by S. A. Lusher
It would have to do. They ran as fast as they could and within minutes, came to the exterior of the building.
“Hurry up!” Campbell snapped, turning around and firing on the seemingly invincible Augmented that gave chase.
Greg hurriedly worked the controls, which still, thankfully, had a bit of power in them. The door opened and the pair slipped in, shutting and locking it behind them. Greg looked around. They had come to a warehouse and were beset on all sides by stacks of enormous crates. The pair moved deeper into the warehouse.
“What the fuck are we going to do?” Campbell asked, his voice coming out as a strained whisper.
“I don't know...fuck. We need to get away. This is a warehouse, so it must be connected to the tunnels. Let's get down there and...I don't know, figure something out.”
By the time they managed to find the way down, the Cage-Thing was tearing its way into the warehouse. They hurried down a stairwell in the back corner, closing the door behind them, and finally managed to find their way down into one of the many underground tunnels that ran just beneath the surface of the moon.
They hustled down the stairs and burst through the door at the bottom, coming to a narrow tunnel that stretched away from them. They ran, passing storage rooms. Greg glanced behind him. The Augmented Cage was already down there with them, coming towards them, one arm missing, metal exposed.
“Shit.”
“Wait. Stop,” Campbell said, skidding to a halt.
“What?”
“Come on.”
Campbell darted into one of the storage rooms. Greg looked back at the Cage-Thing, let out a sharp curse and hurried in after him. He found Campbell across the room, tearing into a metal crate.
“What are you doing?”
“Mining charges. We can use these.”
“I already tried a rocket launcher.”
“Yeah, just one rocket, though. This will work.”
Greg cursed, but helped Campbell gather up the charges, shove detonating pins into them and then piling them by the door. Campbell flipped open the detonator and the pair retreated across the room, through a door in the back. They hovered uncertain in the doorway, staring at the front door, waiting for the Augmented killer to emerge.
It shifted into view.
“Now!” Greg screamed.
Campbell pressed the detonator. They barely managed to fall back into another storage room at the back as the explosives went off. There was a sharp, awkward sound that might have been pain, and then nothing.
“Think it's dead?” Campbell whispered after several moments of silence.
“Only one way to know for sure,” Greg murmured in reply.
They moved to the doorway. The room beyond was filled with smoke, everything thrown into unmitigated chaos. For a long moment, there was nothing. And then they heard an awkward, metallic, scraping sound.
Impossibly, from the smoke and ash, what was left of the Cage creature crawled towards them, dragging itself along on one arm, both legs being dragged uselessly behind it, bloody, sparking, and broken.
“You have got to be shitting me,” Greg moaned.
“Let's finish it.”
The two men raised their respective weapons, Campbell his rifle, Greg just his pistol, as everything else had been lost in all the chaos, and opened fire. A barrage of bullets began eating away at what was left of the thing's skull. Finally, one got through and hit something vital. The Augmented went limp and the light faded from its eyes.
Both men stood there for a very long time, breathing heavily, staring at the twisted, malignant thing. Finally, wordlessly, Greg walked over to the shelf that had held the mining charges, found another two, stuffed detonator pins in them, walked over and planted them directly on the remains of the Cage-Thing.
“Come on,” he murmured, straightening up.
They retreated back out into the corridor and, once they were far enough away, Greg hit the button. A tremor rippled through the area, causing the lights to flicker and dim. As the last echoes of the explosion fell away, silence reigned once more.
“Let's get back to HQ,” Greg said, turning and walking down the tunnel.
Campbell trailed behind him wordlessly.
Chapter 16
–Blood, Bullets, & Bombs–
“Where's Burne?” That was the first thing Greg heard as he emerged in the hangar bay. He noted that the usual bustle of activity that typically occupied it had thinned out.
“Dead,” he replied.
Lynch was just finishing up a meal. Now she stood. At the sound of his voice, Kyra turned and abandoned whatever work she was doing. For a moment, just a moment, he forgot about everything as he wrapped Kyra in a hug and kissed her deeply.
“Are you about done?” Lynch asked after a moment.
“Yeah,” Greg managed, pulling away from Kyra. “I'm here. What's going on?”
“First of all, what the hell happened up there? Whatever you did, you really kicked the spider's nest. The Augmented is raining down hell on Dark Ops,” Lynch replied.
Greg spent the next few minutes detailing the highlights of their adventures aboard the Isis. Kyra and even Powell seemed interested and then, to varying degrees, horrified when Cage came up. Greg was still processing the fact that Cage had been turned, and had to be killed. By the time he summed up, Lynch seemed impatient.
“Well...good job. We've got to get moving. We're on the home stretch, thank God. We'll take the part you recovered and install it in the ship. That means we have everything we need to get that fucker going. Now, with the Augmented and Undead keeping Dark Ops busy, we decided to enact our plan of attack. Before everything went to shit, we’d been working on a new tunnel. It ran pretty close to an underground warehouse directly below where Dark Ops is presently set up. We want to bomb our way in,” Lynch explained.
“That's where everyone is?” Greg asked.
“For the most part. There's a few other points of entry. We're making this a multi-pronged attack. Unfortunately, they're running into a lot of resistance. And since you seem to be so good at getting shit done, I want you and your friends to take Mike and Linda down. We're planning on planting a bomb right in the middle of Dark Ops HQ for a big finish. Unfortunately, I can't raise the team carrying it.
“Mike knows their last known location and will guide you there. When you secure the bomb, I want you to press on and help my men break through that mining tunnel. Do you have all that?”
“Yep, I got it,” Greg replied.
He tried not to let the tiredness show in his voice. They were so close now. He could practically taste freedom and an escape from this hellish system. He, Kyra, and Campbell broke away from the group and moved over to the makeshift armory. As they replenished their depleted arsenals, Greg noticed Kyra had adopted one of the reinforced mining suits.
“What made you get one of these?” he asked.
“After the story you told about being deep underground, I figured these things must be worth their salt. So I grabbed one,” Kyra replied.
“You wear it well.”
Kyra started laughing. “You're really bad at flirting.”
“No way,” Greg replied.
“I'm afraid so. It's something you'll have to work on.”
Distantly, something exploded. Greg sighed. “I hate my job.”
“We're getting paid for this?” Campbell asked eagerly.
Greg sighed again and finished grabbing his gear. He selected a rifle and a fresh surge of adrenaline spread through him as he prepared himself once more for battle. Once they were ready, the trio broke away from the armory and moved over to the door. Greg wanted to take at least a small break, get a drink or water, or just sit down for five minutes.
But there was no time.
There was never any time.
They met up with Mike and Linda.
“Let's go,” Mike said.
* * * * *
Being back down in the tunnels again so soon wasn't a thing Greg was looking f
orward to. As he stepped out of the storage room they'd come down to and scanned the area for enemies, he couldn't help but feel a sense of elation.
They were close. Genuinely, seriously close to getting this whole thing wrapped up. He remembered waking up in the wastelands, fighting his first zombies, getting captured by Dark Ops, everything that had happened over the past few weeks. Everything, he realized, had ultimately led up to this.
Their escape.
Something shifted further down the way. And then, abruptly, it was closer. Much closer. Greg let out a startled sound, snapped up his rifle and loosed a few bullets. Something shrieked and crashed to the ground, rolling several times.
“Speed Demons!” he called.
The others finished getting out of the storage room and lined up on either side of him, weapons raised. More of them were coming, running down the tunnel at seemingly impossible speeds. Greg's mind had a hard time comprehending it. There were half-dozen of them at least. Greg sighted one, fired, missed.
He fired and missed once more, cursing. They were fast. By the time he put an ugly hole in its skull, the thing was five feet from him and he could see the twisted, nasty caricature it had for a face. More gunshots, the rest of the Speed Demons fell.
“Let's move it,” Greg said.
The team of five hustled down the tunnel, their pace brisk.
“Where is this bomb?” Greg asked.
“About halfway down the tunnel, in a maintenance bay. We were trying to move it through the maintenance areas and storage bays, to keep it hidden. Last we heard the team had run into some kind of resistance. Must have been something really nasty,” Mike replied.
Greg suppressed an irritated sigh. It was always something nasty. Why couldn't anything ever just go the way it was supposed to?
They made it another couple of dozen meters, listening to the distant sounds of combat, before they ran into another problem. Greg heard a deep, guttural snarl before he saw anything. Up ahead was a large hole in the wall. He realized, after a moment, it was where he and Campbell had set the demolition charges to kill Cage.
Something stepped out of the hole, followed by two more. Greg felt primal fear ripple through him as he caught sight of the wicked, jagged claws mounted on the end of long arms. Rippers. He hadn't seen many of them so far. It had been something he was enjoying. Another two stepped out into the corridor to join the trio.
Greg got things started with a shot that blew the brains out of the one in the middle. The others let out loud roars and raced for the squad. Two more went down as the others opened fire, and then the other two were among them.
Chaos boiled. Suddenly all Greg could see was white flesh, tattooed with black veins, and malignant red eyes. One of them swiped at him and the claws dug into the chestplate of his suit. Abruptly the thing's head vaporized and his faceplate was sprayed with black gore. Greg groaned and wiped at it, taking several steps back as he heard a second gunshot, followed by a prolonged shriek, followed by two more shots.
“Damn, look at that,” Campbell muttered.
Greg glanced down at his chestplate. Deep, thick furrows had been torn into the metal. He laughed nervously, realizing just how close he'd come to death again. Some small part of him was glad the sun was going to go supernova soon. These things, the Undead...they couldn't get out. They were too dangerous.
Unless they managed to get out on a ship, captured by Erebus to experiment upon and twist and bend to his own will.
They had to get the bomb ready.
The squad pressed on, finally coming to the side maintenance bay where the bomb had last been reported. Greg and Kyra went in first, through a door that had been blown open. The room beyond was dark, lit only by a few abandoned flashlights and the occasional run of sparks. Shadows swelled and retreated in their dark nests. Greg listened intently, playing his own flashlight across the maintenance bay.
He could see nothing, but there were a lot of crates and larger pieces of equipment.
“Cover us,” he whispered.
Campbell and Linda occupied the doorway and Mike covered their backs, standing just inside the main tunnel, keeping an eye out for anything else. Greg and Kyra inched forward, weapons ready, probing every shadow. He didn't feel alone, but he couldn't quite get a lock on what his senses were telling him, either.
Something whizzed past his faceplate. He snapped his muzzle over and spied a Lancer standing deeper in the room. It shot another infection-drenched spike his way. Greg snapped off two shots in rapid succession, downing the thing.
It was like an announcement.
Suddenly, the room was alive with movement and decayed flesh. Zombies, Rippers, and Lancers came for them with bloodied claws and malevolent eyes.
“Fuck!” Greg declared.
He opened fire. Beside him, Kyra hurled lead at high velocities. Behind him, he heard the other three shooting as well. Greg sighted a Lancer and shot out its right eye. The back of its head opened up in a spray of black blood and brains. He switched targets, putting two bullets in the face of a shrieking Ripper.
A trio of zombies advanced on him from the left. He spun, sighted, and fired out three rounds, putting nasty holes in their faces. Mike shouted over the radio, calling for backup. Greg emptied his magazine, putting down another group of zombies and some Lancers. He hastily reloaded, bumping into Kyra as he did.
She blasted heads clean off with her shotgun tucked tightly into her shoulder. Greg heard something overhead, snapped his gun up and punched a bloody hole through the head of a Creeper, preparing to descend from overhead.
Finally, the gunfire fell silent.
“Son of a bitch,” Campbell said, his breath coming out in one long sigh.
“I think I found the bomb,” Greg said a moment later.
They all came to stand with him, deeper in the room. There was blood everywhere, a good mix of red and black. What was left of whoever was holding the bomb lay on the ground at their feet. It was basically just a backpack attached to a torso. Not even attached, Greg realized, just resting upon. The head, arms and legs had been ripped away.
“Jesus,” Linda muttered.
“I'll stay here. I've got back up on the way, just a few minutes. You guys go on ahead, try to get in touch with the demo team,” Mike said.
“I'm reluctant to leave anyone on their own,” Greg replied.
“We don't have time to argue.”
Greg sighed. “Fine. Stay safe.”
“You too.”
The quartet moved back out into the main tunnel. It seemed to have gone quiet for now. They moved quickly down the rocky passageway, listening for the sounds of conflict as they hurried. Greg led the way. As they neared the end of the tunnel, an explosion of activity sounded somewhere up ahead. Greg spied an offshoot tunnel breaking to the right and hurried down it, the others in close tow. Gunfire lit up the area ahead.
A couple of dozen Undead, mostly zombies with some of the nastier ones thrown in, were all rushing to get into a hole in the left wall, a dozen meters down. Greg and the others immediately opened fire, taking them out from behind. The Undead noticed the sudden intrusion and a dozen of them broke away to take on the new threat. They were quickly dispatched and with the infusion of new fighters, the Undead group was put down.
Greg led the way into the hole in the wall, finding a small cave that looked like it had been subjected to recent blasting.
“What's happening?” He found a handful of security personnel and miners.
“You Bishop?” one asked, moving away with the others went about setting blasting charges into the wall.
“Yeah.”
“Lynch called ahead, said you'd be coming. We laid the first charges down and blasted, but it wasn't enough, as you can see. We were preparing to finish the job when we got rushed by these bastards.” The man motioned to the pile of bodies.
“Shit. If you failed the first time, we've likely tipped our hand to Dark Ops about what we're doing down here,” Greg sa
id.
The man waved dismissively. “Doubt it. We've been listening in on their radios. It sounds like they've got their hands full in there. Augmented and Undead. Real hell in there.”
“Going to be fun,” Greg said with a sigh.
“Clear out!” someone called.
Everyone moved farther down the tunnel.
Once they were clear, someone shouted, “Fire in the hole!”
A tremendous tremor tore through the area as the tunnel was briefly filled with light and heat. Greg led the charge in through the breach.
It was time to put an end to Dark Ops.
Chapter 17
–Executioners–
It was obvious the underground storage room hadn't been used in quite a while. No lights were on and there was no one and nothing down there waiting for them. A fine layer of dust had settled over most the crates and shelves in the warehouse sized room.
“Spread out!” someone called. “Secure the area and the points of ingress.”
Greg, Kyra, and Campbell moved deeper into the warehouse, playing their flashlights across the industrial gloom. He was thankful to see nothing. They pressed further, listening to the sounds of the others as they secured the area.
Williams was somewhere nearby, presumably. Greg could taste his death already. That man had caused more problems for him than anyone else. Well, except for Erebus, he supposed, feeling his metal arm. But Erebus would get what was coming to it, just a little bit later. He would personally make sure.
For now? He had a bullet with Williams' name on it.
They secured the area, finding nothing down there with them in the warehouse. By the time they'd finished up and located a pair of stairwells set into the wall on either side of a cargo lift, Mike and a fresh squad of security personnel had arrived with the bomb. A few moments later, more men, miners and technicians, came in behind them.
“We'll use this for a makeshift staging area for now,” Mike said. “Get some lights on. I want this area properly secured.”
There were a string of replies. Mike spotted Greg and approached him.
