Countdown (The Shadow Wars Book 9) Page 2

  They'd located the nearest one to each entry point. The idea was, whoever got to a terminal first would crack the network open and scope the situation, giving them a better idea of what they were putting up with. He just hoped that Drake would be able to contain himself before then. The quicker they could do this, the better, because getting caught wouldn't exactly help them out. Greg just managed to catch up with Drake as he stepped through the open door at the end of the corridor, coming to another metal passageway.

  They just had to navigate a handful of corridors, through a couple of large, empty rooms to come to the first terminal. There weren't supposed to be any personnel this far out in the facility, but, well, you never knew. And, sure enough, not five minutes into the facility, creeping through dusty, rusted-out abandoned corridors and huge, warehouse-sized rooms, they ran into a pair of men in black jumpsuits, having snuck off for a cigarette or something. They were near the end of the corridor, talking quietly to each other.

  Before Greg or Malone could respond, Drake, who hadn't broken his rapid stride forward, raised his rifle, tucked the butt of the gun against his shoulder. Aimed and fired. Aimed and fired. Two ghostly whispers sounded, picked up by the audio sensors in Greg's helmet, and then two bodies fell. Both heads snapped to the side and blood sprayed high up on the wall they'd been standing next to. The two corpses hit the floor.

  Drake didn't break stride.

  He walked right on past them, pausing once in the doorway, looking left, then right, then stepping through it. Again, Greg found himself hurrying to catch up. Malone followed silently after the both of them. Greg wondered how Allan and his team were doing. He also wondered what Enzo was doing here. That started his mind on a dark track. He was mad at Enzo for doing what he'd done. He fully intended to capture and punish him. If it came down to it, he could and would kill Enzo. And yet, beneath all this, he couldn't actually hate the man.

  Greg couldn't even imagine the pain that Enzo must constantly be in. It wasn't that he was weak, that much was clear. He'd been putting up with the same pain for the majority of his life. He'd had a successful career in the military and as a mercenary. But something had made it get worse, and even the strongest man had his breaking point...

  And Enzo had simply reached his.

  Greg knew that it was nowhere near as bad, but the loss of his memories fucked with him on a daily basis. Having a job, a purpose, (and an absurdly attractive, highly sexual girlfriend), really helped to ease the mental pain, but it was still there, spearing through the entirety of his new life like a fine, crimson thread.

  What would he do if someone told him they could give him his memories back?

  “There,” Drake said, suddenly.

  Up ahead, Greg saw it, the general access terminal, on the outskirts of Rogue Ops territory. Drake hurried over to it and set to work on booting it up.

  “We made it,” Greg said into his radio. “We found it.”

  “Guess it's a tie. We found ours, too,” Allan replied.

  “Let's see what's what then,” Greg said.

  He and Malone pulled perimeter duty while Drake figured things out. Several minutes passed in uncomfortable silence.

  Then, suddenly, Drake finished up. “There you are, you fuck,” he muttered. “Bishop, Malone, come here.”

  Greg and Malone came over to the terminal, and Drake opened up a channel with the other team. “Enzo is in the center of the facility, in the control room, with about a dozen others. The rest are spread throughout the facility. I think we keep it simple. Make for the control room, kill everyone but Enzo, knock the bastard out.”

  “That sounds like a good plan,” Callie replied. “From the map it looks like-”

  A burst of automatic gunfire cut through the airwaves, briefly overloading Greg's radio. He heard Allan and Callie cursing.

  “Shit! Change of plans! We just got noticed! Fuck!” Allan yelled.

  “Goddamnit!” Drake snapped. He was already turning and running away from the terminal, towards the heart of the facility, towards Enzo.

  “Go! Go! Go! Everyone head for the command center!” Greg shouted, taking off after him.

  What a way to start the day.

  CHAPTER 02

  –Collapse–

  Everything had been going so well.

  Allan felt this thought drift through his head, like a soap bubble on a peaceful day...then it popped as another spat of automatic gunfire cut through the air. He bit back a sharp curse, shifted aim and opened fire. A man in flat black armor narrowly avoided the three-round burst Allan had launched his way, stepping back behind cover, and this time Allan did curse. He dropped to one knee, waiting, eye lined up with the scope. A few seconds later, (a lifetime when staring down the barrel of a gun), the man began leaning out, trying to line up another shot, and Allan squeezed the trigger. This time, the three-round burst hit home.

  The man's black visor shattered in a spray of glass and gore and he collapsed to the floor with a dull clang as armor hit metal deckplates. He waited a moment longer, to see if anyone else was going to show up and try to ruin their party, but it seemed that they had temporarily exhausted hostiles in the area. Allan quickly stood back up and glanced at the others. Callie and Donovan were still intact, ready to face what lay ahead.

  What lay ahead...

  “Come on,” Allan said, hurrying across the empty room they'd tracked the terminal to. He still couldn't believe they'd been discovered. What the hell were these jackasses doing this far out? It didn't matter now. Bitching about the situation, even inside his own head, wouldn't change it. All he could do was adapt to it.

  He jogged across the room, having memorized the route through the abandoned facility. They had to cut through a few rooms that had been marked on the old map as 'generator rooms', then they would be back in Rogue Ops territory. They had set up camp in the center of the old building, around the central control room and the living quarters, where the workers had stayed on site however many years ago it was that the place was functional. It wouldn't be too difficult to navigate the structure, but cutting into the Rogue Ops' position might be a different story. Allan reached the door and peered cautiously out it, both ways.

  They were alone.

  He stepped over the final corpse he'd produced and into the corridor beyond. Another length of rust-eaten metal waited him. The hallway was awash in that slightly iridescent glow that his visor gave the environment when it kicked in the light-amp function. Still no one. Callie and Donovan were behind him, backing him up, making sure no one tried to kill him from behind. He jogged down the corridor, pressed his back to the wall and peered slowly around the corner. Nothing and nobody. Yet. He took off down the next corridor.

  The trio moved quickly and efficiently through the derelict facility. For a second, Allan marveled at how exciting his life had become just lately. When he'd left his homeworld of Frontier, an old colony world covered in one, gigantic cityscape with a ridiculous crime rate, he'd been fractured, close to breaking, looking for some relief from the horror of constant chaos, of men with guns and lunatics intent on murder or rape or gang warfare. The backwater planet he'd relocated to had seemingly been ideal for such an escape.

  His relocation, however, had only left him cold. He'd spent nearly a year 'settling in', but never truly felt at home or comfortable in the peaceful, idyllic environment. Allan had thought he'd found something in a new relationship he'd formed there, but it only seemed to underline his new stress. When the shit had hit the fan and he found himself facing down an unstoppable killing machine, hadn't there been a relief? A sort of release? And ever since then, his life had been an almost nonstop action-adventure of blood and bullets and bombs. He'd been miserable, suffering and mentally ill...but hadn't he been enjoying himself, too?

  Yes. If he was being honest, he was. Because Allan Gray was not an idle man. There was no 'settling in' for him. There would be no peace for him...at least, that's what he thought. It was true for the moment, he kne
w that much. As for the future...who knew? Maybe he'd get his fill of death and murder and bizarre, inhuman horrors from beyond the stars. But not today. Not when there was so much to do and so many lives relied on him. And if he was stuck in this situation, well, why not at least try to enjoy it?

  A bullet seared past his face, narrowly avoiding his faceplate.

  He dropped to one knee as he twisted, trying to draw aim on the assailant. Well, he enjoyed some of this stuff, not all of it. They'd just come into a mess hall. A gridwork of tables and benches, bolted to the deckplates, took up the majority of the open space. Across the way, a small squad of men in black armor were spilling out of an open doorway, like a group of antibodies attacking a foreign substance. Allan lined up his sights and got a lucky shot off, putting a trio of armor-piercing bullets through the chestplate of the lead man.

  He cried out and slammed back into the floor, blood flying from the wound, while the others scrambled for cover. On Allan's side, Callie and Donovan did the same. As he dropped behind one of these tables, (they didn't provide the best cover, but they'd do,) Allan noticed that these Rogue Ops personnel seemed to be more on the ball. He wasn't sure what it was, but they seemed more competent, quicker and sharper than the majority of the other guys they'd faced down lately. He supposed it would make sense that, between Dark Ops and all the insane alien shit they kept fucking with, Rogue Ops would have been pared down to the best of the best. All of the incompetents or mediocre soldiers were dead, and the leftovers were the truly great.

  Not good.

  He popped up and took aim. There were five of them left, scattered behind the serving tray line, in the empty kitchen area. Three had honed their focus on Callie and Donovan, who were further back in the room, and another two had taken an interest in Allan. Great. He took a few potshots at one of them, only managing to wing the guy, then ducked down as the pair returned fire. He had a few grenades, but did he want to use them, this early on the mission? How many more bad guys were they going to be facing down further in?

  Then he heard more footfalls, shouted orders. Allan peered cautiously around the corner once more and saw that another five men had come in. Okay, fine. Fuck it. He grabbed one of his fragmentation grenades and hit the primer. He waited two seconds, then stood up and threw the thing overhanded, like he was pitching a baseball. The grenade went right in between the top of the protection glass wall and the ceiling, into the midst of the Rogue Ops personnel. He was already up and running as it burst, sending men flying every which way.

  Callie had joined him. Together, they rushed the area, moving in amongst the wounded, and quickly put down the survivors with shots to the face. Allan emptied his current magazine doing this, and quickly reloaded, in case more back up would arrive. But as they finished checking over the corpses, no one else arrived. Either they were fortifying their position deeper in or maybe Drake's squad was giving them trouble. Either way, good news for now. And he found a few more fragmentation grenades among the dead.

  Wordlessly, the trio moved on, pressing ever forward.

  * * * * *

  Greg grunted as he was slammed into an unyielding surface, a metal wall, from the concussive force of a grenade that had been thrown. He'd narrowly avoided getting outright killed by the thing, but the force of the blast had picked him up and tossed him like a ragdoll. Behind him, he could faintly make out the sounds of the firefight they'd walked into as they'd found their way inside of an office complex.

  Rogue Ops had been waiting for them, hidden among the irritating half-walls that littered the floor, once serving as dividers to provide a means of privacy and makeshift work space for the employees that had worked here. Now it just serve as a maze where the enemy could be hiding anywhere. Greg heard someone approaching, a Rogue Ops bastard hoping to take advantage of him in his weakened state. Greg rolled over onto his back and yanked his pistol from its holster, (he'd lost his rifle in all the confusion.)

  He aimed and fired when the hostile rounded the corner, putting three armor-piercers through the guy's neck and faceplate. He died screaming. Greg waited a second longer, saw that no one else was that stupid and scrambled to his feet. He retrieved his rifle and moved back to join Drake and Malone. As he did, ducking and rolling several times, he scoped out the situation. There were still close to eight Rogue Ops soldiers nearby.

  Drake was taking all this personally, fighting with an unusual viscousness. Greg managed to get halfway across the office complex before nearly getting his head blown off. He was preparing to make a quick pass across an aisle, towards Drake and Malone, but something made him check the area first. He poked his head out and yanked it back in as a Rogue Ops trooper opened fire on him. Sighing, he blind-fired a few times over the top of the half-wall he was crouched behind, then backtracked, coming to another aisle he'd already crossed.

  No one there.

  Perfect.

  Greg hurried up it, deciding that he needed to get behind enemy lines. These guys were good, better than normal. Something about that settled uncomfortably in his mind. But there was no time to examine that notion, not now. Greg positioned himself. He took a quick look over the top of the nearest divider and saw that he was now directly adjacent to the half-dozen or so Rogue Ops personnel left. Excellent. He ducked down, quickly reloaded and then popped back up. Zeroing his sights on the side of the black helmet of the nearest trooper, he squeezed the trigger. A three-round burst sizzled through the air and punched through the metal of the helmet. The helmeted head snapped to the side, away from the blast, and a burst of blood escaped it.

  The soldier collapsed without a word, the force of the blow sending his body a few feet away. Greg snapped his aim to the left, adjusting it slightly, and fired once more. This soldier turned to look at him, to face this new threat, and he caught the bastard in the faceplate, shattering the glass and turning the head and face inside into chewed up, bloody meat. The remaining handful troopers seemed confused by the sudden turn of events. They were quickly taken down in the chaos caused by Greg's relocation, and all was silent.

  “Come on,” Drake said, already making for the door.

  They weren't far from the control room where Enzo was supposed to be. Greg activated the private network they all communicated on. “Allan, how close are you? We're almost there.”

  “Same. I can see the side entrance to the control room from where I'm at,” Allan replied.

  “Good. Get there, wait for my signal. We'll breach at the same time.”

  “Affirmative.”

  “You got that Drake?” Greg asked as he hurried through the door and down the corridor after Drake.

  “Uh-huh,” Drake replied.

  The trio of them got to the door at the end of the hallway. Drake reached into one of his pockets and slapped a breach charge on the door. “Go for breach,” he said.

  “Same,” Allan replied.

  “On three. One...two...three!”

  The charge blew. The door flew inwards in a spray of fire and metal fragments. Malone backed them up while Drake charged into the room and Greg remained crouched in the open doorway. There were a good dozen guards in the control room. Greg took it in at a glance. He spied four large, circular workstations in the middle of the room, fitted into a circular pattern. The rest of the area was dotted with more squat, blocky workstations. The Rogue Ops warriors were scattered among these, and...there, across the room, was Enzo.

  He was fleeing, running, cursing orders at the others.

  “Just hold them off!” he screamed.

  Then he was gone through the door.

  Drake fired off a series of bursts, then yelled “Fire in the hole!” and tossed a pair of grenades. Greg barely had time to pull back around the corner before he heard twin explosions, though they were each different. Greg realized Drake had thrown both a flash-bang and a fragmentation grenade. He waited for the chaos to subside, then looked back inside, hoping that the others hadn't been hit or otherwise incapacitated by the blast.
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br />   “Drake!” Greg shouted, feeling his anger grow at the reckless behavior, but Drake was already halfway across the control center. He shot a surviving Rogue Ops troop in the faceplate in passing, making for the far door.

  “Take care of them!” Drake shouted.

  Then he was gone.

  Greg cursed, glancing over at Allan and Callie, who had made it to cover before the grenades had gone off.

  Not a good way to continue this day. He began picking off the surviving Rogue Ops troops.

  * * * * *

  Drake tore down the corridor beyond the control room.

  He was not going to let Enzo escape, not after everything that had happened. Even if he had to die to ensure that Enzo did as well. The door at the far end of the corridor was still open. Enzo must have just passed through it. Drake pushed himself harder and faster, tapping into reserves of power in his suit of armor. He burst through the door into another large, mostly empty room. Enzo was rushing across it, at the far end.

  “Enzo!” Drake screamed as he sent several sprays of gunfire while he began sprinting across the room, his boots pounding hollowly.

  A few of the shots connected and Enzo screamed. Went down. Crashed to the floor. He could hear him cursing. Drake grinned nastily and hurried across the warehouse, keeping Enzo covered. He seemed to be down for the count, moving slowly, trying to get to the door he'd been sprinting towards. Drake laughed.

  “You aren't going anywhere, fucker,” he growled.

  He kept the barrel of the gun trained on Enzo the whole time, expecting the man to flip over, pull a pistol on him or something. He saw blood leaking out of holes in the armor. He'd hit him twice, once in the arm and once in the back. At that moment, Drake wasn't sure if he was going kill the man or not, if he was going to disobey orders and just put one in his head right then and right there. He reached Enzo and kicked him over onto his back.