The Thing 3: Assimilation✔️

Chapter 07: Breakout

"Blake, ready for another mission?"

Blake glanced up from the paperback he was reading. With the Special Forces men now a part of the staff, a lot of shit was getting done a lot more quickly. For example: all the boxes stacked haphazardly, nearly to the ceiling, in the room Blake had first slept in were now sorted. Most of it was just junk, but there had been some useful supplies in there, as well as a small collection of books. Blake had managed to snag a battered, dog-eared copy of First Blood by David Morrell, a book he'd taken to reading about once a year since it came out a decade ago. He'd even heard rumblings, before he left for this hellhole, that they were considering making it into a movie.

He wondered if he'd be alive to see that movie.

"Yeah, what's up?" Blake replied, sticking a narrow slip of paper he'd hunted down to serve as a bookmark and placing the book on the table for someone else to read.

"It's time to stop resting on our feet," MacReady replied as they walked out of the mess and towards the central antechamber, which Blake had begun to think of as a briefing area, since they'd pinned maps of the area to one wall and even set up a radio station there as well.

After hitting the communications tower, Blake had led the group back through the tunnels and delivered Peltola and the parts. From there, Blake took Davis up top with Peltola to provide protection for the engineer as he repaired their own communications tower. Blake was somewhat surprised to find an actual outpost up top, and that one of the back exits actually led directly to it. It made him a little more nervous, but it was obvious that the base was long abandoned. He and Davis checked it out while Peltola got to work.

It was clearly a smaller version of the Way Station he'd encountered Chase at, though it was just a single story. He'd found a bathroom, two bedrooms, combination break room/galley, generator room, a small infirmary and three storerooms. It was obvious that whoever had been here before had taken practically everything with them.

It had taken an hour for Peltola to get the job done, and all Blake had managed to learn from Davis was the man was a grim, humorless hardass. He supposed there were worse people to have your six in a firefight. The only piece of personal information he would relinquish was that he came from Oregon. Once Peltola was done, they all went back downstairs and took a break. Now, apparently, MacReady was ready for action.

"First thing, which doesn't involve you, is that we're going to be expanding our operation to the base up top. I want to do the same thing we did down here: get it locked down, stocked up, turn on the power and defend it. While we're doing that, you are going to be part of a two-part attack. We're going to bolster our numbers. Weldon's been manning the radio and he picked up some information." They both glanced over as North and Chase entered the room. "Perfect, everyone's here. All right, listen up soldiers, this is it.

"Gen Inc is taking prisoners, lots of them. Either from the research outposts or from the Special Forces teams Whitley managed to wrangle down here, or from the initial rebellion. Obviously we don't have the resources to attack the facility I was held at, but we've managed to find a temporary holding facility about three quarters of a mile here. The three of you are going to head underground and come up from below. At the same time, Taylor and Davis will lead a topside assault. While you were fixing the radio, they managed to get my chopper back."

"What kind of intel are we going to have?" Blake asked.

"Not much, unfortunately. We don't have any idea of the interior of the building, troop strength, anything, really. We're going to have to go in blind. Now, this is only the first part of the mission. After you take the holding area, you are to take some men and hit this armory," MacReady said, pointing to their map of the overall area, "since it's so close, and take as many weapons as you can. Also, any vehicles you can find. Blake, I'm putting you in charge of this and will let you determine on the ground who goes where. Any questions?"