Chapter 3: Search and Rescue
Adrian was dragged through several different corridors by two guards. He knew he shouldn't have hit the man in the suit but he he had humiliated his dead friends and fellow marines. No one has the right to violate the names of any dead soldier, no matter what position of power they held. That was Adrian's belief and he had and always will stand by it. Even has he was being dragged to his possible demise he did not regret what he had done, his only wish was that he had the the few more seconds he needed to tear that man's life from his body. He knew he didn't have much time so he quickly scanned the area and the troops and their armaments. He didn't see much other than a very long and gloomy corridor and an occasional guard or two walk by. At one time he saw another person in civilian colthes but the man walked past him before he could examine him closely. The two guards dragging him both had their stun batons and what appeared to be a USP pistol in its holster..
They soon came up upon a door at the end of the hallway. The guards opened the door with some sort of keypad and when it slid open they dragged Adrian inside. They shoved Adrian into a small metal chair that was hard and uncomfortable, not to mention freezing. He quickly scanned the room and found that he was sitting at the end of a small rectangular table. There was a chair at the other end of the table along with a large box resting on the table in front of the vacant chair. Adrian didn't want to know what was in the box but he could only imagine it to hold something insidious. There were one guard standing in the corner to the back of the room. As he looked around the rest of the room he could see there were no security cameras in here. It surprised him since the rest of the complex was filled with him but he also knew why there wouldn't be any in the room. He was probably going to be tortured and no one wanted evidence of cruel treatment of people by a government falling into the hands of the people or especially the media. The guards restriained his arms to the chair's armrests rendering him immobile.
"Be careful, this one's a little unruly, you need help?" asked one of the guards to the one in the back of the room"
"No, we'll be fine." responded the guard with the same deep and sinister voice as the other guards. The two guards left leaving Adrian to ponder over what the remaining guard just said. What did he mean, "we." Did he mean himself and Adrian or was someone else coming to. The guard himself looked the same as the others in this place. He wore a white gasmask with navy blue fatigues and a black combat vest. He was armed with a pistol and stun baton but nothing else. Soon the door behind him opened and someone walked in.
To Adrian's suprise it was a woman dressed in civilian clothes. She was wearing black pants and coat with a white blouse and black high heels. She qas quite attractive with long black hair and slightly tanned white skin. The only thing not remotely dark about her were her eyes, they were a bright sky blue color almost the same as Adrian's. She had a small button nose and large red lips. She moved very feminely and was quite a thing to look upon. She quickly took her seat in the chair opposite to Sheppard and it shocked him to learn that she was probably going to be his interogator.
She opened the file she had carried with her and with a very soft, femine voice she said, "Adrian Sheppard, formely a corporal of the United Stated Marine Corp. A worthy life you served back then," she quickly looked over him and then spoke again, "hm, it appears all the things you must have gone through over the years and the current rebellion have not taken much of a toll on your aging process." What did she mean by that, how long had it been since Black Mesa. More thoughts came swirling into his head. Questions that have remained unanswered took control of his thoughts and Adrian had trouble concentrating on the woman in front of him.
"Now Mr. Sheppard," she said bringing him back to reality, "let me explain to you how this is going to go. I will ask you questions, if I don't get answers this man behind me will simply hurt you. If I still don't get answers he will use what is inside this case right here on you," she said refering to the box in front of her, "do you understand?"
"Yes," replied Adrian. He was about to ask her a question when she cut him off.
"To let you know Mr. Sheppard, very few get past the initial beatings and those that do usually give in when they see what is inside this box. I myself have never had to resort to using them, only a few of us have and very rarely I might add."
"Now Mr. Sheppard, how did you come to be a part of the resistance?" she asked.
Adrian didn't know what to say, so he just told the truth, "I don't anything about a resistance," the woman remained expressionless but her eyes started to narrow, "I don't even know what a Combine is or what a City-17 is. All I know is that some agent working for something brought me here after the incident at Black Mesa."
She sat there motionless for several seconds and then said, "Very well Mr. Sheppard. Corporal," she said to the guard behind her," You may begin." The guard took several steps toward Sheppard and when he was just passing the interrogator a large explosion rocked the building. Parts of the ceiling fell on Sheppard as the woman fell from her seat. Two guards ran in through the door only to be killed from quick double taps to the head. Adrian looked up to see that the guard in the room had shot them. The woman looked up at him with a scared and stunned look on her face. She reached underneath the table and revealed a pistol from it but the guard already had his gun to her face and knocked the pistol from her hand.
"Get up," he said to the woman with his deep and artificially sounding voice. She got up slowly with her hands held above her hand. The guard opened the box on the table and Adrian as well as the woman were shocked by its contents. There were two sub-machineguns of some type Adrian had never seen before. There was also a pistol, several clips of ammunition, handcuffs, and duct tape. The guard turned the woman around and hadcuffed her hands behind her back with those from the case. He then shoved her onto the ground and rushed over to Adrian. He freed him from his restraints only to be rewarded with a look a suprise on Adrian's face. Seeing this the guard removed removed his gasmask to reveal the face of a young hispanic looking man with jet black hair.
"I'm Santiago Rebenga, I'm with the resistance. We're getting you out of here."
"And her," Adrian said nodding toward the woman.
"Her name is Kaitlyn O'Rourke. She's with the Combine, she coming with us along with whoever else we can rescue or capture.
"I assume you're talking about a rescue team, where are they?" asked Adrian.
"They should be here any second," Santiago said. Within thirty seconds there was three knocks at the door, a pause and then two more knocks. Santiago opened the door and in more soldiers came in. They weren't Combine troops, they were wearing the same uniforms as those he met at the dock but they were wearing heavy body and combat helmets of different type and origin. There were four of them armed with those strange assualt rifles Adrian saw earlier and each had a sidearm, knife, and several grenades.
"Alright," said one of the soldiers, "we gotta go regroup with the others at the rendezous and prepare for extraction." With that Santiago gave Adrian a sub-machinegun and pistol from the case along with some ammo. Rebenga took one for himself and then with the duct tape he bound Kaitlyn's legs. She started screaming and struggling estatically so he slapped her hard across the face with enough force to make her fall over. With another piece of tape he gagged her, effectively shutting her up. The soldiers took up position with two men in the front, Adrian in the middle along with Rebenga carrying Kaitlyn and two more soldiers in the rear.
They went into the hallway, going at quick but constant pace as they scanned every part of their surroundings. As they kept going Adrian could begin to hear constant gunfire and several screams. They passed a security checkpoint and Adrian could see that all the guards were dead. His escort must have killed them while coming to rescue him. Eventually they came upon a large lobbey with four corridors leading to it. There were several soldiers who Adrian had come to realize were a part of this so-called resistance. They had barricaded all the corridors with overturned tables and rubble from the building's walls and ceiling. The soldiers let them climg over the barricade and when he was in the lobbey Adrian finally saw the source of the explosion. The roof on top then was blown wide open and the ropes coming from the top lead Adrian to believe that the rescue team repelled down from the open roof. In the lobbey were a dozen other soldiers and several men in civilian clothes with there arms and legs bound and some where gagged. Adrian looked at them hoping to find the one who had insulted his dead friends but he was not there. More soldiers started to crawl over the barricade and Adrian was amazed to see Yuri with the group. They must have freed some prisoners because along with Yuri were about a dozen men and women in white prison jumpsuits. There were now about two dozen soldiers with body armor and assualt rifles and another thirty freed prisoners armed with pistols and sub-machineguns. There were also nine prisoners captured by the resistance along with Adrian's interrogator.
There was an eruption of gunfire from down the two left hand corridors and several grenades exploded in front of the barricades. Several soldiers fired from each barricade as the rest prepared to move out. It only took a few moments for the soldiers to get in position and prepare the prisoners for travel. These soldiers were superbly trained thought Sheppard. They covered every patch of ground and worked as an effective unit. Although they were not on par with his former unit they were certainly formidible opponents for any enemy.
"Alpha Team, move out," yelled one of the soldiers. After a group of six soldiers ran out the doors into the streets the man called out again, "Bravo Team, move out." Eight more soldiers along with all the rescued prisoners including Yuri ran out the doors, Santiago came up and grabbed Adrian, taking him with the prisoners. They ran out into a street that ran parallel with the building he was just in. What Adrian saw stunned him.
He was in some city he presumed to be City-17. It appeared to be a Russian city from the signs he could see on the old, broken down buildings. There were several large blue metal walls that looked like mouths full of dark teeth that separated parts of the city from the rest. Behind the building he had just been rescued from was something he had never seen before. Before him was a dark blue skyscraper that reached into the clouds, Adrian couldn't even see the top of it from where he stood. From some opening he could not see poured out hundreds of small aircraft and several dozen larger gunships he saw from the beach. Then another group of soldiers came out of the doors, several were carrying the bound bound prisoners. After them the rest of the soldiers came out as several large explosions brought several sections including the lobbey crumbling down. Four pickup trucks with armored plating and large machine guns mounted on the back pulled up along with six large transport trucks. The freed prisoners were put on the trucks first and when they were secure everyone else began to load up.
"Striders," Adrian heard cry out. He turned around to see four vehicles if thats what they could be called. They were each five stories tall with a frog like head resting atop two legs on its sides and one in the back of it. Portruding from underneath the head was a large cannon. The technicals began firing on them as several rockets were fired by the soldiers. The lead Strider was hit by five rockets and fell into one of the buildings, bringing down part of the wall. The others quickly took its place and fired on the soldiers with with machinegun fire from their canons. Then everything around the head of the new lead strider began to bend and a bright blue light appeared from its cannon. It then let out a large burst of energy that slammed into one of the transports. The explosion blew several men to pieces and sent the truck flying into the air only to end up crashing down upon another transport filled with several soldiers and bound prisoners, crushing the life out of them. Behind the striders flew a pair of gunships about a kilometer away and closing in fast.
"Go go go," cried a soldier to the lead technical driver. The technicals sped off along with the four remaining transports. Only the rescued prisoners, several of the captured civilians, and about a dozen soldiers were onboard. They left behind about twenty soldiers including Adrian, Yuri, Santiago, and two civilian prisoners; Kaitlyn O'Rourke and a man in a brown suit.
"Come on, follow me," cried out one of the soldiers, "we'll take the tunnel route to Point Haven." The man then ran into one of the buildings followed by several soldiers. Santiago ran up carrying Kaitlyn and shoved Adrian toward the door. A burst of machinegun fire hit near him so he quickly ducked behind some rubble. When he looked back he saw Santiago staring into his eyes, but he remained still for his body was blown into half, his entrails covered the pavement around his corpse. About a yard behind him lay Kaitlyn, bound and gagged. Bullets smacked the street all around her as she could do nothing but try and scream through her gag. She was only a few yards away from Adrian but the streets were littered with gunfire. Yuri tugged on his shoulders, motioning him toward the door the soldiers were entering. It was a dozen meters away and the path was littered with cover that would supply ample cover till he reached the entrance.
"Come on," yelled Yuri.
"I'm going for her," said Adrian.
"No, she isn't worth it. She's the enemy," shouted Yuri, looking upon Adrian with disgust.
"I don't care, its the right thing to do," Adrian than ran into the street to get her. Bullets kicked up dirt and gravel all over him as he came to her. Yuri and the remaining soldiers provided him with some cover fire. One of the striders was about to fire on Adrian but when a soldier ran only several yards in front of it running for the door it speared the man with one of its legs. The man's gruesome death gave Adrian the time to heft Kaitlyn over his shoulder. As he ran back to the door he felt a searing pain in his thigh that tore open his leg. He stumbled the last yard or so and fell behind some rubble as Kaitlyn's head hit the street hard, knocking her out cold. He looked at his to see that a bullet had passed straight through his thigh. He tore a piece of cloth off a dead soldier and tied it tightly around the wound. Pain shot through his upper body but the makeshift bandage was able to stop most of the bleeding. He then picked the girl up and put her over one of his shoulders. He got up and ran as fast as he could until he passed through the door. He followed Yuri down a flight of stairs into a basement. Great, another basement Adrian thought. Just as he got all the way down stairs an explosion brought part of the celing down and blocked the entrance to the cellar and covered the place in darkness.