XIV

Jacen pushed the Engineer into an empty room, himself diving underneath a swarm of plasma bolts that singed the fringes of his suit. He slid across the floor, the far wall halting his progress as the shielded Engineer bounced harmlessly around the room. A Grunt charged into the room after him, plasma pistol charged to fire with a high-pitched war cry. Aiden caught it's blindside, kicking it across the face. The fired plasma shot splashed above Jacen's head, the droplets chewing through his suit like acid. He quivered from the burning sensation that pricked his lower neck and back.

Aiden slid over to him, pulling him to his feet and slapping his chest twice. "Shake it off, brother. Let's go!"

The two men guided the Engineer to the room's exit, plasma and lead crisscrossing through the lanes. Jacen took a knee and peeked around the door frame: a cluster of Grunt soldiers were down at the end on the left, firing above and around their dead allies. Down the opposite end was Rey and Damon, firing with nothing but their sidearms. Damon ceased fire for a moment, holding up his hand to Jacen and waving it. Jacen got the point and stayed put.

Aiden grabbed Jacen's shoulder. "I've got an idea. Stay close to me!"

Jacen nodded and followed suit as Aiden went for the Engineer that was unsettling calm inside the shield. Gingerly, Aiden eased the Engineer out into the hall with Jacen practically on his hip. The Grunts screamed to one another, slapping and hitting one another to stop firing. In that moment, the gunfire exchange ceased. A single Grunt heavy muscled its way through its brethren, kicking aside the slain and injured. It's custom burgundy armor was covered in scuffs, scratches, and plasma burns. A lieutenant, Rey guessed, probably second-in-command to the Unggoy commander Jacen and Naomi killed.

Crap.

The Grunt lieutenant took a few steps forward, its milky orange eyes incredibly disturbing. "No…escape."

Rey stood up from around the corner and walked into view. "So, you can talk?"

The lieutenant bared its teeth, pointing at Rey with a snarl. "Huragok…ours! Leave. Or. Die."

Rey looked down at his wrist TACPAD, the timer to the IED ticking down from ten seconds. He returned the lieutenant's equally hardened glare and casually shrugged. "Not interested."

The IED detonated.

A reverberating shockwave flowed through the entire compound, rattling the four men to their bones. A distance boom echoed from engineering, shaking the light fixtures and causing some of them to burst and wink off. The methane-rich air, suddenly, ignited. A swirling typhoon of fire rushed through the entire hall, smothering everything in intense heat and blinding light. The men dropped to the floor as the flames roiled over them as it simultaneously curled around the Engineer's bubble shield.

When the flames died down, Rey got to his feet and surveyed the damage: the walls were scorched and white smoke clouded his vision. The Grunts were dazed and disoriented, their hard exoskeleton scorched and sizzling. The lieutenant uncovered its head, standing with reddened skin. It exhaled heavily, snatching its carbine from its back and screamed aloud.

Rey aimed his reloaded revolver and aimed it at the Grunt lieutenant. "Screw you, buddy."

No sooner than Rey pulled the trigger, the stout little alien raised its left forearm and snapped on an energy shield and absorbed the high-caliber shots.

Damon's brows went up. "That's new."

"Since when did they get Jackal tech?" Aiden spat.

"Don't know, don't care," Rey answered. "Let's get out of here. Move!"

They rounded the corner with the Engineer in tow and hurried their way through the compound to the receiving docks, hotly pursued by the Grunts. The long corridors felt endless in length, open and offered little to no cover. With precise shots, the Grunts could easily pick one of them off. But they kept running, kept pushing and didn't dare look back. Plasma whizzed by them, boiling away the surface of everything they struck. One bolt came to close that Jacen felt the heat against his hip as it went by to hit a pair of double doors ahead of him. They kept their legs churning, ramming through the doors and into the receiving staging area.

Rey swiftly doubled back and shut the doors the moment the Engineer was pulled through as Damon ran over to the stockpile of aged wrapped crates sitting atop wooden pallets. He yanked a pallet jack from the far right corner, practically slamming the forks into one of the pallets and began pumping furiously. When the crate was lifted high enough, he circled it around and pushed the four hundred pound crate filled with God-knows-what, wedged it against the left door. He removed the pallet jack and repeated the process until both doors were firmly blocked.

"Beyond this area should be the docks," Rey deduced. "Bravo Team will be waiting for us."

"Yeah, but we've got a problem," Jacen pointed out.

Now what? Rey groaned within himself.

The bubble shield around the Engineer began to decay, dissolving like a sugar in water. It started from the bottom and gradually worked its away up until it suddenly winked off and released the Engineer. The eel-like alien emitted a barely audible noise as it quivered, uncurling its appendages. It briefly swept its six black eyes across the humans and gingerly began to float away.

"Christ," spat Rey. "The one time we needed Kipp to be wrong."

"He said it would only last just under three minutes," Damon reminded him.

Rey rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I know. Just restrain it!"

"Restrain it with what?" Aiden shrugged. "That bubble was all we had."

The double doors shook, collecting their undivided attention. That was quick. The Grunts were already outside of the door. Time was running out, and it didn't help that the bubble shield decayed. That left the Engineer exposed to gunfire. They couldn't protect it if something happened. The only hope they had was that the Grunt's would restrain themselves from opening fire around their precious Huragok. That was a thin hope.

Rey glanced down at his battle rifle, seeing the tether swing below it. He unclasped it from the body of the rifle and handed it to Jacen. "Remove your tethers. Give 'em to me. Hurry up!"

The men did just so, collecting together four tethers in total. Rey took them in his hands and went over to the Engineer that regarded him with minimal interest before turning to float away. He caught up with the alien, connecting two of the tethers and looping it around the Engineer's torso.

Rey looked into the creature's multiple eyes and spoke in a soft, innocent tone. "We need you to come with us. We're not going to hurt you. We need your help."

The Engineer held eye contact for a few moments, emitting a few elongated chirps before looking away. It ran its tentacles across the tether, the tiny cilia investigating the very fibers in its stitching. Ultimately, it relaxed as if it understood Rey, chirping twice.

Once it was snug around its body, Rey knotted the ends of the remaining two tethers within the loop around it until the straps, when held out, resembled a Y-shape. He turned and held out the tether ends to Jacen and Aiden. "Clip this to yourselves. When the fighting starts, get it the hell out of the line of fire.."

Jacen and Aiden took the tethers from Rey with mild surprise, affixing them to their chest rigs. The Engineer floated behind them like a balloon, being pulled along wherever they moved. There was an acute resistance given off from the floating squid, but it yielded when guided. It was difficult to comprehend the alien's lackadaisical attitude toward everything. Did it really not care about anything beyond repairing tech?

"Nice boyscout trick," Aiden commented.

"You learn a few things when you grow up with three sadistic sisters," Rey grunted, eying Damon walking into a room and out of sight.

The corporal went into the small receiving office, looking for anything of use. Their way was blocked by a pair a single sealed door. It was wide, thick and heavy. There was no telling if there was power running to it, but it would lead them directly to the docks and out to Bravo Team. From there, they would load the Engineer into the M18 and get back to camp and end the nightmare. There had to be a button or something that linked to the door. How else did the people here receive their payloads?

He searched atop the metal desk, sweeping aside old papers, binders, and dead hand held computers. Bending low, he ran his hand along the underside of the desk until a dull red light went across his fingers. He moved his hand back where the light appear and took a better look. It was a basic switch that resembled an inverted doorbell. He pressed it. Nothing happened. Pressed it again. No response.

Damon backed out from the office, sticking his head out of the doorway. "Hey, does anything happen out there when I press this button? I think I found the switch that opens the door."

The men snapped to attention and immediately shifted their eyes to the door.

"Give it a push," Jacen spoke. "We're watching it."

"All right." Damon went back into the office and hit the depressor.

"Yeah," Jacen replied in a raised tone. "There, above the door. A light came on when you hit it."

"Red?" Damon answered back.

Jacen nodded. "Yeah."

"That means we need power to open it," Damon concluded. He walked out of the office and searched along the west wall where the door was positioned. The Grunts pounded on the blocked door, each attempt more forceful than the last. They had to pick up the pace. Damon was relieved when he caught sight of a sealed grey panel tucked away within a shallow square depression in the wall with rounded edges.

Finally, something was going right.

He flipped a small lever and the panel door popped open. The first thing that caught his attention was a bright red light that made him wince. He examined the multiple wires linking to the multitude of breakers and switches. It was a bit old fashioned from what he'd been accustomed to. From what he could see, some of the wires were burned, frayed, or severed altogether. An overload, it seemed. He waved over to Jacen and Aiden.

"Bring the Engineer over."

They walked over and Damon presented the exposed box to the alien. He pointed at the breakers and then the door. "I don't know if you understand me, but we need to open that door."

The Engineer looked into the breaker box, glanced at the door, and then back at Damon.

"Yes, the door," the corporal emphasized. He headed back into the office as the alien went to work. "Let me know when its finished."

It was like watching a magician perform, his tricks effortlessly displaying his talents. With every graceful move of the alien's tentacles, the breaker box was being restored. Wires were reconnected, mended, and rearranged; breakers that were once essential were tossed on the floor and replaced with another. A wire was pulled out, its casing tender sliced open to reach the twisted copper inside. A dozen cilia integrated within the copper and pecked the tips before the wire was reconstructed and placed back into a breaker with a spark.

In the office, the red light on Damon's fingertips turned green. "Hell yeah! We're in business." Damon hit the switch without another thought and raced out of the office.

A green light flashed three times above the door, accompanied with warning alarm that wailed four times. The door gradually parted open to a tunnel about the width of a Pelican that extended twenty-five or so meters until it ended and angled left.

Rey stood in the doorway, holding his battle rifle in the crook of his arm. "Good job, people." He keyed his radio. "Bravo Team, we're almost out. Moving to the docks now. Give me your status."

"We're standing by, Captain," Aaron came in. "It's all clear right now."

"Good. Naomi, are you in position?"

"Positioned and ready," she confirmed. "Be advised that you may have enemy contacts on the docks."

"That's why you're there, Bravo-Three. They'll scatter like roaches when the atmosphere hits them."

The blocked door blew open in a sapphire explosion.

"Alpha-One out! We've got contact!" Rey cut the line, motioned to Jacen and Aiden. "Get through the door. Don't stop until you reach the docks!"

The Grunts flowed through the door like a busted dam, all armed and hotter than the sun's core. Damon and Rey backed into the hall as they opened fire, using the fringes of the doors as cover. Suicide Grunts broke free from the horde and charged them, screaming and holding out their primed grenades out in front of them. Rey popped one between the eyes and dropped it. The grenades detonated, taking a dozen allies with them.

Damon unfastened his one and only grenade and chucked it into the Grunt mass. "Get wrecked, punks!"

The blast sent limbs flying, detonated Kamikaze Grunts prematurely, and injured scores more. Rey and Damon turned to run at full sprint. They turned the corner hard, slammed into the wall but kept running until they reached Aiden and Jacen at the end who were waiting for them.

"Keep going," Rey called out to them. "Don't wait for us."

He didn't have to say another word. Jacen and Aiden hauled the Engineer behind them, moving as rapidly as they could manage. An open door was in front of them, a clear opening to the docks. The closer they approached, though, the temperature steadily continued to rise along with the methane levels. It was more concentrated, as if it was primarily pumped into the specific area. They didn't give it any attention. No time. Kept running. They broke the threshold of the doorway and practically slid into the docks. Their stomachs, simultaneously, dropped, and they froze.

Rey and Damon closed to gap and caught up with them. It puzzled the captain as to why they were just standing there. He clearly told them not to stop. What the hell? They had reached the Promised Land, the end of this hellish raid. All that was left was to get the hell out.

Rey ran up to Jacen, grabbing him. "Keep moving! They're right behind us."

But Jacen was oblivious to his words. His focus remained on what was in front of him.

Damon entered the docks, nearly colliding with the others. 'Yo, what's with the hold up—"

—Damon's words evaporated when his eyes connected with what everyone else was staring at. The docks was packed with Grunts. His mouth went dry. There had to be hundreds of them, an estimate bordering on what Astrid surmised. All at once, the Grunts seemed to turn and stare at them: male, female, and youth. A mass so piled together that the heat and methane levels were through the roof. None of them moved or made a sound.

The men exchanged looks between one another.

Rey screamed into his radio. "Diaz, blow it. NOW!"