May 4th 2295 UNPC universal calendar
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"Dear JESUS" One of the door gunners exclaimed after A9 flopped onto the deck of the Black Hawk helicopter, his onboard computer overpressuring his LSS's cooling/clotting fluid lines and making them burst, cooling down his armor by oozing the fluid between the gaps in his plate and aramid, combining with the blood that coated his armor to create a sickening black and brown ooze.
A miasma like nothing else filled the inside of the Black Hawk, despite the open doors and spinning rotors, the smell of boiled and burnt clotting fluid, torched blood, and pork clouded the senses of everyone onboard.
"Don't touch him," Darren's gruff voice warned. He looked over his shoulder at Anton as he lifted the bird into the air.
"No shit," the other door gunner said, staring at the steaming hot mess of armored augment, black and boiling clotting fluid escaping from every crevice of his armor.
"He's having a seizure," The first one said, and true enough, A9 was twitching in a grand-Mal seizure, his legs and arms spazzaming, yet rigid.
Pain, overwhelming agony and pain was all that Anton could feel for what felt like hours, the pain of his eyes rolling back into his head, the pain of the burns across his entire body, the pounding in his head like a jackhammer stripping away his will to live.
He wanted to keep living, to push on, but at the same time he wanted the agony to be over. Blinding red hot agony.
He screamed behind his helmet, high and loud, willing it to be over, for the pain to stop.
"He'll be fine, that motherfucker is harder to kill than a shithouse rat" Darren drawled, his tone steady despite the screams of the augment.
Anton was barely lucid, aware of his surroundings and where he was going, who he was with, but not sure when it was happening, like time was a blur, and his conscience was in a million places at once.
"I'm dying" he thought, looking down at himself somehow, if only a hallucination. "There I am" he looked down at his legs as he sat in the middle seat of the blackhawk as he usually would, and suddenly it was the parachute malfunction over 200 years ago all over again.
He remembered the out of body sensation, how he knew what he needed to do and how to do it, the feeling of the whirlwind around him on his face, and the terror of knowing what would happen if he didn't do it in time.
God how he wanted to do something, looking down at himself, twitching and creating a black mark on the floor of the Black Hawk, his movement squishing more clotting fluid out of the aramid fabric backing of his armor plates.
But there was nothing to be done, he had done everything he needed to do, he'd killed them all, and, now, finally, he could rest.
He saw himself stop moving, and sat back in the seat, then looked to the door gunners, who were staring in awe. He tried speaking to them, to ask them to save him, to do something, but no words came out. Then he looked to Darren, who was looking out the cockpit window. He felt an overwhelming sense of dread, the sinking hollow in his chest swallowing the scream in his throat.
Anton looked to his left, out the door of the Black Hawk, at the sunset, feeling an odd sensation of warmth roll over him.
He blinked, and had the clearest thought.
"At least I get to look at the sunset one last time" He muttered to himself in German, his vision fading, no longer feeling the weight of his armor on his shoulders, and all sensation escaping him, a long exhale escaping his nostrils.
His vision disappeared with a liquid snap.
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Two hours later, UNPC Schattenwulf, International waters, internal medical bay.
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"HOLD HIM DOWN YOU FUCKING MORONS" Dr.Raine spat, trying to inject the sedative into his neck through his blackened and seared LSS and aramid at his neck.
Anton screamed, lifting off of the table using all of his strength, trying to retreat from the agony of his burns after being resuscitated.
"I'm TRYING" Eric "B7" Müller said, putting his full body weight into the bucking augment as a full surgical team kept their distance.
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Triple A said nothing, just pressed the palm of his massive hand into the burned and ruined chestplate of Anton's ECA, and pushed down, pressing the entire weight of his body + his ECA into him.
Anton screamed again, pure animal agony, thrashing his head back and forth as he lifted up again, only managing to lift the 800+ pound weight on his chest up an inch or two.
Dr.Raine injected the sedative, and Anton finally stilled, going limp but still seemed to be breathing by the rise and fall of his mangled and torched ECA.
This time a woman's screaming joined in on the fun.
"Why is everyone always yelling?" Eric wondered.
"LET ME, I NEED TO HELP" Kate screamed, being heard clearly even behind a locked watertight door as she pounded on it.
"Go handle her, please" Dr.Raine told Triple A, her eyes watery. "You stay, help me" she said to Eric.
"Yes Ma'am" Triple A rumbled, Eric nodding as the team around them moved in on Anton.
Triple A opened the door, pounding still coming from the other side, and caught C7 in a tackle, closing the door behind him in a flash, the door automatically locking.
"Stop" He tried as Kate pounded on his chest in a blind fit of rage, screaming at him in Swedish. "Please" he tried again, she thrashed, trying to kick herself towards the door again.
He held her in the hallway, her screams devolving into sobs as he held her. "You don't want to see him like that" he told her.
She kept sobbing, but paused to rip off her helmet and pitch it down the hallway. It struck the railing of a ladder well with a clang, and fell down the stairs, rolling to a rest on the deck below.
Triple A held her tighter, putting his massive right hand against the back of her head, and holding her close, tucking her head into the crook of his drooped neck and chest.
"He'll be okay" Triple A said to her tears. "it'll be okay" he said again, softer.
They stood there for a long time, Kate's tears eventually drying up as he held her against him, putting his back against a wall.
"That motherfucker" She breathed.
"He'll be okay, you can rip his balls off later" Triple A chuckled, holding her tighter when she tried to squrim. "ah-ah-ah" he told her.
She sunk into him again, and sobbed for a long time, then stopped again.
"Thank you Alex" she said softly, gulping.
"No need" he reached up with a hand to remove his helmet, taking the massive lid off and letting it thunk to the deck at his feet.
"Been a while since I've seen your face big man" Kate said, her voice still shaky.
"It has" Triple A rumbled as she looked him in his very dark brown, almost black eyes.
"You've got nice hair" she said, running a hand through his short coal black afro, making him chuckle.
"Thanks" he replied. "You too"
She scoffed and furrowed her eyebrows at him, knowing her once tight braid was loose all over and frazzled.
She let go of him, and stepped back, leaning against the bulkhead.
"Let's go get your helmet" Triple A said, bending down and picking up his own.
They passed a room, and heard sobbing from the other side of the door.
Triple A traded a look with Kate, and she nodded to him. "Go get it, I've got 'er"
He nodded, and stomped down the hallway towards the ladder well.
She palmed the door, and the RFID chip within her palm unlocked the door, which slid to the side a moment later.
In the empty infirmary room stood Tim "The Terror" "B1" Wright, holding Sarah in his arms, his right arm still bandaged at his side.
He met her gaze, and made a "get out of here, I've got this" expression.
Kate smiled, holding back tears, and nodded, stepping back before closing the door.
Then she jumped about a foot in the air and screamed when she caught Eric in her peripheral vision.
"God you motherfucker" She muttered to his smile as he stood next to her.
"Sorry, bad time? Want me to disappear again?" he asked, hooking a thumb over his shoulder.
She waived her hand as if to clear the air "No, you're fine."
He nodded sympathetically "Where's Triple A?"
"Went to go get my helmet, threw it" she said, an undertone of embarrassment to her voice as she shuffled towards where Triple A had went.
He nodded again, and started walking with her, though his footsteps were without sound, which she found creepy.
Eric grunted, and it took her turning around to see that he'd even stopped. "What?"
"Ship's so quiet" he said. She squinted at him, but stopped to listen for herself.
"Woah" she said, there wasn't a sound to be heard, not even the usual bass undertone of hydraulic pumps or any of the sounds that accompany a ship.
"Why?" she asked. He shrugged and shook his head.
Triple A broke the silence, stomping up the stairs.
"If I'm a scalpel he's a nuclear warhead" Eric chided, Triple A's coming up the steep staircase.
"Three decks down, throw it a little closer next time?" he said, holding up the helmet with a smile. Kate broke into harsh brittle laughter, then controlled herself, face reddening.
"Sarah okay?" Triple A asked, swinging around the railing next to the ladder well which sat off of a large 4 way intersection.
"Yeah, she's with Tim" Kate said softly.
"Ship's too quiet" Triple A said. They both nodded in agreement.
Jolene "C4" Parker stepped out of a door, and looked both ways down the hallway. She was clad in full ECA and EOD padding. In other words, in her work uniform.
"Quiet" she said softly, stepping up to the group and looking down each hall of the 4 way intersection the group ended up in.
She looked down, and stared at her helmet in her hands for a long moment before speaking.
"I hope we don't lose another one today" she said softly, a small voice for such a brave and beautiful woman.
"Me too" Eric said, looking at his boots, the tall blonde man bowing his head before looking up at Kate with his kind light blue eyes in a silent gesture of hoping respect, his hands behind his back.
Kate sighed, feeling tears well up again, and trying to push it away.
C4 stepped up beside her, and took the taller woman in a gentile embrace. Kate returned it, and found the EOD padding atop her ECA soothing.
"Like a big ole' marshmallow" Kate chuckled, smiling, feeling the padding give beneath her hands.
"Thanks, I feel like you could crush me in your grip right now" Jolene replied, smiling against Kate's chest.
I think he'll be alright...... But I'm gonna kill that motherfucker if he survives.