The Grey Chronicles Part One: New Declaration of An Old War

Chapter 25: Monsters in His Head.

Airlock, outer space around Apostle Four, June of 8096 AL.

All of Octavian's soldiers raised their weapons at Briarios, then instantly dropped them when the minigun at his shoulder unfolded and started moving from man to man, its barrels spinning.

"We won't leave them, I won't leave them," Briarios snarled from behind his helmet.

Barely noticeable through the thick blast doors, Grizzly platoon had reached the airlock and were pounding against it. Briarios looked at the door and screamed loudly, as if some invisible person had whipped him. Alex stepped forward slowly, his hands held out in front of him to show he was unarmed. The rotary gun immediately trained on him, and Briarios screamed.

"OPEN THE DOOR!" he howled, "Open the door, we can't leave them!"

Alex froze, and spoke gently, "It's okay, Briarios, we'll get them. Put the gun away and-"

"NO!" Briarios cut him off, "I have to go get them, I won't leave them!"

"What do you mean again?" Alex questioned, "They'll be okay, but you need to let her go. She hasn't done anything-"

"She's doomed them!" he snarled, "She's killed them! She locked them in with those monsters!"

"What monsters?" Alex asked desperately, struggling to keep his voice level, "There aren't any-"

"Wait, oh god," Aela gasped, "Briarios, stand down!"

"Aela!" Alex rounded on her. "What are you-"

"Let me handle this, I know what's happened to him." Aela stepped in front of Alex, covering his face from her nephew's view.

"What do you mean?" Alex shouted at the back of her head.

She turned around and whispered through clenched teeth, "He's having a PTSD attack. He's back on Calx Urbs, breaking his father out of prison."

Alex was dumbstruck; he'd heard of PTSD attacks, but never seen one this severe. Usually the victim ended up in a corner, sobbing and shaking because the fireworks sounded like bombshells; it was rare for a Machinae to start waving a gun. Briarios was having a psychotic break.

Aela looked Briarios straight in the eye and growled an order, imitating Korana's voice almost perfectly.

"Stand down!" She hollered, and Briarios growled at her.

"She closed the door! They're all going to die because of her!"

"Then open the door!" She got in his face, stepping closer and shouting louder. "Stand down, and I will open the door."

Briarios hesitated, "Can we kill the monsters?"

"We owe it to them to try," Aela looked over her shoulder at Octavian's soldiers, "When we open the airlock, as soon as the platoon is through we open fire on the parasites, everybody understand? No questions, just do it."

Briarios' head swung from the pounding at the door to his aunt, Alex could hear his breathing; it was raspy, and desperate for air as if he'd ran thirty kilometers in as many seconds. Worry swelled in Alex's head and doubt filled his chest like concrete. Aela slowly side stepped towards the control panel and the soldiers silently picked up their weapons. Briarios' gaze snapped to his aunt, watching her with unblinking eyes, consumed by the memories. Aela slowly tapped at the controls to open the blast door, then stepped back and loaded her weapon. Grizzly platoon poured through the doorway, and Briarios immediately released the Hazmat team leader and grabbed the nearest soldiers, pushing them behind himself to save them from creatures that weren't there. Once they'd past the doorway, Briarios started firing at nothing; his brain saw images of the parasites he'd fought in the Trench Wars, but in reality he was only putting holes in the walls. The soldiers filed along beside him, emptying clip after clip of ammunition into the empty hallway. Briarios screamed at the monsters only he could see, the barrels of his minigun started to glow cherry red. He shot his hand out and took a hold on one of the hydraulic blast doors, slowly pulling it out of the wall and towards the center of the hallway. He rushed to the opposite wall, grabbing the other door and pulling it to center. The soldiers around him stopped firing, and Briarios screamed in defiance as he slammed the doors together. Aela tapped several buttons on the control panel, sealing the doors.

Briarios stood motionless and silent as Aela approached him from behind and lifted a panel on the back of his neck. She pressed several buttons and his armor hissed, the seals along the armor depressurizing and opening half an inch. Aela motioned for Alex to help, and she pulled the breastplate of his armor aside as he moved to her side. An unconscious wall of muscle fell forward out of the armor into their arms, limp and sweaty. Alex and Aela barely managed to catch Briarios, slowly setting him on his back on the floor of the airlock. Aela cradled his head in her lap, a worm of worry eating away at her insides. She checked his throat for a pulse, then set a hand on his clammy forehead. His entire body was covered in cold sweat, his clothes were visibly soaked. She looked at the leader of the Hazmat team who was rubbing her sore wrists where Briarios' iron grip had bruised them.

"You, get these soldiers out of here. I can handle this." Aela looked to Gunny Hoster, "Get the platoon to the barracks, but leave the Draydens. We'll need their help to move him."

"What about his armor?" Alex asked, looking at the tower of titanium with its smoking cherry red minigun, "Leave it here?"

"Aye, we'll have to. The Draydens and the tailor on the Anarchist would hardly be able to lift it, we can come back for it later."

Flint and David Drayden stepped out of the crowd of soldiers as Gunny bullied them out of the airlock and up the hallway. The Hazmat team pulled one of the injured officers off of his stretcher, one of the larger members of the team carried him piggy-back up the hallway. The rest of the team followed, leaving them one of the stretchers to carry Briarios.

Flint knelt beside Briarios and dragged the stretcher parallel with his limp form. David and Alex took a grip on his shoulder and side, rolling their friend up onto his other side while Aela and Flint slid the stretcher under him. Alex rolled him onto the stretcher as Flint and David took a hold of the bars, hefting Briarios up to waist height. Aela led the way down the hallway towards the infirmary and wasn't the least bit surprised to see Octavian standing outside, tapping his foot with either worry or impatience; Aela suspected both. He stepped towards them as he noticed her, approaching the stretcher and examining Briarios. He checked for a pulse then lifted Briarios' eyelids, looking closely at his eyes. He shook his head gently and motioned for the Draydens to carry him into a larger than normal hospital room with padding on the floor and walls and restraints on the operating table.

The Draydens carried him into the room and held the stretcher slightly above the table and to the side. A doctor and two nurses stepped into the room, standing on opposite sides of the table. Together they lifted Briarios and gently set him on the table, grunting from the effort of moving him.

The moment he touched the table one of the nurses ushered the Draydens out of the room while the other began strapping him down. The doctor hooked a heartbeat monitor to Briarios' finger. As the nurse finished strapping his arms, legs, and chest down to the table, he stepped to a computer panel in the corner and tapped away at the touch screen. A scanner rose from the side of the table and bent at the middle, laying parallel over Briarios' body. The arm cast a blue light on him and slowly moved from his head to his feet, then back to his head. The image of the scan appeared on the wall in front of the doctor, who examined it briefly before directing the nurse to put the patient under anesthesia. The nurse nodded and inserted a needle into his arm, connecting it to an IV drip of anesthetics. Aela, Alex, Octavian and the Draydens watched from the window. Octavian turned to Aela after a moment.

"What happened?" he asked quietly, "All I've heard is rumors about him shooting at nothing and screaming about 'the monsters' on the Stardemon."

"He had a PTSD attack," Aela answered solemnly, "Something triggered it, and he went back to the Calx Urbs invasion."

Octavian shook his head and sighed, "He was too young for that, him and Orion both. Korana should never have let him go."

"If Korana hadn't then they never would have made it out," Aela snapped quietly, then her expression softened, "I'm sorry, but she wasn't in her best state of mind. She'd been worried about Salem and rushed the invasion. You know what happened."

Octavian nodded in silence, and Alex had a sudden urge to ask what happened to his new-found friends on Calx Urbs. He had his own stories about that place, but he felt the time wasn't right.

"Whatever happened," he said quietly, as if afraid to break the silence, "What's done is done, all we can do now is pick up the pieces."

Aela nodded silently and turned away from the window. Octavian watched as the doctor put an oxygen mask on Briarios and watched the monitor, checking his heartbeat as he fell into a nightmare.