Back from hell!

This is an update focusing on a character I originally wanted (and still do to some extent) to write a series on. It's also a somewhat guilty update because with the free time I have had in this semester gone by I've been focusing more on other projects on this site, leaving this and TPA on the backburner. As you'll no doubt have guessed already, I can't and won't promise regular updates to this or anything else here really. What I will promise though, is that when I do provide an update, it will be written to the utmost of my ability and, hopefully, will be of a sufficient quality as to satisfy you, my readers.

Happy Holidays folks, and Merry Christmas.

Scavengers Side Story

Side Story Three: Insertion

The day the world fell was one not at all unlike most other days leading up until that point.

Crisis teams were stretched to the breaking point. Entire provinces were abandoned as the dead flowed over barriers, overcoming hastily-erected defences in a roiling tide of foetid flesh, grasping hands and gnashing, blood-stained teeth.

Then there were the true monsters.

Some towered over two stories tall, swatting aside men and tanks with great swipes of giant paws or claws. Some vaguely resembled the humans they had once been, with great, bony protrusions sprouting from grossly distended skin, jaws hideously stretched in a gaping, eternal scream of torment, wailing like the animals they were as they wreaked havoc on anything in their path. Some took the forms of familiar creatures, letting their prey pass, guard lowered before pouncing, skewering their victims with cruel stingers or immobilising them with poisoned fangs before feasting on their now-paralyzed game.

Mira Frost had seen all of this and more.

In the dimly-lit transport hold of the great, C-130 Hercules transport plane, she appeared almost haggard and weary in comparison to the almost spotless Special Forces operatives she shared the space with. Her light grey combat fatigues and green tactical vest were stained and worn with all sorts of grime she'd accumulated over the past week. She noticed out of the corner of her eye that most of the soldiers maintained a sizeable distance from her. Mira didn't hold it against them, she had taken exactly one shower in the last seven days and realised she probably smelled more than a little ripe.

The group was a mixture of men and even some women – brooding, silent figures from the British SAS, loud, but determined individuals hailing from two teams of America's Delta Force and SEALs, and lastly, and most surprisingly to her, a dozen Polish GROM operatives, led by a Major named Palkoski. Why exactly these hardy Polish troopers were all the way out here over the Mediterranean when their homeland was rife with chaos was a mystery to her, but she was grateful for the extra guns.

God knew they'd need them.

Their target was on the island of Comino, a lovely vacation spot turned into a death trap by the insanity of Neo Umbrella, as were so many others. She suppressed a shudder as she recalled the devastation unleashed on her homeland. Mira had little doubt many of the troops wished to be done with their task so that they might return to fighting for their own homes instead of someone else's.

Her earpiece squawked into life and the pilot's voice spilled into her ear, informing her that they were five minutes from the drop zone. Mira sent a curt acknowledgement and forced herself to her feet. She ached everywhere. There were circles under her eyes that she doubted would ever fade and her gear felt heavier than ever. To falter though, was to fail, and to fail would consign untold thousands, possibly even millions to their deaths.

She stood in the centre of the hold and raised her voice over the din of the engines and the rushing wind separated only by the metal frame that encased them.

'We're five minutes out! Hustle up and prep for imminent drop. I want no mistakes, is that clear?'

A muted chorus of affirmatives followed and the assorted warriors made their final preparations. Mira set the Automatic Activation Device on her parachute and strapped on her oxygen mask, making sure the microphone extending from her earpiece wasn't caught on any straps and still reached the corner of her mouth.

Once she was finished with her checks she turned to the similarly prepped soldiers. They had gotten themselves in gear in a sterling time, and not a single mask or chute looked improperly fastened or out of place. They were good, Mira thought, but would they be good enough to survive the horrors they were about to face?

'For those of you who may have skimmed the briefing,' she spoke through her microphone, pausing briefly every few moments to allow the Palkoski time to translate for those of his men who didn't speak English, 'We will be dropping into Comino, which, as our intel sources cite, is where we'll find a hidden Neo Umbrella facility developing and enhancing the C and T Viruses that are currently ravaging the globe.'

Pause, two, three, four.

'Sources also indicate that this facility has constructed secret, underground silos, and – through various means – are able to launch missiles from these silos,' she paused again, watching the rows of soldiers for any reaction. Nothing.

'Our task is to cripple the facility and take whatever data we can find that might help us fight this,' now came the hard part, and she had to force herself continue, feeling each syllable drip from her tongue like bile. 'On that note; fresh orders have come from BSAA Headquarters in London, which have been… approved by the United Nations and NATO. Contact with the local government and armed forces was lost more than a day ago, and satellite imaging tells us that there is all kinds of hell raging across the island… as we have no way of being able to scan for the infected, the entire populace of Comino is to be designated as 'infected'. As such, we are to terminate any and all individuals upon sight.'

Mira noticed a few of the operatives stiffened. She felt a tiny part of her wither as she finished. I feel thirty years older for all this, she thought to herself grimly.

Then they were a go. The hold of the great plane opened, and the night sky greeted them. One by one the assorted soldiers were ushered out, hurtling toward the island below at frightening speed. Mira was the last out, and as she fell she saw what they were walking into in the flesh.

Past Comino lay Malta. More than half of the island was aflame, casting a baleful orange glow that lit up the night as clearly as a signal flare. Her altimeter ticked and chattered as she plummeted to the earth: 15,000 feet. 14,000. She watched the island of Comino expand and rise to greet her, and realised that she felt a strange sense of peace. It was awful, and she hated herself for it, but the more she looked at it, the more the glow of the inferno raging across Malta looked warm and soothing. She hated heights, and was only just able to steel herself for any combat drop she'd ever made in her life, but now, looking at the island below, there was no clenching stomach or sickness, not even the itching nervousness that usually plagued her as she strapped herself into a plane.

Then they reached 1000 feet and deployed their parachutes, drifting at a much safer velocity towards the drop zone; a slice of sparse bush east/north-east of the supposed location of the Neo Umbrella facility. The landing was bumpy but generally uneventful save for two SEALs and one SAS who landed in a thick patch of greenery. A quick headcount following the removal of their drop kit told Mira that her entire taskforce of 27 had made it intact.

They advanced quickly, but cautiously across the terrain, the sparse, thin, dry grass snapping and rustling under their boots. Mira sweltered in her gear, her fair hair sticking to the inside of her combat helmet in small clumps, but she pushed her discomfort to one side as they crested a hill.

Naturally, they found nothing on the surface, but a careful scan yielded a panel craftily hidden by a set of rocks. Mira had one of the American soldiers bring up a nifty little scrambler tool, connecting it to the panel before activating the device in his hands. The panel short-circuited and a section of the earth split to reveal an entrance ramp. Within moments, her strike force was inside, weapons raised.

They found themselves in a sizeable lobby, a long front desk sat in front of a colossal image of the distinctive Umbrella Corp. logo. One of the GROM troopers muttered something in his native tongue which earned a few low chuckles from some his squadmates before the Polish Major hissed for quiet. Several consoles were integrated into the desk, which some of the soldiers with more technical expertise pried for information, succeeding in downloading a map of the facility.

The facility was comprised of a central 'core' with four wings stretching out from the centre, each extending deeper underground by four floors. Mira had her force split up into four groups of seven, fixing herself up with her fellow countrymen from the SAS, with Palkoski acting as her liaison.

The core was little more than an excessively large loading bay which also doubled as a cargo lift. Dozens of crates and boxes formed a maze in the centre, with four large doors on different sides of the core marking the four separate wings, conveniently labelled North, East, West and South to correspond with their location. Mira took her team to the South Wing, which, according to their map, was the 'Experimental' wing.

One of her men placed another scrambler on the control panel to the large cargo door that would take them into the South Wing, and after a few moments something clicked and the door opened without incident. She took her team inside on full alert. They'd encountered no one so far, and Mira didn't like that at all.

The South Wing was a twisting series of labs and pens one after the other. Consoles displaying lines upon lines of chemical, genetic and biological data she doubted she'd ever understand in her lifetime were lined up, along with desks and rooms full of tubes containing all manner of agents and chemicals and God only knew what else. She had her team plug themselves into as many terminals as they could and extract the data. Most of it would be the stuff of nightmares no doubt, but somewhere in there might be a little nugget of information that might provide a key to a vaccine for the C and T-Viruses, perhaps even a cure.

She was shattered from her thoughts by a squelch from her earpiece. It was one of the American Deltas, Landerson if she recalled correctly.

'Boss, I've just had one of my guys plug into the main security mainframe in Technical and get this: the entire research body got an order to evacuate more than two days ago.'

'What?' Mira replied, thoroughly confused. 'If that's the case then why is this place still standing? Surely Neo Umbrella wouldn't be stupid enough to leave one of its research facilities unmanned.'

'That's exactly what I was thinking, I've asked him to do some more digging and… hold on,' she heard a faint voice on the other end of the line, followed by a brief silence. When Landerson resumed speaking, he sounded frantic, almost panicked.

'Frost! Stop the data jack! They've rigged it to release something they've developed here! This entire thing is a–'

He was suddenly cut off, leaving nothing but static.

'Landerson? Landerson! Talk to me!' She cursed under her breath before spinning on her heel to order her team to stop the data mine.

And then the lights went out.

-X-

Landerson and his men swore as the flawless white of the facility interior was abruptly replaced by murky, impenetrable darkness. Their GROM liaison began chattering in Polish through his comm-set before turning to Landerson.

'I am getting nothing from my squad Captain Landerson; I believe we are being jammed.'

Landerson bared his teeth in a feral snarl. 'Damnit, we got the word out too late. NVDs! Stat!'

In seconds his team snapped their Night Vision devices into place over their eyes, casting the world in a green haze. Ordinary Night Vision Devices utilised systems amplifying existing ambient light sources and in pitch black, they would have had been no more useful to them than a magnifying glass. Fortunately, Frost and her team had been outfitted with much newer kit, which emitted an infrared light source that provided sufficient illumination even in total darkness. If anyone else was using NVDs, they would be able to pick up on the IR emissions like flashlights in the night, but at that point in time, Landerson didn't care, more grateful he and his men could see.

'Pack it in people, we're bugging out,' he called, almost instantly his men shuffled into a closer formation, rifles raised. They'd all heard what Newell had said; this entire place was a death trap. Neo Umbrella had been developing something here and they wanted to test it on the best of the best. There was no telling what manner of inhuman monstrosities were headed their way now, and no sooner had the thought passed through Landerson's head when one of his men released a cry of horror before opening fire with his weapon.

Landerson whipped his head round to see what the soldier was firing at. He caught a glimpse of a strange, gangly figure collapse behind a server bank but little else.

Then the howling began.

It began as a whistling keen, which grew in pitch and frequency. Hurried, crazed footsteps reverberated throughout the wing. Landerson felt his pulse quicken, his heart thunder ever faster in his ribcage.

'Fall back!' He cried. 'Close formation! Fall back!'

To his immense pride, despite the terror they must all have felt, Landerson's Delta Force operators maintained their formation and their dogged professionalism that marked them as one of the world's finest units. Even their GROM tagalong kept up, checking his corners and always covering the one blind spot Landerson's men couldn't.

Finally they reached the great door to the core. It was shut. It had been open when they'd entered. Landerson felt his control slip.

'Newell!' he bellowed, 'Get this damn door open!'

Newell rushed forward and sank down to better view the control panel for the great, steel cargo door, prying it open with a tool before glancing at the inner workings. Landerson and the others formed a defensive line in front of him, six guns covering the wide corridor, the awful howling chasing them all the way.

Something rushed into view from behind a corner further down the corridor. It paused, craning its head before settling, eerily, right on the line of men before the door. Can it see in the dark? Landerson wondered. His question was answered moments later when the figure threw its head back and released a shrill, keening wail before charging down the corridor towards them.

Soon another figure appeared from the same corner as the first, and then another, and another, two, six, ten, until there was a veritable swarm of creatures rampaging down the corridor.

'Open fire!' Landerson screamed, and the din of gunfire ripped through the facility.

-X-

Mira, on the other end of the facility, heard nothing of what was to be Landerson's last stand. All she knew was that the lights were down and – knowing Neo Umbrella – very likely to be something exceedingly nasty stalking them in the dark. She had to get her people out. The comms were down, obviously some sort of jammer was up and running somewhere in the facility, which meant the power was still running somewhere; where though she had little idea, and the map provided no hints as to where such a device might be located.

She checked the schematics Landerson's man had sent her, going over them twice before finally she saw their exit: a loading bay located at the very bottom floor of the facility in the East Wing. The loading bay was accessible only by submersible, but Mira wasn't thinking about swimming out – at that depth they'd never make it to the surface no matter how fast they swam, if the pressure didn't kill them first, and Mira doubted Neo Umbrella would have left anything they could use to escape – rather, it was the maintenance ducts entrance located directly next to the loading bay. No, their only option was to climb their way out.

Mira calculated a route through all four floors of the South Wing that would take them right to the bottom. Naturally there was no guarantee the route would be open, with the power seemingly disabled, but she could make adjustments as they went. Satisfied, she nodded and turned her attention to the situation at hand.

'We've got a route people, we need to get through this wing all the way to the bottom, and from there we move into the East Wing and make our way out from there.'

'What about the others?' Palkoski asked.

Mira sighed heavily. 'We'll just have to pray they have the same idea, or that they can find themselves another way out.'

'And if they don't?'

Mira didn't reply, pretending to fiddle with her NVDs before shouldering her assault rifle and giving a quick series of hand signals. The team spread out through the labs and advanced. They got through what must have been the R&D department of the Experimental South Wing before they encountered the first of the horrors Neo Umbrella had unleashed.

A dull clambering noise had reverberated through the room, prompting the lead man to halt and raise his fist. It was muffled, but it was gradually growing in volume. Palkoski caught on first.

'Ducts,' he breathed. All seven soldiers turned their guns upward. It was unlikely that whatever was crawling around up there knew they were there, but it never hurt to be too careful with anything Neo Umbrella cooked up. After a tense moment, the crawling began to fade. The point man breathed a sigh of relief.

Then all hell broke loose.

A false panel on the wall to the lead man's left suddenly clattered to the floor noisily. No sooner had it occurred than a howling blur of movement tackled him to the floor. His weapon had gone off and a long burst from his MP5 submachine gun had stitched a line in the corridor ahead and the ceiling. The trooper closest had moved to assist but a ceiling panel fell on top of him, another screaming monstrosity falling with it.

'Watch the sides!' Mira bellowed, striding forwards, reaching the fallen point man in moments. His attacker appeared to be naked, and was hideously stretched with limbs that appeared almost stick-thin. Mira raised a boot with her last step and punted the creature as hard as she could manage. The monster yelped and rolled off the beleaguered soldier. It didn't stay down long though and it scrambled onto its feet in a low, aggressive crouch, allowing Mira to get as good a look as her NVDs would allow.

Its face was barely recognisable as human. Multiple insect eyes bulged from its elongated skull. The mouth was a mess of teeth, some needle-thin, others long and thick as war knives. Indeed there were so many teeth of such varying length and thickness that the perpetually salivating mouth could not close, from which a shrill, almost agonised howl buffeted her senses. Its hands and feet ended in short but wickedly serrated claws, which she noted, were slick with blood.

Mira had a split-second to take all of that in before the monster pounced.

It was fast. Alarmingly fast. She had no time whatsoever to think about preparing any sort of defence.

So she didn't think.

She reacted.

Mira spun on the ball of her right foot and pivoted to the right, letting the creature sail past her. As it overextended itself, she had already turned to face the creature's knobbly back, and she slammed the butt of her gun into the monster's spine, driving it to the floor and smashing its face against the cold steel floor.

The monster lay still, but she had no time to celebrate her victory as another of its infernal kin took a swipe at her face. Mira swayed back from the blow and lashed out with a toe kick at the fresh horror's knee, destroying its stance and buying her the moments needed to bring her weapon up to bear, which she unloaded into its drooling mug.

As she turned a sudden lunge knocked her assault rifle from her hands. Another of the creatures had slammed into her, taking them both down. The wildly flailing limbs of the monster knocked her NVDs askew, casting one eye into pitch black darkness, while the other saw the world in a hazy green hue.

Through the one eye that could see, she saw the wide open maw of her attacker lunge for her throat. Straining, she twisted her body to one side as much as she could, feeling a rush of air as the bite rushed past her neck. Grimacing, she forced an arm up and pushed as hard as she could, putting some breathing space between her and the clawing, howling monster.

A sudden, surging pain shot through her right side and she yelped in pain. The fresh agony though, brought with it a surge of adrenalin, granting her strength. She gripped the bottom of the monster's jaw and pushed upwards, while drawing her combat knife with the other. Screaming in rage and revulsion, she stabbed the blade through the neck of the creature, driving the point through the soft jaw and into its cranium. The monster shuddered horrifically before falling slack. Mira pulled her knife free and rolled out from underneath, pausing to sever the ankle tendons of another monster that passed her by.

She readjusted her NVDs and finished off the creature she'd hamstrung before turning back to the swirling melee…

Only to find that the battle was done.

Of the team of five SAS, only two remained. The two men who had been taken down at the start of the ambush were a mess of blood, torn equipment and shredded meat, the final casualty lay slack against the wall, his neck twisted at an angle no human could ever hope to survive. Palkoski was alive too, though his HK416 assault rifle was in tatters, shorn in three by a wild swing of claws, a testament to the lethality of this new foe, if the three dead bodies of their comrades weren't enough.

Mira said nothing, squeezing her eyes shut and wondering, honestly wondering, how men and women could be driven to create such beasts, fit only to kill, and kill, and kill. She felt a hand wrap around her shoulder and found herself face to face with Palkoski.

'Come on boss lady,' he said, the Polish Major was smiling, though Mira could tell even behind those NVDs that it didn't reach his eyes. 'We have to get out of here. If nothing else, we have to let the BSAA and the UN know about what happened here.'

Mira released a long sign and nodded. He was right of course, and as Operational Commander, she had to remain in control. She gave a nod of appreciation to Palkoski before rounding the two survivors from the SAS unit up.

'Scrounge what kit you can from your friends,' one of them took an aggressive step forward but Mira stopped him with a hand. 'Save it. I'm just as pissed off as you are that this happened but we have to get our arses out of this hellhole, and the best way of doing that is to take as much gear that we can use as possible. You understand trooper?'

The soldier held her gaze for a moment before nodding, and stalked off to retrieve extra magazines and grenades from the corpses of his squadmates. Mira grimaced as she felt the wound she'd sustained throb. She placed a gloved hand to her side, which came away slick with blood. Glancing down at herself, she saw that there was a puncture wound where one of the creature's claws had pierced her. It wasn't flowing, but if she left it alone it would certainly have a negative impact.

She treated the wound and bandaged it up, praying to whatever deity was watching that she wasn't infected with whatever those monsters had been pumped full of.

'You have your work cut out for you.'

Mira glanced at Palkoski before nodding slightly. 'It's going to be a tough ride… it always is when BOWs are involved.'

Palkoski blinked at her as if he had no clue what she was talking about. 'I am referring more generally to the BSAA. There are not so many of you now are there?'

Mira shook her head. 'No, there aren't. We lost more than half our active ground forces in China at the start of all of this, and with all the outbreaks popping up left right and centre we've had to spread ourselves so thin it's ridiculous. We've got training and some of the lads we managed to get out of China even have expertise but in the end we bleed and die like everyone else, and some of us can only do so much.'

Palkoski hummed.

'I will be glad to be done with all of this.' He said, after a moment's pause. Mira chuckled, but there was no mirth behind it.

'Palkoski, if there's one thing I've learned since I joined the BSAA, it's that it'll never be done. Even if – when – we sweep the world clean, some whacko with an axe to grind will have scooped up some of this stuff somewhere and when we least suspect it he'll dump it all into the water supply of a town or city and the nightmare will begin again.'

'That's a rather grim outlook,' Palkoski remarked with a grimace.

'Realistic,' Mira corrected. 'But don't mistake it for fatigue. I like this world – it being the only one we've got – and as long as it takes I'll fight the good fight with the rest of my outfit. But at the same time I'm not stupid or naïve enough to think that the war on Bio-terrorism and all the freak shows it entails will ever finish in my lifetime.'

Palkoski looked as though he was about to reply when the surviving SAS troopers returned.

'Geared up?'

They nodded.

'Good. Then let's go. I really want to be done with this shithole.'

With that, she spun on her heel and stalked onwards, deeper into the facility, ready for all the horrors it would undoubtedly yield.