Zach Hammond

Zach Hammond was the Chief Security Officer of the USG Kellion and one of the three crew members, alongside Isaac Clarke and Kendra Daniels, who made it past the Flight Deck of the USG Ishimura after the Necromorph attack in 2508. A dedicated and by-the-book officer, he took command of the operation and worked to keep his people alive until the Marker's influence and a final confrontation aboard the USM Valor brought about his death.

Command of the Ishimura mission#

By 2508 Zach Hammond had served alongside Corporals Aiden Chen and Hailey Johnston for several years, and he was placed in charge of the CEC operation sent to investigate the stricken USG Ishimura. When the team was attacked on arrival and Chen was killed, Hammond tried to hold to standard emergency protocol despite the worsening horror around him. After Johnston died as well and the Kellion was destroyed, he took skillful command and made his way to the ship's Bridge, where he helped Isaac Clarke restore the Ishimura's systems and its automated defenses.

Throughout this work he was stalked by the reanimated form of Chen, a sight that deeply disturbed him. Unable to bring himself to confront his former friend, he trapped the creature in a damaged escape pod and jettisoned it. He then pressed on to the Crew Deck in search of survivors, discovering that the area had been seized by Unitologists who had brought the Marker there, and locating an executive shuttle that could be used to escape.

The Valor and Hammond's death#

Reestablishing contact with Isaac and Kendra, Hammond boarded the crashed USM Valor to help recover the ship's singularity core, which was needed to repair the executive shuttle. Aboard the military vessel he began to show signs of the Marker's influence, hearing Chen's voice over his suit link and becoming convinced his friend was still alive. The Valor's logs, which revealed the ship had been prepared to eliminate all witnesses, pushed him further into delirium, and he came to believe the Kellion crew had been doomed from the moment they entered the system.

In the Valor's engine room Hammond met the Slasher form of Chen once more and, in his delusion, saw his friend alive but injured. Though he was fatally impaled, a final moment of clarity let him see the creature for what it truly was, and he sacrificed himself by pushing it into the Valor's singularity core, destroying them both. The act brought down the core's containment field and allowed Isaac to seize it, giving the survivors their chance to escape. Even after his death, Hammond's voice lingered as one of the Marker-induced hallucinations that haunted Isaac, lamenting the loss of his crew and declaring that they had all been dead from the start.

Character#

Hammond was a dedicated security officer, professional and devoted to protocol, and though Kendra dismissed him as a company man, he placed the lives of those under his command above all else. He was deeply affected by the deaths of Chen and Johnston, and he resolved to complete the rescue so that their deaths would not be in vain, snapping at Kendra when she suggested the mission had been a cover to retrieve the Marker. Brave and adaptive against the Necromorphs, he was nonetheless easily disturbed by the atrocities aboard the Ishimura, and it was his grief over Chen, more than anything, that left him vulnerable to the Marker and ultimately led to his end.