Chapter Fifthteen.

Something did not seem to feel right as they made their way through the dark passageway, it all seemed to be going too smoothly. It was cramped and dark, the heat was pounding into them eventhough they could not understand where the rush of air was coming from due to the fact they were in a tunnel and light could not be seen ahead. Time was running out and they would have to get clear for the radio to contact Clegg, hoping the monsters had not got to him. They had no clue if the aliens were headed down the tunnel after then, it would be too late to get away otherwise.

It had seemed like hours had passed, but time has a funny was of messing with your perception. In real time, only minutes had passed, but from the image they had viewed on the map-com screen, this passageway should have taken them to the open by now on the farside of the base's outerwall.

Aj looked ahead trying to make out images down the thin darkness ahead of them, something was wrong, they were not walking on a flat path, they were sloping. Ever so slightly he could feel the decline as they moved forward, thinking that the map-com was incorrect and they were headed down into the Undercity, but nothing could be sure and he did not wish to worry the others, they had enough to be fearful of and the knowledge of heading down into the old city would just make their bad day just ironically worse.

"It shouldn't be too far now, a couple more minutes." Baxter tried to reassure the civilians, but knew that something was not going right, he could feel the angle of the path slope downwards, but he also knew to keep it to himself, for now anyway. Reaching to his side for the com-link he flicked the switch on his solid plastic side and prayed for a signal. They must be pretty far down, so a signal was improbable at this moment. "What are the chances!" as the radio came to life and signal bar raised to four bars out of five.

Baxter started to pass the radio down the line to Carter, he should be the one who contacts the Captain. The heat was giving him the most irritatingly throbbing headache as he moved onwards, a slight wave of claustrophobia was making the walk to safety a pain, but he knew that they would be out soon, looking at the sky and breathing fresh air, rather than the heat fumes that he was gulping down.

Seb handed the radio to Carter who thanked him. Looking at the glowing signal panels he smiled and pressed the right frequency code to get through to the Captain. With a few crackles and an odd bleep the radio kicked into action. "Captain, signal is strong, I hope the plan is working as hoped.. Over.." A few seconds passed.

"Bugs are not.. bait, self-des.. only.. minutes left.." the signal was fading and the Captains voice was breaking up. He said something about the self-destruction, what was he talking about, had he activated it and how long did they have, he heard 'minutes left'. Was that all they had, they were nowhere near any sign of daylight and the tunnel was slanting downwards towards the Undercity.

"Sir, we have not reached the evacuation point. The tunnel is aiming down into the Undercity. Can you read me?.. Over.." Hoping that the Captain had heard that. Moments passed and nothing, static, hissing, silence. "Shit!"

Moments had only passed since the door sealed shut, and nothing could be heard on the other side of the door, apart from the thudding of the domed heads of the monsters as they rammed themselves into the solid, secured door. Which looked almost like a thin wafer of steel, but still it held, and only the hissing thuds could be heard, there were no sounds of screaming, so likely Lexa was no more, screams of a host would echo from capture, yet the silent yelp of death was more than likely what had taken place, the aliens had not seemed interested in keeping humans for hosts in the recent years. Just the massacre of the human species.

Sam had no words to speak, no sounds to make, other than the deep breathing of momentary safety. She looked round to see if the others were okay, and from what she could see, Guy was already hurrying down the small passageway leading towards the medical bay, in which the stranger led them. Declan was slowly moving with them, keeping a watchful eye on the new member of their group, but one quick glance towards his love brought a smile to her weakened face.

And back his head turned and around the corner they disappeared. For a few moments Sam sat alone in the small chamber that protected them, now there was only silence, no more thudding, but screams might be expected if work to save Stephen was to be done, only hoping that the boy would survive, but she knew that both Guy and Declan would be able to help him now that they have the means of doing so. And as she looked down towards the passage that they walked down, her eyes grew heavy and she fell into her dreaming nightmares once more.

Carter quickly looked at the trail of survivors down the dark red glowing tunnel and with a relaxed calm yelled. "RUN!" and he waited for what he had said to sink in and within a matter of seconds they all began to move down the slanted tunnel, their shadows weakly dancing in the darkness. Leading them was Baxter who took Carters' yelling as a sign to get the hell away from where they had come from, and the sounds of quickening footsteps behind him made his legs move faster as he headed down the tunnel, which seemed to go on forever. Yet no-one seemed to argue, they heard, they obeyed, they ran.

Being almost pushed and carried down the tunnel by Carter, Seb almost fell to his knees, but the marine behind him kept him on his feet and moving down the tunnel. Seb not only trying to concerntrate on keeping his feet from tripping could not take his thoughts of Clegg. He had not been under his command for long, but they were friends at least, if he could call it friends, Clegg did not laugh at Seb like the others. The respect he returned to his Captain, and at that moment, he did not want to run forward to his own safety, he wanted to help his friend.

"What the hell are you doing?" Carters angered voice rang into Sebs ears, but nothing could keep him from stopping and the two of them now stood still in the red tunnel that led down to more darkness. "Come on Seb, the Cap wants us to get to safety, that meant you also, so get running..." Seb cut him of from continuing.

"He needs our help, you heard him, something was wrong up there, we can't just leave him Carter." Seb looked at the marine who knew what Seb was going to say next.

"Damnit, okay Boy, take this." Handing over his carbine to Seb, Carter frowned at what the boy was going to do, go back into the swarm and try and save the probably dead leader of the group. But he wished not to send him without a weapon, so his own gun was better than nothing, he had his side-arm at least and he knew that nothing would change Sebs mind. So he just agreed, but did not want to follow, his own gun was a greater sacrifice than his life.

Seb smiled at Carter knowing that he would be going alone, at least he was armed. So he took the heavy as hell gun and turned back up to the slanted tunnel and began to make his way back to the Security room. Not caring what lay ahead of him, he would at least try, knowing that the hissing screams of the monsters would soon be diving into his head, only hoping it was just their screaming and not their jaws.

"You don't have much time kid...!" Carters voice echoed, but Seb carried on anyway

"What would you like for me to do?" The stranger scraggly voice repeated at Guy, who at this point was already finding it rather annoying, eventhough he had only just met the man.

Jacques raising the point of his gun and aimed it at the mans head and smiled his unshaven face towards the man who had to be a Spear. "What does it look like? You are going to help with removing the bullet that is lodged inside our friend here, then you are going to seal up the wound, because the fact I am seeing right now is that this is the medical bay and as you are the only one in it and uninjured, you must be the doctor.." A short pause and another look, with Guy's grimacing look added.

"And tell us your goddamn'd name or I will shoot you." Turning his frown upside down.

Almost immediately the man raced towards a small blue draw close to the medical equipment and took out a scalpel and looked over to the boy lying now unconscious on the table. "Mandle, Doctor Richard Mandle.. And if I were you, I would put down your guns and help me." Mandle looked at the two men tall, bulky looking, yet could see that they were obviously tough, probably corp marines, hard ass, probably stupid. He would not want to mess with these big bastards, but maybe if he could get them by surprise, not yet though, soon.

Sam stood up and looked around at the room she was in, the space itself was only small, three metres by maybe five at its best. The walls were steal, black iron and sickly dirty. She always thought that the Spears would take care of their surrounding, but in the Undercity, there was not really anything to clean the dirt of with, except maybe with more cleaner looking dirt. Her eyes wandered around the room again, looking at the two sides to her left and right, on the wall midway up hung lamps, gas maybe, but they worked at least.

Her eyes moved around the walls and noticed that one of the walls seemed to have a large round hole, that would arguebly fit a man standing to pass through, but what ever it was, it was now a covered hole, with heavy impact proof metal work done on it. "I would not want to be on the other side of that blocked up hole."

Moving towards the dark passage that led her towards the medical room she thought, she glanced at the walls of the tunnel that looked almost like screens that were covered in dust, and you could not make out if they had been used. She reached out and touched the cold glass, and glared deeply into the darkness. Trying to focus her eyes she and slowly they became able to see almost into the dark screens, but she did not see her reflection, she saw open space. She felt her fingertips moving around on the wall, not knowing why she was moving them, as if her brain was telling her something.

A switch caught her fingertips attention, but her heart felt itself beating slightly faster. Sam could not help but fear what was ever on the other side of the glass that she stared through at. Thinking to herself 'Monster? Demons?' and as she thought about it more, it became a better idea not to flick the lights on, just incase, but she never listened to her heavy beating heart and her finger pressed down.

It was not only the horror in her eyes that made her fall to the ground, it was the dart in the side of her neck than would cause her to hit the ground. Her eyes remained open, her ears could hear, but her body could not move, she was limp and the figure appeared over her, kneeling down beside her, only the leftside of his face appeared from the fading light around her, the stranger who was helping Stephen. "Like what you saw Missy?" Followed with an evil crackly laugh. "Oh and your companions did not like the nerve gas I let into the chamber, but they did manage a shot off." Turning his head to her fading view, white liquid dripped from the grusome crevous that was once a face, and chunks of organic plastic and cybernetic brain fell from his semi formed skull.

His heart thudded hard against his chest, the passageway came to an abrupt end.

Everyone behind him had also stopped and mumbled fearful moaning that would drive a man insane and Aj was close to losing it. Baxter just burst out laughing and Serena cried a downpour of tears. Only Carter was holding it all together has he looked at the space that seemed to fit them all in. He ignored the cries and moans, keeping the laughter out he kept his focus on the wall in front of him, staring.

Knowing that they would not be able to use an impact grenade or any other explosive, their options were thin, more like invisible from any plausible situation that would call for a group of people running from aliens to get trapped at the end of the tunnel that lead to hell. Keeping his mind on the problem he knew what options there were and going back up the tunnel was not one of them, they had to get through, but time was against them, the self-destruct would soon be going off and then it would not be monsters ripping them apart, it would be the pure rage of the fire of the explosion.

"Listen everyone.." trying to sound calm and relaxed, he looked over the small crowd. "Behind this wall is the Undercity, and most probably it will be swarming with Xeno activity, but our problem is getting past this wall, especially given the fact we have no explosives with area barriers on, so we are kinda at a deadend. But that is being negative, I promise that in only minutes, we will be over this small hurdle." Baxter had stopped laughing as he caught a slight sound coming from the other side of the wall, he moved his head closer.

Carter looked at the now calmer Daniel Baxter and moved towards the wall were he could hear sounds, voices. And he heard something, very clearly, and he jumped away from the wall, as did Baxter who was yelling at everyone.

"Down!..."