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Last Battle: Outpost 33
Posted By: JOTD Fanfiction Team<briane@teleport.com>
Date: 20 November 2003, 2:42 AM
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2100 Hours, July 7 2552 (Military Calendar)/
Mars Archeological Outpost 33
Brian began to get bored, staring absent-mindedly into his microscope, looking at samples of dirt and rock on Mars.
"Hey." A voice from across the room knocked Brian's mind back into reality as he noticed he had been staring at the same sample for the good part of an hour and had barely even noticed it was there, his mind off thinking about something else. The voice continued "I'm going out to try and contact the team we sent out a little while ago. For some reason the radio has alot of static on it and I can't get a good signal, so I'm going to go outside and see if it's any better..." He paused for a second. "If I don't get a good signal outside, I'll go find them myself." Brian knew the voice as Guy. Normally the outpost had 9 people stationed at it, but 6 of them left to dig an hour or two ago. The only three left, (two now, Brian thought) were Guy, Jim, and himself.
"Right..." He replied as he stopped trying to focus on the sample he had been staring at. He needed to stretch his legs and get something to eat. Can't think on an empty stomach, he thought to himself as he got up to walk to the cafeteria
____________________________________________________________
Brian, gorging himself in the cafeteria, was interrupted once more.
"Look, Guy hasn't come back yet, and knowing him he tripped into a hole he dug on the way back, so I'm gonna go look for him, it won't take long... And I suggest that if you want your salary this month you quit pigging out and get back to work." Jim noted as he walked out. Brian, now alone, didn't care either way, as no one was there to boss him around for once.
He leaned back in his chair and touched the fingertips of his hands together and thought...
____________________________________________________________
Jim stepped outside and immediately felt the rush of cold night air. Normally he would be putting an environment suit on, but there was a transparent shield around the outposts, and it split into tunnels that lead to other outposts and digging sites. As long as you were inside the dome, gravity and atmosphere were the same as Earth, sometimes lighter at digging sites.
"Guy?" He called out. The words echoed out and died in the dark night sky. He called out again and there was still no response.
He began to walk around the dome, calling over and over again, with no response. Then, after he called for the umpteenth time while turning the corner of the building he thought he heard movement just around the next corner.
"Guy!?" He half-yelled and picked up his pace. Turning the corner again, right as he did, he saw a shadow go around the next corner.
Typical.
"Look, Guy, this isn't funny, we've slacked off enough today already, if we don't get working the boss is gonna kill us!" He burst into a run around the building, getting the same result each time. Another shadow going around the corner. But after a few laps he began to get tired, and noticed there was no longer any other noise, and no shadows. He realized this and whipped around, expecting to see Guy right behind him.
Expecting this so much, infact, that he yelled
"GOTCHA!" When he turned around and started laughing, then stopped after the eerie realization hit him that whatever was out here with him wasn't Guy.
"Guy?... Guy?..... GUY!!!?!??" He screamed, beginning to get scared. He ran around the building to the front and heard something that sounded like a muffled laugh coming from the storage shed. A great feeling of relief washed over him as he began to walk towards the shed, now knowing why the shadows and noise had disappeared.
Walking into the shed, he looked around. There was hardly any light, it was night time and the only lights were the floodlights in front of the outpost that washed enough light into the shed for him to see about two feet in front of him, but the rest was encased in blackness.
He heard movement, and then saw a foot come out of the shadows for no more than a second. He knew it, this was where Guy was, he just knew it. But the more he thought about it the more he realized that whatever came out of the shadows didn't look like a foot.
No human foot anyways.
"Guy, look, I know you're in here, so just come out, the boss is gonna have our heads if he finds out about this." He coaxed, but there was no response except for another muffled sound.
Of course its him! Don't be silly... He probably just swept a shovel out into the light for a second, who else could be out there? And he's obviously laughing and trying to stop the sound with something... Jim tried to convince himself.
Then there was a thump, and something came rolling out of the shadows.
Jim screamed and jumped back. There, lying right in front of him, was Guy's decapitated head, blood still gushing out of the bottem. He screamed again and tried to run back to the building but tripped.
Looking back, he saw a shadowed leg step out of the shadows. He tried to scramble forward on his hands and knees while trying to get up at the same time. He looked back again and saw a full shadow walking towards him. The only problem was...
That was the ONLY thing coming towards him. There was no body, just a shadow. By now he was in total shock, trying to scream but no words would come out. Infact, he found that he couldn't move at all...
Looking the shadow up and down, he saw plainly that it was not human. It had hoofed feet, was taller than Jim by a full head, and looked as if it's knees were deformed and swollen badly. It came closer, and closer, slowly. Jim's body was still non-responsive, he was completely in shock. It stepped close enough so that he could feel it in front of him.
Then everything went black...
____________________________________________________________
Brian found himself once again staring down through the microscope at, as far as he cared, nothing. For some reason he couldn't concentrate. Jim hadn't come back for 15 minutes, and it should have taken only about 5 to find Guy.
As if to answer his mental question, he heard the door to the outside open and was relieved.
After a minute he noticed that the door never closed, nor did he hear either Jim or Guy, let alone both of them. Getting up to go investigate, he found the door still wide open, all the heat in the room going out and being replaced by cold air.
"Dude, why'd you let all the cold air in?" He said scornfully and shuffled tiredly over to close the door. There was still no response.
"Jim?..... Guy?.... Hello, anyone out here?" There was no response. While he was turning to go back to his part of the lab, he saw a blur out of the corner of his eye. He turned around to see nothing there but another small blur of movement through a doorway that had the words MANAGER written in gold letters on it.
"Come on guys, what are you doing in the manager's office?" He walked into the room that was dark except for a small lamp in the corner that barely illuminated half of the room. There was no trace of recent activity anywhere in the room. Must be seeing things.. He thought to himself as he turned to leave. As he was walking out, he noticed that it seemed his footsteps were slightly echoed. Turning around, he saw a spot on the carpet that was pushed down, as if just stepped on, except the odd footprint wouldn't move. It was as if the carpet was permanently pinned down by some invisible force.
Someone must be messing with the gravity levels, that's probably just my footprint.. Brian thought, trying to come up with a logical explanation to try and take away the goosebumps on his skin. And if somebody was messing with the gravity levels, they must be in the control center. Right as he started walking, he noticed the echo again. Figuring it had to just be creaking floorboards he walked faster down the main hall to the control room.
Then an eerie thought hit him:
This building didn't have floorboards.
He sprinted into the control room and closed the door behind him, and locked it.
"Oh come on... Really, who could be here?" He thought aloud as he walked over to the communications desk.. What he had said didn't help, because while he didn't know who was here, he certainly now knew who wasn't.
He tried to contact the nearest outpost, Outpost 34, then realized that the reason Guy went out was because the radio wasn't working. Looking around for a hand-held radio, he also realized that was what Guy had taken with him outside.
Across the room, he heard the doorknob turn, but not open because he had locked it. Instead of the voice of Jim or Guy asking if anyone was there, the doorknob just turned again, and yet didn't open. Then the door began to shake rapidly.
Brian didn't need any more hints.
He ran to the door to try to hold it closed, and pulled two chairs up against it in a failing effort to keep the mysterious intruder out. Running across the room to a glass case on the wall that said "Break incase of Emergency" on it, and bashed the glass in, pulling out the pistol inside. He tried to load it, but his hands were shaky and he dropped the clip on the floor. As he bent over to get it the door broke open, and part of what used to be a chair flew over and knocked the clip out of sight.
Standing up, Brian saw a shadow lurking in the doorway. Only shadow, there was no body to make it. It looked as if it was hoofed and had badly deformed knees, and was much taller than Brian. It began to walk forward towards Brian, the shadow looking menacing, like a cat about to pounce on it's prey.
Brian screamed to get back, but obviously had no means of defense. He whipped around and saw a window at the end of the room.
He was saved.
Running to the window, he tried to pull it open but found it locked. As he reached down he noticed something in the sky. Closer inspection revealed it wasn't just one thing, but many, many things. A wave of tiny lights swarming closer. It couldn't be a meteor shower, he would know if there was one. As they got closer he realized that they were ships. A whole fleet of ships, and all of them looked completely alien, giving off a beautiful purple hue.
He couldn't believe what he saw, and as the figure drew closer and ignited a strange blue blade, it was the last thing he saw...
Author's Note: The people on the JOTD Fanfiction Team that worked on this chapter are Elfster and candygnome.
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