“Captain!” Corporal Knightley yelled, firing her weapon on three goblins killing them before throwing a flash bang grenade into centre of the goblin horde.
The slight bang was followed by a great flash that frenzied the horde; but the deafening crack was enough to send the remaining goblins scampering from the control room doorway but for how long was anyone’s guess.
“Lieutenant, seal that door! Corporal, get on to HQ! I want an extraction ASAP!” Captain Quis Podex ordered, loading the last magazine into his rifle. “Maybe now we have some time to breathe.”
The sound of the emergency blast door closing over the control room entrance was sweet music to the captain’s ears.
“Right, these poor souls won’t need their weapons anymore. Salvage what you can and hunker down,” he ordered, pointing to the bodies of the goblins and Were Inc soldiers before resting himself on a set of steps with a great sigh of relief.
Where he sat, he could see lying about his feet all the empty rifle magazines and bullet casings. He looked at them in disappointment, he knew in his heart he would soon be forced to use his trusty sidearm, a ‘colt python’, a large calibre revolver, with six shots and slow reload time, but he favoured this weapon more than another he had ever used; now he may be forced to use it on himself and his team in a worst case scenario. Lieutenant Storm found a 9mm Beretta pistol once issued to Were Inc Delta teams on reconnaissance missions, Corporal Knightley found an ST-15161654 assault rifle, strangely; these rifles were issued recently yet the body she found it next to was beginning to decompose. When they were once again armed and dangerous, Corporal Knightley wanted answers from her captain whom she believed knew much more than he was letting on.
“Captain, I think it’s time you start telling us what you know. We’ve narrowly escaped hell so far, we just got attacked by freaking goblins! We lost one of our team, a good woman, who I would have giving my right arm for. She died like no one ever should; eaten by whatever that thing was,” the corporal demanded answers while struggling to maintain a respectful tone towards her commanding officer.
Captain Quis Podex sharply turned his stare away from the sealed door looking to Corporal Knightley.
“Corporal, I am your commanding officer and you will follow whatever orders I give you!” he exclaimed, his eyes wide with anger, he couldn’t believe she dared to question him or assume that he could be with holding important information.
“Are you pulling rank on me, Captain?” she asked.
Her respectful tone was now a thing of the past.
“You can forget that crap,” Lieutenant Storm nervously chuckled.
“Need I remind you, as the acting medical officer for this team, should I deem you unfit to command this team, I have the right to relieve you of that command,” Corporal Knightley snarled.
She wanted answers and was so scared, so anxious. She didn’t care what she had to do to get those answers. Captain Quis Podex could no longer deny that he knew more than he was telling his acting team, he went over the predictions in his head, he could see a number of outcomes where he lied to them yet again and even more outcomes regarding what could happen if he was honest with them. Either outcome wasn’t very appealing to him; each outcome ended similarly, he wouldn’t get out of Eiru alive! He needed Aisling and Marie if he was to survive this living nightmare.
He rested his elbows on his knees with his colt python still firmly grasped in his right hand while he spoke, “I was posted here some time ago under the command of Admiral Blackery. We were stationed to protect a research team lead by Doctor Oscar Burton. The company had heard stories of living water, real magic, stories of raiders and blood rituals and more; but it was the research into a man-made symbiotic life form that the doctor had begun and named Project Mortal, that was the main focus for us being here.” The gun the captain held had begun to look very friendly to him as he stroked it like you would when comforting a frightened puppy.
“After two years, there was no real progress with the symbiote research and the company wanted to end the research and all evidence was to be destroyed.” He spun the gun in his hand, grasping it firmly like a party trick.
“We were about to be shipped back to HQ when the Eiru council approached us, they offered us access to equipment far beyond our own,” He suddenly became excited as he carried on with his tale.
“I mean, way beyond anything we knew possible, centuries ahead of our own, space age kind of stuff; but, as with all things, there was a price to be paid; they wanted the first successful Project-M symbiote to be tested on one of their own people, specifically, Prince Michéal,” Lieutenant Storm stumbled backwards, mumbling, leaning against the computers chair that was fixed to the floor.
“Oh God, I’m going to be sick,” Corporal Knightley shook her head in disbelief. “You bastards, those things, that thing that killed Rose, that’s Project Mortal, isn’t it?” she asked in shock.
Captain Quis Podex holstered his weapon and looked the corporal in the eye, his dead soulless eyes unnerved her.
“Yes, one of them. You think you have seen the worst of what’s out there because you’ve seen one or two types of symbiotes? Marie, all that we’ve been through together; the wars we’ve fought, the battles we won, we stood back to back and walked away in one piece but those creatures out there are not the real danger. You haven’t
