“ All right, here is good. Bravo will begin their sweep.”

David stopped moving forwards as he looked down the corridor on the next floor. By this point he expected some kind of trap or enemy to appear, but there had been nothing so far. Worse yet all the doors they have come across have been firmly shut. He had not seriously tried to break into them, but he was not going to try to do that anyway. Getting the tank distracted was just asking for an ambush. As David’s helmet lights lit the hall further, he heard the rest of Alpha move in behind him.

“ I don't like this.”

The Sergeant came to his side.

“ What do you not like about it lil’ Master Chief. The fact we are in a long hallway with a bunch of locked doors behind us. Or it is as dark as the devil’s asshole in here.”

“ That we are missing something important. Was there anything with the paperwork?”

“ No, there was just a list of names of who came and went an emergency procedure guideline and some random notes about various chemical shipments. I did not have long to...”

“ Isolation mode! Set the radio to alpha team frequency... Get out, get the fuck out right now. We are in a poison trap...”

David did not have to look at the Sargeant to know the man went wide-eyed.

“ Everyone back right now!”

They barely started to turn as all the lights in the hall started to turn on. The doors, those in front and behind them, opened up to let out green clouds of smoke. Private Peter, only having seconds, took something out of his pocket and slapped that something on the Sergeant’s chest, and a blue shimmer overtook him from the device right before the smoke hit the group.

David kept his eyes in front of him and took his M-134 to the ready as the sergeant was forced to watch as his men began bleeding from their orifices. Their skin rapidly turned green and their hair fell out in seconds. In less than half a minute the five soldiers under the Sargeant’s command were dead. Laying their backs against the wall, the Sergeant pushed their eyelids closed. Then looked back toward where they came from and found Bravo with shields similar to his own.

“ The fucking kid was right. Always have a life-saving gimmick he said. Common sense, he said. Why you fucking idiot did you save me?”

“ Probably because he knew he probably did not have the nerve to shoot you and the others once you raised again. Look alive Sergeant, we got incoming.”

David did not evaluate the situation of the Sergeant anymore as he started spinning his barrels as dozens of figures started coming from the newly opened rooms. He squeezed the trigger for a moment to send a dozen rounds downrange and noticed there was no squeal. Just the sound of regular gunfire from his weapon.

“ Sergeant put a bullet in their heads. I just chopped one in half and the fucker is crawling at us with stubs at the elbows.”

The sergeant took a deep breath and took out his 1911 from his side.

“ I hate you for making me do this.”

“ You’ll hate me more if I did it for you. Your boys deserve their peace.”

The Sergeant took a deep breath again and started pulling the trigger. He just put a round into Parker’s temple before rounds started whizzing over his and David’s shoulder. David had no time to spare on what was behind him as they kept coming. The Sergeant went low and aimed high as he nailed the closest walker in the head with the last rounds of the 1911 and quickly reloaded it before swapping to the m16. With plenty of mags and easy recoil in a burst. The hundred-plus walkers between the two teams fell quickly.

“ Sergeant, I suggest you regroup with Bravo. Double-tap them in the head as you go.”

David let go of the trigger grip and a green plastic pouch with three bullets on it appeared in his hand. Without looking, he tossed it behind him which the Sergeant had to reach for to catch. Inside were three, thirty round mags of 5.56 nato and three, seven-round clips of 9mm. Reloading his gun and stashing the half-used mag, he then readied the 1911 and started making his way back.

“ And Sergeant, could you have them send me their names. So I know them fully when we toast them later.”

“ Yes, Dreadnought. I shall do that.”

The Sergeant then slowly raised himself up and started walking back towards Bravo. Seeing what he was doing, the other team began to do the same. Making sure the dead were completely dead and not possibly dead. Unlike David’s shields and isolation system, the energy barrier around them only protects them from airborne threats. It took a good twenty minutes for the Sergeant and Bravo to meet up. The pace David was shooting had slowed down, but he would still unleash a burst every ten to twenty seconds.

“ What the fuck happened Smith?”

The Sergeant shook his head.

“ We did not do proper recon. There were hints of this at the reception desk. We just figured it out when it was triggered.”

“ And what of our space marine? I do not see shielding on him.”

The Sergeant looked over his shoulder to David still holding his ground. The flashes of his weapon showed hundreds still coming for them.

“ The Dreadnaught probably has his own oxygen supply in his suit. This means we all are probably on a timetable. We need to get going before we suffocate or worse.”