"Why didn't they send a distress call? I mean, we shoulda heard it, right?"
"Maybe, Fish. Now be quiet." Dalton scrutinized the gate built into the wall surrounding Gamma Four. The walls were built fairly sturdy, as were the gates, but he'd seen a few animals big enough that if they were in the wrong mood, they could break down the average outpost wall or gate. But he was already having flashbacks to yesterday and the rover.
And Pill.
The others gathered behind him, waiting for his orders. He had visited this place once before, so he had a rough idea of its layout within. There wasn't much there. A quartet of Supply Depots in a rough row along the right, Barracks, Armory, and mess to the left, Command Center dead ahead, at the back. Simple enough layout.
"All right," he said, turning to face them. "Fish and Wheeler are with me. Baker, take Dallas and Forrester, start hitting those Supply Depots, one at a time. Clear them out, search for survivors, but also try and find that replacement part we need. We got no idea what the hell's going on, so stay sharp and keep your radios on. My team is going to search the buildings to the left, moving towards Command. You get there first, you wait for us. And I want two minute check-ins. Everyone copy on that?"
All five of them responded with a tight 'copy'.
He nodded. "Okay, let's get to work. And remember, no itchy trigger fingers. Friendly fire will not be tolerated."
He took point, heading up to the broken-down gate. As he got to its edge, he waited and listened carefully for any signs of life, of what may lay within. But he could hear nothing, save for the lonely sound of the wind whistling across the vast Mar Saran desolation. Taking a few quick breaths, he raised his Gauss and leaned around.
And got his first good look at the outpost's interior.
"Christ," he muttered.
There was a lot of blood. A lot. The mud was churned up bad, and not by the rain, but by the battle that had raged within. He saw a ton of shiny spent shell casings, and a lot of pieces of armor, most of it Marine, some of it Firebat.
But still no bodies.
Why no bodies?
"No signs of life so far, move in," he said, and headed within after double-checking the immediate area.
He heard the others mutter to themselves as they came in after him and split up, each heading for their given destination. The buildings had sustained a lot of gunfire and other damage, which bothered Dalton greatly. It seemed to indicate that the Marines had been firing wildly in basically every direction.
What in the name of shit could've hit them from that many directions?
He told himself to keep cool, and for the first time in months found himself actually grateful again for his time spent in tough, dire situations. He clamped down on his emotions and forced himself to chill out. Didn't want to lose it in a place like this, otherwise you were in for a world of hurt. Barracks was first up. He could tell from sound alone that Fish and Wheeler were keeping in step with him, which meant their training was kicking in, which was exactly what he needed right now. He got up to the front steps.
The door was ripped open, shredded by what for the life of him looked like claws, but what had claws that could shred metal this easily?
The interior of the Barracks was as ominous and terrifying as the outside. The halls were sprayed with blood, the deckplates littered with spent casings. They crunched underfoot as Dalton and the others moved carefully down the corridors, moving from room to room, finding more of the same. Some of the rooms were relatively untouched, but some were slaughterhouses. One particular room, a sleeping area, was a straight up abattoir. It was obvious that they, whatever the hell they were, had caught these men sleeping and shredded them in their beds.
"Oh God," Fish whispered, "what the hell...wha happened…"
"Private Fisher, focus," Dalton snapped.
He exhaled sharply. "Yes, Sergeant."
"Keep looking for survivors."
They moved through more sleeping areas, some bathrooms, a bloody shower room, and a few storage rooms, finding no one alive and no clear sign of what had done this. Every two minutes, Baker would update him as they searched the Supply Depots. As Dalton led his men back out into the grim light of day, they had yet to find anything.
The next fifteen minutes passed by in a similar misery.
No survivors in the mess.
No survivors in the Armory.
No survivors in the Supply Depots.
But they did manage to find the part they needed, at least.
They ended up reunited at the main entrance to the Command Center, which had been similarly violated by the mysterious invading force. Dalton found a bloody handprint smeared across the wall of the main entryway and thought it a grim omen.
"Search the area. Fish, Wheeler, stay here and watch our back. I'm making for the Control Room to see if their comms array is intact," Dalton said.
He received a string of 'Yes, Sergeant', and they all split up. Dalton moved slowly down the central corridor, Gauss Rifle at the ready. His boots echoed loud and lonely, making the occasional squelching sound as he stepped in a particularly thick puddle of blood. He'd seen death before. A lot of it. Battlefields of all kinds, on several different worlds, but nothing like this. What was really bothering him was the lack of bodies.
Where could they have gone?
He listened to the others over the network, reporting in, sounding increasingly nervous. Even Baker. Forrester was keeping her cool, though. Dallas was starting to crack up.
"We should leave, Sergeant…" he whispered. "We got the part!"
"Not yet. This is a threat and we need intel. And if there's survivors here, I'm getting them out. I'm almost to the Control Room. Just keep it together, Dallas," he replied.
"We should just send in another team-" Dallas began.
"Dallas, goddamnit, if you're gonna lose your shit, go back and wait with Fish and Wheeler."
A pause. "Al-alright," he managed. Then: "Sorry."
"It's fine, just go...I'm at the Control Room...shit," he muttered.
It was a brutal mess. Workstations smashed to bits, bleeding sparks over the bloody interior. There were some remains here. He saw an arm, a leg, part of a torso, a head. All scattered among the blood-sprayed ruin. Whatever had happened here must have been really bad, and for the first time in a long while, Dalton felt real, actual fear creep around in his guts.
Not the rational fear a person felt facing danger, no…
Animal fear. Primal fear. Old, old fear of things lurking in the dark beyond the safety of shelter, in the cold, forsaken night.
Mindless fear.
It was dangerous, a ravenous beast that might kill you if you let it, if you didn't control it, keep it in its cage.
"Dalton, what's the situation?" Baker asked.
"Checking now," he made himself reply, and felt better about how solid his voice sounded. He sure didn't feel solid in this moment.
He walked around for a bit, looking over the control consoles and workstations. He saw ripped open panels that had been gutted, wiring hanging out like intestines. Smashed screens, glass everywhere. The ones that remained intact showed blood-smeared static or darkness. Finally, he located one that seemed more intact than the others.
"Come on," he whispered, booting it up. "Anything out there?" he asked.
"Negative," Forrester replied in a terse voice.
"Nothing out front," Fisher replied.
"Dallas get there?"
"Yeah, he's here with us now."
"Baker?"
"Nothing, Sergeant."
"Keep looking, I want to get the hell out of here as soon as we can."
"Double roger on that, Sergeant."
Dalton suppressed a growl of frustration as the workstation struggled to boot up. When it finally did and he got into the supply station's network, it became immediately obvious how screwed it was. Even the most basic functions were offline, and an inspection of the local database that would contain logs, scans, and other crucial information revealed that it was either gone or inaccessible. Dalton had just begun to contemplate the notion of getting Dallas back in here and tracking down the actual, physical data core to see if they could take it with them when the radio snapped back to life.
"Sergeant, we've got movement out there," Fisher said, his voice strained.
"What kind of movement?" Dalton replied, snatching up his rifle and heading out of the Control Room.
"Dunno. Something under the dirt…"
"Looks like a lot of somethings," Wheeler threw in anxiously.
"Baker, Forrester, get back to the entrance double quick."
"Yes, Sergeant," they both replied at the same time.
"Something's coming up out of the dirt!" Dallas cried.
Fisher spoke up, sounding sick with fear. "What the hell-WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY!?"
"What's going on out there!?" Dalton demanded as he began loping down the central corridor.
"There's a lot of them! They're coming out of the ground!" Wheeler screamed.
Immediately, he began to hear the chatter of Gauss Rifles. He couldn't make out what the three men were saying but it sounded like incoherence at this point. As he neared the front entrance, he heard a scream and knew immediately someone was dying. It was either Fish or Dallas, he wasn't sure in the insanity of the moment, but he'd heard that shrill shriek when someone had been dealt a lethal blow before. Right as he came into the main ingress and gained sight of the front entrance again, one of them stumbled backwards inside while firing wildly, their armor sprayed with fresh gore.
Baker and Forrester appeared at roughly the same time as whoever it was ran out of bullets. The screaming outside abruptly cut off, and there were other noises in there too. High-pitched chirping sounds that sounded more organic than machine, almost insectile.
"They're coming...they're coming…" Fisher gasped as he shakily reloaded. Dalton moved past him to go and grab Dallas or Wheeler, whoever was still alive out there, but Fisher grabbed his shoulder. "They're gone, Sarge! They're coming in!"
"Shit!" Dalton snapped.
He could definitely hear something getting closer. The limited view he had of the area just beyond the entryway showed only bloody dirt and a suited figure with a missing arm and its helmet cracked open.
Blood was leaking out.
Whatever they were, they'd fallen back for the moment, just out of sight.
"Forrester, Baker, secure those doors!" Dalton said, pointing to the doors they'd come through to the left and right, thinking of the creatures, whatever they were, getting into the Command Center via other methods. "Fisher, fall back into the central hallway, watch our six!"
None of them hesitated, thank God. He kept his gun trained on the open doorway, wanting to get closer, but knowing that there was probably only one way they were getting out of this one alive.
"Secure!" Baker said, and Forrester repeated the word a second later.
"Fall back with Fish, now," he replied, eyes glued to the opening.
The sounds were getting closer. They were coming.
Dalton weighed the situation in his head for a second, then fell back with the others. The hallway was a better bottleneck. There were four ways into the ingress, only two into the hallway. Whatever these things were would have to come to them through the bottleneck.
"Fish, what are they?" Dalton demanded as he joined the others in the hallway, walking backwards, Gauss Rifle unerringly trained on the door.
"Giant bugs...don't know...claws…" Fisher whispered, panting.
"Forrester, take our six, watch our back," Dalton said.
"Check," Forrester replied, moving to join Fisher.
"What's the play here, Sergeant?" Baker asked as he joined Dalton, both of them covering the entrance to the central corridor.
"We wait for them to come to us, blast 'em," Dalton replied.
"Easy as pie," Baker muttered.
Dalton just grunted in response, his heart thundering in his chest. This was it, the moment he'd been dreading ever since he began to seriously buy into the rumors of strange aliens. They were here and he might not make it out alive.
The chittering stopped.
They all waited, breathing heavily, guns ready for action.
He heard footsteps, at first soft, growing closer, but odd. Not one after another, but closer to something…
Hopping.
The quality of the sound changed to something much louder and harsher as the claws that Fisher had whispered of began touching metal in the main entryway.
And he saw it.
It was a hunched thing, maybe the size of a particularly large dog. It was covered in a hardened, leathery skin a dull, burned amber in color. As it walked into the ingress, it did so upright, its clawed feet sporting webbing. Four arms grew from it, two sticking straight up, two others more traditionally placed. The two up top ended in what kind of resembled hands, but the bottom two ended in organic scythes.
Its face was the stuff of nightmares.
The mouth was just a huge feral grin, lipless, revealing rows of sharpened teeth that looked like they could snap through bone in an instant. Its eyes glowed with a malignant inner light, a bright crimson like hellfire. The whole shape of its head seemed somehow wrong, angular, almost like it had been designed.
It didn't just look alien, it looked evil.
Dalton didn't believe in Hell, but if he did, he could see this thing being a demon there.
The alien monster issued a high-pitched chittering shriek and hopped towards him. He opened fire, peppering its strange body with bullets. They began punching holes in what he quickly realized was a thick outer skin. Baker joined him and the two men put it down. Bloody holes opened up all along its strange, hunched body. That the blood was deep red, almost human, was somehow reassuring, though he had no idea why.
"More," Baker snapped tersely as more sound came from the outside.
"Get ready. Forrester, Fisher, be ready if I need you," Dalton replied.
Then the aliens were coming in. He assumed that's what they were. They weren't animals. Somehow, he knew that. Maybe it was the dark, if primitive, intelligence in that thing's gaze, but these weren't beasts roaming the wilderness with no greater purpose.
The monsters came scampering into the ingress, shrieking and chirping wildly, reaching for them with dirt and blood covered scythes and claws. In a rush of chilled terror, Dalton suddenly put together where they had been: under their very feet. He'd probably walked right over them. He felt ill but shoved the thought aside as he and Baker opened fire. They released their bullets in short, controlled bursts now that there were more of them and the shadow of their terror was fading in the brilliant flare of their training.
They were careful not to overlap completely, so that when Dalton ran out of ammo first, Baker kept up the rate of fire while he reloaded. As soon as Dalton finished slapping a fresh box of ammo into the rifle and resumed fire, Baker's own rifle ran dry and he began reloading. They kept at it, more of the creatures surging in, their shrieks of pain and rage mixing with the chattering of the rifles. Blood sprayed in splashes across the old metal walls of the Command Center, pulped gore mixing in as the creatures were chopped and shredded.
Finally, two full magazines later, there were no more of them.
Dalton was in full machine-survival mode. "Hold position," he said as he finished reloading and moved forward.
Careful of the creatures, he navigated the now body-strewn ingress, boots squelching loudly in the blood. He reached the exit and got a good look at the rest of the outpost. He could see where the dirt had been disturbed.
He also saw the gory remains of Dallas and Wheeler. They were dead and gone. He didn't hear anything else out there and couldn't see anything, but now that he knew they could hide under the dirt, he no longer fully trusted his senses.
"Get ready to make a run for the rovers, looks clear but that might not keep," he said, coming back inside. "Fish, help me grab one of these things."
"What?!" he cried as they joined him in the ingress. "No way!"
"That's an order, Private Fisher!" Dalton snapped.
A fast but powerful battle of emotions played across Fisher's expression, and finally his neural tampering won out and he marched forward. Dalton would ask one of the others to help, but right now, if more of them suddenly showed up, he trusted Baker's and Forrester's reflexes over Fisher's.
And he wanted one of these things.
"Baker, Forrester, you're watching out. You two take the second rover, me and Fish will take the first one," Dalton said as he grabbed the two scythe-arms and Fisher reluctantly grabbed the webbed feet. "Baker, you got point."
"Yes, Sergeant," Baker replied, and disappeared out the front door. "Clear," he called.
"Let's move it," Dalton grunted.
They headed out. As the four of them hurried back across the wasteland dirt, Dalton felt every step. The dirt. The damned dirt! How could they do that?!
It felt like way too long of a march, but they made it back out through the ruined gate.
"What about the others?" Forrester asked.
"We'll come back later, we need to get the hell out of here right now," Dalton replied. As they made for the rovers, he stopped suddenly. "Ah shit!"
"What!?" Fisher cried, looking around.
"Dallas has the damned part-shit! Come on." He hustled Fisher over to the second rover and popped the trunk, then tossed the dead creature inside and slammed it shut. "Forrester and Fish, get in the rover and get going back to base, pronto. Baker and I will be right behind you."
Fish looked equal parts relieved and reluctant to be in the same rover as the dead alien, but he got in without a word. Forrester hesitated only for a second, then nodded and climbed into the driver's seat. They shot off in the opposite direction.
"Come on, we need to hurry," Dalton said as they jogged back over to the gate.
"I've got our six," Baker replied.
It was times like this that he was forcibly reminded that while he did operate well under stress, even he forgot things in the heat of battle, and it was largely luck that was the reason he was still alive. The outpost's interior remained still and silent, but he didn't know how long that would last. The two of them sprinted across the distance and reached the corpses without a problem. He dropped into a crouch and checked Dallas's armor.
"Got it," he muttered as he found the part and secured it in his own armored pouch.
The tension rose as the pair hurried back to the gate, and he felt positive something would leap out at them. Some awful nightmare would burst out of the dirt with shrieking and claws and teeth, but they reached the rover without a problem.
"Holy shit, what's that?" Baker asked as he got into the passenger's seat, looking over Dalton's shoulder. He spun around and looked, ready to fight, but it wasn't more of the hopping creatures he saw.
It was that shadowed figure he and Dix had seen at the rover earlier. Only it was a lot clearer now. This was no distant, shadowy outline, it was a creature.
A living creature, hovering in the air, coming towards them.
It was huge, easily two or three times the size of the rover, with massive tendrils or tentacles hanging down from it. It bobbed in the air, like a bird riding thermals, but it was definitely getting closer.
"No goddamned clue," Dalton replied as he hopped into the driver's seat, fired up the engine, and began getting turned around. "And I ain't sticking around to find out."
He shot off back towards base.