"You really think it's in there?" Harper asked.
"Only one way to find out," Jack replied.
They stood before the last door in the area, the one leading to the ill-defined room. The storage bays were clear now, the maintenance area was checked, and that fucking hallway was now dealt with. Although, Jack thought, looking down at the plasma rifle now in his hands, he had to admit: it was worth it. Obviously it wouldn't have been if he had died, but that was gambling. He'd lived, come out the other side intact and with a fucking plasma rifle. It felt good in his grasp. But man was it ever still kind of weird-looking.
With that black, accordion-like, long muzzle and the strange, blocky shape of the gun. He at least was a bit more sure of how it worked this time around. Jack was currently warring with himself over whether or not to save it for later or keep it for use now. After that run-in with the Baron, he ultimately decided to hold onto it. Fuck knew what was beyond this next door. On the map, it looked like a triangle, with the door at the top of the shape. It was a weird design and he didn't feel comfortable with it. Then again, he wasn't comfortable with fucking any of this. But there was only one way to face these kinds of problems: head on.
So he hit the button and let the door slide open.
Immediately, he could tell that this place had been reworked by the hellish forces occupying the starport. There was more of that water-stained, time-chewed sandstone making up every surface of the room. Walls slanted away from him to the left and right, towards the bottom of the triangle. The room was empty save for a few corpses, and they were badly chewed, with little more than bitten bone and gnarled gristle in a smear of blood left. There were footprints in that blood, big ones. He felt a chill settle over him as he realized that they belonged to the Demons. And judging by the amount of footprints, there could be a lot of them.
But where were?
The footprints all led towards the rear wall, where...Jack squinted, he could just make out an outline of two broad panels at the back.
"Harper, get back!" Jack snapped.
Too late. Behind them, the door snapped shut, causing Harper to cry out, as he was barely out of it and into the room. Jack didn't bother looking back as he hefted the plasma gun. Ahead of them, those two panels slid up into the ceiling, revealing…
"Oh my God," Harper whispered, awash in sheer terror.
Jack knew exactly how he felt. A dozen Demons were revealed by those rising panels, all of them snarling, sneering, menacing terrors from beyond time and space. Dozens of glowing golden eyes zeroed in on the pair of Marines like starving pigs loosed in an all-you-can-chow-down buffet. They began stampeding towards Jack and Harper, the entire area shaking under the thunderous roar of their many feet.
"FIRE!" Jack screamed at the top of his lungs as he aimed the wide-bored plasma rifle at the Demon horde and opened fire.
The room immediately became awash in a blue-white flickering pulse as the black-gold gun spoke. It was power. Jack laughed loudly as he hosed the onrushing mob of mindless pink fuckers down with plasma. Wherever the energy hit, it caused massive damage. Demons roared and screamed as their flesh blackened and crisped, disintegrating on contact. Several of them staggered within the first few seconds, and as the next wave of plasma energy came at them, they slumped to the floor, the life bleeding out of them.
Jack took down almost all of them with three sweeps of the rifle, and then reigned himself in. This thing was way too useful to piss away all of the ammo here and now. By the time he switched back to his shotgun, there were only three wounded Demons left, and he and Harper took them down pretty easily.
Jack fired the last shell into the last Demon, punching a hole in its thick skull and splattering its brains all over its brethren, pumped the shotgun, and waited. Nothing else stepped out into the room to challenge them.
Behind them, the door opened.
He faced it, waiting, expecting some new horror to be ready for them. But there was nothing. And, even better…
"Look! I see the blue keycard!" Harper said.
Jack turned back around. Sure enough, there was something blue in the niche the Demons had been...hiding in? Waiting in? Stuffed in? Trapped in? Whatever the fuck they were doing in there. "Cover me," Jack said, and hurried across the room.
Nothing came at him as he entered the niche and checked it out. He snatched up the blue keycard, pocketed it, and returned to Harper.
After that, it was a surprisingly simple matter to open the door, march down the hallway that was behind it, and activate the comms booster. This time, no panel popped open, no Demon was waiting, and things went as they were supposed to for once.
Jack activated his radio as soon as the booster was online. "This is Ward to Anderson, do your read me, el-tee? Over."
"Yes! I'm reading that you've got the second booster online. Excellent work! Is Harper still alive? Over," Anderson replied.
Jack suppressed the urge to offer a bitter laugh. "Yes, he's alive and intact. We're fine. What's the sit-rep now? Over."
"I've been coordinating with everyone I can. Between the Marines that got inserted and the local security forces, we've managed to gain a foothold on half a dozen different Nodes. We're using them as waystations to coordinate an effective resistance from. Now's the time to mount a more serious assault. I'm sending out coordinates to everyone I can. There's a ring of Refueling Bases closer to the core of Haydenfield. I want control of them. Once we break the Firewall, we need a safe place to land reinforcements and evac civilians and casualties. It's perfect. I'm sending you and Harper coordinates. You're going to be assaulting Refueling Base Six. Get there as fast as you can and do whatever it takes to gain control."
"Understood. Uh...Lieutenant? Have you heard from Taylor?"
"Yes, actually. I heard from her about ten minutes ago. She was in the middle of an assault trying to rescue a group of civilians. I've uploaded the same data packet to her, though I haven't been able to raise her since. Comms are still spotty, but I've sent her to the same place I'm sending you."
"Thank you. We'll get it done."
"Good luck and godspeed. Out."
Jack looked at Harper. "Let's do this."
Fifteen minutes later, they found themselves standing in a room of beige metal panels. Jack secured the door behind them and then moved across the room swiftly, towards the only way out, eager to get this show on the road. The room was pretty small, just a simple square with another door to the left, and he opened it up, gun ready. He was wielding his shotgun now after finding a small stash of ammo that brought him back to two full loads. The plasma rifle had a little bar on the side that was just halfway full now. He still wasn't sure if you could reload the damned thing, but he sure hoped so. It was an incredibly useful weapon.
The way ahead was a brief, descending stairwell that led into an open-roofed area with walls of cracked stone. The area itself was a simple rectangle of space, extending away to the right for a dozen or so meters. Off in that direction was an opening through which he saw another industrial area and the second opening, in the wall ahead of him, led to the outdoors it seemed. He saw asphalt and several structures, one of which was larger than all the others, just to the right of the opening. It looked like a hangar and he saw scaffolding placed along one exterior wall. Jack looked up near the top and spied a line of windows.
Holy shit, for once he could actually do some real scouting and recon.
"Come on," he said to Harper.
They hurried across the open roadway that ran between the huge hangar and the building they'd come out of. Not all that far away, he heard a ton of gunfire. Assault rifles, chainguns, shotguns, the occasional explosion, he even thought he could hear the distinctive whine of a plasma rifle in there somewhere. The assault was taking place. He silently wished each and every last human good luck, because they were going to need it.
As they reached the base of the scaffolding, Jack couldn't help but feel more paranoid suspicion creep over him. Something about this place was freaking him out. The (relative) silence was getting to him. But he knew it was just as likely a natural lull in combat as it was a trap, so he was going to take advantage while he could.
"Stay here," he said, and began clambering up the ladder.
Harper just muttered a reply and stood guard at the ground level. Jack spent the next few minutes making his way up the skeletal scaffolding. It looked like they might have been in the process of finishing up some kind of repairs to the exterior of the building when the invasion had hit. Whatever the reason, he was happy for it. It was pretty solid and gave him a better view of the area the higher he went. He looked around as he ascended. There was a large, solid wall to the right of the hangar that no doubt held more industrial guts of the Refueling Base, what he'd caught a glimpse of through that initial door.
Not something he looked forward to dealing with but, then again, he didn't look forward to dealing with any of this shit.
To the left was another hangar some seventy meters away and what was probably a dividing wall between the Refueling Bases. A landing pad lay in between those two hangars, a big one that could probably hold four of the transport shuttles he'd flown in on. During a routine day, he could see a lot of vessels buzzing about like mechanical hornets, landing and taking off, getting their fuel for the day from a hundred busy workers scurrying about like ants on the asphalt. Now there was nothing down there but corpses.
At least there were no big wrecks they'd have to clear off to make way for the eventual rescue ships. Jack finally reached the top and walked slowly over to the window, prepared to duck in case there were any of the flying jerks inside. Staring through the window, he studied what he saw beyond the glass. A vast room, mostly empty, though he could see a pair of huge gray tanks storing fuel and felt a momentary stab of fear, as he knew how explosive they were. But the room was cast heavily in shadows, and that fear was nothing compared to what he felt as he saw a sickeningly familiar figure walk out of one such shadow.
It was large. It had legs cast in steel with black cabling. Its metallic body supported a hefty chunk of bulging, pulsating gray matter that sported twin electric blue eyes that flared like neon in a dead night.
"No," Jack moaned.
Not this thing, not again.
It was coming near the tanks. Jack pulled out his plasma rifle and took aim. "Harper!" he screamed. "Fall back!"
The spider demon came within a few meters of the tanks and Jack squeezed the trigger. He fired off a good volley of plasma at the tank nearest it and then ducked down, making for the ladder as fast as he could.
He didn't even hit the ladder before the explosion rocked the entire building. Overhead, glass blew out in a spray of flames and the whole scaffold shook violently. Jack cried out as the level he was on abruptly gave way. Yelling, he crashed straight down to the second level, which broke under his armored bulk, and he screamed more as he kept falling. He hit the bottom level of the scaffolding, which held for just a few seconds and then, with a loud metallic groan, one side snapped and slanted down. Jack screamed yet again as he tumbled down and was deposited unceremoniously onto the asphalt ground.
Something was shrieking wildly in a high, piping, electronically altered voice.
And it was getting closer.
Jack stumbled to his feet. Somehow, he had held onto his plasma rifle through all the chaos. He listened, panting, stumbling backwards from the warehouse, which now sported holes and stress fractures in its exterior, as a strange thumping mechanical sound grew louder. Abruptly, the doors to the hangar burst open and a flaming spider demon raced out, shrieking wildly. As he actually got a good look at it for the first time, Jack realized with something like relief that this was not the Spider Mastermind he had faced down in Hell.
Even though it looked like it, the thing was maybe a quarter its size. There were other differences too, like the blue eyes and the fact that the barrel sprouting from its 'chest' wasn't the giant six-cylindered nightmare of a gattling gun, but a…
"Is that a fucking plasma rifle?" he whispered.
The creature, which his mind immediately and without hesitation labeled Arachnotron when he went looking for a name, turned to face him. The flames were going out. He knew this couldn't be the one near the tanks, it would be reduced to flaming pulp and twisted metal by now. No, there had to have been more than one in there.
The Arachnotron answered his inquiry by opening fire. Jack screamed and dodged out of the way. Pulses of yellow-green plasma spat out of its barrel and sizzled through the air towards him. He could feel the heat of their scorching passage even through his armor as he narrowly avoided the spray of pulsing fire. Snatching his own plasma rifle up, he returned a volley of blue-white plasma. It splashed across the metal frame of the creature, the metal immediately blackening and melting, and some of it smacked into the gray matter.
The beast let out a high, shrieking roar as its brains immediately began to wilt under the intense heat. Jack sidestepped and kept up the pressure, trying to put the damned thing down as fast as he could. He needed to kill it before-
The telltale, otherworldly scream of a Revenant sounded somewhere behind him. Too close for comfort. The Arachnotron was still moving, somehow, though it seemed to be disoriented. He risked a glance over his shoulder. Harper had fallen back to the doorway, but even as he looked, the man turned around and opened fire. So he had his hands full with some new enemy from the back. Behind Jack, towards the direction of the other structures they had yet to properly assess, a Revenant had appeared. Even as the thing strutted jerkily out into the open area, another one came out behind it, and then another one behind it.
"Jesus fucking dammit!" Jack screamed as the lead Revenant fired off a pair of missiles at him from its shoulder-mounted rocket launchers.
He began sprinting towards the Arachnotron, which was finally getting its bearings. He must've hit something vital in its brain, which had huge, ugly, blackened craters in it now from where his plasma fire had struck. The thing roared and began to take aim at him as it staggered slightly. He ignored it, running right at it, and as it started to fire, he sidestepped nimbly and ran around it. The thing began turning with him, but before it had a chance to target him again and resume fire, the twin rockets that had been coming his way instead smashed into the Arachnotron.
It burst into flaming brain matter and twisted metal.
Jack laughed as he got back to his feet and took aim. Well, that was the Arachnotron dealt with, at least. He reassessed the situation, and almost puked. There were now six Revenants bearing down on him, and he spied another Arachnotron coming out of the hangar he'd blown the tanks in, now to his right, and it sounded like Harper still had his hands full with something. To make matters worse, he saw several Cacodemons and a Pain Elemental come floating over the walls, investigating what all the noise was about.
"Well, I'm fucked," Jack muttered as he stared in shock, wondering how in the unholy hell he was going to get out of this one.
Hefting the plasma rifle, he prepared to try and find some way out of this.
Right as he did that, a rocket shrieked out of its dark metal nest somewhere behind the cluster of Revenants, connected with one's back, and blew it into bony bits. Immediately, a wave of roaring went up, and on the heels of that first rocket another one fired, this one into the sky. It connected squarely with the Pain Elemental, blowing into flaming, gory chunks.
Jack's radio crackled. "Jack! Are you here!?"
His heart wrenched in shock and hope. "Jennifer! They're attacking me!" he replied immediately. "Was that you with the rocket launcher!?" he snapped as he opened fire.
"Yes! I see you! Fall back! Don't you dare fucking die on me!"
"I have to get to Harper!"
"Ah, dammit, fine! Cover him! Shoot!" He heard her shout.
As the Revenants turned away from him to face the bigger threat, he could see a cluster of a dozen green-armored Marines and yellow-armored security personnel coming through a gate that divided the Refueling Bases.
Twisting to face the new Arachnotron, Jack unloaded a solid stream of plasma fire into it before it could do the same to him. It shrieked and something in it exploded violently after several seconds. "Harper!" he shouted as he switched back to his shotgun and ran back to the entrance. "Tell me you're not dead!"
"Barely! I'm hit!" the Marine snarled. "Imps!"
"I'm coming!"
He sprinted over to the door and blasted out a shell as he found himself staring at the back of an Imp. It nailed the ugly thing squarely in the back of its big head and pretty much exploded it. Pumping the gun, he fired again, and again until he'd emptied the shotgun and gotten himself some room. A shit-ton of Imps had arrived while he'd been trying to kill the Arachnotron apparently. Harper was fighting his ass off in a sea of them, surrounded by the dead and dying. Jack thought it was a miracle he was still alive.
With no time to reload his shotgun, Jack switched to his pistol and started capping domes. The shots were good, as the Imps were boxed in by their own numbers. Behind him, it sounded like Armageddon had come down for an up close and personal visit as chainguns, shotguns, and rocket launchers contented with a small army of demonic assholes. It was very difficult not to turn around and help out, but Harper would die without him. He emptied the pistol, reloaded and emptied it a second time. By the time he had to reload again, the last Imp was put down, and Harper collapsed. Jack hurried over to him.
"Where are you hit?" he asked.
"Took a smack to the head," he groaned. "It burns."
Jack winced as he saw the crack in the man's helmet. His armor was covered with gouges and some of them were deep enough that now blood leaked out.
"Shit, you have to wait here, I need to help the others," Jack said.
"Don't worry...I got this," Harper grunted.
Jack helped him into a sitting position, putting his back to the nearest wall, then got up and hurried back out to the main area to help with the battle. But as he appeared, it became obvious that Jennifer's squad had it under control. He took a few potshots at some zombies that had wandered into the mix, capping them easily, and then began reloading his weapons. As he finished up, Jennifer hurried over to him.
For a few seconds, they just stared at each other.
Her armor was pretty battle-scarred at this point, covered in the pockmarks of bullets, and scratches of Imp claws, or worse, and smeared with ash and blood.
"What happened to your chest?" she asked finally.
"Oh," he murmured, having already forgotten about it, "right. That. Revenant punched me."
"Revenant?" she asked.
"Skeleton," he said.
"Oh, that's what you called them? That's a good name. I thought of them as, well, skeletons I guess. Are they that strong?"
"They are wicked strong," he replied. They paused briefly. "I'm glad you're okay."
She laughed softly and reached out, laying a hand on his shoulder. "Same. Though," she looked up, frowning, "we aren't done yet."
"No," he agreed morosely, "not yet." He looked over. "Shit, I gotta help Harper. Come on."
The others were spreading out over the area now. It seemed like the battle in the immediate vicinity was over, though he could still hear fighting not too far away. They moved over to Harper and began to help him. He'd gotten his helmet off, and sure enough he had burn marks on his scalp, where some of his hair had burned away. Before they could seriously help him, a medic appeared and took over the responsibility.
"So now what?" Jack muttered.
"Now," a voice said behind them, a familiar voice, "you two miracle workers get to work on another miracle."
They both immediately turned around and straightened up. "Lieutenant," they each said.
"I'd say 'at ease', but I don't think any of us could manage it in this shitstorm," he replied with a grim grin. "Plus, we've got more work to do."
Anderson looked like he'd seen hell too, but he'd help up pretty well. He was carrying a chaingun and his armor was also covered in dents and scrapes and scratches and blood. He looked Jack up and down. "Goddamn, I send you in here with a fucking pistol and you did not disappoint. Excellent work, both of you. And you, Harper," he said.
"Uh-huh," Harper managed, his eyes closed.
"I'm going to need you for this next part, Harper," he said.
"I'll be good in a minute," he replied.
"How long?" he asked, looking at the medic.
"I'm not sure. I need to assess his wounds first, but unless I find something really bad, ten minutes," the medic replied.
"Okay, great." Anderson looked back at the other behind him. "Wells! Here! Now!"
Another Marine came jogging over. Jack vaguely recognized her from the briefing earlier, another one of the squad. She was a young, tan-skinned woman with dark eyes and a grim demeanor. "Lieutenant," she snapped, skidding to a halt.
"You're going with Ward, Taylor, and Harper," he replied.
"Yes, Lieutenant."
"Good. PFC Wells is a good shot. She'll back you up. I'd send more but...well, you two are practically a squad all your own, and we need all the help we can get. This next part is going to be a little more complicated."
"Have we found the control mechanism for the Firewall?" Jack asked.
"No, but that's what we're doing. Haydenfield has a main security grid and we need to bring it back online. We've determined that that means making repairs at four crucial junctions. We're breaking into four squads after more people get here. Once we repair these junctions, we'll reactivate the central security grid and, ideally, it will give us an idea of where to find this control switch," Anderson explained.
"Well...hopefully it works," Jack replied. It wasn't the best plan but, admittedly, it was the only one they had besides just hunting across five square miles of demon-infested starport.
"Yep. Take a break while you can," Anderson said, "you've more than earned it." Then he headed back off with the others.
"I'm going to go look for ammo," Wells said.
Jack nodded. "Good idea. We'll be along in a minute."
Wells got to it. He took Jennifer's hand and they walked over to the nearest wall, then sat down with their backs to it.
And they just sat there, enjoying even a moment of peace in the eye of the bloody, demonic maelstrom that Haydenfield had become.