The snow outside the massive, walking hulk of metal and steel continued its onslaught unmercifully, as if trying to pry its thick walls open to consume its innards. The land was cold and sprawling, devoid of all life as it was trapped in a perpetual nuclear winter.
Arthur stared out the window, his legs crossed on the panel before him, watching the white rain attempt to break its way in. He looked down and saw the blood pooling around the bodies he had left broken. He stood up and grabbed both of the men by the collars of their shirt and carried them back out the cabin door, and through the long hallways, which were now filled with blood.
He eventually found the torn door and threw the bodies through the hole, watching them fall multiple stories before splattering on the ground like burst water balloons. He walked into the cargo bay, finding pallets of MREs, construction materials, and more. He pushed the construction materials off of one pallet, carrying the pallet back through the hallway and loading it with bodies. By the time he finished the task the pile was high, half a dozen trips later the ship was truly his.
He walked back through the halls and eventually found a storage closet, after perusing it's selection he found some cleaning supplies, something to peel the blood off the floors and something reminiscent of bleach. He began scrubbing the floors, cleaning the ship completely of any of what remained of his victims.
After he finished, he walked back to the vast cargo bay and took stock of what they had been shipping, years worth of food, enough wood, metal, concrete and rebar to build dozens of homes. After logging it all, he walked back to the now spotless cabin and sat down, watching the unassailable, relentless snow attack the windows.
...
One week later, the blizzard finally broke just as he arrived at his destination, massive mountains capped in snow broke through the land, as if desperately reaching for the heavens. There was no grass, trees, even any life to speak of, he knew from the briefing he was given that across those mountains sat the military base which they were supposed to bring to ruin.
He pulled out the government issued communicator and looked at the map, they hadn't moved from that location in weeks, meaning they were either dead or snowed in. He sent a ping out towards them on a private channel, hoping for some sort of a response. He then reached up towards the panel and essentially commanded the massive beast to laydown, hoping to use it as a forward operating base in their siege. After it finally laid it's gargantuan underside on the ground, he destroyed the panel, making sure it could never be moved again.
He moved to the now ground level hole in what would be the ribcage and stepped onto the ground, the snow crunching beneath his feet. He followed the map on his communicator towards the mountains, moving further and further up, eventually entering into a near vertical climb. After a certain point he heard whispers coming from the snow, and eventually a loud bang echoed down the mountain. He looked down and saw a large hole torn into his bloodied coat, and moved his gaze towards where the shot rang out. A rifle poked through the snow as a woman stood up, the battery-powered heated blanket rising with her shoulders in a cloud of steam.
"Sorry about that, sir. Coleman said to shoot on sight, and if they didn't fall that'd be you."
He let out a light sigh, and poked his finger through the hole, jabbing his ribs.
"That bitch, she ruined my coat."
He turned to the woman, her wet, golden hair bounced on her shoulders as she moved and lifted a fist, signaling the rest of the squad to stand up from their homes in the cold.
"You been out here in the blizzard the whole time?"
She looked at him, noticing the blood on his coat.
"Yes sir, we figured it'd be best to wait for you. Clearly you got started without us."
He nodded and pointed down the mountain, a dark grey outline stretched like a massive complex on the snow.
"I commandeered one of their supply vehicles and killed all combatants. Follow me, there's enough food and supplies to last us years here if needed."
She smiled and raised a fist, then pointed her four finger down the mountain, the rest of the squad followed her orders and began packing their heated blankets.
"Hopefully we won't be here that long, we've scouted the rest of the planet using scouting ships, this is their forward operating base."
They began climbing down the mountain and she continued.
"They plan to use this as a forward operating base, all supply chains will more than likely come through here before moving forward with their plans."
He nodded as the vertical climb began to soften its harsh angle.
"I read the briefings before coming here, based on the satellite images they must've started mobilizing troops."
She shook her head.
"From what we have seen its just a skeleton crew for now, aliens built for cold planets are building the upper layer, anyone who will be landing here is still hovering in orbit, it'll be weeks before they completely finish. If what you said is true, you may have stalled them out for months, as that was one of their only land-based method of shepherding supplies into the base. It's landlocked by mountains so they have to offload somewhere else on the planet and bring the materials here that way."
They continued their trek in silence, finally reaching the metal behemoth. Once everyone stepped inside Arthur began forcefully pulling the improvised door closed, the metal screamed under the pressure as one of the men started soldering the hole, to prevent heat from escaping. After they finished he handed the woman the digital list of all onboard supplies and asked.
"Name and rank, ma'am."
She smiled jokingly.
"Call me Cap', that's what everyone calls me. Been a long time since someone hit me with a ma'am."
He scratched his head.
"I just assumed you were a higher rank than me."
"Well I'm not, but I am this is a joint operation, so we're both in charge. In reality though, you are in charge of yourself, I'm in charge of my troops. Just don't fuck up what we have going on here and we'll get along fine."
With that Arthur turned to her troops and nodded.
"So what's the plan?"
She looked up from the digital list he gave her.
"Seeing as you took out one of their supply chains, I'm thinking we move on the rest, we've got forty bodies here, not including us. Hand me your communicator."
Arthur reached into his pocket and handed it to her as she continued.
"I'll leave that to you while we continue surveillance on the base. I've programmed their locations onto their map but be warned, they definitely noticed this vehicle has been commandeered so they will start arming the convoys. They don't know our size and weaponry, and the supplies are just too valuable to destroy, so we will hold here and fight off any attempts to retake their loot."
He took the communicator back and she turned away from him, ordering her troops to begin setting up rotating guard shifts on the different entrances into the mobile land base. He walked to one of the doors and opened it, stepping back out into the cold.