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Marooned - Chapter 14
Posted By: Steve Ollett<sollett@clydematerials.co.uk>
Date: 22 April 2004, 10:10 AM
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MAROONED, CHAPTER 14
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1725HRS 08-OCT-2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR)
SECOND PLANET OF ACKWAZE SYSTEM.
UNDERGROUND FACILITY, EXACT LOCATION: UNKNOWN
The muzzle flash of the MA5B assault rifle gave a weird strobe-light effect in the dim light of the corridor. Orange sparks added to the light show where the 7.62mm armor-piercing rounds ricocheted off the grey-blue paneled walls.
The weapons fire in the confines of the corridor resonated deeply, the impacts of the rounds thrummed like an intense hailstorm raining down on dozens of empty 205 litre oil drums. Those metallic sounds were punctuated by the high-pitched electric hiss of several sporadic streams of returning green plasma fire and cyan-blue plasma grenades detonating in a chain reaction.
Sergeant Ryan fired again as he slowly advanced along the hexagonal cross-sectioned corridor, stepping over the fallen bodies of Covenant Grunts - his face briefly lit up by the yellow flash as his Assault Rifle ejected another three round burst from the muzzle of the weapon. His bare arms, shoulders and body armour were liberally splattered with Covenant blood.
Private Travis Garrett accompanied Ryan, his MA5B firing likewise.
Another Grunt fell under the fusillade of fire.
"Woo Hoo!" grinned Garrett, as he briefly glanced sideways at Ryan, "It's like shooting fish in a barrel!"
An injured Grunt lay on the ground before Garrett. In a last desperate effort, it reached out with it's claw, attempting to grasp its' weapon that lay almost within reach -
"I don't fucking think so!" Garrett said sternly as he brought the butt of his rifle down on the small alien's cranium. The heavy weapons' blunt end collapsed the Grunt's skull forcing cyan-blue blood out of it's eye sockets, together with it's now sightless eyes.
"You're a mean bastard when you want to be!" Ryan remarked as he snapped his gaze away from the bludgeoned Grunts and scanned the corridor ahead. He wiped the mixture of sweat and alien blood off his face with the back of his hand. His eyes flicked down at the digital readout of his MA5B for a split second. Another magazine almost used.
"Watch your ammo!" yelled Ryan as he stepped over another Grunt carcass as he approached what appeared to be a T-junction in the corridor ahead, "We're not out of here yet!"
"Ok Sarge," Garrett replied as he rounded the corner to his left ahead of Ryan and let out another ten or twelve round burst which tore through the two Grunts which were laying in wait for them in the alcove.
"Nice work." Ryan commended as he slapped Garrett on the back. He paused briefly to watch the two small aliens' bodies twitch spazmodically in a sea of cyan blood.
The wall above the men hissed and bubbled as several streams of plasma fire impacted.
"Shit!" Garrett exclaimed as he pulled Ryan back into the cover of their corridor, "Maroon Elite, in the corridor to the right!"
"Crap!" Ryan muttered - not because it was an Elite, but more out of the fact that he hadn't been careful enough. If Garrett hadn't of reacted so quickly, he might have been injured or dead.
Ryan quickly flicked out his inspection mirror and used it to see around the corner to confirm Garrett's statement. "Yeah. It's using that crate as cover. Bastard! This is going to be tricky!"
"Problems?" yelled John Stocks from behind.
"Yeah," Ryan replied turning to face the Corporal. He winced as Garrett fired his MA5B. The acoustics of the corridor amplified the weapons noise. "We've got a maroon Elite holed up behind a crate ahead. Any ideas?"
"Maybe." said Stocks as he tossed a Covenant plasma pistol at Ryan.
Ryan caught the weapon and shot a puzzled look back at Stocks moments before Private Garrett barged into him as he retreated from a volley of plasma fire.
"Quit fucking about, man!" Ryan snapped.
"Sorry Ryan." Garrett replied, "That bastard's aim is improving. Whatever you've planned you better do it quick!"
Ryan looked at Stocks, "Ok, so what do I do?"
"You know how to overcharge those things?" Stocks replied as he ejected the magazine from his M6D pistol.
"Uh-Huh." Ryan nodded.
"Good." Stocks said as he loaded a fresh magazine, and cocked the pistols' slide mechanism. "Immediately after Garrett's next burst, roll out and hit the bastard with an overcharged shot. Leave the rest to me."
"What?!?! You've gotta be joking right?" Ryan replied.
"No!" shouted Stocks over the sound of Garrett who was rapidly emptying another magazine in the general direction of the Elite.
Garrett fired the last rounds in his assault rifles' magazine. "You're up!" he yelled as he ducked back into the corridor.
I'm gonna regret this! thought Ryan as he rolled out into the open.
The Elite locked it's gaze onto the new target - which due to the green glow of the overcharged pistol - had immediately attracted its' attention. It raised its' weapon and roared a challenge as Ryan let fly the overcharged plasma.
In what seemed like an eternity, the green plasma snaked through the air towards the Elite, just as it was raising it's plasma rifle.
In a fluid moment, John Stocks stepped out into the corridor as the green plasma splashed over the Elite. He held the M6D steady as he let off two shots in quick succession which ripped through the Elite's helmet and skull. The creature was dead before it's body hit the floor.
"Friggin A!" cheered Garrett.
Ryan lept up from the floor. "It's the last time I take your advice! If this piece of alien shit had misfired, or that bastard had been less vain, I'd be dead now!" shouted Ryan, again wiping the sweat away from his forehed with the back of his left hand. "Where did you get the idea for that?" he said as he cast the plasma pistol onto the floor before he unslung his assault rifle.
"O'Shea told me." Stocks replied, "You can ask him where he saw it."
"Who mentioned me?" Private Sean O'Shea asked as he walked up with his M90 Shotgun held aloft, resting on his right shoulder. His face was streaked with blue and purple blood. Ryan did a double take on O'Shea. Either he was imaginging things or had O'shea smeared the blood on his face into something in the style of tribal war-paint?
O'shea was accompanied by Private Tom Collins and Karen Moore.
"Nice idea with the overcharged shot, Sean." said Ryan, now scruntinising the private's new facial appearance more closely. "What's with the war-paint, been collecting scalps?"
"Oh, er yeah, in a manner of speaking" said O'Shea, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. He normally didn't like to draw that much attention to himself when other people were around. "I must have gotten carried away."
"Just a bit!" exclaimed Collins who had now taken up a seat on one of the smaller crates littering the corridor. "When you started shouting, you scared the shit out me, let alone the Grunts that were trying to follow us!"
"So tell me where you got the idea for the plasma pistol from?" asked Ryan whilst O'Shea wiped the blood off of his face with the left sleeve of uniform.
"Remember when I said that we ran into a Covenant patrol on the way over here in the Warthog?" said O'Shea, "Well, I saw one of the Jackals accidently hit an Elite with an overcharged shot and that must have taken its' shields out in one go. We dropped it moments later with the LAAG without any of the shield flare we normally see with those guys. I guess I never got chance to tell you, but I did mention it to Stocks. I didn't know if we could pull it off though."
"As I said - Nice one!" said Ryan.
"No problem." replied O'Shea as he walked back towards Garrett, Collins and Stocks.
Karen Moore stepped forwards. The top half of her flight suit had been cut off earlier due to it being drenched with Zoran's blood. Over the top of her green T-Shirt she now sported Ryan's charcoal-grey combat shirt. Despite the fact that it was too big for her, and her hair was slightly matted, Ryan mused that she still looked good in it in a dishevelled sort of way.
"You Ok?" Ryan asked.
"Yeah." Karen purred as she slinked towards Ryan, and ran a finger down one of his toned arms. "I see you're not cold since you let me borrow your shirt."
"He should get a fucking room, and put her out of her misery." muttered Stocks under his breath to his colleagues as he stood some distance away from Ryan and Karen.
Collins, O'Shea and Garrett erupted in laughter.
The sound of a distant explosion snapped everyone back into focus on the job in hand - locating the second science team and escape from the facility.
1806HRS 08-OCT-2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR)
SECOND PLANET OF ACKWAZE SYSTEM.
UNDERGROUND FACILITY, EXACT LOCATION: UNKNOWN
"Explosion ahead!" shouted O'Shea as he glanced behind as he and Garrett led the charge through the corridors.
"Range?" Ryan yelled in response.
"A couple of hundred metres." O'Shea replied.
Suddenly the ground beneath them shuddered as another explosion reverberated through the facility.
O'Shea, Ryan and the other emerged from the corridor onto a large walkway.
The walkway spanned what appeared to be a large underground chasm. The chasm ran ninety degrees across their path, the wall on their side and on the opposite side extended off to their left and right into the darkness. The walls were composed of metallic panels which had the colour of grey slate, with what appeared to be more of the same precision machined indentations. Along the lines of these indentations, faint streams of red light passed to and fro in vertical patterns.
In the depths below the walkway, a red glow pulsed rapidly in a mist that obscured the floor beneath. It was impossible to determine how deep it was.
The walkway was roughly six metres wide and was made of what appeared to be a mosaic of the same tiles that decorated the walls. Apart from several short pillars that lined the edges, short walls projected halfway across the width of the platform in a regular spacing of about ten metres between each wall. The walls formed what appeared to be a continuous chicane across the length of the walkway.
Two electric blue streams of energy ran above the walkway linking the platform and both sides of the chasm - one on either side of the metallic walkway. Their appearance remainded Ryan of the cables he'd seen on single-span suspension bridges back on Earth.
At the halfway point across the chasm, the walkway intersected with a cylindrical column that was about three metres in diameter. The column rose out of the red mist below them, passed through the walkway and extended off into the gloom above them.
The party slowly traversed the walkway without incident.
As they passed the column, Ryan stopped to run his hand over the smooth surface of the metal. Private Sean O'Shea paused alongside Ryan as the rest of the party continued their crossing.
Ryan examined the surface of the column. The slate-grey metal had a series of shallow grooves cut into it. The course of the grooves ran vertically, with an occasional large radius arc to the left or to the right that joined another vertical groove. The layout of this reminded Ryan of an aerial view of the tracks that made up a railway freight yard - He'd seen such pictures in a history lesson back in school.
Turning to face Private O'Shea, Ryan asked, "What do you think it is? A support structure?"
"Er maybe not" replied O'Shea as he stopped to inspect the column. He flipped up the end of the M90 shotgun that he held so that the barrel rested against his right shoulder. His gaze followed the column up into the darkness above. He looked back down and then gave both ends of the walkway a quick glance. "The span of the walkway is what, er, about only about a hundred metres. I reckon that the overhead energy beams are the extra support." He then held the palm of his left hand against the slate grey metal. Turning to face Ryan, O'Shea asked, "You feel that?"
"What?" replied Ryan as he also pressed his hand onto the metal surface.
"A slight vibration." O'Shea answered. "Something is passing through this column. At first I thought it might be a power transfer conduit, but you wouldn't necessarily get vibration with that..."
Taking a couple of steps back from the column, O'Shea gave the structure another looking-over. "Hmmm..." he mused, "This thing could be a materials transfer conduit, or some other type of transit system - maybe a lift."
"I can't see any evidence of a doorway" said Ryan as he slowly walked around the column.
"Me neither." replied O'Shea.
Ryan was about to speak when an explosion in the depths below them caused the walkway to shudder. Ryan and O'Shea quickly moved the edge of the walkway and cautiously peered over.
Beneath them a series of smaller explosions detonated with yellow-orange flashes in the mist below.
"That's not plasma based explosions!" Ryan announced as he turned back from the edge of the walkway.
"I was just thinking that," said O'Shea, "Sounds like our stuff; M19 rockets or seismic survey
charges."
Corporal Stocks, who together with the rest of the party was at least ten metres ahead of Ryan and O'Shea yelled, "We've got company!" as several crouched figures emerged from the doorway at the opposite end of the platform. In the gloom he could make out two huge hunched over figures accompanied by four smaller crouched creatures. "Shite!" Stocks added, "We've got Hunters, two of big bastards! If that's not enough for you we have four blue-shield Jackals too!"
"Take cover people!" Ryan yelled as he and O'Shea ran to regroup with the rest of the party as the first streams of incoming plasma fire flashed past them. "That means you too!" he said as he threw Karen to the floor.
"You're quite forceful when you want to be!" she beamed at him from the floor.
"This is not the time!" Ryan said seriously as he got up and crouched behind the wall in front of them.
Private Garrett busied himself with laying down suppressing fire with his assault rifle. Whilst Corporal Stocks crouched down and unslung his sniper rifle.
"Keep the Jackals busy," Stocks hissed as he took aim, "don't left them try to advance, at least not whilst those Hunters are still a problem." Gently squeezing the trigger, Stocks let fly a single round. "Crap!" he muttered as the round deflected off the armoured shield of the lead Hunter. "This is no good," he continued, "I need to get a shot in from the side or the back."
The familiar screech of Needler rounds as they ricocheted off one of the Jackal's shields barely carried over the sound of the party's projectile weapons' fire.
Ryan turned to face Private Collins, "Stopping firing that thing! It's no use against their shields!" He yelled. "Use this instead." Ryan added, sliding his pistol along the polished metal floor towards Collins.
Collins quickly threw down the Needler and taking up the pistol, disengaged the safety and quickly despatched one of the Jackals.
"That's more like it!" Ryan said approvingly.
"Yeah!" cheered Collins as he lined another Jackal up in his sights.
"Incoming!" Stocks yelled as he crouched lower as a green bolt from the lead Hunter's fuel-rod cannon discharged, arcing over their heads. The bolt impacted just behind the walkway's column causing the platform to violenlty vibrate.
Suddenly a loud hiss eminated from the column behind them as the outline of an aperture formed in the surface of the metal.
"There was a door afterall!" O'Shea exclaimed as he saw the doorway form.
Blue plasma fire blazed through the narrow opening that slowly grew on the columns' surface facing them.
"Bastards!" Ryan screamed in disbelief as he swung round to face the column, "More Covenant! On our six! "
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