Chapter 11: Go Back

Marcus sat alone in his buggy, crying into the steering wheel as he tried to vain to get Mary to answer him back on the radio. After what seemed like a day, but closer to an hour, he gave up, crushed and shattered and turned the buggy around, back to the research station.

Taking it slowly and eyeing his motion tracker in his mask's HUD, he carefully approached the facility. It looked empty and broken, the main doors all buckled and broken inward, alien bodies piled up around the openings as he carefully circled the place, arcing around with his pulse rifle pointed out towards the base.

He pulled to a stop by the landing pad, the ship still sitting there as though nothing had happened. Forlorn and reluctant, he got out and stepped out into the dirt towards it. He climbed up the service ladder onto the steel pad and carefully crept towards the still open cargo bay doors of the ship, his gun up and ready, his motion tracker still showing no movement.

The ship was bare, some of the fittings and crates torn and scratched and the lights blown out as he slowly crept about inside, emotion threatening to overwhelm him as he neared the cockpit.

It was a mess, consoles torn and broken, a xenomorph corpse draped over one of them, its head horribly bent inward. He smiled through his welling tears. She had gone down fighting, he thought.

"Wait….. " he said aloud to himself. "Where's her body? Did they take her?" he wondered, a pang surging through his chest as he rejoiced that she might still be alive, but deadened that she might suffer the horror of being cocooned. He searched frantically throughout the torn and trashed ship. He found nothing, not even her gun.

No blood.

…..

She's alive.

Heartened, he raced back outside, looking down the broken hallway open before him. Xenomorph bodies were piled and scattered everywhere. Strewn about and broken. He carefully stepped forward, inching warily between the body piles, stepping over limp tails, talons and grinning dead alien faces as the mess cleared further down and he smiled at the sight of something.

The two little turrets were still scanning around in the middle of the junction, faithfully. The soft whirring and beeping sounding like a hello back to him. Like a faithful dog that held back the tide of hell for its master.

Giggling stupidly, he ran up to them, the nearest xenomorph body about 10 metres away from them up the northern hallway where they first broke in, the dead xenomorph intact, but its head crumpled and broken inward.

He checked the little monitors on the top of the guns, still glowing green. One gun still had 87 AXA rounds left. The other had 34.

The aliens must have retreated, he thought.

Watching the little turrets track around at his feet he had an idea, and steeled himself.

XXXXXX

He wasted no time as he disabled and folded up one of the turrets and carefully laid it down in the buggy's back seat. Back in his ship, he grabbed a spare canister of ammunition for the turret and packed it in as well.

He checked his ammunition in his backpack. Six full clips, plus the one still in his rifle which was 3 bullets short of full. 1,397 AXA rounds.

He checked his machine pistol sidearm. One full clip and one spare. 60 more AXA rounds.

He checked his rifle grenades, 5 fragmentation and 5 napalm grenades, 4 of the frag grenades loaded into his rifle's launcher.

In his backpack, his portable welder, one stick of C9 plastic explosive and one napalm bomb.

Wasting no further time, he got into the buggy and drove off determinedly towards the hive.

Not long after he started driving, he almost crashed as he heard Mary's voice, weak and crackling through his earpiece.

"uuuhhh Wuh? Muh?" she stumbled.

"MARY!" he yelled into his mic, overjoyed to hear her voice.

She seemed to jolt awake at his voice, "Marcus! Marcus! Oh god! They got me! I'm stuck on a wall and there's a fucking egg in front of me! Oh please!" She was starting to splutter and cry.

"Hang on! I'm coming! I'm coming for you, honey! I'm not leaving you behind!" he screamed back desperately into his mic, shoving his foot down on the accelerator pedal, willing the car to suddenly travel at the speed of light towards her.

Her voice was a panic, "Oh god! Oh god! It's opening! Marcus, I'm scared!" Her pleading voice stabbing into his heart, ripping his insides into pieces.

He screamed over her pleading cries, "Baby! I'm coming! Listen to me! No matter what happens, I'm coming for you! You hear me?!"

"No! Aaaah AAAAAAAAAAAAAH! Mm-plah Nooo-cah-pleh-bluh, nnn unnh." Her voice suddenly cut out and he froze, stunned, staring straight ahead out into the dirt before him.

He screamed louder and more violently than he had ever before in his life.

"NOOO! BASTARDS!!!! muthahFUCKAHS!!!!! AAAARRRRGH!"

The sadness and tearing loss he felt quickly gave way as he grunted and growled, focusing his will forwards as he drove, the steering wheel almost bending and ripping off in his hands as anger and adrenaline gushed through him.

He would save her and he would make them fucking pay.

His life didn't matter anymore. He didn't care. He just had to get to her.