The perimeter of Hell's Gate was loud even before the shooting started.
Engines roared as AMP suits lumbered forward from the open rear ramp of the Valkyrie, hydraulic limbs hissing. At the same time, containers of prefabricated structures and mining equipment were lowered onto cleared ground. Floodlights cast hard, white beams across the churned soil, where the forest had already been burned back; the tree line stood like a dark wall beyond the cleared zone.
Colonel Miles Quaritch moved at the front of the patrol, helmet sealed, bullpup rifle held low but ready. His steps were steady, measured. He had walked dozens of hostile environments across multiple continents, and yet Pandora already ranked high on his list of places he didn't trust.
Behind him, Lyle Wainfleet adjusted the strap on his rifle and scanned the forest edge. "Feels quiet," he muttered.
Quaritch didn't answer immediately. He slowed instead, raising a clenched fist.
The squad halted.
The forest beyond the perimeter looked still, but not empty. Leaves shifted without wind. Shadows sat too deep between the roots. The soundscape felt wrong, as if something had pulled the cable on the jungle.
Quaritch lifted his hand and cracked the seal on his mask just long enough to draw a breath of unfiltered air.
The smell hit him instantly. Damp earth. Resin. Something sharp underneath it.
He resealed the mask with a sharp hiss.
"Contact! 230", he said calmly over comms. "Weapons up."
The Marines reacted instantly. Rifles came up in a smooth, trained motion. AMP suits pivoted, targeting sensors glowing faintly as they tracked movement near the treeline.
A low sound rolled through the forest.
Not loud. Not distant.
Close.
Quaritch drew his pistol and fired three shots into the undergrowth without hesitation. The muzzle flash lit the roots of a massive tree, bark splintering as rounds tore through it.
For half a second, nothing happened.
Then the forest moved.
Eyes ignited in the dark. Dozens. Then hundreds.
The viperwolves burst from cover as one.
They came low and fast, bodies stretched into killing lines, claws tearing through soil and root alike. Their movement was coordinated, almost surgical, each pack member weaving around the others without collision.
"CONTACT! CONTACT!" Lyle shouted.
The perimeter exploded into gunfire.
Bullpup rifles and M60 machine guns hammered, rounds stitching through the oncoming mass. Automated turrets deployed from the dropped containers snapped upright and opened fire, their barrels glowing as they poured suppression into the swarm.
AMP suits stepped forward, abandoning the cargo entirely. Both arms rapidly picked their GAU-90s as the 30mm bullets, pierced and vaporised three viperwolves mid-leap.
And yet the viperwolves continued showing no signs of slowing.
The wolves hit the kill zone and kept coming.
Quaritch fired steadily, controlled bursts, tracking targets with cold precision. Wolves fell, bodies tumbling over one another, but for every one that dropped, two more took their place.
"Fall back to the inner line!" Quaritch ordered.
The Marines began to retreat in formation, boots sliding on churned mud as they maintained fire. The turrets rotated, tracking, chewing through ammunition at a brutal rate.
A viperwolf leapt from the side, jaws snapping inches from Lyle's face before he dropped it with a point-blank burst.
"They're flanking!" someone yelled.
Quaritch pivoted to adjust his position.
That was when the root exploded.
A viperwolf erupted from beneath a massive tree root, launching upward with terrifying speed. Its claws raked across Quaritch's right side before he could react.
The impact was violent.
The mask shattered, seals ripping away as the creature's claws tore across his cheek and temple. Blood sprayed as Quaritch was thrown backwards onto the mud.
The wolf landed on him, snarling.
Lyle reacted instantly.
He fired twice.
The viperwolf collapsed mid-snarl, its weight slumping off Quaritch as its skull burst apart.
"Colonel!" Lyle shouted, dragging him back.
Quaritch's face was slick with blood, one eye already swelling shut. He coughed, gasping as Pandora's air burned his lungs.
Lyle slammed a spare mask into place and sealed it with shaking hands.
The base sirens screamed. As Quaritch felt his body burning from the very air itself.
AMP suits advanced another step, hydraulic feet crushing bodies beneath them. One suit seized a lunging wolf mid-air and slammed it into the ground with enough force to crack the earth.
Quaritch staggered to his feet, his wasp hand gun back in hand despite the blood running down his neck. His vision was blurred on the right side, but his stance stayed solid.
"Keep firing," he growled. "Do not let them through."
A wolf slipped past the turret fire and slammed into a marine, dragging him down, screaming. Two more followed, tearing him apart in seconds before gunfire shredded them.
The Marines tightened their formation, fear creeping in despite training.
"These aren't animals," someone muttered.
Quaritch heard it.
"They are!" he snapped. "Shoot'em, and they'll die like any other Animal!"
Another wave surged forward.
This one was bigger.
The forest itself seemed to push them out, bodies pouring from between trees, over roots, down embankments. The sound was overwhelming now - snarls, gunfire, metal screaming under impact.
Lyle took a position beside Quaritch, firing in controlled bursts. "They're testing us," he said through gritted teeth. "Like probing before the actual assault."
Quaritch didn't disagree.
A viperwolf leapt onto an AMP suit's shoulder, claws digging into exposed cabling. The suit staggered, alarms blaring, before the pilot crushed the creature against the suit's chest plate.
Another suit went down when eight wolves struck at once, tearing through hydraulic lines. It collapsed hard, crushing two wolves beneath it.
The turrets began clicking empty.
"Reloading!" a tech shouted.
The wolves surged again.
Quaritch stepped forward into the line of fire, ignoring the pain screaming through his face. He fired until his wasp handgun overheated.
The compound's basic inner gate slammed shut behind the firing line, sealing the equipment and personnel inside. Floodlights intensified, turning night into harsh daylight.
The viperwolves hesitated. Their advantage of darkness was disappearing as the light of the compounds LED's beamed onto them.
Just for a second.
A low, rolling call echoed through the trees.
The wolves stopped.
Quaritch, seeing this action from the wolves, shouted through the coms. "Kill'em all!"
The human firepower doubled as more M60's and AMP suits began unloading their full inventory of ammunition without worry as swarms of vieprwolves fell as they retreated to the forest line.
The firefight continued for at least two hours before medics and a clean-up crew began scavenging the dead and injured.
Quaritch sat on an armour box as a medic applied a nano-sealing pad across Quartich's face whilst another used a damp towel to clean the blood from the colonel's body.
Lyle stood just beside the three as he heard rapid footsteps coming from being. Turning, he saw Parker in a shirt and jeans marching towards them. "Heads up." Lyle got out as Quaritch turned to see Parker.
"Quaritch! What the hell was that?" Parker yelled through his mask as Quaritch signalled for the medics to leave.
"That was an attack, Parker. Thanks really for closing the gate by the way." Quaritch said as his right eye still swelled, even with the pad pulling blood and restoring the tissues.
Lyle looked at Parker fully as the short businessman looked to explode as his face turned bright red.
"Quaritch... Your mission is to protect this place, not go out on some 'walk' and nearly get killed, but more importantly. Look at the AMP suits! Do you know how much this 'defence' has cost?"
Quaritch looked at Parker before sighing internally as he fully rose, dwarfing the little businessman.
"I didn't travel 4.4 light-years so end up on this rock just for you to talk about equipment loss. I lost good men and women today defending your little arse who hid behind those walls!" Quaritch roared at Parker whilst pointing at the compound's iron walls.
Parker seemed to realise he might have over-reached as he looked around to see many marines and mercenaries looking at him.
With a gulp, Parker looked at Quaritch before saying in a low voice. "Quaritch, you may be colonel, but I'm still the designated Head of this mining camp."
Quaritch, seeing that this has reached a dead end, simply said "ok" before turning with Lyle following just behind as the marines and mercenaries returned to cataloguing the dead.
(Hope you enjoyed :) )