He stared right into the frightened eyes of a Russian starting to backpedal from him. The man lifted his rifle, aiming at O’Neil.
“No,” O’Neil said simply, pushing the gun barrel down. Rounds slammed into concrete, and O’Neil thrust a clawed hand at the man’s wrist. He squeezed until he felt the breaking of bone and flesh.
This is for every one of our men who lost their mind to the agent. For every man who has died or will die tonight. For Van.
O’Neil dragged his claws across the man’s throat. The man dropped his rifle, letting it fall on his sling. His hands reached his throat in a pathetic attempt to stymy the blood rushing from the wound. He gasped for a breath that would never again come. O’Neil tore his rifle away, and let the man crumple, immediately turning the rifle on the nearest Russian soldiers. A few more Hybrids went down as the Russians started to fall back.
The last couple SEALs on Delta and Charlie were torn apart by a grenade. Other Moroccan Hybrids went down when shots punched through their organic armor or tore through their faces.
But they did not let the carnage stop them. Not until the Russian lines started to break.
At first, only a couple Russians ran from them, trying to speed past them one-by-one, racing toward the safety of the other forces closer to the walls and warehouses. Then as more and more started to give up their positions to the Hybrids, the Russian lines broke completely.
The enemy ran toward what they must have thought were safer positions with the rest of their forces. O’Neil stood and picked off a couple as they retreated. Rounds careened into their backs, and the enemy soldiers toppled.
The Hybrids were victorious. But it had come at a cost.
All that was left of his team was Tate, Loeb, Hassan, and a couple other Moroccans. The rest of his Hybrid forces were scattered among the corpses of the Russians, dead.
He saw more shapes running toward them. Started to lift his rifle, the red still creeping into his vision, the rage burning at the back of his mind from the Hybrids’ signal and the death of all his allies.
Then he recognized them.
The mercs.
“Hold your fire!” he said to the others. “Cover those people!”
The Hunters broke apart into their teams and raced along the pier toward the freighters. Russian forces perched in the shipping containers or closer to the warehouses started to fire on the Hunters.
O’Neil and his men unleashed a fierce salvo in return. The anger scorching his brain seemed to be growing hotter and hotter, especially at the sight of the Hybrids still perched on the roofs of the warehouses. Some of the soldiers that had fallen back had rooted themselves into new defensive positions. Their rifles came alive with the spark and chatter of automatic fire. Waves of rounds pinged against the territory that O’Neil and his brothers had paid for with their blood.
“Thank you,” Andris shouted as he ran past O’Neil.
“Just hurry!” O’Neil said back.
A Russian soldier raced toward them, an RPG on his shoulder. He started to aim it, and O’Neil twisted his aim on the man. Filled his chest with bullets. But not before the soldier launched the rocket. The round blasted past O’Neil, missing and winding upward toward one of the ships. It exploded against a shipping container on the ship’s deck.
A surge of red-hot agitation filled O’Neil. Not because the blast itself bothered him. But almost as if there were Skulls on that ship. Like they had been pissed off from the explosion.
It wasn’t until the smoke from the blast cleared that he realized the shipping container had ruptured. Puckered metal revealing the cargo within.
Skulls.
Most of the beasts were dead, but a handful clambered out between their charcoaled brethren. They sniffed at the air, their eyes roving and seeking sniffing at the air, eyes seeking their next target.
“Oh, shit,” Tate said.
The Skulls poured out of the container, screaming and yelling. A couple of sailors that were on top of the freighters, seeking shelter from the gunfire, started running. The monsters went racing after them.
Loeb raised his rifle to take the beasts down.
O’Neil put a claw on his rifle barrel lowering it. “No, let the monsters clean up those bastards. They’ll do our fighting. Focus on the real danger. Once the explosives are set, all we need to do is leave this place.”
Loeb nodded, turning his attention back on the Russian Hybrids and soldiers. With the help of the other prisoners, they kept the path to the pier clear from the enemy, fighting to hold their ground.
The first of the Hunters returned to their side. It was Meredith and Andris, both sopping wet.
“Explosives are placed,” Meredith said. “As soon as the others return, we can make it out of here.”
“How exactly?” O’Neil asked. “I’m not sure how well we can swim.”
“No need,” Andris said. “There is a tunnel, a drainage pipe that we took to infiltrate the base. A couple of locals showed us. They’re waiting there for us.”
O’Neil thought of Khalid. Of the local fighting force the man had mentioned. Perhaps the mercs had found Khalid’s people after all and they had been the ones to help the Hunters get inside the base.
The rest of the mercs gathered around the Hybrids trading fire with the Russians. They pushed their way between the shipping containers and crates toward the location of the drainage pipe that Andris had mentioned. Another pair of Moroccan Hybrids were torn apart by sniper fire.
“No!” Hassan yelled.
More screams echoed over the decks of the freighters. It appeared that the wild storm of pheromones had turned the mobs of Skulls in the shipping containers wild. More of them burst open, releasing the monsters on the decks of the ships.
O’Neil tried to ignore them. To focus on the real problem. The Russians.
He could feel the signal that the Hybrids had been letting out weaken even further. As though another of his comrades were gone, swept away by the soldiers and Skulls now fighting on the walls.
Must have been Alpha.
Stuart. Henderson…
The wild howls of the beasts on the ships shook over the shipyard.
Soon as the group had put enough distance between themselves and the ships, Andris would detonate the explosives. All those Skulls on the boats would be sent to the bottom of the harbor.
The sound of breaking glass drew O’Neil’s attention to one of the freighters. A monstrous Skull had been pounding at the windows along the bridge. It reached through the cracked and busted glass, then pulled out sailors, one-by-one, throwing them screaming to the deck nearly three-stories below the bridge.
Some of the Skulls started to pour over the side of the ship. Many landed in the water, slipping beneath the dark surface. Others hit the pier, their heads whipping around wildly as they sought out targets.
“Please tell me we can disable those ships now,” Jenna said.
Andris tightened his grip on the detonator remote. “Here we go.”
He pressed the button.
The Skulls kept screaming. The Russians kept firing.
For a moment, O’Neil worried nothing was happening. That the explosives had been duds or been disabled or that these damn mercs were less capable than he had hoped.
All this fighting had been for nothing. All the deaths of the SEALs and the prisoners wouldn’t get them any closer to finally completing the mission they had embarked on weeks, hell, maybe months ago, for all he knew.
But then he heard it.