Chapter 3
No Hope
It was burning, the entire city of Rancagua was engulfed in thick black smoke as Flames burned through buildings and egulfed vehicles. The larger Infantry transport that flew alongside us, a TU-3 Kite class. It had a large decal on it's side no doubt attached by the carrier's pilot, it read BAT HAWK. It pulled away from veiw of my seat on my smaller personalized Prowler class vehicle, no doubt dropping low to release its load of troops it was carrying in its armored hull. For about the thousandth time I turn my head and look around the small hollow midsection on the Prowler and again, for the thousandth time curse silently over how they weren't ready for this.
Our transport teetered for a second as we hit some sort of turbulence and the new Chimera team recruits grabbed nervously for the braces on the hull. I shake my head and then say over the personal comm line that only our team shared. "Everybody ready your weapons and keep your Adrenaline reserves on standby." I said with confidence, this time we were prepared... I just hope it helped. A few hours before they had been breifed on the situation and knew what we were up against, all of the regulars below on the other hand had no clue.
Hence the team's nervousness, even with their training they didn't have the experience to take on something like this so soon, they saw in the video from my recent mission the damage that these things could do even with their advanced super suits. I make sure my G45 is fully loaded and properly set. Then our craft veers to the right as the pilot gets the order to take us in, so we go in, our vision is instantly clouded by the thick black smoke, so I give the order over the Comm to switch to thermal vision and keep their sight to the buildings around us for the time being.
Three acknowledgement lights blip on and off so thats when I switch to my thermal. There were extreme heat signatures coming from below us but all around us, in the extremelyt high buildings they were relatively cool, so this gave us a chance to examine the area for a focused assault. There was a sound of Civillian gunfire in the distance, my experience assessed the sound and told me that it was a Semi Automatic civillian issue Wasp. The Wasp was downgraded for civillian personal protection and could hardly be used for anything else, due to its extremely weak Firepower and insignificant range.
That pistol wouldn't stop one of those creatures even if the barrel was pressed against its weak point and several rounds exited the barrel at that moment. I sighed as I assumed the person using that weapon was very, very dead by now. A female voice crackled over my Comm as the new Chimera 3 opened a chat with me. "Sir?" She sounded just as nervous as she looked. "I couldn't help but catch that gunfire.. That was a-" I cut her off in the comm. "A Wasp, civillian issue, yes Chimera 3." I say with boredom in my voice, I don't even know why she pointed this out to me. "She hesitates, I couldn't see her face through her white visor, but I could tell by her tone that she was wearing a worried expression.
"So that means... Theres civillians still alive?" She asks, basically sitting on the edge of her seat with her eyes fixed on me. I think she was hoping that she could save some of the civillians... I don't think that was going to be possible, so I don't get her hopes up. I look back at her and remain silent for several seconds. "There were at least." I finally say in a dark tone and look back out to the buildings. The Comm falls quiet and we survey our surroundings as we pass by them. The city was unsettlingly quiet until the pilot chimed in over our personal Comm. He needed one as he was going to be running us around this city.
"Wear nearing the DZ, ETA Five minutes." And with that he shut off his link without another word. We take that as an alert to remove our saftey harnesses, so we do so. I give the team a lest second tip. "Today we'll be dropping in fast, make sure your weapons are ready and in your hands when you drop, I don't want to be caught off guard at landing. When you get close to the ground, I want you to use the emergency thrusters at back of your suits to slow down and make the landing less painful, I can't express how much I don't want a soldier with a broken ankle." After the comm link falls silent The prowler shifts its engines, slowing down and then the Pilot chimed in again.
"We've reached the DZ, please enjoy the sights and we hope you choose EPF airlines for all your travelling needs, that is IF you poor bastards make it out alive." He says in a grave yet joking tone. "Your just jealous you don't get any ground action." I reply matter of factly and he chuckles. "I'd rather not get the kind of ground action you guys are going to get." I hear a warning alarm go off as safety measures are removed from the loading area. Then he has the last word as a red light illuminates the hull. "Thank you, come again!" Suddenly there is a loud metallic clack and a hissing noise, then the floor falls out from under us.
We drop like rocks, due to our armor, it pulls us down at an intense speed and I feel like my stomach and my lungs are exchanging words. I hold my rifle over my head and look down as I fall. Unfortunately there were no flames where I was being dropped, so it blended in with the smoke and I couldn't even see it after I switched back to Regular vision. I could feel myself dropping faster and faster with each second and thats when I decide to hit the thrusters. I think it and I feel my Armor plating on my back heat up as the Thrusters activate and I slow down considerably. The ground comes into veiw and I deactivate them, figuring that this was a good distance to just fall. I land on my feet easily enough and then lower as I do so, absorbing the impact with my legs.
Before I think about anything else I had my rifle down and aimed ahead of me, my eyes were running over the surrounding wreckage and other fallen debris. The others had touched down close to me and we formed a Square of defense so that each of us could cover a direction. "I want everyone to maintain Radio silence." I say with a whisper. "These things can even hear our voices from inside our helmets." he three acknowledgement lights flick on and I return my attention to my surroundings.
As we stay crouched there, our guns combing the area, the objectives of the mission come in. The higher ups had intended us to move in first and soften up the opposition so that the main force could move in and commence the clean up. It would have been nothing if the opposition was Normal, but they were far from it. The objectives appear at the side of my HUD and I take in the orders, we were to head Southwest to a building complex that had been scanned thermally Via Sattelite and it apparently had an unnatural heat signature. We were to investigate and unfortunately, we had to do our jobs. I held my hand up, so that my team could see the On Me Signal that I was giving them, eventually they all formed up behind me, coovering my flank and thats when I began moving, I stayed low and moved to the side of a wrecked vehicle and they followed, two moving up on either side of me and one staying behind.
Chimera 2, the one in front of me, lifts his rifle barrel over the hood of the car and scans the forward area, when he spots nothing his acknowledgement light blinks on and off and I slip around him, still low and move to a doorway on the right of the street. It takes several more minutes of these low profile actions, so that just in case these creatures were still around we wouldn't be spotted easily. Were almost on the street wich the entrance of the building is and I peer around the corner and what I see causes me to jerk my head away from the corner as quickly as possible.
Around that corner was a Creature. Its back was to me when I looked around thankfully, but it was much too close for comfort, my heart started to race as my hand rose slowly to signal to the others to stop. This thing's hearing, I knew, was uncanny, so I would take this kill, letting the soles of my padded boots sit down carefully on the pacement, ever more softly with each step towards the being. Its head shifts around in multiple directions, very quickly, as if it were having random twitching fits, accompanying the movements with a short noise every time. Sounding like. "Gew... GeGew...GewwwwGew..." I would have laughed if I didn't know how incredibly evil these things could be.
I noticed that its back metallic plating had been formed into spikes for defensive measures, unfortunately for him, his defense would be his greatest weakness. I make my move when i'm satisfied with my disnace to him, which was barely more that Three feet. I jump up, moving with lightning speed, placing my right boot on one of the two bottom spikes and then I lift my left foot and bring it up onto one of the three upper spikes. At this time the creature becomes aware of me, making another sound. "Gewww?" Hinting I hope, to confusion. Now that i'm on proper level with its head I raise my right boot up and place it on one of the more dominant head spikes extending back from the creature's skull and then bend foward, grabbing it's chin firmly. By now its realizing whats going on and it attempts to stop me, arcing its blades upward towards me.
Too late. I push on that dominant head spikes with all of my body weight while using that force appropriately to strengthen the pull on its chin with my hand. It's head comes about with a sickening crack, and easily too. I can actually see the surprise in it's eyes as it's body falls forward with my weight. I set the foot I used for the kill down first and hold onto the creature's head to slow it's fall so it's not too loud.
Now that he was out of the way we could move into the building, I raise my rifle, which had been in my right hand's grasp the entire time, and give the signal to move forward. When we finally reached the entrance we breached using the proper procedures and took up formation inside. Objective complete, it marked itself off on my Hud and I gave a little sigh of releif. Thats when a movement catches my eyes. Standing in the hallway, directly in front of us was another creature, only this one, was looking directly at us. This was going to be a looong day.