ALIENS: APOCOLYPSE
Chapter 2
It seemed like hours of crouching, watching, and listening to every little sound that the trees had to offer. Each and every tree sway made my skin crawl. Made everyone restless.
"It's the daylight. Our studies mentioned they would rather fight at night," a thin medium skinned man whispered. I responded to San Diego with a nod and looked to the sunset. It was almost time. "Columbus! What can we see out there?" The less then impressive man peeked over the side of the largest of the rocks," Well Squad Leader...I see trees, a few rocks that help us none, and a lake that makes me want my fishing pole." I returned his smirk with a scowl. A few giggles came from the rest of the men, but that was to be expected from men. How did any of them make it past basic training was a mystery to myself. Hell, how any of us made it through Wilt should become a study for students in the future...If there was a future.
The pilot, Denver, broke in through the shortwave radio," It's about their playtime. I'm taking the bird up." The blades started to kick around. I watched the large copter creep into the sky,"Roger that. Give us warning if you can."
Not quite dark yet, Columbus yelled," Holy shit! There's something coming from the trees. Alot of little somethings!" I yelled the order to open fire. I had already placed the heavy machine gun up on top of the rock with Columbus. There were three mini-guns spread out through the small camp on the tree line side. The men had those three little bad boys singing. I looked out toward the trees. As the lines of bullets ran across the shadows we could see the facehuggers explode. "So many," is all Oakland could say. He held his gernade launcher firm, but his face was in fear and aw at the same time. I slapped his shoulder," Snap out of it. Time to kick some xeno ass." He looked back at me,"Hadley...Squad Leader...Today is not the day we die." Oakland possitioned himself beside the central Mini-gun and glued his eyes on the ground, watching for any facehuggers that might make it through.
The slaughter was short, but I could see the moral was high in my men. I even found myself smiling.
But the sound we heard next made everyone shoulder their weapon. A loud screech came from the woods. Then another and another, all from different ends. It was dark now. the ground matched the sky. The gun fire still had our eyes with little sense of different shades anymore. But you could hear the hiss. They where alreay on us. They had already made it behind us. Oakland released a gernade in the darkness, the explosion was fruitless. But it did shine enough light to see the black streaks darting at us.
I yelled to my men," Houstons, San Diego, Boston. Fire to toward the left side. Columbus, open up that heavy on the middle area. Cleveland, Boston, Memphis take the right side." I watched as the men got their barings. "Oakland and both Christi's, get flares in the open area between us and the tree line."
The red flares lit up the whole area. There were hundreds. Another San Diego, a Jackson, and myself found ourselves looking at the bunch stalking around behind us.
"Everyone else, spread even around our area...Open fire!," we all took aim and shot every shadow in eye site.
We keep them at bay from us for a good hour. Killing a few and wounding some. They did not seem to be as aggressive or as hard to kill as we where taught. But it did not seem as though they were looking to get to us either. Just circling. Testing. Were they measuring our defence?
"Denver, you copy?" He responded quickly," I'm betting you'd like some more light on the situation." With no more words spoken, he hit the helicopter lights. We had not even made a dent. "Off! Turn the lights off!" I yelled, but I could tell in the studder in the gun fire that the moral and hope of the men had already taken a hit from the sight. So did the beasts.
They charged at us two and three at a time from different directions. I could not believe the shear size of the xenomorphes. Even Wilt was dwarfed. Their long arms and legs made avoiding effortless on their part. The hiss you heard as one came upon you. The same hiss I heard from the one that stood infront of me. Standing at its full heigth. Almost boasting. I uppened up with my pulse rifle and cut it in half. It was only a distraction. Another lunged from behind a nearby rock. It's screech at full volume. The world slowed down around me. I could even see the individual sand particles in the air. The xeno's out stretched arms heading right at me. The little inner mouth ready to strike out.
Time restored itself as a small hail of bullet fire spit through the monster. It's blood splattered at my feet. I watched as the acid started to eat away at the very top of my boot,but then the chemicals kicked in. Turning white, the dangerous substance was nothing more then a glob now. "Way togo Weyland," I whispered under my breathe.
Screams came from my left. I peered over my shoulder to see the dark spear like tail protruding from Memphis' back. The look on his face was fear, but his last possible attempt to kill the beast was a sight. He grabbed his knife and stabbed the xeno in the head. Again and again. He even managed a punch, but then the acid took hold. The knife was fine, but the human skin was something the weapons company couldn't make resilient. Memphis did not even scream. But I was sure he was dead at this point. Boston put the beast down.
The sound of the pulse rifles ran in such a rythum in the small area. Empty shells raining all around. Gernades going off only a short distance away. The hissing from xenomorphes everywhere. Screeching and sounds of their tails scraping on the rocks made for a melody that only a soldier could love.
We keep a solid rotation to the middle of camp for ammo. I looked in the crate on my turn. They did not pack us enough for this trip. As the first of the home grown experiments, was this our swan song test for them to see what we could do?
Just as I closed my eyes and sighed...
A new sound came from the distance. Gun fire. Big gun fire. We could see the muzzle flashes. But what was it? Between spurts of fire we'd look at one another," Who the hell is dumb enough to come out here," asked San Diego. The lights kicked on the two Millenium Apaches. "The Marines!" Denver called over the short wave. The aliens seemed to know that the helicopters ment death. They started their retreat back to the woods. The ones that had made it behind us continued their attack and we resisted. The rate of fire was on tune now. Hope was back and we were going to live. Tonight. After our first encounter with our enemy.
