Sara made sure Fiona was ready. Things were about to get far more intense than anybody had prepared for in this operation. She nodded assuredly to her, "We're gonna clear the troops on three, then sprint for that ramp. Clear?"
Sara peaked over the edge of the window and saw two troops running to help the burning soldiers and scientists. The screams echoed in the burning warehouse. If Sara wasn't so committed to the end of ADVENT, she probably wouldn't have had the stomach to keep listening to their screams. "One... Two... Three!"
Sara lifted her MP7 over the ledge of the window and let out a short controlled burst into one of the assisting troops. The other trooper didn't even have time to realize what had happened to his companion. The combination of alarms, pained screams, and roaring fire completely covered the sound of her suppressed SMG. The second trooper dropped dead not long after. Sara was already on the move. She placed one hand on the shattered windowsill, glad that her gloves were able to stop glass from shredding her hands, and vaulted over it into the main section of the warehouse. She looked right, then brought her MP7 to bear on the left as she moved with purpose toward the top of the ramp. In chaos of it all, ADVENT was far too occupied dealing with other things than to notice their movement in the open. The sound of mag fire at the neighboring building told Sara that David and Carlotta had engaged the enemy. Reports on their radio confirmed her suspicion.
When the report came in that the supply truck was secured, Sara spoke, "Stand by and be ready to charge the front gate. We're going to need quick egress out of this base once we're done here!"
Sara turned to face down the ramp, her MP7 quickly doing the same. The fire suppression sprinklers were in full effect down there, doing what they could to minimize the fire. It was working, but not very well. The two would practically have fire licking at them while they'd navigate the corridors underground. Sara looked back to Fiona, "It's your call if you want to go in there. If not, go and assist the other two at the power station. I'm going in."
Sara took a deep breath and let it out slowly as she clipped her MP7 to her harness, and unslung her Benelli M4. She pumped a shell into the shotgun's chamber and started moving down the ramp. Sara would support Fiona's decision either way. While she certainly would appreciate the assistance down there, she couldn't blame the younger woman for not wanting to willingly go into a tight corridor filled with flame and ADVENT. Sara only hoped that the initial explosion and resulting fire had thinned or wiped out the security underground.
A large blast door was at the bottom of the ramp, but it was jammed open by a forklift that had been tossed to its side by the explosion. The ten ton lead counterweight in the forklift would be enough to hold that door open despite its best attempts. Sara climbed over the forklift and immediately felt the heat. Guide lights blinked in succession, leading the way to the blast door Sara had just climbed through. The corridor was tall and wide, allowing plenty of room for trucks and other vehicles to deliver their supplies. There was only small access out from the loading bay, a double security set up obviously in place to keep unauthorized people out, and to sterilize the ones who were authorized before going in. The doors had held against the explosion, but all of the windows around the security checkpoint had been blown out. She climbed through the busted window and slipped to the other side of the checkpoint. A burnt body laid over a row of security consoles, while another was completely blown apart into multiple pieces. The smell of burnt flesh was rancid and made Sara want to wretch.
Beyond the checkpoint, things were far stranger. The corridor's architecture was less human in design. Support struts were far more rounded and curved, even the metals looked like they weren't from Earth. While most of the fires burned orange, some fires were burning as a bright green. Plasma fires. The corridors ran in two directions, but it appeared as though they only ran the perimeter of a series of labs, and connected on the end. "Falcons. We've stumbled on something big... Moving deeper, keep them busy."
It was a tall order. Sara knew the squad was good, but they weren't equipped for a protracted firefight. They'd need to move quickly to find out whatever was so important in this underground lab. As she moved deeper down the corridor, Sara felt something nagging at the back of her mind, that despite how stupid it was to be in this burning alien facility, she was on the right track. "There's a long row of labs down here, most are destroyed from the explosion or burning."
There was a sound of rattling just ahead of her, causing Sara to stop in her tracks and throw up a closed fist to signal Fiona behind her. Even if Fiona hadn't come, it was second nature to signal anyways. Sara kept her shotgun pointed on the source of the noise. There was a quiet chitter, and then a screech. "Sectoid, sectoid!"
The small gray alien was perhaps only three feet in height and skittish. Sara was less concerned for the sectoid, and more concerned for the armament mounted on its wrist. It spotted Sara, and quickly crawled to cover just as Sara had fired a round off. The buckshot sparked and scattered down the corridor, missing the sectoid. She heard the sound of the plasma pistol charging up, and dove for a piece of debris. When she heard it fire, Sara didn't see any plasma coming her way. The plasma shots kept ringing through the corridor. Sara peaked around the cover, and saw the sectoid shooting into the lab. It seemed far more focused on whatever was inside to fight Sara. She used its distracted state to her advantage, and sprinted toward the sectoid. The gray alien turned its bulbous head, and let out another screech when it saw the muzzle of Sara's shotgun at point blank range. She pulled the trigger, spraying yellow-greenish blood into the lab.
"Sectoid down." Sara called out. She looked into the lab, trying to see whatever it was that the sectoid was shooting at. She spotted a humanoid shape laying on an operating table. It wasn't human, but it looked close. Multiple parts of the body were completely destroyed by the sectoid's plasma fire on it. Clearly the sectoid was trying to destroy this project before Sara could find out what it was.
Sara stepped into the lab and got a closer look at the body. Its skin, while mostly burnt, was noticeably grayer than a normal human's. It had a wide jaw of human teeth, but no lips to hide them, giving the face of the creature a haunting grin. Its eyes were black and wide. "What the..."
There were two other tables in the lab with bodies laying on them as well. One was human, obviously an ADVENT trooper, and the other was a squat sectoid. Sara was able to run the numbers, it really wasn't that difficult. Laying on the table in front of her was a hybridization of human and sectoid DNA. Connecting to the back of the hybrid sectoid's skull was a long, luminous cord that stretched up to the ceiling, and further down the corridor. She noticed there were more cords meeting in a bundle before running out of the lab. She followed the other cords around a corner in the lab, and spotted a row of tables. There were a dozen of them, all carrying bodies of hybrid sectoids. All except three of them. The cords were dangling, fresh greenish blood dripping from the inputs. "Oh shit... Falcons, be advised, new hostiles are in the AO. Human-Sectoid hybrids. Stay sharp."
Sara knew that if she didn't see them come out of the blast door after the explosion, then they were either in the facility with her, or they had escaped through a different access point. That nagging feeling returned in Sara's mind. Whatever the feeling was, it was telling her that the hybrids weren't the reason for going into the facility. There was something else. She looked back at at the luminescent cords, and decided to follow them to their source.
