14 Chapter III The First Mission - Part 4

Delta team and Locus progressed through the intense terrain of Venus's jungles of trees and wildlife. The rapid vines and lush green leaves coated the entire trail shadowy, echoes of howling noises loom in the distance, occasional snaps of twig branches being broken in two occur in the background from some animal. The path ahead was rough with bushes, a single scribbly line of dirt made a trailway throughout the jungle. "We're hidden very well in this jungle from Scar creatures," John pointed out, wacking away a branch that covered his path. The branch smacked Locus in the head rapidly, almost giving Locus a heart attack, but he saw him move the branch as he stared ahead, so it didn't quite jump him.

"We seem to be in the clearing soon enough," Juniper said while ducking her head to avoid a cobweb of sorts. The group managed to stay together and keep them tucked in their own small family, while Locus felt like he was being treated like the outcast. He paid no attention to it and just kept his mind on his work like always. Delta team and Locus exited out of the jungle and arrived at the base, they hid behind a dirt hill and scanned the entire side entrance of the base. Burnt spots, several weapons layed out randomly, a few dead bodies of both Militia and Scars. The bloody spots that held some weapons were pieces of body parts, Locus thought some of the animals could've eaten some of them. A group of Scar soldiers arrived at the scene from the side of the wall doing a scouting patrol, "Humans!" the one destructive Scar creature exclaimed.

Locus and Company were caught by surprise as they found them hidden, they began shooting the soldiers, trying to kill them so they could advance inside the base to put a stop to the operation. Locus got behind a medium sized rock to cover himself from the rays of plasma energy passing him; Delta team does the same as well, covering themselves behind other rocks.

Locus examined how many Scar creatures were attacking while trying to avoid being burned at. "Four of them," he counted, cocking his assault rifle's magazine and pulling back the lever to ready the weapon. Locus called out how many targets there were, Delta team acknowledged his information and shifted the focus on specific targets, one for two people each. Locus sprayed the weapon at the enemy closest to him, killing him. Kate and Juniper paired up and killed the shorter Scar creature, Kate used her side pistol to damage the creature and Juniper finished it off using her high impact sniper rifle. John and Lee shot at the remaining creatures until they could no longer breath.

Afterwards after they killed the creatures, they approached the base's round like wall, Kate asked, touching the wall to feel the material, "How do we want to approach this?"

Lee responded by grabbing an object from his belt, "We'll use this explosive charge on this wall, enter inside, and find our way to the drill."

Everyone stepped back. Lee sat the charged bomb on the wall, and waited for the clock to set and explode. It released a beeping noise, it went slow at first, then sped up, and suddenly the bomb exploded, blowing a hole in the wall. Smoke released from the inside and evaporated through the surface. Locus prepared himself before they stepped in by pressing a button on the side of his helmet, activating night vision through his helmet's visor. Locus volunteered to enter first, the others followed behind him entering inside one by one. Once inside, Delta team aimed their weapon's sights both left and right to keep themselves protected. (Like a typical swat team would've) Inside it was a long and dark hallway, with red light's flashing rapidly from one end, screams, shouting, and gunshots constantly occurring further inside the base. Trash was littered everywhere on the ground, multiple Militia bodies were scattered on the ground, Kate almost tripped on one of the bodies as she tried to scale through them. No Scar bodies were seen, it was like the Militia couldn't put a dent into the Scar forces as they invaded. Locus seen through his night vision see a pipe swinging out of control with steam coming out of it. The rest couldn't see the swinging pipe until they came into view with it, (As they had flashlights attached onto their helmets instead of night vision)

They move swiftly past it ignoring it and continuing onwards through the creeping dark hallway, mystery crept around every corner they came towards, unable to prepare and plan for what could come up, it put everyone on edge, even Locus was feeling a cold chill on his shoulder as they pass through the hall.

Delta team and Locus came to another corner, they leaned on the corner piece to view what was ahead, mostly the same layout and design. Kate was beginning to skip beats because of all the horror she saw during those dark hallways, there was red blood wiped on the wall. She tried to stop it by taking long deep breaths, but even that wasn't enough to calm her down. She felt like she was going to hyperventilate. Juniper noticed this and wanted to hold her hand to keep her steady, but couldn't as tension was rising every step of the way.

Everyone saw white sparks light up at the end of the hallway. They swiftly aimed at the bright sparks and waited. "What was that?" Kate asked while pointing her twelve gage shotgun.

"Let's go find out," John suggested as he stepped a bit further ahead of Lee.

Everyone walked slowly over to investigate, but unexpectedly, the floor under them started to break apart. Locus caught quickly ahold of one of the long pipes that was sticking out, the others tumbled and fell through the floor. It was like the whole interior was falling and breaking apart; he kept holding on tight, but it didn't last long. The long pipe snapped and Locus fell down several feet on the floor below him, but he managed to land gracefully. He pulled himself up and saw ahead an open rectangular destructive viewing, there was the huge hole that the drill created (Which explains why the floor and walls broke apart as they were near the hole) A long wide circular hole journeyed down to an endless bottomless pit.

Delta team was in front of Locus, he looked over at Delta team's shoulders and noticed they were on the edge of the remaining floor platform, he stepped forward slowly and said, "Well, we found the hole."

"We noticed," Kate sarcastically said while pointing out the obvious.

"Do we have to travel down that pit?" Juniper asked.

"We should investigate, the objective for the Scars was to drill something that's hidden deep underground," Lee replies.

"They might have some kind of hive mind down there, or worse," Locus pointed out.

"Maybe they do, maybe they don't, there's one way to find out," John replied.

"Wait," Lee stopped them from moving forward, "we don't have any idea on how long that pit travels down, we could climb down, but that would take too long."

Locus could not wait any longer, suddenly he jumped off the platform and into the deep dark abyss. The Delta team members were shocked as he jumped off the platform, "Did he just jump off?" John questioned.

"What a reckless idiot!" Kate exclaimed pouting on the ground like a child.

"Yeah he is extremely reckless!" Lee replied, but a hint of admiration sprang up, "but you have to admire his bravery."

Lee took the same route Locus took and jumped off the platform as well, the others soon followed Lee's footsteps. Delta team took a long falling path, unknowing what they might encounter down in the depths of the unknown vast pit.

Locus had his arms and legs spread out while he freely falled down the long carved out hole. He turned on his Night Vision because of how dark it was as he descended further and further down. He could begin to see the bottom approaching fastily, he activated his jetpack boosters, (which slowed him down causing a smooth landing).

He grabbed his weapon (Which was an assault rifle). He cautiously kept his eyes scanning the entire area around him. A few seconds later, Delta team landed softly on the rock solid ground beside Locus, "What were you thinking!" Kate shouted, demanding an answer.

"What's wrong? I could only think of this outcome, jumping three hundred feet into a bottomless hole was our only option," he answered back.

"Well next time you should've warned us before you do something reckless like that," Kate commanded.

"Locus," Lee stepped in, "I'm with Kate on this argument, we should communicate with each other on these things. We're a team."

Locus asked back, "Are we a team? Because I don't remember joining your team, I was only told that I was assisting your team on this mission."

"You are more than just a supporting character, Locus, to me, you're a member of my team regardless if you're in it officially or not," Lee told him with honesty, "we should communicate with each other on these things." Locus paused and couldn't think of a throwback statement.

"We have a mission to finish people, let's see what we can find," Lee said with optimism. Soon after the short talk, everyone investigated to see if they could find anything related to what the Scars were looking for.

Locus walked alone near a large silver wall near him and gazed at it, the wall had many carvings of (by the looks of it), people fighting one another with staffs and bows. But near the middle of the wall showed the people on the carving, worshiping a tall alien structure cone like structure. "I wonder what they are worshiping?" Locus curiously asked himself speaking outwardly.

Quickly, the spherically carved out area was beginning to shake and the carved wall erected slowly. Delta team eventually caught wind of this and went towards Locus to investigate, "What's happening?" Juniper wondered as she was ready to whip out her sniper rifle to snuff out anything on the other side of the wall.

"The wall is moving itself!" John replied.

"We should get out of-" Lee stopped as a rock was thrown on his right leg, crushing the bone. He hollered in pain, the loud hollar echoed throughout the hole.

Locus quickly tried to help get the rock off of him, but it was too heavy to lift off, he told everyone around him, "Help me move this rock!"

Delta team helped Locus hastily pull the rock off of Lee, he tried to get him to stand up, but the rock wounded him too deeply. "What should We do?" Kate asked anxiously, afraid and unsure of what to do. Locus needed to lead a squad quickly, things weren't looking well to Locus, Kate, John, or Juniper. He really needed faith to help him pull himself up and help lead others out of the situation.