Nemesis - Betrayal

Copyright 'Captain' from Nemesis by Awakened Realms.

    The klaxon’s call fell away in rush.

    The screaming, blaring siren had filled his ears nearly non-stop for the last hour since waking cold and confused in the hibernatorium. At the time, even facing down the mutilated body of one his crew, the captain had known what to do.

    The sirens’ call was a call to action.

    A call that his ship was in danger, his crew was in danger, and he had to act to keep them safe.

    There were a few components to deal with first, however.
    First, whatever was responsible for the emergency, whatever intruders had found their way on board: they had to be dealt with. A full purging of the airlock system could be useful and could be triggered remotely for once his crew was back in cold sleep. Hell, the jump to hyperdrive itself might be all he needs to turn whatever beasts had made this mess into a fine stew on his walls.

    But, if he was going to deal with the intruders, he had to insure the ship was in good shape. He had to check the fire suppression systems to make sure nothing was severely damaged and the ship wouldn’t burn up while they were all asleep. He had to make sure the engines were functional. And he had to make sure they were still en-route for Earth.

    Easy.

    But that was an hour ago.

    The surgical room had seemed like a boon in the chaos the crew had found themselves in. It had already been used successfully by several of the crew, the captain included, to remove the monstrous little beasts that implanted themselves inside a human host. But modern medicine is two steps short of a miracle and he and the lead scientist were then resting after their impromptu surgery.

    And then the wall was gone.

    One moment they had been laying there, pain-killer still rushing through their brains, quietly discussing what the best next step was in getting to the fire suppression systems, when the wall simply wasn’t there anymore and the captain was staring past it into a void of blacks and greens and dripping things.

    A monster unlike any other.

    While the captain still knew what he needed to do not only for his own survival, but the survival of all the men and women under his command, it didn’t mean he was thrilled about it.

    The other monsters they’d seen up til now had been terrifying, but feasible. They were all sharp edges and smooth surfaces; an amalgamation of carapace and claws and fury. They were big, easily 8 feet tall, but management. This one, on the other hand, the one that stood before the captain and his crew mate, was a whole different category all together.

    If this was anything, it was the other uglies’ mama.

    Tendrils of thick, viscous slime splattered across the shattered remains of the interior wall leading back towards Cargo Room Alpha. This beast was unlike any before it; hunched and in the cramped cabin space, the captain felt it had to easily stand a good fifteen feet or more if it could stand up entirely in the smaller space. It had torn through the interior wall as easily as a child tears through tissue paper and now the eyeless beast seemed to be transfixed on them, slowly crawling through the cramped space and seeming to fill the entire surgical room with its seething black mass of spikes and armor.

    “No. Not thrilled about this at all.” The captain grumbled as he slipped his cigarette, one of many antiques he cared, back into his mouth and took a long drag.

    “W-what?” the lead scientist nearly whimpered. “Thrilled? What are you talking about?!”

    The captain grumbled and shook his head, drawing the old six-shooter from his side. The weight was satisfying in his hand and the draw of cold black metal against worn leather was a comfort.

    He focused on that.

    Not on the towering beast drawing in around them.

    “Get out of here. Get to the escape pods.” The captain said through a smile, his breath hissing out in streams of white smoke. “I’ll meet up with you once I’m done with this one.”

    The scientist stared, open-mouthed at the captain.

    And the beast lunged.

    “NOW!” The captain bellowed, firmly shoving a foot in the wheelchair-bound man’s chest and rolling him away against his will before diving in the opposite direction.

    The beast bellowed and roared, slamming computer bays and destroying sensitive equipment. It fell short of the captain, being unable to maneuver in the small space. Its sharp, elongated tail bashed about and, a moment later, there was a scream for the scientist. However, as the captain tried desperately to spot the man behind the seething mass of anger and hatred, the other man quickly disappeared down a side hall and away from the chaos.

    Good.

    “Over here you ugly, son-of-a-bitch.” Motioning with his pistol and pointing it directly at the thing’s opening mouth.

    BOOM!

    In the small space, the antique revolver’s shot seemed to explode like a cannon. The round punched a whole clean through the monster’s fangs and exploded out the other side with enough force that the captain briefly worried he might break the very engines he just checked on.

    Whatever.

    BOOM!

    The creature’s screech of pain was so loud that the air rushed from his lungs with the force.

    Whatever.

    BOOM!

    The beast whirled and lunged. Despite the awe inspiring size and the absolute destruction the creature wrought, the captain quickly realized his own advantage. While the creature had seemingly unparalleled strength, the sheer size worked to a disadvantage when trying to operate in the smaller surgery room. Were he in the Cargo Bay that it had come from, he didn’t doubt it would probably already be done with him and moving on to the scientist who had fled.

    But they weren’t there.

    They were here.

    BOOM!

    Each shot was careful.

    Each shot was clean.

    Each shot ripped clean through the inky black carapace with satisfying crunches.

    BOOM!

    The beast hit the ground, shaking the very ship beneath his feet. It weakly clawed towards him, unrelenting; hissing and gurgling as it went.

    “That’s what I thought.” The captain said. “You came in here talking a big game. Acting like you own the fucking place.”

    The beast dragged itself closer.

    “But I have news for you.” He continued. “You need to figure out who you’re fucking with before you try to take a man’s ship. Choose the wrong man, and you’re in for a bad time.”

    The monster was almost on top of him.

    But close enough.

    “Sorry, friend.” He said, almost placing the revolver’s muzzle against the hard shell of the hissing monster. “But I’m the captain. Now get off my fucking ship.”

    BOOM!

    The beast stopped crawling.

    For a long moment, the captain simply stared at the mountain of a creature before him and how its black carapace filled most of the surgical room and said nothing. His breath escaped him in a long, slow sigh and then the smile reasserted itself.

    “That’s what I thought.” He muttered, wisps of smoke trailing out with each word.

   Flipped open the weapon, the captain reloaded the antique six-shooter with renewed confidence. If he could take down something like this, there was nothing to stand in his way of dealing with the rest. He just had to make sure they got home safe though.

    Everything was going to be fine after-all.

    With a quick shuffle around the gargantuan corpse, he made his way after the lead scientist and, with a turn and a quick run here and there down a few darkened hallways, he found the fire suppression system.

    But something was wrong.

    Stepping into the bay of computer terminals, the starboard door behind him suddenly slammed shut.

    And then the bow door.

    And the port.

    And the stern.

    “Sorry about this.” a familiar voice chided over the intercom.

    The soldier.

    They had woken up together but the coward of a man had run off the moment they had woken up to ‘check something’. The man had been added to the company roster a day before launch for ‘additional safety’ and disappeared the moment they needed someone with his skills.

    Skills at killing and little else.

    At the time, the captain had been pissed that the man with the biggest gun and the most training to use it had suddenly run away.

    Not things made a bit more sense.

    “You have to understand. They paid me a lot of money…” the man spoke over the tinny intercom.

    “The fuck are you talking about?” asked the captain as he approached the port side door. The lead scientist, to his surprise, was looking back at him through the viewport, fear in his eyes. “What are you doing with the door systems? I already dealt with that thing back there.”

    “Oh, I know. I was watching on the monitors. Quite impressive.”

    “Then what the fuck are you doing?”

    “My job.”

    Of course you are.

    A new klaxon suddenly sounded in the room, replacing the one from before. Cycling red and gold lights threatened any space faring man’s worst nightmare.

    His worst nightmare.

    The lead scientist was now in a panic. He was screaming for the mechanic who the captain could see, but not hear, running down the hallway towards the closed doors.

    “Your job.” The captain said with burgeoning anger. “You the one that let all these monsters on-board then? You the one who killed all my crew?!”

    “No.” came the clipped response. “That was just a useful distraction.”

    “Then what’s your job?”

    “You.”

    The captain closed his eyes.

    Through the pressure doors, he felt like he just might be able to just hear the sounds of the panicked screams of his crew. He could see them on the other side of the door frantically tearing at wires near the door panel.

    They were trying to save him, their desperation clear by their frantic motion.

    They knew what was coming and so did he.

    The fire suppression system, like any critical control circuit on his ship, was directly linked to a local airlock cycle system. The idea was to all for critical circuits to be replaced completely when needed and, in the instance of catastrophic fires or intruders on a ship, the air could be cycled out as an absolute failsafe in key locations.

    Kind of an ironic location given the circumstances really.

    “Who paid you?” the captain asked simply.

    “If you must know, it was your father. But he has the entire backing of the board, so really take your pick on who you want to blame.”

    “Makes sense.”

    “If it’s any consolation, I really did respect you. Takes guts to do what you did. And that was before you killed that thing back there.”

    “In that case, let me ask for a favor.” The captain said coldly.

    “I’m not stopping the cycle.”

    “I’m not asking you to, you dumb son of a bitch.” The captain growled. “I’m just asking that you make sure my people get home. And make sure these things don’t.”

    There was silence over the intercom for a long period before it crackled back to life.

    “You have my word.”

    The captain glanced back through the viewport. The scientist was crying. The mechanic was desperately tapping something on a tiny wrist computer. Cables were strewn everywhere.

    It didn’t matter though.

    Time was up.

    “One other thing.” The captain said softly as he looked up towards the fissures forming in the airlock seal.

    “Yea?” came the tinny voice.

    “You’re a real piece of shit.”

    “Yea. I know.”

    The air rushed out.

    The captain flew towards the void.

    And the klaxon’s call fell away in rush.

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 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."

Birthday - Part 1

    With a scream, Ludwig' legs gave out from beneath him and dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes.
    His arms were locked and his jaw was spasming against the electric current that was arcing through his body, setting his nerves on fire. However, the pain wasn't severe, just restrictive.
    Ludwig's scream was more of defiance than anything else.
    Staff Sergeant Coughlin smirked and gave the downed private a swift kick in the ass. Not hard, but enough to get his attention through the haze of the zapper.
    "What the hell did I tell you about checking your corners?" she said with a disciplinary tone. "That's the third time this month."
    Ludwig growled in response, but given his locked jaw, she doubted he'd be able to say anything intelligible.
    She moved on.
    Coughlin crossed an alley and ducked under an over hang. She could hear the patrol moving slowly and carefully. That was good. But it did annoy her that she could hear them at all. She'd have to chew them out for that.
    Slithering under the low cover of old supply crates, she creeped to the edge and saw an entire fireteam.
    Gorman, Xi, Nunez, and Quinn were all in the alley not twenty meters away. Quinn and Xi were quietly bickering over something...that was hardly new. Corporal Quinn was fireteam leader, but that didn't stop Xi from trying to interject her will and be an all around pain in the ass.
    The flip side was that Gorman and Nunez were waiting quietly, guns trained on the empty alley. Their eyes were scanning the gloomy fog like hungry raptors.
    But the bitching had them distracted.
    She'd have to talk to them about that too.
    Pulling the shock grenade, she yanked the pin hard, but held on to it. Cooking the fuse inside for an extra second or two. And, once she felt the timing was right, she slid the grenade along the wet stone floor right between the four of them.
    She was already disappearing into the darkness when Nunez frantically scream "GRENADE!"
    Of course, they didn't have time to react. The cooked grenade went off before they had so much as twitched.
    All four hit the ground with shouts of anger and shock promptly followed by the clatter of armor on stone.
    Coughlin was tempted to give them all a quick kick like she had with Ludwig, but restrained herself. There was still one man unaccounted for and she'll be damned if he wasn't the biggest threat.
    Dixon.
    Sergeant Bullock's fireteam had been dealt with pretty easily, although they at least put up more of a fight than Corporal Quinn's had. They had been ready and focused and had gotten a few pot shots off before she zapped them.
    Kuroba's team on the other hand...
    She had found Kuroba and Cooper stalking the alleys with Cooper bitching about 'just letting them go'. After quickly disabling both of them, she realized that Ludwig and Dixon were unaccounted for.
    It wasn't the first time it had happened. Neither of them played well with others and Ludwig had been taken out just as easily as Kuroba, but Dixon was another story.
    Sliding from the cover, her eyes scanned the foggy rooftops.
    Nothing. Just darkness.
    For the first time in the drill, she felt her heart rate increase. Her squad was good and they all knew the reason she put them through these exercises was to make them even better. No. To make them the best. But there was something about Dixon that always stood out.
    Something predatory.
    Something frightening.
    The Designated Marksman had risen through the ranks faster than any other soldier she had commanded. He'd been put through sniper school immediately after boot due to his aptitude and passed with colors not shortly after. While he'd been on his own sniper team, he'd been busted down and reassigned to Coughlin for 'classified reasons'. She'd raised holy hell about not being told why, but was still quickly satisfied with the results he provided.
    Coughlin glanced down on the readout for her zapper-rifle, confirmed, and started slowly moving through the alleys; keeping to as much cover as she could find.
    The man was a hunter through and through. While he had a bad tendency of breaking off from his fireteam, often with Ludwig going along to act as his unofficial spotter, she couldn't argue with the results. Honestly, they were a little scary sometimes.
    But he got the job done.
    And so, for the sixth time in the last second, her eyes scanned the rooftops and the windows.
    Little did she know that her own knowledge of the DM was working against her. She was so focused above that she failed to think of her own trick being used against her. Down the alley, a good fifty meters out, a single rifle barrel was extended through a large pile of garbage.
    She'd passed by it earlier, literally meters away, when she'd felled Ludwig.
    He just hadn't been ready to strike yet.
    And so, as she stalked, and as she hunted, Dixon held the rifle steady. He had walls on all sides, appropriate camouflage, and, in this environment, only a single target.
    He squeezed the second trigger.
    Coughlin only saw the glint of the barrel a split second before the gunshot.
    She hit the ground screaming in fury as the electricity arced through her body.
    A few moments later, her nerves shot and her body smoking, the dark-skinned sniper appeared over her; his rifle slung over his shoulder, his eyes malicious.
    "Happy Birthday, Staff Sergeant." Dixon said condescendingly with an outstretched hand to help her up.