The Cross of Mithras Vol. 1: EOD Operation Welcome to Hell

by Douglas Howell

“I want you to sedate her.” Sanchez told Moriarty after she gave Coté her clothing.

  “Why?”

  “She’s been through a lot and she needs her rest.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  After Moriarty sedated Coté, both he and Sanchez went outside so that she can talk to Ellis, Wexler and Moriarty.

  “I need for the three of you to suit back up and go over there and check out what got Coté so upset. Also, I want you to do some recon. But don’t travel too far.” Sanchez ordered them.

  “Roger.” All three said.

  After the CCU was finished recharging (creating more nanoprobes), Ellis, Wexler and Moriarty suit up, got into a rowboat (Moriarty had to row) and travel across the waterway. They landed on one side of the pier. As they went up the beach and stood near the pier they saw what got Coté so upset.

  “What is that orange stuff?” Moriarty said. He was pointing at a orange color pool of water that was lying on the street. There was also an orange stain on the street.

  “It’s orange colored cinnabar.” Wexler said.

  “What’s cinnabar?” Ellis asked.

  “Vermillion.” Wexler responded.

  “What’s vermillion?” Ellis asked.

  “A different shade of the color red.” Wexler said.

  “Look man… I’m in no mood for your sarcasm.” Ellis said annoyed by Wexler.

  “I wasn’t being sarcastic.” Wexler said.

  “Well let’s just call it orange. Okay?” Ellis said.

  “Sure.” Wexler said.

  “Moriarty… go and take a sample of that water.” Ellis ordered him.

  “Yes sir.”

  Moriarty then went to collect some of the water. When he stood up he just stood there, looked around and did nothing.

  “Moriarty… what in the hell are you doing?” Ellis asked him.

  “Wait sir.”

  “Don’t tell me to wait. You cracker.”

  “Listen sir.”

  “Boy I’m fixing to go over there and…”

  “No sir listen.”

  “Listen to what?”

  “Sir just listen.”

  “And I said ‘to what’?” Ellis was starting to get upset with Moriarty.

  “Hey Triple-T… I think he means to pay attention to our surroundings.” Wexler said.

  “I don’t hear anything.” Ellis said after he listen for a while.

  “Exactly. There’s no sound.” Moriarty said.

  “So what? There’s no sound.” Ellis said.

  “Sir… shouldn’t there be the sounds of nature. You know… like birds or something.” Moriarty said.

  Ellis then started to listen again and then he realize that Moriarty was right. Something must be wrong in order for there to be no sounds of nature. It had a sober effect upon him.

  “Alright… let’s go and check out these houses.” Ellis said under his breath.

  The houses that Ellis was referring to was six buildings that either directly, or indirectly dealt with fishing. While they were searching the buildings the storm struck. After they finished searching the buildings, they went back to the nearest building closest to the pier.

  On the western side of those buildings was a road that ran north-to-south. The road had a crossroad and all six buildings were on the northern side of the crossroad. South of the pier was the mouth of a river. The river ran from the north-by-southwest. Like the small island that they came from, the place was heavily forested.

  Ellis made the decision to wait out the storm. He felt that if they were to travel in the storm they may get lost. He also didn’t want any unexpected thing to occur to either one of them while they are in the storm. After the storm passed Ellis made the decision that Wexler should head north, he would head south and Moriarty will take the road that heads west. Because of the order that Sanchez gave them he didn’t want them to travel no more than ten miles.

  The road that Wexler was on was constantly within sight of the waterway. Other than the occasional skeletal remains of a dead animal, he didn’t see anything that could be called important. After Wexler traveled for 7.5 miles, both the road and the shoreline curved to the west. He then stood there to see if he could see anything of importance. He then left and headed back to the house that Ellis told him to returned to. He was the first to arrive.

  While Moriarty was traveling down the road he saw the remains of a human and a dog. The dog was obviously a pet. Moriarty started to record what he saw through his visor. He squat down and began to investigate both of the corpses. He then noticed bite marks on the bones of the human remains. It was clear to him that the dog was eating its master and then someone shot the dog. But did the dog kill, and started to eat its master, and then was shot? Or was it eating its master after the person had died? There was no way to tell so Moriarty pressed on.

  Off-and-on Moriarty would come across the remains of either people or cars that had been shot up. In one case he saw a car that must have plowed through a crowd of people (with someone shooting at the people) and then ended up in a ditch. What Moriarty found so strange about it is, nobody in the crowd seemed to have panicked. Moriarty recorded what he saw, then stopped the recording when he decided to leave.

  After Moriarty traveled for six miles from the pier, he came to a small bridge. He noticed that there was a police barricade on either side of the bridge. While he was standing in the middle of the bridge, he used the binocular function on his visor and looked up and down the river. The river came from the southwest and then ran to the northeast. He also noticed that the river was connected to the other river in the southwest. When he was done he headed back.

  Moriarty shared all the data that he collected with Wexler. After 90 minutes passed by, both of them decided to go and look for Ellis. After they traveled for a mile they caught up to him.

  “What did you find?” Wexler asked Ellis.

  “Madness.” Ellis responded.

  “What do you mean, ‘madness’?” Wexler asked, puzzled by Ellis response.

  “Never mind. Let’s just head back to Sanchez and show her what we found.” Ellis said.

  “Don’t you want to see what we found, sir?” Moriarty asked Ellis.

  “Like I said, ‘let’s just head back to Sanchez. Then I’ll take a look at it.” Ellis said.

  All three of them left and headed back to Lieutenant Sanchez. Ellis remained quiet throughout the trip. He appeared to be lost and confused about what he seen on his search.

  Four miles south, when Ellis was traveling on that road, he saw a police barricade. Ten feet on the southern side of the barricade was a car with the driver side door opened. A few feet from the car was a corpse lying on its stomach. Ellis squat down, rolled the corpse over and saw that the person was shot dead. He then stood up, stop recording, and then pressed on. A few feet behind the car, the road went downhill. Ellis could see that there was a shopping district three miles away.

  The road that he was on, for the first mile, was near the coast. Then for the next two miles the road went through a forest. Over the next four miles the dead end road curved to the southwest and ended at the shopping district.

  When Ellis got to the shopping district he saw a scene straight from a horror movie. Cars that were either shot up or was burned. Human remains scattered everywhere. Blood stains on the streets and on the walls of buildings. An orange powder (he collected some of it) on the streets were the rain didn’t wash it away. It look like a war zone, a killing field.

  Ellis then noticed that none of the corpses (minus a few) were armed. None were police officers or any type of security personnel. The place look like someone came in and try to kill everyone from both the ground and sky. One person appear to have shot him/herself in the head. While Ellis was walking around and recording what he was seeing, he started to notice something. Although everybody was being murdered in cold blood, nobody was panicking. Baffled, confused and tired from walking, he went to set down on a park bench that was nearby.


  There was a corpse on the bench that he was sitting on. From the looks of the clothing it must have been a woman. In her left arm was the corpse of an infant. The infant had a rope tied around it’s neck. In the woman’s right hand she held a knife that she’d used to stab herself in the chest. The skull of the woman was turned to the right with it’s jaw open. It gave Ellis the impression that it was looking at him. He then tried to turn it’s head away from him, but the skull fell off. He then bent down, said that he was sorry, and put it in the lap of the corpse. After he finish resting he headed back to the pier.

  When Ellis, Wexler and Moriarty was halfway across the waterway, they took off their nano-suits. When they got to the boat house they met up with Ramirez.

  “What do you mean, ‘you can’t find him’?” Ramirez asked Liebowitz.

  “Sir we have no idea where Sanders is.” Liebowitz said. He mentioned Sanders’ name because it was his way of telling Ellis, Wexler and Moriarty who went missing.

  “Where did you search?” Sanchez asked Liebowitz.

  “Ma’am?”

  “North or south of the crossroad?” Sanchez asked Liebowitz.

  “Ma’am I don’t understand why that is important. We did a thorough search and couldn’t find him.” Liebowitz said.

  “Answer her!” Ramirez ordered Liebowitz.

  “Ma’am we search south of the crossroads.”

  “You do know that we already went down there, didn’t you?”

  “Yes ma’am. But I…”

  “Don’t you think that maybe he might have found that road by now?” Sanchez asked Liebowitz. He finally understood the mistake that he made by searching in the south.

  “I understand now… ma’am, my mistake.” Liebowitz said under his breath.

  “Find him. You find him and bring him back Ensign. Got it.” Ramirez said.

  “Yes sir.” Liebowitz said. He then left, collected his team and search north of the crossroad.

  “When did he went missing?” Wexler asked after Liebowitz left.

  “After he informed us of what happened to Coté.” Ramirez mentioned.

  “What did you guys find over there?” Sanchez asked.

  “Sir, ma’am… it’s best for both of you to look at the video on what we saw.” Ellis said.

  “Why?” Ramirez asked.

  “Because it looks like something must have drove the people insane.” Ellis said under breath.

  Both Ramirez and Sanchez then looked at the video of what Ellis and Moriarty saw. When they were done, Ramirez told them to get something to eat and get some rest because he wanted them to go back and do more recon. Sanchez had two of them turn their nano-suits over to Kaminski and Hoffneisten so that both of them could bring some bicycles over the waterway and place them by the house nearest the pier. When both Kaminski and Hoffneisten got back they returned the nano-suits.

  (5)

  “You wanted to see me ma’am?” Lieutenant Hayes asked Vaistll. She was at the boat house.

  “Yes. I need you and the rest of Red Team to go and salvage the weapons and ammo in the Quad-Walker that Venito lost.”

  “Ma’am… since Ellis, Wexler and Moriarty is off on assignment… shouldn’t I have more people to assist me?”

  “You don’t need more people. What you have is more than enough.”

  “Beg your pardon ma’am but…”

  “But nothing. Look Hayes… White Team is looking for Sanders. Green Team is moving our supplies. Do you seriously think that they can spare someone?”

  “No ma’am. But what about Blue Team?”

  “Absolutely not. There in a defensive position protecting our base camp.”

  “Ma’am it doesn’t look like the EOD will attack us and…”

  “Don’t let the k and the w throw you off. No means no not k-n-o-w. You have your orders and you will make do with what you got. Do you read me?”

  “Yes ma’am.” Hayes said under his breath.

  Hayes went outside and thought long and hard. How can he take a fully loaded Quad-Walker, flip it upright on a steep embankment? Not only that, he has to do that with only four people. To say that he was confused would be an understatement. But like she said, he has to ‘make do with what he got.’

  Hayes understood her position about Blue, Green and White Team. But why can’t she wait? At least than he could have more people to throw at the problem. Deeply confused about how he can perform his duty, he left and rounded up Trivelli, Guerrero, Blumenthal and Bernstein.

  When Hayes left, Vaistll got back to analyzing the data from Ellis and Moriarty’s video. She knew that looks can be deceiving, but the more she looked at the video she had to admit that the people were behaving in a unnatural way. Just what is that orange-cinnabar stuff? It’s not like the EOD to kill it’s own people without reason. So what could it be than? Vaistll set back in her chair thinking long and hard about those questions.

  It was a little after 15:00 hours and Hayes and the other four members of Red Team finally found the Quad-Walker that Venito had lost. Hayes had his work cut out for him. The other two Quad-Walkers were in use so he could not drag the Quad-Walker back up the embankment. What’s more, he could only use equipment from town. And it was barely enough to get the job done.

  Every single decision that Lieutenant Hayes made, may have seemed logical, but is extremely stupid from an engineer’s point of view. Because of his naiveté in engineering, Hayes made a tragic mistake. But the only correct decision that he made was in securing the Quad-Walker to stop it from further sliding down the embankment.

  Hayes used an industrial strength wire called Ultra-X to secure, and lift, the Quad-Walker. Ultra-X could easily lift a fully loaded Quad-Walker so long as continual stress is not placed upon it. Hayes made the mistake of attaching Ultra-X to the legs of the Quad-Walker. Although it may have seemed logical to hook the wires to the front legs (the front part of the Quad-Walker was facing uphill), the legs were not structurally sound enough to support any sudden shift of the massive weight that they were bearing, and neither was Ultra-X.

  A Quad-Walker is rectangle in shape with it’s cargo in the backend. On each side of it’s body are handles. (People use the handles to assist them in climbing on top of a Quad-Walker.) The handles are designed to carry a Quad-Walker. Hayes attached a Ultra-X wire to the rear handle.

  Since the trees stop any attempt to slide the Quad-Walker to the left or to the right, Hayes made the decision to flip the Quad-Walker over it’s “head.” Once it is back on it’s feet, as Hayes reasoned, then it could be assisted in walking back up the embankment. If it couldn’t walk back up the embankment than the weapons and ammo could be salvage.

  When the Quad-Walker was at a 35 degree angle in relation to that of the angle of the embankment, the ground under the Quad-Walker started to give way. At about 22 degrees, with the ground under it giving way and the backend being pulled over it’s head, the joints on the legs broke. The Quad-Walker than landed on it’s belly very hard, snapped the Ultra-X wire and slide down the embankment. At one point it bounced and landed hard on it’s belly again. After the Quad-Walker disappeared through some trees, they heard it explode.

  When the Ultra-X wire snapped, it went through a tree like a hot knife through butter. Guerrero saw it coming at him through the corner of his eye and ducked in the nick of time. If Guerrero had ducked one second later he would have been killed instantly. Before he had time to react the severed tree came and hit him hard. It then dragged him twenty yards down the embankment.

  When Guerrero was found, he was in excruciating pain. His right leg was broken in two places, his right hip was broken and his right elbow was badly bruised. He was given nanoprobes to help with his injuries, but the nanoprobes can go only so far. His bones was re-healed but he was still in a lot of pain. Guerrero also had difficulty in walking (he needed a cane) and he couldn’t use his right arm until the swelling went down.

  Hayes left to take full responsibility for what had happened.
When he got back to the boat house he found Ramirez and Sanchez standing outside. Vaistll was using the bathroom and Taylor was directing the rebuilding of the new base camp.

  “Sir I um…” Hayes was saying to Ramirez.

  “What is it Lieutenant?” Ramirez asked Hayes.

  “I lost the Quad-Walker sir.” Hayes said under his breath.

  “What about the weapons and ammo?”

  “That too sir. And Guerrero is seriously hurt.”

  “Wait a minute! How in the hell could you have lost our weapons and ammo!?” Sanchez yelled at Hayes.

  “Well I did and I take full…” Hayes was saying under his breath.

  “No! How did you lose our weapons and ammo!?” Sanchez demanded.

  “Well I did and I’m sorry.” Hayes responded.

  “Answer her Lieutenant!” Ramirez ordered him.

  “Well sir I used the Ultra-X wires and attached them to the legs and…”

  “You mean you attached them to the legs!?” Ramirez asked, shocked by the stupidity.

  “You fucking dumbass!” Sanchez yelled at Hayes.

  “I hate to ask… but what happened next?” Ramirez asked Hayes.

  “We tried to flip the Quad-Walker over it’s head…” Hayes was saying.

  “You goddamn fucking idiot!” Sanchez screamed at Hayes.

  “I was trying to recover the weapons and ammo!” Hayes yelled at Sanchez.

  “Why didn’t you just pop the Emergency Cargo Hatch!?” Sanchez asked him.

  “What Emergency Cargo Hatch?” Hayes asked. Ramirez turned around and mouthed the words, “You got to be shittin’ me.”

  “What do you mean, ‘What Emergency Cargo Hatch’? In case a Quad-Walker lands on it’s back and cannot be recover there is, not only an Emergency Escape Hatch, but there also is an Emergency Cargo Hatch!” Sanchez said. She couldn’t believe that Hayes could be that stupid as not to have known that.

  “I didn’t know!” Hayes yelled.

  “What do you mean you ‘didn’t know’!? It’s in the field manual! You’re an officer, you’re supposed to know!” Ramirez yelled at Hayes.

  “Look here you idiot…” Sanchez was saying. “…beside the Emergency Escape Hatch is a hatch for the emergency supplies. In there you would find an all-weather emergency flare and a welding torch. On the belly there is a rectangle piece of metal with diagonal yellow and black markings on each side of the rectangle. If you use the welding torch on those diagonal yellow and black markings you can then remove the rectangle piece of metal and extract the cargo. It’s in the field manual. Here have a look.” Sanchez then threw her field manual at Hayes.