ALIENS: APOCOLYPSE

Chapter 3

Eyes burning from sweat. The heat had all three of the pilots that the Millenium Apache required to manage the controls. His two grunts always on point. Just like any good Marine.

"Major. The suns up. Are we landing or returning to the ship?" This grunt controlled the left gun, Johnson was his name. By the book on everything. I looked at the area. Littered with acid burnt spots. Like small craters. All that destruction circled a small group of soldiers.

"We might as well land and welcome the garden gnomes," we did not like the idea of having to trust some lab experiments to help protect our hides, as well as take the world back from the xenos.

A younger woman approached me. I quickly decided that this was their Squad Leader. She had a firm hand shake for a woman. "Welcome to our humble abode sir. I'm Squad Leader Hadley. Whom may we have the pleasure of meeting?" I took a stern look at the bunch of them,"Major Howard Trip or the United States Marines. The men coming from the chopper are grunts Johnson and Blake." I watched as the other Apache was unloading the pilots. "And those fine gentalman are Second Lieutenant Stephen Stevens, Sergent Jack Lewis, and Lance Corporal Romaro Marteen. The finest gun ship pilots the world has left to offer."

"Too bad we were the bottom of the barrel pilots before the world went to shit," Romaro made his way through the new soldiers with hand shakes and playful hugs. "Except this crazy bastard," pointing right at me. "So much for our professional appearance," I said giving him a look.

Hadley stood firm,"Major Trip, sir. I believe we are due a briefing of our current situation and as well as future plans for this war. My men should have a tent up in the hour. I would offer you drinks, but a nade drink them first." She seemed sound. Had some hummor in her. But why the only female. Labs did not make mistakes, so who was she. Normal? Grown in a lab? Something seemed so right about her, that it had to be wrong. "Sounds like a plan Squad Leader. I'll gather my intel from the Apache and have my men ready to..."

A loud roar came from deep in the woods. It was day light, no xeno vintured out in the day time. It couldn't be a natural animal of the area, they'd been killed off a long time ago. It came again. The ground started to shake. You could hear load crackling sounds, like trees being splintered by something big...Very big.

"Men, to your positions, no rear guard this time," Hadley ordered her men. They were quick at it. But the look they had when they checked their mags sent a chill up my spine. But not near as bad as the beast they crashed from the tree line. A rhino, a xeno-rhino. Head was long and wide. Pretty close to the look of the aline queens, but with a large horn in the front. The body was a bit thinned out comparred to a normal rhino but the legs rivaled large trees. The power with ever step spelled death.

"No time to get in the air, Marines. Lets get dirty!" I figured we could not be out showed by the lab soldiers. Our gun were more advanced then the standard weapons the new soldiers possessed. But as we ran to get our guns, I watched has the beast charged two of Hadley's men. Bullets just seemed to bounce off the monster's head. The hit on the two was so brutal that the blood nearly covered everyone. Their guns even bent on impact.

"Help!" From my right. It was Blake and something on him. A cat? No it was another xeno, but it looked alot like a cheetah or a lion. It even seemed to have little bits of hair on its body. The head wasn't long like the others, seemed short and defformed. Eye sockets, with no eyes. Just looking at it seemed sinister. It took a chunk of Blakes shoulder before leaping to the other side of the chopper. I could hear it scream as Johnson mowed it down with his assualt rifle.

The rhino had done some serious damage to the soldiers and had them traapped ontop of the large rock. Hadley ordered her man to open fire with a large machine gun. No armor on the beast's back. No time to cheer as another crashed through from the trees. But we were ready now. Launching grenades we managed to mangle a leg and the Hadley's soldier finished it off. "Damn good job, Columbus," Hadley cheered.

I made my way around to help Johnson. A pack of the cat-like aliens were darting between the rocks trying to get a good opening to attack him. "Keep the right side John, I'll get left." He just steadied his weapon to the right and I took position. A shadow came over me, I didn't look, or aim. Just shot and we both rolled. The xeno-cat fell dead with a hiss. Both from mouth and from the blood burning the ground. This seemed to be a sign to run for the rest to scatter annd run. These new types seemed to act entirly differnt from the ones we knew.

Hadley was waiting for me as I made my way around the helicopter. The look on her face was of a leader. A leader that hadd been lied to and I was in her sites to be blamed. "Major. I believe some people have some serious questions to answer." All I could do was knod.

The briefing tent was up quick enough. I stood with my Second Lieutenant and Sergeant facing Squad Leader Hadley.

Stevens grinned,"So why do all you test tube babies only have one name?" She ignored the question,"How about you tell me why the hell I was sent here with not ner enough supplies. How about you tell me why I have 6 men dead. And, lets end with a good explination of with the hell we seen today." Her eyes burnt right through me. Stevens was not smiling now,"How about you know your place you little.." I raised my hand. "Sorry Hadley. These men have not quite got the memo that in the miltary terms sent to me. You are at, if not at a higher rank then myself. But we're talking leader to leader and I plan to respect that." The room seemed to ease.

"Hadley, I really wish I had a better answer then I'm not sure. Did we know that the xenos had a few new variations? Yes. How ever, we did not know about these." This news did not seem to help ease the look Hadley was giving each of us now. "Let me get you up to speed with what we do know. In South America we encountered an ape type xeno. We thaught we had done something amazing when we caught it alive. How stupid we all were to think as such." She gave me a puzzled look," It wanted to be caught?"

"Yes, and it had a message for us. It spoke. Told us about something big coming and that they were enjoying the fights. Enjoying. As sson as the bastard stopped laughting, he made our chains and cage look like paper. We had a hundred men. Now there is just us."

"Do you think it could be the rhinos?" Now she was interested. A new light shown in her. A new hatred.

"Honostly? I would love if that was it. But we really have no idea. It could just be the new types. But, xenos have always been straight to the point cretures. Catch and breed. Period." I looked around the room. Everyone uncomfortable.

Sergent Lewis looked toward Hadley," Squad Leader, I have to ask about you and your men. I was told you all had some specialties to you." She looked down for a moment then back up. "Yes, but not like we would like to have. For the most part we are twenty percent stronger then normal born people. Granted, very few people got the smarts side of it. But stregth and ability to learn fast. Yeah, we have you on that."

"Damn, I was really aiming to see someone fly," Marteen entered the tent. "New orders came over the comm Major. Seems the drop ship with the building material has gone missing after refueling down south. Seems we need togo hunt it down."

Just what we needed," Well, how are we on fuel?" Marteen looked at us with a bit of a grunt with his hands on his hips. Lewis through his head back,"Yeah, the fuel was on the drop ship. Major, that is a long march."

All eyes on me now. "I wish we could take the night and rest. But rest is the best way to get killed where we are. So we'll start marching in an hour. Lets get a cart built, we'll need to let people sleep in some sperts. We need as little cover around us as possible when the xenos catch us to attack again."

Hadley knodded," My men will be ready. But what are we going to do about ammo? Weare running a bit short for anything more then a suicide run." "Well, then we better be fast, cause thats on the drop ship as well. We can afford to give each of your men a clip, but not really much more then that." I tossed her a badge," This will give you access to the ammo crates. I trust you. My guys, lets get the helicopters covered and locked down. When we get back, I don't want any surprises." The room cleared. But I still felt as though someone was standing on me. The hike was going to be long and there was an old base we'd have to pass through. Plenty of ammo should be there. But it was old gear and the base was overrun by aliens. Nothing was good about the venture they all were about to endure.