Nightmares and Monsters

Part 3

Chapter Three

US SOCCENT Base, Qatar

Middle East, 2007

Control Tower

Colonel Sharp was watching out of the observation windows of the Control Tower with his set of binoculars as the bogie flew by to the designated landing area. "4500 X. Something's not right." came the response to what he had verified with his own eyes, there was something not quite right about that Helicopter but he could not for the life of him figure out what it was.

He watched as some of his Security personnel went to surround the Helicopter when it landed. "Bogie's on the deck." came the voice over the PA System. Colonel Sharp watched with interest as the scene played out as trained.

Meanwhile back in the main control room below the Tower, another Senior Airman noticed something weird with the terminals. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Radar's jammed. It's coming from the chopper." as he turned and picked up the phone next to him to contact the Colonel upstairs. "Sir, we have interference coming from the chopper that is messing with our Radar, we need them to power everything down to stop this." he said as he updated the Colonel on what was happening.

"Thank you, Airman. Keep us posted on anything else that happens." said Colonel Sharp as he hung up the phone and grabbed the mic for the PA System. "MH-53 Pilot, power down now." he watched as the Helicopter blades slowed as it powered it's engines down. "Have your crew step out or we will kill you." said Colonel Sharp over the PA System, as his men readied their weapons.

As soon as Colonel Sharp had said that, the Helicopter rotors stopped completely and suddenly, then with a move he had never seen before the Helicopter started to break apart and rearrange it's parts till it stood up as something he didn't recognize as other than some sort of robot. By now his troops were shooting at whatever this thing was. "My, God!" was all he could come up with as what happened next left him speechless.

The robot-looking thing started firing at his troops and then he heard a high-pitched whine before ducking as he saw a pale blue pulse wave heading straight out in a circle from the robot. Part of the wave hit the Control Tower breaking the windows out, by now Colonel Sharp was heading down into the main computer area of the building and was now trying to evacuate all the remaining personnel that were there.

Just as he was yelling orders to the remaining personnel the roof of the building was removed and a giant robotic hand attached itself to the Base mainframe, he knew this was not good. "Go! Move! Move!" he yelled to everyone there as he paused by one of the computer terminals, what he saw made his blood freeze; the robot - type - thing was downloading files from the DOD Mainframe, he caught a glimpse of a file with S7 on it and looked up as he heard the robot screech something he couldn't decipher.

"It's going after the files! Cut the hard lines!" he yelled to everyone who was running to get out of there. One Senior Airman - probably the same one from earlier, Colonel Sharp's mind suggested - yelled out "I need a key! It's locked!" as he yanked on a huge padlock holding the power lever secure.

Colonel Sharp looked around and grabbed a fire axe off of a nearby wall, running over to where the Senior Airman was standing and having him move out if the way. Colonel Sharp then proceeded to hack away at the main power lines to the mainframe and computer terminals. By this time Caliene had run out of the building to her tent for her weapon and pack and was now looking for Lennox and the rest of her squad.

Caliene's POV

I hoped beyond all hope that Colonel Sharp would survive this attack, he was a great CO to have and no one had anything negative to say about him, he was a fair but just CO - huh, wish all CO's were like that, he must be one of the few decent ones.

I had managed to get back to my tent, grab my M-24 and shoved a few MRE's into my pockets on my jacket and TAC vest, with some extra clips of ammo. Now I was running trying to find Lennox and the rest of the squad, I ducked just in time to see an M-1 Tank fly low over my head and then land on top of a couple of Jeeps, whatever this thing was, was out to destroy our base and so far was doing a damned good job.

I finally spotted Lennox, Mahfouz, Fig and Burke near another cluster of M-1 Tanks, hiding underneath the front portion where there was a slight overhang. I watched as Fig went to grab his gun from his back where he had obviously been carrying it, when I heard "No!" screamed, looking around I spotted Epps with a digital recorder aimed at the thing as he was laid out on the sand between the robots feet, I hope he got enough footage because I doubt anyone would believe we were attacked by a giant robot that had been a Helicopter.

What happened next shocked me as much as it apparently scared Epps, the robot morphed a fricking huge canon out of its chest area. Epps was still scampering backwards away from the robot whilst recording the thing on the digital recorder, I guess he thought that he was done for when I noticed a signal flare hit the robot near its face; good idea that since it was night out the robot had to be using some kind of night vision to see us or thermal imaging, which meant that a flare could screw it up really easy, enough so that we could get the heck out of dodge.

I watched from where I was positioned at and saw Lennox head on over to grab Epps, so to help out I too fried off a couple of flares at the towering robot, the darn thing had to stand an easy 25 - 30 ft tall. I didn't move from my spot till I heard Lennox yell "Epps, let's go!" and all but hauled him up by his shirt collar. As I headed towards Lennox, Epps and Fig who had by now met up again with Mahfouz and Burke, I turned around to see the robot spread what had been its propeller blades on its back and launch something out to hit the sand behind it. I was definitely not going to hang around to find out what that thing was either so I sped up and caught up with Lennox and the guys.

I told Lennox what I had observed before mentioning that since that thing was at the south-east end of our base that we head of to the north end and try and find some sort of safe spot to rest and regroup. We all hoped that others had survived this attack and that whoever was responsible for it was now in for major can of whoop-ass coming their way; failure was not an option for us at all.

End Chapter Three