On Distant Shores

by Mark Harritt

  Chapter Ten – Now

  Mike turned to Everett, Rob, and Tom. They listened to the plan as he explained it to the others. He motioned them forward and started giving them assignments. Tom and Rob went to the platform with the weapons, one eye peeled to the elevator shaft. They kitted up with weapons and equipment. All weapons were being checked and loaded. When Mike arrived at the pallet, he asked Mickey, “What’s up with Randall?” She had walked away as the rest of the team walked towards the pallet. Evidently Mitchem had forgotten about her during his snit fit.

  “Well, it isn’t a break, but she’s going to have one hell of a bruise. Might be a hairline fracture, but I can’t tell without an x-ray. I wrapped it up and gave her some Motrin to help with the pain and inflammation.”

  Mike gave marching orders for the team to prep, but they were already doing that anyway. Once the team dispersed, he and Everett started talking.

  “What the hell is that thing?” was the first question out of Everett’s mouth.

  Mike shook his head. “I don’t know. As far as I know we just stepped into the real world Twilight Zone. All I know is that dragon is the biggest, meanest, ugliest thing I have ever seen, and if we want to survive, we need to make sure that we’re bigger and meaner than it ever was.”

  Everett nodded in agreement.

  Mike continued, “I need for you to keep an eye out for anything that comes through that elevator shaft.”

  Everett nodded, and then he spoke, “Mike, I don’t know what’s out there, and I don’t know what the hell this thing is, but we’re going to have to get all that flesh, entrails and blood out of here. Otherwise we’re going to have to deal with whatever scavengers there are out there. The smell alone in here should start drawing large crowds of nasty things to feed on that giant carcass.”

  Mike agreed, “Yeah, but first things first. Wounded, Armor, Recon, and then we can cut that carcass up and get it out of here.”

  Everett asked, “What are you going to do?”

  Mike pointed a thumb back over his shoulder. “Make sure what is left of civilization, and military discipline doesn’t break down before we have a fighting chance to live through this.”

  Everett whistled, slow and soft. “I think I would rather face off with the wee beastie again!” This was said in a very bad, mock Scottish accent.

  Mike laughed, bitterness clinging to the sound.

  “Yeah, Mitchem is in shock now, but I’m pretty sure that will wear off soon.”

  Everett nodded, “Good luck with that.”

  Mickey spoke next, “Boss, as soon as I’m done checking up on everybody, I want to check out the big critter that we snuffed.” Mickey’s eyes glowed with enthusiasm. Mike couldn’t blame him. A new species that nobody had ever seen before would be enough to stimulate anybody’s interests. Mickey looked like a big, dumb bruiser, but he wouldn’t be on the team if he was. The man was scary smart when it came to medicine and chemical/biological weapons.

  Mike clapped a hand on Mickey’s shoulder. “Yeah man, as soon as we have everybody secure and scout up the elevator shaft, maybe you can figure out what the hell that thing is.”

  “Thanks, boss man.”

  Mike grunted, and turned around to go find out what was what. He was more interested in making sure that nobody got eaten or killed.

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  “Gentlemen, ladies,” Mike looked around at the engineering team, “My team was almost eaten by a cross between a velociraptor and a stegosaurus. There was a mild earthquake that moved the floor of this facility by about five to ten degrees. Strange things have happened. Welcome to the twilight zone. A ground movement that is capable of tilting this building that much should have brought this entire damn underground facility down on our heads. And yet, the only major thing that happened, is that the corridor that leads to the rest of Area 19, seems to have disappeared and been replaced by a glassine, possible melted, rock.”

  Mike stopped to let all this sink in, “Things are crazy around here, but my team and I are going to do everything we can to make sure that everybody gets out of this alive and safe.”

  He turned to Bob, “Did you say there are lasers and slug throwers for the mech armor?” he asked.

  Bob nodded, “Yeah, but we have to go to the storage room.”

  Mike pursed his lips and shrugged his shoulders, “As long as we get them on and loaded before the next evil beast crawls through the door of the elevator shaft.”

  That thought brought out some serious looks among the techs. Luis, one of the electrical engineers, looked a little gray.

  The engineering team led the way to storage. They had to maneuver down the stairwell to the bottom floor. They rummaged around until Crandall whistled. The techs walked to his location and started pulling black pelican cases out and brought them to Mike, who took them over to the door. Soon there was a pile of twelve cases. There were ten cases that were the same exact size. Then there were two cases that were slightly smaller. Mike figured that the larger cases were the ones that held the armament for the mech armor. He didn’t know what the smaller cases were. Mike moved to the stairwell, and grabbed the rope. He tied the first case to the rope and then yelled up, “First case is ready.”

  More techs were upstairs, and they started pulling the case up. It was problematic to carry the case up the stairs, with the crazy angles involved, so this was the best way to get them to the fourth floor. Soon enough, all twelve cases had been hoisted up. Mike, Bob, and the rest of the techs followed the cases up the stairwell. By the time Mike and his group of techies arrived, all but three of the cases had been transferred out to the mech armor.

  As the people brought the pelican cases, Joel Weitz opened up each one, checked to make sure there was no damage, and that all parts were present. Weitz was still a pain in the ass, but after the monster attack, he was cooperating. Once he was satisfied with the components, he passed paired cases over to Crandall and his group, who took each set of the pelican cases and put them next to each suit of mech armor.

  John Smith, Luis Garcia and Tracy Sheffield started attaching the weapons to the mech armor and then Smith hooked up diagnostic equipment to make sure the software for each weapon was working correctly. Once he received a green across the board, they started working on the next weapon. It took about thirty minutes for each weapon to be installed.

  Mike and the team watched as engineers moved from armor to armor. Bob was sitting close, smoking a cigarette.

  “Bob, what kind of weapons are those?” Everett asked.

  “Those are a pulse laser and one very small rail gun,” he answered.

  “Why a laser and a …. Wait, what the hell is a rail gun?” Rob asked.

  Bob shrugged, “well, with the batteries that the armor uses, it was thought that a miniature rail gun for far targets, and a pulse laser that can cut metal as well as anything else that gets in its way, would be the best armament for the mechs.”

  “Grenades, chain guns, small arms, missiles?” Mike asked.

  Bob shook his head in the negative.

  “No, weapons like that need someone on the outside to charge or clear the weapons, because they’re mechanical. With these weapons, all you have to do is turn off the electronics to the weapons, and they’re on ‘safe.’”

  “Rail gun?” Rob asked again.

  Tom was the one that answered, “Yeah, a rail gun is an electronically fired projectile. The projectile is magnetic, and a pulse of electricity shoots the projectile through electro-magnetically charged rails, hence the name.”

  Rob stared at Tom.

  “Wow.”

  Tom looked back, “What, surprised a hillbilly like me knows something about electro-magnetic ballistic projectiles.”

  Rob shook his head, “No man, you actually used the word ‘hence.’ I didn’t think you hillbillies knew that much English.”

  Smiles broke out around the pair
.

  “Well, gallito, it’s a new age. We hillbillies don’t just make ‘shine in the woods anymore.”

  Rob smiled, “Do you even know what that word means?”

  Tom smiled back, “I know it’s better than Maricon or Mamoncete.”

  Rob replied with his middle finger.

  Mike looked over at Bob, while the two men argued back and forth.

  “Bob, what the hell is up with the battery?”

  Bob suddenly seemed nervous, “Ah, what do you mean?”

  Mike stared at him, “That mech armor uses a hell of a lot of energy. And it’s very quiet, like sneaky quiet. So, that means it’s all electrical. I don’t think you’re changing the batteries every night. I looked in the garbage cans, and I don’t see a whole lot of AA batteries there. There are no cables to charge the suits up. With the amount of time that we’re spending in the armor, I think it would run out of battery power fairly quick.”

  Bob looked around before he answered, pitching his voice lower, “Ah, you guys know anything about quantum physics?”

  All four guys stared at him.

  “You do know about nuclear physics, right?”

  Mike was back on solid ground with that question. “Yeah, we know about nuclear physics. Kind of our specialty. We deal with nuclear, biological, chemical, and other nasty stuff. But we don’t do esoteric physics. We’re more hands on than experimental.”

  Bob nodded, “Well, you know how much energy a nuclear bomb can produce.”

  Everett leaned towards Bob, “Are you telling us that these are nuclear batteries?”

  Bob held up his hands, “No, no, they aren’t nuclear. Not at all. That would make any major battle this armor was used in a radiological nightmare to clean up. No, we went a different route.”

  “And?” Mike asked.

  “Well, we, or I should say, three brilliant men, Drs. Degrassey, Dr. Manard, and Dr. Nachman, figured out a way to mine quantum fluctuation for energy.”

  “You mean, our Dr. Nachman?” Everett asked.

  “Well, yeah,” Bob answered.

  The four team guys stared at Bob. He looked back at them.

  Mike continued, “So what you’re telling me, is that you created a perpetual motion machine here. With free energy.”

  Bob shrugged again, “Well, not exactly free. There was a reason you needed the DOE clearances. We couldn’t just let any person stumble around inside the armor.”

  “Is that why this facility still has electricity?” Everett asked.

  Mike thought about it, “Yeah, I kind of wondered about that myself.”

  Bob nodded, “Actually, yes. And not just this facility. We put four of those on an aircraft carrier to replace the nuclear engine. Passed with flying colors. We were going to convert the entire fleet and put them in places like NORAD. That way, our military would have power in case of any attack.”

  “How far along had you gotten?” Everett asked.

  Bob shook his head, “We just completed trials on the aircraft carrier, and we were going to ramp up production for the rest of the country.”

  “How long do they last?” Mike asked.

  “I don’t know anything about that. You’d have to ask Dr. Nachman about it. But, if you’re around Jamison, Mitchem, or Randall, they probably wouldn’t let him answer.”

  Everett spoke, “That needs to end now.”

  Mike nodded agreement, “yeah, I don’t know what’s going on, but when we’re finished with the recon, we’re all going to have a sit down and a chat about what’s going on around here, to include super-secret code word stuff as well.”

  Bob looked at them both for a few seconds, then replied, “You may have problems convincing some people about that.”

  Mike nodded, “Yeah, I get that feeling as well.”

  The three were interrupted by smartass Weitz. “Ah, Bob, Chief Duggins, the first armor is armed and ready to go.” He wasn’t acting like a smartass now, though. Probably the carnage of the huge monster carcass moderated his responses.

  “That won’t last for long,” Mike thought to himself.

  “Which armor is it?” Everett asked.

  “Armor 4,”

  Everett looked over at Tom, “Tom, you’re up.”

  Tom nodded and moved towards the mech armor with his rifle in hand. He wore his kit over his special mech armor uniform. Tom scrambled up the side and stepped into the cockpit. He stored his rifle and then grabbed the helmet and put it on. Lights flickered from the cockpit as he spooled up the electronics. Weitz had his head phones on and started talking Tom through an abbreviated start up sequence. He explained how to use the pulse laser and the mini-rail gun. As he was doing so, Smith and Sheffield would load what looked like magazines on the upper portion of the arm which held the mini-rail gun.

  “How many rounds does that rail gun have?” Mike asked.

  Bob, shook his head, “I don’t know.”

  Everett turned and yelled, “Hey, Tracy, how many rounds do those magazines hold?”

  She held up two fingers, followed by three clenched fists.

  “Good lord, two thousand rounds?”

  Three heads turned towards Bob, “well, the slugs that thing fires are smaller. They move at a much higher velocity, causing as much damage as a larger caliber bullet.”

  “What caliber, and how heavy is it?” Rob asked.

  “I don’t know the exact specs. A lot of that was handled by the military. You would probably do better to ask Lieutenant Pang when she gets back. They look like the size of a twenty-two caliber to me. They’re square though, not shaped like a bullet.”

  The techies and the team watched as Weitz scrambled down the mech armor. Once he was off the armor, he called Tom over the radio, and let him know that the armor was clear for operations.

  As the armor stirred to life, the others backed away, knowing that Tom would have to get his balance, and get used to the tilt in the floor. The next armor up for weapons was Mike’s. Soon enough, Mike was in the cockpit, stowing his rifle and putting on the helmet. He tried to scrape the helmet with his sleeve to get the puke out. He didn’t have time to do it when the monster attacked. He couldn’t get it all out, so he yelled for a towel. Somebody threw him an old t-shirt, which worked fine. It didn’t get the stench out though. He was going to have to do a thorough cleaning when he got the chance.

  As he turned on the helmet, he noticed two new displays. He leaned forward, going through systems check as Weitz’s voice muttered in his ear. As Weitz went down the check list, he replied in the positive, the board lighting up green until all systems were online. The two red indicators indicating missing systems were now gone, replaced by green. He immediately understood that those indicators were for the weapons. He felt the foam engulf his body, and knew that he might actually be going into combat in the mech armor.

  He broadcast, “Radio check, over.”

  Tom answered, “Roger, boss man, I have you Lima Charlie.”

  Mike stood the armor up, and, as with Tom, everyone backed away to let Mike get used to the angle in the floor. “Tom, I need for you to move forward of the carcass towards the elevator shaft. I’m going to start cutting it up so that we can move it out after the recon. The last thing we need in here is a pile of rotting meat.”

  “Roger, Chief, I’m moving forward now. Chief?”

  Mike replied to the question, “Yeah, what’s up?”

  “Boss man, can I do some target practice on the soft areas before you chop up the carcass? I don’t know what these weapons can do.”

  Mike thought about it, “Affirmative, get close to make sure you don’t miss. We don’t want a ricochet. That could really mess up somebody’s day.”

  “Roger, Chief, no problem. I’ll ensure that I’m so close I can’t miss.” Tom clicked on his speakers to announce to the room at large, “Move away from the carcass, I’m going weapons hot, and I need to ensure the weapons are
working.” Tom walked forward to the carcass.

  Mike turned on his speakers, “Everybody move behind Tom’s armor so that you’re out of the line of fire.” The engineers moved quickly to comply with Mike’s order. “Everett, you’re now my Range Officer. Please ensure everybody is in the safe area behind Tom, then give us the OK to engage the carcass.”

  It took a few minutes, then Everett gave them permission to engage. As Tom got close to the carcass, a sound like a muted buzz saw started. Mike watched as chunks of flesh flew through the air. The sound stopped, and then Mike saw smoke rising from the carcass. He assumed that Tom had engaged the pulse laser.

  “What do you think, Tom?” Mike asked.

  Tom spoke, “Not bad. It’s like a video game. The cross hairs move to where you point the gun. Once the cross hairs are where you want them, think about pulling the trigger and the weapon shoots. On the mini-rail display, there’s a bar that decreases as ammunition is expended.”

  Tom moved past the carcass and took position close to the elevator shaft, close enough that nothing could get by, but not close enough that he could be surprised by anything coming down.

  Mike walked the mech to the carcass. First he tried the mini-rail. He only used it for a short burst of five, and the metal pellets tore into the flesh of the carcass. He set his mini-rail to safe, and turned on the pulse laser. As he watched, he noticed the beam of light was not exactly where the smoke rose as he cut into the carcass.

  “Probably an aiming laser,” he thought. He sifted through the command tree for the laser, and found what he wanted. He had the capability to use the cross hairs, with the visible laser off, or he could use the aiming laser, in either day time mode or with night vision. There were two more settings for smoke and water vapor.

  “The engineers thought of everything,” Mike thought.

  Soon enough, Rob’s voice asked for a radio check. Both Mike and Tom gave him an affirmative. Mike sent Rob forward to stand with Tom. Now that they had three mechs up and operational, Mike felt better about their chances, as long as there wasn’t a pack of beasts like this one at the top of the elevator shaft. With no more attacks, odds were rising in their favor.

  As he cut up the beast, the tough hide tried to resist the laser, but it soon gave way. He thought about where this monstrosity may have come from. Unless the military had some biological experiments in the facility, he didn’t have a clue. It was as big as four elephants, but no elephant was as dangerous as this creature. Everybody had been lucky that weapons were nearby, otherwise most of the engineers and his team would have been killed before they got into the stairwell.

  He heard Everett calling for a radio check. He received a five by five from Rob, Tom, and Mike.

  “Everett, where’s Mickey?” Mike asked.

  “Still working on sprains and contusions.”

  Mike turned on his external speakers, “Can someone please get Mickey over here and armored up. I want the entire team for this recon.”

  The radio clicked in his ear, “Mike, Jennifer here. Mickey is on his way. He has one more arm to wrap and stabilize. Maybe ten minutes.”

  “Roger, thanks for the update.” Mike answered.

  Another voice spoke over the radio, “Mike, how would you like to get an idea of what you’re going to face before you step into the elevator shaft?”

  It was John Smith talking. Mike could see him on the heads up display, holding what looked like a three by three foot square of carbon fiber with four holes. There were small propellers in each hole. There was a shiny ball of glass with electronics in it. Mike could see at least one camera lens.

  “Is that the drone?” Mike asked.

  “Affirmative, that is the drone. And it links to your head’s up display. Your entire team will be able to see whatever it sees,” John answered.

  “Sounds like a plan to me. Go ahead and send it out. Maybe we can keep from being ambushed by other critters out there.” Mike answered.

  “Okay, powering it up right now.”

  Mike watched as John and Luis powered up the drone and set up the laptop that controlled it. As soon as the laptop was powered up, Smith sat down and initiated the sequence to get the drone flying. He typed a command, picked up a controller and the drone leaped into the air. It hung there as Smith went through his checklist, using the controller and the keypad of the computer.

  “Alright, here we go, the drone is now online.”

  Smith finished talking, and another display popped up on Mike’s screen. Mike accepted the input, and the camera on the drone started relaying images to the team. He watched as the drone moved up into the air, then sailed over the heads of the standing mech armor towards the elevator shaft. This gave Mike a partial out of body experience as he saw the mech armor below the drone, and realized that he was looking at himself.

  The drone slowed as it approached the shaft. Mike could see the enormous claw marks and dents where the beast slammed the door with its body and forced them open. The drone displayed the area behind the open doors.

  “What the hell are those?” Mike heard over the radio. It sounded like Weitz talking.

  Mike looked at the image. There were leathery objects in the background, some of which were ripped open. There was fluid and gore everywhere.

  “Hey, move the camera to the left.”

  The camera moved and one of the leather shells came into focus. And something more.

  “Hey, doesn’t that look like a leg?” Rob asked.

  Smith spoke up, “Okay, moving forward now.”

  The drone started forward. More of the leathery shells and bodies came into focus. One had a head that looked like the beast they killed.

  Mike knew what they were, “It was defending the nest.”

  Bob spoke, “What, you mean there was a nest of these things up there?”

  Mike replied, “Yes, that’s her nest, and for some reason, it was in our elevator shaft.”

  “What the hell,” another voice exclaimed.

  Everett spoke next, “Team, be alert. If there was a nest of these critters, odds are very good that there are more of these monsters up there.” The voices over the radio quieted as the engineering team realized the implications in that statement. Mickey piped up over the radio, asking for a radio check. The rest of the team responded. The drone moved into the shaft. The camera showed a large amount of cracked leather shells, and dead versions of the beast that Mike had cut up. It was a horror.

  “Well folks, now we know why she was so pissed off. All of her kids are dead.” Rob said.

  John spoke, “Mike, what do you want to do now?”

  “Can you angle the camera up so that we can look up the shaft?”

  “No problem, but we can’t send the drone up any further unless one of you gets into the shaft. The drone radio controls are line of sight, and we have to use the mech armor suits as a relay for the signal. If the drone tried to fly up the shaft right now, we would lose signal and possible damage the drone.”

  Mike replied, “Roger, I understand.” Mike cut the comms with John, “Tom, I need for you to move forward into the shaft. Take it slow, and peel out of there if you see anything that doesn’t look right.”

  Tom spoke up, “You mean like a ten ton, pissed off lizard trying to disembowel me?

  “Yes, exactly like that, Tom,” Mike replied.

  “Roger, WILCO.”

  Tom moved forward, towards the shaft. The view from the drone changed as it moved further up the shaft. Tom grabbed the elevator door and the sound of metal creaking filled the warehouse as the armored hand crushed it. Tom shifted the metal back and forth, until it gave way and ripped from the frame of the shaft. He dropped it next to the elevator.

  Tom moved slowly into the shaft. Mike watched him gingerly step onto the top of the elevator. The metal settled with a crunching noise as it adjusted to the weight of the armor. The car stabilized, and he stood th
ere for a moment. They all could hear bones snap as he stepped on the bodies of the dead monsters. Cables lay haphazard in great knots and snarls on top of the elevator.

  “Alright, good signal, moving the drone further up the shaft,” Smith said.

  The drone moved up and sideways to compensate for the angle of the shaft. Gore was smeared across the walls, where the eggs had slammed on their way to the bottom. The monster’s talons had ripped into the sides of the elevator shaft as she climbed down.

  Rob talked, “personally, if these beasts had the same type of temper that their mother did, I’m glad they’re dead.”

  “Ah, might not have been the mother,” Mickey replied.

  “What do you mean?” Everett asked.

  “Could be the father. All depends on the species involved.”

  The drone kept climbing. It approached the top of the shaft. The top looked strange. The concrete walls of the top of the elevator shaft were gone, and the huge blast door at the top was gone as well. They had been replaced by the same smooth rock layer that they had seen in the other elevator and the top of the stairs.

  “What the hell is that?”

  “What?”

  “That curved surface. That shouldn’t be there. That’s where the cables for the elevator should be attached.”

  “If you go to the top of the staircase to the first floor, you’ll see the exact same thing. It’s unnaturally smooth.” Mike replied. He didn’t know who he was talking to.

  There was a hole in the rock. As the drone approached, they could see that it was sizable. They wouldn’t know how big until they got there, though.

  “John, can you fly the drone through that hole?” Mike asked.

  “Yeah, but you’ll have to move armor forward again, though, for the relay,” he replied.

  Mike gave the orders to move, “Tom, I need for you to climb up the shaft, so that Rob can take your place on the elevator.”

  “Roger, moving up.” Tom replied.

  Tom started climbing the iron scaffolding that encased the elevator. He used his laser to cut hand and foot holds as needed. It was a good thing they had weeks to get used to the mech armor. It acted like it was part of Tom’s physical body. He only felt faint vibrations through the foam encasing him as he moved. The neural feedback loop in his helmet gave him a capability he never could have imagined when he first saw the mech armor.

  Once Tom vacated the elevator car. Rob, moving just as gingerly as Tom had, stood on the top of the car. He watched Tom’s progress from his armor graphic displays, and from the drone. Soon, Tom was at the top of the shaft, “Boss man, I’m at the top of the shaft.”

  “Roger, can you find a stable position inside of the tunnel?” Mike asked.

  “Well, it will be a tight fit, but I should be able to manage.”

  “Okay, Tom, I need for you to move up once the drone enters the tunnel, and try to stabilize your position.”

  “Roger.”

  That was Tom. He would never use two words when one will do.

  Smith moved the drone forward. The tunnel was a mixture of gravel, rock and dirt, just like any other cave in the world, with the exception that it was very smooth. Mike could tell the monster had traversed the passage constantly, burnishing the rock face.

  The drone continued forward, moving twenty, thirty, forty feet down the tunnel. Then there was a turn in the tunnel, and Mike knew he would have to shift bodies to keep the drone working.

  “Okay, Tom, move forward, try to keep from getting stuck,” Mike ordered.

  “Roger, moving forward.”

  “Rob, you need to move forward and take Tom’s place, okay?”

  “Roger, can do.”

  “We’ll have to play tag. Tom, don’t move until Rob replaces you, then you can move forward.”

  Mike stepped forward to maintain the signal line of sight as Rob started climbing. Soon, Rob was at the top, and Tom started moving forward. When Tom reached the turn, the drone started moving forward again. The tunnel widened as the drone advanced. The roof was also getting higher. Ambient light filtered back, and the tunnel suddenly opened up to an area approximately thirty to forty feet wide, and in some places, about thirty feet high.

  The opening of the cave was the widest part of the cave, making a triangle with the opening of the cave along one side, and two meandering cave walls as the other sides. The opening of the tunnel intersected the point where the two walls would have met. As the drone moved forward, the cave opened up, and the drone showed a large, open expanse of tall grass, waving as the wind blew through it. A wall of tall trees stood in the distance. There was no military base. There were no buildings. Just a meadow and trees.

  “Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas, anymore.”

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