The DOOM Chronicles

Chapter 10: The View From Phobos

Jack was glad that he was no longer in charge of things.

Instead of leading, he was now following Corporal McGee as she led the way slowly up the spiraling staircase that led to the top of the control room. He was sure that it wasn't an accident that the control center of Command Control had been placed high up, above all else, to maintain that control over all of Phobos Base. After Blackmore's command, they'd promptly left the infirmary and quickly made it the rest of the way there to the control tower, only having to put down a few zombies and an Imp in passing.

Now he was wondering what was going to happen.

When he'd set out three and a half hours ago, (he was shocked to find that's how long it had been, though he honestly couldn't decide if it seemed too short or too long), taking Stanmore into the forsaken Hangar, he'd only had a vague idea of what to do. Finding survivors, hopefully finding Blackmore, and not a lot else. Fight, survive, kill bad guys if necessary. He'd kicked his way through the blood and the gunsmoke and now here he was. So now what? Well, obviously, follow the orders of the Sergeant.

But what would they do?

They seemed stuck here.

He hoped that Blackmore had a good plan.

They reached the top of the control tower and was both relieved and a little disappointed to see Sergeant Blackmore and PFC Baker waiting for them. He was glad to see them, but sad to see that Thompson wasn't with them.

"Ah, the gang's all here," Blackmore said, turning away from a screen to stare at them. Then he frowned. "I guess not. Report, Corporal."

Jack walked over to one of the windows while he listened to Corporal McGee run through a truncated version of recent events. From this high up and this far into the dual craters, Jack could now see the rest of Phobos Base. He ignored the Hangar, Nuclear Plant, and Toxin Refinery. Instead, he turned his attention to the buildings he hadn't seen. This time around, he had a helpful map of the base at large tacked to the wall.

The structure in the middle, built into the wall where the two craters met and bridging them, was indeed Phobos Labs. It was a curious gray-green structure with four outer sections and one central, raised area, complete with weird yellow windows. It reminded him a little of a four-leaf clover. He could see three structures in a rough row in the next crater. The one to the far left was a strange construction of shapes that were stacked atop each other, forming a weird kind of tower with all sorts of attachments sticking out of it.

This was, apparently, the Computer Station.

The one in the middle was a bland, inert, gunmetal gray brick of a structure. Jack didn't need a map to tell him this was the Military Base. To the right was a broad platform that was mostly taken up by a few squat, square structures. The map labeled this as Central Processing, whatever the hell that meant. Finally, beyond all this, built partially into the crater wall itself, was a mostly obscured building that was simply called Phobos Anomaly.

What did that mean?

Jack heard McGee reporting Stanmore and Peterson as dead. At this final bit of information, Blackmore turned to face him.

"Ward, you brought our pilot in here?" he asked.

"Yes, Sergeant," Jack replied, turning to face the man, ready to defend his decision if need be.

Blackmore, looking as tall and imposing as ever, scrutinized him for a moment, then nodded. "Well, that makes enough sense. No point in leaving him out there to take off on us and leave us stranded here," he said.

Jack felt relieved. When it came to men in control, there tended to be two types. The first were jacked up jackasses who were more obsessed with power than doing a good job. The second were good, decent men, brave men, who knew what the fuck they were doing. It was looking like Blackmore was that second variety.