Soon after the radio message Hurst, Knight and Harlan had run into Davis and his team.
Davis slowed, his team following suit. "You guys heading to evac?"
"He is," Hurst gestured towards Harlan. "We're headed to the armoury."
"We can take him," Davis suggested. He turned to his group, "Megan, Johnson, take Harlan with you to evac."
Davis turned back to Hurst, "Me and Travis will come with."
Hurst nodded, "Thanks. Let's go."
They picked up their pace and the two groups moved off separately.
"You said they'll breach the south wall?" Hurst asked whilst moving at a jog.
"Yeah. I decided to wait and see. I could hear the bastards digging through." Davis replied.
"That creature was like an acid bomb," Travis added.
"I saw it burn through a bunch of Aliens, must've melted through the steel," Davis continued.
In the bright light of the day, Davis noticed Knights swollen jaw. "What happened to him?"
"He got hit by the one looking for Kra'tak," Hurst explained.
"Shit," Davis winced.
They continued running to the armoury. As they approached they saw no guards outside. Just as expected, they had evacuated. Knight arrived first and punched in the key code, the other three providing cover.
Knight hurried inside the illuminated building. He grabbed an empty backpack and began filling it with the few sticks of C4 that were left. Hurst followed him inside and searched for ammo.
Running through the shelves, Hurst grew aggravated. "There's no ammo left," he told Knight.
Gunfire erupted from outside the entrance. Hurst and Knight looked at each other in surprise.
Knight grabbed wire and detonators, stuffed it inside the pack and hurried back outside with Hurst. They were met by a number of loud Alien shrieks.
They saw Davis and Travis firing at a number of oncoming Aliens. Hurst and Knight readied their rifles to join in.
Hurst shouted at Knight, "Take the C4 and get back to medical!"
Knight hesitated. Hurst shouted over the gunfire again, "We'll stay behind you and hold them off. Get to medical! We'll catch up."
Knight still hesitated, looking between Hurst, Davis, Travis and the oncoming Aliens. He wanted to say something but his swollen jaw wouldn't allow him to. There were already a large number of the sleek black Aliens running between buildings towards them. Davis and Travis were holding them off with sporadic gunfire.
"I'm low on ammo," Davis announced.
"Me too!" Travis confirmed.
The two of them were backtracking and had now joined Hurst. The Aliens were advancing too fast to hold them off.
"Knight, go now! Run as fast as you can!" Hurst bellowed.
Hurst readied his last grenade launcher attachment round. He aimed in between two fast advancing Aliens, fired and watched the arc of the grenade as it landed and exploded, crippling both his intended targets. They were quickly replaced by more.
The explosion shook Knight out of his stupor. He shouldered his pack, turned away from the scene behind and began sprinting without looking back.
"Oh shit! We gotta go!" Davis was now starting to panic.
The three of them began moving backwards as fast as they could, firing as they went. The Aliens were again running, jumping and dodging as much as they could in the more confined space. Being closer, they were having more success hitting the Aliens.
Travis's gun clicked dry. He slowed to replace the clip, Davis noticed movement, but it was too late to warn him. An Alien leapt straight on to Travis and began tearing him apart. The blood curdling screams echoed around the buildings.
Davis was frozen to the spot staring in horror as he watched his brother being ripped apart. Hurst downed an Alien that had been about to leap at him. He was about to move towards Davis when an Alien abruptly landed on Davis from above, crushing him to the ground. It quickly tore into Davis before Hurst could react.
There were too many of them now. He turned and ran. He could hear the shrieks of Aliens all around him. He was low on ammo and out of grenades. He sprinted away from the carnage behind him and tried to think fast, taking a few turns as he went. A searing pain jolted him forward. He turned as he fell, landing on his back.
He saw an Alien hit the floor. It had jumped on him from the nearby rooftop. The Alien paused, as if the fall had knocked it senseless. Hurst took the opportunity to shoot the still target, shredding the Alien to pieces. A few specks of acidic blood landed on Hursts arm and started to burn through.
He struggled to get up as he tried to bat away the acid burning his arm with a gloved hand. He tried getting up again.
Something was badly wrong, but he didn't understand. He quickly realised; he couldn't move his legs.
There was an odd quiet after the panic and gunfire of retreating. Hurst lay there, feeling his arm burning, thoughts running through his head at a thousand miles per hour.
His silence was broken by a now familiar sound. The shriek of an Alien.
Finley watched Knight arrive at a rush. He stopped at the entrance, breathing hard through his nose, broken jaw clenched shut.
Finley looked around, "Where's Hurst?"
Knight shook his head, giving Finley a sombre look.
Finley activated his radio, "Hurst?"
There was no reply. Finley walked outside, looking around as Knight worked fast to set up the C4 around the entrance.
Finley paced. He wanted to go out there, but he had to stay with Smiths family. He looked back at Knight who was deep in concentration working on the wiring for the placed charges.
Knight silently gestured to Finley that the charges were ready. Finley stood near the outside, scanning all around him. He detected some slight movement in the distance. He focused on it, hoping. Just a few seconds later his hope drained; it was an Alien. It came out from between the buildings opposite the medical bay.
Finley stood for a few seconds, rifle held to his side. He didn't bother firing at it. Instead, he moved inside. Knight followed him further into the room whilst unrolling a wire connected to the trigger he was holding.
When they were far enough away, Knight looked at Finley who nodded his confirmation.
"Do it," he said grimly.
Knight pressed the trigger. They watched the bright flash and following explosions as the charges went off in sync. The sound was almost deafening this close by. The whole room shook, medical equipment sent flying by the shock-wave, smashing and clanging around the front of the room.
Huge chunks of concrete collapsed in a heap together. Clouds of grey dust radiated in to the room. Eventually everything settled down and quiet descended on them. Finley moved first, Knight followed.
They checked over the large pile of concrete now blocking the entrance. Satisfied, Finley spoke with little emotion, "It's blocked."
Knight nodded and picked up a nearby energy bar before moving to a nearby bed. He lay down, exhausted mentally and physically.
Finley made his way to the room the critical Caley and Patia were in.
She looked up at him questioningly, still holding Caley's hand. Medical equipment beeped rhythmically.
"It's safe," Finley stated, "for now."
He sat down heavily in a chair.
Amy was sobbing. She was crouched next to Adams, holding the torch he had given her, whilst Heather worked on him.
"He's dead!" Callum shrieked. "He's fucking dead!"
"Quiet. You're not helping," Gustav chastised.
He held Callum by the shoulder and guided him out of the room, broken glass crunching underfoot.
"Get some air," Gustav insisted, not really giving him a choice.
Callum tried to protest but gave up. He realised he needed to get outside. He was feeling suffocated in that room.
Gustav called Hale, who was leaning against a wall, feeling helpless.
"We need to get out of here as soon as," Gustav told him.
Hale agreed.
"You go check the ships in the hangar, I'll check the APC," Gustav suggested.
Hale nodded confirmation and they both moved off.
Heather didn't know what to do. She'd dressed the few small cuts she could see. Other than that, none of them knew how to help him. Amy had been sobbing since she'd seen Adams. Other than holding the torch, Heather was unable to get any help from her.
"He is dying." This was Kra'tak.
Heather was going to make a sarcastic remark but decided against it. Kra'tak was just trying to help. She looked up at him, seeing him illuminated in the light of the torches Hale and Gustav had placed around the room. She could clearly see the spear stuck through his leg.
"How's the leg?" she asked, her voice flat.
"I cannot use it. I do not have the equipment to repair it." Kra'tak answered.
"What about him?" she continued.
"He is hurt. I have equipment that will help him." Kra'tak informed her.
Tol'din was conscious and had been talking on and off to Kra'tak for the last few minutes. Even though she'd seen the vid logs, Heather still couldn't believe the damage 2218 had managed to do.
She knew if it hadn't been for Kra'tak and Tol'din, they wouldn't have stood a chance. She was also aware that if it wasn't for those two, they wouldn't have even been here.
It didn't matter, she decided.
Her radio crackled alive, interrupting her thoughts.
"The APC is useless. The ships in the hangar too. They've all been sabotaged." Gustav sounded defeated.
She acknowledged and stood up. Her knees clicked as she straightened her legs, pins and needles shooting from her feet. She shook her legs to let the blood flow back in to them as she walked over to Arthurs remains.
"What did you do you son of a bitch?!" she said in disgust.
She crouched and looked at Arthurs still intact head. "You awake in there?" she smacked his head with the palm of her hand.
"Huh? You still alive?" she said angrily, slapping the head again.
"What the fuck was an android doing on our base?!" hitting it again.
It didn't respond.
"Son of a bitch!"
She hit it once more in disgust and sat back, looking down at the dark floor, taking deep breaths to calm herself. After a moment, Kra'tak broke the silence.
"Did you know he was not human?"
She looked over at his masked face. "No." A pause, "Did you?"
"Yes. We saw him when eating food." Kra'tak replied.
"Why didn't you tell us?" Heather asked.
"No human was alarmed at his presence." Kra'tak.
She thought on it, listening to Amy sobbing at the same time.
"Yeah, I guess you had no reason to," Heather accepted somberly.
Callum paced back and forth outside the main entrance, watching Gustav at the APC. It was light now, daylight fully upon them.
He heard Gustav swear loudly. He walked over, his edginess not allowing him to stay still for long.
Gustav stood at the open engine hatch swearing loudly in his native tongue. He saw Callum come over to join him.
"Look inside," Gustav suggested.
Callum did so. Instead of a regular engine block, with obvious components and wiring, all he could see was a large mass of metal and plastic that had melted together. Nothing was salvageable.
"We're dead, aren't we?" Callum dreaded.
Gustav simply looked at him and grunted in a cynical laugh.