The device fell to the floor with such force that the tarmac cracked on the open road just outside of the Hanger. Airman first class Curtis Papa’ Perez and Airman First class Chester ‘Toff’ Marshall were on guard duty. They had been blinded by the flash but had instinctively dived to the floor as the object crashed to the earth.
Marshall pulled Perez to his feet, “What the hell is that thing Papa?”
The two men had a strange feeling of fear and did not want to approach the object.
“I don’t know Marshall.” He said both men raised their rifles.
Kammler coughed as he cleared debris from his chest. He slowly stood to survey the situation. The device was gone, it has smashed a large hole in the ceiling which had fallen and destroyed a lot of the equipment below. Kammler turned to see a pool of blood forming under a large piece of metal, a pair of legs were protruding out from beneath the mixture of metal and concrete; It was all that was left of Hans Amtmann.
Kammler smiled.
Marshal and Perez looked around, it was dark apart from the moonlight.
“Look around, there aren’t any lights on!”
“Power must be down,” Perez said.
The device flashed a deep purple, without warning the remaining ceramic tiles exploded out in a hail of tiny shrapnel, the two men covered their faces. After a second or two they looked up at the large glowing purple acorn that was in front of them.
A purple mist billowed out of the device. Perez squinted as he thought he saw movement in the mist. Suddenly out of the haze a figure dressed in an all-black combat suit appeared, it wore a black helmet and appeared to be carrying a machine gun.
‘What the hell!” Marshall shouted, “Freeze, Identify yourself!”
The figure just stood completely still, then another figure appeared and then another, they kept coming until Marshall and Perez could no longer count them.
“Hold it right there, you are in a restricted zone, drop your weapons and put your hands in the air, slowly so we can see them. Do it now!” Perez ordered. “Marshal get us some backup.”
Marshal nodded and went to call on the radio. Nothing happened, it was not working, the radio was dead.
“Damn it!” He shouted.
A figure appeared from the mist, this one was different, he was not wearing a full face helmet. He was tall, at least six foot and he was blonde with large streaks of gray hair. The man was about forty-five and was sporting a thick blonde mustache.
The figure took one look at the two airmen in front of him, he just casually nodded at them. The figures opened fire all at once, brilliant purple flashes flew towards Marshal and Perez and before they could react that felt an intense burning sensation wash over their torsos.
They fell to the floor, Perez looked down and could see blood oozing from open wounds on his chest, he felt weak and all he could smell was burning flesh. He looked over to see Marshal’s lifeless corpse looking straight through him. Perez turned his head to look up at his adversary, a barrel of a gun was pointed at his head, he saw it flash; that was the last thing he ever saw.
Inside the Wire
Senior Master Sergeant Warren Hall had been asleep in the mess hall when the explosion and subsequent shockwave gave him a rude awakening; the lights immediately went off, shrouding the rest of his squad’s poker game in darkness.
“What the hell was that?” Tom ‘Looney’ Cox shouted. “Earthquake?”
“Sounds like the fuses have blown. Get your flashlights! I’ll give the control room a call.” Hall said as he reached for his radio. But he could not raise command, so he tried Perez, still nothing, ‘were the radios dead?’
Airman First class Alan Perry and Glen Owens had checked out the fuses, but had to walk back to the mess room to tell Hall.
“Sir, is your radio working, ours are dead.”
“They’re all dead Perry.”
“The fuses are fine sir, whatever that was it knocked power out to the entire base, I had a quick look out the windows and the searchlights are out as well.” Owens said.
“Maybe it’s the Commies!” Hudson said excitedly.
“Keep it down Edgar, I’m trying to think.” Hall shook his head.
A couple of technicians were carrying out spot checks on a grounded F4 Phantom when the power went out, they had grumbled when they witnessed the flash and after much deliberation had decided to investigate when their radios were not working.
They chatted to each other loudly as they rounded the corner of a hanger. A group of people wearing full body, jet black combat gear were jogging towards them. The two men froze. “Who the hell are you guys?”
The figures raised their weapons and fired, pulses of purple light raced forward like tracer rounds. The two technicians did not have time to react as the burning lights hit them square in the torso. They both fell dead before their bodies hit the floor.
The guards at the rear entrance to the base had repeatedly tried to raise the control room but had no luck. They had a jeep with a .50 caliber M2 Browning machine gun mounted on the rear, but the engine had cut out when the explosion had rocked the base and they struggled to get it started again.
A group of twenty figures rounded the corner silently, it was only by luck that one of the guards thought he had seen strange purple flashing from that direction.
“Hey!” He shouted, “Who the hell are you guys? Identify yourselves!”
This alerted his other colleagues, they raised their rifles at the sudden intruders.
The figures spread-out and opened fire, purple rounds of superheated light flew down range and started to impact on the jeep.
“Shit, return fire.” The senior guard shouted. His men returned rounds but the volume of fire was far too heavy for the outnumbered guards.
The senior man was hit straight in the face, the round exited the back of his head, creating a large exit wound that was cauterized around the edges, the smell of burning flesh and hair made the guard next to him throw up.
The Guard managed to clear his throat enough to order his mate onto the .50 before he was hit in the gut. He fell to the floor with an agonizing wail, the smell of burning pork reached his nose and as he looked down he could see his stomach was open, with a trail of bubbling black intestine slithering out of the wound.
The third man jumped up onto the .50, pulled the locking clip back and pulled the trigger, the reassuring thump of the powerful machine gun thundered out, the whole base would surely be alerted to the attack.
The first of the figures reacted slightly too late and the rounds impacted on his body armor, which cracked and splintered under the powerful rounds and the figure was forced to the floor. His teammates reacted with lightning quick, almost superhuman reactions and rolled and dived out of the way, they laid down covering fire.
The hanger to the left of the strange figures disintegrated as a huge object plowed straight through it. The guard swung around the .50 and let out a stream of bullets towards this new threat.
“Shit, you have to be kidding me!” He shouted in disbelief as the rounds pinged off harmlessly.
The huge object rotated its massive turret and pointed a monstrous cannon straight at him, the barrel glowed purple and then spat out a dazzling thunder ball straight at the jeep. The jeep exploded into a hundred pieces and the guard was vaporized.
Kammler knew the sound of chaos when heard it, he looked around but could see the power was out and he immediately knew he had nowhere to run. The lab he stood in was a mess, German scientists got to their feet and dusted themselves down, while the American lab technicians had regained their awareness and we checking to make sure none of the red mercury was leaking.
A smattering of debris fell from the broken roof and the dust landed on Kammler, causing him to cough. As the dust cleared the elderly German looked up. Stood at the edge of the hole was a man grinning wildly; a man he instantly recognized.