Strength and Power
Hans reached up and removed the pod's respirator as the door was pulled open, the blurry shape of people in his cloudy vision. He leaned forward, trying to climb out of the pod, but found his limbs heavy. "05...372..." he said, the code to the door, and he listened as someone ran to the hall that led to the secure room. A few seconds later there was the sound of a door opening and a triumphant cry from a familiar voice.
"Hot damn, we're in!" Paul shouted, and Hans relaxed. His vision quickly began to clear and he let himself be helped out of the pod by the girls, enjoying the sight of Hilda's pretty face and the feel of her hands on his arm and shoulders. After a few moments his vision cleared and he felt back to normal, rolling his neck to relieve the last of the neck tension.
"Any surprises?" Hans asked as Hilda handed his weapons back to him, and the girls shook their heads.
"The Coalition put in an appearance a few times, but our friend the Tin Man put a stop to that" Klara said, jerking her head towards the entrance hall. Hans looked up and saw the Panzertrooper standing by the window, watching the stairwell that was the only way in to the basement. Hans blew out a breath as he looked his G11 over, making sure he was ready.
Paul came out of the secure room after a minute, carrying a small metal case, a smile on his face. "We're good to go! Let's get out of here while we can, eh?" he said. The others nodded and they were about to leave when Hans passed by the pod occupied by the scientist, Erika, and paused.
"Hold on, everyone" he said, and began looking the pod over. With the exception of the tubes and hoses in the back, the metal coffin was barren and smooth. No switches, no buttons, and no terminals. No way to see a person's vital signs or turn the life support system on and off. "The person in here helped me get the code we needed. Before I was pulled out of the simulation she asked me to kill her..."
"Good God, why?" Klara asked.
"She's been stuck in here since The Bomb came. She said she couldn't take it anymore, and she said she couldn't live in our world now. There's a chance that removing her from the pod would kill her anyway, as long as she's been in it. Seems like a mercy to me."
The girls looked at each other and nodded. "So how do we do that?" Hilda asked. Hans looked back at the pod, wondering. He supposed he could just start pulling tubes out, but if he pulled out the wrong one he might endanger himself or wake Erika up. With no visible buttons on the pod it didn't seem like there was a way to turn off the life support.
A heavy thumping to his left alerted him to Erich's presence, the heavily armored soldier reloading his Gauss Rifle as he approached. "What's the hold up?"
Hans nodded at the pod. "The person inside asked me to kill her. As a mercy. She's been trapped in there for twenty-"
He was cut off by Erich raising his gun and firing three rounds into the pod, the heavy slugs punching straight through it and Erika's body, splattering blood on the spire behind the pod. "Done. We're leaving."
Hans shrugged. "Works for me." The five of them got moving; Paul handed the case of Item 224 samples to Erich, who put them in a hard case attached to his armor for safekeeping, and they quickly rushed up through the entrance hall and upstairs to the admin building, jumping over the bodies of Coalition soldiers that had tried to enter the basement. They stopped near the door they'd come through to enter the building, the air traffic control tower outside it. "How do we leave?"
Erich and Paul turned to face him and the girls. "Vertibird. We're going to call in a familiar face and have him get us out of here," Paul said, and reached for his radio. "Ground team to Maximillian One, this is Paul March."
"Hello, Herr March. Get what you went looking for? Good stuff, we're coming in five. Light the way."
"Glad to hear it, Maximillian One. Bye." He clipped the radio back to his belt and peeked out the door, checking the darkness for any sign of the Coalition. "It's pitch black out there. You're up, big guy." He stepped back to give Erich some space and the four of them watched as the Panzertrooper yanked the busted door open and stepped out into the night.
"I'm going up to the top of the tower. If I can get a light on to guide the bird in, I will. Otherwise I'll pop a flare" Erich said, and a moment later he disappeared through the door to the air traffic control tower. It was all quiet for the time being, which Hans was grateful for. If the Coalition wasn't around then all they'd have to do is wait five minutes and then they were gone.
Hans moved a little closer to the wall of the admin building, keeping an eye out. He stopped by the corner and took a peek, but there was nothing but darkness, broken only by the pale moonlight. He thought he saw movement by the hangars and parked vertibirds, but there was no way to be certain.
One of the lights on the air traffic control tower snapped on, illuminating it for miles around. The vertibird pilot would see it and come in, and then they'd be off-
There was a sudden harsh snap of laser fire, aimed at the air traffic control tower, and Hans scurried back from the corner. He looked up at the tower and saw Erich hoisting his rifle with one hand while he fiddled with something Hans couldn't see. "Coalition contact, down the runway! I'm going to turn on some more lights!" Erich yelled. Hans peeked the corner and watched as more than two dozen lights along the runway's edges came to life, casting bright white light everywhere. In the sudden light Hans could see several Coalition soldiers moving between cover, a few firing on the tower.
"Pariser Team, get to cover and fire back!" Hans yelled. All around the runway and ATC tower were concrete jersey barriers, a few piles of rubble, and some sandbag walls. The four members of the team spread out, weapons at the ready, and opened fire on the Coalition.
Even with the lights from the runway the barking muzzles and flashing lasers still cast harsh flashes, temporarily lighting the darkness that surrounded the military base with strobes of orange and yellow. As far as Hans could tell the force that remained in the airport was small, but there was no telling if more were on the way.
Over the staccato of assault rifles and SMGs and laser guns Hans could still hear the violent *thwock!* that Erich's M72 Gauss Rifle emitted when he fired, sending 700 grain hunks of steel into the bodies of the enemy from his perch in the ATC tower. The man was methodical, carefully picking a target and dropping it before moving on, and Hans realized there and then that he'd absolutely hate to go up against a Panzertrooper in any kind of fight. Even knowing the SPAS suit's weaknesses wouldn't be enough; he'd be dead in seconds if they were all as ruthless as Erich Braun.
Hans was getting ready to reload when he saw the night ignite into day by the roaring scream of a flamethrower, the stream of the inferno jetting across the runway and leaving little flaming globules of napalm on the ground. The flammenwerfer trooper emerged from one of the hangars, clad in a heavy armor. Hans adjusted his aim and opened fire, his little 4.6mm rounds hitting the target's plates without effect. He had no idea where Hilda was, but her MP5 wasn't going to cut it either.
The flammenwerfer soldier rushed across the runway and disappeared behind the ATC tower, too close for Erich to get an angle on him. If he circled around the tower he'd be able to flank Hans, leaving him no choice but to move. Running out into the middle of the runway was a death sentence, so he had no choice but to retreat back into the admin building. He pulled the door closed as best he could behind him and got moving, quickly crouch-walking through the hall and towards the lobby of the building, feeling that familiar gray haze falling over him.
He rushed out into the lobby and up to one of the large windows that looked out on the runway, keeping low. If any of the Coalition soldiers had seen him, he'd know it soon enough, but for the time it seemed they were occupied with the rest of the team. Hans rested his G11 on the ledge of the window, looking for the flamethrower guy. To the right was the ATC tower and the end of the runway, the Jersey barriers and sandbag walls haphazardly placed around it. Directly across from him were the hangars, a rainbow of laser and plasma flashes coming out from under the carapaces. To the left the runway raced into the darkness, devoid of threats and empty of cover.
Hans turned his attention back to the right and peered through the G11's scope, looking for the target. He was beginning to think the flamethrower guy was either dead or had gone into the tower to kill Erich when he saw a jet of flame spurt out into the night, directed at a hill of rubble at the end of the runway. He saw one of the girls frantically scurry away and the flamethrower soldier turned his attention elsewhere.
He couldn't get a shot from this angle, so back he went through the short hallway that led out to the ATC tower. The flamethrower guy was backpedaling, looking to circle back around the tower, and Hans took aim. The Coalition soldier had very little in the way of armor on his backside, with the tank for the flammenwerfer covering most of the back of his torso. Hans took aim and fired, his rounds hitting the soldier in his legs and hips. The flamethrower guy fell to the ground, wounded, and sluggishly turned to the left. His armor looked thin on its sides, and Hans wasted no time. Five shots later the soldier dropped to the tarmac, dead.
Hans left the hall and headed for a Jersey barrier near the corner of the admin building, faintly aware that he could hear the thrumming beat of a helicopter's rotors coming in. He looked up and, although he couldn't see the aircraft in the dark, was relieved to know that they would soon be out of there.
Hans looked right and saw Paul and Hilda taking cover behind a sandbag wall on the other side of the ATC tower, keeping up the fire. He rested his G11 on the barrier and opened fire, trying to put rounds on the spots where laser fire originated from. A sudden whipping of the wind and a droning roar passed over him as Maximillian One soared into the fight, its chin-guns chattering.
Hell yeah, that's that shit that I like Hans thought, eager to leave. The vertibird turned, the nose pointed down towards the hangars. The thin sheet metal of one of the little hangars was shredded from the storm of steel, the laser gunfire from it dying down.
Hans was about to shift fire when he saw the Coalition soldiers in the other hangar turn around and begin firing the other way at something Hans couldn't see. He took his finger off the trigger, deciding that if something or someone else was going to do his job for him that would be OK with him. He looked up at the vertibird, its guns silent as the pilots carefully watched what was happening.
The fire from the Coalition's side finally died down, the last of their guns silenced, and Hans waited, tense. He realized somewhere in the back of his mind that the Coalition soldiers hadn't been shot or blown up, but had seemingly just...died.
So what killed them?
Hans shot a look back up at the vertibird and watched as they gained a little extra height and buzzed off, heading somewhere over the admin building. He took a moment to reload, having just put the fresh magazine into the rifle when, from out of the howling darkness, an adult Wanamingo emerged on the runway.
His blood turned to ice and he opened fire with the rest of the team, knowing they were dead unless a miracle happened. Out there, in the open, the Wanamingo would kill them in seconds. The towering abomination belted out a bloodcurdling scream and rushed straight for the end of the runway, where Paul, Klara, and Hilda were. Hans tracked it the entire way, steadily pumping round after round into the monster's hide.
The vertibird screamed overhead as it came back around, turning to get a shot, but with the creature so close to the team there was no way the pilots would open fire and risk hitting one of the ground team. Hans swore, hoping that Erich could kill it before it could kill them. His M72 thundered, the slug punching down through the right side of the Wanamingo's jaw but leaving it otherwise unharmed.
The Wanamingo screamed again and thundered off, its powerful feet slamming into the tarmac as it ran by the perforated hangar and around the back of the rubble. Hans saw Paul scramble around a sandbag wall, his STG missing its magazine. He frantically fished for another and looked at Hans, his face sweaty. "Hans!" he yelled, shoving a fresh magazine into his STG. "Hans, get the flammenwerfer!"
Is this a fucking joke?!
Hans looked at the corpse of the flamethrower guy(it's actually a girl, some small part of his mind randomly told him) as it lied next to the ATC tower, the flamethrower lying next to it. He was closest to it. He slung his G11 and rushed over to the woman's body, desperately turning her over to release the flamethrower's straps, then turning her back over to pull it off her body. It was a truly ancient Wechselapparat M1917, and he could only imagine what museum the Coalition pulled it out of. He hastily put the tank on his back, secured it, and grabbed the tube in sweaty, shaking hands.
The Wanamingo returned, the ground shaking as it stomped onto the runway, teeth bared in an eerie, alien-like grin. The monster saw him standing upright in the open and charged, its tendrils waving wildly. Hans licked his lips, his breathing wild, and discharged the flamethrower, gritting his teeth to bear the intense heat of the inferno as it roared across the runway at the abomination.
The Wanamingo screamed in surprise and leapt back, crouching low. It sprang back up and ran to the right, trying to flank him, but he was on it the whole way. It turned to charge him and he fired again, the flames roiling its almost-impervious hide, and the creature wailed in agony as the fire caught. It collapsed onto the ground, spasming and flailing and rolling, trying to extinguish the fire. It rolled to the right and slammed into the ATC tower so hard that loose debris and glass fell from the building, smashing to the ground. Hans rode the lever of the Wex until the tank ran dry, drowning the Wanamingo in napalm.
With the tank empty Hans shrugged the flamethrower off and dumped it on the ground, the Wanamingo's screams petering out as the inferno devoured it. Maximillian One wasted no time in rushing in and touching down, its landing gear barely out in time to bear the craft's weight. The side door was yanked open, and Hans was surprised to see Kommandant Wolfgang in the doorway, frantically waving at the team. Hans, Paul, and Klara ran straight for it, with Erich coming down from the tower shortly thereafter. Hans stopped by the door and saw Hilda emerge from whatever hole she'd been hiding in, nearly tripping as she ran to the vertibird and climbed in. Hans was last, and he pulled the side door shut as the vertibird lifted up into the night sky, racing south to Berchtesgaden.