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Spitfire Chapter 1 - by RIMH

B2-Algol A; Planet Damnos

Hollow Mountain Research Outpost

03/23/2340 (19:43 SMT)

Damno - Latin [translation]

Verb. To pronounce judgement; condemn, sentence; harm/damn

The Hollow Mountain Research Facility was a winding labyrinth of tunnels, a seemingly endless array of twisted hallways that stretched for kilometers deep into the root of the mountain. A termite’s nest, Sam had heard some soldiers call it. The reference to a Terran insect was lost on the colony-born Commander, but if ‘termite’s nest’ meant ‘hellishly unending tactical nightmare’, he had to agree. His squadron had been there for nearly ten hours now, and he doubted they had seen more than a quarter of the facility.

Commander Sam Greck stood in front of a large, wide window and looked out onto the alien landscape. The room they had set up in was vast and circular, very near the top of the mountain, and the grand expanse of Damnos rolled out far below. The facility was built into the tallest mountain of a huge range, and in no direction could Sam see a bit of horizon not marred by huge spindly protrusions of crimson rocks. The planet’s star was still young, burning vivid blue in the sky, but as the day dragged on and the star fell towards the horizon the red landscape began to flood violet. Poisonous particles in the air caught the light and ignited in crimson gleams, shooting by as the wind howled through the spires of the mountains. They had lost three men to atmosphere poisoning already on this mission, and Sam’s eyes narrowed as he looked out, as if the planet itself was sentient, and it’s beauty was just a trick to lure them to their deaths.

Down below and far away, there was the distinct, if muffled, sound of an explosion. It echoed through the bowels of the facility and then faded into silence.

“Bugs aren’t happy we took this.” A man to Sam’s right muttered.

“They should have put up a better fight then.” Sam responded in a low voice. He heaved a tired sigh and turned away from the window, checking the time on his wrist communicator and then going over to a large map they had spread out over a table. The planet of Damnos was a desolate, hot wasteland of a place, only habitable in narrow strips in the north and south hemispheres. He wasn’t sure what had made the Conclave come here in the first place, but the location made it a prime strategic holding in the war between the two civilizations. The research facility was the only settlement on the actual planet, but it was the size of a small city in itself, and an ideal staging ground for further attacks into the alien’s territory.

“Sir, we don’t know what weapons the Conclave had access to here. We don’t have the manpower to cover the entire facility, and until we figure out how to get their systems working-”

“Moss is working on it now.” Sam interrupted. “She’ll get us in soon enough.”

“Sir without a psionic activation, it could take weeks to-”

“I know that, Lieutenant.” Sam growled through gritted teeth, sending a short glare in the man’s direction. “We don’t need to tell it to build us a ship, we just need to get the facility on lockdown.” The man didn’t respond, and Sam went back to looking at the facility diagram. The Conclave didn’t seem to build with any kind of discernable pattern, and the facility had multiple entrances on many levels. Most of the doors could only be reached by access roads cut directly into the mountain, with three main hangars; one on the ground level, another near the middle, and the last at the very top of the facility. Most of the other doors looked to be maintenance entrances of some caliber, easily blocked off. Sam pointed to the main entrance down in the valley.

“We need to get soldiers stationed on this. Until we get into the system we’ll need to manually bar the entrances. Get at least fourty bodies on it, fully armed. I want check-ins every half hour and snipers on the access ramps. How are the sweeper teams coming along?”

“Alpha is working their way up from the basement, they’ve gotten the lowest entrance sealed off. Beta and Gamma are working their way to the west and east. No contacts with any surviving Conclave yet.”

Sam nodded. “Good. Last thing we need is some bugs still out there skulking around. Have Moss’ men relocate from the middle center to this one, this is going to be our best holdout for the time being.”

“Sir.” The lieutenant nodded and left. Sam took a moment to breathe, looking away from the map. The facility they had taken was a research outpost of some kind; it was filled with alien machinery they didn’t understand and run by computers they had few ways of activating. The Conclave were an inherently psionic race, interacting with their technology on an empathic level rather than purely manual interfaces, and even the best psions the humans had couldn’t grasp the mix of strength and subtlety required to use the bug’s electronics. However, they had the second best thing - Specialist Donna Moss, expert on Conclave mechanics. Most of what they knew about the technology was thanks to Moss’ people. If anyone could get the facility under their control, it was her.

They just had to hold it until then. Despite it’s size, they had not run into nearly as much resistance as Sam had feared on their initial invasion. Most of the Conclave forces seemed to have been garrisoned in the large station orbiting the planet. When the human forces moved in, Sam’s small tactical squad was snuck on-planet through the chaos. Sam had been prepared for a fight, but they had driven the aliens out with relative ease and few casualties. Afterwards things planetside had been quiet, but up in the atmosphere a battle still raged. Looking up at the darkening sky Sam could see streaks, flashes of ships and exhaust trails burning bright, visible even from the planet’s surface. As long as their ships kept the alien forces occupied, they didn’t have to worry about reinforcements on the ground. If they kept pressing the advantage like this, the small planet would be theirs within a matter of days. With it, after almost thirty years of fighting they would have their first legitimate holding inside Conclave space. A brutal, dangerous, nearly useless rock of a holding, but a holding nonetheless.

As the sun’s light filtered through the poison atmosphere, something high above changed. Sam’s eyes saw it first as a stark contrast in color, the violet-silver sky split asunder by a jagged black mess. Sam made his way to the window, his breath fogging the glass as he struggled to look as far up as he could. The light bent in ways his brain refused to comprehend, snaking away from it’s predetermined path and into that thing floating in space. There was no noise, no movement, just an image, a tear; a tear that could not possibly be there. With a shaking hand Sam grabbed his communicator.

“Moss, Hansen, get up here now.” He snapped, his voice trembling somewhat.

High above Sam could barely see the continued flashes of ships. From the ground there was no way of telling what was happening in orbit, but as he watched soon even the few ships that were in the atmosphere of the planet were gone, leaving nothing but that huge, unchanging scar. He turned the communicator on again, switching channels.

“Central, this is Commander Greck. What the hell is going on up there?”

No reply.

“Central. This is Eighth-Company Commander Samuel Greck. Anyone, respond!”

Sam waited, heart pounding painfully in his chest. High in orbit around Damnos, the central command ship remained silent. Sam swore under his breath. Behind he heard approaching footsteps.

“Commander, what’s going on?”

Sam waved them over. “Moss, look at that.” His voice was somewhat frantic, but he was long past the point of caring. “That’s not- The bugs can’t do that, right?”

Specialist Moss came over to the window, and the moment she looked up her eyes got huge. “What the...” Her quiet voice was even softer than normal.

“You’ve never seen anything like this?”

She shook her head, utterly transfixed.

Sam wasn’t sure if he was relieved or not. “Central’s not answering.” He muttered, glancing to the Lieutenant. “Whatever’s going on up there has all their attention.” In response the man just nodded silently, his eyes dark. Sam looked back out the window, his shoulders tensing. He should have known things were going too smoothly.

“Moss, you’re supposed to be my expert, you’re positive you don’t know anything?” He demanded. The woman fixed him with an icy glare.

“Greck, I’m a mechanical engineer. Does that look mechanical to you?”

Sam fought down an angry retort. “No it doesn’t.” He growled, letting out a strained sigh and forcing the tenseness from his shoulders. He shook his head. “You’re still my bug expert. Any idea what else could it be?”

The woman glanced up at the sky once more. “Psionic, maybe… No idea what could cause something like that though…” She muttered.

“Psionic, great…” Sam growled, frustration rising once more. There wasn’t a single soldier in his squad that was remotely knowledgeable in that area, and he himself certainly wasn’t. Whatever decisions he made, he was making them completely uninformed. There were almost a hundred soldiers here under his command, and he was responsible for all of them.

“Okay-” His voice cut off as a rolling blast shook through the building. The ground rocked beneath him, throwing him forcefully into the wall. The lights above flickered, and for a few moments everything was chaos. Sam fought back to his feet just as the noise began to fade.

“Holy shit!”

Sam lurched back to the window. In the distance a cloud of red dust and debris was visible, maybe a few kilometers off. Whatever had hit was hidden by ragged hills, but it had been big. As Sam looked back up into the sky he felt his heart lurch. Things were falling to the planet, igniting in the poisonous atmosphere, brilliant spheres of orange and green fire.

“Are... are those ships?” Hansen asked, his voice high and panicked.

“Not big enough.” Moss answered almost immediately. “Wrong shape.”

Sam watched the fire fall from the sky. They were swallowed up by the jagged mountains, the only sign of their impact deep rumbling rolling over the hills. In the distance, the dust from the closest impact was beginning to settle. Things became eerily quiet. Sam looked to his communicator one last time.

“Central, this is Commander Samuel Greck. If anyone’s up there, please respond.”

There was nothing.

“Sir... what should we do?”

Sam glanced over to Hansen. Underneath the man’s hard demeanor he knew the Lieutenant was just as lost as him. Sam let out a small sigh, taking a last short look out of the window before turning away. “Get everyone inside the main building. We can leave the western and southern facilities until we know what’s going on. I don’t much care at the moment if the bugs get back in there, we have bigger problems.” Sam looked over to Moss, who was still fixated on the window.

“Moss, get your team up here, I want everyone-”

“Something’s moving out there.”

Sam rushed to the window next to the woman. “What?”

“Over that hill, where the impact was.”

The light was growing dim, and far in the distance yet more flames could be seen descending to the planet, becoming lost in the mess of mountains and cliffs. His eyes scanned the ridge where Moss was pointing. After a few seconds he caught onto a strange shift in the rocks. Something was coming towards them - something big, moving with an unnatural gait, jerky and fast. It made Sam’s stomach shrivel up. His hand went to the communicator, but whatever it was had already made it to the basement facility entrance, far below the control room.

There was a flash of metal and an explosion of red rocks and dust, and the huge metal door went tumbling away like it was made of cardboard. It was all eerily silent from their vantage point. Sam exchanged a second-long glance with Hansen before they both raced for the door.

“Everyone, basement level, main entrance! Now! Hostile inbound!” Sam yelled into his communicator, drawing a weapon as he raced after Hansen. “EV suits on, we have a perimeter breach!”

As they got closer to the basement floor, horrible sounds began wafting through the halls. Screeching metal and heavy crumbling explosions marked the thing’s slow but steady progression further into the facility. They finally reached the entrance to the lower floor, and when they pried open the door red dust filled the room. Sam called them all to a halt. A couple squadrons of soldiers had met up with them on the way down, and now they stood in rows, guns trained on the hallway. Further down the occasional weapon shot could still be heard. Sam’s insides twisted, knowing with the amount of soldiers he’d had stationed on this floor, there should have been many, many more shots.

“Hold fire until we see what this thing is.” He growled. He pulled his own plasma pistol up with the rest of them. They waited as the thumping and screeching noises grew ever louder, lights above them flickering. After a few horrible seconds of waiting Sam saw a few gun barrels start shaking.

Something came around the corner, and Sam’s mind went blank with shock. It was slithering, dragging a huge mutated mess of a body behind itself on numerous thick, squirming tentacles. It’s skin seemed to glisten with a sick sheen, red dirt turning to deep, bloody mud on it’s form. The way it was oozing through the halls now, it seemed there was no way this could be the same thing Sam saw racing across the desert. He swallowed hard and had to look away for a moment to make the terrified screaming in his head die down. He took in a few rattling breaths, and then looked back, his face hardening.

“Fire!”

The hallway was ignited. The thing’s body jerked with the initial impact of so much fire, but to Sam’s horror it merely picked up speed. It’s limbs reached out, grabbing onto doorways and ripping holes in the walls, lurching itself forward. The thing let out a mind-numbing screech, though it had no discernable mouth with which to do so, and barreled towards them.

It’s huge misshapen mass broke upon the line, smothering most of the first rank instantly. Those unlucky enough to avoid being crushed were soon found by flailing, reaching tentacles. Sam stumbled back, shouting desperately for order and still emptying his gun into the thing’s hide. One frenzied swipe of it’s huge form left two soldier’s torsos as nothing but chunky red paste dripping down the walls. Another poor soul was lifted off his feet and wrung, spine snapping and ribs popping. Sam’s gun dropped out of his hands, clattering onto the floor, completely forgotten. The line broke, men screaming, turning and fleeing back toward the door. Sam only moved when blood splashed onto his helmet, finally breaking him from the horrific trance. He bolted for the door, barely getting through before it was forced shut.

“Bomb!” Sam screamed, ripping off his helmet barely fast enough to avoid puking into it. He collapsed by the wall, retching violently. Around him it was chaos, people desperately trying to get as far away from the door as possible. Sam dimly managed to decipher a few horrified shouts in the bedlam.

“Jesus Christ, what the hell is it?!”

“It fucking scrambled them!”

“Bomb!” Sam roared again once he’d stopped heaving. He fought to his feet, seeing his voice had finally gotten through to the survivors. He gestured violently toward the stairs. “Upstairs, go! Cave the fucking floor in!”

The rest of the hallway to the stairs was a blur, Sam’s mind still struggling to work again and get past what he had just witnessed. At the top of the stairs to the third floor, three explosive charges were set and thrown down. Moments later the door and hallway leading up to them was nothing more than a pile of rubble. They stood at the top, panting, guns still drawn. The rumbling of the cave-in they had just made faded away, and silence fell. Sam glared at the ruined walls. He couldn’t tell how deep the barrier went, but he checked his EV display. No outside air was getting in, despite the gaping hole where their outer door used to be. He could only assume the cave-in was substantial enough it had killed whatever that thing was. God, he hoped that thing was dead. He let out a long, shaky sigh.

“Lieutenant Hansen. Get a count on casualties.”

He waited for an answer, but when none came he actually looked up at the soldiers. They were pale under their helmets, most splattered in blood, all shaking. His eyebrows furrowed. “Lieutenant?”

“He-” A private spoke up, her voice trembling. “He got s-s... He’s dead.” The woman looked like she was going to be ill. Sam couldn’t feel anything but numb at the news, and for a few seconds he just stood there, face blank.

“Everyone move to the top floor.” He finally said, his voice weary. “We’ll get the wounded patched up and get ourselves into a more defensible position.”

The soldiers exchanged glances. Sam knew at this point their chances of surviving another attack were low. That thing had taken out over half of them in mere seconds, and they couldn’t just collapse every entrance to the facility. The soldiers were also painfully aware of that fact, but he didn’t really care at the moment. They couldn’t afford to just give up now. “Move it, we need to get to higher ground and see what’s happening.”

As Sam returned to the main control room he saw Moss had moved most of her team into the place. The engineers looked shaken, but they were all scrambling about, dragging cords and machinery. Sam stepped carefully through the mess, waving for Moss’ attention. The woman looked relieved to see him.

“I think I can get us into the video surveillance.” She said in a rushed voice. “We can’t control where the cameras look, that’s all automated, but I can get it up on our coms screens.”

Sam just nodded wearily. “Good... we stopped whatever that thing was, but... We can’t keep doing it.” He looked out of the window, the last rays of sunlight beginning to trickle below the mountains. His eyebrows furrowed. “If there’s more of those things out there, I... I don’t...” He shook his head. “We need Central to get us the hell out of here.”

“What was it?” Moss asked.

“Fuck if I know. Something alien. It was-” His voice caught as he remembered what it had done to them, and how fast it had been, and he had to shut his eyes quickly. He let out a sharp breath and shook his head, doing his best to clear his mind.

“Bad?”

“Yeah.” Sam whispered. “Bad.”

His communicator chirped, a message flashing briefly across the screen. [Incoming transmission] “About fucking time.” He muttered, glancing briefly out the window again as he opened the channel.

“Go ahead.”

The audio was scratchy and slightly garbled, a few moments passing before a voice became recognizable. [Hey! Hello? Sam, you there?]

Sam’s eyebrows furrowed, and then he turned away from the window. It wasn’t Central, but he recognized the voice.

“Aaron? Aaron, what’s happening up there?”

[Fucking War of the Worlds dude. There’s goddamn flying squid monsters everywhere. Are you guys alright?]

Sam’s eyes went to the window, his shoulders deflating. “There’s been a lot of stuff raining down on us. One of them got in, we had to collapse the bottom floors, lots of casualties.”

[Shit.]

“We’re alright for now, but it’s pretty hot down here. When’s evac coming?”

There was a slight pause, and when the man’s voice came through the channel again his voice was just an angry snarl. [It’s not.]

Sam’s heart skipped. He couldn’t have heard right. “What... what do you...”

[Look, the Conclave station was completely overrun in minutes, we lost a good half of our fleet, and there’s still more pouring out of that thing. Central ordered full retreat, they’re not sending anyone for you.]

“They can’t just leave us here!” Sam’s voice was getting higher, panickey.

[They damn well plan on it. But relax, I’ve got you covered.]

“You’re-?”

[Flying in like a goddamn valkyrie to save the day? Yes. I popped over to a transport when no one was looking. Should be able to fit all of you, so long as you’re cool getting up close and personal.]

“Thought Yi said he’d never pilot a transport again.” Moss smirked. Despite himself, Sam grinned. Lieutenant Aaron Yi had been their transport pilot for almost four years, but since Sam’s mission was on the ground this time they’d given the man a fighter. The pilot had been ecstatic and fairly boastful about the turn of events.

[I heard that, Donna. This transport is very tiny and very not mine, and there are monster squids everywhere. I don’t need your sass on top of this bullshit.]

Sam’s grin faded as he realized the man had literally stolen a ship to come after them. “Aaron you’re gonna get court martialed...” He muttered, wiping a hand over his face. “But thanks.”

[Don’t thank me yet. Besides, I’m saving your ass, I think your dad would have something to say about them court martialing me for it.]

“You severely underestimate the depths of his hatred for you.”

[Well fuck, don’t die then alright?] The audio became more garbled, loud noise and static building up in the background. [I’m hitting atmo, ETA ten minutes. Be ready. Over and out.]

“Roger.” Sam pointed a finger at Moss, who had been listening to the end of the conversation with bated breath and thin, pressed lips. “Get those video feeds up, now. We need to find a safe place for Yi to land.” She nodded and scurried off. Sam watched her pull over a few of her engineers and bark brisk orders to them.

In the flurry of movement and hurried, urgent conversation, Sam stood motionless by the window, his eyes up at the darkening sky. The horrible sear was ever present, and as the blue star’s light filtered away from the atmosphere and the arms of the milky way began to peek through the darkness, Sam saw, high above, bright burning masses. The Conclave mothership had been up there, Sam knew, apparently now overrun. He didn’t know how many of those little burning dots were human ships and how many were Conclave, but he had the feeling it didn’t really matter anymore. In the glass’ reflection he saw a small silhouette approach.

“Commander.”

Sam pulled away from his dark thoughts, forcing the doubt from his features. He turned, and the individual gave him a salute. It was one of Moss’ engineers, however his uniform lacked the years of built-up grease that simply never went away, and his tools were all shiny, smooth, handles undamaged. Sam had the brief, agonizing thought that this might be the kid’s first -and last- mission. He swallowed, remembering himself, and gave the kid a nod. “At ease soldier.”

“Sir I’m to inform you that the video feed you requested should be initialized momentarily.”

Sam nodded. The kid started walking away but Sam turned, stopping him. “Whats your name, son?”

The engineer hesitated as if worried he was in trouble. “John, sir. John Woolfe.” He spoke finally, his voice quiet.

“How old are you, Woolfe?”

“Eightteen.”

“Older than you look.” Sam said with a smirk.

“I get that a lot, sir.” The kid agreed. Sam recognized the look on his face, having worn it many times himself. The resigned nod, playing along with the Brass’ same old, boring jokes because it was expected.

“This your first assignment, Woolfe?”

There it was. A flash of fear, not quite hidden behind a stoic expression. The kid nodded.

“Well it wouldn’t be an inaugural mission without everything going to hell, now would it?” Sam attempted to joke, but the kid just went a little green and nodded mutely. Sam’s smile faded quickly and his voice became serious. “A few more minutes and we’ll be outta this hellhole, alright?”

Another silent nod. Sam grimaced but was saved from having to recover the shambles of his pep-talk by Moss announcing that the cameras were ready to go. Soon their screens were flickering to life. All of the cameras were stationary, and quite a few were offline, but after a few minutes they figured out where they were looking. Sam scanned the mountainside looking for a place to land a transport ship, dreading at any moment to see movement among the rocks.

The lower few floors had been collapsed, so that entrance was out of the question. Unfortunately it was also the best entrance to be landing a ship by. The next best spot was going to be the uppermost entrance, which thankfully wasn’t far away. The top of the mountain was a mess of crooked rocks and jagged edges, but a supply road had been dug in, and there were many areas that had been ground down. A good pilot could probably worm their way into a landing. Better yet, the area looked clear. Sam activated his com once more.

“Aaron, you hear me?”

[Loud and clear Commander.]

“We’ve got a landing for you. It’s gonna be rough, but it’s the best we’ve got. How close are you?”

[Any minute.]

“Sending you the coordinates now.” Sam flicked the screen back to the camera view, watching to make sure the landing site was still clear. Another camera was fixated on the sky, and in it he could see the transport ship, coming in low. It wove in between the jagged peaks with a grace belying it’s mass. Sam turned to the soldiers gathered about, and his face fell as he realized again just how few of them there were left. “Everyone get ready to move to the upper exit!” He, grabbing his helmet. “Guns out! We’re doing a hop-and-go, Lieutenant Yi’s got a transport en route! Lets move!”

“Oh my God.”

Sam’s attention snapped back to the camera. The transport ship had stopped moving underneath a large rocky overhang and was hovering awkwardly, engines still spewing fire at full blast. Sam’s eyebrows furrowed. That model of ship couldn’t hover... His eyes widened as he saw a long, sinuous thing reach out from the mountain and wrap around one of the ship’s wings, and he suddenly understood what was happening.

“No!” He cried, as if he could do anything to stop it. As they watched in horror, more tendrils engulfed the ship, the large mass of one of those hellish monsters pulling itself off the mountain and up onto it’s hull. The last few appendages connecting the thing to the mountain were torn off as the ship began moving forward again. It went into a sharp spiral, trying to throw off the creature, leaving long scorch marks on the mountainside. Sam watched with bated breath, praying to see that demon splat onto the rocks. Instead the ship lost one wing, and then the other.

“NO!” Sam screamed, slamming his fist against the monitor. The ship plummeted, disappearing into the mass of jagged hills. An explosion rocked the ground beneath their feet, fire and rocks shooting into the sky. “NO! FUCK!” He grabbed the communicator again, desperate. “Aaron! Aaron you son of a bitch answer me!”

Nothing came over the comm, and he threw it into the wall with a scream. “GOD DAMMIT!” He roared before slumping where he stood, breathing harshly. He hung his head, putting a hand over his face. It was silent. Through the window, smoke from the crash was wafting up into the air, disappearing into the night.

With it went their last hope of getting off this rock. But all Sam could think was ‘He’s dead, he’s dead because of you.’ He swallowed hard, having to move away from the window. He should have just ordered him to turn around and get as far away from this doomed planet as possible. Now the best Sam could hope for was that the man had died in the crash, because if one of those things...

He shuddered, finally looking up at the rest of the soldiers. They were all pale, afraid, hopeless. It was quiet.

“That... that’s it then.” One of them spoke up, voice shaking. “We’re stuck here.”

For a long while Sam didn’t respond, as if in time he would think of something, some way to get them out of here. This place was built like a termite’s nest, it was a tactical nightmare to defend, and if one of those monsters broke through a door they were not guaranteed to find out until it was too late. They could only hold out for so long; even if those things didn’t find them in here, they had supplies for one week, at best. There were no Conclave ships here that they knew of, and even if there was, no one could fly one. Barring some kind of miracle, this was the end. And everyone knew it.

“We’ll lodge up in here, keep an eye on the cameras, and hold out for as long as we can.” Sam announced finally. “Maybe when things above die down, Central will send scouts to look for survivors.” He was unable to get much conviction behind his words, but tried anyways. The soldiers were terrified, and he didn’t blame them. They knew all too well his words were hollow, but they nodded. Doing anything at all was better than sitting around waiting for the inevitable.

Outside, it began to rain.

#rimh

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