Complex 13

Complex 13 is a short story written by Matthew Reilly, released online and available to read on his website.

Synopsis

Among the many conspiracy theories out there, one particular myth has reigned over the rest; that of Complex 13, the USSR's equivalent of the U.S.'s Area 51, as well as a prison, which supposedly operated near the Tunguska impact site. The CIA heard many whispers about the facility through various radio taps until 1959 when the facility was decommissioned and never mentioned again...

In the present day, a team of Force Recon U.S. Marines infiltrate the territory of north-eastern Siberia, an act which could provoke a war if they are discovered. Their mission; locate a certain complex and retrieve whatever documents that can on an unknown subject, as it is believed to be the only way to solve a major problem back stateside. Once Master Sergeant Rockmeyer locates a man-made structure within the mountain before them, the team's commander, Lieutenant John Armstrong, aka the Finisher, calls in a tunnel-boring vehicle to dig a way through to the hidden doors of Complex 13.

Upon entering the facility, the Marines find the interior dock to like a frozen version of Hell, with half eaten and dismembered bodies and numerous bloodstains scattered around, all covered in a sheen of ice. Abruptly, something large swoops in behind the team and rips the head off of one of the Marines, which Rockmeyer quickly guns down. The creature, looking like a human-sized pterodactyl with a dragonoid head, is noted look like two that the team have seen at Groom Lake. Armstrong expects that the Russians may have some of the "bigger ones", then leads his team down while leaving a pair of sentries behind to stand guard.

Descending down a winding staircase, the Marines reach an underground hanger containing the Complex's centerpiece: a massive alien spaceship, which is surrounded by a multi-holed alien structure on the floor below. Armstrong and his team begin racing towards the lab below them, fighting off more of the alien creatures as they emerge from the nest. One Marine is caught and dropped onto a web-like formation, from which he is dragged into a hole to his death by a claw-like appendage. Another Marine falls to the aliens before the team breaks into the lab and begins scouring it for any files and notes.

One Marine finds historical records; the spaceship crashed in Tunguska in 1908 and ended up buried underground, but wasn't found by the Soviets until 30 years later. The Russians then relocated the spaceship to Complex 13, and studied it for nearly 20 years until they found the alien creatures in suspended animation in the ship's innermost chamber. Foolishly waking them, the Soviets spent another three years trying to keep the aliens contained. Armstrong finds a notepad on the body of a long-dead scientist, which further details how the Soviets fed political prisoners to the aliens for a while, determined that the creatures themselves did not build the spaceship since they do not display intellectual behaviours, and that they have a three-stage life-cycle (the pterodactyl-dragonoid creatures are only the intermediate stage).

Armstrong reads the final, hastily-written pages, which mentions that the "super-adults" of the final stage were reproducing far more rapidly than the Soviet scientists predicted, which forced the Spetznaz to order the facility sealed and buried in a landslide to contain the aliens. Armstrong calls out that he has found the breeding intel they were seeking, while another Marine reports that he has figured out how to kill the aliens: while super-resistant to heat, they cannot survive cold temperatures below -35°C, which is why they've remained contained inside Complex 13.

Armstrong orders his team to retreat, but as they cross the hanger back to the staircase, the second-stage aliens flocking around them abruptly stop - as does the team - as five super-adults burst out of the nest. Looking like winged T-Rexes with wings, the super-adults take to the air and start hounding the Marines, killing three of them. Their bodies are immediately regurgitated, full of slug-like juveniles which begin feasting on the bodies. Armstrong takes down one of the super-adults as the remainder of the team clamber up the staircase, but only Armstrong, Rockmeyer and Doc make it to the top before a pair of super-adults rip off the staircase with two more Marines on it.

The two sentries left behind are found dead, and the trio of remaining Marines gun down the second-stage aliens feasting on their corpses as they race for the exit. As the super-adults break through into the dock area, Armstrong trips, but this saves his life as Rockmeyer and Doc are sliced in half by a swooping alien. Now on his own, Armstrong dives through the exit door and turns to see the jaws of a super-adult snap shut just before his face. To Armstrong's relief, the four super-adults won't proceed beyond the doorway, as the temperatures outside the Complex are far too cold for them.

Carrying his backpack full of intel from Complex 13, Armstrong leaves and is picked up by a long-range chopper, from which he radios back to the U.S. what he has learned so that it can help subdue the dragonoid aliens that were disturbed from their slumber in the alien ship that is stored underground at Area 51.

Characters

• Lieutenant John Armstrong / the Finisher
• Master Sergeant Rockmeyer
• Kasdan
• Twohy
• de Sousa
• Koepp
• "Doc"
• Dr Karlov (mentioned only)
• Complex 13 Scientist (corpse and mentioned only)

Creatures

• Dragonoid Aliens
  • Juvenile "Slug" Stage Aliens
  • Adult "Pterodactyl-Dragon" Stage Aliens
  • Super-Adult "T-Rex-Dragon" Stage Aliens

Trivia

• In real-life, the Tunguska event is generally accepted to have been caused by a burst impact due to the force behind a meteorite which entered Earth's atmosphere and burned up before it could hit the ground.
• There is a mistake in the number of member in Armstrong's team of Marines; throughout the story, 12 Marines are killed by the aliens, leaving Armstrong as the sole survivor... however, it is stated at the beginning that the team is comprised of 12 men altogether, meaning that there was one more fatality than there should have been.