Hey Guys, this is Debtor's Prison, sequel to Gambling on a Tightrope, enjoy!
Prologue:
“I’m impressed,” Fleet Commander Burton shook Denan’s hand. “You took down the man we’ve been trying to track down for year after year.”
“But you see, sir, that’s what been stumpi—,” Denan began to explain, but found himself cut-off.
“Now, now Denan, you may be a hero but you still need to remember your manners.” Burton gave Denan his most icy stare.
“Excuse me, sir.” Denan gritted through his teeth. Burton, apparently pleased, turned his back to Denan to peer through the bridge’s ‘windows’.
“That is more like it, now—I know you are greatly depressed by the loss of your friend, and you are tired from that tedious mission. But I have a favor to ask of you.” Burton looked down at the deeply overgrown planet Denan had just escaped.
“And what would that be, sir?” Denan—in spite of himself—let his curiosity show. Burton turned around to face Denan once more.
“I want you to go back down.”
Chapter 1: Oh No, Not Again
Green, green and green. It was all there was in the cursed place, all that the eye could see. Denan remembered last time he was here. They had just picked up the all-important informant and were taking him to the rendezvous point with one of the hulking armored giants called an Elephant.
It had all been going fine, from-the-book perfect, and then the green was replaced with red. Life was replaced with death. Laughter replaced with bleeding. Denan had awoken only to find his comrade die trying to defend him. Die by a man’s sick tricks, a man who had already betrayed Denan and Smith once before…die by Curt Jacklin.
The Joker—as he was more commonly called--had been a member of Denan’s platoon when in the middle of a skirmish with the Rebels, the skirmish he, changed.
He was pushed from his thoughts as a the radar on his wrist beeped, marking that they had two more miles to go until the hit-zone.
“Come on,” he shouted to the single-file line of twenty-nine UNSC marines behind him. “Two miles to go, almost there.”
The next two miles were hiked silently and quickly, several times they stopped completely when Denan swore he saw movement. But strangely enough, there never were any scouts or lookouts. Finally, his radar buzzed, indicating the hit-zone was only fifty-meters away and they still hadn’t had any hint of life.
He signaled silently to Jac Roelof, his second-in-command. The gunner raised his heavy machine-gun and followed silently after Denan into the dense bushes. Denan poked his Battle Rifle’s scope out of the furthermost bush.
As he adjusted the zoom a tiny bit, he found two large buildings in the center of a large clearing. Around the closest were scattered boxes surrounding an open door which was swinging in the breeze. Behind it was another building of equal size.
Around the clearing were large platforms built onto the trees very high up, Denan knew they could only be sniper stations. He didn’t see any sign of life in the base, it seemed deserted. He whispered down into his shoulder-mounted radio.
“All units, get into that center building—the one with the door open, something has gone horribly wrong here and I want to know what. Converge to that doorway.” Denan switched the radio off and crouched silently into the circular clearing. Soon he saw twenty-nine other bodies reveal themselves, once they had silently passed through the doorway, Denan switched on his light.
“Oh my—,” Celia R. Walter, one of the groups shotgun carriers gasped, all inside was deformed bodies, fresh blood, and destroyed furniture. Denan passed the light from one corner of the room to another. All he found was more fresh blood and stairs.
“Squad A, search the lower-level, if you encounter any hostiles…don’t waste time with prisoners. Squads B and C, stay here with me, time to investigate.” Celia and the rest of Squad A flipped their lights on and cautiously descended down the stairs. Soon, their heads disappeared from sight and the two squads were alone.
“What, are you waitin’ for an invitation or something?” Denan mocked, at his statement, the squads began rummaging through torn bags. Denan’s radio buzzed and he expected it to be Squad A with findings, so he willingly switched the on button…
“Silly little Denan, looking in the dark, this will be no walk in the park.” Right after the statement came out, shrieks came from below. His radio buzzed again, this time it was Squad A.
“Man down! Man down!” Celia’s voice shouted through the radio. Chaos. Chaos had erupted right after the statement, the statement came from a man he knew very well.
It was the voice of the Joker, who had officially been marked dead a week ago.
Chapter 2: Dear Diary, I’m About to Die
Roelof was the first to move, he hefted his machine gun and stood at the top of the stairs, waiting for friendly’s and hostiles alike. Now, a confrontation could be heard in the lower-level. But it wasn’t as Denan suspected, instead of many guns firing off, only a few were. Over the sounds of the gun-fire were the horrifying noises of ripping, gnashing and growling.
Denan moved behind Roelof and aimed his Battle Rifle over his left shoulder.
“Everyone, get out now! Take anything you think could be important with you!” He shouted as he saw a couple of dim lights from below. He heard shuffling and worried murmurs as the eighteen marines hurried from the room.
The few moments of silence that followed were tense and almost unbearable, the dim lights that had been visible before had disappeared completely. Denan was about to charge down the flight of stairs himself…
Three dark figures appeared at the foot of the stairs, Denan saw Roelof about to tighten his finger on the large trigger of his machine-gun, the figures starting running up the stairs, Roelof was ever closer to pulling the trigger when a voice rang out.
“Don’t shoot.” It was Celia’s voice, she was leading the three marines up the stairs. As they reached the third-top step, snarls came from the foot of the stairs, and masses of movement began to move up the large staircase.
“Duck!” Denan yelled, the three marines ducked and crawled the rest of the way up the stairs as Roelof let his gun roar, Denan joined in on shooting the unknown hostiles-all he could tell was that they were abnormally fast.
Without the heavy machine-gun firing away, all five of the soldiers would have been dead by now, no doubt in mind. Soon, the flow of bodies stopped, Denan took this opportunity.
“Roelof keep firing, when I give you the clear, run for it!” He ushered Celia and the two other surviving members of Squad A out of the building and into the sunlight and was about to follow when something caught his eye.
On one of the bunks that were lining the level was a journel, he picked it up, and read the title: Commander Flemming, 202nd URF Infantryman Squad.
He grabbed it and ran to immediate space outside of the door, he found his fellow soldiers looking towards the outside of the clearing with awe. Fifty foot steel walls were in place of where the tree-line had been. His radio buzzed:
“Looky, looky Denan, it’s your cage. Won’t you stay and play?” It was another cryptic message from the Joker.
“Roelof, get out here!” the bullets stopped and Roelof ran as fast as he could with the heavy gun strapped across him, shrieks sounded and shadowy silhouettes appeared behind Roelof, Denan’s finger was a blur as it kept pressuring and releasing the trigger.
The moment Roelof was out the doorway, Celia slammed the shut door and the other marines hurriedly shoved the scattered boxes in front of the door.
“Into the second building!” Denan commanded, and ran towards the next building, it was their only hope. He found it unlocked and lit inside, he looked through his scope at the blocked door they had just escaped out of, the boxes were budging. Whatever was inside wouldn’t be that way for long.
Just as Roelof—who was the last man—entered the building Denan saw the boxes fly and the door swing open, a shriveled gray body emerged.
It stood hunched, it had a slight human resemblance in body structure, but the finger and toe nails were long and strong enough to be considered claws, the body was naked and Denan could see blood dripping from its mouth, further confirming that Celia and the two others were the only surviving members of Squad A.
Denan shut the door and looked for a lock, he found three. Apparently, someone had known this door would need to stay closed. The Joker, Denan thought hatefully, he did the locks and turned to find his teammates, who had gone into the next room.
What was that thing? Denan looked back worriedly as the door shook, but stayed intact. Jacklin, I don’t know what you were doing, but it’s gonna stop, it’s gonna stop.
At this thought he clutched the felt the diary he had put in his large pocked with curiosity.
Chapter 3: Don’t Feel Bad, We Kill Everybody We Meet
Denan opened the door to find an enormous room, the ceiling must’ve been one-hundred feet up, it hadn’t seemed that high up from the outside. The whole room was white, but that wasn’t it, the walls, floor, and ceiling seemed to be glowing.
The only thing to keep the room from being completely empty was a small computer terminal standing by the wall to Denan’s left. He heard another—slightly louder—rattle from the outside door, they were trying to get in.
The marines were quiet and stared directly at Denan waiting for orders, another—louder—rattle from the door gave Denan an uneasy feeling.
“Whatever is left of Squad A, and Squad B, guard that door, we don’t want to be swarmed where there isn’t any cover, we’d run out of ammo too fast.” As the squads ran to form a semi-circle around the door, Denan grabbed Roelof’s shoulder. “You go too, you’re the only one I trust in this place.” Roelof nodded and joined in on the semi-circle.
Squad C now stood in the middle of the enormous room.
“What ya guys doin’? Start looking for passageways or whatever, just don’t sit there.” The squad started the feeling the walls, and Denan smirked to himself. They looked like a bunch of idiots, if Smith were here, he would’ve scolded Denan right away.
Smith
Another bang on the door shook Denan back into the present, and he ran towards the terminal. He pressed the ‘ON’ key and got this message:
\Terminal 593-C6-34RaBC Accessed, AI Silver Water Accessed/
-/-Silver Water: What is your inquiry?
Denan wasn’t sure what to do, Jacklin had had an AI? He finally decided upon what to do.
-/-Guest User 147593: Silver Water, what is your purpose?
-/-Silver Water: Information Denied, unavailable to guest user.
Denan cursed and didn’t know what to do, remembering the diary, he pulled it from his pocket and flipped through the pages, it was filled with crumpled documents in-between the writing-filled pages. It was on the back of the front cover, he found a single word, it was written upside down: Ezekem
Pressing his luck, he turned to the keyboard again.
-/-Guest User 147593: Ezekem.
-/-Silver Water: Hello Commander, what is your inquiry?
-/-Commander Flemming: Silver Water, what is your purpose?
-/-Silver Water: Why, to serve you and the grand-master, of course.
-/-Commander Flemming: Silver Water, what is this facility used for?
-/-Silver Water: For emergency escape, of course.
-/-Commander Flemming: Silver Water, how do we escape?
-/-Silver Water: Say the magic word.
-/-Commander Flemming: Ezekem
-/-Silver Water: Incorrect
Denan viciously flipped through the book, looking for another upside-down word, he found one on page 53: Vampire. Elated, Denan stuffed the journal back into his pocket.
-/-Commander Flemming: Vampire
\Terminal 593-C6-RaBC: Emergency Exit C accessed, Testing Records Accessed/
Automatically, a recorded video stream began playing, it showed the Joker standing around a man strapped to a large chair.
“No Jacklin, don’t do this to me!” The man in the chair begged, struggling against the tightened straps that held him to the chair.
“Now Corporal, what did I tell you? It’s the Joker.” Jacklin pulled a syringe from his pocket and shoved it into the Corporal’s neck, the Corporal fell silent as the liquid inside was released into him.
The video stream ended and the wall panels slid down and back, Denan whipped around looking around at the amazing transformation, racks and racks of weapons, grenades, ammunition and other items unfolded themselves.
The squad that had just recently been feeling the walls stepped back in amazement. What had been a large empty room, was turning into a crowded pot of gold for Denan. He walked up and down the aisles, staring in amazement at the new discovery.
“Lieutenant!” Came a shout from an aisle someway to the left, out or fear, Denan took off running towards the voice, he found an African private, looking up with awe at one of the shelves, he raised a finger towards it pointedly, drawing Denans gaze. He let out a small gap at this new turn in the story.
“What in the bloody,” Denan kicked the shelf, the grimaced as his toe rang from pain. “How did they get Covenant weaponry?” Lined up, rack-upon-rack, were the weapons the UNSC had been fighting for over twenty years now.
“Sir, is it possible, that the Covenant-um-shipped this to them?” The private turned his head to glance at Denan, he licked his lips and waited for a reply.
“I—I, I have no idea.” Denan stammered, “That would be out of the question in almost any scenario, but Jacklin….he could do a lot of things….” Just then, Denan’s radio buzzed.
“Denan, my old friend, don’t run, my little pets just wanna play, and they must play.” The Jokers voice seemed to echo, the private stared at Denans radio as if it was a disease.
By then, two other of the marines had joined the Private and Denan.
“I would call a cruiser right now if these were normal circumstances, but…” Denan contemplated the situation.
“They’re all out there, on that ‘Ark’ as the messenger said, where we should be.” One of the marines, a young man, with curly blond hair spoke up, putting special emphasis on the word should.
“Our mission is here marine!” Denan stated firmly. “Not up there with the Chief or any other of those special forces. How do you think the these weapons got here? The elites? They don’t have this kind of firepower. Salvaged? Not in this good of condition. This mission is just as important as whatever the Chief is doing on that ‘Ark’.”
An earth-shaking rattle sounded and gun-fire erupted. Denan sprinted towards the opening room, the door was completely knocked down. The marines kept their semi-circle, keeping a continuous stream of fire on the doorway, cutting down the genetically messed-up ‘things’.
He ran back to the terminal, his fingers shaky on the keyboard.
-/-Commander Flemming: Silver Water, how do we get out.
-/-Silver Water: The teleporter, look behind you.
Sure enough, there was a teleporter standing not twenty feet behind Denan.
-/-Commander Flemming: Silver Water, how did the Covenant Technology arrive here?
-/-Silver Water: The Grand Master made a deal, he convinced them we were fighting a common enemy, the UNSC.
-/-Commander Flemming: Silver Water, look for any UNSC signals, try to get a message out, tell them: “Code Green on Kashin
-/-Silver Water: Would you like me to notify you if I find one?
-/-Commander Flemming: Yes, immediately.
He sprinted back to the doorway.
“Marines, get to the teleporter, regroup on the other side!” At this order, some of the marines actually turned and ran. Denan could see dilated pupils and sweat-drained faces. Most of the marines stayed in the semi-circle, though, and slowly backed up, allowing the things to gain ground, they were swarming now, Denan could swear by the hundreds.
“Denan if they follow us through that teleporter, we can’t out run ‘em!” Roelof shouted over the roar of his gun.
“It’s better than standing here!” Denan pulled the trigger and was satisfied by a high-wailing shriek. “Celia, go!”
The young lady let of one more round, then turned and ran into the teleporter, disappearing from sight. Nine marines remained, slowly backing towards the teleporter. A marine wielding an Assault Rifle lost his nerve and scrambled towards the teleporter.
“Coward!” Denan shouted after him as one of the things jumped over a round from a marines Battle Rifle, and made contact onto the marine who had missed. At this sudden surprise, two other marines sprinted into the teleporter, which was about ten meters away now.
“Who the ‘ell are they letting into the Corps today?” Roelof shouted, sweat dripping down his brow.
“We’re screwed, we’re screwed.” One of the three remaining marines shouted and gave up firing, he turned to run for the teleporter. But he was not so lucky as the others, one of the things ran and leaped onto his back, clawing into it with his finger-nails.
“Don’t leave, don’t leave!” Denan shouted as the two other marines looked at each other worriedly. “Wanna end up like him?”
“We better get to that teleporter soon, or else all of us will end up like him!” Roelof mowed down a rapidly-approaching creature. Just then, he took a step and was gone. They had reached the teleporter!
“Pile in!” Denan shouted, now that the gunner wasn’t shooting, the creatures were swarming. Next thing he knew, he was in a large, very long hallway.
Chapter 4: There Are Certain Things Even Rats Won’t Do
A hand appeared in front of Denans face, he took it and allowed Roelof to pull him up.
“Sir?” Celia asked him. “What now?” Denan looked into the faces of the other seventeen surviving members of the mission.
“Why aren’t we being swarmed right now?” He asked groggily.
“We destroyed the teleporter right after you last ones came through,” Celia licked her dry lips.
“Who ran before I told them to?” Denan steadied himself, remembering the downright unacceptable behavior. Silence. “Who ran?” He shouted, his voice echoed all the way down the wall.
Three marines stepped forward.
“Well, I hope you three are happy, you lived through the first wave of torture, but you think this one will be any better?” Denan took a step closer. “The Joker never quits! Never! You survive a being shoved off a cliff, you get punched and sent off to the next challenge. This keeps going on, you keep getting weaker, and finally you can’t go on. We started out with thirty, how many are there now? Eighteen! How soon will that be five, how soon will it be before we’re all dead? ‘Cause I’m tellin’ you, it’s gonna be a whole lot faster if you three keep ditching the group to save your own hides.”
“I don’t have to listen to you,” One of the soldiers piped up, taking a step to face Denan face to face. “Look, I’m lookin’ out for number one here, and that isn’t you. I don’t give a crap what you say, but those things aren’t gonna get my blood.”
“Watch out, Denan, mutiny, it happens all the time.” A sickening voice laughed through Denan’s radio. “You remember, don’t you?”
“Shut up!” Denan ripped his radio from its holster and threw it at the wall, shattering it beyond repair. Now, he turned back to the marine who had outburst. “Well that’s just great, let’s see how long ‘number one’ survives. But I swear, if any of you ever run off again without my permission, you will be strapped to the wall and left for those things to kill you, understand?”
“Sir, yes sir!” Simultaneous shouts echoed throughout the hall. Denan noticed two of the marines were hauling a cart on wheels. It was full of what looked like extra weapons and ammunition, he made a note to praise them later.
“Good, now, let’s get outta here!” He turned back where he found the closer end of the hallway. There was a slight corner as the hallway turned, Denan cautiously peeked over it, to find a doorway closed off by a slab of cement.
“Well, we’re not getting out through there,” Roelof gritted his teeth, as he turned around. They noticed a similar corner down at the other end of the hallway. “Let’s see what’s behind corner number two.”
The group went on, the marine that had fought with Denan was in the lead, the second he passed that corner, disaster struck. A blur of blue and the marine was cut in half, one of the things was wielding an energy sword!
“Oh screw!” Roelof—who had been only a foot behind cut down marine—fell back, mowing down the creature on his way down. Denan sprinted past the other marines, shoving a couple that were completely in his way. He grabbed Roelof by the arm and pulled him up.
Three more of the things emerged from around the corner, all wielding the same blue swords. Denan—shoving Roelof back down—ducked just in time to avoid being decapitated. The black marine Denan had spoken to earlier gunned one down just to be speared by the third.
“No!” Celia ran and bashed the thing down, stopping its attempts to lick the blood. “She stomped on its head and bashed its skull in. The black marine grabbed her by the edge of her pants, a look of deep gratitude in his eyes.
Celia knelt down as the man closed his eyes for the last time. Denans softly pulled her up, and led her back towards the blocked doorway.
“Anybody have something to get this down?” Denan asked, browsing the weapons in the cart.
“I have one of them alien weapons,” a young private spoke up, he held up a large gun with a long nose and a curved blade on the bottom.
“Fire it,” Denan pointed down the hallway. And the private followed suit, a large projectile soared down the hall and exploded upon contact with the other side.
“What’s your name?” Denan asked, giving a nod of approval.
“Private Jackson B. Burton, sir.” The private began firing at that piece of cement, keeping as far away from it as the restricted space allowed, it broke to pieces in seconds revealing a small room with another teleporter in it.
“Well, we won’t be any worse off wherever this takes us than we are here,” Denan shrugged and walked through. Once everybody was through they looked around, they were in another hallway, and they traveled a little only to find another concrete barrier.
It was a maze.
“Hey, did you guys hear? They’re replacing test rats with lawyers these days. There’s two reasons: One, a lot of people are petitioning for animal abuse. Two, there are some things even rats won’t do.” Roelof tried to lighten the situation up a little bit, but to no avail.
Behind them, more shrieking began, this would be one heck of a maze.
Chapter 5: The Newborn
What is this? What am I? Where am I? A new pair of eyes opened to a blur of green, and then a new pair of ears heard a whizzing and he was rushed forward onto the hard ground, when the newborn looked down, his hands were grey and withered, not how they used to be.
The tan, muscled hands the newborn knew were gone…replaced by these things.
This isn’t me! This isn’t me! The newborn pounded the metal floor in anger, but then…an aroma filled the sweet air and his nostrils went berserk, he stood up and sniffed the air again, the creature outside was pleased and ran through a doorway straight ahead into a teleporter, moving towards the luxurious scent that he craved, he was addicted.
But the man inside knew the smell, he had seen the source before from comrades and enemies, and had lost some of his own before, he was running towards the smell of blood.
No! I’m not this monster…my name is Aaron Smith, I am a marine for the UNSC!
As the newborn ran from the room a hidden door opened and a man wearing a lab coat entered the room, chuckling to himself.
“I wonder if Denan will even notice he’ll be tearing apart his ‘little follower’.” The Joker closed the large tube after placing the next body in. “It won’t be the first time he’s turned on his little favorite.”
Denan checked the demolitions progress, they had encountered an extremely difficult obstacle in the maze, after twenty straight minutes of blasting away, forty belts of ammo for the Brute Shot, and a horrible mess of broken and tangled bodies of the things had piled up…the barrier hadn’t even budged.
Everything seemed well on the defense line, no activity had been reported for the last ten minutes, not even for the one marine stationed behind the teleporter the things were coming through. Denan saw this as a perfect opportunity to look through the journal he had found in the barracks. He turned to the front page:
Progress Journal: Commander Robert S. Flemming
URF Commander, 3rd Anti-infantry Battalion; 26th Platoon
15/03/2551
General Jacklin approved project Ezekem today. I had Silver Water hack the original files Jacklin looked into. I found that they are ONI, which is most amazing considering their anti-spyware technology, when I asked Silver Water about them, no matter what I asked, I was denied. It seems Jacklin wants to keep me out of his plans….I’ll be keeping my thoughts in this journal, if anything goes wrong, someone may find it, things just aren’t right at this moment. I copied down the ONI files below, it may mean more to someone else than to me, by what they mean by ‘flood’, ‘Master Chief’, or ‘Halo’ is beyond me. I’m also going to try to get around Jacklin’s blockings when it comes to Silver Water…he is the key to this whole mystery, I know it. Files:
File a8758php:473647364/ONI/?tOpSeCRet/67AIprot./open?/command7/:
This is ONI archiver V29i, this file is protected by 67 AI, including our one Smart AI. Top Level classified.
The Master Chief—while being debriefed from the Halo incident, told that the flood was totally destroyed. He was wrong, a single infection form stowed away on his ship, we took it into lab immediately, not allowing any spores to infect anyone.
We tried to clone its DNA, to create some for ‘other’ uses, for the good of humanity. Sadly, our scientists could only figure the code out halfway, and in the process, killed the infection form. Now all we have is have a code of DNA, *encoded below*.
It seems this is a species we cannot fully understand until further contact. After presentation this file will be kept under highest confidentiality.
21/03/2551
Jacklin is spending countless hours in the lab, who knows what he’s doing. Things have been getting strange around here. Our night-guards aren’t returning from their shifts, they’re disappearing. What’s even more unnerving—out of the seventeen that have gone missing, sixteen of them are from my platoon. It’s almost as if Jacklin knows I’m onto him, and this is his sign for me to back off. Aside from the disappearances, every day I find Jacklin has forbidden Silver Water to let me access less and less of our URF mainframe. I still have the ultimate code with me though, and not even Jacklin knows about it. Thank you Silver Water.
He can’t keep me out of everything he does, and trust me Jacklin, I’ll find out.
“They’re here, they’re here!” a distressed shout came from Celia’s radio, she was the closest by Denan. Static continued to come through the radio, why hadn’t their teleporter guard turned it off. “Oh my—,” The guard shouted, then shrieking sounded over the radio and the line was cut.
“Denan was that very nice, chucking your radio at the wall?” A raspy voice came out of Celia’s radio. She looked at it as if a snake was crawling up her shoulder. Denan walked up to her and turned her switch on.
“All units pull back, I repeat, pull back to my position.”
This maze was no better than the large room…either way, Denan was sure, they wouldn’t survive long.
Chapter 6: Zombies Aren’t Cool
“I see an opening, I see an opening!” Burton shouted through the smoke of the explosives he’d just launched. “It’s an exit!”
Denan glanced around at the remaining members of his team, he wouldn’t allow them to be picked off any longer. Ten marines were left since that distress signal had come through. They had swarmed faster than imaginable, within twenty seconds. They had lost two signals, and the other fleeing scouts reported more than fifty hostiles.
It had been heavy fighting since then, with the nine marines firing non-stop down the end of the hallway to halt the progression of the Ezekem. They would be overtaken soon if they didn’t move on.
“Let’s move!” He shouted, unpinning a fragmentation grenade and chucking it down the hallway. Out of the smoke a lone Ezekem burst, saliva dripped from its mouth and it pounced straight for Denan, right before he was going to mow the beast down, he noticed something in its eye. An recognizable gleam. “Aaron…”
He was pinned to the ground by his former friend, realizing he only had seconds before one of his comrades would literally shoot the beast off of his body. As he fought off the dripping teeth reaching for his throat, he used pure brute force to roll on top of his friend send out a frantic call:
“Don’t shoot!!!!” When he looked up, he noticed five rifles pointing down on him. He looked down at the struggling, snarling beast. “Sorry friend,” he murmured before he whacked it on the head with the butt of his rifle. It would be unconscious for quite awhile.
“What’s the matter with you?” Roelof lowered his rifle, “Why in the name of all in heaven and hell did you do that?”
“I know him, he was my second in command before I had my second run-in with Jacklin, I thought he—I knew he was dead!” Denan stood, placing the beast carefully down on the weapons cart. “He was my closest friend…”
“Well, your closest friend just tried to bite your head off,” Roelof turned away. Denan knew Roelof, he knew his pride was shaky, and that his last careless remark could’ve shattered it.
“Look, Roelof…” He began, but apparently, Roelof didn’t want to hear it.
“Let’s just go,” he lead the way through the pile of rubble that had been broken through barely. Celia and Burton stood glancing at each other, unsure of what to do.
“Let’s go,” Denan agreed, motioning for the other six marines who had been farther back. “I’m not going to let Aaron die meaninglessly, when that’s all he’s been to me these last few weeks.” Burton went with the other marines through the rubble, as Celia turned to leave, Denan grabbed her, “If I die, don’t let Aaron.” He then pushed her gently into the wreckage. “If any of us live,” he murmured to himself. It was a prospect he was fully convinced wouldn’t happen.
“We haven’t received word of them?” Commander O’Connell sighed with hopelessness. He looked at the data screen showing the whole regiments radio signals. The UNSC base worker signals were the only ones coming in strong. The only radio signal coming from any soldier with the team sent to destroy the Rebel base was a female soldier named Celia Walter, and it was too weak to hear anything once hacked into. Though they obviously weren’t the only ones hacking into the channel. The signal monitors kept picking up strange messages from some “goonie” as described.
This goon kept addressing these messages to Denan, the team leader. This hopefully meant that he and a few others were still alive. But with the strange happenings around the firebase nothing was guaranteed. During the night it was usually misty in the surrounding area, though it was usually, it still kept veteran sentries awake on duty with chills.
Even worse was, lately, there had been creepy, limping figures stalking around the mist, as if waiting for a sentry to creep into their clutches. They had already had one success: an old man near retirement age had gone missing at his post approximately a hundred meters away from the firebase, well within the mist.
When a search party had been sent for him, he hadn’t been hard to find. After an hour of looking through the heavily wooded jungle, a mangled body of flesh, blood, and bone was stuffed in the low branches of a tree, it was confirmed the missing man. It was highly likely that the “nightstalkers” had been the predator.
“No,” the firebase commander replied to the general. “And if it were my choice, I’d be up there safe with you in the hulking spaceship, I don’t like how things are going down here. We either need reinforcements or to abandon this place.
“Animals have been found in the same shape as poor old Wilkinson, we know it’s them, but we do not know how many there are. Please, get us out of here.”
“I’m sorry Tagant, I wish I could. But, just be smart, don’t die.”
“Easier said than done.”
“I know.”
Chapter Seven: The Stronghold
“What would you do to save Aaron, Denan?” Would you let yourself die? Would you let the rest of your team die? Would you? You had thirty men at first, and you’ve already let twenty of them die. Do you even care?” The Joker’s voice came over the rasping of Celia’s breath, through her radio.
In mid-stride, Denan ripped Celia’s radio out of the straps holding it next to her shoulder and shouted directly into it.
“They didn’t die because of me! They died because of your sick games, Jacklin!” He looked over his shoulder to make sure they weren’t being closely pursuited.
***
“Commander, we’re hearing something!” A radio attendant shouted. The sound carried throughout the bridge and O’Connell quickly arrived to the monitor the attendant sat at. As he looked with questioning eyes the attendant stood, saluted, and spoke. “I think they’re underground sir. The signal is gradually increasing.
“The creep is talking to them again. And they are responding. It is a male voice, when I cross-referenced it with the voice recordings we were given by the soldiers themselves. It was a perfect match to Denan.”
“So, Denan is having a conversation with the psycho?”
“We think it is more than that,” the attendant continued. “He, meaning Denan, mentioned the name Jacklin. We believe it is his former second-in-command.”
“Jacklin was Denan’s second-in-command.” O’Connell made sure the attendant had been recording the conversation taking place over the radio—or, rather the parts understandable—when he saw he had, and was content that all checks had been done, he went on. “When the Covenant attacked Paris IV, Denan and his small squad took part in the fighting. It consisted of five members. His designated marksman was one of the first casualties. His gunner followed soon after. Then, under heavy fire, Jackson—as you know was his second-in-command—disappeared. He was placed as KIA for four months. Denan and his to-be second-in-command, Aaron Smith were the only two in his squad to have gotten away safely.
“Four months later, on a covert operation. Denan, and his group of nine others, were captured by Jacklin. Though he now calls himself the Joker. The captives underwent “challenges” in which they had to kill each other off. Both Denan and Smith refused to participate, and were tortured in horrible ways. They later escaped, using a crate of grenades and a timed-detonator as a diversion. Jacklin was supposedly killed in the blast. But the next day, he sent the UNSC a cryptic message. Cursing Denan and Smith, and informing them that he wouldn’t let their heart beat much longer.
“Four weeks ago, Denan and Smith encountered the Joker again. Though the Joker planned to put them through the same torture, he never got the chance. Denan put a bullet into his chest. Smith had been killed earlier. Now, it seems the Joker didn’t die, and now, he wants Denan dead, but he wouldn’t allow it to be fast, he wants Denan to suffer as much as possi—,”
“Sir, excuse me for interrupting, but they were mentioning Smith in the conversation also.” The attendant sat back down and hit a button. What would you do to save Aaron, Denan? Played mockingly at the Commander.
“It seems Smith’s death could’ve been another trick. Do you have another pair of headphones?” The Commander sat down in the attendant’s chair, it was protocol for the attendant to stand if the captain was also involved in whatever job was happening.
“Yes,” the attendant opened and small drawer, just above the monitors. He grabbed another pair of headphones and locked them onto the same signal as the original pair was listening to. Both men were captivated by what they would hear.
***
“It’s my fault you came knocking on my doorstep and took what is mine?” Jacklin shouted through the radio. “Is it my fault you came back to ruin me even further?”
“You kidnapped that informant in the middle of a night! You were giving him heavy doses of drugs hoping he would die without your superiors thinking you hadn’t followed orders!” As Denan looked forward, a remarkable sight welcomed him. His comrades had found a door and opened it, from the doorway he saw light dripping in from above. Not from one of the many lights hanging above like in the maze, but actual sunlight.
Once he and Celia cleared the doorway, Roelof and the others closed it. The source of the sunlight was from windows, about one-hundred feet up, which were much too high up to climb. But what was in the room shocked him the most. At the far end there were six platforms each with a mounted turret placed on it. But the barrel of the turret was the only thing out side of a glass material, which was most likely reinforced and bullet-resistant.
Once they had reached the platforms, they noticed a control panel on the very top platform, which had six different buttons on it:
O: Automated Turrets
O:Spikes
O:Blast Turret Rooms
O:Lock Turret Rooms
O:Unlock Turret Rooms
“So you’ve found my stronghold. Well done, you have about twenty minutes before I hit a button on my control panel to open that door you just locked, you better be ready.” Jacklin laughed over the radio.
“Everybody, raid the cart.” Roelof shouted. “We won’t be able to take it with us anymore.” The soldiers literally had guns from head to toe, Denan had at least five pistols on him.
“Celia, Burton, Travis, Nollin, Eddie, and Pikkes, man the turret rooms.” Denan pressed the ‘Unlock Turret Rooms’ button and the back panel slide down. The six soldiers jumped up into them, and then Denan pressed the ‘Lock Turret Rooms’ button, the glass slid back into place.
The soldiers immediately began working with the controls, luckily the whole box swiveled with the turret.
“What do you want us to do?” Roelof let his heavy machine-gun slack on the band he had around his shoulder.
“You two,” Denan pointed to the other two marines. “Climb on top of the top-most two turret boxes, fire from there. Roelof, you stay here and guard the control box with me.” As Denan said that, he noticed a small hatch directly behind him into wall, when he walked and opened it he found a small dirt passage, big enough only to crawl through, even the taller soldiers, like Nollin, would be scraping their back. “Crap,” he said as he closed the hatch.
“What?” Roelof wiped his forehead, only to smear more dirt on it.
“Someone’s going to have to stay behind.”
Just then, the door on the far-side of the room blasted open. Denan ran to the control panel and pushed the top two buttons. Five automated turrets came from the ceiling. And steel reinforced spikes now surrounded the platforms.
But when Denan saw the endless masses of Ezekem, he knew they would have to resort to leaving someone behind.
ChucklesAnyone else here getting sick of tiny two-word posts that become huge because of the O.G. picture?