13Booyah! I'm back and alive! Yeah, it took me a while but I've been honestly busy. I'm in my last year in my academy so my workload was trippled. So far, in two months I had to write seven essays and other stuff. So yeah, I didnt really have time to write anything. Also, the last three weeks, while I have been mostly free, were occupied with Battlefield 3 (Cant blame me for this! The game's awesome!) and reading the latest Halo novel (Halo: Glasslands, in case you're interested. The sort-of Sequel to Ghosts of Onyx). So yeah, now that I finished the novel I finally made the time to write this brand new chapter. Sorry it took me so long!
Now, this chapter is not as long as I at first assumed (it looked much longer when I was writing it) but I dont really care at the moment. It's 2AM and I barely got any sleep this week and my eyes are killing me at the moment. I double checked for weird typos so I'm sure I fixed all the stuff I could find. But then again, I am sleepy and I might've missed something. If you do spot something, feel free to notify me so I could fix it.
Now, enjoy this new chapter! I worked for many hours on it! :D
1300 Hours, February 8, 2563 (Military Calendar) / Planet Venatio / Research Base Alpha
A day. Twenty four hours, or in this case, twenty six hours. Damian has been in a situation like this before but he never expected that simply sitting on your ass underground for a whole day with nothing to do, while the enemy was doing god knows what outside, would be so torturous. After all, for all he knew, they could be attempting to open the door at this very moment and they were none the wiser. The exterior cameras were offline or most probably missing so they were blind to the outside world. Any message they tried sending came unanswered and no one tried to contact them so it meant two things: either everyone outside decided to maintain radio silence...or they were already dead. That wasn't a cheerful thoughts.
Happy thoughts, happy thoughts. You don't want to be depressed now and ruin the mood for everyone.
Not that he actually needed to try. The mood was already utter shit. Kyle was sulking around, preferring everyone to leave him alone, so he volunteered to patrol the corridors most of the time. Leone and Brass constantly argued over what they should do. Should they stay here and try to contacting the other bases or find another way out. None of them were keen on going outside. Mary was pissed that nothing seemed to properly work and that the system was so thoroughly and violently wiped. The only ones who seemed to act the same as usual were himself and Akura. Then again, he was able to see the changes in Akura anyway. She was more agitated. Kept slightly jumping at the slightest unexpected noise. It was barely there, invisible to someone who didn't know her.
The only good news they had was that Sean was up and about.
Mostly anyway. He seemed to be a little bit out of it. He tried acting normal but whenever he was sure no one was looking or listening, Damian caught him muttering to himself or looking at his injury with a hideous cringe. The most prominent word he caught was 'demons'. When he was asked about it he gave a quick explanation to him. The small plasma bolt exploded when it hit him and truthfully, without the armor he would've lost his arm. As he passionately said: 'It's one thing to burn you and its another thing to blow you up but doing both at the same time is pure evil. It ain't no covvies man, even they don't do this shit."
At least we can be sure it's not covvies now.
Not that there was a Covenant anymore. With the end of the war the Covenant disbanded and all the races went on their own merry way. The Brutes went to do more fighting for whatever reason they had, Jackals went back to being traders and pirates and the Elites back to their Sanghelios. Where the hell the Grunts, Drones and Engineers went is anyone's guess. The Jackals were probably selling Covenant tech to some outer Human colony that no longer wanted anything to do with the UNSC.
Nowadays it was practically impossible to encounter some organized groups, other than some backwater planets where the aliens never realized that the Covenant was no more. When the Covenant fell, so did their supply lines, COM systems, everything. For an almighty advanced collection of alien races, they were quite dependent on each other. Remove one race and the whole system crashes. With the Engineers gone, no one repaired their ships and equipment, no one brought them new armaments, supplies other than Jackals, and they traded with anyone who wanted to trade. Of course, if they hadn't killed him first.
After nearly thirty years of war and fighting them for so long, it felt kind of strange not to call them the Covenant. Even after a decade, plenty still called them like that, even though now they were individual races.
At the moment Damian was patrolling the corridors. There wasn't much to do, other than staring at the empty corridors and dusty floors but if whatever crawled through the ventilation shafts came back, someone needed to know where it was. Also there was the danger that whatever was outside might try to get on, or worse, was already inside. They weren't taking any risks. Damian didn't argue. He was edgy about the situation as it was. Fighting the known aliens was familiar. There was a patterns. You shot them, and they died. You knew where to shoot, how much to shoot and to tell if it was dead. Whatever was attacking them here was completely and utterly unknown. Unknown was not something he liked.
He would've continued his mental rant about how much he hated this situation, all the while trying to find other words for 'hate' in all the languages he knew, had he not heard the new Leone vs. Brass argument in the control room.
"... Well, the armory's on the third floor, including the barracks and other labs," he heard Leone say. Calmly, not in the gruff, growl-like voice he usually used when he was arguing over something. Maybe they weren't arguing after all. "We need to resupply anyway."
"Yeah, but what if it was locked away for a reason? What if whatever is down there is worse than what's outside?" Brass countered, speaking slowly as if Leone wouldn't understand him if he spoke faster. "What if the guys here didn't want to take their chances with what's down there and instead simply left?"
"And left all their food supplies and all their belongings here? No, if they would've left, they would have taken it with them. They had the time to weld that door shut, which means they had time to gather supplies, which they didn't do."
At that moment Damian entered the control room where he saw the two man sitting in front of the empty screens. The only screen that had something on was the screen in front of Mary. He was never all that tech savvy. Other than knowing the basics, he never bothered to learn much else. He had more important things to worry about, like overzealous aliens who wanted to wipe him out. They ignored him and continued with their conversation/argument.
"Well, I still don't want to take my chances outside. It doesn't mean that I want to find out why they welded that door shut. I'm all for the armory but what if-"
Brass was interrupted by a loud and ecstatic shout from Mary. "Yes! Finally!" she exclaimed, pumping her fists into the air and proceeded to do something which looked like some deformed and unorganized victory dance from a sitting position. It was at that moment that she realized that all attention was turned to her. She met the questioning gazes with a dazzling grin. "I managed to find what remained of the system. Its a very patchy job, obviously not done by an expert..."
She was about to ramble on but Leone held up a hand. "And why is this making you so happy?"
Mary rolled her eyes. "the distress signal had to come from somewhere, right? It came from this base," she paused, looking at them expectantly, waiting for them to say something. Brass looked at Damian, hoping to see an answer but was met with the same confused expression and a shrug. Mary realized that no answer was coming and rolled her eyes again. "If the system was damaged and wiped, it means that the distress signal is still there. I just had to find it. Whoever set up the distress signal made a patchy job, but they did set up a secondary system, regardless of how frail it is,"
"And...?" Brass asked in length, wondering what she was getting at.
Mary scoffed, obviously annoyed. "Luddites," she muttered, getting an indignant glare from Brass. Damian just rolled his eyes with a smirk. Leone showed no outward reaction to her words. "I'll explain it for you in your manly caveman language. The distress signal came from this very base, its still up and I know where exactly it comes from."
This seemed to make Leone perk up. Without further prodding Mary continued, her victorious smirk now gone. "Third floor."
Those two words were enough to settle them all into uncomfortable silence. Brass hung his head in defeat while Leone firmed his jaw. Damian sighed in resignation. From one shitty situation to another. This gave Leone another reason to go down there. If he was going to admit it, Damian was freaking by the lower floors.
Brass has a point, what if they closed it for a good reason?
Either way, they were going down. ODST never refused missions, it was just like that and once Leone set his sights on something, he will get it. However, that didn't mean they had to like it. Then again, he was getting frustratingly bored.
"We're really going to do this?" Damian asked, speaking for the first time.
"Yeah, we're going down there and hope whatever is down there wont bite off our asses," Leone replied.
"Permission to feel reassured, sir." Damian said, stone-faced, showing no expression.
"Granted, now go and gather everyone and do it fast. The longer we sit here on our asses the more time we give the enemy time to plot!"
With a nod Damian left the room, walking in a swift pace to the location where Akura last patrolled and from there he will pick up Kyle and Sean.
He found her in five minutes as she seemingly aimlessly walked though a corridor. He quickly explained the situation to her and they quickly moved to the room where Sean was staying. Kyle would probably be there as well. His guess was proven right when they entered the room, which became their unofficial sleeping quarters. Sean was tinkering with his Covenant carbine, doing whatever he was doing with it while Kyle was taking a nap against the wall.
Damian lightly kicked Kyle's boot, startling the man from his slumber. He looked around frantically, a hand resting on his weapon, before he realized that nothing was attacking him. "Come on, Sarge wants to see us," he greeted and turned around to leave, quickly followed by Akura. Kyle exchanged a glance with Sean and got up with a groan and ran to catch up with the duo, followed by the silent Sean.
"What Sarge's up to?" Kyle asked when he caught up with Damian.
Damian didn't look at him. He knew that Kyle was nervous enough as it was, this being his first shitty situation, and he didn't really want to make him even more nervous. He was depressed enough as it was but it couldn't be helped. Kyle was an ODST. He wouldn't be one if he couldn't handle such a situation, first mission or not. "We're probably going down to the third floor," he said tonelessly.
Kyle's eyebrows rose to his hairline. "Why?"
"The distress signal came from the third floor. Whoever set it up might still be there. The armory is there too and we're not exactly full of ammo," he explained shortly. "Sarge will explain the rest."
Kyle looked at him for several seconds before he steeled his features and gave him a firm nod. The corners of Damian's lips quirked a bit, glad to see that Kyle still had something left in him. It was always hard to see a friend die for the first time. In some aspect, the lucky ones witnessed it during a battle. At that time, one doesn't have the time to grieve, or think about it too much. In a battle it was a distraction that you couldn't afford. Jimmy on the other hand...was too sudden. They didn't even know when he died, they never even noticed that he was gone in the first place.
The rest of the journey continued in silence and the only words they said were a couple of greetings to the Sarge and Brass when they entered the room. They all took whatever seats they could find, some taking seats on the table when all the chairs were taken. Leone stood in front of them and gave them a long look before he spoke.
"Alright boys and girls. We have a choice to make here. Mary here found out where the distress signal came from. Unfortunately, it comes from the third floor. Now, before you interrupt me with whatever you have to say, I probably already heard it from a certain squadmate," he gave a pointed look at Brass, who didn't shy away from it. "we still need to go down there. Rescue's not coming anytime soon and I'll probably go insane if we stay here and lay low. We still have a mission."
"Find out what happened here and where everyone disappeared to," Akura supplied.
"Got that in one," Leone said to her with a nod. "I don't know about you, but I don't leave a mission unfinished. So gear up and lets go and find us some scientists!" he barked out, urging them to get up faster.
The next minutes were a flurry of movements, squadmates moving about, picking up their equipment, weapons and whatever else they left lying around, which happened to be a cigarette pack in Brass' case. When it was all over, they silently moved towards the door. Once they arrived Sean took out his welding equipment and handed it over to Brass, since he still couldn't properly use his arm. It wasn't an awfully long process, though it was still too long in Damian's opinion. It took about fifteen minutes for Brass to cut open a doorway for them. When Brass was done he folded up the equipment and placed it back into Sean's rucksack. He pulled on his helmet, polarizing his visor and gave a nod to Leone. They both approached the door and grasped the new edges and pulled it towards themselves. Damian and Kyle quickly helped them place the piece of metal as quietly as they could on the floor while Mary and Akura pointed their weapons into the now-open doorway. There was no reason to make a ruckus when they could avoid it.
They quickly stood up, pulled out their weapons and approached the doorway. Much to Damian's dismay, the stairway lead to a very dark hallway. Just what I need. Running around in dark corridors with possibly hostile aliens lurking about. With that thought in mind, he followed Leone and Brass down into the dark, closely followed by the others. The only positive thing that Damian could see in this situation was that their BDU's allowed them to blend in the dark, making it hard to see them properly.
As soon as he entered the dark corridor everything brightened a bit as his HUD entered low-light mode, which brightened his mood a bit as well. At least now he was able to see better. A few seconds later any remnants of positive mood vanished.
If the floor above them could be described as abandoned, as in, the inhabitants leaving the place quietly without leaving any trails, this floor was an utter mess. To make matters worse, there were signs of battle visible in every direction he looked. The squad paused there, looking at the scene, searching for any clue to tell them what happened. Bullet holes were in practically every wall in sight. Empty casings littered the floor, along with empty clips that were discarded once they were useless. From this position Damian could see three more melted holes on the floor, smaller that the one upstairs but still nothing to tell them about the source. At this point, they were sure that no fire was returned at the shooters. Leone silently signaled them to follow as he took the lead and moved further into the dark corridors. The same scene appeared again and again, bullet holes in the walls, empty casings, sometimes they could see dark stains on the floors and walls of various sizes. Id didn't take a genius to understand what it was. Dried blood. It looked like a large battle took place in this place but one detail was unnerving Damian the most, a feeling that was shared by the rest of the squad.
There were no bodies in sight.
It left them to assume that two things happened. A battle took place and the personnel here retreated without casualties, although there was a slim chance to that with all the dried blood the saw so far. What happened to the bodies though...it was a mystery for now. They would've taken the injured with them, or whoever attacked them took the bodies. They passed by a particularly large bloodstain, which made Damian conclude that whoever bled this much was probably dead by now.
Leone finally lead them out of the entrance corridor into the main floor, where all the rooms were held. Leone paused at an intersection of corridors before he presumably picked a direction at random and turned left.
Most of the doors were unlocked and left open, allowing the squad to see the mess that was inside. Tables were overthrown. Datapads, papers and other various items were scattered across the floors, one room – which they decided to avoid – had a particularly large and gruesome-looking bloodstain on the wall.
A sudden noise caused every single on of them to turn to the direction they heard it from, weapons raised and fingers on the triggers. When they saw nothing the immediately looked around. Guns pointed up, to the sides and even at the floor in Leone's case.
"What was that?" Brass whispered quietly, even though everyone knew that there was no need to whisper since their helmets were sound-proof and no one on the outside would be able to hear what was said, unless the wearer wanted them to. This allowed them to speak on any volume they wished, though at the moment not one of them wanted to speak loudly.
"I dont know. Sounded like a...shuffle. Something moved," Leone told him quietly. "I think it came from there," he said and slowly, carefully and as quietly as possible moved towards the door closest to them.
When Leone was just two steps away from the door the noise repeated and they could hear it clearly this time. Something indeed moved in the room. Leone signaled them to prepare themselves and Damian and Brass took positions on both sides of the door. In one fluid movement Leone opened the door and Damian and Brass rushed in, weapons leading. Inside they found nothing, which slightly disappointed Damian.
How cliché. All this build-up for an empty room, he lamented. He hated these situations. Give him something to shoot and he will be happy with it. That way he could kill it and get rid of it. Right now he was stumbling in the dark.
However, upon closer inspection, the room wasn't as empty as they first thought. In the middle of the room was a bloodstain and exactly in the middle of what was one a puddle of blood, was a datapad, still turned on.
Mary stepped into the situation, picking up the datapad, wiping away the crusted blood from the screen and taking a look. No one stopped her from doing that. She was their tech expert after all. "Sarge, this looks like a journal, though this log looks like it was never finished..." she trailed off, glancing at the dried blood. Everyone understood what she meant.
"What does it say there?" Sean asked as he looked around the room nervously.
Mary scrolled down the datapad, her eyes swiftly scanning the screen and filing away information. "Not much. Several logs, beginning last year and ending about...two months ago," she glanced at the crusted blood again. "which probably was when the guy lost this."
Damian placed his hand out to Mary and she handed him the datapad, no longer interested in it. He fiddled with it a bit, looking at whatever was there. As Mary said, it was used solely as a journal for the owner and other than several logs, there was nothing in it. He scrolled to the first log and opened it.
August 20, 2562.
Damn marines. I swear they are just messing with us. Some of the guys are nervous now and few are now refusing to go outside. I'll admit that I'm nervous too. Doc suggested that I should write something in this piece of useless crap to 'relieve my stress and let out all my pent up emotion.'
I'm fine dammit. I don't have pent up emotions!
Why am I even writing this? I might as well since I already started this thing and I hate leaving things unfinished. Damn marines. Since we weren't resupplied in years they have to go outside to get us food in order to keep our proper supplies from running out. I'll admit that the 'Rhino' meat is delicious though I fear we wont be getting it soon. The marines are insisting that there's something out there in the jungle. They cant see anything but they feel that they're being watched.
The spook told them to calm down and that there's no danger to anyone and that we should go back to our jobs. I hope things will calm down soon. Even the marines are a bit edgy.
Nothing impressive as far as journals went, in Damian's opinion. Nothing interesting like who slept with who, who cheated on who, who was caught in the supply closet with their pants down, literally. Or more importantly what they were doing in this place. It was a journal of a guy who wrote his thoughts: the most boring kind of journals. However the whole 'being watched' thing that the marines experienced was all too familiar. It made him curious. He scrolled to the next entry and opened it.
September 2, 2562.
Things calmed down after about a week after my first entry but last night the shit hit the fan in full force. The marines went out to get us some fresh food instead of the crap that's in our base and they brought us a damn Raptor, which is a predator reptile which reminded everyone of a Velociraptor, so this is how everyone calls it. Better than the long Latin name the higher ups here named it. Anyway, the marines blew up the Raptor's head or at least we thought so. Apparently, this was how they found it. When we inspected it closer we saw that the head was cut off with a very sharp tool. It cleanly cut through all the muscle and spine, like butter. There was another clean stab wound on the chest, cutting straight to the heart.
The freaky part came next. Sgt. Dyrdahl said that they heard a noise very close to them and when they checked it out they saw a freshly killed reptile waiting for them. By fresh, I mean just-a-few-seconds-ago fresh. How the hell do you not notice someone killing something just a few feet away from you? Goddamn.
We're not alone here.
Damian reread the last part again. It would've sounded farfetched had they not lost Jimmy the same way. This journal was getting more interesting. Maybe who wrote this might shed some light into this mess. The next entry was incredibly short.
September 13, 2562.
At lunch I heard the spook talk about some place in Venator III, wherever it is. Sounds like a solar system's name. I left the place before he noticed I was eavesdropping his conversation. The marines start to remember that they found headless animals more than a few times already, only it seemed unimportant at that time.
Venator III. Damian searched through his memory but couldn't reference the name with anything he remembered. He filed it for later, deciding to ask Leone or Brass about it later. They were more versed about system and planet names than he was. He picked the next entry, ignoring the small conversation that broke out between the squadmates while Kyle looked over his shoulder to look at the datapad.
October 6, 2562.
Goddamn! I'm going to murder to Sean. And Jeffery too if he wasn't probably dead by now. I knew that I shouldn't have agreed to that dare. Fucking Sean, daring me to go out with the marines today. Sure, I'm supposed to be one of the wildlife experts here but I didn't want to go out when those things are out there! We were just talking about the things when Sean dared me to go out to find out what really was out there. For some stupid reason that I don't care to remember now I agreed, now I wish I didn't.
I was following the marines around as they searched for something to shoot when Pvt. Makravitz saw something. I looked at the spot and saw it too. I've never seen it firsthand but I know how an active camouflage looks like. It was big too. Jeffery, that moronic ape, decided for some reason to open fire on it. The thing just vanished the moment the idiot started firing and to make it worse, Jeffery ran after it. We followed Jeffery but several seconds later he just vanished. He was nowhere in sight. We've seen nothing and never even heard a thing. It was as if Jeffery simply ceased to exist.
The bloody spook is trying to calm everyone down but utterly fails. Marines don't just vanish.
Damian narrowed his eyes. This was entirely too familiar to him. "Sarge," he called the older man over. "this thing is getting interesting. They encountered the things who killed Jimmy," he told him shortly and to the point. He opened the next entry.
October 8, 2562.
Found Jeffery. The head is still MIA. Looks like his head was torn out with half of his spine. Gruesome sight, wish I didn't look. A frightening thought occurred to me. All the headless animals and now Jeffery. They collect heads.
The spook knows something, I just know it. He hadn't even looked surprised at the news, just a bit perplexed. I get the feeling that he knows more-
Damian tore his eyes away from the datapad. He would've read further had it not been the odd noise that echoed through the empty corridors into the room. It sounded like a loud hissing noise, not unlike a snake's but somewhat different. And definitely louder. Snakes, of any size, didn't hiss at a volume as loud as this hiss. However, this could simply mean that it was close to them. He swiftly placed the datapad into the storage compartment of his armor and readied his weapon.
Without any need to order or prompt them, everyone raised their weapons and aimed them at the door, expecting some monstrosity to burst in through the door to cut off their heads. However, nothing came at them. Not a sound was made and nothing moved. Brass took point and slowly moved out of the room, quickly pointing his battle rifle at both sides of the corridor. "Clear," he said quietly after a few seconds.
The rest of them followed him out, slowly and quietly moving through the corridor. Several steps later a vent cover falls to the floor right in front of Kyle with a loud clatter. He jumped back with a loud yelp, quickly aiming his gun at the now open ventilation shaft, quickly followed by the others. They stood there quietly for a few moments, not daring to move their aims from the opening in the ceiling. A loud clatter was heard several feet away from them, apparently from the ventilation shaft. As if something large moved inside. Their weapons were immediately aimed at that spot, expecting an attack. They waited but nothing came. Everything was silent.
"Sir?" Brass muttered.
"Yeah?"
"I don't like this. Not one bit," Brass said in a hissed whisper, visibly agitated. Damian was inclined to agree. This crap was starting to get to him.
Leone glanced into the visor of his squadmates before he nodded, mostly to himself. "I don't like the look of this too. Let's get what we came for and get the hell out of here. Mary?" Leone quietly told them and looked at Mary, who took out her personal datapad.
"Oh, this is good. The signal originates from the place we're heading to: the armory," she said, a hint of positiveness entering her voice. This seemed to cheer up the squad slightly. The sooner they will get their objective, the sooner they could leave this place behind them.
They set off at the same pace, the careful and silent crawling speed. Not that anyone minded. It was better to be careful than dead. Of course, so far they hadn't encountered anything that tried to kill them, which was rather rare for ODST's, but one could never be too careful. Like a marine that Damian once knew said, 'You gotta watch where you go, or you just might step into some shit.'
Damian took that saying to heart. It made a lot of sense after all.
It took them a few minutes to reach the armory but thankfully they made it without any distractions, suspicious sounds or spontaneously dropping ventilation covers. Nothing that might make them even more nervous. They were thankful for that. Hopefully whatever was in the ventilation shaft didn't run off to bring reinforcements. Enemy reinforcements was always a bad thing. They finally stopped in front of the armory door, which was, unsurprisingly, locked. Mary immediately went to work on the electronic lock, requesting them to give her a minute. In the meanwhile they all stood guard around her, just in case something attacked. Just as Mary promised, she was done in a minute. She placed back her equipment and readied her weapon, giving a nod to Leone, who walked over to the lock. Everyone moved away from the path of the doorway and prepared themselves as Leone looked at them, wordlessly asking them if they were ready.
He received six nods in return and opened the door.
The door opened with a hiss and immediately the hallway was deafened by the booms of gunfire and the wall in front of the door was showered with bullets. The squad took a step back from the door, raising their weapons.
"Hold your fire! Hold your fire, dammit!" Leone shouted over the unrelenting gunfire. Damian listened closely and was able to hear the shooter screaming his lungs out as he fired his weapon, which he deduced was an assault rifle from the amount of bullets that was fired. Three seconds later the bullets stopped coming and Damian could hear the heavy breathing coming from the room. "We're humans, hold your fire!" Leone repeated, now assured that he would be heard. He waved his hand in front of the open door, just to be safe, be fore he quickly retracted it. No shots were fired.
As one unit, they quickly poured into the room. Their weapons were immediately trained on a marine who was standing behind an overturned table which was used as cover. Damian studied the marine as they came closer. He stood at nearly two feet and had a large body build which made him a somewhat intimidating sight. He was of Hispanic descent, light-brown eyes, short black hair and a prominent scar running down from his left cheekbone to his jaw, creating a thin gap on his unshaven face. His eyes traveled to the name tag on the man's uniform, which read 'Ramirez' in large, bold letters. Damian was slightly taken aback from the overjoyed expression that came to the marine's face. His eyes were literally shining with the pure joy that he radiated.
"Drop the weapon!" Brass barked and the marine complied, somewhat happily, as his mouth slowly grew into a large, genuine smile. Brass kicked the weapon further away from the marine and ushered him away from the table, where he saw a shotgun and enough clips for both weapons to supply a platoon.
"Thank, fucking, god!" Ramirez exclaimed, as he looked at the Helljumpers happily. "I was starting to think I was alone on this goddamned planet!"
"You might have been right about it," Akura supplied as she looked over the armory. The armory was practically empty. Only a handful of weapons, beside the ones the marine used, remained in the room, however there was more than enough ammo for them to use. She was thankful for that. Several crates of food supplies were stacked in the corner of the room, most of which were already empty. She turned her gaze back to the marine before she continued, "we arrived yesterday."
Ramirez nodded enthusiastically, visibly not caring about the details. "Man, I'm glad to see you guys," he said, shaking his head, moving a hand through his dirty hair, which was starting to reach his shoulders.
"Do you know what happened here?" Damian asked.
Ramirez turned his gaze to the PFC and for a moment Damian saw the haunted look his eyes gained. "Hell yeah I know what happened here," he said tonelessly, with an empty voice. His eyes quickly regained their lively shine. "But first, more importantly, when do we get out of here?"
Damian exchanged glanced with the rest of the squad, wondering how he should break this to him. They had no way out of this planet. He felt quite bad about crushing the guy's hopes like that. The guy was ecstatic to see them and was probably waiting for rescue this whole time. He eventually decided to simply tell them man the truth. "Not anytime soon," he told him, "sorry," he added as an afterthought.
The marine looked at Damian blankly for several seconds before his features shifted into a murderous look. He stepped closer until he was standing almost nose to nose with the PFC. Ramirez was a head taller than him and he had to crane his head back a bit to look into the marine's eyes.
Damian suddenly found him to be much more intimidating that before.
"What the fuck was that supposed to mean?" Ramirez asked him in a quiet, murderous tone.
Many miles from Alpha base, at the bottom of a cliff overlooking the jungle, beneath broken branches and jungle foliage a body stirred.
Hehehe, man, I have to admit that I love this chapter. It was quite fun to read it. Not much of Yautja in this chapter, other than this last bit, which is not much at all. It's a damn good chapter in my opinion. I also finally introduced Ramirez, who you can probably recall from the first chapter!
Things are bound to get interesting, I can promise you that. The next chapter will pick up from this point and you will finally get some answers...maybe.
Feel free to leave a lovely review! It makes me feel great to know that you read and enjoyed my story. Thank you for reading the story and special thanks to all those who reviewed my story and told me their opinions! I really appreciate it. I gladly and happily accept constructive criticism, suggestions, ideas and plain opinions, so dont be shy and feel free to speak your mind. Hell, you can even tell me my story sucks, as long as you explain why. Thanks again for reading and until next time, Delvaro out.