The alien was on the comm immediately. “Juireans! A whole lot of them. In landing craft,” the alien yelled, panic in his voice. “The airlock opened and about twenty-five ships dropped in. The lock is closing now…I see troops leaving the ships. There must be hundreds of them!”
“Can you get out?” Adam asked.
“No. The lock is closed. But we can’t stay here either.”
“Get into environment suits and off the ship. They’re going to come for you if you stay. And if they open the lock again, you’ll die without the suits. I need you to find a safe vantage point and let me know everything you see.”
“We will. But there are a lot of Juireans, and they all look like Guards! This is not good!”
“Just calm down, Kaylor,” Adam sensed the alien was on the verge of a full-fledged panic attack. “Get to someplace safe and we’ll come and get you when we can.”
Adam turned to his two companions. They had heard the conversation as well. Riyad spoke first. “This calls for a change of plan, I believe.”
Adam turned to Sherri. “Do you have any idea where the captive men were kept?”
“I’m not sure, but we could hear them from the barracks we were in. And that was right through… here!”
Sherri dashed off through the exam room before Adam and Riyad could react. Pulling the flash rifles from under their coats, the two men set off after her.
Sherri ran through a number of smaller rooms until she came to a door leading to a long room full of empty bunks. “This is where they kept the women,” she shouted back at the men as they entered. Then she turned and swept past them and out of the room. She turned right in the hallway and quickly disappeared around a corner.
Adam and Riyad had caught up with her just as she reached a door and threw it open. The trio skidded to a halt in the doorway, staring open-mouthed into the room.
It was a barracks alright, with about a hundred beds — and the room was packed full of men. They were all standing, wearing old orange tunics, many of them sporting long beards and scraggly hair.
An older man near them stepped forward. “What’s going on? We can hear the alarms.”
Riyad noticed as several of the men began to move toward them with intense stares. He held his flash rifle at them, and they stopped.
Adam noticed the movement, too. Then he made a command decision. He lowered his own rifle and stepped forward. “I’m Petty-Officer Second Class Adam Cain, United States Navy SEALs. We’ve come to rescue you.”
Sherri and Riyad jerked their heads in his direction. Riyad leaned toward him and whispered. “What the fuck are you doing?”
Adam whispered back, “We need an army to get out of here. And here it is.”
The men in the room all surged forward and surrounded them. The older man spoke again. “What’s going on here? We know this isn’t Earth. How can a SEAL team be out here to rescue us?”
Adam spoke quickly. “We were all abducted, too, just like you, but managed to escape. But we haven’t much time. There is a force of aliens coming into the facility, and they plan on killing all of us.”
Another man spoke up from within the crowd, “Is this some kind of 2G trick?”
Sherri decided to speak up, hoping that a woman’s voice would sound more trustworthy.
“It’s true. You have heard of the Juireans? Well there are several hundred of them on their way here. These other men, the 2G’s, will either try to fight them off, or they will abandon you and probably blow the complex.”
“I’m not going to sit here and be killed,” someone yelled from the back. “What can we do?”
Adam climbed onto one of the beds. “Listen carefully. How many of you have military experience? And I don’t mean as yeomen or dispersing clerks. How many of you are combat trained?”
To his surprise, the majority of hands went up. “Good. We have limited weapons at this time. We’re going to have to fight our way out. But believe me, if we stay, we all die. Understood?” There were nods and murmurs throughout the room.
Adam continued. “As the battle proceeds, you must secure all the weapons and ammo as you can.” He lifted his flash rifle. “Flick here… and the charge pack drops out. Slap in another one. The rifle is good for thirty shots.” He then pulled out his MK-17. “Same here. Flick this and insert a new pack. Set for level-two and you have ten shots per pack. The Juireans will probably come at us wearing body armor. Shoot for the head. Most will not be wearing full-face armor. But if you’re against the other Humans, the 2G’s, you’ll need level-one on the pistols for a kill.”
The three of them passed out the twelve surplus weapons they carried plus a couple of knapsacks of power packs. “The rest of you will just have to arm yourself as we go. Each man with a weapon raise your hand. The rest of you form up around one of these guys.”
Riyad climbed on the bunk next to Adam. “I don’t have a lot of experience with the way the Juireans fight, but what I have seen shows they are very regimented and prefer forming lines fo r attack. Take out the lead line, and the others will probably fall back to regroup.”
Adam raised his hand. “Also, we have the advantage of close-in fighting. In the narrow passageways, they will not be able to use their superior numbers to their full advantage. Just keep the bodies piling up, and they will have trouble getting through.”
They could already hear the sounds of a battle outside the barracks. “Come on, men. Let’s go home!” Adam yelled, as a chorus of cheers joined in.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The men flowed out of the barracks room and into the corridor, turning left and heading for the exam room and the main chamber of the underground complex.
Adam pulled Sherri and Riyad aside. “Go with them and stay in touch with the comm. I have to get to the computer room.”
“By yourself?” Riyad asked.
“With the complex under attack, the Klin — or the Humans — will probably try to destroy the computer core. I have to get there first.”
“You’d do better with help,” Riyad said.
“If we can’t beat back the Juireans, as well as these other crazy Humans, it won’t make a difference. I need the two of you to guide our little army. If we all bolt and run, they may not trust us anymore.”
“He’s right,” Sherri said, pulling Riyad away. “Hurry! They’ll notice we didn’t follow in a moment.”
Reluctantly, Riyad allowed Sherri to lead him away.
Adam watched them disappeared around a bend in the hallway, and felt a sudden loneliness envelop him. He was hoping it wouldn’t be the last he saw of them. Then he turned and sprinted down the deserted hallway.
As Riyad and Sherri caught up with the others, they found them huddled in doorways and firing at the line of Juireans filling the main passageway leading into the cavernous chamber. Several Juireans lie dead, and the second line was just beginning to back away.
“Suppressing fire!” someone called out, and a number of electric bolts flew into the retreating ranks. Then at least ten men ran forward, and slid baseball-style on the smooth stone floor until they impacted the bodies of the dead aliens. Then they began snatching up bolt rifles and straps of power packs from the dead, before sprinting back to their lines.
Almost instantly, the rate and intensity of fire increased, filling the corridor with white hot streaks from the energy weapons.
Riyad and Sherri had taken up the cause, and were firing at the reformed line of advancing Juireans. And they were advancing, taking bolts shots to their body armor. But the Humans were very accurate with most of their shots, and numerous Juirean heads exploded in bloody messes, leaving only empty cavities within their helmets.
The Juireans once again began to retreat.
As they turned their backs on the blistering fire from the Humans, the Juirean heads were better protected, with their helmets covering their necks as well. But this then presented to the Humans the fatal flaw in the Juirean
