On Distant Shores (Exiles Triology Book 1) (22 page)

There was blood everywhere, gore and chunks of flesh pooling below the armor.  Thankfully, none of it was his, or the team’s.  He stood up in the armor and faced his team, and the engineers, more than a few of them looking at Lieutenant Pang with a hell of a lot more respect.  “Can anybody tell me what the hell that thing is?” he asked, in a very loud voice.

The silence was absolute.

“Can anybody tell me what the hell is going on around here?” he asked.

More silence.

The team was leaning against the pallet boxes and the floor.  They looked tired.  Adrenaline was starting to wear off, and the stress of the situation was beginning to tell on everybody.

Bob walked up to the team, “Mike, I can’t tell you what’s going on, because I just don’t know.   I think we’re going to have to tell you more about the power armor you’re using, though.”

Lieutenant Pang looked up sharply at him, “Are you sure that’s wise?”

              Bob looked at her.  Then he pointed at the great monster the team had just fought, “Lieutenant, I think they need all the armament we can give them.  What if there are more of them where that one came from?”

Lieutenant Pang nodded.  Her hands trembled as she put the shotgun on safe and started feeding more shells into the magazine.  “You’re right.  Sorry I said anything.”

“What armament are you talking about, Bob?” Mike asked.

“Well, you know the slots on the forearms of your armor, right?” Bob asked.

Mike nodded, “Yeah, it kind of looks like the rails we have on our rifles, so we thought something went there.”

Bob spread his hands wide, “Well, it just so happens that we have high intensity lasers and small rail guns that fit those slots.”

“What the hell is going on here?  Why is there shooting in this facility?  Who the hell authorized you people to shoot in my facility?” All heads swiveled towards the stairwell.  It was Director Jamison. Where he came from Mike didn’t know.  Maybe the doors to the first floor were finally open.  Jamison stormed over to Mike, yelling as he walked.  He was screaming at anybody that he could see, cursing everyone, yelling about the broken equipment and the wreckage piled against one wall.  Jamison’s face had developed a tic.  His hands were flapping by his side.  The guy was seriously unstable.  Mike was tired of Jamison’s petty posturing.  Mike walked over to Jamison.

“Director, would you please look over there, towards the service elevator.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Jamison hurled the words at Mike like it was a curse.  Spittle was leaking from the corners of his mouth.

Mike was done with Jamison’s fits.  He could feel the anger swelling up in him. He grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket, shook him and yelled, “Look at the service elevator!”

Jamison was livid, “Don’t touch me!  Don’t touch me!  Damn you, you can’t speak to me like that! I’ll have your commission for this!”

In for a penny, in for a pound.  The team surrounded Mike and Jamison.  Mike nodded at Mickey, “Mickey, escort the Director over to see our dead pet will you.”

Mickey grinned, “Easy or hard?”

Mike looked at the sputtering Jamison.  “You can make it hard, but no damage to the director, please.”

Mickey reached out with his baseball glove sized hands, grabbed Jamison by the scruff of his neck, and lifted.  He started walking and pulling the Director towards the giant lizard.  The man screeched and slapped at Mickey’s arm, trying to get free.  Mickey kept dragging and carrying him, the director’s toes barely able to reach the ground.  The engineering team goggled as they watched Mickey pick the man up with one hand and carry him over to the beast.  They were used to Mickey as the gentle giant, the kind and caring medic, not the knuckle and skull bruiser that Mike knew he could be.

“Take your hands off of me you, you ape,” the director yelled at Mickey.  It wouldn’t do him any good.  Mickey was the largest, strongest, man that Mike knew.  And in the special operations arena, that was saying a lot.

Mike looked into the worried eyes of Everett.  He shrugged at the question that he saw there.  Mike put up with the director’s garbage for weeks now.  He was past his limit.  The Director and LTC Mitchem were more interested in protocol and their egos.  Mike was a survivor.  He had been in some of the worst hell holes on the planet.  He would make sure that this group of people had the best chance of survival that he could give them.  Protocol was out the window on this one.

He heard a, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” from Jamison.

“Well, at least we have one bit of good news now,” he announced.

The team looked at him.  Lieutenant Pang asked the question.

“What good news is that?” she offered.

Mike answered, “We know the way out.”  He thought for a minute, “Hopefully,” he amended.

Everett thought about this, “Oh hell.”

Mike nodded.  He pointed towards the service elevator.  “My question is, if we have predator that big, what the hell is it preying on, and are there more of them up there?”

There were curses as the new reality of the situation settled into everyone’s minds.

“Uh, I may have a way to find out what is up there,” John Smith, the electrical engineer, had been one of the techs that stood toe to toe with the team to kill the monster.

“What’s that?” Mike asked.

“Big Dog,” was the reply he got.

Mike looked into John’s eyes.  He had no clue what the man was talking about.

Lieutenant Pang shook her head.  “John, Big Dog won’t work.   We don’t know what is up there, and Big Dog can’t climb.  We need the drone.”

John’s eyes shined as he thought about it.  He nodded in agreement.

Bob thought about the conversation.  He looked at Pang, “I think we need to let the team know about the other things we have.”  Both Pang and Smith looked concerned.

Mike looked at Bob.  He pantomimed pulling up his sleeve.  Then he mimicked one of his favorite cartoons, “Hey, Rocky, you want to see me pull a rabbit out of my hat?”  His voice switched to normal, “How much stuff do you guys have in storage?”

They were interrupted again, this time Mitchem and Randall were walking out of the stairwell.  “What the hell is going on here?  Why is your soldier manhandling Director Jamison like that?  And what the hell is that?”

All three looked over as Mitchem and Randall walked to where they were standing.  His eyes were as big as dinner plates.  The realization that something was very wrong with their situation was finally starting to drill into his mind.  Still, he wasn’t going to let go of the anger or contempt he held for Mike’s team.

“What’s he doing to the Director?”  Mitchem pointed at Mickey, where Jamison was howling and still trying to get out of Mickey’s grip.

Mike looked over at the director, “That guy is seriously mental.  We’re trying to get it through his head that things have changed.”

Mike looked at the Lieutenant Colonel, “Look, I understand you don’t like me, and don’t like my team.  Personally, I don’t give a crap.”

Mitchem stared at him, his eyes the eyes of a cobra sizing up a rat for food.

Mike continued, “Right now, there are some strange things happening.  First, the exit to this building has been sealed by some kind of glassine rock, and I think that the service elevator,” he pointed at the elevator with its doors ripped apart, “maybe the only way out of this installation.”

He let this sink in, then continued, “Second, we have been attacked by something out of a H.P. Lovecraft novel.  It looks like a dragon.  I don’t believe in dragons, so I’m inclined to believe that something untoward has happened.”

He let this sink in. Mitchem and Randall seemed less than convinced.

Mike looked at him.  “Colonel Mitchem, I need you to get your security team together, and help anybody that is caught up in this mess.  We’ll need to find everybody, and treat anybody that is hurt.  While your team does that, I’m going to put the engineering team to work adding the mods to the mech armor.  My team is going to make sure that this area, since it is the only way that I know of that anything can get in or out, stays secure.  Roger?”

LTC Mitchem nodded slowly as he looked at the director sobbing uncontrollably at Mickey’s feet.  He got his military bearing back, and nodded more steadily.  Then his head cocked slightly as he thought of something, “What do you mean that this is the only way in or out?”

Mike’s demeanor shifted slightly.  “You haven’t been to the top floor have you?”

Mitchem shook his head, “No, I haven’t, what’s wrong?”

Mike told them, “Everything is gone.  There’s a curved wall of stone or glass up there where the corridor leading to the other parts of Area 19 used to be.”

Shock was on all four faces as he explained this.

Mike turned to Bob, “Bob, get your people working on getting the other equipment up.  If any of your guys have and know how to operate a cutting torch, the door to the first floor is stuck, and needs to be removed.”  He pointed at Jamison, “I don’t know where he came from, but they may have gotten the doors open.”

Mike turned to Pang, “Jennifer, you need to make sure that nobody goes off the deep end about this.  Make sure everybody has a job to keep them busy. I don’t want anyone thinking about our situation too much.”

Jennifer and Bob went off to ensure that their tasks were accomplished, talking to various members of the engineering team, the ones that Mike had previously watched and figured out were the de facto leaders of the techs on the engineering team.

Mike looked at Lieutenant Colonel Mitchem, “Do you have any questions?”

Mitchem looked back at him, “This isn’t over.  You’re overstepping your authority, Chief, and I plan on ensuring that you pay for it.”

Mike waved a hand at him, “Yeah, yeah, I know, you’re going to destroy my career, take my commission.  Well, get in line.  I think you’re standing behind Jamison at this point.”

He noticed Dr. Randall holding her arm.  He turned back and yelled at Mickey.

“Hey, Mick!  Can you come over here and take a look at Dr. Randall’s arm?  It may be broken.”  Mike directed Dr. Randall to the pallet where Mickey and Dr. Humphreys had set up shop.

Mickey turned away from the sobbing director and walked to his medic bag, then smiled at Dr. Randall, a smile that was not returned.  He motioned for her to step over to one of the cots to have a seat.  He squatted down next to her, and probed the arm with his fingers to diagnose what was wrong.

Mitchem grabbed Mike by the arm, “I’m going to get my security team, and we’re coming back down here.  When I get back, you’re going to have some explaining to do.”

Mike looked back at him, no give in his face, “Do what you have to do.  I’ll be in the area.  No place else to go.”

Mitchem turned from him, and walked over to Jamison.  He pulled the director off the floor stand.  Jamison wiped his eyes, then tried to regain some dignity by adjusting his clothes.  He glared at Mike as he walked by.  They exited back through the stairwell.

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Mike turned to Everett, Rob, and Tom.  They listened to the plan as he explained it to the others.  He motioned them forward and started giving them assignments.  Tom and Rob went to the platform with the weapons, one eye peeled to the elevator shaft.  They kitted up with weapons and equipment.  All weapons were being checked and loaded.  When Mike arrived at the pallet, he asked Mickey, “What’s up with Randall?”  She had walked away as the rest of the team walked towards the pallet.  Evidently Mitchem had forgotten about her during his fit of anger.

“Well, it isn’t a break, but she’s going to have one hell of a bruise.  Might be a hairline fracture, but I can’t tell without an x-ray.  I wrapped it up and gave her some Motrin to help with the pain and inflammation.”

Mike gave marching orders for the team to prep, but they were already doing that anyway.  Once the team dispersed, he and Everett started talking.

“What the hell is that thing?” was the first question out of Everett’s mouth.

Mike shook his head.  “I don’t know.  As far as I know we just stepped into the real world Twilight Zone.  All I know is that dragon is the biggest, meanest, ugliest thing I have ever seen, and if we want to survive, we need to make sure that we’re bigger and meaner than it ever was.”

Everett nodded in agreement.

Mike continued, “I need for you to keep an eye out for anything that comes through that elevator shaft.”

Everett nodded, and then he spoke, “Mike, I don’t know what’s out there, and I don’t know what the hell this thing is, but we’re going to have to get all that flesh, entrails and blood out of here.  Otherwise we’re going to have to deal with whatever scavengers there are out there.  The smell alone in here should start drawing large crowds of nasty things to feed on that giant carcass.”

Mike agreed, “Yeah, but first things first.  Wounded, Armor, Recon, and then we can cut that carcass up and get it out of here.”

Everett asked, “What are you going to do?”

Mike pointed a thumb back over his shoulder.  “Make sure what is left of civilization, and military discipline doesn’t break down before we have a fighting chance to live through this.”