-Advance Wars 2
--Death Array
---Chapter 8: Mess Hall
The figure, once it had stepped into the light and closer to me, was a ninja. The easiest way I could describe it to you. It was female, judging by the ponytail and slender build, and she was dressed from head to toe in black ninja getup. There was probably better words, I just couldn't think of them at the time. Even her face as covered by a mask, you couldn't even see her eyes. You couldn't miss the pair of silenced guns in a belt around her waist... oh yeah, and that long sword which she slid into a scabbard on her back.
"Uh... who are you?"
She held up a finger to her lips for silence.
"I am Shadow Two. I serve Lady Sonja." She whispered to me.
I got the picture now. So that would explain a whole lot about why Sonja seemingly knew where I was going and what was going down. She had her own operative on the inside.
"Shadow Two huh? You're Sonja's eyes and ears for this operation?"
"Well, not just this operation. As you put it, her eyes and ears for anything that would concern the safety of Yellow Comet."
"Yeah... well, I got it. If Orange Star wins, Yellow Comet wins huh? So, you're two. Exactly how many 'Shadows' are there?"
"I'm not at liberty to answer that. I'm not even supposed to reveal myself to you, but it could not be helped. We are taught to stay in the shadows, never intervene, only watch and report."
Well, at this rate. I figured she was either going to kill me, or tell me something useful. The kind of level Shadow Two was on made her so secretive, her own identity was denied. I bet she had no files, and no paper trail either. So even if you recognized her voice or happened to see her face, you couldn't dig anything up if you went looking. Or by the sounds of it... you wouldn't get very far either.
"I will tell you two things. The first is the location of Andy. Who has been moved to the mess hall and tied up in plain sight. They are waiting for you."
"They? Let me guess, Cyanide and Lash?"
"Not exactly, it's Cyanide and Flak. Their forces are also equipped with the new suits. The alien troops are now heavily armed and armored. I would not suggest any sort of confrontation."
"What's the second thing?" I asked slowly.
Shadow Two made an innocent gesture to her pistols.
"The second thing... that if you mention me or this encounter to your CO in any great detail... I doubt very much your safety after this mission."
"Is that a threat?" I demanded, and stood up.
"No..." Shadow Two answered slowly. "It is a warning. I also took the liberty of retrieving your things. I think you'll find them in order."
I heard some clattering and looked to the ground to see a flash-bang with the pin pulled. I shut my eyes and covered my ears as I turned toward the wall. I could hear a dull thump waited a couple of seconds before opening my eyes again. Of course she was gone, and where she once stood was all my stuff. It was in good condition, considering Lash and Cyanide confiscated it.
Man, I didn't know I was carrying around so much junk. It took me a good while to get it all back on. And after I was done, I still had to answer to my CO, who was making my transmitter ring like it was some 100th caller giveaway.
"Wolf what's going on? What did you mean by you're in trouble?" Sami asked in a hurried tone.
"I thought I saw an enemy ma'am. Nothing else to report."
"Nothing else to report?" She obviously wasn't buying my story.
"Like he said." Sonja interrupted in a sweet voice. "Nothing else to report."
"Sonja..." Sami growled. "You better tell me what's going on."
"Or you'll do what? I think we need to concentrate on the task at hand. Getting Andy out, and eliminating the Death Ray weapon Hawke is talking about."
Sami made a frustrated sigh, knowing if she pushed, she wouldn't get an answer. Then she moved onto me, since I was under her command in all.
"You better give me a full debriefing after this, you hear me?" Sami ordered.
"Uh yeah... look, I think I remember Cyanide and Lash saying something about putting Andy in the mess hall. I'm gonna head there next, and see if I can reunite with Groling."
Yeah, we continued to argue about what went on for a couple more minutes. But I managed to talk Sami down into letting me get back to work. I opened only door I saw to find myself in the hallway that led to Cyanide's lab. I couldn't help but remember my gun jamming when I tried to shoot. I checked it over, it was fine.
Guess it was just bad luck... hell... she was like an evil Nell. If I had to take her out, it was going to be tough. I decided against visiting Cyanide's lab again and moved back up to the garage. To my horror, Big Bertha was gone. I wondered where else Flak could stash it... Hopefully he didn't plan on driving it into the barracks. Why would I worry about that? The mess hall is on the first floor on the perimeter. It's an easy shot if you... say... wanted to drive a Neotank into the place.
The door leading deeper into the base soon flew open and I raised my gun, preparing to shoot... but Groling appeared.
"Whoa Wolf! Whoa there! It's me! Groling!"
"Groling? Thank god, you're still moving around."
"What's wrong with you man? I heard all kinds of crazy stuff from the guards upstairs. They said they caught you."
"Well uh... they uh... kinda did for awhile. I escaped."
He paused to look me up and down.
"You look like someone ran you over with a Medium Tank."
"That bad huh?" I shook my head. "Look, I know where Andy is. They moved him to the mess hall. They're waiting for us."
"An ambush eh? Well, I saw that new suit. They're loaded now you know. M60's, .44 Specials, grenades, they could probably take out a tank or two. Not to mention, their up to their necks in body armor."
"Man... this sucks... If they weren't hard enough to kill already..."
"Hey." Groling put a hand on my shoulder. "No worries. I picked up some grenades. We'll just have to use explosives."
"What!?" I exclaimed. "But if they got Andy in there... hell, even shooting is probably a bad idea."
"Then we'll just have to evac Andy. I'm just letting you know. Assault rifles just ain't gonna cut it anymore."
Well, not much more to say about that. I took lead and went back through the door he had just used to enter the garage. I turned right, and knew exactly where I was going. If there was one part about this base that I did know, it was the barracks, since Andy stationed his troops here during the exercise. The hallway curved a bit and led to a pair of double doors. I used one of the little windows on the door and Groling used the other.
They had a number those long fold up tables and a second level that looked down on the first. At first, I didn't see Andy, and began to wonder if Shadow Two's intelligence was as reliable as I thought it was. Then I spotted him, and looked to Groling to see if he had to. He gave me a quick nod without even looking at me and I checked the halls one last time before getting a better look.
Andy was tied up pretty tightly in some folding chair, facing away from us, and all alone in the mess hall. Well... I wonder if it's a trap or not? Actually, I was wondering if this was Flak's idea. His tank wasn't in the garage, and the mess hall was a room that he could drive his tank into. But Flak probably wanted us to step out into the open before rushing the area with soldiers.
"What do you think?" I asked Groling, looking to each side of the hall.
"I think we might as well get in there and get this over with. We know they're waiting for us."
Good enough for me. I got my gun ready as he did his and we slowly entered the room. It seemed like we must have tripped every alarm in the base. Cause alien soldiers began to rush out onto the upper level and point their weapons down at us. A couple more rushed in through the door we had just used, and a quick count had them at ten or so. Groling and I raised our guns and looked around. Well, as he said, let's get this over with
The soldiers that did enter were wearing that new suit I had heard about for so long. It was nothing like their bulky space suits, but looked every bit as high tech. This suit hugged their body and appeared to cover them with body armor from head to toe, except when it came to their heads... They all wore some strange mask that closely resembled Sturm's mask without the tubes. To top it all off... some domed helmet made sure they were protected from head shots or grenade shrapnel.
The guns they carried were serious stuff. As Groling had said. M60's and a .44's as reserve weapon. The belt that held their ammo seemed to come out of a shoulder on their suits... probably fed from a backpack they wore.
"Jus' like you said. They walked right into it." A voice laughed from above.
We looked up to see Cyanide and Flak appear on the upper level though a door. None of them were armed, so I figured they were going to let their troops do the dirty work. Kind of strange, usually Flak is a hands-on kind of guy. I guess Cyanide talked him out of it.
"I told you Flak, the bait was too tempting." Cyanide explained. "They would come, even if we put a big neon sight out front detailing our every move."
"Yeah, you guys sure aren't very subtle." Groling commented.
"With adversaries like you... we don't have to be." She fired back without missing a beat.
"Interesting choice for weaponry." I couldn't help but speak up. "What happened to assault rifles?"
"Not tough enough!" Flak answered. "When we went to arm our guys with the Neosuits. All you Orange Star worms had were those crummy M4s! So I got a great idea. We took all the recons we didn't crush from your exercise and stripped them of their mounted guns."
He began to drive his fist into his palm with a cruel smile as if visualizing our pulverized bodies.
"Now that's the kind of stuff I'm talking about!"
"You should see what they can do with the rocket launcher. It's something else, I guarantee you." Cyanide laughed.
"Oh well, it's always fun making you worms feel stupid. But Hawke says he's had enough of you running around. Crush em' boys!" Flak ordered before they both retreated back the way they came.
Alright, go time. My first move, was toward Andy, before they blew his brains out trying to get to us. Groling put down some cover fire, but he couldn't do it for long as a hail of bullets came from nearly every direction. The only safe place in that room, was not being in the room at all. I leapt and grabbed Andy and spun around to wave Groling over toward the counter where the food was served up.
Hopefully that counter would provide us some cover, I really didn't know.
Any alien soldier who lost sight of us on the upper level soon jumped down as if they had a parachute. They made it look that smooth even though their landing was enough to make the tiles crack. I took the long way around the counter as Groling leaped over, and I could hear the rapid impacts of the bullets slamming into the walls all around us.
"Wow, they're pretty good with a weapon that size." Groling exclaimed.
Why did he say that? He hadn't been hit or anything? Had he? He gave me a thumbs up as if understanding the confusing remark and I went about untying Andy. If you had a headache, you would not want to be in that room. Those alien guys had no problem about ammunition. The way they fired, you figured they had mounds to spare. Finally, I ripped off Andy's tape across his mouth.
"Wow! Are you here to rescue me?" He exclaimed.
"Yeah... I'm Wolf. Sent by Orange Star." I replied simply and went to assist Groling in holding back the scores of alien troops firing at us.
I opened up on the nearest one and I swear it almost took that entire clip just to make him limp for cover. They had some tough stuff protecting them. So next time, I would aim for the head. Of course that mask was probably made of metal, so hell... I don't know how effective anything was gonna be against them. That's when Groling pulled out his grenades he had been talking about. Hell yeah, I forgot about those.
"Let's see how they handle this." Groling smirked as he pulled the pin and rolled it across the floor.
Good thing he didn't throw it, cause none of those alien guys in the Neosuits saw it. When the grenade went off, all of the soldiers on our level went flying, onto the tables, into the wall, even into the counter we were hiding behind. I saw it, we had a clear shot to the door. We HAD to get out of here.
"Ok Andy," I began. "Stay low, and don't talk. Now let's go for it!"
All three of us stood up and darted for the entrance. I could just feel the aliens we ran by trying to grab for our legs or something, and drag us to the floor so their buddies on the upper level could do us in. I was last in the group, to make sure Andy stayed on his feet. I just remember this wave of relief as we made it out into the hallway, and then the alarm began to blaze. It was some alien on the intercom blabbing about our close call.
"Attention all troops stationed in the barracks! We have intruders on the first floor, heading out of the mess hall. All available units intercept and eliminate the enemy! Orders are shoot on sight. I repeat. If you value your lives, shoot on sight!"
"Well, so much for keeping things low key." Groling smiled. "Where do we want to head next?"
"I know!" Andy exclaimed. "Follow me!"
"What? Andy! Get the hell back here!" I yelled.
Some of the Neosuit soldiers burst out of the mess hall and began to rattle off bullets in our direction. Damn... those grenades didn't slow them down as much as I would have liked. We just barely made it around the corner as anything in their vision range was riddled full of holes. Oh yeah, no cover in the hallway. If they caught up to us, there would be no taking cover. Just getting shot up.
"Garage!" Andy yelled.
This kid was going to get us, and himself, killed at this rate! What the hell does he think he's doing anyway? Running off like this base is empty... He's got too much energy for his own good. But we really didn't have any kind of choice and followed him. When we caught up, he had punched some button to open up the door to the garage. I thought he was heading for the snowfield...
But the garage door simply opened up to a tunnel of sorts and now I was confused. I guess the garage was further back in the base than I had thought.
"Quick guys! Stand there!"
Andy pointed to a spot on the floor... just a bit bigger than a tank and punched another button on the wall. The floor rattled and began to sink into the ground. It was a massive cargo elevator. Humph... Andy knew was he was doing after all... But that didn't stop me from chewing him out once he got onto the lift with us.
"What the hell do you think you're doing? Running off like that!"
"I figured we didn't have a whole lot of time to talk." Andy answered honestly. "We had to get out of there."
"So? You can just run off like that, you might have run into an alien grunt who was ready to take your head off!"
"Guys!" Groling interrupted. "I don't know about you, but it seems like we're fish in a barrel standing here."
He pointed upwards to express how if any alien soldiers were to look down, we'd have no where to hide. All they'd have to do is shoot down and cut us up. Maybe Andy wasn't as clever as I thought he had been.
"Don't worry." Andy assured us. "It'll close up any second now."
As if right on cue, the hole above us where the lift had been began to shrink as a cover slid in place. Lights turned on, and I could see we were moving far below the base, into the underground... I hope he knows what he's doing taking us god knows where...
-To be continued
--Next Chapter: Orange Station
---------------------------------------
We soon stepped out of the tunnel, and I could immediately see a pair of train tracks going off in both directions to the left and right of me. Groling and Andy went a bit further than I did and actually stepped onto one of the tracks as if to tell my eyes that I was seeing right. Man, why the hell did Black Hole build a train station on an island anyway? There was no bridge connecting to their old Macro territory or Orange Star.
Funny thing was, there actually was a train on one of the tracks. It was pretty long, about twenty cars or so and reminded me of the train Lash used to move her stuff between the battlegrounds of Orange Star and Blue Moon. My attention soon timed out on the train as something slammed into my leg and I remember howling in pain while looking down to see something had hit me... Dammit to hell! Snipers!
---------------------------------------
--Death Array
---Chapter 8: Mess Hall
The figure, once it had stepped into the light and closer to me, was a ninja. The easiest way I could describe it to you. It was female, judging by the ponytail and slender build, and she was dressed from head to toe in black ninja getup. There was probably better words, I just couldn't think of them at the time. Even her face as covered by a mask, you couldn't even see her eyes. You couldn't miss the pair of silenced guns in a belt around her waist... oh yeah, and that long sword which she slid into a scabbard on her back.
"Uh... who are you?"
She held up a finger to her lips for silence.
"I am Shadow Two. I serve Lady Sonja." She whispered to me.
I got the picture now. So that would explain a whole lot about why Sonja seemingly knew where I was going and what was going down. She had her own operative on the inside.
"Shadow Two huh? You're Sonja's eyes and ears for this operation?"
"Well, not just this operation. As you put it, her eyes and ears for anything that would concern the safety of Yellow Comet."
"Yeah... well, I got it. If Orange Star wins, Yellow Comet wins huh? So, you're two. Exactly how many 'Shadows' are there?"
"I'm not at liberty to answer that. I'm not even supposed to reveal myself to you, but it could not be helped. We are taught to stay in the shadows, never intervene, only watch and report."
Well, at this rate. I figured she was either going to kill me, or tell me something useful. The kind of level Shadow Two was on made her so secretive, her own identity was denied. I bet she had no files, and no paper trail either. So even if you recognized her voice or happened to see her face, you couldn't dig anything up if you went looking. Or by the sounds of it... you wouldn't get very far either.
"I will tell you two things. The first is the location of Andy. Who has been moved to the mess hall and tied up in plain sight. They are waiting for you."
"They? Let me guess, Cyanide and Lash?"
"Not exactly, it's Cyanide and Flak. Their forces are also equipped with the new suits. The alien troops are now heavily armed and armored. I would not suggest any sort of confrontation."
"What's the second thing?" I asked slowly.
Shadow Two made an innocent gesture to her pistols.
"The second thing... that if you mention me or this encounter to your CO in any great detail... I doubt very much your safety after this mission."
"Is that a threat?" I demanded, and stood up.
"No..." Shadow Two answered slowly. "It is a warning. I also took the liberty of retrieving your things. I think you'll find them in order."
I heard some clattering and looked to the ground to see a flash-bang with the pin pulled. I shut my eyes and covered my ears as I turned toward the wall. I could hear a dull thump waited a couple of seconds before opening my eyes again. Of course she was gone, and where she once stood was all my stuff. It was in good condition, considering Lash and Cyanide confiscated it.
Man, I didn't know I was carrying around so much junk. It took me a good while to get it all back on. And after I was done, I still had to answer to my CO, who was making my transmitter ring like it was some 100th caller giveaway.
"Wolf what's going on? What did you mean by you're in trouble?" Sami asked in a hurried tone.
"I thought I saw an enemy ma'am. Nothing else to report."
"Nothing else to report?" She obviously wasn't buying my story.
"Like he said." Sonja interrupted in a sweet voice. "Nothing else to report."
"Sonja..." Sami growled. "You better tell me what's going on."
"Or you'll do what? I think we need to concentrate on the task at hand. Getting Andy out, and eliminating the Death Ray weapon Hawke is talking about."
Sami made a frustrated sigh, knowing if she pushed, she wouldn't get an answer. Then she moved onto me, since I was under her command in all.
"You better give me a full debriefing after this, you hear me?" Sami ordered.
"Uh yeah... look, I think I remember Cyanide and Lash saying something about putting Andy in the mess hall. I'm gonna head there next, and see if I can reunite with Groling."
Yeah, we continued to argue about what went on for a couple more minutes. But I managed to talk Sami down into letting me get back to work. I opened only door I saw to find myself in the hallway that led to Cyanide's lab. I couldn't help but remember my gun jamming when I tried to shoot. I checked it over, it was fine.
Guess it was just bad luck... hell... she was like an evil Nell. If I had to take her out, it was going to be tough. I decided against visiting Cyanide's lab again and moved back up to the garage. To my horror, Big Bertha was gone. I wondered where else Flak could stash it... Hopefully he didn't plan on driving it into the barracks. Why would I worry about that? The mess hall is on the first floor on the perimeter. It's an easy shot if you... say... wanted to drive a Neotank into the place.
The door leading deeper into the base soon flew open and I raised my gun, preparing to shoot... but Groling appeared.
"Whoa Wolf! Whoa there! It's me! Groling!"
"Groling? Thank god, you're still moving around."
"What's wrong with you man? I heard all kinds of crazy stuff from the guards upstairs. They said they caught you."
"Well uh... they uh... kinda did for awhile. I escaped."
He paused to look me up and down.
"You look like someone ran you over with a Medium Tank."
"That bad huh?" I shook my head. "Look, I know where Andy is. They moved him to the mess hall. They're waiting for us."
"An ambush eh? Well, I saw that new suit. They're loaded now you know. M60's, .44 Specials, grenades, they could probably take out a tank or two. Not to mention, their up to their necks in body armor."
"Man... this sucks... If they weren't hard enough to kill already..."
"Hey." Groling put a hand on my shoulder. "No worries. I picked up some grenades. We'll just have to use explosives."
"What!?" I exclaimed. "But if they got Andy in there... hell, even shooting is probably a bad idea."
"Then we'll just have to evac Andy. I'm just letting you know. Assault rifles just ain't gonna cut it anymore."
Well, not much more to say about that. I took lead and went back through the door he had just used to enter the garage. I turned right, and knew exactly where I was going. If there was one part about this base that I did know, it was the barracks, since Andy stationed his troops here during the exercise. The hallway curved a bit and led to a pair of double doors. I used one of the little windows on the door and Groling used the other.
They had a number those long fold up tables and a second level that looked down on the first. At first, I didn't see Andy, and began to wonder if Shadow Two's intelligence was as reliable as I thought it was. Then I spotted him, and looked to Groling to see if he had to. He gave me a quick nod without even looking at me and I checked the halls one last time before getting a better look.
Andy was tied up pretty tightly in some folding chair, facing away from us, and all alone in the mess hall. Well... I wonder if it's a trap or not? Actually, I was wondering if this was Flak's idea. His tank wasn't in the garage, and the mess hall was a room that he could drive his tank into. But Flak probably wanted us to step out into the open before rushing the area with soldiers.
"What do you think?" I asked Groling, looking to each side of the hall.
"I think we might as well get in there and get this over with. We know they're waiting for us."
Good enough for me. I got my gun ready as he did his and we slowly entered the room. It seemed like we must have tripped every alarm in the base. Cause alien soldiers began to rush out onto the upper level and point their weapons down at us. A couple more rushed in through the door we had just used, and a quick count had them at ten or so. Groling and I raised our guns and looked around. Well, as he said, let's get this over with
The soldiers that did enter were wearing that new suit I had heard about for so long. It was nothing like their bulky space suits, but looked every bit as high tech. This suit hugged their body and appeared to cover them with body armor from head to toe, except when it came to their heads... They all wore some strange mask that closely resembled Sturm's mask without the tubes. To top it all off... some domed helmet made sure they were protected from head shots or grenade shrapnel.
The guns they carried were serious stuff. As Groling had said. M60's and a .44's as reserve weapon. The belt that held their ammo seemed to come out of a shoulder on their suits... probably fed from a backpack they wore.
"Jus' like you said. They walked right into it." A voice laughed from above.
We looked up to see Cyanide and Flak appear on the upper level though a door. None of them were armed, so I figured they were going to let their troops do the dirty work. Kind of strange, usually Flak is a hands-on kind of guy. I guess Cyanide talked him out of it.
"I told you Flak, the bait was too tempting." Cyanide explained. "They would come, even if we put a big neon sight out front detailing our every move."
"Yeah, you guys sure aren't very subtle." Groling commented.
"With adversaries like you... we don't have to be." She fired back without missing a beat.
"Interesting choice for weaponry." I couldn't help but speak up. "What happened to assault rifles?"
"Not tough enough!" Flak answered. "When we went to arm our guys with the Neosuits. All you Orange Star worms had were those crummy M4s! So I got a great idea. We took all the recons we didn't crush from your exercise and stripped them of their mounted guns."
He began to drive his fist into his palm with a cruel smile as if visualizing our pulverized bodies.
"Now that's the kind of stuff I'm talking about!"
"You should see what they can do with the rocket launcher. It's something else, I guarantee you." Cyanide laughed.
"Oh well, it's always fun making you worms feel stupid. But Hawke says he's had enough of you running around. Crush em' boys!" Flak ordered before they both retreated back the way they came.
Alright, go time. My first move, was toward Andy, before they blew his brains out trying to get to us. Groling put down some cover fire, but he couldn't do it for long as a hail of bullets came from nearly every direction. The only safe place in that room, was not being in the room at all. I leapt and grabbed Andy and spun around to wave Groling over toward the counter where the food was served up.
Hopefully that counter would provide us some cover, I really didn't know.
Any alien soldier who lost sight of us on the upper level soon jumped down as if they had a parachute. They made it look that smooth even though their landing was enough to make the tiles crack. I took the long way around the counter as Groling leaped over, and I could hear the rapid impacts of the bullets slamming into the walls all around us.
"Wow, they're pretty good with a weapon that size." Groling exclaimed.
Why did he say that? He hadn't been hit or anything? Had he? He gave me a thumbs up as if understanding the confusing remark and I went about untying Andy. If you had a headache, you would not want to be in that room. Those alien guys had no problem about ammunition. The way they fired, you figured they had mounds to spare. Finally, I ripped off Andy's tape across his mouth.
"Wow! Are you here to rescue me?" He exclaimed.
"Yeah... I'm Wolf. Sent by Orange Star." I replied simply and went to assist Groling in holding back the scores of alien troops firing at us.
I opened up on the nearest one and I swear it almost took that entire clip just to make him limp for cover. They had some tough stuff protecting them. So next time, I would aim for the head. Of course that mask was probably made of metal, so hell... I don't know how effective anything was gonna be against them. That's when Groling pulled out his grenades he had been talking about. Hell yeah, I forgot about those.
"Let's see how they handle this." Groling smirked as he pulled the pin and rolled it across the floor.
Good thing he didn't throw it, cause none of those alien guys in the Neosuits saw it. When the grenade went off, all of the soldiers on our level went flying, onto the tables, into the wall, even into the counter we were hiding behind. I saw it, we had a clear shot to the door. We HAD to get out of here.
"Ok Andy," I began. "Stay low, and don't talk. Now let's go for it!"
All three of us stood up and darted for the entrance. I could just feel the aliens we ran by trying to grab for our legs or something, and drag us to the floor so their buddies on the upper level could do us in. I was last in the group, to make sure Andy stayed on his feet. I just remember this wave of relief as we made it out into the hallway, and then the alarm began to blaze. It was some alien on the intercom blabbing about our close call.
"Attention all troops stationed in the barracks! We have intruders on the first floor, heading out of the mess hall. All available units intercept and eliminate the enemy! Orders are shoot on sight. I repeat. If you value your lives, shoot on sight!"
"Well, so much for keeping things low key." Groling smiled. "Where do we want to head next?"
"I know!" Andy exclaimed. "Follow me!"
"What? Andy! Get the hell back here!" I yelled.
Some of the Neosuit soldiers burst out of the mess hall and began to rattle off bullets in our direction. Damn... those grenades didn't slow them down as much as I would have liked. We just barely made it around the corner as anything in their vision range was riddled full of holes. Oh yeah, no cover in the hallway. If they caught up to us, there would be no taking cover. Just getting shot up.
"Garage!" Andy yelled.
This kid was going to get us, and himself, killed at this rate! What the hell does he think he's doing anyway? Running off like this base is empty... He's got too much energy for his own good. But we really didn't have any kind of choice and followed him. When we caught up, he had punched some button to open up the door to the garage. I thought he was heading for the snowfield...
But the garage door simply opened up to a tunnel of sorts and now I was confused. I guess the garage was further back in the base than I had thought.
"Quick guys! Stand there!"
Andy pointed to a spot on the floor... just a bit bigger than a tank and punched another button on the wall. The floor rattled and began to sink into the ground. It was a massive cargo elevator. Humph... Andy knew was he was doing after all... But that didn't stop me from chewing him out once he got onto the lift with us.
"What the hell do you think you're doing? Running off like that!"
"I figured we didn't have a whole lot of time to talk." Andy answered honestly. "We had to get out of there."
"So? You can just run off like that, you might have run into an alien grunt who was ready to take your head off!"
"Guys!" Groling interrupted. "I don't know about you, but it seems like we're fish in a barrel standing here."
He pointed upwards to express how if any alien soldiers were to look down, we'd have no where to hide. All they'd have to do is shoot down and cut us up. Maybe Andy wasn't as clever as I thought he had been.
"Don't worry." Andy assured us. "It'll close up any second now."
As if right on cue, the hole above us where the lift had been began to shrink as a cover slid in place. Lights turned on, and I could see we were moving far below the base, into the underground... I hope he knows what he's doing taking us god knows where...
-To be continued
--Next Chapter: Orange Station
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We soon stepped out of the tunnel, and I could immediately see a pair of train tracks going off in both directions to the left and right of me. Groling and Andy went a bit further than I did and actually stepped onto one of the tracks as if to tell my eyes that I was seeing right. Man, why the hell did Black Hole build a train station on an island anyway? There was no bridge connecting to their old Macro territory or Orange Star.
Funny thing was, there actually was a train on one of the tracks. It was pretty long, about twenty cars or so and reminded me of the train Lash used to move her stuff between the battlegrounds of Orange Star and Blue Moon. My attention soon timed out on the train as something slammed into my leg and I remember howling in pain while looking down to see something had hit me... Dammit to hell! Snipers!
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