The Last Stand

Chapter 1: The suit

The alarms went off and troops of men jumped to their feet and run to the court yard on the far side of the base. Another Plasma attack, but this time small force of Clickers have stayed to fire on any marines who tried to pull out the wounded. As I rush to the watch tower with my rifle. I look down on everything that's happening, slinging my gun over and look for the Clicker troops behind the cars lining the now empty streets. That's when I hear the bouncing of a grenade. Crouched in the middle of the tower I had nowhere to go...

I must have been knocked out from the grenade because the next thing I remember is the blurry faces of the doctors and nurses rolling me down the bright hallways. My body numb and I can't move. Passing out I wake up in a hospital room with a tray next to my bed. Slowly looking around the room I notice someone's under their coat passed out. As I try to say hello, all that comes out is a low groan. Whoever it is doesn't hear it. So I turn to look out the massive window. I can see the remnants of what was our moon. Those damn Clickers destroyed it when they invaded Earth. They used our own moon as a weapon. Massive earthquakes and tsunamis kill hundreds of thousands of people.

As I look out the window, I feel the soft gentle touch of somebodies hand on my arm. Turning to see my wife holding our 2 year old daughter in her arm. Tears run down her cheeks as she stands there smiling. I smile and fall back asleep. When I wake up again, the room is completely dead silent. Lifting myself up right on the bed, I look down in shock. Both my legs and my left arm have been blown off and replaced with identical robotic limbs. I must have the higher tech ones because I can feel the cold tiled floor against me toes and the softness of the sheets with my hand. A firm hand grabs my shoulder and basic training kicks in as I put the doctor in submission on the ground. Nurses rush in, but the doctor laughs and says "Everything's okay, it was my fault."

I let go and apologized. He rests his hand on my shoulder again saying "You have no reason to apologize. You are a hero my friend.". I look up at him and asked what happened. I can tell by the expression on his face that the news isn't good. He tells me I'm one of a handful of men and women who survived the attack. The small attack was a distraction to buy the Clickers some time to bring in a warship. The base was completely destroyed and the handful of vehicles and weapons could be saved from the after math.

As tears run down my face as I realize that my brothers in arm were killed. I look up, tears still running down my face to see the one person who kept me going through even the worse of times. My Staff Sargent. Connors. He stood there in his uniform saying "Wipe those tears away maggot, we have a war to fight.". I look at him like he's crazy, a lot of us did think he was crazy. "Sarge, look at me. Do I look like I can go into combat?". From the look on his face, he had something that he wasn't telling me. "Follow me" is all he says as he walks out of the room. I get up stumbling around as I adjust to my new legs. As I fallow him, he brings me through the hallways and into an elevator. "Sarge where are we going?", "We are going to get you your new suit.". As we stand in the elevator I look at him puzzled until the doors open and I see the suit. A 6 foot tall armored suit that looks like something from a science fiction move. I walk around it examining every little thing. Sargent just stands there smiling. "How do you like it?", "I thinks it's incredible. How do I get in it?".  "Say Delta Cobra". When I say "Delta Cobra" the whole front of the suit opens up and I climb in. Closing in around me snug. I'm amazed even more when the mask closes in and the screen turns on showing me everything from weapons and ammo down to my heart rate.

From the moment that suit closed around me. I could feel the power it held within its microfiber strengthened Kevlar and the low hum from the solar powered electronics which gave the suit abilities I soon found out when I met my team. There's four of us in this small team Echo, Tick, Ghost and Me or as they call me, Spartan. We all wear similar suits, but with slight differences in each one. Echo is our communications between the base and us. Her suit has a box on her back that comes off and is able to send a video or radio call anywhere she is. Tick is the gear junky, he can fix, build, or explode anything. His suit is bigger then the rest of ours and has more power. His allows him to choose from hundreds of tools in his suit and different types of explosives. Ghost is our recon and sniper. She's the shortest in our team and her suit can blend into anything around her and has a silent mode that makes her so quiet even the most expensive sound equipment can detect her.

Sargent really pushed us, in 2 weeks time we had pushed the suits to the limits and we found something out that even the Sargent was surprised about. Every suit comes with a heat burst, which allows the suits to cool down faster to cover our heat signatures. And when all of us do it at the same time, the heat from our suits causes some sort of emp meltdown in the Clickers suits. Which thankfully made the Sargent happy giving us leave time for the week.