Dulce Base (The Dulce Files Book 1)

by Greg Strandberg

  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

  Dulce Platform (Level 7)

  Thursday, May 24, 1979

  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.

  “Fuck!” Fred shouted and at the same moment David shouted “down!”

  The three men dove down, but it did little good. A moment later all three began to float upward, their arms and legs locked at their sides, their bodies at the whim of something else’s mind. What’s more, they could hear the sound of another train coming in…and just as they began to float toward the tracks. Fred made to scream, but even their voices were powerless to them.

  ~~~

  “Now!” Charlie half-whispered, half-yelled, and he and John both threw their remaining four grenades at the same time and then dove backward for cover. At the mouth of the tunnel ahead of them, the portion that led right to the train platform, the large, Bellatrax Gray looked down and immediately lost all mental focus at what it saw.

  BOOM!

  ~~~

  Donlon, David and Fred all three dropped at the same moment, hitting the station platform hard. They just happened to land so they were facing the mouth of the tunnel, and they therefore had quite the view of the explosion that killed the nest of aliens there. First the half-dozen Reptilians were eviscerated, though a few arms and legs and in once case a head, still flew out. Next the two smaller Grays were smashed into the wall, their heads exploding from the force. Finally, the largest of the Grays, the one with long spindly arms and a hunched over frame, seemed to just blast apart, one limb going in each direction. The men saw it all and couldn’t believe it, not until Charlie and John appeared through the smoke and carnage. When they saw the tub
e train slide to a stop beside them, the doors chiming open, they knew they had a chance still of making it out of there.

  Then the five Bellatrax Grays stepped out.

  41 –Firing ‘er Up

  Dulce Entrance (Level 1)

  Thursday, May 24, 1979

  “C’mon!” Mark shouted as he hoisted one of the women up and over his shoulder then pulled the other one forward, the one that could still walk. She staggered ahead and he wheeled about to face the Reptilians on his tail again, his machine gun up and spraying out a steady arc of bullets. Several of the creatures fell, but several more bounded over the corpses to take their place.

  Nearby was Billy, firing as well, and towing two females to top it off. In fact, each of the five or six times Billy, Jerry, and he had come in and out since splitting up with the others had resulted in them towing at least two women captives, if not more. The thought nearly made Mark shake his head, especially when he thought back to Jerry carrying one on each shoulder earlier on one of their many incursions into and then out of the tunnels, getting as many of the fleeing women as they could. Mark chuckled inside when he thought back to the women on Jerry’s shoulders, each with one of the men’s spare 9mm’s firing away. It worked for moving fast, but Mark was unsure how many of the creatures the women hit. But then what did it matter? The call to go would come anytime now…had already, hadn’t it?

  At the time they hadn’t know where all the women had been coming from, just that they were coming and that they had to save them. It was only when Mark began to question them further that he learned they’d run up all the way from the lower levels. The reason, he’d pressed them, was that fighting had broken out there. What’s more, several of the women had said the Grays were pulling back, or better yet, nowhere to be seen. Still, there were more than enough Reptilians to make up for it, though at least they didn’t have the ability to lift you into the air and smash your head against the wall like the Grays did.

  Mark fought on, moving and turning about to fire and then moving some more. He was taking up the rear and he was beginning to feel that this would be the last run in, the last any of the team members could chance going back for anymore of the captives. Already they’d gotten hundreds – hell, maybe thousands, he thought when he remembered the call that’d come from General Anderholt and how he’d mentioned they were pulling out women left and right on the tube trains down below. It’d been mentioned, but there was no real way to know for sure. And how many women the aliens had in the depths of Dulce, women that were perhaps on even deeper levels and who’d never be discovered? Mark didn’t want to think about that terrible thought.

  He wheeled around again and fired off another burst, then reached down and grabbed one of the grenades at his belt and threw it too. He was already a good ten feet closer to the port when the thing went off behind him, the screeching of the dying Reptilians echoing up to reach him.

  “Captain!” someone shouted, and Mark looked over to his left to see Aaron coming up from the same tunnel the two teams had separated at before.

  Mark narrowed his eyes. “Where are the others?”

  Aaron shook his head. “Johnny’s dead – Reptilian got him with its claws. Andy saw it and got spooked, ran off into the base. Turn ran after him, there was some explosion, and then…” Aaron shook his head, clearly in shock over what’d happened, “…and then…they’re gone, sir – they’re just gone.”

  Mark nodded. “Where, Major?”

  Aaron shook his head again, but Mark was having none of that. “Take me to the spot,” he said, “I’m not leaving any men behind.”

  Aaron grabbed him by the arm as he tried to pass, and gave him a hard look. “They’re dead, and you will be too if we don’t get out of here, we all will be – who the hell is gonna fly that thing.”

  He nodded toward the bruised and battered X-22 still sitting near the downed-UFO. Mark held his gaze his jaw firm and near-quivering from anger, then looked over at the craft. Aaron was right, and he knew it. He looked back at the Major and nodded.

  “Alright,” he said, “let’s get the hell out of here.”

  ~~~

  BOOM!

  “Yee-haw!” Eddie shouted, pulling up on the controls of the alien fighter craft at the same time. He easily sailed up into a steep arc, then flipped the craft over so he was upright again and shot back toward the open port doors and the safety of the desert. Below him and in his wake was a smoking crater, the burned and shredded remains of more than a dozen Reptilians laying haphazardly about.

  ~~~

  Moses wiped the sweat from his brow and shook his head. That was close, he thought, watching the alien fighter craft that Eddie was piloting fly back out into the desert, hopefully for another pass into the port, he told himself. Beside him Stan was still in the midst of reloading one of his Colt .45s.

  “We’ve got to make a break for it,” he said.

  Stan scoffed, but didn’t look up, just kept his eyes on the bullets that went steadily, one after another, into his gun. “We ain’t goin’ nowhere until Captain Richards gets back and gets that X-22 airborne.”

  “You think that thing’s flying again?”

  Stan looked up at him this time. “I don’t think – I know.”

  “Oh yeah, and how you figure that?”

  Stan flicked his chin toward the open port floor. “Because here he comes now.”

  Moses’ eyes narrowed and he chanced sticking his head out. Sure enough, there was Mark, a couple more women on his arms and Billy and Aaron on his heels. He was pointing at the X-22, and Moses knew he meant to take it.

  “Well, what are we waiting for?” he asked. “Let’s give ‘em a hand!”

  ~~~

  “There she is!” Mark shouted over the continual firing. Andy and Aaron looked, and sure enough, there was the X-22, bruised and battered and blackened, but upright and looking ready to fly still. Mark nodded at it, raised his gun, hefted the women further up on his shoulders, and started forward

  ~~~

  “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

  Dulce Port (Level 1)

  Friday, May 25, 1979

  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.