The DOOM Chronicles

Chapter 06: We Have A Plan

Kyra eventually stopped looking out the windows at the burning skyscrapers and the vast pillars of smoke rising into the air.

Instead, she found her gaze drawn back inboard, towards the happy couple. They'd made it, but she knew this was just a temporary reprieve. Still though, there was something vaguely...hopeful, about seeing Jack and Jennifer together. Given the way they felt about each other, their confidence and skill-set, all they'd done, and no doubt all they would do in the days that would follow...they were a power couple if she'd ever seen one. She wondered if she'd ever find someone she could love, someone she could trust, truly and wholly.

It didn't seem likely.

The transport shifted suddenly, and Kyra felt something inside of her shift. That thing in her that she could only relax, never turn off. Survival instinct, gut feeling, intuition, everyone had a name for it. It was the thing that had kept her alive on the moons of Jupiter, through Hell, and on Earth so far. But it took its toll, she paid a price for her own continued survival. Many, if she was being honest. In general, though, she was glad to pay them, because the gifts it bestowed, gifts that she would now be able to put to full, indiscriminate use, allowed her to do great things. Help people, save people, remove darkness from the universe.

Some people added light.

She removed darkness.

Anderson had been talking with someone quietly over his radio for the past five minutes, glancing occasionally at herself, Jack, and Jennifer. She'd heard their names more than once. Good. He was almost certainly reporting to someone higher up the food chain, someone they could spill all this data to. Kyra stiffened slightly as she felt the landing gear begin to slide into place. Statistically speaking, take-offs and landings were the most dangerous parts of any rides. But they settled onto a hard, flat surface and as the back ramp began to lower again, it wasn't the dismal, dizzying sound of combat she heard, but the familiar, comforting sound of a military base running on high alert she'd heard so many times over the course of her life.

"Morgan, Ward, Taylor, with me. Everyone else, grab showers and chow while you still can!" Anderson said as he got to his feet.

Jack and Jennifer glanced at her, and she just shrugged.

They all got up and followed Anderson down the back ramp, walking briskly into the controlled chaos that was Fort Minor. Dozens of men and women in uniform, and armor, came and went, jogging across landing pads, loading and unloading crates and bodybags and other things. Guns, mostly. Lots and lots and lots of guns.

They paused very briefly as Anderson called over a few Marines, and offloaded the ammo-packed backpacks they'd been carrying, then they pressed on.

They were quickly swallowed up by the base, stepping in through one huge hangar door after crossing the landing pads. The hangar was a chaotic proliferation of work: Marines shifting more crates, Marines receiving their orders, Marines coming and going, launching into the meat grinder. Where they were going to be soon, surely. They left the hangars and plunged into a network of brightly lit, chromed corridors, sticking to one side to allow the human traffic to flow past them. The walked for several more minutes in silence, the traffic thinning out until they were the only ones walking through the corridors.

Anderson stopped suddenly before one of the doors. He opened it up. "You three need to go inside for a debriefing. After that, track me down. We've got big, big plans."

"Understood," Jack replied.

"Take your time though, and be as thorough as possible," Anderson said, then struck off once more, hewing a path to his next destination.