SENJO<br/><br/>As the shining, insectile, bear-sized creature went down I tracked it's descent with my rifle. I ceased fire. It had collapsed on top of the smaller marine and I was preparing to haul it off or push it off with a suitable tool - I needed a piece of broken furniture before I touched that blood - when Sergeant O'Shay appeared and dragged Sakuraba out from underneath the thing. I was impressed. Judging from it's bulk and heavy exoskeleton I estimated I would have trouble lifting it, the consideration that it was bleeding highly corrosive acids aside. Lance Corporal Mitchell came across to tend to the wounded sergeant and flame-thrower operator. I checked my ammo counter.<br/><br/>(http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk137/HaibaneR/KiloPlatoon_30.jpg)<br/><br/>That had been close. Releasing the almost spent clip I put it carefully in a bandolier pouch to my left side, the 'used' side, and selected a fresh one, slapping it home, clicking the lock and checking the readout. The red digits '99' illuminated. I slid the weapon's safety on and shouldered it behind me on it's sling. For now the attacks seem to have expired their energy but in my judgement I considered we would see more of them.<br/><br/><em>Ants. Like a hive of ants. A hive mind?</em><br/><br/>I picked up Sakuraba's pulse rifle and handed it back to her.<br/><br/><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote">Quote</div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">"Anyone dead yet?! Speak up!"</blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><strong>"Here,"</strong>I responded tonelessly while moving carefully about the room. The place was filled with acrid sour smoke, bitter on my taste receptors and in my olfactory tubes. I narrowed my breathing ducts to draw in less of the pungent material and observed the chamber through the smoke of melting steel and plastics and ammunition discharge. The low level haze was slowly returning like marsh mist back down to the floor. Wide splashes of insect fluids sizzled against Hab block walls and the deck of the upper tier walkway.<br/><br/>I punched the safety on A Gun to 'on' and went to the consoles. B Gun had fired 243 rounds, A Gun 181. Still three of them had reached us across twenty or more metres of open killing ground. I was unable to suppress a recognition of how superbly developed these creatures were. We had faced approximately a dozen. What would the attack of a hundred be like? A thousand?<br/><br/>Around the room marines collected equipment, checked gear and did as I was doing; stared at the devastation.<br/><br/>(http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk137/HaibaneR/KiloPlatoon_31.jpg)<br/><br/>(http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk137/HaibaneR/KiloPlatoon_32.jpg)<br/><br/>Near B Gun, Lance Corporal Beneke was standing, his gun levelled, the barrel still smoking. I nodded expressionlessly at him. A generic 'okay?' gesture. He still carried that solid tribal stance, as though just one evolutionary stage separated him from a chest beating Neanderthal. His eyes were wide. I did not recollect previously encountering Beneke with quite that expression on his features.<br/><br/><strong>"You can stand down, Marine,"</strong>I said,<strong>"You won."</strong><br/><br/>I squatted beside one of the black shattered carcasses, one of those B Gun or Beneke had riddled upon entry. It was mostly whole yet the fluids oozing from it were eating quickly away into the steel floor panels and the service conduits in the sub-floor. As I observed it settled downwards akin to a ship slowly sinking.<br/><br/>I needed to examine these things. This was an important discovery. The colony had a science lab and a medical bay. I needed to hose a carcass down of blood and get it on an operating table.<br/><br/>I glanced up towards the Leftenant. Right now he had his mind on military concerns but soon I would talk with him. On the bulkhead beside the dead alien was a corporate logo:<br/><br/>(http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk137/HaibaneR/KiloPlatoon_29.jpg)<br/><br/><em>They would build better ones away from nests of eight foot tall soldier ants.</em>