DOOM: Surviviors
 

Seeing as the DOOM novels were no real great work of literature, I figured I could do better. So I'll post it as I write it.

Now I'm posting it here in the Arts n' Farts thread because of 2 reasons:

1. You're a video game crowd, and seeing as this is a story based on a video game, I would like to hear the point of views on this story.

2. You're all literate. And I take it you don't mind reading, so it's also here for entertainment.

Enjoy.

0449, Phobos, MP Station

I woke up from my daydream and realized I was done pissing; I had nearly fallen asleep standing in the bathroom again. I needed more sleep, more free time; time to rest my mind and my body. But up here you always lived on borrowed time, and there’s never enough for everyone, always being stolen by shift changes and false alarms from the UAC Labs. I suddenly remembered where I was, and what was going on, and I couldn’t help but wonder how I could nearly start sleeping with such an emergency taking place. I snapped to, stuffed my member back into my combat fatigues, and snapped the webbing belt back into place, feeling slightly embarrassed. I flushed the stainless, space-age steel urinal and tried to figure out just how long I was daydreaming, and what the hell I could have been dreaming about in the first place; I hated when I couldn’t remember my dreams, like my mind was taunting me with hints only to rip it away before the picture was complete. Snapping the light kevlar combat vest closed again, I felt a pinch as the M92-F handgun underneath rebelled; I stuffed it in, hoping the 15 rounds inside and an extra mag would be enough, seeing as most of the heavier equipment was on the skimmer. A holster for it would have been handy, but with no holster, there was no other way to hang onto it. So under the Kevlar vest it would stay, until I could figure out something better.
My job used to be a simple security job on Phobos. Nothing too complicated, patrols of outer buildings, combat drills in the Hangar of the complex, simple ID posts, maybe even a training lesson or two for the UAC Militia to learn from us. But the UAC had been doing some bad science as of late, things they refused to tell us about, and we had received screams over the civilians’ broadcast bands, something about “coming out of the Gate”. They barely ever used their radios to communicate with us, sending most of their messages through the Infantry bands and the Militia of theirs. So something really bad must have happened, and just as everyone was waking up for breakfast, we start getting dressed for combat duty, wondering what kind of accident could have happened when working with millennia-old alien constructs. Most of the boys wanted to let the UAC Corporation clean up their own messes, but we didn’t get paid to sit around when the shit hits the fan, so we all continued to get ready to help them out anyway.
And then everything fell apart at once.
The lights fluctuated, the cries for help over the radio turned into screams of horror and death, and Major Boyd informed us that reinforcements were on their way via the communication system all at the very same moment; of course we didn’t hear this for long, as the main communications between us and the labs were soon cut with no explanations. The hand radios continued broadcasting, but either there was nothing happening, or the enemy had run out of people to kill, because the radios stayed silent. Every Marine in the post started to slowly go into panic mode, and I had the unpleasant job of waking our COIC, Lieutenant Walker. He was a ruthless bastard in his own right, and had gotten sent up here as punishment just like me, at the same time. Last time we talked, he had saluted me as a Warrant Officer. Now I saluted him as a Lieutenant. My, my, how things change, don’t they.
We still hated each other.
He told us to get our collective posterior to the Facility, as soon as possible, then made way for the armor room himself. All I could think was at least he was going with the troops under his command; most officers I knew would keep their own beloved posterior behind while the ground-pounders did the real work, trying to save their own ass before they helped out the very men that entrusted them with command in the first place. Part of me thought I should have become an officer myself, just to set a proper example, but I found out early on that the troops separate themselves from the officers that don’t do their jobs correctly, going to the NCOs for guidance. I became a good NCO, just to get demoted and sent to Mars.
Life just seems to love me.
We only had a small complement of Marines up here in the Security building, and we were all just MPs, so every man that went was one more that mattered later on. The UAC had a very unique minor-league security team, with a few racks of old police-issue riot guns, and a couple of crates of semi-auto carbines (commonly labeled by most of the USMC as the ‘Sig-Cow’ due to it’s ugly frame and weak 10mm rifle ammo) on loan from our force on Mars. And finally there was a platoon of infantry on the Main Nuclear Plant level, but that was 6 or 7 levels down into the facility, burrowed under the surface of the tiny Martian moon. Of course, if the civvies had deemed it important enough to call for our help, then I guessed the rest of the Marines inside the complex were otherwise occupied. Seeing as we were the best-trained unit on this side of the moon’s surface, we all knew we could make a real difference in a combat situation.
So most of the MP squad pounds it out to the armory on the edge of the gravity zone, leaving two raw recruits (both named Ron) to guard a Corporal that was up for court-martial; supposedly he was coming in with the company we were getting for reinforcements, but most likely, knowing Major Boyd, they would be a cleanup team, meant to come in, satiate the problem, and leave again. The Corporal would most likely never leave the troopship. Last we knew the Rons were still waiting for Fox and their Corporal cargo when we began passing out the issue carbines (oddly enough, equipped with bayonets) and running out to the cargo skimmer we used for fast deployment to the Labs. We even heard them get orders from Major Boyd to break out the equipment for holographic briefing, so evidently even the reinforcements were just about as well informed as we were. And we live on the surface all the time. There was nothing quite like rushing headlong into situation unknown, with the secretive UAC and their mistake at the center of the mess.
Except I had to piss and there is no real quick solution when you’re wearing a pressure suit and combat armor that doesn’t involve wet pants, so I told them to leave me behind. God knows why I did that.
Me, Private First Class Arcturus Hawk; 923-45-9967, USMC Military Police. I had no idea why I was on Phobos the first place, or why I had insisted on being left behind to take a piss in the middle of an emergency situation. I put on my pressure suit and sealed it, careful not to snag it on the .45 holster on my web belt, and make sure there were no holes in it. I hated the idea of being in vacuum at all, but now I was going to have to find a way over without limiting the ability of our expected backup to get to the labs. So I scooped up the Sig-Cow from next to the urinal and humped it out to the landcart bay, already with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I wished I had some of the equipment in the lockers on board the skimmer for the second time, but the Sig-Cow and the pistols would have to suffice due to my restroom visit.
There were plenty of landcarts, and the obvious hole where the cargo skimmer once sat. Of course, I had no idea how many Marines made up our backup unit, or when they would arrive, but they would be really pissed if they didn’t have enough landcarts to get the entire company to the labs. So I made a quick search of the bay and found a few single-man transports that looked old and unused behind a locked panel; however they looked, I thanked my luck as they both started up nicely. Checking the power supplies, I removed the one with less charge, hotwired it to the one in seemingly better condition and congratulated myself on a job well done, then began kicking myself in the ass.
Here I was, alone, in the middle of an emergency situation, and I was fooling around with my so-called engineering skills. What the hell was I doing? My squad was most likely already in the Labs, fighting and dying, and I was goofing off halfway across the moon with batteries and wires.
Finding some resolve, I started out on the single-man transport, surprised by its speed. I was glad the Sig-Cow was strapped across my back; I would have dropped it if I had been carrying it in my arms. As I turned the little hand lever as hard as possible, the damned thing nearly leapt out from under me, and I almost panicked; regaining my footing, I kept up the speed, but made sure to watch my balance. The speed meter was a little funky, telling me I was moving at 60 kph, but that was impossible. This thing was itty-bitty, powered by a couple of small batteries that looked to be 12-volt car batteries, and no brakes, with simple dirt treads.
I took a quick look behind me and my jaw fell open. I was moving at that rate, for the small security post was long behind me, and the facility were getting closer ahead. A marvelous little machine, to be this simple yet this efficient; for a moment I wondered what else the UAC had built and was waiting for me inside the Labs.
As I looked back to the facility, I suddenly noticed an explosion out of what seemed to be the small reactor on the surface. Strobes of gunfire could barely be seen, and the thwump of the blast reached me, muted by the airless breath of space.

He was alone because he had to pee...
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....Brilliant!

Actually I thought it was pretty good. Keep it up!

Yeah man that's pretty awesome, if only you could get a book published.. :P

Thanks for the comments!

Continued...

Something was being released past a pressure dome somewhere beyond the entryway of the Main Facility; I could see the gas in the air spewing out of the pressure dome and evacuating precious oxygen to the harsh vacuum. Suddenly a rocket visibly streaked down the length of a windowed corridor, and I didn’t think it was a Marine firing the rocket; we had none up here to my knowledge, so it could only really mean one of two things: All the Marines were either dead on that level, or it wasn’t the good guys using the rocket launcher.
I suddenly wished the transport could move plenty faster.
The rest of the ride became very tedious, as the windows of the facility entrance levels were dotted with flares of more gunfire. Power to the exterior of the buildings on the surface seemed to fluctuate as all of the lights dimmed at once. Sweat began to pour down the sides of my under shirt, and I shuddered as I felt another shockwave, this time from behind. Sparing a glance, I noticed that the USMC dropship begin to finally land at the pad, and I felt relief wash over me. I knew that we weren’t alone up here. Now to just get to the Labs and make sure my unit stayed alive.
Looking forward again, I was pleased to realize just how close I was; however, the cargo skimmer wasn’t at the main entrance, it was over in the Military Hangar. So I angled over and silently cursed myself for not just taking a piss in the pressure suit and being there when it really mattered. Wet pants were better than just watching the action happen from afar, without being able to help, or at least fire back.
This was going to be one Hell of day.
Stopping the little transport, I hopped off onto the soft dirt surface of Phobos for the first time this morning. I hoped it was the last time, and that the next dirt I walked on was Earthen. I remembered that I was still outside of the alien pressure and gravity zones, so I slowly walked the 10 meters to the dock, climbing up next to the skimmer onto the raised loading platform. Careful not to pierce the thin fabric of the pressure suit on the bayonet, I unstrapped the carbine and made my way further onto the deck, noting that the hatch to the cargo skimmer was ajar… and that a trail of blood led inside.

I stepped forward and felt the pressure zone gravity, and stopped where I was, my innards flip-flopping as it recognized the familiar sensation of near-Earth gravity. My blood felt cold in my veins, and I almost wretched from the nervousness; I kept walking after a moment of mustering my courage, Sig-Cow at the ready. Pushing the hatch the rest of the way open, I felt a lead weight drop into the pit of my stomach as my gaze fell upon the source of the trail, a Marine MP leaning up against the driver’s compartment. He had a horrid expression on his face, with one arm wrapped around his torso. The other arm ended a short distance from his shoulder in a bloody stump of muscle and bone. At first all I could wonder was what the hell could have removed a Mac’s arm like that in the middle of a moon base.
I rushed forward, noting the chevrons of a Sergeant on his yellow pressurized armor suit, but I couldn’t see a nametag. I almost asked him something, before I realized he was unconscious, with his eyelids closed and his lips in a contorted snarl. The stump of the remaining limb had stopped bleeding, the pressurized armor suit he wore self-sealed around it; I’d have to clean it up or it could become an infection that would kill him. I wondered how much blood he may have lost, and if there were any packs of synthetic blood aboard the seemingly stripped-down cargo skimmer. I knew the Labs most likely had a full medical suite, but I had no time. I needed something now, and it better have been more than just a UAC Stimpack. Useful they were, but only if you had more than one, and I needed something larger; if I was lucky, I would find one of the rare Medikits, the full-sized medical packs that the UAC had promised us, but never delivered. I was about to say “Cross your fingers” to the Marine, but I figured it would have been in bad taste, so I left it unsaid.
Gazing around, I noticed some of the lockers, and cracked open a few. Finding a new suit of powered combat armor similar to the Sergeant’s I smiled grimly; the rank and insignia were absent, and the armor plating was black. Odd. Checking the next locker I found a few boxes of rounds for a magnum revolver and a ruined sub-machine gun, I began wondering which MP would have stashed a .357 in the Cargo skimmer before moving onto the next. Scooping up the rounds, I hoped I’d find the gun it if it was still intact and lying around. The sub-machine gun was an old MAC10 with an extended barrel and a silencer, an old relic that our squad leader, Lieutenant Walker, liked to carry; it looked like whatever else was in the bottom of the locker had crushed it with weight, and I bet I’d find out what it was later.
I finally found a real Medkit in the third locker and ran it over to the wounded Marine while thanking my lucky stars; opening it up, I remembered to rush back and close the skimmer’s hatch and pressurize the inside before trying to open his powered armor. After about 10 minutes of impromptu yet amazingly thorough first aid, thanks to the Medkit, he finally began to regain consciousness. He jolted at first, and I was glad I had finished before he woke up; he produced a 10mm pistol from a backdraw holster and aimed it at me with his only arm, his hand slightly wavering and shaking. The safety was off, and his finger on the trigger; I could almost taste the bullet. I didn’t even know whom he was, guessing he might have been one of the MP’s already stationed here on the surface entry.
The simple kevlar combat vest I wore would stop a few rounds, but I had no need to test it out, and frankly I still thought the pressure suit was useful, so I hoped he wouldn’t take a potshot. Of course I really shouldn’t have given him any chance. I was about to try to grab the gun, when he relaxed; his hand stopped shaking, he thumbed the hammer back forward, and slid the safety on. He suddenly got an expression of understanding, and placed the 10mm in his lap, grimacing slightly as he gazed at his stump, and it’s newly wrapped bandage.
“Hello Private.” He spoke almost as if he was detached from reality. Tears were in his eyes. They weren’t tears of sadness; no his eyes spoke of anger and regret. He wanted revenge, and for a moment I wondered if I should bring him along, use his anger as a weapon. But no, one-armed and emotional was not what I needed. There was the slight chance he would run into a situation hotheaded, and with only one arm, he would require constant attention. And I didn’t have the time to wait for him to feel well enough to join me. No, hoping he would live and be useful later on was what I would gamble on.
“Sargent. I’m glad you may make it. I need you to put on this pressure suit.” I slowly began to take it off, sparing a glance over at my Sig-Cow resting against one locker door. I wondered if I could reach for it in time if he tried to shoot me in his disoriented state of mind. Most likely not, but with the .45 under the suit, I’d have to rely on it until I got the pistol and it’s holster loose.
Then I realized what I was planning. I quit right away, telling myself that if worse came to worse, and he decided to try to take me out, I would deal with it then. He was still a Marine as far as I could tell, and he deserved my trust as a Noncom.
“Why bother.” He croaked. His voice was hoarse. “I just watched 3 MPs die in front of me… oh God there were more Marines in there… but they weren’t real.”
I must have looked as confused as I felt, because he began to extrapolate.

its pretty good. keep postin pages.

Continued...

“So many people inside. We saw the Militia get cut to pieces… those cheap carbine cut-downs we gave them were useless. There were UAC workers all over the place, shuffling around with stolen weapons. Something was wrong, we could tell from the beginning. Someone was running around the facility long before we got there… most of the machines were ruined, the maps all destroyed, burned nearly beyond recognition… no radio contact with the Infantry platoon on the Nuclear Plant level, or with any of the living UAC Militia members.
“We would fire and fire and they wouldn’t fall, they wouldn’t fall damnit! Then something big and nasty blindsides me and suddenly my arm is missing, and along with it goes my Sig-Cow… I was just standing there, in shock, when the thing runs up and hits the Staff Sargent in front of me with a row of razor-sharp teeth and kills him in one bite…why didn’t I move?! I don’t know, I don’t know! I just watched him die! I didn’t even scream or call out!”
He began to sob quietly, taking deep breaths and letting out a low, deep growling sound from his throat, as if in a mix of sorrow and rage. I took the opportunity to grab the pistol from his lap; he never bothered to notice. It was a nice piece, modeled after a Browning HP with a longer barrel and a short flash suppressor on the end. Ejecting the clip, I noted that there were only two rounds left; checking the chamber, there was one left. Just enough rounds to kill me, I guessed, glad he didn’t fire. Taking the time to locate a box of leftover 10mm bullets, I reloaded the mag and handed it back to him. It was only 9 rounds, so I grabbed the Sig-Cow and made sure the 30 round clip in the receiver was full, then handed it to him as well.
“Thank you Marine.” He was curt and slightly gleeful as he re-holstered the pistol while gripping the carbine. At least he might make it, and I hoped I wasn’t too late for others.
“Here’s the pressure suit. Use it to patch up any holes in that armor if you can and try to keep the cargo skimmer clear of… whatever else is out there. I’ll try to seal it from the outside as best I can. Don’t open it unless you see another Marine on the monitors.” As I pulled the Beretta out from the thin kevlar combat armor, I heard the Sargent cackle. He was most likely quite amused with how I took charge of the situation. His face looked very familiar, despite the lack og identification, I knew this man from somewhere. The cackle was very familiar too, and triggered a few vague memories.
“Is that an order, PFC?” The smile on his face almost looked menacing, but he must have realized just how much use a one-armed man is on the battlefield, because it became a playful grin at the end. He knew I wasn’t planning on having him tag along, obviously, and probably felt a little disappointed.
I didn’t answer. I don’t know why.
I pulled out the second magazine for the Beretta and breathed a sigh of relief to have it and the pistol out from under the armor vest. Setting it down, I pulled my .45 from the holster and it’s spare mag, making sure it was still functioning. The way things sounded inside, anything was possible, and I wasn’t taking the chance that I had lost something only to find out about it far too late.
Fitting the .45 back into the hip holster and removing the web belt, I began to put on the powered armor.
“No really,” I heard the Sargent say, “Thank you PFC. If I had a say in things, you’d be a Sarge right now.” He sounded serious. I knew noncoms didn’t have the rank to swing promotions like that, but I appreciated the gesture.
“Don’t worry about it, Mac. Semper Fi. Besides, I was a Sergeant once, and it ended me up here, so I’d say I’ll pass.” The armor suit fit well over the kevlar vest and my fatigues, and came with a convenient holster on the chest that the M92 fit into well. The holster for the .45 and the military webbing hung on it perfectly. The spare ammo went into the proper pouches, and I was once again reminded of my puny firepower consisting of one .45 pistol with 24 rounds and a 9mm pistol with 30. I wished I at least hat a riot gun, but damnit, I wasn’t going to find one screwing around out here. I had already blown my chance to equip myself with something more potent, and the squad had picked everything over; I considered myself lucky to find what little ammo there was and a spare armor suit to wear.
And the powered armor was a plus, just as useful as a weapon, and far more use than a full set of combat aromor with a pressure suit over it. The powered armor was pressurized, had air filters, plenty of reserve O2 that could be refilled, self-repaired itself like the pressure suits if holed, and if I could find a proper source of power, I could use it to move faster and fight stronger. Only our little unit had them on the Phobos surface, and they were marvelous. The UAC had helped develop them, but had no idea the USMC had started building them. They especially had no idea that there were any on the Martian moon, or a whole company’s worth of them on Mars itself. Of course, UAC had evidently hidden plenty of things from us already, and I had no idea what to really expect.
Besides, the platoon of Infantry was already on the Nuke plant level, and our reinforcements were probably already on their way here in the landcarts. Since things were so secretive already, there may have been far more Marines on this moon than I knew about as well. And they didn’t have the plus of the powered armor; they only had the flimsy, self-sealing pressure suits that could only stand a short time in vacuum, and possibly a few sets of combat armor. I had the duty to make myself useful now, and not debate it for three hours with myself.
Making sure all of the seals were tight on the black armor suit, I opened the cargo skimmer’s rear hatchway and stepped out, sealing it behind me as best I could. I waved at the security cam on the rear of the skimmer for a moment, hoping that the Sargent would still be alive when I came back, and the skimmer still in one piece. Walking briskly towards the entrance to the Military Hangar, I unholstered the Beretta and opened the airlock door, shutting it behind me with a resounding clang. The inner hatch leading inside the facility was still unlocked, and had a bloody streak across it; I pushed it open, hearing the sound of a short circuit and the hiss of an open valve of air or steam.
Closing the inner hatchway behind me, I felt the finality of being in the Phobos Installations long after my squad had. I didn’t like this, but I couldn’t help but feel a rush of adrenaline.

0457, UAC Military Hangar

The visibility was all right here, and the windows were made of an impressive plexiglass mix that allowed a lot of the outer floodlights to be reflected into the upper areas. The power still looked less than at full level, and several of the lighting strips on the inner ceiling were sparking and broken, shot to bits. I didn’t like the implications, but whoever was doing the aiming was pretty shitty about it. What I didn’t like to see were flasks of water and pieces of armor plating scattered about, pools of blood and an unidentifiable pile of remains in the bottom of an empty toxin reservoir. This place looked like hell. I had the sudden feeling that I was the only man of my squad still alive, and I didn’t like it one bit. It made my stomach sour.
The west side of the room had an open doorway into what seemed to be an observation deck, with a set of stairs leading up to more of the plexiglass windows. Two strange pillars of electronics flanked the staircase, sparking and zapping loudly, coronas of electricity flaring and hanging wires dangling down popping with power as energy arced between them. I wondered what they were useful for, seeing no obvious function. Stepping forward carefully, I noticed a nasty smell of rotting flesh or vegetable matter, underlying and cloying, hard to distinguish clearly; there was also a big whiff of ozone in there that almost had me coughing, probably a result of the electric discharges. I wondered if I was going to smell burning sulfur and melting brimstone next in this weird-ass Facility.
Up the stairs, and up to the observation windows I went, identifying more of the shards of other armor suits ripped from their place and flung to the ground like so much garbage. Sitting on a small table there, however, was an old 1911 .45 Army issue with brown grips and an Officer’s seal on the butt. I scooped it up and slid out the clip, pleased to see it was a double stack and fully loaded, so it had 12 rounds of ammo. Into the opposite side of the webbing it went, within easy reach. I wondered who had left it behind, and why it had been left fully loaded, unbroken. Misplacing a loaded issue weapon was an offence, especially if it really was an officer’s piece. But I was relieved to have another weapon, no matter where it came from.
If I died, at least I’d be able to load someone full of pistol rounds first, in any case.
I left the observation room and stumbled my way down to the next door cautiously, kicking over several empty flasks of water, wondering where all of the full ones were. I hated to admit it, but I was quite thirsty already. I still hadn’t even seen an enemy yet, and the Sergeant’s descriptions of what happened chilled me to the bone. I hoped whatever I met, the pistol rounds would stop it, if I fired enough times. I noted the door in front of me was full of bullet holes, and a large gash in the steel surface; it also was pockmarked with little pits, but I had no idea what would have caused it. The gash looked to be caused by something with plenty of force behind it, but was smooth, almost like a blade had struck the steel and cut it evenly; I opened it up and thanked whoever had damaged the door that they left it functioning.

This is so cool! Being a hard-core DooM fan, I love fan-fics. Way cool, keep it up. I have a DooM Marine Sprite sheet, you want it? ^.^ It's pretty cool.

That sprite sheet would be cool. Can you send it to my e-mail?

And The Story Continues...

The next room was very bright and stuffed with machinery of all sorts along the walls, but what caught my attention was the two UAC militiamen stumbling around in the cargo storage space ahead, one holding a lever-action rifle and the other gripping a cut-down Sig-Cow carbine. They hadn’t noticed me yet, and moved in a jerking, shuffling motion of the walking wounded, pointing their weapons at each other every time one was jostled. Walking forward with a spring in my step, I hoped they knew what was going on; at no time did I even consider if something was wrong with them at this point. They seemed to be extremely fatigued, and possibly in shock from being in live combat the first time, but I couldn’t properly diagnose anything from this far away, without even speaking to them first.
Then I noticed the awful smell of rotting… whatever, overpowering and making me gag, nearly indescribable it was so bad; I had to wonder if the powered armor suit I was wearing was filtering out useable air from the facility, and why it would consider this to be a tolerable form of air. I stumbled forward, barely catching my breath from the stench, and the sound of my footsteps finally jerked the attention of the two Militia members towards me. They were both speaking, their mouths moving simultaneously, jabbering something I couldn’t quite hear from this distance. I noticed they weren’t blinking, and there seemed to be no pause for breath in their ranting; instead there was a ragged tearing sound that could have been breathing when they had nothing to say, but continued ranting afterward. It was strange, and inhuman. I was tempted to say something until they leveled their rifles at me. This was far more than mere fatigue.
At first I absolutely refused to believe this was happening. They were UAC, our unit had been with these sorry corporate losers ever since they began this mining expedition out here on the tiny Martian moon, the Marines since they took over the Mars installations, why the hell would they fire on me? But the rest of myself was far past allowing someone to point a rifle anywhere near me at the moment, and the Beretta came to bear on the man holding the lever-action faster than the thoughts could sort out in my mind. As the first bullet zinged past my helmet, I squeezed the trigger four times, landing three torso shots and one in the gut. The cheap armor of the militaman buckled and he doubled over grabbing his abdomen and growling like a wounded animal, spitting a thin string of dirty saliva from his bloody lips. The second never had the chance to squeeze the trigger, as I fired into his neck with the next two shots, spraying the wall of the cargo area behind him with, strangely enough, red-black blood.
Then something even stranger happened.

Up to this point, everything I had known had seemed normal in the world. I could dismiss the evil, rotting smell that had my eyes watering and my nose recoiling in horror. The strangely colored blood was nothing too out of the ordinary, even if it looked a little curdled. The strange way they were talking and staring unblinkingly could be discounted to fatigue or combat stress.
But when the UAC worker I had just pumped two rounds into the neck of didn’t fall, but rather lunged forward, gripped onto the carbine with an expression of hate and murder, firing on semi-auto, I freaked out.
The Beretta still raised, I kept firing on my target, loading another 7 rounds into his torso and shoulders, watching his body jerk as the rounds struck him, but continuing forward impossibly. He wore no armor, and should have dropped in the first two shots, without a doubt. I had trained for a long and hard, continuing to learn with weapons during peacetime, and I was a crack shot. I knew what the effects of a bullet were on someone, and this defied everything I had seen as a combat soldier. Something was wrong with these ‘men’, if they could still be considered human.
I might have been yelling as I fired, but I didn’t care; my brain barely registered that the Beretta was empty; it meant he could kill me with impunity, and I wouldn’t be able to fire back. It should have been loud in my mind, but the sight of the reeking, walking corpse in front of me was trying to drown out every thought I had. He refused to fall, walking forward like a meat puppet, blindly firing the carbine ahead and missing me by half a meter. Ricochets bounced of the walls and floor around me, a few even striking the door and wall behind. I was amazed. His aim couldn’t be that bad; I was huge, and the powered armor almost made me as broad as a barn, so how could he miss me, standing so close? But I didn’t have time to think about it in the middle of a firefight with the people I was supposed to be rescuing.
The second worker chose then to strike me from his supine position using the lever-action rifle as a club, gripping it by the barrels like a baseball bat, knocking me off my feet so the first one could have an easier target. I kicked myself mentally as I rolled over the moving, wriggling body of the seemingly fatigued worker, berating myself for not being faster, for thinking when I should have been acting.
I dropped the Beretta onto the tiled metal floor and stopped at a crouch, drawing both .45 pistols in a double-fisted grip. I felt cheesy, but I started firing both pistols from my position, striking the standing worker in the legs; once he fell to his knees, I gave him two rounds to the forehead from 4 meters away. His head split open and he fell back, dropping the modified Sig-Cow onto the other worker. Standing up, I leveled both pistols at the one remaining and gave his skull a pair of rounds as well, while he still fumbled on the floor. The bodies started flopping and wriggling, like a dead chicken with it’s head lopped off. I felt ruthless, awful, and triumphant all at the same moment. I probably should have questioned them, but it was far too late for such things. The smell was even more prevalent now, and the bodies were leaking blood that looked clotted and dead, black-red and thick, oozing from the many wounds slowly.
“What the hell was that about?” I gasped. Trying to collect my bearings, I checked the mags of the two .45s; pleased to see each had 8 rounds left, I wondered where I could find a steady supply of .45 bullets. Holstering them, I walked forward and bent down, scooping up the Beretta. Ejecting the empty clip, I placed it into a pouch and reloaded the pistol with the remaining 15 round mag, wishing I had a few extended clips with 20 or 25 rounds. Stuffing the pistol into the chest holster in the armor suit, I bent down to examine the bodies closer. They still jerked and moved after death, and I could now see, they were seemingly decomposing, their wounds not bleeding freely at all, merely leaking as the bodies flopped after death. The uniforms they wore were filthy, and there were splashes of a silver liquid on the torso. It may have been on their chins, but the mouth and lips were covered in blood, chunks of unidentifiable flesh stuck to the teeth. The death I gave them was not the first, in my mind. Something was dead about them far before I began firing.
Both corpses finally stopped moving, and I took the chance to remove their rifles.

I sent. Boy, I like this the more and more I read it! :D This rules...

Continued...

The modified Sig-Cow only had 3 rounds, and due to its even shorter barrel, receiver limiter that only allowed 15 round clips, and lack of bayonet, it was a peashooter to me. It was less reliable than the pistols I was already carrying, and the worker had burned off most of the magazine in the process of trying to use it to frag my ass. So I removed the rounds and kept them, then stripped the rifle down to an unfiring state to try and be careful, taking no chances that these guys still weren’t dead. Of course if any well-knowing jarhead came in behind me, they’d know how to reassemble the carbine, so I mostly did it for the sake of hoping that these two wouldn’t get back up, again.
The lever action wasn’t in very well condition, and the stock was broken where it struck me. I noticed the spot where he hit me was still sore, and would most likely become a bruise in less than an hour; great, another thing to worry about in all this mess. At least I was still alive to worry about the bruise, and I was glad the powered armor was there, I would most likely be dealing with a broken leg otherwise. I checked the chamber for any rounds; one was jammed in the chamber sideways and looked immovable. Remembering the first shots I knew I saw him fire at me before I could react; he nearly took off my head with the first shot, so when it jammed after he pulled the trigger the second time, my ass was saved. I’m not too sure how well the headgear with the powered armor could have dealt with a round to the faceplate.
Whew.
Only one round was left in the tube magazine, and it was an old .30-06. Utterly useless to me, seeing as I didn’t have a rifle handy that would fire it. All our snipers quit using .30-06 and switched to the full-size .50cal rifles, so I knew this wasn’t actually a stolen weapon if these former humans were really part of the UAC Militia at some point. God knew how many civilians had brought their own weapons up here, and why the UAC hadn’t formalized it’s little militia. It made the situation very tenuous. The various benefits were that the UAC were most likely had smuggled in weapons that we didn’t know about, and therefore, we had weapons they didn’t know about. They wouldn’t force us to expose the entirety of our armory here on the UAC stations since they were hiding caches of their own that they wanted to keep secret. I had no proof, but just the state of things was just enough to tip me off. The FUBAR situation here was not something the UAC would seemingly want to allow; I wish I had more info. I’d have to find a UAC worker that was still alive, if things went well enough.
However, the sit-rep didn’t look optimal as far as I was concerned. No unified ammunition, nonstandard weapons, no interchangeable parts or armor… everything I’d seen so far seemed so second-rate for what was supposed to be a militia organized by UAC themselves. Something told me that the Militia was just a front, a unit designed to disguise a more professional force, but I couldn’t confirm it.
The way things were going already, their weapons would be useless for my own purposes, and they evidently had no reservations about killing me with them to boot. Leaving the broken lever action behind, I drew one of the .45s and continued out of the cargo area while hoping things wouldn’t get much weirder than this. As I came around the other side cargo bay, I began down the stairs into the next room, when I noticed a smell that burned my nostrils. I checked the suit, and saw the filter was still in place… whatever the smell originated from the molecules were small enough to leap through the air filters of the armor suit. Walking forward, I noticed what was making the smell. A thin rock bridge ran zigzagging through a large pool of neon green toxic waste. It burbled and popped like molten acid, the pools open topped with an obvious disregard for safety protocols. This was definitely not standard UAC architecture. I wondered if the waste was radioactive, and how many RADs I was absorbing, or if the armored suit had a lead liner.
Too late to think about it, seeing as I was already standing so close, and preparing to cross a bridge through it to the other side.
I knew the toxin was from the strip mines the UAC had burrowed down into the surface of Phobos, but I had no idea they lived and breathed so damned close to it. I wondered if there were any children in the facility, because I knew I certainly wouldn’t allow people to procreate this close to the toxic crap. Part of me still didn't believe everything was still all UAC built, and things looked so different from the last time I’d been part of a drill in the Hangar. It was like the building had been changed from the inside out, similar to living in a digital world or a Lego building. I took a moment to wonder if some twisted freak was looking down, changing the floors, altering the colors, just to get his jollies off. If that was true, I couldn’t wait to find the prick and put him through this crap.
Lying just before the path was a body in a dark green pressurized armor suit. Kneeling down before it, I noticed who it was as I turned the body over, examining the large slash across his upper torso that had seemingly cut so deep it killed him in one swipe. Sergeant Harry Wilits. He was a huge Dirty Harry fan, and I immediately knew which one of us would have carried a .357 up here. Checking his corpse, instead of his .357, which was missing from it’s holster along with it’s bag of speedloaded ammo moons he carried with it, I found something much more potent.
In his backdraw holster sat something I’d never seen anyone else wield here before: a Desert Eagle .50AE. It was a 7-inch model, with an extended 10 round magazine, plenty of counterweights, and a full-length slide. Hefting it out of his holster, I ejected the magazine and felt a joyous rush of glee as I found it fully loaded. A chest pack of clips was strapped across Harry’s torso; investigating them closer I found 5 more extended mags, all full to the brim. Relieving Harry’s corpse of the monster ammunition and it’s backdraw holster, I felt my survival rate leap up; if worse came to worse, the DE would stop damn near everything that had the misfortune of running into me, or vice versa.
I silently thanked the Sargent as I turned him back over. I would have to come back for his corpse. Never leave a Marine behind, Semper Fidelidus. He might have been dead, but he still served a purpose, providing me with the masterpiece Desert Eagle. “Good to the last Drop” was on the tip of my tongue, but besides demeaning his death, it also didn’t apply: he was an MP, not in the Light Drop. I kept my mouth closed.
Standing back up, I kept the .45 at ready, and began crossing the rather large bridge. I didn’t want to get near the toxic crap, and if the smell were any consideration, I wasn’t getting in it either. Somehow I couldn’t help but think of a kiddy pool from the depths of Hell. And that left me wondering if all of this was supposed to remind me of Hell; if things were this subtle now, what were the other buildings becoming? I finished crossing the rather short bridge as I pondered, walking to the next doorway; when I reached for the door a grinding noise had me spinning around with the pistol ready to fire. Something had happened in the damned toxin room, and now I had to go back and check it; no chance I was leaving my back uncovered.