The Eternal Winter - Book 1 - Chapter 39 - Status of the Hangar

                                                            The top of the staircase to the Hangar

The lieutenant colonel stands to one side of the door-less frame leading into the hangar while the two majors stand on the other side of it and over half of the soldiers from the bunker crowd around the stairs with swords in hand, leaving only the bare minimum number of soldiers back at the bunker to look over the injured.

Artorius raises his hand before peeking his head out of the doorway and then waving it while rushing out into the hangar command center, following which the majors immediately join him, and then the captains all follow after that with the symbiontless soldiers coming shortly after them. But what greets them all sends a wave of shock through every last one of them, starting with the major who is the first one to see the enormous tunnel dug straight through the wall of the hangar and into the earth outside of it. And more particularly, the large eggs filling the tunnel, along with the strange glowing blue worms crawling through it, each spanning over a foot in length.

“The large one must be reproducing,” major Vaugns quietly states while kneeling down close to the windowpane overlooking the hangar, which is now void of any aircraft.

The lieutenant colonel nods his head in agreement before focusing on the nearly barren hangar below them. There isn’t a single monster in sight outside of the worms in the tunnel, nor are there any humans or even corpses lying around.

‘Looks like the large one cleaned up before it left,’ Artorius thinks, only for his attention to be drawn by the quiet sounds of footsteps entering the hangar. Footsteps belonging to one of the monsters coined a wraith by Alexander.

Artorius raises his hand to stop any of the soldiers from speaking or making any sounds at all as all of the captains had already arrived next to them at the windowpane and can clearly see the creature. He then just sits by and watches it as it moves through the hangar.

Several seconds pass in silence before anything happens. To the point that some of the soldiers behind the higher ranking officers begin to show signs of confusion. But out of nowhere, a loud crashing noise echoes through the hangar, followed by the sight of a swarm of worms rushing out of the tunnel seemingly in a tide of glowing blue light before swallowing up the wraith and heading straight back for the tunnel again.

The silence then returns after each of the worms finish reentering the tunnel.

None of the higher ranking officers say anything for nearly ten whole seconds before the lieutenant colonel says, “Let’s retreat for now. We’ll need to come up with a way to deal with those wor-”

The man is interrupted by an incredibly loud roar echoing throughout the entire floor, startling everyone in the process. Then, immediately after the roar, a loud screech echoes through the tunnel, followed by another wave of worms rushing out of it. But this time, the enormous worm joins them at the end of the wave.

“Get down,” the lieutenant colonel hisses while lowering himself to lie on the ground, to which the captains and other soldiers all immediately copy right before another loud roar echoes through the floor, then a crashing sound along with it as a creature breaks straight through the massive wall of the hangar from a different hangar on the floor.

All of the higher ranking officers at the windowpanes can’t help but gape at the large, nearly three-meter-tall frozen one. It has radiantly glowing blue eyes, with no black in sight, along with lines of blue energy running down its face, which is the only visible skin showing on the monster not covered by its damaged armor whose visor is not down.

Armor usually worn by captains in the Empire’s military.

But what attracts the officer’s eyes the most is the strange mass of vine-like tentacles attached to an even stranger living creature seemingly made partially out of metal and partially out of biological matter bonded to the frozen one’s chest, sticking out of its armor.

“Captain Hark Bolter…” one of the captains in the hangar command center murmurs after catching sight of the insignia on the frozen one’s shoulder. “Is that what happens when a symbiont host is infected…?”

The lieutenant colonel glares at the man and makes a hand motion for him to shut up before focusing on the new frozen one.

Unlike many of the other frozen ones they have met, this one has a calm air about it. Until it sees the large worm and its eyes immediately narrow on the large worm’s three sources of energy glowing from its body.

Right after the walls and ceiling of the hangar had stopped shaking due to the infected symbiont host’s abrupt entrance, they begin shaking again as the frozen one lets out a loud roar and the calm air it was giving off vanishes in an instant before it rushes straight towards the large worm, ignoring all of the smaller ones in the way and crushing them like insects.

“Retreat,” the lieutenant colonel mutters, only to slowly begin backing up and noticing that none of the others are doing so themselves. “Now.”

His repeat of the order snaps the captains and majors out of it before they all begin to slowly make their way out of the hangar’s command center and back into the stairwell by crawling across the floor. Meanwhile, the large, infected symbiont host continues drilling a bloody path through the small worms until it reaches the large one and pulls its arm back with a roar that has the vine-like tentacles sticking out of the symbiont in its chest wrapping around the arm to strike at the worm. But the worm doesn’t just sit still and stomps its enormous foot on the ground, causing a large wave of ice to shoot out in a circle around it before leaving the ground and converging into a point that rushes straight towards the incoming fist.

And the moment the two attacks clash, a loud explosion echoes throughout the hangar, shattering all of the windowpanes of the command center while also sending small spears of ice everywhere, piercing into the walls of the room itself.

But by now, all of the soldiers have already left the hangar and reentered the stairs, going down them towards the bunker again with dismay and fear on their faces.

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