Page 52 of 62

Re: Story of fiction and fantasy and science fiction

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 5:56 pm
by LostNFound
In the corridor of the second basement under the Denver International Airport, Dan Lerner stood like a statue looking in the little girls face as she smiled at him. He wanted very badly to choke her to death but he could not move nor speak. The other two girls had disappeared and then re appeared within a split second it seemed to him. He was hoping that his men would come from the elevator that led to the underground city but time was stopped for him. It seemed that he was frozen for ever but yet only moments had passed. The little General’s smile grew and then she reached out and touched him.

He looked at the car in front of him. It had just drove up and stopped. He could see the railroad crossing barricade down in front of his car and hear the ringing of the warning bell. He could not move his body but he could move his head. He turned and looked out of the door window and saw the tracks. He turned his head and looked out the passenger side window and saw the tracks on that side also. He knew without a doubt that his car was sitting on the tracks of the crossing. He turned and looked at the car that had pulled up and his heart began to beat faster as he watched three people get out and walk toward him. As they approached he recognized his ex wife and daughter, the man he did not know but his wife and daughter were like they had never been in an accident over two years prior. The window was rolled down and he wanted to speak but his speech was frozen just as his body was. He could only move his head. He tried to scream as he heard the train whistle. His daughter and the man stopped while Margaret bent down and scooted under the barricade.

Margaret had been told where to go to confront her ex husband. She had been told all about how the man had set up the crash and how he had tried to kill her and Yvonne. The only infidelity the man was doing was being in love with the emperor. He had beaten her many times and did unspeakable things to Yvonne. She had been on the verge of killing him herself but unfortunately the accident or planned death of her and Yvonne had brought all that to an end. As she approached the car she knew the train was going to take him out so her death wish for this man was going to be full filled without her own hands being bloodied. She was going to let him know that she and Yvonne knew what he had done and that was going to be enough as they watched him receive his own undoing from this life. She came up to the open window and looked him in the eyes. “Well Dan it would appear that you are in a real bad situation. Kind of like you placed your daughter and me wouldn’t you say? I can’t say I am sorry for you, I mean after all you put yourself in this position doing all those nasty things to Yvonne and me but think of it this way, when that train gets here it will take you quickly I would imagine. Yvonne wanted me to tell you that she wishes you a speedy death and maybe you and that toad of an Emperor will come back as cockroaches. Try not to scream to loud now, oh just one more thing, if I had it all to do again, you would not be on my list to redo.” She turned and walked slowly back and ducked under the barricade as the train whistle blew again. Dan watched her and Yvonne climb into the car with the strange man and drive off. His mind was screaming, he was trying to move his arms and legs but they would not cooperate and then he heard the train whistle blow very loud. He turned his head and saw the front of the locomotive careening toward him at a hundred miles per hour. His voice returned at the last moment just before the train smashed him into bits and pieces and he screamed a blood curdling sound.

Tamara, Alisha and Alice floated down the corridor and came to the steel door that led into the room where the elevator was located to the underground base. All three of them walked through the door without opening it and stood looking at the two guards sitting at the computer stations that showed the corridor that led to the elevator 200 feet below in the underground city. They had turned invisible and intended to go down into that city to destroy whatever it was the Emperor was causing to be made. Harris Udahl and Rashish Kamar sat at the computers and watched the corridor below. Dan Lerner had told them he would be back soon after he took care of a couple of intruders. Harris felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up and turned quickly to look around the room. There was nothing to see but he had a bad feeling for some reason. He turned back to Rashish and asked if he had seen anything in the corridor outside. Rashish told him that he had not seen anything and asked what his problem was. “I don’t know, it just feels weird, feels like someone is in here with us. I wish Dan would get back here soon.” Rashish looked at Harris with skepticism and almost laughed but Harris’s face was almost white. “What is the matter with you Harris no can get through that door without us unlocking it or having the code?” Those three scientists that came here and went down there will probably be coming back up soon so pay attention. Dan will take care of whoever has tried to come down here. Relax and have some more coffee, Jeez you sure are paranoid.”

Tamara stood behind the Man calling himself Harris and waited for him to take a sip of his hot coffee. She reached out and touched his neck and backed up quickly. The man spit hot coffee onto the computer screen and his cup flew from his hand as he stood up suddenly. The hot coffee spilled on the other man that jerked violently away from his work station. “DAMN YOU HARRIS, WHAT THE HELL IS THE MATTER WITH YOU? Rashish brushed the fluid or tried to brush it from his clothes. Harris spun around and now had his pistol out swinging it wildly. “I tell you there is someone in here and they could have one of the damn dispance cloaks on.” Rashish became quit worried about his partner. The man was waving his gun around and that was very dangerous in this space. “Put that gun away Harris, you are going to shoot something that might cause this equipment to go off or you might shoot me, so put it away, there is no body in here for god sakes. When Dan gets back and sees you this way he might shoot you himself. Rashish had removed his jacket and shaken it. He walked to another chair and draped it over the back. As he came back Harris had finally holstered his pistol but was still standing. He was looking at Harris as he walked back and his chair suddenly rolled into him. He doubled over and fell to the side. This time he came back up with his pistol out. “ALL RIGHT, WHOEVER YOU ARE, SHOW YOURSELF OR WE ARE GOING TO START SHOOTING.” Harris had taken his pistol out again and said “I told you so Damnit now you gonna listen to me?”

Tamara, Alisha and Alice had moved to the far corner near the ceiling and were holding their mouths to keep from laughing. The two men were dancing around and flailing their arms in the air around them. They both were demanding that whoever was in the room had best show them selves. Alisha and Alice moved to a spot above each man and waited for the right moment to make their guns disappear. As soon as that happened the two men looked wildly at each other and Harris tripped the door lock and they both ran out of the room and could be heard cursing as they ran down the corridor. The girls giggled and the alarm bell rang on one of the computers. They looked at the screen and could see three men in white coats standing in front of a camera. They could see the elevator doors and a light blinking above the doors. “Looks like someone wants to come up, shall we at least allow them to come halfway up?” Tamara had posed that question and all three of them smiled. Tamara looked at the control panel for the elevator and pressed a button. 200 feet below the elevator doors opened and three men stepped in and waited for the car to move upward. Tamara shut the doors and punched another button to bring the car up. There was a diagram/meter of the shaft and it showed a representation of the elevator car as it rose from the base toward the top. The girls watched and as soon as the elevator car was half way Tamara stopped it. She did something to the control panel and the power went off. “Shall we make our way into the lions den my sisters?” Alisha did one more thing before they stepped into the elevator shaft; she made sure that no one could enter the room or leave it by making the door become a solid piece of the wall. They floated down the shaft and when they came to the stopped car they could hear the men yelling for help. They bypassed the car and continued to float down.

Kim Jung Cho, Imad Krem Yashir and Vladimir Gorshavic felt the car stop. They looked at each other and Vladimir tried punching the buttons on the control panel. Nothing happened; he continued to punch the buttons and finally gave up. They all three looked at the ceiling but it was no use there was not a visible sign of a door they could climb through. They began to pound on the walls and yell for help but no one could hear. 100 feet below the elevator doors had been fused shut while 100 feet above the same had happened. The fate of these men would not be found out for many years.

Re: Story of fiction and fantasy and science fiction

Posted: Sat Apr 27, 2019 7:44 pm
by LostNFound
60 THE ANDROID ARMY

The girls had stepped through the elevator doors into the corridor that led into the underground city below the Denver International Airport. Alice fused the doors shut. Alisha had fused the doors shut 200 feet above when they started floating down the shaft. There was no one in the corridor but they could hear voices from somewhere ahead of them. As the floated forward two Army soldiers came out of a door in the corridor and walked toward them. They moved out of their way and watched them go to the elevator doors. Alisha spoke what do think they are up to? They look like they are trying to access the elevator. The two soldiers stopped at the elevator doors and looked at the floor meter above the doors. The digital readout showed the elevator at the top. One of them took out a cigarette and lit it. The girls were surprised at that. They thought that particular thing had been banned in the past and it was actually against a law to be caught using the things. The girls moved forward once again and came to a pair of doors in the corridor. They stepped through and stopped. The room was fair in size and the soldiers sat around tables that were scattered around like a dinning room in one of those old 5 star restaurants. The girls looked around and moved along the walls to get to the far side.

Tamara was the first to step through the closed doors and into another corridor. Alisha and Alice followed and they all three began to float through the corridor. There were doors on each side and the girls peeked into each one as the moved further away from room that held the soldiers. The rooms were empty and they noticed they looked like living quarters of some type. Soon they came to another double door set and stepped through. The corridor split into three ways and it seemed that they would have to search each one. They were looking for the labs and manufacturing areas as Alice had discovered some of that information from the man called Dan before she sent him to meet his destiny. The girls split up and each one took a corridor. They communicated in the mind as they walked down the corridors.

Alice had proceeded on the straight corridor and looked in the doors as she came to them. They all were empty and looked like the others they had seen in the previous corridor. Empty apartments, every door she looked in were the same. There was furniture but no people. She spoke this to Tamara and Alisha and both of them spoke the same thing about what they were finding. Tamara finally came to the end of the corridor she took as did Alisha. Alice had stopped at some metal doors that were locked. She told the other two and Tamara asked her to wait for them before she proceeded any further.

The large open area was dimly lit. It was circular in shape and the girls could see a wide walkway around the center area that looked like a giant hole. They made their way to the edge and looked down. The lighting was dim on other levels below them. It appeared that there were at least 5 other levels before a large floor space appeared to be the bottom. As the girls looked around they could see other doors like the ones they came through scattered around the circular level they were on. Alice levitated over the rail and into the big open center. The other girls followed suit and they begin to drop down. They could see the other floors as they dropped and the doors looked the same as the upper floor they had left. The second floor from the bottom they saw what looked like store fronts. Tamara spoke this time this looks like those big apartment buildings and mall type stores that you would see in the big cities. Where are the people?

The girls landed softly on the large tiled floor. The tiles were black and white and arranged in a giant triangle with an eye shape in the middle. The diameter of the circle was roughly 100 feet across. The Main floor around the ring showed open store fronts that all appeared to be empty. The lighting was sparse and low. Tamara turned around in a circle and stopped when she saw a large corridor attached to the hub as she thought of it. The corridor ran into semi-darkness and she could barely see doors across the space. They seemed to be maybe another 100 feet from the large open hub to the doors. Alisha was the first to start walking toward the open corridor. She spoke out loud and said “come on, I guess this is the way to go. I am not sure what we are looking for but it has been said that the Emperor has people down here working on making some kind of mechanical soldiers or weapons.” Alice knew what a mechanical soldier looked like because she had encountered one and Tamara had said that Susanna had told them that the new rangers had encountered one when they made their escape from the Emperor’s army. She knew they looked just like an ordinary human but inside they were AI driven computers. The Emperor’s scientists had managed to create real human skin by experimenting with real humans. The whole thing was monstrous and many people had died horrible deaths for these evil beings agenda. Alisha and Tamara both had told her about the encounters their parents had with these creatures and it was scary.

The corridor was a good 30 feet across and lined with tiles on the floor, the sides and the ceiling. As the girls walked along they passed many doors that were all locked. There were no Identification markers on any of them. Tamara looked in a few as the walked by and said they were just big empty rooms “future storage spaces maybe, hard to tell.” When the reached the big doors that blocked the corridor, they could see that they were big enough to drive a vehicle through when opened. They looked at each other and walked through without opening them. On the other side the cavern opened up into a rather large space. The area was lit dimly like the other areas and then they heard the sounds of machinery in operation. The floor of the cavern was covered in patchy areas with concrete. The non concreted areas were a reddish colored soil and looked as if they had been packed down. The cavern itself was very large and the ceiling looked as if it was as high as the big hub city they had just come from. They could see that it was solid rock with no coverings as the previous place. Alice was looking along the cavern walls and could see no offshoot rooms until her eyes saw the huge tunnel on the far side and then she saw the rails disappearing into the darkness of the big tunnel. She could see lights in a couple of rooms that had been built on each side of the beginning of the tunnel. The tracks started from the center of the cavern where a rotunda sat. She could see spurs from the rotunda that ran around the cavern and she looked down and saw the tracks running by them where a dock like structure ended that they were standing on.

Tamara walked to their left as Alisha walked to the right. Alice turned around and looked up the wall behind them. There were clear panels of what looked like glass stretching up the wall to the ceiling above. She counted the floors and sure enough there were five of them. She saw a light in one that was the third floor up. As she stood there someone came to the big window and stood looking out. All three girls were still invisible so she spoke in the mind and told Tamara and Alisha what she was seeing. Tamara had walked about 50 feet and stopped. The sound of the machinery was louder here and then she saw the wall of windows with people moving around behind the glass. The dock they had entered on ran another 50 yards and started to wrap around the curve of the cavern. She could see closed doors that she thought led into the rooms she was seeing. She moved closer to the windows where she could see the people moving around and watched their activity The people looked as it they were placing something on conveyer belts. The activity was not frantic but as she looked she could see a large area that had boxes stacked up like a big warehouse. Looking closer she saw what these people were removing from the boxes and placing on the conveyors.

Alisha had walked to the end of the dock platform and did not see any activity. There were rooms on the other side of the structure wall but they were empty. She had entered into a few and found that they were living quarters of some type and looked like they could be inhabited. As she began to walk back she saw Alice floating up the wall of the structure and looked at that face where she saw a person standing next to a window. Alice, what have you found? I don’t know yet, there seems to be a room up her that has someone in it and I want to see what the room is. Alisha walked under her and moved toward Tamara who was standing at a big window in the wall. The interior was lit very well and she heard the machinery sounds grow louder as she approached Tamara. She stopped suddenly and watched the people inside as they pulled human arms, legs and torsos from containers and placed them on a series of conveyors. She could see were the conveyors run through a wall. Something or someone was removing the parts on the other side of the wall. She spoke to Tamara and Tamara jumped suddenly. Looks like we might have found a factory where they assemble the androids. This stuff is spooky Alisha. I haven’t seen any heads so they may be coming from a different place. We need to get beyond that wall over there, where is Alice?

Alice had levitated up the wall and stopped at the window where the person was standing. The man was overweight and bald. He was wearing a military uniform and it looked like he was a Captain. He had a cup of fluid and was sipping at it as he looked out the window. Alice turned around to see what the man was looking at but saw nothing but the large tunnel across the cavern. When she turned back around, the fat Captain was walking back into the room. She could see a wall of video screens with a bank of computers along the wall below the screens. The screens were dark at the moment as she watched the man go through an arch and disappear into another area. She looked down to where Tamara and Alisha were standing and told them she was going to check this room. Tamara told her to be careful and they were going to check out what appeared to be a factory room.

Captain Willard Hodges walked back into the inner control room. He had taken a break from his monotonous job of watching the robotic machines assemble the android bodies and the people load the conveyors with the parts. Sergeant Gerthy was the only other man in the control and surveillance room. The computer banks and monitors in the outer room had been silent for a couple of years now since the tram had shut down. The long tunnel to the other Underground base, located under Kansas City had been fairly active for many years as the Military transferred weapons and humans for the slave trades from Denver to Kansas City. He knew there were other underground tunnels but his job only consisted of this particular run. Before the Emperor took over the old US political and military system always had operating budgets and the money was always there. The Emperor was a very greedy man and began to cut the money off for the secret operations that the military used aside from the government funded ones. The money dried up for this Tram system and he suspected the others around the country slowly but surely until the Tram itself could no longer be affordable to run and sat idle halfway between Denver and Kansas City. He also knew that somewhere out in Kansas were nuclear missile silos but they had been defunct also for many years now. He remembered when the tram ran he was in charge of the cargo and could watch the entire journey on the now non operational system in the outer room.

Re: Story of fiction and fantasy and science fiction

Posted: Sat Apr 27, 2019 7:55 pm
by LostNFound
Every day since all the other activities were shut down the only thing he and the sergeant did, was watch the damn factory below operate the assembly of the android army. He didn’t call them androids per se but rather plastic dolls with AI brains. Sure they could be virtually indestructible but they were still dolls to him. The body parts had been stored before the tram ceased running and had been manufactured on a secret base located in St Louis Missouri. The warehouse below was around 200,000 sq feet in size and jam packed with doll parts such as every thing except the heads. Those were stored in a separate facility and the scientists that lived down here, which were few indeed, worked daily on how to make the brains work better. The ones that came in from other countries would visit for a day or two and sometimes just hours and then leave. The other large warehouse which was close to the same size as the parts warehouse, housed the assembled bodies without the heads and the third warehouse held the heads and the brains. There were not many of those even to this day because the damn scientists continually tinkered with the brains. It gave him the creeps how those bastards used actual real organic brains from the slave trade of humans that ran through the tunnels. They would pick and choose who would be used as the hoards of people came through. In his mind it was monstrous but then who was he to fight against the status quo of people far above his pay grade. He had secured his place in this underground city and was told that when the world above blew itself up, he would still survive down here. When he witnessed the dismantling of the nuclear weapons around the world he almost made his escape from the clutches of the Emperor and the minions. He was finally told about some other methods of destruction and how some nuclear weapons had been secretly stock piled away from the world. He suspected the same thing happening in the other big power countries so he hung on. He poured himself another cup of coffee and dumped some whiskey in it before going over and sitting down at his post on the 4 computer work station. Another boring day and the sergeant wasn’t much company either. His mind became blank and dull with the whisky laced coffee as he watched the robotic arms assemble the body parts.

Alice floated through the glass and landed softly on the floor of the room. She walked over to the computer stations and glanced at them and the monitors on the wall. She could see symbols that looked like tracks and other types of objects. The power was on a low standby of this entire system. She understood that this was a control room for whatever train that ran on the tracks below. She walked to the archway and peered into the short corridor that was between this room and the room beyond. Moving slowly she came to the edge of that room and saw two men sitting at computer work stations. She noticed the monitors lit up with three or more rooms in other locations. One had robotic arms assembling human body parts together from conveyers and another one showed a room where humans were placing the body parts on the conveyers and then she saw the one where the assembled bodies minus a head were placed into rows. There were actual humans doing this work as the fully assembled bodies rolled through openings in a wall on conveyers. There were at least two other monitors operating but she could not see them from her position. The fat Captain was reading something where he sat and another man who she recognized as a sergeant was studiously watching the monitors. She wanted to see the other monitors and what might be on them so she levitated and moved closer. The first one she saw was a room with some humans that were wearing white smock jackets and appeared to be working on human brains. The other monitor showed a warehouse with shelving units and as she looked closer she could see human heads sitting in nice neat rows on the shelving units. She found the place where the Android Army was being assembled. The sergeant pushed his chair back suddenly and stood up and said What the Hell! The Captain dropped his magazine and began to touch the console and keyboards of the computers. The monitors had suddenly begun to scroll wiggly fuzz across the screens and then went completely dark.

Tamara and Alisha walked through the wall into the first assembly room and began examining the body parts the humans were placing on the conveyors. She spoke to Alisha in the mind and said. This feels like real human skin doesn’t? Susanna told us that those things down in Georgia had real human skin. Alisha agreed with her and then began to check the room closer. Look there are cameras close to the ceiling, should we disable them? Tamara noticed them and said wait let’s go and see what is in the next room. Both girls floated to the inner wall where the conveyors were running through openings and stepped through into the next room. The noise in here was enormous. This is where the machinery sounds were emanating from. The girls could see large robotic arms picking the parts off the conveyors and assembling them into fuller bodies. The entire room was set up as an assembly factory, like those old automobile factories. The arms were set such that the torso would be fitted with the arms and next the legs and them the hands and feet and so on. They could see the final assembled body minus the head stacking up on a conveyor and rolling along into another space beyond this one. The girls saw the cameras in here also and quickly moved to the area where the fully assembled bodies were being rolled into.

The warehouse that the bodies were coming into was huge and there were actual humans taking the bodies and moving them to rows of bodies already standing nice and neat. Tamara and Alisha both shivered from the vision of a headless army of bodies standing in rows. Alisha spoke and said we need to find the place where the heads are made. Yes dear sister, wherever that is should lead us to a lab system where the brains are being constructed, I think that is the key to this entire operation. Let’s find the main connection to these cameras and turn them off. The control and relay room where all of the electronic switch boards for the servers that operated all the cameras and computers was located on the second floor. The room was jam packed with equipment and was cooled by some sort of air conditioning system. Tamara and Alisha had traced the wiring from one of the cameras to this room and the big switch board that sat against the wall was full of blinking lights and plug ins. Tamara thought the best way to stop everything would be to just make the huge box disappear so she touched the system and the gear vanished. This caused the computers and cameras to completely go dark. Alisha was examining another large power box and did the same thing to it. The conveyor belts and Robotic arms stopped in mid motion and everything became very quiet on the first floor of this many roomed factory. The girls made all the equipment disappear in the room except for the controllers for air and cooling systems. The room became very bare as they both found their way back to the warehouse that held the headless bodies.

Captain Hodges jumped up from his console and hit a series of switches located on the wall next to the console. These were suppose to lock down the entire fourth and fifth level doors so no one could enter or get out without a special key card. He and two others were the only ones that had these key cards so now he and the Sergeant plus one other guard were in complete control. His next move was to contact the guard station up on the 1st level and alert them that there could be an intruder in the complex. When he hit the intercom system it was dead. His next move was to hit the backup power system. After activating that he was able to reach the guard station. Sergeant Jim Soros was the other man that had the special key card and he was the one that answered the call from Captain Hodges. “Soros we might have an intruder down here and the entire computer system and power is down on the fourth and fifth levels. You need to get a team together and get down here quickly. Sergeant Gerthy and I are still in the control room on the third level and will meet you at the elevator on that level. Those elevators still work don’t they?” He looked at the sergeant and motioned for him to go and check the elevator. “If they don’t for some damn reason you will have to use the stairs. How in the hell did someone get by you up there?” Sergeant Soros looked at two of his men that were standing close and shook his head. “No one could get by us Captain, could be they came through that tunnel. You know we don’t have the monitors up on it.” Our computers and power is still on up here and Private Merkaleen just came back and told me that the elevator is not working and Captain, the elevator to the surface is down also and the damn doors are sealed shut. Something strange is happening, we’ll be down in a few minutes.” He shut the com down and gathered 6 men and told them to arm themselves.

When they tried the door to the stairwell it was locked so Soros pulled his card and slipped it into the key box on the wall. It activated the number pad and he punched in the correct sequence of numbers. The door unlocked and the squad of 7 piled into the stairwell and began their decent. On the third level, Captain Hodges had taken his card out and did the same as Soros did on the 5th floor. Sergeant Gerthy pushed the door open and propped it with a chair that was in the corridor. The emergency lighting was illuminating the stairwell at the moment and Captain Hodges said “This is damn peculiar. The only way this can happen is if someone shuts it down from the control room on level four. When the others get down here you take one of them and see if you can access the elevator shaft. I want to know if there might be someone inside that damn thing.” “Yes sir said Sergeant Gerthy and they heard the team of men coming down the stairwell.

Sergeant Soros and his men reached the third level and Sergeant Gerthy took one of the Privates and began to ascend back to the 1st level where he could get into the elevator from a utility room. The Captain told the others that they needed to check out the Control room on the 4th level first. “If that production line is stopped we could be in trouble. Those worker slaves might get the idea of revolting against us and that ain’t going to be pretty if you all catch my drift. Ever body lock and load.” The sound of bolts being drawn back could be heard all the way up on the 1st level. “What are the other men doing sergeant, they better be on full alert.” “They are sir and as for that surface elevator it is way to strange that the doors are fused shut. Those three foreigners got in it okay and it moved toward the surface. Strange thing also is we don’t have contact, video or voice with the surface.” “Damnit sergeant, we could be under attack above as well as down here. That damn tunnel is a weak point to this base. If some force has managed to penetrate it somewhere between here and the Kansas base we could be in a whole lot of trouble so we need to take count of our weapons and munitions as soon as we find out what has happened down here. Go into the control room and contact the rest of your men and get that taken care of, we’ll meet you on the level below.” “Yes sir” and with that Sergeant Soros took off for the control room.

Alice had floated idly while the Captain and the sergeant worriedly moved around the control room. She watched and listened as the Captain contacted the men above and ordered some of them to come down. He was right that there was an intruder, in fact there were three. When they left she watched the door close and lock and then proceeded to make all the computers disappear. She did the same with any power source equipment in the room and went into the outer room and made all the computers disappear out there also. When she was done, the rooms were bare. All of the equipment and furniture was gone from existence. She floated through the glass window and into the big cavern and hurried to find Tamara and Alisha.

Sergeant Soros reached the control room and tried to open the door. It was locked so he took out his key card and swiped it through the slot and the key pad lit up. He punched in the numbers and the door unlocked. When he opened the door he froze. He though he was in the wrong room at first because the main room was completely empty and when he walked through the short corridor to the outer room it too was empty. He hurried over to the window and looked frantically around thinking he might see an enemy force gathering in the rotunda area but it was just as empty as always from what he could see. He could not inform the 1st level men because there wasn’t any com system. These rooms looked like they never had anything in them. He swore to himself as he hurried back toward the stairwell. The door to the stairwell had been closed, he swore again as he swiped the card and punched the numbers in. He entered the stairwell and hopped down the steps 2 and 3 at a time until he was at the doorway into the 4th level. He pushed the door open and hurried to the main control room. He reached the open door into the control room and found it completely empty. The Captain and the other men were nowhere to be seen. The walls were blank except for the power supply that controlled the security systems for the doors, the basic emergency lighting and the Air conditioning units. He felt like he was going crazy and hurried back into the corridor. He had to swipe his card again to open the stairwell door and dropped to the 5th level. As he entered the corridor he noticed immediately that the main doors to the rotunda were wide open. He held his rifle at the ready as he approached the open rotunda.

On the 1st level sergeant Gerthy and Private Krisix stood in front of the elevator doors. Gerthy swiped his key card through the slot on the key punch box but nothing happened. He tried a few more times and said, “Crap, this system is completely dead let’s go up and see if we can get into the elevator through the roof.” Both men entered the door to the utility room above and climbed the stairs. Gerthy noticed that the door was not locked. This business just kept getting stranger. They reached the utility room and walked to the big trap door that led into the elevator shaft. The sergeant and private grabbed the doors and opened them. Gerthy looked into the shaft and saw the top of the elevator car directly below. He jumped down and landed on the top of the car and found the door lid that led into the car. The lid was bolted down and he did not have a wrench to turn the bolts. He walked to the edge of the car at the back where there was a ladder. He could just squeeze by and climbed down so he could look down the shaft. It was dark but he did have a torch and shined it down the shaft. There was nothing that he could see so he climbed back up and removed himself from the shaft. “Well Private, I would say there is nothing to see here shall we go back down to where the others are?” Krisix just sort of mumbled and they both made their way back to the corridor on the 1st level. In the stairwell Gerthy was thinking how odd all this was. They had checked the surface elevator shaft doors and found them fused completely. There was no surveillance cameras working anywhere and that made the hair on his neck stand up

Re: Story of fiction and fantasy and science fiction

Posted: Sat Apr 27, 2019 8:05 pm
by LostNFound
Tamara and Alisha had made the computers and power equipment in the main control room disappear except for the ones that operated the air conditioning and lighting systems. They were standing by a wall watching the workers gather in a group. There was a large garage looking door that led into the area where the robotic arms were located. The people seemed to be very bewildered when the conveyors stopped. It didn’t take them long to take the small forklifts with trailers and open the big door and leave this room. There were only around 10 people in here and the girls had counted about the same in the first warehouse. Alice showed up suddenly and told them that the people in the outer most room had gathered in a group and seemed to be waiting for something. When she came in the people were leaving on the forklifts and heading for that outer room. I think those people are leaving. Could be taking those tractors and trailers to drive into that tunnel you suppose. Yes dear sister I caught some of their thoughts and they are going to escape this place. That could be a long drive or walk for them. Maybe when we are done here we could help them since I think we have to go that way to find the bad weapons that Greybark talked about. Yes we could do something. I have just come from above and I think there are soldiers coming down here so we should hurry.

Captain Hodges and his 5 men entered the corridor and moved to the outer doors that led into the rotunda area. Corporal Lister was the first to step onto the dock of the rotunda. All was quiet so he waved the rest to come out. The Captain immediately looked around and started to move toward the area where the factories were located. The lights were out in the first warehouse as he approached the door. He failed to notice that the big garage door was open just beyond the dock floor. He opened the regular door and the men began to enter the dark room. The men had turned on their torches and were flashing them around the huge room. The conveyors where stopped and they could see body parts laying on them. Captain Hodges mind was scattered at the moment. He was thinking there should be people in here but none were in sight. The six soldiers moved silently to the far side of the room and saw that the big garage door was open. The torches flashed into the factory floor beyond where the robotic arms were located and it was just as pitch black and quiet as the first room. They could see the robotic arms frozen in movement; some had body parts in the mechanical hands. The conveyors were all frozen and they could see the completed bodies standing in eerily groups waiting for the transfer to the warehouse where they were stored waiting for the heads with the AI Brains. Captain Hodges directed his men to continue toward the warehouse of assembled bodies, he was of a mind to get to the Labs where there were at least 5 scientists. That particular area had its own generators for power and it was the farthest area from the rotunda. The big garage door was open here also as they moved into the warehouse. He thought it was very strange that the people were gone. He wasn’t sure where they could have gone but after he was able to restore power down here he was going to find them and set some examples so they would not hide or run again. The intruder or intruders’ idea was still a major possibility but so far no one had been discovered.

Carl Unsford was driving the forklift tractor with the cart full of headless android bodies that had just been loaded from the conveyor, to the stacking area as they called it. They had been working for a little over 7 months now down in this hell hole. He was half way to the new line they had started when the lights went out and the conveyors stopped. This had never happened before and he had talked with Ammon Rivera who worked in the parts warehouse up front about escaping this place. They had secretly talked with all the people that had been brought down here to work on these monstrous things about escaping through the tram tunnel. There were exactly 20 of them, 10 in the parts warehouse and 10 in the completed headless body warehouse. They had been told of the heads that would be fitted at a time in the near future when the scientists completed there work with perfecting the AI brains. Carl knew that they had begun to gather real human brains to fit them with a computer module thus the term AI. The whole thing was barbaric and the people were afraid of the monsters that did this. They would bring live humans down here and remove their brains and burn the corpses in the giant furnace that was located at the back of the Head storage warehouse. Carl had began counting the humans that were dragged into the Labs area many months earlier and realized that there were nowhere the amount of them as the bodies that were stacking up in his warehouse.

He had only once been in the heads warehouse to learn what his job would be when the heads were filled with the human/AI fitted brains. That was to be the final stage of this grand experiment of the Emperors. They all new that when that process was completed the workers would become part of the android army and that meant their brains would be removed and the rest of them would go into the furnaces. So when the lights and power systems shut down his mind jumped into gear almost immediately and he gathered the others. They took the three forklifts with the carts or trailers and filled those with basic necessities that were available in the warehouse and drove through the Robotic factory into the parts warehouse and met with Ammon who had gathered the others up front. They took all six forklift tractors and trailers and left through the big loading door into the rotunda. The knew they did not have much time and needed to get as far into the tunnel as possible before the soldiers from above would show up. They cleaned out the lockers full of food and other necessities and made sure they had plenty of batteries and fuel for the tractors and drove into the tunnel. They were perhaps a mile in when the first men from above came through the doors from the corridor into the rotunda. The forklifts were relatively quiet so that wasn’t a worry as they continued. Carl and Ammon knew the distance of this tunnel was several hundreds of miles and they were hoping to find an exit to the surface within that distance. They had no idea of what was at the other end or what they might find if they found an exit prior to that other end. The lights on the tractors were bright but they did not want to attract to much attention at first so the lead tractor was the only one with the lights on. The people used their torches in the tractors to the rear and they moved as fast as they could which was maybe 10 mph on these vehicles. Fortunately the tunnel took a turn around 500 yards from the rotunda and headed north so they disappeared quickly enough to not be seen from the rotunda. The little caravan of forklifts drove into the dark and the people were quiet as their dreams of being free again were filling their hearts and minds.

The three girls had watched the people leave on the tractors and get away safely. They floated back to the body warehouse and found a door at the back of it. When they entered the next room it was the head warehouse and it seemed very gruesome to them. There were vials of fluids with hoses attached from the vials to the heads. This was a scene right out of some old time horror movie. Alice had seen the labs on the monitors when she was in the control room on the 3rd level and knew they were close to this warehouse. She took Tamara and Alisha’s hands and moved toward the rear of this place. They could smell something horrible but did not know what it was as they moved along a wall and found the doors at the far rear. All three stepped through the wall and into a lit corridor. There seemed to be power in this area. The corridor went straight away so they followed it for awhile until they came to a split. The one they had followed kept going straight and they could see double doors not more than 20 feet in front of them. The corridor that branched off ran to their right and looked as if it made a turn about 40 feet away. Alisha said she would check this one out and come back here. Tamara did not want her to go by herself so decided to go with her. Alice said she was going to look on the other side of the double doors in front of them. This caused a brief moment of indecision but Alice told them not to worry. I am only going to look and will meet you both back here. Tamara and Alisha floated down the corridor and turned the corner. Alice watched them go and moved to the double doors.

Alice stepped into the corridor from the double doors and looked at the open windows in the wall on the other side of the corridor. The corridor she was standing in looked as if it ran around a circular room. She floated the corridor and soon enough found herself back at the place she started. She moved to the windows and actually stepped through into the center room. It was a giant lab and what she saw made her sick. There were 5 humans dressed in white smocks and they were standing around two tables. Each table had a human lying on them and the smocks were cutting their heads open. She glanced around the room which was really quite big and in the circular shape. She then saw a cage with at least 3 other humans sitting down. These humans were completely nude and looked like they were drugged or something. As she looked further she came across the pile of bodies neatly stacked in a bin of some kind. These bodies’ were missing the top half of their heads and she made the connection of what was happening. The smocks were removing the living brains and dumping the corpses in this bin. She wondered who removed them when the bin was full. She turned back to the smocks and watched what they did with the living brains.

Hans Peterson and Gregor Mendal had just removed the living brain from the man on the table. The man had been drugged with the special concoction they had created that would not dull the brain while it completely incapacitated the nervous system of the body. The humans could see but they never felt the death of loosing their brains as the doctors removed them. Most of the doctors thought the people remained alive because the brain was the main existence center but Once the brain was removed and placed into the proper container where it would remain alive until the AI Module could be fitted, the body became useless and would be removed to the bin where the two janitors would take the entire thing to the crematorium and dispose of them. The process had been slow because the amount of live people they could capture had become a real problem from above. They could only take a few at a time from the Airport and would have to go into the main city to capture the homeless. Getting them down here was another problem to keep as secret as possible. They had a fair good storage in the cells and could only bring five at a time to the lab and the drug took hours to work properly. The worst part of this work was they the doctors had to move the bodies from the table to the bin. The damn janitors just drove the forklift through the big doors and hauled the entire crate to the crematorium. So Hans and Gregor picked the body up and hauled it to the bin. The bin could only handle two more bodies and this was one. The other one that Jenner Trudeau and his team were working on would be the last for today. Helga Rothsholt was the blood lady as they called her. She was a big Swedish woman who thrived on cleaning the blood buckets up. She would take the buckets to the big drain at the long sink and dump them. They did not know where the drains led to and did not care particularly. The three victims in the cage would have to wait until the morrow. They would have to be given the drug treatment again and that would be administered early to give it time to work.

The three associates that had come this morning had watched the process and been given the special drug formula. They were starting there own system in a foreign country that had become allies to the Emperor and they would rule the world together when the time came. Hans did not like the idea of giving the secrets of his and Jenner’s long years of research away to a foreign body of people he knew nothing about. This entire operation was very delicate and could be botched very badly. He knew because some of their first experiments went very wrong and his people had died horrible deaths. There were a group of about 12 androids that had been given the first heads with the human brains and the early AI modules. This group had gone berserk and began to kill any humans they come across until they were shut down. It was by sheer luck that he and Jenner were able to freeze the AI module. Not wanting to destroy their work completely they had locked the group up in the body warehouse for further repair. These creatures were complete except for the flaw in the AI module and he fully intended to replace that as soon as the small army was complete for the emperor. They had the bodies and the brains that they had retrieved this past 7 months that would fill about half of the heads in the warehouse. The head warehouse also stored the brains in the containers that kept them active. All it would take is a few hours to insert them into the heads and then attach the heads to the bodies. And they would have the perfect soldiers for the emperor’s army. The Emperor had visited this past week and examined the progress. He wanted the androids ready to go within a month and to tell the truth, the toad wanted them yesterday. He had told the team that they were very close to invading Texas and the android army would cinch a victory for him. Hans told him that they could produce 1000 soldiers in short order and that seemed to appease the little weasel. The team had waited for the Emperor to leave before they confronted Him. They all knew that there could only be around 300 ready within a month and the emperor could very easily take revenge on them for lying to him.

Sergeant Soros stood on the dock and listened. The Captain and his men were no where in sight. He could hear something in the tunnel but he wasn’t sure what it was and it sounded like it was a great distance away. He walked toward the warehouse and factory area and stopped at the open door into the parts warehouse. He attached his torch to the rifle and started to enter when Sergeant Gerthy and Private Krisix came out of the corridor and stopped on the dock. Soros called to them quietly and they hurried over to him. Gerthy asked quietly “where is the captain?” Soros said, “I don’t know, they may have gone in here. This door was open when I got here. I haven’t seen the workers either. Keep your weapons at the ready we could be attacked any moment” The three of them entered the warehouse and heard the weapons fire. They began to run through the warehouse toward the shooting.

Captain Hodges and his men had entered the body warehouse and were searching for the workers. The standing bodies without heads gave them all the creeps even though they all knew about them and the Captain had even seen them before. He told his men to spread out and search deeper into the warehouse. Corporal Lister and Private Heckler walked past the rather large body of the android bodies and moved toward the back of the warehouse. The other two teams were doing the same. Lister was flashing his torch around and saw the cage or cell. It was about 20’ square and inside of it were some human looking men standing very still. He and Heckler walked closer and shined their torches on the humans. “What the hell, those look like androids, but why do you suppose they are in this cell structure?” “I don’t know sergeant, maybe they are special ones or something.” “Well there ain’t any of those workers back here so we should go and tell the Captain.” Both men had turned their torches back toward the front and were standing close to the bars. Lister took a flask from his pocket and cracked the lid. He took a big swig and choked. Heckler turned to see what was happening and was grabbed around his neck by a hand. His voice was cut off and his neck snapped. Lister fell to the floor with a broken neck also. The two men lay in a heap as the androids bent the bars of the cell and crawled through. Their eyes were lit up and two of them picked up the weapons the humans had dropped and they began to move toward the lights that were flashing around.

Re: Story of fiction and fantasy and science fiction

Posted: Sat Apr 27, 2019 8:16 pm
by LostNFound
The Captain thought this would be a good time for him to light up one of his illegal cigarettes. His men knew that he received the contraband regularly from a vendor who worked the airport above. He pulled the cigarette out of the pack and took his lighter out to light it. The next thing he knew was the man that was with him started to shoot. He dropped his lighter and brought his rifle up only to have it jerked from his hands. A fist smashed into his face and he went down with a broken jaw. He hit the hard cement floor and rolled to his side. He could hear the shooting and yelling from his team just before something fell into his head and his spirit left his corporeal existence. The shooting stopped as Sergeant Soros, Sergeant Gerthy and private krisix approached the halfway mark in the robotic factory. They stopped and turned off their torches while crouching next to one of the conveyors. Soros touched Gerthy and whispered. “Something has happened in the next warehouse and I don’t know what it is. We should wait here until we get confirmation from the Captain.” The three men stayed quiet and crouched and the silence became nerve racking. Six of the androids moved into the robotic factory area and saw the three men crouched down. They could see in the dark with their special eyes that used infrared systems. They spread out and converged on the three humans. The other six moved to the door that led into the Head warehouse. There objective was to attack the lab system, When they entered the Head warehouse they began to destroy the brain containers and smash the heads that were stored on the shelves.

Tamara and Alisha had floated the corridor and came to more doors. When they floated through them they discovered a series of jail cells. There were people in some of them. These people were despondent and looked like they were being starved. Tamara and Alisha both began to read their minds and found out that they had been homeless people living on the streets of Denver or wandering the abandoned areas of the airport. They had been lured or forcibly brought to this underground place. They had then been locked up and watched as others were taken only to never be seen again. Tamara and Alisha began to see where they had been free on the streets above and moved inside the cages and sent these people back to those places. They cleaned out the entire cells and made the bars disappear so the place became one huge room with nothing in it. After this they floated back to the place where Alice said she would meet them.

Alice watched the bloody woman empty the buckets of blood and then a tractor came through an opening that was in the wall. She had seen this earlier when she floated the corridor but it did not register at the time. There were two men, one driving and another walked in and made sure the bin was full. The other team of smocks had finished there job and moved the body to the bin. She watched the driver push the forks under the bin and lift it off the floor as it backed out the opening. She did not know where the two men were taking the bodies so she reached into the drivers mind and saw the crematorium and where it was located. She would deal with that later, for now she decided to dissolve this entire place. The five smocks had moved to another bin where they began to remove their blood spattered smocks and place them into the bin. Alice moved to a position where these monsters would see her as she froze them. She became visible just as the smocks were being thrown into the bin. Beverly Klein was the first to see the little girl floating in the air, she screeched at first and the rest of them looked up to see the little girl. The questions on their faces were flashing a red light and Helga who had a mop in her hands started to raise it to swat the girl. Alice watched all of this with amusement but yet it made her sick to see these monsters with no remorse to what they had been doing to humans. She waited for the big Swede to rear the mop back and then froze the lot of them. Two of them had their mouths open to say something and it looked silly to Alice. She moved closer to them and began to speak.

“Ah, I see that I have your undivided attention. It is so sickening and inhuman what you are doing here.” At that moment Tamara and Alisha materialized next to her. The frozen monsters all could see but they could not move or speak. Tamara spoke, “What have you found Alice? It would seem these people have been experimenting on humans. Oh by the way we released a good number of them from their cells and sent them home.” Alisha was looking around and noticed the blood soaked smocks in the bin and the mop in the big woman’s hands that appeared to be dripping blood from it. “Alice, what have these people been doing to humans? Alice said without taking her eyes off the five frozen monsters, they have been removing their brains while the people are still alive and then burning their bodies when they are done. This is where the beginning of the androids originates. I saw the two men that come and take the bodies away to the place to burn them. They are there at this moment and will feed their furnace.” She showed Alisha the image and said “Will you go and make them stop and send them away. We must cleanse this entire place which will include those warehouses.” Alisha said she would and Alice spoke to Tamara. “Tamara there is three people in a cage over there and they are drugged. Will you send them back to where they were stolen from and give them some clothes. Tamara looked toward the cage where the people were sitting. They looked as if they might be waking up or something so she floated over and found the clothes they had been wearing prior to being stripped and placed them in the cage and read the minds of the poor folks. The people had began to wake from the drug inducement and picked their clothes up that were in front of them. Tamara waited until they had dressed themselves and then sent them back to where they each had thought about. Shortly the cage was empty.

Hans Peterson could not move or speak but he could see and when the other two little girls magically appeared next to one that had done something to them, he was very interested about how these girls could do what they did. He became very mad that he could not capture them and experiment with their minds. The brain was all he every thought about and what he and this team had been doing was to him making a new human existence. These girls had already appeared to be way beyond anything he could imagine for his petty thoughts of the new human race. He did not know what these children were going to do to him and the others but when he heard the first say that they needed to make all of his hard work go away it began to make him mad, so mad that he was straining himself to move and grab them. When another one said that she and her companion had released the additional experiments and sent them all back to their homes, the rage began to well up in him. The three little children broke apart and all he could see was the original one that spoke to his team.

Alisha started to go out the door when it burst open. She backed up quickly as Alice and Tamara both turned and looked at what was happening. Hans Peterson screamed in his mind. All he saw was the defunct androids standing in the doorway and knew they would kill anything in their way. He was sure the others that were looking were probably screaming also. Tamara quickly grabbed Alisha and disappeared as she told Alice to do the same. Alice released the Scientists just as she disappeared. The screaming and running around was a sudden onslaught in the lab. Helga’s mop continued its arc and hit the floor. 4 androids moved into the room and began their murderous destruction to the scientists. Alisha had barely escaped when one of the androids tried to grab her. It had jumped into the air just as Tamara pulled her to the side when they disappeared. Gregor and Jenner both backed up quickly and spun around. Gregor made a rush for his desk to grab his pistol that he always carried with him. Jenner reached a pole stand that held saline bags and swung around to defend his self. Hans wasn’t so lucky to move away as the first android grabbed him. Hans’s last vision was the face of the android he had created as the first one just before the thing ripped his head off his shoulders. Helga had brought her mop up quickly but to no avail as one of the androids swept her up and threw her across the lab. Fittingly enough she landed on the long hooks that were above the big drain sink where she emptied the blood buckets. The hooks pierced her completely through and her blood ran out into the drain. Beverly Klein had managed to sidestep the android that had jumped for Alisha and landed on a chair that made it crash to the floor. She quickly made her way to Gregor who was retrieving his pistol. The android that had ripped Hans’ head off let the head drop and turned toward them both. Jenner swung the metal pole at the android that approached him but to no avail. The android stopped the pole in its mid swing and ripped it from Jenner’s hands. It turned the pole straight and ran it through Jenner’s mid section and pushed the dead man backwards into one of the operating tables.

Gregor brought up his pistol and jacked a round into its chamber. Beverly had scooted around the desk and was looking for an escape route from the lab when the first shot rang out. She turned suddenly and watched as the android that Gregor had shot stopped for just an instant then proceeded to walk toward Gregor again. Gregor fired the pistol again and again but the android reached him and picked him up. Gregor was screaming and shot his pistol directly into the head of the android. The thing twisted and grabbed Gregor by the head and twisted it as it fell backward. Gregor lost his head and his body went limp as it and the android fell to the floor. The shot into the brain had shut the android down completely. The android that had dispatched Jenner had run for Beverly as she disappeared out the closest door from the lab. The one that had thrown Helga onto the hooks turned and ran toward the main doors they had come through at the beginning. The other one that had fallen on the chair stood itself up and looked around for any other humans.

The girls had become invisible and moved to a far side of the lab and watched the bloody fiasco carry on like an old fashioned horror movie. Alice knew they would have to stop the rogue androids. She wasn’t sure where they had come from. Alisha decided to go and stop the crematorium and went out the door where the forklift had picked up the bin of bodies. Tamara and Alice heard the screams in the corridor and waited until the two androids came back into the lab. They new there would be a bloody mess in the corridor so Tamara went through the wall and moved around the corridor until she found the headless body of the woman. She floated close and made the body and the head disappear into non existence. In The lab, Alice floated close to the three androids as they began to break up the tables and desks and computers. The creatures were quite strong. The one that had been deactivated she thought was lying in a heap with the body of the man it had killed lying over it and the head it had ripped off was still in its hand. She made it all disappear and the other androids stopped their wanton destruction for a moment and looked at the spot that was now empty. All three of them converged to the spot which became their undoing as Alice began to send them into the ball of burning helium that all the planets revolved around. Tamara came back in both girls began to make everything in the big room disappear.

Buba Remus and Claude Mortis had retrieved the brainless bodies and drove the back way to the crematorium that was located in the rear section of the warehouse where the heads and brains were stored. Both of them had been chosen to work down here a few years back as maintenance workers. They were given keys to most of the doors and shown the back ways to the labs. It wasn’t until 7 months earlier that they were given the specific job of disposing of cadavers. They were shown a panel that would light up when there were bodies to be removed from the lab. They had met the scientists and both of them got the creeps from these people but a job was a job. The first batch of bodies they retrieved with the forklift made them both violently ill. All of the bodies were missing half of their heads and brain. They were also tasked with moving the brains in the bottles to the warehouse. The almost constant removal and burning of the bodies would come in spurts. Some days it would be a removal of around 20 bodies and this would go on for a week or two and them slow down until more live people could be gathered from above and brought to the big cells that were located close to the lab. Today had been a slow day for them. This load of bodies was only the second one and it looked like there would be no others. The crematorium was hot and there were times that they had to shut it down to clean out the ash and bone. This was always a better job for them because they would fill the dumps and then drive them into the great tunnel that used to run the tram. There was a place that was about 3 miles in where a giant whole was located on an off shoot tunnel. That is where they dumped the human ash.

Claude was sitting on the rear seat of forklift and jumped off to open the door into the warehouse. Buba wanted to hurry today because they were going to go up topside for the night. They both had been waiting for this. Their job included rounding up the homeless and others in the airport. They had the kits full of the drugs and would take the drugged people to the second basement and put them in a cell until they were done and finally start transporting them below. This usually could take a few days, sometimes more and it was the only time they got to see daylight. Claude unlatched the door and pushed it open into the warehouse and Buba threw the forklift into gear. Halfway through the opening something ran in front of the forklift and Buba stopped suddenly. That was his last moment in life. The android jumped on the forklift from the side and grabbed his head and twisted it in a swift motion. The headless body of Buba fell against the steering wheel and then fell off the seat as the blood gushed onto the floor. Claude had opened the door to its full swing and waited while the tractor pulled forward. He saw the motion in the front lights and then the tractor stopped and he was grabbed from behind. His head wound up on the bin of bodies while his body fell in a heap. The two androids that had stayed in the warehouse had completed the destruction and the shelving units lay in broken piles with human looking heads scattered among the twisted and bent steel racks. The brain containers had all been smashed and had been flung around the giant space.

Re: Story of fiction and fantasy and science fiction

Posted: Sat Apr 27, 2019 8:22 pm
by LostNFound
Alisha was still invisible when she found the two headless humans that drove the tractor. The motor was still running and the bodies were lying in a bloody pool on the floor. The door was open into the warehouse. The Androids were standing at the front of the tractor where the bin of bodies was stacked. She floated up over the tractor and dropped close to the androids and made them disappear. The next thing she did was make the tractor and its contents disappear and then the headless bodies. She looked around the warehouse and thought what a giant mess it was. She began to make the mess disappear into the ether. She was floating around and cleaning up the warehouse when Alice and Tamara showed up. They all then cleaned the entire warehouse and made the crematorium completely disappear which left a giant hole in the rear wall of the warehouse. There next move was to take out the warehouse that held all the headless bodies and found that the berserk androids and made a big mess in this place also. Alisha asked, did we get all those android creatures, I sent two away when I came here. I am not sure sister, we took care of the 4 that destroyed the lab and then cleaned that entire area and the cell area. There is nothing but a giant empty room and we should do the same with all of this before we go and find those weapons that Greybark told us about. The girls proceeded to do just that and the two warehouses became a very large space of emptiness as they moved into the Robotic factory and proceeded to do the same.

Sergeant Larry Miller was concerned because there had been no communication from the Captain and the other men that had went below when the power shut down earlier. The other men that were left on level one did not possess any keys to unlock the doors below so they could not get down there if needed. He cursed the Captain for not leaving Sergeant Soros up here and taking one of the others. There had been two full 10 man squads at one time guarding this place but just recently 6 of them had been transferred top side to guard the palace as it was called now. That left only 14 men to watch this entire underground city, even though it was not inhabited with the thousands of civilians it was designed for. The Captain and Sergeant Gerthy were down on level three in the upper control room watching the slave workers and the weird scientists when the power completely shut down on level four and five. He did not know the full extent of the shut down but some of the gear on this level had quit working. The surveillance system went haywire and most of the cameras shut down intermittently. Since Sergeant Soros had taken 6 men and went down the cameras had quit working altogether, they were effectively blind at this point. He had tried many times to call on the intercom but all he got was a strange dead air. As the hours passed by he and the remaining 4 men became more agitated. The fusing of the surface elevator door was spooky enough and the mere thought of having to cut through them gave all of them the creeps. His only thoughts about that were making a trek through that very long tram tunnel to get out of here. He had finally decided to station two of the men outside the elevator and stairwell. At least they had short wave Walkie talkies and could communicate with him.

The six androids that had split from the other group had quickly dispatched the 3 men that were in the robotic arm factory and moved into the outer warehouse. After searching around they found the parts storage boxes and spent time destroying them. They crushed and broke the parts into small pieces and stacked them in the middle of the large space just before the conveyors. The warehouse was quite huge and the 6 androids were spending much time trying to destroy the place when one of them found a row of boxes that contained bottles of sulfuric acid. They began to spill this liquid on the boxes and parts and soon enough the warehouse began to fill with the fumes as the acid ate into everything it was splashed upon. The androids broke the boxes open and punched holes in the bottles as they threw them in the stacked boxes of parts. Finally the all turned and left the heavily saturated air of sulfuric acid fumes. On the dock they found their way to the corridor and reached the stairwell door. They pulled the door off of its hinges and began their accent upward.

Corporal Buck Rodgers and Private Merkaleen had been sent to stand guard at the elevator shaft and stairwell. The doors were locked at both systems and no one left on the 1st level had the key cards to unlock the key pads. Inside the main guard post which was a luncheon style room, Larry Miller sat with corporal Ernst and Private Abbot playing a hand of poker. Sergeant Miller had tried again just 5 minutes prior to contact the team that was below. The dead air was still over the intercom. It did really seem like there was no system existing on the other end. He was fidgeting as he asked for two cards while the others did not seem to be all that troubled that more than half of their team just disappeared. Being down in this underground hell hole had made these men apathetic. They really did hate being down here and he had finally come to the same conclusion the first time he finally got to see what was happening on the 5th level. They all heard the weapons discharge echo in the corridor. Larry stood up quickly and told everyone to go hot with their weapons.

The Stairwell door flew open with a loud crash. Private Merkaleen had leaned against the opposite side of the corridor. When the door crashed open he jerked his rifle up with an automatic reflex and pulled the trigger. The first two androids that came through the opening split sideways and rushed him from two sides. Merkaleen did not have time to swing his rifle before the first android smashed his face. Corporal Rodgers reacted swiftly and did manage to shoot the one that took out Merkaleen. The android turned and stopped for a split second before rushing at him. Rodgers pulled his trigger and the stream of bullets ripped into the android. The bullets strafed up and down the androids torso and the ones that hit the head brought the thing to a dead stop within 3 feet of Rodgers. It fell to the floor like a sack of wet cement. Rodgers had backed up and the second one was almost on top of him by the time he reacted. The android ripped the rifle from his hands and flung it into the wall while grabbing Rodgers by the neck and performing a twisting motion. Rodgers headless body fell to the floor as the other 4 androids entered the corridor from the stairwell.

In the guard room, Sergeant Miller motioned for everyone to spread out as he began to turn the lighting system off. The three men inside the room positioned themselves behind tables and other objects and pointed their weapons at the double doors. None of them knew what was happening but they definitely were ready. The automatic discharging of the rifles had given them all a sense of dread. Something was out there on this level. They could not run anywhere at this point and this situation had never happened to them. Most of them had never experienced any kind of combat and Larry could feel the fear in the darkness of the room. He had made sure he would not be in the line of fire when whatever or whoever it was come through the doors. He knew there was going to be a major blast of bullets flying into that area. In fact he was hoping for that. It wasn’t long before the doors burst open and the shooting began. Every man shot into the opening. Larry couldn’t see if anyone came in or went down from the barrage of bullets and then stopped firing. He ejected the empty mag and replaced it with a full 30 round mag. He pulled the bolt back and the quiet became deafening. The men had done the same thing that he did and everyone had full mag’s ready. Nothing happened, there were no dead bodies on the floor but the doors stayed open. The walls through the doors on the far side of the corridor were riddled with bullet holes and the doors themselves also had bullet holes and one was hanging from a broken hinge.

The light from the corridor flooded through the shattered doors as the 5 androids rushed in. The shooting began once again and two of the androids went down before they got through the doorway. The three that made it inside had picked their targets and actually made it to their destination. Corporal Ernst and Private Abbot shot the androids that jumped on them. Corporal Ernst was the first to die as the android punched him in the chest and buried its fist through the corporal’s body. The android had been riddled and its face was torn open from the bullets but it was still operating until Private Abbot blew the head into pieces. Private Abbot was knocked back by the second android and Miller blew its head into many pieces. The third android had made it to Larry and pulled his rifle from his hands. It then had grabbed him around the neck and started to twist when its head burst into many pieces. Larry felt the hand release him and fell backward as the creature fell off to the side. The shooting and shouting stopped and the room became completely quiet. Larry moved slowly and retrieved his rifle while looking at Abbot.

Sergeant Larry Miller kept his eyes on the open doorway and after a few minutes he whispered to Abbot. “Abbot, you okay?” “Yes Sergeant, a bit bruised on my neck but okay.” “I think Ernst dead. What the hell are these things and where did they come from?” Larry Miller thought he knew the answer to that but wasn’t sure. “I think these things come from down below. I didn’t think any of them had been completed yet according to the Captain anyway. The things are part of that android army the Emperor has been waiting on. Those damn scientists were making these things and all those people we brought down here were working in the factory and warehouses. If those things got loose down there it could be that the Captain and the team that went down there are dead. We need to check on Rodgers and Merkaleen.”

The girls had created one giant empty space on the fifth level of the city structure. The only thing left was the columns that held the structure up. The entire thing had been built inside the carved out underground area. It was a very big space and the military had brought construction crews down here to build the actual 5 story building that covered a half mile square area when completed. It all had been self supported away from the rock walls of the underground. The rotunda had been part of the underground space, separated from the city and the Tram tunnel had been drilled separately. When Alice had first looked up the wall of the 5 story structure she thought is was part of the rock walls but now she knew it was part of the separate building that had been constructed. It was as if they had built a very large 5 story building unconnected to the earth except for the base system. Tamara said that they should make the structure fall in on its self when they left through the tunnel system. That would take care of the underground below the Airport and the Emperor would never be able to access it again. The girls agreed and moved to the edge of the tunnel. They knew this hole was going to become a very large pile of debris and they would have to move quickly into the depths of the tunnel to escape. Alisha said the entrance to this tunnel would be sealed so that no one would ever be able to get through. They moved into the tunnel where it made its turn and pictured it all in there minds and turned into the no-time and back out in the center of the building. They dissolved the columns and quickly disappeared back into the tunnel.

On the 1st level of the underground city, Sergeant Larry Miller and Private Abbot found the headless bodies of Corporal Buck Rodgers and Private Merkaleen. They saw the stairwell door open and started to enter the stairwell cautiously just as the building began to pancake downward. Larry tried to jump down the stairs as they completely fell from underneath them. Both men fell to their death screaming as they hit the steel pile of broken up stairs. The entire building fell in on itself and created a large cloud of smoke and dust. The entrance to the tram tunnel was buried under the tons and tons of steel and concrete. The fires that ensued from the destruction were quickly extinguished by a sprinkler system that had become unattached to the piping system from above. The giant holding tanks of water that had been buried only 50 feet from the surface drained their entirety of 550,000 gallons down the long pipes into the giant carved out hole, onto the smashed and broken building. The cave became flooded and could not drain due to the amount of debris that had blocked the tram tunnel. The girls had levitated away further into the tunnel as the noise could be heard. Their new objective was to find the weapons and make them go away before the emperor could use them against the Nation of Texas.

Re: Story of fiction and fantasy and science fiction

Posted: Wed May 08, 2019 12:42 am
by LostNFound
61 THE BATTLE FOR AMARILLO

Major Nicolas Cramer looked at his chronometer for the umpteenth time. It was 22:25 hours on the 6th of May. The officers and enlisted men were filing into the Main Preparation room. The meeting would be starting within the next 15 minutes. Cramer had been waiting for this moment in time for ever it seemed. Before Texas had seceded he had been on his way up the ladder to become the Governor. His plans to rule the State with an iron fist were dashed by the short civil war that incurred by the Texas Free peoples to secede from the UNITED STATES and declare themselves a free and independent Nation. He was almost hanged in Houston before a small group of his most loyal Secret Service men snatched him away from the one calling himself, James Bowie the third. The man and his compatriots had managed to take control of the capitol with the help of the Texas National Guard and the civil but quick and bloody war ended. Cramer had escaped and joined the Emperor’s Army in hopes of taking the State back. He was given the honorary rank of lieutenant at first and soon clawed his way to being a Major. The fort at the I-40 border was a perk he enjoyed and now he was very glad to be in charge of it. Tomorrow at 05:00 am he would begin to invade the state and take Amarillo first on his way to Houston. He was going to lay waste to Amarillo and there were going to be a lot of dead Texans. His plans when he became the governor were to imprison half the state in the old FEMA camps and use the secret gas chambers to reduce the population. He had no remorse about killing these people off. The Emperor had sanctioned the death of many anyway. Ten minutes later, the teams were assembled and he began to tell them the attack plans.

The meeting broke up around 23:15 hours and the Major went straight to his room. He was going to get a few hours of sleep before this all began. He sat at the little table next to his bed and ran the battle maneuvers through his head once more while he drank the whiskey and milk concoction that always put him to sleep. He was still pissed about the amount of troops he had for this harebrained scheme of the Emperor. He had managed to get two half assed companies together. He thought he would have at least 4 full companies but no, those damn generals had to split everything up including his chopper squadron and some of the Humvee’s. He felt fortunate that they left him the 4 tanks and 5 of the 7 howitzers he had originally. He had 5 choppers and that would be enough to escort the howitzers along with two tanks. He was sending one tank to the north and one to the south to reinforce the ground troops as they pushed across the border. The troops would have 4 Humvee’s for additional ground support. The troops had already begun to string out along the border to the North and the South. He had given orders for that to happen 3 days earlier. Tonight the tank commanders were leaving that would be the ground support. The choppers were sitting on stand by and would be the first ones across the border to escort the howitzers along with the other two tanks. He knew there would be resistance from the Texans but he did not know how far in he would get before they attacked. He needed to get the howitzers within 50 miles of Amarillo before they could start shooting. His objective was to get them within 20 miles which would be the ultimate distance to pinpoint the targets. The choppers would make their strafing runs and give coordinance for targets. Another point of contention and high irritation to him was the fact that only two of the choppers had the dispance cloaks that worked so three of them would be vulnerable. The two that he sent south should have been kept but they would be strategic at that Farwell entrance. He finally went to sleep and dreamed of a wondrous victory over Texas.

Lieutenant Adam Weisman had been watching closely the activity at the fort. He had been in constant contact with Lieutenant Kenneth Thompson since they had brought the Howitzers from Amarillo and placed them in their positions. He watched the emperors troops move in small squads toward the south as Kenneth had did the same with them moving toward the north. When the tanks moved out, one to the north and one to the south earlier in the evening it threw up the red flag that this movement was getting ready to make their move against Texas. They also watched the Humvee’s move in each direction. It was 0200 hours and he could see the troops starting to move closer to the border. They were strung out in a long line as he watched. He called Kenneth and said “are you seeing what is happening? I think this thing is going down. I have heard from Jason wheeler that the citizens have already become ready for the fire fight that is coming. Those folks have set up their lines about 1 mile from the border and Jason had told me that they have two lines waiting, Good move I say.” Kenneth called back and said “yes we are watching them move now. I want to hit what ever artillery they send through that wall first. I think the tanks will take the lead followed by those howitzers. If we can disable the tanks first in the road then the howitzers will have to go around and the ground over there is not real friendly for those heavy vehicles.”

Captain Theodore Miason received the Intel from Lieutenant Thompson and gave the order to go hot. The small base sounded the alarm and the chopper pilots and crew boarded their birds and had them spinning the rotors in warm up for takeoff. The tank commanders had already left a day earlier and were spreading themselves out to combat any enemy tanks that would come in from the north and south. Second Lieutenant Nicholas Dansing drove his tank along the I-40 straight at the border while Second Lieutenant Kirk Olaf drove his tank to the north and Lieutenant Dani Hollister took hers to the south. They meant to provide support for the civilians as well as the troops that had already spread out from the howitzer positions. Miason had kept a platoon of men in the city and they were spread out in small groups forming a half moon line around the western sides of the city. The civilians that stayed had gathered and filled the ranks with the soldiers. The city was guarded if the emperor’s minions managed to break through the front lines at the border.

Joe Morton stood in the turret of his Lav-25 and scoped out the northern border. The Lav-25 was parked behind some yucca trees and camouflaged fairly well. His two sons Timothy and Robert was on the little rise to his left scoping the scene out also. They had climbed the small hill to get a better view. They could see the emperor’s troops advancing across the border. It was 0500 am and the troops had been on the move for about 30 minutes now. The line of them spread from around1 or 2 miles north of the fort to about 7 miles to the north. The troops seemed to be in small groups as they snaked their way around the juniper and yucca trees into the washes and around the small hills that pock marked this terrain. Joe had been notified that a heavy tank had come up this way during the night and he was going to confront it as it came across the border. They had the old fashioned head phones that worked from the small battery pack on one ear piece so they could talk to each other within a certain distance up to 2 miles. Timothy finally said “dad the tank is holding close to your left just at the border. There are two Humvee’s spaced about 3 or 4 hundred yards on each side of the damn thing. Those troops are moving slowly but at a steady pace. I think that tank is holding to see if the troops are attacked then it can sight in any points from there.” Joe acknowledged and told them to get back to the LAV. He was going to move it slowly to get a better shot at the tank and the two Humvee’s. There are a crop of boulders to my right and if we can get in behind them we may be able to zero in on that damn tank for sure, you boys are going to have to pay real close attention to the Humvee’s. Those have the 20’s and we all know how deadly they can be. Somewhere out in front of us there may be the patriots waiting for those soldiers so we have to be sure we don’t shoot any of them.

1600 yards to the north and one half mile back of Joe and his son’s position Second Lieutenant Kirk Olaf and his crew of two, Sergeant Yhanny Petri and Corporal Tommy Bloom rolled their heavy tank along a low wash. Kirk was in contact with Lieutenant Thompson and the other tank commanders at this time and the head of the civilian patriot’s force that was lined along the northern border. Anton Freeman had contacted The Captain at the base that in turn put him in touch with the tank commanders and Lieutenant Kenneth Thompson. Joe had been contacted by Anton and all the front line force were not in constant contact on their secure lines. The Intel rolled in to all as each saw what was coming. The enemy was on the move without a doubt now and everyone was bracing.

Major Cramer had climbed aboard one of the two choppers that had a working dispance cloak and gave the order to advance. The time was 0440am and he was quite anxious to kill someone today. His psychopathic brain had kicked into thrill mode and his calmness took over as the chopper rose from the pad and disappeared with its cloaking device activated. He was going to fly over the ground toward Amarillo and give SITREP’s of troop movements and any heavy armor that would be in their way as they advanced toward the city. The other cloaked chopper was going to circle to the south and come into Amarillo from the east. The three that did not have the cloaks would lead the charge on the I-40 ahead of the two tanks and the howitzers along with troops in the transports and Humvee’s. The big steel door opened in the wall on the Texas border and Lieutenant Shermis drove the first heavy battle tank through, followed by the second heavy tank driven by Lieutenant Lars Richstance. The three uncloaked choppers rose from their pads and flew over the tanks toward the city of Amarillo on the old I-40. The 5 howitzers were in a line behind the tanks and slowly crawled forward toward the big door. The first 185 round from the Texas side hit the first tank and the explosion was deafening. The tank exploded into a thousand pieces as the ordinance aboard began to explode with it. The second tank swerved to the south and rolled through the smoke and flames to avoid the destruction now roiling into the sky. The second 185 round from the Texas side exploded to the side of the tank and blew its right tread off. The tank came to an immediate stop and swiveled its turret toward the area the shot came from. It raised its cannon barrel to target the area and before it could fire another 185 round blew it into another fireball. The two burning hunks of metal now blocked the road way but the small Humvee’s could still get around and so swarmed out into the open ground. The howitzers were still inside the fort on the New Mexico side and began to move to positions where they could set the stabilizers down and raise their guns. The 185 rounds continued to rain into the fort and took one of the howitzers out that exploded with its ordinance and caused another one to explode with it. The troop carriers had swerved off and the men were bailing out as fire broke out around them. The three howitzers that remained had managed to move away from the gate area and quickly dropped their stabilizers and began to raise their guns from the cabs. The crews were busy getting everything ready to fire as more 185’s rained into the fort and created major damage.

The Major watched his first two tanks get blown to pieces and saw the shells hitting the howitzers inside the fort. He began to scream and curse and tell the chopper pilots to take out the damn guns that were firing at them. Lieutenant Eiseman banked the chopper to the north and flew in a wide arc toward the north and back toward the east. He came in low and didn’t see the howitzer until he flew over it. The big gun was under camouflage and whoever did it was an expert. He pulled up and banked back toward the west to come in and make a strafing run with his twin 30’s. He would fire the SRM-20’s first to take the gun out and strafe any personnel he could see. As he banked the bird they all saw the first uncloaked chopper explode in the air. The second one was making a low strafing run when it also exploded. Eiseman ignored the destruction and banked the cloaked bird into a south run at the big gun. The Major was cursing and yelling. Eiseman wanted to shoot the SOB but he was busy concentrating on the target. The sight focal lined up with the targeted area and he fired the first bank of SRM’s. That was the last thing he did in this corporeal life as out of nowhere a bank of missiles blew his clocked chopper to smithereens.

Samuel and Mary had taken their chopper directly to the Amarillo base. Michael had talked to them about the rather bigger buildup at the I-40 fort and thought they would be needed at that place first. They had stopped and talked with Captain Theodore Miason and when the word had come that the invasion had begun, they took off with the other choppers. Two of them went north and two went south as Samuel and Mary flew in formation with Lieutenant Mark Levoy and his crew. Bill had perfected a tracking and disclosing device to render the old dispance cloak used by the Emperor’s military useless. They could see the cloaked choppers and any other vehicle the emperor’s army could use. When they reached the ongoing battle, Samuel came in over the other choppers and saw the one that appeared to be zeroing in on one of the howitzers. He banked around and came at the chopper at an oblique angle as it shot its first bank of missiles at the big gun. He let his missiles go just as the enemy ship shot theirs and watched the chopper explode as its missiles hit the big gun. Marks crew took out two of the other choppers and someone on the ground took out the third one with an RPG. The howitzer that got hit survived the blast miraculously but could not fire its gun. Samuel did not know how many might have lost their lives in that blast. He was looking for anymore cloaked choppers and did not see any. They counted 4 birds down and that left one so Samuel decided to fly over the fort to see if the 5th one was still on the ground.

To the north, the emperor’s soldiers moved in small groups across the border with 4 Humvee’s spread out around 600 yards apart. The Tank crew commanded by Second Lieutenant Malcolm Linstrum sat on the border in the center point of the troop line. Linstrum was waiting for any communications from the soldiers to pin point a target or targets so he could lob his 130mm shells in that direction. The tank cannon had a range of two miles with 70 percent accuracy at the maximum range. Any thing within a mile he could hit dead on. The troops had marched into Texas around ¾’s of a mile when they heard the shelling south of them. Linstrum knew that was on the old I-40 and hoped the big guns were taking care of anything in their way as they marched toward Amarillo.

Two miles from the border south of the fort, Bob Corbett, his son Billy and Jake Holland his best ranch hand drove the LAV-25 through the wash that ran north and south and came to a spot where they could climb out and onto the flat ground. Billy brought the vehicle to a stop and Jake jumped off and crawled to the top of the bank. He found some brush to look through and scoped the landscape for activity. The little hills and trees blocked his view so he scurried to the nearest hill and climbed to the top. As he looked through his binoculars he could see the border. The soldiers had crossed it he was sure and were moving slowly toward them. He could see a few Humvee’s moving slowly also and then he saw the tank as it had come out of a wash. The thing looked as if it might be in front of the troops as they walked. He couldn’t tell how far they were into Texas but it was sure they were in Texas and moving eastward. This troop movement and the armored vehicles could make their way to Amarillo within a good day if they weren’t stopped. He knew that the civilian patriots were hiding out in the desert and more than likely within a mile from that border. It was closing in on taking that tank out now before they could do real damage to the people. He scurried back down the hill and made it back to the LAV and told Bob what was out in front of them. “We can get out of the wash here or we could continue south until we can come around and hit them from their side. I am not sure how many troops they have but I did see at least four of those Humvee’s spread out on each side on that damn tank.” Bob shook his head in acknowledgement and said “what’s the terrain like? can we get up and make our way forward without being seen?” Jake said he thought they would have a good chance now but if they wait too much longer they will see us for sure. There are many of the mounds and trees between us so if we are going we had better do it now.” The LAV crawled up the bank and righted itself on the level ground and began to roll through the trees and around the mounds. Bob wanted to be within 1000 yards before they cut loose with their 25mm chain gun.

Re: Story of fiction and fantasy and science fiction

Posted: Wed May 08, 2019 12:45 am
by LostNFound
Further to the south at about the same longitude Lieutenant Dani Hollister and her crew of two, Sergeant Peter Tyman and Sergeant Constance Banner drove the M1A30 tank through the spotty desert terrain. They were going to come up on the south end of the Emperor’s troops and attack. They knew the people would be entrenched and waiting for the troops but it was those damn Humvee’s and perhaps a tank that would be a very devastating thing to deal with by people that might only have heavy machine guns and a few RPG’s. Dani had received communication from Kenneth Thompson who receive word from Jason Wheeler about the troops and the light armor plus the Tank on the south side of the fort.

Lieutenant Leo George and his copilot flew the second cloaked chopper to the south for 10 miles before he banked it into the east and crossed into Texas. Their mission was to fly to Amarillo and get Intel on the troop compliment and armor. He also needed to know how many choppers they might have at that base. As they entered the Texas air space he noticed the explosions to the north. It looked as it the fort was being attacked, which was not supposed to happen. He thought the Major would be able to handle whoever was doing the attacking and continued his flight path. He was 10 miles in when his copilot spotted the tank heading for the border. They had not seen the devastation of the other choppers at this point and so did not know that the Major had been killed. He radioed their position and the tanks position and received dead air. He tried to get one of the other choppers but the dead air was persistent. He finally radioed the tank crew that was on the south run.

Lieutenant Vince Humphries and his two crew members drove the M1A30 tank into Texas just ahead of the troop line that pushed forward. The Humvee’s stayed even with him at the slow steady pace. He was to drive in about 1 mile and hold position until the troops caught up and moved past him. The Humvee’s were to do the same. His tank was only ½ mile in when the fort began to explode and as he moved further he saw the choppers explode in the sky. It was when the cloaked bird with the Major on board blew up and became visible as it fell to earth in many pieces that he began to think that this mission had just gone completely wrong. He could see the fires at the fort burning and watched as more explosions roiled into the air. Someone was shelling from somewhere out here in this desert. He hollered at Sergeant Waliabe to stop the tank. The sergeant complied and the heavy machine came to an abrupt rest. He was told that they were just over a half mile in and asked what his orders were from this point. Humphries was looking at the devastation that was unfolding to their north and his mind was blank at the moment. This was not supposed to happen, kept flooding his thoughts. Waliabe heard the call from Lieutenant George then and told Vince who picked up the com and said “Lieutenant George, this is Humphries. What the hell is happening, it looks like we have been attacked and we lost the choppers and maybe two of the tanks, I can’t tell from here.” Lieutenant George told him that the he couldn’t contact the Major and there was an enemy tank headed his way. “Lieutenant, I do believe the Major may be dead. I saw his chopper go down. You need to turn around and get back here; we are going to need you. These damn Texans knew somehow when we were going to attack. We may be in danger of loosing the entire fort at this point. I am going to turn around and go back to defend the fort until we can hopefully get some reinforcements.”

Lieutenant George acknowledged the plight of Vincent Humphries. It seemed to him that the mission to Amarillo had just been cancelled. His mind gathered itself and his next thought was to take out the tank that was moving toward the border. At least he could stop something on his way back to the bigger fight. He banked the chopper into a big arc and made the mini guns go hot. He was a good mile east of the tank as it rolled toward the west and brought the chopper down to the floor as he played the focal on his screen. The chopper dropped into a strafing run about 100 feet up and seemed to pick up speed. He began to pull the trigger on the mini-gun when out of the front windshield he saw the flight of 5 SRM-20’s coming in from a higher position in the sky. He could see no source of the missiles but heard his co-pilot screaming. The missiles connected and Leo’s last visual was the bird shattering into a billion pieces.

Lieutenant William Rivers and his co-pilot Sergeant Jack Holms spotted the cloaked bird heading east as they flew toward the west. Their bird was cloaked with the new system and had been outfitted with the device to see the old style cloaking system. Second Lieutenant Margaret Williams and her co-pilot Corporal Judy Hollister, who was Dani Hollister’s younger sister, flew the second chopper as they made their way to the southern invasion force. William had watched the cloaked bird bank into its arc and go into a strafe run at Dani’s tank. He zeroed in on the bird and fired his left side missiles. They watched the enemy bird fire its mini guns just before the missiles made contact and the whole ship blew into many chunks at it became visible and flashed across the air into the ground. The 30mm rounds hit the back of the tank and brought it to a stop. William brought his bird to the ground in a hurry as did Margaret. The tank was smoking from the rear while Dani and her crew jump out of the turret and used extinguishers to put out the flames. William was the first to reach the tank and ask if Dani was alright. Dani looked at him with a smile and said “of course Billy boy thanks for the bit of air play.” William almost laughed but smiled instead. Damnit Dani I told you these bastards would have cloaked ships.” He reached up with his arms and Dani jumped into them which knocked him over. “Geez Billy you could get me hurt more than that damn bird.” He rolled her over and looked into her face as she smiled. The next thing that happened was he kissed her. She responded to that with a kiss back and a hug then pushed him off. All the other crew members were standing around smiling. They all knew how these two were in love and they were always bantering with each other. It was a favorite of the crew to watch whatever happened between these two during these moments. Margaret looked at them and said “hey you two, this is not the time to get all lovey dovey, we got a damn invasion to stop in case you all forgot. Can we get this tank back into the running or is it done?” Dani smiled and William helped her up. “Well then Margaret I guess we need to get back to work. The tank should still run but it will be a bit rough, those damn 30’s took the cooling system out and we had to shut her down because she got real hot all of a sudden. We are going to let her cool down while we try to jury rig the system back to some use. You all need to get back in the fray. We can still shoot and will follow as soon as we get the cooler back on so get your butts up there and let’s get this damn skirmish over with. I thinks its time we took that damn fort off our front porch don’t you?”

Bob Corbett was in the turret watching the enemy tank. They had been parked in a big patch of boulders and he could see through the crevice that was created between two of them. He had watched the tank roll closer and then stop. It was somewhere close to a third of a mile from his location. The troops were still a few hundred yards behind it and Jack and Billy could see the Humvee’s stoop their movement also. Something seemed to be happening that he could not see. They did hear the shelling and explosions from the north but kept their eyes on the invaders in front of them. Billy told his dad that the troops had all of sudden stopped their movement. There was definitely something going on that had perhaps changed the game these invaders had planned. Bob was not going to wait much longer. He knew he could hit the tank from here but it would be better if he made a run at it. The next thing that happened was the tank began to roll forward then spun around and started to move back toward the border. Bob told Billy and Jack to get aboard they would give this bastard a chase.

Jason wheeler sat in his dug out and watched the tank come closer. The Emperors men were slowly advancing closer to the people’s lines. Every body had called in and was ready. The tenseness could be felt up and down the lines. Every heavy machine gun had already been primed and the RPGs were loaded and aimed at the Humvee’s as they rolled slowly forward at the same speed as the tank. They all were on edge and when the explosions from the big guns first sounded it was if they all could have jumped straight up into the air. They all had worked very hard during the night time to dig the trenches they all waited in. The machine guns were covered well with the sage brush and what ever else they had for camouflage. They all knew that when the soldiers reached a certain distance of 100 yards the shooting would begin. They got to see the choppers get taken down and heard that two tanks went down at the wall gate. Someone else passed the word that possibly two of the howitzers had been put out of commission inside the fort and the shelling continued from the Texas side. The tank had suddenly stopped and the Humvee’s stopped and Jason watched the whole thing happen as if the world came to a halt. The troops stopped and everybody held their breath. It was almost 10 minutes later when the tank rolled forward and spun itself 180 degrees and started to move back from where it had come from. Jason watched this with relief but high suspicion. The Humvee’s also made a wide turn and began to return toward the border. The troops did not appear to move at first then all of sudden they too turned and started walking away.

The loud cracking sound of the 25mm chain gun made Jason jump; he turned and looked toward the south. What the Hell he said quickly and then saw the LAV-25 moving toward the tank as it retreated and shooting the chain gun. The shells were exploding against the turret and the rear of the tank and then it stopped with smoke broiling from its rear. The turret began to swivel around toward the attacking vehicle. Jason saw two of the Humvee’s turning and beginning to speed toward the LAV. Damnit whoever was in the LAV had just started the conflict that was on its way to dissolving its self. Bob was standing at the twin .50’s as the chain gun was pumping its shots at the tank. Billy was driving as Jack operated the chain gun. The tank stopped and was smoking from its rear as it swiveled its turret and the big cannon was lowering as it came around. Bob told Billy to stop and asked Jack to sight the barrel of the cannon. Sure enough the tank shot a round at them but it flew over their head and exploded into the boulders that they had left. The tank barrel lowered some more but it was too late. Jack had zeroed in on the end of the barrel and shot the chain gun. It pumped 2 rounds down the throat of the barrel and the turret exploded and rose off the tank as it shattered. The explosions shot streamers of red and black rockets in all directions.

Bob watched the tank explode, the entire turret rose and exploded in many pieces of fire balls and fell on the ground. He didn’t see the Humvee that came from the south until the 20mm mini gun rounds hit the side of the LAV. Two of the tires exploded and he turned the .50’s around and let loose the dogs of hell on the Humvee. It exploded also as Billy rammed the LAV into gear and drove it around the burning pile of metal. The LAV was hard to steer now that two of its tires were flat but he managed to get it close to the tank as the other Humvee came at them. Bob spun the 50’s around and shot the front of the vehicle. The glass broke into shards but its 20’s pumped into the LAV with a fierce burring sound. Jack shot the chain gun into it just before the LAV stopped completely The Humvee exploded into a fireball and the 20mm gun blew rounds into the air and over the ground as everything twisted and fused. The other two Humvee’s had made a wide arc and were heading toward the melee when the missiles from two cloaked choppers blew them into the air and twisted them into a mass of molten metal. The troops had watched the fiasco happen and began to run toward the border. None of them tried to shoot back as they scurried away. Bob lay over the 50’s as blood ran from him onto the guns and into the turret. Black smoke roiled from inside the LAV as Billy and Jack both climbed out. Jack tried to get Bob off the guns but could not move him. Billy finally pulled Jack loose from his efforts and both men fell to the ground. Billy pulled jack away from the LAV and was struggling with him when two men ran up and helped. They all were pulling when the LAV blew its top and knocked them all down.

Second Lieutenant Malcolm Linstrum stood in the turret of the M1A30 tank and watched the Troops cautiously walk into Texas. The shelling and explosions had become more pronounced now and he was becoming more thrilled that this little war had finally begun. He had fought the Mexicans for 5 years and then was transferred to the most boring spot he could think of after he had sustained several injuries attacking a Mexican stronghold. This damn fort never gave him a chance to grab his glory again and he was close to leaving the damn Army and joining a Mercenary group that were heading for Africa when the news of this skirmish came to the Major about invading Texas and taking it back for the Emperor. He really didn’t give a crap about the puny dictator but his chance finally came to see some real action again. This tank was his baby and made sure it was taken care of properly. He had gone through as many as 20 other men to finally get the crew he could trust. Almost all the men on the base or fort as the idiots called it hated him and he knew it. He was the perfect bastard to them and that’s the way he liked it. His two crew mates were very similar to his demeanor. He watched with a boring attitude as the soldiers walked slowly and then his world lit up. He was a mile away but he could hear the ratatatat of the machine guns and looking through his binoculars he watched the soldiers fall in groups as whoever was shooting raked the line of them. God he thought, how damn dumb does one have to be to walk in a tight group such as those idiots into a battle field. He hollered at Sergeant Scabbard and told him to get ready. Sergeant Placard had already loaded a round into the breach and was waiting for the go order to fire.

One mile from the border, the line of entrenched patriots watched with anticipation as the enemy soldiers moved closer. Anton Freeman kneeled in the trench almost due east from the one lone tank that sat at the border. He knew whoever was commanding the thing was waiting for a coordinance to fire that damn cannon at. He had given the orders to the people to wait until the soldiers reached the point of 100 yards before firing. He knew that this was going to be a blood bath because those soldiers were to close together as they walked toward the line. The 50’s were scattered about 200 yards apart and there were RPG’s spaced about that far apart also. He and the others kept a close eye on the Humvee’s and fortunately they only had 4 of them as far as he could see. The mini guns would be deadly but every one knew they couldn’t shoot into the ground with real accuracy so the trenches were there best protection at this time. He had hoped for the best but for now this was his best. Tanks and choppers were being used further to the south and the noise of shelling and explosions could be heard down that way. The crucial moment arrived and Jonas Oppenhauser was the first to pull the trigger. His .50 raked the line of soldiers that stepped past that magic line in the sand and 10 soldiers went down into eternity. The line began to fire their AR25’s and the other .50’s as the world exploded with automatic fire from both sides.

Re: Story of fiction and fantasy and science fiction

Posted: Wed May 08, 2019 12:49 am
by LostNFound
Joe Morton and his two sons’, Timothy and Robert sat on the LAV that was camouflaged. Joe had brought the LAV to a point of 1.2 miles from the border and they could see the tank to their North sitting on the border waiting like a snake getting ready to strike. Joe wasn’t sure about the range and knew that most of the time anything more than a half of a mile was out of range to the 25mm chain gun. The accuracy diminished as the distance grew past that mark. Robert had shot the gun at a target that was a mile away and it took a few rounds before he get close enough to do any damage. In fact, Robert was an excellent sniper with a .50 caliber rifle and could pinpoint anything at a mile. They had brought along his rifle for this skirmish and Robert had taken it and hiked to a small hill that was a few hundred yards closer to the tank. He had ten, ten round mag’s for the semi-automatic rifle and was now positioned on the top of the hill under some sage brush. When the shooting started Joe was getting ready to run the LAV across the expanse and get close enough to the tank to lob his 25’s into it. He knew that would be a real risky maneuver but he would do it for the Nation of Texas. Timothy could drive and the 25 was like other rifles. It was a semi automatic and could be fired by the driver of the vehicle. Joe heard Robert on the headset tell him that the shooting was quite fierce and while he was speaking they heard the explosion. One of the Humvee’s had been hit with a RPG rocket and blew up. The other three were making runs at the entrenched line of fire and strafing the ground. Joe looked at the tank and saw the barrel raise and turn toward the left. The boom from the barrel as the 130mm round was spit out the end was deafening even at this distance. The round exploded into a northern area of the trench or so Joe thought as he watched. He thought he could see bodies flying out of the ground. The son a bitch had caught his range and if something did not happen fast those people were going to be butchered by that damnable thing.

Kirk Olaf and his crew had stopped in the wash and Corporal Tommy bloom had climbed the bank and found a spot where he could see the border. They had come in further to the north than the invading force. Dani had called in earlier and said she was down for awhile to fix a cooling system. Second Lieutenant Nicholas Dansing had called in and said he was Rendezvousing with Kenneth Thompson who had lost his howitzers use. The other Howitzer was still firing but the fort was lobbing rounds outward at them from at least two howitzers. Kirk knew they had to clean that tank out of the way so they could come in from the north. He could hear the rapid fire of automatic weapons and then the boom of the tank firing and the explosion of the impact. Tommy came scrambling down the bank and said “we gotta get up there; the enemy is firing into the patriots line and killing them.” They all got back on the tank and moved out. Yhanny was the driver and he ran the beast up the side of the bank and crested over the edge. They were now in the open and the targeting system showed the enemy tank in front of them. The distance was around 2 miles but that was perfect for Bloom who knew his ordinance and was an excellent shot.

Malcolm Linstrum was pissed. Sergeant Placard couldn’t get a lock on the target scope. There wasn’t anything to get a lock on so he was relying on some radioman to give him at least a bearing to go by. Malcolm was looking through his binoculars as the troops were being mowed down. He watched as two of the Humvee’s exploded and was about to give the order to roll into Texas and find these damn people and blast them to smithereens when someone finally came over the radio with some bearings and coordinance. Placard punched the information into his computer and hit the enter button. The Barrel on the tank rose just a bit and the turret swiveled toward the north. Malcolm looked through the binoculars and said fire. He was wearing the heavy earphones as the boom and fireball rolled from the end of the barrel and the round flew in its ark to its destination. The round hit the ground to the north of center and he saw a bunch of bodies fly up and land on the ground. “Those son’s a bitches are in a trench. Set your bearing just south of the last setting and let’s clean the trench.” Placard punched in the numbers and started to hit enter when Malcolm yelled at him. DAMNIT, THERE IS ANOTHER ENEMY TANK TO OUR NORTH AND THEY LOOK LIKE THEY ARE GETTING READY TO SHOOT AT US. GET YOUR TARGET ON IT FAST. Placard complied and the barrel swung with the turret until the target focal locked on the tank. The distance was a tad over 2 miles and that made the focal hard to lock on solidly. Malcolm was screaming now and said FIRE DAMNIT. The enemy tank fired first but a split second later Placard fired also. The round from the enemy tank landed just short but the shock wave rocked the tank. Placards round fell way short and the enemy tank moved to the west and south as it brought its barrel up higher. Malcolm yelled at Scabbard to move the tank closer. He knew that damn Texas tank was zeroing in on them by its maneuver and he wasn’t going to let it get any closer. His calculated move would put them closer but Placard had experience at shooting on the run and that is what he was hoping for as Scabbard rocked the tank and took off straight for the enemy. Malcolm was looking through his binoculars when his life ended. The .50 cal bullet entered his right upper shoulder and exited the left side of his body just under the armpit. It took his heart with it and his spirit left the corporeal existence as it jumped into a black hole.

Robert Morton had his sights on the man standing in the top of the turret and when the tank began to move he had to readjust quickly before the range was lost. His Dad and brother were getting ready to take the LAV and make a run at the thing when the impact of a round from somewhere hit just in front of the enemy tank and it began to move toward the north. He readjusted and took the shot. He saw the man go down a few seconds later and looked to the north. There was another tank about 2 miles or so and it was moving to the west and south. He hollered at his Dad and told him to wait. Joe barely heard him but told Timothy to stop.

Kirk could see the tank begin to move toward them as they were doing the same. He knew that bloom was very good at motion shooting and the enemy was moving closer. He spoke and told Bloom to catch the rabbit on the run which was their code for shooting a moving target while they were moving. Tommy was using the joy stick to move the barrel and swivel the turret now and the focal was getting closer to the target as they moved toward it and it move toward them. This was a running battle that was his expertise. In the Minion tank Placard was doing the same as Scabbard was driving straight into hell. Neither of them new that Malcolm was dead and were far to busy to care anyway. With the motion of both tanks they had closed to within a mile of each. The drivers of the tanks had access to the targeting computer and drove the tanks accordingly with help from the gunners. Placard was the first to fire and the round overshot the advancing Texans. The reload was fast but not fast enough. Tommy had seen the shot from the other tank and knew it would miss. He had lowered the barrel so it was horizontal with the ground and waited just a few seconds before he fired as the focal locked on. He had been swiveling the turret and moving the barrel slightly until that happened and he fired. The round impacted just below the barrel and under the turret of the oncoming tank. The blast rocked the enemy tank as it moved forward and came to a stop. The turret was cocked to the right and the barrel looked as if it was twisted and sticking into the air. Black smoke was roiling out from under the cocked turret. Yhanny slowed their movement but Tommy had already reloaded and had the focal locked on the enemy tank as they continued to move closer. Kirk saw the man trying to crawl out of the cocked turret and thought they could help him if they could reach the burning mess in time but just as they passed the 300 yard mark the entire thing exploded into a giant fireball.

Placard knew that they were dead when his first round overshot the Texas tank. He had just completed the reloading when the round impacted at the front of the turret. He was thrown back against the gear and Scabbard died immediately from the impact. The tank slowed and stopped and the black smoke choked him. He had a broken rib or something and waited for a moment before climbing toward the opening. The turret was broken but he could just make it through the hatchway. He was poking through the black smoke and clearly saw the Texas tank rolling toward him. He was going to surrender and his mind was filled with peace when the ordinance exploded, His spirit was knocked into the universe at that point.

The two Humvee’s left in the fire zone had stopped and now turned around and raced for the border. The men in them figured if they could get back across the border they could make it back to the fort and join the forces that were inside. Sergeant Tramper who was the commander of one of them had seen the destruction of their tank and the Texas Tank slowly moving toward the pile of burning metal when the thing exploded and shot shrapnel in all directions. He had watched the troops get mowed down on this death field as the Texans opened fire from a trench with heavy machine guns and everything else they had. The first two Humvee’s were destroyed by rocket fire from RPG’s he figured and he told Sergeant Eustis to hang back until the Lieutenant in his tank could clear some of the Texans out. He had a bad feeling about this whole invasion thing and this morning it made his gut ach so bad he almost deserted. What ever made the stupid Emperor think he could retake Texas, God the man was so stupid and crazy, insane was the better word he thought? The troops were running back toward the border also and some had just thrown their weapons down and held up their arms in surrender, almost a full company of soldiers and half of them dead now and for what? All of this ran through his mind as the corporal drove the vehicle across the border and turned it toward the fort. He did not know what was going to happen now but sure as he was breathing when the first chance came he was going to desert and get the hell away from this place.

Kirk watched the two Humvee’s racing for the border and did not want to shoot them. Tommy had questioned him and he just looked at the devastation on this battle field. “Let them go Tommy, I think there has been enough killing here.” Joe and his son’s drove the LAV onto the battle field and came to a stop where a group of the Emperors soldiers were standing with their arms up. The people had climbed from the trench and were surrounding other groups of the soldiers that had surrendered while some other Texans were searching the downed soldiers to see if any had survived and needed medical assistance. Sure the people of Texas would not hesitate to defend their freedoms and country but they also were a compassionate folk.

Samuel flew over the fort and Mary told him that there were no other choppers but there was a bunch of Humvee’s and three of the howitzers on the ground. She mentioned that a small convoy of Humvee’s was exiting the west gate of the fort and maybe they should see where they were going. Samuel acknowledged and said “we are going to need to help knocking out those Howitzers don’t you think?” Mary looked at him and said The Texas boys still have all their choppers and they are coming in from the battle zones as we speak so let’s see what these soldiers are up to first.” Samuel and Mary watched the convoy of 5 Humvee’s speed up and head due west on the old I-40. “Looks like that group of soldiers are escaping from the melee. Shall we cause them to stop,” Mary asked. Samuel brought the chopper to a hover and said “No let them go, could be they are deserting and we should not interfere. I think the fort is finished, looked to me like the Texan’s may have it under control as soon as they take out those howitzers. Their biggest job now is to figure out what they will do with the emperor’s minions that have surrendered.” Mary agreed with that assessment and was glad to be done with this part. “Shall we go south and help the Rangers?” “Well Michael and Susanna are down there and Kevin and Kristyl are helping at that other place just to north so we could go down and see about the boys at the Mentone base.” “What about the East and Northern borders?” Samuel did think about that and Sam Houston had told them that they had those areas covered for now. “Let’s go and help down south first and then we can see what Sam Houston says.” Mary was watching her scopes and said “okay, let’s go, I sure am worried about Tamara and Alisha, we haven’t heard a word from them.” Samuel was worried also but he knew those girls could do anything and if someone got in their way of whatever they were doing to help in this mess it would not be good for the Emperor’s minions. He reached over and grasped Mary’s hand and smiled as the chopper flew south.

Captain Maxwell OlKaufsky had gathered 20 men that he knew would join him in deserting this god forsaken fort and making a run to Denver. After the confirmation that the Major had been killed in the battle over Texas, he had already talked with the soldiers and they absconded 5 Humvee’s and while the shelling was blowing buildings up and setting fires inside the fort they made their move through the west gate. He had told the other Captain that he was taking some men and making a sortie to the south and into Texas to Recon Amarillo. Denver was the place he was really heading and they were not that far from Albuquerque now as they scooted along the I-40. The Emperor and those damn Generals were going to hear all about this fiasco when he got there. He had been one of a few that said they needed more troops and armor before invading Texas but the Emperor himself had depleted the force so he didn’t know exactly what he was going to say.

Re: Story of fiction and fantasy and science fiction

Posted: Thu May 16, 2019 5:18 pm
by LostNFound
62 SNAKES AND MONGOOSES

Hank had taken to the air with his jet belt and he and Jake both were cloaked as well as the other men and the Humvee’s. He was heading for the choppers that sat on the pads. It was the 6th day of May in the afternoon and he and Jake had come back to the west side of the fort to sabotage the choppers and the tanks as much as they could. Nobody knew when these minions were going to begin their invasion but it was a given that they were going to do just that. The buildup of the troops and the tanks and the additional chopper had given the Rangers the clear warning. The sortie by the minions on the east border a few weeks earlier was the beginning to alert the Texans to the coming storm. They had seen no dogs so far so today was worth the try. It was not known if there were dogs in the fort or when these people might bring some in. The choppers and the tanks were parked outside the walls of the fort which Hank and Jake both thought was strange but gave them a better chance of sabotaging them.

Jake, you seeing any dogs yet?, I don’t see any over here
. Jake had just landed next to one of the tanks and looked at the two guards walking along the wall of the fort. No I haven’t seen any on this side but be on the alert they could have them on the inside. Lookout for guards, I am watching two on this side. Jake Levitated up and could see the hatch open to the inside of the tank. He dropped down to the turret top and looked into the driver and gunner compartment. There was no one visible but the computer systems were on standby. He lowered himself in and plugged in the small thumb drive he had carried. Typing a few lines of code in he hit the enter key and the download from the thumb drive zipped across the screen. This took only around 30 seconds and then the screen resumed in a stand by mode. He removed the thumb drive and replaced it into his pocket and levitated out and above the tank. He moved to next one that was parked close to the first one but the hatch wasn’t open so he moved to the third one and found the hatch open. He repeated the process as he had performed on the first tank and exited the beast. He really wanted to do the middle tank but the guards had moved to a position of standing right behind that one and for him to try and open the hatch would cause them to hear and perhaps catch him. He let that go and flew back toward the Humvee’s which were parked at least a quarter mile west of the fort behind some yucca trees and small boulders. Every thing was cloaked but the team was not going to take any chances.

Hank cautiously floated toward the choppers and dropped down in front of the one they had seen fly in the day before. He knew these birds could be outfitted with dispance cloaks and stealth gear as was the Armies propensity to do with their choppers. He had actually flown one of them before and had a good working knowledge of the equipment that was installed on the birds. Not to mention the refresher course he received from Susanna and Michael. Their bird had the newest cloak and stealth gear and the de-cloaking device that Bill had created recently to be able to see the Emperor’s cloaked ships. He moved to the side of the chopper that had an open door into the cabin and levitated into it. His next move was to the pilots and copilots seats where he found the dispance cloak and stealth gear devices. He tore the connections out and buggered them as Susanna had shown him before reconnecting them. This would make them unnoticeable to the pilots but when they were activated they would not work properly. He thought this would be a real bummer for the minions as they got airborne. His next job was to disconnect the triggering system for the mini-guns and the SRM-20’s. That was going to be the real surprise to the pilot when he or she tried to fire the weapons. All of this was done so the pilots would not know until they actually tried to use the devices and the weapons systems. He was starting to exit from the third chopper to go to the fourth one when the guards brought the dog from the fort and began to move along the wall and out into the parked choppers. He quickly moved away from the open hatch and watched. The dog seemed nervous or highly inquisitive and Hank figured maybe the dog smelled him or something. If he were to levitate into the open now, the dog would spot him for sure. The guards had pulled the dog over to the fourth chopper which was the furthest away from the wall and proceeded to pull out some of the highly illegal cigarettes and a flask of some sort. Hank could see them light up the tobacco sticks and then pass the flask between each other. The dog was sitting on it’s haunches at first and looking straight at the bird he was now hiding in and making some low whining noises.

Jake, I am caught inside one of the choppers and there is a dog with two guards standing about 50 feet away where the fourth chopper is parked. I can’t get out until they take that dog away. Looks like I can’t get to that fourth bird. I have managed to take three down, how did you do with the tanks? Jake heard Hank and knew he was in trouble; they had brought Calvin and Bob with them today and had both Humvee’s. His first thought was to cause a distraction for the dog and possibly get Hank out of there. All the other rangers were lined up on the border to the east and everyone was on red alert or battle stations. I got two of the tanks fixed but the third one is still completely operational. I ran into a situation also. What are those guards doing? They are smoking for god sakes and drinking. If they get caught they will be shot for doing this. The dog is looking in my direction and acting real anxious so this could get real dicey. I really don’t want these people getting suspicious or all this will be for nothing. If they discover their birds are sabotaged it won’t be good at this point We need to let Michael know that at least one of them is totally active. Hank, can you speak to that dog? We were taught how to do that. Hank almost slapped himself in the forehead, he had been so busy with the sabotage he wasn’t giving that a thought. He could see the dog as he peeked around the corner of the bulkhead between the pilot’s cockpit and the personnel cabin. He was being very careful to not expose himself. The biggest problem with speaking to the dog would be worst than actually levitating out at the moment. The dog would more than likely get very anxious and try to come to him. He told Jake that speaking at the moment to the dog would not work and why. Jake understood and decided to put his plan into motion.

Jake told Calvin and Bob to take the Humvee’s back to the North and get around the troops, “Get back to the other side of the border and place the vehicles where the .50’s can be used when those troops begin to invade. We know this is going to get bloody before we either stop them or they overrun us. Keep cloaked, this is the biggest weapon we have at the moment, and they certainly don’t have a dog for every man out there.” Bob was concerned and asked “What are you and Hank going to do, he seems to be trapped at the moment.” Calvin agreed with Bob and suggested that he and bob should provide a distraction so Hank could get out safely. Jake understood that these men would do anything to get Hank to safety but they had to keep their mission unknown at the moment. “We can’t expose this mission that way. I need to get Hank out of that chopper without the dog seeing him. Once he’s out we can get away but we must make sure there is no suspicion of any sabotage. Bob understood that Jake was going to do something and he and Calvin needed to take the Humvee’s back across the border. Jake watched them drive the Humvee’s through the trees and boulders as they moved off toward the north to get around the troops. His plan was to move into the trees and rocks to the west of the choppers and speak to the dog to get him to come toward him. Once he got the dog and the guards interested in the west area and leave the choppers, Hank could get out and make his way toward the border.

Jake made his way over to the pile of boulders that lay around 200 yards from the pads where the choppers were sitting. He had been very careful to not arouse the dog’s keen sight. He spoke to Hank and told him what his plan was. Hank acknowledged and prepared himself to levitate from the chopper and head toward the east. Jake landed on a smaller rock behind the big one that was exposed to the choppers. In front of him were two good sized boulders and he could see the choppers through the opening between them. He could also see two of the Humvee’s that were sitting idle. He told Hank to get ready and began to speak to the dog. At first the dog did not move and was looking hard at the chopper that Hank was in. Jake spoke again and told the dog that there was some food where he was hiding. The dog turned its head toward him and stared. The two men that were smoking and drinking were not paying attention to the dog and the one that had the leash had draped it around the vertical bar of the skid. The dog suddenly took off running for the rocks and both men said loud enough for Jake to hear, “WHAT THE HELL” as the dog scooted away from them.

Sergeant Jack Dorsey and Corporal Sandy Riles had taken the dog out on the watch because Sergeant Orland Meany told them to. They had not used the dogs much and there were only a few of them inside the fort. Tomorrow morning, before the sun rose they were going to make the major move on the Texas border. This was the day that a coordinated invasion was happening into Texas. There was supposed to be a spearheading into Amarillo and this fort was going to enter the border and take out the nest of rangers on their way towards Lubbock and then on to Houston. There was another area between this fort and the one on the old I-40 that would be entering and they were supposed to meet up at Lubbock. Sandy Riles had been the one that had to hold the leash of the dog. He had wrapped it over the vertical stanchion of the skid and when the dog took off both men jerked and ran after him. Jake waited for the dog to get half way to the boulders and quickly moved backward to another group of boulders. His intention was to get the dog away from sight of the choppers.

Shag heard the human speak to him. He looked up at the one that brought him out but saw that this human was not the one speaking to him. He looked at the other one and knew he was not the one either. He had been watching the machine across from him and the two humans. He had sensed that there was a human inside the machine but he could not see him. The human that spoke to him mentioned food and told him to look around. He finally felt the direction and looked at the rocks. He thought he saw a movement and began to move in that direction. The leash that was around his collar came loose from the place the human had wrapped it around and he was able to run toward the rocks. He heard the two humans give a sharp order but his mind was centered on the one that called to him from the rocks. He reached the place and there was no human. He heard the human once again and looked to another pile of rocks that was further away. He hurriedly ran toward that place and the leash caught on something just as he reached them. He was pulled up short and stopped. The human came from the rocks and moved to him. He was friendly and undid the leash and asked him to follow which he did as they both moved around the pile of rocks.

Hank heard Jake speak to the dog and watched the dog run toward the rocks to the west. The guards were caught by surprise and did not react very fast at first. The tobacco and whiskey seemed to have dulled their responses. He watched them as they moved to retrieve the dog. He waited until the dog disappeared around the boulders and the guards were better than halfway to the rocks and made his move. He elevated out of the bird and flew directly toward the eastern border. Jake had told him that he would catch up and Bob and Calvin were already on their way back. He had wanted to disable that last bird but time had run out so there would be at least one that could still cloak and not be heard. His flight to the Texas border was without incident and the teams saw him coming because they were all cloaked. It was Cathy and Isaac that first spotted him and telepathically told him where to land. Where is Jake? We heard him talking awhile ago to someone and Bob and Calvin have made it back. They are setting up the Humvee’s to the North. I think Jeremiah wants you two to meet up with them so there are two man teams. Hank had landed and told them that Jake was taking care of a dog and he would be along soon. He levitated again and flew to the north to meet up with Calvin. Bob would be waiting for Jake. The sun was low in the west and the teams could see the campfires burning on the far side stretching far into the north and the south. Another night of living on the edge was in store for all of them.