The Invisible Universe

Alpha Division: Part 4

The comfort of the nearby hanger wall was tantalisingly close now, and all it took to get there was an uneventful sprint across the last bit of open ground. Reaching the pale grey concreate wall, I hugged it's face and traversed left towards the centre where a sturdy metal service door was placed. That was our entry point. Everyone stacked up on the door, forming two neat lines either side of the thick metal door. I pressed my ear up against the cold rough surface of the wall in an attempt to hear through to the inside of the giant structure, but I got nothing in return. It also appeared abandoned, with no opening for light to escape from. For all intensive purposes, it appeared to be empty, I knew it wasn't going to be.

"It's locked." Came a voice from the crowd, trying to move the heavy steel door without so much as a budge.

"Then get a charge on it." Colter swiftly replied. The solider did as instructed, taking a small silver charge from his back pocket and sticking it to the door itself with a magnetic clunk.

"Charge set!" The solider yelled, as he stepped aside, making sure he, and anyone else, wasn't in the way of the blast.

Two seconds later, the charge detonated with an almighty bang, I could feel the shockwave pass through the wall and into my right shoulder as the heavy door was blown off its hinges and sent flying inside. I was glad to be this side of the door.

"You've only blown the bloody door off!" Colter shouted in his best cockney accent, which got a well needed chuckle from the rest of the squad, but we didn't have much time to savour it as just milliseconds later we were moving inside. I reached the door-frame and passed through the grey cloud of smoke that had replaced the door. My body was responding to the years of training and drills, moving quickly and with purpose, sweeping my rifle in long sideways movements across the room, covering the arcs of fire that others hadn't.

The room, or should I say hanger, opened out before me along with a collection of sturdy storage containers and crates. With its large entrance door to my right being tightly shut, the vast space was sealed off from the fighting outside. Stretching across the length of the curved ceiling was a long florescent light that cast a pure white glow over everything inside. My eyes had to take a few seconds to adjust to the sudden change in brightness, but my legs continued to move, pushing into the indoor space as much as possible.

We may have been separated from the fighting outside, but we were in no way safe, as rounds started to pepper our position only seconds after passing inside. Taking cover next to one of the nearby storage crates I tried to get a fix on the enemy's location.

Quickly I caught sight of them; across the vast opening of space in the middle of the hanger I could see the scuffle of enemy soldier's amongst the various containers. My body responded to the threat as expected, firing profusely in the direction of the danger,sending one piercing shot after another as the barrel of my rifle began to glow red with heat.

However I had no idea if they were being effective as each shot was getting lost amongst the hundreds that were already flying around the hanger as the rest of my squad responded to the threat in very much the same way. Not to mention the enemy's return efforts. A few squad mates went down, I didn't bother to check who, the only thing I was concerned with was identifying as many enemy units as possible. Every time I caught a glimpse of movement on the enemy's side of the hanger, I updated the local radar with its position and highlighted it on my visual feed. My rifle would then in turn send a smattering of rounds towards these highlights. Seconds, or even hours went by, it was hard to tell, but eventually my gun was empty and needed a reload.

Bringing the rifle so close to my chest that I could feel the heat radiating from the glowing barrel, I slumped down behind the container and my hands went about the task of swapping magazines. It was a routine task that my body was used to, being muscle memory at this point. So it didn't take long and once it was done, my head was poking above cover yet again looking at the carnage in front of me. Amongst the flashes and covering of smoke I could see more of those dark green crates, placed along the hangers nearby wall, and as far as I could tell they were free from enemy activity. It was just what I was looking for, a way to push forward that didn't involve charging like a member of the light brigade across the open space that parted the two armies.