The Assassination Factor (2)
But something seemed familiar to him, something old, that he tried to remember. He did not know what it could be that was so familiar that he was trying to remember. "Jesus... What an assignment." He said glumly and walked out of the room, down the corridor, totally engrossed in the records they had gathered in his brief as he walked toward a turbo-lift that would take him to the first floor. "Even though it is spotty at best, it is very well put together." He thought, and he glanced at the sealed envelope for Lieutenant Catherine Sparks, the young officer assigned with him to this project as spotter. It was a standard large envelope and turning it over it was sealed with the blazoned seal of the Earth Federation over the flap, the same as his. Here the officer pushed the papers back into his envelope, stepping through the hatchway and headed to the turbo-lift that would take him to the tram platform, heading for the East side of the Bay, on the Oakland side. The Major realized that he would be pulling his spotter from her assignment and passing on her orders. Hand carrying the orders would keep them from the wrong hands. The many DOOM Organization spies were probably unaware of the orders to eliminate their contacts in the past, utilizing their own machinery that would take them through time and space. Quickly, he wondered what the target had to do with time, and why he and his spotter were risking such a bold maneuver against the terrorist organization. The officer also wondered how and what orders were given to the young Lieutenant that was going to be with him on this assignment. He wondered why she was getting orders too for the project, if she was just a spotter, and he was the shooter, ordered to eliminate anyone out of place around closest to the target. The target would be in public when he would be contacted, and it would make it even harder to isolate him if he had to eliminate. He wondered how he was going to pull this off. There were a lot of factors he had read and realized by this assignment, if successful would save the Federation through time and space. If he failed, there could be a factor that the persons involved could disappear into oblivion because of that very thing and time could in essence be changed and his existence could be drastically changed. "This mission is going to be a little unorthodox." He thought, shaking his head as he waited for the tram. As he did so, however, he glanced around the near semi-occupied station at the many people in uniform, others not as the tram arrived and he stepped onto the vehicle through the hatch that opened before him. He took up a seat and he began to reread the data before him. He felt the tram hum as the engines started, feeling the vibration of the craft as it readied for takeoff. The officer also felt the inertia dampeners hum into life as it rose from the platform and banked at a slow speed heading toward Oakland Station. A few minutes later the tram arrived on the other side of the San Francisco Bay, at the Oakland Station. Looking up the Major pushed the papers into his envelope and he stood up as the doors opened. A low murmur of the crowd echoed through the craft as it unloaded and loaded. He moved to the door that opened, allowing several others beside the Major to exit the tram. Stepping onto the platform, the youthful Major gathered himself and his bearings and cast a look at the station. It is constructed somewhat like the old BART station still being used. It is a simple platform with a building on it, a waiting room, and the track that the tram rests upon sitting between two slabs of concrete making up the platform itself. �Still like Trek.� He said with a chuckle, and turning his head he moved to the stairs leading him to the street. Electric cars make up the streets, and busing traffic. He moved quickly down the sidewalk, a couple of blocks, to the building where he knew Lieutenant Sparks currently is assigned. �No doubt the detachment dispatch is also in her envelope.� The Major muttered, opening the door he stepped into the office. He stood in the doorway for a few moments before he was noticed and everyone in the office came to their feet. �Attention!� �As you were.� Major Christopher said quickly, �Please carry on.� He walked toward a youthful looking Captain who was in charge of the office, and he returned the salute. Work in the office resumed around him as other teenagers and people were here in the office for business a usual. �Captain Jonathan Frakes.� The Captain stammered, �Welcome to Recruiting Depot Seventy Three, Major.� �Good Morning� good morning� It looks like I am here to steal a young Lieutenant from you Captain.� The Major said with a silent grim expression, pointing at the young Lieutenant, Catherine Sparks who worked with a young woman who was about eighteen years of age, an older couple and a Staff Sergeant who was signing up the younger adult at a nearby desk. The Lieutenant was explaining the process of the Space Marines to her and the older couple. Here, the Major managed a smile at the Jargon, suddenly reminded of when he joined into the alliance. The only difference between this young eighteen year old and him was he waited and worked through school and finished his degree where she is fresh out of what appears to be High School. As she spoke about the regiment, basic training, and so forth, she glanced at the trio in front of the desk. The parents next to her were smiling. �Very well� Major...� Captain Frakes replied formally, and he turned his head. �Can I keep here till the end of the day until my replacement is requisitioned?� �Your replacement is in route and already in place Captain.� Major Christopher replied absently, �You will be getting a Second Lieutenant Jennifer Parker Adams to replace her tomorrow, or by the next day.� He hand carried the dispatch for her replacement, and quietly he handed the form to him. �I have to brief Lieutenant Sparks here for a mission of great importance, by order of Earth Defense Alliance order 15132. She is detached immediately from this post.� �Excuse me, Lieutenant Sparks, you have a visitor.� Captain Frakes said with a friendly nod, and motioned to the Major. As she looked up, he stared at her youthful face, her blond hair and blue eyes. She stepped forward after excusing herself from the Sergeant, the recruit, and the parents who were sitting at the desk. The parents watched the exchange between the Major and the First Lieutenant with placid interest. �Lieutenant, I am Major Christopher.� He intoned and she nodded, �I am here to detach you for an assignment by order 15132, is there a place we can talk?� �Nice to meet you� sir� I guess� my office?� She replied timidly and he nodded. She motioned to him to follow, leading him to the office and he closed the door after they both stepped inside. He silently handed her the sealed envelope. �This is from the General himself, it is Project �Gunship� and our mission is an assassination order, you are my spotter.� He told her, and she accepted the envelope. Catherine was confused, taking the envelope and staring at it as she turned it over in her hands. She too immediately noted the seal on the flap and the message in red with a raised eyebrow. Breaking the seal she pulled the papers from within the envelope. The young woman read them quickly and eyed the detachment dispatch. A look of displeasure appeared on her face, as-if it were something that she was not expecting to be coming to her today or her reassignment to an MMO that she had thought dropped from her career when she picked out a new job in recruiting. A task she was very good at. Sparks, Catherine, Lieutenant, 0105763 Thursday - November, 12 2356. Detatchment of Assignment � Attachment to Gunship Project. You are hereby detached from current assignment, and currently assigned as spotter support for Major John Christopher, as spotter for Assassination order 15132. Both are effective immediately. Good luck in your assignment, to both of you. Regards, Brigadier General F. Eruba Commanding. Sparks scanned the other sheets and the picture in which she gasped, frowning at the ragtag picture copy and she stood. She began reading the data at hand on the Star gate and its use to complete the assignment given to them. The young woman let out a gasp, lowering the papers. A look of displeasure was on her face, if not anger showing there. �Why me?� �You have experience as a spotter before in Regiment 403, Company Bravo.� He told her, �And according to Command, over six hundred spots for sierra cover-watch. You are the best the Federation has, and for this mission they are pulling in the best we have available.� �That is one area and MMO that I wanted out of Major.� She replied perturbed, �I changed my MMO and have been out over three years from that sort of hazard duty. You really should let Command know that.� �That�s not up to me, Lieutenant, they pulled me into this assignment too, and I am a sniper. It seems to be a hot and vital mission for the Federation in which there could be trouble and chaos if it is not solved.� He said solemnly, �It is a job that many have already turned down, because of the Star gate business and no one wants to be fried tamale if the damn thing doesn�t work, so they assigned people to the mission. It is already in motion.� She read on in the brief, and her face showed the same drop as he had, and she let out a heavy sigh. �I just got comfortable after arriving here, and they just uprooted me again and sent me into the meat grinder... Just fricking great, just what I did not need.� Her mumbles had been truth, as she had been here only five months after requesting the assignment for recruiting and administration, in which would go along with the schooling she had completed for the new MMO she had taken on for her career change. She didn�t want to go back to a hazard duty assignment in which she would be killing people, most of all kids. She had had enough of that during a revolt on an outpost on one of the moons of Orion�s main mining colony. It is an assignment where she was to eliminate five kids as a terrorist group who had started revolution on the colony. She had systematically executed them one by one. Sparks felt like shit and responsible for the deaths as unnecessary and thought the Federation should have negotiated longer to resolve the situation. �We are assigned to Dry Wells Base in the Nevada Desert, but our mission lies with the Science Project Gunship, it�s just you and I on the assassination order. Our target is being recruited for the DOOM organization, and our mission is to stop him or eliminate him from joining, and prevent others from allowing it to happen.� �Oh� it�s just a kid.� She mused, �And a cute one at that.� With that she smiled quietly. �Yes, a kid, with a high profile.� Major Christopher commented, �I�m not sure on the details or the reconnaissance, but they have given us the only known picture of him available. We have to train for the mission, and we will be transported to the base housing, then to the portal area to the time and mission. As you already read, we have to stop his enlistment into DOOM by force that would include kidnapping/abduction and brainwashing.� �Yes sir.� She replied, �But if he is our objective, how on earth can we take out a kid? I mean after all, I don�t think I can have that on my conscious if that be the case.� �Join the club, Lieutenant. You think I want to do that too? If this does not work and we have to eliminate this target, our orders are with extreme prejudice, Lieutenant.� He replied quietly, grimacing at her as she read on with data at hand, �You think you can be capable of handling that and not putting emotion first?� �It�s not an easy assignment, and if you are not able to do it, I will get a different spotter.� He told her and Catherine looked up from the papers, showing a genuine puzzled frown. �I never said I could not sir.� She replied annoyed, �You can count on me not to put my emotions in front of our assignment. I do have a thick skin after six hundred kills on spots for sniper duty. I can be cold if you want me too sir, although that is not my personality.� �Excellent.� �We leave as soon as soon as you are ready, and we attend a couple briefings for the Star gate in Point Alpha in the middle of Nevada and will be transported there from a secure location.� He told her, and she took a seat reading the packet of paper included with the envelope. She did not answer him and continued to read, the data was intriguing to her, about the find of the gate and machine found in a base bunkers of Area 51 of the Nevada Desert and their mission. A few hours later, they were bound on the tram back to a secure location at Headquarters in San Francisco, in which they would be billeted under guard. They had become the most important people in the Federation, second to the scientists who worked the project in a chamber deep below the sands of Nevada which would be their starting place. But just as the duo start the process to get to their destination. Doctor Charles T. Connors stood at the console of the computer as it scanned the archway, a huge stone arch in the shape of a horseshoe was against the wall, and many machines, large capacitors line the walls to provide power to and amplify the opening that looked like solid sheet of mirrored glass as it opened, almost like liquid mercury. It resembles another science fiction program of centuries past called Star gate, but the only difference is this machine wasn�t alien. It is a man-made machine by Doctor Connors and his team that had broken the theoretical physics for the time stream and by applying energy could connect to other dimensions and if not time itself. It used Egyptian writing and the symbols, translated from the walls of the many Pyramids that still stand in this century and the theory of the many gates from the ancient writings into time itself. As the good doctor hit the button, the machine and capacitors hummed into life as a whirring sound revved up. A moment later an opening appeared as a sheet of pure energy, colored silver. Here he turned his head, nodding to his assistant who prepared a mobile robot floater device. As it floated toward the gate there was a buzzing noise that seemed to hum into life as the probe closed on the portal. �Set coordinates and time, and open up portal.� He sternly instructed, looking at the monitor as the computer images flashed on the screen. �Year 2674 A.D.� came the reply from the nearby technician, �May fifteenth.� �Hold on a moment please.� The doctor said into the microphone and the assistant let up on the level of the remote control driving the floater forward. Connors hit another button and there was a crackle as the metal image rippled and seemed to stabilize. There is a louder hum as the portal remained open and as the robot floater resumed moving toward the portal it seemed to disappear through the almost liquid Mercury surface. The doctor and his team watched on the monitor as a wormhole affect appeared there after it disappeared through the sheen surface. After a half minute it appeared into blackness, revealing a face then static on the monitor. �Sweet Jesus did you see that?� A voice asked, and Doc Connors nodded to the technician who hit the switch and the tape rewound. He replayed and the monitor showed the portal ahead and it closing slowly toward it, and as it made contact the floater seemed to shimmy before a spiral, multi-colored wormhole appeared on the monitor. A moment later the image froze as a lizard looking creature stared into the screen at them. It was a big, ugly, fierce looking reptilian with large muscles and green colored skin. It has two forward set reddish eyes and very sharp teeth. A hand whipped out and there was static. �What time did you set it for Doc?� �2674 A.D.� He replied, �I didn�t think it would be noticed if it was the future, if it�s a common sight to see technology like we have there.� The doctor said with a snide tone, �Apparently someone noticed.� �May fifteenth, twenty-six, seventy five is off limits then.� A voice said and the scientists turned as a military party appeared with a grizzled looking, white haired Colonel giving orders. Beside him was a man in a blue uniform and on his shoulders was one star. Guards fanned out around the chamber. �General Murphy.� The Doctor greeted him, �As you can see we successfully had another good test. I think it�s possible for life forms to pass through it, but we are not sure if equipment will pass through it yet.� �I saw.� He replied, and Colonel West, standing next to him whistled sharply at the image he saw there. �That�s some creature there.� Colonel West mused, �I think we pissed it off.�
Copyright © 1991 Nathaniel A Miller |