The DOOM Chronicles

Chapter 13: Processed

Jack was beginning to love the trams.

They were like eyes in the storms, places of peace and calm and tranquility. He felt safe there. It was false, he knew, and dangerous to think so, but a part of him couldn't help it. Jack had spent so much of the past ten years training, working out, hardening himself, building his endurance. He had committed to being a Marine, to helping people, to eliminating hostiles. He could go for days without sleep if he had to, could fight in pretty much every environment known to man, (after that last battle on the surface, he basically had now), he could fight with the best of them. And for a decade, he had. But this...

This was just so totally off the radar that his brain was having a hard time adjusting. He hadn't even stopped to think about the ramifications of what these creatures might mean. Were they aliens? Genetically engineered monsters? Or...were they real demons? Were they from Hell? Was Hell real? He'd been thinking about what Baker had said, about them being from another dimension. He'd read enough sci-fi novels to get the basic concept. So what if the UAC had accidentally opened a door to another dimension?

And what if that dimension happened to be Hell?

What did that even mean? Was this the actual Hell they were talking about here, or was it just an awful, chaotic place that merely resembled their concept of Hell? Demons were supposed to be fallen angels, and it wasn't like shotguns could kill angels, fallen or not. The fact that they could kill these awful entities by itself was a tremendous relief. Well, he surmised as they trundled across the surface to Central Processing, if they were demons, then he wasn't all that impressed. That thought almost made him laugh.

Jack shook himself slightly. He needed to get his head back in the game. It seemed that the farther along they went, the closer they got to the Phobos Anomaly, the worse things were. Which made enough sense, given that it was, as far as he knew, the epicenter of this hellish maelstrom that had engulfed the dead moon. And now they had to go to the Anomaly itself. He hoped Blackmore could pull this off, because honestly the plan seemed a little...haphazard. But the situation was haphazard, so this was probably as good as it was going to get.

The tram was coming to a halt now.

Sighing softly, Jack popped his neck and then checked over his weapons. He was low on ammo for his SMG, so he put that in reserve. His shotgun situation was better, but he didn't really want to use up his shells now when he might need them later so, with more than a little reservation, he put that in reserve too and pulled out one of his pistols. He was pretty good on ammo for that, but it just didn't pack the same punch as the other two weapons. But it was the responsible thing to do, and being responsible seemed paramount in this situation.

The tram finished cycling through the airlock.

"On your feet, Marines!" Blackmore called.

Jack stood up, the pre-battle adrenaline pushing back his lethargy and anxiety. It was time to keep going, time to continue the fight. He looked around the interior of the tram. The others weren't looking too good. Jenkins was still sitting quietly, not a good sign for him. His pain must have been back by then. Blackmore was piloting the tram. Baker was standing now, her shotgun in hand, looking grim and fierce. Jennifer caught eyes with him and smiled tiredly. He couldn't help but smile back. However, he quickly lost that smile as the tram settled into Central Processing.

"Well...shit," Baker muttered, looking out the window.

Some kind of calamity had struck the platform beyond. Consequently, the platform was inaccessible...because it had been blown up. There was nothing beyond the open doors of the tram but empty space and some twisted metal around the edges of the room. Jack flicked on the flashlight mounted at the edge of his pistol and pointed it down, playing it across the darkness below. The wrecked remains of the platform, now nothing more than so much twisted, blackened metal, was about twelve feet below.