Exo Zombies: Opposites Can Change

Part 11: Assaulting The Fortress

In the dark of the night the Atlas fortress stood out with bright lights, the building itself was in the shape of a tower being thick at the base and getting gradually smaller at the top, there were gun platforms and search lights all around the outside of the building with the searchlights strafing the field surrounding the building, at the base were a few smaller buildings surrounding the base with a compound wall to finish it off, at the top was a tall radio mast with a warbird pad below it, these small defences were nothing though, the fortress had its own designated paladin which was in orbit and can be called down at any time, from a first glance this fortress looked impregnable to a army of zombies or a real army for that matter...

...but our five heroes had to assault it to find any hopes of ending this nightmare.

The green lush fields surrounding the fortress were full of craters and the decomposing bodies of zombies, some had heads and limbs torn off and one was reduced to legs and lower body, ripped apart by the high calibre guns on the fortress, nevertheless Lennox was slowly crawling past the bodies and took cover next to a crater, after observing his surroundings he then gave a hand signal to were he came from, then out of the darkness the four survivors came out and quickly got next to the crater as well, "so Rambo what's your plan" Kahn said sarcastically, "well by the looks of it the front gate is a no go" he replied, "no shit, what were you expecting us to do knock on it?" Decker interrupted, Lennox looked at him blankly like he was going to do something nasty, "as you were saying" Oz said defusing the situation, Lennox snapped out of his stance and looked around and something caught his eye, a ventilation outlet with a small grate on it, big enough for someone to fit in, Lennox pointer to it and the other four saw it, "there, we can avoid all the defences if we go through it" he suggested, he picked up his IMR and ran for it, the other four looked at each other, "well boys let's get this going" Lilith responded, they soon went one by one and reached Lennox as he was lifting the grate off, "okay here we go" Lennox went as he lowered himself down the shaft, Kahn and Oz also followed, Decker helped Lilith get her feet other the side and in the shaft, "Decker" she said as she was still sat still in the shaft, "yes?" he replied, "can you promise me one thing?" she said, "what is it?" Decker replied intrigued, "don't die" she commanded, Decker nodded his head, Lilith smiled and then looked down, she then lowered herself down the shaft, Decker soon followed her.

After five minutes of crawling through the claustrophobic shaft, the group were making good progress, the only sounds to be head were shuffling knees and hands, weapons clanging against the metal walls and the soft, cool air breezing past them, "god, when is this going to end?, my back's getting sore" Kahn complained, "if you had to crawl through shit and grime on your training you would know what it's like" Lennox responded, "at least you don't have a boyfriend staring at your ass" Lilith interrupted, "hey!" Decker interrupted, "knock it off people, can we take this seriously?" Lennox scolded, other four were silent after that comment, Lennox then looked forward and saw a soft, blue light at the end of the tunnel, after another minute the group came out and found themselves standing in a small vertical shaft, looking up they saw the shaft went up at least 10 to 15 stories, they realized that they were inside the bowels of the fortress, there was a ladder on the wall which Lennox took advantage of, the other four followed him and started climbing the shaft.

The operator was staring at his screen which looked like it was full of grey spaghetti, but in actual fact it was a map the ventilation system of the tower, as he looked down at his keyboard which needed a good cleaning a couple of beeps got his attention, as he looked at the screen trying to find the reasoning an engineer walked through the open door with a hardhat and holding a clipboard, "okay the maintenance of sector F-5 is done..." he started to say but was cut off by the uncertain look on the operator's face, like he was solving a puzzle, "looks like we got a blockage" the operator replied uncertainly, the Fortress was split into sections, A for the lowest levels, B, C, D , E, F and X for the highest ones, the operator hit a key on his keyboard and the monitor zoomed in on the D sector, the map showed the primary vertical shaft A-EV3 with five blips in it, they slowly moved up the shaft at a slow, constant speed, the two men looked at them uncertainly, then the engineer looked at the operator who did the same, "have your tried a system purge?" he suggested, the operator looked at his keyboard and pressed the P key, the whole map flashed green and blue with the words >SYSTEM PURGE INITIATED< on the screen, the two men sat and watched as the system did its thing.