QUAKE II - The Story
As redone by Gary Morton - but still mostly like the original in the ID Software Game

Long shadows rise in the relentless sun of a late Texas afternoon, and you briefly daydream, but even that dream is invaded by the alien nightmare. 
You claw desperately at the air. You kick up dust with your combat boots. And you lash out at every shadow. 

Shadows are death. Death born in the poisoned netherworlds of alien empires. Death that has rained out of the skies -- and death that is here on Earth where the enemy has struck. 

Shading your eyes against the glare, you can't tell if you are staring through sweat, tears or blood. And it is like another dream as you squint for the thousandth time at the line of soldiers ahead of you. They stretch on endlessly across the rubble of a broken land, disappearing at last into the armored shadows of a troop carrier. Soon you'll walk up the ramp into the ship, climb into your energy cocoon, hyper-tear through the interplanetary gateway, and smash down light-years away from the blowing sand and blasted ruins that surround the Dallas-Metro crater. 

"Why in the hell is this taking so long?" you snarl, slamming the battered barrel of your side-arm blaster against your scarred palm. "I've waited long enough. Time to kick some Strogg ass." 

Unrest and the sweltering August sun leave you rocking on your heels. You spit impatiently out of the side of your mouth, rub your eyes, and think back to the day when the wretched monsters first attacked. 

Their ships spun out of the night sky, racing in like flaming meteor to scorch runways into the Earth as they landed. Bio-mechanical aliens...hideous cyborgs...they swarmed out while their ships still sizzled with reentry heat... and they killed or captured everything that lived.

At first people believed that the Strogg were after the planet's resources: minerals, metals, and water. But probes of their onboard storage facilities revealed fleshy limbs and organs for new cyborgs, and of course, food. The Strogg read as war machines, beasts and cannibals -- feeding, living and growing on human flesh. Earth's destiny was to be their torture pit, to burn with highways of torn flesh while they fed and grew strong on the limbs and organs they needed. 

The line moves. And moves again. Shifting Into the cool shadows at last as the assembled armies branch off into new lines divided by corps and unit.

"I can't deal with this shit - what's the friggin' hold-up?"

"Cool your jets, marine," Tokay mutters and smiles over his shoulder. 

"We'll all get a few Strogg heads to take home as souvenirs.  I promise you that." 

"Yo, soldier, 3585." The medtech's voice startles you. 

"You in or out?" 

Competent hands guide you into the coffin-like opening of your Mark 9A drop pod: sleek, dark, and invisible to the Stroggos defense systems. One of the techs begins to drop the reinforced pod door.  "Sleep tight, soldier. You'll see sunlight in less than six-and-a-half hours. Not our sun, mind you." 

The door slams and its pitch black except for the mild glow of the video readout system in front of you. You've done this a dozen times in the sim classes.  No sweat.  Just a few short hours to sleep, recharge, and then the moment of glory. But this time it's for real. 

It's also time to think. You recall your first official day of training, your unit commander discussing how these damn parasites made it to Earth and other nearby colonies in the first place. By employing our best satellites and long-range scanners, we learned how they traveled light years so quickly - the Strogg used black holes like gateways, forging a highway through the heavens. We still don't know if they created these rips in the fabric of space and time, or if they simply discovered them by accident.  Either way... it's just like opening the door to an all-you-can-eat restaurant for these bastards.  In about two hours, we'll be entering the 
same interstellar portals, to hit 'em where it hurts... on their own turf. 

You close your eyes and relish this thought. Eventually, you nod off to the low hypnotic hum of the troop carrier. 

*Crackle* ... *fzzzz* ... "Greetings to the people of the Coalition. This is Flag Admiral Crockett, speaking to you from the bridge deck of Phobos. We are entering the outer orbits of Stroggos, the alien's home system. As we had postulated, Stroggos' atmosphere is harsh but breathable. We expect to make planetfall soon. Now is the time to switch on your debriefing panel if ya need it." 

"Boomer?" the voice crackles through every soldier's headset. "Drop X-ray squad in 30 on my mark. You copy?" 

"Roger that!" In another pod, your sergeant snaps back. "OK boys and girls, you see the clock on your heads-up. Two demerits for anyone who up-chucks during bounce and roll!" 

You hear a heavy metal rattle as your drop pod is shot from the side of the carrier and hurtles downward. A war cry races from your lips as Incendiary atmosphere howls past the pod's rapidly heating shell. 

A hard clanging bounce and the pod wall suddenly buckles to your right, but stays intact. Another pod must have clipped yours on its way in. ECM didn't indicate enemy fire. Shit. Thrusters and stabilizing gyros are fading. Based on the pings, the other pods are pulling away. Below you, the large alien city roars into focus on the screen. But where are the other pods? They were there a minute ago. 

Suddenly, distorted radio chatter lights up, "Mayday! Mayday! Lost all power... shielding failed... missed dz... some kind of EMP is... kzzzt... us out.  We're dropping like fli... zzzzkkkzzzt". Silence.damn!  If the Strogg have electromagnetic pulse defenses and we failed to detect them... all of us are in the shitter.  That HUGE blip has to be the Big Gun. You do a slow dogleg left as your navcomp finds a place to land when all of a sudden retros kick in and propel you south. 

"What the...?" Before you know it you skip across the lip of a crater and slam into a structure, a good distance away from your target.  Dazed and bleeding from a head cut you toggle open the labeled arsenal bins and reach for where your gear ought to be stowed. Damn. Nothing but your sidearm. 

Damn again. 

You leap out the crushed pod door, alone, with just a blaster in hand, and tear off into the room with the bittersweet stench of vengeance coursing through your veins... 
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