Forces of Destiny

by Robert Maxwell

  Ashley ran into the medical containment ward and realized they were trapped. The Russians would be saturating the room they were in with grenades and maybe unmanned robotic explosive devices.

  Ashley shook her head back and forth and said, “I can’t believe I am going to do this.”

  Ashley opened the morgue door and took out a rope from her backpack and gave Jason her last grenade.

  Ashley said, “Throw the grenade down the hallway coming into this room to slow them down, then get in that first operating room, hold the door open and get ready to close the door when I come running in the room. I am going to let the fast mover zombie loose.”

  Jason’s eyes squinted in confusion looking at Ashley as he said, “WHAT!”

  Ashley ran down the hallway, opened the door labeled “Containment Room 1” and ran into the room almost slipping backwards from the blood on the floor. The stench almost made Ashley throw up. She ran up to the crystal Artifact and tied a rope around it. The close proximity to the Artifact created a deafening and intense ringing in her ears as she started to feel faint being so close to the Artifact. The fast mover was running in a circle like an animal caged by the unseen field emanating from the Artifact. It was screaming and clawing at her but Ashley could not hear it over the ringing in her ears.

  Ashley stumbled back out of the room and jerked hard on the rope as she ran towards the open door of the surgery room 1 down the hallway dragging the Artifact away from the fast moving zombie. She let go of the rope and ran into the “Surgical Room 1”. Jason slammed the door shut and locked the upper bolt. They both got into the corner opposite the door aiming their rifles as they heard a deadly scream emanate from the fast mover running down the hallway banging into the walls.

  The Russian Spetsnaz were firing into the medical containment ward room from the approaching hallway which caught the attention of the fast moving zombie. It took its attention off the operating room door that it just slammed into and sprinted into the medical containment bay room and out into the hallway that had sixteen Russian Spetsnaz. Some of the Russian Spetsnaz paused for a second in their shooting as the fast mover let out a deadly shriek from its throat that sent fear into all of the soldiers. Those Russian Spetsnaz shooting it in the chest and head were shocked to see their bullets were not stopped this undead creature sprinting, ducking and weaving towards them at tremendous speed.

  ***

  David and Ben landed the copter on the last plateau on the furthest side of the base. They ran into the forty feet tall building.

  David having trouble breathing said, “We have to get to the far side of the building and prep our last stand.”

  Ben helped David stay on his feet as they ran deeper into the building. David and Ben heard over the team radio, “Ashley and Jason in route to final defensive position, out.”

  David and Ben looked out the window and with their night vision monoculars saw four quadcopters coming from the elevator entrance. Bullets were striking the building and open ground around it from gunfire coming from the copters. The quadcopter David and Ben arrived on was now burning. David thought, they know where we are. Tom must have told them of our last defensive position.

  David with Ben’s help ran as fast as they could to the command room of the building. David was light-headed from lack of oxygen getting into his blood.

  David stumbled over to the equipment locker, looked inside and said to Ben, “Get two ropes out and get them anchored to the back side of the plateau. I want them ready for our escape down or for any team members to climb up that were smart enough to travel in the canyons below to get here.”

  Ben started retrieving the ropes as David started working through the command computer for this plateau and activated the building backup power. He paused to reconsider what had been going through his mind for the last fifteen minutes. His mind raced through all the tactics he used in his military Special Operations career looking for a solution but the conclusion was the same, his team would die from being outnumbered ten to one by the Russian infiltration teams. If they were carrying heavy mortars, then it would be over quicker.

  David thought, I put the team in extreme danger by pushing to the edge and separating them to secure the base. This triggered a feeling of guilt inside him. Yet his instinct as a commander drove him to give the people he led every advantage humanly possible as he sent them running towards death. This is why he pushed hard the moment he got into the base looking at every plateau, thinking like the military base designers. This is how he found an escape route to keep his team alive now that they were trapped and overwhelmed. It was this plateau they were on now that had what he was looking for to escape.

  David said over the team radio, “Prepare for extraction at the last defensive position. We have a jet.”

  ***

  Ashley was bleeding heavily from her right bicep but she had to complete the entry into the copter’s automated pilot. The blood had soaked her shirt sleeve and was dripping all over her lap and the copter. Jason looked at all the blood scared for Ashley but he couldn’t reach her from the seat he was in.

  Ashley yelled into the team radio to Jason, “We are flying the valley low for cover, we will ascend up and land on the back of the building, the copter will have to hover and we will have to jump onto the roof. Be quick but careful because of gunfire we will receive, one misjudgment in the jump and we fall to our deaths, out.”

  Ashley pulled out an Olaes pressure dressing, pulled out the gauze from the center of the bandage and started packing the gauze into her gunshot wound. The pain from her finger pushing into the bullet wound made her feel dizzy but she forced herself not to stop. The bullet hole filled up after five more painful pushes. She wrapped the stretch bandage around her arm and tied it off.

  The burning pain in Ashley’s wounded bicep caused memories of their escape to flood into her mind. She thought, I’ve never been so close to dying, so out of control with the only option left to gamble our lives to chance. She wondered how her instincts got it right to follow at the key distance behind the fast mover zombie as it decimated the Russian Spetsnaz. Memories flooded her mind of pulling Jason into gunfire of Russian Spetsnaz shooting at the zombie, watching the bloody back of the zombie as it ripped men apart. Ashley shielding Jason with her body as she was hit in her chest plate and right bicep by the gunfire. She could remember the smell of blood and smoke from the gunfire as they kept moving forward to what seemed like a certain death until they broke away from the distracted Russian Spetsnaz to make a sprint out of the building and to their copter.

  Jason sitting a few seats away from Ashley was in a daze as he thought, if the fast moving zombie has turned around just once instead of focusing on hunting the Russian Spetsnaz in front of it, Ashley and I would be dead. How did Ashley develop the chutzpah to run towards gunfire and certain death like that? All I wanted to do was drop down and curl up into a ball at the intensity of certain death but she ran towards it to give us a chance to escape? Jason’s body was shaking from the trauma of coming that close to death as the vulnerable screams of horror from slaughtered Russian Spetsnaz flooded his memories.

  ***

  David was running with Ben’s help into position to lay down suppressive fire at the attacking Spetsnaz on quadcopters to give Ashley and Jason a chance to land. Ben was literally dragging David who was getting dizzy from lack of oxygen.

  David heard Matthew’s voice breathing heavy over his private command radio channel, “In route to last defensive position using the valley route below by foot. I have rope gear and will scale the backside of the cliff. I have our ex-Secretary of Defense prisoner with me, over.”

  David short of breath replied, “We will lower two ropes off the back side of the plateau but you are on your own to climb the three hundred feet, out.”

  David turned to Ben and said, “Lower the two ropes on the back side of the plateau and then get back in the fight, Matthew and our prisoner are coming up.”

  David aimed
at the incoming copters but they were hovering down into the valleys separating the plateaus and then popping up to shoot, to only drop down again to protect against return fire. His breathing was getting more difficult, he was feeling blood pooling up in this lung cavity. David thought, I’m eventually going to drown in my own blood if he didn’t get into surgery soon.

  David shot thirty rounds at an attacking copter that had just popped up from the valley to suppress it. His body was running out time so he turned and jogged towards the flight bay. A minute into jogging he fell from dizziness. The lack of oxygen from only one good lung had caught up to him. David struggled up and painfully walked towards the flight bay. He looked at the shortest route because each step was a dizzy stumble. He thought about dropping his rifle to free up the strain any extra weight was causing his one good lung, but David knew better than to go unarmed. David fell again and out of instinct started rolling his body towards the jet twenty five meters away.

  Five meters from the jet David got to his hands and knees. He wanted to throw up but forced himself to stand instead and take small steps to the stairs of the small jet.

  David climbed the stairs on his hands and knees and crawled to the cockpit. He looked at the pilot's chair but it might as well have been a mountain, he was too dizzy and weak to pull himself up the chair. Instead, he reached up laying on his side and entered into the command computer in the center of the flight console for the backup escape entrance out of the base to start its opening sequence.

  There were so many critical tasks to do but his body was slowly suffocating to death and on the verge of passing out. If he didn’t do self-surgery right now he would pass out in the next few minutes and die from two collapsed lungs. David crawled to the back of the jet to the medical bay. He ripped off his tactical rifle plate carrier chest rig which freed his chest movement a little giving him a little deeper breath. He pulled out his clothing cutter blade and cut off his bloody shirt.

  David coughed up blood as he sat up and found the breathing trauma kit in the medical cabinet. He opened a syringe of lidocaine. He used his finger and found his fifth rib and injected the area with lidocaine to numb the hellish pain that he was about to subject himself to. He pulled off the sterile wrapper off surgical gloves and put them on and then opened a chest tube and placed a one-way valve on one end. The rib cage was starting to numb as he rubbed it with iodine to sterile the incision site.

  David took a scalpel and cut a one inch incision above his fifth rib. It hurt but David knew this was nothing compared to the next step. He took a sterile hemostat clamp and pushed it into the incision. He then screamed as he started opening the clamp up. He had to stop as he got faint from overwhelming pain. He took four quick breaths with his good lung and continued to open the clamps to tear a hole in his muscles for the tube to pass through. He then pushed the chest tube inside himself. He could feel it move its way up the inside of his rib cage. He pushed it up further until blood and air started to trickle out of the chest tube.

  David was about to pass out from the pain of separating his ribs but he forced himself to tape the tube in place. Blood was flowing out of the tube as David laid there breathing, fighting the urge to pass out.

  Minutes passed as he felt his bad lung start to expand again because the blood pushing against it was about drained out. David put a fist over the pool of blood on the jet floor to measure how much blood he had lost. He counted ten fists. David thought, ten fists multiplied by twenty CCs of blood a fist. That is two hundred CCs of blood loss. That is good news if it holds around there, if I go past five hundred cc’s then I probably will die if no one finds me with surgical training.

  David laid there re-oxygenation his blood as both lungs were able to breathe again because there was no longer any blood left pushing up against his right lung.

  David wanted to sleep so bad but he reached over to the freeze-dried plasma and rehydrated it. As he tried to start an IV line he looked to the jet door to see Ashley climb up into plane followed by Jason.

  Ashley looked at David’s paled skinned face and bloody chest laying on the floor and said, “Hollyshit!”

  Ashley ran to David and took over administering the plasma IV David was trying to start.

  Jason yelled out, “Matthew, Ben and the prisoner are running towards the jet. Ben is trailing behind, setting up something.”

  Ashley handed the IV pack to David and started to pick up David as she said, “Sorry, this is going to hurt.”

  David fought back a scream from the pain of his ribs moving as Ashley dragged him into the cockpit pilot seat. Instead of focusing on the flight controls, David brought up the base command menu from the jet’s computer.

  David punched in several digits and then spoke into the microphone and said, “Set autodestruct of base authorization Delta Eight Zulu Niner X-Ray seven six seven one, trigger is escape jet passing blast protection threshold, confirm.”

  A computer voice in the cockpit said, “Danger, base destruction is live, you have thirty seconds to rescind.”

  David said, “Negative rescind. Commit.”

  The computer voice replied, “Confirmed, autodestruct locked.”

  Jason overhearing what was occurring ran into the cockpit and yelled, “NO! There is an Artifact crystal and the Arc Light power source we brought in that is still in the base! That can be the cure that is vital to the survival of humanity.”

  David was about to pass out but he knew exactly what he did, what he was about to destroy. He was destroying not only the Artifact Jason found which was their clue to a source and cure of the infection but this base was humanity’s last hope.

  David with a command presence in his voice and look of confidence in his eyes said, “The base is priceless to the survival of humanity, but it can’t fall into the hands of the Russian Special Operations. This is the chance to kill so many of the Russian Spetsnaz at once, otherwise we may not make it long so outnumbered without the right equipment and advantage of defensive ground.”

  Ben, Matthew, and their prisoner ran aboard the jet and closed the door.

  Ben yelled out, “GO! I rigged the hallway with claymore mines and trip wires to slow them down.”

  David hit the escape sequence. The jet started its hover up past the hangar roof that opened into a rock tunnel that had a thick concrete blast door that was open. As they hovered up Ben looking out the window could see the blast wave of his first claymore set off in the hallway, slowing down the Russian Spetsnaz moving into the hanger.

  The V55 jet hovered up a wide stone tunnel three hundred feet as it passed another huge forty feet thick cement blast door that was open. The first blast door they past started to close. David could see on the monitor showing the area below them that bullets were hitting the rock near the closing blast door. Russian Spetsnaz must have made it into the hanger.

  The V55 jet continued to hover up the two thousand foot tunnel. They were closing in on the last of the forty feet thick blast door that was open.

  David asked Ashley, “You said you found out what happened to the base, did you find Arc Light survivors that we left behind in the base and will kill with this self-destruct?”

  Ashley said, “There were no survivors. The log of the last Eden base member, a female Doctor Deekson, documented that only a handful of Arc Light personnel made it to the Eden base because hundreds were dead, infected or missing in action. Those that did make it to the base followed all quarantine procedures but most of them became infected. This is when the handful of survivors encountered a fast mover zombie like the one we encountered at the crater. The thing was finally stopped in the containment room after killing every base member but her. She became infected during the fight, tried to treat herself with the base’s advanced medical automation but it failed. I saw her dead body myself, she killed herself.”

  David looking surprised said, “Back in the unit years ago I parachute dropped in for a high-value CIA informative extraction mission. Dr. Deekson was combat cert
ified like the doctors that serve on SWAT units. She insisted she jump with us. That woman was inspiring at her lack of fear and her strategic planning ability. No wonder she made it into the highest rung of the Arc Light program.”

  David thought, I owe her my thanks for helping my team stay alive. If that fast mover zombie wasn’t contained, Ashley and Jason would probably be dead.

  David saw the V55 jet finally exit into the sky as it hovered out of the exit of the escape tunnel which was disguised as a section of the mountain. It was literally a moment of beauty seeing the expansive mountain and blue sky range until he heard the explosion of the base shake the whole mountain causing the Northern side of the mountain to collapse in on itself forty feet causing an avalanche of rock sweep down the mountain side.

  David passed out.

  ***

  David woke up in the medical bay of the V55 jet with an Antibiotics IV in his arm and an oxygen mask on. He was feeling better with his blood oxygenated, his fluids restored and a little sleep. He saw Matthew looking at him smiling.

  Matthew said, “The internal bleeding filling your lung cavity was cauterized laparoscopically, you are in stable condition with no major organs damaged. If you didn’t place your own chest tube to drain the pressure off your lungs, you would have died. I give you credit, I wouldn’t have thought of that.”

  David waking up said the first thing on his mind, “I destroyed the country’s safety net, if we never recover that is on me. I should have found a better way but with the betrayal, I couldn’t see what was left of our team slaughtered against impossible odds.”