Supernova Blitz

Chapter 4: The Last Path To the Sky

Sergeant Grey leads the marines through the crowd, yelling as he aims his shotgun, "GET OUT OF THE WAY! MOVE!"

He hates this feeling, but he HAS to get his marines through. He also has something he knows the brass will want. Dumas deduced that the back plate armor of the aliens contains some sort of healing device. If they can reverse engineer the technology, they may be able to make leaps and bounds to catching up to these monsters.

Not to mention, Sergeant Grey has lives he's personally invested in saving; his own included. Yes, choosing himself over all of these people is disgusting, but someone must. And, he watched the wealthy and influential making that choice BEFORE the chaos started.

Sergeant Grey has a mission. He HAS to make it to one of the ships; him and his squad. He is thankful for once that civilian weapons were confiscated, or this situation could be much worse. He's not sure how the aliens haven't found this base yet, but he's thankful for that, too.

It's partially luck that Sergeant Grey spots Tanya waiting in the crowd, bruised and injured, but mostly okay. Her knuckles are bloody, and that fortunately seems to be the extent. She passionately and desperately kisses him before explaining, "They've stopped letting people in!"

Grey licks his teeth. They're running out of time. He can still hear the hum of the elevator station, but even max speed still takes a day to get into orbit. And, he doubts much control was afforded once the panic started. He replies quietly, "Leave that to us and stay close. Are you okay?"

"Yes. I made the horrible mistake of having a water bottle on me. Should'a just gave it up when the toolbag demanded it. I'm fine." She nods at Kenzie, "She with us?"

Grey glances and nods, "We had to head out for at least a while. Found a reason to come back. Two, actually. Let's move. I'll explain."

The group pushes through the crowd. Grey can hear Fisher barking, "We're trying to find out! They'll talk to us!" Grey's glad they're all wearing their armor. People are throwing bottles, cans, and rocks already. And, they think the line is moving.

Grey reaches the base security gate, and he leads his group to the control point guards. He shows his ID, even as the guards threaten him to back off. He shouts, "Sergeant Alexander Grey, Third Platoon! Enemy tech capture! Priority Code Romeo-XRay-Tango-Five-Three!"

The control point snaps back, "Sergeant, I have been given strict orders!"

"To hell with your orders, Rookie! We have their tech! LET US THROUGH!"

The guard's grip tightens on his rifle. Grey thinks quickly, yelling, "You fire on us, and this;" He gestures at the people behind him, 'waiting their turn'. He continues, "Becomes a stampede. You wanna shoot us, go ahead! Saves us the trouble!"

"I'm not bluffing, Sergeant! BACK. OFF!"

Marines only have each other at the end of the day. If they can't trust those at their backs, they have nothing. If one brings their rifle up, they can only hope...

Sergeant Grey's marines don't let him down. He snaps his shotgun up at the center guard threatening him. He hears the shuffles and clicks of Fredericks, Dumas, and Fisher taking aim. He also can hear the pistol they gave Kenzie chattering from her shaking. The guards tense and take a step back. Grey taunts menacingly, "We're going in and nobody dies, or we all shoot, and whoever survives is mauled to death by the crowd behind me. You wanna die a 'hero' getting trampled to death by panicking people, or you wanna..." Grey deliberately softens his voice so only the guard a barrel's length away from him can hear; "actually survive this hellstorm?"

The younger marine's eyes widen in horror. What Grey just said is treacherous, but everyone knows it. Not very many more elevator cars are going up. Dying on the ground won't make anything better.