I woke up under dust, rocks, debris, and lots of pain. Everything hurt, from my tail to my snout. I slowly moved, and that meant my spine was intact. Luckily, I did not feel any sharp pain, just intense aches and soreness. That is a good sign, meaning nothing seriously broken. Next, do I have a weapon? I glanced down and saw that I still managed to hold my rifle!
“My drill sergeant would be proud of me! That asshole,” I rasped.
The beautiful weapon still worked. An oldie but goodie. Next, I need to check my comms. The visor on my helm was cracked, and much of my suit was heavily damaged. I knew my luck could only go so far, but I was alive, armed, and able to move. Overall, a win!
I glanced up, and the hole I fell through was blocked by an avalanche of stone. I was lucky to be alive! I kissed my scratched and torn body armor. When I looked around, my eyes went wide. I was at the entrance to an ancient building.
The oddly shaped heavy doors were not rectangular or square but more like a trapezoid, and when I approached, a scanning light ran over me.
“
I shook my head. The language used was Velocraian! The language of my people.
“Is this possible?” I asked out loud.
The doors opened into a hallway that felt right for someone my stature. My entire life, I’ve interacted with buildings designed for a human. Doors and ceilings that felt too high for me, and chairs. Fucking chairs!
This hallway was perfect. The lighting is perfect. The spacing of the doors and the hallway was designed for someone with a tail, someone with my build! Was this place built for Velocra? Or by Velocra?
“Where am I?” I wondered.
The place felt old, yet the technology still worked as the lights turned on upon my entrance. I wanted to explore this place more, but a loud commotion further down the steel hallway drew my attention. It was fighting! Maybe my squad made it inside? I rushed to investigate and found a vast chamber lined with computer terminals. In the middle was the red-armored VeraTax rampaging about. The cyborg was firing its weapons across the room, exploding terminals and tearing down the ceiling. What was it fighting? I couldn’t see my squad in the massive chamber, but they may need me. I had to figure out how to deal with the VeraTax mercenary.
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I glanced up and saw that I had entered through a large set of steel blast doors. This chamber was a launch silo of some sort. The blast doors were opened, and I discovered a control panel. Whoever designed this place, the control panel was the same as all other control panels. I suppose technology has not changed much over the eons. Using a multi-tool that all FORF soldiers carry, I popped open the panel and began to rewire it. The door hissed and vibrated. Yes! I can close it, and they should do the trick.
The VeraTax continued to destroy the room around him. It was looking for something, and I needed to get its attention. I circled the chamber to get into a better position and fired my rifle at it. My rounds sparked against its back armor, and it whirled on me with red rage-filled eyes. It opened its massive jaws that were a mixture of flesh and steel, and let loose a fearsome roar.
“Oh shit,” I said as I ran.
Grenades, flames, and plasma blasts trailed me and left a swath of destruction as I fled for my life. I slid to hide behind some terminals as the VeraTax began to reload its arsenal of death. I needed to act now! I popped out and fired shots at its face. The VeraTax flinched with annoyance and blindly returned plasma blasts that missed. I continued to pepper its snout with my CAR-72 and really pissed it off. My eyes went wide as it launched itself into the air in my direction. I ran just in time as the creature smashed into the spot I was just in. It twirled and swung its razor edge tail and uprooted computer terminals and steel support beams.
I ejected a spent magazine and loaded another to begin shooting the cyborg dinosaur in its face again. It was so close I could nearly taste victory, and I just needed to anger it some more so it would charge. Sometimes it’s not the best to get what you wish for, for the beast charged at me, which was terrifying. I nearly slipped as I spun to run away with the killer monster fast on my tail.
I slid through the heavy blast doors and to the terminal, the VeraTax right behind me. I had a brief moment to connect the wires to override the safety protocols and prayed that it would work. The wires sparked, and the blast doors came crashing down. When the smoke cleared, I found myself staring face to face with the giant maw of the VeraTax. Its jaws laid open and would never close again. I reopened the blast door, and across the chamber, I could make out figures in the smoke.
“Lieutenant Grimes?” I called out.
It might have been the injuries I sustained to my head from the fall and the smoke in the room that I failed to detect that the figures before me were not my unit. The other clue was that they fired plasma rifles at me.
“Shit!” I cried as I ducked behind the corpse of the Veratax as plasma blasts exploded around me.
We exchanged weapon fire, and I was pinned down. This was it, I thought as I ducked behind the soon-to-be vaporized cyborg corpse to load my last magazine. When I popped back up to return fire, my enemy was slumped over dead. I didn’t hear rifle fire, so I don’t think it was my squad. I sniffed the air and caught a familiar scent. I saw movement beside me.
“Hi,” was all I could say as a tail from a red-scaled Velocra struck me across my head.