Our Retribution

[Ascendant]

A mile up in the air, on a military plane heading towards a secret base in the Rocky Mountains, Colonel Hotchkiss sat in a makeshift office sipping coffee. Suddenly, the radio in the room buzzed, "Sir, the first one has died." Sighing deeply, the older gentleman replied, "Alright, I'll be down there in five seconds." He placed his coffee down carefully and then hauled ass out of the office, sprinting down to a control center set up on the place. Nearly a dozen monitors displayed various bits of information, five were live feeds from the pilot's own eyes, five more monitoring various life signs, and two more contained various other data. The pilots of course knew nothing about this information being sent to the plane. Sam's life signs had completely bottomed out, indicating she was truly dead.

Hotchkiss grimaced deeply at Sam's data, "I was hoping she wouldn't be the first. Sam was lagging most of the others in development..." Her heart monitor suddenly registered a beat, and then another, "Well, it's too late to go back. We're all going to Hell if this doesn't work."

____________

Thump. Thump. Thump. "Aftov, Trent - I'm not leaving Sam," drifted through an incredible haze filling Sam's mind. She mouthed BeeBee's name but failed to say it, her body refusing to work properly. Something else was trying to command it, to make it grip the controls, demanding she kill her comrades. It was incredibly hard to resist, but in her mind, she did what she could. More words reached her, "I'll get out. I'll get her out of her suit." Sam wanted to scream that it wasn't safe but she couldn't as her heart started racing. She could feel the bloody haze closing in on her, suffocating her mentally. Mental screams from others sounded through the haze, cries of anguish, and then an audible order forcing itself into her mind, "Kill! Kill them all!"

Her eyes flew open in the gunsuit, bloodshot like the infected, yet she screamed her defiance into the squad's comms, "No!" The haze in her mind exploded and dissipated, leaving her with vision more clear than ever. She could see the others, but not just her friends, her enemies too. They moved swiftly through the buildings, monitoring the squad's progress. The squad was completely surrounded, these fuckers had been toying with and watching them the whole time, she realized. Sam gripped the controls and swung her cannon into place, firing a single round.

Alex turned her gunsuit back for a moment in surprise at Sam's sudden awakening, only to be met with a round colliding and exploding in midair with something. Splintered remains of a bone sword and shrapnel danced off her suit, as her mind realized the sword would've pierced her heart.

Meanwhile, Sam felt a roar in her mind, but it was not her own. There was incredible anger, and then her vision was cut off. The beasts had realized they'd been infiltrated and severed her from them. She yelled into the comms without explaining, "Everyone, our best bet is to head south. The airport has been lost already and the enemy lines are thickest west. We have to go back towards Killeen and hitch a ride there."

The Bradley came to a rolling halt at her words and Alex had already stopped from paralyzing fear moments ago. Its commander called out, "How the hell do you know that DFW is gone already?" Sam considered the question for a moment before deciding she couldn't fully explain what had just happened, "It's... I saw it, somehow. The planes were destroyed on the runway before they could take off. Our ride has been dead a long time. Because we abandoned it, Fort Hood was ignored. We have to go back."

Suddenly the comms roared from the Bradley, "She's one of them! There's no other way she could know that! We can't trust one of those infected freaks!" It sped up once more, leaving Alex and Aftov in the dust. Sam cried out, "No! You'll die if you go west! You all have to believe me! BeeBee, you believe me don't you?!"

 

[Muirgen]

"I do Sam. I do." BeeBee's voice was soft but firm over the open link of the coms, no hesitation.

There wasn't a single damned good reason to believe her, to believe Sam, or whoever [whatever?] she was. Sam had bounced back once before, a last desperate second wind before all the wind was yanked from her lungs. But this? This was more than that - way more. She'd just watched Sam take a shot BeeBee knew damn well even she could have never made, because she didn't know the shooter was there. But Sam did.

Sam did, and she'd just saved Alex' life.

Sam's words, to go back to Fort Hood - oh yes, they resonated deeply with every desire BeeBee felt in that moment, but it was more than that. Maybe Sam was 'infected' with whatever the hell it was that laced those bone swords, but she was still, undeniably, Sam. Maybe BeeBee didn't have it in her to be that suspicious, or maybe she just did not want to believe Sam could really be dead - or maybe she just hadn't had the same brutal experiences the Bradley crew had. But she knew what she knew, and she trusted her gut. For the moment at least, Sam was Sam, and she knew things, and to hell with those running dog cowards in the Bradley.

To hell with anyone else who didn't trust their eyes and their gut too. Trent's willingness to help her at least try to save Sam's life [but was she really dead? Half-dead? A conscious zombie? Was that even a thing!?], even with that thing through his chest had ratcheted her estimation of the guy - temporarily at least - up several well-deserved notches in her eyes. Still, she wouldn't lay odds on what the guy chose to do.

Alex and Aftov? BeeBee shrugged - hard to make a call on that right now. Self-preservation was a powerful instinct, and she wasn't sure if it was fair to judge - as if she had the luxury to puzzle out these ethical and philosophical quandaries on a battlefield. This was a gut check, and BeeBee was making this call for herself, and herself alone.

"I'm with you Sam." BeeBee truly was. DFW was done for already, an empty shell inhabited now by zombie-ish soldiers like the zombie-ish civilians here in Dallas - or maybe it'd all been turned into a smoking hole in the ground, damned if she knew? One thing she did know - or at least was willing to bet her entire [still possibly short and soon-to-be brutally ended] life on - was the truth in Sam's words.

"We need to get the hell out of here - not west."

 

[Zombehs]

He had pushed his Gunsuit hard in order to make up the gap between Alex and him, trying his best to ignore any chatter that might have flowed through the comms. There had been a moment where he'd considered cutting the comms, but decided against it since piloting deaf was infinitely worse than any scathing remarks from the two he'd abandoned. Yet the voice that roared through the channel was not one he had expected to hear again, certainly not with such vitality either. The brakes were slammed on and his Gunsuit screeched to a halt, but rather than turn to check on the three, his attention was drawn to a commotion by Alex's suit. His ears told him that one of the Gunsuit's had fired, and the sparks showed the projectile shattering something. Naturally his eyes followed the shattered blade back to its source and Aftov swore as he could just make out the shapes around them. "Fucking knew it."

Having linked the Gunsuit's arms to one control when his right arm was made essentially useless, he now brought all four linked weapons to bear. He didn't think it would do much good with how they'd been essentially strung along like puppets, but maybe some of the bastards would get caught. An eye watched his ammunition counter even as he swept the barrels across the buildings in the direction from where the sword had been thrown. What Sam was saying was barely audible over the roar of his weapons, though he did catch that the airport was no longer possible for extraction. While the possibility that this was all a trick did linger in his mind, Aftov frankly didn't care at this point. A rope out of this hell, even if held by devils, was still a momentary respite.

"And we're already dancing in the palm of their hands if they have any," he retorted to those in the Bradley even as they sped off, kicking up a trail of dust as the vehicle was pushed to its limits. A few hundred rounds lighter and Aftov kicked his Gunsuit into reverse as the finally casing clattered against the ground. "Come on Alex. We're basically dead men and women at this point, can't hurt to put a bit of faith into one of our own." With only the Gunsuit's engine, the soft pitter patter of blood hitting the cockpit's floor from his numb arm highlighted his own words quite clearly for him. As he approached the three, he spoke into the comms, "For what it's worth, I believe you Sam." Left unsaid was also that he thought all five of them weren't going to make it out alive unless a miracle of some sort presented itself.

 

[BKenScout]

The fighting. Dear god, would they all just stop fighting? Everybody in the squad at each other's throats over every little thing. The Bradley operators were obtuse at best, the others, the ones he had just spent months standing alongside as they learned everything about their suits, were arguing and abandoning one another. At the first sign of opposition being different from what they expected. Trent grunted as he readjusted in his seat, finding it difficult to reach for any of the switches, knobs, and controls in his small cockpit. "God damn," His breathless voice came over the radio as he collected himself, steadying himself to keep his voice from shaking. "Would you all please shut up and get some perspective? We're dead if we stay. That's a given. Make a god damned decision, Alex. Are you our leader or not? For fuck's sake, you just abandoned three off us. I don't know what the fuck is going on out here, but we only have each other, so nobody leaves anybody behind. I'm going south, because whether she's one of them or not, Sam's right... They've been able to see every move we've made so far, nothing got past them, what's to say that the airport won't be overrun?"

The hair on the back of his neck stood on end... They were everywhere - no doubt in his mind at this point that every single person in their squad knew it too. "That Bradley is as good as dead, at least if we go south, we're not playing their... ugh... dumb little game anymore. Can't you tell they're leading us that way, anyway? Fuck these things, fuck EVAC, we're not getting out of here unless we stop letting them play games with us. And if this is just another trick, I'll be more than happy to go down with an empty ammo reserve in my suit and a bare pistol magazine. Hoo-fucking-ah!" Still, he knew that at the end of the day, there'd be one round left... Always, always leave one in the chamber. He thought of it as the mercy round - using it to kill one more of an army wasn't worth leaving this world on their terms. He'd kill himself before he turned into one of them.

The assault gunner let his focus drift through his 360-degree camera view, watching for movement. Every shadow, every wall, it housed and hid one of them... That's what they had to assume, anyway. They would never stop coming. No amount of ammunition would keep them alive without application of their training. "We know how to get out of here... No lines, we don't get picked off one by one if we avoid being linear. Most ridiculous plan I've ever heard. We don't have much room, I think we could go at least two-wide down most streets. I think the best formation is Beatrice and I on point, Sam and Alex on full-view guard from the middle to cover the front and the back, with Aftov on our six to take the rear guard. Sam and 'Lex, I'd say eyes on the skies more than anything, we need all directional coverage," He explained, having to pause through each step of his own exit strategy. "Considering I don't see anybody doing anything but taking sides here," He snarled, sounding more aggressive than he meant to on the basis that a fucking sword had impaled his fucking chest. The man was impatient, but rushing past the details would get them all killed - the fucking colonel didn't even bother to give them a clever or thought-out formation for this mission, and he'd be damned if they didn't take any initiative to learn from the mistake.

"Unless somebody has another plan, we need to go now, I know we all feel them surrounding us," He pointed out, sniffling as he anxiously waited for the others to join him on the road South. He wasn't in the best shape, but Alex had already left them for dead once and putting her up front was out of the question. BeeBee had the most range, he had the reaction time at least, and Sam, well... they needed to be able to keep an eye on her. He figured Aftov on rear since, if the cretins were to give chase, he'd be the best option for tearing them all apart. Coming from the front would be an ambush, and if any of them were taken down, to be honest, it couldn't be the support suit. He was essential to taking them down in droves. There wasn't time to go through every thought put into the formation now, and certainly there were other options, but it was the first one that made sense to Trent as he waited for replies.

 

[Ascendant]

Sam smiled greatly at BeeBee's words, even if her mouth had just been full of blood just minutes ago. She felt that she could at least rely on BeeBee, though she breathed great sighs of relief when both Aftov and Trent expressed something along the lines of trust in her. A tremor overtook her body as she looked at them, causing her to shake her hands and the gunsuit itself for a few short moments before she regained control of herself, Fuck, I guess it's the infection? But... I was dead. Am dead? I don't know... The beating of her heart seemed to indicate she was alive, though she could tell something was off about the feeling of her skin and eyes. Sam turned her attention to Alex, "Alex, come on, say something. We have to go..."

The woman had been frozen solid in the same position. Suddenly, she turned about hard and rejoined the group, "Fine, we'll go with Trent's idea. Everyone form up as he said and let's just get the fuck out of here, south towards a highway and then back towards Fort Hood. We might as well call this mission a failure." The Bradley, and its cargo, was long gone. Alex had no idea where the deserters thought they were going, or what place they believed was safe, as the squad formed up and rolled out towards Hood.

Strangely, Dallas was unusually quiet, the soft flickering of the fires beginning to die down as the gunsuits made their exit from the hell hole. Those things, people, infected, zombies, whatever they were, seemed to have let them go, allowing the squad to make good time back to Hood. Both Alex and Sam still felt the incredible tension in the air, that those beasts might be following them, perhaps waiting to strike them as they escaped to the air.

The eerie absence of ambush during their almost two-hour long journey was broken as the suits rumbled through the abandoned gates of Fort Hood, making for the hangars and runway. A voice spoke to them, an older gentleman's, at first full of static, but then clear. It was the Colonel, "Congratulations on surviving this far. No doubt some of you have concerns to express to me but now is not the time to give them. I am simply handing you your new orders. There is an Osprey a few clicks west from you with a medical team and the equipment to remove those of you unfortunately pinned in the gunsuits heading your way. Just pick any suitable clearing and settle down, our satellites aren't detecting any of the enemy near Hood. You'll have to leave the gunsuits behind, they've served their purpose. Feel free to destroy them if you can. I'll see all of you in a few hours."

As everyone moved to a simple clearing between a few administration buildings, Alex continued scanning the area as the team naturally formed a circular perimeter, wondering for some reason in her head if the Colonels words were true, that the enemy wasn't anywhere close to them. However, Sam had little intention of spending more energy than she had to as she brought her suit to a stop and turned it off, dropping it to its knees. Alex almost reprimanded the woman for letting her guard down, but said nothing when her eyes fell on Sam's body.

As she climbed out of the suit and down to the ground, her uniform was practically soaked with blood, particularly around her abdomen and upper legs. Sam ripped off her helmet and ballistic vest, tossing them away before intentionally falling on her ass in exhaustion. Looking around at the others with an incredibly bloody smile, she spoke to them, "We all made it!" Her visible skin was covered with black veins and the whites of her eyes had become completely red. In the distance, the whirling blades of the VTOL could be heard.

 

[Muirgen]

'Kinda... '

It was the only stupid word that went through her head when she saw the blood-soaked and freakish-looking mess that was a fully-vindicated Sam. Their squad mate had been right about the safest way to get the hell out of Dallas, and the yellow Bradley crew was probably alien chow by now. No matter each and every second of the past two hours had been a nerve-wracking terror-fest, or that BeeBee's sliced left leg first throbbed, then screamed with a sharp ache that snarled with every step, and finally just tapered off to an even more worrisome numbness - they had made it. She didn't have a damned sword sticking out of her chest after all, and damned if she was going to complain about [what she prayed was] a flesh wound.

So Sam had been vindicated, and they'd made it back to Fort Hood and got their 'marching orders' and worthless congratulations from the douchebag who sent them on that clusterfuck of a trek to Dallas in the first place. Leaping from her own suit, Sam proclaimed that they'd made it, smiling that gruesome, bloody smile, and it was all BeeBee could do not to take several horrified steps back, even in the relative safety of her suit.

Sam wasn't dead - or if she was faking life? She was putting on the best damned show BeeBee had ever seen a corpse perform. BeeBee was glad she remained inside her own suit when she first laid eyes on her squad mate. Her dark eyes wide with shock, she mouthed the word 'fuck' silently, and then pulled herself together. She let her own suit hit its knees, releasing the latches and holds, and climbed out. BeeBee winced, hissing softly as she pulled her left leg free, the left leg of her ACU's blood-soaked to her boot.

"Sam, you're... You're really... Really sick. You don't look like you're feeling it, but just trust me, you are." BeeBee's hand shook as she lifted it to her mouth, swiping at either side her lips as she held Sam's red-eyed gaze with a tentative, trembling smile. "You've got a lot of blood, you know, on your mouth and chin. Just kinda... Wipe it off on your sleeve or... Or something... "

BeeBee was no medic, she didn't know what the hell to do for Sam any more than she knew what she should do for Trent. She didn't take his snarly ass-chewing personally back in Dallas - honestly, she barely paid any attention at all to his words - the guy couldn't possibly be in his right mind impaled on a bone sword for God's sake. Whether Trent said he was going or staying, her mind was already made up to follow Sam out of Dallas and get back to Fort Hood. Still, it seemed best to just not argue with him - especially not with a guy she wasn't entirely sure was going to live out the trip. And hell, even if he did? BeeBee's dark gaze fell over Trent's still unopened suit, and wondered if he'd be covered in black veins with red eyes just like Sam's...

She shuddered, and let loose with a long growl of a sigh. She wanted nothing more than to do exactly what Sam was doing right now, just fall out on her ass and sit still for a while - but she didn't. Instead BeeBee limped toward Sam's blood-soaked suit, stepping up to peer inside. She winced at the abattoir inside, but found all she needed to know.

"We should be able to disable all the suits just by yanking or smashing the control panels, like pulling the fuses for the fuel pump from a car. Pull the firing pins from the guns, take the ammo with us... "

 

[BKenScout]

Trent parked his ass the moment they knew they were clear, his gunsuit hunkering down in its dilapidated form. He barely heard the colonel as he watched black and white spots fill his vision. "God dammit..." He muttered to himself yet again as his uniform grew more stained by the moment. They were told to exit their suits, if possible, but as his canopy started its release, he slammed the back of his head into his seat. "FUCK!" He bellowed, stopping it mid-rise, the bone sword dripping with his blood, but still lodged well enough to keep from releasing the wound. One hand reached down to pull his pistol from its holster in the cramped space as the other met his chest, applying pressure firmly as his eyes began to flutter. Fuck, fuck, fuck... The pain was agonizing and he could barely see at this point, but he held his weapon; if anything came into view and it wasn't remotely human, it would be blasted by every round of .40cal pistol ammunition he had loaded into his piece.

"Guys, I... I can't get out," He said raggedly as the systems all powered down. None of the switches or buttons would do anything until the suit was turned back on, so he started using what little strength he had left to break parts of the interior... The butt of his pistol's grip smashed into panels and boards, he used his hands to break any control stick(s) that would budge, and generally he just made a mess. "I'd greatly appreciate... if one of you lucky motherfuckers could disable anything on this god forsaken machine. Useless piece of shit this is; it just made me a bigger target," He said with a weak laugh. He didn't find it the least bit funny. Keep talking, he reminded himself, it meant he was conscious, awake... "Fair notice you guys, I'm gonna start rambling," He warned them tiredly, wondering if this is how Sam felt near the end, just before she was rebooted by... something.

"BeeBee, if EVAC isn't too close yet, you might have time... Gah... Maybe they didn't empty the armoury before going - a couple of rifles would do a hell of a lot better than the peashooters I see some of you bastards prancing about with," He said with a smartass-y smirk. "But we're gonna need gauze too, anybody whose got time for that... Even if we've only got a few minutes, we're gonna need a lot of it. Send in all the PJs you want - can't do anything to a wound this big without the necessary supplies. I can't get the fuck outta this thing... Don't open the door the rest of the way until they get here..." He took a shark breath, barely able to resist the urge to arch his back at the pain. "I'm just talking... to keep myself awake," He explained, gritting his teeth, "And I'm running out of fuckin' things too say. First time for everything, eh?"

He released the safety on his SIG pistol, just in case, and stared at his prison's walls. He wanted nothing more than to get out and hold his own wound; he had no eyes around him and he had to trust that any helicopter that touched down was going to get him the fuck out without killing him. "Don't count your chickens before they hatch, Sam. We're not outta the shit yet," He warned. "And... Aftov, always eat your vegetables," he joked lamely, shutting his eyes and relaxing into his seat. He had to find some way to ignore the splitting pain in his chest. If he tensed up too much, it would only move the sword around inside him.

"Heh... If one of those fucking things tries to get in this suit, I'm blowing it away... If it throws a sword through it again, well... Then it's just a damned pussy," He observed, fiddling absently with his pistol, waiting for anything significant to actually happen. The waiting game was the worst... He needed those medics ASAP, but they'd have a hard time getting him out and patching him up once they freed him from the suit.

 

[Zombehs]

He was grateful that the team formed up rather hastily and pushed their Gunsuits up to top speed out of the city and back to the Fort. As Trent had suggested he did take up the rear guard. A steady eye was kept on the map as he maneuvered the Gunsuit backwards to follow the group and cover the rear with the Gunsuit's weapons. It was a pain to keep focused as the surroundings sped by and absolutely nothing happened; the numbing sensation that spread from his right shoulder didn't help in the slightest. The atmosphere could only keep him on edge for so long, and an hour of constantly glancing from ruined building against a backdrop of flickering flames was sorely testing him.

While sorely tempted to say some less than savoury words the the colonel, Aftov bit his lips and held his tongue. His right arm was limp at this point, the entire limb numb and impossible to feel any sensation it. As the team finally came to a halt and positioned themselves accordingly, Aftov finally allowed his hand to release the control stick. It was surprisingly hard to and when he lifted it he saw that it twitched uncontrollably despite his best efforts to still it. "Christ," he muttered under his breath before he wrapped it around the control stick and the twitching stopped at that.

The rather loud thud turned Aftov's head and he watched Sam climb out of her fallen Gunsuit, a hiss accompanying the opening of the cockpit. Unlike the others, he didn't quite manage to contain his shock and swore rather loudly, "Holy fuck!" Good things her Gunsuit was powered off at the moment. 'Wait… does she have personal comms?' As the thought clicked, he realized that it was a possibility and despite the fact that her appearance was quite disturbing he still muttered, "Sorry bout that Sam, but yeah… Beatrice isn't kidding, you look the part." While she was nowhere near the flayed creatures that had hounded them in the city, she was looking fairly inhuman at this point.

That aside, the comms kicked to life with Trent's voice… and didn't seem like they'd be cutting out any time soon. Not that Aftov particularly minded in this situation, he wasn't about to give his teammate shit when he was literally impaled to his seat. His own problem was impossible to solve by his lonesome as well. The handle was out of reach for his one functional arm to reach and even assuming he could manage a solid grip, he didn't think it'd be possible to free the stuck weapon. "Yeah… I'm going to need help here as well." His voice was surprisingly calm when addressing the blade that pinned his shoulder to his seat, but at this point there wasn't any pain. Really, there wasn't anything because the entire area was fucking numb. "I can wreck the suits with my own though, maybe rig the remaining ammunition or fuel supply to explode after wards," he suggested.

 

[Ascendant]

Sam wiped her mouth with her sleeve as BeeBee suggested, though the action didn't really help, Shit... Mostly dried... I completely forgot about it... And this... She reached down to her stomach and felt where the sword had pierced her, declaring with surprise, "Huh? The wound... is gone too... If I had a mirror I could see myself but... I really don't feel bad." Her hands went up to her head and ran along her tightly-bound hair, "Honestly I feel... fantastic..."

While Sam spoke, Alex finally let down her gunsuit, turned it off, and unlocked the hatches although she couldn't climb out. At least I can breath fresh air, she thought as she gazed up at the night sky. The Moon hung silently, a half-circle floating in space. Suddenly her vision began to flicker, darkness encroaching on the edges as she spoke to the others, "Fuck, something's happening, I think..." She'd completely failed to notice the strange numbness that had begun to emanate outward from her pinned shoulder some time ago, robbing her of feeling. Alex felt her heart begin to beat irregularly, making her grab at her chest through the vest, perhaps trying to rip the organ out. Finally she screamed in pain as her vision completely left her, her body falling forward in the cockpit, still pinned in place by the bone sword. Somewhere far away, a monitor displayed her non-existent life signs.

Perhaps almost on queue, Trent felt the same symptoms Alex had displayed. Vision suddenly becoming even worse, flickering in and out, and then his heart seemed like it was fighting just to beat at all. Finally, there was a single enormous jolt of pain through his chest, and then the blackness of death. The squad had been robbed of two members in the span of what must have been mere seconds.

Sam looked over at Alex's gunsuit with surprise, though she felt little fear for some reason, Odd... Did I expect this? Her thoughts were interrupted by the Osprey approaching and landing abruptly, medical personnel flooding outwards with intensity. All of them were wearing hazmat suits as they motioned towards the VTOL to those who could walk, or used what looked like clamps to grip the swords, pulling them out of the gunsuits and freeing their occupants. Alex and Trent's bodies were hauled out of their metal coffins and carried to the Osprey, and anyone else who needed help received it as well. The crew had also apparently been equipped with explosives as a few of them rigged charges to the suits.

Within a few minutes, what was left of the squad was suddenly airborne and heading towards the Rockies, explosions spreading outwards from the metal husks they'd left behind. Everyone received what medical attention they could get, though Sam got surprised looks when she showed them her healed wound. For some reason, the medics completely ignored Alex and Trent who were lying on stretchers on the floor. Perhaps that was because they already understood the squad's situation.

The squad leader and the rambunctious wannabe cowboy suddenly had their mental vision flood back to them, pure darkness giving way to the image of the Earth hanging in space. Maniacal laughter emanated through the cosmos as their vision zoomed towards the Earth, towards North America, then Texas... and then looking at the Osprey flying in the air. Their eyes passed through the metal of the hull and suddenly both members inhaled deeply as life returned to their bodies.

Alex sat up suddenly and breathed heavily, not understanding what had just happened. Her hands quickly flew up to her sweating, black-veined, red-eyed face, covering it up as she tried to regain her senses. Adrenaline flooded her veins and she felt her body and senses responding like they had never before, "What... the fuck... is this??" The hazmat-suited medics looked at her for a moment before once more ignoring the squad, their wounds mostly tended to.

 

[BKenScout]

Trent forced each breath as he heard the blades of the chopper whirring. God, finally... He thought. It had felt like days that he was lying there, helpless in a gunsuit. He wanted to see the sky, with his own eyes, not from the cameras of a damned machine. But raising the cockpit anymore would pull the sword farther out, so he just had to wait... A few more minutes... He blinked once and it took him several seconds to open his eyes again as fear bolted through his mind. Don't close your eyes again, he instructed himself, shaking his head weakly. "Fuck... Fuck, c'mon... Not yet, they're almost here, I'll be fine," he muttered to himself, his breathing growing faster and more shallow. It was all he could do to inflate his lungs just a little bit. Not on their first mission; all the money spent on this program would be considered a waste and it would be shut down thanks to the colonel's blunder when he decided not to tell them exactly what they were up against.

He couldn't move his fingertips, or his toes... Then his knees and elbows lost all feeling and muscle control as he fell more or less limp, his right hand, and thus his pistol, resting against his stomach (as though bolted down by fatigue). He tried to lift his head, but his neck didn't respond... And then, "Gyah!" He cried out as his heart just... stopped. For a moment, he retained consciousness, but it was an empty consciousness. There was nothing there. And finally, everything cut to black and Trent couldn't help but feel an overwhelming sense of bliss. He would have taken a deep breath in, but he didn't need to breathe, he didn't even care that he didn't have a body anymore, there was nothing but this wonderful liberty in death.

Finally, he saw something... It was Earth, rotating, just as it had for billions of years on its precarious axis. There it was, it seemed so much faster from out here that it was a wonder how it didn't spin everybody right off of it. How they didn't feel a single side effect of that perpetual motion from its surface, protected by no more than its membrane. The image didn't last long as the continents took a larger form and he grew closer to them, North America particularly. Within moments, it felt like his consciousness was bull-rushing the head of a helicopter and then-

The man sat up with wide eyes, taking gulps of air as he placed a hand on his chest, forgetting everything between 'death' and now. Death? Was he actually dead? He shook his head. No sword, no pain... He noticed things he hadn't before too. He could hear his own heartbeat. Not only did he hear the spinning blades of the chopper, but he heard the mechanism inside that was turning them so rapidly. As he looked out of the side of the helo, he saw the clouds, but they weren't just wispy, puffy shapes anymore. He saw all different shades of grey and white, and now they had more definition than he'd ever seen on them, even with all the times he'd flown. They literally looked like an unfathomable number of water vapor droplets hanging in the air, waiting to be touched so that they could take form. Or to fall, as though dropping in for their own mission from the sky. Finally, the smell. Oh god, he shook his head again.

"You guys smell fuckin' rank!" He exclaimed, covering his face as he looked not to his squadmates, but the medics. Of course his squadmates smelled bad - they'd been sweating in a confined space for ages, but these guys shouldn't have smelled half as bad as his partners did. Especially considering half of them had already died and come back to life. "I mean Jesus H. Christ, that's just... Ugh," He said, now half-teasing them before he realized that he could actually pick their smell out from that of the sweaty, grimy, dusty gunsuit operators near them. Naturally, he could pick up their 'scent' as well, but the fact that they were in such a confined space had him a bit perplexed as to just how specific his senses had grown.

Finally, he looked to Alex, "Oh, uh, yeah, what the hell?" He asked finally, "What she said." At this point, it was a bit late to act so shocked for himself, he'd woken up comfortable, to be honest, though it didn't mean he lacked questions. "God, I feel like Stephanie Meyers or whatever her fuckin' name is came up with whatever happened to us... Senses heightened, all that jazz... Oh god..." He looked to BeeBee, Sam, and Aftov, "I'm not glittering, am I?" His voice was full of mock-worry, but he dared not reach for a mirror. Not to mention, after seeing Sam and Alex, he was a bit afraid of how much his own appearance had changed. God dammit, he was really counting on having a big scar in his chest too...

 

[Muirgen]

BeeBee fought back the sob that threatened to half choke her to death the whole trip, from the moment both Alex and Trent simply dropped dead, one right after the other. The medical teams were no more than minutes too late, and BeeBee wanted nothing more than to give in to the rage that would have felt SO much better right now, than the despair. Sam had come back within seconds, but maybe that was just a... A freak thing. Maybe Sam wasn't really dead in the first place, just... Just really, really sick or something.

But Trent and Alex were dead - really dead, not 'just close' or something - and they weren't waking up like Sam did. BeeBee fought crying just as hard as she'd tried to fight the abominations in Dallas, because she was a soldier, and soldiers don't get to breakdown and bawl like babies. It wasn't that she particularly liked Alex an awful lot - and sure the hell she hadn't been a fan of Trent's - but it was different now that they were dead. She hadn't thought a lot of good things about Alex when they were in Dallas and their squad leader was more than ready to turn-tail and run from badly injured Sam. For the life of her, BeeBee could not remember the last thing she said to Trent outside Dallas, but she doubted it'd been very nice. No, she didn't doubt whatever she'd said to him wasn't just 'not very nice' - it'd probably been dripping and slathered with barely concealed sarcasm like fresh honey from the comb.

But he'd been the only one who would stay with her to try to help Sam, and that had to say... Something. She wasn't sure what that "something" might be, but it probably wasn't nearly as arrogant and obnoxious as the average Trent dick move. Now she couldn't even say 'thank you for stopping to help Sam,' or even 'you might not be as much a jack ass as I first thought,' or anything of the sort because Trent was dead, and dead was dead.

BeeBee refused to cry, and she refused to let her head rest on Aftov's shoulder like she really wanted to. He was the only person left on their team who was alive like she was, no black veins and no crimson red eyes, just... All human. And if her pride didn't forbid it, she might have admitted she'd love a comforting arm around her shoulders right about now. Because they were the only ones left, and dead was dead -

And then suddenly, it wasn't.

She was too shocked to say a word, not a single damned word when Alex and Trent sat up almost simultaneously, Alex with her terse question, and Trent with his absolutely inane, ridiculous bunch of nonsense that she'd never been so glad to hear in her entire life, black veins and red eyeballs and all. "No dumb ass, definitely not glittering," BeeBee yelled above the sound of the helicopter's rotors.

"Is it too late to push his dumb ass out the 'copter?" she shouted at Aftov, finally losing the battle of tears, a trail of clean flesh blazed down one dirt-grimed cheek before she wiped it away roughly. BeeBee didn't care. She just grinned like a fiend. "Make this whole death thing a more permanent option?"

 

[Zombehs]

"Hey…" His voice sort of just died as the comms went completely silent, Trent's voice cutting off, a sinking and unshakable feeling settling in his gut. The silence was stifling and Aftov could barely wrap his mind around the fact that the two were gone, just like that. He didn't know how long he stayed like that, expression frozen and mouth dry as a desert, unable to speak, but the Osprey's approach snapped him out of it. Numbly he lowered his Gunsuit to the ground and opened the cockpit to let the personnel reach him. Even as a pair wrenched the impaled blade from his shoulder, he found his eyes glued on the two corpses; the surge of fresh pain as the wound was disturbed almost didn't even register.

He fell into the seat beside Beatrice silently and let his head fall back against the steel wall with a dull thunk. His head tilted just enough that he managed to catch a glimpse of the two corpses as the Osprey's engines fired up once more and the aircraft lifted off. Did he expect them to jump back alive from the dead? Aftov didn't really know and as distant explosions sounded off, he looked away from his former comrades and, unable to look at Beatrice, cast his gaze to the ground. After all what did one say in a situation like this?

It couldn't have been more than a minute or two before his listless gaze changed to one of surprise as Aftov jerked his head to stare. A quick glance told him that the others were seeing the exact same scene, though he did somehow note that the personnel not part of the Gunsuit squad seemed unperturbed by the two's sudden revival. As much as he felt relief that the two were not gone forever, Aftov couldn't do anything about the unease that accompanied it. He tried to school his wary expression as he looked between the two and finally Sam, but controlling his expressions had never been something he'd been great with.

In the end, he dropped his face into his hands to try and hide his expression as best as he could. He knew it might hurt the others if he looked at them with distrust, and unable to keep it from showing, did his best to not let them see it. The three didn't act any more different than they had prior to their "deaths" and he did want to trust them, not just as teammates, but comrades beyond that. It was hard though, hard for him to accept that they hadn't been changed by whatever had happened. Too caught up in his own thoughts and doubts, he didn't even realize Beatrice had said something to him.

 

[Ascendant]

One of the medical personnel suddenly stood in the helicopter and spoke up, "All of you be quiet and get some rest. It's already incredibly late and we've got roughly a four hour flight ahead of us. The other two should be fine, at least until we get back to base." He sat back down, the lights inside the chopper dimming completely save for some faint red globes. The hazmat-suited people leaned back and rested as much as they could, trying to pass the time. Sam and Alex did as they were told and tried to get some rest, letting their minds wander.

The flight took the helicopter soaring over the hills and some mountains into the depths of Colorado. By the time the chopper arrived to a secret base nestled within a mountain, landing on a camouflaged pad high on the side of the great mass of rock and being pulled down underground, the Sun had already risen. The squad was woken up if they were sleeping and led out of the Osprey to find themselves in a what almost seemed to be a normal hangar, only the aircraft were moved up to the surface far above instead of rolling out of a door.

Whatever surprise they might've had was quickly interrupted as other soldiers directed them to a medical area where they were separated by sex, stripped, and then examined by doctors. Alex, Sam, and Trent still had the characteristic black veins across their entire bodies with blood-red eyes, though their wounds had all healed surprisingly fast and without forming scar tissue. These three were subjected to a few more short tests including vision, hearing, and a reaction time. All of them tested off the charts and were informed as such. It was if they had all received the eyes of an eagle, the ears of a bat, and the reaction time of a mongoose. Almost certainly they would've also received heightened stamina, strength, and speed, though those tests would come later if it all.

Aftov and Beatrice, meanwhile, were not so lucky. What had been mere scrapes caused by those bone swords had developed over the past six or so hours into deep infections, spreading black veins out far across their bodies. The doctors nonchalantly informed both soldiers that they would undergo the same process as the other three and not to worry, as the rest of the squad had apparently made it through death as well.

The group was almost immediately herded into a simple meeting room and ordered by an young 2nd Leiutenant to sit down at a long table, shut up, and wait for the Colonel to arrive. Within a minute, the old commander strolled inside, flanked by two armed guards with the other five gunsuit pilots from the second squad trailing behind, among them an asian man, two more men, and two more women, and took a seat at the head of the table. The armed guards took up positions on the Colonel's sides as the other squad took their seats.

The Colonel took a deep breath and leaned back in his seat with an unusual amount of comfort, declaring, "Congratulations, pilots, you survived your first mission and performed fairly well. There's room for improvement of course, your kill counts could've been significantly higher and the ultimate failure of the mission is unfortunate, but perhaps the cargo will show up. It's unlikely but possible." He shrugged and frowned a bit at losing such valuable material, but they had gained more from the situation than lost.

He looked around at the untested pilots that had been kept from battle, "First of all, you other five should take a good long look at those sent into battle, particularly the ones with blood-red eyes. All of you will become like them by receiving wounds from the swords we extracted. Now that we know you can survive turning and maintain your sanity with our treatments, we just need to monitor the long term effects."

Turning his attention to those that had been essentially sent into a hellhole with no real knowledge of why or what they were up against, the Colonel spoke,"As for you, I understand you may be somewhat angry with how we've handled the mission, but you all accomplished the secondary objective of becoming infected. You see, the emblem of the Gunsuit Project is flame itself encircled by a ring of fire. Our goal has always been the development of infected super soldiers to turn the tide against the enemy. The gunsuits you used were more to help ensure at least some of you made it out alive, with the possibility of bringing us an intact enemy weapon that causes infection."

A projector appeared from the roof and displayed an image of the gunsuits they had driven as the Colonel explained, "As you discovered, these things were bulky, slow, unresponsive. Though the ability to see every direction at once was useful, we did eventually come to the conclusion that such sensation would probably distract any pilot. Unfortunately by the time they were abandoned, the feature wasn't removed as all the Project's mechanical engineering resources went to the development of a new Gunsuit... We went through a few iterations and tests and by then the eggheads had made the connection that perhaps we could simply augment our soldiers' abilities. The result was the Mark IX Gunsuit..." The screen changed suddenly, and a far more humanoid figure appeared.

"The Mark IX is a gunsuit that could likened to power armor. We'll give you all the details later and you'll get to try them out, but simply put, IX's are designed with your infections in mind. Meaning you'll be even faster, stronger, and more agile. Imagine those ghastly swordsmen you fought wearing this stuff, and you'll get an idea of what you'll be capable of. We expect the IX's to be the edge humanity needs." The Colonel finished his spiel after that as the projector turned off, "Now, you've probably all got some complaints, bitching, or questions for me, so let them rip."

 

[BKenScout]

Fwip fwip fwip

The propellers of the Osprey sounded outside as they flew. The medic barked an order and Trent simply sneered at him as if to say you don't fuck with me today before crossing his arms. The lights went down and he began to relax, leaning back against the wall. Looking to BeeBee, he gave a cheeky grin, "You can push me out, but I'm not going anywhere! If I die again, you're gonna be stuck with whatever I come back as. I'll be a ghost, specifically to haunt you and piss you the fuck off!" He shouted to her, knowing that his new appearance probably make it seem more satanic than intended. Trent finally shut his eyes, though he wouldn't consider it "sleeping" so much as organizing his own thoughts. His hand remained cautiously on his pistol, not gripping or holding it, just... keeping a tab on it. He wasn't too appreciative of Aftov's uneasy gaze, even if the man had all right to be apprehensive.

Deep in the Colorado mountains, the Osprey landed and was dropped to an underground base. As they were escorted to medical, Trent kept his hand on the grip of his pistol. They were ordered to strip, so he did, but he firmly insisted that he take his sidearm, and even as a few of the personnel stated he might not be in the right mind to have it, none of them could prove he was a danger, so he secured it back to his hip and left, not saying much more to those escorting them about the base. He longed to return to the hangar, the aircraft weren't the basics everybody knew. Some looked like brand new models that hadn't even seen the skies of combat yet. Many still were Osprey variants like the one they'd landed in, and he could swear he saw an Harrier jet down there somewhere. But it was unlikely that he'd get a chance to go back and see them any time soon as they were ushered into the meeting room.

Trent snarled in contempt at the 2nd lieutenant, "Walk away, Butterbar," He warned, collapsing into his chair without a salute. Nobody here deserved his respect. He hadn't been in the service long, it wasn't like the O-1 was trying to order around a Master Sergeant, but it didn't make it any less irritating. As the lieutenant left and Trent placed his handgun on the table, he looked to BeeBee and Aftov, "How are you guys feeling? I don't imagine they left you in perfect condition," He noted, positive that the damage was more than mere puncture wounds. However, before they could answer, Hotchkiss walked in. The private merely sat with his SIG resting on the surface directly in front of him, his gaze simply blank as he stared at the colonel with crossed arms.

He kept talking, as if everything was okay... He stated that the goal of the mission was to infect him and his brothers/sisters-in-arms. Then... explained the insignia. The insignia. Trent was physically trembling at this point, chewing his lip, trying to keep his breath even. It wasn't very successful and anybody could see the tension in his face, even with its new appearance. His fingers drummed impatiently against his bicep as the moments ticked by and the colonel presented them with a new suit. Any questions?

The words rung with the most arrogant tone Trent could have possibly interpreted them with. Trent rose to his feet, his chair screeching as its legs scratched against the floor and fell backward with a clatter.

"Bitching?" He started venomously, "Yeah, I got a couple of problems with it. You sent us out there to protect our comrades while they carried out a mission that you gave them," He said, his voice gradually rising as he spoke. His index finger jabbed the air behind him as he said 'out there.' Trent took a deep breath and let it out before continuing, "On a motherfucking suicide mission as an escort. For the objective of killing us! No briefing, no info, MONTHS of training, billions of dollars, just wasted. Just like that!" He snapped his fingers, "All to learn a lesson and make a new model of gunsuit? One that isn't even a fucking vehicle, it's just armour? Not to mention that those soldiers in the Bradleys are probably dead by now, so you sent them out to die too. I died. Sam died. 'Lex died. Even if we came back, that blood is on your hands too. Whatever you did to us, whatever made us this way, I don't remember signing a paper that said you could alter my biological construct. I don't care how it works, it's not okay. Why didn't you streamline it and wait? Get us in these things, send us out with them? Ask us if we wanted to augment ourselves with the infection before doing it?

"God dammit, I am not a pawn," the heel of Trent's palm met the table with a loud thump. At this point, his voice had risen to a shout, "These are my brothers, and you sent us out there to die, on a fucking... On a fucking WHIM. You weren't sure how this would turn out, so you sent us to die in suits, rather than letting us die on our feet like those men... As an experiment. Like we're... subjects. You know what? Fuck you, Hotchkiss," He spat on the table, his lip curled back as he fumed, grabbing his pistol. As the guards around the room began to raise their weapons, he looked at all of them, started to lift it...

And placed it back in his holster, turning on his heel. "I'll be in the hangar until debrief. Sir," The final word was sour on his tongue as he saluted reluctantly and left without dismissal. As he shut the door behind him and started to retrace his steps, he looked at the patches on his uniform... a sole bar on his shoulder, a tag that read Lyons on it over his breast, and on his upper arm was the patch that signified his standing as a gunsuit pilot. He wondered now if he'd made the wrong choice... He could have a tag on that pocket that read Ranger with the insignia of the 82nd Airborne on it... But no, he was chosen for something special, somehow more special than that... He didn't want to be a Ranger in the first place. Trent shoved his hands in his pockets, looking to the dogtags hanging around his neck, tucked underneath the jacket of his fatigues. They identified him. If he died out there on that field, it would have been all anybody needed to know who he was. Who he is.

The sound of his boots hitting the hard floor echoed throughout the virtually empty hangar once he finally found his way back. The noise bounds off the walls and died within a moment as his eyes scanned it. Gently, he took his hand out and brushed it across the surface of one of the aircraft, a small smile on his face. Magnificent, every last one of them.

 

[Muirgen]

'I don't want to die.'

Those words had been soft, sibilant whispers in her head from the moment the choppers landed and the medical teams unloaded their squad like cattle into the makeshift triage units. Naked and cold, BeeBee thought the worst thing in that moment was the humiliation of being exposed to all the poking and prodding. She could not have been more wrong.

Apparently military doctors are not cut from the same cloth as civilian doctors - or else these men were no ordinary physicians. The gash along her leg had been horrifying enough, terrifying, all black and vein-y, just like Sam and Alex and Trent. But where a normal doctor was supposed to at least pretend he gave a good damn while he delivered the news his patient had terminal cancer, these guys couldn't have been more blasé about the matter. Sure she was going to die and no, there was no handy timetable - but no worries, she'd be back just like her squad mates, and wasn't that just wonderful?

BeeBee cried. Right there on the examination table, she bawled like a little girl, wanting nothing more than to see her Mom and her Dad, to have someone pick her up and take her home and tell her it was all just a really bad nightmare, that everything would be all right when she woke up. Those doctors scooted out of the room just as fast as they'd come in, but BeeBee didn't notice or care. All she knew, was that she'd seen her parents for the last time. She could never go home again, even if they won this war - not as a walking, red-eyed corpse. She cried for the last Christmas she'd spent with her family, and knowing the whitetail bow hunt with her Dad last fall in Virginia would never happen again. Beatrice Angelina Marcos was dead, even if she was still sitting upright and sobbing so hard she made herself vomit into the nearby trashcan. She was dead, and she'd never see the people she loved most again.

Defeated, exhausted and drained, BeeBee had entered the conference room quietly, letting the young second lieutenant herd her to a chair before Colonel Hotchkiss finally began to speak. When he introduced the other five pilots for the new team, she looked them over wearily, not understanding why they would voluntarily let themselves be infected -

Her breath caught in her throat, dark eyes wide with renewed horror. They'd done this on purpose. Colonel Hotchkiss had sent her and their squad out to Dallas to purposely become infected, to die and be resurrected into... Into... Super zombie soldiers. They did it on purpose. She and Trent and Aftov, Sam and Alex weren't killed in action like true soldiers. They had been murdered, by their very own.

Something in BeeBee simply... Snapped. She heard Trent's tirade, sympathized in every possible way, and wanted nothing more than for him to finish pulling his pistol and shoot every goddamned one of these smug bastards dead. Given half a chance, she'd have joined him - the .500 Mag she wore holstered to her leg was a hand cannon just tailor made for moments like this. But the guards were too swift, too quick to react and he wisely kept his pistol holstered right where it was. BeeBee watched Trent stalk out of the conference room, her face inscrutable for some moments before her attentions returned to the Colonel.

And then she smiled, not even a hint of mirth in her dark, still-entirely-human eyes as she drummed her un-veined fingertips oh-so-softly on the table. How many hours - no days... Weeks even? Had she spent still and silent in a blind or in a tree stand, waiting motionless until every muscle in her body cramped and screaming for relief, for some kind of movement. But iron discipline and endless patience were the hallmarks of any great hunter and, if nothing else in this world, BeeBee was one of the very best. 'One day, Colonel Hotchkiss, I am going to kill you.'

Her smile widened further still, warming happily to such cheerful thoughts. 'You'd better pray that some alien bastard ends me out in the field, because if my walking corpse sees me through to the end of this war? I'm coming for you, and you are going to pay for every damn thing you've stolen from me and Trent, and Aftov and Sam and Alex.'

BeeBee's gaze turned upward to the nervous-looking second lieutenant, and savored the effect her still beautiful grin could have on a man. She chuckled warmly just under her breath, looking toward Sam and Alex and Aftov in turn before her attentions returned - invariably - to the man who murdered her, and all of them. 'I am going to hunt you Colonel, and run you down like a coy-dog. There is no pit too deep I won't find you. No place so far away I won't make it my personal mission to spend whatever zombie life I have left to put the muzzle of my Mag right between your eyes, and laugh when your head disintegrates.'

"No sir," Private Beatrice Marcos said with an ease that could only come from a person whose soul was perfectly at peace with the whole wide world. "No bitches, complaints or gripes. I'm just ready to kill some bastards, and see what these new suits can do - hooah!"

 

[Zombehs]

It was easy enough for Aftov to fall asleep even under the shaky flight and constant engine noise; the relative peace let the adrenaline break down, his body to relax, and his mind to wander off. Despite his dislike for the personnel that manned the Osprey, they were a bit too cold and detached for his liking, once the lights dimmed and silence reigned there was little else for Aftov to do but follow orders.

It was not to dull numbness that Aftov woke to, but sharp unfiltered pain that nearly floored him as he grasped at his right arm. Whatever the medics had done hadn't managed to last past the hours of flight, and as he glimpsed the condition of his shoulder through scrunched eyes he managed to feel his stomach drop through the pain. Disgusting would have put it mildly, anyone with half a mind could have told him that the wound was in horrible condition. Infection ran rampant and the wound was the center of a web of black veins that likely stretched to his face at this point.

Even as he was led off the aircraft to a medical center, something struck him perfectly clear. He was going to die, this wound was going to be his death. Despite being on base the sensation that he was too far gone was unshakable. Of course, even with an instinctive feeling as such didn't make him any more receptive to the news that the good "doctors" on the base were going to do nothing. If he hadn't been in such pain he certainly would have tried to throttle the men,regardless of the consequences or his escorts, who dared to comment on his coming loss of "humanity" so casually. Instead, he simply tried to keep himself from doing anything more than grunt and grimace with every step he took as he was escorted from the medical examination to a meeting room.

He collapsed into his seat without a word to the others and tried to get his breathing under control as the wait began. Thankfully, he'd managed to get it down to strained hisses rather than outright gasps and pants by the time the Colonel walked in. The words that followed didn't really help in maintaining that somewhat steady breathing he'd managed to achieve and he could feel his temper rise the longer the Colonel spoke. While normally he would have closed his eyes and kept a lid on it, pushed the anger aside and refused to let it dictate his words, at this very moment doing exactly the opposite felt very appropriate.

Yet sometime through the Colonel's meaningless spiel his right arm spasmed uncontrollably and Aftov nearly fell out of his seat as he tried to press his body back into it. A sickening crack echoed through the room and cut into the officer's speech and a glance through teary eyes revealed that his wrist had almost certainly snapped as his hand bent away at an unnatural angle. Despite the pain though, he'd managed to stifle it into a short whimper that quickly died as soothing numbness washed away all the pain that had wracked his body for what felt like the last hour. He probably should have been concerned given that he couldn't feel half his body anymore and the black veins seemed to pulse more intensely now, but all there was was a sense of calm and detachment.

If that didn't wash away the anger then hearing Trent cut loose with his own tirade was certainly enough to brush aside any heated words he might have wanted to say. His head craned to follow one of his few comrades out of the room before it turned back to glance at the remaining three ladies. Despite the sense of calm at which Beatrice seemed, or perhaps because of it, Aftov was almost certain that there were contrary thoughts to what she said in her head. They, or rather the five, would talk later he supposed, but now it seemed that it was his turn to speak.

It was odd trying to speak with half his face numb, and he quickly picked up on the fact that his speech was slurred. 'Oh well.' He might have shrugged if it didn't take so much effort, but in the end he simply settled for pushing on with what he had in mind. "Given Trent's already done the anger, Beatrice with the calm, collected, soldier, I figure I get to be the smartass. Should have been Trent's job really…" He blinked his eyes to try and collect a bit of focus and remind himself to stop rambling lest the "good" Colonel decide his drivel was a waste of time. "I'm going to assume the general consensus is the war is lost and this is some last ditch effort, not an edge that tips the odds. Really, using the enemy's technology? Assuming we did manage to achieve the same level of mastery over it, which is a pretty baseless assumption, let's think about numbers. Alex..." His voice trailed off at this point, as his head slumped forward and the black veins began to visibly spread over his body. With a jerk, Aftov snapped back to attention and his head glanced around, but his eyes were glazed over and unfocused.

"Shit…" The curse came out barely audible, no more than a whisper, so it might have surprised some to hear what followed next. "I guess we'll see if my sanity holds like you think it will," Aftov snarled out to the room's occupants, "it'd be a pretty fucking shame if it doesn't." The words he flung at the Colonel and those around the officer were laced with bitter sarcasm, but just as quickly as he had become animated Aftov slumped into his seat once more. He might have tried to say something more, but the black veins had completely overtaken his face at the point and no words came out. What might have been considered a nod, if one made that stretch of imagination, was directed towards the remaining three, but mostly Beatrice, before his body fell completely still.

 

[FrostedCaramel]

"Wake up you shits, Colonel needs you in the briefing room in ten." came the voice of the guard at the door as the lights flickered to life. Jonathan swung up from the top bunk and pushed himself off landing squarely on the floor. He slipped on his combat boots and pulled on his white tank top, promptly putting on his ACU top. He glanced around the room to make sure everyone was getting ready to go. "Come on people we got less than eight minutes to be there." he said, in an attempt to put a bit more pep in the squads step.

Five minutes. 'Finally' Jonathan thought as he and his squad mates made their way to the conference room. "I wonder what's going on...?" he said back to the support of the squad. The only response he got from the half asleep support was a series of unintelligible grunts. They passed by the main hangar and Jonathan noticed an Osprey being refueled, 'Odd that wasn't there earlier... Where did it come from.' he turned and looked to a guard as they passed him by. "Any idea who came in on the Osprey?!" he yelled as the sound of machinery nearly drowned him out.

"The First Squad, they looked mighty fucked up... Some not even human..." the guard replied, a look of astonishment on his face as if remembering what they looked like. 'Not even human....' Jonathan thought as his squad met up with the Colonel and entered the briefing room. Suddenly it was all too obvious what the guard had meant. The bloodshot eyes, black veins. These people were no longer people, and the Colonel was going to make him and his squad just like them.

"...so let them rip."

The entirety of the first squad put in there thoughts on the matter, understandably pissed at the suicide mission the Colonel had sent them on. And the last of the squad, Aftov, was mid-sentence when he slouched in his seat and became still as a rock. 'The fuck...' Jonathan thought in shock. "I- Is... Is he okay?" he said in awe of what was happening in front of him. He quickly stood, knocking over his chair as he did so and began to move toward Aftov.

 

[Ascendant]

Sam and Alex remained mysteriously quiet while the others said their piece, Alex probably simply having nothing to say that wasn't already mentioned, and Sam likely having similar reasons of her own. The other four members of what had been Second Squad said nothing as well, though they were probably still taking in the fact that they would be put through a similar, though far less dangerous process, as the First Squad had.

The Colonel sighed and leaned back in his chair, letting a few moments pass as he collected his thoughts and allowed for any other objections. Trent had reacted pretty much as he had expected, and internally, he felt some regret at allowing such a hot-headed person into the Project when the Colonel had known what it would entail. While making a mental note to have the staff keep an especially close eye on the rash man later, he addressed the missing man's concerns, "Unfortunately Private Lyons isn't here, but I'll reply as best as I can. We made a calculated decision to send you into Dallas. The mission was real, the objective was valuable, but we did hope that we get at least a few of you coming back with infections. It just so happened that all of you were injured, which was unforeseen. The new Gunsuit had been in a development a long time as well, long before the mission, and yes, everyone except you who returned are probably dead or one of them now. The suits we sent you with did their job, protected you well enough that none of you were horribly dismembered, torn apart, or otherwise truly killed. Ultimately, you all came back, even if you may not see it that way.

Beatrice, in comparison, was surprisingly calm, though that calmness somewhat unnerved the Colonel. Aftov seemed to take more of a rational approach, to which the Colonel made a comment, "The Project's final hope is that the transformation process to be determined to be safe, effective, and that none of you can be swayed by the enemy. Ten may not be enough to win a war, but ten thousand might." The older man gazed for a few moments at Aftov as Jonathan moved towards him before mentioning, "Private Aftov is probably just undergoing the transformation now. He'll likely awaken in a few minutes so don't worry." The guards at his sides knew better however, and waited to see if the man awoke as something without a human mind.

It was then that the Colonel noticed that Beatrice, who had gone silent not long ago, had also slumped over in her chair as Aftov drew the rooms attention. Sam followed the Colonel's gaze and realized what was going on, quickly grabbing BeeBee and shaking her, "BeeBee? Are you sleeping?" Moving her hand to the woman's neck, Sam declared, "She's gone too."

This may be a problem. Two at once doubles the chances of one coming back as one of those bastards. But... I am pretty sure the process is safe and the medicine works... Staking my life on that may help show the higher-ups how certain I am... ran through the mind of the Colonel, who remained planted in his seat, "I estimate it may be a few minutes before they get back. So in consideration of that, I'm going to wrap this up. Bring in the sword."

A man wearing a hazmat suit wandered inside carrying what looked like a piece of one of the swords used against the First Squad, but it had been cut to the side of a knife. The Colonel put on gloves and received the knife-sized fragment, before placing it in the middle of the table, "Second Squad, cut your palms with this. That's an order. It's clear the process is safe, and we need everyone can get to test the next stage. If you refuse then you're out of the Project and will likely be sent to the Front." The room froze for a moment as the members of Second Squad considered the fragment, trying to decide what to do.

Whilst that was going on, Aftov's consciousness witnessed an unusual scene: A ruined city, blasted to pieces by explosions and war. Countless skeletal remains littered a street; literal mounds of bones. A pale little girl suddenly rose from a pile of bones in the middle of the street, holding up a skull with her black-veined hands, "Dead, they're all dead. And what about me?" She looked back at Aftov's consciousness, revealing her own blood-colored eyes and smiled, "Can you help me?" Aftov rocketed back into his body, filled with adrenaline and revitalized.

Beatrice's consciousness was given a different vision. She was in an office, looking at the back of a chair as it leaned back and forth, an older gentleman's voice resounding in the disheveled room, "We are the future. The next step. In the back of your mind, you know this, Beatrice. In the back of your mind, you already know everyone you loved or knew is dead. Accept it." The man swung his chair around and slammed his hands on the desk, shattering it. His face, covered in black veins and adorned with red eyes, was clearly that of the Colonel, as he yelled, "Kill him! Kill him! Realize your desires! Kill him as he killed you!" Her body jolted to a start as her consciousness returned. Voices in her mind screamed, "Kill him! The sword, the sword! Plunge it into his heart! Do it!" The knife-sized fragment lie quietly on the table as everyone looked at Aftov and Beatrice. The guards raised their weapons, each one pointing a rifle at a freshly reborn pilot, ready to fire. The Colonel's gaze swept between the two, waiting to see if they were both sane.


___________________________________________


In the hangar, the pilot of the Osprey that had brought the First Squad back from hell decided to run a few more checks on his aircraft while most of the maintenance crew was off to breakfast. While wandering towards the machine he noticed a man checking out a few of the other aircraft on standby, most of which hadn't found a use in some time. Deciding he might make some conversation, he approached before finally realizing who it was, "Oh, you're one of those guys we pulled out of Fort Hood. You look a little rough, how are you feeling, man? Why don't you go get some food, you're probably hungry right? I'll go with you if you don't know the way."

 

[Muirgen]

BeeBee leapt to her feet, her scarlet eyes seeing and not seeing what had become of the conference room now. Her last sight, the last she remembered as a perfectly and completely human living woman, had been that resigned wisp of a nod from Aftov before he died. He understood, he would be there at the end - and she wasn't scared anymore. What came next hurt like hell, like nothing she had ever known or imagined, a consuming, burning agony as pure alien poison raced through her veins - but she wasn't scared. Not even a little. And then she was dead -

- And then she wasn't, because heaven sure the hell wasn't some tore up looking office with a black-veined, scarlet-eyed Colonel Hotchkiss shouting at her. The guy was a murdering dick of the first order, but he wasn't Satan either. He was a man. Just a man, a mortal man she was going to bury six feet under.

Oh, and speaking of such happy, happy thoughts...

In the conference room, BeeBee's black-veined hand shot out swiftly, palm outward, warding off the guards with their raised rifles as she yanked the .500 Mag from its holster. She was far, far faster now, her superhuman reflexes setting her in motion swifter than any one of these soldiers could have pulled the trigger to stop her from shooting Hotchkiss - but that wasn't what she had in mind. BeeBee shoved the revolver's muzzle up under her own chin.

Her eyes shut tight, arm still flung out toward the guards, she began to laugh, the sound low and hard and without the least humor.

'Fuck off... Every last one of you. Fuck. Off.' The voices in her head quieted just a little, and the Beatrice inside smiled widely at the seething, black-veined Colonel Hotchkiss thing in her head. 'You most especially. So everything and everyone I love is dead? Then it was you who killed them. I accept nothing. Get out of my head.'

In the conference room, BeeBee's thumb cocked the hammer. 'Get out of my head, or I'll just take it off myself. I'm done with this shit - no one controls me anymore - not him, and not you.'

The pad of her fingertip slipped onto the trigger. 'One day I am going to kill that bastard Hotchkiss, but it's not going to be in your time. See, I'm going to kill him after I exterminate your alien asses from my home. So you just keep wearing that face, E.T. - guaranteed I'm coming for you all special.' In her mind's eye, BeeBee lifted her hand, pointed it at the furious, frothing Colonel Hotchkiss, winking as she 'pulled the trigger' of her finger.

'See ya soon, bitches.'

And in the physical world, BeeBee dropped the muzzle of her Mag, decocked the hammer before holstering it again. "For the record, Sir - alien zombie super-soldier Colonel Hotchkiss? Oh, he really doesn't like you much." Her scarlet eyes fairly danced with laughter until she looked to Aftov, her expression softening.

 

[Zombehs]

There wasn't any pain, surprisingly, just a deep chill that replaced the numbness when his vision finally went black. It also wasn't like anything he'd imagined or seen either; no sensation of falling or being jerked abruptly awake, but just a swift shift in his surroundings. As if someone had flawlessly switched slides between one frame and the next, the conference room had given away to a hellish landscape. Though his mind rebelled at the sight, taking in the gruesome details with inhuman swiftness, his view didn't change in the slightest. It seemed that he was in the helpless observer's seat for the moment, present to watch and do no more.

His eyes were drawn to the slow motion of a body rising amidst the piles of dead, the soft clunk as bones tumbled over one another. Her voice, soft and with an almost innocent quality to it, had little trouble reaching him despite the distance and he felt something stir as he met her crimson eyes. Though he wanted to reply, to say something to the girl that did not belong, the world around him changed once more.

This time it was not nearly as smooth, the ruined city collapsing in on itself as blackness swallowed it from its edges. The distorted scene grew smaller as if he was being pulled away and when it became impossible to resist the urge to blink, he found himself back in the conference room and surrounded by familiar faces once more. His hands had unconsciously grasped the table's edge and he could feel the deformed material beneath his fingers. It wasn't a question if he could rip the piece of furniture from the floor and toss it at the two guards in the midst of bringing their weapons to bear, it was more of if he wanted to.

In the end he slumped back into his chair and released his hold on the table, fragments and crushed pieces falling from his hands as he gave them a light shake. He glanced at his side at a hammer's click and just caught her as she reholstered her firearm. He found it easy enough to grin, even if it was just slightly, when she turned towards him and he looked back at the Colonel after that. "Well that's that I suppose," he broke the silence with a raspy and dried voice, looking fairly annoyed as he did so. While he didn't want to really be in the room with the Colonel any longer, sure that the man's voice would grate on his nerves simply through its sound, Aftov didn't really want to just walk out on the five.

He looked at each of the five members of Second Squad and with a nod said, "If you don't want to lose your humanity, don't do this." Sure, if he wanted to take a strictly utilitarian stance to the problem, a person's humanity didn't matter that much in the face of the race's extinction. In the end though, people deserved their choice and that was what irked him so much in the end. His posture might have been apparently relaxed, slumped into his chair with his hands resting in his lap as he swivelled to look at everybody in the room, but he didn't think for a second that the guards weren't ready to pull the trigger.

There was still that damned girl and the vision he'd been shown when he'd apparently undergone the transformation. He didn't think for a moment that it had been accidental, but frankly he couldn't make heads or tail out of it. It didn't seem as confrontational as what Beatrice or Sam had experienced, but he might have actually preferred if it had been that way. At least he wouldn't have ti waste time and brain power over trying to figure out any meaning, if there even was any.