The Road to Hell

Chapter 5

But the blow never came. David heard the creature scream wildly, and hot liquid splattered over his face. He opened his eyes and saw the alien snarling at something out of David's view. It was then he noticed one of the alien's arms had been blown to a stump. Someone had just saved his ass.

Suddenly, the smoky trails of RPGs shot across his field of vision and reduced a large phalanx of aliens to flaming chunks. David whipped his head around and nearly jumped for joy when he saw a dozen humans in power armour pouring in from the rear. Yet more marines stormed the room behind them, overwhelming the alien forces and forcing them to retreat. David blinked and shook his head, letting the trance slowly creep away. He now recognized one of the men coming towards him, raining heavy fire from his heavy machine gun. Major Briggs spoke over the comm, "Commander Stern, you appear to be in need of assistance!"

Briggs's men took over the battle and not even one minute later, the room was clear.

Major Briggs clanked up to David in his power armour. The major was built like a wall. Below his bushy walrus moustache sat a square chin, followed by shoulders like the horizon. He had a neck there somewhere. Barely. Below that horizon were arms chiseled out of stone, a cement-filled barrel chest, and legs that matched the rest of him. There were few men like Briggs. He was intimidating when at rest and a piss-inducing nightmare in combat. "Sorry I could not arrive sooner, Commander."

David waved the apology away, while depolarizing his visor as well. "No no, thank you; you saved us."

Tanner joined them. "Sir, we have five dead and seven wounded: one critical. Carson took a staff to the knee, and it almost ripped his whole leg off. Everyone else has scrapes, bruises, and burns of varying severity, but we'll fight."

David knew they would. Even Carson was probably arguing with a medic to slap a quick-stitch on the leg and let him join the battle again. A seraph fought until he or his enemy was dead.

The report wasn't good though. They were down to half strength, and they'd lost five brothers. David knew they'd never taken such heavy losses before, yet he also knew they'd performed unbelievably well given the circumstances. The twenty-four of them had probably averaged two or three kills each.

Briggs surveyed the area and gave some of his men orders to secure the room and set explosives on the plasma artillery, but David stopped him. "Before we blow them up, how about we try using them?"

"It probably wouldn't work," Tanner said. "You didn't try picking up one of their guns." He bent to the ground and retrieved one of the intricate looking beam rifles from the ground.

After examining the gun for a few seconds to find the trigger, he suddenly pointed it at Briggs and made a loud buzzing noise with his mouth. Startled, Briggs almost knocked Tanner's head off, but the demonstration was clear. The alien weaponry only fired when held by one of their own.

David thought it would have been nice to use the aliens' own guns against them, but it wasn't a big deal. Briggs moved ahead with the demolition.

David watched his men rest and tend to their wounds and felt a small surge of pride to be the commander of such a group. There was plenty of fight still in them, but they'd need help. David turned back to Major Briggs. "Our next objective is the CIC. Could you loan me a squad of marines to back me up?"

Briggs didn't need to be asked twice. "Take two, Spectre. I'll tell Sergeant Chu to report to you. Hold here for a bit though. I brought you some heavy armour and equipment." On David's HUD, a waypoint marked 'Supplies' appeared. "Take what you need. I'll start hitting the other artillery batteries."

Briggs moved off to continue his business. David silently thanked him once more, and then thanked the stars. It looked like maybe something was written up there after all. "Triple-S," he called out, "suit up."