“Whoa, doc… a nuke!”
“Take it easy, Ronnie,” Stan said, putting his hand on the astronaut’s shoulder, “let Stu here finish.”
“A Cell-Electrostatic-Disruption, or CED device, is a weapon that can be set to disrupt the cells of a living creature at a subatomic level, thus killing everything living in an area without doing much harm to any structures or equipment. It’s kind of like a mini-nuke and an electromagnetic pulse all rolled into one, though with a much, much lower area of impact, discharge, and area of effect,” Stu continued, giving Ronnie a sharp look on that last bit.
“What the hell’s all that mean in English, doc?” Ronnie said with a laugh.
“It’ll destroy every living thing in this base all the way to the deepest levels, even the ones we don’t know about,” Stu replied evenly, his eyes staring straight ahead at nothing, or perhaps at what such a cataclysmic event would look like.
“That’s what we need,” Ronnie said with a nod. He started forward and reached down to take the device from Stu. “How do we start it and where does it need to go?”
Stu jerked his arms, recoiling from Ronnie’s advancing hands. “I’ll take care of it.”
Ronnie gave him a hard look, but bit his lip and nodded, then looked back to the port.
“Saddle up,” he said, “we’re gonna be gettin’ the hell out of here real soon I have a feeling.”
38 — Breaking Ranks
The men moved forward, Mark and Turn in the lead. Ahead was a fork, a crossroads of sorts, where two of the tunnels branched-off.
“Hear that?” Turn said, glancing over at Mark.
“Faintly,” Mark replied.
The men waited a moment and when the others caught up they noticed how they began to look about, as if they too were hearing something.
“Women,” Turn said, “they’ve got them down… both of these tunnels, by the sound of it.”
“You’ve got good legs and good ears?” Aaron asked with a laugh. Turn just smiled and nodded.
“We’ve got to split up then,” Mark said.
“Whoa, but—”
“No buts,” Mark said, giving Aaron a hard look. “We’ve no super soldiers so we’re all in the same boat here. We can, however save as many as we’re able.” The men nodded, and Mark pressed on. “Here’s how we’ll do it — Jerry and Billy and I will head down this left tunnel and the rest of you will head down the other, Aaron in the lead.”
Mark looked to Turn, Andy and Johnny and they nodded. Then he looked to Aaron, who nodded as well.
The men went their separate ways.
“Over here,” Mark said, waving his free hand and holding up his .45 with the other. The men had just turned a corner, shortly after separating from the others. Jerry and Billy looked and nodded — ahead of them were rows and rows of tall medical cabinets, their design looking to be from the 1950s or so. Ahead was a fork in the path, where a scientist or alien or–
A Gray stepped out and Mark knew immediately that it’d tried a mental attack, and failed miserably. His .45 boomed out at the same time Billy’s and Jerry’s machine guns did the same.
The men held their eyes on the sights of their guns, ready for–
Two more Grays stepped out, and again the three guns fired to life, the sound echoing wildly in the large room, the old metal cabinets amplifying it ten-fold.
“Three,” Billy said. “How many more you think they’ll send?”
“I don’t know,” Mark said, and he got up the few feet needed to make it to the fork. It was clear, and he glanced back at the two. His eyes immediately went wide.
“Watch out!”
It was too late. Both Jerry and Billy turned around just in time to see the Reptilian swiping it’s clawed hand forward. Jerry’s glasses flew off and hit the floor, and a split second later were sprayed with their former owner’s blood. Billy’s eyes went wide and he pulled up his machine gun and began firing, the sight of Jerry’s face ripped from his head nearly making him sick.
“Aaahhh!” he screamed firing continuously into the Reptilian’s body. Mark fired at another coming up on them, and then rushed to Billy and grabbed him by the shoulder.
“Stop!” he shouted, and Billy did so, though he looked on the verge of tears. Both men looked down to see the clawed-hand of the Reptilian still embedded in the pulpy mass where Jerry’s face had been. Billy bent over and started to retch and Mark frowned.
“C’mon,” he said, getting one of Billy’s arms around his shoulder, “let’s get back to the port.”
The four men rushed forth, Turn in the lead. They rounded a bend and Turn looked both ways. It was clear. They just had to get–
BOOM!
The blast left the men dazed, and Turn on the floor. There was a ringing in his ears and a strong sense of déjà vu. He just happened to be looking forward, toward the large bay doors that led out of the large open area of Level 4 and back onto the road that led further down into the base. And there was Andy, more than fifty yards away now, and nearly to the doors.
“No, Andy!” Turn shouted, but it was no use — Andy was crazy with hysteria, fear and panic. There was no talking sense into him, but there still was a chance to save him. Turn looked over at Aaron, who gave the slightest of nods. Turn was already two dozen yards away by the time his chin stopped moving.
“You can’t…” Johnny said, still lying on the floor, dazed from the blast.
“We can’t leave a man behind,” Aaron said, then moved closer to his fallen comrade.
Ahead of them Turn’s cybernetic legs were more than a match for Andy’s human variety, and he caught up with him just as they crossed through the bay doors.
“Easy, Andy,” Turn said, grasping him by the shoulders and turning him around. Andy’s breathing was frantic and his eyes were wide — it was clear to Turn that he was in shock. “Listen, we’ve got to get—”
BOOM!
Turn didn’t know what it was, but it felt like some kind of blast of air that’d knocked him down. All he knew was that he was on the floor, on his side, and staring across the long, open floor of Level 4, right back at Aaron, who was slowly pulling a bloody knife from Johnny’s chest. Aaron looked up at just that moment and their eyes met, Turn’s going wide.
He whipped his gaze away, to his right, and saw Andy lying there, his head a bloody mess from where it’d hit the wall or floor or… something. Turn scurried over to him and immediately saw he was dead. He glanced back at Aaron, who was now wiping the blood from his knife onto Johnny’s clothing. Turn thought he’d be sick, like he would after someone had given him a swift kick in the gut. Instead he pushed himself to his feet and watched as Aaron put the large Bowie knife back in his leg-sheath and reached for the two 9mm handguns at his waist.
Turn gripped the stock of his AR-15, two choices before him. He took the second, he ran deeper into Dulce.
39 — Overrun
“Aaahhh!” John yelled, his finger held down on the AR-15 machine gun’s trigger until it went click. He looked down at it for a brief moment, grabbed a grenade from the front of his jacket, and hurled it at the now-regrouping Reptilians.
BOOM!
“Reptilian soup,” Charlie said beside him, and John looked over from beneath his helmet just in time to see him cock an eyebrow. Resisting the urge to laugh at how absurd it all was, John let the machine gun fall to hang by its strap from his neck and grabbed the 9mm at his side.