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Patwardhan's never seen so many corpses in such a short period of
time, and she's a marine medtech. She passes the faceless remains of
that nameless Company rep on the floor on the flight deck, just past
the cargo dock that had been sealed, with the alien inside. Now she's
trying to find the second alien, and drawing closer as if a moth to a
flame. The flashing, screaming, and gunfire through the open doors
toward the armory definitely confirms that inborn radar, though. She
sprints toward the battle. Gotta bone to pick or something.
Alex "Gonzo" Gonzales shows how quickly a standard six-round burst
can turn into an uncontrolled hose of explosive-tipped missiles. That
thing is right on Healy's ass! The pulse rifle spits and coughs,
splashing the walls with exploding shells, strobing madly in the
darkened corridor. But he hit it! He f-ucking hit it!
The alien's screech pierces the air. It tumbles off the wall,
thrashes, claws, reaches for Healy with the same intensity as before.
The hall fills with thundering concussion as the Taurus ignites twice
in the officer's hand, clearly passing through the thing's grotesque
cranium at point blank range. Yellow fluid spills out of the gaping
tear in the ribbed, glistening skin. The arms continue to move, but
it's clear this one is on its way out. Straight through the goddamn
floor!
Acid blood has splashed everywhere, dissolving a two-meter-wide
section of the hallway. Healy looks at the ground, her mind numb and
dazed. The floor around her has been whittled like Swiss cheese. Her
legs are sizzling slightly.
Gonzales' arms are shaking. Sure has been a long time since he held
one of these babies. The thunking sound of the aliens' carcass
sinking through the floor draws his attention back. Private
Patwardhan comes inside from the flight deck, pistol in hand, panting
after her run. The gaping burn in the floor is all she needs to
assess what's happened here. That's two. But what if they're
reproducing? Her hip throbs. She wants badly to itch the plas-filled
gashes in her face.
That's when Booths limps through a door lugging a pulse rifle, in as
much armor as he can possibly stand, incinerator over his shoulder.
He passes his extra weapon to the medtech, and beings to fill his
grenade magazine. Gonzales does the same, reaching into his ammo bag
for the blunt-ended little explosives. Healy shoves a few spare
rounds into her cylinder, and they all absorb the comm traffic.
"Marshall, we think there was a skirmish... automatic fire... we need
a complete accounting of casualties at this time, over... we heard
several shots... what's going on?... sir, we're having trouble
isolating eye eff pee, recommend switching to... confirm that,
automatic weapons discharge, Healy?... first team, hold position...
Healy, do you copy?... we're holding, over..."
These ghostly gods' voices fill the heads of four frightened humans
huddling close together in a narrow space, sharpening their sticks to
defend against the dark unknown.
"Cold weather gear's in there." He jerks his armoured head towards
the armoury. He slings the rifle, then begins to adjust the helmet to a prpoer
fit, finally securing the straps properly.
A vile odour, ingrained into the very spirit of the flakjacket that's
wrapped around his torso, hovers around him, and would even water the
eyes of anyone not used to the harsher side of things. Boot laces half done, he limps forward, his facetight with pain, but
jaw clenched with indomitable resolve. He turns to the two obviously
shaken civilians. His eyes sparkle with something that Healy might recognize as pure
malice, and Gonzo as the look of a man who's seen hell, and gotten
back to talk about it. If Booths would talk more, anyway.
"You're still alive." Nothing further. It wasn't even said with any
particular inflection.
"OK Aish, where'd you leave Leon?" The rifle snapped to as he
shrugged his shoulder, paled, and caught the weapon right side up,
right hand on grip, finger extended outside the trigger guard, left
hand on grenade launcher.
"Can't I get anything done without you losing someone?" He threw back
her own line. He tapped his mike once.
"Boarding party, continue to hold position at umbilical. Repeat,
continue holding. Hostiles are present. Repeat, hostiles are
present."
Eyes lighted on Aishwarya again. "Get a motion tracker or two." A smile. "We're going hunting." The light in his eyes shone brighter.
Gonzales let out a very shaky breath and closed his mouth as his tongue worked to
try to get some moisture going. He got it! Or at least a little of
it, it was tough to beat a Taurus at arm's length for damage. As he
just stood there and brethed, he heard the comm chatter and Booth's
response as if he were listening through a block of wood. It was too
wierd. "I - uh, need a new clip I think," he said slowly,
softly. "And maybe a change of pants," he added with a shaky laugh as
he checked the LCD display on his rifle. Somehow he knew that more
than six rounds came out of his gun that time. He resolved to get
another clip or two to make up for it, while they were still at the
armory. "Did you say something about armor?" said Alex, addressing
Booths. "I could probably figure it out, but, ah, some help would be
nice," he said as he moved back to the armory, grabbing a pair of
rifle clips, jamming one into his belt and popping the other fresh
clip into the rifle after ejecting the old one.
"Healy, maybe you should tell your people that we're not going to be
joining them until we get our own little problem solved here,"
Patwardhan suggests. "Its best that we get our own house in order
before mounting any assault on the Korea. I'm sure that the station
administration will understand that the security of a multi-bilion
dollar military vessel is much more important than the immediate
retrieval of a few cases of cigarettes."
She slings the flame unit over her shoulder and goes into the armory
to retrieve some extra fuel tanks. She looks at the pile of cold
weather gear that Booths had rounded up and then back to her fellow
marine.
"I really have no idea where Leon got himself to. I just turned
around and he was gone. We need to hire a baby-sitter for that boy."
She shrugs then nudges the pile of cold weather gear with her
toe. "If we're going to be doing a sweep of the Gaines, we won't need
this right now, but thanks for digging it up, since I'm sure it will
come in handy later." She scowls, "Don't look at me like that! I
asked you to get it before we found out that we have a roach problem.
You can't blame me for that!" She picks up a motion tracker and
mounts it onto the bracket on her incinerator. She then goes over to
the nearest intercom/PA terminal. "Leon," she announces over the PA,
her voice sounding cold and hollow as it resonates through the empty
ship, "It would be nice if you would join us. Read me?"
Shoulders shrug. "C'mon." Booths headed back inside the armoury trailing after
Patwardhan.
Cold sweat stood out on his brow, and a trickle flowed over his pale
cheek. He rapped the locker that held the armour for the now deceased
marine unit. "In here." He sets the pulse rifle on the bench, and begins to clear
out some armour for the ex-marine. An afterthought, and he pulled out Ringo's old flakjacket, the even
fouler smelling piece of equipment he intended for Aishwarya.
"Healy, get your ragged ass in here!" He shouts out the door. He
straightens with a grunt and looks at Gonzo. "OK," He begins tapping the pieces of equipment as he lists
them, "shin guards, armour, front and back, tactical helmet." He gave the ex-marine a weighing look. "Extra fatigues and BDU's are
in there...if you need them." No judgement. As soon as Aishwaray turns away from the intercom, Booths hurls the flakjacket at her.
"Did you notice that they are not as co-ordinated here as they were on the coffin?"
Booths scowls beneath his helmet. "Last time around, they had the power off, and were gunning for me and Stone..." He cast his eyes down. The fists at his sides clenched, the
knuckles white from the pressure, and cracking. A droplet of blood leaks from between the fingers of his left hand.
Healy does what she can to tear away the parts of her trousers splashed
with alien blood, noting any reaction (if any) between the acid and
the cryogenic fluid. Any strange glances Healy's way about the state
of her pants will be met with, "I'd rather loose my dignity then my
leg." Following the others, Healy makes her way in to the armoury.
The first thing she collects is one of the available shotguns,
loading it with as many rounds at it will carry (including the extra
shell holds along the top of the barrel if they are on this one). She
slings the shotgun and holsters her Taurus, relaxing a little at
last. The pump action beast over her shoulder is quickly forgotten
when Healy spots the pulse rifles Booths and Gonzales have produced. "Are they the marine pulse rifles? I confiscated a crate
load of those from some smugglers a couple of years back... the CMC guys picked them up pretty quickly though so I never got a chance to
try them out."
Healy grabs her walkie-talkie again and radios the Rodina crew on the other side of the
umbilical. "Hold your position there, make sure that both ends of the umbilical remain sealed, I'll radio you again when things are all
clear, Healy out."
"OK." Booths turns back to Healy, his hand snapping the
rifle up from the bench, twirling the compact weapon once. "This is
the M41A pulse rifle." Left hand underneath the grenade launcher,
right hand underneath the compact stock, Booths presented the weapon
profile. "It is the ultimate workhorse of the Colonial Marines in
that it is a suburb assault rifle, and support weapon." He hefts the
rifle. "It is middling to light weight, compact, which gives you,
among other things, a tighter arc of fire at any hostile. This
hostile will be mostly a bloody lump of flesh as it fires a 10mm
explosive tipped round." He taps the stock with a finger. "The
stock itself is composite, and moulded to fit any shoulder
comfortably." The hand moves forward to the trigger guard. "This
little bundle of joy comes with a standard selector switch for
single, triple and full auto, just for those occasions when you want
to see body parts fly.." A snap of arms, and the rifle is now
vertical, other way around so that the weapon's other side shows its
LCD display. "The magazine is internalized, and therefore
withstands quite a bit of a banging. You also have to slam it in
hard, otherwise the magazine will drop out on you in the most
inconvinient time. I.E., when you're unloading at a bunch of
meatheads who think they're tough." Left hand fingers slap the
barrel of the underslung grenade launcher. "Integrated grenade
launcher makes sure that you can have instant BBQ whenever the fancy
takes you." He reverts it back to vertical, then throws it underarm
to Healy. "Get used to it. Its fully loaded and ready to kick ass and
take names." At this range its more a forceful shove than anything
else. "That said, what you really want is an M56 Assault Smartgun.
Ain't nothing that produces a more beautiful sound in the galaxy." He
considers for a moment. "Except maybe a plasma thrower."
The team moves back to the armory in a cluster, weapons moving toward
the corners of the room automatically, like some special operations
training tape. Empty. Well, no aliens. But s-hitloads of guns! The
immediate and unapologetic acquision of composite armor and heavy
weapons almost blocks out the faint transmissions from the police
units at the Gaines-Rodina dock.
Crackle, static, shaky voices barely audible through tons of
steel. "...holding here on either side of the umbilicus... Healy,
we're trying to seal her for you... going to take time... our oh two
budget is over as it is... everybody up here... kind of jumpy, so
we're gonna hold it..." The reception clears over the clack and
clatter of metal gear being strapped on, snapped together, clipped
and buckled. Rustle of clothing, heavy breathing. Marshall Burnett's
voice is a knife.
"First team reporting. We're... Okay, we've just found Leon."
Voice in the background: "What's up, man?"
Another voice: "Woah, droid, what's that?"
Burnett: "Jesus..." A noise in the background, like a cat being hit
by a car, followed by gunshots.
Crackle. Static. Terrified voices barely audible through walls of
noise. It's happening again.
Aishwarya debates on whether or not to suit up with the armor. Remembering how
the bulky armor was more of a hindrance than help the last time
around, she decides to pass and instead focuses on having enough
firepower. She looks around for something with a little bit more
punch than her VP70, but still lightweight and easy to use with her
one good arm.
A cold icy fist formed itself in the pit of his stomach. It lasted but a moment, long enough
for the fact to sink in that the civilians were as good as dead, and
dying. He'd taken an oath. f--- the oath. ...to defend, with my
life if necessary... f--- the oath. "They're dead already." The
voice seemed to come from far away, as cold as the void outside the
Gaines' hull, as emotionless as the pulse rifle he grabbed from the
rack. He checked the action, and proceeded to load the weapon with
alacrity. No knowing how many more were on board. f--- the oath. f--
- it f--- it f--- it. A spare mag went into a pocket of his BDU. He
reached for another motion sensor, and slung that on his shoulder.
f--- IT! his mind screamed. "I'm going for the umbilical."
Step by aching step he made his way to the door. He half turned his head as
if to say something. He'd taken an oath to protect and defend any
citizen with his life. The taste of that oath now left a bitter taste
in his mouth. His head turned back to the front, and his left hand
activated the motion tracker. And he limped out.
Seeing that Booths has gotten it into his head to go off after the dumb ass company
people, Patwardhan quickly slides into an arctic duty suit and heads off
after him. When it was just company cargo jockeys waiting in the
umbilical, she couldn't have given a flying rats ass about them. But
she was trained to be more sensitive about human to a degree that
actually interfered with her combat effectiveness, so she too felt
the burning need to make sure that the job got done right.
Healy turns to Gonzales as the two marines walk out, "No sense in splitting up this 'dynamic' group, come on, let's go."
Making sure all the extra weight she's aquired (the shotgun and pulse rifle) are secured, Healy jogs out after Booths and Patwardhan.
Alex stared at the back of the station's law enforcement officer. "Bitch," he muttered under his breath, just loud enough for
himself to barely hear it. He trotted along after the group, his steps heavy as he got used to
the feeling of moving in armor again. After a few steps his body
started to remember, and he scratched at his head under his cap with
his free hand as they all entered the corridor.
"So what now?" he said to everyone.
"We do or die." Booths did not break his limping stride, or even glance back at Gonzo, or any of the others.
The M84 CARBINE
Technically a light infantry support rifle, this rifle is most often
found with recon sections, although assault units sometimes use these
for covert operations. Outfitted with a flash suppressor/silencer,
laser sight, dual-feed active chambering, active chamber venting and
caseless 9mm laser-guided armor-piercing slugs. A fully loaded M48
magazine carries 56 rounds. Extremely accurate at close and middle
ranges, losing effectiveness with atmospheric density, as the
ammunition is guided by the inboard laser. The dual-chamber action
groups rounds very closely together, compensating for the
underpowered ammo. It's lighter than a pulse rifle, but not as
versatile: the pulser's a cleaver, the M84 is a scalpel.
"Just what the doctor ordered," Patwardhan says eying the compact M84 rifles.
She slings one over her shoulder and stuffs a couple extra clips into
her belt pouches. "And Healy," she yells, "I found the effective
range on the Mossberg to be somewhere between too damm close and
getting your head bitten off, but if you're intent on using one,
might I suggest grabbing a bandoleer of solid slug loads."
Healy nods at Patwardhan's suggestion, collecting a slug bandoleer of solid rounds. "I agree, though I do remember them saying
something at the academy about solid slugs and hull breaches...
still, safe then sorry and all that. Oh, and if it does come to
extreme close quarters battling with these things... I'd much rather
the shotgun then say... my nightstick." Healy flashes a grin to the
marine and falls back in line.
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