CHAPTER 2: BREAKOUT

Ping, Ping, Ping, Ping.

With a groan and a crash, the elevator finally arrived. Ray storms out of the guard room furiously - 20 minutes to get down here, what the fuck were they doing? He stopped dead in his tracks, it wasn't Marines that stepped out into the room, instead corporate security and scientists with chemical suits appeared before him, a large W emblazoned on their chests.

"What the fuck are y'all doing here? We have a Marine casualty!"

"Step aside, this is Weyland-Yutani business." The officer replied bluntly.

"Like hell it is, that's my friend out there." As he said this, the corps pushed past him and began making their way deeper into the level.

Stood there shocked, he turned on command comms.

"Command this is Ray, why are corporate security here and not Marines?" He demanded.

To his horror, it was not the Sergeant that replied.

"Marine, this situation is under the jurisdiction of the Weyland-Yutani corporation. You are to stand down." A deep voice returned.

"Who the fuck are you? You ain't my commanding officer!" He spat back.

One of the security team turned back towards him, rifle now raised.

"You heard the boss, stand down."

Ray's finger twitched, it would only take a second. He exhales and composes himself, nodding to the guard and stepping backwards into the elevator, not taking his eyes off the guard before the elevator shoots back up.

—-

David flicks his rifle's safety off and gestures for the team to follow him - the egg heads were gonna love this one. The team progressed down the hallway to the casualty, two of his men walked beside him while the scientists remained a few paces behind them. David hears pieces of the scientist's conversations.

"How did they breach containment?"

"Infestation?"

David shakes his head and refocuses on the task at hand.

The man to his left - Jason - turns his tracker on, nothing pings out.

"Y'know when the boss said there would be other tangos, I thought we might see some movement." Jason mused.

"Just keep your shit squared away, keep monitoring." David responded.

David quietly pondered the same point silently, he didn't like how quiet it was. The sound of their footsteps enveloped the silent hallway, how had the marine been jumped so easily? You could hear anything down here….

There they were, finally outside the room, David turns back to the scientist team.

"Alright, I know you guys get hard-ons for this shit, but we're getting this done now, not in an hour."

The small group of scientists nod and look at each other, a flicker of trepidation on their faces.

"Jason, get the door."

Jason nods and inputs a few keys, the door groans loudly and finally slides open. Before them is the marine's body, unconscious and barely breathing. They step forward into the room, rifles raised and the scientists scurrying towards the body. David's eyes flick between the different crates, where were those other bugs…

Ping, ping, ping.

As soon as the motion tracker screamed to life it was too late. In a flurry of limbs the bugs began latching onto the scientists, their face shields giving a loud crack as they shatter, their screams drowned by the ravenous creatures.

"Fuck, fire!" David screamed out.

—-

The elevator door crashes open, the dull robotic voice drills out again,

"Level A1, Command bridge"

Ray storms out, finger still itching on the trigger. In front of him he sees the endless computers occupied by corporate workers, their guards standing over them while the Weyland commander calmly gives orders over their comm systems. The Sergeant walks up to Ray with a grimace on his face.

"Sarge what the hell is goin on?" Ray demands.

"I'm sorry son but I got no power here, this is their product that we're dealing with, it's their authority." Sergeant Jones replies with a grimace on his face.

Ray looks past the sergeant, the Weyland commander's face hardens for a moment, he looks down at the camera screen in front of him and then at the two guards next to him, they start looking towards the Sergeant… The guards begin gripping their rifles more tightly, their fingers closing around the trigger as they look towards Jones. Ray does not hesitate,

"Sarge move!"

He shoves the sergeant to the side and raises his rifle, letting off a crack of fire towards the guards, it seems they had the same idea. All of the Weyland guards had raised their weapons as he did. A cacophony of gunfire lit up the bridge, blood painting the walls with the victims' screams piercing the air around them. Jones crashed against a computer, five rounds pounding into the wall where he had been a second before.

"All marines this is command, Weyland security are now KIA, light em up!"

The whine of pulse rifles thundered through the command bridge. Ray sat huddled in cover, lifting his head, he saw the Weyland guards had cut down at least ten of the marines already... They were good, he had to give them that.

"Sarge, it's not lookin' good!" He screamed over the gunfire.

"We need to retreat and link up with our men!" Sergeant Jones roared back.

Ray knew what to do, he fumbles in his pouches before pulling out his flashbang grenade round, he shoves it into his underslung launcher. Giving a nod to the Sergeant, he raises himself and squeezes his finger hard on the trigger.

Time feels like it slows to a crawl, Ray soaks in every detail of the room. Fire bright crimson sparks erupted from computers as rounds hit them, illuminating the room in erratic bursts. Marines lay sprawled in grotesque positions, some half-slumped against the consoles, their eyes wide in disbelief, others crumpled in lifeless heaps, blood pooling around them. Right as he had pulled the trigger, he feels a huge blow on his chest plate, the balls of his feet lift as the shockwave pushes him off his feet…

Am I flying?

The fall to the ground felt like an eternity, he couldn't even hear the commotion around him as his heels lift off the ground now. The Sergeants voice echoed distantly in his ears.

"Fall back! Fall Back! To the fucking elevator!"

Slump, His body collapsed to the ground, his vision began to darken as he saw black masses appear above him.

"Ray, stay with me!" God damnit get him in the elevator!"

A flicker of blood smattered his face, one of the masses slumped to the ground… Where am I?

One, two, three. He felt his chest being pushed hard with each thrusting of hands against him, Ray's eyes shot open again, his head throbbing with pain.

"Fuck… Fuck that's enough!" Ray spat out as he shoved the hands off his chest.

The Sergeant knelt above him, that usual hard look on his face. Ray lifts himself up as he sat there, looking at the group of marines posted up, guarding the entrances to the room they now occupied.

"Sarge what the hell was that?" Ray finally asked after spitting the blood out of his throat.

"I don't know son, but shit just got more interesting." The sergeant raised himself up and now turned to the group of ten marines that they accompanied.

"Alright boys, those were your brothers in there. Do you think we're gonna let these corpo fucks kill our men and get away with it?"

"FUCK NO SERGEANT!" The group unanimously screamed out.