Sammy and Tommy looked at one another, then smiled.
“It’s the sonic,” Sammy said, looking to John. “They just secured the port above us — the security systems have all been switched off!”
“Shit,” Tommy spat, “I thought we were doin’ that!”
Chargin’ Charlie, the leader of CAT-1–the first team that’d reach the lower levels of Dulce — leaned back and smiled. That was what they were waiting for, the shutting off of power so they could move about freely, not having to worry about a hidden force of energy slicing them in half or trapping their mind or any of the other atrocities that Dulce possessed. What the hell did it matter who shut it off?
“One minute!” Sammy shouted out, glancing down at his pocket watch again.
In just one minute they’d be pulling into the main tube platform of Dulce, located on Level 7 and connecting to other tubes leading to other underground bases all over the world. The area was key, both for their quick infiltration and destroy mission, and their long-term goals of taking the area back.
Suddenly there were tunnel lights out the train’s windows, and then flickering as they entered an open area. The men huddled closer to the set of double doors facing toward that area, an area that opened up to reveal a double-platform with a long strip running in between two sets of tracks.
“We’re here,” Tommy said.
Charlie peered out the window, then let his eyes go wide. There before them were dozens of Grays, all standing about in the small platform, some working or even ‘talking’ by the look of it. None of them seemed to notice that a small group of armed humans was rushing right into their midst.
The train stopped, there was a beep just like any subway train in New York, and the doors slid open.
If there was ever a calm before the storm, Charlie thought, this was surely it. The four men of CAT-1 stood there, huddled in the small doorway of the train, their guns held up in front of their chests, their eyes wide, and their resolve waning. It seemed like an eternity but was actually less than a few seconds, seconds in which the clusters of Grays standing about on the platform slowly turned their attention, then heads, then bodies their way. There was no discernible reaction, no altering of facial features — which Ellis and Carl had pretty much made plain was quite impossible anyways — an no real indication that anything was remiss. That is, until one of the Grays in a tight pocket of three just a few yards to their right suddenly whipped around to look at his two companions. Charlie didn’t need to see facial features change to know the thing was surprised, and that they were found out.
“They know they can’t hurt us!” Charlie yelled to the men beside him.
“Not with us two standing here,” Tommy smiled, bringing his M16 up to his face to better take aim, “now let’s give ‘em a little taste of the American way!”
The men didn’t need to be told twice, and a split-second later the platform was echoing with gunfire.
Tommy got the first shot off, right at the Gray that’d turned about in surprise to ‘talk’ with its two companions. The burst of three M16 assault rifle bullets hit right in the plum center of that big ‘ol head of the Gray, and that greenish-blood of theirs flew all over its two companions as the creature fell to the floor, dead before it even hit.
It may have been surprise in the eyes of the creatures’ two companions, but it might just as well have been fear. Neither John nor Sammy was really sure nor really cared, they just pulled their triggers and sent the two things down to the platform, one with several AR15 bullets in its head, the other with its head blown clean off, Sammy’s Mossberg Model 590 shotgun blast still echoing around the cavernous area they were in.
That did it — seeing three of their number go down in just a few seconds, all of their psychic attacks failing, and human commandos coming in for the kill — and the Grays broke and ran.
“It’s a turkey shoot!” John shouted out with a laugh, then brought his AR15 to his eye once again, tilted his dull, green helmet back, aimed and then fired. Another Gray went down, a bullet in the side of its big head, the easiest target John had ever fired at, and he’d been firing a lot since growing up down in the bayous of south Georgia.
“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!” Tommy said with a laugh, then angled his M203 upwards and fired. The grenade launched forth, made an arc in the air, and then came down right in the midst of a group of Grays that’d been trying to run right past them from the other end of the platform. The four beings were thrown into the air, shrapnel from the grenade and the platform digging into their frail frames and tearing them apart.
“Whooee! Tommy shouted in glee at the sight of his handiwork, though the sound was immediately drowned-out by the sound of another approaching tube train.
“Here they are!” Charlie shouted as he brought up his machine gun and fired off another burst, taking down yet another Gray that’d been rushing right in front of them in its frantic need to get off the platform.
Sure enough, the second tube train was pulling up to the platform, the one that’d set-out from Blue Lake just a couple minutes behind the four men of CAT-1.
“It’s party time!” Sammy said as he fired off another shot from his Mossberg, taking out a Gray and a good portion of a second that’d been running beside it. He lowered the shotgun and nodded across the platform at the doors beginning to open on the tube train opposite them.
“Fucking-A!” Corporal Bobbie Baker shouted, the first of CAT-2 out of the tube train as the doors opened, his Heckler & Koch HK1 light support machine gun opening up upon a group of straggling Grays that’d been all the way at the other end of the platform and rushing furiously toward the exit there. The German machine gun’s bullets ripped into them and tore flesh and bone and left a helluva mess all over that end of the platform. Bobbie just laughed and took aim at another group.
Within seconds Captain Walter Leathers, Lieutenant Colonel Emil Wiseman, and Major Jake Zates were beside him, each firing away at a pocket of Grays here, a lone individual running there, or even one of the poor bastards that’d merely been wounded. Each man knew of the psychic capabilities of these creatures, either seeing it firsthand in Montana or hearing about it afterward, and each wasn’t going to leave anything alive that could try something funny when their team’s back was turned.
Colt AR-15s sang with German Heckler & Koch’s and the occasional grenade or shotgun blast for accompaniment. The men played their symphony of destruction, hitting all the right notes and leaving the Grays that’d been on the platform hopelessly outgunned. For with the super soldier on each of the Combat Assault Teams, there was just no way the Grays could do anything with their minds — their most powerful weapon — not one damn thing.
“Boom!” Charlie yelled as he dropped the last Gray in front of him, a spindly bastard that’d been trying to rush past as fast as it could, which was about as fast as an old person could run, the way Charlie saw it. He lowered the M240 machine gun and surveyed the scene.
“That was it,” Tommy said beside him, “that was the last of ‘em!”
“For the here and now,” Sammy said, “for the here and now.”
No one said anything to that, for they all knew it was true, that at any moment reinforcements could begin to arrive, Grays armed with more than just their minds, with flash guns. For the moment, however, all that was in front of the two teams of humans were dozens of dead aliens, most lying in pools of their own greenish-blood and in many cases piles of shot-off alien body parts.