Dulce Base (The Dulce Files Book 1) (7 page)

The men were huddled into a small conference room in one of the main Blue Lake base buildings. Before them was a map covering a whole wall, one showing the planet Earth, the regular surface features stripped-away, and a crisscrossing array of what looked to be railroad lines going this way and that in all directions, to all continents and across all oceans.

“They began building it in ‘54,” Colonel Roger Donlon said, drawing many of the men’s eyes to him, “got various corporations and government contractors to do most of the work, using the brute labor of the Reptilians to get the job. Project became so big, in fact, that Ike had to get the Interstate Highway System passed in ’56 to cover up all the massive spending that was taking place.”

“So it’s alien-built,” Lieutenant Colonel Emil Wiseman said, that ever-present pipe of his clamped firmly between his teeth, even though it wasn’t lit at the moment.

“Everything down there is,” Donlon continued, “and it’s that way in most of the underground bases around the world.”

“And most of those bases have been lost to the countries that allowed them in the first place, or built right under their noses while they’ve sat unawares,” Ellis said.

Donlon nodded to his words. “But they don’t control the tube trains – not all of them, at least.”

“There must be…dozens,” Turn said as he continued to stare at the map, “hundreds.”

“More than 7,600 tunnels by last count, but just forty tube trains to run in them,” Donlon said before looking over at Ellis, “unless the aliens have built more.”

Ellis shook his head. “We don’t think so…but really have no way of knowing.”

“So it goes,” Donlon sighed. “Anyways, those tunnels are far-from secure, mainly because they can’t
be
secured.”

“What do you mean?” Charlie said, his brow furrowed. He’d always been accused of understanding next to nothing when coming up as a child, and he always made it a point to ask and ask away when anyone hinted there might be something he
still
didn’t understand.

“I mean,” Donlon continued, “those tube trains are capable of travelling at the astonishing speed of Mach 2. There’s no room between those trains and the tunnel walls, so anything walking down them – like quite a few stupid Reptilians or worker Grays often are – they immediately get pulverized.”

“Like a bug on my windshield when I’m crusin’ down the bayou highways, eh Colonel?” Bobbie laughed.

Donlon frowned. “Something like that.”

“And the good news is that after ’75 we secured all the tube stations that we could,” Ellis said, “which means we now have 75% of them under our control while the aliens just have a handful, mostly here in the southwest.”

“It’s those ones that we don’t have that will be the problem,” Donlon said, “and why we need our main force down in those lower-levels, blocking any incoming trains, and the threat to our rear that they could bring.”

“So who’s gettin’ train duty?” Fred laughed.

“You all are,” Donlon said, his face straight.

The room erupted in murmurings and buzzing as each man talked to the one next to him.

“Alright, alright!” Ellis shouted over the drone. “CAT-1 and CAT-2 are going to be coming in on those tube trains, and from there you’re filtering up the levels toward the surface, destroying as much as you can along the way. On your rear will be CAT-4 led by Colonel Donlon, its sole mission being to block anything else trying to use those trains to get at us from behind.”

“So we’re not taking the trains out then, right?” Turn asked. He was on CAT-2 headed by Chargin’ Charlie and hoped to hell he wouldn’t have to come up with an escape plan on the fly.

Ellis shook his head. “Once CAT-3 hits with the X-22 in the hangar port we’ll have our opening, allowing both Eddie’s Filter Attack Team and Aaron’s Clean Up Team to come in and aid you.”

“And I’ll be flying you out,” Captain Moses Cochrane said, the first time many had heard the tall black man with the gaunt face speak up.

The men had turned back in their chairs to get a better look at Command Sergeant Aaron Haney, Cochrane, and the third man on the CUT team, Sergeant Jerry Carol. All were regular Air Force, and looking at them, Turn wondered if they were going to be able to hold their own.
They better,
he thought.

“What could go wrong?” Carl said with a smile, drawing the men’s attention back to the front of the room and the huge map that was there. “What could possibly go wrong?”

10 – An Assignment

“Do they know?” the Dutchman asked as they exited the conference room, he and Carl and General Anderholt taking up the rear. The general had come back just an hour before, on orders from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs himself, and was pleased with what he’d seen so far…at least that’s what Ellis hoped.

Anderholt shook his head. “Not yet, and that job will fall to you men.”

“To us?” Carl said, though it was closer to a gasp. “Why us?”

“Half your team already knows, the astronauts,” Anderholt said without skipping a beat, “have
them
train ‘em.”

Carl sighed but Ellis jumped in before the frumpy astronaut could get a word in.

“We’ll handle it, sir. We’ve been training them all week and they’re good, not a man is flinching from the responsibility.” He paused, then pressed on. “But sir…the men are bored, and unless we send them out soon, well…”

Ellis trailed off as they reached the doors that led back outside, Anderholt’s parked Jeep sitting there waiting for him. He spun to face the two men.

“Bored, huh? Well, we’ll see how they’ll feel after the sortie I send you men on tonight.”

“Sortie?” Ellis said. This time it was his words coming out as nearly a gasp.

“In Montana,” Anderholt nodded, “a nest of Gray’s that’s been up there looking at the ICBMs near Malmstrom Air Force Base a little too closely as of late. I want you men to go in and take ‘em out before the bastards get it into their big heads to switch off our nukes again.”

“But…sir…we…”

“We can handle it,” Ellis said with a grin and a hand on Carl’s shoulder to stop his stammering.

“Right,” Anderholt said, then turned, got into the Jeep, and was soon speeding down the road.

“
Montana
?” Ellis said, turning to Carl as the twenty-seven men of their team headed next door to the larger classroom building of Blue Lake.

Carl shrugged. “Beats the hell out of ‘Nam again.”

Part II

11 – Under the Big Sky

Between Lakeport and Hopland, Montana

Tuesday, May 22, 1979

The Aérospatiale SA 330 Puma four-bladed, twin-engined helicopters sailed through the night, their twin-bladed rotors making nary a sound. Inside the
ten
troops made barely any either.

Ronnie smiled that ivory smile and gave a deep chuckle at Chargin’ Charlie’s expense.

“What the hell?” he said.

“You look like you got a bur the size of Texas up your ass.”

“I don’t like helicopters,” Charlie replied with a distasteful look, one that caused Ronnie to laugh all the harder.

“Are we really going in to kill…aliens?” Fred said for the third time since the helicopters had taken off from the Blue Lake base.

“Should be a nest of five of ‘em,” Ronnie said, a bit of his earlier mirth gone, though not all.

“Still don’t believe it, huh?” Tommy said, that mischievous smile of his out full force.

“Well…no, no I don’t.”

Several of the others laughed at that, and even Fred joined in a moment later, his sandy-blonde hair nearly brushing down into his eyes as he finally loosened up.

There were ten of them flying in the single Puma helicopter. Captain Frank Burchak was at the controls and next to him was Sergeant Paul Carson. The other five ‘super soldiers’ were seated in the back, with Chargin’ Charlie, Ronnie, and Fred – the latter being the youngest and least experienced when it came to war, having missed out on Vietnam by just a year.

“How many sorties you been on?” Bobbie said with a laugh. “You sound about as timid as a kitten.”

“Well I ain’t no damn super soldier like you all, now am I?” Fred shot back.

“Alright…alright,” Charlie said, raising his hands to settle Fred down, “take it easy now. Let’s save that fight for the Grays.”

Fred frowned and held his tongue, but only for a few moments.

“What’s the best way to fight those damn things?” he asked.

“Ha!” Robbie laughed. “There ain’t no ‘best way,’ just the only way – hit ‘em with everything ya got!”

Fred was getting good at frowning, but even he set a new record when the Puma’s red warning lights winked on in the cabin.

“Ten miles out from target,” Frank’s voice came back at them, “get yourselves ready for insertion.”

The men tensed up, even the ones that’d fought Grays before – this was the moment.

12 – Landing

Turn looked out the Puma helicopter at the dark mountains below.

“Never thought I’d feel safe flying over a mountain,” he muttered to himself, then looked over at Ronnie to see if he’d been heard, but the astronaut was engrossed with looking toward where their target should be, some hidden cave nestled in a nook of this section of the Rockies.

Turn frowned and made to do the same, but directed his gaze down to the new ‘legs’ he had. He still couldn’t get over the sight of them, his own ‘legs’ in their very own uniform.  Of course he couldn’t get over thinking of them as ‘legs’ with quotation marks either, and maybe he never would. They weren’t those mannequin legs and they weren’t those titanium pole legs he’d always worried about getting when he was growing up and thinking of following his father’s footsteps into the military, the kind he’d seen on WWII veterans when he’d accompanied the old man to Memorial Day picnics and been regaled with stories of Tuskegee. No, these were something else entirely.

Turn was no confident that he’d never really know what happened in Cambodia, or much of what had happened before. Waking up in that hospital room and seeing an empty bed where his legs should’ve been was one of the lowest points of his life. The offer of a pair of new ones was one of the highest.

It’d taken months to get them perfectly right, but what Turn most remembered were the first initial days, and it had been days that he’d been worked upon. The tissues at the end of his legs – which now ended well above where his real knees had been – had to be structured with carbon nanotubes, and those in turn had to be propped-up with plant and fungal cells…at least that’s what he’d been told. Turn had also come to accept that he didn’t really
want
to know exactly how it’d been done.

What he did know was that the legs were state-of-the-art. They had microprocessors that interpreted and analyzed signals from the knee-angle sensors and movement receptors. Any type of motion that Turn made was immediately relayed through the sensors and to his brain, and vice versa. What was truly revolutionary about the cybernetic legs, however, were the hydraulic cylinders in each knee- and ankle-joint. Small valves within those cylinders contained a specially-designed hydraulic fluid, one that did a lot more than just coat the joints that Turn now moved around on…one that increased his speed. And it wasn’t any extra second or two in a 100 meter race kind of speed, no, it was more like the kind that’d allow you to finish a 26 km marathon in 15 minutes instead of 5 hours.

They were strong, too. Made with biocompatible titanium that was specially engineered to stay in the body for sixty years instead of the usual twenty, Turn’s legs were also alloyed with 4% aluminum and 5% vanadium, the latter giving them about 50% more strength. All in all, it meant he’d have to be hit with a sizeable rocket or run over by a tank for the legs to take much of a dent, although both of those events would most likely kill him before that. That was the thing, Turn thought as he glanced out the window of the Puma – he was still human, and still capable of feeling…even if his legs were not.

“Look alive!” a shout came from the front of the helicopter and Turn quickly looked up to see Frank holding his fist up in the air. “There!”

At the shout, Turn looked out the large bay door and saw a small opening of some kind down below, although it looked a lot more like an old and abandoned mine shaft. Further off there were a few old and rusted derricks sitting on one edge of what could only be called a sizeable-pond, the only other modern feature being a large white cylindrical holding tank of some sort, maybe for natural gas, a crumbling-down shack its only company.

The helicopter circled about, avoiding the large derricks further afield before settling down onto a long corridor where the trees had been cut away, almost as if a landing strip had been laid down.  Ronnie immediately began motioning out the large bay door.

“Head toward that cave entrance,” he shouted over the sound of the helicopter’s rotor blades.

Eight men in the helicopter did so, leaving just Frank and Ronnie behind. Chargin’ Charlie was the first out, leading the men with his M240 machine gun raised up high in front of him, and then the super soldiers with Fred thrown in for good measure. Turn looked back to see Ronnie staring at him.