Chapter 18: The Most Unexpected Thing

Robles

Like all of the towns on Aeola, the buildings were shrouded in a deep mist, giving them a dead, ghostlike quality. There were rarely any people out, since they usually had little reason to anyway. Besides, there wasn't much to do or see in fog-ridden planet.

Things would have gone on like this, if it weren't for an unearthly shriek filling the air.

"Brace yourselves! This landings going to be rough!"

The pilot was straining while he was saying this, however, as all that was keeping the Pelican steady in the air was sheer brute force the pilot was using to steady the control stick. Yet, even with all of his efforts, the ground was coming toward them frighteningly fast, and if there was one thing that was proven in all of flight history, it was that whenever the ship and ground went up against each other, the ground always came out on top.

The pilot quickly slapped a button, activating the Pelican's airbrakes. Large flaps opened up on the sides of the Pelican, increasing drag and slowing them down from insane to near-insane velocities. The pilot tried to angle the Pelican onto a small landing pad, but he was only partially successful. The left wing of the Pelican clipped a nearby building, sending the Pelican into a wild spin. The result was the Pelican slamming into the ground at an angle, causing it to roll several times across the tarmac until it finally came to dead stop. Seconds later, the hatch opened up, and the pilot and a dozen dazed Marines staggered out of the drophsip.

Paccone brushed himself off and straightened out his uniform, and took one look at the Pelican.

"Well, looks we're going have to find a different way out of this place."

"We'll see about that."

The pilot then scrambled onto the wrecked Pelican, popping open access hatches to see how deep the damage was.

"So, can we get this pile of junk flying or not?"

The pilot, slightly annoyed at the insult, popped open more access hatches.

"Fortunately, the damage is mostly cosmetic. The core systems are still functional. All I need are a few spare parts and a couple of hours of time..."

Paccone grunted and looked around the pad again. There were no other vehicles around, and the place was pretty much empty.

"Alright. Sykes, Richards, Foley, Helson, you stay here and hold the fort. I'll take the rest of the squad out and recon the surrounding area. Try to find a friendly face around here or something.

"Yes sir!"

"But sir, how are we supposed to get around? We're not going to get far on foot."

"No worries, Carter. When there's a will, there's a way."

Paccone pointed, and Leo turned to look. There, sitting in a row, was a line of parked civilian maintenance Warthogs.

"And you're going to be driving."

Leo sighed.

"Yes sir."

En route to the Omega Installation

Four Pelicans barreled off at top speed toward ONI's top secret "Omega" Installation. Karla had no idea what was in there that made the place so valuable, but she had her suspicions, and she partly wished that they would be wrong.

"You seem troubled."

Karla looked up and faced Holy, who was sitting in the seat across from her.

"Just thinking about some things."

"You have doubts about this mission."

"How do you know?"

Holy merely smiled.

"I've spent a large portion of my service studying human behavior. I am very well versed in human emotions and body language."

Karla sighed.

"It's just that I'm not too fond on doing ONI's wet work for them. Whenever they need Marines to do something for them, it's either because they don't have the guts to do it themselves, or if they do, it'll become very embarrassing for them. It's just that feeling of being used that gets at me."

Holy nodded and didn't say anything more. Memories of his fallen comrades began to seep back into his mind.

As if on cue, there was a sudden rumbling in the Pelican, and the pilot's voice called out.

"Alright people, it's the home stretch! Five minutes till the DZ. I suggest you strap up, get those barf bags out, and please be seated until the dropship comes to a full and complete stop."

Karla looked out the window, and saw a huge system of mountain ridges, valleys, and narrow passes. The place indeed looked like it was totally inaccessible by land. Further up, Karla could make out the faint outline of several large buildings through the fog, dug into one of the nearby mountains.

Omega.

Robles

"This is freaking creeping me out."

Leo shivered as they drove through the town. Very much like the landing pad, there really wasn't much around to see except for mist and empty shadows of buildings. Sam, meanwhile, was sitting in the rear trunk where the gun would be mounted, eyes darting back and forth for movement.

"I mean, there's nobody out here."

"Maybe they evacuated. You know, with the Covenant threat and all."

"Sam, did you forget what people from Robles were like? Stubborn to the core. They wouldn't move out no matter what, even if you threatened to nuke them."

Sam realized that Leo was right. People in Robles would never leave, even under the threat of death. The town had suddenly become a lot more ominous than before.

"Okay, so then where is everybody?"

At that moment, there was a strange groaning sound coming from their right. Sam and Paccone whipped around to see where it came from.

Nothing but fog.

"Wellings, you see anything?"

Sam squinted, but she couldn't make out any movement whatsoever.

"No sir."

"Then lets keep going. There has to be someone around here."

There was more groaning. It was louder, closer now. Sam looked back to see several silhouettes coming in from the right side.

"Sir, we've got-"

"I see them."

Leo turned the Warthog to move a little closer, but there was something about this that unsettled Sam.

"Sir, there's something wrong about this."

Paccone nodded, and clicked the safety of his assault rifle off.

"Yeah, I'm getting a bad feeling too."

The three other Marines in the second Warthog jumped out to greet the visitors, but then something went wrong. Horribly wrong.

One of the townspeople lunged at the Marines with a high pitched shriek. One of the yelped and fell back, firing at the advancing figure. The person was blasted back a couple of feet and lay on the ground twitching.

"Oh shit! I'm sorry sir, I'm sorry!"

But then, as in response to the gunfire, the rest of the shapes let out a similar shriek and began to charge.

"Open fire!"

All six Marines began blasting away at the advancing townspeople, but like the dogs, whenever they fell, they just heaved themselves up again as if they hadn't felt a thing.

"What the fuck are these things?!?"

One of the Marines, Plenka, panicked and drew a grenade. As he pulled the pin, however, a crazed person lunged and bit his arm. Plenka shrieked and dropped the grenade, which rolled right under the Warthog behind him.

The blast ignited the Warthog's fuel tanks and exploded. All Sam saw was a brilliant flash of light, a sharp pain in her head, and then darkness.