with a different effect. The EDF knew of only one, the resurrection field, and that is where our story begins.

"If a dead organism lies within proximity of a marker, it is resurrected after a time" was the first field of energy emitted by markers, and one that remained constantly in effect.

"If living organisms outnumber dead organisms, broadcast subliminal messages" was the second field of energy emitted by markers, and one completely unknown to the EDF.

In this case aboard the Bloodstone, the marker also generated the second field of energy, and the individuals aboard the Bloodstone station were its target. The marker probed the minds of staff personnel, and test subjects alike, driving them to homicidal and suicidal tendencies.

When the dust settled, the Marker’s reanimation abilities were finally able to come to light. Dead flesh in proximity of the Marker underwent some form of recombination, creating the first “Necromorphs”, fully revived bodies, and not just tissue samples, aboard the ship. These Necromorphs aided in further killings across the ship, the goal presumably being to "clear out local population".
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All of this was unknown to those aboard the USG Destroyer-Class vessel Atlanta that had been sent to investigate the distress signal sent out just before communications ceased. The higher ups had neglected to inform the crew of the situation because they couldn't; they didn't know what had happened themselves or that an necromorph outbreak was even possible under those circumstance.

The Atlanta crew was made to believe this would be a subjugation run. The higher-ups didn't want to unnecessarily inform them of the black projects the facility had performed, what with human experimentation and all. If they were sending men in blind, they figured they'd send in the best, of the best.

From the Atlanta crew's point of view, this made no sense.
If this mission really were just a simple subjugation, why were they sending the USG Atlanta of all vessels? In addition to the vessel itself being a destroyer class war machine, its crew were among the most decorated in the military. What the EDF was doing now was akin to making the star player towel boy. They would be used much more efficiently in the nearby colony wars, most likely as the flagship of an entire fleet of vessels.

No... Instead, the Atlanta's crew were being sent on a rescue mission, wherein all likelihood the supposed rescuees would already have been annihilated by the prisoner population.

No, this couldn't possibly be the mission. Maybe the EDF wanted them to cleanse the prison's population, for the massive station's redeployment somewhere more efficient? Regardless, the Atlanta had never participated in any "dark" mission, indeed the thought of doing so would churn the stomachs of any woman or man whom consider themselves part of the prestigious crew.

Being kept in the dark was an uneasy feeling for everyone.