Jayce lifted himself off of Pavel, his face turning a shade of pink. "Well. That's embarrassing... I'm glad this pile of clothes broke my fa---"
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING JAYCE?!" Pasha screamed, bringing his knee up into Jayce's groin. Jayce reeled back into another corner of the ship. The Credit looked odd. Soon, Jayce realized, that his ship was laying upside-down in the deck below the hangar bay. He managed to shamble over to a console, and jerking his neck into an awkward look, he switched on the cameras located on the outside of the Gunship, and the cameras relayed a rather disturbing image. The Credit was stained with red. Pasha was soon behind him, with a rather angry expression on his face. "I think we landed on something..."
"I'm going to pretend that never happened." Pasha stated, a bit of embarrassment lingering in his voice.
"Yeah. Let's. But look at th---" Jayce lurched away from the screen as a massive paw swiped into the camera, leaving 4 large scrapes on the glass. As he jerked back from the screen, his head hit the pair of fuzzy dice that he kept on the main viewscreen. "OH MAN! My dice!" Jayce pocketed the dice, hoping they would bring him luck. Hoping...
"So... Pasha, what do we do?" Jayce said.
Pasha simply raised his hands in a "Beats me" look.
With an eery glow of red and a flicker of orange, the retros fired to counteract the speed of the vessel that had come within spitting distance of the alien wreck that dominated the viewscreen. It was more akin to a gimpy squid than an actual star ship. How something so ugly and dark could be so much trouble. Then the flickers and tongues of darkness nipped at her inner consciousness. Her eyes were turned to the ship that she once thought insignificant. Now, it seemed all the more ominous.
She keyed the comms, broadcasting on the registered frequencies, "This is Lieutenant Colonel Angelica Broch in command of the Trotsky. We have a full compliment of ground forces ready for deployment at a moment's notice." She leaned back, once again getting comfortable in her chair. It was good to be back. But some things might be different. She could see it in the eyes of the men who sat at their crew stations around her.
It was no worry. If they showed any hesitance, she'd swiftly execute them.
"THE HULL HAS BEEN BREACHED AND THESCIENCEIS LEAKING OUT!"
Pasha fumbled around in a survival locker, looking for the one thing that would keep them alive in the bitter cold outside. The one thing that would ensure that no matter what came at them, they would face it and persevere.
He pulled out a bottle.
He twisted the cap off, took a long swig, passing the bottle over to Brooks.
"Da, this will keep you warm sir, and give you the courage to go out there and fight those things while I stay here and call for help on the comm."
The Valentina cruised along the leviathan hull of the alien vessel, it's searchlights sweeping over the outer plating of the ship. Stacy pulled the ship out of cruise and pushed the lights back on themselves, revealing a large, Storm-sized hole in the ship.
"There!" she pointed to her second, "Looks like some asteroid damage, that'll be our way in"
She handed over control of the ship, stepping down into a small holding area where her team of Marines waited. Each one was strapped up and ready for combat, though their faces displayed a definite lack of any intelligence whatsoever.
"Alright, you lovely chaps get the pleasure of extracting the good Colonel Alvarez, if he's still alive, and backing up the fire teams already inside. I'll be making sure you do this without shooting each other in the backs..."
Stacy stripped off her flight jacket, drawing the Marine's eyes for the first time since she'd entered stepped down onto the deck, and fitted herself with a sturdy armoured vest. On top of that, she slipped on a bandoleer of rifle rounds and a large overcoat, grabbing one of the high-powered ballistic rifles from the armoury rack.
The Valentina hovered on impulse and manoeuvring thrusters above the opening, the hatch at the bottom of the Storm opened up and dropped half a dozen grappling lines, ready for the Marines to board the ship.
"Okay, let's go have some fun gentlemen!"
Stacy smiled, slipping on her helmet and strapping her rifle across her back she pulled a lever decompressing the airlocked area of the Storm. One by one the Marines followed her down the lines, through the opening in the Alien ship's hull.
The Marines expertly covered each corner of the room, floating around in the light artificial gravity of the alien vessel.
Stacy kicked off of the floor, grabbing onto a corner of the ship's opening, there she placed a small electronic device, kicking away again, she placed another parallel to the first, pushing herself back down to the ground. One of the Marine Fire Team Leaders placed a small radar dish-like object down on the floor at the center of the opening and activated it. The device's dish exploded with a bright light, energy from within reaching both of the devices above it and securing a bubble shield to cover the opening.
The Marines waited for the ship's systems to compress the area, and removed their helmets, Stacy following their lead.
"Valentina, this is Winters, you are cleared to move on, I want sweeps of the outside of the ship, check on the Social Credit, and act as a relay for Comms from the outside, I want to know if you find Alvarez or Brooks before I do"
She threw aside her EVA gear and raised her Rifle, beckoning the Marines to follow. With swift hand-signals and practised routines, the Marines moved through the corridors of the ship, splitting off into three separate teams.
"Comrade Steeles, we have boarded the ship, be advised we have encountered hostile lifeforms, what's your status?" ringed the Comms, it was Petko.
"This is Steeles, just a few more seconds."
"We have entry." said a Marine over the Comms.
"Excellent work, alright gentlemen, suit up. I'll be with you for this mission, Josef, you have the pilots chair."
Josef saluted as Daemon passed by towards the armory. He was rather fond of being heavily armored and equally armed. He suited up in a special suit of armor he had made and he took his trusted Kalashnikov which he had personally tweaked and tinkered with whenever he was bored. As soon as he was suited up he prepared to rappel into the Derlict.
"Alright gentlemen, we go down together, I want a defensive perimeter set up imm-" just then, Steele heard the horrible screams and gunfire coming from the Tac-Comms, all too quickly the screams ceased. There was only silence and the occasional gunfire.
Without hesitation, the marines began to descend into the dark void of the Derelict, right behind them was Steele. The descending was unremarkable. As soon as they'd landed Steeles began to give orders.
"Alright, two teams. Ten head to the Credit and Five come with me to look for Alvarez."
The two teams went their separate ways, staying vigilant for whatever was down here.
The screams over Stacy's Tac-Comms was worrying, Steele had heard them from a little further along the Derelict, but she knew them to be her second Marine Fire Team, Bravo.
"Charlie Team, loop back on yourselves and check on Bravo Team, probable hostile forces, shoot anything that doesn't look friendly"
Her own team progressed through the corridors, covering each strange-shaped doorway and opening until the space opened up onto a large platform.
They had arrived at a large chamber, alien writings and lights spread across the sides of the walls, marking tanks and holding areas, all of them had some kind of electronic locking system, and the bad news was they were all open.
The floor down below was littered with all sorts of strange liquids, some of it seemingly blood, amongst the gore were various alien lifeforms, and the pieces that were once attached to them. None of them seemed to be capable of structured language, let along space travel, so this must be some form of alien menagerie.
"Valentina, this is Winters, patch this through to anyone on Tac-Comms who can pick it up" she surveyed the large room again, "Seems when we woke the defences, we also woke some kind of freaky alien zoo, there were dozens of food-chains kept down here and the ones at the top seemingly killed whatever wasn't weak enough to fight back when they got loose" she checked her rifle once more, "We have a whole bunch of wild alien predators loose on this wreck, so be on your guard, although I'm sure some of you already found out the hard way, Winters out"
Stacy signalled to her Marine team to descend the staircase down onto the menagerie floor, spreading out to follow the length of the ship towards Brooks.
A loud roar was heard as a large black shadow charged out from between two tanks, taking a Marine of his feet along with it.
The Marines turned to face the direction it was heading, seeing nothing and fearing to move forwards to check it out.
"Sergeant Chang?" Stacy called after him, "Are you still alive?"
Silence.
The shadow made another charge, this time from behind them. The fired their assault rifles at it's bulk, failing to even slow it in any shape or form. Stacy shifted out the way of it's mass as it took out another two marines, cutting them in half like sausages.
The remaining three Marines all ducked for cover, waiting for the fast shadow to re-emerge. Stacy stepped up onto what seemed to be crates of food for the animals, placing herself on top of one of the tanks. She could see better from up here, and perhaps gave her a little more protection from the shadow.
There was a loud bubbling beneath her, and she realised she was standing on some kind of transparent metal alloy. Below her was a tank of rather vicious-looking fish, or eels, or perhaps dolphins, they certainly looked like they could do some damage without much effort.
There was another blood curdling roar as the shadow lunged from below, knocking crates out of it's way to pounce on the remaining Marines. It's large dark claws decimated their weak fleshy masses, cutting through combat armour and ignoring their high calibre bullets.
Stacy fired off her clip, each shot with increasing recoil against her left shoulder. Failing that, she herself pounced, grabbing onto what appeared to be fur on the back of the large black mass and holding on for dear life. The creature shook violently, trying to remove her from it's gargantuan back, Stacy grasped the fur as hard as she could, reaching with her left hand for her knife.
With a growl and a thrust, she stabbed at the mass she was holding violently, feeling the creature recoil in pain and dive forwards throwing her head over heels into one of the tanks, a large crack forming in the glass.
With another aggressive growl she clambered to her feet, lunging forwards while the creature was down. It thought as she did though, raising one of it's limbs to block her arm, preventing the knife from penetrating it's fleshy face.
And what a face it was, Stacy's eyes widened as she stared into a couple of the seventeen or so small beady eyes of the beast, a few strange mandibles dripped with what seemed to be blood or saliva, each ready to tear Stacy's face off.
The strength of the beast was greater than that of her own, considering it's mass was more than five times her own. It held her knife, edge pointing towards it's ugly face, another limb raising to strike her down. Stacy cursed loudly and squeezed the handle of her knife, triggering a mechanism to eject the blade. The beast screeched an ear-piercing wail as it stumbled backwards in pain, the blade of the knife sticking out of where it's eyes had been.
Stacy strafed and pulled her side-arm, firing a couple of shots into the cracked glass of the fish tank and removing herself from the area of effect. The glass gave in to the weight of the water, allowing the liquid to gush out onto the menagerie floor, taking it's vicious supply of fish with it.
She watched with a combination of disgust and morbid curiosity as the contents of the fish tank began decimating the beast with a mix of teeth and toxins. Stacy holstered her side-arm, picking up her rifle and backing away from the bodies of the fallen.
"ME? Why ME? I just ran down a corridor, blasted a bear-zombie-alien-thingy in the face with a shotgun-turned-flamethrower, fired a Razor INSIDE of a hangar bay, and the Credit is now upside-down! And you're going to tell ME to go outside!? I've spent enough time outsi-" Jayce was cut off as Pasha pushed him out of the door. He stumbled around outside, yelling up at Pasha.
"You'll be fine sir... Here, take this..." Pasha said, tossing a bottle out to Jayce.
"Wh-wh-wh-what?" Jayce stuttered out against the cold. "You better get out here with me, or I'll smack your face off!" Jayce drew a set of knuckle dusters out of his pocket and slipped them over left hand. He climbed up the side of the craft to Pasha, and began to grapple with him. He smacked the side of Pasha's face right as Pasha's punch connected with Jayce's side. Jayce began to wind up for a swing right at his opponents jaw, when a loud roar interrupted them.
'Wait wait WAIT!" Jayce shouted, spinning around and drawing his sidearm. He let loose a blast right into the face of one of the bear aliens, which reeled back in pain. Not long after, what had to be 3 dozen smaller bears sailed out of a door behind the Credit, crawling over boxes and ramps to get to the downed ship. "Close the door! Close it!!" Jayce bellowed, as he awkwardly started the gunships engines.
"What's your plan this time, then?" Pasha yelled over the roar of the engines.
"Bigger flamethrower!" Jayce screamed, as he maneuvered the Credit's landing gear to right the craft. The entire port side of the gunship was mangled and torn, but the starboard side was still fully operational. "Watch this, Pasha!" Jayce said, as he flicked a switch on the main control panel. The gunship lifted off the ground, all of its maneuvering thrusters firing at once. A few seconds later, the cruise engines came online, blasting the entire pack of hungry bears back to whatever hell they came from. "HAH! How do you like that!" Jayce yelled triumphantly, as the Credit rose back up to the deck above like a Phoenix from the ashes, settling down once again on a patch of hangar that was not mangled and torn.
"So, what now, Pasha? You still think your stupid Vodka can solve your problems? Oh, and by the way..." Jayce wound up and connected a punch right into Pasha's ribs. "Don't hit me there. It hurts. See? Now, let's go find everyone else."
Alvarez ran, his heart was thumping in his chest as he tried desperately to stay on his feet, as he skidded around a corner, the ice causing him to crash against the bulkhead. He used his hands to find purchase as he pulled himself forward, trying to stay ahead of the bouncing/bounding horde of gnashing teeth and ripping claws.
One hand on his hat he sprinted off again, careening through a door and vaulting a railing, his assault rifle long gone somewhere behind him. He had no way to fight back, not that it would do much good'¦
He crashed to the deck, rolling up to glance at the death and gore around him. Coalition marines'¦
Working on instinct he grabbed one of the marines dual MP-90. The weapon was smaller, more compact than the assault rifle. But it was capable of fully automatic fire with both standard 10mm ball bearings in a 20 round clip, and a secondary repeating blaster on a thermo-nuclear battery pack. It was the latter he selected, holding onto the pistol grip and the MFI grip on the front stock.
The alien beasts bounded over the railing, as he opened fire, the weapon spitting fire as he churned through the small creatures, a wicked smile curling the corner or his lips.
'Si, batos, you make me run, you make me bounce around like some kind of piñata, si now it's your turn'¦' he kept the pressure up, aware that someone else was firing along with him. Kneeling he picked up a second SMG, as he and the other Coalition officer stepped back to back, weapons sweeping too and fro, shattering glass, little bouncing alien critters, and anything else that got in their way.
A few moments later they were alone, and a health pile of little white critters smoldered in a circle around them.
Alvarez tossed the spare SMG down as he glanced at his partner.
'Captain Winters,' he extended his hand to her, pulling her into a relieved hug and clapping her on the shoulder. 'I owe you one, hermana.'
Slinging the SMG he knelt to recover a TAC headset from a dead marine, slipping it on to the echo of screams from the Botev assault team.
'We need to regroup,' he said, straightening up. As the ship shuddered again'¦ this time the vibrations on the ship were like an Earth quake, tossing both of them to the deck amidst the slushy snow, blood and broken glass.
'What the ?!?!' Alvarez clawed his way to his feet as the vibrations subsided. It was as if'¦ His hand slapped his face. 'BROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOKS!'
He thumbed the TAC-link, 'hermano, I would kindly ask you, ese, not to try to fly a starship INSIDE a starship that has obvious structural problems'¦ especially not when I am on this ship, hermano'¦'
'This is Colonel Alvarez to all units, pull back, regroup at'¦' he reached into the dead Marine's webbing, tossing an emergency beacon over to Winters, who set it up expertly. 'Nav point alpha.'
"What the..." a bridge technician announced, pointing to the bay where the Social Credit had been downed. A gout of flame erupting from inside, as the damaged gunboat fired it's cruise engines.
"What?" Khan took a step towards the screen, watching as the huge battleship derelict began a lazy spin on it's axis, as the crippled Social Credit limped away from the hulk, it's forward sensor boom mangled and twisted from ramming the inside of the bay after it's cruise engines had fired.
Razin was already on the TAC, "Social Credit, this is the Kerimov, move away from the alien vessel, and we can get a repair ship to you..."
Khan set his hands on his hips, looking angrily at the lazily spinning ship. "What the hell is going on across there? It's chaos!"
He marched across to Santorini's console. "Get across to that ship, and restore order, at once!"
"With respect," Razin chimed in. "They're doing the best they can under the circumstances..."
"Shut up Razin," Khan snapped, rounding on him. "You're such a wet blanket, this isn't daycare, it's the Coalition!"
"With due respect, Commissar," XiaoBei stubbed out his cigarette, picking up his mug of tea, the yellow Twinnings label fluttering as he lifted it to his lips and took a sip as everyone turned to look at the enigmatic Bretonian-Kusari Scientist.
"Oh, we're actually going to listen to the bloody Xenologist at last?" XiaoBei said, a slight tone of disgust in his voice. "Well that will be a first. I should organize a parade..."
"Doctor..." Khan's voice held a note of warning.
"As I have been stating since we arrived and found the alien ship," XiaoBei gestured to the derelict with his mug. "I need to be over there, you have muppets like Colonel Brooks... and blunt force instruments like Alvarez and Winters crawling over what is, essentially, the single biggest discovery in Coalition history. While I am stuck here, listening to people blow up... crash into, and shoot up an ancient alien starship... Now, as the Chief Scientist of the Coalition, a position, Commissar Khan, that in these circumstances, places me as the man who should be leading this catastrophe you call a mission. I should be over on that ship... Now I am done asking, I am telling you. PUT ME ON THAT BLOODY SHIP!"
His eyes blared angrilly, daring Khan to say something other than 'yes doctor.'
Khan's eyes fell, "Of course Doctor XiaoBei... Commissar Santorini, take the Doctor across to the derelict... and make sure nothing happens to the good Doctor while he is over there."
"Thank you!" XiaoBei said pushing his mug into Khan's hands, grabbing a large overcoat as he led the way off of the bridge. Santorini a few steps behind him.
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