Life On Helghan.
Okie doke chapter 7, I thought I'd give you all 2 chapters since you had to wait so long, aren't I nice? Lol anyway I may be taking another break after this because I've got some things to deal with, might take anything up to 2 weeks before chapter 8 gets here, but if the problem deals with itself then you can expect chapter 8 in a couple days.
Chapter 7.
We'd been playing poker for about half an hour, the captain had been kicking my ass but I actually beat him in our final game with a strong king flush to a pair of tens, a soldier came into the room and called out for us, we stood up and confirmed our names.
He came up to us. "Radec needs you both." And he left, we pushed past him to get to Radec guessing why he wanted us, it was obvious that the unit was returning with the prisoners, I was relishing the opportunity to see one of the most dangerous threats to our victory in the flesh.
We arrived at his office and I raised my hand to knock, but before my hand hit the door he burst out knocking me over, didn't even pay me any attention, I got to my feet and followed him outside, he was actually half-running.
Outside I could see the unit he'd sent out coming up the far hill with three personnel, I recognised Shawn Natko and Dante Garza but the female scientist was new to me. I was wondering where the rest of the squad were, I didn't have to wait long for my answer because as soon as they'd reached the courtyard the colonel asked for a report.
"Well sir we found these three in an old comm relay in the village, as we were escorting them out we were attacked from behind by two men, we had to move quickly so as not to risk the prisoners escaping so we left behind several infantry units and snipers to cover our retreat."
The colonel reached into his holster, pulled out his pistol and shot the man in front of him in the face, needless to say this didn't surprise me, the colonel looked down at the man's head, blood was seeping out of the back of his helmet and there were bits of brain lying on the sand behind where he'd been standing, he looked back up at the rest of the unit.
"This is Alpha Squad, did you seriously think that a few snipers and support troopers can capture or kill them you FUCKING IDIOTS!"
I was shocked at this, I'd figured out what kind of man the colonel was and not just the fact he shouted but also the fact he used profanity didn't sit well with me at all, if Radec lost his temper it normally meant something really bad, then nothing, he regained his composure just as quickly as he'd lost it and went over to the prisoners, he approached Natko first who spoke to him.
"Yeah that's right you fucking Hig bastard, our buddies are coming for us and they're gonna send your little ass crying home to Momma."
I laughed at his stupidity, obviously he had no idea who Radec was or what he was capable of, he replied to Natko by saying. "You are a worthless piece of ISA meat who will be cut soon enough." He actually punched Natko, again this surprised me, I suppose he was still pissed about the unit's idiocy, he got him in the nose and a large wad of blood splashed on the sand from it, he had to grab it to stop the bleeding. Radec left him there on the ground and went to Garza.
"Now I hope you're smarter than your comrade, otherwise I'll have my men shoot you in the leg."
Garza didn't say a word and the colonel looked at him in silence then went over to the woman, she wasn't trained for this and I could tell she was scared, when he stood in front of her she lowered her eyes form his helmet and looked at the ground. He told her she was going to igve him the nuclear codes for Red Dust or she was going to watch these men die and recieve a bullet in every limb until she talked.
She shuddered at this but said nothing, a defiant expression on her face which was still staring at the ground, the colonel turned around and walked away from her. "Fine, have it your way, men escort them to the train, I'll be along shortly." They began motioning for them to move, two men picked a struggling Natko up off the ground and forced him to move, he was cursing at them furiously but it had no effect, I turned around to follow the colonel back to his office.
The captain and I took up our positions on either side of the doors and talked about what had just happened. "Well that was pretty fucked up." He said.
"Yeah, the way the colonel shouted at them was strange, I don't think this bodes well for us."
We were chatting for a few minutes before the colonel left his office and we followed him to the mining train, Radec led us to the officers car and we finally had a chance to get off our feet and sit down, and it was a long trip so we really had the chance to relax, confident that Radec was safe on this thing with the number of Helghast onboard. After about an hour we stopped at Tharsis Refinery, Radec stood up and left the car, outside we stood and waited for the prisoners to be brought out, eventually they were brought to the colonel who told the escorts to take them for processing, then he turned to us.
"I'm perfectly safe here, you two are as of this moment required to report for weapon testing over in bloc EY7."
"Sir." We both said in unison again and the colonel left us at the train station, we wondered what we were going to be testing as we followed the signs directing us to the area, eventually we arrived at what looked like a laboratory, there were Helghast everywhere who seemed to be wearing some sort of special sealed HAZMAT suits, but with our unifirms you can never really tell since they cover the whole body, but the reason I thought this was because their uniforms weren't padded like ours, instead they were skin-tight. I didn't have time to look around long because one of them came up to us.
"Captain Hakha? Master Sergeant Lente?"
We both confirmed and he told us to follow him, we entered a large room in the far left corner of the lab, it was immaculate, the scientist went over to a sealed glass cabinet and took out an odd-looking rifle, he brought it over to me and told me it was the new VC5 Arc Rifle, I looked about it and noticed the four drums on the side had petrusite in them, it was at that moment I said "Oooohhhh fuck yeah!" The captain laughed and said "You've got to be kidding, that fucking tower in the Salamun District was huge, and this thing..." I agreed with his point but I was mainly concentrating on the chance to fire this weapon.
I was told to report to the range on the far side of the room and await orders from the staff sergeant on duty in the booth. "New meat eh? OK mate this isn't your basic weapon test, you won't be shooting static targets but a few prisoners we caught, this weapon has no effect on non-biological targets so hence the targets, when you're ready." He pressed a button and four men ran into the target range, I lifted the rifle to my eye befor realising there were no iron sights, I lowered it back to my hip and pulled the trigger, the barrel on the front started spinning and suddenly an electrical arc burst out of the gun, this shocked me so much I let off the trigger for a second, eventually I managed to gather myself and pulled it again this time aiming at one of the men, the arc made contact instantly and he was writhing and screaming in a pain I couldn't imagine, after a few seconds he slumped to the floor, smoke was rising from his corpse, the other's were now screaming and scrabbling at the walls trying to escape, I opened up and a few seconds later they were all dead.
I'd been so amazed by this gun I hadn't noticed the captain had finished his practice and was standing looking at me and waiting for me to leave, I snapped back to reality and turned around to walk over to him, the scientist told us we could go and we left the room, I looked around the lab on my way out and could see glass canisters with what looked like petrusite in them, only differenece was it was glowing green and not blue, we left the lab and followed the signs to the mess hall, we were starving and the thoiught of some Cadaver Beetle or even Helghan Spider right now was appealing to me.
End of chapter 7.
Ohhh man, sorry if I made mistakes in this chapter, I don't normally get these written out late at night, I'm tired lol so I apologize for any mistakes, yeah chapter 8 will hopefully be here in a couple of days so leave me a review on chapters 6 and 7 please and thank you for reading.