What's there to say? Not much really. R+R+Enjoy.

Chapter eleven

Testing the guns

Rikku and the predator walk towards the wreckage of the APC and Dropship. Fearing for the lives of her friends she begins to search for them, overturning sheets of metal and debris. The predator stands by and watches as she flits to and fro among the scrap, gradually working her way all around the bent and buckled carapace, taking care not to go too close to the more fiery fragments. She spies the open side door of the APC, with a sheet of metal leaning across it. Nervously she tips the sheet away and peeks inside. All the seats are empty, no bodies lay inside. She silently thanks lady luck and steps away from the door.

Having carefully investigated all the way round, and failing to find any trace of bodies she re joins the Predator, who is studying his wrist computer.

"They're not here; they must have been outside the vehicle when the Dropship crashed into it. They must have retreated to the hospital, we'd better get there quickly," she stops speaking as she notices that the Yautja is not paying attention to her.

"Problem?" she asks.

The predator looks at her, holds up its five fingers and lowers them one by one then stops, holding up his index finger, then points to him.

"Okay, five, four, three, two, one and you? Uh… Oh I get it, there were five of you right? And now you're the only one left? Wait that can't be right we've only killed one of your… people."

The predator shakes his head.

"Oh, uh, sorry, I guess. Don't mind me if I don't show a lot of sympathy."

The predator makes a deep purring noise and starts to walk again in the direction of the hospital and Rikku follows.

Back in the Hospital outside the entrance of the med labs, Biggs walks up to the group who are waiting for him, having heard the grenade explosion.

"Sweet mother Biggs, what the heck happened? Where's Frosty and Baird?

"They're gone man, dead. One of those invisible freaks was in this building the whole damn time! It attacked us from behind, it… got Frost first, it used this crazy disk like thing, we couldn't stop it… and it… it cut him in half man, IN HALF!

Everyone's jaws drop, Beclem rubs his hands through his hair "Sweet mother of machina, and Baird?

"It managed to ambush the two of us as we moved to where we thought it was; at the end of the corridor, but it wasn't, it had hidden itself in a door way closer to us than we thought, we didn't pay attention to it and it sprang from our sides, rammed us against a wall, punched me to one side and stabbed Hicks in the chest with those blades that come out of its arms. It was cloaked the whole time man. I managed to grab my rifle before it could turn its attention to me and fired a grenade at it. The explosion left nothing of it except its head, shoulders and arms."

"Yeah well it looks like you made a mess of it, judging by the looks of you at least, you're a mess."

"Yeah well, I punished it good. But it's not even human man, I don't know what the heck it is but it wasn't human! I gotta tell you, that thing has got some pretty weird stuff, it was wearing some kind of mask and it had these metal bands that covered its lower arms. And this thing is big man, I mean very big, the top of its head was nearly touching the ceiling when it was standing and it must have been a metre wide at its shoulders. This is shit Beclem, this is total shit! We've lost two more guys now and there are still more of those things running around, this is heavy man, I don't want to be a pessimist but I think our days of living are over," he burbles and slumps down to the floor against the wall and puts his face in his hands.

"Don't despair Biggs, it isn't over till it's over. We are still alive and we are still armed, that means we have a chance. Besides that's the second one of those things destroyed, there are only three to go and now we know a little more about what they look like for real. Let's hope that that was the only one of them in this building. But more importantly, did you manage to seal that door Biggs?"

"Yeah I just finished it when it took out Frosty."

"Good, Vasquez and Campbell have dealt with the other door and they reported no movement so let's hope we're in the clear for now. We also spoke to Brother on the radio and he's now coming over here to pick us up. He said that they were in Luca, so it will take them a while to get here, but I think we can manage. Now we need to set up these sentry guns. Vasquez and Campbell will set up the guns in the maintenance hatch and seal it shut. Elma and I will set up the two guns in the main passageway. As for the rest of you, we will meet up with you back in the computer room, this includes you Bishop. Biggs I want you to set up the comm. link to the gun turrets so that we can monitor their status. Let's move out."

Down in the maintenance tunnel, Vasquez and Campbell have finished setting up the guns and have activated their remote sensors.

Vasquez speaks into her radio "Biggs we're gonna put these things through a test run; see if you can read their status okay?"

"Roger."

Campbell throws a small box in front of the guns, which automatically turn towards the box and open fire with a five round burst from each of them, the box is almost non existent once the smoke clears and the floating debris settles.

"Got it, temperature and ammo counters are looking good. You had better get back here once you seal that door."

"Roger. Campbell, give me that welding torch."

He passes her the torch and they close the doors behind them and Vasquez gets to work.

Beclem and Elma have also set up their guns.

"Biggs you ready?" asks Elma.

"Ready."

Beclem throws a small rubbish bin in front of the guns, they too turn and fire a short burst at the bin, shredding it.

"Excellent readings are good, better get back here."

Vasquez and Campbell are already in the room as Beclem and Elma walk in.

"Okay now that those things have been hooked up we need to find a way to destroy this place. Now I have been thinking about how to accomplish this and I have an idea. You're not going to like it but we have no choice since the Dropship went down. We will need to set the Ultima reactor to self destruct. The explosion will cover the entire Macalania area and I guarantee you nothing will survive it."

Biggs puffs his cheeks "Shit man isn't there any other way?"

"No we need to be thorough in their extermination and we can't go back to Bevelle, prep a Dropship with an apocalypse bomb and destroy this place from there, those things might leave this area by then, we can't let that happen, at least at the moment we know that they are contained, to an extent."

"Well how are we going to set it to self destruct from here? The main controls are back in that building and we are not going back there," states Yuna.

"There shouldn't be a need to go there; this computer terminal can be used to hack into the main controls of the reactor and set it from here. I'll deal with that; I was briefed on the layout of their computer systems."

"How long do you recon I will take?" questions Tidus.

"Hopefully not long but I can't say. Still, I will get on that right now. As for the rest of you, I guess you just need to sit around and wait."

Beclem takes a hacking device from a table, moves to the main computer terminal and starts rewiring a few circuits and attaches the hacking device. Elma, Yuna, Paine and Tidus meanwhile walk to the status screens of the sentry guns and Elma starts to explain a few things.

"Okay, take a look at these screens here; each one corresponds to a particular sentry gun. These two here are for the maintenance tunnel sentries and these two are for the main passage sentries. Let's take this one here for example," she points to one of the screens for one of the maintenance tunnel sentries.

"You see these two bars here? This bar on the right is the ammo counter, and underneath that is a counter for the number of bullets left in the sentry. As you can see there are a hundred and ninety five rounds left in this magazine, there would have been two hundred except for the little test run we made, as they continue firing, this counter will decrease accordingly. This green bar on the left here is the temperature reading inside the gun, now at the moment it is 15 degrees inside the gun, but the more it fires the hotter it gets in there, once it reaches fifty degrees the gun stops firing until it has reduced its temperature to at least forty degrees, it does that so that the unspent rounds don't explode within the gun."

"How quickly does it heat up?" inquires Paine.

"Depends on what setting it's on. If it's on full automatic it heats up very fast. But for the sake of the ammunition we've put it on five round burst, it conserves ammo and slows the rate at which..."

Her words are cut off as the deep booming sound of gunfire rumbles from below them. Everyone except Beclem rushes to the status screens of the guns.

"Talk to me Elma!" calls out the occupied Beclem.

"It's the maintenance passage guns sir, looks like we put those things there just in time."

"Geez it's relentless down there," whispers Biggs.

"The ammo counters are going down pretty fast, gun A is already down to a hundred and fifty rounds and gun B is on a hundred and forty rounds and both are dropping!"

"How are their temperatures?"

"Thirty degrees and rising slowly for both guns."

Down in the maintenance passage the two sentry guns fire wildly, pivoting rapidly on their axels, each supported by tripod legs. Alien screeches echo from the direction the guns shoot at.

Everyone watches the status screens of the guns. Gun A is down to fifty rounds and decreases by five every second, Gun B reads sixty rounds and also drops. Both guns temperatures are holding at forty five degrees.

"Gun A is down to twenty, fifteen, ten, five, gun A is out. Gun B is down to fifteen, ten, five, Gun B is out… Both guns just went offline; the creatures must have smashed them up or something."

Suddenly there is a loud banging noise coming from below them and they could feel the vibrations of the noise through their feet.

"Geez, are you hearing that? They're trying to bash that door down, is that thing gonna hold out?"

"Its a three inch thick steel door Biggs, it was designed to withstand explosions that may occur in the maintenance passage- there are a lot of pipes in there, gas electrical all that stuff. It'll hold."

The banging stops.

"Guess they gave up," shrugs Paine

"That or they will try to find another way in, which is more likely," points out Bishop.

"Beclem I'm going to get back to the med labs and continue my research on that facehugger; I'll keep my radio open at all times. Call me if something happens."

"Bishop, take my motion tracker and a pistol, just in case," requests Vasquez, passing him the equipment.

Bishop leaves and silence descends on the room again, save for Beclem who fiddles with wires and presses buttons. Moments that feel like hours pass and the atmosphere remains apprehensive, and then the familiar sound of the guns below them sounds out once again.

"Damn it, those things don't want to give up! It looks like they want to have a go at the main emergency passage now," calls out Elma.

"Geez let's hope there are less of them than there are bullets in those guns. How are they doing?"

"Same as before, firing almost constantly, the creatures have a slight advantage in this corridor 'because it's bigger, they can send down more of them at once."

In the corridor the guns fire frantically ahead of them, their fiery eruptions accompanied by the screeches and screams of Xenomorphs.

The marines sit and watch helplessly as the ammo counters fall.

"If those guns use all their ammo we are in big trouble, get your guns ready!" orders Elma, everyone except Beclem dashes to get their rifles as Elma continues to read out the gun's activities. "Gun C is down to twenty… ten… Gun C is out. Gun D has twenty five… fifteen…" abruptly the firing stops.

Elma looks at the screen disbelievingly "It stopped. The gun stopped firing at 15, temperature is 42 degrees."

"They retreated, they stopped the attack," sighs Yuna.

"That or there aren't anymore of them," points out Paine.

"Maybe we got 'em demoralized," mutters Biggs sarcastically.

"Knock it off Biggs. I doubt we killed them all. There were over 300 people working in this area and I think it is pretty safe to assume that all of them were 'infected'. That means that those things started out with that number before we came here. We have not killed enough of them to have gotten rid of them all, I'm certain."

"What worries me more is that these things are smart enough to know when to retreat and regroup," mumbles Paine

"Well let's hope they aren't smart enough to concoct anything cunning, last thing we need is a vicious killer with a brain. Not to mention the invisible guys out there."

The radio suddenly beeps making everybody jump and Nooj's voice can be heard on the other end.

"Yuna are you there?"

Yuna jumps over to the radio.

"Yuna here, what is it Nooj?"

"I got a message from Buddy; he said he was heading over to you guys to pick you up, he said you are in big trouble. What's happened?"

Biggs interrupts Yuna from speaking "The mission's turned into Shoopuf shit, that's what's happened Sir!"

In his office in Bevelle Nooj frowns "I asked Yuna what has happened soldier and I will hear it from her, stand down."

Yuna puts a comforting hand on Biggs' shoulder and he steps back.

"The mission has gone awry Nooj. More than half the Squad has been lost. Paine, Beclem, Elma, Vasquez, Bishop, Campbell, Biggs and I are the only survivors so far. Everyone else is dead, Rikku included," the last part of her sentence she uttered with barely any volume.

Shock rarely crosses Nooj's face, but now his threshold has been breached. He says nothing, stunned that such an elite fighting force could be so badly beaten.

"Nooj, there is more to this than you think. There is something else out here in Macalania, not just invisible psychopaths. We were investigating the control center of the Ultima reactor and we found most of the resident population in there. They had been… cocooned, whatever you want to call it. We were taking a closer look at one of the unconscious workers and this animal burst out of her chest, killing her. Every one of the workers we think suffered the same fate. That's when these larger creatures ambushed us, we're pretty certain that whatever it was that came out of the workers chest was their offspring, and that was when we lost most of the troops, including Rikku."

Nooj takes off his glasses and supports his head with his hands despondently. "Sweet machina, I'm sorry Yuna. What about the others?"

"Janus and Wedge died when the Dropship came in to evacuate us, something went wrong. In mid flight it lost control and crashed into the APC."

"What about Baird? Did he die in the control center?"

"No, he and Frosty were killed by one of the invisible creatures, and Biggs killed… it."

"What do you mean 'it'?"

"These invisible things Nooj, they're not human. We don't know what they are either, but they're not human. We're into something very deep Nooj and we are getting out of here and we are going to destroy this place to make sure none of these things survive."

"Wait a minute, wait a minute. What do mean you're going to destroy that place? How are you going to do that?" though in his gut Nooj had an idea of what they planned to do.

"We're setting the Ultima reactor to self destruct, you haven't seen what we've seen Nooj. We can't take any chances of letting any of these things out of here. This place must be cleansed of the dangers we have seen."

"That is absolutely out of the question Yuna; do you have any idea of what an explosion like that will do to Macalania?"

"Yes I do Nooj, and I don't care, we have our priorities fixed."

"Yuna, listen to me I am telling you, you can't do that!"

Biggs suddenly jumps back in front of Yuna "Begging your pardon sir, but fuck you!"

Nooj's expression hardens "If I hear another word from you private and you survive this I will have you transferred to massaging Le Blanc before the day is over!"

Biggs promptly steps away; he knew he didn't know the first thing about massaging, and it is common knowledge that failing to please Le Blanc has the consequence of the dreaded 'Heel'.

"Nooj, I'm sorry but this is how it is going to be, nothing is going to change our minds. Do you have anything to say?"

"… I suggest you start hoping that doing this will do what you intend it to do."

"I discarded hope a long time ago Nooj, but in its place I found something better; The Calm."

Nooj sighs "Well then, all I can say is good luck to you all. Nooj out," the radio turns off and to her surprise, everyone gives Yuna a small ripple of applause; she blushes.

Beclem continues to fiddle with a few wires and buttons, and then a small beeping noise emanates from his hacking device.

"There, done it, the self-destruct sequence has been activated and by my calculations it should blow in under two hours, which is more than enough time to get out of here on the Celsius. In the meantime we just need to get ready, get all our equipment and get ourselves armed to the teeth incase those things find a way in.

Once again the radio crackles to attention.

"This is Brother here. Are you there Yuna?"

"Yes Brother I'm here."

"We'll be there to pick you up in thirty minutes."

"Good, we'll be waiting for you, Yuna out," she switches off the radio.

"Have you told him about Rikku yet?" asks Beclem.

"No, I couldn't, not over a radio; he deserves to be told face to face, besides, he'll need comforting. He may be a bit of an idiot and they may have argued a lot but he loved Rikku, this is going to hurt himmore than it has any of us."