Our Secret War

[GeneralTacticus]

When the shooting stopped, the commandos spread out and searched the room they were in. It was rectangular in shape, with several other elevators along the walls. There were a number of corridors branching out from the room, and the machinery surrounding them indicated that they could sealed off with blast doors when neccesary. In the middle of the room was a large square hole, and looking down it one could tell that it was some kind of heavy equipment elevator platform. As they moved around the room they heard a grinding sound from the heavy elevator. Decimus looked down into the shaft.

"Colonel, the elevator is coming up again. I guess we can expect something to be happening reasonably soon."

Julius nodded. "Very well, let's go. Keep looking through here for what what we came to find."

He and the others loped off towards the nearest door and down the corridor.

They ran down it for about 50 metres, noting a number of sealed doors along the sides. At the end was a T-junction.

Julius looked both ways down the junction and saw nobody. then he heard a loud *THUMP* From back down the corridor. He and his squad spun around and saw that the elevator had now reached the top. And it carried at least two squads of guards... as did, it seemed, the other elevators whose doors pinged open almost simaltaneously.

"Oh ****!" Julius whispered. He knew that his team could probably win this - hell, they hadn't exactly had much trouble with the 60+ guards around the entry bunker - but it was going to involve quite a few casualties on his side. Besides, there would probably be more turning up as well.

He shrugged slightly. In the final analysis, the only thing that mattered here was their mission. They could defeat these guards, and they would. Then they would finish the mission.

He raised his own gun and could see that the others were doing the same around him. Flaccus and Decimus were aiming their grenade launchers and the rest were using their rifles.

"Fire at will." he said softly. An instant later the hallway erupted in gunfire as eight automatic rifles and two grenade launchers fired in unison.

[GeneralTacticus]

Adjutant Fletcher, one of Wilcox's assistants, was not a happy man as he hurried through corridors of the underground section. He had just seen one of his best friends executed for delivering bad news, and he was now having to go out and find more bad news, for which he would probably be executed as well. As he was still absorbed in his dilemma, he walked out into the room in which the security guards were massing. He actually didn't notice them until the Romans started shooting, and then he froze in shock.

"What's happening?" he squealed as he looked around. He was, quite frankly, terrified; he wasn't a soldier, his job was to do gopher work for Colonel Wilcox. His fear was being amply fed by what was happening around him.

His body seemed to unfreeze as he saw the first rocket grenade detonate aboard the equipment elevator, sending shrapnel everywhere. He winced and looked away from the carnage; at least seven guards were dead, horribly dismembered or shattered by the blast, and numerousothers were wounded, many with limbs severed or shrapnel stuck in their bodies. Some would clearly die very soon.

In addition to his mind-blanking terror, Fletcher was also very confused. The guards at this facility were supposed to be some of the best in the country, yet they were being mown down with ease. What was happening?

* * *

Julius felt a kind of fierce exultation as he and his squad poured fire into the security squads. Here was something he knew how to do, something that required little more than the automatic reflexes of aim, shoot and dodge. Virtually everything else he did required him to think carefully, but this didn't. He found it refreshing.

Both the guards and the Roman commandos were concentrating so hard on the immediate business of staying alive that none of them noticed the ubiquitus security camera mounted in one of the other corridors.

[civman2000]

great!! will fletcher have a larger role later?

[GeneralTacticus]

Not sure, I'm still working out the details of what happens next.

[GeneralTacticus]

There was no warning for anybody of what was about to happen. As the firefight between the Romans and guards seemed about to end, the heavy blast doors at either end of the corridor ground shut.

"What the hell?" Julius cursed.

Then they saw the ventilation shafts slammed shut as well.

"Uh oh." someone else said.

The catastrophy was completed as some new vents opened in the ceiling and sprayed a thick, colourless gas down into the corridor. Decimus had the bad luck to be standing under one of them and the effect was immediate - his eyes rolled back in his head, his legs gave way and he dropped to the floor as though he had no bones.

"Nerve gas." Marcus whispered in horror.

[johncmcleod]

Don't get me wrong-this is a good story, but I am thinking less and less of it. At first I thought this whole battle was the introduction to the story-the beginning of a war or something. I thought it was a great intro. But now it is kind of droning on and I think this battle is the whole story, and I don't like it nearly as much. But I shouldn't be talking, you write better than I do. Keep up the good work.

[ElDiablo]

I think it's great...infiltration and reconnaisance is necessary in any war and seeing one mission go wrong can blow an entire offensive/defensive.
Great job, GeneralTacticus!

[GeneralTacticus]

Don't get me wrong-this is a good story, but I am thinking less and less of it. At first I thought this whole battle was the introduction to the story-the beginning of a war or something. I thought it was a great intro. But now it is kind of droning on and I think this battle is the whole story, and I don't like it nearly as much. But I shouldn't be talking, you write better than I do. Keep up the good work.

I'm actually starting to worry about myself. I've been trying to bring the mission bit to an end as fast as possible, so I can move on to the next bit. And btw, this battle isn't the whole story.

[Tassadar500]

Great story! I right stories too (not on apolyton) it is very hard to end something like that

[History Guy]

If it gets too far out of hand, you might just wanna activate the Doomsday Machine, or something.

[GeneralTacticus]

If it gets too far out of hand, you might just wanna activate the Doomsday Machine, or something.

Seriously, I'm trying to pretty much finish this bit of the story off in one more post. Hopefully it'll be easier now, as the holidays have arrived and I'll have more spare time.

[GeneralTacticus]

Fletcher and the guards on the other side breathed a sigh of relief as the doors slammed shut. They were built out of at least a foot of solid metal, there was no way anyone could creak them down. The intruders would die in the sealed corridor.

One of the guards called by radio for medics, and shortly after the base medical unit stepped out of one of the elevators. They unpacked their kit and began examining the surviving guards, deciding which would live, which would die, and easing the pain of those who would not live.

About a minute later everyone in the room jumped as a deafening, hissing blast reverberated across the room. As one, they looked at the blast door. It seemed to have melted in several places and had been greatly weakened. A few seconds later there was another explosion, and the entire door vanished in a cloud of molten metal.

Through the gap came an absolute hailstorm of gunfire. Those standing close by by were shredded, and the others fared little better. Those that could move fast enough fired back, but it did little good; they had no idea where the enemy were, and the rain of bullets made aiming of any kind unbelievably difficult.

Within minutes the American guards were all dead, and the Roman commandos stepped through the shattered doorway. The reason for their curvival was now clear; the builders of the facility had obviously not planned for gas masks. The Roman shots were single now, headshots directed at the medics. They all died swiftly too. One last shot took care of the security camera.

During this time Fletcher had not been idle. He had watched the blast door destroyed and the guards massacred, and when he saw the intruders step into the open, he ran for one of the elevators.

As the Romans finished off the last American medics they looked around and spotted him fleeing. Julius opened fire but Fletcher hurled himself down and slid through the open doors. He stood, hit the bottom floor button then flattened himself against one of the walls next to the doors. The doors slid closed and the elevator descended. Fletcher gave a sigh of relief.

Meanwhile, Julius just shrugged as he watched his target get away.

'You can't get them all.' he murmured.

He and the rest of the squad then took another lift (after blowing out the security camera), following Fletcher down to the bottom floor.

When the elevator reached the bottom, it was greeted by another hail of gunfire, however the doors weren't yet open so it had little effect. Julius hit a button next to the elevator doors to stop them opening, then pulled out another explosive charge. he set it in the middle of the doors and gestured for the other to stand well back. They all flattened themselves against the opposite side of the elevator, and Julius detonated the bomb.

The resultant explosion ripped both doors apart and splattered molten metal across the walls for more than a dozen metres. They heard high-pitched screaming from the other side of the doors as some unfortunate guards were hit, but the Romans' armour protected them. A second later they all started shooting through the ruined doors.

As they did so, they stepped forward, across the elevator. As the heat died away their thermal imaging equipment kicked in and they could see seven guards still alive and moving in the room ahead of them. Seven pinpoint shots later, none still lived.

Having double-checked to make sure there was no-one still alive, they left the elevator and stepped fully out into the room, after having destroyed the camera as per usual. It was very different from the one at the top level. The walls were made of smooth, stainless steel, with a blue tinge, and the area was square. It looked as though the equipment elevator was used most commonly for this level, as there was a stack of supply crates and various paraphenalia nearby. Julius strode over and examined the pile carefully. It consisted mainly of supply crates similar to those in the storage room above ground; there was nothing to be learned from those. The uncrated equipment next to the crates, however, was far more interesting.

There was a large, thick metal shell of some kind, cigar-shaped. It was in two halves, and there was onyl one obvious use for it: the casing for a nuclear bomb. Around it, there were a number of large fuel tanks, suitable for multi-stage rockets, and a small device that, upon closer inspection, turned out to be an ultra-high speed camera - used for recording tests of long-range missiles and nuclear explosives. Julius dutifully recorded all of this on his camera and was turning away when he noticed somthing else amongst the supply crates.

It was a steel briefcase, of a type that had recently come into fashion for wealthy business executives. With a number of heavy combination locks, it was virtually a portable safe... although it's portability meant that it could quite easily be stolen. Julius decided to take advantage of this and picked it up, placing it in the space in his backpack intended to contain stolen items.

Having done so, he looked around at the doors set into the walls of the room. One of them was labelled 'Commander's Office'. The commandos headed straight for it and examined it. It was a metal sliding doors much like all the others they had seen in this section of the facility, and had the ubiquitous keypad set into the wall next to it. The Romans met this with the method they had used twice before; they set thermal explosives on it and stood well back.

The explosives detonated with the same searing heat blast that they had done before, vaporizing much of the doors and leaving the remains either melted or twisted and scattered across the floor. They ran straight through the smoke and heat, guns ready to fire.

Inside they found Colonel Wilcox listening intently as Fletcher gave an account of what had happened. There were no guards in the room, and neither of the two were armed.

'This is almost too easy.' Julius thought, as he and his squad aimed their guns at the two Americans.

"Don't move at all," he barked, "or we will shoot. And we won't shoot to kill immediately; we'll make you suffer first."

Fletcher just gulped and raised his hands, but Wilcox, arrogant as ever, reached for the pistol on his desk. One of the Romans carried out Julius' threat and shot the American Colonel directly between the legs. His eyes bulged and he collapsed to the floor, whimpering.

Having neutralized both of the others in the room, Julius now went over the office in more detail. It contained a number of computer mainframes, no doubt containing useful information, and a large safe which probably served the same purpose. Julius turned to Fletcher.

"What is the code to open the safe, American?" he demanded. Fletcher took a deep breather, glanced at the guns pointed his way and his commander curled up on the floor, then answered.

"635 285 412" he said softly.

"Thanks." Julius replied sarcastically. He strode over to the safe and opened it. Inside it was filled with papers. Julius pulled them all out and slipped them into a folder, before handing them to Marcus, who placed them inside his own backpack. He then shifted his attention to the mainframes. He pulled out a small laser sutter and began slicing through the outer shell of the first one. He cut off one entire side of it, identified the hard drives and cut a few wires before pulling them out and handing them to other members of the team. He reapeated this for all of the other mainframes, then smiled.

"All right team," he said, "we're finished here. Erase the evidence."

On cue, the commandos all opened fire at once. Wilcox was still curled up in his own little world of pain and had no idea what was going on, but Fletcher was already running by the time the Roman trigger fingers tightened. A hail of bullets kicked upspraks around his feet, but none hit him. He sprinted out of the office and into the room the Rommans had come from, and actually managed to escape by elevator a second time. Julius just shook his head.

"Let's go." he said softly.

They all swiftly walked to one of the undamaged elevators and went up. Arriving on the top floor, they found no-one there, and then once again called the elevator they had come in on. The doors pinged open a second later, revealing more than a dozen very surprised guards. None of them lasted more than five seconds. The Romans all got into the elevator, kicking the bodies out, and went up. No-one impeded them in leaving the base, and once out they made a beeline for their rendevous point.

It took them several hours of walking to get there, but when they arrived they found a black, unmarked helicopter waiting for them. They got in, and the helicopter lifted off and raced for the coast, heading for the helicopter carrier Marcus Aurelis, the one which had brought them here.

Once they arrived on board the carrier, they handed in the spoils of their mission and Julius went to his quarters to prepare his report. He listed the casualties on the Roman side, the spoils they had gained, the only witness (his nametag identified him as Adjutant Fletcher), and the approximate damage to the base. The Marcus Aurelis and it's supporting battelgroup arrived at the Roman military base of Tyrus, only about a thousand kilomateres from the American coastline. From there, the commando team and the stolen items were flown by jet direct to Rome, to report personally to Consul Cicero.

[johncmcleod]

Great! But one question. That whole time during the offensive not one American contacted anyone from the outside world? I mean, if a base was under attack wouldn't you call for reinforcements or something? Or did it explain that and I forgot?

[GeneralTacticus]

The whole attack was too quick for that.

[unscratchedfoot]

That was a good show. It felt like a scene from the rpg Fallout II going through the old vaults whilst killing lotsa guards and looking for goodies in the crates.