Chapter 4: Siege
Dr. Ride was having a miserable day. Granted, it was exciting, but the threat of getting a bullet in her head was all too familiar. It had been nearly 14 years since the last incident, 14 years of comfort and happiness. Now, that was changing.
Not surprisingly, Dr. Ride was one of the only researchers to know how to operate a weapon, or how to fight in general. The others were deep inside working on getting the radio to work while she stood guard with in the lobby. She had some sort of an assault rifle, and after about a half-hour of basic operation training, she was considered ready to defend the Sector.
At the moment, Ride was cursing Freeman's negligence on security. She, as well as her colleague Mandaiyar, had pressured him to request military security. The best he said he could do was to set up a plan for the military to arrive quickly at the facility in the case of emergency, but sometimes that quickly wasn't quick enough.
Where's Mandaiyar? She thought to herself. He should have been there by that point, as he always went to Sector E. Dr. Ride knew the reason he came – Kate. Mandaiyar had no other family. Both of his parents had been killed for resisting Matarus. Kate was three years his junior, a brilliant scientist already, but he was immensely protective. Perhaps a little too much so for the both of them.
A guard walked up. Shephard. His younger brother worked at Sector C, a close friend of Mandaiyar. "Pardon me, ma'am, your shift is over. I'm here to take over," he said.
"Tough morning," she added. "Never thought this would happen. Any word on the D and B survivors?
D was a hydro dam that provided energy to the entire facility, near the end of the facility overlooking Ramirez Lake. B was the farthest point of the base; it was the vehicle pool, and had roads and train lines connecting to Santa Fe, Phoenix, and the L-150 airport. Evidently, the attacks had been too intense for most of the D survivors to make it to E. Everyone at B had either been killed or they had run away.
"No. The technicians downstairs are trying to patch up the radios and find a way to communicate to the D survivors. "
"What about C?"
"Same. Dead. There could have been an alien landing there and we'd have no idea. Personally, I find it unlikely that Mandaiyar…and the others…would have died quite so easily." The pain was evident in his voice, as his older brother was at the main desk, right in the crossfire.
Dr. Ride nodded, as it didn't seem likely for Mandaiyar to have died that easily. If he had, they were doomed. There was no way to escape E without running into enemy patrols. Even though they had security guards there were likely not enough to break through the enemy. Without extra manpower from C, it was impossible to escape E. . Even though they had security guards there were likely not enough to break through the enemy. Without extra manpower from C, they would all die.
"Adam should be fine," she said, attempting to console his worried brother.
"Yeah," he said absentmindedly, obviously in pain.
Suddenly, there was burst of gunfire from outside, and the rooftop guard tumbled down the stairs, dead. Screams erupted in the lobby as the unarmed scientists fled to cover and the security guards, with various armaments, headed to the roof to handle the new threat. Dr. Ride went up with them, preparing to beat back the onslaught. She took a glance back, looking at the researchers below. A colleague, Patterson, stood there, and shouted up to her and the other guards "Hold them off! We're trying to get the radio working!"
She turned and ran up the stairs to the roof, where guards were leveling their guns. One Heavy pulled his machine gun sights to his eye and began to fire, the noise increasing in volume to deafening as every gun on the rooftop opened fire and the targets below responded. Ride flicked the safety of the gun, and moved to one side of the roof. Right in front of her, a man was shot. A spray of blood came from his chest and he fell backwards, dragged back by a medic.
She aimed down her sight, the thing the guards had called a HOLO sight. Ride crouched and selected a target, a man with a machine gun aiming at her. Reacting on impulse, she squeezed the trigger, emptying a good 10 rounds in to the man, sending him falling backwards. She aimed for another target, spraying at him, before the gun made a clicking noise, empty. She cursed as she clumsily pulled the magazine out and meticulously slotted in another. As Dr. Ride got back in line, she heard a clink, and right beside her landed a grenade.
She just stood there, watching it, when suddenly a man ran up beside her, picked it up, and tossed it to the ground moments before it exploded, killing several of the enemy. The man grabbed her by the arm, and threw her to the ground. "HEADS UP!" yelled the man, just as a fire shot out from the ground, right where her head had been, and took the man in the shoulder, sending him falling the ground gasping.
It had been Shephard.
Ride ran behind him and dragged him to the doorway of the roof entrance. She pulled out a first aid kit, but Shephard said "Doc, let it go." A loud boom rang downstairs, the distinctive sound of a shotgun. "Go take care of that."
She dropped the assault rifle and grabbed his Magnum, running downstairs. A group of black clad soldiers entered through the door, aiming their rifles at the researchers. Wasting no time, Ride raised the gun, aimed, and fired.
The shot boomed, the gun kicking like a mule in her hand, sending crushing pain throughout her hand as one of the soldiers was hit in the chest, flying backwards into his compatriot. She put her second hand around the hold of the gun, pointed, and fired, sending another soldier to the ground. The remaining soldiers aimed at her, but a burst from above sent one crumpling and another to the floor. The latter tried to crawl away, but her third shot finished him off.
Ignoring the pain in her hand, Dr. Ride ran up the roof, reading to fight again, but there was no fight. The remaining soldiers ran away, a nearby riflemen downing one. A chorus of cheers erupted on the roof as the men realized they had protected the roof. She moved out of the way as several infirmary doctors ran up the roof to treat the wounded. One of them went to Shephard, looking at his shoulder. "How is he?" she asked.
"The bullets shattered his shoulder," the doctor said as he took out a needle. "Should be fine."
Hearing shattered made the pain in Dr. Ride's hand seem more potent. She sat down, nursing the hand, which must have been broken. The same doctor walked up to her and jammed a relatively large needle into her arm. "Aagh!" she yelled. "What the he-"
"You fired a .44 Magnum with one hand," the doctor explained. "Broke multiple bones in your hand. I gave you a nano-machine injection, which should speed up the healing process."
Immediately, the pain began to subside. "Nano-machines?" she asked.
"Little computers given to a patient through injection. It monitors your health levels and aids in treatment. It's experimental, as well."
This worried Dr. Ride. "So we're the testing ground?"
The doctor nodded, and added with an evil grin "We're the testing ground for more than just the nanos. Do you want to know how they make the taco meat?"
"No." she replied. Although this was likely that it was the last day she would ever work at L-150 – one way or another – she would rather not hear about the inevitable pink slime.
The pain in her hand residing, Ride stood up and walked downstairs. Dr. Patterson walked out of the radio room with a massive grin on his face. Kate was right beside him, her hand wrapped in gauze, a similar smile on her face. "We got the radio to work," Kate said.
"What happened to your hand?" Ride added, her colleagues' happiness spreading rapidly.
"Electric burn. Hurt quite a lot, I might add. But that's inconsequential. I'm going to go get a drink, and I'll let Patterson explain what we've found out."
As Kate walked away, Patterson began. "With the working radio, we contacted the different Sectors. Unfortunately, we have reason to believe that there are no survivors at A; no one responded. At B, we also didn't find anyone, as everyone there must have fled. We contacted D as well; it appears that the scientists there are hiding in the generator rooms."
As he paused, Ride asked "What about C?" a worried tone in her voice.
"They appear to have been hit hard. Most of the staff there are dead, including most of the security." She grimaced. That was less manpower, the one thing that could get them out of the facility.
Patterson continued. "However, Freeman has gathered the surviving scientists into a safe room along with a Heavy, and Mandaiyar, Barnes, and Shephard fought their way to Freeman, clearing out the facility of hostile soldiers. Freeman has sent the last three to save us, as well as lead the C survivors to safety. We also found out that Freeman has contacted the military, and they're sending a group of Marines to help us and evacuate us."
Ride breathed a sigh of relief. Now that the military was here, they wouldn't have to fight their way over. That made things easier.
Her stomach rumbled. About those tacos…
