Blood of Patriots (Book 4 of The Humanity Unlimited Saga)

by Terry Mixon

  The large man leaned back in his chair and smiled sadly. “My opinion of the Masters is perhaps somewhat different than the priests who fought you. I am not going to form an opinion of what the Masters are now, but I have always had my doubts about how much veneration they truly deserved.

  “I am certain that some would see such a view as heresy, but my position is not new to anyone that knows me. It is one of the reasons that the previous high priest did not believe that I was suitable for the priesthood. Unfortunately for him, I managed to pass all the tests, so he could not reject me out of hand.

  “I believe what you are telling me, Jessica Cook. I ask that you take our military leader, and what number of his men you feel comfortable allowing, to this new world to see what the situation with the Masters is. He will return to me and report once you have done so. Then we can speak again.”

  Jess bowed her head. “That’s acceptable. If we can come to an agreement between your people and mine, it may be possible to restore your gates to operation. I have people that are skilled in that sort of thing.

  “I look forward to trying to forge a friendship between our peoples. There’s no reason we need to fight one another. There are plenty of dangers in the universe, and we’d be far better off standing shoulder to shoulder. You may not see yourselves this way, but you came from Earth. You’re as human as me. We are one people.”

  The priest rubbed his chin and smiled. “You have a strange way of looking at the world, Jessica Cook. Let us take the small steps together and see what happens.”

  By the time Brenda saw the approaching lights of the additional people she’d requested to come out to the site, it was dark, and the temperature had dropped significantly. It made her glad that she’d brought along a windbreaker. By dawn, it was probably going to be down into the low fifties.

  She’d considered going into the base before the rest had arrived but had worried something would happen where the extra people would be extremely helpful. This wasn’t the time to rush, so she’d waited.

  With the reinforcements, she now had three dozen people and plenty of camping gear. If push came to shove, she could survive for weeks off what they had.

  That wasn’t going to be necessary here in the wilds of Virginia, where help was a phone call away, but if something happened inside the base and left them trapped, they might need all of the food, water, and other survival implements to make it until someone came looking for them.

  By the time they were fully ready, it was after one in the morning. She carefully climbed back up into the entrance, using her bright flashlight as she started inside and looked over everything as she walked.

  The tube wasn’t actually completely circular like she’d thought earlier. The area where she was walking was flattened and made it easy to keep her footing. It was also somewhat rough and provided a surface that her boots could grip. Still stone, but better than something smooth.

  She’d expected to find lighting in the ceiling, but there was nothing. Perhaps the people that constructed the space hadn’t wanted anyone outside to see a light that they couldn’t explain.

  The tunnel began sloping downward within five meters of the entrance, but the slope wasn’t very steep. It also curved slightly. That meant that she was quickly at a place in the tunnel where no one on the outside could have seen her.

  That was when the overhead lighting units appeared. They were dark but obviously of Asharim manufacture. She expected them to turn on as she and her people proceeded, but they remained unresponsive.

  Even with their lights, the tunnel felt like it was closing in around her. Some water from the outside must’ve gotten into the tunnel, because she could smell organic rot and possibly mold. It was possible something—or many somethings over the years—had used the tube as a den. They might find bones and scat ahead.

  As she continued forward, the floor changed from stone into a black material that the Asharim favored for their exterior walking needs. It was nonslip and extremely durable.

  After twenty minutes, Brenda estimated they were now thirty or forty meters below the surface, not even counting the hill. She thought they’d made at least one complete circle, but that was also impossible to determine without a compass reading, which she hadn’t thought to take at the start of this walk.

  Ahead, she saw that the tunnel was sealed by a heavy metal door. She was not familiar with this specific style, but it was similar to ones she’d seen in the bases that Harry Rogers had discovered. Still, it wasn’t precisely the same.

  A minute later, she was standing directly in front of the door and looking for a way to open it. Victor Holyfield and Todd Granger stood beside her and watched.

  The door had an access pad rather than one of the simple Asharim keys that normally opened such doors. The lettering on the pad was in the Asharim language and represented the twelve digits of their base numeric system.

  “Looks like you need a code,” Granger said. “That’s going to make things awkward. We might need to get Kevin back so he can crack it.”

  Victor leaned forward and used his flashlight to look at the numeric pad more closely. “Maybe not. If you look closely, you can see that some of these numbers have wear and the rest don’t. Four numbers, it looks like to me.

  “It’s possible some of those repeat, but we can certainly attempt to open this via trial and error for a little bit before we call Kevin. He is on another planet, after all.”

  Brenda shrugged. “It’s not as if we have anything more pressing on our schedule. Let’s see, the simplest answer would be to press them in ascending order.”

  She firmly pressed the four worn keys, and a low buzzer hummed for half a second. “Wrong guess, but at least the door is powered. That’s a plus.”

  With four keys, that gave them two dozen potential combinations, if there were no repeating numbers. They made it through seven attempts before the door began sliding into the wall.

  “Hot damn,” she said, rubbing her hands together. “I can’t believe it was that easy.”

  “I can’t believe you’re saying that, because now things are going to go really bad,” Granger grumbled. “That’s a basic rule that you need to adhere to, Brenda. Never say things are going easy.”

  She laughed, hefted her light, and stepped inside the base. The area just past the main door widened out significantly. It became something of a grand foyer.

  The air smelled decent, as far as Brenda was concerned. The life-support system and lighting on the inside were obviously still operational. As to who had been here to escort the Volunteers and where they’d gone after they’d done so, she certainly hoped that they’d be able to figure that out, but there was a possibility that they’d never know the answer.

  The lack of an answer was irking, but they’d found a base. That made it all worthwhile.

  “Let’s go a little bit deeper into the facility and see what we find,” she said. “Is this just a very basic operation or something much larger? Personally, I can’t see why anyone would bury a small base, so I’m hopeful we have something of consequence.”

  “That would be good,” Victor said. “While I don’t mind living in the city, it would be nice to have a place to call our own. Especially since Harry and Jess found all those other bases. We need resources of our own.”

  The three of them, with the other people following along behind them, made their way through the foyer and into one of five tunnels radiating out from the entrance. That was another clue that this was a significant base, because something smaller wouldn’t need so many different paths moving forward.

  She chose the central tunnel and was not disappointed. There were side corridors and even stairwells and lifts going down. She double-checked to make sure that the stairways only went down, just to be sure.

  The stairwells were also another sign of the size of the base. Her light was insufficient to see the bottom of the stairwell clearly, but she could see at least eight levels below them. Victor flourished the
metal cup that came with his canteen and dropped it down the open area in the center of the stairwell. He counted without speaking as it dropped until they all heard a metallic clatter from far, far below.

  She glowered at him. “Didn’t you see the Lord of the Rings movies? This place could be filled with nasty creatures, and we might start hearing drums from the deeps as they start coming for us.”

  “This is an old base, not the mines of Moria,” the large man said with a grin. “No orcs or goblins here.”

  “Still, I’d prefer you didn’t do that.”

  He held up his hands in surrender. “Sorry. Judging by the relative height of the levels that we can see from here, there are at least two dozen levels below us. That’s significantly larger than even the Mars base that Harry had found. Whoever put this here, whatever they were doing, they weren’t screwing around.”

  “But what were they doing?” she asked, staring down into the darkness. “None of our people were living in the United States when this base was built. Did they know we were out there? Did they have some other purpose in mind? What was their end goal?”

  “I suppose we’ll have to finish exploring the base to find out,” Granger said. “If it’s like the base on Mars, there’s going to be some kind of central atrium. That seems to be a common Asharim design feature. We should see what it looks like.”

  They proceeded on and found the atrium right where she’d expected it about ten minutes later. Based on what she could see, this base did indeed dwarf the one on Mars. The atrium was three times as wide and so deep that the bottom was lost in gloom, even with their bright lights. It probably went all the way to the bottom level.

  While that thrilled her, she was growing even more concerned about who was responsible for putting the base here. What had they hoped to accomplish? Were they still around somewhere? If she found them, would they be her enemies?

  All good questions. She could only hope she liked the answers.

  22

  Chen sat in his office at the Yucatán spaceport and drummed his fingers on the desk he’d appropriated. Something was wrong. Queen had been too quiet. Backing down from a fight wasn’t the man’s style. If confronted by a superior force, the buffoon was more likely to meet it with everything he had rather than back away. He had no subtlety.

  Really, the man wasn’t a very good secretary of state. He believed in the dominance of his country under all circumstances and didn’t favor compromise. Not that China was any different in this matter. Not now.

  Queen was smart enough to understand that though they’d declared a truce, that was only for public consumption. The battle would continue to quietly rage. Much as his people had attacked and destroyed the facility holding the artifacts at Area 51, the Americans would continue to act behind the scenes. Which meant that the United States would be looking for weak points to strike at. As would Harry Rogers, he was certain.

  Though with Rogers, the target of that strike had been stated explicitly. He would attempt to stop their Mars ship. He would use whatever force he thought was necessary to protect the base he’d found on the Red Planet.

  That might turn out very differently than Rogers expected. Chen’s people had sent along a few tricks with their ship. The man might have access to more Asharim technology than the Dragon did, but the Dragon was descended from warriors. Warriors who had not left all of their weapons behind on the battlefield.

  That fight, when it came, was going to be brutal and exceptionally one-sided. The base that Rogers had commandeered was built by rebels who didn’t have access to the most advanced weaponry the Masters could provide. Oh, Rogers’s forces would undoubtedly fight valiantly, but they would still lose.

  Yet that fight was still weeks away unless Rogers came to meet his people. Something he hadn’t shown any indication he was ready to do. Well, all good things came with time.

  Once the Dragon controlled Earth and had regained contact with the Masters, it would fall to people like Chen to subjugate the masses and make certain that any further resistance was met with blood and death.

  A soft rap at his door broke him out of his reverie. “Enter.”

  One of his guards leaned into the room. “There has been an incident. The locals seem to be gathering outside the main gate.”

  Chen rose to his feet and buttoned his jacket. “Have they attempted to cross into the spaceport?”

  The man shook his head. “No, but I’m growing concerned. Their numbers are increasing, and it feels as if they’re headed towards a more direct confrontation with our guards.”

  “Do we have any idea why they’re feeling the need to be so demonstrative? What precisely are they protesting?”

  The large man shrugged, his bulky shoulders raising his well-tailored suit shoulders only slightly. “They believe that the lease their country originally signed with Clayton Rogers and Rainforest does not allow us to ‘steal their land’ and that we are violating the agreement.

  “There doesn’t seem to be any sign of official sanction for this event, but the lack of Mexican officials in the vicinity is quite meaningful in its own way. Perhaps they don’t wish to be seen as supporting a rebellion against us, but they apparently don’t wish to be seen as endorsing our takeover either.”

  “Double the guard around the perimeter,” he ordered. “Have everyone be wary of intrusions by people we have not yet located.”

  The guard frowned slightly. “That will reduce patrols inside the spaceport significantly. What if there are already intruders inside our perimeter?”

  Chen raised an eyebrow. “Do you believe that we would have missed rioting civilians wandering around? One would think that sort of thing would stand out.”

  “Perhaps the rioters are a distraction for an organized force,” the guard countered. “There is some sense to having a distraction while a more covert unit moves into place. Since the Mexican government doesn’t seem to be overtly supporting the rioters, it may be that they have trained individuals inside the spaceport to take control while their people have our eyes pinned outside the gates.”

  Chen considered that and slowly nodded. “I want every worker we have gathered together and paired with some of our troops. That will give us more coverage inside, even if we have less actual firepower. I want every area checked for potential sabotage. Keep the majority of our trained fighters facing toward the outside, because if a larger attack comes, it will be from that direction.”

  The guard didn’t seem to be overly enthused with Chen’s plan, so he suspected there were gaps in what he’d just ordered. Since they were short of manpower, that was just going to have to do. There was no way that anyone could do more with troops they didn’t yet have.

  If the Mexicans felt that they had a chance of evicting the Dragon from their spaceport, they were sorely mistaken. Chen would grind whatever force they sent to seize this area under his heel.

  “What if it is the Americans?” the guard asked hesitantly.

  The thought made Chen chuckle. He’d just been thinking of how Queen would react and how he would strike. Unfortunately for the Americans, their lack of true military skills made such a rapid operation impossible. It had only been hours since he had thrown the gauntlet down to Queen at the UN.

  No. It wouldn’t be the Americans. He’d bet his reputation on that.

  It took a bit more than half an hour for the Asharim slaves to finish digging their way through the rock fall. Harry had ordered Krueger to leave a small drone perched on a rock down the tunnel, all but invisible in the darkness, and it showed them the scene in infrared.

  Harry, Krueger, and the New Zealand commander stood in the side chamber where his father had hidden himself during the first excursion and watched on the small screen as the aliens buttressed the tunnel and began spreading out into the cave.

  “Time to roll,” Krueger said over his com. “Engage, Gunny.”

  Two snipers, positioned behind handy obstructions, opened fire on the leading aliens. Even supp
ressed, their gunshots were loud in the enclosed area. Everyone was wearing hearing protection. Hopefully that would be enough.

  The drone’s feed showed that the slaves might have been strong, but they weren’t invulnerable to being shot. They also weren’t unarmed. The loud and unmistakable boom of black powder weapons came in response to the snipers’ fire.

  Still, having both sides armed didn’t make them equal. The snipers were trained shooters with modern weapons, capable of pinpoint accuracy in the dark due to their night-vision goggles. The aliens, bipedal, tall, and wide, with details that he couldn’t quite make out in the IR view, went down hard and fast.

  “Team two, go,” Krueger said.

  That set off a controlled rush as the rest of his people raced forward, covering one another as they stopped behind preplanned obstructions in order to fire, taking down the remaining aliens inside the tunnel. They then proceeded forward into the tunnel themselves in order to secure it for the rest of the troops.

  Without waiting for the all clear, Harry stood and followed the last of them into the tunnel with Krueger on his heels. The other man probably disapproved of the commanding officer being so forward in the combat theater, but that was tough. He was going to have to accept that Harry did things his own way.

  Stepping over the dead and around what looked like a primitive mining machine, Harry stepped out onto the surface of Volunteer World and took up pretty much the position he’d occupied when he’d last visited.

  This time, there wasn’t a huge army fighting to get up the hill and kill him. It was actually more of a small army, based on the campfires out in the early gloom. Sunset must’ve taken place less than an hour ago.

  The aliens didn’t seem to have anticipated having someone on the other side of the rock fall ready to push them back out. If they had, there would’ve been more troops on the hillside. As it was, the survivors were racing down the hillside, putting their own lives at risk as many of them tumbled and fell to their deaths.