BraK3R's A/N: I don't really have much to say ehehehee, enjoy this awesome chapter and please review!
DelVaro's A/N:Oh yeah. Really, im on a roll. Updating two stories in one day!Heh, im happy now. Now the story is about to get interesting... I hope you liked the last chapter because in this chapter the shit is about to hit the fan! A large thank you to all the people who loved this story, reviewed and placed it on alert! I'm glad you liked it :) Now, enjoy the brand new chapter!
Chapter 7 - Shit Hits The Fan
1145 Hours, February 7, 2563 (Military Calendar) / Planet Venatio / Research Base Alpha
"Have you seen it?" Leone barked the question that everyone else was itching to ask.
"No sir, we have no idea what it was," Brass replied for everyone. A moment of silence descended on the group as they pondered what it could have been.
"Uh," Kyle broke the silence, causing everyone to turn their heads at him. "well, the vents can't be that large so I doubt it was a human. Not even a grunt without it's methane canister would fit in there. I guess it was an animal or something," he quickly explained, feeling somewhat nervous from their stares.
"That is a logical conclusion," Akira supported his statement.
"Maybe, but how did it get into the ventilation systems? They're supposed to be sealed for safety concerns," Jimmy spoke, adding his voice to the conversation.
"What concerns me is the fact that it ran to the third floor. For all we know that thing might've been the reason why they sealed the doors in the first place," Sean spoke his mind.
"True, but the only thing we know about this thing so far is that it is really fast. I bet it would easily outrun us in an open area," Damian added.
"Alright," Leone spoke, his rough voice silencing everyone. "the only way for us to find out what it was, is to go down to the third floor. Let me remind you that there are four floors
in this base and we don't know what's down there so I would rather not go down there without further intel," he explained, getting several nods in understandment.
"Well, it certainly fits the mission parameters. You said that they had trouble with the local 'wildlife'. If there are animals in the ventilation shafts it's entirely possible that these things are the troublemakers," Jake said, leaning against a table.
"I wouldn't count on it," Leone interrupted. "If animals had killed everyone, there would've been bodies, both human and animal. Let me remind you that there was a full garrison of marines here so they wouldn't have gone quiet," the sergeant explained, causing some murmurs in the group. "Above that, Mary found out that most of the system here was wiped."
"Cole Protocol?" Damian asked, dreading the answer. If the Cole Protocol was initiated that meant that whatever wiped everyone out here was fully sentient, maybe even space faring. One thing for sure, whatever happened here wasn't caused by the Jiralnae(brutes).
"No," Leone replied, his answer causing a few raised eyebrows. Why would anyone wipe out the system? "It was more... haphazard as Mary told me. It was very crude work since there were some things that weren't wiped. Most of it is useless but she is currently trying to salvage whatever she can. Maybe whatever she finds will shed some light on the situation." Minds spun in overdrive as Leone finished speaking. Some of them reached the same conclusion. Whoever had wiped the system didn't want them to find something. Damian noticed several security cameras, which were offline now, and he suspected that they could've caught whatever happened here on tape. It left him with some hope, as the mystery was both killing him and creeping him out.
"Alright, there are two other bases on the planet and we still haven't checked them out. The survivors of Alpha base might have went there. Right now, we need to report to the Captain," Leone explained, reminding them that they might walk through the jungle again this day. Leone opened a COM channel with the ship, followed by the rest of the squad who joined the frequency. "This is Echo Leader reporting in."
"This is the Captain of the New Age, report," came the reply, though it was somewhat strained.
"There's nothing here sir. Alpha base is devoid of life, system was wiped. We suspect sentient beings involved. We still have two more bases to search, we might find survivors there," Leone explained, quick and to the point.
"I see... check the scanners again, we're not going to take any risks!" the captain said the last part to someone else.
"Sir?" Leone asked. Something was going on in orbit.
"Its nothing you should worry yourself about. We just have some weird activity here, it could just be –oh shit!" the captain shouted the last part, quickly followed by a loud crashing sound, followed by a muffled explosion. The squad tensed, Jimmy and Kyle nearly jumping in surprise. "-hit! Shields... -percents, we wont... -hit," what they heard was garbled and filled with static. It was completely incomprehensible but they didn't need to be geniuses to know that their ship was just hit. "Mayday, mayday, this is the New Age, were going do-" there was another muffled explosion and then pure static as the frequency went down.
They all stood there in silence, looking at each other, some of them wearing horrified expressions, some scowling grimly. After a few seconds, like a well-oiled machine, they all grabbed their gear at the same time and rushed out of the facility in top speed.
1145 Hours, February 7, 2563 (Military Calendar) / UNSC Frigate New Age / Orbit / Planet Venatio
Everything was going perfectly fine, mostly boring. They'd just spent their time scanning the planet, looking for any kind of signal that might lead them to any survivors and waited until Echo Squad reported in. It was pretty much a SSDD experience, until one of his crew members, the one who operated the sensors, woke him out of his thougts.
"Sir! We detected something on our sensors," she half-shouted. Captain Richard Stanford straightened himself in his chair and cleared his throat.
"What is it?" he asked, wondering if something interesting was going to happen now, both becoming cheerful at these thoughts and anxious. In his career he'd participated in only one space battle, and back then he hadn't commanded a ship.
"Our scanners detected some kind of energy signature in Venatio's orbit. Its faint, barely there but we got it. The worst part of it is that it's moving towards us, sir."
"Get me a picture," Stanford ordered. He turned his gaze to one of the screens, dreading to see a brute ship, only to see the vast blackness of space when the screen flickered to the signature. A minute passed where no one said a thing until the Captain broke the silence. "Are you sure its there?"
"Positive," she said with determination in her voice.
"Sir, incoming COM channel from Echo Squad," the COM officer announced.
"Patch them through," Richard said, not tearing his eyes away from the screen.
"This is Echo Leader reporting in," came in the gruff voice of the sergeant.
"This is the Captain of the New Age, report."
"There is nothing here sir. Alpha base is devoid of life, system was wiped. We suspect sentient beings involved. We still have two more bases to search, we might find survivors there," Leone said, causing a few raised eyebrows on the bridge. This was starting to look bad.
"Sir, what about the signature?" the woman asked, sending him a questioning glance.
"I see... check the scanners again, we're not taking any risks!" the Captain ordered the woman, who returned a nod and got back to work.
"Sir?" the sergeant asked. The woman, he had to commend her for the speed she worked with, scanned again but after several moments shook her head. "Its still there and its getting closer."
"Its nothing you should worry yourself about. We just have some weird activity here, it could just be..." he trailed off, eyes widening to the size of dishes. The empty spot that was once on the screen turned into a ship. It was like watching someone pouring water over the ship, washing away the cloak. The ship was rather small, being around half the size of a frigate. For some reason, the shape of the ship reminded him of a fish. The next thing he noticed was the pair of brightly glowing spots on the sides of the ship. "Oh shit!" he exclaimed when he realized what those bright spots were. It was already too late to give any orders as the enemy ship opened fire. Stanford's eyes widened even further when instead of the all-familiar plasma torpedoes a pair of bright blue – huge in size – plasma bolts flew at them at great speeds. Moments later he found himself on the floor as the ship was rocked from the collision. He turned his head to the fuzzy image of the enemy ship and saw that it was charging a third shot, this time from the center of the ship, where a cannon-like device could be seen.
"We've been hit!" he heard someone shout above the blaring alarm klaxons, knowing that it was a pretty obvious statement. "Shields are at eleven percents. We wont be able to take another hit," someone else added. Realization dawned upon the bridge crew at how bad the situation was. Grim and worried glances were exchanged in a matter of seconds before the Captain opened a COM channel.
"Mayday, mayday, this is the New Age, we're going down -" he didn't manage to finish the distress call as the enemy ship unleashed another shot. This time it wasn't an oversized plasma bolt, but a beam. It made its way to the frigate in amazing speeds, hitting the ship in the blink of an eye and hitting the ship as if the remaining shields weren't even there. This time a huge explosion rocked the ship and it went dark on the bridge for a few second before the emergency lights turned on. Everyone slowly stood up, quickly inspecting the damage. "Sir, we... lost the engines. The reactors are down. We're running on steam here. Lost contact with the rear section of the ship..." there was a pause. "Sir, we've been cleaved in half."
Stanford looked at each of his crew-mates before giving an order to evacuate the ship, and with that, they ran out of the bridge, making their way to the lifepods. Unfortunately, in the third hit the screens that showed the enemy ship went dark, leaving the occupants on the bridge unable to see the ship charging up another salvo of plasma, unable to see how the ship unleashed one of its enormous plasma bolts at the forward section of the New Age.
The unknown ship remained hovering there, above the remains of the forward section of the human frigate and then, just like it has arrived, the ship cloaked and disappeared without a trace.
When Echo Squad made it outside they were greeted by a horrifying sight. Pieces of the New Age and other debris rained down into the atmosphere above them, giving the appearance that it was raining fire. Damian wasn't sure if he was a horrible person or not, since he found the sight to be quite beautiful in a kind of morbid and weird way. Within seconds, realization dawned upon them and the awful reality of their situation began sinking in heavily. They were now stuck here, alongside whatever had just destroyed their warship.
"Mayday, Mayday, this is Foxtrot Lima Tango Zero-Niner, we're going down, we're going down!" a voice broke through their COM and Damian raised his head to see a bumblebee lifepod fly above them and disappear behind the jungle tree-tops. There was a muffled crashing sound seconds later and silence after that. He looked at the direction the lifepod had crashed in, seeing the pack of birdlike creatures taking to the skies.
"Move out!" Leone barked and broke into a run towards the lifepod. There wasn't a need to tell them to prepare themselves; the squad as a whole had already removed the safeties from their weapons.
They quickly followed the sergeant into the jungle where they carefully, but at fast speeds, moved through the foliage and other obstacles the jungle provided them. The lifepod had crashed around two miles from their position. As they ran, Damian's mind was running on overdrive. What could destroy up a UNSC warship in mere seconds? With the reverse engineered shielding technology they'd gotten from the Covenant, the new UNSC shielding was superior to most Covenant shielding. The only thing that might've done that would've been a Covenant Supercarrier or a Super Destroyer, but the chances of a either ship being here was slim to none.
About halfway to the lifepod, Leone ordered them to stop with a raised fist. Damian wondered why they'd stopped but seconds later he understood why. Gunfire echoed through the jungle, coming from the direction of the lifepod. He heard Brass mouth a loud "Shit!" before they broke into another run, much faster this time.
"Move it, move it! Double time!" Leone shouted, urging them on.
They kept running, stumbling once or twice on some roots that stuck out of the ground or crushing bushes that got in their way. They sounds of gunfire were lessening with every minute and after a two minutes or so, they were completely gone. As they were nearing the crash site they gradually slowed down until eventually they were carefully and silently walking through the foliage. Moments later the crash site was in their sight.
The bumblebee lifepod was overturned, the front side of it crashed into one of great trees of the jungle. There were no life signs in the vicinity. Damian looked through the scope of his BR55 to see if there was anyone there but the only things he saw were – he gulped at the sight, swallowing the dryness in his throat – dead bodies. They slowly moved around the crash site, searching for whatever had killed the marines, weapons ready.
When they didn't find any trace of hostiles, or anything alive, in the vicinity, they approached the crashed lifepod. "Establish a perimeter," Leone ordered. The Kids, Mary, Sean and Akira left to do just that. Damian approached the lifepod with Sarge and Jake. The first thing he noted was the way the dead bodies lied all around, with empty rounds scattered all around. There were five bodies lying around, two of which had smoking holes in their chests, a third one was missing his head. Overall, it was a pretty gruesome scene.
"Pilot's dead. Three more dead inside," Brass said as he inspected the smoking lifepod.
"I don't like this," Damian said quietly, looking from body to body. He was a helljumper. He was a bloody special forces soldier, not some damned detective.
"Me neither. Just look at this," Leone gestured at the scene. "They were shooting in all directions, as if they were surrounded but... there's no blood, no bodies, nothing. It's as if these marines never even hit whatever had attacked them, unlike their assailants."
Brass was inspecting one of the dead bodies, one that had a smoking hole in it's chest. "Its not regular Covie weapons either," he added. "most of their weapons just burn or sear. This one both burned and blew up his insides," he said grimly, raising his head to look at the surrounding jungle. Damian joined him. Whatever attacked theses marines was still out there and it was apparent that they had advanced weaponry as well. Their situation was just the proverbial shit that hit the fan.
"Hey," Brass said in a hushed voice. "don't you have the feeling that you're being watched?" Damian thought about it and had to suppress a shiver when he felt that particular feeling. He gave him a nod and shouldered his rifle. There wasn't any harm in being ready for whatever was out there.
"Alright, there's nothing we can do here. Let's gather their weapons and ammo and see if there are any other survivors. Regroup," Leone barked into their COM frequency. The rest of the squad stepped out of the foliage and proceeded to gather the weapons and ammo. The dead wouldn't need them now. As the Squad was gathering supplies Akira asked a question that caused every single one of them to freeze. "Where's Jimmy?"
Damian turned his attention from his dog-tag collecting to do a head count and to his horror, Akira was right.
Jimmy was no where to be seen.
DelVarO's A/N: A cliffy! I believe its the first one i used in this story. How lovely. Poor Jimmy, i bet you already know what is going to happen with him, you evil bastards. I know you want him to die, everyone does. Its always the Jimmy who dies. Heh, that's actually a private joke with one of my friends, who calls himself Jimmy. I used to annoy him with the fact that people named Jimmy always died in the movies. Anyway, im getting off-track here! As for the "Unknown" ship. I'm not really sure of the sizes and everything and for all purposes, i made that ship up on the fly, since i never saw that ship. I only read the AVP novel and it was mentioned that the Yautja ship resembled a fish and that it was small but large enough to house a whole Yautja hunting party, which is around a dozen or more people. I honestly have no idea of the size but i believe that i used the ship mentioned in the novel. If anyone knows something about the ship, please inform me! I also saw some weird Predator comic books... like Predator vs The Terminator, or Predator vs Batman... i mean, its a little weird to see that stuff. Especially the Predator vs Superman and the Predator vs Justice League. Although i did find out some quite amazing information about the Yautja, which i will hold onto until the right moment. :P This chapter is ridiculously short, which is highly annoying for me, since i know that i can do much better but i had only several hours to write this, and as i was tired i decided to cut the chapter in half, the other half being the next one. Hey, dont blame me for that. A guy needs sleep you know... Anyway, i hope i will manage to write the next chapter soon enough. And i did keep my promise of making sure to update within two weeks, didnt I? :P Thanks you for reading this! I'm glad to know that you enjoy reading my work. I gladly accept constructive criticism, ideas, suggestions and your opinion on the story. Hell, you can just rant about something you read here, ill be happy to hear it :P. Until next time, Delvaro out!