Luis and a few of his officers were gathered around the laptop to look at the schematics of the refinery Nelson had pulled up. The refinery itself was spread over six hundred acres of land, with just as many buildings, structures, and ambush points for him and his men to walk into.
“Our intel indicates that the majority of the forces are here,” Luis said, pointing to the center of the refinery, “at the distillation center. It’s one of the most vital sections of the refinery, and they know we won’t bomb it. Out of all the possible entrance locations, the easiest way in would be through the holding tank fields. We’d have a clear line of sight, but if we know it’s the easiest way in, then so will the sentries. It’ll be a dogfight either way, but this will give us the best chance from a strategic standpoint.”
The officers nodded in agreement, but Luis couldn’t help but notice the twitching fingers and pale faces.
“The Class 3s also have a team of hostages that are still keeping the refinery running, so they’ll most likely try and use the civilians as a weapon against us as well. Give your men the rundown, and have everyone meet back here and ready to go in thirty minutes. We’ll have the trucks take us as close as they can, and then we’ll be on foot the rest of the way.”
Nelson closed the laptop, and before he scurried away, Luis grabbed his shoulder. “Nelson, I’m going to need every single man for this mission.”
“Luis, I don’t think I’m suited for any military application.”
“No, you’re not. But I will need someone to stay behind and make sure Alex doesn’t take off. You think you’ll be all right alone with him?”
“Yes, that shouldn’t be an issue.”
“Good. And look, I also want you manning our communication frequencies. If we fail this mission, I’ll need you to make sure Admiral Frizen hears about it. Even if we do lose, we should weaken the sentries enough for another unit to come in and finish the job.”
“I understand.”
Nelson turned to leave, and Luis hesitated before grabbing his shoulder again and spinning him around. “Nelson, if something happens to me, I want you to promise me something.”
“I’ll do everything I can to find her, Luis.”
Luis gave a few heavy thumps on Nelson’s shoulder and turned away before the tear forming in the corner of his eye rolled down his cheek. He blinked a few times and wiped his eyes when Ray grabbed his arm.
“You sure Nelson will be all right with that guy?” Ray asked. “I mean, I love Nelson, but when it comes to confrontation, he’s not the most reliable source.”
“Alex will be cuffed at both his wrists and ankles, Ray. He won’t be going anywhere. Trust me. You ready for this?”
“If it gets us closer to getting Todd and Emma back, then yes.”
Once the orders had spread through the ranks, everyone loaded up into the trucks and headed toward the pillars in the distance spewing fire and smoke from the tips of their stacks. The entire refinery was surrounded by a concrete fence, so once they made it to the wall, the trucks were ditched.
Luis and his force of sixty men weaved their way around the massive tanks holding thousands of gallons of gasoline and other oil by-products. The constant hum of machinery in the distance drowned out the sound of their boots, providing good cover, but also making it difficult to hear anyone that was sneaking up on them.
The group of sixty had broken off into six smaller units of ten to allow them to navigate through the area with more stealth than the cumbersome stampede of sixty pairs of boots in one location. Their radios were all they needed to alert one another of their location or any obstacles they ran into.
It’d been a while since Luis had done any type of mission like this. Up until this point, everything had been a smash-and-grab job, just bulldozing their way into the communities and blasting anything in a uniform. But this was different. They were about to stumble upon the lion’s den, and it just so happened to be feeding time.
“Containment field clear,” Luis said over the radio, keeping his rifle up with every step forward. He received confirmations from the other units with the same response. So far, so good.
White clouds of steam hissed from pipes overhead that cast a humid heat, only adding to the sweat dripping down Luis’s face. The hallway of pipes twisted and turned in grid-like patterns above them, and massive steel beams kept the maze from collapsing on their heads.
Each of those pipes funneled different types of gas and liquids, and they were so thick that they blocked out the sun above them, without the aid of an actual roof. One wrong-placed bullet could release whatever poisonous contents those pipes carried.
Luis and the nine other men that composed his unit were alone in the steel jungle gym until a bullet ricocheted off the steel pipes around them, breaking the machinery’s monopoly on sound. The unit split in half as Luis and four others went to the left for cover, and the other five went right. But with all of them crouched behind whatever thin pieces of pipes they could find, no other shots were fired.
“Who’s got eyes on it?” Luis asked.
“I’ve got nothin’, Commander.”
“Looks clear.”
Luis had been in combat situations before, even prior to the missions against the Coalition, but never had his heart pounded this hard, this fast. He was letting the legends of Class 3s get to him. The legends of ghosts. Ghosts that could kill a man without ever showing their faces.
Then, just as mysteriously as the firing stopped, a round of machine-gun fire erupted that punctured the pipes around them, exploding hot gasses and boiling liquids, which only further inhibited their line of sight.
One of his men flailed on the ground, gripping his face, which had blistered and reddened from whatever gas had disfigured his skin. Luis fired in the direction of the machine-gun fire for cover and made his way over to his fallen soldier. “He’s at the top of the pipes!” Luis yelled then squeezed off a few rounds that sent the sentry packing. “Medic!”
The soldier’s face had swollen to almost double in size, making him unrecognizable. White pus started oozing from the patches of red along the side of his face. When Luis looked over to the medic, the medic simply shook his head.
“Nelson?” Luis radioed, but the only thing that came back was jumbled static. “Nelson, do you copy?” Another burst of static blew through his earpiece, and he grabbed the medic’s collar. “Get him out of here. Anyone else still able to fight, with me now!”
Luis turned the corner of the pipe maze, which opened up into another field. He held his men there as he searched the area, wiping away beads of sweat stinging his eyes as he looked over every possible hiding position for the sentries to hold.
“The distillation is just to the northeast of us. This piping runs east for another hundred yards. We use this as our barrier until we can meet up the rest of the units. Keep your rifles up, and watch your feet. We don’t need anyone triggering a trip wire.”
They kept a tight formation with the pipes behind them and their eyes peeled for anything that might be heading toward them. Then, before Luis had time to react, another shot rang out, and blood splattered on the side of Luis’s face as another one of his men hit the ground, with only half of his head hanging on to his neck.
“Cover!”
A cascade of lead rained down upon Luis, and everyone scrambled behind whatever piece of concrete or steel they could find. Bullets ricocheted, shooting sparks and dust into the air until all of Luis’s men had made it behind some type of structure, and the bullets finally stopped. More than once, Luis could feel the vibrations from the shots hit a little too close to home. The sniper was good, and even with the amount of cover they had between here and the distillation facility, there was plenty of room for the sniper to take them out.
Luis peeked over the edge of the concrete slab he was behind to search for the other units. “Does anyone copy? I repeat, does anyone copy?” Nothing but silence. For all Luis knew, the rest of the men were down.
“Listen up!” Luis said, gathering the men he had left. “We go in two at a time. We make him have to choose where he’s going. You don’t pick a cover farther than twenty yards, got it? The longer you’re standing, the longer he has to line up a shot.”
They had to make it farther than just this. The longer Luis and his men were stuck here, the longer it would take for the military to invade Topeka and end this conflict for good. But until Luis was inside that control room with nothing but dead sentries at his feet, that wasn’t going to happen.