The roar of the dropship’s engines drowned beneath a cacophony of gunfire . Beneath its steel hull, the squad of survivors fought desperately against the relentless horde. Their weapons blazed into a sea of razor barbed tentacles and serrated claws surging forth to tear them from the surface of mars, but they stood firm. Magnus mounted a laser cannon, emptying volley after volley of lethal charged plasma into the oncoming tanks, their enormous forms writhing in agony as the beams melted alien flesh but for each lumbering giant that fell, another stepped forwards to take its place. The survivors glanced up, and apart from the threat of being overrun they felt relief, seeing the safety of the dropship hovering above them.
Five of them stood on the retrieval platform with only Baraka left to join them, who stood a mere tile away from salvation. Clutching a hammer in one hand she stared into the green eyes of two Xenos and twisting her face into a snarl, she prepared to charge the wretched creatures. She didn’t hear the sniper round that hit her, she only saw a bright red beam pass through her shoulder before burying into the face of one of her assailants. Her scream joined the aliens in a demented chorus of pain as she glanced at her wound, watching the flesh melt into a sizzling mess of bloody sinew.
‘I can save her!’ Cole ignored the fact he’d shot his teammate and kept his rifle pressed into his shoulder, levelling his sights upon the final Xenos threatening Baraka.
‘You don’t need to do this!’ Jared stormed towards Cole, intent on grabbing the rifle before the civilian had a chance to take another shot.
Baraka looked up from her wound to see the other Xenos stepping over the corpse of its kin, and it snarled as its taloned feet crunched into the smoldering ruin that had once been the aliens face. She gripped the hammer with her one good hand and charged, yelling in defiance ‘Come and die you ugly son of a_’
Her words turned to ash in her mouth as the back of her skull exploded forwards through gritted teeth. Her body stood for a moment, her armours auto stabilizers preventing her from falling even though her head had been obliterated. The armoured corpse stood swaying like a puppet guided by drunken hands, before the alien tackled her lifeless form to the ground. Bloodied claws tore into her armours steel plating and began rendering her flesh from within.
Jared roared at Cole, who stood with mouth agape, his cold fingers trembling over the rifle trigger which moments before he’d used to accidentally take the life of his comrade. The mission objective had been clear. All of them needed to be at the platform or the dropship wouldn’t land. The company wouldn’t risk expensive hardware on rescuing anything less than six people. Only five of them still drew breath.
Jared had just reached Cole and grabbed him by the throat as the dropship’s engines thundered like the reckoning of some vengeful god, causing shockwaves to resonate upon the Martian sands. Flames erupted from the back of the craft as it disappeared from view, and the survivors turned to watch as their rescue; their entire lives vanished beyond a sea of hateful green eyes and tentacled limbs.
The survivors emptied everything they had left before the horde crashed upon them and the last thing Jared saw was his fist clenching shut around Cole’s throat. ‘You didn’t have to do_’. Guttural screams were torn from their chests as claws eviscerated flesh. Tentacles bore into their skin, twisting their bodies which popped and snapped as their spines and ribcages shattered into splinters. And then silence, nothing moved. The gargantuan husk of the abomination stood silhouetted against the meridian sun, like a demon born from hellfire it towered above its bestial kin. The suns light washed over the Martian sands, casting the Xenos horde and disfigured corpses in shades of blood.
The Home Front 