HELIOS

Chapter 26

Put forth to watch, unschooled, alone,
'Twixt hostile earth and sky;
The mottled lizard 'neath the stone
Is wiser here than I.

What stir across the haze of heat?
What omen down the wind?
The buck that break before my feet—
They know, but I am blind!

Put forth to watch.

Rudyard Kipling

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The Gunny and I head down the hall to the armory. The Gunny unlocks the door garbing a plas rifle putting in the charger, he hands it to me. "Here you go Sir, wouldn't want you miss anything this time!" saying it with a smirk on his face, I raise an eyebrow.

"Thank you for being considerate to my needs." I say making him laugh, as he grabs his own rifle. We head back up skipping two steps at a time. "Gunny find out what's going on out there!"

"This is Mike two red to Mike three green do copy over." He pauses listening to the response . "Hotel six actual needs a sitrep asap!" He listens intently. "Sir they have some strange creature cornered at the large tower on the east side of the building." We move quickly through the building Getting in the lift to the top of the the east tower, as soon as the door open we hear the shouting to the left and the discharge of a plas rifle and more shouting. We move in AG quick to the sound rounding the corner carefully we see... a spindly looking being almost insect like waving around a pistol like object in one of his claws.

The Marines are hanging back some, but holding their ground. I look at this creature; he's wearing a black robe with his face and head covered. Only his eyes are visible, but they are unreadable because they're insect like, so you can't see emotion play in them. "You are surrounded you don't have a choice here. Just give up and we will not harm you!" I tell him and hopefully he understood me.

He laughs malevolently, almost like a menace he points one of his claws at me, then he runs it across his neck. Well, that didn't need any translation; I know a threat when I see one. "Put the weapon down!" Shouts another marine. This is not going to end well.

"Look!" I shout getting his attention. "It doesn't need to go down like this!" I need this sucker alive, so we can extract information from him. he reaches under his robe pulling out a blade and a second smaller object.

"Knife!" shout one of the Marines. He turns the blade to himself and jams it into his own throat. he staggers for a bit dying; he turns looking skyward opening his arms wide, the other object flies out of his claw straight up and out of sight. Now he's standing at the edge of the parapet, and tumbles over it.

"Damn it!" I shout! I run to the spot looking over I see his body on the ground below. "What the hell was that?" I ask. He preferred to kill himself than to be captured and questioned; this is bad really bad. They whom ever that is are gathering intelligence on us, and I think they got what they were seeking! "Gunny, I want that corps searched carefully for any intelligence and it needs to happen fast!"

"Roger That." he responds. "Well you heard the Captain! Lets clean up what's left of what ever that was and collect what we can!" He looks at his Marines who'r just dumbfounded. "Get moving NOW you Devil Dogs!" Jumping they start to leave to get the remains of the assassin. The Gunny stands next to me looking down. "Well Sir, looks like we're in it deep now." He gazes skyward. "Right up to our necks."

"Gunny, this situation is quickly becoming FUBAR, but we have to get handle on it." I look skyward. "And we need to do it faster than they are."