I was never the best in my regiment.. killing my bretheren was something I did reluctantly. If there was ever a chance of using non-leathal means I would take it.
One day, I found a plain card with an X embossed in the background and a phone number on it stuffed into my locker.
Some of the guys had stories on how it was the calling card of a secret military, funded by the nations of the Earth with the express purpose of defending humanity against alien forces.
"Non-sense, if aliens existed why the fuck would they be interested in this shithole" I would retort.
Still, the card had me intrigued. Why was it there? What could they possibly see in me?
After a particularly heavy night out, I drunkenly tried the number and slurred my way past reception.
"So you finally came round" the baritone voice commented.
"yeah, who the fuck are you?" I belched into the handset.
"Be at the old shipyards in Liverpool by noon and you’ll find out" was all I could make out before the click of the phone.
I don’t think I managed a single minute of sleep that night.
I somehow made my way there an hour early, so I had a snoop around… Didn’t seem to be much around other than rusting iron and dilapidated buildings.
"Quite eager I see, a good sign" echoed the same baritone voice. Where the fuck did he come from? I noticed a strange vehicle partially submerged in the water beside him and walked on over to join him as he entered it.
The technology inside was amazing, I’d never seen anything like it in all my years with the SBS.
"wha.. who… where are we going?" I could only gasp.
The guy simply gestured towards a monitor with an indicator pointing to deep in the atlantic.
Over the hours journey I managed to glean a little info out of him. The rumours were indeed true, a secret international force of humans called XCom were here to defend Earth against forces that threaten the entire planet.
Apparently, they had already won their first major conflict, destroying an alien base on Mars in the process. The news just blew my mind… I mean, the space program had been stalled ever since the global depression that crippled the world back at the start of the century.
They thought the threat was over and let their guard down, only for the attacks to return once again from a little closer to home… It appears our oceans are home to more than the usual aquatic life forms and they need people specialised at underwater combat… So the purpose of contacting me has come into sharp focus.
Unfortunately I couldn’t get any more info out of him before we had docked at the XCom base.
It took a few days to get used to news, I tried out my assigned gear.. it was pretty crude considering we had kicked Martian arse
but then, I guess things work a little differently in water compared to space. After speaking to a few people, I realised no-one had actually seen any action yet.
The next few days I spent hanging around the research labs, some of the tech they’re working on is just insane. Then it happened, the alert klaxon went off and everyone began running all over the place – it was a craft landing site within 10 minutes of the base.
We piled onto the deployment craft, Triton-1, and set off.
There wasn’t even enough time for any of the usual good luck ceremonies, just a "kick some arse" grunt and we were out on the hunt
The moment we got out of the triton, 2 creatures unleashed their strange weapons upon us.. Thankfully they only hit the craft, our robotic tank managed to take one of them out and without thinking I had placed a dart into the skull of the other. Upon inspection, I hadn’t killed whatever it was.. merely wounded it enough to render unconcious. I’ve never seen anything like them, they had a strange blue-green complexion with really large heads. For all of their comical appearance, they had no problems trying to wipe us out.
We rapidly uncovered their craft, surrounding it with men armed with torpedoes. Our tank was too big to fit into the ship so it was up to a few of us to go in. I ordered the guy on my left to join me, we opened the hatch doors to find one of them with its back to us.
Without thinking I had slammed a dart right into its neck and watched as the thing crumpled in front of me. I’ll never forget the shriek it let out, muffled by the water.
As we pressed further, we stumbled across a few more, my wing man distracting them long enough for me to fill them with darts.
It wasn’t long before we had cleared away all of the enemy, leaving their craft eerily silent in the depths. The rest of the crew got to work stripping it for parts to bring back to the research guys… and not forgetting the only survivor in a crumpled heap by the Triton. This one mission had seen me kill 4 of these unknown creatures… four of them. I don’t think I killed that many humans in 10 years of service.
After we got back, I was informed that my actions had earned me a promotion.. I was the squads first ensign.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about those 4 mysterious creatures I had killed… We don’t even know a shred of info about them and we’re already slaughtering them.
This doesn’t bode well…
Continue –> Part 2
we’re not alone, pt 1
I was never the best in my regiment.. killing my bretheren was something I did reluctantly. If there was ever a chance of using non-leathal means I would take it.
One day, I found a plain card with an X embossed in the background and a phone number on it stuffed into my locker.
Some of the guys had stories on how it was the calling card of a secret military, funded by the nations of the Earth with the express purpose of defending humanity against alien forces.
"Non-sense, if aliens existed why the fuck would they be interested in this shithole" I would retort.
Still, the card had me intrigued. Why was it there? What could they possibly see in me?
After a particularly heavy night out, I drunkenly tried the number and slurred my way past reception.
"So you finally came round" the baritone voice commented.
"yeah, who the fuck are you?" I belched into the handset.
"Be at the old shipyards in Liverpool by noon and you’ll find out" was all I could make out before the click of the phone.
I don’t think I managed a single minute of sleep that night.
I somehow made my way there an hour early, so I had a snoop around… Didn’t seem to be much around other than rusting iron and dilapidated buildings.
"Quite eager I see, a good sign" echoed the same baritone voice. Where the fuck did he come from? I noticed a strange vehicle partially submerged in the water beside him and walked on over to join him as he entered it.
The technology inside was amazing, I’d never seen anything like it in all my years with the SBS.
"wha.. who… where are we going?" I could only gasp.
The guy simply gestured towards a monitor with an indicator pointing to deep in the atlantic.
Over the hours journey I managed to glean a little info out of him. The rumours were indeed true, a secret international force of humans called XCom were here to defend Earth against forces that threaten the entire planet.
Apparently, they had already won their first major conflict, destroying an alien base on Mars in the process. The news just blew my mind… I mean, the space program had been stalled ever since the global depression that crippled the world back at the start of the century.
They thought the threat was over and let their guard down, only for the attacks to return once again from a little closer to home… It appears our oceans are home to more than the usual aquatic life forms and they need people specialised at underwater combat… So the purpose of contacting me has come into sharp focus.
Unfortunately I couldn’t get any more info out of him before we had docked at the XCom base.
It took a few days to get used to news, I tried out my assigned gear.. it was pretty crude considering we had kicked Martian arse
but then, I guess things work a little differently in water compared to space. After speaking to a few people, I realised no-one had actually seen any action yet.
The next few days I spent hanging around the research labs, some of the tech they’re working on is just insane. Then it happened, the alert klaxon went off and everyone began running all over the place – it was a craft landing site within 10 minutes of the base.
We piled onto the deployment craft, Triton-1, and set off.
There wasn’t even enough time for any of the usual good luck ceremonies, just a "kick some arse" grunt and we were out on the hunt
The moment we got out of the triton, 2 creatures unleashed their strange weapons upon us.. Thankfully they only hit the craft, our robotic tank managed to take one of them out and without thinking I had placed a dart into the skull of the other. Upon inspection, I hadn’t killed whatever it was.. merely wounded it enough to render unconcious. I’ve never seen anything like them, they had a strange blue-green complexion with really large heads. For all of their comical appearance, they had no problems trying to wipe us out.
We rapidly uncovered their craft, surrounding it with men armed with torpedoes. Our tank was too big to fit into the ship so it was up to a few of us to go in. I ordered the guy on my left to join me, we opened the hatch doors to find one of them with its back to us.
Without thinking I had slammed a dart right into its neck and watched as the thing crumpled in front of me. I’ll never forget the shriek it let out, muffled by the water.
As we pressed further, we stumbled across a few more, my wing man distracting them long enough for me to fill them with darts.
It wasn’t long before we had cleared away all of the enemy, leaving their craft eerily silent in the depths. The rest of the crew got to work stripping it for parts to bring back to the research guys… and not forgetting the only survivor in a crumpled heap by the Triton. This one mission had seen me kill 4 of these unknown creatures… four of them. I don’t think I killed that many humans in 10 years of service.
After we got back, I was informed that my actions had earned me a promotion.. I was the squads first ensign.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about those 4 mysterious creatures I had killed… We don’t even know a shred of info about them and we’re already slaughtering them.
This doesn’t bode well…
Continue –> Part 2
This entry was posted by alphaxion on 8 October 2008 at 11:24 pm, and is filed under commentary, software, video games. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0.You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.