Revolution of the Gods: The Battle for Sol Book One

by W. R. Hobbs

  After gaining entry into the Vegas RZ by hitching a ride from one of the transport trucks, Mykah had spent all afternoon shadowing Valik. She was now sitting in a defensive pod turret atop the north side of the forty-three story Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino west tower. With the two C7 operators lying unconscious on the roof outside the pod, Mykah observed Valik’s entrance into the Luxor from an ideal vantage point.

  After the Helios had landed, the S2 began a methodical grid search of the entire western side of old Las Vegas. Utilizing the surveillance sensors on his ship, the thirty-two man crew that operated those sensors, twelve enhanced drones, and his own skills, Valik now stood at the base of the giant obelisk in the cavernous atrium of the Luxor with Commander Reyes. A compilation of drone feeds, satellite feeds and the Dugway footage had allowed Valik to achieve 98% accuracy on Taon’s facial recognition.

  “Bring me the security surveillance data for the last seven hours. Station your men on every floor and at all exits. I have established a surveillance perimeter consisting of twenty drones outside,” Valik efficiently informed Reyes.

  “Yes sir,” Reyes replied, confirming the S2’s higher rank. “Here is the security data,” he added, handing Valik a data chip. The commander had anticipated this request on his way to the Luxor.

  Valik took the chip from Reyes, rolled up his shirt sleeve and placed it inside a slot on his left cybernetic forearm. In his left eye Valik viewed a display the equivalent of a 12 foot screen. He simultaneously reviewed each of the seven files instantly. The recordings showed all the people entering and exiting the structure in a blur as Valik’s system sped through the files. Then file 2031/12/21-1100h-1200h stopped and began blinking. Valik zoomed in on the paused image and then accessed his profile of Taon. He moved the profile over the surveillance image and his system verified the identity.

  “The target entered this structure at 11:05 a.m. I have sent a facial image and a surveillance photo of his most recent appearance to your guards’ data pads. I also have linked my system to the internal surveillance cameras. Begin a discreet evacuation without alarms and have your men carefully check everyone exiting. Once all non-C7 personnel evacuate, begin a thorough search of this structure,” Valik directed, taking care to protect the guests, some of whom may be high profile members of the C7’s upper echelon.

  Within a few minutes, streams of people began pouring out the sides of the Luxor. Mykah zoomed in close with the turret’s high resolution digital scope to the pyramid which was now lit with its ornamental pacing lights running up and down the spines and a brilliant beam shooting into the heavens from the tip.

  If you are in that building, you need to get out now, she thought, realizing there was little she could do at the moment without compromising her stealth.

  Looking out of the angled window in the suite, Taon observed the seepage of people at the base of the south side of the Luxor. As he watched the pretentious and superficial ooze coming from under this black edifice, a hard knock sounded on the door.

  “This is C7 Security…the hotel is being evacuated,” a voice loudly declared. A few seconds elapsed and then there was a clicking sound. The door opened as far as the inside latch allowed. “Open the door! We must empty the hotel!”

  Taon continued looking outside realizing that he had slept for too long. “Coming,” Taon responded, pulling the beanie further down over his forehead and turning off the recessed light over the foyer. He unlatched the door and allowed the armed man inside.

  “Sir, you need to exit the building immediately,” the guard instructed, attempting to get a good look at the shadowy face. He reached into his pocket, grabbed his data pad and reviewed the image. “Remove your cap sir!”

  At the moment of the guard’s instruction, a loud bang came from the bathroom. The guard held up his sidearm pointing it at Taon while he sidestepped to the bathroom door. Reaching over and opening the door, he saw the guest from New York sitting next to the toilet with his hands and feet restrained with a lizard skin belt and gagged with a black silk ascot.

  “Get on the gro…” Taon moved so fast the guard did not finish his command before he was struck with the butt of his own weapon, falling unconscious at the bathroom doorway.

  Valik was monitoring each floor through the internal surveillance system when the video feed from the twenty-sixth floor began flashing - a guard’s locator chip indicated he was unconscious.

  The vigilant S2 looked up, raised his right arm, and shot an ultra-thin, high tensile cable the diameter of a fishing line from his forearm. The cable quickly zipped upwards with the spiked metal tip embedding itself just under the ledge of the twenty-seventh floor walkway. While he clinched his right hand around his left wrist to stabilize his weight, Valik retracted the line, pulling himself up through atrium.

  Taon closed the bathroom door, concealing both the highly agitated former defensive tackle and the limp C7 security guard. He adjusted his cap further over his brow line and started to open the door to the hallway. Just as he reached out to touch the access panel, the door shattered from its hinges, splintering all around him. The force of the torrid blast knocked Taon backwards but he remained on his feet.

  As the dust and debris settled, Valik’s menacing cybernetic body entered through the smoldering opening to the room, carrying his Sterling - PCR (Positron Combat Rifle) switched to the widespread setting. The S2 was somewhat surprised to see his target still standing after the positron blast. They locked eyes while Valik readjusted the setting to a narrower spread and re-aimed his PCR. A dazed Taon attempted to jump but the more concentrated positron blast hit him squarely in the chest. The concentric blast dissipated and absorbed into his torso, leaving a smoothly singed circle in Taon’s nylon jacket.

  Valik leapt forward shoving his shoulder into Taon while he was looking down at his chest. The force knocked him across the suite and crashing through the angled window. Taon landed on his back sliding head first, down the south side of the Luxor’s glass exterior. Valik stowed his PCR on his back and accelerated toward the breached exterior, diving out the window head first. His velocity out of the window allowed him to land on top of the sliding Taon.

  “You are about die!” the S2 declared as he powerfully punched Taon in the right temple causing his head to ricochet from the glass. Taon withstood the strike and sensed the ground was approaching quickly. He grabbed Valik by the throat and slammed his head against the inclined slope. The friction caused Valik’s body to drag off Taon’s right side. He slammed his left heel into the glass and flipped himself on top of the S2 assassin.

  Sensing the ground approaching, Taon leapt into the air, kicking his heels into the Luxor’s glass skin to gain momentum. He hit the ground, rolled several times and come to a motionless sprawl in the middle of a freshly paved parking lot on the southeast side of the pyramid. Simultaneously, Valik’s body smashed head first into the landscaped bedding surrounding the base.

  Mykah, vigilantly sitting on watch, witnessed the exodus of Taon from the Luxor upper floor and focused her scope to track them. Nice to know what you look like, she thought after finally seeing Taon’s face.

  Taon rose to his feet with both the front and back of his new attire shredded. Removing the jacket, his eyes were attracted slightly to the southwest with the movement of a defense turret pointing in his direction from the top of a building across the street.

  Instantly upon the distraction, the S2’s PCR was trained directly at Taon’s back, switched to its highest possible setting. A barrage of fire erupted over the embattled GEO’s shoulder as Mykah unloaded on Valik. Before the S2 could fire, Mykah’s assault plowed him up against the base of the pyramid. Taon looked behind to see his assailant being pummeled against the structure. He returned his concentration to the Mandalay tower and saw the turret firing on two more rooftop pods in quick succession.

  Someone is helping me.

  Running past the monorail that stretched from the Mandalay Resort to Excalibur, Taon decided to t
est his full stride on Las Vegas Boulevard. He began running north with his full concentration. Within a few seconds his velocity exceeded 80 mph, as he dodged the oncoming taxi-cabs and limousines.

  Just after passing a mile, he was abruptly cut short, bouncing then skidding across the pavement. Valik had recovered and forcefully overtook Taon, tackling him down to the pavement. Their momentum carried them rolling into the shallow nine acre manmade lake in front of the Bellagio.

  Meanwhile, Mykah had repelled down the elevator cable in the shaft that she had previously disabled on the fourth floor after she evaded C7 guards on her way up to the defense pod. She exited the tower near the monorail and jumped on top of the train headed for Excalibur. She was out of the sight of C7 guards scurrying toward the Bellagio on foot, in cars and on motorcycles. When she reached the end of the rail, Mykah leapt to the ground and searched for a vehicle.

  The 1,200 plus water nozzles and 4,500 plus lights were performing their trademark fountain show in front of the Bellagio in defiance of Earth’s tribulations. As some of the streams shot skyward over 460 feet, Taon and Valik slowly rose to their feet under the majestic arcs of water. Some presumptuous spectators were yelling at the men to get out of the fountain when the two opponents began a furious exchange of hand to hand combat.

  Sinatra’s Luck be a Lady was blasting loudly from the Bellagio’s speakers while the spectators took in this unscheduled Vegas bout.

  The two men were trading vicious blows with neither gaining any discernible advantage over the other. Every S2 was trained in all known forms of martial arts and this particular S2 had utilized each one of them. Valik was having trouble processing the fact that his target withstood every one of his known attacks. No normal human would have survived this onslaught.

  Taon had been consciously restraining his abilities. All he knew to this point was that every time he attempted to project control, he became debilitated to some degree. And he did not want to make himself vulnerable to this seemingly unstoppable force. But Valik’s blows were beginning to sting and Taon knew he had to end this quickly.

  The S2 managed a choke hold on Taon with his well-built left arm and quickly pushed a button on an embedded display panel in his right cybernetic thigh. He then grabbed a charged blade from a compartment next to the panel. As he raised the blade to drive it through his opponent’s skull, Taon instinctively increased the density of his entire molecular structure. He instantly phased to a higher density causing the blade to simply break when it struck against the top of his head. As Valik’s logic sub routines were briefly perplexed, Taon escaped the choke hold and flipped him over in the water.

  Without restraint, Taon drove his fist squarely into the S2’s chest, causing his polymer vest to crumble and breaking his reinforced sternum. Finally, Valik was hurt and lying motionless face down in the fountain. As Taon looked down at his foe, several bright lights flashed over his downed opponent. Just as he was shifting his gaze upward, Taon was hit with a much larger modulated particle beam. Entirely engulfed in the hazy white field, he absorbed the first few seconds of the shot and then was blasted backwards from a feedback explosion.

  The Helios attack from above brutally ejected Taon out of the fountain and across the street, whipping his back into the base of the Eifel Tower replica at the Paris Las Vegas resort. This property was under renovation; scheduled to become the new primary EU resort in the Vegas RZ.

  The distanced spectators were thrown to their feet from the force of the explosion generated by the confrontation. These self-declared elites that thought they could control anything struggled to their feet and cowardly ran from the area. Notwithstanding his disorientation, Taon did not feel drained this time as he rose back to his feet. He grabbed the base of the Tower replica and began redirecting the full charge of the Helios blast up through the 2,000 ton, 560 foot steel frame.

  Arcs of lightning began jumping from Taon’s hand, linking to the tower and assembling like a rapidly growing electrical web toward its tip. The energy flow transformed into a plasma wave and concentrated in the observation deck on the forty-sixth floor as Taon consciously controlled the wave. A beam flung out and struck the Helios while it attempted to retrieve an upright and operative Valik from the fountain. The ventral section of the Helios was obliterated by the ultra-dense plasma beam. The crippled attack cruiser dove nose down in front of the water pillars shooting from the laminar-flow nozzles, landing where Valik was now standing.

  The explosive wave from Taon’s redirected plasma beam suspended the advancing C7 guards nearest to him by knocking them down and throwing their vehicles a couple of feet into the air. Just outside of the shockwave, Mykah was speeding toward Taon in a late model Ferrari Aurea that she had acquired at the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue.

  “Get in now if you want to survive,” Mykah yelled after skidding the Aurea to a stop in front of the tower with Sinatra still playing loudly in the background. Taon, who was now resting on his knees, struggled to his feet and stumbled toward the Ferrari. As Mykah reached over and swung open the door, he quickly chose to trust the attractive leather clad woman versus what he had faced thus far this day. He climbed into the passenger seat and painfully closed the door. Mykah sped right on East Flamingo Road back toward the old East Cannery.

  “Who are you?” Taon gasped.

  “I am a friend of a friend. My name is Mykah” she responded, looking in her mirrors.

  “There is a place I need to be,” Taon breathed as he drained away.

  “I know, I’m here to help you get there.”

  “I can’t stay awake…” Taon passed out.

  CHAPTER 18

  Dugway Facility - Utah

  The scope and consequence of his next move were well understood. General Bracken had contemplated his conflict of ideologies for over two years. He had never supported the CIA’s assumption of control through the use of martial law, the discharge of sovereign world governments, or even the replacement of the UN with the creation of the New Earth Union and Council of Seven.

  When the General initially formed the nucleus of his resistance group, the unit leaders second guessed military action several times. But now, armed with the knowledge of a purposely planned culling of Earth’s population, General Bracken knew unequivocally that Operation Goliath was absolutely necessary.

  The main conference room on Dugway’s primary command level was locked with its windows opaque. Bracken, Hauer and Leroux were seated across the conference table from Bracken’s trusted Generals Tucker and Kirsch with their four other colonels on the right.

  Four images of the NAU Regional Military Command leaders with their designations appeared on the main wall viewer:

  General Vaughn – RMC North

  General Alexander – RMC South

  General Straka – RMC West

  General Bracken – RMC Central

  General Bracken stood and walked toward the viewer, “Gentlemen, we will discuss Operation Goliath following Dr. Hauer’s briefing. What he has to tell you will change everything. Give him your full attention…” Bracken announced as he signaled Dr. Hauer to the viewer.

  “Let me begin by telling you that I immigrated to this country in 1945… and my people immigrated to this planet over sixteen thousand years ago. Time is of the essence, so please forgive my brevity,” Dr. Hauer stunningly qualified as he stood and walked by Bracken to face the viewer.

  “It is well known among us here that your contact with the Min, known to you as the Greys, confirms your worldly governments are fully aware of the existence of extraterrestrial life. This species is a relative newcomer to interstellar travel and their five hundred year old history with your race has mostly been one of observation. But, there is a much older and malevolent force that has inhabited your planet since the beginnings of your civilizations.

  “The Council of Seven and it components are the descendants of this force. They are part of a group of extraterrestrials known as the Ansharians who
have continuously inhabited Earth for the last sixteen thousand years. The Ansharians are from a planet named Anshar in the Ventori-Soiala System - the same system as my planet, Torahnoss …” the doctor paused to superimpose an image of space on the viewer.

  “Earth’s modern astronomers have actually discovered our system and even our planets; they are known to you as 47UMa d and e in Ursa Major. Our system is about forty-six light-years from Sol and our planets’ orbits are similar to your Earth and Mars. Both our peoples are what you call hominina subtribes, following similar evolutionary processes as humans on Earth.”

  “The anthropogeny of your humanoid species on this planet has been manipulated twice. The first manipulation is one shared with all intelligent extant hominina that we have discovered in both our galaxies. On Earth, it happened about 5.7 million years ago in your planet’s time. The same benevolent force that accelerated intelligent life in our galaxy also genetically enhanced a primate species on your world by accelerating targeted regions of its DNA. The culmination of this externally induced mutation was the eventual emergence of Earth’s modern man some two hundred thousand years ago; approximately forty thousand years after the same evolution occurred on my planet,” the doctor paused, looking in Leroux’s direction.

  The cranial fragment! Dr. Leroux worked hard to keep her reaction subdued.

  “The identity and location of this benevolent force is beyond the purview of this particular briefing but an additional conference on that topic will be necessary if we are successful. Nevertheless, the cranial fragment that was tested at Jackson Laboratories holds high significance for all of us.”

  “So what are these Ansharians up to?” General Straka spurted, unable to help his curiosity.

  “Our planet existed in peace with the neighboring Anshar until their peoples adopted a posture of colonization and acquisition as a result of accelerated resource depletion on their home planet.