'Hi guys GhostNobody here, this time with a fair bit more of a sombre mood than usual. Today I had a snap reminder of how fragile life is and how cruel this mortal coil of ours can be. I lost my grandfather today. You know it's funny, we see death everyday around the world and we shake it off like its nothing, but it's only when it hits us close that we are truly reminded of what a small and fragile creature we truly are, but don't worry I'm not going to wallow in darkness here. I'm going to remember the strengths and fond memories that this marvel of a man marked me with. This man that gave me my love of reading and my passion to do more than just read someone else's words and enjoy them, but to have people read mine and have the same enjoyment caused by something that I imagined and made real for them. Let me also take this opportunity to say something that I know sounds cliché but I'm going to say anyway, please go to your loved one as remind them how much you love them and care about them, even if you know they know it, just do it anyway, because trust me on this, there will come a day when that opportunity has come and gone and you'll wish you did or you'll thank me that did, don't let it be the first one people, just don't.
I'm dedicating this chapter to the kindest, most patient and gentlest man, that I have ever had the distinct privilege to know.
You gave me this passion and so many other things and I'm going to damn well use them, so this one's for you gramps, good luck on your next journey, hope you're happy where ever you are, I'll miss you.
This is GhostNobody signing off and saying on with the show…..'
Chapter 6: Breakout.
"Jesus Christ these fuckers are persistent!" Aiden yelled to no-one as he turned mid run and let loose yet another volley of highly charged plasma projectiles in the direction of the pursuing Xenos, they screeched angrily at him as the rounds tore through them, his PIMP made short work of them even in its lowest powered setting which was submachine gun mode which as it turned out was perfect for the confines of the tunnel.
It had been specifically designed to combat creatures like Xenomorphs after studying the effects of Yaujta plasma cannons and how effective they were at dispatching them when compared to standard human weaponry.
The first round he fired found the arm of a Xeno that was hanging from the ceiling, it promptly removed it at the elbow sending it screeching down to the floor, but rather than writhe in pain it just immediately sprung back up and continued the pursuit, Aiden had also noticed that body shots seemed to do fuck all to slow them down.
In fact the only way this seemed to slow them down was when the ones behind fell through the holes opened up in the tunnel floor by the acidic blood eating it away.
Aiden's footfalls echoed down the tunnel as he ran full tilt away from the pursuing Xeno's, from his training and his experience Aiden knew that it was pretty pointless to run from Xeno's as due to their speed and agility in most environments they would inevitably catch you and then you'd get hit from behind.
His training had taught him the best way to deal with this particular foe was to deal with them head on, not to let them use either their agility or their formidable stealth skills to get around you and flank you, but these were not your garden verity Xeno's, there was something vastly different and in Aiden's view very wrong with them.
This particular type of Xeno didn't seem to care if they got hurt or not, most Xeno's were pretty durable and could shrug off a whole host of injuries and wounds, but even the most robust classes of Xeno's like the Praetorians who still try to avoid taking damage or injury wherever possible.
These fuckers just didn't seem to care, blow off arms, legs or tails and they just still kept coming as if it was nothing to them, also what was also catching Aiden's attention was the growths that seemed to be covering their bodies, they looked like some sort of coral stuck to their hides, he'd love to have gotten chance to have taken a closer look or even to have gotten some samples for Ice to work on, but there were just way too many of them.
Since he'd engaged that first one after crash landing they come out of the other adjoining tunnels like fucking ants when you pour hot water down their nests and just about as pissed off as them as well.
The water in the bottom of the tunnel was really hampering his running speed, which was a problem the Xeno's were for the most part not having due to the fact half of the fuckers were on the wall and the ceiling, a sudden change in air pressure to his immediate right caused his reflexes to kick in and he ducked and rolled left, it was just in time to see a Xeno lunge for him from his right.
It must have got around him on the wall while he was distracted, it sailed wide and over him slamming face first into the wall on the far side, it seemed to have put everything it had into that jump as it massively over calculated the power required to reach him.
Not something that normal Xeno's did to be fair as they were usually very precise in their attacks, but these ones were extremely reckless, but to be fair it's recovery was nothing short of spectacular.
Instead of climbing back to its feet it simply compressed its arms and legs and kick flipped backwards off the wall and attempted to grab him while upside down, but Aiden's reflexes were far faster thanks in part to his cybernetic systems.
so instead of the flying Xeno grabbing him as it intended it caught a full power punch from Aiden's cybernetic arm to the face which sent it sailing backwards down the tunnel in the direction of its pursuing comrades.
As he watched for the briefest second while the flying Xeno slammed into about five of its friends and promptly sent them flying as well he became aware of a fizzing noise, turning to look at his fist as he ran he saw Xeno blood fizzing on the outer skin of his arm, flicking it the blood flew off and onto the nearest wall where it promptly ate through the cement.
Glancing at the spot where the blood had been he noticed that there wasn't even a scratch on the arm's outer skin, "Thank fuck for that Xeno proofing they installed in the metal" he said to himself before another screech from his left this time caused him to turn, yet another one had managed to get level with him, narrowly he was able to just turn his shoulders into a sideways roll and avoid the incoming tail strike, following the roll through its completion he quickly managed to grab the Xeno's tail with his cyber arm and quickly he swung it around like a hammer thrower and sent it the same way as it's brother/sister.
As he charged on through the seemingly endless tunnel Aiden knew that if he didn't find something to give him an advantage he was done for in this environment, out in the open he was more than a match for your garden verity Xeno's.
Before missions he'd often seen T'shara make a prayer to her goddess Paya for a good hunt, hell he'd even joined her more than once as he always figured any edge was a good one in the sort of environments they always found themselves. So silently while running he offered a prayer to the goddess of the hunt for a little bit of help here, then as if in direct answer to his call when he turned the next corner on his right he spotted a large heavy looking door, right now he didn't care if it was a storage closest, at least it would funnel the Xenos at him one at a time, so changing course mid sprint he made a beeline right for it.
The door itself looked like it had come right off an old submarine, it was a large dull metal affair with a twist handle in the middle of it, as he reached it Aiden dropped his PIMP on its sling so he could free up his hands, as he grabbed the handle he could feel the resistance in the old rusted mechanism, but rust was no match for the strength that his cybernetic arm had, with one heavy twist the handle screeched loudly and the mechanism moved.
Spinning the handle rapidly in his hands the bolts at the top and bottom of the door moved inwards, the whole time he was spinning it he could feel the Xeno's closing on him, "Come on!" he yelled at the door in desperation as he rapidly cranked the handle.
Finally, with a dull thud it gave and pulled outwards. As soon as he had the door open enough to slip through he used his cybernetic arm to snap the crank handle off and promptly threw it at the nearest Xeno striking it in the face just as it leapt with its jaws wide open, for a briefest second it looked like a big dog jumping for a Frisbee, that was till the force of the impact took its lower jaws clean off.
Aiden dashed through the now open door and grabbed it from the other side yanking it closed behind him, he could the hear the Xeno's screeching and clawing at the outside trying to pulled the door open again, they were literally throwing themselves at the door slamming against the metal, Aiden on the other side was frantically twisting the second handle to get the bolts sealed.
As the bolts thudded into their cement holders Aiden sagged against door, his breath was ragged from all the running he'd been forced to do, as he listened to the angry screeches on the other side of the door he sure hoped that the rest of his team were having better luck than he was.
Turning around he got his first good look at the room he was in, thankfully it wasn't a broom closet but some sort of rest area that seemed to lead into another much narrower tunnel, to his left and right were a few rather old looking metal benches that were covered in rather sparkly dust, though that was probably due to him using night vision.
Since he'd started this pursuit the only light he'd seen had come from the massive hole he'd made in the ceiling with the drop pod.
Before setting off down the narrow tunnel Aiden did a quick ammo check on the PIMP's counter, normally it would have been displayed in his helmet's visor HUD, but as his helmet was toast he had to rely on the counter on the side of the gun.
It showed that he had a hundred rounds remaining which meant he'd half depleted this battery, but at least with this weapon if he could find a power port he could use a special adapter in the bandolier to recharge them, it would mean he'd have to spend four hours plugged into the wall like a fucking toaster but it at least meant he'd walk away with a full ammo count.
Placing his weapon back into the shoulder Aiden sighed heavily as he looked down the narrow tunnel, it wasn't much more than shoulder width and only just over head height for him, he was kinda glad that T'shara wasn't with him or he'd have a spent most of his time trying to unstick the large Yaujta female from the narrow tunnel walls, or listening to string after string of Yaujta curses when she'd inevitably bang her head on the ceiling, the thought of the big proud huntress swearing at concrete walls and threatening to rip its spine out through its concrete arse made him smile, he hoped she was ok.
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"Holy shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiittttttttttttttt!" Spike yelled as he ran, it felt like he'd been running for hours when in reality it had been only about twenty minutes, though for once in his life he was real glad that Inferno had beat the importance of cardio into him in the team's physical training sessions, glancing over his shoulder he could see that at least half the pack was still on his tail, "These fuckers just don't give up!" he panted to himself as he ran.
Spike had encountered this particular group right outside the building he'd crashed into, once he'd recovered his gear from the pod and established contact with the team, he'd relayed Reaper's last known position before his pod had gone down and he'd hooked himself into the Spirit net, this was an electronic network that he'd set up which not only relayed real time info and intel from the Ghost's Shadow to them, but relayed their vitals and current GPS positions to each other once it was tied into the satellites, from what he'd seen of the map they were pretty spread out all over the city, the closest to him was Inferno and she looked like she was on the move heading in his direction.
The building he'd slammed into was some sort of Sci-fi memorabilia shop and his pod had done a right number on the all the displays and rather collectable figures that had been in the cases, as he'd pulled himself out of the pod and got his gear he'd seen Reaper's pod scream overhead through the front of the shop window with a huge trail of smoke following it, he watched it disappear before calling in the last position he'd seen it on the Spirit net, as soon as it crashed it had gone off the net, which either meant that it was underground and had lost contact with the satellites tracking it, or well the other possibility he really didn't want to think about.
Due to the high amount of electronic warfare gear he carried Spike carried a much smaller weapon than the others, he used a highly modified pulse submachine gun, which used 10mm caseless high speed ammo.
Tank had really done a number on this thing, kitting it out with a heavy duty integrated supressed barrel, laser enhanced sighting and a holoscope, along with recoil dampening and fore-grip supports to keep the weapon on target even when fired on full auto.
The weapon was a whole lot of mean in a very small package, granted it wasn't any kinda patch on things like Reaper's PIMP gun, or Tank's pulse minigun, or even on Inferno's highly modified twin plasma casters, but it could hold its own in just about any circumstance and given that he almost always found himself indoors trying to hack into a server or controlling a security system it was perfect.
As he'd exited the shop after taking a quick look at some of the surviving stock and making a mental note to come back and grab some if he got chance, he'd found himself standing in the bright sunshine right in the middle of a high street shopping district, but it wasn't what he'd expected, as he'd glanced around if the shop shutters weren't down then their windows were busted through and the interiors trashed, it looked like they'd been looted, there were deserted or crashed hover cars in every direction he looked, some just left abandoned with all the doors open and no signs of life, others were slammed through walls or windows and were sticking out of just about everywhere, "What the fuck?" he said looking at the scene of quiet chaos, that's when he noticed the large group of people just standing there just down the street from him, he figured they'd been watching the pods come in, at least he might have a chance to get some intel here, as it turned out he got much more than he bargained for.
"Errr hi guys, listen this isn't an invasion or anything, we're here to help" Spike said approaching the group slowly keeping his weapon lowered as to try and appear friendly. He could already see that it was a large group of civilians.
As he spoke the entire group turned as one and looked right at him, he instantly froze in place, even from here he could tell that something was very wrong with them, lots of them seemed to have weird growths sticking off them like some sort of dark coloured coral, the nearest one to him was a Yaujta male, or at least he used to be, at least half of his face had been replaced with this coral like growth that jutted out in large spikes like half his head had been turned into a Morningstar.
"What the….." Spike began, but before he could finish the Yaujta male let out a blood curdling roar and as one the entire crowd charged right at him at full tilt, without hesitation Spike pulled his weapon up and took aim at the nearest one, "Don't move or you will be fired upon!" he yelled, but he could already see that they had no intention of stopping so he opened fire, his submachine gun made a rapid series of dull thuds as it fired opening up a series of holes in the male Yaujta's chest, but it didn't even seem to faze him, he just kept coming, along with all the rest of them, Spike knew that if he stood and fought he wouldn't stand a chance so he did the only thing he could do, he turned and ran.
As he ran he activated his comms, "Spike to all call signs, have encountered a group of locals, they are most definitely hostile, something's fucking wrong with them avoid contact at all costs!" he yelled as he ran, Tank's voice burst in over the comms,
"What's happening laddie?" he asked, in between gasps for air Spike replied,
"Spotted a group of locals near my LZ, went over to them to try and gain intel but before I got near they charged me, a few of them have some sort of weird coral like shit growing all over them, so possible bio hazard event in progress, will attempt to confirm as soon as I can shake these fuckers off my tail!" he said turning a sharp corner into a tight alleyway between two rows of buildings.
"Roger that, stay alive laddie I'm on me way to you" Tank replied, as he went to run under a fire escape something swung down and grabbed him swinging him up and off his feet,
"Whoa fuck!" he yelled as he was flipped through the air and on to the platform, he skidded along it hitting his back against a railing, without a second's hesitation instantly readied his submachine gun looking for a target, but in front of him was only a shimmer which he instantly recognised as a Yaujta cloaking device.
As Inferno decloaked Spike breathed a sigh of relief, he'd never been so glad to see the big huntress in his life, he went to speak but instantly she raised her hand to her face shield in the universal gesture for 'Shut the fuck up' more politely known as please be quiet.
This confused Spike for a second, but as he heard all the screeching locals running under them now in pursuit of a ghost he understood what she was doing, from where he was laid he was invisible to them on the ground as they'd have no reason to look up unless he gave them one.
As the last of them proceeded through the alleyway following the pack Spike could see that some of them could barely walk let alone run, they seemed to either shuffle along or even drag themselves, he'd noticed quite a few at the back had leg injuries or even no legs, but still they kept moving, doggedly dragging themselves after their invisible quarry, it took a solid fifteen minutes for the last of them to clear out from under them and then out of earshot, finally Inferno turned to face him from where she'd been crouched watching the crowd, "Are you hurt?" she asked in a flat tone, quickly checking himself he realised he was fine and shook his head.
"Good" she said flatly again,
"What the fuck is going on Inferno? What the fuck is wrong with them?" he asked standing up and looking in the direction the crowd had gone,
"I believe I agree with your earlier assessment of a possible bio hazard event, I have seen whole crowds of civilians hunting in packs, they appear to roam aimlessly until something catches their attention then they all charge at it with reckless abandon in an attempt to catch it" she said looking in the direction the crowd had gone.
"Yeah I saw that part first hand, man those fuckers are fast, well some of them are anyway" he said as he watched what appeared to be a young human female, dragging herself along with her one remaining arm below them, it appeared that both of her legs and her other arm had been severed by something and she was now left with only her left arm, but that didn't seem to deter her in the slightest.
The comms crackled in both of their helmets simultaneously, "Spike come in, sit rep?" Moodstone's voice said, pressing his PTT Spike replied,
"I'm no longer under pursuit, have met up with Inferno about two clicks from my LZ" he said and he noticed the big Yaujta giving him a look that said, 'Saved your arse more like',
"How about you guys?" he asked back,
"I have met up with Tank and Whisper, we're pretty close to the shuttle station but have yet to encounter any hostiles" she said, then another voice chimed in.
"This is Ice, I'm with Picasso and we're close to what looks like some sort of mega hospital, we haven't encountered any hostiles as of yet, if this is some sort of bio hazard it could be worth checking out, anybody got any news on Reaper yet?" she said, Spike saw Inferno clench and unclench her fists as she stood looking over the balcony, knowing her as well as he did, he knew that this wasn't a sign of anger with her, but of worry.
As Reaper was the squad leader when he was either incapacitated or if he was killed second in command fell to Inferno, she reached for her PTT.
"This is Inferno, myself and Spike are going to go looking for and recover Reaper, Ice and Picasso if this is a bio hazard event we need as much intel as we can get, so you two check out the hospital and see what you can find, though I advise caution, if it is a bio hazard there's a good likelihood of high levels of infected inside. Tank, Moodstone and Whisper see if you can find a defensible building and secure it, the shuttle station maybe a god place to start, if possible set up a base camp, Inferno out" she said her voice filled with authority.
In fact, it was a common joke around the team that the only person that she'd ever take orders from was Reaper, though mainly the joke part revolved around them being in bed together or some form of sexual liaison.
Though those ones were never made to her face as all of the other team members were rather fond of their own faces. so if he ever died and someone else got promoted in his place they were fucked already.
"Roger that" came the replies one by one through the comms, Inferno turned to Spike,
"Where was the last place you saw Reaper's pod?" she asked, quick as a flash he pulled up the holo emitter on his wrist comp and a topographical map popped up.
"This is us and this is where I lost contact with his pod's transmitter, I haven't received a signal from his suit transmitter yet, so if he's still with his pod then he's here, but if not he could be anywhere within this circle" he said pulling up the image of the city in the area where Reaper's pod had come down.
"Then this is where we start" she said, Spike nodded, although he didn't fancy going back down there his friend was in danger and he wasn't going to let him down.
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The tunnel didn't go on for very long thankfully, it opened up into a room with a large circular cover in the ceiling and a ladder set into the wall, "Thank fuck, that must be a surface access" Aiden said to himself.
Slinging his rifle over his shoulder he quickly moved to the ladder and climbed it till he was directly below the hatch, slowly he lifted it up using his cybernetic arm and peeked out, it was still dark beyond the cover but he couldn't see anything moving so he slowly lifted it up and climbed out.
He was in what looked like a subway tunnel, Aiden dropped the hatch back into place and he brought his rifle up.
To his right in the large tracked tunnel he was in was a dead end, so that meant he was going left, as he turned to move he noticed something up ahead in the gloom, there were about ten shapes moving like liquid shadows in the darkness.
"Fuck more Xeno's" Aiden hissed to himself, but unlike the other one's that had been chasing him these ones were just milling about, slowly and silently he approached till he could see them properly in his night vision, there were nine of the worker class or drones as a lot of people called them, not Aiden though because for his money drones were mindless and these creatures were far from mindless, but it wasn't them that he was paying attention to, it was the larger Praetorian right smack in the middle of the group.
It was just standing there as still as a stone watching the wall, Aiden knew that if he was going to get through this tunnel he was going to have to either try and sneak past them or take them out, but given that the tunnel was only wide enough for the train to pass through that pretty much ruled out the sneaking part.
He was going to have to go loud and hope that there wasn't any more of them further up ahead, so dropping to one knee Aiden flicked a switch on the side of his PIMP two clicks, instantly the gun hissed and whirred quietly as it's modular body began to change, the barrel opened up and extended outwards, next up main body extended and Aiden switched his holding position to the new grips and finally a scope popped up out of the body.
In its sniper mode the PIMP was easily a rival to the most powerful sniper rifles out there, it fired a hyper charged plasma projectile that was about .50 in size at over two thousand feet per second.
It struck with enough force to stop a hover Mak truck dead in its tracks as it tended to blow half the engine away in a single hit. Aiden lined up on the Praetorian's head, he knew this was going have to be a quick move otherwise the others were going to be on him before the big guy went down.
Steadying his breathing he highlighted his targets in a sweep so that he knew exactly where they all were, finally when he was ready he lined up on the big guy's head again and taking and holding a deep breath he squeezed the trigger.
The big gun made a high pitched squeak noise rather than a roar, but just because it made a funny noise on firing didn't make it any less lethal, a point that was proven by the fact that the single projectile blew the big guy's head clean off and vaporised it.
Instantly Aiden flicked the switch again and the gun instantly began reconfiguring into its assault rifle mode, a process that only took it a second to complete.
As the body of the Pretorian was still falling the others began to turn towards where they'd heard the noise come from, but in the time that it had taken them to turn Aiden opened up on them.
The fast but much smaller projectiles whizzed down the tunnel causing little bubbles of light as they flew, Aiden was aiming for head shots here as it was the only thing that seemed to stop these weird Xeno's.
Before they even knew what was happening and before they could react to it four of them were already falling, five left and they moved alright, straight at him screeching the whole time, but not that it did them any good as Aiden stood and fought, only one of them made it close enough to actually strike at him, but even this one made no impact other than making him grab its tail with his cyber hand and slam it head first into the wall like a club, before it could shake the cobwebs out of its head Aiden aimed the PIMP down one handed and finished it with a single shot to the side of the head.
To conserve ammo Aiden switched the PIMP back into submachine gun mode and took aim back down the tunnel again, but this time there were no further screeching noises or running feet, but Aiden was taking no chances as he moved slowly down the tunnel in the direction that the Xeno's had come from.
He was careful as he moved between the bodies because of the acidic blood, a bit further down the tunnel was a darkened platform, but it wasn't like the normal subway platform he was used to, it was full of heavy machinery that looked like it was designed for train loading, there were two blast style doors at the top of the platform that looked like they been heavily gouged by the Xeno's trying to get through.
So he figured that whatever was on the other side was either a way out or maybe people, checking his angles as he moved between the machines Aiden moved slowly, as he reached the blast door he noticed a large circular crank handle on the wall, it was an emergency release for the door so that it could be opened in a power outage, it was also noisy as Aiden began to crank it, the grinding screeching protests of the dented and damaged metal echoed throughout the platform and down the tunnel, the progress was painfully slow even with Aiden's enhanced strength turning the handle as fast as he could, but as soon as there was a big enough gap under the door Aiden dropped to his belly and crawled through under it.
Inside the first thing he did was look for another handle to lower the door down again, he didn't want anything following him up from down there, fortunately there was one and this one wasn't damaged, so lowering the door was a lot quicker than getting it open, turning around he found himself looking out at a factory floor filled with assembly machines and it was still pitch black, but from somewhere above him he could have sworn he heard voices.
In loving memory of Griff.