Disclaimer: This story is written purely for entertainment, I own nothing and definitely am not getting any money for this!
Any references to games, movies, books owned by someone else are exactly that - owned by someone else, not me!
Authors Note - I know that this story won't be to everyone's taste. This is going to be one of those chapters where a lot of people may choose to give up - sorry. For those who do choose to stick around, I have a feeling this is going to be a very long ride! This one will get us to Mid 1987. Oh, and any bits of Spanish are courtesy of Google Translate, any mistakes are entirely my fault, as always.
Chapter 10 - Big Game Hunter.
It was the start of April when Shepard received his summons to Cerberus Logistics, regarding "his latest demonstration".
Jack leaned back in his leather office chair and glared at Shepard, who was stood calmly in front of Jack's desk. Anderson was stood to one side, leaning against a wall with his arms folded, watching the pair with amusement
"You bought a farm" started Jack, pointedly ignoring the sniggering from Anderson. "You installed an incredibly expensive and totally experimental weapon system on this farm. You then proceeded to not only activate this system in a public environment, you also did it in front of not one, not two, but FOUR ranking members of the US Military, covering all branches. You - Anderson, would you please STOP THAT!".
Anderson was now holding one hand against his side, tears streaming down his cheeks as tried to muffle his howls of laughter.
Jack shook his head, and then slumped forward, face buried in the palms of his hands.
"I have no idea how many regulations and laws you have broken by your foolhardy action, I have one of my legal teams trying to count them all" his muffled voice announced "any other news you want to share before have Anderson take you out the back to be shot?"
"Sure. Half of my teams are running 18 hour days, and living off either Mountain Dew or Coffee. And those are the healthy ones. I've lost two team leaders and a dozen staff members to either breakdowns or exhaustion. I'm pretty sure the majority of the tech advances I've been sneaking into their designs have been found, as I now spend 4 hours a day on average just answering any number of questions about them."
Shepard's voice gradually rose, as he started to pace back and forth in front of the desk.
"I've got infiltration attempts every day, and at least two honeypot attempts have been made on just ME. I am pretty sure anytime one of the staff goes home, they are being tailed. I have two labs with partially constructed space reactors and two labs we have been forced to fill with lead shielding as a temporary measure from two other attempts."
"My only disco ball - which cost three million dollars by the way - is now a very large and expensive paperweight. I have engineering people SLEEPING in the Cerberus station components in the middle of their construction. How any of them are not dead yet, I have no idea."
Shepard paused as though mentally reviewing a list of issues.
"Oh, and someone delivered six THOUSAND tonnes of highly explosive Rocket Fuel, to a set of laser and graser testing labs. Not to mention Freeman has been making progress on the S.A.M, which means I'm expecting his lab to disappear into a fireball any day now, if not the entire of R&D"
Shepard stopped his pacing and stabbed his finger at Jack. "Thanks to YOUR deadlines, I don't have time for the rules and procedures. I don't even have time to sleep anymore. So as far as your little hissy fit about Hannah goes, fuck you, fuck you VERY much JACK."
Anderson walked over to Shepard and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Woah now, calm it down son. We both know you are under a lot of stress here, thanks to the stuff Q shoved in your head. There is a hell of a lot riding on the engineering you and your teams are doing, but I had no idea it had got so bad, so quick"
"I second that" said Jack, now sitting straight up and alert "I apologise Shepard, I was unaware the teams were fracturing so badly. Forget the legal side of the testing, that's for me to deal with. And the armed forces loved it, I can work small miracles with their support for...Hannah. We certainly can't afford risking projects or people from basic exhaustion".
"I do have a little good news from myself though which might cheer you up" Jack said with a twinkle in his eye. "The fuel delivery was a fuck up, that should have been delivered to the logistics site for storage. Along with the invoice for two Saturn 5 rockets"
Anderson and Shepard both exclaimed in shock. "Seriously, you got yourself a pair of rockets?" spluttered Anderson, whilst Shepard mused "that's really not possible".
Jack nodded. "Close enough to the truth gentlemen. What we actually have is enough separate components to make two full rockets when assembled. I have also asked a number of relevant companies to construct another four sets of components. That will guarantee we have orbital lift capacity for the initial stages. The first stages will be shipped to the Kennedy Space Center once we have confirmed the launch window and payload."
Shepard interjected "what about the current development on Cerberus Rockets the teams are doing? Do I tell them to stop?".
"No, they need to continue that work" was Jack's response "regardless of what some people might think, Cerberus isn't actually a bottomless well of money...those components are expensive. A complete set is going to be well over a hundred million each. We need to produce our own - better, more efficient, and bluntly - a LOT cheaper".
Jack scratched his head, his face twisted in a rare look of concern "But I suppose those teams can slow down development a bit, especially if it will allow you to shift resources to other teams that need it more".
Anderson smacked the back of Shepard's head "and what the hell is this about infiltrators and tailing and honeypots? We've got resources to help out, but we are part of Star Wars! That's National Security right there - tell the FBI! Tell the CIA! Hell, give me concrete details and I'll do it for you"
"Quite frankly Shepard, I should have seen this coming" stated Jack "You were always the person at the head of pretty much every significant event in the future Reaper war. Organising everything. Uniting everything, the tip of the spear as such. Here though, you have two others who you should realise you can totally trust, to share the load as much as we can. And yes, I mean both Anderson and myself."
Jack pushed his chair back and stood. "We all know exactly what is coming. At least twenty thousand Reapers. At least ten times as many destroyers, countless numbers of husks if they get to any majorly populated system. We need a fleet, and we need an army. We need to unite the council races, otherwise they will provide the material for the Reaper husks, and humanity will be left standing alone. I might want Humanity at the top of the pile, what I don't want is for that to be us dead, on a pile of corpses."
"We hear you" agreed Anderson "but we have to crawl before we can even stand, let alone run. I wonder if you are pushing too hard Jack. What are you thinking? Why have we got at least a dozen major projects running in parallel and are building a private army? Is it just because that is how you made it work in the future?"
Jack shook his head "Not quite, it's a simple matter of racing the historical timeline, and getting Cerberus into the key position to take advantage of it. Because in about four years, the USSR is going to implode. And I want Cerberus to pick up the pieces".
Silence.
"Oooooookay" Shepard drawled "seriously didn't see that coming. Amaze us with your crazed plan oh mighty TIM".
Jack walked around to the front of his desk and sat on the edge. "1989, Berlin wall comes down. By 1992, USSR has totally and officially been fractured. The player in these events I am interested in is Russia itself, none of it's satellite states."
"Russia has it own space industry, the Cosmodromes. Siberian and Ural resources, including platinum, gold, oil, gas, and diamonds. A decaying but still functional and powerful Military-Industrial complex. And a people who are used to one person - or a group of people - giving them orders to follow".
Anderson shook his head. "Still not seeing it. I mean, yeah, nice idea, and I can probably put ten thousand men together by then, but that's a drop in the ocean. How the hell are you going to conquer RUSSIA?"
Jack waved his hands in negation "Conquer? Who said anything about conquer? I intend to BUY it. Take over the crime gangs, by simply being able to pay any number of Russian ex-servicemen far more than the locals can, buy whatever you need locally, probably from the military, supported by our own resources and personnel and then the Russian Mafia becomes just another sword to the Cerberus armoury. And it will be the blade held at back of those who officially lead the country, ruling from
the shadows."
Shepard nodded. "Makes sense in a twisted way. Colombian drug money...raised mostly from American drug users, to buy and control...Russia?"
Anderson spoke softly as he thought it through "Which has it's own nuclear arsenal...UN Security Council seat...pretty much self sufficient once you start pumping out the Siberian oil and gas. Ambitious, but surely there is no way we can get away with this, right?".
Jack nodded. "That's what any reasonable person would think. But I see a Cerberus in the public eye, which has in the near future become a powerful entity. Space industry. Energy innovations. Health and food production improvements, local security on a global scale, entertainment, all things that benefit everyone and earn us goodwill."
His face twisted into a sneer Shepard had seen too many times, when Harper was having a particularly maniacal moment "And in the shadows, controlling major crime syndicates, information, private military companies and even entire countries. Manipulating the path humanity takes on it's journey to the stars, and beyond. To be leaders of the Galaxy".
Shepard shrugged and nervously shuffled. "Well, it was good to talk. I need to get back to R&D. I should be going now. Anderson?" Anderson nodded and walked out with him.
Jack grinned evilly as he quite clearly heard one last hushed conversation between Shepard to Anderson as the two left the room.
"He never changes. When EXACTLY did we become the Illuminati..!?" "never mind that, tell me about these honeypots. How hot were they, on a scale of 1 to Miss Lawson...?"
By July 1987 much had settled down. A small but steady trickle of newly recruited security forces were making their way out of South Africa to be integrated into the growing 'reserve pool' in the US. It didn't take long for the newcomers to realise they were training nearly constantly on urban assaults and infiltration / assassination scenarios.
Certainly nothing new for many of the recent additions, though the large number of Spanish signs on the replica urban environments raised a few eyebrows. "You have train to attack, to truly understand how to defend" was the official reason.
"Bullshit" was thought by more than a few who took part in the exercises, but the pay was good and they had the feeling they would be seeing action pretty soon, so they pushed on with training and exercises, day after day.
The Hannah demonstration had been quickly swept under the carpet by the military, and anyone who sniffed around the reports were (in most cases metaphorically) stomped on hard. The test site itself had quickly been rushed through as a Top Secret experimental location, which slammed the door on most queries.
One or two of the investigators into Hannah were just more curious (and stubborn) than was good for them. A short visit from Men in Black, who explained they were looking at a 20 year stretch in prison for breach of National Security if they continued poking around seemed to do the trick
The Committee on Armed Services had been briefed on the projected capabilities of the (currently hideously expensive) experimental system. A proposal had been pushed forward to consider initial funding as a subset of the Star Wars program. It had been pointed out that a local defense system could be developed to potentially target SCUD and FROG heavy artillery rockets and SRBM's, something along the lines of the recently deployed Patriot system.
It was even suggested that continued work of such a system might lead to further developments for smaller, lighter systems, eventually even man-portable units. Though they were never actually mentioned, there was no doubt a number of the members were looking at the possibility of US Serviceman armed with the equivalent of Science Fiction Ray Guns. After discussion, limited funding was agreed, to be taken from the SDI budget.
Anna and Dutch, along with six full teams of Cerberus Security had returned to the Mayan site at the end of May. It was pointed out to the Ministerial level government contact for Guatemala that the previous military escort provided had not been enough, as proven by the fact the Cerberus had needed to extract Anna themselves.
As such, Cerberus would provide and pay for their own security, but would also be willing to fund a local security force to accompany them, as long as it was twice the size of the previous unit. With air support available if needed. Again, to be paid by Cerberus. Oh, and Cerberus was also willing to pay the additional 'fees' needed to smooth over the securing of any relevant legal documentation.
With several million dollars in additional funding finding it's way into the pockets of appropriate corrupt officials, the Cerberus team was flown down to the capital, and a fair sized convoy had quickly been assembled. After most of two days journey along increasingly terrible roads, they arrived at and camped around the Mayan ruins Anna had previously been exploring.
Whilst Anna, Dutch and at least one team of Cerberus Security began to comb the ruins for anything useful, the local military units proceeded to set up their own separate camp, followed by setting up the local security patrols. Which largely consisted of sitting around smoking, playing cards and drinking an ever increasing amount of alcohol from the apparently endless Cerberus supplies.
Dutch has come up with the idea of keeping the locals as drunk and inactive as they could. Basically being paid to sit around all day getting drunk seemed like the ideal mission to many of the assigned soldiers, and they willingly succumbed to the Cerberus strategy.
With local interference kept to an absolute minimum, a thorough investigation of the area could be performed. Jack had secured a three month 'VISA' for the group, which should allow them at least eight weeks on site. Dutch wanted to also see if he could retrieve his team, or at least give them a decent burial, the problem unsurprisingly was Anna, who still stuck close to him at all times.
Returning to the required areas with her in tow would be a recipe for disaster though. Even so, it took an iron will to keep himself focused on the mission, and stay on site - he told himself that his team would certainly have understood. Especially if the extra time spent in this area could find something related to the Hunter.
The internal struggle he faced on a daily basis didn't go unnoticed though by the accompanying teams. They had all received an in-depth briefing on what Anna and Dutch had gone through previously (though the Hunter had been replaced by a 'large, unusually skilled local ambush'), and could see his face twist in frustration when he thought no-one was watching, whilst he stared in the direction of the village they had rescued Anna from.
Weeks of scouring the ruins turned up little new, and both Anna and Dutch were rapidly losing hope, when, in mid-July, an fortunate accident struck gold.
Several members of the local security escort had taken to following Anna, Dutch and their escorting Cerberus Security team around, not out of any dedication to perform their supposed security escort task, but out of sheer boredom.
Plus, Anna was the only woman with the group, and as such, was the only woman any of them had seen in weeks. They had learned to keep their increasingly crude comments and wandering hands to themselves though, after two of the worst offenders mysteriously ran into a wall twenty or thirty times.
Multiple broken bones tends to successfully convey the idea someone is mighty pissed at you.
In recent days the wandering locals had taken to poking and prying the surrounding area Anna and Dutch were currently investigating, normally after Cerberus had moved on. Dutch was fairly sure one or two minor artifacts had been found and hidden away by them, probably for sale to tourists when then returned to the capital.
On this day one of the more competent local soldiers, a private by the name of Julio, had been actively trailing Dutch and Anna's group, just five or ten meters behind, tapping the pommel of his bayonet against the wall of the latest corridor they were slowly examining.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
'Bored, bored, bored. She might have a skinny ass, but it looks tight...'
Tap. Tap. Tap.
'Uh oh, giant angry man staring at me. No, I wasn't staring at her ass. Honest. Hah, he looked away. No broken bones today.'
Tap. Tap. Tap.
'Bored again. Got to get back to somewhere with some whores, I think my balls are turning black and are going to drop off from lack of use...'
Tap. Tap. Crunch.
Crunch? Julio paused and looked at the small gap in the wall, where he had apparently knocked a stone back into a hollow of some sort. He stepped up to the small dark hole and shone his torch inside, wobbling it from side to side to try and see all around. Didn't look like much, maybe a couple of feet deep, but something silvery glinted at the back.
He looked up and saw the others had carried on a little further down the corridor. Hmmm. Maybe he could quickly snatch whatever was in there and take it without anyone noticing? He checked the gap again. Didn't look like anything nasty in there. No spiders or snakes. Fuck it.
Julio stretch his left light inside the gap, and his fingers touched on a smooth curved surface, didn't feel like stone. He wiggled his fingers around, noticing some bumps and gaps in the...shit, are those teeth? It's a fucking skull. Julio paused, and then one finger touched something cold. Felt like ice, hard and -
"ARGH Joder, mi puto dedo, mierda! (Fuck, my finger, shit!)"
Julio whipped his arm out of the hole and stared at this finger, blood pouring out of the deep slice the object had effortlessly opened in his gently questing flesh. He grabbed a (not particularly clean) cloth from his pocket and quickly wrapped it over the wound, realising he had quickly gained an audience, one part of it particularly large and now paying close attention to him.
Weapons had been drawn by the group and were pointing down the not yet explored corridor, and back the way they had come from. The one called Dutch had a large machine gun raised towards his direction, not pointed quite at him though. He seemed to be looking at the roof and wall, powerful flashlight scanning the surfaces.
"Julio, what is it? Are you okay? Did something hurt you?"
Julio realised any chance of keeping his findings secret had been totally lost. Especially with the blood dripping onto the floor from his savaged finger.
"The wall, I made a gap in the wall - by accident! - and there was a hole, with something sharp in there - I didn't know! Cut my finger, stings like a sonofabitch. Look at it!"
Julio held up the hand and cloth, showing an impressive amount of blood for what should have been a scratch.
Anna hustled forward and grabbed his hand between hers, ignoring his muttered curses "Oh hush you big baby. Jones, give me your canteen, we need to wash this out, there's a fair bit of blood, something might be stuck there. No, clean...clean cut too. Deep."
Jones, the head of the Cerberus Alpha team, handed over a clean wadded cloth and Anna thanked him "Julio, just wrap it in this and keep the pressure TIGHT, should slow it down. Looks like it was down the finger, not across, so we won't be needing to stitch anything back on!"
The rest of the team still had their weapons at the ready, Dutch meanwhile had snapped the safety on his weapon and rested it against the wall, within easy reach. He pulled out a small rock hammer from his belt, and began taping away around the edge of the hole, working another stone out of place.
Dust trickled down from the wall from the vibrations, but nothing else seemed ready to move. His much more powerful light, and the wider gap revealed more than Julio had found.
"It's a small alcove by the look of it. Skeleton seems to be pinned to the wall opposite me. I see something shining"
"No! Don't touch it, I just put my finger on it, and it fucking sliced me!"
Dutch nodded and Anna tapped him on the arm and offered him a pair of long nosed pliers. "Try these, see if can tease it loose?"
He replaced the small rock hammer on his belt and took the offered tool, and stretched his arm carefully into the hole, probing and carefully manipulating the shiny object, or at least tried to "Not glass, looks like metal. Damn it's in tight."
Anna glanced to Jones and Julio, who indicated he was fine. "Dutch, this is by far the most interesting thing we have found so far. Can you, you know. Force it out, without wrecking the skeleton or doing any more damage to the alcove?"
Dutch withdrew his arm and aimed the flashlight back down the hole, studying the area closely and shook his head. "It's actually wedged into the skeleton, through the mouth into the spine. I can drag it back, but it's going to ruin the remains at least. We could try to widen the gap, but that runs the risk of the wall starting to come down. Maybe even the corridor if enough wall crumbles."
Anna looked up at several hundred tons of Mayan pyramid above their heads. "Lets try to avoid that then..." Anna leaned in closer to Dutch's ear and whispered "I want it. I need it. This could be the proof Anderson needs." she glanced at Julio, who was starting to get a bad feeling "and it needs to be kept a secret so we can get it out of the country...don't you think?".
Dutch nodded, and Anna stepped back. "Julio, come here" called Dutch in his command voice, causing Julio to step closer automatically without thought. Julio gulped a little at the feral smile Dutch directed at him.
"Julio, we want to take this object, and keep it ourselves. I'm going to have to break the skeleton to get it. And we don't want to share it with anyone. We don't want anyone to know. Especially your commanding officer, squad mates or anyone from the government. Now there are a couple of ways we could do this..."
Julio was starting to sweat now, he had seen what happened to the last people this Dutch had gotten angry with.
"But what I would like to do is buy this thing from you. You found it, so I think it's only right you should be able to sell it to me, right? I think perhaps five hundred dollars would be a fair price?"
"Two thousand" blurted Julio in a counter-offer and inwardly cringed 'am I fucking crazy? Why did I say that!?'
Dutch chuckled and gently tapped Julio on the head with the pliers. "Balls of brass this one. Half a dozen armed men surrounding him and he haggles. One thousand. Not a cent more".
Julio jerked his head up and down in a hurried nod of agreement. Dutch chuckled again "and not stupid either. Might just have a spot for you in Cerberus Security if you are interested, but we can talk about that later. Jones, please give Julio his money. I'll pay you back when we return to camp".
Dutch turned back to the hole with his face set in granite like determination, whilst a profanity muttering Jones opened his wallet and passed a handful of bills to a relieved and smiling Julio. Once again the pliers entered the hole and this time were securely snapped onto the metal edge. Everyone stepped back to give Dutch room as he began.
Muscles bunched as Dutch started to pull back, adding his weight to his effort. Seconds ticked by, with neither Dutch or the object giving way. A low rumbling growl started to build from Dutch, and veins popped out on his arm, neck and forehead, as blood rushed to his face.
After a nearly minute long battle, there was a roar from Dutch, and his arm ripped back from the hole, hand still clamped around the pliers, and the prize securely wedged in his grasp.
He stood panting and held up the pliers into the light, Anna and Julio clustered closer to see what all the excitement had been over. Jones directed the team to keep the corridor covered...just in case.
Shining in the flashlights was what looked like approximately three inches of a knife blade. A heavily serrated knife blade, with no hilt, possibly snapped off. And a knife blade that was untarnished, even though it had presumably been embedded in it's victim long enough for the corpse to become a skeleton.
"Dutch, that wall was either original construction, or pretty damn close. And this pyramid is over a thousand years old, guaranteed. The Mayan's didn't use steel, or anything like it. And none of the European explorers had reached here by that time. And considering it's untarnished and still incredibly sharp, I really really doubt this is steel."
Anna's excitement quickly shifted to apprehension, and her excited stare at the silver blade become the same as though she had been watching a deadly snake, ready to strike at her "And I can't be certain, but I really think I saw something like this once before...Hawkins".
Dutch nodded and indicated Jones canteen she was still holding. "Open that up, and let me put this in. It's a good enough hiding spot for now - just don't drink from it!"
Julio had been putting together what Anna had been saying, along with the stories he had heard of the area. Especially the old stories.
"The Demon? You are looking for the Demon?! Only madmen actually go LOOKING for the Demon, and when they got into the jungle, not all of those come back. And you think..you think that blade is a Demon blade?" Julio felt himself suddenly feel faint
"The stories say Demon weapons are cursed. My hand..." He frantically unwrapped the cloth from his finger and held it into the light, turning his hand back and forth as he examined it, but didn't find anything unusual.
"Calm yourself Julio" Dutch reassured "It's just a knife, no witchcraft or Demon magic. It's a very old knife though, so we need to get you back to camp and get some antibiotic shots into you, just in case. And remember, not a word to anyone. You cut you hand on a broken bottle some idiot left in here, right?"
Julio nodded consent "none would believe me anyway. Tell me, you have good whores in America, fine asses?" Anna gave a startled snort at the complete change of subject, Dutch flinched, feeling slightly guilty for some reason as he considered his answer "Yes, if you have the money, America is where you can buy just about anything, why?"
Julio rolled his shoulder in shrug and pointed to the canteen "you paid me a thousand for that, so Cerberus pays well. And I think that YOU think that the blade is proof of the Demon. It's real. And you are hunting it. And if it's real, it's been killing my people for years and years. Cogida que. You pay me, you get me some big titted and fat assed putas, and I'll help you hunt down and kill this fucker. ¿Convenido?".
Dutch nodded in agreement "I don't have final say, but you have my agreement. I think we can arrange for you to be brought with us as a liaison or something for starters. Anna, everyone, let's get back to camp. I need to call this one in. Circulate and let the other teams know we are probably leaving within the next day". Handing the pliers back to Anna, he picked up his weapon and the group trekked back to camp.
Within the hour Dutch was back in camp, but waited until that evening to get onto the radio to contact Cerberus Security. He had a daily check-in each early evening at around 6pm with Anderson, and definitely didn't want to arouse suspicion.
"We've just about given up Sir, Anna has exhausted every accessible avenue without any progress. Unless we are going to EXCAVATE the ruins, I don't think we are going to find anything. Plus, I want a decent meal, PIZZA would be nice, we are down to the local beer too. Unless you have instructions to the contrary, I'm going to order the camp packed up and get heading back?"
There was a pause from Anderson as he checked the key words. Artifact located and Immediate extract.
"Absolutely Dutch, we have spent a lot of money on that site, but I was going to tell you and Anna to return home ASAP anyway. We think we might have an alternate site that needs investigating, but the window of opportunity is tight. There are some Greek ruins that have similar ENGRAVINGS. Better pack LIGHT though, the heatwave over there is brutal at the moment."
Shit. Dutch mentally translated that. Private chartered jet waiting for Dutch and Anna, reports indicate an active Hunter, and full load out combat teams were already on route.
"Roger, will grab Anna and Alpha team and head out now. Others to follow later. Dutch, out".
Dutch scrubbed a hand over his scalp. This was it. Time to hunt the Hunter.