“Matt,” Duncan called. Carrack stopped and faced Duncan and Beck. “Let them go for now. Let’s trade intel and get the other one of those out of the wrapping.
“Yes sir,” Carrack answered, and he began to scan the walls and the ceiling all around them for any salamanders that might not have decided to flee. Beck raced over to the cartons on the pallet behind Carrack. “Oh yeah, you know I want one of those suckers.”
“There’s a hostile Gen Y presence on site that was probably about twenty strong before the salamanders attacked. Doors are all security locked and the bio door down the end of the Labs tunnel is sealed. We have no computer control.” Duncan told Carrack. “Where’s the rest of your team?”
“Just me sir. White Zero is down too. Booby traps in the ceiling vents. White Four went to Dock but hasn’t reported in. Five went to Labs but same story there. Six of the Gen Y men are down. Their objective is a sample of some kind in the Dock section. They’ve got at least one man planting a bomb in the cavern under Labs. At least five hostiles left—possibly more. The salamanders can be killed by beheading and fire. Small arms fire is ineffective. There’s a ton of scientific info on the creatures on screen in the main computer room—Zero was apparently on to them when one of them got her.” Carrack took a breath as Beck slung her own flamethrower on her back. “Oh, and General Keasling is sending support.”
“Let’s see the intel on the animal menace first, then we’ll need to spilt up. I don’t want Gen Y getting a sample of anything, and we need to stop them from destroying this place.” Duncan raced across the floor to the corridor and headed into the abattoir that used to be his main computer room. Lori’s headless corpse sat in the custom ergonomic computer station, with parts of a salamander body lying on the floor. The sight and smell assaulted him and his previously hungry stomach did a small flip.
Beck glanced into the room, hearing Duncan’s “Ugh,” then quickly excused herself to the hallway. “I think I’ll wait out here.”
Carrack strode into the room and pointed to the computer monitor for Duncan to see. “Wnt pathways stuff and blastema cells. It sounds like Maddox had a pet project. It also sounds like these things have been exposed to radiation, gases, and the chemical fallout from the Hydra battle in addition to Maddox’s genetic tinkering.”
Duncan read though the information as quickly as possible. He turned to Carrack. “Fire and dehydration are our weapons. Bright light holds them at bay a little. Thankfully, the information here indicates that they can’t breed.”
“You must have missed that part.” Carrack pointed out.
“What do you mean?” Duncan asked.
“Twenty total test subjects. But there’re hundreds of the sals. Maybe even a thousand. Either they figured out how to breed or we’re seeing creatures that received a secondary mutation—maybe from the chemical spill.”
“Great,” Duncan said. “Matt, I want you to get to Labs with Black Zero and find that bomb. I’m going to go after the Gen Y team.”
“Sir, it doesn’t take two people to defuse a bomb. I already let you out of my sight once today and look what happened.”
“I appreciate that son, but we don’t know how many Gen Y men are in Labs. We do know that the few remaining Gen Y men here went to Dock. I can handle that while you two take care of whatever’s waiting in Labs. Let me have your flamethrower.”
Beck ducked her head around the door. “Shit, and we can’t use mine in the cavern, either.” Carrack looked confused. “The natural gas is flammable.” Understanding dawned on his face. “You’re right. But I know what we can use. We’ve got some experimental, reusable, electronic LED Flash Bang grenades.” He took his backpack off and helped Duncan into the straps.
“Good idea. Go get them. All of them. I’ll take a few as well. You two get the bomb situation under wraps. Even if you can’t get the device defused, get it out of the cavern and into the Labs section. If we have to lose that portion of the base, we’ll live with it, but a blast setting off the gasses in the cavern would take out Pinckney too. And possibly a good chunk of central New Hampshire. Then try to get to me in Dock. When is Keasling arriving?”
Carrack checked his watch as they ran for the hangar again to retrieve the LED light grenades. “Forty minutes.”
“Too long,” Beck said as she started slicing plastic wrap from the side of the appropriate pallet. She had helped them pack all the supplies with another member of the Black Team a few days ago for transport here. She knew the contents of all the boxes better than the men did, but each box was also clearly labeled with its contents. A sign of Duncan’s ordered mind.
“We’ll do what we can til they get here. Just remember. Fire and light are your friends.”