Doom - Evil Unleashed 0.2

[dsm]

The Beginning to the End – Part 2

-

Rain was pouring down on the fateful day, where my SSDU platoon was suddenly called in on an unsuspected mission.

A horde of rioters had stormed a UAC weapons factory on Earth, trapping a number of UAC employees and workers inside. The rioters, most of them unhappy with the placement of the factory, were surprisely well organized and had overtaken some of the completed weapons, which made them a considerate threat. It soon became clear that some of them were extremely dangerous criminals, who were there just to ruin UAC property to show their distaste towards the corporation and its employees – or just because they were bored, looking to cause trouble. What had started out as a riot at first had now turned into a chaotic nightmare.

The SSDU was the most capable unit to deal with the problem, as they were trained to land on bases and take them by force among other things, which included hostage rescuing and sabotage missions. The SSDU marines were the best in close-quarters fighting, and this mission demanded close-quarters combat specialists, so my buddies and I were sent in to retake the base and stop the "marauders" from causing further harm. But it turned out that the UAC didn’t care much about the workers’ safety - they just wanted the base "cleared" as it was an important factory to them.

1st Lt. Stevenson was in charge of the operation and he only cared about that one order: To wipe out all resistance no matter the cost...

The Armored Personnel Landing Pod landed softly on the roof. It was an all-purpose personnel transport craft, as big as a house, which was usually launched from a larger carrier – some of those were really gargantuan. But this time it had been launched from a nearby airfield. The khaki-colored, bulky ramp lowered with a muffled, hissing sound and we ran out of the pod armed with stun-grenade launchers as well as assault rifles – two soldiers carried assault chainguns and two others had high-caliber sniper rifles. I carried a shotgun, and we all wore light-ampflication visors attached to our faceplates – those allowed us to see clearly in the dark, but they were very power-consuming and only worked a short while, before they needed a recharge.
At that time I was a Sergeant and second in command of our platoon on this operation. I had just been promoted and Stevenson seemed to dislike me even more than ever. He was probably envious that I was being promoted so quickly and he was certainly not happy about the possibility that I one day could rise to a higher rank than him.

"First squad check sector Bravo 1 through Bravo 3, third squad Charlie 1 through 4, squad 2, follow me, move out!" Stevenson growled in his radio.
The teams proceeded at their designated routes and entered the factory from different angles, while everyone covered each other's back.

We moved down a dimly lit hallway. We could clearly see that the "rioters" had messed up the place – several lights were smashed and occasionally we saw graffiti-text that read things like: "Death to da UAC fuckas!" and "We don't need no monopoly crap – fuck off UAC!". Trash littered the floor in a lot of rooms we looked into and a few computers and monitors had been smashed.

Aggressive yells ahead of us brought us to a halt. One of our pointmen looked around a corner, but immediately stepped back as a hail of high-caliber shells almost blew the wall next to him to pieces. "Sir, they have a mounted chaingun-cannon! They’ll rip us apart if we advance, Sir!"
"Sergeant!" Stevenson barked at me and then lowered his voice as he continued. "Pick a man to distract them!" I turned to face the rest of the men in the squad
"Brooks!" I called hoarsely.
"What can I do for ya, Sarge?" he grinned in reply.

Private 1st Class John C. Brooks was my partner while I was private and my best friend too. He was a black man with close-shaved hair. He was somewhat taller than I and immensely strong. I knew that I could always trust him, no matter how tough the challenge seemed. The best thing about him was that nothing seemed to ruin his good mood, which annoyed the Lieutenant.

"Go and get the laser torch from our APLP and draw the suckers' attention by starting burning through the roof above 'em, but DON'T proceed to burn all the way through, just draw their attention away from us and get the heck outta the way, got it?!"

"That's affirmative, you can count on me, Boss!" he replied in his deep bass-voice and ran off.

We waited tensely, watching everyone's back in case our enemies would counter-attack, while I kept following Brooks' position on my Friendly Unit Tracking Device or FUTD. I had instructed the others about what would happen, so that there would be no confusion among our boys. After a while Brooks reached the spot and I gave him the okay. Sparks lighted up the hallway above our enemies' heads and they all looked up. They were only distracted briefly, but it was enough time for our pointmen to pick off the guy manning the chaingun cannon. We rushed around the corner opening fire at them, one of our soldiers rushed up and launched a stun-grenade at the mob, blinding and confusing them making us much harder targets. Moments later we were through, leaving dead bodies behind us without losing a single man. I had felt that our mission was a really dirty one from the very beginning, but especially now. Brooks returned to us and we proceeded through the hallways.

*

The three squads assembled outside a manufacturing hall, which was crowded with people – our pointmen reported that civilian workers were being held there and if we opened fire, we would certainly down a lot of those civilians, but Lt. Stevenson didn't care.
"Move in and shoot into the crowd. Bag the heavily armed freaks first" he ordered coldly, his eyes narrow and his voice hard.
"What!?" I replied shocked. "You mean to risk killing innocent civilians just to bag some stupid troublemakers, Sir?!"
"You got a problem with that, Sergeant?" he asked angrily.
"But that's against the rules, Sir!" I said, my voice getting firmer.
"Now, you listen to me, prick" he hissed in a low, but cold voice, gritting his teeth. "Our orders are to take this base, and it damn Hell doesn't matter HOW we do it! It's an order and when I give you an order you had better follow it, soldier!"
"Fuck orders! I ain't killin' no innocent civies!" I snarled.

He suddenly swung the butt of his rifle at me.
He was quick, but I was a lot quicker, ducking before he could hit me. My fist hit his jaw with a crunch, before he even realized that he had missed, sending him crashing into the wall, knocking him unconscious.
I turned to the men, who all stared wide-eyed at me.

"What are you, looking at dammit? Get the snipers up here and await my orders" I snarled in a low voice.

*

I was able to accomplish the mission, without getting a single civilian injured or losing a single man. By using well-placed sniper fire, taking out the more heavily armed troublemakers, we "persuaded" the rest of the mob from offering any resistance. It appeared that a lot of the more dangerous of these people had been marines before and were either educated to handle these weapons or could easier adapt to them than the regular troublemaker.
I couldn't care less about what had caused the "riot", because as I returned to the pod, the MPs had arrived, having responded to Lt. Stevenson's radio call...

*

"Refusing to follow orders, assaulting a superior and taking charge without permission."
The result was that I was busted down to private and transferred to Mars. I was lucky that I had such a good reputation and had completed the mission without making things look ugly, as it saved me from the firing squad. But unfortunately there were apparently enough people after my scalp to get me booted to the UAC base on Mars. After all, the fact was that I had assaulted a superior officer "at a very critical moment" as they said.

...

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Comments? Suggestions?

[Kid Airbag]

Very, very good, just like the first one ;)

[dsm]

Thanx :-)
Found any spelling/grammar errors?

[Tek]

Overall a wonderful piece of literature, and though there are spelling and grammatical errors, I would say you have an excuse as English isn't your first language. While my story has inspired you to greatness, your fiction, in turn has given me a few bright ideas that I can use in the future.

Bravo!

[dsm]

Overall a wonderful piece of literature, and though there are spelling and grammatical errors, I would say you have an excuse as English isn't your first language.

I would be very grateful if anyone took it upon himself to point out the spelling/grammar errors they can find. Partially, because It'd be a great help in improving my English.