Church's Crusade #6: An…ethereal approach

Private Wilkes did not like sentry duty. He often offered reasons the officers as to why he should be excused from the position, however they always told him to stop complaining and get to his post. This never improved his mood about the whole affair. The way he figured, if he was the one who was watching for intruders, then he would be the first to be killed in an attack. His feeling of unease was not improved by the fact that earlier that day, they had found a lone survivor of one of their skirmisher platoons. He was filthy, had lost his gun and one of his boots and one of his arms had a handprint crushed into it with a force similar to that of a hydraulic ram. That was not the most disturbing thing though. The most disturbing thing was what the soldier had apparently seen. The sergeant of the small force that they had found had been shot by the skirmisher's Captain at close range. It hadn't even slowed him as he had taken an SMG to his attacker. Now there were all sorts of rumours about the opposition using super soldiers, men who could not be killed. It was just plain scary he thought. Especially when he considered that he was now twice as likely to die while on watch. He was still thinking on this when a knife spun out of the darkness and struck him in the throat. The fact that this most recent incident would prove him right to the officers did not console him much as his life bled away...

Anna pulled her knife from the sentry's throat and wiped it on his uniform, then looked up at Church. "This could be tougher than we thought." she said, and indicated the camp spread out in front of them. Church looked and had to agree. The camp was several hundred strong and was spread across the only route to their own lines. The base had many sentry points scattered through out and had armed patrols moving through them. Plus the fires of the various groups of tents were close enough together to make the shadows too few to slip through. Anna was right. It would be very tough.

Church sighed. It looked like he would have to do it. He didn't like the idea but it looked like they had no choice. He looked at what was left of his squad, "Could you guys look after my body for a little while?', he said, 'There are some things I'll have to do."
"What?' said Rourke, 'What can you do without your body?"
"Possess people. I don't like to do it much, but I guess I have no choice."
"Why don't you like to do it?' said Anna, 'I would have thought it would be good fun."
Church grimaced, "There was an incident back in Blood Gulch. I got stuck in Caboose's mind for a while."
"What was it like?" said Anna.
"Surprisingly roomy."
"Which one is Caboose again?' said Rourke, 'Is he the sleaze who got involved with the alien?"
"No that was Tucker', said Anna, 'Caboose is the dim one."
"Look is this conversation really going anywhere?' asked Paul, 'Because we still have a base to cross before morning."
"Right.', said Church, 'I'm going to go in there and cause as much havoc as possible. Anna, when you think that it is safe. Make a break for the other side of the base. Take my body with you, but if necessary drop it." He grinned, "I can borrow another."
Then his body fell forward into the dirt.

Church sped invisibly across the enemy base and found his target. He dropped down and possessed one of the guards outside an equipment tent. Moving quickly he raised his rifle and brought the butt down on the back of the other guard's head. He then turned and threw a grenade into the explosives and ammunitions in the tent. Then he sped off before the first explosion had started. He did this at four other tents, but at the fifth brought out a machine gun first and began to fire as the tent detonated behind him, causing more confusion. As the body he was possessing was gunned down he possessed another, then another, all the while moving further away from his squad.

When he reached the edge of the base he left his current body and jumped back to the centre of the base. He located his running team and jumped back into his body. As he regained a feel for the mechanical limbs he heard a cry and saw Paul go down as his still healing leg collapsed underneath him. Without even breaking stride he scooped the private up and draped him across his shoulders then continued. They were about one hundred metres from the darkness on the other side of the base when someone yelled. "STOP! Intruders!" Then it suddenly seemed the entire base was running in there direction.

Church looked at Rourke. "Take Paul! Whatever happens, just keep running. I'll catch up if I can."
Rourke looked as though he was about to object, then thought better of it. He took Paul over his shoulders and dropped Church's pack, which he had been carrying while the sergeant had been absent. Then he ran off into the darkness.

Church turned back to the oncoming forces, leaned down and heaved up a large slap of concrete. Then he ducked behind it, laid out his weapons and rose up with Paul's rope device whirling above his head and sent it into the enemy forces. The ropes wrapped about the legs of a soldier and dropped him to be trampled under the feet of his allies, before the grenade detonated and scattered the forces. Then Church drew his pistols, each one modified to support automatic fire at the flick of a lever. He smiled, and spoke, so softly that no one else heard.

"Let's play..."

The characters Church, Caboose, Tucker, Simmons, Sarge, Grif, Sister, Donut and Doc are owned by Rooster Teeth Productions.