2 Minutes to Midnight (18 page)

the draco crystal

When men from earth invade reptilian land on
Mars for an ancient relic, will the price they pay for their greed
be worth the toll in lives?

Date: October 14, 2015
Location: Mars Defense Colony, Mars
An all hands meeting of Mars defense soldiers was being held at
eight hundred hours, earth time. All essential personnel were
ordered to report to a briefing from Colonel P. Sherman Hollaway in
the chow hall. What had been a small scientific exploration to Mars
had quickly blossomed and had become a colony of scientists and
archaeologists, defended by soldiers and contracted killers from
earth. The operation had been funded by a multinational
conglomerate, the Mars Colony Corporation for the purpose of
discovering minerals that could be used in cheap energy production
back on Earth. What the mission discovered were not only ruins of
ancient civilizations, but entire cities populated by two different
races of aliens: the Reptilians, and Insectoids. Army, Air force,
Marine, and Naval personnel guarded the colony from indigenous
reptilian and insectoid inhabitants. Tensions were light between
the colonists and Martians as long as each side stayed to
themselves, but that was about to change. Inside the chow hall
hundreds had gathered for the briefing and those who could not fit
inside were viewing Colonel Hollaway from conference rooms set up
with streaming video monitors. He entered the room, and before
everyone could stand he put them at ease.
"Thank you all for attending. I'll make this quick." Colonel
Hollaway said. He gazed across the room with a stern frown.
An image of the Martian landscape appeared on a wide screen behind
him. The camera panned across the planet's surface past a series of
large cities. It stopped at the opening of a cave in the
mountains.
"The folks on Earth financing this operation have informed Mars
Command Central that we are to infiltrate this cave in the
northeastern mountains and retrieve a crystal shard hidden
somewhere inside."
The room remained silent.
"The Caldona region is heavily defended by Draco reptilian forces,
and this artifact is sacred to the reptilians. Ladies and
gentlemen, as you know, these guys are smart and tough. I'm sorry
to say, but their weapons are far more sophisticated than ours.
We'll have to go in hard and fast, because the location of that
cave is directly outside the reptilian capital city of Jhaag. Our
objective is a crystal shard rumored to give the bearer second
sight. Intelligence has relayed that it is the sole remaining piece
of a planet destroyed a million years ago. Sergeant Major Benet
will take over from here and answer any questions after the
briefing."
Colonel Hollaway stepped away as Sergeant Major Benet stood and
began to speak. The Sergeant Major had a severe look to his
expression, and a long scar running from his right cheek down to
the tip of his chin. This wound had been received during an
insectoid attack that had left twenty of his men dead. Knocked
unconscious, and wounded, the insectoids had tied him to a pole,
and when he came to, his men were stacked like cord wood around his
feet. The terrestrial map on the screen was replaced by slides of a
road that had been taken with aerial photography that stretched
around the back of a mountain.
"The cave we're heading to is about a hundred miles north of here,
and we don't anticipate much resistance until we get to the
outskirts of Jhaag. A joint task force of Marines, Army, and Naval
personnel will take this road to the northeast of our objective.
Air Force bombers will be standing by if we need them. Captain
Latrell is in charge of this extraction mission, and since this
assignment was literally just handed to us, a roster has been
posted at the back of the room for those involved. Are there any
questions?" Sergeant Major Benet asked.
Master Sergeant Carlsbad, on the front row raised a hand.
"Sergeant Benet, do we know why we're being sent on what seems to
be a suicide mission into Draco territory?"
Rick Carlsbad was a lifer who had hopped through the ranks to make
Master in eight years and his work in aeronautical robotics at the
JPL plant on Earth had earned him a ticket to the red planet. The
nuclear powered dune buggies deployed to Mars were his design, and
had spawned from a side project he had been working on with quantum
energy drives for interstellar travel. Command felt he would be
great for this mission because if they broke he was there to fix
them.
"That information is classified Sergeant, but good question. You
just volunteered to head up the extraction team, Rick. There will
be forty men with you inside the cave, but since those tunnels are
narrow we can't send everyone in at once. Don't worry though,
because we'll have close to a thousand troops outside waiting with
an armed response in case your team experiences retaliation. Let's
do this clean, and get in and out before the lizards even know what
hit em'."
After the briefing, MSgt Carlsbad looked at the mission roster and
his name was nowhere on it. He had forgotten a basic rule of
military operations, and that is, if someone in charge asks for
questions it is almost always rhetorical. Dune buggies hover craft,
and electrogravitic troop transports powered by quantum field
generators that gave them the ability to travel through the
time-space continuum, were assembled in a convoy and ready to go as
Rick pressed the ignition button on his buggy. MSgt Dave Gnal,
Rick’s friend since they were in technical school together hopped
in the passenger side.
"You comin' along for the ride?"
"Yeah, well
my
name was
actually on the list. Ha ha, you had to ask a question. Classic."
Dave said.
Rick’s team was a good mix of service branches, and all drove dune
buggies surrounded by troop transports, and a division of heavy
armor marine assault vehicles. The air was dry, and hot as Arizona,
making breathing more difficult than normal on that Martian
afternoon. Dust swells kicked up in eddies as the convoy began to
move forward.
"Here we go, man. Nervous?" Dave asked.
"A little. We've got a treaty with the reptilians to mine in these
parts and they leave us alone. I'm not comfortable taking their
property, and I think the whole think stinks like cheese. This
operation is going to destroy our peace."
"I guess we'll know in a few hours, right?" Dave grimaced.
Vehicles on Mars were lighter due to more relaxed gravitational
forces, and thus traveled much faster. The entire convoy was moving
at eighty miles per hour in a matter of minutes. Any faster and the
risk of collisions on Mars’s rocky terrain would increase
dramatically. To Dave Mars was not much different than a visit to
Phoenix, with the exception of lighter oxygen. A three-mile walk on
mars was equivalent to hiking a good sized mountain back on Earth.
The convoy moved along the Martian surface in silence, with no sign
of opposition. After about two hours they were well into Draco
territory. All of them felt the unease of violating a fragile
peace. Five miles to the east, glass spires of the Draco capital
city rose high into the late afternoon sun, and nothing moved. It
had not escaped Rick’s attention that one hell of a dust storm was
erupting from their convoy, and he wondered if Captain Latrell knew
it, too.
"It's too quiet. I know we're miles from the Dracos, but
something's not right about this." Dave said.
"I know. Think we're driving into a trap?" Rick asked.
Dave looked east without answering. Attached to the side of their
buggy were two plasma rifles that each had a four hundred round
capacity, but the reptilians numbered in the millions. Dave felt
his stomach tighten and a nervous tingle in his crotch as he put
the palm of his hand on the butt of a forty-five caliber sidearm.
The technology of his pistol was antiquated, but the gun was a gift
from Rick when they were younger men, and it had never failed Dave
in combat.
"Look...your GPS." Dave said.
"There's the cave." Rick replied.
What the Colonel had failed to explain in his briefing was that the
cave was at the end of a long canyon. There was one way in and out
and the walls were easily a hundred feet tall.
"This ain't a cave entrance. It's a kill box." Rick said.
Rick pulled up along the lead transport vehicle where Captain
Latrell was stepping down. The silence was deafening, and none of
them wanted to be there.
"Hiya' Sarg. You ready for this?" Captain Latrell asked.
"As ready as I will be, sir." Rick said.
"Take this map with you. It has the tunnel system mapped out and
the location of the shard will be blinking red. These tunnels could
get you lost permanently, so don't lose this. If you're not back in
five hours we'll send in an extraction team." Latrell said. Rick
opened the cargo pocket of his right pants leg, handing Latrell his
tablet PC. Latrell placed his own beside Rick's and the map
transferred.
Rick, Dave, and thirty-nine other men, a few veterans and a
majority of new recruits to Mars, assembled with plasma rifles and
night vision glasses. They would be using infrared to see through
the tunnel system, and from the look of Latrell's map the crystal
shard was about a mile into the cave. Rick turned to the men going
with him.
"Alright, listen up! We have the coordinates of the reptilian
artifact in our tablets. Mine is synced with all of you boys, so
anything I know, you’ll know."
"Sgt Carlsbad, do you think they know we're coming?" Airman First
Class Peterson asked.
"Let's keep the..." Rick began.
The canyon suddenly exploded with gunfire from atop the cliffs as
lasers rained down like death from above. The canyon was only wide
enough to go in on foot and even their smallest vehicle was too
large for the opening. Captain Latrell's men began returning fire
and they could now see that the hills and cliff crevices were alive
and crawling with Draco offensive forces. Rick turned to his men
one more time and screamed.
"Run, dammit! Run like your ass is on fire!"
Forty terrified men sprinted thorough the canyon, but one after
another they were picked off by sniper fire. While running and
shooting, Rick’s soldiers were able to hit only a handful of
reptilians, but by the time they reached the cave opening only ten
of Rick's men were alive. Once Latrell saw that Rick's remaining
team was safe inside the cave he ordered the mortar team to lay
down a barrage, aiming for the top of the cliffs. A .50 caliber
turret peppered the rock face dropping reptilians while they
reciprocated; reducing Latrell's forces by as great a number. A
blood bath coated the rocks and dusty ground as each side suffered
enormous casualties.
Inside the cave, Rick, Dave, and the other eight men put on their
night vision glasses and were able to see clearly in pitch
darkness. They moved quickly and soon the battle outside was far
behind. Minutes turned into an hour as they wound around one tunnel
after another following the electronic map, until they saw a light
ahead of them in the cave. Rick and Dave led the way and in a few
moments.
Ten men stood in a room the size of a stadium marveling at the
massive hovering crystal floating before them in the center of the
cavern. It looked like a large icicle.
"You people from Earth are so arrogant. You think you can just take
what you want, when you want it, but some things are outside of
your grasp." A voice said.
From out of the darkness a Draco priest slithered out of the
shadows with his hands folded before him, and behind him were
imperial guards. The ten men had removed their glasses and
acclimated to the bright white light before them.
"I had no idea." Rick whispered.
"This is all we have left of our home planet after it was destroyed
over a million years ago. When the tectonic plates of Mars shifted
ten thousand years ago our shard was covered in rock, and we have
guarded her ever since. Her life force keeps the room from caving
in." The priest said.
Rick looked at the Draco reptilian with apologetic eyes.
"Sir, I don't know why we were sent in here for this shard, and I'm
pretty sure whoever it was thought his thing could fit in someone's
pocket, but if you let us leave I'll never return. I can promise
you that." Rick said.
"Rick, can you hear it? The shard is humming." Dave said.
"She speaks to those who will hear her council." The priest
said.
"I hear it too," another soldier said.
The shard entered their minds and transported all ten men back in
time to when she was a part of a great living planet. They saw
waterfalls, forests, jungles, and vast oceans teeming with life.
Cities of great industry rose through the trees with buildings
composed of green, red and blue glass. Their society was
ornamental, beautiful like Christmas trees back on Earth, but all
of the time.
"You can't take even one piece of our mother with you. Your
commanders sent you on a death mission to retrieve what they
thought was a small rock that would become a gift for the
grandchild of a wealthy man on your planet." The priest said.
Rick looked at the reptilian priest with disbelieving eyes.
"We know a lot more than you earth men give us credit for, and our
technology is far more advanced. We'd like to share this
planet
if
you can cooperate,
and respect the boundaries of our mutual societies. We Dracos have
a similar treaty with the Beel Insectoids on the other side of
Mars. Stop seeking treasure in our sacred areas."
"All these people died for a birthday present?" Dave said.
The priest nodded.
"Those guys are going to want something for all this trouble, and
the lives lost." Rick said.
The priest considered this for a moment while his guards waited for
the order to attack, and then he put a hand inside the pouch at his
side. He brought out a small crystal that glowed red and
green.
"Here, have the rich man give this to his granddaughter."
"What is it?" Rick asked.
"It'll help her sleep at night. It’s a very good luck charm I
picked up on a sabbatical to Ryjel 7. No more bad dreams for her,
but essentially it's a harmless bauble." The priest said.
"Sir, thank you for the gift. It's a shame so many people had to
die for...this." Rick said.
"We are well met, Rick Carlsbad, but the result of war is always
the same end. Take the crystal and leave our people in peace." The
priest said.
Rick, Dave, and the others bid the reptilian's farewell, and
returned to the mouth of the cave where hundreds of bodies, both
reptilian and human lay strewn about like rag dolls.
"Well, the fat cats'll have their trinket today, but I'll never
follow another order to attack these people again. They died
because a faceless man in a suit told them to." Dave said.
Rick held the object, rolled it over in his hand, and surveyed the
carnage before them. Rick wondered if anyone else in high command
had known the real reason why so many good men and women died that
day. He supposed it didn't matter.
"We've been looking at this the wrong way, buddy. The reptilians
may not be the monsters we thought they were." Rick said.
Dave nodded.
"I'm up for retirement in a few months, and I think this time I'm
taking it." Dave shook his head.
They walked through a graveyard of dead men, women, and reptilian
soldiers piled alongside canyon walls as Rick shook his own head in
disgust. The only soldiers alive were Draco, and as Rick and his
men approached they stepped aside, rifles at their sides. Nearly a
thousand men had been killed for a birthday present.
"Me too. Let's get the hell off this rock and go fishin'." Rick
said.
For their bravery in combat each man who survived was promoted in
rank, and received a medal of honor, as well as a Mars Combat
Veteran ribbon for their dress uniform rack. Rick had no idea if
those giving orders back on Earth would try to take anything else
from the Dracos, but he suspected the reptilian army would be ready
if they did.