MILDRATAWA Read online

  Bob Neil turned to Muutampai as they walked. “I wish that you would consider what I’ve said. I could have documentation on the governing of our planet here within less than a day. We too had many problems with different countries trying to run their governments as you do yours. We can also see fit into providing some medical supplies to your people to aid the fight against disease, which is brought upon by your climatic conditions; on both sides.”

  The Verton to Muutampai’s left spat contempt: “Why bother yourself. The Darkside seem quite fit enough to fight. No lingering disease has stopped them from pursuing control of this planet. I’m sure that the supplies my planet has given to the Brightside will be substantial enough for them to seize back complete control; given time. Our agreement for the contract of ore still stands. So long as an agreement is maintained, my planet will continue to supply.”

  “There is no point in changing the governing of this planet.” Muutampai looked the Verton in the eye. “We will maintain our bargain. Your greed will not sway my judgement on your much needed representation.” He looked down now at the space where his feet were to tread, contemplating, walking carefully and with ease, as though nothing worried him, walking as though on a bed of roses. Nothing more was said.

  They soon boarded the space buses and were on their way, taking care with the use of the vehicles, for the Vertons initial supplies of fuel, some two days before, were rather limited. The distance to Sector Eleven was three hundred kilometres, a flight time of 3.5 minutes; which included take-off and landing procedure.

  A guard of two hundred strong greeted them. The head scientist to the planet, Muamsimpa, greeted the six-man troop of peace negotiators. “Good morning Council,” a smile came across his face. “As you can see by the size of the guard I was expecting all forty five members of representation from the House of Suudeem.”

  The head of House, Muutampai, extended an arm. “I hope we haven’t done your scientific breakthrough an injustice by not presenting to you our whole-hearted support at this critical time, but the work must continue in all areas if we are to succeed in saving the blood of our people. The remainder of the Council is hard at work, on other matters of concern.”

  Bob Neil thought: ‘These people see no limit to the expense they pay. The blood of their own seems to mean nothing to them; not a single concern is evident. They wish to save the blood of their people. What injustice; what wrongful words. These Basbi Triad; they seem to be so much in tune with the tribes of Zirclon, but at least the Zirclons live in peace.’

  Muamsimpa continued to smile. “No waste, not at all.” He looked around at the others. “Please gentlemen, this way.” He led the small group towards a ten metres square room of glass, a door stood clearly visible. The cube of glass was a lonely object seated upon a small platform of just twenty metres square, the sands from around just overlapping the edges of the foundation.

  Once inside a button on a keypad was pressed and the floor slowly sank. “We are about to enter one of our ten underground security enclosures. Most of our work is carried out here in secret and safety.” His hands interlocked and lay at his groin, relaxed. “So tell me Muutampai. How does the great struggle for peace go? We get little updates nowadays.”

  “The fight is no different now to what it was three days ago. The Darkside achieved another breakthrough, but they were forced back when the fuel failed on crossing the Twilight. Once again we tried to move the vehicles closer to the Twilight Zone and use them for our own purpose of the same, but the electronic safety features installed by the Darkside blew the motors to smithereens. Even tampering with the fuel tank brought death to another Basbi Triad.”

  “Well; that may change soon my mentor.”

  The Verton’s eyes lit up with greed. “You have discovered something worth more than bullion and medical supplies?”

  “We believe so. But please be patient, you will soon see for yourself.”

  Light conversation continued for the short lapse of time that it took to bottom the elevator shaft. The door finally opened. Two more guards stood at the entrance. Many Basbi Triads moved around, carrying out their tasks of experimentation, all dressed in white. Muamsimpa escorted the council to a laboratory that had signs warning of danger on every wall and door. They were now several hundred metres below the surface of the sand.

  They entered a small glass enclosure, a room where two scientists ignored their presence and continued with their work “We are there gentlemen, please gather around.” An engine sat upon a bench, half a cubic metre in size. “We can’t turn the engine on whilst inside the enclosure as it gives off poisonous gases. We’ve tried it and it works, but we are not suited correctly for a proper demonstration. The engine is very similar to the one that operates the space buses, except that it runs on three different types of mineral extracts that have to be in precise proportion.

  “The mechanics of such an engine have not been changed, but the burning process and mixer control system have been modified for operational purposes.”

  “And what of the poison gases, Muamsimpa?” asked Muutampai.

  “When dispersed in an out-of-door’s environment it breaks down with the aid of the Quakers ultraviolet rays and has no effect upon the human anatomy.”

  The Glaucunian spoke: “Have you a cut away model?”

  “We do.”

  “It would please me to see it.”

  “Of course; this way please.” They shuffled off again for a more in-depth appearance of the mechanics.

  “I would also like to see the make-up of excretion.”

  “As you wish.”

  PLANET BASBI TRIAD.

  SPACE.

  The Ziggurat came out of parsec and the cloaking device was immediately activated. The planet Basbi Triad lay dead centre on the visual scanner.

  “How long until we are in range for firing, Navigator?”

  “In range now, sir.”

  “Weapons, target House of Suudeem, prepare to launch ion cannon. Decloak on my command.” Pasnadinko waited patiently with eyes glued to the screen.

  “Cannon ready, sir.”

  “Decloak now, cannon, fire; all stations stand by, monitor the scanners for approaching alien vessels.”

  “Sir,” the communicator continued, “target ionised.”

  “Target Sector Three, weapons; lock onto seven defence grid targets, fire when ready.”

  Seven blue streaks of light shot out in front of the visual scanner and hit the planet in flashes of brilliance. “All targets ionised, sir.”

  “Good.” Pasnadinko spoke into a separate monitor. “Cargo bay.”

  “Cargo bay here, sir.”

  “Launch the scrap, ensure the trajectory of the metals circles the planet once before re-entry and collides on the Brightside’s surface.”

  “Immediately, sir.” Seconds later. “Scrap away.”

  “Recloak. All stations to fifty per cent.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  PLANET EARTH.

  NICARAGUAN COAST.

  The Nemo had come to rest on the sea floor, forty metres from the mouth of the channel. All was quiet. All personnel in the sonar room sat attentive, only the shallowest of sound arising from that of the ocean currents dictated their presence on the monitors. Headphones on the ears of the operator quenched all man-made sound that did occurred around him. Listening more intently now he placed his hand to his chin and gave out a single chuckle.

  “What the hell you smiling at, Rod?”

  Movement came from behind the chuckling man in the form of the two teams of maritime-grunts as they pushed on past the sonar cubicle towards the large bays of equipment to the port of the vessel. “Oh; nothing.” Another chuckle and wide grin came over him, a slight shake of the head evident. “There are two whales, playing away. Sounds like they’re happy.” He turned his head slowly to his work partner. “Stand by me.”

  “What?”

  “Stand by me.” Logic eluded his friend. “Stand by me; a song by
Ben E.King, a man of great stature.”

  “You’re in need of medication boy. You need some serious help.”

  The boson led the team of maritime-grunts on, each breach, to each compartment, being secured by the last man as the teams proceeded along the corridors of the sub. The passageways were found to be void of presence, given way to an illumination of tranquillity. Peace and quiet seemed to dominate here, feelings of relaxation being felt by all, doing nothing of real value but giving out a feeling of false security to the voyage that lay ahead. It did achieve some small purpose however, helping to maintain their shallow blood pressure, and keeping any anxieties one felt at ebb.

  They had soon reached the bay. Large submersibles camouflaged in tune to the sea lay chained to metal floor struts. “I’ll leave you to it.” Dave nodded as the boson turned to leave. A few men in blue overalls continued to go about their business, removing the chains and checking the oxygen tanks for capacity.

  A man with the rank of Lance Corporal attached to the sleeve of his worn T-shirt approached, wiping his hands free of grease before extending it in welcome. “You must be Commander Bennett?”

  “Yes.” It was easy to see by the T-shirt, and the white discolouration above the single stripe, that the man hadn’t long been busted down from the rank of sergeant.

  “I’m known around here as skip to the boys, but my Christian name is Bobby.” He smiled as he nodded. “The mini submersibles will be ready in a few minutes.” He pointed to a sealed chamber. “We’ll place the subs in that room and flood it. The hatch will automatically open to the outside and the rest is up to you; oh, and over there is the communication equipment that you wanted rigged up.”

  “Thankyou, Skip.” Dave turned his open palm to John. “This is Commander Younge, he’ll be remaining behind.” They exchanged greetings as John looked around.

  “It’s certainly a large vessel.” Torpedoes lay stacked along both sides of the grey walls. “Not armed I hope?” John added as a joke.

  “Certainly not. We’ve always carried a large array of Self-Seekers since the disarmament; helps against neutralising incoming peds – as I’m sure you know,” it was common knowledge that submersibles were bound by certain agreements, one such being the forbiddance to carry warheads, along with a limit on the amount of HETT – high explosive tipped torpedoes – that were to be carried on board. “Please, this way. You’ll see over there a control panel. It gives us the capabilities to self-destruct any of the HETT’s in flight, above or below the surface.” Dave and John looked at each other then, nothing out of the ordinary, though Skip took this as a show of concern being felt by the two. “Huh, no need to worry yourselves. You’ve heard of the ‘Spuntus’?”

  “Of course; Russian Special Branch.”

  “Yeah, well; these Spuntus have mimicked our sound waves by engineering water jets to the same frequency wavelengths.” It seemed to the squads that talking was a habit of the man dribbling away his knowledge – all of which was known by them in any case. “If these weapons are ever used, which is more than doubtful, it’s nice to know that we can render them harmless. It’s believed that they could turn on us in any number of given circumstances, due mainly to the confusion as to which target would be the designated threat; but highly unlikely.” He stopped for a second and peered aimlessly into the air before continuing. “Similar in comparison to the dogs of the second world war. One side trained ‘em to crawl under tanks, and attached to the dogs was a high explosive. Supposed to have put a permanent stop to advancing armour. Huh; too bad they trained the dogs with their own tanks; lost a lot of friendly armour that way. Anyway, I don’t think we’ll ever be involved in a war against Mother Russia. I don’t think we’d last as the powering quadrant if war broke out, and that could be dangerous.” He pulled a packet of faithure leaf from his pocket and offered it around.

  “No thanks, Skip; we don’t chew.”

  “Tell me, have you ever tried it?”

  Dave and John studied each other for a split second. The weapons may not have been a concerning variable but this

  character was something else. “No; we’ve never chewed faithure leaf.”

  “Ah, that’s too bad. I—”

  An Indian of the Andes with a tattoo on his forehead came in from the side. “Excuse me, Skip. All’s unchained.” He looked perceptively at the squads. “If you can show us which of the vessels you need placed into the chamber we’ll get about it. The scuba equipment’s over by the cargo net.”

  “Thanks. Excuse us, Skip.”

  “Certainly.” He departed with a turn as he chewed. Dave pointed out the equipment required and was surprised to find that it could all be placed into the chamber in one load; that in itself was going to make things a lot easier for them than they were accustomed to.

  They went about their business, suiting themselves up with the aid of John’s crew. It took little time. Each man had carried out the tedious rehearsal of suiting up to the pounding fist of their commander and the ticking of a clock many times before – the quarterly drills and knowledge test. Any part of the test not completed within the parameters laid down saw an immediate withdrawal on request pro-forma being handed in, a voluntary expulsion of the failing soldier.

  The squad made its way over to the chambers and climbed into the tiny cockpits. Each of the mini subs seated two men, one to the front of the other. The second man in each was positioned far enough behind the first that his controls were easily maintained and viewed. Levers for controlling camera angles, and another two for the manipulation of the large claw-like hands to the front and beneath the vessel, sat between the legs. Throttle and gear stick for operation of the eight motors on each submersible sat to the outside of his thighs and various monitors to his front indicated various points around the sub; these took little time to master.

  The front man controlled a reverse throttle control for emergencies such as placing the vessel into the opposite gear and thus propelling it in the reverse direction to which it was currently heading. Monitor screens were similar to the rearmost monitors except that the pictures seen were dictated by the code punched in on the panel. The man seated here was capable of viewing any of the other camera views, to all submersibles, from where he sat, along with the advantage of recording and replaying anything of interest that he saw.

  The on-board weapons were also controlled by the front man, so was the atmosphere control, emergency hatch release catch, the nose blowtorch, and many other simple control devices necessary for any vessel that had the prime role of working alone. Those with a Master Operators licence were also capable of running the larger subs by themselves and to a far greater depth; though none of these were required for the first phase of the mission and stood little chance of being deployed at all.

  The hatches to the mini subs were sealed and the chamber door now drew to a slow close, only a small porthole allowing for John to see in as the water quickly rose to fill the chamber. As promised the doors to the outside Pacific were automatic.

  Slowly the lead vehicle drifted up and commenced its voyage from the chamber, over the small rim and out of the side of the now gaping Nemo. The navigator, Brian Brett, sat to the rear of Dave and led the remainder of the squad out towards the channel entrance. The steering system worked wonderfully.

  Powering along the underwater curving cavity soon swallowed them from view of the Nemo and the powerful lights of the mini subs now took hold. To everyone’s amazement little marine life was seen. Only in the swaying current could life be depicted. Microscopic life swam aimlessly, like thick drifting layers of dust.

  The lights were turned down to low beam, the treacherous shadows of the walls now disappearing from sight and from the monitor screens on the vehicles behind Dave’s.

  The communication and weapons expert followed close behind the lead vehicle, with the second in command and medical member of the team bringing up the rear. All wore wet suits with heavily compressed air tanks resting on their backs – whi
ch sank into the pre-shaped cushion seats – with the breathing nozzles to these drooped over their shoulders in readiness to be clipped into helmet vents. Speech monitors lay to the front of each facial helmet worn and air vents to each were open for easy use of the subs cool and refreshing oxygen. The oxygen in the tiny submersibles would last two hours, or until the glass domed hatches were opened. The tanks had an equivalent of six hours normal breathing at the depth they were operating; two square tanks rest on the outside of each vessel if needed.

  The first hour of travel was now behind them and this was used wisely as a means for which to calibrate their oxygen levels. “What’s the current like, Brian?”

  “It’s with us at the moment, Dave. It may play a little havoc with us on our return journey, possibly doubling it.”

  “Okay; everyone listen in. John, you there?”

  John and his team rested leisurely next to the chamber of the Nemo, ready to deploy in a moment’s notice. “Yeah, I’ve got you.”

  Dave addressed the two teams simultaneously. “What we need to do is go as far as possible along the channel using the two hours worth of oxygen from the submersibles before using that in the tanks strapped to our backs. That’ll give us six hours of full use from the tanks. From the mission briefing in America State you’ll recall that they mentioned the space ultra violet x-ray of the rock formation. If the x-ray is correct then we should get some good distance covered along route. Right now I calculate another hour in the mini subs using its oxygen and four hours for the return journey; the current isn’t going to be with us on the way back. This extra two hours on our return will only allow for two hours to be used from the reserve tanks for exploration of the lake. I want you, John, to have a vessel with six extra tanks on board ready for a rendezvous, just in case; you got that?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “With the total tank oxygen from the primary and reserve that we have we’ll have eight hours on fin. If I need longer I may take it, as we may need to spend added time in the lake, but that means we’re going to be a tad short of the Nemo on our return. I’ll keep you informed of our progress. Mark, Anthony, any questions from you two?”