The creatures came screaming at him from all about the room, a chorus of wails and shrieks that produced that same eerie, ear-splitting sound that always sent a shiver up Rommel's spine.
There was no amount of prior experience with these things that anyone could have that wouldn't scare someone shitless when they heard that. Rommel had been in the UNSC some sixty years, and he still hadn't heard anything that had just quite that effect on him... And it worked every single time.
Scared shitless or not, however, Rommel sighted in with the rifle on the first one that came within his line of sight, and squeezed off a few rounds.
He really wished there seemed to be some kind of... Technique to killing these things. If their legs came off, they used their arms to keep dragging themselves forward. If their arms came off, they'd use whatever else they had to attack. If they were completely immobilized and disarmed, the parasite abandoned the body to seek another host. But without the parasite, the body stopped.
Sometimes the parasite was exposed, sometimes it wasn't. It depended on the degree of the mutation. Time? Individual factors? Fuck if he knew, fuck if he cared. If the parasite was exposed, shooting it was the best option. If not, tearing through flesh with .390 Shredder rounds wasn't hard. Shredders worked better on the monsters anyhow- Rounds shattered on impact, tearing up organics like tissue paper.
If they had armor, it was more being hopeful that one could punch through it and the parasite quickly enough to ground it, or just to do enough damage to cause the host to be unusable.
Why can't they just be stupid, shambling zombies? Why'd they have to be the damn virus-spawned Superfreaks instead of the old fashioned Living Dead?
In the end, it didn't really matter what they were, or how he dispatched them. As long as he was still standing and they weren't, he didn't care. He'd been brought up to ask questions like how and why, but... When it came to the dead reanimated, there just wasn't time for questions. No sense in asking them anyhow, getting an answer out of a corpse was pretty hard.
Didn't they talk earlier? Findish talked. Was it a fluke? A warning by him?
Doubtful. It threatened their destruction, told them to submit, some bullshit like that. Which was fine- He was through talking anyhow.
A trio of non-Humans burst through a door somewhere to Rommel's right and joined the fray. They were too far yet to be of great concern to him, but he couldn't help but notice they weren't wearing armor... No, they were wearing civilian clothing. That proved it, then. There'd been an attempt to round up the civvies, but obviously things hadn't gone as planned.
He swung his rifle to one that was wearing armor, closing in on him quickly. A Marine at one point, judging by the coloration... But not anymore. Now it was just another obstacle. Rommel aimed for its inner thigh, and pulsed the trigger. The not-Marine's femoral came away, and the thing hit the ground hard. It scrambled onto its hands, and reoriented itself so that the helmet blocked a shot straight down the neck.
He pulled the trigger anyhow.
The thing came at him rapidly, and somehow vaulted itself into the air at him, screaming in rage as it did. As its helmet finally took enough rounds to crack it in half, its head split open in half- And revealed teeth, which started snapping open and shut. It was like a demented Venus Flytrap with legs.
Rommel slammed his rifle forward with both hands, horizontally, and was very nearly knocked on his ass as the thing hit the rifle head on- And wrapped its jaws around it. He brought his knee up into its gut, but all that succeeded in doing was pissing it off as it began to thrash at him with its claw-like appendages, battering and beating him.
Suddenly, the thing twisted its body, and wrenched the MA2B from his hands, flinging it across the room. In retaliation, he did the first thing he could think of: He ripped his M6 from its place on his thigh, and aimed square with the "mouth" that had been formed from its head so that the rounds would tear straight down its body and out through its ass, and pulled the trigger.
And again. And again. And again.
The body gave a final screech before falling flat. Rommel looked up, and did a mental count. He counted five remaining in total. Three were unarmored, one was armored, and the last was armored, but held together by what he could only amount to being sheer power of will.
He raised his sidearm, and aimed it at the nearest that wasn't armored- Which also happened to have its tentacles curled around what he was fairly certain was an Army variant assault rifle. MA3 model of some kind. Piece of shit gun, he was glad to see it go when they first rolled out the line of MA5s. It still used 7.62 NATO, but fired with all the accuracy of pissing in the wind.
Still, at such close proximity, it was about as good as a damn LAAG.
The ghoul opened up on him with the weapon, causing him to dart off to the side as quickly as he could. He made a bee-line for a table to hide behind, and the instant he reached it, overturned the thing so that the broad side would be faced toward the thing. It didn't let up firing the whole time, seemingly as a testament to its intelligence, until finally the thing's magazine seemed to have finally clicked dry.
Rommel stood up, and lined up a shot with its shoulder. He pulled the trigger, and was pleased to see the beast's arm come off in a pulpy mess. It screeched its protest loud enough to nearly make his ears bleed- Dampeners or not- and launched itself at him, along with its armored and nearly-falling-apart comrades. In a desperate move, he curled his fingers around the side of the table that he had been hiding behind, and clutched it tight in his grip... Then flung it at the one he'd just been firing on.
The table and monster met each other in mid-air, and both of them clattered to the ground in a heap, leaving the thing to spiral off somewhere out of sight for the time being. The armored one was the first thing to reach him, swinging wide with a set of clawed tentacles. Rommel ducked low, and swept a leg under its feet, causing it to hit the ground hard on its front. He planted a boot firmly in the small of its back, and took aim on the next creature.
The fiend soared through the air, and raised a hand with the intent to bring it down on him. He pulled the trigger twice, the first round tearing off an arm, the second round impacting with the section that held its torso together. Its torso ripped apart, and as the parasite was revealed, Rommel fired a third shot, which blew it apart in midair.
He glanced at the thing under his foot, and fired a pair of complementary shots into its mid-section. It stopped squirming.
The last two came at him without much tactic to it, so it seemed. He took a step back, firing two shots into the first, dropping it without issue. When he sighted in on the second one, he pulled the trigger twice again. The first shot tore off an arm. He was finally getting used to this tactic, a thought that scared him more than anything else in the entire damn universe at that point. But the second produced a sound that scared him more than that thought:
Click.
A soldier's worst nightmare was that sound when something was running at them.
The beast screamed loudly at him as it came forward. He wasn't entirely sure of what to do, so he just did the first thing that came to mind, the first thing that made sense for a man like himself. He spun the pistol in his hand so that he was grasping the barrel instead of the grip, and clubbed the son of a bitch as hard as he could. Green slime was sprayed across his visor instantly.
The monster was instantly stopped in its tracks as it hit the ground hard. Without missing a beat, Rommel brought up his foot, and brought it down hard. This got a Hellion scream from the beast, and caused it to try lashing out at him. He caught its arm with his free hand, and applied pressure with his foot directly into the chest cavity. There was a brief high-pitched shriek, shortly before an audible squelching noise. The arm went slack.
Rommel stood there for a moment, hyperventilating, trying to catch his breath. His heart hammered louder than any artillery, having worked its way all the way into his skull from the feel of it. His eyes surveyed the room for a moment... And that was when he realized he'd made the mistake of holding still.
Only in his peripheral vision did he see the combat form that he'd forgotten he'd hit with the table, come anew to tear him asunder. The attack didn't hurt. But it did tear through his right shoulder pauldron, and ripped it right off. It stung more than a bit, tore through his jumpsuit, cut him deep, down into the muscle... But adrenaline wasn't going to let it slow him down.
He spun around, and brought his head forward into the offending hostile, the dome of his helmet meeting it with a wet thump. It stumbled back, and gave him the opportunity he needed. He reached for his knife, drew it, and plunged it into the exposed parasite before it could even react. No sound, no flailing. There were a couple brief twitches that might have been meant to be attacks, but they didn't come. The thing just slumped to the floor, finally dead.
He didn't stand around waiting this time. He immediately sheathed his knife, and stepped away from his pile of corpses. His arm was bleeding profusely, but he just didn't have time to care about it. He grinned. Ain't got time to bleed. He ejected the spent magazine from the pistol, and flung it aside. Normally the procedure was to put them back into their pouches, not just get rid of them as so many Hollywood playwrights seemed to think, but they were just dead weight, and he was heading to the armory anyhow.
He slid a new magazine into the weapon, keeping an eye out for anything that moved. Hell, he kept an eye on the things that didn't move, too. He wasn't going to get blindsided again.
As he moved for the next door, he could see his MA2B out of the corner of his eye. At first, he was tempted to go after it. The MA2B was an amazing weapon, after all. On second glance, however, he realized how futile it would be. The weapon was bent, warped, and in pieces. He instantly felt disappointed and frustrated, knowing that he'd probably needed it, and that he just took one step closer to destruction.
He briefly considered the fact that it could've easily been his arm, or leg, or torso, or head instead of his rifle. If he'd been even a second slower...
He decided it would be better if he didn't think about it too hard. He'd have plenty of time to reminisce on what could have been, what should have been, how differently things could have gone once he was off this damned rock. If he got off this rock.
The next fifteen minutes passed by without much problem, and he arrived at the armory without issue. The fact that heaps of decaying bodies surrounded it didn't exactly do much to boost his confidence, however. Neither did the fact that the walls were gradually more coated in this... Biomass crap the further he progressed. Every time he saw a body in it, he gave it a wide birth and a .50 SAP-HE round to the chest.
He didn't know if one of them was going to attack him or not, but he remembered the underground area all too damn well.
The door was locked, but a quick punch of a few digits solved that problem. He stepped inside, and conducted a brief sweep of each aisle. When he was positive that nothing else was in the room except dust motes, he was content to seal the door behind him.
He popped the seals on his helmet, and jammed his thumbs under the jawline of it. He didn't waste a moment in pulling it off and slinging it to the side. He braced himself against the wall, and took in a few deep breaths. The air smelled of decay, and a sour, repugnant odor that he couldn't identify. The smell of death he could take. Blood, guts, gore, that wasn't anything new to him. But this new smell was... Overpowering.
He almost upchucked on the spot. Likewise, he was tempted to put his helmet back on.
He did neither, instead opting to simply close his eyes and take in a deep breath of the crap. No sense running from it, the best way to get used to something was to face it head on, far as he was concerned. Still, it was difficult not to heave.
It wasn't just the smell, though. His nerves were grating on him.
In his whole life, there'd only been a few instances where his unit had been totally wiped out. Even then, usually his men made it out alive. He tried to make damn sure that no matter what happened, his people made it out alive. Only now and again did he ever have someone get killed under his command. One or two he could deal with. He didn't like it, but he could manage.
But only once did he have everyone under his command get killed. That was a long, long time ago. He hadn't had any other choice, the only other alternative was the destruction of an enter city. Few for the many. But they weren't close to him, not people he personally knew for the most part.
Never had he had people who were his friends die under his command...
And all in one day...?
He felt his hands begin to shake, and a great tremor began to overtake his body. His grip became weak, and his legs threatened to give out from under him.
He took in another deep breath, and steeled himself against it. He refused. He couldn't break down, not now. He'd overcome worse things in the past. Far worse things. Maybe not physically, but mentally. In terms of combat, no, he'd never faced anything so terrible in his life. But he'd taken far, far worse hits to his psyche.
He forced himself to stop shaking, and opened his eyes. Only now, with all the damned shaking, did his bicep begin to start feeling like it was: Total shit.
He grit his teeth, and glanced at the arm. His shoulder pauldron and outer bicep plate had been ripped clean off, but the physical ring that surrounded it was still intact. Unless one counted the massive gash through it, but that was what it was. Blood poured through the open wound, which he had no doubt in his mind reached all the way down to the muscle. However, he had no time to fix it.
Not when escape might be so near.
He sighed, and held up his pistol for a moment. It was an M6B, an "Officer's model" pistol. Rarely seen outside law enforcement anymore, but they were favorable to some of the later M6 models in that they had a much more comfortable grip. Rather than the traditional chrome finish, it had a black oxide finish. The upper assembly, however, had been replaced with that of an M6C/SOCOM's, so that the barrel included the integrated silencer and scope.
He remembered the exact day he'd received it, too. The day he'd come home from OCS. It was a gift. He loosened his grip on it a little bit, and wiped the grime from the grip. Etched into it was "Show 'em who's boss. – Maddie" He grinned at it for a moment, then puckered his lips and gave the gun a comically loud, smacking kiss. He immediately wished he hadn't, given the grime.
He wasn't sure who he was putting on the act for, but he would anyway.
He considered for a moment how easy it would be just to put the thing to the side of his head, pull the trigger, and call it a life. Just to do it and get it over with and face whatever charges awaited him wherever he was going- Heaven, Hell, nowhere, anywhere, a new body, a new form, whatever. He didn't care. But he made a promise long ago to a lot of people he cared about that he'd tough it through for as long as he could.
He'd have to live through this, just as he did through everything else. Not because he wanted to anymore, but because he needed to. Because he had to. Because he promised to. If death took him, that was fine- But it couldn't be by his hand.
He lowered the gun, and set his sights on the racks behind him. He immediately began to take inventory, replacing spent grenades, spent magazines, throwing replacements into his rucksack for those he'd spent. He especially stocked up on Shredder rounds.
Lastly, he picked up a new MA2B. He inserted a magazine and chambered a round. He set to work on a few slight modifications to the weapon to make it a bit more... Accustomed to his tastes. He hadn't bothered with the one he'd had before, but now that he knew what he was up against, he felt the need to make a few changes. They'd be quick, they'd only take a couple minutes.
He loved his sidearm, this was fact. It had served him for longer than anything else had, certainly. It was reliable, adaptable, powerful, and accurate. But sometimes, there was nothing quite like a fully automatic weapon that fired rounds designed to tear apart fleshy things like it was nobody's business at hundreds of rounds per minute, with massive magazine sizes to boot.
Even better when the rifle had a grenade launcher stuck to the end of it.