Turn 6. “The Spiral Remembers”

[LT_Chun]

"Jesus," Henniger sighed. "Full auto suppressive!" He called out over the tapering fire from the platoon.

He flipped his selector all the way to the rear, slipped the metal stock of his M41 into his shoulder, took a breath, dug his boots into the tunnels floor, and began firing at the larvae in five to seven round bursts.

<roll aimed auto fire>

"Paulson!" He shouted over the sights of his pulse rifle. "Cook 'em!"

<tag Paulson>

[eyeball]

Paulson could bearly believe his eyes, what the hell was this.

He heard Henniger call out and instantly complied. the heat from the incinerator could not be felt behind his face plate but the satisfing glow of the flames as they lept forwards was still the same.

<roll area fire>

[Pale Rider]

The shooting tapered off one rifle at a time. Not because anybody called a cease fire. There just wasn't much left to shoot.

The smell of burned propellant hung thick in the tunnels, mixing with the stink of scorched resin and alien blood. Smoke drifted through the chamber in lazy gray ribbons. Somewhere deeper in the dark, something moved. Nobody fired. Every Marine was too busy catching his breath and making sure the thing beside him wasn't another nightmare crawling out of the walls.

Paulson lowered his rifle first. His shoulders felt like they weighed a hundred pounds.

Around him the platoon slowly regrouped. Weapons stayed trained on the shadows. Fingers remained on triggers. Nobody trusted the silence. Not anymore.

The bodies of the T. Ocellus larvae littered the floor. Twisted. Broken. Burned black where flamers had touched them. The larger Beta forms were worse. Their remains looked less like creatures and more like something that should never have existed in the first place.

The Marines had done that. Not ghosts. Not legends. Not some secret weapon from another age. Just tired men and women carrying rifles and refusing to die.

Fraser leaned against the wall and checked his magazine. Marcella sat heavily on a crate-sized growth and wiped alien gore from the housing of her Smartgun. Gaston Soles moved through the formation, checking faces, counting heads, making sure the living stayed living.

The Lieutenant stood quietly for a moment. Looking. Thinking.Learning. The cost of command was written all around him. Every shell casing. Every bloodstain. Every empty place in the formation.

Nobody celebrated. Colonial Marines knew better. You didn't celebrate surviving. You simply loaded another magazine and prepared for the next fight. Far ahead, beyond the smoke and darkness, the living meteor still waited. The tunnels stretched deeper. The answers lay somewhere below. And every Marine there understood the same hard truth.This battle was over. The war had only just begun.

Gaston Soles moved through the aftermath like a man taking inventory after a storm.

His rifle hung low. His eyes never did.

He checked each Marine personally. A hand on a shoulder. A nod. A quick question. Nothing fancy. Nothing inspirational. Colonial Marines did not need speeches after a fight.

They needed leadership.

"Ammo."

The word cut through the chamber.

Reports came back immediately.

"Good."

"Half."

"Three mags."

"One and a half."

Soles nodded, storing every answer away.

"Reload what you can. Check your buddy. Hydrate if you've got water left."

The platoon began moving.

Marines inspected weapons, swapped magazines, tightened armor straps, and checked wounds they had ignored while the shooting was happening.

Soles stopped beside Paulson.

"You still breathing?"

After a few seconds Soles moved on. He stopped next to Henniger, examining the younger man.

"Henninger. Still ugly. Good. Means you're alive.”

Gaston walked among his squad and with a playful pushing of the barrel he ribbed one of his newer boots.

"Marcella, barrel check. I don't need that Smartgun cooking off in my face. ”

Turning he caught Hooper giving the corpses the stink eye.

"Hooper, quit staring at it. It's dead.”

Fraser knelt on one knee and looked through his remaining supplies seeking anything to help his companions.

“Cowboy, don't forget to do an Ammo Check!”

A few moments later he stepped into the center of the formation and looked over the survivors. Dirty. Exhausted. Shaken. Still standing. His gaze swept the tunnel ahead. The darkness waited. The mission waited.

"Listen up."

The quiet conversations stopped.

"We won this one."

His voice was calm and steady.

"Don't get comfortable. Whatever built this place still owns the ground beneath our boots."

A few Marines nodded.

Soles checked his rifle and chambered a fresh round.

"Formation stays tight. Eyes open. Nobody wanders. Nobody plays the hero."

He glanced toward the black tunnel stretching deeper into the living rock.

"Take sixty seconds. Then we move."

No cheering followed. Just Marines preparing for the next fight. Exactly the way Soles liked it.

"Count your people. Count your ammo. Count your blessings. Then get ready to move.”

<Tag Devil Dawgs.>

[eyeball]

Paulson checked his cylinder as instructed , mostly full, just over three quarters , not worth changing out yet. Soles tapped him on the shoulder and he jumped, then nodded at the question, all was indeed good, they had faced the fear and come out the otherside.

Ahead the darkness loomed agin yet this time it seemed less opressive, less encompassing, they had met the unkown and this time atleast kicked its ass.

[LT_Chun]

Henniger half grinned as the sergeant major slapped his shoulder armor and busted his balls. Good old Colonial Marine humor, affection by insult. He never had a problem meeting women when he wasn't a million miles of dead space from any that weren't in uniform.

He nodded.

"We recognize our own Top." He quipped and swapped to a full mag, tucking the halfie away into his dump pouch.

He moved amongst his squad, everyone looked better. Killing space monsters, surviving another few minutes in this hellish place, then hearing a senior NCO remind them of the fraternity they all belonged to, buoyed spirits.

He unslung his flame unit and let it hang across his chest. He heft his carbine and shifted his kit so he found access both without too much drama.

"Good job people," he murmured into his mic. "Top wants us ready to move, let Paulson and Alvarez take point and square your gear away."

<tag all>

[SpectralDragon87]

Alvarez took a couple of chugs of water before giving her gun a good once over. They did well this time, and she wasn't going to be the reason they failed in the next conflict. After cleaning a bit and fine tuning some, she was ready to go.
"We are all good here. Locked and loaded."
<Tag all>

[Cowboy]

"Holy moly, what in tarnation are these ugly bugs."

Cowboy's Scottish accent dishing American old West terms is a nightmare under any other circumstance, but it's almost a comforting touch back to absurdity here.

He takes stock of his ammo again, and gets his eyes on the team to make sure everyone is still tip top.

"Hey, that was some mighty fine shootin'."