It was absolute chaos outside.
It looked like the War of the Worlds had finally become a reality. A small army of military personnel were currently at war with a larger army of inhuman monstrosities. Eric was peering carefully through the door he'd just opened. They'd left the previous building and made their way to the first warehouse in a row of them. The others crouched behind him, weapons at ready. They'd been waiting here for almost twenty minutes now, hiding among the ruins. The warehouse they were in was partially collapsed. Sunshine spilled in through the broken-open ceiling. It looked like someone had done a bombing run on it.
When they had first encountered the Marines fighting off the alien horde, Eric had briefly toyed with the idea of going out there and kind of helping while at the same time making for their destination. He and Vanessa had the PCVs now. But Bower had pointed out that he was still wearing his Black Mesa uniform, and Vanessa was too. They'd stick out like sore thumbs and although the Marines might not immediately open fire on them, it really wasn't worth the risk. Even so, with this being the lesser of two evils, he hated it all the same.
Because he couldn't imagine that every Marine out there was a die hard fanatic or a lunatic just looking for an excuse to gun down some civilians. They couldn't all be monsters. As he thought of this, the battle raged on. It seemed to take ages, but finally, the gunfire choked off and then fell away entirely. Eric glanced at Bower, who nodded tightly. It was time to roll the dice and see who had won this particular skirmish.
Eric peered out the open door again.
There were a lot of bodies out there, but...he actually couldn't see any left standing. A lot of dead Marines, a lot of dead alien slaves and grunts. Somewhere, a building was burning. And there was the constant chatter of machine gun fire from somewhere else, but it was clear. Or, at least, it looked clear. He said as much to Bower.
The Sergeant sighed. "We give it another sixty seconds, then we go. Grab whatever ammo you can, but we need to make for that building."
They all nodded and readied themselves.
Eric went out first once the time was up. Bower followed quickly behind him. The pair did a more thorough sweep of the immediate area, then waved the others out. While they spread out and started gathering whatever ammo they could, he hunted for their next target. They were standing in a little avenue created between twin rows of warehouses. There were a dozen on either side. The warehouse they'd just come out of read WAREHOUSE #01. And the one directly across from them was WAREHOUSE #02. Which meant that the one they wanted was three warehouses up on the right side of the avenue. Perfect. He joined them in gathering ammo. He managed to snag an assault rifle and found that its launcher tube was loaded.
He managed to stuff some magazines for his new rifle in his pocket before Bower barked out a quick order to move on. He was jumpy, and Eric didn't blame him. There was something in the air, and not just the fact that this was a fresh battlefield that could reignite at any moment. The squad tightened up their formation and began hustling for Warehouse Eight.
They made it maybe halfway there before all hell broke loose again.
An eerie, ominous, high-pitched sound cut loose across the area, echoing. Bower held up his fist and they all froze. Eric hefted the SAW, scanning the area, looking for whatever had made that sound. It didn't resemble anything he'd heard so far. It seemed to be coming from...up. Eric looked up. And then he saw it. A completely fresh horror was floating about thirty feet above them, hovering over the roof of one of the warehouses.
"Eyes high!" he called, raising the SAW.
It was hideous, whatever the hell it was. The floating thing had a withered body and a big, bulbous head. It stared at them with huge, luminous black eyes. As he prepared to open fire, it let out a shriek and pointed sharply at them. The front wall of the nearest warehouse abruptly burst open in a cloud of debris and the strange, buzzing sound of the alien grunt's weaponry filled the air. Twisting around as he shouted in shock and surprise, Eric saw three of the big alien bastards crashing through the wall. He brought the SAW around, leveled it at them, and opened fire. The result was awe-inspiring. He cut a line of bloody eruptions up the torso of the middle grunt and split its head open like a melon, spraying the others with its gore.
The other two went down under a hail of combined fire from all the others. As Eric readjusted his aim back up to the floating thing, he cried out and jumped back, narrowly avoiding a stream of bright, pale yellow balls of what looked like pure energy. He could feel their scorching heat as they slammed into the pavement at his feet, barely avoiding him, hissing and singeing the ground as they struck. One of the others shot it through its big, bulbous head with a few well-placed rounds, and its skull split open. The creature's corpse fell to the ground.
Just as Eric began to think that that had gone pretty well for a first encounter, a hellish chorus of echoing, shrieking sounds assaulted them from all sides. He looked on in horror as a dozen of the things floated ominously into view from over the tops of the warehouses. All of them let out echoing calls and pointed, gesturing furiously at the squad, and all around them, the roars and shouts of alien grunts sounded.
"Run!" Bower screamed and opened fire.
Eric did the same, emptying the rest of his SAW into a cluster of floating bastards and killing three of them. Then he slung the big gun, switched to his assault rifle, and began sprinting. As he did, opening up on a big armored monster that stepped out from between two of the warehouses up ahead, he realized what he was seeing. If these grunts were the Privates of the alien army, then these things that were controlling them must be the Sergeants issuing orders in the field. This whole thing kept getting worse and worse.
He emptied his assault rifle and hastily reloaded as he ran, trying to manage both at the same time, then grunted as he felt the impact of a few of those electronic hornets the grunts were firing slamming into his combat vest. He had to give it to the military though: he didn't feel it nearly as much as he thought he would. Given that he had started out closest to their destination, Eric reached the warehouse first. He kicked open the door, then spun around and provided cover fire, hosing down a pair of grunts that were on rapid approach.
Bower went in and he heard a few gunshots as the Sergeant took on whatever hostiles were apparently occupying the warehouse.
"Go! Go!" he screamed as the others ran on.
Eric hit the secondary trigger and launched the grenade he'd been keeping in reserve in the launcher, nailing the middle of a trio of grunts and blowing the top half off the middle one. Those weird electric hornets were crashing into the metal walls all around him, and what's worse, they were clearly curving towards him and the others, just barely missing them in some instances. Vanessa made it through, then Gallo, finally Maria.
"Come on!" she shouted. "Get in, Eric!"
He backed up, emptying his rifle, and then slammed the door shut behind him. "That's not gonna hold!" he warned as he turned to face the others. The warehouse they'd come to was stacked with crates, big ones, creating a maze.
"Let's move it!" Bower called back, plunging into the network of alcoves created by the stacks of huge crates.
There were several dead zombies littering the area. Exhaling shakily, Eric hurried after them, joining the squad as they got moving. This was turning out to be a real crap situation. He'd hardly made it around the first corner when he heard an explosion of activity behind him. The next several moments passed in a confusion of twists and turns, with the occasional spray of gunfire as they encountered a hostile in the maze, but finally the squad reached the back wall of the warehouse, where they tracked down the freight elevator they were looking for.
"Come on!" Bower snapped as he opened the elevator.
The piled onboard the big lift and as soon as Eric was onboard, Bower hit the down button. The door closed and the lift began to descend.
"Holy hell, that was close," Eric whispered.
"Too close," Bower agreed. "What the hell were those things?"
"They looked like they were issuing orders, like they were..."
"Controlling them," Vanessa said quietly. "They're controllers."
"Just what we need," Maria muttered angrily.
"At least they seem easy to kill," Gallo said.
They were given a few moments' respite as the freight elevator trundled slowly down into the earth. Up next was the storage transfer facility, which didn't sound particularly appealing. Then again, none of Black Mesa had today. Eric took the opportunity to lean against the dirty metal wall and get his breath back. He'd been taking a lot of serious risks recently. For a few seconds, the enormity and true insanity of what was happening to him tried to crowd in on him. He was fighting aliens. Actual freaking honest-to-God aliens. Or maybe they were demonic things. Or genetic mutations? Whatever they were, they were actual monsters.
Up until yesterday, he really wasn't sure if he believed in the possibility of aliens or demons or monsters. Mainly, he'd concluded that aliens and maybe more paranormal stuff could exist, but he'd never see them, nor would any definitive proof ever arrive in his lifetime. And yet here was this situation, utterly shattering his expectations. There was so much to consider! Even he could appreciate the sheer magnitude of potential breakthroughs that could arrive in the scientific community from what he was seeing here today.
Who knew how much they stood to gain from researching these creatures, even just their dead bodies? He wasn't really interested in it himself, he never rooted for the shady scientists who were capturing monsters or aliens in the movies for research. He rooted for the team trying to just wipe them out, because it always turned out the same way. Scientists try to exploit something freaking evil. Evil thing breaks out and causes untold death, destruction, and doom. But actually living this situation? What if there were potential benefits from this? Leaps forward in the fields of health, biology, technology? What kind of energy were those things tapping into when they teleported? That kind of energy source could revolutionize his entire race.
The elevator was grinding to a halt.
He shook his head and straightened up. It just felt weird that this was basically first contact, and there were a million different potential things to think about, and he was here with a gun shooting them. Of course, they'd really earned those bullets, but still, it all felt somehow...tragic. He hefted the SAW and stepped up to the doors as the elevator settled into its niche. He was going to have to get rid of one of these guns soon. Three big guns was really pushing it. Probably the SAW would have to go, since he doubted he'd find a lot more ammo for it.
Plus, it was freaking heavy.
The door opened up. The way beyond looked clear. Eric stepped out with Bower into the old, rust-eaten chamber beyond. He cleared it quickly, tagging two exits in his mind. The place might be clear, but obviously people had been through recently. There were several crates scattered across the area and a few zombie and headcrab corpses. He was running through the best next step, remembering the directions to get to where they were going, when one of the doors across the room opened. A man covered head-to-toe in a black uniform, complete with armor, holding a machine gun stepped into the room.
For about two seconds, they stared at each other.
Then he raised his weapon.
Bower beat him to the draw, snapping his rifle up and hosing the dark-clad soldier down with a dozen bullets. He went down under the hail of fire. They all waited for the next thing to happen as the spent brass clattered to the floor with the body, but the silence played out, and finally Bower slowly began to go forward. Eric joined him. They checked the door the man had come through and saw an empty passageway.
"What is this?" Eric muttered as he stood over the body. Bower crouched by it.
"What happened?" Maria asked.
"We have a new problem," Bower replied. A look of naked fear was on his face now as he prodded the corpse.
"Who the hell is that?" Vanessa asked as the others left the elevator and crossed the room to join them.
"I think...this is a member of Black Ops," Bower said quietly.
"Black Ops?" Vanessa replied.
"You know all the shady secrets and creepy rumors that go on about the government? Those of them that are true are probably tied to Black Ops," Bower replied, never taking his eyes from the corpse. "They're supposed to be culled from Special Forces and the Navy SEALs, I've heard. I don't know who they actually report to. But the point is, they're the real deal."
"Why are they here?" Gallo growled.
Eric glanced at the angry Marine. He kept forgetting he was there, as he said almost nothing during their travels. "Well, there's aliens and monsters tearing ass all over the place. Makes enough sense," Maria muttered.
"So what does this mean?" Eric asked.
"I don't know. Nothing good," Bower replied. He quickly patted the man down, salvaging some ammo. Eric studied the body as he did. The guy was actually covered head-to-toe, with a black uniform, and black body armor. He even had on a pair of red goggles.
He was creepy.
When Bower finished up, they moved into the corridor from where the Black Ops soldier had come from and moved silently down it. When they reached its end and passed into the room beyond, they found the answer to Eric's question about what, precisely, this latest development meant for them. They had come into a maintenance area that would give them access to the shipping facility. It was a large, broad room fitted with a dozen workstations where, at one point, techs might have worked on all manner of equipment.
Now, it was a battlefield.
Although that wasn't accurate. It was a fresh necropolis, the battle already over. They'd evidently just killed the sole survivor.
"Holy crap," Eric whispered.
"Goddamnit!" Gallo screamed suddenly. They all looked at him. He was staring at the field of death with wide, fury-stricken eyes. He suddenly turned and kicked a nearby chair, sending it flying. "Dammit! Dammit!"
"Corporal!" Bower snapped. "Get ahold of yourself!"
"What difference does it make?!" he yelled, turning on Bower. "They're here to kill us! Goddamned Black Ops is here to kill us all! Marines included! We're screwed! This is your goddamned fault! If you hadn't sucked out and gone rogue-"
"Oh get a grip, Corporal!" Bower yelled back at him, stepping closer. "One rogue team, let alone a handful of them, would not warrant an extermination protocol on every last Marine in this place! They would have come in and swept this facility regardless. Even if all of us had followed every last order to the last goddamned letter, they'd still have hit the nuclear option and sent Black Ops in. Don't be an idiot."
Gallo stared hard at him for several seconds, then sighed explosively and turned away. He muttered to himself and kicked one of the Black Ops corpses. Eric looked after him, wondering where exactly this might go. After a few seconds, he turned back to Bower. "So does this change anything?" he asked.
The Sergeant sighed heavily and shook his head. "Not particularly. We're about as screwed as we were before. Just one more group of assholes to keep an eye out for. All right, uh...everyone just snag whatever ammo you can and let's keep going."
Eric glanced at Gallo, who was still off on his own, staring at some of the dead Black Ops soldiers. He finally set to work, gathering up some more ammo for his Desert Eagle, his shotgun, his machine gun. Nothing more for the SAW though. There were, however, a few grenades. And a satchel charge. He pocketed it all, though knew he was pretty much at capacity at this point. After they finished searching the dead bodies, the survivors moved on, passing through the maintenance area and through a divider room that was all that stood between them and the shipping area. As they approached the last door before hitting it, Eric began to hear a lot of noise.
Gunfire and shouting, and heavy machinery going as well.
If it was Black Ops, then they at least weren't having an easy time. Judging from some of the sounds he was hearing, they must be fighting aliens. Better that than killing scientists or Marines. Eric opened the door once everyone was in position. A receiving bay waited for them. It was drenched in blood, the walls tattooed with bullet holes, bodies from both sides littering the plate metal floor. There were four huge elevators surrounding them. Three were closed, the fourth was partially open, trying to close, but it couldn't due to the fact that a pair of alien grunt corpses were clogging up the doors. Gunfire flashed from the broad corridor ahead, leading deeper into the facility.
"All right, nice and easy," Bower said, and motioned for Eric to take the lead.
He nodded tightly and gripped the SAW, then headed into the breach.
Making his way down the passageway, Eric let his senses sharpen up and spread out, seeking out threats, preparing him to react as fast as was possible. He'd spent a very long time basically in sleep mode. He hadn't seen a firefight in over two years. But he was glad, (and maybe a little uncomfortable), with how fast that stuff came right back to him. How easy it was to slip right back into combat mode.
Well, at least it was useful.
Eric reached the end of the hallway and crouched by the exit, which was a big, open doorway. The gunfire was closer now, but as he prepared to peer around the corner and scope out the situation, it choked off suddenly. He waited, then took a look. A big warehouse like room waited for him. There were a lot of dead Black Ops soldiers scattered across the vast floor, and several dead alien slaves and grunts. It looked as if they had killed each other. To the right was a row of huge, industrial sized crates. Shipping containers, really.
He began to make his way towards them, as there could be something-
An alien grunt stepped out from behind one of the huge crates.
"Oh crap!" he cried, raising his SAW.
The thing let out a roar and opened fire, sending several of those weird technological hornets his way. He returned the favor, sending off a barrage of gunfire that punched a big, ugly, gory hole in its chest and sent it staggering back. It tried to fire again, then it went down under another concentrated burst of fire from one of the others. Even as it crashed to the floor, a roar went up, several of them did, and they heard a stampede of feet.
"Double crap!" Eric screamed, shifting aim.
As he opened fire, squeezing the trigger and making the SAW rattle hard in his grasp, he saw even more alien grunts start to appear from between the crates farther into the room. And then several alien slaves started to climb up over the tops of them.
"Jesus fu-fall back!" he screamed, emptying the magazine into another pair of alien grunts.
Eric looked around frantically. The nearest cover was deeper into the room, so that's the way he sprinted. Those electric hornets slammed into his armor and buzzed past his skull. It was sheer luck that he managed to avoid the handful of green lightning bolts thrown his way. He got behind one of those huge crates and then frantically reloaded. Last mag. Leaning back around, he saw that Bower had found some cover behind a pair of much smaller crates closer to the door, and Maria, Gallo, and Vanessa were providing whatever cover fire they could from back at the main entrance. Eric saw a killing field ahead of him.
He got to work.
There was a trio of grunts making their way towards him, coming from near the other end of the row of containers, across the room from the others. He started with them, aiming the big gun and cutting loose. He didn't let his finger off the trigger until the gun was dry-clicking, struggling furiously to control his aim, and he managed to drop all three of the big ugly alien things. Return fire quickly forced him back into cover, especially when he took a green bolt right in the chest. He was extremely glad to see that this armor stood up to it way better than the security vest he'd ditched. The gun now dead, Eric abandoned the SAW and switched to his rifle.
He saw another alien grunt making a charge for him, roaring as it fired off a volley of yellow blurs. Immediately, he hit the secondary trigger and launched a grenade right into the big bastard. It disappeared amid a cloud of yellow gore and flaming metal fragments. Eric pulled back, hearing the thumps of the hornet things crashing into his cover, then came back around and started hosing down the half dozen alien slaves that were up top, raining down green electric hell on the survivors. He emptied the magazine and brought down half of the bastards. Eric frantically reloaded and then popped back around, opening up again.
It went on like this for what felt like too long. He rattled through almost his entire reserve of ammunition for the assault rifle, and in the end let it hang as he slapped his last magazine in, switching to the Desert Eagle. But not long after that, they had put down the last of the alien beasts, including the others who had come in, either through teleportation or other entrances. Finally, the gunfire fell silent, and the gunsmoke began to dissipate, and there was no return fire. Eric let out his breath in a long sigh as he realized it was over.
He checked on the others, terrified that he'd find one of them dead or severely injured, but they all looked to be intact. He moved to join them, still keeping a paranoid eye out for any stragglers. But he reached the rest of the squad intact. Bower had taken a few hits from the lightning, and Maria had had a very close call with one of the hornets. It had dug a bloody furrow across her right cheek and Vanessa made her let her clean and patch it up quickly. But once that was done, they began making their way across the room.
"So now what?" Eric asked.
"From what I gathered, we need to get to the other end of this facility, where we'll find another elevator, and ride it down into another maintenance bay, and then we get to crawl through a vent," Bower replied.
"So looking forward to that," Eric muttered.
"Aren't we all?" Maria replied.
As they moved across the length of the huge room, the sound of working machinery became even louder. A few moments later, they found out why. The next section of the facility was a long, winding corridor that was bisected regularly by matching rectangular holes in the walls. Out of these holes came crates suspended by hooks riding along metal tracks in the ceiling. This was the sound they'd been hearing. Well, one of them. The crates seemed to be coming at a decently brisk clip. Not incredibly fast, but fast enough to warrant concern.
"Can we turn them off?" Bower asked, staring uncertainly at the crates. There were, in present view at least, four of these lanes crisscrossing the area. Four of the paths to get through. Just as Eric was contemplating this, a pair of Black Ops soldiers appeared at the other end of the passageway. He caught sight of them as they caught sight of him through the shifting crates. Cursing, he raised his Desert Eagle and drew aim. It was a pain in the ass to try and get a bead on them, but as they attempted the same, he managed it and squeezed the trigger twice. One of the soldiers went down, his head snapping back in a spray of blood.
The survivor returned fire and two rounds punched him in the chest, while a third whizzed by his neck. Then Bower opened fire with his own sidearm and put the second trooper down. And then another three soldiers appeared.
They fell to the sides of the hallway, barking for the others to get to cover if they hadn't already. And thus began another firefight.
"Is there another way around?" Eric called.
"I don't know. I didn't really see a map of this place. I don't think so," Bower replied.
Eric sighed, and then an idea came to him. He primed a grenade and then sent it skittering along the floor as hard as he could manage it. The thing rolled rapidly, bouncing a few times, and landed just short of the Black Ops trio. They went up in a cloud of flaming death.
"Come on," he said, getting up and moving forward, "we've got to keep pushing."
"Let's go!" Bower called.
Eric hurried through a gap in the shifting crates, keeping a sharp eye on the way ahead, and managed to make it through two more before another soldier showed up. Luck was on his side and he managed to catch the bastard right in his goggles. Unfortunately, he learned as he made it through the final path of this area, that luck was about the last ration he was going to get for now. Because as they headed into the next section of corridor, this one bisected by six paths, Black Ops really turned up the heat. He didn't know how long they spent making their way through that shipping facility, but it was a brutal, long, hard slog.
He gathered up whatever ammo he could along the way, but it was going away faster than it was showing up. The Black Ops soldiers were earning their keep, and their reputation. They almost killed him probably a dozen times as he shot it out with them. His armor was really doing its job, but he knew he was going to be covered in bruises by the end of this. The Black Ops troops were swift, accurate, and merciless.
But somehow, someway, by some miracle, they managed to make it through that nightmare of a situation without anyone dead or even seriously injured. They'd all gotten winged one way or another, and when they finally reached the elevator they were looking for, Vanessa insisted on patching them up quickly.
"Goddamn that was nuts," Eric whispered as the elevator doors closed and it began to descend.
"They aren't legendary for nothing," Bower replied. He was sweating fiercely, his eyes wide, his face haggard. "It's a miracle we made it through alive. I think fighting the aliens is throwing them off, but that won't last."
"Hopefully they just keep to other parts of the facility," Maria said quietly.
"I wouldn't count on it," Gallo growled grimly.
Antiseptics and bandages were passed around and applied. The elevator came to a halt not much later and opened on an empty workshop. They cleared it quickly and found it mercifully empty. After they located the vent they were looking for, the squad took a five minute break, and then made themselves press on.
It was time to dig deeper into hell.