The Cross of Mithras Vol. 1: EOD Operation Welcome to Hell (79 page)

  “So why didn’t you divorced her?” Vosler asked.

  “Because staying married to her was a form of revenge.”

  “How’s that?” Vosler asked.

  “You know what would happen if she divorced me. (The EOD values those who serve. She would not have much left to her name.) But if I’d divorced her that would be a different story.”

  “So staying married to her is a way to deprive her of the opportunity to live the high life.” Esters said.

  “Right.” Durante responded.

  “So what DO you want to do with her wife?” Esters asked.

  “Give her, her freedom. Leave her.” Durante responded. Both Esters and Vosler knew that when the EOD learns of his betrayal, they will assume that she is the cause of it by her cheating on him – a death sentence for her.

  “How does Shannon feel about that?” Vosler asked referring to Durante’s mistress.

  “She doesn’t care. You know, she once talked me into introducing her to Elizabeth (Durante’s wife).” Durante responded.

  “Really? How’d that go? And why would she want to meet her?” Esters asked.

  “After we left I asked Shannon that and she said, ‘to let her know that she got some competition.’”

  “So what did Elizabeth do?” Vosler asked.

  “Nothing because she didn’t care.” Durante said. “Time to leave this place.” He said after several moments passed by.

  Esters went back to his ship sending cargo drop-ships here or there to pick up all black projects and any equipment that needed to be taken. He had to get rid of all of his cargo drop-ships to accommodate for the extra cargo. There was so much to carry that every bit of the cargo hold was used accept for the  area to allow one personnel drop-ship to dock.

  For the next several minutes Durante took all of his files that were classified and moved them to a hard drive. He then placed the hard drive in a briefcase, left his office and headed over to Archives. At Archives he moved all the files to a much larger hard drive. Durante along with six other people, spent the next eight hours moving all classified material to the 30 pound hard drive.

  “I thought that you might be in here.” Shannon said to Durante.

  Shannon Garrett is a very beautiful woman with brown hair and blue eyes. She has two prosthetic legs but she doesn’t know how she lost both of her legs. Durante’s wife negative behavior, combine with his job, caused him to slipped into depression and drink. In time, he surrendered to his fate and became what he called “numb.” Then one day he got a lucky break.

  His break came in the form of the war with the Necro-Mystics. Although the EOD stayed out of the war, they used it as a opportunity to expand their empire. High Command decided that Durante should be used to “evaluate” worlds for possible inclusion into the EOD empire. What that meant was that he had to go to those worlds and see if they had any value to the EOD. If so, what type of value. If they had value than by any means necessary they had to be either brought into the EOD empire, or to make it useless to anyone else. Because Durante had already surrender to his fate, he did his job a little too well. (It’s where he got his nickname from.)

  Durante did a lot of traveling during that time and on one occasion he found a abandoned Necro-Mystic transport. Most of the time he would have ignored it since the Necro-Mystic transports didn’t carry anything of value on board. But this time it was different. Acting on a hunch he decided to go on board and have a look. (Nobody said anything because it satisfied their curiosity.)

  The ship was dark with low lighting. The cargo that it was carrying was naked human females. (The Necro-Mystics did that to humiliate women. They know how women are concerning their looks.) All of the women were dead. There was no evidence to suggest that the Necro-Mystics killed them. The evidence suggested that the Necro-Mystics ran out of the drugs that controlled them. (Space Core made it a practice to destroy any Necro-Mystic ship that they suspected of carrying those drugs because they knew that if the Necro-Mystics suffered from withdrawal symptoms they will mutiny.) Some of the women were incased in ice inside of their cryo-chambers. (Water must have leaked into the chamber.) Some of the bodies were lying on the ground covered in blood. (Necro-Mystic blood was red.) The head and upper torso of one body was lying in the chamber of another. From the smell and the state of condition of the bodies it could be determined that what occurred must have taken place between four to six weeks prior.

  While they were traveling down a darken hallway (the door that led to it was the only one that was still working in that area) Durante’s flashlight caught the backside of a woman’s body. He could tell that she had no legs and she was covered in blood. He, like the others, mistook her for dead and they carried on. While they were walking away they heard a sound that came from the body. When they turned and look they saw the body sitting up. Realizing that they had a survivor, Durante had the ship searched for more survivors which there were none.

  Everyone was amazed that she was still alive. Beyond all hope she somehow managed to survive her ordeal. But when Durante questioned her about who she is, she couldn’t remember. The doctor than told him that she has scars on her head that is a clear indication that the Necro-Mystics either blocked or erase part of her memories. The only memories that she had was of the time she spent on that ship. (The Necro-Mystics only block or erase someone’s memories when that person endured something so traumatic that they can no longer function in society.)

  Durante spent a lot of time with her as she was recovering from her ordeal. She taught him all that she knew about the Necro-Mystics and he told her how his wife treats him. Durante suggested to her that she should start with each letter in the alphabet, think about all the female names that start with that letter, and the one that lives in her head the longest could be her name. (Her name came from a dream that she had after he said that.) Both of them fell in love with each other.

  Shannon became the sole reason why he became a thinking killer. When Bonfacio recognized that he decided to keep them together at great risk to his career. But High Command never found out. Even if they did find out they wouldn’t have cared since they had something far more important to care about and they wanted to keep Bonfacio and Durante where they are.

  “Did Vosler tell you that we’re leaving to Andromeda?” Durante asked her.

  “Of course. He’d also mentioned that you’re going to go over to the gravity lift.”

  “You’re staying.”

  “Why? What, are you afraid that something might happen to me? Well… I’m going with you.”

  “Why do you want to go?”

  “In case you haven’t notice it’s boring around here. And besides… I’m might get to see some action.”

  “Yeah, and that’s why you’re staying.”

  “I’m going whether you like it or not.”

  “Shannon please. I don’t feel like arguing over this.”

  “Remember when you told me that you had a hunch and that’s why you went on board that Necro-Mystic ship and rescued me?”

  “Yeah, what about it?”

  “I have a hunch that I should go.”

  “Alright, you can go. How can I resist you?” Durante said with a smile.

  “Simple. You can’t.” Shannon said with a smile.

  “You do know that we’re not taking Elizabeth, don’t you?”

  “Vosler told me. Does this mean that you’re going to marry me?” She said with a smile.

  “Like I said, ‘how can I resist you’?” He said with a smile. It caused her to laugh affectionately and then she kissed him. He then took off his wedding ring and drop it on the floor.

  “I finally get to marry my hero. Hmmm…. Shannon Durante. I like the way that sounds.” She said with a very big smile.

  Twenty-two minutes later Vosler came in. Shannon turned to him and with a big smile said, “He’s marrying me.”

  “I kind of figured that he would.” Vosler responded.

  “What’s up?” Durante asked Vosler.

  “Esters said that the ship is full. It can hold the gravity lift, but that depends upon it’s size.”

  “How big does it have to be?” Shannon asked.

  “No larger than a personnel type of a drop-ship.”

  “Did he say anything else?” Durante asked.

  “Only that his ship can carry, and can only carry, two personnel type of a drop-ship.”

  “Well… let’s go retrieve that gravity lift then.” Durante said.

  Durante, Shannon, Vosler and twelve military personnel left in a truck convoy and headed over to the gravity lift. It was in the late evening and they had a little more than thirty-six hours of darkness. They headed west out of the base and then headed south. After they traveled for a few miles they came to a upside down and reverse y shaped intersection. As difficult as the turn was, they needed to take it. The road went up a rock embankment with a rock face on the west side of the road. While the road headed west there was either a high rock face and/or a rock cliff on either side of the road. At one point the road ran under a natural rock bridge. The road then headed north for two miles and came to a crater at the end of a dead end. The gravity lift was at the bottom of the crater, which was 500 feet deep and a few miles across. There was a 50 story building in the crater. The building (a laboratory) was 300 feet from the southern rim of the crater. On top of the building was a bridge that ran from the roof to the southern rim. There was also a sniper tower on top of the building. (Durante knows that the tower is never occupied.) Both the building and the tower blocked the view of the gravity lift which was on the north side of the building.

  When they got inside the building they were in the lobby. They then went to the security station and was expecting someone would be there, but there wasn’t. They knew that there should be at least four personnel in the video monitoring station with one supervisor, two armed guards, and three supervisors in communications. They knew that it was not dereliction of duty so someone had to order all of them out. And the only person who could do that is someone from High Command.

  “Shouldn’t there be someone in here?” Shannon asked them.

  “Of course. But from the looks of it they are getting close to getting rid of us.” Durante responded.

  They then went down a couple of stories to the Conference Room. They were not expecting anyone to be in there and there wasn’t. They went there in search of a map of the building. Shannon went to the conference table and access a computer.

  “Why do they have these corporate logos on this computer? And what does this red symbol means?” Shannon asked them.

  “Those companies are in league with the EOD.” Durante informed Shannon after he had walked over to take a look at what she was talking about.

  “You mean to tell me that those companies, who has a long history of standing up against the EOD, is collaborating with them?” Shannon asked.

  “No. What does all of those companies share in common?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is it that you don’t know or can’t remember?”

  “The former.”

  “All of them are private held family owned.”

  “So why are they collaborating with the EOD then?”

  “When the companies were first formed, each one of those families were members of the EOD High Command. It was the EOD that wanted those companies to be formed.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of those logos.”

  “So what’s so special about those logos?”

  “EOD have symbols that can mean a whole host of things. Some of them might be a particular shape of building, artwork, a statue, etc. Other symbols are in plain slight, just like those logos. Those type of symbols are more statement orientated, an order if you will.”

  “So what about those logos? What do they mean?”

  “The first one means Internal Secret, which is used to keep things a secret from other EOD personnel. The second one means Experimental. The third one means Cloning-slash-Cyborg.  And the fourth one means Extraterrestrial. The color denotes that it means ‘an animal’ or ‘from an animal’.”

  “So what does that red one mean?” Shannon asked about the one below the corporate logos.

  “It means…” Durante was saying. He was so stunned when he saw it that he turned away. Vosler then came near to have a look.

  “What? What does it mean?” Shannon asked both Durante and Vosler.

  “The red makes it to mean Extremely Dangerous while the symbol itself means… Super Weapon.” Vosler informed her.

  “Let’s go review that map.” Durante said to Vosler.

  While Durante and Vosler was studying the map looking for anything of value, Shannon was messing around with the same computer. Although she didn’t know what she was looking for, she was acting like she know what she was doing even though she didn’t. And then she found something.

  “Hey, do any of you know how to decrypt this?” Shannon asked them.

  “Decrypt what?” Durante asked her.

  “I was trying to find the source of who gave the orders to create whatever they’re creating here. But each time I found what I thought might be the source I found another encrypted message.” Shannon responded. Both Durante and Vosler smiled when they heard her say that.