Vincent looked around, estimated the amount of soldiers and potential firepower and was about to give orders when a soldier manning the sandbag tower, the same who asked what Beret’s orders were, spoke to no one in particular

Vincent looked around, estimated the amount of soldiers and potential firepower and was about to give orders when a soldier manning the sandbag tower, the same who asked what Beret’s orders were, spoke to no one in particular.

“No aircraft ever took and held ground.”

Vincent smirked.

“Where did you hear that?”

“US Marine Corps Manual!” he proudly responded.

“Take my advice – don’t read that shit.”

“-‘cause it definitely don’t apply to the 68th!” Kendra added.

The tower gunner threw up his hands in mock-defeat. Then Beret made a careless comment.

“There isn’t one black op that hasn’t used Captain Shanty’s detachment, one way or another.”

“Now how would you know that?” Kendra asked.

“Uhh-”

“Later.” Vincent interrupted. “Everyone, get down. Now.”

Ropes were dropped, and soldiers took turns rappelling down. Tower gunners used a plank to get across the gap between The Complex and The Wall and then they too slid down. When Vincent was sure no one was left on The Wall he joined everyone else on the ground. The soldiers bunched up around Echo’s jeeps, waiting for the SPIDER’s orders, they didn’t feel too comfortable being on the ground facing a swarm of aliens.

“What about them?” a tower gunner asked, referring to the SpecOps Sergeant that was knocked into the gap between the two structures and two others unconscious on The Wall.

“Who was the ranking officer before I came here?” Vincent asked.

Beret and Kendra responded at the same time - each naming the other.

“Beret.”

“Kendra.”

Vincent looked at their insignia and noticed that Beret was a Private First Class while Kendra was a Corporal, a full two ranks above Beret. How a Private First Class could command when there were higher ranking officers was a question to be asked at another time, Vincent decided.

“Their fate is in Corporal Kendra’s hands.” Vincent concluded.

Kendra was quick to respond, remembering that the operatives wanted to arrest and/or kill Beret. “I say they stay.”

“So be it. We need to get inside The Wall.”

“Someone get that door opened!” Kendra ordered.

“Yo Gadget, change of plans.” Beret radioed Operations. “We need access into The Wall.”

“That is not an option.” Colonel Golmud answered. “You have been disobeying orders ever since Brontern left you in command.”

Golmud’s answer sent chills down the spines of everyone who heard it.

“Oh and even if I did open it, the aliens would get in, compromising the security of the civilians in The Base. So…you’re on your own.” he jokingly added.

“That is NOT FUCKING FUNNY!” Kendra yelled. “Open the fuckin’ door, bitch!”

“Make me, Corporal. You just committed the sinful crime of insubordination.”

Kendra growled.

“Listen Golmud, hostiles will be on us in less than a minute. We need that door open, now.”

“Oh, hey Vincent!” Golmud’s voice was full of mirth. “Long time no see old buddy. You too are charged with insubordination, two counts now. You disobeyed the orders of a superior officer and you attacked me. Tsk, tsk.”

Everyone was on the verge of panic. They knew that The Wall wasn’t going to be opened, and they saw a tsunami of blackness nearing them. Captain Shanty’s dropships had already released their APCs and while the APCs roared toward The Base, the Cheyennes split into two “wings”. Flying at a low altitude, they opened their weapons launchers and prepared to fire. The xenomorphs were twenty seconds away from contact with The Base. Kendra was slowly breaking. Everything seemed against them. Captain Shanty was a little late to help, her dropships couldn’t fire at the aliens closest to the BDF, because they would kill the soldiers too, and the APCs were going to arrive about a minute or two after the xenomorphs engaged the BDF in battle.

“Ah, fuck him.” she said.

“Exactly.” Vincent voiced his support. “We need incinerators and explosives.”

“We have only one incinerator…but no explosives.”

“Pierce!” Shanty called through her radio.

“Down here, Ma’am!”

“Move your men away from the entrance. Now!”

“You heard the lady, move!” Vincent ordered.

The soldiers and jeeps didn’t even clear one hundred yards when Captain Shanty fired a 120mm guided rocket straight at the door, blowing it open.

“Your door is open Pierce!”

“Everyone in!” he ran for the door and, seeing that the aliens are only three seconds away from him, realized that Shanty saved their lives in the nick of time. “Thank you Captain.” he added into Beret’s radio and jumped inside The Wall – the xenomorphs mere inches behind him.

“FIRE!” Kendra shouted.

Upon landing, Vincent saw that soldiers were positioned directly opposite the entrance, the ones with machine guns and the incinerator, while everyone else took the flanks backed-up by the chainguns of M-19Zs, forming deadly overlapping fields of fire. The shooting completely droned out all other sounds, even the screeching of dying aliens. They fell down by the dozen, piling up a wall of smoking corpses. Any attempt to run past the entrance or into it was doomed at least ten feet away from it, six feet when things really got crowded. Of course, this wasn’t a video game and no one had unlimited ammo. After Vincent gave the order, everyone split up and ran away from the entrance in opposite directions, the NIGHT COBRAs providing cover. When the backs of both jeeps met, the soldiers regrouped around the vehicles and if any xenomorph would be spotted in the circular hall, it would be mowed down by a barrage of everything with a trigger.

The Tactical Operations coordinator in the lead APC wasted no time in applying his experience and the tactics of LARA, designed by Shanty. As his APC drove, he made certain arrangements.

“This is Victor-one. All APCs form up behind me. Delta wedge. Charlie-one, requesting aerial assistance. Over.”

“Charlie-one responding, we copy your request.” Flying slightly ahead of the APCs in a similar flying V formation, UD4L Charlie-one, at the tip of the formation, responded. “Charlie-seven will do everything he can without breaking formation. When your work on the ground is finished, secure the entrance. Copy?”

“Copy that, Captain. May I suggest that ground forces secure the entrance after the area inside is secured? Over.”

“Good thinking Lieutenant. Do it. No one gets in or out of that entrance before I allow it. That’s an order, sergeant. Shanty out.”

“Thank you Captain. Charlie seven, fire at all rocks in our path for a kilometer forward our current position. Driving around the boulders is disadvantageous.”

“Copy Lieutenant, will do. Over.”

A second passed and eight of the twelve 70mm unguided rockets each Cheyenne had, plunged into and reduced to dust the rocks that formed obstacles for the APC ground squadron. The soldiers inside the APCs didn’t see the explosions but definitely felt and heard them, cheering after each hit. The path was clear, and the APC drivers gunned their vehicles to maximum speed.

Two minutes had passed since the BDF and Echo, under Vincent’s guidance, entered The Wall. During those two minutes, no xenomorph made so much as an attempt to enter it. Either they waited for the humans to exit the structure, or someone or something else got their attention. Vincent didn’t like standing in a closed structure and not knowing where the enemy was. It made him feel like a blind mole in its tunnel.

“Be right back.”

“Whoa! Where’re you going dude?” Beret called.

“Something’s not right.” Vincent rasped back. “Xenomorphs don’t just stop hunting.”

“Maybe V, but they’re probably just luring us out. What can you do against so many fuckers?”

“I can kill them.” the SPIDER suggested and walked off.

“Well then, I’m coming with you.”

“Me too!” Kendra pitched in.

Vincent smirked. “Thanks but no thanks. Better stay here. Something happens, you’ll need every soldier.”

“Hey hero!” Kendra called. “You don’t have a weapon.”

Vincent checked himself and realized that she was right.

She threw her SMGs “Here take mine.”

Vincent gracefully caught both automatics by their grips.

“You sure you don’t want a few people to come with you?” Cork asked. “If you want volunteers, you won’t find any better than Foxtrot 618.”

“Yeah sir!” Malway yelled. “I wanna go out and kill something before I kill Chipper.”

The failed joke made everybody around him turn and give the Australian their blankest looks.

Malway didn’t get it. “What?”

“Every hook needs a worm. When it comes to worms, few are as good as me.” Vincent declared.

“I give him five minutes,” Beret said. “After that, we follow him.”

When Vincent cautiously approached the entrance, out of sight of the soldiers he just left, he didn’t believe his eyes.

The driver in the lead APC saw it first, and then the rest saw it too.

“Sir, you’d better take a look at this.” the driver told the Tactical Operations Coordinator.

The Lieutenant was wide-eyed. “All drivers stop your vehicles.” He spoke into his radio. Then he answered his driver. “’Cause I’m already looking at it. Captain Shanty, this is APC-one…please advise.”

Charlie-one couldn’t respond just yet. Its pilot was speechless. Shanty slowed her ship to a hover only a few hundred meters ahead of her APCs and half a kilometer away from the xenomorph’s.

“You’ve gotta be shitting me…” she mumbled.

As if the xenomorph’s invasion wasn’t bad enough, they were doing something totally out of character for hostile invaders. From Shanty’s perspective, the valley up to The Base itself was filled, in the most literal sense with nearly seven-hundred-thousand xenomorphs. Upon lining up with The Base, the xenomorphs stopped and just stood there…warily snarling and waving around their deadly stingers. Shanty didn’t understand whether her detachment scared them or whether they stopped for some other reason.

The real reason for the xenomorph’s sudden and uncharacteristic behavior was Riln’dra and her squad. They were lined up horizontally with The Base, two on each side and a mile apart. Just like staples are attracted to a magnet, so are Predators to hard-meat. They just had to add a trophy or two to their collection. More or less anyway, because the real reason they were making a stand is because Riln’dra told them to. S’nami was the only one not making a stand – Riln’dra sent him on an important mission that will come in handy, later.

The Predators got the xenomorph’s attention in the first place by turning off their light-bending camouflage for a split second. Fear of the Predator race evolved in the xenomorph’s DNA hundreds of years ago. Their snarls, crunchy fang-snapping, and stinger-whipping filled the air, the cacophony of sounds creating a creepy blend. Riln’dra being the crazy one, or so the Council thought for her risky ideas, made her first kill in this battle by firing her spear gun into the hard-meat directly in front of her.

“What a waste.” she remarked, referring to her spear gun round.

Then as was so typical of females like Riln’dra, she armed her combistick and screamed into the horde, challenging it.

“The hell was that?!” asked Malway.

Vincent knew exactly what it was. Riln’dra. Frankly, Shanty’s army didn’t hear anything, their engines were too loud.

Riln’dra paused for effect and then rushed toward the horde. Taking her scream as a war-cry to engage the enemy, Clout’ra unsheathed his mauls, spun in them in a few quick and precise arcs in front of himself, and motioned with both weapons for the xenomorphs to come and get him. That action restarted the flooding of the valley.

Like clockwork, Shanty’s dropships rolled to the left and Robert’s wing to the right.

“Don’t shoot!” Vincent shouted as he ran back.

When the soldiers saw that it was indeed Vincent, they took their crosshairs off of him. A pair of xenomorphs rushed into The Wall and took and took a right. Vincent was with the soldiers defending the opposite half of the hollow ring-like structure.

“Now fire.”

A series of air-to-ground missiles were fired from all ships into the ridges, halting the influx of more aliens. The dropships followed up with a few 150mm rockets at the aliens farthest from The Base and upon reaching their corpses sharply turned around and flew back toward The Base, pounding the xenomorphs with unguided rockets.

The marines of the 68th ran in squadrons of twelve men between the APCs which were matching the pace of the running soldiers. When only one-hundred meters separated the marines from the aliens, smartgunners opened fire, followed by M-41A - launched grenades. It was an awesome massacre. The aliens outnumbered their human enemies but the marines kept the xenomorphs at a distance with their combined firepower. The APC’s own turrets mowed down scores of the parasites with automatic cannons.

The number of aliens that came through The Wall and were killed, was increasing exponentially. So far, sixty xenomorphs were reduced to steaming corpses. They came from both sides in groups of six, sometimes ten. It wasn’t easy to kill them fast but manageable…for now.

“Eww!” Kendra pinched her nose. “What’s that stink?”

She looked at Malway.

“What? It wasn’t me I swear! Look guys you gotta believe me, I didn’t fart! Those bastards did.”

“No one said you farted, Malway.” Cork sighed.

“He’s right.” Vincent deep bass sounded. “The alien’s blood is caustic. It’s burning through the sand. Don’t let them get close or their blood will be all over us.”

Shanty’s aerial unit herded the aliens forward, to be met by her troops. She was doing the herding by pounding rocket after rocket at the black sea of snarling aliens. Their numbers steadily diminished. When she depleted her supply of missiles, she switched to her nose-mounted chain gun firing 25mm rounds and flying low so that her bullets would go through a lot of aliens before getting stuck in one, achieving maximum casualties with her nine-hundred round supply. Her wing followed suit, while Robert’s dropships flew right on the alien’s heels and continued battering them with missiles and chaingun fire.

Riln’dra thanked Paya, the Predator god, for agreeing to train with Clout’ra this year. It definitely paid off. To her satisfaction, the hard-meat hasn’t touched her ever since she ran into their midst and was instantly surrounded by blood-thirsty xenomorphs. Every stinger was deflected with her combistick, every head that got too close received a good sized gash or hole, and every alien that attempt to jump or rush her only succeeded in running into or landing on her ready combistick. The squad-leader was quite a sight. The weapon she wielded seemed to have a mind of its own, spinning, thrusting, slicing, and beating unfortunate hard-meat so fast the aggressive female quickly lost track of her kills. Too bad no one could see her or the other Predators since they were camouflaged.

Clout’ra served a bloody butchering on his own behalf. Fight’s as extreme as this were gift’s from above for the silent second-in-command as he could recall the events that haunted him and take his anger out on everything around him without worrying about killing a friendly. When the xenomorphs charged Clout’ra, he lowered his head and spread his maul’s out. When the first hard-meat lashed it’s stinger out at Clout’ra, the maul-artist cleanly sliced it off, and dodging the spray of caustic blood, jumped over the assailant, landed in the midst of the horde, and went to work. He sliced left and right, accompanying every swing with a light grunt. He fought conservatively scoring only precise hits, severing a head or striking a vital point. One thing that separated his style with Riln’dra’s is that he never fought in one place for more than two or three seconds, he usually got bored with one bunch and jumped toward another. At times he neutralized up to twenty xenomorphs in a mere five seconds when he saw them ganging up on approaching marines and APCs.

The situation in The Wall was critical. Every soldier was huddled, back-to-back and as close to the M-19Zs as possible. The xenomorphs didn’t come in waves anymore, the good old days were long gone. They now poured, in an unstoppable torrent of screeching black meat. Chainguns, incinerators, and grenades were the most effective weapons against them. Unfortunately, the good stuff was running short on ammunition. Vincent had no choice but to resort to a tactic he was saving until the very last moment.

Ngun’ji on the other hand didn’t fight as perfectly as Riln’dra, nor did he deliver precise hits on vital areas like Clout’ra. Being a weapons specialist and armed to the mandibles with a pair of wrist blades, combisticks, mauls, plasma casters, spear guns, and smart discs he created total chaos and a small version of Armageddon. After wasting all of his spear gun and plasma caster shots in a little under a minute, that by the way is a LOT of ammunition, he threw his smart discs while using his wrist blades for close quarters. The smart discs were very effective. The frisbee like smart discs sliced heads off on their way forward and back. When the situation near him got more critical, he switched to his favorite weapons combination - a maul and wrist blades. The maul was used as a defensive weapon blocking hits, and severing limbs in the process, while his wrist blades did all the work. Ngun’ji didn’t waste time on aiming, though. He knew from many fights exactly when each hard-meat would strike when he was surrounded. He understood their pack-mentality. Ngun’ji was flurry of twisting, spinning and thrusting moves. While he didn’t kill much xenomorphs, he certaintly reduced them to convulsively twitching meat or limbless and useless masses. Some bled to death, while others lost stingers. In either case, the weapons specialist was buried under flying limbs, and hard meat, jumping to their deaths.

Kujhade was the noisiest. He practically stopped issuing throaty roars only to take a breath. Other than that, he would grab a stinger and use a whole, live alien as a weapon. When that hard-meat died, most of the time from an accidental impact with a boulder, the close-quarters-combat specialist would grab another and use it to beat its fellow xenomorphs. Aliens literally flew away from his position, as Kujhade grabbed and spun them into each other, beat the crap out of them against boulders and then discarded them, looking for new prey. When he got a bit tired of that, he extended his dual wrist blades to maximum length and engaged the enemy with hand-to-hand combat techniques. His wrist blades only maximized the techniques lethality. Each punch a kill, each block – a severed limb.

In all the chaos, no one could even notice the four Predators even though the path of destruction that they left in their wake was similar to that of a missile hit. This is probably what anyone, who saw the mayhem, thought.

“Left flank! Cease fire!” Vincent ordered, and the soldiers making up that flank complied. The xenomorphs took the chance and jumped. “After you hear the explosion, advance and hold the entrance.”

Vincent unsheathed his knife and borrowed one from a nearby soldier. The aliens landed in front of the SPIDER. He made a step forward and his flurry of stabbing motions was almost too quick to notice. The xenomorphs slumped down as one. Vincent dropped the smoking knives, their blades were melting. Some skin on his forearm was burning off too, strangely though, when it came in contact with his blood the burning stopped.

“SPIDER-three, out.” with these words Vincent rushed the horde filling the left flank, firing away with Malway’s shotgun – Brute.

Vincent didn’t kill everything in his path, just enough to get to the entrance. Some aliens he passed, others lost limbs but the majority’s attention was recaptured by the left flank soldiers who fired once Vincent was out of sight.

“Wait a sec, that Scorpion-I mean SPIDER stole my shotgun!!” Malway yelled over the sound of automatic weapons fire.

Cork reached for another clip and noticed something. “Hey, my grenade’s missing.”

Other soldiers confirmed the loss.

“Mine too!”

“So’s mine!!”

Cork was left in command of the left flank while Beret had the right flank. Once Vincent left, they adopted a new tactic against the xenomorphs, they fired everything they had at the alien’s legs. More effective that way. Cork just couldn’t understand why Vincent stole their greandes. They were going to run out of ammunition soon anyway.

“Hey, Beret!”

“YES CORPORAL?” Beret yelled back.

“Our SPIDER friend just stole Malway’s automatic shotgun and all of left flank’s grenades. I don’t know why.”

“GRENADE CHECK!!” Beret ordered.

When Beret discovered that Vincent stole all of their hand-grenades he realized what the SPIDER was going to do.

It hit Kendra too. “Holy SHIT! He’s gonna blow himself up!”

“…ALL OF OUR GRENADES COMBINED ARE EQUIVALENT TO A MISSILE HIT.” Beret shouted.

Vincent knew that fighting against such odds wasn’t bravery, it was foolish. He could never win or kill them all, but he had to get to the entrance and detonate the grenades that he commandeered. An alien got too close and received a huge hole in its chest, Vincent was down to his last clip. Too bad he could never reveal who he really was, his real mission, and why he even cared about The Base and its well-being. The SPIDER expertly wielded the shotgun like a mace firing only when he had to. He was saving ammunition. The other SPIDER could finish the job.

Shanty’s marines were advancing but very slowly. There was just too much aliens. They could hold their position without any problems but advancing against the gushing torrent of xenomorphs was impossible. They were severely needed at the entrance to The Wall, because with the combined firepower of the 68th’s marines and the BDF, they might hold out until the dropships destroyed the last of the enemy. If only the carrier was in orbit instead of in pursuit of the alien spacecraft, they could’ve called for the rest of Shanty’s detachment and extracted the survivors. Obviously, not an option. From the air, Captain Shanty could see that the aliens were only being fought and killed near The Base. No more xenomorphs came in through the ridges instead the mass that already got in was concentrated around The Base. The far right and left flanks already cleared it and were turning around, forcing her marines to fight on two flanks.

Riln’dra and her warriors were standing atop the same cliff they rappelled from earlier, watching the battle.

“I don’t get it. Where did all the hard meat come from? Hives are never that large. I mean, who were the hosts? Each hard meat has to come from a host. That’s a lot of hosts.”

“Maybe they didn’t come from hosts.” Ngun’ji suggested.

Riln’dra smirked. “Impossible.”

“Mass cloning. Oomans have done it once before, to try and create an army. They were not successful though.”

“Yeah I remember that.” Riln’dra said. “They can clone animals without any problems but not humans. Fortunately they stopped research in that area.”

She looked back onto the battlefield. If he was a Predator, the ooman might’ve made a worthy addition to her squad. They were all going to die anyway.

“Ngun’ji, find us a cave to rest in. We have lots of work tonight.”

Ngun’ji nodded and ran away from the cliff, down into the mountains.

Captain Shanty ordered her aircraft to proceed making their rounds and hitting the aliens from behind while she rocketed toward The Wall. Beret radioed her and informed her about he thought “Vincent” was going to do. The name Vincent rang a bell in her head. She had to stop his crazy suicide idea. Too bad he didn’t have a radio. She was flying so fast that she had to lift her craft’s nose almost vertically to quickly stop her dropship. Once she leveled off, she remained hovering and opened fire at the entrance to The Wall, effectively stopping the flow of aliens inside. She hoped this would both prevent the flow of aliens at exhausted soldiers and the necessity for Vincent’s explosion. It did.

Vincent instinctively ducked when he heard 25mm rounds plunging into the ground at the entrance. If they had started a second later, he would’ve been killed. The aliens which he just passed were already killed by the BDF and Echo’s chainguns. The Wall was free from live enemies. The BDF was on their last clips and belts of ammunition. Shanty saved their lives, again. Vincent instantly found another use for his belt of grenades. He threw it out toward the 68th’s marines, one-hundred meters away. The grenades detonation cleared a path for the marines and APCs and this time, no aliens could stop them.

The APCs instantly reformed into two vertical lines of five APCs, serving as moving walls for the running marines between them. The APC’s turrets made sure a reasonable proximity was maintained between them and the aliens, while the marines covered the back and front. Once the marines were inside The Wall, the APC formed a “V” at the entrance pointing outward. While the marines rearmed the BDF and prepped them for hopefully the last phase of the battle, the APCs continued keeping the xenomorphs at a distance with their turrets. Combined with the firepower that the dropships offered, their numbers were rapidly diminishing now.

After a minute of preparation, the marines along with the BDF and Vincent, reformed at the entrance and added even more firepower. Twenty minutes later, the remaining aliens, numbering close to four and a half thousand, ran off the field, surrendering to their defeat. An unusual thing for xenomorphs to do.

Nevertheless, after the dropships made several rounds to make sure that there were no hostiles approaching the area, they landed and their pilots joined the troops. Once Captain Shanty stepped off her dropship, all of her pilots remote-piloted their ships to a designated area in the mountains. Shanty left only two pilots along with their weapons officers to patrol the valley in their dropships. There were now one-hundred seventy-seven troops. One-hundred twenty marines, fifty-six infantry from the Base Defense Force, and one SPIDER.

“Get us inside The Base.” Shanty told Beret.

“Yes ma’am. Gadget, we need the tunnels open.”

“Sorry private,” Golmud answered. “But everything you did was in violation of my orders. Major insubordination.”

“Listen Colonel. My name is Captain Katherine Shanty of the 68th Naval Strike Detachment. I was given orders to hold anything I decide is of any value until the carrier USS Lakota returns. My orders were given to me by a Rear Admiral, outranking both of us.”

“Which means?”

“Which means that I have strategic and tactical command over this Base, your troops, and you Colonel.”

“I only ask for one thing in return. I want you to allow my SpecOps to put Vincent Pierce under military arrest, for insubordination, the attempted murder of a superior officer, mutinable insurrection, and taking over command on The Wall without my approval.”

Shanty hated doing what she had to do. Vincent did break military law, in a way, but by doing so, he saved the lives of everyone in The Base.

“Agreed. But I will evaluate his guilt and to which extent if at all he violated military law. Are we clear on this?”

“Yes Captain. Send him in first.”

The titanium plates leading to four thirty-foot long tunnels, slid apart and Vincent jumped down. A second later, everyone else followed in jumping down in four lines. Shanty stood with a few troops by her, her unofficial guard – loyal marines. They would be the last to enter.

As Kendra passed Shanty she looked into the Captains eyes and said, “You don’t jail a hero for valor. You didn’t have to let him arrest Vincent.”

Kendra didn’t let Shanty answer by jumping down, making the Captain feel even worse for her decision. Vincent knew what was waiting for him inside. Thirteen SpecOps. He took three of them out on The Wall. These wouldn’t be very happy to see him. As he climbed up out of the tunnel and into The Complex, he was surrounded by thirteen pistol-wielding, pissed off SpecOps. And they were in a circle around him, meaning that if he fought them, they wouldn’t shoot due to risk of shooting each other. The pistols were only a fierce display.

Vincent took a deep breath and thirteen safeties clicked off. With breakneck speed he dropped, swept his leg back and knocked two SpecOps down. In a split-second follow up, he was back on his feet and several side-kicks later, he only faced six SpecOps. These took a step back, just in case. Vincent then tackled one of them into the tunnel he got out of and felt two hands grab his shoulders, he broke their elbows and heard two screams. The SPIDER decided that the SpecOps were under orders to take him alive, so he risked turning his back on the three that were left and ran for Sky’s quarters. Yes, he knew exactly where she was. It was his mission to know.

The SpecOps wasted no time. Soon the marines and the BDF that were pouring out of the tunnels ran in the direction that Vincent took. They didn’t want him to be killed or to kill Golmud. A court-martial would sentence him to death for that. Little did they know that he didn’t even intend to kill anyone.

When they reached the SPIDER in Sky’s room. They saw him approach a frail-looking Japanese girl, lying in a pool of her own blood and loosely holding a knife with one hand. She looked dead. Strange thing was that her blood was light-green and luminescent. Vincent carefully lifted her.

“Someone get a doctor! Now!” Shanty ordered.

“Take her to Medical!!” Kendra cried.

Once Vincent reached the door from her room, he was stopped by Shanty’s marines. Kendra took Sky from his arms and the SPIDER had no choice but to allow himself to be taken to the Base’s jail. Based on a few more orders, Beret and Kendra were also jailed.