Mission Brief-Containment Protocol, Part 2

Tanks & dinosaurs, oh my! Fiction (2200 words, 11-minute read)

Image: Microsoft Image Creator

This is part 2 of the Containment Protocol tale. It’s the story of a secret government project which opens portals to alternate universes. This time, though, the scout brought a couple of unexpected visitors back with him.

Find the rest of the Containment Protocol tale here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/containment-protocol-serial

Part 1 (the beginning), ... , Part 3 (next episode)

MISSION BRIEF

by Ray Tabler

“What exactly does large, indigenous fauna mean, anyway?” Pensky felt the torque wrench click faintly.

“Distinct possibility of encountering large, aggressive indigenous fauna.” Jackson quoted from the briefing. “Don’t forget the aggressive part.”

“Thanks for reminding me.” Pensky moved the torque wrench to the next tensioning bolt on the track of their Abrams tank. “How large is large?”

“Stop checking those bolts. That’s the third time you’ve done it this morning.”

“I’m nervous. okay? How large is large?”

“Well, did you catch a glimpsed of the carcass being dragged out of here, and hosed off the cavern floor?”

“Yeah, I did. And that’s was only half of the whole critter?”

“That’s what I heard.” Jackson relieved Pensky of the torque wrench, and seated it back in the tool box. “I guess that’s why they need a platoon of tanks.”

“I wish I’d never left Fort Irwin. Never shoulda volunteered for this top-secret crap.”

“Does pay better.”

“Can’t spend that extra pay when you been stomped and eaten by a dinosaur.”

“Suppose that’s true. But you will be encased in seventy tons of steel and firepower.”

“How much does a dinosaur weigh?”

“Couldn’t say off the top of my head. Probably not as much as ol’ Fred here.” Jackson slapped the side of their Abrams.

Pensky glanced up and found something to take his mind off of hungry dinosaurs. “And what the hell is that, huh?” The name ‘Fred’ was painted the barrel of their tank, in lettering which looked like it was carved from granite. “Who ever heard of a tank named Fred? Why isn’t it Mad Dog, or Death Dealer? Something cool.”

Guess all of the cool names were already taken.”

Their tank, Fred, was the lead vehicle in the platoon, the one commanded by lieutenant Booker. The other Abrams, ranked along the staging area of a side cavern, were named Wilma, Barney, and Betty. The two attached Bradley infantry fighting vehicles bore the designations Pebbles and Bam Bam. Jackson thought the naming scheme hilarious, and heartily approved.

Jackson caught movement out of the corner of his eye. “Heads up, Pens. Here come the el-tee, and the rest.”

Pensky’s head whipped around to see Booker and the other track commanders approaching. “Shit! Must be time to go to Jurassic Park.”

Jackson suppressed a giggle.

The sergeants commanding Wilma, Betty, Barney, Pebbles, and Bam Bam peeled off and quickly gathered their crews so Booker could address them all.

“Okay. You were all at the briefing. So, this will just be a quick recap. Meet our passenger, Nohfa, and Mr. Muñoz, formerly sergeant Muñoz of the Green Berets.” Booker pronounced Nohfa’s name with a long O. As in, oh shit!

“Our mission is to return Nohfa home, through the gate, to her village. Some kind of hill fort. That will involve cross country travel of approximately twenty miles, over what I have been told is gently rolling prairie with intermittent woodlands. Which we will be detouring around if at all possible.”

Booker paused for a moment. The phrase “large, aggressive indigenous fauna” echoed in the team’s heads almost loud enough to be audible.

“When Muñoz returned from his last mission, with Nohfa in tow, there was a momentary loss of control of the gate apparatus. That potential issue has been resolved, and should not occur again. On this mission we will, however, be on the lookout for whatever, or whoever may have caused the original situation. That said, if at all practical, we will return to base here, today. Are there any questions?”

There was silence.

“Good. Alright, mount up.”

The platoon headed for their respective vehicles. Muñoz and Nohfa approached Booker. Nohfa was dressed in a set of camo fatigues, like Muñoz, with the exception of moccasins on her feet. An Army-issue machete hung in a green, ballistic nylon sheath from a belt about her waist. Handsome rather than beautiful, Nohfa filled out the utilitarian garments admirably. Or so mused Pensky from his perch atop Fred.

“You two can ride in one of the Bradleys.” Booker instructed.

“Nohfa says she wants to ride with you, if that’s okay.” Muñoz said. “And, I need to stick with her.”

Booker frowned. “There’s no room in the tank for passengers.”

“Uh, she won’t ride inside.”

“She’s perfectly safe in Pebbles or Bam Bam. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“Oh, she’s not afraid.” Muñoz pursed his lips. “Truth is, if we run into more dinos, they’re gonna go for the vehicles. That happens, and she’ll slip off to hide in the bushes until the excitement’s over. I’ll probably go with her.”

Booker opened his mouth to argue, then shut it and sighed. “Fine. You can ride on top of the turret. Just don’t get in the way.”

Nohfa stepped up close to Booker, uncomfortably close. She reached up to rub on his cheek.

“Brown brown!” she said, nodding, then ran fingers through Booker’s short, wooly hair. Nohfa uttered a string of words at Booker in her native language.

“If she said she did that for luck, diplomacy or not, tell her not to do it again.” While not the blackest black man ever, Booker was still pretty dark. And he’d run into more than enough bigots along the way.

Muñoz laughed and grinned. “Essentially, she said that if there’s time, she wants to make a baby with you.”

Booker’s mouth dropped open. Pensky bobbled some gear he was stowing on the rear deck of Fred with a clatter.

Nohfa emphasized her offer with a pair of graphic hip thrusts. “Boom boom!”

Booker’s mouth hung open for a few seconds. “Thanks for the consideration. But tell her I’m already married.”

“So is she, actually.” Muñoz explained. “Her culture is...different. Mating with other tribes is how they keep a lid on too much inbreeding.”

“Oh,” was the most Booker could manage.

“Hey!” Pensky called from on top of Fred. “I’ll make boom boom with her.”

Nohfa, Booker, and Muñoz looked up at him. Before Booker could reprimand Pensky, Nohfa wrinkled her nose and cut loose with what was clearly a rejection.

“You need me to translate that for you,” Muñoz read Pensky’s name from the tape on his Nomex coveralls, “Pensky?”

“Nah. I got the message.”

“Right.” Booker climbed up onto Fred, and lowered himself halfway into the tank commander’s hatch. He pulled his helmet on and keyed to the platoon channel. “Start ‘em up.”

The jet-engine whine of the Abrams’ turbine power plants drowned out the clatter of the Bradleys’ diesel engines in the confines of the staging area. Fred led the tank platoon through an open door to the enormous gate cavern. The sound level became somewhat more tolerable in the gigantic volume which housed the sci-fi device allowing travel to alternate universes. Booker still hadn’t wrapped his head around the unbelievable nature of his current assignment.

Muñoz shouted at Booker over the engine whine. Booker held up a finger, and asked Jackson over the crew channel to scare up a spare headset for Muñoz. A minute later, Jackson emerged from the loader’s hatch and passed Muñoz the headset, trailing a cord back down through his open hatch.

After a moment’s fiddling, Muñoz gave a thumbs up. “I can hear you now.”

“You’re on the crew channel.” Booker warned. “We only have the one spare headset, and I don’t think Nohfa understands enough English to do much good anyway.”

Muñoz glanced over at Nohfa sitting beside him on the turret top. “She understands more than she lets on, lieutenant. So, watch what you say.” Muñoz grinned and winked.

An amused snort prompted Booker to glance over. “Put a sock in it, Pensky.”

“Uh, yes, sir.” Pensky shot a middle finger at Jackson, who smirked at him from the gunner’s seat.

Nohfa ignored the entire exchange, appearing to thoroughly enjoy the short ride onto the huge cavern floor, loud engine whine or not. She and Muñoz rode on the blowout panels at the rear of the turret deck. Booker briefly considered telling them to move, but decided to let them be. They were very unlikely to encounter any circumstances which would involve the blowout panels today.    

The tank platoon, which some staff joker had code-named Bedrock Patrol, lined up facing the gate apparatus on the towering cavern wall. A few minutes passed, filled with the requisite radio chatter, between the control room and the various involved parties. The tank and Bradley engines idled, puffing out exhaust to pool on the cavern ceiling. Where the ventilation equipment labored to suck it away.

Finally, Booker heard the warning over his earphones, from the man in charge. He keyed to the platoon channel. “Be advised. Gate’s about to open.”

Booker had seen this before. Everyone in the platoon had witnessed the gate open before. But this time, they were going through. And that put a whole new spin on things.

Relays clunked closed. Power hummed through the superconductor busses. Booker felt the hair on his arms and the back of his neck stand up with stray static. Plasma spiderwebbed across the framework, then merged to form the interface. It filled the cavern wall with a rippling, silvery presence.

About ten seconds crawled by while the technicians satisfied themselves that everything was nominal.

“Sending the drone through,” crackled through the earphones. Radio communications in the cavern were normally loud and crisp. But less than one hundred meters from an open inter-dimensional portal there was a fair amount of interference.

High on the side wall of the granite-lined volume, a team launched a drone, which flew straight at, then through the portal. Booker looked down at the LCD screen on the tablet he held. A staticky, black-and-white feed showed what the drone saw on the other side. Once Booker had made the mistake of asking a tech why signals shoved through the gate were so degraded. There followed a half-hour of indecipherable, obscure jargon and gobbledygook. Now, he was just happy there was a feed at all.

As expected, the back half of the dead dino seemed to have drawn a horde of opportunistic scavengers to the feast. Fortunately, the surprise opening of the gate frightened most of them off. At least for the moment. The multitude scattered in all directions. Booker was thankful none of them blundered through the portal.

“You are cleared to proceed, lieutenant.” Colonel Shaylton, himself, ordered Booker over the team channel.

Booker looked up the balcony, next to the control room, where Shaylton nodded down at him. Booker saluted Shaylton, and then keyed the platoon channel.

“Status?”

Over the radio, each track commander responded, in order of march.

“Wilma ready.”

“Barney ready.” And so on, until Bam Bam acknowledged, and corroborated the drone operator on board had control of the drone on the other side.

Booker twisted about in his open hatch, to visually confirm his team’s status by each track commander’s thumbs up.

“Okay, Rusty.” Booker instructed Fred’s driver, isolated from the rest of the crew in the driver’s seat, low down in the front of Fred’s hull. “Take us on through.”

Fred’s engine roared, and the Abrams rumbled across the cavern floor. As Fred’s tracks started climbing the ferro-concrete ramp up to the interface, Booker eyed the improvised mechanism which should slam the gate shut, should the normal power relays again fail to disengage. Explosive bolts were rigged to physically shove the elements out of alignment. Volunteers with big sledge hammers stood ready to smash delicate components, if that didn’t work. Somehow, Booker was not reassured.

“Be advised,” Booker sent over the platoon channel. “Drone shows indigenous fauna in proximity on the other side.”

Booker pulled the slide back on the machine gun mounted forward of his hatch, preparing it to fire. Beside him, Pensky dropped down to his position for loading the main gun. Unbidden, Muñoz scrambled forward to man the machine gun in front of Pensky’s hatch. Below, Pensky slammed a shell into the breach of the main gun.

“Up!” Pensky shouted, notifying the crew that the main gun was loaded and ready to fire.

Without quite understanding why, Booker glanced over at Nohfa, who crept forward to crouch next to his hatch. She looked back, an intimidating, feral grin on her tanned face.

They passed through the gate.

END

Author’s note: Mission Brief is the 2^nd installment of the Containment Protocol tale. It was originally intended to be a one-off, piece for my Substack page. But there has been a fair amount of interest in hearing the rest of the saga. Not the plan, but a good problem to have. And, honestly, understandable in hind sight. Tanks and dinosaurs, oh my! Will this be a short story, a novella, or more? Let’s find out together. This is Substack, after all. We make our own rules here.

If there are inaccuracies with regards to military procedure and/or armored vehicles in this story, I apologize. Besides “knowing stuff about tanks” (#3 on the list), my practical experience in the area comes entirely from WW2 anecdotes from my father. Who once told me that he’d never seen a half-track go more than 50 miles without throwing a track. So, please don’t be shy about telling me what I got wrong.

Part 3, Reconnaissance In Force, is in progress: Tanks and dinos, oh my!

Find the rest of the Containment Protocol tale here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/containment-protocol-serial

Part 1 (the beginning), ... , Part 3 (next episode)

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