Chapter 22: Escape from Hell

Sammy stood there, her axe and knife clutched firmly in her hands as she looked up at the creature, trembling in fear. The fourteen-foot tall creature reared up, its twenty-foot long tail swinging up and over its head. Its front upper claws clicked together as the lower two hands held giant swords. Its mandibles clicked and crunched the remains of the small child in its mouth.

She looked down on the two humans as her forked tongue cleaned her face of blood and gore.

"I so love your small ones. They are such good eating. Not tough and stringy like the adults of your species.

"You humans have been a pain in the People's side for far too long. We should have finished you by now. My sisters must have failed or something. Now we shall fight, and then I shall eat you and your mate. Then my children will take your ship, and your computers, will tell me what I want to know. After that, we shall gather up my food supply and attack your home. Then we shall reproduce and take on the other races out in space. So know this, it is really your fault that they will all die."

Sammy had staggered back three steps when the creature spoke in Federation common and then she screamed out, "No!"

Flipping her knife that was in her hand, she hurled it with an almost demonic fury and watched it fly through the air and hit the creature in the chest. It sank into the T'Lari, halfway to the hilt. It stopped there, quivering.

Lieutenant William Cowlings watched as the spiders finished building the defensive positions that he had ordered, and his men took up position behind them. Cradling his plasma rifle, he moved across the room to the one of the doors with Sergeant Nelson, he lifted his arm up and activated his com.

"Any Nat Team One members please respond."

Static hissed from the com, so he switched to his internal com unit and tried it.

'This is Lieutenant Cowlings, any NAT Team One members reply. I need a sitrep.'

'Sir, this is Sergeant Sean Wilson with Team One, I have three Team members with me, Ensign Anderson and Lieutenant O'Rourke are missing. The last we heard from them they were pulling the T'Lari away from us. We have one hundred and ninety-five children with us. What do you want us to do Sir? None of our sensor equipment is working.'

William thought for a second and he knew that the Marines were on the way. The problem was the lift could only hold so many troops at one time.

'Sergeant, stay where you are, we will try and find you. If you hear our weapons, let us know how close it sounds. Now we are one deck below your entry point. We seem to be in a missile storage room or launch room, we cannot tell. Now the Marines are on the way, but as you know the lift can only hold so many at one time.'

'Yes, Sir. We have laid out ultraviolet markers on the floors and walls, we will stay ... shit! Have to go, Sir.'

Corporal Tom Morris peered out into the darkness and heard another claymore detonate. They had set all but four in the passageways at random locations and the four they had retained were set in the passageway they were in that lead into the empty hangar bay, as well as the passageway that headed away from them. The four claymores have all been set for remote detonation and once they were gone, he knew they were screwed if the T'Lari's were able to get through the choked rock-filled hallway and past them.

Sergeant Sean Wilson lay next to his best friend Tom and watched.

"Going to be bloody if they get past us," he whispered to Tom.

Watching through his scope, he listened to his friend, and replied, "Yeah, Sean, I know. That is what worries me. I just wish we had more claymores."

"I know, or some C-4 like Sam carries. I wonder ... shit I got movement." Sean said as he peered through his scope and saw the T'Lari stop into the intersection.

Na'tack stopped and lifted his plasma rifle and looked down the three hallways, seeing that one that was blocked he examined the floor and saw something shining on the metal deck. Kneeling down he wiped his finger through it, and brought it to his mouth and tasted it.

"Human blood, and very fresh," he said as he followed the blood trail, he saw it went down the hallway directly ahead and to the left down to the blocked passageway, and he continued, "Blood, but not sure which way it goes."

Sean watched the T'Lari stand up and lick its fingers as it looked down the hallway at him. Realizing it found something to lead him right to them, he slapped the detonator on the first claymore and three thousand steel ball bearings turned the T'Lari into a mist of blood and bone. "That was close. It found something to lead it to us," he said.

Tom watched as the T'Lari disintegrated in the explosion and looked over at Sean in surprise. Then as his ears stopped ringing he listened to what he said, and replied, "Yes, Sir, that was close."

Sean touched his lips, as Tom whispered to him. He has been watching down the passageway and saw several more T'Lari walking towards them from the passageway directly ahead. They had just passed the first claymore that was hidden in some rubbish on the deck.

Hearing a noise, and seeing Sean's finger, he looked back down the hallway and watched as T'Lari rushed to the explosion site looking to find the cause.

Sean watched as the T'Lari came towards them and stopped less than thirty feet from them. Lifting the plasma rifle up from the deck, he powered up scope on the weapon and centered it on the first of the T'Lari. In his mind, he kept saying 'Go back.'

Activating his internal com he said, 'Tom, if they continue to close I want you to detonate claymores two and six.'

'Sir, I understand two, but six is down the far corridor. It will only get three, while two will get the six coming towards us.'

'Yes, because if we detonate both I'm hoping they think we mined both corridors as traps to just kill them.'

'Ahhh! I see what you're thinking. I will detonate if they close another five feet.' Tom watched as the T'Lari came ever closer.

The creature stood roughly eight feet tall. It was carrying one of the Peoples' Greacthc rifles, with a bandoleer of clips around its massive chest. It came to a stop, and raised its rifle, and fired a burst down the hall towards the blockade. The fletchen rounds flew over their Marines heads and slammed in to the rubble that blocked most of the hallway. The rounds punched into the debris and it exploded hurling shards of the rocks and armor plates in all directions.

'Shit it's going to rake the hallway again.' Tom said as he smacked the detonator and detonated the two claymores. The ball bearings blasted through the two groups of T'Lari. Shredding them where they stood.

Sean watched the detonation of the mines and saw the creatures shredded before his eyes, and said, 'Shit that was close.'

Tom crawled out, ran to the shredded T'Lari and grabbed the Greacthc rifle. He reached down to the corpse, ripped the bandoleer of clips off the body, and rushed back to his hiding place. Behind him, he could hear the T'Lari come running towards the intersection. He leaped the small pile of rocks and lay down with the weapon. Grabbing his plasma rifle, he watched the T'Lari fill the intersection and head down the main passageway.

Sean felt his heart leap up into his throat as Tom dropped beside him, and thought to him, 'Tom, are you fuckin nuts? You could have been seen.'

Tom looked over at Sean, and replied, 'Sorry, Sarge, but I did not want them picking up that rifle and using it on us again.'

They lay there watching the T'Lari trudge through the intersection. One of the T'Lari stopped, picked up an arm, and started eating it. It then continued through the intersection.

Tom watched the T'Lari go by, and finally after fifteen of them they stopped coming.

"They are sure sick son of bitches. I will be glad when the rest of the teams get here."

Val'Kalh led his team into one of the food storage rooms and grinned when he saw twenty five humans coming toward the, pulling out a small box, he pressed the button on it and the blast door closed behind them. The humans turned to run and ran into the wall and his hungry warriors leaped in and started hacking their food apart. The first to go down was an older human and the T'Lari quickly sliced of a piece of flesh and ate it.

Sean was examining the weapon that Tom had recovered when he spoke to him, and he replied, "I know what you mean, Tom. We need to get these children out of here, and then clean out this nest of snakes. I wonder how the LT is doing I hope Kevin hooked..."

Suddenly screaming shatter the silence and both of the men look up and they were off. Following the screams, Sean activated his internal com unit.

'Corporal Ricker, move up to the point where we were, we will be back.'

'Right away, Sir, on my way there now. Where are you going?'

'We heard screaming, we will be back.'

Tom followed the bloody prints for about four hundred feet and they came to another intersection, and headed to the right. Up ahead they saw some T'Lari hacking at something, and he felt bile in his stomach trying to work its way up to his throat as one of the monsters plopped something into its mouth.

Pulling out his bowie knives, he charged and started hacking them apart while behind him he heard the phat, phat, phat, of a silenced pistol working, then the sound of casings hitting the wall. Bringing his knife down, he hacked the head off one of the creatures. Then he turned on another as more of the creatures fell around him.

Sean cursed as Tom ran into the group and started attacking them with his knives. Pulling out his silenced pistol, he started shooting the creatures in any part of the body he can get a bead on. Having to be careful, he did not get off too many rounds. He did not want to hit a friendly. As he started to take aim at another T'Lari attacking Tom, he saw several of them break away and charge towards him, and he started dropping them with shots to their heads.

Tom whirled and kicked a T'Lari closing in from behind with a huge sword in one of its claws. Jamming one of his knives into another enemy, he tried to pull it out it when the blade snapped in half.

"Shit!" he said as he ducked under the sword swing, came up with another blade, and jammed the new blade up into the creature's sternum. Suddenly claws raked his back. Staggering forward into the one he just killed he grabbed the hilt of the sword and ripped it out of its claws and whirled. The blade came around and lopped off the creature's head.