Soul Hunt

Desperate Men

Sergent Kelly half slumped in front of the computer terminal that he had spent the last hour behind. There was a mug of coffee in one hand a cigarette in the other. Behind him, several men who were "off duty" sprawled againsed the wall and shared the same two luxurys.

Kelly knew that that the men couldnt really be spared when things were this bad be he also knew what mental fatiuge could do to a man. He had had all the men write down their names and was, every 20 minutes or so calling out the names of four or five men to take the place of the current resting group. This meant that each man had 20 minutes break every two hours or so, even so, the stress was starting to tell.

Sergent Kelly was waiting for someone to survive, he was waiting for someone to survive and contact him. He began watching the clock on the computer screen. The minutes snailed by. Kelly called out the name of the next five men before sending the off-duty group to take their places.

The other end of the connection to the computer he was sitting at was activated while he was handing out ciggarettes. So it was one of the soldiers cry of "Jesus Christ!" that alerted him to the strange foursome behind him.

Kelly stared at the screen, on the screen, three men and...something else, stared back.

The man at the back of the group was obviusly a soldier, his armour and gun as well as his alert stance showed this clearly enough. The two men in front of were holding guns but were obviusly civilians, one was wearing an engineers full body zip-up, the other a standard lab-coat. Both were clutching pistols as if their lives depended in it. They probably did.

But it was the forth member of the group that grabbed Kellys atention, and that of the men behind him. Whatever it was, it had obviusly raided the body of some unfortunate marine, as it was wearing garments much like those of the first man, although it had no armour.

If Kelly had stopped to think of a word that summed up the strange beings apearence, he would have probably have picked "cerebral".

The first thing he saw when he looked at it, was its eyes, no human would ever have eyes that big, they were vivid blue from edge to edge. The rest of the creatures face depicted a delicate bone strucure underneath flawless, pale lilac skin. Its baldness alowed Kelly to see that its ears were pointed.

"What the hell is that?" Kelly heard someone behind him say.

"Quiet!" He snapped, the creature was talking.

"-reporting as ordered Sir, incase you are wondering as to my apearence Sir, I am a dead marine, awaiting your orders"

Sargent Kelly goggled, he quickly raised his hand and manualy shut his gaping mouth.

"Marine, I cant belive your...still here. Bravo team have moved on, the fastest way to get to them is to go through the alpha labs. I can see youv got a team together yourself, take them and meet up with bravo team. Once youv met up with them your mission will be to send a distress signal to the rest of the fleet"

"Yes sir!" Chorused the creature and the marine. The others just stood and shuffled awkwardly. Feeling that there was no more to be said, Kelly ended the transmition.

"Sarge" Kelly looked round.

"Yes, private?"

"Will we go like him, like the dead guy, I mean, when we die?"

Kelly considerd.

"I dont think that was a marine, private"

The man turned to his comrads

"I dont know about you guys, but I shure hope we get one of those on our side"

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In another part of the UAC, Betruger hit the button to stop recording. Imaptently he acessed the file and brought up a frozen image of the four beings he had recently been watching in time with Kelly. He hit some buttons then used a mouse to select the area around the dead man and zoom in on him.

Beaucause of the advanced technology of the facilitys cameras, images were taken and recorded in a higher pixel capacity than actualy shown on screen. The enhanced image of the dead marine came up just as clearly as the previus image had been.

Betruger caressed the images delicate cheek with one gnarled digit, the pale being was...intruiging, to say the leist. He examined the huge saphire eyes carefuly, noted the milky, lilac tinged skin as well as the pleasingly defined muscles underneith.

Beautiful.

Betruger paced the room in agitation. What was this creature, were had it come from, it had claimed to be a dead marine, was it some sort of spirit?

Deciding that finding out was worth admitting his ignorance, Betruger summoned the hellnight that had acted as his bodyguard earlier. The demon entered soon after, Betruger couldnt tell just what the beastly humanoids features were portraying but he could sence anoyance from it coming in his general direction.

"You called, Master?" It rumbled.

"Indeed" Betruger indicated to the screen "Could you tell me what that is?"

The beast stalked over to the screen and leaned close, scrutinizing the image in much the same way Betruger had. A low hiss escaped the demons throat as it ran several claws simultainiusly down the pixelated features.

"This is a moving image?" The demon inquired.

"A recording, yes" Said Betruger coming to the hulking creatures side and setting the recording into motion.

The pale creatures sexless voice once again filled the room, as if in responce to the sound, the hellknight became motionless. From time to time, it would tilt its head from one side to the other, then finialy, when the recording ended, it gave a disapointed snarl.

"This man" It rumbled "Is indeed dead, he is what is known as a sentinent soul, they are very rare"

Betruger frowned "I had thought that the average soul is a ball of emotions, memories, thoughts and exetera"

"They are, but depending where the seat of intellegence is, a soul may take on a form that remembers the physical form it was previusly part of. There are three possible seats of intellegence in human beings, the heart, the brain and the soul, it is when the mind is seated in the soul that it will take on a manifestation of its physical container"

Betruger was silent for a time after the rumbling voice had finished. The hellknight seemed too busy examining the screen to notice the lack of responce.

"I want it" He decided.

"You want it caught and braught to you?"

"Yes, unharmed though, if what you say is true then this is a rare scientific specimen"

The hellknight smirked, although Betruger couldnt know that. The hellknight knew that Betruger would not be the only one to want the Sentinent, it was shure that the Cyber Lord would have some demands to make before the day was out.

The beastly humanoid stalked towards the door, deep in thought.

"I will arange it Master, it may take some time, the few sentinent souls we have ever obtained have nether been caught without considerable loss of demonic life"

The door clanked shut before Betruger could reply.

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Senator Eliot Swan leaned back from the terminal that he had been obseving the veiws of varius cameras from. He turned to Campbell kneeling beside him.

"So it looks like our spy defied death"

Campbell grinned "See, I told you he was tough"

They had been watching the marines progress since he had entered the base, Campbell had been trying to establish a private connection with the mans headset before the explosion, or whatever it was, had ocured. Now he watched from varius veiwpoints as the dead marine lead his rag-tag band of men agained the creatures with suprising success.

"Their heading this way Senator, should we meet up with them?"

Swan considered, the marine and his troup would doubtless be valuable alies. On the other hand though, the marine would need to suply a reason why he would abandon his current mission and the truth, that he was a sky for the UAC board, would most likley distablize the marines group.

He turned back to the screen, the marine and his group had found a sentry bot, as far as he could see the two civilians were currently bending over it. Swan asumed that they were reprograming it to acompany them as extra fire-power.

"If we wanted only the marine with us, yes, as it is he may gather a sizable force about him"

Campbell nodded.

"And if we wereto join that force and drop a few...indications..."

"Yes that would be best" Said Swan, rising from his seat.

"Now, I need to have a small talk with Betruger"

The large marine took Swans place in the seat and began to manipulate the terminal.

"Im on it"

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