The Cross of Mithras Vol. 1: EOD Operation Welcome to Hell (86 page)

(2)

  Captain Dawson just arrived at the secret stealth base. The base was under a large dome and the dome was a cloaking device. The helicopter that he was on could enter the base without the stealth features of either the base or the helicopter being disable. Dawson was still in a lot of pain when he arrived at the base. When he fell out of the window his left arm was pointed towards the ground and when he hit the ground he broke his left arm in three places.

  Dawson was not surprised by Lenkov and Omori betrayal (he never liked them and thought [wrongly] that their ambitions would lead them to commit treason). Their treason did, however, caught him off-guard, but not unprepared. His actions after Colonel Blackburn’s suicide helped him and the rest of his personnel escape. He did not plan nor prepare for any counter-attack that he would have to undertake. And now Dawson must figure out a way to do just that, but his arrogance blinds him to the group of officers that he faces and how formidable they can be to one such as he. Dawson’s arrogance may blind him to the hopelessness of trying to defeat them, but he still has an ace up his sleeve.

  Although Dawson is still in pain, he refused to be taken to sickbay because he wanted to strike back before it was too late. He ordered everybody (minus the pilot) to find all of his personnel and head to A10-36D base which has enough military vehicles to mount a counter-attack. Dawson was going to liberate his personnel at all cost (he knew that he desperately needed them), which is what Lenkov was hoping that’ll he do.

  “Sir, let me take you to sickbay.” 2
nd
Lieutenant Keane said after everyone left.

  “No! I need to activate the Lacrima Mortis Plasma Gun.” Dawson said gritting through the pain.

  “Sir, you’re not thinking straight.”

  “To hell I’m not!”

  “Sir. If you attempt to use the communicational array here… the stealth features will faze out for 1.4 seconds. If anyone on the, The Hammer of Doom is monitoring the area, and in all likelihood they are, and if they are quick enough, they could destroy this base with one shot.”

  “We can escape on the stealth helicopter! I can still activate the gun remotely from the helicopter!” Dawson said with sweat running down his face from the pain.

  “Sir, this base uses a Type 4 stealth shield and it will not allow a transmission to be sent from inside, nor will it receive a transmission from the outside. Everything is sent through a landline.”

  “We have to activate that goddamn gun!” Dawson almost screamed at Keane.

  “I know that sir. If you are willing to wait a few days then I could rig a timer on the control panel to allow a delay of signal. It should give us enough time to escape.” Keane said calmly.

  “How much time would we have to escape?” Dawson finally said in normal tone of voice.

  “Three minutes tops.”

  “That’s hardly enough time to make it back to the helicopter.”

  “Sir, there is an elevator near the communicational array that leads to a tunnel which leads to a bus terminal in Wolf Creek. The tunnel has a car in it and we should be halfway out of the tunnel when the signal is sent.”

  “Alright. But this better work Keane.” Captain Dawson sternly said.

  Keane didn’t respond, he only motion for Dawson to follow him to sickbay which Dawson did. 2
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Lieutenant Keane spent the next four days preparing the communicational array to allow a delay of signal. What took him so long was the fact that if he’d made a mistake the stealth feature of the base would have been disable. When he was finished and the gun was activated it gave the senior officers of The Hammer of Doom a rude awakening.

(3)

  For the first time since Mad Dawg was on The Hammer of Doom he made an unannounced visit on the bridge. The guards didn’t do anything other than announce his presence, which caused everyone to turn and look at him. Mad Dawg then headed over to where Lenkov and Omori was sitting. Omori was sitting on Lenkov right side as she always does. Which is one reason why Lenkov calls her his, “right hand girl.”

  “We need to talk sir.” Mad Dawg said to Lenkov. Mad Dawg was standing on Lenkov left side.

  “About what?” Lenkov asked.

  “Why is it that there are too few personnel guarding Dawson’s captured men, sir?”

  “Why do you think?”

  “I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking you sir.”

  “You must have an idea.”

  “Why won’t you tell me sir?”

  “You’re a capable officer. So you should have a good idea as to why that is. So, you tell me.” Lenkov responded. Mad Dawg didn’t like the fact that Lenkov will not tell him. He fear for the safety of his personnel.

  “You’re not going to send anybody down there, are you?” Mad Dawg said with deep concern for his personnel.

  “But…?”

  “But what?”

  “We’re building up the defenses.” Lenkov responded.

  “Y-Y-You mean you’re expecting Dawson to counter-attack and you won’t send more troops down there!? Aw hell no! My boys will be slaughtered!”

  “And so will mine captain! There are more of my people down there than yours.”

  “Then why don’t you send more troops!?” Mad Dawg yelled.

  “Dawson is still a threat. He shouldn’t have gotten away…” Lenkov was saying.

  “That wasn’t my fault! What, you’re doing this because you think that I let him get away!? I couldn’t help it!” Mad Dawg yelled.

  “I know that captain! It’s war! Mistakes like that happens! Nobody is blaming you!” Lenkov yelled back at him.

  “Then why won’t you send more troops sir?” Mad Dawg said calmly.

  “I’ll tell you when have absolutely calmed yourself down.” Lenkov said in a normal tone of voice.

  “I am calmed down sir.” Mad Dawg responded.

  Lenkov didn’t say anything, he only gave Mad Dawg a stern look and pointed at him with his right hand. Lenkov stopped pointing at him when he could tell that Mad Dawg had calmed himself down.

  “You come from a society…” Lenkov was saying. “… that considers itself to be a culture of life. Those of us in the EOD comes from a society that is based upon a culture of heroes. Those who die for their community, for their friends, for their… loved ones. Your society puts emphasis upon saving a life, while the EOD puts emphasis upon why a person dies. Both of our societies do, however, share one thing in common.”

  “Which is?” Mad Dawg asked.

  “The desire to save the life of a friend, a fellow combatant. If… And that’s a big if. If, Dawson were to attack that base, than how many of his personnel do you think he would lose? Too many. Yes he will overrun the base. Yes he will kill everyone there, especially my people. But know this, and know it well… when the battle is over and he has time to assess the situation… whether he does it literally or not, he would have committed suicide. For whatever is left of his forces will be far too weak to ever challenge us again.” Lenkov responded.

  “Do you know what a ghost order is captain?” Omori asked Mad Dawg.

  “Sort of. Maybe. Why do you ask?” Mad Dawg responded.

  “A ghost order is a unwritten verbal only order that is considered higher than that of the Red Book Classification Code: Omega X. Did you know that there is a hidden order within the Classification Code?” Omori said.

  “No. What is it?” Mad Dawg responded.

  “It’s a ghost order. Take the first letter in the first word in each of the Classification Code and you get something in Japanese – Omae o korosu. Do you know what that means?”

  “No I don’t speak Japanese.”

  “It means: ‘I will kill you.’ Now do you have better idea on the ghost order?” Omori asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Then understand that whenever an Omega X is given there will be, without question, there will be a ghost order behind it.” Omori said.

  “So you see captain, we need to get him to reveal what those ghost orders are at all cost. For the past four days he allowed his subordinates to round up his personnel and take them to a base with military vehicles.  So if we were to send more troops down there, what do you think would happen to them?” Lenkov asked Mad Dawg.

  “They will be killed.” Mad Dawg responded.

  “Then how many SHOULD we send down there? And who should we send?” Lenkov asked. “That’s right. The ones who are already down there.” Lenkov added when Mad Dawg didn’t respond.

  Twelve minutes later the signal from the stealth base was sent. And as Keane suspected The Hammer of Doom hit it with one shot. Unfortunately for Keane it was a EMP shot which only knocked out the shields. Both Dawson and Keane was in the tunnel at the time and both of them was expecting some type of fire to be chasing them. When they got out of the tunnel Dawson had Keane drive (they found a car at the bus terminal) near enough to see the base. Dawson, who got out, had Keane drive there and destroy the Communicational Array and the computer console that controls the array. When Keane got back he said that he couldn’t destroy it because a couple of drop-ships from The Hammer of Doom was in the process of landing and he didn’t have enough time to carry out his orders. Dawson, who was standing outside the car on the driver side, pulled out a gun and shot and killed Keane. The only thing that Dawson said after he shot Keane was, “If you knew what I know, then you would understand why it was for the best.” With that, Dawson pulled Keane’s lifeless body out of the car and, to the best of his abilities, drove to A10-36D.

  “Sir! Take a look at the viewer!” A Ensign said out loud. He then pushed a button showing that those three black structures in Ishtar’s atmosphere started to power up and moved into the upper atmosphere. While it was powering up, Omori came near to the Flight Control Officer’s position, she then moved the ship to a safe distance on Golden Hyperion’s blind side in relation to those black structures. She also launched a space probe so that they could continuously monitor those black structures.

  “Ma’am, what are you doing?” The Flight Control Officer asked Omori.

  “I need you to maintain this position. Stay away from those structures in Ishtar’s atmosphere. Do you understand?” Omori said to Flight Control Officer.

  “Yes ma’am. What are they?” The Flight Control Officer asked her.

  “I have no idea. Let’s just play it safe for now.” Omori responded. She then returned back to her seat.

  Captain Maxwell then order the crew on Galactic Prime to do the same. One of the engineering staff asked the captain if he was crazy since Galactic Prime’s engines weren’t design to do such a thing and it would put too much of a strain upon them. Maxwell then ordered them to do as they are told.

  “We should have our crew on Galactic Prime to return back here.” Omori said to Lenkov.

  “They’re needed to maintain orbit.” Lenkov responded.

  “I know. But I was thinking that I could create a program that could allow us to remote control the ship from here.”

  “What about manual input?”

  “We could have our engineering staff over there create a robot that could do it.”

  “Yeah alright.” Lenkov responded.

  Omori then contacted the engineering staff on Galactic Prime and ordered them to create those robots. When she was done speaking to them (and cussing at them in Japanese since they were complaining about the extra work load) she left to create the remote control program for Galactic Prime. It took the engineering staff five hours to create the robots and additional three hours to put them into place. For Omori it took her six hours to complete the program. The engineering staff left Galactic Prime after they moved the ship into position over Golden Hyperion.

  “This is Senior Ensign Rogetti.” Rogetti was calling from the stealth base. His orders were to secure the base and search for Intel, then to report back.

  “Go ahead.” The officer on duty responded.

  “We’ve just finished acquiring the Intel. I will now download it to you.”

  “Alright Senior Ensign Rogetti. Over and out.” The bridge officer responded. She then informed Maxwell who, in return, inform Lenkov.

  “Do you think we should inform our guests?” Maxwell asked Lenkov.

  “Analyze the data and then, based upon that data, then we will make the decision to inform them or not.” Lenkov responded.

  After the data was analyzed they realize that they had no other choice but to inform their guests. The Intelligence Officer who analyze the data, took the findings to Captain Maxwell who immediately took the data to inform Lenkov and Omori.

  “Do you think we should inform our guests?” Maxwell asked Lenkov and Omori. The three of them were in the Conference Room. They decided to look at the Intel first (it’s not the only time that they did that) before they made decision to inform their guests.

  “Let’s see Mad Dawg first.” Lenkov said to Maxwell.

  “What about Task Force ZH-3C?” Maxwell asked.

  “No. In order to control them we need to create, within their minds, that we are in absolute control of the situation. It would be counter-productive if they were to find out.” Lenkov responded.