Nuclear Spring

by Td Barnes

  “I know what an RDS is, Charlie,” Bradley admonishingly said. “This how we insert captions and information to accompany the data on the downlink. You are thinking what?”

  “When the EMP struck, the satellite intrusion shields kicked in. Encryption techniques and algorithms designed to counter cyber-espionage you might say, shut down the vulnerable channels in use. The one we are seeing was inactive and thus did not induce shielding.”

  Charlie, I doubt if you will find anything on this, but you might look for records related to a classified NSA project that we referred to as the Office of Tailored Access Operations or TAO. We used this successful program to penetrate a Chinese computer and telecommunications systems. It generated some of the best and most reliable intelligence information about what is going on inside the People’s Republic of China. You can most likely access this through the Stacey Library.”

  The residents named the mountain’s combination documents archive and library after his Stacey, who organized staff to manage the housing of occupants and to maintain a census count while he led his mountain ‘Ark,’ following the EMP attack. She established routines for feeding everyone in the common dining rooms and helped coordinate policy for everything from maintenance to sick call.

  What Bradley was referring to was her having sought volunteers from the teenage dependents to organize a library containing technical manuals and how-to books arriving by the truckloads. One shipment included enough undamaged Apple-MacBook Air laptop computers from the Apple Store in the Las Vegas Town Square shopping center for everyone inside the mountain with 208 left over. These she stored in the back of the library after packing and boxing them for special protection.

  On the other end, someone attuned to the needs of the isolation situation developing at the mountain arranged for the delivery of hundreds of digitized movies and thousands of digitized books. This included children’s school books and the oddest of all, shipments of medical supplies that included six frozen canisters of human sperm from a local sperm bank in Las Vegas. Though no one knew the source at the time, one shipment included four frozen canisters of domestic animal sperm. She later learned that this came from Starquest Aerospace meant to establish an eventual animal life at an extraterrestrial venue.

  Mitchell seemed excited at learning about this source of information. “I heard rumors of Gen. Keith Alexander having a Remote Operations Center going at Fort Meade.”

  “That’s it. General Alexander held a position of far-reaching authority and potentially Strangelovian powers. My team worked with them on the Stuxnet cyber weapon against Iran’s nuclear facility in Natanz. TAO developed the information for the US Cyber Command, Cybercom to destroy or damage the foreign computer and telecommunications systems with a cyber-attack if needed. If we have anything in the archives, it might give us direction on how to proceed.”

  “You may be onto something, Tom. I see classified documents about all sorts of cyber-warfare.”

  “Are you sharing your findings with Doctor Hains?”

  “Yes. I am considering the orbital aspects, and his team is considering our satellite blockage problem being terrestrial.”

  “Excellent. Keep me posted.”

  ####

  SFC Stratton cursed as he adjusted his night vision goggles, turning ambient light into daylight. He departed the south portal a very pissed off individual.

  First, for four years, Stratton was unable to use his Ban Ray sunglasses, and now that he could, some lowlife bastard had run off with them on the dash of the JLTV. Second, he had left his weapon sitting inside the JLTV. He was so angry about his having to rush to the ordnance alcove to get another weapon that he forgot to count among his grievances with the loss of his clipboard containing all the details and scheduling of this mission.

  Rather than prep another JLTV for the mission, Major Callahan and he decided to go with just the three JLTVs with hopes of picking up another in Las Vegas.

  From his previous shopping missions to Las Vegas, he learned the best route to avoid stalled vehicles on Highway 95 being through the Nevada National Security Site to Mercury base camp and then onto the four-lane Highway 95.

  The convoy made good time, being the only vehicles moving on the road. At the Lee Canyon and Kyle Canyon cutoff, the others and he could not avoid looking at Mount Charleston on their right where they and their families used to picnic among the pine trees. A few miles farther, the long, straight highway entered the Las Vegas valley with Las Vegas spread from mountain to mountain. The city looked peaceful, the only sign of any life being the lazy plumes of smoke from cooking fires at Tule Springs, the Las Vegas Springs Preserve, and along the Las Vegas Wash that emptied into Lake Las Vegas and eventually into Lake Mead.

  The missing JLTV concerned everyone on the squad. They watched for a sign of it the entire trip. The convoy exited Highway 95 at the interception of Las Vegas Beltway I-215 that avoided entering the city. They exited the beltway at Craig Road and headed for the warehouse where they recovered the deuce and a half trucks on the first trip to North Las Vegas.

  The short convoy raced through the deserted streets to prevent alerting a possible enemy of their presence in time for the enemy to react. After reaching their objective, the logic reversed where they approached the warehouse at though expecting an ambush.

  The squad froze in position when the soldier on point peeked into the warehouse and turned to render a motion to stop. He disappeared into the warehouse and returned in a manner to indicate no danger.

  “Sarge, someone beat us to it,” he announced to Stratton. There are no trucks here except those we siphoned the fuel from when we took ours.”

  Under the circumstances, the thought of someone having been here surprised Stratton but did not alarm him. The others and he assumed EMP survivors are taking the trucks and now having them at their camps.

  “Thank goodness we brought some fuel with us. Fuel them up and let’s get the show on the road.” Stratton thought about the unexpected development. “We will not split up as planned. My list was in the JLTV taken by that butthead, but we know the lay of the town. We will hit Costco on South Martin L King Blvd; head out to the Walmart at West Craig Rd, the one on Losee Rd, and then the one on West Lake Mead Blvd. On the way out, we will stop by the Starquest facility to pick up the spacesuits.”

  ####

  “We know who took the JLTV,” Major Callahan announced to Colonel Barlow and the Sergeant Major as he and the first sergeant entered the Command Center. “It was Carlos, that nerd that the colonel assigned to livestock duty—the nerd involved in the hard drive caper.”

  All of them knew of the security concerns surrounding Carlos. “Does the Colonel know?”

  “Negative. We are checking Carlos out and will brief the colonel and all of you once we finish. As you can imagine, we do not have a lot to go on. I have the kids working in the archive scanning their records to see what movies he checked out, what books he read, etc. I spoke to one of the clerics, and they say he did not attend any of their services.”

  Callahan sat down at his desk to catch up on some paperwork while the others went about their business. No-one much to do and stopped what they were doing to talk about one subject or another. The morning was routine for them, taking care of mountain business, dealing with scheduling, and answering inquiries from a visitor dropping in. The two sergeants were doing the same and at the time visiting when it happened.

  Each of them jerked their head when they felt the slight tremor followed by a loud bang carried by the air duct, followed by a loud rumble a few seconds later. All of them were still wondering what happened when a rush of dusty air hit them, dense enough to fog their vision.

  Early after arriving to live inside the mountain, the residents found that sound traveled at different speeds in the tunnel. Sounds from something contacting the air ducts or any piping moved much faster than did the vocal sound of a human or animal. The density of the tunnel walls or metal pipes made the difference.
Early on, they devised an emergency signaling protocol using the tubes should the intercom fail.

  In the War Room, Sarge sensed it first and raised his head and barked an alarm. The same sequence of sounds and events followed as experienced in the Command Center. Bradley noticed his coffee mug shake and the coffee ripple inside. The poodle started barking furiously—outside; frightened Guinea hens ran noisily through the tunnel.

  “Explosion,” shouted Mitchell and Bradley. Everyone ran to the alcove entrance where the loose rock was raining down from the top of the tunnel onto startled residents. Moments later, the fog of dust enveloped them, confirming it was an explosion.

  “Deploy our defenses and shut down the mountain,” he ordered as-loudly as his voice could muster.

  “Where is it,” Mitchell demanded of the security detail outside the entrance.

  “We don’t know, sir.”

  “I’m getting a fire indication at the south portal,” the duty officer called.

  “Sound the alarm,” Mitchell shouted. Bradley was already running down the tunnel, remembering that Stacey and Sammie were both at the south portal.

  “Sir, I’ll take you in the handcar,” the young attendant shouted.

  “Negative. Take the doctors and first responders,” he shouted. He headed towards the medical clinics in time to see Jerry and the doctors rushing out with medical satchels in hand. He hustled them on board and ordered the attendant to make all haste.

  The deeper he and the others rode into the bowels of the mountain, the more Bradley appreciated his grabbing a bicycle instead of running as he did for exercise. Even on a bike, the trip took longer because of the congestion in the tunnel with everyone rushing to the south portal. The tunnel became dustier, and they smelled smoke. This wasn’t right. The ventilators should have prevented anything infiltrating back into the tunnel.

  All he could think of was Sammie and Stacey. “God, he hoped she left the south portal.” He thought of all the hay stored inside the mountain, not to mention tankers filled with fuel for the vehicles and tons of ordnance.

  In the motor pool area, the traffic had clogged up to a slow walk because of the vehicles restricting passage through the tunnel. Bradley felt a moment of relief when he passed the ordnance storage and then the tankers and saw no fire. The smoke seemed a bit less now, giving him hope that the ventilators were working and the fire being out. So far, nothing activated the overhead sprinklers, which was also a good sign.

  “Dad, dad.” He heard Sammie’s cry, saw her running towards him, recognizable from the smoke, and dust covering every inch of her body. “Dad. Mom’s in there,” she cried.

  He dismounted, and they embraced. “Where is she,” he cried.

  “In the tunnel,” she said. She saw that her father did not understand.

  “Dad, she is in the tunnel. Something exploded, and the tunnel has caved in. We cannot get to her this way. The south portal is sealed. We must go around.”

  That is when he realized the traffic-reversing in the tunnel and everyone heading back towards the north portal. That is also the first he realized that many of the families were seeking their children who were at the animal park and working in the garden.

  ####

  “This is the last one,” Stratton announced to his men as they loaded the fourth spacesuit into the deuce and a half. We have a full load, so let’s head home.”

  He felt much happier now with all the trucks loaded and him having a new pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses.

  He took the lead, heading the convoy over the speed bumps in the road heading up a slope to the guard shack and exit onto Brooks Avenue in North Las Vegas. After a short drive to Highway 95, all that remained was a two-hour drive to home inside the mountain.

  Starquest Aerospace covered a large acreage in an otherwise inhabited area of North Las Vegas. The main complex lay in a shallow valley with a gentle slope to the north exit with tall fences surrounding the facility. The terrain itself restricted ingress and egress to this one road.

  The convoy passed the guard office building and topped the little hill to head in a downward slope through the guard shack and onto the highway.

  “Stop,” Stratton hissed while locking and loading his weapon.

  “Look straight ahead past the guard shack. I see a radio antenna?”

  He retrieved his binoculars while he spoke. The antenna was so close to them that he to adjust the focus to pull it in. “It is. It is a military antenna. It may be related to our missing trucks.”

  Stratton dismounted from the JLTV and motioned to those in the other vehicles to do the same. Using sign language, he alerted everyone to something lying ahead.

  He stood beside his vehicle while his men dispersed into defensive positions. He could only watch as the antenna tip drew closer, indicated the vehicle headed up the slope to meet them.

  He recognized the vehicle being American military, but this did not relieve him of his concern. The vehicle stopped, and five more pulled up behind it. The passenger in the lead vehicle dismounted and assumed a position beside his vehicle like that of Stratton. Stratton realized the man’s clothing not being American.

  “May I help you?” Stratton asked warily.

  “You may give me your trucks. You are trespassing on our territory.” Stratton saw the men behind the vehicle dispersing into combat positions.

  “And who might you be?” Stratton recognized an Arabic accent, but not the nationality.

  “That is not your concern. You and your men may keep your jeeps, but the trucks and their contents belong to us.”

  While they talked, Stratton recognized his missing JLTV and Carlos sitting at the bottom of the hill. This explained the ambush. That sneaky bastard not only taken his sunglasses but his clipboard with their itinerary as well. He acted as though mulling over the demand, all the while lowering his weapon to aim it from his hip towards the spokesman of the group.

  He saw no way to escape the situation other than surrendering or shooting their way out. He shot.

  With both sides, only a few feet apart, the battle escalated with the enemy firing a few rounds and then running for better offensive positions. Their spokesman lay dead; SFC Stratton suffered a shot to his left hip, and his driver, SSG Jess Harper, a grazing wound to the right side of his head.

  The barren desert offered no place for Stratton’s men to take shelter, leaving them no choice but use their vehicles for shields. The aggressors, on the other hand, were on the other side of the slight knoll with the guard shack between them and Stratton’s squad. Four of them took shelter beside the guard shack, shooting around the corners while others ran along Brooks Avenue out of sight of the squad with plans to flank the squad. For the squad, the Starquest security fence extended all along the road, denying the aggressors access to circle the squadron.

  Stratton managed to hobble back to the others, but Harper lay unconscious, unnoticed on the other side of the vehicle.

  Realizing that Harper was not with them, Stratton and the others called out to him, first to see if he was alright, and to coach him back to the JLTV for shelter. He did not answer.

  Both sides were at a stalemate, unable the maneuver because of the barren terrain and a security fence enclosing them to a narrow passageway. The squad caught a fleeting glance of Harper when the aggressors dragged him into one of their vehicles and retreated from the battle.

  The attackers left their lead vehicle and the dead man so the squad could not know if all the others were gone or not. Moments later, they saw a white handkerchief waving from around the corner of the guard shack followed by a man lowering his weapon to the ground before stepping out with arms raised.

  “They are all gone, senors. Do not shoot. I go with you,” the man said in broken English.

  Stratton regained consciousness a few miles outside of Indian Springs and Creech Air Force Base. A morphine injection to his leg kicked in, taking away all the pain. That is when he learned of his men capturing one of the enemy.
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br />   “What are our casualties?” He asked.

  “You, Sarge, and Sergeant Harper. We do not know the extent of Sergeant Harper’s wounds. They took him with them.”

  “Oh, shit,” he said despairingly. Our traitor, Carlos?”

  “He bugged out when the shooting started.”

  ####

  Outside the north portal resembled a war zone with soldiers kicking into gear to defend the mountain by manning the perimeter. Several of those alertly guarding their pre-assigned perimeter post were armed female soldiers in advanced stages of pregnancy.

  Bradley and the rest of the residents arriving at the north portal ahead of him parked their bicycles and began running the three miles to the south portal. The bike tires could not withstand puncture by the desert cactus, leaving the residents strung out, all running as fast as they could to rescue those trapped at the south portal.

  It became apparent that no one exited the portal and there was no venting of smoke. This did not bode well for any survivors. If the explosion compromised the mountain’s ventilation system, everyone inside the mountain, human, and livestock alike were in very serious trouble.

  Sammie ran beside her father; their thoughts focused on the welfare of Stacey and the others. No one spoke, not them, nor any of the rescuers. There was nothing to say, and they needed their breath for running.

  Bradley realized his worse fears when he and Sammie arrived at the south portal to find rescuers trying to dig out any survivors with their hands. A defense mechanism of the mountain intended to dump rock to block the entrance to prevent intrusion by an enemy activated, dropping the rock that now locked the rescuer out of the mountain. A landslide off the side of the mountain added another of a layer of rock to the entrance. This meant that there existed three blockages, the landslide, a probable roof collapse caused by the explosion, and the planned blockage to prevent intrusion.