Humanity Endures

Part 7 - Last Stand | Chapter 6

Defending her narrow, claustrophobic hallway section of the complex, Terxah, sighting a group of aliens and immediately emptying her dual assault rifles' magazines into them, was mortified to see many of her opponents still standing, with any others quickly regrouping. This should have been no surprise: as she and what remained of her squad fought in a murderous, ever-rising sea of alien biofluid, their efforts at resistance, at least at ground-level, were as futile as they came. With only a few moments remaining until her last viable routes of retreat were cut off, and with most other forces on that level in full flight, Terxah opted against dying purposelessly. Even Korthekar's front, barely surviving when being attacked from one direction, and scarcely capable of surviving when being attacked from all of them, had fled; if the blood-loving Korthekar thought retreat was wise, it certainly was. sade at her squad's most immediate assailants as a delaying tactic, Terxah, and what little remained of her battle-weary team, fell back; the detonation behind them threatened to throw them off their feet, but they were too afraid to do so. Their feet sloshing through a sea of alien biofluid that groped, stabbed, and grabbed at their legs, one of the Kalithiharian marines was tripped by the liquid through which they waded; just as Terxah began to lift the man up, a half-formed alien limb rose from the drink and sliced through his unarmored neck, before this limb fell apart under its own weight. The man's death was both tragic and gruesome, but none could dwell on it, lest they end up like the unfortunate marine did; despite their losses, Terxah's force nevertheless managed to reach a stairwell that led to the complex's main atrium, where the space elevator could be boarded once it reached the surface, which also happened to be the prepared location for the defenders' last stand. Truly, if any stage of the desperate battle was to be labelled a last stand, this approaching one would be it; for the first time in her life, Terxah was not confident in survival.

***

Velan's weary eyes took in the sight before him with special care, admiring every gorgeous detail of the colossal, dozen-storey-tall atrium's design: the lustrous dark-grey paint applied to every surface of the gargantuan chamber; the five-story tall frame, laden with staircases, that was intended to allow unaided boarding of the similarly tall space elevator itself; the natural-looking bending of the metallic terrain, and the placement of the space elevator atop a defensible hill formed by such metallic ground. The hollow pyramidal structure of the indoors, at whose peak was an open-air gap through which the space elevator passed, and though this led outside this particular area had been kept free of aliens by AA turrets for now. Far below this, a concise message etched with blocky lettering as tall as a floor quoted a popular Kalithiharian saying, "Advancement cannot be repressed." Velan looked at this beautiful, expansive hall, and he sighed exasperatedly: the simplistic beauty of the architecture surrounding him was no comfort when this very same architecture was likely to be soon covered in his blood.

The turreted gauss guns of the complex had long since fallen silent; the outer defences of the structure, and much of the structure itself, was nought but rubble. The disparate human forces scattered throughout the complex were one of four things: fleeing, fortifying themselves by the space elevator's docking position, surrounded and soon to die, or already dead. If they were slain, their corpses were being deconstructed, their constituent materials to be used in the manufacture of even more alien horrors. Sadly, the vast majority of those humans who had been alive and well during the beginning of the rapidly-concluding battle now belonged to the latter two categories, and the remainder would, if the space elevator was not repaired soon, likely join them.

Velan, tearing his gaze from the sights around him and fixing it on his blood-stained rifle, stroked the weapon defeatedly as his thoughts continued to dive into the realm of hopelessness; the next second, his cynical contemplation was shattered by a much-needed textcomm. As the message's contents were implanted directly into Velan's mind, he realized instantly what had just transpired, and, within him, he felt the fires of hope within his core being set ablaze: the Kalithiharian enforcer had reached the complex's elevator and had found it nearly intact — reprieve was but minutes away. Holstering his rifle, Velan inspected the fortifications before him; just over one thousand five hundred of the defenders had made it to the fallback point thus far, and it looked as if a few hundred more were going to make it, before the aliens reintroduced themselves to the weary defenders.