Doomgate

by ToBetasered

Will of the Future side story. A group of TFSF marines find themselves battling for their lives against the fruits of an unethical experiment gone horribly wrong...

xx

Deep Ground

xx

Syrtis Major Planum, Mars, Sony Dome, Sol System

In the darkness…

There came a boy's voice.

"Where are we going?"

An older female voice answered, her voice was tense, and she said. "We're going for a little vacation…"

Another voice, this time a young girl perhaps slightly older than the boy interrupted querulously. "In the middle of the night?"

Emergency Services and Maintenance Expressway, Sony Dome, 10 years ago

The ground car wheeled along at 60 kilometers an hour. The vehicle was a rover type, a hybrid built to drive both on the computer controlled smart track used in the majority of the dome and on regular paved road surfaces. The electric motor hummed a barely audible mechanical whir as the family car passed another of the maintenance roads leading to one of 44 environmental control stations. In the far distance the top part of the opening for one of Sony Dome's exhaust fans could be seen. And a breeze buffeted the car as it drove along.

Within the vehicle the voice of a woman could be heard saying. "…but we've talked about this for years. I-Imagine, white, sandy beaches, palm trees, warm tropical breeze, the real sea!"

The woman, an ash-blonde in her mid thirties looked over to her husband for help. They shared a glance and had the same thought.

"They aren't buying it…"

The boy, sixteen years old with brown hair and a thin, athletic build, looked between his parents in the front seats. Hesitantly he asked, "Did something happen at work?"

The ground car picked up speed slightly on the deserted road. It was night-time in the dome and Phobos was high in the simulated sky. Small dust clouds periodically wafted into the street. The roads in this area were not intended as a thoroughfare for Sony Dome residents. The fact that they were using these roads at all was making the children anxious.

The woman tried again to calm her children and allay their worries half-formed. "I thought that you'd both be a little delighted to be above ground, John, Sam? We can enjoy the sunshine and the wind…"

The boy, John watched at his parents with a slightly disbelieving expression. His mother, Dr. Mary Grimm looked drained as did his father Louis.

More than ninety percent of the Dome's inhabitants lived below ground in facilities build into reinforced, extinct magma flow chambers that were heated by The Vulcan, the largest privately owned nuclear fusion power generating plant.

Built partially along the lines of a termite hive, Sony Dome was the only part of the mushroom-shaped facility that was exposed to the surface rather than buried beneath volcanic rock. It covered some 625 square kilometers of habitat which consisted of large fields of every crop and plant that could not be grown in the subterranean, hydroponics farms; certain animals; a public recreational park complete with a small lake; numerous pleasure resorts for fatigued employees and the Diplomatic and Executive quarters for Federation military and corporate bigwigs.

John agreed that his parents certainly seemed like they needed to spend some time in the carefully maintained surface paradise but why were they taking a maintenance road around the perimeter? And if he thought about it, he was almost certain that The Angel Pemberton, the resort managed by the company his parents worked for, wasn't located in the direction that they were heading….

John's sister Sam leaned forward as far as her seatbelt would allow her. "Is there something wrong with the Ark?" She asked.

Her parents remained silent.

John's grey eyes flickered between them again.

"Was there a problem at the Alpha Location?" He asked tentatively.

The car passed under a sign that said, "LEFT – Pitikin GravLev 1km, Right – Environmental Station 13b 500m"

As they passed under the sign, orange hazard lights began flashing only to be obscured by a haze of dust. They were approaching a bridge that passed over the beginning of the Koryuu River, one of the only sources of liquid surface water on Mars, it was used as an irrigation source and as a sink to prevent the harmful build up of trace elements in the Habitat's atmosphere.

"Look, it's been very busy, there's a lot going on with the company right now." John's mother answered.

His father cursed softly as the road before him was temporarily obscured by dust. He looked into the rearview mirror at his son and daughter then sighed. "…it's complicated."

Distracted he doesn't notice the orange light until too late, his wife blinded by a strobe of the warning signal shuts her eyes involuntarily.

Sam gasps…

A mechanized lorry looms close in her window…

To John, without warning his world erupts in flying glass and twisted metal. There is a jarring impact that rattles his teeth and he hears his sister's scream, her ribs snap as the seatbelt holds her in place. Their mother's head flies forward into the dashboard as the car frame buckles Blood splashes across John's face and into one of his eyes. Then, his head smacks against the door frame.

In Darkness…

Dull, throbbing pain, an eye stuck shut with drying blood. He hears voices as he manages to open his other bleary eye. John awoke long enough to feel a strange sensation other than the pain, the car is swaying. His vision swims and he passes out again.

In Pain…

John's father Louis is the next to awaken, dazed, he groaned in pain, rubbing a bruised sternum. "No…Mary…Sam…John?"

Louis tried to find his bearings; he wasted almost a minute staring uncomprehendingly at the rushing water visible from his windscreen. In pain, he slowly turned his head enough to see the still form of his wife Mary.

Suddenly, Sam's door was wrenched open and dark arms fumbled with her seatbelt before ripping her out of the car causing it to teeter horribly forward. Louis leaned back and tried to hold still, John awoke again. Mary moaned wetly and before Louis' horrified gaze, slumped forward.

The car went over the bridge.

Sue to the second impact, John would never remember the horrific vision of the water rushing up to the car.

Cold…

John desperately unbuckled his seatbelt as the water gushed in through a shattered window. He tried the door but it was twisted in its frame. Louis freed Mary but the remained motionless. He lifted her head above the water and saw that she was unconscious with blood leaking from her nose, diluted by the water. The car settled in the river on its side blocking Mary's window and Sam's door.

John tried kicking open his window but that doesn't work. Now, his lungs were burning from the effort he needed to take a breath. A hand landed on his shoulder, his father's hands pull and push at him until his face is in a small air pocket next to his mother. His father was holding them both up.

For a moment John just breathed; then he tried to give his father a chance to get to the dwindling air. The man's hand was unyielding and John began to struggle when he realized when was happening.

"No! You need to breathe too!" He struggled so vigorously that in an agonizing decision his father let his mother's still form slide beneath the water, now holding his son up with both arms. "NO!!!"

John thrashed, and then he took the final gasp of air remaining into him self.

In the darkness and cold, his father's hands drifted away.

xx

TFSF Memo: JAG Gen. Ahlam al-Mu'min

To: JMC (Joint Military Commander) Marshal Jonathan J. O'Neill

Subject: Depth Charge

Contents encrypted

Decrypting….

My God sir, what a mess…7 Spartan commandos, 50 Special Security Force personnel, 68 scientists and their families…United Aerospace representatives are jamming my coms. All those people dead and what they're really pissed that we nuked their facility and won't give them access to the doctor and the corporal!

Sgt. Kelly was only following orders, not that it excuses him, but what of General Winters?

This wasn't just a Black Book, this stinks of a shadow fund…

The Trust?

End message.

TFSF Memo JMC Marshal Jonathan J. O'Neill

To: JAG General Alham al-Mumin

RE: Subject: Depth Charge

Contents encrypted

Decrypting…

I'll handle it Allie... UAC can go to hell for all I care, they're not getting their hands on those kids!

Leave the good General to me…There's a spot open for a new base commander at the Proxima II listening post, I find it vital that the General serve out his remaining tour cataloging stellar hiccups from distant parts of the galaxy and beyond…

It'll be a cold day in hell before that bastard holds another military command of any importance on my watch!

End message.

Two Weeks Earlier…

One would think that as Earth's closest promising neighbor, the founding member of the Terran Federation would have jumped at the chance to terraform and colonize Mars.

One would be wrong.

Initially, before the formation of the Federation, colonization was stymied by the simple fact that it was easier and more cost effective to send colonists and equipment to an already habitable planet using the Stargate or on one of the spacecraft that comprised Earth's burgeoning Space Force.

11 billion dollars by Stargate per trip, 15 billion dollars by spacecraft per trip, 29.2 billion dollars to create, support and fund a sustainable colonization effort on Mars per month; it was simple math. The time, money and effort of a true terraforming project caused the representatives that heard the proposal to laugh until they cried when they heard the figures.

Then they said no.

The truth was that although Earth had for decades possessed the necessary technology to artificially regenerate the planetary magnetosphere of Mars, restore the atmosphere and introduce the flora and fauna needed to terraform the planet, the cost in manpower, time to accomplish and the sheer economic burden made it no less than a planetary effort.

A REEALLY BIG, planetary effort.

So no, Pre-Federation Earth wasn't interested in Mars.

Post-Federation Earth would shoot down the idea of terraforming Mars for at least a century.

Still, that didn't mean that Mars would be devoid of colonies, just that the world governments weren't exactly eager to create any, other than the odd military installation that. There were several companies, heavily restricted in their extra-solar activities by the IOA; that saw an opportunity in Mars.

In the aftermath of Disclosure and the Third World War, the Earth experienced a time of unprecedented economic upheaval. Gold was devalued; dependence on crude oil was fast becoming a thing of the past. Countless businesses failed while other grew into multinational financial titans with profit margins that dwarfed the GDP of most third world countries. In terms of Social Darwinism it was the equivalent of dropping a rock the size of Texas on the planet.

Companies and nations lied, stole, pleaded, negotiated and killed for every possible advantage. The energy industry, construction, material processing industries, defense contractors, food services, educational institutions, medical science, just science in general, virtually every walk in life no matter how small was changed by those two events; Disclosure and the War. One of the few industries to see an immediate benefit was the Aerospace Industry.

Now that there was little need to do so, the IOA drew heavily on these companies for the creation of a space fleet to defend Earth and its interests. The IOA along with the reformed United Nations was now called Earth Union. Not as a toothless and ineffectual conflict resolution body but as a true Central Authority with representatives from various nation states. The EU presided over the chaos and slowly but surely brought it to heel.

Thus, there came the ascendancy of Global Conglomerates and the EU in world politics. One held true economic might, while the other tightly controlled military power and space travel. The influence of the former would in time be greatly stymied by the formation of the Terran Federation, but while their power lasted corporations like the United Aerospace Corporation would leave a lasting impression on Mars.

Where neither any single world government, nor the Earth Union could see profit in founding a colony on Mars. The United Aerospace Corporation, become one of twenty-seven international interests including the Dubai Trust and the UAE Trade Federation, the Post-WWIII Chinese Federation and other businesses and a few nations that would create Gloria Dome, the mega-structure built to house the Sidra Free Economic Trade Zone.

Encompassing 14.4 trillion cubic meters, with a population of 12 million and growing, this colony was the epitome of a keiretsu with a significant percentage of the population being employees. As the Terran Federation grew in power and asserted its authority over the human colonization of Sol, Gloria Dome and her sisters Sony and Microtech Domes formed a relationship based on government subsidies and support in accessing to interstellar markets in exchange for fixed prices for the procurement of support, materials, manpower and access to proprietary technology for the exclusive use of the Federation Military.

This relationship between The Conglomerates and the TFSF eventually lead to the enactment of Operation Deep Ground sometime after 2041

xx

Mars, Sol System, Government Funded United Aerospace Corporation Olduvai Research Facility, Deep Ground, Beta Location

The laboratory was silent and dark save of the blinking lights and the soft hums and whirs of mechanical equipment automatically completing a pre-programmed set of tasks.

Suddenly, the lights turned on, there was no flickering, nor any point of transition; the laboratory was just instantly illuminated. The floor was littered with files; hydrocarbon based smart films containing the written records of various experiments.

Tools and other devices were scattered across the desks as if whoever had been there had abandoned the lab in haste. On one such work-desk rested a helmet on a stand. It looked like a large, grey racing helmet, there was an open panel on the left side and crystal circuitry could be seen on the inside. There was an opaque visor on the helmet that seemed to be made from some kind of yellow frosted glass. The visor was composed of hexagonal and pentagonal sections like a soccer ball. There was also a cap-like protrusion above the visor containing some sort of emitter. Etched into the base plate holding the helmet up were the words, C.Y.C.L.O.P.S.

One wall of the lab was made from a clear window covered with thousands of hairline fractures all originating from a single bloody impact point. In the room beyond the cracked window was a metal medical bed tilted at a forty-five degree angle. There was a rather sinister mechanical device attached to it, all needles and curved serrated blades on the end of a robust mechanical arm. There were restraints on the medical bed at head waist and foot level.

The restraints were broken…

Dimly, like a low, thrumming rumble, a most disturbing sound could be heard.

-Ggggggggrrrrraaaarrrrrrrrrrrraaaararrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-

Within the same facility, a few levels above the labs, a group of civilians were running down a darkened corridor lined with red emergency lights. There was no talking, only panting and the single-minded determination to reach their intended destination.

Behind them there were growls and then gunfire, when the staccato burst of weapons paused there was a deafening roar followed by a chorus of howls. The group pressed forward, rushing past an intersecting corridor. The faces of those in the lead filled with relief, they were almost there.

The three in the lead didn't notice but one of the scientists in the group was suddenly gone…

Then, one of the three; a pudgy, middle-aged woman her face pale and covered in sweat, found herself yanked backward and sideways violently. Vanished in to the shadows of the corridor the others noticed her absence when suddenly, there was an unearthly scream. It was filled with terror, pain and horror, and ended as abruptly as it began.

Only to be replaced by an unpleasantly wet…

-SPLAT-

Filled with panic the two remaining civilians in the lead huddled closer together as they ran, ignoring the pleas of those lagging behind. The sound of tearing fabric and enthusiastic chewing echoed after them mockingly…

"Doctor Carmack, wait!" A woman's voice screamed. The male scientist was the first through the door and slapped his palm against the control panel beside the door.

"Please!" the woman, a colleague, screamed again.

Dr. Carmack used a pen to lever open the console panel and frantically overrode the external door controls. Just before the heavy door could completely shut, an arm slid through the doorway up to the elbow. Carmack watched in horror as the doors kept closing compressing the arm as the woman screamed.

Briefly he considered opening the door.

Then there was a violent thump that shook the doors and the woman's arm shot forward, the flesh from her elbow to shoulder shredded as it was pushed through the doors.

There was a soggy -CRUNCH- and a gout of blood sprayed into the room, staining the floor and the computer console set on a desk in line with the door.

Finally, horribly, the doors themselves closed on the bloody arm, severing it. Dr. Carmack numbly watched the twitching fingers of the severed limb that slowly turned blue.

Minutes later the balding man sat anxiously before the facility's only connection to the outside. He spoke again, sending his message through the communications array. "I repeat, this is Dr. Todd Carmack at Classified Research, Olduvai Alpha Location do you read me, can you hear me? We have a level five security breach, our security personnel are dead! Can you-"

There was a screech of metal as the room's security door was slowly forced open; the clawed fingers doing the pulling weren't human. The stump of an arm was jammed in the slowly opening doors.

The man got a good look at what was on the other side. "Oh my God!" He breathed.

Whirling to his desk, the scientist typed in a command and a shimmering red force field faded into view over the entrance to the doorway and then an opaque substance began to cover the doorway. There was a sizzling sound, the stump and fingers retracted from the door as it slid shut. From the other side there came a roar.

Dr. Carmack turned to the vid-phone. "I am requesting-"

xx

Terra Andromeda, 43 Ursa Majoris, Camp Sparta

Master Sergeant (MSG) John Hartman Pavell Jr MTI (Military Training Instructor) of recruit training platoon MT 12 watched as the new recruits came through the gate. This last group of forty-four struck him as nothing more than a bunch of misfits. But, by the powers that be they were his bunch of misfits.

As he watched his four TI's quickly brought the group of MF's (the meaning depended on his mood) to a semblance of parade rest, he idly noted that the rapidly fading frost from the clothes and hair of the recruits as well as the fact that they were for the most part, lightly dressed. These recruits had gated in from the facility in Arizona. It was an old joke, sending them through a wormhole so lightly dressed was like punching out of a fighter jet at thirty thousand feet, or so he heard.

Of the forty-four that had been sent to him, twenty-two were humans from various earth militaries, for the most part he anticipated the challenge would be only in forging them into a cohesive unit. The rest were representative of the military forces of the other members of the Terran Federation, there were Pangarans, Tegalans, Tagreans, Galarans and a single Orbanian from Teotihuacan. Most of the latter wore uniforms in a shade of grey, dull blue or brown. Pavell frowned as he noted one of the Pangarans was wearing a bright blue, double breasted uniform with shiny brass buttons, and vermillion and gold stripes along the arms and legs as well as other…frills.

"Gods damn you could tie a noose with all those braids hanging off that uniform." The Master Sergeant thought.

Abruptly, he began speaking in a loud, commanding voice.

"Welcome… to Camp…Sparta!!" MSG Pavell drew out the final, a, making it sound like "Spartaaah!"

He walked before the men looking them in the eyes as he spoke. "You are all, of different nationalities, cultures, planets."

He continued after a brief pause. "Yet you are all here for one reason and on reason only!" His accent curled the 'Only' into 'Onleigh'

"That reason; is to serve and if need be Die for the safety and security of the citizens of the Terran Federation!"

"Now I know where you came from; people must have thought that you were the hot shit! You wouldn't be here if that were not the case and if you aren't worth the hype then I will personally kick your ass to the curb so hard, your mama's gonna have my size twelve boot-prints on her skanky cunt!"

His speech didn't grow any louder but it didn't let up in intensity either. "I don't care if you're gooks, mooks, chinks, niggers, japs, towel-heads, faggots, pansies, pussies, 'roos, rug-munchers or Mormons, you are ALL equally worthless in my eyes."

MSG Pavell sneered.

"The best of you probably leaked down the crack in yo momma's ass and ended up as a stain on the mattress! You are Scum! You are worse than scum! You are Maggots! You are filthy, mother-fucking, Maggots!"

He deliberately chose the tallest and toughest looking of the recruits and sneered as he spoke. "You, shit-stain! Just how tall are you?!"

The man, a Pangaran stuttered, eyes facing ahead. "S-s-seven metras MTI-"

Pavell didn't wait for him to finish, he'd already decided on a response before he'd even asked the question; the man's answer just made it more satisfying. Without a change in expression, his sneer fixed firmly in place, Pavell rabbit-punched the recruit in the solar plexus, hard.

The bigger man doubled over gasping for air. Then he turned green and emptied his stomach, Pavell was bent over him, bellowing in his ear.

"Fuck it! Just who the fucking hell, do you fucking think you are fucking talking to?! Dipshit! Moron! Retard! Listen up! The very first and last thing out your mouths when speaking to anyone here had better be Sir! Or so help me I will beat your fucking head in like an old metal can! You scan me!"

The assembled recruits gave forty-three loud 'Sir, yes Sir!' and one feeble. 'sir, yes, sir'

Pavell was not impressed. "Fucking hell! Sound off like you've got a pair! Don't pant 'Suh, yes suh' like a couple of old people fucking! DO YOU SCAN ME?!!"

"SIR, YES SIR!!" The answer thundered.

Pavell continued, "Joint Military Command has decided in its infinite wisdom that the armed forces of its various members shall be dissolved and reconstituted as the meanest, baddest, bunch of mother fuckers in the galaxy. Joint Military Command, in its infinite wisdom has decided that their squiddy, little flyboys just can't hack it a face to face in a thorough little throw-down! As such, Joint Military Command has instituted a comprehensive, joint training initiative to ensure you mother-fucking maggots know which end of a MX-80 goes bang, and that no limp-dicked, shit-stain trips over his own feet and blows his fellow trooper to kingdom frickin' come! You will be the Terran Federation's shipboard security and terrestrial ground combat forces. The hounds and hunters of Avalon!"

He might as well have been snorting fire when he continued; the Master Sergeant was on a roll. "When we are done here you Mother Fucking Maggots (One interpretation of MF) are gonna obligingly kill any fucking son of a bitch that dares trespass on one of our spacecraft or any other Federation facility. If High Command needs a marine to storm a planet and wrest control from the enemy? You will damn well do just fucking that! You will say 'Sir, Hell Yeah, Sir!' and get down there even if you have to step out an airlock and JUMP from Goddamn orbit. We will train you maggots to kick ass from sea, air and land, from coast to coast, horizon to horizon! By the time you Maggots are finished the enemy will be begging to spit-shine your boots as they get their asses kicked out of the stratosphere!"

Pawell proudly displayed his division patch, a hawk was clutching a briar in its beak and a snake in one clawed foot, and the other foot rested upon a shield that held a field of stars, below the shield was the words, Semper Fidelis.

"Get out of this training alive and you will no longer be maggots, you will be SPARTANS!!"

He finished with saying, "I'll give you maggots this advice, in the words of a great Tau'ri Thomas Paine."

He took a deep breath…

"LEAD, FOLLOW, OR GET OUT OF THE WAAAY!"

xx

Terra Andromeda, 43 Ursa Majoris, Camp Sparta

In the distance, the words carried over to them, half a kilometer away. 'LEAD, FOLLOW, OR GET OUT OF THE WAAAY!'

Lance Corporal John 'Reaper' Grimm smiled as the instructor's bellow carried over to him. "Ahhh, fond memories…" He sighed.

Corporal Dean Portman who was standing next to Reaper, absentmindedly rubbed his gut. "That's because you weren't the one that got slugged in the gut." He grumbled moodily as he recalled the incident from his own training.

They were waiting outside one of the prefabricated shelters of Camp Sparta, the larger, more important complexes were hidden underground in shielded bunkers. The building behind them was a camouflaged sleeping area for their squad and others like it. It contained their sleeping area, a rec-room, a briefing room, a lavatory and bathing area.

Finally the people they were waiting for came out of the door behind them.

First out was Private First Class Gregory 'Duke' McGreevy a well built black man with a thin mustache, the other was Private Mark 'The Kid' Dantalion a gangly, thin man with large ears and a prominent Adam's Apple.

The Kid grinned, "I'm sure looking forward to some downtime; I've already got a hot date all lined up."

Duke groaned and looked at the other man out of the corner of his eye. "It's creepy the way you talk about your mother, you know that right?"

The younger man's ear burned red, Kid was both the newest and the youngest member of their squad; he was often the butt of jokes.

Feeling sorry for Kid, Reaper spoke up. "Hey, don't let him get to you, he's just jealous… Not all of us have hot mothers waiting at home for us for us." He couldn't resist… Corporal Portman grinned at the double entendre.

They made some more joking banter as they followed a hidden trail down to the main building. They were heading for the locker room when they met up with Sarge.

He was suited up.

Sergeant Thomas 'Sarge' Kelly was the commander of their squad, a disciplined and often ruthless man. He smirked, "Sorry ladies," He said, "Leave is cancelled as of now." Ignoring the whining from Kid he continued. "We have an urgent mission, a Level 5 security breach, suit up and report to the Lobby at 08:00 hours, that's twenty minutes from now. Get moving!"

As Reaper started to go Sarge signaled him to stay behind, Reaper raised an eyebrow questioningly. Sarge licked his lips as he looked down at the shorter man. "Reaper, I don't have time to go into detail but the message came from Mars UAC Classified Research Labs, I know that your sister was working there, she may be involved."

The man watched intently as Reaper's eyes widened, "If you think you can't handle this because of personal issues…" He started.

Reaper cut him off. "I can handle it, sir." He looked the other man in the eyes, "I can handle it."

At Sarge's nod Reaper hurried after the others, running at a full sprint.

The others were already naked and in the showers when Reaper made it to the locker room. He joined them and forced himself to take his time, a task made more difficult by the questions swirling about his head.

His sister, Dr. Samantha Grimm was a geneticist and biochemist, employed by the massive conglomerate and sometime Federation military contractor, the United Aerospace Corporation. His entire family had been employees and first generation Mars colonists, working for UAC. Reaper had signed up for the Federation marine core shortly after his parent's deaths.

He and his sister had only maintained sporadic contact over the years since then…

By the time he got out, Destroyer, Mac, Goat and the other members of their squad, other than Duke, had already suited up and were helping Kid and Portman into their bio-suits. Duke was checking over the readings from the containment unit holding his own suit.

Named the Future Warrior Advanced Combat Skin, the combat bio-suits were constructed from billions of strands of nano-assembled, artificial, silicon based biomechanical cells. They drew power from microscopic, mitochondrion-like cellular power-plants that used a hydrogen-lithium based chain of biochemical reactions to generate power and internal heating.

The cell walls were constructed from electro-reactive polymers, filled with various types of responsive gels. The outer surface was a water-proof, air-tight, self-regenerating, trinium fiber and Kevlar weave. It was coated in continually excreted layers of a silicon and lead based ablative paint that served as a both a defensive measure against plasma weaponry and radiation. There were also structures built into the suit that used the excreted paint fleck to help provide emergency power by absorbing solar radiation.

Reaper's bio-suit was now the most basic armor used by Federation marines. It was quite literally a living, artificial, muscular skin, supported by an ultra-lightweight, extremely strong series of trinium coated titanium tubes and bands that contained micro-circuitry, coolants, vital nutrients for the skin and a limited supply of repair nanites.

The blue-black F.W.A.C.S. provided anywhere from ten to seventy percent of the activation energy required for limb movement and the suit's strength could be scaled up to a mechanical advantage of 25 allowing its wearer to move significantly faster an lift twenty-five times as much as they normally would be able to.

It provided excellent full-body protection from plasma and ballistic weaponry from the neck down and was resistant to blunt force trauma, cutting, burning, biological or chemical attacks and piercing. There were limits of course, the skin regenerated completely as long as the lithium and manganese oxide wafer packages stored on the spinal support lasted. Complete regeneration took time however and several accurate bursts from a Black Raven MX-80 hybrid battle rifle could defeat the suit's defenses. The weapon fired energized rounds that were known to be able to defeat most types of conventional armor.

But that was only if the wearer stood out in the open and let himself be shot.

Reaper grimaced as he pulled on the 22 kilos of limp flesh, pressing the activation switch on the hip-ring, the armor tightened around his legs making a squelching sound as some of the responsive fluid splashed onto the bottom of his chin. It was excreted on the inside of the armor to lubricate the body and to detect electrical impulses sent to its wearers muscles so as to synchronize movement.

Marines called that getting jizzed and he was never again letting that stuff get into his mouth, never again…

As he put his right hand into a sleeve he idly noted that Kid was whining again.

"I hate this fucking soggy condom!" Kid was saying.

'Soggy Condom' was slang for the combat skin as well as an apt description for what it felt like to wear one. Fortunately that sensation went away as the unit heated up and the fluid recyclers started processing sweat and waste.

Duke cursed. "Shit…fluid recyclers are stuck at sixty percent efficiency…"

Private First Class Eric 'Goat' Fenton chuckled, "Sucks to be you, literally."

Kid joined in, "Hey Duke, that's what you get for pissing yourself in a fire fight."

Duke slapped him upside the head, with the hand that was still unarmored.

"Oww." The younger man moaned.

Reaper pressed the activation tag on his chest above his solar plexus and the upper part of the suit tightened on his torso, arms and legs. He felt a flash of unease as the clenched sphincters in the suit prevented him from inhaling for a fraction of a second before the sensors calibrated. Such a thing hadn't happed since early testing and never in actual battle but if the torso armor froze, he could suffocate and pass out; the only way to save him would be for someone else to simultaneously depress the two emergency release catches on his neck, under the bottom of his jaw.

Reaper then put on his knee-high armored combat boots, attached his outer tactical combat vest with its stress-stiffening, force-distributing Dragon Scale ™ armor system, and checked through his Personal Modular Combat Webbing (PMCW), looking through his chest rig for all necessary equipment, Multitool, Ka-Bar, grenades, trip mine, Berserker pack, etc. He donned the suit's helmet, activating the integrated wireless, group tactical warfare program headed out the door.

He moved over to the armory and requisitioned his weapon.

Nineteen minutes later the group was suited up, armed and assembled before the stargate located in Camp Sparta's 'Lobby' which was a tongue-in-cheek name for the hardened bunker that was located underground a full kilometer away from the rest of the base. Special Security Forces personnel manning plasma cannons and mini-gun emplacements watched from a higher level as the last of a science crew traveled through the gate.

Sarge gave them a rundown of the situation as the wormhole shutdown. The computers waited for confirmation via subspace relay that the Earth Stargate was buried before they began the dialing sequence for the unburied gate located on Mars. They watched the message that played on the data pad in the Sarge;s hand. It wasn't much, just a brief and hasty message. "This is Dr. Todd Carmack at Classified Research, Olduvai Alpha Location do you read me, can you hear me? We have a level five security breach, our security personnel are dead! I am requesting the access codes to deactivate the Ark, I repeat…"

What followed was more or less a repetition of the first message that told them much the same, a scientist located in an isolated research facility on Mars had signaled a Level Five security breach before being cut off, all attempts to re-establish contact had failed and after losing several of his own men trying to retake the facility, the Mars base commander, an OFI commander, General Howard Winters had called in the marines. What interested the team was the noise that had spooked the doctor midway through the second message; obviously there were hostiles loose on the base.

As the gate opened began it's dialing sequence, Sarge gave them their orders, the were to proceed to a UAV facility where they would meet up with the civilian personnel who were going to provide them with the information necessary to plan and perform a search and rescue operation at the now silent facility.

There was a loud whooshing sound and the wormhole stabilized within the ring. One by one the special operations team made their way through.

To Grimm, there was nothing like the sensation of stepping through a wormhole. "Though technically," His academic background whispered to him, "This is all just an illusion caused by the brain trying to rationalize the sensation of the dematerialization of the body as it crosses the event horizon."

Nonetheless he still found himself trying to recall how it felt to be transmitted across the galaxy, his minds eye giving him images of zipping through a long, convoluted tunnel as stars pass by. He was deep in though as he stepped down the ramp in the closed departure/arrival hanger that was set aside for military use. After all it made no sense to disturb the civilians that used the gate for travel with the sudden appearance of eight heavily armed men.

Lance Corporal Gannon 'Destroyer' Roark, a massive hulk of a man hefted his combination, minigun over a shoulder as he and Katsuhiko Kumanosuke 'Mac' Takahashi followed Sarge over to a military transport. A lift started raising the stargate back up to one of the hangers in use by civilians.

The ride was quiet for the first few minutes with all of the seasoned members of the squad either meditating in silence or quickly checking over their gear. Predictable the Kid couldn't shut up.

"Hey Reaper," He said looking out of a porthole. "How come we can see the night sky? I read somewhere that the domes are made of foamcrete and not a force field."

Ignoring Portman's disbelieving snort of, "He can read?!!" John decided to humor the younger man. "That's technically true since originally the plan was to just build a Geofront using a much smaller dome as a blast shield in the event of a meteor impact." He explained. "When the Federation got involved ten years into construction, they allowed the corporations legal access to shield technology and Neutrino-Ion Generators in exchange for flying the flag and towing the line when it came to paying for the Syrtis Gravlev and supporting Aries Anchorage."

He pointed out the window not noticing that the rest of the squad was now paying attention. "By then the dome was all that was left to build," He said. "So they amended the plans to allow for a habitat above the Geofront and built the shield generators first. They used the shield to get the right shape and then they created the dome by spraying on the foamcrete and supporting it with a trinium fibersteel mesh." He cupped the fingers of a hand in a dome shape. "Originally they were just going to cover the thing in lead armor plates but since the Federation gave them the shield they instead expanded the energy barrier to cover the outside of the dome after the foamcrete dried."

"But how come we can see the sky?" Duke asked curiously

"Paint" John answered. "They used the same stuff that they use on pleasure starships. A radiation resistant paint that blocks harmful radiation mixed with photoreceptors and nano-diodes. The photoreceptors turn the surface of the dome into a giant eye and the nano-diodes work to display the image that is 'seen' by the receptors. "

"So it's a fake sky. It's a giant view-screen?" Mac commented. "What a let down, I was hoping for, I dunno, transparent aluminum?"

"All right, all right." Sarge said, interrupting the conversation. "We're coming up on the lab now."

Portman looked at the building that they were pulling up next to. It was a gleaming white and spotless in appearance. Groups of technicians in grey overalls worked under the supervision of a man and woman in white lab coats. A worker directed a powered suit as it loaded an automated trolley with what seemed like crates of complex and heavy mechanical tools. The male scientist looked on in apathy as the eight armed men jumped out of the black transport and rushed into the lobby of the UAC building.

As the marines entered the building a crowd of UAC employees jostled past them, giving the armed men as wide a berth as possible while still hurrying out of the building. Portman frowned as they went by. The men and women were dressed in clean suits and seemed like they hadn't been in the sun in years. They were pale and seemed unusually out of shape to the practiced eye of the marine.

The group was met by an SSF officer (Special Security Force) who conferred with Sarge briefly before handing over a key-card. The group entered an open elevator with Sarge standing next to the controls. He swiped the card through a reader and John watched as his squad leader placed the key-card in a side pocket on his vest.

The two men's eyes met briefly as the doors closed.

"So what's the deal with the evacuation? I thought all the shit was going down at Olduvai?" Portman asked. Goat, who was standing next to him answered his question. "Protocol states that during a Level Five Security Threat all nonessential personnel in the line of danger are to be evacuated." He grinned thinly, "It's to limit liability and potential litigation against the company." As an afterthought he added. "It saves lives too."

As they spoke the elevator carriage moved down the shaft on three electromagnetic rails. Unknown to the passengers inside, after passing beyond a certain level an iris of trinium-coated steel shutters closed above the descending elevator.

Inside the elevator, Sarge grunted. "UAC doesn't want us tripping over a bunch of civvies while we do our jobs cleaning up after another one of their goddamn messes."

His eyes glanced at the scrolling numbers on the floor indicator. "Okay people! We're almost there." He said, and as the doors slowly opened he tapped a knuckle against the side of his helmet. Grimly he intoned. "Pray for war."

As one, the men with him repeated the gesture and responded ritualistically. "Pray for war!"

The room that they entered was a large underground lobby with grey walls and a ceiling that glowed with a soft white light. To one side was an empty security station and in the center of the room was viscous liquid statue of a man and a woman, standing together dressed in lab coats. John watched the ripples slowly moving across the surface of the glass-like statue while Mac read off the holographic lettering floating above their heads.

It said: The Louis and Mary Grimm Memorial Research Laboratory, United Aerospace Corporation.

Goat looked around, "Grimm Labs huh?" He said.

John's lips twisted mirthlessly. "Back in the day we used to just call it The Hole."

John's eyes lingered over the statues which filled with color and transformed into a retouched, idealized copy of his parents in life.

The Holographic message changes, the message now says: For their indispensable study into the origin of our beings, as well as their warm, caring hearts.

Goat stood beside Reaper as he spoke, his eyes tried to surreptitiously to peer up Mary Grimm's skirt "Good likeness?"

Grimm stared for a moment longer before walking away. "…yeah…"

The facility that they were in consisted of several long, identical tunnels that were constructed from walls made of a grey crystalline substance. Support arches located at five meter intervals lighted the passageways with a soft white glow. The tunnels branched off in different directions with the occasional cryptic sign indicating the location of some far off laboratories and other research areas.

On their way deeper into the facility the squad met up with another SSF officer heading the other way. This woman wore the markings of a sergeant.

"The Ark is being prepped for your transport." She said.

"Any more transmissions from Olduvai?" Sarge asked.

The officer shook her head. "No, Carmack's lab's been quiet, general population is okay, nervous but okay."

They turned down an antiseptic-looking corridor that looked cleaner than the rest.

As they walked Sarge asked. "How many are in here all together?"

The other officer answered briskly, "Fifty-four, not including the five scientists trapped in Carmack's classified lab."

The sergeant led them to what seemed like a dead end. At the top of the wall was a plaque.

It read: The ARK

John broke in and Sarge looked unhappy with the interruption. "Do you have a list of the personnel in that lab?" He queried.

The sergeant shook his head as he entered a twelve digit code and stood still as a biometric scanner panned over his body.

"Not here." He said. "The security team on Olduvai'll have it."

As the security officer said that, the mechanism in the wall finished scanning him and then there was a red flash from the wall followed by a blue one. The wall under the plaque seemed to shift ad ripple. Mac instantly recognized what it was and groaned.

"Oh, no, no, I don't do nano-walls!"

Portman frowned. "How can you not do nano-walls? That's like saying I don't do food."

A nano-wall is a barrier constructed from a force field of variable permeability and a sheet of trinium nano-particles. When the force field was in closed mode, the nano-particles fused to become impervious to any attempt at penetration short of detonating a Mark six gate buster enhanced nuke right next to it. When in open mode, the force field allowed the passage of objects above a certain minimum mass while the invasive nano-particles were used to filter out or deactivate any contaminants, or hidden recording devices and transmitters. It was a standard feature in the sensitive areas of most classified facilities including Camp Sparta.

Mac shrugged. "I do food, I don't do nano-food, and I definitely don't do nano-walls. It feels like getting a cavity search from a hairy gorilla."

Sarge grunted and planted his boot in Mack's backside, pushing the smaller man through before glaring at the rest of the squad before following. The Security officer watched without comment.

Kid hesitated. "Umm…"

Duke elbowed him, "C'mon, it's probably as close as you'll ever come to getting some…without paying." He walked through laughing.

The kid sucked at his teeth before taking the wall at a run. The others followed at a more sedate pace.

As the squad crossed the barrier, they were greeted by a technician dressed in a white lab coat over a Hawaiian shirt and a pair of shorts. It was probably meant to accentuate his legs.

His stick-thin robotic legs…

"Good morning gentlemen, welcome to the Ark, my name is…"

Mac stared. "Damn, you're ugly." He blurted out bluntly and a little too loud.

Goat took a look, then nodded sagely. "Fugly." He added.

Destroyer sighed behind them as Sarge twitched in irritation.

The technician, who had been about to greet them paused with narrowed eyes. What could have been anger flashed across his face. John kept his face carefully expressionless.

"To be fair." He thought. "The guy was fucking hideous."

And it was the truth, the technician looked like a first year art student had sculpted his head and face out of silly putty with a mallet and ball-peen hammer using only the most basic understanding of normal human anatomy. His skull was lumpy, his face was splotchy, his hair was patchy, one of his ears seemed to be melted into the side of his head and his teeth seemed unable to all fit in his mouth.

That was just the beginning of what seemed wrong with him.

Given the state of modern cosmetic surgery, none of these disfigurements were beyond correction and even with the restrictions placed on cloning by the Federation, regenerating a pair of working organic limbs would have been a better solution to such obviously mechanical prosthetic legs.

Considering these facts and his sensitive position in UAC, it seemed that the man deliberately presented himself in a manner intended to make others uncomfortable.

Poor sod had probably never met people as 'honest' as Mac and Goat.

xx

Mars, Grimm Labs, Olduvai Beta Location, Ark.

Eventually after a brief but intensely uncomfortable silence the technician finally continued his introduction.

My name is Marcus Pinzerowski, he said unenthusiastically, "People call me Pinky, I work here."

He turned around and led them into the lab. "Follow me please."

Goat mouthed behind him, "Pinky?"

Pinky anxiously gestured to them to follow him to the base of a large platform surrounded by a blue force field.

Mac huffed then spoke. "We the first guys without a graduate degree to see this thing?"

Destroyer muttered in a low voice. "Ever notice how diverse things get when shit hits the fan."

On a console a few meters away from the platform, Pinky typed in a set of co-ordinates followed by some additional data into a computer terminal.

"Actually yes," He said. "We've transported thousands of people, scientists, technicians, construction teams, janitors…"

Portman gestured to a holographic plaque to the side of the platform. It was headed by the words, "In Loving Memory of…" and followed by a score of names.

Pinky seemed amused. "Ah" He said. "That's the honor roll of folks who didn't make it through intact, but that was before we perfected the structure of the containment field's subspace manifold. The rate of failure is now less than 0.00001 percent for short range travel, good enough to use but still too high to take out of the labs."

Saying that seemed to remind Pinky an important detail. "Oh and by the way, keep your safeties on when you go in there, the designs still a little tetchy, weapons fire would probably cause an explosion…" He looked at them nervously "A, er, big explosion."

Turning back to the terminal, Pinky pulled a lever which caused the shielded platform to begin to emit a low, thrumming hum. As those assembled watched, a spot of blue light appeared two meters above the platform. The humming rose in pitch as the dot of light quickly expanded before exploding in a flash and the hum faded. The force field flickered blue before switching off automatically. When it did so all that was left on the platform was a silvery-blue spheroid the size of a basket ball that hovered where the dot of light had been.

The squad looked on in interest as the surface of the sphere rippled oddly and seemed to turn itself inside out.

"What is it?" Kid asked in awe.

Pinky answered the question happily as though eager to be explaining things to someone, "What you're looking at is the refraction of light through the stabilized event horizon of a quantum tunnel leading to Olduvai Alpha location through a multi-dimensional region."

Personally, John thought that the man was just taking advantage of the chance to show off how smart he was and stroke his ego. Given the veritable alphabet soup of doctorates that must have passed through these halls Reaper understood, even if it was slightly pathetic.

The man went on for a few minutes about how difficult it was to calibrate the subspace fields to interact with something or the other while Goat sidled up next to his squad-mate.

"De-geekify." The man said softly.

John sighed. "I think he's saying that it's a wormhole, like in a Stargate 'cept the thing doesn't take you as far, and doesn't work quite as well."

"It works just fine," Pinky broke in indignantly having overheard the marine. "Only different…"

"We done here?" Sarge asked impatiently as he strode up the platform's stairs.

"Y-yes," Pinky stuttered, startled. "Just touch it when you're ready to go and it should send you through to the other side, any questions?"

"I have a question!" Mac interrupted, still looking at the holographic plaque. "This thing says that you were severed in half…" He turned and looked at the wary scientist then he tapped his hips "Are we talking hip high or…" He tapped his thighs at a level just slightly below his crotch, "…Lower?"

The scientist's voice was devoid of emotion. "Hip high." Portman paled and Mac's response was immediate.

"Sarge!"

"Stow it!"

"But!"

"Stow It!"

"Why can't we just beam in by ship or use a normal site to site transporter or something?!" Mac whined as he walked up to the platform like a condemned man to the gallows.

Pinky seemed exasperated. "Like I said this device function's differently, The Alpha Location is code named Deep Ground because it's isolated five kilometers below the surface and under a two kilometer high mountain. That's way too much material to beam through and even if it wasn't there are mass transmission jammers installed on every floor of the base. This wormhole is the only way in or out!"

"I thought wormhole pairs couldn't be formed within a certain range of each other?" Reaper asked.

Pinky nodded as his mechanical, three toed feet clacked against the floor the synthetic calf muscles rippled in their transparent sheathes. "This was the result of our study of Atlantis' wormhole drive," He walked up to the platform "We weren't able to perfect the design to the level of safety that you'd expect from a stargate but it can do things that a stargate can't do."

Reaper shrugged and followed.

xx

Ark Matter Transmission Platform

The eight (and a half) men stood in a circle around the wormhole. Reaper, Goat, Destroyer and Sarge were calm, hiding any anxiety that they may have felt, Duke, Kid and Mac looked progressively more disconcerted in that order. Pinky just seemed impatient to get underway.

"Is there anything that we need to know before we get started?" Sarge asked the technician.

"Only that General Winters has ordered that Deep Gounds self-destruct timer be activated." The man answered. "Once we go through we'll have ten hours before a fuel-air bomb housed in the ceiling of the teleportation room detonates in synchrony with several other charges. The design is like that of an old engineering disaster that occurred in 1960's England." The technician said.

"The facility is designed like a giant, joined stone basin, buried underground and divided into floors. The pressure wave from the first bomb is designed to push the walls outward while the charges blow the joints in the individual floors. The whole thing should collapse like a house of cards…after the fire burns out the facility, anything remaining is crushed by sixteen thousand tons of concrete and rock."

"Ten hours, great." Mac said sarcastically.

"Just in time for the evening cartoons…." Goat added with false cheer as he shouldered his plasma rifle..

"I'll go in first to show you how it's done." Pinky suggested before Sarge interrupted.

"Sorry sir, but I think that it's best that the first person in had better be carrying one of these." At that Sarge hefted his Black-Wolfe MX-80 battle rifle, a weapon which, unlike Goat's plasma rifle did not fire single rounds of energized plasma like a shotgun. It instead married the rate of fire of an automatic machine gun with the destructive power of plasma weaponry in the form of small, tightly compacted, blue-white hot plasma toroids surrounding a titanium-coated neodymium kinetic energy penetrator.

Gripping the battle rifle's solid v-stock resolutely, the man stepped forward and touched the floating sphere. Reaper thought the man was an asshole, but he had balls. The spheroid bulged to encompass Sarge's body; then it contracted again in a flash of blue light. When their vision cleared, Sarge was gone.

Mac and Goat then shared a look; they balanced the idea of simply running away against the thought of Sarge coming after them, they shrugged and went through at the same time. Destroyer and Portman followed two heartbeats later. Finally Pinky entered with Reaper close behind.

A he stepped through Reaper murmured, "Pray for war."

Fateful words…

xx

T minus 09:59:58 Olduvai Alpha Location, Ark Matter Transmission Room, Deep Ground

Reaper stumbled as he came through the other end. "Definitely not like using a stargate." He thought. There had been no phantom sensation of moving past stars, no lingering frost upon exiting, just a twinkling flash of light, some persistent dizziness and the sensation that he had been grabbed by a hook somewhere behind his navel and dragged through to the other side.

He tried to stand still and get his bearings as he heard Pinky speak. "Dizziness and nausea are transitory, we know of no long-term ill effects." Was what the man said.

The room they were in was large with an odd dome-like bulge in the ceiling that Reaper grimly assumed was where the thermobaric weapon was being housed. There was a large vault-like door that was locked closed at the far end of the chamber. On the wall next to the door was a large display that gave information on the conditions within the facility. There were read-outs for changes in temperature, pressure, luminous intensity, ambient radiation and the presence of chemical and biological contaminants.

Sarge was studying the display intently. "The main facility appears to be uncontaminated." He commented.

Pinky stepped forward and he pulled out a keycard on a chain around his neck. "I'll be here when you're ready to go back." He said to Sarge as the man pulled out the keycard in his vest. Together he and pinky pressed the cards into the reader. Moments later there was a deep thrum and a series of loud clicks as the massive bolts in the hydraulic lock slid free and the vault door slowly opened.

Kid aimed his MG-88 Enforcer out the slowly opening entrance from behind the cover of a console. Destroyer Goat and Mac were also in position. As the opening widened, sunlight spilled through and the marine's gazes sharpened as they heard a sound.

xx

Deep Ground General Plaza T minus 09:56:34

Ave Maria
Gratia plena
Dominus tecum
Benedicta tu in mulieribus
Et benedictus fructus ventris
Tui, Jesus
Sancta Maria
Mater Dei
Ora pro nobis peccatoribus
Nunc et in hora mortis nostrae
Amen.

It was a large area about three floors deep, the ceiling and walls glowed with a soft white, inner light. The stairs, pillars and corridors branching from the room were all clean and the area was brightly lit by additional standing lamps. The brightness and temperature reminded one of a bright summer day and the potted plants growing in the area looked healthy. Soft music played in the background, accompanying a woman's voice singing in Latin.

"What is this place?" Portman asked.

It looked like a high-class hotel lobby.

"A couple 'a million light years from home..." Goat commented.

Destroyer rubbed a leaf from a potted plant between his fingers and realized from the texture that it was z fake. "And a couple kilometers below ground…" The man added.

The lower area was filled with milling scientists buzzing in conversation. There were security guards both moving in the crowd and in guard positions on the upper walkways. The squad could feel the multitude of eyes that began watching them as they descended toward the crowd. Reaper noticed Kid's ears turn pink, bashful under the scrutiny. Goat and Mac scanned the crowd for threats automatically, meeting curious and hostile gazes alike, unabashedly. The employees looked agitated and a few had been arguing quietly with a senior Security Forces officer standing at the bottom of the steps with three armed guards behind him.

John could hear them from the landing.

A wiry male scientist with thinning, ash-blond hair and pale lips was anxiously demanding answers. "What's going on?" He said. "Has there been an accident in Dr. Carmack's lab?"

A female scientist with short brown hair cut in a bob elbowed the man aside, her eyes were locked on Sarge, her next words were addressed to the marine coming down the stairs. "Have we been exposed to some contagion, I have a newborn, I…"

The security forces officer interrupted the woman, and earned a scalding hot glare for his trouble, his ID patch stated his name was Hueng W. Kim. "That's what their here to find out. Dr. Kavanaugh, Dr. Willits, excuse me…" The man turned to Sarge and extended his hand in welcome. "Lt. Heueng, Olduvai Security, Dr. Carmack locked down his lab at 03:37 this morning." The man motioned for them to follow him through the crowd.

The collected personnel watched nervously as the armed marines walked by, Destroyer and Sarge towered over the crowd.

Lt. Heung continued the impromptu briefing. "After the initial transmission, we tried reaching him on the internal com system and using the optical crystal data bands but we were unable to receive a response."

"Do you have security cameras in there? Is there any type of monitoring or listening device?" Sarge questioned the man, all business.

The man shook his head. "Nothing that can be observed from the outside..." He answered. "Carmack's lab was designated a classified area by General Winters, we're here to keep people out, not watch what goes on inside there."

"My orders from General Winters are to assist you in any way possible." The man continued.

"I want all non-essential personnel secured in the Residential Zone and out of our way." Sarge requested.

Heung nodded. "Will do, you should know that some of the civilians have requested passage back through the wormhole." The officer informed the man walking beside him.

John searched the faces of the people in the crowd around him, looking for one face in particular. "Sam…"

Sarge was still speaking ahead of him. "No, I recommend that we keep everything locked down until we know just what we're dealing with."

John took advantage of a lull in the conversation to ask a question of the Lieutenant. "Do you have a list of the scientists that were trapped in Carmack's lab?"

The Security Forces officer glanced at him and motioned to a female officer walking within hearing range. She dutifully typed in some commands into a small device, a hand-held computer wrapped around the back of her fist. Then she removed and handed over the flexible, detachable plastic display to Reaper. On it was a list of names with a glowing scroll tab on the bottom of the screen.

John held the six by four inch display as he looked at the list.

"Look for me on the next page… the names are listed in alphabetical order." A woman's voice said from behind him.

John started at the voice and turned around, under Goat's appreciative gaze was a petite blonde. She looked at John with an unreadable expression.

"Hey…" John muttered lamely, Portman had joined Goat in watching the two.

Samantha Grimm huffed in annoyance, part real and partly faked. "Hey…that's it? You ninny! We haven't spoken in years John.. The least you could do is least say that you missed me!"

Mac murmured to Goat sotto voce. "Who's the blonde?"

The older marine answered in a stage-whisper, eyes lingering on the woman's figure, trying to imagine what she looked like under her slacks and lab-coat. "SILF"

Reaper's glare caused the two to back off quickly as Sam watched bemused.

Portman tried to smooth things over. "Pleased to meet you ma'am, I'm Corporal Dean Portman, who might you be?"

"This is my sister, Samantha." Reaper answered gruffly.

"It's nice to meet you." Destroyer said to her, almost bowing in respect.

Disgruntled at the distraction Sarge interrupted the reunion between John and Sam just as Kid opened his mouth to greet the pretty blonde scientist. "Good to see you again Sam," The marine sergeant said with false cheer. "My how you've grown and all that crap."

Sam answered with a biting smile. "You too Tommy, steroids?"

Sarge looked irritated. "Free weights; and you can address me as 'Sergeant Kelly' now, Samantha."

Sam didn't bother smiling this time; she flicked her hair and gave Sarge a look of disdain. "And you can address me as 'Dr. Grimm' now, Sergeant."

Mac, the idiot, turned away from the heated conversation and uttered something that sounded suspiciously like, "Meow."

Sarge's lips twitched. "Right, I need you to go join the other scientists in the residential section." He said, gesturing to the scientists moving up the stairs and into the corridors on the second floor.

Sam shook her head coolly. "Actually no, I'll be going into the labs with you…"

"The hell you are!" Sarge barked out.

But Dr. Grimm had continued speaking, talking over him as if she hadn't heard his outburst, a tactic that John was painfully familiar with. "…to download as much of the research material as I can in case the facility has to be sealed or permanently evacuated."

Crisply, before Sarge could outline his objections, she overrode him, saying. "It's UAC procedure, and it's my job."

By that point in the conversation the group had exited the open lobby and walked around the bend of a downward sloping corridor. They now stood before a massive metal door with the words 'Classified Research' stenciled on it. Two Special Security Forces personnel were standing guard beside it.

Lt. Heung nodded to the guards and looked over at Sarge. "You ready?" He asked the heavily armed soldier beside him.

Sarge stood silently for a moment, watching as amber warning lights began flashing and triply-reinforced trinium alloy blast doors began to iris open. Hefting his rifle he strode forward glaring into the dim red tunnels that could be seen on the other side.

Grimly he intoned to his men and one bemused scientist. "Pray for War!"

The response to his words came to him a half-step later, "PRAY FOR WAR!"