The Baldie, The Clone, and the Sabre: Chapter 11 [FINAL]

[Martzin]

The duo returned from their disgusting little errand-run. The troops were rallied and ready for battle, Powalski and Reno standing next to one another.

"So, we're finally gonna end it?" Jeffrey whispered next to Jools.

"Yep... better lock 'n fucking load," Jools said. He aimed his smart-gun forward, keeping it steady.

Suro wiped the sweat off her forehead and clenched her rifle. Reno stood looking suspiciously at the others with his sabre drawn.

Soon they got the order to advance, and advance they did. They walked and walked-- not finding a single xenomorph for a long time.

"Where the fuck are they..." Garth anxiously stated. Reno wasn't even leading his men; he was wandering aimlessly with his sabre, trying to spot any of those monsters lurking about.

"Man, if only we had that crazy black dude with us." Jools joked, looking at the roof with his optic goggles.

"Yeah, he seems to know everything about these fuckers..." another marine responded.

"They're around here somewhere, we just have to keep lookin'!" yelled Prevatt.

Jeffrey walked with his SL. "You know what they're tryn'ta pull off, SL...?"

"Maybe a... an ambush." Powalski muttered.

"You... ya sure 'bout that?"

"Yes, I'm sure." "Marines!" Garth raised his voice. "Be on the fucking look-out, stay frosty! This all might be a trap..."

The troops continued on until they hit a bottle-neck. They immediately stopped, looking to their SL's for orders...

Powalski looked around, and turned back to the bottle-neck. A terrible feeling of dread creeped over him... it creeped over everyone.

Garth sighed. "We must push on," he muttered just loud enough for Duluth to notice and go "What?" before he walked in.

The rest of the marines followed suit, letting the SL pass through... They squeezed into the tight passage, praying that nothing would happen.

Powalski, Jeffrey, Prevatt made it across.
They all visibly sighed with relief, looking back at the rest of the force.

And then the sound of squelching immediately hit their ears, and the bottle-neck filled up with green gas.

A cacophany of screaming men and women cried out. Suro was caught in the trap, being stampeded by waves of burning soldiers all collapsing ontop of her...

She attempted to crawl out but they continued to pile on-top, the gas slowly encroaching both ways. She saw another man slowly stumble away before collapsing to his knees, revealing his hair had fallen off and his skin turned into a sickening, crackled and blistered yellowish-red tint. He eventually slumped over to the ground.

Suro screamed and still tried to claw her way out, but it was too late. The gas enveloped her and she was consumed by the burning chemicals, rolling and crying incessantly as her skin began to peel off while the gas choked her, the inside of her throat unbearably scratching and throbbing...

"WHAT DO WE DO! WHAT DO WE DO!" Kailey incessantly screamed, fully realizing how fucked their situation was.

They could hear those clawed monsters moving about. Growling and hissing, telepathically alerting the rest of the hive about the 3 singled-out hosts who were cut off from the rest of the force.

"FUCKING HOLD!" Powalski ordered, as a hunter jumped from the darkness. It grabbed onto the SL before it was immediately hit by a hail of bullets and jumped back into the veil of darkness that surrounded them.

Jeffrey helped him up. "We got this, SL..."

They stood there, waiting as the rest of the hive began to swarm around them. They could hear them slowly encroaching, the 3 slowly backing out into the tunnel...

Reno ran through the extremely tight passage as the 3 sprinted past him, followed by a wild horde of xenos. He stood there and began to violently slash at them, keeping them back. But soon enough a hugger was thrown into the fray and latched onto Reno, causing him to fall over flat on the ground.

The troops attempted to follow suit, marching into the tunnel and keeping the aliens at bay with a constant fray of muzzle fire and bullets, some men grabbing the wounded and dragging them behind the lines.

Suro layed there breathing heavily, each inch of her body covered in flaming agony... She did not want to think about what the acid had done to her. Seeing what happened to Foster, and the marine who just moments ago was on his knees--

She pulled out her side-arm and made sure it was loaded. During Powalski and the other 2's retreat they had accidently kicked some of the bodies off of Suro, making it possible to wriggle out. She managed to crawl out of the pile of bodies, seeing 1 marine with a hugger wrapped around his face...

She quickly slid her boot-knife out and stabbed the thing, letting it curl up and slide off the man's face. It was Reno; his face quickly sprung back to life, and he jumped up.

"GET THE FUCK DOWN!" Suro yelled and grabbed one of his feet, tripping him to the ground. They were infront of the firing line, so if anybody were to stand up they'd immediately get filled with lead...

Reno reached for his belt, trying to pull his sabre out; only to figure, it wasn't there! He must have dropped it when he was hugged, and he immediately began to panic.

"Suro, muh blade! MUH BLADE!"

"Huh?!" Reno began to scour the dirt for his sword, digging it up with his bare nails and over-turning bodies thinking they might have landed on it. But all in all, it wasn't there; nothing was there beside them and the dead.

"WHERE'S MY BLADE?!" Reno screamed onto the comms.

He was immediately hit by a couple of retorts and disses on Reno's behalf, mostly for acting and sounding like a retard for a large majority of the mission.

And then, someone spoke up. "What, this fancy steel one?"

Reno immediately lit up with fury. His hands clenched, he began sweating profusely; What was this fool doing with HIS blade?!

"GIVE ME IT BACK, GIVE ME MY BLADE!"

"Nah man, finder's keepers."

Reno grabbed at his beard. "FINDER'S KEEPERS?! GIMME MY MOTHERFUCKING BLADE! I had it, I owned it! It was given to ME!"

"Too bad so sad, Reno!"

"RRAUGH!" Reno furiously cried at this traitor's words! Nobody was going to take HIS sword, HIS possession!

The shooting had died down by now. A medic came in to retrieve Suro, the bald SL himself standing...

The troops moved forward, pushing Reno with them. They were still firing off their guns, showing the threat had not fully abandoned the front.

Reno began to softly push the marines out of his way in search for the man with his blade; he squinted at every marine and what he was holding, looking in vain for the thief who took his sword.

During this time, Suro was being carried away off to the Tablefort. Dubi was in the midst of surgery, Jools, Jeffrey, and Powalski all at the front slowly pushing the xenos back.

And then, after what felt like hours of searching, Reno found him. The fraud, the cheat and overall buffoon who stole his noble weapon; Some ass-hole wearing a money-hat slashing at the xenos. He was racking up hits in a couple of minutes more than Reno could have through-out the whole op.

Reno yelled, not words but gibberish; out of a flaming hatred and vacuous need for his sword, he began to push a marine off the firing line. The poor man constantly attempted to stay with the line as it slowly moved up, while simultaneously fighting off Reno who seemed to have the sole intent of throwing the bastard into someone else's field of fire.

But soon they reached into more narrow parts of the cavern, and Reno had pushed the man into a wall to pass him... Where one of those giant aliens, a red one, snatched him up. He tried to scream for help and his comrades shot at the beast, but it did not deter it. His head was torn off and body thrown at the wall, where it fell to the ground soft and squishy from his bones being shattered at the impact.

Yet still Reno did not receive his rightful tool of war, and the fool would continue to try and receive it until he had lost sight of him...



It turns out the man had gone in deeper and killed the Queen himself with HIS sword-- after downing her in a melee battle. The man was hailed a hero as the rest of the hive was finished off by the relentless troopers.




Reno stood against a flood-light. He checked the time: 0834.

He observed the troops at Tablefort being patched up with fresh medical supplies and doctors. They were going to head back up to the Sulaco and rest up; give Wey-Yu their report and get the fuck away from this planet.

Powalski stood some feet away talking with another member of his squad.

Story, Reno Story, was filled with an insatiable vindictiveness and also grief at his lost glory and sword. He didn't know how to vent these emotions anymore; he'd gone off the deep-end, his arms crossed like a contemptible child.

"Hey, Reno!"
A woman wearing a doctor's coat had caught his attention. She held an injector in her hand.
"We forgot to give this to you!" she said, before thrusting it into his arm.

It immediately flooded his mind. He remembered how to talk properly, how to lead, how to cook and pronounce words; And with that too he recognized his inflammatory and toxic behavior. His harshness and stupidity, greatly affecting and jeopardizing the lives of many men and women as well as the mission's success itself.

His apathetic and unsanitary ways and disrespect and little to no appreciation towards his men; This was almost definitely going to get him court marshalled for the terrible, terrible choices and absence of choices he's made as a leader.

In this final moment of clarity, he rubbed his hands and shed some tears. He will never forgive himself. His own philosophy and practices of leading; A terrible hypocrite he's become. No matter if he had or had not brain damage, he will never forgive himself.

In his dejection, he walked towards Powalski and asked:

"Powalski, tell me; what did you think of my performance during the course of the mission?"

The other 2 troops looked at Reno surprised.

"Honestly?" Powalski said, blowing smoke from his mouth.

"Yes, honestly. Be as honest as you possibly can."

Powalski took another huff of nicotine. "You've been nothing but a fucking baldie the whole op Reno,"

"Yeah, what happened man?" another marine commented.

And that was it; Garth had sealed the deal. Reno turned around and leaned against the flood-light, sliding to the ground and sitting there.



That day Reno returned to the Sulaco and contemplated suicide. Suro was healed as best as the doctors could and placed into a cryo-cell; Kopchek, Lochlann and Caddy were never found and deemed MIA. Dubi was decapitated while returning to the caves but cloned.
The rest lived out their lives, the memories of Lazarus Landing forever etched into their souls.


Afterword: Well, this is finally done. Spending the last 3 months of 2016 on this story and it's finally been finished early in January 2017... this was a nice write, and I'm glad it got the attention it did. I probably won't be making another story on CM for a long time... but eventually I'll come back with something new.

[Karmac]

Definitely referencing this in my PMC story I'll get to writing up shortly

[Renomaki]

Damn, how time did fly...

The memory of the round that inspired it is much hazy now, but a form of it will be remembered in story.

Ironic that this was once based on what I believed to be my worst SL experience, only for it to be beaten by even more awkward SL adventures that I feel ashamed of.. But no matter.

While some members of the community have stories displaying them as badasses, this one displays weenie as who he is... A weenie. A sad, sad weenie.

[Eenkogneeto]

Its funny because my leading cause of death is actually Boiler clouds because I know too much about how they work and gamble too often.
I enjoyed this story, good work.

[McRipfist]

Top tier. Top fucking tier.

[Recounted]

wait I was in it? Time to re read it

[Recounted]

well, that was a wild ride. This story was sumthin though I'll give ya that

[Kavlo]

Just re-read it and never really commented.

Good job.

Ps. I'm totally not dead just been captured by some predators I swear.