Dulce Base (The Dulce Files Book 1)

by Greg Strandberg

Stan nodded. “The Grays are primarily situated as 4th density beings, although there are a small number that are 3rd and 6th density. To 3rd density humans they appear cold, cruel and heartless. Nothing could be further from the truth…to a point. They are, in fact, extremely curious about all aspects of existence, highly analytical and devoid of sentimentality. They can experience emotional manifestations radiated from the terrestrial 3rd density human, and use this ability generally as a mood-elevator. The Grays manipulate humans in order to create situations of conflict or extreme pain and emotion to acquire these sensations. They are, in effect, sensation junkies. The Grays have the ability to pick out our emotions, thoughts and experiences. For them, this is the closest they can come to experiencing feeling. Of course to those beings who have some form of ethical conduct – namely, us humans – the Grays appear psychotic and degrading. They are masters of mind-control and mental implantation technique. Their physical attributes reflect their psychotic souls - we could easily consider them to have anti-social attributes as well as tendencies toward megalomania and schizophrenia. They have been described by some as being absolutely mad. To make matters worse, they’re performing other actions with terrestrial humans that are quite perverse. The Grays are playing a game with us that depends heavily on maintaining a situation where humans view themselves as limited, fatalistic beings with no control over their own destiny. They continually manipulate humans…that is, they’re always playing the domination/control game.”

  Stan paused there and the men shifted nervously in their seats, like you’d do after something unpleasant or embarrassing had been said. It was clear to all they were up against something the likes of which they’d never seen before, and something that could end them all utterly, and at will.

  “What’s the security look like?” Carl asked of Ellis, trying to ease the tension that’d suddenly built up in the room.

  In response to Carl’s question, Ellis nodded at Captain Walter Leathers, who stepped forward.

  “There’s so much security at Dulce that’d be nearly impossible to cover it all,” he said, “and I know this from when I worked down there.”

  “You were down there?” Billy asked, his mouth slightly open.

  Walter nodded. “Was stationed there from ’73 to ’75 – they pulled me out just a month before the base fell, just dumb luck is all.”

  “And that dumb luck worked out in our favor,” Ellis butted-in. “Walter here was being trained to take over base security before he was sent to inspect the security system of another base. If he hadn’t been, there’d be no one alive today that would know what we need to know.

  The men nodded at the Dutchman’s words, and looked at Walter with some newfound respect.

  “The main weapon that the Grays and their Reptilian allies will have besides the flash guns will be a form of sonic.”

  “Sonic?” Charlie said, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

  “It’s built in with each light fixture and most of the cameras, a device that could render a man unconscious in seconds with nothing more than a silent tone. At Dulce there are also still and VCR cameras, eye print, hand print stations, weight monitors, lasers, ELF and EM equipment, heat sensors and motion detectors and quite a few other methods…all using this sonic feature that can kill you at any moment, and with just the push of a button.”

  “And it’s controlled from their main control station, I’ll bet,” Bobbie said, “so where’s that? We’ll get in, disable it, boom – problem solved!”

  “There’s so many types of sensors, radar, infrared, heat sensors, microwave, EMGW, and satellite that I just don’t think you’d make it too far,” Walter said with a frown, for he wanted what Bobbie had said to work, wanted it desperately, but not so desperately that he’d throw away good men like they were blades of grass in the wind. “Most of the sensors are powered by magnetic power, but the only thing you’ll notice on the surface will be an occasional satellite dish.”

  “What Walter says is true,” Ellis said, picking up the tale, “There’s no way you could get very far into the base, and even if you somehow made it to the second level, you’d be spotted within fifteen feet, your head caved-in like a melon if you weren’t just knocked unconscious, only to wake up in some hell called reprogramming that you didn’t even know had taken place.”

  “More than likely you’d just become an inmate and never see the light of the surface world again,” Stu added, much to the chagrin of the men present. “If you were ’lucky’ you’d be re-programmed and become one of the countless spies for the Ruling Caste. At least then you’d get some scraps from the table.”

  “And if I’m unlucky?” Tommy asked, that smirk of his front and center.

  Ellis looked over at Walter, who only shrugged before turning back to Tommy.

  “Chattel, cattle, maybe some reproductive slave…who knows? Many they use genetic testing on, taking away any kind of humanity as we’d call it, for how do you call some cross between a man and an animal – or two or three – a man anymore?”

  “That stuff’s down there?” Robbie said, his face twisted up like he was about to be sick at a restaurant and was hurriedly looking for the door.

  “I don’t know what’s down there,” Ellis said, “I haven’t been there in years – I can’t imagine.”

  There were a lot of deep breaths around the room as men took stock of the situation, and how bad it really was, for their chance of survival, at least.

  “So let’s say we do make it in,” Fred said, looking at Walter, “what then?”

  “If we can make it past that first port of entry, then we’re really in the clear, as far as what we have to go through.”

  Walter nodded. “Security is tight at first, but then once we get past it and to the elevators or vehicle ramps, we may well have the run of the place.”

  “Where’s that security command post, the one that could unleash that sonic to kill us with a flash?”

  “In the deepest levels, Level 7,” Walter said.

  “Well then how the hell do we get to that?” Charlie laughed.

  “We take the underground train system.”

  9 – Tube Trains

  Whooo wheee!

  “Told you so,” Walter said with a sideways grin and an equally-sideways look at Charlie, who was now shaking his head after the long, drawn-out whistle of disbelief.

  “God damn, the whole planet?” Fred blurted out.

  The men were huddled into a small conference room in one of the main Blue Lake base buildings. Before them was a map covering a whole wall, one showing the planet Earth, the regular surface features stripped-away, and a crisscrossing array of what looked to be railroad lines going this way and that in all directions, to all continents and across all oceans.

  “They began building it in ‘54,” Colonel Roger Donlon said, drawing many of the men’s eyes to him, “got various corporations and government contractors to do most of the work, using the brute labor of the Reptilians to get the job. Project became so big, in fact, that Ike had to get the Interstate Highway System passed in ’56 to cover up all the massive spending that was taking place.”

  “So it’s alien-built,” Lieutenant Colonel Emil Wiseman said, that ever-present pipe of his clamped firmly between his teeth, even though it wasn’t lit at the moment.

  “Everything down there is,” Donlon continued, “and it’s that way in most of the underground bases around the world.”

  “And most of those bases have been lost to the countries that allowed them in the first place, or built right under their noses while they’ve sat unawares,” Ellis said.

  Donlon nodded to his words. “But they don’t control the tube trains – not all of them, at least.”

  “There must be…dozens,” Turn said as he continued to stare at the map, “hundreds.”

  “More than 7,600 tunnels by last count, but just forty tube trains to run in them,” Donlon said before looking over at Ellis, “unless the aliens have built more.�
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  Ellis shook his head. “We don’t think so…but really have no way of knowing.”

  “So it goes,” Donlon sighed. “Anyways, those tunnels are far-from secure, mainly because they can’t be secured.”

  “What do you mean?” Charlie said, his brow furrowed. He’d always been accused of understanding next to nothing when coming up as a child, and he always made it a point to ask and ask away when anyone hinted there might be something he still didn’t understand.

  “I mean,” Donlon continued, “those tube trains are capable of travelling at the astonishing speed of Mach 2. There’s no room between those trains and the tunnel walls, so anything walking down them – like quite a few stupid Reptilians or worker Grays often are – they immediately get pulverized.”

  “Like a bug on my windshield when I’m crusin’ down the bayou highways, eh Colonel?” Bobbie laughed.

  Donlon frowned. “Something like that.”

  “And the good news is that after ’75 we secured all the tube stations that we could,” Ellis said, “which means we now have 75% of them under our control while the aliens just have a handful, mostly here in the southwest.”

  “It’s those ones that we don’t have that will be the problem,” Donlon said, “and why we need our main force down in those lower-levels, blocking any incoming trains, and the threat to our rear that they could bring.”

  “So who’s gettin’ train duty?” Fred laughed.

  “You all are,” Donlon said, his face straight.

  The room erupted in murmurings and buzzing as each man talked to the one next to him.

  “Alright, alright!” Ellis shouted over the drone. “CAT-1 and CAT-2 are going to be coming in on those tube trains, and from there you’re filtering up the levels toward the surface, destroying as much as you can along the way. On your rear will be CAT-4 led by Colonel Donlon, its sole mission being to block anything else trying to use those trains to get at us from behind.”

  “So we’re not taking the trains out then, right?” Turn asked. He was on CAT-2 headed by Chargin’ Charlie and hoped to hell he wouldn’t have to come up with an escape plan on the fly.

  Ellis shook his head. “Once CAT-3 hits with the X-22 in the hangar port we’ll have our opening, allowing both Eddie’s Filter Attack Team and Aaron’s Clean Up Team to come in and aid you.”

  “And I’ll be flying you out,” Captain Moses Cochrane said, the first time many had heard the tall black man with the gaunt face speak up.

  The men had turned back in their chairs to get a better look at Command Sergeant Aaron Haney, Cochrane, and the third man on the CUT team, Sergeant Jerry Carol. All were regular Air Force, and looking at them, Turn wondered if they were going to be able to hold their own. They better, he thought.

  “What could go wrong?” Carl said with a smile, drawing the men’s attention back to the front of the room and the huge map that was there. “What could possibly go wrong?”

  10 – An Assignment

  “Do they know?” the Dutchman asked as they exited the conference room, he and Carl and General Anderholt taking up the rear. The general had come back just an hour before, on orders from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs himself, and was pleased with what he’d seen so far…at least that’s what Ellis hoped.

  Anderholt shook his head. “Not yet, and that job will fall to you men.”

  “To us?” Carl said, though it was closer to a gasp. “Why us?”

  “Half your team already knows, the astronauts,” Anderholt said without skipping a beat, “have them train ‘em.”

  Carl sighed but Ellis jumped in before the frumpy astronaut could get a word in.

  “We’ll handle it, sir. We’ve been training them all week and they’re good, not a man is flinching from the responsibility.” He paused, then pressed on. “But sir…the men are bored, and unless we send them out soon, well…”

  Ellis trailed off as they reached the doors that led back outside, Anderholt’s parked Jeep sitting there waiting for him. He spun to face the two men.

  “Bored, huh? Well, we’ll see how they’ll feel after the sortie I send you men on tonight.”

  “Sortie?” Ellis said. This time it was his words coming out as nearly a gasp.

  “In Montana,” Anderholt nodded, “a nest of Gray’s that’s been up there looking at the ICBMs near Malmstrom Air Force Base a little too closely as of late. I want you men to go in and take ‘em out before the bastards get it into their big heads to switch off our nukes again.”

  “But…sir…we…”

  “We can handle it,” Ellis said with a grin and a hand on Carl’s shoulder to stop his stammering.

  “Right,” Anderholt said, then turned, got into the Jeep, and was soon speeding down the road.

  “Montana?” Ellis said, turning to Carl as the twenty-seven men of their team headed next door to the larger classroom building of Blue Lake.

  Carl shrugged. “Beats the hell out of ‘Nam again.”

  Part II

  11 – Under the Big Sky

  Between Lakeport and Hopland, Montana

  Tuesday, May 22, 1979

  The Aérospatiale SA 330 Puma four-bladed, twin-engined helicopters sailed through the night, their twin-bladed rotors making nary a sound. Inside the ten troops made barely any either.

  Ronnie smiled that ivory smile and gave a deep chuckle at Chargin’ Charlie’s expense.

  “What the hell?” he said.

  “You look like you got a bur the size of Texas up your ass.”

  “I don’t like helicopters,” Charlie replied with a distasteful look, one that caused Ronnie to laugh all the harder.

  “Are we really going in to kill…aliens?” Fred said for the third time since the helicopters had taken off from the Blue Lake base.

  “Should be a nest of five of ‘em,” Ronnie said, a bit of his earlier mirth gone, though not all.

  “Still don’t believe it, huh?” Tommy said, that mischievous smile of his out full force.

  “Well…no, no I don’t.”

  Several of the others laughed at that, and even Fred joined in a moment later, his sandy-blonde hair nearly brushing down into his eyes as he finally loosened up.

  There were ten of them flying in the single Puma helicopter. Captain Frank Burchak was at the controls and next to him was Sergeant Paul Carson. The other five ‘super soldiers’ were seated in the back, with Chargin’ Charlie, Ronnie, and Fred – the latter being the youngest and least experienced when it came to war, having missed out on Vietnam by just a year.

  “How many sorties you been on?” Bobbie said with a laugh. “You sound about as timid as a kitten.”

  “Well I ain’t no damn super soldier like you all, now am I?” Fred shot back.

  “Alright…alright,” Charlie said, raising his hands to settle Fred down, “take it easy now. Let’s save that fight for the Grays.”

  Fred frowned and held his tongue, but only for a few moments.

  “What’s the best way to fight those damn things?” he asked.

  “Ha!” Robbie laughed. “There ain’t no ‘best way,’ just the only way – hit ‘em with everything ya got!”

  Fred was getting good at frowning, but even he set a new record when the Puma’s red warning lights winked on in the cabin.

  “Ten miles out from target,” Frank’s voice came back at them, “get yourselves ready for insertion.”

  The men tensed up, even the ones that’d fought Grays before – this was the moment.

  12 – Landing

  Turn looked out the Puma helicopter at the dark mountains below.

  “Never thought I’d feel safe flying over a mountain,” he muttered to himself, then looked over at Ronnie to see if he’d been heard, but the astronaut was engrossed with looking toward where their target should be, some hidden cave nestled in a nook of this section of the Rockies.

  Turn frowned and made to do the same, but directed his gaze down to the new ‘legs’ he had. He still couldn’t get o
ver the sight of them, his own ‘legs’ in their very own uniform. Of course he couldn’t get over thinking of them as ‘legs’ with quotation marks either, and maybe he never would. They weren’t those mannequin legs and they weren’t those titanium pole legs he’d always worried about getting when he was growing up and thinking of following his father’s footsteps into the military, the kind he’d seen on WWII veterans when he’d accompanied the old man to Memorial Day picnics and been regaled with stories of Tuskegee. No, these were something else entirely.

  Turn was no confident that he’d never really know what happened in Cambodia, or much of what had happened before. Waking up in that hospital room and seeing an empty bed where his legs should’ve been was one of the lowest points of his life. The offer of a pair of new ones was one of the highest.

  It’d taken months to get them perfectly right, but what Turn most remembered were the first initial days, and it had been days that he’d been worked upon. The tissues at the end of his legs – which now ended well above where his real knees had been – had to be structured with carbon nanotubes, and those in turn had to be propped-up with plant and fungal cells…at least that’s what he’d been told. Turn had also come to accept that he didn’t really want to know exactly how it’d been done.

  What he did know was that the legs were state-of-the-art. They had microprocessors that interpreted and analyzed signals from the knee-angle sensors and movement receptors. Any type of motion that Turn made was immediately relayed through the sensors and to his brain, and vice versa. What was truly revolutionary about the cybernetic legs, however, were the hydraulic cylinders in each knee- and ankle-joint. Small valves within those cylinders contained a specially-designed hydraulic fluid, one that did a lot more than just coat the joints that Turn now moved around on…one that increased his speed. And it wasn’t any extra second or two in a 100 meter race kind of speed, no, it was more like the kind that’d allow you to finish a 26 km marathon in 15 minutes instead of 5 hours.