Last Chance - Prologue.
#1 of Last Chance
The Earth has been recovering from the latest in a string of Nuclear wars for over forty years now, and in a last ditch attempt to make a place for ourselves, Humanity and more recently it's subspecies, took to the stars to carve a niche for ourselves. After years of searching, A celestial probe, dubbed the Leif Erikson, found a planet suitable to sustain human life, Chance. Within months, Chance had been terraformed, and probes launched from orbiting ships, Viking II's, had found three more that were either suitable, or near perfect, not requiring any terraforming. At this start of a fledgling stellar hold, Chance became the Virgil, the protector of the colonies, until Humanities stellar empire became too big to protect. We first started to lose contact wiht the outermost colonies, starting with a planet called Dorsica. Assuming that the Dorsican government had fallen to revolt, the Chance based Coalition of Colonized planets (CCp)mobilized a Marine Expeditionary force and launched the carrier Lebchenko to investigate and bring peace. In four months, the First Marines sent back a coded message more disturbing message than anyone in the CCp could have realized, No rebellion, bringing survivors home.
New Prague, Dorsica, four months after deployment of the Lebchenko:
Grey back up toward the wall, feeling the concrete behind him. He leaped sideways as the rotting beast leapt at him, leaving a Filange behind. It hit the wall, and left a bloody smear where it hit the wall, as it's skin sloughed off of it's muscle. It righted itself, and it walked toward Grey, unhinging it's jaw with a sickening pop, amd opening it's mouth enough to swallow Grey's head whole. He looked at the Rivet gun in his hand. Usually used to bolt heavy machinery together, the rivets proved recently to be very effective against these, Things, in close quarters. It lunged, and Gray put the Rivet gun out in front of him. As soon as he felt the roof of the Thing's mouth, he squeezed the tools pneumatic trigger, and the rivet broke through the bottom of the Thing's skull, and embedded itself in it's brain. The now jawless head fell on Grey's arm, the razor sharp teeth punching through his skin. He looked down at the pool of reddish black blood, and cradled his arm, blissfully unaware of the same reddish black fluid now running into his wound.
3 hours later, outskirts of New Prague, Quarantine zone.
Captain Miller watched the wounded man stumble closer to his AMTRAC Armored Personnel Carrier, as he used a joystick to pivot the WAV mounted Machine gun on top of the APC's hull to trach his movements as the speakers kicked in.
"Grey, Grey Richardson, My name. That's it! Grey... Help! God, Help, please," The man broke into what sounded like sobbing, and Miller began the Biometric scanning of Grey's body. "W-Why us? What did we do to deserve this mighty plague?" The man went on and on. He looked at the biometric scanner, and was astonished. The entire right sid of Grey's body glowed a bright red, the scanners way of telling Miller that Grey was VH3 positive.
"Sir, Survivor, VH3 positive, Sir. Advise?" The radio that Miller spoke into just crackled for a moment.
"Roast 'em captain. Roast 'em good." That was all that Miller needed to know. WIth an ungodly cough, the browning Ma Deuce spit out a .50 caliber HEAP bullet, and caught Grey in mid sentence.
"Why have you chosen us, Oh L..." The upper half of Grey's body exploded at the waist, spraying a dark red blood, already half congealed, Muscle fiber, and bone in every direction. The APC sped forward as the pilot put the pedal to the medal, and made it back to the rotation ship, driving up the ramp just before the automated ramp closed, and the thrusters on the delta winged lifting ship, big enough to carry 200 APC's, rose into the air with very little resistance. Miller popped the hatch to the APC, and went to the break room for the 30 minute flight to the Lebchenko.
Miller heard the growlingeven before the doors opened, and had time to transmit one final message to Chance, warning them of the impending danger as he was ripped limb from limb and fed on. After the light of life was gone from the eye's in his severed head, one of the Things stood up, and began tping at the console, the only thing on it's mind was to propagate it's species. The skin seemed to melt away, then the muscle, revealing a Canine skeleton. The message Chance received: No rebellion, bringing survuvors home.