Charlie saw none of that, for he’d turned his attention back to the hallway that led back to the tube train platform, the spot he hoped to hell Donlon and his CAT-4 team was still defending. The alternative was too grim to think on, especially when they were this close. After Walter had run on they’d fought their way back from the Hall of Horrors and that was no understatement. The Grays of the base, realizing they had a good chance of being overrun now that they’d been caught with their pants down, had largely disappeared. That didn’t mean things were any easier, it just meant that now there seemed to be a dozen Reptilians for each and every Gray they’d seen before. And whereas the Grays were relatively easy to kill — slow reaction times, frail bodies, and little defensive capabilities when the super soldiers were present — the Reptilians were fighters through and through. Thank God they can’t do mind attacks, he thought to himself for what seemed like the hundredth time as they turned another corner and he lit into another group of the things, his twin Colt .45s laying them down with holes through their skulls.
Beside him John wondered if the other teams were suffering as much as theirs had. They’d lost their two super soldiers, both in the same freak attack, and the pessimist in him told him that wasn’t something confined to his team alone. It was almost as if they’d been set up, but even that was too far for his negative way of looking at things, for the moment at least.
“There!” Charlie said, drawing John’s attention back just as he’d been snapping another ammo clip into his AR15. Sure enough, it was the entrance to the tube station platform… and…
“It’s gunfire,” Charlie said, as if reading his thoughts, “Donlon and his boys are still holding.”
John nodded, hoping it was true, but knowing seeing was believing as well, plus–
“Back!” Charlie hissed, trying to keep as quiet as he could but startled by what he’d seen. Down the slight incline in the tunnel was a whole nest of aliens — a half-dozen Reptilians, two Grays, and one especially large Gray, the kind with long spindly arms and a height that caused it to hunch over lest it hit its massive head on the ceiling. He and John immediately jumped back and got around a corner in the tunnel-hallway.
“What the hell is that thing?” John asked.
Charlie bit his lip, but answered. “It’s those taller Type-B Bellatrax Grays, the ones Stan was talking about in that boring-as-hell briefing.”
“Well… can we kill it?”
“You bet — so long as they don’t detect us.”
John frowned. At least that last grenade of his had taken the Reptilians off their tail… for however long that would last. Now they had ten or so aliens ahead of them — three of them most likely mind attackers, as he thought of the Gray bastards as.
“What’ll we do?” he asked finally.
Charlie smiled. “Come on in here and listen.”
40 — All is Lost
Colonel Roger Donlon stood there taking it all in and shook his head before wiping the sweat from his brow. A thousand — he’d lost count at a thousand. That’s how many women he’d seen coming running back from the tunnels CAT-1 and CAT-2 had headed down. Most were young, naked and scared out of their minds. Robbie, David and Fred had been more shocked by them than the initial Gray and Reptilian assault they’d had to deal with, and Donlon had felt about the same. They’d quickly come to and Robbie and Fred had begun corralling the women onto the one usable tube train they still had. That’d filled up in seconds it’d seemed, and then they’d jiggered the controls to send it shooting off toward New York, the one spot Donlon had been told would be secure.
The call from General Anderholt hadn’t come through on the satellite radio until the train had nearly filled up… almost like he’d had a camera and was watching them. Donlon had shaken the thought off immediately, especially when the general had told him another train would be shooting off to Los Angeles, all the men had to do was fill the next in line, the ones the Grays had been riding in on to kill them from just a short time before. They’d filled it even faster than the first before sending it off, and then another one was filled and shot off to Las Vegas. And so the process had repeated itself, again and again, until they were on their last train, this one only half-full, the tide of women now finally finished. Donlon looked back to the tunnels where the other teams had gone, and which were now blocked by a small group of Reptilians and a few Grays. At least the trains bringing in alien reinforcements had slowed, slowed considerably. Donlon figured they’d gotten wise to what they were up against, namely David’s and Fred’s M203 grenade launchers, which were blowing each train’s occupants to smithereens as soon as the doors gave their jolly jingle and opened up. It was a slaughter, plain and simple… but now they were out of grenades.
“Getting low on the Ingrams,” Robbie said from where the men were now bunched up near some crates they’d dragged together, near the last half-filled train of screaming women.
“And about out of machine gun rounds too,” David said.
Donlon nodded and looked to Fred. “Get that train out of here — no more women are coming now.”
Fred nodded and got to it, and less than a minute later he was back with them on the platform, the train steadily gaining speed as it headed off toward New York or California or wherever — the men had lost track. They were tired, but holding, and Donlon could only hope the other teams were doing as well as they, not a scratch on any of them, their super soldier thwarting whatever attacks the Grays were trying to hurl their way.
“Let’s break the flashguns out on their asses!” Robbie shouted. “What the hell else we gonna do?”
Donlon frowned but didn’t disagree. As Bobbie spit some tobacco on the floor and said, ‘what the hell else were they gonna do?’
“Alright,” he said, then reached down and grabbed the flashgun, which he’d taken from a dead Gray’s hand during one of the brief respites they’d had since they’d been on the platform. It’d been the only one in sight, and he hoped it’d help them now. He tossed it up to Robbie.
“Here goes,” Robbie said after a moment, then fired the first blast, using the top button, vaporize. The beam hit one of the Reptilians in the mouth of the tunnel and immediately the creature puffed out of existence, a split-second spark and cloud and then just the black falling ash, a perfect little mound of the stuff rising perhaps an inch off the tunnel floor.
The other beasts howled and hissed their displeasure, and some of them even started gnashing their teeth and biting at each other, as if they were communicating their discontent, and desire to get away. The loss of a single one of their number to the flashgun just slowed the things, however, and the assault they looked ready to launch seemed all the more imminent.
“Open up on ‘em!” Roger yelled as he too reached down for his 9mm and the men began firing away with what they had while Robbie did so with his, puffs of smoke and mounds of ash soon appearing in the alien’s midst.
“Sir,” Robbie said to Donlon, drawing his attention. The commander looked to his super soldier and nodded, and Robbie pressed on. “Sir, don’t you think that we should—”
THUNK!
It came out of nowhere, a flying piece of debris, a rectangular piece of wall paneling not much larger than a shoebox top or… something. And now there it was, sticking from Robbie’s head from where it’d impaled itself inches deep. Robbie’s eyes glazed over and he dropped forward, dead, the flashgun skittering across the floor.