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0.59% Out of Space / Chapter 4: Boarded

Chapter 4: Boarded

The ship shook as several of the spore seeds slammed into the aft and dozens of spores got vaporized by the plasma exhaust of the engine. The point defense gunners did their best to prevent the spores from hitting the ship but still, some made it past the defensive laser fire.

"Damage report?" Captain Blake called out.

"Unknown at the moment, Sir!" Ford replied as he checked each status on his screen. "I think they hit the engine block."

"Get on the comms! Warn Engineering that they might have trouble and alert the Marines." Blake yelled.

-----

Chief Engineer Matt Peterson ended the call from Bridge and turned around to face his team. "We got some hitchhikers on our tail! Open the arms locker and get armed. Inform the Marines."

The engineers and techs looked at each other with frightened faces. "Chief are we gonna fight too?" Someone yelled. "I didn't sign up for this!"

"So you wanna roll over and die? If those swarm things get in here, everyone is fish food for them! Now stop your whining or I swear to god I'll space you guys instead and save the swarm the trouble of eating you!" Chief Engineer Matt bellowed at his crew.

"Sir! Heard that you have some trouble?" Marine Sgt Collins of Section Four entered Engineering Block B with his team of six other Marines.

"Yes, those Swarm seem to have boarded the engine block. We need to hold them off. If they destroy the engines, we ain't going nowhere!" Chief Matt replied. "I'll assign some guys to guide you around the engineering passages."

He turned and yelled at the guys. " You and you! Yes, you! Grab a weapon and join the Sarge here! You are their guides. Go!"

"Jenkins, Royce, and Dean. You three stay and guard the main hatch. The rest on me, move out." Sgt Collins led the rest of the section behind the 2 engineering crewmembers deeper into Engineering B.

-----

Marine Officer In Charge of the UNS Singapore, 2nd Lt Frank Lee was standing outside the Bridge hatch. He flipped out his readout, glanced at it and returned it back to his pouch. "Staff, you fought these things before right?" He asked Staff Pike softly.

"Yea, fought them several times, on Himpra, same as the Cap, and two fleet boarding actions." Staff Pike replied while checking his gear.

"What is it like?" Lt Frank asked curiously. All he knew was from videos and training simulations. He just got this posting directly after finishing officer cadet school. Command sent him here to learn how to command a platoon in the rear lines before planning to send him to the front.

"Bad. Really bad, don't let them get near you. Their claws can rip your MK XI Armor into shreds, not to mention other than armor piercing rounds or large caliber weapons nothing can pen their carapace. They are almost impossible to stop." He dug out a magazine from his ammo pouch containing the ceramic rounds and shook it. "These? It's not gonna do much to them. But the trick is to shoot them when they get near you and open their mouths."

He loaded his rifle and slung it. "Sir, you need to show the troops that you are confident." He reached out and stopped Frank from opening his pouch to take out his readout. "That's the 11th time you took it out, Sir. Keep calm, don't show your fear."

Great. How am I going to do that? Thought Frank. He caught himself reaching for his readout again and instead forced his hand back and gripped his rifle instead. "You think they boarded?"

"Sure as hell. These things, they don't stop. They feed on you so they can create more of themselves. If we don't fight them, sooner or later, mankind is gonna be extinct."

He braced himself against the bulkhead with one hand as the ship groaned and shook from the maneuverings. "They are coming. I can feel it."

He looked at the rest of the troops milling outside the reactor room. "We have to make sure they don't get past us if Collins and his section fail."

-----

The narrow service corridors lined with pipes and cables only allowed Collins's section to advance in a single file.

"Keep some distance, don't cluster fuck together!" Collins warned his men as they followed the lead crewman to where the ship computers detected the intrusion.

Pvt Leeds was following the techie in front of him. He looked at his readout and pulled the techie to a stop. "Wait, we are about 30 meters away from the target."

The techie dressed in a white environment suit with a blue strip indicating he's from Engineering looked frightened. He raised his weapon, a compact personal defense weapon chambered in 5 mm, and nervously fingered the trigger.

"Hey techie, what's your name?" Leeds asked as he signaled the men behind him to stop and hold.

"Lawrence, Spaceman apprentice of engi- ARGH!" A scythe-like blade suddenly burst out of his chest turning his white suit red as he turned to reply to Leeds.

"Shit! Contact!" Pvt Leeds yelled as blood splattered onto his visor. He scrambled back and fell on his back as he watched Lawrence twitching in agony while a creature from nightmares appeared.

The warrior drone lifted Lawrence towards its maw and bit down, severing the head and part of the shoulder of Lawrence and started chewing.

-----

Pvt Drake grew up in a sprawling metro hub on the outskirts of LA. The war had started and with the new law stating that young men had to enlist, he decided to join the Marines. Travel to exotic planets, find aliens and kill them, the Marine recruiters said. Complete your term of enlistment and get a nice pension they said. He grew up playing CoD XV and other shooters, fancying himself a pro shooter.

Yet despite all the time in VR games, the reality was different as he went through four months of grueling training in death worlds and airless moons. And he really wanted to kill some aliens.

And now one of the aliens stood over his section buddy snacking on the techie that brought them here. He flicked his safety off and fired at the warrior drone. Reddish puffs of smoke erupted over the head carapace of the drone as it lowered its head to protect itself.

A couple of shots blew what remained of the techie into a bloody mess. He watched his rounds impacting uselessly on the armored torso of the alien and decided to pull back instead. He grabbed Leeds's harness at the grip bar behind his neck with one hand while firing at the creature. "Back! Get back!"

Leeds kicked his heels as fast as he could to scramble back as the drone discarded the gory remains and dropped into a crouch. He brought up his M7A1 and fired point blank at the drone while he felt someone grabbing his harness and pulling him back just in time as two scythes slammed down where he was a second ago, leave a twin gouge on the steel deck.

"Shoot the mouth!" Someone shouted in the rear. "Get back! It's too narrow here!"

"Fuck!" Drake cursed. Shoot the mouth? Easier said than done! I got my hands full trying to pull Leeds back! I can't even aim straight! "Fuck!" He swore. "Leeds you fucking owe me one! Shoot that scum's mouth!"

Drake dropped his rifle which automatically retracted back to his harness. Using both hands he dragged Leeds all the way back.

"Die mutha fucker! Die!" Leeds screamed as he unloaded his whole magazine into the drone. Several shots punched through the razor-sharp teeth due to his firing angle and tore the soft tissue within the drone apart.

Taking critical internal damage, the drone jerked and vomited a mass of bloody gore and purplish ichor before collapsing.

"More incoming!" Leeds yelled as he noticed shadowy shapes behind the corpse of the first drone. "Fuck!"


CREATORS' THOUGHTS
Neobear Neobear

Advance chapters are available on Pat-reon

https://www.*******.com/neobear

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Join the discussion in Discord

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Donate/Support me via Paypal now!

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Chapter 4 ! Phew! I hope its enjoyable still so far ! =) Please give comments! thanks for reading!

updated 16/1/2020

Chapter 5: Overwhelmed

"Captain, Marines reporting contact with the enemy at Engineering B deck 12." XO Ford reported. "So far one known casualty from Engineering."

"Noted. Pilot, push engines to 110% output, get us out of their firing envelope." Capt Blake ordered. "Drop some countermeasures, see if we can trick them for a minute or two."

He turned to the Weapons Officer next and snapped. "All guns on target Charlie."

As the Swarm ships slowed due to taking damage, the distance increased from 3,000 km to 4,000 km, but the Swarm ships regrouped and continued to chase and harrass the UNS Singapore.

"Captain, Gun One can't target Charlie, it's at its blind spot!" WO Yan Fey said. He wiped his free-flowing sweat off from his face. "Do I re-acquire another target?"

"Yes, make it so. Next time don't ask me. Just do it and inform me ." Blake replied. He looked at the main tactical display screen. Seven mins more to the Ecythn Jump Point. "Prepare the warp drives."

"Captain, engineering reports warp drives are on ready to go. But the engines can't take 110% output much longer. They are overheating badly!" Ford looked up from his console.

"How long can the engines last?" Blake asked.

"Four more minutes, tops," Ford answered. "Then the computer will auto shutdown the engines and begin the cool down procedure."

"Understood. Pilot drop back to 100% power but be ready to push it up to 125% on my command." Blake ordered.

The whole bridge turned and look at their Captain. Confusion can be seen on their faces. "Back to your duties! The Captain knows what he is doing." Ford snapped.

"Captain, with all respect, don't you think its too risky to go 125%? The engines might blow and we will be stranded here." Ford whispered as he stood beside the Captain.

"It will be fine. These things were built to last. Not like the ships these days." Blake looked how the counter changed from 7 mins to 11 mins. "We just need it to give us enough inert force to enter the jump point. Then we call for help. The Fleet supply depot there can rescue us even if our engines are burnt out."

-----

Deep in the bowels of Engineering B deck 12, continuous gunfire echoed across the deck.

"We need backup! Ray and Hawk are down!" Sgt Collins yelled into the command network comms. "We can't hold them back! We are pulling back to deck 10 !"

He paused to fire at the rushing horde, watching his shots knock the creature down. It shook itself up and started rushing forward again.

"Back! We can't hold them here! Get back to deck 10!" He instructed Leeds and Drake before throwing a stun grenade at the mass of claws and chitin.

The concussion from the stun grenade disoriented the drones long enough for the three of them to retreat back. As they fell back they sealed and locked hatches to slow the Swarm down. Panting, Sgt Collins led Pvt Leeds and Pvt Drake to link up with the rest of Section Four.

"Sarge Collins, what's going on?" Asked Cpl Jenkins. With him were Lance Corporal Royce, Pvt Dean and 4 other white-suited techies armed with 5mm PDWs. Everyone was looking at Sgt Collins with anticipation, other than Leeds and Drake who leaned against the bulkhead panting.

"Form a firing line here. Damn things are coming!" Sgt Collins said. "These peashooters of yours can't do much damage. Those scum are damn hard to kill." He pointed to the techies' weapons. "Go find something to act as barricades. We hold them off here."

The techies looked at each other and nodded. "We got some heavy machinery movers. Those can block the passageway."

"Great! Get on it and tell Chief Matt to evacuate non-essential personnel away." Sgt Collins instructed.

"Yes Sarge." with that, the techies ran off down the hatchway. Not long later, a couple of forklifts driven by the techs arrived and were directed by Sgt Collins to park in alternating zones to create an S-shaped funnel. The techs locked the wheels and jammed the fork arms against the deck to prevent the vehicles from getting knocked away easily.

Screeching sounds of metal and unearthly cries echoed down the hatchway. "Get ready! They are coming! Remember to aim for their mouth or their weaker joints. These pussy rounds can't penetrate for fuck!" Collins yelled. "You guys, clear the area! Get back to Engineering!"

"You guys take care!" The techs left the area and returned back to the engine room.

"S4, S4 come in! This is Eagle. Over"

"Eagle this is S4 actual. Currently in combat with scums. Two men down. Requesting immediate support! Over" SGT Collins commed back.

"S4, Eagle. Roger, sending S3 to your location. Standy by. Over."

"S4 copy that. Out." Sgt Collins turnd and said to the rest,

"Section 3 is coming to reinforce us. So we gonna have to hold here till they come!"

"HOO-RAH!" The Marines of Section 4 yelled back. "Kill them all!"

The warrior drones rended and tore the hatches that stood between them and their prey. Their senses allowed them to locate the tasty meat through a mix of psionic waves, smell and taste. They "saw" things by sensing their "life" aura, a kind of energy to the Swarm. They could even see the engines and reactor fueled with Helium 3.

Live prey shows up as a yellowish white pulsing mass while pure energy sources show up as a red white mass. The drones communicated telepathically and divided into two groups to harvest those energies.

The first group continued to systematically rip open the sealed hatches to reach the live prey, while the second group tore right through the decks to reach the mass of angry red aura only which the Swarm could sense.

"Here they come!" The lead warrior drone slammed against the forklift, causing it to tilt down and crash into the deck on its side.

"Fire!" Sgt Collins commanded.

Five M7A1s blazed a hail of ceramic bullets that forced the leading drone backwards. It struggled to rise but must had suffered from some internal injury in its body. The Marines then switched to the next target behind but as one drone went down, three more appeared to take its place.

"There's too many! Fuckers don't die!" Pvt Dean shouted as he reloaded his third magazine. He suddenly found himself flying in the air towards the onrushing Swarm. "What?" He looked down at his chest to find a claw latched to his armor flipping him upside down.

"Nooo!" Pvt Dean screamed as he disappeared into the mass of thrashing claws and teeth.

"Fuck! Dean is gone!" Lcp Royce screamed.

He crouched behind a stack of engine maintenance parts, trying his best to shoot at the joints or mouths, but it was hard to hit as the creatures utilized their head carapace as a form of shield to advance.

He fired at the exposed legs, sending one of the drones crashing down, and sent a burst into its exposed mouth as it struggled to crawl up. "Sarge! We can't hold!"

"Hold, goddamn it! Section 3 is almost here!" Sgt Collins reloaded his rifle and fired at a warrior drone which climbed on top of a toppled forklift. A searing pain tore through his left side as another warrior drone appeared and slashed at him.

"Fuck this! Use frags! He yelled as he stepped back.

"Frag out!" Two fragmentation grenades were thrown by Pvt Leeds and Cpl Jenkins.

Both of them aimed theim behind the upturned forklift to prevent fratricide. The M144 AP Fragmentation Grenades packs 70 tungsten ball bearings surrounding a 25g core charge of C-9 explosives. The resulting explosion of the explosives turns the tungsten balls into bits of plasma that can burn through 4 mm thick armored steel.

The dual explosion lifted Sgt Collins off his feet as the shock wave carried him back a couple of meters, dumping him painfully against the bulkhead. Dozens of molten holes could be seen on the forklift's hard plastic structure that protected the rest of the Marines.

Alarms blared and warning of several breaches in the hull screamed. The Swarm took the brunt of the explosions in their midst, shredding them to bits and pieces. As the auto fire suppression system kicked in, a dark shape emerged through the foam.

LCP Royce dropped face down as he was cut in half by the warrior drone's scythes. The rest of the section which was still recovering from the shock after the blast was cut down one by one helplessly. Pvt Leeds lost his left arm as he attempted to fire his rifle before losing his head.

Pvt Drake managed to skittle across the deck as he dodged the multiple slashing limbs of the warrior drone.

Just as he ran out of space to dodge, with the warrior drone looming over him, sudden gunfire forced the warrior drone to retreat until it collapsed from the hail of bullets from the timely arrival of Section 3.

"Medic!"


CREATORS' THOUGHTS
Neobear Neobear

Advance chapters are available on Pat-reon

https://www.*******.com/neobear

-----

Join the discussion in Discord

https://discord.gg/A8Tm86V

-----

Donate/Support me via Paypal now!

https://paypal.me/neobear

-----

much pew pew!

updated 16/01/2020

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