Jason’s consciousness was barely aware of his surroundings as the darkness of what he just witnessed made him search for a meaning of existence that would answer his call for help. It was in this moment a simple crisp vision of a crystal shining a brilliant light in a sea darkness revealed itself to him. As the elevator went deep into the Earth Jason could feel he was getting closer to the source of power projecting this vision into his consciousness. Jason not able to get the vision of brilliant light out of his mind whispered, “There is an artifact in this base.”
A SILENT SECRET
Two Thousand Feet below Yellow Springs, Idaho
Chapter 6
David stood fixed in awe as he looked at the entrance to the Eden base after they got off the elevator. There was a ten foot long cement ledge in front of the elevator with railings and then a three hundred meter vertical drop straight down off a rock cliff into some type of water source down below. The next rock shelf was about a hundred and fifty meters away and a hundred meters higher. David looked up but he couldn’t see what was on top of the rock structure. He also saw no connecting structure like a bridge or elevator up to the next section. As far as he could see to the right and left was that huge drop off and a sheer wall of rock in front of them. Its design was amazing in David’s eyes as he thought, I wonder if this was here or they constructed after they built the base? Only those with the right equipment could get over this cliff obstacle. This is the perfect defense against vehicle assault if attackers could even get a vehicle down her piece by piece after taking the elevator shaft.
Ashley walked the whole radius of the small cliff and read the results from an air and radiation scanner in her hand.
Ashley said, “The air is safe. No radiation detected.”
Tom sat the Ex-Secretary of Defense down on the ground and guarded him.
Matthew looked carefully around the elevator and found a clear glass pad a foot long by eight inches wide. He placed his palm on the biometric hand scanner and it generated a green beam that scanned his palm. A minute later the team all turned their heads to what sounded like an aircraft approach them. The team watched with their rifles aimed at what looked like a large unmanned quadcopter vehicle with four propellers hover to them. The team moved to the side of the walls because it looked like there was barely enough clearance room for the propellers if the quadcopter landed but the quadcopter hovered over them and ladders next to each of the eight seats were automatically extended. The team looked at each other in hesitation at the next step but a second later David climbed the ladder and sat in the seat that had a computer screen next to it. He gave a hand signal and the rest of the team boarded.
As the quadcopter ascended upward, David notice cable attachment points up above the wall the elevator was carved into. He surmised they were the backup transport system to string a bridge between cliffs. In the air, David could now see beyond the hundred meter cliff blocking his view. He could see the Eden base was in a huge underground cavern that housed at least twenty separate rock plateaus the size of two football fields each with deep chasms between them where water flowed like rivers. The whole massive underground base was lit by a light source that glowed from what looked like the rock faced ceiling itself. David brought up his rifle scope to get a closer look at the lights but could not see any hanging light fixtures or LEDs in the ceiling. Instead, he saw what looked like a foam or a mold that in some spots were unlit and others brightly lit. He looked with his scope at three of the plateaus that had crops growing on them. David thought, the advanced lighting system must be emitting ultraviolet light and taking a huge amount of energy to light an area this large. If they run off of diesel, there must be a lake worth of it stored in tanks beneath us and a huge exhaust system to port the fumes to the surface.
David through his scope was looking at an orange grove on one of the rock plateaus when he saw a moving four foot tall robot with sprayers for arms, spray the dirt around the tree and move on down the grove of trees.
David over the team radio channel said, “Agriculture robot spotted three hundred meters eleven o'clock, keep your eye out for armed security robots.”
Matthew over the private command radio channel said to David, “The copter control panel allowed me to enter the destination of the command and control facility in the middle of all the rock plateaus. What is your plan to secure the facility?”
David said, “I will obtain surveillance from the camera system and check the logs as I send out teams of two to spread out and clear one plateau at a time. We will use this quadcopter and any others we find to transport over these chasms to each plateau. Orders will be to stay out of sight and just observe for survivors because I do not want a friendly fire incident. I am going off the assumption until proven wrong that we lost contact with the facility because something killed the team manning this base. I will try to find automated aircraft with armament to provide air support if we encounter any human or undead opposition. I will also see if there is some type of friendly identification tech we can wear in case automated robots shoot on sight like the Israeli border guard robots.”
Mathew said, “I will attempt to access need to know classified information on the purpose of this base with my new Arc Light command security clearance.”
David looking at the vastness of this base thought, money was no object for the builders. It is like the designers made the equivalent of several massive aircraft carriers underground with the country's most classified tech.
The quadcopter hovered over what looked to be the center command and control rock plateau which looked to be three hundred meters long by 200 meters wide. There was an array of antennas coming from a one story concrete bunker fifty meters wide by one hundred meters long with thick bulletproof windows and gun ports. The copter descended on a landing pad thirty meters to the west of the command bunker. There were three more parked quadcopters on pads spaced twenty meters apart.
The team got off the copter and moved in a tactical wedge with Tom guarding the Ex-Secretary of Defense in the center of the wedge. The team walked around the whole building but could not see a door. David looked at the area surrounding the command bunker and saw there was no cover for an attacking force to hide behind and it made sense to him that there were no visible doors for an attacking force assault, the entrance was most likely hidden for security reasons.
David went back to the quadcopter landing pad and started looking at the cement and saw a clear glass panel that was colored like the cement. David looked at the panel and back to the quadcopter and thought, the designers probably used a wireless command RFID chip to open the entrance only for those with a chip but there always have to be backup systems.
David looked at the glass panel for another moment and kneeled down and stuck his hand on the panel. A scan of his hand occurred confirming his guess this panel on the ground was a hand scanner and a one foot thick concrete panel slide open to the side to reveal a refueling cable for the quadcopter. Next to tell cable was a computer panel that showed David’s name. David thought, the moment I got clearance into the Arc Light program, my clearance has been uploaded to all Arc Light facilities.
David said over the team radio channel, “I may have found a way in, watch your security sectors and prepare to enter.”
David pressed the door release icon on the command screen and was prompted for the amount of people allowed into the complex with him. David entered six and thought, I wonder what the defense system does if more than seven people walk through the entrance?
Everyone turned their eyes to the command bunker as they heard a door at the west end sliding open.
***
David and Ashley nodded and entered the main command center that was twenty five feet by thirty feet long. They cleared the room and the surrounding hallways finding nothing. David pulled up a command computer and looked through the live video feeds looking for movement but did not see any.
David brought up the classified network directory and found
the NSA resource application suite. It took him a minute of searching until he found the program he was looking for, codenamed ‘Bullrun’. He quickly drilled down into a highly classified section of the cryptographic break subroutine that gave him access to two supercomputers remotely. To his relief, they were still running. David pulled out a memory drive from his pocket and uploaded the encrypted video file of his wife’s last known location. The Bullrun decryption sequence started its trial decryption algorithms.
David looked up to see Ashley pulling security but also watching him. She could see the screen the whole time he was in the system. David wondered if Ashley would judge David her commander for taking a few minutes out of the mission for personal reasons. David didn’t objectively know how he would react in her shoes.
Ashley obviously knew what he was doing and said, “I hope this can break open the video and you find what you are looking for.”
David looked at Ashley in appreciation and nodded. He tilted his head to the right hallway out of the command room as they both walked forward to complete the sweep of the building.
***
The team done with their sweeps of the building now all stood in the massive command and control mission center with twenty four computer stations and a huge central screen on the wall.
Matthew came over to David and pointed to the Eden base commander's empty office.
Matthew said, “Now that our room clearing sweeps confirm this command building is secure, I will see what type of access I will get to the top secret need to know data. Call me if you need my help as a shooter to physically secure the base.”
Matthew walked away as David turned to the team to issue mission orders.
David said, “We are going to split up into individual patrols because we must secure this base quickly. Once we find a threat we will rally as an assault force and neutralize the threat.”
David turned his head to watch the twenty foot tall by forty feet wide central command screen as he cycled through the areas of base operations. Video feeds were coming up with the status ‘Offline’. This made David think, are these the areas the base occupants were attacked and the cameras were destroyed? I wonder if they are hiding something on purpose?
Ben and Ashley looked at each other and Ben shook his head to show he did not like walking into a blind ambush.
A video feed of a testing facility with a rocket engine came up. David had seen many Russian nuclear rockets in this classified missions during his Special Operations career but this looked nothing like a conventional rocket engine that he had ever been briefed on. David decided there were other critical areas to secure first so he moved on to the next video feed.
David stopped on a video feed of what appeared to be a nuclear reactor room.
David looking at the screen said, “Ben, recon and secure this reactor plateau. I want you to ….”
David stopped talking as he watched the screen reveal the reactor core feed show hundred of lasers firing on a center target.
David said, “Oh my God, that is not a classic fission nuclear reactor. Look at the lasers creating enough heat to create a reaction. They have a working fusion reactor!”
The team watched the video screen in silence as the realization soaked in that they were witnessing one of the most classified secrets in existence that the United States possessed working nuclear fusion that was powering the vast base, all the massive lighting in the ceiling, and the manufacturing plant.
David watched the screen in shock realizing he was seeing working fusion in his lifetime. David thought, this level of advanced technology is paradigm shifting. This technology was kept secret or taken away from the private business sector to give the United States a military advantage. Nuclear fusion means compact megawatt laser weapons. That rocket engine we saw earlier could be an advanced plasma propulsion engine. Did they actually get that technology to work? This propulsion technology alone would give an unparalleled military advantage.
David stopped thinking about the strategic consequences of what they were witnessing and said, “Ben, search that fusion facility and secure it. Try not to break the most valuable invention in known human history.”
Ben smiled and said, “Saudi Arabia when they recover is not going to be happy.”
The team all let out a laugh. Hours of deadly tension plus the loss of the United States organized resistance had made them punch drunk with the weariness of the world crumbling around them and they all needed an outlet of psychological laughter to deal with how unbelievable the secrets were in this base.
Ben from years of combat stress initially knew joking around in a mission briefing was a fine balance but a useful technique to help the team calm their nerves.
David waiting for the needed laughter to die down, continued with the mission briefing. David brought up a video feed of an automated mining machine that was feeding crushed rock into another tracked machine that was using what appeared to be an electrical feed to power the extruding out of large bars of what appeared to be metal. The camera showed a large stockpile of metal stored on the whole plateau.
David turned to Tom and said, “Tom find a secure area to lock up our prisoner and then proceed to the manufacturing rock plateau and use the portable recon throw robots we brought to check out the tunnels for threats and see if that is a secondary entrance into this base.”
Tom nodded and left with his prisoner, the Ex-Secretary of Defense to find a place to secure him.
David brought up the video of a medical facility with what looked like a morgue.
David said, “This most likely is the place we may find undead in the morgue or an area of that medical test facility that is not on camera. This will be the most dangerous recon mission so I will be sending in Jason.”
Jason’s eyes grew wide open as his shocked and scared face said, “Hollyshit! What?”
The whole team started to laugh. They had been on enough missions to know this was a rookie initiation joke played on all new members.
David laughing said, “Sorry about that, in all seriousness you have to perform because the team is dangerously short. I will be sending you with Ashley since this is the most dangerous recon mission between us. Listen to her and you will be ok.”
Ashley smiled at Jason and said, “Don’t worry, these guys are more scared shit less than you are, they’re just too stupid and battle scarred to consciously realize they should be feeling scared.”
David said, “Check in by radio every five minutes. Double click your transmitter without saying anything to signal contact of a threat. I will be able to see who transmitted on my command screen. The copters have been placed into backup mode and do not require security scans because we have no access to flight security RFID chips yet. Your issued RFID chips for doors only should work, if not you will have to explosive breach. In case of emergency, our final defensive position to fall back to will be the furthest plateau and the end of this base opposite from the elevator entrance. Let’s move...”
The whole team turned their heads towards the Eden base commander's office with Matthew in it as they heard him yell, “GODDAMNIT!”
Ashley and David started to sprint towards the office but were stopped by the sight of Matthew walking out of the office safe with no visible threats around him. Matthew walked up to the group shaking his head in anger.
Matthew stopped in front of the team and stopped to just breath. Everyone could see the look of anger dissolve as he regained his command presence getting ready to speak to them.
Matthew calmly looked each one of them in the eyes to ensure he had their complete attention and said, “I was able to access the Space Command classified computer system at Cheyenne Mountain. A SBIRS satellite monitoring for nuclear explosions detected a low yield nuclear explosion in the heart of Los Angeles hours ago. Detailed reconnaissance satellite high-resolution photos show the city was flattened and is blowing radioactive fallout eastward over the United States.”
Gasps of disbelief c
ame from the team.
David immediately shot back the question, “Are we at nuclear war with Russia? We don’t have operational control over the nukes with Washington DC and the president lost!”
Matthew said, “Negative. The SBIRS satellite detected no missile strike.”
Jason asked, “Was it a large meteorite strike?”
Matthew said, “Negative, the Space Command asteroid detection satellites detected no asteroids strikes on the planet large enough to cause an explosion that devastating.”
Ashley said, “If it was a Spetsnaz incursion with a backpack nuke, there is no obvious strategic value of a Los Angeles strike unless we had a classified military asset in that area?”
David said, “Enough of sitting around the water cooler speculating about world war three. We are seconds away from launching the critical mission of retaking this Eden base. Time to shut off the distraction of nuclear war from your minds and focus on the problems of seeking out, concentrating our firepower and killing the threats we find in this base. Matthew gets paid an extra hundred dollars a month to worry about high-level shit like this so we can focus on the art of killing close up and personal. Any questions?”
David looked each member in the face and could see everyone but Jason was getting their game faces on and their minds back into focus on the mission at hand.
David said, “This base is the most important asset to the survival of the United States. It is vital we find out why it is abandoned and secure it or there is no future for the United States. Move out.”
The team left towards the copter pads.
David turned towards Matthew and said, “I hope you don’t mind me discussing your salary in front of everyone.”
Forces of Destiny Page 7