Quake II Mission Pack: The Reckoning Story

The Story of The Reckoning
The walls of the drop pod close in around you like a tomb. Already, the air reeks of nervous sweat.

“Foxtrot squad, Drop Status is Go. Repeat, Go. Prepare for dismount.” Your C.O.’s voice crackles over the com link, her voice cool and level. Display panels flash rapidly changing information, staining the interior of the capsule blood red, amber, and green.

“On my mark... Five... Four...” You tense, bracing yourself the best you can in your prone position. “... Two... One... Drop!” A moment of anticipation, a metallic thunk as the mooring clamps disengage, a moment of roaring thrust, and then you are free falling.

Shrugging off the effects of gravity, you grab the flight controls and force the pod along the designated approach vector. It fights back, first skipping, then surfing, and finally diving through the outer atmosphere of Stroggos, the Strogg home world. You gulp stale cooled air trying to forget the rapidly rising temperature of the outer hull.

Excited radio chatter clutters the com link frequencies. So much for any damn radio silence. Anxious and excited marines whoop, holler, and banter with each other. One marine cries out that he’s been clipped, and then all hell breaks loose. “Mayday, Mayday, lost all power... shielding failed... missed dz... some kind of EMP is...” If you weren’t fighting to keep alive yourself, the soul-wrenching screams of the doomed warriors would shred what nerve remains in you. Without warning, a shudder passes through your drop pod and everything more complex than a night-light goes dead. What’d that marine say? EMP? Electromagnetic Pulse. Your umpty-um million-dollar pod just became an expensive meteor. “DAMN!”

Without thinking, you fist-hammer the manual release plunger. Mechanical catches release the heat shield over a vision port, engage a wire-and-pulley guidance system, and goose a one-shot generator to send a burst of energy through a Nichrome wire, heating it red hot and igniting a chain of solid fuel rockets. “God Bless our engineers!” you laugh as the technologically primitive system fires and your control surfaces respond to sluggish life. You’re in a dangerous dive, dropping through a flying rock field – but they’re rolling along in some pretty stable orbits, nothing that muscle and nerve can’t handle.

Of course, there’s always that one maverick in every bunch.

WHAM

“What the... Awww, Shit!!” Meteor. Probably didn’t take more than two inches off your right stabilizer... But the laws of physics are the laws of physics. Pulleys, wires and model rocket engines aren’t gonna pull you out of this one. Your drop pod goes into an end-over-end spin and your sorry ass is toast, marine.

Sky, planet, sky, planet... The rocky surface of Stroggos rushes up towards you. If you weren’t jazzed on adrenaline, it’d be all kinda peaceful looking. Sky, rocks, sky, water... “DAMN!” You spit out, “WATER!”

BWOOOSH!!

Your drop pod explosively slams into the still pool, boiling down to embed itself in the soft mud below. You’re alive... but it may be a while before you know it.

Consciousness creeps up on you softly, teasing you back to awareness. Sounds penetrate the pounding in your skull -– trickling water, soft splashes. Slowly opening your eyes, the world swims double for a moment, and then snaps into focus. Slimy canyon walls loom over you, all but blotting out the glowering sky of Stroggos.

“God... how long?” You groan. Something nearby stirs at the sound of your voice. A splash. Silence. A glance tells you that whatever may still be in your pod, half submerged in swamp muck, won’t work worth shit... even supposing that the Strogg would give you the time to field strip and clean it.

splash

Something’s out there. Mud coated and aching, you drop to a crouch behind a mossy boulder and search for a weapon. Even a rock would be something. “Hot Damn!!” Better than you could have hoped for! It’s your shotgun, loaded and ready to rock and roll.

splash, Splash, SPLASH!

You rack a shell in the chamber and jump up, aches and pains forgotten. Too many damn fine marines didn’t make groundfall today. The Strogg are gonna pay. You swear that soon, real soon, there’ll be a reckoning...