'Hey guys GhostNobody here again to say a big thank you for your continued support on my newest project here. But before I get into that I'd like to personally pass along my condolences to Sandy who's a long term reader and reviewer of mine on her recent bereavement, just wanted to say that I'm sending my love and best wishes here from the Welsh Valleys. I like to think that we're all like a very strange little family here, brought together by our strange and unique minds and what hurts one of us hurts us all, but that's where we can all help each other, if one steps up and helps to prop you up when you need it the most and that's seen by another who does the same for one other who copies it then before long we're all propping and holding each other up and we can all draw strength from that unity, so I guess I'm kinda saying fuck it lets all be strange together and embrace it.
Next up I'd like to address how many questions about my queen that I'm getting. Don't worry she has a name and yes she is different from a normal queen, but I can't say much without ruining it for you but suffice to say all will be revealed soon.
So with one last big thank you to you all for your continued support, comments and suggestions, this is GhostNobody signing off and saying on with the show…..'
Chapter 4: Into the Breach.
"Oh do me a favour and quit whining about it, it's not like you haven't done this a hundred times already" Meesa said as the team walked from the armoury and towards the launch bay,
"Yeah but come on Moodstone it makes me sick to my stomach, the last thing I need going into a shit storm is feeling like I'm gonna hurl the entire time!" Spike said in a whining voice,
"Ye could always get Inferno to punch you in ya stomach laddie" Tank said as he walked over and put his big arm around Meesa who smiled up at him under her helmet,
"What good would that do?" Spike asked in a rather high pitched voice,
"Because then you'd have already been sick, so you won't have to worry about having anything in there to chuck up all over your console" Reaper said from his left,
"Dude you're supposed to be on my side!" Spike snorted looking at his friend, Aiden grinned under his mask, suddenly T'shara appeared by their right,
"What are you all discussing?" she asked, Reaper, Moodstone and Tank all looked at each other and grinned before turning the group smile to her,
"Whether you should punch Spike in the stomach" they all said in unison, much to Spike's disappointment rather than dismiss the idea as foolishness she seemed to actually be considering it, he knew thoughtful mandible clicks when he heard them,
"Oh so wait, you won't risk arm wrestling Reaper before a mission because and I quote, 'You do not wish to risk injuring a valuable team member before a mission' but punching me in the stomach is fine?" he said trying to do a mock version of T'shara's gruff voice while doing her part, she shot him an angry glance but then her expression softened,
"Exactly, I do not wish to injure a valuable team mate" she said putting real emphasis on the valuable part, this was instantly met by sniggers from Meesa, Aiden and even Gregor,
"Oh great now I know this mission's fucked" Spike said, Meesa cocked her head curiously to one side as she looked at him while still giggling,
"What makes you say that Spike?" she asked between giggles,
"Well I'm pretty sure that's one of the signs of the coming of the four horsemen of the apocalypse isn't it?" he asked,
"What are you gibbering about laddie?" Tank asked,
"You know the four horsemen who signal the coming of the apocalypse, Conquest, War, Famine and Death, well I'm pretty sure that Inferno finally cracking a joke is the final sign, the coming of the horseman of Death is upon us!" Spike said launching into a full on dramatic recital, instantly Inferno aimed a swat at his head which missed and Spike set off down the hallway faster with her in pursuit to the sounds of the other three giggling even harder behind them.
Doug and Whisper who already in the launch bay were not even the least bit surprised to see Spike come flying through the door at top speed with Inferno in hot pursuit, it had become a bit of a standing joke among the team that the pair of them were responsible for the other being so physically fit what with all the running they both did, at least when she caught him she always managed to keep her instincts to harm him in check, she usually settled for just scaring him, though there was that time Spike had put a plastic spider on her while she was asleep and as funny as it was to see a big rough tough hyper powerful Yaujta huntress scream like a little girl when she woke up to what she thought was a spider on her face, it had taken all of Reaper's heavily augmented strength to hold her pinned down to the deck plate to stop her from literally murdering him and taking his skull as a trophy, though pretty much all of the team had agreed that she she'd secretly liked the being pinned down by reaper in his underwear part.
The team now assembled in the Ghost's Shadow's launch bay and began running their launch checks, they were going to be dropping into the combat zone in things that they called the Devil's door knockers, these were effectively heavily modified drop pods, in fact they moved so fast and were so agile that they were more like missiles than pods and that was the intention, when the Spirit teams were first formed they had used regular drop pods and this had resulted in a high mortality rate among operators, as the pods were either shot out of the sky by advanced air defences or if they weren't destroyed by the hits they obliterated on impact with the ground due to structural damage suffered by either weapons fire or warping of the metals on entry.
So the best engineers in the Spirits had gotten together and had totally redesigned the whole concept, the results were the pods that were now sat in their launch tubes, the XM-507's or Devil's door knockers. They were fifteen feet tall and shaped rather like a large black dart, no weapons but extremely thick Tritanium armour which could take more than a few hits from both Yaujta plasma cannons or even the best anti air missiles that money could buy, the boosters on top of the pods accelerated them to nearly impossible to hit speeds while the side thrusters kept them dancing around to avoid anything heading their way, all in all it made for a hell of a ride.
All of the team stowed all of their weapons in their pod's stowage bins, the only ones they kept on them were their side arms, this was because the cabins were so small that there was simply no room for them inside the pod, after that they went through their anti-shaving foam bomb checks, they had all fallen foul of this particular prank of Spike's more than once and he had gotten rather ingenious at hiding the damn things, apparently he found it hilarious when they emerged from their pod ready to go into combat covered from head to foot in a thick layer of shaving foam.
Finally, with their pre-flight and anti-shaving foam bombs check complete the team loaded themselves into the incredibly cramped pods, but while incredibly cramped each of the team knew that these things were designed to be like that, the armour around the passenger cab was exceptionally dense to protect the passenger and the tightness was to hold you in place so that you weren't thrown all over the place during either manoeuvres or impact.
Aiden strapped himself in to the pod and closed the hatch in front of him after he was done, next up was to turn the pod's systems and communications on and sync them up to the Ghost's Shadow, this involved pressing a few buttons around the cab until the whole panel lit up like a Christmas tree, after this was done he activated the comms, "Alright Spirits game face's on it go time, sound off" he said in his best Sergeant's voice, one by one the voices came through the speakers in both his helmet and the pod,
"Spike ready"
"Moonstone ready"
"Tank ready laddie"
"Inferno ready to hunt"
"Picasso ready"
"Whisper ready"
"Ice ready"
"And Reaper ready, Queen bee Spirit team six is ready for the go" Aiden said,
"Alright Spirits comms are good and your vitals are coming through loud and clear, I've synced the pod's drop system to automatic and set the coordinates for the drops to each of your navi comps, not gonna lie to you this is going to be a hell of a drop with all the flak coming your way, we're going to aim for the outskirts of the city where the flak will be at its lightest, so your gonna have to hoof it from there or secure vehicles and move to the centre, so god speed and good luck Spirits lets show them why we're the best at this" Captain Carter's voice said through the intercom,
"Roger that" each of them said in perfect unison.
As she finished speaking Aiden's holographic navi comp lit up showing the planet, it showed a route to the outskirts of the mega city of New London, suddenly a decreasing number came up at the bottom, it started at ten and was rapidly counting down, as it hit one he spoke through the intercom, "Here we fucking go!" he yelled and with a massive rush his pod accelerated through the drop tube out of the bottom of the Ghost's Shadow. After a couple of rolls the pod orientated itself and accelerated to its maximum velocity in the direction of the planet, it always amazed Aiden the sheer quiet of space, apart from his breathing in his helmet and the soft beeps of his controls there was just sheer nothingness all around him, he couldn't even hear the engines of his own pod let alone the others, above him he could see the other pods through the glass, they were loosely clustered for the moment but he knew as soon as the flak started they would break off and head to different drop zones to maximise the problems the anti-air systems would have tracking them, "Alright Spirts brace for atmosphere breach" Aiden said into his intercom as he was watching his distance counter counting down in his Hud,
"Ahhh fuck I hate this part!" Spike's voice said through the intercom, as he said it the whole pod began to shake and bounce, a corona of flame lit up the outside of the pod's super reinforced carbon glass as his pod breached the atmosphere, suddenly the alarms started going off and the words 'Incoming anti-air detected beginning evasive manoeuvres' appeared in his Hud, "Everyone hang on shit is heading towards the fan" he said into his intercom,
"Oh shit that means we're the fan right!?" Spike's voice replied sounding panicked,
"Hang on to ye ball sack laddie! This is where the fun begins!" Tank's voice said through the intercom,
"Not helping!" Spike yelled as their pods broke formation and began their evasive manoeuvres, the G forces from the turns that these pods were capable of were pretty extreme, to Aiden it felt like his blood was being forced from his head to his feet then back again and then back again, then the pod started doing barrel rolls trying to shake off the three missiles that were chasing him, all the while he kept seeing ground, sky, ground, sky, ground, sky through his window, on his next drop he swore to himself that he was gonna get a set of fucking curtains for the pod, but the worst part of this ride was the fact that it was completely computer controlled, you had no input other than to hang the fuck onto the harness and hope your computer was smarter than the computer of missiles that were chasing you.
"Whooooo yeah! Come on ye little bastards can't fucking touch this!" Tank yelled, Aiden caught a glimpse of his pod directly below him as it went through a set of tight turns heading directly for a massive circular shaped white tower building, plasma bolts sizzled the air all around him as his pod effortlessly dodged them all, it smashed straight through the top floor of the tower and disappeared from sight then he came over the intercom again, "Tank on the ground and deploying" he said, suddenly another voice came through the intercom,
"Whisper on the ground and deploying" she said, then there was another,
"Picasso on the ground and deploying" his voice said, then another came in,
"Inferno on the ground and ready to hunt" she said, that meant half of the team was on the ground and were gearing up and getting ready to go, but that meant that now there were only four targets in the air for the anti-air to go after.
As his pod went through another tight near ninety degree turn he saw another pod in the distance spinning through multiple barrel rolls to avoid incoming plasma fire before it smashed through the side of a rather large square shaped building, "Ice on the ground and deploying" her voice said through the intercom, three left in the air now, as he looked down he saw a pod bouncing down a main road directly below him before slamming into a wall near enough collapsing it on top of the pod, he wasn't worried the pods were equipped with tools for this eventuality, things like hydraulic rams to lift debris off the pod's cabin.
"Moodstone on the ground and deploying" her voice said through the intercom, suddenly plasma sizzled past the window of Aiden's pod only inches away from the glass, now that there were less targets to aim for the anti-air was becoming far more intense, suddenly his pod jolted massively to the left as there was a massive bang from behind him somewhere, alarms immediately stared going off in the cabin, on his holo display a picture of his pod appeared with three of the pod's four engines now highlighted in red, he was currently only running on one thruster, there was no way that he'd be able to avoid any more incoming with only one engine and his directional thrusters as they'd never be able to pull him out of the turns on their own, "Fuck I'm hit, I repeat Reaper is hit, I've lost three engines and I'm going down!" Aiden yelled into his intercom as his pod initiated emergency decent which basically meant it adjusted into a forty-five-degree drop, over his intercom just as he said it he heard "Spike on the ground and sick as a fucking dog, but I've got eye's on Reaper's pod, he'd about five clicks due north of me and he's going in hard!" Spike's voice said, just then there was a tremendous crash and Aiden was thrown around inside his pod, due to his engines being out there was next to nothing to try and stop the pod's sliding velocity so the building he smashed into he shot straight through and out the other side, he felt the pod's angle switch and he knew it was now falling vertically straight down, before she could even think to try and relay any information to his team the pod slammed hard into the ground with such force that it punched through the road that it hit, Aiden was jostled about so badly inside the pod that even through his helmet his head was slammed into the rear of the cab that it knocked him clean out.
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From where she was on the top floor of some apartment block super high rise she'd had a good view out over the city, she watched as each of her team mates pods landed before they called in, well landed was a loose term, more like slammed into a building or the ground but at least they were on the ground safely.
With only two left in the air she found herself making a silent prayer to Paya as she watched the two pods dancing and twisting to avoid the anti-air flak, then she saw Spike's pod ground itself in a building about eight clicks from her position, now that only left Aiden in the air and she felt her heart begin to pound harder, she didn't know what it was about this particular human but there was something powerful that softened her defences around him, despite being one of the most powerful and skilled operators that she had ever known of any species there was a real gentleness to him, he was such a kind and caring male that the contrast in his personality often shocked her, in battle he was fearless and had often been described by both enemies and friends alike as a force of nature and that was if you saw him coming, given that he is an assassination specialist that was not often the case as most of his targets never got the privilege of ever looking him in the eye as they never even knew he was there.
But to her he had always been kind and even gentle, he always made a point of trying to include her in conversations and always tried to get her to give her opinion on any matter that they were discussing, T'shara remembered when she had first joined Spirit team six, she had not trusted anyone and had been very stand offish with the entire team, but it was Aiden that had walked up to her bold as brass and had introduced himself, something in his bright intelligent eyes had told her right from that moment that she could trust this human with her life and he had never let her down and the more missions they did and the more times they fought side by side only served to strengthen that already unbreakable bond, she also found herself marvelling often at his amazing inner strength a point that often hit home when she remembered how he'd gotten his cybernetics, she'd seen this male go through more pain than any four other people she knew combined and somehow come out the other side still smiling that goofy smile of his, the one that always seemed to make her heart melt in her chest when she saw it.
Then as she watched she saw a missile strike the engines of Aiden's pod with a huge ball of flames before she saw his pod screaming through the sky trailing a huge black tail behind it, her heart now felt like it was trying to escape from her chest as she tracked it across the sky till she lost sight of it behind the buildings, suddenly she heard Spike's radio call relaying Aiden's last known position to the team, immediately she powered up her dual plasma casters and turned to find the exit, fuck the mission for the moment, she was going to get her friend back.
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The first thing Aiden heard as he started to come to was the ringing of the alarms in his pod, the loud beeping noises pierced his head like a thousand knives all stabbing him in the brain, as his eyes slowly opened they tried to focus on the inside of his pod but apart from a few glowing red lights here and there it was completely dark, instantly his night vision kicked in and the world went black and white, "Uggghhh fuck, well that could have gone smoother" he said groaning as he moved his head and it felt like a load of spiky marbles rolling around in his skull, he reached for the pod's comms button to his right and pressed it, "Reaper on the ground alive and deploying" he said, but instead of replies he got an earful of screeching static, "Great the comms are fucked" he said jabbing the button again to get the same result.
Reaching down to his left he located a large twist handle and he cranked it around to the left, he heard the motor that lifts the canopy up start to grind as it tried to lift the canopy away from him, suddenly another red light lit up on the holo display of the pod highlighting the canopy release motor, "Fucking figures" Aiden said as he listened to the motor grinding away as it tried in vain to lift it, twisting the handle through another ninety degrees he yanked it upwards and deployed the emergency explosive bolts which blew the canopy up and away from the pod with a dull thud, then he released the clasps of the harness that held him in place and he slowly sat up.
The first thing he noticed was the sound of running water all around him, turning to look around he realised that his pod had fallen into a massive tunnel of some kind, it took him a couple of seconds to realise that he'd fallen through the road and into the sewer system, he laughed to himself quietly as he shook his head, "Well if there was ever a perfect metaphor for how my day is going then this is it, get shot down and now have to wade knee deep through shit, perfect" he said as released the remaining harness clasps and climbed out of the pod on to the outer hull.
It was at this point that Aiden noticed the spider web of cracks running through his helmet's visor, slowly he removed it from his head and turned it over in his armoured hands, there was a huge dent in the right side and his visor was cracked all over, "Well that explains the fucking headache" he said looking at his damaged helmet, but he was rather glad of the helmet's sacrifice as otherwise that have been his skull, throwing the helmet down to his side it bounced off the hull of the pod and splashed into the water that surrounded the pod, now he was able to get his first look at the extensive damage that his pod had suffered from the crash, to say it was fucked was the understatement of the century, not a single panel had escaped unscathed from the impact forces that it had suffered, the hull was twisted and buckled and it reminded Aiden of what happens when you twist the nose of a paper aeroplane into a dart, it was a testament to the engineers that had designed it that he'd survived pretty much unscathed from this.
A sudden thought hit Aiden and he scrambled down off the pod and into the waist high foul smelling water, in fact he really didn't want to think about what was floating around him right now, making his way around to the back of the pod he looked for the storage bay cover, fortunately the panel for the pod's storage bay was above the water line, but unfortunately it was heavily damaged and he instantly knew that the release mechanisms were fried as the panel was heavily buckled in, he just prayed that the equipment inside had survived, grabbing the jagged edge of the panel with his cybernetic arm he strained a little against it but pretty soon the panel tore free in his hand.
Underneath the outer panel the reinforced cage that protected his equipment seemed to be in pretty good shape and thankfully so did his gear, lifting out the magnetic bandoliers he began strapping things to the outside of his armour, the last thing to come out was his P.I.M.P rifle, or Plasma Infused Modular Projector rifle, PIMP for short, an anagram that tickled his team endlessly, but in reality the PIMP was no laughing matter, it was a highly advanced energy projectile weapon that was based on Yaujta plasma caster technology, it had a modular frame that was able to adjust itself to the users requirements, it had three primary settings, long barrel high calibre sniper rifle mode, medium barrel and medium calibre assault rifle and finally short barrel small calibre sub machine gun.
The PIMP used energy cells to power it, they were shaped like normal gun magazines for speed of change and they simply slotted into a magazine chamber at the bottom of the gun, depending on what mode you had the weapon in changed how many charges the cell had, it had fifty in sniper mode, one hundred in assault rifle mode and two hundred in sub machine gun mode because of the calibre the gun had to generate and the power it had to put into each projectile.
Aiden checked the weapon over and breathed easy when he discovered that it had survived unscathed, powering it up he quickly flicked it into sub machine gun mode because of tight confines of the sewer system that he was in, now he had his gear all he had to do was find a way out of this bloody shit filled sewer and hook up with his team, as he looked up at the ceiling where his pod had smashed through the top of the pipe there was a shaft of daylight beaming down from the hole right onto his pod, it was a good thirty feet up and with smooth sides of the pipe there was no way of climbing up, he was going to have to move further into the system and look for a surface access to get back up, just as he was getting ready to go a noise drifted up from deeper down the pipe, a rather familiar noise that sent shivers down Aiden's spine, it was a screech.
Aiden snapped his weapon up into the shoulder and scanned the tunnel ahead of him, he couldn't see any movement but he knew that noise well and it could only mean one thing, Xenos.
If there were Xeno's here they may have just found the reason while New Britannia had gone dark, these creatures were renowned for taking out entire human colonies as well as those of other species as well, most humans hated them with an absolute passion, but not Aiden, he had to admit he admired them, they were utterly ruthless and efficient to a tee, most people considered them to be bugs working on highly evolved instinct, but from his various run-ins with these creatures he knew better, they were highly intelligent and adaptive, each and every member of their hives worked just like every special forces operator should, perfect whether as part of a team or as an individual, they were like the most perfect natural born soldiers that the universe could throw at you and if you didn't respect them, you were a fucking fool.
Aiden had only taken a single step forwards away from his pod when another screech echoed down the tunnel, this time from much closer than before, it was moving and towards him at that, Aiden's eyes frantically scanned the dark tunnel, thanks to his night vision he could see perfectly in the gloom like he was in a black and white film, silently he cursed the loss of his helmet, one of the way's that Xeno's hunted was through pheromones, they could pick up even minute traces in the air, if his helmet had still been in one piece his armour would have been totally sealed, this would have made him a lot harder for the creature to detect, but with its loss and his adrenaline now pumping he must have been like a fucking shining beacon for it to home in on.
Every third sweep of his rifle was over the ceiling above his head as he knew how much these things loved surprise attacks from above, suddenly Aiden heard splashes down the tunnel ahead of him, they were getting closer rather quickly, it was heading right for him, bracing himself Aiden traced his weapon left and right over the water line looking for a target, then he saw it and it was like nothing he had ever seen before.
The Xeno appeared around the corner but it looked unsteady on its feet, it was swaying from left to right as it moved, that's when it saw Aiden as he was training his weapon on it and it charged right at him with an ear splitting screech, as soon as he drew a bead Aiden fired, the small plasma projectiles hissed down the tunnel at insane speed creating small bubbles of light as the flew before they slammed into the Xeno's outer hide sending acidic blood spraying around it, but unlike any Xeno he had encountered before this one didn't even attempt to dodge the incoming fire it simply charged straight at him with reckless abandon screeching at the top of its lungs as it did.
Aiden sent yet another volley it's way and every round found its mark sending yet more acidic blood spraying around it, but they didn't even slow it down as it charged at him, the thing had six holes drilled straight through its chest and part of its guts hanging out but it didn't even appear to feel it, it just kept coming.
Aiden took a step backwards from the charging creature and he adjusted his aim, this time rather than centre mass he aimed right for the creature's face and he pulled the PIMP's trigger again, because it was an energy weapon it had no recoil when it fired so it was able to send the three round burst down the exact same line, each and every one drilled a sizzling hole straight through its large dome shaped forehead and cause the back of its skull to explode showering the water around it with green acidic blood, the creature slammed face first into the water with the force of its charge and slid a few feet sending waves ahead of it as it slid.
"Holy shit" Aiden breathed as he panted from the adrenaline coursing through his veins, slowly he approached the fizzing body of the Xeno being cautious not to step on any patches of its blood, as he looked at the body of the fallen Xeno straight away he could tell that there was something wrong with it, all over its body there appeared to be weird growths sticking up from its hide, usually these creatures were sleek and streamlined, but this one looked diseased, the strange growths were like some sort of coral stuck to the outside of its skin, that's when he noticed that most of its face where the rounds had hit were covered in the things, "What the fuck?" he said as he examined the body, he was about to pull out his scanner and run a few tests when he heard another screech from behind him somewhere, this was swiftly followed by another and then another, he decided alien autopsies could wait, first thing he needed to do was get the fuck out of this sewer, so turning to the direction where the Xeno had come from he began to run.