Turn 11: Captive

[Corporal Hicks]

FIRST SQUAD:
Paulson pointed his flame unit into the hole in the ceiling and opened fire. The jet of flame coursed upward, and a high pitched scream echoed from above. The hideous limbs of the xenomorph scrabbled up the wall of the vertical opening. The flame sputtered out as the already thin oxygen was devoured, but it seemed to have frightened the creature, at least.

Quinn and Blake tried to ignore the closer threat, watching the forward tunnel. In the light of the flare, they saw four aliens rushing toward them. Quinn opened fire first with the pulse rifle, peppering one of the xenomorphs. Blake opened fire at the nearest enemy, one of the charging bull-aliens with its head down like a charging rhinoceros. The shotgun fired three shells and punched ragged holes in its flat head. The body slid to a stop, crumpled in the middle of the tunnel.

Two more aliens were still charging, and they jumped onto the walls to get around the corpse of their fellow. Forester attempted to fire, but his own flamethrower only puffed out an ineffective little stream of fire.

The leading xenomorph was another of the bull-aliens and it slammed into the line of marines like a bowling ball, scattering the pins painfully across the floor of the tunnel. It seized Private Forester in its hideous claws and dragged him backward. Blake was the only Marine who had at least stayed head-over-feet, and she leaned back against the wall to regain her footing. The other xenomorph was almost on top of them when she fired two more shells at point blank range. One shot tore off its left arm, and the second put some buckshot in its leg, sending it tumbling to the ground. Acid blood splashed the floor around them, but nobody was hit with it.

The xenomorph from the hole above dropped down into the tunnel with another shriek. Its form was backlit by the flare and the dying flames. Paulson and Quinn had at least gotten to their feet, and they stumbled backwards, along with Blake. The injured xenomorph tried to regain its feet, but moved clumsily, finding that its left leg no longer worked. The other looked like it was about to pounce. The bull alien with Forester disappeared up the shaft, the dead flamethrower clattering down behind it.
<Tag First Squad>
(Actions)

SECOND SQUAD:
Henniger called out the order to move right down the tunnel. The Marines moved quickly, with Henniger and Skirata leading the way, and Private Torres covering the tail. The gunfire echoed from behind, and not from ahead. Also, the darkness ahead remained unlit by flares. It was clear that they were in a deeper section of tunnel, not intersecting with the battle.

Nevertheless, they soldiered on, moving quickly. Up ahead, the lights caught a wall of rock blocking the tunnel. It was a dead end. Corporal Henniger saw the outline of a hole in the floor; another pit trap! Skirata apparently did not see it, and he kept hurrying forward. Henniger’s arm shot out reflexively and seized the Private’s combat webbing in an iron grip just as he plunged over the edge.

Skirata’s boots scrabbled as the ground disappeared from under them. Henniger held him back, but only just barely. In a heartbeat, Pope pushed to the front and grabbed the hanging soldier. With superhuman strength and speed, he pulled Skirata back from the brink and set him down safely. He put another hand on Henniger’s chest plate and steadied him. “Are you alright?” he asked concernedly.
<Tag Second Squad>

Riddle Map 13.png (39.39 KiB) Viewed 12188 times

[eyeball]

the flame sputtered then died before it even reached the xenomorph. Paulson stared in disbelief then snapped to an automatic responce. "fuck that shit" he muttered and drew his pistol.
taking carefull aim Paulson put two rounds in both close targets, figuring he couldn't yet risk shooting the large one carrying Forester, they would have time to track him after the area was clear.
<aim , shoot>
<aim, shoot>

[LT_Chun]

Henniger, having had an NCO stroke as his Marine scrabbled back on loose gravel to a controlled standing position, blew out his held breath and fogged his faceplate.
He shot his fist into the air over his shoulder, the infantry signal to freeze in place.
"Check around, floor's compromised."
He checked around the dead end carefully avoiding the yawning pit.
"Can't blow the wall, it'll take the deck with it."
<tag 2nd>
Shit. Charlie F@cking Mike.
"Sir, Sarn't Major, Delta Two. Dead end getting to you. Turning and moving east. Will turn north at first opportunity and head towards Objevtive. Delta Two out."
<tag Command>

He looked around. Everyone's nerves were frayed. First was in almost constant contact, and the threat of contact was typically worse than the adrenaline dump of actually fighting. But on the brighter side they didn't have to step around pools of hellish acid yet.
He released his freeze gesture as his Marines made sure they were on solid ground.

"All right," they'd heard him broadcast to Command, he made sure to patch them in to listen-only when calling Higher typically. He had hated information hoarding NCOs, and swore not to ever be one.
"Let's flip and head east until we can push north. Motion trackers up, we're heading toward creepy crawlers for sure. I'll take point."
<tag 2nd>
He handed off his tracker and hefted his M41. The familiar heaviness a comfort. He canted the carbine sideways and checked the ammo counter, another comforting habit.
He took a breath and led the way back the way they'd come.
Lastly, he flipped his IR lens down and threw two flares down to the sides of the cavern, TF SOP for danger area.

<roll movement to contact, motion tracker, infrared and white light observation>

[Quicksilver]

"Oddio!" Giosso exclaimed as Skirata suddenly started to drop from view. He started forward, but by the time he had really gotten past the conceptual phase before Pope was past him and hauling the Marine back out of the endless void. After a deep breath, Mark returned his attention to the motion tracker. He fiddled with the setting slightly, rotating it in an attempt to eek a third dimension out of the unit.

"They're everywhere, sir. The motion tracker's giving a snowstorm of contacts."

[BarbarianMathematics]

Pvt Blake looked on with disbelief after having massacred a few of the xenomorphs, seeing one of them take Forester right beside her, though without too much time to register the scene unfolding and the adrenaline coursing through her, she knew she only had a few rounds left before she had to fully reload, which would leave her with little shotgun rounds left for the rest of the mission, so she had to make each shot count, so now's not the time to waste. Seeing the ones still beside them, she cocks the shotgun one more time and fires off the last remaining rounds between the two current threats.

<Aim, fire>
<Aim, fire>

[Corporal Hicks]

SECOND SQUAD:
Corporal Henniger led Second Squad west down the tunnel at a jogging pace. Their drilled and practiced caution was not cutting it, and the time had come to take a risk. The Marines passed the south tunnel they had come from, and then they reached another tunnel branching off to the north. Henniger swung around the turn and scanned the empty darkness. Without waiting, he plunged ahead, the rest of the squad in toe. His footsteps thumped along in the tunnel until he suddenly stopped.

The walls opened out and vanished, and he found himself standing in a large, oval shaped room. A few ragged, rocky pillars remained to hold up the roof, and resin coated nearly every surface. Looking left and right, he saw a sight that would likely haunt his dreams for years to come, if he ever saw the light of day again.

All along the walls were faces, human faces, sticking out of the shiny resinous coating on the walls. On his left, a pair of gray socked feet stuck out, with black ooze staining them. On the right, a dirty human hand hung from a broken wrist, which in turn stuck out at an awkward angle from the wall. The faces of a man and woman were identical in their expressions of extreme agony; the last breath of their life screamed out in abject terror and horrible pain. Their chests were busted open, with blood and offal splattering the floor and hanging from bits of resin.

The Marines were all there now and they looked out on the scene of horror. And then it registered; not just the horror but the imminent danger. The center of the room was littered with dozens of oval shaped objects, roughly a meter high. Not all of them had seen one in person, but they all knew exactly what they were. Xenomorph eggs.

Many of the eggs lay open, but more were still closed. Facehuggers lay in front of some of the cocooned colonists, their dead fingers upturned to the roof, curled up like dead spiders. Moisture dripped from their faces and irritated their eyes as they stood there, shocked.

Pope pushed past Henniger and ran to the left, checking the colonists for signs of life. His directive was not in any way hindered by the dread of the room. He would save anyone and everyone that he could, with only a secondary interest in his own "survival."

"Help us... Oh my god, help us please!" whimpered a pitiful, female voice from across the room. One of the cocooned colonists was awake, her blonde hair plastered to her face, and tears running down her sweaty cheeks to fall onto the hideous, sticky slime that covered her.
<Tag Second Squad>
(Actions)

Riddle Map 14.png (14.66 KiB) Viewed 11957 times

[Quinn]

Quinn slammed against one of the resin-coated walls of the tunnel by the massive xenomorph with a WHOOF of air escaping his lungs. He fell to the ground in a clatter of armor, gear and rifle. Adrenaline was dumping into his sytem, his heart rate punching straight up from sixty-five beats per minute up to almost double at one-hundred twenty beats per minute. Contrary to popular belief, he didn't feel as though time slowed down. Only that he was able to think faster, and act faster. Problem with that, is that it often reduced your capacity for making complex critical decisions, unless you trained yourself EXTENSIVELY. It's why the saying "You don't rise to the occasion, you fall to the level of your training" existed.

But that level of training was what the Colonial Marine Corps excelled at. And Sixtus levelled his rifle at the xeno ready to pounce, and opened fire. A long, ripping roar echoed and buffeted everyone in the tunnel as the medic shot at the xeno, which was no further than fifteen yards away. For a rifle, that was near point blank distance. And Sixtus took advantage of that, by emptying his entire magazine at the creature, or "mag dumping".

"FUUUUUUUUU-" Quinn's epithet was lost in the report of his rifle.

[LT_Chun]

"Fucking Christ."

Hennigers words cloyed in the dark, sticky and fetid air of the chamber. Pope pushing past him snapped his eyes back from darting all around taking in the hellish scene.

"Fan out, firing wedge, stand by to engage, prep to frag those eggs if they twitch."
He said to his squad. Good Marines, and they likewise pulled themselves through the revulsion of the almost physical wall of stench and decay.
<tag 2nd>

He flipped the safety cover off the smaller trigger tucked up behind the pump slide on his underslung grenade launcher. As his eyes did another slow scan in an arc to his front, glancing up to take in the high ceiling of the chamber.

"Nest located, my pos." He coughed thick, moist air into his helmet mic boom. "Multiple civilians cocooned, at least one stage two infected and conscious. Contact imminent. I say again, bingo my pos."
<tag all>

His heart had stopped hammering under his armor plates and now seemed suspended in his chest. He began moving down the right side of the chamber cautiously but quickly checking for any live victims, those ovamorph eggs very solidly locked in his peripheral vision. He kept his distance from the walls as much as he could. But things were about to move fast, and he wouldn't ask his squad mates to do this part.

"Cover us Second", his pulse rifle was out in front of him, both safeties flipped forward and disengaged along the side of the receiver. "Drones have to be here, if we have to, wall of lead and frags, pull back up the tunnel and chokepoint the last intersection."

<tag 2nd>

He wished he still had a sentry or two but Colonial Marines did more with less. It's just their reality. He took a good look ahead and above around the chamber for other tunnels as well as rock masses lining the ceiling. If things real dicey they could bring down sections of the chamber in on itself. But that had a tendency to react in ways you'd rather not.

<roll squad concentrated fire, reactive, perception, triage, and close Gunn combat/GL close/medium range>

[Corporal Hicks]

FIRST SQUAD:
Quinn opened fire on the healthy alien and his bullets ripped into its center of mass. It fell with a scream and acid splashed the floor.

Blake fired one shell, cocked another, and then the gun clicked. She had miscounted her shots and the chamber was empty. Luckily, Paulson brought up his pistol and emptied the 12 round magazine into its face and neck. The creature fell to the ground and let out a long hiss as it died.

Quinn dropped the empty magazine and slapped another one in hard. Footsteps were jogging up behind them and they turned to see Tiger Squad arriving. The mercenaries moved around them and pointed their guns forward. The Lieutenant and Wesley stood at the back, Wesley still holding the warhead like a watermelon.

"Both squads, keep moving." said Fletcher, taking command from the panicked Paulson. "First Squad, cover the tail. We have to get to that chamber!"
<Tag First Squad>

Forester:
Cold, hard, alien hands grip your sides, pinning your arms. You are being dragged through a small tunnel by a creature ten times your strength. Your armor prevents most of the scrapes and bruises that would otherwise be inflicted by the rough treatment, but your helmet falls away and your radio with it. Fear grips your mind with unstoppable force, but resolve and an animal will to survive rise with it. Whatever chance you have to survive, you will take it.

Some small, still rational part of your mind tells you that this is not the end. The aliens capture, not kill, not unless they have to. You still have time and hope. You still have a knife, a pistol, and plenty of explosives. And if none of it answers, you still have three squads of Marines in the tunnels that you know won't leave you behind.

For now though, the alien has control. All you can see are glimpses of rock and black, chitinous shell as you are whisked through a labyrinth of tunnels.

Having lost all sense of direction or location, you suddenly find yourself laying in a dark room. You try dizzily to get to your feet, but you are slammed to the ground by the xenomorph. It lifts you up and smacks you three more times against the ground. You hit your head and the dizziness gets worse, but you are not unconscious. You allow the xenomorph to pin you up to the wall while two others spew slime from their jaws that sticks to you like glue. You are being coccooned.
(Actions)

[BarbarianMathematics]

Pvt Blake heard the orders, though grumbled as she miscounted the rounds. Taking the time to load the last of the ammo in the shotgun, including one in the chamber while she could, she looked over to Paulson. "Do you need a brace for that thing? Might make it easier," she told him, patting the VP70 brace she carried with her.

Having finished loading the shotty, she looks back to the task at hand, getting into position as they were ordered, though checked the scanner quick, just in case there were more.

<Tag Paulson>
<Run scanner>

[eyeball]

the immediate threat was gone and back up had arrived "better late than never" thought Paulson as they approached.
He took the offered brace as it would be his only weapon and asked if anyone had a spare magazine as he was down to only one clip and a non functional flamer. "Thanks this could be real handy" he said.

"They took forester Sir we have to go after him we can easily track him", grabbing his motion tracker he started sweeping for signals not near himself and not second squad, who from coms traffic where north east of them.
"they take you alive, we have time but not much, we gotta go now!"
He reloaded his pistol with his spare clip and attached the brace slung his next to useless flamer and scanned again, second sqaud had found the survivours it sounded like, lets get them out, set the bomb and find forester fast, then get the fuck out of here, these were the thoughts going through his head.
<reload>
<tag tiger squad for spare mags>
<roll motion detector>

[BarbarianMathematics]

Realizing that the flamer from Forester is still there on the ground, Blake goes to grab it. "Better not leave this behind. Government tech and all that. Gotta see if it still works," she mentioned, going to grab it before hurrying to follow the group.

"Hey Paulson, if I can get this thing working, you might be back in action. Let's see here," she said, trying to get the pilot light lit again.

<grab flamer>
<Tag Paulson>

[eyeball]

"mines out too, i think its not enough oxygen down here, best not rely on them functioning correctly" he replied. " but your right best not leave it behind."
<tag blake>

[LT_Chun]

"Delta Two to any One element, direction of travel on the MIA?" Henniger asked First Squad through comms.

[Quicksilver]

"Sir!" Giosso exclaimed as he started walking the perimeter of the chamber, his attention quickly alternating between the his display screens, the captives and the horrifying layer of xenomorph eggs. "Marine IDP! It's one of ours!"

Mark started hustling more quickly down the left edge of the corridor. As he went he fiddled with his intelligence unit, trying to align it against the interference and echos of the chamber.

{Tech-Use}