- POMC S117 Owns
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- Honorable Member
Chapter 13
The Sergeant and the Corporal heard the deafening boom emitting from a corridor above them and concluded that the Captain was alive and kicking. They sprinted through the endless, twisting and confusing corridors, always feeling a sense of Deja Vu. Whilst they were running, or limping in the Corporal's case, they were always checking for some sort of supply hatch or stairway to lead them up to the next floor. Vaguely, they could hear the faint footsteps coming from Rolek who was almost directly above them.
Both of them had a fear of being caught, otherwise, they would have shouted for Rolek. After a few seconds, their Grieger Counters began to click, slowly but surely.
"Dammit! We've not got very long. Why did we volunteer to go on this suicide mission?"
Calm down friend. We're ODST's after all. Elites." Smiled the Sergeant.
"Yeah, because accolades really matter when you're dead." Whispered Harris, his tone bordering on irony.
"Don't you ever check your kit?" Asked Connell, removing a small canister of explosives from his belt.
"What's that for?"
"Shhh!!!" Grinned the Sergeant, taking out the detonator.
"What're you doing?" Asked Harris, mouth agape. "You'll alert this whole ship you idiot!"
"When you're running for your God-forsaken life, Harris, you don't care who pulled the trigger." And he pressed the detonator after he planted the bomb a good distance away on the roof.
There was a small click, the lull before the storm, and then... BOOM! The ship, as if it was just struck by some sort of planet-sized train, lurched forward and groaned. Suddenly, outside on the hull, the thick "skin" began to bulge and crumble. Pores started to open and rupture, allowing vacuum into the ship to suck away the little oxygen that was left. The electric mainframe whirred and strained and then abruptly died. All was dark. All was silent.
"What the -blam!- did you do?" Yelled the Corporal, coughing and spluttering on the ground.
The smoke cleared. Ash stuck to the walls like a fly stuck in a spiders web. The Sergeant was nowhere to be found. No armour. No gun. No guts...
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Rolek was racing along a long, wide corridor, gun swinging in his hand, when the explosion crippled the ship for a second time. He was flung, cart-wheeling and turning, halfway up the corridor. He blacked-out for a while and when he came to there was a gaping crater in the floor.
He struggled to his feet, his knees and palms throbbing with pain and covered in a light layer of blood. He limped and hobbled over to the edge and looked down.
There was about three co-centric, rippling circles leading down to the bottom most supply shaft. Smoke and ash made it near impossible to see any non-significant shapes, despite this, though, Rolek was sure that he could discern movement coming from the dark abyss below. Slowly, he raised his weapon to shoulder height and began to climb down carefully, feeling his way with his feet.
The swirling blackness choked Rolek and he found that his breathing was louder and hoarser. Damn this pit of blackness, he thought angrily, almost falling to the bottom of the hole. Suddenly, Rolek became aware of the fact that his radiation counter had stopped clicking. Only in the silence had he noticed it for the gentle tick tick had become comforting.
"Hello!" Coughed a voice down at the bottom of the darkness. "Is-s a-anyone there?"
"Connell!" Yelled Rolek, reinvigorated from hearing a fellow human.
The man at the bottom stumbled. "R-Rolek? It's me! Harris! I'm alive!"
"Where's the Sarge?" Asked Rolek uneasily, gripping his gun tighter.
He dropped down by a few inches and let go. He landed softly on the metallic floor and switched on his torch. He aimed at his squadmate.
Harris climbed to his feet slowly. "I don't know. He blew a hole in the ship and then I must have blacked out. He's gone."
"Gone? Where?" Interrogated Rolek.
"I don't know." Replied the Corporal, obviously flustered and annoyed. "I was just knocked out by some crazy-a$$ demolition dude with C4 and you expect me to answer questions on where he went?"
"Okay. Okay. It was a bit overbearing on my behalf. We have to look for him before we get cancer... or worse." Added Rolek fearfully.
They set off attentively, guns hanging from their sides. Every sound, every smell, every movement of dust, air or wreckage was observed by them, their senses on red alert. Adrenaline. Hormones. Blood. All rushing through their systems. Sweat, trickling like rivers down their brow. Their faces, red like a burning Mediterranean sunset.
"Sir, haven't we not been exposed to the radiation? Shouldn't we be dead?" Asked the Corporal a few minutes later.
Roelk was silent for some time. He had a point. What happened to the radiation? The apparent shut-down of the ship? Something wasn't right. Suddenly, his field of thought was interrupted as a blood-curdling shriek echoed down the long, lonesome corridors of howling oblivion.
"That was the Sergeant! Come on!" Bellowed Harris.
"No! Wait!" Yelled Rolek in response as the soldier started to sprint down the tunnel.
Rolek, going purposely slower for stealth reasons, observed Harris' movement. He heard a small click, an obvious sign that something mechanical was at work. Harris past under a ringed pathway and immediately a faint wall of red light blocked him in. He charged straight into the barrier and fell to the ground. When he got steadily to his feet he was sporting a bleeding nose.
"Wha' was that?" He asked, wiping his nose on his metal gauntlet.
Rolek skidded to a halt about a metre from the "prison" and inspected it.
"This is... remarkable. Amazing. I've never seen anything like it. Is it electrified?"
"Want to try it out."
An Elite, surrounded by a dozen others, had rolled out of cover and were aiming their weapons at Rolek from the other side of the barrier. In their hands, glinting menacingly, were bright-blue Plasma Rifles, already powered-up and ready to fire.
[Edited on 11.16.2011 10:08 AM PST]