The Cross of Mithras Vol. 1: EOD Operation Welcome to Hell (57 page)

  “I got lost in the thunderstorm and I… uh…” Venito was saying.

  “She tumbled down an embankment losing our weapons and ammo.” Caparzo mentioned.

  “What!? Oh no you didn’t!” Hoffneisten yelled. Guerrero said something in Spanish at the same time Hoffneisten said that.

  “Wait… let me get this straight… she lost all of our weapons and ammo?” Guerrero asked. He was in disbelief about what he just heard.

  “Okay… let me elaborate a little better. Her Quad-Walker landed on it’s back and because it’s on a steep embankment… all of the weapons and ammo on it, is considered a lost.” Caparzo said under his breath and with his head down.

  Guerrero then turned away and cursed in Spanish. Hoffneisten just stood there in shocked silence.

  “How much of our weapons and ammo do we still have left?” Guerrero asked.

  “Enough for two teams.” Caparzo said under his breath.

  “You fuckin’ dumbass bitch! How could you be so fucking stupid!?” Hoffneisten yelled at her.

  “It’s not my fault! I couldn’t see and…” Venito said.

  “And what!?” Guerrero said.

  “My map data was based upon on Sanders’ map data! He… or Lieutenant Sanchez forgot to upload their map data into…” Venito was saying.

  “Oh… so now it’s our fault!” Hoffneisten said.

  “No it’s…”

  “Come on guys lay off her. I was on the ground and I got lost. We all did to some extent.” Caparzo said defending his team mate.

  “I was lost too.” Brewster added.

  “No… you were lost because you’re a dumbass. Big difference.” Guerrero said.

  “Hey!” Brewster said. He was getting upset with constantly being put down.

  “What the fuck are you dumbasses doing just standing there!?” Sanchez said. She was under a lot of stress at that moment.  She saw them down the street not doing anything other than talking.

  “Nothing ma’am.” Caparzo said.

  “Get those supplies on that damn truck and…!” Sanchez was saying.

  “Ma’am… Venito lost our weapons and ammo.” Guerrero said.

  “Then pick up some stones and throw them at the enemy. Furthermore… shut up… load the truck and get our supplies to our new base.” Sanchez ordered them.

  “Roger.” All of them said together.

  Thirty-six hours passed before the rest of the supplies got to their new base. They arrived without further complications. Within that time period they suffered another major headache. But on a positive note, as soon as they got their communicational array back up and running they picked up static with some audio that was coming from Galactic Prime. It took huge weight off of everybody’s shoulders in knowing that the crew of Galactic Prime is still there and they haven’t abandoned them.

(4)

  When Ellis, Wexler and Moriarty got to the boat house, Sanchez told them everything that happened. She told them how Coté was behaving, the fact that she volunteer to cross the waterway and how she will not let anyone approach her. All three then suited up and went to see Coté. Coté was still on the beach naked and scared. She let them approach her without incident.

  “Elizabeth… we’re here to help.” Ellis said in a gentle tone of voice. Coté only nodded her head.

  They began to check her using their bio-reader. After they finished doing a thorough search of her, they looked at one another and said nothing.

  “What? What did you find? I can take it.” Coté said bracing herself for the worse.

  “Nothing. There’s nothing wrong with you.” Wexler said with a smile.

  “How can you be so sure? Neither one of you is a doctor.” Coté said.

  “Ma’am… she’s okay! There’s nothing wrong with her!” Ellis said out loud to Sanchez. Sanchez then started to come closer.

  “Wait! How can you be so sure that I’m not infected!?” Coté yelled.

  “If I wasn’t so sure than I wouldn’t do this.” Wexler said.

  Wexler then deactivated his nano-suit. When he did the nanoprobes destroyed themselves along with any contaminant on the suit. After he did that Moriarty, then followed by Ellis, deactivated their suits.

   Coté stood there taking it all in that she is okay. Sanchez came near and put a blanket around Coté. Sanchez, with her arm around Coté, led her back to the boat house. Moriarty picked up Coté’s clothing and took it to the boat house. He then handed the clothes to Sanchez who took them to Coté.

  “I want you to sedate her.” Sanchez told Moriarty after she gave Coté her clothing.

  “Why?”

  “She’s been through a lot and she needs her rest.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  After Moriarty sedated Coté, both he and Sanchez went outside so that she can talk to Ellis, Wexler and Moriarty.

  “I need for the three of you to suit back up and go over there and check out what got Coté so upset. Also, I want you to do some recon. But don’t travel too far.” Sanchez ordered them.

  “Roger.” All three said.

  After the CCU was finished recharging (creating more nanoprobes), Ellis, Wexler and Moriarty suit up, got into a rowboat (Moriarty had to row) and travel across the waterway. They landed on one side of the pier. As they went up the beach and stood near the pier they saw what got Coté so upset.

  “What is that orange stuff?” Moriarty said. He was pointing at a orange color pool of water that was lying on the street. There was also an orange stain on the street.

  “It’s  orange colored cinnabar.” Wexler said.

  “What’s cinnabar?” Ellis asked.

  “Vermillion.” Wexler responded.

  “What’s vermillion?” Ellis asked.

  “A different shade of the color red.” Wexler said.

  “Look man… I’m in no mood for your sarcasm.” Ellis said annoyed by Wexler.

  “I wasn’t being sarcastic.” Wexler said.

  “Well let’s just call it orange. Okay?” Ellis said.

  “Sure.” Wexler said.

  “Moriarty… go and take a sample of that water.” Ellis ordered him.

  “Yes sir.”

  Moriarty then went to collect some of the water. When he stood up he just stood there, looked around and did nothing.

  “Moriarty… what in the hell are you doing?” Ellis asked him.

  “Wait sir.”

  “Don’t tell me to wait. You cracker.”

  “Listen sir.”

  “Boy I’m fixing to go over there and…”

  “No sir listen.”

  “Listen to what?”

  “Sir just listen.”

  “And I said ‘to what’?” Ellis was starting to get upset with Moriarty.

  “Hey Triple-T… I think he means to pay attention to our surroundings.” Wexler said.

  “I don’t hear anything.” Ellis said after he listen for a while.

  “Exactly. There’s no sound.” Moriarty said.

  “So what? There’s no sound.” Ellis said.

  “Sir… shouldn’t there be the sounds of nature. You know… like birds or something.” Moriarty said.     

  Ellis then started to listen again and then he realize that Moriarty was right. Something must be wrong in order for there to be no sounds of nature. It had a sober effect upon him.

  “Alright… let’s go and check out these houses.” Ellis said under his breath.

  The houses that Ellis was referring to was six buildings that either directly, or indirectly dealt with fishing. While they were searching the buildings the storm struck. After they finished searching the buildings, they went back to the nearest building closest to the pier.

  On the western side of those buildings was a road that ran north-to-south. The road had a crossroad and all six buildings were on the northern side of the crossroad. South of the pier was the mouth of a river. The river ran from the north-by-southwest. Like the small island that they came from, the place was heavily forested.

  Ellis made the decision to wait out the storm. He felt that if they were to travel in the storm they may get lost. He also didn’t want any unexpected thing to occur to either one of them while they are in the storm. After the storm passed Ellis made the decision that Wexler should head north, he would head south and Moriarty will take the road that heads west. Because of the order that Sanchez gave them he didn’t want them to travel no more than ten miles.

  The road that Wexler was on was constantly within sight of the waterway. Other than the occasional skeletal remains of a dead animal, he didn’t see anything that could be called important. After Wexler traveled for 7.5 miles, both the road and the shoreline curved to the west. He then stood there to see if he could see anything of importance. He then left and headed back to the house that Ellis told him to returned to. He was the first to arrive.

  While Moriarty was traveling down the road he saw the remains of a human and a dog. The dog was obviously a pet. Moriarty started to record what he saw through his visor. He squat down and began to investigate both of the corpses. He then noticed bite marks on the bones of the human remains. It was clear to him that the dog was eating its master and then someone shot the dog. But did the dog kill, and started to eat its master, and then was shot? Or was it eating its master after the person had died? There was no way to tell so Moriarty pressed on.

  Off-and-on Moriarty would come across the remains of either people or cars that had been shot up. In one case he saw a car that must have plowed through a crowd of people (with someone shooting at the people) and then ended up in a ditch. What Moriarty found so strange about it is, nobody in the crowd seemed to have panicked. Moriarty recorded what he saw, then stopped the recording when he decided to leave.

  After Moriarty traveled for six miles from the pier, he came to a small bridge. He noticed that there was a police barricade on either side of the bridge. While he was standing in the middle of the bridge, he used the binocular function on his visor and looked up and down the river. The river came from the southwest and then ran to the northeast. He also noticed that the river was connected to the other river in the southwest. When he was done he headed back.

  Moriarty shared all the data that he collected with Wexler. After 90 minutes passed by, both of them decided to go and look for Ellis. After they traveled for a mile they caught up to him.

  “What did you find?” Wexler asked Ellis.

  “Madness.” Ellis responded.

  “What do you mean, ‘madness’?” Wexler asked, puzzled by Ellis response.

  “Never mind. Let’s just head back to Sanchez and show her what we found.” Ellis said.

  “Don’t you want to see what we found, sir?” Moriarty asked Ellis.

  “Like I said, ‘let’s just head back to Sanchez. Then I’ll take a look at it.” Ellis said.

  All three of them left and headed back to Lieutenant Sanchez. Ellis remained quiet throughout the trip. He appeared to be lost and confused about what he seen on his search.

  Four miles south, when Ellis was traveling on that road, he saw a police barricade. Ten feet on the southern side of the barricade was a car with the driver side door opened. A few feet from the car was a corpse lying on its stomach. Ellis squat down, rolled the corpse over and saw that the person was shot dead. He then stood up, stop recording, and then pressed on. A few feet behind the car, the road went downhill. Ellis could see that there was a shopping district three miles away.

  The road that he was on, for the first mile, was near the coast. Then for the next two miles the road went through a forest. Over the next four miles the dead end road curved to the southwest and ended at the shopping district.

  When Ellis got to the shopping district he saw a scene straight from a horror movie. Cars that were either shot up or was burned. Human remains scattered everywhere. Blood stains on the streets and on the walls of buildings. An orange powder (he collected some of it) on the streets were the rain didn’t wash it away. It look like a war zone, a killing field.

  Ellis then noticed that none of the corpses (minus a few) were armed. None were police officers or any type of security personnel. The place look like someone came in and try to kill everyone from both the ground and sky. One person appear to have shot him/herself in the head. While Ellis was walking around and recording what he was seeing, he started to notice something. Although everybody was being murdered in cold blood, nobody was panicking. Baffled, confused and tired from walking, he went to set down on a park bench that was nearby.

  There was a corpse on the bench that he was sitting on. From the looks of the clothing it must have been a woman. In her left arm was the corpse of an infant. The infant had a rope tied around it’s neck. In the woman’s right hand she held a knife that she’d used to stab herself in the chest. The skull of the woman was turned to the right with it’s jaw open. It gave Ellis the impression that it was looking at him. He then tried to turn it’s head away from him, but the skull fell off. He then bent down, said that he was sorry, and put it in the lap of the corpse. After he finish resting he headed back to the pier.

  When Ellis, Wexler and Moriarty was halfway across the waterway, they took off their nano-suits. When they got to the boat house they met up with Ramirez.