Chapter Four
Twenty minutes later, Selina was still walking through the facility without encountering a single person…or specimen as the things behind this incident were referred to on the recorded distress call.
"Command, still with me?" she asked into her headset.
"Affirmative, Cat Zero-One. Just keep going. You're about to come up on the last known position of our Ranger team," General Hayes said
"Copy, I'm about to make a right into the next hall."
Selina rounded the corner and continued down the hall until she came upon a gruesome sight. Multiple bodies including those of the Ranger team, what was left of them along with a pool of blood on the floor and bloody streaks on the walls along with numerous shell casings from the M4-A1s of the fallen soldiers.
"Ice Queen, Athena, I regret to inform you that the Ranger team you sent in was wiped out. Whatever came at these men tore them apart. But judging by the amount of shell casings, they put up a good fight."
"All ten men KIA? Sandra asked.
"Affirmative," Selina replied in a depressed tone."
"Understood, collect their tags so we can have something to give to their families then continue on. We still need to figure out how bad this breach is before deciding on the next course of action."
"Copy that."
Given the amount of blood present, there was no way to step around it. The idea of walking through blood disgusted her greatly. But in the end, she swallowed her disgust and got on with the task.
Some of the tags were found around the necks of the men, a few were found on the blood soaked floor. Selina would've wiped them off but she didn't have any wet naps with her. She made a mental note to bring some along on the next mission. But she did have some medium sized plastic bags in one of her side pouches, so she pulled one out and dropped the tags in.
"Dog-tags retrieved, moving on."
"Copy," Sandra replied.
Shortly after getting back on the move, Selina began to hear footsteps, but they didn't sound like human footsteps. Her cat senses told her to raise her rifle and get ready.
"Ice Queen, Athena, I think I'm about to have some company."
"We can hear the footsteps over the radio too, Cat Zero-One," Ashley said.
After making several more steps, the source behind them revealed itself five meters down the hall from Selina. A creature that looked like some big ugly insect, but not like one she ever saw. She could hear her cat senses whispering two words in her mind, threat and shoot.
The creature hissed and charged forward as Selina unleashed a burst from her F-2000. The rounds struck the creature in the face but all they did was slow it down a little. Selina fired off another burst that was slightly longer, same result. The creature hissed again and just when it was about to lunge at her, Selina side-stepped the attack and repositioned herself a few meters behind the creature as it shook its head and roared in anger at its failure after landing in her previous spot.
"Hey ugly, over here," Selina shouted with her gun still trained on it. The creature spun around to face her and was greeted by a forty millimeter round to the face that blew it to bits. Selina smiled in satisfaction as she reloaded her underbarrel launcher. "Cat Zero-One here, target destroyed. That thing looked like a cross between a grasshopper and a beetle."
"We saw the thing clear as day on your headcam. Ugly sucker if you ask me." Ashley commented.
"I'm with you on the ugly part, little sis. But my other part for its description starts with an F not a S."
"I second that emotion, Ice Queen. Cat Zero-One pushing on."
Before doing so, Selina decided to make a little switch. She let her rifle hang by the shoulder strap so she could pull the case off her back and set it down to open it.
In addition to the railgun, she found four extra magazines all containing ninety rounds of hypervelocity dual purpose rounds and a little note on the weapon too.
Happy birthday Selina Kyle.
Ice Queen and Athena.
Selina turned on the small computer module at the top which consisted of a telescopic sight with a built in laser rangefinder and counter telling her how many rounds she currently had. She was pleased to see that it already had a magazine of ninety rounds waiting to be used. She also discovered that it came with a retractable bipod she could use if she had to mount it on something. Sandra did say that all of her recommendations were taken to heart. Hopefully that included doing away with the fifteen second recharge time between shots the prototype had.
The case was big enough to store her rifle in too so she placed it in there along with four magazines she took from her vest pockets so she could put the railgun mags in their place.
"Alright Scarlett, we're going up against some freaky monster bugs today. Don't let me down."
Black Lancer sounded cool. But Scarlett had a better ring to Selina. Probably because it was the name of one of her cats.
