The Baldie, The Clone, and the Sabre: Chapter 10

[Martzin]

The fighting had died down. A triage was being built at Tablefort now for the wounded to be patched up and sent back out to fight.

No alien was to be seen in the near vicinity, so they started clearing out the rest of the riverbank. Defenses were being built at the cave entrances, including some sentries that were repaired from salvageable parts.

"Right, whose next..." Garth pondered, examining the faces of men that still stood with the SL's.

"Sir, I saw a group of our guys laying north of the Tablefort. One of 'em was a spec," Jeff spoke.

"Alright I'll send you over there." Pawolski noticed most of his men had already been sent out, and most of Reno's was still there.

"For fucksake..." Garth murmured to himself. "Hey Reno, can I take one of your guys?"

"Huh?" Reno turned around. "Oh uhh.... yeah!"

Pawolski immediately picked one random grunt out from the group. "You, get with Jeff."

Suro turned her head, having been picked. "Where?"

Pawolski pointed at Jeff with his thumb, to which Suro began to walk over.

"Uhh, SL... I should say..." Jeff stammered, struggling to spit out whatever he was trying to. "Don't waste any fuckin' time," Pawolski silenced Jeff with. "Drag the bodies to LZ2 and loot whatever's on 'em, I'm sure they can get shit from the vendors."

Suro checked the ammo counter of her pulse rifle. "Alright, let's get this over with."
Jeff squeezed his free hand into a fist, acrimoniously sighing along with it.

The engineer walked ahead. Duluth quickly followed, watching for any movement around them...

He attempted to ignore the engineer leading him, keeping his mind focused on the task at hand.

They walked along the barren sand grounds, the occasional lot of soldiers passing them.

"So... you're Jeffrey, yeah?"

Jeffrey looked at Suro. "Yeah, that's me."

"Where you from?"

"I'm ah, from Minnesota... you?"

"Oh y'know, I lived at a place called Terra Gnoma for a while."

"Oh, there! There it is!" Jeffrey pointed ahead, where a pile of 3 bodies lay. They were all dirty, muddy and mangled corpses; almost completely unrecognizable heaps of flesh from what they once were.

They both ran to them.
"Here, check their IDs." Suro said, feeling their belts. "Aha!" She slipped out an ID card. "Harry... Cowper?"
The 2 looked back down slowly at Harry Cowper... His whole face had literally melted off, the front of his skull the only thing looking back up. Some bits of cartilage hung where the nasal bone was.
'You know this poor bastard?" Jej asked, pinching his nose from the stench of cooked meat.

"Yeah... I knew him."

"So... damn, we gotta pick him up?" Jeffrey asked.

"Let's just get this over with," Suro grabbed the body's ankles.

Jeffrey hesitantly grabbed the man's wrists, slightly turning his head to avoid looking at the guts sticking out of his stomach.

"On 3," Suro stated. "1...2...3!"
They immediately pulled Cowper's body up, only for his limbs to detach like wet toilet paper and for the torso to fall back to the sand.

"D'ahh, jesus!" Suro exclaimed. Jeffrey dropped the arms and wiped his hands on his armor, Suro doing the same.

"What the fuck man?!" Jeffrey cried, still frantically wiping his hands on his armor.

"Alright, so..." Suro blankly stared at the ground, before darting her head back up. "How the fuck do we carry him back to the LZ?"

"I dunno, we gotta stuff his limbs in our packs!"

"Then pick up his arms and stuff it!" Suro leaned over and grabbed the disembodied arm, handing it to Duluth. "Here."

"Ey, fuck that!" Jeffrey pushed the arm back. "I've got food in my pack!"

"The fuck do you have food packed for?!"

"Orders from my SL, that's why! It kept my squad from starving down here!"

"Listen, just put the arms in your pack and I'll take the legs."

Jej covered his nose with his sleeve. "Alright, alright... fine," He grabbed the arms and folded them, reluctantly stuffing them into his pack. He also grabbed one strap from Cowper's backpack and dragged him along the way.

Suro took the legs and packed them as well, sticking out from her backpack like warlord decorations.



Dubi was patiently resting at Tablefort. There was still a dull pain aching in his leg, but it didn't bother him much knowing he could leave this fucked-beyond-comprehension planet for atleast some time.

As he leaned against some barricades he noticed 2 figures passing by, the floodlights slowly illuminating their appearances.

It was Suro and Jeffrey; though Suro had 2 rotten legs sticking out of her pack...
He was surprised and a bit disgusted at that moment. He began wondering if time down at this colony was taking a toll on his comrades; was Suro losing her fucking mind? She has 2 human legs sticking out like human effigies from her backpack.
Not to mention the other lad Jeffrey, with a delimbed human torso hanging from his sleeve with it's intestines swinging about like ropes. He swallowed his puke, and in his shock called out:

"What's with the fucking human trophies?!"
The 2 looked back at him, and then at eachother. "We're gonna clone a guy!" Suro answered.

Ray chuckled and leaned back on the barricade out of morbid jadedness.
"Cloning that cunt," he mumbled to himself, before snickering some more.

Dubi waited and waited, noticing that he wasn't getting picked up and dragged away to the LZ like he was told would happen.

Soon enough the pod landed and still they didn't move him. Hell, nobody moved!
"Hey," Ray said to a passing medic. "Why aren't you evac'ing the fucking wounded?"
The medic continued walking. "Hey!" Ray grabbed onto his pants. "Why aren't you evac'ing us?!"
He looked down at him, shaking his leg to get his hand off. "Don't you know? A fucking doctor's coming down to give you guys field surgery."

"Ey, what?" He grabbed the medic again before he could walk any farther. "So, we're not leaving?!"

"No, you're not fucking leaving." The medic shook his leg again and walked off.

"Oh, you gotta be shitting me...!" Ray grabbed onto his hair. "You gotta be shitting me..."
At that point he recognized that he wasn't going to leave no matter how hard he tried. He was going to be forced to fight the enemy head-on no matter how injured he got mentally or physically... He accepted his fate; letting go both of his hair and his constant paranoia.

The other 2 crossed the river and out to LZ2, where they dumped the body parts onto the road and quickly left to return the other corpses.

Soon they would initiate the 2nd attack, piercing into the very heart of the twisted resinous halls and caverns of the xenomorph species...

Hopefully they make it quick, despite how impossible such a hope is.

[Karmac]

"Once more, unto the Breach"

I'm getting hyped for the finale now. Also like the fact that the 'everything's fucked' vibe is still easily recognisable.

[InterroLouis]

I like how my limbs fell off and got stuffed in people's backpacks

[Karmac]

I like how my limbs fell off and got stuffed in people's backpacks

Cowpers in-round deaths in a nutshell once the xenos are done with him.

[Eenkogneeto]

No escape.