The Battle of Marli

(Marli, Sirnoth/Elchev, 078/1106)

Thanks to the wonders of unit telemetry and battle computers, all the members of the platoon were at least peripherally aware of what was happening to the others.

There were two sorts of alien involved in the attack. The first, the "leapers", Uriah had already seen; the second was rather larger. A long, snakelike tail formed half the body; the front half reared up to the vertical. A massive, bony head, with an armoured, flaring carapace, sat on a flexible neck. More chitinous armour wrapped the "chest", and two bony forelimbs ended in sharp blades similar to the leaper's. These "snakes" could also fire 6" bony spines from their heads at incredible velocities.

Sarge and Dead Ted were performing a fighting retreat - only marginally different from running away - towards the town power plant, the largest building in the town.
LZ had scrambled under one of the lorries he'd been breaking for parts. This was a good move, as the Snakes couldn't get low enough to fire spines at him, and he could shoot Leapers before they could reach him.
Gramps and Art had made a dash for the factory buildings; Art had been riddled with Snake spines, and just dragged inside in time.
Maid Marian, who had been searching the Medical Centre with LZ before he was pulled off to work on the lorries, was caught there alone, and was in serious danger of being overrun.

Art Wilcox gets nailed by a Snake

Evaluating the situation, Uriah set off at a run towards the Medical Centre.

Inside the bank, once it became apparent that the creatures didn't seem to know where they were, the three emerged and set about fortifying the building. It was a good choice; all the windows were barred, and the back door was pretty formidable. Only the front door was vulnerable, having been kicked in by Uriah in his battledress.

Dragging over a number of large steel filing cabinets, they built them around the doorway to form an embrasure, and filled them with gold bars from the vault to make them heavier. Then, while Verral welded them together, Jacques went from window to window, setting charges and tripwires to secure them where he thought necessary. He laid improvised mines around both the front and back doors, and then started on the upper floor. In a surprisingly short time, he'd laid a devil's cradle of deadly devices and cunning tripwires to fence them in. That done, he took control of one of the sensor balls and started observing the aliens, trying to learn more about them.

Reagan went further up, emerging on the roof, and settling into place with his sniper's rifle. Unpacking the three remaining sensor drones, he placed one in front of the main doors and set the others to scan around the building. Then he settled down and started taking potshots at Leapers over half a mile away; to his surprise they seemed to take two shots or so to put down.

Back at the medical centre, it became apparent to Uriah as he approached that there were aliens on all sides of the building. Marian was at the window on the side he approached from, cooly firing at approaching creatures, though it was obvious she was outmatched and would be overrun in minutes. Uriah leveled his fusion gun, and stopped in his tracks as his armour locked itself into the standard firing position required to absorb the weapon's fightening recoil. It burped out a bolt of fusing plasma which struck just the far side of the two Snakes trying to batter down the building's only door, incinerating both. A second blast took out the one at the same window that side. Then he yelled at her across the intercom to move away from the window as he fired again, slaughtering the two at that window and blowing a large hole in the wall. Hooking his fusion gun, he grabbed at his gauss rifle and went in.

Medical Centre (click for larger image!)

Inside, Marian had run through the internal door to the lobby to avoid the blast, and come face-to-face with two Leapers who'd crashed through the window on the other side. As Uriah pushed through his newly-made entrance, he saw a Snake enter the room Marian had just left from the window on the left. He could see the medic, framed in the doorway in front of him, fighting the two Leapers, but he had his own problems.

With a snarl, the Snake turned on him, and sent a fusillade of spines blasting into his armour with a deafening tattoo. Several penetrated, enough to seriously worry the marine, and he returned fire with a blast of gauss fire. As he did so, a cry of pain and a shower of blood from the doorway indicated that Marian had paid dearly for the Leaper she'd slain.

The Snake slashed at Uriah again, but he dropped it with a second burst. Then he turned back to the doorway. "Down!" he bellowed, and as Marian dropped he hosed the second Leaper off her in a shower of purplish blood. Climbing to her feet, she flashed him a grateful smile; reloading, the two retreated to the bank.

As they passed through the town, they noticed that there were far fewer aliens visible than previously. As they watched, the numbers seemed to melt away, although it was almost impossible to see where they went. Finally, Reagan managed to track one with a sensor ball until he saw; it burrowed. In mere seconds, it shrugged its' way under the soil as if it were a duvet, leaving a ripple and then no sign at all of its' passage. By the time Uriah and Marian reached the bank, the aliens were all gone.

With Sarge and Ted safe in the power station, the rest of the platoon dug in at the bank and waited the night out. Marian managed to keep Art alive, and stabilized his condition, but he remained deeply unconscious. A couple of hours later, Sarge and Ted managed to bring the power back on line, and everyone was able to recharge armour and weapon power packs.

Late in the night, a heavy explosion outside the back door announced that a Snake had stumbled onto the traps Jacques had installed. There were no further attempts; more proof that these forms were more intelligent than the missile type.

Towards dawn, sensors both aboard the Brazos and in people's armour erupted in alarms. Around 20 miles north-west of Marli, a missile launch - a real one this time - had been detected. Massing around 5 d-tons, the projectile climbed straight up through the atmosphere, accelerating at around 10g, passed into space, belted out to 100 diameters at the same madcap pace and Jumped. It was obviously a Jump Torpedo, carrying a message of some sort.

Lt Stalker immediately altered Sarge's orders. If the missile had been fired by a survivor, they could be of considerable help getting the platoon off Sirnoth. He directed the platoon to investigate en route to the starport.

(Marli, Sirnoth/Elchev, 079/1106)

The next morning, the platoon embarked on the repaired lorry, which had also had some extra plates and window grilles welded on, and set off in the indicated direction. Two hours later they'd found it, but strangely, nothing was marked on either the Imperial standard map chips carried by the combat armours' battlecomputers, or on a local map Reagan had lifted from a local newsagent. The radiation trace centered on a small scorched hole at the top of a grassy knoll - obviously a launch shaft - and after some searching, a hidden entrance was found under a boulder. A keypad access panel was attached, but it was dark and dead; no power.

Reagan contributed a laser pack, and Jacques connected his slicer's computer to the panel and began trying to override the lock circuits. After a quarter hour or so, he persuaded the lock to operate, and the hatch opened.

Below was a shaft, descending to a horizontal hatch obviously leading into some sort of underground area. The same techniques opened this, and the platoon found themselves in an entrance lobby of some kind.

The first thing the battlehardened troops noticed were four small turrets in the top corners of the room, with laser weapons; anti-hijack security lasers. Sprawled on the floor of the lobby were two Leaper corpses, dead of laser wounds and some time ago by the look of them. A horse-shoe desk stood at the far side, and an open door was behind that. The room was cold and dark, and the turrets didn't move.

Disabling the turrets as they came in, the platoon searched the room. The desk had a workstation on it but it too was powered down and dark. Papers were scattered across the surface, and some were letterheads; "Elbane Research Station" was printed on them.

Reagan hunted under the desk and found some visitor's passes; he handed them out in case of talisman defences further in. Uriah dug a newspaper from the bin; it was dated two weeks previously, and had no mention of aliens or deaths. Sarge left Art there, and Gramps to guard him.

Beyond the reception, they found a corridor lined with offices on one side and with a stationary store on the other. Using Reagan's power pack, they started up one of the workstations. It was a semi-independent station, with some information in memory, but with its' main storage in a central computer, obviously inaccessible now. What they could access was administrative in nature, office work, stores control and so on; it seemed to indicate a population of 20-30 people.

At the far end was a conference room. A long table lined with chairs stood in the middle, and a huge holodisplay covered one end wall. The corpse of a middleaged human lay on the floor; he'd been slashed by Leapers, probably around two weeks ago. His namebadge read "Director Sullivan".

On the table lay a notepad. Scribbled on it were some notes, obviously the sort of thing people write during meetings:

?Blood vessels too near surface?

Add 50 microns to bioarmour

Caution Dr. Wensum against bringing any more live samples in

Compile report for H.O.

carolingian

A little work with a pencil brought out the impressions of the previous page's notes; more biomedical musings mainly.

The holodisplay powered up after a little fiddling, displaying the last slide it had been asked for; a human skull, rotating in space, and with several very peculiar extra pieces added to it. They tried for the next slide, but the display had to request it from the central computer, which wasn't there, of course.

At the other end of the corridor, a heavy door marked "Stairwell" seemed to promise access to the rest of Elbane Base. Turning their audio pickups well up, the point men picked up sounds of movement from the other side.

Jacques unhooked his lightsabre and drilled a hole into the door, then poked his armour's periscopic eye inside. On the other side, he (and the others through his telemetry) could see a single alien Snake, "pacing" back and forth on the stair landing. The biology of the things was anyone's guess; but to several of the Marines, it looked to be moving slowly, and to be thinner than the others they'd seen; as if it was hungry.

Jacques prepares to make a spyhole (click for larger image!)

Jacques unslung his flamethrower - an atypical weapon for a marine, but effective - and slid the nozzle into the hole. "Burn, baby, burn!" he chuckled as he fired. There was a wierd screech from inside and then silence.