Serve and Protect

by Douglas Varnell

  The restricted com channel came alive at precisely 2200. The Communications Officer was shocked that anything was flying, when they were struggling in such treacherous seas. The voice came over the scrambled channel, saying, “Carl Vinson, this is ATEU 1 and ATEU 2 requesting permission to land. No point in getting everyone wet. Open the Port Hanger bay door and prepare for arrival of two Troop Transport Aircraft in 05, I repeat 05 minutes.”

  Admiral Gilbert just knew this entire operation was about to get off to a bad start. There was no way any aircraft could land in an open hanger bay on a ship in 20 foot seas in a Tropical Storm producing 60 mph cross-winds, but he also knew that if they were 5 minutes out there was nowhere else for them to go. He was about to question the order when the radio squawked again and a voice said, “Carl Vinson, I see you, but I see no light where the hanger bay door should be. I can’t sit out here all night.” The Admiral had his XO call down the order to open the door and he hurried below deck to witness the imminent disaster. He had just arrived in the huge aircraft storage bay that he had been commanded to leave empty to accommodate the ships being used for this mission. He was completely blown away when he looked out the just opened door at a perfectly stable aircraft hovering mere feet from his ship. The aircraft carrier was the only thing moving. The craft slowly threaded the needle of the moving door and hovered to one side to allow the ship following behind a clear place to land. He and his crew had never seen anything like it before. There was no way it could ever have been done with any aircraft he had ever seen and he was a veteran of 21 years. They quickly closed the hanger door to keep from flooding the bay as a crew of seamen surrounded the arriving Troop Transports. When the rear exit door lowered to the deck 50 men in gray body armor exited each ship. It was without a doubt the most intimidating group of soldiers any of them had ever seen. Behind the last soldier to exit from the first aircraft to land, came a tall blond man with a ponytail, wearing dark-gray commando clothing with a red dragon on his cap and the rank of Colonel. He couldn’t have been older than his mid-twenties. The Admiral kept waiting for someone a bit more mature and with a higher rank to appear, but as the 100 men lined up to await his orders, it was obvious, he was the man in charge of operation Clean House.

  As the tall trim young man approached the Admiral he had an air of confidence that almost looked cocky, but for some reason there was no doubt in the Admiral’s mind that this Colonel was in command for a reason. With a sharp salute, the Terrorist Elimination Team commander requested, “Permission to come aboard, Sir.” The Admiral smiled and replied, “Permission granted.” Then the formality of Navy protocol went right out the window, as the young Colonel, smiled and said, “I’m glad you said that. It’s raining cats and dogs out there, but at least I can be sure no one saw me land on board your carrier.” He looked around the hanger bay and continued, “I appreciate the accommodations. I hope the folks in Washington told you that I would need room for 104 men, 8 of them are officers.” Admiral Gilbert answered, “I was told to grant leave or transfers to 110 of the ships normal compliment. Those released were the ones that Navy Intelligence decided didn’t qualify for the level of security this mission required.”

  Hunter, now decided to just be himself; after-all, the ship was under the command of the Admiral, the bay, the ships in it and his men were 100% under his command and he knew the Admiral didn’t like it, but the man had years of experience in running CIA black ops and Seal infiltrations, it was not uncommon for a ships commander to be left out of the operation. He immediately extended his hand and said, “I’m Colonel Hunter Verron-Hall, keep us fed and we’ll keep out of your way. We will primarily run our assaults under the cover of darkness, so if we sleep all day, it’s because we were out having fun at night.” He turned and signaled for his officers to come forward, and informed the Admiral, “I will be leader and chief pilot for ATEU-1.” He turned to a man that looked just like Tom Cruise and continued, by saying, “This is Major Camil Verron. She will be commander of ATEU-2.” As the Admiral looked on, the Major transformed right before his eyes and looked just like Meg Ryan. Hunter smiled and added, “She will also be responsible for gathering intelligence undercover. She may be out during the day scouting out our targets.” She then transformed into a perfect likeness of Osama Bin Laden. Before the Admiral could make a comment a man stepped up and introduced himself in a heavy Russian accent as Lieutenant Colonel Zhdanov. Behind him came two familiar faces, he had worked with both Major Bentley and Lieutenant Commander Ethridge on missions in the past.

  While the men were dismissed and shown to their quarters, Colonel Hall showed the Admiral the aircraft that they had arrived in. It was most impressive. He was informed that the aircraft had been designed specifically for operation Clean House. Hunter explained, “Each aircraft can carry 50 men in body armor and all their gear or 25 of them and a ground vehicle. In approximately one hour another ship will arrive and deliver our weapons and other gear we will require. It is just bit larger than these ships but should just squeeze into the bay between us and the door. Each of our ships can fly totally undetected by radar or visual observation and is completely silent while in flight. It can land on the ground, on the water and hover stationary, as you have seen, in any condition. Our night flying capability is nothing like what’s available on Earth. We can look through our windshield, even on a night like this and see as if in perfect daylight and in as high as 50x magnification; right from the pilots seat. We have IR, Thermal, Life-form and weapons recognition targeting systems. Each ship is completely bullet proof; you couldn’t bring it down with a nuke. They are a bit slower than our space travelling ships but still can hit speeds in excess of Mach 10.”

  Hunter had the Admiral sit in the pilot’s seat and asked, “Could you have someone kill the lights?” The Admiral spoke into a handheld communications unit and soon the lights went out leaving the bay pitch black. Hunter spoke, “Night Vision” and the Admiral could see even better than he did when the lights were on. Hunter then said, “Magnify” and suddenly Admiral Gilbert could read the small print on a service manual in a maintenance bookcase across the bay. He looked at Hunter with a new level of respect. Hunter told him, “If you like, maybe we will let you go along on one of our ops to see what it is we will be doing at night.”

  When they exited the ship, Hunter reminded the Admiral, “No one is allowed in this bay without my approval, and I do mean no one, not even you. I’ll qualify enough seamen to maintain the bay and equipment as needed, but no one is allowed to come in here and look around. Even at night when we leave, we will leave in a stealth mode to avoid prying eyes from nearby ships and curious crew members. I will post security using my own men to secure our ships and equipment. Anyone coming through one of those doors without permission will be shot. You may want to let your crew know that and that I am not joking. The weapons we have are so powerful that they could literally sink this carrier with a full clip from 5.56 mm assault rifle. Do you understand?” The Admiral was a bit upset with this young man’s tone of command but also knew his own orders from fleet command, “Whatever this man wants, he gets.” He couldn’t bring himself to say yes sir, so he simply replied, “understood.”

  About the time they finished the tour of the Transports a voice came over the com and informed the Admiral that another Verron ship had requested permission to land. The alarm began to sound as the big door inched slowly open. A spaceship of a different design, and a slightly larger size was waiting patiently at the door when it opened. Tala and Cali had decided to bring the gear in the troop section of a Light Destroyer. It entered the door with only inches to spare, yet even as the shipped rolled, the pilot maintained the exact same clearance. It landed about six inches from the Troop Transport and left plenty of room on its opposite side to open a twelve foot wide hatch so the commandoes could unload their gear. The two crew members on board exited the same door as the freight and saluted Colonel Hall, saying, “Captain Tala Verron and Lieutenant Colonel Cali Ve
rron reporting sir; how was that for an entrance, I bet there wasn’t an inch to spare. Cali didn’t think I could do it without scratching the sides. Heck, I could do it at Mach 5.”

  Hunter turned to the bewildered Admiral as he looked at an almost 16 year-old red headed Captain and a Lt. Colonel that looked like an oversized cat, but he couldn’t help but recognize their last name. Hunter turned to Gilbert and informed him, “The one who likes to brag is my cousin Tala Verron, youngest Fighter pilot on Verron and this beautiful young lady is Cali Verron, her sister; Fighter pilot and flight instructor for Verron and recently named Supreme Commander of the Tecalna Commandoes.” Both girls saluted the Admiral and immediately began to harass Hunter, saying, “Now if you need some help down here you can always call on us. We might stick-out a bit on any undercover work in Africa or Afghanistan, but if you decide to invade Sweden I could just be the girl for the job.” She said the last of her statement in perfect Swedish then translated. She then added, “But don’t bother me for at least eight more weeks. I have a Championship to win; well actually I’ve already won it, but I wouldn’t want to disappoint my fans by not riding the last three races.”

  Finally, Admiral Gilbert, who must have daughters of his own, asked, “Good, God, does she always talk this much?” Cali jumped into the conversation and told him, “Actually she’s usually much worse, you should try to share a room with her.” Camil approached the group and told her two sisters, “Cali, when you get started, you’re as bad as Tala, and when that temper of yours flares-up, no one can understand a word you say.” Hunter turned to see the Admiral smiling, “Sir, I believe I need to see if my men are settled in. If you will be kind enough to show me where they are housed and show me where I’ll be bedding down, I’d certainly appreciate it.” They walked away from the three sisters still in a debate about who talked the most. Hunter heard their final consolation that settled the debate, when Tala said, “At least none of us talk as much as Princess Renee.” Hunter began to laugh, thinking, “I have to tell Mom that she is officially the one others considered the most talkative person on Verron. She probably already knows it.”

  When Hunter returned from his men’s quarters the two girls were gone and ordinance specialists were double-checking each weapons and crate of ammo. One of them pointed to the hanger floor and said, “Princess Tala and Princess Cali told us that the wet floor was a safety hazard. Damndest thing I ever seen; all the water on the floor formed into a water spout and followed them out the hanger door. Not a drop blew back in; then the door closed. You have some strange cousins, Sir.”

  After a brief inspection of the now dry floor, Admiral Gilbert escorted Hunter to his quarters and introduced him to some of the officers. There was one other person on board with his rank, Captain Armstrong, the Admirals XO. That made Hunter the 3rd highest rank on the ship. Hunter was used to the accommodations on an R4 or a Verron Man of War. This ship was nice, but the cabins were very small. Then he remembered it was only a bit over 1000 feet long. The Man of War was five times that length. He suddenly realized just how proud he was to be from Verron. Nowhere in the Universe would a 24 year-old man be in command of trillions of dollars-worth of assets. He turned in that night hoping his body clock would adjust to the Earth clock. Tomorrow morning Camil would gateway to their first target to be sure it was exactly like the CIA had said it would be. He would be commanding the assault to push back the ISIS army along the Syrian Boarder threatening the Druze in the Golan Heights. They knew that ISIS would perform complete genocide on the Druze if possible and would soon spread into Israel. Tomorrow night ISIS was going to be in for a big surprise. The other assault team was headed for Kenya to begin pushing al-Shabaab back across the border to Somalia. In a few days Princess Desiree and Princess Marie would begin dispensing Verron Serum, beginning with the refugee camps of Kenya, and King Verron was determined to keep his daughters safe. Hunter knew that his mother would be crushed if anything happened to her sisters; his aunts. Al-Shabaab was going to have a really bad day tomorrow. The war to eliminate terrorists from the face of the Earth would officially begin in under 24 hours and Prince Hunter Hall was soon going to be the most powerful and most feared man on Earth.

  The Druze is a religion of about 1.5 million followers that live primarily in Syria, Israel and the surrounding area. There are quite a few living along the border of Syria and Israel, about 140,000 in the Golan Heights. ISIS was determined to kill off any race of people that doesn’t believe as they do. The Druze belief is not anything like the leaders of ISIS. In fact the Druze are unique in the fact that their religion is a mix of many. Paul described it to Hunter by saying, “If you took Judaism, Hinduism, Aristotle, Plato, Islam and Christianity and mixed them all together, you get a Druze. They have been fighting to defend their religion for centuries and will fight to protect themselves. My concern is that ISIS will push on past them and enter Israel. I want ISIS and every other terrorist group as far from their borders as you can push them.”

  Hunter had sent Camil to Syria to double-check the intelligence report he had received from the CIA. One of the other Shapeshifters was now in Kenya doing the same thing. Camil dropped him off and would pick him up on her way back to the carrier. Hunter was still amazed by those two. Camil looked and spoke exactly like an ISIS soldier and Jhanjr, pronounced Changer, looked more like a black man from Somalia than the locals did. When they returned, there would be a short briefing and then the two Transports would go operational. Hunter was anxious to get started. He also regretted that a lot of men would die tonight. He knew that there was no other alternative if peace was ever to come to those areas.

  Tonight’s operation in Israel/Syria was going to be a double-edged sword. While part of his unit was clearing the border of ISIS, a smaller group would be taking care of those Hezbollah weapons locations under the hospital and an apartment complex. Chase and Daniel had devised the plan and Hunter was going to be the first to try it. He was confident it would work, but sometimes when something seemed too good to be true it usually was, but with Chase and Daniel and their ideas, it was actually true the vast majority of the time.

  Zack and Zack were preparing the Troop Transports, double-checking and rechecking to be sure they had everything exactly as it should be. With Colonel Hall as commander of one ship and Lieutenant Colonel Zhdanov the commander of the other, even as Captains, they were junior officers and designated co-pilots of the ships. No one ever questioned Prince Hunter’s ability or right to command and Zhdanov was a seasoned veteran from Russia who flew HIL’s and Migs for years, he was also General Zhdanov’s younger brother. At first Zack and Zack were not taken seriously. They both were older than Prince Hunter but had a youthful appearance that made them appear a lot younger than their 24 year-old leader. Zack Verron was the grandson of Kenneth Verron and Roddy’s son. The other Zack Verron was a distant cousin he had never met but had decided to come to Verron simply because he had been discharged from the Navy as a pilot after being shot down over Southern Iraq in 1990. Paul Verron immediately placed him in regeneration and rejuvenation. Now at 56 years-old, he looked like he was the same 26 as the other Zack, who was actually 26. When the two began flying their teams in training missions they gained their respect quickly when their skills began to shine. The seasoned fighters from Earth that made up the Elimination Unit thought that with the last name Verron it was their relationship that got them their positions. After talking to some of the Verron Marines, they found out that both had flown Fighters in the Battle for Klelta and the Jhxunka War, receiving the Flying Ace Medal, in addition to their experience on Earth, where the young Zack had flown over Afghanistan as an activated Air National Guard pilot and the other Zack had been a pilot in Desert Storm. They soon gave them the nickname The Zack Attack. They felt confident of them being responsible for their air support while Hall and Zhdanov were on the ground.

  When the clock hit 2100 hours the 104 men were already strapped into place and prepared for departure. The two young Pe
tty Officers who had been assigned to support the Elimination Team hit the control button to open the hanger door and almost panicked when the aircraft vanished before their eyes. If one of the Transports had not bumped into one of them they would never have known they were still there. It was a clear night with a full moon and visibility was near perfect. No one on deck, on the bridge or in the Chinese Trawlers five miles away ever saw the Transports leave the ship. They separated almost immediately as Lieutenant Colonel Zhdanov headed for the Kenya/Somalia Border and Prince Hunter and his crew departed for the Border of Syria and Israel. Both ships arrived in under an hour to their destination even though Israel was over 2000 miles away and Kenya over 750. The sonic boom shook the night as they raced to begin the first day of operation Clean House.

  When they arrived over Israel the Transport continued north to Beirut, Lebanon to drop off Colonel Hunter, Major Camil Verron and two of their best demolitions men. They activated their cloaking armor and exited the Transport by way of gateways made by Hunter and Camil, each destined for a different target. Hunter had two targets, the missile storage underneath a large hospital and a missile emplacement that fired from behind a local daycare center. Camil was responsible for an arsenal in the basement of a 15 story apartment building and the newly established, yet temporary Hezbollah command center; Mosque or not, it would soon be history. This was going to be the first field use of what the Boy Wonders, as Chase and Daniel were now being called by the Marines, had named the Box Bomb; placing the corner controllers in all four corners but in alternating upper and lower positions, they could now form a grid of shields that enclosed the explosion from the plasma or whitematter bomb on all six sides, thus boxing it in. The idea was to blow-up the things inside a room, warehouse or building, without destroying the building.

  While the four-man demolition team was busy with their objective, Zack Verron would drop the remaining team into Al Qunaytirah, Syria, on the border of the Golan Heights and Syria. It had become an ISIS stronghold and their first major possession as they closed in on Israeli territory. With a population of 90,000, many of them were Druze. Most of them that weren’t killed had fled deeper into Israel for safety. Syria was making no effort whatsoever in trying to halt the ISIS Terrorists.