Prelude to War (Athena Lee Chronicles Book 9)

by T S Paul

  Matthew walked over to the door and pressed the buzzer. He looked up at the camera and smiled. The door made a noise and opened. Leading the way, Matthew led the disguised assault team into the base.

  “Hey Lieutenant that was quick! I see you found them.”

  “Yes, they hadn’t started digging yet.” As he talked to the guard the ‘maintenance crews’ silently filed past the guard post.

  The guard still sitting glanced up just in time to see one of the workers scratch his head, exposing a backpack partially hidden from view. “Hold on a second! You there! What is that on your back?”

  The other guard stopped talking to Matthew and turned to look at the workers. That was his last conscious action as the back of his head exploded. The seated guard barely had time to utter a gasp as his brains joined those of his co-worker on the floor!

  “Now we have to move people!”

  The workers began stripping off their maintenance uniforms exposing the black combat suits underneath. Quickly Matthew began sketching out maps of the complex. The command center was not very far away. “Where do you want me?”

  The commander of the attack unit turned and looked at the lieutenant. “Do you think this will expose you?”

  “Maybe? My boss is a total idiot, but he is not stupid. He would have to be killed to make sure, but the blame should fall on him. I do have orders to report outside; but on the other side of the complex.”

  “Follow your orders. Play dumb if you have to.”

  “I’ll do that. Good luck. For Earth!” Matthew hurried out of the secure area and hustled over to the other exit.

  “For Earth!” The strike team quickly checked their weapons and armed all of their suicide vests. This was to be a one way attack. None of them were expected to return.

  ~~~

  Amalie’s temporary office was very nice. The wide windows looked out upon the chaos that was the command center. Dar was knocking on them.

  “Dar, is there something wrong with my window?”

  “No, Ma’am. I was just checking to see if they were bulletproofed.” Her cheeks had a faint red tinge to them. She embarrassed easily.

  “It’s something better than bulletproof. It is clear steel.”

  I perked up at that, something to do with engineering! “Grandmother how is that even possible?”

  She laughed. “It’s not really steel, Athena. That is just what my techs are calling it. Do you know what bulk glass is?”

  “I do. That is where you take marginal glass and add different elements to it to make it bulk.”

  “That is a simplified description, but you are right. Our engineers discovered that if you add palladium to the process, the glass you get has many of the properties of steel. They spent several decades perfecting the techniques. Soon we will start using it on ships and stations. Imagine a window you can just look out?”

  “That would be really cool.”

  “Now, Athena. I had Gaston fetch you because I was worried about you at the Embassy. This is the safest place on the planet. You will be safe here.”

  “I understand Grandmother.”

  “You do? Excellent! I thought for sure you would fight me on this. Now we can get down to work.” At that moment Bellona, Amalie’s CATT jumped up on the desk and broadcast an alert. “There is a possible breach in sector seven.”

  Amalie spun around towards Bellona. “What! Where?”

  “The security guards in sector seven have failed to make their hourly check.” The CATTs voice was coming from all the monitors in the office.

  “Can you bring up the cameras in that section?”

  The main vid screen lit up with a scene of death and gore. Both guards were behind the desk with their heads blown off.

  Amalie mashed her hand onto the big red button on her desk. Alarms began to sound throughout the base.

  Dar looked at me and said. “That big red button makes that pretty easy.”

  I nodded at her. Security troops rushed into the room. Amalie barely acknowledged them. “We have a breach in sector seven! Lock the base down code black! Do it now! We have unknown forces inside the base!”

  Amalie motioned for us to stay in the office. She stepped out and began shouting orders to her people. Bellona chimed in suddenly. “Primus, if I may interrupt?”

  “Yes, Bellona go ahead.”

  Most of the command staff all stared at the talking cat. Sure the words were coming from the communication system, but the cat was clearly talking.

  “Primus, the system logs show that orders were received sending three maintenance crews outside to repair malfunctioning sensors. They were sent to sectors seven, eight, and nine. The guards at gate one let a lieutenant out their door to connect with those same crews. They then followed the officer back into the base.”

  “And your point here is Bellona?”

  “Primus, the crews went out gate two and came in gate one? They are on opposite sides of the base. If we were to check the real crew must be still outside.”

  “Where did the orders to start this charade come from?”

  “Commander Ritus in sensors.”

  Amalie sprang into action. “Alert all internal security that we have at least a dozen armed hostiles within the base!” She looked at her security. “Come with me.”

  Commander Ritus was still watching his vid when a shadow passed over him. He didn’t even look up. “Did you finish those repairs Lieutenant Dorr? I’ll take my code key back now.” He held up his hand.

  Arthur looked up in shock as his arm was jerked back behind his back and cuffed to the other one. The Primus of Mars was standing over him.

  “Primus! I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t be watching this but…”

  “Stop! Who did you give your code key to?”

  “My key… Oh, My key. I gave it to Lieutenant Dorr he needed to fix the gravimetric sensors in sector seven, eight, and nine.”

  “And what did he say was wrong with them? Do you remember?”

  “He said that the explosions outside must have damaged the diamatic altimeter and caused a cascade effect. I told him to call maintenance and fix it.”

  “How exactly did you get this position?” If smoke could come out of her ears, it would at this point.

  The Commander tried to sit up straight. “I passed all the tests Ma’am. I am qualified according to regulations.”

  “Regulations be damned! You have allowed armed terrorists to enter this base! Just so you know, an altimeter reads how far off the ground you are. Lock him up, we will deal with him later!”

  Bellona was climbing around the desks and knocked a flower pot off of one. It smashed to the deck shattering in all directions. The CATT nosed a small electronic device. Amalie’s security team picked it up and bagged it. “Find out whatever you can about the man who’s desk this is!”

  ~~~

  The Cabal hit team broke into two sections. The first section was tasked with causing as much damage and mayhem as they could. The second team was to kill Amalie Dorr and the Hong Kong Ambassador. If any of the team survived, they were to destroy the command center too.

  The main cafeteria served on average over two-thousand meals daily. It was state of the art with robotic food producing machines and a staff of over a hundred. The kitchen staff was unusually alert as very few troops were eating today. The staff had already sent up box lunches for most of those standing watch. They only half noticed when a half dozen strangely uniformed troops raced into the room. The first shot killed the head chef who asked if they needed to eat. Everyone in the room tried to take cover as they all became targets for the killers.

  Finding targets of opportunity, the Cabal assassins stalked the cooks in the kitchen. Those that stood on the line were killed almost instantly. The robot techs and dish handling crews had more machinery to hide behind. The killers spread out in the food prep area. There were four of them hunting the cooks. The other three were killing patrons execution style in the dining room.


  PO 1st class Lawrence Sanders was new to the Martian service. He found himself practically drafted when he admitted that he used to work for Robots-Are-Us. All the new kitchen equipment was built there and the Military barely knew how to repair it. He was permanently assigned kitchen duty after basic training. Now he was being hunted in his own kitchen! He calmed down for a moment and used his head. It was his kitchen! He knew where everything was and maybe stood a small chance of surviving. First thing kill the lights!

  The main breaker was in the rear of the kitchen. Lawrence belly crawled across the deck to just outside the storage area. He had seen one of the Chiefs do this in a demonstration once. Fuses were a thing of the distant past. This breaker box used a computer to monitor power usage and control voltage. The demonstration that he witnessed was all about what if’s that could plague a kitchen. He opened the box and pressed a tiny button on the bottom of the computer unit. This would turn off the computer so the unit could be serviced. During maintenance everything would be turned off. This was not training. The secondary system registered the lack of control and power sources and shut everything down. The kitchen was now almost pitch black.

  Now Lawrence had a small chance. Praying that they didn’t have night vision or infrared he began to stalk them in the near darkness. Several pilot lights were still on casting blue shadows over the kitchen. Lawrence found the largest wrench in his kit and searched the kitchen for his prey. They were gone. All he found was the bodies of his friends and the piles of dead in the dining area. Alarms triggered by the gunfire and power outages were sounding throughout the base.

  The assassins didn’t know why the power went out but they didn’t care. They were heading toward the housing and quarters area of the base. An EMT team ignoring everyone on their way toward the cafeteria had already run into the hit crew. Their bleeding bodies lay next to their life-saving equipment.

  The word was out and security forces were blockading the halls. Spotting one such blockage one of the assassins charged it. Taking fire from all present he made it halfway to them before expiring. His companions fled down a different hallway. Base security checked the body of the assassin and were blown to bits when his suicide vest triggered.

  Chapter 15

  The Command Center was a madhouse. Reports were coming in from all over about merciless black-clad assassins killing everyone they came in contact with. The information that they all wore suicide vests made capture impossible. Shoot on sight orders were given.

  Amalie was nearly in tears. Someone from her family had done this! A Dorr was the one who let them into the base!

  I held my grandmother in my arms and murmured that it was not her fault. I heard Wilson in my ear asking if he could help.

  “Grandmother, would you be upset if I turned Wilson loose on this relative of ours who has betrayed us?”

  “Tell him yes. Maybe he will have better luck tracing the traitor.”

  Wilson said his goodbyes and as he put it ‘dove’ into the computer system.

  “Grandmother is there anything else we can do?” Dar and Gaston huddled together in the back of the room plotting.

  “No. Let my security forces work. We are safe here.”

  Just as she said the word ‘safe’ a massive explosion rattled the command center. “Report!”

  “Ma’am. That was just outside the door!” Checking the front door, bulges could be seen around the edges.

  Boom!

  Another explosion rocked the center. The door was now deformed and cracks were showing around the edges. Exterior vid cameras showed a trio of black clad, heavily armed men staring at the door and pointing.

  “Get a response team here now! This door won’t hold forever!” Amalie threw the communicator at the wall in disgust.

  “We are on our own. Somehow the enemy has managed to blockade the upper levels. The strike force is having to hunt them down throughout the quarters area.” Amalie turned to Captain Bishe her second-in-command. “Captain, open up the security vault and arm everyone please. We will use my quarters as the fall back position. They’re not completed yet but the shielding and monitors are all in place.”

  “Yes, Primus. We are getting reports from outside that the terror attacks have stopped. City security forces have been notified of our situation and are reinforcing the perimeter.”

  “Good work Captain. It was all a diversion after all. They must really want us all dead for that much effort. Let's make them dead instead shall we?”

  Amalie stepped into her office and took a quick look at Dar and I. She opened a secret door in the room and a weapons vault was revealed. “Take whatever you need. We may have to fight them off ourselves. The exfil location is my old office.”

  Dar looked at her and smiled. “Yes, Ma’am!”

  Amalie shook her head and smiled back. “Marines.”

  “Status report!”

  “Primus everyone is now armed. All non-combatants have been moved to your quarters. It looks like they may be out of explosives judging by their actions on the vid. But we have attempted to shore up the door.”

  I looked over at the door and in my honest engineering opinion knew it wouldn’t stop a rampaging pack of children. The staffers had piled desks and chairs in front of the door. Suddenly Dar grabbed my arm. I looked toward her and she was staring at the main camera vid screen. Two of the terrorists were standing in front of the door yelling something.

  “Grandmother do we have audio out there.” I pointed at the main vid.

  She looked at the screen and her face blanched. Suddenly we could all hear what was being said. “… I do this for the purpose. This is my sacrifice. For Earth!” There were other cheers of ‘For Earth’ off screen. Suddenly there was another explosion as the two men blew themselves up trying to break through the door!

  Inside there was a massive roar that shook the command center, shrapnel flew in all directions as the main doors came apart in a violent flash of light and sound. I could hear the screams, grunts, and gasps as people I saw everyday and respected were hit by the flying debris. There was zero time for recovery. The three remaining assassins came charging through the now open doorway. They were heavily armed and firing fully automatic weapons. Fragmentation shot and even more shrapnel filled the room. Command staff and technicians dove for cover and began to return fire.

  I realized I was holding my breath this whole time! I gasped and choked on the cordite fumes that filled the air. My sidearm was still sitting on the desk! Quickly looking around I spotted Gaston lying on the floor in a pool of blood! I crawled across the blast shattered bulletproof glass over to the little man. Carefully rolling him over, I supported his head as if he were a small child. His face and upper body was mangled and torn from the door blast. Blood was pouring from multiple wounds as shards of glass and metal adorned his body. My hands trembled as I tried to help him. There were too many wounds to patch and with what? I did the only thing I could think of and elevated him. Tearing his vest and fine silk shirt off of him I quickly made makeshift bandages and attempted to stem the tide of blood.

  As I wrapped his head one more time, I felt a hand on my arm and jumped. Gaston was somehow conscious! “Gaston, can you hear me?”

  There was the sound of a gasp and blood burbled out of his mouth. That was not good at all! He made a very faint sound. I placed my ear to his face. “Gaston? Lie still, please! Let me help you.”

  There were tears in my eyes. This was one of my best friends on Mars! He made a faint sibilant noise, I strained my ears to hear what he was saying. “… Athena… leave me. Save… save… yourself… use the escape… h… ha… haaatchhh…” He gave a gasp and died in my arms. I held him for a moment then carefully laid him down. Escape hatch? What escape hatch? I ran my eyes over the walls. This was my grandmother’s office, she must have a secret way out. She always did. There! Behind the wall hanging was the faint outline of a door. I still needed to find Dar and Grandmother!

  I could see Dar and Amalie wer
e hunched behind the main communications desk. The assassins had made quick work of Captain Bishe’s security team. Security had been near the door when the first assassin entered. He too wore an explosive vest! The force of the explosion riddled the security team and the Captain with flying shrapnel killing them instantly. The rest were trying to keep up their rate of fire but the assassins had more skill and heavier weapons. I could see Dar looking around the room, small groups of troops were still engaging the enemy, but the fire was slowing down as ammunition disappeared. She looked over shoulder and spotted me looking at her. I motioned for her to bring Amalie in here with me. Dar seemed to make a decision and grabbed Amalie and threw her to the floor. As I watched the two women seemed to argue then crawl toward the next group of combatants.