Day by Day Armageddon: Beyond Exile (34 page)

John had spent the last few weeks cataloging areas and tracking movements of any hits that seemed to be mobile. He kept his documentation on paper in the event the system failed, as so many have before. The system name was “Wasteland.” It was probably named by a cynical USSTRATCOM/NORTHCOM/DHS programmer before all of this happened, as a casualty assessment tool. John noted that this system had not been working for the past two days.

We were all concerned about the Reaper that was probably orbiting over the complex. I expressed that there was really nothing we could do about it as we had no offensive capability against airborne targets and the Reaper was never directed against me or Saien. I had little doubt that the aircraft was data-linked back to some command center and that it was receiving real-time video feeds of Hotel 23. John commented that the aircraft carrier had suffered an accident resulting in loss of SATcom radios, which is why we lost contact with them for a short period a couple of months ago. The SITREP was sent out over a secure network via the existing WAN between our two units that were set up via the working overhead Inmarsat network. We had acquired a few of
these phones on a scavenging mission a long time ago and set up a communications network with the carrier in the event the main system went down.

The SITREP message reason for comm loss was: “SATcom system damaged due to failure of radiated undead containment measures.” I cursed so loud it made everyone jump.

I said rhetorically to the group: “Didn’t we warn those idiots about this?”

I asked John when the last time we received a SITREP from the carrier was. He told me that he had been unable to establish a good Inmarsat connection since my return. After he said this it was as if everyone got the same idea at the same time and the light bulb above our heads got bright.

The jamming signal was following me and had been since Remote Six located me. Now the whole compound seemed to be cut off from the outside world with no early warning systems or network access.

18 Nov

0500

We received a transmission on the SATphone yesterday. Since my arrival I had had a guard stationed topside with the phone from 1200 to 1400 in the event contact was attempted. It was the same mechanical voice instructing the recipient to look at the text screen. The text gave instructions to log into the network using my common access card (CAC) and initiate launch in accordance with Executive Directive 51. Sets of coordinates were given for the launch as well as the physical location of auxiliary control. John and I discussed this after the phone lost connection and spent the rest of yesterday investigating and analyzing the information.

By 1900 we had made a startling discovery. John, Will and I had originally thought that this compound held only one nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile. After going through the instructions and initiating the subroutines we found that there were two more nuclear missiles at the ready in silos a thousand yards to the west of the compound awaiting launch sequence. Apparently, the
only way to launch the warheads is to initiate the proper coding sequence while my CAC card is in the card slot reader. There is a small chip on the card with encryption that acts like the keys to the system. I remember that my card was recoded months before during one of the carrier supply drops. We were given launch codes and coordinates via the Iridium, so in theory it would be possible to launch the warheads.

John wasted no time plotting the coordinates given on a chart. They coincided to a location within six miles of the flagship carrier’s position of intended movement as indicated on their last situation report. They were operating in a location in the Gulf of Mexico west of Florida and conducting replenishment operations. Remote Six was seemingly trying to destroy the carrier battle group, for reasons unknown. I did not refuse to comply during the text session and the screen continued to provide instructions on a loop with the final text question: “Have you initiated?”

The loop flashed four times until I finally ended the call. We then went searching for auxiliary control. The Marines found the door to the second control node first.

The doorway resembled an old cellar bulkhead. Heavy foliage and deception netting concealed the entryway. The door was made of steel and required a cutting torch to get inside. I saw no need to stay while the Marines secured auxiliary control and left them to the task of ensuring that no former residents of Hotel 23 remained inside.

18 Nov

1900

The text repeated again yesterday and today ordering the launch sequence to be initiated. The only difference was that the coordinates given varied by a couple of dozen nautical miles. They were adjusting for the movement of the carrier fleet. I asked the communications officer to send a message in the blind to the carrier to attempt to warn them again. He will be repeating the message every hour until I rescind the order.

The team sent to AUXCON breached the door and discovered that it was just a carbon copy of Hotel 23’s main control center, living quarters and all. The only problem was that no subterranean tunnel connected the two control centers. There was a passageway reported in AUXCON that indicated an egress tunnel similar to the main control center layout. It was not yet known where the AUXCON egress tunnel let out in relation to the main egress tunnel. I was briefed that there were a few items of interest in AUXCON that I needed to see and that it was safe and clear for visitors.

Jan passed me in the hallway and asked how I was doing. I told her that I was fine and that I needed to talk to her about the status of medical care at Hotel 23. We sat down for a bit discussing the new (to me) military personnel she was working with and I found that they were very well trained and had seen a lot of battle in the past few months. She had learned a few things from the enlisted medics and they had learned a few things from her.

They had successfully conducted a few scavenging trips to secluded hospitals (both human and animal) in the area. She described one particular supply run, to a small-animal hospital a few miles away. Being the resident doctor, she had volunteered to go on the medical raids with the convoy to help identify useful items. The marines had cleared out the Happy Paws clinic minutes before Jan entered with Will. He insisted he go with her, and what husband would not? The stench was of course of dead flesh, which put the operators on high alert. They held their suppressed SMGs tight to their shoulders with flashlight on full one-hundred-lumen setting. One operator was positioned in front of Jan and Will and one behind, in pincer formation. That is how it is done. They entered the kennel area, and to their horror found cages with dogs long dead inside.

Some people take it really bad when seeing the evidence of an animal’s suffering. I am no different. Hearing her story wrung my gut, and hers too, as she told it. Her eyes strained as if peering off into infinite space as she told of the cages with rotting dog corpses and the broken teeth and bloody claws from the dogs’ using their last bit of strength in a vain attempt to bite and scratch their way out of the metal cages. The kennel was not full, only about 40 percent.
The charts on the sides and floors near the cages showed the same story. Owner on vacation and will return at so and so time. All the dates were January. In her description I could see the animals lying in their cages with eternal snarls of agony penetrating the wire metal doors.

3NOV

0800

We were attacked.

It is very dark outside now. We sent the word out to the battle group in the blind over radio warning them of the intentions given to us on the SATphone. We had no way of knowing whether the ship had received our communiqué. The radio-jamming signal continued throughout that morning, as it had since my return and before.

We lost dozens the morning the device was dropped on us. Retribution for not launching? Even if we had launched, they would have likely hit us anyway. What would be the point in leaving us alive? Nothing makes any sense.

The now-deaf topside observers wrote on a whiteboard what they had witnessed. A whistling sound—getting higher in pitch—was the last sound they heard until the javelinlike Hurricane beacon slammed down into the ground, splitting one of the civilians in half from shoulder to hip.

The device immediately started transmitting its deadly payload, a sound so unimaginably loud that it immediately caused deafness in anyone who was above when it hit.

The device was reminiscent of a huge bee stinger—the magnified view of the top of the stinger pulsating, pumping poison into the arm, the ground. The device was stuck deep into the earth, slightly canted to one side, and was louder than words can describe.

We could clearly hear the barrage of noise and feel the vibrations through the thick steel and concrete from inside the bowels
of Hotel 23. John immediately turned his available turret cameras onto the device and the other cameras to the perimeter areas overlooking the visible horizon. It was only a matter of seconds, maybe minutes until the sound reached the hardened internal ear canal hairs of the dead hundreds of miles away, turning their attention to this location.

They
would geolocate the compound like a fleet of FCC vans hunting a pirate radio station. John transmitted an emergency message in the blind requesting help and a brief situation report on what had happened.

All available men and women in a position of leadership met and discussed alternatives. No one was allowed topside without good reason and double hearing protection. Even with the added hearing protection the sound was louder than standing next to the speakers at a rock concert. Watching the video surveillance, I could see that the sound disrupted and tilled the ground. The intense sonic energy moved the lighter civilian vehicles parked near it, not unlike a cell phone vibrating around on a coffee table. The device must have lodged itself twenty feet or more into the ground on impact.

All attempts to destroy the noise mechanism ended in failure. It seemed to be constructed from thick case-hardened steel or some other alloy. The internals at the top of the javelin were sealed. An already deaf Marine volunteered to try to destroy it by climbing to the top with a tool bag and a grenade. He didn’t make it off the ground when he attempted to bear hug his way up. The device vibrated at such a resonance that every part of bare skin that touched it was sheared off in layers. Shots were wasted at full auto attempting to penetrate the top of the device. LAVs were systematically rammed into it.

Nothing worked.

I was in one of the LAVs. The beacon sound was barely dampened by the thick armor. The sound was so intense that it seemed to steal every breath. We established a perimeter with backs to the device, waiting for the undead to appear on the horizon. There were no indications at first. I peered through the thick-layered glass of the armored vehicle just as another object slammed into the ground two hundred yards from my position, nearly hitting
one of the other LAVs. Shortly after the crash, I heard the distinct sound of supersonics overhead and caught the wing flash of an F/A-18 Super Hornet. After the small explosion subsided and the fire died down I could see by the wreckage what the craft had been—a Reaper UCAV, probably the same aircraft that had shadowed me for all that time after my crash and until my return to Hotel 23.

Immediately, the radio light flashed inside the vehicle, indicating a valid signal. Putting the headset on I could hear a voice speak clearly and concisely, warning repeatedly that there were A-10 Thunderbolts rolling in on our position from Scholes International in Galveston. The “Hawgs” were targeting the barrage beacon with 30mm cannons and they were asking all friendlies to rally east of the target so as to minimize fratricide.

Time to on top: twenty-one minutes.

After the Hawg controller finished transmitting, I could hear a faint signal and a voice identifying itself as the carrier air boss. He was ordering a division of F-18s to drop dumb iron bomb payloads on our position to complement the more precise optically aimed Warthog 30mm cannon strikes. With the jamming signal apparently destroyed along with the Reaper UCAV, I transmitted back to John and the others on a discreet channel what I had heard and that we were going to rally east a few hundred yards. The command center tuned in to the action on the radio as we started the engines and rolled east. We sat on a knoll overlooking the compound. There were dozens of undead already drawn to the beacon from the front of the compound area near the large steel double doors.

From our vantage point we saw iron hell rain down all around the compound via a division of F-18s dropping iron bombs onto pockets of undead. One F-18 used its airframe as an offensive weapon by going supersonic a foot over groups of undead to rip them apart or disable them with concussion. Explosive forces violently shook our vehicles as John reported in via radio below that the lights were flashing underground. After ten minutes of bombardment I overheard the codeword “winchester” on the radio, signifying that the fighters were out of ordnance and returning to mother. The sonic beacon had survived the bombing runs with no
damage. The cursed device continued to transmit our position for all the dead to hear for miles around. Of course, the fighter supersonics didn’t help our cause much either.

The LAVs remained in formation east of the beacon as the first of the Hawgs rolled in hot, conducting a first pass before slamming the beacon with a mix of tungsten and depleted uranium 30mm rounds. Gaping up at the A-10s I could not help but wonder how they could fly so slowly.

The vulcan cannons began to grunt loudly, causing something that I had not expected . . .

The Hawgs cut through the sonic beacon javelin device as if it was paper. It was utterly disintegrated into shards, except for a few feet of alloy nub sticking out of the ground. The immediate silence shocked my system more than the overhead air strikes. I flung open the hatch, yanked the brass out of my ears and watched the rest of the strike from the top of the LAV. I could see Saien doing the same thing a few dozen meters to my right. He had his rifle sitting on the turret and I could see him scanning to the distance in the direction of what was quickly becoming a vast dust storm on the horizon.