Atlantis Rising (6 page)

Brad brought up another hologram.
It was a small ball about the size of a bowling ball. “These are the drones
I’ve been working on. They’re basically a spider bot without the legs. My idea
was to use them to gather data in the surrounding area and for surveillance.
They run on a smaller version of our shuttle’s engine and have a sensor package
comparable to the base. With Mike’s help, I can probably configure them to mask
signatures too. The Queen Spider bots can build about one an hour if they have
the resources to do it. Atlanta was helping with the programming, we just used
a stripped down copy of the spiders programming. However, I wanted Mike to look
at actually building their program from scratch,” Brad said.

“Okay, you two get Queen Spiders
on building drones. Atlanta, I need a list of supplies we need for the base.
Then we all will take a trip to the mainland tomorrow to drop some people off
and get supplies,” Jonathan said.

“We wanted to speak to you about
that,” Brad said.

“About the trip tomorrow?”
Jonathan said.

“Yeah, Brad and I were thinking
about moving our corporation here. It would give us the personnel base we need,
and they’re all loyal. Nurses, Doctors, scientists, mechanics, military, etc.,
etc.,” Mike said. “Not to mention the supplies we have at our headquarters.”

Jonathan thought about it for a
second, “We can do that. It wouldn’t hurt us to have the extra personnel before
the fleet arrives.”

he shuttle's skimmed the surface of the ocean heading toward a
small island off the coast of Florida. Terri, Jonathan, Brad, Mike, and four of
the people they rescued were along for the ride. The four people had opted not
to stay, but to return to their duties. Andie had put all those staying through
a physical and a nanite treatment in Main Medical.

Terri was smiling as she flew
over the water, even humming to herself.

“Proud of yourself aren’t you?”
Jonathan asked from the copilot’s seat.

“Looks like,” Mike said.

Terri nodded.

Jonathan rolled his eyes, “It’s
not the first argument I’ve lost to you.”

“Yeah, but it’s the first
argument you have lost to a holographic woman,” Mike said.

“Hey, Mike,” Jonathan said.

“Yeah?” Mike said.

“Why don’t you be quiet and
monitor something?” Jonathan said.

Mike snickered.

“It seems my brother just can’t
win when it comes to women, no matter if they’re real or not,” Terri said. She
turned and winked at Jonathan.

“Hey! Watch where you’re going
will you. I really don’t want to crash into something,” Jonathan said. He
reached out as if he was looking for something to grab onto and flailed around
uselessly. Jonathan knew the craft's computer
system locked
the controls into training mode so that if something
happened the autopilot would kick in. “Besides, it’s hard to argue with a
computer, especially when it’s a woman.”

Terri turned her head back and
looked at the sprawling ocean in front of them. Today it was calm and the water
gently rose and fell. Terri grinned as she yelled, “Oh my GOD, a tree, HOLD
ON!”

Jonathan’s hands whipped out and
grabbed the sides of his chair, expecting a sudden swerve, even though the
inertial dampeners would have prevented them from feeling anything. Jonathan’s
eyes snapped
to look
out of the window, but
all he saw was ocean.

“Oh, ha-ha. Not funny,” Jonathan
said as he let go of the chair’s sides.

Mike chuckled as Terri snickered
quietly.

“Hey, Chuckles monitor
something,” Jonathan said. “She doesn’t need your help. It’s hard enough to
argue with a woman; let alone one that is a computer. Once they get something
in their mind, no matter if a hologram or not, it’s all over but the crying.”

“Commander, no matter how much
you flutter your eyes at me or flirt with me, when you’re wrong you’re wrong,”
Atlanta’s voice said.

“What?” Jonathan said. His face
colored slightly as he spoke. “I didn’t flirt with you.”

Terri tried to cover her mouth to
muffle the laugh.

“Uh huh, at least you didn’t deny
you fluttered your eyes,” Atlanta said.

“You know, I can shut you up
pretty quickly. All I have to do is turn the speakers off,” Jonathan said in
mock anger.

“I’ll just speak through your
nanites then, you can’t escape me, Commander Hunter,” Atlanta said. She made
her voice sound like Darth Vader including the breathing.

Jonathan threw his hands up in
surrender, “Great now I have to listen to a stubborn computer no matter how
much I don’t want to pay attention. Just what I needed a woman inside my head,
what next?” Jonathan muttered.

“Give me some time and I’ll come
up with something for you,” Atlanta said.

There was a hint of amusement in
her voice.

“Women!” Jonathan said.

He huffed
,
slouched
in his chair, and stuck his bottom lip out.

Terri couldn’t control herself
anymore and joined the already laughing Mike. She reached up
,
switched
the shuttle to autopilot, and broke out
laughing so hard tears were pouring out her eyes.

“Live it up, I’m still your
commanding officer,” Jonathan said under his breath.

This only made Mike and Terri
start laughing harder.

By this time, Brad had come to
the cockpit to see what was going on.

“Oh great, the third Stooge is
here,” Jonathan said as he slumped down more.

This only made Mike and Terri
break out in renewed laughter.

Thirty minutes later Mike sat up
a bit straighter in his chair as they approached his compound. He did a
secondary check to make sure the other five cargo shuttles and one personnel
shuttle were still shadowing Terri. This was the hardest part, knowing what to
say. He was like Jonathan in that regard, he hated public speaking, and his
brother was even worse. They had always left it up to their advisers to write
up a speech and now he was going to have to wing it.

“I’m going to place the call so
everyone is ready when we arrive. Terri land behind the main house,” Mike said.
“That will put us close enough to the storage areas and main entrance.”

“Roger,” Terri said.

Mike connected to the tower and
‘called’ Marc Anders office. Marc Anders was the compound’s commanding officer.
He controlled compound access; who came onto the property and who went off
site, and the security of those people while they were out. He was Force Recon,
and had seen too much action in his life. Now he looked forward to a little
peace and quiet, and this job did just that for him. Nothing much really went
on around the compound that his second in command couldn’t handle and it gave
him the free time he wanted.

“Captain Anders,” a deep voice
said.

“Marc, this is Mike,” Mike said.

“MIKE! Where the hell have you
been? You didn’t report in
, I
got
worried, and you know that is not good. I’ve been sending out search and rescue
parties looking for you. Are you and your brother okay?” Marc asked.

“Yes, we're okay. I’ll explain
everything when we get there. I need you to gather everyone in the auditorium
for a meeting. I also need you to start Operation Ground Cover,” Mike said.

Operation Ground Cover was
something they come up with so that they could move quickly in case of a
serious breach. This compound contingency plan presumed a quick move, and
therefore, they stored everything ready to move out. In addition, all computer
mainframes employed some type of hot-swap, mirrored hard disks and software
staged for an immediate data purge on primary hard disks. Then the entire
compound would be blown sky high. The security previously set charges in
specific points to make sure they leave nothing usable behind.

“What’s going on?” Marc asked.
The seriousness of his voice carried over the connection.

“Nothing, everything is good.
Better than good really, we’re moving the corporation to a more, uh, secure
location,” Mike said. Mike looked back at Terri, “How long before we land?”

Terri pulled up a hologram of the
surrounding area and tapped a few buttons. A small display popped up with some
readings on it. Terri looked back over her shoulder, “About twenty minutes at
this speed.”

“Is twenty minutes long enough? I
need everything on the lawn behind the house and ready to go,” Mike said.

“We have a few people not at the
compound, right now. It would be half a day before they could get back. But, as
far as the supplies and such, yeah we can be ready by then,” Marc said. He
started giving orders to people in the background.

“Okay, we will be landing in
some, uh, strange ships. Just hold off questions until after the conference,”
Mike said.

“Alright, I’ll have everyone
assembled and ready by then,” Marc said.

“Oh, Marc,” Mike said.

“Yeah?” Marc said.

“Make sure you’re the only one on
the lawn when we land. I don’t want to have any delays. You know how Frankie
gets,” Mike said.

The word didn’t escape Marc;
Frankie was a key code word, to say everything really was okay. Marc relaxed a
bit, “Yeah, I wouldn’t want him going nuts.”

“See you in twenty minutes,” Mike
said.

“Good, be safe,” Marc said. He
started shouting orders in the background before the
connection
terminated
.

Twenty minutes later seven
shuttles landed behind a large mansion. Standing out in the open was a large
man wearing a black tee shirt and camouflage pants. His dirty blonde hair
shifted slightly in the afternoon breeze as he watched the strange vessels
land. Around his waist was a gun belt that held a .45 Desert Eagle. He had his
arms crossed over his chest and his feet slightly spread.

Mike and Brad stepped out of the
shuttle first to greet Marc. Marc let a grin split his face as he saw the two
were unharmed.

“Hey, Marc,” Brad said.

Marc shook Brad and Mike’s hand,
as he let out a sigh.

“Man we thought you two were
being held for ransom… or worse, were dead,” Marc said. “You have no idea how
relieved I am.”

“We’re fine. We can take care of
ourselves. We didn’t put ourselves through all those long hours of training for
nothing,” Brad said.

Marc’s attention shifted as
Jonathan and Terri exited behind four people in Coast Guard uniforms.

Brad turned to the four people
and spoke, “As you have rejected our invitation you are now free to go. The
marina is over that way, you’ll find several boats there. Take whichever one
you want. We won’t need them anymore.”

Mike spoke up, “One more thing,
you won’t want to be here for very much longer. I would suggest you leave this
island post-haste. It’s going to get very nasty here shortly.”

One of the four turned to
Jonathan and held his hand out palm open, “The clips to our weapons.”

“Nope,” Jonathan said.

“You promised to give us our
weapons back if we decided to leave,” the woman of the group said.

“Yes, you’re correct I promised
to give you your weapons back. I never said anything about your ammo or clips,”
Jonathan said.

The man who had asked for the
clips got red faced and faced off with Jonathan, His voice was dripping with
venom as he spoke, “Look here kid, I’ve just about had enough of this shit.
We’re the authority here and I demand you give us our clips back. Or so help me
I’ll toss your ass in the deepest darkest brig I can find and then lose the
key.” He was so angry he was almost spiting in Jonathan’s face.

“No,” Jonathan said in a calm
voice.

That did it. The man broke and
took a step towards Jonathan the rage on his face unmistakable.

That was when Terri stepped
between the man and her brother and extended her hand in greeting.

She smiled at the man and spoke
softly, “Hi, I don’t think we have met. You’re…”

“Pissed!” the man shouted as he
came up short.

Jonathan’s eyes narrowed as he
absently rubbed his chest to make sure he was still wearing his armor. They all
were, Jonathan had made it an order, just in case.

Terri smiled and curtsied when
the man didn’t take her hand, “Hi, Pissed. I’m Terri fourth degree black belt
in Aikido and Karate. That’s my brother you’re fixing to assault. Now I love
him more than life itself. It would be a shame for him to get hurt. I don’t
think I would much care for that.”

Marc snickered; he knew what
Terri was capable of doing in a fight. He had sparred with her a few times.

“Yeah, what do you think you’re
going to do about it!” the man shouted.

“Whoa! God that’s brutal,” Terri
said as she waved her hand in front of her face. “Someone get this man a
Tic-Tac.”

The man blinked for a second as
his face turned another shade of red, “Get out of my way! I don’t want to hurt
you little girl!”

Terri narrowed her eyes and
stared into the man’s eyes as an evil grin split her face. She spoke calmly to
the man but with a voice that left no doubt, “I promise you if you lay a hand
on him. I will personally rip your arm off and beat you with it before I shove
it so far up your ass you won’t shit it out for five years.” Terri then stepped
to the side and out of the man’s way.

The man sputtered as he watched
Terri step to the side. The man then looked at Jonathan, who had a neutral
expression on his face, and then back to Terri. He considered for a second and
took a small step towards Jonathan. However, Marc, who was shaking his head no,
caught his attention. The look Marc was giving the man told him this was over,
and he needed to set aside the aggression.

The lone woman Coast
Guardsman
chuckled
and then spoke up, “Girl, you have some
spunk! I like that. Can I change my mind?”

The man turned, and looked at
her. He shook his head, as though he couldn’t believe what he had just heard.
He turned back in the direction of the marina. He stormed off as he tossed his
rifle to the ground. The other men followed him, almost having to jog to keep
up.