Atlantis Rising: Perfect War
Here's a bit of background, because most of the story I already have sorted out, but it will take a while to write out. Basically, this tale is seen from the eyes of Scott West, member of the elite Special Operations 13th Black Ops division. He, along with nineteen other Black-Ops soldiers, are sent in an XV-22 Valkyrie to secure a classified 'package' from an American research outpost being overwhelmed by Russian forces. Two regular V-22 Ospreys are sent as escorts and to air-lift any survivors.
The mission goes off without a hitch. None of the 13th are killed and they find and successfully escape with the package, about the size of a coffin and shrouded in solid steel. The other Ospreys stay behind as Scott's leaves the hot zone immediately.
This is also the account of how Russia becomes equipped with Putty in the Atlantis Rising cannon.
Homepage: Atlantis
03:47 Hours, August 3rd, 2017 (Military Calendar), XV-22 Osprey Twilight Flame en route to Alpha Base, over Atlantian jungle, Atlantis Mainland
Scott West inhaled deeply as he hit the hydraulic catches on his full-face blackout helmet, eager for a taste of the sweet, unfiltered air. The helmet released with a pneumatic hiss, and the matte-black headpiece came away. Scott turned the helmet over so the visor was facing him and examined the helmet.
It was similar to the standard issue Tactical Combat Armor piece, part of the CROC Armor, but with considerably more high-tech, high-expense advancements. All of their gear was high-tech, high-expense. The 13th always got the best of the best. Advanced armor with higher-density ballistic gel, a more sophisticated electronics suite in the suit, a more powerful exo-skeleton that lifted the armor's considerable weight and then some, high-class weaponry. The helmet Scott was twisting between his hands had the addition of a full-face front with internal air scrubbers, externally-silent comm. system, auditory amplification, and integral Sonics emitters. Turn it on, high-frequency pulse blasted out, any dinos or other creatures with sensitive hearing scattered in every direction for a hundred yards.
And of course, everything was completely customizable. Scott set his helmet on its cradle next to his seat, watching as the others in his squad removed the various pieces of their customized armor. There were thicker-than-normal gauntlets that delivered an electric shock at the touch of a button, immediately rendering anything live touching it unconscious. There were bulked-up pauldrons that could blast an EMP, leaving any unshielded tech unworkable for several minutes. Elbow joints with short, squat metal spikes. Bayonets that could slide out on springs from the forearm portions of the gauntlets.
Scott looked over his back and smiled. He had enhanced his own armor with an integral jump-jet pack, and enough non-volatile fuel for a minute of continued max-power. He couldn't fly, but it let him jump to absurd heights before gravity reasserted itself. Jack had had the same thing installed in his armor, too.
Jack sat directly across from Scott. Although Scott was close to every one of the 19 other 13th Black Ops soldiers, Jack was something special. He and Jack were their own army of two. Against-all-odds, come-out-smiling kind of partnership. The two had been together in more scrapes and gotten out alive than either cared to remember.
Scott set his rifle in the cradle with his helmet, stood, and stretched. They had been flying for about twenty minutes, away from the outpost that was their latest successful mission, away from the Russian ground forces and fighters. The back hatch in the XV-22 Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) Valkyrie was jammed open, frozen in place from damaged hydraulics. But that meant Scott got a clear view of the Atlantian landscape, pale underneath the wan light of the full moon.
Around him, conversation sparked as the guys began to talk of the mission.
"Did you see, 'bout halfway through the op, when those two Russians were going for the crate? Stacked one on top of eachother. Real smart. I lined up and opened fire, an' I cut 'em both down with one burst."
"Yeah, and your butt would've been fried by the third guy if Conrad hadn't bailed you out."
"Well, yeah, but that's what a team's for, right?"
"So what do you guys think's in the thing?" Luke asked, and kicked the side of the crate.
"Luke, you put another toe on the package an' I'll dump you over the side." Sergeant Blake warned. "The eggheads at Alpha wanted this badly enough to send us out to get it. I swear, if you manage to break the thing we all just recovered under fire for, I'll stick a tazer through your ear and scramble that stuffing you call a brain."
"It's got like a foot and a half of armor, Sarge. I doubt if a direct hit from a 105' could even dent the metal."
"I'll bet it's empty." Someone said, forestalling the Sarge's response. "I'll bet we came all the way out here and picked up a false trail, and the real one's still back at the outpost, maybe underground somewhere, waiting for a larger strike force to recapture the outpost and the eggheads to dig it back up."
The men pondered the idea for a few seconds. "Shut your trap, Jackson. You think too much when you're not supposed to."
"Anytime, sweetheart."
"That's Corporal Cramer to you, Private."
There were four girls in the squad. Cramer, MC, AC, and Fox. They made life in the 13th a lot more entertaining.
Scott leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Another mission to add to his growing bragging resume.
Scott was just nodding off when the entire craft shook violently, jerking him back awake. Scott looked around and reached for his harness, trying to buckle it befor-
The Valkyrie shook again, harder this time. "Brace!" The pilot yelled over the internal comm., and banked to the right. Scott was thrown out of his seat and across the drop bay.
His exposed head collided with the other side of the flier and he reeled back, seeing stars. The centripetal force kept him glued to the wall. Scott's eyes cleared just in time for the plane to bank the other way as another missile flew past, missing the bird by half a foot. The floor came rushing up to meet Scott, and he blacked out for a few seconds. AA fire licked up and punched pockmarks in the super-hard armor.
Scott opened his eyes, every muscle tense, and spat out blood. He looked to his left in time to see someone dangling in space, holding onto the hydraulic arm as the acceleration tore at him. Scott dived forward and reached for the guy, but just as he got there the plane shuddered again as a 40mm round exploded on the vehicle's underside, shaking loose the soldier's grip.
Scott winced, looked after the soldier for a moment, then looked back to his empty seat and next to it, his helmet and rifle. He had to get his gear.
Scott dived forward again, stumbling as the Valkyrie lurched. He overshot and collided with the wall again, but his fumbling hands found his gear and wrenched it from the cradle. As the gear came free, Scott stumbled backwards into the open bay-
-just as the Valkyrie was hit by missile from an enemy SAM site.
The XV-22 Osprey tore apart, shredding itself in mid-air. Scott didn't see who else was thrown out with him into the night air, but he saw several forms falling with him. Wind tore his helmet and rifle from his clutch, sending them spinning into the air around him.
Scott utilized his training, trying to spread-eagle and stop his rotation, and slow his descent. The problem was, he was free-falling without a parachute. It took all his skill, nerve, and focus to put aside his heart-stopping adrenaline surge and steady himself in the air.
Scott steadied. To his right was Jack, fumbling with his gauntlet controls. Scott saw Jack's jump-jet pack light and Jack immediately slowed, jumping out of Scott's vision.
Good plan. Scott hit the button on his gauntlet, and jets erupted out of sunken ports in his pack with a sharp crack. He boosted the gain to max and angled himself for maximum lift. Looking down, he realized he wouldn't slow fast enough or have enough fuel to stop himself anywhere near completely. This was gonna hurt.
It was over before he knew it. One second Scott was falling through the air, next second the jungle canopy was next to him.
Scott covered his head with his arms as he went through the canopy, bouncing off of tree branches. His armor absorbed the hits, the ballistic gel heating - until it boiled and his armor dumped first a quarter of gel, then half, three quarters-
Scott landed in a tangled knot of vines, his descent halted abruptly, and then he blacked out.
Scott came to at the sound of distant grunting. His whole body was on fire. He tried to move, but something kept him pinned in place. Pain lanced down from the base of his neck to his toes. That was good. It meant he was alive.
Scott forced his eyes open. He blinked several times before the blurry image his eyes were putting into his brain resolved into the arching branches of a massive tree. Vines snaked down from branches, supporting his weight fifteen feet above the ground.
Scott tried to move his body again. He couldn't feel his arm, but everything else responded with massive amounts of pain. Scott winced and drew his knife with his left hand, sawing at the vines that were cutting off the bloodflow to his arm.
As the last vine came free, blood rushed back into his arm, setting it crawling with pins and needles.
Scott bit his lip and muffled a curse, shaking his arm out. After a couple minutes his arm felt well enough to hold things again, so he transferred his knife to his right hand and began sawing at the vines that held him in place. The sharp combat knife cut through the plants like butter, and Scott had most of the vines split by the time he heard a yell that he knew as Jack's.
Instinctively, Scott reached up and felt near his ear, where his comm. pad usually lay. Instead, he found only his ear on his unhelmeted head.
Scott raised his left gauntlet and tried the backup comm. The whole gauntlet was bashed up and most of the displays were cracked and useless, but the comm. worked. Scott tried to raise Jack over the Teamcomm.
"Jack! Come in, Jack. Respond!"
Jack grunted back fuzzily. "About effing time. I've been trying to raise you for an hour."
"What? What time is it?" Scott asked.
"It's five in the morning, but we've got bigger problems right now. I'm stuck in a clump of vines. Can't move at all. And I've got a pack of Microraptors below me. Tell me you've got a rifle, and your Sonics work.
Scott severed the last vine and dropped to the jungle floor. "No rifle," he reported, then tried his Sonics. Although he wouldn't actually be able to hear it, there should have been momentary feedback over the comm, and a green light would have pulsed on his gauntlet and Heads-Up Display (HUD) had he had a helmet.
"No Sonics either, I don't think. Hard to tell." Scott patted his right thigh and left shin. "Ive got my MP7, a Magnum, an' my knife."
"That'll have to do. Get up here and find a tree or something, get rid of these things."
"Right. Gimme a shout."
Jack shouted, "I'm over here!"
Scott didn't respond, just in case there was something worse than Microraptors lurking around in the jungle. Micros weren't actually that much of a threat, unless they swarmed, or someone was completely immobile, like Jack.
Scott picked up into a run when Jack called him again, "Hey, uh, Scott? The Micros are starting to get curious. I've got maybe five minutes tops. You wanna pick up the pace a bit?"
"I'm almost there!" Scott called back.
Scott swung around a blind corner and came face-to-maw with a Dilophosaurus.
Scott yelled a curse and jumped backward as the Dilo roared and lunged. Seven and a half feet tall, twenty feet long, weighed over a thousand pounds. This thing would turn him into a lump of meat in a couple seconds out in the open. Of course, they had trained for these sort of encounters. All the 13's had. They were all really good at dino-combat. That was assuming they had full armor, a rifle, and a good melee weapon. Scott had none of these.
Instead, Scott looked around wildly, then dove for the shelter of a group of roots. There was a small opening, under a tree, and if he could just get there-
The Dilo lunged again, knocking Scott flat on his back. Scott unholstered his MP7 and got off a burst of four rounds before the Dilo's muscular tail came around and slammed him in the chest.
Scott went flying, lost his grip on his MP7, and collided with a tree ten feet away. He sank to his knees, ears ringing. Scott reached a hand around to his head and found it wet, bloody. He really needed to find a helmet.
Scott hit the deck as the Dilophosaurus charged him again, trying to roll away, but then the Dilo's leg had him pinned to the ground.
The Dilo bent its head and roared in Scott's face.
Scott winced and turned his head away, scrabbling at his shoulder where his combat knife was holstered. The Dilo put more pressure on Scott's chest - without the armor, Scott would already be a pulped smear.
Scott's fumbling fingers bruised the hilt of the knife, shot up the shaft, disengaged the lock, and yanked the knife from the sheath. Flipping it backhand, Scott plunged the six-inch blade into the Dilo's ankle.
The blade was ripped from his fingers as the Dilo hopped awkwardly backward on one foot, roaring.
Scott rolled to the side, got up, and sprinted for the tree, backsliding into cover.
The Dilo roared again, making ready to charge the tree.
"Sit-rep!" Jack yelled over the comm.
"I'm pinned by this stupid Dilophosaurus. These things aren't even in the same time period."
"What?" Jack asked.
"You know, Jurassic, Triassic, Cretaceous. Most of the dinos are from the late Cretaceous, but this stupid thing belongs back in the early Jurassic-"
"Does it really matter? It's here, it's about to kill you."
"Good point. Thanks for the encouragement."
"It's an ancient, archaic hunting machine. We're both dead."
Just then, the Dilo thrust its clawed forearm into the shallow hole created by the roots, scrabbling in the dirt. One claw caught the edge of Scott's armor and carved a long gash from the side of his chest, down his thigh, and to his knee. The internal gel temperatures skyrocketed.
The claws came in again. Screaming, Scott kicked out and trapped the Dilo's hand against the side of the tree by the strength of his legs, drew his 12.7mm Semi-Explosive Round-firing Magnum from his hip, and discharged six rounds into the Dilo's wrist.
The Dilophosaurus hissed, arched its back, and screamed, a terrible cry. It yanked its tattered arm from the tree and fled into the jungle, hand flopping oddly, half blown off the forearm.
Scott numbly, mechanically reloaded, catching his breath, then leaped out of cover and sprinted to the base of the Jack's tree.
Jack was wriggling madly, trying to dislodge the single Microraptor that sat hunched on his chest, head cocked quizzically. Scott lined up a shot and blew the creature in half.
Four other Microraptors squawked as one. Left to right, Scott dropped three of them from their trees in explosions of meat and feathers, and clipped the leg of the last one, which took flight and fled the scene.
"You cut that one a little close." Jack huffed, eyes wide, when Scott had finally cut him down.
"Your welcome. Next time, I'll play the helpless damsel and you can go take on a Dilophosaurus."
"That's not fair. I couldn't move!"
"Exactly. Damsel in distress. Just don't get any funny ideas about me being your knight in shining armor."
"Get up here and cut me down." Jack grunted, no longer amused.
"Quit whining. I'm going to need your knife." Scott said, and climbed up the tree.
"You manage to lose yours already?"
"Effing Dilo pulled it out of my hand."
"I've got an extra. Down at my shin."
Scott cut Jack down from the tree, then walked back to the clearing where he had fought the Dilophosaurus, rubbing the back of his head and wincing. Jack noticed and said, "Here, lemme patch you up."
Jack took a large field medkit from his combat pack and popped the lid. He swabbed Scott's head with a disinfectant, smeared it in antibiotic salve, and bandaged it tight. "Well, that was a pretty good knock. What's two plus two?" Jack asked.
"Ninety-seven." Scott replied sarcastically, then retrieved his MP7.
"Alright. Try the comm. See if you can raise anyone else." Jack suggested.
"Can't. The satellite uplink got swiss-cheesed. I got basic radio only, good for maybe ten miles? Less than that, given the jungle. Probably about two miles. Why don't you do yours?"
Jack held up his arm, showing his cracked armor and busted helmet. "I got zippo, besides the secondary comm. like you. So we've each got two miles. Fun. This'll be great."
"We need to make it to the primary crash site. I'll bet some of the others survived. It is the 13th, after all. We need to find my helmet, and with that, the crash site. And a rifle would be nice."
"That it would. The Valkyrie's entire cargo bay was loaded with equipment when we went down. If we can get there, or to one of the secondary crash site pieces, we might be able to find some supplies."
"But first we need my helmet. The locator's going strong, it's probably still intact. It's about eight miles from here."
"Perfect. Let's go get it. Lead the way."
Scott took a second to orient himself, then set off into the jungle, MP7 in one hand, Magnum in the other.
"Walk it off, Marines! Let's get the shop set up."
Nine soldiers groaned and stirred. Five bodies remained motionless.
Sergeant Blake cursed quietly. Only nine. Fifteen in here, including him, meant five had been sucked out the back. There was no way any of those guys survived, except maybe Scott and Jack. Those two with the thruster packs. Blake had told them, stupid idea. Put your money into something useful, like the forearm gauntlet blades most of the other guys had. For all the good that did any of them.
"I said up, Marines! You know which way up is?"
Conrad struggled to his knees, crawled partway into the jungle, and coughed a mixture of bile, blood, and mucus up into the mossy jungle floor. "Sarge. Gimme a minute." he groaned.
Some of the others were struggling to their feet now. Sergeant Blake limped over to the first of the still guys, checking for vitals. Zippo. Blake couldn't even tell who it was - half the guy's face was sheared away, one arm was a still-burning stump, and half the guy's torso was splattered into chunks from an explosion. The unlucky victim of proximity to the Valkyrie's engines.
Blake stood up, spat blood, massaging his leg with his hand. "Anyone who can walk. I want a perimeter established ASAP. We're all hurting right now. Grab whatever gear you need in the next thirty seconds and hit it topside. I want to know if there's anything hostile breathing within three hundred yards of my bird."
"Yes sir," four of them mumbled, and combed the wreck for rifles, ammo, and anything else they could find, then clambered out through the cracked-open doors of the Valkyrie. The other five remained, stoically dressing wounds and beginning to stitch cuts that had stopped bleeding.
"Don't try that without painkillers. I don't want you to slice an artery when your nerves wake back up and jolt." Blake ordered, tossing a bottle of pills to the nearest Marine. "Let's get it done." Blake moved to the next downed soldier. Another dead body, this one with the neck bent at an awkward angle.
"Sergeant, we've got clear fields of fire from the highest point of the crash, which just happens to be a cannon pod. We'll have the 40mm up in a moment, but everything looks clear best as we can tell." Conrad reported from up top. "The old bird looks like she cracked into three main pieces. About half of her is resting here, but the tail and back got split and sucked out. They're somewhere out there in the jungle. Cargo hold and cockpit are all ours, though."
"Good work. Send a man up to the cockpit and see if he can't get the Valkyrie's computers booted up. Jack and Scott are out in the jungle somewhere, with nothing in the way of weaponry or supplies, and if we can get the Valkyrie's GPS and GUSS to find the secondary crash sites and upload them to the GUSS, they'll be that much better off with an array of weapons at their fingertips. We might even get a satellite uplink to punch through the canopy, and then we can get a distress signal out. We might even make it out of here." Blake replied, then signed off the comm.
The next two were dead as well. No life. This was without a doubt his worst mission in his career. But what the hell were SAM and AA batteries doing out in the middle of the jungle?
Blake approached the last soldier, who was draped protectively over the metal case. Effing thing. Blake had lost so many men for this one little case.
He reached down and touched the soldier's shoulder, running his hand up to the soldier's neck, which was still encased in armor. Blake popped the seal and removed the neckpiece, feeling for vitals.
The second his fingers brushed the soldier's bare skin, he jolted abruptly and started breathing raggedly, then coughed a stream of blood onto the floor.
Blake withdrew his hand, momentarily startled, then said, "Cough it out, soldier. Don't want that much blood anywhere near your lungs."
The Marine obliged, hacking until nothing more came up. Blake helped turn him over, recognizing Hayden, and propped him against the wall of the bird.
Blake reached forward and popped the seals on Hayden's chestplate, removing the pieces one at a time, carefully. As the final piece came away, Blake winced and said, "Ouch. Marine, you've taken a helluva beating."
As Hayden breathed, only one side of his chest moved. The other remained still - that was a lung gone. The armor had held though, meaning that most of Hayden's injuries were crushing damage. With a tool from his medkit, Blake sliced the Marine's Olive-green form-fitting undershirt and delicately slipped it off the wounded soldier.
The Marine's muscular chest was colored almost a uniform dark blue and brown from bruises. Blake whistled. "That case must be harder than we thought. You hit dirt riding on that thing?"
"Guess so, Sarge. I wasn't exactly awake." Hayden coughed.
Blake fished a compress out of the kit and wrapped Hayden's torso in the gel bandage. He selected a Medipack, which was basically a chemical cocktail of anti-biotic, painkilling, anti-inflamatory, accelerated regenerative agent, inserted the needle into Hayden's arm, and pumped in the contents of the syringe. He helped Hayden slip into another undershirt and then refastened his cracked armor.
"You'll live, fortunately or unfortunately we don't know yet. We have to get through hell to get back."
"Gimme a gun and I'll see what I can do." Hayden replied. Blake almost smiled. This was why he loved the 13th - tough to the core. Blake grabbed a rifle off of the growing stack of supplies the other Marines were collecting from the ruins and handed it to Hayden.
"Just rest easy for now. They'll be plenty of work to do later."
Blake stood and surveyed the inside of the Valkyrie. Things were coming along. Blake counted he and his team extremely fortunate that they had been shot down in a Valkyrie. There was nothing better to be downed in, except maybe a Vulture. Valkyries, as highly mobile attack vehicles, carried the equipment to be turned into highly mobile attack outposts. Upon landing, Valkyries could be deployed into small installations with an Ops center, barracks/mess, armory, and triage, with the ordinance to defend it in the middle of the jungle. Blake stepped through the half-destroyed wall divisor into the cargo hold, watching as two Marines unloaded motion sensors and cameras that could be linked to auto-sentry guns, as well as a small, collapsible tower. CGT. It was basically a cut-down, transportable version of the Defensive Guard Towers, DGTs, that were deployed at major firebases and the like.
As they trundled out the cargo bay doors to begin setting it up, Blake went back into the troop bay. He grabbed one handle of the partially buried metal case, planted his feet, and hauled it up out of the dirt.
The soldiers clustered around as Blake knelt in front of the clamshell clasps. The case required a key-code entry and thumbprint scan to open, both of which were broken, shorted out tangles of wires sparking feebly. Blake pried the claps into the unlocked positions with the strength of his hands and popped the lid.
A green glow lit up the interior of the downed bird as the lid rose. Blake exhaled explosively, ran his hand through his shaven hair, and put his helmet back on. "This is good. Very, very good." He muttered.
"What is it, Sarge?" Someone in the back asked.
"This, Marines," Sergeant Blake said, standing, "-is our ticket out of here. Clear a space and get some work surfaces up. We're gonna need some space to use this."
"Come on, we're almost there." Scott said, checking his sole working display for the thousandth time. One of two blue dots pulsed tantalizingly close. "Just another 100 yards."
"So, you think it's the rifle or the helmet?" Jack huffed, leaning against a tree while he retied his boot.
"The helmet would be more helpful if it's got a working comm." Scott said between breaths. "But the rifle would give me more peace of mind."
"I'll bet it's the rifle, and we'll have to go hiking another twenty miles to find the helmet. Why'd you have to take your stuff off?"
"Cause I didn't think we'd get shot down and sucked out the back of a plane. Besides, why'd you have to go and break your stuff?"
"Point taken. I may have landed a little poorly."
Scott shook his head, and then the two set off again, tearing their way through the dense underbrush. They had been hiking for two hours, so the sunlight was just starting to peek above the trees. Scott guessed it was somewhere around 06:30 Hours. Every step took three times as much effort as it normally should have, thanks to the jungle growth. Granted, the two had powerful exoskeletons built into their armor that helped them out by enhancing the strength of their limbs, but it had still been an exhausting 8 miles so far.
"What I wouldn't give for a machete right now." Jack sighed as he hacked a vine out of his way with his knife.
"Or better yet, a pair of those gauntlet blades." Scott agreed.
"First thing when we get back, I'm installing those in my armor. Next time we get shot down in the jungle, it'll be a lot different."
"First we gotta get back. Locator says the whatever it is is within 20 feet. Keep your eyes peeled." Scott said.
"It'll probably be in the trees somewhere." Jack advised. "Eyes up."
The two kicked around a small clearing, searching for the missing piece.
"There it is," Scott sighed with relief, pointing. "It's the rifle - there, up in that tre-"
"Watch out!" Jack cried.
At that second, something large, heavy, and powerful broke out of the jungle and slammed into Scott's side.
Instinctively, Scott pulled his combat blade out as he fell, an enormous weight on top of him pinning him in place. He hit the ground and the breath left him in a whoosh. Through hazy vision, Scott looked up and saw the great weight take the form of an Atlantian relative of Postosuchus, the giant Late-Triassic carnivore belonging to the quadruped Rauisuchians family.
The four-foot tall, 14 foot long, 700 pound carnivore lowered its maw and wailed into Scott's face, scrabbling with its legs at his chest.
More grooves cut into Scott's armor to match the one given him by the Dilophosaur. Scott raised his arm to deflect the creature's terrible foreleg. Scott's other hand swept the knife around and stabbed the Postosuchus in the side. The creature barely flinched, instead growing angry. Scott yanked his knife out and stabbed again.
Then Jack was there. He drew back and rammed his boot into the Posto's side, making it halt it's attack on Scott, turn, and glare. Jack raised his MP7 without hesitation and emptied the clip, full-auto.
The Posto screamed, and Scott took advantage of its confusion to kick it in the face and scramble out of its clutches.
Jack reloaded and sprayed more rounds. The Posto screamed again and leaped impossibly high, disappearing into the jungle underbrush ten feet away.
Jack dropped the half-spent clip and inserted a new one. Scott drew his own weapon, holding his knife in one hand.
"That thing's nowhere near dead. It'll try to flank us, come in from the sides and ambush us." Jack whispered.
"I know." Scott responded. "But the second I go for the rifle it'll come for you."
"Climb fast, then. Gimme your SMG, then run and get the rifle. Otherwise it'll take all day to kill this thing."
Scott handed over his SMG, making sure it had a full clip, then turned and scrambled up the tree closest to his rifle.
Just as they had predicted, the Proto chose that moment to pounce out of the jungle to Jack's left. Jack reacted with a speed born of equal parts adrenaline and good reflexes, speed that only the 13th possessed. But the Proto was still faster. Jack jumped to one side and opened fire with both SMGs, but the Proto still managed to clip his shoulder and send him spinning.
Scott didn't see anything more, because he was pulling himself along the branches to his M8 carbine. Just another couple feet.
Jack rose to one knee and continued his full-auto barrage. The Proto ducked behind its massive armored skin and leaped through the air, pouncing on Jack and beginning to maul him.
Scott stretched out a hand for his carbine. It was just out of reach. He stretched to the limits of his arm, his fingers barely brushing the ballistic plastic stock.
On the ground, Jack took a swipe across the cheek, carving bloody grooves in his face. The Proto howled.
Then the M8 was in Scott's hands. He pulled the rifle into his shoulder and sighted down the scope, quickly drilling a three-round burst of 6.8mm armor-piercing high velocity rounds into the base of the Proto's neck.
He switched the fire selector to automatic and layed on the trigger, careful to keep the rifle's targeting reticule away from Jack's exposed head.
The Proto fell to one side, thrashing in the mud and making a high, keening sound. The thing still wasn't dead even after taking two-thirds of the clip.
Scott dropped to the ground and emptied the rest of the thirty-round clip into the Proto's vulnerable underbelly. It twitched and lay still.
Jack got up and dusted himself off. "Thanks for that."
"That's two you owe me now on this trip alone." Scott said, grinning.
"Oh, I beg to differ. Did you already forget, I just saved your butt from that thing so you could go get the carbine. I'm down to one."
"Fine. But you still owe me."
"Right. Now let's go get that helmet."
"Brilliant idea. Looks like its only two miles from here."
"God, I love hiking."
"Blake, to use the standard cliche, we've got company."
"How many, what kind, and how far?" Blake asked.
"Four, dunno, and 200 yards." Jackson responded.
"What size?"
"Jeez, I don't have them on camera yet, just motion and thermals. 196 yards - they're taking this pretty slowly. I think they're humanoid, roughly 6 feet tall. Either Raptors or Russians, I'm guessing."
"Which do you think is worse?" Blake half-laughed.
"Well, Raptors are more psychologically intimidating, what with the huge claws and super-strength and speed and all," Jackson mused. "And our armor would protect us from small-arms fire from Ivan. But Ivan will have comm. gear, and if they're lucky enough to get a message out through the canopy, we're screwed. 180 yards."
"Right. Let's roll out the carpet and set the table. Get Bravo squad out at 100 yards with Delta on behind. Alert everybody else, and let's see what happens."
Jackson cracked his knuckles in anticipation. "Right. With all the new improvements, I really hope they are Russians. It'd be more fun to watch Bravo go to town on a coupla' Yuries."
"Exactly. Tell them to make sure their helmet-cams are rolling - this'll be our best entertainment for a while yet."
"Keep moving, they're right behind us!" Jack whispered hoarsely.
As if to emphasize his point, a chilling, reptilian scream pulsed behind them. Raptors.
They had been hiking less than a mile when the Raptors had found their scent. Scott supposed the dead Postosuchus had attracted them, and from there the two humans had been stalked. Now came the lightning attack.
Scott got up and ran. Every bush, every tree, every shadow, every angle of attack was his enemy. Scott's head was on constant swivel, but his feet never slowed. Jack was right behind him. But even though it felt good to be running so quickly, Scott knew it was hopeless. The Raptors could run at speeds of sixty miles an hour - completely, ridiculously overkill in a place like this. Scott came around one tree, smacked his head on a branch, and stepped into open space. There was a sharp drop-off he hadn't seen.
Scott was close-lined by the branch and fell straight onto his back, sliding downhill. Jack managed a less-than-graceful mid-air flutter and landed on his butt, scraping his armor on the way down.
A Raptor materialized out of the shadow at the top of the drop-off. Scott saw it out of the corner of his eye, drew his SMG, and opened fire as he slid.
"Scott - side!" Jack yelled, drawing his own MP7. Scott remembered just in time the Raptor's favorite attack - flanking.
Scott hit the dirt at the bottom of the drop-off as a large thing flew over his head, where he had been a second before. Scott rolled and came up firing, but the 7.62mm rounds only irritated the 6-foot-tall beast. Scott dropped to one knee, clipped his MP7 onto his thigh, and pulled his rifle from his back.
The Raptor squawked and hopped as the first burst took it in the hip. It jumped three feet to the right and started limping into the jungle, but Scott got up and drilled it again, in the side of the neck. The Raptor screamed and fell, still writhing, but Scott didn't have time to end it.
Jack tackled Scott from behind as another Raptor sailed over them. "Come on! Run!" Jack yelled, dragged Scott to his feet, and then they were both sprinting for the blip on Scott's display. Their one chance out of this - the helmet.
Scott ducked under branches, leaped over logs, and beat his way through brush. He skidded to a halt when his display told him he was literally right on top of the helmet. Scott looked around wildly, not seeing anything.
Jack broke through the underbrush, firing bullets into the jungle. A chorus of hissing and screaming echoed from every side. They were surrounded.
Scott caught a glimpse of the tinted-blue of his helmet's faceplate, lying in the sheltered overhang of a large tree. He dove under the tree's roots and grabbed his helmet, shook the dirt out, and slotted it into place over his head.
The HUD immediately warmed to life. Scott sighed with relief. It was good to have his tech back online. He dropped the magazine from his carbine and fed a new one in, watching the ammo counter on his display reset to 30.
Then a Raptor's snout broke into Scott's vision as Jack dropped beside him. Scott snapped his rifle up and fired.
The Raptor jerked its head back and melted into the shadows.
Scott tried his comm. Almost immediately, a looped message filled his helmet's speakers.
"Broadcasting on revolving frequencies. Marines, if any of you are alive out there, check in. Broadcasting-"
Scott manipulated the controls on his gauntlet. "Blake!"
"Scott? You're alive." Blake sounded relieved.
"Yeah, not for much longer. We need immediate help. We're pinned down by a pack of Raptors with one working rifle and our sidearms. We need heavier firepower up here, can you support?!"
"Of course. I'm dispatching two men now, looks like your about four miles away. They should be there in about ten minutes. Just try to hold out until then."
"Two men? There are seven Raptors out there. We need the works. How many-"
"Trust me. The guys will get you out and escort you back to the main crash site."
"If- if you say so. We'll hold out here as long as we can."
"Roger."
Scott heard Blake muttering, "Raptors, huh? I wonder... should be interesting." as he signed off the comm.
"ETA?" Jack asked as he pumped rounds through a gap in the roots.
"Ten minutes. We've got to hold out till then."
The next ten minutes were a blur, a nightmare scene that took on a sense of unreality. The sun continued its sluggish climb to its full height as Raptors repeatedly charged the two Americans entrenched in the roots of the tree. They kept the two on their toes, battling in and under the roots as from time to time a Raptor would wiggle down under the tree, inside the roots with the two, on their blind side. Scott fired round after round, but the Raptors never died. They would always pull out right before he managed to pin them down with a couple bursts and finish them off.
Scott tried not to keep glancing at his HUD's Mission Clock, knowing that would only make it seem to take longer, but he couldn't help it. After every wave he checked as the counter ticked on in slow motion. Finally, it dinged ten. Where were the two guys, and how were they going to take out a pack of Raptors?
Two Raptors wriggled into the den. Scott turned, bringing the rifle to bear even though he knew he wouldn't have time -
And watched, awe-struck, as an armor-clad figure dropped through a hole in the roots, gripped the Raptor by its neck, and drove a spiked limb into the Raptor's side. The dino wailed in pain.
The second dino turned around, only to have its chest chopped into with a gauntlet blade. The crescent shaped weapon sliced clean through the animal's outer layer of skin and embedded in the Raptor's rib cage.
The penetrator arm, which Scott barely registered was tacked on impossibly under the figure's two regular arms, slid out of the first Raptor, turned with incredible flexibility, and shot into the second Raptor's mouth, through its jaw, and into its brain. The dino dropped.
With the one hand that was strangling the Raptor, the figure picked it up as if it was no heavier than a gallon of water and slammed it into the base of the tree again and again. A fourth arm came around and pointed at the second Raptor. A humming filled the air, and when Scott looked again, he noticed the chain-gun grafted onto the limb. The Raptor's side was drilled with 5mm semi-explosive rounds that tore it up, leaving a bloody, shredded mess.
A second figure was standing in the middle of four Raptors, out in the open. As Scott watched, one Raptor pounced from behind. Before they could even call a warning, the armor-clad figure turned with impossible speed, caught the Raptor with one gauntleted hand and began to throttle it, at the same time bringing a shotgun to bear with its two left arms. One Raptor immediately ate two exlposive slugs fired in rapid-succession, pitched backward, and died. A second Raptor was clipped in the shoulder and was sent spinning and hopping into the jungle.
The Raptor that was being choked was hoisted into the air, hit with the second right arm, and thrown to the ground and pinned in place with one foot. The final Raptor tried to flee but was intercepted by a wave of solid force that dragged it back to the ground. Telekinesis. The second figure materialized next to the fourth Raptor and broke its neck with a quick flex of his hands.
"Jesus." Jack muttered.
Scott scrambled out of the den, regarding the two monsters before him. "Fox? Luke?"
The smaller figure, Fox, smiled. "You two have been out of action for too long. Let's get you back to base. You've got a lot of catching up to do."
"Russian patrol. Heavy gear, badass combat armor Spetsnaz. Cake-walk." Jackson summed up.
"So Ivan finally followed up with its AA. What the hell do the Russians have a SAM out here for?" Blake wondered.
"And not just any SAM. Regular missiles would've been shaken off first by the radar jammer and second by the chaff. That was some serious equipment they had." Jackson remarked.
"Shh. Show's about to start."
Four Russians advanced towards the still-smoking wreckage of the Valkyrie, spread out in loose formation, completely oblivious to the two American super soldiers that lay camouflaged in the jungle underbrush in their path.
"Five - four - three - two - one - showtime."
The first Russian stepped right over the first Marine. Then the second, and third. As the fourth passed, the Marine stood, grabbed the Spetsnaz in a choke-hold, and wrestled him to the dirt, completely silently. He then advanced with a large knife held in his four-foot long, muscular, spindly tail.
Suddenly, the Marine lunged forward and stabbed the third Russian under the chin with his combat knife. The second Marine leaped up as the two remaining Russians whirled around at the sound of their comrade's gurgling death-scream. The Marine drove a penetrator arm into the base of one's skull and wrapped a big, meaty arm with a grafted automatic shotgun around the second's neck. With the Marine's enhanced strength, the second soldier quickly grew still.
"Ah, I love genetic engineering." Blake sighed, lowering his binoculars.
"Genetic engineering." Scott considered, staring at the titanium case that was now resting open inside the Valkyrie. "Smart."
"Yep." Fox agreed. "See, the case was loaded with the stuff. Blake even read the manual." She shuddered, then laughed. "The eggheads nicknamed it 'Putty.' I'm told its basically a mixture of raw stem cells. Mould it, shape it, hook it up to this little electrical thingy-ma-bobber and zap it with a computer-controlled series of jolts to make it whatever you want, then graft it on. Most of the guys went for some extra limbs and the enhanced strength. No sense of imagination." Fox said, flicking her new tail, which was coated with dark olive-colored flexible armor plates, like on an ankylosaur's tail. Instead of a weighted club at the end, Fox had had someone mould a slim, spiked mace.
"When do I get to use some?" Scott and Jack asked simultaneously.
"Blake's rationing the stuff out like its solid gold. And he said we couldn't use it for aesthetic enhancements." Fox pouted. Scott grinned. "It has to be something useful, and he has to approve it. But other than that, he's allowed everyone a first portion, which was a pretty goodly amount considering I got a tail, enhanced reflexes, and a penetrator arm out of it." Fox held up her spiked penetrator arm. The spike was barbed for extra flesh damage.
Scott considered what he would do with his Putty allowance. "What does he ration it on?"
"He says he'll allot more Putty if we complete errands and stuff that'll help us all survive this. He's got a whole list of things he wants accomplished, but he doesn't let any more than four guys away from the crash site at a time. That's two squads. He and Jackson are in Alpha, Conrad and Luke are in Bravo, Powell and Sam - Charlie. Me and MC are in Delta. Then Austin and Jake are in Echo. You and Jack are Omega."
Jack smiled. "Omega, meaning 'the end.' Kinda cool. But why not Foxtrot?"
Fox shrugged. "Omega sounded cooler. We took a vote. And besides, you know, you guys are the last squad that survived."
"Twelve. I'm surprised there are so many of us." Scott said.
"I'm not. This is the 13th." Blake said as he ducked inside the Valkyrie. "Any less than 60% and I would've been really pissed. And we woulda had more survivors, except that some of the other guys got sucked out into free-fall with you two. No one could have survived something like that without thrusters."
"It was pretty rough even with." Scott murmured, touching his bruised back.
"Go ahead and get sorted out in the Medbay. I gave everyone free allowance to get their injuries patched with Putty for this first time, but from now on, you'll have to earn your keep."
"Count on us, Sarge." Jack nodded, shouldering a new rifle.
"Just a couple things on our grocery list." Blake said, and tacked a piece of writable, durable plastic from his gauntlet onto a display board on the side of the Valkyrie. "First and foremost, we need to hold out here until base finds us. I'm sure they're looking for us, and we didn't go that far off our flight plan. Second, I want to knock out that Russian AA before base can send any more troops to get us out. I also want to see if we can't recover any of the bodies. Not only just to have them, but I want their armor, too. I can see yours are pretty beaten up. We've got some extra gel bladders in the supply closet, and a couple extra helmets, among other things. Get yourselves sorted out as best you can, then go inject yourselves into a stupor. Be ready by 18:00 tonight for some action."
"You got it, Sarge."
"So, basically what happens is, if it's not already in the list, you design whatever appendage or graft or enhancement you want right here, on the computer. Because this is the prototype, it's meant for use by eggheads, which means lowly infantry such as we have can't go around designing new proteins and fun stuff to inject ourselves with. We've got to stick to designing basic tools and weapons. There are two kinds of upgrades - Pre-packaged and Custom. You look really green. Should I stop talking?" Sam asked.
"No, keep going, or I might decide that attaching synthetic stuff to my body is a stupid idea." Scott responded.
"Cool. The Pre-packaged stuff is on the left, in those syringes. That's for baseline adjustments, like increasing muscle or bone density to make you stronger or tougher, accelerating your regenerative abilities, stuff like that. The custom enhancements you design on the computer, or you can select stuff from a list. Then the computer stimulates stem-cells that you mould into shape, giving it whatever special characteristics you decided on and telling the stem cells what format to take."
"Right. Let's get to it."
"I'm surprised any part of you still fits in that armor. How the hell did you get so far off of one Putty ration?" Jack asked from his perch 30 feet in the air.
"Intense thought. You should try it sometime." Scott responded.
Jack was about to shoot back with a comment of his own when MC beeped him on the comm. "Got a strike force on the way, approaching the red carpet. Six guys, looks like Ivan. Light combat gear - their camp isn't more than ten miles from here."
"Roger that. Let's mark the location and get the welcome mat ready."
"Alrighty then. ETA two minutes. On your mark."
Scott heard them before he saw them. Six guys, just like MC had said. They carried TAR-21 assault rifles or AKs, and they wore only the standard Kevlar vest armor with helmet and shoulder pads. So then, not top-tier infantry.
"Six guys, standard infantry, against four genetically modified 13s? This isn't an ambush, its a play-date." Jack murmured inside his sound-proof, sealed helmet. "I'm amazed some lone dino hasn't ripped these guys apart yet."
"We'll have the girls drop down behind, silently, and get ready. Then you drop down in the middle of the trail and scare the crap out of them. I'll come down and hopefully land on someone, then come up swinging. The girls come in and each take one or two, then whatever's left is yours." Scott directed.
"You got it, bossman." MC and Fox each turned and slid off their branches, landing on the ground 20 feet below without a sound.
Scott propped his M8 carbine into the crook of his tree. He'd come back and get it afterward. As the familiar pre-battle adrenaline started pumping, Scott could feel his already enhanced strength crank up several more notches. With his ration, Scott had enhanced his entire body, making his skin six times more resilient than normal. He had increased his strength by 300% and had had his brain stimulated for faster reflexes. A risky procedure, definitely, but as Scott observed now how the world around him seemed to move so much slower, how objects and sounds took on increased detail, he understood its worth.
In addition to enhancing his current body, Scott had claws grafted to his hands. The piece in his gauntlets that was supposed to cover his palms no longer fit, so Scott had added a layer of natural, flexible armoring to his hands, as well as to all of the exposed areas of his body like his face, neck, and feet.
Scott hesitated a fraction of a second, then motioned, and Jack dropped from the trees, flaring his huge bat-wings. Jack had decided he enjoyed flying so much he added 10-foot wings to his back. They were a beautiful olive-green along the spines, fading to a velvet black at the edges. The translucent flaps of skin between the spines were matte-black.
The wings themselves had taken up most of Jack's ration, but he swore to God they were worth it. He had used the remainder of his putty in an attempt to increase his strength but decrease muscle and bone density, so he could actually fly. It had been semi-successful, in that he had stimulated his muscles to be more effective, but the weight-loss thing had only reduced a fraction of the weight he had intended. With his next ration, Jack planned to complete the operation (as he was still too heavy to actually fly yet, but rather glided everywhere he could) and give himself a set of claws to match Scott's.
At the sight of an armor-encased, flying demon appearing from the jungle, the Russians fell over in panic. Scott gave it a second, then dropped from his tree, right into the middle of the path, his outstretched claws catching a Russian's helmet. Scott brought him to the earth and, gripping the helmet with both hands, crushed it and the skull inside with one flex of his arms.
One Russian had now recovered his sanity enough to raise his rifle in the direction of Jack, who was still floating on a current of air. MC stepped out of the shadows, held one hand over his mouth and nose, and slit his neck with her claws.
Fox pounced from another corner, taking a Russian full-on. They fell, Fox crouched on the guy's chest, and she planted her tail in his face. It pulled out with a sickly slurp of flesh.
Scott twisted around into a half-crouch and caught a second Russian in the chest with his claw. The nails stuck through the Kevlar like butter and cut the man's chest to pieces of meat. Scott dragged the deformed mass upright and straight-punched it. The mass flew four feet away into a tree.
"This is awesome." Jack muttered over their private comm. "Think they're all dead?"
"Looks like it." Scott answered, then pulled his MP7 and switched it to semi. "Just to make sure." Scott went around and put two rounds into each Russian's forehead. He had seen firsthand just how hard it was to kill someone unless it hit something vital. They had learned from firefights in Somalia especially just how many 5.56mm 'green-tip' rounds it took to put someone down. Guys would get nailed down, but would be so wired on adrenaline and drugs that they got right back up. Some had taken literally dozens of rounds.
"They deserved that. They should all rot in hell for what they've done during this war." MC spat.
"No arguments here." Scott murmured. "Right. Let's get back to base and see what else Blake has on his shopping list."
"Let's go! Let's go! Everyone, mount up!" Mitchell yelled over the roar of three XV-22s. Lieutenant Mitchell would be personally overseeing the search party. Two birds with twenty 13's, and the last, his bird, filled with Marine Shock Forces. Ford was sparing no expense to recover the box, and more importantly, his men.
Mitchell crossed to the cockpit as the engines warmed up, and the bird lifted several feet in the air. "Pilots, be advised," He sent through his comm. "XV-22 Four-two-hundred Sierra, Twilight Flame, went down about halfway between Firebase Bravo and our research facility, about three hundred clicks inland. We have reason to believe that this was not an ordinary equipment failure, but instead the bird was shot down. As we approach the area you will be alert for hostile AA fire, and have all countermeasures ready to fire. We don't want to lose anyone else in that jungle. Clear?"
The pilots all nodded, their status icons winking green in Mitchell's HUD.
"Hang in there." Mitchell murmured to himself. "Cavalry's on the way."
MC stood absolutely still, her back pressed into the trunk of a thick tree. Sweat poured down her exposed face, stinging as it ran into the gash on her cheek. It hurt to put pressure on her left ankle - probably fractured, if not wholly broken. That wouldn't slow her down, though, in case she had to run.
A low, menacing growl built behind her. It seemed to shake the entire forest. The leaves above her shook, raining dead leaves and branches. Her heart pounded in her chest so hard and fast she was afraid the thing might actually hear her fear. And she was afraid.
Adrenaline coursed through her body, lending power and strength to her already enhanced limbs, reminding her that she was not completely helpless. But all her weaponry and skill would do absolutely zero to a Tyrannosaurus Rex. She had two options. Fight or flight.
Scott was crouched four yards to her left, silently and methodically loading a six-shot revolving grenade launcher. Each 40mm incendiary round slid into its chamber with a dull thunk that made all of them wince.
Jack was perched right above Scott, keeping his wings tucked tight into his body, his arms crossed. He was barely breathing, trying to be still.
Fox lay stretched out on the ground, unconcsious.
