The path they were to take through Hayden was long and complicated, Jack was discovering.
Though no satellites could successfully penetrate the demonic miasma that hung over the burning corpse of a city, there were still some streams and feeds of data coming out of it, and those who had pieced together this mission had done what could to give as much information as possible. But Jack knew that he would have to improvise a lot, and while improvising on his feet was easy enough, doing it with a pair of big, unwieldy APCs was a whole different story. He wasn't looking forward to forcing his way through the hellscape ahead.
He sat in the cabin of Grim, studying the intel, as they trundled along, making their way across the no-man's-land between the starport and the city. They had left the gate just a few moments ago. The other members of the team sat with him in studious silence, save for Diaz, who had taken up in the chaingun nest to provide overwatch. Presently, there were only two of those side objectives that Anderson had mentioned listed. Both related to planting communications boosters deeper into the city, with the hope that they would help everyone be able to talk to each other. Jack figured that was pretty important, so he planned on doing it.
It was going to be a long, long several miles into the city.
In the end, he finished up his study session and looked around at the others who shared the cabin with him, Cortez and Rhodes. They both looked pretty solid, if tired. Since he was finished with his studying, he got up and moved over to where the bomb was secured inside of a hardcase lashed to the floor. Carefully, he crouched by it and punched in the code to the hardcase that had come with his info packet.
With a soft chime, the case opened and he studied the compact thing inside.
It was shaped like a giant black pill, smooth except for a small screen on top of it. Jack studied it for a long moment, wondering about the technology that had gone into it. What was it made of? How was it constructed? What exactly had the UAC done to get this information, and how many Marines had died then extracting it from the bloody corpse of that wretched corporation? Would it even work? He sighed softly and sealed the case.
Only one way to find out.
Jack moved over to the chaingun nest, accessible via a ladder in the right corner at the partition that divided the cabin from the driver's cockpit.
"Diaz," he said, looking up, "lemme take over. You need to do some homework."
"Yes, Sergeant," she replied, climbing down. As she landed with a grunt in front of him, she stared at him for a second with intense dark eyes. Her black hair was cut short and she had a few cuts on a narrow, brutally attractive face. "Ward...how serious are you and Taylor?" she asked suddenly.
"Very," he replied. "Why?"
"Is it exclusive?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Not quite..."
"Hmm." She smirked. "Hit me up when this is over. I want a piece."
"Of which one of us?" he asked.
"Both."
"I'll definitely do that, I want a piece, too. Badly," he replied.
She laughed and sat down in one of the chairs. Jack shook his head, refocusing, and climbed into the chaingun nest.
He slid into the chair that was placed before the controls of the mounted chaingun. It stuck out of a clear bubble of bulletproof, flameproof, and bombproof glass.
Jack bore witness to pure carnage.
The reason there was about a half-mile of no-man's-land between the edge of the Haydenfield encampment and the city itself was because, probably more than once, jets or drones had zoomed by, unleashing fiery baptisms of all manner of bombs. Whatever effects kept them from doing so within the city apparently did not extend this far, or the influence was weak enough that Command deemed the risk worth it.
Presumably, it had been. He saw only a few crashed drones and one wrecked fighter jet, a smoldering ruin of twisted metal, among miles of blackened, corpse-strewn hellscape. The smoldering, crispy dead demons numbered in the thousands. It was tough to determine what some of them were, as he saw nothing more than helps of burned flesh, cinder, and blackened bones, but there were a few recognizable shapes among the slaughter.
He saw a few Barons of Hell nearby, a whole pack of of Arachnotrons, some still sparking, and in the distance, the unmistakable corpse of a Cyberdemon.
Jack couldn't help but shudder at that particular sight, remembering how difficult it was to kill the things. He swiveled back and forth, making sure there were no survivors, no stragglers that might be in a position to hit them where it hurt, but he saw nothing moving among the untold miles of devastation. Well, nothing immediately around him. Off to the left, maybe two miles distant, a fierce battle was underway as more demons poured from the city in an attempt to take Haydenfield. Jack felt a sinking sensation as he saw the lurching, shambling, loping forms. There were hundreds of them. Thousands of the awful things.
And more pouring out all the time.
How were they going to get out of this?
He shook his head, made himself refocus, looked ahead at the city itself. They had a job, and provided they could do it, it might help give them a foothold. He'd been in bad situations before, absolutely awful, terrible situations that seemed impossible to survive. And yet here he was, alive and (mostly) intact.
Ahead of them, Hayden smoldered and bled.
A festering wound of flayed skin, it oozed smoke and demons.
The pair of APCs trundled over the charred corpses, bones snapping and craniums popping beneath the heavy treads as they churned relentlessly onward. The edge of the city on this side looked like warehousing, and the closest of them had burned down to the foundation. A bit deeper in, he saw the shambling shapes of zombies, and other, slightly larger things. Imps. They moved along with an ugly efficiency, as though looking for something.
No doubt more humans to kill or consume or convert.
First contact came as they got onto a flame-roasted street choked with broken-down vehicles and corpses. They began pushing vehicles out of the way with the sheer bulk and power of their APCs, or crushing them, and the noise started drawing unwanted attention. Jack spooled up the chaingun, looking around as the shambling, stumbling figures began to emerge from between wrecks and beneath vehicles and off of side streets.
"Ignore the zombies unless you see them with weapons," he said into the comm. "Focus on Imps, or anything else that can throw projectiles."
"Affirmative," Abrash replied.
The zombies stumbled forward. They all looked pretty harmless, not like the smarter bastards he'd run into on Deimos and in Hell. Only a few had weapons, and just pistols at that. They charged the APCs, inasmuch as zombies could charge anything, and were either shoved aside or just run over. This continued for about two blocks, and then the first real conflict came. A contingent of Imps marched in off a side street and began chucking fireballs, shrieking madly. Jack already had a bead on them and he pulled the trigger.
The chaingun spoke. It roared.
The muzzle flare was enormous as a barrage of lead stabbed out, sliced through the air in a fraction of a second, and smashed into the ranks of the Imps. They were pulped, sliced, and shredded in a matter of seconds with just a few sweeps of the weapon. Jack released the trigger and stared in awe at the mass of gristle, bone, and pulverized flesh, and the blood that hung on the air in a mist. He wished he could use this chaingun when he had to wander around the halls of the damned. Someone called out a warning on their ten o'clock.
Jack swiveled back around and saw a pair of Barons of Hell stomping out of out an alley, kicking their way through corpses, their polished black hooves smeared with blood and ashes, and they were wound up to begin hurling green balls of plasma. Abrash opened fire at roughly the same moment he did and both of the huge, muscular demons were picked up and physically hurled back into the alleyway, their torsos shredding instantly. Blood bloomed as it gushed in sprays across the old, corroded brickwork of the alleyway they flew back down. Once they were done, Jack wheeled around and delivered the same treatment to a group of Demons stomping towards them, massive jaws snapping again and again.
They were sliced and diced in a cool four seconds.
Finally, the chainguns fell silent. Each man scanned the area, hunting for more targets, but it seemed as if all the demons were either dead or fled in the immediate area.
"Okay, keep it rolling, slowly," Jack said.
"Affirmative," Spencer and Holtz replied.
The two APCs set off again, rolling over dead demons. Jack could hear the faint sounds of their bones snapping and their bodies being pulverized by the weight of the huge vehicle. He knew there were more out there, not just in the city in general, but waiting for them, specifically. There had to be. It was never easy with the demons, they always had some angle they were working, some ace up their sleeve, some trick they were trying to pull.
It hadn't been that way in the beginning, or maybe it had, he just hadn't noticed it then. But clearly they had grown smarter, not just the zombies, but each class of demonic horror. Or perhaps it wasn't that they were growing smarter, it was that whatever was guiding them was getting more involved. Because there was something behind this whole thing. Some entity or force or power or something. But what was it? Jack though of the Spider Mastermind, the thing behind the invasion of Mars and her two moons.
Then he thought of how many countless billions of demons were currently marauding unchecked across Earth and felt a wordless, thoughtless terror shoot through him like an icy wind at the implication of just how much bigger something would have to be to control that many demons. Whatever it was, he didn't want to fight it.
But somehow, he knew he was going to have to.
Or maybe not. Maybe he'd die somewhere along the way.
It wasn't just possible, it was likely.
It didn't take much longer for them to run into their first genuine obstacle. Jack saw it coming as they turned onto another road: a huge pile of debris maybe a block ahead. It was taller than the APC he was currently riding in, what appeared to be a snarl of masonry, twisted metal, and corpses. A good portion of an apartment building had collapsed during the fighting, piling onto an already large collection of abandoned vehicles.
"Sergeant..." Spencer began over the radio.
"Yeah, I see it. Keep going, slow it down a bit more. I'll look for an alternate path," Jack replied.
"Understood."
Jack studied the side roads as they passed them, even the alleyways, but they were similarly choked with debris. This was a bad place. Every path they passed by was either too narrow for them or too blocked.
Before long, they found themselves about five meters shy of the pile, idling.
"Now what?" Abrash asked.
"Gimme a minute," Jack replied. He hopped back down from the gunner's seat. "Diaz, get back up there on overwatch."
"Yes, Sergeant," she replied, clambering up into the chamber. Jack sat down and opened up the holographic map over his HUD, studying it closely for a long moment. After some consideration, he finally decided to see if there was some other way around that he was missing, because the only choice right now was to backtrack a ways.
Not something he wanted to do.
"Okay, everyone hold your positions. I'm going to do some scouting," Jack said, making sure his suit was secure, then grabbing his weapon and heading for a ladder bolted to the wall that led to a hatch that let out onto the roof. He received a string of affirmative replies as he hustled up the ladder, opened up the hatch, and clambered out.
As he stood astride the APC, Jack found himself momentarily awed by the carnage and desolation surrounding him. This had once been a simple street, lined with simple structures, with people going about their (mostly) simple lives.
It was a slaughterhouse now. A bloodbath. A place of broken bodies and smashed vehicles and literal monsters lurking in the shadows.
He shook it off. There was no time for sightseeing, even horrified sightseeing. Hopping down from the top, he landed with a grunt, his Combat Armor absorbing most of the impact. Double-barreled shotgun in hand, he began marching towards the pile of rubble. It looked stable enough for someone to climb up. Probably. In the distance, he could hear heavy fighting. The chattering of chainguns and the booms of rockets or grenades.
It was a sound that filled him with hope, and also empathy.
He'd been to hell and back, literally, more than once now. But these people...sure Earth had been going down the shitter for decades even before he was born, but it was nothing like what they were facing now.
It was the apocalypse, and it was even uglier than most people thought it would be.
Jack reached the base of the rubble pile, studied it for a moment, then began clambering up it, letting his double-barrel hang by the sling as he ascended. It was quick, if dangerous work, but he managed to reach the top and only lose his grip twice. As he came to stand on a semi-steady piece of masonry, Jack surveyed the area.
More of the same. Death, destruction, disorder.
Farther on down the road, he saw roving bands of zombies and Imps and Demons, a few taller forms of the Revenants mixed in with them, on their way somewhere in a hurry. Probably had found some more humans to kill.
Jack also saw a solution to their problem.
Well, maybe. Looking to his left, he saw a large, intact wall surrounding a mostly empty lot and, beside it, a large steel brick of a building that was almost certainly a factory of some kind. His eyes sought and found a gate not too far away. It was large and closed firmly, but if they could get it open, and the one opposite it, then they could pass the APCs through the abandoned factory's parking lot and bypass this whole mess.
"Got a plan, maybe," Jack said as he started coming back down. "Holtz, meet me out here."
"Yes, Sergeant," the young tech replied. Jack didn't quite want to bring him out, but he was the only technician they had.
As he slid and stumbled back down the pile of debris, Jack brought his double-barrel back into play. And not a second too soon. An Imp had apparently slunk up silently in an alleyway to his left. It shrieked and the area around it lit up as it prepared to throw a fireball. Jack reacted almost without thinking, swinging to face it, shouldering the shotgun, and pulling the trigger in one quick motion. The result was absolutely spectacular to behold.
The thing's head, its neck, shoulders, basically everything above its stomach vaporized into a horrific spray of red pulped meat and shattered bone. It painted the walls of the narrow alleyway to either side of it as the legs and what remained of the torso stumbled back a step, then collapsed, the legs twitching spasmodically like they were attached to something electric. Jack found himself laughing softly as he cracked open the gun, freeing the two spent casings, then shoving two more in and snapping it shut with a brisk click.
"Goddamn," he muttered, then checked the immediate area again to make sure he was clear. Once he was, he joined Private Holtz by the APCs and led him off the street and up to the perimeter fence and the gate that looked more than big enough to accommodate the vehicles.
"Can you get it open?" he asked.
"Let me check," Holtz replied, letting his weapon hang and stepping up to the controls mounted within the remains of a little security kiosk. The seconds ticked by, tension mounting. After a few moments, he grunted and stepped back out. "It's fried. We'll probably be able to open it from the inside, though."
"Great," Jack muttered. It looked like this was going to get complicated. Although probably less complicated than retracing their route and hoping that the secondary path wasn't just as blocked. He sighed and activated his radio. "We should be able to get the APCs through this factory's parking lot if we can get the gates open, which we have to do from inside. Wells, Cortez, come with me, we're going inside. Everyone else, wait here."
"On the way, jefe," Cortez replied with an enthusiasm that still perplexed Jack. The guy was either just pretending to keep in high spirits, or was just blessed with a sunny disposition. He supposed he'd met enough people like that: not even the worst shit could get them down for long. And this was still technically largely going well.
For now.
Five minutes later, he, Wells, Cortez, and Holtz had clambered up the pile and were making their way back down its left side, as it had spilled over the perimeter wall, granting them good access. Jack got down into the factory parking lot first and looked around, assault rifle in hand now. This was a big, open area, although he saw nothing but corpses hanging around. Mostly dead civilians. Behind him, the others got down into the lot.
"Let's make this quick," he said, leading them over to the gate. Ideally, it would be a simple job, but he hadn't brought backup for nothing. He'd seen this story play out too many times: a seemingly simple task turning into a nightmare, and he was fucked seven ways from Sunday because he didn't bring enough backup or weapons.
Now he had both.
Or at least he had more, he was no longer sure there was such a thing as enough when it came to guns, ammo, and fellow Marines.
They reached the opposite side of the locked gate without incident, and Holtz quickly set to work. It didn't take him very long to deliver the bad news.
"It's on some kind of lockdown," he reported.
"Of course it is," Jack muttered. "I'm guessing you can't raise it."
The tech shook his head. "Not from here. I also can't just cut it open, it'd take awhile. But if we could find the override command..."
"Where would that be?" Jack asked, already knowing the answer.
"In there."
They all turned to look at the factory, which suddenly seemed a lot larger and more ominous. Jack groaned. "Of goddamned course we have to go into the factory. Okay, come on." He gave the others a quick update over the radio as he began leading the squad across the body-strewn lot. They jogged across the way, wary of threats, but the place seemed to be deserted. Jack didn't buy it. Something was waiting for them, something was lurking.
They came up to the main entrance.
It was broken open with brute force, strangely inviting. Jack made quick hand motions to the others. Wells took the right side of the entrance while he took the left. Cortez and Holtz hung back, watching their six. Jack peered in through the opening, sweeping his side of the area. He saw a huge, open factory floor. Big pieces of machinery and long conveyor belts crowded along the perimeter of the building, but its center was oddly cleared of anything except for corpses. He saw a lot of unmoving lumps in there.
"See anything?" he muttered, staring through the scope of his rifle.
"No, nothing but the dead. No movement," Wells reported, her voice tight.
"Okay. Holtz, keep watching our six. Cortez, stand guard here and keep an eye on the shadows along the perimeter, we're going in," Jack said.
Both men snapped off replies and as soon as they were in place, Jack and Wells slipped into the building. A long moment passed as they walked slowly deeper, towards the first of the bodies. The place was decently lit, except for the perimeter of the room. All of it seemed sheathed in a disturbing nest of shadows. Something was bothering him about the bodies, though. Something he couldn't quite place his finger on, and he drew closer, as though drawn there like metal to a magnet. A few steps deeper in and he had it.
"They're fried," he muttered.
"What?" Wells asked, drawing closer.
"All of them, all these people were fried. Like they were hit with a flamethrower or something. What does that?" he replied.
She was silent for a moment. "Nothing that I've seen. The skeletons have missiles. The Imps have fireballs...maybe it was a troop of zombie Marines armed with flamethrowers? I've seen some people armed with them in the fighting..."
"Maybe," Jack said, but he was unconvinced. It was a mystery that would have to wait. Whatever had done this was gone...probably. He looked around. "Where do you think the manager's office is?" he said quietly.
"Probably up there," Wells said, nodding over to the right. He followed her gaze, and saw a catwalk along the wall that he'd initially missed. With a sigh, he finally went ahead and flicked on the light mounted on the end of his rifle. Aiming it up, he played it across the catwalk. Nothing up there, but he saw several doors.
"Cortez, Holtz, get in here!" Jack called. It seemed like they were alone, and even if they weren't, if something was in there with them it had to be aware of their presence by now. No sense being extra quiet if he didn't have to. The two Marines joined him quickly. He pointed to the catwalk and the stairwell that led up to it. "Holtz, you and I are going up there to find the override for the lockdown. Wells, Cortez, stay down here and keep an eye out for any demons."
They all snapped off quick responses and Jack led Holtz over to the staircase. He took the lead, hustling up it, keeping an eye out for bad guys. Why did he always get stuck doing shit like this? Why couldn't something ever go right for once? How many times had his job been mucked up because something went wrong back on Phobos or Deimos? Back in Haydenfield now? Go find this keycard, go reroute that power, go track down this missing person. He knew it wouldn't be easy, but sometimes it was just damned irritating.
Of course, irritating was better than terrifying by a long shot.
Jack supposed he should thankful that he was merely irritated right now.
The stairway creaked and groaned and shifted as he made his way up it, and he wondered if it would hold him, his Combat Armor, and his arsenal. Worst case scenario: he'd fall down and get a little banged up. But he made it to the top without a problem, and then Holtz did, too. They moved along the catwalk and began checking doors.
The first led to a derelict office, the next to a disused storage room. The third door led to a bathroom that looked like someone had been detonated inside of it. Shreds of flesh, pulped gore, and gallons of blood coated the interior, and Jack didn't even want to try to imagine what the fuck had caused that.
After passing a break room and another storage area, they finally came to a bigger office with a dedicated workstation.
It even had a sign: MANAGER'S OFFICE.
Jack cleared it quickly and then waved Holtz in. "Hurry up, and make sure both gates are unlocked and opened. I don't want to have to come back here."
"Yes, Sergeant," Holtz replied quickly as he took up position behind the workstation and set to his task. Jack moved to stand in the doorway. He had a good view of the whole structure and felt...disturbed. This was too easy. He saw Cortez and Wells patrolling the factory floor down below, saw the shadows along the periphery of the room. On the one hand, he felt like those would be the absolutely perfect place for something to hide. On the other hand, if there was something hiding in here, it'd have launched its ambush by now.
Right?
Maybe they were waiting for something. But what could they be waiting for?
"Hey Sergeant, I got it!" Holtz said. "Both gates are open."
Jack activated his radio. "Abrash, are the gates open?"
"Yes, Sergeant."
"Start bringing the APCs through."
"On it."
"Let's the fuck outta-"
He stopped as a loud, deep, low moaning sound cut through the air.
Oh no. It was happening. Whatever it was, it was happening.
"What the fuck was that?!" Wells snapped. It had clearly come from inside the factory, but nothing immediately leaped out at him.
"Cortez?! You see anything?!" Jack called.
"Nothing, Sergeant!"
He saw their flashlights playing across the downstairs and played his own along the shadowed edge of the large room. Holtz came to join him on the catwalk.
"What is it?" he whispered, fear stealing into his voice.
"I don't know...I've never heard anything like that before," Jack replied.
The sound came again, a low, almost keening moan, like something huge and waterlogged. It was horrifically deep and Jack almost felt the sound. They all twisted in one direction, lights centering on the far side of the factory, zeroing in on it.
But there was nothing.
"What the hell is going on!?" Wells snapped.
Jack had no idea. Could it be a new type of Spectre? He hunted for the wavery effect in the harsh glare of the four shafts of light, but saw nothing. They were centered on a large cargo container and all at once it hit him like a brick.
"Fall back!" he snapped. "Get the fuck outta here!"
As he and Holtz began making for the stairwell again, the cargo container suddenly shook violently. Jack felt cold fear tear through him like a black wave as he skidded to a halt, taking up aim again. Maybe they could put it down fast...whatever the hell it was.
With a loud, deep growl the cargo container burst open and something completely new was thrust on the hellscape Jack's life had become.
It was huge.
For a frozen fragment in time, he simply stared at it, like he'd been shocked into paralysis. It had to be eight feet tall and five or six feet across. It was a huge, bloated thing of stretched, saggy brown flesh. Its body was immense and broad and horrifying to behold in its immense bulk. It towered over the two Marines on the ground floor. Jutting out of the top was a no-neck head with a jaw of ridged cartilage that went back along its bald skull. Big green eyes, lacking in iris or pupil, stared with all the toxic malignancy of sentient cancer.
It was supported by a pair of elephant-like, stumpy legs and its arms...
Huge, intricate, rusty silver cannons sprouted from its elbow joints. Jack saw gray fuel lines arching from somewhere in its back and feeding into the rear of the cannons. The thing let out a gurgling roar as those huge, wide-bored cannons zeroed in on Wells.
"Move! Move!" Jack screamed.
Wells didn't move an inch. She just stared.
She was still staring as a pair of huge fireballs launched out of the tubes and crashed right into her. One hit her in the chest, and the other took her head clean off, helmet and all.
"Go! Go! Fall back!" Jack screamed as he opened fire, flipping to full auto and hosing the thing down from the catwalk. The monster roared, a deep, horrifying sound that was unlike anything else he'd heard from the other horrors. Wounds opened up on its baggy brown flesh as Cortez joined in with his own assault rifle. Holtz booked it for the stairs. Jack finished emptying his magazine and then started running after him as he reloaded.
The new demon fired back before Jack could make it very far. A pair of fireballs launched and Jack saw their incoming trajectory more from the shadows they cast than anything else, and he skidded to a halt and began to backpedal. He managed not to get hit by either of them, but they smashed into the flimsy catwalk and it immediately gave way beneath him. Jack screamed as he went down among a clatter of twisted metal and wreckage. He could hear Abrash requesting a status update over the radio but there was no time for that.
He hit the floor of the factory with a hard rattle of his armor, grunting as a dozen new bolts of pain hit him, and then he was scrambling to get to his feet. Jack just barely managed to lurch up and out of the way of another pair of fireballs. They were huge, powerful, and thankfully a bit slow-moving. He heard a shotgun joining the fray as Holtz opened up, presumably having made it down in a less expedient way. Jack raised his rifle and opened up, sidestepping as he hosed the big bastard down. It groaned and roared and bellowed, pumping out more fireballs as it was assaulted from three different sides.
That seemed to be its only ability, and while Jack had seen firsthand what those fireballs could do, if you could keep your distance, he figured they should be able to kill it without too much of a problem. But as he emptied his second magazine, reloaded a third, and opened up again, he began wondering just how much of a beating this huge behemoth could take. Lots of viscous dark red blood was pouring out of it now, pooling on the floor as dozens of bullets pierced its flesh. Jack had to leap quickly to the side as one of the fireballs came perilously close, and as he reloaded one more time and started opening fire again, something finally gave.
With a resounding meaty eruption, the thing's stomach ripped open in a horrendous tidal wave of guts and foamy intestines and blood. It collapsed onto its side, flamethrower cannon arms clanking loudly as it died, and it twitched several times before becoming still.
"Ward, we're coming in!" Abrash shouted.
"It's okay," Jack said, finally coming back to himself now that the insanity of combat was passing. "We got it. We killed it...but Wells is down."
"What the hell was it?" Abrash replied.
"Something new..."
"God, it's ugly," Cortez muttered.
The thing now reminded Jack of a beached whale having exploded from within thanks to gas buildup. Its huge ribcage was visible among the shreds of hanging flesh and intestines, glistening with blood.
"What does it do?" Diaz asked.
"Shoots fireballs from cannon-arms. It's huge," Jack replied. "I'll fill you in when we come back. Are the APCs secure and are the gates open?"
"Yes and yes. The way is clear, we're good to go," Abrash replied.
"Understood. We'll be out in a minute...we just need to get Wells' gear."