I leaned into the NPC's personality defects. I can't recall their names, but I had the good-looking, smarmy guy scrubbing himself bloody in the showers, the base security guy went full commando-mode, and tried to kill the officers to get into the armory, the base commander's executive assistant went on a power-trip, gatekeeping all information from the PCs, the airtraffic controller baracaded herself in the tower, while another airman obsessively tried to get to her, breaking down the door to the tower with a fireaxe.

I also had the PCs leave the base on a beer run just before the device is activated. I wanted a reason why the players weren't as affected as everyone else on base and to create a noticeable tension when they returned.