Alone in the Dark, page 20
part #3 of Lunar Age Series
“Control, we’re about an hour out. It’s been a long, uneventful trip. The mission was accomplished and it’ll be good to be back home.”
“Good to hear, Major. We’ll keep the light on for you.”
“Control, is there a problem with the mail server? I was expecting a bunch of status messages when we got back on the network. So far, nothing has popped through other than the older messages stored in the buffers.”
“The email server is down. There was a cyber attack on NASA and some virus slipped through the link. Maintenance hopes to have it fixed soon.”
“The last update I received mentioned there were protests. What’s the situation now?”
“That’s all settled down now, Major. Nothing going on now to speak of.”
“Okay, Control. We’ll see you in a bit. Rover One out.”
The Major gave Lieutenant Hughes a grim look and said, “Well, that tears it. NLH Control is in the hands of the protesters.”
“Yes, sir. We expected this. They’ll have a welcoming committee on hand to add you and Sandy to the group of hostages. We’ll have a little surprise of our own ready for them.”
Sandy had been carefully timing their trip so they’d end up pulling into the Vehicle Bay before the last transport run to Peary. They wanted to be there before the last transport arrived so the chamber would be empty. The steady climb up to the crater rim gave him plenty of opportunities to adjust the arrival timing. The slope wasn’t that steep, but the trail they were using did twist around a lot. Sandy pulled the rover up the final sloping trail and onto the paved road of the Habitat. Just beyond, to the left, were the modules that made up the historic base. That had been their starting place eleven days ago, but now he turned to the right and followed the road back towards the Habitat.
The Manufacturing Module came up quickly. Soon they were passing the landing pads where the ruined CLT30 still rested. The tension in the cabin ramped up as they drew nearer the downward sloping road leading into the Habitat. If the protesters had any clue that the Marines were on board, the smart thing for them to do would be to use an improvised explosive device to destroy the rover and everyone on board before they reached the Habitat. Whoever was behind this had already used explosives against the CLT30. Sandy pulled onto the ramp leading down and halted the rover as he looked over at the Major and Lieutenant Hughes.
“So, uh, you guys ready?”
The Lieutenant patted the two men standing next to him with their helmets on and said, “In you go.” The two Marines were the smallest guys in the platoon. They had to be to both be able to fit in the small air lock while wearing their pressure suits and carrying their weapons. Once the men were in the lock and the door was closed, the Lieutenant said, “Okay, Sandy. Nice and slow. Just pretend it’s you and the Major coming in from a long trip all by yourselves.”
Sandy pulled the rover into the first lock bay and waited as the doors closed behind him. Normally, the chamber lights would come on when the doors had sealed and the room filled with atmosphere. This time the room stayed dark, effectively blinding the room’s camera if anyone was monitoring it. The second set of doors opened and Sandy pulled the rover forward into the second chamber where again the lights failed to come on. He gave a nervous look at the Major and said, “I’m really hoping that the lights are just a failure maintenance hasn’t dealt with yet.”
The Major said, “It’s working in our favor. Let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth just yet.”
The final set of lock doors swung open, flooding the lock chamber with the brilliance spilling out of the well lit vehicle bay. Sandy had to squint against the sudden bright light, but over by the entrance door he made out five figures standing there.
“There’s our welcome party. I count five of them.”
Sandy kept an eye on the group as he pulled the rover slowly towards the wash bay on the left side of the room. The five started walking purposefully towards the rover. Just before he pulled into the bay, he noticed that one of the men had stopped about half way to the rover. The remaining four continued on a course that would bring them to the rear of the rover. Sandy triggered the bay’s automatic wash cycle that would remove any dust from the rover’s exterior. The sound of water spraying against the hull soon filled the cabin. He looked at the Lieutenant and quietly said, “They left one guy half way to the door.”
Lieutenant Hughes looked back towards the rear of the rover and softly called, “Sargent Valenti, Plan B, we’ve got a runner.”
Sandy had stood up and moved towards the rear like he was going to go open the rear lock door when the wash down was complete. Normally, that would be how things were done. In reality, he only took a couple of steps before his way was blocked by the Marines crammed into the cabin. He waited there, as they marked off the time it would take for the wash cycle to complete and for him to get to the rear of the cabin. Even though he didn’t have a part in what was about to take place, his heart was pounding. Time seemed to slow down and they waited way too long before everything happened at once.
Sandy had shown the Marines how to pop the rear wall of the rover up. With the latches released, the rear wall, complete with the rear hatch would rise upwards on its top hinge until it was hanging over the roof of the rover. When the seconds finally counted down. Marines on either side of the wall released the latches while their brothers pushed the door up as quickly as possible. As soon as the door latches were released, Sandy heard two quick pops followed by a second set just as quickly. The pops were from the two Marines who went out the rover’s forward airlock as they were coming through the locks. The darkness in the two lock chambers helped hide them exiting and securing themselves to the left side of the rover for the ride in. Since the goal was to take back control of the Habitat with as little loss of life as possible, the two Marines went out the lock armed with Peterson M2023 dual-mode shotgun loaded with shock rounds. The marines had the shotguns in pump mode so they could use lower power rounds in keeping with the non-lethal goal of the operation.
When the rover had stopped, the Marines had let themselves down to the floor and then quickly assumed an out of sight position near the rover’s rear wheels while the wash operation completed. As soon as they heard the rear hatch latches release, they stepped forward and took down the reception committee with the shock rounds. Meanwhile, the Marines in the back of the rover all came pouring out and headed out towards the exit as quickly as possible. Sandy was nervous because there was a small but real chance that whoever was back in control could stop the attack in its tracks by dumping the air in the vehicle chamber before the Marines could get out the exit and into the main Habitat.
Whoever the reception team’s fifth man was, he turned and started running as soon as he heard the first round of pop’s and saw his men going down. He narrowly missed getting hit with some shock rounds as they slammed into the door just as he was passing through. The marines were in hot pursuit, however, they split into three teams once they passed out of the vehicle bay. The first team headed left, out of the door and down the hallway to Environmental Room number one. Once there, they killed power to the server room to knock out the communications and then shut the lights off in that section to put whoever was in Habitat control in the dark. Teams two and three raced to secure the doors between this section and the next. They ignored the runner and stopped at the doors. With the first section secured, they had locked down outside physical access to the Habit and shut down any external communication. The runner could wait.
It took the marines about fifteen minutes to clear the first section. That included clearing Habitat Control where they found a very scared young man that was starting to question some of his recent life choices. Sandy watched as Lieutenant Hughes had the runner brought before him. He said, “I’m Lieutenant Hughes with the US Space Force and you… you’re in a lot of trouble. NLH is a Federal facility. You’ve broken a number of laws and you will be returning to Earth with us where you’ll be remanded to the custody of the FBI. They will notify you of the exact charges you’ll be facing at that time. Any questions?”
“I, uh, I was just doing what Regina told me to.”
“Save it for your lawyers back on Earth. In the mean time, you’re my prisoner. Cause problems for us and I have no problem with shackling you and throwing you into a cell until we get back to Earth. Cooperate with us and things will go easier for you. Impress me with your willingness to make up for your wrongs and I might even write a letter for you asking for your good behavior to be taken into account before you are sentenced. Take a minute and think it over.”
Sandy watched the young man sweat for all of fifteen seconds before he blurted out, “I’ll help you. What do you want me to do?”
Lieutenant Hughes looked up at the prisoner from where he was sitting and gave him a long appraising gaze. The kid standing there before him seemed to wilt and the Lieutenant finally said, “Just understand this, if I catch you lying to myself or any of my men, if you give me any reason to think you’re not one hundred percent committed to the success of my Marines and our mission, I’ll have you shackled and thrown in the brig until we reach Earth. That will be it. No second chances. Do you understand me?”
The young guy seemed resigned to his fate and answered quietly. “Yes.”
“Fine. Good decision. Now, what’s your name?”
“Ken Sellers”
“Alright, Ken. Why were you staying back in the transport bay.”
“Brett told me to wait there, and if there was any trouble to high tail it back to the comm room and get a message off to Regina warning her.”
“What’s Brett’s full name?”
“Brett McLean, he was in charge of us.”
“Okay, so you saw the Marines and took off for the comm room. Did you get a message out to Regina?”
“No, you guys had everything jammed and I couldn’t get through.”
“So Regina is still expecting a message from you?”
“Yeah, Brett was supposed to call if everything went okay, or we were supposed to let Regina know if there were problems.”
“What’s the password?”
The prisoner hesitated and said, “Uh, how did you know about that?”
“Sargent Douglas, put him in shackles and take him away.”
“No! No, please. I’ll tell you. You just caught me by surprise that you knew about the passwords. We’re suppose to say Brian is okay if the operation is successful. If we don’t say that then she knows something bad happened to us. I’m telling the truth. Please don’t throw me in the brig.”
“Mr. Sellers, I strongly suggest that there are no more hesitations on your part. I already knew there was a pass phrase. I have pretty good intel on the operation you were part of. I’ll know if you are lying or withholding information. Don’t let it happen again. “
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry. I really do want to cooperate. I just—”
“Moving on. How many men are guarding the hostages?”
Sandy listened as the Lieutenant carried out his interrogation of the prisoner for the next five minutes. The Lieutenant was good and confirmed a number of things that they thought they knew about how the hostages were being held. Sandy quickly came to the conclusion that Lieutenant Hughes had to have some kind of surveillance on Regina’s group, but he had no idea how the Lieutenant was accomplishing it. With the questioning over for now, the Lieutenant said, “Alright, the time is growing short. Mr. Sellers, I need you to put in a call to Regina and let her know everything is okay on this end. Can you do that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Great, but we’ll practice first so there will be no slip ups. In the meantime, Sandy, would you go, check with the Major and see how things are coming along. Once I have this call made, we should be ready to move out if the Major has things cleared for us.”
With the Habitat secured, the first thing the Major did was to reach out to people he knew and trusted in the Habitat to get a feel for what was truly happening. Lieutenant Hughes assigned a squad of Marines to safeguard the Habitat while he and his remaining troops prepared for the next phase of the plan.
When the scheduled transport rover rolled into the vehicle bay, everything looked normal. Rover One had been pulled from the wash bay and parked in one of the adjacent parking spaces. The passengers got off and moved through the doors where they were met by Major Steelings and some Marines. The Major quickly sorted the people into two groups. The larger of the groups was composed of people the Major could vouch for, either personally or through someone else he could trust. The few remaining people were politely locked away by the Marines for later sorting. The Major knew the transport’s driver and soon it was heading back down the road to Peary with a load of Marines in the cabin.
A WARM WELCOME HOME
Sam carefully drove Rover Two down the path that led to Peary. They had split up with Rover One about an hour ago. The Major and the Marines should be arriving at NLH any minute now. Rover Two still had a ways to go before arriving at Peary. It was important that they arrive after the evenings last transport from NLH arrived at Peary in order to allow the team coming from NLH to get in place.
I waited as the timer slowly ticked down, both excited and nervous to be carrying out this part of the plan. I couldn’t screw up, everyone was counting on me. The counter finally reached zero and I looked over to Sam for confirmation.
She said, “We’re about ten minutes out. Go ahead and call Peary Control.”
“Peary Control, this is Rover Two.”
“Two, this is Peary. Did you guys get lost? What are you doing out this way?”
“Peary, this is Bryce Burns. I was told my mother has been kidnapped and is being held in the Transship Facility. We’re headed there.”
“Two, the Transship Facility is under control of some members of the Workers Council. We got no control out there.”
“Peary, I know. I was hoping you could patch me through to whoever is running the show over there.”
“Two, wait one. I’ll see if they’ll talk.”
The radio went silent as I fidgeted in my seat. I turned to Sam, who gave me a smile and said, “Keep it up, you’re doing great.”
The radio came back to life and a female voice said, “Two, this is Dawson. So the lost sheep have come home. I just heard my team arrested the Major and Mr. Mussconny over at NLH and now you two turn up on my doorstep. What can I do for you.”
“Dawson, this is Bryce Burns. I want to talk to my mother.”
“Ah, ain’t that sweet. The little boy wants to talk to his mommy.”
I started to tell her to take a flying leap, but then checked myself as I remembered I had a job to do and pissing off Miss Dawson wasn’t going to accomplish what I needed to do.
“Look, Miss Dawson, my mom and dad sent me away with the Major to keep me safe. Now, I come back and find you’re holding my mom hostage. All I want is to see her and make sure she’s okay. It’ll only take a minute. Can you do that for me, please?”
Whether I made a good plea or she just figured it was a chance to grab some more hostages, I’ll never know. The radio was quiet for a full minute while she thought it over and then she said, “Okay Bryce, since you’re so polite, I’ll let you call me Regina and you can come see your mom.”
I thanked her and told her we’d be pulling into the lock in about ten minutes.
Sam pulled the rover up to the lock door at the Transship facility. She eased the rover into the first lock chamber and then waited as the door sealed behind them and atmosphere filled the chamber. As the inner door opened, she could see four men waiting for the rover by the door to the next section. They each held shock sticks, making clear their intent to take Sam and Bryce prisoner. Sargent Cook had been discussing how the Marines would handle the reception committee with Sam. He now spoke up and said, “Go ahead and pull past them and then turn the rover around like you’re going to bolt back out the lock. Lutz, you ready back there? Go as soon as we stop.”
Pfc. Lutz was one of the smaller members of the platoon. He was about the same size as Bryce with the same hair color. He didn’t look that much like Bryce in the face, however, if things worked as planned, nobody would see his face until it was too late. Bryce had volunteered to be the distraction as soon as he had heard the plan, but with his injuries, it was decided that replacing him with an uninjured Marine was a better way to go.
Pfc. Lutz was already in the rear lock and as soon as Sam slowed down to stop, he flung open the rear door and bolted out, loping towards the far Eastern end of the chamber. Two of the waiting men took off after who they thought was Bryce as soon as they saw him loping away. The other two stormed around to the rear of the Rover thinking they’d grab Sam. When they came around the corner, they came face to face with the wrong end of an assault shotgun held by Corporal Sandoval. Two other Marines were quickly out the door pursuing the guys chasing Pfc. Lutz, while another two came through to take the men held by Corporal Sandoval into custody.
Sargent Cook made his way out of the rover and started giving orders, “Corporal, get those two back in the rover and get them stripped down. Give them some coveralls to wear and then secure them. Same thing for the other two when Lutz gets back here with them. Carson, Balboa, Smith, and Lavo, get dressed in the prisoner’s work suits. It’s not going to be perfect, but hopefully the guards at the cafeteria will be more focused on Sargent Tanner and Bryce when you come marching up with them.”
While Sam was watching this, Pfc. Lutz came to a sudden stop and pivoted around to face his pursuers. He also brought up his assault shot gun, which came as an awkward and unexpected surprise to his pursuers. He had them both down on their knees with their hands on their heads when the other Marines caught up to them. As they were marching back to the rover, the remainder of the Marines that had gone to NLH came in through the lock leading from Main Street in Peary. Lieutenant Hughes quickly came loping up and said, “Sargent Cook, status report?”
