From Castillo to Callisto and Back Again. And...Again. Pt.2

The Lieutenant gave Davie a quick tour of the base, starting with the officer’s club. He showed him several of the instillations, including the landing field, stocked with Space Eagles and Mauve Midgets. Search lights passed slowly back and forth inside and outside the base. They passed by a squat, squarish building across from the landing field, with a tall antenna extending about one hundred and fifty feet high that served as the base command and housed the sub space transmitter. After that they walked briskly past several supply bunkers stocked with food, ammunition, and weapons. Past those, was a medium parking lot with several large trucks, jeeps, neutron tanks, and one very menacing looking vehicle. “What is that, Lieutenant?” Davie asked, nodding to bipedal, twenty foot tall hunk of machinery illuminated within a small warehouse next to the lot. “That, sir? That is a prototype mechanized tank.”
“A battle-mech?”
“Exactly sir!” the Lieutenant enthusiastically proclaimed, eager to win the favor of such an influential officer, “It only requires one pilot, and is equipped with a chain gun mounted to it’s right arm, and a neutron cannon on his left. The arms can move independently.”
“How well can it move?”
“It’s built more for speed, sir, than protection. The armor is thin, but still strong enough to withstand a hail of normal gunfire and shrapnel, although it is vulnerable to, say, large amounts of Bazookoid fire at close range, or a shoulder mounted missile or grenade launcher.”
“Interesting…” said Davie, and they moved on. Passed the parking lot and warehouse, was an unmarked building, with two guards standing outside of it, that the Lieutenant either failed or avoided pointing out. Up until this point, Davie thought, he had been showed every building that they had passed, why would he suddenly ignore this building?
After Davie was shown the building containing the latrines, he was shown to his quarters in the VIP barracks, immediately next to the personnel barracks. “This base is much larger on the ground than it looks from the air, Lieutenant.”
“Oh, yes sir! If fact I was quite surprised when I was first stationed here.”
“About how many personnel live here?”
“Nearly two-hundred and twenty sir! All enlisted. The pilots live near the air field while the marines and infantry live near the armory and parking lot. All others are stationed in the barracks next to you.”
Davie nodded. “Thank you Lieutenant, you’ve been most helpful.”
“Thank you, sir! Is there anything else I can do for you before I continue my regular duties?”
“No, thank you, Lieutenant. You can be dismissed.”
“Sir!” he replied, and swirled his hand in the air, leaving his arm outstretched in a salute, then quickly turning and walking away, obviously pleased with himself.

Later that night, as most of the base personnel had gone to bed, leaving only the night guard awake to keep watch, Davie tucked his pistol, now fitted with a silencer, into his holster and stepped quietly outside. Keeping to the shadows, he moved quickly towards the unmarked building. It stood nearly one and a half stories tall. He moved to the corner, Just out of range of the spot lights. He peered round. One of the two guards was sitting on an empty fuel barrel, with a lighter in his hand, his rifle slung over his shoulder. The other stood next to him with a cigarette in his mouth. Their breath was visible in the cold night air.
The second guard began to take a drag on the cigarette, and Davie stepped briskly around the corner with a slight frown on his face. The first guard stood up at attention and the second coughed in surprise, blowing out all of the smoke in his lung and cramming the lit cigarette into his pocket. “Sir!” he spouted, trying desperately to stifle back another hacking outburst. “At ease!” Davie commanded and he stepped between the two of them toward the door, opening it. “And if I catch you smoking on duty again I’ll have on report soldier.” he said as he stepped inside, letting the door swing closed. As Davie turned his back on them, they second guard patted desperately at his pocket, it had begun to catch on fire.
Davie’s eyes adjusted to the brightly lit interior, and walked forward to a small security desk with a single person sitting behind it. Past the desk was a door flanked by two heavily armed guards, the only other door in the room. “I’ll need your security clearance pass before I can let you through here, Captain.” the man said patiently. Davie reached into his jacket with his left hand and began to feel around, frowning. “I know I have it here…” he mumbled and cursed to himself. He smiled for a moment a half annoyed smile, and the man at the desk patiently waited expectantly. Davie wrapped his fingers through the loops in a set of brass knuckles and continued to move his hand around as if searching for the pass. He slipped his right hand towards his pistol.
“Ah, here it is.”
Davie’s right hand flew up with the silenced pistol, pointing it at the guards. They moved to fire at him as he squeezed the trigger several times, and the two guards dropped dead. He swung the brass knuckles into the desk man’s head, cracking his skull. Davie stashed all three bodies under the desk and walked quickly through the door ahead of him.
“What the hell…?” Davie said slowly as he realized the only thing in the room was a toilet. He looked around, puzzled. He looked back at the toilet, then at the lever. “Well…” he said to himself, “…what else do I do?”
He flushed the toilet, and the entire wall shook, and began to slide back and sink into the ground, to reveal behind it a large room, full of a brilliant blue glow. People busied themselves back and forth in front of a large, circular structure. It looks like a Star Gate. Davie thought, and snapped a few photo with a pen camera in his jacket pocket. He walked hurriedly out of the building, slowing his pace as he got back outside. He walked across the base to the air field to the entrance of the sub-space transmitter. Inside were two men; one guard and one technician. They were both bent over a video screen, flipping through sub-space frequencies, presumably searching for something entertaining to watch until their shifts were over.
Davie snuck up behind them both and hit the guard over the head with the butt of the pistol and the tech with the brass knuckles. He quickly switched on the transmitter and began to type in the his message using the memorized code.
Davie hit send, and the coded message went straight to Blue Dwarf.

***
Amber rubbed her eyes and looked back out the bridge view screen at the fleet of Mollopod cruisers assembled outside. The calculations had already been made for Blue Dwarf to guide the fleet through wormhole travel to Jupiter. The crew had been set on high alert for hours now, all the were waiting for was Davie’s signal. She sipped from a warm coffee mug in her hands, deep in thought.
Over at the comm. station the computer beeped and whirred. “Captain?” asked the communications officer. “Yes?”
“We’ve received a coded message from Little Hand.”
“Start decoding it!” Amber said excitedly, placing her cup down. Butterflies flitted up through her stomach as the comm. officer scribbled away, decoding the short message. A few minuets later the officer stood up and handed her the message. It read: “Transporter located in unmarked building between parking lot and barracks. Flush toilet, wall slides back. You can’t miss the transporter, it looks like a Star Gate.”
Amber smiled as a rush of adrenaline shot though her. “All hands to battle stations!” she shouted into the ship’s intercom. “Fleet wide announcement.” She told the comm. officer, “All cruisers and vessels prepare for wormhole travel!”
After a few seconds Blue Dwarf led the fleet into a wall of multiple wormholes, flashing off to Jupiter.
***

Davie stood from the controls of the subspace transmitter and turned to hurry out the door. As he stepped outside he was greeted by a pair of Space Corps Marines that rushed up in front of him seemingly from out of nowhere. As they raised their weapons at him his hand twitched towards his pistol, but he drew it quickly away as he realized the presence of two more that had been standing on either side of the door way.
He growled annoyedly and slowly complied with their orders to raise his hands above his head. To his right a woman dressed in a spec-ops uniform virtually identical to his walked up. He scanned her, taking in the captain’s bars on her lapel and the pistol at her side and rifle slung over her shoulder. The entire left side of her face from the cheekbone up was purely mechanical and had a dull gray luster to it. Her synthetic mechanical eye glowed a slight reddish color, and the last to finger of her left hand were mechanical as well. Davie figured this meant she had seen her share of combat. Base commander Castillo walked a meter or so behind her, puffing on a cigarette, still dressed in the jump suite she was wearing earlier.
“Let me guess,” Davie started, “Queen Victoria?”
Victoria raised an eyebrow. “Yes, and I have to say that so far I’m quite impressed. What’s your name?”
Davie smiled. “Lou Costello.”
“Well, Lou, slowly take off your jacket and drop your combat belt to the ground. No heroics.”
Davie slowly complied. Victoria nodded to the Marines and the began marching him towards the commander’s office for ‘interrogation’. Judging by what Blue Dwarf’s Castillo would to interrogate people he figured this would be pleasant, and he needed to think of something.
They marched him towards the office, but would need to pass the air field first. Two marines walked in front of him, and two walked immediately to his left and right, while Victoria brought up the rear and Castillo lagged a few feet behind her, lighting another cig. Davie’s finger were laced together on top of his head. What I really need is a distraction.
Suddenly the sky lit up bright blue as a wall of wormholes opened in space. The heads of the entire base personnel, including his captors, snapped up to see Blue Dwarf emerge first, followed by several Mollopod Warships. Davie seized the opportunity, and in one lighting fast movement wrapped his arms around the neck of the marine to his right. He shift his body in one solid, jerking motion, snapping his neck, and in the same movement pushed the rifle of the marine to left to the side.
Victoria had her rifle un-slung from her shoulder as Castillo started to undo the button holster at her side. Davie grabbed the Marine by the shirt and spun, sending his body in the path of the bullets erupting from Victoria’s rifle. Davie held the now dead Marines rifle and the body went careening into Victoria and Castillo, knocking them over. By now the two marines in the front had turned and were aiming for Davie. Davie continued his spin and used the dead marine’s rifle to cut down the two in front of him and he broke into a run towards one of the Mauve Midgets to use as cover.
Victoria rolled over onto her stomach and aimed at Davie, bullet’s slammed into the metal ships, narrowly missing him by inches. The ground shook violently as Blue Dwarf sent laser bolts smashing into the airfield and parking lot. Davie took off away from the Midgets, looking for some cover that would protect him from friendly fire as well as enemy.

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