Tempest

12 - The Storm

Another one of the creatures came up over the far end of the bridge. This one was even more grotesque; rather than moving on two legs, it had bent its entire shape forward and twisted its limbs. Each of its arms and legs had been shaped to disproportionate points, and it skittered forward like a massive spider.

Tobias didn't hesitate to pull his Wingman from its holster and start unloading. One of his bullets caught it in its front 'leg', and it paused for a moment to give a shrill shriek of anger.

The other three near him took the cue to fire as well, and began to pepper its front with spent ammunition. Both of its front legs were nearly torn apart by the bullets, and the shell-like substance cracked until there was no more tissue holding the pieces together. They separated, and the creature slipped forward on the puddle of reddish-orange liquid spilling from its severed limbs.

The thing continued to twitch for a few more moments before falling silent. They didn't have time to focus on it, however, as more creatures continued to haul themselves over the lip of the bridge and onto the main platform. Misshapen and disturbing, they made just as much of an assault on Tobias' mind as they did the spire. He had no qualms about shooting them down, whatever they were.

More pods continued to fall around the spire, and he looked up on a whim to see where they were coming from. There was nothing that he could see for an origin point; they seemed to just drop into existence. So as far as he could tell, there wouldn't be any shortage to their opponents any time soon.

But as he looked up, something else seemed to appear; a bright flash pulsed in the sky, and very faintly he could see the outlines of what looked to be large ships in orbit.

"What the hell?!" came a crackling voice through his helmet speakers. It must have been on an open channel.

Ellen looked up, saw what he was seeing, and gasped. "Those are ships from the expedition!" She pressed a button on a device clipped to the collar of her coat as the others continued to fight. "Hello? This is Ellen Parker of the Manticore! Do you read?"

There was just a moment's pause before the reply came. "This is the Manticore! We're reading you, Ellen. Something surrounded us and the Cyclops, and we can detect your signals again. All of the other ships are gone- what the hell just happened?!"

"I'm not sure exactly," she admitted, "but there's another person with us who claims that there are time distortions affecting this planet! We've been shifted in time, and we're being engaged by hostiles! It's not safe here!"

As if to drive her point home, Marcus gave a loud yell as he mowed down several of the charred-looking creatures with one of his last magazines of ammo. The response was swift. "Hold your position, we're getting a visual on your location."

Another few seconds of mindless fighting went by before he heard several people on the other end of the connection gasp. "Jesus, what the hell are those things?"

"Those things," Tobias interrupted through his own connection, "are trying to kill us at the moment. A little help would be nice!"

"Who are you? Where the hell did you come-"

He groaned frustratedly. "Oh, for God's- fire on the goddamn things! We don't have time to argue about this!" He was amazed at how often people failed under pressure because of unforeseen circumstances. The ability to adapt was a necessary one on the frontier.

There was hesitation on the other end for a moment before he heard a confirmation. "Launching missile salvos. Target the plains around the structure!"

Sure enough, bright orange flares of light could be seen arcing down from the sky at a considerable speed. The creatures still stuck in the plains didn't have a chance as the missiles decimated their forces. Chunks of blackened limbs were thrown everywhere, and orange liquid spewed onto the otherwise white snow.