"Crap!"
"Dangit!"
"WHY!?"
These were many of the phrases we had said today. All around us were creatures that could only be described as "WHAT ARE YOU AND WHAT SLEPT WITH WHAT TO HAVE YOU?!"
In any case, there we were, surrounded by mounds of garbage and eldritch things trying to kill us. Now you may be wondering how in the world did we get ourselves into such a predicament. For us to answer that question we have to go back about twenty-four hours.
"JAROD! Just because it's not bolted to the floor, does not mean it's a good idea to take it!" I yelled.
"But… But… The loot!" Jarod pleaded.
I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. We had found several rooms filled with useful gear that we would need, including a few useful pieces of tech, such as data-slates! Granted we had no idea how to translate the text, but we were one step closer.
We had also set up an impromptu Headquarters, filled with guns, food, clothing, guns, electronics, guns, hazard suits, and did I mention the INSANE NUMBER OF GUNS!? Seriously! What kind of ship has this many guns!?
I mean, it could be a military ship, but what on earth would it be doing underground?
We had been stripping the armory for a couple hours now. As I said there was an absurd amount of guns. Like, "I live in the south and am part of an anarchist group" amount of guns.
Once we felt there were either no more guns to loot, or we had run out of space in our base of operations. For the record, the latter happened first. We both decided to start fortifying and expanding. The problem we soon discovered was that not everything down here was dead.
Equipped with full hazard suits, air tanks, and guns which we didn't even know what fired yet, I walked into the cave entrance - which actually wasn't a cave, it was more of a bunch of collapsed metal that had formed a cave - with Jarod following by my side. The farther we went into the cave, the warmer the air became, and the worse the stench got.
"I've got a bad feeling about this," Jarod said whilst crossing his fingers and praying that nothing bad would actually happen. A man can dream, can't he?
I sighed, realizing that the second the words came out of his mouth he had jinxed us, and moved forward, weapon raised. Fortunately for us, our helmets had built in lights that could be activated with the press of a button. And they actually worked!
When we finally reached the back of the room, we saw something that neither of us would soon forget. Nothing was on the ground, or on the walls, but we could see dripping fluid coming from above us. The only reason we noticed this, was the glob of the stuff that landed on Jarod's head.
We looked up and saw what looked like a cross between a dog, a xenomorph, a beetle, and what I can only describe as the rotting corpse of something.
"So… I think it's fair to say there's only one real course of action here." I said, my voice shaking.
I turned to look at Jarod, only to see that he was already running as fast as his legs could carry him. I sighed, hearing a thump behind me. When I turned to look at the sound, I saw the creature had moved from its perch on the ceiling and was staring at me.
"You're going to try and eat me now, aren't you?" I asked rhetorically.
The creature huffed, and the chase began.
"RUN!" Jarod yelled as he heard my voice, realizing that I had not run yet, and started taking pot shots at the creature to cover my escape. The weapon, we realized, shot blue bolts of what we could only guess were plasma, considering the way they burned the creature.
We raced out of the cave, followed by more than a few of the creatures. We kept firing, the counters on the rifles slowly counting down to what we could only assume was zero, but considering the symbols used to count were so different from standard human ones that we had no idea how much ammunition was left.
Eventually, we managed to work our way back to base, locking the door and keeping the creatures out. Fortunately for us, there were no windows. They tried ramming the door, clawing at it, or even just waiting outside for us to come out, but to no avail.
"So… I'm going to go out on a limb and say that those things were not human. Or, any other sentient race I've ever seen. Fictional or otherwise." Jarod stated.
"Agreed. But, what do we do now?" I asked.
"Shoot them until they go away or die? In either order? Preferably dead." Jarod offered.
I shook my head, "Yes, we have the supplies to do it, but I'd rather not take the risk of them getting inside the ship." I explained.
Jarod hummed, "You think we could use one of the other exits to go around and shoot them in the back?" He suggested.
I nodded a bit at the suggestion. We had discovered another three working exits to the ship, two of them leading to the other side of the ship, and one coming out on top, allowing a birds-eye view of the surrounding area. Not that it helped much, considering the orange-brown fog that covered everything.
Still, Jarods idea was a valid one. If we exited through the top of the ship, we could aim down and rain fire upon the mutant creatures. The only question would be if they could get up to us from ground level. I said as much to Jarod.
"Well, there's only one way to find out." Jarod said as he began to climb up a ladder to get to the top of the ship.
I shrugged, picking up my rifle and following him up. The top of the ship was rather empty, with a few guard-rails in place to keep people from falling over the edge. Looking down, we could see the horde of dog-alien-corpse things trying and failing to break into our starship home.
Aiming our rifles down at them, we opened fire. The first volley hit easily, two of the creatures going down. We didn't really have to aim after that, the writhing mass of bodies moving around so much that every time we fired, we hit something, regardless of what our original target was. We sat there for a good ten minutes, shooting them like fish in a barrel.
We soon figured out that our guns had a generous ammunition count at forty-five shots, allowing us to also notice a pattern in the numerical system - which counted by fives instead of tens. Not a huge change but something we took note of.
Eventually, the remaining creatures fled, not wanting to die like the rest of their kin.
The two of us cheered in victory, heading back down to the ship to go eat a victory meal before we heard a loud roar in the distance… And dozens of smaller roars accompanying it.
"Jarod… I get the feeling we're going to need some bigger guns." I said simply, suddenly not feeling so confident about that victory dinner.
We quickly went back inside the ship, grabbing the biggest gun we could find - which just so happened to be a freaking minigun version of our rifles!
We set it up on the raining, aiming it towards where the roar had come from, waiting for the threat to come. I aimed down the barrel, looking for anything and everything that may come our way. Fortunately (Or unfortunately) we didn't have to wait long. Hundreds of the creatures started pouring out of the mist, trying to claw their way up the side of the ship.
And that leads us to where we are now, standing back to back, blasting the creatures as they come up the sides of the ship.
Now you may be wondering: How the heck do we get out of this? Short answer, we don't. Long answer… we pull one of the greatest acts of insanity ever to conceived by man. I somehow manage to use some of our spare ammunition batteries as makeshift grenades, throwing them into a mass of enemies and shooting it.
The explosion isn't exactly impressive, but it's enough to keep the creatures off our backs for another few seconds. After that, we started retreating back towards the door to the ship. We kept doing so until we finally found ourselves slamming the door shut, and barring it in order to keep the stupid things out.
And no, we haven't gotten to the insanity yet.
"Michael… I know this may sound stupid… but I have an idea…" Jarod said whimsically.
I looked at Jarod. I smiled, "Well, I'm listening."
The next hour was spent gathering as many wires and batteries as possible, as well as a few mechanical parts. The monsters tried to get in several times but were quickly repelled by extreme amounts of dakka. Jarod grinned when we finished our masterpiece.
"You think this'll actually work?" I asked.
"Well, we're out of options at this point, so this is our best bet." He explained.
I nodded and helped Jarod get suited up. When we were done, Jarod looked more like a giant battery than a human. We opened up the door to the roof, after making sure that the creatures above had either gotten bored or had moved to another location. Jarod stepped out, holding a staff hooked to the battery pack.
He slowly walked to the edge of the roof, where several monsters were still trying to clamber over each other to get to us. When they spotted Jarod, they redoubled their efforts and began climbing again.
Jarod smiled as he activated the staff, blue electricity visibly coming off of it, and he held it high, "YOU! SHALL NOT! PASS!" He yelled, before slamming the super-conductive rod into the ships metal hull.
The electricity spread through the metal like wildfire, zapping the creatures that were climbing up the side of the ship and causing the majority of the creatures to fall off, dead. Jarod laughed like a maniac, not even feeling the electric shock through his insulated rubber clothing.
The rod crackled with electricity for several minutes, killing any mutant that tried to make their way up the ship, and even spreading to some of the larger pieces of scrap metal touching the ship. Eventually, the batteries ran out of juice, but by the time that did happen the number of living monsters had decreased by the hundreds and the number of corpses had increased by the same margin.
Jarod walked to the edge of the ship and looked down at the pile of corpses and yelled, "Now I am become Death, Destroyer of Worlds!"
I chuckled at his actions before we both saw a huge black shape fly through the fog towards us, landing on the edge of the ship, and stared down at Jarod. The creature was covered in a dark brown carapace, it's mouth filled with an uneven amount of teeth and enormous yellow eyes.
"Well, crap."
The creature grabbed Jarod, before jumping off of the ship and running off, leaving Michael to stare off into the distance.
[-]
AN: Well, that's it for this chapter. Bit of a cliffhanger too! Hope you don't mind.