Wasteland
By Revolutionary Bakunin
Inside the bunker, four points of orange light slowly pulsed, tiny trickles of smoke escaping each point to disappear into the darkness around them. Behind each burning light stretched four inches of imitation tobacco wrapped in cheap paper that grew shorter by the second. The four people inside were completely quiet, preferring to let the silence speak for them. The silence, filled with the smell of blood, smoke, and burning flesh, was the only voice they needed to hear.
Private Jayson Edwin, a 22-year-old marine for the Terran Confederacy, reveled in this silence. He had forgotten how the air sounded, whipping past the open rectangles in the metal dome above his head. It was cool, but every now and then he felt a tendril of warm air lash through the frigid metal bunker, carrying the fumes of burnt, twisted metal and charred flesh. Even this he inhaled deeply, in his mind wondering whether it was flesh like his own, or the twisted purple and red skins of the hellish insects.
Suddenly a garbled voice echoed through the cavernous metal structure, and the dark figure next to him stirred into motion.
"Corporal Mendez here. Over." Breathed the dark figure, his hand grasping a small radio transceiver.
It was a few seconds before the garbled voice returned.
"What is the status of your unit, Corporal?" The voice said flatly, all humanity drained from it by the crackling speaker.
"Four men, sir. Holed up in a bunker in sector 3, awaiting retrieval. Over." Said the figure, his voice steady, yet anxious. This was the first word from command the unit had heard in three days.
"Four?" The speaker resounded with disbelief. "Corporal, your unit left with 16 men in its ranks. What the hell happened?"
There was a long silence in the bunker before the man next to Jayson spoke.
"Zerg. What the fuck else would happen? Fucking ZERG..... Over."
At this the two other men in the bunker chuckled, the orange lights at the end of their cigars bobbing up and down in little zig-zag patterns.
"Stow the attitude, Corporal. We need your unit to move out. Four clicks east of your position is a med squad cornered in a canyon. Reporting heavy casualties, and heavy Zerg movement. Rendezvous and pull the squad out."
"With all due respect," Mendez snapped, "Four of us can't take that. What are we supposed to do? Teleport em' to safety?"
"If that's the way you wanna' handle it, then do it. Just get the hell over there. You are the only men in there that actually have weapons on you, Corporal, and those medics are about to get liquefied. Understand? So get your lazy piece a' shit ass over there now." The speaker gave one last crackle, and then went silent.
Mendez lowered the transceiver, and took a long drag on his cigar.
"Well, boys. Looks like were all gonna' die a lot sooner than expected."
The two other men laughed, and in the dark bunker Jayson heard the clinking of metal, the thud of feet, and the snapping of ammunition being placed in the rifles.
He lifted his own 8mm Impaler off his lap, snapped the safety off, and stood. After one last drag on the cigar, he tossed it to the floor of the bunker, and stomped it out.
"Wouldn't wanna' start a fire now, would we?" He said quietly, and the other men laughed lightly. It was a cold, empty laugh; one coming from men who know it might be their last.
A loud groan echoed through the bunker as the thick metal hatch swung open, and the four men filed out into the smoky darkness. It was nighttime, but the thick banks of smoke wafting through the canyon obscured the stars in the sky. All around them lay bodies, all bloody and torn and thrown askew. The smell of blood was so thick in the air that Jayson tried to hold his breath. But after realizing his breathe was the only thing differentiating him from the piles of disemboweled corpses around him, he gave up and resigned himself to the stench.
The four men marched side by side for nearly an hour over the grassy terrain. They had left the battlefield behind, and the smoke banks, burning machinery, and dead bodies had gave way to trees, rocks, and grassy knolls. Over all this they stalked wearily through the darkness, rifles raised and eyes darting.
"So..." Sighed Private Reeves, the youngest of the men between them. "Command said there was heavy activity. Where?"
"Zerg burrow." Reynolds, the fourth marine, stated matter-of-factly, even though he knew Reeves already knew that.
"We oughta' have shovels with us then..."
Mendez turned around and gave the two a dark look.
"Shut it."
For the next half hour they proceeded in complete silence, accompanied only by the crunching of gravel beneath their heavy boots. They had risen onto a small plateau, virtually void of vegetation, and life in general. It was not unlike most of the terrain in this region of Asiatica, a outlying planet in a system not far from their home system. The planet was supposedly rich in vespene, something Confederate scientists attributed to its strange mountainous topography, which allowed for many geysers to form in the cracked surface. The Confederates had began colonies here long before the Zerg infestation, and at first it seemed the Zerg were totally unaware of the planet.
However, just a few weeks past, the first herds of Zerg appeared, and before the Confederates could throw together any semblance of defense, the invasion had begun. Mining colonies were leveled all across the planet in a matter of hours, until all that remained was the more heavily occupied processing facilities. That was where Jayson, Mendez, and the rest of their unit had been stationed. Olivander 4, a processing facility in the southern hemisphere of Asiatica.
When the swarms finally came, the facility was abandoned, and the workers evacuated onto drop ships as fast as possible. Jaysons unit, having been told reinforcements were on the way, stood ground inside the facility, holding off the Zerg onslaught for as long as they could. Eventually, though, the tides of bloodthirsty creatures had overrun the complex, and the unit had retreated into the hills, where they had moved undetected. Luckily, they had located the remnants of an old mining base, with enough supplies and cigars to keep them from turning to cannibalism. They had set up camp there, only to have it ambushed by Zerg a couple days later. That was how those four had ended up in that bunker, alone, with nothing but a few cigars and their own guns. Miraculously, they were able hold off the remaining Zerg from within the bunker, and almost give them hope of making it out alive.
That is, until they were sent on this death march.
"Right over this ridge..." Mendez motioned, snapping Jayson out of his moment of reflection. He peered ahead into the darkness to see that the plateau came to an abrupt end, slanting down the valley below at a very steep angle. As the four approached the edge, more and more of the valley came into view, until they could see all the way down to where the sloping sides of the plateau became the valley floor.
"Not a vermin in site..." Reeves said, kicked a rock over the edge. It ricocheted down the side of the hill, gathering more rocks with it until it became a cascade of broken stones raining down the hillside.
"What the fuck!"
The words did not come from any of the four men standing at the top. They all spun to their left, rifles aimed, fingers twitching above triggers.
"Put 'em down, boys. Were humans too..." Said the voice, a lilting, high-pitched tone that could only belong to a woman. She emerged from the shadows, climbing over a ledge just feet from where the four stood. Five other bodies climbed over right behind her, all wearing the white and red colors of a med squad.
"So you're the ones we've been looking for..." Mendez said, lowering his rifle. "I'm Corporal Mendez, of the 2nd unit of the Olivander 4 Facility Militia."
The woman looked them up and down one by one, before resting her gaze back on Mendez.
"That's quite the militia you've got there. Are there more men hiding behind you four, or what?"
Mendez eyed the group of white-clad medics behind the woman.
"I could say the same to you."
She gave him a light smirk, and turned to the figures behind her.
"Well, we might as well introduce ourselves. I'm Sergeant Melanie Donahue of the 4th medical brigade of Asiatica. These are Privates Johnson, Decambeau, Haunstein, Genson, and Riviera. Were all that's left of the 4th."
The five men behind her all stood and saluted as she said their names. That's when Jayson finally got a good look at them. Each of them had bloodstains all over their normally white armor; they were covered in dust, dirt, mud, and what looked like oil...
"Well then," Mendez sighed after a few moments of silence. "Mission accomplished, I guess. Command had has believe this place was crawling with Zerg. I guess not though."
The snorts of disbelief from the group of medics made the four marines look at each other in confusion.
"This place IS fucking crawling. But they are all down in the valley for now." One of the medics, Private Decambeau, motioned down the slope at the gravely bottom. "They all burrowed in. I guess they heard you coming, and wanted to lay and ambush."
"But it didn't work, obviously. We ran like hell the moment they went under." Chimed in Genson, as he picked at a spot of dried blood on his left hand.
Mendez took a moment to gaze down at the valley before responding, and Reeves took the opportunity to cut in.
"So then why the hell are we just standing here? I bet everything I own the 9 of us couldn't take whatever shit is laying down there waiting for us. Why don't we get the hell outa' here?"
Mendez whirled around to face him.
"Private, do you think –"
"- There's nowhere to go." Melanie interrupted before Mendez could finish. "Command had the entire planet deemed lost. Zerg are everywhere."
This left the entire group standing in silence, the darkness swirling around them suddenly becoming more ominous.
"So... Were alone on a planet overrun by Zerg? With nothing? No base, no buildings, no way of getting off?" Asked Reynolds, his free fist clenched at his side.
"Well shit," Melanie said, pointing down the slope, "We had an SCV with us. But the vehicle is down there."
Mendez gave one look around the circle of people, and they all knew what was going to have to be done. Reeves took one peek over the edge and looked back at the group.
"At least its downhill."