"Who the Fuck are you!" The female voice shouted at the now crippled Matt. He Looked up, Clutching his bloodied and broken nose. Matt pulled gently pinched his nose and winced in pain before pulling his hand away and looking at the blood.

"Fucking Hell... Sasha, you could have killed me." Matt muttered before stumbling back to his feet. Brayden helping him up on his feet and guiding them to a desk. Wolffe, who had been in the room with Sasha working on bypassing the local area's security turrets, had come over to examine Matt.

"Good news and good news." Wolffe gripped Matt's nose and gave it a firm twist. Painfully snapping Matt's nose back in place. Matt yelped and recoiled in pain before pushing Wolffe away. "Your shit is fixed," he said with a huff before going back to the terminal and working on the turrets. "He human, Sasha. His blood is read." Sasha shot a nasty glare at Brayden and me.

"Then I'll break their noses too to find out." She said as she raised her shovel, ready to take a swing at us. We both quickly raised our weapons and leveled them, aiming at Sasha.

"Ya! Well! How do we know you ain't one of those damn things!" Brayden yelled as he stepped closer, his finger on the trigger, ready to kill if needed.

"I swear to god..." Wolffe mumbled frustratedly, "I'm not resetting another damn nose because, some shovel happy bitch." He said from behind the computer terminal, the glow from the monitor only highlighting his displeased stare. "Volunteer to cut your hand or something... Idiots, I swear."

"Wait... Like from the movie, 'The Thing'?" I muttered before lowering my weapon slightly, pointing the muzzle at Sasha's leg. "What color does it bleed then."

"They bleed green. Better now, it's bioluminescent." Sasha said as she lowered the shovel, "One of those things mimicked one of those egg-heads. It tried to jump me while I was trying to turn in on the night I knocked you out cold, Captain. I gave it that same mean right-hook, pissed if off real bad too. Blood all over my knuckles."

"Seems simple but, why haven't the Egg-heads figured it out yet?" Brayden asked as he slackened up a bit and lowered his assault rifle.“We at least have the advantage of checking the personnel here.” Brayden muttered angrily, “So does anyone know where Blake, Lane, and Gunny are?” He asked as he scanned the room, checking to see who was still miss from the group.

“Range and the Armoury are the last places I remember seeing them before the lockdown.” Wolffe, with a soft chuckle, the idea of those three being locked up together was frightening entertaining to him. “They can only leave with command overwrite codes. And the only two people here that have them are in this room.” Brayden looked to me with a look of grave concern.

“Oh god… Blake is locked in a room with guns, ammo, and a shit ton of C-12.” He said we a bit of a shake in his voice. Brayden wasn’t necessarily concerned for Blake but more concerned about what monstrous improvised weapon of mass destruction he'd create. Lane being confined with him doesn’t help in the least bit. He doubles as our directed energy weapons tech. “God damn… I think those things are the least of concern. We need to be more worried about Blake and Lane blowing this damn base to hell.”

“So what gives?” Sasha asked, not understanding the shared concern that the rest of the room has.

“Long story short. Blake and Lane are the kings of breaking things and making things work in ways that baffle the science teams at times.” Matt said bluntly. His mind hard at work trying to think of a plan to get us to the armory to arm ourselves and prevent a colossal disaster.

“Okay… but you Spartans have a thing for that kind of trouble, so it would have been a one in a million for me to believe you,” Sasha said skeptically, still not convinced. After attempts to loosen the security protocol, Wolffe, who was staring daggers at the computer terminal, had failed. He slapped the machine on one side panel and stepped away.

“Blake once managed to tie his armor’s reactor to a Spartan Laser with Lane’s help. Luckily when he did it, he and a squad of Marines were ambushed and backed into a corner. Blake used that laser to blow through what was 10 meters of rock so they could escape.”

“Christ…” Sasha softly gasped as she tried to imagine the technological fuckery that needed to be pulled to keep them from blowing up anyone due to failure.

“Ya, and you wonder why we are scared,” I said before moving to where Wolffe was, seeing where he was on getting the security bypass. “No luck? Maybe my command codes?” Before trying to type my codes into the terminal, I asked only to be notified that I would need to access the command center for this to work. I looked to Matt and Brayden and shaking my head. “No good. Well, the command center to lift the lockdown, but we can hit the armory first and spring the rest of the team.”

“And what about those things? We cleared to engage?” Brayden asked as he pulled the magazine from his pistol to see how many rounds he had left.

“Negative,” I said quickly. The room promptly brought its undivided attention to me. Looks of concern and even distrust became very apparent.

“Mike. Those things have killed several egg-heads, and you want to try to capture those damn things. Well, shit. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re one of them.” Matt said with a bit of a frown.

“Ya the fuck, Mike?” Brayden questioned, stepping closer to me with his magnum in hand before holstering it. Sasha and Wolffe were looking at each other before looking back at me with sharp disapproval.

“Guys. I Understand but, we need to capture these things alive. They show a high level of intelligence, and if they are like the locals, I’m one-hundred percent sure they are gonna hate us if we kill or excessively harm them.” I said calmly, trying to rationalize the entire situation while being a soldier and a diplomat.

"With all due respect..." Brayden quipped

"We both know that just a polite way to say go fuck yourself." I fired back, "Go ahead and speak your mind, Donovan."

"Ya. Fuck it; I will then." He said with a grunt and walked over to me with his rifle at his side. He stood only inches from me with a face that was twisted anger. "That's a fucking dumb call. We can kill these things and dump them on some Egg-head's table to dissect then have the bodies incinerated." He growled, his hand clenched in a fist like he was ready to strike me.

"And if their disappearance is noticed, don't you think they'll immediately point fingers at us?" I rebutted, stepping a little closer, my chest to his face practically. "Sure as shit, that's what will happen. So Donovan, how about you step off, and when you can pass a psychological evaluation, then you can talk about leading troops." I said bluntly, my eyes staring coldly into his. After a few heated seconds ticked by, Brayden lifted his rifle and quickly jabbed the muzzle into my gut. Causing me to stagger back and hunch over in pain. Matt and Wolffe quickly jumped it, but only after Brayden had struck me a few good times with the butt of his rifle. Matt pushed Brayden to one side of the room, and Wolffe pushed me to the other. Wolffe quickly examined my face and declared nothing major, just some bruising, is all.

"Jesus... No wonder Del-rio left you all here." Sasha said, looking disappointed at the ill-disciplined group of Spartans. "I bet he was hoping you'd kill each other while he was jerking off on the other side of the galaxy." She huffed and walked to the door to check the hall. She gestured it was all clear. "So let's get our shit together and get the hell out of here." Brayden still frustrated, pushed Matt away and stacked up behind Sasha, handing her his pistol so she could take point. The dysfunctional group slowly crept out of the room and into the dimly lit hallway. They all hugged on the side of the wall out of instinct and checked rooms as they moved to where the armory was but, as they moved, Matt felt a bit uneased by the noise coming from the ducts. He motioned a stop, and we halted.

"Something ain't right..." He muttered softly, "I know these pre-fabs have some issues, but that clanging in the vents is following us." He lifted his Magnum at one of the vents and kept aimed there. The rest of the group followed suit and cover the vent. We all paused, not hearing anything but the low guttural growl from the generators.

"Might just be paranoid," I said with a chuckle, trying to lighten the mood. "Plus, these bases make all sorts of noises." I lowered my handgun and gestured to move forward. As the group removed their focus from the vent, something had crashed through it and tackled me to the ground. Matt turned around and tried to fire but decided against it, not wanting to risk shooting me by mistake. I panicked and yelled as I tried to push the creature from me. I felt its chitinous shell sent shivers down my spine before it let out a pitched sequel follows by insect-like chattering. "Fuck! Pull this bugger off me!" I yelled. My breathing started to hitch as flashbacks of New Mombasa filled my head. Matt ran up and kicked it as hard as he could in the side, knocking it off of me. It had slammed against one of the bulkheads; you could hear its wings panicky buzz as it tried to the right itself scrambled away and got some distance from the creature. Wolffe then quickly followed up with a bash with his fist, forcing the bug back to the ground as it tried to fly away from the confrontation.

"Please stop!" It shouted as Wolffe was readying his fist for a second blow. The plea had made us all pause, not quite registering what had just happened.

"Damn, bugger spoke English!" Brayden said with a bit of surprise. Sasha and Matt soon gathered close to examine the creature. It had the basic silhouette of a pony but had blue glowing eyes, thick black chitin and, bug-like wings. The creature curled up and whimpered softly as the pain from the beating flooded its body. I stayed clear away from it, almost tucking myself into a corner as my team surrounded it.

"Please... don't kill me..." It pleaded as it covered its head with its forelegs.

"Shit... Kinda fell like an ass now." Sasha said softly as she watched the bug-like pony plead and whimper.

"I say we kill it," Brayden said coldly. The bug's eyes quickly shot up and skitted as fast as it could to Sasha, who was the only feeling any sympathy for it. She was reluctant to hold it first, but its behavior mimicked that of a wounded dog, and Sasha couldn't help to shield it.

"The fuck, man. Can't you see it's had enough?" She growled lowly at Brayden before turning to face the badly beaten bug. "I don't suppose you have a name?" She asked softly

"Th-Thorax... and I'm a changeling." He said weakly and nuzzled gently against Sasha's arm.

"Changelings?" Wolffe questioned before shaking his head, "This planet is literally every D and D nerds dream.

"Well, Mike, You got one," Brayden said sarcastically before looking over to see me staring blankly at the wall, still trapped inside my head with my demons. "Yeah... and I'm the one that needed to pass the psych eval. Dick."

Author's Note

Long time, no see. How's everyone doing?