Chapter 21 - Fire in the Catacombs
Smoke and sparks flooded the corridor as the heavy steel blast door collapsed onto the concrete floor. Through the blinding haze, tactical lasers cut through the air, painting the walls with red and green targeting reticles.
"Breach and clear! Target asset is primary!" a synthetic voice shouted over a tactical comms unit.
The moment the first two heavily armored operatives crossed the threshold, I pulled the trigger. The 12-gauge roared, the buckshot catching the lead operative squarely in the chest plate, hurling him backward into his squad mates.
Before they could acquire my position, I pumped the action and fired twice more, shattering the lighting fixtures overhead and plunging the entire laboratory into flashing strobe lights and shadows.
"Suppressing fire!" they shouted.
A wall of automatic rifle fire tore into my steel barricade. Sparks danced inches from my face as copper jackets pinged off the heavy metal. The concussive noise inside the enclosed concrete bunker was deafening, vibrating in my teeth and rattling my ribcage.
I reached down to my belt, pulling the pin on one of Sterling’s vintage phosphorus flashbangs, and hurled it over the barricade.
A blinding white eruption illuminated the room, accompanied by an ear-splitting crack. The operatives screamed in disorientation, their night-vision goggles overloaded by the sudden burst of intense light.
I vaulted over the barricade like a caged animal unleashed. I drove the butt of the shotgun into the helmet of the nearest operative, disarming him in a spray of blood, and grabbed his sidearm. Moving with an instinct fueled by pure adrenaline and fatherly desperation, I emptied the magazine into the tactical power junctions along the wall.
The entire electrical grid of the bunker short-circuited in a shower of blue sparks. The automated halon fire-suppression system engaged, filling the subterranean chamber with dense, suffocating white mist.
In the confusion, I slipped through the shadows toward the rear emergency override panel. I grabbed the remote detonation console Sterling had wired to the facility’s backup fuel cells.
"Looking for the child?" I shouted through the smoke, my voice echoing off the concrete walls.
The squad leader turned, raising his rifle.
"She’s already gone," I whispered.
May you like
I slammed my palm onto the emergency detonation switch and dove into the open culvert hatch just as the fuel cells ignited in an apocalyptic fireball.
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