The scientist' expression had changed to one of utter disbelief and horror.

I followed his gaze and saw that that the slipgate markers on the map had turned an angry red color.

"The slipgates are active!" the scientist whispered. "But how...?"

I turned to Smithers.

"Sergeant, get my men assembled and move out on the double, we..."

There was a blinding flash right were Smithers was standing, and bright light seemed to explode from the insides of Smithers' body. There was a loud whizzing sound and before I knew it, smithers' body exploded into chunky pieces of flesh, bone shards and entrails, painting the nearby consoles with the grisly crimson paint of blood.

Instead of the soldier, I saw a figure materialize itself right where the Sergeant had been standing. The figure started out translucent, but gradually faded into focus, shaping itself into a strange, humanoid creature that looked like some freak out of medieval times wearing knight's armor and carrying a double-bladed hatchet.

The 'knight' seemed to double over as the light faded away as if its materialization had taken some kind of toll on it, but then it rose to its full height, looked around briefly and let out a strange cry in some absurd language.

It spotted the whimpering scientist first and its reaction was prompt. With a quick leap forward, it swung its small combat axe in an arc and decapitated the screaming egghead, whose bald head sailed through the air with a ludicrous expression frozen on its face, before it smacked against a rusty steel wall with a wet thud. Then the creature turned and spotted me.

I knew his much about medieval knights: their armor became useless once guns were invented, not like modern day infantry armor that could effectively reduce the damage a projectile would dish out, so with this in mind, I overcame my initial shock.

I quickly brought up my shotgun and fired, feeling a strange, wicked excitement as the gun's butt kicked back against my shoulder.

The strange knight let out a grunt of pain, but it was still standing and the shotgun didn't seem to have dealt that much damage to it or even its armor.

"Aw crap," I muttered as the knight lunged. I fired again, but the enemy still didn't stop. It was close now. It brought its axe down hard towards me, but I grabbed its armored wrist, stemmed my left foot on its plate-armored belly and rolled backwards onto the floor, pulling the creature with me and then, using its own momentum against it, combined with a powerful push from my boot, I sent it flying straight into a bunch of computer consoles.

The knight smashed hard into the consoles, sending sparks showering everywhere. I rolled onto my feet, grabbing the shotgun and fired off two shots at the monster while it tried to regain its bearings. The second shot brought the creature down.

Examining the corpse, I found that it was human, but with some strange, non-human traits about it. Through its helmet visor, I could see its eyes that were milky white and its unprotected mouth was set in a ghastly snarl. The armor looked primitive and medieval enough, but there was some kind of inexplicable 'aura' about it.

I yanked its battle hatchet from its gauntleted hand. It was a compact, fairly light little axe, but remarkably solid and sharp. This thing could seriously damage even modern armor and made manmade axes from medieval times seem like pure rubbish. I decided to commandeer the axe. It was small enough to allow me to carry it in my belt.

And now I became conscious to the panicked radio chatter. There was literally a war going on inside this facility. I heard men yelling orders and situation reports over the clattering of gunfire.

"Dammit, those things are coming out of nowhere, fall back to the barracks!" A Sergeant barked over the radio. I heard more reports like it and I gathered that the troops were assembling at the barracks. I hadn't been given the radio frequencies yet so I had no means of contacting my men per radio, so I had to make my way to the barracks to take direct charge of my men and drive this invasion back.

Exiting the System Surveillance Room, I ran into a couple guys with a bad attitude. They looked like regular soldiers, but they had the same milky white eyes and a ghastly grin on their faces as that 'knight' guy and their combat suits were bloodstained. Additionally, they sounded like animals, snarling almost delightfully at me when they spotted me.

However, they weren't very bright and seemed to disregard military training, so they fell easily enough before me. I rummaged through their backpacks, and emptied their shotguns for ammo.

I remembered that the top brass had told me about the unknown enemy kidnapping the military security force. I reckoned that they had been turned into these maniacs and sent back against us.

First order of business was to get to the nearest armory. It didn't take me long to find one and I was lucky enough to find some combat armor and a rapid fire nailgun along with several shells. Thus armed, my battle continued.

This area appeared to be dominated largely by these "goonified" soldiers, Rottweiler dogs similarly infected with bloodlust and M.P. Enforcers also turned into maniac killers, but judging from the frequent radio reports, my men were up against more and far more diabolical creatures like the knight whose hatchet I had taken over.

I entered a communications room that was being ravaged by insane Enforcers. I sent a deadly hail of razor sharp flechettes at them, mowing one of them down. The others returned fire, sending red hot stun blasts in my direction.

I didn't want to get hit by one of those blasts; a hit would not only be painful, but weaken my muscles and my mind, slowing me down and making me easier to subdue and if these guys were allowed to apprehend me, they'd turn me into one of those maniac killers for sure, though I didn't know how they went about doing that yet.

My aim and reflexes were better than theirs and they soon lay perforated at my feet. Then it dawned on me that perhaps I could contact my troops from this communications room.

I tried several buttons until I got in touch with somebody, that somebody being none other than Colonel Bradshaw.

"Ranger! Thank God you're still alive!" he exclaimed, his relief seemed genuine, but I still had little respect for this guy, so I responded rather gruffly.

"Sir with respect, we don't have time for this – I need the radio frequencies to establish radio contact with my men. What are they? Over." There was a pause at the other end.

"I...haven't got those frequencies. The Counter Strike operatives have not yet been given over to my command officially."

"Great, who has them Sir?"

"General Blake was supposed to have given me all radio frequencies for this op, but I haven't seen him since the briefing. Lieutenant Colonel Manning suggested we waited for the last moment, to prevent that the info got leaked."

"Do you have any idea where General Blake is, Sir?"

"I don't know, but we better maintain this comm. link. I'm still at Command HQ. and I've got a fix on your location and now your radio personal frequency from here. Your men are still holding out at the barracks, get to them asap."

I could hear that the Colonel was regaining control over his shaken nerves and was now back in the commanding role.

"Orders understood Sir, what's the quickest route?"

"You need to go through the medical labs – it's right before the barracks, now don't waste anymore time soldier. Out."

I did as I was told. I didn't feel like I had much choice anyway.

The medical bay was filled with aging, but useful diagnosis systems and medical supplies. It also had a bunch of rude guys who wanted to keep me from the barracks, but they went down quickly. I don't react well to rude behavior.

I was moving stealthily through a darkened infirmary. The sounds of battle now reached my ears. It sounded pretty heated.

Hang in there boys, I'll be there soon!

A wall literally exploded somewhere behind me, sending concrete and glass all over the place. I wheeled around in time to see a huge figure stomp put from a smoking hole in a wall.

This thing was definitely not human although it had many similarities. It was taller and much broader than even the biggest man I had ever seen, had broad, pointy shoulders and bared arms which were incredibly muscular. It wore what looked like a solid brown leather apron with a strange rune on it. Its head was bald and its face distorted in its ugliness with small, beady eyes staring at me with a wild, ferocious look. It pulled its lips back in a feral snarl, revealing filthy, ugly, misshapen teeth.

But the thing that really caught my attention was that his right hand was cut off and in its place was attached a rusty old chainsaw. In its other hand, it held a large handgun of sorts; a kind of primitive grenade launcher that was too big for a man to wield one-handed, but appropriate enough for this brute.

The creature roared at me, revved up its chainsaw and stormed towards me with its chainsaw raised above its head. I brought up the nailgun and started hammering nails into it.

The nails ripped into the monster and it let out an inhuman cry of pain. The first burst made it stumble and fall backwards, but it quickly got up again and attacked more aggressively this time.

My second burst failed to stop it and it swung its chainsaw at me in a wide arc.

I had good reflexes and avoided death this time, but the chainsaw managed to cut through my side and ripped a nasty gash into my torso.

I winced, but forced myself to continue and pumped more nails into the beast and backing away from its wildly flailing chainsaw attacks until it fell over and died. Its heavy body landed with a thud that shook the floor.

I kicked the body in the side, but immediately regretted it as I felt a sharp pain where I had been cut.

I looked around and found a few medkits. I patched myself up with the supplies from one of the medkits, injected some painkillers and pretty soon felt strong and kicking again, so that I could continue my mission.

-

"Oh fuck me!"

I had just exited the medical labs only to find my entry into the barracks blocked by fallen rubble.

I had scoured the area for another entry but there was no other way inside. I could hear my men fighting for their lives somewhere inside the barracks complex and here I was, unable to reach them.

"Colonel Bradshaw Sir, this is Ranger, do you copy" I said tersely into my helmet radio. I had recorded the frequency that the Colonel had called me up on before.

"Copy Ranger, what is it?"

"I suggest you look at your screen and detect my position – that should answer your question, Sir, over," I replied almost sarcastically.

"Oh shit," he just responded. He had evidently found the blockade on his little tracker.

"Yep, no way to get in, what are your orders? Over." There was a pause.

"Reinforcements are out of the question, we're cut off from the outside world. Damn, this Quake bastard works fast. He heard about Operation Counterstrike and hit first! And he did a thorough job at that."

Suddenly the radio clicked and I heard the voice of Manning.

"Ranger, this is Lieutenant Colonel Manning here, we need to hold the fort whatever the cost. I need you to go and set up some automated turrets near key strategic areas. First and foremost our sewage treatment facility – the bastards can take shortcuts to key locations from that place from where they can manipulate with the facility and definitely fuck us and the rest of the base up bad. You gotta seal off any inlet and outlet there, you got that soldier? Over."

"Affirmative! How do I get there? Over."

"There's an entry to the science installation from medical. Go through there, then you'll wind up at Sewage Treatment. Out."

I stared back in the direction of the barracks. I didn't like leaving my men behind, but I had no choice.

This was gonna be unpleasant. With my jaw set, I set my eyes upon the Sewage Treatment Facility and went on my way.