“El-ef five six, left doorway, seven eight, hold room.”
Activating the high-explosive grenade, he tossed it through the left-hand doorway and then focused on the right.
Two men with assault rifles were stepping free of the doorway as Felix centered his crosshair.
Pulling the trigger on his rifle, it discharged a brilliant white beam of light.
The powerful discharge turned the first man into a flaming pillar, before cutting through him. The man behind the first went up in flames next.
Before either human torch hit the ground, the grenade Felix had lobbed into the other room went off.
Stomping forward, Felix moved towards the right-hand room.
With his left hand, he slapped both flaming dead men aside. Entering the next room, Felix acquired a target at the end of the hallway and pulled the trigger briefly.
He’d held the trigger down last time. He wanted to see what a quick trigger depress would do.
As the bright light of the discharge struck the man, he immediately burst into flame. The energy cut off almost as soon as it touched him, though.
The man screamed, dropped his weapon, and ran off down the hallway.
Felix started to look into each room as he cleared the hall, making sure there’d be nothing behind him as he went. The chatter of weapons fire behind him alerted him to the fact that his people had encountered resistance.
Drawing his energy pistol in his left hand, Felix lifted the weapon and fired it several times into the torso of an unarmed woman trying to get into her clothes.
Smoking holes appeared in the woman’s chest where the rounds hit her. She dropped to her knees, her eyes widening, then slumped over.
Felix dismissed her from his mind and went to the next room, re-holstering his pistol.
The next two rooms were empty. Felix pulled up short at the exit to the building. Activating his mic, he looked out into the interior of the complex in front of him.
“El-ef actual, right doorway and adjoining rooms clear.”
“El-ef six, left doorway clear. El-ef five was KIA.”
Felix felt his lips peel back in a grimace. Every life counted right now since he couldn’t bring them back.
“Tee-one, tee-two, sitrep,” Felix called into the void.
“Tee-one actual, final complete. One KIA.”
“Tee-two, final complete. Actual plus two KIA.”
“Ess-one, clear.”
“Ess-two, clear.”
“El-ef actual, sweep and clear. Find entry.”
Felix killed his mic and then set off to look for the entry.
“I don’t understand,” Felix said slowly, looking at the corpse of Victoria.
A bullet hole marred her forehead, damn near directly in the middle of it.
“There was a super in the group. Before he could attack us, she engaged him, killed him. Before we could cover her, someone got a shot off. We dropped him after that first shot, but it was already too late,” said the new leader of squad two. “I’m sorry, sir.”
Felix took a slow breath, then shook his head. “Don’t be. It wasn’t your fault. She died doing exactly what she wished. We’ll bring her back with us.
“Take the bodies somewhere safe and mark the location. We’ll pick them up afterwards.”
Wraith materialized out of a shadow nearby. “Found the entry. I couldn’t get past the first checkpoint without setting things off,” said the shadow. “There’s no doubt they know there’s something going on up here, but I wasn’t sure how you wanted to proceed.”
Felix blew a raspberry and then shrugged his shoulders.
“Doesn’t matter. They do know were here and are probably expecting an attack. I’ll take point, follow in behind me.”
Checking his display, he saw his batteries had recharged thirty percent of the fifty percent he’d used.
They really had done wonders with this Warden. And this was only the first iteration.
Tapping the open command for the armored pod on his left hip, he reached in. Using his HUD to verify what was in it, he pulled out the black metal shield his squads had deployed at the school.
The metal snapped to his hand at the connection point and then expanded rapidly to its full size, then shrank back down to the starter size. It wouldn’t get in his way, and he could activate it quickly.
Felix looked to Wraith and nodded his head. “Lead on.”
The black shadow that was Wraith flowed back in the other direction.
Following along behind, Felix felt his thoughts slide off into a new direction.
He had to wonder if this was what it had felt like for his attackers when they’d tried to invade his base the first time around.
Both of their attacks had been brute strength with little in the way of coordination or strategy.
Could he believe that’d be their response while even on the defensive?
He needed actionable intelligence.
Wraith oozed up next to a wooden door like one would normally find leading into a basement or root cellar.
“Once I get their attention, I need you to phase in and do what you can to cause havoc and figure out where to hit them.
“I’ll be playing distraction. If I can manage to soften them up at the same time, great. Otherwise, I plan on pulling back after an initial probe.”
“Understood.”
“Great,” Felix said, and then jumped forward. His feet slammed through the wood and he dropped into a cement-lined tunnel.
At the end of the tunnel was a machine gun slit and a big steel door.
Bringing his rifle up, he centered the crosshair and held down the trigger.
In such an enclosed space, the light put out from the muzzle was blinding.
Felix kept the beam flowing for another three seconds, moving as fast as he could. It was a fairly narrow tunnel and his arms were brushing against the walls.
His displays filtered out the light quicker than his eyes could have. The machine gun was gone, and the room it was in was a roaring inferno.
Reaching for a grenade, he came up against the machine gun position. Pulling the pin, he stuffed the explosive into the slit and then moved back several feet to aim his rifle at the heavy door.
He focused his reticle on the point where he assumed the door was bolted or barred on the other side and then fired.
For five seconds, the beam weapon unloaded into the door. Then the muffled boom of the grenade going off could be heard.
The door gave out, weakened from the extreme heat the energy rifle put out and then capitulating under the confined explosion of the grenade.
Blowing outward, it hung on the frame brokenly.
Charging ahead, Felix drew out his pistol, trying to give his rifle a second to cool off. The heat gauge next to the outline had gone from yellow to orange.
Slamming the door to the side with his shoulder, Felix scanned the room.
There were men and women all over. Wounded, dead, dying, all of it.
His HUD rapidly marked each target and Felix lifted his pistol.
Methodically, with precision, he shot each one in the head. They were against him. They were the enemy.
A woman sat up slowly, her eyes slowly focusing on him. She was beautiful.
Felix pressed the tip of his pistol to her forehead and pulled the trigger.
The back of her head blew out and splattered her brains all over the wall.
Sweeping the room one more time, Felix found no hostiles. Holstering his pistol, he moved towards the hallway that led into the machine gun nest.
Dark and without light or noise, it was clearly a trap.
Activating the night vision camera, he found it was nothing but an empty concrete hallway.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t see to the end of the hallway.
Taking a breath, Felix leaned up against the wall and trained his rifle on the hallway.
“El-ef actual. Front position secured. Tee-one, move up and hold this position.
“Detach Mel-War one and two and prepare for assault.”
Closing his eyes, he tried to calm himself.
The enormity of the situation wanted to overrun him. He was no soldier. No warrior.