Humanity Endures

Part 7 - Last Stand | Chapter 5

Her coilgun blazing as it poured a rain of munitions into the sea of blackness beneath her, and into the individual shadows that attempted to scale the wall just below her, Xandra's shoulder began to ache and in some places bleed as the repeated, violent recoil of her high-caliber gun attacked her in the aliens' stead. It was hard to imagine, she realized, that a few days ago she had been complaining about having nothing to do. Defending a fortified section of the complex that overlooked much of the aliens' approach to the front of the structure, Xandra and those with her had been caught up in a vicious battle for survival since the very beginning of the siege; this battle of survival now threatened to end in tragedy. Grenades, bullets, and munitions in untold number were hurled into the ocean of biofluid and beasts below by the desperate human defenders within one of the complex's frontal pillboxes in an attempt to delay the alien assault, and though all of these measures all killed aliens without fail, none of them were effective; a dozen immolated aliens here or a hundred shredded aliens there meant nothing, for with the entire planet under the aliens' control, the monstrosities kept coming.

Continuing to hold down the trigger of her coil rifle, Xandra then, after roughly half a minute of continuous, strenuous fighting, realized that she had depleted her last magazine; darting back to the center of the room to acquire new ammunition, Xandra herself nearly ran into Iselviah. She, along with many of her own surviving crew members, were defending this strategic location with unwavering tenacity characteristic of one who is cornered, and with the fury typical of one who has suffered. Covered waist-down in the blood of aliens, firing a light machine gun from the hip, having expended fifteen magazines into the alien menace since the battle had begun and being in the process of expending a sixteenth, Iselviah was as impressive a sight as there was on the battlefield, and Xandra sought to match it. Ensuring that her rifle's grenade launcher was replete with munitions, Xandra rammed the weapon into the nearest firing port and sent three of the things tumbling down into the ocean of death that had occupied the ground. The next instant, an alien limb reached into her firing port, and, straining, it began to pull up the rest of the creature it was attached to; Xandra, unfazed, dropped her gun, pulled out the engraved plasma dagger that she kept concealed in her boot, and cut through the limb after a few seconds of considerable effort. That a very-shy lieutenant carried an engraved plasma dagger in her boot surprised many who saw it, though it impressed them as well. Picking her gun of the floor, Xandra rejoined the fight; doing this, she noted for the first time the presence of the Geneticier in that she had met earlier — Rislavahn was defending with her, even though most of his plagues, pathogens, and weapons were ineffective against the monsters that they faced.

Helping both by fighting personally and through commanding their small horde of war-beasts, Rislavahn, his heart burning with a desire for vengeance and his actions possessed by bloodthirsty recklessness, fought with twice the ferocity and half of the caution of most other combatants. Shoving his weapon into a firing port in defiance of the alien weapons' fire that was impacting and melting away chunks of the armored wall that surrounded his firing port, Rislavahn, verbally ridiculing the alien menace whilst he slaughtered them, opened fire on the ocean of aliens below; as he cut a few of the sprinters down, the alien retaliatory fire focused on his position, and it soon proved its worth. Concentrating on Rislavahn's position for a few moments, a golden avalanche of alien munitions shredded through the man's firing port and torturously melted through his right arm from the shoulder down, leaving nought but a charred, cauterized stump in its wake. Rislavahn was forced to the floor, ululating in agony, though as MECS leapt into action, Rislavahn's pain was stifled, and he announced a moment later to the concerned few that were glancing at his new stump, "I see no problem: I'm a Geneticier, and growing a new arm for myself will be as easy as breathing! We have a battle to win, so don't let my flesh wound keep you from fighting it — I know that it won't keep me!"