Top level: Unifinished short

[alphafalcon541]

“To hell with this, I can’t get it working Top Level,” Jason said into his headset. He was sitting next to a blown out Starbucks; its windows spread across the ground and vines and other plants flowing into its main room. The other thing next to him was a container containing a VCT radio. He rubbed his eyes as the effects of not sleeping for weeks on end kicked in. “Top Level I need directions now.” Five years after the end of everything and Earth was still not repaired. He was in the middle of a small town somewhere in Oregon with a SCAR assault rifle over one shoulder and a bag containing everything he owned over the other. Waiting for the reply he looked out at the buildings surrounding him; all of them were in pieces with masonry scattered across the street and vines plants growing through all of it. A bleep from his headset made him turn towards the dark alleyway to his left where to orange lights glowed dimly. He narrowed his eyes there was no one meant to be in his sector and the light had not been there a moment before. Standing up he pulled the SCAR from his shoulder and flicked the safety of. No point in not being able to fire if he had to he thought with a small smile. He waded into the alleyways darkness eyes flicking from side to side. Were the lights moving towards him he asked himself? It was way too late for him to be thinking about that as he was about to find out. Out from the gloom something launched grabbing Jason and throwing him backward. He depressed the trigger and bullet casings flew out from the side as he was smashed into the sidewalk. He cried out as he felt two ribs break. Taking a breath he brought up the gun and fired into…what? His cries were ended as two claws swung through the air and into his heart. A crunch of bones came from the alleyway and all was right again with the world with one less Jason.


Top Level Offices, Middle of Portland

“We lost another one sir,” a man dressed like the other 50 in the room in black t-shirts, grey and black camouflage pants, and combat boots. They sat looking at computer screens typing a few letters in every so often but mainly just staring at maps and documents. The one man who was not dressed like the others, stood in the middle of the room nodding or talking to those who he asked questions or sent him data from their personal screens.
“Good, one less to worry about,” he responded, no emotion in his voice or features. He looked around him daring them silently to argue with his statement. None did though a few gave him cold look, mainly the females he noted. One woman held his gaze a little longer than the others, her eyes cold with a hurricane brewing behind them he thought smiling slightly. She narrowed one eye then turned back to her computer giving him the finger as she turned. He shrugged; he didn’t care what these techno-geeks thought of him only if they could do their jobs. Many of them hated him for ending the lives of almost twenty agents or soldiers that he had in his company’s pay roll. He had no use for them and he could not let them back into what was left of modern society, so he sent them to the most hostile areas on the globe. Top Level was his and he was not ready to give up or be taken out by his own soldiers.


Top Level military base middle of Oregon February 4th, 2040
3 years later

The rifle bucked in her hands as she fired into the swirling gray fog that was sweeping towards the base. At 27 she was one of the younger members of the team but her rifle skills were remarkable and in Top Level she was one of the best shooters. Trained by the TL’s finest, her body was thin but very fit. She could run faster than at least half the men on the team which she did not fail to bring up when she wanted an argument. Her face was pretty but her eyes conveyed the sense that you were always looking into the eyes of a trained killer which she was. Brown hair flowed over one eye and she brushed it away as she trained her custom built $100,000 sniper rifle on her next target. Shoulders dropped as she allowed her training to kick in and she relaxed, breathing slowly and steadily. Just barely she touched the trigger and the rifle kicked her in the shoulder again. Her bullet penetrated her target and killed it instantly. Bolt back forward then lock she thought as she reloaded. She was known as Kat, not the name that she had been born with but she didn’t care. It was better than her first name she thought. Kat’s full name was Katrina A. Carran but if anyone said it they normally ended up getting injured or taking a round to the chest, head, leg, arm she thought randomly. Around her the rest of her team brought their guns to bear on the surging wave of beasts. Hundreds of bullet casings flew through the air as her team let loose. Mortar rockets flew over their heads, and base defense guns came into play as targets came into their firing distance. The base stood like a fortress towering into the sky with its parapets covered in soldiers and artillery. Black smoke rose from smoking craters on the flat plain all around the base. Kat pulled the trigger twice more and dropped into cover as she loaded a new magazine into the KHS-10 sniper rifle receiver.
She looked over her barricade to see the beasts charging forward, mouths open with fangs glistening in the setting suns light. They looked like wolves in a sense but these would have to be wolves on steroids she thought as one jumped at her. Grabbing her Uzi she leveled it at the base and pressed the trigger. The beast cowered before her and then with swift determination it grabbed Uzi and tossed it away from her. Its eyes flashed orange and its mouth opened into what could be called a smile. It slammed her down onto the ground but as it came down for a bite she drew her combat knife and stabbed upward. Its eyes went blank and it fell to the ground. Kat pulled herself to her feet in time to see a mortar blow three of the beasts to kingdom come about 20 feet from her. It shook her and she rolled into a ditch where two soldiers lay. Looking closer she realized one was dead and the other was almost. For a killer she was sensitive to death which was a little strange but as the last breaths came from the boy, barely a man he held out his hand and she took as tears streamed down her face. Her world was crumbling around her and she could do nothing for this man or any of them. She knew him only by face but as she watched him die she felt she knew him as much as her team mates.
Her mind buzzing and still holding the dead man she looked about she was totally disoriented. Where was her team? She had been right next to them. Wiping her eyes she got up and trudged through the mud away from the bodies as the rain came down. The rifle shot as another beast charged forward dying two feet from her. Kat’s face became emotionless as she waded through the bodies of comrades and soldiers she had known. It was so hard to keep her cool she thought, her hair plastering to her head from the rain. A man ran past her slipping and falling as a blade or a claw passed through his chest killing him instantly. She closed her eyes and fell to the ground covering her head. It was all too much, just too much she wanted to scream to the sky. One can only take so much and Kat had reached that limit and surpassed it. Her mind passed into darkness and she lay still in the dead and dying. Her camouflage body armor, and the TL insignia soon becoming lost in the blood and mud.


Next morning

The battle ended at 1 in the morning with artillery pushing the beasts back and away from the base. Outside of its walls lay hundreds of soldiers bodies some alive some not. Those who survived retired to their bunks to wait and sleep of the hell. “Jason awakened something you know Director and he died because of it, those beasts were the same that killed him, now what are we going to do?” asked the commander of what was left NATO.
The Director of TL looked back at the face on the screen, “He was of no use to us and we believed at the time it was just one not hundreds.”
“You foolish bastard, that base is your last rabbit hole you can run to, and your other enemies will pull you out of it if they have to,” the face replied.
The Director raised one eyebrow, “How can you talk when NATO is in pieces, its soldiers scrambling away from your enemy. I am in a better position than you when it comes to a defensive position.” The man whose face was imposed on the screen cut the connection and turned to face his advisors and politicians. TL had always been a pain in the ass but it had had its uses. Now though, they needed to be destroyed and quickly he thought, as he told his staff what their new plan of attack was. As the orders made it to the pilots, 200 V-22 Osprey’s lifted off from the airbase. Ramps closed while others remained open with gunners standing beside their machine turrets. Over 800 soldiers, mobilizing to finish of Top Level. After this day he would need to have a drink he thought to himself; maybe talk to some of his buddies in NATO’s large force.


10,000 ft. above the ground over Oregon 1600 hours

“Actual calling Misfit, I repeat Actual calling Misfit, be advised you have 10 drones approaching at 300 knots, estimated time of arrival in 10 minutes.” The voice came over the comms and the soldiers in the 13th Marine expeditionary unit sat up, tilting their heads as more information came in. The 13th MEU had already been decimated in this war going from almost 2,200 soldiers to 800 soldiers when an attack on a beachhead against their enemy had gone badly wrong. Those final 800 who had survived now sat in the Osprey’s preparing to be ripped to shreds by those 10 drones flying right towards them. In the lead osprey two such soldiers looked at each other and nodded, donning their helmets and vests and grabbing their weapons from the racks above their heads. They pulled down their M4 carbines strapping them to their sides, all 20 marines getting up as the ramp opened. Goggles and respirator systems were put on and the marines grabbed straps hanging from the ceiling as the first gust of air shot into the cargo bay. “We have the green light, let’s go and show these monkeys what we got!” yelled the jump officer from the side of the door. The first marine jumped as every other osprey unloaded its soldiers into the fires of war.
Bullets shredded the front of the osprey as the team of twenty jumped. Captain Harris looked over his shoulder as the ten drones flew through the squadron of ospreys guns blazing in the gradually darkening sky. Spreading his arms he dropped aiming himself towards the rest of his squad. He looked down and around at his marines, only 17 he thought looking back towards the V-22’s. By now the turrets in the bodies of the Osprey’s had come alive sending thousands of bullets into the drones that had desecrated the peace. Tracers lit up the dark sky as Osprey after Osprey opened fire shooting the drones out of mid-air, and sending their little robot brains to the ground. His Osprey on the other hand was on fire, pieces of its fuselage falling from it as his last two marines, jump master, and one pilot jumped. And explosion rocked him as the plane exploded sending shrapnel down to the ground missing him and his team by inches. He pulled his parachute as did all the other marines and their armor blended into the sky as they dropped into the landing area. As soon as he had landed Harris looked around him finding those who had jumped at the last second and checking if they were all right. Apart from a few shrapnel wounds they were all alive. He went over to the other squads of the 13th MEU noting one squad was missing. “Where’s Misfit 10, they jumped didn’t they,” he asked Yin his second in command and a close friend.
“Sir, their V-22 was shot down. A missile right into the side of the troop compartment,” Yin replied watching Harris’s face. He noticed the hard look coming into Harris’s eyes, and the clenching and unclenching hands. “I’m sorry sir, they didn’t make it.”
“Not your fault Yin, we made it with most of the unit at least,” replied Harris. He turned from yin and went over to his command squad, “How we doing apart from losing Misfit 10?’ He asked.
Harris’s second answered, “We’ve lost five soldiers from Misfit 5, and Misfit 3, apart from that and Misfit 10 we still have enough soldiers for the mission sir.”
“Good, then let’s move,” replied Harris. He went over to misfit one making sure they were ready for the fight ahead. “Men we got a three hour hike ahead but you should be prepared for small firefights now let’s get moving.” He looked into the eyes of each marine seeing a strong resolve and a want for revenge for Misfit 10. Good, he thought, they were ready as ever. As they made their way out of the forest the marines turned to salute the burning remains of Misfit 10’s V-22 which was spread over about a mile of ground. Harris saluted as well and prayed for the marines that had been lost. Not only were they the first casualties this mission but he had lost friends as well. It was no point in checking for survivors, he could clearly see the pieces of the fuselage which was a burning hunk of metal, even the cockpit was destroyed. The marines turned away from the sight of the fire and they headed off with hard, cold eyes.
“Misfit 1 this is Actual, we have your trackers showing up on our screens, remember the enemy is not to be shown any mercy,” Came a voice over Harris’s headset.
“Don’t worry sir, we’re fighting for Misfit 10 now, we’ll send those bastards back to hell,” he replied and the headset went dead.


Top Level base 1800 hours

“He’s sending a force to deal with us you know Director,” said one of his assistants.
“Let his forces come, they don’t have the balls to mess with us, or the strength for that matter,” the Director answered smiling.
“Yes sir, but he has NATO at his disposal, sir,” replied the assistant.
“We are ready for them, now go get me some coffee, and find where their marine unit is that our drones engaged,” He said. His assistant jumped and then scurried of. NATO can’t do shit to us the Director thought sitting down at his desk balancing his head on his hand as he stared at the video from the drones that had shot down one of the marines Osprey’s. It was beautiful, the missile launching and streaking into the side of the Osprey. The explosion lit up the screen and the drone bucked as the energy wave from the missile hit it. Hitting pause the director looked more closely at the video again and noticed something different. He narrowed his eyes and made up seven silhouettes of marines jumping out of the Osprey before it exploded. Zooming on one of the silhouettes he made out the face and eyes one soldier. He cursed as he realized who it was. He got up and walked quickly out of the room cursing as he went. One of his assistants looked at the computer screen and saw the director albeit a bit younger than right now staring back at him.


13th MEU Codename: Misfit 1900 hours

Harris took his final step for the march and crouched as he looked at the impenetrable fortress ahead. “How the hell are we getting into that, it’s a god dammed fortress,” he whispered to Yin who was crouched next to him.
“TOW missiles could get us through the doors but sir what’s that lying around the walls,” Yin replied he voice suddenly catching in his throat. “Sir, those are…….bodies, hundreds of them,” He started to shake then.
“Not all human either Yin,” replied Harris. “Those are the genetically enhanced wolves that were grown in a laboratory somewhere.” He looked across the field at the fortress, buildings rising to the sky. “Shit this isn’t going to be easy Yin, a clear field and a fucking sky fortress,” he shook his head, “Let’s see if we can get the TOW’s set up and get Actual to give us some tanks and LAV’s we need them if we’re to assault this monstrosity.”

Hope you guys enjoy this and the next part should be up soon. Also feedback would be great.

[Silverdream]

You should format it better. For every paragraph leave a space between in and the next one.

[alphafalcon541]

give me a sec.
Edit: better