Ammo was running low, and they were everywhere. Frankly I was keeping a .45 for myself incase they got to me. I’ve seen too many poor bastards suffer. I’m not going out like that either. We had guys barricading the door with tables and furniture, but that was only going to buy a few minutes. We all knew that it was the eleventh hour here. We made it a hell of a lot longer than most folks. Everything went to shit about three days into it.
The funny thing was that we thought they were a gift at first. They tore threw Combine lines like nothing we ever saw. Then they got hungry for us. We held on better than they did, but still, most of us were gone in days.
This is a story. The story about how everything fell. Not only Combine, but us. A story on how sometimes the enemy could always be worse.
Day 0 of Light
The war was going normal. Days came and went, losses and gains were tallied, and progress was being made. We were hopeful. Weapons were getting better, and our boys were getting smarter. Our division just finalized plans on expanding training opportunities, to increase viability in multiple conditions. I even started taking up practice with a PKM. After a couple of years of Semi and Manual action, sometimes just spraying shit with an auto is fun.
Reports started coming in about beasts tearing through Combine FOBs and Citadels. I thought it was hokey. With the report system we had in place, bad intel came in often. It could have just as easily been some anarchist uprising at some FOBs. Besides, these places were thousands of miles away from where my group was stationed. Was glad to hear it wasn’t us getting smoked but took it with many grains of salt.
Then I got a radio call from Mint.
“Burns. I need you in my office. ASAP. New Developments”, Mint calmly spoke.
He was always the calm one when it came to bringing news. That could have meant anything, so I expected something minor, like when RECON put on a bake sale to buy something newer than a M3 Grease Gun. IDK why though, those things seemed like they worked great for them.
I opened the door to Mint’s office, only to find him pacing the room, chain smoking cigarettes. After LVET started using cigarettes as currency to buy things, he took up smoking. This couldn’t have been good. I’m expecting leadership drama, or worse, mandatory paperwork.
What he said confused me at first.
“City 13’s Citadel just collapsed.” Mint stated.
“What do you mean? Like we captured it!?” I excitedly shouted.
He took a long drag from his cig, and then started shaking. I grabbed Mint by the shoulders and forced him to look at me.
“This is great news! We have fought there for what? Two years? We finally pinned them! We got the bastards! They’ll be on the run, and we can win this thing! You and I are going to see this through!” I gleefully cheered.
“It wasn’t us…” Mint muttered.
“It wasn’t us? Then who? Anarchists? Rouge Combine?” I questioned.
“It was the beasts. They killed them all. We have no idea where they are.” Mint whimpered.
“Beasts? What? You believe those reports? We get reports about fairies and other shit every day. Now you decide to get scared because we made a breakthrough? We are winning, and now your scared? Jesus Mint! I didn’t see you scared after we had to evac multiple bases! Fuck man… What’s gotten into you? We are winning!” I angrily responded.
Mint walked over to his desk, opened up his old, beaten-up laptop, and fired up a security feed.
“Watch.” Mint ordered.
“Fine. I enjoy Combine getting their brains blown in you know?” I jested back at him.
I started to look at this security feed. It was grainy, low framerate, and had audio worse than the bootleg VHS tapes that we have movie night on base. A MPF Union was sprinting down the hall, spraying his MP5 behind him without even looking. Not the first time I’ve seen onions shit their pants when combat comes to their home instead of ours. Nothing special.
Then I heard the screams. I’ve heard a lot of screaming in my life, but nothing so…. Inhuman. So, chilling. Whatever the fuck made that sound, it needed to be put in the ground. It is not from Earth or even fucking Xen.
A figure walked into frame of the security camera. It was donned with white fur but walked like a man. And it was holding a handgun, I wasn’t sure which one. It didn’t matter though, Even Zombines couldn’t hold their guns after being infected. Whatever this thing was, it was intelligent enough to use a firearm. Its arm reached out, and it started shooting.
It walked out of frame, but it could still be heard. All I heard after that point was a ripping and a chewing noise. It fucking ate the UNION. I’ve met some sick people in this Rebellion, but nobody ever fucking ate the Combine!
“Where did you get this?” I hesitantly stated back towards Mint.
“It was a direct feed of the City 13 Citadel. SUs patched into their cams a few months ago. That clip was from two hours ago.” Mint muttered.
I was about to speak up when we heard shouting outside the Administration building.
“GET ME SOME GOD DAMN COUAGULATS AND A BLOOD BAG! WE GOT NINTY SECONDS BEFORE HE BLEEDS OUT!” The voice outside shouted.
Mint and I both ran out of the office and ran outside, there was Major Bazza, on a gurney covered in blood. With the shouting I was pretty sure it wasn’t Raspberry jelly all over him. A couple of medics were carrying his gurney over to the medical tent, while other people ran up and tried to help. Mint and I were no strangers to being needed as medical assistants for cases like this.
Hands were flying everywhere around Bazza, all doing different things. The field medic in the tent looked at me, then looked down at my belt. He focused on my pocketknife that I kept on me for cutting barbed wire.
“YOU! CUT HIS UNIFORM. WE NEED TO GET HIM STRIPPED TO STOP THIS BLEEDING!” The medic shouted.
I quickly unfolded my pocketknife and started cutting down his shirt, trying to rip it open. After cutting from the collarbone to the waist, I ripped the shirt open, exposing three big slashes on Bazza’s chest. Whatever hit him, it wasn’t a RANGER or CROSS that was for certain.
“It cut me….” Bazza half-consciously said to himself while looking up and all dazed.
After Mint saw the slash marks, he quickly stood back and snapped into a fear. He reached for his hip, pulling his service pistol, raising it into the air, and firing a few times. Once everyone stopped and looked at him, he shouted,
“GET BACK! HE’S INFECTED!”
He then, without hesitation, pointed at Bazza and fired several times, killing him instantly.
“What the fuck? You killed him!” I shouted in his face.
“Well, he would have killed the rest of us.” Mint calmly stated. “Look at his eyes….”
When I turned back, Bazza’s body lied idly on the table, eyes open. Yellow as the sun, with a slit for an iris, he was either also dying of Jaundice and blindness, or Mint was onto something.
I quickly looked at the solider that carried him into the base.
“When did he get slashed?”
The solider, still shaking, didn’t notice me. I grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him until he looked me in the eyes.
“When did he get slashed!?”
“About fifteen minutes ago…”
Mint stood in shock, looking as he wanted to either cry or scream. The situation was fucked. He turned to the radio operator a few feet away from him.
“Call in choppers. We need to evacuate. Now.”
“Aye sir.”
// This is a potential start to a side story series. Let me know if you want me to expand it.
The situation was fucked.
Ammo was running low, and they were everywhere. Frankly I was keeping a .45 for myself incase they got to me. I’ve seen too many poor bastards suffer. I’m not going out like that either. We had guys barricading the door with tables and furniture, but that was only going to buy a few minutes. We all knew that it was the eleventh hour here. We made it a hell of a lot longer than most folks. Everything went to shit about three days into it.
The funny thing was that we thought they were a gift at first. They tore threw Combine lines like nothing we ever saw. Then they got hungry for us. We held on better than they did, but still, most of us were gone in days.
This is a story. The story about how everything fell. Not only Combine, but us. A story on how sometimes the enemy could always be worse.
Day 0 of Light
The war was going normal. Days came and went, losses and gains were tallied, and progress was being made. We were hopeful. Weapons were getting better, and our boys were getting smarter. Our division just finalized plans on expanding training opportunities, to increase viability in multiple conditions. I even started taking up practice with a PKM. After a couple of years of Semi and Manual action, sometimes just spraying shit with an auto is fun.
Reports started coming in about beasts tearing through Combine FOBs and Citadels. I thought it was hokey. With the report system we had in place, bad intel came in often. It could have just as easily been some anarchist uprising at some FOBs. Besides, these places were thousands of miles away from where my group was stationed. Was glad to hear it wasn’t us getting smoked but took it with many grains of salt.
Then I got a radio call from Mint.
“Burns. I need you in my office. ASAP. New Developments”, Mint calmly spoke.
He was always the calm one when it came to bringing news. That could have meant anything, so I expected something minor, like when RECON put on a bake sale to buy something newer than a M3 Grease Gun. IDK why though, those things seemed like they worked great for them.
I opened the door to Mint’s office, only to find him pacing the room, chain smoking cigarettes. After LVET started using cigarettes as currency to buy things, he took up smoking. This couldn’t have been good. I’m expecting leadership drama, or worse, mandatory paperwork.
What he said confused me at first.
“City 13’s Citadel just collapsed.” Mint stated.
“What do you mean? Like we captured it!?” I excitedly shouted.
He took a long drag from his cig, and then started shaking. I grabbed Mint by the shoulders and forced him to look at me.
“This is great news! We have fought there for what? Two years? We finally pinned them! We got the bastards! They’ll be on the run, and we can win this thing! You and I are going to see this through!” I gleefully cheered.
“It wasn’t us…” Mint muttered.
“It wasn’t us? Then who? Anarchists? Rouge Combine?” I questioned.
“It was the beasts. They killed them all. We have no idea where they are.” Mint whimpered.
“Beasts? What? You believe those reports? We get reports about fairies and other shit every day. Now you decide to get scared because we made a breakthrough? We are winning, and now your scared? Jesus Mint! I didn’t see you scared after we had to evac multiple bases! Fuck man… What’s gotten into you? We are winning!” I angrily responded.
Mint walked over to his desk, opened up his old, beaten-up laptop, and fired up a security feed.
“Watch.” Mint ordered.
“Fine. I enjoy Combine getting their brains blown in you know?” I jested back at him.
I started to look at this security feed. It was grainy, low framerate, and had audio worse than the bootleg VHS tapes that we have movie night on base. A MPF Union was sprinting down the hall, spraying his MP5 behind him without even looking. Not the first time I’ve seen onions shit their pants when combat comes to their home instead of ours. Nothing special.
Then I heard the screams. I’ve heard a lot of screaming in my life, but nothing so…. Inhuman. So, chilling. Whatever the fuck made that sound, it needed to be put in the ground. It is not from Earth or even fucking Xen.
A figure walked into frame of the security camera. It was donned with white fur but walked like a man. And it was holding a handgun, I wasn’t sure which one. It didn’t matter though, Even Zombines couldn’t hold their guns after being infected. Whatever this thing was, it was intelligent enough to use a firearm. Its arm reached out, and it started shooting.
It walked out of frame, but it could still be heard. All I heard after that point was a ripping and a chewing noise. It fucking ate the UNION. I’ve met some sick people in this Rebellion, but nobody ever fucking ate the Combine!
“Where did you get this?” I hesitantly stated back towards Mint.
“It was a direct feed of the City 13 Citadel. SUs patched into their cams a few months ago. That clip was from two hours ago.” Mint muttered.
I was about to speak up when we heard shouting outside the Administration building.
“GET ME SOME GOD DAMN COUAGULATS AND A BLOOD BAG! WE GOT NINTY SECONDS BEFORE HE BLEEDS OUT!” The voice outside shouted.
Mint and I both ran out of the office and ran outside, there was Major Bazza, on a gurney covered in blood. With the shouting I was pretty sure it wasn’t Raspberry jelly all over him. A couple of medics were carrying his gurney over to the medical tent, while other people ran up and tried to help. Mint and I were no strangers to being needed as medical assistants for cases like this.
Hands were flying everywhere around Bazza, all doing different things. The field medic in the tent looked at me, then looked down at my belt. He focused on my pocketknife that I kept on me for cutting barbed wire.
“YOU! CUT HIS UNIFORM. WE NEED TO GET HIM STRIPPED TO STOP THIS BLEEDING!” The medic shouted.
I quickly unfolded my pocketknife and started cutting down his shirt, trying to rip it open. After cutting from the collarbone to the waist, I ripped the shirt open, exposing three big slashes on Bazza’s chest. Whatever hit him, it wasn’t a RANGER or CROSS that was for certain.
“It cut me….” Bazza half-consciously said to himself while looking up and all dazed.
After Mint saw the slash marks, he quickly stood back and snapped into a fear. He reached for his hip, pulling his service pistol, raising it into the air, and firing a few times. Once everyone stopped and looked at him, he shouted,
“GET BACK! HE’S INFECTED!”
He then, without hesitation, pointed at Bazza and fired several times, killing him instantly.
“What the fuck? You killed him!” I shouted in his face.
“Well, he would have killed the rest of us.” Mint calmly stated. “Look at his eyes….”
When I turned back, Bazza’s body lied idly on the table, eyes open. Yellow as the sun, with a slit for an iris, he was either also dying of Jaundice and blindness, or Mint was onto something.
I quickly looked at the solider that carried him into the base.
“When did he get slashed?”
The solider, still shaking, didn’t notice me. I grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him until he looked me in the eyes.
“When did he get slashed!?”
“About fifteen minutes ago…”
Mint stood in shock, looking as he wanted to either cry or scream. The situation was fucked. He turned to the radio operator a few feet away from him.
“Call in choppers. We need to evacuate. Now.”
“Aye sir.”
// This is a potential start to a side story series. Let me know if you want me to expand it.
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