starcraft: dilation

knights in bloody armer

I approuch the distroyed door as try to hold the power cell with a lose grip. This might as well be the last power cell we can use. I just hope the others find a medkit. I walk into the depot and look around as flowers is gone. He's not laying down agenst the wall anymore. "Flowers? Where'd you go?" I see a blood trail from where he was laying. It's leading back into the unstable area. "Flowers?" I can hear something.  What is that? Water? "Whos there?" I slowly set the power cell down and push it agenst the wall. I activate my punishers and lift them as I slowly step inside. I follow the blood trail as I hear a low groan. A...terrifyingly fremilier groan. Flowers...what happened to you? I turn on my head lights and shine them down the dark and distroyed hallway. Sparks spray everywhere as I'm suprised this place still has power. I hesitate as whoevers in there...it can bring this place down on my head and I wouldn't know until it was to late. I take in a deep breath and step forward slowly. I look around closely as small sparks light up a few parts of bent metal and lose wires. One mistake will bring this down and I'm dead. These suits are strong but they can't handle 6 tons of distroyed metal bearing down on them. I hear the groan again as I pouse and lision. I hear more dripping as I'm getting closer. I step forward again as I hear the groan again. The more it groans...the more I remember. The day we went to that mining planet. The day we tried saving people...that lead to one of our biggest defeats. I shake my head and take another step forward and the groaning gets louder. "Get off me." I freeze. "Flowers?" The groans get louder as I walk forward. "Help!" I rush forward as I get to a turn and stop before I crash into the wall. "J-johnson?" I look to my right and see Flowers laying on the ground as I see a hand holding onto his foot. "Johnson? Get out of here." I lift my punishers and point them at whoevers dragging him. "Let him go." I look down and slowly approuch Flowers as he looks up at me with a horrified look. "Its..." I keep my guns up as I hear the groan. I freeze. "It's...not...terran." I slowly look up at the hand and see something moving on his arm. My lights hit it's feet as I can see blood running down the armer. It groans more as I look at it's back and see the armeres spikes wrapping up and over as the pulsate. It turns around as I see it's disgusting face. Tenticalls comming out of its mouth. Red glowing eyes that fester. Dark skin that covers the once blue marine armer. "You...will...join...us." it let's go of Flowers leg as I turns fully and steps twords me as it lifts the infested guass rifle twords me. I snap back as I pull both triggers as the infested marine explodes and gets blood and guts everywhere. It's upper body was blown off as it steps back a few times before collapsing as the guass rifle falls to the ground and shoots off a brust of high caliber bullets that shoot straight through the wall. "No...oh god please no." I lower my punishers as I remember fighting the infested on minehof and then haven. Just...wave after wave kept comming and when it was time to push out...just...no adjitant could count the amount of bodies we layed out those days. "Flowers..." I look down and see Flowers as he's in pain. I kneel down as he coughs and gives me a horrified look. "G...get out." I feel the floor shake as I look up and see the supports bending down twords us. Push back my punishers and grab onto Flowers shoulders. "No man left behind." I pull him and back up as I drag him out of this place. I hit the wall as I quickly turn and pull with all of my strangth as I try not to kick him as we leave. "Johnson..." he coughs more as I drag him out of the depot. I gently lay him down as I rush back in and grab the power cell as the building starts to collapse. I grin into the power cell as a piece of metal falls onto my arm as my legs shoot out from under me as my face gets planted onto the hard metal floor. I shake off the concussion as I look at the support beam as now I'm pinned. The power cell didn't get him but getting both my hand and the cell out is going to be hard but I don't have the time. I grip onto the cell and grab onto the support beam as I push on it with all of my strangth as the beam starts to bend. I turn and look up as I see the ceiling is falling down. Damn. No time. Time for some brute force. I ball my fist and activate my punisher as I aim it at to the left and fire as the beam shoots up. I pull as I hard as I can as I quickly try and get up as the building collapses as I manage to flip and push myself away from the sharp falling metal. I take a minute to collect myself. "That...was a bad idea." I hear Flowers cough. "Y-you think?" I flip and get up as I walk over to Flowers as he's smiling. "Oh now your happy I saved you." I kneel down as I hang the cell infront of him. "You...actually found one?" I smile even though he can't see it. "You bet your ass I did." I set the cell down next to me as I turn him to his side and grab onto the last cell I replaced. I pouse as it's intacted. It's glowing and pulsing with power. "Okey..." I push the cell back in and lock it as I turn him to his left side and pull that cell out as it's cracked and leaking whats left of the liquid. I pull it out and toss it behind me as I grab the power cell I found and push it in and lock it. I whatch as Flowers arms instantly fall as I lay him on his back again as he lifts his hands and moves around for the first time in weeks. "Damn...I forgot how good it felt to get the blood flowing." I help him sit up as I he looks around freely again. "At least I can move again." He looks back down at his leg. "But can you walk?" He brings his right foot up as he slowly trys to stand up and fails. "Don't push yourself man. Give your body some time to wake up." Flowers looks up at me determined. "I've gotten enough sleep." He slowly picks himself up as he doesn't put pressure on his leg but I see another spine in his back. "Thats gotten hurt." Flowers turns and looks at me as I stand up. "Whats gotta hurt?" I stand as in surprised he doesn't feel it. "That spike that lodged in your back." He turns and tries to look at me. He grunts and slowly faces me. "Oh...yeah...feeling it now." I chuckle as I grab his left arm and and show him a spot on the back of my armer he can grab. "Yeah...not doing that." He pulls away as I shake my head. "Had to try." He chuckles as he starts looking around. "There has to be a medic somewhere." I stop him before he can looks around. "Not here buddy. Checked this area 10 times already." He gives me a pissed look. "Great. So we're stuck here then?" My map pops up as I see IFF signals approuching us. Friendlies. "Moarader? Can you hear me?" Let's hope they found something good. "It's Johnson and yeah. I read you." I turn around and look at the direction they should be comming from. "I found some survivers. We've also got supplies to last us the trip to the new base." Hell yeah. "Now that's what I'm talking about." I whatch as I see him approuching with a guass rifle as I see more figures behind him. "And you won't believe who I found." I whatch as I see more figures appear next to him. "Ghosts?" They get close as they stop infront of us as I see three medics walking up as one of them rushes to Flowers. "Pretty cool find right?" The Ghosts stare as they clearly had a hard fight. "Damn straight. We should have no problem getting to the base now." One of the Ghosts walks up to me. "I don't think so." I hear Flowers grunt as it sounds like the medics removing the rest of the spines. "That nuke that was set off was at the zergs main hive cluster. Whoever sent it was spooked. The main zerg force is still roaming." I look at my map as I can see them moving around. "Thankfully theyre at they're base." I can see them huddled up. Thier not moving away from that spot. "We still have stragglers to deal with and there's plenty on the way to the new base." Great. At least we're in fighting shape now. "Let hope that doesn't happen." I look at the marine who said that. "What?" Take a minute. We mostly have wounded here. Some of us can't even fight. "Normally I'd put a skell in the person's chest for saying that." I look at Flowers. He's bearly even standing. "But we're not in any condition to fight." Flowers looks at me as his suprise is all over his face. "We don't even have enough ammo to fight either. We'd have enough for...two...maybe three scraps along the way." I look back at the map as I'm not seeing any movement from the zerg. "Then we better get moving. The zerg hasn't moved so we better get started before they get aggressive again." Flowers stumbles forward. "What about the wounded. They can bearly even walk, let alone make a full blitz to the new base." I start walking twords the new base. "Then we better get moving." I stop and turn around to look at the ground. "One person per wounded. Help them walk. Keep in a tight formation. We're getting out of here weather we're ready or not." The medic gives me a worried look. "Your not suggested we leave someone behind if they fall are you?" I activate my punishers. "If someone falls, we stop and take a break. If something or someone wants to try and get our way..." my suits rusty. It's old, battle worn, but still able to dish out the damage we need. "Ill blast it to hell. No ones getting left behind. We're ALL getting out of here. No exceptions." I see two of the marines ready thier guass rifles. "Every second we wait gives the zerg time to regroup. If they start moving twords the new base, we're screwed. We have a long walk ahead of us and the sooner we get there, the sooner we can get everyone help." I look back at flowers as he's waiting for us. "Alright. You heard the man. Let's get moving." I whatch as everyone groups up as the ones who can't walk by themselves are moved to the middle. They wrap eachothers arms around one another to help eachother. "Raiders. Let's roll out." I turn around and set a pace. Flowers walks up with me as I help him walk. "Did anyone ever tell you that you'd make a good sergeant." I chuckle. "Like hell that'll ever happen." Flowers chuckles at that. "I've known alot of muaraders in my time but your by far one of the best ones. Normally someone like you'd shoot someone if they didn't want to fight and yet, your making sure everyone that survived is getting back." That tells me he's hung out with the dominion muaraders. "This ain't the dominion, Flowers. We're rayners raiders and we don't leave people behind." Flowers chuckles. "Looks like you've made him proud." I pouse. "Who?" Flowers chuckles. "Jim." Haven't heard anyone talk about him for a while. Not since he disopeared. "Wherever he is...whatever he's doing...I'm sure he knows his boys and girls in blue are waiting for him to come back. We might have fought at times but he still our commander. When he comes back, we'll be here. Ready for him to take command and lead us to our next victory." I wonder what he's doing. A man like that doesn't sit out of a fight for to long. He's one of the most stubborn bastards in the koprulu sector. Nothing will stop him once he puts his mind to it. Not even some old fashioned zerg. "Let's hope he doesnt." I hold myself back from punching him. "If he comes back. If he takes back the raiders then we're losing a war. That man deserves to have some piece. He's seen three wars, defeated the old queen of blades, helped topple the old dominion and helped stop amon from destroying this universe. If anyone deserves to settle down and have some piece of mind...its him." Well...when he puts it like that. "Him, Horner...everyone. unfortunately we don't have that luxury. For now, let's worry about getting everyone to that base." One of us has to stay focused. If everyone else is to busy then I'll stay focused on the mission and right now the mission is get these soldiers to our new base and get them help. Zerg be damned. Nothing and no one is going to stop me from saving these people. Not even some juiced up zerg. That...Is a promise.