Chapter 24 - THE SIEGE AT SUB-LEVEL ZERO
The warning sirens inside Station Alpha did not wail with loud, frantic alarms. Instead, a silent crimson light began to pulse rhythmically along the upper bulkheads of the underground cavern.
Senior Chief Rhodes moved with lethal, fluid precision. He racked the bolt of his heavy carbine, signaling to four black-clad tactical operators who had descended with his forward team.
"Cover the lift doors!" Rhodes barked, his voice dropping into the gravelly, commanding tone that had governed forty operators at Coronado. "Interanking fire angles across the primary corridor! Nobody touches this chamber!"
Above them, deep within the three-hundred-foot shaft, the sound of heavy steel cables straining under high tension resonated through the rock.
"They cut the lift control codes," Vance reported, standing beside a tactical terminal near the black monolith. "They're using an external winch system to drop an assault platform down the main ventilation shaft!"
Cassie stood motionless in the center of the chamber, watching the blue diagnostic bar on Pendelton's interface advance slowly across the screen: DECRYPTION UPLINK: 42% ... 48% ...
"How long until the archive package is fully downloaded, Arthur?" Cassie asked, her face illuminated by the amber glow of the terminal.
"Three minutes, Director," Pendelton replied smoothly, his hands steady as he calibrated the satellite burst transmitter. "Assuming the secondary relay on the surface isn't severed."
"The relay won't be severed," Cassie said.
Suddenly, the heavy steel grate above the ventilation shaft exploded downward in a shower of sparks and twisted metal. Three black-clad mercenaries wearing advanced rebreathers and tactical night-vision goggles rappelled down heavy Kevlar ropes, their suppressed assault rifles opening fire before their boots touched the cavern floor.
THWACK-THWACK-THWACK!
High-velocity rounds chewed into the concrete floor, kicking up cloud plumes of stone dust and sparks.
Rhodes stepped out from behind a steel support pillar, his carbine barking in short, controlled three-round bursts.
BANG-BANG-BANG!
The lead mercenary gasped as three heavy rounds shattered his chest plate, driving him back against the granite wall where he collapsed motionlessly into the shadow.
"Suppressing fire!" Vance shouted, leaning out from behind the scaffolding, firing his sidearm with surgical double-taps that forced the remaining assault team to scramble for cover behind the heavy drilling equipment.
"Director!" Pendelton called out, his voice rising by half an octave. "The uplink reached eighty percent, but the surface transmitter is taking power surges from the primary generator!"
Cassie didn't hesitate. She stepped past Vance, pulled a compact tactical sidearm from beneath her dark parka, and aimed it smoothly toward the ventilation shaft access box mounted high on the wall.
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She fired once.
The precision bullet struck the secondary circuit breaker, instantly overriding the power surge and routing forty thousand volts of auxiliary power directly into the satellite transmitter dish on the ice shelf above.
