Attempting to Survive the Apocalypse: Dimensional Dislocation

Arthur Arnaud, Foundation First Squad

The roar of the helicopters above drowned out the sound of your boots hitting the ground as you quickly unhook yourself from the guide rope and fan out behind the Prowler, the other squads copying your own with their Prowlers as you grimly look through the visor of your radiation suit. The field of corpses before you is empty to you, you can't see the enemy that you know is lurking about somewhere in front of you, but the calm voice through your radio informs you that there are six creatures around three meters tall in the field with you. The tense silence holds for a few moments as forty pairs of eyes scan the space in front of them, looking for any sign of the enemy, disturbed grass or something.

In the end, it's the alert beep from your Prowler that draws your attention, the .50 mounted atop it suddenly swinging to the left as it aims at something, strobes of red light drawing your eyes as it -along with the other three Prowlers, alerted by the first via their network- flicks on the bright laser pointer that had been mounted to the side of the gun. They don't immediately open fire, waiting for their safety to be switched off, but when you see the other Prowlers start tracking different targets and turning in towards your squad, you do your best to keep your voice level as you speak into the radio. "Frederik, fire at will."

The man must have been hovering his finger over the button on his pad, because your Prowler immediately opens up, the heavy gun atop it smoothly tracking as it makes tiny adjustments to absorb the recoil. Despite still not seeing anything, you lift your gun and follow the laser pointer, falling back on the drills you had been practising for weeks. Follow the laser, line up the gun and fire, pay no attention to your target. Your rifle kicks harshly into your shoulder as you jam the trigger down, taking advantage of the exoskeleton to help brace against the recoil and stay -mostly- on target.

The Prowler suddenly stops firing and the gun swivels to the right, you take a few steps to the side to make sure you stay out of the lines of fire and follow the red line, dumping the empty magazine and slotting in another before finding the termination point of the laser pointer. You unload the entire magazine again, taking long and slow breaths as you reload, glancing back to the Prowler to find aiming somewhere off to the side. Before you can shoot it ceases firing, raising from the braced stance as the gun swivels further left, the small light on the back of the hull staying a strong red. Enemies still present.

You follow the gun as it moves and have to stifle your a curse, not that the rest of your squad felt so restrained. 3rd squad's Prowler is moving strangely, the lines of death from the other three Prowlers focused somewhere slightly above it as the machine flicks it's legs out and drops to the ground. Once again, before you can lift your weapon your earmuffs are sorely tested by three heavy machineguns firing at the same time, the CFR detector mounted on your wrist bleeping alarmingly at you as a massive black shape suddenly just appears over the beleaguered Prowler, the giant holes punched into it's form leaking green-black blood all over the machine beneath it.

You feel a weight appear on your chest and look down to see that very same green-black blood splattered all along the front of your suit, a glance up shows the mangled form of one of the creatures lying just a few meters away from you, long arm stretched towards you. Despite being told and preparing for it, your unknowing brush with death leaves you feeling a little light-headed as you look around, finding another three creatures lying concerning close to each triangle the different squads had formed.

"HQ, this is Foundation First Squad, five IDC engaged and destroyed." You take a quick head-count and let out a little sigh when you see everyone present. "No casualties, but it was extremely close. Alert any backup units to have their Prowlers set to free-fire before they enter the area, these things are incredibly fast." You wouldn't know exactly how fast until you reviewed the recordings, but you know the Prowlers are capable of picking out a human from hundreds of meters and barely a few seconds had passed between them detecting the targets and being allowed to engage. Some very rough napkin math told you that was somewhere around 100 kph.

The affirmation you get back through the radio is drowned out by the sound of the Prowlers firing at something, you shift on the spot and raise your gun, only to see a somewhat larger specimen fall forwards into the ground, a hole bored straight through it's torso. Right, .50 cal. You don't know who's idea it was to allow the Prowlers to mount the thing, but as you look down at the corpse by your feet you can visibly compare the craters left in it from the .50 and the small hole that your own bullets have left. Hell of a lot tougher than anything on earth. You kneel next to the thing when you spot something that makes your eyebrows raise inside your suit, a small bullet that had barely punched an inch in before stopping, the rear of the bullet visible from the outside. A quick check finds dozens of similarly light wounds from your rifles.

You give the leg of your Prowler a much more appreciative pat as you stand up, flicking the radio on again as you wave the rest of the squad in around you. "HQ, preliminary weapons report. Prowlers equipped with .50 calibre machinegun provides very good effect, quickly lethal." You take a deep breath. "Infantry weapons appear to be ineffective, penetration seems to be limited to a few inches over most of the body, impossible to determine anything further here in the field."

You turn back to your squad as the quiet affirmative of the lovely radio lady comes back and contact the other three squad leaders. "Alright, HQ estimated somewhere around thirty before touchdown, we've secured the six here. Other military units will be arriving soon, but they haven't been prepared for this, I want to draw as many of these things into the Prowlers and eliminate them before they can cause any more problems." You nod to your technician and continue. "Check to make sure none of the Prowlers took any damage from that, then let me known when you are ready, we'll be moving east to set up on that hill over there, it'll give us vision over the fields for miles around."

You get back a small chorus of affirmative as your own tech starts fiddling with his tablet and fussing over his metallic baby. Four different confirmations return to you within a minute, even the Prowler that got fallen on had gotten off with some minor scratches and a quick job to wipe blood off of the sensors. The trip up to the top of the hill goes by quickly, your CFR detector slowly ticking faster and faster as the concentration grows worse.

A disturbing sight awaits you from the top of the hill, a plain of corpses overshadowed by the way the air itself is roiling angrily. "HQ, what is this?" No response immediately returns, but as your unit split into four, one for each side of the hill, the rather alarming answer comes back to you. "That is a section of unstable space caused by extremely high CFR concentrations, much higher than what your suits are rated for-" The jolt of alarm that shoots through you is carefully buried as you watch the slowly scanning Prowler next to you, waiting for it to find something. "But since you haven't noticed any symptoms of CFR exposure, then the cause is likely to be on the other side. We don't know what could happen, be prepared for anything."

After quietly passing the message on to the other three squad leads, you settle in for the long wait. Over the next twenty minutes, the Prowlers suddenly spring to life and engage targets eight times, all of them far too distant to even attempt to follow the laser, if your weapons would even have any effect at that distance.

After another few minutes. something akin to the crinkling of broken glass draws your eyes upwards and you freeze. Out of the corner of your eye you can see the man to your left slowly raise his rifle as he similarly gazes upwards. Before he can pull the trigger you feel a sudden burning as you are squeezed-

.....

Persica

From your position at the back of the control room, you are provided a perfect view from the large wall mounted screens, and the one everyone is currently staring at showing the feed from an orbiting UAV. Every other source within a few miles of the worrying crack was suddenly gone, an incredibly large spike in radiation had blinded the UAV for a few seconds and when the feed returned it was to show everything was just missing, down to the bedrock. "Sorawo, it appears that the entire valley is no longer there."

Looking disturbingly unruffled, she just nods and you get the impression that she's used to giving bad news. "An educated guess, from past experience, would say that the entire area was forcibly dragged into an alternate dimension." Your fingers start tapping against your crossed arms as you process that, combined with the massive moving shape you'd briefly seen through the cracks... "It's likely that the sudden burst of Collapse Fluid drew in things from over there while the dimensions were easy to cross, but the gathering caught the attention of something bigger looking for an easy meal, which used whatever method it has for preventing them escapting into other dimensions." Such as drawing them back into it's.

You let out a hum as you try to keep your calm, putting aside the fact that the entire unit was now stranded in what you felt was probably some kind of hell dimension. "Alright, you said you've got past experience, how did you resolve the issue last time?"

"Well, we went back to get supplies to help, which took a while, and then managed to use the same path to get back in." She squints at the screen and rubs her arm slowly. "Most of the people had died, but we did manage to save some of them. At least, by the looks of it, the way might still be open."

The other half of the Foundation First were still here at base, they weren't ready to leave when the alert went out. "Do you think you could find some way to let people cross there, to try to mount a rescue?" Sorawo presses her lips into a thin line, but nods, looking grimmer than you had ever seen her.

"I can probably cross with a few dozen people there, but it's not going to last long. Past experience says that these kind of spontaneous breaches usually only last for a few hours if something it's holding them open." Silence falls between the two of you as you crunch the numbers on time, distance and squad loadout against what is probably waiting on the other side. You are jarred out of your thoughts when you feel something touching you and look up.

Sorawo gently squeezes the hand she has on your arm as she steps closer, leaning in close so she can't be overheard. "I know what you are thinking, trying to plan a desperate rescue, I've been in the same spot before." Something flickers in her off-colour eye as she looks up at you. "Don't rush in here, by the time we manage to get anyone there and across, well over an hour will have passed. If we go in there for them without preparation, we'll just be spending lives to fill empty coffins, if anyone comes back at all."

[] She's right, rushing in would be far too risky and is unlikely to do more than get more good men killed. You'd also be putting your only lead into reaching other dimensions in direct harms way. The risk isn't work it, you'll wait until you have a significant force ready. And if it's closed by then you'll have to try again later.

[] You have to try, if even a single person could cross and get back to tell you what is on the other side it would be an immense advantage. If you are fast about it you might even be able to rescue some of the lost team.