Soda Pop Soldier. Nick Cole

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      “I think ‘hairy’ might be an understatement, Question,” whispers AwesomeSauce.

      “Yeah … we’re, like, done,” adds Drake. “I got sixty rounds left and …”

      “Call in that vehicle now, Drake. Do it! Select the APC!” I shout over the chat. Meanwhile I’m dialing in my last streak. I set the spinning red target hologram on the door the aliens are about to come through.

      “Ready, everyone … you know the drill. Conserve your ammo. Check your targets. Everyone stay frosty and we’ll get through this,” says Apone over the metallic pounding and concussive thuds. The door is coming apart.

      “Escort Gunship, inbound,” announces the game.

      “Heads down, everyone!” I yell over the chat.

      The aliens are crawling through, tails whipping, teeth gnashing, claws reaching, opening and closing. Drake begins to fire.

      I turn to see the dropship lowering beneath storm-leaden clouds and the darkness outside, swiveling as it hovers beyond the large windows. Guns extend, centering on the spinning red targeting reticle I’ve placed over the door the aliens are coming through.

      “Get down!”

      The dropship’s 30 mm cannons whir to life, smashing the explosive-resistant window to shards, sending a hazy stream of ball ammunition right into the splitting door. Aliens explode, ejecting yellow acid and greenish guts everywhere.

      “Drake, call that APC in now!”

      “Done.”

      The spinning guns of the gunship wind down for a moment, waiting for a new batch of targets.

      I shout, “Move now! Everyone through the window and out to the APC.” Aliens are still climbing through the Swiss-cheesed metal opening that was the door to Medical. The guns of the Albatross spool up again as AwesomeSauce and Crowe clear the smashed window. More aliens explode. Even more are coming through.

      “Something’s got me!” shrieks Drake over the chat. I look over to see an alien coming through the floor. I fire a short burst into the dark hole beneath his feet and the thing explodes down there in the dark. Drake’s avatar screams. Nice touch, WarWorld.

      “I’m down to 25 percent,” notes Drake over the chat.

      The whining death pitch of the dropship’s guns recedes.

      “C’mon, we are leaving, Marines!” says Apone.

      It’s a small fall out through the shards of the window and into the mud and rain. I take 2 percent damage. Rain falls across my HUD as my avatar gets to his feet. Ahead of me the others are already scrambling toward the APC. It’s an identical version of the APC used in the Drive-by streak earlier. Above us the hovering dropship swivels, its chain guns dispensing a blurring barrage of death in a wide arc at multiple closing targets all around us. Over in-game ambient sound, I can hear the dying screeches of the prehistoric-like aliens mixed with the howling wind and splashing rain.

      An alien comes charging and thrashing out of the dark, tackling Drake’s limping avatar. The other marines and AwesomeSauce are firing at a swarm of aliens trying to cut them off from reaching the APC. I close with the one on top of Drake and execute the hand-to-hand kill option by clicking both mouse buttons at once. I can’t chance shooting the thing, it’s all over Drake. A quick cut-scene plays out as my avatar reaches one hand out and grabs the thrashing head of the alien. My long-barrel .45 comes into frame against the skull of the alien and fires, putting a hot bullet through the elongated skull. Its jaws snap shut, then open, going slack in death.

      I get Drake up and we’re moving. We barely make the red emergency-lit interior of the APC as the vehicle’s autoturret fires madly at the swarming aliens. The dropship above us turns, engaging multiple unseen targets. Like I said, we barely make it.

      We’re moving fast over dark terrain. AwesomeSauce is driving. I check the CommandPad and mark the location of the distant atmosphere processor.

      “ETA in five,” she shouts over the chat and the rumbling drone of the APC.

      “You think there’ll be more of those things out there?” I ask Apone.

      “Can’t say, sir. Can’t say that at all. But my guess is that most of the aliens are probably based around Hadley’s Hope. The only thing we’re for sure guaranteed to find at the atmo’ processor is the queen.”

      The queen is probably what we need to defeat to gain the tech option.

      Dietrich’s running the Medic perk so we get our health back. The APC also contains a full-reload supply point. We can’t swap out our weapons, but we’re totally rearmed. Magazines and ’nades.

      The APC pulls up in front of the massive sloping pyramid that is the atmosphere processor. Outside it looks like we’ve traveled to another world. The jungle and the mountains are gone. Here, there is only twisted rock and fast-shifting clouds of purple blue and shadows that almost seem to streak across the low sky. Small red and white lights twinkle and blink from the superstructure of the plant, signaling in the gloom of the storm.

      “In there,” says Apone over the chat. “ ’bout nine levels down we should find the nest … and the queen.”

      We move in. Tactical formation.

      The place is crawling with aliens.

      The marines seem to know where the access stairs leading down are.

      “We’ve run this mod on our own, several times. ’Cept this is way better,” says Drake calmly over the chat as he cuts down three warriors with a burst from his auto rifle.

      At level five, strange growths, almost like the bone structure of some ancient dinosaur, cover the tight passages and narrow descents. At level six, things move from intense to insane, as aliens start crawling along the walls and ceilings, leaping in at us. But we stay tight and figure the shifting AI out. In time we’re working as a team, cutting them down as they come at us in sporadic waves. We’re calling out targets, burning through ammo just to keep them back. At level eight we find nothing. Just a wan red light and darkness covering the entire empty level.

      “We made it,” says AwesomeSauce. I don’t hear the bubble gum.

      “Yeah … ,” says Drake, his voice high pitched and triumphant. He’s cruising on a cocktail of success and gunfire. “Sometimes things turn out way different than you thought they would. In the movie we all …”

      “Sulaco Uplink, established,” interrupts the game announcer abruptly. “Orbital Strike, imminent.”

      “ … died,” finishes a much subdued Drake. Then, “Man, Orbital Strike’s like game over for all of us. Both sides.”

      So that’s what that was, I think, remembering the intel point back on the first map.

      RangerSix told me that if I couldn’t get the tech, then I was to make sure WonderSoft didn’t get it either. I guess the WonderSoft commander had the same orders.

      “One minute to Orbital Strike,” says the gravel-voiced game announcer.

      “Those СКАЧАТЬ