It was early morning when the alarm sounded, Rico jumped out of the bottom bunk bed, his friend Alex jumping off the top and landing next to him, and every man in their platoon was on their feet in less then a minute. The automatic doors that lead to the rest of their space station, The Leviathan, slid open and the Commander flanked by two fully armored guards walked in. "Men, we have lost contact with our outpost in V sector, you and two other platoons are heading out to see their status, your heading out at zero nine hundred, suit up and move out."
"Yes, Sir!" the forty man platoon sounded, and began getting dressed in skin tight black pants and long sleeved shirts, the standard uniform for their chapter, The Devil Dogs.
"Think we'll see some action this time?" Alex asked to Rico hopefully
"With our luck its probably another comms wire gone to hell" He replied "But at least we get a change of scenery for a while." And with that, they both went silent.
An hour an a half later, at zero eight thirty, or 8:30 AM, the platoon marched up to the starship docks in neat rows of five, each man wearing heavy armor that covered every inch of their body, making it air-tight if they wore a helmet, each was flat black except for a the red stripe running from the right shoulder down to the left hip. Also in the starship dock was a platoon wearing dark blue armor, the Stormfront Chapter, and a platoon wearing green armor with the left arm black, the Hornets Nest Chapter.
There was one man from each platoon who took a step forward from the rest, each had four gold stripes on each arm, indicating he was the leader, and as their platoon arrived Rico stepped forward.
After a half an hour of waiting, six men walked out of each of the three doorways,two out of each door, in front of the platoons. They stood next to gray crates and as a whistle sounded, they pulled gauss rifles out of the crates, their long sleek bodies glistening in the light, and a black bag. Upon hearing the whistle all three platoons lined up in single file, with their leaders in front. "Forward, March!" Rico yelled, marching forward to get the first gauss rifle, which he strapped to his back, and a black bag, which he clipped to a special hook on his right hip, and stepped off to the side. His men did the same only walked through the door which lead to an unarmed transport ship.
As the last man entered the door he heard the Stormfront Chapter begin marching forward, but he had his own men to worry about as he entered the door and was handed a helmet. He walked in to find his men sitting down on the bench-like seats welded to each side of the transport. There was a door that separated the marines from the pilots, with a single rail on the ceiling for support, it was too dark to see anything when the door closed behind Rico, so he sat down on the bench to his right and waited.
After a short wait, a red light started flashing. Rico put his helmet on, activating the seal and pressed a button on his temple to make the visor go up, letting him be heard clearly. He stood up and yelled "Stand, up!"
Every man stood up in single file, "Helmets, On!"
Every man put on their helmet, breathing once to make sure the oxygen was flowing, "Load,Up!"
Every man took a clip from the black bag at their hips and jammed it into the bottom of their Gauss rifles, "Radios, On!"
Every man flipped a switch on their wrist, and Rico heard their breathing in his helmet, "Teams of four, Sound off!"
He heard one by one in his helmet,
"Ten, Ready."
"Nine, Ready."
"Eight, Ready."
"Seven Ready!"
"Six, Ready."
"Five, Good to go."
"Four, We're good."
"Three, Ready."
"Two, Ready."
"One, On your six sir."
Rico nodded and pressed the button on his temple again and flipped the switch on his wrist, activating his radio, he loaded his rifle and pressed a button on a small control panel on the wall next to the door. The door slid open, to reveal a breathtaking view of space, there was a greenish brown planet in the distance and the rest of the view was just stars. Their heavy armor kept them from shooting out into space, and a few gauges appeared on the inside of Rico's visor, one had the label oxygen with a green square underneath it, O2 Tanks was another, with a 4/4 under that to indicate how many spare tanks he had and the last gauge was a green silhouette of his armor, indicating damage. The transport jerked and it slowly started turning, when it stopped it was flying backwards toward a small ship, about three times the size of a two story house.
"Woah, look at that" someone said, pointing at a smashed window, blood glistening on the shards, and a dark shape floating just inside. "Everyone, on your guard" Rico said quietly.
As the ship slowed down to almost a stop above the roof of the ship "Lets go" He said, and jumped out onto the roof, followed by his platoon. As they walked around getting a feel for the size, the two other transports arrived and the Hornets Nest and the Stormfront Chapters were on the roof with them. Rico took out a welding torch from the bag on his hip and began to cut a hole in the metal just above the window they had seen when they arrived. When he had cut through he pressed a button on his wrist, his view turned black, he looked up at one of his men to see he was glowing white, he then scanned the room. "No thermal readings, flashlights on" He said and pushed a button on his left shoulder and a panel in his armor just above it opened to reveal a powerful flashlight. He jumped down through the hole and landed next the dark figure, but with the light shining on it he saw it was a decapitated human corpse with a small blood trail coming from two puncture wounds in his chest and leading out the smashed window.
"Jesus...What the hell happened here?" Alex said, dropping in behind Rico and looking around. "I don't know but it looks like something is here with us..." Rico started looking around again as one by one his platoon join him. The room was getting full so Rico walked up to the door and pressed a button on the control panel, when nothing happened he pressed it again. "Main powers cut, we gotta force the doors open" he said, shoving the door open and shining his flashlight down the hallways. It was a dark long hallway, with trash cluttering the grate flooring, there were pipes running along the walls. Rico stepped out, keeping his rifle aimed down the hallway and started walking slowly, followed by Alex and six other men. There was what sounded like scuttling and Rico stopped, the seven men behind him stopping as well. "Whats up Rico?" Alex whispered, but before he could answer, a section of pipe behind them burst and the hallway filled with steam. A blood chilling scream was heard over everyones radio but no one fired for risk of hitting one of their own. When the steam cleared there was a hole large enough for Rico to fit through, even with his armor, and the remains of the marine who was in back, his stomach ripped open and his blood and organs splattered the walls.
"Jesus!" Alex yelled, aiming his rifle around franticly
"Keep it cool" Rico said, the only calm on in the small group. He entered a code on a small keypad on the chest of the dead marines armor, and it began to glow white, it then disintegrated, erasing any evidence that there was a marine lying dead there a moment before other then the gore on the walls. A marine walked up to the hole in the pipe and ran his fingers through an ooze that was now dripping out of it. "Looks organic sir."
"What the hell is organic that can survive out here?" Rico asked.
"I don't know but its big... Look at the size of this h-" He was cut off by the two sharp spikes piercing through his chest and coming out of his back by a good four inches, he sat there for a second before there was a growling sound and he was dragged into the pipe, he was screaming for help as blood trailed from his body, he was dragged into the darkness, his screams still echoing over the radio before it went silent. Rico ran up to the pipe and emptied three clips down the pipe, a total of one hundred and twenty shots fired, before he took a step back. "Everyone, on your guard, we need to keep moving..." Rico said, his voice cracking slightly
"But sir...What about..." A marine said shakily
"He's dead, and we have a mission to complete" And with that, Rico set off down the hallway.
There were alot of different hallways, and with every one they passed, one or two teams left the group, until finally it was just Rico and Alex walking down the hall toward the bridge.
"Rico, you got any idea what that thing was?" Alex asked, still on edge, there was a click from under his boot and Alex flinched.
"No, but if you keep jumping around like that been I'll kill you myself" Rico said, with a hint of humor.
"Rico...Rico come take a look at this" Alex said, staring through the grate, hearing more clicking. Rico walked up and looked through the grate as well, only to see what looked like a sea of larva, they were all about the size of Ricos thumb but there were thousands of them, their backs were a faded purple, but the rest of their bodies, they couldn't see.
"What do you think they are?" Alex asked, his nerves cracking his voice.
"They look like bugs...How the hell can these things survive up here?" Rico replied. Before Alex could say anything, there was footsteps and both Rico and Alex crouched behind the cover of a nearby wall. "Thunder!" Rico said, barely louder then a whisper. "I said, Thunder!" He called again, waiting for the countersign 'Flash', that would tell him if what he was hearing was another space marine. He moved out from the cover of the wall and watched the hallway.
After about ten minutes of waiting he heard movement again, but this was different then before. He heard 'Stomp...Stomp...Scraaaaatch' 'Stomp...Stomp...Scraaaaatch'. Then it went silent. "Rico...What was that?" Alex asked.
"If I knew, I would tell you" Rico answered, keeping an eye down the hall. As Alex was about to say something, they both saw movement, it was a steady movement, almost a sway, but they couldnt make out the figure. Rico turned on his flashlight and immediately wished he didnt, for what he saw made him want to run. In front of him were two creatures, they were twice as tall as Rico and barely fit in the hallway, most of their bodies were upright, about two feet of tail was dragging behind then, moving, slithering, like a snake, its upper body was guarded by thick chunks of bone carapace which covered its sides down to the tip of its tail and fanned out wide on the top of its head, the only place that wasn't guarded was loose flaps of skin on each side of their heads. Alex stood there, frozen in fear. Rico slammed his fist into the chest of Alex's armor "Wake up, we're moving!" and took off down the hallway, Alex on his heels.
"All teams check in!" Rico shouted over the radio. "Their everywhere!" Shouted a marine, gunshots thundering over his voice. Rico spun around and shot one of the creatures in the face, but it had little affect, so he turned and ran "All teams, fall back to the extraction point, we are pulling out!" He pulled a thermite grenade from the bag on his hip and pushed a button on the side of it with his thumb, he counted to five, turned around again and threw it. A screech rung out, but Rico didn't look back to see what he hit. They got back to where the entered the ship, they met with eleven other marines. "Where's everyone else?" Rico asked. "Dead." was all he got in reply. They heard a screeching noise and saw more of the creatures charging them "Covering fire!" Rico shouted, pulling the welding torch out of his pouch one more time and started cutting a hole in the wall. Alex pressed a button on his wrist that patched him into the communications with their main ship "We need a damn evac! Now!" Everyone waited while he got a reply "I don't care if your mother just got shot in the face, get us a transport NOW!" he shouted. Behind him Rico kicked the large circle he cut out into space. "Transport due in two minutes" Alex said. "We don't have two minutes!" a marine to Rico's right shouted. "Everyone, Hold your ground, we will make it!" and with that, he opened up on the advancing creatures.
After what felt like a lifetime, they heard a loud 'Clunk!' as three transport ship's grapples pierced the hard metal hull. After a few seconds the Devil Dog's transport was docked on the roof, Rico changed channels to the pilots communications "We cut a hole on the wall, just below you! No sign of other two chatpers either, get the other ships to pull out until further notice!" he shouted. "It will take us another minute to change locations" The pilot said, his voice sounding mechanical over his radio "I don't care, just do it!" Rico shouted, reloading his gun and firing into the constant swarm of creatures. He heard the ships grapples pierce the wall behind him and turned around, he shouted to his men "Thirty seconds! Hold 'em off!" as he through his last thermite grenade at the creatures, it latched onto one's face and started melting through, the skin bubbling and an red-purple blood leaked out of the hole as it fell to the ground among the other bullet strewn corpses. "Alright, everyone on the shuttle! Move!" Rico shouted. In teams of two the marines got into the shuttle, Alex and Rico were the last to go. No sooner were they in Rico slammed on the button to close the door, it slid shut, severing the claw of the crature trying to get in. "Go go go! Get us the hell out of here!" He shouted to the pilots and felt the grapples dis-engage and almost fell at the sudden force of the thrusters.
Rico sat down in the same spot as before and took off his helmet, sweat pouring down his face and stinging his eyes. "What the hell did we get int-" He was cut off by a loud explosion "What the hell was that?!"
"Command just told me they bombed the place..." Alex said
"How did they know so quickly?" Rico replied
"Maybe one of the other chapters told them before they....Yeah.." Alex trailed off, taking off his own helmet and sitting down.
"God rest their souls..." Rico sighed and stared at the floor. He was heading home.
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Finally I'm finished after a month of writing
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