The Science Facility was really trashed up bad. The place housed a lot of computers, but they were all smashed up it seemed. Almost as if the enemy forces didn't want me to know something. Something stored on these computers.
That's when I heard a sudden noise mixed with the panicked cry for help. Someone was being attacked and I distinctly heard the terrible noise of chainsaws grinding against metal. I rushed towards the sound and rounding a corner I saw two of those chainsaw wielding "ogres" or whatever they were, trying to cut down a sealed door.
I introduced them to a swarm of flechettes and they soon lay dead.
The door was unlocked and a scientist peered out at me. He was relieved to see me and waved me inside.
Inside was an office, but it was a mess of papers right now.
"I am most grateful for your help Mr... I would not have been able to escape this ordeal had you not shown up," he told me in a slightly quivering voice.
"I don't think it will matter in the long run buddy, they'll get you sooner or later if you don't get a gun." It was rather brutal of me to say that, but then, cordiality had never been one of my strong sides.
He looked pale and suddenly paranoid, but what he then said was unexpected.
"My life doesn't matter unless I can give it to save the rest of humanity. All our lives are expendable in this endeavour."
I paused.
"Well, you're a scientist, that means you know stuff. I need to know the origin of these critters. How this shit started. Tell me about those darn slipgates – how did you invent them? How come aliens are coming through them?"
The scientist fidgeted, unsure of what to say. He was afraid to tell me everything for some reason.
"The slipgates are able to create a passage across dimensions as a shortcut for us. What is a long distance here on Earth might be the exact same coordinates in another dimension. It…" He paused and then apparently decided to get to the point right away.
"We found that we had pierced into another, possibly inhabited dimension at some point during testing. We became excited and decided to explore this other dimension, but we never got a chance to. They...the enemy hit us suddenly."
I scowled, pondering at this.
"We were preparing an expedition, when we suddenly lost contact with the expedition members even before we were ready to send them – we lost contact with the entire Slipgate 09 sector. When the soldiers went in, they reported terrible sights. All science personnel killed, equipment gone and the slipgate in that sector vanished without a trace. Even the soldiers assigned to guard that sector were gone – no sign of them."
I was growing impatient.
"Ok, so you actually saw the dimension first?"
"No, we never got a chance to, but the data readings on the coordinates strongly suggested it."
He went on with his tale. "We suffered other such attacks – they always came without warning, only once did reinforcements show up in time to catch them in the act. They arrived in time to see strange disfigured soldiers walk about ensuring that there were no witnesses...killing the science personnel off as the newly arrived soldiers watched. The troops opened fire and managed to kill the remaining murderers. One of them was only wounded...they tried to interrogate him...or it, but it would only blabber nonsense. When they decided to kill it off, it seemed to suddenly, briefly snap to attention and speak – almost as if it regained some of its former sanity."
"So what did this...'grunt' say?" I asked, getting a little more interested.
"It said something about 'the Master' a being it referred to as 'Quake'. Then it became ferocious and they had to kill it. But an autopsy of the fellow revealed something else."
"What?"
"The madman was one of the missing soldiers, but someone or something had inserted a probe of some kind into the pleasure centers of his brain. This would make the soldier gain immense pleasure from killing – so much in fact that he would forget anything about morals and ethics, be reduced to a brutish animal bent on killing."
I thought out loud.
"That suggests that the bastard knows a thing or two about technology and he has stolen some of our tech – that means the bastard will use it against us. Thanks for the tip egghead," I grunted.
"That's not all. We were able to activate a slipgate system scan before the last enemies disappeared with it. The data that the scan brought back suggested massive movements on the other side and..."
He paused, swallowing hard.
"...The signatures were not human, but the movements suggested organized troop movements. We concluded that this 'Quake' was preparing to unleash its real army which was not human."
There was silence for a while as I pondered this. "Well, I guess you'd better come with me if you wanna live," I told him, hoisting my Nailgun.
"I'll only slow you down, but I wish you luck."
"Thanks," I grunted as I left him in his office and went ahead.
My ears picked up the sounds of combat and I automatically started into a run. Bursting into a room with my nailgun up, I arrived to see a brave soldier fighting for his life against one of those brutish 'ogre' creatures.
The soldier blasted the monster in the face with a double-barreled combat shotgun, sending the monster reeling to the floor, but it wasn't quite dead. The human raised his shotgun again, but before I could react to help him, a Doberman leapt out of the shadows behind the marine and bit onto his arm, yanking his shotgun off target as he fired.
The soldier punched the vicious dog, but it hung onto his arm. With an angry growl, the downed 'ogre' swung its chainsaw upward towards the marine, who was too preoccupied with the dog to be able to react in time.
The chainsaw cut him and the Doberman in half, just as I opened fire on the monster. The torso of the unfortunate soldier sailed through the air, making some kind of wicked summersault, spraying blood and other bodily fluids all across the room, while his legs and pelvis collapsed to the floor in a sticky crimson heap, coloring camouflage pants dark red.
The place was a mess consisting of the remains of the soldier. His face frozen in agony and the belly reduced to a gory mess of shriveled flesh. As a combat veteran, I was no stranger to grisly sights like this. In the end, you become immune to gross imagery and I only gave the dead marine a short look before I turned my attention to the double-barreled shotgun.
After a moment's thought, I decided to keep my basic shotgun, but trade the nailgun for the twin-barrel shotgun. It made sense, because it required me to keep only one ammo type, and the shotguns were both less cumbersome than the broad nailgun.
…