Cerberus

by John Filcher

  The blast was way more boom than either Zeta or Theta teams had fully expected, because while Danfries had said one boomstick ought to do it, he used two under the time honored Marine boomstick formula of “P” for Plenty. Why use just one, when two is twice as satisfying? Since Bravo and Echo teams were plenty familiar with Danfries faithful observance of the P for Plenty formula, they weren’t completely taken by surprise by the powerful explosion that shook the staging area and filled it with smoke and debris. They just hadn’t figured Danfries was crazy enough to use two full sticks.

  After the dust settled, Echo 4 sent a Butterfly drone into the gaping hole into the wall. “Clear left. Clear right. Sending the drone down the ventilation shaft now.”

  Pak and the rest of the company watched the feed on the inside of their suit screens as they held their positions. In minutes, the speedy little drone arrived at the giant air circulation plant.

  “Clear to the air plant, Bravo 1!” reported Pak.

  Blackwater nodded inside his suit helmet, so no one actually saw it. Old habits die hard.

  Mackey wasted no time. “Echo team, take point. Then Zeta and Theta. Bravo team is vanguard. Go! Go! Go!”

  No one argued with Bravo team moving to the rear as the team had sustained the most casualties. There wasn’t truly a safe spot when fighting your way into an enemy base anyway. Twenty minutes later, Echo team reached the air circulation plant and designated entry point.

  “Echo 5, can you breach or no?” Kanagawa asked.

  After Pak drilled a hole in a small spot and flew a Butterfly through to the hall way to confirm it was empty, Danfries was joined by Gonzales as they began tearing apart a side panel to remove a piece of machinery so they could crawl through the space into a large air vent into the hall. With the extra power of their exosuits, and the help of a military grade cutter, they were ready in merely five minutes. Following their progress, Pak reported “Still clear, Echo 1.”

  That was all Kanagawa needed. “Echo team, set up a defensive perimeter while the following teams join us.”

  Echo team scrambled to make it happen. Soon the company was in the hallway, as Echo team led the way to the objective. Taking point, Echo 2 signaled for the company to halt as he stealthily approached a T-intersection. “Echo 4, have your Butterfly peek around that corner.”

  The drone had no sooner rounded the corner than an energy beam fried it and burnt out its electronics.

  “Found it,” Longman remarked with a grin as he and Pak watched the video and Tacnet feed.

  “Auto turrets, and gunner hiding behind that portable barrier on the right.” Pak noted.

  “Grenades on three?” Longman asked Pak with a note of excitement in his voice. “Oh, I LIKE grenades!” Pak enthusiastically responded.

  They pulled their pins, and Longman counted down. “Three. Two. One. Throw!”

  Their grenades flew the twenty yards to the defensive position held by the enemy. Despite the speed and the fact there were two of them to choose from, the auto turret still managed to ricochet a few rounds off Longman’s armored arm as it threw the grenade around the corner. “Argh!” he responded in surprise, unintentionally managing to sound like an old pirate from the legends and accidentally meriting a new nickname at the same time.

  “Echo 2, are you injured? Your suit isn’t showing damage on Tacnet.” asked the Echo team corpsman, Nancy Dos.

  “No, I’m fine. The rounds ricocheted without damage. Just took me by surprise because it was so fast.” Longman said.

  “Oh, then you’re telling us you’re now a pirate with that ‘argh’ business?” noted Pak dryly with a teasing tone.

  Longman suddenly stopped, only too late becoming aware he was getting stuck with a new nickname. “I REALLY hate you guys!” he said with a sheepish sound, and causing the Echo team commlink to fill with all sorts of laughter at his expense.

  The next Butterfly launched by Pak showed the powerful grenades had done the job. Both the gunner and the auto turret’s were down. “Clear!” he called, prompting the rest of the team to pour down the passage to a closed, armored hatch.

  “Armored. Who armors a hatch deep inside some base?” asked Longman when he reached it before the rest of the team.

  “Echo 5. Job opportunity. And don’t blow up our objective with too much Plenty in your formula this time.”

  Danfries shooed his team back to safety around the corner at the ‘T’ again while he rigged up some plastique and shaped charges. Once he inserted the remote detonators, he too scrambled back to rejoin his team, while the other teams kept watch.

  Knock, knock, Danfries said to himself, triggering the charges. He had set them in a cascading circular pattern on the wall about two feet beyond the outline of the hatchway. “That was very civilized and totally unsatisfactory,” he muttered as he looked at his handiwork. They had blown a hole into the wall and he easily pushed the armored hatchway down. No massive explosion. What a letdown.

  Echo team and Zeta team quickly secured the three rooms behind the armored former hatchway. “Bravo 1, we have the objective. No resistance. He decided not to swallow the cyanide pills they gave him and put his country first, so we bound him up. Ready for egress.”

  As they were bringing the bound prisoner out, there was a Tacnet warning accompanied by distant gunfire and two explosions. “Contact! Bravo 1 to all teams. Enemy troopers massing beyond our entry point! Hustle up and get the objective out here. Theta team, join us in the vanguard and reinforce our position while Echo and Zeta escort our guest.”

  Theta team was moving back to Bravo’s vanguard positions at high speed. Echo and Zeta were right on their heels. The entire company needed to become scarce before the Collective troopers recovered enough to get themselves organized and counterattack in force instead of the piecemeal resistance encountered so far.

  Cerberus — Delta Station

  “Captain, Tacnet shows the assault teams have captured the objective and are engaged in a fighting withdrawal from the facility,” LeCroy reported to Ronin.

  “Status of the enemy fighters?” Mueller asked.

  “Still bugged out. They lost way too many to mount a return unless some new squadrons show up,” LeCroy noted.

  “Alert Lieutenant Taketa to expect incoming casualties from the ground assault teams,” Ronin ordered. Taketa acknowledged the order, and reported in that he and his medical team had patched up a handful of injured pilots who had been returned to the ship by the search and rescue teams.

  Marine Company — Staging Area

  The fighting withdrawal by Bravo and Theta teams had taken a terrible toll on the Collective’s troopers. More than a hundred of those troopers lay strewn and broken for the entire distance back from where contact had been made.

  As Bravo and Theta prepared to follow Echo and Zeta and reenter the staging area they had taken earlier, the 2s of Bravo and Theta quickly planted magnetic mines while the rest of the teams occupied the troopers with heavy fire. Zeta 2 also laid mines at the actual passageway into the staging area, which they skipped by venturing into the air system.

  “Bulldogs, this is Bravo 1, ready for evac. Over,” Blackwater called after they were ready and on their way to the surface landing zone. The enemy troopers were hanging back and not trying to rush straight into their guns or mines for the moment.

  The answer came quickly. “Bravo 1. Sixty seconds, mark.”

  Blackwater relayed the message. “All teams, sixty seconds! Echo 1, get the objective onto Bulldog 1 with your team. Bravo team on Bulldog 2 with Gamma team, which is holding the landing zone and waiting for us. Theta and Zeta, your ride is the last Bulldog.”

  Blackwater’s orders were quickly acknowledged by each team’s leaders as they organized themselves to speed the loading process.

  Cerberus — Delta Station

  “Captain, Bulldogs 1 and 2 ha
ve returned. I’ve notified the medical bay of their arrival.” LeCroy reported when Tacnet updated their position.

  Ronin looked over at Lieutenant Delgado. “Lieutenant, open a comm-link to Kitty Hawk.”

  A moment later, Delgado responded, “Commlink open, Captain.”

  Ronin cleared his throat before speaking. “Kitty Hawk Actual, Cerberus Actual. Our birds have returned to the nest. Interrogate status.”

  From his ship’s position just over the horizon from the base, Capt. Hu Nagun responded. “Cerberus, this is Kitty Hawk Actual. Our birds are aboard. Tomcats are still controlling the skies. Kitty Hawk standing by.”

  An ancient general once observed a military truism that no plan survives initial contact with the enemy. Which meant Ronin was surprised because this seemed to be the first time that everything seemed to follow the plan as originally approved. “Execute Operation Goodbye.”

  Nagun acknowledged the order.

  Leaving it to Kitty Hawk to collect its own squadrons of Tomcats as well as Cerberus’ Tomcats, Ronin ordered Cerberus to jump away with its prize.

  Kitty Hawk — Wolf 14

  Nagun looked at his tactical officer. “Execute Operation Goodbye. Helm, get us in position to bring the pain.”

  Seconds later, the helmsman confirmed the coordinates that had been pre-selected during the operational planning before the battle. “Coordinates laid in, Captain.”

  Nagun nodded, then replied, “Take us in.”

  Kitty Hawk reached its bombardment position a few hours later. “Rail gun crews report ready to open fire, Captain,” reported the tactical officer.

  “Fire!” Nagun ordered. He was in no mood to delay, and it was time to get away before it was too late. The main view screen was showing a split screen of optics taken from several observational drones that had been positioned so they could watch the show and assess damage. Nagun allowed the rail gun volleys to continue for one minute. He wanted to erase the still dangerous base to avenge all the Tomcat crews and Marines that had been sacrificed to grab their high value objective.

  “Evasive action,” added Nagun, somewhat unnecessarily.

  While there wasn’t any ordinance on the way to wipe out the Kitty Hawk that they could see, there was little need to take the risk when the drones would take care of watching the show.

  Several hours later, the high-speed kinetic rail gun ordinance had crossed the huge distance between where it originated on the Kitty Hawk, and the lunar base. Each of the one-ton slugs impacted with the equivalent power of a one-megaton nuclear weapon. Still sitting on the bridge, Nagun watched the base disappear forever under the wrath of thirty rail gun impacts. There would be debris floating over the site for centuries before the weak lunar gravity could pull it back down again.

  “Heck of a calling card, Captain,” murmured the XO, Steve Fisher, to Nagun as the two watched the show on the view screen while standing next to each other. “Hopefully the Collective will be too discouraged to try to build any more secret lunar bases in the future. Think they’ll invite us to any more house parties?” he added.

  Nagun had a slight smile turning up the corner of his mouth as he softly snorted with a slight “humph” sound. “I reckon they’re too civilized to invite barbarians like us in the future. We’re boorish house guests. Always leave behind a huge mess.”

  Nagun watched for a few more minutes. “Fisher, take over and get us underway for Wayside Station. Have the section heads copy their reports to my attention. I want to take a look at our damage and repair progress before I head to my ready room. After that I have work up a post-battle assessment for the big brains at the Admiralty.”

  Minutes later, Kitty Hawk finally departed while the debris cloud on the dark side of the moon continued to expand.

  Chapter 22

  Wayside Station

  Cerberus wasted no time docking with Wayside Station and delivering its high value passenger. Even thought it was a relatively short mission from Ronin’s perspective, they needed to take on more Marine ordinance as well as replace the Marines they had lost. While that was occurring under the critical eyes of the Cerberus load masters, Ronin and Mueller were reporting as ordered to Admiral Rodding’s office.

  They were quickly shown in to his office. They sat at the conference table while Rodding poured glasses of his preferred bourbon from his crystal decanter for all of them. “Time for some Old Prohibition bourbon to celebrate, and to commemorate our dead,” Rodding said somberly as he handed the glasses to them. “To those who are no longer with us,” he toasted, holding his glass up for Ronin and Mueller to clink theirs against before they took sips.

  “Sir, I’ve been wondering what your brand of bourbon was,” Ronin remarked as he looked approvingly at the glass and its dark, smooth contents. “Strange name, though.”

  Rodding’s left eyebrow cocked upward in surprise. “You mean why is it called Prohibition?” he replied. Seeing nods of confusion on their faces, it was time to impart a little knowledge.

  “Prohibition is a little-known era in American history from well before The Fall. It was still a young country at the time, and there was some sort of morals based political movement that managed to ban the production and consumption of alcoholic beverages. Like all such movements, it was a complete failure. It gave birth to violent organized crime syndicates loosely referred to as The Mob, which were created to cater to the country’s continued alcohol indulgences. The failure was of such magnitude, the law was repealed a few years later, but the problems it created continued on for many years.”

  Impressed by Rodding’s historical alacrity, Ronin said, “I had no idea! Our schooling didn’t make mention of the period for some reason.”

  Rodding nodded. “I’m not surprised. I had a few history classes in college, but so many records were lost in The Fall that not much is known about Prohibition beyond those broad brush strokes I painted for you.”

  Rodding took another sip of Old Prohibition. “New orders for you. Cerberus is to stay in the vicinity of Wayside Station for the moment and make yourselves available to us if called upon. Due to the rapidly crumbling situation on Earth, we’re going to sweat the high value package you retrieved from the moon base during what’s being dubbed The Battle of the Dark Side. If he provides us good intel, Cerberus might be ordered in to action on short notice to take advantage of it.”

  Mueller’s curiosity finally got the best of her. “Admiral, who was the high value target that we snatched from the base?”

  “Now that it’s been decided that Cerberus is likely the ship that will be used to act on any intel he provides, you’re cleared to be in the know. It’s Igor Kuznetsov. He’s the head of the State Security apparatus for the entire Collective. Igor came from the part of Asia that was once called Russia before The Fall. Up north near the Arctic Circle where the radiation and virus never reached. He’s valuable enough that Kitty Hawk was ordered to obliterate the base and any trace of our presence at the end of the operation.”

  As Rodding finished, he took another sip to wet his whistle.

  “Any word on dark matter, Sir? It’s been months.”

  Rodding shook his head. “Nothing, so far. The big brains that went to Ninebase are a secretive bunch. They’ll have something to say when they have something to say. Until then, radio silence.”

  After they finished up with Rodding, Ronin and Mueller stopped for a bite to eat at one of the station’s restaurants.

  “What do you think about what the admiral said regarding the current state of the Collective?” Mueller asked Ronin before she took a bite of her club sandwich.

  Before replying, Ronin took a spoonful of the wonderful chicken and vegetable soup. He had delighted in the discovery that the establishment served steaming bowls of Booyah – the chef also hailed from the Green Bay area and specialized in its local cuisine. Booyah, as was traditional in Green Bay
, was just a soup made with whole chickens (without the feathers), and stringed vegetables. The most ‘sacred’ part of the meal’s preparation required cooking it overnight in a large vat under the careful watch of a chef who drank beer throughout the cooking process. Dan thought with amusement as he ate, It’s always debatable whether more beer is consumed during the eating of the Booyah, or the making of it.

  “The Admiralty and fleet intelligence believe the economic collapse of the Collective will drive them to open warfare down on the planet very soon to try to cull the troublemakers in their population by using the damage from our retaliation to help keep them under control. Just like how the old legends say The Fall began.”

  That was not the hopeful sounding answer Mueller wanted to hear. “I just hope we can stop it from happening again,” she said quietly. “Things are so desperate, we can’t take any chances and go easy on them anymore.”

  Ronin nodded slowly, with a resigned look on his face.

  Chapter 23

  Wolf 78

  Three months later, the Cerberus crew was exhausted by the frenetic pace of operations. They were still on call for Wayside’s needs, but that meant they had been on duty without any relief and thrown into one combat action after another. “We’ve been extremely lucky to sustain as little damage as we have so far, Dan,” noted Mueller as the two of them sat in his ready room and discussed the next, upcoming operation.

  “Three kinetic strikes repaired. One hundred and twelve crew dead, and some fifty-plus Marines gone. Another 200 injured and rotated for replacements. Hard to quantify that as lucky, but somehow it is. We should have been erased by any of those strikes, instead of them passing through non-critical areas,” Ronin replied. “The crew is tired,” he added.

  Mueller leaned back in her seat and stretched for a moment. The two of them had noticeably dark circles under their eyes. She yawned as she tried to speak through it.

  “Seems like we’ve been operating nearer to Earth orbit each time we’ve been sent out to cause trouble.”