Blazing Muzzles

Chapter Three: Massacre

By Blaze Spectrum

I noticed something about my health bar. I didn't take any shots when I stormed the second floor, but I wasn't healing.

You see, space marine armour is infused with an extremely advanced system that heals you from zero to full in about six seconds. Not that it would actually heal you when you were dead but that was simply a measurement. Extremely advanced, if I asked how it worked I would probably end up sleeping. However, it was not as efficient as defibrillators. It could only heal you if you had more then twenty health left. How they all agreed on how to measure the units of health was almost unbelievable.

And my system wasn't healing me. Malfunction? Very unlikely. But still possible.

"DAMN!" I shouted, punching one of the TV screens. It broke, but of course I didn't get electrocuted. That was it. I had always believed that I had seriously crappy luck when I needed it. And if I was still ten, then I would have used it to say,"SEE?! EVERYTHING DOES HAPPEN TO ME!"

But I wasn't ten, so I decided to suck it up and proceed.

I grabbed my RFK3 and walked to the elevator there, a marine suddenly grabbed me by my neck, twisted me to face Stream, who had just processed what had happened. Before he could slit my throat though, I grabbed his hoof, twisted it so hard I heard a crack come from his wrist. The knife was facing him, and while he was still focused on the pain in his wrist. I shoved his own combat knife through hist throat. Wrenching it out. I had effectively killed him with his own weapon. Of course I wasn't about to mutilate his body. That would be crazy, a waste of time, and just really stupid. I never liked the concept of torturing somepony and then ultimately killing him or her. Just killing painlessly was more efficient and more kind.

After an uneventful elevator climb to the eightieth floor. When we came out, the floor was deserted. Except for a defibrillator. Which was exactly what I needed. Defibrillators only healed you so efficiently because they were infused with magic. Just begging to be released. Aiming it at my body, I squished my hoof to pull the lever while still gripping the handle. I flinched slightly as the at first painful jolt of magic shot into me. But apart from a brief sting, the places I got shot by the machine gun no longer hurt. (Apart from some dents which I could almost feel)

The elevator that led up to the top floor was out of service. How I could tell it wasn't a decoy was that it had the official logo of the Equestria State Building, and I doubted the AR would have carried a portable printer with them. I kicked the star access door open. Apparently it was weak enough to be kicked off its hinges.

After an uneventful climbing of six stairs to the not highest observation deck I opened the door rather cautiously, in contrast to how I opened it on the eightieth floor. There was a few snipers outside. Probably searching for random enemy reinforcements. Pulling out my silenced sniper. I pushed the door open. Surprisingly, despite how creaky the door was, they didn't turn their heads. They probably assumed that nopony could go through the defences on the lower floors. I went over to a corner for cover of what was going to happen. They were apparently the only ponies on the floor. Aiming the weapon at the rightmost one, I pulled the trigger, turning her head into a pile of mush and blood. Despite my weapon being silenced, they noticed their dead comrade right away. I blew the next one's brains out. Now, only two remained. One fired at my chest. After that, I rotated back into cover. The health bar read 40. The shot had come close to killing me. If it hit my head, then, well, you know what would have happened.

Reloading my weapon, I dropped it on the ground. I don't know why I reloaded it, but I just felt like. I pulled my RFK3 out. Blind firing at them, I unloaded a clip on spraying where ever they could be. Once my clip was empty, the system had healed me. It was almost miraculous. But getting back, I dared a look at them, and of course they were dead. So I simply walked up to their corpses, on the way reloading my weapon. now, I was running low on ammo. So I just snatched a IURF1 from one of their backs. The IURF1 was before the IURF2 came out. Had larger clip size, higher rate of fir, only thing improved in the next generation for the weapon was lowered recoil. It was too expensive to produce too much, so it was only issued to Space Marines.

Looking through the window, Stream was just standing there. The marines didn't notice him. The thing I disliked was he just stood by while I was being shot at, and DID in the chest by a sniper bullet.

Giving him a slightly indignant glare, we went up to the staircase again. It was uneventful as well, if you exclude a lot of panting.

By the time we reached the top floor, I allowed him a second to rest, then, with my stolen IURF1, I used the bayonet to bust the door open.

Looking inside, I saw a squad of marines looking shocked at me. They reached for their weapons. But before one could even touch one, I rolled a primed grenade into their center. They didn't have fast enough reflexes to roll away, and instead, looked at the grenade with a expression of horror. They only got to look for a second before the munition exploded, turning them all into a pile of charred flesh.

With a cocky grin I rolled over to the other side, there was one stallion. He had a cigar in his mouth, and a hat simply covered his head.

He noticed me instantly, and simply said to COM,"Sorry, but looks like somepony was dumb enough to interfere, Commander out."

He pulled out a revolver, and reloaded it as if he had all the time in the world. He aimed it at my head, I ducked, in time barely to avoid having a bullet put in my head.

Wrenching out my sidearm, I attempted to shoot his legs, and then his head, however, he jumped the last second. Apparently being high ranked did not mean he forgot what the battlefield was like.

"Damn!" I thought.

Just as I had aimed again, He did an unexpected maneuver, heading towards me. As soon as he hit the ground, he ducked, pulled out a combat knife, and jabbed at my heart. I avoided it, but barely. I had to go as far as falling on my back. He gave me a look that just screamed 'game over'.

Unfortunately for him, he forgot about Stream, who tackled him. Once I managed to figure out where they were, I saw Stream, with a insane look in his eyes. He had stabbed the commander in the stomach with his own knife. The commander, too lazy to make a final move of grabbing his pistol, he had been stabbed by his own knife, so he couldn't use it, due to the fact it was in him, so pulling it out would simply kill him.

I walked over to pull it out and end his misery, but Stream simply said,"No, leave him to die painfully, what he always deserved."

I shrugged, and just went with him. I looked out the window, several AR choppers were coming in and picked up troops. How often do you see the AR retreat for no reason? We had owned everypony in the building, so there was no way anypony could have called. It was just perplexing.

Well, either way, we had to get out of here.

Well, of course the elevators were automatic, but this one only went to the eightieth floor. It was automatically set to go there  no matter what. I exited the machine kind of pissed off. We could, of course, make the machine just drop down, but this wasn't a drop pod, it wasn't built for falling from extreme heights, and even then, drop pods still need to have a bit of propulsion to stop them from breaking apart.

I went to the staircase, then, I remembered something. Space Marine armour had an advanced system to absord half of the impact you receive, and the system? The armour.

With a cocky grin, I grabbed Stream, and told him,"Drag me down the stairs, no questions!"

The truth was, I suddenly felt like I was making him my slave. But he obeyed, while I grabbed his rear hooves, he dragged my down the stairs while flying. He wasn't actually lifting me so that reduced the stress for him a lot. I could say, by the time we reached the bottom, I would have been a mess of bruises and cuts, however, with armour, that was not the case. So after an exceptionally uneventful climb down the stairs, Stream finally let go. I allowed him a minute to rest. Then, we finally exited the grand building.

Well, just about immediately, I hit the button on a COM to the left of my helmet. I went to the option, 'request extraction'. However, the sight that awaited me was disappointing. No option for extraction was available.

I began swearing, used language I didn't even know I knew, and after a straight fifteen minutes, I turned to Stream, I said he could do what he wanted. He simply flew away, probably to some random UPSN outpost in the middle of nowhere so he could have a place to stay.

I spotted something at the corner of my eye.

And it wasn't anything bad. In fact, it was good to me.

An AR HS3C Transport helicopter perfect for hijacking. Apparently this one was an extra, and all the other troops had been extracted before it could get there. So its rotors began to spin again.

I was not missing this opportunity, Just as it rose two metres off the ground, I jumped and grabbed the handle to open the troop bay, the door opened from up to down, so it was much simpler to climb in. I slammed the hatch shut with a grin spread across my face.

It wasn't until now I noticed my armour, it was coated with dents and rust. Well, guess some maintenance would be required once I got back, provided I do.

Observing my surroundings, I noticed that the two doors were at the middle of the bay. There were two seats at each side next to the door. Two more were at the back, totaling up to ten passengers.

To the near front, there was a door, a defibrillator to the left side, to the right was a bag filled with ammo.

So, grabbing my IURF1 from the left side of my back, I wrenched the door open, and stabbed an unsuspecting pilot's head with the bayonet.

Wrenching the now gory blade from the pilot's head, I effectively took control of the chopper.

So, now, I would be headed for the nearest UPSN outpost.

Grabbing the joystick and flooring the altitude, I went forward in excess of two hundred kilometres per hour, shooting down other helicopters, took them five being brought down to realize something was wrong. Hitting the button at the top of the joystick while the reticle was aimed at another chopper's tail, I effectively ripped it off after about twelve bullets. Without the balancing rotor, the enemy pilot could only look in horror as the lack of balance made the chopper spin in the same direction as the rotor. It crashed into the bridge, making for a good fireworks display. Aiming the chin-mounted gatling gun at another chopper's cockpit, it was only six bullets before it just began falling on it's own, apparently the glass wasn't THAT bulletproof. Snorting, I bashed another chopper's rear tail, ripping it off while only suffering mild damage myself. It suffered a similar fate as the first. Seven down, two to go.

This time, I broke the glass with my bayonet, and tossed a grenade at the two remaining. The were ridiculously close, so the munition blew up in the rotors, causing the same for the aircraft. The one next to it, suffered heavy damage. Its pilot probably tried to control the thing but failed, of course. It would be an slow death to die by drowning, provided the force of falling from an kilometre of altitude wouldn't kill him already.

"Get that weak shit off the sky!" I shouted before it crashed.

I chuckled, but that was cut short when it him me. The UPSN wouldn't recognize me in a hijacked vehicle. Well, better to take the risk then probably die from hunger.

---

I've been flying for about half an hour now. I could make out a building in the distance. Lowering altitude and hitting the zoom on my visor, I could make out UPSN. So, I guess I'll go.

But when I was only within a hundred metres from safety, I could see it, a rocket fired from a defence turret. It was getting closer, the craft wasn't maneuverable enough to avoid the tracking rocket. I could hear the violent boom as the rocket hit the tail, causing the chopper to fall towards the roof of the base, but it was clear that it was the structure that would hold, and not me. Without the tail, I could only watch helplessly as my chopper plummeted down.   Next Chapter: Chapter Four: Another Mission Estimated time remaining: 48 Minutes