Dulce Base (The Dulce Files Book 1)

by Greg Strandberg

  “Paul!” Aaron shouted, and ahead of him Johnny and then Paul turned about.

  “Damn!” Paul said under his breath, the first that any of them had heard him swear. Ahead of him Jerry was struggling, his AR-15 beginning to move back to point at his head, his arms fighting a losing battle to prevent his body from unintentionally killing itself.

  “Fuck this!” Johnny said, and grabbed one of the grenades fastened at his belt. He lobbed it up and over where Jerry had been shooting, and a few moments later it exploded.

  BOOM!

  Not waiting to see if that did the trick or not, Johnny rushed forth and started firing into the smoky area past the parked UFOs where the alien fire had been coming from.

  “Got him!” Lewie shouted, and Johnny looked over his shoulder to see Jerry down on the ground, and once again under command of his own faculties. Paul was near.

  “Let’s get to that door before this happens again!” he shouted at them, although it sounded more like the way an average person talked.

  It was clear that what Grays there were in the port area of the base hadn’t been expecting an attack, and were now scurrying to play catch up. What’s more, already several of their number had been gunned-down, the initial Gray by Paul and then the one by Jerry, not counting however many Johnny managed to blow to hell or whatever version of it the things had. It was for that reason that the five special forces soldiers managed to race across the thirty yards of open port hangar floor to reach the small command facility building set square in the center of the large space. No further shots came, and within seconds Johnny was fiddling with the controls.

  “C’mon!” Lewie shouted, looking around nervously, his two Colt .45s held up and at the ready.

  “Blow it!” Jerry shouted a second later.

  “We need this building secure,” Paul said calmly, giving the two men an even look.

  “Got it!” Johnny said a moment later, and there was an audible click, hiss of air, and then the door opened. The men rushed inside.

  ~~~

  “They’re in!” Eddie shouted, clapping his hands together. He and the other main scientists, engineers and astronauts of the FAT Team were still in the helicopter, which was still just sitting out in the open.

  “They’ll have it secure in a minute, two at the most,” Stan said, his eyes sparkling with a mischievous from under that large mustache.

  Ronnie smiled at him. “Then let’s get to work.”

  The men bolted from the helicopter and out toward the three lines of parked UFO fighter craft on the other side of the hangar.

  “No…hey…shit!” Stu said from his spot in the helicopter, then held up his hand to stop Eddie from trying to rush after them. “No, let them go – they know what they’re doing…I hope.”

  ~~~

  “What the hell is all this?” Lewie said once they were inside the command center.

  “Never seen a computer before?” Paul smiled at him, what Lewie figured was the closest he’d ever come to a laugh.

  “No, er…yes, er…you know!”

  “These are complex systems, devised to keep unwanteds out and the better-not-seens in,” Aaron said as he huddled up to one control console and began looking at numbers and dials and knobs and readouts.

  “What’s what?” Jerry said with a laugh. “All this junk looks the same to me.”

  “They’re servers,” Paul said, not taking his eyes from scanning the various controls in a very quick and thorough way, “they hold all the information you could ever want and keep the base safe. And if any one of these things ever–”

  Johnny narrowed his eyes and looked over at Paul, who’d stopped mid-sentence for some reason.

  “Here it is!” the super soldier said in excitement. “The sonic controls!”

  “Well I’ll be damned,” Aaron shouted. “Switch it off!”

  “Alright,” Paul said right back, and a moment later flipped off the seven yellow-lit switches all in a row. There was an audible hum, a lowering of frequency, a depressing drone.

  “Sounds like you just killed something,” Lewie laughed.

  “Yeah,” Aaron said with a smile, pointing out the one small window on the side of the wall near the door. There they could see the flickering of the hologram concealing the very blast doors they’d come in through. What’s more, they now saw that those blast doors were in fact holograms themselves. They knew this when they just winked right out of existence.

  Jerry laughed and the others looked to him, looked to see that wicked grin of his.

  “Time to rock and roll,” he smiled.

  28 – Disarray Down Below

  Dulce Platform (Level 7)

  Thursday, May 24, 1979

  “What’s that?” Major John Bingham said, his eyes darting up above to where the lights were on the train’s ceiling, lights that were just then beginning to flicker, winking in and out. As usual, he had his lucky Vietnam combat helmet on, the dull and faded green a stark contrast to the black special forces and Delta Force uniforms all of the men were wearing. He said it brought him luck, however, and none of the men were going to begrudge him that.

  Sammy and Tommy looked at one another, then smiled.

  “It’s the sonic,” Sammy said, looking to John. “They just secured the port above us – the security systems have all been switched off!”

  “Shit,” Tommy spat, “I thought we were doin’ that!”

  Chargin’ Charlie, the leader of CAT-1–the first team that’d reach the lower levels of Dulce – leaned back and smiled. That was what they were waiting for, the shutting off of power so they could move about freely, not having to worry about a hidden force of energy slicing them in half or trapping their mind or any of the other atrocities that Dulce possessed. What the hell did it matter who shut it off?

  “One minute!” Sammy shouted out, glancing down at his pocket watch again.

  In just one minute they’d be pulling into the main tube platform of Dulce, located on Level 7 and connecting to other tubes leading to other underground bases all over the world. The area was key, both for their quick infiltration and destroy mission, and their long-term goals of taking the area back.

  Suddenly there were tunnel lights out the train’s windows, and then flickering as they entered an open area. The men huddled closer to the set of double doors facing toward that area, an area that opened up to reveal a double-platform with a long strip running in between two sets of tracks.

  “We’re here,” Tommy said.

  Charlie peered out the window, then let his eyes go wide. There before them were dozens of Grays, all standing about in the small platform, some working or even ‘talking’ by the look of it. None of them seemed to notice that a small group of armed humans was rushing right into their midst.

  The train stopped, there was a beep just like any subway train in New York, and the doors slid open.

  If there was ever a calm before the storm, Charlie thought, this was surely it. The four men of CAT-1 stood there, huddled in the small doorway of the train, their guns held up in front of their chests, their eyes wide, and their resolve waning. It seemed like an eternity but was actually less than a few seconds, seconds in which the clusters of Grays standing about on the platform slowly turned their attention, then heads, then bodies their way. There was no discernible reaction, no altering of facial features – which Ellis and Carl had pretty much made plain was quite impossible anyways – an no real indication that anything was remiss. That is, until one of the Grays in a tight pocket of three just a few yards to their right suddenly whipped around to look at his two companions. Charlie didn’t need to see facial features change to know the thing was surprised, and that they were found out.

  “They know they can’t hurt us!” Charlie yelled to the men beside him.

  “Not with us two standing here,” Tommy smiled, bringing his M16 up to his face to better take aim, “now let’s give ‘em a little taste of the American way!”

  The men didn’t
need to be told twice, and a split-second later the platform was echoing with gunfire.

  Tommy got the first shot off, right at the Gray that’d turned about in surprise to ‘talk’ with its two companions. The burst of three M16 assault rifle bullets hit right in the plum center of that big ‘ol head of the Gray, and that greenish-blood of theirs flew all over its two companions as the creature fell to the floor, dead before it even hit.

  It may have been surprise in the eyes of the creatures’ two companions, but it might just as well have been fear. Neither John nor Sammy was really sure nor really cared, they just pulled their triggers and sent the two things down to the platform, one with several AR15 bullets in its head, the other with its head blown clean off, Sammy’s Mossberg Model 590 shotgun blast still echoing around the cavernous area they were in.

  That did it – seeing three of their number go down in just a few seconds, all of their psychic attacks failing, and human commandos coming in for the kill – and the Grays broke and ran.

  “It’s a turkey shoot!” John shouted out with a laugh, then brought his AR15 to his eye once again, tilted his dull, green helmet back, aimed and then fired. Another Gray went down, a bullet in the side of its big head, the easiest target John had ever fired at, and he’d been firing a lot since growing up down in the bayous of south Georgia.

  “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!” Tommy said with a laugh, then angled his M203 upwards and fired. The grenade launched forth, made an arc in the air, and then came down right in the midst of a group of Grays that’d been trying to run right past them from the other end of the platform. The four beings were thrown into the air, shrapnel from the grenade and the platform digging into their frail frames and tearing them apart.

  “Whooee! Tommy shouted in glee at the sight of his handiwork, though the sound was immediately drowned-out by the sound of another approaching tube train.

  “Here they are!” Charlie shouted as he brought up his machine gun and fired off another burst, taking down yet another Gray that’d been rushing right in front of them in its frantic need to get off the platform.

  Sure enough, the second tube train was pulling up to the platform, the one that’d set-out from Blue Lake just a couple minutes behind the four men of CAT-1.

  “It’s party time!” Sammy said as he fired off another shot from his Mossberg, taking out a Gray and a good portion of a second that’d been running beside it. He lowered the shotgun and nodded across the platform at the doors beginning to open on the tube train opposite them.

  “Fucking-A!” Corporal Bobbie Baker shouted, the first of CAT-2 out of the tube train as the doors opened, his Heckler & Koch HK1 light support machine gun opening up upon a group of straggling Grays that’d been all the way at the other end of the platform and rushing furiously toward the exit there. The German machine gun’s bullets ripped into them and tore flesh and bone and left a helluva mess all over that end of the platform. Bobbie just laughed and took aim at another group.

  Within seconds Captain Walter Leathers, Lieutenant Colonel Emil Wiseman, and Major Jake Zates were beside him, each firing away at a pocket of Grays here, a lone individual running there, or even one of the poor bastards that’d merely been wounded. Each man knew of the psychic capabilities of these creatures, either seeing it firsthand in Montana or hearing about it afterward, and each wasn’t going to leave anything alive that could try something funny when their team’s back was turned.

  Colt AR-15s sang with German Heckler & Koch’s and the occasional grenade or shotgun blast for accompaniment. The men played their symphony of destruction, hitting all the right notes and leaving the Grays that’d been on the platform hopelessly outgunned. For with the super soldier on each of the Combat Assault Teams, there was just no way the Grays could do anything with their minds – their most powerful weapon – not one damn thing.

  “Boom!” Charlie yelled as he dropped the last Gray in front of him, a spindly bastard that’d been trying to rush past as fast as it could, which was about as fast as an old person could run, the way Charlie saw it. He lowered the M240 machine gun and surveyed the scene.

  “That was it,” Tommy said beside him, “that was the last of ‘em!”

  “For the here and now,” Sammy said, “for the here and now.”

  No one said anything to that, for they all knew it was true, that at any moment reinforcements could begin to arrive, Grays armed with more than just their minds, with flash guns. For the moment, however, all that was in front of the two teams of humans were dozens of dead aliens, most lying in pools of their own greenish-blood and in many cases piles of shot-off alien body parts.

  The platform was secure.

  29 – The HUB Doors

  Dulce Port (Level 1)

  Thursday, May 24, 1979

  “Shit!”

  Turn shot his gaze forward, toward the X-22’s cockpit and Captain Mark Richards seated in the pilot’s seat.

  “Shit!” Mark said again, this time slamming his hands down on the controls.

  “What is it?” This time Turn was up beside him, a simple step with his cybernetic legs really all it took to clear the space separating them.

  “HUB doors,” Mark said, pointing out the cockpit window, “they’re closing.”

  “But Aaron and his men from the helicopter made it inside!”

  Mark shook his head at Turn’s words. “Even though they got in there and got that sonic switched off and the holograms down, the hydraulics on all the door systems must still be working.”

  “So what can we do?” Turn bit his lip and stared at the HUB doors, now with just a sliver between them. They were huge things, two thick slabs of steel towering a good fifteen feet high and each as wide as the front of a barn. They were thick too, not as thick as blast doors meant to protect against a nuclear attack, but thick enough that once they were closed, no one was getting through.

  “What the hell can we do?” Mark said, his hand slamming down on the cockpit controls once again, his frustration plain. “What the hell can we do?”

  ~~~

  Inside the command facility where the base’s controls and sonic killing system had been turned off, Command Sergeant Major Aaron Haney was thinking much the same thing.

  “Hells bells!” he said, popping the clip from one of his Uzis and slamming it right back in again.

  “What are we gonna do, sir?” Sergeant Paul Carson said, that calm voice and demeanor of his causing Aaron to frown at his own outburst.

  “We’re gonna get to those doors and get them the hell open, that’s what we’re gonna do!” Jerry said, then looked over at Aaron. “Isn’t that right, sir?”

  Aaron frowned again. The whole plan was going to hell, or at least changing rapidly. Already the HUB doors were nearly closed, and unless they acted in the next few seconds, they would be.

  “We’ve got to get some explosives on those doors – pronto!”

  “Comin’ right up, sarge,” Lewie said, then immediately began digging into the bulging pouches along his belt and in his jacket. Within moments he had several pieces of C4 explosives laid out on the table in front of them.

  “Good,” Aaron said, nodding at the explosives, “that’ll get the job done, now we’ll need two men to plant it, one on each of those doors.”

  “Well I’m going – they’re my damn explosives!” Lewie said with a laugh, and just as the HUB doors slammed shut out in the greater port hangar. The men turned about and it was as if a collective sigh overtook them.

  “And I’m going to,” Jerry said next.

  “Whoa,” Paul said, holding up his hand, “if both of you go alone then you’ll have no protection against the Gray’s mind attacks.”

  “He’s right,” Johnny said, “once those Grays see you two moving out they’ll open up with everything they’ve got in their heads – you won’t stand a chance.”

  “Ha!” Lewie laughed. “We don’t stand a chance as it is – how the hell we gonna get across thirty yards of hangar, aliens
all about, and not get hit with something?”

  “Because we’ll have your asses, that’s why,” Aaron said, slamming that ammo clip into his gun again.

  Paul nodded. “Then let’s stop talking and start moving.”

  The men looked at one another again, each meeting their teammates’ eyes. This was it, when battles hinged on single decisions and the willpower and bravery of but a few stood to affect the many, this was the moment.

  The two men moved to the door.

  ~~~

  “There!” Turn nearly shouted, his arm shooting out toward the cockpit window, nearly hitting the thing.

  “I see them,” Mark said back, and the two quieted down as they watched the two men – Paul Carson and Lewie Yates by the look of them – move out of the command facility door and then start to edge along the side of the building.

  “They’re going for the doors!” Andy shouted.

  “No shit, Sherlock!” Billy said beside him, and with a good hit upside the head for good measure.

  “Look!” Mark shouted, his finger going up this time.

  The other men looked, then their eyes went wide.

  ~~~

  “Run!” Paul shouted, but he knew it was too late. He and Lewie had only gone a dozen feet from the command facility and already the Grays were locking-in on them, and beginning to fire their flash guns.

  Lewie didn’t have to be told twice. He gripped his machine gun all the tighter and started moving, giving sideways shots toward the small clutch of Grays hiding out behind the huge UFO on their left.

  “Go!” Paul shouted again, but at the same time he was doing his best to stay within ten feet or so of Lewie, enough to ensure the Grays couldn’t use any mental attacks against him. If that happened, he knew, Lewie wouldn’t stand a chance.