NationStates Jolt Archive

Ascensión

Few things on planet Earth are scarier than the harsh reality that man faces when he is presented with himself. Of all of the animals on Earth, only humans will resort to the most primal of instincts for sheer pleasure. Animals act on instinct, on survival but man acts with motives. Pleasure feeds into these motives and only in man do we see a species take pleasure in the killing of another of its kind. Man is a vile creature, which exists like a virus. Mankind is a virus to Earth and like a virus mankind replicates and replicates, seeking to overcome its host, killing it in the process. However, Earth will fight back against the human virus and destroy it long before it gets close enough. We can pollute, we can bore a hole in the ozone layer, but Mother Nature persists. She has survived ice ages, meteor and comet strikes, and six extinctions, the last one 65 million years ago, when an meteor or comet slammed into the Earth just off the Yucatán Penninsula.

The seventh extinction is ongoing and it will culminate in the extinction of mankind and its species. It could be from a meteor or a comet or a virus or war. There are hundreds of possibilities. The extinction event could internal or external, the former being a volcano or a virus whilst the latter could be a meteor or some sort of explosion. It could be mankind itself. Mankind could, inevitably, kill itself through war with each other. Will it be mankind that destroys itself or will it be something external. Will it be a volcano, an ice age, global warming, nuclear war, or something else, seomthing far worse, something far less fightable.

Within man is rage and fury. When faced with only itself, man reverts from all the civility and progress it has made in the past 250,000 years back to its most animalistic instincts. Without law and without order, man turns into nothing more than an animal, relying only on instinct, denying the intelligence, logic, and reasoning that it has. In such instances, little can actually be done except to put man down like a rabid dog.

Lastly, before you read please do not pass any judgement that this will be a pathetic post. If you must have a reference, please go to to the list below and you will see the abilities of me to tell a story. I am a writer.
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Legend
All text in red type is top secret classified. It is unknown to the normal reader and even anyone else other than those present in the text. All are loyal to the government so please none of that, "We had spies" nonsense because I'm going to ignore it.

Italic text is text that is speech. It is italic to differentiate from normal text.

Italic underlined text is thought.

Orange text is a memory.

Green text is documents, communications, etc.

Bold, blue text is a service announcement meant in OOC form

Small text is a translation.

Small, bold text is OOC.
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Notes

Fair warning. What you're about to see and read is disturbing. It should not be read by the faint of heart nor should it be read by anyone under the age of 18. I ask that if you are either of these, you will kindly not read. All who read this RP do so at their own risk and cannot hold the writer liable for any nightmares, vomit sessions, or psychotic episodes you receive as a part of reading this RP. In other words, don't read it if you don't like it rather than complain about it. To all those who will read and I do stress the "read" part, I hope you have the time of your life.

This will be updated on an irregular basis. If there is ever something that violates NS rules (and no nothing illegal will be had here) please inform me and I'll take care of it. However, please do not expect this RP to be written for a first grader. Many of the situations, scenes, and pictures you will see will be grotesque and frightening. You should not read this if you are not of a mature mind. In addition, if you are offended don't read! Simple as that. Be warned.
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Other Role-Playing Stories

Down with the Sickness (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=432254)
Isla del Enfermo (Earth II) (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=398102)
La Guerra que no Hombre Debe Saber (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=434657)
Ride the Lightning (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=448866)
Sehnsucht für das Glück (http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=386920)
Tale of the Time: Ancient Secrets Found in Yucatán... (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=409829)
The Forsaken Island (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=442286)
The Kingdom of Forgotten Warriors (Earth II) (http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=380343)
The Knight of Dark Chaos (http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=384906)
The Layartebian Chronicles (http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=384916)
The Praetorian Project (http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=450228)

Table of Contents


Chapter I: The Den of the Devil (Page 1)
Chapter II: Unexplained Circumstances and Mysteries
Chapter III: By Dawn's Early Light (Page 2)
Chapter IV: Untold Fortunes (Page 3)

Map

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Ascension/ascension-map.jpg

Chapter I: The Den of the Devil

The winds swept across Ascension Island as they did every morning. Decades earlier, fisherman could be seen departing the shores of the 91 km² island, which was one of the most remote places in the world. Tranquility would be the best word to describe the overgrown, volcanic island. The island was largely barren except for an artificial forest, known as Green Mountain, which had grown over time. It was a man-made tropical rainforest that was growing each year, expanding throughout the island. In a few hundred years, it would consume most of the island. Then, there was Ascensión, the volcanic peak of the island, which rose 858 meters into the air. Ascensión was part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, an underwater mountain range that ran from Iceland all the way to Bouvet Island, underneath the Atlantic Ocean. Some of the deepest depths of the ocean were inside that ridge, with the deepest being 7,758 meters, a depth so deep that no human had ever been there.

Ascension Island was a beacon of mystery. It was beautiful to see from both the ground and the air. It was nestled in the South Atlantic Ocean, 1,600 kilometers west of Africa and 1,287 kilometers northwest of Saint Helena, the closest land mass to the island. Secluded, it was off the radar of the world and had been, until now, under the administration of the Patriarchal Federation of Bjornoya, a now defunct government that was an economic powerhouse in the world, far exceeding that of even the Empire. Disarray within the ranks led to its dissolution. That aroused a keen interest for the Empire. They had a history with the island and its neighbor, Saint Helena. Both islands were abandoned, largely due to activities by the Empire.

It was a fateful day on February 16, 1992. Two thousand, one hundred, and sixty-one kilometers to the south of Saint Helena was Tristan da Cunha, a group of islands, which had been evacuated by the Bjornoyan government. Up until this day, it was considered the most remote human settlement in the world, being 2,816 kilometers from South Africa and 3,360 kilometers from South America. At 04:00 hours, local time, the last plane departed Tristan da Cunha, carrying officials and military personnel, both Layartebian and Bjornoyan. They would mark the last humans to ever set foot on the island group. Prior to the evacuation of Tristan da Cunha, both Ascension Island and Saint Helena were evacuated as well, a total of 1,100 and 800 people, respectively, moved all the way to the Channel Islands, off California, over 8,000 miles away, combined with the 300 people from Tristan da Cunha. They had left weeks earlier, onboard ships that were under the protection of the Imperial Layartebian Navy and allowed passage through the Panama Canal, at a time when few ships were.

The officials and military personnel that left the island at 04:00 hours had been part of a two-day team that readied the islands for the experiment that would render them and their two northern neighbor islands abandoned. Sensors, cameras, and other important scientific equipment, which cost in excess of $50,000,000 were placed on the islands, at vitally important places. They were all connected to a monitoring ship, which was anchored 320 kilometers west of the island group, in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean. It was a Sehnsucht class vessel, highly classified and highly secretive. The Sehnsucht was a class of vessels owned and operated by the Imperial Layartebian Navy to conduct black ops missions that revolved around intelligence gathering, espionage for short. They were registered; however, under the non-profit organization, Weather Watchers, an NGO that tracked global warming patterns and climate shifts throughout the world. They were a staunch opponent to global warming and nuclear weapons and though they were based in Layarteb City, they were highly critical of some of the policies of the Empire though they were pleased with the environmental advances that the Empire had made, especially with regards to petroleum. Ethanol was a fan favorite for Weather Watchers and the Empire was the largest user of E85 in the world.

At 15:00 hours, Eastern Standard Time, on February 15, the mission began. A single B-9B Sphinx, long-range bomber, took off from Griffis Air Force Base in central New York, 6,995 miles away. It was loaded with a single bomb, a 75,000 pound weapon, slung comfortably in its bomb bay. The B-9B Sphinx was a very advanced bomber. It was a cross between the B-1 Lancer and the B-2 Spirit, taking the B-2s stealth and combining it with the power and payload of the B-1. The initial production version, the B-9A Sphinx, could carry a bomb load of 98,000 pounds as far as 5,750 miles, and back, and move at speeds of up to 1,800 miles per hour, at altitude, an impressive Mach 2.725. Its cruise altitude was 65,000 feet but it could climb as high as 80,000 feet and it was definitely a foe, if there was ever one. It had four internal bomb bays, which could carry 22,000 pounds per two forward, side-by-side, bays, 18,000 pounds in a center bay, and 36,000 pounds in a rear bay. However, it couldn't carry particularly large ordinance such as the largest nuclear weapons in service. This led to the development of the B-9B Sphinx, which redesigned the bomb bays to a single, center bay, capable of 80,000 pounds. Loaded into the bomb bay was a 75,000 pound, 24 foot long, 10.50 foot wide B109 Mod 1 thermonuclear bomb, equipped with a single 100 megaton warhead, the largest warhead deployed by the Layartebian military. The purpose of this test was, more or less, to demonstrate the awesome power of the Empire. These were turbulent times and the Russian Federation was a large foe to the Empire and with this demonstration, the Empire hoped to scare the Russians so strongly that they would never think of waging war against the Empire.

With the heavy bomb in its bay, the B-9B had a significantly reduced range. It climbed to 40,000 feet as it passed over New York, heading towards the southeast at 600 miles per hour. It would stay subsonic to avoid being detected on radar. Supersonic speeds meant that hot exhaust and heat from the aircraft would be large enough to return radar, something that was found, by accident, during the SR-71 program. Moving at Mach 0.908, the bomber had a range of only about 2,000 miles. It would refuel four times on the way down, hooking up to a KC-10A Extender tanker each time, taking on thousands of pounds of fuel. It could carry, internally, as much as 150,000 pounds of fuel, which was what allowed it to have such a long range. The aircraft passed over New York, over Massachusetts and Connecticut, and briefly over Rhode Island, before crossing into the North Atlantic Ocean. It flew through the middle of the ocean, moving at 600 miles per hour and 40,000 feet. The pilot was a lieutenant colonel who had flown many of these missions before, mostly dropping test bombs. The Empire had never, officially, tested a nuclear weapon, albeit the Republic had 954 nuclear tests, most of them underground or in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

The flight down was long and rather boring. The 3 man crew inside the bomber took turns resting and reading, conversing between themselves as they flew towards the islands. They were ordered to keep strict radio silence and the Sehnsucht had detected a number of foreign vessels and aircraft within the area. A Cottish RA-5E Vigilante and a KA-3C Skywarrior were detected in an area a few hundred miles to the north, nearer to Saint Helena. They weren't classified to be a problem at all but they were there. Several submerged contacts were reported within a 644 kilometer barrier of the islands as well and a 290 kilometer exclusion zone was set up around the islands. No air or sea traffic was to be allowed in that zone, because of the test.

Months before, the Emperor had worked out a deal with the Bjornoyan government for use of the islands for the test. There was nowhere else on Earth that would be suitable for the massive explosion. The B109 Mod 1 bomb and its W109 warhead was a unique design. It was an advanced Teller-Ulam design that enabled the bomb to get 98% of its energy from fusion, making it a "clean" bomb, per say. Still, it would throw radiation, radiation equivalent to a 2 megaton thermonuclear bomb. Taking this into account, the casing of the bomb wasn't made with materials that would enhance radiation. The goal was to curb radiation as that wasn't the experiment to be conducted. The Empire had many enhanced radiation designs. This was a test in sheer force and sheer power rather than anything else.

At 08:24 hours, local time, which was Zulu-time, the bomber dropped its payload from 65,000 feet and 400 miles per hour. The bomb bays opened and the bomb fell free of the aircraft. Within 100 feet, its large parachute began to deploy and the bomb bay doors were closed. The pilot, LTC. William Dawson, immediately pushed the throttles up and the bomber sped forward. He didn't waste time with a turn, it would bleed off too much energy and he needed as much energy as he could get. His four engines put out 140,000 pounds of thrust and pushed his aircraft through the sound barrier, towards an objective speed of 1,400 miles per hour, Mach 2.12. The bomb blast would be behind them but they still wore protective goggles to shield their eyes from the blinding flash of the explosion.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/A%20Moment%20for%20the%20Empire/nukefall.jpg

The bomb fell from the B-9 with surrealistic qualities. It hung in the air, almost in suspended animation, as it descended at a slow 30 miles per hour. It would take 19 minutes and 8 seconds to fall from 65,000 feet to 12,800 feet, the optimum detonation height. The bomber would, in that time, get as far away as 350 kilometers, just outside of the exclusion zone. The bomber would waste a lot of fuel in the escape but it would be refueling four times on the way back. Because it was significantly lighter and it would be cruising back at 65,000 feet at 600 miles per hour, the bomber would have a significantly increased range over its ingress.

Then, at 12,800 feet and 08:43:38 seconds, the bomb exploded. The flash, which was seen as far away as 1,500 kilometers within milliseconds, turned everything into total whiteness. The blinding flash was more than bright, it was total whiteness, enough to pierce through even the most protective welding helmets on the market. Nobody on the Sehnsucht was looking into the flash directly and the cameras that recorded it nearly blew their lenses in the process. The 3.3 kilometer fireball would definitely touch the ground as it expanded outwards. The effects of the explosion were catastrophic. The Sehnsucht, as far away as it was, felt the shockwave after 25.1 seconds. Out to 24 kilometers, nearly everything was destroyed. Plexiglas melted. Third degree burns were registered as far away as 61 kilometers, first degree burns were registered as far away as 80 kilometers and structures collapsed even that far away. Even as far away as 265 kilometers, glass windows broke and shattered from the shockwave and the overpressure. Where the ship was, 320 kilometers away, it was safe but it still felt the effects severely.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/A%20Moment%20for%20the%20Empire/fireball.jpg

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/A%20Moment%20for%20the%20Empire/mushroomcloud-01.jpg

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/A%20Moment%20for%20the%20Empire/mushroomcloud-02.jpg

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/A%20Moment%20for%20the%20Empire/mushroomcloud-03.jpg

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/A%20Moment%20for%20the%20Empire/mushroomcloud-04.jpg

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/A%20Moment%20for%20the%20Empire/mushroomcloud-05.jpg

The resulting mushroom cloud, filled with smoke and fire, rose higher than 240,000 feet and it was wider than 40 kilometers. It was the largest ever seen, a sight that was recorded by the various cameras and sensors throughout the Sehnsucht ship. Within milliseconds of the detonation, sensors underneath the epicenter, over Inaccessible Island maxed out and ceased working. They would melt only a few more milliseconds later.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Ascension/tristanmap.jpg

Hours later, the Emperor took the podium and the cameras flashed as they took thousands of pictures. "Ladies and gentlemen of the Empire and of the world. Earlier today, the Empire detonated a nuclear device on Tristan da Cunha. The island group, leased from the Bjornoyan government is one of the most remote places on Earth and definitely the best possible place for this test. The test was equal to one hundred megatons, the largest device ever exploded. This device was of a new design, a very efficient and safe design. Its goal is to maximize energy and minimize fallout. Readings show that this device has put out no more fallout than a second generation fission device of 15 kilotons. The impact on the environment will be negligible.

"The world will have you believe that we tested this device as a measure of warmongering, to scare those in the world of our awesome power and might. They err. This test has been on the books for some time now and it was the only way possible to see if this device works. An underground test would not yield the same results and no suitable place exists except the one we have chosen. The Empire makes no plans to use this device offensively nor do we intend to test another one or any others in the near future.

"Thank you and have a good day." His speech was well received throughout the Empire but met mixed reviews around the world. The Russians were particularly displeased with the test. They condemned the test, citing it as overkill. In reality, they were scared. A 10 megaton bomb could destroy a city, they were correct but a 100 megaton bomb would annihilate its suburbs as well. Still, the bomb was only deployable through bombers and a bomber attack over the North Pole, to Voronej, their capital was their worst fear. Millions would be dead in milliseconds from a single bomb, let alone a hundred bombs. A B-9B Sphinx attack with the B109 Mod 1 would annihilate the whole city and its suburbs. The blast would be sufficient to take out each and every bunker for miles and miles. An attack with the bomb produced so much overpressure that no hardened facility in the world could survive, even those buried deep within mountains or deep into the crust of the Earth. One hundred bombs would be produced over time, all of them remaining bomber deployable weapons, they were just too heavy to be deployed on ICBMs.

The world reacted with mixed reviews. The allies of the Empire were praising them while the enemies were condemning. Those in the middle had mixed reactions as to whether the test was necessary and what environmental fallout the world would receive. The shockwave would cross the Earth as many as five times and the 7.2 earthquake that followed was devastating to the island, producing a tsunami that smashed into the other islands with such force and fervor that it nearly washed their beaches away.

That was almost 15 years earlier. Now, the islands, still abandoned and devoid of human life, were about to be back in the news. Since the collapse of the Bjornoyan state and the linking of the Varsolans to the nuclear blast in Saint George's, the Empire needed some territory in the South Atlantic Ocean. It was in the process of invading the Falklands Islands, thousands of miles from Layartebian territory and holding both Ascension Island and Saint Helena was good for supply lines to the islands and since they were close to the Layartebian allies in Africa, particularly the United States of Brink and the Commonwealth of Hirgizstan, both African powerhouses, the islands wouldn't be in much danger. Since then, the Russians had vanished so the threat from them was gone. They dissolved into dozens of independent states that were gobbled up by the bigger ones, some still independent to the day.

Echoes of the day that nuclear bomb went off were recalled when the Emperor announced, to the Cabinet, that both islands would be slated for annexation. There wouldn't be any resistance, the islands were deserted. The Bjornoyans had evacuated both Ascension Island and Saint Helena after the explosion for fear of radiation but the radiation never got that far north. Still though, the islands were empty and there for the taking. The Layartebians just had to plant a flag and it was theirs. With war raging to the southwest, over the Falklands Islands and elsewhere throughout Varsolan territory, the world would be too distracted to notice Layartebian Marines seizing two islands in the middle of nowhere. Because of the ease of the islands, only one AARG was tasked to them and no other units. The AARG would split up and take both islands at once, splitting their forces respectively. An amphibious assault ready group (AARG) consisted of 50 ships, 15,532 sailors, 2,879 airmen, and 18,432 Marines, a full division.

Nineteen vessels would go to each island with a further twelve staged between the two islands. The operation to seize the two islands was code named "Silent Hill" and it consisted of three operations underneath it. Those three were code named "Silver Gauntlet," the seizure of Ascension Island, "Black Sword," the seizure of Saint Helena, and "Green Mace," the staging operation area between the two islands. Operation Silent Hill would consist of Task Force Glory, which would be just one AARG and one submarine from one submarine attack squadron (SAS), a Virginia SSN. The Virginia SSN would stay with the staging area since the two submarines of the AARG would be tasked with the two separate groups.

Task Force Glory

Group Silver (Ascension Island)

Arsenal Flight I MMGN: 1
Dnalkrad Flight II FFGN: 1
Falcon City LHDN: 1
Heretic FFGN: 1
Indefatigable Flight II DDGN: 1
Independence LCS: 1
Jackal LSDN: 1
Liberty II AKN: 2
Mexia Flight IV BCN: 1
Ocean CVHAN: 1
San Antonio LPD: 1
Seawolf Flight III SSN: 1
Supply AOE: 1
Unforgiven CGN: 1
Venom SSGN: 1
Verrazano Flight II DDKN: 1
Wilson AKRN: 2


Group Black (Saint Helena)

Dnalkrad Flight II FFGN: 1
Falcon City LHDN: 1
Heretic FFGN: 1
Indefatigable Flight II DDGN: 1
Independence LCS: 1
Jackal LSDN: 1
Layarteb BBGN: 1
Liberty II AKN: 2
Mexia Flight III BCGN: 1
Odin Flight II CVAEN: 1
San Antonio LPD: 1
Supply AOE: 1
Unforgiven CGN: 1
Venom SSGN: 1
Verrazano Flight II DDKN: 1
Virginia SSN: 1
Wilson AKRN: 2


Group Green (Staging Area)

Emperor ASN: 1
Hampton AON: 1
Independence LCS: 1
Jackal LSDN: 2
Liberty II AKN: 2
Wilson AKRN: 4
Virginia SSN: 1
Ynoga CVLN: 1


The Marines were in a single division but they were further broken into three brigades, each one consisting of 6,144 soldiers. Because of the way they set it up, one brigade would go with each group, one being held at the staging point for reinforcements while the other two assaulted the islands. Well organized and well supported by both naval artillery, missiles, and aviation, the Marines would have little to worry about if, by some unimaginative possibility, the islands were inhabited by an armed force. That was unlikely. The Ministry of Intelligence and Ministry of Defense had been conducting round-the-clock surveillance of the islands through satellites and signals intelligence. A Sehnsucht IXN monitoring ship, the same kind that monitored the test nearly 15 years prior, was anchored between the two islands, not far from where the staging point would be, its two Hunter SSN escorts hiding beneath the waves at depths of 150 feet and 1,200 feet, well below the thermals. Both of them snuck around at 6 knots, well under their tactical silent speed. They were armed with torpedoes and missiles, capable of taking out submarines and surface ships equally and, if necessary, they could surface and fire MANPAD missiles at helicopters or other ASW planes but that was a no-no. Never once, in the history of the Empire, had an attack submarine or ballistic missile submarine, except those of the Virginia or Ohio classes surface. As far as the world was concerned, the Empire used only the Virginia as its attack submarine and only the Ohio as its ballistic missile submarine. The latter of the two had long since been retired and so too had its replacement. The Venom now stood in its role. The Virginia still sailed; however, another with three other SSN classes, the Hunter, the Scythe, and the improved Seawolf, a flight III version.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Ascension/ascension-small.jpg (http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Ascension/ascension-large.jpg)

So, as the wind swept across Ascension Island, on the early morning of December 5, 2006, a Tuesday, it was nothing out of the ordinary. The temperature was a cool 72.5°F with a southeast wind of 17 miles per hour. The cool, ocean breeze passed over the beaches, which were silent except for the sound of the ocean waves crashed on the shoals. Trees would have been waiving around, had there been any. Around Green Mountain, more inland and to the east of the island, the temperature was 8° cooler and the grass and trees swayed with the winds. There was going to be a full moon that night and at 00:05 hours, local time, just 5 minutes into the day, the naval task force assembled around the island. The nineteen warships surrounded the island at distances as close as 4 miles, where the water was particularly shallow, to distances of 20 miles, where it was significantly deeper. They had approached quietly throughout the evening and the previous night and now, they were ready. Marines and helicopters were gearing up for insertion and HLCACs were roaring up their own engines for transportation of vital equipment, particularly tanks and armored vehicles. The islands were abandoned, that was a given but the Marines couldn't be too sure or too safe.

The first helicopter lifted off the deck of a Falcon City at 00:10 hours with a reconnaissance squad aboard it. The UH-95A Super Huey was a cheap, rugged, and well advanced helicopter, a derivative of the UH-1 Huey, which dated back to the early 1950s. The Super Huey was far modernized and it took off with two pilots, two gunners, and eight Marines onboard, its weapons loadout being a pair of M35A1 7.62MM Machine Guns, door mounted, with 1,000 rounds each, 2 HMP-400 12.7MM Heavy Machine Gun pods with 400 rounds each, two 7-round 2.75" Adder rocket pods, and four AIM-186C Wizard air to air missiles. Gracefully, the Super Huey took to the skies and dropped down to the deck once it was clear of the carrier. It moved eastward at 120 miles per hour and an altitude of 100 feet. Its destination was Georgetown, a city on the northwestern side of the island. Their platoon was a reconnaissance platoon and its four squads were deployed in advance of all other Marine units. They would go to Georgetown. Another squad would go to an abandoned airfield 2.5 miles to the southeast. Another would go to another town area almost three miles to the east. The fourth would be deployed to the other side of the island, to a military installation that looked to be a very secretive chemical weapons center. The Bjornoyans had an impressive WMD doisser and the Layartebians were eager to see what they could find on Ascension Island. The four Super Hueys, carrying the thirty-two soldiers, made similiar flights to their destinations, low and fast. They had their infrared jammers on, just in case they encountered any man-portable surface-to-air missile threats but that was unlikely, after all, the islands were abandoned. Or were they...

The helicopters echoed over the eeriely quiet island as they moved through the night. The pilots, gunners, and Marines all sported night vision and the vast green world that they saw was a world that none of them could imagine. The island looked so peaceful, like a dormant volcano should, at rest. Never once had it erupted and it had only existed for the past 10,000 years, as geologists discovered. It was, essentially, the peak of an undersea volcano, of which nobody knew anything about, a volcano that went down as far as the oceanbed. With 44 separate craters throughout the island, Ascension Island was a militarists dream. It was large enough for an airfield of significant size, it was secluded enough for secret research facilities, and it was barren enough that no enemy could hide. The island was perfect.

The stratovolcano lie silent as the helicopters flew overhead, skimming the 100 foot mark. The four of them were moving fast and they echoed in the silent night as they moved away from sea and into the center of the island. The ships at sea were barely visible anymore in the total darkness of the night and the eeriness of the quiet only served to make things worse, much worse. Had there been an active insurgency on the island, the helicopters would be taking tracer fire and MANPAD fire, their guns blazing, rockets firing. This time, there was nothing to be had, nothing at all. "Creepy huh?" One of the Marines remarked inside one of the Super Hueys. The rest nodded. That was the only way to describe things as such.

The Marines closing on Georgetown would arrive first, to find a ghost town, something so scary that none of them could ever imagine what they were seeing. The ground shook underneath them as they moved over the rows of houses and buildings. There were no lights down below and the streets were peppered with debris. Papers, wrappers, and garbage flew with the breezes and the winds. Cars were parked alongside the streets with others cluttering up the middle of the road. The Bjornoyans had evacuated Ascension in a hurry, using the stipulation that a major biological and chemical hazard was falling upon the island. The people vacated in a rush and many only took what they could carry. Saint Helena had been different, the people there had been evacuated much slower and carefully.

"Look at it down there. Something out of a horror movie huh?" The squad leader remarked. "Almost wish there were thousands of bad guys."

"You're telling me lieutenant. That's not what I want to see down there. The worst enemy is the one you can't see."

"Exactly." The squad leader looked at his GPS unit and keyed up his microphone. "Alright. Put us down in the stadium."

"You got it sir." The pilots banked the helicopter sharply to the left and they dropped their altitude to a mere 50 feet. They were still over the buildings and houses but not by much. The big threat were the powerlines and those were much lower. The stadium was only about a half mile away and it was a small one, for soccer only, and it was wide open. They could fly in, over the fences, land, and be back in the air in seconds, on their way back to the carrier. The helicopter banked again and began to sideslip over the fence of the stadium, decreasing in altitude as they did. The landing was smooth and soft. When the "GO" code was given, the eight men jumped out of the helicopter and onto the articifical grass of the stadium. The helicopter lifted off only seconds later and banked away from the stadium, climbing up and over the main scoreboard, and moving back towards the way they came. The echo of the helicopter got lower and lower and lower as it flew out, into the distance, into the night. They laid there, on the fake grass, and looked out, over the horizon.

"Alright men. Let's move out." The helicopter was gone from sight and all of them stood and bent over, to make themselves smaller. They shouldered their M81A2 Marine Assault Rifles, suppressors fitted to the muzzles, M68 Aimpoint scopes fitted to the top rails, infrared lasers fitted to the fronts, flashlights fitted to the fronts, and front handles fitted as well. The front handles of the M81s made them much easier to control. None of them carried grenade launchers, it added too much weight to their weapons and they needed to be able to move fast. Even still, their mission was reconnaissance, rather than assault. If they needed grenades, they carried them on their hip. None of them carried pistols and they moved slowly towards the stadium seating and main area, which was only half a soccer field away.

Through their night vision they saw just how abandoned the stadium had gotten. Paint was chipped away in more than one place, beams were rusting, windows were shattered, and debris lie everywhere. The men walked quietly and crouched, climbing over the wall, into the stands. "Keep a sharp eye." The squad leader whispered. From there, they ascended the stairs and entered the inside of the stadium, which was small. The concrete walls and floors echoed loudly and as the wind gusted through, it howled through the empty corridor. They moved inwards, walking past concession stands. Food that had been left out had undoubtedly been eaten by animals over time and they saw only a mess as they walked through the stadium, looking for an exit.

It was almost too dark in the stadium and they moved through it quickly, focusing more on the actual city rather than what was in the stadium. Clothes, dragged from the locker rooms, were torn and tattered, lying on the floor. Moving further, they approached the bathrooms and found them to be in terrible condition. Feces lay everywhere and it stunk of urine. Animals still roamed the island, that was one thing they would have to worry about, especially if they were starving. The eight men would be a perfect meal for a wolf or a coyote or whatever other creature infested the island. They hoped that whatever animals there were, they would be silent and sleeping, too asleep to notice their movements. They tried to keep as quiet as they could but animals could hear the slightest of noises, which they knew. They hoped to keep eeriely silent, as quiet as the wind, hoping that if there were any animals, they would think that it was only the wind. They didn't need any to come out and investigate.

They were lucky though, no animals appeared and they found the exit to the stadium wide open. The metal gates that had once secured the entrance had rusted so severely that one was broken clean off and the other had only one hinge holding it the wall. They sidestepped through the missing part of the gate and watched, in horror, as the wind pushed the other one strongly open, creaking loudly as it did. Then, as if it was almost predictable, the hinge snapped and the metal gate, weighing in at over 200 pounds, slammed onto the pavement, echoing in the night air with a loud thud. "Shit!" The Marines remarked to themselves, knowing that the echo could be heard for hundreds of meters. "Shit!" They uttered again as they darted across the concrete road and into a clothing store, a store whose window had been shattered and whose items had been ravaged. It seemed as if lawlessness raged on the islands before the evacuations but they couldn't tell. The evacuations had been orderly, as far as they were told through the briefings, but the situation on the island told a different story, a much scarier story.

"Get down." The squad leader order as a pair of dogs walked towards the gate, slowly, their ears in the air. The two dogs were hungry, it seemed, and they both moved slowly up to about twenty feet from the gate and stopped. Tilting their heads, they eyed the gate and stood still. One of them growled while the other stayed silent. The eight men, careful not to make a single sound, drew their knives and leveled their weapons, their sights on the dogs, just incase. Then, as if something spooked them, the two dogs took off running, in the opposite direction, not making a sound, only looking to their right just before they took off running. The men breathed a sigh of relief but dared not move, fearful that whatever spooked the dogs was coming for them. The dogs had actually been spooked by a helicopter flying in the distance and the eight men sat there for five minutes, without moving so much as a muscle. "Come on." The squad leader stood and shouldered his rifle again. They exited the shop and took a careful look down and up the street. They crept along the side, staying close enough to the walls that they could jump into a store to hide, if they needed to, or behind a car if they needed to as well.

The Marines moved down the street and listened to the wind howl. Signs above them creaked with the wind as it howled into and out of broken shop windows. There was a faint smell of gasoline too, gasoline and oil, which was slowly seeping out of the rusting fuel tanks of the vehicles and oil tanks that supplied the shops. Below them, underneath the street, sewage and water pipes had broken in several places and the smell seeped up, through the storm drains, which were clogged with debris. The city appeared to be haunted and they waited for some boogey man to jump out at them and attack them. It was definitely something out of a horror movie.

Two and a half miles to the southeast, the another squad of Marines landed in their Super Huey and disembarked, weapons shouldered. Because of the openness of the airport, the wind howled through it with little to stop its flow. The airport was large, large enough to support a large bomber. If the Emperor were to visit here, his VC-26F could be supported by the landing field, which sported a 14,000 foot runway. The VC-26F Condor only need a little over 13,000 feet to take off and just over 11,000 feet to land. It was because of this airfield that the Empire took such a vested interest. KC-26E Condor supertankers could fly from the airbase and refuel aircraft flying all the way to and from the Falklands Islands. Bombers could be based there to fly long-range missions throughout the world and interceptors and fighters could fly easy protection patrols around the island. From Georgetown to Jamestown it was 805 miles, long-range for a round trip but within the ferry range of the fighters, it was well within range.

The airport sported only one runway and when it was under Bjornoyan control, it was used for both civilian and military traffic. The Empire would use it for the same purposes. It was a vital and strategic point and they had to make sure that it was secure for when the Marines arrived. That wouldn't be too hard, the airport was deserted, just like the rest of the island. Weeds overgrew most of the runway and sprouted up through the unkept pavement. As they walked into the tarmac area, they could see empty hangars, which were rusting, their paint chipped clean off. Two had collapsed, probably as a result of a tropical cyclone or other powerful storm or just because of disrepair and neglect. The Marines walked slowly and crouched as they moved towards the control tower, their main objective. From the control tower, they could see everything around the airport, which was pretty large. They found the control tower doors chained shut but that wasn't a problem. The chains were so rusted that one quick hit with the butt of their rifles. The lock shredded into flakes of rusted metal and with a swift kick, the two doors shot inward, the left one tearing off its hinges, the right slamming into the wall, echoing throughout the airbase. They climbed the stairs to the top of the tower and looked out, far enough to see all over the airbase and further. Using binoculars, they scanned the horizon, the ships in the distance.

"Alright. Looks as abandoned as we expected. Marines won't be here until tonight so we've got some time." The squad leader said. "You two. Check out that bunker down there." He pointed to a bunker about a half mile away, on the other side of the airbase. "Let me know what you find." The two men nodded and darted down the stairs, weapons in hand. "Alright, the rest of you. Let's split up. You two. I want you over in the guard tower. You two. I want you over by that hangar. You're with me." The four Marines departed the tower and headed for the guard tower and the hangar, respectively, to set up their own defensive positions. The wind howled again and brushed right through the open control tower, where only one pane of glass stood in its place still. The electronics had been destroyed and it smelled of mold.

The two Marines heading to the bunker got there in about four minutes. They carefully approached the bunker doors, which were locked just as well. There were no chains on these though and they were locked from the inside. Both men tugged at the doors, which were in good condition, considering. "Alright. You got the charge?"

"Right here."

"Let's do it." The two men placed a small block of C4 on the door and took cover. The ten second fuse went off as they took cover on the bunker sides. The explosion was powerful, perhaps a little too powerful. Both doors were destroyed, one falling over, into the bunker, the other turning into pieces and flying all over the place. The explosion echoed throughout the quiet island and the flash lit up their night vision goggles. Both men moved over to the edge now and shouldered their rifles again. "Come on." They entered the bunker. It wasn't lit and they were walking down a long tunnel, big enough for an eighteen wheeler. They moved down the tunnel, which looked untouched by the abandonments of the island. It was clean and there were still military vehicles inside the tunnel, two armored fighting vehicles, weapons still attached, gasoline still in their tanks. The two men nodded and kept walking into the tunnel. Their radio devices went to nothing but static here and they realized that they had actually walked underground and done a full 180° turn, which was gradual but it put them under the main part of the airbase.

The main doors weren't nearly as weak as the outer doors, which had been easily blown away by a C4 charge. The inner doors were, unfortunately, reinforced concrete and thick. There was no way in without the code but without power to the doors, there wouldn't be any possible way into the bunker. "No go."

"Not true."

"What are you saying?"

"We can get in."

"How? Do you see those doors?"

"There's always some auxiliary power somewhere. There's probably a generator on that APC."

"And when was the last time it was used?"

"It'll work."

"You better hope." They walked over to the nearest APC and opened it up, to find a small generator. From there, they carted it over to the door, siphoned out some gasoline and filled its tanks, then they hotwired the access pannel to the output on the generator. "What are you going to do?"

"Short it out."

"And that will work?"

"Don't know but it can't hurt."

"You're sure?" With that he flipped on the generator. It rorared up to a start and spit out nothing but smoke and sparks. The electrical short travelled throughout the bunker doors and suddenly two yellow lights started flashing and a klaxon came on, echoing in the tunnel but not loud enough that it got to the tunnel doors. The bunker doors opened slightly, only a few feet, before they stopped but it was definitely large enough for them to sneak into the bunker. They killed the generator and entered the bunker, to find that they were standing in a receiving bay. From there, they walked into the bunker, past the main receiving and entrance area, past the lounges, and into the depths of the complex, a complex so horrifying that they saw just what it was as they passed into its bowels. "Oh my God..." The Marine said as he looked through a door. "Are they?"

"Sir. Sir. We've got something here." The radio was nothing but static as they stared down, through the window of the door. "Sir. Sir. This is Charlie team. Sir." The static echoed in the silent, cavernous bunker. "Radio's nothing but static. Let's go back. Report this."

"Yeah. I agree." The two of them began rushing back, towards the doors of the bunker. They didn't get too far though. With a loud, slamming down, the doors of the bunker slammed shut again. "Oh no!" They ran now, right towards the doors, to find that the short had, somehow, unshorted itself. The doors were shut again and now, they were on their own, completely. The faint light from the tunnel stopped piercing into the bunker and they were left, cast into total darkness. "Okay. Now I'm creeped out." They turned on their night vision again and looked around. "We have to find a way out of here."

"Yes. We can't go this way though. Can't get it from this side."

"No. We have to go into the bunker. Find out what this place really is."

"Alright." Bravely, the two of them shouldered their rifles and walked back towards the corridor, passing room after room, steel doors with reinforced windows allowing them to peer into the rooms, to find horrific scenes of hellish anguish. "What was this place?"

"Some testing facility I guess. Maybe a prison. Who knows." Each room was more or less the same. There were bodies, tons of them, some completely decomposed, others still in the process. Bones were piled up in there, lying where people died, where people had died from something unnatural. Blood stained the concrete walls and the floor. The windows were sometimes stained with blood and, from what they could see, there were claw marks throughout the walls. "Do you think they were left here alive?"

"Based on those claw marks and the marks on the windows? I'd say so. Horrific."

"Yeah." Body after body, skeleton after skeleton. The complex was cold, very cold actually, which helped to slow the decomposition in some instances. They could see their breath as they walked, down the main corrdior, into what appeared to be a scientific lab. It had been trashed. "Someone had a field day."

"Do you think there's anything alive in here?"

"Alive? No." It was ironic that he said that because at just that instant, there was a loud echo in front of them, an echo that sounded like a door slamming. "What was that?" They stopped in their tracks, weapons pointed ahead, towards the sound.

"A door maybe?"

"Something like that. Come on. Let's get the fuck out of here."

"How?"

"Beat's me. Let's just keep going that way." The went deeper and deeper into the bowels of the bunker. Its eeriness split through their skin and bones, inundating itself in their blood, flowing through their bodies, giving them nothing short of chills. They may have been Marines but they weren't prepared for this. They were all alone, embellished by darkness and captivated by fear. "Yeah. This way." They turned down another corridor, only to find more and more rooms, the scene similar. In one particular room, there was a maimed body, still decomposing. The body was missing an eye, it having been pulled from the socket and left to hang, only by its occular nerve. One of the arms on the body, the left one, was missing from the elbow down, having been either torn off or cut off, they couldn't tell. The body was slumped against the wall, staring up, to the ceiling, into nothingness, a look of horror on his face. Half of his lower jaw was missing and he had a huge hole in the middle of his chest, just to the right of his heart, and up a little. "Look at that."

"Yeah. What happened here?"

"I don't know. Come on." Written in blood, on the wall, was a single word, "Salvation..." Apparently something more than horrific had happened here, something far worse. They continued through the labrynth of corridors, hearing nothing but the echoes of their footsteps, the pounding of their hearts in their chests, and their own exhalations. It was again, ironic, that another loud slamming echoed from the corridors but this time, behind them. "There it is again."

"Is there someone here? I mean. That was behind us." It echoed again and they shot around, facing the other way, facing the sound, which was louder, and seemed to be closer to them. "We just came through there. Nothing but corpses." The echo came, once again, a sound so ominous and so dreadful that it put them into a sprint, in the opposite direction. They moved further and furth, deeper and deeper, into the den of misery and they came to the center of the abyss. "Look. Director's office."

"Yeah. It's locked."

"Is it?" He jostled the door knob. "Stand back." He moved back, away from the door, leveled his rifle, and put a single shot through the door. The gunshot echoed so loudly that their ears would ring for another half hour. The bullet tore through the door and the lock, bouncing around inside of the concrete room a few times before it came to rest on the desk. The 6.8 x 48mm round was a powerful one at that, one that didn't ricochet that much but inside the concrete room, at such a close range, it would do it a little. The door creaked open and they walked into the room.

Three miles east of Georgetown lay a small village, a village that was barely visible in the midst of the night. Marines were landing to their west, to their east, and to their south. The third squad of Marines deployed to the island had the undaunting task of searching this small city, which was known as Two Boats Village. When it was occupied, the small village held about 120 people. Now it was a remnant of a village, with only houses and abandonment remaining. Eeriely, the village stuck out from the ground and as the Super Huey neared its epicenter, they realized that the village below was harmless, or so they thought... The Super Huey, kicking up more debris than a strong storm, lowered itself onto a large intersection on the northern outskirts of the village. When it took off, it kicked up even more debris as it headed outwards, back towards the carrier. "Alright. We're on our own here." The Marine squad got to their feet and moved into the village.

The eight of them moved southward, towards the center of the town. Houses were more than empty. Weeds and grass overgrew in the yards and climbed the walls of the houses. Windows were broken everywhere and doors were torn from their hinges in some instances. Roofs were full of holes, shingles torn off and thrown about, all over the place. Garage doors were bashed in and the few trees that existed were downed, dead, and stripped of their bark in most places. All of this, the Marines noticed and noted as they approached the first house. It squeaked as they stepped into the threshold of the front door, which was lying about a hundred yards away, a fierce storm or something having torn it off and thrown it. The hardwood floors were in poor shape, mainly from the hole in the roof, that exposed it to the elements. They nearly fell through the floor when they entered, hearing the cracking of the wood below their feet as they walked into the small, single-floor ranch.

The couches were torn up, chewed by animals throughout the fifteen years that the island remained abandoned. There were no signs of life at all and it appeared that even the animals had not visited the house in some time. The bones of a dog lay in one of the corners of the living room. "Come on. Let's get out of here." They agreed and exited the house, to move through the rest of the town. It was silent, totally silent. That wasn't such a good thing at all either. They didn't like silence; silence was an enemy that they couldn't see.

About ten minutes into walking around the abandoned town, they heard the first nosies since the helicopter flew away. It was a dull sound in the distance, some type of explosion. All of them, hearing it, looked sharp but soon realized that it was far away, to the south. "What was that?" What they really heard was the explosion from the airfield, as the bunker was blasted open by the powerful C4 charge.

"Who knows. Something far away. We're the only Marines here. Nothing on the radio so." The squad leader moved them out and continued walking to the south. The town was empty, devoid of anything remotely pleasurable. It was worse than a town that had been hit by the worst natural disaster ever. Night had descended on the town like a thorny beast, sharp at every touch, and it carefully snuck from house to house, alley to alley, corner to corner, spreading its evil influence. The men noted this as they moved deeper into the bowels of the town, turning down a dark, long, and unfortunately necessary alley. They were looking for any signs that there was life on the island.

Legends and myths about the island were plentiful. One myth but a superhuman race of mutants, changed from radiation on the island. That was a myth. One said that fisherman were often stranded on the island, as a result of fierce Atlantic storms that few people knew about because they existed deep into the ocean, and were quick acting storms, more powerful than satellites could tell. That was partly true. Fisherman had, in droves, been stranded on the island over the fifteen years but, for the most part, they were rescued. Others simply vanished from sight. The Marines knew this and knew it well but they didn't expect to run into any of them.

As they moved through the alleyway and came out of the other end, the eight men began to hear more and more sounds. These were mostly creaking and cracking sounds and as the wind came up, they attested it to the wind. They came around the turn and came to an instant and dead stop. The eight of them, rifles shouldered, stopped in their tracks and suddenly, the blackness of the night tore into them and flowed into their veins. They stared straight ahead, the horror just echoing in them. "My God..." The squad leader remarked.

On the far eastern side of the island, the last Super Huey touched down and embarked its eight Marines. They landed approximately 550 meters northwest of the facility, which was deep inside of Green Mountain, a man-made tropical forest. It was lush and full of vegetation and all of it was overgrown. There had been no maintenance and no human presence for fifteen years. That was what made it as creepy as it was. In the middle of the night, using on their night vision goggles, the eight men moved through the bushes and the thick, overgrown grass, and dense tree cover. Fifteen years ago the coverage was spotty in some places yet thick in others. Powerful rainstorms and warmer temperatures over those fifteen years created a dense ceiling in the tropical forest and made it nearly impossible to run through. The Marines could only walk and they had to take several detours in the middle of the forest.

"Alright. It's 550 due southeast. Keep a sharp eye." The forest echoed with the sounds of crickets, owls, and other creatures of the night, creatures that wouldn't be too friendly to them. After all, these were the first humans on the island for fifteen years and that wasn't going to be a good thing for the creatures of the night, who saw them as invaders and like other invaders, they would attack. "Through there." They passed into the forest and found it to be darker than outside, because of the dense canopy overhead. With their rifles shouldered and their movements careful, they moved towards the secret military complex, whose nature was not totally known. It could have been a weapons lab, a nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons lab, or it could have been something else, something less sane. The Bjornoyans had an extensive military and it was very powerful. Corporations had large influence on the government and it was entirely possible that what was going on wasn't kosher.

The Marines carefully bypassed a small bush and sidestepped around two trees. It was then that the squad leader held up his hand. Everyone stopped and looked around and then, following his signal, went prone, on the ground. The squad leader had heard some cracking twigs or branches in the distance and he didn't want to be food for something prowling in the distance. What came into view was a pack of dogs, definitely wild ones, six of them, blood around their mouths, some of it fresh. They snarled as they walked towards the Marines, sniffing the air and the ground. They had the scent of something and they were on the hunt. The squad leader put his sights on the dogs and saw that they were approaching him and his men, slowly, with the smell of blood in the air.

He switched the select fire from burst to single fire and took in a deep breath. He looked down the top of the rifle, over the suppressor, and towards the wild dogs. Stable and breathing properly, he squeezed the trigger and the bullet left the rifle barrel at a speed of 907 meters per second, tearing through the air and catching the dog right in the stomach. It fell down, dead. The loud sound of the gunshot, although suppressed, worked sufficiently to scare off the other dogs. "Come on. Let's get out of here. See any more and shoot it." The squad leader said as he and his men got back up and began walking towards the military facility.

They didn't encounter any more dogs on the way but the bugs were vicious and they swatted at them each and every step, fending off deadly mosquitos that carried who knows what diseases. They were about sixty meters from the bunker when there was a rumble in the distance, from the airport. The rumble was the explosives used on the bunker at the airbase and it rumbled around the whole island.

They ignored the rumble and moved onto the facility, which was barely visible from where they were. They had come to a chainlink fence that had been, at one moment in time, electrified. Barbed wire sat on its top and it was riddled with flesh, from dead animal carcasses, which were below them. Birds had attempted to eat the remains of other birds that had gotten caught and, unfortunately, were killed themselves. It was sick and disgusting but, for them, they had more brains than a few birds. They came up to the main gate and cut the chain and lock securing the gate together. They pushed the gates open and walked down a dirt road, which had been seriously overgrown with grass and weeds. What appeared, ahead of them, a hundred meters away, was a small, concrete structure. It was hard to see from the ground and from the air, due to the dense canopy above them. "Alright. We're here."

The Marines walked up to the solid, concrete doors of the bunker and stared at them. "How are we getting in?" One of the Marines asked. "I don't think C4 is going to work on this."

"No. No it isn't. But the electronic keypad can be shorted out. That's for sure."

"You are right." One of the Marines stepped up to the keypad and looked at it. "Give me a few minutes."

"You've got six. Men. Scout." Aside from the squad leader and the technician, the rest of them scattered into the dense underbrush around the bunker entrance. They hit the ground and looked through their iron sights and scopes as another breeze swept through, bending trees and flattening the tall grass. "How's it coming along?"

"Not too bad sir. Give me another five minutes."

"You've got all the time in the world. Just us and God here right now." At that moment there were some sounds in the distance, a few meters off to his right. The squad leader jumped around and raised his weapon. He dropped to his knee and looked around, slowly, waiting for the sound again. His heart was racing and the technician on the keypad wasn't phased by the sound and his shotgun was still on his back. "You hear that?" The squad leader asked.

"No sir. What was it?" He didn't take his eyes off the keypad or off what he was doing as he fiddled with leads and managed to connect the proper ones, the power circuit complete. "Circuit is complete." From there, he could put a little juice into the power lines, just enough to power the keypad device and hack into the central computer of the base. Military facilities had backup systems like this, just in case, and all he needed to do was get to the right data block and power the system back on, allowing him to get access to the doors, to open them.

"How much longer? This place is creeping me out."

He laughed. "Takes time sir. I don't have to worry about setting off an alarm or waking a technician up sitting in front of a computer desk so I'm not in a rush."

"Be in a rush."

"Yes sir." He hurried up a little but not enough. He didn't want to make a mistake as he toured through the terminals and datablocks. He didn't get far before a loud squawk filled the trees and air above them. "What the..." He jumped and pulled his shotgun from his back and pointed it into the air. He had 12 gauge magnum slugs loaded, with enough power and force to put a one foot hole in someone from 300 meters away. A small aimpoint scope on the top gave him an extra level of zoom as he looked around the canopy. "This place is creepy is right."

"Yes. How much longer?"

"If I had my way, two seconds. Maybe two minutes."

"Let's make it a fast two minutes."

"I agree." He went back to work and eventually came to the proper datablock to provide the emergency start up to the system, which activated two yellow lights above him, both flashing. "System's up."

"Good. What now?"

"Door access."

"Alright." The technician went to work and it was another few minutes before he got access to the doors but when he did, they shook before opening. "There we go."

"Yes." The doors slid open, slowly, releasing dust and making a lot of noise in the process. "That's it." He looked into the blackened entrance to the base and turned on their flashlights. It was empty.

"Men. Let's go!" The squad leader whispered into the communications link, which caused the other six men to form up on him at the entrance. "Alright. I don't know what we're going to find in there. So stay close and keep quiet unless you see something. Alright?" They agreed and they took their first steps into the abyss of the unknown.

OOC: This ends the first chapter. So might I ask all of you out there watching and reading what you think so far?

Chapter II: Unexplained Circumstances and Mysteries

The wind through Georgetown was eerie and the sounds it created were enough to scare the life out of the Marine squad within the city. They were moving now throughout the center of the city, only to find that the eerie silence of the city was their biggest foe. They heard no movement and no animals even and they knew that they were being stalked by something, they could feel it on the backs of their necks as they walked, at a quicker pace now, weapons down, although ready to be raised and fired. They took a few steps, stopped, and looked around, expecting to see the piercing glow of a pair of red eyes in the distance, expecting to find something or someone haunting them worse than they could ever imagine. Unfortunately, for them, there were no piercing, red eyes staring them. They were only staring at themselves in the reflections of the glass, the few that they saw.

"Where the hell are we and what are we doing here?" One of them asked before the squad leader shushed him quiet. They walked through the main streets of the town, into the depths of it as the darkness enveloped them. The scene was reminiscent of a ghost town in a horror movie and they knew it more than anyone else did, as they took each step into the hell around them. More wind howled and more signs creaked on them as they walked through the lions den of fear and unknown.

They stopped dead only moments later, dead center in the town, a ringing bell in the background catching their attention. It was a church bell it sounded like and it was a dull ringing, possibly only because of the wind but they would have to investigate, to really see what was going on, if anybody was there and so they turned around, sweat dripping from their faces, every pore soaked with the salty liquid as they walked at a quickened pace toward the ringing in the background, a ringing that was coming from a church, about three hundred meters away from them, just far enough for them to hear it, just far enough for them to not realize where they were going or what they were doing.

The church loomed in front of them, an eerie sight, its bell resonating still, definitely from some intervention of a human nature, they assumed, as they approached the two wooden doors. The doors were tall, wide, and unharmed by the seasons, storms, and seas around the island, giving it that much more of an eerie feeling. "See if its open." The squad leader ordered but no one moved forward. Fear gripped all of them. "See if its open!" He barked again and the man he looked at stepped forward and fiddled with the door.

"Locked." A sigh of relief came over him. "We'll have to find a different way." He said as he looked around.

"There has to be a side door. Come on." They walked along the eastern side of the large church and saw another door, wooden and in pristine condition just as well. "Come on. Let's try this." He rattled the door but it didn't budge either. This was getting frustrating and he looked at one of the men in the squad, holding an M76A1 Tactical Shotgun. "Open it." He said at him as he backed up and the men took up cover positions. With a nod, the man approached the door locked, leveled the shotgun, and fired the magnum slug into the door, turning the lock into battered splinters of wood and metal.

"Clear." He moved out of the way, pumped the shotgun, releasing the empty shell. Their ears still rung from the blast and his shoulder still vibrated as the squad leader moved in front of him, his carbine shouldered and off safe.

"On me." They entered the church to find it abandoned, thoroughly but that wasn't going to deter them. "Delta team on me. Echo team. Search the basement." The church was two floors, the first floor and a basement, identifable by the staircase on the side of the entrance that led downwards, into the depths of hell, they assumed. The church roof was tall and a belltower was at the front, a tower they would investigate as they moved through the pews and up to the altar. It was covered in blood. "What the hell happened here." He said as he looked around the building. There was blood all over the altar but not a drop anywhere else and it was definitely not fresh either. "Come on." They moved past the altar and past the sitting area, deeper into the church. They would step into the rectory next, which was small enough for only a few priests, not more than a half dozen. The quarters were modest but empty, unscathed by the winds and the storms. "This is wierd. You two, check out the tower." He said to the technician and the anti-tank soldier, the radioman staying with him. "Come on. Let's check in there." He said, pointing to another door, a locked door.

In the basement the four men moved quietly and slowly. The basement was pretty empty. There was a storage room, full of clothes and other goods, probably collections for the poor. There was a small kitchen and open eating area, ravaged by something or another that ran through there in a hurry. Further in they walked, approaching the direction of the, which was on the first floor, above them, and they found a chamber, a room more or less, sealed and secured. "What's in there?" The sniper asked as he leveled his pistol on the door lock and fired. The lock burst open and they kicked in the door. It was dark but they could see perfectly well. Using flashlights and not their night vision goggles, they shone the light on melted candles, odd occult symbols, and a blood stained floor. Whatever happened here was definitely some sort of ritual that was unkosher. "Come on. It's dried." He said as he looked at the blood ridden floor. They walked through the chamber and it still smelled like burning candles but from the looks of it, nobody had been there since the island was abandoned. The rest of the basement was empty space but it looked as if it was something more when there were people there, something that was cleaned up before the evacuation. "This place is empty. Back upstairs."

Upstairs, the two men returned from the bell tower. "No sign of human presence at all. It had to be the wind. Maybe a bird or something. There's a lot of bird shit up there."

"Alright. What's the basement like?"

"Empty except for a," the sniper gasped as he saw the altar. "Empty except for a chamber with some candles and a lot of blood. Seems a lot of that huh?" He nodded to the altar.

"Yeah. Something wierd happened here. This place is clear, come on let's get out of here." They exited the church and looked around, a red glow coming up on the eastern horizon. The sun was coming up.

At the airbase, all was quiet. Outside of the bunker complex, the soldiers walked around and investigated the unknown that was around them. There was little to find though. Anything important was definitely taken with the Bjornoyan evacuations and the hangars were all empty, except for one, which had, inside of it an attack fighter, perhaps some prototype or something, they didn't immediately recognize it. It was in bad shape though, very bad shape, which they recognized immediately. The fighter was painted all black and was something futuristic maybe. It baffled them that the aircraft was still there, especially being what it looked like. "Prototye for something." The squad leader remarked as he looked it over. The noticible Visara emblem was on the aircraft as well as writing that signified it was a Visara Corporation plane. Things began not to make much sense and they further investigated the airbase. They found little information on the surface though, very little information.

However, underneath the airbase, things were much more yielding. The two men stared into the deep office of someone who was very important. Hanging up, above the desk, on the back wall, was a large Visara Corporation banner. "What is this place?" They asked each other again as they looked up at the banner. "Is this some Visara facility?" One of them asked as he looked over the banner again. They stepped further into the office, looking at the empty bookcases, the lamp in the corner, and the mahogany wood desk surrounded by leather chairs. "This has to be the directors office or something?" He asked again.

"Beats me but it's scaring the shit out of me. What's in the cabinets?"

"Let me check." The soldier opened up the file cabinet and found the drawer empty. The other four drawers were empty as well except for one piece of paper, which was lying in the bottom of the third drawer. He picked up the piece of paper, which was a handwritten memo, written in elaborate cursive. "It's some memo or something." He said again. "Here. Listen to this. 'This facility and its experiments, subject to the approval and discretion of the Visara Corporation Board of Directors is hereby closed and ceased, effective immediately, March 22, 1993. Didn't this place get evacuated in February of 92?"

"Yes. Fishy. Signature?"

"Tough to read but I guess it says Daniel R. Waterbury."

"Confusing is right. Let's make sure we take it back." They rummaged through the rest of the drawers but found only useless memos and some assorted photographs. They put everything together in a bag they found and walked back into the corridor, the echoes of presence lacking. "Come on. Let's go this way." They walked back the other way and began to move towards the center of the complex, looking for more information. A few more turns and corridors later, they came upon another room, this one locked by a security lock, definitely electronically encrypted.

"This must be something important." One of the soldiers remarked as he looked at the lock. "Think we can bust it?"

"Let's try. Got any C4 left?"

"Yeah. What do you think? A hundred grams?"

"Probably." They put the putty of the plastique on the door lock and put in a small fuse. No sooner did they light it then were they running, in the opposite direction. The explosion was small but powerful enough to shatter the lock and the door, nearly blowing it clear off its hinges. The smoke filled the corridor as the explosion echoed through the compound, the dull sound it made echoing and overloading their eardrums. They now heard a clear and distinct ringing in their ears as they walked back up to the door and opened it, coughing from the smoke.

"What have we got here?" The soldier remarked as he looked at a storage room, full of boxes, papers, cabinets, and a bulletin board on the wall. "Mother load!" He walked up to the bulletin board. "Look here. March 16, 1993. Phase 3 evacuation. March 22, 1993, phase 4 evacuation. June 1, 1993, phase 5 evacuation. All phases are crossed through. All except 5. I guess they never finished."

"Who expected anyone to come here?"

"I don't know. The reports that this place was covered in fallout were definitely false."

"Oh yeah. Radiation detectors haven't picked up a single dose."

"Bingo. Something happened here. Something really bad. I think we should get the rest of them."

"Good point. How do we get out of here?" The two soldiers looked around the corridor and into the storage room. "Did we leave M&Ms?"

"No. I don't think so."

Two Boats Village lay there in the middle of the island, a beacon of nothing. Third Squad of the Marine Recon Platoon was sifting through the village just as First Squad was moving through Georgetown. However, when they came around a corner they saw something so horrific that they all, immediately, began to rethink just what they were doing there and what the hell was going on, though they knew not of what any of the other squads were finding. "Oh my God..." The squad leader exclaimed as he stared straight ahead, at the small schoolyard. There was a large fence, outlining the schoolyard, which was small, only a baseball field and a soccer/football/general purpose field that was sitting to the right of the baseball field. The fields were well overgrown and the fence before them stood at least twenty feet in the air, possibly more, they were just looking at it from their spot. It was a chain link fence and, otherwise, would have drawn not attention except for what was before them, something that was enough of a sight that they all stopped dead in their tracks. Unable to speak much more, the squad leader gasped and covered his mouth. "What in the..." He couldn't find the words. That was when the crow or whatever bird it was perched on the top of the fence squawked. Five of its buddies joined it on the perch, looking down at the soldiers, all eight of them, standing there, staring up at the fence. "Mother of God..." The squad leader said again and turned around to face his men. "Spread out. That's fresh." They, slowly, agreed to his order and moved out around the small side street, none of them able to take their eyes off the sight before them.

The birds squawked again and the wind rustled through the streets again. "Come on. Spread out." They moved too slow for the squad leader, who was taking up a position behind an abandoned, mutilated car. He stared straight ahead still, at the horrific corpse infront of him. Jesus Christ. He thought to himself. The corpse was naked, ripped in half by something, entrails hanging out from the severed torso. The corpse looked as if it had been crucified, the arms of it stretched out. The corpse was fresh, only a few weeks old, maybe a month or a month and a half. Blood stained the ground below and the metal chainlink fence, to which the corpse was somehow tied to, possibly by chain or rope, they couldn't tell. The corpse, up there about fourteen feet in the air, looked as if it was food for the birds of the island, flesh being torn away and droppings all around the corpse, on the ground. The corpse stunk, even as far away as where they were. The squad leader looked a little closer, through the optical sight on his rifle. He could see that the corpse had its eyes pecked out, its cheek eaten through, and its throat slit. He moved the sights down, noticing the lack of a tongue, mouth gaping open in horror, head looking to the heavens, the eye sockets and eerie reminder of what he went through. One of the arms, the left one, was falling off almost, the bones showing where the arm connected to the shoulder, the joint exposed, almost torn away. There was a hole, dead center in the chest, where the corpses heart used to be, it having been torn out either before the corpse was put there or after, who could tell, it was too disgusting. He looked down more and more, noticing the missing flesh and muscle, eaten away by animals of some sort. Then, he came to the torso, the end of the corpse. It was ripped clean off, spine and intestines dangling down, swaying in the breezes, a puddle of gore, blood, muscle, and feces below, on the ground. He couldn't find the corpse's legs but there was a lot of blood and torn flesh to show that maybe they were taken away by dogs, there were blood trails, after all.

The squad leader couldn't look anymore and, instead, he turned to his men, who had scattered around. He whispered, directly into his microphone. "Alright that's the most disgusting thing I've ever seen. Someone's here. People are on this island. In this town, somewhere. Maybe fishermen, maybe people who managed to hide out from the evacuations but whatever they are, they are hostile and should be regarded as hostile. We're not going up against men or women, not humans at all. We're going up against animals. No human being would do this. No. We're going up against animals, animals who would feast upon the flesh and cannibalize another person. No. They're hostile. Very hostile. Shoot to kill! But let's leave one or two alive. For interrogation. On your feet!" The eight Marines rose and began to walk away from the horrific sight, the worst thing that all of them had ever seen.

They moved further and further into the village, away from the schoolyard though, away from the horror that was inside the fence and inside the walls of the school, a horror they wouldn't see, just yet...

The bunker was open and the men from Fourth Squad looked into the darkness, their night vision goggles giving them the perfect view of everything inside the bunker, which was, at first glance, wide open, with a security checkpoint ahead. The inside area was large, large enough for a few dozen men to stand there, with comfort and spacing between them. Almost a hundred and fifty could fit in there, shoulder to shoulder. "Alright. Stay close." Weapons raised, they moved into the bunker and walked up to the security checkpoint. "Alright. Let's get through here." The bunker was shut down, power completely off but there was an emergency generator and te security checkpoint would give them the opportunity to turn it on and power the whole complex.

The security annex was well reinforced with an office, protected by blast proof glass. "Looks strong." The technician said as he looked at the glass and the concrete. "Very strong." He approached the door to the office and looked it over. "Nothing a slug can't handle." He leveled his shotgun on the doorlock and pumped out a slug, straight into the door, blowing the lock clean off. "That solves that." The door exploded inward and the echo deafened all of them. "Come on." He yelled as they entered the office and looked around. "There it is." The technician yelled as he looked at the power panel. From there, he pushed a few switches and lifted a level. The generator, four stories below, kicked in and power surged through the complex. It hadn't seen power in years now and the rush of power that filled the complex popped several light bulbs. Due to the fact that the complex was so well preserved not many of them blew and no wiring fires occured.

"Alright. We're in business." The squad leader hit the access button to the door and it slid open. "We're in. Goggles off." They took off their night vision goggles and stepped out of the office and into the bunker. It was still pitch black outside and they made sure to shut the main door behind them, to keep the creatures of the night from coming in and stalking them, looking for blood and flesh. "Alright. Let's go." The inside of the bunker was pretty different from the security annex, as large as it was. The main room was large but it had four corridors off it, each one leading to a different direction, north, south, east, and west. The four signs read, "North Sector: Research," "South Sector: Employee Services," "West Sector: Receiving and Storage," and "East Sector: Administration." The squad leader looked them up and down and turned around. "Alright. Eight of us, four corridors. Split off in teams of two. Let's go." The technician stayed with the squad leader both of whom went north, the radioman and the anti-tank soldier going to the east, the sniper and spotter went west, and the scout and forward observer went south.

The squad leader and technician put their weapons on their backs as they moved into the north corridor. "Nobody is here so we should be fine." Nobody was there, it was just the eight of them, so the need of their weapons was, for the most part, unnecessary. This wasn't like the Visara bunker underneath the airport, this was something different, something a little more ominous. It was definitely a research lab, like the Visara bunker but this one was a little different, it echoed something a little more ominous, something a little more devious. It was small and simple and, from what they were told during briefing, it was a weapons research bunker, possibly nuclear or biological, they couldn't tell, they weren't told and neither did intelligence know. The corridor ahead of them was long, very long, long enough that they couldn't necessarily see the end of it.

Everything around them was concrete, complete concrete, with lettering and words on the walls, telling them where they were, where things were, and what clearance was required. There were security checkpoints, it seemed, all down the corridor with a single panel on the wall and a chair, possibly for a guard, an armed guard. The first door they came to wouldn't budge at all but they looked at the panel across from it and pushed a small red button. With an alarm, the door opened, straight into the wall, and they stepped inside of it. There were no windows and light was flourescent, built into the ceiling, and it seemed that every environment was sterile and clean. The room was, as they entered, completely clean and empty. It looked like a dentists office or something similar, a chair in the room, medical cabinets, a white room, and plenty of light. They checked the drawers and the cabinets but found nothing at all, everything was empty. "Cleaned pretty well. Don't you think?"

"Yeah. Real well." They exited and kept walking moving further and further down the corridor, to the next door, where they found the same setting but slightly different in that there wasn't a dentists chair but rather an operating bed. The next four doors were the same thing, cleaned rooms with barely anything inside of them except for what was bolted down to the floor or bolted into the wall, the concrete, soundproof wall.

The sun rose over the eastern side of Ascension Island around 05:50 hours and in Georgetown it was that time. Its morning glow sifted through the air over the island and sliced through the ground, between the structures, and trees. The eight men of First Squad were unaware of what had happened in Georgetown prior to the evacuation but they did know one thing, whatever happened, it wasn't kosher. They had one idea though, somewhere they figured that they could find some information, if it wasn't destroyed. They knew of two main buildings inside of Georgetown. There was the mayor's office, which was definitely a hub of communication but there was something different, something more important, a Visara Corporation hub, some sort of coporate center which, undoubtedly, gave them information on what was really going on in Ascension Island.

Though First Squad wasn't fully aware of what happened on Ascension, they figured that something happened after the evacuations. Little did they know the true secrets. Visara had a few facilities on the island, facilities that Second and Fourth Squads were finding out gory details about what Visara was really doing on the islands. "You know, something doesn't seem right. The Bjornoyans, they knew that this place wasn't radiated. They could have brought people back." The squad leader said as he and his men moved towards the two buildings, almost adjacent to each other in the center of the town. "I mean. What really happened here?"

"Something. I don't think this place was evacuated because of the radiation."

"Something else?"

"Seems a little more sinister. Come on. You saw the church?"

"Yeah."

"Nobody's been there for years. Something happened here after the evacuation."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Something bad." They approached the two buildings, both of them boarded up, chained, and secured strongly. They could see that easily from just looking at the buildings. The plywood that was protecting the windows was secured quite strongly. None of them were loose and none of them looked comprimised in any way. The chains and locks on the doors were more than just "industrial-strength." It would take a C4 block to get in and not just a pair of bolt cutters. They would need serious force to get into either building.

"Secure enough for you?" The squad leader said as he fiddled with the lock on the front door to the Visara Corporation center. "Got any C4?"

"Got any? How much?" The demolitions man laughed as he pulled out a small block of C4 plastic explosive. Using his knife, he cut the block in half and then sliced it again so that it was really just a quarter of the block, which weighed in at 1 pound now. He stuck it on the door and pulled out small fuse from his pack and looked at its length. "Looks like we'll have about eight seconds."

"Alright. Cover!" The men scattered and took cover around the area as the demolitions man pulled out his Zippo lighter and smiled. With a laugh, he lit the fuse, and ran. He was dead right and eight seconds later, the block went off, shattering the air and the silence of Georgetown. The explosion echoed across the island as the door flew off its hinges. With the smoke filling the area around the door, the squad leader looked back. "We're open now!" They entered the mysterious building, which looked more like a hardended facility.

Three things were happening at the airport. The men of Second Squad inside of the Visara complex were wandering through the complex, going, almost seemingly, in circles. They were beyond "lost" and that wasn't even the half of it. Above the ground, the men investigating the Visara prototype aircraft were in awe of its size, proportions and what it was doing there. They were communicating what they found through a secure channel back to the Ministry of Defense. Then there was the other group, two men from the topside squad who were sent to find out what happened to the other two. Radio communication failed and now they were getting slightly worried. It had been some time, well over an hour, and the men weren't back yet. The squad leader was hoping that nothing too serious happened.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Ascension/visarafighter.jpg

The prototype fighter was something that none of them had ever seen before, something that was more like a secret stealth plane than anything else. These men were not privy to the information of the ILM that included its own stealth aircraft but they and all other soldiers knew that the Empire had secret stealth aircraft. They wondered what would come of this aircraft. It was real small and real low to the ground. It definitely looked like an advanced stealth fighter to them and they sought out to find more information on it. Why it was left there boggled their mind. It was a single seat fighter with two engines, carefully concealed inside the frame. From the underneath, they could see a ventral weapons bay and hardpoints on the wings, nothing too fancy or overly stealthy, not like the F-19 Ghostrider, which none of them knew about but they were in awe of its size. It was relatively small and, from what it looked like, it was very agile and very advanced. It had no tail and even its landing gear looked revolutionary.

Underneath the airport, in the Visara complex, the two men wandered, incessently. "Where the hell are we going?" They asked each other, repeatedly. They had gone in four circles already and they were definitely going to go in more. The complex was vast, as large as the airport but with levels galore. They went up and down stairs and through corridors and offices. They found little more except for clues, just clues.

The men of Third Squad weren't too keen on what they had seen at the schoolyard and the image, burned in their retinas, echoed in their thoughts. "Where the hell are we?" One of them asked, realizing that they were lost. Their GPS would tell them exactly where they were but that didn't stop him from asking. "Listen." He approached the squad leader. "This village is clear. Let's report it's clear and get the fuck out of here. This place gives me the creeps."

"Yeah." The men agreed and the squad leader realized that what they had seen had thoroughly put everyone off course. He had to get a handle on the situation and he had to fast.

"No. We still have more to do here. We're not going back to the school. That's for damn sure. But we're going up north. To the signals facility. It's just two kilometers outside of the village to the northeast. We're going to go there, see what condition the place is in and we're done. But as far as this village goes. We're leaving." The men agreed with some assention but they weren't too proud of the idea of staying on the island for too long. Still, they had to go along with what the squad leader said, that was what they were ordered to do and there was no argument against orders. They began walking. The island was once barren on the walk up to the facility but times had changed and the years the island spent without any inhabitants caused some grasslands to grow. The grass stood about four feet high, short enough that they could see over it but tall enough that anything could be hiding in its thicket.

They didn't get far into it before they bean to hear things and with the sun rising over the eastern horizon it was difficult for them to see much in that direct, its glare really messing them up. "You hear that?" The squad leader said as he stopped and put up his right hand in a fist. "Stop. Stop." He whispered and the men came to a halt. He then pointed to the ground and signalled for them to get on the ground and they all did, weapons out in front of them, hiding in the thick grass around them as branches cracked in the distance and the whoosh of the grass flowed with the wind. Nobody dared make a sound and the noises got closer and closer and closer to them as they stayed there, hidden and out of sight. They cracked more and then there was instant silence. Still, nobody dared to make a peep. They all held their breath afraid that their breathing would make noise and that they would be heard by whatever it was that was out there, stalking them, wishing that they were dead. Then, after a few minutes, it started again but still, they dared not move and watched as the grass became colored with the suns' rays.

The sounds stopped again and a few minutes went by and then nothing again. Slowly, his rifle shouldered and sights pointed ahead, the squad leader stood up and scanned around the area. "Nothing." He whispered and the men followed and they were walking again, this time much more crouched, barely over the tops of the grass. There were animals on the island, deadly animals and that was what they expected it was, after all, there was no human presence on the island. They got about 500 meters when they heard the sounds again and, as before, hit the ground and went still and silent. The cracking stopped just as well and they stayed there for a few more minutes before they moved again, getting back up and moving towards the signals facility. They got another 2 or 3 hundred meters and again, the cracking sound. Something was stalking them and they knew it. On the ground, for the third time, the squad leader turned around and crawled to his men. He looked right at them and quietly whispered, "Alright. Something is stalking us and it's coming from back there. You two. Go over that way and see who it is. We're going to keep moving. Stay down there and don't move. When we get far away see if anyone or anything is following us." The men nodded and crawled in the opposite direct, to the side and waited. Then the squad leader got back up and began moving away, away, towards the facility. Silence ensued again and the men got a few hundred meters away and the two men, still prone on the ground, heard the cracking sound ahead of them, moving away. They nodded to each other and they stood up to a crouch and began towards the sound.

Like stalkers themselves, they approached their men, who kept going, complete faith that their squad mates were stalking whoever was stalking them. It was this faith that would led to their demise. Almost at once, the cracking stopped and silence fell on the grassland. The six men up front kept going and the two in the back stopped and looked around, losing the sound. Then, at once, there was a cacophony of sounds, dozens of them, approaching all of them but they couldn't see a thing. The sounds came running at them and then, suddenly, they stopped again and with a roar, all eight men were pulled towards the ground, gunshots going off from their own rifles, screaming as everything went black. All they saw were eyes...red eyes...

The bunker was eerie, very eerie. The rooms were cleaned with precision. Each room looked more like a medical chamber than anything else. They were expecting to find a chemical weapons facility or a nuclear weapons facility but they didn't know exactly what they were finding. They weren't sure if it was a biological weapons facility either, though that was much more plausible then either of the other two or it was some kind of medical research facility. They didn't know what the men of Second Squad found and Second Squad didn't know about their discovery either. Fourth Squad was coming up with nothing. The whole facility was cleaned, immaculately.

That wasn't good for them. It was the total opposite of what they were finding in the other facility but it wasn't unusual. This evacuation had been planned. The other had not. The squad leader and technician opened up the fifth door to find the same thing as last time but there was something different, something that didn't look right. "See that?" He nodded to the corner. "That cabinet." The cabinet on the wall didn't look nearly as secure as the other ones and the squad leader noticed it right away. They entered the room and gave it a kick, to find that it moved, nearly falling over. "I think we've got something." He grabbed one side and the technician grabbed the other.

"Heavy. Alright let's move it." The two of them moved it away from the corner and exhaled deeply, the system weighing at least 200 pounds. Then, they looked around the other side and looked at the floor, which revealed a door. "Bingo!"

"Can you open it?"

"Can I open it? It's just a lock." The technician pulled out a pouch and removed some metal tools. He went to work on the intricate lock and it took some time but as he fiddled with the internal tumblers, the silence of the facility tore through their brains. Sweat poured off his head and his brow as he tried to lock the tumblers into place and he was only able to do so much at such a speed. "It's tough sir but just give me a few minutes."

"Take your time. I don't want that lock being broken. I'd like to keep this place intact. Whatever it is."

"You've got it." There was little chatter between them and the squad leader paid more attention to what the technician was doing than anything else. He was intriqued by lock-picking and was never able to do it himself but that was why he had a technician on his team, someone who knew the art of espionage and spy-like activities. In the rest of the facility, the men were finding nothing, nothing even remotely useful. Employee services, receiving and storage, and the administration sector were all sectors that were empty. The building looked as if no one had ever lived there and it looked as if no one had ever distrubed the place after it was constructed. Then, there was a click. It was barely audible but in the total silence of the research wing, it echoed like a falling bowling ball. "Got it!"

"Slowly. It could be boobytrapped."

"Alright. It's got a handle. Give me some rope."

"Yeah. Good idea." They put the rope on the hatch cover and ran it around the cabinet and out, in the hallway. Safe there from any boobytraps, they gave the rope a yank. It was a hard yank and it pull the hatch cover right up and open. "It's open!" The hatch echoed throughout the room as it slammed onto the ground but still, nothing else happened. "Clear?"

"Yeah. Clear." The two men got up and slowly approached the open hatch. It was dark in the hole and they dropped a pair of Chem-Lights down the hole to see that it was a ladder and it went down at least 15 feet. "Not so far down."

"You got it." They moved down the ladder but because there was no light in the tunnel whatsoever, their night vision goggles wouldn't work. They needed some illumination, if even starlight, for their goggles to be effective. Because there was none they were forced to use their flashlights, which were attached to their rifles.

and used their goggles to see once they were down. The green light emanating from the Chem-Lights gave them only a bit of illumination around the initial drop point. "It's some sort of tunnel." The two of them walked through the tunnel and towards the end, which looked like a secured door, some sort of vault door. "See that?"

"Yeah. What's it, a vault?"

"Looks like it."

"And what does that mean?"

"To us? Shit. We'll get in."

"Are you sure?" They approached the door.

"Yeah. It's electronic. It'll just take some time." The two of them used their flashlights to illuminate the whole door and the technican went to work on the lock. He applied the battery pack first, to make the electronic keypad come online, which took a few minutes since he had to open it and apply it directly to the system. That took some splicing of wires and about ten minutes but the technican was good, very good. From there, the keypad lit up and he looked at the squad leader. "We're in. From the looks of the pad its a four digit access code. It's not alphanumeric so it shouldn't take too long, there's only 9,999 possibilities."

"Good. How long will that take?"

"Well. Maybe twenty minutes?"

"It can't go faster?"

"It's powering both the keypad and itself. It can only do so much and without a natural light source it's on battery power. We'll have to recharge it later."

"It'll tell us what the code is, right?"

"Yes it will."

"Alright." It took 16 minutes and 38 seconds. Then it buzzed and they could easily see the code. "8299." He nodded.

"We're in business."

"Good. We can see what's inside now." The squad leader watched the technician put away his tools. The two of them entered the vault area and were met by a blast of cold air that made them shiver. "What the..."

"It's a cryo-freezer."

"Interesting. What's in here?" The cold flew out of the vault and they both looked around real quickly. "It looks like DNA samples."

"Yeah. Viral stuff too. Bacterial?"

"Alright. Let's get out of here. How is this freezer powered?"

"Don't know but it's been on and untouched for fifteen years."

"I bet. Let's find the rest of them." The vault was shut and they departed the tunnel, moved back up the ladder, and to the clean room above. They backtracked to the main lobby area and waited for the rest of the men to show up. When they did, they began talking.

Chapter III: By Dawn's Early Light

Dawn's light pierced the gray clouds above and cast a dull illumination over the island, an island bathed in blood and horror. There was no human presence on the island except for the thirty-two men of the Marine reconnaissance platoon, four teams of trained and highly motivated Marines who wanted nothing more than to pave the way for their fellow soldiers and allow them to suffer the least amount of casualties as possible. That was their mission, to pave the way and spot the targets, call in the bombers and attak aircraft, and subdue the enemy long enough for the main force to land. It was a noble mission, began in the early 1980s after the Empire was established. Its first order of business was to reevaluate the losses in Venezuela and the main recommendation was advanced warning before the main force got there. The reconnaissance platoon was born and had since served with more than just distinction and honor. They were the most successful unit group in all of the Marines. Now, thirty-two of the bravest men aboard the task force were on an island, creepy and eerie, uninhabited by humans for fifteen years, or so it seemed, at first glance. The men on the ground believed otherwise, especially after finding the two Visara bunkers at the airport and in the Green Mountain area.

It was 08:30 hours and all of the four teams were set to communicate their initial findings back to the task force. The radio calls went out and dread followed. "First Squad. First Squad. This is Mother Charlie. Come in. Over."

"Mother Charlie. This is First Squad. We're here. Over."

"Report findings. Over."

"Findings indicate no human presence in area. Animal life is hostile and should be regarded as highly dangerous. We found something though, something I can't explain. We found nothing else, not even in the records place. Over."

"Proceed. Over."

"There was some sort of 'ritual' at the church. It's date and origin is unknown but it wasn't kosher. Over."

"Please elaborate First Squad. Over."

"Possible human sacrifice. Over." The airwaves went dead. Even the static went silent and the squad leader repeated himself.

"Understood First Squad. Lay low. Over."

"Roger that. First Squad out." The eight men looked at each other with a glimmer of hope but it was shrouded in fear, total, unrivaled, and uncompromising fear.

"Second Squad. Second Squad. This is Mother Charlie. Come in. Over."

"Mother Charlie. This is Second Squad. We're here. Over."

"Report findings. Over."

"Airbase is empty. We've located a prototype aircraft hiding in a secret hangar. Something that we've never seen before. Recommend scientist team get out here. Other squad members report a Visara complex underneath the airport. Horrific. I haven't seen it but my men tell me its awful. Over."

"Understood Second Squad. Out." The men looked at each other and a look of horror came over their faces.

How could they do that. To people. The eight men thought to themselves.

"Third Squad. Third Squad. This is Mother Charlie. Come in. Over." Silence echoed and they repeated themselves eight times but to no avail. Third Squad was nowhere to be found on the airwaves, which frightened them intensely. On the decks of the ships, Marines were preparing to go in and secure the island but now some were going in for search and rescue. Helicopters took off within five minutes of the initial radio call and they would be there shortly thereafter. The operators moved on and began calling Fourth Squad. "Fourth Squad. Fourth Squad. This is Mother Charlie. Come in. Over."

"Mother Charlie. Fourth Squad. Go. Over."

"Report findings. Over."

"Bunker is some sort of biological facility. Possibly a medicial facility. We found a storage vault with all sorts of samples in it. Very hidden, still stocked. Facility is clean though, nothing left. Over."

"Alright Fourth Squad. All Squads. All Squads. Mission parameters changing. PDAs will be updated. Mother Charlie out." The airwaves went silent and their PDAs blinked as they received new orders. All of them stated that the Marines were coming and that the initial assault was to begin at 11:00 hours. They would just have to lay low until then. However, individual orders went out very quickly. Fourth Squad was to secure the bunker and wait until the Marines came. First Squad was set to go look for Third Squad and, lastly, Second Squad was set to secure the airport until the Marines arrived. Reinforcements would not be sent in ahead of time since no contact had been made. Animal wildlife was a problem but a problem the men could handle. It wasn't more than five minutes later that the airport was shaken from above.

They came out of the clouds like birds of prey, swooping down on a helpless victim on the ground. Both of the aircraft, two F-35B Raven fighters tore over the airbase at 1,000 feet, AGL, and the men below cheered them on as they banked away and made a pass over the island. It was possible that they were sent to look for Third Squad but the men on the ground didn't know, all they knew was that, if, by some odd chance, an army of unknown bandits attacked them, that the friendlies above would cover them. They relaxed, for the time being.

At the bunker, the men of Fourth Squad had much of a look of horror as did the men of Second Squad. They weren't so much shocked by how clean the facility was or of its nature but rather what its possible future applications could have been and just what was in that vault. They looked like DNA samples. Some had the names of people, others had names they never saw before, much less could pronounce. It was almost as if the Visara employees that worked there were working on a biological weapon of tremendous and apocalyptic proportions.

"What the fuck happened?" The squad leader of Third Squad asked. He managed to open his eyes, only to find that he was being hung, upside down, from his ankles, his hands restrained behind his back. It was total darkness and he could hear breathing but he saw nothing. He felt the blood in his head, the only way he knew he was being held upside down, except for the feel of the rope around his ankles and the weight on them. "Anyone out there?"

"Yeah." The other seven men acknowledged. They were all as confused and mystified as he was.

"Upside down?"

"Uh huh." Things definitely didn't add up at all. "Where are we?"

"No clue. Do you know what grabbed us?"

"No."

"Anybody get a visual on it? I mean you guys had to have seen something, right?"

"Nothing."

"Fuck. Alright anyone wiggle free?"

"Nope." The ropes were tied well, knotted almost by sailors and they definitely couldn't get free. They figured that they were underground, simply because it was chilly and damp. They couldn't really tell though, it was difficult, real difficult. Wherever they were though, it was in total darkness. All of them wiggled around, trying to get free but none could.

"Are we alone in here?"

"Probably. I can't tell."

"Me either. Where are we?"

"Underground?"

"I don't know. Where's the ground?" The confusion echoed from the eight men, all of their heads hurting from the blows they received. All of them were knocked unconscious before any of them knew what hit them and before any of them could see what was going on around them. "Come on. Let go!" One of them said as he wiggled through the ropes.

Then, below, a strange voice echoed. It was a whisper, almost audible, and they could barely understand it but what they heard was, "Light the fire." They didn't really hear much else but, suddenly, with a flash and a roar, the ground underneath them and the blackness around them vanished and fell away to reveal a massive chamber and a huge flame below them, large enough that its heat stretched right up to them, at least forty feet away.

"HOLY SHIT!" They all said, more or less, as they looked down. They were inside of a dirt cave, suspended in the air by at least forty or fifty feet and there was a giant fire below them, billowing up towards them, and twenty-six set of eyes, evil eyes, all staring up at them, through the fire. "Who the fuck are you? Speak English?"

"I speak. You. Why are you here? Who are you?"

"We are Marines of the Imperial Layartebian Navy. Who are you?"

"We're your makers."

"Makers?"

"Makers." The eyes scattered around below them and continued to look up at them. "Lower him!" The radioman looked around, frantically, as he felt himself being lowered, towards the flames.

What! What are you doing! STOP!" He yelled at them but there was no response. They could see the eyes, red eyes, big smiles on their faces, staring up at them, mouths watering.

"You will be punished for your trespasses."

"STOP!"

"Burn them all!" Someone yelled.

"SILENCE! This is how it will be done. Lower him. Lower him into the fire. Sacrifice him. Oh gods above!"

"NO! STOP!"

"Gods above. Gods below!"

"STOP IT YOU FUCKERS!" All of the Marines were yelling now, the raidoman yelling the loudest, screaming and pleading.

"Grant us your mercy!"

"FUCK THIS. LET US GO YOU SICK FUCKS!"

"So that we may thrive further and further. Grant us holy wisdom and eternal."

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY DOING!"

"Salvation. Gods above and gods below these sinners and tresspassers."

"STOP! GUYS! HELP!"

"They must be punished. We can only send them to you for judgement but give us a sign. Tell us what you want. Tell us."

"THEY ARE SICK! WHAT THE FUCK!" The screams turned silent as the radioman reached the fire and caught fire, instantly, the rope breaking from the fire, his body falling into the pit of flames, screaming and writhing as the fire consumed his flesh, boiled his blood, and crispified him. He died slowly in the fire, despite its heat and its effects on him but he wasn't dying painlessly either. He screamed for a few minutes as the fire consumed him, his screams silencing as he died. The people below awed and rejoiced, worshipping some satanic gods above and below and the other seven men knew one thing: they were next!

OOC: This ends the first chapter. So might I ask all of you out there watching and reading what you think so far?

OOC: Very nice. I found the very beginning a bit heavy on exposition, but once the Marines started exploring, I was hooked. I can't wait for more. Keep up the good work!

OOC: Very nice. I found the very beginning a bit heavy on exposition, but once the Marines started exploring, I was hooked. I can't wait for more. Keep up the good work!

OOC: Thanks a ton man. Keep reading more good stuff to come.

The smell wafted up, into the air as the seven Marines gasped in horror at the scene below. Two of them had thrown up, unfortunately on each other more than they threw up on the ground below them. The smell of that only mixed with the stench of burned flesh, hair, and finger nails, a smell that would be enough for anyone to pass out over smelling. Things were not looking up for them as the satanic fools below looked into the fire and embraced the smell and the sacrific. "Gods be pleased!" They repeated, over and over. They spoke English, well in fact, and it seemed that, although only one of them had spoken before, now all of them were speaking. "Gods be pleased!" They were begging the gods to be pleased with their actions. They were afraid, the squad leader knew right away. The radioman was lost and if any of them had a weapon, they would have used it and taken out the twenty-six or so peole on the ground. It was tough to count how many, the heat from the fire made their eyes sting. Some were seeing double and some of them were seeing triple. It was an awful experience and, to all of them, a bad dream would have been perfect. The nightmare before them was enough to scare them shitless and the squad leader seemed to have the most composure out of all of them, though that wasn't saying much.

"What the hell do you people want with us?"

"You have tresspassed on a sacred and holy land. Your crime cannot go unpunished. Two of you will be sacrificed to the gods by fire. Three will bleed. The remaining three will have their sacrifice determined by the gods. Now. LOWER THE OTHER ONE!" The "priest" below yelled. None of them knew who the other one was and they all writhed to get free but none of them were able to and, instead, they stared at each other, in their makeshift cricle above, with fear and horror in their eyes, speechless as the anti-tank soldier descended towards the fire below. He looked up at the Marines, hanging from the ceiling, tears coming down his eyes, unable to say a thing, almost as if he accepted his fate. "Gods above and gods below! Grant us your mercy! So that we may thrive further and further. Grant us holy wisdom and eternal salvation. Gods above and gods below punish these sinners and tresspassers. We can only send them to you for judgement but give us a sign. Tell us what you want from the others. Tell us. Speak to us. Show us that our deeds are being upheld properly." The anti-tank soldier screamed in pain as he entered the fire and the men looked at each other, unable to look down, unable to speak.

"They'll all die!" The squad leader whispered, loud enough for the men to hear him as the sizzling and screaming of the anti-tank soldier lifted into the air, the stench only becoming unbearable. Once again, the two soldiers threw up and were joined by a third, the technician.

The fire burned continually as the crowd below chanted "Gods be pleased!" They had stumbled upon some satanic cult and they weren't about to meet the fate of the others. Once they were lowered they would attack. They saw blades and cutting tools below, their own weapons in the hands of others and they would put up a fight. It was a tacit agreement between them all that this was what they would do, fight back and die fighting rather than be bled out or lowered into a pit of fire to burn to their own deaths, so horrifically that their bodies were unrecognizable. They wouldn't accept their fate. They wouldn't accept the situation. They didn't believe in any fate that these satanic wierdos believed in and they certainly didn't believe much in the idea that their fate was already made for them. They were in control and they were their only hope. No God or gods would come to save them and none would give a sign to the psychos below so they would be the sign, their resistance to the fury and the horror of man and its animal nature.

"LOWER THEM ALL! NOT TO THE FIRE. LOWER THEM TO THE FLOOR. THE OTHERS MUST SUFFER!" The preist screamed and they could see, as they descended from the ceiling above, on the outside of the fire rim that there were others, many others, kneeling on a balcony area, looking down at the fire and up at them. They didn't rethink their decision, instead, they thought ahead, to their attack, to their own revolution against what was happening. They thought in advance and they thought with necessity.

They came lower to the ground and the heat of the fire made them sweat and they felt it burn on them. Their clothes were heated but not enough to combust, though they felt as if they would. Shirtless and tied by their feet and their hands, they counted down the timer, an invisible and silent timer, that was moving down, towards zero, towards the moment that they would take as many of the enemy with them as they could. Guns, knives, none of that scared them now. They all looked around and surveyed the room, sizing it up for the assault. They added another thirty-two pairs of eyes to the twenty-six to have a total of fifty-eight, fifty-eight of the enemy and only six of them. It was a good day to die!

They neared the floor of the rocky, muddy chamber that seemed, almost, to be an underground cavern. Dogs were held at bay on the ground, licking their teeth, waiting for supper, possibly for them. As they did, the two bodies were being removed from the fire, the ropes having snapped but metal hooks lowered from the ceiling being enough to grab the charred and unrecognizable and unidentifiable bodies. They touched the ground as the corpses came out and they saw exactly what they feared, their own fate, a fear that they would suppress in order to fight back. "UNTIE THEIR FEET SO THAT WE MAY MOVE THEM!" That was a big mistake and once all six of them were untied, they shot up, from the ground, almost at once, almost as if, telepathically, they were speaking to each other, planning their moves. The technician rushed a man holding a gun and barrelled him over, sinking his teeth into his neck, digging deep, the blood spurling out, the man screaming in pain. The blood gushed and gushed and the technician sunk deeper. He tore into the man's artery and watched as the blood came out and the fatal wound slowly began to kill him. He released his teeth and spit out a chunk of flesh, blood dripping down his chin and chest. Then, he turned over and with a swift kick, with both of his legs, using his hands to balance him on the gunman's chest, he knocked two people away, both of them falling over. He backed himself up quickly and put the rope in the man's mouth and yanked, hard, so hard that he broke his jaw but sliced right through the rope, as hard and thick as it was. With his hands free, he picked up the assault rifle that used to be the radiomans and opened fire. With a grin of hatred on his face, he opened fire, single shots, the rifle up to his shoulder, stepping on the man's neck below him, making the pain worse. With a crunch, the man's neck snapped and his was dead, bleeding onto the ground, the blood all over the technician. He squeezed off round after round, fourteen of them, killing seven people below, suddenly, he felt a searing pain in his chest. He yelped in pain and released the rifle as a shiny but red soaked blade came out of his chest, having pierced right through his diaphragm. It went upwards, blade pointing to the ceiling, and tore through his heart. Blood spat from his mouth and he crashed down, onto the floor, dead.

The sniper reacted differently. As he shot up, he brought his head clean against the chin of one a woman who was trying to help him up from the floor. The blow snapped her head clean back and caused her to bite right through her tongue, seven teeth shattering, two being swallowed, cutting up her throat as they descended towards her stomach. The lacerations inside caused her to fall right to the ground and she began to bleed, internally as the teeth landed in her stomach, cutting the inside of her stomach as she twisted and turned on the ground, grabbing her throat. She spit her tongue onto the ground and blood oozed out of her mouth. With one person down, the sniper barged for a man with a gun but didn't get far, he wasn't afraid to use it and he squeezed off an automatic burst of four rounds, two of which tore right through the sniper's chest, killing him instantly but, because of the close range, the rounds exited and the two missed rounds, began to ricochet around the chamber, taking out two other people.

The spotter was the first person to make the move though he was only about a quarter of a second faster than everyone else. Instead of using his head as a weapon, he used his whole body, and barrelled into one of the men with the guns and threw him onto the ground, his legs around his neck. With a quick but violent move, he snapped his neck and sprung back upwards, flipping his legs over and, surprisingly, though he was a master of martial arts, put his legs around another person's neck, his head practically touching the ground, unable to balance himself by his arms. He swung down, toppling the woman over and broke her neck just as well. With forty-five enemies remaining, the spotter jumped back up and made a dash for someone with a knife, coming towards him. The person wasn't a skilled fighter and when he took a roundhouse to the face, he dropped the knife and fell over backwards. The spotter, realizing the opportunity, jumped to the ground and cut himself free as he kicked about, keeping three people away from him. Then, with a swift move backwards, he nabbed the knife and threw the ropes away, landing on top of one of the people he kicked. He drove the knife down in a swift movement into his chest and pulled it out a second later, swung it around and watched with glory as the knife blade tore through the necks of two other people but that was all she wrote for him. A slug from the shotgun that the technician used, turned his whole chest into a gaping hole. He managed to throw the knife as the round was in the air, a sort of impeccable timing but never got to see the knife come right into the neck of the person who shot at him. The woman, almost fallen over from the shotgun blast, fell to the ground, the knife having a fatal wound in her.

The scout had some success. He was a fast individual to begin with and he was as qualified as the spotter was in martial arts, something that all Marines took but didn't all master. Only some 40% of the Marines of the ILN were masters of martial arts, high numbers, and most of them were part of elite reconnaissance units, such as this one, or other units that required a lot of hand-to-hand combat. He whipped himself around and used his head like the sniper, driving it up, into a woman's chin, achieving the same result as the sniper. He stepped on her neck a moment later and killed her quicker than any other except for those who had been shot. With one down and forty to go, he whipped himself around just as well and drove both of his feet into someone's chest, knocking them into the fire pit. He slipped though and as he landed, he caught himself on a fallen blade, a blade which went through his leg. He was unable to fight much and before he knew it, four men were on top of him, holding him down. He would live, for now.

The forward observer had less luck than anyone else. He sprung up but missed his headbutt, only to find that he was, unfortunately, staring at a weapon. He managed to kick it free, knocking the machete into the fire, as well as knocking the holder into the fire but he too went into the fire. Sadly, his fight had been short-lived but he took someone out with him.

The squad leader, possibly the toughest out of all of them, was nearest to the priest, something that he enjoyed as he descended. He kicked him over, throwing him back, against the wall. He wanted the priest to live, to suffer from his wrath. He rolled himself over and against a table with more cutting items and sliced his ropes free, jumped back, over the table, and grabbed a few knives, two of which he threw towards two women approaching him, both of them cutting into their chests, pushing them backwards, onto the ground. The other weapon he picked up was a machete and he wielded it well, cutting into two men near him while he kicked over the table onto someone's leg. It was a heavy table, made of thick and strong wood, and when it landed on the fallen person, it broke their leg at the knee. That person was incapacitated while the other two were dead, deep slashes across their chests and necks. He caught a bullet to his arm but the adrenaline in his body ignored the pain as he flung himself around the side of another table and grabbed some spear-like items off it and threw him, both into the same person, the person with the gun. He was there to grab it a moment later, which was, his pistol. He tossed his machete into the air and it landed on the man on the ground, with the broken leg, going into his shoulder but missing any vital organs. The pistol was loaded with only one round down, one .43LDC round down. He had plenty left and he took aim and fired at people in his way. He had eleven rounds left and he fired all eleven of them, clean and precise shots, center-of-mass shots, one per person. That was eleven kills but, when the rounds were empty, he was blind-sided by a man who looked as if he were two men, a large and powerful man who knocked him clean unconscious with the strike.

The attack left thirty-six of the cultists dead and four of the soldiers. That left only the squad leader and the scout, both of them wounded and both of them surrounded by twenty-two of the cultists, eight of them being women. "A feeble attempt. Pick them up and restrain them. Again." The priest said as he looked at the dead bodies around. The Marines had put up a good fight and killed far more than they, a 9:1 ratio, good for them. Unfortunately, they were caught, again, and their fate would be worse. "The gods are unpleased with what you've done. They are not happy and they are not pleased at all. Your fate will be decided. For now, lock them in the cages." The two Marines were hogtied and dragged out of the chamber into an adjacent room with two grates on the floor, made of sticks, thick and strong sticks. They were small holding cells below and both of the Marines were tossed into them and they were secured with vine, strands and strands of vine, making the weak plant suddenly a strong rope. "Sit there and await your fate." The congregation returned to the fire and cleaned up the mess. The bodies that had been killed were taken and cleaned up for two purposes: burial and consumption. The cultists were cannibals, sick and twisted ones. The women were considered sacred and their bodies were bured in the fire, to send up to the gods immediately while the men were prepared for both burial and consumption.

On the surface, the Marine advance began. Frog amphibious transports waded ashore and helicopters danced overhead, dropping Marines onto the ground. Smoke filled the air from the smokescreens created by the Frogs and Marine soldiers. White smoke was used to hide their advance and though the island was considered secure, the smoke was necessary, very necessary. It was part of Marine advances worldwide and it was essential to the advancing forces to be able to shield their movements onto the beach. The armored units that crashed onto the beach were heavy and they were powerful. They moved towards the island center, to secure the various portions of the island and begin preparations to build up the island. The Marines were going to be holding the island while construction crews were sent in to turn the island into a military fortress, just as was being done further to the south, on Saint Helena. A few destroyers and cruisers had even got extremely far south, to Tristan da Cunha, where the Layartebians had set off a 100 megaton thermonuclear device in 1992. That was 15 years ago and Inaccessible Island was still laid to waste as was the main island and the nearest other island. Devestation was significant but the main concern was fallout. The bomb was clean, one of the cleanest bombs out there as 97% of its energy came from fusion and the radiation fallout that it put out was equivalent to a 15 kiloton fission bomb, enough to make the area radiated for some time. Reconnaissance helicopters were being flown over the three island group to determine whether or not the fallout still remained in significance to disallow human intervention onto the islands. If it was, there would be ground samples taken, which definitely still had radiation, after all, the place had been undisturbed for 15 years.

Back on Ascensión, the two Marines, still left alive, adjusted themselves so that they weren't sitting too uncomfortably in the cells. They couldn't tell but there was a guard waiting there, watching over them, a pistol in his hands. The other weapons that they had and that were being prepared for the ritual were being cleaned up as well as the room itself. The mess was a mess and they had to clean it up and had to make sure that the place was clean and prepared properly for the ritual, which was still to come. "Yo. You okay?" The squad leader asked.

"Not really. Leg is messed up pretty bad. Knife went through it. I fucked up. Slipped onto it." He laughed.

"Don't worry. We'll be out of here in no time. I feel the ground shaking a lot, I think we got aircraft overhead. Who knows, maybe they'll fall through the roof with a tank or something."

"That'd be nice."

"QUIET! The gods did not grant you permission to speak."

"Blow it out your ass." The squad leader couldn't see the guard speaking to him but now he knew that he was there. "Fuck off." The guard shifted around and picked up a bottle of boiling water. He came over to the edge and dripped some of it over, scorching a few places on the squad leader, mainly his legs and his arm, which went up to shield his face.

"I said QUIET!" The guard put the bottle down and returned to his place away from the cages.

"We'll get them..." The scout whispered.

The Marines came into Georgetown about ten minutes ahead of schedule and moved out to make their own makeshift residences for the time that they would be there. Plans for Ascension Island and Saint Helena were massive and with the radiation tests of Tristan da Cunha coming back overwhelmingly positive, these two islands were serve as the crucial link between Layartebian interests in the North Atlantic Ocean and the Falkland Islands, which had been seized in a brutal fight with Varsolan forces just months prior. Ascension Island would be the first hub along the way to the Falklands and it would have a signals intelligence facility, an airfield, a naval port, and the biological weapons bunker would be converted to something else. The bunker underneath the airport would be a special facility as well, both part of Project VIXEN, which was amongst the most sinister things that the Empire did but details of that were still being formulated and planned. In addition, the island would be home to a Marine base that would provide for a quick reaction force to the Falkland Islands, if necessary.

Saint Helena, on the other hand, 800 miles to the southeast, would have another naval base and another airbase but it would not have facilities related to Project VIXEN. It would; however, host an isolated prison facility known as The Vault. It would be both under and above ground and it would be made to house at least 1,750 inmates, all of them the most awful criminals of society. It would house rapists, child molesters, and serial killers. It would definitely house the most awful individuals of society and though they would be protected by Force Hurricane, there was a significant risk, which was why the facility would be built as secure as that on Isla Nublar. There would be no tunneling underneath the facility and there would be no escape possibilities whatsoever. With the airbase and the naval port right next door, as well as a small Marine base, if the inmates escaped, they wouldn't get too far.

Plans for a prison facility and a massive military base on Tristan da Cunha were abandoned now and, unfortunately, that limited the force that could be deployed to the Falkland Islands, if necessary. That only meant there was more space that was needed. Gough Island, which was 220 miles southeast of Tristan da Cunha, was previously going to be left uninhabited. Things would have to change for the island. Most of the radiation from the explosion went northward with the winds and little landed on Gough Island except for a small patch of it on the North East Point and 5 mi² would be isolated from the rest of the island by fencing and sentries. Nobody would go into the hazardous area and the rest of the island would be crammed with a military fortress that included a small airfield, a small naval facility, and a massive command center. Power to the facilities on all of the islands would be completely isolated and self-sufficient. Gough Island, receiving up to 100 inches of rain each year would be more isolated than the others. Most of the coastline consisted of cliffs some 500 - 1,000 ft high making it perfect for defending the island. The shipyard would be built into the east coast, near Quest Bay, the only suitable location. Power to the island would be provided by geothermal power, just like the other two islands.

On Ascension Island, as Georgetown was secured, Marines were also arriving at both the airfield and the medical facility. They would be, soon enough, arriving at the SIGINT facility to the north of the island. Things were going smoothly above ground but underground things were vastly different...

"Alright so what do we have here?" One of the Marines asked as he and his company of soldiers said as he came up to the medicial research facility that Fourth Squad was protecting. He was a major, in charge of a full company of 128 men. "Looks like a boring place." He said as he came up to the squad leader who was only a first lieutenant.

"Major." He didn't salute because they were in the field but he stood at attention. "Sir. We have a medicial research facility here. It's pretty clean but we've got a vault, still cold, very cold, using some auxiliary power. It's got tons of samples in it, DNA, viruses, bacteria, that sort of stuff."

"Sounds good. I've got a few doctors with us and they'll be examining the vault for us."

"Good. Good. No resistance though. Any word on Third Squad?"

"Nothing yet. Unfortunately."

"Understood sir." They parted ways and the three doctors came forward. "Here we'll show you were it is."

"Understood. We've got experts on the way actually that will be able to better survey the situation but they won't be here for a few days." The three doctors were actually part of the 10th BOG, "Force Storm." They were in charge of biological and chemical quick reaction operations and they were deployed on the task force just in case they found a chemical weapons facility. They posed merely as doctors and they were but they were far more specialized than medicial doctors. They knew the inner workings of almost every known chemical and biological threat that existed in the world. "So lead us to the vault."

"Got it. This way. I hope you have a clue what we're looking at because we don't."

"That's understandable lieutentant. It is pretty odd to find something like this but, then again, this whole island is wierd."

"Yes it is. The airport. What'd they find there?"

"Nothing. Nothing except for a fighter plane."

"Really?"

"Yes. That's about it. You have the real find." The doctors smiled as they walked down towards the research laboratories, following four men from Fourth Squad, being led by the squad leader and the technician.

"I'm glad to hear that." His chest beamed out. "We were shocked with what we found here. It's completely clean and it definitely looks like it was abandoned with the rest of the island but the vault. Did they forget it?"

"Who knows. Visara is a mysterious corporation that has since gone into the shadows since the collapse of the Bjornoyan state so who knows."

"Interesting. Here. In this one."

"Alright. Where? Corner?"

"Yes. Here. Let me drop some Chem-lights." He dropped a pair of Chem-lights down the hatch and onto the ground as the other ones had gone out and cast it back into darkness. "Ladder is there it's about fifteen feet down."

"Long way."

"Yeah it is. Let's go." The three doctors descended the ladder into the main walkway to the vault and were followed by the Marines. "What's the code?"

"8299."

"Alright. Let me see." He entered the code and the vault door opened. "Alright gentlemen. Let's see in here. Excellent. Lieutenant. May I ask that you and your men wait on the top. I do apologize but I am not sure how deadly this stuff is and we are trained for it."

"Understood."

"Thank you sir. Your cooperation is much appreciated." The four men from Fourth Squad returned to the surface and exited the bunker while the three doctors from Force Storm entered the vault.

"What do you think?"

"I think that our reports are true."

"What reports? We've got dozens of them."

"The ones about ethnic bioweapons."

"It's possible. This place could definitely be one."

"Yeah I don't doubt it. What I want to know though is what they were testing here."

"Look. Ebola. Anthrax. It's in codenames but it's there."

"Look at this rack. DNA samples."

"I bet if we find files we can find out just what the hell was going on here."

"The other bunker maybe?"

"Who knows. I don't think so. They look to be independent of each other and the town is empty. I can't tell you."

"Me either. We'll have to see what our intelligence analysts can decrypt."

"Yes."

The Marines of First Squad showed their relief around the town and pointed them all towards the Satanic Church. Many of them were shocked and apalled and it was definitely going to be easy to see that they were going to tear down the church, regardless of if they needed it or not. Some of the men wanted to demolish it with C4 but their superiors kept them away from the idea. The Visara building, which was empty just like the medical facility was only a starting point for them. The investigators would search high and low to find out what Visara was doing there following the evacuation because it was plainly evident that, though the island was fully evacuated of civilian personnel, Visara remained there after the blast. They knew the radiation wouldn't travel that far north and they knew that they had an island with nobody on it except for them. Soldiers broke into the city hall and began to rifle through the city records. They wanted a list of every Bjornoyan citizen that lived on the island and anyone who worked with Visara. The Ministry of Intelligence had every intention of tracking down each and every one of them that were still alive and interviewing them about the island. They needed to know just what happened on the island and they needed to know yesterday.

Second Squad was relieved just as First Squad and three men from Force Storm entered the compound underneath the airport much like their cohorts had done at the medical research facility. They were flabbergasted by what they saw and they had little words, if any, to describe what they saw. "You know. As much as they are probably independent of each other, you wonder if this place was used with the other one." One of the men said as he and his two fellow soldiers moved through the hallway, looking into each room at the horrific sights. "What were they doing here?"

"I don't know. We'll know what the other place was for when we get back to the command center but I can tell you that whatever it was it definitely wasn't as awful as this."

"Nothing is as awful as this is."

"You got that right." They moved down to the directors office and to the storage room, following the directions, as bad as they were, that were given to them by the men of Second Squad. "The Cottish. They'll help. They seized most of Bjornoyas territory. Maybe they'll have files about what happened here. Maybe they came across something."

"Maybe. All I can say is this place wasn't abandoned with the rest of the island. It looks like they stayed here another two years. Maybe more. This place was definitely active. Very active."

"Uh huh." The facility was definitely a research facility but of what caliber they didn't know yet. They were exploring though and on the surface their comrades-in-arms were looking throughout the island, searching everywhere for some sort of clue that could tell them what was what.

Third Squad was lost, completely lost. The search teams that were moving around the island, looking for them, were coming up with nothing, which was why it was decided that simply using the Mark I Eyeball wasn't going to be enough. They were calling in for FLIR and for thermal imaging devices. Tanks and armored vehicles used thermal sights to target their enemies and now they were being used to try to locate the Marines, whose body temperatures, even if they were dead, would still be warmer than the outside air. Helicopters, primarily MH-60S Knight Hawks, used thermal sights as well, all of them trying to locate the Marines. Unfortunately, their thermal sights, in this environment, were slightly limited to range and they weren't able to survey the whole island on a single pass. It would take time but, hopefully, not too much time.

"So what can you tell me about Ascension Island so far?" The Emperor asked the Admiral of the Navy, over the phone. "I want to know as much as you know."

"Well. Right now sir I can safely say that the condition of the island is very good. There is no radiation and there is no threat. The island is abandoned. We found a medical research facility instead of a chemical weapons factory. It's very wierd though, very clean, and definitely not for peaceful measures. Force Storm men have identified the possibility that they were manufacturing or testing ethnic bioweapons. We'll have more once the vault is returned to us."

"Vault?"

"Sir. We found a vault underneath the facility with tons of frozen samples. Still working too. We're going to reactivate the facility."

"Understood. What else do you have? What about the airport?"

"Ghastly sir. We found another facility there. Some sort of research facility too. It's grotesque and wasn't cleaned at all before they left. From what it appears, the Visara facilities were still in use after the evacuation of all civilians and it is unlikely that any civilians on the island knew of the existence of the two facilities."

"Interesting. What did you find in the town?"

"Very little sir. Records exist but they're civilian. Nothing about the two facilities. Not even blue prints."

"Got it. What can you tell me about the missing squad?"

"Nothing yet. We're searching the island with FLIR now. Hopefully they'll turn up."

"Alright. I'll call back in six hours for an update."

"Yes sir."

"Come. Bring the swine!" The High Priest yelled as the fire roared in the background. "Bring them forward so that they may meet their doom!" His voice echoed in the cavernous chamber and the man standing guard by the cages moved aside as two others came over and opened the cages.

"Let's go!" One of them boomed as he reached down and with an ungodly amount of strength, hoisted out the squad leader. Another hoisted out the scout and both of them were thrown on the ground, where they were further restrained and hogtied. "I hope you're ready!" He laughed and the two men were carried into the main chamber and place on tables, face down.

"You are sinners and the gods have blessed us with your punishment," the High Priest began. "I. As High Priest of this group I am commanded by the gods to deliver the punishment that these men will face." We walked over to the scout. "This man. He will be skewered and cooked and we must eat his flesh. Some will be burned to the gods but for the rest it is for us to eat. I have seen this in a vision!" The people roared. Those who had been killed had been carted off already and the others hooted and hollered as the sentences were handed down from the High Priest. "This man," he moved over to the squad leader, "will face a much worse fate. He shall be fed to the dogs! Tonight! We will bring them fourth and feed him to them so that they may feast as well." More cheers followed and the squad leader and scout faced each other and mouthed to each other their own disbelief. "The sentences will be handed down for dinner and for recreation later. For now these men will be returned to their cages and left there to rot, like the scum that they are. Keep the fire burning. I have been commanded." The two Marines were returned to the cages and to the amusement of those carrying him. "Let me continue. I will share my vision. I see the moon above, the dogs below, the gods above and below. Feasting on the flesh of the leader while we enjoy the flesh of the other. We will go to the surface for this and remain hidden. The gods have shown me protection and the men that come with these men will be smitten down, should they come near us and oppose our ceremonious worshiping.

High above the air, F-35s and Stalkers flew in overlapping patterns, using their Advanced FLIR devices. They had turned up little to nothing except animals. They flew around with Adder rockets, equipped with white phosphorus for target marking. If they spotted something, they were going to fire off a few WP rockets to the source so the ground troops could move in and go to work. For being in the air for some time now, they had little found. They knew the relative area of the soldiers but that was about it, which made searching difficult. However, their luck would change.

An F-35B Raven made a low pass at 300 mph, barely 200 feet off the ground when the pilot noticed a large heat signature, large enough to register all across his screen. He banked right and pulled around for another pass, to get a better idea of the size and scope of the signature. His F-35 roared overhead as he came around again. [i]"This is Old Dog 1. This is Old Dog 1. I got something."

"Old Dog 1. HQ. Go ahead."

"Yeah Command. I've got a large heat signature here. Two passes verified its there, subterranean. I'm going to pop-up and mark the target."

"Roger that." At the same time, commands were given to over four dozen soldiers in the vicinity. They watched as the F-35 went vertical, wingtip vortices streaking down behind it, leaving a trail in its path. The pilot had the engine at full throttle, afterburner engaged, and climbed straight up to 12,000 feet before he let go of the throttle. The aircraft began to lose speed immediately and he edged the stick back, flipping the plane over. He went from being 90° vertical to a 75° dive in a matter of instants. He gave the rebel yell, locked onto the source with his FLIR, and squeezed off two WP rounds. From the two center hardpoints, which carried the Adder 7-round pods, came two small, smoke trails, heading right for the ground. The pilot engaged the afterburner again and snapped the plane upwards, the G-forces pushing him into his seat as he made a +7.5G turn out maneuver, leveling off at 6,000 feet. The rockets hit the ground and burst into flames first then began to burn, emitting a tall cloud of red smoke, a color additive for target marking.

"Target is marked. Old Dog 1 out. I'm low on gas. Request permission to return to base." The pilot asked, looking at the fuel indicator showing he had a mere 3,500 pounds of fuel left.

"Roger that. RTB. Relief inbound." The red smoke climbed into the air and troops and helicopters all around came to the area. Sabertooth tanks and Dingo APVs were on the scene first and below ground, all they heard was the rumbling of the troops.

"You feel that?" The squad leader said out of the cage. His comment was directed to the scout next to him. "You hear?"

"Yeah. I do. They're here."

"They are. We're rescued!"

"Yeah. Now if only they knew we were down here?"

"They will. HEY!" He yelled out to the guards, trying to rile them up. "You hear that? You hear them? That's the Marines. That's our friends! You're FUCKED!" He laughed out loud as the guard came over to him and spat into the hole.

"QUIET!" He yelled and pointed the muzzle of the gun down the cage. "OR YOU WILL DIE!"

"I'm already dead ass. Now you're dead!" The entire cavern shook with the tanks overhead, which had stopped all around it. Soldiers were looking at the bright FLIR image and they could definitely tell that something was down there, something that they wanted to get into and search. "They're coming down!" The squad leader couldn't be silenced, not with what was overhead, helicopters, Marines, main battle tanks, armored vehicles, and an angry resolve to find the Marines. "They're going to carve you sons of bitches up!" He was working to free himself from the vines as he yelled upwards. It would keep the guards away from him long enough to get himself free. He was working hard, using a sharp object that he had hidden in his boot. The scout didn't have the same capability but he was trying to get his hands free but the vines were too strong for that without the help of a cutting tool.

On the surface, the highest ranking Marine on the scene was a major and he was one of the commanders on the scene. He moved around in a Sabertooth tank with a command array on it and he was capable of conducting the whole battle from his armored beast. His tank stopped only 20 meters from the FLIR spot. "What have we got here?" He said as he climbed out of the tank. He watched the thermal sights and could easily see the heat radiating out of the ground. "Looks like a fire down below?" He laughed. "Well boys. Let's start digging. Our way." The demolitions soldiers near him laughed as they pulled out their dynamite and a few spades. They began digging as the vehicles pulled back, away from the blast zone, which was at least fifty meters wide. The commanders tank pulled back and he stood in the turret, looking out of the hatch as the dynamite was put into the small hole and covered with dirt again. They ran the detonation cord out of the blast zone and connected it to the plunger detonator. "Go!" The major yelled, as loudly as he could. The explosion that followed microseconds later shook the ground and caused an instant geyser of dirt, rock, and debris, which climbed into the air. The flash was followed by the sound and they took cover as the rain, rock, and debris in the ground rained down around them. The major, unphased by the explosion, a combat veteran, smiled through his cigarette in the top of the tank. He dismounted it a moment later and followed the men towards the gaping crater hole in the ground. Smoke billowed out of it and they could hear voices but they could feel an intense amount of heat rising from the hole, which was at least 10 meters wide and deep enough to see down, deep, into a cavern. "What the..." The major looked over the edge, the Marines around him with their weapons raised, staring down at a cavern of fire, people, and confusion. "Weapons only. Tag them! Now!"

Chapter IV: Untold Fortunes

The two Marines in the cages felt the explosion as it nearly sucked the air right out of their lungs. The concussion blasted three armed men on the ground, their rifles going off in the process. The High Priest, who was hiding at the time was uninjured and that was good. It was almost at that exact moment that the squad leader got his ropes cut. The concussion blew off the cage hatch and dropped chunks of rock and dirt into the burning fire, subduing it slightly. Like an earthquake, the entire cavern shook violently. "What the..." The squad leader said as the hatch flew off. "Marines!" He shouted with a smile and jumped out of the pit, to find that the guard immediately overseeing the cages was on the ground, on his back. He rushed over and dove towards him, arms out and teeth gritted. He thrust right into his neck and tore in with his hands, choking him, trying to snap his wingpipe, wrestling the gun away from his as he did. The falling rock and dirt and then the sound of gunshots gave him hope that the Marines were coming for them and that they were going to be helping. It was loud, too loud for them to hear him yell, "I'm a friendly!" He wrestled the gun away and shot the guard on the ground before he ran over to the other cage and lifted his scout out of the hole. With the knife from his boot, he cut the ropes free and the two of them, crouched over, began to cross underneath the structures built in the caves. He had removed the clip from the rifle and dropped it in the hole, he didn't want to be caught with it by the Marines above, who were shooting everyone within sight. "Come on. We have to find the priest. I want him alive." The scout hobbled out, the wound in his leg hindering his escape but he was moving fast enough.

Gunfire above quieted after a minute or two and ropes fell into the hole. "Is any Marines down there?" A voice called out, it being the major's voice. "Marines?"

"Yeah! Marines! Down here!" The scout yelled. He looked at the squad leader and motioned for him to keep going. "Get that son of a bitch. I'm fine." The pain in his leg seered out and he rested by the side of the wall, bodies all around him. "Over here. I'm wounded. There's another one too!"

"Just two?" The major yelled as four Marines repelled down, men above them guarding their descent. The chaos of the shooting had lasted all of 90 seconds and everyone was dead except for the Marine. Bodies were all over the place and a few had landed in the fire and were burning.

"Yeah. Everyone's dead in here."

"Alright. Stay put. Drop any weapons you have."

"Alright. I'm unarmed." Now twelve Marines were in the cavern and the major was coming down himself. They kept their rifles up and looked around as they stepped over the bodies, crouching down to feel for pulses. None were found, everyone was dead. "I'm unarmed." He said as a Marine came up to him. "Help. Please."

"You're alright. We'll get you out. Don't worry. What is this place?"

"I don't know." The major appeared in front of him. "Sir."

"What the hell happened here?" The scout, upon seeing the relief in front of him broke down, unable to continue his speech. The major looked at him and nodded. They would treat him and get him out. "Where's the other?"

"Went. To. Look. For. Leader." The sobs just flowed out. He was more relieved to be rescued than anything else. In the other side of the underground area, the squad leader, a pistol in his hand, was looking around. He was moving through a small tunnel, crouched, unable to stand up fully and he followed a glowing light at the end of it, a light that was a beacon for him. "In there." The scout pointed.

"Alright. Get him out of here. Let's go." The major and three others moved into the tunnels, weapons in hand, and began to follow in the footsteps of the squad leader. "Quiet." They made no sound.

The glowing light in the distance was getting closer and brighter as the squad leader passed chamber after chamber. They were sleeping quarters and they were disgustingly filthy. He figured he knew where he was going, to the High Priest's chamber. That was where the light was coming from and as he got to the end of it he heard two voices. The first was the High Priest, that he recognized right away, and the other was a woman, a woman who had evidently not been in the main chamber. Perhaps she was a slave of his or a wife. Who knew but the squad leader charged in, pistol raised, and pushed them both into a corner. "YOU!" He yelled out. "You will die!" He yelled loud enough for the others in the tunnel to hear and they began to move faster and faster. "Both of you!"

"Let me go. I'm just a prisoner of his." The woman cowered. She wasn't though, not dressed as ornately as she was, dressed just like the High Priest was, dressed like his wife.

"Liar. You. On your knees. Both of you. We're going to wait. How I'd love to kill you. Both of you. But I have a better idea." The man and woman knelt on the floor, it was nothing but dirt. "You two have no chance."

"The gods..."

"Fuck the gods. Now you're going to watch as I kill the ones you love." The Marine picked up the woman, violently, her hair coming out in his hand as he did. He flung her into the wall, breaking her arm, a sick and twisted look on his face as tears swelled up in the Priests' eyes. "You love her?" He nodded. "Good." With that, he snapped her neck and dropped her lifeless body on the ground. "You're next." It was at that moment that the major and the other Marines busted in, weapons raised.

"Lower you weapon!" They yelled. "Lower it now!" The Marine smiled and complied.

"I'm a Marine." They could tell from the pants he wore and the look about him that he definitely was a Marine. "He's the leader. The one in charge. He lives. I want him to suffer." The major came up to him. "Sir. It's horrible."

"What happened?"

"It's horrible sir. Just. Him. He lives. For now."

"Alright. Alright. Cuff him!"

"Thank you. My men sir. They're dead."

"How many?"

"All but one sir."

"How?"

"It was horrible."

"What happened to them?" The major had to shake him to his senses as he began to glow with fear and horror. "What happened!"

"Burned. They burned them. Then we fought back. They shot them. Killed them. They were going to eat us. Kill us all. They're horrible."

"Alright son. Alright. Come on let's get you out of here." The major looked around and followed them all out of the tunnel, towards the main chamber, where a basket with the wounded scout was climbing into the air. The squad leader would go in the same basket. He wasn't capable of climbing out on his own, not like the other Marines or the major, all of whom climbed the nylon, black ropes, towards the light above.

The startling discovery in the middle of the island was enough to offset almost anything the Marines had ever seen. They pulled the men out, cordoned off the hole, and took the High Priest back to the ships. They would interrogate him there, find out what he really knew and what really was going on there. He would yield a lot of information. His band of cohorts had all been on a plane that had crashed there six years earlier. No wreckage was ever found since it crashed into the sea, although almost everyone survived, a testament to the skills of the pilots, who unfortunately died days later. The High Priest was one of the passengers, he led them to survival, on the island. When all hope of rescue faded though, he turned to insanity instead and, disparate for some hope, the survivors followed. Some died off over the years, some were killed. When the Marines arrived, they had been watching them, the entire time. When Third Squad headed out to the SIGINT facility, they grabbed them, fearful of what finally came for them, rescue. It was grotesque it was a look into what's man's animalistic tendencies could be when civilization faded and left. The indiscretions of man's past and future showed themselves on the island just as well as did a conflict between man and himself.

That was over now. The Marines were there and the plans began. The High Priest would spend the rest of his life in just one of the man "secret" prisons in the Empire, particularly the facility on Heart Island. The Heart Island Prison Facility rivals that of Nova Prospekt for human rights violations. Its existence is classified and it is entirely underground. The prison is a hard-labor camp and its inmates, which number between 200 and 1,000 are tortured significantly. The facility takes up about 18 km² and survival outside of the facility is impossible due to the frigid Antarctic weather that the surface of the island enjoys. It is considered a SuperMAX facility and though there is an execution chamber, it is not often used. Prisoners are often worked to death or left on the surface to freeze to death.

Construction on the island would begin immediately, once the materials and the crews arrived. The island and Saint Helena to the south would be part of the Atlantic Republic. When Tristan da Cunha was added the Atlantic Republic would further grow. Then, there were the Falkland Islands, which would be added just as well. The North and South Atlantic was now in the control of the Empire, along with the Caribbean Sea. The Empire was a major power with massive spheres of influence.

.:. The End .:.


.:. Yes it is short but it's got a good punch for it, comments? .:.

BRAV-FUCKING-O!

Great stuff dude, length was just right in my opinion.

It wasn't like The Decayed (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=474683). It was much more abstract but I had fun writing it.

Pretty good. I liked it. I'll give it 9.8/10 (small minus for the abrupt end).

The abrupt end is going to make sense in Ride the Lightning (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=448866).