Chapter Five:
They had been continuing their trek through the abyssally cold, dark depths of Downtown for a few hours before they stumbled upon a place where the buildings spread out, became smaller and opened up into what had once been a large housing estate. Once green, vibrant well-manicured lawns had been reduced to dirt. What had once been a symbol of quiet, suburban life was now a bleak, dark, desolate wasteland where nothing grew and an air of melancholy settled itself over the team of commandos, so thick it felt like an invisible blanket had been dropped over them, shrouding them in an atmosphere of despondent hopelessness.
Moving through the neighbourhood Dex shivered as the feeling noticeably settled upon the team. The other commandos of Revenant squadron shifting uncomfortably in their armour or clearing their throats audibly. He set his mind to pinpointing what it was that caused this morose atmosphere and quickly came to a solid conclusion he was fairly certain of. Although the look had certainly changed in the centuries since, the area still represented the image they could all relate to of a stable, happy, safe and secure life where people achieved their dreams of home ownership, settling down and having a family. It was symbolic of the life people strove for, in one way or another. To see that image in a state of broken desolation was to destroy the symbolic ideal at its core, thus it now represented the opposite of that ideal, hence the current atmosphere.
"Whoa, what was that?" Cram declared, shaking Dex out of his musings.
"What was what?" Cash asked, puzzled.
"I just saw something fly by between those rooftops," Cram explained, gesturing vaguely. "Something big, like the size of a big dog."
The commandos looked around as they moved though the ruined streets of the suburb, their attention focused on the dark, formless sky above.
"I don't see…." Wes began, before Jet interrupted him.
"There!" he declared, pointing his rifle in the direction of the flying creature he got a glimpse of. "I see it too."
Dex looked and watched for a few moments, but it didn't reappear.
"We've got a situation here," Grim said flatly. "Switch over to infrared," he instructed before anyone could respond.
The rest of Revenant squad did as directed and immediately their HUD's burst to life with dozens of glowing, red targets that hung from a ceiling no more than twenty meters above the festering remains of the housing estate. The base of a structure of some sort that had been built over the top of the dwellings, back when Downtown was still part of civilisation.
"Holy jynx!" Cash exclaimed as he looked around them. "There's hundreds of them. We're surrounded."
"What the shock are they?" Cram asked.
Without being commanded to Dex deftly climbed the side of a house and scrambled onto the roof, the others watching as he fiddled around with his helmet's computer and conducted a scan of one of the lifeforms. The scan was then transmitted to the Federation's encyclopaedic database while he waited for it to come up with a match. It gave a beep as the words "no match, data unavailable," flashed before his eyes. "Jynx!" he cursed. The commando considered switching over to his night vision but decided he could get a clearer look at one of them if he activated his torch. The cone shaped beam of light shot out from the side of his helmet and illuminated one of the creatures with a bright circle of light.
"What the….." he declared upon seeing the creature clearly. It was hideous looking. Hanging upside down from the ancient ceiling by a pair of rear legs that ended in suction cup like hooves. It was about the same size as a large dog. With scaled reptilian skin and two shorter front arms that ended in huge clawed talons before its folded, batlike wings, that possessed an outer ridge of spikes that resembled chainsaw teeth. Its head resembled a snake's with two long canine teeth protruding from its mouth by several inches.
Dex had only just began to study it when its eyes suddenly flew open, growing a neon green as it gave a high pitched shriek and hissed at him, suddenly leaping from its perch and onto the commando, knocking him from the roof of the building as it clawed and snapped at him.
Dex fought fiercely against it. Having dropped his rifle in the sudden attack he punched at it and tried to hold its claws at bay as they scratched deep gouges in his armour.
A volley of blaster fire hit the creature in the side as pieces of meat and green blood splattered his armour. It howled in pain before another bolt hit it in the side of the head with an explosion of brain matter and skull fragments.
Before any of them could act the entire colony came to life with deafening, ear piercing shrieks that made the commandos instinctively duck and cover their ears.
"Shit!" Grim snarled. "Not good!"
Then the hideous, flying creatures were everywhere. The flock took to the skies and launched themselves at the commandos, diving, swooping and dropping onto the squad in a feeding frenzy.
Blaster fire lit the night as the commandos opened fire, shooting at anything and everything that flew as they found themselves surrounded and caught in the middle of a maelstrom of snapping mouths, slashing claws, and flapping wings.
Dex scrambled to his feet. Ducking under a swooping beast, dodging another and diving aside of a third he managed to reach his blaster, scooping it up as he rolled over onto his back just in time to empty a volley of bolts into the underside of a creature descending upon him. He was splashed with a deluge of green blood and guts as its stomach burst open, narrowly avoiding its corpse crashing into him by rolling aside at the last second. He scrambled onto his knees and blasted another that came flying at him, the barrage of blaster bolts tearing it apart with a spray of blood.
Grim grit his teeth in a barely contained rage and opened fire on the flying monstrosities as they attacked. One swooped down at him, only to catch a volley of bolts that tore apart its wings, chest and head before it fell to the ground, a mutilated and bloody mess. He barely had time to gather his wits before another came flying at him with a shriek. The lieutenant leapt aside as it grazed him, the gust of wind from its descent rushing past as it screeched in rage and pulled up to turn about and make another sweep. Before it had the chance, he put half a dozen rounds into its back, making it convulse with the impacts and drop from the sky like a stone. "Revenant Squadron, reform on me!" he barked, falling into a crouch and cocking the grenade launcher as a grenade was loaded into the rifle's lower barrel.
A trio of the winged abominations came flying at them like fighter jets zooming in for the kill.
Cash turned at Cram's exclamation of surprise and began pouring blaster fire into them. The rifle bucked with the sustained automatic fire as the whining click of blaster bolts sounded throughout the battlefield. The beasts screeched in agony and rage as the bolts tore through them, quickly tearing them to shreds as Cash kept up the salvo of fire, the continued assault turning them into mince as they crashed to the ground in bloody heaps of mangled meat.
Another, drawn to the noise created by Cash's onslaught swooped at the commando while he was distracted, opening its mouth in a silent roar as it reached out with its talons, the webbed suction cups on the rear legs folding in and revealing two long, cone like spikes.
"Cash, on your three!"
Cash barely had time to turn his head before the shrieking horror was upon him, getting a close look at its gaping maw before its head burst apart in an explosion of blood and brains and the thing barrelled into him, taking him down with it.
Cram rushed over and helped Cash shove the corpse off him, offering to help pull the commando to his feet. "Whew, talk about a close call," Cram said.
"Great shot!" Cash replied with a grin, as the two of them acknowledged Grim's order and began making their way over, through the chaotic turmoil of screeching winged beasts swooping, diving and flying all around them, and the bursts of blaster fire that peppered the air, launching a crimson light show of deadly energy into the sky.
Wes peppered one with a volley of bolts, the fiend being more savvy than some of its brethren dodged and weaved around the shots, managing to avoid most, but several tore through its wings, yanking it from the sky as they became useless and it howled with rage. The creature landed on its feet and shrieked at him before it charged the commando, gaping jaws snapping as it rushed him.
Wes brought his rifle up and pumped several rounds into the creature's skull as it approached, stopping it dead in its tracks.
One of them dived at him, dropping from the sky above with a shriek.
Wes looked up just in time to see it come hurtling towards him, "Oh fuck!" he cried as he leapt aside, its talons scrapping his armour as it pulled up with a shriek and began to come around for another attack. He hit the ground hard with a roll and came up in a crouch, retaliating with a salvo of blaster bolts at the careening beast as it banked and conducted a tight turn, narrowly avoiding his weapon's fire. Wes flicked a switch and hit a button on the side of his rifle and a burst of flame erupted from the barrel as its flame thrower incinerated the thing, making it scream with agony as it burst into flames and frantically tried to escape.
Crashing to the ground beyond him it withered about, screaming in pain as it was burned alive.
"Copy boss, on my way," Wes replied to Grim's order.
Jet fired frantically at the creatures that filled the sky, their sheer numbers and ferocity overwhelming the rookie as he felt his pulse quicken and breathing become heavy as the onset of panic begin to inch its way into his heart. "There's too many of them," he protested, unsure what to shoot at as he was overwhelmed with enemies flying all around him. He fired a volley at one that swept past, peppered another with bolts as it began to dive towards him, turning in alarm when he heard someone shout a warning at him over the comm.
The winged monstrosity tore past him, slashing at him with its claws and opening three deep cervices in the left side of his armour as it passed. The force of the impact made Jet stumble backwards and fall with a grunt as fear seized him in its icy grip and he felt himself begin to panic. Rolling over he climbed onto his hands and knees, looking up to see the lieutenant standing in front of him, appearing as if from out of nowhere.
"Relax kid, you're going to make it out of this alive," Grim said, his attention elsewhere. Before Jet could utter a word, the lieutenant's rifle roared to life with a burst of super-heated crimson bolts, the projectiles flying through the air and tearing one of the winged creatures to pieces with splatters of blood and gore.
The rookie climbed to his feet just in time to see the lieutenant calmly turn and launch a grenade. The explosive rocketed through the air, hitting one in the chest as it exploded, an expanding ball of flames consuming two others as the explosive detonated and consumed them before they could attempt to flee. Shrieking, the nearby members of the colony retreated, but kept the commandos well within view as others to Jet and Grim's rear continued their assault on the commandos, flashing past as they slashed, hacked and bit at their intended prey.
Wes quickly joined them, with Dex running in a zig-zag pattern joining them seconds later as Grim provided him with cover fire while Wes and Jet kept any attackers at bay with targeted fire.
"Cash and Cram?" Grim asked, not shifting his attention from the abominations that filled the sky, gunning them down with lethal efficiency as he put two rounds into the mid-sections of every target, dropping them to the ground, either dead or dying.
Dex joined him, the sniper's assistance paying off as they built some distance between themselves and most of the colony, he was able to properly scope and bring them down one by one with a head shot to each target. One of the creatures screeched with fury as its mate was shot out of the sky, it's cry being cut short as its head exploded with a spray of blood and brains.
"Right here boss," Cram said over the comm as they came running up the street to join the rest of the team.
"Excuse the delay, we were held back by some fans," Cash jested. "I just can't seem to escape the ladies wherever I go."
Grim only grumbled something intelligible as the rest of the squad laughed. He gestured to a two-story house on their three O'clock. "Take cover in that building, regroup and reassess the situation," he ordered. "Now move it!"
The commandos assumed a rough oval formation as they rushed towards the dwelling, jogging as they kept up a steady stream of blaster bolts to hold the creatures at bay. The creatures now moved to avoid the weapons fire, having learnt the streams of crimson energy brought pain and death with their touch.
The commandos made it safely inside the house without much trouble, Cram and Dex stationing themselves near the windows to fire on any of the creatures that approached. For now, the winged beasts had ceased their attack, seemingly content to sit and wait for them to emerge from their hiding place.
"I want an update, how're we all looking?" Grim asked, requesting an assessment of his condition from his own armour. A readout scrolled up his screen and he scanned it briefly, noting the important information, his lips mouthing the words as he read them. "Systems at 70% power, armour 90% operating capacity." He had taken some minor damage during the battle with Gorgotha and the attack from whatever these things were. Mostly cosmetic from the looks of things.
Cash hit the release on his blaster and an empty magazine clattered to the ground as he shoved another into its place. "Lookin' green, 90%," he said with the others all confirming they'd suffered nothing more than some relatively minor damage thus far. "What the shock was that all about?" Cash demanded. "Did the old man tell you about these things?"
"No. He didn't mention it," Grim said, his mind wandering as he pondered it. He pushed the thought aside and returned to the job at hand, that could wait until later. He nodded in response to Cash's assessment. "Good, prepare to move out. We're not going to sit around waiting for them to decide we're dinner," he said, cocking his rifle's grenade launcher once more. "The plan is we keep moving. If we stay in one spot, they're sure to overwhelm us, so we stay on the move and keep close together," he said, his voice stern. "We took them by surprise with the initial battle, but they've quickly learned what we're capable of and are ready for us."
"We can't fight all these things," Wes said. "We'll run out of ammo well before then, there's hundreds of them, maybe thousands."
Jet, looking out across the street which was littered with their corpses nodded. "No matter how many we kill they just kept coming, like it doesn't even bother them."
"They're animals," Dex replied. "Obviously predators, their life revolves around the cycle of hunt, kill, eat, sleep. The most primitive of urges are all they experience."
"Thanks for the nature talk doc," Cash snickered. "Next time maybe don't poke sleeping predators."
"Our goal is to get out of here in one piece," Grim cut in before Dex could retort. "Keep moving, stay together and be conservative with the ammo, semi-automatic only, make every shot count," he said, moving towards the door. "Ready grenade launchers and let's move out." The lieutenant led the way, the other commandos forming up around him in a rough, close quarters oval shape upon exiting the building. They continued to move through the estate at a jog.
It didn't take long for the winged beasts to notice they'd left the sanctuary of the house, almost immediately high pitched cries of alarm sounded from all around them as the creatures began to take flight once more, circling the group of commandos as they tracked their path through the ancient ruins of the housing estate.
"I don't like this," Wes commented, watching the creatures fly around them in lazy circles, keeping a good distance between themselves and the soldiers.
"Yeah, talk about creepy," Cram agreed, tightening his grip on his blaster.
"I suddenly know what it feels like to be a mouse," Cash added. "Not a fan of knowing I'm on the menu."
"Be ready to launch grenades on my order," Grim said. "I'll go first then we go round clockwise, only fire when I give the order. Otherwise fire at will," he clarified, wanting to space out the grenade attacks to achieve optimal efficiency over the greatest period of time. For another slow, agonising minute nothing happened as the commandos resumed their journey and the animals continued to stalk them.
Then suddenly without warning the foul creatures attacked.
The commandos opened fire, the whine of blasters echoing all around as streaks of crimson energy peppered the darkness, plucking winged beasts from the sky and sending them plummeting to the ground. A duo of the creatures banked, dived and came hissing towards their formation at a 45-degree angle, as if challenging them.
Grim raised his blaster and fired the grenade launcher, the projectile trailing a path of smoke as it flew through the air, hitting the creature on the left in the chest as it exploded. The explosion turned both of the winged terrors into hunks of flaming meat as the explosion rapidly expanded and two others exploded and three more caught fire, screeching in pained rage as they fluttered about aimlessly, losing altitude as the membranous flesh of their wings burned and they spiralled towards the ground.
The fiends around the explosion screamed in alarm and dispersed, their numbers rapidly thinning around Revenant squadron's formation as they moved through the streets. Diving back for another attack the creatures strafed the commandos, swiping talons, jagged wings and snapping jaws lashing out at the soldiers as they flew past, climbing into the sky once more before they banked in tight turns and came back around for another attack.
Blaster bolts lit the night as the commandos fired on their attackers, dropping them from the sky as corpses littered the area around them.
Several bolts tore through a wing of one of them, it screeched in pain as it fluttered to the ground in a controlled fall, landing on its four legs as it ran at the group of commandos with a roar.
"Wes! Look out!" Cram shouted over the comm, his squad mate barely having time to turn his head to the source of his team mate's alarm before he saw it come snarling towards him, barrelling into him with an impact that knocked him off his feet. Wes dropped his blaster as the weight of the creature hit him like a truck. Hitting the ground with a heavy thud it leapt on top of him and began clawing and snapping its jaws at his armour, determined to pry it apart and get at the flesh beneath. Wes instinctively brought his arms up to protect himself, frantically trying to push the rabid beast off him to prevent it from tearing his armour open.
It roared in fury, snapping its jaws inches from his face, revealing rows of long jagged teeth that looked like they could shred the armour from his body. It dragged its talons down his chest, the metal screeching in protest as it dug a series of gashes in the chest plate.
He punched it in the side of the head again and again, which only served to distract it momentarily.
It hissed in response, gnashing its teeth centimetres from his visor as he tried to inch away from it.
"Help!" Wes pleaded over the comm; the distress evident in his voice.
It roared with fury and placed both its taloned claws over his face, seemingly to rip the visor from his helm.
Its head burst in an explosion of blood, bone and brain matter, cutting its cry short.
"Head shot!" Dex declared, turning and returning his attention to the creatures dive bombing their position. The sniper's aim was deadly, one shot one kill, with each bolt being expertly placed through the skull of every target.
"Now, fire!" Grim barked.
Cram's rifle bucked with the launch of a grenade as it plunged into the stomach of a passing target and exploded, practically vapourising it and blowing two others to pieces as they fell to the ground, husks of dead, charred meat.
A dozen of the creatures came running out of the darkness on their left, hissing and snarling as they hurled themselves at the commandos, who had their attention fixed on the enemy above.
"Incoming hostiles on our 8 o'clock, down low," Cash warned over the com, being the first to spot them as they came running at him. His rifle bucked as his grenade launcher fired, emitting a plume of smoke as the projectile burst from the barrel. It hit one of them in the head and exploded, the explosion taking out four of the creatures in a shower of blood, guts and entrails as green slime flew in all directions, the pungent smell of gore and viscera making Cash want to retch.
The other eight kept coming, opening their mouths to reveal rows of razor-sharp teeth as they hissed.
Jet whirled around to come to Cash's aid, adding his own fire to the sergeant's as they tried desperately to stem the surprise attack before the creatures were among them. "Get some! Get some!" he snarled blowing a hole in the side of one's head and putting a trio of bolts down the side of another as its stomach fell open and its guts spilled out onto the ground.
"Jynx! Fuck! There's more of them!" Cash screamed over the comm as another dozen landed and joined the fray, running and hissing in excitement as they joined the others.
"Cash, give me a visual feed," Grim said, a smaller screen of his sergeant's POV appearing on the right side of his viewscreen a few seconds later. He grit his teeth and growled as he assessed the situation, they were now under attack from two fronts. Keeping the creatures at bay had been difficult enough when they were just attacking from the air, but now with them attacking from the ground as well they weren't just out numbered, but under manned to defend their formation as they tried to flee. "Reform!" Grim yelled over the comm, "Jet, Cash and Cram cover us from the ground attack, Wes and Dex you're with me, let's keep these mongrels off us!" he said. "By the way Wes....fire!"
The grenade rocketed into the air and exploded, taking out four of the creatures as blood and guts rained on the soldiers.
The other commandos acknowledged the order and altered their positions to reflect the new arrangement, Cram moving to join Cash and Jet as they fought furiously to keep the horde of creatures from overwhelming them, blaster bolts tearing through flesh and dropping the abominations to the ground, either dead or screeching as they bled out.
Cash fought with both his sidearm and rifle, blasting away with one, then the other.
As he gunned one down, another leapt aside and swung around to come back at Jet, lunging at him from the side and wrapping its clawed limbs around his legs. It yanked the surprised commando from his feet and began dragging him away from his comrades, the soldier screaming in terror as its jaws snapped at him.
"Help! It's fucking got me!" Jet shrieked, his eyes wide with fear as it began chewing at his armour, another quickly joining it to devour the commando.
"Fuck!" Cash shouted as he watched Jet get dragged away from them by one of the creatures, quickly gaining the attention of other members of the colony who moved to join the feast. "Cram!" Cash called out to his team mate, the other sergeant turning as he threw his blaster to him, catching it in one hand and tossing it up and catching it again by the handle as he now wielded two blaster rifles.
Cash withdrew his other blaster pistol and ran to Jet's aid. He shot one right between the eyes, leapt onto its head and used it as a springboard to catapult him into the air as he came down firing at another, placing a volley of bolts into its spine.
It screamed with pain as it collapsed and entered its death throes.
Cash hit the dirt and slid across the ground towards Jet, pistols blasting away as he put a salvo of shots into the chest of the creature that had the rookie pinned to the ground. It reared up and shrieked in agonised rage, then went silent as he put another bolt through its skull.
Jet rolled aside as it crashed to the ground where he had lain moments before. He climbed to his feet as he and Jet fired at the creatures descending upon them, intent on surrounding the commandos and isolating them from the rest of the group.
Noticing the way the creatures recoiled from the flames and the way the creature he'd awakened had reacted upon shining his torch on it an idea occurred to Dex. As one of the beasts swooped at him, he turned his torch on, the long cone of light flashing to life and stretching across the darkness to illuminate the creature. It shrieked as soon as the beam of light touched it, recoiling as if in pain, fear, or possibly both? Dex smiled behind his visor. "Bingo!" he declared. "Activate your torches," he shouted to the others. "They don't like the light."
"What?" Wes protested, slightly confused.
"It either hurts them or they're afraid of it, but they avoid it at all costs," Dex replied.
Without any further pause the torches on all the commando's helmets flashed to life, beams of light illuminating the darkness around them.
It worked like a charm. The creatures shrieked and began to retreat, not daring to approach the beams of criss-crossing light as the commandos regrouped into an outward facing close formation. They stayed out of range of the light, fluttering around the soldiers just beyond its reach, not daring to move any closer, but reluctant to give up the hunt.
"Nice work," Jet commented, clutching his rifle in both hands as he walked backwards, the group staying close together, well within the sanctuary of the light as they moved through the suburb.
The creatures continued to follow them for some time, circling their formation as they looked for an opportunity to attack the soldiers. Occasionally one would get brave and attempt a swooping attack, only to be repulsed by a torch flicking in its direction, bathing it in light as it let out an ear-piercing shriek and quickly retreated beyond its reach.
The commandos continued their journey through the suburban neighbourhood until they reached what resembled the ancient, crumbling remains of an industrial area. One which, thankfully, the creatures didn't follow them into, the flock breaking off and returning to their nest as the commandos crossed the boundary of their territory.