by Td Barnes
Callahan looked around at there being nothing but military vehicles in sight. An enemy would see and treat them as a military target, however, if the enemy saw nothing but civilian vehicles it might see them as assets to capture. “Great idea. We will appreciate now your having me drain the fuel and preserve the tires and batteries inside the mountain. We can also stash our weapons to make us all appear as farmers. I hope our thoughts along this line turn out to be brain-farts and a waste of brain cells.”
“If so, that is better than the alternatives. I think we can count on someone trying to kick our ass. We are obligated to do anything we can do to prevent it or deflect it.”
####
Two Weeks Later-Area 51
“Shit!” 1Lt. Samantha Bronson stared at the radiation count on her dosimeter, holding it up in the window to the control room hoping the better light might change its readings. Behind her, her crew was packing up to leave Area 51 and return to the mountain. “What’s wrong, LT,” one of her soldiers called out to her.
“Friggin dosimeter is screwed up. It is showing me maxed out on rads,”
“Not the dosimeter, LT,” another called out. “Last night you were glowing in the dark. It is time to stick a fork in you. You are done here.”
“Screw you, Sergeant. You know where you can stick your fork. What is your reading?”
“I have a few hours left.”
“Let’s trade,” Sammie called back to him. “You’re going home anyway, and I need to stay another day.” She stopped mid-sentence. What she needed to stay for remained classified need-to-know only.
“No can do, LT. Another day here and you won’t be able to make babies.”
“Shit,” she repeated as she clipped the film badge back on her uniform and resumed packing to return to the mountain. If she rushed things along, she could still do her test and come back to the mountain before maxing out.
For two hectic weeks, the exploitation team hustled to tear down and load equipment needed at the mountain, and like Sammie monitored, and maintained their radiation exposure levels. Bradley and the other members of the team prolonged their stay by spending most of their time in protected areas.
The workers, however, maxed their exposure after three requiring them to return to the shelter of the mountain, which they did while hauling a load of booty. Replacement personnel returned the trucks and carried on with loading them until they too had to go back to the mountain., the items recovered for use at the mountain consisted of specialized electronic equipment, radomes, antennas, coaxial cables, wiring, and special tools related to the retrieved equipment.
Four operational dozers, five rubber-tired loaders, a road grader, and seven forklifts left the area for use at the mountain., the old Nike radar trailer, and the van-mounted system proved simple to mobilize for travel. They moved it to the mountain early in the acquisition along with a truck-mounted drilling rig complete with drill pipe and drill bits for drilling water wells in the future.
####
Sammie looked at the dosimeter reading again. She thought, “Where in the fuck is everyone? Don’t you know that I am running out of time?” She retrieved her binoculars from their case and resumed considering the interior of the base hoping to see movement.
She loaded her secret weapon and sat in position for the test—waiting now for all the crews to leave, leaving only her helpers and the bosses. While waiting for Bradley and Callahan to join her and witness the firing, she scanned over the Groom dry lake bed with its runway stretching for miles.
Major Callahan ordered her to set up her weapon near the RCS pylon situated on the dry lakebed. This seemed strange because of the lack of a target unless the target was one of the pylons.
She looked through her binoculars and saw no change from when she worked here before the bombs. There was nothing to see other than the hook turnaround, and the various pylons situated on the lake for RCS, radar cross section evaluations. Aerial platforms are ranging from the CIA’s A-12 Blackbirds of the 1960s, the Have Blue stealth prototypes, Soviets MiGs, and every proof of concept aerial vehicle since spent its early days on the pole for stealth evaluation by the RATSCAT array of radar systems. The Groom and Papoose Mountain ranges surrounded the narrow valley, protected them from view in every direction but overhead.
Looking north, Bald Mountain glistened with radar, microwave, and communication antennas of all shapes and sizes. Closer in were the Groom mine and unified diggings of the region’s gold mining era. Back at the control tower, the consoles of monitors previous used by flight controllers, FAA, and SAGE ADC, Air Defense Command representatives during the days of secret flights, all now silent, nothing but stark reminders of some of the best days of her life. She considered the sky at the moon. “What a fucken waste! We put mankind on your ass. We discovered your hidden water. We dreamed of colonizing you. We have space probes in deep space looking for other planets to colonize. We so much going for us but threw it all away. Just look at us now.” Seeing all this technology lying in waste depressed her. Her thoughts returned to the present and her dosimeter. It was not lying; it was time for her to go home.
Her experimental weapons system was two separate systems using the same Collins electrical generator. The generator sat mounted towards the front of the bed of an HMMWV with the weapons system sitting above the generator high enough to clear the cab. The operator sat behind the system where shielding protected him or her from small arms fire.
Sammie observed the JLTV racing out from the RATSCAT and onto the dry lake bed, raising a cloud of dust as Bradley and Callahan, with Callahan driving, ran towards her location. “It is about time,” she thought, glancing at her dosimeter again.
“Well, Lieutenant, are you ready to rock and roll,” Callahan called to her as they dismounted from the vehicle.
“Ready, sir. Point me towards a target, and we’ll see if this beast will light it up.”
“Oh, we have many of those for you today,” Bradley said while climbing aboard the vehicle to join her. Callahan followed him.
“Where do you want us, so we’ll be out of your way?”
“You’re okay where you’re at. Name your target, and the sergeant will line up the vehicle. The system has safety stops to prevent accidental friendly fire, so I have only a 30-degree azimuth.
“Which system do you want to test first?
“Let’s do the sonic.”
“Fine. The water tower will be your target,” Callahan said.
“Sir?” She questioned in disbelief.
Bradley and Callahan laughed at her expression of shock. It was evident that the two conspired to pop her with a surprise.
“When we test a new weapon, we don’t do it half-ass, Lieutenant. You are going to destroy the base, all the infrastructure and what’s in them. We have all that we can use and sure as hell not going to leave anything for the Brotherhood,” Bradley said.
Becoming serious, Callahan said, “Walk us through what you have and what it will do.”
While he spoke, one of her assistants handed each of them earmuffs to block out the sound. Each held their ear protection while Sammie explained the sonic weapon that she assembled while working with the CIA at Area 51 before the EMP.
“Yes, sir.” She petted one of the parabolic reflectors of her weapon as she spoke. “We intended this baby to deter the crowds. With our enemy insurgents embedding themselves with civilians, we needed a nonlethal means of repulsing them. Dad, uh, Colonel Bradley knows, but you may not, sir, that the Grizzly is a microwave weapon. This one is sonic. Almost any part of your body, based on its volume and makeup, will vibrate at specific frequencies with enough power. Human eyeballs are fluid-filled, lungs are gas-filled membranes, and the human abdomen contains a variety of liquids, solids, and gas-filled pockets. These structures have limits to how much they can stretch when subjected to force, so if you provide enough power behind a vibration, they will stretch and shrink in time with the low-frequency vibrations of the air molecules ar
ound them.”
Sammie felt encouraged by the interest shown by her audience so far. She continued.
“Living targets will hear the infrasonic frequencies, but will feel direct pressure distortions in the inner ear of about 130 dB. This affects the ability to understand speech. They start puking at 150 dB and the whole-body vibrations, in the chest and abdomen—166 dB affects breathing as the low-frequency pulses impact the lungs, reaching a critical point at about 177 dB, when infrasound from 0.5 to 8Hz can drive sonically induced artificial respiration at an abnormal rhythm.”
She paused to emphasize the effects on living targets. “As you can see, the objectives are some very sick puppies about now. If they keep coming, we get serious and kick their ass with this little rheostat.” She gently twisted a knob on the control panel.
“A bit more sonic causes vibrations through the grounding of your skeleton. The target’s whole body vibrates at 4–8Hz and 1–2Hz side to side—meaning we start hurting our objective through bone and joint damage. With enough infrasonic stimuli, this weapon becomes lethal.”
She looked at the base water tower in the distance. This will be interesting. We always thought of living targets, but with the water tower containing liquids, we may develop another use for the weapon. Put on your ear protection and let’s see what this puppy will do.”
She turned to Callahan one last time. “Sir, please confirm that there is no one left on the base. This will be a lethal test.”
“The range is clear, Lieutenant. Proceed with your test.”
“Yes, sir.” Sammie waited until all donned their ear protection before instructing her sergeant to start the generator. She waited a moment for the power to stabilize before energizing her weapon.
Sitting in the operator’s seat, Sammie aligned the sonic emitter in the direction of the water tank and turned the rheostat. At first, they saw no effect until she reached a level where with their binoculars they could see the tank vibrating from internal turbulence. She continued increasing the decibel level—the water tank vibrations now visible as they affected the tower itself. Water started to leak as seams appeared in the metal, and the entire tank erupted with a massive discharge of its water content.
Sammie turned the rheostat back to zero and shut down the system. Everyone removed their earmuffs and grinned at one another. “Congratulations, Lieutenant. You didn’t blow us up and bath the base,” Callahan shouted to override the loud sound of the generator. “Show us what your zapper will do.”
“Target, sir?”
“Destroy the base. Start with the DYCOMS dish and the Raytheon Quick Kill Radar.”
“Very well, sir. This should be fun. It is a shame the UFO freaks are not here to witness this. Keep in mind that I’ll be operating in manual mode. For airborne targets, we will gang to the Nike radar that we shipped to the mountain.”
“Understood.
Sammie knew that neither of the officers knew anything about this top-secret prototype. “Sir, we call this the RELI which stands for Robust Electric Laser Initiative. This is the latest generation of lightweight, compact laser weapons. We can calibrate it to the scale of the threat, ranging from a non-lethal blow through to taking out a missile. What makes this system different is it being a Thin Disk Laser that takes a series of commercial solid-state lasers and integrates them to produce one concentrated high-energy beam. It will zap out 30 kilowatts of power, more than 30 percent over DOD standards in high power and high beam quality with improved laser’s focus at longer ranges to do some severe damage to a battlefield threat.”
“How does it work?” Bradley asked.
“This advanced model is the solid state with a solid crystal lasing medium to excite light particles enough to emit a particular wavelength, concentrating them in a solid like a prism that directs them into a high-power laser beam. It works sort of like an inverse prism, with lasers of different wavelengths entering it and coming out as a single beam. This baby will produce 100 kilowatts of power.”
“Enough said, Lieutenant. Turn your baby loose.”
“Yes, sir. This time everyone will wear eye protection instead of for the ear.”
The next thirty minutes passed with emotions ranging from elation to deep sadness as Sammie obviated over half a century of the most advanced technology on the face of the earth. Metal flew, material burned, and structures crumbled as she targeted virtually everything existing on the base. When finished, the only things spared were the buildings, POL tank farm, and the communication systems on Bald Mountain and Papoose.
After shutting down the system, they all the exited the vehicle. Climbing down from the vehicle, Sammie paused to look back up at the weapons system. “That was fun,” she said. “But, I like my sniper system better. Colonels, we would appreciate you giving us a hand installing the tarp?” She scanned the horizon and took a quick glance at the reading on her dosimeter. “We don’t want the bad boys seeing this beast.”
Bradley and Callahan exchanged grins, both noting Sammie one minute calling the weapon a monster and the next a baby or puppy. To them, it was the beast.
****
Same Time-Yucca Mountain.
Colonel Barlow tapped the thumb drive on her desk while pondering Bradley’s message. Stacey Bradley sat at Colonel Bradley’s desk, staring around the rock alcove while listening to the arriving sergeant’s brief about the status of the project occurring at Groom Lake.
Colonel Bradley’s message on the thumb drive was simplistic, too simple—its implications vaguely unlimited for one not knowing what the mission was. “Mission successful. Will depart for home in two hours. Advise that you restrict all communications equipment to only those having authorized access.”
She sighed in relief after reading the message, but at the same time, it recalled her need to talk to Bradley about the chain of command, which remained a dilemma to her. Martial law governed inside the mountain with Colonel Bradley in command and that was it. Barlow, though the commander, still recognized Colonel Bradley being the boss.
While inside the mountain, the survivors performed chores but otherwise spent their time in survival limbo. Now, having ventured outside the mountain, the survivors took on jobs instead of chores, they assumed goals and responsibility. Like the serpent, Hydra in Greek mythology, once the colony left the mountain, it grew two heads where there was one.
She looked up at the sergeant sitting stiffly attentive before her in an aggressive manner. Barlow glanced at the radiation level reading and then at the monitor for the outside cameras. “Thank you, Sergeant. We have a beautiful day outside. I suggest we join the rest of the colony outside while it lasts. I have organized an eat-out today, so I propose that we join the festivities.”
Bradley’s small convoy was two miles out when they saw the picnic in full swing at the north portal of Yucca Mountain. “Boss, it looks like they missed us. They are throwing a party to welcome us back,” Bradley’s driver, Sergeant Cooper said teasingly.
Bradley smiled at what they saw as they wheeled across Jackass Flats towards the Yucca Mountain ridge. As they drew closer, they saw the entire mountain turned out for a day of fun in the sun. People were riding horses, kids climbing on any and everything and a softball game in full progress with fans yelling for their team. A small plume of smoke drifted skyward from a barbecue grill surrounded by soldiers. They only needed a rodeo to make this event compare to Texas XIT Rodeo Days at Dalhart, Texas.
Outside the portal door, domestic pets roamed and played. Guinea hens and a couple of chickens on the loose darted from bush to bush looking for insects and seeds to feed on. Bradley could not help himself when he glanced into the heavens for a sign of a plane. In the rearview mirror of the JLTV, he checked on Sammie’s vehicle. “Sergeant, switch out our film badges now before we forget.
His approacheing the mountain with both portal doors standing wide open reminded him of his first arrival four days after the EMP attack. Where the EMP and nuclear winter survivors now played, he
remembered being a staging area. A National Guard bivouac area lay near the outside of the north entrance to the Yucca Mountain complex where military police greeted the convoy from Beatty when it arrived with Stacey and him aboard the first JLTV.
Bradley recalled his ordering his driver to pull to the side and stop while the convoy of men, women, children and their pets evacuated from Beatty continued towards the portal. He recalled guard members digging trenches amidst a beehive of National Guard units and active duty personnel from Creech and Nellis Air Force Bases delivering truckloads of supplies to the staging area established outside the portal. Air Force tank trucks sprayed water on traffic routes to control dust, exposing the existence of the mountain. Everywhere he looked, soldiers and airmen were carrying military cots, cooking essentials, sanitation systems, fuel storage, and military weapons and ordnance from the staging area into the mountain.
He smiled as he thought of Lt. Col. Jane Barlow hurrying over to greet him only seconds ahead of an entourage of ranking military officers rushing to meet their new boss—all of them wondering who he was and what lay ahead.
“What lay ahead?” Those words jumped into his thoughts. They did not know at the time what lay ahead any more than they did now. Back then, they only knew that they experienced an EMP attack. The nuclear bombs came a few days later.
Bradley’s driver seemed to sense Bradley’s thoughts. “a change from when we first arrived, sir. We came as refugees and survivors having lost all family and friends.” The driver became emotional at his thoughts of their arrival four years, ago. “Look at us now. Sir, you gave us hope and the will to survive. What we see ahead out there is a success beyond imagination.”
They drove in silence, each harboring their own thoughts. “Sir, I see Sarge, your dog. Look! He is chasing the softball.” He roared with laughter. “Look at that little bastard run.”
