Into The Breach

[LT_Chun]

Henniger's tracker squelched and began pulsing, picking up the contacts Paulson's unit had detected. He moved closer to Hooper and stood with his armored back resting against the door.

"How we doing kid?" He smiled behind his faceplate.

<tag Hooper>

As his Marine worked, he blinked and switched his vox over to Command Net.

"Command, Cerberus," he transmitted. "Lance Corporal Paulson has contacts moving toward us, my unit just picked them up as well. Are the Ghosts," the nickname the platoon had begun using for the ancient anachronistic Marines.
"... able to deploy and get eyes on?"

<Tag LT/Sykes>

[LT_Chun]

Henniger stopped when he heard Sykes over the comm.

"I say again, contacts have vanished."

He thought about that. Twice now, but it didn't merit attention as his squad was stuck outside the objective.

He gingerly stepped up next to Hooper who was buried in concentration and loose cables from the junction box. He snapped a ground wire across the innards and snapped it securely to the side of the panel. A soft thrumming began and everyone renewed their attention toward the door as it began to grind open.

"We're in." He said on All Hands.

[Pale Rider]

The breach in the meteorite’s surface led into darkness that felt alive.

The moment they crossed the threshold, the temperature shifted. Their suit readouts ticked upward—humidity climbing fast, condensation forming along visors and weapon housings. The air was heavy, wet, wrong for a rock that should have been cold and dead. Moisture clung to every surface, beading along jagged stone and dripping in slow, irregular rhythms that echoed far louder than they should.

Their lights didn’t reach far.

Beams cut through a low-hanging vapor that rolled lazily along the ground and drifted upward in ghostlike plumes. It wasn’t thick enough to blind them, but it swallowed edges—turned solid shapes into suggestion and depth into guesswork. Shadows stretched unnaturally long across the uneven floor, doubling and shifting whenever someone moved.

The walls were irregular, pitted like natural stone, yet sections gleamed faintly as though something slick coated them. Heat radiated from somewhere deeper within, feeding the mist. The air tasted metallic, tinged with something organic beneath the filters.

Every sound carried strangely. Drips echoed as distant footfalls. The scrape of a boot seemed to come from behind them a heartbeat later. Vapor curled around protruding fragments of some sort of metallic structures half-embedded in the rock—warped struts and torn plating emerging from the wall like bones in a grave.

Then the fog shifted.

Not from the wind.

Just… displaced.

A steady pinging begins as the motion tracker starts to pick up incoming, five blips were merging in on the first fire team from the depths of the cave.

<Tag Fireteams>

[Corporal Hicks]

"How we doing kid?" He smiled behind his faceplate.

"Almost there, Corporal." Hooper continued to fiddle with the wires, sweat running down his brow. He was not very good at this, but hoped that his aptitude would overcome. Sure enough, he saw the connection that he needed to make, surprising himself. As the door opened, he stepped back, bringing up his rifle automatically. Nothing there.

Turning half way around, he smirked at Marcella. He grabbed the tip of her smartgun and jerked it to the left and right, no doubt messing with the targeting sensors. "Targets, all over," he said with a laugh. Then, it appeared that his joke was poorly timed. The motion tracker was pinging, and targets were incoming. Real targets or more ghosts? He would assume real for now. His adrenaline spiked and his hair stood up as he tightened his grip on the rifle. "Come on mother fuckers," he muttered.

<Tag Henniger/Alvarez>
(Roll awareness, reaction fire)

[LT_Chun]

"Move in, squad on-line, heavy middle."
He whispered to his squad via vox.
<tag Cerberus, roll reaction/gunfire, check tracker>

[SpectralDragon87]

"Damnit Beav! Don't ever touch my gun!"
Marcella hurries to get her gun back situated, knowing lives could count on her being ready.
<Tag Hooper, roll awareness, roll reaction/gunfire.>

[eyeball]

as Fenrir squad entered past the giant blast doors the diferance was palpable. there was atmosphere of some kind in here and something was keeping it inside dispite the blast doors now being open.
the ungent pings of a motion tracker snapped Paulsons attention back to the here and now, he scooped up his own and tried to get an acurate direction lock.
"form up Fenrir, Gisso on point with me , Ames and Black cover the rear".
he switch to command channel, "do we want to close this door to protect our rear or leave it incase we need a quick exfil?"

slowly he and Fenrir progressed forwards, the damp air making it feel clostraphobic dispite the relatively large space.

<roll motion detector>
<tag Fenrir>
<tag command chan>

[Pale Rider]

*Master Sergeant Bennett, was watching his monitors and noted the accelerated heartbeats as the Squads faced an incoming target. He listened to the chatter.*

"Clear the coms, if you're not in charge I shouldn't hear anything except for a target call."

--------‐-----------------@@@---------------------@@@-------------------------------

The fog shifted above Kal Skirata’s head.

He never saw it drop.

Something small and wet struck his visor with a soft, obscene slap. For half a second it looked like a fist-sized orb of translucent flesh, veins threading through it, a dark pupil snapping wide as it adjusted to the light.

“What the—”

It moved faster than a blink.

The Eyeball slipped beneath the rim of his helmet as if it knew exactly where to go. Kal staggered back, clawing at his face. His rifle clattered to the stone. A choking scream tore through the comms.

“Get it off me! Get it—”

There was a wet, sucking pop.

His scream became something else.

Blood sprayed inside the visor, splattering against the glass in thick arcs. The Eyeball had forced itself into his socket, tendrils punching deep with horrific precision. They writhed as they burrowed—thread-thin filaments driving through optic nerve and into soft gray matter beyond.

Kal hit his knees.

His body convulsed violently, boots drumming against the slick floor. The fog around him churned from the motion. One gloved hand beat uselessly at his helmet, fingers scraping over where his eye had been.

The Eyeball twitched.

The convulsions stopped.

Silence.

Slowly—mechanically—Kal rose to his feet.

The blood inside his visor began to slide downward in sluggish streaks. Through the cracked faceplate, one eye stared in blind shock.

The other… watched.

The implanted orb shifted in the socket, adjusting its angle independently. The pupil dilated and contracted rapidly as if calibrating. Veins pulsed faintly beneath the surface, thin tendrils disappearing deep into his skull.

His breathing resumed—but it was wrong. Too even. Too measured.

“K-Kal?” someone whispered.

His head tilted a few degrees too far to one side.

The motion tracker on the floor pinged again.

Not one contact.

Multiple.

In the fog above them, more small shapes detached from the ceiling—silent, patient, waiting for another exposed face.

<Tag All>

[LT_Chun]

Henniger let the rucksack drop and hit the slick ground. The flamer clanged dully. The moment his Marine's visor became a blood fountain he'd slapped the quick-releases on the pack. He kicked the pack around to his front as he half watched, half tore at the small ratchet straps retaining the flamethrower to the side of the EVA ruck. His bile rose and his blood ran cold when Skirata stood back up.

He'd slung his pulse rifle out of his way to rest on the back of his suit. He brandished the flame unit but kept the barrel slightly down and away from his Marine, old habits, but only just slightly.

"Skirata," his mouth was dry. "who was the first Commandant of the Marine Corps?"
<tag everyone>

Whatever the fuck that thing was, if his Marine was dead and a meat puppet, bullets weren't going to get the job done fast enough for his horrified mind and broken heart. He pushed the pain deep down, he'd honor the Marine later.

The trackers began to pulse insistently. His platoon had immediately and instinctively backed away from their comrade, Henniger tensed.

<role reactive flame unit>

[Pale Rider]

The thing that was now using Kal as a flesh mech unit, searched through the mind of the human. It was its first use of a cognitive system. It had used things that had run on instinctive behaviors. Its body shivered as it found the bodies memory of birth, its first kiss, its first relationship with a female of its kind, and its first kill. Then it found what it was looking for!

"Major Samuel Nicholas, he was appointed Captain by the Continental Congress, November 5, 1775."

The voice at first sounds distorted, not quite Kal, but as it continues it rounds into form.

"You are Corporal Henniger! And your team and all of its components shall soon join me!"

He then drops to the floor beneath the swirling mist and when it clears he and his gear is gone.

<Tag Henniger>

[LT_Chun]

Skirata couldn't remember jack shit about Corps history. His Marine was truly KIA.

He almost got the flame off but the thing vanished. Henniger swore and turned down the tunnel and let out a frustrated stream of curses while fanning liquid bye-bye all over the amorphous ceiling for about ten meters ahead of them. Attempting to keep the next round of nightmares contained to the floor.

<roll flame unit defensive fire>

He took a knee and scooted over to get his ruck nearer him.

"Incoming contacts, Cerberus watch each other's backs, tangos could be any size." Another pang as he called out the squad name.

<tag Alvarez/Hooper>

[SpectralDragon87]

"Cerberus, roger that." Alvarez gripped her gun harder and kept her head on a swivel.

<Roll Awareness/ Reactive fire>

[Corporal Hicks]

“Jesus fucking christ, mother fuck!” screamed Hooper, terrified and sickened beyond all restraint. As the thing jumped away, he opened up with the pulse rifle. Two bursts were sent after the retreating Kal, then he aimed up and the ceiling and fired long, barely controlled bursts. The flash of the muzzle lit the walls and he tried to hit anything crawling. Hooper started to back up rapidly, colliding with Alvarez as he attempted to escape. He stopped, not willing to get behind her, but terror was gripping at his heart. “Corp, we gotta go, fucking hell!”
<tag Henniger/Alvarez>
(Roll gun combat)

[LT_Chun]

Henniger stepped back and unclamped his forehand from the stock of the flamer. He looked back over his shoulder and grabbed Hooper by the front of his chest piece. He pulled him close, not violently, a strong but gentle hand worked best, to be heard over the crackle of the burning liquids.

"Get it together Marine." He said into the faceplate, ignoring the facial expression underneath. "It's small and really really bad, but you've been briefed on the Xenomorphs," he released his hold on Hooper's armor. "We got you man." He spoke louder to include Alvarez. "We got each other." He stepped squarely into the center of the tunnel. "Wedge formation, nice and tight. Just another day people."

<tag Hooper and Alvarez>

He clicked over to the Command net. He was sure they'd seen the whole thing but protocols should be observed.
"Cerberus, one MIA presumed KIA or hostile. Private Kal Skirata."

<tag Command>

<roll reactive flamer, perception>

[LT_Chun]

Then he heard the massed scuttling ahead in the tunnel.

He began to walk backwards. On the All Hands he said, "Cerberus is pulling back, overwhelming enemy presence moving toward my poz. Strongpoint at your location."
He looked over at Alvarez, I'll burn, your reticle should pick up any who think fire is ineffective."
He looked the other way to Hooper behind and to his left. "We are falling back in good order."
<tag everyone>
The squad, minus one, fell back in a wedge shaped formation. Henniger threw short arcs of burning gel in a clockwise pattern every few meters, he did t want to burn every square inch, he had a feeling they'd be in these tunnels a while.

<roll discouraging fire-flame unit>
<roll reaction>