The search for new test subjects. [OPEN]

[Anonymous]

Hartman walks up to the cockpit, “The landing zone will be big enough that we can unload all three Super Hercs at the same time.”  The pilot nods and checks his equipment.  Hartman leaves the cockpit and then walks back to the cargo hold where both his squad and Foxtrot squad from the same company as Hartman’s squad so he knew the squad leader well.  As  Hartman was watching over the men sleeping in their seats, at the same time Gunnery Sergeant Gibbs walks up to him.

“Sir, I know that on any gathering mission that two squads are required to deploy, but is all this equipment really necessary?”  Gibbs asks as he approaches Hartman.

“This recovery mission is like none that we have been on before,  every attempt to colonize this planet has ended in disaster with all hands lost.”  Hartman starts to walk back to his chair when the pilot motions to him with his hand, when Hartman turns to look the pilot was pointing down then held up his hand with all five fingers out, indicating that they were landing in five minutes.

 After a half hour when the C-1303s landed they took off again and went out into orbit and stayed there until they were called for.  The supplies that were left were a double layer security fence that the outside layer was to be made of a pulse laser fence that will cut anything that crosses it.  The second fence is a chain link fence made of Diable Titanium and has 415,000 volts running through it.  Both fences are twenty feet tall and thirty feet apart.  In the corners are guard towers that are ten feet taller than the fence.  Inside the compound is the command tent, supply tent, sleeping quarters, and holding facility.  Three hours after the C-1303s were unloaded the compound was up and running with guards in the towers.

“The compound is up and running sir.”  Gibbs says as he takes off his helmet and sets it down on the table next to the maps.  “So is that the operation area.”  Gibbs ask Hartman.

“Yea, it was the last known location of our target as of two days ago.”  Hartman takes up a red marker and circles a temple like structure .  He then takes a blue marker and traces a route that looks like it could have been a road.  “This is the path that me and my men will take on our first recon mission.  The mission has a time frame of three hours, forty five minutes  to get there, hour and a half to recon the area and forty five minutes to get back.”  Hartman then goes and grabs his rifle from its spot leaning against the table.  “You got command until 0500 hours.”  Hartman then leaves and goes to the sleeping quarters for a short sleep.

Gibbs starts to study the map for alternative routes and evacuation routes that can be taken to get to and back from the structure.

[Anonymous]

At 0400 Hartman wakes up and walks out to the staging area to find that his squad was loading two of the four trucks with the supplies that they would be using.  He then goes to the command tent and is followed in by Gibbs only seconds later.  “This should be uneventful considering for what is going on, but the fact that all colonization attempts have resulted in total FUBAR, the old man thinks that whatever is causing it to happen would make a great test subject.”

”Sir, there is just something that just doesn’t seem to sit well about this mission with me.”  Gibbs says as he pulls out some maps, “As you can see from where the colony ships landed, this temple is in the center from all the spots.  I believe that we should send a team out to these spots and investigate them as well.  It could help us figure out what exactly happened there.”  Gibbs says as he took a green pen and circled all the landing zones, and just like he said, all the landing zones were the same distance from the temple.  “Sir, what are you plans?”

Hartman looks down at the map, “Your right, have a team go and check each site out, once we get done at the temple and the landing sites.  Once we have all the recons done we can decide what we do from there.”  Hartman then leaves the tent leaving Gibbs to start forming the plan.  When Hartman gets to the trucks he looks and sees all his men standing in formation waiting, “Saddle up men, it’s time to scope out the hunting grounds.”  The men snap to attention and then get in the trucks, at the same time Hartman gets in the front truck and dons he headset so he can communicate with the command tent along with the other truck.  “This is November Actual, starting the recon run now.”  When he said that the two trucks bellowed out thick black smoke as they caught first gear and left the Fire Base.

[Anonymous]

Ten minutes after Hartman and his men left, Gibbs sends out a small five man team to the landing sites in a specially made M12A2 Puma LRV (Light Reconnaissance Vehicle).  The only reason Gibbs sends out the small fire team in the M12A2 is because it has been lengthened to give more room for two more men on top of the driver, passenger, and gunner that is on the M12A1.

Thirty minutes later the fire team left they got to they get to the first landing site.  “Foxtrot Control, this is fire team Alpha, we have arrived to the first site and are starting our investigation.”  Corporal Ferro says as he pulls the Puma up to what looks like a small shack and turns the Puma off and everyone gets out.  When they started looking around the team noticed that not only was the place overgrown with vegetation, but the presence of any type of life was gone.  “Hey Ferro . . . There is nothing out here but rusted out buildings and a ship.”  Private Crowe yells as he comes walking off the ship.  “Man, there isn’t even a Twinkie in the food storage.”  Ferro then takes a quick look at the housing complex, “Just keep looking for any kind of sign that foul play had occurred here, Dietrich, come with me to check the housing.”  Corporal Dietrich follows Ferro as the two enter the housing complex, only to emerge ten minutes later with a disappointed look.  “There wasn’t a damn thing there, not a single gun, single shell casing, not a single picture of anyone.  It was like what ever took the people took all traces that they were even here.”  Ferro says as he and his team gets back into the Puma.  “Foxtrot Control, this is fire team Alpha, leaving landing site Lima.  There was no sign of life, but there was sign of foul play.”  Ferro then steps on the gas causing the 12.4 L Diesel engine to spit out black smoke and cause the tires to spin for a second before they caught dirt and lunged forward.   “We are now moving to landing site Gamma.”

”Roger that fire team Alpha, good hunting.”  Gibbs then puts a big red X over the circle of Landing Site Lima.  “Hicks, get ahold of the Heracles and have them get into a geosynchronous orbit over the temple and have them take pictures, full spectrum and both wide angle and close ups.”  Hicks nodes and gets on the phone and radios the order in.  He gives Gibbs the thumbs up when Heracles confirms the order.  Gibbs then gets on another radio, “This is Foxtrot Actual to November Actual, LZ Lima was a dude but the search team did find evidence of foul play at the site.”

“This is November Actual, roger that Foxtrot Actual, we are approaching the temple now, will be out of radio contact, if you don’t hear back from us in two hours send a squad to see why.  November Actual out.”  Hartman then has his driver stop the truck and both Hartman and all his men get out.  “Ok, Hudson, you and your team will stay with the trucks.”  Hudson nodes and both his men then himself spread out to watch the trucks.  “Sergeant Al Apone I want both your team and Sergeant Coopers team to . . .”  Hartman looks over to Cooper, “SERGEANT BLAIN COOPER PAY A-FUCKING-TENSION!!!”  Cooper turns to face Hartman, “Sorry sir, but I got a bad feeling about this.”   Hartman closes his eyes and slightly shakes his head, “Boy, you always have a bad feeling about something.”  Hartman then start to walk up to the entrance to the temple.  “Al and Blain will watch the entrance and the main hallway.  The rest of us will go on ahead and scout the what I hope is the welcoming center or possibly the main atrium.   All right, let's go people. The Corps ain't payin' us by the hour!”  The entire squad bellows out “HOOAH!!!”  as they set out to do their task.

[Anonymous]

When Ferro, pulled up to landing site Gamma, the most resent landing site before colonizing the planet.  “We should have better luck here since it is the most resent LZ.”  Ferro pulls the Puma up next to a shack and gets out and looks around.  “Crowe take those two with you and look over the landing ship then the crew quarters.”  Crowe nods and takes the two with towards the landing ship and Ferro takes Dietrich and they head to the food storage hut.  “Think it will be just like the last place?”  Ferro hits the open switch, but nothing happens.  “I hope not, but since the last place was the first LZ, and this was the last. . . It is just hard to say.”  Ferro uses the butt of his rifle bash the cover of the control panel off and then starts spark the wires, when a couple of sparks Ferro is somewhat relieved because it means that the power plant is still working.  He then takes the two wires and twists them together, causing the door to open with a whooshing sound.  The two then enter the hall way and the lights come on when they trigger the motion sensors.  “Ok Dietrich, you take the right side doors, I will take the left, leave the door open once you cleared the room.”  Dietrich nods and starts clearing rooms on his side, but every time he comes out it was always the same, empty and void of all traces of life.  When the two get to the end of the hall leading to the habitat where planets where grown, they notice blood on the window, but not just splatter, but a hand print that was slid down the window.  “At least it was a sign that people were here.”  Ferro nods as he brings up his rifle and pushes the door open, the lights come on and instead of plants hanging from the ceiling, or growing out of pots, there was just blood everywhere.  The two straighten up and just look around.  “Crowe, this is Ferro, were in the Food Storage, you need to get over here.”  There was a brief silence over the radio until Crowe answers.  “I am not sure what you got over there, but I got blood and shell casings all over the place, and that not just the end of it.  Whatever they were shooting at, was an organized foe that used close quarter weapons.”  Ferro takes a quick look around then answers.  “Roger that Crowe, we’re headed over to you.”  Ferro and Dietrich jog over to where Crowe was in the crew quarters and comes up to Crowe and looks at what he said over the radio.  “Whatever happened here, finished over in the food storage.”  Ferro starts looking around, “Whatever attacked them came from all directions, including from the ceiling.”  Crowe gives a bit of a smirk, “And that isn’t half of it.”  He motions for Ferro to follow him and they go to the back storage room.  “My guess is that the civilians hid here, and once the attackers got done with the security they came back for the civilians and dragged them to where they took security.”  Ferro then looks closer at some marks from the ceiling and walls.  “Yea, they took them to the greenhouse to be butchered it look liked.  From all the blood that was there, everyone body that has here was killed there.”  Ferro feels the marks, “What you think did this?”  Crowe comes up and feels the marks also, “Looks like some kind of claw.”  “Yea, let’s get lots of pictures of both this place and food storage, then we get back to the compound.”  Crowe nods and has one of the guys start taking pictures while Ferro and Dietrich go back to the Puma.  “Foxtrot control this is Foxtrot Alpha, LZ Gamma is a mess, there is blood and shell casings everywhere.  We are taking pictures and collecting samples and will be RTB.  ETA is 45 Mike.”  Ferro clicks the mike off and looks to Dietrich “Get on the gun, Dietrich, I got a gut feeling that shit is about to hit the fan, big time.”  Dietrich nods n gets on the gun and starts scanning the area while Ferro is next to the driver area also looking around.

[Anonymous]

Hartman and his men walk to the atrium and find it with marking covering all the walls.  “Ok, I want pictures of everything, overlapping.”  Hartman says as he lowers his rifle and starts pointing all over the place and his men start taking pictures of everything on the walls.  Hartman starts looking around once his men were taking pictures; he then has two guys follow him as he takes a passage off of the atrium.  One of the guys had a motion track on, but the display was hanging down on his vest because no one expected there to be any kind of movement.  The gentle, short, and steady thumps reassuring Hartman that nothing was moving around them.

Fifteen minutes later Hartman gets word over his radio that all the pictures have been taken, and Hartman rogers that he turns around and his me also do, but the guy with the motion tracker stops for second and turns his head around and looks down the dark hallway.  He shines his light down but sees nothing, of course the fact that he stoped caused Hartman to stop and look, and when he does the soldier turns all the way around, and when he does the gentle thumps turn into a low, sharp ding.  Hartman takes a flare and starts it, throws it down the hall, and the sharp dings stop right away, but Hartman and the other two guys don’t see a damn thing.  The three then double time it back to the atrium, the rest of his men got looks on their faces like, ‘what the hell’.  Hartman puts the two guys that went with him on the door, but all they hear is the low steady thumps.  “Get all the gear packed up, we are getting the hell out of here.”  Hartman watches as his men repack everything and are ready to leave.  Just then the motion tracker start to give off low sharp dings.  “How far away are they?”  The marine looks down at the display, “54 meters and gaining, quickly to.”  Hartman could tell because the dings were getting louder and closer together.  “Ok, marines, double time back to the entrance.”  The group then starts running down the main hallway back to the entrance.

Hartman gets on the radio, “Apone, we got hostiles coming up our ass, how are things out there.”  The Sergeant grabs the mike out of the truck and looks down at the motion track built in.  “It’s all clear out here except for you guys coming and our patrols.”  Hartman and his group then make it to the trucks.  “Good, load up and get the guns manned.”  Hartman gets into the passenger side of his truck and his driver gets in also.  The rest of the men double time it to their respectable trucks and load up and the two trucks billow out thick clouds of black smoke as gears catch, tires spin and dirt flies as they hall ass back to the compound.  Whatever was chasing them, never came out of the temple though.

[Anonymous]

Hartman and his men get back to the compound the group goes to the command tent for the debrief, just at the same time the group that was sent out to check the LZs also return.  After a couple of hours of debriefing, the group decides that anymore investigating the temple will be extremely dangerous and will only be conducted during the day, and with as many troops as possible with and with one of the C-1303s on station from orbit incase shit really hits the fan.

“What I don’t understand is what could have taken those people and not leave a trace.”  Gibbs says as both him and Hartman look over the photos that were taken.

“I know, but from what I can tell, whatever it is, it’s what the old man wants, but at the same time, this thing is smart and knows elementary battle tactics.  Not to mention it has way more numbers then what we got.”  Hartman picks up a picture that was carved into the stone, he looks at it closely and notices that there was what looked like a mask of some alien race that used to come here.  “But whoever these mask belong to, they know how to take care of them, because from what I gather, there is only three of these guys that show up, and not just once, but at different times, like it was a test into manhood for this race.  Obviously much more advanced, and unheard of then what tech even we got.  And we got the most advanced in the known universe.  So who ever these guys are come from beyond the veil.”  Hartman sets the picture down and picks up another, this time it shows the masked creatures on top of the temple, with their spears held high.  “I would like to meet these guys for a one on one match.”   Gibbs gives a short grunt of a laugh and then picks up the pictures and looks at them himself.