Birthday - Part 5

    The dropship tore over the fog-shrouded wetlands. The twin engines roared loudly and scattered small creatures from their hideaways; their departure illuminated by the powerful floodlights that sliced through the darkness.
    The ship had stealth options, of course. A means of making them run quieter in exchange for minor loss in capabilities. But Coughlin had no interest in that now.
    If she could scare her quarry into the open, whatever the organism was, it would make it all the more easier to deal with it. Blowing something away from the sky while it was out in the open would be much easier than trying to stalk it through the salt marshes.
    Still...
    "Anything yet?" she asked.
    "Nothing." Bullock confirmed.
    The five of them all had their eyes glued to their respective monitors. Video feeds from the hull cameras showed the darkened landscape lit up by the floodlights as water and trees rushed by. They could see lizards large and small as well as jakdus, the strange deerlike creature that inhabited the small continent, but nothing else showed its face.
    Nothing that appeared particularly dangerous and definitely nothing they didn't immediately recognize.
    "It'd be nice if we knew what we were looking for." Greer commented.
    "But ve wouldn't be marines then. Ve'd be qualified exterminators." Mikhailov remarked as she flipped through the cameras.
    They all chuckled a little bit at that but said nothing further. After another extended period of staring at the landscape rolling by, a tone chirped in her headset.
    "Talk to me."
    "We're approaching Calenburg again, sir." the pilot reported.
    She stared down at the screen. It was the fifth time they'd approached the little town and so far their patrols had been totally fruitless.
    "Alright. We're going to be making one more round and then rejoin Bravo and Charlie."
    "Yes, sir."
    Coughlin closed the channel and scanned the monitors again. She tapped the mic again.
    "Bravo. How are you guys looking?"
    "Quiet so far." Kuroba answered shortly, the sound of sloshing in the background and someone, probably Ludwig, speaking indistinctly.
    "Charlie."
    "Not sure, Staff Sergeant" Quinn said. "Found some tracks. Might be nothing, some kind of large pachyderm maybe, but we've got a bit of blood too so we're going to check it out."
    "Blood?" 
    "Yea. We think it is blood anyway. Seems to lead to some sort of low cave structure in the marshes. We'll keep you in the loop."
    "Be careful, Quinn. And keep us informed if you find anything."
    "Yes, sir." 
    The mic went dead and Coughlin felt the dropship lurching to the side as they made their pass over the town. That was when Bullock spoke up.
    "Hey Mik, have you looked at Calenburg the last couple passes."
    "Da. Why?"
    Bullock remained silent, seemingly staring hard at his screen.
    "I'm not sure." he finally said.
    Mikhailov glanced at Brick and Greer who both shrugged. But Coughlin was the one to ask the question.
    "Sergeant." she said flatly; her request for more obvious in her tone.
    "I'm not sure, sir." he said again, answering the unasked query. "It might be nothing, it just seems like something's weird."
    "Care to elaborate?"
    "Can't, sir. Something's grabbing me about the images and I'm not sure why."
    Coughlin gave him the stink eye but said nothing further. Instead, she deactivated the live monitoring and started rolling through the recorded vids from their passes over the town. It was pretty easy to find their Calenburg passes just by how well lit the video was compared to the rest of the dingy media.
    She cued it up and watched it carefully.
    The first video didn't seem that interesting. Just the town. Bright lights, plastisteel buildings, civilian vehicles...
    Nothing outstanding.
    The second video was very much the same.
    So was the third.
    Actually, it was exactly the same.
    "Nothing's moving?"
    "Yea." Bullock confirmed. "That's definitely it. I knew I noticed something but I couldn't put my finger on it."
    "At the very least on this side of the town." Mikhailov added.
    "Small town. Quiet night." Brick suggested.
    Coughlin studied the monitor. There was logic to the statement and with a town of only ten thousand or so, one couldn't expect a lot of nighttime activity. This wasn't some dense urban area and it wasn't uncouth to expect the majority of the population to be asleep at night.
    But at the same time...
    "No. Bullock's right. We don't know what we're dealing with and we don't take chances. We need to investigate any possible leads. We'll make one more sweep and then set down a~"
    "ZZZT~AGING! ENGAGING! HOLY SHIT! WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!"
    The sound of Quinn's panicked voice exploded over her headset and she nearly jumped in surprise. She could hear the jackhammer sounds of pulse rifles rattling off over his yelling and could indistinctly pick up the other soldiers in the background.
    She slapped the mic in response.
    "Quinn? What the hell is happening?"
    "They're coming out of the swamp!" he screamed, barely audible over the crashing roar of gunfire. "There! And there! GORMAN! Behind you!"
    Another explosion of gunfire.
    "Quinn? Corporal?"
    More static broken by screams and gunfire.
    "ZZZT~ Hands are full right now, Sarge!" was his only response before the line went dead.
    "Bravo?" Coughlin demanded quickly.
    "I heard it." Kuroba confirmed over the radio. "We're zeroing in on their location now. Sending the coordinates back your way. We should be to Charlie in five minutes."
    "Make it two. We're en route."
    "Roger." 
    A moment later, Coughlin felt the ship shudder as the afterburners kicked in and she sunk back into the seat as the dropship. They tore away from the silent town, the question of why it was so motionless slipping from her mind as she steeled herself from the coming combat.

Birthday - Part 4

    A short fifty three minutes later, the dropship touched down hard.
    Simultaneously, thirteen flight harnesses disengaged and men and women whose sole purpose in life was dispatch violence exploded from the rear hatch of the ship. Fire in the bellies and rifles in their hands.
    Fireteam Alpha was first.
    They moved with purpose and conviction. Every step was calculated and four sets of eyes scanned their surroundings as efficiently as any radar could hope to achieve. Bullock and Greer, both armed with their pulse rifles, stayed glued to "Brick" and Mikhailov. Mikhailov brandished a heavy, articulated gauss cannon while "Brick" swept the area with a heavy set, grenade launcher; both of them ready to dispense death to anything that threatened them or the dropship.
    But their reign was not challenged.
    Moments later, the next two fireteams, Bravo and Charlie, emerged from the belly of the dropship. They moved to the left and right of Alpha team, with Staff Sergeant Coughlin taking up a position in the middle of all three.
    But still nothing moved.
    And for that, Coughlin let out a small sigh of relief.
    Having the members of her squad around her was comforting. She wouldn't trade any one of them for a million recruits fresh out of boot. They were her armor and her weapons; her very extension of self. She knew they'd give their lives just as soon as she'd give hers to save them all and she could trust any of them to cover her back just as well as she could cover her own.
    Luckily, there didn't seem to be a need.
    The swampy area where they stood was less than appealing, but given the mention of "dangerous organisms" it was hard not to imagine hulking monsters emerging from the darkness as they landed. Instead, they were greeted by a gentle, almost serene night-time landscape.
    The dropship had touched down on a large, dry area in the swamp that may very well have been some form of atoll. Surrounded by thickets of mangrove trees that jutted out of great pools and lagoons of sea water, her mind wandered briefly to the time she'd visited a similar salt-water swamp on Earth to see the sharks and rays that lived among roots of the strange trees.
    Absently, Coughlin wondered if these pools held similar beasts as the lemon sharks back home.
    She quickly perished the thought; focusing instead on the small lifeboat that was settled quietly in waist deep water a hundred meters away. It nearly blended into the background, shrouded by a thick fog and the heavy darkness provided by the mangrove trees, but the hard metal was difficult to miss once she focused on it.
    Without a word, Coughlin pointed at the ship and all three fireteams moved through the murky surroundings with surprising silence given the wet environment. They formed up around the ship in a triangle that encompassed the little ship.
    "Alpha team." she whispered into the mic. "You're on breaching duty. If it's closed, we don't want anything nasty waiting for us inside."
    "Won't be necessary, sir."
    A moment later, she saw why.
    From their initial landing position, the little lifeboat appeared fine. Unpowered and dark, but no worse for wear short of sitting in a shallow pool of salt water.
    The rear end was another matter.
    The entire rear of the little ship where the rear-hatch should have been was demolished. The metal had been pushed and shredded outwards as if there had been some sort of explosion.
    No. Not an explosion. The edges were too ragged. Too uneven and twisted. And there were bits of flesh and gore splattered across the broken edges of the bent metal.
    "Looks like something ripped its way out." Greer commented; reflecting her own thought process.
    The question was: was it still somewhere inside?
    The ship was by no means large and it was obvious that something had come OUT of the ship, but that didn't mean that it didn't find the ship's interior more suitable than the surrounding swamps. Underestimating whatever these things were could get them all killed.
    For all she knew, it had stepped out, changed its mind, and was hiding just inside the darkness of the downed lifeboat waiting for an unsuspecting marine to bumble their way in.
    "Bravo and Charlie, secure the ramp. Alpha, clear the ship."
    Again, the groups moved seamlessly. Bravo and Charlie appeared on either side of Coughlin at the bottom of the ramp as Alpha moved deliberately up towards the shredded hole in the ship's rear. Four chest-lamps ignited the dark interior and the blood streaked walls and seats. However, with the exception of surprising amount of dried blood and some serious structural damage, the lifeboat was empty.
    There weren't even bodies.
    "Empty, Staff Sergeant." Bullock confirmed.
    "Empty?"
    "Whatever party happened here, we missed it." Brick agreed.
    "B'ylad'..." Mikhailov muttered just loud enough for her mic to pick up.
    Coughlin glanced around, taking in her surroundings once more. The deep, penetrating darkness of the forested night. The thick, winding trunks of the mangrove trees. The heavy fog. The salt water.
    All the hiding places.
    And then, as she stared, she saw a glow. It was hard to see through the fog, but against the dark backdrop, she could make out the faint lights from the nearby town.
    Calenburg.
    Could whatever this creature have been seen those lights and moved towards it? Would it have been attracted to civilization? Or would it have sensed the light and, like a beast fleeing from fire, turned and gone the other way?
    Coughlin looked over her should in the opposite direction. Another thicket of mangrove trees and probably even deeper salt water marshes lay there.
    She really wished she knew what this organism was.
    "Alright guys, let's find this son of a bitch. Calenburg is just a little over a couple miles from here. Myself and Alpha team will take the dropship and skim the area between here and there to see what we can find. In the meantime, Bravo and Charlie, you're to sweep this area for anything that might point us in the right direction."
    "What exactly are we looking for, Staff Sergeant?" Kuroba asked cautiously.
    "Something big, ugly, and mean enough that the brass don't want to tell us what it is."
    A few brows arched as she and Alpha made their way away from the ruined lifeboat and back towards the dropship.
    "And if we find it?" Dixon chimed in.
    "You do what marines do best, Specialist."
    "Ooo-rah." he mouthed with a smirk.

Birthday - Part 3

Film/Image Credit goes to 'Roughnecks: Starship Trooper Chronicles'

    Ten minutes later, they were in the air and hurtling at top speed towards that upper atmosphere.
    The sensation of intraplanetary travel always made Coughlin's guts clench.
    Everyone was strapped in to their seats and they were traveling at a hard 40 degree angle as the dropship rocketed upwards. Ignoring the concept of 'the quickest way from point A to point B is a straight line', the path was designed to create a great bell curve that went up and came back down over the small continent known as Han'ei. It cut travel time down by ninety percent and turned what could be a twelve hour flight into a one hour one.
    In exchange, they got to be plastered into their seats in the equivalent of being strapped to an intercontinental missile.
    They got used to it however.
    All around her, Coughlin's squad was busy preparing.
    Most everyone seemed to be doing something. A lot of it was little more than pre-game ritual. Afterall, a lot of the combat gear had been double checked before they even dispatched to the training ground for just such a potentiality. Even then, the team had immediately started field checking the equipment while they'd waited for the dropship.
    Now it was little more than nervous habits.
    "Brick", as everyone referred to Specialist Warfield from Bullocks' team, was counting out boom-tube grenades and muttering to himself. Next to him, Bullock's Rifleman Private Greer was quietly running her combat knife along a whetstone. Across the hall, Specialist Xi was rummaging through her medic's bag.
    Technically all of it was against safety protocol, but Coughlin trusted them enough to not give them shit about it.
    Most of them chattered with each other or went about reading the mission debrief. A few others, namely Specialist Dixon and Private Gorman, had simply laid their heads back against the chairs and passed out due to not having anything to occupy their minds.
    Coughlin, on the other hand, read.
    According to the dossier on the dimly lit screen, they were on their way to the eastern coast of Han'ei where a life pod struck surface a few hours ago. It was one of roughly a dozen ships that came down across the planet. While there was no response to initial hailing, automatic metadata claimed the ship had been dispatched from a science mega-cruiser owned by the Notori Corporation called the 'Icarus'.
    Coughlin couldn't help but scoff at that name. Bad luck to name a ship that.
    She kept reading.
    The metadata also confirmed that some catastrophic event had occurred on board the Icarus of a 'Code 25436'; a proprietary company code that meant nothing to her. This led to an involuntary evacuation of all crew members. After traveling for over a month, it landed on autopilot just outside the coastal town of 'Calenburg'.
    Her squad was to secure the ship, provide aid as necessary, and take any survivors to the closest base for medical care, debriefing, and relocation services.
    In short, it was a cake walk.
    "Yo Staff Sergeant." Private Nunez called. "What's the sitrep?"
    "You didn't hear?" Cooper interjected quickly. "Your mother stopped by. We need full deployment just to move her fat ass."
    A couple of the squad chuckled but Private Greer leaned forward, her features stone in the red light of the dropship.
    "Seriously, Sarge." she said, being one of the only ones that didn't call her by her full title. "What's the deal?"
    Cooper looked like he was about to say something else, but Greer glanced over at Private Mikhailov who promptly placed a hand over his mouth. He didn't fight back; it was all in good fun after all.
    Also, Mikhailov had already proven she had no problem in knocking the wind out of him for being a smart ass.
    "Looks like we're touching down about twenty clicks outside of a little coast town on the small continent. Standard rescue op. Pick up some civvies for a life raft, get em back for cocoa, call it a night."
    Greer shrugged a little, but Bullock, sitting next to the Rifleman, narrowed his eyes a little as if judging Coughlin.
    "You sure about that, Staff Sergeant?"
    "Why wouldn't I be sure?"
    He gave her that same questioning look and it was then that she noticed he had a screen pulled up as well. She reviewed the document before her again but saw nothing to the contrary.
    Except...
    There was a flashing circular arrow in the very bottom right of the screen.
    She updated the document and, lo and behold, there was more information then when the flight began. Except now, the bottom text was bright red and highlighted.
   

NOTICE! CLASSIFIED INFORMATION!

INFORMATION PROVIDED BY NOTORI CORPORATION.

THIS INFORMATION ARE CLASSIFIED AND INTENDED SOLELY FOR DESIGNATED SQUAD LEADER AND IS ONLY TO BE SHARED BY IMPERATIVE IN THE INSTANCE IT EFFECTS THE LIKELIHOOD OF SQUAD SURVIVAL. THIS INFORMATION IS NOT TO BE SHARED, COPIED, OR DISTRIBUTED IN ANY CAPACITY. FAILURE TO ADHERE TO THIS WILL RESULT IN IMMEDIATE TERMINATION, COURT MARSHALL, AND/OR FIELD EXECUTION.

    Coughlin's eyes widened at that last part.

    She had certainly been on confidential missions before. It was nothing really new for most people in the military and sometimes you were exposed to weird or different shit that wasn't even supposed to exist.

    But she couldn't think of anytime she'd ever seen a document refer to field executions.

    She glanced up wearily at Bullock and could tell he was stonefaced, his focus on the ill-begotten document that he wasn't supposed to be reading. The soldiers all got watered down versions of her own dossier, but Bullock's technical aptitude tended to let him 'look over her shoulder' so to speak in exchange that he got to act as second in command and know that, if he ever shared unnecessary secrets, she'd castrate him with a rusty bayonet.

    She went back to the update.

THE NOTORI CORPORATION HAS IDENTIFIED POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS ORGANISMS MAY BE PRESENT AT THE LANDING SITE. THEY ARE UNKNOWN IN NATURE AND ALIEN IN ORIGIN. COMBAT CAPABILITIES ARE ALSO UNKNOWN HOWEVER CREATURES HAVE A RECOGNIZED AGGRESSIVE NATURE. LARGE POSSIBILITY OF BIOLOGICAL CONTAGION FROM DIRECT CONTACT WITH SPECIMENS. USE ALL CAUTION TO AVOID EXPOSURE TO ALIEN CONTAMINANTS.

    Coughlin let out a long sigh.

    "Well this is gonna be fun." she said flatly as she felt the nose of the ship dip forward into descent back towards the planet's surface.

Birthday - Part 2

Film/Image credit to 'Live, Die, Repeat: Edge of Tomorrow'

    "Nice shot." Coughlin complimented Dixon. "Hurts like a fuckin' bitch."
    Dixon chuckled and took her hand, pulling her to her feet.
    "Just lucky, Staff Sergeant."
    "How modest." She said, wiping off her uniform. "But before you let your ego inflate however, care to explain why the fuck you were away from your fireteam?"
    "I wanted to make sure my target was eliminated." he responded calmly.
    Coughlin's eyes narrowed.
    "In exchange for their lives? You understand all three were taken out before you 'eliminated your target' right?"
    Dixon shrugged but she could see a tightening in his expression that suggested she was getting to him. No sane soldier wished his squad dead even if they considered them to be extra baggage.
    Good.
    His lips curled back into a smirk as he tried to rebuild his armor.
    "It's not a real op. And I think you're just mad I got you this time."
    She grabbed him by the front of the armor and pulled him so close she could smell the S.O.S on his breath from mess.
    "Get this through your thick fucking head, soldier. You are part of a fireteam. You are not team lead. You are part of my squad. You are not squad leader. You're a damn good marksman but if keep up with this horseshit the only thing you'll be in the brig for insubordination."
    "This isn't boot camp, you little shit." she continued, yanking him hard again. "I'm not going to threaten to make you clean the latrine with your tongue or some outlandish crap like that. If your cowboy bullshit gets one of my soldiers killed, I will bust you down myself and you won't see anything but the inside of a hard-work camp til hell freezes over. Get me?"
    His expression hardened and his smirk faded.
    "Sir." he responded sharply.
    "Good. Now I'm going to say it again. Do you get me?"
    "Sir. Yes, sir."
    She smiled at the man's submission and backed off. Looking around, she realized the entire squad was standing nearby, watching the interaction. All eleven other soldiers remained silent but attentive to the ass chewing.
    Sensing the tension, she decided to use it.
    "The same goes for the rest of you." she said loud enough for everyone to hear plainly.
    Several of the men and women grimaced.
    "You're the best goddamn unit the Corps has ever seen. A group of one hundred percent human badasses made with one purpose. To Kick. Ass. But if you're as sloppy as you were today, I'm going to be mailing flags back to your mamas with notes saying 'Dumbass couldn't figure out who her fireteam leader was', Xi or 'Decided to be a cowboy with another deadman', Ludwig."
    The group gave each other a few terse glances and Coughlin could tell be the flush red dominating Xi's cheeks that the comment had hit home.
    "Still...dumbasses that you all are, you're the best. And, as much as I might want to kick Dixon's ass for it..." she said, allowing herself a smile and smacking Dixon's armor playfully. "You did beat me."
    The group chuckled softly and let out a few small whoops.
    "That means you're buying the beer, right?" Kuroba yelled playfully.
    "Man, it's her birthday!" shouted Bullock. "Y'all should be buying her a beer."
    Coughlin laughed again as the group converged together, no longer a competing set of teams but as a single unit. A single body of brothers and sisters acting together in perfect unison.
    Well, almost perfect.
    "Tell you what Kuroba: I'll buy you all a beer but you get to buy my beers."
    "Don't do it Sarge!" Dixon shouted at his fireteam leader. "Don't forget what happened on Christmas."
    "I'm pretty sure that's above your paygrade." Quinn agreed.
    The squad all laughed together and started to make their way through the dingy, abandoned alleyways they had used for training and back towards the APC.
    "How about this:" Kuroba offered. "Can I waive the alcohol-fee in exchange for a cake?"
    "Depends." Coughlin commented. "Where'd you get a cake?"
    "Don't ask. Don't tell." Cooper said with a smirk and a wink.
    The group burst into laughter again as they exited the alley and found themselves in the large open field outside of the training facility. The large, boxy APC was parked right where they left it, encased by a shroud of heavy fog that drifted through the darkness.
    But there was something else.
    Two, heavy duty spotlights shone down from a dropship as it tore across the open field towards the training facility. It was moving at a steady click low to the ground. The beams sliced through the darkness as it sped towards them.
    "The hell is that?" Dixon asked with a suspicious tone.
    "Ain't no other teams out tonight, are there?" Bullock asked.
    Seemingly in response, Coughlin's mic buzzed in her ear. She tapped it and the gravely voice of Lieutenant Freeport growled in her ear.
    "Staff Sergeant Coughlin?"
    "Sir." she confirmed.
    "I know your squad just got done with a training op, but I'm sending a dropship your way to pick you all up. There's an op I need you for on the east coast of the small continent."
    Quinn grimaced, listening in on the conversation, but said nothing.
    "Sir, is there a reason one of the other squads is unavailable?"
    "All squads are in deployment and we needs yours too. We've had a number of lifeboats crash land on the planet and we need immediate response to save as many lives as we can."
    Coughlin let out a long, controlled sigh but quickly said, "I understand, Sir."
    "SitRep will be on the dropship. Over and out."
    Short and sweet. she thought to herself.
    The squad looked at her expectantly, but they all knew what was coming. They didn't know where they were going or why they were going, but they knew based on what they had heard that they weren't getting back to base right away.
    "So, you think dragging us on an Op is going to get you out of your beer duties, Staff Sergeant?" Kuroba asked playfully, trying to lighten the quickly tensing mood.
    "Yea, probably. But you still owe me cake when we get back."

Heat - Part 2

    The orange-red flames roared with unyielding intensity and the world seemed to devolve into a twirling maelstrom of heat, pressure, and smoke.
    George held his arm up in front of his eyes, but it didn't seem to do much.
    The closer he got to the ship, the worse it got.
    The ship's automated systems were already hard at working deploying fire-foam and many of the flames were extinguished with undignified slurps as the foam bubbled up from the damaged hull. Still, while the fire wasn't out of control, he felt himself glancing nervously back at the edge of his fields and the dried out stalks.
    He didn't have much of his crop left. It would be a damn shame to lose it to this.
    George shook his head at the thought.
    He tried to push forward again, to get closer to the dying spacecraft, but still found that it was too hot. More and more fires were going out, but he just couldn't progress into the wall of heat without feeling sick and dizzy.
    So he waited.
    The ship in front of him was relatively small. It didn't really look like it was space worthy even before it took a nose dive through the atmosphere. It was circular, and bulky, with a blunt nose and heat shields just about everywhere he could see. The thing was built like a bullet. No windows, no wings, and, from what little George knew about ships, some pretty weak looking engines.
    Honestly, it would surprise him if something like this could get off the ground.
    Plus, it was small. For all the fire and damage it had wrought, it looked to only be slightly bigger than his truck. He wouldn't expect more than a dozen people could be sardined into that thing at one time.
    Where'd you come from? he thought to himself, staring at the blocky chunk of metal.
    Maybe he could get a better idea if he could see some of the decals or logos on the ship's hull, however that was a moot point. The fire suppressant system continued to belch out foam all over the surface of the craft, putting out progressively more and more of the inferno that covered it. The foam, coupled with the dirt, grime, and ash from the ship's crash-landing obscured just about any finer details there were to see.
    He stood there for another long minute, just watching the craft, when he started to notice the waves of heat that had been coming off of the thing seemed to be diminishing. It was still sweltering, but he didn't feel like he was standing in hell itself.
    George stepped closer. And, as he did, the ship let out a long, dying hiiiiiiiiiiisssssssssssssss.
    He stopped short, trying to find the source of the sound. A moment later, a cloud of white gas burst from the crater and the edges of a door appeared on the outer edge.
    The door hissed again and tried to open, only to get stuck after a few inches. George started to move forward again only to catch himself.
    Who's ship was this? Why was it here?
    A resounding BANG echoed on the door, as if someone hit it with a sledgehammer, and the metal frame buckled. The door fell forward and slammed into the dirt and the thing behind it went with it.
    At first, George thought it might have been some kind of robot. Easily 7 to 8 feet tall, the thing laying on the door had two arms, two legs, and a head, but that was the only thing 'human' about it. Everything else was hard metal, whirring gears, and flashing lights.
    It was also covered in blood and had massive gouges carves out of it here and there.
    It wasn't until George really thought about what he was seeing that he was able to put his thoughts together. This thing was a military hardskin. An exoskeleton that soldiers wore in combat. The massive armor could stop pretty much all small arms fire and make it so the men and women wearing them could literally walk through hell and back again without a scratch on them.
    So why did this one look like he'd been through a meat grinder?
    "Hello?" he yelled at the hardskin. "You ok?"
    There was no response.
    George couldn't move any closer to the ship. It was still far too hot and, even being as close as he was, he felt sick and like his skin was going to start blistering just standing there. So instead, he circled slightly to see inside.
    He immediately wished he hadn't.
    Even just moving to the side, he saw that the downed soldier was one of several. He could make out at least four others shoved into the tiny compartment. There might have been more, but George couldn't make it out through the blood.
    It looked as if a mad-man with a chainsaw had been doing ballet in the closed space. Every soldier that he could make out had been torn apart. They lay here and there in pools of their own viscera. Broken faceplates, shredded armor, missing limbs. And all of it had been sprayed around the inside of the cabin.
    George, who prided himself on being a strong redback who busted his ass outdoors everyday and being better than any of those 'slickers' in the core worlds, promptly fell to his knees and threw up right there in the field.
    hisssssssssgrrrrrrrrrongh
    His stomach was still heaving when he heard the noise. He tried to look up, only to vomit some more.
    hiiiiiiSSSSCRA!
    Spittle still on his lips and tears in his eyes, George glanced back to the ship and realized there was something moving inside. He had missed it at first, mistaking it for a pile of gore in the back of the darkened ship. However, now, plain as day, he saw something pulling itself up from the far end of the craft.
    And it was like a monster out of a madman's worst nightmares. A thing of teeth and claws and glowing eyes and armor. A thing of sharp edges, pain, and death. A thing that easily stood taller than the hardskinned soldiers and filled the far end of the cabin.
    A thing that was softly hissing and staring him dead in the eyes.
    "George?" he heard Lelena calling from somewhere behind him.
    He did not call back.

Lost - Final Part

    ClunClunClunClun
    The marines ran down the hall at full speed.
    Having exited the hive, their boots clunked heavily on the hard metal of the corridor and their armor rustled as they moved.
    While the rotten egg smells had gone, there was a now a bizarre scent of anti-septic cleaner that had been overwhelmed by the stench of blood and excrement. The results of the fighting. It covered more of the walls and floor than any of them cared to think about.
    Cecilia clung tightly to Gordo as they went.
    To her amazement, he never tired. He was like a statue of man and muscle and determination. Even with her in his arms, he never even seemed to slow and he always stayed in the center of the seven other marines.
    A precious package protected on all sides.
    "How long, corporal?" the woman yelled as they ran.
    "Two minutes, Sergeant Raynor!" another man shouted in return.
    A screeching roar echoed through the hall and the beast that it came from was almost instantly blown away; the echoing booms of five pulse rifles exploding all around her. She tried weakly to cover her ears, but they had barely recovered from their last onslaught and the jackhammer thuds made less difference than before.
    The monster made a single heavy thud followed shortly by an undignified squelch as one of the marines ran through its remains.
    "Right here!" the corporal shouted.
    They turned hard and barreled down the way at top speed. It was only then that Cecilia realized that the constant klaxon that she had expected to hear was now fading. It was replaced with something else.
    Voices.
    Human voices.
    There were screeches and roars and the occasional boom of a pulse rifle, but the echoing sounds of people quickly grew louder and louder. The sounds of congregation. Of panicked people talking quickly. Of babies crying and people shouting and the sounds of people hurriedly shuffling about.
    "Private! Report!" Raynor yelled.
    "Civvies are boarding now, Sarge."
    "The hell took so long? We're supposed to be leaving."
    "Took those techies longer than expected to put the hunk of junk back together. Was supposed to be decommissioned, ya know."
    "So I keep hearing." Raynor growled through her teeth. "There's a little medbay on the shuttle right?"
    "Sure."
    "Five minutes more." another marine yelled.
    Raynor slapped Gordo's arm.
    "Alright, Gordo. Get her on the ship. Hawk. Follow them and give her a once over."
    "Sir." a female marine responded.
    "We'll hold the line while the rest of them get loaded. Be ready to drop what you're doing if we have another wave of these assholes make a break for it. I think they know what's coming."
    "Sir." Gordo said in confirmation before dropping his voice to a slightly more gentle tone. "Alright, little lady, let's get you some painkillers."
    Cecilia whimpered in response and felt tears begin again. This time it wasn't pain. It was joy. Raw and unmitigated, she felt entirely grateful for the huge man holding her and the men and women around her who promised to fight to the last breath to keep her safe.
    Gordo and Hawk made for the ship.
    She felt them shoving past people. More than a few of the other passengers barked and guffawed for a moment, but quickly silenced their complaints as Gordo and Hawk pushed their way through. They were all panicked, talking rapidly and easy to upset, but no way were they going to pick a fight with the marines. Certainly not marines carrying an injured civilian.
    Soon they were through the shuttle and Hawk was closing the door to the medbay while Gordo gently placed her on the table. The fear and chatter quickly dimmed as Hawk latched the door.
    "Easy, girl. We got you." he crooned reassuringly.
    "Thanks Gordo." Hawk said as she approached Cecilia.
    "No problem." he responded before softly taking Cecilia's hand in his own gargantuan paw.
    "Alright, honey." Hawk said in a quiet tone. "Talk to us."
    "Cec...cecilia..." Cecilia offered weakly.
    "That's good. Your name's Cecilia?"
    Cecilia nodded in response.
    "Alright Cecilia, my name is Private Juliana Hawk and the big guy who carried you here is Private Romero Gutierrez."
    "They call me Gordo." he offered with a soft chuckle and a hand squeeze.
    "Only cause you're so fat." Hawk said sarcastically.
    "Ha! My old CO tried to make me run once." Gordo snarked before leaning down close to Cecilia's ear. "Once."
    Cecilia giggled a little at the dumb joke and immediately doubled over in pain. Her voice escaped in a half scream but the two marines were there to hold her.
    "Easy sweetie. We got you. Relief's coming." Hawk said. "Don't move."
    She felt a prick in her arm and, at once, a wash of euphoria, numbness, and just a hint of nausea ran through her whole body. It spread from her arm to her stomach and up the back of her neck to her head just as her fingers began to tingle.
    Cecilia let out an audible moan as her entire body physically relaxed.
    "There ya go." Gordo said with a laugh. "That's the good shit, ain't it?"
    "Mmmyea." she moaned softly.
    "It's alright, you're safe." Hawk said reassuringly with a soft touch to her hand. "We're gonna do some tests. Scans and such to make sure you're not bleeding out on us inside. But first I need to know, did they do that to you?"
    "Do wha?" Cecilia asked drearily through the haze of drugs.
    "The aliens. Did they do that to your eyes?"
    "Eyes? What about my eyes?" she asked, reaching up tentatively tentatively to make sure they hadn't been plucked out.
    Hawk quickly took her hand.
    "They're still there. You're ok. I'm going to guess you were blind before all this happened?"
    "Blind?" Cecilia confirmed with a half of a nod. "Blind."
    She waved a hand in front of her eyes and made a rude noise with her lips before saying, "No lights on."
    Cecilia could hear both of the marines audibly sigh in relief.
    She let out another moan as a fresh wave of drugs bounced around inside her brain. Those same silvery gray eyes slid shut.
    She could hear Hawk talking and she could feel Gordo holding her hand, but it didn't register anymore. She felt the shudder of the ship as it roared to life and a soft lurch as the ship left its dock. It didn't matter though.
    The drugs were too powerful and she was too weak at this point. And, more importantly, she was safe.
    She was going to be ok.
    Cecilia slipped away into a deep, dreamless sleep.
    She was safe.

Lost - Part 3

    CLANG!
    Cl-BANG! BONG! BANG!
    Cecilia's fall was short lived. Sliding down the cold metal, she found herself ricocheting off the sides of the tunnel. Slamming this way and that, she tumbled downward for what felt like an eternity but only lasted for some twenty or thirty seconds; smashing against her broken ribs and almost assuredly breaking some more bones along the way as her already abused body was beaten about like a undignified pinball.
    She came to stop at the bottom after a short, vertical fall straight down onto something surprisingly soft and squishy.
    Not that she noticed.
    Curled in on herself, all she could do was wail. Her sobs heaving her entire body and only making the pain from the fall that much worse.
    Losing her hearing not ten minutes ago was stressful and a bit painful. This was all pain. Lots and lots of pain.
    Her ribs felt as though several knives had been jabbed into her torso and her hands mindlessly wandered to see if she actually had been stabbed by something. She wasn't. On top of that she found that she couldn't quite turn her head and her left arm didn't seem to be responding the way it was supposed to and didn't seem to be sitting in her shoulder correctly. Anything didn't feel directly broken or dislocated started to feel swollen and her joints began to feel locked.
    Cecilia thought this might be what it would be like to have been run through a blender.
    The room she was in smelt odd. It was like rotten eggs with a hint of fresh manure that had just started to age long enough that the scent wasn't as sharp or nauseating. The ground was warm and wet to the touch; with a little give but more elastic then anything else. Around her, there was the sound of movement; squishy, sloshy sounds that didn't sound human.
    Still...
    "...help..." she barely whispered.
    But no help came.
    There seemed to be a stirring of activity. Some movement far off.
    Too far, she thought. 
    And so, curled in on her self, her body weakly heaving from the abuse, as she passed out from the pain.

    Cecilia was awoken in a start by the sound of pulse rifles.
    In a second of panic, her hands snapped up to her ears to protect them from the roaring booms, but she had forgotten about her left arm. It barely responded and, instead, sent shooting pain up her spine that took her breath away from a moment.
    This, with the fear of the rifles and the sheer shock of everything else, was too much.
    She screamed. Loud, long, and hard.
    It was a horrible, desperate cry. Primal in its intensity and singular in its purpose. It begged anyone, any human that could hear it, anyone of the same species: please help me.
    Save me.
    The pulse rifles, still loud, seemed to ebb. As if someone had stopped firing.
    "Did you hear that?"
    "I think we've got a survivor!" Cecilia could barely hear a young woman shouting.
    Yes. YES! she thought, her mind begging her to find shelter. To find her own kind and escape this nightmare.
    She tried to push up off the ground. Tried to escape.
    She couldn't.
    Her left arm wouldn't support her weight and, when trying to push off with just her right, she found that the pain in her ribs was too much. She screamed again just from the effort.
    "Over there!" a man shouted.
    Cecilia tried and failed again. Tears were streaming down her face as she fought against the agony. She could hear the roar of the rifles growing louder and the sounds of men and women running.
    Along with something else.
    There were roars and hisses now. They seemed to come from the very walls. To unfold from the darkness around her like shadows given some monstrous kind of life. They must have passed right over her while she was out cold earlier. Or they just never cared about her to begin with.
    Now they cared.
    "I think I see someone!" the woman shouted.
    "HELP!" Cecilia managed to scream before doubling over on herself again. She coughed and her mouth filled with the startling taste of copper. Blood.
    "We're coming!" someone else shouted.
    "There!"
    "Son of a bitch! More!"
    The hissing at Cecilia's sides changed to violent roars that were cut short with the blaze of pulse rifles some short distance away. She felt their warm blood splash across her back and hair and the sticky, slick feeling made her retch. A half-second later, two heavy thuds shook the ground she laid on and did not get back up.
    "Cover me!" the woman yelled. "I'm going for her!"
    "We've got you!"
    The marine sloshed and squished her way towards Cecilia and, a moment later, she felt warm, soft hands wrapping around her good arm.
    "I've got you, honey." the woman said with surprising tenderness. "Come on."
    "I...I can't." she sobbed. "Hurt...my ribs. My arm."
    "I know, sweetie. I know." the woman said softly tugging her up to a sitting position. "But we can't leave you here. They're going to destroy the ship. We have to get you off."
    Cecilia, who had been curled in on herself, her eyes shut, finally glanced up in the marine's direction.
    The marine gasped when she did.
    "Oh sweetie...how are you down here?"
    "Fell."
    "Down the air shaft?"
    "Mmm."
    The echo of pulse rifles intensified suddenly.
    "We gotta go!" the man yelled.
    "Gordo! Rifle slung! We need a lift!"
    "You got it, Sarge!"
    The ground shook as someone else came running; his armor and weapon clanking and clattering along.
    "Holy shit." the man began. "Is she...?"
    "Obviously." the woman said shortly. "She's pretty banged up and I don't trust her to be able to get out of here easy. Gonna need you to carry her."
    "How did she get down here?" he asked shortly. "How is she even still be alive if she's..."
    "Not now." the woman barked.
    "Sir." the man said shortly before leaning down next to Cecilia.
    She felt a second pair of hands wrap around her. Bigger. Warmer. Cecilia unconsciously leaned into them and sniffled.
    "This is gonna hurt, darlin'." the big man said. "So I'm sorry in advance.
    All at once, Cecilia felt herself leave the ground. Pain shot through her as the marine scooped her up and she screamed in response. The man cooed her softly and cradled her to his chest and she sobbed.
    But, her unconscious mind countered, she was safe. He was big and warm. He smelt of gunpowder and sweat and grime. His arms were large and hairy and muscled. She could hear his heart pounding, heavy and steady, in his chest. He was one of many marines with their guns and their grit and their determination to keep her alive. He was human and he would keep her safe.
    She felt the sobs calm slightly and she held tight to his armor.
    "Fall back!" the woman shouted.
    "Let's go!" the man yelled in unison.
    Cecilia held tight as they moved. They were surrounded on all sides by the other marines; seven others from what she could tell. They moved in unison, fleeing the hive as quickly as possible. And, as they moved, she heard whispers.
    "Did you see her eyes?"
    "My god...how did she get down here?"
    "Do you think they did that to her?"
    "Enough chatter!" the woman barked.
    "Sir," an unknown male voice said, "We only have five minutes til the last dropship departs."
    "Then let's not miss our bus." the big man holding her said.
    "MARINES! WE ARE LEAVING!" the woman shouted. A moment later, the entire group took off at a run.

===

(Hello Lovelies, I'm glad you've been enjoying this little romp. There will be one more after this and then we will see about returning to 'Kappa in my Closet' along with a few other things! All I can say in my defense is that I was inspired because of the upcoming 'Alien: Covenant movie. Not gonna lie, I'm enjoying my version better. haha! See you soon.)