Hero

I

“Fall back by section!”

The loading dock strobed madly, even through the optics of her helmet. The main lights had failed throughout most of the arcology days ago, and the fighting had ruined a lot of the emergency illumination, or the local power sources supposed to keep it alive. Here and there, a single glowstrip still shone, but for the most part, all anybody without low-light gear could see were the brief glimpses of chaos offered by the light of an exploding grenade or muzzle flash.

Somewhere behind her, she could hear the screams and cries of the mostly unarmed morass of people they'd somehow manage to pull out of the hell Westland had become. Nobody knew how many, but it was, at most, a few thousand. Before the command net had failed entirely, other companies had been doing the same thing, but she'd not heard anything from any other unit for over two hours. Nobody in what was left of the scratch-built force holding Bay 4A had.

Out in the darkness, something was moving. Many somethings; dark, twisted shapes careening between shattered and overtruned shipping crates and freight handling equipment. The other section in what was optimistically referred to as 'Second Platoon' was giving way before them – running was probably a more accurate term – but some of the shapes were faster. She sighted one of them, and her rifle bucked against her shoulder once, twice. There was an enraged shriek as the figure tumbled, trailing off into a wet gurgle, but more came behind it. Ignoring the agony of the bruises under her armour, she kept firing, others around her doing the same.

“Position!” The leader of the other section yelled over the platoon net.

“Alright people, let's go!”

She lurched to her feet, and started to run backwards, towards the far end of the cavernous bay. Somewhere back there was the extraction point. Maybe. The huge doors cargo aircraft used to enter and leave the bay weren't even open yet, and in the back of her mind, the fear that they might never open lurked. That they were too damaged, or that they didn't have the power, or even that there was nothing to pick them up on the other side.

Then, there was a scream. It wasn't the mad wail of the distorted figures, but of somebody still sane and whole. One of the New Mercians was down, the thing that had caught him clawing at his armour. It had been a man, once – shredded remains of a suit hung from it, and a tie still dangled incongruously from it's neck – but now it was... something else. Growths covered it, muddling it's features and forcing it to move with an odd, jerky rhythm that made her queasy just to look at it. One had swollen into a grotesque lump of flesh, still bearing the dislocated remains of fingers, and its' single remaining eye glared madly at the world as it screamed incoherently and battered at the figure below it. She reversed direction and charged, with a bellowed cry of her own.

“Kia, no! Goddamn it!”

The once-man was stronger than it had any right to be, but compared to the bulk of a Red in full gear and with momentum behind her, it didn't really measure up. There was a crack as it landed, and it screamed in pain, rather than rage. She could see bone protruding from its leg and chest, but even as its breath bubbled from what had to be a punctured lung, it struggled to rise and attack. A single round through its' mangled face brought a halt to its efforts.

“Come on, get up!” She yelled, sending hypervelocity slugs smashing through two more attackers. One of them collapsed instantly, but the other barely stumbled before resuming its' charge.

The New Mercian said nothing, merely turned towards her.

Through his shattered visor, she could see a face, nearly identical to her own, but covered in grotesque bulges. Snarling in insane rage, the thing that had once been her sister lunged at her...

“AAAAAAAAH!”

Kia jerked upright, heart pounding. Her bedclothes and sheets were clammy with sweat, and her breathing was harsh in her ears. The lights activated themselves automatically as they sensed her movement, and she sat motionless for a moment, trying to get her breathing under control.

“Just a dream,” she muttered. “Nothing to be afraid of.”

She reached for the water on her bedside table. Her hand was shaking so badly she spilled half of it on the floor and sheets.