“Go, damn it!” General Anderholt shouted at the pilot.
“I’m going!” the Dutchman shouted back, clutching the controls of the Puma helicopter tightly, trying to keep it level in the growing desert wind. A storm was coming, an early morning storm — the horizon said it all, for it’d be red and orange and death incarnate come morning.
“Go, go, go!” Anderholt shouted, slapping his hand down on his leg.
“This bird can’t go much faster,” Ellis said as he looked over at the General, “and besides—”
“Holy shit!” Anderholt shouted, his eyes going wide and his finger going to toward the cockpit window. Ellis shot his own gaze back.
“Oh, shit!” he said. A debt had come due.
42 — From Above
In the cockpit of the X-22, Mark stared out and knew that this was it, he and his men and the few women they’d saved were all dead. Glancing down at his watch he saw that it was just past midnight, and now hundreds of Reptilians were rushing forth from the HUB doors, the beasts’ teeth gnashing and eyes filled with bloodlust. It’d only be a minute and they’d have the X-22 overrun, the doors pried open with their razor-sharp claws. All Mark could do was stare out the window and watch it happen, maybe take a few with his 9mm before he was overpowered.
With covering fire from Moses and Stan near the Puma transport helicopter, Mark and the others had been able to get across the huge port floor, Reptilian bullets and flashguns flying, but thankfully missing. They’d made it to the command facility, reloaded and took off again. From there it was a short distance to the X-22, and there were fewer aliens to contend with, and no Grays to speak of, thank God.
The radar blipped, and Mark’s eyes shot down to the X-22’s controls. Something was coming in, something big.
“Captain,” Billy said from behind him, looking worried and pointing up, “we’ve got company.”
From overhead a Sirian came down, in perfect sight of the helicopter piloted by the Dutchman more than a dozen miles away. It descended slowly from the stormy clouds, lightning accompanying it, its prow turning all the while, the sharp triangle coming slowly forward to face the open Port doors.
No one inside that port could see inside the craft, but there were Sirians there, friends of the Richards’ from their off-world excursions, things many of the highest-level members of the government knew nothing about… many, but not all.
The craft angled in, and the Reptilians rushing forth on the floor of the port saw it, knew it, and shrieked. Their teeth gnashed something fierce, they broke ranks, and ran.
The first shot from the immense craft fired at just that moment, tearing into their scattered line and throwing the beasts every which way. They howled, and another blast came, blue-lighting in a ball and devastating, turning whole beings into pieces with every hit.
The craft hovered outside the port doors of Dulce for a manner of moments, and then ascended into the clouds just as quickly as it’d come down. The storm that’d been descending upon that area of New Mexico going with it.
43 — Outta There
“Who was that?” Billy shouted from the back of the X-22, but Mark ignored him, although he couldn’t help the slight smile that edged onto one corner of his mouth. They remembered, he thought, they remembered!
Mark steeled his resolved and started hitting the controls. A moment ago there’d been hundreds of Reptilians pouring forth at them from the HUB doors. Now there were just a few straggling to get back in those doors, the vast majority of their comrades lying in pieces on the floor around them. Most of the fighter craft at that end of the port were also destroyed and the security facility was charred and blackened.
“Can we make it, Captain?” Aaron asked, coming up behind his seat.
“We can now, now that we’re not gonna be eaten alive.”
Aaron gulped. He hadn’t imagined it’d be that bad.
“We’re going home, boys!” he shouted out, then hit the final control that started up the X-22. The engines fired to life and the men in back cheered, the women wailing and crying in joy.
It took just seconds and the X-22 was up and pointing back around at the ruined port doors. Mark fired the engines and sent her out, toward Moses and the chopper with the rest of the men and rescued captives.
“If you’re gonna blow her, now’s the time!” Mark shouted back, and in the back, Stu stood up. He’d been quiet so far, and was quiet still when he took out the control to the Cell-Electrostatic-Disruption, or CED device, and looked at the men. He looked ready to say something, then sighed and shrugged. What was there to say? He pushed the button and the men all got up to rush to the small windows near the door, affording them a view back at the base.
“Nothing happened,” Billy said.
“Maybe it needs a minute,” Stu said.
“Or it could just be that—”
FFF… FFF… ZZZZ — ZAP!
Billy’s words were cut off by the sound, and what came next. It was like some force had descended upon them, one that had their fingers tingling and their hair standing on end. The closest any of them could compare it to was an electromagnetic pulse, and that’s about what this looked like. There was a thrum of some sort, one that built from the bottom of the base and then shot outward, like a sonic boom that couldn’t be heard or seen, only felt. It created a short, sharp light, blinding in intensity but just for a moment. Then there was nothing.
“I don’t think—”
BOOM!
Like ten sonic booms, the force of the blast made everyone involuntarily put their hands to their ears, even Mark flying the X-22. Below, Dulce Base seemed to lift up off the ground for the briefest of moments, although every man there knew something like that just wasn’t physically possible. But then there were a lot of things in Dulce that weren’t supposed to be physically possible.
The base never moved but all life inside of it did, to wherever it is that life from other parts of the universe, life engineered in labs, and life from the darkest recesses of our minds is ever capable of going. In a split-second every particle of every living cell in Dulce was atomized, ripped apart, and decimated.
“Hot damn!” Billy shouted.
Ahead in the cockpit, Mark smiled. Dulce was no more, and he was just meeting up with another helicopter, one flown by his father. The terror was over.
Epilogue — Turning Back
Turn ran, his breathing frantic not because of his pace — he could run on his cybernetic legs for hours and not get tired like that — but because of that look on Aaron’s face. He’d known what he’d done, he’d known and he’d been planning it. What is going on? Turn kept thinking as he ran further into the base. What mission within a mission have I run into?
He finally slowed, he didn’t know where, somewhere on the edge of Level 5. It dawned on him that he hadn’t seen a single Gray, nor a single Reptilian. There wasn’t a single captive about either. It was quiet, too–
“Psst!”
Turn spun around and saw a wild-eyed man, his red, curly hair a stark contrast to those shining white teeth staring back at him. He was still several yards away, and hesitant, as if he’d just startled a wild animal and wasn’t sure if he should try to be nice or try to run.