Chapter Seventeen
At Lowry Air Force Base, Denver, Colorado, which was temporarily serving as G-Force North America HQ, Miki was worried. Despite the fact that she had yet to fully recover from her injuries, she didn't think of herself. Even with all nations of Earth standing united, even with help from Mu and others, even with seven guardian monsters, the fight against King Ghidorah was growing darker and darker every day and there seemed to be no end in sight. The Prince of Skyllans had been dangerous enough but now the Swarm had joined his side to make a greater threat than ever before. She remembered how it was before the Monster Wars began; the Elias had told her that she was to be the one that would "save the world."
The idea that she could "save the world" was one she now had a tough time believing. When she first joined G-Force and UNGCC she had been a young idealistic child who thought that all was good in the world. After what she had seen over the years, she had grown increasingly disillusioned but had chosen to never loose hope in the final victory of the right. But with the Monster Wars and the seemingly impossible mission the Elias gave her she was now beginning to lose hope even in that. "Save the world," could it be done?
She didn't know any more. She didn't know any more of that than if she could bring Godzilla back from the dark path that he had now chosen. She didn't know and accepted that only God knew.
What Miki did know right now, was what she was seeing. Right now she was looking through a window to see UNGCC technicians in the lab working on UN super weapons. After scanning back and forth, Miki managed to catch a glimpse of Kyle helping out; he was evidently taking time out from his repairs to MOGUERA. Although the two super-vehicles that combined to make MOGUERA would soon be fixed, it was unknown when their ability to combine and bring forth the super-robot would be restored. Until then, the Monster Wars would be more difficult than ever.
This was only part of his punishment; slaving away in the lab and doing paperwork like some desk jockey. Until otherwise stated, Kyle was not only stripped of all rank and privilege, he was also forbidden any field assignments given by UNGCC. While Kyle could indeed be a lab rat, one of his chief joys was to actually be able to test his creations himself. This was then a harsh punishment for one so accustomed to fighting the good fight as was Kyle but in the eyes of those who had seen what had happened between him and Godzilla, it was too good for him.
In any case, Kyle, at the moment, was helping out on Project T and adapting it to King Ghidorah. It had originally been made with the intent of bringing Godzilla under control and the first field tests showed that it did indeed work. Further adjustments would have been needed to forever control the King of the Monsters yet they were not made because the day after that first test, the Monster Wars began.
Seeing what they were up against, Hayashida had suggested adapting Project T for King Ghidorah. It could theoretically work and even though it would be very dangerous, it was worth a try. Or so Hayashida had said. As UNGCC's premier psychic and as the person with the most experience with monsters and the Project, Miki knew that she would be the one to enter King Ghidorah's mind. It wasn't something she looked forward too because she still remembered what had happened to other people that had tried to probe the demon's mind; they were all either dead or insane.
But she knew she had no choice; no matter what the cost to herself, she would have to try. Lives were at stake and people were counting on her so as surely as the Elias had given her the mission, she had to try.
It was as she was contemplating these thoughts that something entered her mind unbidden. At that point, Miki gasped as a new and horrible vision filled her mind, a vision so horrible that she cursed her powers. Knowing that this future would have to be prevented at all costs, she ran to find, Commander Raschen. For the sake of Earth itself, Miki knew she just had to try.
Things like that kept the people elsewhere at the Denver base in a state of constant worry. That was certainly the case with Commander Raschen at least. He was at his desk at the temporary HQ looking over the latest reports and was disturbed to not find so much as one bit of good news. All his years doing battle with Inagos and his Swarm were now seemingly for nothing with how King Ghidorah was using the Swarm to sow destruction and spread his Taint.
Every report he looked over showed defeat after defeat in the battles with the insect giants and with the Taint Plague even those places untouched by the monsters were suffering. A man would think that the demon was a living cancer. (There was an exception to the despairing situation in one battle that gave his forces a badly needed victory in the Texas panhandle. Hopefully, a strike currently underway in Tennessee at one of the largest of King Ghidorah's domes would repeat the miracle.)
He then pulled open his desk and looked over documents that predicted the US would suffer massive food shortages in a matter of months if the Swarm's destruction of the Midwest grain fields wasn't soon stopped. (As if that wasn't enough with the Taint plague that King Ghidorah was spreading.) With food prices going up every day, this was bad news gone worse. Food, the mere thought of it left him hungry and his stomach growled to prove it. Raschen then checked the paperwork to see if there was anything pressing and, knowing that he had to go get something to eat, got up to go to the cafeteria.
It seemed odd that he would go to the mess hall to eat like a common soldier when he could have food sent to his quarters but he wasn't in the mood to do that. On getting his food he went to the nearest bench and began eating. That was when Colonel McDonough sat down opposite to him and said, "Hello sir. You feeling OK?"
The man raised an eyebrow. "Well, I'm feeling as well as any man in my position can be expected to. But considering that I'm being blamed for the destruction of the United States and I'm being held personally responsible for the New Orleans incident along with Emmerich, I can't be expected to feel all that well."
With that rebuke, Colonel McDonough grew silent and looked at his feet. It was remarks like these—"maybe if we shot him with a mega-dose of horse tranquilizer"—that left many people asking why he ever made it to the rank of major, let alone rise past it. The red headed man nervously looked around before responding to his commander. "Well sir, it can't be all that bad. We can beat those bugs like we did in the Swarm Wars. You did it before and you can do it again."
The Commander sighed at his old friend and shook his head. "Yeah but this time around, we have Godzilla and King Ghidorah to put up with, not to mention the Swarm wanting to kill every man and woman and child in sight."
McDonough looked away from the television set in the mess hall and sighed. "You might have a point. You already heard the latest reports; now it's on TV news."
At that both men looked to the screen where they saw a reporter for CNN saying that King Ghidorah had passed over Des Moines, Iowa, and had teleported all individuals under the age of fifteen to one of several domes spread out across the Midwest. Salno, the Muvians, and the Elias had told them that the three-headed monster was taking the children to strange domes to serve as food for the Swarm. The two military men heard and were disgusted; it was despicable.
Commander Raschen slammed his fist on the table and angrily picked at his food. "I wonder if those people even know what we're risking for their sakes. We're putting our lives on the line for them and all they seem determined to do is tear another strip off us. I mean, nobody said war is easy and they expect not a single soldier or civilian to die. And here in the US it's doubly hard with people ranting about how I've gone and 'taken over as part of a one world government.' Or how I've gone on to 'bully the poor Secretary of Defense and poor Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.' What kinda bull is that! That's not to mention how monster battles aren't human battles."
McDonough nodded at the last comment. Civilians sometimes asked if kaiju should be easier opponents than human armies because of how the entire "enemy force" was simultaneously concentrated into a large target in a relatively tiny strike range. While that was true, it also meant that if the monster escaped from the army then the war would have to start all over again from scratch and it also meant that the monster was impossibly fast when compared to an armed force of equal destructive power. By the time a strong enough force was brought to the battlefield the monster might have long since gone. That, or that a strong enough force might never be put together in time to stop it. Case in point was what happened next.
Commander Raschen was just beginning to eat when an aide came running into the mess hall yelling his name. "Commander! Commander!"
His leader wiped off his mouth and looked up from the table. With a concerned look on his face, he asked, "I'm here soldier. What's the matter?"
"Sir, King Ghidorah is heading towards the Plasma Power Plant and he's out for blood!"
"What!" Commander Raschen got up from the table in shock. "King Ghi- Did you say that the goddamn monster is in Kansas?"
"Yes, sir. We heard it from Miss Segeusa first and we've confirmed it by satellite."
The man swore. He then turned to ask McDonough "Do we have any troops in that area?"
The Colonel shook his head. "We only have a small guard, sir; we don't have any thing else there."
On hearing that, Commander Raschen gnashed his teeth. Why hadn't Emmerich listened when he had told him that that plasma plant might attract monsters? Though he knew that he would be too late to do that or the next thing, he gave orders to have all people evacuated from that area of Kansas and to scramble troops to the area from the base. No matter how impossible, he couldn't let the power plant be destroyed because if it were then the Monster Wars might be over in one stroke.
The Plasma Power Plant, or the P3—original thought wasn't Emmerich's strong point—, was very similar to a fusion power plant but much more advanced; it was to fusion what to fusion was to fission. It had been theorized that once plasma production was perfected, it could be the perfect energy source; it was pollution free, self sustaining, and cheap to make. However, it was still a long way from being perfect and Emmerich's power plant had been protested from the beginning. It had been protested because not only was it still in the experimental stages, but also because UNGCC scientists had said that since plasma was processed and refined radiation, it would be a magnet for the radiovorous kaiju.
That and because if ever exploded it would mean a burst of energy unseen since time began.
There were always fears that a monster might attack it and cause that explosion. Despite repeated protests by Commander Raschen to not even activate the reactor, the President had gone ahead, refusing to shut it off and refusing to let more than a handful of troops be stationed there. Very soon, the whole of North America would go on to regret President Emmerich's decision because King Ghidorah was there to destroy the Plasma Power Plant.
The Prince of Skyllans rained down his Gravity Beams across the fields and made the ground explode as he flew towards the main processing unit. The soldiers stationed there desperately opened fire with their rifles at their foe but of course, this pathetic gesture was not nearly enough. Neither wishing to be disturbed nor not wanting to waste his energy on microbes, the demon drove them mad with the Fear. Now he was all alone to wreak his wicked schemes.
King Ghidorah had sensed P3 months before shortly after his battle with Rodan & Fire Radon and ever since he had sought to destroy it; on seeing where it was, he had sought to destroy it even more. He had seen that the inhabitants of Earth were carbon based life forms requiring the ingestion of other carbon based life forms for energy just as he absorbed various wavelengths of light and radiation for his life functions. He had known this about the humans, about how they had to survive, ever since the first time he came in the times of the Ancients.
He had also seen that P3 was located in a place that gave the humans much of their ingestible carbon based energy sources, what they called "food." It seemed that Lucifer was smiling on King Ghidorah for the monster knew what could happen. Having been programmed with knowledge enough of destruction to know the explosion he would cause and the effects, King Ghidorah hovered motionlessly over the Plasma Power Plant and glowed as he charged his Gravity Beams. Then with a blinding speed and an irresistible force he fired a combined Triple Beam at the main reactor beneath him.
A fact about King Ghidorah, was have explosions=will travel. This was seen before in Egypt and was repeated in America now. Beams were fired from three mouths and onto one target and then everything bleached out and went silent. Yes, King Ghidorah made it all go white in the grain fields of Kansas… the grain fields that gave the humans their food. What did this mean? It meant that King Ghidorah would soon have the answer to a question that he screamed in his head. He would see what the humans do when they have no sustenance!
Though they had been slowed in their mission since they had sky dived from the plane by the monstrous insects that guarded the dome, they were now going through the ruined woods of a dead forest in east Tennessee and were now reaching their target. They looked around ready at the slightest sign to unload the fury of their Rolisican made maser rifles; fortunately, there was nothing to shoot. For now the Lagos Platoon, named for Japan's WWII Lagos Garrison, was on a scouting mission to see what there was to be done. Each member of the Lagos Platoon was the equal to a Navy SEAL or an Army Ranger; they were trained to be the best and brightest that either the DFE or G-Force had to offer. (They were certainly, at the least, better equipped.) That was seen in how they had already blazed through the Swarm insects that had stood in their way to get were they were now.
Their commander, Lieutenant Santos, led them near the top of a hill and told them to stop. While he had been "kicked up stairs" with his being chosen to command MOGUERA, the machine was currently inoperable and if there was ever a time his old buddies in the Lagos Batallion needed him, it was now.
He looked around at the 40 men under his command and saw them place fresh energy cartridges into their maser rifles or adjusting the mini cams mounted on their helmets now that they had the chance. This wasn't like when the Platoon had gone to Infant Island; this time it was life and death and this time his battle hardened men were armed with the best and ready for anything. Santos then checked into base camp and was told that he and his men were less than a mile from the target zone. With that he nodded and turned to his men.
"Alright men. We're on scouting patrol here because we're the best and nobody else that came here came back alive from the domes. This is an important mission and we might only have one chance. Now listen up to Epiphanes."
A dark-skinned Asian man at the lieutenant's side dressed in army fatigues nodded. "Thank you, sir. Men of the Lagos Platoon, my name is Neo Icon Epiphanes of Mu. As you know, my Emperor put me at your leader's disposal in order to fight our common enemy because, in addition to being the finest tracker of my people's armies, I have also studied much of the past crimes of the demon we face. As you know, soon after King Ghidorah drove the Swarm to madness, strange domes appeared and children began to disappear. According to records given to the Ancients by alien visitors, King Ghidorah has likely placed the children in these domes and in all probability they are there to serve as food for his Swarm.
"We must confirm this, find any weakness to exploit against him, and, if at all possible, save the children. At your leader's command, I will guide you as best I can." He saw Santos nod. "Come with me."
They followed Epiphanes up over the hill to see the enemy base and were horrified by the sight. It was a slimy, veined, perfectly shaped dome seemingly made of bloated, quivering flesh; it was a dull yellow and grew up from the burnt, blasted ground as if it were a pustule. The soldiers listened to what Epiphanes had to say, that King Ghidorah had made it with his own power, to watch for tentacles that lashed out, and to follow him closely. They would have to lest they be spotted either by the dome or monstrous insects that buzzed around it as if it were a hive.
Even so as they saw the seventy plus meters tall dome, the men looked on in fear as they began to realize just what it was they were up against. Despite this, they forced themselves to regain their composure as they stealthily walked towards their target, ducking behind charred, dead trees and broken, scattered rocks as they did so.
As they approached they began to see the tentacles were indeed waving about at random places on the dome; any one of them could drag them in. Looking as they were at such a sight, it could perhaps be pardoned that they noticed that the sky was turning red only after they saw the green snow drift down in front of them. On seeing this, Lieutenant Santos stopped his men and motioned for them to follow him behind a string of large boulders. On seeing the concerned looks on his men's faces, he realized that he wasn't the only one concerned at what was going on.
Looking up in the sky at the green, and now glowing black snow, Santos turned to Epiphanes and asked, "Snake boy… do you have any idea at what's going on?"
Though he slightly bristled at the jab at his god, Manda—as a boy, he had been an altar server in the Temple of Manda—Epiphanes restrained himself. However he just as quickly grew alarmed at what he realized was happening around them and spoke. "I can tell with my ability to sense and see energy that this is not something from the demon's Dome but rather some form of radioactive fall out."
After a cursory scan of the surroundings to see that nothing had snuck up on them, the Lieutenant asked his guide, "Fallout? But from what? There aren't any nuclear power plants in the area and nukes were outlawed against King Ghidorah. What you're saying doesn't make any…" At that he trailed off and eyes that had steeled themselves against the horrors of war went wide open in fear.
His voice almost shaking, his gaze locked onto Epiphanes. "What kind of fallout? The kind from a nuclear explosion… or a plasmatic explosion?"
The Muvian tracker fought back a gasp at the implications of this and hurriedly focused all his senses at the sky. His eyes went blank and with that he turned towards the heavens and let the "snow" touch his skin. Epiphanes weakly nodded and the men under Santos' command looked to their leader. He looked back at them and, though he whispered "Clavos de Cristo," he forced himself to weakly smile. He then shouted, "Nothing to worry about men, just some stunt by that kaiju."
Well trained as they were, the men of the Lagos Platoon had some suspicion of what was really happening. The lot of them knew that their commander was lying to them but they chose to use the lie as a tranquilizer for themselves. They returned their leader's nod and followed when he beckoned for them to keep going. They soon saw that they had no choice but to keep going when they felt the ground shake beneath them and saw a colossal beetle as big as a two story building burst from the soil. They all saw it charge them, ready to kill.
They scrambled forwards and, not losing their heads for an instant, opened fire with their maser rifles. The combined firepower quickly brought down the dinosaur-sized insect to the ground with a monstrous thud. Though injured, it got up and raised its massive claw to kill them all; it was a mistake because two well placed shots sent the claw flying. With that, a cryo-grenade was thrown and exploded, encasing half the monster in ice. Seeing that it couldn't even hold the insect long enough for them to get away, Lieutenant Santos charged his rifle and fired an energy burst that finished it off immediately.
That was none to soon because with that a terrifying, screeching sound filled the air. It was like some odd whistle or howl. The men of the Platoon scanned the area, unsure of that they were looking for but ready to destroy it on first contact. Though Santos, like his men, had charged his weapon to attack the new enemy something kept scratching at the back of his mind as he tried to remember just what the eerie sound was. He knew that he had been taught to remember it in basic training back when he joined G-Force. Suddenly, his eyes went wide open and he cursed as realized what it was. "It's Them!"
As if on cue, the horde of elephant sized ants tore themselves from the ground on hearing Santos' yell and rushed them. With that, the Lagos Platoon ran towards the Dome, firing their maser rifles and throwing their cryo-grenades as they went. Ant after ant was killed instantly but what they lacked in strength, they more than made up for in sheer numbers. Marching over the bodies of their sisters, the things came at the men like some tidal wave, coming closer and closer and ready to kill.
As for their victims, the Lagos Platoon was determined that if they were to die than that it wouldn't be without a fight. Yet the dome quickly began to loom over them like some baseball stadium and there was less & less space to run as they approached it. Santos looked to the sides and saw that the monster ants were crawling from the ground; there was no way out with how the monsters were coming in from all sides. It looked like it was all over.
That was when dozens of intestine-like tentacles shot out and entwined their targets in their slimy grip. The men struggled against their hot wet stink but it was not enough and they were quickly overpowered. One by one the brave soldiers were dragged in and though he was the last, their Lieutenant was taken in as well. For a time, everything seemed to spin and to seem a blur, but soon enough everything became clear again, much to their Platoon's chagrin, though, on seeing their surroundings.
When the men regained their senses they saw that the tentacles had dragged the inside the dome and were appalled by it. They immediately felt their eyes water and began to cough at the reeking, burning white fog that blanketed the ground and rose up high. The stench was overpowering and was mixed with a smell that no soldier hopes he has to know: decaying human flesh. They immediately got their gas masks out but one private wasn't fast enough and threw up at the stink. Soon enough, however, they began shaking with coldest cold they had ever felt.
The ground and the surroundings were like something from a Fritz Lang film in the insane angles and the jagged edges everywhere. The men of the Lagos Platoon that had thought that they had seen it all found themselves speechless at the sight of a place that looked like the ocean had flash frozen over in a matter of seconds. It was like some Arctic cavern or a vast glacier but it was more. There were spires and waves and dips and icicles and buttes and plateaus and pillars and trees of ice seen in the distance through the mists.
After getting nothing but static from his communicator, Lieutenant Santos turned to Epiphanes and asked through his gas mask, "The radio to HQ is dead. Any idea on what this is?"
The Muvian guide nodded. "From the looks of things we're inside the dome. I can't say more than that; hardly anyone that goes into these things comes out."
The son of the Secretary General smirked. "We're going to get out and we're going to do it with those kids."
That was when they heard the children crying.
Startled at that, Lieutenant Santos and his men ran over the slippery surface towards where they had heard the sound. Following their commander's lead, the men had their weapons drawn and were ready for anything. Nevertheless, the cry of the children grew louder as they drew closer and they quickly found the target. Yet on seeing it, the battle hardened men felt their hearts go out to them.
There were scores, perhaps hundreds, of children there. Some were naked and some were clad in rags. They were scarred, bloody, bruised emaciated little urchins that looked as if they had just come from a Stalin era gulag or a Nazi death camp. (Truth was they were in the death camp right now.) They looked at the men there with glassy sunken eyes and drunkenly staggered towards them on stick thin wobbly legs.
Santos looked at them and turned to his men. "Get your rations and first aid kits out. See what you can do for them but have your weapons ready at all times. We don't know what might be here." On hearing that there would be food, the starving children swarmed the men savagely tearing away any scrap of food that could be found. As for the men of the Lagos Platoon, they let the food be taken from them, the children needed it more than they. As the children gorged themselves on the food given them, despite the medic's orders for them to eat slowly, they continuously scratched and begged for more.
After waiting for a time, the Lieutenant looked at them and spoke as loudly as he could. "Kids, my name is Lieutenant Tomas Santos. We're been looking for you and are here to save you. My soldiers and I have come to get you out of here and home to your families. We've given you food and now if you stand there we'll give you medicine to make you better." The children numbly did as they were told and formed a circle around the Platoon's medical officer.
Santos nodded his approval and continued. "Now, I know this might be hard, but I want you all to tell me what happened."
"I'll tell you what happened," said an older, Asian boy. He stepped away from the circle of children awaiting medical treatment and limped towards the military officer. On seeing this, Epiphanes went towards him and helped him walk. "You can take off your gas masks; it may stink here, but its not poison gas."
Santos nodded and took off his mask; his men followed suit. It would be unfair for them to shield themselves like that while those kids couldn't. He put his hand on the boy's shoulder and asked "Alright son, what's your name?"
"My name is Shota."
He placed a hand on the grimy boy's shoulder. "Shota, that's a nice name. Do you know if there are anymore children here?"
He shook his head. "No, I'm sure this is all of us. I had them all come together when we saw that you were coming."
The Lieutenant nodded and smiled. "That's good. Can you tell me how you got here? Can you tell me what you've seen?"
Shota nodded. "My brother, Tamako, and my sister, Wakaba, and I were going to school and it was OK. Then, we heard that King Ghidorah was coming and we ran for our lives; we all knew that he steals children. I went looking for Tamako and Wakaba but before I knew it, we were… evaporating. We all just disappeared… I don't know how else to explain it."
"How long have you been here?"
"I don't know days… a week maybe."
Lieutenant Santos nodded. "What about you brother and sister? Can you tell me what happened to them?"
At that Shota began to fight back tears. "Yeah, they… they were killed."
"Oh, I'm… sorry. I want to ask a few more questions, can you do that?"
Drying his tears away, Shota nodded. With that, the Lieutenant continued his inquiry. "How did they die?"
At that, the boy's face turned into a hideous grimace and he bit his lip. Even so, he forced himself to continue. "They were eaten. If you need any proof, just look below the fog and you'll have it."
Steeling himself for whatever he might find, Santos nodded and waved the fog from the ground. As he did so he saw that the ground was littered with decaying, half eaten bodies. Though the man had known ahead of time what to expect, it didn't make it any easier to see. He waved away more fog still and saw that the icy ground was littered with gnawed arms, pulpy legs, bloody heads, and viscera of all description. "The insects of the Swarm did this, didn't they?" He saw the boy nod.
Shota then said, "We don't know when they'll come next. They come whenever they want to kill whoever they want. The monsters mostly come at night… mostly."
Santos couldn't believe it; from the bodies that littered the ground, he could only assume that hundreds of children had already been killed. He didn't know what was going to happen next but he knew that at least the children still there with him we're going to make it out. "Shota, you say that you might have been here a week. Can you tell me where the nearest wall is?"
"Sure but what's that going to do?"
"I'm going to tear it down."
Lieutenant Santos & his men brought the children with them to the nearest wall and they surveyed it. "Epiphanes, in coming here, Shota said that anything that touched the wall was destroyed. In the briefing I heard that heat and cold could bust the wall. That right?"
After breaking off a piece of ice and seeing it vaporize on hitting the veined, yellow, pulsating wall, the Muvian scratched his head. "The old records we have on the demon suggest that a combination of heat and cold might be able to break that barrier. Your weapons combined should be able to do it especially with how they've been reconfigured with data from Professor Rosalinda on the demon."
"Only one way to find out." Santos nodded and turned to the children. With a smile he said, "Don't worry, we're going to get you out." His men then followed his lead as he switched the maser rifle from rapid fire to continuous beam. They opened fire at the wall with regular maser beams, superheating it as they did so, even as others used the freezer beam option of their weapons. The light from the beams illuminated the dark and the attack was seemingly working as the wall bucked and swayed at this; however, this would not go unnoticed.
Soon enough, tentacles shot out from the wall but the burning beams quickly severed them. More and more came and some indeed managed to grasp and strangle the people there. Then hearing a buzz, Santos turned to see a fly streaking towards them ready to kill. One cryo-grenade later and it fell to the floor in a block of ice.
Now knowing that the giant insects could come at any moment, the Platoon stepped up their attack. The combination of heat and cold quickly began to work its magic as bits and pieces of the wall began to flake off; it began to shred and crumble and crack. As if protesting this, the whole dome began to shake and quake and a black burning ooze began to flow out through random. Like acid it scorched everything it touched and the children there began screaming.
Shota then heard a sound that had already burned itself into his mind and whipped to around to face the Lieutenant. "Mr. Santos, it's the monsters! They're coming to get us!"
The man swore under his breath and yelled at some of his men to break off their assault on the wall and for the children to come as closely as they could to him. With that the soldiers turned their maser rifles back to rapid fire and braced for battle. They also began to hear the enemy but they held their fire, waiting for the whites of their beady compound eyes. With that something lanced out of the darkness and captured one of the men. They immediately opened fire in that direction and heard a monster's death squeal. Epiphanes put a fresh energy pack into his chargeless weapon and said, "Santos, you better finish the wall!"
"I'm working on it Neo!"
But it wasn't enough. The men there, firing with everything they had, had only so much power to feed into their weapons and there were so many monsters coming. Like a scene from one of Sigourney Weaver's "Alien" movies, the giant insects threw themselves in suicidal charges, determined to kill them all and were, bit by bit, wearing the human defenders down. Captured humans would kill themselves and their attackers with point blank range charged shots from their weapons but such sacrifices were quickly becoming useless. The platoon's supply of energy cartridges for their maser weapons and their supply of cryo-grenades were quickly running out; there seemed nothing left to do.
It seemed as if all was lost when Santos and his men finally managed to tear a hole in the wall of the dome. Though already severely injured, he screamed his orders over the din of battle. "We've busted through! Everyone out! Kids first!" On seeing their chance, terrified children ran for their lives. "Kids get ou—AAAHHH!"
With that, the Lieutenant fell to the ground in agony and clutched his back. Knowing blood by the feel, he instinctively tore out a stinger that one of the insects had shot at him and with that uttered a howl of fury. Gone berserk, he opened full fire at the insects his men were holding at bay. The Lagos Platoon needed that because it was quickly being overwhelmed.
Throwing a cryo-grenade, Epiphanes yelled, "We won't be able to hold them back much longer!"
"We'll hold them back as long as it takes!" yelled back the drunken and wounded Santos as he blasted down row of insects with his rifle on beam mode.
"But we're running out of time! The door can close at any moment! You have to go now!"
"It's not over yet!"
"Yes it is," said Epiphanes. With that, the Muvian soldier raised his weapon and brought it crashing down on Lieutenant Tomas Santos. Knowing that the man had to survive but that he was a man ready to die with his men, the Muvian told the soldier nearest him, "Get him out of here now! Everyone else, get out and leave me. That's an order!"
Remembering that Epiphanes had been made their second in command, they did as they were told. The remaining soldiers of the Lagos Platoon ran out from the dome as fast as they could, carrying their leader with them. They did that even as Epiphanes fired away with guns blazing against the monster insects, two maser rifles in each hand, to cover their escape. It was harder than it looked for the men of the platoon because the hole that they had blasted open was getting smaller by the second. A self-healing wall will do that.
To silence he who had killed so many of them, an elephant sized bombardier beetle fired a stream of acid that nearly killed the Muvian guide, though the beetle itself was killed by one final shot. The man fell down screaming and writhing in agony as the acid burned through his clothes and his skin.
By then, the last of the Platoon was out and the monster insects were trying to pursue them out of it. Gasping for air as he did so, the dying and disfigured Neo Icon Epiphanes screamed, "Get back here you worthless maggots!" As if they could understand him, the monstrous insects, ants, beetles, flies, mantids, wasps, all looked at him. "You want a fight come here!"
The monster insects came to him as if they knew what he was saying. However, they could not have known what he was doing. At that moment, the man from Mu was on his knees and placing all his remaining energy cartridges into a pile and aiming his maser rifle at them. On seeing that some insects were forcing their way through the opening at the wall to kill the now helpless Platoon and the children under their protection, Epiphanis said, "You're not going to kill my friends."
With that he aimed at the energy cartridges and pulled the trigger. "See you in hell."
It was at that moment that Santos was beginning to regain consciousness, despite the burning pain in his back, and on seeing that explosion he knew what had happened. All the insect monsters that had been trying to kill them had been destroyed and any others trying to get at them were already too late for the dome had closed. Lying on the ground and fighting back the tears he knew he couldn't shed before his men, the Lieutenant sat up and turned to the soldier nearest him. "Status."
"The kids are all present and accounted for; they all made it out OK. The perimeter is secured and there aren't any bugs in the area. We've already arranged for an airlift; Tsujimori and the Gryphon is going to pick is up, sir."
The platoon commander looked to the freed children and let himself smile. They were safe, that was the most important thing. However, the Lieutenant's smile left him when he chose to ask the next question. "Casualties."
"The kids are ok. As for us, its heavy; we're down to eighty percent. Epiphanes didn't make it out. I'm sorry sir."
"Clavos de Cristo…" With that, Santos tried to stand up but as he did so he doubled over in pain. Worried, the men around him laid him to the ground on his belly. With that, they tore open his shirt and saw just how deep the gory and bloody back wound was. The injured area was purple and the ugly discoloration was beginning to spread; it was a sign of poison.
The medic winced as he saw this and injected him with a large dose of anti-venom and quick healing Solgel Island red water. "Don't worry sir. We'll get you back on your feet in no time."
Remembering that he still had a war to fight Santos said through tired breaths, "You better."