Notes: A.T.X.D. Rising Darkness (Book 6) is in need of revision - it was originally written with the stereotypical concept of a full-scale invasion by "a savage race of extraterrestrials." This concept goes against the world and values of A.T.X.D., so I am trying to give some bit of humanism to the antagonists - the Senturi - while still making them a formidable and spiteful foe nonetheless for the A.T.X.D. This scene involves rescuing Ashley - who has been captured by the Senturi towards the end of the conflict - and I wanted to see how this scene could be improved to make the Senturi seem...I guess less stereotypical for lack of a better description.
The scene was inspired by the damsel-in-distress rescue ending from the 2010 world-invasion film Skyline: where the main character Jared, in the body of one of the aliens, rescues his girlfriend Elaine from a messy part of the ship. Here is the clip from that movie, for you to look at on your own time if you want to compare.
>>>>>>>TWO-MINUTES INTO THE MISSION<<<<<<<
>>>>>>>SENTURI SHIP CATACOMBS<<<<<<<
>>>>>>>APPROX. 7:46 PM<<<<<<<
The catacombs were far messier than the rest of the ship. Not only were there fixed veins and branches of the Senturi bio-matter, but vines and loose-hanging slabs of the same material also decorated this area. There was also a stench reminiscent of burnt meat mixed with moist soil, but because Richard’s nostrils had picked up stranger scents than this, it didn’t bother him enough to distract his focus. At one point, one of his hands touched the wall and immediately came back with some kind of clear, sticky residue.
“What the hell?” Richard muttered, looking at his greasy glove briefly before returning focus.
But then Richard touched another wall that suddenly collapsed. At the same time, he slipped forward and tumbled down some kind of tunnel before landing in a lower bowel area of the catacombs and the ship by extension. Now the smell of something rotting began to haunt Richard’s nostrils, but he did his best to retain focus and find his comrades. But no sooner did he retrieve his rifle when he heard a faint exhale. At first Richard pulled up his tracker, which fuzed and vibrated its display but clearly showed a life signal registering up ahead and to his immediate right. Slowly, Richard took up his rifle and moved forward until the signal was just barely a foot ahead of him. Right at the last minute, Richard wheeled to his right and aimed at the source.
“Richard,” Jack’s unusually raspy voice replied. As much as he was relieved to see his brother-in-arms again, he also wanted to insist that Richard not shoot him, but didn’t feel he had the energy to say so.
“Jesus, Jack,” Richard exhaled, dropping his weapon and putting a hand to his chest briefly with relief, “You okay?”
“Yeah, only been onboard for an hour or so, but it’s already pretty fuckin’ boring.”
“Well, I’m gettin’ you out,” Richard replied, removing his combat knife and carefully sawing off the fleshy ropes that held Jack by his wrists and torso.
As Richard helped stabilize Jack, he noticed the Sergeant was without the upper half of his uniform - only his undershirt, the lower leggings and boots remained on. His Ranger brother was also trembling a bit, so Richard asked, “Are you alright?”
“I think the Senturi have the air conditioning on a little too high,” Jack comedically returned, almost with intention to pay respect to James’ humor, “They must’ve stripped me of my uniform, because I woke up here like this. But I’m okay. Just cramped muscles for the most part. Being held by plant-like restraints isn’t always the most comfortable experience.”
“No argument there. I’d give you my uniform, but I think I’m going to need it for a little longer. And I don’t want to chance removing my body armor for fear of a sniper getting me in the chest.”
“No problem,” Jack replied.
“Here, though,” Richard reached down and removed his Guardian handgun, pulling back the hammer before handing it to Jack. “I’m sure you’ll need this. And have you seen Ashley by any chance?”
“Captain Miller?” Jack was quite surprised, “She’s onboard too?”
“She got abducted shortly after you. I thought you’d seen her as a fellow passenger.”
“Ain’t seen nothin’ here brother,” Jack replied plainly. “But I do believe this was the same ship that abducted Laney in England. So maybe she’s onboard somewhere as well.”
“Alright then, you come with me. We’re going to find both of them.”
“Me? In this state?” Jack was a little caught off guard, seeing that he didn’t even have either body armor or a helmet on.
“Would you rather I leave you here and let the Senturi find out you broke free?” Richard asked rhetorically.
“Screw that, I’m with you all the way brother,” Jack replied, no longer lacking confidence about his predicament.
>>>>>>>ELSEWHERE IN THE CATACOMBS<<<<<<<
>>>>>>>7:48 PM<<<<<<<
The stasis pods glowed with the same eerie blue as certain other aspects of the ship, most of them empty save one. Among a few relatively large stasis pods, one leaned outward as it held the body of a human female within. After a while, a neuroelectric signal was dispatched that began to break down the thick, gel-like membrane which protected the pod’s contents from the outer environment of the ship. Within moments, a tear formed in the pod before the membrane split open, and the body spilled out in a heap along with the slimy stasis fluid that had been used to sedate the human subject.
It took a while, but Ashley soon awoke with a bubbled gasp of shock and quickly clutched her body into a ball, coughing and sputtering as she tried to clear her throat of the thick substance. The air in the ship was cold and dry, and being covered in a thick wet fluid with unknown properties wasn’t making this experience any more comfortable. Ashley then partially poked her head out of her human ball and noticed that she was missing her helmet along with the upper half of her uniform aside from the undershirt. As she adjusted into a near sitting position, she noticed her lower uniform still attached and her boots, while missing their shin guards, were still tied and glimmered from the sticky residue that covered them and the rest of her body. However, Ashley’s overall eyesight at present was relatively poor, with clearer details only coming in brief flashes. Otherwise, the fluid was still messing with her eyes and either blurring the image or weighing her eyelids down.
“Hell...hello?” Ashley muttered, her voice still a little bubbly from the tasteless fluid that continued to melt across her lips, “Hello, is anyone else there?”
As though in response, she heard something move nearby and reflexively brought her arm up only to realize that she did not have her tracker anymore. Ashley briefly put a hand to her head as she tried to remember what happened. Before the memories could come back, however, the sound of a moving creature drew her attention again. Suddenly, a series of small tentacles lashed out and wrapped around her ankles before tugging her forward. If only she had the breath, Ashley would’ve screamed as she was dragged roughly on her back by these tentacles to hell knew where.
In another few moments, Ashley felt herself trussed upside down by the appendages holding her as the Senturi form took her a few levels deeper into the bowels of the ship. Even before she was laid on the ground with remarkable care, Ashley heard the sound of another female groaning and struggling nearby. Glancing to her left, Ashley saw, to her shock, Laney: her young officer and comrade was covered in a disgusting mud-like substance and twisting against a series of vine-like structures that glowed an eerie orange.
“Laney,” Ashley said in a normal tone, trying to get her attention but apparently failing at that task as the Lance Sergeant continued to struggle. So she repeated her name a little louder, but Laney still seemed too busy fighting back whatever it was that was restraining her.
Maybe she’d be able to rouse Laney if she got up and pulled the things off of her, so Ashley forced her arms against whatever she lay against and pushed herself back up to a sitting position. She then made an effort to turn on her side and stand up, but then felt her hand sink through the floor, and she pulled it up to find the same greasy substance on her hand that covered Laney. Reaching behind her, Ashley also felt her back drenched with the same substance but tried not to think about what it was. Despite the weak swamp-like terrain surrounding her, Ashley persisted and finally found the strength to stand up, pulling her boots free of the muck as she picked up her feet and tried to step over various soft sections of the floor. But being previously locked in stasis was taking its toll on Ashley’s senses, and she was having trouble determining how far away Laney actually was; it could just as easily have been a hallucination and Ashley was straggling around alone in this chamber. Eventually, she tripped somewhere and fell face and chest first with a splat in the biological matter covering the floor. As she recovered, Ashley reached out and felt Laney’s hand, which throbbed in a concerning way as the Lance Sergeant continued to struggle, but at least reassured the Captain that she wasn’t dreaming.
Abruptly, however, another branch-like structure descended and grabbed Ashley by the arms and shoulders with a multitude of tentacles before pulling her back and dropping her right in the same place she’d started from. This time, she looked up to see the creature briefly withdraw its tentacles but then spit them back out and forcefully restrained the Captain by her arms and legs. Simultaneously, Ashley froze when she heard a painful scream come from Laney. Looking over, the branches tying the Lance Sergeant down were glowing brighter now, as though transmitting or absorbing energy from her. Two small stems then extended from the tentacles holding Ashley’s arms and shortly jabbed themselves into her shoulders before another one connected with her forehead.
“Shit. Now what?” Ashley thought frantically in her mind.
The branch-like tentacles started to glow and, slowly, Ashley’s stomach began to churn, followed by her arms weakening and her head throbbing painfully. Wincing, Ashley felt her nerves start to lose their sensitivity and her sight begin to blur more, and the Captain soon realized that the creature was trying to extract something from her body. It was just then that another branch connected with her middle, right between the chest and stomach, and a surge of pain caused Ashley to gasp painfully. But in that same moment, she gained a large enough gulp of air and, briefly storing its energy in her lungs, waited for the next surge of pain to course through her body. And when it did, Ashley let it out, attempting to scream but finding herself only able to let out more of a gurgled howl.
Elsewhere in the catacombs, Richard and Jack had searched through dried, rotted out Senturi material only to find no trace of their comrades.
“Y’know, Rich,” Jack commented, “if you brought backup onboard to blow this ship outta the sky, they’re likely already waiting for us to return. And I hate to sound pessimistic here, brother, but what makes you so sure that Captain Miller, let alone Lance Sergeant Davidson, are still alive?”
“I don’t know anything, Jack,” Richard admitted reluctantly. “All I have is a gut feeling. And yet…”
Just then, the two ex-Rangers heard, quietly bouncing off the walls of the catacombs, the chilling sound of a human female in distress.
“Lord in heaven…” Jack muttered, but Richard didn’t reply as he hurried towards where he was sure he heard the sound. Jack would have called for him to wait up, but he knew that his own yelling might shield any further sounds that would allow them to pinpoint the Captain’s location or, worse, draw additional Senturi forces in their direction if they weren’t already inbound.
No sooner had Ashley’s breath expired from the howl, then the branch holding her down by the diaphragm pushed harder, almost as though the being controlling was consciously trying to keep its prey from emitting any more calls for help. Despite her strength and personal willpower fading, Ashley did everything she could to stay conscious, even twisting her wrists against the outermost branches as though trying to punch her way out even though she knew that would be futile. And despite her legs being held down as well, Ashley’s heels continued to kick and slip against the material to indicate to her captor that she wouldn’t go down without a fight. Off to her left, Laney’s own screaming and struggling had died down to the point that she was barely moving, and the realization that such a fate awaited her prompted Ashley to keep fighting despite it being clear she would lose in a matter of seconds.
Just then, the wall near Laney began to glow strangely yellow, then turn to orange, and it started leaking vapors and smoke as though disintegrating. As Ashley’s own strength started to fade out, she saw an energy blade breach the wall and carve a rough path through the material before it burst inward and Richard stumbled inside from an earlier shoulder ram. Not even bothering to check his surroundings, Richard took up his rifle and immediately locked onto the branch-like structure that held the Captain down, charging at it like a ram whilst hammering it with a volley of rounds.
The impact of sharp hot lasers breaching its outer tissue caused the branch structure to retract some of its tendrils from Ashley, but those that were more deeply connected started transmitting its nerve signals into the Captain, causing her to let out another cry of pain as some of the Senturi fluids began to dribble onto her already greasy face. Although he was now clearly aware of the risk his current offensive action posed to Ashley, Richard was not about to withdraw and let the monstrosity resume its work. So he changed tactics on the spot and rammed his other shoulder into the structure, following that with repeated baseball swings with his rifle’s butt that eventually forced the creature to fully detach from Ashley, who let out a brief moan before collapsing on her back as she slowly tried to regain her energy.
The branch that had been holding down Laney had detached itself and tried to counter Richard from behind, but it was outflanked by Jack as the Sergeant opened fire with his donated Guardian. After redirecting his aim by a few inches, Jack managed to eventually drill through a section of the biological arm such that it was abruptly severed from the rest of the structure, fell off with a light crash, and ceased moving. At the same time, Richard used whatever was left in his standard clip to force back his branched-out opponent and finally strike it somewhere vital, causing it to jerk back, twitch, and then fall to the ground, apparently deceased.
With the threat eliminated, Richard turned to Ashley, who had just regained a portion of her personal strength. The combination of stasis fluid, filthy biological substances, and Senturi secretions now covered Ashley from head to toe in a black oil-like mud: splattered across her face, drenching her hair, and making it almost impossible for the Captain to keep her hands and feet firmly in place. As though to prove this, Ashley started struggling and slipping back as she tried to either stand up or back away from Richard like a terrified animal.
Poor thing, Richard thought to himself, honestly the first time he’d ever thought of Ashley in such a way as he watched the strong-willed, reflexive young woman tremble and exhale with frightened puffs as her senses came back to full use. Richard then reattached his rifle to his back and gently touched Ashley’s wrist, which she quickly withdrew a few inches as though she had just felt something icy cold or sizzling hot but then settled down as Richard held it more gently. Advancing a little closer, Richard reached out and, ever so softly, wiped away the grotesque culmination of fluid splattered on the Captain’s eyes, giving her the chance to slowly blink and open them a little wider while readjusting to the lighting.
“Hey,” Richard asked, looking the Captain in the eye empathically. “You okay, Ashley?”
Ashley then raised a hand, backed it up a bit, and then gently passed it over Richard’s face, transmitting some of the messy substance to the short beard on his face as she tried to playfully slap him or gently feel his skin but lacked sufficient strength to put much force into the movement of her arm.
“Dammit, Richard,” Ashley replied with a weak but relieved smile and a soft voice, “I’m still a Captain, and you address me as such. I might be weakened physically,” she brought a leg up next to Richard's hip and bent it at the knee as she set her boot down with a light splat and managed to keep it from slipping out again, “but I’ll still kick you where it hurts if you need a reminder on how to address me in the field.”
“Feisty,” Richard retorted with a breath of laughter and his own smile. He then gently grabbed Ashley’s raised arm and began to slowly pull the Captain to her feet. Shortly, Ashley came unstuck from the messy floor with an even louder and more prolonged squelching sound, and the First Sergeant helped the Captain regain her balance. “And you just had to go and become the damsel in distress? I thought you were made of tougher stuff, Captain.”
Ashley struggled to find some colorful trash talk to playfully retaliate with as she once again planted her feet more securely in the mess of the floor. However, her mind felt like a dark void, so the best she could come up with as far as a reply was simply, “Thank you, Richard.”
[Missing transition scene...]
Even before her tracker started going off, Ashley could tell by the slithering and screeching sounds that they were about to have company.
“How much of a charge do you have left in that rifle, First Sergeant?” Ashley asked, noticing the XT-5 still attached to Richard’s back.
“30, maybe 40 percent,” Richard replied. “You need it?”
“30 percent works for me,” Ashley replied, unclipping it from his back and pulling on the lock handle before taking the weapon to her shoulder and opening fire.
Though she did her best to concentrate her bursts to avoid running out too quickly, Ashley had a lot of ground to cover as multiple tentacle appendages and some Warrior forms came from different corners, desperate to defend the most critical part of their ship. At one point, one of the worm-like tentacles tried to restrain Ashley by the ankle, but the Captain was quick to step back before bringing her boot down in a harsh, full-footed stomp to prevent her slimy adversary from attempting a second grab.
Richard, meanwhile, had just about finished priming the final explosive charge when he heard a high pitched snarl above him. Looking up, he locked eyes with a Quadruped that jumped at him with a snarl. Knowing that a direct tackle by one of the creatures would either get him mauled up or killed, Richard dove to the side, but wasn’t fast enough to counter as the creature charged him with another leap. With a quick sweep of its claw, the Quadruped drew some nasty dark red cuts in Richard’s lower right waist area, causing him to struggle back with an agonized cry and clutch the wound. Several lasers from Ashley’s borrowed rifle then peppered the creature’s back, mortally wounding it before Richard drew his sidearm and finished it off with a single shot.
“I’m fine, Ashley,” Richard insisted when the Captain came to check up on him.
“The hell you are,” Ashley denied with a salty voice and an undressed face.
Reaching into the pocket of her lower uniform, Ashley found a spare biosynth patch that didn’t appear to have been contaminated by the stasis fluid. Ripping the adhesive protection layer off, Ashley slapped it to Richard’s wounded waist area, causing him to release a puffed out grunt and another painfully angry cry as he bent over and clutched the area again.
“Next time, give me some warning before you do that,” Richard sputtered through gritted teeth with some residual agony, to which Ashley replied casually, “You’re welcome.”
With the last charge primed and ready, the two senior operatives rushed back out of the catacomb and towards the hangar.