doom - evil unleashed 0.3

The Beginning to the End – Part 3

-

I stepped into the rec. room and saw Andrews sit at a table with some of the other marines from the squad I was currently assigned to. They were talking in hushed voices. I grabbed a chair and sat down next to Andrews.
"So what's up?" I asked.
"One of the boys got called up to Phobos yesterday" Andrews replied promptly. He sounded a bit worried.
"Again?" I asked.
"Yeah, and we still haven't seen the others return yet, or even heard from 'em. I wonder what the heck is going on up there..."
"I hear that they have weapons labs up there, perhaps the boys are there to test some prototype weapons!" Graham suggested. He wasn't too bright.
"Do you really think that it takes weeks to TEST weapons without sending them back down here even ONCE in a while?" Moore asked irritated. "Nah, they've probably discovered breaches in the security, requiring some extra guards until it's fixed" she suggested.
"It's odd" Lewis said. "The Skipper even claims that he hasn't been told anything about what's going on up there"
"Really?" I replied a bit surprised. "Well, the other officers don't like him, so it doesn't surprise me that they don't talk too much to him, but this is a more serious matter, one that he ought to know about"

'The Skipper' was our nickname for Captain Bill Howard, a rather short, but well built, muscular black man with a small, well-trimmed beard. He had only just transferred out here, but he had already made my day up here a bit easier to get through. He was one of the few officers I respected and generally, he was quite popular among the men as he was rather cordial, yet he could be harsh when necessary.
He didn't mind that we had given him the nickname 'Skipper'; in fact he even seemed to enjoy being called so. While he was popular among the grunts, most of the other officers disliked him and I knew that he detested them in turn. The reason for their mutual dislike could be the fact that Captain Howard originally came from an elite unit – the US Rangers. The other officers generally didn't like us Special Forces troops, which I had felt quite often since I arrived on this "palace of Boredom". The Skipper had transferred to the regular marines for reasons unknown to me, but I liked the guy for the simple reason that he wasn't a smartass like most other officers I had had over me.

"Well, the Skipper's only responsible for the security on this base" Moore replied, shrugging her shoulders.
"And keep us under control don't forget!" Adams added with a broad grin.

The rumors kept buzzing around the table. I didn't really care about what the guys thought, but it did puzzle me that none of the boys sent to Phobos had returned yet. Normally, they would inform us what our buddies were assigned to.

The UAC had together with the military used the remote facilities on Mars' two moons to conduct a number of secret projects, or at least the rest of the marines and I believed that they were secret projects, as none of us had been told anything about what really happened on Phobos and Deimos.

****

Colonel Elliot T. Hauser, the Officer in charge of the military forces stationed on Mars and its two moons, looked over the report.
His eyes narrowed. "Another failure" he grumbled, gritting his teeth. "But this time the incident was a lot worse than any of the earlier". He decided to stop the testing, and order a full system check, not returning to the testing phase until everything was certain that there were no technical malfunctions.

The Colonel sighed, put the paper down and scratched his head, as was his habit whenever he faced a problem.
This project could turn out to be the biggest achievement in his whole career, but it constantly ran into problems – problems which even the best of the scientists at the bases couldn't have foreseen. If it continued along those lines, his career would soon be in serious jeopardy.

He was a tall 69 year-old man, with stern, narrow, gray-bluish eyes.
Hauser was very interested in science himself, which was the reason why he ended up in charge of the military's interests on Mars. A few successful projects, gave him a bit of recognition in the first couple of years, but then little success was achieved in the following years. However, four years ago Peter Winston, the chief scientist on Mars, made a sensational discovery, which started the biggest project, Colonel Hauser had yet overseen. Unfortunately, the project had begun to go downhill within the last few months, as several "incidents" happened.
"It's vital that the regular employees and the marines don't get wind of what is going on" he thought to himself "The less they know, the better!"

The Colonel ran his right hand through his gray, shaved hair and typed his orders in on his tiny mini-computer, which wasn't much bigger than a watch, and pressed the "send mail" button. The mail was transmitted to the main stations on both moons.

They had to fix the problems before things got any worse...

****

I sat at the table, drinking coffee with Andrews in the guardhouse next to the docking bay of the base. Two days had passed since our little discussion in the rec. room.
Henderson had just relieved me and I was glad to have gotten out of the same room that he was in – his smartass remarks drove me crazy.
The problem was that I was the only one who tended to get irritated by his remarks, and because of this small thing my relationship with most of the marines wasn't a particularly good one.

Now I was slurping coffee, trying to stay awake, while Andrews sat staring out of the window, looking at the docked spacecrafts.
"Still bothered 'bout those marines?" I asked him casually.
"What?" he asked, snapping back to attention.
"The boys sent to Phobos, does this still bother you?" He gave me a scrutinizing look.
"What if something nasty is happening up there?" he asked after a short while.
"What should that be?" I asked him, wondering why the Hell he always saw trouble in everything.
"I dunno, just...", he paused briefly, thinking. "...Something bad"

"I think they've just been assigned the security force up there" I said after a moment considering the possibilities, taking a sip of my coffee. He paused a long minute.
"Hm, Guess I'm just a little worked up about my friends not returning"
"Yeah, probably"

-

I sat alone for a little while, thinking about our conversation. Eventually, I began to think about Life – why we were here and what would happen when we died. I wasn't afraid of death myself, as I really didn't care much about my life, which had never been a particular happy life, but the whole Life after Death issue was one that I was somewhat fascinated with.
"Is there any life after Death?" – a question I had often mentioned to some of my buddies from my old squad back home. They would usually say that I thought too much.

Now the question suddenly popped up in my head.
If there was Life after Death, where would my parents be now?

...

Another good one.

They keep getting better, these are very good writings. The only major problem I can see is the switching between 1st and 3rd person, but I don't see any convenient way around that right now. Just keep it up!

I figured that telling the story from only the Doomguy's perspective would get boring in the long run, so I included those switches between first and third person perspectives. (I've seen a similar technique in some of the books I've read).
Anyway, I'm glad that you people like my story - encouragement is always a good thing.

Hmm, I was always taught switching between 1st person and 3rd person omnipotent was not allowed...It works okay, though, so I don't see any reason to change it.

Great stuff.