It was all going to plan pretty well Cray thought, he backed up against a building and cycled more rounds into the grenade launcher. Looking up just in time to see Bobrov turn the CREA-3 onto a horde of frothers and filling the air with the screams of the dying and stench of burning flesh, hair and armour. There was the odd carrien and Darknight agent in the mix too but you’d get that he smiled as the gout of flame turned the street into an yellow vision of hell, "how’s this for your fucking TV show you SLA arseholes!"
"Gary here sir, I think I spotted one coming in on your flank, I’ll be there soon."
"Acknowledged."
Cray looked up again as he fitted in a fresh magazine, Bobrov pulled back to reload the CREA-3 while Marr kept up his rain of leaden death into the mass. Then all of a sudden the big corporal went down with blood spraying from a head wound, he stumbled dropped the flamethrower and fell down only 2 metres away from Cray. At first he thought it was a sniper but the whine of a chainaxe increased in volume and came down on Marr’s neck, Sian rolled to one side to avoid a second swipe of the deadly blade, wielded by some woman in a suit of armour he didn't recognise.
She was phenomenally fast, almost too quick to see the chainaxe reversed while in a dangerous summersault over the prone form of Sian and then dive down into the mans faceplate. Cray couldn't even believe what had just happened and lifted the carbine in slow motion as she struck a pose for the camera’s who had just filmed the decimation of his section. Three rounds from his weapon sent the heavy DU slugs into her back and she staggered forward almost dropping the axe, sparks flying out of the armour and turned around to face him.
"Oh hell!" He was scared but the anger of his dead men began to override any concern for his own safety and then just as suddenly she was gone. Gary hit her from the side with the jump pack at top speed sending blue trails of plasma and both of them skidded through the melee leaving a trail of destruction. Cray dumped a burst into a nearby frother who had singled him out and blew the mans head off. His corporal was engaged in a punching match with the contract killer over the street and it looked like he might loose, she was faster and stronger than he was. "Gary, bounce up, straight up!"
The corporal rolled over on top of the woman who was making a mess of his chestplate with some mutilator glove and activated his jump pack sending him skyward in a blue flash and howl of ramjet engines. ‘Tornado’ as Cray now knew her barely missed grabbing ahold of the sniper as he escaped her clutches, "hey bitch!" Cray yelled over the street, "play with this!" She looked over at him and started charging just in time to catch the antivehicle grenade in the stomach which blew her clean in half, he didn't wait to see where the bits landed. Instead said a silent prayer for his dead troopers, salvaged their weapons and left a satchel charge on their bodies before running off down the alleyway. "We’re getting out of here now!" Gary alighted in front of him and took the machinegun before they both sped off into the darkness.
Rachael watched as the SHIVER’s struck down anyone trying to escape the area, the poor people of the area finding themselves chased out of their homes desperately wanted to leave but they had no weapons except bricks and bottles. She was going to send Buzz down there but he still had three more people to chew on and didn't trust him to distinguish between civilians and riot cops or operatives. "If gauss guns used electricity", the thought occurred to her, "then they wouldn't work and neither would their vehicles and armour." The HERF read that it was up to full power so she aimed it down the street 200 metres away at the cordon, 965kilovolts of high energy radio waves might lower the sperm count of the civilians a bit but there where too many of them anyway. It was "just doing the right thing" she convinced herself that "it would save on a lot of unnecessary pregnancies and unwanted children later on."
She pressed the button.
It was a delightful effect, if somewhat lacking in visual effects as circuit boards burned out, reactors overloaded and shutdown, processors ceased to process and energy modules just shorted out. Leaving the 50 SHIVER’s and handful of SLA operatives just standing there stuck in their armour unable to move while the crowd of some 500 descended on them and ripped them to pieces on their way through. That good deed done for the day she stood up and brushed the mud off the armour and thought herself quite proud of her efforts.
That was until she heard the soft pop of air being displaced and someone moved behind her, dropped the cumbersome HERF and ran not looking back. She managed to strangle out a cry to Buzz for help before something pinned her to the road, it was very black, heavy and incredibly strong. "Hello again little Linda Mason, SCL11 from the department of transport. If that’s who you really are. You might remember me from the past, I burned down your little house and ate your kitty cat!"
"Buzz!"
"Buzz is busy entertaining my friends, my, what a nasty toy you have there."
Carnage the necanthrope flipped Rachael over on her back and slapped the pistol away, "here, let me take that helmet off so I can see if its ‘really’ you. The cat was delicious, thankyou."
There was the sound of heavy pistol rounds being discharged close by and then Buzz apparently got sick of swiping at the four agile necanthropes which made him open up with the reapers. Carnage dragged them both down the stairs out of the way of the prolific amounts of ordinance being used in the area, stripped off the helmet Rachael could now smell the stench of the creature which she remembered all to well.
"Ah, it IS you! Now start answering my questions or Im going to do some really, really awful things to you down here in the dark."
"Get away!"
"Why? Ive just got here! Now I lack the ability to rip your mind to pieces for answers but I do have a talent for the old fashioned way of doing things," he leaned forward so she could see the rows of needle like teeth and smell the fetid breath in the necanthropes maw. Rachael figured he could probably bite her entire head off and most likely would anytime soon.
"How long have you been here?"
"4 months!"
"Wrong answer, that was just a test. I know you've been here for at least 12." Carnage took off her left gauntlet and snapped her pinkie finger above the second knuckle. "That hurt didn't it? Now how long have you been here darling?"
She pretended to pass out so Carnage snapped her ring finger to jolt her out of the act, "17 months!" She spat out the answer with a shriek, "thats a long time." He mused and admired her nails, still painted red with a layer of high gloss lacquer, "how many agents do you know of down here?"
"Quite a few less after today," she cried as Carnage selected the next finger and looked at the tears streaming down her face. "Not quite wrong, but not specific enough for my needs," he snapped the pointer finger and this time she really did pass out.
"Oh fuck not these arseholes again! You got DU or HEAP in that rifle of yours Gary?"
"DU, its ebon season dont you know boss."
"Looks like Buzz has bitten off a more than he can chew, be a good soldier an’ blow those suckers away."
Seconds later the four necanthropes where locked into the rifles fire control while they where busy wolf-packing the manchine, "cover me sir. Just in case..."
Cray aimed at the closest of the ebb monsters while next to him the rifle made soft puffing noises as its suppressor baffled the sub-sonic rounds on the way in, one of them fell down and Buzz was on it in an instant ripping with its claws. The rest moved in on the manchine to save their companion, another fell shrieking, writhing on the ground with a gut shot and the two others followed in short order in the same way. Cray began popping rounds into the ones Buzz wasnt currently doing what Buzz did with people, aliens or anything else that fell within reach of the claws and scythe like blades.
"They really dont like this DU do they sir?"
"Nope, kind of unsporting really..."
Behind them the satchel charges went off and the streets where illuminated briefly with a pale while light that reflected off the low clouds, "rest in peace boys."
"Now, where the fuck is Rachael?" Cray noticed the abandoned HERF at the entrance and had a bad feeling about the whereabouts of their spy.
Carnage gave up on the unconscious woman and went to the top of the stairs to investigate the pain of his union members, just in time to collect a charging Buzz square in the face. Cray and Gary where halfway across the street when they saw the biggest damn necanthrope any of them had ever seen recently get collected by the manchine and disappear into the darkness of the tunnel entrance. Gary hit the jets and went in after them before Cray could even stop him, so he went in after on foot, "goddamn it! Gary be careful!"
Somehow through pure luck Rachael was missed by the two tons of robot and necanthrope which sailed overhead and lay thrashing away in the dark somewhere down below. "Oh heck," Cray noticed that the woman had been partially taken out of the armour and was covered in blood, there where numerous stab wounds in the abdomen and pale as death itself.
Gary hit the bottom of the landing too fast and had to hit the jets again to control his movement otherwise he’d end up smeared all over the floor. He barely caught the sight on the way past of Buzz and the necanthrope engaged in some kind of demented wrestling match. It was hard to say who was winning, they both had 4 arms, two legs and seemed to be as strong as each other, eventually he alighted on top of the battle taxi and aimed at the necanthrope. It wasnt going to be an easy shot, if he missed, then he’d hit Buzz and probably make himself a valid target, the necanthrope saw him and twisted out of the way, something black went flying off into the darkness.
The low light systems kicked in on his helmet as whatever it was came slinking in out of the gloom near the jeep, there was no heat signature, vaguely spider-like and moving fast. Gary pulled back off the APC and jetted over an area near the tunnel, leading whatever it was after him. Something white and sharp stuck into his armour near the knee articulator and he could feel something wet pouring down his shin, he hoped it wasnt blood but he couldn't feel any pain. The thing was like one of the spiders they’d cleared out earlier except twice as heavy and maybe a bit bigger. It came in screaming and hissing like a pneumatic mining drill, he had barely time to cover his eyes as it hit three antipersonnel mines, then disappeared in a white flash and spray of venomous looking green muck. "Oh, fuck thats disgusting," he muttered and found his leg wasnt working at all which brought a feeling of panic washing over him. The only relief was that Carnage was distracted enough by his gorecannon’s destruction for Buzz to throw it clear and open up with the reaper machineguns sending hundreds of rounds into the necanthrope.