Chapter 120 Visions (Patreon)

Edited.

This one took forever to write. Aside from real-world problems and an attack of cluster headaches, it still was hard to get it right. I knew how I wanted to come out, but the nitty-gritty was hard to get right. Anyway, it's out now. Enjoy.

Chapter 120

Visions

“Boss, my feed just went down.” Anderson, Third Squad’s drone operator, told her over the radio.

“How far out?” Freya asked frowning as she looked at where the feed had been only seconds ago.

“About two hundred feet.” She told Freya. “Should we investigate?”

“No, switch to another tunnel.” Freya told the female marine. “I want to make sure this isn’t just a one off.”

“Seth, inform Kruz.” Freya said.

She turned around to see Seth finishing widing the hole so that they had a bigger exit. She saw him nod to her before he popped his head out of the hole. She turned back to watch Anderson move to the third hole and launch another drone. A second feed popped up on her HUD seconds later. About a minute later, Taka, Second Squad’s drone operator, spoke up. He didn’t need to, Freya had already seen his drone go dark.

“Magic…” He said, trailing off.

“I see it.” Freya told him. “How far out?”

“Four hundred and eighty feet.” He replied.

“Seth…” Freya said, turning to look at him, but she saw he couldn’t hear her. He still had his head popped out of the hole.

“Taka, go ahead and scout out the fourth hole.” She told him as she walked up to Seth and tapped on his leg. He ducked back down and looked at her. “Tell Kruz that we lost another drone. Tunnel two, four hundred and eight feet.” He didn’t say anything, but stood up again so that his head was above the cave’s roof. Freya turned away from him and watched the drone feeds.

One by one, the drones went dark as Freya had them scout each tunnel. The drone in the fifth tunnel lasted the longest. It made it roughly nine hundred feet before it went dark. Freya faithfully reported as each drone went dark, waiting for Kruz or whoever was giving her orders to tell her what to do. She didn’t get any. Kruz just acknowledged her communication. That was it.

She thought about asking for reinforcements, but the cave they were in was already pretty packed. Even if she could get people down here, she knew that if they had to leave in a hurry they would get in each other's way. She also thought about better defenses, but the tunnel was too small for auto turrets. The roof’s clearance was too low. The tunnels were already mined. Biting her lip, she thought about what to do as everyone looked at her waiting for her orders.

“Hey, ma shiv, what do you wanna do?” Monkeyman asked. She could see a cocky smile behind his face mask.

“Take your squad and scout tunnel one. Take the other squad with you. Run relay communications with one person on this side of the comms blackout. Go as far as one thousand feet, then stop. If your drone isn’t…” Freya started to say, but drifted off as a weird feeling came out of nowhere. The feeling was strange. It felt as if everything was slightly unreal all of a sudden. She blinked, but the feeling remained.

“Magic?” Monkeyman asked, sounding concerned.

“I’m fine.” Freya told him, trying to ignore the feeling. “Use your people for relay comms. Go as far as you can go, but no further than a thousand feet.”

“You sure you’re good?” Monkeyman asked. Freya could see his concern through his face shield.

“I'm fine.” Freya said more strongly than before. She looked behind him and saw the questioning looks of the rest of her squad. Monkeyman thankfully took the hint and started barking orders.

“On me.” He told them. “Stick with your partners. DOs behind their demos. I got point.”

Freya watched them slide down the rise and disappear into the first tunnel one by one. A few seconds later she was alone with her drone guy, Seth. That made her realize that he needed to be down here and not popping up and down communicating with command. She waved him over.

“How many drones can you keep running?” She asked him.

“My forge can only cook two at a time, but give me five and I can have three out at the same time” He told her.

“Can you control one more if I send out mine and slave it to you?” She asked him.

“Sure, shouldn’t be a problem.” He replied.

“Send a drone down tunnels two, three, and four.” She told him. “I’ll send one down five. You know where to stop them?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He replied with a nod.

Freya was glad because she didn’t. She nodded back to him and checked to see if her drone was ready. It was. A quick bit of programming and she sent it off. She lost control of it almost immediately as Seth took control over it. She wandered over to the final tunnel and laid down with her weapon covering the opening. As she did, video feeds started appearing one by one on the left side of her HUD. The last one took five minutes to finish being built, but soon she had all the feeds running on her HUD.

Looking through the scope of her Asy Minor, all she saw was where the roof of the tunnel met the floor in her sight. She heard Seth lay down beside her and take up a defensive position. She knew he was useless as a relay comms person now that he had his drones out. The moment he popped his head out of the cave all his drones would die.

She thought about asking him to let her have some control over the drones, but in the end decided against it. She needed to let him do his job. Her rationale was, if she needed to talk to Kruz or whoever else was up there listening, then she could damn well do it herself. Knowing what was coming at them in the tunnels was far more important at the moment than talking to command. She needed to command her squad, and not get overwhelmed with running all the drones.

As she looked through her scope, she absently started brushing away the dirt under her rifle. At first it was because the ripple in the dirt that her rifle was sitting on made her aim a bit unsteady. She kept at it because the dirt felt weird. It took her a few minutes to figure out why. All the previous tunnels were hard as a rock. This dirt felt compacted, but not rock like.

Frowning Freya looked away from her scope and looked down at the dirt. It looked different from the tunnels. It also looked different from the loose sand from outside as well. She rubbed on a ripple and was able to, with a bit of extra strength, push her thumb through it. Something about being able to do it made her concerned. Her instincts weren’t telling her anything, but it was new. She didn’t like new things. Especially from her enemies.

She looked at the tunnel, checking on it, but knowing Seth was there keeping an eye on it made her feel better even if he only had a pistol. She pulled out her knife and stabbed it into the dirt, fully expecting to hit rock. Instead the knife buried itself to the hilt. Biting her lip, she swirled her knife around then pulled it out again. Placing the knife beside the softer dirt she had made, she used her hand and started to dig.

“Boss, what are you doing?” Seth asked. When she looked up she saw that he hadn’t taken his eyes off the tunnel, like a good marine.

“Dirt feels wrong.” She told him, looking back down at the foot-wide hole she had created.

“Okay?” Seth replied like he was trying to appease a crazy person.

Freya ignored him and stabbed her knife in again to loosen up the dirt once more. She stabbed the dirt two more times and she was starting to feel like she was crazy when her knife punched through into open space. Her arm kept going until her shoulder hit the outer edge of the hole. It only stopped because the hole was too small for it to keep going. In the process, she nearly dropped her knife into the open space below them.

“Knew it.” Freya muttered to herself as she pulled her arm out of the hole. She looked down into the hole, but her armor’s darkvision couldn’t penetrate the void below her. She was not sure why.

“Boss?” Seth asked, leaning sideways so he was looking at her and through his gun sights at the same time.

“It’s hollow.” Freya said absently, getting to her knees. “Pull back a drone. I want to know what's below us.”

“On it.” Seth was quick to reply. He sounded nervous to Freya, but she wasn’t. The unreal feeling she had been feeling made her feelings kind of numb. She felt a bit worried, but it was like the feeling was far away. Normally her emotions felt like they were coming directly from her belly, but now it felt like they were coming from much deeper inside her belly. It was hard to describe even to herself, but her feelings felt muted somehow.

“No. Not muted. Or at least not just muted.” She told herself, examining her feelings as Seth pulled a drone back. “It feels like everything is both far away and unreal at the same time.”

“Get back in the game.” She told herself as she shook her head.

“This is Magic. Relay this all the way forward. Recall. I say again. Recall. Make your way back here. We found an open space below our cave. I don’t trust the Ketica not to lay a trap here. Once we clear it, we can resume our scouting.” Freya said on the squad channel.

“Recall. Exit point is unsecured. Understood, and relaying.” Castillo, a second squad demo specialist, replied.

Freya looked at her mini map. She saw the drone that Seth was pulling back was still a ways out. Seeing that she had some time, she turned around and walked over to the hole in the roof. She popped her head up and keyed her mic up on the command channel.

“Kruz, the cave we are in is hollow. Found an empty space below us. Waiting on a drone to come back to see what we are standing on. Also be aware that most of my squad is out scouting the first tunnel. I’m pulling them back now. I want to make sure our exit is safe before we do any further scouting.” She told her boss over the command channel.

“Understood.” Sergeant Kruz’s reply came back. “I’m going to have that hole widened. I want a clear exit for you and your people.”

“Sounds good. Out.” Feyra told her then dropped back into the cave.

The feeds from the drones came back online as soon as she was below, back fully in the cave. Checking on her mini map, she noticed that the drone was nearly back with them. There was still no sign of the people she sent out, but then again it had only been thirty seconds or so since she had sent out the recall. Seth, she saw, was still on his belly with his pistol. He had moved back a few feet so that he was behind the hole in the ground, but still had a field of fire on the tunnel.

“Smart.” She thought to herself as she crouched down next to him. Smiling, she looked away from him and to the hole she had dug in the ground. It drew her attention.

“Drone’s here.” He said a few seconds later.

Freya looked away from the dark hole and nodded. Then she spoke as she realized that he wouldn’t be able to see her. “Understood. Send it down the hole.”

“On it.” He replied. Freya watched through the drone's feed as it zoomed above them then flew down into the hole in the ground. The feed went dark, and the signal was lost.

“Dammit.” She muttered to herself then she turned and spoke to Seth. “We are going to have to dig. Hang on, be right back.”

She popped her head back up. She spotted a bunch of people walking towards her with trenching tools. Smiling, she pointed at one of the marines. “I need your shovel.” She told him.

“What’s wrong?” Kruz asked over the radio.

“Drone went dead as soon as it entered the hole. I’m going to have to dig a bit and poke my head in.” She replied.

“Have someone else poke their head in.” Kruz ordered.

“I’m the scout, Pin.” Freya reminded her. “I’m better at it than the others.”

“You are also in command of that squad.” Kruz reminded her. “If you get dead, then …”

“I have Monkeyman with me who can take over.” Freya told her boss, interrupting her. “I got this, Pin. Trust me.”

“By Tom’s balls, Magic.” Kruz cursed. “Fine, but if you get dead I’m gonna kill you.”

“Understood.” Freya said with a small smile as she grabbed the trenching tool from the marine in front of her. The others had already started digging around the hole ,making it bigger. Freya gave them a little wave and dipped her head back down into the hole.

Her mini map didn’t show any of her squadmates except Castillo. Seth was still holding his line on his belly. The drone feeds didn’t show anything coming at them in the tunnels. Everything was as she left it.

“Castillo, status report.” She asked over the squad channel.

“Wait one.” Came the reply. Then he disappeared off her mini map. He was gone for about twenty seconds then he came back. “They are on their way. One minute out.”

“Understood.” Freya replied walking up to Seth.

She looked at his medium armor and signed. It would be much harder for him to stand up and start shoveling than it would be for her in her light armor. Grumbling to herself, she tapped him with her boot and handed over her rifle. He took it and put his pistol away. Then she got to digging.

The trenching tool dug deep into the dirt. Much deeper than she expected. Her strength was making itself known. She tossed the dirt to the far end of the tunnel where Kruz had collapsed their last exit point. As she dug, she was not sure it was a good idea for Kruz to collapse it. Granted, it was one more tunnel they had to watch in case constructs had tunneled into it, but she would have felt more comfortable with having two exits. Still, she had to admit with six tunnels it was nice not having to watch a seventh that was at their rear.

It didn’t take long at all for Freya to dig a bigger opening for her hole in the ground. She tossed the shovel to the side and crouched down. The rest of her squad was still not on her mini map, but she knew they couldn’t be that far. Mentally shrugging her shoulders, she pulled out her pistol, the Wingols 90 90, and knelt down beside her hole.

“Move up beside me.” She ordered Seth who was behind her. He quickly got up and moved to her right about three feet from the hole. She noted that he still had a line of fire at all of the tunnels and the hole.

“Good marine.” She thought to herself as she lowered her head towards the hole. The hole, to her frustration, was still dark and her armor’s darkvision still didn’t penetrate the darkness inside the hole. She bit her lip then dipped her head into the hole. Her darkvision broke through the darkness as soon as her head passed through the lip at the bottom of the hole.

She found herself in a much larger cave that spread out much further than the cave above it. She didn’t have time to guess at how large the cave was because it was occupied. At first she didn’t understand what she was seeing, but then her mind caught up. It was like looking at a crowd then spotting a friend in the middle of it, but backwards. She saw a dog-insect-looking construct in the middle of a huge pile and then saw that the pile was made of thousands of them.

The pile was so big that it reminded her of the garbage islands that floated on the ocean that passed by the bay at home every week or so. Except it was like she was looking down instead of looking from the side like she used to. The topmost construct was only ten or so feet from her head. It was also aware of her.

Freya had just a second to react as the construct jumped at her. When she entered the hole she had led with her gun. She was glad that she had as she pulled the trigger over and over again. Oddly enough, she was panicking, but she was also still feeling that unreal, distant feeling still. She was kind of detached as she watched the bullets strike the jumping construct. The bullets tore through the head of the construct, making small black holes in the hard outer shell. It’s armor didn’t matter all that much as she was firing explosive rounds. It went limp after the fourth round then fell backwards back towards the pile.

The problem was that there were many other constructs in the pile. A second construct had jumped seconds after the first one. Freya didn’t have time to retreat, nor did she have time to move her pistol into position to fire on it. Less than a second after the first construct went limp, the second one reached her.

It’s claw-like paw wrapped around her outstretched arm and then it started to fall. The weight pulled her after it. She felt the pain as soon as the paw encircled her arm and the bones broke. Her pistol dropped from her now useless hand.

She landed on top of the pile and something grabbed her leg, breaking it. Then she felt paws all over her, tearing and breaking things. Mad from the pain she pulled a grenade that was hanging on her vest and armed it. Something tore into her back and kept on going until she saw a bloody paw sprouting from her stomach. She ignored the timer and depressed the trigger on the grenade.

“Magic?” Monkeyman asked, sounding concerned.

Freya freaked out and spun around. Monkeyman was in front of her. Her squad that she took down into the tunnel was standing around her. Looking around, she saw that she was back in the cave above where the constructs were waiting. She looked to where she had dug the hole, but it was gone.

The pain from being torn apart by the constructs was also gone. Oddly enough, she still felt the unreal/distant feeling of her emotions. She lowered her rifle and sighed with relief. She had no idea what had happened, but it felt real.

“Magic?” Monkeyman asked again.

“What happened?” She asked herself. “I’m back to when I was about to send Monkeyman and the rest off to scout the tunnels. Did I time-travel?” She immediately dismissed the notion. Time-travel was impossible. You could kind of time-travel into the future by leaving gravity fields, but all that was experience of time. You really didn’t travel into the future. You just experienced time differently. Get closer to a gravity field and time slows down again.

“It’s a trap.” Freya said, coming back to herself. She looked up at Monkeyman. “We need to leave, now.”

“Magic?” Monkeyman said looking very concerned.

Looking around she found that no one was following her order. “Everyone out, now!” Shouted at them. She reached over and grabbed Monkeyman and shoved him towards the hole in the roof. “Out, ma Monkeyman. Now. That’s an order from your shiv!”

To her relief he nodded and turned to the rest of the squad. “The boss said to go. We go.” He told them and started towards the hole. “Seth, you first. Tell them that we are coming out.”

He turned towards her again as the others started moving towards the hole. Seth and another demo specialist were trying to widen the hole. “Where is the danger coming from?” Monkeyman asked her.

Wordlessly Freya pointed downwards. She saw him frown as he looked down. Then he looked up at her. “I knew this cave was too good to be true.” He said with a cocky smile. “How long?”

“As long as we aren’t stupid and dig a hole, a while. I hope.” Freya said, still feeling panicky. She was kind of grateful to that distant and unreal feeling as she wasn’t sure she would be able to function without it blunting her feelings. Even now it was nearly overwhelming.

Her near full-on panic must have spooked her squad because they tore into the hole above them and had it widened in less than a minute. Seth was the first one to climb out. The hole was still small so he had to force his way through it, but to Freya’s relief he didn’t get stuck. Soon Castillo was reaching up for Seth to help him out of the hole.

“You’re next.” Monkeyman said, taking her elbow.

“No. Squad first, then me.” Freya said, pulling her elbow out of his hold. “I mean it, Monkey. I need to be here in case something happens.”

He didn’t say anything, but he gave her an ugly look. She refused to look away from him. She meant what she said. She had to be here. She wasn’t sure why she was back, but if she had a chance she knew she had to save him. She couldn’t lose him. Not after Lurch. She feared falling into the pile and feeling all that pain once more, but she would much rather do it all over again if it meant that Monkeyman would live.

It hit her right then. His life was more important to her than hers was to herself. She didn't love him in that way, but he was her brother. She couldn’t see herself ever sleeping with him. But he was still far more important to her than anyone else including herself. He had to live. She would sacrifice everything if it meant that he would live.

He looked away from her and nodded to the hole. She turned around and saw that everyone had left. It was only the two of them left. She ignored his nod and turned back towards where she had dug the hole that led to the constructs. She raised her rifle to the ready and waited.

Monkeyman finally gave up and moved to the hole in the roof. Freya kept her rifle pointed towards the ground and slowly backed up towards the hole. Monkeyman jumped up, out of the hole .Then his hands came down and slid under her shoulders. She let her rifle drop and jumped up as Monkeyman pulled her from the hole. He effortlessly lifted her out of the hole without any help from her.

“It’s Monkeyman.” He told her quietly as he set her on the ground.

“I know.” She told him with a faint smile.

“What the hell is going on, Magic?” Kruz shouted over the radio.

“We need to call in a heavy artillery strike on this position.” Freya said, feeling better now that she wasn’t standing over a pile of constructs. “There are thousands of constructs about twenty feet below us.”

“I need verification.” Kruz said, sounding funny. “How do you know this?”

“I saw it.” Freya replied.

“You saw it with your eyes or is this a Prophecy?” Kruz asked, still sounding funny.

“Prophecy.” Freya replied as she looked around. Her squad was still standing around the hole looking confused. Just beyond them, the rest of the platoon looked at her like she was crazy.

“Magic, this is Thompson. How heavy of a strike are you wanting?” Captain Thompson asked over the command channel. Kruz, Freya noted, had used the platoon channel. “I have an orbital strike waiting on my command. Are you requesting it?”

“Yes!” Freya replied, emphatically.

“All marines, fall back to the waypoint.” Sergeant Kruz called out over the platoon channel. “Orbital strike incoming.”

Freya quickly looked at her mini map and noted that the waypoint was hovering on top of where they had parked the vehicles. They were currently standing behind the warehouse where they had entered the tunnels. Someone, she noted while still looking at her minimap, had made a hole in the warehouse so that they didn’t have to go around the huge building. It would save them precious seconds.

“Let’s move.” Freya said, waving her hand towards the hole in the warehouse. She didn’t look back, but according to her mini map the rest of the platoon followed her.

The warehouse looked the same, at least from where she was. She couldn’t see where the hole she had used to enter the tunnel was from where she was at. All she saw were never-ending pallets of stuff. In front of her she spotted another hole on the other side of the warehouse. It led to the street in front of the building.

The trucks that had been guarding the warehouse were gone now. What she did see were two neat lines of auto turrets. She absently wondered if her platoon had placed them or the retreating company had done it before they left. She didn’t spend a lot of brain power on it. She was too worried about the bio constructs under her. She spotted the line of trucks that they had come in on. The platoon that was their ride had the vehicles already running, waiting on them.

“Incoming orbital strike in ten. Take cover.” Sergeant Kruz said over the platoon channel as they reached the trucks.

“No time to board!” A sergeant, who had his head sticking out of one of the rear trucks, yelled at them as they passed. “Take cover behind the vehicles.”

Freya did as he ordered and slid around the front of the truck she had rode in on. Her squad quickly followed her example. The orbital strike seemed to take forever. She waited behind the truck listening to her own heavy breathing, wondering when it was going to land. She was about to break cover and go towards the door to the car when there was a flash of light and a huge thump in her chest.

The shockwave hit her a heartbeat later. The wind hit them first, followed by flying debris. She could hear the thumps of rocks and whatnot hitting the vehicles as she tried to push herself lower to the ground even though she was already laying on it. Someone had jumped over her body, but she didn’t open her eyes to see who was protecting her. Then the wind ended.

Freya opened her eyes to find herself unable to see in the cloud of dirt. It took a few seconds for her armor to clear things up. While it was doing so, the person who had jumped over her body to protect it got up. Checking her mini map she saw that it was Monkeyman. She blindly reached out and punched him. She felt her fist land.

“Asshole.” She told him on his private channel. His only reply was a dry chuckle.

She reached up to the vehicle above her and pulled herself to her feet. “First Squad, sound off.” She ordered over the radio. Her mini map had the ability to show her if anyone had died, but it didn’t have the ability to show if anyone was hurt.

Before anyone could answer her, she heard something that she only heard once before. The scream was much louder than before, and it knocked her to the ground on her side. She fell with her backside behind the vehicle and her head poking out from the side of it. It gave her a clear view of the Ketica as it rose up from behind the warehouse.

It looked fake. Like it was one of the feeds she had seen when she was a kid. It was too big. She couldn’t accurately tell how tall it was, like it was impossible to tell how tall a mountain is unless you are standing right in front of it. It was, to put it simply, huge. It was pink just like the last one she saw, and, like the last one, this one had tentacles. The difference was the tentacles were the size of streets, maybe a bit wider. They seemed to go on forever, disappearing into the dark rain clouds above it.

All of a sudden, the screaming stopped. Freya watched as one of the tentacles started to fall. It was right above her, but there was nowhere to go. It was simply too big to run away from. She raised her arms like they would protect her. She closed her eyes and screamed.

“Magic.” Monkeyman’s calm voice spoke to her as she waited for her death. “It’s okay.”

“It’s okay?” Freya thought to herself surprised and outraged. “The fu ….”

She opened her eyes as she realized that the tentacle should have already landed. She found Monkeyman, looking calm and okay, above her, looking down on her. She looked around in fear for the tentacle, but all she found was rock walls. She looked up and saw a rock ceiling. She sat up a bit and looked around. She was back in the cave again. She looked up at Monkeyman for answers.

“You’ve been standing there for two minutes. You just stopped in mid sentence and zoned out.” Monkeyman said as he helped her to her feet.

“Yeah, you kept standing there twitching.” Castillo told her as he stood on the other side of her and helped Monkeyman lift her up.

“I had Seth call Kruz.” Monkeyman said. “She has the rest of the platoon digging us out. She said she wants an update as soon as you come out of it.”

Freya didn’t say anything as she looked around trying to mentally get her feet under her. She felt off balance. The unreal and distant feeling was gone. Her heart was pounding and it was all that she could do not to start panicking. She started taking deep breaths, calming her heart down. It took longer than she wanted, but in the end she felt in control again.

“We need to leave.” Freya told him once she was able. “The last Ketica was a fricken baby compared to this one. Like a newborn baby.”

“Okay.” Monkeyman said, still holding on to her.

“I mean it, Monkey.” She said, pulling her arm out of his. “Everyone out now! I don’t care if you have to drop your armor. We need to leave now.”

“And yes, I know it’s Monkeyman.” She said turning back to her friend.

“Good.” He told her with a smile.

Freya turned her head as she heard something scrape against the hole in the roof. At first she thought it was a construct coming to get them, but then she saw the pointy edge of the trenching tool. She felt her relief flow through her body as the hole started to get bigger. She noted how fast the people above them were working and thanked that unknown person.

“You first.” Monkeyman told her giving her a push towards the now wider hole.

“Squad first.” Freya said in her best command voice. “You then me. I need to make sure we don’t set it off early.”

He gave her that same ugly look from her vision, but this was the second time she lived through it. It didn’t have the same impact as it did before. She turned away to see Seth being pulled out of the cave by the marines above them. She waited as, one by one, her squad was pulled to safety. When the last person was pulled she turned to Monkeyman and nodded to the hole. He looked at her again, but she ignored him and looked back at the ground where she had dug a hole in her vision. She could almost see the pile of constructs crawling over themselves through the dirt.

“Magic.” Monkeyman’s voice broke her out of the memory of the vision. She turned to see him peeking down at her from outside. She quickly moved towards the hole and was pulled up in seconds.

“What the hell is going on, Magic?” Kruz shouted over the radio just like in her vision.

“Captain Thompson, how many orbital strikes can I call down on this position?” She asked, ignoring her boss.

“Have you verified a Ketica at your location?” Captain Thompson asked over the command channel.

“Prophecy.” She replied. “We caught us a big one, Captain. It makes the one we got before look like a newborn baby. One orbital strike is not going to cut it. It’s gonna take a few of them. This thing is the size of a mountain. It’s tentacles are the size of streets. In my vision, I saw us all die to one tentacle. It crushed the whole platoon. One swipe.”

“Wait one.” Came the reply from the Captain.

“Kruz, we need to leave, now.” Freya said switching to the platoon channel. “Not just retreat to the trucks, but all the way to the assault ship.”

Sergeant Kruz didn’t answer right away. In fact it was nearly a minute before she started speaking. By the time she started to give orders Freya was a nervous wreck. She kept looking back at the hole in the ground and then at the back of the warehouse in front of them.

“I have five orbital strikes ordered.” Captain Thompson replied to her request.

“Platoon, retreat to the trucks.” Kruz said after Captain Thompson finished talking. “We are leaving.”

“Captain, we need to delay the strikes until the platoon is gone from here.” Freya said on the command channel, as she started running for the hole in the wall of the warehouse. Switching to the platoon channel, she waved the other marines forward. “Move it, people. We need to be gone before this thing wakes up.”

“Stikes are delayed for a few moments, but it's not going to be long. The ship is only in orbit above us for a few more minutes. I suggest you get a move on, or be left behind.” Kruz told them over the radio.

That motivated the rest of the platoon and it wasn’t long before the faster ones were running past Freya. She didn’t care as long as they were running. Monkeyman fell in beside her and paced her. She knew he could have left her behind as he was much faster than she was, but he didn’t. He stayed at her side as they entered and then exited the warehouse. She was both angry and relieved that he did so.

It wasn’t long before they reached the scout truck they had driven in on. Kruz was already in the passenger seat so Freya jumped in behind the driver. She looked over, but didn’t see Captain Thompson. She wondered if she was in fact on planet. The woman was an officer. She had no idea what they did when they weren’t around.

They reached the assault ship in a few moments. She had noted on the drive that the constructs on the street didn’t look like the constructs that were piled up under the cave. That made her wonder just how smart the Ketica were. Was this a trap? Or did they just bumble into a huge Ketica by accident. Either way, she knew this could have gone very badly.

As soon as the truck was parked, Freya pulled herself out of it. Her desire to leave the city was overpowering. She looked back at where the warehouse was, but couldn’t see it. She halfway expected to see the Ketica towering above the city, but all she saw was the city as rain fell on it.

The platoon that ran the trucks left them behind as they followed Freya’s platoon into the assault ship. Freya was walking up the ramp when Kruz called out a warning for the orbital strikes. “First orbital strike in five.” Kruz warned. “Take cover.”

The ship didn’t have time to raise the ramp as the first orbital strike landed. Freya turned away from the blast as her face shield darkened to protect her vision. The blast thumped her chest even though it landed on the other side of the city. The ship rocked back and forth as the shockwave hit them a couple of seconds later.

Freya turned around as soon as the wave passed them. She knew the Ketica would appear not long afterwards. At least it did in her vision. Her vision appeared to be accurate. A huge pinkish-purple thing rose out of the huge mushroom dust cloud. Its tentacles looked even bigger than her vision as it flailed them around taking out buildings all around it.

“Brace, brace, brace. Next orbital strike incoming.” Kruz called out.

Freya turned away and her face shield blackened again. Once she felt the thump and the blast wave passed them she turned back around. To her shock, the Ketica was still there. What was worse was it was coming right at them. It left the dust cloud behind it as it made its way towards them.

“Brace, brace….” Kruz started to say, but the orbital strike came down early. Freya felt the thump in her chest as the strike hit.

She absently hoped that they had changed their targeting or they might have missed. Her face shield was still dark when she felt a third thump. She was still bracing for the shock wave when she felt it. She didn’t move as she rode through the third strike’s shockwave. They were still in the middle of the shockwave when she felt another thump deep in her chest. Seconds later she felt another one.

She felt the ramp under her start to close. Unable to see, she used her mini map and dove into the ship. Beside and in front of her, the dots that indicated other marines did the same. She landed on someone, but according to her mini map she had made it. She was still looking at her mini map when she noticed one marine wasn’t lifting with them.

“Kruz, we left someone behind.” She called out over the command channel.

“We can’t go back.” Kruz replied on the same channel. “It’s still alive. We’ve been ordered to leave the area. They are calling in heavy artillery. This part of the continent is going to be gone in thirty seconds.”

“Rounds are already incoming.” Captain Thompson interrupted them. “He’s already dead.”

Freya watched her mini map as they left the man behind. She didn’t even know his name. A flash of fear went through her as she thought it might be Monkeyman, but her mini map showed him right next to her. Her face shield slowly undarkened and she looked around, but still couldn’t identify who had been left behind. On her mini map, the dot faded away as they got out of range.

“Where’s Seth?” Someone asked.