War on Xen
A small cave
bursts into a ball of fire as the grenade explodes. Bodies of alien slaves
found their way back to the alien soil, smoking. Nick Bradbury couldn't hear
anything else besides the screams and gunfire; it was a war that they weren't
ready for. The alien world of Xen was new to all the grunts, and frighten the
shit of them. It's only been a couple of hours since the hundreds of us landed
here, the first sites of this place was a shock to all of us, but after a while
it feels like we have lived here our whole lives. I don't know how we got here,
we were just thrown into trucks, tanks, and planes and somehow teleported over
here. Many were dead, but most of the squads continued to fight the alien race
with force and where holding their own against them. Explosions reached up in
to the dark blue extraterrestrial sky, two F/A-18 hornet fighters flew over
ahead, dropping bombs, destroying terrain and alien life. My squad was ahead of
me; we were on a flat plane, getting ready to enter a cave. Getting ready to
wage the war on xen.
Nick gripped the M4A1 assault rifle with
M302 under barrel grenade launcher; he slipped his trigger finger through the
lope of the trigger. Everything was calm around them no active was stirring. Nick
stayed down behind a large brownish gray rock. He looked over the side of the
rock and saw nothing; the squad leader signaled the rest of the squad to enter
the opening of the cave. Nick got up from his position and joined the other
running men. They stepped into the opening of the cavern, seeing no signs of
life. It was strangely lighted; its colors were the same browns as the rest of
the caves. The right side wall scatters inward as a blue gargantuan tears
through it. Its pincher like hands open up, shooting flames all around. The two
closest grunts, Sam and Nell, are hit with a blaze of flames. Their bodies
ignited, and collapsed to the ground, still burning. Nick run out the cave, "
gargantuan, call for air support!" Nick
ran and jumped behind the same rock he was at before. He lays his back on the
cold stone and watches as an f/a-18 soars above him. It sends two smoking
missiles through the odd sky and into the chest of the giant beast. The six
other grunts let out yells of joy as the horrid beast explodes, " in to the
cave!" the squad leader screams over the sound of everything. Nick stayed calm,
just cracking a smile of joy as he got up from his hiding place. An alien slave
materializes behind of nick; he trips himself and turns onto his back. The brown
alien slave beings to charge up a plasma blast. Green energy gathers at the
alien's palms, Nick takes aim with his rifle. Nick lets a burst of three rounds
smack the alien in its red eye; it crumples up and falls to the ground. Another
grunt from Nick's unit comes over to check him over. " You ok?" "Yeah nothing I
can't handle." Nick replies. The cave was cold, and had a musty smell to it.
Nick looked above towards the ceiling, looking at the small tunnels that lined
the inters of the large cave." Sir, it's almost looks like they acting in the
same manner as some insects? Like ants almost?" " what the hell are you talking about nick? Asks Jackson, the
heavy gunner for the unit. Nick's buddy from high school walked pass him,
patting him on the shoulder. "You know what they say the smart ones always die
first." " Hey lets see if I save any of
your butts from some alien's ass hole after it shits you out." " I think we pissed him off." Chuckles
Jackson. The squad reaches the end of the tunnel; they walk out on to a large
open plane filled with rocks and some smaller caves. Two large yellow aliens climbed up the side of a small ridge.
Their heads were fat, looking like the bottom end of a bowling pin. Their heads made up most of their bodies. They had three long,
thin legs, ending at a point. The last feature that nick could see was the four
sticks that jutted out from the sides of its head; all had black dots at the
end of them. Nick realized that they were its eyes, so making it able to see
360 degrees, meaning nothing gets pass them. Sgt.Nicals, standing next to nick, cocked his
spas 12 shotgun, getting ready to attack. Nick knelled down and lifted his
rifle to his eye, targeting the kingpin's large head. " Lets go, assholes and
elbows ladies, get it into gear. Flank them from the left and right. Take them
down!" As the squad leader's words enter nick's ears his finger pulls the
trigger. Gunfire erupts all around; the two kingpins began to charge at the
unit of trained marines. One of the kingpin's legs breaks off, and it crashes
to the ground. The other one gets close, but the barrage of bullets pushes it
back. That one falls to the heavy rounds, letting out a buzzing cry of pain as
it falls to the soil below it. The group looks over the dead bodies. " Too
easy." Says Cpl. John holler. Nick gives it a quick boot to the head, making
sure its dead. " Ok, ladies are mission is to clear out the underground river
passage way. We will meet up with squad
D and from there are mission remains the same.
Are you green? Are mean? Are you marines? Move out!" the squad runs fill
force towards a large tunnel with a slope leading down to the lower parts of
xen. Once in the tunnel the humidity dropped in was replaced by cool moist
air." We must be nearing the river that flows through here." The sound of
rushing water grows louder as they near the end of the tunnel. The grunts reach the end walking towards the
opening of the cave; a lone hound eye leaps out at them. Private. Teners lets
loose with his M4A1, a stream of 5.56mm rounds tears through its eye filled
face, spraying a lime colored blood against the inters of the tunnel. " Nothing
to it." Says Teners with confidence. The grunts walk out of the passageway and
walk into a large open area, a pond of grayish brown water laid to the right of
them. A piece of land floated in the middle of the small pool of water. Nick
looked off to the left and saw the small river flowing down into the lake. "
That's our target, we have to wipe whatever crawls around in this under ground water
way. "Look alive soldiers!" Sgt. Nicals yells. The grunts jump into the waist
deep water and being their way towards the end of this mess.
The trained marines continue to walk down
the small steam, coming across several hostile aliens on their way to meet with
squad D. The river stopped and become
solid land once again. Four other marines were standing around, blood stained
and battered. "Report status." Sgt.Nicals asks the other Sergeant. " Our unit has had many casualties and we
are running low on ammo. We have cleaned out all remaining aliens and are
heading to the surface to finish the job." The radio exploded with screaming
and yelling. " Alien reinforcements have just come in, units A and C have
been decimated. We are being tore to pieces, it seems that these ones are a new
race of some sort. They are nothing like what we have seen. All clean up units report to surface level!"
"Lets get a move." The sergeant of
squad D commands his troops. " Saddle
up ladies." Sgt. Nicals tells us. The two squads make their way up to the upper
parts of Xen, reaching the point where squad B and E radioed early. The only
thing Nick saw was the tens of tens of bodies scattered across the open wide
plane. Limbs that have been ripped from the body, found ten feet away. It was
horrible, the ground was no longer brown and green it was a vivid red. Four
tall ill gray aliens stood observing their damages, they were also holding blue
rifles type weapons in their hands. The squads stayed lowed in the cave, watching
the creatures quietly. Three more beamed in, " they look like advanced guards
of some sort. It seems that the high commander of this place has sent in the
last resorts for this place." Said Sgt.Nicals in a stern voice. " Call for air support. A couple of bombs
should do it. Then once they are out of the way, we see if any of the squads
had anything of use." In minutes the silhouette of the hornet could be seen.
Four bombs flipped through the air and busted into flames as they hit the
ground. The gray aliens bodies stayed upright as the bombs hit, but soon their
bodies bubbled under the heat of it all. With loud pops they exploded, the two
units waited for the surface to cool before they went out. The ground smoked
and turned as the grunts walked over the charred surface, heading towards B
squad's supply box that was behind a couple of rocks. Luckily, it survived the
bombard of napalm. Inside the box were some clips for the M4A1s and a couple of
rifles. The group D took most of the equipment from the steel supply box since
they were the ones running low on ammo. Nick heard the sound of the hornet
coming back their way. He turned and gazes behind him, the silver jet comes
into view not that far from their position. As it came over a small hill Nick
could see something trailing it. A blue disk shaped air crafted was behind the
hornet. The two flew over the group of
men, a beam of orange shots from the bottom of the unknown thing. The beam
strikes the back of the jet; the hornet tips upward and then blows up into an
array of silver, orange, and red. The alien craft makes another pass and drops
out three alien grunts from its bottom. The tired soldiers get ready for
another battle, squad D heads down farther in the cave for safety, not risking
another fight. Nick pulls off a 40mm
grenade and slips it into the under barrel m203 launcher with a plunk sound. He
lifts the heavy rifle up, and lets the grenade soar through the air. The small
grenade connects with the stomach of an alien grunt sending it raining down to
the ground in pieces. The other men engage the two remaining alien soldiers,
Sgt. Nicals not concerned with his own well being runs right at one getting
dangerously close. The alien grunt picks up its arm and beings to fire several
buzzing alien hornets. They attack, and dig into his skin. Nicals aims and
pulls the trigger, severing the alien grunts arm from its elbow. It howls out
in pain, and punches the sergeant with its other hand. Sgt. Nicals helmet
crumples under the pressure of the blow, pieces of metal found their way into
his brain, killing him. Cpl. Holler pulls the pin of a hand grenade and lets it
roll next to the alien grunt. The huge beast's legs disappear as the grenade
explodes. Its torso hits the ground with a wet thud; screams and the echoing of
gunfire shot out from the mouth of the cave.
"Squad D" was the only words that entered his mind. Nick rushed down into the cave to see the
four dead bodies that once made up squad D.
Three small child sized aliens tore and ripped at the remains of the
men. Their hands were just long single claws, and their faces were round and
flat at the end. The closest one lets out a yelp and leaped at the presences of
Nick. He let the 5.56 rounds do their job, tearing chucks off from the aliens'
weird faces. Nick emptied the clip into their dead bodies in anger, pissed at
himself that he left a wounded squad behind with no help. Nick went back up to
the surface area and told the rest of squad about what happened. Now they were
alone, with no one to lead them on a planet that they have never heard of.
The five highly trained soldiers regroup
their thoughts and try to get it together. " Shit, what do we do now?" asks
Jackson. " We just have to stay calm and we can get through this shit with out
Sgt. Nicals. I say we just stay with our orders and when that is done we radio
for pick up." Nick tells the nervous men.
"It doesn't seem like there are many units left on here. If you assholes
would listen and shut up, maybe I could hear what is going on." Cpl. Holler
orders. " Just like I said, no gun firing, no bombs, no cannon fire. It seems
that we may be alone on this little hiking trip. Ok, we make our way back
towards the landing site, see if we can build up a camp of some kind and stay
there for awhile." The men got up from
the cold alien ground and begin to move back down the path they came. Walking over the dead bodies of the former
squad D. They make their way back to the surface area where the large cave
laid. A screech comes from out of nowhere; the men turn to see four alien
controllers fly up into the sky. Some
open fired, some run, and then they all run as the golden electrical balls of
energy flew down at them. Nick not going to be scared by some aliens stays and
fights. He takes down one, with it crashing to the ground in front of him.
Shells bounce and jump as they hit the ground at a fast rate. The M4A1's weight
decreases as Nick dumps more rounds into the giant flat heads of the alien
controllers. Nick's gun empties and he ejects the used clip, and slips in a
fresh one. Nick pulls a pineapple grenade off his belt and pulls the pin; it
rolls it across the ground and runs back towards his unit. The grenade explodes
taking down another controller; Nick runs full speed, seeing his squad just
some ways ahead of him. His foot misses flat land, and nick falls into a hole
of some type. His fall is broken by something, Nick gets up and turns on his
night vision goggles, he scans around the dark room, seeing the three alien
slaves staring back at him. Nick fumbles to grab his rifle, not taking his eyes
off of the alien slaves. His hand falls over the plastic part of the weapon, he
lifts it up and lets a storm of bullets do his talking. The gun jams in mid firing, the last alien
slave goes after Nick full force. Its claws tear through his right thigh,
spilling warm blood over his leg. Nick goes down in pain, gripping his wounded
leg. From above an alien controller drops down, it lets off its little
screeches as it nears him. " If I am going to die, then I'm not letting you two
live either. If there is anything I know it is to always eliminate your enemies
even if you are on death's door step." Nick's hand pulled up the small hand
grenade, " are you ready?" The words roll off his lips and out his gas mask. He
let the grenade drop to the ground; it bounces up with a metal tink. Nick
watches it as it spins in front of his eye. The explosion came over Nick's body
with a warmth that he had never felt before in his life. His thoughts deceased
and he embraced death.
