Sound in the Dark
"Move in, five meter spread. Keep your eyes up and around, and stay sharp. This could get tricky."
The team moved in, gun barrels tracking side-to-side in quick sweeps. Sergeant Reynolds kept himself at the head of the formation, the tip of a seventeen-man spear as it plunged into the building.
It was an old structure, a run-down power plant from the cold war, and even inside the rain still found its way through the broken rafters. The worst of the storm had passed, the lightning leaving behind this drizzle. It chilled him through his spec suit, and Reynolds found himself cursing the damn Czech weather for the nth time since his tour had began seven months ago.
What the hell were they doing here, anyway? They were HAMMER agents, for God's sake! Leave guarding the derelict reactor plant to the line troops. Had Osborn lost his damn mind?
They reached the main factory floor, and Reynolds eased his way out into the open. Moonlight streamed through the cracked ceiling in shafts, spilling across the debris-strewn floor in pools. Along the room's flanks were catwalks, situated above rows of inoperative power generators.
Reynolds directed five men to each and led the rest up the center. He wasn't about to walk into this one with his dick in the wind, especially not with that thing here.
At the opposite end of the chamber lay the pod. Its bluish surface steamed in the cool air and the ramjet engines were red hot. Black gouges dotted its hull where embedded retro thrusters had slowed its descent, barely. Still, the way the bunker's scanners had read it, nothing human could have survived that impact.
Probably US military, he decided, some kind of experimental entry device for quick hot-zone insertions—
Reynolds's heart jumped as he recognized the golden X detailed on the pod's side, and he scrambled for his radio.
"Alpha Patrol to HC&C, requesting immediate assistance from any HAMMER forces in the area. Say again, any HAMMER forces respond to our location. We have an X-man incursion into our perimet—"
The first scream came from the catwalk to his right, and was followed by the rapid stattacco of automatic fire. Flashes lit the walkway. Bullets skipped along walls, hitting nothing. They were panicking. Reynolds knew the feeling, and as he hurried to aim his own weapon with shaking hands, he sympathized.
There was a grunt, more animalistic than human, and the last of that cover team was hurled from the catwalk to the floor below.
"Fire!" Reynolds shouted, "Tear him down!"
The other cover team and his own men opened up on the cleared catwalk, turning it into a killzone. In the muzzle flashes, Reynolds tracked the target as it sprang off the railing and soared over his head, landing on the opposite catwalk with a clang. The man beast attacked in a crouch, slashing the other cover team to pieces.
Reynolds's rifle fired on an empty chamber, the bolt slamming back. He dropped the dry rifle and reached for his sidearm, unbuckling it from its holster with his unwieldy gloved fingers.
The creature dropped into Reynolds's own team, snarling a battle cry, and cut into Denham. The kid screamed as he fell, disemboweled, to the floor. The rest of the team opened fire at point blank range, the lead cutting through suit and flesh and drawing plumes of blood from his chest. He paid them no heed, growling as he came on.
The men fell; limbs, heads, guts, and guns all hitting the concrete in rapid succession. Dickinson was the last to go, pinned to the ground by a man twice his weight where he was torn apart, screaming as he went. Blood sprayed across the floor.
The X-man stood and popped his neck, turning to Reynolds.
"Okay." The voice was low, threatening. "Your turn. Hit me."
Reynolds did just that, emptying his pistol's entire magazine into the man's face. The reports faded away into the echo chamber around them. Above, the clouds moved in and out of the moon's way, obscuring the man momentarily. When they cleared again, his face wasn't destroyed, but healing.
He grinned, baring fangs, and grabbed Reynolds around the throat. The HAMMER sergeant was lifted off the ground, choking.
The man-weapon growled. "Sorry, bub. Time's up."
Snikt.
Reynolds felt a red lance of pain strobe up along his spine, topping out in his skull. Stars, the color of thick blood, burst across his vision. He screamed to feel it. After a minute, it became a whimper. Twenty seconds later and he was silent.