The DOOM Chronicles

Epilogue

Everyone was waiting for the demons to regain their sense of unity, for some other big bad to pick up the slack and resume the coordinated invasion of Earth and extermination of the human race, but it had yet to happen.

Jack came to his first stop, stubbing out his cigarette on the bottom of his boot and dropping it into his pocket. There were still rules he respected, especially if they made a lot of sense. He stepped into the infirmary and saw that Lance Corporal Bekele, one of the security guards he'd run into while retaking Haydenfield, was on duty. By insane coincidence, the combat medic had found his way up to Armstrong in all the chaos, and he had been the one overseeing Hollenshead.

"Hey Bekele, how is he?" Jack asked.

"Still stable. He should be awake tomorrow," Bekele replied. "His artificial limb is being worked on in the machine shops right now."

"He's gonna want to be back up and kicking demon ass as soon as possible," Jack said.

He laughed softly. "I know. Staff Sergeant Hollenshead is a hell of a fighter. That's why I'm not looking forward to waking him up. I know the type. He'll swear he's fine and fight me every step of the way through rehab."

"How long do you think he'll be down?" Jack asked. It was a miracle that Hollenshead had survived the whole thing, but even after it all, he was still missing most of his left arm. They had cybernetic limbs that could basically do everything an arm or a leg could do, though.

"A few weeks. We've managed to do amazing things with medical science, cut down on a lot of time needed to get used to a new limb, but we still need some time."

Jack nodded. "I'm just grateful he'll get to keep fighting...thanks Bekele."

"You're welcome. And I'll let you know before we wake him."

"Appreciated."

Jack headed back out into the corridors and stalked on. Powell and Carpenter were already gone. Powell was restless, even with all that had happened, and his great skill-set at survival and bravery, combined with the fact that he was part of the crew that had killed the Icon of Sin and basically saved the world, meant he was in extremely high demand. He'd used the opportunity to get a posting in Hawaii. It was still a green zone, and they were doing a lot of cutting edge technical research there, now that patents and funding were meaningless.

Carpenter, after spilling everything he knew about the UAC, everything from codes to secret locations to research, had been put in charge as the administrator of an old orbital refinery platform orbiting Venus. It had been abandoned about a decade ago after the company that owned it went bankrupt, but sold it to the UAC, who had kept it in stable orbit and performed at least basic routine maintenance on it on the off chance they might find use for it again. It had once been used to extract useful stuff from raw materials harvested down on the surface of Venus. Now, it was being refurnished to house some ten thousand survivors.

Jack imagined that there were a ton of ships, stations, colonies, and orbital platforms undergoing the exact same process right now.

There were a lot of people who needed a place to live all of a sudden.

He finally tracked down the little out of the way observation lounge that he, Jennifer, and Kyra had taken to hanging out in. It was hard to find, a little off the beaten trail, (inasmuch as anything could be in an artificial environment), and people seemed to know to leave it alone.

It was where they went to unwind and be alone.

They, the Hell Warriors.

That was what the media had taken to calling them. Already, they'd been through a dozen interviews. And the Brass said more were coming. Shit, he was scheduled to meet with President Romero next week. They'd had their debriefing with General Taggart, and it had been nice to finally meet the man in person.