Extinction (Extraterrestrial Empire Book 1) Page 5

  Kiya frowned, looking distressed. “How did it all end?”

  Ace sat quietly for a moment and then spoke. “Well, Brad put us in a bad position, and our team would have bit the bones if it wasn’t for Ivan blowing up a thousand or so dinos. We made it to the scout. Let’s say that mission was an explosive one and required a team effort.”

  “Clusterfucks normally do,” said Jimbo, starting to work on his second plate.

  “Yeah, especially after Earth Command say nuke planet … on the way out,” added Ivan, washing down his burger with a blood orange juice drink.

  “What!” exclaimed Janice. “I heard Xivia’s Gamma colonization stopped because of a volcanic eruption. It’s off limits because of the instability.”

  “That’s partially true,” said Ace. “Blasting all those nukes affected the tectonic plates and did create a massive volcanic eruption. But the quarantine’s because of the radiation from the thermos we threw at the problem.”

  “How did BOT get involved so deeply with Earth Command?” asked Janice.

  Jimbo wiped his mouth. “They’re the biggest military contractor and pay the best bribes. They own half of the Military Senate, which controls Earth Command—or at least they think they do.”

  “Okay, the history here is interesting. And it gives us a basis of understanding,” said Ace. “That understanding is, we can’t trust anyone but ourselves if we want to survive. No—to understand this thing tactically, we’re gonna consider this situation a clusterfuck from the beginning so that when our leader, Tucker, admits later it’s a clusterfuck, we’ll have been prepared. And if I’m wrong, well, there’s no harm. But if I’m right, it could save our asses. The Big Guns always prepare for the worst, hope for the best, and just kill anything in the fuckin’ way.

  “So, all I wanna say, team, is that I want my tactical instructions followed to the fuckin’ letter. I know I can trust Ivan, ‘cause I worked with him before. Same with Jimbo, who can shoot better than anyone I know. Janice, you’re a scientist and not a fighter, so I’m gonna ask Tucker and you to stay back. As for Kiya, the report I read today said you won the Marine’s illustrious Iron Fighter Award in 2052. Is that bullshit true?”

  “It’s not bullshit, it’s true,” replied Kiya.

  The Iron Fighter Award meant she won the Marine Iron Man contest that required three miles of swimming, 125 miles of biking, and then twenty-six miles of jogging—all in one day. On top of that, she had to place in the top three in the yearly Marine’s martial arts fighting tournament. She could apply for the elite Marine Special Ops teams with those credentials.

  Ace opened his mouth to say something to Kiya, but words didn’t follow. He shook his head in amazement.

  Kiya smiled, staring over at Ace. “Bullshit? What’s the matter, Mr. Big Gun? Did one of your cannons misfire? You don’t think someone who’s only five-foot-five could win such an event? Tactically speaking, are you gonna put this Iron Fighter at front lines, or do I sit at the back of the trolley?”

  Janice interrupted. “That must have been tough, competing with all those Marine men.”

  “Not really,” added Kiya. “Men aren’t as smart as women in battle situations.”

  Janice laughed.

  “Iron Fighter good for team,” rumbled Ivan

  Ace nodded. “Okay, you’re in the front with me, Ivan, and Jimbo. And you follow my orders like the rest. I want to do another RM analysis once we land, just in case you really can see stuff my ocular implants can’t. Got it, Ms. Maekawa?”

  “Yes, sir, and you all can call me Kiya. I’m a civilian with Earth Command Intel now.”

  “Okay, Kiya. Now, are there any other questions?” asked Ace.

  Ivan and Jimbo had a few, and also a few suggestions. Ace agreed with most of their ideas, especially Kiya’s suggestion to use the DAVs on the east side. Kiya was turning out to be a bundle of surprises. Ace found himself relaxing more with her. He noticed that Janice noticed his interest and gave him an approving smile. The team finished their meal, spoke for more than an hour, and prepared for the next day’s drop onto Planet Kabbalah.

  Everyone seemed a little anxious, and Ace hoped just getting dirtside would make them feel better. Once dropped, they’d get to know what they were really facing. Ace had a feeling that no one, including Tucker, really knew what was happening on the planet. Strangely, he too felt there was some dark presence on GEN-6. A hazy image of the dark force mentioned by Kiya stuck in his head like a poison dart. Ace shook off the thoughts and focused on getting prepared for the drop.

  If you're going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you're going to be locked up.

  —Hunter S. Thompson

  5

  _________

  Spider Web

  Ivan Putsky whistled a broken, off-key Russian Christmas song while loading up a canister of Jel-62 and flamethrower accessories on the loading bay of the EyeStar, a ten-man Marine Landing Vehicle, known as an MLV. Ivan took a break and looked at the MLV’s strange painted emblem, staring at the picture of an eye gazing up upon a lonely star. He smiled and pulled a teddy bear out of a box and crudely taped it to the top of one of the flamethrower’s tanks. It sat snuggled on the tank like a baby in an Indian papoose. “Good boy, Yogi,” said Ivan, affectionately patting the bear on the head. He pulled a cigar from his mouth, frowned in concern, and, like a good mother, he carefully tucked a handkerchief around Yogi while mumbling something in Russian. Tucker watched the whole event, slowly losing patience. He stomped up to the MLV, shaking his head and inspecting boxes.

  Ivan ignored Tucker and continued to methodically load up more tanks and boxes. Tucker inspected the sophisticated flamethrower and frowned in disgust. “Why the hell are you bringing a damn flamethrower dirtside? This isn’t a war, soldier—this is a search and rescue mission.”

  Ivan stopped chewing his cigar and spoke with a thick Russian accent. “Boss said hope for best but plan for worst, and this tank is Ivan’s best friend, after Yogi.” Ivan softly rubbed the bear’s head and then the flamethrower tank. “Yogi build alien monster a fire and monster be warm for a day. Yogi set monster on fire, and monster be warm for the rest of his short life. Right, Yogi?”

  “What the fuck are you talking about? Are you fuckin’ nuts?!”

  “Dael D’leih aw kubo no tomokachi da ze! Right, Yogi?”

  Ace walked up to the commotion. “What’s the problem Tucker?”

  “You’re demolition guy’s mumbling nonsense, loading up a flamethrower, and talking to some goddamn stuffed animal, that’s what’s wrong! I don’t want that base burned by some nut job you snuck onto this mission. Our orders are to touch nothing, get in, get the healthy scientists out, drug the sick ones, and then take them out, too. That’s it. I have specific orders not to mess up this facility—so I don’t see where a flamethrower fits into that plan.”

  Ace looked over at Ivan. “I trust Ivan with my life, and if he wants to bring a damn flamethrower, he brings it. He’s not stupid, and since we really don’t know what’s on Kabbalah, I’d rather be safe than sorry.”

  “You may have pulled strings to bring in Ivan, and you may be in charge of getting into Kabbalah, but if you or that madman use unnecessary force or destroy any part of GEN-6 unnecessarily, I’ll have you both court-martialed at ECOM.”

  “Good luck with that one.” Ace walked into the MLV with a backpack of ammo and his grid-integrated assault rifle. “We’re taking off in one hour. I advise you do what my team is doing and get prepared.”

  Chip Tucker hustled away, cursing under his breath.

  Ace looked over at Ivan, who was adjusting a dial on the flamethrower tank. “Don’t take any shit from that BOT asshole, and bring extra ammo … do what ya gotta do. Something bad has gotta be going on down there.”

  Ivan pulled a cover off a military shipping crate. It contained thousands of rounds of ammo next to all kinds of explosives. “Ivan and Yogi ready.”

  Ace laughed. “I knew you w
ould be, Ivan.”

  Jimbo walked up with a backpack and a long, heavy-looking rifle. He looked around at the crates on the deck. “You guys see a crate called RV-1?” he asked.

  A young soldier sliding crates into the MLV answered. “It’s up in front, sir.”

  “What’ve you got in the crate?” asked Ace.

  “A couple remote drones. They integrate with my L667 sights by putting a tracking beacon on enemy targets. Hope I don’t need them, but I wanna be prepared. Also bought a DEK—in case we need some controlled, long-range explosives.” Jimbo gave a strange look to the teddy bear taped to Ivan’s flamethrower, wanting to say something, but decided to keep quiet.

  Janice and Kiya arrived a half hour later with Tucker arriving last. Everyone suited up with light armor and buckled up in their seats.

  Mark Stravinsky, the pilot, spoke: “I’ll be flying our MLV three kilometers downhill from the east end mountain gate of GEN-6. We’ll land and your search and rescue team can proceed to their target. Then we’ll wait up to six hours—no more—and take off and go back to the Aurora. If you guys are gonna be late, send us a crypto-request for permission to extend.”

  Ace hit his comm. “I don’t want you guys here waiting for six hours, it’s too long. You could end up as a target if we encounter an enemy.”

  Tucker chimed in: “What enemy?”

  “Tucker, the MLV should bug out and go back to the Aurora. Sitting around here could put it at risk.”

  “I’ll take that risk. There’s nothing on this side of the base. We don’t want to waste fuel or time. You’ve been in too many combat missions, soldier. This is a search and rescue.”

  “Search and rescue with the Aurora warship? You better be right, Tucker. You’ve got people’s lives on the line.”

  Everyone settled in their seats. The captain and co-pilot announced that the EyeStar was ready for takeoff. The MLV hissed as it took off and out of the Aurora hanger bay. Outside, Ace admired the USSS Aurora. It was a beautiful ship, better than most, and although it resembled two twentieth-century aircraft carriers joined together at the hip, it was much more advanced. At the end were two huge space-time manipulator thrusters. On the bottom were six round helo-deck gravity plate reducers, used for landing.

  It was one strange and beautiful ship, filled with technology well beyond Ace’s understanding. It was rumored that some of the technology was even beyond man’s grasp, as there were stories that some of it was taken from an extinct, alien world. But they were most likely just drunken ship rumors.

  The MLV sped away, the Aurora rapidly dwindling into a speck of light, and soon they hit the outer atmosphere of Kabbalah, shaking and bucking like a broken, antique Coney Island roller coaster.

  Ace spoke over the comm to the pilot. “Once we’re on the east side drop zone coordinates, hover at two thousand feet. I want to send out Zippy and use him to position a few DAVs. I’ll need ten seconds or so to launch, but don’t hold us in position for more than fifteen seconds. I don’t want us becoming a target.”

  “Major, we gotcha covered. We should be in the drone drop zone in about six minutes,” answered Mark.

  Chip Tucker didn’t say a word, but Ace and the others could see that he thought this was unnecessary. The Defense Aerial Vehicles, or DAVs, were killing machines loaded with five thousand rounds of ammo along with cluster bombs.

  Ace patched his internal ocular sensors into Zippy and three DAVs, mentally selecting the program and battle plan for each one. At 2,000 feet, the long-range eyes and ears recon vehicle called Zippy would launch and scan the east side of the mountain and the path that the team would take. The three DAVs would circle the area and land to save fuel. Should Zippy’s control center lock onto any targets, the DAV closest would take off and analyze the tactical situation. Depending on the analysis, one, two, or all three DAVs would engage the enemy. Having a DAV was like having a close-support Air Force by your side, and Ace felt a lot safer having that kind of backup.

  “We’re in position,” said the pilot, looking at the altimeter.

  Ace closed his eyes and locked his brain into the mind-machine interface to start up and launch Zippy. A hi-rev propeller sound was heard in the cargo bay. Zippy went on auto-pilot with Ace’s instructions and left. Next, the three DAVS left in missile-like launches, one after the other. The DAVs used tiny rocket engines for speed, but that cost a lot in fuel. They also had a central helicopter fan for hovering and landing.

  “Vehicles successfully launched,” said Ace to the pilot.

  “Got it.”

  A few minutes later, the MLV began its descent. In the distance were red, sandy-like mountains that reminded Ace of the Southwest Canyons. As the craft got to a hundred feet, reddish dust started to blow up from the landing jets, partially obscuring the mountains and surroundings. The engines stopped as the MLV landed, with the dusty sands dissipating. Ace and the others looked out the window. They were near the edge of the Kabbalah Desert in a valley called the Devil’s Basin. Any rain from the west never really got past the mountains because of unique wind patterns, so you had a lush green world west of Mount Roraima and the Kabbalah Desert east of it.

  The MLV was in the middle of a valley passageway. Ace unbuckled and walked over to a holo screen, turned it on, and connected into Zippy and downloaded data. There weren’t any life forms except some traces of a small desert rabbit and rat-like creatures that were listed in the Kabbalah database. The DAVs had already landed down the path in the mountains and were awaiting orders. They would need to hike three kilos up a mountain. At the end was an entrance to a bored tunnel that would bring them into the east side and the domed DARPA Research Facility.

  Chip Tucker inspected the data comm readout and walked over and smiled. He slapped Ace on the back. He’d heard that Ace was great at mimicking Bugs Bunny, so he tried his best Elmer J. Fudd imitation. “So Big Gun, do you think we have enough weaponry to fry some little ‘wabbits’? Or maybe a desert ‘wat’?”

  “Real funny. I’d rather be safe than sorry—and so would you if you’d seen the clusterfuck shit my team’s seen.”

  “Oh really? What kinda poo poo has your team seen that I haven’t?”

  “It’s all classified,” said Ace, checking his machine gun clip.

  “I’m sure it is.”

  Ace picked up a two hundred-pound ammo pack and reserve flamethrower tank, throwing it over his shoulders and carefully strapping it to his body. The bio-enhanced strength allowed Ace to bring in extra heavy ammo. Just in case.

  Nearby, Kiya sat quietly meditating in an RM session. Images of dog-sized, multi-legged alien bugs and worms crawled through her mind. She also saw a shiny, shuttle-like space ship, the size of the larger MLVs, but not exactly the same shape—more like an Earth moon mining shuttle. It didn’t make sense. She finished her session and walked over to Ace and Tucker. “I know this is gonna sound strange, but I see a lot of worms and other creatures rather like spiders—and a shuttle. I also sense a powerful telepathic presence. The presence is somewhat frightening.”

  “You see our MLV and some bugs and worms?” Tucker laughed sarcastically. “Earth Command sends out an RM and your intel is that we have some spiders and worms near our landing vehicle? Lady, this is a fuckin’ desert. Of course it’s got bugs and worms—and I highly doubt they’re telepathic. And I’m sure Ace and his teddy bear friend with the barbeque tanks can take care of a few spiders and worms.”

  “Listen up,” said Kiya. “What I saw is what I saw, and I’m tellin’ ya, what I saw is dangerous!”

  Ace looked into Kiya’s eyes and saw fear. He knew she believed what she was saying. “Kiya,” he said carefully. “I’m taking your recon analysis into our tactical situation. I believe you. We’ve got three DAVs in position and our recon drone is airborne and monitoring the situation. If something moves or flies in, we’ll know about it and deal with it.”

  “Thanks,” said Kiya, eyeballing Tucker.

  Tucker shook his head an
d picked up weapons. “Now we’re worried about bugs?”

  Ace opened the latch to the bay doors. “Okay, team, get your gear and get ready to head out.”

  Ivan put on his flamethrower with the teddy bear attachment and loaded block explosives and detonators into a backpack. “Bugs … not good, Yogi.”

  Jimbo pulled out of a crate two hobby-sized heli vehicles and put them on the soft sand. He activated their comm and yelled toward Ace. “I need to patch these into the grid, Ace. Can you send in the friend-foe codes?”

  Ace yelled. “Sending them now.” He hit the crypto code modulator and sent the codes. This would integrate the sniper drones into the DAV battle grid and protect them from being taken out as enemy drones.

  “All looks good,” said Jimbo, now loading up two gun: one a short-range machine rifle, the other a long-range DEK blaster.

  Janice carried some packaged electronic equipment while Kiya carried an assortment of knives, throwing stars, grenades, and some other weapons that made Ace and Ivan shake their heads.

  Ivan looked over at Ace. “I like that Kiya; lots of weapons, and all light. In Russian, she is true Oomnee Soldier ...”

  “I agree,” said Ace.

  Tucker walked over with a light backpack, looking like a weekend camper. “Are we finally ready to head out?”

  Ace looked at the team. “We ready, guys?” Everyone gave a nod or said yes, except Ivan, who just gave a big smile and a “V” hand signal.

  “Good, let’s roll out. I’ll take point. Big Jimbo, I want you to stay back with Janice and Tucker. You guys stay back fifty yards. Jimbo, if Zippy senses any threats, I want you to send out your drones for targets. I want you and Tucker to watch for any flanking or rear attacks. Ivan, Kiya, you’re both with me. If all looks good, we assemble at the east gate and enter GEN-6. Keep your radios on Channel 6, but lock in Aurora Channel 11 for ship broadcasts. They’ll be monitoring our location and can bring in more troops if required.”