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HISS!

It was like the sound a snake would make, one that was large and able to eat a man, by the sound of it. But it wasn’t a snake, it was a Reptilian, an especially large one, and one that’d gotten into their midst without the men even knowing.

The creature had been atop the vats, running up from the side, out of view of both Combat Assault Teams. It’d leaped and hissed and that’s when the men had looked up, just before the thing fell atop Sammy, its claws and its teeth working.

“Aaahhh!” Sammy yelled as the thing landed atop him then lunged forward with its scaled-snout, tearing into the soft flesh of the super solder’s face.

“Shoot it!” Tommy yelled, bringing up his M16.

“No!” Charlie shouted beside him, and swatted the barrel of his gun away. “It’s too close.”

And it was. The alien from the Draco Constellation was lashing and tearing and shredding with those clawed hands it had, as well as rending with those razor-sharp clawed-feet. But at the same time Sammy was whirling around, spinning in circles as he frantically tried to throw the creature off him.

“Colonel… do something!” John yelled, his two 9mm desperately trying to find an opening.

“Ah, hell!” Charlie said, then whipped out one of the Colt .45s at his belt, just like the men would expect a gunslinger of the old West to do the same, and fired a hipshot right at the struggling pair.

The shot was true, and hit the Reptilian right in the back, eliciting a howl of displeasure and pain from the beast. It was enough to get its toothy-beak off of Sammy’s face, and enough for Tommy to get a single shot to the head off with his machine gun. The Reptilian’s head was thrown back and those slit-serpentine eyes of it seemed to flutter and then roll back before the creature’s tight grip on Sammy faltered, then faded, and then dropped off altogether. The thing fell to the floor, dead.

“Aaahhh, aaahhhh, aaahhh!” Sammy screamed, his hands clasping his face, blood running out from between his fingers.

“Jesus,” Charlie said, shaking his head at the sight, “if we don’t—”

CRASH!

Charlie was thrown to the ground as something exploded in their midst, something so strong that all of the vats around them exploded and that pinkish goo went flying every which way. Charlie rolled over on the floor, broken vat glass crunching beneath him. His ears were ringing and things seemed to be moving in slow motion. His vision was blurred, but he looked out and could make out… Sammy, laying still and not moving on the floor, John… clutching his ears and… screaming, by the looks of it.

Tommy, where is Tommy? The thought came to Charlie as he realized Sammy was dead. That meant they had one super soldier, their only real line of defense against the Grays and their mental attacks. Where was…

No… God, no, Charlie thought, his vision beginning to clear, at least enough for him to see a few more feet, though he wished it hadn’t. For there on the floor ten feet away was Tommy, a large shard of vat glass sticking from his head, his eyes staring out wide in death.

God help us, Charlie thought at the sight, God help us!

35 — Pull-Out

Dulce Port (Level 1)
Thursday, May 24, 1979

“Get that fucking door open!” Captain Mark Richards shouted.

“Damn thing won’t budge, sir!” Andy shouted back.

Mark sighed, then started moving forward. “Here, move out of the way.”

He got his hands into the crack in the door and started pulling, Andy joining in from the other side.

“She’s moving!” Turn and Billy both shouted.

“Ugh!” Mark and Andy both grunted at the same time, and the door came open.

There were no aliens around them now, the port area completely burned out, especially the charred and blackened area around the HUB doors.

“Damn, sir — you really blew the hell out of them!” Billy laughed.

Mark looked over at the charred doors as he hopped out of the bruised and battered X-22. They were completely gone, the two Hellfire rockets having obliterated them as much as three-feet-thick steel could be obliterated. The remnants hung their like two sad window shutters after a particularly bad storm.

“Cooked their gooses, too,” Andy laughed. “There ain’t an alien in sight!”

Mark looked around and saw he was right. The whole floor of the port was now clear, with just the red flashing security lights moving. Even the desert to the rear was visible to them, the wind kicking up small swirls of sand and dust. His attention was ripped back to the entry port when a clicking sound came. He and the others looked over to see the door to the command facility opening, Jerry gingerly sticking his head out the door.

“Jerry!” Billy shouted, and he smiled further when Aaron and Johnny came out next.

“Shit, we thought you guys were toast!” he said, throwing open the door, though keeping his machine gun up.

“It’s clear… or at least that’s what it looks like,” Mark said to him as he started to walk from the X-22 and back across the floor. The others inside the command facility started to come out as well, and within moments the seven men were standing there, guns in hand, as they figured out the next move.

“Listen up, men,” Mark said, “we could stand here and cry over spilled milk and recap what’s happened so far, or we can just get our asses through those doors and blow as many more aliens to hell in the twenty-five minutes or so of this mission we’ve got left.”

There were several cocked-eyebrows and slight smiles to that, but not a man said a word. Mark frowned.

“Fuck it — I’m going in, and if any of you want to follow, so be it.”

He took off toward the HUB doors, or what was left of them. The others looked at one another, and then with an Oorah from Jerry, they fell in behind their commander.

* * *

On the other edge of the port floor, Eddie ran forward and ducked under the UFO, some kind of fighter craft, by the look of it.

“There’s no one here!” Ronnie laughed behind him, walking fully upright, Stan at his side.

“You want to push those Grays?” Eddie scoffed. “Who knows how many could still be hiding in here.”

“After the blast the Dutchman’s son gave those doors?” Stan laughed. “C’mon, Eddie — get your head on straight.”

Eddie frowned as the two astronaut-engineers reached him, but slowly stood up as well.

“So can you get ‘er airborne?” Stan asked, thumping the UFO with his fist.

“If I can get ‘er open,” Eddie replied with a smile.”

“Well, grab on right there,” Ronnie said, pointing out some grooves under the craft’s cockpit area.

The thing looked like a triangle with a small, glass-enclosed cockpit area nestled down into it’s body, although it wasn’t glass, but something else. Eddie had seen it at Los Alamos before and knew that they were working on creating something similar using the same alien technology, it was just that they weren’t quite there yet. And the craft wasn’t completely a mystery to him, either. It looked to be about the same make and mode — how else would you describe it, Eddie always explained to anyone that asked — and that meant he could fly it.

“One… two… three!” Eddie said, and together the three men pulled up, straining against the thing until the ‘glass’ top popped-open.

“Same one?” Ronnie asked once they’d caught their breath and rubbed their fingers, and as if reading his friend’s thoughts.

Eddie nodded, biting his thumb as he stared at the thing and ran through the myriad combinations in his head. “Same one we’ve been testing since ’56 and the Lake Oswego Incident.”