One Minute to Midnight

by Steve Lang

  "Lovely." General Ashby replied.

  They saw a Jeep heading their way with a four soldiers inside. The Jeep pulled up next to the General and a rather tall, good looking man with a large scar on his right cheek got out of the vehicle. His fatigues were rolled up to expose heavily muscled arms covered in tattoos.

  "General Ashby! To what do I owe this pleasure? The boys said you were coming all the way down here to our little paradise, but they didn’t tell me why. My guess is it's not to hand out Christmas cards. You like what we've done with the place?" The Major asked.

  "Yeah, it's nice, and you're right, I do have a job for you. It looks like you've been busy down here." The General said.

  "Yes sir, we've dropped drug production by thirty percent in the last few months. The boys and I have been so effective that the cartels sent these candleholders you see in the ground to try and shut down our little operation. I was offended by the attempt, and well, now they're my lawn decorations. But, you're not here to see these guys. What's up?" Major Cataclysm asked.

  "The CIA found a Nazi base in the South Pole, and President Yates wants you to go in and retrieve some advanced technology, and a few of the scientists that created it." General Ashby said.

  "Nazis? We got rid o' them som' bitches seventy years ago."

  "They resurfaced, and now they've got a flying saucer plant of some kind down in Antarctica."

  Major Cataclysm fixed General Ashby with a look of suspicion and distrust.

  "You sure about this? I mean, this ain't gonna' be like Baghdad is it? Because that war was some bullshit all the way through. The last time I was sent in to gather some important technology, I ended up ordering my guys to blow up a car full of civilians. We didn't find shit inside that car except burned up dead people. I can still smell those women and children burning when I go to sleep at night. At least here, lost in the jungle, I can lie to myself and pretend we're doing something good for a change."

  "Major, that occupation was crap all the way to the top, and you're not the only one with blood on his hands. This is for real, and we need your help." General Ashby said.

  Major Cataclysm rubbed his beard for a minute, and looked at his ten men, who had been listening to the conversation intently and glaring at the General. General Ashby began to feel the intensity of this conversation building, and judging by the looks he was getting from Major Cataclysm's men, he felt he might not walk out of the jungle.

  "What’s in it for us? We've got a sweet deal going on down here. We get paid well by the Panamanians, and keep a good bit of the cash we find at each one of these little cocaine processing operations. That shit's retirement money. Right boys!" Major Cataclysm said.

  "Hooah!" Was the resounding response.

  "What do you want?" The General asked.

  "Two hundred and seventy million dollars and I'll split it with the boys here." Major Cataclysm said.

  "Well shit. That ain’t cheap, but I think we can handle that. You have three days to get it done. I'm assuming you can put your project here on hold for a week or so?"

  The General had been carrying a dossier and handed it over to Major Cataclysm.

  "That's it. Photographs, location, everything. Your team will parachute in, infiltrate the base, get the saucer, and retrieve Goel Fisk, the man who built it. You either get the craft, or you don't come back, and the U.S. will officially have no position on this. You're on your own if you get captured, Major.

  Transportation has been arranged, and you'll be flying out of New Zealand."

  It was June, and Antarctica was experiencing a period of twenty-four hour darkness so, one day later, under the cover of night, Major Cataclysm and his team of highly trained commandos parachuted out of the back of a C-130 Hercules gunship over the frozen wastes, undetected. Their landing brought them within two miles of the Nazi base, and with the location set in their GPS, the team moved forward.

  "These guys probably already have the place wired for sound, so we need to be prepared for ground heat signature sensors and microphones. I've got a disruptor ray that can take out the mics and sensors, but if we do that chances are the bastards'll be onto us early. Sergeant Hall, be ready with the thermite charges to blow an opening in the hangar door. Lt. Gonzales, you've got rocket launcher duty in case those saucers come at us. We've got the rocket’s internal computers set for target motion acquisition, so even if they don't have a heat signature we'll still hit something. I'm going for the saucer once we breach the base, and remember, we have no idea what it looks like inside the hangar, so be prepared for anything." The Major said.

  "Do we have an approximate head count of Nazi bastards, sir?" Sergeant Wilco asked.

  "That's a tricky one. There may be a hundred or a thousand of those rats in the tunnels. Keep in mind these guys have been gearing up for the last seventy years, so for all we know they've been breeding the master race down there." Major Cataclysm said.

  They equipped their night vision glasses and began walking across the frozen barrens as a cold breeze picked up. Each man was equipped with heavy white winter gear that allowed them to blend into the snow, and anti-IR foil inside the lining of their clothing to avoid detection from surveillance equipment. Later that night, they came upon the base and found the above ground fuel tanks and strange-looking towers. There was no exterior lighting, but they could see soldiers walking around in the darkness though their night vision glasses. A hangar door opened, and as the light from within spilled out onto hard packed snow, the team saw a flying saucer exit the opening. Major Cataclysm motioned for everyone to follow him and they dashed for the hangar. They passed a steel access door by the hangar and stopped. Sergeant Hall reached into his pack for one of the thermite charges, but Lt. Gonzales placed a hand on his arm, and tried the door handle, which easily swung open. Gonzales cut his eyes sharply at Hall, and smirked. Hall rolled his eyes and gave him a finger twirl, as if to say, 'yeah, yeah, get on with it'.

  The hangar appeared empty, save for two men in jumpsuits standing by one of the three saucers. These machines looked like they would be big enough for two or three men at most. Major Cataclysm saw the one he wanted hovering by the hangar entrance. The body was cylindrical in shape and he estimated the length to be over a hundred feet long, perfect for him and his Hell Razor’s to get out of there alive.

  "Now, we need to find the architect. You've all got a picture of him on your phones, so keep an eye open. There's an elevator over there, and I'm just going to go floor by floor if I have to. Gonzales, Speedman, and Ruiz, you come with me." The Major said.

  They each carried an eight round revolving grenade launcher that resembled a very large .357 Python. With silenced AR-15's strapped over their backs, combat knives in their boots, and six fully loaded magazines a piece, they were ready for a limited fire fight. A door to some stairs leading down into the catacombs was the only other opening beside the elevator. The Major walked over to check it out and suddenly realized the design flaw in their hangar.

  "These guys have an elevator, and only one set of stairs, unless they got another one hid around somewhere else. So, Hall, I want you to set charges around the supports for those stairs, and burn that stairwell free: collapse the whole damned thing. Then set some charges on the elevator cable. If we ain't back in an hour, blow it to hell, grab the ship, and get out of here."

  "Yes sir." Hall nodded.

  "You Hell Razor's are a fine bunch of men and it's been a pleasure doing business with ya'll. It's a fucked up world we live in these days and I don't know if any of the craziness we've been through has made it any better but we can go raise hell on these Aryan assholes before hanging up our hats and maybe make up for some of it."

  "Hell Razor's, hooah!" Captain Walthorp said.

  Just then the elevator doors opened and six men walked into the hangar. Lt. Dagger, Cataclysm's intelligence officer, steadied his rifle and fired six times. Even with a suppressor, the audible pop, pop, rang out in the hangar. Dagger turned to the team,
and saw they were all nodding agreement. Six dead bodies lay on the concrete, each of them with a neat round hole in the center of their forehead.

  "Well, Okay Boy's, let's just make sure we don't kill Goel Fisk. I believe he's attached to our payday. Gonzales, Speedman, Ruiz, it's time to go down." The Major said.

  They ran for the elevator, and inside was a number panel with buttons for the hangar, and floors one through ninety-nine. Someone had written Science and Engineering Division next to the button for floor thirty-three in black permanent marker.

  "That was awful nice of them. I think we'll try that floor first." The Major said.

  The elevator moaned and creaked as it went down from one floor to another, and when they reached thirty-three, the doors opened and a cadre of troops was waiting in the hallway with their rifles pointed at the door. All four Hell Razor’s slammed their backs into the wall as a hail of torrential gunfire erupted against the inside of the elevator. Ruiz reached around the corner with his grenade launcher and squeezed the trigger. With a whomp his shell exited the barrel and plowed into the enemy soldiers outside. The explosion sent soldiers flying in every direction. Major Cataclysm bolted from his position, and with his AR-15 he shot each man remaining alive in the face as he ran by. More soldiers filled the hallway as the Hall Razor's ran by laboratories housing various machines and instruments. The Major fired round after round into the onslaught of enemy soldiers, but when he got close enough for hand-to-hand, he reached for his thirteen inch serrated blade. Due to the nanobots and titanium rods, Cataclysm's strength was twice that of most other men. That also meant no broken bones when he punched and chopped his way through the fracas. Cataclysm was soaked in blood before they found their target.

  Goel Fisk had been hiding in the aerospace propulsion lab when Major Cataclysm and his Hell Razor's stormed in and pointed their guns at him. He cowered before them in his white lab coat. Fisk had a small face and a Van Dyke beard trimmed in a neat ‘V’.

  "You Fisk?" The Major yelled.

  "Yes. What's this all about? Who sent you, and why me?" Fisk asked.

  Goel Fisk had eyes as wide as saucers as he stared at the Major, and the three other men looked at him with menace.

  "You're coming with us peacefully, or we're carrying you out. Which is it gonna be?" The Major said.

  "I'm no soldier. Peacefully, I suppose, but can you please stop pointing those weapons at me and let me get my glasses?" Fisk asked.

  He reached around a cart nearest him and when his hand reappeared it was holding a Walther PPK.

  "Bad idea." Speedman said.

  He pulled a small tranquilizer dart gun from a holster on the side of his cargo pants, and shot Fisk in the neck before the man could pull his own trigger. Fisk wavered a second and then dropped to the ground. Speedman ran over, picked up Fisk's pistol, and put it in his pocket. Then he hoisted the unconscious man over his shoulder.

  "I got us a Souvenir!" Speedman said.

  "Let's hit it." The Major said.

  He reached into his backpack and pulled out a C4 explosive pack, and set a timer on the explosive device for ten minutes. Then they began to run the way they had come, just as more Nazi soldiers rounded a corner down the hall. Ruiz took a round to the stomach, and then another just above his collarbone and died on the spot.

  "Shit! Ruiz!" Gonzales yelled.

  Gonzales fired a grenade down the long hallway and obliterated the Nazi offensive with a loud explosion. From behind they could hear the tromp of jack-booted thugs running, and fired an explosive round back the way they had come. Speedman was shot in the upper thigh as he ran with Fisk, and stumbled.

  "Argh, dammit! That hurt." Speedman yelled.

  "The elevator's just ahead, boys. Get to it and I'll cover you!" The Major said.

  The elevator doors were located down a short corridor, and the Major was standing in a T-shaped hallway. To get to that elevator from either direction, the enemy would have to go through him. The C4 charge exploded far off down another corridor, but there must have been some kind of fuel source in the lab he had blown up, because the entire floor shook and glass broke from every window on that level. When he saw that his men were safely inside the elevator, Cataclysm tossed another C4 bomb set on a five-minute timer into the ceiling tiles. The Major checked his watch, and saw that they had only been gone forty-five minutes. Plenty of time before Hall would detonate the elevator shaft. When he got into the elevator, Speedman was slumped over on the floor, blood dripping from his mouth, and Gonzales was over him trying to slap him awake.

  "He's dead, sir. Bullet must have bounced around inside when it hit him." Gonzales said.

  "Damn, this deal just keeps gettin' worse." Cataclysm said.

  They reached the hangar and the rest of Cataclysm's men were already engaged in a heavy firefight with the forces above ground. The Major fired an explosive round into the hangar and dove for cover while carrying Fisk across his shoulders. He landed next to Sergeant Hall.

  "Did you charge the stairs and elevator shaft?" Cataclysm asked.

  "Yes sir. Tell me when." Hall said.

  "When! It's about to get more crowded up here."

  Hall pressed a button and smoke poured from the elevator shaft and stairwell as his thermite charges burned through the cables like a hot knife in butter, and they could hear the muffled screams of men falling as the stairs collapsed. The Major could see a ramp open on the cylindrical craft he had planned on taking for President Yates.

  "Take Fisk, get the rest of the boys, and head for that craft. If I'm not there by the time you figure out how to fly it, you take off without me." Major Cataclysm said.

  "What are you going to do, sir?" Hall asked.

  "The best I can to cover your asses! Now move!" The Major yelled.

  He broke cover and ran into the center of the hangar, tossing hand grenades behind stacks of equipment and other enemy hiding places. Nazi soldiers were running from cover as hand grenades exploded and Cataclysm’s rifle opened fire, raining a torrent of hot lead on them. Major Cataclysm was standing in a sea of flames with the dead strewn about like a child's discarded dolls, when a large man with a tank top, bodybuilder muscles, and coveralls around his waist approached him with a shotgun. The Major slung his AR-15 around a second before a blast caught him in the left shoulder. It tore through his flesh and exposed the hard metal beneath, giving him the appearance of an injured Terminator. Cataclysm held the rifle in his good arm and fired a round directly into the big soldier’s shotgun barrel, tearing it from the man's hands with such force that his fingers were shattered. Cataclysm backed his way toward cylindrical craft and ran up the ramp. The big Nazi with broken fingers was running toward them, pulling a pistol from his holster with his good hand. Major Cataclysm turned back and threw his knife. It was a direct hit that separated the bridge of his enemy's nose, and buried itself deep inside the man's head, dropping him to the cement floor. The ramp closed and they were out of the hangar headed skyward within seconds.

  "That was my favorite knife, too." Major Cataclysm said.

  Left in their wake were the shattered remains of the air base, fires burning out of control and scattered corpses. Goel Fisk was just waking up, and realized that he was tied to a chair unable to move. As they flew off into the night, everyone on board knew this mission would be their last.

  "You know, boys I think it's time to retire to Hawaii once we deliver our new friend Fisk to General Ashby. Anyone else with me?"

  "Hooah!" Was the resounding answer. The Hell Razor’s opened a Tiki bar on the beach seven months later and never saw combat again.

  ganung padang

  A scientist embarks on a quest to prove that a mountain in Indonesia is actually an ancient man-made pyramid.

  Dr. Henry Phillips puffed on his white kaolin pipe while standing on the outskirts of camp. He calmly watched the sun rise on a new day in the Indonesia. His bushman hat was cocked to the side as he smoked, ignoring the incessant growl in his belly for
food. Early morning was Henry’s favorite time of day, because it was gorgeous just before the stifling heat became unbearable. Indonesia was hot, humid, and full of bugs, much like his home back in North Carolina during the summer. Henry’s three guides and research assistant Dave Yantz were fast asleep as nighttime creatures turned in for the day, and Henry stood, a solitary man embarking on a great adventure. Henry and his team left Jakarta the previous morning and were on their way to Gunung Padang, a newly discovered pyramidal mountain in the jungle.

  The discovery had caused a mild stir among the archaeological community in America, but not much more. This was due in part to a lack of thoroughness in the documentation of the mountain. However, Henry was convinced that something lay beneath the rocks, vegetation, and dirt, because the mountain looked similar to the Great pyramid. If no one else was interested in digging it out, then he would go alone.

  Dave Yantz, a journeyman and archeologist, and Henry's teaching assistant at the University of North Carolina, volunteered for the trip as soon as Henry mentioned going. Dave was a tall, gangly young man, with a peach-fuzz beard he hoped would someday turn manlier. Dave had been on several archaeological dinosaur digs, and had been one of three people who discovered the tomb of King Atun, an Egyptian ruler trapped in Arizona during the last great deluge. Atun's body was entombed in a cliff side cave when the water levels were much higher, before the recession and desertification of the land occurred. When Dave and his team set to the task of exploring this cave, it was a two hundred foot climb from the canyon floor. Inside, they found gold chests, papyrus scrolls, and a crudely constructed coffin with hieroglyphs carved into the side. The hieroglyphic message detailed King Atun's many heroic deeds, and described the disaster he and his people had escaped from as water levels rose and flooded his homeland.