A week had passed, and the creature had started to move of its own volition. It had come to them injured and bleeding, though it was not initially detected. Only after reading the background information on the specimen did they learn it had been involved in a heavy firefight as the Frontiersmen attempted to regain the Desha, a military vessel used mainly for advanced scouting and reconnaissance. The creature had received several bullets after dropping from above a doorway onto the point-man. The report stated that one of the bullets also penetrated the marine's skull, killing him instantly and perhaps saving him from a terribly painful death. The alien lay wounded and dieing on the floor. It began to make a loud noise, something of a cross between a moan and a scream, as the marines put it. Rather than let it alert others to their presence, or give off more noise with a gun blast, one marine smacked it with the butt of his rifle. It didn't kill the thing, but only knocked him unconscious, as they soon realized, and one marine had the bright idea of bringing it back to the dropship, which is just what they did. |
