Dulce Base (The Dulce Files Book 1)

by Greg Strandberg

  Lewie gritted his teeth and said ‘the hell with it.’ He put his machine gun up, began running, and began firing right at the side of the large UFO, expecting Grays to be there at any moment. Sure enough, there they were, a small bunch of them, just waiting to do their mental attacks.

  “Take cover by the fighter craft!” Paul called out from behind, and Lewie hoped it was close enough still that the Grays couldn’t get a beat on him. They were into the base now, rushing up to the main doors, and he expected they were damn mad about that, damn mad indeed. Watching a stream of his bullets rip into the aliens, shearing off their weak and frail arms before cutting into their bodies and heads, Lewie backed-off and started back toward the fighter craft lined-up on the other side of the floor from the large UFO. At the same time he shouldered the AR-15 machine gun and grabbed hold of his twin Colt .45s.

  “Let’s get down over here and pick ‘em off,” Paul said, already squatting down beside one craft.

  The things were nothing more than hovering, black triangles by the look of it to Lewie, but they’d provide cover just like Paul said. He rushed up to the one beside Paul and started to–

  BOOM!

  The blast – whatever it was – took the craft Lewie had been running to out completely, and a large chunk sheared off, striking him right in the left leg. It took the leg right off.

  “You bastard!” Lewie shouted just after he was whipped up into the air and then slammed down onto the hard, cement floor of the port hangar, the wind still somehow in him. All thoughts for his safety or well-being gone, he put up one of his Colt’s and started firing wildly, like he imagined Custer and his boys had done one hundred years earlier at Little Bighorn.

  Paul looked back at him and started to get up.

  “Get those doors!” Lewie shouted at him through gritted teeth, not even looking his way, but knowing nonetheless that the younger soldier was going to try to save him. “I’m done. Get the doors and–”

  Paul watched in horror as one of the flashgun laser shots from the Grays connected solidly with Lewie. Literally in a flash he was vaporized, his outline faintly juxtaposed against the hangar like some ghost of a photograph, and then he was gone, a small pile of fine, black powder all that remained beside his two Colts.

  Paul gritted his teeth, but suppressed the urge to yell out and start firing at the Grays that’d did it, wherever they were, which he had no idea. Instead he put his head down and got his feet under him again, then started moving toward the HUB doors, now just–

  Paul never knew what hit him, never knew anything again. The blast from a flashgun took him in the back and he was puffed out of existence not even a fraction of a second later.

  ~~~

  “Shit!” Mark did shout this time, but instead of slamming his hands down on the X-22’s controls he started pressing buttons and turning knobs.

  “What are you doing, sir?” Turn asked from beside him.

  “Blowing those fucking doors, what do you think?”

  The tone in the younger Richards’ voice told Turn not to say another word, for it was the same tone his grandmother used to use when she was busy in the kitchen back in the plantation house. Turn had learned real quick what that tone meant.

  “What the hell are we–”

  “Sit down and shut the hell up!” Mark shouted, his finger shooting out to point back at Billy. Billy’s eyes went wide and he started backing away, like you would from an angry bear, slowly and without taking your eyes from the offending creature. Billy, Turn thought, had never learned what that tone meant.

  “Here goes,” Mark said under his breath, quiet enough for the two in the back to not hear, but loud enough for Turn to make out. With the final flip of a button the X-22’s thrusters fired back to life and Mark ‘rolled’ her forward – that was the only way Turn could describe it – and they came to rest a good dozen yards past the command facility.

  “Sir, don’t you think we’re getting too close to fire any–”

  “Now!” Mark shouted to no one but himself, cutting off Turn’s concerns in the process.

  He hit the button on the side of the hand-held steering controls that fired the X-22’s Hellfire missiles. Two shot forward, right toward the blast doors…both just forty yards away and well within the blast radius of the Hellfires. The X-22 was engulfed in flames.

  30 – CAT-4

  Dulce Platform (Level 7)

  Thursday, May 24, 1979

  There was a slight whistling sound and the eight men from CAT-1 and CAT-2 turned around quickly.

  “Here’s Colonel Donlon and CAT-4,” Charlie said, lowering his M240 machine gun.

  “Good,” Tommy laughed, “I was getting’ mighty tired of standing around and countin’ the dead bodies.”

  Charlie frowned at the young super soldier, but said nothing, and a few moments later the tube train carrying the four men of CAT-4 pulled into the platform.

  “Goddamn!” Major Fred Sayer said, the first one out the tube train’s doors as they swished open.

  “You couldn’t leave any for us?” David said, that perpetual frown of his turned on full blast at the moment.

  “Oh, you’ll get your share,” Lieutenant Colonel Emil Wiseman said, his tobacco pipe clamped tightly between his teeth as usual.

  “There’ll be plenty more coming,” Walter said as he came up to the train next, Major Jake Zates right on his heels. “Once the rest of the Grays in the secret bases around the US find out what’s happening, they’ll start sending in their security teams.”

  “And that’s when we’ll cut them down to bits,” Donlon said. “There won’t be a train stopping on this platform that doesn’t see each and every occupant gunned-down in a manner of seconds when those tube train doors open.”

  “I hope so,” Charlie said.

  Donlon nodded at him, then looked around at the other eleven men. “Alright, Charlie and Walter – get your teams moving out of this train terminal and starting up through the levels. By this time Richards and CAT-3 should have secured the entry port topside.

  “Sonic’s off,” Walter said as he looked around at the ceiling above them, “or we’d be dead right now.”

  “And if it isn’t we’ll just have to take our chances,” Donlon said.

  Charlie nodded and stuck his hand out.

  “Good luck, Roger” he said, and Donlon shook it. The rest of the men began to shake hands, and then CAT-1 and CAT-2 started walking down the platform, gingerly stepping over and around the numerous dead Grays littering the floor around them.

  “Well, here we are, alone and in the depths of hell and just waitin’ to die,” Fred said when the last of the other teams’ men vanished around the bend in the platform, where the tube train tracks kept shooting off into oblivion but the walkway turned left.

  “I’m sure gonna take my fair share of aliens with me,” Robbie laughed.

  “Easy for you to say,” David said as he turned on that frown full-blast, “you’re a super soldier – you’ll probably be the last to die.”

  “Can that nonsense,” Donlon said, his words biting through the air. “Any minute now and another train’s gonna come down those tracks, one most likely packed to the gills with Grays, or worse, their Reptilian allies.”

  “Reptilians?” Fred said. “No one said shit about those.”

  “Yeah, what–”

  “You’ll find out soon enough…although let’s hope not.” Roger rubbed at his forehead and bit his lip. “Just remember, if they move, you can kill ‘em.”

  “Shouldn’t these trains stop ‘em?” David asked.

  “They should, but–”

  Roger’s words were cutoff as the first train on the left side of the platform let out a blast of compressed air and then started to inch forward.

  “What the hell!” Robbie shouted.

  “Damn!” Donlon said, and started to rush down the platform.

  “What’s going on!” Fred shouted after him. He and the other two men took one look
at each other and quickly started running after their commander.

  “Damn Grays at one of the other bases figured out what’s going on and is recalling the train.”

  “Recalling, what–”

  “They’re sending an electronic signal to the train to begin moving to the next station,” Donlon yelled, still running down the platform, “that way they can get their trains right up to the platform, jumping out to kill us when the doors open.”

  “Well can’t we just stop those trains from leaving!” David yelled up at him, his frown disappearing as the gravity of the situation made itself clear.

  “What do you think I’m doing!” Roger yelled back, his frustration plain. A moment later he reached what he’d been running to, a small control station set up on the edge of the platform, right up against the wall that eventually turned into the bend leading to the stairs the other teams had just gone up. It wasn’t much, just a waist-height counter-like-desk, a few control terminals to adjust incoming and outgoing trains, and more buttons and lights than any of the four men had an idea about.

  “What is all this!” Fred yelled when all four men were within the confines of the small area, and just as the tube train that Charlie and CAT-1 had taken in sped pat them and vanished down the dark tunnel, past the last of the platform wall. The whistling sound started up just as soon as it’d gone, and the men looked back to see the train they’d come in on start to power up and begin moving as well.

  “We’ve got to stop those trains from pulling out!” Donlon shouted as he started fiddling with the controls. “If we can’t create a bottleneck at the end of the platform then we’ll be overrun in no time.”

  “Well then how do we get it stopped!” Robbie yelled.

  “I don’t know!” Donlon yelled back. The men were frantically twisting knobs, hitting buttons, and pounding down on the lighted controls. Nothing seemed to work.

  “Ah…fuck it!” David said, and brought his AR-15 up, the one with the grenade launcher attached.

  “Wait, we need–”

  Thunk, the grenade went as David pulled the trigger, then a moment later, BOOM! The tube train they’d rode in on was hit directly in the middle, the whole section blasted into twisted metal. The train lurched and then jumped the tracks and crashed into the side of the tube tunnel, it’s progress stopped, and so too that of any train trying to come in behind it – that section of track was closed.

  “Ha!” Fred laughed. “That might not be what we wanted, but it sure got the job done. Now we just…”

  Fred trailed-off as a faint whistling sound could be heard, coming from behind them. The men turned about and looked down the tube tunnels from whence they’d come. There, rushing up at a breakneck speed, was the light of a tube train.

  ~~~

  Walter ran forward, fired three shots from his AR15, ran forward a bit more, then fired another three shots. In less than four seconds he’d taken out four Grays and was running upon another pocket.

  BOOM!

  Not even wasting time to slow down as he approached the next turn in the long, tunnel-like hallways, he just grabbed one of the grenades at his waist, flicked the pin with his thumb, and threw it on ahead of him up around the bend. Sure enough, there’d been three Grays standing there, although it was hard to tell with the body parts laying about and the smoke rising from the charred and blackened pavement. He did notice one flashgun as he ran past, and his frown increased.

  After heading off the platform the men of CAT-1 and CAT-2 had found the hallway, though there were numerous doors branching off. Most were rest areas and storage rooms, Walter knew from his time in the base years earlier, but the men couldn’t risk leaving any aliens at their back, or at the back of the men of CAT-4 still on the tube train station platform, so the men were checking them. There were a few Grays here and there, but for the most part, they were empty. And without glancing back at all, Walter had no idea he’d outpaced the other men by several hundred feet.

  Rounding the next bend brought him to a fork in the tunnel, one he knew about and had been expecting. Straight ahead there was a ramp that led up to the more open area of Nightmare Hall and the Hall of Horrors, two areas the men had been briefed on, and two he knew were going to be a shock to any who’d not seen them before. He glanced ahead, to the two tunnels leading the other way, and–

  BOOM!

  A blast of some sort hit the wall and he went down, a ringing in his ears. Coming to quickly, he stuck his machine gun out into the tunnel and fired off several short bursts, then stuck it the other way and fired a few more.

  “You alright?”

  It was Emil’s voice, by the sound of it.

  BOOM!

  Another blast hit the wall just above Walter’s head, and another round of loose cement pellets rained down upon him.

  “Fine, just fine!” Walter said through clenched teeth while sticking his gun out to fire some more.

  “We’ve got to get past this crossroads,” Emil said, a few other men coming up behind him by the sound of it.

  “Ready?” Walter said.

  He didn’t wait for an answer, just stuck his gun out and fired again. Emil knew the tone and the cue of his commander, and rushed forth through the gap in the tunnels, making it through the ten feet to the other side.

  BOOM!

  Another blast came, and again Walter was showered.

  “Bastards!” he yelled, then gritted his teeth and yelled again to whatever men were behind him. “Go, go, go!”

  The men rushed past as he fired.

  ~~~

  Charlie came to a stop and put his hands on his knees. “I didn’t think there’d be so much damn running!”

  “You didn’t think we’d be using the elevators, did you?” Tommy laughed, turning about to run backward for a minute and laugh at the overweight colonel. Already they’d run down quite the long hallway and then up a ramp. They were just nearing a larger, more open area by the looks of it.

  “Keep your guard up,” John said to him.

  “Damn, that scowl alone’ll scare away the first Grays that are dumb enough to come at us,” Sammy said with a laugh, nodding at John’s face for the others to see.

  “If we don’t die of exhaustion first,” Charlie said. He’d started running again after the quick breather and now the four men of CAT-1 were nearing the top of the circular vehicle ramp, the one that led up from the lowest level of Dulce Base – Level 7 where the tube trains came in from the various bases around the world – up to Level 6. So far the four men hadn’t once uttered what they expected to find there, mainly because they didn’t want to think on it.

  Behind them a good a good hundred yards or so – if you could measure distance like that going up a circular ramp (Charlie had told them to leave exactly two minutes after they did) – was CAT-2. Charlie had been adamant, and the Dutchman back at Blue Lake too, that the teams stagger their arrival on the next level up, just in case there was some kind of ambush and one team was wiped out. Charlie frowned as he thought back on that briefing over their weeks of training, for it was now they that were the team most likely to die a sudden and fiery death.

  “There it is,” Tommy said, and Charlie looked up to what the young and cocky super soldier was nodding at. Sure enough, there was the opening to the next level.

  “They’ll be up there,” Sammy said, his Mossberg 590 shotgun gripped tightly in his hands, “they’ll be up there, and they’ll be ready.”

  “We don’t know that,” John said.

  “The power’s been cut and the security systems are down – I’m sure they know.”

  Sammy looked over at Charlie and frowned, but had to admit the older corporal was right. They ran on the last few yards and then the sloping floor evened-out and they were there.

  “Holy…mother of God,” Sammy said as he saw the level first. There before them were row upon row of large, glass vats, each containing ungodly horrors, atrocities, monstrosities…his fellow man.

  Tommy lean
ed over and began to retch.

  “No time for that,” Charlie said, gritting his teeth and fighting the urge to do the same, “we’ve got a dish of cold revenge to serve up.”

  He gripped his twin colts a bit tighter and was just about to start forward when footfalls from behind forced his attention back. Coming up fast was Bobbie and two others from CAT-2. Charlie made to signal and point out what was ahead, but then he remembered that Bobbie had seen it all before, being a super soldier, and probably knew–

  Charlie’s train of thought was stopped completely when Bobbie rushed up to and then past him and his team members.

  “Here,” he called out, rushing up to what looked like a regular wall, but which Charlie now realized was a very-well-concealed doorway. Walter jiggled the handle, found it open, and pushed on inside. There were five Grays gathered around the control stations, but Bobbie’s eyes lit on just one, the one standing a good four to five feet taller than the others, and pointing a flashgun his way.

  ZAP!

  The Gray fired at the same instant Bobbie dove from the doorway, his body angled so he’d fall on his side, something that allowed him to pull up the Heckler & Koch and fire off a short burst while flying through the air.

  OOMPH!

  Bobbie hit the cement floor of the security station hard and right on his shoulder.

  POP!

  “Aaahhh!” he grunted through clenched teeth, his shoulder either breaking or popping out of its joint. His right arm now useless, he began transferring the machine gun to his left hand, all the while watching the four Grays trying to sort themselves out (the tallest one was now lying dead with three bullet holes in its large forehead).

  “Hey!”

  Both Bobbie’s and the Grays’ eyes all shot over to the door, where Charlie was just coming in, one of his two Colt .45s leading the way. Bobbie saw a slight smile come to Charlie’s face, then he unleashed whatever pent-up frustrations he had.

  BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!