Captain Ryan, his men, and the rifleman and woman from teams Guillotine and Saw Blade emerged from the portal aperture which was now fluctuating and showing signs of instability. The sun was beginning to rise above the treeline. What they stepped out into was the remnants of a massacre and over 60 firearms pointed at them.
Ryan quickly called out. “Overwatch reporting back.”
“Are there any more pursuers?” Major Thompson called out.
“Not that we are aware of.”
The weapons were lowered and team Overwatch stepped away from the unstable portal.
Captain Ryan and the others looked around at what appeared to be a bloodbath. There were hundreds of deflated Goblin corpses everywhere. They appeared to have all been slaughtered as they left the portal. There must have been both hordes here.
Some soldiers were removing obsidian stones from the remains and piling the remains that had already been cut open. There were also piles of weapons being gathered. The entire area smelled of blood and death.
“Were there any casualties or injuries Major?” Ryan asked the CO.
“No, but we used more ammunition than we would have liked. Based on Guillotine’s and Saw Blade’s reports, there seemed to be a few more camps than were scouted. What else happened after they left?”
Out of nowhere the unstable portal appeared to collapse and snap shut out of existence. It was just gone with nothing left behind, just like the gates that everyone came through on their first day.
“For one, we apparently figured out how to close these things.” Ryan quipped back.
“It appears so Captain. Report back to Alpha Base for a full debriefing.”
“Yes sir.”
“Dismissed.”
Team Guillotine, Saw Blade, and Overwatch began their walk back to Alpha Base, leaving the defense team to clean up and pick clean the Goblin remains for anything useful. When they got there, they had found out that the top brass had landed on a new name for the settlement. New Nellis. The idea was that anyone familiar with US military bases would realize that this was a military settlement and that they could seek protection here. Further, if there were soldiers separated from their chains of command, it was easily identifiable as a place they could check in and re-integrate into the surviving chain of command.
When the teams got back they went through a full debrief as promised. Ryan reaccounted what happened with team Overwatch, then what happened once the three teams met back up, and what finally occurred after they were overrun. The General’s staff was pleased at the report, both on the enemy and the obsidian stones. Even more so at the connection between killing the Goblin leader and the closing of the black portal, which they had named a Hostile Portal or HP for short. They branded the Hobgoblin an HPAE, or Hostile Portal Anchor Entity, since it appeared to be what anchored the Hostile Portal to the woods outside of New Nellis. They also started calling the Goblins HPEs or Hostile Portal Entities.
The top brass were also very interested in the reports of how the obsidian stones only seemed to collect one HPE’s death. They were also fascinated with the larger obsidian stone provided by the HPAE that Ryan had killed. They were curious what the bigger size meant and if it could hold more HPEs’ deaths or not.
Brigadier General U.S. Arnold was particularly interested in the discipline and coordination that the Goblin vanguard had exhibited. Based on the report, the Goblins clearly had a language that they used, Humans just had no idea what it was or how to translate it. Meaning, if they could figure out how to communicate, diplomacy was a possibility, although an unlikely one based on how openly aggressive the creatures appeared to be.
After the debrief, the teams were given warm meals and rest.
* * *
The next day there was a briefing again with the General and teams Guillotine, Saw Blade, and Overwatch. Apparently scouting teams had been sent into the other Hostile Portal to see what was inside it. The reports were that on the other side was a cave system. So far, there had been no creatures spotted leaving this Hostile Portal. So three scout teams had been sent to further investigate when the raid on the first Hostile Portal was launched and none had returned. Currently they were 6 hours overdo.
The General’s staff feared that there may be more of these vanguard level Goblins, Hobgoblins, or something else that they haven’t seen yet in there.
What they were prepping the three teams for, was a rescue mission. They were to recover the scouting teams and any intel that they have gained on this Hostile Portal. What they did know was that the cave seems to be a long system of tunnels.
Since the only teams with any potential intel were the ones missing, the brass had decided to send in the experts for the rescue instead of other teams. They wanted to minimize the risk of losing more personnel, equipment, and most importantly ammo.
Ryan felt that the use of the word “experts” was a step too far. They had been on ONE raid. Granted, it was the only raid on Goblin camps in Human history as far as Ryan knew. But he definitely felt the smoke being blown up his team’s ass to get them to walk into a bad situation.
They had three hours to prepare and they went to grab a bite to eat before grabbing their gear from the armory and departing.
“I don’t know, I think that we handled the hippies and their big hob just fine last time.” Roberts joked.
“Shut up. They are HPEs, not hippies. You know the military loves their acronyms. Also, we are to refer to the Anchor Entities as HPAEs or Hostile Portal Anchor Entities, not what race they are.” Ryan bit back. Roberts was good at pushing Ryan’s buttons and Roberts knew it.
“Sure Captain, but doesn’t referring to what they are, better describe the threat? Knowing if we are about to run into a Hobgoblin instead of more Goblins is way more informative than calling them HPEs in general. Especially when we don’t even know which is the HPE and which is the HPAE until we kill it and the whole place starts crumbling around us.” Ramirez retorted.
“You do have a point there. At least stick to protocol around the brass. I’ll put in a request to loosen the grip on combatant identifiers. I think the brass is just trying to grab onto any form of order that they can. It’s been tits up since we all arrived and the last thing the powerful want is to lose control in a situation like this. But I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks Captain.”
* * *
Later that day, teams Guillotine, Saw Blade, and Overwatch arrived at the other Hostile Portal aperture. Team Guillotine however had a replacement while Airmen Brown was on the mend.
Major Thompson once again was there giving them a quick briefing. The briefing included the roster of the Scout Teams, their orders if they are found alive, what to do if they were found dead, and what to do if they weren’t found at all after 12 hours. Pretty much if they were alive, the raid teams were to be escorted back for debriefing. If they were found dead, the raid teams were to recover their equipment, and if they weren’t found at all, the raid teams were to report back.
The teams embarked through the HP’s aperture.
On the other side, they found themselves in a fairly large tunnel. It was about 50 feet wide and about 30 feet tall, with stalactites hanging from the ceiling at various lengths, some meeting the stalagmites that formed beneath them on the floor, creating stone columns. The walls and some of the stalactites had a pale moss growing on them, clearly deprived of sunlight. At the end of the chamber they were in, the room split into two smaller tunnels, only about eight feet in diameter.
“How do we want to split this Captain Ryan?” Asked Guillotine’s lead. “The tunnels look too small to stay grouped up as a single unit.”
“Yeah and it would take us too long to not spread out our search. Team Guillotine and Saw Blade, take the bigger tunnel on the left. Overwatch will take the smaller one on the right. If you find another split, diverge there. If you find more splits, break up into teams of three men and go for 10 minutes. After that time, double back and determine where you want to go as a team. We need to search as much area as possible, but with an unknown danger, we shouldn’t split up too much and make ourselves vulnerable.”
“Understood. Guillotine, Saw Blade, you’re with me. Let’s get moving!” Said Guillotine’s leader.
“Overwatch, we are going this way.”
The team leads shared their plan with their men and began their search through the tunnels.
After about six hours of searching the tunnels, team Overwatch rejoined after checking separate branches.
“Ramirez, what did you find down your path? About seven minutes down ours we found another split and headed back.”
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“Sir, we found an M4 and some shell casings where the tunnel seemed to open up into one of the larger chambers. The magazine was half spent. I think it belonged to one of the Scout teams.”
“Well that’s the first sign we’ve come across, so let’s take your path.”
The entire Overwatch team moved down the path Ramirez and his part of team Overwatch had previously explored. They reached the point where Ramirez reported finding the weapon and shell casings and continued onward.
Where the weapon was found, the tunnel opened up wide like the chamber the HP spit them out in. This one was much longer though. This chamber had lots of crags and narrow openings. Some in the walls, some in the ceilings, and some in the floor. All of them ending in darkness where their flashlights couldn’t reach.
Airman Roberts spoke up. “Do you hear that sir? It sounds like skittering.”
Ryan motioned Overwatch to stop and listened. He could faintly hear what sounded like knives tapping and scraping across stone. The faint noise abruptly stopped. Ryan waited a moment. Nothing. Whatever the noise was, it wasn't there anymore. Ryan motioned Overwatch to continue.
After a few more minutes of walking, they all suddenly heard the noise again. This time much more clearly. Overwatch halted and listened as the noise echoed in the tunnel. It sounded like it was coming from every direction.
Suddenly the noise sounded like it was moving away and getting quieter and once again abruptly stopped. Overwatch slowly moved forward as they came to the end of the chamber where the space shrunk down and took a hard left.
As they turned the corner, the narrow tunnel opened up into a massive chamber. Along its walls were dozens of other tunnel entrances.
Then, out of nowhere, Overwatch heard the sound of gunshots and screams. The noises echoed off of the walls, but were coming out of the tunnel next to the one that they had just emerged from.
Ryan, Ramirez, and Roberts readied their weapons and flashlights down the tunnel, while the rest of team Overwatch kept eyes on the rest of the massive chamber.
Then two unarmed bodies turned a corner down the tunnel and ran at them. They were part of team Saw Blade and they looked terrified.
“Behind us!” one of them shouted as what looked like a scorpion the size of a large dog turned the corner behind them, skittering on the wall after them.
“Get to your right!” Ryan shouted to them as he motioned.
They did as ordered and the three that were aiming down the tunnel let out a controlled burst of rifle fire. The noise loudly rang out and echoed through the tunnel and chamber, having an amplification effect like being in an amphitheater.
The scorpion’s carapace burst as the 5.56mm rounds found their target. It fell from the wall, to the floor, landing on its back. Its legs curled up like a dead spider.
The men reached team Overwatch, out of breath and mortified.
“Fucking scorpians man! I hate bugs!” One of them got out.
“They got David.” The other said.
“What do you mean, they?” Asked Ryan.
“I mean, they were swarming out of cracks in the...” The man got out before a stinger shot out of a crack in the wall of the tunnel and caught him in the back.
His face was in sheer pain and horror. He let out a small gasp as he squinted his eyes through the pain.
The other soldier jumped back out of freight and all of Overwatch readied their weapons.
The pierced soldier was then pulled to the crack in the wall, getting lodged in it, his shoulders being too broad to fit in the crack itself.
Everyone jumped back from the crack as a snipping noise started and the soldier began whaling out in pain.
Overwatch didn’t have the angle they needed with the soldier's body filling the crack completely.
The snap of bone could be heard over the man’s screaming as his left shoulder folded in on itself. His shoulder nearly cut all of the way through. He was lodged even further into the crack.
Suddenly, BANG! A shot rang out and the soldier stopped screaming and went limp.
Ryan had shot him in the head, putting him out of his misery.
“Here they come!” The man from Saw Blade shouted as he moved into the larger chamber with the rest of Overwatch.
About a dozen of the creatures turned the corner down the tunnel and were skittering along the floor, walls, and ceiling toward Overwatch.
Another loud snap sounded out as the now dead soldier’s other shoulder folded in and he disappeared into the crack in the blink of an eye.
All of team Overwatch took aim down the tunnel and opened fire in controlled bursts, killing two or three of the scorpions at a time as they focussed on the closest ones to them. Soon the tunnel floor was littered with scorpion carapaces and members of Overwatch backed further away from the crack where the member of Saw Blade had been pulled into.
Then more gunfire rang out from another tunnel.
Ryan, pulled the sidearm out of the Saw Blade soldier’s holster and shoved it in his hand.
“Come on soldier, you’re with us now.”
Overwatch moved to the tunnel where all of the gunshots were coming from, some keeping eyes on the tunnel they just left and the rest of the tunnels that led into the chamber.
This time three members of Guillotine, including their leader, turned the corner. They stopped at the corner, saw Overwatch, turned back, fired down the tunnel, and then continued running toward Overwatch.
What followed them were close to 40 scorpions of varying sizes. Some as small as a cat, and some as big as a Great Dane.
As Guillotine reached Overwatch, they spun around and dropped as all 10 soldiers opened fire on the ensuing horde of scorpions that crawled along all of the surfaces of the tunnel.
Corpses were dropping from the front lines, but didn’t slow the scorpions on the floor down at all. They proceeded to crawl right over their brethren in their effort to reach their pray.
Soon all of the pursuing scorpions were dead and filled the tunnel floor.
“What happened down there?” Ryan asked Guillotine’s lead.
“We had just met up with half of Saw Blade when they started surging from the cracks in the tunnel. We immediately lost two men in the initial ambush, one from each team. Then they came up from both of the tunnels we came from and forced us this way. We lost the rest of the Saw Blade members and two more of our own to further ambushes along our way here. We must have killed dozens in the tunnels while they chased us, but more kept coming out of the cracks.”
“That means that we are all that is left. We are clearly outnumbered and unprepared for this. We need to get out of here and report back.” Ryan said while carefully considering all of the information that was just shared to him. “Any of these tunnels could hold swarms of these bugs. Let’s take the way back that Overwatch came from. We heard skittering, but were never attacked. I’m concerned that they are riled up down the tunnels Guillotine and Saw Blade took.”
“I’m good with that plan. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Just then they heard more skittering echoing down the tunnel from where Guillotine just emerged, then from several of the other tunnels around them.
“Sounds like we really stepped in a hornets nest here Cap. We better get moving.” Roberts said nervously.
“Agreed. Back the way we came, men!”
Overwatch moved back toward the tunnel they initially emerged from as the skittering from all around them grew louder and louder.
They all re-entered the tunnel Overwatch came from and rounded the corner into the chamber before the room where all of the tunnels converged. As they rounded the corner, they stopped as they noticed the room was covered in white silky threads.
“Ramirez, did we take a wrong turn?” Asked Ryan.
“No sir.” Said Airman Windler. “I kept my eye on the tunnel we came out of the entire time. I didn’t want us getting lost or surprised.”
The skittering behind them was getting louder.
“Shit! Alright, forward it is then. Don’t touch the threads, it looks like spider webbing and we don’t need to get stuck in that now too.”
The team began to make their way through the room, trying to avoid the strands of webbing. Most of it was big thick strands, similar to the size of rope, but with patches between some of the strands that were reflective white when a flashlight shone on it.
After a few moments, they safely navigated the webbing to the other end of the chamber. However, the exit was covered in the reflective white patches.
Ryan pulled the magazine out of his M4 and used the barrel to chop at the webbing. They were right, this was sticky like spider webbing. It took several more moments for Ryan to hack through the sticky webbing with his rifle. Once it was clear he turned to order his men through.
“Let’s get out of here.”
As Ryan gave the order and the men turned to file out of the chamber and into the tunnel, a scorpion the size of a station wagon silently dropped down from a huge crack in the ceiling on a strand of webbing, none of the men with their backs to it noticing a thing.
“Good, I fucking hate spiders!” Roberts got out before he was impaled by a stinger the size of a folding chair.
Roberts looked down at the stinger sticking out of his chest as he coughed up blood. His body was then thrown back over the massive scorpion, into the chamber, landing in some webbing and getting tangled up.
“Open fire!” Ryan got out as he let go of the rifle stuck in the webbing and drew his sidearm.
The men filing into the tunnel all turned as Airman Roberts’ body got yanked out of the group and thrown across the room. They all brought their arms to bear and opened fire.
The scorpion shielded its face with one of its massive claws. Bullets just ricocheting off, as it reached out with its other claw and in an instant, cut Guillotine’s leader in half. Then moving that claw to shield its face, it reached out with the other claw lightning fast and snipped at another soldier, this time not shearing him in half. Instead it picked the soldier up and brought him to its face where it opened its maw ringed in lamprey teeth. The mandibles on the sides of its maw, spreading to fit the soldier inside its mouth as he screamed for help. It closed its claw, cutting the soldier in half, dropping the torso into its maw and letting the soldier’s legs fall to the floor.
“Everyone out!” Ryan yelled over the gunfire and everyone began moving backwards into the cave.
Captain James Ryan was the last to move into the tunnel. As he did, he turned to run like the rest of his soldiers. Staff Sergeant Ramirez turned and locked eyes with him, his face stricken with horror as a sharp pain pierced Ryan’s back. The pain spread to his lung and peck as he felt the stinger pierce all of the way through his chest. The pain was then cranked up as he was yanked out of the tunnel at mock-fuck and thrown to the other end of the chamber. Pain erupted from the hole in his back and along his spine as he hit a wall and then tumbled through the webbing, colliding with several of the dog-sized scorpions along the way.
Ryan’s chest was on fire with a searing pain. He couldn’t feel his legs. He knew that the impact crushed his spine. His torso, arms, and head all felt tingly like they were asleep and he couldn’t move them. The scorpion’s venom must have a paralysis effect to it. All he could do was lay there in aching pain, screaming in his own head in shock and horror as everything dimmed to black as the soldiers and their lights moved further down the tunnel, leaving him to his fate.
Once all of the light had left the room, the walls began to glow a fluorescent green from bioluminescence from the pale moss that clung to various surfaces. He could see that in the dark, the scorpions had a striped blue glow pattern on them. He could see moving blue lines in the cracks in the chamber's surfaces as more scorpions poured out and pursued the soldiers down the tunnel.
Ryan’s vision began to go fuzzy as he lost consciousness.