The Styx Strikers

by Thor Zollinger

  “Roger. And take pictures of anything you find so we can study them later in the Command Center on the big screen.”

  The team spent the rest of the morning sticking their noses into every room of the cavern, and down every side passage, but they didn’t find much else to look at. All of the rooms were empty. Whoever had gotten there first had cleared out anything interesting. The guys found darkened spots on the floors where it looked like something had stood for eons, but whatever had been there was gone now. The only item that remained was the table in the conference chamber with the map on it. It had been carved from the native rock and wasn’t movable.

  Everyone in the team agreed the table map and the map in the wardroom were keys to unlocking the mystery of the Ancients from Lahti. Jake was salivating over the new map. There were locations marked on it the wardroom map didn’t have marked. That meant there were still places on Wayfarer the prior exploration team hadn’t found, ones where they might be able to find artifacts and maybe some tech of the original terraformers from hundreds of thousands of years ago. That was worth going after… but how? Jake knew he’d have to think about that one. It would take a lot of equipment and some mode of transportation to get there. And how would they locate the facilities when they got there? He’d have to talk his uncle into letting him go too. Jake’s gaze was far away as the team finished up in the cavern and headed back out. He had a lot of thinking and planning to do.

  Chapter 19 “The Storm Approaches” –––––––––––––

  It was a cool wet evening, the sun was dropping below the horizon and Ceazar was mostly out of sight for the first time that month. Captain Razin liked it dark when he initiated a raid, it turned the odds slightly into his favor. Timing was everything when a battle was closing in. Commander Gerhard, head of the pirate Green Team, looked out across the expanse of jungle behind him from the hilltop. It always calmed his nerves to look at something growing and as alive as the jungle was tonight. He could hear the calls of tropical birds and small marsupials as they settled in for the night. It wouldn’t get completely dark tonight, but it would approach a nice twilight in an hour or two. Turning around, he could see the city of Port Canaveral with it’s small aeroport spread out below him. Runway lights glinted off the moisture on the tarmac. In ten minutes he would give the signal and his team would go to work, he had about a dozen locations tagged for action on his heads up display in his helmet. At each location one man acted as the spotter, the other was the shooter. Half of his men were tasked with civilian communications targets and the other half were targeting the Local Guard military base. Their goal was to knock all military and civilian communications equipment offline, and NOT cause any casualties.

  “Three, Two, One, Mark.” he stated into his handheld radio. Commander Gerhard watched the city through the enhanced vision of the visor on his battle armor helmet. He watched the closest roof top team in 20X zoom as they fired and disabled three communications dishes in quick succession. It was anticlimactic. Nothing blew up, no lights went out, no audible shots rang out, his men were swift and efficient. Checking his zipPhone, he saw the signal had died and was displaying a flashing zero in place of the regular icon just like he expected it to. He turned it off and slipped it inside the foil pouch in his pocket, the metal foil blocked the signal from the phone. He didn’t want it trying to reconnect and give any of the civilian technicians a signal to track later on. He only had it along so he could check the signal strength.

  Turning on the signal monitoring gear, Commander Gerhard watched as his lead technician Lieutenant Knapp checked each communications band. As he watched, the jammers at the military base lit up the screen. Pointing at the flashing indicator, “There they are. Right on schedule.” Glancing down into the base, he watched carefully through his visor for several minutes, but no apparent reaction could be seen.

  Picture Pack: Pirate Commander Gerhard

  None of the Green Team called in to report their progress either, they weren’t supposed to. Silence was what Commander Gerhard expected back from his teams. He already knew what his men were doing, they were packing up their gear and melting away into the city. His men were instructed to meet up outside of town below his location where the trucks were parked. They were to change out of civilian clothes, put on their battle armor, and prepare for the next phase of their mission. If any Local Guard units managed to muster out of the city in the direction of the raid, their job was to harass and strike the units to slow them down. He hoped it would come to that. He was tired of sitting around and was hungry for some action. It had been months since he had anything even remotely dangerous in his crosshairs, just a few lightly armed civilians and none with any armor or military training. My skills are being wasted on this civilian raiding crap. Maybe I should consider joining up with a mercenary command… he mused as he watched the base in silence.

  Halfway around the moon at the Wayfarer Central Communications Complex, the Chief communications tech and his two assistants were intensely focused on Port Canaveral on their monitors. It was mid-day where they were, right about lunch time from their perspective. A flashing alert was prominently displayed on their screens, all of Port Canaveral was flashing red and yellow like an angry hornet.

  The pager in his pocket went off and Lieutenant Nelson dashed back into the command center to check his monitoring station. “What’s going on, Chief. Fill me in.”

  “Sir, we’ve got jammers going off in Port Canaveral. We can’t seem to raise the Local Guard base.”

  “Well, try the laser communications relay then.”

  “Already did. None of the communication channels into the base are working, not even the encrypted lines.”

  “What about the hard lines? Aren’t the underground lines working either?”

  “No sir, it looks like the relay substation has been blown as well.”

  “@#$%^$#! Is anything working? zipPhones? The laser link from the shuttle station? Anything?”

  “No sir. We can talk to the Space Station, but they can’t talk to Port Canaveral either.”

  “@#$%^$#! Do a visual sweep of the area, let me know what you see.”

  “It’s dark there sir. I’ll use the infra-red.”

  Lieutenant Nelson bit his tongue nervously and pulled at his mustache. “This isn’t right, I need to inform Local Guard Central Command.” The Lieutenant selected the alert command button on his console and keyed the switch. “Central, this is Communications. We’ve got a problem. Port Canaveral has had all of it’s communication lines cut. Recommend you respond with airborne assets, over.”

  “Acknowledged Communications, we’ll investigate the situation. We’ll keep you informed, over.”

  Lieutenant Nelson knew it would take them over a half hour to get a satellite tasked and over Port Canaveral to get high res photos of the area. He wanted some data now. “Chief, what have you got for me?”

  “Sir, we’re checking the low res IR images of the city now. Nothing appears to be active, we haven’t found anything out of the ordinary. It looks like a normal weekday evening, just a few vehicles out on the streets and a few pedestrians at the pubs. It’s after hours, so all of the commercial stores are closed. Even the aeroport is shut down for the night. All we can see is a little activity at one of the maintenance hangers.”

  “What about the Local Guard station?”

  “No activity there either, sir. I can see the guard posts are manned, but I don’t see any activity out of the ordinary. I can see a few guards out checking the facility on foot, but I don’t see any live fire anywhere. We’ve checked the city banks and the shopping mall as well, but there just isn’t anything going on. Most people are asleep in Port Canaveral, sir.”

  “Damn. Keep looking. There has to be something going on somewhere. Try looking outside the city.”

  “We’re scanning now.”

  “Try running communications checks with all of the radio base stations in the ar
ea. See if you can map out the affected area, maybe that will give us something to work with.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Pincez, get busy and query all of the ground stations in the area. Green flag the stations which are on line and black flag the ones you can’t reach. Let me know when you’ve got the boundaries of the blackout figured out.”

  “Roger.”

  It took the technicians almost an hour to individually query each radio substation in the area. It was a tedious process that had to be performed manually, since each radio set was owned by a different settler and most of the operators took their time in answering back. It was the middle of the night, after all. A lot of operators didn’t even answer, probably asleep and ignoring the world for the night. Most settlers used zipPhones instead of the long distance radios anyway, but the zipPhone system was down too. The system was useless without the central communications hub in Port Canaveral operating.

  “Sir, there appears to be a bulge in the blackout area northeast of the city.”

  “What’s out in that direction?”

  “Uhmmm, just a few settlers. A few farms, a couple of cattle ranches, a mechanics shop, maybe a few loggers. They’re all pretty spread out.”

  “Chief, swing your IR cameras over in that direction and see what you can see.”

  “Roger, doing that now. Give us a few minutes.”

  The Chief and his technicians trained their satellite cameras on the locations of each of the settler’s ranches by following the smaller roads out from the main road into each facility. “We really need a better way to do this in the future.” the Chief commented to no one in particular.

  After a few minutes the Chief noted an increase in the thermal readings from one of the ranches. “Pincez, zoom in on that one over there, the one on the right side of your image.”

  “Well, would you look at that. Lieutenant, we found something! There’s a lot of activity going on over at the ranch at coordinates P.C.+12.0346W +76.523N. We can see hot signatures from over a dozen vehicles and… @#$%^^%#! I can see mechs! Two, no three of them! Sir! We’ve caught ‘em in the act!”

  “Roger.” Keying the buttons on his console, “Central, this is Communications. We’ve identified pirate activity at coordinates… P.C.+12.0346W +76.523N. I repeat, we’ve identified pirate activity at coordinates… P.C.+12.0346W +76.523N. Please advise.”

  “Communications, Central. Acknowledged. We’ll send in airborne units ASAP. Be advised, it will take our units several hours to reach the location you’ve designated, local units are not available. We have NO communications with Port Canaveral at this time. Monitor the situation and keep us informed of any developments.”

  “Roger Central.”

  “Blast! Now what do we do? Chief, we can’t just sit here and watch. Think of something!”

  “Uhmmmm… Sir, isn’t Sticks Base out in that direction?”

  “Right, they are. But we don’t have any way to get a hold of them with the zipPhones down and since they’re only on the air on weekends. Didn’t they call one of the local ranches when they were running radio checks last month?”

  “Yes sir, I think they did. I’ll go back through the contact logs and see if I can figure out who they called.”

  Activity was rising in the Langer household, Mr. Langer had awoken to the angry buzz of the radio set in his study in the next room when Communications Central Command had queried his radio status an hour ago. He and Aunt Glory had strolled down to the main monitor in the great room to check the news feed and get a cup of coffee.

  “This is Joel Wolffe in Port Canaveral with KTPC News, bringing you an update on our current situation. We’ve been in contact with the local police who have been patrolling Port Canaveral this evening and it appears that all communications in the city have been blacked out for at least the last half hour. The fiber optic relay station has been sabotaged with explosives and all of our communications dishes have been damaged by gun fire. The perpetrators have vanished and the police have no leads on who did it. At first they assumed it was simple vandalism, but with the explosives used at the relay station this looks more like a terrorist strike of some kind. The police have been combing the city for the last hour but have not found any reason for the blackout. All of the banks are secure, the Local Guard base is quiet, there haven’t been any reported robberies, we just don’t know what this is all about. Here at KTPC we have been speculating on what it might be, but until we have better information it’s all purely speculation.”

  “For some reason our broadcasting dishes outside the city were not targeted. If anyone out in our broadcasting area has any information, please bring the information in to the station and we’ll put it on the air. None of the short wave radios are working here in the city for some reason, you’ll have to drive in to the station. Our police chief and the Local Guard commander have also requested that everyone stay indoors in the city until they figure out exactly what’s going on. There is no reason to panic, they have everything under control. This is Joel Wolffe reporting. We’ll return you now back to the late show until we have more to tell you...”

  Aunt Glory yawned. “Well, Port Canaveral is a long ways from here. Maybe we should just go back to bed.”

  “You go ahead, dear. I’m going to get a few of the men up and we’ll keep an eye on the ranch tonight. Better safe than sorry.” Mr. Langer headed into the mud room to slip on his work coveralls and his boots.

  Just then Sven wandered up the stairs and into the great room yawning. “Hi Mom. What’s going on? I heard voices and the news.”

  “Nothing much. Just a communications blackout in Port Canaveral.”

  “What about pirates? Did somebody get raided? This sounds like something they’d do to me.”

  “No, dear. There aren’t any reports of any pirates. Go back to bed and get some sleep, I’m sure everything will be fine.”

  “Where’s Dad?”

  “He’s headed out to check on the ranch with Ben.”

  “I’m going too.” Sven headed for the mud room to follow his Dad out the door and catch up to see what was going on. He didn’t want to miss out on any action if there was any. Aunt Glory smiled knowingly, she knew how much Sven was like his father.

  Bjorn and Jake wandered upstairs a few minutes later. “Hey, what’s going on? We heard the news guy’s voice on the video feed.”

  Petunia was up now too, making some hot chocolate in the kitchen. She figured since everybody was up somebody might like a snack. “Hello, boys. There’s a blackout in Port Canaveral. They don’t know what caused it yet. Want some hot chocolate?”

  “Wow, the power’s out in the city, huh. That ought to make those city slickers nervous.” Bjorn snorted reaching for one of the mugs on the counter.

  Aunt Glory chimed in, “Not the power dear. The communications are out.”

  After she spoke, the buzzer started to go off on the radio set in the mud room. “Well, ours is working just fine.” Bjorn smirked. “I’ll answer it, maybe Dad needs something from the house.” Bjorn walked over to the radio set and flicked on the transmitter.

  “Langer’s. What can I do yah for?”

  “Langer’s, this is the Wayfarer Central Communications Command, Technician Pincez speaking.” That got Bjorn’s attention. “Do you have any military personnel staying at your ranch? We’re trying to get in touch with Sticks Base. It’s urgent.” Jake’s head snapped when he heard ‘Sticks Base’ mentioned.

  Bjorn’s mouth fell open and his eyes got really wide as he realized who he was talking to. “Uhhh, we can get a message to them for you. What’s the message?”

  “Have you got a pen? The message is as follows:”

  “Sticks Base, this is Wayfarer Communications Command. Pirate activity is ongoing at coordinates P.C.+12.0346W +76.523N. Three mechs and numerous light combatants have been visually sighted. Port Canaveral is unable to respond due to a communications blackout. Your unit is the onl
y military unit in the area. Request you respond ASAP. Deadly force has been authorized by Command Central in apprehension of the pirate units. We will supply intel and maps as soon as you are en-route.”

  “Have you got that, kid? Read it back to me verbatim.”

  “Yes sir.” Bjorn read it back and the tech verified the coordinates with him just to make sure.

  “Great, kid. Get moving. Over and out.”

  “Holy crap!” Jake who had been listening in stammered in excitement. “We need to get Ben to fly us out to the base!”

  “Roger that!” Bjorn answered. The boys bolted for the stairs to get dressed, rushing past an astonished Aunt Glory. She was a bit flustered and leaned back onto the kitchen counter behind her. She didn’t know what to think. Jake and Bjorn dressed in their camo fatigues as fast as humanly possible, then dashed back upstairs to get back onto the radio. Bjorn called Ariel first and instructed her to be standing by on the porch, they would pick her up in the verticopter in fifteen minutes, then Bjorn called the mine and left an urgent message for Hai with instructions to pick up Dan and Zane, code word ‘River Styx’. The mining tech was confused, but he promised to wake up Hai and give him the message. Tarra’s family weren’t answering, so Bjorn flicked off the transmitter, grabbed the message and stuffed it into his pocket.

  Jake led the way out the back door and the two guys dashed for the equipment garage to find Sven and to locate Ben, the ranch’s pilot. They found Sven with Uncle Helmut, Ben, and several of the ranch hands out in the control room for the missile battery. They had the radar on maximum power and were trying to scan more of the countryside to see if they could see anything.

  Bjorn pulled his Dad back away from the radar screen and pulled out the message. “Dad. We just got a call from Wayfarer Communications Command. They want us to take a message out to Styx Base. We need Ben to fly us out there.”