CHAPTER 6: ENTERING THE LABYRINTH
The humans had retreated far beyond the outskirts of the city, no civilian stood lonesome. Not a soul in sight.
"Closing in on the crater Mercy, five seconds to touchdown" Shipmaster announced
A slow lowering movement with a large crank as the ship surfaced the planet; the activation of the anti gravitational pad lowering us from the ship's interior to the cold harsh winds of New Alexandria. A slash of air slapped me in the face blowing vigorously as i turned to the right surroundings vaguely scanning the area not picking up much in the darkening black of the smoke filled skies. The troops had a sharp eye ready for anything as i directed them closely and sensibly towards the inner crater to ensure maximum discreteness and minimal damage. We repelled deep into the crater where half torn corridors show their foundations and darkness blackens my troop. Walking just a few metres into the darkness activating my night vision visors half burnt and half severed bodies sprinkle the floor with frayed wires acting as a potential threat i notice the corridor widening and soon branching off into dozens of corridors, what one was a seemingly dark hallway become a darkened labyrinth.
"Sir lets divide the squad into groups to tackle this hazard and find the archives, Lord Truth wanted this quick and easy" first Lieutenant suggests.
Thinking to myself why Truth would consider any mission easy by judging it however having no experience in close quarter missions it can get quite dangerous and time consuming i soon accept the lieutenant's proposal and politely nod. Lieutenant took three troops and headed onward, i took two other soldiers with me to the right hallway whilst the last two travelled left. Several double doors appeared ahead; many of them missing a door some kept opening and closing repeatedly. We walked through the labyrinth for twenty minutes until i got that strange feeling someone was following you or something was watching you; something that wasn't supposed to be there. My visor and ground radar began to blink and become static whilst many of my suits major functions became to trigger on and off. This occurred for all of us and it became cold, very cold however the off putting silence was killing me all i could see or feel was black.
I turned around to see to my troop, they had all removed their visors as the night vision wasn't responding and so i did myself. I turned around to see a flickering light at the opposite end of the hallway about fifteen metres down. The flickering jumped closer and close as a soft echo became louder and louder. I aim my gun towards it as it flew faster towards us, my troops followed my actions but the echo and the flickering light came close enough that the echo turned into a very violent scream that smashed through us corrupting our suits, pulling me to the ground in pain. My ears began to bleed, one of my troops has strangely died by the scream and the entire corridor began to shake as if it were an earthquake. My other soldier was fine however he was deafened by the scream also with his ears bleeding. Struggling to stand up i could make out gunshots in the opposite direction to us and the sound of lieutenant roaring into battle. The same echoing scream shattered towards his general direction. Less deafening to me however the gunshots had stopped and the ground began to violently shake again. Picking up my last soldier holding him up with my shoulder we began to run towards the far end of the corridor in which the flickering entity had appeared. The radar began to function with the radio intact as well, three red dots indicating a friendly casualty stood still as two living friendly dots ran the opposite way to us. I contacted them "Red One what's your status?"
"Taking fire, heavy fire, one soldier from Green Two's group we found dead and missing a leg which was when we ran into that... thing... but whatever it is, it's after us!".
"Steady yourself troops follow the radar in towards the north and we'll see if we can cut across and regroup"
"Affirmative sir, see you on the other side".