Project: Spectre

Chapter Twelve: Nightfall

May 12, 2098

Space around Abyss was a graveyard of ships. I saw some salvage vessels near the skeletal remains of Alliance and USC ships alike. "After the invasion, the Alliance abandoned Abyss. I'm not picking up any of their ships in orbit, they must either have a large force already landed, or they aren't too interested in reclaiming it. I'm picking up a good place to set her down near the facility mentioned in the logs, ready when you are, Commander." Williams said to me.

"Do it." I ordered. I left the bridge and headed to the cargo bay, finding Delta team, already geared up and waiting for me. This time, Psycho didn't have the grenade launcher that he was carrying every time I saw him. Instead, he had the machine gun that he took from the Alliance frigate with ammo being fed to it from a backpack. "You do know that we're taking the Jeep again. How are you going to carry all of that?" I asked. There really wasn't a lot of room. The Jeep had a driver seat and one passenger seat. The machine gun was mounted in the back of the vehicle in a section that was completely open. Without the weapon, it would be closer to a pickup truck. Psycho just walked up to the Jeep and set his gun in the back. I guess he's taking the gunner position this time.

Eclipse landed and the bay door opened. I picked up my battle rifle and climbed up into the passenger seat. Echo once again drove. We drove about two hundred and thirty miles before we encountered any resistance. Along with Alliance we encountered mercenaries that appeared to come from the Supernova band. They usually carry the same weapons as Alliance troops, use armor similar to that used by Shock Troopers but with a silver and purple paint scheme. They also had a stylized exploding star on their shoulder guards. We didn't spend much time fighting the soldiers on the way to the facility. Psycho opened fire and downed a few of them, but we just kept driving. We encountered several groups before reaching the facility. It was a run down base that appeared to be an old airstrip. There were crashed shuttles scattered around the facility, along with a few new ones that I assume these troops used to deploy. Behind a large fence, I could see gunfire. The sun had set by then, so the gunfire was easy to see. As we got closer, it started to appear like a one sided fight. There were more Alliance and mercs than I could count, but it seemed to be just them doing the shooting. Did something happen between the two factions when I wasn't looking?

It wasn't long until the jeep's mounted machine gun started firing again. I watched as the armor piercing rounds flew towards a shuttle that was hovering with a search light aimed at the a hangar. It didn't take long for the shuttle to waver, and eventually crash into the fence closing off the front. Echo hit the brakes and Delta squad jumped out of the jeep and into the fight. We climbed up over the shuttle and into the airfield, which we found was converted to a makeshift training base. It had seen better days. There was a large hole in the ceiling and nature had started to overgrow the base. A squad of mercs turned to face my squad, but immediately started running when they saw Psycho carrying a machine gun that was meant to be used with a tripod. He fired it without effort and mowed down our enemies. "I'm picking up a large amount of hostiles closing on what appears to be a control center on the other side of the hangar!" Echo shouted over the gunfire.

"Then that's where we're going!" I shouted. Psycho took point while I picked off marksmen in the upper floors of the buildings built to simulate an urban environment. Echo carried dual pistols and kept hostiles from hitting us from behind.

Getting to the control center took longer than I expected. I thought they were bringing those Spectre knock-offs in because they couldn't acomplish their objective through sheer numbers. I might be right, but they were certainly still trying that tactic. Even with an ammo pack taking up half of his back, I thought Psycho's machine gun was going to run dry before we were done. We were almost to the objective when a squad mercenaries carrying ballistic shields intercepted us in a narrow hallway. Psycho let loose, but even armor piercing ammo couldn't drop them. I have no idea what kind of materials are found on Abyss, but the mercs just kept coming. They hunkered down in a phalanx formation, and tried sending troops in behind us. With our backs to the wall and running low on ammo, it looked like it was over. After holding off wave after wave, we encountered the mercenary command squad. They used reinforced armor and carried military grade heavy weapons. I cloaked and moved as close as I could to the wall, but it was impossible to get past them, so I raised my rifle to my shoulder and put the sights dead center in the visor of the yellow armored mercenary's visor. I pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. My rifle was dry. I reach down for of the ammo packs added to the armor while I was in a coma, but my hand came up empty. I looked down and saw that the belt holding the pouch to my armor was busted. Had I been shot? There was no blood, and I certainly didn't feel the all too familiar feeling of a bullet hitting skin. I reached for my pistol, but it was also gone. An alarm rang out in my helmet as my camouflage battery reached twenty percent. The mercenaries were now taking cover behind four more ballistic shields, with only enough room for a single soldier to get through the middle into the hallway. Echo was staring at the five blocking our advance, waiting for one of the mercs to try to get his arm over the phalanx to shoot us in the back, while Psycho was trying in vain to knock over the shields that appeared behind us.