[Episode 230597] [Episode 230597]The GMH-200 gunship screamed through the air over Ceti Alpha’s plains. The descendant of ancient Mangusta and Eurocopter design warcopters, the old bird, though not the equal of more modern military aviation offerings, was still a decent performer in its own right.
It was also fairly staggering under the weight of all the sensor and weapons pods festooning its pylons, the latter equipment of which was currently the subject of argument in the two-person cockpit of the flier.
”Damn it, May! I still think you went overboard! What were you thinking? Full warload? Since when are we expected a war on Mudpie?”
Rally’s weapons officer shrugged in her place behind the pilot. “What’s the point of a full-dress exercise if you don’t do it full-dress? And what’s the point of having gun mounts for this bird if we’re never going to carry the full load-out?”
”Okay, the twenty-memee fully charged and loaded I can understand, but I heard you arguing with the deckmaster! ANTI-TANK missiles?! In addition to the AAMs?! Saturation rocket pods?!”
”Hey, I LIKE heavy ordnance! You can’t have enough heavy ordnance! You’re always wishing you had MORE heavy ordnance!”
Rally shook her head in her flight helmet. “You’re too young to have been in the CMC. You must get that attitude from a prior life! I’m not going to even ask what you’re carrying in your flightsuit.”
”Maybe you’ll find out when we get back to base and get off duty.” May purred with such innuendo that Rally couldn’t help but laugh.
”Okay, we’re about where Patrol Six was supposed to be. Yep....there’s a farm complex down there. Looks all right from here on first pass.”
May hunched her head over the sensor displays as she booted up the so-called ‘Blue Thunder Suite’ aboard the ‘bird. ”Unless you count all the dead cattle.”
”Humm? Sure they’re just not hunkered down?”
”I’m seeing some funny things down there. Look at all those heifers down! And they’re not registering on thermal scan. I think they’re dead, Rally!”
”All of them?”
”-ALL of them!”
”Okay, scan around, make sure of this!”
”I’m not detecting any life signs, Rally! Not even from the farmhouse!”
”Look for Patrol Six’s vehicle. They should be nearby!”
They found Patrol Six’s vehicle easily enough. Some distance down the road, off in a ditch and wrecked, the windows broken, the vehicle on its roof.
”Jeez...Looks like they were trying to get away from something...”
May cut in on Rally’s disbelief. “Rally! We got movement! Maybe a hundred yards down the road!”
”Show me!”
Within moments they picked up on it, and were soon buzzing over a single human figure staggering down the road, clad in the uniform of a Territory Security Patroller. Rally brought the copter to a hover in front of the staggering man and toggled her loudhailer, dialing it up so she could be heard over the rotor blades.
”Patrol Six! This is Cobra Three! Report your condition! What happened here?!”
The man looked up at the hovering gunship, steadied himself for a moment. Then he gathered his breath and began shouting.
”Thank god you’re here!...Don’t come down! Whatever you do, don’t land! There’s BUGS here!”
The shotgun surveillance mike picked up the man’s labored words, even as the high-res optics zeroed in on his face. Rally’s eyes widened as she took in the man’s pale features, marked by strange bruises along his face and neck.
”They got Watson and Krim! ....They got everybody here...They got me! FACEGRIPPERS!” Tears were running down the man’s face.
”I can feel the damn thing moving around inside me!....Tell..Tell everybody! We got BUGS!!!...Get the Marines! Get...gah!...oh no!...”
The patrolman went to his knees, as he fumbled for his service weapon. He was bringing it up to his chest when large red spots began appearing on the front of his jacket. With a scream of pure agony, he began pulling the pistol’s trigger, firing into his own chest as something struggled to break out. Spastically the weapon bucked in his weakening grip as rounds pounded into his chest and neck.
Mercifully one of the slugs tore into his head, catching him under the chin and exploding his head from inside. A bloom of blood and brains painted the road behind him. The body danced for a moment, then collapsed to the ground.
-But not before Rally saw something bloody and serpentine emerge from the cracked chest and slither onto the road, leaking smoking fluid.
”Ohmigod...” May’s voice was small.
Rally Vincent breathed hard, finding it hard to do anything beyond hearing the man’s voice, and seeing him kill himself...No, that wasn’t true, he was trying to kill SOMETHING.
Rally gritted her teeth and hissed, as her hands moved. The weapons-heavy ‘copter pirouetted up and around the corpse on the ground below, following the skittering cable-shape of alien death. Thumb flicked a cover off, jabbed an arming switch. Finger trigger came tense as the weapon came online, ready to fire. A targeting display lit in her helmet HUD, crosshairs drifting across her field of vision, a hum of actuators below her seat sounding in response to her head movements.
There. Crosshairs locking on the shadowy little shape as it dove for a culvert.
BUDDABUDDABUDDABUDDAABUDDABUDDA
Barrels rotated, spewing twenty-millimeter caseless death, several cubic yards of roadbed, soil, and alien larva disintegrating under the pounding.
”MAY! Get on the horn to Command! Tell them we got Bugs! Dump our last sensor scans!”
”On it, Rally!”
”Then give me Weapons Hot!”
Facehuggers meant there had to be more Bugs nearby, she knew. The whole farm area was probably teaming with Bugs nearby.
Time to do some stomping. Rally hoped May hadn’t neglected to include incendiaries in the warload.
”They’re sure?” The Kessler-appointed Security Chief looked incredulous.
Patrol Chief Cho looked grim as he gestured at his handheld. “I just watched their datadump. I just watched one of my people try to kill his own killer. Chest burster. Perkins was a good man. It’s not a hoax. We got Bugs on Ceti Alpha.”
”Oh shit.”
”Exactly. Oh shit.”
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(Posted Sun, 21 Feb 2010 23:08)
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