Quantum Book 1: Stranded

Chapter 4

Waking up to a blaring alarm is never fun. Especially when you had only fallen asleep an hour before. I stood up, quickly dressing in some regular marine fatigues before sprinting to the armory. Jumping through the armory door, I saw hundreds of people in the warehouse sized armory, all throwing on combat armor. I began doing the same, sliding my thigh plates on, then shin and calf plates, then boots.  Looking next to me I saw Chora, she was already almost done with her armor, simply struggling with her breast plate.

"What's happening?" I asked her.

"A large number of heat signatures were detected approaching the city walls. Local authorities are herding people inside and are getting prepped on the wall" she said.

"Great, and I was having such a nice dream too" said Angelo, another medic for my platoon.

"Shut it Angelo, everyone knows you ain't bright enough for a dream" another marine said, causing everyone who heard it to laugh.

"That's just uncalled for man" said Richard, Angelo's brother, who was laughing with everyone else.

I finished strapping on my breast plate at the same time as Chora, both of us putting on our helmets. Instead of our usual suits, we wore the standard combat armor worn by marines. Our suits needed to be looked over and repaired after the crash, and a few of our guys were out of commission due to injuries sustained either in the crash or the firefight that happened in the village. Our armor was a mix of black and grey, with our weapons remaining the same.

"Any idea where we are gonna deploy?" A marine asked.

I brought up my data pad, a sort of tablet that was strapped to my arm. I tapped on it a few times, looking for the information, finally finding it after a few seconds.

"Looks like we are gonna be vanguard, they're dropping us outside the walls where we are gonna dig in" I said.

"Fuck" he said, throwing his helmet over his head and following the flashing lights on the floor.

"Alright Chora, let's go chuck some bullets at these fuckers" I said, closing the polarized visor on my helmet.

"Hell yeah" she said, following close behind.

Running down the hallway, our unit linked up with us as we went, all thanks to blue force tracking in our visors. We found our Osprey's and began loading up, squads checking in as we went. I sat next to Chora, and on my left was Angelo, or Lieutenant Hernandez. Everyone was accounted for in our squad, so now we simply waited for the drop.

Feeling the Osprey shift, I recognized the feeling of the mechanical arm lowering the Osprey out of the bay, and then the mechanical whirring of the propellers spinning up. Finally, after what felt like years, the jolt of the Osprey dropping occurred. I felt anticipation as the Osprey moved, and looking out the window brought back memories. We were flanked by Ospreys on either side, and the rear door gunner sat relatively relaxed at his post, weapon at the ready. Finally, we flew over the city walls, the darkness being chased away by giant spotlights that were shinning into the woods.

The cabin light turned red, and everyone stood up, walking towards the rear of the aircraft. The gunner stood up and pulled the gun up and to the side, a mechanical arm holding it in place. He stood to the side and held onto the strap that secured him to the aircraft. He looked out underneath himself, waiting to give us the sign to rope down. The lights turned green and the first few soldiers approached the ramp, and when the gun we gave the signal, roped down. I went last, making sure everyone got out before me.

Hitting the ground with a heavy thud, I immediately took notice of the fortifications being built. We had around thirty minutes before the enemy got to us, so we had to dig trenches and stick spikes into the ground before then. I began issuing orders, having half my men dig trenches, and then split the remainder between sticking down spikes and keeping watch for anything that might sneak up on us. I could hear in the distance the rapports of gunfire as the air force tried to slow down the enemy and buy us time.

Finally, the trench was built, and somewhere around 400 marines stood in trenches, night vision on and scanning for movement. The air force waved off but we're still on standby. And ground vehicles were in the process of being delivered. It was only when nothing happened that I felt it. It ate at me. I hated it. I knew something was wrong, but everything seemed normal, so there wasn't anything that could be done. It was when the first one came out of the ground that I realized what was wrong. I had felt it in my feet, I just didn't realize it. A vibration. And then boom! A huge cloud of dirt was kicked up as it surfaced.

A huge black and white crab was staring at us, and immediately I knew what it was after.

"Open fire!" I screamed out.

Before the first word was finished, a cacophony of hellfire rained into the crab, and it responded by reaching into the trench, grabbing a marine, and cutting him in two. It was only at that point that I realized what we had done wrong. The trenches herded us into groups, easy pickings for something like that. I immediately turned on my radio.

"General retreat!" I called out, "get the air force down here!"

Immediately, the trench line erupted into chaos, I heard rockets get fired, and then saw a giant claw swing towards me, smacking me straight into a tree and knocking me out cold. I don't know how long I was out, but when I woke up, I saw Chora rushing towards me, black and white blurs were coming from the tree line, and marines were being swarmed and killed. I saw the crab, dead thankfully, but I also saw Angelo near it. Or what was left of him. His legs were missing, and so was an arm. I didn't want to think about what his face must have looked like. I stood up, and Chora slammed a gun into my chest, pulling me up and keeping me balanced.

"Move!" She yelled.

I raised my rifle, firing into the horde indiscriminately. I felt the anger return.  The hatred. I fired round after round, oblivious to the reinforcements with flamethrowers, oblivious to the aircraft circling overhead, emptying thousands of rounds into the horde, oblivious to the tanks and APC's that rained hellfire onto our enemy. Oblivious to it all. When I ran out of ammo, I switched to beating them to death. And when my rifle broke and shattered from the damage, I pulled out my pistol, emptying it too. I used it as a bludgeon before pulling out my electrified sword, turning it on and cutting through what must have been a hundred of them.

Finally, the last one fell. It was then that I snapped out of my bloodlust. I turned around, surveying the destruction. The trees burned with napalm. Corpses, both human and beast, littered the ground. Looking into the trench revealed a pool of blood, both red and black. Corpses and body parts lay strewn about, an arm here, a head there. We took a large number of casualties, but we still had quite a large force with us.

"You alright Harper?" I heard Chora ask.

Taking a deep breath, I looked back at her, "yeah, I'm fine"

"We have a casualty count, a hundred and ninety three were lost. They got the jump on us" Chora said.

"How many from our unit?"

"Roughly half, two are missing limbs and will need prosthetics, but other than that we stand in better condition that most"

"How bad is it?"

"Well, Bravo company was wiped out, along with Charlie and Echo, Delta has 90% casualties, and Foxtrot and Gamma were relatively unharmed thanks to air support from the 22nd. We also lost two aircraft to some flying things, dunno what"

I leaned against a tree, taking off my helmet and suppressing a cringe at the smell. Burning chemicals always brought back bad memories.