User blog:Gracchus Mccarthe/Benson and Roister: Operation: Extract II

The story is back!!! It won't be posted that often so I can have a buffer for typing it up.

     “But there is a problem.” Cecil said as the subway began moving. “I don’t know how it happened, but this thing’s computers got screwed up in the recent past. Some code is missing or corrupt, so we can’t expect an easy time getting to the lab.”

     “We’re soldiers.” Ray told him. “We don’t expect an easy time; we just make it work. Hey, that actually sounded pretty cool.”

     The SAS sat in awkward silence until the subway came to a stop. Cecil tried to snap his fingers, but he couldn’t because of his gloves. “Oh yeah, another thing I forgot to mention: this thing’ll stop at each station it reaches. I couldn’t make it skip some stations ‘cause I’d need to rework a lot of code, and there’s not enough time for that, but I shortened its stop time.”

     Suddenly, a door opened, and a zombie entered. Troh took it down quickly. “Apparently the doors work like they should.” he muttered.

      Then more zombies came pouring in. The SAS were hard pressed to keep them at bay, but after hundreds of bullets and several wounds, they finished off the attacking horde of infected.

     The door leading to the next car suddenly opened. “Think we should go in there?” Rex asked doubtfully.

     The other SAS shrugged. “Why not?” Troh said, so they went into the next subway car. It had a handful of tough zombies, but that was no problem for the soldiers.

     After the zombies had been dealt with, Carl tended to the other’s wounds, wrapping bandages and administering stim shots and cleansing fluid. The bruises from hard hits could not be helped.

     “My arm is burning.” Ray complained.

     “Suck it up.” Cecil replied. “It needs to be clean: you don’t want to get stuff in your wounds, especially in a zombified city.”

     Soon, the subway came to a halt again. The exterior doors opened as zombies approached them.

     “I’m starting to hate automatically opening doors!” Carl growled as he unleashed shells into tight groups of zombies. Since the SAS were prepared for the zombies to be able to get in this time, only two injuries were sustained: Rex and Ray had gotten hit hard into the wall, but they suffered only impact damage; no skin was broken.

     The next door opened just as the subway began moving again.

     “Let’s go.” A.J. said. “We don’t want the zombies in there to come in and surprise us next time the doors open; they can see us now.”

     The six SAS entered the next room and demolished the infected; there was a large group of them, but they were very frail.

     “Are you guys looking out the windows as we go?” Ray asked. Blood stained the wall. There were normal and zombified limbs scattered here and there.

<p class="MsoNormal">     Carl winced. “Looks like the subways ran over a bunch of people.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     The subway came to a halt a third time. “After this, we just have one stop.” Troh reminded the others.

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Yeah, we all know that.” Rex told him in response. Immediately after he said that, the door to the next subway car opened, and the SAS decided to go through it.

<p class="MsoNormal">     This time, bigger zombies than before were coming in to attack. Most of them had horns, and some were very big, bloated, and wielding large knives.

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Die, sucker!” Rex shouted as he shot one of the bigger ones. It fell after a few seconds, landing with a splat on the floor. Suddenly, worm-like things came out of it. They charged the SAS.

<p class="MsoNormal">     A.J. stomped one as it got close. Its guts exploded onto the floor and the bottom of A.J.’s boot. “Oh, that’s nasty!”

<p class="MsoNormal">     These zombies were more resilient than the ones the soldiers had encountered before. They backed the six men to the end of the car.

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Time for my secret weapon!” Carl shouted. He took a large grenade from his belt and tossed it into the horde. After a short time, it began throwing out a green gas.

<p class="MsoNormal">     The gas seemed to weaken the zombies: They slowed down dramatically and were much easier to kill.

<p class="MsoNormal">     The SAS finished off the remaining infected thanks to Carl’s special grenade.

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Wow!” Ray exclaimed. “That thing is awesome! Since they were slow, I was able to get up close and unfriendly.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Yeah. We saw.” Carl replied. The subway started moving again, so the SAS sat down. Carl continued, “Your Shockfield totally ripped them apart.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     “What do you call that thing?” Cecil asked. “The grenade, I mean. I already know what the Shockfield is.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     “It’s a new weapon called the Biocleanse Bomb.” Carl answered. “I got one to test on this mission. It’s made to slow down humans, but apparently it works on zombies too.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Well, they technically are humans.” Ray pointed out.

<p class="MsoNormal">     The subway stopped for the final time. “Here’s where we get off.” Rex said. The SAS went to the door, but it didn’t open. They tried another door and got the same result. Soon enough, they found that none of the doors would open.

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Forget this.” Cecil muttered. He shouldered his bazooka and fired a shell, knocking out one of the doors.

<p class="MsoNormal">     The SAS stepped out. A staircase leading up to the city was right in front of them. A group of zombies with shields approached from the right.

<p class="MsoNormal">     “You guys go on ahead.” Rex told them. “I can handle the riot police.” He opened fire as the other soldiers climbed the stairs.

<p class="MsoNormal">     Rex didn’t think he’d have a tough time with the zombies, but their shields were tougher than he’d planned. The zombies’ arms seemed to be growing onto the shield.

<p class="MsoNormal">     Rex tried to focus his shots on a small point on the shield to break through it, but the kick and spread of his rifle made that difficult.

<p class="MsoNormal">     Only two zombies had fallen when Rex needed to reload. “Wish I had some grenades with me.” he grumbled as he backpedalled.

<p class="MsoNormal">     Suddenly, his foot bumped something, and he nearly fell over. Rex looked down to see what his foot had hit. It was a small crate.

<p class="MsoNormal">     Rex picked it up and took off the top. There were three frag grenades inside. “What are the chances!?” He removed the pin from one and threw it at the oncoming group. The grenade exploded and the shrapnel killed three zombies.

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Just six more.” Rex thought as he threw another grenade. This time he got two. Not wanting to use up his last grenade, Rex put a new clip into his gun and opened fire. When he ran out of ammo, only one zombie was left.

<p class="MsoNormal">     Rex reached for his knife, but then it dawned on him he had forgotten to pick it up after dropping it.

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Oh well.” He put another clip in his gun and fired, taking down the last zombie. Then he sprinted up the stairs and looked around. Zombie corpses formed a sort of trail towards a large building complex. “I bet they went that way.” Rex concluded. He began running in that direction.

<p class="MsoNormal">     Apparently the others had taken out all the zombies between the subway and the building complex; Rex didn’t see any living infected on his way there.

<p class="MsoNormal">     After another minute or so, Rex found the others. They had taken cover behind some debris, and they were shooting zombies that poured out of a nearby building.

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Need some help?” Rex asked as he joined the other five.

<p class="MsoNormal">     “It’s about time you got back.” Carl remarked. “Yeah, we could use some help.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     “We need to get in there.” A.J. explained to Rex. “That’s where the lab is at. We also need to shut down the defense grid, and the computer for that is in there.” A.J. nodded in the direction of another building.

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Can’t you just hack the defense system from any computer?” Rex asked Cecil as he unleashed a torrent of lead on the oncoming infected.

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Nope.” the engineer replied. “The computer is completely disconnected from outside computers for that very reason.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     “We aren’t getting anywhere doing this.” Rex pointed out. “I say we rush the place.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Then you’re insane.” Troh muttered as he reloaded. “We wouldn’t stand a chance doing that.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Wait, he could be right!” A.J. suddenly stated. “In those narrow corridors, shooting the zombies would be a lot easier. I think we should try it, and I’m mad at myself for not thinking of that earlier.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Well if we’re going to do something, we’d better hurry up.” Ray said. “It’s not like we have all the time in the world.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Technically, we do: The world is about to end.” Cecil joked.

<p class="MsoNormal">     “OK, let’s go!” A.J. ordered. The others followed him.

<p class="MsoNormal">     They approached the building, shooting the whole time. When they got to the door, several large zombies came out, battering the SAS and forcing them back. However, these zombies were soon taken down by Rex’s third grenade. “Glad I saved that one!”

<p class="MsoNormal">     The SAS entered the building. The lights were damaged, so it was very dark inside. “I can’t see.” Troh said. “My helmet doesn’t have night vision, so I’m blind in here.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     Cecil raised his hand. “Same here.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     “You two go to the other building and turn off the turrets.” Ray suggested. “If you need help, run back here. It’s dark, but the rest of us’ll be here.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     Cecil shook his head. “Not much of a plan. But, due to the time constraints, I guess it’s our best option.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Works for me.” Troh stated. He and Cecil headed towards the other building.

<p class="MsoNormal">     Rex turned on his helmet-mounted flashlight. “I don’t have night vision either, but I do have this.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     The four soldiers still in the lab walked to a large room. “We need to get through that door.” A.J. said, pointing.

<p class="MsoNormal">     When they approached it, the door wouldn’t open.

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Too bad Cecil didn’t leave his bazooka with us.” Ray murmured.

<p class="MsoNormal">     “It wouldn’t   help us if he had.” Carl told him. “These kinds of doors are made to withstand tank shells.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     A.J. gestured towards another door. “In there. I think that’s a control room.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     The door was locked, but it was just a door. A.J. ran at it and knocked it in. When the SAS looked around inside, they saw that it was indeed a control room.

<p class="MsoNormal">     Rex looked closely at a large monitor. “I’m pretty sure this is the computer, but it’s off; we need energy to use it… and to open that door.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     “The co-pilot said there’s an emergency generator somewhere around here.” A.J. recalled. “He said it’s in a secret room that doesn’t have a normal door.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     The four SAS went back into the large room and began knocking on the wall. Before long, Carl found a spot that was hollow. “I think I found it.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     A.J. hit the door hard with his gauntlet; it made a dent. He rammed the wall with his shoulder and made a small hole. “Yeah, that’s probably it.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     He kicked that part of the wall until they had made a hole large enough for them to get through; they couldn’t risk shooting it and having a bullet hit something important such as electrical wiring.

<p class="MsoNormal">     “I’m the smallest. I’ll go in.” Carl declared. He went through the hole. There was the generator in a far corner. Carl walked towards it, but he tripped over something. Looking down, he realized it was a dead body. However, the corpse wasn’t zombified. There was a small piece of paper lying on the dead man’s chest.

<p class="MsoNormal">     Carl picked it up, but he didn’t read it just then. He went to the generator and threw a lever, which turned it on.

<p class="MsoNormal">     The lights came on, and Carl went back through the hole. He held up the paper he had come across. “Look what I found.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     “What’s that?” Ray inquired.

<p class="MsoNormal">     Carl read the piece of paper, “Protype Zomb Vac. Room 4.” “Hm, it looks like he wrote it quickly. I wonder what the guy was doing in that room?”

<p class="MsoNormal">     “No time for that.” A.J. said quickly. “Come on, let’s finish this.” The four of them walked into the control room. Carl turned on the security computer. It took about a minute to get running.

<p class="MsoNormal">     “C’mon c’mon!” Rex said impatiently. “How much time do we still have?”

<p class="MsoNormal">     A.J. checked his timer. “Two and a half minutes.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     Finally the computer was ready, and A.J. entered a code to open the large door. “The co-pilot told me the code just in case this came up.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     The SAS went out of the room and approached the large door. A voice sounded that said, “Access granted.”, and the door opened.

<p class="MsoNormal">     They went through a hallway until they came to a door that had a “4” on it. “Did you get the code for this one?” Rex asked A.J.

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Nope.” He replied. Using his machine gun, he took out the door’s hinges, and then he threw it out of the way. There was a horde of zombies in the room, but they were all weak ones, so they posed no challenge to the SAS.

<p class="MsoNormal">     After the room had been cleared, Ray found a large pack in a locked cabinet, which he had unlocked with his shotgun. “This thing says Zombie Vaccine M4-18, 3104.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     “M4-18 means month four, day eighteen on this planet.” A.J. explained. “That means that vaccine prototype was made two days ago.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     The SAS hurried to the building’s exit. They had one minute left on the timer. Going over would mean they might not be able to escape the destruction of Thera…

<p class="MsoNormal"> Previous chapter: Operation: Extract

<p class="MsoNormal"> Next chapter: