New Grestin Lore Part 3: Complete Chaos

3:33 am.

3:36 am.

3:41 am.

I roll onto my back, staring at the ceiling. Time seemingly moving by at a crawl. I release a loud sigh, looking around, eventually glancing outside. Seeing the pitch black sky, but split on the horizon by a waning Jool. The brightness of the sunlight crescent of Jool being dimmed by our windows automatically, but the visible edge… is incredible. I can see the flowing green gas clouds bloom in the light before rolling away beyond my view. For a second, I can see just how incredibly massive they are compared to the surrounding clouds towering-

“Aaah… aahh… CHOOO”.

My focus is shattered as I shift my attention to Nestler after he sneezes. From another corner of our colony module I heard a “Bless you” from Ferlow. Not long after, I heard a long sigh from someone else. Rolling my eyes into the back of my head, before leaning up out of bed. Getting a glance at the crates we had received the day before.

“Something wrong boss”? Vegas asks. I slowly nod my head in response, which leads to everyone else in the module to lean out of bed. Scanning my eyes across everyone, I make the observation, “clearly no one here got a wink of sleep”.

“How could we”? Rambart said this while gesturing towards the crates. The rest of my team all begin staring at the crates. Everyone just stared at them for the longest time in utter silence until Vegas spoke up.

“I had an idea last night, why don’t we just-”

“No!” shouted the rest of the team in unison. To which Leobard followed up by saying, “we don’t need any crazy hair brain-”.

He stops to yawn, before continuing, “ideas. We just need to do this”, then he looks at me. I take a deep breath and tighten my chest before saying “No point in delaying the inevitable. 2 hours before sunrise anyway. Take 5 minutes, then we’ll crack these crates open”.

With that, I stood up and flipped the light switch over my bunk. The light burns my eyes, as they slowly adjust. I could audibly hear several others groan in response. Walking over to the food processor, I input my order for it to make some coffee, hoping in vain for something to help me wake up. As I wait, the machine spurs, whirs and pops to life. As I can only assume it begins to process the artificial sludge that the other colonists make to act as an all in one chemical for us to use as food. Slowly I see it begin to bubble & pop out a brownish fluid substance. With every ounce of fluid the machine spits out, it gradually makes a louder and louder whine.

Once it finishes with a convenient beep, I pick up the cup. Staring through it’s transparent sides, watching as residual chemical sludge particles float around. I shut my eyes, ignoring the disgusting substance, and took a sip. The sensation being like drinking sour milk. My gut churns as I drink this again. Despite being in space for more than 2 years, my stomach just refuses to accept this substitute.

Turning from my drink, I head back to my bed, behind it, being a closet. I press a button, and several panels roll back. Showing my next clean uniform. Grabbing it, the heat from it being pressed and steam cleaned. Slipping the uniform on, I then turn to my crew who are now gathered behind me.

“Let’s do this” chimes Leobard. I nod, then walk over to the exit, stopping to grab a pry bar which was left nearby. Hitting the exit button, the door hisses, before sliding open. The chilly night air biting into all of our skin. I take a deep breath of the frozen air, before stepping out. The area illuminated only by the floodlights of our module. The edge of the light standing as a wall, with nothing visible outside of the light. In the center of the light, being the two crates.

I walk up to them slowly. Glancing at each, one marked with the air force logo, the other the logo of the New Grestin Space Command. With my team behind me watching, I grit my teeth before muttering to myself, “let’s get this over with already”. Then, in one swift motion, I swing the prybar back and jam it into the corner of the crate marked with the Air Force insignia. Splitting the side from the top open.

Taking another painful breath of the cold morning air, I then torque down against the lid, splitting it from the rest of the crate. I throw the prybar to the side, grabbing the sides of the lid. My team stepped closer and closer. My anxiety at its peak, I decide to finally throw the lid to the side.

Revealing that inside was...

“Steel beams?”, Nestler asked, confused. Everyone gathered around the crate, which was full of metal beams, with some slats of metal to the side. Rambart, rather than focusing on the materials inside, noticed the pamphlet stapled to the side. Once he grabbed it, he handed it to me.

My anxiety was somewhat lifted when I saw the headline description of what this box of parts was-

“HX-101 BuildAHanger”

I roll my eyes into the back of my head before I explain, “It’s a hanger”.

Vegas begins laughing, slowly struggling to breathe. Meanwhile Ferlow throws his arms up before shouting into the night, “really? This-”, frantically waving towards the crate, “is what’s so secret that no one can tell us”! Leobard just shakes his hand with a blank expression, clearly trying to process the situation. Frustrated, Ferlow snags the pry bar, walking over to the Space Command marked crate, shouting, “well why don’t we just find out what’s behind door number 2 then huh”?

Slowly processing the past events, I don’t realize what Ferlow is doing, only managing to utter an overly dramatic “no”! Before he split it open. The lid sliding off the side. Gradually more and more of my team turned their focus to the Space Command crate. Staring silently in horror.

Contained in the center of the crate was two large domes, each marked with bright red writing-

“Warhead”.

Despite it being -20 below zero, I manage to feel my blood turn even colder. Before then begin to turn into a burning sensation. I didn’t know what to say, what to do, how to respond. I was just… overwhelmed with fury.

Just… how could they do this. Armed jets… are dumb enough but now to bring warheads… why? This is just…

“Lamberg!”

I snap my head up. Not noticing I had begun to shake, my fists balled up tighter than they ever had. Looking at who called, it was Leobard. He was sorting through the crate. I take a slow breath in before walking over.

“Sir, I’ve read through the manual… it’s a SAM turret”.

Looking over at the manual he’s holding, I see that the warheads belong to a surface-to-air-missile turret system. Each warhead belongs to a missile body in the crate. Each warhead contained more explosive power than every weapon on base.

Ferlow walked over, before saying exactly what was on my mind, "first they send us, which is already condemnable for sending militants to a research site but this… this borders on-"

"Deception…," I finished his sentence. Then I continue on, "this is practically a shadow operation. Which makes me wonder what else they have going on that they haven't told us." Nestler follows up saying "I think it's time for another call to command". I put my hand up, telling them to stop before saying, "We'll talk to them once we finish constructing these."

So with one last glance at the warheads, I take a long sigh and we begin.

"Flip the switch", I say to Leobard. He looks from me back to the control panel in front of him, knocking the Master switch from OFF to ON. With that, the 10 meter tall missile turret begins to whine a high pitch sound which gradually drops to a low hum. Which leads to the tracking system dish rotating, followed by the whole missile array. Scanning the sky for threats… threats that should hopefully never come.

With the completion of that, I turn back. Seeing the rest of my team pushing the last of our jets under the recently built hanger structure. I wave back to Leobard to have him follow me. With both of us walking past, the rest of my team sees and begins following behind knowing it was time to finally contact command, asking what the hell they were thinking.

As we all knew it was finally time for the truth to come ou-

"Uh, excuse me, what is that?" This question startled me from my train of thought, so I looked to where the voice was and saw a younger scientist standing next to me. I stood in silence processing the question, but he wasted no time answering on his own, "is that a missile turret?" he began to shout.

"Uh oh" said Ferlow. Echoing the feelings of everyone around, as we slowly saw the eyes turning towards us. All of which eventually turned their eyes towards the missile turret behind us. Another mob was brewing.

More and more began to encircle us once again. Each one asking the same question but managing to find a thousand different ways to ask but all with the same message- "What are you doing? We trusted you! You're gonna get us killed!". Only this time we didn't have enough time to escape to get our gear. All we had was a few tools. A quick glance at my team showed a crowbar that Nestler was carrying, and a ratchet that Vegas was spinning by the head. I reach for the crowbar-

"Answer us! You're the ones in charge!"

While I was distracted looking for a weapon, a protester pushed me. Reflexively I popped open the cover to my sidearm, hand on the grip. A move made purely out of instinct, but this turned out to be a massive mistake.

"What are you going to do? Shoot me? You've already condemned us all to a worse fate!"

With us already entirely encircled, they now begin to tighten around us. Closer and closer. With many of them close enough that they've started tugging at my arm which is still locked onto the holster of my side arm. Me and my are back to back facing the ground around us.

Just over the growing protests of the crowd I hear Ferlow shout, "what do we do?" Vegas followed up screaming over and over, "Let me at 'em!" Let me at 'em!"

Each second feels like an eternity. As they get closer and closer, louder and louder, angrier and angrier. It simply seems like an unwinnable situation with no solution that allows us to escape without harming our fellow Grestians.

"They're heading to the turret!" Leobard screams. I look to the turret and see a line of people breaking off from the protests that are heading towards the turret. Quickly, I turn around, grabbing Leobard and Vegas by the shoulders, facing them towards the crowd. Before pushing them into a charge. Together we manage to push past a large part of the ground, where I begin to run towards the recently constructed hanger, grabbing the welders kit.

I jump in front of the oncoming crowd, bearing a lit torch. Burning at over 3,500°C and at full length, reaching nearly 1 meter away from me. The gathering crowd begins to circle around me, but as they gather, my team manages to circle around the turret. Nestler stood with his crowbar held like a bat, ready to swing. Vegas was swinging his ratchet faster and faster, like a ball and chain. Ferlow managed to pick up a lengthy screwdriver and was brandishing it like a sword. Leobard, standing behind me closest to the turret, was holding a small bottle of ignition fluid, ready to spray it on anyone, which paired with my torch, would've been extremely effective.

With us now armed and able to defend ourselves, the crowd now stands further away from us but unphased, still doggedly determined to destroy the turret. One protester would make a move towards it, so I would sling the torch towards them. The flames of the torch danced towards them, keeping them at bay.

"You can't keep us back forever! Your flame will run out!, shouted one of the protesters. Stating my growing concern. But I keep my focus, hoping to wait their fury out. They'll eventually tire of trying to-

CRACK

The sound made everyone stop, standing silent. It almost sounded like a-

That's when the crowd parted in front of me, with one protestor standing out. Holding a pistol, pointing it right at me. My blood runs cold as I look down to my holster, seeing it empty. Realizing that as I ran past the crowd, he must've grabbed it. I stand there, frozen. Staring at him, with the barrel pointed towards me. My grip tightens on the torch, as I stand there.

Eventually he manages to crack out some demands, "Ooo...Okaay. So...ooo h-h-heres how t-t-t-this is gonna go".

His hands shook as he held the gun. "Y-y-y-you're g-going to dump t-t-those things!", he flicked the gun upwards towards the turret before continuing, "into the s-s-sea where it belongs!"

When he finished his demands- everything went still. Silent, aside from the hum of the turret behind us, & the hiss of my still burning torch.

"W-w-well?", he barked at us. I opened my mouth to give an answer but I couldn't find the words to say anything. So I just stood there silent, my mouth agape. He refused to wait for an answer- "If you w-w-won't! Then w-w-we will!"

He gestured to get support from the surrounding mob. Some of which spoke up in support but most remained silent, staring at his, likely as scared as we were.

"But before we do- I'll solve the bigger problem," he raised the gun before finishing, "You." My already cold blood turned to ice, as I felt it flush from my body hearing this. I closed my eyes, awaiting what would come. Putting myself at-

CRACK

Screaming. That's all I could hear. Despite knowing the shot was coming, my reflexes slammed my eyes open. I darted my eyes across. Examining everything. No one appeared injured.

CRACK

Another shot fired. I hunker down hearing the shot ricochet off of the missile turret behind me. Then I look back to the shooter, seeing him lock his arms tighter, obviously tightening down on his next shot.

Time seemed to slow down. I knew I couldn't survive forever. I took a breath, which I could feel every muscle in my body moving to inhale. I could feel my heart beating what felt like a million beats per second. My eyes then roll back into my head knowing the next sound to come…

DONK

My eyes again popped open. This time more surprised than before at still being alive. I look around, before my eyes land on where the shooter… was. Instead there stood Rambart. Holding a spare piece of rebar. The shooter being on the ground motionless. I let out a forced laugh in surprise. I slam my hand over my mouth to stop. But I was just incredibly happy to still be alive.

Rambart then walked over the shooter, grabbing the gun from his hand, proceeding to unload it and clear the chamber. With a resounding clink of the chamber shutting, a collective sigh was heard from the mob around us. I relax a bit as the crowd around us begins to cheer. I check back on my team, to see this just as terrified as I was. With some smiles breaking out on their faces, with Vegas laughing maniacally.

"Oof!"

The sound came from Rambart. So I turned around to see the shooter standing up, punching Rambart, who had dropped his rebar weapon, but maintained an iron grip on the still unloaded firearm.

A few members of the crowd begin to step in my way but I just raise my still lit torch, making them back off. Once I finally reach them, I lunge my torch at the attacker who was standing over Rambart, beating him. When he saw me, he grabbed the unloaded gun and ran backwards away from me.

"Your torch will run out y-y-ya know!" he shouted. Ignoring his comment, I stand next to Rambart who's recovering on the ground next to me. The attacker starts pacing back and forth in front of me. I wave the torch back and forth, following him.

"Lamberg…", Rambart groans my name. So I glanced back at him, seeing a small group of people surrounding me, while the bulk still stood around the turret.

They were starting up again, only this time, I had to deal with it alone. In response, I backed up, standing over Rambart, slinging the torch around me in a circle trying to keep everyone at bay, when it happened…

My torch's flame began to shrink. I twist the fuel knob but it's clear. I had run out of gas.

I let out a distraught whimper. The crowd around me begins to chuckle at my misfortune, and the attacker, clearly now leading the pack around me said, "time's up".

He steps forward towards me, eventually stopping to pick up the magazine on the ground. When he does, I sling the now empty gas tank from my back, into the attacker's head. Knocking him down. Then I feel someone pull me back. So I lunge the head of the torch under my arm towards the attacker.

The torch, still bright from the heat, made contact with one of the mob who screamed as the head of the torch carved into his abdomen like butter. Then when I see someone in front of me draw back to punch, I sling the head towards them too, forcing them to fall backwards onto their back. Then I felt someone else grab the side of my arm, managing to throw me to the ground before I could sling the torch back around.

I landed against the gas tank, bending my back the wrong direction before I managed to roll myself onto my side. When I look back up, I see that Rambart has gotten up, wielding the piece of rebar from before.

He managed to make several successful swings, knocking several of them down. Keeping them back. But one of the mob managed to grab his arm carrying the rebar piece. He took a swing with the other arm but the mob managed to hold him back, leaving him helpless.

I start to get back up, but by the time I'm on my feet, several of them turned their attention to me. I pick up the gas tank, ready to swing. That's when one of them charged at me, I jumped back dodging his swing, and I follow-up by slamming the tank onto the back of his head. Sending him down hard.

I get hit in the side of the head, sending me sideways. For a second I saw the world in black and white before my vision finally corrected. Despite everything being a blur, I manage to duck before the next punch, and slam the gas into the attacker's stomach, then take advantage of him being winded and pop him in the jaw with the tank.

Two more start coming towards me, and I prepare the tank to swing. Behind them I see several of them beginning to kick Rambart while he's held back. My blood, already filled with adrenaline, now starts to burn with fury. So I start squeezing the tank, hard enough that I feel the muscles of my fingers being crushed under my grip. I pull back ready to swing.

Then a loud siren goes off coming from one of the colony modules. This stops the attackers in their tracks as their attention is shifted. Seeing the opportunity, I scream out as loud as I can, "Alright! Enough is enough!".

That gets everyone's attention, and I could tell the two who were coming at me starting up again, so I continued, "We get the message. Let's just stop". To which, one of the mob screamed out, "We asked you to stop, and you told us that you're powerless, so we're taking the power for ourselves!"

I turn my head back, keeping my feet firmly planted in case someone wants to come at me and start things up again- "And what happens when they send more troops as this base gets bigger? We already discussed this."

That's when one member of the crowd steps forward to say "We're letting command know now- setting the example with you that we won't tolerate a militarized force here. Not now… not ever."

"Do you honestly think that you can stop them from sending a whole militarized force? It's going to get worse, not better… and who do you think space command is going to listen to? You or us?"

Someone shouts from another corner of the mob, "What does it matter? You're with them!"

The siren goes off again.

I continue, "No… we really… really aren't… and what the hell is that siren?". Yet another face in the crowd steps forward to answer, "it's alerting us that there's a storm inbound".

"What kind of storm?", I ask. To which the same person answers, "A bad one."

"How long do we have?"

"Not that long…", he turns to face the horizon, pointing to a rapidly building cloud and as if a scene from a movie, at that exact second, a large wave of wind blew through the crowd. Blasting sand around. The air becomes a thick blanket of teal sand, limiting our line of sight down to only a few meters in front of us.

The wind slowed down, which gave everyone time to disperse. Everyone started to run to their colony modules to hunker down. My team however ran up to help me and Rambart up. I watched as Leobard quickly grabbed the gun magazine from where it was dropped. Then my team carried us all towards our module.

Once our pace picked up, the wind also picked up. Blowing harder and harder, making it vastly harder to find our way. We wandered in the general direction of where it should be, but our slow progress seemed as if we were wandering the wrong way.

"Where the hell did the hab go?" shouted Nestler over the blasting winds. After some looks around, we saw Leobard run off into the sand by himself. I shouted after him, but he ignored me. Quickly he seemed to become swallowed by the blanket of sand around us. I looked around at the rest of my team who looked as concerned as I did.

"We don't have time to focus on him, let's go!", shouted Ferlow as he continued to help drag Rambart. So we continued to push on through.

So we walked, and walked, and walked. Feeling absolutely lost, looking for any semblance of a landmark to get my bearings, I turn just in time for a blast of sand from a nearby hill to slam into my face. Knocking Vegas who was carrying down, and the sand to begin choking me. The sand seemed to just find every corner of my mouth and face. Every time I opened my mouth to take a breath, all I would get is a mouth full of sand. I started to struggle to breathe. The air felt like chunks of glass as it slid down my throat. Worst of all, the longer I fought it, the more it would turn into a paste. Seeming to clog my throat, being too thick to swallow and too viscous to cough up.

I collapsed to the ground trying to get the sand out. Vegas tried pulling me to my feet, but I was weak, without any air to move with.

"It's hopeless!" shouted Ferlow.

I look around again, my vision becoming blurry as sand scratches its way into my eyes, leading to my eyes watering, and now pouring as I continue to struggle to breathe.

Feeling my lungs ache from being unable to get the air it needs. Slowly my vision turns hazy before starting to narrow down. I was blacking out.

Despite tens of thousands of flight hours, and passing out hundreds of times in aircraft, I had never experienced a black out like this. I had nothing I could do, not equipment to help me combat the loss of consciousness.

I don't know if it was the fact I had been fighting, the fact I had been hit or maybe even because I was choking but slowly the struggle, the fight and the panic. The feeling of all my muscles in my body being in a constant state of struggle to breathe- suddenly all stopped.

I was at peace. I am initially terrified of this, but even my concerns seem to fade away, before my vision is completely washed by a wave of white light, which then leads to me slipping away.

Mumbling. That's all I could hear. Slowly the words began to take some shape.

"...hope he's…"

"...both are…"

Slowly I managed to piece together that it's two people talking. I try to lean up, but my whole body burns. With my head feeling like I've been shot. But I keep trying to lean up, although it's clearly in vain as I can't seem to muster any strength to move, so I just lay there. Listening. Though the longer I do, I hear a growing high pitch ringing in my ears, making it extremely difficult to make out words past it.

"...I'm… his cond…"

"... pull up that…"

"...yet but I'm going…"

Tired of my inability to follow the conversation between my head screaming and me struggling to wake up from this state, so I struggle some more to move. My arms and legs felt like they were lead weights.

I pause, then take the deepest breath of air possible to give myself the strength to move them. As the air rushes into my throat, it feels like I'm inhaling lava. The air burned the sides of my throat as it went down. As a result I began coughing, heaving and hacking.

Each cough felt like torture. My chest, like the rest of my body, felt like it weighed tons, and to hack, I had to inhale more air, which made my throat burn more. A continuous process of breathing, raising my chest up with my greatest might before hacking the air out.

I continue, but hear someone talking. Between my fight to breathe and coughing, I couldn't make out the words.

Soon after however, I felt everything slip away again before I lost consciousness, but the last thing I heard, clear as day, was-

"They are coming."