Birthday - Part 7

    The sea water that filled the cave entrance was warm. It seemed to soak into every inch and every crevice and gave Couglin the distinct feeling of wading through hot sludge.
    At its deepest, it came up to her waist.
    She was just about to call it off, to write the cave off as a misstep in judgement, when she heard it: the echoing 'poppop' of a service pistol.
    The sound rang through the cave and seemed to galvanize the remaining members of her squad.
    Bullock traded a quick glance with her and she nodded in silent agreement.
    Within a few minutes, they were through the thickest part of their watery trudge. And, while the tunnel was still unpleasantly humid and much of the rock was actively wet and slick, it was nice not to be wading through it.
    Even better, the cave was widening out, allowing for something more than single file.
    "Alright." Coughlin said in a hard whisper, surprised at how loud she had to speak to be heard over a constant trickle and splash of water. "Fire teams, form up. Alpha. You've got point."
    Automatically, the groups fell into a double-diamond shape that always reminded Coughlin of an hourglass. Bullock took the front with Brick and Mikhailov on either flank and Greer just about at Coughlin's side. Bravo team took up a similar stand behind her.
    "We get anything through this rock?" she shot back at Kuroba who was following tightly at her heel.
    "Negative. Any telemetry we might get isn't going through the rock. We're blind."
    "But not deaf." she said, reminding Bravo leader of the shots they'd just heard.
    "Not at all. At least we know there's something down here that wants us dead." Ludwig sarcastically complained.
    "Sounds fine to me." Dixon said in an oddly even tone."
    Coughlin glanced back at Ludwig in annoyance and was about to say something when the wall next to the Rifleman exploded.
    The man didn't even have time to react as the rocky wall gave way to a single, massive clawed hand that punched through his shoulder and side and tore the entire limb clean off. Simultaneously, the private let out a gut-wrenching scream and squeezed the trigger in shock, his pulse rifle firing directly into the mass of his fellow soldiers.
    Greer hadn't even turned around when the back of her helmet exploded.
    "6 O'Clock!" Coughlin bellowed only moments before fire from six other rifles joined her own and ripped the beast that was only now crawling from the wall into a fine mist.
    But it wasn't alone.
    Emerging from the waters they had just come through, from the opposing wall, and from below the path they had just walked, several others emerged.
    They were all the same in appearance. None of them were like the hulking centaur like they had seen before, but instead a vicious, humanoid creature with long claws, chitinous armor, mottled flesh, and occasionally slender lashing tentacles. Some seemed to wear shreds of cloth and others had hollow white eyes but all were intent to kill.
    And all met a firestorm of rifle rounds.
    Twice more a wall gave way but each time the now alert squad greeted the emerging monster with a roar of death that ripped it to bloody chunks. Pieces sprayed everywhere in the close quarters and the earlier warning of a "biological contagion" flashed through her mind as she saw Brick step forward with grenade launcher in hand.
    The man was painted red and brown with pieces of the beasts.
    "FIRE IN THE HOLE!" he bellowed and launched a grenade that would definitely be against several rules of close quarters combat.
    The resulting explosion nearly knocked them all on their asses as several of the recently created tunnels collapsed in on itself.
    The air swirling in the dark, smoky tunnel, the squad swiveled in every direction as they waited for the next attack.
    But none came.
    "Form back up and check your weapons, people." Coughlin said, grinding her teeth. "No more accidents."
    She felt sick to her stomach. She had just lost two of her own in a matter of seconds. Ludwig, one of the youngest and arguably one of the more annoying, had still served under her for a full year. Greer for three. She would have to contact both of their families now. To talk to Greer's husband...
    Coughlin shook her head, telling herself that this was something for another time.
    She caught sight of Dixon who hadn't moved yet.
    He was staring back down the tunnel.
    "Dixon."
    He didn't respond."
    "Soldier."
    Dixon glanced at her but said nothing. And then back. He simply stared back down the tunnel. Back towards Ludwig. His expression unreadable.
    "Yes, Sarge."
    And then he was back in formation.
    They moved unassaulted for another five minutes.
    During that time, Coughlin noted two minor injuries and three potentially noteworthy encounters. Brick, who was painted red, was not only covered in the creatures' blood but also had a nice slash cut out of his left arm; clean through the battle armor. Gorman was equally covered in gore. Quinn was bleeding from the forehead after having been bashed against the rockface. And Xi had was covered in SOMEONE'S blood but Coughlin wasn't sure if it was from the monsters or the quick patch job on Brick's arm.
    No matter what, she knew they'd all be in quarantine for weeks after this.
    She was just picturing the barren, empty cells and the doctors in white coats hiding behind glass when the tunnel opened up to a massive antechamber.
    And there, hanging on the wall, was Charlie team. Along with a hundred others.
    Cocooned.

Birthday - Part 6

    The ride felt like an eternity. The dropship rocketed towards Charlie's last known coordinates with and the radio constantly chirped with sounds of combat and chaos broken only by the sporadic explosions of gunfire.
    "THERE! THERE!"
    "Get over here!"
    "Reloading!"
    "FUCK!"
    A minute in, the radio signal for Charlie went dark in a burst of static that petered out to a soft, unending hiss.
    Two minutes later, the dropship touched down and Coughlin with Alpha team in tow stepped down into a salty muck. It might have once been like the rest of the marsh, a serene pool of sea water and mangrove trees, but not anymore.
    They were standing in waist deep water filled with churning mud and far too much blood.
    Bravo arrived seconds later, slipping through a small thicket of trees a dozen yards away.
    "What've we got?" Kuroba whispered quietly as his squad rejoined theirs.
    Coughlin looked around and considered.
    The marsh was an absolute mess. Along with the churning stew of mud and blood, the surrounding area had been torn apart. Piles of trees and foliage had been blown apart by small arms fire or torn apart by some unknown force. There were massive, gaping holes carved out of what little solid ground there was and those were quickly filling in with sea water. Chunks of flesh and viscera were thrown this way and that but there were no obvious bodies from either sat of combatants.
    And, probably about fifty yards away, there raised a wide cave opening jutting only barely out of a patch of solid ground. The sight of it made Coughlin think of a giant, gaping mouth.
    "Well," she began, "at the very least we should be in the right spot. We've got Quinn's cave he mentioned over there."
    She nodded towards the gaping maw set into the ground.
    "As for what happened: based on what I heard and what I'm seeing, it looks like these things pulled their way out of the ground." she continued, motioning towards the quickly filling sinkholes. "After that though..."
    The two fireteams watched her expectantly. All except for Dixon. He had his rifle butt to his shoulder and was slowly scanning the area, his eye to the scope.
    Coughlin appreciated it.
    "Alright, we can't presume anything, but dirty guess is that with these things coming out of the ground, maybe they're a fan of being under it. Everyone fan out, see what you can find, and then we're going to check out that cave. I'm not seeing any bodies so maybe our boys are just down there waiting for the cavalry to roll in."
    "Sir." a few of them responded sharply.
    Eight of the soldiers fanned out in different directions, their eyes downward as they searched the ground and the muck to try and find any signs of what they were facing. All except Dixon. He remained planted in place, slowly turning this way and that like he were some kind of automated turret.
    Again, Coughlin was alright with it.
    It didn't take the soldiers very long to find something though.
    As it turned out, the reason that there were no obvious bodies had more to do with the nature of their environment then anything else.
    "Got something." Brick called.
    The massive man, waist deep in the marsh, strained as he grabbed something beneath the water. His face turned red and he snarled as he moved slowly towards the gathering marines. With a huff and heave, he pulled out the largest, ugliest son of a bitch Coughlin had ever laid eyes on.
    "Jesus christ!" Ludwig exclaimed.
    The monster was large. Even without pulling it completely out of the water, they could tell it could probably take on a Land-Master rover head-on and win. The ugly bastard was covered in natural, chitinous armor with a huge mouthful of teeth. Further inspection revealed large scythe like limbs and a lower torso that reminded Coughlin of the old stories of centaurs.
    Despite its ferocious appearance, the thing was riddling with holes. Charlie wasn't caught with their pants down.
    Dixon gave it a half an eye before focusing back on his scope. 
    "Least we know what we're looking for." he said quietly. "But if you like that, you're gonna love this one."
    Coughlin glanced at Dixon and followed his line of sight and gasped in surprise that they had missed it.
    There, mostly buried in a downed thicket of trees, was another corpse. However unlike the huge creature before them, this one was notably smaller and disturbingly human in appearance. While still monstrous in nature and covered in sharp edges and armor, there was no doubt that this was a humanoid.
    "That one's different." Dixon observed.
    "No shit." Coughlin agreed. "Alright, I want one more sweep before we hit the cave. Anything else, shout out; but more importantly I wanna make sure we're not following ghosts into the dark."
    There was a grim nod. They knew what she meant. If Charlie team was dead and submerged in water like the big thing was, they'd rather not be going into the cave to rescue those that didn't need rescuing.
    If Charlie was dead, Coughlin would have no apprehension to calling in some bigger guns to clear the tunnels.
    The squad spent another few minutes searching, but didn't find anything substantial. Plenty of blood and one more of the dead humanoid monsters in one of the gaping holes, but no bodies from her squad.
    Charlie was still alive.
    And, as they made their way into the gaping maw of the cave system and stepped into the water in the humid, dark rock tunnel, that was the driving thought that pushed Coughlin forward.
    Charlie was still alive.
    And she'll be damned if she wasn't going to save them.

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 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."