Shipley woke up, gunfire ringing in his ears. In his dream, he was at the dawn of the 21st century; he lived in Indonesia, and was the "Site Director" for a "Web Site" on what, back in those days, was called the Internet. He had dreamed that one of the people that frequented the forums that the site hosted had hunted him down and shot him for saying something bad about the forum-goer's girlfriend. But now, he was certain that the gunfire was quite real, indeed. He jumped out of bed, put on his combat vest and grabbed his pulse rifle. At the same time, his COM hummed to life at his belt. He grabbed and found himself staring into the face of Fader. "What's going on, Private?"
"It isn't good, sir! We were just standin' there, listening to that scientist guy that you talked to earlier-"
"Plutonium."
"-Yeah, that was his name. Anyway, he was up there talking; ya know the drill, pretty boring. Then, Scott and I noticed that something was moving around in the rafters… God, they're still here! It's hard to see it; it's like a ripple in the air… I raised my gun to open fire, and there was a flash, and the next thing I know, my gun's on tha' floor, and my arm feels like there's needles stickin' all over it! Then, there's the flash again, and the Doc's got a hole in his chest you could fly a dropship through! Then, I got my gun back, and Scott and me open fire, and everybody else does the same. And then, I radioed you, and here we are, talking." He panted, still looking up and firing from time to time. Shipley could see and hear people behind Fader shooting holes in the ceiling. A piece of plasti-crete that couldn't have been smaller than five feet in diameter came crashing down, luckily missing anyone on the way down.
"You're in the meeting hall, right?"
"Yeah, but you're gonna have one hard time gettin' in! There's people running for every egress point there is! I saw somebody jump through a window earlier!" Just as Fader had said that, the already-panting 2nd Lieutenant saw one of the doorways. He switched COM channels and called for the others to meet them in the hall. The door to the stage-room was coming off of its hinges, people practically flooding out. He cursed under his breath, and jumped into the crowd. He felt like one of those salmon in the nature vids, always trying to swim upstream. He finally pushed through the crowd of vicious elbows and savage knees, and found himself in a nearly empty meeting hall. He spotted Appelwick and Fader standing in the corner, and ran to meet them. Private Scott Appelwick looked deathly pale.
He stared at Shipley and said "Not one drop of blood, Lieutenant. Not one friggin' drop. We emptied two clips each, and every other mofo with a gun must've done the same. How can there not be any blood?"
"I don't know, son," Shipley said, "but I intend to find out what's going on here, and I intend to do it now."
The creature felt the sensation again. It had returned from its mission unharmed, although most of its brethren did not. The prey was tricky; it had destroyed its comrades, and in turn, destroyed many of the creature's kind. It jolted to life as more prey walked by its cage. Lashing out, it struck nothing but the invisible wall in front of it. It stopped thrashing, and stared at the potential meal. It mumbled something in its high-pitched language. It sounded like "Looks like The Prowler is hungry again-", at which point it made another loud, high-pitched noise, this time longer and louder than the language. For some reason, this sound delighted the creature. It was the sound of fear. It heard a noise like something cracking and crashing to the floor, liquid draining after it. It turned to look.
A carrier, it thought, it shall further the species! The creature did not knowingly think this, but instead simply realized the fact, and acknowledged it. The second, smaller creature looked like a crossbreed between a spider and a crab, and it scuttled across the floor with some speed towards the prey. The prey shrieked again, just as the smaller creature latched onto the thing's face. The thing that walked upright fell onto its back, going into spasms. The creature curled back its lips in a hideous smile.
He woke up. He automatically reached for the side of his head, feeling the pain. When he pulled his hand back he noticed the blood. Where am I? he thought. Standing up, he saw the wreckage. There were pieces of some machine, not readily recognizable, strewn about everywhere. He walked, swaggering a bit, towards a big hunk of twisted metal that was lying near a lot of shattered glass. There was a horrible stench in the air, and flies were swarming everywhere. He heard a soft hissing sound and looked again at the metal. There was acid eating through it; it had nearly burned a hole right through. He turned towards his left, looking out at the field he was standing in, obviously a battlefield. His foot caught something soft, and he nearly tripped over it. Looking down, he thought he was going to pass out again. Because, lying at his foot was a body. A human body. It had been torn to pieces, the left leg severed at the knee, the right completely gone. One of the arms had obviously been torn from the socket. There were a few big holes in the man's skull, ragged, with pieces of his brain lining them. But what stood out most were the bite marks. All over his body, like something had feasted on him. He had seen something like this before; he knew it. But where?
He kept walking, simply to keep from fainting. Then, he heard the hissing noise again. There was some acid on something nearby; the acrid smell was wafting towards him. He was watching the ground for more bodies, when he smelled something absolutely rancid. It was coming from a sheet of somewhat-thick metal about three yards away from him. When he walked up to it, he almost choked because of the smell. He bent down and put his hands under a bend in the metal. Straining his knees, he thrust upward, sending the metal about five feet away. Then he looked down and almost screamed with rage. "Bug!" he cried, almost loud enough, he thought a second later, to wake that dead man he had left behind him. But, he didn't remember exactly what that thing lying on the ground was, only that he hated it. Come to think of it, he had forgotten a lot of things… Who are these people? What is all this wreckage? What are these "bugs"? What is this place? The thoughts swam through his mind, almost overwhelming him. He looked down at himself for the first time, giving himself a quick once-over.
He was wearing fatigues with pouches sewn onto nearly every place imaginable, combat armor, some small amounts of face paint, a heavy belt with lots of what appeared to be magazines for a gun on them. In some of the pouches, were what looked like very big bullets. He also noticed some words on his armor and fatigues. They read "United Rebellion Against the Corporations", and in other places "U.R.A.C.", and some patches with "Special Tactics And Guerilla Rebels" and "S.T.A.G.R." on them. But most prominent was a single word painted across the front and back of his armor: "sYn" I must be a soldier, he thought, or now they're handing out combat armor and magazines to civilians. He suddenly felt dizzy again. He just had time to fall to his knees in anticipation before everything got that really funky fuzzy look again, and darkness enveloped him.
Hicks stood in awe, staring at the scene before him. There was metal and plasti-crete all over the floor. And even the debris was covered in bullet casings, ranging from pistol to shotgun to pulse rifle. And worst of all was that, apparently in all the commotion, the good Doctor's body had been taken. Reports were flying in from all over the complex that invisible killers were stalking people. In short, the whole freakin' place had gone nuts. And the squad was smack-dab in the middle of it. Again. Hicks stepped over a metal folding chair that had been knocked over and joined Shipley. "Lieutenant," he said, not looking at the man he was addressing, "what could've done this?"
"A lot of panicked civilians with guns did this, Hicks. The real question is, who-"
"Lieutenant! Lieutenant! You gotta see this!" cried the voice of Private Christopher Beaver from behind Shipley. He was running into the meeting hall, sweat running down his face. He was the last of the squad to get there after Shipley had ordered them all to do so. He was also waving a somewhat large piece of paper in the air. Shipley ran to meet him. "Lieutenant," said Beaver, not waiting to be addressed, "I was checking the satellite images, and realized that they had been temporarily knocked out. But then, when they came back on, there was a huge jump in heat and motion in this clearing, eighteen miles due west of here. I think that shockwave yesterday had something to do with it. Whatever went down, it was big."
"And you say you think the shockwave caused it?"
"No sir," he replied with sweat still running down his brow, and a slight grin appearing on his face, "I think it caused the shockwave…"
"Well, I suggest we find out exactly what happened. Troops!" The last sentence was directed towards his squad. They all rushed over, waiting for his newest set of orders. "There seems to have been something big happening in this clearing yesterday. Now, the satellites where knocked out at the time, so we don't know exactly what happened, but we're going to find out. Head for the garage, and get the APC ready. I'll be along in a minute. Go!" With that, they all bolted for the same door, headed for the garage. The satellites must have something to do with this, but there were no radiation storms, or anything else natural that would knock them out, so what's their part in all this? he thought. His mind searched for several solutions to this problem he now had on his hands. Yup. That'd probably be it…he finally had what he thought was a probable answer. He started off towards where his troops would now have the APC ready to go.
Setg'-in-Guan stood on guard by one of the entrance shafts to the yautja base. The proud Hunters had made home of a big, man-made cavern in the ventilation system, from which they could spring attacks and listen in on ooman conversation from almost any place in the ooman facility. Their earlier raid had been successful at terrorizing the little pink creatures, killing only two of them, stunning another. The one they had stunned was one of the soldiers. Ah, yes. The soldiers. Dachande had a plan for them. They were to identify the leader, and kill it. Once that was accomplished, the Leader had said, the other soldiers would begin to get nervous, and thus make more mistakes. But in the meantime, they were to lie low, be careful, and let the oomans get braver. They would start to venture off alone, get less cautious. And then they would die. Boldness was fine against an enemy you knew, but it would get you killed against one that was a stranger.
"You may rest now, Setg'-in-Guan. I will take over from here." the voice of Kwei-Thei-de floated to him from somewhere back in the shadows. The younger warrior did as he was told, never even seeing his superior. He admired the two eldest on this Hunt for being able to meld with the darkness so well. And, while he could have simply changed the vision mode on his helmet to thermal, and found him easily, it did no good to rely on fancy gadgets alone. For, what if all those fancy gadgets were to break down, as all do? What then? The greatest warriors were able to rely on their prowess alone. Your prowess was what kept you alive during times of extreme danger, not what your technical knowledge was. He went back into the inner chamber, just in time to greet his Leader and his comrade Guan Ki'cti-pa. They had brought with them the body of one of the oomans slain in the raid. Dachande immediately spoke.
\"There was an explosion yesterday. It was linked to the forcewave that shook this shoddy ooman base and all in it, save for us. Apparently, it was an ooman ship. Why it was here, we do not know. Go fetch Kwei-Thei-de; he shall come with us. Tonight, we will get some answers. Get your gear, and make sure your shift-suits are in working order. We leave soon." With that, he again disappeared into the shadows.
