Chapter 46 War For The Perseus

          _ _ _Captain Elliott Terra pov_ _ _

(God damn it all...) I hissed in irritation.

"What's the situation here, soldier?" Was the first question I asked when I arrived at the prisoner cell block.

The marine in question grimaced as he looked over at the open cell doors that were damaged and scorched by some kind of explosion. "The escapees are causing quite the ruckus, they've overrun one of the guard stations and gotten their hands on some actual firearms."

"Any casualties?" Was my next question as I glanced down at some rather injured guards with burn marks across their bodies.

"Four from what I know, there are also several wounded that were caught up in the explosion."

"Fuck..."

(This is all far too calculated, first the attack on the base planetside and now this...it can't just be one big coincidence, can it?) I thought with a shake of my head before refocusing on the people before me.

"Find out exactly, exactly who the hell did this!" I growled before turning in the direction the prisoners had apparently gone. "The rest of you come with me, we are going hunting."

And with that I began to move. I, as well as those who followed along behind me, made our way through the Perseus while making sure to sweep the rooms as we went. I made sure to coordinate with the staff working to locate the escapees through the various cameras littering the vessel's interior. Unfortunately they were apparently having some problems, mostly because the prisoners had somehow learnt the location of said cameras, even the hidden ones, and had begun destroying them on mass in hopes of somewhat masking their location.

It wasn't even a possibility anymore, we had traitors on board, a fact that both hurt me to think about but also greatly disgusted me. I was planning to keep this information to myself but quickly realized there was no point in doing so, after all, anyone with only two brain cells could probably come to the same conclusion at this point. 

Anyway, we continued our advance until we entered into one of the three break rooms littering the ship, the place was a mess to say the least. We swept through the room with relative ease, the only thing that slightly slowed us down was the tipped over chairs and tables littering the room, however that wouldn't continue to be the case. Our first indication that something was wrong came when one of the doors leading into this area of the ship suddenly and rather abruptly opened without any warning at all.

"Enemy sighted!" Was the second indication, as for the third indication, well, that came when several bullets flew past me.

"Oh shit!"

"Aaaaah!"

Quickly flipping over a nearby table I ducked down behind it, it provided little protection but it was better than nothing at all. "Open fire marines!" Not that I actually needed to say this considering the situation but still.

"We got a man down!" Someone yelled as a person close to me hit the ground with two bullets lodged in their chest.

(This is gonna be a long fucking day...) I muttered to myself internally before getting ready to move once more.

"Someone give me some covering fire." I ordered, causing several marines to pop out of cover and open up on our aggressors.

Quickly moving over to the down soldier I pulled them back into cover, all the while taking several shots with my free hand which still gripped onto my weapon. Two of such shots hit their mark, one hit between the eyes instantly killing its target while the other ripped through the shoulder of another.

"Try and see if you can stop the bleeding while I call over a medic." I commanded the man next to me who simply nodded and got right to it.

"This is your captain speaking, we have hostiles in the northern staff lounge close to the central armory." I muttered as I spoke into the headset built into my helmet. "We have a severely injured marine here as well, I am requesting medical support immediately at my location."

"S-sir, we are on our way but we have a sl-slight...a slight problem over here." A female voice yelled back as screams and gunfire echoed in the background.

"What is it?"

It took a second for her to respond but when she did I could clearly hear the fear in her voice as she spoke. "W-we're being attacked by some of those...shit...some of those damn violet bugs!"

(Did the specimen escape during the chaos somehow?) I asked myself confused but suddenly realized what she said.

"Wait...did you just say "bugs" as in multiple?" I asked alarmed but only got static as a response. "Soldier, come in, answer me damn it!"

No answer came unfortunately, I waited but got nothing. Sadly I couldn't focus on this for long, after all I was currently in a fire fight. Unbeknownst to me however, things were about to get so much worse as my fears would soon be proved very real.

"What the fuck is going o-?!" I hissed in frustration, however I wasn't able to finish that sentence, mostly because someone suddenly yelled, catching my attention.

"We got more hostiles incoming!"

(Please...please just be more escapees...) My hopes were unfortunately dashed when the motion tracker I had on my waste started going crazy.

"Oh fuck..."

"Xenos!" Was the last thing I heard before everything went to shit.

Not even a second later did several dark violet Xenomorphs erupted into the room through the ventilation shafts, while another grappled on to one of my men who screamed as he was dragged out of view before anyone could do anything. We of course didn't just stand there and do nothing, in fact even the prisoners began ignoring us and focusing on the damn things crawling across the walls.

Unfortunately for us the Xenomorphs charging towards us weren't alone, in fact soon after they appeared a swarm of Facehuggers poured out behind them like a skittering mass of legs that sent a shiver down my spine. In fact one of the fucking hand like things tried to jump forward at me while I was distracted gunning down one of the Drones, thankfully I noticed it in time and shot it before it could leap at me.

Eventually I had to call for a full retreat, especially when three of my men went down before anyone had a chance to do anything to help them. The lucky one out of the three was killed relatively quickly when a bladed tail pierced through her throat. I cursed under my breath when I saw the stream of crimson liquid that poured out from the wound once the tail was abruptly and violently removed. As for the other two, well, they were regrettably taken out by Facehuggers, sadly I wasn't able to put them out of their misery, a fact that will more then likely haunt me for quite some time if I end up surviving this whole mess.

On a brighter note however, I and the rest of my subordinates were able to evacuate the room without any more losses. This was mostly because the horde seemed more interested in chasing the escapees instead of us. I would've felt bad for them if they hadn't just been shooting at me a moment ago.

Despite this fact however, it wasn't as easy as I made it sound. "We are being overrun!" 

"Oh shit oh shit oh shit..."

"Keep shooting!"

"Someone seal the fucking door!" I roared as I continued to fire at the fraction of the swarm that had decided to come in our direction.

It took a minute for someone to reach the door controls and in that time we all managed to hold the line pretty well. Taking aim I temporarily disabled one xeno by shooting it in the chest twice before firing a third bullet which ripped through the damn thing's kneecap causing it to trip and hit the floor like a sack of rocks.

Anyway, just as the door was about to close I let loose another couple rounds of bullets which ripped through the head of a Xenomorph moving along the ceiling. Of course all these dead and wounded xenos ment only one thing, a lot of acidic blood eating through my fucking ship. Thankfully however, most spacecrafts these days were somewhat acid proof, the key word there is "somewhat".

"Bloody hell..." I groaned as the door was finally fully shut, to say I was a little drained would be an understatement. "How the hell did so many of those things get on my ship?!"

"We d-don't know captain..." That wasn't exactly the answer I wanted, not that I actually expected them to know.

(Why is everything going to hell...?) I thought to myself before sighing out loud.

"Order the transport ships in the hangar to get moving as soon as possible." I muttered knowing that I may not get the chance to give this order later down the road considering the fact that I might not get out of this mess alive.

"Come again sir?"

"Get someone to start the evacuation of those planet side." I clarified with a shake of my head.

"But sir, we have orde-" Someone was about to say but I cut them off real quick 

"I don't give a shit! Just. Do. It."

"Y-yes sir."

                  _ _ _3rd Person Pov_ _ _

While the Perseus was plunged into a threeway battle for survival things were progressing rather interestingly elsewhere. A sea of shifting purple, a seemingly endless wave of claws and teeths, an army of thousands of Xenomorphs that streamed across the landscape, and as such both animals and humans were rather quick to get out of the way.

Drones and Warriors made up the vast majority of the swarm, however they definitely weren't alone in their march. In fact Chargers, Lancers and Bull Aliens moved at the front while trampling everything in their path like living bulldozers. Additionally, Runners, Lashers and Strikers scouted a head of the ever advancing swarm for any potential threats or obstacles, all while hundreds of Scavengers tore through the sky above the Clouds alongside their much larger praetorian variant known as the Gargoyles.

Overall the mass of violet bodies was advancing at a relatively steady pace towards their objective,  however slowly walking amongst the ravenous horde...was something else...something far bigger. Whatever it was moved with grim intent, all of the other much smaller entities gave it plenty of space as it lumbered forward.

The beings body resembled that of a Warrior's to some extent, just far more armoured and with a more intricate looking exoskeleton. However though, its overall size far surpassed that of even a Praetorian, in fact it stood a little taller than even the queen herself. Additionally it seemed to stand more upright compared to its smaller kin, something which might have only added to its superior height advantage.

Despite its towering size however, the being had something else that made it stand out so ominously, and it wasn't its bladed tail that swayed back and forth leaving a trail of sparks as it scraped against the rocky ground. No, the thing, or things, that truly made it stand out was its two arms, arms that just so happened to end in two small blades as well as a third much longer scythe-like blade underneath them.

It was the chosen, the one that had been picked to become its mother's herald, her loyal executioner, and it had been awoken from its slumber for only one purpose. To kill.