It was a suburban area fifteen kilometers west of the Bronx that General Conner had made his forward command post. The man himself stood on the roof of what had once been a supermarket gazing towards the east through a pair of electronic binoculars. Three of his personal guard, part of HellBorn Squad, stood around him holding their plasma carbines at attention. Each of them had plasma rifles slung across their backs just in case the new carbines proved unreliable in combat. But that was a worry for another day, he reminded himself, as a particularly brilliant explosion of purple-white light blossomed in the Bronx.
"Sir, I must insist that we go back to C&C. This position is too exposed-" the second-in-command of the squad, Sergeant Bruno, growled in his thick Brooklyn accent.
"I know the tactical significance of this position, Sergeant," Conner interrupted tersely, "Think of it as one of my command quirks."
Sergeant Bruno's expression was hidden by his helmet's visor but his displeasure was evident in his stance. For long moments after that General Conner stood and cast his troubled gaze across the New York skyline. At this distance it was hard to discern individual aircraft but the plasma fire stabbing into the darkened sky was enough for Conner to get a rough estimate of concentrations and positions. The situation was distressing to say the least.
"Let's go back down, Sergeant," Conner said wearily.
"Positions," Bruno growled, Conner secretly thought he was incapable of not, and the other two guards flanked Conner.
Bruno took the lead to the open hatch that was almost invisible against the roof in daylight let alone the middle of the night. Sergeant Bruno went down the flight of stairs, nearly a ladder in its steepness, and Corporal Chou went down after the all clear was sounded. Conner went down third and was followed by Corporal Birchman. The corporal closed and dogged down the roof hatch before following the rest of the team. The room they entered was dark, illuminated solely by a single florescent-rod, and deserted. Sergeant Bruno led the way out of the room through a narrow hallway and down a flight of stairs. At the foot of the flight of stairs was a hard-point consisting of a plasma turret emplacement and a squad of soldiers wielding everything from EMP casters to grenade launchers. None of the soldiers manning the hardpoint took their eyes from their posts long enough to salute. The only two that even acknowledged the presence of the General and his escort were the two soldiers that had grenade launchers trained on them.
"Bunnies and daises, Corporal Dillon," Bruno gave the impromptu code he had come up with moments before they'd ascended to the roof.
The corporal, whose name was assuredly not Dillon, nodded and both soldiers rifles snapped to attention. Conner and his team went past the hardpoint into the large warehouse sized interior of the building. A rough-cut stairwell had been dug directly in the center of the room five meters behind the Hardpoint One. There were several soft-points at each entrance in this room and Hardpoint Two was at the primary loading dock five meters behind the entrance to the Command Center. All of the soldiers ignored Conner's group as they headed down the rocky stairwell. These men and women were some of the most disciplined soldiers in TechCom. Conner would have his Command Center guarded by nothing but the best. They had to descend one person at a time and emerge into the first anteroom of the Command Center. This was the only chokepoint in the entire rough-hewn, as all TechCom's bases were, facility. This approach was covered by a plasma turret emplacement and manned by a single fire team. This time there was no greeting or codes because the corporal manning Hardpoint One had already given the all clear. The second anteroom was guarded by an entire squad squatting behind semi-circular barricades made of assorted debris hauled from upstairs. Conner and his men made a sharp right at the T-section. Five meters down this corridor, again only large enough for single-file; a pair of guards opened heavy steel doors and let them into the Command Center.
It was wholly unimpressive compared to the Command Centers of pre-Judgment Day America. The commanding tower of computing equipment was the only impressive looking apparatus in the room. By pre-Judgment Day standards the processors in those machines would have been astounding but in the days of Terminators they seemed woefully inadequate most of the time. Of course there was the benefit of the blasted things not turning around and murdering you in your sleep. Conner and crew walked down the railing steps and into the circular depression that made up the bulk of the room. In the midst of the techs monitoring communications between his forces was the flatscreen monitor Conner used to review mission objectives and plot his campaign.
It had remained dark ever since word of this, Conner still had trouble believing it, alien invasion. God really did love shoving it sans lubrication to humanity. The human race had barely managed to survive a genocidal supercomputer and now it was aliens right out of a twentieth century videogame. From the video and first-hand reports he had heard the aliens possessed a level of technology that far surpassed even SkyNet's. The only thing SkyNet had going, now that its Defense Grid was down and it barely knew where its own ass was, was the fact that its plasma technology could hurt the aliens badly if utilized properly. Unfortunately SkyNet, never the best adapter, was not utilizing its forces or weaponry effectively. All of that would have been good news if the bad news were not so depressingly bad. All of the surviving humans, at least that TechCom had listed under the Haven Registry, in Manhattan and Queens, had been wiped out. These Hegemony, if the intercepting transmissions were right, alien bastards were even more genocidal than SkyNet. SkyNet at least had done so emotionlessly and had even paused in its genocidal efforts to fight TechCom. These new bastards were so arrogant that even though they had a tenuous hold on New York City, let alone the countryside that was still swarming with Terminators, HK units, and TechCom guerillas; they still managed to find the time to send at least a battalion in to purge sections of the city.
That had sealed the deal for Conner. He had been content to do some recon on the enemy and bide his time to see who would come out on top. If SkyNet won then the Machine War would still be on but that was nothing new. If the aliens won then… well, Conner really had no idea what he could really do to stop an army that had a potentially endless supply of recruits, but they would have known they'd been in a real fight before it was all over. When they had started killing harmless civilians for no other reason than pleasure, maybe hate, it had brought things to the next level.
"General, sir!" one of the techs saluted as he shot up from his terminal.
The man's, boy really, face was dirty and a tiny bit of crusted blood peaked out from a headband he wore. It depressed Conner sometimes how much like animals the humans of the age lived, fought, and died. He himself, vaunted savior of humanity, hadn't seen a touch of water for bathing in over a week. Clean water and soap were the major reasons so many people died from the inevitable infections that arose from living in filthy environments. It was funny how something so simple, taken for granted by everyone in developed nations, when taken away could prove so devastating to a society. Conner shook the morbid and depressing thoughts from his mind as the tech reported.
"Captain Perry and the 132nd have entered the perimeter. ETA is in approximately fifteen minutes," Sci/Tech Communications Specialist Raminowski said, obviously resisting the urge to salute again.
"Excellent. Contact Lieutenant Luna and Sergeant Redman. I want them here ASAP."
"Yes, sir," Raminowski exclaimed, saluting once more before resuming his place.
"Bring up the schematics for Troll Firebase Four," Conner ordered and the flatscreen immediately flared to life.
A three-dimensional diagram of a block in the Bronx that looked like every building within a square mile had been demolished, slowly enlarged itself on the screen. In their place was what, from an overhead view, looked like a bunch of children's blocks line up in neat row. As the magnification increased it was apparent that this child had a very violent imagination. An energy shield that was at least four meters high surrounded the entire perimeter. There were four entrances to the Firebase, at each of the compass points strangely enough, and those entrances were guarded by a squad of Trolls, a Wraith, and quad-barreled gun emplacements that fired awesomely powerful energy blasts. In the center of the camp a powerful cluster of anti-aircraft gun and missile emplacements ensured an aerial insertion would fail before it began. It would be a tough nut to crack but the enemy seemed overconfident in the Bronx because most of SkyNet's activities seemed to be concentrated in Queens.
Footsteps behind Conner made him turn to regard his best I.D. agent as she sauntered into the room. Lieutenant Luna was a tall, dark-skinned woman, with short-cropped black hair and dark brown eyes. She would have been considered beautiful before the war when that sort of thing mattered more than survival skills. Her attitude was the thing that really set her apart though. Whereas most TechCom soldiers were grim and fatalistic about nearly everything under the sun, Luna was always trying to lighten a mood and be the voice of optimism. That didn't mean she wasn't as capable as the rest of TechCom's soldiers though. Even now, in a well-guarded Command Center, she went armed much as she would out in the field.
"Luna, reporting as ordered, sir," she said in a husky, Latina accent.
"I'd think we were a little too familiar for that sort of thing, Luna," Conner said, smiling slightly at his subordinate.
Luna leaned closer, "Have to make it look good for the rookies, General. Speaking of which-"
Sergeant Redman burst into the room at that moment with a slightly flustered expression on his face. He made it down the steps and almost fell trying to salute before his feet actually hit the floor.
"Sergeant Redman, reporting as ordered, General, sir!" Redman squeaked out, causing a quiet snicker to pass around the room at his enthusiasm.
The sergeant was not the most impressive of specimens. He was probably the shortest and skinniest, which was saying something by post-apocalyptic standards, man in the room. The combat shotgun on his back seemed too large for him to even handle. How he even stood with that, his plasma rifle, the shell bandoleers across his chest, and the several canister bombs attached to his belt was beyond Conner. What Conner did know was that the sergeant, newly promoted, was probably as insane and skilled as Perry and Luna put together. Redman was the kind of soldier the General needed a million more of.
"At ease, soldier. We have to wait for the rest of the 132nd to get here."
"The rest of, sir?" that voice, deep and grim as ever, filled Conner with a confidence he had been sorely lacking in the last few weeks.
Captain Justin Perry, commander of the 132nd Special Forces Squadron, stepped into the room and seemed to fill it with his gaze alone. He was a big, muscular man with a shaven head that would have given him the menacing demeanor of a Terminator if not for the fact that his skin was a light shade of brown. Perry just looked like what he was; a big, scary, very intimidating human. The tattoos on the left side of his face usually didn't help people warm up to the cold man either. Conner had once asked him about them and Perry had looked him dead in the eye and said, 'It's a warrior thing'. Conner had just nodded and went on with the briefing.
Behind Perry came the remaining seven members of the squad. Technically Perry's command was large enough to be classified as a company but TechCom's forces were so scattered he only had time enough to lead his own personal squad. Most of the other squads in the Special Forces had been trained by Perry and hailed as awesomely skilled fighters by TechCom line infantry. Each of them wore standard TechCom body armor beneath their often sewn and patched camo. None of them were familiar to the General but Perry had obviously handpicked them for this squad so that was good enough for him. Their features were amazingly uniform, male or female, because dirt could truly make an army unisex. All of their close-cropped hair was brown but that could have just been accumulated oils. They didn't have the spit-and-polish of a traditional army but they were the best of the best.
"Good to have you with us, Captain Perry," General Conner said, shaking his captain's hand.
"Nice to be here, sir. I hear we have new, non-metallic ass to kick."
General Conner grinned and nodded, "You are right about that, but before we get to the briefing I want to introduce you to the newest member of the 132nd. Sergeant Redman. "
Perry looked wholly unimpressed with Redman and said, "What happened to Sergeant Arn?"
"I'm sorry to say he was killed in action exfiltrating a group of civilians out of the Bronx," Conner gave the squad of few moments of silences before continuing, "That brings us to why I called you up here, Perry. Its time to show these alien freaks they picked the wrong planet to plop their slimy asses down on," Conner turned to the flatscreen, "This is a Troll, you can download the updated hostile database after the briefing, Firebase. It is one of four in the area formerly known as the Bronx. From what Intel has been able to determine the enemy sets up these bases as staging points while they purge the area of humans. It has already been confirmed that Queens and Manhattan have been… cleansed as these aliens put it. We will not let this happen to the hundreds of people still hiding out in the Bronx. All four bases will be hit simultaneously to slow enemy reaction time. This base has been confirmed to house the enemy commander for the forces in the Bronx. I want him dead, I want them all dead, and I want them to know that the human race will fight to its last breath. "
"Hoo-rah," someone said quietly.
After the briefing the 132nd, with Luna as a temporary auxiliary, went to the mess hall to get some grub. Each of them waited in a small line with their full gear on while a private, who was also fully armed and armored, gave them bowlfuls of a gray, sludge the consistency of oatmeal, two slices of what might have been bread, and three canisters of water. The mess was really just a basement in a non-descript building reasonably far away from the barracks. There were enough long tables and chairs to comfortably feed several platoons at once. It was empty except for two bandaged soldiers nursing their wounds over the gut-rot that some enterprising soldier, at every base Perry had ever been to, somehow managed to distill. The squad took over two tables, they had been together long enough to form their own clichés, while Perry and Luna took their own. Sergeant Redman somehow managed to plant himself at the middle of one table and within moments the table erupted in raucous conversation.
"Looks like he'll be the life of the party, huh," Luna commented, smiling as Perry unhurriedly ate his meal.
"Hope he fights as well as he starts trouble, Luna," he answered after pausing to thoughtfully swallow.
"When are you going to learn to lighten up, Perry?" Luna asked, before she dug into her own meal.
"How you been, Luna?" Perry, being quite rude, redirected with a question.
Luna frowned grimly then, "Bueno, considering I've seen things you wouldn't believe. Stuff that makes SkyNet's toys look like bows and arrows. Those Troll things are nearly as hard to kill as endo's. Those weird-looking, four-fingered aliens are tough as hell too. Not to mention the Split-Chins. Those bastards are crazy. I saw one go nuts when its whole squad got vaped by endos and go charging at them firing so bad I was amazed it didn't shoot itself in the face. An endo smacked its weapon away, I wish I had been close enough to see the look on its face, and smashed the alien's skull with the butt of its plasma rifle. The Wraith's are scarier than Terminators. I saw one order an entire family to clear a minefield by walking through it and they did it like they were running towards paradise. I've heard stories that they can do things with their minds. Move things like in one of those old sci-fi movies the older soldiers talk about. Add to the fact that they've got to have spaceships up there probably watching every move we make-"
Perry grabbed her hand; the surprise of it enough to stop Luna's shaking, and squeezed it gently.
"Don't worry about them watching us. Radiation in the upper atmosphere is still pretty bad; not to mention the screwy things residual EM traces does to sensors. They can probably get some readings but I doubt its pinpoint accurate. As for those alien freaks; we'll kick their asses. This is what we do, Luna. This is the kind of thing that I believe people like us were born for. Before the war I probably would never have joined a real army. Too much spit-and-polish, ceremonies, politics. Back then you were never sure you were in the right. Well, now I know what I'm fighting for, and I know that it's right. So I don't give a damn if it's an army of Trolls or the Four Horsemen. I'll give them all a plasma bolt right in the bull's-eye where the sun doesn't shine. "
Luna's smile had returned and she returned Perry's affectionate squeeze, "I really wish Reese were here though."
Perry nodded, "Me too, Luna. Me too. "
Two days later in the middle of the afternoon Sergeant "Boomer" Redman lay with his back to the slimiest piece of cover he had ever sought refuge behind. It was what looked like concrete divider that had been washed down into the sewers under the Bronx. The concrete slab was easily three feet across and two high. As Boomer waited he idly wondered how the hell it had gotten all the way down there. Moments like these, right before combat, were one of the few times in his life where nothing was ever expected of him by anyone. All he had to do was wait and his brain couldn't even let him enjoy it.
Conner's recon teams had been using hit-and-run tactics on the aliens who thought they ran the Bronx for days, but only at night. He had wanted to give the aliens the impression that humans only dared attack them under the cover of darkness. SkyNet attacked the aliens day and night nearly non-stop but Boomer guessed the aliens believed humans were made of less firmer stuff. Boy, were they in for a big surprise.
"Green light," Captain Perry said, pretty nonchalantly in Boomer's opinion, and the tunnel lit up with plasma rifle fire.
Lieutenant Luna, Sergeants Arn, Lewis, and Dot, were all using scope-modified plasma rifles with plasma condenser modules. The module upped the power of the plasma rifle nearly five-fold but ate up the power pack's charge after only a dozen shots.
"We're clear," Luna's calm voice came smoothly over the comm.
"Boomer, Brians, Lee, you're up!" Perry barked and Boomer promptly sprang up from cover.
Boomer was in the lead, followed by Brians and Lee, and raced towards the Troll position the snipers had just cleared. It had been little more than a barricade of strange energy shields that didn't even overlap. Behind it was the crumpled, smoking remains of a squad of Trolls and a single Wraith. They had been guarding a single, rusted door at the end of this section of sewer. Boomer and Brians went left and Lee went to the door handle. Boomer detached a canister bomb from his waist, lifted and twisted the activation stud. Brians was only slightly slower and Lee strained to pull open the door. The door creaked open wide enough for them to hurl the canister bombs up the short flight of steps to a collapsed sub-level that would let them right into the Firebase. Lee slammed shut the door and pressed her back tight to the wall. Five seconds later the earth around them shook and the door flew off its hinges and broke through one of the energy shields in a shower of red-purple particles.
Lee turned into the opening in a crouch, R-6 Pak looking absurdly huge in her relatively small hand, and flipped down her visor's lens. Almost immediately she fired a mini-rocket and dived away. Unfortunately she wasn't fast enough and something large landed on her legs. Boomer was up and past the doorway before the mini-rocket detonated. He unshipped his combat shotgun and used it like a club in an underhand swing between the thing's legs. Whatever it was it came up to his chest and stood on two legs. Boomer saw that the legs had two joints and the ankle joints were reverse-jointed when the force of his blow flung it forward off of Lee. The thing, without any arms that Boomer could see, couldn't get up quickly and its metal-encased, wedge-shaped head was an easy target. He didn't want those massive jaws getting anywhere near him if he could help it. He let the sounds of plasma fire at his back filter through his mind. Brians and the rest of the team had his back. Brians leveled the combat shotgun at the thing's head and pulled the trigger. Its head exploded in a gory mess that painted the floor in front of it. The monster convulsed for a minute and then kept trying to stand with its freaking head blown off.
"Aw, that's just great," Lee growled, leveling twin AP50's at the monster, and at this range she could hardly miss.
Boomer leveled shotgun at the thing's brown furred back and let off another round. This one laid the bastards innards open and Lee started firing on full auto. AP50's fired fifty-caliber, uranium-depleted slugs designed to be an effective back-up weapon against endo's. They made an absolute mess of the alien monsters innards and it finally stilled after Lee had let off nearly thirty rounds into it.
"These bastards are as tough as endo's," Boomer said, quickly reloading his shotgun.
"Amen to that," Lee said as she began loading the dual clips in her weapons. It was one of the two drawbacks in the sidearms. The AP50's were a bitch to reload because the ammo was so large they needed two clips with independent barrels and they were heavy as hell.
"If you two are through with your date, we've got a job to do," Perry's voice growled from the smoking entrance to the FireBase.
"Aw, Captain, I didn't even get to first base yet," it was out of his mouth before Boomer even realized what he was saying.
Lee scampered up the stairs as fast as she could and Perry just glared at Boomer until he passed him. The stairwell was choked with debris from the recent explosion and the walls scored from plasma fire. Bodies, some Trolls, a Wraith, and what looked like some kind of weird-ass demon with no legs littered the stairs as well. More of those two-legged attack dog things were scattered around what was left of the enemy chokepoint. Twisted machinery, what looked like turret emplacements of some kind, had been smashed against the dirt walls of the partially buried bunker. The ceiling was some kind of metal cap that had withstood the force of the explosion. The enemy would have noticed it if not for the fact that they were being bombarded with plasma mortar fire from the TechCom forces that had lain in wait around the FireBase for nearly twelve hours. A violent tremor attested to the fact that the team needed to hurry before they were inadvertently blown up by friendly fire.
"Xan," Perry said, taking cover behind a piece of overturned equipment, "That sensor the Sci/Tech boys gave us working?"
Xan, virtually indistinguishable from the rest of them except for Perry and Luna, consulted the attachment on his wrist-computer.
"Major energy signature about three hundred meters that way, Captain," he finally said, wiping a stray bit of sweat from his chin.
"Luna, take Alpha Team. You've got the Commander. We'll get the shield generator. See you in fifteen."
With that Perry and Bravo team sprinted out of the room and took the left corridor. It looked like more than half the base was a series of trenches and that made Boomer all kinds of itchy.
"Let's move," Luna commanded and promptly took the right tunnel, "I've got point. Brians, you've got the rear. "
Boomer ended up somewhere in the midst of their loose formation. He had switched to his plasma rifle because of his position. There was nothing like shooting someone in the back with a shotgun to endear a new squad to you. They were all scattered about three meters apart and hopefully none of the aliens had anything that could blow them all to hell in one shot. Alpha Team passed through a number of different rooms completely empty of hostiles but what was in them was enough to sicken even the hardened soldiers of TechCom. A Terminator and a human's body lay side-by-side on a slab in one room. The endo's innards weren't so bad but the human's was also scattered all over the damn place. In another room there were vats of a viscous looking fluid in which floated Trolls and one of the legless demon aliens. The dark, dank tunnels and macabre rooms would have probably sapped the moral from pre-Judgement Day soldiers but these were TechCom soldiers. This was their bread and butter.
"Contact," Luna whispered softly, "I've got two of the floating hostiles and six of their little dogs. Yuri, toss me a canister bomb. Fire in the hole. "
Fiery light blossomed in the dimly lit tunnels and was quickly followed by an, "All clear. Let's move it up. "
Boomer noticed a difference as soon as he entered this part of the Firebase. The floor and walls were made of a strangely purple-hued metal. It looked cleaner, less cluttered, and smelled a little better, though that wasn't saying much.
"This is where we find the Commander. He's a Split-Chin and he's probably guarded by at least a squad of Splities as well Vultures and Grunts. If you didn't go over the hostile database you're out of luck because we don't have time. Move out. "
"Damn and I thought Perry was the hard-ass," Boomer muttered, suppressing a grin when Luna stuck her tongue out at him.
The woman had the hearing of a damn endo.
They had gone down several brightly lit corridors when Luna called for a halt.
"Alec, move it up. We've got some knife work to do. Boomer, Arn, cover our asses. "
Boomer knelt by the left wall three meters into the tunnel and attached a condenser to his plasma rifle. Arn did likewise on the opposite side of the corridor while Alec came up with his eight-inch, carbon-scored combat knife in hand. Luna's knife, its blade also blackened, was already in her hand as she crept into the corridor on all fours. The two soldiers, silent as the grave, slid toward what looked like six or so slowly writhing balls of armor scattered across the hallway. Luna crept up to the first and almost casually slid her knife into the mass. There was the faintest hiss of escaping gas and a convulsive shudder before the thing stilled in a widening pool of purplish blood. Alec, on the opposite side of the hall, followed suite and was rewarded in kind. The two repeated the process until they were at the end of the hall in the clear.
"Move up. Boomer, you're rearguard," Luna said, and no sooner were the last words out of her mouth than a Split-Chin came around the corner.
Boomer only had an instant to look at the bastard and it was enough. It was as tall as a Troll, but much more proportionate, and looked as though it were righteously pissed off about something. He couldn't be sure but it looked as though the segmented armor it wore was a mottled blue color. One of the enemy's plasma rifles seemed clutched as though the alien freak couldn't wait to use it.
Then Arn fired a shot at its head, the plasma bolt flashed into and through an energy shield, and the Splitie flew backward into the wall without even a chance to scream. That didn't matter though because his partner let out a bass roar for him. The corpse's partner flew around the corner and met the same fate as his comrade except that he got a smoldering hole punched in his chest courtesy of Boomer.
"Out of the tunnel!" Luna barked, and Boomer was quick to follow her advice.
Arn kept the lieutenant and Alec covered as they scrambled back to avoid friendly fire. She took out another Splitie but then a Vulture, creeping and twittering like a bird behind its portable energy shield, burst into the hall. Something glowed so bright a green it was almost painful was clutched in its hand. Arn fired a shot but the shield only shifted from blue to red. The green light flared and then a spluttering ball of energy erupted from the weapon.
"Get down!" Luna cried, and dived behind the body of a Grunt.
Alec dove towards another body but he was closer to the Vulture than Luna. The energy ball hit Alec high in the chest, the impact knocking him higher into the air and into an uncontrolled tumble, and the stench of charred flesh wafted over the squad. Before Alec hit the ground Brians bounced a grenade right into the Vulture's backside. The Vulture sailed past Luna and rolled to a stop in about three different places.
"Valentine, get Alec. The rest of you get up here and help cover these corridors. "
Boomer rushed to the lieutenant's side and nodded when she gestured for him to take the right. Brians joined him a few moments later.
"How's Alec?" Luna asked over the squad comm.-net after a few seconds of no contact.
"Sorry, sir, but there's nothing I can do," Valentine said, his voice bitter with self-recrimination.
"Okay, we'll come back for him later. Hook up with Brians' team and get your EMP gun ready. My guess is the corridors double back into a central room. I want your team to circle around to the front. We'll blow this wall on your mark after you fill the room with a nice-"
"Excuse me, sir," Boomer contacted Luna on her private command channel, "But what if C4 isn't strong enough to blast through this alien metal?"
"Good thinking, Boomer," Luna switched back over to her the squad net," We'll blow the wall on your mark before you fill the room with a nice dose of EMP and after we circle around to join you. Move out."
She covered that up pretty slick, Boomer thought with a grim, mental grin. It was hard to feel amused when a squadmate, even one he'd only met a few days ago, had just bought it.
"Boomer, you take point. Yuri, get the rear." Brians ordered, his voice low and cool.
Boomer switched to his shotgun and went up the corridor at a jog. The queasy coloring of the light fixtures attached to the wall every few meters made him dizzy if he concentrated on them for too long. Focusing on the end of the corridor helped him somewhat. It was that focus that let him feel the Split-Chin creeping around the corner. Boomer sprinted the last four meters and reached the end just as the Splitie burst from cover. It had some kind of oblong weapon in its hand that had crystals sticking out of it. Boomer whipped the butt of his shotgun into the massive alien's hand; nudging it just enough to throw its aim off and simultaneously pulled the trigger. The recoil sent a shock of pain up Boomer's arm because his position was bad. It felt like he had, at least, strained his bicep. The effect on the alien was more noticeable. It stumbled backward, roaring in pain and shock, but its wound wasn't mortal. All Boomer had done was take down its shield. Boomer pumped the shotgun and one more shell almost point-blank to the torso fixed that problem. The weapon in its hand discharged a bunch of the strange crystal spikes into the ceiling. They stuck there for a full three seconds before exploding. Boomer shuddered once and thanked whatever god loved short, funny-looking men.
"Damn, Boomer, you sure know how to make a mess," Brians said, clapping him on the shoulder as he peeked around the corner, before proceeding to blind fire his grenade launcher around the corner.
The thing was fully automatic at a rate of sixty rounds a minute as long as it had ammo and Brians unloaded an entire clip of twenty. The explosions were almost enough to cover the massive tremor that passed through the earth.
"That must be the Captain!" Yuri yelled to be heard over the echoing reports.
Boomer nodded and peeked into the corridor. There were bodies everywhere in a variety of positions, some of them quite suggestive, and it looked like mostly Vultures and Grunts. Blood, at least he assumed the purple, blue, and orange splotches were blood, covered most of the far end of the corridor. Movements at the end of the corridor prompted Boomer to prime one of his two remaining canister bombs and toss it the ten meters to the other end of the corridor. He winced at the pain the movement caused in his arm and made a mental note to never fire his shotgun from that position again. The bomb detonation was followed by pieces of alien equipment and bodies tumbling down the corridor. A terrifying scream rang throughout the corridors and the ground continued to shake despite the fact that the bomb had already done its duty. Boomer, fighting every urge in his body to run, looked around the corner and nearly got his head pulped.
Boomer snapped his head back around the corner so fast that something popped in his neck and he tumbled onto his ass. The edge of a massive square shield had actually fractured the wall and caused a sizable chunk of the corner to fall out. A shape that absolutely filled the space between floor and ceiling turned the corner. The damn thing actually looked like it was crouching down in order to fit into the corridor. It was terrifying to be sitting on the floor in front of something that seemed to be composed of nothing so much as blank, grayish metal armor and surprisingly fragile looking tissue. The monster raised its shield arm, what looked like spines on its back extended with a sickening, fleshy sound, and roared without the benefit of any mouth that Boomer could see. The shotgun was in his hands and targeted on the alien's exposed orange belly almost before Boomer had realized what he was seeing. Before he could fire a plasma bolt dumped its entire electrical charge into the relatively small target area and fifty-caliber rounds quickly followed. The thing stumbled back but didn't fall until Boomer fired from his seated position. It fell over and hit the ground with a resounding boom.
Boomer reloaded in an automatic response honed by harsh training and experience. His mind and heart were quietly jabbering in terror at the now lifeless pile of metal and alien. Brians helped him to his feet as Yuri covered the corridor.
"What the hell was that?" Yuri asked, her voice squeaking in her excitement, casting a glance down at the expanding pool of thick, orange blood.
"Dead meat that needs to be added to the hostile database. Reload and move out," Brians said, his voice still as low and cool as ever.
Boomer took a deep breath and once again took point. Fear was something the survivors of Judgment Day had learned to live with but that was the first time Boomer had ever been outright terrified. It pissed him off more than a little to know that there were things out there that could make him feel that way. The corridors did double back into what was probably the Command Center for the Firebase. The lieutenant's team was already there and looked as though they were chomping at the bit to get the enemy commander.
"Brians, Boomer, get canister bombs ready," Luna ordered as Yuri unshipped the long, unwieldy EMP weapon. It had proven very effective against endo's, the older models sometimes exploded from a nice dose, but it also put TechCom weapons out of commission so it had to be handled with care.
"Det, in three, two, one…det!"
The entire installation seemed to shake and several seconds later Yuri stepped into the center of the wide entryway. She fired the weapon, the visible shockwave of EMP making Boomer's eyes water, and then dived out of the way as a stream of crystalline needles came at her. One caught her in the shin but thankfully it didn't detonate. Her cry of pain wasn't enough to distract Brians and Boomer from tossing canister bombs into the middle of the room. Boomer saw that he had been right because the wall only had impact striations. Brians' bomb landed right at the hoof of a gold-armored Splitie. The Splitie roared melodramatically and ran towards the entrance.
"Here he comes," Brians said, hefting his sidearm.
The canister bombs detonated and the concussion splattered the Splitie against the wall. Its shields flared to nothing from the impact and the combined force of four AP50's held it against the wall for several seconds.
"Cease fire!" Luna commanded, and compliance was immediate.
"Brians, Boomer, watch Valentine while she gets Yuri. The rest of us will secure the room."
Boomer settled against the wall, keeping careful watch on one side of the corridor, and watched the smoking corpse of the Splitie commander.
It really was a new world but the more things changed the more they stayed the same.