The rain never stopped, rain was the one thing that was abundant on the planet. Kevin Coleman thought this strange, because in his time on the planet he had never seen a large body of water, but his time on the planet wasn't long, and he had rarely seen the outside of his base camp. Not that that was a bad thing, the planet was not a nice place, but he was happier here than his previous assignment. He had been in heavy combat before, only three people from his squad survived, Him, Sullivan, and Parker. But his new squad was admittedly better than his previous one, He was surprised at how elite his unit was, since this was not a combat assignment, it was an occupancy. They were over equipped with weapons and ammo. This was a mainly civilian base. Although it was never told exactly what the science branch was doing here, he had been told that it was something about making the planet more colonizable by civilians. But there was heavy security for such a facility but no one ever questioned the facts given by the superiors.
"Hey," Parker's voice broke the silence, "You hear about those ships that came last night?"
"What ships?" Kevin asked without interest.
"Two dropships and a heavy escort, I wonder what's coming."
"A heavy escort? Something important no doubt."
"That or there is a battle in orbit, maybe we're being reinforced," Sullivan looked up from his pulse rifle, which he was constantly tinkering with.
"I sure as hell hope not, I don't want to see combat again." Kevin said more interested now.
"Speak for yourself, I want to try out this new pulse rifle Mick put together for me, carries one hundred fifty rounds, and has a eight round shotgun on it, not to mention its more accurate and has a nicer trigger pull." Parker was constantly bragging about his rifle, even thought everyone in the squad had one.
"Thanks, but that thing is nothing compared to my personal guns," Said Sullivan, who was pointing to the row of weapons he had hanging on the wall. "I'm especially proud of that magnum there, laser sight, twenty round clip, almost no kick, that thing is better than a rifle."
"You make them, I shoot them." Parker started to say but a man that no one had seen before, accompanied by two marines, who looked unnaturally ready for action, and a silence fell over the room.
The man quietly looked around the room and all the marines stared back, no one saluted or did anything for that matter.
The man spoke nervously, but demandingly, "Pack up ladies, we are moving out. Take whatever you can including all weapons and ammo, food and personal belongings are not to be taken."
Sullivan was already packing up his custom weapons and Parker grabbed his lucky charm, a silver chain with nothing on it. Kevin was the only one to question him, "Where are we going?"
The man was not angry but sounded scared, "We are abandoning the base, You will be given further info when we are in orbit."
"Why are we abandoning?" Lily asked like the whole thing was a joke.
"Because something went wrong." The man sounded annoyed now.
Everyone started packing, Kevin, who had few belongings other than what was given to him by the military, filled one bag full of clothes, one full of guns, put on his armor, and grabbed a flame-thrower and his rifle.
They all got ready and started down the hall in a single file line. The two marines were checking every corner and made everyone feel nervous. Soon they saw more people hurrying along the halls and more marines were patrolling the area.
Then several screams came from around a corner; three marines immediately came running, "Two of them get 'em!" The first one yelled and rounded the corner and started to fire with his flame thrower, the other two came with pulse rifles and fired, the scream of the marine with the flame-thrower immediately came, the flame now turned from what was in the hall to the two marines and then up to the ceiling, as he apparently died, the two marines were caught on fire and ran around trying to put out the fire. They soon fell over dead, the fire alarm went off and fire doors started closing. They were in an inter section and they were being boxed in by the fire doors. Without thinking, Parker ran and slid under a fire door before it could close. He urged more e to come under but it was too late and he was cut off from the rest of the people. The civilians started to panic and ran around trying to find an exit from the intersection, while Kevin tried to make radio contact with Parker.
"Parker are you there?"
"I read you, I'm bypassing the door right now, it should only take a second."
"Hurry up, the civilians are going crazy in here."
For what seemed like hours the people on both sides of the door waited and didn't talk. Then Parker spoke into his mic, "there, that should..." He was cut off and the door very slowly came up, before anyone could see Parker the saw his feat, dangling off the ground. Kevin panicked and tried to fit himself under the door. His head made it under just in time to see Parker being pulled up into a vent, in the darkness the light of his gun being fired, and then saw a plain silver chain fall down the vent and land on the floor.
Kevin go through the door and started cursing at the darkness in the vent and yelling, "Parker! Parker, sound off!"
Then from behind him he heard a muffled scream he turned around and was just in time to see something dash from one hall to the other. Unknown to Kevin, when Parker ran the bypass all the doors opened, and whatever had attacked the marines, was now free to attack them.
"Where Wizdaro?" a panicked voice of a civilian called, "He was right behind me!"
The marines turned their attention to the civilian. Check the halls someone said and everyone snapped to it proceeding down ever hall that was there. Sullivan and Lily we proceeding down a hallway searching when a sound came from above them. Sullivan Looked up to see a vent cover be swept open. "Oh, My God." was all he was able to say.
