Warning: Spoilers Ahead
Greta Base Terraforming Colony went dark six weeks ago. The company sent a dropship with marines and supporting android to investigate. Their mission: rendesvous with 2nd Lt Kaplan, clear the area of hostiles and retrieve the samples from Dr. Edem.
Joe the Android had additional instructions: the marines were all expendable. Priority was retrieving the samples. No exit off planet until the samples were secured.
The squad armed and wearing hazard suits are dropped off in the heavy rain in the landing zone. Deep tracks leading to the airlock can be seen. Trudging through the thick mud, they get to the locked entrance. Joe releases a computer interface from his finger tip and opens the door.
Stepping into the airlock, Garret checks out the lockers. He passes some pulse rifle magazines to keen Golgo, who pockets them. Fresh faced Whizz notices indentations on the lockers and three-symmeticral gashes across them. “Claw marks? What kind of creature makes those?” Golgo quips.
Stress levels rise as fear sets in. Joe does his hacking trick again and opens the large metal doors into the base proper. They find a ransacked mess hall with flickering lights. A birthday banner hangs loosely from the ceiling. Holes leak rain into puddles on the floor. Signs of fighting: bullets casings, blood spatter and bullet holes. One of the couches has been cut in half. The same big claw marks they saw earlier.
Green Kyle notices a woman’s severed head on the floor, an expression of pure terror on her face. They find the rest of her body face down behind an upturned table. Her pleading arm stretched out undearneath. The dog tags identify her as LCpl Xavier. Whizz gets nervey and puts the others on edge.
Someone has made a barricade out of couches, tables and chairs to the corridor leading to the crew habitat. The squad decides to proceed that way. To their left the crew habitat but to their right a corridor. They can hear a rythmic thudding. Too regular to be anything other than machinery they surmise.
They enter the habitat hoping to find survivors, especially Kaplan. A central atrium leads to several large barracks, the washrooms and a couple of smaller quarters. The quarters have door signs. The party tag-team the quarters.
Garret leads the team securing 2ndLt Kaplan’s quarters. It is anally-retentive tidy. On a desk they find a picture of his wife and two young kids. Whizz uses a camping peg to jimmy the locked drawer. He finds a revolver and a personal tracker. It shows a signal near a mountain several clicks from the base. It is not moving.
Golgo leads the team securing Dr Edem’s quarters. They find an unmade bed and unsent birthday card on a bedside table. The display over the desk indicates a severe weather warning: storm incoming.
The two quarters secured and no sign of survivors they explore the larger barracks. One is a mess with smutty posters and the heavy stench of sweaty bodies. Crap has been left scattered on the floor. Golgo finds a couple of grenades plus some porno he secures for young Kyle. There’s also a salacious journal which he thinks will educate Kyle.
The other barracks are more restrained. One seems to be the officers – there’s a duty roster on the wall and the name of Dr. Edem and Hinton (“Logic Core Only”) noted as essential personnel. The other is clearly a civilians barracks. They find a games console, big screen and anime body pillow. Whizz picks up the book Auctioneer off the floor and pockets it.
The squad are satisfied there’s nothing else to find here and move on. They follow the sound of the rythmic thudding but stop at the doorway marked armoury. There is a deep claw-like gash across the sign. Inside they see the lockers have all been stripped. There’s a giant pile of melted metal in the center of the room. Kyle theorises that the weapons in the armoury were the source of the metal but he can’t work out how they were melted. There are no scorch marks on the floor. No hole in the ceiling above.
With nothing to scavenge, they move on. They come to an airlock door which opens easily. The thudding noise is coming from behind a roll-up door ahead that has been pulled down shut. In front of them, large piles of mud and the body of a marine cut in half. Joe the android plays with the rosary beads he pocketed from one of the lockers. The squad feel uneasy about what they’re seeing but press on.
Whizz puts his big muscles to work and opens the roll up door, despite the resistance of some heavy gym equipment used to barricade it. The others get in position expecting trouble.
They see an APC parked in one end and a workbench plus power generator to the other. In the middle, there is a great big hole. Standing in it is a marine. He’s got a shovel and he’s carefully digging to a rhythmic beat. They call to him but he doesn’t respond. Whizz approaches and taps his shoulder.
A great big crab-like claw spits out of the marine’s neck, his head lolling in front like a discarded banana peel. As the claw rips through Whizz’s body armour and knocks him on his ass, the rest of the creature emerges. It has six of these appendages with crab-like claws, each about 2.5m long. No obvious head but a hard carapace.
The other marines don’t hold back and unleash their weapons at it. Joe the android is spooked and stands their holding his slug gun limply. The weapon fire turns the marine from which the creature emerged into red mist. But when the smoke and bloody haze subsides they see the creature is unharmed.
Whizz crawls back firing his gun manically. Kyle and Golgo try to draw the creature’s attention away from their vulnerable squadmate. Garrett moves to reposition himself and Joe finds his nerve to fire his gun. Their shots come to no avail.
The creature turns its attention away from Whizz to Garrett. In one swift claw motion it pops Garrett’s head like a balloon.
Things become a blur of motion and gun fire. Golgo moves to get around and enter the APC. Whizz throws a grenade at the creature.
Kyle tries to find something in the place they can use. He spots the cannisters of fuel by the generator and a bandolier of grenades lying on the ground.
Joe moves back to avoid being hit by the grenade. Golgo is not so lucky. First the grenade rips through his hazard suit and then the creature scissors his right arm, leaving nothing but a bloody stump. The explosion does nothing to the creature’s tough carapace.
The bleeding Golgo moves around to the other side of the APC and collapses. The creature turns its attention on Joe and impales him with one pair of claws. Whizz notices a severed power cable hanging down from the ceiling and moves to turn the power generator on. He throws a grenade for Joe to use but it falls short.
Kyle is worried for Golgo and goes to check on him. He barely notices the creature rip Joe in half. When he gets around the APC he sees Golgo is dead. Only him and Whizz are alive now.
The pair form a plan without talking. Kyle grabs the power cable and Whizz repairs the power generator and turns it on. As the creature rips young Kyle apart he manages to shove the live power cable into a gap in its carapace. The pair of them light up like they were in an x-ray machine. The smoking body of Kyle falls to the ground dead as the shocked creature retreats into an air vent.
Only Whizz is left standing. But for how long?
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