Omega Rising Read Free Page A

have suffered no ill effects from the abuse save for some superficial scratches. Damn, Magpul makes some good shit. He slapped the mag back into the rifle and again felt ready to make some moves, even though his finger really fuckin' hurt.
    Jason's only priority at that point was to get out of the craft and make it back out of the area unseen. He has already gotten more than he bargained for during his ill-planned rescue attempt; he would clear the area and try again to alert the authorities. As he approached the rear doors he could tell something was different. When he first had entered there was the normal noises one would associate with that environment; air handlers, machinery humming and the occasional high pitched whine of a hydraulic accumulator charging. All these things were still present, but now there was a low pitched rumble that drowned out all the other sounds, and it wasn't the noise Jason would typically associate with turbine engines. Although a part of his mind was cataloguing all of these anomalies, he didn't let anything distract him from his goal. In this case his goal was the control panel mounted in a pedestal on the right side of the door that looked to be a likely location for the door/ramp controls.
    When he reached the pedestal that housed the control panel, that he assumed controlled the rear doors, he was brought up short . If he still had any doubts that this was an American aircraft, they were confirmed by the panel's display. The symbols on the screen were definitely written words, but it was not in any language Jason recognized. That wasn't necessarily saying a lot; he only spoke English. He tentatively touched the display to see what would happen. He was rewarded with the display turning red and a short blast from a klaxon-style horn. Some more odd script scrolled across the screen and then it went dark. Subsequent touches on the panel elicited no reaction. Awesome. Now what? He turned back to look at the front bulkhead to see what other options he might have.
    There were two doors in the forward bulkhead of the cargo bay. One was level with the deck and was large and very heavily built. The second door looked like the typical interior hatch you would see on a naval surface vessel; ovoid in shape and slightly inset into the bulkhead. It was directly over the first, larger door and accessible by a walkway and a staircase that ran down the port side of the cargo bay. The lower door looked well secured, but the upper door looked like a standard crew access hatch. With the same lack of thinking that had gotten him into the situation in the first place, he moved decisively towards the staircase and the upper access hatch.
    He stood before the hatch and couldn't find an obvious handle to open it. He did, however, see a large red, circular button. Doing what humans instinctually do when confronted with a large red button, Jason pressed it. Thankfully, the hatch simply slid aside into the wall recess giving Jason easy access to the interior of the craft. He peered into the doorway, rifle at the ready, but there was nothing to see but a dark passageway. Of course it has to be dark. He was beginning to be less and less comfortable about his situation, if that was even possible. Everything seemed... off. Even the act of walking had an odd feel to it.
    Remembering he had slipped his SureFire flashlight into his pocket, he grabbed it and lit up the area just beyond the hatch. It was rather anti-climactic; there was nothing but a short passage with a touchscreen control panel on the wall, displaying that same indecipherable language as in the cargo bay, and another entry hatch at the far end. As he crossed the threshold of the hatchway the flashlight slipped out of his hand and hit the deck. He froze instantly. That was definitely not right, there was a barely perceptible delay from when he expected the light to hit the floor and when it actually did.
    Frowning, he grabbed the charging handle of his rifle