Chapter 32: Stranded on the Peak of Humanity

Date: November 21, 3007
Time: 18:00
Location: El Nath Region

Something flashed through Caleio’s midnight blue eyes, something she couldn’t quite put her hands on. She gripped her S-16 Scarab Assault Rifle tightly in her right hand, checking her actions blindly through the white out. Her fingers were numb and frozen onto the cold black steel. Through her communicator, Caleio could hear the groans of the rest of the platoon still on the ground beside her.

“Aaarrgghh! Head count!” Felix’s disembodied voice floated through the crackling com piece in Caleio’s right ear. A series of checks in order of decreasing rank replied back, each with their own unique hint of pain and suffering. All but one.

“Harding report!” Felix barked into the communicator, trying to block out the whirling wind lashing out at him. Caleio peered out blindly into the blizzard, but could only see indistinct shadows of the platoon. “Harding! Damn it Zanna, answer me!”

“Captain I’m getting a faint signal on her vitals on the wrist watch,” a woman’s voice replied back. Taking Aaru’s suggestion, Caleio looked down onto the green screen. Amidst the emerald grids, there were numerous red dots, each pulsating brightly, save one. Zanna’s was faintly throbbing on Caleio’s arm. Then, someone cried out.

“I found her! I found her! Come give me a hand! Anni!” Caleio heard Aaru cry out in desperation to her sister. Following the compass on her map, she trudged through the knee deep snow towards the cluster of red dots. In front of her, the figures of two women hunched over a small pile of snow appeared into view.

“She’s buried underneath this snowdrift!” Annikabelle shouted back, noticing Caleio appear through the blanket of white. Caleio hesitated for an unknown reason, then fell down to her knees. With the butt end of her rifle, she started to dig into the mound of snow keeping one of their own prisoner. “Come on! Her vitals are dropping!”

Then, Caleio saw something black protruding from the snow. She slung her rifle over her back and started to claw at the snow around the object. Through the intense storm, Caleio could barely pick out the image of Zanna’s hand. It had gone blue from cold, and Caleio was sure she was going to get frostbite.

Digging furiously, Caleio, Aaru, and Annikabelle finally unearthed Zanna’s body, which was cold and limp as a boned fish. The sisters put Zanna onto Caleio’s back and together, they managed to limp over to the rest of the platoon who were gathered at what seemed like a wall of smooth pure grey granite.

Felix dropped down to his knees and placed his mouth on top of Zanna’s, trying to revive her. Caleio stepped back as Felix performed CPR, praying that no one else would get hurt anymore. In her mind however, she suddenly realized it was futile. All odds were against their survival. Yet they still remained…

A sudden gasp of air made Caleio shudder as Zanna was brought back to this world. Through the whiteness, Caleio could make out the image of Felix propping Zanna up and rubbing her back. They were right next to the huge grey wall of granite. But as Caleio approached, she suddenly noticed that the background was not a solid piece of stone, but rather nothing at all.

The snow crumpled from the edge and was carried off by the wind again, as Caleio stood at the edge of a cliff overlooking the frozen ocean beyond, hundreds of feet below her. Numerous mountains of ice dotted the otherwise flat landscape in front of her; the icebergs had been long fused with the surrounding ice of the water. They had some how wandered back to the Sea of El Nath again, where the SS Isis was supposed to be waiting for them. But the horizon was dark and cold with foreboding.

Cursing under her breath, she turned back to the platoon. Zanna had gotten up and was standing shakily behind Felix with her rifle in her hand. Another eerie howl pierced the air behind them.

“Captain, the Isis isn’t here,” Caleio stated bluntly. Felix seemed to be taken abruptly aback, though Caleio could not tell if it was because of her words or the blizzard. “Captain?”

Felix blinked stupidly, seeming to lose all contact with reality. He had a strange glazed look over his eyes, and it scared the hell out of Caleio. They were stranded in the middle of no where, with no support or back up. Alone with nature at her worst. Times like these bring out the best in humanity, but it also brings out the worse. Caleio couldn’t tell what Felix was thinking. But then, the phase in personality had ended, and Felix was back to his hardcore, fearless self. He turned around and roared into the communicator, “Aaru do you still have the black orb?”

Aaru trudged through the snow, blocking the snow with an upheld left hand. In her right, she carried the strange black orb that had gotten them into this whole goddam mess. The sacrifices they made for the Dominion were too strange, almost to the point of insanity…

But the moment Aaru held out the sphere, the howls behind them increased tenfold. Caleio snapped her S-16 up into the ready position and peered through the heat-seeking scope mounted on top of the weapon. The rest of the platoon did likewise, encircling the captain in a defensive formation.

Caleio felt her heart pounding against her throat; the hammer of hell was slamming against the side of her head with each passing second. Gritting her teeth, she tried to focus solely on what was in front of her, blocking out all else that moved.

But there was something moving in front of her. One by one, dark figures appeared in the greyness ahead, growling, sneering, preparing to kill. Pangs and Hectors from the abyss, here to satisfy their lust for blood once more. Caleio’s eyes could barely make out the shapes of the wolves, but she could already feel a chill run down her spine. Sh**…

The growls crescendoed to roars of fury as the endless swarm charged forwards. Caleio did not fear Felix’s shout to fire, but she soon found herself in survival mode, squeezing the trigger and hoping her bullets were finding their targets. The clacking of the automatic rifles was drowned out by the even louder gusts of wind trying to blow everything over into the abyss below.

A white wolf sprang up from behind the grey curtain. Caleio jerked her weapon up and jabbed the barrel into the wolf’s throat. She squeezed the trigger firmly and felt a gush of warm blood burst onto her face. The wolf was thrown back by the force of the bullets that tore straight through its neck.

Before Caleio could gather her thoughts, two more sprang up to take their fallen brother’s place. The rifle opened up once more, shredding the wolves to pieces as lead and steel met fur and flesh. Backing up, Caleio suddenly bumped into something hard.

Taking a chance, she whipped around and found herself back to back with Zanna, who was firing in the opposite direction. Her rifle bounced jerkily in her frostbitten hands. But in Caleio’s eyes, Zanna was firing at nothing. However, when she looked closer, her eyes dilated in horror, for storming across the frozen ocean like a black wave, were thousands of wolves stampeding their way towards their position, as if drawn by some unknown force.

Caleio whipped around once more and thrust her rifle out just in time to knock an incoming wolf to the ground. She stomped down on the grey wolf’s head and blasted away its brain with a single bullet. Without warning, Caleio felt something collide with her. She flew through the air and landed with a soft thud in the snow with a snarling Pang tearing at her. It slashed out with its extended claws and Caleio felt a pain surge through her body. She saw a crimson liquid splatter onto the white snow.

Wincing in agony, Caleio reached up with both hands and gripped the wolf around its foaming snout. She kicked up with her legs, sending the wolf sprawling to the snow a few feet away. Then, without hesitating, she dashed to her rifle. In one spectacular move, she dived headfirst into the snow, feeling the cold lump of steel fit tightly around her fingers. As she slid through the white powder, she spun around and open fired, blowing the wolf away like a rag doll.

Suddenly, she felt nothing below her head and found herself stopped at the edge of the cliff that separated the frozen land from the frozen sea. Caleio quickly scampered up, but instantly dropped back down again. With an enraged shriek, a diving wolf flew over her and fell down over the murderous cliff with a last yelp that mingled with the roaring wind.

Caleio had lost all sense of direction now, and only hoped that the rest of her friends were still alive. Through her heat-seeking scope, she found the red figure of a wolf and squeezed the trigger. She watched as the red dissolved into a cold blue as Caleio ended its life with a single bullet. Like everything else, firing a gun was a binary choice. Either the trigger is pulled or it is not. Caleio, however, had no choice. Every move she made was pre-destined fate, a fate that would lead her deep into the depths of hell.

Leaving a rosy red trail of blood, Caleio stumbled blindly through the snow, taking quick glances at her wrist watch, trying to determine where the fading red dots were. It seemed as if everyone was scattered off the face of the earth.

Suddenly, a stream of plasma flames erupted in front of her. Caleio gave a deep sigh of relief and rushed towards the rush of fire. Anni and Aaru were back to back, spraying 9000 degree Fahrenheit jets of flame into the snow, instantly melting the surround snow as well as the surrounding wolves. Caleio ejected an empty magazine and slammed home a new one. Cocking the rifle back, she let loose a burst of metal into the haze before her, not knowing whether her bullets hit anything or not.

The sun was below the horizon now, though there was no evidence of it at all through the miles of grey storm clouds lingering overhead El Nath. As the sky darkened, the muzzle flashes from the scattered platoon became brighter. Soon it would be night once more. The world would once again be engulfed in total blackness. Coupled with the raging wind and the wall of snow, the platoon was in for one hell of a night.