by Elliot Watts
"I understand the logic, but we can't just carry around some creature we have no idea how it works, behaves, reproduces, or eats," said Asher.
"I think we have a solid idea." Chavez looked down at the forming body.
"My point exactly," said Asher.
"Make that, Aliens meets The Walking Dead meets Body Snatchers," said Walker.
"I say we burn it." Johannes lit the torch on his rifle.
"Can't leave that thing here. It might bite us in the ass later on." Chavez ignited her torch.
Delaware joined the two and turned on his flamethrower, and within seconds the three had the creature and all its remnants in flames. The pod sizzled and popped.
Asher was sure they were doing the right thing, but destroying a newly discovered life form, perhaps one that was intelligent, made him feel uneasy. He turned to Dixon. "We made the right decision, right?"
Dixon game him a look of concern. "Yeah."
Walker conceded, "Okay, maybe it wasn't a good idea to take it with us, but maybe we could have contained it."
"Too late now." Chavez let out another blast of flames at the pod.
"Maybe it's not the only one left," said Johannes.
"He's right. There could be hundreds more of these things waiting for us," said Delaware.
"Something tells me that these things more than likely changed every person on this rock into something like what we've seen today," said Asher.
"That's potentially a couple hundred of these things walking around. If they're all congregated somewhere... somewhere where we need to go..." said Dixon.
"We're friggin' frigged," said Chavez.
Delaware slapped Walker hard on the back. "Looks like you're gonna see more of your little friends."
The pod popped again, and some goop hit Walker’s visor. He wiped it off and looked down and saw that the pod had extended a root and had wrapped around his ankle. The root tugged at his leg. He yanked his leg from its grip and jumped back. "They're not my friends." Walker aimed his rifle at the pod and root, flipped his flame thrower on, and torched the pod.
12
The hallways were dark but uneventful. It was eerily quiet, and no one spoke.
Blobs of goop lay about here and there. Alpha Team steered clear of each pile of the goop. They all thought it might be well to avoid contact as much as possible now, just in case.
Asher shuddered at the thought of already having had so much contact with the goop. Maybe some harmless by-product of whatever it was we saw back there, he thought.
They arrived at the command center.
Asher spoke up. "Corporal Delaware, let's see if we can access the computer system now."
Delaware pulled out the override system card they had received from Lieutenant Kamara. It would allow them to get into the mainframe. He walked over to the terminal, flipped open the card slot cover and slid the card in.
A moment passed as Dixon looked on. "How are we looking, Delaware?"
"We're gonna have limited access. Someone initiated an emergency protocol and shut off the intrusion alert system. I've almost got it back on," said Delaware. A moment later an alarm triggered. Bright red lights and an unnerving alarm sounded.
Asher ran over to the terminal. Delaware was now profusely sweating and frantically trying to turn off the alarm.
Asher as he stared at the screen. "This can't be correct." He put it up on a larger wall screen so the whole team could see.
"What are we looking at," said Johannes.
On screen was a map of the RMPC-28. There were a bunch of red dots and a few green dots.
"Ok, I see that that these green dots must be us in the command center," said Chavez.
"And the red dots," said Johannes.
"Those are the alien goop zombies." said Walker.
"Holy shit, there are hundreds, maybe thousands of red dots." said Johannes.
"And they're moving around now, too," said Dixon.
"Corporal Delaware, get the alarms turned off... now." said Asher.
"Almost there" said Delaware. The alarms went silent and the flashing red lights stopped.
"You think they know we're here?" said Johannes.
Walker motioned to the wall display, "I think I know the answer to that." The red dots were moving towards the command center.
"We're frigged," said Chavez.
"PFC Walker, you still have that bag of goop?" said Asher.
Walker pulls out the foreign substance and held it up, "Affirmative. One bag of zombie alien goop."
"Good, because we're gonna need it." He turned to the terminal, "Corporal Delaware, open comms with the Patriot. Let me know when they're up."
"Roger that, Sergeant," said Delaware.
"Chavez and Walker, put that sample of goop in a message tube, we're gonna send it to the Patriot so they can analyze it."
"Yes, Sergeant," the two said in unison as they moved quickly across the room.
"What are you thinking, Sergeant?" said Dixon.
"Well, right about now it doesn't look like we have a good chance to make it out of here alive. We fail - this thing could spread and become a problem of pandemic proportions. We need to stop it from spreading and the only chance we have at that is Captain Greesley and the Federation Corp. knowing about it and studying it. Hell, blowing up this rock might do the trick, either. We don't even know where it came from or how it got here."
"Hey Sarge, you might want to take a look at this," said Johannes.
Asher and Dixon walked over to the large wall screen Johannes was studying.
"What is it, Johannes?" said Dixon.
"Well, there are more green dots than there should be," said Johannes.
"How do you mean?" said Asher.
Johannes pointed to the screen, "See, there are the green dots for us. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5."
"And?" said Dixon.
Johannes moved his finger across the screen and pointed to a lone, but faint green dot. "Who is this?"
"Someone else is alive," said Dixon.
"That's close to here," said Asher.
"They might have information about these goop monsters," said Dixon.
"Sergeant, comms are up. Hailing the Patriot," said Delaware. "We're getting a visual."
It was Captain Greesley. He looked relieved to see Sergeant Asher and his team.
"Sergeant Asher, status report."
Asher took a deep breath and said, "Sir, you're not gonna believe what I tell you."
"Try me."
"We've discovered something. Something organic." said Asher.
"Alien zombie goop ready to go," blurted out Walker from across the room.
"What did he say?" Captain Greesley said.
Asher continued, "exactly what you thought he said."
Captain Greesley tilted his head, took a deep breath and said, "He said something about aliens?"
"Alien goop zombies, sir," repeated Walker.
Dixon looked at Walker with a disapproving look. "He heard you the first time, PFC Walker."
"Sorry, Sergeant," said Walker.
Asher turned back towards Captain Greesley on the screen and said, "You're gonna think I'm crazy, sir. We believe we've found what is... well, we have no physical evidence besides the goop we're about to send you... we think we might have experienced..."
"What goop? Spit it out, Sergeant Asher,"
"First contact. We've found an alien life form we know to be hostile."
Captain Greesley stood silent for a moment. Lieutenant Kamara stepped forward and whispered into Captain Greesley's ear.
Captain Greesley said. "Hostile, how?"
"Well, to summarize what we've seen so far. It killed Zulu team without being detected, turned their bodies to goop and cloned one before our eyes."
"Your saying that this alien life form defeated Federation Corp. soldiers with no weapons and then cloned them to make one of their own kind?"
Sergeant Asher nodded. "Yes, sir."
Lieutenant K
amara stepped forward and again whispered into Captain Greeley's ear.
"Yes, that's a good idea, Lieutenant."
"What's a good idea?" said Asher.
"We'll examine the substance you're sending us to see if it has any weaknesses. In the meantime, find the survivor. They might have information that would be useful in our understanding of this alien life form."
"Sir, these things are all around us and closing in. We need to pull out of here."
"Your orders were to defeat the terrorists and reclaim RMPC-28. You've failed to do either one of those initiatives. Bravo team hasn't reported in and I have a feeling that they won't be. There is no backup for your team. Time to suck it up, Sergeant."
"Yes, sir."
"Contact me when you retrieve the survivor. Over and out." the connection with Captain Greesley went dead.
Chavez paced in a circle. "We're frigged. These things are all up in this place. We've got no way to reach the survivor without running into them."
"We're Federation Corp. soldiers," said Asher.
"I hear ya, Sergeant, but if I may speak frankly... we're also made of flesh and bones that turn into mush upon contact with these things. This isn't your normal everyday terrorist situation. These things are aliens."
"It doesn't look good, but we're gonna toe the line and do our jobs," said Dixon.
"Roger that. Sorry, Sergeant."
"No need to be sorry. We’re in a crap situation. But we need everyone dialed in and bringing their A game," said Asher. "If there ever was a time to stay alive, it's now."
"I'm with Sarge. This shit seems unfair but what I fear more than dying is to die and get cloned into whatever those things are," said Delaware. "I'm not going out like that."
"I agree, let's do this thing." said Chavez.
"Who's with ready to kick some alien ass." Asher as he leaned in and extended his hand out.
The rest of Alpha team formed a circle and did the same with their hands. One stacked on top of the other. They all leaned down then threw their extended hands in the air and in unison said, "Hooah!"
"Let's go find this survivor." said Asher.
13
Now they had access to some of RMPC-28's AI system, Delaware transferred over the live map of the red and green dots so they could see where they were going, and more importantly, see their enemies.
They felt more comfortable being able to see the locations of the goop zombies. But knew even though they had this information, the full potential of these creatures was still unknown.
They had only run into recently cloned people.
Asher wondered if the goop zombies could think like humans. Were they capable of intelligent thought and planning? For all he knew they could head into an ambush.
He pushed the thought aside.
Delaware held up his hand. Alpha Team stopped. Delaware peaked around the corner and saw three goop zombies. "They look so human, these must be further along."
"Either way, these goopers are standing between us and the survivor." said Chavez.
"Chavez is right, we gotta take them out and rescue the survivor." Asher turned to Delaware. "Ready when you are Corporal Delaware."
Delaware held up held up his hand with the number three. He silently counted down dropping each finger in succession... 3, 2, 1 and pointed forward. Alpha team moved like ninjas, not making a sound until Walker slipped on a trail of goop. He caught himself before he did a full tumble, but the noise caught the attention of the goop zombies.
Alpha team stood still. They kept their eyes on the clones. The clones turned in their direction and moved towards Alpha Team.
"Shit, they're coming," said Chavez.
"Everybody, blasters full charge. Aim for their heads," said Dixon.
The clones picked up speed.
Alpha team got into defense positions.
The red dots got closer and closer.
"Fire at will!" said Asher.
Alpha team laid down a stream of blasts. As before, body hits didn't phase the goop zombies.
Delaware landed a direct hit to one of the goop zombies’ heads. It stopped dead in its tracks.
Their efforts fell short of stopping the advancing attackers. The other two clones leaped at them. One of the goop zombies tackled Chavez. She struggled with it for a moment. She reached for her ankle knife and unsheathed it. She gave a hard shove that pushed the goop zombie back and then drove her knife into its skull. She did quick forceful stabs. "Die you friggin' zombie!"
The attacker went limp. She climbed out from underneath it.
The last attacker had Johannes pressed up against the wall. Johannes had his rifle length wise up against his chest like he was cuddling it. His rifle was the only thing between him and the goop zombie.
Nobody in Alpha Team wanted to shoot, in fear they might hit Johannes. Asher and Walker were trying to pull the attacker off. They pulled it back. It was enough for Johannes to tilt the barrel of his rifle with a clear direction of the goop zombie's head. Johannes didn't hesitate to pull the trigger. The shot was more than effective. The headless zombie fell to the floor.
Alpha team wiped off goop and other remnants of the attackers, regrouped and went another 2 doors down the hall into the room where the map showed location of the survivor. The medical bay looked like there had been a struggle. There were objects scattered all over the place and broken glass.
"I don't understand," said Delaware. "It says the survivor is here, but they're not."
Johannes leaned his hand against what appeared to be a giant drawer of sorts that receded into the wall. "What are these?"
"Those are cryogenic storage units that used for the deceased," said Asher.
"I think we've found our survivor," said Dixon.
"Corporal Delaware, open that unit." said Asher.
Delaware walked over to the control panel and punched in a few things. "Encrypted. This will take a minute."
"Smart hiding in one of these," said Johannes.
"Yeah, especially since those goons were just right outside the door. Lucky is more like it," said Chavez.
"Luck had nothing to do with it. Somehow the survivor knew those things couldn't get them," said Asher.
"I'm not so sure if lucky is the right word to use either, since we still have no idea how to defeat the goop zombies," said Walker.
"And take this rock back," said Dixon.
"I'm not sure how in the hell we're supposed to do that. We almost got overtaken by three goopers. There are shitloads of those things left just waiting to sink their friggin' teeth into us." said Chavez.
"Sergeant, I'm in." Delaware pressed a button and the tube slide out from the wall. Alpha Team stood back with their rifles pointed at the contents of the chamber. Inside was a person who was wearing an outfit with Federation Corp. insignia.
Delaware ran AI identification on the woman. "This is Chief Research Officer, Dr. Allis Baldwin."
"A science officer, I thought this place was just a mining colony," said Walker.
"So did I," said Asher.
"This just keeps getting better and better," said Chavez.
14
"Corporal Delaware, hail Captain Greesley. Let him know we've got Dr. Baldwin," said Asher.
"A lot of good that's gonna do us. We're gonna end up being cloned like the rest of these people," said Chavez.
"We need to stay positive," said Dixon.
"Easier said than done," said Private Johannes.
"We'll make it," said Asher.
That moment Dr. Baldwin awoke and sat up.
"Dr. Baldwin, I'm Staff Sergeant Asher from the Federation Corp. cargo vessel, Patriot. RMPC-28 has been overrun by...," he looked at his team. "Terrorists."
"Let's call them what they are - aliens," said Dr. Baldwin.
"Alien goop zombies," Walker said in awe. Alpha Team gave him a deadpan look.
"Sergeant, Captain Greesley being patched through," said Delaware. Alpha team could see Captain Greesley
in their HUDs.
"Sergeant Asher, did you recover the asset?"
"Yes, sir. Dr. Baldwin is safe for now, but we still have to tend to these aliens, any idea of how to do that?" said Asher.
"No, we have nothing that can help," said Captain Greesley.
Chavez spoke up, "Permission to speak freely, sir."
"Go ahead, Specialist," said Captain Greesley.
"If you have nothing that can help us, then how the hell are we supposed to take back this rock?" Chavez crossed her arms.
"You're not." Lieutenant Kamara pulled Captain Greesley to the side and spoke out of earshot.
"I don't understand," said Asher.
Captain Greesley turned back and smiled. "Your mission is complete. You are to return to Bravo team's shuttle immediately. No matter what, do not leave Dr. Baldwin behind. Command has informed me she is a valuable asset and you must recover her, at all costs."
"What about Bravo team, what happened to them?" said Asher.
"If you see them along the way, steer clear or shoot to kill, your choice," said Lieutenant Kamara.
"You need to expedite this extraction, Sergeant Asher," said Captain Greesley.
"Yes, sir."
"Corporal Delaware, route a path to Bravo Team's shuttle," said Dixon.
"Roger that, Sergeant," said Delaware.
"Preferably with as few of these things as possible along the way," said Chavez.
"Route coming through," said Delaware.
"Corporal, project that route on the wall," said Dr. Baldwin as she climbed out of the tube.
Asher assisted Dr. Baldwin. "Can you walk, because we need every soldier's hands free to have a fighting chance of making it to that shuttle."
"Yes, I can."
"Thank God, I thought I was gonna have to carry you," said Johannes.
Dr. Baldwin studied the projected image littered with red and green dots. "There are too many of them. We won't make it."
"No offense, ma'am, but in case you hadn't noticed... we have no choice," said Chavez.
"Yes, you do."
Everyone turned and looked at Dr. Baldwin.
"Okay, we're listening," said Asher.
"Six months ago our miners came down with an unknown illness, and then just like that, they recovered. Then a previously sick inmate died in an unfortunate mining accident. That's when we discovered their regeneration abilities."