"Where is second squad at? When was the last time that they radioed in?" Jeremy asked his friend/radioman Gabriel. Right now they were on the outskirts of a small town in the middle of nowhere, USA. They had been in this same town for the last week, and Jeremy's squad had set up a small F.O.B., or Forward Operating Base, and had five other squads regularly radio check in every 3 hours. So far the only squads that are left are squad numbers 2 'Hellbringers', 5 'Texans', and finally 9 'Cerberus'. The others had either not radioed in for over half a day and considered M.I.A. with a possibility to come back, as they were just maintaining radio silence out of necessity, others had called in saying that they had run into the enemy and are facing heavy resistance, but after that, they would never radio back in.
"I haven't heard anything from 2nd, 5th, or even 9th squads for over six hours. My best guess, they all were wiped out, I think we have to consider this mission a critical failure. I say that we start packing up before we get overrun. I'm willing to send out a wide range broadcast for anyone still listening to try and make our way back before we leave." Gabriel replied, looking at Jeremy towards the end, waiting for his next order. Jeremy leaning back, and began to run is hand through his considered all his options, before finally coming to a decision.
"Alright, send out the message. Tell them they have 12 hours to get here before we get back on board and fly out of here. I'll let everyone else know about this and have them start packing up." he said as he turned around to get everything set. He got an affirmative response from Gabriel and walked outside and started to yell out. "Listen up! The mission is a failure. Get everything packed up and ready to move out. We leave in 12 hours starting now. Move it!" and everyone got to work. Jeremy helped out where he could, but mostly, he stayed next to the barriers that was all between them and the outside. He hoped that not everyone had been lost, that at least someone else would make it back.
That's when he heard it. The sound of something coming straight towards him, and fast. he brought up his Remington R5 that had extended mags, Full Metal Jacket or FMJ rounds, and a red dot sight and began to scan around the area. Then he say them. Three other survivors, all looking to be from the lost 3rd squad, known as 'Hells Angels', all of them looking extremely fatigued, but that wasn't his main concern. His concern was the hoard of Cryptids that were just two or three meters behind them that caught his eye. In the hoard was a mix of Scouts, Hunters, and he could see at least two Rhinos. Jeremy kick the sentry gun next to him, which activated it, took aim at the closest Cryptid, and fired. His rounds made contact with the soft flesh in between the two frontal armor plates on its head, which easily brought it down. He continued to do this, taking down one Cryptid after another, hoping that this hoard was small enough to be taken down no problem and get everyone the hell home. Unfortunately, it seemed that for every one Cryptid he took down, another three took its place. Even with the sentry gun he turned on, along with the two others that automatically turned after the first one started to open fire, it just didn't seem to make any sort of dent into the hoard.
Jeremy had just emptied another mag into the hoard and began to reload, but that was when he noticed that someone else from his squad joined him to try and take down the Cryptids, a female named Sydney, and she had a Honey Badger, which is good for close quarters, but not long distance, but still, any help was better than no help. Regardless, he changed his empty mag for a fresh one, and began to fire again. Just then, he started to hear a sort of buzzing sound, only to see Vulture drones fly overhead and begin to fire into the hoard with their small guns and the occasional rocket. This seemed to have a better impact in the fight, and by this point, the hoard was thinning out and the three survivors were closer to the F.O.B.
Once the three ran into the fenced off area, Jeremy and Sydney also ran in behind them, while still having their sentry guns and Vultures finish off the remnants of the hoard. Once they fully closed the doors and put up the reinforcements back into place, they turned back to see that the three survivors were resting after their dash from death, and any wounds that they had were being treated by his squads medic. He took a closer look at the three, and saw two females and one male, again from squad 3. 'Hells Angels' were know to be the most experienced in combat, so the fact that only three of the 10 were left said one of two things, one: 'Hells Angels' weren't as good as they used to be, which is very unlikely, or two: they ran into a huge hoard that not even they could take care of by themselves, which, if the hoard that they just took care of was any sort of hint, then the latter was more than likely the scenario that took place. The three that came back were known as Jason, Katie, and Samara or Sam. Jason was of Hispanic decent with dark tan skin, brown eyes, about a 5'8" build, skinny but lots of muscle, and a short haircut. Katie was also of Hispanic decent, but actually had a very light skin complexion, with brown eyes, dark brown hair that went down to the middle of her back when not in a pony tail or bun, about 5'5" to 5'6", also skinny, but not as much muscle, with a small chest size, hey you can't blame a guy for noticing a girls chest size, it's within their human nature. Sam, again, was Hispanic but was somewhere between Jason and Katie in terms of skin complexion, hazel eyes and light brown hair that went just below her shoulders, and was at most 5'4" with a large chest, and had more muscle in her legs than her arms. The medic from Jeremy's squad was Jasmine, and she was around the same height as Katie, was of Caucasian decent, green eyes, brown hair, not a lot of muscle, moderate chest, and was more intelligent than she let on.
Jeremy put his head down for a second and tried to think of any possible scenario where more members of 3rd squad were still alive, and they weren't just completely overwhelmed. He felt a hand on his shoulder and look at Sydney, who had a reassuring look on her face. She was also of Caucasian decent with blond hair, light blue eyes, around 5'2" to 5'3", small chest, and not a whole lot of meat on her bones, but she was a fighter. Sydney was Jeremy's second in command, and with Jeremy as the brawn and Sydney as the brains, they could think and/or force their way out of any situation. Jeremy himself wasn't all to special in terms of looks. He was about 5'7" to 5'8", average build with some belly fat, lightly tan skin, and was also of Hispanic decent.
"You got any plans for how we're going to get everyone out of here and get up in the air without having Gargoyles and Bombers come and bring us down and stranded? That hoard was only a part of what squad 3 encountered. Also, if one Cryptid, even if it's just a Seeker, the Ancestors and every Cryptid in a five mile radius minimum will be coming towards us." Sydney told Jeremy as they walked to the entrance of the F.O.B., then walked outside to make sure no more Cryptids are lurking about outside or in cover from the Sentry guns and Vultures that are only hovering in place at the moment.
"I am now seeing two options, we either take off now before anymore Cryptids arrive, or we bolster up defenses to try and hold them off longer and see if we can rig up some makeshift Medusa Device, but we'd need to contact the Ark and have them send down the main components to try and rig one up with whatever we have now, but that could take anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours for the request to be approved and then however long it would take us to put it together, and that's if there are other survivors from the other squads that are making their way back. Give me five minutes to make a final decision, if you could talk to whatever is left of squad three and see if they ever ran into the others." and Sydney nodded her head and went back inside.
Jeremy was looking out towards the road, but wasn't really looking. He was thinking, trying to imagine every step of the way out of multiple scenarios. He saw him and his squad getting overrun, one by one being picked off and eaten, ripped apart, or taking their own lives so as to not feel the pain of it all. Another he saw was him and any other survivors getting onto the Odin, which is a spacecraft that is made to go to and from the Ark, and get out of Earths orbit with little to no problems. It can take the punishment of leaving the atmosphere and the heat of reentry, but it can't take the punishment of multiple Gargoyles ramming head first into it or Bombers suicide bombing the engines and sending them to their fiery death. He also saw that happen to. He would try and try to come up with the best scenario that has as many people leaving alive as possible. He finally came up with a decision and went back inside. Once inside, he waves down Gabriel away from the comms equipment, and Sydney who was just finished with asking the survivors of squad three what happened.
"What have you got for me Gabriel, anyone else come up on the com? Or is it safe to assume that we're all that's left?" he asked, hoping that there were others that could be saved, worst case scenario, is that they take the Odin and go pick up the other survivors and finally take off.
"Sorry man, I sent out a message that radio silence is no longer in effect since the Cryptids found where we are. That was when you first went out and started to fire. I haven't gotten a single response back. If there were any others out there, they should have sent back a simple message, we all have some sort of radio that can get in contact with us. I don't think anyone is left out there." and that's when Sydney decided to give her 'report'.
"I did what you asked and tried to get a better picture of what happened out there. Apparently, everything was smooth sailing, and they didn't encounter a single Cryptid, that was until a last night. They were passing by a rest stop when they started to hear gun shots in the distance. They made their way to the source to see squads four, eight and 11 all surrounded and were already having casualties and about to be overrun. Squad three started to try take some of the heat off of them, but then another large group of Cryptids mostly made up of Hunters, Phantoms and Seekers come out of multiple holes and attack them. They were doing well and making some headway to the other squads, but then Gargoyles started to pick them off. At this point, only half the squad is left and they had no choice but to retreat, and at this point, the gun fire from the other squads had started to dwindle. As they made their way back, they had to take a longer route to try and not run into more Cryptids, but when they did, they started to find bodies from other squads, and started to collect tags, we have everybody's tags beside those from squads four, eight and 11." and Sydney held up the chain that had over 50 dog tags, and Jeremy couldn't help but sigh.
This was supposed to be a simple mission. Recon the area for a possible landing site for the actual invasion for to take place, but that went to shit. It was at this point that Jeremy turned around, and gave his final command for this mission. "The mission is a critical failure, the landing site that seemed promising is another Cryptid death trap. Gather all the supplies and load them up in Odin. Let's get the fuck home." and everyone set to work to do just that. What seemed like an unorganized mess was actually controlled chaos. What would have taken a group of 20 people an hour to complete, this group of 13 were all packed and strapped in ready for takeoff in half an hour. Jeremy was in the co-pilot seat as he isn't the best flyer, he is better than most of his squad, all but Hollace, who just seems to crush it every time. He starts to start up the launch sequence, and just as everything came up as green, the automatic weapons that were specifically designed to protect Odin as best as it can, but Cryptids are known for their strength in numbers, not tactics, and they just throw themselves at any sort of danger, so the automatic defense system just gets overwhelmed and can't provide a decent enough defense.
"Hollace, I don't mean to rush you, but can you can you get this FUCKING THING IN THE AIR!" Jeremy heard Jason yell out from the back, since he decided to jump onto one of the manual guns, so he could see just how many fucking cryptids were on their way.
"Shut the fuck up! You yelling at me to go faster, believe it or not, DOESN'T MAKE ME GO FASTER!" Hollace yelled back at Jason as he started to pull back the throttle to try and lift the craft off the ground and away from the non-flying Cryptids. He started to gain some altitude before the Gargoyles made their presence known and tried to bring down Odin. Unfortunately for them, the defense system was no longer targeting the other Cryptids and could focus all its firepower at the flyers, and made quick work of them all. With that, they were finally able to make their way back into space towards the Ark of Humanity. Just as they pulled back into the dock, a small screen came up that showed
Critical Mission Failure
13 Survivors, Others MIA or KIA
Humanity has lost another battle
Replay Scenario?
Yes , No
Everyone selected no, and pulled off the headgear that let them full dive into realistic virtual reality and prepare for the actual fight to take place. Before they could get off the reclined chairs within the room, the exit opened to show a woman in her late 20s standing their with a disapproving look on her face. She was their CO and she felt that they could at least have lasted longer then what they did, but apparently not.
"Seriously guys? This was a middle difficulty scenario, one that shouldn't have taken as many of you out as it did. Would someone like to explain to me just why that is?"
And that is where I am going to leave it off, thank you all for taking the time to read this fanfic. I know that I've been off the map for a few months, and that is because I am now living on a U.S. Destroyer and I don't get any sort of service while on the ship, so I had to take the time to come to a local place that has wi-fi. Please do know that I am writing any chance that I get and that I have other chapters for my other stories in the works. I just have to make sure not to skip my duties on the ship and that takes precedence over my hobby. I hope you guys understand and are willing to wait for them. I promise to try and make them well over 10k words, this was just an idea that came to my head and wanted to see what kind of response I would get from you guys. Love you all! Be safe out there!
