Chapter 13: Semper Fi

"I'm Sorry..." Rachel said.

"Rachel!" Eric shouted.

"Rachel, no!" Nick shouted.

Her hand trembling, Rachel plunged her knife down towards the white phosphor round to incinerate herself to keep from turning and to keep what remained of her squad and Eric safe. However, just before the knife hit the round, Rachel hesitated and stopped, unable to bring herself to go through with it. Rachel dropped the knife to the ground, breathing heavily before eventually bending over and falling to the ground. Eric and Nick immediately ran to her side and held her in their arms.

"They came from the stars. This isn't their home, it's an ark." Rachel said, explaining what the whole structure they were in was.

Rachel began moving erratically, on the verge of her body convulsing as the parasite inside her was taking over.

"Do something! She's turning into one of them!" Nick shouted desperately.

"Please, Rachel. You have to hold on!" Eric begged, not being able to bear the thought of losing her after they had just decided to give their relationship another chance.

"It's killing me!" Rachel shouted.

Not wanting to see her like this and knowing the danger she'd pose if she turned, Jason stepped forward, aiming his rifle at Rachel.

"I'll put her out of her misery. Hold her the fuck down." Jason said.

"We can still save her!" Eric said, looking up towards Jason.

"There's got to be a way. We can't lose her!" Nick shouted, being on Eric side for the first time all night.

They all had nearly lost Rachel when she fell into that chasm, they couldn't lose her now.

"There's no other way." Jason said, thinking both Eric and Nick were in denial. "Hold her down."

Rachel looked up at Jason as he was about to shoot her.

"Jason… don't do it." Rachel said desperately, hoping beyond hope in the back of her mind that there was a way they could save her.

Jason looked down at Rachel, conflicted. He didn't want to do this and would much prefer to save her if there was a way, but if there was, they didn't know how to possibly do so and didn't have time to figure it out.

"I have to put you down." Jason said forcefully, trying to convince himself more so than the others that there was no other choice. "Give me one reason not to do it!"

Rachel screamed as her body convulsed from the pain of the parasite taking over.

"Not gonna lie to you, sweetheart. You're not selling it." Jason said.

"It's me, Jason… Please, put down the gun." Rachel begged.

Rachel convulsed again as the pain started to become more and more unbearable and changed her mind.

"Kill me, I'm turning!" Rachel shouted.

Jason's finger trembled as he held onto the trigger of his rifle, about to shoot her.

"Fuck it." Jason said.

Jason took his finger off the trigger and lowered his rifle and went over to help Rachel to her feet.

"Why didn't you do it?" Rachel asked, surprised that Jason didn't go through with shooting her.

"Because we've got to have hope." Jason said.

"W-wait! May I suggest something?" Salim asked.

"Well fuck man, just say it!" Jason said.

"There may be another way. The fluid in the cocoons." Salim suggested.

"Aw shit, I think I know where you're going with this." Jason said, starting to get the same idea as Salim.

"What's he talking about?" Nick questioned, he, Eric, and Rachel having not come across the man, Jason and Salim had found.

"The fluid, it keeps the flesh alive but it stops the aging." Salim said.

"How could you possibly know that?" Eric questioned.

"I saw it! A man covered in this fluid, he should have been dead, but he was alive. It kept him alive! If we get Rachel in there, it could stop this." Salim explained.

"Are you for real?" Nick questioned, not believing any of what he was hearing.

"That's crazy! We don't know anything about it." Eric agreed.

"It could stop her from transforming. The cocoon will keep her safe until we return with help. It's our only hope." Salim reasoned.

"It's either that or a bullet." Jason further stated.

"Just do it! Anything to stop this!" Rachel shouted desperately, willing to try anything.

Jason and Eric grabbed onto Rachel, helping over to and through the crawlspace. When they were through, Nick grabbed onto Rachel's legs while Jason held her under her arms and they began carrying her towards a cocoon, avoiding stepping on some spores in their path. Rachel soon began twisting, falling out of Jason and Nick's hands.

"Rachel!" Nick shouted.

Eric was terrified seeing his wife like this as she was likely seconds from turning unless they did something. Eric suddenly thought of his UV lamp, thinking maybe they could burn the parasite out of her with it. On the other hand, Eric also thought that there could be a risk the parasite could burn inside Rachel and kill her that way. Rachel screamed again and Eric instantly decided that there was no time to hesitate and think about the risks.

"There's no time! Maybe we can burn the infection out of her?" Eric said, pulling out the UV lamp.

"Well do it! She's dying!" Nick stressed.

Nick got out of the way and Eric shined the lamp at Rachel. As he did, a steam seemed to come from out of Rachel's mouth and she felt a burning sensation inside of her. Rachel felt something coming up out of her throat and she opened her mouth and from out of it came a black sludge along with this large, fat slug-like creature with many writhing appendages like tentacles near the front of it, it's body becoming thinner towards the back into a sort of tail, and transparent skin, showing the organs inside it's body.

"What the f-" Jason said in disbelief.

The alien parasite slithered off, it's movements much faster than anyone would have thought. Still coughing up black sludge, Rachel watched as the parasite slithered away.

"That was inside me!" Rachel gasped before her temper flared and she grabbed Eric's UV lamp from his hand. "I'm going to kill that fucking thing!"

Rachel ran after the parasite, losing site of it as it slithered around a bend. Jason went after Rachel to help her look for the alien parasite. They came into a small room filled with multiple small tubes. Rachel and Jason searched the room and the tubes, be careful as they did so, not wanting it to crawl inside either one of them and infect them. After checking several tubes, the alien parasite suddenly fell on top of Rachel from the ceiling, crawling over here, trying to enter back into her mouth.

"Fuck!" Jason exclaimed, instinctively raising his rifle in an attempt to shoot the parasite, but held back at the risk of shooting Rachel as well.

Rachel was able to grab the parasite and throw it on the ground. It tried to slither off again, but Rachel stomped down on it before it could get away. Black blood squirted out blood and twitched for a moment before it died. Rachel stood there, heavily breathing as she stared down at the alien parasite.

"Rachel, you okay?" Jason asked.

"Yeah, I am now." Rachel assured.

Rachel bent down and picked up the alien parasite. Salim, Eric, and Nick came rushing into the room a looked at the parasite as well.

"So, this is the thing that destroyed the creature's civilization." Salim said.

"It's fucking disgusting. I can't believe that thing was inside you." Nick grimaced, wanting to throw up.

"Those tendrils on it, they look like the spikes that protrude from the vampire's backs and it's horns and fangs." Eric said as he observed the parasite.

Rachel threw the parasite back on the ground and shined the UV lamp on it, it's body bursting into flames.

"Yeah, burn bitch!" Rachel said before spitting on the burning parasite.

Rachel than handed Eric back his UV light and walked off.

"Come on, let's go blow up the rest of these fucking blood sucking, parasitic cunts." Rachel said in a commanding voice, more determined than ever to do so.

"Yes ma'am, let's" Jason agreed.

"Oorah." Nick said, flipping the alien parasite off from behind as he followed Rachel and Jason, soon followed by Eric and Salim.

The five soldiers eventually found a ledge where they could climb down to the cocoons and set bombs to blow them up. Salim took out some binoculars and looked around the area to see if there were any vampires or any cocoons that were starting to hatch. Thankfully, there were no vampires down there and no cocoons seemed to be hatching. There were thousands of cocoons beyond count down there and there were also these strange machines with lights.

"Those mounds are made of cocoons. Thousands of them." Salim observed. "If we set the charges there. They'll all burn."

Salim handed Jason the binoculars, giving him a chance to look. Unfortunately, Jason saw a few cocoons starting to hatch.

"Shit! They're hatching!" Jason informed.

Jason knew that it was now or never, someone had to go down and set those charges before more cocoons hatched.

"We've gotta move. Quick." Jason said, turning towards the team to address them and go over the plan. "Okay, listen up. We've been hit hard tonight. We've lost brothers. But now, it's time to get some payback. We plant charges on as many of those clusters as possible and then detonate them remotely. Second those charges go off we haul ass to the exit. If luck is on our side, we'll do more than fry a few vampires, we'll create a diversion."

"If we die here, at least we'll take some of those bastards down with us." Rachel stated.

"Okay. Who's going to place the dynamite?" Salim asked awkwardly.

Everyone stood around silent, no one particularly wanting to go into the heart of the vampires' home.

"Alright, fuck it. I'll do it." Nick said.

"You're crazy. We'll do it together." Jason said, not wanting Nick to go down there alone.

"Nah, the more of us down there, the more chances we'll get seen." Nick said.

"I should be the one to go down." Eric suddenly spoke up.

Everyone looked at the colonel as he said that, Nick sneering at Eric a little bit.

"What makes you think you should be the one to do it over me?" Nick questioned.

"Because I'm still the commanding officer of this team and it was my Caelus Satellite Program that got us into this mess and got people killed. It's only right if I'm the one to take the risk." Eric tried to rationalize.

"It doesn't really matter which one of you goes down, but someone needs to do so and quickly before it starts to swarm with vampires down there." Salim said.

"It's your call Nick, you still want to go down there or should Eric?" Jason offered.

"I'm the one whose going down there. I can do this." Nick said before pulling out and handing Jason the detonator for the explosives. "Take the detonator. If I don't make it-"

"Nick…" Jason interrupted at Nick mentioning the possibility of him not making it out alive.

"Hear me out." Nick said firmly. "If I don't make it, I want you to blow those charges. Just don't go getting trigger happy on me."

"Every step of the way, you keep in radio contact." Jason said seriously.

"And if there's no radio signal?" Salim questioned.

"Then I'll pop a flare. You see it go up, you hit that detonator." Nick said.

"Be quick and be safe, you hear me buddy?" Jason said.

Nick nodded, preparing to go down. Before he did, Eric handed him the UV wand for extra protection if he needed it.

"Be careful Nick." Rachel said.

Nick nodded back to her and jumped down the ledge, making his way into the cocoons. Salim used the binoculars, constantly swerving around so that they could inform Nick of any danger he had the risk of running into. Up ahead to Nick's left, Salim spotted a cocoon that was hatching, Jason informing Nick of it over the radio. Nick got to a cluster of cocoons, setting one bundle on dynamite in it along with some charges to help it blow when the detonator was hit.

"First dynamite is down. Over." Nick informed over the radio before continuing forward.

Nick came to a crossroad, going right when Jason informed him. Nick arrived at the second mound and placed more dynamite on it. Nick heard the flapping of wings above him and screeching clicking all around him from a few vampires, but luckily he hadn't been noticed yet. Backing away from the second mound after the dynamite was set and looking forward, Nick saw the giant mountain of cocoons.

"Holy shit." Nick exclaimed as he saw it, realizing just how big it was now that he was this close to it.

Jason, noticing that the area was starting to flood with more and more vampires, turned on the radio and spoke to Nick.

"It's getting kinda hairy down there, brother. Why don't you bitch the rest of those charges and head back?" Jason suggested.

"Look at that, man. It's the motherlode." Nick spoke back, still looking at the mountain of cocoons.

"It's too far!" Jason stressed.

Nick just stared at the mountain, knowing that they would do more damage to the vampires by blowing it up. It was dangerous, but to destroy more cocoons, it was worth the risk.

"I'm going for it." Nick said before advancing forwards.

As Nick made it to the motherlode, he looked around, not noticing any vampires around it. It seemed odd as surely there had to be at least some vampires here to protect the cocoons.

"This is way too easy." Nick said to himself.

From where the others were, Salim looked through the binoculars at the mountain of cocoons. He saw that dozens of vampires were crawling down it towards where Nick was.

"Oh no, oh no." Salim said.

"What is it?" Jason asked.

"There are too many. He's a dead man." Salim said.

Jason grabbed the binoculars from Salim and took a look for himself.

"Sweet baby Jesus." Jason gasped at what he saw.

Indeed, there were dozens of vampires crawling down the mountain and not only that, there were dozens of other vampires flying around it's peak. Jason handed the binoculars back to Salim and grabbed his radio to inform Nick what was going on.

"Wait!" Salim said, noticing. "What will warning him do now? There is no way out."

"Hey, how's it looking up there?" Nick suddenly asked over the radio.

Hearing Nick over the radio, Salim sighed.

"Tell him." Salim said.

"They're all over you man. Hundreds of them." Jason warned Nick over the radio.

"Least you've got the balls to tell me the truth." Nick replied.

"I'm sorry Nicky." Jason apologized, thinking his friend was moments away from death. "For this. For what happened at that checkpoint."

"It's a war, Jason. Bad shit happens." Nick rationalized. "Kay, out."

Back down at the base of the motherlode, dozens of vampires gathered around Nick, some mere inches from him. None of them had noticed him yet, so he continued calmly and carefully set the charges. Nick had managed to get them all set with none of the vampires noticing him. With the charges all in place, Nicking calmly walked out from where he was, vampires gathering all around, screeching at him, about to pounce at any moment. From out of the shadows even came the ancient human vampire that had chased him, Rachel, and Eric earlier, it having survived it's fall into that hole Eric had pushed it into, and it was wielding an old spear.

Nick stood his ground defiantly calm in the face of death. He reached into his bag, pulling out a flare and popping it, it's bright red light shooting into the sky. Seeing this from where they were, Jason pulled out the detonator and reluctantly pressed it, setting off the charges, Nick being caught in the explosion at the motherlode. Rachel Immediately turned on her radio to see if Nick had somehow survived the blast.

"Nick! Answer me dammit!" Rachel said.

"Come on, buddy. Let me hear your voice." Jason tried his own luck with his radio.

No answer came. It didn't need to be made any clearer, Nick was dead.

"I'm sorry." Jason said, looking towards Rachel.

Everyone began to move on, making their way to the exit. Rachel however stayed there for a moment, wishing she hadn't gotten the chance to apologize to Nick beforehand. As they made their way to the exit, a sound suddenly came over Eric's earpiece. Eric listened to it and it sounded like a pained voice.

"Does anyone copy?" the voice said.

It was Nick, he'd survived the blast, but he sounded injured. Everyone noticed Eric listening to his earpiece.

"Is it Nick?" Rachel asked, hoping Nick was still alive.

"He's alive!" Eric responded, shocked to hear that he survived the explosion. "Nick! Confirm your position.

"I'm two hundred meters from the door, bearing three twenty… But I'm injured. I need… help." Nick spoke into the radio. "Shit."

Nick suddenly heard something plunge into the ground next to him. Nick looked to see it was the human vampire. He tried to shoot at it with his rifle, but the vampire kicked it aside and grabbed him by the throat, lifting him up with ease. Nick struggled as the vampire strangled him. He tried to awkwardly aim his rifle to shoot it, but the vampire grabbed it, pulling it out of his hands and tossing it aside.

"Hang tight Sergeant. We're on our way." Jason spoke over the radio.

Jason, Salim, Rachel, and Eric made their way down into the cocoons and rushed to save Nick, the gunshot wound on Eric's shoulder began to bleed. A single droplet of blood fell from the wound onto the ground, which seemed to awaken some vampires, who began to hatch from their cocoons. The vampires cut them off from the path Nick had taken earlier, forcing the four to find another way around to Nick. As the vampire continued to choke the life out him, voices rushed through Nick's head, those of Rachel and of Jason and Merwin and Joey.

"What's up, Marine? Can't you keep up?"

"Eyes forward at all times."

"Sergeant Kay? Are you with me?"

"A lot of shit can go down in 24 hours."

"Nick, I need you here."

Nick glanced to the side and saw the ancient vampire's spear and remembered what Jason told him earlier.

"You hear me now. If you find yourself alone, you fight like they do. You hit them hard and fast before they even know you're there and then you go back into the dark. That understood sergeant?"

Remembering that gave Nick the resolve to fight back harder. He pulled out his knife and stabbed it into the vampire's head. The vampire screeched and dropped Nick. Nick took the chance he saw immediately while the vampire was dazed from the knife to the head. He ran out of sight, grabbing the spear while he did.

The vampire, recovering from the knife attack, looked around to see where Nick had ran off to.

"Nick!" Jason shouted from not far off.

Hearing Jason's voice, the vampire tried to grab his spear, not noticing Nick had taken it.

"Nick!" Jason shouted again.

The vampire turned towards where Jason's voice was coming from, not noticing that Nick was behind him and had given him the opening he needed. Nick rushed forward with the spear and before the vampire realized what happened, Nick stabbed it in the back, the spear tip coming all the way out through it's chest. The ancient vampire fell to the ground dead and Nick stood over it victorious. It was at that moment Jason and the others arrived, seeing what Nick had done. Before Jason and the others had the chance to express their gratefulness that Nick was alright or acknowledge him killing the ancient vampire, vampires began to ascend down on them.

They all ran back out of the cocoon vault, making sure Nick kept up with them. They made it out and began to run for the exit occasionally shooting back at the vampires chasing after them to keep them at bay. They made it to the hall full of cocoons and spores where Jason and Salim had first spotted the mountain of cocoons from earlier. With no time to walk through carefully with vampires hot of their tails, they run through, not caring about how many spores they were setting off and cocoons they were causing to hatch in the process. Eric pulled out his UV lamp and shone it at the vampires, setting many of them ablaze, but it soon started to malfunction again.

Eric slammed it against his hand to try a make the light stay on, but it kept flickering until it went completely out and Eric tossed it aside. A vampire jumped in front of Salim, cutting him off and chased him in a completely different direction from where the other four were running and no one noticed. Jason, Nick, Rachel, and Eric made it to the exit that lead into the cave, still not noticing they had lost Salim. Jason took a moment to looked at the explosions coming deep from within the skeleton of the alien ship.

"Those charges were a Godsend. Feels like this whole damn place is coming down." Jason said.

Everyone started to make their way into the cave and that was when everyone finally noticed that Salim wasn't with them.

"Where the fuck is Salim?" Jason stressed.

Jason looked back over the ledge from where they were standing, trying to spot him and he did. He was where they had first come across the strange chairs and the shell-like artifact that made the creature's music.

"That's Salim. He's still alive." Jason said.

Jason turned on his radio.

"Salim! Come in, man. Are you there?" Jason said.

"I'm surrounded! I'm in real trouble here." Salim's stressed voice said over the radio. "Vampires… so many vampires."

Jason looked back to the area, able to make out multiple vampires down there. There was no way he could fight so many off on his own, but if they all rushed back down there, they could save him.

"What's there to think about?!" Nick said, noticing Jason was thinking. "We go back down there, we die with him!"

"He's a dead man! We need to go!" Eric agreed.

Eric, Nick, and Rachel began to enter the cave to make for the elevator, but they noticed Jason wasn't following them. Eric walked back over to Jason.

"That man is not one of us!" Eric stated.

Jason looked at Eric, taken aback at how Eric and Nick were willing to leave Salim behind. Anyone before now would have assumed the both of them would be the ones stressing to save Salim despite him being the enemy while Rachel and especially Jason himself would be the one's saying to leave him behind. Ever since they had encountered each other, Salim was the one looking out for everyone's safety, saying that they all needed to work together to survive, not caring that they were enemies and despite the many reasons they had given Salim not to want to work or even trust them, he still did. Salim also had a son waiting for him back home that he had to get back. All of that was more than enough reason for Jason to make the decision he knew he had to make.

"You're wrong." Jason said forcefully. "Salim is one of us now. Marines don't leave their own behind."

Jason turned his radio back on.

"You hearing me, Salim?" Jason said.

"If I don't make it out, tell my son, I did everything I could." Salim said.

"Tell him yourself. I'm coming to get you." Jason said.

Jason began to make his way down to Salim, taking a brief moment to look back at Eric, Rachel, and Nick.

"If we're not back in ten minutes, leave without us." Jason told them.

Jason rushed down to where he had spotted Salim. When he got there, he spotted Salim trying to make a run for the exit, but a vampire swooped down in front of him. Salim fired his piston at the vampire to try and drive it off, but the vampire didn't even flinch. The vampire swiped it's claws at him, Salim barley avoiding them. Jason raised his rifle and shot at the vampire, which had more effect than the pistol.

The vampire backed off, giving Salim an opening and he drove his iron stake into it's chest, pushing it to the ground. Salim pulled the stake out of the vampires chest, but noticed that it was still twitching and stabbed it again, this time killing it. Salim looked over to Jason, who was firing at more vampires.

"You've come to join the fun?" Salim said, laughing a little with relief.

The area around them was starting to collapse and Salim ran towards Jason, still firing at the vampires. Jason's rifle ran out of ammo and he quickly reloaded. As he did, he didn't noticing the vampire that rose up from behind him.

"Jason!" Salim shouted.

Salim quickly threw his stake at the vampire like a javelin. Jason ducked out of the way and the stake stuck into the vampire's chest. Salim ran up and pulled the stake out of the vampires chest and hit it across the face, stabbing it back into the vampires chest as it tried to get back up, killing it.

"Did you seriously just throw that thing at me!" Jason said, unable to stop himself from grinning.

Salim grinned back.

"I did." Salim said.

Jason and Salim looked to see another vampire rushing towards them. They got ready to fight, but a bolt of artificial lightning made by the ship struck the vampire, killing it. Deciding not to linger any longer, Jason and Salim rushed to the exit and to the elevator, where everyone was waiting for them. Vampires were close behind them and they all shot at them as they quickly entered the elevator and started it up. The elevator began to ascend out of the hole, leaving the vampires behind. See that, the five took a moment to celebrate what they saw as a victory.

"Takes more than a few bats to kill you." Nick said, he and Jason bumping their fists together.

"Oh man, that was un-fucking-believable! Those things were all over us, but me and Salim busted through them like it was the last round of the goddamn Super Bowl." Jason said, placing his hand on Salim's shoulder before taking the moment to get serious. "Listen up. We're not out of the woods yet. But what I see in front of me, you're the best. Fuck that. The best of the best and we will get home."

"Oorah!" Jason, Nick, and Eric each shouted in unison.

Salim looked around awkwardly for a second before saying…

"Oorah?" Salim said.

Jason smiled and Salim began to laugh.

"Oorah!" Salim shouted with more enthusiasm. "I'd never thought I'd be relieved to be surrounded by Americans."

The elevator made it back to the top and everyone rushed for the ropes that led back into the lower part of the temple. As they ran, the caves were trembling and starting to collapse due to the explosions from down below. The made it to the ropes, Jason, Salim, and Nick climbing up first. Eric and Rachel were about to start climbing up after them, but Eric stopped when he thought he heard something coming from behind the waterfall. Curious, Eric walked a little closer and looked at the waterfall.

"Come on, we go together." Rachel said, noticing.

Rachel's words pulled Eric away from the waterfall. They were about to start climbing when suddenly, something jumped from out behind the waterfall. It was a person, no, not a person, it was a person who had been turned into a vampire like Joey and the Ancient One.

"Oh my God." Eric gasped when he saw who the vampire was. "Clarice?!"