Revolution of the Gods: The Battle for Sol Book One (11 page)

He had explained that the remaining Antients were charged with a most difficult task – preservation and protection of not the Ark, but an ancient power core that had once occupied its inner compartment. The Antient mason explained how he had retrieved the power core ahead of the S1s, eluded their search and escaped Zimbabwe on an emptied NAU supply flight returning to the Southern Regional Military Zone. After the S1s had learned of his escape on the aircraft, the flight was hit by fire from a naval stealth destroyer just off the NAU east coast. The plane had crashed in a dense but small swamp in eastern North Carolina.

Simeon described how he was heavily tracked by the NAU Command and S1s, spending three weeks making his way westward, and barely evading the S1s by the time he reached Blythe, California. Still intact and inside a much smaller modernized containment case, the artifact had made it with him to Blythe as well, but that was as far as it traveled with Simeon.

Shortly after he had crossed into the town of Blythe, Simeon scouted an Oakland ROC internment patrol. He explained that with the S1s about to overtake him he made the decision to hide in plain sight and was purposely detained by the patrol. Before he was apprehended, Simeon hid the artifact and transmitted its coordinates to the Salton Sea Facility which was less than 100 miles away at that point.

The calculation that he would likely be unrecognizable to the ROC patrol proved correct. Consequently, Simeon had been hiding right under their noses for the last three months waiting for the correct time to act. Although all of his personal effects were seized when he was first arrested, just like Cadan, he kept a trick up his sleeve - literally. Two days ago he had made his first move by activating a nano-locator beacon sewn inside his shirt cuff.

It was now almost 1 p.m. and Ben was sitting in the basement still trying to wrap his brain around what he had heard when his attention was drawn back once again.

“The primary purpose of our brotherhood has been to protect the artifact from falling into the hands of the C7 and all of its previous incarnations. We could not risk a premature rescue before the event tomorrow; otherwise our entire effort ran the risk of being revealed. They must not learn the location of the Salton Sea facility. That is why I waited until this time to contact you… I assume the old man retrieved the artifact.” Simeon stated, looking at Cadan for confirmation.

“It is safe and secure thanks to you Simeon.” Activating a hologram of the entry gate, Cadan continued, “Well gentlemen, we have just a few hours to prepare for our departure.”

The setting sun towed its fading twilight behind the Pacific horizon. The spotlights on the guard towers and gates were already engaged in their slow ping pong like motion across the perimeter’s interior. Hundreds of barrel fires flickered across the ROC resembling a debris field from a small meteor shower. The meal lines were already filled with thousands of residents for the final meal of the day.

This time of day required extra oversight from ROC personnel and drones at the meal lines. The nearest meal distribution point to Ben’s residence was directly across Market Street in the parking lot of the former Jack London Gateway strip mall. One block directly south, between 7th and 6th Streets, stood a newly constructed two story auxiliary ROC command post with a landing pad next to it that covered the entire block to the east. This post was in the furthest southeast corner of the ROC, directly between the I-880 and I-980 fork.

Earlier that afternoon, the men had successfully placed a data splice on a conduit running from the satellite dish array on the roof of the new primary ROC command center. Ben was able to easily gain access as one of the site workers completing the interior construction. This splice gave Cadan direct control of the camp systems through his embedded wrist device.

With the guards concentrated around the meal lines, the three men, crouched behind a small patch of trees behind the strip mall and adjacent to the landing pad, preparing to commence their escape. Cadan activated his hologram and accessed an image of a 500 cubic yard perimeter around the helipad. Next to the scaled hologram, a threat assessment grid displayed the immediate concerns.

An XMT-507 was an integrated anti-air-ground tank which coupled the fire-power of .50 caliber air bursting munitions with optoelectronic fire control. It was capable of destroying slow moving aircraft and armored vehicles from over a mile away. And because there were fifteen of them in his target area, the XMT ranked number one on Cadan’s threat assessment for a successful escape. His secondary concern were twenty-eight LRAWs (Long Range Acoustic Weapons.)

“Are you sure we can do this?” Ben asked with a nervous whisper, crouched behind Cadan and Simeon

Cadan looked back at both men and smiled. “We are about to find out,” he countered.

The air started whipping around them, pushing sparse patches of grass flat to the ground. The guards at the command post and near the landing pad were not surprised; Cadan’s earlier entry into their flight log of the arrival of a V33 completely served its purpose to prevent suspicion. As the majority of the nearby personnel looked upward at the incoming craft, Cadan launched his program.

With the craft approaching the landing pad, the nearby guards were temporarily distracted, watching the Raider descend slowing behind the command post. For the first few seconds no one on the ground noticed that the anti-aircraft lasers on the Interstate perimeter were deactivated and facing toward the ground. On the other hand, the operators in the XMT tanks noticed instantly when their systems went down and began climbing out of their turrets.

Just as the Raider landed, the guards’ attention was drawn to the incoming lights of over forty drones speeding in their direction. Assuming that the drones were reacting on their behalf, the soldiers did not view them as a threat. Simultaneously, the large disks on the LRAWs that were parked on street level redirected their aim toward the guards near the auxiliary command post and helipad.

“Watch this!” Cadan alerted.

Just before the drones were on top of the guards, all the lights surrounding the perimeter and command posts went dark. The drones separated into various attack vectors. The remaining armaments which Cadan could not control on the Interstates, including the automatic turrets, were directly struck by the drones, creating a spectacular pyrotechnic lightshow for the ROC residents.

As the explosions lit up the darkened landing pad and provided more than an adequate diversion, Cadan and his two friends ran across 7th Street toward the V33. When they reached the landing pad where the empty craft’s nacelles were still positioned vertically, a couple of the nearby soldiers spotted the three men.

“YOU THERE, STOP!” said one of the soldiers running toward them.

“Hurry up guys, get in and put these on,” Cadan directed after he sat down in the pilot seat. He handed them each a helmet and then he pointed his wrist toward the console.

When the Raider began to lift from the landing pad, the soldiers paused to aim their weapons. At that moment Cadan activated the long range acoustic weapon trucks. The piercing, incapacitating sound wave bombardment hit all the guards near the landing pad, making them drop to their knees. Cadan and his crew ascended very quickly, crossing over the Interstate perimeter and accelerated southwest. They were almost one mile away when the Raider’s instrument panel alerted that an active XMT was targeting their craft.

“We’ve been painted!” Simeon warned from the other pilot seat.

“Hold on!” Cadan yelled as he banked the craft hard left and pressed an afterburner. The Raider bolted out of the XMT’s range with hundreds of airbursts nearly reaching their target. The wrist display abruptly activated just as they completely cleared the ROC airspace. Cadan raised his arm and looked at the holo display.

“I am going on a slight detour. Someone may need my help,” Cadan explained after retrieving an encoded communication from the Salton Sea facility. He continued, “Simeon, once we land, you take this bird to the facility and bring Ben with you.”

“I cannot believe we did it!” Ben expressed, following up with the sound of nervous laughter coming from the rear seat.

“I told you that it would not be ‘hope’ that got you out of there.” Cadan responded, smiling and looking back at Ben.

Ben squinted back down at the chaotic Oakland ROC.
Good riddance,
he thought as the Raider darted toward the San Leandro Reservoir.

B
racken had a total of 42,000 soldiers at his command in the underground facility and on the surface. His trusted inner circle of command officers at Dugway consisted of two other generals and four colonels. These officers constituted the top level command structure of the base and enabled Bracken to wield complete control of all forces at the facility. By 01700 hours, Bracken had already begun the initial steps for fortifying the base.

The Dugway Facility had eventually surpassed Groom Lake as the largest underground facility in the world by 2016. Nearly all the country’s new technology development and reengineering efforts were centralized in this facility before the C7 formed. Once the NAU Command gained control and the branches of the US military had been combined into a singular command hierarchy, Bracken was retained as the provisional commander of the base.

Certain members of the former US military had taken measures to keep many things secret even after the new world government formed. Bracken and his group knew that retention of the facility would be vital if their efforts were to be successful. Dugway was planned to serve as the central command for Operation Goliath from the very first meeting Bracken held with some like-minded officers over eighteen months ago. From that point forward, the information flowing out of the base was heavily sanitized.

Lindherst and the C7 no longer possessed the complete picture at Dugway – even with a mole inside. For Lindherst, Colonel Osborne had been useful to a certain extent but Bracken never trusted him with the knowledge of Operation Goliath. As a result, Lindherst and the C7 perceived Bracken as an average officer with some recent competency issues but not as a direct threat. The C7 was concerned with Dr. Hauer and his research more than anything else.

Keeping Operation Goliath a secret from the majority of officers at Dugway was much easier when it was still in the planning stages. While Bracken was initiating the logistics for the first phase on the surface, he knew it would be wise to distract certain personnel until their political and ideological reliability were confirmed.

Looking out from his office, the general noticed Osborne on the command deck. When the colonel arrived back from Salt Lake City almost two hours ago Bracken had ordered him to Level 95.

What the hell is he doing back up here?

“Colonel Osborne, come to my office,”
Bracken growled over the com. The colonel had barely breached his office door when the general lit into him. “Explain to me why you are not on Level 95 colonel.”

“I completed your orders to bring the reactor online. All systems were operative and Lieutenant Gates was more than capable of performing the remaining diagnostics. I thought it best to get back to the command deck considering the amount of activity occurring on the surface.”

Levels 95 through 100 housed the fission reactors for the facility. The three main reactors powered Levels 1 through 119 and 150 through 180. Bracken had ordered Osborne to oversee the initialization of a smaller auxiliary reactor devoted entirely to power Levels 120 through 149 which were designated as ‘emergency’ levels.

“Colonel Osborne, if I needed you on the command deck I would have ordered you to be up here. I need the auxiliary reactor not only online but monitored by the officer I thought could handle the job. Colonel, can I trust that you will follow my orders this time?” Bracken critically inquired.

“Yes sir,” Osborne disingenuously replied.

“Good. Now, because you are so interested in the events on the surface I will let you know that we are about to initiate a modified Ark Protocol and will be bringing a total of approximately 8,700 civilians to the facility over the next few hours,” the general revealed, cautiously striking a balance between offering Osborne enough information to test his loyalty without giving him enough to jeopardize Operation Goliath.

“Since you are so confident that Lieutenant Gates has the auxiliary reactor handled, I want you on Level 130 to oversee the activation of the secondary mess hall and await there for further instruction. Not all duties are glamorous colonel, but they are necessary,” Bracken postured, projecting his authority.

A total of 8,700 people is not even twenty percent of the planned number for the Ark Protocol. And he sure as hell doesn’t need me on KP, overseeing the logistics of food preparation,
Osborne computed.

“Yes sir” the colonel responded.

Osborne didn’t care that Bracken was testing him and withholding information. And he did not care that he had essentially just been put on kitchen duty. He now had validation on the initialization of the Ark Protocol and could postulate the rest. The colonel had all the information he required to refine his calculations.

“You are dismissed,” Bracken barked.

The general reclined in his chair, watching Osborne march out of his office and reflected on the conversation for a few moments. He used the edge of the desk to pull his chair closer to the desk viewer. Navigating through the communications menu, Bracken established a secure channel to General Straka.

“Straka here.”

“Eric, how are things progressing up there?”

“The command transfer went smoothly. General Vaughn and Everett are currently employing the overrides for the land and space based missile systems and also the HARP installation. They expect their men will have it completed by the time we brief. All the unit leaders involved in Goliath are prepping and standing by.”

“Good. I have proceeded with the Ark Protocol and I want the unit leaders to do the same at all of our locations. Make certain the lists are scrubbed of any C7 officials and personnel.”