Chapter 5: An Uncomfortable Situation

Jeri kicked the dirt around near the construction site. She glanced at her supervisor. He was busy with his nose buried in his clipboard. He probably had porn there or something, what could he be looking at all the bloody time? Jeri yelled over to him,

"HEY! HEY SUPE! I'M GONNA GO TAKE A SMOKE!"

He glanced up briefly with an overly serious look on his pale face. Everyone else at the base was tanned, or burned. That's why Marines here often kept their visors down.

Jeri walked off towards the storage shaft. She heard something in the distance.

"CAN YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP FOR ONE GOD DAMNED SECOND YOU PRETTY BOY PIECE OF SHIT!" A Marine had lost it. Now everyone was staring at him as he drove a power drill into the skull of his supervisor. The marine had no armor on, just a dark red sleeve-less shirt with RMF on it (Red Moon Faction) in white letters, combat boots and black cargo pants. The blood of the UED supervisor ran swiftly down the Marine's hand and down his rather large arm. He let go of the drill and kicked over the bloody corpse. A Marine a few feet away grabbed a pistol off a nearby UED officer. He tossed it to the drill-kill marine, who caught it in mid air, turned off the safety and pointed it at its original owner, only to see that the thief marine already had a survival knife to the man's neck.

The drill-kill marine smiled, seeing that he could take another target. Right now things were going fairly badly. This was not ending well at all. Jeri ran behind a portable toilet.

CRACK

She didn't want to look back. She didn't know who shot, the RMF marine or a UED marine.

"Fuck"

Jeri could see the entrance to the storage shaft in the distance. She could either make a run for it, or help out in this apparent insurgency.

"HEY! YOU!" Cal Rodney walked swiftly up to the two Marine's trying to take command.

He fired a second shot, this time it wasn't a warning, the knife bearing Marine's head split open like a watermelon.

"MOTHERFUCKER!" PUT THE GUN DOWN YOU HICK PIECE OF SHIT!" Cal yelled while training his pistol on the drill-kill marine. Who had now taken a hostage.

"Motherfucker you know I'll kill you" Cal said, dead serious.

The Marine fired at Cal. Cal ducked under the shot. He wasn't the ordinary UED marine.

Cal tensed as he let out three more rounds, all purposely misses. He wanted to get as close as possible.

Cal hadn't stopped walking the whole time.

A red mist filled the air as the RMF marine downed the UED hostage. Now Cal was running at him, he dropped his pistol and pulled a survival knife.

Crack

Jeri heard another shot escape into the air. This time she looked to see what was happening.

A man was standing with a knife sunk to the hilt in the drill-kill marine. He had an oozing exit wound on his side to deal with though. Two UED marines lay dead on the ground, one the drill-killed one, the other with only half a head left. The UED guy grabbed the larger drill-kill marine around the waist and pushed the knife in farther. Making the pain worse as he dragged it up. The two screamed at each other in a pathetic animalistic way. Then as if on cue, they both collapsed. Seconds later, fully armored marines and medics (All UED of coarse) rushed the scene. They carried away the UED guy, but not the quickly dying RMF guy.

Jeri banged her head against the exterior wall of the portable toilet.

She knows she has to go and help him. But if she does she'll probably be shot. And this is a perfect chance to hit the storage shaft.

"Fuck" She started running.

Check was on top of the Command center. As usual, but he had been alerted by the chaos below. He had readied his rifle incase he had to defend any RMF guys. The Ghost scanned the entire base through his scope, and his goggles. Jeri, she was entering the storage shaft. Good.

Inside the storage shaft it looked like they had installed new light fixtures. It was decently lit, and even a few Marines, UED, walked around. A few of them glanced curiously at Jeri, who was quite obviously RMF.

Jeri spots an elevator, convenient.

"Damned" Jeri mutters under her breath. She has no idea what button to press.

"Start from the bottom I guess…"

Cal Rodney sat in the sunlight while the medics patched him up. The tank commander had enough stim in him to make breaking his knee backwards feel like a hangnail. He was trying to stay calm after what just happened. His pistol had not found its way back to its holster. He was more than a little on edge. His hands swayed back and forth between his legs as he sat hunched over with the medic fiddling around with the hole in him.

"Your good to go," The medic concluded.

Cal stood up. Still not holstering his weapon.

"I just killed two guys," He whispered to himself while surveying his handy work. He had never gotten used to man on man combat. He was an armored combatant. Cal only ordered other's deaths, rarely ever ushering them to their grave.

Cal feels a tap on the shoulder. He turns to see a Marine standing behind him with a paper in his outstretched hand. Cal takes the paper, reads it then folds it up and places it in his pocket. He looks around his sunglasses blackened landscape. He points to the top of the Command Center, where Check is. Check sees his signal.

"No." Check thinks before packing up his stuff and preparing the slowest way down from the Command Center.

Cal slowly looks around. He sees two security marines and calls them over.

Diesel lies in his cot. Without armor, he is feeling a bit better today, but the sore spot on the back of his neck is getting worse. And now it's starting to flake REALLY badly, and there is a lump in the middle of it that is really painful.

"Maybe I should actually work or something," Diesel considers something to get his mind of his ailments.

Diesel grunted as he forced his rather large figure off the thinning worn cot. As he was getting up he glanced out the window. Two security marines and a higher-ranking man walked towards the supply depot he and several other soldiers slept in.

Jeri ran from the storage shaft. Terrified. She had made the dumb mistake of not bringing a radio with her.

"It's all right, I'm going to work, you don't have to break my damned legs," Diesel joked with the UED soldiers.

Jeri prayed she had left her radio where she could find it.

Check surveyed the area. It was eerily calm. Jeri was running from the storage shaft. Not good, this just confirmed his fears. He only wished he didn't know Jeri right now. The Ghost rested his rifle over his shoulder.

"Come with us," Cal said forcefully to Diesel.

"Excuse me?" Diesel responded, shocked at the smaller man's manners.

"This is my fucking camp, you don't tell me what to do!"

Jeri slammed in to the door of the bunker she slept in. Fiddling with the handle to open it. Ah, a radio. The pilot got on the air and started trying to locate Check.

One of the two Marines trained his rifle on Diesel. The other tried to hand cuff the Firebat, and resorted to pistol whipping him when he resisted.

"Check? This is Jeri, do you copy?"

"Check here, please tell me you were rushing to tell me good news,"

"'Fraid not Check, the UED Fuckers just crossed the line."

The Marines led Diesel from the supply depot,

"WHAT THE FUCK DID I DO!" Diesel yelled.

Cal turns.

"When you went down in to the storage shaft."

"They brought Zerg here Check." Jeri said.

Check stared off in the distance. He could see the UED guys bringing Diesel to his position.

"That's what I was afraid of. Jeri. Check is infested…"

Cal reported the news. Diesel's jaw dropped slightly. He didn't believe it. How could he have been infested so easily?

Jeri dropped her radio and headed for the door, grabbing a rifle on her way. She tried to run up the sand dune but her boots just kept getting stuck in the sand.

"Down," Cal forced Diesel into a kneeling position. Still handcuffed, Diesel complied.

"Ghost, do it," Cal ordered Check.

Check hesitated; Cal placed a large pistol against his temple.

He leaned in to Check's ear.

"This gun has already killed twice today motherfucker, and it likes the taste of blood. You don't do it and I'll waste you and your flaming friend right here right now, and then I'll find out who your other friends are, and then I'll fucking shoot them up the ass hole. Then again, you can prevent this from happening with one squeeze. You won't kill him, the gun will."

Check gave the shorter UED man a hard look in the eye, again.

"Oh. I hear you buddy. Now you're going to kill me are ya? Bring it on cock sucker,"

Cal grabbed at Check's rifle aiming it at his own crotch.

"Every unit in this fucking frying pan is going to have fun with you,"

Jeri was almost half way to the Gallows. Then everything slowed down in a heartbeat. Check aimed his rifle at the back of Diesel's head. And a few seconds later a red mist filled the air. It didn't belong there. Diesel's blood was a virus and the air was the heart. The two were never supposed to meet. But now they did, and now everything was going wrong.

Jeri felt weak in the knees. Just so she didn't fall she decided to sit down.

"Check…you bastard. I'm going to fucking kill you…"