Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
Crisis on Valhalla Part 3: Shadows
“Alright we’re going to need bonemend, artiskin and synth blood here now he’s been torn open rather horridly here.” Chief Doctor Ferrisin’s voice boomed out his tone a mix of worry and professional confidence as the wounded marine was placed in front of him, the trooper’s chest was torn open so badly that two of his broken ribs were visible and blood gushed out of his body like a crimson geyser.
Blackbird’s sickbay was a mess of organized chaos as the wounded marines from the “incident” in the boat bay and Captain Fowler were being attended too by the doctors and sick berth attendants. Even the wounds that were rather minor had begun to baffle the Icaran medical staff as a bizarre form of infection began to set in almost immediately even under sterile fields and las cutters, with all the chaos Ferrisin barely took notice of the four heavily armed and armored marines Ross had ordered placed in the sickbay.
“Alright SBA Keller get me a….” Ferrisin was mid sentence when the lights suddenly cut and the gravity switched off for a moment.
“Secure your patients now, get the ones you can in breathers in case life support is gone, and for God’s sake strap them down!” Ferrisin managed to “swim” his way to a “vacbag” locker. Vacbags unlike vac-suits were designed for wounded personnel that couldn’t be placed in a normal suit, it contained a full micro-life support system and enough oxygen for them to last 72 hours. Fortunately the emergency systems were tripped seconds later and the gravity, life support and minimal lighting came back on. But Ferrisin continued to pass out vac bags to the wounded that were already closed up, as he turned to get to the wall com to find out what was happening the chief doctor was met with a sickening sight, the wounded marine he had been treating was bent in a completely unnatural way on the deck, a grizzly spilling of organs and fluids lay on the mangled body an the deck plating next to it and Ferrisin realized with no small amount of shock that when gravity cut his patient had somehow drifted loose of his restraints and must have floated high enough for the grizzly wound.
Just as Ferrisin was about to order an SBA to clean up the wounds he heard what sounded like screaming coming from the corridor beyond his sickbay, as the realization that others must have been wounded sunk in Ferrisin’s medical training took over completely “Alright I want free hands to form medical teams, Keller, Suchi, Lewis take team one get out there and find out who and how many are hurt and bring them here only if you need to, Jackson I need…..” Ferrisin’s team recovered from their shock quickly and began assembling the necessary medical supplies, little did they know what true chaos and death was about to come upon them.
“Damn it chief I don’t need maybes I need to know why the hell my ship’s power just cut off do you understand me?” Ross barely managed to keep his voice calm as the Chief Petty Officer on the other end of the screen shook her head.
“Sorry Sir whatever happened I can’t find it, the main power should be on, but sir I can’t get in touch with power room one so I sent an engineering team to find out what happened.” The poor young woman sounded terrified but she tried to keep her face calm, she wasn’t even supposed to be in charge of engineering Ross realized, and paused a moment, she had mentioned that Commander Geller wasn’t anywhere to be found already, Ross forced his expression to relax and his voice to soften at the pang of guilt over reaming a junior CPO for something that wasn’t her fault.
“Alright Chief do the best you can but I need to know if our power is going to fail completely and I need to know that much at least now.” Ross’ voice was much softer as he spoke to the young woman that was presently the senior person in Engineering as no one could seem to find Commander Giller.
“No sir I got my-ah- the teams that were down here to divvy up main power between PR 2 and Main Quantum Reactor, but sir that’s the problem we rerouted the power but so far there has been no improvement in our condition, and I can’t manage anything better then emergency back ups.” Her voice still betrayed her terror at facing an angry Admiral but she was remarkably cool headed about the engineering glitch and how to fix it.
“Alright contact that engineering party and find out what happened down in PR1 and get back to me.” The young woman on the other end saluted and cut the com channel.
To Ross’ surprise the CPO in main engineering commed him only seconds later.
“Sir there is something wrong here I can’t get in touch with the team that I sent to PR1, or the two men I sent to find them.” The look on her face told Ross she wasn’t overstating matters but before he could reply he noticed his Flag Commander trying to get his attention.
“Hold on chief.” Ross muted her screen and looked up at the Commander Higgins.
“Sir I’m getting reports from all department heads, we’ve got people missing and we’ve lost coms on decks twenty-five through twenty-seven.” Higgins was a veteran and had seen action during the Xiati crusades so his voice betrayed none of the nerves and fear Ross glimpsed in his eyes.
“Alright order marine fire teams and armed Crewmen to seal off deck twenty five and cut all lift access and ladder access off, I want Major Jahonis and his marines decked out in full tac tell them we’ve got intruders on board and sound the alert.” Ross was surprised to hear how calm and organized his own voice was even as hell seemed to be chasing him and his crew, but what made matters more gut wrenching was that he knew sickbay was on deck twenty-six in the very center of the ship which would have normally made I one of the safest places on board any warship.
“Alert Alert all hands intruders detected marines to stations all hands arm, arm, arm!” the mechanical voice boomed over the ship’s speakers and Ross felt a surge of bile in his throat as the realization hit him at last, someone or something was on his ship, his thoughts grew instantly dark as the fear of not knowing what was going on began to tear at his heart in a way that he never had felt before, and he tried to force his mind to calm when he felt a tap on his shoulder and heard a gentle female voice.
“Admiral your sidearm.” the young Yeoman said as she gestured timidly at the holster and belt she was carrying, Ross took the holster belt and forced his face to smile confidently.
“Thank you Yeoman.” he said quietly and fastened his weapon in place.
“Alright you grunts keep your eyes open, I want those decks sealed off but I do not! want to lose anyone in this understood!” Major Jahonis confident voice boomed out as his marines sealed their armored vac suits and grabbed their auto-rifles and rushed for their duty stations. As each marine passed the door they quickly brushed their hands on a picture of Icara at sunrise, hoping they would see it once more.
An hour had passed before the decks were fully sealed off due to the constant power fluctuations that made simply getting from the marine barracks to the necessary sections extremely difficult as the marine fire teams and armed naval personnel had to use the ladders to get from deck to deck and then had to go through multiple compartments just to get to the right position.
By that time all contact with the decks below twenty-five had been totally lost, not even sensors were operational and it was by now far from certain just what was happening, and what had happened to the 200 personnel trapped behind the sealed compartments on deck twenty-four.
Major Jahonis was just about to assemble a search team to “go below” when a sudden pounding echoed on the massive blast doors that sealed deck twenty-five’s ladders shut, the marines snapped their rifles up and formed a disciplined firing line. Jahonis watched anxiously for a moment, his mind racing over the options, or rather so far the lack of options, after a moment more of pause that seemed like an eternity Jahonis switched the com link to the command channel and tabbed the send key.
“Admiral sir, this is Major Jahonis I’ve got a rather loud pounding noise on blast door, oh-five-niner forward of frame 37, I have two platoons with me but I haven’t got a clue in hell what’s coming up and…..” the major’s voice faltered for an instant as he looked around at the young men and women that stood next to him “Sir seal off deck twenty-four and don’t reopen it until you hear from me or my marines, we obviously have a breach and I’ll be damned if I let the bastards loose.”
“Major if I seal those doors you’ll be trapped!” Ross’ voice sounded cold and calm but both men knew how agonizing that thought was.
“I know that sir but if you don’t and whatever is coming up her gets by me we could have a hell of a lot worse problems then 80 trapped marines.” Jahonis’ almost sounded like he was pleading for his superior to seal him and 79 other marines in to where no reinforcements could reach him should anything go wrong. Unfortunately both men knew that this was their only option and after a long silence over the comn Ross’ stern cool voice replied.
“Alright Major, I’m sealing deck twenty-four but you’d better call me back to let you out of there eventually, that’s an order marine.” Jahonis grinned sourly to himself as the com channel cut off, seconds later the sound of blast doors sealing and ladders retracting alerted Jahonis that he and his men were truly alone against whatever it was that was coming at them.
The pounding became louder, almost rhythmic as it continued for the next several minutes; every pounding that kept the rhythm put another massive dent in the blast doors and brought whatever was on the other end one step closer to the waiting marines.
After minutes of anticipation the actual breakthrough happened almost faster then the marines minds had time to register as the heavy blast doors flew off the ladder casing and slammed into the ceiling before crashing back to the deck with an amazing crash, the creature that leapt from the hole shocked Jahonis as recognition dawned, it was the same bastard they had flushed out of the boat bay!
The trooper closest to the breach died almost instantly as a massive “spear” arm drove through his armor and torso and turned his innards into wreckage, the beast that had speared the marine tossed his corpse casually and turned to swipe at another with that spear “arm” but was stopped as dozens of auto-rifles and breacher guns sprayed dozens of darts into the beast tearing gouges out of it’s armored hide.
Even as the marines opened fire on the massive beast several smaller creatures crept their way out of the hole and leapt into the attack, all that is except for one which closely resembled a large snake quietly, almost invisibly slithered it’s way out of the melee, several marines screamed in pain as several of the small ugly creatures sunk 15 centimeter long fangs into flesh and rolled in a terrible rending thrashing bite.
Their larger consort was as juggernaught, seemingly unstoppable as it speared down a marine and swatted another away like she was a toy doll and turned to look for it’s next victims even as explosive darts tore into it’s thick hide.
“Son-of-a-*****!” Someone shouted in pain as their leg was torn open by a fanged creature just before he put a burst of explosive darts through it’s head causing an eruption of gore as the creature tore open.
“Got one!” someone else shouted as the splattering thump of another small creature echoed across the corridor.
The massive “juggernaught” had finally come clear of the main melee and Jahonis winced as he saw the severed head that it was carrying with it’s three fingered hand, he turned his com on to platoon wide and had to keep himself from shouting.
‘Terry, Liza now!” his voice crackled over the com and two marines that had stayed out of the fight stepped forward, Marine Terry was carrying a micro AP cannon, and Sergeant Liza Backowitz carried her own heavy plasma flamethrower, both weapons erupted with hellish light, but the screaming whine of the AP cannon firing shook the deck plates as the AP “ball” tore across the corridor and slammed headlong into the massive creature, the blast of light tore the creature’s gizzard open and it howled in rage and pain as it began it’s march forward, only to be engulfed in the purifying fire of Liza’s plasma flamethrower…..
“Move that flamethrower up!” someone shouted from the midst of the marines that were fighting the smaller nasty creatures whose fangs had already rendered so many bodies into dead lumps of flesh.
“Fall back and reform your lines on me!” Jahonis yelled as he leveled his rifle on another small creature and unleashed a burst of solid darts straight into it’s back, swiftly turning the ferocious creature into a subdued puddle of goop, many of the remaining marines managed to fight their way clear of the horrid beasts unfortunately Jahonis could only watch as two others were dragged down by the small monsters and rend limb from limb in a screaming bloody mass of chaos.
“Damn it, light those *****es up!” he shouted as his heavy weapons sergeant brought her flamethrower forward.
“Aye sir!” her reply came out almost like a curse as she switched the ignition toggle on her weapon from safe to “ignite” and a massive stream of hell’s own fire erupted from the weapon’s barrel.
The blaze engulfed the dozen or so smaller creatures that had survived the marines rifle fire but even that did not seem to stop their sheer desire to kill, as a burning creature hurled it’s self at the marines only to be cut to peaces by three rifles simultaneously firing into it. Even as the fire sprayed forward like divine wrath the marines continued to fire bursts of solid shot and explosive darts into the creatures to make sure non of those still alive got the same idea as their exploded comrade, none of the marines even noticed the snake like creature slithering up from behind them….
“Doctor, Doctor can you hear me?” a soft whispered female voice came from across the darkened sickbay.
“Captain Fowler, is that you?” he whispered back, he was still shaken by the attack that some hideous creature had launched on his sick bay, and his skin turned cold again as he remembered the blood spraying and the flesh tearing apart as it jumped into the midst of the wounded, killing almost all of them as well as two SBAs that tried to stop it, the four marines had barely managed to kill the damned thing before it had finished off the other wounded men and women, the chief doctor didn’t even intend to “hide” per se but as he backed away from the carnage he tripped over something soft and he dare not think further about what it could have been with the limbs and gore flying about, his embarrassed memory came back as he realized he had fallen and slammed his head against the table he was currently lying under and had been knocked out cold.
“Yes Doctor it is, where are you hiding?” her voice came back coldly and Ferrisin felt his face heat as the embarrassment came racing back in force.
“I wasn’t hiding ma’am I just, fell.” he said louder then he had meant and a hissing sound came from the corner of his sickbay
“Be quiet doctor we are trying not to attract attention from those creatures.” her voice was hushed but her tone was clear enough and Fierrisin shivered for a moment.
“Come over here doctor.” at her command Ferrisin rose to his hands and knees and tried to regain some semblance of direction, when he did he immediately crawled towards the voice of his captain.
As he reached an over turned bed he suddenly felt a stabbing pain in his back as two sets powerful hands clenched down on his coat and legs, the doctor forced himself to fight back a yelp of fear and pain as his body was lifted over the bed, as the pain began to fade he felt an even sharper pain as his chest hit the deck plating with a thump, again he gasped as the air was knocked out of him, his fear and panic was almost total until he heard a calm almost mocking voice.
“Sorry doc, couldn’t very well let you stay out there now could I.” the voice sounded familiar but Ferrisin only felt the throbbing in the back of his head and now in his chest and back as well, he managed to roll himself over and saw three marines looking down at him, he rolled back on his belly and noticed the fourth marine, Captain Fowler-who’s leg was still in a bad way- and his two surviving sick berth attendants.
“Don’t worry about it.” he grunted out as the marine who had apparently dropped him patted him gently on the back.
“What the hell is going on Captain?” Ferrisin croaked as he finally felt like he was breathing again.
“Apparently we didn’t kill all the little bastards when we spaced their cutter.” she murmured as she tossed him a dart pistol one of the marines had been carrying.
“What do you expect me to do with this ma’am?” Ferrisin had never fired a gun on a practice range much less shot at anyone.but the sharp glare Fowler shot his way was visible even in the dimly lit “barricade’ that she and the marines had created, again he felt his gut knot as he picked the weapon up.
“I really don’t know how to use one ma’am.” he uttered pleadingly but his captain didn’t even flinch.
“You aim, you pull the trigger it’s that simple doctor, and whatever comes through that door over there is not going to be coming to pay a social call so if something does come through you shoot it, get me?” her voice was ice as she glared at him again.
The nervous doctor managed a ghost of a nod before he turned away from her and tried to get a good look at the sealed sick bay doors, wondering how long they would hold out of something chose to attack them, it was moments later that the pounding began….
“Oh GOD what the hell is it?” a marine shouted as the huge snake like creature snapped up one of his comrades in it’s large fangs, biting deep into the battle armored trooper as blood geysers erupted from the bite wounds.
“Fire!” Jahonis’ voice commanded from what had moments before been the front of the fighting, the disciplined marines obeyed instantly and the whining clatter of auto-rifles echoed off the corridor walls as volleys of fire slammed into the armored hide of the creature, it barely flinched, rearing it’s head back and snapping out at a marine with blinding speed, the same bloody geysers erupted from the chest but unlike the other marine this trooper had his head caught in the same bite and it vanished in a spray of blood and brain almost instantly.
The Plasma flamethrower roared to life once again, unlike the conventional weapons the other marines were using the flamethrower actually seemed to be hurting the great serpentine creature unfortunately not fast enough as a third marine was caught up in it’s great jaws.
“Get out of my way!” a voice shouted over the din, instinctively the marines jumped clear of the creature as a massive green ball raced forward and slammed into it’s face, searing it’s armored flesh and melting it’s eyes with the fury of a sun. Finally the great beast slumped forward it’s head crashing to the deck, only to be shot by several more bursts of gunfire.
“Alright let’s move below decks and clear out the rest of these vermin.” Jahonis murmured as he stepped forward and rallied his marines around him to go below, to the sealed off decks and clear out the hostile creatures which attempted to take their ship.
“They’re coming through!” Ferrisin blurted as the sickbay doors tore open and a rush of small creatures charged forward, his voice was quickly drowned out as the marines and Captain Fowler opened up on the creatures, killing several instantly, it took the doctor a moment to come back to his senses but when he did he immediately lined up on one of the beasts and squeezed the firing stud of his darter and to his surprise the creature’s head erupted in a spray of blood and brain, dropping it instantly to the deck.
But even as the first wave fell the second came on and then the third, until one of the creatures leapt over the bed that acted as their barrier and dug it’s fangs into one of the marines sending him sprawling across the deck, the sick stench of bile mixing with blood as the marine screamed in agony surprising himself Ferrisin leveled his darter and squeezed the trigger unflinchingly blowing the creature off the wounded marine.
Another scream behind him told the doctor that another one of the marines had been wounded, the gurgling and chocking whale followed by sudden silence told Ferrisin that the fallen marine had just expired. Yet another wave was coming in through the doors even as the last creature that had slaughtered the other marine died as it’s skull was crushed by a marine rifle butt.
For a moment Ferrisin thought for sure he and his comrades were going to die, and it was in that moment that a brilliant green flash tore through the creatures waves followed quickly by the popping sound of “cracker” grenades with their micro-fragmentation charges. The last noise was the whine of auto-rifles as a platoon of marines charged through the wrecked sickbay doors and cut down the vicious creatures left and right. As he saw the marines charge in to the rescue of those survivors in sick bay Ferrisin uttered a brief “Thank God for the marines.” and turned his full attention to the wounded dying marine in front of him, “after all” he thought to himself, “this is the kind of war I fight.”
It took hours for the marines to sweep the ship, and even after the had done that Ross had ordered all hands into vac suits and exposed the entire ship to vacuum to ensure that any of the vermin that may be hiding were sucked away into the blackness of space.
Ross sat in a chair next to the bed where his friend lay, her leg still a mangled wreck of it’s once muscular and lithe form, it was still being repaired by the bone molding treatments and the flesh would be easily replaced with arti-skin until the real skin’s re-growth could be stimulated. Her eyes opened and for the first time in his life Ross realized just how much younger then him she was, this proud tough and smart woman was so weary that she could barely look straight at him.
“How bad is it sir?” she whispered painfully, still to weak to manage her normal voice.
“I’m not going to lie to you Sandy, it isn’t very good, we’re breaking orbit of Valhalla and returning to Icara as soon as possible but we’ve still got a lot of repairs to do.” his voice was soft but strong as he held the wounded captain’s hand.
“How many of my people?” she whispered again
“We lost about 500 people Sandy, maybe more but worry about that when your better.” he patted her hand softly and tried to keep himself looking strong for her sake even though he himself felt her pain at the loss of so many people over what was supposed to be a simple survey of an Imperial world, what Ross was also not telling his injured friend was that he had deployed the survivors of the marine brigade to the surface of the planet to find the population and what they found in the capital city would have turned anyone’s stomach, millions of bodies, thrashed shreds of human beings that had once been Icaran citizens, somehow though even with all that carnage most of the planet’s population had turned up alive, hiding in the mines and bunkers that dotted their world. Unfortunately Duke Tyrol had died leading a brigade of SS in an assault against the main force of creatures, but his death had not come without some success, most of the creatures that attacked the planet were butchered by the Planetary defense forces and SS brigades before the human military forces were over run and driven back or slaughtered, out of 12 SS brigades attached to the planet, including the Midenshield orbital brigade only 2 brigades had survived the battle and one of them was down to two third’s strength.
All in all including the losses aboard Blackbird the tactical officers had guessed that nearly twelve million of their people had died. Ross patted Fowler’s head gently again as she drifted back into the bliss of unconsciousness, while her ship hurtled into the void of warp space to make her long journey back home.
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When life gives you lemons take them and squeeze them in life's eye until it gives you the oranges you asked for!
"If men build things to look like our penis such as towers and ships does that mean female achitects represent women having penis envy?"
A line that made me chuckle, I can't remember where I heard it I just know it made me laugh.
"I'm not really a slapper....I mainly punch and gouge."
Tammy Lee my kung fu instructor/sifu's daughter when asked if she ever slapped a boy for saying something nasty to her.
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