Chapter Seven:
Hours passed as they continued their trek through the darkness, eagerly anticipating the appearance of their next landmark, to be comforted by the fact they were indeed heading in the right direction. The more time passed the more increasingly anxious they became as time seemed to drag on without end, and still the ancient arena was nowhere to be seen. The commandos training and professionalism lent them the discipline and self-awareness necessary to deal with stressful situations, but the anxiety provoking environment of Downtown had proven to be a challenge, even for them.
The notion that perhaps he had been wrong, and the old man had indeed lied to them and sent them off on a march into oblivion occurred to Grim. He had thought Caskar was playing one game when he was in fact playing another, in effect pulling a double bluff in a genius move he couldn't help but admire. Shaking his head, he pulled himself out of his musings and returned his attention to the task at hand. It wouldn't do to get caught up in obsessing over hypothetical situations.
Not long after the arena finally appeared in the distance, bringing a collective sigh of relief from the team of commandos. They cut across the arena grounds and into an even older neighbourhood that was ancient when the arena was young. Here the buildings were narrower and packed tightly together as narrow streets wound their way through the maze of Georgian architecture dating back almost a millennium.
Grim tightened his grip on his blaster, ever vigilant of their surroundings as buildings loomed around them, the potential for an ambush being high as many promising options from which to mount one presented themselves. He flicked over to infrared, scanning the area with his sensors to make sure no one was lying in wait. He was sure it wasn't coincidental that their path had led them to this place. Although, as he had expected, no one lay in wait for them up ahead. Apart from the odd heat signature of a rodent the area was devoid of life.
KA-BOOM!!
The building on their right suddenly exploded with a plume of flame and flying brick and mortar, sending the commandos hurtling through the air as they were hurled from their feet by the force of the blast. The opposing wall brought Cram's flight to an abrupt and painful end as he hit it with a bone rattling crunch that left long, jagged cracks in the bricks.
Large pieces of flying masonry hit Wes in the side of the head as he went down, rattling his brain inside his helmet, the armour plating saving his life.
Clouds of dust, smoke and powdered masonry clung to the air as the commandos lay on the ground, surrounded by debris, and began climbing to their feet. Aches and pains suddenly flaring to life as their bodies protested the movement. The sudden explosion left most of the team dazed and confused, as the shock of the unexpected assault wrapped them in an icy, tingling blanket of fear and anxiety.
As he rolled over on his stomach and climbed onto his hands and knees Grim identified the cause of the explosion, a mine. When they had walked past the device the movement had activated and set it off. No sooner had he completed this thought than the whine of blaster fire filled his ears and streaks of crimson energy began to rain down upon their position.
"Caskar!! Grim screamed. "Take cover!"
The commandos leapt to their feet and ran for cover. The lieutenant and Cram taking shelter behind a crumbling section of wall that now lie across the street, while the other four ran for cover, Dex and Jet crouching within the smouldering remains of the exploded building.
"I'm hit!" Cram exclaimed, the pain evident in his voice.
Grim looked down and immediately identified the injury. A fist sized hole had been blown in the side of the sergeant's armour, a buckled shard of rusted, ancient steel protruding from his side as blood leaked from under it, slowly running down the polished black armour. "Jynx!" he swore.
The smoke, dust and ash from the explosion did them the unintentional favour of providing them with extra cover, making their positions difficult to pinpoint. Otherwise Caskar might have taken them all out before they could scramble for safety.
A flurry of blaster bolts collided with the wall, blowing chunks of brick into the air that peppered the armour of the commandos hiding behind it.
They returned fire, a volley of retaliatory shots rocketing through the smoke and darkness in the general direction of their attacker.
They heard a descending whistle and Grim had just enough time to shout a warning of "Grenade!" before the projectile drove itself into the smouldering remains of the blown-out building. Right where Jet and Dex had positioned themselves as it brought the crumbling building down on top of them. With a final volley of blaster fire, the assault stopped as suddenly as it had begun and an unsettling silence returned to the world.
Grim rose from behind the wall as Wes and Cash emerged from their hiding places, rushing over to attend to their fallen comrades, trapped under the rubble of the now demolished building.
"Dex! Dex!" Wes shouted over the comm as he and Cash raced to the scene of the explosion and began pawing among the rubble.
A series of pained groans came over the comm. "Wh….what happened?" Jet asked, disorientated and rattled by the force of the blast and the impact of building materials that had buried him and Dex under a pile of rubble.
"Dex!" Wes called out again, an uncoherent, mumbled response from the commando answering his calls.
"I'll see to them, Cram is wounded," Grim said joining them.
"Copy that," Wes replied with a nod and moved off to tend to the wounded soldier.
Grim and Cash began sifting through the rubble, casting aside bits of broken masonry and lifting debris from their fallen comrades. The pile of rubble shifted as the buried commandoes tried to dig their way out, fighting against the weight of the masonry that covered them. The two commandos stumbled to their feet, their armour dinged, scratched and torn, having saved their lives.
Cash helped an unsteady Jet to regain his balance. "You've got a nasty habit of being in the wrong place kid," he said. "And a stroke of luck to go with it that a gambler would be envious of."
"Ha, weird, I don't feel very lucky," Jet replied, looking around as if seeing their surroundings for the first time.
Dex scrambled to his feet, a sharp, throbbing pain in his right leg made him look down to see a long gash in the armour, blood and torn flesh being visible through the tear in his thigh plate as blood began seeping from the wound.
Noticing the wounded commando Grim and Cash rushed to his assistance, each getting under either side of him and helping him to where the medic was treating Cram's injury. They eased him to the ground near Cram and he leant back against the wall, removing his helmet and activating its torch as it lit the area around him with its soft, pale glow.
Numbing the area around the wound with an injection from his med pack, Wes removed the shard of metal from Cram's side and treated the wound. Disinfecting it with a spray he then withdrew a haemostatic syringe and inserted it into the wound, filling it with a blue liquid that shortly after oxidising turned into a foam and expanded, filling the wound and soaking up the blood. The medic placed a tourniquet over the injury, taping it with an airtight seal that would hold the foam in place and prevent any further bleeding. The other commandos watched as he treated Cram's injury, marvelling at the speed and efficiency with which he worked. A few minutes after beginning he was finished and applying putty armour over the hole before he moved on to treating Dex's leg. Soon Dex was also back on his feet, although walking with a noticeable limp.
"Regroup and prepare to move out," Grim ordered. "Caskar just hit us hard, which means he's not far away. Let's get moving. Form up on me, on the double, move it. We've a traitor to catch," the lieutenant growled, leading the way after the renegade commando. The rest of the team followed along behind him, Dex being assigned once more to the rear of the group seeing as his mobility was impeded by his injury.
They weaved their way through the winding narrow streets, ever vigilant for signs of another impending attack as they scanned their surroundings. They came to an area where the buildings spread out once more, the old houses giving way to another industrial area. This one was noticeably more ancient and run down than the previous one they had been through.
Grim noted a large, block shaped cement building that served as a docking bay for vehicles of the age. Each level had a significant gap in its wall before the next floor began, the perfect spot from which to mount an ambush. He had hardly completed his assessment before a burst of flame flashed to life on one of the upper levels and his HUD screeched with a warning. "Incoming!" he roared.
"Take cover!" Cash shouted as the commandos all fled in different directions, diving for cover.
The grenade drove itself into the ground where they had stood seconds before and exploded, leaving a large crater in its wake. The shockwave from the blast knocked Dex and Jet from their feet, as the grenade exploded with a ball of fire and shrapnel that flew in every direction.
Cash looked down at his chest to see an inch long piece of shrapnel protruding from his sternum and with a snort of disdain returned fire in kind, hie rifle discharging with the familiar thunk of a grenade launch as it sped from the barrel and smashed into the concrete wall of the building, right where Caskar had been. "Suck on that," he snarled.
"Nice shot," Grim commented. "But I doubt he stuck around to let us return fire."
"Nope, there he goes," Wes said returning to his feet and gesturing to the right of the building.
Grim looked and zoomed in on the area, just in time to see the back of Caskar's armour disappear around a corner. He growled upon spotting the traitor and leapt to his feet. "Cash, Jet, on me," he ordered and took off at a run after the retreating renegade. He activated his scanner as he did so, not forgetting to check for any potential traps that could lie in wait.
Jet and Cash, taken by surprise were a bit slow acknowledging the order, but followed close behind their commander, holding their weapons at the ready as they raced after Caskar. Wes, Cram and Dex followed not too far behind, the other two matching pace with Dex who couldn't manage much more than a jog.
They followed him into the street, turning the corner and looking down the length of the long, narrow road, flanked on either side by the festering remains of the industry of a long dead civilisation. Caskar had disappeared from view up ahead, the darkness consuming him where their night vision sensors couldn't penetrate at this distance.
Grim switched on his infrared scanner and he appeared up ahead once more, shuffling along at a noticeably slower rate than he had been moving. A feral grin formed on his lips, apparently Caskar's injury was really wearing him down after all the running he had done. Like a predator smelling blood he homed in on his target, bringing his blaster up as he ran and followed the heat signature around a corner, whipping around and opening fire as he strafed his way across the street, pumping several bolts into his target.
Caskar stopped, shuddered, and fell to the ground, hit by a trio of bolts.
Grim switched back to night vision and approached the corpse, Jet and Cash rounding the corner and joining him.
"Nice shootin' chief," Jet congratulated him.
Something felt off. It was too easy. He'd gunned Caskar down like he was game without much effort at all. Cautiously he approached the corpse and as it came within focus, he realised the truth. The corpse he'd shot wasn't Jax Caskar.
"Who the fuck's that?" Jet asked, his question echoing their sentiments.
"Dunno, but it ain't Jax Caskar, that's for sure," Cash commented, as he studied the corpse.
Grim kicked the corpse over onto its back. The corpse that lay sprawled on the ground before them was of some hideously deformed humanoid with sickly grey skin. Dressed in tattered rags he was barely clothed and filthy, looking more animal than man, his expression curiously blank and lifeless.
"Sheesh, handsome he ain't," Cash exclaimed.
"Still better looking than the CO, right boss?" Jet joked.
Grim responded with a growl, looking about their position. "Something's not right," he said.
As if on cue, a nearby ancient and rusted gate swung open and two dozen humanoids resembling the corpse exploded out of the gateway. They raced towards the commandos with arms outstretched, hooting and hollering in excitement as they rushed the soldiers.
"What the jynx?" Jet cried. "What are these things?"
"Target practice," Grim said as he raised his blaster and began firing on the group of deformed mutants charging towards them. His first shot pulverised the face of the foremost target, the second and third tearing through the chest of another, dropping it to the ground as it twitched in its death throes.
Cash and Jet followed his lead and began firing on the hideous mutants as the three of them backed away from their attackers, the combined blaster fire dropping half of them in a matter of seconds.
Despite the ease with which the commandos cut down their attackers the mutants weren't put off by the deaths of half their brethren, as they just kept coming, racing head on into the line of blaster fire as they ran over the corpses of their fallen.
Cash blew the arm off one with two bolts into its shoulder, another's knee exploded with a shower of blood as Jet took his legs out from under him.
Amazingly, despite the loss of limbs and the intense pain they were surely in, they still came at the commandos, as if driven by a pure blood lust.
Grim put a bolt between the eyes of another as it careened to the ground. "Aim for kill shots," he ordered. "Anything else just slows them down."
As the mutants closed in on the commandos they switched to automatic via their commander's order and sprayed the group with lower calibre, higher density blaster fire. The effect was devastating. Gouts of blood erupted from the mutants as they were hit by multiple bolts, chucks of meat, bone and guts adding to the carnage as they were mowed down without mercy. Blood splashed from pulverised meat, splattering the commandos' armour with sticky crimson gore. The last of the group's face burst, half of it vanishing in a pulpy mess as it bellowed, the insides of its skull clearly visible as various liquids oozed down its face. It came lumbering towards them still.
Cash put another bolt into its skull, its head exploding with a splatter of blood and brains as it fell to the ground with a wet thud.
It was in that moment that Wes, Dex and Cram joined them, rounding the corner and uttering cries of surprise upon seeing the carnage laid out before them.
"Whoa, what happened here?" Wes asked.
"We ran into some of the locals, not the friendliest of folk," Cash replied.
"Jynx!" Dex exclaimed. "They're like some sort of hideous mutants, freaks or something."
"I guess the stories were true," Wes muttered.
"Stories?" Jet asked.
"Yeah, you know? All those stories about how toxic waste dumped Downtown by the Federation over the years turned some of the inhabitants of those areas in horribly deformed mutants?" Cram said. "Apparently the radiation stunted a lot of their brain development as well and left them as little more than wild beasts. Seems it was true after all."
The sounds of hooting and hollering from the distance suddenly filled their ears, rapidly getting louder as they came closer.
"Looks like we're about to meet the rest of them," Cash said, turning to the source of the noise.
Grim turned and surveyed the way they had come, considering whether they could retreat back that way and circle around the oncoming horde, when a building behind them exploded. The building fell onto the street with a hail of debris that blocked the route from which they had come, leaving them with no means of escaping the pack that bore down on them.
"Caskar," Grim snarled, turning back to face the hollering mob. "Form up," he barked, noting the area left them with no means of taking cover or putting any sort of barrier between themselves and their attackers. "Tanga formation, single shot, fire at will," he ordered taking his position in the second row of commandos flanked by Cram and Cash on either side of him, spread out three meters from each of them. The other three crouched in front of them at a slightly obscure angle, with Dex and Wes filling the gaps between them with Jet on the far-left hand side.
The commandos stood ready and waiting, gripping their blaster rifles and standing silent and statuesque as they waited for the freaks to descend upon them.
"Load grenades. Cram you're 1, Crash 2," Grim instructed, cocking his rifle.
The other two acknowledged his order and loaded grenades with the distinctive double click as they cocked their launchers.
The mutants rounded the corner up ahead and immediately upon spotting the commandos began running towards them, hooting and hollering as they charged.
Grim wasted no time giving the order. "Open fire," he shouted as he began firing on the oncoming horde.
The other soldiers needed no further encouragement and blaster bolts lit the darkness like a dazzling light show, impacting with the rushing mass of bodies as gouts of blood flew through the air and their targets fell to the ground.
The assault of blaster fire only seemed to excite them more and drive them into a frenzy. They began sprinting down the street towards the besieged commandos, their numbers swelling as they came into view and numbered at over a hundred of the ravenous, shrieking abominations, intent on devouring the commandos.
"One!" Grim shouted over the din, he command being answer by a plume of smoke bursting forth from Cram's rifle as a grenade rocketed from the barrel, ploughing into the oncoming horde with an impressive explosion that sent bodies hurtling through the air, among the shower of blood, guts, limbs and chunks of burning flesh.
But they kept coming, a sizeable hole appearing in their ranks, only to be filled by more of the onrushing mob.
Grim fired, launching a grenade of his own that barrelled into the front ranks, blowing eight of them to pieces and knocking others from their feet, setting fire to some and maiming others as they resumed their stampede. Volleys of blaster bolts decimated the front line, dropping almost a dozen to the ground as they withered and shrieked in agony, or hit the street dead. "Three!" Grim said, the grenade erupting from the barrel before he'd finished the word, landing in the middle of the mutant ranks and blowing everything around it to pieces in a burst of blood, meat and flaming debris.
Jet shot one right between the eyes, hit another with several bolts to the chest and pumped another full of bolts to the stomach, as the wounds spilled open and his innards splattered onto the street. "Jynx, there's so fucking many of them. They just keep coming," he screamed over the comm, the whine of blaster fire almost drowning out his words as it echoed throughout the abyssal caverns of Downtown.
The horde kept coming, the abominable mutants trampling their dead. Some stumbling, slipping and sliding in the blood and guts strewn across the street as they charged the commandos. The freaks were closing in on their position, despite their best efforts to stem the assault they ignored the existential threat, having no regard for their own lives or their comrades as they were consumed by the primal instinct to feed.
Dex dropped four in quick succession, perfectly aimed head shots striking them all in the face and blowing their skulls to pieces.
The horde loomed in front of them, rapidly advancing as they came closer, their cries taking on a more sinister tone as they began to snarl, scream, and hiss at the commandos.
Grim decided upon a new tactic. "Cease fire. Forward rank, load grenades," he ordered.
The whine of blaster fire shuddered to a halt, a series of double clicks sounding as the three kneeling commandos cocked their rifles and took aim at the advancing mass of snarling mutants.
"Fire," Grim snarled.
The trio of grenades rocketed from their prisons and pummelled the charging formation one after another. The three explosions making the ground rumble under their feet as their attackers were consumed by fire. Shrapnel and igniting explosives from the devices wreaking havoc within their ranks. The expanding balls of fire receded into nothingness just as quickly as they had burst to life, leaving a scene of carnage and devastation in their wake as plumes of black smoke wafted throughout the street. The gap between the mutants and commandos had been widened significantly as dozens of them lay dead or wounded. The charred remains of corpses littered the street with sticky, crimson gore being splattered all over the walls of adjacent buildings.
Silence descended upon them for a few, brief, peaceful seconds before the roars of the grotesquely deformed mutants once again filled the night and they came galloping towards them once more. Their relentless onslaught even in the face of having two thirds of their number slaughtered unnerved the commandos, there was something about the reckless abandon with which they threw themselves at the enemy that was disturbing.
They advanced on the commandos once more, Grim ordering his men to hold their fire and activate their flame throwers. His finger hovered over the button to ignite the incendiary device, waiting until they got within range before giving the order. Then they hit the ten-meter mark, "Light em up!" he barked, pressing the button and holding it as a long, serpentine burst of flame erupted from the barrel. The other commandos followed suit and half a dozen bursts of flame licked out at the freaks.
The front ranks burst into flames, the fire catching hold of their flesh and quickly spreading to consume them as they shrieked in agonised terror. The ones behind those in front pushed them forwards and into the flames, a wall of fire igniting as they burned and fell to the ground, the corpses burning as the fire spread to consume each wave of mutants as they charged.
The sight of these hideously mutated freaks burning and shrieking in pain brought a smile to Grim's lips. The abominations surged forwards, desperately trying to get their hands on the soldiers as they shambled towards them, engulfed in flames before they finally collapsed at the commandos' feet. "Move out, crescent formation, let's finish these things off," Grim said.
The commandos fanned out into a single line as they fired bursts at flames at the remaining mutants, their onslaught having been halted as the vanguard of their formation was obliterated by the flames.
The remaining two dozen ran at the commandos in small, disjointed groups, any sense of cohesion in their assault being lost as the soldiers moved to mop up the survivors.
Calmly and with textbook precision the commandos moved through the remnants of the horde, rhythmic blaster fire putting down the survivors with ease as they approached the crescent formation. Then it was over. The street was littered with over a hundred corpses, blood splattered the buildings around them and collected in pools of congealed, sticky crimson gore. Body parts, guts and entrails were spread throughout the street among the dead bodies, many with their organs and innards exposed or falling out onto the road through mutilated, torn and ruptured flesh that had been shredded by grenades or blaster fire. The smell of scorched flesh, blood and blaster discharge was overpowering.
"Fuck me, what a massacre," Jet said, his tone betraying shock more than enjoyment as he surveyed the scene of the slaughter and stifled the urge to vomit.
Grim narrowed his eyes in the direction Caskar had fled. "Reform, move it," he barked, as they hurried to obey. "We've got Caskar on the run now," he said, "He can run, but he can't hide."