Ragnarok

SEVENTY-TWO

Gleipnir Facility, Fenris Kystby, Norway

4 November, 0450 Hrs

Queen sighed with relief when Rook and King hobbled out of the portal. She was covered in cuts and scrapes, her ankle was twisted, maybe broken. Her hand was swollen like a red balloon, she was coated in dried dire wolf blood and secretions and she could only move by hopping on her unaffected foot, but she still laid down fire on the dire wolf army that turned toward Rook and King as they separated.

Beck had seen the situation and moved over to help support her and share the last of her ammunition-two normal-sized curved 32 round magazines. Together, they covered their teammates as the men scrambled toward them.

Bishop moved to the high ground of the metal stairs in the corner of the giant room and fired down on dire wolves. A pile of ten of the creatures lay dead below the landing where he stood; an effective barricade.

Rook and King split up. King held his chest, but seemed to be recovering from whatever wound had slowed him down. Rook caught Queen’s eyes and pointed to Bishop. “To the stairs,” he called.

When he saw Queen take a limping step, he shot the leg off a dire wolf and ran to her aid. But instead of helping her run, as he had King, he scooped her over his shoulder and carried her.

“Rook!” she shouted angrily.

“I’ll run, you shoot!” he replied. “We’re running out of time!”

Queen’s body shook with every step, but she managed to trace a line of bullets across the chest of a dire wolf pounding toward them.

“Time for what?” she asked.

Across the room, Deep Blue ran to meet King. The Russian came over to them from behind her barricade of dire wolf corpses, now coated in thick white blood.

“Seriously, Jack? My 500-million-dollar stealth plane? You couldn’t come up with a better plan than that?” Deep Blue fired his MP5 twice, hitting dire wolves that ran at them. His face showed only concentration as he focused on hitting his targets.

King couldn’t tell whether the former President of the United States was joking with him or really upset, but decided he didn’t care.

“It worked. We need to find a way to shut down the portal. Knight found the suitcase nuke on the other side and brought it back. I remembered to arm it this time. Probably would be good if we could shut down that portal before it goes off in…” King checked his digital watch, “three minutes.”

“We need to completely destroy the containment apparatus. The metal arms that Rook blew up before-” Deep Blue began. He fired another volley of bullets at the oncoming dire wolves and his weapon was empty.

“That didn’t work out so well last time,” King said, pulling out a new magazine of 9 mm bullets from one of the Velcro attachments on his suit and handing it to the man.

“Ale says Rook was on the right track. We need to get them all-not just the two. And then cut the power.”

“Wait,” the Russian woman spoke up. “I have seen it. A power relay.”

Both Deep Blue and King turned to her and at the same time said, “Where?”

“Follow me. I saw it on a video camera. There was a map.”

“Go with her,” Deep Blue ordered. “We’ll take care of the cage.”

The woman circled around the side of the energy ball, moving along the wall, back behind the side of the sphere where the dire wolves were still coming through. King followed her, while Deep Blue provided cover fire.

Once King and the woman were out of his sight around the portal, Deep Blue crossed in front of the open hangar door to the other side of the room and made for the stairwell. Bishop, Rook, Queen and Beck were on the third flight of steps, firing on any dire wolves that came near. Knight offered cover fire from his perch in the sky.

Are they all that’s left?

Deep Blue needed the cover fire. He ran out of bullets halfway to the stairs. Each of the four soldiers on the stairs turned their attention to protecting their leader. Deep Blue didn’t bother looking behind him to see if any dire wolves were about to make him a snack. He knew his team would kill each and every one of them before they laid a claw-tipped hand on him.

When he reached the underside of the second flight of stairs, he leapt up and grabbed the railing, climbing up and over the side. “Up! Make for the catwalk,” he shouted.

Bishop stopped firing, slung Queen over his shoulder before she could protest and sprinted up the steps. Rook was fast on his heels. Beck kept up her cover fire until Deep Blue passed her on the steps. Only then, did she turn and take to the stairs. Knight began firing from the catwalk to the base of the stairs, where dire wolves were crawling up the exterior of the metal railings-easy shots-or were racing up the steps.

As they ran up the metal steps, Deep Blue shouted to the others between breaths. He was in great shape, but even an Olympic athlete would be panting after the day he’d had. “We need to destroy the metal support arms around the portal.”

“ That was not a good idea the first time,” Rook shouted back.

“Ale says it would have helped if all the struts were down-not just two!”

“There’s six of the things left,” Rook said. “I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ve only got one grenade left.” Rook held up a found FN-SCAR with an attached grenade launcher.

“I’ve got two,” Bishop yelled from the lead, as he reached the catwalk with Queen and set her down gently. She grabbed the railing for support and then began hopping toward where Knight lay.

“You look like shit little man,” she told him as he fired on dire wolves getting too high up the stairs.

“You have no idea. We’ll talk,” he said calmly, picking his next target and firing.

“I have two M67s,” Beck added, once she reached the catwalk.

“You kids and your toys,” Deep Blue said. “Let the old man show you how to blow something up.” He opened a buttoned pocket on his left thigh and removed a gray brick of C4. He reached into another pocket and pulled out a handful of detonators. “We’ve got about a minute left. Whose got a good arm?”