The DOOM Chronicles

Chapter 32: The Factory

The path they were to take through Hayden was long and complicated, Jack was discovering.

Though no satellites could successfully penetrate the demonic miasma that hung over the burning corpse of a city, there were still some streams and feeds of data coming out of it, and those who had pieced together this mission had done what could to give as much information as possible. But Jack knew that he would have to improvise a lot, and while improvising on his feet was easy enough, doing it with a pair of big, unwieldy APCs was a whole different story. He wasn't looking forward to forcing his way through the hellscape ahead.

He sat in the cabin of Grim, studying the intel, as they trundled along, making their way across the no-man's-land between the starport and the city. They had left the gate just a few moments ago. The other members of the team sat with him in studious silence, save for Diaz, who had taken up in the chaingun nest to provide overwatch. Presently, there were only two of those side objectives that Anderson had mentioned listed. Both related to planting communications boosters deeper into the city, with the hope that they would help everyone be able to talk to each other. Jack figured that was pretty important, so he planned on doing it.

It was going to be a long, long several miles into the city.

In the end, he finished up his study session and looked around at the others who shared the cabin with him, Cortez and Rhodes. They both looked pretty solid, if tired. Since he was finished with his studying, he got up and moved over to where the bomb was secured inside of a hardcase lashed to the floor. Carefully, he crouched by it and punched in the code to the hardcase that had come with his info packet.

With a soft chime, the case opened and he studied the compact thing inside.

It was shaped like a giant black pill, smooth except for a small screen on top of it. Jack studied it for a long moment, wondering about the technology that had gone into it. What was it made of? How was it constructed? What exactly had the UAC done to get this information, and how many Marines had died then extracting it from the bloody corpse of that wretched corporation? Would it even work? He sighed softly and sealed the case.

Only one way to find out.

Jack moved over to the chaingun nest, accessible via a ladder in the right corner at the partition that divided the cabin from the driver's cockpit.

"Diaz," he said, looking up, "lemme take over. You need to do some homework."

"Yes, Sergeant," she replied, climbing down. As she landed with a grunt in front of him, she stared at him for a second with intense dark eyes. Her black hair was cut short and she had a few cuts on a narrow, brutally attractive face. "Ward...how serious are you and Taylor?" she asked suddenly.

"Very," he replied. "Why?"

"Is it exclusive?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Not quite..."

"Hmm." She smirked. "Hit me up when this is over. I want a piece."

"Of which one of us?" he asked.

"Both."

"I'll definitely do that, I want a piece, too. Badly," he replied.

She laughed and sat down in one of the chairs. Jack shook his head, refocusing, and climbed into the chaingun nest.

He slid into the chair that was placed before the controls of the mounted chaingun. It stuck out of a clear bubble of bulletproof, flameproof, and bombproof glass.

Jack bore witness to pure carnage.

The reason there was about a half-mile of no-man's-land between the edge of the Haydenfield encampment and the city itself was because, probably more than once, jets or drones had zoomed by, unleashing fiery baptisms of all manner of bombs. Whatever effects kept them from doing so within the city apparently did not extend this far, or the influence was weak enough that Command deemed the risk worth it.