H λ L F - L I F E: Bishop's War✔️

CHλPTER 11: Freight Yard Mayhem

"Man, it doesn't sound good out there," Steven whispered.

"No, it doesn't. Might be our best chance to go," Eric replied.

"Or it might be a terrible time to go," Vanessa pointed out.

Eric grunted in assent, still considering the situation. They'd made it through the maintenance tunnels without a problem, and as soon as they'd emerged back on the surface in the back of an old storage room, it had become quickly apparent how bad the fighting had gotten. There was a lot of machine gun fire out there, and a few explosions had gone off.

"I at least need to do some recon," Eric decided. "Stay here, but be ready to run if I say run."

"Understood," Vanessa said, and Steven just nodded, looking sick.

Eric moved over to the door and opened it up. He scoped the situation out as fast as he could from his vantage point, trying not to be too visible. It looked like hell out there. There were a good dozen Marines spread out across the area, most of them armed with assault rifles, the rest with shotguns. They were having a shootout with a cluster of alien slaves. This was actually perfect. Eric had emerged in a back corner of a huge shipping area which was largely empty. Railroad tracks crisscrossed a gravel and dirt yard, but there were no trains or carts or anything around, just a few shipping containers stacked against a few of the walls.

The way they needed to go, through a tunnel that was currently closed, was dead ahead of them. If they could slink along the wall, get to that tunnel, and get the door open, then they'd be about halfway through the yards. And there was even a rough line of concrete barriers and metal crates nearby to provide them with some cover!

This might actually work.

"Get over here now," he said to the others. When they joined him, he pointed. "That's our cover. Keep low and fast. We're going to the tunnel. Follow my lead."

They both responded affirmatively. Eric took a deep breath and let it out slowly. This was going to be a bastard. He studied the Marines. One of them went down under a combination of green energy blasts as he was watching. Another screamed as a bolt winged him and sent him stumbling. Good, they had their hands full.

Eric set off, keeping his eyes on the battlefield as he started slinking as fast as he could. He kept it all in his head, just a simple set of commands for himself: stay low, go fast, get to the other side. Right now, that was literally all that mattered. His focus honed down to a narrow beam and he kept catching glimpses of the squad of Marines duking it out with the alien slaves. There were a lot of them, though their numbers were definitely beginning to thin out. Their yellow blood was splattering all over the place and several of their bolts of energy discharged in wild, random directions as they died or lost control of them.

Another Marine went down, then another.

He so, so badly wanted to get through this without putting a bullet into a fellow human, let alone a fellow Marine. Despite the atrocities they'd committed so far, he still had an extreme distaste for having to kill them, even in self defense. Maybe, if he was very lucky and very careful, he could get out of this situation without-

Eric glanced at the door to the tunnel and saw that it was rapidly opening. He cursed and stopped suddenly, holding up his fist, making the others freeze. They'd made it maybe halfway. He quickly spotted another squad of Marines coming to back up the first. There were a good half dozen of them and right as he was trying to duck down out of sight and just wait them out, one of them locked eyes with him.

Although he was a good distance away, he still heard the man scream "HOSTILES!"

Before the one who'd raised the alarm could open fire, Eric beat him to the punch, putting a round right through his gasmask with his Desert Eagle. His head snapped back and sprayed the others with blood, who immediately opened fire.