The mood in the Command Center was tense. Men and women sat glued to their monitors, staring intently at the surveillance feeds. It was stressful enough when the generals targeted subordinates, but the looming clash between the two commanding officers made everyone uneasy. When the door to the Israeli general's office flew open, Lynn stepped out into the vast, quiet bullpen of the command center. Voices trailed after her—both generals roaring at each other—until the door clicked shut, plunging the room back into total silence. Only Lynn's footsteps echoed as she crossed the floor and exited. Avril met her out in the motor pool, offering a helpless smile. Looking into Lynn's face, Avril bit her lip, suddenly fighting the urge to laugh. The skin torn away by the duct tape had begun to scab over in a perfect, symmetrical rectangle. It somewhat derailed the gravity of the situation.
Jimmy walked up with Samson at his side. He put his arm around Avril and planted a big kiss on her lips. Turning to Lynn, he stifled the urge to laugh out loud.
"Don't you have some makeup to help hide all those...scabs?" He asked. He pursed his lips and clinched his teeth to further make use of his own self control.
"Kiss my ass," Lynn seethed. "We wouldn't even be in this predicament if you had brought to light the ammo issue back at the caves."
"Hey," Jimmy said, annoyed with her comment. "That was a cheap shot."
"We no fight," Avril quickly interjected. "We are team. Together we work, not divide."
"You're right," said Lynn and raised her fist for their usual greeting bump. Jimmy and Lynn bumped fists lightly and she gave her teammate an apologetic smile. "I'm going to get something to eat." She told the couple as she turned and continued through the motorpool. Avril and Jimmy made it a point to let her know they would meet her in the Holy Trio's room after lunch. She didn't respond as she continued to walk away.
"You've got to help her with that..." Jimmy said as he motioned a rectangle shape around his mouth with his finger. "It's getting really hard not to laugh every time I see it."
"She correct, you know," Avril said with a deep sigh. "It all your fault."
"Not you too," he whined. "How many times do I have to apologize for that? It was weeks ago."
"I guess you say sorry until all sleepers gone."
"Oh, my fucking GOD!" he cried out as he pulled his head back and closed his eyes. Instantly, an idea crossed his mind and he looked down at his sweetheart. "That's it, I'm going to end this myself." He slapped his thigh for Samson to follow him and walked across the motorpool to the machine shop area while Avril continued on into the Command Center.
"So, how did you know about the sleeper plan to capture General Sefira?" Jimmy asked Cooper when he found him tinkering with the bomb detector. Samson stopped close by his side and sat.
"We got Harry to work as a double agent," he answered without looking up from his project. A new unlit cigarette hung from his mouth.
"How come the general didn't know who you were?"
"Oh, he knows who I am."
"Why did he ask your name?"
"I reckon he didn't want to know my name this past year for his own reasons."
"I don't understand."
"Well, the best place to hide is in plain sight," Cooper said when he finally looked up at the tall, muscular man. In comparison, Cooper was nowhere near his size, and the contrast of color between their skins made him look even more ashen. "I just had to stay distinctive in my own character, which tends to rub everyone the wrong way. It was either he knew who I was and reported me for disciplinary charges every time he turned around, or just didn't know me and ignored the fact that I was a pain in his ass."
"Clever," he smiled at the man. He liked the way Cooper thought. "I notice that you're wearing a proper uniform now."
"You can only push the envelope so far," Cooper muttered as he returned to what he was doing. "Insubordination charges can only be taken lightly to a certain point, and then you gotta get serious about it."
"Don't I know that," Jimmy said under his breath. He had been there one too many times himself.
"I came here to ask if you could help me with something?" He said to the bomb expert, "I need help sniffing out these sleepers."
"We have people already on that."
"I want to find them myself, I owe it to my company."
"Are you saying you have to find a way to pull someone's foot out of your ass?" the man asked as he stood up straight and gave him his full attention. "I heard this was somehow your fault."
"It's not anyone's fault," Jimmy tried to defend himself and then just shook his head in defeat. "Fine. I have to save face. I gotta find those fuckers to redeem myself."
"Well," Cooper said as he wiped the oil off his fingertips. "You're gonna owe me big."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Jimmy stepped back.
"One day, when I need a favor," Cooper said seriously, "you're gonna have to step up. No matter how bad you want to say no."
"I have a feeling I'm gonna regret this," he said as he watched the man extend his arm. "But what choice do I have?" He grabbed the man's hand and shook it.
"Great," Cooper said with a wide grin. "You gotta plan?"
"We'll talk about it tomorrow," Jimmy said with a touch of regret. "I'll meet you down here to talk about it then."
While Yeshuah stood at the far end of the common area with Lynn, both watched as the floor was being repaired. She was still reeling from the total calm that had washed over her when the Russians broke in on them. Her complete lack of a reaction baffled her. She couldn't even conjure up a "normal" response, because every instinct she'd followed in that moment had felt flawless. It had all worked out perfectly. Watching the men lay the new foundation for the floor, a strange thought struck her: what if they mixed the cement with that indestructible polyfiber plastic and the substance they found in the enemy munitions? Would it create a concrete that could never be broken?
"You tell someone that idea," Avril said as she came up behind her. Lynn turned with a start and smiled at her friend. Of course she can read minds, she thought to herself. Everything else is turning on its head, why not?
"Jimmy say not tell anyone," Avril said as she stopped to stand next to Lynn, both moved to chairs in the back of the room, and sat with their backs against the aquarium that held the baby scorpions.
"Well," Lynn sighed. "Nothing surprises me any more. Where are they going to house the Essenes?"
"In room behind machine shop."
"Are they okay with that?"
"No complaining."
"Are there any rooms or tunnels under that area?"
"No, only rock."
"Good. So, what is that room under us used for?"
"Storage to engine parts. And Samson find weapons used by sleepers."
"Used for what?"
"Weapons in parts boxes."
"Why is Samson finding sleeper stashes? I thought General Sefira created a whole team to look for all that. We weren't to be involved. We have to concentrate on keeping guard over the Essenes."
"You want me to ask Jimmy?" Avril had stayed true to her promise that she wouldn't read Jimmy's mind any longer, but his vibration did give her a feeling that he was involved in hunting down Russian soldiers and their allies.
"No, the room is right beside the machine shop. It was probably just a coincidence that it caught Samson's attention. I am concerned with how the enemy thought they were going to get themselves and the Essenes past the motorpool crew, we vetted everyone there?" Suddenly it occurred to her. "And then there was Corporal Harry..." Why wasn't Samson reacting to Corporal Harry? She nearly trailed off on that thought until her friend spoke.
"Lynn?" Avril asked, careful to choose her words. "When you talk to Russian who come from floor, you understand words from them?"
"Now that you point that out," Lynn said with a spark of interest, "it was like I understood everything they said, and I knew they spoke Russian."
"Me too," Avril said, surprised. "I no understand before." Both girls looked over at Yeshua. He stood over the repair work, watching the workers mend the hole. Turning to the women he gave a knowing nod and walked out of the room into the corridors.
"You think..." Avril said when the door shut behind him.
"Like I said," Lynn sighed, "nothing surprises me any more. We better get lunch downstairs to the Essene families." Both stood and walked out the door shortly after Yeshua.
"Hey," Lynn said to Griff as she pushed a very tall and very deep dinner cart into the new room that would protect the Essenes. Avril followed with another. "Do you want a steak sandwich or the vegetable dish the families are having?"
The families rarely ate meat, subsisting instead on fish and vegetables raised in the base's sterile hydroponic stations. Since leaving the caves, the Essenes maintained a strict dietary discipline, believing that the less they defiled their bodies, the closer they came to purity—a stark contrast to their days of near-starvation in the caves, when their rations were fewer than even the regular soldiers' there. Today, however, Lynn had loaded the dinner cart with the standard civilian meals alongside hearty steak sandwiches for the militia and their team. She slid a sandwich in front of Griff, who wrapped it up and another he retrieved from the cart. Giving her a quick word of thanks before heading out to join Merc on the next patrol. Lynn scanned the massive room, the final line of defense for the colony of Essenes. The families were gathered by tribes, huddled in even groups at the back of the room with their children's lessons and the stash of items left behind by the star people.. The moment they noticed Lynn and Avril unloading the food, the groups dissolved, and they began moving toward the carts.
Earlier that morning, as Lynn and Avril waited for the food carts to transport meals to their new quarters, they packed meals for their teammates and the Essenes they would be directly protecting. Avril had Lynn pitch her fortified concrete idea to the generals—a plan to reinforce cement using reclaimed ocean poly-fiber and elements harvested from enemy bullets with Portland Cement. To their amazement, it became the perfect bridge across the rift dividing the two military elites. The moment Lynn laid out the idea, the commanders' icy demeanor thawed. The standing feud between them vanished, replaced by a unified directive paramount to the base's survival. Now, the entire perimeter wall was scheduled for a fortified encasement. As the two generals sat huddled over a table, eagerly laughing and planning the immediate trial phase, Lynn and Avril caught each other's eyes. They bumped fists, quietly celebrating a hard-won truce between their leaders.
Jimmy and Cooper ate a quick lunch in the engine shop, both tossing Samson pieces of their sandwiches as they talked. Cooper explained how the bomb detector worked, detailing his new heat-sensor modifications. The upgrades could scan through walls, exposing the body heat of anyone even if they were hidden behind cloaking tech.
"Regardless of whether they are cloaked or not," the bomb expert said as he turned on the monitor and pointed the camera at a wall they knew had occupants on the other side, "we'll be able to see their heat impressions show up here just like that. The Russians have been working on getting past the cloaking devices for over a year now. But only I have found a way to get past the block."
"That would be dangerous if the Russians figured out how to detect our presence when we're cloaked," Jimmy said concerned.
"Harry had information on it when he came down here to spy. When he defected to our side, he told me about their tests to bypass our cloaking apps and trace body heat," said Cooper. "The Russians have a big jump on us in this department. Although they haven't perfected it for use yet...I'm gonna test my theories out on our little project, meanwhile General Taylor is going to inform General Sefira about it as soon as it works like it's supposed to."
"It sure looks like it works," Jimmy said as he stared at the yellow and red images on the monitor."
"Yeah, ain't that the fucking shit," Cooper said with a grin, holding his cigarette in his teeth. "And even with cloaking apps applied, the images look just like that."
"That's a nasty habit," Jimmy said, referring to the cigarette.
"Only if I light it," he responded, turning off the machine. "Let's go see how well these new alterations work."
Jimmy followed Cooper out into the motor pool and up the metal stairs. Samson ran behind until he hopped onto the back of Jimmy's ride—a single-person mobile unit modified from a popular 21st-century scooter. They sped at maximum velocity toward the room where the ambush had nearly claimed their commander.
The journey was tedious. At every intersection in the maze of hallways, Cooper signaled a halt, activated the machine, and aimed the camera at the wall. Whenever they encountered a crowded room, they stepped inside to scan the faces. If Samson didn't tense up, they excused themselves and moved on. They repeated this grueling routine all the way to their destination, planning to work their way back to the motor pool on the other side of the hall.
In the security room, one of the guards leaned toward the monitors, fascinated. On screen, Jimmy, Samson, and a skinny mechanic from the motorpool sped down the corridors. The automated surveillance system struggled to keep up, rapidly cutting from camera to camera.
"What do you suppose he's up to now, Ezra?" the first guard asked in Hebrew, tracking Jimmy's movement.
The second guard rolled his chair over to join his partner. Together, they watched the two men breach the restricted zone—an area strictly cordoned off after the recent kidnapping attempt on the general. "It doesn't surprise me that Westphal is ignoring orders to stay out of there," Ezra replied, cocking his head as he squinted at the monitor. "But who do you suppose the other guy is? And what is he carrying?"
"We could send a team down to check it out," the first guard suggested.
"No, my relief will be here at any time," the second one said as he pulled a media notepad from its doc and began his closing report. "I'll go see before I go eat. You want me to write that we saw Westphal in the restricted area?"
"Yeah, just add that he mentioned that he had asked us first," the man didn't want to cause any friction for the rogue American. There always seemed to be some kind of method to the American's madness.
"And say he was doing what?" Ezra asked as he looked up. "If he does something stupid we have to say we knew about it. Won't that be a problem?"
"Never mind, I'll put it on my report," said the first guard with a melancholy sigh. "He'll find a way to get into trouble regardless of whether we help or not. I just like helping the guy."
"Well, I'll back you on this," Ezra said as he finished his report and put the notepad back in its dock. "I put down that he was checking out a suspicious lead and took the dog and that guy with him."
"I need to know about suspicious leads," came a familiar voice from behind them. Both men froze as General Taylor came into the security room. "What suspicious lead?" the general asked. One of the men pointed to the monitor where Jimmy, Samson and Cooper were approaching the room with the doors on the floor.
"We're not really sure," the first man said in English with a slight accent, as he nearly fell out on the floor trying to get back to his chair. "He's got some other guy with him and they seem to be using some sort of device."
"Details, son," General Taylor said as he came up to the monitor to watch for himself. "I need details."
"I was just getting ready to go check out the situation as soon as my relief arrived."
"Go now," the general demanded. "I'm here, I'll tell your relief what you're doing."
"Yes, sir." The guard grabbed his rifle and extra ammunition clips, his sidearms already secure at his hip. With sleeper agents active on the base, complacency was fatal. He hurried through the motor pool, weaving past soldiers and tactical vehicles before taking the stairs two at a time into the upper corridors. Back in the command room, the general and the remaining sentry tracked him on the monitors as he unhitched a hover scooter, and sped toward Jimmy and Cooper's position.
"So, you knew about the ambush," Jimmy said. He stood on the threshold, eyeing the false walls that had been shoved aside within the massive room. He and Cooper stepped gingerly over the fallen door, searching for any hint of the Next Russian move. Jimmy picked up a clean shard of plaster, turning it over in his hand. "How many Russians died?"
"All of them," Cooper said bluntly. He swept his thermal sensor across the room, tracking the walls for residual heat signatures. When he swung the monitor toward the hallway, a bright, moving crimson bloom changed into a yellow color and caught his eye. Someone was approaching. Cooper let the sensor drop to its chest strap, snapped his rifle up, and aimed it dead-center at the doorway. Beside him, Jimmy's weapon clicked into place.
"What?" he whispered to Cooper.
"No one is supposed to be here," he answered in a low tone. "Someone is coming." They both clicked off the safety on their weapons and set their sites.
"Hold your fire," the guard said as he walked into the room and found two rifles aimed at him. "General Taylor sent me here to find out what you two are doing. You know this area is off limits to everyone."
"How do we know we can trust you?" said Jimmy, not lowering his weapon as Cooper had done. Cooper pushed the barrel of Jimmy's rifle down.
"I know him," he said to his cohort.
"Well, I thought I knew a couple of guys in the motor pool and they turned out to be spies." Cooper shook his head at Jimmy and smiled.
Cooper formally introduced the two men. "Jimmy Westphal, this is Jary Aaronson, the both of us have worked together for years."
A sudden noise reverberated through the room, followed by dead silence. Cooper pulled up his device and scanned the walls, but they were the only heat signatures in the room. Then, a louder sound cracked directly above them. He jerked his scanner upward—the screen flared solid yellow.
"SHIT," he shouted. "Get out, we have a bunch of heat above us. They're trying to breach the perimeter." All three men ran into the hall and hopped back on their electric mobile units and headed back toward the motor pool.
"We have a breach," the guard yelled into his relay radio.
General Taylor watched the three men on the monitor. Hearing the panic in the caller's voice, he ordered a full combat unit to the perimeter and immediately alerted the commander over the radio. On another screen, he watched the troops two step up the steps into the corridors and rush toward the area on single-man mechanisms docked just within the doors. Passing the three men who had discovered the breach. Jimmy pressed himself against the wall, holding his hairy friend tight as the defense platoon roared past. He braced Samson and his scooter against the wall. It looks like they've deployed the entire base, he thought as the men sped by..
Watching from the guard shack as a second wave of his soldiers lined up inside the motor pool entrance, General Taylor called the alarm to General Safira on a secure line. Before joining the soldiers on the floor prepared for another race to the hot zone. He reminded the remaining guard to hold the basewide alarm until the enemy breached the perimeter. He wasn't about to give away the element of surprise.
Jimmy cut through the oncoming soldiers, forcing his way back to the Essenes where he belonged. With chaos erupting around them, the entire team needed to be ready to defend the tribe. The guard had already joined the fray, leaving Jimmy and Cooper to find their own posts. Cooper, whose primary job was base defense, gestured urgently for Jimmy to keep moving. He then doubled back through the corridors, shouting a verbal warning into every room to alert anyone they had passed earlier. If the main alarm wasn't going to sound, he would sound it himself.
Moments later, the base's automated system finally caught up. The invasion alarm blared as the AI voice announced a breach in the southwestern quadrant. His warning delivered, Cooper joined the battle and ran to find his detachment.
Concrete shattered overhead as the upper ceiling of the massive room collapsed, choking the restricted area with dust and debris. The enemy instantly rained down percussion bombs, blinding the defenders just as the allies opened fire into the gap. Hallway reinforcements scrambled into the smoke, dragging out shell-shocked soldiers and seizing the line at the door. For a few desperate moments, allied gunfire held the breach—until a hail of enemy grenades blasted the defenders back, far into the corridors. Hostile troops shimmied down ropes into the kill zone. Inside the tight confines, survival came down to a chaotic math of hits and misses. It was pure slaughter. Driven by the blaring alarms, wave after wave of fresh soldiers traded places with the bleeding, pushing the attackers back as they pushed forth in a sickening, bloody rhythm.
The Russian strategy was as ruthless as it was archaic. They surged forward, crushing their own wounded beneath their advance. It was a desperate throwback to an era when soldiers were treated as expendable fodder to overwhelm an enemy through sheer numbers. But the tactic had failed in the past, and it was failing miserably here. Troops were cut down the instant they hit the ground. Corpses littered the room, piling on top of one another in grim layers. A handful of men clawed their way to the threshold, only to drop dead at the door. Watching the slaughter unfold, the observing generals saw only a suicide mission. What were the enemy commanders thinking?
Enemy drones fared no better. Though their projectiles inflicted heavier damage than infantry fire, the machines were ultimately slow, predictable targets easily targeted by defending troops. A few rogue AI units managed to provide suppressive cover for hostile soldiers charging the doorway blindly, allowing a handful to breach the halls. However, the victory was short-lived; a wall of allied defenders cut them down almost instantly.
The British General stood frozen in the Command Center, eyes locked on the monitors detailing the brutal slaughter of the enemy. A sharp shout from a female soldier at a neighboring station broke his trance. She switched the main display to the perimeter cameras just as the upper ground-level alarm pierced the room. The iron entrance doors had been forced open. Floodwaters of enemy troops were surging down the drive, aiming straight for the motor pool. It was a countdown to total annihilation; if the remaining guards at the entrance fell, the base went with them. The general barked out new coordinates, his fingers flying across his console to override the drive's security doors. They wouldn't budge. Panic flared in the room as he realized the truth: their survival now rested entirely on the shoulders of the soldiers defending the motor pool.