The End of the Beginning

by Eichholz, Zachary

  When they got to Hernandez’s office they entered it without even knocking. The lead female guardsman walked right up to his desk and said, “Sir, we found them.” Then she stepped off to the side.

  The other four stayed behind Jake and William, each with their hands on their guns. Hernandez looked up from his glass tablet, leaned back in his chair, and sighed. He then put his glass tablet down and crossed his hands over his stomach. William didn’t wait for the worst.

  “Chief, before you say anything you need to know something right now. We found something, something pointing to an imminent threat. It’s why we came back. Base Commander Hammond deleted all of your investigation files along with Samir’s autopsy report. I have evidence - ”

  “I know,” said Hernandez.

  Jake and William looked at each other with surprise. “You know, sir?”

  “Yes. The knowledge comes with an apology to you, Captain. You were right. I was wrong. We discovered the deletions about five hours ago. It is clear evidence that she has been trying to sway this investigation to her own agenda, an agenda that is dangerous to us all. You were right; she is a Terra Novan terrorist who has some how managed to infiltrate one of the highest positions in this organization.”

  William still had a look of surprise. “Um, wow, sir. Okay. I thought you were going to arrest us,” he chuckled with a pleasant surprise.

  “No. When I saw you in the hallway earlier I wasn’t going to arrest you, I was going to thank you. Pride blinded me. Clearly, I was to overcome with it to believe that this agency could be wrong… or compromised. I was filled with the same human arrogance that forced this place to be built.”

  Hernandez stood up and smiled. He put his hand out towards William for a handshake. William reciprocated.

  “I will overlook the fact that you broke into our mortuary with the help of Guardsman Sheroff here because it has provided us with the smoking gun we were missing. We have arrested the medical examiner who just so happen to forget to document those four pretty little glowing triangles, no doubt at the orders of Hammond. You see those four symbols represent the four basic elements: water, air, fire, earth. These four symbols have been found in some way shape or form at every recorded Terra Novan attack site.”

  Hernandez picked up his glass tablet and showed William several photographs confirming the symbols heritage. Each photo saw the symbols made out of some material or medium, anything from burning wood to dead bodies.

  “I think it’s time we put the past few days behind us Will, hmm?” said Hernandez.

  “Yes, I think your right, sir,” agreed William.

  “We’ve both lost people to our pasts, I’d like to not lose anymore in our future. Help me stop her. Once we do, everything will change.”

  William nodded his head profusely, inspired and ready. “When do we start?” he asked with a satisfied grin.

  Hernandez clapped his hands together, grabbed his glass tablet and began to march out of his office. William and everyone else just tried to keep up. The chief started divulging his plan like he had been waiting to for decades.

  “We have received word that Hammond has requested for a departure from Alaska at o-three thirty hours her time. That is two days earlier than scheduled. Her staff will be leaving St. Lawrence for Anchorage within the hour, from there she will come home to Tranquility.”

  “Was the request denied? Shouldn’t we hold her in Alaska and take her down there?”

  “The request was approved. On the contrary, keeping her there is the last thing I need right now. If she is a Terra Novan I can’t leave her there amongst almost every world leader and with officials like the director-general there all right at her fingertips. Also, I don’t want to create an international incident during this little friendly get together. Right now the world doesn’t need anymore of those. No. We allow her to come here to a controlled environment with a waiting security force ready to apprehend her and Colonel Morrison when they land sometime just before fifteen hundred hours our time.”

  “Woah wait,” said William, abruptly stopping the group. “Why Colonel Morrison?”

  “We believe him to be a co-conspirator. The colonel and Hammond are close acquaintances.”

  “What? No,” urged William. “Colonel Morrison can’t be. He’s, he’s been helping me solve this whole - ”

  “Look, Will, I understand he is your friend but we have our reasons. Have you been waiting for a phone call from Colonel Morrison over the last few days?”

  “Yes…” said William hesitantly.

  “And have you received that phone call?”

  “No.”

  “Exactly. We know you instructed him to find an alternate blood sample to show Samir wasn’t on drugs. Well, now, with the arrest of our own medical examiner, we know he wasn’t. As you said, it was faked. There were no drugs in his system. Colonel Morrison doesn’t want you to know you were right. He and Hammond are waiting, buying there time until an attack. That is why we believe she is leaving Alaska early, to get out before it occurs so she is long gone before it happens.”

  “What are we going to do now, Chief?” asked Jake.

  “Like I said, we allow her to return to the base with guardsmen waiting. We will take her and the Colonel in and begin investigating her connections and her plans.”

  Hernandez began walking again down the hallway. His five guardsmen followed. William and Jake stayed behind. Before turning a corner Hernandez raised his right index finger and said, “Once again, Captain, I am sorry we did not listen to you earlier but do not worry. We will figure all of this out together now. This is only the end of the beginning!”

  William’s ears perked up in disbelief. “What did he just say?” he whispered to himself.

  CHAPTER 64: The Fire Begins

  “Brah,” snorted Rescue Officer Stern, “you mean to tell me that you rather be working iceberg capture than this? Your insane.”

  “Yes,” replied Rescue Officer Eaton. “This job is shit. I didn’t join UNIRO to look out a window all day and wave at ships as they go by. At least with iceberg capturing there is something to do. I mean, look at us, we’ve been on our asses all damn day.”

  “I love my ass so I’m okay with that,” said Stern. “It’s peaceful here. It’s the easiest job in the world.”

  Both arguing men were Geo’s, assigned to ship patrol in the Bering Sea Dam’s third open passage twenty-nine miles west of St. Lawrence. They sat in a control room affixed to the passageways eastern suspension bridge tower just under its road deck’s truss. From under here they could see the entire passageway and all the shipping that came through it. Dozens of ships of all sizes made there way through, ranging all the way from small crab boats to multi-city block sized super tankers transporting oil down from Alaska’s northern most reaches.

  The control room was a semicircular glass box filled with communications equipment, weather instruments, and a plethora of computer screens, more than enough for the two men to watch. The control room also had a connecting lounge, common bedroom, and bathroom for the two men who were going to live out here in three-week shifts. They were almost 200 feet above the steel towers pier; a massive hexagonal concrete anchor that held the bridge tower to the seafloor. This pier also protected the bridge towers base from icebergs and ice flows.

  Their view starred out across the mile and half wide gap into the blackness of the Bering Sea. All they could see were the blinking amber lights of bridge deck directly above them and the far suspension tower. Currently, there were no ships in the passage.

  “Just look out the window, Eaton,” pointed Stern. “Look at the sight of that. It’s beautiful.”

  “All I see is darkness… like my future,” sulked Eaton.

  “Well you better get used to it. In the winter it gets dark super early this far north. And hey, the opening ceremony was cool. You have to admi - ”

  A sensor indicator started beeping. Eaton sat up quickly in his chair. “What’s that?”


  Stern rolled over to the computer screen that the beeping was coming from. “It’s a proximity warning. A ship has passed into the first tower safety zone. It’s probably nothing, an accidental drift or something. I’ll hail them.”

  “Which tower, east or west?” asked Eaton.

  “East.”

  “Great. That’s our tower.”

  Stern got up and grabbed a pair of binoculars. He got as close to the large windows as he could and scanned the waters around the tower. It was to dark to see anything. The few bridge lights were literally the only sources of light for tens of miles in any direction. It was the rawest of nights out here.

  “I can’t see anything, Eaton,” said Stern uneasily. “You sure it’s not a glitch?”

  “No,” confirmed Eaton. “It’s definitely out there. I got their transponder. Computer says it’s a supertanker; ultra large crude carrier class called the TI Arctic. It’s over twelve hundred feet long and has a 517,660-ton displacement when fully loaded.”

  “That’s big,” muttered Stern.

  Eaton rolled over to the radio console in his chair and grabbed a flexible microphone. “This is Passageway Control hailing the TI Arctic on all frequency’s, do you copy, over?”

  Static was there reply. Stern tried to see the ship again with his binoculars but still he saw nothing.

  “I repeat, this is Passageway Control hailing the TI Arctic on all frequency’s, do you copy, over? You have passed into the eastern bridge towers outer safety zone. Please correct your course immediately to compensate.”

  Static again. The lights in the control room went too red as another more urgent beeping started.

  “Shit,” said Eaton. “The ship just passed into the second safety zone. It’s on a collision course with the tower if it continues on its present heading.”

  Eaton hailed the ship again. While he was doing that Stern began making collision preparations. First, he closed all lanes of traffic on the bridge deck by raising barriers and sent out an emergency signal to all trains to stop service immediately. Oil and gas pipelines running under the bridge deck were closed off next. He turned on exterior emergency lighting on the two bridge towers as well as a proximity alarm that was so loud it could be heard by anyone within a four-mile radius. It sounded very much like a blasting ship horn.

  With the outside lights on Stern looked with his binoculars again. Eaton still hadn’t gotten a response.

  “Jesus Christ,” said Stern, lowering his binoculars. He was lowering them because he did not need them. The massive ship, longer than the Eiffel Tower is tall, emerged out of the darkness, slicing through the meager waves. Stern had never seen something so big in motion. The leviathan was very low in the water. It was fully loaded. Painted across its white bow were four red symbols, all triangles.

  “Oh crap… Eaton, the ship is right there!”

  A third alarm went off. It was the alarm indicating the ship had breached the third and final safety zone around the tower. It was now no more than 500 feet away moving at full speed, all 517,660 tons of it.

  “TI Arctic reverse course immediately! You are on a collision course with the bridge tower!”

  The static stopped. Someone had picked up. Eaton smiled with relief and waited eagerly for a response. All he got was a cold and sinister, “No.”

  “We gotta go!” cried Stern over the alarms.

  Eaton just let go of the microphone and calmly sat back in his chair. “It’s to late,” he said.

  Down below the last line of defense lay in wait. Surrounding the towers hexagonal concrete pier were colossal extendable orange bumpers attached to each side of the pier that were specifically designed to absorb and deflect impacts from ships. They bobbed up and down in the water on pivoting steel arms.

  The ship thundered into one of the bumpers, instantly breaking right through it. Its steel arms crumpled like straws. With a crunching crash the TI Arctic’s bulbous bow rammed into the concrete bridge pier, sending intense vibrations across both structures. Lights across the bridge flickered. Steel moaned and groaned over the proximity alarm. Stern and Eaton were knocked to the floor. The bulbous bow allowed the ship to ride up on top of the pier, scrapping and carving through the ships double steel hull, spilling oil.

  A few feet from the bridge tower itself in the middle of the pier the ship stopped, beached and dead in the water. Oil was gushing from below the ship around the bow. Eaton and Stern got back on their feet and looked down out the windows.

  “Woah!” shouted Stern. “We’re okay!”

  A bomb inside the ships center holding tank detonated, igniting the ships 140,000,000 gallons of oil all at once. The initial shockwave shattered the control room’s windows and threw Stern and Eaton all the way through the back wall into their lounge. Suspension cables became dislodged from their connectors and snapped apart. The blast ripped through the bottom of the tower, completely collapsing the structure. Heat and fire reached out above the road deck. As the tower tumbled down into the fireball the deck fell into the sea like a rolling wave. Hundreds were still left on it as it did.

  Seismometers on St. Lawrence registered the explosion it was so powerful. As John was readying to leave his room he heard his window rattle. He thought it was the breeze.

  CHAPTER 65: Sequence Red

  As William and Jake made their way up the steps to Nancy’s quarters, they heard the warning. The computerized announcement with a female voice was fed through every loudspeaker around the base.

  “Attention. Attention. Base Tranquility is now in Sequence Red. Repeat, Base Tranquility is now in Sequence Red. This is not a drill. This is not a drill.”

  “Uh-oh,” said William, looking up to the sky at the sound coming from all around him.

  “Due to imminent security concerns all UNIRO personnel are to remain indoors until the base has returned to Sequence Green. Repeat, all UNIRO personnel are to remain indoors until the base has returned to Sequence Green. All base entrances and exits will be sealed effective immediately.

  “That can’t be good,” said Jake. “Something must have just happened,” said Jake, “something really bad.”

  “Crap,” mumbled William.

  “Crap is right,” Jake said, restarting his run up the steps.

  “ISAF is now in control of all on base functions until further notice. Any personnel found outside without authorization will be detained for questioning. Base Tranquility is now in Sequence Red. Repeat, Base Tranquility is now in Sequence Red.”

  When Nancy opened the door she was crying. Jake instinctively grabbed her in a bear hug.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  Nancy pointed to her glass tablet on her desk. On it was a live video stream a of news network.

  “It’s them,” she cried. “It’s Terra Nova. They’ve attacked UNIRO.”

  William walked slowly towards the tiny tablet screen. He sat down in Nancy’s desk chair and removed his beret. On the screen was nothing but fire. The footage was coming from a circling helicopter. Nancy had the footage muted.

  “Where is this?” William asked, clenching his fist on the desk.

  “The dam Captain. They blew up a tanker underneath one of the dam’s suspension bridges. It collapsed. Hundreds are dead they think,” Nancy explained trying to compose herself.

  “Terra Nova did this?” William asked, already knowing the answer, his voice shaky.

  “Yes,” said Nancy. “You were right, sir.”

  The camera zoomed in on a piece of the ships hull floating amongst the burning oil; on it were the four Terra Novan symbols. Water. Air. Fire. Earth. Nearly the entire passageway was a pool of fire. The only portion of the bridge left standing was about a quarter of the western tower. An orange glow now filled the entire area, punctuated by columns of toxic thick black smoke.

  William felt a tear brush down his face. He was enraged and not only because of the sight in front of him.

  “Hammond is going to pay for this,” Jake said, coming o
ver to William for a closer look at the screen.

  “It’s not Hammond,” said Nancy.

  “What?” Jake questioned.

  “She’s right,” said William. “Hammond didn’t do this.”

  “Okay,” said Jake, raising both of his hands, “does everyone but me always seem to know something? The Captain and just I heard Hernandez confirm everything you just told us Nancy. Hammond deleted the files to cover up Samir and hers involvement with Terra Nova. She’s leaving Alaska unexpectedly earlier as well, and now we know why!” Jake pointed to the glass tablet. “Hammond blew up the dam. The captain was right!”

  “Rescue Officer Lewis, there is a reason my earpiece can contact everyone else except Colonel Morrison, isn’t there?”

  “Yeah, there is Captain.” Nancy grabbed William’s earpiece and held it up for the men to see. “Your earpiece contains a jamming program that is only activated when you attempt to call the colonel or when he attempts to call you. The same program has probably been placed on your glass tag and in our own tablet. Have you gotten any emails from him? Social media messages?”

  “None.”

  “If you’re saying Hammond didn’t do all this then who did?” Jake demanded. “I’m tired of these games!”

  “The same person who really deleted the files,” said William. “Chief of Security Patrick Hernandez.”

  CHAPTER 66: We Are The Many

  “And what conclusion is that based off of?” Jake roared.

  “After some more digging,” explained Nancy, “I found that it would have actually been impossible for Hammond to delete any ISAF files. She simply doesn’t have the clearance to do so, even in her position. Her username and password would never have worked as we found they did. UNIRO and ISAF are on different data storage networks whose personnel don’t have access to by themselves for security reasons just like this.”