Chapter Thirteen.

The lights that were not broken flickered, shooting weak glowing beams of light into the small corridor. Bringing an extra sense of dread as they ran into the direction of the Sanctuary-room that Lexa was guiding them to, but they were still unsure that they could trust her, hoping for the last remnants of humanity in the woman who had caused so much pain the the world. If it was not for the screeching sound of the monsters talons ripping through the metallic corridors they would take a moment rest, question the time it was taking to get to the safety of a traitors room, but they had to keep going, a second still meant a step closer to their death.

Guy held Stephen as they all ran through the dark corridors, feeling the boys sticky warm blood seep through his shirt onto his skin. Stephen was beginning to get cold, he was falling in and out of consciousness and time was fading away. Guy only hoped that they would make it to the sanctuary soon, because Stephen would not last much longer, he was amazed at the strength that was keeping the boy alive. Time was against them and with the xeno's following, that made the run to the corridors seem longer than it actually was.

As they all followed the corridor with Lexa, Sam could not take her mind of what had taken place, thinking that it would be better if she put a bullet in the womans head and not think twice. She had to trust Jacques, he knew what he was doing, so he was not shoot Lexa, even if she deserved to die. Poor Stephen, she had known him for only moments, but they had both been through the same experience, damn aliens. Sam could not wait for the day all of the aliens species was wiped from the galaxy. Taking her glance away from Lexa, she kept her eyes forward, the sounds behind her creeping into her head.

Lexa could not get the nightmarish thoughts out of her head, they had been there for so long, making her decisions, controlling her thoughts. As the flickering lights flashed, her thoughts went back to each decision she had made in the past that had caused to much sorrow and pain. When she let the compound go down, leaving Fischer to his peril. Her heart thumped against her chest, she did not deserve to live. Yet right now she was needed, for the first time in a long time, as she guided the group to momentary safety.

"It's not far from here, the next right and straight." They made it closer to the last corner, not far to go. Sam stopped and looked back to see the flickering lights, something was moving towards them, closer, the shiny slick heads moved quickly into their direction. "Don't stop now girl!" as Lexa grabbed hold of Sams arm and pulled her around the bend towards the others. Jacques raised his carbine as the women passed by only a few yards from the final turn, as a black shadow followed them, he pulled the trigger and the shadows glowed with explosive rounds as the sounds of demons echoed and burning stink of their blood burned through the dirt stained metal walls.

No one wanted to look back as Jacques made his stand against wall of darkness moving towards them. After only seconds Jacques had begun to run as fast as he could, he was yelling something at the others, but they could not make it out over the shrieks of crying demons. Running past the others at an amazing speed, they suddenly heard what he had been yelling.

"Motion Grenade!"

Within a second of the aliens passing over the motion grenade it detonated. With great force the air was sucked from the corridor and the grenades compressor activated as the motion sensor found its mark. The explosion erupted in a ball of fire and anything in its path would be dust left behind in the flames wake, it engulfed the humans threat, but with great speed and power neared the group as they moved closer towards the door of the sanctuary.

Feeling the force of the explosions shockwave hit them caused al of theml to be thrown into the direction they were all headed, Guy held onto Stephen as he was thrown into the wall and then onto the floor. Sam fell into Lexa pretty hard causing them to both hit the ground with force enough to knock the breathe out of them. Jacques stayed on his feet but as he saw everyone else hit the floor he stopped and quickly moved over to Sam to help her up. Without caring about the pain they felt, the initial shockwave had hit them and they knew that the blast itself would be right on top of them.

They all looked back in horror as the wall of fire jumped down the corridor towards them, already feeling the sudden heat, when suddenly it disappeared, the heat became nothing more than a acidic yellow smoke. Most of the corridor had collapsed, leaving only a small opening, but big enough for the aliens to get through.

Confused by what had happened they all stood before the large iron door that was their safety. Jacques looked at everyone, smiling with the biggest grin, as if his world was at peace and all was well. Guy knew exactly what had happened, and smiled with Jacques, turning to everyone to explain. "Air vacuum. The compression safety switch set an explosion radius, we got to the safety point." His smile went away and he was again serious as he looked towards the door they needed to get through. "We do not have much time, there will be more coming!"

Everyone was looking at Carter as he told everyone his plan, and with each crazy word he spoke, the plan made more sense, maybe it could actually work. Seb looked over at the civilians who had made it to the security room and had watched the slaughter of the Sentinals, and he could still see the horror on their faces. So many had died and they still feared for themselves, but that was expected, fear grew within them and rightly so, their nightmares were happening.

One of the civilians, a young woman stood up with tears still dripping from her chin. She was only petite in build but seemed too beautiful to be a civilian on this base. Her soft brunette hair passed her shoulders and complimented her pale rose skin. Even with the saddened face she remained an angel. Seb caught her name earlier when Aj was trying to make a pass at her, and in this situation it was not adviced. He still moaned holding his groan area from where she had grabbed him, hard. Her name was Alice.

"You are all out of your mind, I am not going out there..." before she could say anything else Clegg stepped forward and looked down at her, his eyes beamed down at Alice, her back against the wall as he glared. He then looked around the small security room at everyone, his eyes full of anger, yet strength.

"We are all going to die, if we stay here we will die in a matter of hours." Everyone looked at him, fear hit them once more, harder this time, Clegg was right and they wished otherwise. They had seen how fast the monsters had gotten into the base, and it would only be a matter of time until they got into the security room, aliens were good at getting to their prey. "Carter has the only plan and I for one think that it will work. And to be completely honest, if this is my time to die, it will not be in this little room. I am not a small animal curling up in a ball."

Alice took a step forward, as did Tommy Callum. He was a big man, stood taller than the marines, and from his appearance it looked like he was pumping his body with Fire and hitting the weights. His large biceps where to make up for his lacking brain size, all muscle it seemed, and at this moment in time he had a fiery temper that equalled his size. "I will not go out there to die, I am staying here. You can do whatever you want, but my ass is staying here, you hear me little man!" Alice grinned showing her pearly white teeth as Muscles spoke down to the Captain, not caring much for anyone other than himself and his bit of ass that seemed almost attached to his hip. Shame really, she was rather attractive.

Before Clegg could shout at the heap of muscle that was throwing attitude at him, the giant of a man was lifted into the air, a high pitched scream followed, feminine, silenced only by the sudden crunch of flesh and spray of blood. Baxter and Aj had already raised their carbines into the air and were firing at the hole where the legs were dangling and blood was spraying. They could here the shrieking cry of the alien as the rounds hit it and suddenly there was no movement only the legs of the dead heap of muscle that was once Tommy.

It took only moments to fix the hole in the vent, but trying to work around the acid remains of the dead alien was hard and Baxter came away from it with a nasty burn to his forearm that nearly cracked the bone. They had to hurry, soon the rest of the monsters would be there, they had to get the plan into action. Seb was trying to fix up the wound on Baxters arm when a scream from one of the civilians echoed in the small room.

"Aggh, Alice...!" cried the last of the women of the surviving civilians. Clegg hurried over, as did Seb to see what was wrong and as they looked down at Alice who seemed hunched over unconscious, they realised now why she had remained quiet for so long. Her face seemed to be no more, acid had eaten away at her once beautiful face, only the back of her skull remained, and that was slowly disappearing. The woman who was hysterical passed out, and Clegg motioned for Corporal Selena Mai to go aid her, against her wishes of-course.

Looking again at everyone, Clegg stood up, shoulders back, chest out, head up high. "We have no time, we move in twenty minutes..!"

Lexa looked at the door before her, then moved to the side panel and hit it hard. A sudden spark of electricity shot out and a small nine inch screen spun around and flashed on, showing numbers and letters. Everyone glanced over to Lexa, waiting for her to type in the code to open the door. As she moved her fingers towards the screen to punch in the numbers, something did not feel right, but it passed by and she started with the first symbol. The screen flashed as she typed in the fifth symbol.

'Access Denied'

An echoing screech hit them hard, almost deafening, from behind them in the still yellow smokey air. They were coming.