Raze 2

J. Rockit- Survivor Lookout

This "Raze" guy is a total mystery to me.

I mean, yeah, I understand that it might be a bit of a shock to suddenly be a part of the RTF again, but you'd think he'd be a bit more social about it. I certainly would, if I had spent the last nine years unconscious in a tube. But for his sake and mine, I'm going to try to make him feel welcome here. The survival of the planet might depend on it.

Raze is still sleeping, so I try to get dressed as quietly as possible. Once in the main part of the base, I assemble a bowl of cereal and start polishing my katana, which still has alien blood on it from yesterday. Dani says that we're going to try to find a survivor from the crashed Echo-1. They lost touch with the ship due to a zombie infestation, so I want to be prepared.

We're heading over at 10:00, and Raze wakes up around 9:30. I tell him what's going on and he nods. That's another thing that puzzles me about this Raze solider- his inability to speak. Being in cytrostasis shouldn't do anything to your vocal cords, so my guess is that he's either just in shock or is choosing not to talk.

At 10:00, we climb into the hovercraft with only our hand pistols- a ripper for me, and an M-9 barret for Raze.  We're going over the ruins of the city of "Judgement" (which is a stupid name for a city if you ask me), and it takes about half an hour to get there. Raze spends the time playing with his pistol- taking the bullets in and out of the chamber- and I spend the time watching him in bewilderment. I have no idea how we're going to defeat the aliens if we can't even communicate with each other.

When we reach the landing zone and the hovercraft flies away, I take out my katana, ready for zombies. But oddly, none show up.

"What? There's no one here?" I say through communications. "I have a bad feeling about this..." I grip my katana tighter, and over to my right I see that Raze isn't looking too sure of himself either. I suggest we split up- we are supposed to be looking for survivors, after all- and Raze nods in agreement.

Walking into a large building destroyed by nature and covered in ivy, I see a shadow move.

"Ah! I found one! Kill it!" I say, caught off-guard. The zombie comes towards me, covered in blood and ripped clothing. I drive my sword through its chest.

By now, Raze has come over, holding a 0.50 sniper. I assume that HQ is starting to send in the weapons. We search the building and find no more zombies or survivors, so we walk outside, where I find a crate labeled "close range." I pull out a terminator, reload it, and put my katana away.

Three more zombies have appeared and we kill them quickly. But these zombies aren't the only ones here- more come into range, and quickly.

Raze is starting to look tired. "More are coming, stay sharp," I remind him. He nods, and kills a nearby zombie.

These zombies are coming in thick and fast, and it's all we can do to kill the ones in range before more show up. We don't have time to even consider searching for survivors.

When a bunch of zombies close in around us, backing us into a corner, Raze looks like he's having a panic attack. Assuming that he has plenty of bad memories associated with zombies, I call Dani.

"We're surrounded! We need an evacuation! Repeat, we need an evac now!" I say frantically.

"Roger that, evac is on the way," says Dani. "Hold tight, guys."

Raze's long range .50 cal sniper is pretty useless in the situation we're in, so I toss him my terminator and start hacking away with the katana.

"Loading zone is too hot," says Dani. "Kill as many as your can, and we'll try to get you out."

"Roger that- let's do this, Raze!" I say. Raze nods, slides on his green eye mask, and shoots rapidly into the incoming pack of zombies, taking dozens of them down. I focus on the ones that come in close to us, managing to behead three of them in a single swipe. I do a little fist pump. That the most enemies I've been able to melee at once so far.

By now, the hovercraft has finally come by. Raze relaxes visibly, and we quickly jump aboard. Raze collapses into a chair, taking deep breaths. I make a mental note to ask Dani if we can do less zombie related missions, because Raze looks really overwhelmed. He's acting nothing like the calm, experienced soldier who took down all of those aliens yesterday.

Just then, Dani comes in holding a device which she keeps tapping angrily at. She looks up at us.

"That was terrible!" Dani exclaims. "I just had to convince my boss that bringing Raze out of cyrostasis was a good idea. Thank god that you killed as many zombies as you did- otherwise, you two might be out of a job."

Raze looks down at his feet, his face flushed beneath his eye mask. Anger rises up from inside me.

"Well, excuse us!" I shout back at Dani. "I've never done anything zombie related before and Raze here hasn't been in combat in about nine years! I'd like to see you tough it out when you're completely surrounded by the infected. You wouldn't last five seconds!"

Dani's face is red. "Well, maybe this was too ambitious of a starter assignment," she says reluctantly. But then she snaps back into business mode. "But no matter. Anyway, I've arranged for you to train some new recruits a few weeks from now."

I open my mouth to protest, but then shut it again. Dani's right as usual- we do need some more members on this team. And I'm hoping for some that aren't vocally impaired- working with Raze is already proving to be a challenge and we've only been on two missions.

In the brief remainder of the hovercraft ride, I wipe the zombie flesh and blood off of my sword and replace my headband, which is completely soaked in blood and sweat. Just as I'm securing the new headband with a knot, we pull into the base entrance and a ladder tumbles down.

Raze reaches the bottom before I do, and by the time I walk in I just barely catch him heading into the bedroom. I guess he needs a nap.

I'm not that tired, so I check my email, and see that Dani's sent me a link with the profiles of all the soldiers she's having us train. I scan the list, impressed with some, not so much with others, but a few really stick out to me: Ex. Treem, Md. Sage, and Ezreal. Treem is an explosive expert, Sage is a field medic, and Ezreal excels in hand to hand combat- the same field I'm an expert in.

After I write Dani back about the new recruits, I look at the clock and sigh. Since I have no one to talk to, I have a lot of time to kill. My old base (I'm pretty peeved at Dani for just transferring me here without my consent) was always filled with talking, laughter, and friendly competition. Now all I've got to pass the time are the few books that I've brought, and all these games the "strike force heroes" team left. Since I don't want to wake Raze up, I head over to the TV.

A few hours later, Raze walks out of the sleeping quarters, waves a small hello, walks over to the mini training center, and starts doing some target practice. I'm really impressed- he hits the dead center nearly every time.

I glance over at the clock- it's about 6:00 PM. I decide that it's late enough to eat dinner, and walk over to the fridge. I find a couple of TV dinners in the freezer and put one in the oven. The only sound until my food is ready is the sound of Raze's gunshots.

As I eat, I ponder how we're going to make any meaningful progress towards stopping the invasion. Raze may have excellent aim and impeccable battle sense (unless zombies are involved, I guess), but what good is that if we can barely communicate? I don't even know his real name.

I dump the rest of my dinner in the trash and sigh. This is going to be a disaster.