“Well, would you look at that; I’ve never seen that model before, what are those?” Sargent Lorid asks.
“Not sure, doesn’t matter what it is, as long as it can get us to the LZ,” Ravenson says. He does have a good point, as long as a ship is able to get you from A to B then it's always irrelevant what the make and model is.
“Alright people, let's get on with this,” I say, jumping into the ship that's waiting for us.
I twist around and watch everyone jump in behind me. The all too familiar adrenaline rush spreads through my system as we take off.
The ship glides through the bay and through the blast doors that are wide open. We blast into the outside world; it feels great to be flying again. Even though we are cooped up in a metal can it felt good to be in the wide open space of the sky.
Two
Day 7: Cycle 1: Period 1: Year 2397
Flying always has its ups and its downs. You’re completely free, able to travel the stars to your heart’s content, now; that’s the good part. The bad part’s that something can go wrong while you’re doing that. Either you could be stuck in atmosphere or the cold vacuum of space and be completely helpless.
“Mavrik eh?” Ravenson says.
The muffled noises of the outside world are barely audible because of the internal wireless communications system built into the helmet, “ta lot better than Thomas. Your name has a bit of mystery to it, mine’s just boring.”
I’ve worked with the unit before, just Lorid and Terein though; Ravenson was the newest member of the team. The last mission that we’d been deployed on hadn’t gone so well, we ended up losing a good soldier and a good friend.
“Well, why don’t we change it then?” I reply, even under the helmet I can tell that Ravenson had a look of puzzlement on his face, “what about T-Rave? Sounds catchy, doesn’t it?”
“Hmm, I don’t know, what about T-Man?”
“Oh please, that just makes you sound like you’re trying to sell something illegal. I’d just go with T-Rave,” I urge.
“Alright, T-Rave it is.”
“Shadow Unit, we are approximately thirty seconds away from the LZ, better get ready for the jump, and be advised, movement has been seen down there. Good hunting Shadow Unit,” a voice rings over the intercom.
“We will be. Shadow unit, move out,” I say, opening up the ramp to the outside world. We’re about fifteen meters above the ground when we uncoil our ropes and watch them disappear below us.
“Don’t you think ropes are a little out-dated Sir? Jayon said that these suits were assisted, technically we could just jump out,” Terein asks.
“Sure they’re outdated, but they are also a lot quieter than what we could be doing. We need stealth here Sargent, not technology.”
The rope feels familiar in my hands, something physical is always better than high tech equipment. Rope is very simple, and yet effective at the same time.
Companies and corporations always try to improve their products by making them more complex, what they didn’t realize is that most of their products got worse and worse the ‘better’ they got. Simple is always the best solution.
I start to shimmy down the rope, hand under hand, you could never be too careful about your speed when you are suspended above nothingness. I slowly release my grip, with these gloves on it made it impossible to get rope burn; your gloves could still warm up quite a bit though.
“Woohoo!” Sargent Terein yells as he goes flying down the rope, using minimal resistance -luckily his intercom was broadcasting to the unit and not to the outside world-. What was taking me a good ten seconds to get down only takes him a fraction of that time.
I hear an ‘oof’ through the intercom as he lands; his knees buckle hard and all the oxygen from his lungs goes rushing out.
“Wow, you’re right Colonel, ropes are better,” he says with a wheezy voice, obviously all the air hasn’t returned yet.
My feet hit the cold ground, rubble scattered everywhere. Even though we have intercom chatter everything around me seems dead silent, as if the world stopped the moment I hit the ground.
I blink at my HUD to scan for movement and heat readings, “the pilot said that he saw movement right?” I say suspiciously.
“Yeah, that’s correct, why?” T-Rave says.
“I’m not picking up a single heat reading in the building. There’s definitely no one alive in there. Whatever the pilot saw is either long gone or dead.”
I hear Terein sigh angrily; the chances of killing anything have diminished greatly.
“Easy Sargent, if we don’t find anything today there are still dozens of ships just a period away, there are still plenty of things to kill when they get here.”
I look around at my surroundings. Rubble chunks as large as my speeder are lying everywhere. Bits of glass that had once made this skytower beautiful had been shattered into gravel size shards which are scattered all over the street.
“Sir, what’s that noise? Did you hear that?” T-Rave says.
Without replying, I kill the helmet intercom to hear beyond my helmet. A low humming noise is getting closer and closer to our position.
I turn the helmet link back on, “Dropship One I advise you take evasive manoeuvres!” I say, “too late, run!” I yell, sprinting towards one of the still intact doors of the building.
It’s too late; my team and I have barely run three meters before a huge blue sphere of energy collides with the side of the Dropship. It rips right through the outer hull and passes directly through the parallel hull wall. The ship hangs there as if in suspended animation before an explosion engulfs the entire ship.
The shock wave that the explosion creates comes hurling towards us, I feel my legs give out as if an invisible foot kicked right under my knee. It happens faster than I can react; I go face first into the ground. I feel the sickening crunch as my nose breaks from ramming into the front of my helmet. The taste of blood is hot in my mouth.
“-ic! We need a Medic over here!” I hear someone shout through the intercom, the voice is all distorted; these helmets don’t block everything out, the bulk of the explosion is amplified going through my receiver.
“Who’s hurt?” I ask through a swollen lip.
“Major Lorid is down, we need a medic, where’s the emergency kit?”
I sigh, “it was in the Dropship. Quick, let’s pick him up so we can get out of the open, I don’t like being exposed like this. Damn it! I should have seen that coming. Of course they would have another scout hanging around in case we came snooping.”
“Colonel we don’t need you hating on yourself, what do we do now?” Terein asked.
“We find shelter. You two got him?” I say.
“Yeah we can manage, take up point,” T-Rave says.
I unclip my assault rifle from my back slot, ready for action in case anything decides to show itself.
I cast a look behind me to see Lorid between the two men, one arm over each shoulder, his boots scraping along behind him.
I turn my attention back in front of me; I look around for possible places to hole up in.
“This way, I see a possible entry point.”
We walk forward, getting closer to the huge chunk missing in the wall of the building.
“So much for splitting up when we got inside, we need a new plan Colonel,” T-Rave says.
“No, we stick to the plan; we just need to change it a little to make it fit the situation,” I say.
I keep my eyes on the hole; darkness lurches somewhere in the shadows.
“Hold up,” I say, raising my hand for them to stop.
“What is it?”
“Saw something, a shadow.”
“How do you see a shadow in a pitch-black building?”
“Simple, you see something that is darker than a shadow; don’t even bother asking, because I don’t know the answer to that.”
I stop only a foot or so away from the entrance; it’s always smart to be cautious; it’s huma
n nature. It has always been human instincts to be afraid of the dark. The thought of being trapped in the dark, regardless of all the technology that I have at my disposal, it makes me feel insignificant.
I search through the HUD interface, looking for my headlamp and the night vision. I find both, blinking twice at both icons in my HUD. I stare ahead as the passageway in front of me gets flooded with light.
I raise my rifle in preparation to fire at a moment’s notice.
“Colonel is it safe to go in?” T-Rave asks.
“I think so, I can’t see anything…yet,” I say, taking a step forward.
I react faster than I would have thought possible, all of a sudden a large creature comes directly in front of me, my trigger finger squeezing down unnecessarily hard.
The creature dies almost instantly as a rain of tiny pellet size like bursts of energy tear right through its midsection, almost completely severing it in half.
“What the hell was that?”
“Why don’t we check?” I say, rifle in hand, still alert for any more creatures. I bend over the corpse, examining it for any humanlike features.
“Well, it's got a head, stomach, well; it had a stomach, it's got legs, it has arms, whoa, note to self, do not let these guys get a hold of you,” I say, I stare down in dismay at the sight of the four-fingered clawed hand.
“Why?”
“’Cause they will cut you to ribbons, look at those, they’re at least ten centimeters long.”
“Let's keep moving; we don’t want Lorid to lose any more blood,” T-Rave says.
“Right, good idea, we’ve lingered here to long already,” I say, pushing myself up with the butt end of my rifle.
“How come we didn’t pick them up on sensors? You did a heat reading, it showed up as negative.”
“Well, they are kinda scaly; maybe their cold blooded aliens,” T-Rave points out.
“Well, seeing as we can’t scan for them this should be interesting. Keep your eyes open, we don’t need any more of those things sneaking up on us, and we definitely don’t need another one of us to get injured.”
T-Rave and Terein haul Lorid through the wreckage; leaving men behind is not something we do.
“Put him down over here, let's try to stop the bleeding.”
I watch as they carry him into one of the less damaged rooms, the only means of entry was through the door, limiting the possibility of those things getting inside. Although it did make it so we are trapped if we get ambushed. Only one way in and out of the room is never a good thing.
“Colonel, you might want to come and look at this,” T-Rave said.
“Sargent, you’re on lookout,” I say. I walk towards the Major.
I inspect the wound on Lorid’s leg, “jesus, I thought this armour was supposed to repel almost anything.”
“Well, I guess they didn’t include Dropship shrapnel in that list then eh?”
“Major, can you hear us?” I say, waiting for some type of response.
The Majors only reaction is the sight bobbing of his head.
“We can’t hear you, are you trying to talk?”
His head keeps bobbing up and down.
“Take off his helmet, the intercom must be shot to hell, after the ride he took when that explosion hit I’m surprised that hunk of metal didn’t go right through his stomach.”
T-Rave pops off the Majors helmet, revealing a gored up head.
“Christ, what happened?” I say.
“I smashed my head pretty good in there when the shock wave hit,” the Major manages to gurgle out.
“Yeah, I thought I got it bad with a broken nose.”
“No offense Colonel but I think I win in those fields,” the Major chokes out, coughing up blood in the process.
“Ah shit, you should have told us you broke some ribs.”
“We don’t have any of the necessary supplies to fix this; we need to get you of here.”
“Don’t, just don’t bother, continue with the mission. However, before you go, pull that damn thing out of my leg. Hurts like hell.”
“But you’ll bleed out.”
“I don’t think that’s going to matter at all Colonel. Please, just pull the damn thing out!”
I nod silently to him. I place my hand on his shoulder, the other on his leg. I hold him down in case he jumps up in pain.
“Captain, on three; one, two,” T-Rave pulls out the shrapnel protruding from the Majors leg.
“Gahh! You said three!” The Major yelled, blood spurting out the torn skin, revealing a giant hole going all the way through skin, sinew and muscle, even exposing bits of chewed up bone.
“You’re lucky that didn’t pass all the way through your leg.”
“Oh, yeah, you're right, I’m lucky.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. You just have a better chance now, if it went all the way through you’d be losing twice as much blood.”
“Go, all of you, just leave me a gun, that’s all I’m asking,” the Major says all in one breath. It must be painfully to talk with his broken ribs pressing up against his lung. By the looks of the bloody mucus he was coughing up, he must have also punctured a lung.
“We can’t just leave him; we might as well kill him ourselves,” Terein says in frustration.
“Please, I want this, and this way I can draw them away from you, if there are anymore. It’ll give you guys a better chance. Go, find out what whatever you can about these creatures, and make sure that report gets to the General.”
“Good luck Major. If they show up, take as many of the bastards as you can.”
“Alright, let's move out. I’m sorry Major, if I could do more I would, you know that right?”
“Yes Sir I do, good luck. Wait, take these,” the Major says, reaching to the neck plates and yanking on his dog tags.
I reach down and scoop them up with my hand.
****
Major Lorid watches the rest of his team walk away. Leaving him behind so they’d be able to finish their mission. It would be hard without the major being there to back them up if they needed, but they would have to make-do now.
His body is starting to fail him. It feels like hours since his team left, it’s most likely just been minutes though.
Every time he tries to breathe he can feel the clicking as the broken parts of his ribs grind together, having a punctured lung wouldn’t make it feel any better either.
Lorids helmet is by his side, it’s now useless because the explosions just minutes prior had completely destroyed the electronics inside, making it only worth something if you had to keep your head safe from the outside elements.
A small clatter of noise comes from the corner of the room -what he thinks is the corner of the room- make his eyes open wide in fear. Heart racing as he reaches for his rifle.
He gropes his hand up the top of the gun, looking for the built-in flashlight.
His heart almost stops as the light from the gun illuminates the room.
The aliens find him at last.
It’s hard to tell how many there are, seeing as his eyes have begun to go fuzzy. At least a dozen of them are hovering over his immobile body.
“Human, we have waited a long time for thiss,” the alien hisses through pointed teeth.
“You know what we are?” He manages to say, reaching into his utility pouch on his waist slowly so he won’t draw any attention.
“We know a lot about you, we have…ssourcess.”
His hand feels a cold object in his pouch; Lorid slowly extracts it out, being careful not to draw attention to his hand.
“Take hiss weaponss,” the front alien hisses out.
Lorid begins to laugh uncontrollably. Nothing in this situation is a laughing matter. Even though the pain of laughing makes him want to stop he didn’t no matter what. He needed to show them that he’s not afraid.
“Humour won’t ssave you now human.”
“I know, and neither will it save you,” he says. Wi
th his last breath he activates the grenade in his hand. He feels the world shift around him, his last sight on this world is of the aliens in front of him scrambling in horror. White light, more pain and then nothing. He is free.
****
An explosion shakes the ground beneath my feet; it marked the passing of a man I’ve known for over a year.
The dust from the cracks in the wall shift as the entire foundation shakes. It almost looks like it was snowing. I’ve never seen real snow before, only in the Holo videos, it’s said to be a beautiful experience though.
I look behind me to see T-Rave and Terein bow their heads in respect; I do the same, taking a moment to honour the dead.
“He must have had good reason to do what he did, he gave us a chance.”
“I don’t meant to sound disrespectful but we should keep moving. We need to get to the main power generation room to see what these things are up to. The security office is directly across the hall from the power room. Once we get there we should try to locate the rest of these aliens and eliminate them,” I say.
“Yes Sir, it should be easy to find both, the power room is directly below us. It was built underground so in the off chance we started a war with someone it would be under kilometer of soil. Although, everybody thought that if we ever went to war it would be with the people of this planet, not some uninvited aliens.”
“Alright, sounds like a plan; let’s find a lift to take us down.”
I lead on through the empty hallways, the farther we go into the building the cleaner it gets. There’s less rubble, but by the looks of it there was a flash fire that had turned the walls and ceiling black. I guess the bomb was detonated prematurely. Or it did exactly as it was supposed to; make entry into the building harder. They must have screwed up that plan though, it was simple to get inside, unless we’re now walking into a well laid ambush, in that case the plan would have been executed perfectly.
“Over here,” T-Rave calls out, his helmet lights shining at a charred door.
“Captain, you do know that those lifts will never work right? The power has been pretty much cut off to all nonessential systems.”
Siege of Terra (The Mavrik Woods Series, Book 1) Page 3