Post by Fourteenth on May 6, 2009 16:50:39 GMT -5
Lieutenant Corral Tanner looked over the throngs of people pushing their way through the Sargassian spaceport lines, a wave of bodies crushing toward the ticket booths, clawing their way forward for the last flights offworld. The administration had called for a doubling of flights to accommodate the last flights outbound, and the supersonic booms of mass drivers slinging shuttles spacebound was near constant in the background.
His men had been busy all day, fights breaking out at the desks, things being thrown, panic and anger. And even now, as they formed a phalanx of riot shields and donned heavy melee armor, and pointed loaded riot guns at the crowd, they felt no safer, and no less nervous; Tanner especially.
He swallowed, feeling his adam's apple conspicuously bob up and down, and gripped the loudspeaker tightly.
'ATTENTION PLEASE. ATTENTION PLEASE. ATTEN-' he ducked, a drink bottle clattering to rest behind him, '-TION! PLEASE!'
The crowd's cries died down to a dull roar. He gulped again. Tanner was a veteran of the Iscariot Mobile Infantry, the primary ignoble armed forces of Iscariot. They'd taught him to kill, to run, to direct bombs, but not to deal with rowdy civilians. He would have much rather shoot the whole lot of them, but there were orders from above. Not everyone there was an Iscariot citzen, there were Maridons, Silvanes, Vespasians, and Noes mixed in the entire lot. Tanner ground his teeth.
'UNDER AUTHORITY OF THE EMPIRE, HOUSE ISCARIOT DECLARE QUARANTINE OF THIS WORLD. THERE WILL BE /NO/ MORE FLIGHTS OFFWORLD. I REPEAT. /NO/ MORE FLIGHTS OFF-'
In an instant cavalcade of shouts and cries, the crowd pushed forward. The first ranks of the port security personnel grunted as their hardened bones and augmented muscles held fast against the sheer weight of the onslaught. Some in the crowd could not advance fast enough, and fell and were trampled.
No longer speaking into the loudspeaker and shouting aloud into his throat mic, 'Hold men! Shuttle personnel are prepping the last launches and they /cannot be interrupted/ on account of this lot of cowards, /hold/!'
Acknowledgments came over the comms and the men did their jobs as Tanner surveyed the situation. His warrior instincts had felt a shift in the crowd's violent behavior. There wasn't much of an explanation for it, but it seemed less like righteous indignation and fear of the fate of plague and more like immediate, primal fear of death.
And then it clicked.
Tanner shouted into the mic. 'Break formation, retreat and seal the blastdoors!'
A squad leader, this one a Hazat national, deigned to question him, 'Sir, we'll lose control of the floor, they'll wreck the-'
'Just do it!'
The team broke formation and fell back, and the crowd chased them the whole way. Perhaps fifty meters back from the frontline of the mob were the infect- no, Tanner, thought, don't call them infected- they're fucking zombies.
They cleaved into the crowd with alarming alacrity, the fallen joining their ranks in a mere matter of seconds, open sores opening on their skin as they necrotized rapidly. Tanner's squads hadn't made it back to the bulwarks before they were overtaken by an almost completely zombified crowd.
Tanner made a split second decision. They would not make it to the bulwarks if they simply ran.
'Weapons free, shoot as you retreat!'
That squad leader opened his trap again, 'Sir, there are still foreign natio-'
Tanner clicked off the safety of his rifle and shot the man in the head, through the melee helmet.
'You have your orders!'
The men backpedaled steadily firing as they moved. Some of them panicked, and forgot that they'd only had polymer riot rounds in their magazines. Some forgot to drop their shields and were overtaken. Tanner was not. He dropped his magazine, loaded a fresh one containing splinter rounds and began putting a constant barrage of semiautomatic fire downrange. When that clicked empty, he transitioned to his reaction sidearm, bought himself few seconds by killing those that got close, holstered the pistol, reloaded the rifle, and brought it to bear again.
This was a bit more like it, he mused, empty brass spiraling smoke through the air.