Facets

(ooc This thread is one I plan to use for short stories about my various characters as I have some come up. The first two are ones I wrote awhile ago, 2003 to be exact, on the old rping boards.

The first one uses the first character I roleplayed on those old rping boards for CoH, starting back in 2001. It is an alternate version of the character, who is named Thevshi. Back in the early days, when CoH was still very early in development, what we had been told about the powers that would be available in the game was quite different, density control, to both increase and decrease, was one of those. Thought that is kinda in game in some forms, density increase and phase shift, what was talked about initially was very different. And Thevshi was in fact a character I had played in Champions years before as well.

This first story takes place during the invasion of Iraq in early 2003. Though I know there are many mixed emotions about that event and the current US forces over there, I wrote this not to take a particular side in the issue, but in honor of those serving in our armed forces, and those of our allies.

I hope people enjoy this and following stories, please feel free to comment.)

Duty

Oxford England, 10:15 AM Greenwich Mean Time

It was a cold rainy day in Oxford, typical of the time of year. The weather was keeping most of the students at the university indoors except when they had to hurry to their classes for the day. Two figures making their way through the campus stood out from the few others that rushed past them to get out of the drizzling rain. Dressed in dark green uniforms and trenchcoats, the two men were obviously Royal Army, calmly making their way towards their destination. Up ahead stood the residents’ hall for University College students. The old buildings were of a Tudor style, the ground floor was stone, with white walls and dark brown trim rising up to peaked roofs. The windows were for the most part rather large, rimed with the same dark brown trim that was present on the rest of the building.

The two men stopped for a moment looking up at the building as one looked down at small note book for a moment before looking back up and pointing towards one of the doors that lead into the resident’s’ hall. Walking into the entry to the building, the two men closed the umbrellas they were carrying, shaking them out briefly before closing the door into the hall. In the long corridor that went back into the building, there were a few students gathered, all turning and regarding the two men with curious looks, some turning somewhat hostile rather quickly. Ignoring the looks from the students present, the two men made their way over towards the main stairwell, climbing up to the second floor of the hall.

Walking a short way down the hall, the came to the door of one of the rooms, the two men glancing at each other for a moment before one reached up to knock loudly at the door. There was a brief moment before they heard the faint sound of movement inside the room and a voice call out. “Who the bloody ‘ell is it?” One of the uniformed men replied, his crisp English accent sounding like he had infinite patience. “Bernadette, its Lieutenant Colonel Keller, I need to speak with you.”

There were more sounds of movement inside the room before the two men heard the door lock open and the door opened part way, an eighteen year old girl standing by the opening wearing a green bathrobe. Her long red hair was loose around her shoulders as her bright green eyes peered at the two men, a look of annoyance obvious on her face. “What can I do fer ye Colonel?” She asked, her accent a strange mix of Irish and English. Lieutenant Colonel Keller looked at the teenage girl before him for a moment as he quickly decided not to ask her if they could come in. “Sorry to bother you Bernadette, but the Ministry of Defense has requested that you report to London immediately.”

Bernadette leaned against the doorframe as she looked at the Army officer. “I though I was goin’ ta sit this one out?” Lieutenant Colonel Keller’s expression remained unchanging as he replied. “The situation has changed I am afraid. We have a car waiting, Major Paterson and I will wait for you downstairs.” There was a slight frown on Bernadette’s face, but she knew that she was in no position to argue. For the last six years of her life, the Ministry of Defense had controlled all aspects of her life, and that had not changed any even after she had enrolled at Oxford to study International Politics last fall. The Ministry was giving her plenty of leeway to get her degree, but they still reserved the right to pull her in for operations as they needed her. “I’ll be down in a few minutes.” She replied quietly before shutting the door.

As the door shut, Bernadette sighed slightly as a voice off towards the window spoke out. “What the hell was that all about Bernadette?” Turning away from the door, Bernadette looked over at her bed, which was over near the large window that looked out on the campus. Sitting up in the bed, half underneath the sheets, was the young man she was currently involved with, Landon Storrs, the son of a prominent member of the House of Lords. With a feeling of guilt forming in her gut, Bernadette made her way over towards the dresser near the bed as she replied. “I need ta go ta London fer a few days, sorry about this love.”

Landon turned as she moved, keeping his gaze on her, a suspicious look on his face. “A few days? What is going on Bernadette? They said they were from the Ministry of Defense. Are you in some kind of trouble? I can call my dad..” Bernadette turned quickly and put a hand to his lips, quieting him as she looked down with a smile. “If I was in trouble, don’ ye think me adopted father could take care o’ it?” She said, referring to Lord Eddings, the English Earl who had adopted her over a year ago and was also a member of the House of Lords. Bending down slightly, Bernadette looked into Landon’s eyes as she gently kissed him and then pulled back. “I can’ tell you anymore love, but rest assured, I’m not in any kind o’ trouble. I will be back as soon as I can, now I need ta shower and get goin’.” Standing back up with her clothes in her arms, Bernadette started off towards the bathroom in the room as Landon followed after her with his eyes, dozens of questions still swirling around inside his head.

A short while later, Bernadette descended down the stairs of the residents’ hall into the main hallway, quickly spotting Lieutenant Colonel Keller and Major Paterson. Dressed in blue jeans and a green sweater, Bernadette had a brown leather jacket on as well to help with the numbing cold outside in the continuous rain. Making her way towards the exit as the two Army officers came over to join her, Major Paterson held open the door for her as Lieutenant Colonel Keller opened his umbrella to protect them from the rain as they started towards the waiting car.

Iraqi Airspace: 01:47 AM local time (10: 47 PM Greenwich Mean Time)

Rumbling through the dark night sky over Iraq, the Royal Air Force C-17 Globemaster transport continued along its course over the Tigris-Euphrates Valley. In the cockpit lit only a green tactical light, RAF Flight Lieutenant Donald Weller concentrated on staying within the carefully prescribed flight path he had been given prior to take off. Flight Lieutenant Weller could not help but wonder what was so important about his unusual passenger and her unknown mission that would require him to fly over the city of Baghdad in the midst of sorties being flown by other coalition aircraft.

Glancing at the GPS among the numerous instruments in front of him, Flight Lieutenant Weller noted their current distance from the drop point. Reaching down, he keyed the internal intercom, calling back to the cargo area of the aircraft. “We are five minutes from release point, stand by to open cargo doors.” Back in the large open cargo area of the aircraft, the senior crew chief stood up as he received the orders from Flight Lieutenant Weller. Making his way back towards the rear of the aircraft, he signaled to the other crewmember back near the rear of the aircraft. Then turning towards the right side of the aircraft, Flight Sergeant Fawkes regarded the lone individual sitting in one of the aircraft’s jumpseats.

He still half felt that this had to be some sort of joke, save for the fact that they were now over Iraq and approaching Baghdad during nighttime bombing runs from other aircraft. This young girl seemed so completely out of place, though she was dressed in desert camouflage similar to what was issued to other British Army units currently operating inside Southern Iraq. She also had a FN P90 in her lap, the weapon obviously real enough, though somewhat unusual. And then there was the fact that she wasn’t carrying a parachute. In fact, she was only carrying a light amount of gear, what was on her combat webbing and a small pack. Flight Sergeant Fawkes had seen many things in his years in the RAF, but this one had to be the strangest yet.

Shaking his head slightly Flight Sergeant Fawkes continued over towards the young woman who looked over at him in the dim green tactical light that illuminated the cargo bay. Unsure how exactly to address her, Flight Sergeant Fawkes decided to just regard her as someone important, there had sure been enough brass involved in delivering her to the airbase in England before their departure. “Mum, we are five minutes from the drop point.”

Bernadette nodded as she stood up from the jumpseat, checking her equipment one last time before making her way over towards the rear of the aircraft. The other crew member was waiting there, looking at her for a moment before glancing back at Flight Sergeant Fawkes who just shrugged. Keying his headset, Fawkes called back up to the cockpit. “Standing by in cargo bay to open rear door.” Up in the cockpit of the C-17, Flight Lieutenant Weller continued to keep them on their fixed course as he responded. “Copy that, switch to oxygen and stand by to open cargo doors.” As he spoke, Weller strapped the oxygen mask into place on his flight helmet as his co-pilot did the same.

Back in the cargo bay, the two crewmembers put their oxygen masks in place as Bernadette did the same, turning on the small canister in a pouch on the front of her gear. The dry air that she began breathing was a distinct contrast, bringing feelings of nervousness to Bernadette finally. The entire flight she had tried to think as little as possible about the operation as she could, and even now it was not all she could think about. A feeling of guilt and pain stabbed at her heart as she thought that only about nine months ago she would not have been alone here, the other members of Project Deadalus would have been going in as well. Now she was the only one left, at least the only one left who was still sane.

As soon as everyone inside the aircraft had equipped their self contained breathing gear, Flight Sergeant Fawkes signaled the other crew member to open the rear loading ramp, hooking a safety line to a portion of the outer frame of the aircraft. Holding on to a part of the bulkhead near him, the crew member pressed the button to open the ramp, causing a red flashing light to go off as an alarm sounded and the mechanical gears began to sound to life. Bernadette grabbed hold to the bulkhead beside her as the air pressure inside the aircraft was immediately sucked out as it depressurized. The plane jerked about some as Flight Lieutenant Weller fought to keep the aircraft steady, soon leveling out once more as the plane pressurized to the outside.

Cold chilling wind blew around Bernadette and the two crew chiefs as she let go of the bulkhead once the plane had repressurized. Walking slowly out onto the open ramp, Bernadette looked down at the dark clouds several thousand feet below them. Looking back over at Flight Sergeant Fawkes, she could see he was listening to some communication from the pilot as his eyes met hers and he began a countdown. Taking deep breaths of the dry, sterile air from the oxygen mask, Bernadette waited for the countdown, adrenaline starting to pump through her as she glanced out the back of the aircraft once more. The moments seemed to last an eternity before Fawkes finished his countdown, yelling out as he did. “Go! Go! Go!” Bernadette didn’t hesitate as she flung herself out the back of the aircraft, quickly disappearing into the dark sky as she began to freefall from 35,000 feet.
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C-17 Globemaster= http://www.raf.mod.uk/equipment/c-17.html
FN P90= http://world.guns.ru/smg/smg13-e.htm

Wind howled past her as Bernadette approached terminal velocity, falling through the cold night air towards the ever-nearing clouds that obscured her view of the city below. Her hair that stuck out from the helmet she was wearing whipped wildly behind her as she kept her arm in close, her right hand holding her FN P90 up against her side, to keep wind resistance down. If it hadn’t been for the goggles that she had on, she wouldn’t be able to see anything from the wind that would be blowing in her face. As it was, her eyes were already filled with the tears that she had struggled to hold back inside the transport.

The memories of the deaths of most of her fellow Project Deadalus members, and her best friend Susan Eddings’ institutionalization after she had gone insane was still very fresh for the eighteen year old Irish girl. Over the last few months, she had been able to shut out the pain for the most part, deadening herself to everything to some degree. Right after the mission that had ended Project Deadalus, the military had decided to send her off to help in the operations in Afghanistan, allowing her to focus her anger and rage on the enemy there. The missions in Afghanistan had helped her push back her feelings, an outward appearance of having come to terms with everything that had happened to her.

She had managed to get on with her life, gaining acceptance to Oxford University studying International Politics thanks to the help of her adopted father, Susan’s father, Lord Eddings. But despite the outward face she put on for the world, deep down, Bernadette still felt great pain around the lose of her best friend and teammates, and a great deal of guilt. Every once and awhile, that pain broke through, though so far she had been able to keep it to times when she was alone or visiting Susan at the hospital she had been placed in.

Closing her eyes as she let the last tears run down her cheeks for now, Bernadette forced herself to focus back on the task at hand. She was dropping into the heart of a war, and couldn’t allow herself to be distracted by her emotions. Opening her eyes again after a few moments, she noticed that she was only seconds away from the clouds over Baghdad. Lifting up her left arm, she checked the altimeter that was on her wrist as well as the clock showing her the mission time. So many things about this mission were very time sensitive, so she had to make sure she was staying on schedule once down in the city, hopefully nothing would happen that would delay any other elements of the mission.

Putting her arm back up against her side just as she entered the clouds, Bernadette couldn’t see anything as she felt the moisture from the clouds against her body as she continued to freefall. The passage through the cloud cover only took about half a minute before Bernadette emerge out the other side, her desert camouflage uniform very damp from the passage through. Below her was an amazing site, the sprawling city of Baghdad, still lit up against the dark ground by the city lights that reflected out onto the two rives that flowed beside it. But their was other illumination in the city at the present time, large flashes of light indicated the detonation of cruise missiles and smart bombs that were part of the current bombing mission by coalition aircraft.

Bernadette had know that there would be a bombing run made to cover the approach of her aircraft over the city, but she hadn’t realized that they would time things so closely. The planning that must have gone into keeping a path open in the airspace over the city while still carrying out some precision strikes against key targets must have been difficult. But it had been done, at least she hoped that the crew of the C-17 made it safely back to base, but so far things had gone smoothly. There were a few stray flashes of anti-aircraft fire that streaked up into the sky from the ground. Thankfully none of it was anyway near her as the ground continued to rush towards her.

Taking one last deep breath of the dry sterile air from the breath mask, Bernadette unhooked the mask, breathing in the smoke filled air of the capital city of Iraq. Coughing slightly, Bernadette began to use her mutant power of flight to slow her descent towards the streets of the besieged city. As she drew closer, Bernadette shifted her bodies density, lowering it till she was completely insubstantial, to protect herself from any stray anti-aircraft fire. She took on a ghost like appearance as she phased, the reason for her code name with Project Deadalus, Thevshi, the Irish word for ghost.

The anti-aircraft guns below her went silent as she continued to slow her decent, a few fires visible beneath the plums of smoke the bombs had caused. Scanning the city, Bernadette quickly picked out the palace, as she began tracing the path from that obvious structure towards her target. It didn’t take long for her to identify the target of her mission, Bernadette banking to her left slightly as she adjusted her flight path towards the government building.

Gliding down silently, Bernadette dropped down into an alleyway across from the building as she returned to her normal density, lifting up her P90 as her feet touched the ground, scanning the alley to insure she was alone. The alley was dark, and filled with garbage and rubble, but there didn’t seem to be anyone else present as Bernadette slowly turned around, her P90 held in both hands as she aimed it in front of her. The sounds of fire trucks and other emergency vehicles could be heard in the night air, otherwise the city was ominously quite, not even an air-raid siren sounding.

Moving over towards the entrance to the alley, Bernadette came to a halt just within the shadows of the alley, peering out into the deserted streets beyond. There were a few parked cars, but otherwise, the street in front of the Agricultural Ministry building was empty, no pedestrians or soldiers obvious from where she stood. Moving forward a little more, Bernadette scanned down street each direction, looking for any movement. As she looked to her left, she spotted a Russian made T-72 tank parked up near a building with sandbags stacked up around it.

“Bloody ‘ell.” She mumbled to herself as she ducked back into the alley. There was no immediately response from the tank, so it was likely that they had not spotted her, or if they had, had not regarded her as a hostile, after all, the nearest coalition forces were a good sixty or seventy miles South of Baghdad still. Bernadette sighed as she considered her options. It wasn’t as if she couldn’t deal with the tank, there was nothing they could do to hurt her, but taking them out would be noisy, and would only cause more troops to be sent to here, making her mission more difficult.

Looking back over at the entrance to the ministry, she could make out some forms moving inside the building. There was likely a good deal of surveillance around building, especially if what her superiors believed was located inside was correct. Now that she though about it, things were likely to get rather busy quickly, so she might as well take out the tank to start things off. Looking back out into the street, Bernadette looked over at the tank once more, sitting just off the street, a great steel beast that seemed almost peaceful at the moment.

Lowering her density once more, Bernadette flew out from the alleyway, heading directly towards the tank about seven feet above the ground. She was halfway to the T-72 before there was any sign that they had spotted her. An Iraqi soldier appeared out of the top hatch of the tank, manning the 7.62mm PKT machinegun mounted on top of the turret. Swinging the weapon towards Bernadette he let lost two quick bursts, tracers lancing out towards the flying girl, passing harmlessly through her ghostlike form to hit the building behind her. The Iraqi soldier paused briefly as he tried to determine the effectiveness of his attack before he fired a longer burst, the result being the same as Bernadette flew towards the front of the tank.

As the soldier halted fire, Bernadette increased her density till she weighed over twenty tons, her momentum carrying her down onto the front of the tank. The impact was slightly jarring, the ground beneath the tank breaking under the impact, sinking the front of the tank several feet into the ground, the sound of one of the treads snapping audible over the sound of shattering concrete. The soldier in the turret was slammed forward into the side of the hatch, stunning him as he fell back down into the armored vehicle.

Bernadette slid off the front of the tank her feet touching down onto the broken concrete in front of it, breaking several pieces under her twenty ton weight. Looking off to her right back towards the Agricultural Ministry building, she saw several guards emerge from the front of the building, trying to discover what was going on in the streets. Letting her P90 hang by its sling, Bernadette reached underneath the front of the T-72, her fingers squeezing into the hard steel of the vehicle as she shifted her weight slightly, as she leaned back and began lifting.

There was a groan of metal as the tank lifted up out of the hole the force of her impact onto the front had sunk it into as Bernadette lifted the nearly forty five metric ton combat vehicle over her head. The guards in front of the ministry building all came to a sudden halt, no doubt looks of shock on their faces as the took in the scene before them. Bernadette didn’t waste anytime to check the looks on their faces however, as she turned to her right, taking one step forward as she flung the tank towards the front of the ministry building with all her considerable strength.

The main battle tank tumbled end over end as it flew through the air, the guards in front of the building trying to move out of the improvised missile’s path. Many not making it before the vehicle smashed through the front of the building, knocking out the windows and a large section of a wall. Bernadette quickly recovered from the strain of throwing the massive object as she started forward, lowering her density some to conserve her endurance as she brought her P90 up in front of her once more as she aimed in at the closest Iraqi that had avoided being hit by the tank.

Firing off a quick three round burst, Bernadette waited till she saw the soldier go down before she shifted her aim towards the next one, still rushing forward as she fired another burst. The 4.7mm rounds tore into the man, sending him backward onto the pavement in the middle of street. One of the Iraqi guards fired a burst from his AK-47, a couple of the rounds glancing harmlessly off Bernadette as she shifted her aim towards him, a quick burst silencing his fire as she ran over to the hole she had made in the front of the ministry building.

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T-72= http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/l...901159_JPG.jpg

The large lobby of the ministry building was now in total shambles, dark smoke in the air from small electrical fires that were burning and a haze of dust in the air from the shattered concrete. The T-72 was lying upside down near the back of the lobby, having smashed through several columns that were present, the roof above looking precariously close to collapsing at any moment. Slowing down as she stepped through the massive hole the tank had made in the front of the building, broken glass crunched under Berndette’s boots. Moving quickly but cautiously, she moved into the lobby, her P90 aimed ahead of her as she scanned side to side.

Through the smoke and dust, she could make out the hallway leading back past the elevators into the building that was mentioned in her briefing. As she halted, looking towards the path towards her objective, Bernadette glanced down at the watch on her left wrist and the timer that was counting down for the mission timetable. She didn’t have much time to waste as the distinct sound of AK-47 fire snapped her attention back to the area around her. The distinct crack of rounds flying to her left had Bernadette diving to her right as she aimed her P90 towards the sound of the fire as best she could with the echoing inside the lobby.

She felt several 7.62mm rounds hit her left leg and hit, glancing off her skin leaving only the slightest bruise at her current density. The impacts stung as she started to increase her density further, providing her with more protection as she leveled her sub-machine at an Iraqi soldier that was visible just around one of the still standing columns in the lobby, his assault rifle tracking her as he continued to fire. Pulling the trigger of her weapon, Bernadette fired off a quick burst of 4.7mm rounds, most hitting the column as two hit the soldier in his right shoulder, the impact spinning him around as his weapon fell to the ground and he cried out in pain.

As the soldier disappeared behind the column, Bernadette heard more fire coming further to her right as AK rounds tore across the ground in front of her. Rolling backward and turning, the young Irish girl ended up on her stomach in the center of the lobby as she leveled her P90 at the new threat, the weapon firing as she placed his upper body in her sights. Most of the burst hit the upper body, one of the rounds catching the soldier right in the head, sending him backward as a faint red mist appeared.

Bernadette barely had a chance to watch the soldier go down as a sound to her right had her rolling onto her left side as she brought her P90 around to fire a sustained burst across the lobby to her right. Two soldiers that had moved from the other side of the T-72 were each caught by a few rounds as they cried out almost in unison and went back down onto the broken glass and chunks of concrete.

Lowering her density back closer to normal, Bernadette was quickly back on her feet, the ground below her covered with cracks caused by her increased weight. Not wasting any time, Bernadette started towards the hallway back into the ministry, lifting up her P90 as she dropped the empty clear plastic magazine from the sub-machinegun. Reaching up to a pouch on her tactical vest, Bernadette pulled out a new clear plastic fifty round magazine, the small rounds stacked sideways within the magazine, the feeding system at the end of magazine rotating them as they feed into the P90. As she approached the hallway, she passed around the side of the column that the soldier she had wounded was behind, moving slowly around the column, Bernadette came up beside the soldier who was gripping his injured shoulder tightly, his weapon still lying where it had fallen, some of his blood covering it.

The man looked up at the redheaded Irish teen, fear obvious in his eyes as his gaze locked with hers. A swift kick to the side of his head put the man onto the ground, unconscious, but still alive as Bernadette continued on towards the hallway, sliding the magazine into place. Bernadette heard the faint click as it locked into place, pulling the charging handle a few times to move rounds into the feeding system of the weapon. Just as she finished reloading her weapon, Bernadette reached the entrance to the hallway, increasing her density as she stepped out from the side, aiming the P90 down the hallway as she peered over the weapon’s sights. The dim lights in the narrow hallway flickered, but she was able to see that it was clear.

Taking a deep breath, Bernadette moved forward, moving quickly forward as her weapon moved from side to side down the hallway. Passing the first few doors, Bernadette came to a halt at the third one on her left, moving her ear close to it as she listened for any sound from within. Not hearing anything from with in, she stepped back so she was facing the door, increasing her density once more as her right foot kicked forward. The door flew open from the heavy impact, flying off its hinges before sailing across the room. Bernadette was following right after, her P90 up in front of her again as she quickly swept from left to right within the room looking for targets.

Satisfied there were no soldiers hiding behind the bookcases that lined the walls of the room, Bernadette lowered her P90 as she walked across the open middle of the room to one of the bookcases on the far side of the room. Reaching behind it with her hands Bernadette easily flung the bookcase away from the wall, the boxes filled with files and papers scattering about the room as the bookcase landed hard on the opposite side of the room, breaking apart. Behind the bookcase was a metal door, a numerical keypad located next to the doorway. Smiling faintly, Bernadette reached into one of the pouches on her tactical vest, taking out a small device that she fixed to the side of the keypad, turning it on once it was securely in place.

Lowering her density, Bernadette then walked through the doorway, stepping into a small brightly lit hallway, an elevator door waiting at the opposite end, a camera looking down at her from above the elevator. Solidifying herself once more, Bernadette fired a quick burst at the camera, shattering the lens and shattering the internal mechanisms. With that task done, she took a second small device from her vest and placed in on the side of the wall near where she had placed the first device. Walking towards the elevator, Bernadette kneeled down as she placed a third small device down beside the door.

Once it was switched on, Bernadette took another deep breath as she looked at her watch once more. Standing up, she pressed the button for the elevator, the doors sliding open as she stepped inside, looking over to the right side and pressing the lower of the two buttons on the keypad. As the elevator started downward, she once again lowered her density, again taking on the ghostlike appearance that accompanied her powers. Phasing through the top of the elevator, she flew down into the elevator shaft above it, solidifying herself once more once she had passed into the darkness. A faint snapping sound was barely audible over the sounds of the elevator car descending deep down under street level, an orange glow quickly filling the shaft from the chemlight Bernadette had just activated. Hovering beside the bottom of the doorway back to the hallway she had just left, Bernadette placed another small device on the wall near the one she had placed out in the hallway, switching it on as well.

Once the device was in place, Bernadette quickly flew back down after the elevator car, catching up to it as she stopped once more to place yet another device along the side of the elevator shaft, activating it before following after the elevator car once again. As the elevator car came to a halt at the bottom of the stairs, Bernadette took out one of the last devices from the vest pocket as she placed it against the wall along the side where the elevator door would be. No sooner had she activated the device, when there was the sound of several assault rifles being fired into the elevator, something Bernadette had been anticipating.

Gripping her P90 tightly, Bernadette waited until the fire subsided, when she shifted back to her ghostlike desolid form, passing through the wall in front of her out above the elevator. The room she entered into was a large two-story room, with a security checkpoint and scanning device in front of an airlock like doorway. Above the doorway was a balcony with several soldiers standing behind a low wall, their AK-47’s aimed down at the open elevator doors while three other soldiers that were down of the floor slowly moved towards the elevator from behind the checkpoint.

All the soldiers seemed to notice her at the same time, one of them calling out to the others as they began shifting their aim towards her. Bernadette started to fly towards her right, increasing her density as she began to drop down towards the floor. Her left hand reached back to the side of her vest as her right hand aimed her P90 at the guards out in the open. She fired two quick bursts from the sub-machinegun, the rounds tearing into the two nearest soldiers as the room echoed with the gunfire and rounds began impacting along the wall just above her.

Bernadette hit the metal floor hard as her left hand moved back over towards her right, her right pinky finger grasping the pin of the fragmentation grenade she had in her left hand as she pulled the pin free. She let the spoon of the grenade pop free as the internal fuse began burning. Rolling to her right as AK rounds impacted all around her, some glancing off her back, Bernadette brought her left hand up in a wide arch as she tossed the grenade up towards the balcony. The grenade ricocheting off the wall behind the soldiers as one yelled out and started to try to move away from the grenade.

The soldier barely had time to yell when the room echoed with a loud explosion, the blast sending two of the soldiers on the balcony flying over the low wall as they fell down to the floor near Bernadette. After the grenade went off, Bernadette sat upright, aiming her P90 towards the last soldier still down on the main level. She placed her sights on the soldier just as he fired a burst at her from his AK-47. Bernadette pulled the trigger of her P90 as she quickly lowered her density, the AK rounds passing harmlessly through her as her burst his the soldier square in the chest, knocking him back into the wall before he slide back down, leaving a trail of blood on the wall.

Bernadette rose up into air as she began to scan the room to make sure everyone was down. Satisfied that there were no immediate threats, she returned to her normal density, taking out another device from the one vest pocket and placed it on the wall above the elevator door, just about where she had placed the other device on the opposite side. Activating the device, Bernadette landed in front of the elevator as she turned towards the airlock door her pulse quickening as she began to walk forward.

There was a loud clang of metal on metal as Bernadette ripped the second door of the airlock entrance to the underground bunker off its hinges and tossed it to the side. Returning her density back closer to normal, she lifted her P90 up once more as she stepped into the hallway beyond. It was a narrow hallway that went to the right and the left. Scanning both directions quickly, Bernadette took reached her left hand into a vest pouch on the left side of her vest, pulling out a device similar to the ones she had been placing on the way in. Putting the device beside the now open doorway, she activated it as the sound of booted feet could be heard making their way down the hallway to the right.

Frowning slightly, Bernadette flew off down the hallway to the left, trying to stay ahead of any responding soldiers so she could more easily focus on her mission. If the intelligence reports were correct, somewhere in this bunker complex were stockpiles of chemical weapons that the Iraqi’s had been hiding from the UN weapon inspectors for years. There was a great deal of concern among the top leadership planning this war that they could potential could come into use if the US and British forces threatened Baghdad. Bernadette had been sent in to document their existence, and then remove them as a possible threat.

Chemicals weapons frightened Bernadette, much like they did many other soldiers in both the US and British forces. While she could reduce her density to the point where no conventional military weapon could effect her, even she had to breath, thereby giving chemical weapons a means of effecting her as well. But still she had a job to do, so that the main combat forces seeking to remove Saddam Hussein’s government wouldn’t have to face them.

As she rounded the corner of the hallway, Bernadette slammed into an Iraqi soldier who was rushing towards the entrance to the bunker complex. The impact knocked the soldier to the ground, causing the one following right behind him to come to a sudden halt as he looked with shock at the flying Irish teen. Bernadette herself was unhurt by running into the soldier, bringing herself to a halt as she reached out and pulled the still standing soldier’s assault rifle from his grasp.

As she pulled his weapon away, her right foot kicked out, catching the man in the midsection, causing him to double over in pain. With a quick motion, she struck out with the butt of the AK-47 she had taken from the soldier, catching him on the side of the head. There was the faint sounds of bones breaking could be heard as the blow knocked him into the wall before he fell to the ground unconscious. Immediately after that, Bernadette turned off her mutant power of flight as she increased her density two about three times her normal weight as she dropped down on the stomach of the soldier she had knocked over.

The soldier cried out as she landed on his stomach and immediately followed up with a butt stroke from the AK-47 to the side of his head, putting the man down. Tossing the AK-47 to the side, Bernadette started running down the hallway away from entrance as she lifted her P90 back up to aim ahead of her. There were several metal doors built into the walls that she was passing, but these were likely to close to the entrance to be the storerooms she was looking for. Halting in the middle of the hallway, Bernadette flew up to place another device near on the roof near one of the few lights that provided the illumination for the area.

As she was coming back down there was the echo of gunfire from back down the direction she had just come from. Sparks flashed around her as AK rounds hit the concrete walls of the bunker. Spinning towards the corner of the hallway where the fire was coming from, Bernadette leveled her P90 and fired off two quick bursts towards the soldiers that were at the corner. Her quick return fire caught one of the guards, his body being slammed back against the wall before he fell to the ground, the others managed to duck back around the corner.

Bernadette frowned as she started to fly backward, firing another burst back down the hallway to keep the soldiers back around the corner. All of this was delaying her mission, and she was fast running out of time. She needed to find a way to lose the pursuit for the moment to give her some room to breathe. Spinning back around as she neared the end of this hallway, Bernadette flew around the corner as she swept to her right with her P90 at the ready. More gunfire rang around her as the soldiers at the far end of the hallway fired from around the corner.

The hallway ahead of her was clear as Bernadette ran just around the corner, placing another small device along the wall where it would not be easily noticed. The hallway ahead of her widened some, the stark concrete walls covered with pipes and electrical cables as a large passageway opened to the left and some stairs were visible to the right before the passage way continued onward to another corner. Rushing down the hallway, Bernadette aimed her P90 ahead of her, as a pair of Iraqi soldiers appeared around the corner at the far end of the hallway. Firing off a quick burst from her sub-machinegun, Bernadette had the two soldiers ducking back around the corner as she came to a quick halt, her back going up against the wall as she aimed to her left towards the large passageway that branched off from the hallway she was in.

The wide hallway went back into a two story open area, several metal doors visible along both levels, with narrow balconies going along the sides of the upper level. Currently Bernadette could not see any soldiers in the large passageway as AK rounds impacted around her from the far end of the hallway. Moving quickly over to her right and the top of the stairs, Bernadette fired another burst down the hallway to discourage the soldiers from moving forward as she started down the stairs. Stopping just a few steps down, Bernadette fixed another small device just under one of the rails on the stairwell before continuing on downward deeper into the bunker.

Moving quickly down the metal stairs, her booted feet making a distinct sound as she made her way down, scanning around the corners as she reached landings and moved to the next flight of stairs down. After descending about three stories, Bernadette came down a final flight of stairs that opened into a hallway. As soon as she reached to bottom of the stairs, AK round began to spark around her as Bernadette instantly lowered her density, taking on her ghostlike form as rounds passed through her. Flying forward some, she spotted two soldiers down the hallway in front of a large metal doorway, using steel beams that lined the hallway as cover as they fired at her.

Ducking behind a nearby steel beam, Bernadette returned to her normal density as she placed another of her small devices up against the beam, activating it before she quickly fired a burst from her P90 down the hallway towards the Iraqis. Ducking back out of sight as gunfire sparked off the beam she was behind, Bernadette dropped the magazine from the P90, pulling out another of the clear plastic magazines from her vest. Loading it into place, she lowered her density once more, slipping into the walls, as she wondered how thick the concrete walls in the bunker were.

The walls proved to be about half a meter thick as Bernadette passed into Large open room, metal grating running beneath her feet as she ducked down on what seemed to be a balcony looking over a large room. The balcony she was on was dimly lit, which suited Bernadette just fine as she looked down over the side at the room below her. Filling the room below were rows upon rows of metal containers about two feet tall and cylinder in shape. Stacked upon each other on palates, some four high for each stack, the containers had the international symbol for hazardous chemicals within. The red triangle was all Bernadette needed to see to know that she didn’t want to fire any rounds in this room.

Letting her P90 hand from its sling, she scanned the room for a bit, listening as she could hear footsteps echoing faintly within the room. Taking a deep breath, Bernadette lowered her density once more, flying out over the rows of stacked chemical weapon containers. As she passed over the containers, she spotted a soldier walking down among the rows, his AK-47 at the ready as he seemed nervous as he searched the room. Coming to a halt just above him, Bernadette returned to her normal density as she dropped down behind him, her right hand reaching around to grab under his chin as her left hand grabbed the back of his helmet. With a quick motion, she pulled each hand out to the side, twisting the man’s neck and breaking it in a smooth motion.

The soldier’s body dropped to the floor, his AK-47 clanging loudly on the metal grating as it fell. A slight feeling of panic coming over her, Bernadette pulled her P90 up as she moved back up next to one of the stacks of containers, listening for any other possible soldiers in the room. Her breathing was rapid now as she waited a few moments before lowering her weapon again and kneeling down beside the stack of containers. Reaching into a bag that was slung over her shoulders and at her side, Bernadette pulled out a larger device similar to the ones she had been placing along the path to the chemical weapons storage area. Placing it between two of the cylinder containers, Bernadette activated the device as she glanced at her watch once more, trying to determine how much time she had left.

While Bernadette was busy setting the device, a Iraqi soldier crept slowly around from another stack of containers, his AK-47 held at the ready, a bayonet fixed at the front of weapon. As he spotted the young woman doing something with the containers, the soldier rushed forward, stabbing ahead of him with his bayonet. Bernadette heard the man as he rushed forward, spinning around on her toes as she increased her density and lifted up her arms in front of her. The bayonet hit her left forearm, cutting through her desert camies, but sliding off her forearm as it cut the upper part of the sleeve before sliding past her to his one of the metal canisters.

The soldier’s eyes went wide as his weapon hit one of the cylinders, thankfully not piercing it. Bernadette stood up, her right hand shooting forward to hit the soldier underneath the jaw, the sound of breaking bones could be heard from the impact as the soldier was knocked backward and into another stack of cylinders before falling to the ground unmoving. She had just one last task to quickly perform in the storeroom before she made her way out. Taking out a small digital camera, she quickly took a few pictures of some of the stacks of weapons, putting the camera away in a vest pouch once more.

With her task done here, Bernadette started towards the door to the room as she glanced over at the cuts in her sleeve, the pale flesh below unmarred by the attack. She hadn’t made it very far when the door to the room opened, the sounds of several booted feet could be heard entering the room.

Ducking down behind one of the stacks of chemical weapon canisters, Bernadette lifted up her P90 as she listened to see what the soldiers entering the room would do, glancing at her watch once more. She was down to only a few minutes to meet the mission’s window, when she heard a voice call out from the direction of the doorway, speaking in heavily accented English. “You have done very well to get in this deep woman. But now it is time for you to realize that you have no escape. Surrender yourself and you will live, otherwise you will die in this chamber.”

Hidden behind a stack chemical weapon containers, Bernadette smirked slightly at the man’s threat. It would be so easy for her to leave here, but she needed to get to the doorway to complete the link to the surface. That meant that she had to deal with whomever was now at the entrance to the storeroom. Glancing back down at her watch, Bernadette saw the last few minutes ticking away as she sighed and readied her P90 as she slowly stood up, her back still against the containers. “’ow about we make a deal?” She called out towards where the voice had come from. “Ye let me walk out o’ ‘ere, an I leave you an’ yer men alive.”

While she waited for a reply, Bernadette edged towards the corner of the stack of containers to her left. It was only a few moments before the voice replied, obviously amused at her arrogance. “Very kind of you, but I think you will find that you are in a much more difficult situation than you think. What you did to the tank outside the ministry was impressive, but still will not keep us from doing our duty.”

About what I expected, but worth a shot. Bernadette thought as she took a quick breath as she turned around the corner of the stack of containers, her P90 aiming ahead of her as she put her sights on an Iraqi soldier who was moving forward. Firing a single shot, Bernadette put the round into his head, blood filling the air as he fell backward and Bernadette ducked back behind the stack of containers. As she did, there was some AK-47 fire that came her way, rounds ricocheting on the metal grating near her. As quickly as the return fire started, the officer who had been speaking to her yelled out in Arabic. ~“Hold your fire you idiots! She is down among tons of chemical weapons, you puncture any of those canisters, and you will kill us all! Go in there and get her.”~

Bernadette grinned slightly, though she could only make out a bit of what the officer had said, enough to know that they would be coming after her now. Moving back to her left, Bernadette increased her density slightly, increasing her already superhuman strength. Slinging her P90 onto her back, Bernadette listened as she could hear booted feet running across the steel gratings into the maze of stacked canisters. One of the soldiers was heading towards her as Bernadette edged near the corner of the stack of canisters, waiting for him to turn the corner.

The soldier swung his AK-47 around the side, stabbing with the bayonet that was fixed on the front of the weapon. Bernadette pushed up against the stack of containers, the bayonet passing to her left as her right hand shot forward, her wrist tilted up to strike with her palm. The open palm strike hit the Iraqi soldier on the left side of his jaw, twisting his head to the right as Bernadette heard his jaw break. The soldier was staggering to his right as Bernadette immediately followed up her attack, stepping forward with her right leg as she pulled her right arm back slightly. It was only for a brief moment before she swung her right elbow forward, striking the soldier in the throat and knocking him off his feet to land on the hard steel grating a few feet away. His AK-47 nosily clattered as it skid away from him as he tried to reach up to try and do something to clear his now collapsed airway.

Spinning away from the dying soldier, Bernadette’s right hand swept to her side, knocking aside the bayonet attack of another soldier who had rushed forward. Bernadette’s left hand struck this time, knocking the soldier’s head back as Bernadette’s left leg stepped across her body and she began to spin to the right. As she turned, Bernadette brought her right leg up to hit the Iraqi in the side of the head with her right foot, the force of the blow sending him back into a stack of containers about ten feet away. Slamming into the stack hard, the man fell to the ground, unconscious and likely seriously injured as some of the containers on the top row of the stack near the edges fell over the side. The metal cylinders clanged loudly as they hit the floor, causing Bernadette to tense up as she prepared herself to reach for the gas mask that was at her side.

The three cylinders that had fallen rolled along the ground, but didn’t break, their deadly contents still sealed with in. Bernadette breathed a sigh of relief when she felt a sudden impact to the back of her head. The buttstroke from the AK-47 would likely have seriously injured if not killed a normal person, Bernadette only staggered forward from the impact, pain shooting through her, but not anything she couldn’t handle. The soldier, who seemed surprised that his first attack hadn’t knocked her out or at least off her feet, hesitated and didn’t use his advantage as Bernadette turned her head slightly, her eyes narrowing on the man as her right leg kicked backward.

Her kick hit the man in the stomach, doubling him over as he was knocked backward to land fifteen feet away between two stacks of chemical weapon containers. With the opening that she now had, Bernadette started towards the raised area near the door to the storeroom, realizing that this was wasting her time. As she rounded a corner, she came face to face with an Iraqi soldier who’s eyes widened in surprise as he started to lift his AK-47 in front of him. Not slowing down, Bernadette turned slightly, slamming her shoulder into the man’s chest, knocking him to the ground as she dropped down, driving her right knee into his chest, the sound of ribs breaking audible as the man yelled out in pain.

Immediately standing back up as the soldier grasped at his chest in pain, Bernadette sprinted forward again. Another soldier rushed at her with his bayonet aimed at her heart from another isle between the stack of containers, yelling out as he rushed forward. Bernadette stepped to her right as the soldier rushed forward, turning left as her right hand grabbed his left sleeve, pulling him forward as her right leg extended in front of him. Caught completely off balance, the soldier tripped over Bernadette’s leg and fell flat onto his face as he hit the steel grating.

Bernadette turned back towards the exit, continuing on without bothering to see if the soldier would get back up or not. Sprinting between the stacks of chemical weapons, Bernadette could hear other soldiers coming from the sides as she came to a halt within sight of the Iraqi officer. The man seemed to be in his later twenties, early thirties, dressed in the distinct dark green uniform of the Republican Guard, with markings indicating he was a member of the Special Republican Guard. He seemed rather fit, with rugged features and a clean shaven face. His dark eyes fixed on hers as he smiled slightly as he regarded her and a very large soldier standing just behind him moved forward towards the stairs down from the raised area.

“How very nice to see you finally, such a lovely young woman to be doing such dangerous work. A pity your government saw fit to place you in this dangerous situation.” The officer said as Bernadette reached behind her for her P90. Just as she was pulling the sub-machinegun around in front of her, she felt a stabbing pain in her head, causing her to cry out in pain as her left hand reached up towards her head. Focusing past the pain, Bernadette lifted her P90 with her right arm to take aim at the officer when she caught a flash of movement from her right.

As soon as she saw the movement beside her, Bernadette felt an arm hit her across her neck as someone moved by her at high speed. Taken off guard by the account, Bernadette was knocked down onto the hard metal floor, losing her grip on the P90, the sling keeping the weapon beside her as she hit the ground, coughing as she tried to catch her breath once more. As her vision cleared, the form of the large Iraqi soldier loomed over her, his left foot coming down at her as she lay at his feet.

With a rush of adrenaline flowing through her, Bernadette lowered her density as the large soldier’s booted foot passed through her ghost like form, smashing a large hole in the metal grating beneath her. Bloody wonderful, superpowered agents, just what I bloody need. Bernadette thought as she drifted back up from the ground smiling slightly at the large soldier who looked at her with surprise on his face. “Very interesting powers, but I doubt they will protect you from me.” Called out the officer before he yelled out in Arabic. ~“Marduk Get ready to grab her!”~

Pain shot through Bernadette’s head once more as start flashed in front of her eyes and she dropped back down to the ground, returning to normal density as she did so. As she solidified, the large man, Marduk, grabbed her in a bear hug, squeezing his massive arms around her as Bernadette screamed out in pain from the crushing pressure around her upper body. A normal person would likely have several broken bones right now, but for Bernadette, all there was right now was intense pain, but that could change if she didn’t get free quickly.

Gritting her teeth, she looked down at the large man as he looked up at her with an evil grin on his face as he continued to squeeze. With effort, Bernadette managed to increase her density once more, the man’s grin fading to a look of shock as the just over one hundred and ten pound girl he was crushing suddenly weighed just over twenty tons. He was still holding her up, but was obviously exerting more effort to do so and the pain from his crushing grip was now just slight discomfort. With a grin of her own, Bernadette slammed her head down into the man’s face, the blow loosening his grip around her.

As his grip loosened, Bernadette pushed outward with her arms, breaking his grip completely as she dropped down to the floor, the metal bending under her weight, but thankfully holding. As she landed, Bernadette slammed her right hand into the large Iraqi’s stomach, causing him to bend forward slightly. For most, her first attack would have shattered their skull, the second hit would have crushed most of their internal organs and possibly even broken their spin, but this Iraqi seemed built to take it, which told Bernadette that she couldn’t pull any punches with him.

With the large Iraqi still dazed by her headbutt, Bernadette grabbed him with both arms as she shifted her weight, throwing him to the side and into one of the stacks of containers. The impact completely knocked over the stack, sending metal cylinders flying in all directions as the clanged loudly on the metal floor. Several Iraqi soldiers that had been moving over towards her were hit by the cylinders, knocked to the ground as the heavy metal containers landed on them.

As the metal cylinders clanged noisily across the metal floor, the Special Republican Guard officer who had been attacking Bernadette with his mental assaults moved back towards the exit from the room on the raised area. His gaze was fixed on the containers, looking for any sign of the seals breaking on them as he backed up to the metal door. “Are you insane? You will kill us all!” He called out to Bernadette, who was backing off from the knocked over stack of canisters as well, watching them intently as the larger Iraqi soldier recovered and began to stand back up.

There was a flash of movement that Bernadette caught out of the corner of her eye, keeping her density increased to maximum as she waited for an attack from the speedster who had clotheslined her earlier. It was only a split second later that she felt the impact from his passing attack, though the impact felt only like a faint slap as the sound of breaking bones could be heard as the speedster yelled in pain as his arm broke from the impact. Bernadette turned, hoping he might slow from the pain so she could put him down, but he continued on, slowing a little, but still far faster than her as he ducked behind another stack of chemical weapon canisters.

The sound of booted feet behind her had Bernadette spin back around, her right arm coming up to block a right hook from the large Iraqi solider, her forearm stinging slightly as she blocked his powerful swing. Pushing his arm to the side and making the large Iraqi’s upper body twist to his left. Turning slightly, Bernadette brought her left hand into the side of the large Iraqi, causing him to grunt from the hard impact. With a sudden movement his right elbow swung back, hitting Bernadette in the face and causing her to stagger backward.

Stepping forward as he twisted back towards her, the large Iraqi, Marduk swung his left hand at Bernadette’s head in a wide hook. Recovering quickly from the elbow, Bernadette ducked under his left hook, stepping forward as she drove her left hand into his stomach once more. The blow doubled Marduk over slightly as most of the air was forced out of him. Bernadette’s left hand grabbed the front of Marduk’s uniform as her right reached down and hooked under his left leg and the immediately twisted to her left as she lifted up her right arm and over.

Marduk was just recovering from her hit when he was lifted up into the air in a throw, his back hitting the metal floor, breaking through the grating from the force of the impact as he disappeared into the space below. As the large Iraqi smashed through the metal grating on the floor, Bernadette lowered her density back to normal, her breathing starting to get heavy from the exertion of her powers. She then flew backward, towards the doorway out of the room, twisting in the air to face the Special Republican Guard officer who was by the door. She was wasting too much time with this fight, she needed to complete the uplink so the rest of the mission could be carried out.

The officer’s gaze locked on her as she flew towards the door, his eyes narrowing as Bernadette felt the biting pain in her mind once more. Gritting her teeth, she tried to ignore the sharp pain as she twisted in the air, increasing her density once more as her momentum carried her into the metal door. Bernadette hit the door hard, her increased weight and velocity ripping the metal door from its hinges to fall to the ground a few feet on the other side with her on top of it. The biting pain subsided in her mind as she left the officer’s line of sight, Bernadette rolling over quickly to face the doorway as her left hand removed another small device from her vest.

Pushing herself up, Bernadette quickly crawled over to the doorway, placing the device just outside the door as she activated it. Standing back up, the Iraqi officer appeared at the doorway, his gaze falling on her once more. Pain again shot through her mind as Bernadette swung her right hand out in a backhanded strike, catching the officer across the face and knocking him to the side and onto the smashed metal door. The pain subsided once more as Bernadette staggered backward, her head spinning slightly as she reached up and pressed one of two of the buttons on her Omega wrist watch.

The trigger inside her watch complete the link up between all the devices she had planted within the Iraqi chemical weapons facility, the device on the main floor of the Ministry building relaying the information up into the sky where it was received by a Royal British Airforce Sentry AEW-1 that was flying high above Iraq, well ahead of the storm that had been developing in the Western part of the country. Inside the reconnaissance aircraft, the system operator that had been monitoring the airwaves in Iraq for this particular signal quickly nodded to the officer overseeing the ten operators working in the back of the aircraft before relaying the telemetry being transmitted to the appropriate Coalition aircraft and naval vessels.

Thirty thousand feet above Baghdad, a Northrop Grumman B-2 Stealth Bomber finished its third loop over the Iraqi capital, the pilot, Captain Nathan Dillon, getting regular reports from his navigator about the fast approaching sand storm that was blowing in from the West. “Where’s that storm at now Don?” Captain Dillon asked as he looked back over his shoulder at his navigator who was sitting behind him to one side. The navigator looked back at his superior as he replied. “It should be hitting Baghdad in a few minutes.” Captain Dillon looked back out the front of his aircraft at the dark sky as he tried to stay steady in the already heavy winds. “D*mn it, whomever the brass has on the ground had better get moving or we will have to abort.”

Suddenly the copilot grabbed Nathan’s arm as he pointed towards the instruments in front of them. “Nat, we are receiving a relay from a RAF Sentry in the area, looks like we have our target.” Captain Dillon looked at the information that was feeding into their weapons guidance computers, providing targeting information in downtown Baghdad. “About d*mn time! Walt, prep our payload, we deploy in one minute.” The weapon’s officer for the aircraft nodded as he opened the outer doors in the two bomb bays for the B-2 bomber, feeding the information begin relayed by the Sentry into the guidance chips of the two 2,000 pound bunker buster GPS guided bombs that the bomber was carrying. Of to the left of Captain Dillon’s bomber, another B-2 was doing the same thing as both bombers prepared to deliver their powerful munitions.

Out in the Persian Gulf, the USS Shiloh, a Ticonderoga Class Guided Missile Cruiser that was part of the USS Abraham Lincon’s Strike Group was making its way through the dark waters of the Gulf. Inside the weapons room for the cruiser, the only light a red tactical light that cast much of the room into shadows, Petty Officer First Class Kyle Stewart had been wondering what was going on when the Shiloh had launched six Tomahawk Cruise Missiles about an hour ago, with no defined target. He figured something had to be up, as he doubted that the Navy would be wasting six million dollars worth of their most advanced cruise missiles so early in this conflict. Suddenly the screen in front of him lit up as targeting information from a RAF Sentry began to be received.

Turning back towards the officer in charge at the moment, Petty Officer Stewart called out. “Sir, I am receiving targeting information from a Sentry over Iraq.” Lieutenant Junior Grade Paul Vincent quickly made his way over to Stewart’s station, looking at the information that was feeding onto the Petty Officer’s screen. Lieutenant Vincent had been given a bit more detailed briefing on the operations for this evening, and was not to surprised by what he saw. “Relay that over to Miller so he can program the Tomahawk’s guidance, we have our target.” Lieutenant Vincent ordered as he made his way over towards the phone that would connect him to the bridge and the Shiloh’s Captain.

Petty Officer Stewart nodded as he relayed the targeting telemetry over to Seaman First Class Miller’s consul as Miller began programming the six Tomahawks with the target information. Given the position of the Tomahawks, they would be striking the target within the next few minutes. Petty Officer Stewart was a bit amazed at the precision that had gone into coordinating this strike. Someone on the ground must have just set up a targeting system to provide accurate coordinates for the attack, if they had been much later, the Tomahawks could have run out of fuel, which would have been a major waste.

Down inside the chemical weapons storage facility below the Ministry of Agriculture, AK rounds began to ricochet around Bernadette began to stagger away from the entrance to the storeroom she had just exited. Several Iraqi soldiers were up on the upper level in large hallway that led back towards the entrance into the facility. Increasing her density slightly, Bernadette lifted up her P90 and fired several quick bursts up at the soldiers, hitting one and causing the others to duck back down below the railing for a moment.

Spinning back towards where the smashed door to the storage room was lying, Bernadette fired another quick burst, sending the Special Republican Guard officer rolling for cover behind a column as the rounds impacted around him. Her vision was slightly blurry, the mental attacks and physical exertion taking its toll. Fire starting from above once more as she put her back to one of the columns holding up the balcony above her, Bernadette kept her P90 aimed at the column the officer had ducked behind, taking a quick glance at her wrist watch and the new countdown that had begun until the weapons would strike this target.

The wall near her suddenly exploded outward as the large Iraqi, Marduk, smashed his way through, the air filling with flying debris and dust. Almost reflexively, Bernadette lifted up her P90, firing a long burst into the large man’s chest, the rounds all impacting harmlessly on his thick skin. Marduk rushed towards her, his right hand swinging towards her as Bernadette ducked down under the punch, rolling away from the large man. Marduk’s large fist hit the column Bernadette had been using as cover from the soldiers up on the balcony on the opposite side of the room, smashing the column in half with easy, sending chunks of concrete flying across the room.

Marduk spun back to face her as Bernadette came back up to her feet from her roll, increasing her density once more as she back up near another column, AK rounds hitting the wall near her as she went. Letting her P90 drop down to her side as she faced off with the large Iraqi soldier. The Special Republican Guard officer emerged from behind his column, Marduk between her and him as he called out. “You have performed admirably young woman, but I think it is time that you realize that there is no escape for you and surrender.”

Bernadette took a deep breath, the exertion of the fight and using her powers starting to take its toll on her more. Quickly glancing back down at her watch, she noted the new countdown that had begun, she only had to keep herself alive for a few more minutes. Looking back up at the large Iraqi in front of her, Bernadette grinned as she replied for the benefit of the Special Republican Guard officer. “Surrender? I think I’m the one who is doin’ well ‘ere, perhaps ye lot should surrender?”

The officer regarded her coldly as her replied. “British arrogance.” He then shouted in Arabic, his words simple enough that Bernadette understood the basic meaning. ~“Marduk, kill her!”~ The hulking Iraqi wasted no time in rushing forward, his massive hands reaching out for Bernadette as he yelled out. Bernadette tensed slightly as she increased her density to near maximum, cracks forming in the cement under her feet as she prepared for Marduk’s charge.

Stepping slightly to the right, Bernadette avoided Marduk’s grab as her left hand swung to her side, hitting the large Iraqi in the back of the head, adding more momentum to his headlong impact into another of column. The massive man easily smashed through the column, concrete and dust filling the air as he landed on the other side, slightly dazed from the impact. Bernadette heard the sound of AK-47s firing at her, round landing all around her, some glancing off her harmlessly as another sound drowned out the AK fire.

The balcony above Bernadette and Marduk groaned as the supports holding it up began to snap since two of column’s supporting the balcony were gone. With loud cracking as the cement broke a large section of the balcony fell down onto Bernadette and Marduk, breaking into pieces as it did so. Bernadette lifted her arms up above her head as the large chunks of concrete fell, knocking her to the ground as the air was filled with a massive cloud of concrete dust.

Up above Baghdad, the weapons officer on Captain Dillon’s B-2 Stealth Bomber finished programming the smart bombs that the bomber was carrying. Looking back forward towards Captain Dillon, he nodded that he was ready as he held his hand ready to launch the weapons. Captain Dillon checked their altitude and heading before he turned back to his weapons officer. “Authorized for release. Walt, send them down to pay a visit to our Iraqi friends.”

The weapons officer flicked the switch for weapons release, the two smart bombs dropping from the bomb bays, their rockets activating as they cleared the aircraft and began their decent towards the lights of the city below. “Weapons away.” First Lieutenant Walter Green stated as he watched their progress on the screen in front of him. “Alright Walt, we are heading home. Want to get out of the path of that sandstorm that is heading this way.” Captain Dillon replied as he banked the aircraft, turning them back towards the East and towards Diego Garcia. The second B-2 that was nearby was also turning back, their weapons released as well.

The four smart bombs that the bombers had deployed streaked down towards the city below, the advanced guiding systems within the munitions locking onto the signals they were receiving from the target below. At the same time the six Tomahawk missiles that the USS Shiloh had launched were also altering their course, zeroing in on the same target, but would arrive a few seconds behind the bombs dropped by the bombers.

Down in the underground bunker below the Agricultural Ministry, Anu, the Special Republican Guard officer that had lead the other two superpowered Guard members down to deal with the British operative made his way through the dust filled room, coughing as he went. A gash bleed on his forehead here he had been hit by debris after managing to dodge being crushed by the collapsed part of the balcony. He could barely see more than five feet as he moved over towards where he believed the pile of rubble caused by the collapse to be. Several of the Iraqi soldiers that had been up on the opposite side of the balcony were on their way down to the lower level to try and help search the dust cloud and rubble.

Ahead of him, Anu could hear the sound of concrete shifting as someone pushed their way out of the collapsed rubble. Unable to see who it might be, he called out in Arabic. “Marduk, is that you?” Moving towards the sound as he prepared his mental powers incase it was the British operative. The reply that came back answered his question as he heard the Irish accent reply. “Guess again boyo.” Anu didn’t have a chance to try and target her, something that was made much more difficult by the low visibility when he saw her dark shape streak towards him from the dust cloud, slamming into him almost as soon as he spotted her.

Anu was knocked backward, landing on his back, the girl landing on top of him as he looked up at her. Her face was a mask of anger, blood visible in the corner of her mouth and her lovely face covered with dirt and dust as she quickly hit him, snapping his head to the side as his vision filled with stars from the hard impact. Trying to push her off him, Anu struggled as more impacts to his head soon rendered him unconscious.

When the officer underneath her went limp, Bernadette stopped hitting him. She was only at her normal density, her body aching with exhaustion and pain from having several tons of concrete fall on top of her. Her left shoulder hurt like hell and she could tell her right ankle was severely sprained. She could hear soldiers moving further out in the dust cloud, some calling out for the officer as they moved forward. Looking down at the man’s unconscious form, Bernadette knew he was too dangerous to her to let him regain consciousness. Reaching to her belt, she drew her Fairbain combat dirk, the seven-inch long double edged blade ending in a sharp point.

Lifting the blade up as she reversed her grip with the point aimed down at the officer’s throat, Bernadette hesitated a moment before she began to stab downward. There was a sudden rush of wind beside her as Bernadette felt something hit the side of her head, knocking her off the officer as she rolled a few feet away from him, her vision blurring slightly as she shook her head to try and focus again. Pain shoot through her body from her injured shoulder and ankle. Looking over towards where the officer lay unconscious still, she saw a blurring figure in the dust cloud, the speedster had decided to get back into the fight.

Spitting out blood, Bernadette pushed herself back up to her knees, her head spinning slightly as she did so. Switching the grip on her dirk once more, she waited for the speedster’s next move, sliding herself a bit further from the unconscious officer. Girru halted briefly next the unconscious form of Anu, noting that he was still breathing. Focusing back on the teenage girl ahead of him, he was amazed at the damage she had been able inflict upon them alone. Girru’s right arm hung in a makeshift sling, the pain from the broken bones still slowing him down some.

With a sudden movement, Girru started towards the girl as she got back up to her knees, his left hand pulling out a combat knife from his belt as he moved towards her. Bernadette was moving as soon as she saw the speedster start to move. Pushing herself backward, she rose to her feet, stepping to her left as she moved to his weak side as his speed up beside her. The blade of his knife passed in front of her face as the speedster slashed across his body at her. Bernadette’s right hand stabbed forward as she had moved, her Fairbain burying itself into the upper part of Girru’s thigh.

Crying out in pain as the seven inch blade sunk into his leg, Girru felt his leg colapse underneath him, sending him falling forward to the ground. Managing to twist as he fell to land on his left shoulder, the jarring impact still sent waves of pain through his broken arm as Girru slid a good fifteen feet across the ground before coming to a halt. Lying still for a moment, Girru managed to roll over to his back, pain shooting through his body as his left hand reached across to try and grasp the hit of the dirk buried in his leg.

Smiling grimly as speedster fell to the ground and skid a ways before coming to a halt, Bernadette started towards the downed Iraqi, limping slightly due to her injured ankle. She had only gone a few feet when there was a loud crashing as debris from the collapsed balcony was pushed aside and Marduk yelled out in anger as he freed himself. Bloody ‘ell, don’ they ever stay down? Bernadette thought as she turned to face the large Iraqi through the thinning dust cloud. The large man was covered in grey concrete dust and blood, his angry gaze focused on the slim red headed teen as he began to rush forward once more.

Bloody never learns. Bernadette thought as she glanced down at her watch again to see the countdown that had started begin to reach its end. Looking back up at the charging Marduk, a smile came to Bernadette’s face as she began to trigger her density control powers once more, shifting to her desolid form as she said. “Well, it’s been fun, but time fer me ta be goin’.” Marduk skid to a halt as his massive right fist passed harmlessly through Bernadette’s now ghost like body and she began to lift up into the air towards the ceiling.

Glancing down below her, Bernadette noticed the Special Republican Guard officer had climbed back to his feet, his gaze fixed on her as he called out. “You are not going anywhere you Irish b*tich!” Bernadette could feel him reaching out towards her mind, fear starting to grip her when there was a faint rumbling sound before the ceiling above exploded.

The four bunker buster smart bombs deployed by the B-2 bombers had struck the target area, crashing through the outer part of the ministry building before hitting the reinforced foundation that covered the underground bunker. The shaped charges of the warheads were driven deep into the foundation by the velocity of the impact, the charges detonating, blasting through the rest of the foundation to release the second charge into the bunker itself.

As the ceiling above her exploded outward and the room filed with explosions and smoke, Bernadette began to accelerate towards the surface as the first two of the Tomahawk cruise missiles reached the ministry building. The two standard warheads on the missiles blasted away a portion of the outer walls of the building, opening it up for the four missiles that followed. Those four, just moments behind, passing through the new openings to follow the path of the four bunker busters into the depths of the bunker. Hitting the entry points the bunker busters had created, the Tomahawk’s warheads detonated, a special payload of napalm flooding into the underground bunker, turning it into a blazing inferno designed to burn away any chemical or biological agents within.

Flames and smoke exploded around Bernadette as she flew up towards the surface, passing through the ruined foundation of the ministry building, coughing as she went from the massive amounts of smoke that was billowing up into the air. Unable to see anything within the cloud of smoke, Bernadette flew to the side once she had judged that she had gone high enough into the air, eventually passing through an outer wall of the ruined ministry building and into the debris strewn street. Shifting back to her normal density as she felt to the ground, coughing up blood as she tried to get fresh air into her lungs, Bernadette rolled over onto her back as she looked up to the smoke filled sky.

Bernadette lay there for what seemed an eternity, thick black smoke billowing up above her till the sound of sirens pulled her back to her surroundings. Rolling over on one side, Bernadette felt the pain in her left shoulder and right ankle as she pushed her self back up to her feet. A few people were starting to make their way into the streets, looking to see what had happened, and it sounded like emergency response vehicles were on their way towards the scene.

Limping away from the middle of the street, Bernadette made her way back into a nearby alleyway, leaning up against the wall as she entered the shadows, feeling as if she was about to collapse. Sliding down the wall, she peered out into the street as she watched emergency vehicles starting to arrive at the now blazing inferno that had been the Ministry of Agriculture. As she watched, Bernadette carefully removed her right boot, wincing as pain shot through her ankle. Once her boot was removed, Bernadette took off her sock and could see that her ankle was already turning black.

Pulling her fist aid kit from her vest, Bernadette took out some athletic tape and began to tightly wrap her ankle, ignoring the pain as she did so. Once she had the ankle bound, providing her with a little more support, Bernadette carefully put her boot back on, the process was slow, and painful, but soon she had it back in place, lacing it back up as best she could. Pushing herself back up to her feet, she still felt some pain when she put weight on her ankle. Looking back out into the street, Bernadette saw several more Iraqis were gathered around the burning building now.

The winds seemed to have picked up, sand blowing past her as Bernadette looked to the West to see a massive wall of sand blowing towards the city, the lights of the city illuminating the sandstorm, making it seem a faintly glowing wall that was drawing ever closer. Oh bloody ‘ell. Bernadette thought as she turned and started down the alleyway away from the ministry building and deeper into the city.

Thirty Four hours later, 40 miles Southwest of Baghdad

Staff Sergeant Mark Lawson was sitting up in the main turret of his M2A2 Bradley fighting vehicle as it raced down the road towards Baghdad. Sergeant Lawson was in the lead element of the Third Squadron Seventh Calvary, the advanced scouts leading the US Armies Third Infantry Division on their drive towards Baghdad. The sandstorm that had blown in a little over a day ago had halted the advance of all the Coalition forces, keeping them halted all the day before, but when the weather had cleared this morning they had started pressing forward once more with an added since of urgency.

Lawson and his crew had been on the road for about three hours now, they were one of the foremost vehicles in the Seventh Calvary, and Lawson was carefully scanning the area ahead for any potential Republican Guard positions. As he focused back ahead of the Bradley, he spotted something several miles up the road. Keying the internal microphone that was attached to his helmet, Staff Sergeant Lawson called down to the two crewmen below. “Weller, there is someone up ahead on the road, slow down a bit, but keep advancing so we can get a better idea what might be up there.” Down inside the Bradley, Private First Class Jack Weller started to slow down their advance as he peered through the small window in front of him as he tried to make out what could be ahead of them.

As the armored vehicle started to slow down slightly, Lawson keyed the internal mic once more. “Jackson, see if you can get a better look at what is up ahead of us.” Behind the Bradley’s 25mm chain gun, Specialist Chris Jackson activated the weapon’s advanced sights. “I’m on it.” Zooming the targeting sight in towards the figure up ahead, a faint smile came to Jackson’s face as he let out a whistle. “Sarg, I don’t think it’s anyone hostile, unless the Iraqis have a lot of gorgeous redheads they have been hiding somewhere.”

Lawson was a bit surprised by his gunner’s reply as he looked through his binoculars once more, able to tell now that it was a person leaning up against a motorcycle, and he thought he could make out long red hair. “Still, keep an eye out, I wouldn’t put anything past these guys.” He ordered as they continued down the road towards the figure.

A few miles ahead, Bernadette was leaning up against the motorcycle she had stolen to get out of the city, the fuel tank having run out a little over an hour ago. Peering down the road, her mirrored sunglasses blocking out the glaring sun, Bernadette could see the US Bradley making its way towards her. Smiling slightly, she just calmly remained where she was, waiting till they were a few hundred yards away when she stuck out her left arm and held up her thumb. She was still in her desert camouflage pants, but had taken off the top, which was lying over the back of the bike with her combat vest, leaving her in just dark brown tank top T-shirt.

The Bradley noisily neared her as Bernadette yelled out. “Top o’ the mornin’ ta ye lads, give a lass a lift back ta the rear?” The Bradley came to a sudden halt, its powerful engine still rumbling as the soldier sitting up in the top of the turret called back. “Identify yourself, and we might be able to help you out.” Bernadette grinned slightly at the cautious nature of the Americans as she replied. “Names Bernadette O’Connell. ‘ave yer lead element call back ta theater command an’ mention that ye ‘ave come across Thevshi an’ they should get ye some orders back right quick.”

The soldier seemed somewhat surprised, but reached down into the vehicle to get the handset for the vehicles radio. Bernadette just sat calmly up against the motorcycle as she waited for the commander of the Bradley to get a response back. She didn’t have long to wait before the vehicle commander called back to her. “Sorry about that Ma’am, but I am sure you can understand that we can’t be too careful. We will get you back to the main body where a helo will pick you up to get you back to Kuwait. Just head around back and we will open the troop compartment, it will be a bit crowded, but..” Bernadette stood up and cut him off as she picked up her vest and camouflage top. “Nah, I think I will just ride up top, not really one ta bounce around inside a tin can.”

Limping away from the motorcycle, Bernadette climbed up onto the Bradley, waiving at the driver as she passed by his position and made her way up onto the top of the turret where she sat down nest to the hatch the Staff Sergeant was in. Looking over at the somewhat stunned Staff Sergeant, Bernadette smiled as she said. “Well, lets get goin’, I ‘ave more than enough o’ this bleedin’ country.” The vehicle commander nodded as he spoke into the microphone on his helmet and the Bradley started forward again, beginning a wide turn to reverse direction and head back towards the main body of the Third Infantry Division.

(Ooc Now is a new story, one using a character I made for a group that only existed on the old roleplaying servers, the Gatekeepers. I borrowed the title of a very old Star Wars novel for this (one written before Empire Strikes Back in fact).)

Splinter in the Mind's Eye

Rain poured down over the Gulf of Mexico, the dark clouds making the stormy night nearly pitch black. Occasional flashes of lighting illuminated the area, revealing the stark structure of an oilrig out among the rough waters. A few lights were visible inside the rig, most of the power being conserved in case the generator went out and they had to run on the batteries. Operations on the rig had come to a halt, the crew safely inside the metal structure, waiting for the storm to pass.

Most of the crew was gathered down in the rig’s cafeteria, several sitting around one of the tables in a corner playing a game of cards, others were sitting at some of the other tables reading. Doctor Peter Atkins was one of the ones seated around the table for the card game with several of the operators of the rig’s drilling equipment. Doctor Atkins was a geologist in the employee of Parcon Corporation and had been spent a good deal of his last seven years with the company out at sea involved in exploratory drilling. In his work, Peter had to make many educated guesses when it came to identifying an area to drill in, right now, he was holding a terrible hand and was sure that if he stayed in this round, he was in trouble.

As it came back around to him, Peter folded his cards and tossed them into the middle of the table. “I’m out.” The dealer grinned as he looked over at the geologist. “Don’t worry Doc, I am sure your luck will turn at some point.” Several of the other players smiled at the jest, the workers on the rig liked having Peter around, for a PhD, he was rather down to Earth and much more approachable than the Parcon Corp executive that was in charge of the rig. Peter just returned the smile as he replied. “Doesn’t mater that much, as long as my luck holds when it comes to starting new drilling.”

Out in the heavy storm clouds hammering rain down on the ocean and rig bellow, a sudden torrent of lightning lanced across the dark sky, the thunder accompanying them roaring above the heavy winds. The lighting continued to play across the dark clouds as a small object broke through the storm, lightning playing across the metal hull of the object. Continuing to drop in altitude, the object streaked over the stormy ocean, heading directly towards the Parcon Corp oilrig, the lightning along the hull dissipating now that it was through the turbulent skies. Just as the oilrig’s crew inside the structure were reacting to the massive thunderclap caused by the massive discharge of lightning, the object slammed into the side of the oilrig, the entire structure shaking from the impact.

Inside the cafeteria, the lights went out as everyone was thrown to the ground, tables tipping over and the chips and cards from the poker game scattering off into the darkness. Emergency lights activated, faintly illuminating the room as men began to push themselves back up to their feet. “What the hell was that?” One of the crewmen asked as he got to his feet, something Peter was just wondering himself as he made his way over towards the phone hanging on the wall near the door to the hallway. Off in another corner, Chris Hanson, the Parcon Corp executive overseeing operations on the rig was getting back up to his feet, a look of fear on his face that was only amplified as the fire alarm sounded.

Picking up the phone, Peter was glad to hear the tone as he dialed the extension for the rig’s monitoring station up in the main tower above. The line was immediately picked up by the crewman on duty at the moment. “Frank, what is going on? Where is the fire?” “I have no idea what happened Doc, but the fire is a level below you, near the North storage tank, better get some guys down there fast to contain it.” A frown forming on his face, Peter quickly replied before hanging up the phone. “We’re on our way.” Turning back to the workers who were now all up and making their way towards the door, Peter quickly yelled out over the loud siren. “We have a fire one level down near the North storage tank, we need to get down there now!”

The men all nodded as they rushed out of the cafeteria after Peter, several stopping at a storage locker in the hallway to grab fire-fighting gear that was stored on various levels of the rig. Peter took a oxygen tank as one of crewmen handed it to him, quickly putting it over his shoulders as he then attached the clear mask over his face, the smell of smoke already strong in the air as they started down the stairs to the next level. Reaching the door at the next level, Peter gently put his hand to the door, checking to see if it was hot. Feeling only cold metal, he nodded to the crewmen following him as he opened the door, smoking billowing into the stairwell as the men started into the hallway.

Heat washed over Peter as he entered the hallway, the North end a blazing inferno as the crewmen broke out a fire-hose, several moving towards the blaze as the water was turned on. Several more men took the second hose, taking it down another hallway to come around towards the fire from a different direction. Peter and several others took fire extinguishers, following after the hoses as they doused the fires, putting out the smaller blazes that remained as the hoses advanced. For what seemed an eternity, they continued forward, finally bringing the fired under control as they reached damaged bulkheads, the metal bent far out of shape. “What the hell could have done this?” One of the crewman asked as they made their way through the damage area of the rig. Peter was looking at the damage, a few ideas as to what could have caused this coming to him.

The heavy winds from outside could be felt from ahead of them as one of the crewmen rounded the corner of a damaged wall, shining his flashlight towards the damage section of the rig, as he came to a sudden halt. “What the f**k?” Peter and the others came over to join the first crewman, turning the corner to look at what had so stunned him. Jammed into the twisted metal of the rig was what appeared to be some sort of aircraft, but nothing like anything Peter had ever seen before. It looked more like something out of a science fiction movie, though now it appeared severally damage from the impact with the rig.

Shaking his head in amazement, Peter started forward some as several of the crewmembers approached the aircraft as well. “Be careful, it could be extremely hot still.” Peter said as two of the crewmen neared the unusual vehicle. “What is this thing, and who would be crazy enough to fly in a storm like this?” One of the crewmen asked as he leaned near the vehicle, making his way around the side to the left. “I have no idea, never seen anything like this.” Peter replied as he neared the craft, the metal not like anything he had ever seen before.

Suddenly there was a roar to the left, followed by a cry of fright before the crewmember who had been walking that way flew back in the air, landing more than ten feet behind where he had just been. Peter and the other crewmen all turned towards the commotion, flashlights shinning into the dark shadows around the twisted metal bulkheads. Peter felt his blood freeze as he saw the shape revealed by the light, a tall figure that stood like a wolf on its hind legs, its night black skin reflecting the light as red eyes peered forward.

“Holy sh..” One of the crewman managed to get out before the wolfish creature rushed forward, one of its large arms smashing into the man and sending him flying backward to land next to Peter. Another crewmember rushed towards the thing, yelling out as he swung the fireaxe he was carrying. The wolf thing blocked the attack with its left arm, hitting the axe handle and knocking the axe back, causing the man to stumble off balance as it closed with him. Peter watched in horror as its right hand shot out to grab the man by the neck, lifting his feet off the ground before there was a faint cracking sound and he went limp.

Tossing the dead man aside, the wolf thing turned towards the next crewmember as Peter noticed it was wearing some form of clothing and a mask over its wolfish face. “Its got some kind of mask, might need it to breath!” Peter called out as a crewman managed to hit the creature in the back with an axe. The creature roared in pain as it spun, tearing the axe from the man’s grasp as it swung an arm at him. The crewman managed to dodge the attack, tripping over some debris as he tried to back away.

Another crewman rushed forward, wrapping his large arms around the monster. The monster seemed to easily twist free from the large man’s grasp, both its hands reaching forward to grab the sides of his head as the hands began to squeeze, the man crying out in pain as he tried to grab at its wrists to pull its hands from his head. Peter suddenly found himself rushing forward, reaching up to grab the tube that lead up to the mask on the creature’s snout. Pulling as hard as he could, he pulled the mask from the creature, which cried out, it’s grip on the large crewman releasing him as he fell to the ground.

The creature spun toward Peter, its left arm swinging towards him as Peter felt someone hit him from is left side, knocking him over as the creatures hand passed harmlessly over Peter and the crewman who had tackled him. The creature began to grab at its mask, when another crew member came up behind it, hitting it square in the back with an axe. Roaring in pain, the wolf thing stumbled forward as it fell to its knees, its hands trying to get the mask in place before it fell forward to the ground.

Peter had rolled over, moving away from the creature across the ground as he tried to slow his breathing. The creature let out a few strange sounds, almost like gurgling before it went still. The crewman who had knocked him over pushed himself up to his knees as he looked at Peter. “You okay Doc?” Peter nodded quickly as he climbed back up to his feet. “Yeah, I’m fine, thanks Hector.” Looking down at the creature for a moment, his gaze shifted over towards several of the other crewmen who had been attacked by it, most of them moaning in pain as others tried to help them. Some didn’t move at all, lying still with their eyes wide open gazing ahead of them towards whatever might be awaiting them in the next life.

Several more crewman arrived, along with Chris Hanson who looked around at the scene before him, fear and shock apparent on his face. “What the hell is this thing? What happened?” Taking a deep breath, Peter made his way over towards the executive as he replied. “I have no idea what it is, but it sure as hell put up a fight. I suggest we try to get on the phone back to the mainland and let someone know what is going on out here. This is way bigger than us.”

The next morning, the worst of the storm had passed, the sea the deep dark blue that usually followed a heavy storm, rough winds still causing considerable waves as light rain continued to come down on the Parcon Corp oilrig. Peter Atkins was standing out on the outer walkway of one of the towers of the rig with Chris Hanson as they both peered out towards the rain filled sky. Both men were wearing heavy raincoats, as were the other rig workers who were down on the main level. Turning towards Chris, Peter shrugged as he yelled over the high winds. “Maybe they decided the weather is too severe to come out right now and turned back.”

Chris shook his head as he listened to the geologist for the rig and yelled back. “No, from what the execs back in Texas said, there would be someone here today, even if they had to swim out here.” Lifting up a pair of binoculars, the Parcon executive looked back over the horizon, the rain and grey clouds limiting the visibility. Scanning across the open ocean, Chris halted as he said. “Well, looks like their here now.” Lowering his binoculars, the executive pointed off towards the horizon. Peter lifted his binoculars up to see the faint form of a twin rotor military helicopter that was heading straight towards the rig. “Well, lets head over to the pad to greet them.” Chris said as Peter lowered his binoculars, the two turned towards the stairwell down to the main level.

By the time they reached the stairs leading up to the helicopter pad, the Marine Corps CH-46E Sea Knight helicopter was turning into the wind to land. The two men stopped at the top of the stairs, ducking down slightly as the helicopter came down the steady rain blowing wildly around them from the wash of the helicopter’s rotors. Once the helicopter was down, the two stood back up, climbing to the top of the stairs just on the pad as the back ramp of the helicopter came down and a squad of armed Marines came out, moving away from the back of the helicopter as they spread out around the pad.

Peter leaned over too Chris as he spoke somewhat loudly to be heard over the helicopter and the wind. “So what do you know about whoever they sent out here?” The executive shrugged his shoulders as he replied. “Not much, some sort of specialist, a Major Thomas.” Peter frowned slightly, not liking what was going on very much as he stood back up. “Wonder what he is like.”

The Sea Knight pilot shut off the helicopter’s engines, the rotors starting to slow as another figure stepped into view on the ramp, her heels and smooth legs looking very out of place. Dressed in a dark blue US Air Force uniform with a long skirt that went down to her knees, the attractive woman in her late twenties moved down the ramp and over towards the Sergeant leading the Marine squad. The two Parcon Corp representatives looked at each other, both a bit surprised by the appearance of a woman.

Looking over at the two oil company representatives standing near the stairs down from the helicopter pad, Major Whitney Thomas came up alongside Sergeant Brown, the squad leader for the Marines that had been assigned to assist her. The heavy winds whipped her long brown hair around as she spoke. “Sergeant, have a couple of your men unload the equipment and get it inside somewhere, I want to get right to finding out what happened here.” The Sergeant stood at attention and saluted. “Yes ma’am.” Turning back towards some of his men, his manor became much more commanding. “Reynolds, High, get the gear out of the helo and inside somewhere out of the rain.” The two Marines shouldered their M-16s and headed back towards the helicopter as the rotors had almost come to a complete halt. Whitney turned back to face the two oil company representatives, her eyes glancing over the obvious damage to the rig, before she started towards them, Sergeant Brown following just behind her.

As she neared the two men, one of them, one that seemed to Whitney to be some sort of corporate executive, stepped forward. He was wearing a heavy rain coat, but underneath Whitney could see an expensive sweater. His khaki pants and dress shoes also indicated that he wasn’t likely to be putting in any hard work on this rig. “Welcome to Parcon Corporation rig R-71, you must be Major Thomas? I am Chris Hanson, the Vice President in charge of R-71.” He said as he held out his hand to her. Smiling slightly, Whitney shook his hand as she replied. “Nice to meet you Mr. Hanson. Major Whitney Thomas from the Armed Forces Medical Intelligence Center.”

“Medical Intelligence Center? What interest would you have in this?” Asked the man beside him. Glancing over at the other man, Whitney saw he was very different than Mr. Hanson. Dressed in jeans, a plaid cotton shirt under his rain coat and outdoors shoes, he seemed much more a hands-on-type. But Whitney could also see something in his eyes, a perceptive and inquisitive look that lead her to believe there was much more to him than first met the eye. “Major Thomas, may I introduce Doctor Peter Atkins, our resident geologist.”

Doctor Atkins held out his hand, which Whitney took as she replied. “A pleasure Doctor Atkins, and you would be amazed what the AFMIC is interested in.” Turning slightly back towards Sergeant Brown who was standing just behind her stoically, Whitney quickly went on. “This is Sergeant Brown, first squad leader in second platoon Alpha Company.” Sergeant Brown nodded towards the two men as he remained in his place. Turning back towards the two men, Whitney grinned slightly as she went on. “If you don’t mind, I would like to get ourselves indoors, this weather isn’t very conducive to wearing a skirt. Unfortunately I wasn’t given much of a chance to change when I flew down from DC.”

Both men inadvertently looked down at her shapely legs before quickly looking back at her as Mr. Hanson quickly gestured towards the stairs. “Yes of course, terribly sorry, just this way.” Leading the way, the two men lead Whitney and the rest of Sergeant Brown’s squad down to the main level of the rig, the few crew members that were out working on some of the damage caused by the storm and the crash giving the procession interested looks. As they made their way into the rig’s main tower, Hanson glanced back towards Whitney. “I trust you will want to look at the spacecraft, or what ever it is first to start figuring out how to get it off my rig so we can start repair work and get back to normal operations.”

Whitney shook her head slightly as she replied. “Actually, I would like to start by getting a space where I can interview each of the men that were involved in the encounter with the extra-terrestrial individually. I would prefer to hear accounts of what took place before I begin to look at physical evidence and start making my own assumptions.” Mr. Hanson stopped as they walked into the hallway inside the tower, turning to face Whitney. “I though you were here to remove these things so we could get back to drilling?”

Whitney remained perfectly calm as she replied. “No, I am here to investigate what has taken place here and determine if there are any dangers present before I declare the situation under control.” Doctor Atkins came up beside her as he gave her a strange look. “What possible dangers are there? The whatever-it-is is dead.” Whitney turned to look at him as she replied. “I would think you could appreciate that there are many other potential dangers, and I will be doing my best to explore them all.”

Mr. Hanson didn’t seem very please with her answer, but lead her deeper into the rig, Sergeant Brown sending a pair of Marines to keep an eye on the spacecraft and another two to guard the body of the alien. It wasn’t long before Whitney was in the rig’s cafeteria, Sergeant Brown and another Marine in the room with her as she met with each of the rig workers to get their versions of what had taken place the night before. As was to be expected in a case where multiple witnesses observed the same event there were some deviations in the recounting of events, but not so drastically that Whitney felt very concerned. If things seemed way off she had a means of finding out exactly what each man had witnessed, but she didn’t feel the need to violate anyone’s mind to access their visual memory just yet. During the interviews she used her telepathy to just monitor some surface level thoughts, to help her in guiding her questions. From what she had heard, she already had a good idea what she was dealing with, but there were many things that didn’t make sense, those answers could hopefully be answered when she looked at the crashed ship and the alien’s body.

As the last worker left the room, the last direct witness who was not in the rig’s infirmary entered the cafeteria. Whitney had saved Doctor Atkins as the last interviewee because she was guessing he might have one of the more detailed versions of what had taken place and wanted to see if his version of events would allow for the others she had already obtained to more clearly fall in place. Looking up at him with a smile, she gestured towards the seat across the table from her. “Please have a seat Doctor Atkins, I have heard some different versions of what happened last night and was hoping to hear what you saw.”

Doctor Atkins grinned slightly as he stepped up to the chair, turning it around backwards as he sat down and crossed his arms in front of him. “Sure thing Major. Tell me, how did an attractive young woman such as yourself wind up hunting around for green aliens?” Whitney couldn’t help but smile as she replied. “Well, from what I have heard this particular alien doesn’t have green skin. As for how I got into this line of work, I am a medical doctor and have some…skills that are beneficial in these types of investigations. Shall we start to discuss your recollections of what happened last night?”

Doctor Atkins looked at her for a few moments before he responded. “Okay sure. Well, as I am sure you have been told, it started in the middle of the storm while most of us were here…” As Doctor Atkins recounted what he had seen last night, Whitney listened carefully. As she had thought, his scientific training made him a very careful observer, and his version did help to tie all the other versions together. But there was still much that didn’t quite make sense to her.

According to everyone, the alien had attacked first, which puzzled Whitney. There was not chance that they were all recounting a practiced story, for she couldn’t detect any sense of deceit in their surface thoughts. There was fear, anger, hesitation, even some lewd thoughts about her in most of the men’s minds when she interviewed them, but nothing to point towards deceit. No, she knew that there were some serious questions that she would have to find another way to answer. “Well, thank you very much for your cooperation, if you wouldn’t mind, I would like to see the spacecraft now.”

Doctor Atkins lead Whitney and Sergeant Brown out of the cafeteria and towards were the spacecraft had crashed into the oilrig. As they left the cafeteria, Chris Hanson was waiting outside the cafeteria door, quickly following after them and coming up beside Whitney. “Major Thomas, I trust that you have learned all that you need to on this matter? We are very anxious to get to repairing the damage and get operating once more.”

“I am sorry Mr. Hanson, but my interviews have only raised more questions for me. I plan to examine both the spacecraft and the body to see if I can find the answers I need before I declare this matter done. Your crewmembers can begin working on repairing what they can while waiting for this investigation to be wrapped up.” Whitney replied as she followed Peter down the stairs, noting the damage from the fire that had broken out after the spacecraft had smashed into the side of the oilrig.

The Parcon executive didn’t seem very happy with her response as he followed along, the small group soon reaching the two Marines that were standing near the torn walls of the rig. Whitney could feel the wind blowing in from the hole torn in the side of the rig by the spacecraft. Stepping into the open area beyond the two Marines, Whitney stepped carefully over charred debris that littered the floor. She really needed to get out of these heels and the skirt. Looking over towards the center of the rig, she saw the spacecraft smashed between metal bulkheads that were twisted out of shape around it.

Walking closer, Whitney recognized the craft, despite the damage caused by the crash. It was a Kurrigan Loran Class Scoutship. Whitney walked over towards the open door that lead into the ship, it looked like it had been forced open due to damage to the mechanisms, something she didn’t find to surprising as the average Kurrigan was at least four times as strong as the average human. “We took a look inside, but couldn’t figure anything out.” Peter said as he came up beside her, looking inside the craft as he smiled slightly.

Whitney stepped into the craft, lights automatically coming on, the power still apparently very much online. Just beyond the hatch was the cockpit, with enough space for her to walk around the but truly not much bigger than a small room, probably very cramped for a Kurrigan. Most of the systems seemed to have power, but she couldn’t make out any of the controls. Where is Cerberus when I need him? She thought, wondering how hard it would be for her to create some form of uplink to the Eye of Argus and the Gatekeepers’ resident technology expert so the database could be reviewed for any possible clues as to what she Kurriganian scout was doing here.

Peter Atkins followed her inside, looking around at the strange controls again as Sergeant Brown followed after him. “So, see anything that is going to be of help to you?” He asked as he came over to stand on the other side of what was likely a navigation station from Whitney. She looked up at him as she replied. “Somewhat. I am not enough of a technology person to know how to access any information from here. But this has confirmed my suspicions as to what sort of extraterrestrial we are dealing with.”

The look of surprise on Peter’s face was obvious as Whitney turned looked over at Sergeant Brown. “Sergeant, do you have someone that is good with communications gear?” The Sergeant turned away from the control panel he was looking at to regard Whitney. “Yes ma’am. Corporal Davies is pretty good with comm.” “Get him down here to start setting up the comm equipment we brought along, I am going to need to contact someone about this spacecraft.” As Sergeant Brown left to get Corporal Davies started on his task, Whitney turned back toward Peter and Chris, who had apprehensively entered the spacecraft. “Now I want to see the extraterrestrial’s corpse.”

“Okay, we’ll head down to the infirmary then.” Peter replied as he made his way back out of the spacecraft, Whitney and Chris following after him. The three started off away from the crash site, Sergeant Brown catching up with them as they went back upstairs to the level with the cafeteria and down another hallway before they came to the rig’s infirmary. Inside was a small area with four beds, two of which were currently occupied. One had a man who’s head was bandaged, an IV in his arm, the other had a man who’s arm was in a cast, resting on a rest to keep it elevated. Sitting behind a desk in the back near a door that lead back to another small room was an older man with glasses that sat just at the edge of his nose.

The older man stood up as the small group entered the room, Chris stepping forward slightly as the turned towards Whitney. “Major Thomas, may I introduce Doctor Samuel Gregory, our resident physician. Sam, this is Major Whitney Thomas who has been sent here to investigate our little incident.” Doctor Gregory smiled as he came over to meet them halfway, shaking Whitney’s hand as he spoke with a heavy Texan accent. “Ah pleasure ta meet ya Major. I take it ya are interested in seein’ the bodies?”

Whitney smiled as she shook the doctor’s hand, nodding as she replied. “Pleased to meet you as well doctor. And I am indeed interested in seeing the bodies.” Doctor Gregory lead the group through the infirmary, the two injured crewmen watching them with interest, and back into the other room beyond. Whitney saw that the room was set up for some basic surgery, a small metal table in the center of the room underneath an operating light. Along the wall of the room were three stretchers with forms lying on them under white sheets.

“I would guess you will want ta see the critter’s corpse first?” Doctor Gregory asked as he turned back towards Whitney. “Yes please.” She replied as she followed after Doctor Gregory. The two went over towards one of the stretchers, the form under the white sheet being the larger of the three. As he grabbed the top of the sheet, Doctor Gregory looked over at Whitney. “It’s appearance is somewhat startlin’ so just want ta give you a bit of warnin’.” Whitney nodded as she calmly replied. “Thank you doctor, I have seen my share of corpses.”

Nodding, Doctor Gregory lifted up the sheet to reveal the wolflike head of the Kurrigan, its night black skin having pale splotches that Whitney assumed were the result of blood settling after death. The blue hair, which would run down to the Kurrigan’s back was matted with blood, some of it obviously from the human’s it had fought with, the rest likely it’s own. There was no longer any doubt for her as to what sort of extraterrestrial had crashed here, but it still didn’t explain why it had crashed, or why it had attacked the rig’s crewmen once they had put out the fires that had been around its spacecraft.

Pulling back the rest of the sheet, she saw it was still in its flight suit, its equipment still on as well, including its breathing apparatus. Doctor Gregory was watching her as she looked over the body, a slight puzzled look on his face before Chris interrupted the quite in the room. “Well, I trust this will answer your questions and you will get both this thing and the craft it came in off my rig.” Whitney stood up and turned back to look at the oil company executive, her face calm, but serious. “I have confirmed what I expected to find, but I still do not have the answers I require to be able to declare this incident truly over.”

Turning back towards Doctor Gregory, she asked. “Would you be able to assist with an autopsy?” The shock on Doctor Gregory’s face was very apparent as he looked at her for a moment before replying. “An autopsy on this? How will we be able to determine anything from that?” Whitney looked back down at the Kurrigan’s corpse as she replied. “I have enough familiarity with their anatomy that I should be able to determine if there is something drastic amiss here.”

Whitney didn’t have to be a telepath to know the shock that everyone in the room felt as she made her statement. Peter was the first one to recover, moving up near her as he said. “Wait a minute, you know about these things? What are they? Why would they attack us?” Turning towards the geologist, Whitney was still calm as she replied. “Yes, I know what this is, it’s a Kurrigan, a race of explorers. They are not particularly violent in nature, so the reaction of this Kurrigan to you and the other crewmembers when it first met you is puzzling to me.”

A frown crossed Peter’s face, his eyes narrowing slightly. “Are you saying we have all been lying to you about what happened?” Whitney had been expecting this reaction, her expression not changing at all. “No, I know full well that none of you are lying Doctor Atkins. There is something else going on here, and I am going to find out what.” Turning back towards Doctor Gregory, Whitney gave him a questioning look. “Well Doctor?”

Doctor Gregory focused back on Whitney as he nodded. “Yeah, sure, I can assist. Goin’ ta be pretty useless I’d think.” Smiling back slightly, Whitney turned towards Sergeant Brown. “Sergeant, I will need some of your men to set up the environmental tent in what ever space Mr. Hanson can provide. We will also need two of the environmental suits as well.”

Back in the main room of the infirmary, the crewmember with the broken arm was looking over at the doorway the Doctor had lead the visitors too. There was another using the man’s eyes to observe the events that were taking place. It had entered this vessel after the other “humans” had destroyed the vessel it had been inhabiting when it had arrived on this planet. The vessel had been injured in the struggle with the Kurrigan, and sent to a medical area recover, giving the it a chance to observe these “humans” and time to determine which one might be a more suitable vessel to find a means of repairing the spacecraft that had been damaged in it’s arrival.

But the female that had been lead back to where it’s previous vessel’s body was being kept, it had been able to sense her presence when she had arrived on this structure. Her mental capacities were evolved far beyond what these other “humans” were capable of, so far it did not seem she was able to sense it’s presence within this vessel, but it could be only a matter of time. In addition, she seemed to be familiar with the Kurrigan’s something that would also make it dangerous for it to remain here. The time had come to try to find a means off this structure and away from this potential threat.

As Sergeant Brown turned and left the room to carry out Whitney’s orders, Doctor Gregory looked over at her with a puzzled look. “Why do you feel that we should be in such a protected environment for this autopsy?” Peter was also looking at her, his expression somewhere between surprise from all she seemed to know about this extraterrestrial to approval as to how well she seemed to handle everything.

Whitney focused on Doctor Gregory as she replied. “There are numerous reasons I feel these precautions are necessary, not the least of which is the fact that the Kurrigan’s native atmosphere is filled with toxic gases, which is why it needed a breath mask to function in our atmosphere. As we start to cut into the Kurrigan, there could be pockets of these gasses trapped inside that could be released. I much prefer to be overly cautious than sorry.”

Turning away from Doctor Gregory, Whitney faced Chris Hanson, who seemed less and less pleased with how things were going. “I need a place to change, is there some place that I can use?” Snapping out of whatever inner thoughts he was having, Chris looked up at Whitney as he quickly replied. “Yes, of course, there are some available rooms that are currently unoccupied. I will show you the way.”

“Thank you Mr. Hanson.” She replied as she looked back over at Doctor Gregory and Peter. “I will see you two in a bit once the Marines have gotten our autopsy location prepared.” She then turned and followed Chris back out of the room and through the infirmary back into the hallway. As she went, Peter couldn’t help but watch her for a moment before looking back over at Doctor Gregory who was looking at him with a smile.

“That’s quite an interesting young woman there Peter.” The older man said as he moved back over to the stretcher the Kurrigan was lying on and started to push it towards the door. Peter came over to help him as he replied. “Yes she is, but I wonder what she isn’t telling us. I don’t think I have a very good feeling about all this.”

The metal door creaked slightly as Chris opened it, reaching over to switch on the light to reveal an empty room, a small bed in one corner and a table with a thin layer of dust covering it in another. Stepping back to let Whitney enter, the Parcon executive glanced about as he spoke. “It hasn’t been used in a few months, sorry about the dust. You are more than welcome to use it as long as you need to, which I hope won’t be any longer than necessary.” Whitney dropped her suitcase onto the unmade bed, the sheets and blankets neatly folded and beside the pillow. Turning back towards the executive, her eyes met his with an intense gaze as she walked back over towards doorway.

“Believe me Mr. Hanson, I have quite a number of other things I would rather be doing than being aboard an oilrig with some three dozen men, many of whom seem to have been out here a bit too long. I am going to do my job, but as I deem is necessary to ensure that we do not have a possible threat. So, you just worry about the bottom line of your business, I will handle my investigation.” With that, she closed the door, locking it before turning away, taking off the jacket of her uniform, grateful for a chance to get out of her heels and pantyhose.

Down in the infirmary, Doctor Gregory had left with the dead Kurrigan, leaving the two injured crewmembers alone for the moment. Once it was sure that the doctor was not coming back, it had the crewman with the broken arm climb out of his bed. The other injured crewman, with the fractures to his skull from the Kurrigan, looked over as it had the man make his way towards the doorway. “Where you going Stan?” The other man asked weakly as Stan opened the door into the hallway. “I am just going to get something to eat.” It replied through Stan’s lips, drawing from the human’s memories as it did so. “You want anything?”

The Marines had set up the inflatable environmental chamber inside an empty storeroom near the cafeteria, Peter watching them as they went to work. He and Doctor Gregory had brought the Kurrigan’s corpse into the room, the stretcher having been moved into the chamber as the Marines were setting up another smaller chamber attached to the entrance to the first one. Doctor Gregory was being helped into one of the environmental suits by one of the Marines as Peter came up beside Sergeant Brown. “Your men seem to have a lot more advanced training for a typical line infantryman.”

The Sergeant looked over at Peter with a slight smile as he replied. “Very observant of you Doctor Atkins, we are part of a Chemical Biological and Nuclear Response Team, so we have received quite a bit of training in assisting the Army doctors or CDIC personnel for any situation we might be called into.” Looking back over at his men as they continued with their tasks, he continued. “This is the first time I have worked with Major Thomas, but she certainly seems to know her stuff.”

Peter was about to comment when he noticed Whitney enter into the room, now dressed in dark green scrubs and tennis shoes, her long brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. “Well Major Thomas, I will say this for you, you sure don’t mess around. This is quite an impressive little portable biohazard containment facility. You all ways travel this prepared?” Whitney smiled slightly as she came up beside the geologist. “Not all the time, only when then situations possibly warrant it.” Moving over towards Doctor Gregory, she picked up the other environmental suit as she looked over at the older man. “Ready to learn the biology of a new species Doctor?”

Doctor Gregory had just finished getting the suit’s helmet attached to the suit, one of the Marines helping locking it in place. “Not sure how much I will really learn, but ready to do what I can to help.” Whitney smiled warmly as she put her suit on with practiced ease. Once her helmet was locked in place, she looked over towards the doctor as she said. “Well, lets get this started.” The two doctors made their way over towards the smaller chamber that had been set up, entering through the doorway into the small enclosure, shutting the door behind them as one of the Marines sealed the door.

Opening the doorway connecting to the larger chamber, the two walked into the next room, Doctor Gregory moving slowly as he tried to adjust to moving in the environmental suit. Once inside, Whitney grabbed one of the connection hoses that hung from the roof of the chamber, hooking it to her suit to allow for oxygen to flow from the outside to save her suit’s supply. She handed the doctor the other, helping him connect it up as she moved over to the metal table the Kurrgian had been put on. “Please begin recording of autopsy of Kurrgian that crashed on Parcon Corp oil rig R-71, Major Whitney Thomas, United States Air Force overseeing the procedure, I am assisted by Doctor Samuel Gregory, the medical officer for R-71.” Outside the chamber, one of the Marines had started recording the audio commentary and started a video camera that was aimed in too the chamber though one of the large clear walls as Sergeant Brown, Peter and Chris moved a bit closer to watch.

“Subject is a male Kurrigan, approximately six feet four inches in height and two hundred and sixty pounds in weight. The believed cause of death is asphyxiation caused by exposure to our atmosphere, but there are two large lacerations in the subject’s back caused by fire axes.” She continued as she looked over the corpse laid out before her. “We will begin with a study of the subject’s chest cavity. Doctor Gregory, if you will please hand me the surgical scalpel.” Whitney said as she held out her hand to the doctor who removed the scalpel from the metal tray near him lined with several scalpels and bone saws.

Outside the chamber, the others watched on as the autopsy began. It wasn’t very long into it before Chris Hanson turned away from they chamber, his face somewhat pale. “I am going to go see how things are going with the repairs and give the execs back in Austin a call.” He then moved somewhat quickly from the room, Sergeant Brown watching him with a slight grin before looking back at the autopsy taking place just beyond the plastic bubble in front of him.

Elsewhere on the oil rig, Stan Anders was making his way up the stairwell towards the upper level of the rig. His broken arm resting against his side as he made way along. Several of the other crewmen had greeted him, saying how glad they were to see him on his feet. He had just nodded and continued on, making his way towards the outside of the rig, the rain still falling down as heavy wind blew outside the rig. Standing in the entryway, shielded from the wind and rain, the crewman gazed out at the stormy sea, as the entity within tried to search the man’s memories for a means of getting off this structure.

Moving to the edge of the doorway, it noticed the large vehicle that was sitting up on top of part of the structure. Quickly reviewing the human’s memories, it determined that it was a vehicle referred to as a “helicopter”, though this human did not have any knowledge of how to operate it. There was likely someone on the structure that had the required knowledge, it just had to locate that human so it could make its escape. Turning away from the rain and wind, it made the human return into the structure to begin its search for another vessel that could pilot the “helicopter”.

“Subjects lungs show characteristics of damage from asphyxiation, so cause of death has been confirmed. The two lacerations caused by the two axe wounds were relatively minor, missing any major organs or arteries.” Whitney announced as she examined the Kurrgian’s internal organs through the opening she had made in it’s chest cavity. Doctor Gregory was standing beside her, looking at the organs, though still not exactly sure what all he was looking at. “You seem very comfortable with this Major, I would guess this isn’t your first autopsy, alien or otherwise. Your accent sounds East Coast, where did you go to med school?”

Whitney smiled inside the environmental suit’s helmet as she began moving the organs back into place as she replied. “I have done a few autopsies in my time Doctor, you think this is tough, you should see what a mess Ebola Zaire makes inside a person. And yes, I am from a small town in Maine, did my undergrad at Boston College and obtained my MD from Johns Hopkins.”

“Very impressive schools Major, if you don’t mind my saying so, you seem a bit young to have done all that and also have obtained the rank you hold, least from what I remember of promotions in the military.” Doctor Gregory said as he helped her close back up the opening they had made in the chest cavity. “Well, I finished my MD at twenty-two doctor, I was move ahead a few times in school and was able to complete my undergrad work in under four years. I am going to want to examine the cranial cavity and the Kurrgian’s brain now, so far there is nothing other than what one would expect to find, least that I can tell.”

Doctor Gregory nodded as he reached over for one of the bone saws that was on the tray near him. “Of course Major, and please, call me Sam.” Smiling as she took the saw, Whitney replied. “Only if you call me Whitney.” Turning back to face the corpse, she was just about to start cutting when she suddenly sensed something, something distant and odd. Halting as she tried to focus on the feeling, she quickly realized it was something she was sensing with her mental abilities. It was very faint, but was defiantly somewhere on the oilrig, then just as quickly as it had appeared, it was gone.

As she stood there, looking at nothing in particular, Doctor Gregory seemed to notice that something was amiss as he came up beside her. “Whitney? Are you alright?” Whitney hardly heard the doctor’s question as she reached out towards where she had sensed the presence with her telepathy, trying to see if she could find what she had sensed once more. All she managed to detect were some surface thoughts, confusion, pain, fear, but they were normal human brain waves, not anything like what she had sensed.

Turning slowly towards the doctor, she sat the bone saw done on the side of the table. “We’re done, something is going on and I need to find out what.” She then started to move towards the exit to the smaller chamber as she called out. “Sergeant, we need to be deconned fast, something is out there. Call you men and make sure everyone is accounted for.” As she reached the door and began opening it, she unhooked the oxygen cable from her suit as the doctor followed right after her, a very confused look on his face. “What is the matter? What is out there?”

Shutting the door behind the doctor as he followed her into the smaller chamber, Whitney closed and sealed it as she replied. “No time to explain. Start the ******.” She said to the Marine who was standing near the chamber. He nodded as the activated the high pressure hoses that were hooked up to the sprinklers that had been placed inside the chamber. As the hot water poured down on Whitney and Doctor Gregory, the young woman again tried to focus her telepathy towards what she had sensed.

On another part of the oilrig, Lieutenant Aaron Bennet, the Marine pilot of the Sea Knight that had brought Major Thomas and Sergeant Brown’s team here, looked down at the now still form of Stan Anders. Lifting his booted foot from the crewman’s neck, Lieutenant Bennet turned and looked down the hallway to insure no one had heard the brief scuffle that had taken place. This new vessel would serve well, the human had the knowledge to operate the vehicle that would allow it to leave this structure. There was also information regarding the female, who was even now reaching out with her telepathic abilities.

It was quite probable that she had sensed when it had switched vessels. She had made a quick scan of the area right after that, likely detecting the confusion that had come over the former vessel as its presence had left the human’s mind. This Major Thomas was likely starting to make her way here now, likely bringing more of these “Marines” with her. It would be long gone before she arrived, and hopefully to its means of escape.

Whitney frowned as her mental scan now found nothing, the feelings of confusion and fear she had sensed were gone as well. The water stopped flowing as one of the Marines opened the door out of the small chamber. Whitney moved quickly out of the chamber, unhooking the helmet from her suit and setting it on a nearby table as she started to quickly remove the protective suit. Sergeant Brown and Peter moved over towards her, Sergeant Brown looking very concerned. “What is the matter ma’am? All units have reported in, nothing out of the ordinary.” Peter also looked somewhat concerned, but also had a curious look as well.

Whiney stepped out of the environmental suit as she looked at the Marine Sergeant. “There is something happening about two levels below us Sergeant, I don’t know exactly what it is, but I have a strong feeling that it has something to do with the arrival of the Kurrigan.” Sergeant Brown looked at her for a brief moment before he lifted his radio up to his mouth. “Davies, get your team too sub-level 4 in the rig, begin sweeping inward from the Southwestern stairwell, I am coming down the Northeastern well with Major Thomas and we will meet you in the middle.” As the faint sound of Corporal Davies responding could be heard over the radio, Sergeant Brown turned back to look at the two other Marines in the room. “You heard the Major, lets move out. Vincent, you take point.”

Private First Class Malcolm Vincent nodded as he unslung his M-16 and moved over towards the doorway. The other Marine in the room had just finished helping Doctor Gregory remove his suit’s helmet. Setting it down on a nearby table, he looked at the doctor as he asked. “You going to be okay sir?” Doctor Gregory nodded as he started to remove his environmental suit. “Yes, you get going.” The Marine nodded as he grabbed his M-249 Squad Automatic Weapon from the table and followed after the others as they made their way into the hallway after PFC Vincent.

As Whitney moved after Sergeant Brown, Peter came up beside her. “How do you know what is going on two floors below us?” Whitney glanced over at the geologist, hesitating for a moment before she looked back forward as she answered. “I am a telepath, something happened that I was able to sense, but whatever it was I can’t sense it now.” Glancing back at Peter, Whitney noticed that if her revelation surprised him, he didn’t show it, instead, his face seemed as if he was more in thought.

Up on the main deck of the oil rig, the doorway into the main tower opened once more, Lieutenant Bennet stepping out into the heavy wind and rain, moving over towards the stairwell up to the helicopter pad. Looking from side to side, there appeared to be no one up on the deck right now, which suited it just fine. Reaching the top of the stairs, it stopped the vessel for a moment as another human came into view, walking around from the other side of the helicopter.

Delving into the memories of the vessel, it quickly identified the human as Sergeant Olson, the “crew chief” under the command of the vessel. The Sergeant noticed the Lieutenant, coming to attention as he saluted. Pulling the necessary response to this greeting from the vessel’s memories, it returned the salute. “As you were Sergeant. What are you doing out here in this?” Sergeant Olson relaxed from his position of attention as he turned back towards the helicopter, yelling back over his shoulder as he went back to work.

“Just making sure things are secure sir. Looks like the storm hasn’t completely past us by yet out here. Don’t want any avoidable damage to delay our departure once the Air Force chick is done with what ever brought us all out here in such wonderful weather.” Moving up behind the human as he spoke, it drew the weapon that the vessel had at its side, aiming the pistol at the back of the Sergeant’s head.

The sound of the gunshot was lost in the heavy wind, the human falling to the ground as blood began to pool around its head. Returning the weapon to its holster, it moved into the back of the helicopter, passing through the cargo area and into the cockpit. Taking one of the seats, it activated the memory of the vessel regarding the piloting of the aircraft, using the vessel to activate the start up sequence for the helicopter.

Up in the main tower of the oilrig, PFC Danny Yates was sitting at one of the chairs, somewhat bored out of his mind. It sounded like something was going on down below, but his fire team was stuck up here, keeping tabs on what was going on with the rig and the area around them. Glancing out the window, he suddenly stood up, turning back towards where the other three Marines were seated. “Corporal, you need to come see this!”

Corporal Walter Osterman stood up as he moved over towards PFC Yates was standing near the windows of the tower that looked out over the rest of the rig. “What is it…” His started, his voice trailing off as he saw the rotors of the Sea Knight starting to turn and what looked like a body lying beside the helicopter. Lifting his radio up to his mouth, he keyed it as he watched the scene below him in a state of almost disbelief. “Sergeant Brown, this is Osterman, something is going on up here! Someone is starting up the helo and looks like they might have injured the crew chief.”

Down inside the oil rig, Sergeant Brown came to a halt in the stairwell as they were just about down at the level Whitney had sensed the presence from. Listening to the message from his team leader, the Sergeant turned back to look at Whitney. “Corporal Osterman says someone is starting up the Sea Knight.” Pausing for a brief moment, Whitney shook her head in frustration. “We need to get up there Sergeant, have Corporal Davies continue his sweep of this floor!”

Sergeant Brown nodded as he relayed the change in orders as the group turned back and started back up the stairs towards the upper deck of the rig. Whitney couldn’t help but feel what had happened down here had some connection to what was going on up on the helicopter pad of the rig. Glancing over at her and noticing the focused look on her face, Peter smiled slightly as he asked. “So, are things usually this eventful in your investigations Major?” Smiling despite herself, Whitney glanced back at him as she replied. “Seem to be a good bit of the time Doctor Atkins.”

Reaching the main level, the group ran over to the hatch that lead to the outer deck of the rig, PFC Vincent pushing the door open as he lead the group out into the heavy wind and rain. Whitney’s long brown hair whipped around her as she stepped out into the wind, a cold chill running through her as the scrubs did little against the wind. As her and Peter stepped out beside Sergeant Brown, the Sea Knight was lifting into the air, the twin rotors moving at full speed as it began to pull away from the helicopter pad.

Sprinting towards the stairs up the pad, Whitney quickly ran up the stairs, Sergeant Brown, Peter and the other two Marines following right behind her. Reaching the two, Whitney saw the body of one of the Marines, the helicopter’s crew chief she recalled. Between the blood pool around his head and the total lack of brainwave activity, Whitney knew he was dead. Looking back up at the Sea Knight as it started away from the oilrig, Whitney closed her eyes as she reached out with her mental abilities, scanning the helicopter for whomever was responsible for this. To her surprise, she could not detect any mind at all.

Opening her eyes once more, Whitney glanced over at Sergeant Brown who was standing beside her with a look of shock on his face. “Sergeant, we have to stop that helicopter! Shoot it down!” She yelled over the heavy winds. Sergeant Brown turned back towards her, blinking as if he didn’t believe what he had just heard. “Now Sergeant!” Snapping out of his shock, Sergeant Brown lifted his M-16 to his shoulder as he stepped forward towards the middle of the pad. “You heard the Major! Bring it down!”

The other two Marines moved up as well, the one with the SAW opening the bipod on the front of the weapon as he laid down on the helicopter pad. Sergeant Brown and the other armed with an M-16 started firing as the one with the light machinegun was getting in a stable firing position. Soon the sound of his quick bursts joined the steady fire from the M-16s. The helicopter began to bank, trying to make itself a harder target as it continued to draw further away.

Whitney watched as they Marines fired at the helicopter, realizing that it would take either a good amount of fire or a lucky hit for them to damage the aircraft enough to bring it down. Stepping forward slightly, she fixed her gaze on the helicopter as she breathed deeply, focusing on another of her mental abilities. She had never tired to use her telekinesis at this great a distance, but she didn’t have much choice. There was something piloting the helicopter, even if she couldn’t sense it, and she wasn’t about to let it get free to cause who knows what harm.

Wind and rain blew around Whitney as she released her attack, pushing as much as she could with her mind. Out over the stormy ocean, a ripple appeared in the air beside the helicopter, rushing towards the aircraft like some sort of wave. Rain was pushed aside as the telekinetic force slammed into the back of the Sea Knight. The back of the helicopter was knocked to the side, causing the aircraft to start to spin, part of the rear hull buckling in from the force of the impact.

As she saw the Sea Knight begin to spin, Whitney felt a wave of dizziness wash over her as she staggered backward, experiencing tunnel vision. The hard impact with the helicopter pad never happened as she realized that someone had caught her. Her vision returning to normal, she realized the Marines had stopped firing, the three looking out at the scene before them in shock. Glancing up, she saw Peter’s concerned face as he held her up. “You okay?”

Bringing her right hand up to her face, Whitney brushed at the side of her mouth, looking at her hand as she pulled it away, rain was mixing with the blood on her hand that she could feel flowing from her nose. Nodding slightly as she started to stand herself back up, Peter still holding her under her arms. “Yes, I okay, just not used to projecting that much force over such a distance.” Looking back out at the result of her telekinetic attack, Whitney saw that the helicopter was rapidly loosing altitude, still in a spin as the rear rotor had locked up and was no longer turning.

Sergeant Brown turned back to look at Whitney, his eyes narrowing slightly as he regarded her. Peter let her go as she was once again steady on her feet. “I would say you are much more than just a telepath.” Whitney didn’t respond as she watched the Sea Knight smash into the rough seas, a large splash of water flying up into the air. Just as the helicopter hit the water she sensed the presence that she had felt during the autopsy. Trying to focus her abilities on where it was, Whitney felt a slight wave of dizziness, causing her to stagger slightly as Peter grabbed her once more.

“I can sense it again, but I can’t lock onto it. It’s moving, I think back towards the rig.” Sergeant Brown spun back to look out at the stormy sea, trying to look though the rain for any sign of what ever it was Whitney was sensing. The other two Marines were back on their feet, scanning the area as well. Peter was looking at Whitney, a concerned look still on his face. “You don’t look so good Major, I think you might be pushing yourself a bit to hard.”

Whitney stopped trying to focus on the location of the presence she was sensing, her dizziness subsiding as she did so. “That telekinetic blast just took more out of me than I realized.” The presence suddenly vanished as she looked over at Peter. “It’s gone. It can somehow shield itself from me.” Sergeant Brown came back over towards the two, his face grim as he looked at Whitney. “I couldn’t see anything ma’am. What exactly is going on here, and what haven’t you told me?”

Whitney looked at the Marine, his frustration was understandable, he was supposed to handle the security of the mission and should have been informed of the full extent of her abilities at the start. “I am sorry Sergeant, you should have been informed of my abilities from the start, but the Department of Defense prefers that they be reveled only when necessary, and now is one of those times. I am a telepath and telekinetic, as well as some other mental abilities. I am also part of an organization called the Gatekeepers, it is our task to monitor contact between extraterrestrials and mankind. Particularly in the case of hostile species such at the Rikti.”

Sergeant Brown looked like he was about to say something when he suddenly stopped, listening to his radio. Holding it up to his mouth, he replied to whom ever had been speaking to him. “I understand Corporal, stand by for orders.” Looking back over at Whitney and Peter he continued. “Corporal Davies finished his sweep of the lower level where you first sensed whatever this is, they found the body of one of the rig workers, sounds like it was the one we saw in the infirmary with the broken arm.”

Whitney felt a slight feeling of exhaustion come over her. Things were starting to move rapidly and she was beginning to get a picture of what might be taking place. “Sergeant, tell the Corporal to bring the corpse up to the infirmary and to find all the workers he can and get them into the cafeteria. I think we need to get everyone on the rig together now. For all our security.” Sergeant Brown looked at her for a moment before he nodded. “Yes ma’am.” Holding up the radio, he relayed Whitney’s orders before signaling the two Marines with them to take the body of the dead crew chief down to the infirmary as well.

Turning to look at Peter, Whitney could see a slight frown on his face. “I take it your thinking things are much more serious here than they seemed at first.” Not waiting for an answer he removed the light jacket he was wearing and put it over her shoulders. “You should get inside. Those scrubs can’t be very warm in this wind and rain.” Whitney nodded as she let him leaded her back down the stairs from the helicopter pad and towards the door back into the rig, Sergeant Brown following after them. Chris Hanson was likely going to be very upset with the disruption of the repair work on the rig that she now felt was necessary, but he would just have to deal with it. What ever this thing was, Whitney was sure it was dangerous, particularly as she could only sense it part of the time.

On one of the lower levels of the oilrig, Hector Rodriguez stopped the work he had been doing on some of the damage to the rig, looking over at the other workers who were busy welding. Inside a new vessel, it felt almost uncontrollable rage. The female had managed to damage the aircraft that could have carried it away from this structure to freedom. Now it was stuck here with the rest of the humans, unless it could find another way off.

Dropping the welding torch he was holding, Hector began to walk out of the room, the others to focused on their work to notice his departure. The female was far to dangerous to it, it was sure she could sense it when it moved from vessel to vessel, if she proved able to target it in some way, she might posses some abilities that could injure it. Before it made its next attempt to depart this structure, it would have to find someway to destroy the female.

After going down to the infirmary with Peter and Sergeant Brown, Whitney made her way up to the cafeteria once Sergeant Brown had received word that everyone was gathered there. Walking into the room with Peter, Sergeant Brown and Doctor Gregory following behind her, Whitney ignored the stares that turned her way from the gathered workers as the room went silent. Chris Hanson was standing off to one side of the room with some of the Marines, his gaze falling on Whitney immediately. “Major Thomas, what is going on? You can’t stop everything on this facility, we need to get it up and running again as soon as we can. There is money being lost every minute we are not in operation.”

Whitney glanced over at the Parcon executive before she strode through the crowd towards the front of the room. She was still wearing her wet scrubs and the rain jacket Peter had put on her, her hair soaked from standing in the rain. Turning back towards the gathered group she looked over at Chris, her expression deathly serious. “Is this everyone Mr. Hanson?” The executive seemed rather agitated that she had ignored his questions as he quickly scanned the room before looking back up at her. “Yes, this is everyone.”

From back near the doorway, Peter spoke up. “Sorry to disagree Mr. Hanson, but I don’t see Hector Rodriguez here.” Chris looked around the room once more, anger very visible on his face now. “Where the hell is Rodriguez?” One of the foremen looked over at the executive as he replied. “I don’t know Mr. Hanson, he was working with my group on some repairs when the Marines brought us up here. I could have sworn he was with us.”

As Whitney listened to the exchange, she closed her eyes, reaching out with her telepathy to the rest of the oilrig. The only mind not in the room with her that she could detect was the other injured worker in the infirmary. Opening her eyes once more, she spoke up. “Where ever he is, he is no longer who or what you think him to be.” Chris looked back over at her as did everyone else in the room as he asked in an annoyed tone. “What the hell does that mean? What is going here Major?”

Whitney maintained her calm composure as she looked about the room and answered. “As you all know, an alien spacecraft crashed into this oilrig last night. The pilot of the craft attacked you and several of you killed it in self-defense. What I believe is now the case is that the spacecraft did not hold one extraterrestrial life form, but two.” She let her words hang in the air for a moment before she continued. “There is now evidence to suggest that the extraterrestrial that was killed, a Kurrigan, was being controlled by some other entity, an entity that possesses other life forms, and uses them as a means of interacting with the physical world.”

There was a hushed silence over those gathered in the room, the looks of shock evident on their faces as well as in their surface thoughts. “What are you talking about? How can you know this?” Chris asked as he looked at her with disbelief. “There was an alien that crashed here, but we killed it after it attacked us, killing two crewmembers I’ll remind you. Now another crewmember is dead, as well as at least one of your Marines and your helicopter is destroyed. But other than that, how can we know anything else about what is going on?”

Resisting the urge to just put the annoying executive to sleep, Whitney remained calm as she responded. “Its very simple Mr. Hanson. I am a telepath. When this entity is moving from host to host, I can sense it, but there is something about the method it uses to dominate a host that renders it undetectable, and I believe also prevents me from sensing the mind of the host as well. I can sense all of you in this room, as well as the injured man down in the infirmary, but I can’t sense Rodriguez anywhere in this facility, just as I could not sense anything on the Marine helicopter when it was being piloted away. Most likely, this entity encountered Lieutenant Benning on the rig and took control of the Lieutenant in order to try to leave this rig in the helicopter.”

“Until we can locate this entity and I can discover some means of subduing this entity, I am quarantining this facility. With everyone’s cooperation, this should hopefully not take very long and things can be returned to normal.” Whitney looked about the room, picking up a general sense of shock that was apparent on many of the faces of those present. As was to be suspected, Chris was the first one to speak after her statement. “This is outrageous Major! This thing is your problem; I want it off my rig so we can return to normal operations. Where do you get the authority to shut us down indefinitely?”

Whitney couldn’t help but smile as she regarded the executive. “You would be amazed at the amount of authority that I can command in the right situations Mr. Hanson, this being one of them. If you have a problem with this, you can take it up through your corporate headquarters and they can complain to the Department of Defense and the United Nations.” Turning away from focusing on the oil executive, she continued. “This thing appears to represent a clear and present danger and I am not about to let it slip away into more populated areas where it will have countless hosts and will be all but impossible to track.”

Pausing for a moment, Whitney continued to look around those gathered in the room as she continued. “Now, night is approaching, and I do not want us to be separated so we can be easier prey to this entity. So I want a few groups to go and bring mattresses and bedding into here so we can all remain together. No one is to go anywhere alone, groups of at least three would be preferable.” Looking back at Sergeant Brown, she spoke directly to him, some grumbling audible from those gathered in the cafeteria at her orders. “Sergeant, I want one of your fire teams to be split to accompany two groups to bring what we will need for the night here. Another will remain here to watch those that remain, the other will accompany us in searching for the entities new host. Mr. Hanson, if you would please pick a few of your crew for the groups to get us what we need for tonight. I also would like the injured crewman from the infirmary brought up here as well Doctor Gregory.”

Sergeant Brown nodded in understanding as he began speaking with his team leaders to assign them to their various duties. Whitney started back towards where the Marine was, ignoring some of the less than happy looks many of the crewmembers were giving her. As she neared Sergeant Brown, the team leaders started off to gather their teams. Sergeant Brown looked over at her as she neared, speaking in a quite tone. “Ma’am, is there any reason for you to believe that this entity might be aware of your presence and the fact that you can track it when it is not in a host?”

Her face calm and serious Whitney was impressed with the forethought of the Marine NCO. “Yes Sergeant, I would say it is very safe to say that it is aware of me and what I am capable of.” Sergeant Brown nodded slightly as his suspicion was confirmed. “Then I am concerned that it might try to come after you ma’am, either to take you as a host, or kill you.”

Peter had come over and heard the Sergeant’s last comment, looking over at Whitney with a concerned expression. Whitney nodded slightly as she replied. “That is something that I think we can count on Sergeant, though I am not sure how successful the entity will be at dominating me, but if nothing else, it will see me as a threat.” Peter shook his head as he spoke up. “So this thing will likely be gunning for you? Do you really think it’s a good idea to be going out and making yourself a target?”

Whitney turned towards Peter as she replied. “I thank you for your concern Doctor Atkins, but sitting back here will not accomplish anything. This entity is out there somewhere, likely plotting out its next move. For whatever reason, it wanted off this oilrig, so it will likely be somewhat angered by being denied the easiest means of leaving. Its going to come after me sooner or later, buy going out myself, hopefully I can bring it out sooner. If I hide back here waiting for it to come to me, who knows what damage it can cause, not to mention who else could be killed before I can face it.”

Neither Peter nor Sergeant Brown seemed particularly happy with her reasoning, but knew they really had no way to refute it either. Sergeant Brown lifted up his M-16 to the ready as he indicated the doorway. “Well ma’am, if you are ready, we should get started.” Whitney nodded as she started to follow after the Marines who would be accompanying them as Peter started to follow along as well. Turing back towards the geologist, Whitney held up her hand. “Doctor Atkins, it would probably be best if you were to remain here with the others.” Peter grinned slightly as he regarded her. “I am sure you could use my help Major, after all, someone who is very familiar with this rig will be very helpful in trying to track down someone who is hiding on it.” Whitney hesitated for a moment, realizing that Peter was indeed right. Sighing slightly in surrender, she turned back towards the door. “Alright Doctor, but be careful, I have a feeling things will be much more dangerous now that the entities presence is not longer a secret.”

Down on a lower level of the rig, it was moving its current vessel through the empty hallways of the structure. The female was indeed cunning, having gathered all the humans into one room, making it far easier for her to keep track of where potential vessels were located. From the memory of the vessel it had lost trying to escape and this new vessel, it had learned that some of these humans were trained soldiers, and there for likely to be more useful in trying to eliminate the female.

Stopping for a moment, it looked up at the level above it. It could sense several of the humans moving from the room they had all been gathered in in small groups, including one that contained the female. Very likely they were coming to search for it. Focusing back on where it had been heading, the vessel started forward once more. It had learned that these humans were very dependent on their physical senses, sight perhaps more than others. In the memories of this vessel it had learned how it could greatly limit this sense.

Reaching the door to the main generators, it proceeded through the loud hum of the generators echoing in the large room as it stood on the metal catwalk over them. Apparently the crash of the vessel that had brought it to this planet had damaged this power source but the humans had been able to get them working once more. In the memory of the vessel, there was knowledge that would allow it to disable them again, and in a manner that would not be easily repaired.

The search team that Whitney was with were making their way down towards where Rodriguez’s crew had been working on repairing some of the damage to the rig when the lights went out suddenly. Whitney halted for a moment as they were plunged into darkness as she felt brief feelings of panic around her and back in the cafeteria. Reaching out with her mental senses, she confirmed that she could still sense those around her. A few moments after the lights went out, emergency lighting kicked, the scattered lights scarcely illuminating the hallways.

Sergeant Brown quickly looked about the hallway, ensuring that everyone was present. As his gaze fell on Whitney, he moved closer. “It seems the entity has decided to make things more difficult for us.” Whitney was nodding in agreement as Peter came over to the pair. “While that is very possible, it is also likely that the generators have just failed. They were damaged when the spacecraft crashed into the rig and took us most of the night to get running again.”

Whitney sighed slightly. The timing of this seemed far too convenient for her. Looking back at the two men she had a gut feeling that this could be a trap but they had no real choice. “Well, what ever the case, we need to go down to where the generators are and determine what happened and if possible get them back in operation.” Peter nodded as he looked back towards the Marine at the front of the group. “Take the next right and follow the hallway to the next set of stairs. We need to go down about two more levels.”

The Marine glanced over at Sergeant Brown who signaled for them to continue forward. The group started to move forward again, the Marines moving slowly as they scanned the areas around them and stopped from time to time to listen for an possible movement around them. Whitney had Sergeant Brown call back to the fire team in the cafeteria to have them make sure everyone remained there and calm. Finally the group reached the doorway to the generator room, two of the Marines taking up positions on either side of the doorway as the other two took up positions to watch down the approaches towards the room.

Peter pulled the door open, moving to one side as the first of the Marines moved through the door, aiming his M-16 into the room as he quickly scanned the dark shadows that filled most of the room. Moving to one side, he made room for the other Marine to follow behind, moving to the other side as he also scanned the area. As soon as the entry was clear, Sergeant Brown moved into the room, his weapon sweeping over the shadowed corners as well as the two Marines moved down to the ends of the catwalk.

As Whitney and Peter stepped into the room just behind the Sergeant, further down one of the hallways leading from the generator room a figure was crouched in the darkness. It could feel the female’s presence nearby. The humans had come to investigate what had happened to the structure’s power source. There were two humans still outside the room, it suspected that they were likely these “Marines” it had learned about. The time had come for it to strike.

Inside the generator room, Whitney came up behind Peter as the geologist was examining one of the generators with a flashlight. “Well, looks like this thing has done a pretty good job of messing this one up. Could take awhile to get repaired, if we even have the parts here.” Whitney sighed as she looked over at the emergency light that was in the upper corner of the room. “How long do the batteries on those last?”

Turning away from the generator, Peter looked up at the light as well as he replied. “The emergency lights? About twelve hours or so I believe, could be less as they kicked into use last night when power was first shut off.” The news wasn’t very comforting to Whitney, things were likely going to get very tense once they had to be in darkness, and they couldn’t have people outside during the day, the weather was to harsh still for that. “We need to see what we can do about salvaging the batteries from emergency lights that we don’t need to keep the ones going in the areas we will be using.” Turning back to look at Peter and Sergeant Brown she continued. “The last thing I want is to send out some people here to try and fix these things if they will have to be here for an extended period of time. They would be far too vulnerable to the entity.”

Just as Peter was about to speak, Whitney spun around to face the door to the hallway as she sensed the entity’s presence outside. “It’s in the hallway!” She said quickly as the echo of M-16 fire sounded out. There were two quick bursts that caused the two Marines in the generator room to spin back towards the doorway, their weapons aimed at it as Sergeant Brown raised his M-16 as well, moving between the doorway and the two doctors. “Reynolds! Edgars! What is going on out there?” He called out into the radio as he started to move slowly towards the doorway.

Whitney reached out towards the area outside the generator room, scanning for the two Marines. As she feared, she couldn’t find a trace of either of them. “Sergeant, I am not sensing either of them outside!” She called out as she started after the Marine, Peter grabbing her arm as he said. “Shouldn’t you be more careful? We don’t know what is going on out there.” Whitney turned back to look at him as she replied. “I need to go, there is really nothing they can do to this thing, except kill its host body, and I don’t think that will necessarily stop it.”

Peter released her arm and nodded slightly as Whitney turned back towards the door, the other two Marines in the room now at either side of it. The two nodded to each other before they quickly moved back out into the hallway, sweeping to either side to cover both directions. There was a brief pause before Whitney heard one of them call out. “Man down!” Speeding up, she followed after Sergeant Brown into the hallway, turning to her right to see one of the Marines kneeling beside the body of another Marine, reaching down with his left hand to check the man’s neck as his right kept his M-16 aimed down the hallway.

“He’s dead Sergeant, there is no brainwave activity. I am sorry.” Whitney said before the Marine that had moved down the other side of the hallway called out. “There is a body over here as well, one of the rig workers.” Whitney and Sergeant Brown spun back around and moved down the hallway to where the other Marine was standing next to the body of one of the rig workers. Peter came up beside them as he looked down at the body. “That’s Rodriguez.”

Frustration was evident on Sergeant Brown’s face as he looked back over at Whitney. “They have both been shot. This thing has taken control of Lance Corporal Reynolds.” Turning back towards the hallway past Rodriguez’s body, the Marine sergeant keyed his radio. “All units, be advised, Lance Corporal Reynolds is under control of the entity. Until further notice, consider him hostile if spotted.”

Looking back over at Whitney, Sergeant Brown indicated the direction of the hall past Rodriguez’s body. “It has most likely moved down this way. What is down this way?” He said, focusing on Peter as he asked his question. Peter looked at the Marine, pausing for a moment as he recalled the layout of the rig. “Not much really, some access to the drilling equipment, the upper halves of some of the storage tanks are also accessible down that way. There are also some access hatches to the outside with ladders up to the main level.”

Sergeant Brown looked over towards Whiney as she nodded. “We need to pursue it Sergeant.” Nodding back, he waved towards the Marine over by the body of Corporal Edgars as he motioned for the Marine near him to start off down the hallway. Whitney and Peter came up behind the Sergeant as the small group started off down the dark hallway.

Back up in the cafeteria of the oilrig, Chris Hanson came over to Corporal Osterman as the Marine finished giving instructions to the members of his fire team. “What is going on down there soldier?” The Marine corporal looked over at the oil company executive, a slight look of annoyance on his face as he replied. “They are going after the thing that took over one of your crewmen sir. Just sit back and relax, we have everything under control.” Pausing for a moment, he then added. “And soldiers are in the Army sir. I’m a Marine.”

Smirking slightly, Chris turned away from the Marine and went back over to sit at the table he had been sitting at since the Major had taken out some of the Marine’s to look for Rodriguez and sent another group out to get some mattresses and other items to make things more comfortable. That group had returned, and many of the rig workers were now sitting on the mattresses, some of them asleep already. It irked the executive to see things at a stand still on his rig, this was going to put them far behind on production and he doubted that the higher ups back in Austin would be sympathetic to his situation when it came time to compare output with other rigs.

Back down in the dark shadowy hallways on the lower deck, the small group was making their way along the path that they believed the entity had gone after taking control of Lance Corporal Reynolds and killing Corporal Edgars and Hector Rodriguez. Suddenly, Peter came to a halt as something seemed to dawn on him and he looked up at Whitney and Sergeant Brown as they came to a halt as well, regarding him closely. “I don’t think we should follow this thing down here.” He said, Sergeant Brown giving him a curious look. “Why not Doctor Atkins?”

“Well, I think we are walking into a potential trap, whether intentional or incidental. If we keep going we will be among the upper parts of the storage tanks. Any gunfire in there has the potential of piercing a tank and igniting the oil, possible even causing an explosion. Now this entity probably could careless if that happens, if something happens to its host, it can just go and acquire a new one.” Whitney sighed slightly as she looked over at Sergeant Brown. “He’s right, intentional or not, this could be a very bad place to encounter this entity. Even if we limit our fire, it will likely not be as restrained.”

Frustration was evident on Sergeant Brown’s face as he struggled over what Whitney and Peter had said. He didn’t like the idea of leading his men into such a dangerous situation, but also didn’t want to leave another of his men under the influence of this thing. Focusing on Whitney finally he simply said. “What are your orders ma’am?”

Whitney could tell this was hard for him, he was really dealing with something he and his men were in no way equipped to deal with. “We are going to fall back for the moment. I don’t want to needlessly risk you or your men’s lives. Right now if feels like we are going forward on its terms, we should make it come to us, and I think it will eventually.” Sergeant Brown’s face was unreadable, but Whitney could sense the struggle he was having with choosing to fallback and wait. She wasn’t sure it was the best idea herself, but walking into a dangerous situation which the oil tanks represented was definitely not a good idea. “All right Marines, lets fall back.” He said finally as he signaled to the Marine who had been leading their advance and the group turned back to retrace their path.

Further ahead of where the group turned around, it was waiting in one of the shadowy corners of the hallways, the vessel aiming its weapon down the hallway as it waited for the approach of the female and the others with her. When it sensed the humans stop and then turn around, it felt a sense of anger as they began to move further away. The female had decided to delay encountering it, though what she hoped to achieve by this it was not sure of. The other humans were no threat to it, the best they could do was destroy it’s current vessel, then it would just dominate another. But the female, she was much more of an unknown. Her power was considerable and she could well have abilities that could directly attack it.

Standing up as it lowered the its vessel’s weapon, it knew that the female needed to be eliminated to insure its survival and freedom. Moving out of the shadows, the vessel moved on down the hall away from where the humans had been. Soon it reached a hatchway that the memories of the previous vessel had indicated would lead to a means up to the main level of the structure. After slinging its weapon over it’s back, the vessel turned the wheel on the doorway, swinging the metal door inward as heavy wind and rain began to blow in from the storm outside.

Stepping out onto the narrow walkway outside the structure, the winds blew rain against the vessel. Looking up into the darkening sky, it could faintly make out the ladder that lead up to the upper level of the structure. Moving the vessel over to the ladder, it began to climb upward in the heavy wind and rain. Likely the humans that were on this structure at its arrival would inform the female about this means of reaching the upper level, but it mattered little what happened to this vessel if trapped, there were plenty more on the structure.

Whitney, Peter and the remaining Marines had made their way back to the cafeteria, those gathered there looking at them with questioning looks particularly with less returning than had originally left. Chris Hanson made his way straight over to the table Whitney and Sergeant Brown had gone over too, Chris noting the frustration on the Sergeant’s face. “What happened, why has the power been cut?”

Whitney looked up at the Parcon executive with a slightly disgusted look as Peter came over to the table as well. “The entity was in your missing worker and sabotaged the generators. Doctor Atkins believes that the damage might be to sever too easily repair. The entity then took control over one of the Marines and killed your worker and another Marine. It retreated back into the area just above the storage tanks and we choose not to follow it for fear of any gunfire igniting the tanks.”

Chris glanced at Peter for a moment before focusing on Major Thomas once more. “Perhaps now would be a good time to contact your superiors and get someone else out here to take over the situation, this is obviously quite beyond you.” He said with a slight sneer. Whitney didn’t let the insult get to her as she looked at the man with a steady gaze. “If you think there is anyone else better equipped to deal with this entity, then I would welcome them here. But in all truth, I don’t think there is anyone else who could do any better. This would be a lot easier if you and your crew were not here, and Sergeant Brown and his men as well.”

Chris looked at her with a look of disbelief as Sergeant Brown looked up as well. “Why do you say that Major?” The Parcon executive asked with a cynical tone. “Because Mr. Hanson, everyone is just another potential host for this entity. Even if we were to manage to kill a host while the entity is in it, I am not sure that would stop it.”

Sergeant Brown finally spoke up as he looked at Whitney. “We may be potential hosts ma’am, but what if it was just you with this thing? Who’s to say that it wouldn’t just take control of you?” Whitney looked over at the Marine, not at all offended by his somewhat confrontational tone. “We don’t know Sergeant, but I would be willing to face it as I have more defense against this thing.”

“Is there anything you can do to help us develop some sort of defense against this thing?” Peter asked. Whitney looked over at the geologist as she shook her head sadly. “No, I don’t think there is. Perhaps I could help lock off parts of your memories from it, at least for awhile, but nothing permanent. I just don’t know enough about how this entity controls its hosts and merges with them so I can’t sense it to determine a means of defense against it.”

As the discussion was taking place within the oilrig, Lance Corporal Reynolds reached the top of the ladder he had been climbing. Wind and rain blew around the Marine as he made his way across the main deck of the oilrig. It could sense all the humans down inside of the structure, all gathered in one room, including the woman. So far its options seemed rather limited as to means of leaving this structure. This vessel had knowledge of a means of contacting other soldiers, a communication device that had been set up near the damaged space craft it had arrived here on.

But this vessel did not have the means of requesting a new transport, to do so it would need to take a new vessel. It seemed that the female was the leader of the soldiers, meaning she would be the one with the best chance of getting a new transport to take it from this structure. But that was problematic, as the female was dangerous, her abilities could make it difficult for it to control her. From its previous host, it had learned that there was a human on this structure who could likely have the ability to have a transport brought out to the structure, only the human’s authority seems to have been overridden by the female’s.

Perhaps if it destroyed the female, that would allow it to control this other human and obtain a means of leaving this structure. Turning to look at the doorway that lead back into the structure, it decided that what ever it did, it should act now to secure the communications device so it would have easy access to it when the time came.

Back in the cafeteria, one of the Marine Corporals came over to the small meeting between the Whitney, Sergeant Brown and the two Parcon employees. “Excuse me Sergeant, ma’am.” The Corporal said as everyone looked over at him. “I thought I should point out that the comm gear you had me set up earlier is still down by that alien spacecraft. When we are ready to leave this rig, we will likely need that unless we can get the power up and running again. I think we should secure it and bring it back here where we can keep an eye on it.” Sergeant Brown’s eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at Corporal Davies. “Why should we…oh f**k it.” He cursed as he realized that the entity now had knowledge of the comm gear having taken control of Lance Corporal Reynolds. “Get your team ready Davies, we are going down to get the gear.”

Whitney stood back up as the Corporal made his way over to where his fire team was waiting. “We should hurry Sergeant. I don’t want us to be away from the rest of the group for to long.” The Sergeant turned to look at her before he said. “Ma’am, this should be an easy quick recovery. Perhaps it might be best if you remain here?” Whitney shook her head as she replied. “No Sergeant, I am going along. The comm gear is a very likely target for the entity, and if that thing is there and I am not, who knows what could happen.”

The Sergeant nodded in reluctant agreement as he turned and made his way over to where Corporal Davies had his men ready. Whitney was following along behind when Peter came over to stand beside her. Whitney looked over at the geologist as she said. “I don’t think we will be needing your help this time Doctor Atkins. I believe we remember our way back down to the crash site.” Peter just smiled slightly as he replied. “You may not need me as a tour guide, but I might be helpful in other ways. If nothing else, I am an extra mind for the thing to target before it comes after you.” Whitney reluctantly let Peter follow along as the two doctors joined the Marines as they set out from the cafeteria again to make their way down to where the Kurriganian spacecraft had crashed into the Parcon oilrig.

It was approaching where the spacecraft that had brought it to this planet had crashed into this rig when it sensed several of the humans move from where they had all gathered, the female among them. Stopping for a moment, it wondered if somehow the female had somehow sensed it. That had to be impossible, there should be no way she could sense it when it was in a vessel, more likely they had decided to come and retrieve the device it was moving towards as well.

Looking back towards the ruined corridors that lead to the room the Kurriganian scout ship was in, it decided this was likely a good opportunity to try to eliminate the female. Moving into a section of the hallway, it moved into a shadowy area of the hallway and raised it’s vessel’s weapon, taking aim down the direction it sense the humans approaching from.

It did not have to wait long before another of the “Marines” came into view, moving cautiously with his weapon held ready. It decided it would be best to wait for the female, so it let the human continue uninterrupted. Not far after the first, came another human, this one looked right at it’s hiding place as his eyes widened in recognition.

The human aimed his weapon at it as he yelled out. “It’s Reynolds!” Having been detected, it decided that it would have to get at the female by another means as it opened fire at the human, one of the weapon’s projectiles hitting the man in the shoulder as he yelled out in pain and fell to the ground, his weapon firing a few rounds off, but far from it’s position.

The gunfire ahead caught Whitney slightly be surprise as she heard more M-16 fire follow after the initial shots. Just ahead of her, Sergeant Brown cursed as he started forward, yelling out as he went. “All units, Reynolds is down near the crash site, we are engaging now!” More automatic weapons fire sounded in the hallway ahead of them, the muzzle flashes from the M-249 SAW lighting the area as the Marine ahead of Sergeant Brown fired his light machinegun at their attacker.

Whitney suddenly sensed the entity, as it left it’s host and began to move towards them. There was a brief flash of mental activity from Lance Corporal Reynolds before that too went away, telling Whitney that the Marine had been hit by the light machinegun fire. “It’s lose! Reynolds is down!” She yelled out, trying to move forward to see if she could pinpoint it and try to stop it from taking another host.

Sergeant Brown started to look back towards her when Whitney sensed the strong presence of the entity as it streaked towards the Marine. “Look out Sergeant!” She yelled as she could almost see some ghost like shape that sped towards the Sergeant, disappearing into his body as the Sergeant’s body suddenly jerked in pain, almost as if he had been electrocuted. Whitney came to a halt, Peter just behind her, looking at the scene with shock as well. The Sergeant suddenly relaxed as he looked over at the two doctors, his eyes seeming to be somewhat cold and empty as he leveled his M-16 at the two.

Whitney began to raise her left hand as Sergeant Brown leveled his M-16 at her. Behind her, she heard Peter yell out in surprise as he grabbed her right arm and began to pull her backward. Just as Sergeant Brown pulled the trigger of his assault rife, the air right in front of Whitney rippled as she put up a telekinetic forcefield. The rounds from the weapon glanced harmlessly off the shield as Peter pulled her down onto the ground and was about ready to put himself between her and Sergeant Brown when he saw the attack deflected.

The Sergeant’s face held no emotion as he looked at the scene before him, dropping the empty magazine from his weapon as he reached for another to reload. Behind her, Whitney heard one of the Marines yell out as he looked at what was going on in front of him. “Holy sh*t! Sergeant Brown has been controlled!” Whitney kept her focus on Brown as her pupils contracted.

There was a ripple in the air between her and the Sergeant, like a vortex that spiraled towards the man. Sergeant Brown was flung backward with sudden force as the ripple connected with him, hitting the nearby wall with a loud thud before falling back to the ground. As the Sergeant’s body fell to the ground, Whitney sensed the entity leave him, almost making it out as it streaked through the corridor, passing right over her and Peter as it speed towards the Marine who was behind them.

“It’s switching hosts again!” She yelled as she pushed Peter off her and turned to look over at the Marine who had been coming up to help them. The young man’s body jerked as Sergeant Brown’s had as the entity entered his body, the teenager yelling out in pain as he lost control of his body. The Marine’s head snapped back to look at her once more, a malignant look in his eye as he lifted up his assault rifle to prepare to fire.

Adrenaline was rushing through Whitney as she focused on the controlled Marine, knowing she had to be extremely careful to avoid killing the man. Gritting her teeth, a flash of silver shot from her head, streaking towards the Marine like a flash of light. The concentrated blast of psychic energy hit the young man just at his throat, passing through his skin as if it wasn’t there and disappearing into his body. There was a brief moment as the young Marine stood there looking at her and Peter before he crumpled to the floor like a rag doll, his limbs strangely uncontrolled as he fell.

As she felt the entity leave the young Marine’s mind, Peter pushed himself back up to his knees, looking first from Sergeant Brown’s still form, then over to the other Marine’s. “What did you do to them?” He asked in a somewhat amazed voice. Whitney tried to focus on the entity as it made its way under them, answering with a slightly distracted voice. “They are both still alive, if somewhat injured. With the Sergeant, I merely used my telekinesis to slam him into the wall and the entity decided to vacate his mind. As for the young Private First Class, I hit him with a concentrated blast of psychic energy that disrupted his nervous system, effectively paralyzing him.”

Peter looked over at her, his face showing he was somewhat shocked. “You mean like a neuro-toxin?” Whitney nodded as she stood up, the Marine with the M249 coming into the room and scanning around with a shocked look on his face. “Same basic concept, except this doesn’t continue to spread through the nervous system like a neuro-toxin would, and it will ware off with time.”

The entity continued to pass underneath them, Whitney realizing it was making its way towards the two Marines that were still down the passageway ahead, one of them wounded by the initial ambush. Focusing on the minds of the two Marines, Whitney transmitted her warning straight into their minds. <The entity is making its way towards you both! Get back here with the rest of us!>

As it passed beneath the humans on the level below them, it realized that the female was proving to be more dangerous than it had truly anticipated. It was beginning to wonder if any of these other humans on the structure had a means of destroying her. It might have to try and use her as a vessel, though that was not without other dangers. Above it, it could sense the panicked minds of the two human Marines it had fired upon when the engagement had begun. Altering its path, it started up towards the two, moving towards the non-injured human.

Having been initially shocked slightly at the mental messages, the two Marines quickly began to act. The unwounded one grabbed the wounded Marine under his uninjured arm, helping to lift him to his feet. “Lets get the hell outta here Corporal.” Suddenly the Marine’s body jerked, his body going slightly ridged as the injured Corporal fell back down to his knees without the other’s support. “Bersinio? You okay?” Corporal Davies asked as the Marine suddenly looked down at him and reached down to grab the Corporal’s M-16 with undermounted M203 40mm grenade launcher.

“What the hell are you doing Bersinio?” Davies yelled as the controlled Marine pushed him aside with his foot, lifting the M-16 up to his shoulder and aiming it down the hallway towards where the others were, reaching his hand towards the front of the magazine well where the trigger for the grenade launcher was. The Marine Corporal grunted in pain as he fell onto his wounded arm, but he focused on the other Marine as he kicked with his right leg, catching Lance Corporal Bersinio just behind one knee, causing it to buckle as the fired the grenade launcher. The barrel of the weapon lifted up as Bersinio went down to one knee, the 40mm grenade spiraling off target to hit the ceiling of the hallway between him and his targets.

The explosion shook that part of the oilrig, the emergency lighting in the area blinking out as the hallway funneled the blast in both directions, flame and shrapnel blasting out of each end of the hallway. The Marine with the M249 was caught directly in the path of the redirected blast, screaming briefly as he was flung forward to lie still. The concussion of the blast knocked both Whitney and Peter off their feet, Whitney felt a sharp pain in her lower right leg as a piece of shrapnel cut the side of her calf, causing her to cry out in pain.

Back in the other room, Lance Corporal Bersinio was knocked back by the explosion, shrapnel cutting into the Marine’s left shoulder and right knee. As the vessel hit the metal floor, it realized that the vessel was badly damaged, and would be no match for the female now. Focusing its senses, it detected the human next to the vessel writing in fresh pain from shrapnel injuries, the leader of these Marines was also injured and the only other Marine still alive nearby was still immobilized by the female’s psychic assault. The only uninjured human in the area was one of the humans that had been on the structure when it had originally arrived. It could sense the female was injured some, it needed to do what ever it could to destroy her, all these humans were expendable in accomplishing that.

Whitney pushed herself back up with her arms, the pain in her right leg burning slightly as she rolled over so she was sitting up and looked down and could faintly make out the tear in her scrubs and dark stain that seemed to be around it. The only light around them currently came from the small fires that the explosion had started in parts of the hallway and an emergency further down the hallway. Peter had pushed himself up as well and seemed uninjured as he looked over at Whitney and slid over towards her. “Lie back, I’ll check it and do what I can.” He said as he gently grabbed her leg. Whitney felt a slight amount of pain, but didn’t lie back as she scanned the area around them. “It’s still in one of the Marines ahead of us.”

“There isn’t much we can do about that right now, everyone seems to be down at the moment. I can’t see well enough to tell how badly you are bleeding or if the shrapnel is still in there or not.” Peter said in a voice that was tight with frustration. Whitney felt a sensation of pain shoot through her as Peter touched around the wound, causing her to cry out. “Sorry.”

As the pain subsided, Whitney realized the entity had left its host and was moving towards them. “It’s coming this way!” She cried out as she pushed her self back slightly, tying to focus on the entity’s approach. Peter looked over at her as she cried out, a slight look of panic visible on his face in the shadows. Turning back towards the hallway ahead of them, he started backing up along side her as he asked. “Where is it?”

Whitney could sense the entity as it sped towards Peter at incredible speed, before she could reply, Peter’s body went ridged as the entity entered him. “No!” She called out as she felt his mind vanish from her scanning, the entity fully integrating itself into his mind. Peter suddenly turned towards her, the cold malignant look in his eyes as his right hand shot forward to grip her throat as he pushed her to the ground.

As she slammed down hard on the metal floor, Whiney felt pain jar through her as she instinctively reached up to grab at the hand cutting off her flow of oxygen. Peter’s left hand grabbed her right hand, pushing it back down to the floor as he put more pressure on her throat. Struggling for air, Whitney pushed at Peter’s side with her left hand as a ripple formed and a telekinetic push slammed into his right side. Peter was thrown off her, his hand suddenly pulling away from her throat as he flew a few feet to land on the metal floor and roll a few more feet away.

Whitney rolled to her left as she gasped as her airflow was restored, her throat still hurting from his tight grip. Glancing toward Peter, she saw him pushing himself back up to his hands and knees, his head turning back towards her as his eyes fixed on her with a cold stare.