Spartan One 021

After settling the meeting, and making sure everyone understood the threat of the Xenomorphs, Orion & company had made for Hadley's Hope. 

During the bumpy ride into atmosphere, the Marines were chattering away, trying not to think about his dire warnings. Their leader, Lieutenant Gorman was giving off extremely negative waves-at least that's what Orion's esp was saying-whilst Ripley, while worried, was also resolved to put this shit behind her. The others were nervous, but mostly ready to face the unknown. 

As for the Spartans, yeah, there were butterflies, but nothing egregious. Johnson was even wondering aloud what they taste like. 

“I mean, I've had Warrior barbecue before, it wasn't too different from chicken. Hell, a puffer fish is poisonous, maybe these freaks taste like sushi!” Johnson mused aloud, doing a few final checks on his gear. 

“Yeah, you eat a lot of bugs, big guy?” Vasquez asked from the side, sizing Johnson up & down. 

The young Private was the only Spartan with his helmet off, and cheekily grinned at the Colonial Marine. 

“We Spartans have a big appetite.” Johnson chuckled meaningfully, returning her words in a gravelly voice. 

Several other Marines began to hoot & holler, whilst Vasquez scoffed. 

“You can flirt when you're dead, Private. We land at Hadley's Hope in five. Get your head in the game.” Sergeant scowled from across Johnson. 

“I'm trying too, sir, but others don't want to play.” Johnson shook his head, glancing at the sexy Latin tomboy. 

This time Orion joined in the laughter, then turned to his left, glancing at the ‘expert’ for this trip. “I understand that from your point of view, this mission is doomed to fail. But there's ‘only’ a possibility of over 300 Xenomorphs down there. My squad has slaughtered thousands of Arachnids, and gone on countless suicide missions. We once even planted a nuke on an alien spaceship. Have faith, Ripley. And, please don't hesitate to use this.” 

Handing over a magnum to the somewhat pissy action hero, Orion smirked when she reluctantly took it. 

“It's not much, but against those fast moving bastards, it'd probably do more than that heavy machine gun.” Ripley replied in a sardonic tone. 

“Don't underestimate a HE .50 caliber round. If you're quick enough, and accurate, they're more deadly than any assault rifle at close range.” Orion lightly admonished. 

Ripley responded with silence, her expression pensive as their transport activated its landing struts. 

Besides their small magazine sizes, Orion was convinced that the magnum & shotgun would be the best weapons in this hab unit full of narrow corridors. Although he loved the assault rifle, it practically tickled the more deadly aliens in this insane universe. In his opinion, it was best to kill everything with a magnum, shotgun, or sniper. Big bullets x fast rock was Humanity's secret formula to success for millennia, why switch it up to hurl what was essentially a shit load of pebbles all at once? 

The dropship settled into a landing bay, its headlights flooding the dimly lit area. Behind them, a trio of other ships also landed. 

Orion led the Spartans down the ramp, and was soon followed by the dark-skinned Sergeant, Apone, and his Marines. 

Meanwhile, the other transports revealed a few familiar faces. Harper-flanked by Johnny Rico & his friends-approached with a salute. 

“You'll have a safe zone to extract to, Lieutenant. ONI guarantees that.” Harper sharply stated. 

“Remember what I said about the Queen, Captain.” Orion lowered his voice, matching the salute.

Harper slightly inclined his head, then began to get the few hundred Mobile Infantrymen in the hangar to work. They started setting up automated sentry turrets set to friendly IFF's, and even scaled the walls, welding the vents & floorboards shut. 

Orion clicked his tongue in wonder. It appeared the spook wasn't one to sit on his hands waiting for death. This minor level of initiative was already better than 90% of other leaders he'd seen so far. 

Whilst Orion had shared a few words with Harper, the Marines had all disembarked. 

“Keep your eyes peeled, people.” Apone ordered. “You start shooting blindly at the walls, you’ll be carrying everyone’s ammo.”

They had already heard Orion’s briefing. They knew about the vents, the acid blood, the facehuggers, and how quickly this place could become a death trap. That said, reading some text wasn't nearly as exciting as experiencing a Xenomorph face to face. 

Last down the ramp, the android, Bishop scanned, the entry corridor. “No movement detected.”

Orion regarded this Weyland-Yutani droid, and gave an order to his squad on a private channel. “After this clanker helps us overload the reactor, find an opportunity to frag him. Weyland-Yutani recently tried to take out some of our top scientists. I don't trust it.” 

A string of affirmations met his orders. 

Although Bishop had helped Ripley, and was a stellar ally in the movie, Dr. Halsey had been targeted recently, and who was to say a butterfly effect hadn't been triggered? Perhaps this bot might do something unexpected, or try to sneak some research away. Besides, in the comics, Bishop wasn't necessarily squeaky clean either. Orion had something of a bone to pick with this mega corp after the stunt they pulled, and he wasn't going to take any chances that Bishop might try to sneak some biological material back aboard a Terran vessel. 

“Keep scanning, we’re not clear.” Orion said in reply, sensing several lifeforms with his esp that their current technology couldn't detect. 

With Orion taking point, the squad advanced past a row of messy offices, tons of loose papers, and many tipped over objects. A moldy sandwich, and broken coffee cup were in his path, as well as a family group photo. Seeing this, Orion couldn't help but sigh, then tighten the grip on his shotgun. 

“Damned Xenomorph bastards.” Johnson spat from inside his helmet. 

A small, hot point of rage beat in Orion’s heart, yet he didn't allow his hatred for the xenos scum to distract him from his surroundings. Considering how close quarters & brutal the fighting on Hadley's Hope would be, he decided to finally use one of his free System points, and placed a single point into [Cryoblast]. 

Although it was a bit of a waste, [Warp] was something best used at a distance of at least a few feet. If used in a point blank attack, he feared he'd be caught up in it. Against foes with acid blood, being able to freeze the bastards solid would act as a nice backup in case any accidents happened. 

After doing this, he scanned his surroundings, then consulted his HUD. A tiny map sprang up, and a GPS-like route-was already leading him to the primary research laboratory. 

Advancing towards the objective, Orion led the group into the colony’s main passage. Emergency lights blinked red along the floor, and all sorts of ‘horror movie’ sound effects were intermittently occuring. Squeaky floorboards, ruffling air vents, steam/mist hissing into the atmosphere, and the building shuddering in the wind. All of these minor details combined to create an incredibly tense atmosphere. 

Orion sensed the creature two seconds before it had attacked, and was already lunging forward. A bladed tail punched down through the ceiling vent, narrowly missing where his head had been. It landed a glancing blow against his shoulder armor, creating a spark in the dimly lit environment. His forward roll had been awkward, and he had ended up sliding forward on his belly, like a kid going face first on a slip'n slide. 

It just so happened that a Xenomorph erupted through the floorboards. The black creature wasn't standing at its full height, and its massive head was eye level with Orion. At that moment, the monster was reflected in his visor, less than two feet apart. The Xenomorph opened its jaws wide, hissing, its inner muscle mouth nanoseconds away from punching forward, and piercing Orion’s skull open like a fox biting down on a hen's egg. 

The shotgun was underneath him, and to the side, sliding just out of arms reach. Orion didn't have time to think, and thrust his hand out, enabling his newest ability. 

A blue-white pulse burst from his palm. Frost raced across the creature’s carapace, locking its limbs and jaws in place. The Xenomorph froze mid-lunge, its inner mouth inches from Orion’s visor. It toppled sideways and hit the deck with a brittle clatter. 

Feeling his heart in his throat, Orion let out a deep breath, then retrieved his shotgun, and scanned his surroundings, confident that everyone else had the ceiling covered. After all, wouldn't it be embarrassing if he got stabbed from the front because he joined in the action? 

Meanwhile, the Marines were shooting at the vent like they were trying to hit a fish in a barrel. Pulse-rifle bursts tore into the ceiling. Hudson and two others blasted at the vents, filling the corridor with muzzle flashes and ricochets. Shell casings bounced over the dec one after another like fireworks on fourth of July. The Spartans, however, stayed on target, their guns remained silent, only occasionally unleashing a short burst when they spotted movement. 

“Cease fire! Cease fire, Godamnit! You’re shooting at air!” Sgt. Apone growled. 

Johnson-who had been covering the outer flank-suddenly jumped backwards. A tail whipped through a vent on the ground, and wriggled around in search of prey. 

“Aww, I think he's happy to see me. Unfortunately, I don't identify as xeno-sexual!” Johnson roared, unloading his shotgun, and laughed as the Xenomorph hissed in pain whilst its tail detached like a lizards. 

Just as the Private was about to celebrate his victory, another tail punched through the ceiling and coiled around his torso. Suddenly yanked upward, he was dragged toward an opening with a great amount of force. 

“Goddammit!” Johnson yelled. He twisted in place, struggling to free his arms, then barely sucked in his lungs to form a tiny gap just big enough for his shotgun. 

Ribs straining under the crushing muscles of the Xenomorph, and systems warnings flashing in his HUD, Johnson roared his defiance as he pumped a single load into its head, splattering green blood all over the vent. 

The Xenomorph shrieked as it slumped down dead. Its grip slackened, and Johnson dropped down hard, rolled across the deck, and came to a stop beside a steaming splash of blood. The acid ate through the floor plating in seconds, resulting in an area where metal curled and sagged, opening a smoking hole beside his boot.

“This isn't the green goop you see on kids shows.” Johnson muttered, not at all ruffled by the near death experience. 

“Sound off.” Orion ordered over his squad comms. 

“Present.” Sarge said, blasting a vent with a short squeeze of  his flamer. 

“Ready to stomp some bugs, LT.” Johnson laughed like the madlad he was. 

Meanwhile, Ripley looked from the frozen corpse to the holes eaten through the floor, the all black-clad professional Spartans, and then at the stunned group of Marines “Everyone, wake up. Check your trackers.” She said, snapping at Lieutenant Gorman. 

Hicks already had his motion tracker out. Its screen swept in a green arc. One contact blinked at the edge.

Then another.

The scanner clicked faster, and faster still until a dozen blips crowded the display.

“Contacts.” Hicks said, his voice taut with tension. “Multiple contacts.” 

Two dozen marks appeared, then several more, spreading across the screen from the passage ahead and side corridors branching into darkness.

Gorman’s face had gone pale beneath his helmet. “We fall back to the hangar. The automatic turrets are set up there, and the Mobile Infantry is waiting. We can hold them from the perimeter. We can make it in five minutes if we all sprint right now.” 

Johnson spat dust from his mouth. “That’s only a dozen bugs on the screen. You sissies call yourselves Marines?! You wouldn’t have lasted a minute on Klendathu.”

“Tracker says more than a dozen.” Hicks replied, calling Johnson's intelligence into question. 

Orion studied the corridor ahead: long, narrow, and broken only by a pair of recessed doorways. The Xenomorphs could use the vents to reach them from above, but the straight passage gave them fewer angles to attack from at once.

“The hangar remains as our fallback point. We have a mission to accomplish.” Orion simply stated. 

For the first time, he regretted bringing along the Marines. If he could set his armor to be like the android, Bishop, then the entire squad of Spartans could sneak past these aliens…that was something he'd have to talk to Halsey about at a later date. 

Shaking his head, Orion could only chalk that up to learning pains. He then strode forward, directing everyone to take action. 

“Alright people, move! Get into position. We've got bugs to kill.”