Author's Note: Black Mesa, Barney, Otis, the Black Ops, everything from Half Life and Opposing Force is owned by Valve. The original characters are all mine however. This was originally published a few month's ago at the Half Life Writer's Block, now the Writers Block Media Group. Check us out at www.wbfanfic.com and read the full version there!
Black Mesa
Blake and Conrad had been walking for an hour, shotguns at the ready. They were both keeping silent, neither wanting to alert anything around them. Finally, Conrad spoke up.
"Hey, Blake, what do you say we take a rest? Might wanna make a plan." she said, leaning against the wall and setting down her shotgun.
"Yeah, sure. I could use a break." He said, leaning against the wall and sliding to a sitting position. He lay his shotgun on his lap, examining it. It was the same as those issued in the marines, an over-and-under double barreled 12 gauge, with a pump action. Devastating at close range, but almost useless any further. Not quite the real firepower he had in mind.
"So, you're the soldier, what do we do next?" Conrad asked, sitting across from him.
"Well, other marines aren't gonna help us, so we'll have to stay away from them as much as we can. Those Xen things obviously want to kill anything human, so we'll have to kill those things. Best we can hope to do is get out of here, and hike to the nearest town."
"Then what?" she asked, concerned.
"Well, that depends. We could go to the media, tell the world what happened here. But it'll be hard to prove, they might not believe us. And they might very well kill us to keep us quiet. Or we keep quiet, try to fade into society and avoid anyone looking for us." His tone suggested that he preferred that former.
"Somehow I like the first idea a lot more. This can't just be covered up."
"That makes two of us. Won't be easy."
She smiled. "After this, I think it'll look damned easy."
Black Mesa
PFC Jacobs gripped his MP-5 tightly, watching his seargent ahead of him. Barnes always made it look so easy. He had told them that the base was under attack by some kind of aliens, and to be ready for a fight. He was scared, but he knew that with Barnes leading them, they'd be alright. He idolized his squad commander.
Suddenly, Barnes crouched and raised his right arm, a signal to stop. He'd heard something.
"Move out, it was noth-" he never got the chance to finish his sentence. A green bolt of energy took off his head, leaving his neck nothing but a charred stump.
"Shit! Open fire!" came from the squads second in command, a fresh corporal. They followed orders, and the hallway was filled with the rattle of their MP-5's on full auto, interspersed with the throatier growl of their machine gun.
They heard whatever had killed Barnes scream out in pain, and fall to the ground, along with a few like it. They stopped firing long enough to see a flash of green light from behind them.
Johnson whirled around in time to see a huge alien creature crush their machine gunners skull with a single blow from it's giant fist. It was big, about a foot taller than most of his squad mates, and 3 times as wide. It glistened with natural armor. One of it's 3 arms ended in a 3 pronged thing, obviously organic. What's more, there were 4 of them.
In unison, they raised their arms with the 3 pronged things, now obviously a weapon. Fire from the squad brought the first one down, but the others fired. Johnson saw the squad fall around him, felled by some kind of hornets flying from the aliens weapons. Without thinking, he fired a grenade from his weapons attached launcher into their midst and ran.
He heard it go off, and a groan of pain followed by a pair of thuds, and one set of footsteps. 'Christ,' thought Jacobs, 'those things are heavy!' He kept running, pulling a grenade from is PCV as he went. He pulled the pin, and dropped it.
He turned as he ran, waiting to see the thing blown up by his makeshift booby trap. It stopped right over the grenade, and raised it's arm. The last thing that Johnson saw before the hornet bored it's way into his skull was the alien blown to tiny pieces.
Black Mesa
Blake heard it first, Conrad soon after. The sounds of a battle, followed by about a minute of silence, then a final explosion.
"Should we go?" asked Conrad, a question on her face.
Something about his sense of duty pulled him towards the fight. Could be civvies. "Yeah."
They ran towards it, Blake leading the way, shotgun at the ready. Whatever they found, it would be a fight. He came to an intersection, and turned left. What he found was the last thing he expected. A dead marine, blood gushing from a head wound. A few feet in front him, there was a burn mark on the floor, and the walls were covered in a yellowish stain. Blood, same as the aliens they'd killed.
"I guess he doesn't need our help after all." Conrad said, lowering her shotgun.
Blake, nodded solemnly. Suddenly, an idea came to him. He crouched over the body, and punched a code into a keypad on the marine's PCV. It came loose, and he pulled it off the corpse.
"What are you doing?" asked Conrad, confused
"Put it on. It'll keep you a lot safer than that Kevlar. I'm sorry, I know it's weird but you'll need it to survive." He said, tossing it to her.
"Alright. You're right." She said, pulling it over her head. As soon as she had it on, it activated, sealing on to her.
"What the hell!?" she said, surprised.
"What?" he said, alarmed. "Oh, I never mentioned the HUD, did I?" he said, sheepish.
"Uh, no. Thanks for the warning." she said, kidding. "How do they do that?"
"I dunno. I guess it's projected right onto your eye's. Pretty steady though, it's amazing." He said, picking up the dead marines MP-5. "You can control the weapons selection menu by flinching your eye muscles. Right calls it up and changes categories. Left moves in categories, both selects."
"Nice." she said. "Hey, there's stuff left in here! Desert Eagle, Combat Knife and some Grenades." She said, grinning.
"You can let the suit absorb your weapons and any ammo you're already carrying, it'll help." He said.
She did as he suggested. She also tossed him an extra magazine of 9mm ammo. "You'll need it for the sub gun." She said, a shy smile on her face.
"Thanks." He said, suddenly feeling awkward. He gave her a handful of his shotgun shells, shrugging.
"Thank you." Came the nervous reply.
"Well, where do we go now?" he asked, indicating the intersection.
"What do you think?" she said, still getting the feel of her PCV.
"Left we head towards whatever killed this guy, and probably the rest of his squad. Pretty rough fight waiting for us. Right, no idea what's over there. He might have been trying to hook up with the rest of his unit. Might not have been. I prefer a risk to a certainty. Right." He said, indicating with his MP-5.
"Alright. There's mostly offices that way, personnel division. After that, we can catch the old tram system up to the surface." She said.
As they
went, he opened a door for her. That's when he realized why he was acting so
strange. 'Oh my god! Middle of a combat zone and I'm falling in love.'