“Captain, what if we encounter hostiles?” asked the lieutenant.
“If it doesn’t die, run like hell,” he answered, his voice now boomed with worry.
Captain Quis Podex and Corporal Knightley reached into their backpacks taking out helmets and activating their night vision filter on the helmet’s lenses. Lieutenant Storm felt odd using Sergeant Devonne’s helmet, but it was a necessary evil if she was to get the mission done and dusted. They followed their captain’s lead down a great steel staircase that was as cold to the eye as it was to the touch. The walls from what they could see were callus as if the cracks were there intending to send a shiver through the teams very being, yet the most shocking sight of all was that of the countless bodies that littered the hallways. The bodies were partly covered in a thick black substance, the same substance that the lieutenant knew very well; she tightly grasped her rifle and began to choose her steps with extra caution. The narrow corridors had many claw-like markings deep in multiple sections of the walls.
“Ahh, what is this now? What the hell could have done that?” asked the lieutenant as she ran her hands along the claw markings that ran deep into the wall.
“Whatever it was, let’s hope we don’t run into it down here. Better yet, let’s pray that it’s long gone now,” Corporal Knightley jibbed.
“Whatever it was, it’s incredibly strong. These walls are triple reinforced steel, coated with two foot of cement. Keep a sharp eye and your trigger finger ready,” ordered Captain Quis Podex.
Corporal Knightley examined the substance on the bodies that resembled the creature that murdered Sergeant Devonne.
“Bag a sample and let’s keep moving,” ordered Captain Quis Podex, his eyes carefully watching for any movement around them. His ears were cocked as if she had heard something drawing near to them at a quick passé.
Corporal Knightley reached into a different pouch on her utility belt than before, taking out a metal screw top vial and an extractor device that looked to the untrained eye like a metal straw with a collapsible scoop at one end. She asked herself what would happen if the vial broke in her pouch, would the sample be a hazard to her or is it really as dead as it seems, it was just a risk she’d have to take. She quickly filled the vial and put it back into her pouch with the extractor then picked up her weapon and readied herself to carry on with the team.
The team found their way through the graveyard like corridors into what must have been one of the laboratories where Corporal Knightley made a suggestion.
“Captain, there may be an answer here as to what we are dealing with. I suggest I hang back, find out what I can. Once you restore the power, I’ll have access to the computers as well.”
She could see the worry in his eyes, staying anywhere alone in this facility wasn’t a good idea; however, he knew she was a capable soldier and agreed to her request.
“Fine, stay here, see what you can find but keep an open com link (communication link via their visualiser) at all times,” he replied then carried onwards with Lieutenant Storm.
It seemed that regardless where they went, they found bodies lying on the ground or hunched over desks even hanging from the ceiling tiles or worse. None of the poor men and women seemed to put up a struggle when they died; it was as like none of them saw their attacker(s). Their careful march to the control room was none eventful and once the captain and the lieutenant reached the control rooms main terminal, they found it had no power going to it nor did any of the others, indicating that maybe even the backup power supply had been drained.
“Keep a keen eye,” ordered the captain as he got underneath the main terminal to open the panel to assess the damage. He let out a great sigh along with a great amount of swearing.
“This is going to take a few hours. Get comfortable, Lieutenant,” he grunted.
While the lieutenant sat on the computer terminal, she could see the memories of her team being killed and Sergeant Devonne being devoured by the same creature playing in her mind. She could see all that had happened to her since her mission was deemed a failure. She had been abducted, sold and used as slave labour and used as a living drinks dispenser, received a number of beatings for trying to escape which her body is still feeling the effect of and so much more. As a soldier for Were Inc, she was trained to feel only once the mission was complete, but this was not her everyday mission and this was not a kind of enemy she could have been trained to fight against, not only that, but she couldn’t shake the feeling they were been watched.
Chapter 4
Behind Closed Doors
W
hile back to the laboratory, Corporal Knightley found the bodies of two armed forces personnel that were not covered in the substance like the others. They had been shot at point blank range in the back of the head (better known as execution style)! The weapons and armour they had were indeed Were Inc issued, but the armour they wore was found to be flawed and decommissioned roughly fifty years ago while the weapons were remarkably outdated. They too had been decommissioned over seventy years ago because of overheating problems with the barrel of the weapon, yet the soldiers couldn’t have been
