Failure167/3

Thomas Whitmore
Or Tom, in the way his family and friends call him back home, he is older than Jordan Hamilton, and with a little bigger experience in combat, he was born in 2035 in Europe, in what in the past was England, his accent is very distinguishable, his english is good, but as far as he can do, he cannot hide his european or old french lineage.

He is Atheist, just as Greg, he was obligated to sign in the special Marine business due to his great eye capability, he served for five years in European special Ops. performing as a sniper in the Cauteaulikan wars, a short conflict between what was France, Italy, England and Sweden, he served with the Cauteaulikan band, and when this faction neutralized the government of the rest of the Union, he was commended and assigned to International special Ops.

When he knew of this special mission he was performing into another planet, he was exciting, he always wanted to believe that Earth will start a war against another Sapient species, but this belief is laughed by everyone, still you never know what could caused the failure in the colony, so discussions of this type are short and cut by someone in the argument.

Exploration


We walked for three hours, in the direction planned, the checkpoint, in order to meet with the rest of the troopers, the shuttle was moving fast when it dropped us, so we where just a few Earth Km, we saw in the path a small river, strange, but amazing, the water was purple, and there seemed to be grass and orange ground near it, Armageddon was indeed a beautiful place to remember, and I though that if I would make it back home, I will certainly remember this place.

"Strange" said Greg, "purple water!"

"Its space remember?" replied Thomas.

Greg picked up his space camera and picked a photo of it, I did the same since he remembered me of my camera, then Thomas did the same, the three started recording and taking photos of everything, it was funny and we looked like happy foolish tourusts tourists. Something was true we never stopped in the time being.

There was no wind, the plants weren't moving, the place hadn't life at all, just us, our rifles, and our gear.

"Jordan let's rest" said Greg to me, "We have walked through hours, I'm little tired" And this WAS the best of the best I though.

"Bad Idea" convinced Thomas, "If we let down our guard, the ones that fired at us could surprise us"

"I never said of letting our guards down, just to rest"

"Precisely"

"Come on, we are Km away from them, and in a place like this you can see them co..." he stopped, as a noise suddenly was heard in our walking direction.

It sounded like a shot, then another one, other one at then it sounded like a rain of shots, "Hurry, its not too far!" said Thomas.

Greg stood up and Thomas started to run in that direction, I followed, and Greg followed, the noise was heard near, even if my helmet didn't allowed us to hear very well, the sound was heard damn close.

"Charge your rifles!" said Thomas, we obeyed, in here, no one had a highest rank, our platoon officer was probably in that crossfire.

Greg started to look tired, as we were running at a rhythm that probably he wasn't get used to, but my fellow Thomas and I were really used to it, as special Ops. we could ran distances in order to accomplish our objective.

Thomas indicated to stop, and he lay down, we did the same, he started to move in that position, we did the same, he stopped we did the same, but at his same distance in order to see the better we could, far away, it lied indeed a small battle, but who were those grayish big head people?



"See?" said suddenly Thomas, "Aliens, I was right"

I was really starting to get frustrated with the idea.

"Shut up and fire" I said, as I pointed with my rifle and fired to the critters down in the hill, Thomas and Greg did the same.

The grayish men didn't expected us at all, and we killed most of them, the other ran out, fleeing and cursing in other language.

"I got it" said Greg, "You go and check, I'll cover you"

We obeyed, Thomas and I ran to the place where the Gray men were firing at, it wasn't the checkpoint, but a small, improved house, made of the greenish sand of the planet.

"Hello?" We watched through the window, but we saw nothing.

Suddenly three more of those gray critters appeared, one was instantly killed by Greg's rifle, the others were really close of me.

"Jordan watch out!" said Thomas as he started to shoot to one, but the other didn't let me chance to fire, it jumped at me and seemed to want me to take off the helmet, I punched, kicked pushed, pulled and more to get it off me.

Suddenly the critter was killed, and the next thing I saw was Thomas laying me a hand, I accepted, and we saw how two more troopers arrived, a little surprised to see us in one piece.

"Hi there" I said, "You heard the noise?"

"Yeah!" said one, "We were afraid another small group was attacked by those terrors, they really look ugly, they killed two of ours, including the one that was killed in the sky.

"Any news from the others?" Said Thomas, Greg was moving toward us when he saw everything was safe.

"Nope" said the trooper, "Were you making those things flee? Because we saw four moving to west, they looked a little bit scared"

"Sue us" I said, "We were inspecting this strange structure before we were attacked... again, and before you arrived"

"Hamilton, Jordan" I added, "here is Thomas Whitmore, and Greg White"

The three shocked hands with them.

"Ramirez, Ramone" said one, Wow, at last someone that says his last name first! I though.

"Theodore, Carmichael" said the second, this one said his name like Thomas and Greg.

"So..." said Ramone, "Shall we inspect the house now, finish the mission and get this over with?"

"Sure, be my guest" said Thomas.

We entered the house, and it was really ugly, the place was covered by dead, all with people without masks or helmets, I looked into someone, dead, another, dead, other one, dead, no one was even twitching.

"Guess we arrived too late" Said Greg.

"Well this gray men were certainly wanted to this people to take off the helmets" said Theodore "look at this..."

Suddenly a corpse moved, the body started to tremble, I felt like I was standing in front of a demonic full manifestation, the body then calmed and turned gray, his head went a little bit larger than ours, we were all now pointing at it.

"Sshoijfknkkasd..." said the revived body, it was now one of those critters!"

We didn't hesitated at all, we fired, as well as all the bodies, specially in the heads, that thing was dead in a matter of minutes, we were all shocked, well maybe not me, I have seen this type of things, in a normal man, so my mind started to think about the possibility of the...

The door of the closet sounded, like some was knocking into it, we opened, ready for another attack.

No this one was a normal human being, alive, healthy, with no signs of mutation or mental instability.

"Oh thank God All mighty you are here!" he said, panicked, we were all panicked.

"You ok?" said Ramone.

"I am now"

"Who are you?" asked Greg, still recovering and breathing really fast.

The man wasn't breathing at all Armageddon's air, he was breathing thanks to a mask, a filter mask he probably had made, as the colonists in the pictures were all wearing a helmet similar to ours, just a little bigger.

"George Brown" said starting to calm down, as Ramone was embracing him trying to comfort him, "I am a Colonist of the second expedition, when we arrived it was all a mess, then this horrible, humanoid critters attacked us from nowhere!"

He panicked again, as he was returning to the memories, Ramone calmed him down again.

"All right" I said, " Do you know who are this critters?" I wanted to be sure, what I was thinking was something that it was awful.

"They..." said George, "They are us!" and hided his face in Ramone's arm.

"Wha-t?" said Thomas.

"It seems that they are not Aliens as you supposed"

From my opinion, this mission was completed, we came, we saw, and we discovered, now we will have to figure out how to get out of this place, now I will really remember this place!