Difference between revisions of "Atlantis"

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'''Book One: ''Atlantis Rising'''''
  
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'''THE ATLANTIS TRILOGY, BOOK I: ATLANTIS: THE CONSPIRACY'''
 
  
 
''Written by Brandon Krupczak''
 
''Written by Brandon Krupczak''
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| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 1]]||[[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 11]]
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| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 2]]||[[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 12]]                         
  
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''Wellie Delmer as Holly Dayne''
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| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 3]]||[[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 13]]
  
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''Emma Reifenberger as Scarlett Miller''
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| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 4]]
  
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''Brandon Krupczak as Matthew Kenderson''
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| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 5]]
  
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''Madeline Hill as Kate Alabaster''
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| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 6]]
  
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''Stephen Borrelli as Dr. Stephens''
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| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 7]]
  
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| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 8]]
  
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| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 9]]
  
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| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 10]]
  
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|}
  
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Hello people reading this! You may have accidentally stumbled upon a book that is under way currently. The book is basically about World War Three, in a world where there are eight continents. The eighth is Atlantis, which surfaces in December of 2012. Maybe the Mayan calendar wasn't counting down to this day, but counting up to the day when Atlantis would rise above the oceans once more, supposedly.
  
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Just for confirmation, these chapters are all from our first book in the Atlantis Trilogy, Atlantis: The Conspiracy. So, if you want to see a sneak preview of our second book, Atlantis: Harvest Reaper, click on the link below titled Atlantis: Harvest Reaper. Click on any of these links to take you to the different chapters in the first book.
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Below is a random chapter from the book that I display here on the front page. The link above brings you to the page that the chapter is actually housed at. If you scroll down to the very bottom, you'll find my work in progress section, where I write the next section/chapter of the book. Because I start writing completely fresh chapters, the work in progress section might end in a fragment of thought, or there might not be anything displayed there.  
  
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[[Atlantis: chapter 1]]
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Please also note that none of my writing here is completed and I go back numerous times to a piece to improve it. The chapter below will be changed multiple times and improved upon, so if you read it now you might wanna check back every now and again to see if I changed anything.
  
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[[Atlantis: chapter 2]]
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Also, please note that any writing I do here is written to entertain, and therefore the story has to fit in with itself, so please excuse any religious or opinionated writing I have here and do not take it into offense. Please don't copy my work. It's not nice.
  
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[[Atlantis: chapter 3]]
 
  
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[[Atlantis: chapter 4]]
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Also check out my friend Jamie Knox's writing here:
  
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[[Atlantis: chapter 5]]
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[[Reaper's First Drop]]
  
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[[Atlantis: chapter 6]]
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And here's a new, alternate account of the war, from the perspective of an elite soldier from an elite Black-Ops Spec-Ops division.
  
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[[Atlantis: chapter 7]]
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[[Atlantis Rising: Perfect War]]
  
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[[Atlantis: chapter 8]]
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And another little project of mine. Here, I'm writing about the video game ''Fallout 3''. The setting, premise, and some of the characters are not my creation, but basically I'm taking the game and writing my own addition.
  
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[[Atlantis: chapter 9]]
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[[Fallout 3]]
  
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[[Atlantis: chapter 10]]
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An additional project, using the concept and setting of the ''Fallout'' universe again. This is an idea I've wanted to explore: A Fallout game in the Carribean.
  
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[[Atlantis: chapter 11]]
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[[Fallout: Caribbean]]
  
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[[Atlantian fans]]
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And a Halo project, told from the perspective of a Marine Fireteam. Just regular soldiers, not Spartans or even ODSTs.
  
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[[Atlantis: Harvest Reaper]]
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[[Halo: Fireteam]]
  
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<br>
 
  
 
==Atlantis Teaser==
 
==Atlantis Teaser==
  
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''"Soldiers, you will be deployed via fast-rope. You will rappel down to the ground and await the indicator in your HUD before beginning. As soon as you see the signal, you may begin. Good luck, recruits. Up first: Echo Squad! Squad Leader, make sure your squad's gear checks out."''
  
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Tom advanced on the tango that lay between him and the armory door. It rested behind a support column, thinking it had the advantage of surprise. Tom stealthily crept forward to the very edge of the column. He took his carbine and blindly rammed the stock around the wall, wincing with satisfaction as it met soft flesh.  
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The DS gestured to Matt, and all of them went and gave one another triple buddy checks.
  
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The Raptor cried out, then suddenly leaped forward. Tom was ready, and when the Raptor came charging around the corner, he sidestepped and emptied his only carbine clip into the Raptor. As soon as the magazine clicked Tom dropped it, pulling out his sidearm in one hand and his six inch combat blade in the other. The Raptor was limping now, trying to get away. Tom lunged out and drove the knife into the Raptor's spine, killing it instantly.
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"Ready when you are, Frost!" Holly yelled over their Team comm.
  
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The Raptor dropped, and Tom spun around and entered into the armory.  
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"Roger that, Aura." Matt yelled back. Each of them had callsigns. His was Frost. Jamie's was Scorch. Scar was Flare. Malcolm was Spark. Holly was Aura. "Alright. Squad, move out! Go, go, go!" Matt barked.
  
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Scar attached her rappel harness to the line and jumped out the side, one hand on the rope above her, and the other below and slightly behind her butt, the "brake" hand that controlled how fast the line went. Malcolm followed, then Jamie, then Holly. Matt was the last one out, as befitting his status of Squad Leader.
  
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He had made it out of the Rec. Center, killing two Raptors with Psi. Counting the one he had just killed, there were only about seventy to go.  
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Scar landed, disengaged her harness, and let it drop to the forest floor. A crew would come later and get it.
  
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Tom carefully entered the arms room, searching for threats. West had beamed the camera feed to a window on his HUD, and it didn't show anything. But Tom was still cautious, even after he surveyed the room and found nothing. More reassuring, however, was the active security turret overhead that paused to aim at Tom for a second, then continued its sweep of the area once it had registered his FOF tag.  
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Soon the entire squad was on the ground, and Matt quickly led the squad under cover of the trees. As soon as the V-22 Osprey was out of sight, they doubled back and went after the bird. They kept the lines from the rappel - there was always a use for thirty feet of tough nylon.
  
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Tom hustled over to the MG lockers. No more SMG crap against this army.  
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The countdown timer in Matt's HUD read D + 15:07 when Matt raised his fist, the sign to halt. With slow, exaggerated sign language, he indicated for the team to spread out and climb the trees. Jamie went with Matt in one tree. Scar went by herself, and Malcolm and Holly shared a third.
  
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He grabbed two M9-LMGs and as much ammo as he could carry, also bringing a spare set of TBA for Matt. Then he slung one of the LMGs around his back, stuffed the ammo in his combat pack, and rammed one in the receiver of his M9 LMG.  
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"Frost, requesting permission to re-format to a sniper?" Scar whispered over the Teamcomm.
  
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Tom slunk forward, putting his back to the wall and checking the hallway video feed. All clear. He opened the door and glided silently down the passageway, heading back for the Rec. Center.  
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"Roger that, Flare. Permission granted. Scorch, outfit yours with the AR. Aura, you're our grenadier. Get the XM320 on there." The XM320 was a single-shot 40mm grenade launcher that could be attached to their carbines. Matt put one on his. Malcolm preferred a straight-up assault rifle.
  
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He checked the video feed closest to the utility closet Matt was in, and was shocked to see three Raptors on the other side, attempting to break the door down, which they couldn't open because of the barricade. It would only take them another half a minute to force their way through, from the looks of it.  
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Beside Matt, almost completely invisible in the heavy jungle shadow, Jamie lay prone along two branches, with his AR balanced on a third branch with a clear line-of-sight to the ground.
  
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Tom switched to Matt's head-cam feed and listened through the mic. as banging sounds permeated the air. Matt groggily raised his carbine and spat the clip through the weak, sheet metal door. Tom watched two Raptors fall, but then they got right back up.  
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Matt slid down from the tree. "Spark, get down here and help me create a barricade. We need to push any incoming squads into one firing lane. Scorch, Flare, give me a dot." In response, Malcolm slid from his tree, and both Scar and Jamie highlighted the firing lane that they had access to with red laser-dots. Matt took armfuls of brambles and thin, thorned vines and dumped them to the left and right of the lane, in between the trees, to create a natural-looking wall that would influence the squads to find an easier way through. Right through their lane of fire.
  
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Tom stepped up his pace. Now wasn't the time for caution.
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Matt strung triplines further out into the jungle with the Nylon cables, attaching them to frag grenades.
  
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A Raptor jumped at him from nowhere, trying to come in from the side, but Tom just dodged it and kept on running at his new top speed, around thirty five miles an hour. The Raptor could run almost twice that speed, though. It came up, running ''extremely'' fast. Tom dropped in a backslide, his legs out in front of him and his body behind, and the Raptor bounded right over him. It skidded to a halt and crashed into a wall, dazing it for only a second. Tom suddenly shifted his weight forward and came to his feet, running as he opened fire. The bullets drilled into the Raptor's toughened skin, driving it to the ground. It didn't stir as Tom raced past.
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Matt's countdown ended. "Alright people, we can now shoot at and be shot. Let's wrap this up." Malcolm laid the last armful of brambles in place, and then they both scampered up into their separate trees. There were five other squads in this particular mission, all within a square mile. It wouldn't be long before they had some hits.
  
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Tom rounded the corner and found a small-scale war between the Raptors and the autoguns, with Matt's utility closet mixed in for the creative and unique touch. The multitude of the Raptors were engaging the turrets, while five or six at a time attacked the door. One wriggled through, its hide cut in numerous places from the sharp metal. It only just made it past when it was forced back out, a heavily bandaged boot entering view for a moment as it viciously kicked at the Raptor's snout, then drawing back in.
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Five minutes passed, and no one came. The squad was getting impatient. "Spark," Matt whispered. "Be the rabbit. I need you to go along the lane and see if you can draw some fire, then sprint back here. We'll cover your approach. I'd do it myself but I'm not fast enough."
  
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Tom came from behind and jumped. And when he jumped, he really ''jumped'' twenty feet in the air, grabbing onto one of the rafters on the ceiling. Using one hand, he aimed his LMG and opened fire on the Raptors below, scattering them under a cloud of led. One glanced up, and coughed out a signal to its fellows. Tom couldn't help it; he slowly turned and looked out at the rest of the Raptors. They all turned towards him, one gnawing on a twisted series of cables from a destroyed turret.
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"Roger that, lead." Malcolm said, grinning. "I've always been one for the suicidal frontal charge." He slid down his tree, landing in the brush below. Before he had even gone two minutes, the sound of gunfire erupted through the forest. "Frost, I've got multiple targets here. They've got me pinned, I could use some assistance!"
  
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The last remaining autogun continued to fire, but only six Raptors turned to face it, the rest advancing on Tom.  
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Matt looked to Holly. She nodded, slid down, and circled around to the right to counter-flank the guys surrounding Malcolm. "Spark, help is on the way. How long can you hold?"
  
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The six Raptors spread apart, darting back and forth between each other and confusing the turret, letting it track one Raptor first, then another would dart across its path and lead it into another, all the time working their way to the wall it was mounted on. Finally one reached it and jumped twelve feet in the air, its feet now touching the wall, and then jumped off the wall, up again at the turret. As it got there, the turret blasted it into pieces, but another one simply followed the first and took a chunk out of the machine gun.  
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"I've got good cover, I'm inside a shallow cave-thing in the ground. I can hold out a while."
  
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Tom swallowed noisily in a rare sign of apprehension. Not fear, per say, of dying, but fear of failing and leaving any survivors to die.  
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"Roger that. Keep your head down, but keep the attention centered on you. And watch out, they'll try to advance. Watch your flanks."
  
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Tom opened fire, but by now the Raptors were wily, a they avoided packing together into one group and spread apart, so whenever they saw bullets stitching their way to one of them, they'd jump away and have time to evade.  
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"You got it, Frost." Malcolm said, and tossed a grenade out the opening of the cave. It exploded, and Malcolm heard someone groan. "Yeah, bring it!" He shouted.
  
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Tom compensated by raising his aim slightly and shooting down another rafter, bringing it crashing on top of about six of them.  
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Holly took up a firing position, sighted through her scope, and tagged a soldier in the back of his head. He dropped like a load of rocks, asleep by the time he hit the ground. Return fire peppered the rock she had been hiding behind, and two soldiers broke off to get her. But Holly wasn't there anymore.
  
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He took a second to stare in awe as the massive Raptor army moved forward to slice him. The same regal build on all of them; the large pelvis, thick, muscular legs, serpentine body, narrow snout with serrated, recurved teeth. And the long, straight and stiff tail with the outspread arms, all contributing to the incredible agility and balance.  
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A soldier fell as rounds tore into his inner thigh. He dropped to the ground, not out yet but with a crippled leg. He hobbled behind a piece of cover as Holly filled the air with bullets around the second soldier. A grenade rolled to a stop next to her, and at this she turned and fled back the way she had come, then darted back, and got the attention of the two remaining soldiers pinning Malcolm.
  
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Tom shook himself. Why did he care? So they had really long, really stiff tails. So they helped for balance. He was about to ''die''!
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At the momentary distraction, Malcolm bolted out of the hole, sprinted from rock to tree, from tree to bush, from bush to ground, and drew the soldiers down through the firing lane, followed a second later by Holly. Jamie adjusted his grip on the AR as the two squadmates ran down the path. 30 seconds later, the first soldier popped into view. Jamie waited until the last soldier appeared, then nailed the one closest to any viable cover.
  
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The first of the Raptors dodged under Tom's fire and jumped up. It flew twice the height of a regular man, almost grabbing Tom's ankle. Tom beat it down with a blast of TK (telekinesis), and it flew back to the ground, its neck snapped and blood seeping from its mouth.  
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The steady thrum of the AR set Matt's head pounding, and he opened fire on the last one in the line. Then Scar fired, and a round slugged the first soldier in the chest.
  
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The next Raptors came, and Tom jumped to his feet to avoid the high leaps. The Raptors didn't seem to be injured as they got back up off the ground. Like it didn't bother them. Like, 'Yeah, we fall from twelve feet high onto our heads and backs a million times everyday. Nothing new.'
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Jamie's target fell from hits to the leg, side, and shoulder. He wasn't quite gone, but almost. Jamie finished him off with another quick, sustained burst.
  
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Tom had a crazy idea. He ran to one side of the rafters and reloaded, slapping a new 100 round dual-drum clip into the receiver. He spun around, pulling the trigger. His bullets hit the rafter connectors, and the one end tumbled to the ground, smashing into the tile, but only catching one Raptor who got stuck in the middle of a pack. They were learning, too fast.  
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Matt's soldier dropped to the ground, out for the count with five rounds in his chest and more in his left arm.
  
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Tom braced himself and fired into the oncoming stream that started to climb up his pathway. They flooded up towards him, but were stopped by the ferocious pouring of fire from Tom's gun. As the ones in front fell to the ground, dead, the others behind them jumped off. Tom looked below him and realized he had fallen for another ploy; three Raptors below him all jumped, landed sideways against the wall, and jumped off again, easily reaching to the height of Tom. As one came up, Tom lashed out with TK, snapping another neck. Another dead Raptor. The other two, though...
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Scar's target took the heavy caliber bullet in the chest and sat down with the force, hard, landing on his butt and jarring his head. Before he could recover, Scar punched another round into his chest. He spun halfway around and ate dirt.
  
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One missed completely, hitting the top of the rafter. Then Tom realized it hadn't missed, but it was trying to surround him and force him to the others.  
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Four down. The last soldier turned to flee, but Holly popped out of the shadows and nailed him with a grenade from her XM320, which cast training rounds into a wide arc everywhere, painting the nearby forest a vivid crimson.
  
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The other came at Tom, and he held the stock of his gun in front of him. The Raptor collided with the butt, like a boar charging a hunter armed with a dull pike, and Tom was pushed back half a foot and he lost his grip on his LMG. It dropped through the cross supports and to the ground, where it was swallowed by the rest of the Raptors.  
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"Alright!" Jamie crowed.
  
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Tom cursed and gave the Raptor attempting to bite his leg off a powerful kick, then jumped off headfirst to recover his MG. The horde closed up beneath him, eager for a bite. Tom blasted the area clear with TK, allowing his LMG to remain in place. He landed and rolled with the force of his kinetic energy, picking up his gun and dashing towards Matt's closet.  
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Matt disengaged his spent clip and slapped a new one in. "Let's hope the other squads come running for the noise. One down, three to go, gentlemen."
  
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Matt was there, covering him, dishing out a supportive cross fire. He had managed to wrap his cuts in a makeshift body-bandage, and he was holding his carbine propped up against the frame. He fired bursts, and Tom sprinted quickly to the door. He backslid again into the open closet, then turned over prone and opened fire. Matt fell back towards the barricade, and Tom paused a moment to toss him an M9 LMG with several fresh clips. Matt expertly loaded in a clip and fired again, but by now all the Raptors had moved off to one side or the other, avoiding the deadly bullets. They were just too smart. It was like a constant game of cat-and-mouse, with the Raptors being the cats. Except that the mice could shoot back. A bloody version of about fifty Toms and two Jerries, like the cartoon. Except that Tom wasn't one of the Toms. Strange. He half-smiled at that.
 
  
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Tom slammed the door shut with TK, but it was damaged in so many places he doubted it would hold one charge.  
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The next squad was slightly smarter. Instead of running pel-mel into the contested area, they sent one scout on ahead through the firing lane, and the rest hung back and encircled the target area. Too bad for them, Matt's squad had moved from the one killing field and into another close-by clearing, where they could easily spot the would-be flanking attack.
  
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Tom handed over the armor to Matt, who started stripping off the damaged pieces, leaving Tom on guard. As each piece was removed, more of his muscular body was revealed, like iron bands rippling under a taut combat muscle-shirt.  
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"Open fire!" Matt yelled, and the two soldiers in sight twisted around, trying to find the source of the noise. One was slugged by a heavy cal. sniper shot, and the other fell to the combined fire from Jamie's AR and Matt's carbine.
  
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A sole Raptor shoved its snout into a missing chunk of sheet metal. Tom took the opportunity to kick it full in the mouth, and it reared outward.  
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Holly and Malcolm, still on the ground, rose out of a cover of leaves and dead brush and moved around behind the three soldiers left that came running. Standing up, they nailed two with one salvo of fire.
  
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Tom in turn stuck the muzzle of his gun through the crack and opened fire, spreading bullets in every direction. He fired and fired until the 100 round dual-drum clip ran dry and clicked, at which point Matt stepped forward. He looked like a Death Wraith as he glided forward silently, white bandages stained with red showing under his Matte Black Special Ops TBA.  
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The last one hit the dirt and rolled under a log. Holly and Malcolm pursued.
  
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He kicked open the door from a crouched position and stood, firing and inching out the door. "We need to find higher ground!" He called over the continuous roar. Tom nodded and dashed forward, keeping low to avoid Matt's line of fire. He sprinted to the next suitable covering position, took a second to unfold the mounted bi-pod, and added his led to the mix. Matt looked around and grabbed a grenade off his belt, shifting his gun to his left arm and firing one-handed while biting the charging ring off the grenade and chucking it into a small cluster of hostiles, all the while running sideways at Tom.  
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"Negative! Disengage!" Jamie yelled, and opened fire into the brush to their left.
  
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Matt watched Tom's muzzle as he fought to keep it down, in spite of the air-distorting heat and force escaping it. Matt ran forward and dove head-first, twisting in mid-air so he would land on his heavily padded back and firing between his legs. He felt the bullets' slipstream drag and pull at his ankles and boots, and then he skidded smoothly to the floor, still moving on his back. Tom got up again, using the stock of his gun to help, and backslid under a Raptor into the next position. He came up firing, taking out two Raptors who were getting uncomfortably close.  
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Holly hit dirt. Malcolm followed half a second later with three rounds stitched across his back. He wasn't out yet, but his entire suit was getting quickly more rigid.
  
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Tom and Matt continued the routine until they had reached an exit door and whittled down the opposition to a mere twenty Raptors. The rest were either dead or wounded severely.  
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He turned onto his back and fired in the general direction of where the shots had come from. Holly sidled around to him and took out a fake med-pack, wiping clean the Training Rounds and administering an electric shock through the armor. Malcolm's suit unstraightened a little, and Malcolm crawled back into better cover.
  
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Tom kicked open the door by sliding his legs out from under his crouched self, letting them smack into the double doors and swinging them open while falling to his chest in prone. Matt got up and slunk backwards, firing still as he went until his clip emptied. Then Tom got up, Matt having switched to his sidearm to cover Tom instead of reloading. Tom jumped backwards, and when he landed, lashed out with his feet again and slammed the door shut. Matt stepped forward and twisted the handles to interlock, even though they were decorational and they slid apart at the touch of a button. Then he characteristically shot the control panel, watching the electric blue sparks fall to the ground.  
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Jamie was still firing bursts from his AR at the last squad. Matt held his fire; there was no clear target in view, and to give away his position would be stupid. Scar attached a flash suppressor to her rifle, and started shelling the squad's general position.
  
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Tom took Matt's extended hand and got to his feet. Both reloaded their weapons and ran off together down the hallway. When they were about fifty yards down the corridor, away from the doors, they turned. Tom kicked over a box so it lay flat and crouched behind it, setting his M9 with bi-pod extended on it for extra stability. Matt looked around, and finding no cover to his liking, jumped onto the ceiling and grabbed hold of a red utility pipe. He swung his legs up and locked them, then pulled himself on top. He lay waiting, watching.  
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"Watch flankers." Matt advised, seeing shadows moving behind her. Scar turned and nailed one soldier who had tried to flank her, and Matt caught another with a grenade.
  
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Tom winced as static filled his ear, then West's voice, "Captain, you guys alright?"
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Matt slid to the ground as Jamie covered him, landed, and ran in a half-crouch to Holly. He saw a rifle barrel poke out of a bush, saw a blast coming their way, and tackled Holly to the ground. The burst nailed him in the calf and he rolled up into a crouch.
  
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"Yeah, we're good. What kinda support can you dig us up?" Tom asked.
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Matt rolled off and came up firing. Jamie suppressed the soldier that had just shot at them while Matt took him out, Holly and Malcolm covering his flank.
  
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"We've got more inbound friendlies. Looks like they're bringing the cleanup crew. I count six Ospreys closing, but they've sent ahead some heavy firepower. Looks like we've got two JSFs coming in to help, ETA two minutes. The other teams have run into some heavy resistance, but nothing like over with you guys. They'll pull through."
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Then Scar took multiple sustained bursts from the last soldier from the other squad, and toppled from the tree. She was out cold. Fury ignited in Matt. Toppling her from the tree was not necessary, and she could have injured herself. He and Holly outflanked the soldier and drilled him to the ground with long automatic fire.
  
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"Roger that. What's the survivor count?" Tom asked.  
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They split and threw themselves behind rocks, Matt reloading as he went. There were two left on the other team and three left on his; Malcolm had been drilled again in his helmet.
  
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"Minimal losses. Turns out the biggest problem's in the R and D department, and most of the soldiers have gathered together into one room and set up a blockade. They're holding tight and awaiting rescue."
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Jamie's AR barked again and again. With his suppressive fire, Matt darted from cover to cover and distracted the two soldiers long enough for Holly to creep around and take the first one out. The last soldier sprayed fire everywhere, panicking, and continued even as Matt, Jamie, and Holly's combined fire drilled him into the ground.
  
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"Good. We'll get to them. Out." Tom said, cutting West short as the doors trembled. There wasn't the random banging one would expect from a herd of bloodthirsty monsters, but instead an organized search for weak points in the door. A sharp hiss would echo through the hallway, then a single bang would follow, again and again, over and over.
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The DS broke through their comm. lines, "Cease fire. Echo team, you have won the mission. We will collect you shortly. Hold position."
  
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With each bang, the doors trembled open a little bit more, until finally a rent appeared in the metal. A three-toed claw planted itself on the bottom of the dent, and it strained against the solid object. A tearing sound flew outward, and Tom shuddered. If they could do that to metal, he didn't want to see what they could do to ''him''.  
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"Roger that." Matt responded. "Alright, lady and gentleman. We won!"
  
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Matt sent a thought beam, ''I'm going to have nightmares about this one,'' then a metallic double click bounced around as Matt cocked the charging lever.
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The survivors of Echo Team gazed around at all the unconscious forms before them. They may as well have been dead. It was only now that Matt got the first hint of what a war could really be like. He would have to do better, make sure none of his crew got hurt, ever. This was one simple mission, and two of his own had gone. What would have happened had they been live rounds? Scar and Malcolm, dead, blink of an eye, without ever seeing their attackers. What was this going to come to?
  
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Tom kept his cool and aimed down the iron sights. He was too far away to get a great view from just the iron sights, with no scope. Still, if he focused enough and got off an early shot, it was better than nothing.
 
  
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Tom concentrated on the opening in the door, putting all his mind to work. Suddenly his view leaped forward, so everything appeared much larger, as if he was looking through a telescope. ''What the...!'' Tom thought. He blinked a couple times, and his vision returned to normal. He looked down at his gun, wondering what had happened, then realized the anomaly was ''him''. His vision must have been effected by the treatment as well. What other surprises were in store for him?
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This was war.
  
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He focused again, and his vision jumped forward to zoom in on the opening. He activated his HUD-to-weapon link, watching the crosshairs appear in his visor hovering over the gap in the door, his gauntlets issuing data to his helmet chip. It was widening by the second, but after he fired off a few rounds the tearing sound dulled. Nothing could hold them completely back, though, as another dent came in the side of the door, then the other side. Suddenly they burst apart, and Raptors poured into the corridor. They spread out from the entrance under Tom's punishing fire, and Matt swung down from the pipe, his legs still wrapped around but his body inverted as he fired from above.
 
  
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Tom shifted his aim to track another Raptor and fired, bringing it to the ground. He tossed a Frag, yelling, "Fire in the hole!" so Matt would know to take cover, and watched the tendrils of smoke embrace the Raptors. Only another fifteen or so left, but then they suddenly scattered in all directions, peeling off into side corridors and rooms. They couldn't win anymore, and they knew it. Now they just wanted to live. This was when Tom became the hunter, but right now he had more important business.
 
  
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"Alright, you're clear. Tangos branching off and hiding in all sorts of rooms. It will take forever to find them, but most of the survivors have holed up in a storage room ahead." West confided.
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==Work In Progress Chapter 14==
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'''
  
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"Got it. Map?"
 
  
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"Yeah, uploading." West said, and a moment later a holographic map appeared on Tom and Matt's HUD, and then folded into a small window in the corner. A blue arrow lead to the position of the survivors, and numerous smaller green arrows pointed in different directions, indicating other survivors. A map legend popped up next to the map, blue being the multitude of the soldiers, and the other greens being the separate hiding places. Red dots on the HUD marked known enemy positions.
+
"You guys have got to check this out." Malcolm said as they boarded a cargo lift. "So the new shipments of Croc Armor have come in while you two were away, but the boys have been working overtime developing some gear strictly for the Shock Forces. I've gotten to work fitting our new armor with all our old custom stuff, but with some new toys."
  
−
Tom got up and reloaded, looking around warily for any threats. Finding none, he cautiously moved forward, taking his time in getting there.
+
"What kind of toys?" Jamie asked, yawning. Upon arrival back at Firebase Bravo, he and Matt had been debriefed, taken several hot showers, and stuffed their guts with the contents of several MREs. Life was good.
  
−
Matt dropped literally from the sky above after Tom passed, watching their six.  
+
"Dude DWAI. You'll see in just a sec."
  
−
Fifteen minutes later, the duo arrived at the soldier's barricade. "This is Captain Thomas Lane, requesting entry access." He said, rattling off his identification number after.  
+
The lift sank several stories into the ground, to where Ford had had a Research and Development Lab excavated and lined with a fast-drying concrete substitute while Matt and Jamie were gone.  
  
−
It was a moment before a hoarse voice responded, "Dang good to hear from you, Cap'n. You got a friend with you?"
+
It was the classic Malcolm workshop scene, with tables and workbenches lining the walls, equipment strewn all over the place in differing states of organization. But for some reason the lights were dimmed to half-intensity, throwing the room into deep shadows.
  
−
"Roger that. Permission to enter?"
+
They got off the lift and stood for a second. Matt inhaled the stale air and examined the sets of armor that lay draped over tables, gauntlets and shoulder pauldrons dismantled.
  
−
"Granted." the voice said, and the blast doors sealing off the store room slowly slid apart. Tom turned so his back was to the opening concrete door, scanning the hallway for signs of life. Matt was already taking up a crouched position behind a steel crate, using his suit's thermal and radio-imaging to search out hostiles.  
+
"I don't see anything." Jamie said after half a minute.
  
−
The doors opened all the way, and Tom waited for Matt to walk back into the room first, covering him, before moving. Just as he was passing through the threshold, a pair of small creatures darted out behind a corner, quick and bird-like. They dashed straight for the doors, and Tom belatedly sighted down his weapon, disconcerted at the smaller size. It definitely wasn't a Raptor. Way too small. They were about the size of Compys, maybe a little bigger, but much faster. And they seemed to have feathers of some sort...
+
"I do." Malcolm said, unable to contain a grin.
  
−
Tom shouted for the men to close the doors, and as the slow blast doors inched into position, Tom opened fire, making sure to take a head-cam still shot of the new dinos.  
+
Matt looked harder. "Oh. Clever."
  
−
Three other soldiers, all armed with M9 carbines, opened fire beside Tom. Their combined firepower sent one of the little things flopping back in a flash of red. The other petered off to one side, close to the wall in order to avoid the fire. It jumped, flapping its wing-like limbs for a little extra stability and extended jump length as it sailed between the cracks of the door. It landed and with hardly a pause jumped onto a soldier's face, causing him to cry out in surprise and agony and making him twist all over the room. Tom ran over and grasped the creature by the tail to steady it as he blew out its brains with his sidearm.
+
"What?" Jamie asked.
  
−
The creature fell to the ground, missing part of its head.  
+
Matt reached out with one hand and gently probed the flickering semi-shadow before him. It laughed, so Matt grabbed the camouflage cloak and pulled it off.
  
−
The soldier cursed wildly. He looked pretty scratched up. A long but shallow gash ran all the way down the side of his face, just missing his eye, and he had a smaller cut from his jaw to the top of his cheek. Numerous other cuts also would leave him with scarring.  
+
The figure laughed again. Matt could now see the armor in greater detail, but the invisibility mechanism still worked amazingly well.
  
−
A soldier rushed over with a first-aid pack in hand. He began his work, cleaning out the cuts and taking a cold-pack out of the kit. "He'll live." The soldier said sarcastically, making several others chuckle.  
+
Scar and Holly tapped some controls on their gauntlets from inside their new armor and solidified into the visible spectrum.  
  
−
"So, what was that?" Another of the soldiers asked conversationally, as if they had just sat down to eat lunch, not been attacked by some unknown dinosaur on the island of Atlantis.  
+
Malcolm hit the lights, and the room lit up.
  
−
"Bambiraptor." Matt answered. He'd always been the dino-lover of the group, even after most of them he met tried to eat him. "Like a smaller, stupid version of a Velociraptor."
+
"Awesome! I want one." Jamie cackled.  
  
−
Tom saw one of the soldiers mutter, "Bambi? Hardly..." out of the corner of his eye.  
+
"Pretty sweet." Matt agreed. "How does it work?"
  
−
Several soldiers were sitting on random pieces of debris and rubble, eating whatever they happened to have in their bags. Matt took a swig from a bottle of Grape flavored Propel after asking one of the soldier's permission.  
+
"Unfortunately it sucks up power like a wild hog." Holly said, detaching a power cable from her back. "So the armor can't support it for much longer than a minute in combat situations unless its plugged into something."
  
−
"Alright, here's the plan." Tom intoned, adopting a slightly deeper, more commanding expression. "Matt, you escort these guys out of here. I'll continue on and see if I can't gather up the rest of the survivors."
+
"It's none of the 'Oh, I'll take a miraculous video of whats behind me and put it in front of me and for some reason it looks like I'm invisible' crap." Malcolm explained. "That would require the entire exterior of the armor to be covered in video screens. Instead, the armor's on-board computer gets a general bearing of its surroundings and then tells its new photo-reactive armor plates to change color and shade depending on what it registers. Like we said, the computer system and the photo-plates suck power really fast, so you can only do it for about a minute on one power cell."
  
−
"With all due respect, Captain," one soldier said with a hint of belligerence, "I think my team and I can walk through a building."  
+
"What's the cape for?"
  
−
"It's not the building I'm worried about, its the Raptors in it. Besides, Kenderson needs to make sure the extraction proceeds according to plan." Tom replied in kind.
+
Malcolm winced. "Cloak. Camouflage cloak. It's to break up the humanoid figure. Our eyes identify things by shape and color, so if we blur the outline of your body and minimize the difference in color you're practically invisible."
  
−
The soldier had little choice but to answer, "Aye, sir."
+
Matt crossed to the worktables and inserted his arm into a gauntlet, then pulled a switch and a blade jumped out of the side. "Nice."
  
−
Matt gave no objections, and so he reloaded his weapon and prepared for exit.  
+
"Yeah. Retractable gauntlet blades, your custom elbow spikes, high-density non-standard issue gel bladders, M5 fiber gloves in the gauntlets, steel knuckles, integrated sonic pulse emitter in the helmet speakers. And then some of the newer stuff, we've got optional gauntlet attachments, custom-fit for each of us. Jamie's, Scar's, and mine shoot flames. Yours, which is a much smaller attachment, can send an electric shock through the gauntlet and anything you're touching. Holly's shoots a gas grenade loaded with tear gas. Of course, the rebreather and visor in the helmet will make you impervious to gas attacks."
  
−
"I need maybe three volunteers for-" Tom was cut off as every hand in the room raised. Subtly checking the FOF screen, he chose the three most experienced soldiers to go with him. "Red One," Tom said, nodding to the first man, "Red Two," nodding to the second, "Red Three," nodding to the man who had objected earlier, "You're with me. The rest of you, follow Kenderson. Whatever he says goes. Am I clear?"
+
"Thank heaven." Jamie snickered. "Finally, a piece of equipment that's been Matt-proofed."
  
−
"Aye aye, sir!" The soldiers roared with renewed vigor.
+
"Somehow, I knew you would say that."
  
−
"Make it in one piece. No one left behind, everybody gets out." Matt added. Tom nodded in agreement.
+
"And I did."
  
−
"Red team, fall out!" Tom barked, leading the way to the door. Matt's team, Blue, took up cross-support fire on the opposite side of the door. Tom waited until everyone had a suitable firing angle, then jabbed the door release. The sliding doors broke apart at the seam, gliding noiselessly on their lateral tracks.
+
"Yes you did."
  
−
"Clear!" Red Three barked, pointing the barrel of his assault rifle through the opening. "Go!" he ordered, and waited for Reds One and Two to clear the door before he himself followed. Tom went out next, still covering the entry door at the end of the hall. Red Two fell into a prone stance as he covered the door, and then Blue moved up and out. Matt's LMG fanned back and forth, surveying the area. Tom felt a sense of fierce pride at knowing he was one of these elite warriors.
+
"Okay."
  
−
Matt took up a position at the edge of the lintel to the next room. Tom got on the other, and a mix of Red and Blue teams put up in a line to cover the door, the two in front prone, the four behind crouching, and the nine others arranged in a semi-circle above them. Tom opened the doors, and another call came, "Clear!" before the front soldiers advanced. Working with squads of men gave more options, but you also had to worry about everyone else. With a one man squad, you didn't need to pay attention to anyone but yourself. Two man squads could cover the rear better, but three or four man squads were normally best for this kind of encounter.
+
"Alright then."
  
−
Tom slunk through the door, his olive-drab combat boots making no sound as they hit the tiled floor. He motioned over to the side, and Red Team broke off from Blue to follow him. No one made even a whisper as the two sets of men and women parted, going on separate missions, although Matt did raise a hand in silent farewell. Tom returned the gesture, then moved warily down a side maintenance access corridor, where the nearest green arrow was.  
+
A few seconds passed in silence.
  
−
"Heads up!" West said from his comfy position back in the security checkpoint. "Got hostiles at Three!"
+
"Awkward." Scarlett stated.  
  
−
Tom took that to mean they were just around the corner of this completely straight hallway, so he pulled ahead of the other three and got his knife ready. He pressed his back to the wall, then suddenly jumped around, his M9 in one hand, his knife in the other. As he came out, a Raptor had been strutting forward, and now it reared back in surprise. But, oddly, this Raptor had an empty saddle on. Tom gave it no thought as he lashed out with the knife, pulling it across dry skin.
+
"Right. Anyway." Malcolm rolled his eyes. "Mark Two armor, really cool stuff. And it came in just in time, too."
  
−
That was another thing about these dinosaurs. Most of them were warm blooded. Most of the public thought of them as slimy, cold beasts. But they were intelligent and perfectly non-slimy.  
+
"Meaning?" Holly asked.
  
−
The Raptor cough-squawked in a burst of pain, but the small cut was soon forgotten, and it advanced. Tom backed up, firing his LMG one-handed and slashing with the other hand. By backing up, though, he was giving the Raptor a tactical advantage if it lunged. But if  he got back around the corner, the Raptor was dead.
+
"We're about to get sent out again. All of us, to go mop up that Russian detention outpost you two were at. It's a joint operation between us and the Atlantians - first official mission together, just to kinda test the waters."
  
−
Tom scrambled back, and Red One stepped around the corner. He raised his rifle, but he didn't have a clear line of fire, as Tom's body was in the way. The effect was the same, though, as the Raptor reared back. It had learned to fear those in its time. It pulled off from engaging Tom and fled, and Reds One and Two jumped out and opened fire, bringing the Raptor to the ground. Its legs kicked feebly as it attempted to regain balance, but then Tom ran up and ended it with a swift jab to the neck, using his knife.  
+
"So they're sending five Shockers and how many Atlantians?" Scar asked.
  
−
Tom glanced at the two men, giving silent thanks. Red Three pulled up around the wall and took point, not wanting to be left out. He advanced, sweeping the area before him, his green Mk. III glinting, refracting the beams from the overhead work lights.  
+
"Well, a bit more than us five. And you're not gonna like it."
  
−
The first room was right ahead. Tom crouched in front of the door, his weapon pointed back the way they had come. Red Three paused by the door to make sure Reds One and Two were in place as well, then attempted to open the door. It failed to swing outward, however, as something was holding it in.  
+
The five of them packed their new armor and weaponry into armored crates, and Malcolm lead the crew back up to the ground floor, and from there they commandeered a Humvee for the short cross-camp drive to the armory.
  
−
A muffled curse came from the other side of the door, then a metallic ''clack'' as a rifle's charging lever was pulled, slotting a round from the magazine into the chamber.  
+
Inside the semi-enclosed courtyard was a flurry of pre-mission activity. Soldiers, dressed in the head-to-toe matte black version of the newest Mk II armor, jogged from place to place, securing ammo crates, inspecting gear, loading vehicles.  
  
−
"Hold fire! Hold fire!" Red Two called. "We're American!" The frantic scrabbling at the door stopped for a minute, replaced by a weary, "Prove it!"
+
Ford stood on a raised platform just outside the armory wall in one corner of the courtyard surveying the proceedings. He was dressed in cut-down CROC armor and an eyepiece instead of a helmet. From time to time aides dashed up to him carrying messages, then just as quickly disappeared. Carter stood at his shoulder, helmet in hands.
  
−
"Captain Thomas Lane, ID 875-487-390. It checks out. Check your FOF indicator." Tom called out over his shoulder, still covering the hallway.
+
When Ford saw the five 'Shockers,' he motioned them over. The 13's, who had been dubbed thus by the Marine Shock Forces, felt it their due to come up with a name in return. Hence, Shockers.
  
−
The soldier behind the door was silent a moment, checking his FOF screen, but a moment later the door cracked open a tad, and a fiber-optics cable snaked around, a tiny lens capturing everything in view. After two or three seconds, the cable wound back in and the door opened all the way. Beside the lintel stood a tall, broad-shouldered American, wearing a white skin-tight combat synthetic shirt with camo fatigue pants but no armor excepting a Kevlar weave bullet proof vest and his helmet.  
+
"Guys, suit up. We're going in first to soften up the AA, and then when the main strike force arrives, we breach buildings, grab all the sensitive material we can find, then high-tail it out when the bombing starts. Clear?" Carter asked.
  
−
"Thank God, I didn't think anyone would ever find me." The soldier said, swaying slightly. Looking back over his shoulder, Tom only just realized that the soldier was wounded. The man was cut up everywhere, his fatigues darkened by blood and shredded in some places. A large bruise decorated his left cheek, and he kept his right arm pinned to his side with a length of makeshift cording. In his left hand he clutched a small sidearm. It looked woefully underpowered.
+
"Yes sir!" The crew responded as one.
  
−
Tom sized the man up with a practiced eye. He was hurt, badly, but he was American, and he would make it.  
+
"Right. We'll be dropping in out of the new HALE rocket pods - High Altitude Low Entry Shock n' Awe drop pods. Just like the video games." Carter continued. "AC-130 flies by and drops us off, waits till we hit the AA, then drops down and provides support fire."
  
−
"I wish I could do something about your arm," Tom began, "But we need to head out. I can have one of us take you directly back to the surface, but the rest of us are gonna see if we can save some soldiers."
+
Ford nodded. "We'll be dropping you guys in addition to Orca Team, so you'll have some more numbers to fill out the ranks at first. Find and destroy as many AA emplacements as you can, then call it in and sit tight."
  
−
"Sir!" The jarhead answered, saluting, "I want to help, Sir!"
+
"Right. Let's get this show on the road."
  
−
"Good. Then follow us." Tom said, then addressing West, he said, "West, we've located the first straggler, and we're proceeding to the next one. We're moving wounded, so tell Matt he better get a medic down here lickity-split if he likes his rump without pieces missing."
+
"Yeah, lets go plan some more cliches on the plain ride." Scar rolled her eyes.
  
−
"Yes sir!" West answered. The tough talk was all an act. Tom didn't have it in him to harm a fellow soldier, and everyone knew that.
+
"At least it made sense this time." Malcolm pointed out.
  
−
The same stop-and-go action settled into a routine as Tom, with his squad in tow, picked his way through corridors, up staircases, down loading ramps, and fought to the next survivor. They continued this pattern for half an hour, Matt directing the evac operation outside, after sending in a second squad of hard-core marines to escort a medic over to Red Team, while Tom and his newfound strength busted through barriers like there wasn't a tomorrow. And maybe there wouldn't be. Tom's job was to simply survive, helping in any way he could.  
+
"Hey!" Matt laughed.
  
−
Tom finally called in, "That's the last of them. Heading for the LZ." The Landing Zone was the center courtyard, and Tom gave a final head-count of his troops. He stopped when he reached six. There was no seventh. Bitter, he remembered how Red Three had bought the farm when a clutch of Raptors ambushed the party on the way back from a dead-ended hideout area. He had pulled the man's dogtags and clutched them to his chest for a moment, letting a single tear fall to the ground, before stowing them in a pocket and moving on. That man had had a life, a family, and now his family and life wouldn't have him. It was a sad waste of life. But then, how did a commander gauge the value of a life? A life had to be something valuable enough to want to keep, but cheap enough to spend for the greater good. And sometimes, all it took to win or lose a war, to keep or take a ''life'', was an officer's value on it.  
+
The five of them split up into the locker rooms in the armory and helped eachother into their armor. It took about ten minutes to gear up in their armor, then another five while they signed out and inspected their custom weapons, each enhanced to fit the user. Matt's HK UMP-45 had been modified for higher muzzle velocity, and Matt had custom-ordered his own magazine design that held thirty-five instead of twenty-five rounds, and was fatter and wider instead of longer. Matt had also kept the SMG's distinguishing .45 ACP rounds for increased stopping power.
  
−
Tom lead the way to the exterior doorway, passing down corridors drenched in dark red human blood, and the reddish black of Raptor blood.  
+
The rest used XM8's in various configurations, with the exception that Jamie swapped his MP7 for a M1014 combat shotgun.
  
−
Tom activated the controls, punched in the access code, and let the doors open while he covered the area directly in front of him. His six men filed into the space between doors, and Tom had just punched the close button when a dark shadow came out of nowhere, running lightning fast down a hallway, heading straight for the doors. It was ''huge'', easily twenty feet tall, and it wanted ''out''.  
+
Now that the Mk. II armor had an integrated anti-armor missile weapon system, Matt didn't need to carry a rocket-launcher or grenade launcher, but instead strapped an MP7 to his thigh, a Magnum under his shoulder, and an electric-flanged mace across his back.  
  
−
Tom fired his M9 into it even as the doors closed just in time for the Utahraptor, for that's what the creature was, to crash into the metal and leave a sizable dent in the blast doors. It kicked and hammered at the door, but to no avail. The blast doors were meant to withstand this kind of punishment.  
+
"I love this new armor." Holly said once they had joined back up and were piling into a Humvee that would take them to the runway. "They updated all the joints and improved the exoskeletons, so it feels like you're floating."
  
−
The twin blast door on the other side opened, letting Tom and his crew to charge out and take heart in the fleet of hovercraft that had landed in the courtyard, all with the same mascot-logo: a black-and-gold gilded Bald Eagle with a lightning bolt in one razor-sharp talon and a Sidewinder-BunkerBuster jet fighter missile in the other.  
+
"I wouldn't say floating, but we can actually move, yeah. Sixty pounds of armor, another forty or fifty pounds of ammo and equipment while we're fighting."
  
−
Matt was waving from one of the hovercraft, and Tom took the cue and ran for him. The others behind him followed, all piling into the vehicle. The vehicles started lifting off the courtyard, and Matt entered the cockpit after making sure everyone was seated in the crew compartment, then ordered, "Punch it."
+
They exited the Humvee and boarded the AC-130, strapping themselves in for the two-hour flight to the Russian encampment. Atlantis was a big place.
  
−
The pilot answered, "Aye, sir!" and jammed the throttles to the max. Matt clutched at a support brace as he followed it back to the open-aired area around the cabins. Tom came out and stood next to him, watching as Facility 1 started to fall below them. After the hovercraft had hit maybe a hundred feet in the air, Tom saw a disturbance and ordered the pilot to halt for a moment.
+
"We should meet up with an Atlantian Zeppelin about ten miles out from the base, set up a zip line, and Orca will ride across to our bird." An operator told them over their helmet's internal comm. "We've got two hours till the drop, so make yourselves comfortable."
  
−
Both Captains blinked and did a double-take; the Utahraptor was standing below them, snarling and growling. Without prompting, a soldier manning a .35 cal chain gun along the side rail opened fire, scattering the courtyard with brass and led. Tom and Matt simultaneously reached for their Lindstrats, aimed, and fired. It didn't matter whose shot it was, but the creature went down, hard, and wouldn't be getting up anytime soon.
+
Matt pulled an oxygen mask from its cradle behind his head and slotted it over his face. They would be going high enough that it would be hard to breath. His full-helmet had its own internal air scrubbers, but they could recycle air for a maximum of 20 minutes, and anyways he didn't want to use up his oxygen reserves just for the flight.
 +
 
 +
For the next hour and a half, the crew alternated cleaning their weapons, adjusting their sights, fine-tuning fore-grips and mounted grenade launchers and high-intensity halogen flashlights, and taking cat-naps.
 +
 
 +
Carter roused the crew fifteen minutes prior to their scheduled rendezvous with the Atlantians. Each of them went through their final pre-launch equipment checklist, making sure everything worked correctly, then checked eachother's gear.
 +
 
 +
Matt felt his heart speed up as the AC-130 pulled into a steep dive. They would have to get lower if they wanted the zeppelin to be able to keep pace.
 +
 
 +
"Alright, boys and girls, time to get suited up." The operator said as the red light blinked on. The six of them slid full-face helmets on over their padded skull caps and made sure the oxygen tanks were fully charged. It would suck to black out from the G's taking away the oxygen from your brain, and end up dying because you couldn't hit a control at the right moment.

Latest revision as of 00:37, 27 November 2010

Book One: Atlantis Rising


Written by Brandon Krupczak


Atlantis Rising: Chapter 1 Atlantis Rising: Chapter 11
Atlantis Rising: Chapter 2 Atlantis Rising: Chapter 12
Atlantis Rising: Chapter 3 Atlantis Rising: Chapter 13
Atlantis Rising: Chapter 4
Atlantis Rising: Chapter 5
Atlantis Rising: Chapter 6
Atlantis Rising: Chapter 7
Atlantis Rising: Chapter 8
Atlantis Rising: Chapter 9
Atlantis Rising: Chapter 10

Hello people reading this! You may have accidentally stumbled upon a book that is under way currently. The book is basically about World War Three, in a world where there are eight continents. The eighth is Atlantis, which surfaces in December of 2012. Maybe the Mayan calendar wasn't counting down to this day, but counting up to the day when Atlantis would rise above the oceans once more, supposedly.

Below is a random chapter from the book that I display here on the front page. The link above brings you to the page that the chapter is actually housed at. If you scroll down to the very bottom, you'll find my work in progress section, where I write the next section/chapter of the book. Because I start writing completely fresh chapters, the work in progress section might end in a fragment of thought, or there might not be anything displayed there.

Please also note that none of my writing here is completed and I go back numerous times to a piece to improve it. The chapter below will be changed multiple times and improved upon, so if you read it now you might wanna check back every now and again to see if I changed anything.

Also, please note that any writing I do here is written to entertain, and therefore the story has to fit in with itself, so please excuse any religious or opinionated writing I have here and do not take it into offense. Please don't copy my work. It's not nice.


Also check out my friend Jamie Knox's writing here:

Reaper's First Drop

And here's a new, alternate account of the war, from the perspective of an elite soldier from an elite Black-Ops Spec-Ops division.

Atlantis Rising: Perfect War

And another little project of mine. Here, I'm writing about the video game Fallout 3. The setting, premise, and some of the characters are not my creation, but basically I'm taking the game and writing my own addition.

Fallout 3

An additional project, using the concept and setting of the Fallout universe again. This is an idea I've wanted to explore: A Fallout game in the Carribean.

Fallout: Caribbean

And a Halo project, told from the perspective of a Marine Fireteam. Just regular soldiers, not Spartans or even ODSTs.

Halo: Fireteam


[edit] Atlantis Teaser

"Soldiers, you will be deployed via fast-rope. You will rappel down to the ground and await the indicator in your HUD before beginning. As soon as you see the signal, you may begin. Good luck, recruits. Up first: Echo Squad! Squad Leader, make sure your squad's gear checks out."

The DS gestured to Matt, and all of them went and gave one another triple buddy checks.

"Ready when you are, Frost!" Holly yelled over their Team comm.

"Roger that, Aura." Matt yelled back. Each of them had callsigns. His was Frost. Jamie's was Scorch. Scar was Flare. Malcolm was Spark. Holly was Aura. "Alright. Squad, move out! Go, go, go!" Matt barked.

Scar attached her rappel harness to the line and jumped out the side, one hand on the rope above her, and the other below and slightly behind her butt, the "brake" hand that controlled how fast the line went. Malcolm followed, then Jamie, then Holly. Matt was the last one out, as befitting his status of Squad Leader.

Scar landed, disengaged her harness, and let it drop to the forest floor. A crew would come later and get it.

Soon the entire squad was on the ground, and Matt quickly led the squad under cover of the trees. As soon as the V-22 Osprey was out of sight, they doubled back and went after the bird. They kept the lines from the rappel - there was always a use for thirty feet of tough nylon.

The countdown timer in Matt's HUD read D + 15:07 when Matt raised his fist, the sign to halt. With slow, exaggerated sign language, he indicated for the team to spread out and climb the trees. Jamie went with Matt in one tree. Scar went by herself, and Malcolm and Holly shared a third.

"Frost, requesting permission to re-format to a sniper?" Scar whispered over the Teamcomm.

"Roger that, Flare. Permission granted. Scorch, outfit yours with the AR. Aura, you're our grenadier. Get the XM320 on there." The XM320 was a single-shot 40mm grenade launcher that could be attached to their carbines. Matt put one on his. Malcolm preferred a straight-up assault rifle.

Beside Matt, almost completely invisible in the heavy jungle shadow, Jamie lay prone along two branches, with his AR balanced on a third branch with a clear line-of-sight to the ground.

Matt slid down from the tree. "Spark, get down here and help me create a barricade. We need to push any incoming squads into one firing lane. Scorch, Flare, give me a dot." In response, Malcolm slid from his tree, and both Scar and Jamie highlighted the firing lane that they had access to with red laser-dots. Matt took armfuls of brambles and thin, thorned vines and dumped them to the left and right of the lane, in between the trees, to create a natural-looking wall that would influence the squads to find an easier way through. Right through their lane of fire.

Matt strung triplines further out into the jungle with the Nylon cables, attaching them to frag grenades.

Matt's countdown ended. "Alright people, we can now shoot at and be shot. Let's wrap this up." Malcolm laid the last armful of brambles in place, and then they both scampered up into their separate trees. There were five other squads in this particular mission, all within a square mile. It wouldn't be long before they had some hits.

Five minutes passed, and no one came. The squad was getting impatient. "Spark," Matt whispered. "Be the rabbit. I need you to go along the lane and see if you can draw some fire, then sprint back here. We'll cover your approach. I'd do it myself but I'm not fast enough."

"Roger that, lead." Malcolm said, grinning. "I've always been one for the suicidal frontal charge." He slid down his tree, landing in the brush below. Before he had even gone two minutes, the sound of gunfire erupted through the forest. "Frost, I've got multiple targets here. They've got me pinned, I could use some assistance!"

Matt looked to Holly. She nodded, slid down, and circled around to the right to counter-flank the guys surrounding Malcolm. "Spark, help is on the way. How long can you hold?"

"I've got good cover, I'm inside a shallow cave-thing in the ground. I can hold out a while."

"Roger that. Keep your head down, but keep the attention centered on you. And watch out, they'll try to advance. Watch your flanks."

"You got it, Frost." Malcolm said, and tossed a grenade out the opening of the cave. It exploded, and Malcolm heard someone groan. "Yeah, bring it!" He shouted.

Holly took up a firing position, sighted through her scope, and tagged a soldier in the back of his head. He dropped like a load of rocks, asleep by the time he hit the ground. Return fire peppered the rock she had been hiding behind, and two soldiers broke off to get her. But Holly wasn't there anymore.

A soldier fell as rounds tore into his inner thigh. He dropped to the ground, not out yet but with a crippled leg. He hobbled behind a piece of cover as Holly filled the air with bullets around the second soldier. A grenade rolled to a stop next to her, and at this she turned and fled back the way she had come, then darted back, and got the attention of the two remaining soldiers pinning Malcolm.

At the momentary distraction, Malcolm bolted out of the hole, sprinted from rock to tree, from tree to bush, from bush to ground, and drew the soldiers down through the firing lane, followed a second later by Holly. Jamie adjusted his grip on the AR as the two squadmates ran down the path. 30 seconds later, the first soldier popped into view. Jamie waited until the last soldier appeared, then nailed the one closest to any viable cover.

The steady thrum of the AR set Matt's head pounding, and he opened fire on the last one in the line. Then Scar fired, and a round slugged the first soldier in the chest.

Jamie's target fell from hits to the leg, side, and shoulder. He wasn't quite gone, but almost. Jamie finished him off with another quick, sustained burst.

Matt's soldier dropped to the ground, out for the count with five rounds in his chest and more in his left arm.

Scar's target took the heavy caliber bullet in the chest and sat down with the force, hard, landing on his butt and jarring his head. Before he could recover, Scar punched another round into his chest. He spun halfway around and ate dirt.

Four down. The last soldier turned to flee, but Holly popped out of the shadows and nailed him with a grenade from her XM320, which cast training rounds into a wide arc everywhere, painting the nearby forest a vivid crimson.

"Alright!" Jamie crowed.

Matt disengaged his spent clip and slapped a new one in. "Let's hope the other squads come running for the noise. One down, three to go, gentlemen."


The next squad was slightly smarter. Instead of running pel-mel into the contested area, they sent one scout on ahead through the firing lane, and the rest hung back and encircled the target area. Too bad for them, Matt's squad had moved from the one killing field and into another close-by clearing, where they could easily spot the would-be flanking attack.

"Open fire!" Matt yelled, and the two soldiers in sight twisted around, trying to find the source of the noise. One was slugged by a heavy cal. sniper shot, and the other fell to the combined fire from Jamie's AR and Matt's carbine.

Holly and Malcolm, still on the ground, rose out of a cover of leaves and dead brush and moved around behind the three soldiers left that came running. Standing up, they nailed two with one salvo of fire.

The last one hit the dirt and rolled under a log. Holly and Malcolm pursued.

"Negative! Disengage!" Jamie yelled, and opened fire into the brush to their left.

Holly hit dirt. Malcolm followed half a second later with three rounds stitched across his back. He wasn't out yet, but his entire suit was getting quickly more rigid.

He turned onto his back and fired in the general direction of where the shots had come from. Holly sidled around to him and took out a fake med-pack, wiping clean the Training Rounds and administering an electric shock through the armor. Malcolm's suit unstraightened a little, and Malcolm crawled back into better cover.

Jamie was still firing bursts from his AR at the last squad. Matt held his fire; there was no clear target in view, and to give away his position would be stupid. Scar attached a flash suppressor to her rifle, and started shelling the squad's general position.

"Watch flankers." Matt advised, seeing shadows moving behind her. Scar turned and nailed one soldier who had tried to flank her, and Matt caught another with a grenade.

Matt slid to the ground as Jamie covered him, landed, and ran in a half-crouch to Holly. He saw a rifle barrel poke out of a bush, saw a blast coming their way, and tackled Holly to the ground. The burst nailed him in the calf and he rolled up into a crouch.

Matt rolled off and came up firing. Jamie suppressed the soldier that had just shot at them while Matt took him out, Holly and Malcolm covering his flank.

Then Scar took multiple sustained bursts from the last soldier from the other squad, and toppled from the tree. She was out cold. Fury ignited in Matt. Toppling her from the tree was not necessary, and she could have injured herself. He and Holly outflanked the soldier and drilled him to the ground with long automatic fire.

They split and threw themselves behind rocks, Matt reloading as he went. There were two left on the other team and three left on his; Malcolm had been drilled again in his helmet.

Jamie's AR barked again and again. With his suppressive fire, Matt darted from cover to cover and distracted the two soldiers long enough for Holly to creep around and take the first one out. The last soldier sprayed fire everywhere, panicking, and continued even as Matt, Jamie, and Holly's combined fire drilled him into the ground.

The DS broke through their comm. lines, "Cease fire. Echo team, you have won the mission. We will collect you shortly. Hold position."

"Roger that." Matt responded. "Alright, lady and gentleman. We won!"

The survivors of Echo Team gazed around at all the unconscious forms before them. They may as well have been dead. It was only now that Matt got the first hint of what a war could really be like. He would have to do better, make sure none of his crew got hurt, ever. This was one simple mission, and two of his own had gone. What would have happened had they been live rounds? Scar and Malcolm, dead, blink of an eye, without ever seeing their attackers. What was this going to come to?


This was war.


[edit] Work In Progress Chapter 14


"You guys have got to check this out." Malcolm said as they boarded a cargo lift. "So the new shipments of Croc Armor have come in while you two were away, but the boys have been working overtime developing some gear strictly for the Shock Forces. I've gotten to work fitting our new armor with all our old custom stuff, but with some new toys."

"What kind of toys?" Jamie asked, yawning. Upon arrival back at Firebase Bravo, he and Matt had been debriefed, taken several hot showers, and stuffed their guts with the contents of several MREs. Life was good.

"Dude DWAI. You'll see in just a sec."

The lift sank several stories into the ground, to where Ford had had a Research and Development Lab excavated and lined with a fast-drying concrete substitute while Matt and Jamie were gone.

It was the classic Malcolm workshop scene, with tables and workbenches lining the walls, equipment strewn all over the place in differing states of organization. But for some reason the lights were dimmed to half-intensity, throwing the room into deep shadows.

They got off the lift and stood for a second. Matt inhaled the stale air and examined the sets of armor that lay draped over tables, gauntlets and shoulder pauldrons dismantled.

"I don't see anything." Jamie said after half a minute.

"I do." Malcolm said, unable to contain a grin.

Matt looked harder. "Oh. Clever."

"What?" Jamie asked.

Matt reached out with one hand and gently probed the flickering semi-shadow before him. It laughed, so Matt grabbed the camouflage cloak and pulled it off.

The figure laughed again. Matt could now see the armor in greater detail, but the invisibility mechanism still worked amazingly well.

Scar and Holly tapped some controls on their gauntlets from inside their new armor and solidified into the visible spectrum.

Malcolm hit the lights, and the room lit up.

"Awesome! I want one." Jamie cackled.

"Pretty sweet." Matt agreed. "How does it work?"

"Unfortunately it sucks up power like a wild hog." Holly said, detaching a power cable from her back. "So the armor can't support it for much longer than a minute in combat situations unless its plugged into something."

"It's none of the 'Oh, I'll take a miraculous video of whats behind me and put it in front of me and for some reason it looks like I'm invisible' crap." Malcolm explained. "That would require the entire exterior of the armor to be covered in video screens. Instead, the armor's on-board computer gets a general bearing of its surroundings and then tells its new photo-reactive armor plates to change color and shade depending on what it registers. Like we said, the computer system and the photo-plates suck power really fast, so you can only do it for about a minute on one power cell."

"What's the cape for?"

Malcolm winced. "Cloak. Camouflage cloak. It's to break up the humanoid figure. Our eyes identify things by shape and color, so if we blur the outline of your body and minimize the difference in color you're practically invisible."

Matt crossed to the worktables and inserted his arm into a gauntlet, then pulled a switch and a blade jumped out of the side. "Nice."

"Yeah. Retractable gauntlet blades, your custom elbow spikes, high-density non-standard issue gel bladders, M5 fiber gloves in the gauntlets, steel knuckles, integrated sonic pulse emitter in the helmet speakers. And then some of the newer stuff, we've got optional gauntlet attachments, custom-fit for each of us. Jamie's, Scar's, and mine shoot flames. Yours, which is a much smaller attachment, can send an electric shock through the gauntlet and anything you're touching. Holly's shoots a gas grenade loaded with tear gas. Of course, the rebreather and visor in the helmet will make you impervious to gas attacks."

"Thank heaven." Jamie snickered. "Finally, a piece of equipment that's been Matt-proofed."

"Somehow, I knew you would say that."

"And I did."

"Yes you did."

"Okay."

"Alright then."

A few seconds passed in silence.

"Awkward." Scarlett stated.

"Right. Anyway." Malcolm rolled his eyes. "Mark Two armor, really cool stuff. And it came in just in time, too."

"Meaning?" Holly asked.

"We're about to get sent out again. All of us, to go mop up that Russian detention outpost you two were at. It's a joint operation between us and the Atlantians - first official mission together, just to kinda test the waters."

"So they're sending five Shockers and how many Atlantians?" Scar asked.

"Well, a bit more than us five. And you're not gonna like it."

The five of them packed their new armor and weaponry into armored crates, and Malcolm lead the crew back up to the ground floor, and from there they commandeered a Humvee for the short cross-camp drive to the armory.

Inside the semi-enclosed courtyard was a flurry of pre-mission activity. Soldiers, dressed in the head-to-toe matte black version of the newest Mk II armor, jogged from place to place, securing ammo crates, inspecting gear, loading vehicles.

Ford stood on a raised platform just outside the armory wall in one corner of the courtyard surveying the proceedings. He was dressed in cut-down CROC armor and an eyepiece instead of a helmet. From time to time aides dashed up to him carrying messages, then just as quickly disappeared. Carter stood at his shoulder, helmet in hands.

When Ford saw the five 'Shockers,' he motioned them over. The 13's, who had been dubbed thus by the Marine Shock Forces, felt it their due to come up with a name in return. Hence, Shockers.

"Guys, suit up. We're going in first to soften up the AA, and then when the main strike force arrives, we breach buildings, grab all the sensitive material we can find, then high-tail it out when the bombing starts. Clear?" Carter asked.

"Yes sir!" The crew responded as one.

"Right. We'll be dropping in out of the new HALE rocket pods - High Altitude Low Entry Shock n' Awe drop pods. Just like the video games." Carter continued. "AC-130 flies by and drops us off, waits till we hit the AA, then drops down and provides support fire."

Ford nodded. "We'll be dropping you guys in addition to Orca Team, so you'll have some more numbers to fill out the ranks at first. Find and destroy as many AA emplacements as you can, then call it in and sit tight."

"Right. Let's get this show on the road."

"Yeah, lets go plan some more cliches on the plain ride." Scar rolled her eyes.

"At least it made sense this time." Malcolm pointed out.

"Hey!" Matt laughed.

The five of them split up into the locker rooms in the armory and helped eachother into their armor. It took about ten minutes to gear up in their armor, then another five while they signed out and inspected their custom weapons, each enhanced to fit the user. Matt's HK UMP-45 had been modified for higher muzzle velocity, and Matt had custom-ordered his own magazine design that held thirty-five instead of twenty-five rounds, and was fatter and wider instead of longer. Matt had also kept the SMG's distinguishing .45 ACP rounds for increased stopping power.

The rest used XM8's in various configurations, with the exception that Jamie swapped his MP7 for a M1014 combat shotgun.

Now that the Mk. II armor had an integrated anti-armor missile weapon system, Matt didn't need to carry a rocket-launcher or grenade launcher, but instead strapped an MP7 to his thigh, a Magnum under his shoulder, and an electric-flanged mace across his back.

"I love this new armor." Holly said once they had joined back up and were piling into a Humvee that would take them to the runway. "They updated all the joints and improved the exoskeletons, so it feels like you're floating."

"I wouldn't say floating, but we can actually move, yeah. Sixty pounds of armor, another forty or fifty pounds of ammo and equipment while we're fighting."

They exited the Humvee and boarded the AC-130, strapping themselves in for the two-hour flight to the Russian encampment. Atlantis was a big place.

"We should meet up with an Atlantian Zeppelin about ten miles out from the base, set up a zip line, and Orca will ride across to our bird." An operator told them over their helmet's internal comm. "We've got two hours till the drop, so make yourselves comfortable."

Matt pulled an oxygen mask from its cradle behind his head and slotted it over his face. They would be going high enough that it would be hard to breath. His full-helmet had its own internal air scrubbers, but they could recycle air for a maximum of 20 minutes, and anyways he didn't want to use up his oxygen reserves just for the flight.

For the next hour and a half, the crew alternated cleaning their weapons, adjusting their sights, fine-tuning fore-grips and mounted grenade launchers and high-intensity halogen flashlights, and taking cat-naps.

Carter roused the crew fifteen minutes prior to their scheduled rendezvous with the Atlantians. Each of them went through their final pre-launch equipment checklist, making sure everything worked correctly, then checked eachother's gear.

Matt felt his heart speed up as the AC-130 pulled into a steep dive. They would have to get lower if they wanted the zeppelin to be able to keep pace.

"Alright, boys and girls, time to get suited up." The operator said as the red light blinked on. The six of them slid full-face helmets on over their padded skull caps and made sure the oxygen tanks were fully charged. It would suck to black out from the G's taking away the oxygen from your brain, and end up dying because you couldn't hit a control at the right moment.

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