Leviathan(57)

Screams, bodies falling panic-stricken or charging over each other to evade the sweeping black claws that sliced the air, searching, tearing.

With a wild shout Connor threw himself back as the claws passed before him. In a daze he saw the bladed foreleg strike a white-coated man in the chest and continue sweeping in a misty-red haze, as if the claws had struck nothing at all. Then with a rending of steel beams, the titanium fire wall was pulled outward, bent at the top as another bat-like foreleg snaked through, a monstrous shoulder jamming in the crevice.

The clawed foreleg pushed through the narrow crevice and there was a bursting eruption of the wall, a violent surrendering of steel tearing beneath an unearthly shrieking. Connor leaped forward, grabbing Frank, lifting the scientist quickly as claws tore at the titanium.

In a flash Connor scrambled back, trying to avoid Chesterton's fire as the niobium-titanium wall gave another two feet. Then the concrete, steel, wiring, and whatever else remained to hold the wall in place began to give way, crumbling outward, pulled into the Containment Cavern.

Barreling into the others who flooded the doorway, Connor charged into the corridor, dragging the dazed scientist. He heard Chesterton's wild rifle fire as the colonel came out behind him, backing; emptying what remained of the M-16's clip. Scientists fled down the hallway.

“Give me some suppression!” Chesterton screamed to the three Rangers, and instantly they responded, disciplined and effective, as Chesterton slammed in another 30-round clip. Staccato gunfire blazed into the doorway, roaring into the Observation Room, filling the corridor with a deafening white strobe.

Connor unceremoniously slung Frank against the corridor wall and turned, watching the titanium fire wall fall back completely, pulled into the Containment Cavern, torn from its rigging.

Frantically Chesterton shoved a large cylindrical object into the port of a grenade launcher attached to the lower part of his M-16 rifle. He waved his hand wildly. “Back up! Fire in the hole!”

Connor threw himself over Frank as the Rangers dove away, and Chesterton stuck the barrel of the weapon into the doorway, blindly firing the grenade launcher at point-blank range into the black-green nightmare that loomed beyond the ravaged wall.

A deafening concussion like a solid wall hit Connor's back, debris and thunder roaring, roaring, solid in the air on and on and fire was there but Connor was too stunned to feel it, to sense it.

Somehow staggering, rolling, Connor, half-rose, pulling Frank away from the doorway. Fire was blazing in the Observation Room, and Connor turned to see Chesterton picking himself up, a hand to his head, gasping for breath.

“We gotta get out of here!” Chesterton shouted, falling against the wall. He angrily opened the launcher again and shoved another grenade in the tube, slamming it shut like a shotgun.

“Connor, get that scientist outta here!”

Understanding even though he could barely hear, Connor slung Frank over a shoulder, turning to stagger down the corridor as Barley ran up, panting and glaring. The lieutenant was holding his rifle at port arms, vividly alert, angrily scanning everything. He came through the dust and the smoke and blinking fluorescent lights without the slightest hesitation. His face was hard. His finger was tight on the trigger of the M-16.

Chesterton spun to him. “Barley! Get me some suppression up here! Get it up here now!”

Barley was instantly on his radio, speaking calmly, and Connor noticed that a bestial roaring thundered from the Observation Room. Inspired to stagger down the hallway, Connor made his way through the smoke until he felt Frank stir on his shoulder, half-rising. Immediately Connor set the scientist on his feet, leaning him against a wall. A bright red flow of blood colored Frank's forehead. His eyes were wide and vacuous.

Connor shook him.

“Frank! Wake up! We've got to get out of here!”

Frank shook his head again as gunfire erupted in the doorway of the Observation Room, four men firing at once into the portal. Connor heard Leviathan screaming, saw a portion of the portal torn away by a clawed forepaw that swept through the hail of bullets to vengefully splinter a steel support beam. Shocked, Connor whirled back to Frank.

“Frank! Get it together! It's loose!”

With a frightful glare, the scientist focused on Connor, a supreme concentration coming to life as much from his powerful intellect as from the fear that galvanized them all. “GEO ...” the scientist whispered. “GEO can slow it down! But I've got to switch it back to voice control.”

Connor grabbed his shirt, shoving, half-carrying the scientist down the corridor. “Come on! There's a terminal down here!”

Shouts echoed in the corridor, four men determined to hold their ground, firing clip after clip, endlessly emptying everything they had into the narrow portal as Connor half-carried the dazed scientist through a doorway almost 200 feet from the conflict. The gunfire was still deafening, and Connor thought he heard more rifles joining in. A lot more.