The Border (Finish The Story Entry)

Opening by @marcoriccardi

In the scant shadow of the guardhouse, a greenhorn Border Legionnaire was waiting for the end of his first watch shift, gasping for the heat.

Below him, there was the stretch of sandy desert that the XIX Floating Fortress patrolled incessantly, moving back and forth in the sky like a surreal and phlegmatic cetacean, with the low and incessant buzz of the managems that powered it.

Behind the line of Fortresses, the Lands of Man ideally began. In that marginal strip, there were meager pastures and stretches of scrubby bushes, attacked for miles and miles by a fine sand, like yellowish talcum powder, that made the desert gain extension every year.

"This year the wind has put so much sand down," the marshal told him, biting a gray mustache, one of the last days before the Duty Beginning ceremony. "And behind the sand, the Those arrive".

He was glad he no longer had just a stunner to defend him from the Those, like the guardians of the border in former times, before the Legions. Once, it was thought to direct the Those into reserves to prevent them from doing too much damage with their insatiable hunger, but then they started to run away, to strip the flesh off every head of cattle, to waste fields and orchards, to devour even the people... and more and more came from the desert.

He had been among the first in his leverage class in combat and shooting exercises, but in his heart he was afraid of when he would found himself in front of a real That, and not an illusory image created by the trainers. It took him months to get used to the slouching and snappy movements of those lean and black illusions, all teeth, which he found horrifying.

During that first day of service, however, only an armored convoy had passed, transporting ordered and dull clusters of goleminers to the mysterious and vital mines of managems, on the other side of the desert. The Those did not find goleminers edible, luckily.

The Horn of Danger snatched him cruelly from his thoughts. Intruders in the fortress! How did they get in? How did they pass under our noses?

He grabbed the heavy terminator and ran down the spiral staircase, toward his team's collection point, his heart in his throat.

A scraping noise from a corridor to his right made him stop. Pointing the terminator in the dark, with a trembling grip, he shouted "Who goes there?!?"

The Those came out, completely different from the illusions of the trainers…

My Ending

Their huge lumbering forms filled the twisted corridor, shadows of their many jaws danced before them; the snapping proboscis of the damned.

The hot air sat heavy with a thick rotten stench. Nothing could have prepared him for the choking smell.

A That lurched forwards towards him, the rancid odour hit him in waves of warm eye-peeling breath. He staggered backward, grappling for the terminator slung over his back. The huge barrel was not easy to aim, he had trained to be able to carry the hefty weapon, but controlling the kick back was something else.

The rubber butt slammed hard into his chest with each glowing red slug. The That before him, contorted, coming apart as though liquid to allow the slugs to pass through.

He needed to adjust the distance.

It was so much easier to judge in the simulations. He frantically twisted the massive dial, clicking to shorten the range. Those thronged in the narrow space, crushing towards him.

He leant back, bracing for the rebound when a red shot whizzed past his face, singeing the fine hairs of his cheek. The That twisted; splitting to allow the projectile to pass through. The glow intensified, flashing bright red light into the opening, forcing the abomination in two. The two halves of the That melted to the floor, bubbling to reform into two smaller versions. It wasn’t over yet.

Two splits. That what it took to kill just one That, two splits, seven hits.

He opened fire on the forming halves, pelting them with the bullets, sending shockwaves of light blasting through the tunnel. The glow glanced off the writhing multitude of Those, more than he had ever trained with.

How did so many get in undetected? Where did they come from?

He barely had time to process the pondering before the second split started taking form, four halfsized Those bubbled up from the sticky black remains, darted between the advancing horde.

He ventured a glance behind him, two other Legionaries from the team he had trained with. Panic held their eyes wide as he tried to gesture to fall back.

They had to retreat to the stairs, where the advance could be held off.

Neither guard responded, one held a heavy terminator, the other a shock splitter. In the right position, the three of them should be able to hold the line.

He stepped back, continuing to fire, until he reached the other two.

“We have to fall back, get to the top of the stairs.”

He didn’t wait to see their nodded replies.

They maintained arrow formation as they backed towards the staircase; the narrow curve, the angle of fire, it would give them the advantage they would need.

He swallowed a nagging feeling, it was a four man team, someone hadn’t made it to the collection point. Adia, out there. Alone with the horde.

His heel hit hard into the bottom stair.

---

They held the line at the top of the stairs, they were short a shock splitter, but each man refused to give an inch, hammering glowing shot after glowing shot, into the abominable abyss. The carved stone walls illuminated with each burst, rippling red light in waves of shadowed teeth.

Twenty long minutes, they fired their energy blasts into the smothering swell of snapping jaws. Twenty long minutes, and the Horn sounded again. Trained, veteran Legionaries poured out of the hallway, reinforcing their line.

A firm hand slapped him on the back, knocking the wind out of him.

“Welcome to the border”

Well I almost made the suggested word count on this one, 590, this may be the closest I have managed in a long time! Not very pleased with this one, but giving it a go is all good practise.

This is my entry to Finish The Story hosted by @f3nix which is now held over on the @bananafish page - so make sure to give it a follow!

The first part of this story has been written by @marcoriccardi

Photo Credit by Pixabay User Dife88 who has over 150 images, including animals, still life, close ups, scenery, all taken with great skill, and give away with a generous heart!