Operation: Phoenix, A Visit to Montana, part 2  

        by CyberPyro (cybrpyro@iac.net)

        My jacket exploded outwards in a cloud of feathers as bullets from my
concealed Uzi tore its chest apart.  As the minion hit the ground, again, in
a cloud of scattered snow, bullets from the snipers' rifles slammed into my
back and arms.  I staggered forwards from the assault, dropped to one knee,
and flopped down to  face them.
        More bullets slammed into my chest.  I fired, the Uzi's bullets
neatly stuffing out the life of the nearest sniper, as its corpse crashed down
from its perch in the tree.  The clip was empty.
        The other sniper fired, bullets forcing me onto my side.  My mind
reached out to the sniper in the tree, enveloping the air in the tree around
it.  Too late, it let out a scream of horror.
        The explosion of the super heated air charred the sniper, incinerated
the tree's branches, and started several branches on fire.  Snow from the
other pine trees blew off in a shock wave that caused a minor storm in that
area.
        "Asshole, " I said, standing up and listening to the echoes off of the
mountain sides.  The ruined feather coat fell to the ground, revealing torn
clothes and body armor underneath.
        "I ... *ugh*" I groaned.  Plasma blasts from the other two minions 
slammed into my back, burning through the body armor.  A new clip found its
way into the Uzi's chamber as I rolled out of the way of the next volley of
plasma.
        The two minions never got another chance to fire.  A stream of bullets
destroyed one's jaw and shattered its face.  The other died instantly, its
head exploding in a cloud of gore.
        "I hate plasma weapons, they always ruin good clothes," I complained
as I walked back to the truck to get the rest of my weapons.  Knowing the lab
on almost a subconscious level, I selected the most appropriate weapons: 12
gauge (sawed off) shot gun, long sword, Uzi, several knives, and a Glok 9mm
pistol.  The Uzi nestled comfortably in my hand as I walked back to the doors
of the lab.
        "All systems locked down, interface refused," read the screen.  The
keyboard had been destroyed, replaced by an array of hacking tools and gad-
gets.  Someone must have been messed around in the main control room ... a
net wide lock down didn't happen unless some fool tried to get at the critical
documents.
        The secondary doors slid silently open after my fingers keyed in the
over-ride codes.  The door closed, sealing out the dying light of the day,
leaving my in near complete darkness.  The power was out as well.  I walked
down the corridor and into the mountain.
        Silence.  I didn't like the quiet; it was too quiet in fact.  At the
intersection of two corridors I heard the soft noise of boots on steel and
flattened myself again the wall.
        The Wyrm Minion squeaked in surprise as one hand seized its jaw and the
other the base of its skull.  The rapid snap of bones echoed down the corri-
dors as I began to drag its slackening body towards a service closet.
        At the end of the corridor I found why everything had been so silent.
The intruders had managed to trip the emergency doors, sealing all of the
sections off from each other.  Nothing, even sound, traveled through these
doors.
        The doors slid silently open and I heard a Wyrm Minion around the cor-
ner tells its fellows that it was heading for the bathroom on my immediate
left.  I stepped inside the bathroom and waited.  The Wyrm tech walked in.
        It eyes widened in surprise as my hand clasped over its mouth, follow-
ed by a cold, hard blade splitting its heart.  I deposited the dying minion in
the toilet stall and closed the door.  The bathroom doors swung closed as I
headed down the corridor towards the other Wyrm techs.
        In the corridor in front of me were two Wyrm techs.  They had a radio
device between them -- not good.  One was on a ladder, its torso inside of the
crawl spaces between the metal grating of the ceiling and the actual ceiling.
        The young tech jerked in surprise and made a muffled noise against my
hand.  Its throat opened in a flood of red before it could utter another com-
plaint as I dragged it away from its companion.
        "Jeff, what was that?" asked the other tech.  It looked down, its eyes
widening in shock to see a Jihaddi with a long sword and a viscious grin
standing there.  My long sword stabbed upwards, the force of the blow easily
impaling the defenseless minion.  I pulled the minion off of the latter, sil-
encing it my removing its head with another sword swipe.
        I pulled up a section of the floor grating, dumped the bodies under-
neath it, and replaced the section.  After listening to the radio in the
crawl-way above the corridor, I realized they were now just beginning to 
figure out something was wrong.  A squad leader was asking for the fragged 
party outside of the front door to respond; not alot of time left before they
know someone is here.
        I slid back down the ladder and headed off towards the main control
room.

...

        I crouched down in the corridor outside of the main control room, 
chuckling softly to myself.  I simply had to count the different curses I 
heard as they tried to hack into my systems to figure out how many enemies 
were in the room.  Apparently, they'd been at it for sometime and were finally
loosing what patience they had.
        "I've had it!  I'm taking a break!" yelled one of the Wyrm hackers as
he stomped off towards where I was crouched down, waiting.  The hacker's face
became as pasty white color when it rounded the corner to stare down the
silencer barrel of my Glok 9mm.
        It's head made a dull, wet noise as twin shots splattered what remain-
ed of its brain down the corridor.  I stepped past of the body as it 
collapsed, holstering my pistol and drawing my bigger guns.  A sudden commotion
is the control room obscured the noise of my 12 gauge cocking.
        My shot gun roared, tossing the leader of the team across the room 
where he collapsed, his chest a gaping wound.  A stream of bullets killed a
minion, its corpses spinning around lazily in the control chair.  Another
tried to leave her chair for a weapon, only to collapse onto the floor, multi-
ple bullets lodged in her lungs and chest.
        A panicked shot slammed into the wall in front of me.  The tech danced
backwards, his abdomen and chest flowering in red splotches.  The last tech,
hiding under a table, called to someone on their radio.
        "Help! We're being .... *gauk*" it started before my hand locked onto
its wrist, broke it, and drug the minion out from under the table.  Its plea
for, perhaps, mercy never left its lips.  A bullet flew from the barrel of my
silencer, its upward angle blowing off the top of his head.
        I picked up the radio and listening ... they know I'm here now.

End of part 2                                   CP

Copyright, Pyrokinetic Productions, Inc. (1996)