ELEVEN - A PROPHECY OF RAIN

Background color
Font
Font size
Line height

They continued for hour after hour, guns constantly rotating like turrets. Every creak and groan under their feet was the line between life and death.

            Stellada tapped 6651 on the shoulder. "Why haven't we come across any biomechs yet?"

            "You're complaining?"

            "Of course not, but I expecting one or two to be up here watching the tunnels."

            They were in a passageway inside one of the larger buildings, two streets away from the cliff tunnel. They found a staircase in its own little pillar. 11218 pushed the door and it fell off its hinges. He tried to grab the door but couldn't get hold of it. It hit the crumbling floor. Decay billowed everywhere.

            "Fuck," 6690 cried, wiping his visor with his arm. 11218 held up his hand. Stellada raised her weapon high.

            A cold silence filled the small space. 11218 slowly went for his gun, dropped to the floor when he lunged for the door. He looked at the pilot. His palm was down and his fingers opened and closed as if trying to form a talon, and then pointing up the stairwell.

            "Shit," 6651 whispered inside his helmet. He crept to 11218. Slowly he shone his gun's torchlight to the ceiling.

            A myriad of eyes gleamed down at him from a few floors up.

            "Run!"

            11218 didn't need to be told twice. He bolted, his gun up but loose. The pilot was next, followed by Stellada with 6690 at the end. As they ran, their feet shuffling with the speed, they heard the clicking and clacking of metal, pointed, spindly feet upon decomposing stone floors, swarming behind them. Occasionally the sound of a blaster being fired with the biomechs purple glow lighting the stairwell.

            6690 turned to return fire. "I'll cover them off."

            "You heard the man," 6651 yelled at 11218, who was in danger of stalling before him. He knew that soldier instinct told him to stop and save, that no soldier was left behind. But 6651 wasn't a soldier. He was someone from a flat in Region 37, who barely managed to pay his taxes and drank a little too much. He had needed extra cash because his landlord was about to put the price up and he didn't know if he could find anywhere else. He didn't care about the soldier code, the marine code, or any kind of code. He wanted to go home alive, with some extra Zale in his pocket and drink. That was the end of it. It was callous, but fear ripped honour from his bones. He shoved the foot soldier in front of him and the man, not more than a boy, picked up his pace.

            They emerged onto the ground floor and 11218 kicked down the door. Moonlight spilled in from two rooms away. They heard 6690 being shot down up above them, his screams echoed down the stairwell.

            "We've got to go back for him!" 11218 shouted.

            "He's wasted, man. Leave him," 6651 replied.

            "We can't just..." 11218 heard the sound of wires being pulled out of sockets. He heard things being inserted into 6690, the tell-tale, ghastly squelches, and 11218 quickly decided that he didn't want to try and save the slab of meat that was quickly becoming food, fuel.

            The trio fled the sounds of conversion and sprinted out into the street. They were in some sort of estate with a road leading out. They heaved their armour, with an occasional pirouette of the guns around, looking for holes for which snipers would launch attacks. The pilot took up the rear, pointing his gun towards the building they had just left, another hand on his helmet. He flicked through options as they appeared on his visor. He hit the one he needed.

            Nothing emerged out of the building, but as they turned the corner they didn't slow. 6651 had given up on stealth now. Coming out of the estate he recognised where he was. He felt his internal compass point him the way, and indeed he could see the bank, almost see the manhole cover he had come down through. The mental picture he had taken lined up with his vision and the two matched.

            He took the lead again, their armour clanking as it knocked against itself in their scampering melody. Those streetlights, lying desolate on their side, showed him the way home, yes, they were there. He had only seen them once, but the pilot greeted them like family.

            "6651, what the hell are you doing calling me up like this?" It was Killhide over his helmet's radio.

            "Sir, we need backup now. There's only three of us left, and I doubt..."

            "Soldier, you're further into biomech territory than anyone can get at the moment."           6651 motioned to the building as he ran, and the trio ducked inside. Once out of the moonlight they put their backs up against the side of the building. 11218 pulled out his Halo-Core to scan for biomechs.

            "Sir?"

            "Pilot, when the bridge went down a few hours ago, purples swept in and took ten square miles of the city within fifteen minutes. Fucking things must have been living in cracks in the damn ground."

            "But..."

            "Now I'm hearing reports that they're going to mushroom the place in about half an hour." The pilot felt his veins freeze over.

            "Mushroom, sir? Surely you..."

            "Celestria is sending one almighty son-of-a-bomb through to blow that whole side out. You've got half an hour to get yourself out of there, or you're going crispy." The contact cut out on the other end. The pilot couldn't to comprehend what he was hearing.

            "Nothing. It's clear," Stellada reported from the Halo-Core. She closed down the map and handed it back to 11218.

            "We need to move ass, now. Fuck the mission, we need up and out the city, and then run. They're mushrooming us."

            "Fuck," 11218 breathed.

            6651 pushed passed the two of them and mounted the stairs. He crushed the powdering skull of a Greivstorian underneath his sabaton. It would burn soon.

You are reading the story above: TeenFic.Net