The control room was anything but controlled.
"Wallace? Wallace? Check in?"
There was a pause, leaving only heavy breathing and grunting coming through, then strained words could be heard.
"Online. Status red. Lewis is KIA. I don't know about Will. Fucking hell, I can't hold this up for much longer." Wallace moaned, his muscles buckling as he held up several tons of ceiling. His exo had already given out, more dead weight.
"Your tac feed is cutting out. Hang on, the others are on their way, will it hurt if you let go?"
"Phil, Adit, fucking clear off. Yes, good lads. Uh, yes, it'll fucking hurt boss, if I let this land on me, but I don't think I've got a choice."
The two other survivors of the team stepped forward, the corridor would be blocked for good the moment Wallace couldn't keep it up, but they needed to check on Will. More like last will and testament, amirite? Of course I am, that's one of the perks of being an omniscient narrator. Sadly, he was one with the walls, the blow had pancaked him.
The two of them stood well clear, until Wallace nodded and let go, letting the upper floor cave in on his head. A cloud of dust filled the floor, with them careful to keep their balance with saline bottles, needles and spare clothing littering the floor. They kept their guns up, though visibility was too poor to piss in and hit a target.
Hold your ground. He's only got one route to approach you.
After a period of time just long enough to be concerning, they heard the crackling of plaster, concrete and screeching of metal once more, as a battered Wallace emerged from the debris. He wasn't looking good, but they'd seen him walk off worse, so a quick nod and a moment for him to scavenge some of his own gear and that of Lewis, who very much didn't need anything but a heart transplant (and the only surgeon around wasn't obliging), he was armed and ready. Trickles of blood ran down dozens of lacerations, and he pulled out a particular long piece of rebar that had impaled him through his biceps and threw it aside with a grunt.
He had some degree of enhanced healing. Not enough that he wouldn't need medical care, but that could wait for a hospital. Preferably not this one.
"Boss. We're up. No bead on the bastard. Orders?"
"Scanning. Oh fuck, wait-"
Wallace looked at the other two men, who he knew were just as askance as he was, they'd been putting down fools long enough that he could read their body language despite the mirrored visors. He couldn't see in the dark himself, but luckily Lewis's helmet had fit; he'd taken a moment to look at the man's unseeing eyes before drawing them shut with a deep sigh.
"We had an incident. Our Clairvoyant is down. Seizure. This isn't good, the autodoc is saying she's missing a fucking chunk of her brain. Wait one. Bravo went down to check the morgue. Charlie, they're on the other side, but they're moving to back you up. Last thing Elise managed to say was that the cunt is everywhere, watch your backs. Shit's been escalated. Combat bots are inbound, hold your ground, you know the Dreadnought is too big to airlift; we're having it brought over as fast as we can. The SAS, they're coming too, bringing metas. Just hang in there Alpha."
"Gotcha boss. This asshole is strong. I'm guessing Class 3 at a minimum. I don't know if he's teleporting, but add super speed and strength to the list. I don't know if he dodged me because I was too slow, or because it woulda hurt. Priority note, he's vulnerable to blades, Lewis got one good in his guts, and I think that hurt. Fuck, I'm better with my fists but I've got something."
Wallace unsheathed an ugly hunk of metal. Too blunt to be called a blade, more a heap of raw iron. He was a fan of Guts, had the same hairstyle before the balding began, but since the missus didn't complain, he was cool with it. But it was deceptively dull; a Crafter buddy of his had forged it himself, and Wallace had cut speeding vans in half with it, as well as the hajis inside. It felt good to hold, he controlled his breathing, a decade of training kicking in. He could have gone SAS, or SBS, you know, he just stuck with the Met because that's where his family lived. And he didn't want this insane monster depressing properly values. He shuddered a little, remembering that Lisa had been due her shots, considering it lucky for once that both he and her mom had been too busy to take her today.
"This is Bravo. Morgue clear. Nothing moving that shouldn't be. Holding the exit, until further orders."
"Charlie. ICU Three clear. Moving to the Memorial Ward."
The groaning of the remaining ceiling grew louder, the building shook, prompting the three remaining members of Alpha to get moving. The dust hadn't settled, the ventilation had been shut off too, though HQ had wrested back control of the systems.
Wallace held the blade with his right hand, and his shotgun with the other, taking point and letting Phillip and Aditya shelter behind his gigantic frame. They had IR flashlights on, but they didn't help, though walking forward did, as more of the corridor crashed down behind them.
Slow and steady. Sweep the corners. Pie the rooms. They were quick on the take, because after walking forward for less than a minute, they realized that by no means should this corridor have been that long.
"Boss. Bad juju. Spatial warping, this corridor isn't ending, and the dust isn't settling. Requesting advice?"
"Wallace, what do you see? Signs? Dead reckoning systems online?"
"Dame Bhattacharya NICU. We passed that already and systems say we went as straight as we could go. Should I bust through?"
"Affirmative. You're not in an isolated space, signal's strong. There's nothing important behind the wall to your right, but be careful."
Wallace grunted, and stabbed the blade into the wall with ease. A couple slices, as easy as cutting into cheesecake, and he'd opened up a hole big enough to clamber through.
To his relief, it was a changing room, with an exit in clear view.
"This is Charlie. Can someone kill the fucking music? It's giving me a headache."
"Negative. Our technomancer has enough to tackle. Filter it out on your end."
The speakers sighed again. "I'm not the kind that plays jazz, or hip-hop, when I'm working. But you lot are colleagues, at least when it comes to butchering people. Recommend something, please, Mr. Khan had a Spotify subscription and now, I have all the passwords.."
Wallace had to resist clenching his blade or the gun any harder, or they'd break. "Hey Alexa, play, Fuck You. Let the girl go, you coward."
"Such vulgarity, sadly, the classics will have to do. I was born to Mozart, you know. I remember it so clearly, all the red. The girl is safe. You think I'd undo all my hard work so quickly by killing her? No, she'll be better than brand new." Doctor Red whispered, making the music distort and rewind as he spoke.
Wallace's blood ran cold. "What the fuck did you do to her?"
"Cured her. Made her slightly better than human. She's a metahuman too, you know. Almost ready to manifest. Bad MRS coming up. So I took the liberty of putting in the best implants your sorry hospital had to offer, she won't have another chance. Don't worry, her parents signed the consent forms. I'm quite convincing."
Wallace shook his head, and walked through the changing room. It was cold. Far colder than it ought to be.
"All I ever wanted was to be made welcome. To have my talents appreciated. Would you believe it if I said I did show up here to help?"
He didn't respond, already annoyed at letting this psycho get to him.
"Strong and silent type, huh? I could use a minion. Or a marionette. Not too late to choose, or else, I guess I haven't had the time for lunch.."
"This is Bravo. Temperature's dropping. Minus twenty-five. Not the morgue chiller, we shot it up. Oh what the hell-"
Gunfire. Grenades. He felt it through his boots.
"Felix, falling back. They're not staying fucking DEAD."
"I love finger food.."
Wallace and the others double timed it, not waiting for HQ's orders, they knew there was a way down to the morgue, and the endless corridor had to be avoided anyway. In their haste, they almost missed the sturdy looking man standing there, holding a cap in his hands, his back turned their way.
He had a hospital security uniform on, so he wasn't immediately perforated, the TFG weren't trigger happy, they'd been trained out of it.
"On your knees!" Adit yelled, bringing his assault rifle up.
The only response was a low groan, almost guttural.
"Andrew? Are you okay lad?" Wallace asked, with genuine concern. He still didn't let his monstrous shotgun waver for a moment, despite the hole in his arm. He knew Andie. He'd been on the beat before he'd decided that life wasn't for him.
In response, the hulking man turned around. His eyes were dazzling in the false color of their cutting edge lenses, the successor to the American IVAS doing its best to reproduce an approximation of reality. Human eyes didn't glow like that in IR lighting, he looked like a tiger caught in headlights but shining back enough to blind a driver. The thermals showed him blazing hot, yet cold as the dead at the extremities. Arteries and veins undulated under pallid skin as seen by their terahertz imaging. And he was packing, muscles grafted onto an already bulky frame, neat lines of sutures and surgical glue showing where the Doctor had found some of the implants too annoying or useless for his purposes and taken them out. He could do better, with meat alone.
Wallace didn't even need to verbalize the command to open fire. Andie was gone. His shotgun, dwarfing even the KS-23 occasionally found in Spetznaz use, fired a hail of pellets that would have been offended if you'd called them buckshot. Closer to something you'd use to put down an elephant.
Behind him, Adit and Phil let their rifles roar, the two of them backpedaling to get a clear bead on the monster without catching Wally in the crossfire.
Unlike Red, Andie Mk. 2 wasn't entirely immune to bullet wounds. He convulsed as the cone of titanium shot blew off half his jaw, though it would normally have been enough to turn a charging bull into ground beef. The rifle rounds punched into him, but only thick and viscous ichor dripped out, not the normal arterial spray.
It roared, lumbering forward. An arm was replaced with a sawblade, whirring to life and spraying blood of unknown provenance in all directions, itself white hot in thermals. Likely his own, the graft was rushed, not Red's best work.
Wallace howled back, dropping his shotgun again and standing wide, blade raised. He was a HEMA fan, or at least he had been before everyone stopped sparring with him out of sheer fear of his strength. The androids weren't as much fun.
Andie picked up speed, his footsteps shaking the ground, legs too thick to wrap around capable of both stomping and running. He swung his saw, only to have it batted aside by a an enraged Wallace. A shower of sparks lit up the corridor, but whatever had Red had done to the tool employed by his minion, it held up to a blow that would have shattered mundane materials.
Wallace swung a left hook, the beast too close to properly bludgeon with the blade, and was gratified by the feeling of a nasal bridge and bone giving way. But Jesus Christ he'd expected more, what the hell had been done to Andie?
Andy spat blood in his face, so hot that it sizzled against the visor, but Wallace headbutted him in retaliation, so hard one of the cameras broke. He hated how he was often stronger than the hardware he relied on. The impact glazed the visor, but sent Andie reeling, neck clearly broken, head lolling at an angle.
The other two took a knee and lit him up, dumping another mag into him, aiming for the face as best they could. But even with his face caved in and mandibles separated and held together by strings of flesh, his head practically resting on bulging shoulders, Andie kept advancing.
Wallace kicked down a door and let the others move first, before taking down the frame as he crammed through. There, he held up his blade as Andie careened around the corner, and stabbed, the blade going straight through the ribcage and impaling what should have been the heart. It may well have been, but being skewered like a pig didn't slow down Andie, who pushed straight through and jammed his circular saw into Wallace's side, sending true blood and bits of shattered bone flying, with only the latter's desperate heave, that lifted Andie a good foot off the ground, saving him from being bisected.
"Toxin! Now!" Wallace yelled, doing his best not to let Andie drag himself closer, which he was trying to do with the one hand that wasn't weaponized. It was still massive, closer to a bear's paw, the nails long and sticking right out from the bone. Even with Wallace's own strength, it was difficult to keep him in the air, especially with the lack of leverage.
Phil dodged a swipe, and fired a neurotoxin dart from a sidearm, which impaled itself in exposed meat and squirted its contents. Whatever the hell had been done to Andie, it didn't make him entirely resistant to this potent toxin, a distant relative of what Adat could spit out of his gullet. But the dose was intended to be less than lethal, or at least to cause respiratory paralysis that could be overcome with EMT support. Thus, Phil fired three more, before drawing his karambit and slamming it into an eye socket.
This time, he didn't quite manage to avoid retaliation, he'd had to let himself get quite close to have a good shot, the dart gun wasn't particularly powerful and he had to aim carefully to hit an exposed spot. The backhand threw him across the room, skidding on his ass.
Andie was struggling, but with a convulsive effort, he raised his arms and shoved the ceiling, forcing himself down and Wallace up off his feet. The sword cut clean through, but even that seemed like a minor inconvenience.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Wallace wisely let go, not being literally attached to the blade, and tackled Red's pet and sent him rolling on the ground, saw barely kept pinned beneath a knee.
Aditya ran up, pulling out a block of C4 intended for use as a breaching charge, and then, as Wallace got the idea and flipped Andie to the side, he shoved the thing through the gaping wound in the flank, rolled himself barely clear and pulled the trigger on his detonator.
This had immediate results. The directed charge tore Andie apart, bisecting him entirely. His struggle grew feebler, and Wallace shifted position, using his training in jujitsu to pin the other arm, headless of it raking his back, before pulling, tearing the saw off, so well attached it took the arm with it at the shoulder.
Then he jumped clear, before kicking Andie's lower half aside. It had been sprouting tendrils of meat, as had the top, and he wasn't taking any chances when it came to the opportunity for the two to reunite.
Andie groaned, coughing up what seemed like tar, but didn't manage to resist further as Wallace picked up his blade and sank it straight through his skull. That did the trick.
He stood there panting, resting his weight on the blade, heedless as it stabbed through the floor. His back hurt, what the fuck kind of claws got through woven graphene under armor?
"Boss. It's dead." He sighed, before taking another swing and decapitating the creature. Never could be too sure, he thought, punting the head down the hall.
"Bravo has taken casualties. Charlie has moved up to reinforce. Engaging zombies. They're not as tough as that thing you took down, but they were very wrong about everything down there being dead. Hold your position, I'm not risking all of you for a single girl, even if we believe the nutter about her being a supe."
Wallace grunted, tired to the bone. He walked over to Phil and gave him a hand, drawing him to his feet effortlessly. Thankfully, the far less sturdy man had only broken a rib, and with his own augments, wasn't too hard done.
"We have drones inbound. Controlled demolition of the outer walls, it seems that blowing holes in the place is the only way to stop him from warping space as he pleases. Dreadnought, it's about there."
The lights were back on. HQ had decided that it seemed the Doctor wasn't hampered in the least by the lack of illumination.
They could hear sirens and gunfire. Then explosion as the cops outside started tearing down walls. Sunlight, while not literally the best disinfectant, might help.
A drone came flying in, its own little carbine was anemic, but it carried cargo. Goodies sorely appreciated by the survivors of Alpha. Command had brought out the toys.
"Jesus. I wanted one of these so bad.." Aditya said, picking up a bolter. Or a Mk. 1 Enhanced Gyrojet Pistol, even Accuracy International was wary of copyright violations.
"Remember, it's closer to an RPG than a rifle. Less recoil than you'd expect, but don't worry about accuracy, aim center mass and shoot till they stop moving." Phil told him, expert hands grabbing grenades and charges, far more potent than what they'd brought in.
"HQ, do we move to help Bravo-"
"I'm disappointed. I accept the corpses were rushjobs, but I expected more from Andrew and Steve. But I guess you can't ask for much more from two gammons stitched together. I really dislike being rushed, that's a very avoidable form of surgical error.."
Aditya shot the speaker with the bolter. The resulting explosion was cathartic.
Red's voice was notably more British. If the members of Alpha had been familiar with a certain neurosurgeon, they'd have recognized elements of Khan seeping in. As it was, they spat in contempt of this posh poof putting it on thick.
"Negative. Dreadnought's here. Sending it in with a wave of bots. Let them take point, we can't lose more good men."
HQ sounded resigned, but they had their orders. St. Thomas was state of the art, hundreds of millions had been spent upgrading its systems, and while men and machines were expensive, their bosses were willing to throw much more their way before accepting surrender. The sheer PR hit, with the legitimacy of the government already being called into question? Unacceptable.
They stepped off for a moment, almost making it to a cafeteria ahead.
Phil stopped. Movement from the rear motion detectors they'd left in their wake.
"Hold the front. I'm checking back." He moved, swearing furiously as he saw that the massive corpse had vanished. All that was left was the rebar and smeared and congealing brains in the crater on the floor.
"Too good to waste. I do have a spare brain handy, almost good as new, barely used.." That fucking speaker they'd shot. It was back. He impaled it with the rebar and stomped the thing to pieces.
Thankfully, Phil and Andie hadn't run into anything, though the sounds of gunfire only grew louder, as did the whine of tiltrotors as both helicopters and large drones circled the premises.
The came the sound of walls being smashed into rubble. A distant stomping, but one that made them whoop instead of shudder in terror.
The Dread was here.
They heard the chainguns opening up, a bolus dose of hot lead helping out Bravo and Charlie with the shamblers, those creatures too dumb to hit the deck and thus bisected or disintegrated by way of bullet.
"Hold your ground. Link up and move in force." HQ ordered, sounding suitably smug.
The wait as the other elements mopped up and then made their way up seemed interminable, but then the cafeteria doors were ripped apart by a massive gauntlet, and the Dreadnought was before them, flanked by the remnants of Bravo and Charlie, as well as smaller but well equipped combat androids.
The Rolls-Royce Mechanized Super Heavy Infantry was a behemoth and a half. Any resemblance to a certain intellectual property of James Workshop is purely coincidental, or so this narrator studiously claims. Didn't stop everyone and their dog from calling it a Dreadnought.
Even the relatively tall corridors of the hospital barely contained it, it was just about the maximum height and weight the Met could expect to send into a building without the floor collapsing under it. An arm had an integrated chaingun, a model that wouldn't have looked out of place on an Apache. The other had a mounted grenade launcher, full of all kinds of ordnance to lay down the ordinance. Right now, the magazine was filled with HEDP, each 40mm grenade able to disable an APC on a direct hit. A shoulder carried a missile launcher, trading out the larger warheads of a military mech for a swarm of micro missiles, capable of navigating twisting corridors and taking out targets where the sheer bulk of the Dread made navigation impossible. Another shoulder carried a laser dazzler, a concession to crowd control, not that any crowd stuck around for long when this lumbering murder machine came out to read the Riot Act.
It was coated in blood, and, to Wallace's mild concern, claw marks. An arm clung to its squat legs, clamped tight despite having been torn off a zombie, and then fried by the discharge of supercaps embedded in the armor of the mech. You really didn't want to get into melee with it.
"All units. Move in force, we've got a window of 5 minutes till the SAS arrive, and I want this wrapped up with a bowtie. Recover the child at all costs, an MI-5 Clairvoyant confirmed the entity's reports of her being of extreme value. Potentially Class 5 or above. Make it work."
Wallace whistled. A Class 5? He'd never met one, the odd 3s and 4s he'd encountered personally had been more than impressive, making him sigh at his relative weakness. Then again, he didn't mind too much, he'd heard concerning rumors about far too many of the heavy hitters being drafted and never coming home. At least he got to stick around with his loved ones.
The combined TFG unit moved out, letting the Dread take point and the androids guard the rear. It was quiet. Too quiet. He'd heard the charges going off, the exterior of the structure being torn apart, the hospital wasn't nearly dense enough that the whine of half a dozen tiltrotors and massive emergency VTOL drones wouldn't have been audible.
"HQ. More spatial warping. Please advise." He heard Adeboye chirp. The leader of Charlie was was a Class 1 himself, enhanced reflexes and agility, hardly out of the realm that was now possible with the latest cybernetic enhancements, but hey, the more metas the Met had, the better the optics.
"The Dread has demo charges. Use them. Sparingly-"
"Goodness. I understand that you perceive me as an unwelcome guest, but let's be frank here, you've done a number on the place. I'd wager I've only racked up several thousand pounds of simple carpentry work and a few times more in disposable muscle. You're to blame for the untenable increase in the running costs of the NHS."
The Dreadnought buzzed, e-war systems engaged. Wallace shook his head as distorted static squealed through his headset, the suit's own defenses not quite up to the task of retaining full functionality as the mech did its best to contest control of all nearby electronics.
He didn't look at the signboard they passed, which showed a glitching overview of the hospital, dumb systems very unhappy about the conflicting reports being received from the thousands of sensors strewn throughout the facility. Nobody noticed that a door tucked away in the corner, helpfully labeled as the "Kennel", switched over to open.
This is about as good a time as any to mention that St. Thomas had more than it's fair share of furry friends. After all, the psychological benefits of pets were well established, a lovely cuddly Golden Retriever couldn't quite cure cancer, but they made you feel much better all the same. A recent funding campaign had even splurged for several miniphants and more exotic GMOs. It was great PR.
HQ had wrangled several Technomancers together, and their tenuous control over the hospital was bolstered. Most of the systems were displaying gibberish, but they'd augmented the motion trackers left by the TFG and drones with wall hacks, repurposing frankly outdated 2.4 Ghz wifi modems to track entities even through walls. With surprising resolution to boot.
"Movement. Next corridor. Mid-sized, quadrupedal. What the fuck could that-" Wallace called out over comms before the Dread's AI decided that it wasn't an accurate descriptor of the HVT or their eliminate-at-all-costs adversary. The frigid air heated up as the chain guns let loose, and Wallace, almost a dozen feet away, ducked to avoid an avalanche of sizzling brass.
"Stop fucking the comms!" Someone yelled at the Dread, which ended its auditory assault through their speakers and only raised the rate of fire on the cannons.
They stood there, for a moment, helmets struggling to see through the thick smoke, before the Dread helpfully patched them into its sensors.
MULTIPLE THREATS NEUTRALIZED. BE ADVISED, LESS THAN 27% OF EXPECTED LETHALITY FROM ORDNANCE.
REQUESTING PERMISSION TO PROGRESS UP THE KILL CHAIN. INCOMING THREATS, BEST CLASSIFIED AS MODIFIED CANIDS, IN T-3 SECONDS-
"Light them up, you fat bastard-" Wallace managed to scream before the walls crumbled as something as divorced from dog as a wolf was from a Chihuahua smashed through a window and was upon them.
It was hairless. Bloody, from both bullet holes and hasty incisions. And the size of an adolescent rhino. It would almost certainly have been inaudible over the Dread's guns, but it was as silent as the grave, vocal cords being considered unnecessary by the Doctor. At least he hadn't docked their tails.
It came down the impossibly long corridor, the Doctor's meddling being in the favor of the TFG for once, as the Dread took Wallace's orders to heart and let loose with the grenade launcher.
High Explosive Dual Purpose grenades. For when you aren't quite sure if you're in the mood to fuck up an armored car or a squad of troops hiding behind a seemingly robust wall.
The first grenade hit the beast in the forelimbs, blowing a chunk the size of Wallace's torso out of it and sending it sliding towards them. Still far from dead, the Dread managed to get another hit on its shoulder, almost tearing it off entirely, before it smashed into it. It snarled voicelessly, attempting to lunge up and snap at the mech, only to be literally battered back by the sheer momentum of high caliber shells sent directly down its throat.
INCOMING
It was far from alone. Wallace saw the rearguard droids swivel at the torso to engage yet more hounds smashing themselves loose from the walls, and felt the ground shake as something did its best to batter down the ceiling above them.
Three of them broke through, the android's armaments unable to check their advance, the Dread unable to fire without wiping out the dozen men behind it. A paw big enough to serve dinner on bowled a bot aside, another hound biting another in half, headless of the internal power pack detonating in its mouth. It sprang ahead, missing half its teeth, only to meet Wallace swinging his sword, a sweep that cut through wall before he lopped off the creature's head, which was still massive enough to knock him off his feet.
More. They were attacking from all angles. Clawing and biting through brick.
Aditya's bolter roared, firing an entire magazine and sending bone shrapnel into a massive skull. It wasn't enough, a member of Charlie had only a moment to begin unloading his rifle before claws the size of a steak knife eviscerated him, then a heavy foot crushed him without losing its stride.
It made the mistake of trying to walk over Wallace, his Highlander ancestors might not have been alive to see it, but he did them proud by stabbing upwards with his claymore and spitting the beast. He heaved, standing up despite the half ton of weight he was shouldering, the wound so large and the creature so heavy that it slid down the blade and submerged his face in its guts. He let go of the hilt and tore, ripping the snarling thing into two, heedless of it clawing into his hairy chest and only barely being checked by his ribs as hard as diamond.
Aditya noticed the front half still moving, and quickly reloaded with armor piercing bolts before sending several shots into its eye socket. That did the trick, but before he had a moment to exhale, the ceiling split open, and a massive trunk reached down and yanked him off his feet and to the floor above.
Wallace howled, tearing off his ruined helmet again, spitting up boiling blood and viscera that charred his mouth.
He had one smart contact lens still in place, and he could only grimace as he saw it report that the integrity of Aditya's chest plating was "irrevocably compromised" before his vitals flatlined. He'd been squeezed into paste.
The trunk came out again, lamprey-like with sharp teeth aching to swallow and mulch a skull. Luckily, it aimed for Adeboye, his powers letting him duck barely in time before it could yank his head off his shoulders. Wallace was seeing red, he grabbed the proboscis with one arm, and screamed as it coiled around his forearm and yanked him up too. The teeth bit into him, almost vacuuming up his flesh before giving up at its sheer intransigence. His head bashed into the ceiling, and he starfished himself in a panic, fighting against the force that threatened to pull him through the hole. His other arm was still intact, and Adeboye, almost collapsing under the weight, managed to pass him his sword. He didn't have much room to move, but still stabbed it straight through nonetheless, hearing an elephantine scream as it cut through.
"Skewered the bastard. Be QUICK!" He gurgled through swollen lips, as Adeboye grabbed a missile launcher and fired it point blank. Not the best idea, back blast was no joke in confined spaces, but it got the job done, the trunk going slack and letting Wallace fall to the floor, his landing broken by the slack body of a dog.
He lay there for a moment, feeling more than hearing the continuous roaring off the Dread's guns. His eardrums were done for, he could barely turn his head without the world turning into a smear. He did so nonetheless, and was rewarded for his effort by his stomach hurling up everything he'd had his dinner, including a bit of oversized dog.
He laid there for what seemed an eternity, until the rumbling ceased and merciful silence reigned. Or he presumed it was silence, the tinnitus in his skull threatened to make him bash it in.
He could feel his body healing. Slowly. It itched abominably.
"Hey. Wally?" Or so he presumed Phil was telling him, he'd taken off his own helmet for just a second, and he was doing his best to read lips through his concussion.
He raised a hand, the one that wasn't practically fused to his sword, and circled a finger around his ear. Phil fished out an earpiece, before kneeling next to Wally and shoving it none too gently into his bleeding ear canal. A sharp pinch, it wasn't an ordinary one, it unspooled a line of cabling and did its best to hook into the cochlea, only to be ignored by the MRS.
"Didn't work, eh?" he imagined Phil saying. He turned back and yelled something to the survivors out of sight, and Adeboye walked into view, fishing out smart contacts. Wallace did his best not to blink as it slithered over his eyes. Closed captioning. Better than deafness, though the tinnitus was beginning to subside.
"Get up, you fat oaf. And thank you." The other team leader told him, words overlaid, offering his hand for a moment before sheepishly withdrawing it when he realized that it would only have him pulled off his feet.
Wallace shook his head, decided that the world wasn't swaying more than he was accustomed to walking off after a bender, and stood to his feet, grabbing hold of the dangling trunk and hoisting himself up.
It was a charnel house. He turned numb eyes at the scene, flitting over the dead dogs and momentarily resting on the corpses of his comrades. His friends. His drinking buddies.
Terry. A good lad. Barely out of his teens but so goddamn good that he's been fast tracked into the TFG. He almost looked peaceful, as if he was hugging an oversized terrier to his chest, ignoring the fangs that laid open his ribs.
Boris. Or he presumed it was Boris. Who else in the team carried a bandolier of incendiary grenades, and had the balls to shove it down a throat while it took his arm with with him?
Otto. Mills. Henry. They'd all had kids. They'd all suited up to keep them safe. He thought of his own.
"Is it just us?" He whispered, his own words wavering a foot away.
"I'm sorry. We're all that's left. And that tin can." The Dread stood impassive, barrels of a cannon still spinning down, misting the room as the cold fought with the gently smoldering fires from the incendiaries. The approach was choked with more carcasses. It had let loose its own dogs of war, and put many more to sleep.
Orders from HQ manifested. His commander seemed like a broken man doing his best not to show it. They'd taken him for a posh poof at the start, but he'd won them over. And he seemed ashamed at having spent their lives.
"Stand down. No contacts in the immediate vicinity. You're not moving an inch till the SAS gets here, I'd pull you out right fucking now, but my hands are tied boys. Let them handle the rest.." He turned his head away, dabbing at his dapper mustache, before cutting the video feed.
Wallace, leaning on his sword like a crutch, found the head of a dog and kicked. And kicked. And kicked again, until Phil grabbed him and moved him gently aside. His contacts wicked away the tears before they froze over on his face.