by Ricky Sides
Patricia laughed at his antics and said, “Well, don’t kill yourself trying to make room. Hey now, take it easy on the coffee!” she said as she saw some of the cans being squeezed tightly together inside the camper shell.
He did manage to make room for one of the small GP tents, and that night they spent their first night together as man and wife inside it.
They exchanged their vows before God under the stars and they’d make them legally at the first opportunity. However, they both already considered themselves married.
***
The next day, Tim went to work uncovering the entrance to the underground complex that housed the special attack vehicle. It was bone jarring and back breaking work. At dinner, he told Patricia he had an idea about a faster way to unearth the complex. He said, “I think I’ll go back to the base and see if I can dig up some C4. With that plastic explosive, I can clear this rock away in no time.”
Patricia asked, “Aren’t you concerned that someone might hear the explosion and come to see what’s going on?”
Tim looked at Patricia with disappointment evident on his face. “You’re right of course. It’s simply too risky to try that at this stage.”
That night, Patricia said, “You really should let me help you with the digging.”
Tim turned to her and said, “I do appreciate that you want to help, but this is back breaking work. I don’t want to see you do that kind of work when I am capable doing it.”
“I know how you feel, and believe me I appreciate it, but you’re going to work yourself to death trying to do this alone.”
“Let me worry about that,” he snapped irritably. The hurt expression on Patricia’s face made him regret that he’d snapped at her. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m just tired and irritable tonight. Not to mention frustrated by being so close to our goal, yet so far from seeing the work done to retrieve the vehicle.” He kissed her tenderly.
She smiled at him and said, “I like the way you apologize.” Then she sighed and said, “If only we knew how to drive a backhoe we could get the job done in no time at all.”
Tim’s mouth dropped open for a moment. With an excited expression on his face he asked, “What do you mean by that? Do you know where a backhoe is?”
“Sure, I saw one yesterday on the base. You remember when I went to find a spot to use the bathroom while you were loading the truck with some of the MREs and coffee?” Tim nodded and Patricia continued, “Well, while I was looking for a spot, I saw several backhoes and a bulldozer.”
Tim began to laugh then and Patricia asked, “Want to let me in on the joke?”
“During my second tour of duty I was a backhoe operator for two years.”
Patricia smiled and asked, “Do you have any other talents that you haven’t told me about? If you do, you might want to tell me so I can save you a lot of hard work in the years to come.”
Leaning close to his wife, Tim said. “As a matter of a fact, I do have another talent that you might not be aware of yet. Leaning even closer he whispered in her ear.
Patricia giggled and said, “I know about that one already.”
He smiled at her and whispered in her ear again. She laughed and said, “You can’t do that. No man can make a woman forget her own name during sex.”
Tim grinned wolfishly and said, “I’ll prove it to you.”
It took a lot of effort on his part, but he did.
***
It took two hours to get the backhoe fueled and drive it to the work site. Tim had been concerned that the battery was dead, but as it turned out, that was a needless concern. Patricia watched her husband as he operated the backhoe. He’d been rusty at the controls, and at first hesitant. However, as the hours progressed, he worked the controls with more assurance, as the timing and techniques required came back to him. She marveled at the skill with which he manipulated the machine. It took only a day and a half to dig out the entrance with the backhoe.
When he finally had the entrance to the complex cleared, he discovered another problem. The entrance to the complex was a massive steel door. He stood staring down at the door in disgust and wondered how he was going to get the door open.
Patricia walked up and studied the steel door with him. “Once we get the door open, we have to figure out how to get to the floor below. According to dad, it’s at least twenty feet to the floor of the complex.”
“He’d been here?” Tim asked.
“Yes. He was brought in as the complex was constructed to ensure that it would serve well as a base for the vehicle,” Patricia informed Tim.
“How did the personnel get down to the first floor? Stairs or elevator?” he asked.
“They used a small elevator platform. It’s one of those elevators with guardrails, but no cabin, such as those that used to be prevalent in mines. But with no electricity, the elevator won’t work.”
“We’ll worry about that after we get the door open. If we get it open,” Tim said grimly as he studied the problem.
Tim finally decided that the only way that they could open the door was to blast it free of the entrance. Yet he still faced the problem of the noise attracting unwanted attention to them. He gathered the explosives he would need to do the job. That hadn’t been easy either. The only source of the explosive he needed was some claymore mines that he was able to locate on the remnants of the base. He calculated the best means of achieving their goal and sighed. As best he could tell, they didn’t have quite enough explosives for the operation. Yet his training had taught him ways to deal with critical material shortages by altering the techniques involved. This made the setup much more complicated. Yet in the end, he was certain that the compensation techniques would permit them to accomplish their mission goals, with the materials at hand.
Next, they had to wait for the right moment. He’d promised not to blow the doors until there was an electrical storm in the area. That way, the thunder from the storm stood a reasonable chance of masking the sound of the detonation. Patricia had agreed that using the explosive charges was the only way that they were going to get into the complex.
For a week, the skies remained clear and they began to wonder if it was ever going to rain. On at least three occasions, one of them would change their mind and decide to go ahead and risk the detonation without the masking thunder. However, in each case their partner remained firm that they should wait until the inevitable storm arrived. They went to sleep one night under clear skies and a full moon. They were pleasantly surprised when they awoke the next morning to black threatening clouds overhead. By midmorning the wind had picked up velocity. By noon it was raining hard, but they needed more than rain. They needed thunder so they had to wait. Thirty minutes before dark, they began to hear distant thunder, which rapidly drew closer. An hour after darkness had settled onto the soggy camp, Tim triggered the explosives.
He timed the explosion so that it occurred simultaneously with a clap of thunder nearby. He’d been measuring the time between lightning and the thunder so it was relatively easy to time it close enough that the sound of the explosion would be well camouflaged by the thunder.
Tim walked out, examined the opening, and saw that the explosives had worked as well as could be expected. The massive door was hanging down into the complex on its hinge system. He’d hoped it wouldn’t be a mangled mess he’d have to clear from the entrance. He knew he’d been damned lucky. It had taken every trick in the book to rig the inadequate supply of explosives to do the job properly.
Backing away from the hole, he returned to the tent and closed the door behind him once he entered.
Inside the tent, Patricia was sitting on a campstool brushing her hair. “Are you ready to blow the door?” she asked.
Tim grinned and said, “I did a few minutes ago. You mean you didn’t hear the explosion?”
Patricia continued to brush her hair as she replied, “I wish you’d told me. I wanted to see the explosion.”
“It wasn’t
much to see, and it’s raining so hard it never occurred to me that you’d venture out into that storm to watch the explosion,” he explained.
She put her brush aside and picked up a towel she’d used earlier to dry her hair after she’d taken a shower in the rain. She walked over to Tim and towel dried his hair and face. She said, “If it’s still raining that hard, then I don’t suppose I really would’ve wanted to go out and watch.”
Tim smiled at Patricia and thanked her. “In the morning I’ll check out the entrance and see if we can recover the vehicle,” he said as he began to strip off his soaking wet clothing.
Patricia opened the door wide enough to see outside the tent. She saw brilliant lightning flash across the sky and torrential rain. “If we don’t get flooded out, that is.”
Chapter 32
The rain ended a few hours before dawn. Tim and Patricia entered the complex an hour after first light. Tim tied a rope to the backhoe, which he parked well away from the entrance, and then lowered Patricia down to the floor. He then climbed down to the floor himself.
The light from the overhead door penetrated the entire chamber. They saw a large sliding door that they felt might lead to the vehicle. Tim studied the door and saw that it opened by activating a small electric motor mounted at the top of the door but it had a backup system for manually opening the door in an emergency. This worked with a series of small chains and pulleys. It took a lot of effort because the system had been designed for several men to operate, but working together, Tim and Patricia managed to get the door open.
They had to use flashlights in the second chamber because the light from the entrance chamber didn’t fully illuminate this room. Tim’s first look at the vehicle left him speechless. He played his light along the hull and stared in awe at the magnificent vehicle. Beside him, his wife said, “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Yes it is, but I had no concept of its true size.” Tim said in awe as he studied the flat gray seamless hull. The ship was about ten feet tall, twenty-five feet wide, and fifty-five feet long.
“Just wait till you see the interior,” Patricia said. She led the way to the vehicle.
The hatch of the ship was open. Patricia entered first, followed quickly by Tim. She walked to a control panel to the right of the hatch depressed a switch on the panel. The control room was immediately illuminated. Patricia said, “Let’s secure the door and then I’ll give you the grand tour.”
She showed her husband how to close and secure the hatch. She returned to the control panel and studied it a moment. “I’m sorry, this wasn’t my specialty, and it will take a few minutes to remember everything.”
“That’s fine, Hon, take your time,” Tim responded as his eyes roved over the interior of the craft. The control room reminded him of the old Star Trek television series. The control panels were black with touch screen buttons in various colors of red, yellow, green, blue, and orange. Even as he admired the control panels, Patricia located the power flow feed that supplied the controls and they burst into vibrant color.
“Oh you’ve got to be kidding me!” Tim exclaimed as he walked over and examined the control panels.
“Careful, Hon,” Patricia warned. “Please don’t press any buttons until I familiarize you with the systems.”
“Right, I wouldn’t want to activate the weapons system down here. That would be bad,” he said.
“Yes it would, and so would accelerating to maximum speed inside the complex,” she said pointedly.
She turned to the hall at the rear of the control room and noted the subdued lighting that was on in the aft section of the ship. “Great, the systems are up and running. If you’re ready, we can start the tour. Let’s do the control room last, since it’s the most complex and will take the longest to fully examine.” Winking at Tim she said, “Besides I’d like to use a real bathroom for a change. I think I remember how.”
Tim laughed and said, “Lead on, Sweetheart.”
Patricia led the way back through the hall. The first door on the right contained a bunk room. They went in and Patricia explained, “There are six sleeping quarters on the ship located three on either side of the hall. As you can see, the rooms contain three bunks that are attached to the floor so they don’t move during transit. The sleeping surfaces are recessed slightly to prevent the occupant from falling off the bed during some of the more violent maneuvers the ship is capable of performing. The side rails are padded to minimize injuries.”
“You can see that the rooms are very small by necessity. They are just large enough to contain the beds and small footlockers to stow a bit of personal gear. The layout required that the lockers would slide under the foot of the bed to conserve space. To access them you press this button.” she depressed a small white button located on the foot of the bed and a footlocker slid quietly out from under the bed. Squatting down she opened the locker and showed her husband that it was a standard locker that was attached to the sliding retaining frame. “The motors can’t handle excessive weight so you have to keep the locker contents below fifty pounds. To return the locker to its concealed position just hit the button a second time.”
Smiling at her husband she said, “You’d be amazed at the protocols for the ship. They even worked up protocols for the footlockers.” Her face took on an exaggerated air of self-importance and authority as she imitated a stuffy officer’s mannerisms when she rattled off, “The footlockers will be opened when needed, but they will be closed immediately after access is complete. Under no circumstances will a locker be left in the extended position, with no occupant actually accessing it.”
Tim chuckled and said, “You sound like my old drill instructor.”
Grinning Patricia said, “That’s about it for the bunk rooms. There are eighteen beds aboard the ship. Enough beds for a six-man crew and a twelve man Special Ops team. The walls are thin but strong. They dampen sound, but are not sound proof. Remember, the walls are here for the sake of structural integrity, and not individual privacy.”
“This ship was designed for the military, and the military has no real concept of privacy,” Tim replied.
“When we came in, you noted the subdued lighting and where to turn the light up to full power?” she asked.
By way of answer, he reached over and turned the lighting back down to subdued. “Yes, I think I’ve got that part,” he said.
“All right,” Patricia said as she slipped past her husband and returned to the hall. He followed her out closing the door behind him. “Good, you closed the door,” she nodded her approval and they proceeded down the hall.
“Another protocol?” he asked as he followed her.
“Oh yes,” she said and then mimicked the same imaginary officer when she intoned, “All doors will be secured properly at all times. The environment in the ship is so confined that even a door left ajar can become a hazard and a nuisance.”
Laughing at her imitation, Tim said, “You do that really well.”
“I should,” she said with a wink. “Our liaison officer lectured me enough that I think I have all of his speeches memorized. Oddly, the fellow was a former submarine officer. The brass evidently felt such experience was what was needed to command this vehicle.”
“Actually that’s probably correct,” Tim stated nodding his head.
“Well, the officer did say that this was the first land vehicle he’d ever been in that reminded him of a sub because of the confined spaces.”
They continued the tour then. As they walked down the hall, she pointed to the doors and said, “You’ll notice the entrances to the rooms are staggered so that people won’t slam doors into each other as they try to exit rooms. Note the amber lights beside each door.” As she said this, she touched the door handle of a door and Tim saw an amber light situated above the door light up. “A visual warning that an occupant is about to access the door. That’s to…”
“Prevent someone from walking into a door as it is being opened,” Tim finished the senten
ce for her.
She smiled her approval and said, “Yes it is, so learn to watch the lights and you won’t become intimate with the doors.” Laughing, she said, “One of our poor developers could never quite get the hang of that, and the poor fellow was hit numerous times as a result.”
Moving down the hall, they didn’t enter any of the remaining sleeping quarters. “They’re all identical,” Patricia explained. “Next stop is the Galley. I think you’re in for a surprise.”
He was indeed surprised when they entered the galley. There was an oversized microwave oven, a large conventional oven and a stove top with four large electrical elements. There was also a sink for dishwashing, a refrigerator, and a freezer. Walking over to the last two appliances, she looked at the control panels on them and noted the settings. “Look at this,” she said in excitement.
Walking up to the appliances, he noted the control panels and saw that these two appliances could be left on when all of the other power systems were shut down. This was necessary to protect the contents of the refrigeration units. “How come these things didn’t drain the power out of the vehicle after all these weeks?” he asked in confusion.
Patricia explained, “Everything inside this ship is state of the art or advanced beyond that. The electrical appliances in this room draw negligible power when compared to traditional items. Still, they did drain the system some. The ship is down to half power now. However, that’s plenty of power to get the prototype outside the complex and into the sun where it can charge.”
“Shall we see what’s in the larder?” she asked with a grin and opened the refrigerator. “Bah it’s empty!” she said in disappointment. Turning to the freezer, she opened it and said, “Now that’s more like it!” Inside the freezer, they found an abundance of frozen meats and vegetables. Looking at her husband she said, “It’s going to be steak and veggies for dinner tonight, love.”