//------------------------------// // Screams from the depths [Human] // Story: From Black Skies // by The Fanatical Christian //------------------------------// The weak will die out and the strong will survive, and will live on forever Ryan watched from the icy hill as the elephant sized mutant dug around in the irradiated, dirty, off-white ice from what used to be the Atlantic ocean as a blizzard raged on around them. With every unnatural movement of the creatures body Ryan pressed his chest deeper into the frozen Earth of the freeze zone as the blizzard roared on around them. Despite its alleged heightened senses the monstrosity hadn’t noticed him or the marine sergeant next to him. The sergeant was a fit middle aged man with graying brown hair, green eyes and pale white skin. His Armour was white, a fitting color for where his division was located, the freeze zone. The mutant thrashed around as it dried to claw at something in the frozen dirt. “Alright,” The sergeant started as he put away the binoculars he was observing the beast with. “That mutant has captured a military asset that we want back.” He continued. The mutant in question was an oculus , an abomination that telepathically restrained its prey with its large eye, a strange type of suggestive hypnosis that had never been observed before, then it devoured the victim while it was in this state. “You distract it while I take it out from behind. I’ll give you the go ahead when I’m in position." He said before leaning in closer, trying his best to express the urgency of what he was about to say. "Whatever you do, don't walk towards it when it tries to hypnotize you and don't get any of its blood on exposed skin." Ryan nodded instead of verbally responding knowing that the sergeant couldn't care less how he chose to reply. The sergeant began crawling around the left side of the hill and then disappeared out of view. Ryan looked at the beast one more time before checking that his assault rifle was ready for a fight. Then the pistol, the pistols used by the HDF, or any pre-war military at all weren't actually very useful since the gun wasn't big enough to hold a functional magnetic accelerator to make it effective against any form of armor or most mutant carapaces. However it was relatively effective against unarmored tissue. He checked the chamber of the pistol and the safety before placing it back in its holster and readying his rifle before attaching his rebreather. It was almost another 3 minutes before the sergeant's voice crackled over the radio system. "I'm in position, move in. Remember not to get blood on you or walk towards it." "Solid copy." He responded simply, grunting a little as he got up. He raised to a crouching stance and began to move down the hill towards the mutant which was still thrashing at something in the ice. He silently slid down the mountain and did a quick roll when his boots hit the ground, raising the rifle to point at the beast. Still, it remained unaware of him. ‘What’s so interesting to this thing.’ Ryan asked himself, looking at the ice the mutant was thrashing at. He continued to approach it, his rifle sights aimed at it at all times. He stopped when he was around 30 meters from the beast, which to his surprise, still hadn’t noticed him. The blizzard would have shrouded his movements somewhat but with its senses it should have noticed him. Ryan observed the creature in all its hideousness, it was about the size of an elephant, but much longer. It’s body was long and tube like, with skin that looked like a grey, slightly wet, rubbery leather that bore no fur. The body ended with a flat surface like the end of a cylinder. Its front was a massive closed eyelid and at the top 2 stems an over sized eye could be seem on each. It had 6 legs that were narrow and looked as if they were made out of chitin that sported 2 joints on each leg that ended in stumps. Ryan looked around, not phased by the disgusting freak and noticed a small chunk of ice the was lying on the ground next to him. He picked it up, careful to keep his eye on the mutant, the chunk of ice was heavy for its size mostly likely caused by the chunks of rock could see embedded in it. He looked at the mutant and back to the chunk then back to the mutant again. With a small amount of hesitation he hurled the chunk at the mutant. He watched it sail through the air before begin smashed on the mutants thick hide. The mutant turned instantly to look at Ryan. It’s eyes fixed upon him for a few seconds, absorbing his features, time stood still for a brief moment. The eyes retreated back into the stems and the massive eyelid opened. The eye behind it was gargantuan. It took up the entire front of the beast and began to bulge out wards. It’s sclera was white like the surrounding environment but it’s Iris was blue and looked as if it was made of thousands of thick fibers that were all...moving. There were also red fibers that seemed to pulse and flash with bio luminescence as well as move. The disproportionately large pupil was black, in fact it seemed blacker than what was actually possible for human eyes to see, almost as if it was a gate way into some intangible place of emptiness. 'Eyes are the gateway to the Soul.' Ryan though, sending a small shiver down his spine. He was about to fall back and wait for the sergeant to open fire but the red fibers began to glow and pulse more aggressively and the blue fibers, or more like tendrils began to spasm and move erratically. The image of the eye froze Ryan in place, he didn't know what it was...but something about the eye just told he couldn't move, absolutely couldn't. The eye stared at him, almost as if it was analyzing him. He stood still in place, terrified to disobey whatever force this thing was controlling him with. Then it moved forward shaking Ryan from his trance, he tried to turn and run in the opposite direction, but nothing happened. He tried again, nothing. And again, nothing. His eyes might have widened as he realized what was going on but he couldn't even blink. A fiber in the beasts eye moved and snapped him back to reality. He stared into the beasts approaching eye, unable to move. But the eye had...changed. He couldn't tell how, but it had. Something about seemed different, mesmerizing even. To his sudden surprise and horror his body relaxed slightly, something about the eye was calming him down against his will. He should have been terrified and he knew it, but he wasn't because of whatever this thing was doing to him. He struggled to move, to turn and run. Still nothing happened, his body refused to move as he continued to stare into the flailing eye. There was something mesmerizing about it, not of this world. He continued thrashing in his mind, but to no avail. The eye stared, maliciously, like it knew he was struggling to move. The monster stopped its approach and one of the red fibers twitched and bulged out, pushing against the eyes membrane. Ryan froze, suddenly he was relaxed, the eye was fine, the eye wasn’t dangerous, he didn’t need to run away at all. He may have laughed at himself for being so stupid, this thing wasn’t a monster, if anything it was a friend. Sometimes his own stupidity embarrassed him. Ryan’s foot took a step forward and he snapped out of his trance. ‘What?’ He felt his other foot try to rise. ‘Hang on a minute.’ He stopped his foot before it could leave the ground. He pondered why his feet were moving by themselves before realization hit him like a aircraft carrier. It wanted him relaxed, it could only move him if he didn’t resist. Another fiber twitched and began to bulge outwards as the black pupil began to open, exposing sharp teeth and a long, muscular channel into the things stomach that looked like it could crush a person. An explosion of adrenaline entered his blood as he tried to break free of the things grip on his body and to resist the mind controlling distraction of the bulging red tendrils. Ryan tried to pull his leg back, to turn and run, this seemingly invoked the mutants psychic wrath even more. Every time he tried to pull his foot back an image of an atrocity flashed surreally before his vision. A first person view of him stabbing a defenseless civilian in the chest, someone getting crushed by devastator, a nuclear bomb incinerating a city and other unspeakable sights. Ryan was disgusted but kept pulling, eyes watering before an electric pain started in his toes and began spreading up his legs. Just as Ryan was about to break to the mind control he heard a shout and saw a grenade sail through the air and land on top of the beast where he couldn’t see. The beast roared and it’s massive eyelid shut and the two smaller stems burst out of the body to locate the perpetrator, but it was too late. The grenade exploded spraying shrapnel into the beast. Ryan heard an otherworldly screech of insurmountable pain and raised his arms to protect himself from the shrapnel and blood of the creature. He heard several small metal objects bounce off his fore arms and other Armour plates. He waited a few seconds, panting as the thuds of shrapnel hitting the frozen ground was drowned out by the blizzard. He lowered his arms and looked at the warm corpse, The entire back of its head had been reduced to a smoldering crater, brain fluids mixing with the burns leaving the stench of charred flesh mixed with noxious smell of industrial strength cleaning products and smoke. The remains of the exploded flesh had seemed to have rained down on the beast after the explosion had sent what Ryan perceived to be its brain flying upwards. The beast had been drenched in its own viscera, leaving it resembling an bizarre modern art piece of some form. Ryan morbidly admired the vile display of mans relationship with nature. A primal electric pulse in his brain sent a shiver of euphoria as he gazed on the carcass. Ryan turned to face his superior as the Sergeant came into view. "Did any of its blood get on ya?" His voice crackled over the helmets com link system. "Negative Sergeant." "Ain't nothing much after a well placed grenade, Are they?" The aging man chuckled, gazing over at his creation. "Grenade Sir?" "Yeah, when these Oculus things go into a hypnosis state the psionic part of their brains tend to heat up a good bit, so a bit of the hide near their brain pulls back to let heat out of some pretty large pores. It just so happens that the holes fit a grenade." Ryan looked back at the modern art atrocity. "So that was just..." "Experience? Yeah." The Canadian Chuckled looking back to the dead oculus. "Now let's get our asset back." he said, slinging his kit off his back. "We still got a job to do." Ryan abruptly woke from his sleep courtesy of the deafening ringing sound that almost caused him to reach for his sidearm. He looked around quickly, the high pitched noise causing him to forget where he was for a second before realizing that the ringing was supposed to be a wake up call that they were briefed on the previous night. He took in his surroundings as some of the marines reacted similarly to the alarms earsplitting ringing, being conditioned to associate loud noises with gun fire. Some seemed as if they had been waiting for the alarm for a while, being ready for the deafening noise. Ryan stretched his arms and swung his legs out of the hammock and narrowly avoided getting kicked in the face by Derek who was doing the same. Ryan stretched and scratched his stiff, sore back before standing up to his full height and bending his spine back into space. "Morning guys," Davis started, swinging out of his pitiful sleeping space and landing on the ground with a soft thud. "Everybody sleep well?" He asked in his usual upbeat tone, giving his arms a warm up stretch as he did. "I don't think anyone slept well Davis." Derek, replied groggily as he hauled himself out of his hammock. "We're not keeping this, right? They're just temporary aren't they? My backs killing me after that." Derek continued. "Hope so." Davis replied, already having moved on to squats. The trio heard a deep groan as Cole rolled onto the floor, he landed on his side with a dull thud. He lay curled in a ball on the floor facing away from them for almost a minute, completely silent as his squad watched awkwardly. "ya' alright buddy?" Davis asked, continuing his squats. Cole groaned and forced himself off the floor and onto his feet, still not facing them. He cupped his head with his right hand as a headache made itself known to him. With his left hand he scratched his neck "Just...shut up and get to the mess hall." He finally answered in a hoarse, authoritative voice. Scootaloo again woke up to find herself in a hospital bed. "Uh," She groaned as she stretched her wings and rubbed her eyes. She looked around her as she recalled the events of the day before. Her recently awakened mind swam with her memories of yesterday. 'Twilight.' she thought. Her small room lacked the company of another pony or even any other beds so she threw the covers off and got up. She started towards the door but it opened just before she reached it. A nurse walked in looking at clipboard before she noticed Scootaloo standing in front of her. "Oh, your up. Good morning." She said in a surprised tone with a matching expression. "Uh, yeah. good morning. Um, do you know anything about what happened to Princess Twilight last night." Scootaloo asked, yawning after she finished. still in the process of waking up. "Oh, the princess. That's actually why i'm here, she asked for you as soon as she woke up." The nurse replied as she began searching through her clipboard for something. "Is she alright?" Scootaloo asked, worried about any connect between her story and Twilights sudden fainting. "Oh yeah, she was sleep deprived and she says something you said shocked her enough to faint." The Nurse replied, looking at a document in her clipboard "Huh, so where is she." Scootaloo inquired, her fears confirmed and now interested by the 'shocked enough to faint' comment. "I'll take you too her now but I need to do some tests first to make sure we can let you out today." The nurse said, taking out a pen as she did and flicking through some more documents on her clipboard "Aight." Scootaloo replied simply. "So, an entire alien world to explore and we get the job of exploring, no not even exploring, guarding the unexplored regions of a cave system at the bottom of a ravine." Derek said flatly from the back of the APC as it rolled over the rough terrain at the bottom of said ravine. "Hey Derek, look on the bright side, think of all the things we could find down there." Alec replied. "We're guarding mining equipment not exploring the the caves Davis." Cole interrupted bluntly. "Actually why aren't we doing that, exploring the caves I mean." Ryan asked, suddenly interested in the conversation. "The brass wants to take things one step at a time and get better situated before we start venturing deeper into the caves than we already have." Cole replied scratching his well kept beard. Derek groaned. "Hey it's better than bein' roasted to death top side." Davis suggested, still trying to cheer up Derek. "Anythings better than roasting to death topside Davis." Derek retorted in rapid response, causing Ryan and Cole to break into a grin. "Yeahhh, but-" Davis started. "Hey ladies, your here. Get out." A impatient voice from the front of the APC rattled down its armored innards. The motorized door at the back of the APC opened to reveal the brightly lit and expansive chamber that had been set up as a base of operation for the mining operation. The marines dismounted the vehicle before it sped away, back up the wide entrance to the chamber that led back up to the ravine floor, a few hundred meters away from the steep chamber entrance. The chamber was expansive, probably about the size of a football field (or a Soccer field if you live in the US) and the ceiling was over 40 feet above them. Part of the chamber seemed to be dedicated to vehicle driving and parking as there wasn't any equipment or marines stationed there, also due to the fact that there was a huge gaping hole, in the wall that seemed to have been artificially enlarged and was kept stable by metal support beams where dirt tracks had been left from haul trucks and other quarrying vehicles that had ventured that way. Water from the river in the ravine flowed into the chamber from the cave mouth covering the floor and leaked into deeper parts of the cave. In the other part of the chamber that hadn't been dedicated to vehicles there were marines dotted about random bits of equipment, ranging from communication, mining and even some explosives as well as some miscellaneous equipment. The 3 squads of marines gazed around as they were approached by lieutenant Murphy. Remember that dude bro from chapter 3? "Right you lot," The lieutenant started, his tone indicating that he wasn't about to tolerate any nonsense. "Welcome to the caves, you'd get a tour but we don't have time for that and we've got maps everywhere. So first of all that is the mine, its not very deep and we've fully explored it but it is full of ores." Murphy said, gesturing to the tunnel that Ryan had correctly assumed was a mine. "That other tunnel is much deeper and we haven't fully explored it yet and since we can't expend anymore man power we've barricaded ourselves in, just in case. There are already marines manning the first lines of defense, you guys are manning fallback points closer to home. If anything goes wrong further down you guys give e'm support and fall back if you need to-" Murphy continued, trying to explain the situation and procedures to the marines as quickly but thoroughly as possible. "Sergeant Taylor take your squad to fall back point 1, Montgomery your squads at fallback point 2, Markson get you squad down to fallback point 3." Murphy finished before turning around and heading back to what he was doing before their arrival. "Yes sir." The marines said in unison as they turned and made their way towards the tunnel. The marines carefully but quickly made their way deeper into the cave. The grey rock the walls were made of was rough and sharp, combined with the large number of marines packed close together as they made their way deeper into the endless cave made the stony walls seem suffocating and hostile. Ryan felt a tightness in his chest as the memory of the time he got stuck in a drainage pipe as a child wormed its way into the forefront of his mind. Eventually the cave split into two separate parts, however it wasn't an even split. Sergeant Taylor and Montgomery took their squads down the larger passage way, labeled according to their respective destinations. Ryan squad on the other hand, made their way down the smaller much tighter passage that also appeared to be steeper as well. Being large enough to only be able to fit one person at a time the feeling of claustrophobia exacerbated. The squads only comfort being the lights that had been attached to the cave wall every few meters and the promise of a resting place further down the cave. Eventually the cramped passage ended and the cave floor flattened out mostly, giving way to a still small tunnel, but better than what they had just endured. There was an indentation in the cave wall to their left as they made their way forward that led into a small chamber with a bright lantern in the middle of the chamber with 4 other marines crowded around it. "Bout time you guys got here." one of the marines said as they all stood up. "We've been down here for hours." Another said as he picked up his rucksack and pulled it onto his back. "There's a motion detector mesh further down the tunnel, if anything comes your way it'll let you know if its one of ours or not. The monitor is over there." The squads sergeant told Cole as he pointed over to a box of something in the corner of the chamber and explained some other things to him before he quickly left with the rest of his squad. "Good Luck men!" He shouted back at them on his way. "That was brief, i guessing this is going to be boring." Derek said as he watched the squad make their way back up the tunnel to see daylight again. "Probably." Davis said trying to think of a way to spin the situation into a positive light. The chamber had been equipped with ammunition boxes and medical equipment, as well as some communication equipment that Ryan guessed would be their method of contacting Murphy and crew. There was also a few portable stools lying about with some other miscellaneous equipment as well a battery packs that powered the equipment. A white plastic map had been drilled into the wall and had an arrow pointing at fallback point 3 reading "you are here." "Well this is cozy," Davis exclaimed as he pulled one of the collapsible stools over and promptly sat on it. "I mean, it could be worse. I can definitely think of worse places to be. The ground in here is flattish for a start." He continued, swinging his rucksack off his back and leaning it on the wall. "The water made it all the way down here." Ryan said curiously, watching the stream of fresh water from the river all the way back at the ravine make its way deeper down the tunnel, although none of it had gotten into the small fallback point luckily. "This the monitor to that motion detector mesh Murphy told us about." Cole said as he read a note taped to a device sitting on top of a box of emergency rations. "That could come in handy i guess, hope we don't need to use it though." Ryan said as he walked over to observe the device. "Command sure ain't taking chances when it comes to security." Davis exclaimed, looking at his wrist mounted PDA, before sighing. "Only 4 hours and 53 minutes left." He then murmured sounding deflated. Ryan checked the safety on his rifle for the fourth time in ten minutes. No wonder the other marines had been so eager to leave, cave guard duty was boring. Without so much as a sandy horizon to gaze out at or even fresh air to breath the initial intrigue of guard duty in an alien cave had worn off quickly. Leaving the squad bored with little to converse about other than the usual 'alien planet' talk. "Hey can our orbital satellites we left in orbit pick up signs of civilization?" Davis asked out of the blue. "Yeah probably, why?" Cole responded quickly, desperate for something to take his mind of the boredom. "Well if command has figured out if there's sentient life on this planet when do you think they'll tell us?" Cole furred his brow. "I don't know, probably not immediately." The conversation was interrupted by a sudden, brief blast of static from their communication equipment built into their helmet as well as from the stationary communication equipment in the chamber. A mildly distressed, hoarse voice came over the speakers. "This is 2nd lieutenant Baker at outpost 3! Three of our guys just got grabbed by something in the caves, we need immediate reinforcement! Repeat we need immediate reinforcement over!" Cole barked into the headset and grabbed his gear as the others did the same. "This is sergeant Markson at fallback point 3 we'll be with you ASAP over!" "You'd better be quick sergeant, the things that took our guys are still tripping the motion sensors." The lietenant shouted as someone cursed in the background and the sound of gun fire began. The marines stormed the tunnel at full speed, nearly slipping a few times on the damp cave floor. Gunshots and machine gun fire echoed in the distance and humans barked back and forth at each other. Ryan let out a grunt as he nearly slipped on the floor for the fourth time as they descended deeper down the planets throat. The weapons fire continued for a few minutes as they continued down the cave but it quickly died down. The squad slid down the last part of the tunnel and into the small barricaded encampment. The outpost was far larger, looking as if had been artificially enlarged to accommodate the two squads that had been on guard duty. The artificial chamber ended at a large opening that gave way to side of a huge tunnel going horizontal to the direction they had just came in. The opening had been blocked with 2 standard HDF barricades with machine guns mounted on top of them. There was a narrow opening between them big enough for one person to walk through that had be closed up with a gate built into the barricades design. 6 marines occupied the chamber 2 on the machine guns the rest in cover, weapons at the ready. The 6 of them turned to look at the squad, the machine gunners only looked briefly before turning away and the rest looked away a half second later, save for the lieutenant who sighed in relief. "Markson are we glad see you." "What happened?" "Straight to it eh? Something tripped the motion sensors but nothing came from it, so i sent a squad out to see what was going on. Before they even got out of our sight something swarmed em, only Evans made it out. They tried to swarm us too so we opened fire, but we stopped they started looking like us, didn't want to hit our guys who were still in the thick of those things, they were running away at that point anyway." The lieutenant answered calmly. "They looked like you?" Cole asked intrigued. "Yeah, and i don't mean they looked human, they looked exactly like us. voices and everything." The lieutenant answered his voice betraying his concern at the newly encountered threat. "But they looked strange up close, like... there was something wrong with the way they looked." Evans interjected from his crouched position at the barricade, he was clearly a little shaken up but still ready for a fight. Cole poked his head out from the barricade and observed the corpses of the creatures littering the cave. There had to be at least 3 dozen, only a few had made it close to the barricade luckily enough. They were bipeds with a dark black chitinous outer layer that oozed luminescent green blood from the gaping bullet holes in their bodies. Their extremities all had vacuous holes in them for some unknown purpose. Their legs ended in what looked like hooves, their heads also portraying equine features such as ears and a snout, another interesting addition was the malformed horn on their heads. Their eyes were a sickly shade of blue and seemed to glow slightly, much like the thin and translucent membrane like wings on their backs that seemed to lack the luminescent properties. "Any idea what they are?" Derek asked intrigued at the prospect of alien lifeforms as he tried to get a better look at the corpses. "Insects of some sort." Evans replied simply, checking the safety on his rifle as he did. The group were silent for a short time, allowing Ryan's mind to fill with thoughts of the missing humans fates. Why were they taken? To be eaten? Studied? His mind wandered to visceral scenes of torture and bodily degradation. "How hard were they to kill?" Ryan asked in a deadpan tone, his mind occupied with visions of torment. "Actually not too bad, one shot through the head or the chest and they died. There were just so many." Someone answered. Ryan relaxed slightly, his mind was eased at the revelation that the insect like creatures weren't as hardy as the mutants back on Earth. "You said that they took three of your guys, can you track them?" Alec inquired. "Negatory," The lieutenant replied. "Rocks too thick, and the minerals in these caves mess with radio waves so that's out." There was another brief silence, that was broken this time by Derek. "Well you were right about one thing Davis," He began. "We didn't know what we would find."