2051: The Battle Over Nothing
(Earth, Arizona Desert – Nothing, Main Street – 2051.09.07, 0803)
Lieutenant-Colonel Samantha Crichton was not a happy camper. She and her troops, a scraped together bunch of misfits, were in the middle of nowhere. And they were chasing a rumor. Brushing her red hair from her green eyes, she checked the map again. ~This should be the place.~ She sighed as she looked around. Nothing, Arizona was a collection of abandoned houses. When the war had begun, people had flocked to the dot on the map because….well, it was just a dot on the map.
There was nothing special about Nothing. It was strategically unimportant, there was nothing even remotely worth conquering nearby and no government had signed off on it's creation. It just…was. But the rumor was that the war had eventually found Nothing. A large group of Augments had rolled into town and the locals had fled. The story was that the Augments had stayed for a couple of months, before packing up and moving on.
Crichton's orders were to find out if the Augments had been here. And if they had, what exactly they had been up to. But all she was finding were hastily abandoned houses. There were also empty caravans, tents and even some houseboats. ~How did those boats even get here ?~ She put the map away and turned to her second-in-command.
"Well, Cap, we've landed into another fine mess."
"What else is new ?" Captain Alexander Zander began. "So, tell me you have a plan."
"I'm working on it."
Crichton led her troops down what passed for main street around Nothing. In truth, it was just a path made out of wooden boards that connected the houses. As they reached the edge of town, Crichton looked back to make sure all of her people were still around. Besides Captain Zander, she had four more set of hands. And each of them had a reason for ending up under her command.
Zander was a Caucasian man with blue eyes and blond hair. At one meter ninety-five, he was taller then Crichton. The reason he was in this unit was simple…Alexander Zander was an Augment. But his mother had escaped the labs where he was created and hidden him from the scientists. He had not learned about his true nature until his medical exam for the US Army. The army had wanted to throw him in jail, but one of their Generals, David Anderson, had prevented that. Anderson was the one who had assembled Crichton's little team of misfits. In the years since, Zander had impressed the right people and climbed the ranks to his current position.
Next came Private Denise Rodriguez and A-8. Rodriguez was the unit's Communications Officer. Her hobby was robotics. She had been on edge for being kicked out for using army resources to build a robot. Said robot was A-8. It was build out of whatever Rodriguez had been able to get her hands on. It was very handy for carrying heavy weapons. And the communications gear.
Covering the rear were First Lieutenant John Shepard and Sergeant Margaret 'Maggie' Benton. Shepard was the unit's pilot. He had brought the unit to Nothing aboard Huey helicopter called Olivia. His reason for being here was simple…he had volunteered. This was not true for Maggie Benton. Sergeant Benton had assigned here by Anderson, despite not waiting the job. But the unit had needed a medic and that had been the end of it.
"Okay, let's head…" That was far as she got before the sound of a cannon swallowed her breath. Three seconds later, one of the houses exploded as the shell hit. "Move !"
They all bolted out of the small town as more shells annihilated more of the structures. This got them out of the line of fire in the short terms, but created two long-term problem. Their helicopter was parked on the other side of town – if the attackers hadn't destroyed her yet – and the area around Nothing was completely flat. This meant that there was zero cover for the unit. Behind them, the last house exploded.
"Colonel," Shepard began. "Two o'clock, there's something there."
Following Shepard's direction, Crichton spotted what appeared to be a well. However, as the approached it, she realized that it was instead an airshaft. The shaft was three layers of bricks high, with a green metal hatch sealed with a padlock.
"That's not on the map." Benton said.
"Looks like we may have found what our Augment friends were up to." Crichton said. "Or the locals did a little illegal mining to keep the town on its feet. Either way, it's better then staying up here as sitting ducks." She grabbed a large pair of plyers from A-8's back and handed it to Zander. "Captain, if you would…"
"Yes, ma'am." Zander cut through the lock and opened the hatch. He took out a flashlight and gave the shaft a good look. "Looks like our well is an airshaft that doubles as an emergency exit. I've got a ladder leading to a tunnel."
"Good enough for me. Rodriguez, once we're in the tunnel, break out the M240." Rodriguez nodded in acknowledgement. "Shepard, how many grenades do we have ?"
"Four, I haven't had a chance to restock since that mess in Mexico."
"It'll have to do. Set up a pair of Bolos on the ladder."
"Colonel," Benton said. "We've got incoming."
Crichton looked back at the town. An M1Abrams tank came rolling into view. ~Crap.~ Crichton signaled to the team to hurry. Zander had already climbed down the ladder and was securing the tunnel. Benton and Rodriguez slid down the ladder, while A-8 began climbing. It was at this point that she noticed a blue star with a red border on the tank.
"Mad Rick, great."
"Explains why it's an Abrams, Mad Rick's troops only have outdated gear." Shepard said as he entered the shaft and closed the hatch.
Richard McKinley, known as Mad Rick, was a self-declared Colonel who had seen the chaos of the war as a chance for Texas to become an independent republic once more. At first, he had enjoyed plenty of support. But then it had been revealed that the 'Colonel' had never served in any armed force. Further scandals had torpedoed his reputation and these days most Texans considered Mad Rick and his followers crackpots. The last briefing on his group had said that they had been driven out of Texas. The National Guard had found McKinley's base and the Air Force had bombed it off the map. But intelligence had said there had been survivors. Now they knew where they had gone.
As Crichton climbed down, Shepard took two grenades and connected them using a tripwire. He then connected them to the hatch. Whoever opened the hatch would be blown to pieces. He set up a second trap halfway down the ladder, then finished his climb. In the meanwhile, Rodriguez had removed a large machinegun from A-8's back. The tunnel was dark, so they all took out their flashlights and turned them on. Crichton made a hand signal and Zander took the lead.
"So, now what ?" Shepard asked.
"That depends on what's on the end of this tunnel."
They made their way down the tunnel, which sloped down as it went along. Crichton looked for security features, but there were none. The tunnel took a turn left, followed by a turn right. Then they reached a set of big metal doors. ~Well, that explains why there's no security.~ Crichton knew blast doors when she saw them.
"Well, this is anticlimactic." Benton said.
An explosion echoed through the tunnel. Mad Rick's forces had found the tunnel entrance. What they hadn't found was Shepard's second boobytrap, because a second explosion followed seconds later. Rodriguez and Shepard set up the M240. If this was going to be there last stand, they were going to make Mad Rick bleed as much as they could.
"Colonel," Zander said. "Now would be a really good time for a plan."
They had some C4, but using it was not an option. Besides, they might need it for whatever was on the other side of the door. Looking around, she spotted a keypad next to one of the doors. It had ten keys and a USB-port.
"A-8, you're up."
/\= Yes, Colonel./\= The robot said.
A-8 never spoke up unless spoken to. The robot limbs were prosthetics, with the head and torso having been put together from scraped together parts. A-8 plugged in and began running through the permutations of the code to open the door. As he did his thing, the first enemy soldiers came into sight. Rodriguez cut loose with the machinegun, forcing them to retreat.
"Flashlight off, masks on." Crichton said. "Rodriguez, infrared scope."
The team followed Crichton's orders. They were fitted with Delta-7 gasmasks, which came with integrated night-vision lenses and radios. Rodriguez took the scope off her belt and snapped it into place. ~Come on, you bastards, let's get this over with.~ She had barely completed the thought when two gas grenades came rolling towards them. Crichton had ordered the masks because she figured that if she was in their attackers' position, a gas attack was what she would do. The grenades exploded and the tunnel quickly filled with gas. Ten seconds later, the second wave came around the corner.
/\=Fire./\=
Everybody opened fire. The enemy was caught by surprise and they quickly cut them down. There was a loud beep as A-8 hit the code. The door swung open and the gas cleared as a third wave of troops rounded the corner. Crichton signaled for them to retreat. They kept shooting as they made their way past the doors. Crichton put a small C4 charge on the keypad and set the timer to thirty seconds. She slammed the doors shut behind them. She heard them lock, followed by the charge exploding. There were screams and curses from the other side of the doors. The enemy opened fire, but she could hear their bullets bounce off the doors.
/\=We need to move, it's only a matter of time before they blast through./\= Zander said.
/\=Yes, we do./\= Crichton said. /\=Good work, A-8/\=
/\=Thank you, Colonel./\=
She had expected an advanced complex beyond the doors. Instead, they were inside a mine. The place was being held up by a frame of wooden beams. Crichton switched her night-vision off and her flashlight back on. The rest of the team quickly followed as they headed down the tunnel.
(Earth, Arizona Desert – Mine under Nothing – 2051.09.07, 0817)
Several tunnels and turns later, the mine suddenly widened into a large cave. A rope bridge connected the tunnel they had come from with another tunnel on the far side of the cave. The bridge didn't look very old. Crichton led the way across the cave and into the new tunnel. The tunnel ended at a spiral staircase. They climbed it to find another tunnel. But this one was different. As soon as they entered it, two rows of light snapped on. Following them, they found a hatch to a fallout shelter. It had a wheel to open it. Crichton and Shepard opened the door, while Zander turned the wheel. The door opened, revealing a living room. They moved inside and closed the door behind them. Crichton locked it.
/\=Masks off. A-8 and Rodriguez, stay here. Everybody else, clear the rest of the shelter./\=
It didn't take long for them to clear the shelter. Besides the living room, there were two rooms with bunkbeds, two bathrooms and a kitchen-slash-mess hall. Behind the mess hall was a large pantry with enough canned food and bottled water for a couple years. Finally, there was an armory with enough rifles and pistols to arm twenty people. There were also two boxes full of grenades. Shepard used these to restock his supply and handed the rest to the others.
"You think this is what the Augments were up to down here ?" Benton asked.
"No, ninety percent of what is here is civilian gear," Zander said. "The Augments had access to military grade equipment. And this shelter is designed to hold twenty people. Even in the best-case scenario, there were sixty Augments here. Worst-case scenario, there were over a hundred. Either way, this shelter wouldn't cut it."
"But it does explain why Mad Rick is here." Benton said. "This shelter has food, water and medicine. Everything he needs to recover and rebuild. And he can use this place as a base to look for whatever the Augments did down here."
"For the record, we still don't have solid evidence that the Augments were here." Shepard said.
"I doesn't matter. If Mad Rick is chasing the same rumor we are, Maggie is right," Crichton said. "He'll set up shop here and go looking for the Augments' secret. And if it does exist and he finds it…"
"Yeah, that's going to come back and bite us in the rear," Zander said. "Orders ?"
Crichton looked around the shelter. This place was designed to survive a nuclear blast. So, what to do about it ? The grenades they had found wouldn't even make a dent. Then she realized that the bunker had a gas supply for cooking. She ordered everybody out of the fallout shelter and grabbed a C4 charge, which she planted in the kitchen. Next, she opened the gas and let it flow. The timer on the charge was set to fifteen minutes. Once the charge went off, the gas would ignite and turn the shelter into an inferno. The whole place would be totally useless by the time Mad Rick and his cronies found it. They made their way back to the bridge…
(Earth, Arizona Desert – Mine under Nothing – 2051.09.07, 0825)
When they reached the bridge, they found roughly sixty soldiers waiting for them. All of them were armed with assault rifles. Mad Rick was standing amongst them. McKinley was in his sixties, with grey hair and a distinctive grey moustache. His green eyes reflected anger. ~He doesn't like the fact that we shredded some of his troops.~ The colonel didn't waste any time.
"Take aim !" The soldiers did so.
Before the Colonel could give the order to fire, a rain of grenades of came from above. Some of them exploded before they hit the ground, while the rest exploded after they did. As the explosions ripped through Mad Rick's forces, Crichton and co opened fire. Whoever had thrown the grenades joined in. Crichton used the chaos to take her combat knife and cut the rope bridge. McKinley ordered his troops to retreat to the tunnel. As the smoke cleared, Crichton looked up. It was only that she realized there was a ledge near the top of the cave. She figured that this ledge hid the end of another tunnel from view. Somebody had used the that tunnel to catch Mad Rick and company by surprise.
Her theory was confirmed when rock climbing ropes were thrown over the ledge and a group of soldiers began climbing down. There were four of them and Crichton recognized their uniforms. In the chaos of the war, the federal government had not taken good care of defending the Native American reservation. So the Navajo Nation had decided that it was better to seek forgiveness then to ask permission and created their own militia. It even had its own Special Operations unit, called the Navajo Arrows. The Arrows were the ones who had just saved Crichton's team.
"Colonel Crichton, I presume ?" The team leader said. "I'm Major Peter Nez, Navajo Arrows."
"Welcome to Nothing. So, what brings you here, Major ?" Crichton said.
"Besides saving you lot from Mad Rick ?" This got chuckles from both teams. "Navajo leadership heard the same rumors as the Pentagon did. And we had a map that showed there's a fallout shelter down here."
"Yeah, we found that and took care of it. Well, in about…" She checked her watch. "Eight minutes, boom. So, what next ? And how did you get in here to begin with ?"
"This mine has more than one entrance. We used one of the others. As for what next, there's still plenty of mine to search."
Crichton nodded. She had wrecked the rope bridge and the tunnel led back to the fallout shelter, which was a ticking bomb. And it was a safe bet that Mad Rick and his troops were waiting for them down the tunnel they had used to get here to begin with. But then she realized that there was another way out of this cave. The water level in the river was low, but the passage was high enough to walk through. As she looked at the walls, an alarm bell rang in the back of her head.
"Up the river we go."
Both units climbed down to the river and started following it. Crichton took the lead, with Shepard and Nez covering the rear. It was a good thing that the water levels were low, or moving upstream would have been exhausting. Nez inspected the tunnel walls, which were covered in watermarks. His superiors had made it clear that he was here to back up Crichton unit. And that he should let her take the lead. Those orders had made him very unhappy. But he was a professional and he had a job to do.
On top of that, he was now learning first hand that she had good instincts. Something about this river was very wrong. It took a lot of water to make a passage this big, but the river was a trickle. ~Why bother to build a rope bridge over this ?~ But if the locals had built the bridge and the fallout shelter. ~Then maybe it was the Augments who changed the river later.~ Alas, there was only one way to find out what was waiting for them upstream. And Nez doubted this was the last they had seen of Mad Rick.
To Be Continued…