As the scientist ran, Wilks couldn't help himself but scream, an anxiety had come over him to turn and run but he knew he had to stay and fight but he couldn't deal with it. He started to take mild but heavy-footed steps backwards, trying to stay out of the corporals' view so he wouldn't see him trying to get away from it all.
His armour weighed down on him and he couldn't breathe, his tunic collar was strangling him and his hands felt numb. He could feel the moisture on his forehead and his arms had become floppy and he couldn't control them properly. Until finally he let himself go.
'Come and get it you bastard!'
Wilks leapt forward and started to wildly fire his smart-gun, left and right the bullets screamed through the corridor. One of them punctured the scientist's leg and he watched him collapse to the floor screaming in agony, but he couldn't stop firing. More and more shots where fired into the hallway, the flashes from the barrel lit up the corridor better than any flare could and he continued to walk forward while firing.
The corporal was stunned for a few mere seconds until finally he reacted and pulled the smart-gun by the handle and dragged it out of Wilks' control. Wilks let his grip go and the smart gun fell down to the floor with a harsh metal thud.
'What the hell do you think your doing? You almost killed the damned scientist,' screamed the corporal as he grabbed Wilks by the arm.
The lights started to dim and the entire hallway slowly became enveloped in a shroud of darkness, the lights spluttered the rest of their short life away and slowly died. It was a cold, nervous and heart piercing darkness.
The scientist could still be heard crying in pain somewhere ahead of them. The corporal released his grip on Wilks and ran forward to find the scientist; Wilks slowly followed him as if he was just waking up from a nightmare.
'Throw flares in each direction, I want to be able to see the attacker before it reaches us,' demanded the corporal as he signalled Wilks with a quick wave of his right hand.
Wilks unfastened two flares from his belt and flicked off their caps and threw each one in a different direction, the blue flares flew through the air lighting up the hallway with a hazy blue stream of light. As he did this the corporal homed in the on the painful cries and pleads of the wounded scientist and soon found him stretched out against the wall clutching a large hole in his leg.
Wilks stood on standby watching both directions of the hallway while the corporal lifted the scientist and hauled him over his shoulder and carried him back to the engineering door. Wilks slowly followed behind them, still aware and sceptical about the enemy being around every corner.
'Don't worry, you're lucky the bullet didn't take your leg off…we can't take you back to the lab, the lights have failed so I'm assuming that there is one generator left online which is powering the remaining doors, we haven't much time. There will be an emergency medical facility within the engineering department, Wilks will get you fixed up there best he can ok,'
The scientist limped along with his arm over the corporal's shoulder towards the door, and along the way he pulled out a small tube which he unsheathed the tip to reveal a syringe. He injected himself and after a few minutes he had stopped screaming in pain so he could concentrate on the door.
'Wait here Wilks and guard him and the door, I'll be back in a few minutes,' said the corporal sharply.
Wilks looked at the corporal for a second and then at the wounded scientist that was leaning against the wall beside the door, he finally glanced back at the corporal and nervously answered.
'Where are you going?'
'During the combat he dropped the cutting machinery,' he pointed towards the scientist and then continued, 'its somewhere back there, not far but someone has to get it. I'll leave my torch on so you can still see me just in case,'
Wilks looked relieved that he didn't have to go and signalled the corporal the ok sign and then turned around to face the other end of the corridor. The scientist looked at the corporal for a second while he looked back, then he turned and glanced at Wilks who was panning the darkness with his torch. The corporal nodded at the scientist and then turned around and faced the darkness.
The corporal took a few steps forward, turned his torch on and then he continued on down the passage. The flares that Wilks had thrown had almost faded but some light remained in the hallway. He stepped past the flare and he came to a wall of darkness, out of the reach of the flares light. He shone his torch ahead and then looked back, he could still see Wilks scanning the hallway and the scientist clutching his leg. He continued.
After a few minutes he lost sight of Wilks and the scientist but he could still see a faded torch beam from Wilks' smart-gun moving slowly from left to right. He moved his own beam of light over the wall to the left where he saw another door that was labelled 'ENGINEERING SPECIFICATION'. He slowly strayed away and walked a little slower as he felt nervous about the enclosing walls of darkness around him. He could hear his own heart beat and he could feel it beating against his chest hard and fast.
A couple more minutes went by until finally he spotted a black extension lead lying in the middle of the floor. He quickened his pace with his torch focused on the lead, but as relieved as he was to have found it, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was going to happen. He could sense it, the way the lead was laying perfectly in the middle of the floor, as if it wanted to be found.
He unbuttoned his holster to allow him easy access to his 9mm should his pulse rifle fail on him, and he became seriously cautious and took each footstep with a great silence. He was almost there. He still had the nervous feeling so he went slower, and raised his pulse rifle in front of him, pointing the barrel of it into the darkness ahead of him. His feeling became stronger and stronger until he just stopped a few metres away from the lead and refused to move.
'Damn,' he whispered to himself.
He knew that he had to get the lead and the machinery but he couldn't force himself to move, and another feeling came over him to just turn and run, but then his back would be exposed. He was stuck, to turn and run or to go forward and face whatever was there. It might not be anything and that the darkness was making him paranoid, but he couldn't go back on his instinct, he knew he had instinct; every creature has it and it had saved him a few times. He couldn't go back on it, but he needed that lead as well as the cutting machinery.
He took another step forward and then paused, he looked behind him and then gritted his teeth and then ran forward. He pelted across the hallway toward the lead and when he finally came upon it he reached down and grabbed for it, and picking it up it turned and ran faster than before back to the others.
Just as he was away from the scene something flew past him, he didn't know what it was but he felt the wind of it and he knew it was big. It wasn't a bullet but it felt like it was huge, like the size of a man but a little bigger, but he couldn't see anything, however he thought he saw the a shimmer and a distortion in his torch beam.
Suddenly from out of the darkness something grabbed at his arm and it swung him to the left and pulled him to the floor. He could feel a sharp pain rip through his leg and he screamed, he screamed as loud as he could in hopes that someone would hear him.
Another pain he felt sliced in his stomach, however it wasn't as painful as his leg. He screamed again and he dropped the lead and it slid across the floor. He couldn't breathe, something was on top of him but he couldn't see anything except small and large distortions in the air that shaped the outline of a man.
As fast as before though he heard another scream, but not from him; it was a monster scream, a high-pitched wailing scream. He heard a gun firing and the voices of someone shouting curses and screams, he heard Wilks' voice. A large splatter of blood poured over his face and the weight that was on top of him suddenly became lighter and he felt something fall off of him.
'Come on! Bring it on! Woooooo!' shouted Wilks as he continued to fire down upon the crumpled corpse that had suddenly revealed itself after it was blown off of the corporal.
He stopped as the thing reached for something and then suddenly fell down and went limp. Green blood was trailing out of the body in huge quantities, adding to the splatters all over the hallway. Along with the blood was a small trail of brownish battery acid from the smashed battery cell attached to its back.
The corporal hazily gazed up at Wilks from the floor and then his eyes closed and it all went black, he fell to the floor and his gun slipped from his hands.
'Hey man, how long is this going to take?'
'Not long, we cut through the other door in under ten minutes; it should be about the same time.'
'Well hurry up, I don't think he is going to last any longer.'
The corporal's eyes slowly lifted up, his vision was hazy and slightly impaired and he could feel only a little pain in his leg.
'Hey, he's waking up…' he heard as he looked at the ceiling, 'don't don't worry corporal, Qubis here injected you with some of that pain killer stuff, we got the cutting device and we're inside the first room. There is one more room to go before we can get to the emergency medical lab and to the power switch.'
The corporal found it hard to take all the information in, his head was swimming and it ached, the stuff that was injected into him to numb the pain was probably numbing his senses. As he tried to sit up, a sharp pain seared through his stomach and chest, enough to make him lose his balance and fall down again.
'Wow, slow down corporal. The warrior cut you open pretty bad, your leg is in a state but your chest isn't so bad, it must have lost its balance and missed when I fired on it.'
The corporal listened but he felt wheezy and he found it difficult to breathe, he could still remember the weight of the thing as it pinned him to the floor. He stayed lying on the desk for a few minutes while he watched the scientist cut through the door, the welding sparks lit up the small engineering office like a fire-fight.
Eventually after moments of waiting the door finally started to give way and Wilks moved the scientist out of the way and kicked the door by its hinges. The door immediately gave way and crashed to the ground making sparks fly up as it hit the metal floor.
'Quickly Qubis, get the corporal and bring him in,' said Wilks to the scientist.
Wilks entered through the door into a huge open area with large steel silos and canisters scattered around the place. He shone his torch over the room and slowly crept inside, he wasn't as fearful as before because he knew that this room had been sealed off so nothing should be here, and that he had taken down a creature that only a handful of men could do out of an entire platoon and this made him feel great.
Qubis hauled the corporal inside and dragged him over to the nearest desk and slowly rested him on it. He then told Wilks that from the floor plan in the field plan, the switch was located up the metal flight of stairs and across the platform. Wilks left him and approached the stairs; they where metal grated and they creaked as he walked up them. With a clam and aware pace he slowly climbed the stairs with one hand pulling on the banister that followed it around and the other holding the corporals pulse rifle.
Qubis fumbled through a few drawers from a cabinet attached to the wall not far from the desk where the corporal was resting. Eventually he pulled out a small handbook and flicked through the pages until he came across the one he wanted. He marked the page by folding the corner and then he continued looking through the other drawers.
Wilks had reached the platform and has he stepped on to it he turned and looked back down at the others, the platform was quite high so they where blurry in the distance and the darkness didn't help either. He turned his attention towards the end of the platform where he scanned with his torch until he found what he was looking for.
The switch was mounted on the wall in between to electric relay boxes and cables ran in all different directions from it. It was built behind a piece of glass with the lettering 'Smash In Emergency'. He didn't have any hand protection so he used his elbows which where cover by armour padding, and reaching into the air with his hand he brought his elbow down into the glass. It shattered instantly and fell to the floor in many pieces, making a loud smashing sound that echoed around the giant room.
Qubis looked up from the drawers towards the smashing sound and then concentrated back on the drawers. Wilks reached out towards the big pull down switch, stretching his fingers tightly around it and then with a pause he whispered.
'Here goes nothing,'
He yanked on the switch and it pushed down with Wilks' strength and when it was pushed all the way down it clicked and then locked. The room was silent for a minute before suddenly all the lights flickered back to life and the conveyor machinery down by the canisters started to work again. He watched as all the computers awoke and started cycling through their start up programs and the noise of the generators roared back into life, the humming noise louder than before and this time he was glad to hear it.
Qubis and the corporal both smiled to themselves and to each other as all the power came back online. Qubis opened the handbook at the marked page and said.
'Finally I can get to work,'
He went over to a control panel beside the desk and still looking at the book he punched in a few buttons. As he finished a beeping noise came over the control panel and suddenly the wall next to it slid apart to reveal a small medical lab.
He picked up the corporal and helped him over to the table that had dropped down from the ceiling, laying him down on it and then he started operating different machinery over the wounds to see how bad they where.
'You shouldn't worry, you will be fine once I treat you. Your chest and stomach wounds are fine, nothing more than a light slash but your leg is in pretty bad shape. I will bandage up your chest while we wait for the others,' He said this to the corporal as he was peering through a scope for the machine that was hovering over him.
As Qubis started to unravel a roll of bandage tape the corporal was watching as Wilks was plodding down the stairs back down to the ground floor. As he stepped off the last stair he quickened his pace towards them and as he approached the corporal he lightly shouted.
'We did it corporal. I radioed the men back at the field lab and they are getting ready to come inside. Watson says that there is nothing on the tracker so I'm heading down to them and I'm going to stand outside the door and wait for them.'
Wilks turned around and then walked towards the door where he then opened it and shut it behind him. The corporal leaned back on the cylinder pillow and let Qubis continue. His head was still hurting and the pain was slowly coming back to his leg, he tried not to think about it but then he realised about Qubis.
'Uurrgggh,' he struggled as he sat up, 'You still hurt, I saw you take a nasty hit to the leg,'
'No, not to worry, I covered it with the sleeve of my shirt and the pain has gone with the help of the antipain oxides I took, the same thing I injected into you, however I had to inject a lot more into you. So I'm going to patch you up first and then one of the others can finish on me later.'
The corporal had only noticed that one of the scientist's sleeves was torn off, and the bare arm beneath it was scratched and bruised. He looked in the opposite direction towards the large metal canisters sitting on the floor or hanging from the roof by metal chains. He noticed that a few of them where swaying, probably from the draft he thought, he felt cold himself. Since the power had shut down and the environmental controls had failed it had become cold and was growing colder by the minute, thank god they had gotten it back online before it had become too cold to continue.
Wilks waited outside the door, he felt so much safer now that the lights where working and life support systems where coming back online. The hallway looked kind of warm to him, when it was lit up and on full power it made him less nervous and less cautious.
The generators where now running smoother and it was like a lullaby vibrating softly through throughout the facility. Wilks could see clearly now he was unafraid, he knew he had killed it with his own effort and that pleased him and made him feel safer at the same time. And that's when he noticed it.
Wilks looked to the slight bend in the hallway where it curved a little the left, it was quite a distance away from him but he noticed that there was still the predators filthy green blood dripping down the walls and onto the floor. But something was missing.
'Damn,' he uttered to himself just before turning around and returning back through the door.
The corporal sat up immediately when Wilks bounded through the door. Qubis was in the corner placing some medical containers back in the cupboards when he turned around and looked disturbingly at Wilks. He knew something was wrong, something was always wrong because it happened a lot in his life.
'Corporal,' shouted Wilks, 'Outside in the area you where attacked by the predator, the body is missing,'
'What?' demanded the corporal as he leaned toward Wilks.
'Where I shot the thing dead, and the body was a bloody corpse, it is missing,'
The corporal swung his legs over the side of the table and then winced slightly as his wound caught the corner. He struggled up to his feet and then he limped over to Wilks. Wilks stood still and watched the corporal approaching him before he said.
'What should we do? What if it is still alive corporal,'
The corporal looked at him hard before replying.
'You said he was mangled, laying on the floor in a bloody stump, how could it still be alive?'
'Well maybe something took it, or it dissolved using the same type of chemicals as the Hurinigens on Brevio5?'
'Maybe, but if so, who would take it and why? Or why haven't the predators used that type of chemical system before?'
'I don't know corporal, but we had better keep our guard up and pray that there isn't another one of them,'
'What did you say?' said the corporal sharply.
'That we had better hope there isn't another one, why?'
'What if there was, and that it might have taken the body to be buried as part of their hunting rituals?'
'With all due respect corporal, I've taken one down so I'm pretty sure I can handle another,'
'Don't get cocky Wilks; you caught it off guard, you might not be so lucky next time. Radio Watson and tell him to bring the extra weaponry in the cases above the medical fixtures, and tell him to force the scientists to carry some if they have too, we might need as much firepower as we can muster.'
'Yes corporal,'
Wilks stepped back and flicked down his head set again and continued to explain to Watson and the scientists of the situation. The corporal staggered back over to the table and then rested against it. He had a horrible damp feeling in his stomach and he looked up at a huge fan whirring over head, the sound and thought of another one its kind had made him become paranoid again. He knew that things weren't going to get any better before they got much worse.
To be continued…
