Surface: Doomed Planet

Excerpt 10-Armored Transport

Ryu was an unusual man. He seemed very philosophical, simply from the way he talked. Many of his soldiers seemed to fear him as much as they did look up to and admire him. He ran his camp extremely efficiently, everyone had their place and knew what was expected of them and no one was given a job he or she could not handle on their own. All his men seemed tightly disciplined and trained to the point where they would know that someone was sneaking up behind them and wait till the very last second to flip around and turn the tables. It reminded me a lot of watching Aegean run the Praetorians, everyone knew what was expected of them and knew they would be punished if they failed to meet it.

When Ryu and I got to the tent, some of the soldiers on the beds were awake, while others had passed. There were X Rays on the wall. Most of them looked fine apart from broken ribs. But some of the X-Rays had pitch black spots in them and they were fucking enormous.

"My hunch is confirmed", Ryu said, "nurse, what make you of these X-rays?"

"Please cut your shit Ryu", the nurse said, "I hate it when you talk like that and I'm not in the mood."

"This is merely how I speak", Ryu said.

"Whatever", the Nurse said, "I have no idea what to make of them. Short of cutting Miller open, which would kill him in the state he's in."

Ryu sighed, "do you expect Miller to recover enough for removal of these objects."

"I can't say", the nurse said, "what ever is inside of him simply absorbs the X-Rays, but judging on what I saw on his blood tests, it's some kind of bone based structure, an egg possibly."

"An egg?", Ryu asked, "are you certain of this?"

"No I am not certain of this", the nurse said in a "I am annoyed to hell with your stupid ass right now", kind of voice, "With everything that has happened in the past 24 hours, I'm certain of nothing."

"I know the feeling", I muttered under my breath. This was about the time that Miller's body began to convulse, while his heart monitor flat lined.

"What in all the realms?", Ryu asked himself as his hand began to char and embers fall from his clenched fist. I felt the ice creeping up my arm as well.

"Get the wounded out of here", the nurse ordered as Miller's chest burst open and a swarm of large fist sized black spiders poured from it, "now!"

"Taste cleansing fire!", Ryu shouted as he unleashed a jet of flame from the palm of his hand. The spiders let off a blood curdling cry as they flipped over and roasted in the heat. When Ryu backed off, there was nothing left but empty chitin exo skeletons and Miller's bones, along with the scorched cot he was on. The walls of the tent seemed only to be singed by the flames.

Ryu bent down and picked up one of the skeletons, inspecting it closely.

"I am glad we are not enemies Skyline", Ryu said, "for this is a fight we will not win unless we all come together in an overwhelming force. Have you any survivors in your base of operations?"

"Around 20", I said.

"You must bring them here", Ryu said, "I'll send you with a tank and a truck to retrieve them and any supplies you posses."

Ryu turned to a Hazmat team that had just arrived, packing chemical throwers.

"Cordon off this area", Ryu said, "prepare all wounded men from Miller's squad for X-Rays and emergency surgery at once, we cannot allow any more of these eggs to hatch."

The hazmat team acknowledged Ryu's orders as Ryu and I went back to the hotel. When we entered, my friends were standing in the lobby with a huge, Xenomorphic spider dead at their feet. Alcatraz was crouched down next to it. His shirt was soaked in yellow, gooey blood and his normally spiky hair was down around his forehead.