Tunnels 05 - Spiral

frozen in the moment.
    Then, as the young Warrior larva began to slither back into its hiding place, the member of the Old Guard adjusted his aim on it.
    With a banshee howl, the Styx woman flew at him. In less than the blink of an eye, she’d landed in front of him. Using both her arms and insect limbs, she wrenched the assault rifle from his grip.
    She knew her weapons. In a blur, she’d flipped the HK MP53 around and was pointing it straight at his chest.
    She began to pull the trigger.
    But another man had acted with speed equal to hers.
    Sweeney kicked the assault rifle, deflecting the burst away from the man’s chest. The rounds hit the floor, ripping holes in the concrete.
    The Styx woman swore as she swiped at Sweeney’s face with her insect limbs, but he ducked low, avoiding them. And, as he came up again, he had the MP53 in his hands.
    The Styx woman hadn’t expected that.
    Now disarmed, she did the only thing she could. She seized hold of the man who’d been about to kill the Warrior larva, wrapping her arms and insect limbs around his body. She squeezed him hard, several of his ribs cracking at some volume. His feet were lifted from the ground as she swung him in front of her, shielding herself from the rest of the squad coming to the rescue.
    There were just too many for her.
    In all the darkness and confusion, shooting her wasn’t an option — they might hit the man in her grip. With Sweeney shouting directions, it took ten members of the squad to pry her loose.
    As she strained and shrieked and hissed at them, they held her.
    “Three . . . two . . . one!” Sweeney counted down, and they slung her back against the mound of beds. Then the whole squad opened up on her, the rapid rates of fire shredding her body.
    As she died, the former major from the British Army screamed one last time.

    When the sound of gunfire had finally petered out, Parry proclaimed “Echo” over the radio. Everyone withdrew from the factory grounds and formed a cordon in the road again.
    There was a low rumble, as if something massive was being dragged along the ground. Fire began to lick the insides of the windows, and burst from the vents in the roofs like red spears.
    “Incendiaries,” Drake said, carefully wrapping a sweater around a computer hard drive that he and the Colonel had retrieved from the security room. “Nothing will survive those temperatures. Which is the general idea.”
    Whistles blew. “To the rallying point,” men shouted, and everyone moved en masse to the far end of the parking lot on the other side of the road.
    They gathered around Parry, who was standing on a weapons crate with some sort of device in his hand. In addition to Eddie’s men, who kept to themselves in a small group, there must have been at least three hundred of the Old Guard there. Still wearing their masks, they stood in silence.
    “I know this has probably been one of the oddest missions I’ve asked you on . . . and probably one of the most harrowing,” Parry said, throwing a glance over the road. “But I want to thank all of you for your professionalism. It’s been an impeccably executed op —”
    Someone yelled, “Blowing your own trumpet again, Commander?” There were hoots of laughter, and the whole mood of the gathering was at once transformed. Some of the men were lighting cigars, while others took out hip flasks and began to hand them around.
    Parry tried to get some order back into the proceedings, although he was smiling. “An impeccably executed operation, like the ones we used to mount back in the day. Some of you have taken your fair share of knocks, but I’m pleased to report that there hasn’t been a single fatality on our side.”
    Everyone looked over to a Land Rover with its rear doors open. Although there were two men on stretchers inside it, there were another ten or so outside in the process of being treated, most having dressings applied to what were only minor injuries.
    “There’s Dad. I’d better see how he is,” Chester said, spotting his father in the group behind the Land Rover. He rushed off, leaving Will by himself.
    Parry continued, “And I call that a resounding success!”
    The crowd echoed their agreement.
    “Although the job is far from done and we’ve still got to root out the Styx here on the surface, today . . . , he said, taking a breath, “today we’ve diverted a catastrophe of global proportions.”
    “It’s over. We really stopped the Phase,” Will whispered