With a snarl, Blair gunned it toward where the CASPer was being torn apart. His intent was to run them down, but he never got the chance. He had driven directly into another CASPer’s line of fire. MAC rounds punched holes in Bravo 2. One of them struck Blair where he sat in the driver’s seat. The high velocity round pulped most of his upper body and splashed his blood and entrails all over the vehicle’s pilot compartment.
* * *
The Sanctuary no longer lived up to its name.
Now, it was more of a deathtrap than a source of protection. Neill and Crockett were holed up in what had served as Father Valero’s chapel mere hours before. Stained glass saints smiled down on them in blessing while angels were depicted in various scenes of battle.
Having an angel around right about now would have been helpful. As it was, all they had was each other, and that wasn’t much when the tide of monsters just kept coming. This was certainly not what Valero had had in mind when making the decision to settle on Durin II.
Neill aimed down the sights of his rifle and dropped one of the monsters racing toward them, while Crockett was busy reloading his rifle. How had things gotten so bad so quickly? One moment they were knee-deep in monster carcasses. The next, the monsters were breaching the walls and spreading carnage in their wake. The mercs had failed. If only Travis had listened…
“We’ve got to get to my ship,” Crockett said as he slammed the magazine home and lifted his rifle to fire a burst at one of the creatures headed their way. “If we can make it back to the ol’ Bear we can at least get off this rock and radio for help. Sound good?”
Neill wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand and lifted his rifle to open fire from behind one of the pews they had flipped over. “That sounds like a plan,” he agreed. “There’s only one thing. What about all the civilians? We can’t just leave them here. They have no weapons, no food. If they somehow manage to survive, they’ll starve to death. Right now, they’re sitting ducks.”
Crockett squeezed the trigger of his rifle and watched with satisfaction as another monster dropped in the doorway, adding to the considerable pile they had created over the last hour. “Hadn’t thought of that,” he admitted. “Guess we’ll have to try and rescue them too. The Bear can’t hold them all, even if I toss my inventory. Not to mention, I don’t have any supplies for them. You have seen her, right?”
“One thing at a time,” Neill conceded. “If we can get to them, which is a big if, and if we can make it to your ship, and if we can get it off the ground without getting torn to bits, then we can worry about who to take with us and the supply issues.”
“Agreed,” Crockett said. “I guess if we get off this rock, then we can worry about starving to death. As to who to take, I say we just grab as many kids as we can. They take up less space,” Crockett added pragmatically. “Any ideas on how to get to where they are? You know this place much better than I do.”
“I have a plan,” Neill said. “There’s a corridor down from us that will lead us straight to where the miners and other civilians are huddled up. It’s a straight shot to them, and from there it’s only a short distance to the hangar where your ship is stowed. We need to do this carefully and move with stealth, not just race down the hallway with guns blazing.”
“Not really my style,” Crockett snorted and then laughed. “But, hey, I’m a team player. I’ll do it your way.”
Neill smiled. “You can go back to being reckless when this is over.”
“Can’t wait,” Crockett said with a chuckle.
The two men cautiously crept out from behind the pew where they’d taken refuge. One of the monsters vaulted the pile of its fallen brethren that blocked the doorway and came for them. Crockett lifted his rifle and calmly blasted it in the face, nearly decapitating it.
“Let’s go,” Crockett said, stepping onto the mountain of creatures and climbing up, carefully making his way through the doorway.
Neill stepped onto one of the fallen monsters and was about to move up the mountain of bodies when a clawed hand grabbed his ankle. He looked down and saw that one of the beasts wasn’t as dead as they’d thought. He remedied that with a blast of fire that made a window through the monster’s chest cavity, opening the thing up to reveal organs that looked like nothing he had ever seen.
Valero might have been right about these creatures having the ability to reason, to think, maybe even to have faith. But they weren’t human or even a distant human cousin. He finished vaulting the heap of bodies without incident and prepared himself for what awaited them outside the chapel.
Mercifully, the hallway was clear for the moment. Gunfire echoed from further down the corridor, and the sound of men dying provided a haunting soundtrack to their mission. Taking advantage of the break in the action, Crockett and Neill rushed along the passageway, keeping their guns at the ready. Along the way, they saw the sightless eyes of men who had made The Sanctuary their home, staring at them accusingly from where they had fallen. Neill tried not to look at them out of fear he would recognize them and remember them as friends.
They had almost made it to the civilians when three blood-soaked monsters stepped out of a side corridor and spotted them. The monsters rushed at them, and both men raised their guns and fired. The hallway was filled with the acrid stench of spent gunpowder, blood, and the rancid musk the beasts gave off. The creatures littered the floor, leaking fluids.
“I’m just about out of ammo,” Crockett said.
“Me too,” Neill agreed. “We’d better move fast.”
They reached the civilians without further incident. When they opened the door, they found a group of miners, shopkeepers, and service workers ready to attack them with knives, pistols, and makeshift clubs made of table legs. Neill lowered his weapon and showed them his face. They all recognized him immediately and lowered their weapons.
“We’re here to help,” Neill explained. “We’ve got a ship and we can take a handful of you with us.”
The hope that had appeared in the eyes of the miners and colonists died as quickly as it had appeared, turning to rage.
“What do you mean, you can’t take us all?” One man clutching a heavy wrench shouted.
“Look, fellow, you’ve all seen my ship. You know she can’t hold all of you, but we’ll take everyone we can fit. My word on that. Those of you we can’t fit will be better off if you get away from The Sanctuary. We’ll send help as soon as we can. Now follow us. We don’t have time to wait. Make sure you all keep up, because we don’t have enough ammo to defend ourselves for very long. If you fall behind, we may not have a chance to come back for you. Everyone understand?”
His question was met with a chorus of agreement, and within a minute of reaching the civilians they were off again, heading toward Bear.
For a group that size, they moved quickly. Fear had a way of motivating when nothing else would. They raced down the hallway, following Neill as he made a couple of turns, and within a few minutes they could see the hangar at the end of the corridor they were in. Bear was visible, a sign of hope in an otherwise hopeless situation. That hope was quickly squashed, however, by what else they saw. Devils were crouched on top of the ship’s wings. Others were waiting underneath.
No question about it; the creatures were smarter than the Humans had given them credit for. The devils knew they would be coming for the ship and had prepared accordingly.
“What do we do now?” Neill said.
“The only thing we can do,” Crockett responded. “We fight. The Bear is our only shot.”
Neill nodded and turned to the civilians. “This is our only chance at survival. All of us probably won’t make it aboard that ship. If you have a gun, shoot it. If you have a club, use it to cave in a skull or two. If you have a knife, start cutting. This may be your last fight, so make it good.”
Some of the miners raised their drills and roared, racing into the hangar, followed closely by the other civilians.
“Let’s go,�
�� Crockett said, raising his rifle and running headlong into the fray.
Soon, the hangar was filled with a chorus of shouts, cries, and sounds of anguish as the survivors tried to fight their way through to Bear. Some sounds were human. Most were not.
Neill positioned himself to cover the group as best he could. The colonists put up one heck of a fight, and it made him proud. He fired every bullet he had left, trying to make each shot count. One of his shots severed the spinal column of a creature that had a miner pinned against a wall. Another blew a chunk of scales and meat out of a creature’s shoulder, sending it sprawling to the ground as it closed in on a mother carrying her child. When he was out of ammo, Neill used the butt of his rifle to bash the skull of a creature that came charging at him. The rifle shattered against its head, stunning the creature and keeping its claws from slashing him open. Neill whirled the broken rifle about in his hands and stabbed it into the creature as if it were a spear. The beast thrashed about, swiping at him with its claws as Neill held it down, twisting the broken rifle about inside its body until its glowing yellow eyes finally went dark.
Crockett looked like a wilderness man, clearing a path through underbrush. He slashed and cut with his tomahawk, cutting a path through the monsters where there previously wasn’t one. Neill could see why the man was a legend. Crockett fought like a demon, matching the creatures in their fury. The blade of his tomahawk would smack into a creature’s head, only to be jerked free with a flick of his wrist as he spun about to slay the next of the monsters in his path. The miners and colonists were doing the best they could with their limited weapons, but for each creature they took down, several of them died for their efforts. The creatures were just too fast and too strong.
Crockett was covered in the blood of the creatures when he reached Bear.
“Let’s load up,” Crockett said as he hit the switch to open Bear’s cargo hold. Not considering that one of the devils had somehow gotten inside the ship was his final, fatal mistake. The moment the door opened a nasty, yellow-eyed fiend leapt out at him and sank its fangs into the tender flesh of his throat. Crockett went down with a cry that was mostly a gurgle, thrusting his tomahawk up to bury its blade in the creature as they both collapsed into a lifeless heap.
Neill saw what happened, but there was nothing he or anyone else could do. Crockett was gone.
“Inside! Children first!” Neill shouted. He stood on the ramp leading into the ship to make sure his order was obeyed. A burly miner chose not to listen to him and tried to shove his way past the children who were boarding the transport.
Neill didn’t have the time to be diplomatic, and met the man by sinking the blade of his knife into his throat. The man stumbled and fell from the ramp, blood spurting from the wound.
Neill was worried. He knew he’d be overwhelmed if more crazed and desperate men like the miner came at him at once; thankfully, that didn’t happen. Most of the men were too busy trying to hold off the horde of monsters that had surrounded the ship and the group of survivors.
He let as many children onboard as he felt comfortable with, and then a few of the closest women, because he knew he was going to need help once the ship lifted into space. Neill left the others to their fate, throwing himself inside Bear and slapping the control that closed its bay door. The transport’s hull was made to withstand the rigors of space travel, atmospheric takeoffs, and re-entries. He wasn’t concerned with the creatures being able to tear their way into the ship anytime soon. Still, given the damage he’d seen the creature do to CASPers, he knew he needed to get Bear airborne quickly. There was no point in taking chances.
He could hear the creatures outside pounding against the closed bay door, and others moving about on the ship’s hull above him, as he shoved a path through the women and children toward the pilot’s compartment.
“Don’t worry,” he assured those who had made it onboard with him. “We’re getting out of here!”
* * *
The battle around the command center was coming to an end. The continuous cacophony of gunfire had subsided to random bursts here and there. The bulk of the noises now were the screams of the dying and the inhuman shrieks and howls of the creatures doing the killing.
Colonel Travis had watched it all from his command post. The knuckles of his clenched fists were white as he stared at static-filled screens that once showed feeds from the cameras of several of his CASPers.
Colonel Travis could hear the chatter of the automatic rifles belonging to a handful of his infantry troops who had taken refuge in the outer part of the makeshift command center. He knew they were doing their best to hold the place against the monsters outside. It was only a matter of time until they either ran out of ammo or were overrun.
Austin sat in his seat at the sensor station, openly weeping. Tears flowed over the curves of the portly young man’s cheeks. One look at him told Travis he would be utterly useless when the creatures finally made it inside with them. Wagner, on the other hand, was hard at work at his own station, barking orders at the few and scattered Marauders still alive.
“Wagner!” Colonel Travis shouted, getting to his feet and drawing the pistol holstered on his hip. “Give it up, man! Everyone on this Godforsaken planet is dead. You can’t help those men out there.”
The senior tech whirled about, glaring at him with fury in his eyes. “Sir! We can’t just leave them to die.”
Travis laughed bitterly. “Who said anything about leaving? There’s no way out for any of us.”
Wagner’s anger faded as his shoulders slumped in defeat, and he saw the truth of Travis’ words.
An explosion rocked the building. It knocked Wagner from where he leaned on the edge of his seat, and the senior tech toppled onto the floor. Travis was barely able to keep his balance, but managed to stay on his feet.
Austin’s crying turned into outright wailing. Travis couldn’t take the sound of it any longer. He turned, aimed his pistol at the junior tech, and put a bullet through his forehead. Austin’s head snapped back as his blood and brain matter splattered over the console behind where he sat.
“Holy frag!” Wagner yelled as he got to his feet, staring at Travis in disbelief and fear.
“He was dead already, Wagner,” Travis barked. “As useless as he was, he would’ve only slowed us down.”
Wagner looked to be on the verge of making a move against him, but he held back because Travis was the only one with a weapon.
The gunfire from the outer part of the command center had fallen silent. There was only the monstrous chorus of the creatures’ voices now, and the noise was drawing closer with each passing second.
“Either you’re with me or you’re not, Wagner,” Travis warned the senior tech. “Make your choice now, because I don’t have time to put up with any crap.”
“I’m with you, sir,” Wagner said. “What’s the plan?”
“This place has a basement,” Colonel Travis announced. “We stored some ordnance down there when we claimed this building as command center. If we can make it there, who knows, we might just live through this nightmare.”
Wagner nodded his understanding. “Then let’s get moving, sir.”
Colonel Travis approached the door leading out of the control room. He left it closed as he pressed his ear against it. Though the cries of the creatures that had already gotten into the building were getting closer, they still sounded a safe distance away. Colonel Travis threw open the door and headed out into the corridor beyond it. Wagner followed him.
The body of one of his Marauders lay in the middle of the corridor. A creature knelt over the woman’s corpse, scooping handfuls of her entrails out of her mangled guts into its mouth. The thing’s lips smacked as it chewed on them. Its yellow eyes rose to look at them as Colonel Travis and Wagner stood in the corridor, watching it in horror.
Travis swung the barrel of his pistol as the creature pounced at them. He fired three shots that caught the creature in its chest. Their impact stopp
ed the creature’s leap and sent it staggering backward along the corridor. Blood streamed from the holes the bullets had torn in its scales and flesh, but the monster was far from dead. The creature rose up to its full height as it loosed a furious roar at Travis. The colonel didn’t hesitate in the slightest. Like the trained professional he was, he calmly fired a fourth shot straight between the monster’s eyes.
“The door to the stairwell is at the end of this corridor,” Travis told Wagner. “Let’s get moving before more of these things stumble onto us.”
Colonel Travis stepped over the corpse of the creature and started down the corridor, his pace quickening with each step. He could hear Wagner trying to keep up behind him.
They reached the door to the building’s basement. Travis started punching in the code that would open it as two more of the monsters appeared at the end of the corridor they had come from. The monsters spotted them, snarling as they charged forward with a burning hunger in their bestial, yellow eyes.
“Get out of the way!” Travis screamed at Wagner, who was blocking his line of fire.
The senior tech threw himself flat as Travis opened fire. Travis’ shots echoed in the corridor. One of the two creatures grunted and staggered against the wall, clutching the open hole in its stomach. Strands of blood-slicked intestines protruded through its fingers. The other creature was already charging forward, unconcerned by the fate of its comrade. Travis held his pistol steady as he aimed his shot with great care. His pistol cracked again, and the right eye of the creature exploded as a bullet tore through it. Carried forward by its momentum, the creature’s corpse hit the floor of the corridor and bounced along it, rolling to a stop right next to where Wagner was sprawled.
Five more creatures came around the bend in the corridor behind Wagner as the senior tech got to his feet, and the door to the basement hissed open. Travis knew he didn’t have enough bullets left in his pistol’s magazine to stop them all. Instead, he put a shot into Wagner’s right knee. The senior tech screamed as his leg buckled beneath him. Wagner flopped to the floor as the creatures closed in on him. Travis ignored his desperate pleas as he entered the stairwell that led to the building’s basement and hit the button that made it slide closed.
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