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

by Douglas Howell

  “Did they say why?”

  “No sir. And sir… they want us to have them fly into the dark void and have them to stay within the core of it.”

  “Alright then. Send them in.” Iverson was confused but was hoping that both Lenkov and Omori was knowing what they are doing.

  “Yes sir.” The officer responded.

  Once the ships got there, combined with their massive size, it was able to stabilized the dark void. And then the radiation and the interference died down after each one of those robotic vessels connected to the starbase. It was then obvious that both the radiation and the interference was being caused by a designed flaw. The starbase shields were not powerful enough to properly contain the dark void. And now, because of all the space probes near it, combined with how close Iverson’s ship is to them, and he’s desire to communicate with Captain Maxwell, and Maxwell’s desire to keep in touch with Task Force ZH-3C, everyone will now know the fate of The Hammer of Doom. And it won’t take long for all of them to have their morale crushed.

  (37)

  “Now how are we going to get out of this mess?” Taylor asked.

  “Since we were able to kill that goddamn asshole, then I think that we can get out of this mess. We just need to destroy enough of those guns for our escape.” Ramirez responded.

  “How many would you suggest?” Vaistll asked Ramirez.

  “Three, but we’ll need an APC just to get away. Anything more or less than that number and it would be considered suicidal.” Ramirez responded.

  “What tactic would you recommend?” Vaistll asked him.

  “I hate to say it but because we have both Jaguar 42R and Viper 33X, and because of their speed, we will need them to distract two of them while the rest of us take out the other one. Once taken out we will be able to get inside the facility underground. After that we will have to be on our guard since the facilities robot defenders will be on high alert looking for us.”

  “Alright, everybody knows what to do.” Vaistll ordered them.

  (38)

  “What the fuck just happened?” Captain Iverson nearly shouted.

  “Sir… The Hammer of Doom, the robotic fleet, and the starbase just went dead. There’s very little activity coming from their computers.” The officer responded.

  “What about the emergency beacon?”

  “Inactive sir. I’m not detecting anything.”

  “What about Lenkov and Omori?”

  “Like I said sir, ‘there’s very little activity coming from the computers’.”

  “Holy shit.” Captain Iverson said under his breath. He didn’t know what to do at that point. Nothing could explain it, except the worse.

  “Sir that alien ship just moved very near the dark void.” The officer informed him.

  Five hundred seconds later, The Hammer of Doom, the robotic fleet, the starbase and the alien ship all just disappeared. Captain Iverson was just so shell shock that he had to move his ship closer and take a look out one of the nearby forward windows. And like the officer said, they were all gone. No ship, no fleet, no starbase, nothing.

  Wave of Death

  (1)

  “The end of hope, life and the complete enslavement of our souls to death and destruction awaits us. But as damned as it may be… the wretched universe had the most damn of cruelest fate trust upon us through the simple act of giving us an array of hope. I curse you oh mighty gods for this vengeful cruel act of hope. For if you were sincere… than why did you took our ship away? Lenkov and Omori gone to who knows where. What did you do to them? And now our fate rest in the hands of the few. And yet death stalks us because of your cruelty. How many have died so far? And was their deaths really that necessary? I ask you oh mighty gods. I grudge you like you grudge me. Oh cruel fate.” Maxwell said out loud to the gods that watch overhead.

  Word traveled fast upon that day when it never should have. It wasn’t long before everyone learned the fate of The Hammer of Doom and thus Lenkov and Omori. But the crew along with Maxwell no longer cared about living. And Task Force ZH-3C? They quickly realized that death is on the warpath with everyone upon that world. The people were panic stricken and they knew that there is now only one ship, Iverson’s, that can ferry them anywhere. With a deep heaviness in everyone’s hearts they all knew instinctually that there is no hope but the hope of death.

  The Yalvfry Qrvlb army also learned of what happened and they were beyond overjoyed. They did not hesitate to attack the lab complex in full force. As luck would have it, all dropships returned just in time to attack that army. The result: half of the beast army was destroyed causing them to make a full tactical retreat and far worse still each one of those dropships were shot down. The defenders now have no air support what so ever. No way to strike back. No way to hunt down the retreating enemy. With only Lenkov’s defensives to protect them until all of them must fall. What can the defenders do but to wait for death.

  Task Force ZH-3C realized that everything rested upon their shoulders, and they all knew they had their work cut out from them. They received the message entitled “Death of Hope” from Maxwell who no longer cared about who lives or dies. That was only after they destroyed their first robotic defensive turret and was moving underground to take out the other two. It did dawn of them that if Maxwell does a counter-attack (and they pretty much figured out that is not going to happen) than the Yalvfry Qrvlb army could be wiped out.

  And so it was an opportunity for an early victory that was wasted upon those who lost all hope for victory when their beloved Fleet Captain and his love interest was believed to be dead. Everything now rested upon one single unit and it didn’t have to be that way. The factory must fall before the retched communicational array could be deactivated. Once that occurs than the defenders may have their hope restored. But it will be Captain Iverson that will become the hero first.

  (2)

  Captain Iverson was in his quarters about to do a lot of thinking. When he heard his doorbell rang and knew that it was his second-in-command. He then told him to come on in. Commander Adachi went into the kitchen and knew that his Captain will be doing some serious thinking.

  “Sir do you want me to join you?” Adachi asked him.

  “No that won’t be necessary.” Iverson was in the kitchen grabbing a bottle of hard liquor.

  “Sir I just wanted you to know that the beast army is in full retreat and Task Force ZH-3C is already inside the factory.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No sir.”

  “You know I think that maybe Lenkov was right about finding an exist plan instead on deciding to pick a side at the end of the civil war.” Iverson mentioned. Adachi didn’t say anything he only left to leave his Captain to think.

  Iverson, being a Captain, and like all other Captains of any given ship, wanted to enjoy one of his perks – his “balcony.” His quarters had windows and a balcony and on the other side of that balcony was a screen that could create any scene of his choosing. (In his case it was a beach scene.) It could also create the smells, sounds, heat and cold associated with that scene (only if it was on file). But the sun(s)/moon(s)/stars would be set to the ship’s clock and not to any particular region of the universe. This is to keep the Captain’s internal biological clock to that of the ship.

  He went “outside” and sit down at the table and opened, and pulled out the window to an angle so that he could read what will appear upon it. He touched an icon upon the window and the screen saver (which caused it to appear like a glass window with the ability to see through it) disappear revealing a thought bubble that he had it set up earlier. He then fixed himself a drink with his favorite poison in it and begin to think long and hard. Each one of those thought bubbles was a node that it allowed itself to be connected to another and running in the background was a mathematical algorithm that could easily calculate the mathematical probability that two or more data sets are the most logical probability and is therefore the only logical conclusion. (Sayaka invente
d it and figured out a way to launder the money so that the EOD wouldn’t take all of it. As odd as it may sound Sayaka is both a FBI informant and a Project 21 “Double Agent.” Since the EOD don’t like for their people to become too rich they will take most if not all of that person’s money. This encourage people [like Lenkov and Omori] to turn to the FBI all in an effort to protect as much of their money as they could. The FBI will keep the money safe and any interest made upon that money goes to Project 21. If the person wants their money than they will have to openly betray the EOD. And if they should die than the Federal Government keeps the money. The EOD knows about it, and has tried in the past to get the list, but its success is marginal at best. At least until Sayaka came along and made it worst for them.)

  There was too much that he was seeing that was too perplexing to him. And what he was seeing was not helping to fully grasp things in such a way that he could make the right decision for both himself and his crew. He needs to figure things out. He needs more Intel. But nothing is adding up. Each time he connects one data node with that of another the probability may go up in one area, but it goes down in another. It’s worse when he adds in one of his theories.

  He turned around to look out over the “beach” feeling the cool air blowing on him and listening to the waves crashing on the beach. It appeared to be late in the evening and the scene was so beautiful and so serene. Drinking and being lost in deep thought he then had a thought that caused him to look back at all of those data nodes. And he started to become concerned. Something almost made perfect sense. But he felt as if though some type of evil was washing over him. He then put in his theory into one of the data nodes and it said that it was 100% accurate. What he put in was that they were all pawns and expendable to the EOD even The Hammer of Doom, Lenkov and Omori. He finally started to realized what so many have already realized – that EOD is not worth saving.

  (3)

  “Captain Maxwell sir, the new beast army is headed towards the city of Aruka.” The Crewman said to Captain Maxwell who was visibly disheartened.

  “Fine. Informed the people to be on guard.”

  “And if attacked?”

  “Tell them to retreat. Also inform them that no help can come to their rescue so it might be better for them to leave the city and come back when all of this is over”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No sir.” The Crewman responded and left.

  Luckily for the people of Aruka this new army may have ran through it, but would not shoot unless shot at. The people did had the sense not to fire upon the retreating army, figuring that if a small part of Captain Dawson still remain within this new beast army than it should behave like any other military unit. And if not? Well then the people got some fighting and dying to do. Nobody wanted to retreat unless it was absolutely necessary. They wanted to defend what was left of their homes. When they saw the beast army ran by and did not attack anyone they started to have the hope that maybe, just maybe, it might finally be the end of their ordeal.

  (4)

  “Wait stop.” Ramirez responded. He actually felt relieved going into the factory because as soon as he got back on the dropship that was assisting them in outflanking the yalvfry qrvlb that was once the madman formally known as Captain Dawson, both him and Taylor got a helmet. No more microphone for either one of them.

  “What’s wrong?” Taylor asked. Both him and Ramirez became somewhat talkative after they got a helmet. Nobody didn’t seemed to care.

  “It’s too quiet.”

  “Why should that matter?”

  “Because if that damn beast army returned, then they should have already headed towards the cloning vats. And if that’s the case, and it should be by now, then this place should be nosy.”

  “Maybe those dropships slowed them down.” Wexler mentioned.

  “Those dropships were shot down. That shouldn’t have slowed them down.” Ellis responded.

  “You right. My bad.” Wexler said.

  “Who cares. It should make destroying this place easier.” Martinez added.

  “Yeah. A little kaboom here and a little kaboom there and this place goes bye-bye.” Coté mentioned.

  “Lieutenant Commander...” Viper 33X was saying.

  “It’s okay, you can call me Ramirez. What’s up?”

  “How big is this place supposed to be?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I’ll send you a video.” Viper 33X responded. Ramirez didn’t responded for almost five minutes. It got everyone to stop and wait for Ramirez to respond.

  “Ma’am we got a problem.” Ramirez responded after he finished looking at the video through his visor on his helmet.

  “I’m in no mood for problems. What do you got?” Vaistll responded.

  “None of us are in the mood ma’am. What Viper showed me was a energy plant and not the typical generators for an installation of this size.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I can’t determined that based upon what little data I could gather from the video.”

  “Viper 33X.” Taylor said.

  “Yes sir.”

  “Send me the data.”

  “Right away sir.” Viper 33X responded. Taylor himself took almost eight minutes reviewing the data. In that time period both Coté and Nakada kept on sending text messages to one another. Five minutes into it Ellis got pissed off with them (he was assigned to monitoring text messaging) ordering them to knock it off if they know what’s good for them. They then resorted to sending each other hand signals to one another. A few seconds before Taylor responded Ellis caught them in the act and was about to chew them out.

  “I think I know what we are dealing with here.” Taylor was informing them.

  “Sorry sir. You two numnutz knock it off!” Ellis shouted at both Coté and Nakada. Ellis, Coté and Nakada was in a very large area with at least three stories of machinery below the level that they were on. As long as a football field and as equally as wide, all three were on the top level heading to the area that that housed the computer terminals. The machines below controlled the cooling for the robotic turrets that they were trying to take out. Nakada was at the equivalent to the thirty yard line on the side that they entered at, Coté was at the equivalent of the 0 yard line and Ellis was at the equivalent of the 70 yard line.

  “This is a master control system for all EOD defensives upon this world.” Taylor continued.

  “Forgive me for asking sir, but why in the universe would they go to that trouble?” Martinez asked.

  “Ramirez, any ideas?” Taylor asked.

  “No sir. Nothing about this mission makes any sense. We need more Intel.” Ramirez responded. On that note everybody agreed and said nothing. Not even the two numnutz.

  (5)

  After almost an hour Captain Iverson received the Intel about the movement of the new beast army and he wasn’t happy. No not with his crew but with Maxwell. Yes he understood why Maxwell was behaving the way in which he is, but it is still no accuse. He did thought about chewing out Maxwell but decided not to. Why? Because it would be Maxwell’s cross to bear should he be responsible for their deaths. Besides, what could Iverson do? Order him to cheer up?

  Although Iverson wanted to go to his quarters and put in the new data (he was in lounge eating) he got a call from one of the maintenance personnel concerning a supposed glitch that one of the bridge personnel noticed.

  “What is it?” Iverson asked the maintenance personnel.

  “Sir, I think we are dealing with a new anomaly at the location of where the dark void used to be.” The maintenance personnel informed him.

  “What is the anomaly?”

  “It’s too early to tell sir.”

  “So why are you telling me this and not the on duty bridge officer?”

  “Because she thought that it was a sensor glitch and she had me to take a look at it. Right now she’s in the restroom and I sent her an email. I also wanted you to know as
soon as possible because of the fate of Lenkov and Omori is not known.”

  “Alright. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome sir.”

  Iverson then took a look at the anomaly on the video pad that was affixed on the table that he was at. It did look like a sensor glitch but when he took a look at the maintenance report, combined with what the sensors was suggesting, it suggested that it was related to the dark void. But in what way nobody could tell. Whatever this new anomaly was it appeared to be white and almost look like a small speck on the video monitor. It was also in the exact center of what was the dark void. Iverson did sent it to Captain Maxwell in hopes that it would boost his spirit and it did. But only a little bit.

  (6)

  “The computers are down.” Ellis informed everyone after he finally got his two numnutz to do their jobs and not waste time.

  “Understood and good job.” Ramirez responded.

  “I got contact!” Jaguar 42R informed everyone. He was engaging spider-bots which were machines that could climb wall and ceilings.

  “Fuck I need help with these damn spider-bots!” Jaguar 42R pleaded with his teammates.

  “I’m on it!” Viper 33X responded.

  “We’re closer! We’re on it!” Ellis jumped in.

  “Viper, did you complete your objective!? Taylor asked him.

  “No sir.”

  “Complete your objective!”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Goddamn it! I always hated these damn things.” Coté mentioned. She, like the others, was having a hard time in shooting them. The worse part was about to begin for them. They were fixing to get bog down and they knew it.

  “Ma’am I just took out the LAN computers.” Viper 33X mentioned.

  “Alright. Go and help Ellis and your brother.” Vaistll responded.

  “Yes ma’am.” Viper 33X responded. Thirty seconds later he was almost gunned down by spider-bots. He then called out for assistance and the only one who could help was Ramirez. Everyone else was too far away. It didn’t take long for both Ramirez and Viper 33X to get bog down. The problem with those spider-bots was that they move fast, shoot, and then move again. And because of their small size, and the fact that they could communicate with each other, made it extra hard to destroy them. And if they are not destroyed fast enough, more would come.