by Charles Lamb
----*----
Joe could not believe he had let Jessie talk him into leading this mission. He was only in Alaska to oversee an exchange of personnel, a group being transferred from China. Jake had asked him to oversee their delivery, as a personal favor. Apparently, this group was to be the pilots for the Chinese Colonel in Hong Kong.
With the delivery completed, he was hanging around the facility, hoping to get some simulator time, when Jessie asked about his availability. She had a team scheduled to go to San Francisco as part of her art recovery project, but the team leader had come down with the flu.
With nothing better to do, and conceding the fact that as a Facilities Commander, she did not need to ask, he agreed to the assignment. So now, he was standing in the middle of the street, outside the transport craft they were using, as he watched Jessie’s recovery team. In small groups, they would float crates into the building to be filled with endangered artwork.
He had three others working with him as a security detail, all dispersed around the building they were currently looting. Not overly sophisticated, Joe had no idea what the Asian Art Museum might hold of interest. His curiosity finally getting the better of him, he started to go inside when someone triggered an alert.
“Joe, we have an armed party headed your way. There are five men, coming from the northeast and on foot.”
They had set the transport down in an open park, just west of the museum, so the men would be approaching from the other side of the museum building.
“They are now at Stockton and Market street, heading down Market,” the analyst in Alaska, who was their eyes in the sky reported, using local landmarks and updating their helmet display maps.
Checking the map, Joe located the armed party as indicated. He quickly plotted an intercept point and tagged two of the four security team members to meet him there. Alerting the others to his plan, he headed off at a trot, meeting the others in route. As they stepped out onto Market Street from United Nations Plaza, the five men stopped about three hundred feet away.
Joe had no idea who they were, but he got the feeling they were not locals.
----*----
Ivan’s instincts had paid off as the three suited figures stepped out onto the street they had been following southwest. All three were carrying rifles, though none was pointing at him or his men. All three were in military looking uniforms, with full-face helmets on, so their faces were masked by the reflective sheen.
Ivan assumed the tall one in the center was a man, as he was at least two meters tall. The other two were more difficult to determine, not that it mattered, as their weapons looked very efficient. Slinging his rifle over his shoulder, Ivan stepped forward while slowly raising his right hand in a hailing gesture.
“You are Americans, yes?” he asked, stopping after covering a little over half the distance between the two parties. His men had remained in place, as expected.
----*----
“Joe, they are speaking Russian,” he heard from the analyst after hearing the translation.
“Are there any more nearby?” Joe asked, as he considered his reply. Of course they were American, they were in San Francisco for god’s sake.
“Not anywhere near you, but there is a Russian destroyer anchored off Alcatraz. Sorry, we should have caught that.”
“You are new here aren’t you?” was all Joe could say before addressing the Russian.
“Yes, we’re American. How can we help you?” he replied after enabling the external audio.
As Joe watched, the Russian broke out in a wide grin.
“I am Ivan; we have seen your ship in the sky over Kamchatka! We accept your invitation and have come to join you,” he declared, holding out both arms as he stepped forward to embrace Joe.
“Ah, ok,” a very confused Joe replied, accepting the bear hug while the others watched.
----*----
Jake was in conference with Colonel Banks when word came about the Russians in San Francisco. The two had been planning the trip to the NeHaw home world, assuming HeBak agreed to their proposal. Evidently, with everyone in combat suits, impervious to the Russian firepower, Joe had felt comfortable enough to lead the five back to the transport, while they determined the next steps.
Joe was admittedly one of Jake’s best home trained combat team leaders, but foreign policy and diplomacy was not his strong suit. If these guys were not attacking the group, then they must be friendlies, was his interpretation of the situation. He was a simple guy with a straightforward look at life. Jake loved him.
With Banks looking over his shoulder, Jake had the monitor in the conference room linked into a terminal in the cargo area of the transport. The image displayed a very friendly Russian with four stoic looking men in the background.
“I am Ivan,” the face in the monitor announced, “We saw your ship in the sky over Avacha Bay. It had the large American flag to declare its origin, so we came.”
“Ivan, this is Colonel Banks and I am Colonel Thomas,” Jake replied, realizing they must have seen Kola on the way to China, and took it as an open invitation.
“How many of you are there?” Jake asked, not sure what else to say to the animated Russian.
“Here, we are over two hundred strong. At home, there are many, many more. You are fighting those that brought death from the sky, are you not?” he asked in anticipation.
“Yes, we are,” Banks said over Jake’s shoulder.
“Then you need our help,” Ivan replied in a very matter of fact tone, while nodding his head, “Cossacks know how to get revenge.”
----*----
Patti sat quietly, while listening to the report delivered from the troopers who explored the abandoned facility. From their account, it sounded like it had never returned to an operational state after the NeHaw attack. From the video they had taken while exploring, no one could find the slightest indication that it was occupied in recent times.
It had been gutted however, making it completely useless for their purposes. No one could fault the locals from making use of its resources to survive, but it left them depressed. Once the debriefing was completed, Daniel outlined the next objective for his team. Patti could see the interest in the men’s eyes, as this target showed much more promise.
Rather than head south immediately, they had decided to sleep through the day, permitting a much more rested team to investigate the next objective. With plenty of space on the ship in the crew's quarters, everyone got their own room.
As she was settling in after their meal, Patti had to fight the urge to seek out Daniel’s room. While a grown woman, she understood he needed to focus on his team, and not on her. Damn!
----*----
HeBak was sitting in his quarters, reveling in the first sign of good fortune since he landed on this planet. He had struggled to gain what he presently had and now he was being offered four times the gold in his hold. This was a sum so immense that he hardly comprehended its significance.
He was quite positive he could buy his own moon with half the amount, granted one of lesser value, but still a moon. While he had no qualms about leading these devils to the home world and back, he wasn’t at all deceived by the mission’s intent. Their survey was nothing less than a military scouting effort.
He had been cast out by the High Council, leaving him no feelings of allegiance. Had they left him where he was, he would have quietly bided his time, until he officially retired. Only then would he have had the need to come to this planet and attempt to claim his rewards.
His only concern now was spending possible cycles of time with these primitive lunatics. One could only imagine their primeval rituals and customs. His other concern was the traveling conditions. Unless they used his vessel, desirable on his part, but highly unlikely, he would have to endure constant hardships.
With his mind made up before he had left the commander's office, he only struggled with how to accept the offer, while gaining some advantage in the decision-making. Maybe he
should insist on payment up front, deposited in his ship prior to their departure. With that thought in mind, he decided to pay one more visit to the hangar next door. He so enjoyed the view there.
Chapter 27
Jake was at a loss with what to do with the one hundred plus Russians on the ship. Leaving them on the destroyer in San Francisco Bay was attractive, but hardly welcoming. There was little point in having them sail the ship anywhere else, as it was antiquated, unneeded hardware. He wondered if Jacob could use it for scrap.
He was impressed that they had maintained the ship in such good, operational condition for over eighty years, and then sailed it across the Pacific Ocean in a very credible fashion. It spoke volumes to their resourcefulness and ingenuity. That was two things he was in desperate need of.
However, Edwin warned Jake that the Cossacks were a notorious pain in the ass, and had their own ways of doing things that may prove problematic. Jake was struggling to see how that was any different from almost all of his assets to date, ALICE’s included, but decided not to voice that opinion.
It had been quite a discussion, to try to get the ship’s captain to abandon their vessel. In the end, Jake agreed to top off the ship’s tanks and permit them to sail home, while Ivan and his group of men and women stayed behind. Ivan wasn’t extremely happy with splitting their numbers, but apparently had no sway with the captain.
In the end, Ivan had agreed to boarding his half of the crew on a transport and relocating the group to ALICE-1 in Nevada, where Jake would join them shortly. It was only when one of the Lanai transport ships arrived to pick them up, that the captain seemed to question his decision.
The transport pilot did a little showboating as he hovered just feet off the water, stationary and parallel with the destroyer at anchor. Floating only feet away from the destroyer’s hull, they were able to drop boarding ramps between the two vessels, allowing the Russians to move whatever personal effect they chose to bring with them.
Once that was completed, Jake’s people ran several large fuel lines to the destroyers refueling bells. Jake was proud of his people, as they had the foresight to engineer the proper connectors for the lines, to attach to the Russian ship. Topping the tanks took very little time. With that completed, they saw the destroyer out to sea, before heading back to Nevada.
While not looking a gift horse in the mouth, Jake had everyone on alert, searching for any signs of danger or misrepresentation of the circumstances. Only assurances from Sharon in Washington, and April in Nevada, relieved Jake of at least a portion of his concerns. They apparently had the ship and its crew under constant observation for weeks, but to their collective embarrassment, missed the convergence in San Francisco. Each had thought the other was monitoring the situation, as no proper handoff had been performed.
With the situation handled for the short term, Jake and Banks turned back to planning.
“Have you reviewed the ships Brian suggested for the mission?” Jake asked Edwin, as the two sat with a pair of portable terminals. Using the small table in his office, they had paperwork spread across the entire surface.
“Yes, these Wawobash have an impressive inventory of available equipment. Am I to understand everything I see here is immediately available?” Edwin asked with emphasis while flipping through images on his display.
“Yes, within the limits of any refits we request prior to delivery. Almost all the military classed vessels are NeHaw atmospheric, which in this case is at least partially beneficial. The civilian class ships are all over the board. The good news is the Wawobash are fast, and with the incentives we provide, anxious to please,” Jake finished with a smile.
“Incentives?”
“We pay a 50% bonus on early delivery, an opportunity they have yet to miss.”
After a moment's consideration, Banks looked and Jake and asked, “Might I inquire as to how they are paid?”
That brought a laugh from Jake as he changed the image on his display. Sharing the image with Banks, the two could see the hangar where Robert had been stashing the precious metal recoveries. A previously agreed upon workflow had them resizing each recovery into intergalactic standard sizes for the metal's value.
“See that pallet of gold there,” Jake said while pointing to one location on the screen, “we can buy a cruiser for 8 bars. That carrier cost me about forty.”
“How many bricks are on the pallet?”
“Two hundred.”
Jake could see Edwin scanning the image, doing a mental count on the number of pallets. Suddenly, he stopped and refocused the image.
“Hello, what have we here,” he said as the two saw the NeHaw standing to one side in the hangar.
“I think we have a guide,” Banks said with a laugh of his own.
----*----
Ivan was very impressed with everything the Americans had shown them so far. The flying ships they used had no propulsion systems that he could discern, yet they floated and flew with great ease. He had been permitted on the bridge during the trip from San Francisco to Nevada, a distance of over six hundred kilometers, covered in about 20 minutes.
Up to this point, everyone Ivan had met was wearing the complete uniform, full faced helmet included. It wasn’t until he entered the bridge of the transport ship, that he heard people speaking English, so he suspected the helmets had translators in them. He knew enough to recognize the language, but several terms had him at a loss.
Unlike the old days, there was little need to learn English beyond the books he had found in the library there. It was then that one of the bridge crew tapped his shoulder to get his attention. Holding out a small device, the woman then pointed to her ear, indicating he should place it there, as she had done. Immediately he heard everything around him in clear Russian.
“Thank you,” he replied to the woman.
“I am Lieutenant Simons, the captain of this transport. Welcome aboard.”
With that, the Lieutenant ordered their departure. Ivan watched the many displays, most providing readouts he had no understanding of. What he could easily understand was the navigational map, displaying their location over the United States, as the ship traveled at an unbelievable speed. From other displays, he saw the terrain below them go from the green of the coastal areas, to the brown of the desert.
He watched as the desert floor opened beneath them and allowed entrance to a subterranean facility of great complexity. All around them, in the vast open bay, were people and equipment in the midst of their daily duties.
It was in the hangar as they were disembarking, that Ivan ran into his first obstacle. Several of the Americans were there to greet the new arrivals, however, they attempted to collect the Russian weapons, before permitting them to progress any farther from the ship. As Ivan glanced around, the only armed individuals beyond his party were the security personnel, overseeing their arrival.
It was then that Ivan observed a stunningly beautiful blonde woman, motioning for his people to place their weapons in an alcove to one side of the hangar. He immediately reinforced her directions, something that earned him several sour looks, but no verbal dissenting from his people.
Ivan slid over next to the blonde, helping to direct the traffic to and from the room where his people were placing their weapons in an orderly manner. As he did, he studied the woman, convinced she had some features common to his homeland.
“You are Russian?” he asked her between exchanges.
“No, not that I know of,” she replied in a distracted tone, focusing on the people as they placed their weapons in the storeroom.
“You have a familiar look. I am Ivan, I lead these people.”
At that, the woman turned to give him her full attention.
“I am sorry to be so short, I am Lieutenant Colonel Sullivan. We were unprepared for your arrival, so the welcome isn’t what it should be.”
Ivan noted the woman appeared to be tired and distracted, but he suspected it had nothing to do with processing Russians.
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“We are honored by your hospitality. Please excuse any objections to the relinquishing of weapons. Unlike here, where you are safe inside, we live with our guns.”
“I hope you find the change worth your while,” Sara finished with a smile before moving across the room to help direct people inside.
----*----
Sara was less than pleased at playing hostess to their latest batch of visitors, while Jake remained in Texas. Although she privately acknowledged that the pregnancy was having some impact on her patience, she felt justified in her opinion that everyone was plotting against her.
Besides, the NeHaw, the Russians, and the Chinese, she was positive Becky was doing everything in her power to convince Jake to remain with her in Texas. Had it not been for Sandy’s current condition, she would have bribed Dallas to slip Becky a sedative.
Terminating that particular fantasy, she returned to reality, and began supervising the process of settling the Russians in quarters of their own. Intervening in disarming the group had been a challenge, while she had been arranging for Psych-Evals. In the end, Sara had provided them with their own armory, off the hangar, giving them some sense of autonomy while securing their firepower.
Leading them inside, she had a block of rooms set aside, near one of the large dining rooms for their comfort. As each was settled into their own room, they were provided an Earbud and a schedule printed in Russian. Sara explained to their leader that the sooner they were all interviewed, and received a security clearance, the faster they could be offered training opportunities.
The exchange seemed to confuse the man called Ivan, but he agreed to the initial screening without objection. Sara had no idea how she was going to explain the sleep lessons to teach them all English.
