Prolouge
I single handedly destroyed the horrible demon that masterminded the Demon invasion. I fought your way through Hell all the way to Earth. I took out the horrible monster that controlled Hell AND saved the day ALL BY MY SELF. Now isn't it time for my big, fat, pretty, reward? Ha! That'd be some nice reward... Sadly that's not the way it is. Turns out the Brass was not too happy about the destruction of the "Icon of Sin". They say I destroyed what could have been an excellent specimen. Turns out I also went AWOL when I left my post on Phobos to travel to Deimos. So here I am now... Rotting in a federal prison, waiting for my execution. Sad ending? Don't worry. I'm not there yet. 600 hours ago some g-men turned up and gave me an offer I couldn't refuse. I could either help them clean up the mess I caused, or I could sit here and rot. Naturally, I took the job. I guess it's time to return to the place of my nightmares: Phobos.
Chapter 1, Leave no evidence
At 1200 hours I was escorted towards the the briefing room in the Delta Force Special Ops Head Quarters. (Yeah, that's right, Special Ops. Never thought I'd be good enough to work with these guys.) I checked my watch and noted I had a couple of minutes before the general showed up so I grabbed myself a cigar (One of my escorts keeps a crap load of them in his back pocket.).
Just as I lit the cigar some guy tapped my shoulder.
"It's better to ask for stuff you know..."
I was so startled I dropped the cigar in my lap! Cursing I picked the cigar up. I looked up at the general grinned widely. "An older boy told me to do it" I cracked.
"Peer pressure is something you're going to have to learn to deal with son". I dropped my grin.
"Can we please get on with the briefing?" The General scowled at my manners but nodded.
I'm not going to go into the dull details of the briefing but I will give you a basic summary.
We all know what the UAC is but we don't know what all they're up to. Recently, Intel located a secret UAC facility that they sure as hell didn't bother to tell anybody about. They've been trying to breed super soldiers using the Samples collected from the various demons that were captured. They want me to go in and do a few things for me.
1. Assist the soldiers
2. clear the base of infestation, hostiles, etc.
3. Destroy the evidence. This includes papers, computer files, AND witnesses.
"Jesus Christ General! You want me to kill civilians!?" I gaped in horror at the man before me.
"I'm afraid it's not my decision son. This briefing is over. Head on down to the armory and grab your gear."
I scowled at him. "What if I refuse?"
"I'm afraid you no longer have that option. Get moving. That's an order."
Chapter 2 Quite a welcome party
Some things never quite seem to change. You'd think after 4 months, they'd improve the design of the drop ships. However, they're still cramped, uncomfortable, and poorly designed. Doesn't help when you're packed with several soldiers. The first thing I noticed when we neared the surface was the change in atmosphere. Seems that the lack of maintance at the terraforming facility had taken it's toll. Phobos the was no longer the lush mountain enviroment it had been when I was stationed there. The humid air had been replaced with thin and tainted air. The greenery that had covered the mountains had long since rotted away leaving nothing but bare eroding mountains.
"Okay boys, look alive!" shouted Lt. Craigs.
Before we could even THINK about popping the air lock we had to don our Enviromental suits. The Atmosphere was full of mercury and other toxic elements that could cause a nice, painful death.
The Enviromental suits were quite outdated. They could only stand up to the elements for an hour or so, just long enough for us to get into the main facility. From there we would make our way to the Terraforming station to see what we could do about the atmosphere.
Peice of cake right? With demons, there's always a catch pal.
The entrance to the Facility was built into the side of a mountain ridge. There was a bridge leading from a nearby hill to airlock A-1. The bridge curved around a large cylindrical guard tower. With the exception of a few CARDBOARD crates, there wasn't much cover, and wouldn't you know it? A few of those god damn floating testicles showed up! "Floating testicles (AKA FTs)" were the grunts' nick names for the so called "Cacodemons". These cacodemons resemble nothing so much as a giant grinning head! Anyway, we dove behind the hill as soon as we heard the hisses. Jefferson, our heavy gunner peaked over the hill at the quickly approaching cacodemons and ducked back into cover just as a "lighting ball" zoomed over head.
He snarled and informed Lt. Craigs that the FTs had our demoliton specialtist, Juan and our medic , Preston, pinned down.
After a moment, the Luitenant order Jefferson to lay down suppressing fire while I broke out the old LAW anti tank weapon and blew the shit straight out of the Cacodemons' asses. After a moment, we moved on.
It was half way to the air lock when tragedy struck. Phillip, our sniper, stopped moving for a second and tilted his head. "Do you guys hear that?" He asked with a frown.
Now Phillip was famous for living off the land. That's how he got into Delta Force. His hearing was way sharper then the rest of ours and he didn't just hear stuff. We all stopped for a moment to listen. after a second, I could hear it too it was a high pitched whining noise that was rising sharply.
Craig's eyes became as wide as dinner plates. "Get down!" He bellowed, and so we did; not a minute too soon either. A trail of blue light arched over head. I recognised that blue light too. It was the trail a rail gun shell leaves! Rail guns are powerful weapons that use copper wires to fire a magnetic slug at a very high speed. These weapons were highly unstable and used by some of the elite delta force snipers. ONLY delta force had them! The crack of a sniper rifle split the air as Phillip put his training to the test. A moment later, a body slumped out of one of the windows of the facility and slipped into darkness, but not before I noticed something was very wrong with it. The blood was coagulated. Blood doesn't do that on fresh bodies or live people. I also noticed that the flesh had decayed in some areas. This guy was a zombiefied Delta Force soldier!
I glanced over at Jefferson, who was still laying on the ground.
"Hey Jefferson, you can get up now. Cmon man, the bad guy is gone! Oh Jesus Christ..."
Jefferson had not been fast enough. The railgun had blown clear through his kevlar and buried itself straight in the arm of his suit. I stared in horror at his face, deformed with a wordless howl. The poisonous chemicals were slowly burning his lungs, it could be days before the pain ended and he died.
"MEDIC!!!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, over and over. Not even hell had been this bad!
The medic calmly walked over, eyed the dying soldier, raised his assault rifle, and placed three carefully aimed shots in the middle of the Heavy Weapons Specialist's head.
I stared at him with a terrified expression until he finally said in an emotionless voice "Let's go Corporal, we've got ten minutes of oxygen left."
I was pissed, confused, and sure that he was nothing but a cold blooded killer who killed and tortured things as a hobby. Until I noticed how shaken up he was by what he had just done. Then I began to pity and respect him.
