by Dameon Gibbs
“Oh, don’t lose the look,” said Doom. “I know someone in the fashion industry who might want to do a photo-shoot.”
“Don’t do me any favors,” Pitch joked back as he fist pounded his buddy. “You okay? Where’s Edge?”
“I’m fine. Don’t know where Sarge is. Shit happened fast. One minute I’m on a catwalk, the next I’m almost burned to death.”
“Shit. Our radios are long gone. Don’t know when we lost ’em,” Pitch sighed as he ran his hand through his hair.
“He must’ve gone up the east side because I came up the west and didn’t see him; that means he’s heading north.”
“Well, goddamn. There’s still three men up there. We need to get there before they ambush him…” He did not have a chance to finish the thought before the sound of battle coming from the north interrupted him. “Shit!”
“I’m on it,” Doom said as he ran off.
“Pitch, go. I’ll make my way over to the exit and wait for you there,” Rice said. Pitch nodded, relieving the dead soldier of his weapon, and followed after Doom. Rice shook his head as he took in the battle-torn facility. The floor was far from resembling its appearance from only thirty minutes prior.
“At least, the ceiling didn’t collapse,” Rice said to himself.
۞۞۞۞
The black clad soldier slowly stalked through the lab, gun at the ready, looking for the survivors. He’d seen the tall black guy moving in the other area, but the dust and debris concealed him. Catching a glimpse of someone else moving behind the lab table. A predatory satisfaction came over him as he tuned in on his potential prey. Moving forward he places his attention solely on his target, ready for them to make a move when out his peripheral he detected movement that came all too late.
The soldier reeled back, his gun and body armor taking the brunt of three rounds. Regaining his balance after the initial attack, he found Miller sitting on the floor clutching a bullet wound to his stomach and pointing his now empty weapon at him. He watched as Miller allowed his gun to fall to the floor and balled his hand into a fist….leaving only one finger upright. Dropping his now useless rifle the soldier upholstered his sidearm to finish off Miller.
Trident listened to the shots as he watched the soldier across from him react to his partner taking fire. Sprinting towards his now vulnerable target, Trident emptied the few rounds remaining in his clip. With each round finding their mark, the soldier slumped to his knees in the hallway that divided the labs. His goal, to move as fast as possible and retrieve the soldier’s weapon and ammo. If he failed, they were all dead.
Sliding up next to the body, he picked up the sidearm and quickly grabbed the extra magazines from the soldier’s vest. Placing the new found magazines in his pocket, the last soldier that had been hiding in the rear during the entire engagement join the battle.
Keeping his head low, Trident moved to his left and engaged him. Their bullets whizzed by as the two skittered back and forth in the lab area, each working hard not to be where the other expected him. The wall of computer monitors behind Trident sparked and shattered into pieces under the barrage of bullets that narrowly missed him. In this battle, there was no aiming down the sights. Only instincts would get either of them through this.
Trident continued to fire until the slide on his gun locked back. Empty. He instinctively dove for cover and landed next to the first soldier he killed. He reloaded and went to aim at his opponent who was...gone. Trident scanned the area, waiting for the faceless soldier to show himself, it never happened.
He took the opportunity and patted himself down. No bullet holes, no pain, I’m good. Only a few scratches. Before getting get up, he noticed something on the dead soldier's vest that would possibility give him the advantage he needed.
The rival soldier while watching his left, yet running right misjudged the door’s opening. Crashing into it at full stride he bounced back, landing flat on the floor. If he had not been wearing his helmet, he’d have knocked himself unconscious. If Keeast sees this, he will put a bullet through my brain. He got to his feet and radioed his partner.
۞۞۞۞
Tucker watched Trident take off just as the soldier near him put a few more bullets into some unfortunate soul lying on the ground. Was it Miller, Tucker wondered. With only seconds to spare he put that thought behind him, seizing the opportunity of distraction that Trident provided he took a shot at the soldier. Granted he was not in a best tactical position causing the bullets sailed overhead, yet it was enough to get the soldiers to drop behind cover.
The analyst started crawling back towards Ramona when bullets punctured holes in the wall. Tucker jumped up ready to fire again, but his gun clicked empty. The soldier stared at him for a second. Tucker looked sheepishly at the soldier with a slight shrug and dropped from sight. Tired of playing with the bunch of misfits, the soldier went to finish off them off when his radio called him to the back. This guy's an amateur; I'll come back for him.
Tucker had to admit he was impressed at how strong Ramona was. She had grabbed his collar and pulled him down to the ground before he knew what happened. “Thanks,” he said with a surprised look.
“You’re welcome,” she replied. Her last words being followed by an explosion at the other end of the labs, followed by rapid fire. Tucker peeked out from his cover to see what was happening.
۞۞۞۞
Quinn’s legs started to shake. No…No, not like this. I am above this… he though in denial. Before the soldier could squeeze the trigger of the firearm aimed at Quinn’s head, a white cloud erupted from behind one of the machines.
“Check it out,” ordered the lead soldier grabbing Quinn by the lapel. “You’re coming with me,” he grunted. Quinn whimpered as the man dragged him about.
The other two men ran up to where the smoke was coming from. It had appeared from the control panel a few feet away from a machine that was designed to perform a liquid penetrant test. It was a test where they would submerge a missile in water to check for cracks invisible to the naked eye, leaks or rust. The two men split up; one went right around the control panel, the other went left, closer to the water tank.
“Nothing; just a fire extinguisher. But someone used it,” said one of them. The other remained silent, continuing his search of the area until he spotted movement behind his partner.
“Behind you,” the second soldier yelled. The first soldier spun around and, seeing Edge, immediately opened fire. What he didn’t see was the red fire extinguisher that Edge had hurled his way. The red canister burst in the air from the soldier’s bullets, sending another white chemicals cloud billowing everywhere.
The toss was executed perfectly, as he turned his head from the blast to protect his eyes. Before the soldier could regain his balance, a long and narrow object had punctured his windpipe and into the base of his brain. And like a rag doll, his body instantly went limp.
With a quick and seamless motion, Edge spun the skewered soldier and used him as a human shield, steering him by the screwdriver lodged in his neck. Grabbing the soldier’s sidearm he placed three quick shots into the second soldier. By the time, both bodies hit the ground Edge had already maneuvered in a position to lock his gun onto the leader, who had decided to make Quinn his personal shield.
“Put your gun down or I blow his damn head off!” the soldier ordered.
Edge gave the slightest of shrugs. “Saves me the bullet,” he replied.
The soldier looked confused for a second and again ordered that Edge put his weapon down. “Okay, okay,” Edge complied, slowly lowering his weapon.
“No! On the ground!” The man barked. Quinn was about to piss his pants if he had not done so already. Edge bent his knees slowly and lowered himself to the ground.
“Faster!” the man yelled, slightly thrilled at the prospect of being the one who would end the life of the one responsible for slowing down the Order’s work. Unfortunately, it was enough to cause him to lower his guard at which point Edge snapped
the gun up and fired two shots. The first hit Quinn square in the knee, dropping him and causing his voice to jump three octaves. With Quinn out of the way, the second shot went straight through the leader’s skull.
“On second thought, it’ll make me feel better to kill you,” Edge commented.
“You shot me!” Quinn cried as he grimaced over his busted knee.
“Told you I would if you ran,” Edge answered flatly, “and if you want to keep the other one intact, I strongly suggest you start talking.”
“You savage. Do you know what you have done,” he shouted while clutching his new wound, blood pouring from between his fingers.
“Looks like your ‘friends’ didn’t want you at their party,” Edge stated as he knelt beside the crippled executive.
“Look, I didn’t know they were going to do this. I swear.”
“Who are they?” Edge asked, uninterested in the empty words.
“I don’t know who they are; I just built the missiles and took the money.”
“Try again,” Edge encouraged, cocking the hammer back on his pistol.
“I swear I don’t know. If I tell you…”
“What? They’ll kill you?” Edge interrupted. “Duh! They’ve already decided to, dipstick.”
“Ok, they’re some big group, but that is all I…”
BANG! A shot resonated.
“Ah!” Quinn growled through clenched teeth. “MY LEG! You’re not gonna get away with this!” Quinn yelled.
“I just have. Now tell me who they are before I give you a 9mm vasectomy.”
“You can’t do this. You’re a soldier for God’s sake.”
“You sold weapons to a group that used them on Americans. You are a traitor, punishable by death. I can make the argument that I am saving the taxpayers money by eliminating you here,” he said as he placed the barrel against Quinn’s skull.
“Okay... OKAY!” he exclaimed, giving a heavy sigh of defeat. “They call themselves the Order of the Phoenix. You know, they have some people high up in the government providing them their cover and supplying the funds. That’s the only way this base could work.” He took another sigh.
HA! I knew it! Edge waved his gun I front his face impatiently. “Aaand….”
“As you can see they are well financed and armed. This is not some local militia you’re dealing with: this is international, global. They know what they’re doing. And you don’t possess the necessary skills to stop them.”
Just then a loud klaxon horn sounded. “What’s that?” Edge asked.
“The alarm that the loading dock door is being opened,” Quinn said, smirking. “They’re removing the truckload of missiles you so badly wanted to see and with those missiles they are going to bring you and your government to its knees.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. I’ll stop them before they can destroy my country. But right now we’re going to be a thorn in their side if nothing else,” Edge said, jumping up to the sound of approaching footsteps. “Jesus,” he sighed as Doom and Pitch turned the corner to stop in their tracks.
“You okay?” Doom asked.
Pitch looked at the three dead bodies and the bloody Quinn. “I’d say he’s pretty damn okay.”
“Yeah I’m fine. Thanks to this asshole I got my exercise for the week,” Edge answered as he pointed to Quinn, who was trying to plead for help from Doom. The goliath simply pulled the hammer on his gun and Quinn leaned back against the wall in defeat. “They’re unloading an order of missiles as we speak. But there is nothing we can do about that at the moment. Our objective is to evacuate and save as many others as we can. Who else made it?” Edge asked, looking for a status report.
Pitch shook his head. “As far as I can tell just Rice, and he’s wounded. Look, I’d love to stay and chat Sarge, but we need to get out of here. There’s no telling if they plan to detonate one of those in here or not.”
“You’re right. We don’t want to be around here if they do. You two get Rice out. I’ll be right behind you.”
As his friends ran off, Edge turned one last time to Quinn. He pressed the release button on the gun and the magazine slid out to drop to the floor.
“You can’t leave me here if they are planning to use one of those things. Do you hear me? You can’t leave me!” Quinn screamed.
Kicking the magazine away, Edge dropped the pistol at Quinn’s side. “Watch me.” He turned and ran off.
۞۞۞۞
Trident observed the second soldier leave Tucker and move to his position. That was fine; the closer the two soldiers were together, the quicker he could get this over with. He pulled the pin on the flash-bang and waited a few seconds. This was his last ditch effort; either it worked, or he’d die.
He rolled the flash-bang on the floor toward the soldiers. When the two came in for the kill they were greeted with a piercing white light and a concussive blast. Hearing their grunts, Trident was sure he had them. However, one was smart and blindly fired his weapon in Trident’s direction. Trident rolled around the counter and placed his shots center mast and another to the head to ensure they stayed down.
He ran up to them and inspected his marksmanship. His bullets had hit home, and his plan had worked. He gave them another squeeze of the trigger to the head to be sure. He sighed and let his gun drop to his side. Looking to his right, he found Tucker and Ramona standing in the central hallway.
“All clear. Let’s get the hell out,” he said with a smile. Fatigued and lost for words, all Tucker could do was respond with a thumbs up. Trident chuckled and started to walk away when he heard a muffled beeping. He looked at the soldier lying face down and saw a blinking light coming from under his hand. He must have been setting it when he got flashed; Trident realized too late.
Tucker watched the life drain completely from Trident as he snapped his head towards them.
“Run!” was all Trident could get out before the C4 plastic explosive denoted, sending his body flying across the room. Tucker covered Ramona from the small debris that came flying their way. After the blast, the area fell silent. All that could be heard was that of settling dust and debris.
With their ears ringing, both Ramona and Tucker scrambled to their feet and brushed what dust covered them. Taking a few steps in Trident’s last known position, they began to scan the room which proved difficult as the blast destroyed out all the lights around them. With the occasional spark from loose wiring, there was no other light. Ramona clung to Tucker’s side as they each stepped over human remains and debris. Reaching into his pocket, Tucker pulled out his cellular phone to use his flashlight app to illuminate the room and to continue their search.
It was not long before they found Trident's motionless body slumped across a counter on the other side of the room, twenty feet from where he was standing.
Ramona immediately covered her mouth to keep from squealing. Lost for words and emotions, they slowly approached their protector and stared in disbelief. Doing her best Ramona batted her eyes to hold back the inevitable tears that started to stream down her face.
They knew that it was only because of Trident’s actions they were still alive, yet they had no way to show their gratitude for it, except survive.
۞۞۞۞
A few minutes had passed since Quinn watched that asshole Edge and his team leave the factory. He picked up the gun at his feet and, hearing footsteps coming up behind him, he hid it behind his back. Four soldiers from the Order surround him and immediately aimed their weapons at him. Like hounds around a rabbit hole, each soldier kept their barrels trained on him as their master Keeast and his behemoth bodyguard, Draggo, approached.
“Well, look who survived,” Keeast remarked with a smile.
“Fuck you! You ordered your men to kill me,” Quinn spat as he pulled out the pistol from behind his back and aimed it at Keeast. “Bet you weren’t expecting this. Just like I didn’t expect your men to try to kill me,” he continued before he pulled the trigger. Click.
He trie
d again… Click.
He looked at the gun, realizing his world had gone to shit. Of course, a Delta would not drop a loaded gun in front of the enemy. Quinn cursed himself for his stupidity.
Without saying a word, Draggo walked up and snatched the gun from him, nearly breaking a finger or two in the process.
“Empty. Bet you weren’t expecting that. Damn fool,” Draggo commented as he inspected the weapon. In disbelief, Quinn stared at Keeast.
“For a moment there I thought you had some balls that your parents didn't gift wrap for you,” Keeast stated, shaking his head in dismay. He turned and walked away, then stopped. “I forgot to tell you over the phone, Mr. Quinn,” pointing a finger in the air.
Quinn sat there, surprised to still be breathing and afraid of what Keeast's next words could be.
"You're being transferred to the graveyard shift," Keeast informed.
Before Quinn could open his mouth in protest, all four soldiers unleashed their weapons upon him. His empty words were replaced with a barrage of gunfire.
“Hitoshi, find me any survivors,” Keeast ordered into his radio as he surveyed what used to be the facility. At least, Pierce's boys did half our work for us.
One of the men ran over to Keeast, handing over the communications phone. “Command, sir.”
Keeast nodded and took the phone. A digitized voice greeted him. “How goes the operation?”
“Fine sir, we encountered some resistance in the form of that fool, Sergeant Pierce. He apparently brought some of his buddies. They’re on the run now. Everyone else has been taken care of, and we have the missiles.”
“You keep calling him a fool, yet he manages to continually hinder your operations. Where are they now?”
Keeast resented the words. I still successfully complete the operations, damn it! “I have Hitoshi scanning the cameras. Once we find them, my men will finish them off with certainty.”
"Negative. I have better use for Pierce and his friends now. Let them go."