Nicholas Smith - Extinction Age

“Through the ventilation tunnels,” Harris said.

“Can we hold them?”

“I don’t know,” Harris said. His voice was shaky. “Sir, we have to go. Now .”

Kennor glared at the colonel. Harris’s features were pinched by fear. After all these years, he had never realized how weak Harris really was. The colonel wanted to run from the Variants, but Kennor had already retreated once. He’d left the cities, but there was no way in hell he would abandon Central Command. He wouldn’t let it fall to the monsters, not without a fight.

“I’m staying,” Kennor said. He dropped his bag on a chair and pulled his M1911 from the holster on his hip. The gun had been in his family since WWII. His father had carried it from France to Germany. It had killed Nazis, and now it was going to kill Variants.

Kennor worked his way through the stations, getting SITREPS from men and woman young enough to be his children. They all reported the same thing: blockade after blockade was falling to the Variants.

Even as the other bases across the country fell, Kennor had still thought they were safe here. He’d been wrong—again.

“Get a message through to Cheyenne Mountain,” Kennor said. “Inform President Mitchell we’re being overrun.” He hadn’t spoken to the President in several days, and he was the last man Kennor wanted to talk to now. He’d spend his final moments with soldiers, not talking to weak politicians.

Harris hesitated and then hurried away. “Right away, sir.”

“Somebody show me a feed of the evacuation,” Kennor shouted.

“Over here, sir,” Corporal Van said. He was the same man who had informed Kennor when Raven Rock had fallen to the Variants. Now he was about to show him the evac of their own bunker.

Kennor hurried over to Van’s station, his eyes roving from monitor to monitor as he crossed the room.

“Who’s made it out so far?”

Van looked up with rueful eyes. “General Johnson and Lieutenant Colonel Kramer are in the air, sir.”

“That’s it?”

“From your executive team, yes, sir,” he replied. “Colonel Wood and his men are on their way through the escape tunnels now.”

“Anyone else?”

“Congressman Hauber, Senator Long, and a few civilians, sir,” Van said. He cupped his hand over his headset and looked away.

Kennor turned back to the last remaining feed at the front of the room. The Variants were heading deeper into the base.

“How the fuck are they getting through the blast doors?” Kennor asked.

“They aren’t,” Harris said. “They’re using the ventilation and sewer systems.”

“Jesus,” Kennor said. He pulled the magazine out of his .45 and checked the bullets. It was an old habit. He already knew the mag was full. He jammed it back into the gun and pulled back the slide to chamber a round.

“Listen up, everyone,” Kennor shouted. “Grab a gun and prepare to fight. If the Variants break through the outer defenses, they will find us—and when they do, we fight to the end. Every last one of us . You got that?”

A flurry of youthful voices rang out from every direction. All of them were yelling the same thing: “Yes, sir!”

Outside the doorway of the FEMA warehouse, Valentine flashed a toothy grin. His team was already loading boxes marked Fragile into the back of a Ford Super Duty truck.

“Looks like Bravo hit the jackpot,” Horn said.

Beckham squeezed past Valentine to stare into a room carved out of rock with a ceiling twenty feet high. The space stretched as far back as he could see. There were thousands and thousands of shelves piled high with boxes that had the FEMA symbol on them. Arrows painted on the floor and signs hanging from the shelves showed an organized and impressive facility.

It was like a grocery store without the employees.

Horn let out a low whistle and strolled into the cavern. His wide eyes had fixated on a sign that read Liquor. Beckham remembered Jensen’s request and tapped Horn on the shoulder. “Only if you find a case of chew for the Lieutenant Colonel, too.”

Horn huffed and let his grin fade. “Now ain’t the time to be thinkin’ about drinkin’, right, Boss?”

“Right. Let’s start loading the truck,” Beckham said. He checked his mission clock. They’d been inside for twenty-two minutes, and he hadn’t heard jack shit from Mikesell.

Beckham flicked his mini-mike to his lips and opened a channel to all three of the strike teams. “Alpha 1, Charlie 1. Do you copy? Over.”

Static crackled in his earpiece. He waited a few seconds and then tried again. “Alpha 1, do you copy ? Over.”

“Already tried three times,” Valentine said. “Headsets are useless down here. Too much rock.”

“Shit,” Beckham muttered. He paused to think as the other men loaded the truck. In some ways, fighting wasn’t all that different than a game of high stakes poker. Going into a mission without having a plan for insertion and escape was like playing a bad hand of cards with shit odds of winning. Now Beckham was deep underground, surrounded by rock and dirt, with no way of contacting Alpha team.

Beckham jerked his chin toward the Ford. “Is that the only truck you guys found?”

“The only one we saw,” Valentine replied.

Beckham checked the other end of the tunnel. There had to be other vehicles somewhere inside. He cursed under his breath and smacked the bed of the pickup truck. “Let’s get her loaded up and out of here.”

Chow slid a box into the bed of the truck. “Going to need to make two, maybe three trips. There’s a ton more boxes.”

Beckham looked over his shoulder at the single man Valentine had posted on sentry duty.

“Jesus,” Beckham said, shaking his head. It was a rookie mistake that could cost them their lives and the mission.

“Valentine, hurry this shit up. I’ll hold security with Chow to the south. Get two of your men to set up position to the north where you came in. I want everybody else loading boxes,” Beckham said.

Valentine acknowledged with a grunt.

Beckham whirled away before he gave the junior NCO a dressing down in front of the other men. He scanned the hallway leading toward the middle of the complex for a second time. There wasn’t much cover besides a forklift and a pile of crates. Not the greatest place to make a stand. Then again, Beckham wouldn’t want to make a stand anywhere in this maze.

He followed Chow to a pile of boxes. Halfway down the corridor, he saw a sign that read Domestic Reservoir . The passage curved to the right where there was a second sign for the East Power Plant.

“Wish Jinx were here to see this place,” Chow said in a low voice. “He always had a hard-on for bunkers. Used to say that when shit hit the fan, he was going back to the one on his parents’ farm. Apparently his dad was a paranoid son of a bitch. He built the bunker thinking the Soviets were going to nuke us.”

Beckham kept his rifle shouldered with an ear in Chow’s direction, listening to his whispers. Something about the old stories helped him relax.

“Remember that time Panda and Riley got into it at the Bing?” Chow said with a half grin. “Riley said Panda was hogging the dancers that night. But it really boiled down to the fact they both wanted the one with the big-ass booty. Do you remember that chick’s name?”

“Tank.”

Chow chuckled. “Yeah, that’s the one.”

“Same night that Riley danced in his underwear on stage.”

It had also been the last night out Team Ghost had ever enjoyed together. Beckham blinked away the memories and scoped the passage.