Space Odyssey: Spectre

Jace quickly aimed his weapon on reaction since he barely felt the water. But all of his weapons would not work underwater. Instead he had made himself look like a fool for no one in particular until the creature arrived in front of him.

He managed to side step its giant maw while he got a good look at the creature. The creature had soft fish scales instead of the lizard scales he was suspecting. But it had six webbed clawed hands, three on each side. There was a long tail that it was using to swim. The tail was the same size as the creature. It had a strange thin web on the end of the tail that extended as its body turned.

Jace used one hand to hold the rotary heavy machine gun while with the other hand he reached toward the creature. He grabbed the creature's jaw as its razor sharp teeth came towards him. He lifted the creature to move it upward and then slammed downward forcing the creature to an odd position with its head at an angle.

He brought up one of his boots and smashed downward. The creature began squirming as his boot went through its gills and was smashing its guts.

He then pulled with the arm that held the creature's head. Blood pooled out into the water as he tore off the head. He then tossed aside the head and began walking back in the direction he was heading before. But after a moment he stopped in his tracks as he realized he was turned around.

Jace sighed and was about to go up one of the roots and climb onto a tree when he caught something moving out of the corner of his eye. He twisted around looking around seeing that there was something green and gray moving around.

It was large, it almost looked like a wall was moving around him. He spun around for a moment before he was suddenly thrown forward and upward as something ran into him. He grunted in surprise as he twisted his body to see a serpent like creature coming right towards him. The creature opened its maw to reveal four gigantic gleaming white teeth.

He grabbed the top of the mouth with his spare hand and used his foot to leverage himself on the bottom of the mouth. He felt the creature exert pressure as it tried to eat him but was failing. At the same time they were still moving quickly through the water quickly at the creature's doing.

He was thinking what to do since it seemed to have bones that were not as rigid. Even when he tried to twist the creature's head he could feel its flexibility. If he went too far he might get impaled on one of those teeth. His hands were full at the moment so what else could he do?

A moment later he was given a new option as they flew into open air. It was attempting to wiggle and close its mouth. Attempting to swallow him whole. The creature had gills but he could not reach it and it was too quick for him to attack.

But now that he was in the open air there was another method for him to attack. He pointed the rotary heavy machine gun into the maw of the creature and held the trigger. It quickly spun up and purple bolts went forth and tore through the creature.

There was an explosion of blood as the bolts went through the creature and sizzled upon impact against the water. Its insides proved to be incredibly vulnerable to the hard light based weapon.

The creature went limp and they began falling. As he was out of the water he took a moment to look around and realized he was about to fall into the side of the ridge he was moving to earlier. He jumped off the body of the creature and grabbed onto a crack in the ridge.

He then looked around and then down at the creature as its body floated in the swampy water. It would seem the creatures in this area mostly resided in the swampy water. He could not even see any birds.

He looked up to the sky and saw the clouds and the twisting groups of gases above it. The gases were slightly shimmering in the sky above them. It seems the gas was shimmering slightly more than earlier. Was that the symbol of the time of day?

He shook his head and turned to look up the rest of the ridge. He found another spot he could jump to and leaped upwards grabbing hold of the new handhold. He pulled himself up and then jumped to the ledge. Then he was climbing onto the ridge.

On the other side was another swamp. But this one was more mud with banks of rock scattered throughout it and lacked the trees of the area he landed in. He could see the two drop pods in the distance. One was closer to him but the other was at the base of the mountain.

He used his short range radio again. While his heads up display was displaying two friendly signatures. Both of which were labeled as shock troopers. "Parrot and Tako, are you both alright?" Jace asked as he took a moment to take a look around to see what else he could see.

"Affirmative Spectre Jace, I landed near your current location and was uninjured. I am still making my way to Parrot's pod. Stay clear of my pod I set it to go off in about seven more minutes. I am making slow progress through the swamp." Tako responded to him. Tako was with the last wave of drops if he recalls. He specifically checked when the rest of his unit would be dropping. They all ended up on different waves.

There were a few moments of silence as Jace spotted the edge of the swamp lands. There was a chain of islands in the distance. He could see that there were sturdy wooden bridges built between the islands. So that would be a good place to start heading to. Although it lacked any cover aside from sparse rocks and tropical trees.

He then turned and looked toward the other pod that was closer to the base of the mountain in the opposite direction. Parrot had not yet responded. "Parrot, come in." Jace spoke over the channel again as he started walking along the top of the ridge toward the mountain. He would take an indirect route.

It might take longer but he would not have to shuffle through mud and swamp water again. As it was, all of his equipment had been soaked and he would have to take some time later to clean it up. Fortunately they were not jumping straight into battle.

"I have been trying them for a while. There has not yet been a response. Either their comms were damaged or they were injured." Tako explained while breathing heavily.

Jace looked toward the drop pod closer to the mountain. It was turned so he could not see the opening. But there were several large dents in the drop pod. "It is likely they were knocked out on impact with the ground. I can see several large dents in their drop pod."

"Damn." Tako cursed over the channel.

Jace began walking along the top of the ridge toward the mountain. "Be careful about possibly dangerous creatures. There could be some under the mud. I have seen plenty of creatures that are similar to types of fishes."

"Understood." Tako cursed again under his breath. "Do you think you will be able to get there before me?"

"Possibly, I will go for a light jog. We are still in an unfamiliar environment. Fortunately the swamp area you two landed in was more mud than water. If you landed in the same area I had then they might already have drowned." Jace pointed out as he picked up his speed. Moving at jogging rate while he ran atop the ridge. He was being careful about spotting wet and mossy spots on the rocks and stone.

"Hey boss, can you reach the others?" Tako asked a few minutes later.

"No, it seems some type of jamming field was put up. We are able to communicate as long as we are not just below the ridges. Seems there is a mix of metal deposits throughout the area." Jace explained. "I was able to communicate initially so something has to have gone wrong on their end."

"Understood. From what we could tell most of the drop pods managed to land in the same area." Tako began explaining. "What do you think happened to us?"

"We probably got pulled into an odd current." Jace explained. "There were a few I noticed but we did not have enough time for me to do a more in depth analysis." He then glanced at the drop pod again. "We should be able to cut through the jamming signal if I make something out of the parts in that pod. You would not happen to know what Parrot's specialty is, would you?"

"Negative sir, never even met them." Tako answered. "What is our plan of action since we have been separated from the others?"

"Regroup and then find a suitable form of transportation before either heading to the closest objective or the space port the others dropped into." Jace began looking over his rotary heavy machine gun as he moved. He might as well make sure his equipment was operational while he took the time to move.

"Understood sir." Tako responded and Jace could almost swear he heard a salute over the radio.