The hornets flew into the bright horizon.
"I've always liked beaches" Din said while letting sand sift through his hands.
The five members of alpha squad were at the base of a hill. It was a sandy beach; there was a small ledge along the rock cliff and boulders along the ground next to it on their right side. There was some light brush and broken walls scattered throughout the area. At the top of the hill there was a bunker and then fortress-like building. Its main gates were shut, but the hole in the bunker's side was going to provide them entrance.
Watt looked at the ledge, "I found my resting spot!" he chuckled and began to sprint for the ledge.
"Wait!" Ruse ordered. He looked at the five of them, Lay, Din, Ironwedge and Watt. "I'm getting a bad feeling about this place, so I want you to think about this. Why do think the UNSC would put a General, a Colonel, and three Commanders in a squad?" Lay began to respond but Ruse continued. "You guys should be commanding your own squads. Now, the reason they put us five in one squad is because, we are some of the best in the UNSC. When the shit hits the fan, they send in Alpha Squad. General Chez, hand picked us as his squad, now your my squad and the UNSC didn't split us up because we get the job done. We do the suicide missions, we do the rescue missions and we're gonna go into this mission as Alpha Squad and come out of this mission as Alpha Squad. All five of us! Understood?"
"Hell yeah!"
"Yup!"
"All The Way!"
"Let's kick some ass!"
Ruse stood tall "Now, I haven't been much of a leader so far, so I think that wasn't so bad for a motivational speech." He turned to Watt. "Now on to business, Watt take that ledge, you already claimed it, you're gonna cover us, no hesitation, if you see a zombie, blow its brains out!"
"Oh, yeah!" Watt grabbed the sniper off his back holster and loaded it.
"Rest of you, follow me." Ruse ordered.
They walked up the hill to the bunker. There were two choppers to the right of the bunker and a prowler next to the wall of the fortress where a pipe stuck out. They looked into the hole on the side of the bunker.
Lay let out a whistle, "Din, you never told us you were here before."
Din looked at the wall "I like exploding stuff, but I don't think even I could have done this..."
Ruse looked the wall over and then looked inside the shady bunker, "On second thought, if were dealing with stuff that can do this to solid concrete I want Lay to stay out here with Watt."
Lay smirked "Yeah, I'll protect the asshole."
There helmet com came on, "I can still here you!" Watt exclaimed.
"Well then I guess you heard I'm staying out here with you." Lay replied, "I kill anything that comes out and you just sit there nice and pretty make sure nothin' tries to butt rape me. Got it?"
"Oh, fuck you!" Watt hollered, "I'll snipe them before they even get in arms length of you. So just sit there and watch the show."
Ironwedge and Din snickered
Ruse sighed and shook his head, "Din, Iron, let's go..."
They entered the bunker; Lay stood outside and in a girly voice said "Goodbye! We'll miss you!"
Din flicked him the finger before they went around the corner.
They heard a gun shot, and their helmet com came on, "You missed you bastard!" Lay laughed.
"It's called a warning shot." Watt growled, "Next one's in your leg, then your head!"
Ruse spoke into the com, "Watt, Lay isn't worth wasting three bullets."
Watt laughed, Lay replied with "Oh, very funny you son of a..." Ruse turned his helmet com off. "I don't need to listen to them, they give me a headache."
"They need to grow up." Ironwedge spoke for the first time this mission.
"You need to lighten up." Din said while smacking Iron on the back of the head, "We're in the middle of a war. If having some fun means we don't kill each other or ourselves from stress then we need to fool around once in a while, tell a joke maybe. Right boss?"
Ruse shifted his head slightly, "Guess so, Din."
"I'm just saying were dealing with deadly weapons and fighting deadly...uh, things that wanna kill us!" Ironwedge argued
"I ain't saying your wrong; you just need to lighten up a bit. Here, tell us a joke!"
Ironwedge was getting angry, "OK!" He snarled. "Why did the zombies have a five-man feast?"
"Why?"
"Cause, Watt and Lay, were fuckin' around!"
"Aw, that ain't funny, man." Din said in disgust.
"But, it might be true." Ruse added
"Hey, we haven't seen any zombies yet!" Din replied cheerfully
"Yeah, are we gonna get any action here?" Iron asked. He was calm now.
"You saw what...Something did to that wall. So were gonna find Something." Ruse answered.
Although they didn't realize it, they had stopped in a room at the beginning of the conversation and were standing there for a while.
"So where do we go now?" Din asked.
"Straight, I guess." Ruse said.
They kept walking until they ended up in a courtyard. There was a missile launcher in the center of it.
"What type of factory has a missile launcher in it?" Din asked while looking at it awe struck.
"I thought this was a fortress or army base." Iron added.
Ruse looked around, "Might be both..." He then saw a shadowed entrance at the back of the base, "Let's check that out, follow behind me."
They entered the room cautiously. A stench filled the room and the lungs of the soldiers.
Ironwedge covered his helmet vent, "Oh, god. You guys smell that?" He paused, "It smells like, oh god, shit."
"Oh, Ruse, how rude of you!" Din laughed
Ruse snarled, "Iron, please turn your helmet lights on..."
Two jets of light slightly illuminated the small room. Throughout the room (and only a few inches from them) were dozens of hunched black bundles. They breathed heavy breaths, and stirred a bit.
"And please turn you lights off." Ruse ended his sentence.
He motioned them out of the room. They backed out of the room and someone hit the light switch on the wall. The lights flickered on and the hunches became restless. One got up, an infected no doubt. A lanky zombie, he was skinny and a foot taller then the soldiers. His helmet only covered his face down to his top lip; his bottom jaw was completely visible. He opened his mouth to scream, it was full of rotting, blood stained teeth and a green snake-like tongue.
Ruse reacted quickly and shot the zombie in the face with his shotgun, killing him instantly. "Run!" He screamed.
Watt sat on the ledge, scratching drawings into the rock with his large robotic-like finger. "He talked into his helmet com, "Think this place is a dud?"
Lay replied, "Yeah, probably, but orders are orders so we get to sit here and wait until they come out, and say nothing was in there and that we wasted our time."
They suddenly heard a loud boom that sent vibrations through the area and shook their organs. Watt jumped up, "Maybe it's not a dud..."
"Maybe…"
"Oh! Yeah! Great idea Din! Run into the room with the waker!" Iron screamed while sprinting.
"How the heck would I have known that there was a waker in there?! At least we know what happened to the wall!" Din replied also while sprinting
"Just shut up and run!" Ruse roared.
They ran into a room and shut a steel door.
"That won't hold the waker." Iron said in between breaths.
Ruse looked around the room that they were in. There was some sort of pipe with an opening in it. "Quick, crawl into that pipe!" He ordered
They did and as they were told. They heard the scratching sounds of zombies at the door. Ruse turned on his helmet com, "Lay? You there?"
His voice came through, "What the hell was that shockwave?"
"A waker."
Now it was Watt's turn to join in, "Waker?!"
"Yes a waker..." Ruse sighed "Be on your guard! While we were running, zombies were jumping out of every nook and cranny, so this place is overflowin' with zombies; luckily none of them have firearms from what I saw. Just watch out." Ruse turned his com off.
The door wouldn't last much longer, Ruse looked around, he was sweating, he thought of this being the end. It couldn't be the end. Could it? He then noticed the room they were in. It was a storage room full of gas tanks. Ruse jumped out of the pipe grabbed a small propane tank and opened it he them made a trail of propane from a pile of gas tanks to inside the pipe.
He looked at the other two, "It's do or die time guys. Hand me your bullets and grenades."
They did as they were told and Ruse began to remove the gun powder from the ammunition, "Start moving further into the pipe."
They did. "Man, it stinks in here, oh what's this? Oh god! That's why it stinks!" Iron pushed aside a rotting corpse in the pipe.
"Aw, suck it up...and that's sick." Din said.
Ruse continued his trail of gunpowder until he ran out. "Iron, hand me a match."
"Will do!"
Ruse pulled out his emergency rope and they began crawling towards the opening of the tube. When he ran out of rope he lit the match and lit the rope on fire. They heard the sound of crushing steel and a zombie jumped into the pipe and began crawling after them.
"C'mon! Get out of here!" He screamed at Iron and Din. They jumped out of the pipe into area surrounding the entrance of the base.
Watt zoomed in for the shot, and then spoke into his com, "Lay! They're out! They got out!"
The pipe then shot out an explosion of flames like a volcano.
"Oh, shit" Watt whispered.
A prowler then sped out from behind a rock with Ironwedge, Dindin and Ruse on it. Ruse came in on the com "There are two choppers by the bunker; I highly suggest you guys get on them and leave now, were out of ammo so we got to go now!"
The gates of the fortress opened letting a flood of zombies out.
"Go, without us. We'll catch up." Watt answered.
"I don't feel right leaving you two here." Ruse confessed
"Its fine, you guys get going, you're out of ammo and we have plenty, we'll hold them off." Lay replied
Ruse sighed, "Fine, but here's our final gift." The prowler spun around and boosted toward the zombie horde. It ripped through them, impaling all the infected with its bumper spikes. They then tail-whipped around and sped off towards the ocean. Luckily with the advanced technology, the hovering prowler could "drive" on water.
As they sped away, Watt spoke into the com, "I don't know how you do it Rusejambon." He said cheerfully.
The wave of zombies flooded towards Lay. He pulled out his mauler and slit a zombie's throat as it ran at him; he then turned and crippled another's leg, with its powerful shot. A zombie came from behind him smacked him, resulting in Lay dropping his mauler. He then recovered, pulled his magnum out and put a bullet in between the eyes of his attacker.
Watt came in on the com, "They are now all focused on you. Your Mr. Popular!"
"Ha-ha, very fu...shit! I'm runnin' low on ammo! Wanna head for those choppers?" Lay asked
"Yeah, I'll cover you." Watt replied.
Lay hit a zombie in the head with the butt of his magnum, implanting the empty ammo cartridge in its skull. The zombie squealed as it died. Zombies dropped around him because of the constant firing of Watt's sniper. Shot after shot, zombies dropped.
Lay turned to signal Watt to the choppers only to see a large dark figure behind Watt. The thing was not a waker but still wielded a gravity hammer of some sort. Watt was completely unaware of this. The creature raised his weapon and brought it down on Watt's back, breaking his spine and neck instantly. If that did not kill him, the force from the blow threw him of the ledge sending him into several boulders, in which on impact would end in death.
Lay screamed, "Waaaaatttttt!" he then spun around and stuck an active grenade into the armor of a zombie. After that he kicked the zombie into the horde. The explosion killed many of the infected beings.
He then turned towards the choppers. There before him stood the creature with its hammer high above its head. Before Lay could react, the hammer had come down in a deadly arc.