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“Wait, we need—”

Thunk, the grenade went as David pulled the trigger, then a moment later, BOOM! The tube train they’d rode in on was hit directly in the middle, the whole section blasted into twisted metal. The train lurched and then jumped the tracks and crashed into the side of the tube tunnel, it’s progress stopped, and so too that of any train trying to come in behind it — that section of track was closed.

“Ha!” Fred laughed. “That might not be what we wanted, but it sure got the job done. Now we just…”

Fred trailed-off as a faint whistling sound could be heard, coming from behind them. The men turned about and looked down the tube tunnels from whence they’d come. There, rushing up at a breakneck speed, was the light of a tube train.

* * *

Walter ran forward, fired three shots from his AR15, ran forward a bit more, then fired another three shots. In less than four seconds he’d taken out four Grays and was running upon another pocket.

BOOM!

Not even wasting time to slow down as he approached the next turn in the long, tunnel-like hallways, he just grabbed one of the grenades at his waist, flicked the pin with his thumb, and threw it on ahead of him up around the bend. Sure enough, there’d been three Grays standing there, although it was hard to tell with the body parts laying about and the smoke rising from the charred and blackened pavement. He did notice one flashgun as he ran past, and his frown increased.

After heading off the platform the men of CAT-1 and CAT-2 had found the hallway, though there were numerous doors branching off. Most were rest areas and storage rooms, Walter knew from his time in the base years earlier, but the men couldn’t risk leaving any aliens at their back, or at the back of the men of CAT-4 still on the tube train station platform, so the men were checking them. There were a few Grays here and there, but for the most part, they were empty. And without glancing back at all, Walter had no idea he’d outpaced the other men by several hundred feet.

Rounding the next bend brought him to a fork in the tunnel, one he knew about and had been expecting. Straight ahead there was a ramp that led up to the more open area of Nightmare Hall and the Hall of Horrors, two areas the men had been briefed on, and two he knew were going to be a shock to any who’d not seen them before. He glanced ahead, to the two tunnels leading the other way, and–

BOOM!

A blast of some sort hit the wall and he went down, a ringing in his ears. Coming to quickly, he stuck his machine gun out into the tunnel and fired off several short bursts, then stuck it the other way and fired a few more.

“You alright?”

It was Emil’s voice, by the sound of it.

BOOM!

Another blast hit the wall just above Walter’s head, and another round of loose cement pellets rained down upon him.

“Fine, just fine!” Walter said through clenched teeth while sticking his gun out to fire some more.

“We’ve got to get past this crossroads,” Emil said, a few other men coming up behind him by the sound of it.

“Ready?” Walter said.

He didn’t wait for an answer, just stuck his gun out and fired again. Emil knew the tone and the cue of his commander, and rushed forth through the gap in the tunnels, making it through the ten feet to the other side.

BOOM!

Another blast came, and again Walter was showered.

“Bastards!” he yelled, then gritted his teeth and yelled again to whatever men were behind him. “Go, go, go!”

The men rushed past as he fired.

* * *

Charlie came to a stop and put his hands on his knees. “I didn’t think there’d be so much damn running!”

“You didn’t think we’d be using the elevators, did you?” Tommy laughed, turning about to run backward for a minute and laugh at the overweight colonel. Already they’d run down quite the long hallway and then up a ramp. They were just nearing a larger, more open area by the looks of it.

“Keep your guard up,” John said to him.

“Damn, that scowl alone’ll scare away the first Grays that are dumb enough to come at us,” Sammy said with a laugh, nodding at John’s face for the others to see.

“If we don’t die of exhaustion first,” Charlie said. He’d started running again after the quick breather and now the four men of CAT-1 were nearing the top of the circular vehicle ramp, the one that led up from the lowest level of Dulce Base — Level 7 where the tube trains came in from the various bases around the world — up to Level 6. So far the four men hadn’t once uttered what they expected to find there, mainly because they didn’t want to think on it.

Behind them a good a good hundred yards or so — if you could measure distance like that going up a circular ramp (Charlie had told them to leave exactly two minutes after they did) — was CAT-2. Charlie had been adamant, and the Dutchman back at Blue Lake too, that the teams stagger their arrival on the next level up, just in case there was some kind of ambush and one team was wiped out. Charlie frowned as he thought back on that briefing over their weeks of training, for it was now they that were the team most likely to die a sudden and fiery death.

“There it is,” Tommy said, and Charlie looked up to what the young and cocky super soldier was nodding at. Sure enough, there was the opening to the next level.

“They’ll be up there,” Sammy said, his Mossberg 590 shotgun gripped tightly in his hands, “they’ll be up there, and they’ll be ready.”

“We don’t know that,” John said.

“The power’s been cut and the security systems are down — I’m sure they know.”

Sammy looked over at Charlie and frowned, but had to admit the older corporal was right. They ran on the last few yards and then the sloping floor evened-out and they were there.

“Holy… mother of God,” Sammy said as he saw the level first. There before them were row upon row of large, glass vats, each containing ungodly horrors, atrocities, monstrosities… his fellow man.

Tommy leaned over and began to retch.

“No time for that,” Charlie said, gritting his teeth and fighting the urge to do the same, “we’ve got a dish of cold revenge to serve up.”

He gripped his twin colts a bit tighter and was just about to start forward when footfalls from behind forced his attention back. Coming up fast was Bobbie and two others from CAT-2. Charlie made to signal and point out what was ahead, but then he remembered that Bobbie had seen it all before, being a super soldier, and probably knew–

Charlie’s train of thought was stopped completely when Bobbie rushed up to and then past him and his team members.

“Here,” he called out, rushing up to what looked like a regular wall, but which Charlie now realized was a very-well-concealed doorway. Walter jiggled the handle, found it open, and pushed on inside. There were five Grays gathered around the control stations, but Bobbie’s eyes lit on just one, the one standing a good four to five feet taller than the others, and pointing a flashgun his way.

ZAP!

The Gray fired at the same instant Bobbie dove from the doorway, his body angled so he’d fall on his side, something that allowed him to pull up the Heckler & Koch and fire off a short burst while flying through the air.

OOMPH!

Bobbie hit the cement floor of the security station hard and right on his shoulder.

POP!

“Aaahhh!” he grunted through clenched teeth, his shoulder either breaking or popping out of its joint. His right arm now useless, he began transferring the machine gun to his left hand, all the while watching the four Grays trying to sort themselves out (the tallest one was now lying dead with three bullet holes in its large forehead).

“Hey!”

Both Bobbie’s and the Grays’ eyes all shot over to the door, where Charlie was just coming in, one of his two Colt .45s leading the way. Bobbie saw a slight smile come to Charlie’s face, then he unleashed whatever pent-up frustrations he had.