by thedoctor
Dirk Bell stepped lightly to muffle the sound of snow crunching beneath his feet. The sky was dark. The quarter moon only occasionally peeked out from behind the clouds. His breath billowed in a cloud in front of him. The young soldier silently moved himself behind a snow bank and put his rifle into position.
Two guards held their stations in front of the lab nestled at the foot of the mountain and underneath the trees. McKnight had gone through great lengths to make it invisible from above and near impossible to get to from the ground. Only one heavily guarded road lead up to the building, well, a once-heavily guarded road. The lieutenant had estimated that they had fifteen minutes before someone realized that several sentries hadn't checked in and all hell broke loose.
The guard on the left pulled out a vacuum flask, a Thermos, and sat down. He unscrewed the top and filled his cup. As he took a refreshing sip of hot coffee, his arm extended the flask out to his companion. There was no response. "Hey!" he called out to his friend standing next to him. "Don't think I'm just going to hold this damn thing for you all night."
The other guard stayed his post. "Christ! Loosen up will you?" He tapped the other man on the arm with the Thermos. The body slid down the the side of the wall, leaving a red trail behind. The flask slipped from the hand as it went lifeless.
"We're in," Dirk said over his radio.
"They're coming in through the south entrance," Ellis said as he began to check his weapon. "Five men. Should be no problem. Me and the boys will get rid of them."
"Hold it." Harrison's voice was deep and carried very well. "Wait for them to get to the tank room. That's the way McKnight wants it."
To hell with McKnight, Ellis thought to himself as he left the room. I'm doing this my way. "Blue Team, converge on Corridor 12," he barked into his radio.
The hallway was dark and quiet. Only the faint sound of distant machinery churning away in the distance could be heard. Each of the men stepped lightly.
Thomas was in the lead. He slowly crept and peeked into each door, looking for opposition and traps. "We've been halfway down this damn thing," he whispered back to his teammates, "and haven't seen a single person yet. If I didn't know better, I'd say that this whole thing was a se--"
The roaring sound of fully automatic weapons and bullets ripping through the man's flesh and bone cut his conversation short.
"Damn it!" Rogers yelled as he ducked into one of the empty rooms that they had passed. The rest of the crew followed suit as they dashed for the door nearest them. Thomas never left the hallway. His blood covered the walls and formed a puddle in the hallway.
Dirk was now separated from the rest of his team, but he still had an objective to accomplish. To do that, he needed to get out of this room.
"One of them came in here," a soldier said as he entered the room that Dirk had jumped into. Another soldier followed to inspect the room.
"Look!" the second said while pointing to an air vent that slightly hung from the ceiling. "He went into the vents." He reached up and opened the vent with plans to follow.
A grenade lacking a pin fell from within. Shrapnel filled the two men's bodies, killing the fool who opened the vent without thinking. The first soldier was lucky. He was able to cover most of his body from the blast. Only his legs, which were now useless, were hit. The man began to crawl across the floor. A path of smeared blood followed.
Dirk made his way through the vents. He had taken the harness that held his guns and other accessories off. It now trailed behind him, tied to his foot. He kept a pistol in his hand as he moved down the cold, metal path.
He opened a vent and peeked out, gun ready to fire. The room was clear. Slowly, he lowered himself to the floor. After another quick check of the room, Dirk put his harness back around his body.
The room seemed like a lab of some sort. But there were no scientists. It was all but deserted. Signs showed that there had been work performed recently, very recently. Could they have finished the product ahead of time? Or did they just know it was time to clear out?