They made it back to the specimen room before Dalton became convinced something was still alive in the installation with them.
He froze up as they crossed the threshold, certain he'd heard something, some faint noise come echoing down through the dented, bloodied corridors.
"I heard it," Frost whispered.
They waited for a long moment, the three of them tense and tight, waiting for some attack to be launched from among the shadowed slaughterhouse. Nothing came, though, as the minutes ticked by. Finally, Dalton activated his radio.
"We're coming out. What's your situation?"
"We all made it back out to the dropship. No contacts," Baker replied. "Alder and Mulberry are repairing the dropship now."
"Good. Stay focused. We're making our way back out now," Dalton said.
"Understood."
"Let's get the fuck out of here," he muttered, setting off across the vast room again.
The others followed him, moving fast through the sea of dead. Their heavy boots squelching in the blood sounded louder than before in the red-lit gloom. They made it across the room and out the other side, and still nothing happened. But as they began hurrying down the corridor, the sound came to them again. They stopped, waited, listened, but even still, Dalton couldn't tell where it was coming from. Fear and frustration mixing, Dalton led them on again.
As they reached the intersection where they'd found the halved Marine, the sound came to them once more, this time much louder.
Dalton snapped his Gauss Rifle up, aiming to the right.
The length of corridor was clear. They waited, this time certain that whatever it was would be coming their way. And then, suddenly, it did.
They saw their first live snake in that moment as it slithered out of a side passageway. Upright, the thing had to be eight or even nine feet tall. It moved with a hideous, sinuous grace, a terrifying dexterity that belied an immense killing capability. The thing stared at them with pure malignancy, its eyes glowing faintly like dying stars.
It was the single most terrifying thing Dalton had ever seen, and that included the Command Center they'd had to destroy.
And it was coming at them fast.
"Fire!" Dalton screamed as began unloading on the creature.
Frost fired at almost the exact same moment. Her explosive shell landed, blowing off a solid portion of the bony crest that sat atop its head. The beast shrieked and then spat something at them. It hit Dalton's armored shoulder and he actually heard the metal tearing open. Pure luck that it just tore off a portion of armor and missed the tender flesh beneath. His bullets were punching into its leathery hide, but it looked to be even tougher than the damned hoppers.
Firing once more, Frost managed to land a shot directly in its big, screaming mouth. That one did it. The back of its head exploded in a rain of alien gore. It dropped into a twitching heap.
"Move!" Dalton snapped as he released the trigger.
The trio moved as fast as they could, which wasn't nearly fast enough in his and Dix's bulky power armor. Nonetheless, they managed to get back to the airlock entrance without actually seeing anything else. Dalton made sure that Frost locked the doors behind them, then they rejoined the others by the dropship. He saw Alder and Mulberry hard at work, Alder up on the engine, Mulberry on his back beneath the ship. The others had gathered around by the back cargo ramp, sort of just meandering around.
"What happened?" Baker asked.
"Data core was wiped, and we saw a live one of those big fucking snake fuckers," Dalton replied.
"I assume you killed it," Forrester said.
"Yeah, but look at this," Dalton replied, showing them his shoulder. Several of them let out low, impressed whistles. "Be damn careful of them. They spit those spines we saw embedded in the metal wall."
"What the fuck are these things?" Finch groaned.
"Alien and terrifying, but not unstoppable. We can kill them," Dalton said. "Where are we with the dropship?"
"Ten minutes, but this thing is falling apart," Alder replied.
"Fuck," he muttered.
For a long moment, Dalton just looked around at the others. His people, the survivors from Gamma Six, the dropship behind them. Frost and Dix were staring at him. They wanted him to be the one to take the next step. Well, that made sense. Frost was a Ghost and Dix...was not a people person. Nor much of a leader, although he could be one hell of one. Dalton couldn't blame him, he wasn't exactly eager to be boss again either.
But sometimes you had no choice.
"All right people, everyone listen up. We have something we need to discuss," Dalton said.
"What do we need to discuss? We're going to Deadwood as soon we fix this hunk of junk," Reed replied irritably.
"Well see that's the thing," Dalton said, and he noticed Frost step closer to him and put her hand on her pistol, holstered on her hip. He considered motioning to her to relax, but knew he couldn't manage it without being incredibly obvious in his power suit, so just pushed on instead. "We find ourselves at something of an impasse."
"What kind of an impasse?" Baker asked, sounding deeply curious.
"Well–" He froze as a blaring note suddenly cut across his radio. From the way they reacted, it was happening to everyone else, as well.
It was the General Emergency Broadcast. The tone continued for a long moment, then pulsed a few times, then a digitized voice began speaking.
"This is the Confederacy of Man. Listen to this announcement closely: Mar Sara is to be evacuated, effective immediately. This is not a drill. This is a mandatory planetary evacuation. Get to the nearest ship or evacuation center. Wait in orbit around Mar Sara to be rescued by Confederate Forces."
The message repeated once, then shut down.
"Uh, well...that uncomplicates things," Dalton muttered.
"Jesus holy fuck me," Reed whispered, his voice harsh.
"It's okay, this goes with our plan anyway," Dalton said.
"What plan!?" he demanded.
"Sergeant Reed, if you calm down and let me explain, then I'll fucking explain it," Dalton growled, looking directly at the man. He was really starting to bug him, and worry him. He knew that his earlier gambit of bullying the man into neural passivity was likely temporary. "Now, I'm going to offer all of you a choice. And because I'm sick and fucking tired in my soul of the Confederacy's bullshit, I'm going to try to be straight with you."
He hoped the twinge of guilt didn't show on his face, but he wasn't going to tell them about the Sons of Korhal. Given how it had played out, it would only hurt the situation. Everyone was staring at him intently now. Well, except for the two working on the dropship, but he was sure he had their ears.
"I want to leave. I want to go off into space and build my own colony. Away from the governments and the military bullshit and all of it. It's going to be rough, but I have something of a plan. If you're not interested, I'll very much try to get you somewhere safe still in the Koprulu Sector. If you want in, I can at least promise you that we'll welcome you with open arms and you'll be treated with respect and dignity, although you'll be expected to carry your weight."
"I'm with Dalton," Dixon said almost as soon as he was done speaking.
"So am I," Frost said, and that seemed to surprise them.
And probably shift some weight in his favor. A Marine and a Firebat weren't much, but a Marine, Firebat, and a Ghost? That no doubt lit up the 'maybe he's onto something' parts of their brains.
"So you're talking about a freeport," Alder said.
He glanced up at her. She had ceased work for the moment, staring at him interestedly. Freeport was the most common slang term for colonies that struck out on their own, that recognized no government's authority.
"That's exactly what I'm talking about," he agreed.
"I'm in, you got my vote," she replied.
"We can't actually be discussing this, right?" Reed asked, his voice growing a bit shrill.
"We're actually discussing this, Reed. Look, if you can't handle it, I can drop you off somewhere. Shit, I can go drop you off at Deadwood and I'm sure you can get offworld that way."
"I'm in," Baker said suddenly. "I'll follow you Sergeant."
"Me too," Forrester said.
"No," Reed said, and in a surprisingly quick motion he snapped his Gauss Rifle up. "No, no, no. No way, fuck that. You're a fucking traitor. You're all fucking traitors!"
Dalton, Dix, and Frost all raised their own weapons. Dalton thought he could take him if he really had to, the man had his visor up for whatever reason and Dalton didn't, still paranoid from his encounter with the snake. That difference would probably mean that if they both fired at the same time, Dalton would likely get off with a few dents in his armor, maybe one stray bullet might punch through, but he knew he could hit Reed's face.
And that wasn't even counting Frost and Dix.
"Look man, I'm not eager to kill you. To be clear: I will absolutely execute you if I have to, but I don't want to at all. You don't wanna come with us, fine, but we don't have to do this. We can walk away. I'm still offering that."
Everyone was staring at them now. Reed was sweating badly, his eyes bugging out of his skull almost, his mouth a sneering grimace. The tension was rising. Dalton waited for the man to respond, but he wasn't sure if this was going to work. His neural burnout might be too intense for him to see reason. Or hell, maybe he really was just that blind in his loyalty to a government that didn't give even a single fuck about him.
A cold wind blew across the moonlit dunes.
The seconds kept ticking by.
Alder and Mulberry had both stopped working now. No one spoke.
Reed shifted ever so slightly as Dalton began to try again, and then suddenly a big, ugly hole opened up in his forehead, dead center. He didn't make a sound as he toppled over like a felled tree. Dalton stared at him for a long moment, then looked over at Frost. Her pistol was smoking. She holstered it.
"Frost!" he cried finally.
"He was going to shoot you, Dalton," she said, her voice several degrees below zero even without the digitized filter. "I've seen it often enough to know. And I wasn't going to let him do that to you."
"I guess she's the muscle in this new outfit," he heard PFC Roscoe mutter.
"No," Dalton said firmly, looking back at the group, "no, that isn't what this is. It's not going to be a goddamned dictatorship. It's not going to be 'do what I say or Frost'll get you'. That is not what this is going to be."
"That's what they all say," Roscoe replied. "And then as soon as it turns rough, they bring the iron fist down. Suddenly it's 'we're doing what's necessary' and 'making hard calls', and yeah, maybe that's what it is in the beginning, but the power gets familiar. Easier."
"Some of them aren't full of bullshit," Dalton replied. "And for fuck's sake, I'm not even going to be in charge."
"...wait, so who is then?" Dixon asked.
"I figured we'd put it to a vote when we actually get there," he replied.
"Let's vote now," Dixon replied. "I vote for Dalton to be in charge."
"Yep. I do, too," Frost agreed immediately.
"Like I said, you got my vote," Alder said, and then went back to work on the dropship.
"You've basically been in charge for a few months now already," Baker said when Dalton looked his way. "Miller couldn't really hack it and he was always looking to you to figure out what to do. Especially there at the end. So yeah, I vote for you."
"You're a leader more than anyone else here is," Forrester said.
"Whatever you think, Sarge," Abner said.
"Come on, Abner, I need something better than that. This is probably the biggest decision of your entire life. If you're doing this, you should be damn sure about it," Dalton replied.
The young Private squirmed awkwardly under their collective gaze. "I've always kind of just been pointed towards things, told to do things, and that's pretty much worked for me. I don't mind continuing that, but I do trust you, Sergeant Dalton, more than anyone else I can think of. I sure don't trust the Confederacy no more. Not after all that shit in there. So yeah, I want to follow you, I want to help build a freeport, and you got my vote to be in charge, too."
"All right, then. Thank you, Abner. I appreciate it. You Sullivan?" he asked, looking to the second of the three younger survivors who'd endured the horrors of the fall of Gamma Seven.
"I feel kinda weird about it," she replied, "but I think that's just my neural shit. I don't want to be here anymore. I don't want to rot away doing jack shit anymore. I signed up because I wanted to do things, to help people. And they stuck me on some fucking outpost just because I've got an 'attitude problem' and don't take crap from trumped up COs with their heads up their asses. I'll go with you and I'll vote for you, but I'm holding you accountable, Dalton. I've seen what power does to people. You start fucking up and I will let you know."
"Good," he replied. "That's exactly what I would want."
"So you're gonna do it then?" Roscoe asked. "You're gonna be in charge? You're gonna be boss?"
Dalton thought about it. It seemed clear that they were intent on this happening, and he had to admit, Dix had a point. He was probably the most qualified person there to run the outfit, if not a whole colony. Well...maybe he could. At least until they got the colony actually founded. Then someone else could take over. Someone who was actually a competent leader.
"Yes," he said, "I mean to take command. Will you follow?"
Roscoe stared at him for a long moment. He could see the flicker of madness in her gaze that he saw in Dix's, in all Firebats' eyes. She seemed pretty in control, though, and very cynical. But his impression of her so far was that she was a rock solid fighter.
"Yeah, all right," she said finally, a sardonic smirk on her face. "Can't say I enjoy it here all that much, it'd be nice to live somewhere a bit more free. And we could all use some more practical usefulness in our lives."
"Fine then." He looked to the second survivor from Gamma Six. "And you, Finch?"
"I...yeah. Yes. To both. Don't really wanna talk about it, can't think right now. But I'm cool to do this. Probably won't be all that different from how my life's gone so far," he muttered.
"Well…" Dalton looked around. "Gonna be a big change in environment."
"Wait, so, do you have someplace specific in mind?" Frost asked.
"Yes, I do. Which I'll get to in a second. Mulberry!"
"I'm here, Sergeant. And, uh, I've been listening. And yeah, I'm good with this. I'm happy to go," he replied from beneath the ship.
"Well...all right then. That makes this less complicated at least. Alder, how long?" he asked.
"I'm done," she replied. "Mulberry?"
"Almost, two minutes," he said.
"Perfect. All right, this is my plan: we are going to take the dropship up to a space station in orbit. The space station should have a bigger ship with faster-than-light capabilities. We'll have to steal it. Hopefully in all the chaos we can make that happen. From there, we'll make a jump to a moon I once visited. Bit of a frozen wasteland, but very rich with resources. There was already a kind of Wild West civilization of freeports and hideouts and merc camps, so it wouldn't be completely vacant. There were a ton of old, abandoned outposts and stations. We'd have lots of the groundwork already done for us."
"So...we just build a little colony, live on this frozen moon, call it good?" Roscoe asked.
"Sounds like a plan to me," Dix replied.
"Honestly, same," Baker muttered.
"I'd really enjoy that," Finch said.
"It's not gonna be that easy," Roscoe replied.
"I never said it was going to be," Dalton said. "And that's just life, I'm afraid. It's never that easy."
"I'm done!" Mulberry called, slamming something shut and rolling out from beneath the ship.
"Perfect. Alder, fire her up. Everyone else, onto the dropship."