Post
by Praeothmin » Tue Dec 13, 2011 8:31 pm
Here it is, the update you've all been waiting for, all action, all the time...
(seriously, hope you guys like it)
Chapter 30
*Cue “Le Loup Blanc, Guévaudan” from the Brotherhood of the Wolf soundtrack*
James turned around, looking for an exit, but the only two passages he saw were filled with creatures, and when he looked back at the eggs, he noticed that those closest to him had began to open.
He turned back to the passages and in each of them, fired three bursts of his Type-III Phaser rifle, killing one or two creature, but more importantly, making them duck.
Using the few seconds he’d bought himself, he grimly turned around and, after making a few adjustments to his rifle, fired at the eggs, using a sweeping firing arc.
The Phaser beam exited the rifle in a cone, at least five meters wide at its widest point, fifteen meters away from its origin.
As he fired, he started to advance, ensuring that he would vaporize all the eggs he could see.
He heard a loud screeching emanating not too far away, its origin lost in the maze of tunnels.
As he was advancing, he noticed that there was a recess at the back of the room, and when he looked in it, he saw an enormous white semi-translucent pouch, suspended to the ceiling of the room, one end moving about the floor, laying eggs, while the other end seemed to go through the ceiling, connected to the “queen” creature, James thought.
He fired at the egg pouch using his wide-beam setting again, vaporizing it and its contents, increasing the power of the screech he had heard tenfold, and when his weapon beeped, indicating it had depleted its power reserves, he ejected the spent cell and took out another one.
He was about to reload when he was hit from the right side and was thrown to the floor under one of the creatures, the Phaser rifle clattering away over fuming egg remains.
**************************************************
Doc was yelling orders, the team’s frantic movements displaying their fear and their attempts to control it.
Doc had decided that the best place to shore up their defences was in the Medical Lab where they had found the creatures in the Stasis Tubes, since it only had one entry point, and the windows would be recovered by metallic shutters, ensuring no one could come at them from that direction.
They had closed them, and used their Type-II hand Phasers as welding tools to weld the shutters in place.
They had also closed the only door to the room, and had welded it shut also.
No exit had been kept unsealed, because while they could create an exit by firing Phasers at any surface, they hoped that the creatures would have a harder time getting in.
They had done the same with the door that led to the outside corridor, in order to win them some time, and maybe hoping that the creatures would leave once they saw how tough it was to come in.
Once the door to the Med Lab had been welded shut, they had overturned some desks in a semi-circle facing the door, and some others facing the windows, just in case.
They were taking their designated positions between the two rows of desks when the door to the main Medical Bay room rang out, as if some heavy object had been flung at it.
They settled in their defensive positions, Doc taking up the rear, watching the windows, but mostly watching over Newt, who, although she did seem terrified, acted calmer then he and his men were.
The only other person as calm as Newt, if not calmer, was Boomer.
When Banner’s panicked call had come, she had felt the fear, the panic, rise up in her, but then she had looked a Newt, who was watching her with expecting eyes, and she remembered her promise.
She had straightened up, looked at Newt and said:
“They’re not getting us, I promise you.”
So there she was, behind her desk, waiting, eagerly, for the first creature, the first “alien”, to rear its ugly head, so she could show it how tough Cylons were.
They heard a few more ringing sounds, and then a crashing sound.
The door had been breached, and the scraping they heard coming towards the Med Lab told them the Aliens had not been deterred.
***********************************
*Cue “Mad World” from Gary Jules, the Gears of War version*
James and the creature were rolling on the floor, a heap of arms and legs and claws.
The creature was trying to slash at James, but the Duranium armor he wore held up to the first slashes.
But James didn’t want to know how much longer it could resist.
He let his back be pinned to the floor, and once there tried to use some grappling techniques to immobilise the creature, but he quickly realized how futile it was.
He was used to grappling with humanoids, man or metahuman, and they all behaved in the same manner once on the floor, manners that were predictable, and thus could be countered.
But now, he was facing a strong creature that was flaying wildly, with no measured movement, no practiced technique.
He was trying to evade the claws and the mouth, when out of the jumble of limbs came a blade, going straight for his face.
He barely had time to move his head to the left, when the blade impacted on his helmet.
Having moved his head to the side, the blade saw its perfect trust angled the other side, and thus, instead of shearing through the helmet, it simply cut a long gash at its side.
Serrated edges scraping at his scalp told James the blade had penetrated, though, and that out of all the weapons this creature possessed, its tail was the most dangerous.
He couldn’t fight like this for much longer, he knew, because he was vulnerable while on his back, and so he moved.
His left leg came up, kneeing the creature in the stomach, while his right leg went out and up, and then came back over the creature’s hind leg in a downward motion, pinning it to the floor.
His left hand went up and impacted the creature’s sternum while his right swept its forearms off him, pushing it to his left at the same time.
Once the creature had started moving, James’s twisted his body to the right, on his left side, out from under the creature.
As soon as the creature landed, James kicked at it with his right leg, pushing it almost ten feet away.
He used the momentum imparted to his leg by the impact to swing it up in a circle, his left leg following, and corkscrewed his body in a mid-air pivot that landed him on his feet, facing the creature.
Only there were now five creatures facing him.
******************************************************
The door to the Med Lab finally gave in to the sixth impact against it, and it crashed loudly down to the floor, as Aliens rushed in to submerge the intruders.
As soon as the first Alien had been seen, though, the MACOs had opened fire, raining death among the ranks of the creatures, pulse after pulse, the crimson energy bolts vaporizing silicon flesh every time they hit.
The first wave of the creatures was defeated quickly, smoking carcasses dripping acid blood on the floor, the strong sulphuric smell invading the defender’s nostrils.
Then a second wave came, and they resumed firing, but one of the creatures, coming in at the back of the pack, was relatively unscathed as it lunged to the side upon entering, running in quick strides around the defences, and finally coming in from the left.
It jumped high in the air, over the upturned desk, and was met with three rapid pulses from Boomer’s rifle, which lifted and deflected it sideways, where it crashed into the Stasis Tubes.
The tubes crashed to the floor and broke in hundreds of glass shards, spilling their content to the floor, the dead creatures, as well as the two live ones, who scampered off under some furniture in a corner of the room.
****************************************************
*Cue “Teahouse” from Juno reactor in the Matrix Reloaded soundtrack*
A quick sidelong glance told James his Phaser rifle was out of reach, so when the creatures started moving towards him, he took out his Colt Manhunter and fired.
The first creature was hit with three successive head shots, the armor piercing rounds coring through its exoskeleton, spilling its brains all over its companions.
They shrieked and hissed in unison, and then they tried to rush him.
They were fast, these creatures, moving on all four easily as they did on two legs, and so they knew this bipedal creature would not be able to move away from them, assuring them of a kill, the bipedal in front of them clearly too dangerous to allow to live, to risk impregnation.
But then James was no longer there.
As soon as they had moved, he had too, diving in a sidelong roll to his left, getting to his feet after the roll, firing as he did, each bullet scoring a hit, each hit fuelling the rage the creatures had towards him.
He saw a passage he couldn’t see before, one that had been hidden from him by the egg pouch.
It was the only passage not swarming with creatures, so he took it, running into it, firing as he did, emptying his clip in the pursuing creatures.
The passage was large enough for James to run comfortably in, but still narrow enough that the creatures could only come at him two at a time.
There were no side passages, which reassured him, but at the same time his gut told him that the winding passage may not bring him to safety.
He exited the passage at a run, but then stopped dead in his tracks, for before him stood the biggest creature he had seen yet, easily four meters tall and five meters long.
It was currently detaching itself from the remains of the egg pouch James’s had vaporized, but then it spotted James and, showing its teeth, let out a cavernous screech.
Lifting his pistol, fully loaded with a fresh clip of fifteen rounds, he intended to empty his gun at the massive, clearly angry creature.
*******************************************************
Newt screamed as the small creature jumped at her, but it never landed, as it was snatched in mid-air by a gauntleted hand that closed on its tail like a vice-grip.
Boomer then swung the creature as she would have a sling, and threw it at the oncoming Aliens.
As it landed on the head of one of the bigger creatures, it was pierced by a pulse of energy that cored through and also impacted on the bigger Alien’s head.
The pile of bodies was getting bigger and bigger now, slowly bringing the creatures closer to the defender’s positions.
The acidic blood of the dead creatures also ate through the floor, the walls, and everything it had splashed upon because of the dying creatures’ trashing.
Another wave was coming in, and once again it was met with pulsating power propelled through their bodies from the inventions of Starfleet’s weapons division.
As they were once again slowly repelling the attack, a new scream from Newt got Boomer’s attention, who turned her head just in time to see Doc go down under the attack of the remaining smaller creature, wrapping itself around his helmet.
She went to him immediately, while Newt screamed hysterically, as she was no longer seeing Doc, but her father, when he had come back from the derelict with the same creature on his face.
She grabbed the creature’s body, and as she started pulling, she saw its tail wound ever tighter around Doc’s neck armor.
“Get it off, get it off!” A panicked Doc shouted.
*****************************************************
*Cue Underworld soundtrack “Throwing Punches” from Page Hamilton*
A movement to his left made him look, just in time to see a creature’s tail head straight for him.
Reflexes honed in hundreds of fights propelled his body away from the lethal blade while his only defensive weapon – his pistol – came up to deflect it.
The blade passed above his right shoulder, well off the original target: his stomach.
James hit the floor on his back, but used the momentum he had to lift his legs up and over his body, using his arms and shoulders as leverage, and flipped back to his feet after upending himself, six feet back from where he was.
He lifted the heavy pistol, intent on putting three bullets in the attacking creature’s head, but as he lifted his weapon up, he saw the cannon and slide had been cut through at least half an inch, making the weapon inoperable, nothing but dead weight in his hand.
He threw at the creature which paid it no mind and jumped on him.
But James was ready, and braced.
The creature was stopped dead in its tracks, its hind legs scratching at his armor, his left hand grabbing the creature’s right arm, his right hand free to intercept and incoming tail blade.
The creature hissed at him, and opened its mouth to bite.
It lunged at James’s face, but it didn’t make it.
His right hand, waiting for a tail attack, was already there, pressing against the head, stopping it mere inches from his faceplate.
And then the faceplate cracked, impacted by the force of the second row of jaws that protruded lightning fast from the creature’s mouth.
Surprised, his vision now impaired by a cracked faceplate, James reacted even faster, by kicking at the creature with his right leg, while pivoting on his left, and opening his helmet’s visor with his left hand.
When his pivot was over, he had his combat blade in his right hand, his collapsible stick in his left, and he was seeing again, although he wished he was still blinded, for before him, less than five meters away was the large creature, and all around him were smaller ones.
He was alone, couldn’t call for help and was surrounded by dangerous, vicious creatures.
Death had come calling.
**********************************************************
Boomer was pulled with all her strength, and the creature reluctantly let go, but then it swung its tail around and grabbed her right arm with it.
It had changed target, and was writhing in her hands, trying to free itself and attack her.
Boomer held it firmly, and although she was struggling, her great strength allowed her to resist the creatures attempt.
She could still hear her team firing at the approaching aliens, and Doc even got up and joined the fray, looking no worse for wear, except for what looked like acid scorch marks on his armor.
She looked at Doc, held the creature up high to her right and told him to fire at it.
He looked at her like she was mad.
“The creature’s blood will melt your hands.” He said.
“I can’t do it.”
“If you don’t, I’ll have to spend the rest of the fight holding it, and you need me.” She said through gritted teeth.
“Now do it, damn it, it’ll be easier for me to live with acid burns on my hands then for you guys to fight without me.”
Doc hesitated only slightly, but he knew she was right, and so he adjusted his aim, and fired.
The bolt cored through the creature, vaporizing its center, but the rest of the creature came apart, acid splashing on Boomer’s hands and right pauldron.
There was some smoke as the acid tried to eat its way through, but the Duranium alloy proved itself to be tougher than their surroundings, and so she was unscathed.
She picked up her discarded rifle, and turned to fire at the oncoming hordes, killing one alien as it was about to climb over their makeshift barrier.
She was worried, though, as there were so many aliens killed, that the walls and floor of the Med Lab up to their barrier was almost non-existent now, the creature’s blood having melted so much of it in their death throws, which means the enemy had greater venues of attack now.
****************************************************
*Cue Matrix Reloaded soundtrack “Chateau” from Rob Dougan*
He spun to his right, his left hand moving the collapsible stick to impact on the head of a creature, propelling it in the path of two other attackers, while his right hand descended the blade it held across a creatures’s head, cutting it neatly in two, splashing blood on him once more.
His armor and blade were covered with it, but while the blade was untouched by the corrosive substance, his armor showed spots where the accumulation of splashes was beginning to take its toll.
Already, James had lost his Tricorder vambrace, and one pauldron was hanging looser, a strap having been eaten by the acid.
Still, the man inside was untouched, and was moving like he was possessed.
His move over, he spun to his left, his blade slashing horizontally, killing two more, slicing through limb and torso, this time taking a side step in his spin, using the opening he had created in the creature’s ranks to no longer be surrounded.
He back flipped over the remaining creature between himself and a passageway he’d seen, slicing at the back of the lunging enemy, deep enough that only half his two-feet long blade was showing, killing the creature instantly.
He landed on his feet, ready to run towards the passage’s entrance.
And the larger creature.
Somehow, it had anticipated his plan, had known exactly where he would try to go, and had moved there without him knowing.
It was less than three meters away, and started moving towards James.
He spun around, and found himself face to face with four creatures, which attacked him.
His left hand spun down and sideways to block an incoming bite with the collapsible stick, his left leg sweeping inside-out to kick a creatures’s head sideways, propelling it at its biting brethren.
As he kicked, his hips moved to the left, evading sweeping claws, and his right hand came up over his shoulder and descended to blade at his back, blocking a swinging tail blade, and then descending immediately back down to cut a clawing hand at the wrist.
He let go of his stick, leaned to his right, and flipped over the injured creature’s back, reversed his grip on the blade mid-air, and stabbed it when he landed, right through the side of the head.
He pulled the blade out, spinning again to his left while taking a step away from the creature, and when he faced them again, he held his blade in the standard grip again, with one less enemy.
But then he noticed the smaller creatures were backing away from him, and then he noticed the big shadow looming over him, coming from his back.
****************************************************
As another alien jumped over the defender’s barriers, it was received by Boomer’s empty rifle smacking it upside the head.
The creature landed hard against a cabinet, but it was on its feet instantly, and moving towards the now unarmed Boomer.
She kicked it in the face, not only stopping it dead in its tracks, but pushing it back a bit, allowing her to take out her combat knife.
She waited for the charge, and when it came, simply leaned back and brought her knife upward with all her strength.
It penetrated deep under the alien’s head, even puncturing the smaller mouth before it could come out and attack her.
She pulled the knife free of the dying creature and turned just in time to get rushed by another creature.
Her entire team, except for Doc, was in melee now, all of them holding the creatures off as best they could using their combat knives.
Doc was picking off the ones at the back, trying to give his team a fighting chance.
Boomer saw Cpl. Banner impale the alien he was fighting at the same time its tail penetrated his left shoulder.
She saw Private Heyes’s left arm get broken in the struggle with his enemy, before stabbing it repeatedly in an anger fuelled adrenalin rush.
Private Wilson blocked the smaller mouth of his attacker by placing his knife sideways, but was stabbed in his right thigh by the creature’s tail.
And then there was Newt.
Poor little Newt, looking straight at the face of one alien, the creature hissing at her.
As it prepared to lunge, a combat knife embedded itself in its skull, dropping it writhing to the floor.
“Stay away from her, you frakking monsters!” An enraged Sharon Valerii yelled, her right arm fully extended after the knife throw.
The creature attacking her pressed on, its opponent now unarmed.
But it didn’t know what it was facing.
The enraged Cylon’s right hand became a fist, which punched the creature in the head.
The first punch cracked the creature’s skull, the second one went through to the wrist, ignoring the acid that penetrated the armored gauntlet.
Boomer’s hand came out with fuming cerebral matter, which she threw down, and the creature’s lifeless body followed.
She threw herself at another advancing creature and wailed at it with no regards to her safety.
The alien’s tail knifed her in the gut, but the armor and her Cylon physiology transformed a killing blow into an easily ignored flesh wound.
As this creature tried to split her skull open with its smaller mouth, she grabbed it with her left hand and her right impacted it from the side, breaking it in two.
The creature reeled from the pain, and Boomer wasted no time stabbing it with its own broken mouth.
The serrated teeth, with all of Boomer’s strength behind, easily penetrated the creature’s exoskeleton, killing it.
************************************************
*Cue Mortal Combat Annihilation soundtrack “Theme song”*
James turned around and plunged between the creature’s legs, getting clipped on the thigh by one of the huge creature’s claws.
This time, the armor didn’t protect him as much as with the smaller creatures, and he felt the claws going through armor and flesh.
Any normal human being would have been cut to the bone, but James augmented body kept the wound superficial.
He exited his tuck and roll behind the creature, and barely evaded a killing blow by the creature’s tail by sidestepping to his left, right out of his roll.
He grabbed the creature’s tail as it whipped it up for another hit, and jumped on its back.
Holding on with his left hand, using its protruding ribs as hand holds, James reversed his grip on his knife, and started stabbing the creature.
It reared, it bucked trying to dislodge him, but he held on, his genetically enhanced strength allowing him to remain in place.
He stabbed again repeatedly, his incredible speed allowing him to hit the creature ten, fifteen times per second.
The blade could not, even with James’s incredible strength behind it, penetrate too deep in the creature’s body, but he knew that the accumulation of the wounds would ultimately kill the creature.
It knew it too, and so it rolled on its back tying to crush James, but he succeeded in hiding among the protruding ribs and so was neither crushed nor dislodged.
He knew, though, that time was of the essence, and so he waited until the great beast was back up on its feet to run up to its head, and he stabbed it in the neck many times.
Pain fuelled fury made the creature react instinctively, and tried to stab James with its enormous tail.
James saw the blow coming from his right, so he used the ribs as leverage, twisting away from the great bladed tail at the last instant.
He grabbed the tail with his left arm and cut immediately with his right.
The stump, spewing acid everywhere, whipped him in the back.
He almost went over the creature, but successfully held on at the price of his knife which clattered to the ground far from him.
He set his powerful legs against the creature’s rib, accepted another rib shattering tail whipping, still holding on, and with both hands holding the blade end of the tail, he rammed it through the creature’s skull.
The creature died, falling to the floor, in a screeching chorus, as all the smaller ones joined it in its death cries, sitting on their haunches, head pointing up, as wolves howling at the moon.
*************************************************************
The aliens all stopped, sat on the ground, and screeched, a deafening noise in the small Med Lab, or what remained of it.
This went on for some time, during which the MACOs, ragged and their armors torn, regrouped and took out their hand Phasers.
They set them on wide beam, and while the creatures were still screeching, they vaporized them, as well as a large portion of far room.
*************************************************************
He was running as fast as he could, knowing that the creatures were on his heels.
They had stopped for a moment to mourn their fallen leader, but then had turned towards the intruder, and had not found him.
He had fled, knowing he could not fight like this for much longer.
And so he was running, making his way back to the Medical Bay in a hurry, hoping to find his team still alive, hoping that the creatures had not gone after his team.
**********************************************************
Their Phasers were empty, their blades somewhere on the lower levels where they had fallen during the melee battle with the aliens.
They were battered, some bleeding profusely from many wounds, Boomer cradling Newt in her arms, her armor long ago torn off in battle, suffering from many acid burns.
Then they heard them, their claws clattering up from the lower levels, coming in from new openings, through new holes.
Looking at the floor gratings that were still intact, they saw clawed hands coming out and grip the edge of the holes, followed by these horrible heads with their horrible mouths.
As they approached, Boomer’s hand slowly moved to Newt’s neck, swearing to herself she would never let Newt be taken alive, would never let her suffer.
The first creature jumped straight at Doc, but he batted it aside with a table leg he was using as a club.
The second alien jumped as well, but never made it.
As it was sailing in the air, the body of a broken kindred flew into it from the doorway, making it crash to the far corner of the room.
Boomer’s eyes went to the doorway of the Med Lab, to look at a mountain of a man, bloodied, his armor, what was left of it, and even some skin, fuming from acid burns, standing there, snarling.
His right arm, which he kept at his back, extended, and she saw he was holding something in it.
Some sort of cable, which he unfurled with a twist of his hand.
As more of the creatures came out of the floor, he moved, and to everyone looked like a blur.
He waded in the aliens, kicking, punching, and wielding his whip around with such force he was actually able to crack the aliens’ exoskeleton with the cable.
It was over in seconds, the half a dozen or so creatures that had come back dying while they fell through the floor’s holes.
It was only when he stopped moving, both feet balanced on a structural beam that Boomer could discern what kind of cable he was holding: an alien’s tail, it’s deadly blade glistening with the acidic blood of the creatures it had sliced open.
*Cue “Haunted” from the Evanescence album Fallen*
Boomer smiled at James, relieved, and softly told Newt:
“Didn’t I tell you he eats monsters for breakfast?”
