[u][b]Cincinnati - Breaking of The Dam[/b][/u]


It took a moment for Braxton to realize where he was: lying flat on his back on the ground staring up at a rapidly darkening sky. His T-45 power armor was covered with a thick layer of dirt and debris, and all around him smoke blurred his vision. He looked down to see that, thankfully he had not lost any limbs, but his power armor had certainly taken a beating. 

With a grunt he lifted himself up out of the small crater in which he had landed, the damaged servo-motors on his legs barking in protest as they strained to move his armored form. Suddenly he saw someone materialize in the smoke, a female soldier in combat armor ran up to him shouting desperately, clutching at a bleeding wound in her side. 

He realized couldn’t hear her, why couldn’t he hear her?

“[i]....axton…[/i]” He suddenly heard, the deafening ringing in his ears slowly subsiding and allowing him to hear bits of what she was shouting.

“Knight-Commander we need to move!” She screeched as his hearing came crashing back all at once. Suddenly he was cognizant of a hundred different sounds around him: screams of the dead and dying, the unearthly shrieking of those damned ferals, and other inhuman sounds that made his skin crawl. Artillery batteries in the distance continued their relentless pounding, followed by explosions that were far too close to mean anything other than their position was completely lost. 

A muscled green mutant hound ran in from somewhere behind them, bellowing a bestial howl before tackling the soldier. The woman screamed as the hound bared its teeth preparing to rip out her throat, until Braxton raised a power-armored fist and smashed the thing's head; knocking the creature completely off her and sending it whimpering in a bloodied heap to the side. 

“Fall back! Fall back to the inner line!” Braxton yelled out over the din. It was a completely pointless command, and he knew it. Anyone that could still hear him and act on it was already running; yet he felt the need to take some measure of control of the situation even if it was hollow. 

Braxton reached out his hand and pulled the fallen soldier up to her feet, and together they started running. Sprinting over broken terrain, shattered defensive barriers, and the dead bodies of fallen comrades and Unity creatures alike. 

“Forward Command this is Knight-Commander Braxton,” Braxton huffed, speaking quickly into his helmet radio as he sprinted, “Gamma Quadrant is overrun we’re falling back to secondary positions. Do you copy? Over.”

Silence. He heard nothing. 

“Command, do you copy? Over,” Braxton asked again, this time more frantic.

“..THEY’RE EVERYWHERE!” came a terrified shout in reply from within his helmet com. Braxton immediately stopped and turned to look over towards the forward command bunker, which was about half a mile west of his position. His blood froze in his veins as he saw that there were now things swarming over it like a colony of ants. Fleshly, malformed, and multi-limbed FEV abominations of great size roared in animalistic delight as they tossed aside officers and soldiers like ragdolls, and pried open damaged pieces of power armor to feast on the bloodied meat within. 

Braxton kept running, hoping against hope that the secondary line would somehow hold.