Doom: Hell on Earth 1.5

[dsm]

Into the Dark – Part 5

“Goddammit, won’t this blasted star port ever end?” I muttered to myself, forgetting that I was no longer alone and that my comrades could hear me through their radios, which we had now tuned into the same channel.

“We are still only in the outer periphery” Goliath told. “This Star port is where most of the Earth’s spacecrafts are located, and apart from that, there are fueling stations, fueling refineries, multiple barracks for troops, training facilities, radar stations – you name it”.

“And the General DID mention that the star base would be seemingly never-ending, why don’t you sorry fags pay attention to briefings!?” Crash snarled in her radio. “Stop bitching and get moving!”
I gave her an angry glare across my shoulder, but kept silent.

We were inside an enormous refueling station. Next to us, a humongous military flagship loomed over us. The ship stretched on endlessly, and only the first half of it was inside this huge hangar and visible to us. It was an army green color, shaped similarly to an oversized hangar ship, which in a way it was. We could see several plasma cannon batteries on the shipside as well as bay doors.
I knew that such ships were literally floating battle stations, loaded with tons of hardware, heavy weaponry and transporting smaller spacecrafts inside. I smiled to myself at the thought of humanity being able to utilize this behemoth against the demons, but because humanity had realized the full threat of the demons too late and let the bastards overrun the star base, it would not be possible to use it and its like against the hordes of evil.

I briefly looked at the corpses of our enemies that lay in piles. The voices in my head had begun to bug me again. Now stronger than before, the wailing of the restless spirits drove me crazy. I was in the mood to just kill everything in sight – including my friends, but I gritted my teeth, knowing that there were plenty of opportunities to mutilate demons and resisted the urge.

“Look!” Goliath said, pointing ahead with his chain gun.

Both Crash and I looked.
We saw prone forms under the shade of a gun battery platform. Approaching them, we saw that they were human forms in army combat suits.
“Careful boys” Crash whispered. “They may turn out to be former humans waiting to get up at us!”

They weren’t, but the sight wasn’t too pleasant either.
We were looking at the remains of a marine squad. They had made it inside the base, but had met their death at the hands of…what?
Some of the corpses were nothing but burnt flesh and organs, dumped in disgusting piles. Other corpses were less mutilated, but had great parts of their bodies burnt. I could even feel the horrid stench of burnt flesh through my mask.

“Plasma energy!” Goliath whispered. These friggin’ monsters have killed them with a plasma weapon.
I remembered my fight with the Cyberdemon lord on Deimos all to well. It was a terror composed of demonic tissue fused with steel and human technology. I also remembered that a couple of the ‘newer’ demons that I had read about in the tactical data before the assault were cybronic.
“Arachnotrons!” I hissed and narrowed my eyes.
The others looked at me.

The Arachnotron was a “miniature” cousin of the monstrous Spider Mastermind that I had defeated in Hell, only this one had a less advanced version of the plasma rifle than the ones that marines were equipped with.
We all placed ourselves back to back with our weapons ready, looking around for any sign of movement, straining our ears to capture a sound. But the only sounds that reached our ears were the distant sounds of operating machinery.

Crouching while on the lookout for more enemies, we sat there for a couple of minutes before we decided that the coast was clear. We began to collect the weapons and ammo from the dead marines.
Luckily, there was quite a load and we all got a fair share. Goliath acquired a rocket launcher, so he got all the rockets we could find.

We had almost collected all the ammunition when I suddenly heard a distant sound. It sounded like whining electronics. High pitched electronic screams.

Uh-oh!

I turned to the others. “Listen” I hissed, getting their attention.

The sound grew louder, but I still couldn’t place it. Now I heard a sound like the stomping of many heavy feet, combined with the whining of moving electronic gadgets.

“Anyone hear where it comes from?” I asked, looking at my comrades. Both shook their heads.
“Oh crap!” I muttered and brought my combat shotgun into firing position as the sounds grew louder and louder. The sound was now very loud and I felt that it was close.

“Yep, these are arachs all right!” Goliath yelled over the noise.

Several bay doors on the docked military spacecraft opened up with loud whines, revealing lines of chain gun wielding possessed commandos.

“COVER!” I roared and ran further in beneath the gun platform, but my buddies had both gotten that idea already and were right behind me.

The hangar walls suddenly began to collapse.

“Ma’am” I yelled at Crash. “I suggest immediate entry into battleship, Ma’am”
“Affirmative soldier!” Crash yelled back at me as Spidery creatures, each with six mechanical legs burst through the smoldering walls.
Crash immediately fired at the terrible arachnotrons with the Ion blaster, providing cover fire for Goliath and me as we ran out from beneath the gun platform and while Goliath launched a rocket into a line of Commandos, splattering their remains all over the place, I ran close to the nearest living Commando and blew him away with my combat shotgun, before I swung myself inside.

“Lieutenant Crash, go!” I growled in my radio. I heard the sound of firing plasma guns. The arachnids were opening fire. I dove behind a wall as a few yellow and green plasma pulses sizzled into the wall next to me.
A burly commando was waiting for me, but my reactions were faster and my own chain gun filled the former humans with bullets. Another armored commando let his chain gun sing, spraying bullets in my direction, but I continued running and threw myself behind a low wall. I could hear the bullets hammer into the wall and ricochet off it again.

The next moment, the chaingunner was cut in half with a burst from Goliath’s chain gun.

“Thanks bud” I grunted in my radio and got up.

Crash was standing in the doorway, blasting away at the army of advancing arachnotrons with the “unmaker”.

“Lieutenant, look out! We got bogies aboard!” I bellowed at her as one group of commandos appeared in a doorway next to her and another group of former shotgun soldiers approached Goliath and myself.
Crash turned and fired the “unmaker” into the group of commandos that all fell to the ground with horrible distorted screams of agony as the triple ion beams tore through them vaporizing great parts of their bodies and burning the remains.

While blowing three former human soldiers away with a blast from my combat shotgun, I caught a glimpse of an arachnotron outside the bay.

“Arachnotron” I yelled in my radio, but my warning came too late. A few bolts of burning plasma slammed into Crash’s weapon, shattering it and sending Crash screaming to the ground.

I rushed up to her and fired my combat shotgun at it. The spread was too wide, but the shot hurt the spider monster enough to attract its attention away from Crash. I noticed that she was still alive, wiggling around on the floor, trying to crawl away. I noticed a large burnt area in the stomach area of her armor.

I dove behind the wall next to the bay door opening, clicking the combat shotgun open and shut, as the spider creature furiously let loose a stream of plasma in my direction. It stopped firing and I swung my gun and myself around the wall and fired a shot into its ugly insect face. The shot ripped its glassy blue eyes apart and ruined its face. The monster screeched in pain and staggered backwards on its six mechanical legs with an electronically rattling sound.
I fired again and tore its organic spider body apart. A distorted, electronic scream was mixed with the creature’s own death scream as the monster fell over and crashed to the floor.

But more arachnids were approaching. Goliath came up to me and launched rockets at the approaching creatures, killing them one by one.

I quickly slid the combat shotgun into the holster on my back next to the bag with the chain gun and lifted Crash off the floor.
“Fuck!” She hissed doggedly as I lifted her off the floor. “This shit hurts”
“You’re lucky that you were wearing your armor and that your gun was in the way too” I told her.
“Now we need to find some medical stuff for you”

I placed her behind a low wall. Behind me, Goliath just killed off the last arachnotron.

“How’s the boss?” Goliath asked me.
“It could’ve been worse – she’ll live if we find some medical kits, but she won’t pack much of a fight in her current condition. We don’t have any medkits right now, so we need to find some”
“Gotcher” he replied with a concerned expression.

...

[VileSlay]

aww man, poor crash. if you kill her, you die as well. too bad she had to loose the unmaker. keep up the good work.

[Spike]

Apart from the overuse of the word 'enormous' early on, this is gripping stuff - the action is fast paced with just the right sense of urgency.
Keep it up dude!

[dsm]

Spike said:

Apart from the overuse of the word 'enormous' early on[...]

Crap!

[Fletcher`]

Why do some parts remind me of that Final Fantasy movie? Still, very good work there DSM.

[Mr. NobodX]

You've got a lack of punctuation in the last phrase. Apart from that, nice work! ;)

[Wildman]

Enormously good read. :) (Couldn't resist.)

[dsm]

Wildman said:

Enormously good read. :) (Couldn't resist.)

Lol, seems like there's a little something I have to alter in the next few chapters ;-)
Well screw it - I'll alter it right away!

You've got a lack of punctuation in the last phrase

What? How? Where? I don't see any lack of punctuation.

[Mr. NobodX]

“gotcher” he replied with a concerned expression.