Chapter 13 - Nuked
Outside, Jane caught a glimpse of a giant mushroom cloud rising above her. The ground shock hit an instant later, knocking her to the floor. Before she could recover the air shock reached the bunker, blasting dirt and debris past the door at hundreds of miles an hour.
Inside, the bunker's window shields held, but the vacuum created by the wind threatened to suck them out of the open door. Each soldier grabbed on to anything they could find; weapon controls, computer consoles – and in one case, a foot.
After a few seconds, the wind died died down, prompting Jane to ask, "Is it over?"
"Not yet," Daria replied. She still remembered enough from old action movies to know what was coming next.
The wind returned from the opposite direction, roaring fiercely as it rushed to fill in the vacuum now left by the rising column of fire and ash. After several more seconds, it faded for good. The calm finally allowed Jane to remember something that she'd thought upon seeing the explosion.
"Alan! We have to get Alan!"
"I'm right here."
Jane looked up and realized the foot she was hanging on to belonged to Watts, who was sitting in a corner, holding on to the edge of a weapons console. She let go, and rushed to hug him.
"I thought you were still outside."
"I was," he said, patting her on the back, " but it was time for the shift change. It's nice to see you too, by the way."
Relieved, Jane finally realized what she was doing, and quickly let go of her fellow Corporal. She blushed, and tried not to look Daria in the eye.
Instead of firing off the joke that Jane expected, Daria focused on the mission.
"That's two failures in a row, I think. We're losing our touch," she said with a smile.
"Really?" Jane asked, "Nova Prospekt is gone, I'm going to count that as a success."
"Fair enough. There's no telling what kind of radiation we're being exposed to though, we need to get the hell out of here before it really is a failure."
They packed up quickly, while Daria checked outside for radiation using an old Geiger counter. The tool was useful for picking up the basic stuff, but Combine teleportation equipment emitted several types of deadly radiation which didn't even have a human name yet, let alone detection equipment.
When the rest of the team was ready to go, Daria led them back in the direction from which they had approached. Behind them, the mushroom cloud was still growing. Debris and ash in the head of the cloud still burned, bathing the ground in a dull red glow.
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They took the beach on the way back, trading safety for time as they hurried to get to the nearest Resistance outpost at Lighthouse Point. The Ant Lions were nowhere to be found. DeMartino guessed that the ground shock had caused the creatures to be crushed in their sandy burrows, or perhaps drowned by the high water table near the ocean.
When they reached Lighthouse Point, the mood managed to be both excited and somber. There was certainly much more activity outside than normal for an outpost in the middle of the night. Daria grabbed a passing Private.
"Private, what's going on here?"
"Didn't you see? Nova Prospekt is gone."
"Yes," Daria said, turning to look at the remnants of the mushroom cloud. "I can see that. Is there anything else?"
"Well," the Private looked down at his feet. "Gordon Freeman and Alyx Vance were inside when it went off. Eli Vance and Judith Mossman are still being held captive."
Daria remembered Alyx Vance. She was the daughter of Eli, and one of the best refugee escorts in the city. Hundreds of people owed their lives and freedom to her.
The mention of Judith Mossman's capture was also news to her. Mossman was a researcher from Black Mesa, who was helping the Resistance in creating teleportation technology in the hopes that it would make it easier to get refugees out of the city and into safety. Her loss wasn't a particularly crushing blow, as they'd been working on it for years.
Daria let the Private go, and walked off toward Lighthouse Point's namesake. The tower of concrete and brick was built out on a bluff, making it easily fortified. The entire lighthouse was an armory, holding thousands of bullets and hundreds of explosives. Halfway up the tower was a platform which held the outposts' administrative office. Inside, they found a man who looked quite familiar.
"Er," Daria stammered, "Leon?"
"Leon's my brother. I'm Ed."
"Alright, Ed. I'm Sergeant Morgendorffer, and this is Grey Team from NLO. We need transportation back to our outpost."
Ed searched a desk draw and produced a key.
"There's a truck in the garage of the westernmost building. Have a nice night, the Combine is too busy scrambling and trying to figure out what's going on that they've pulled off every patrol outside the city. It's smooth sailing down the Highway."
Now that was the kind of news Daria liked to hear.
"I will," she said with a smile. "Thanks."
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Daria stepped in through the back door of the garage, and flipped on the light. Behind her, Watts could see the truck through the doorway. He let out a chuckle.
"Man, this is just getting predictable."
Some of the letters on the tailgate had been scraped off, but they still read: "T YO A"
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Grey Team arrived at New Little Odessa around sunrise. By then, the happy atmosphere brought on by the destruction of Nova Prospekt had given way to sleep and hangovers. A slightly tipsy Colonel Cubbage was once again surprised to see them, having assumed they had been killed in the explosion. After a brief report, Grey Team headed upstairs and went to bed.