Age of Redemption, page 13
part #2 of Titan Code Series
She shook the mountain long enough to cause maximum damage. Tessa did not witness anyone escaping from the base. H.I.V.E would need to deploy a massive rescue effort to recover any surviving staff; if there were any survivors. Tessa rocked the base hard enough to destroy the base and all souls inside. Part of her mourned the casualties, but then she reminded herself that H.I.V.E planned on sacrificing their personnel in the long run. They would leave the staff at Cheyenne Mountain behind when the arc transported their leadership to safety. The people in the mountain were already dead. Their fates already sealed.
Off in the distance, Tessa noticed three fighter jets headed toward her perch on the mountain top. The alarms triggered an aerial assault. The aircraft flew in a V formation giving Tessa the approach she needed. She took to the sky again, heading straight for the middle jet, and used the remaining extra core energy surge to create a protective cocoon around her body and played chicken with the lead jet. But Tessa wasn’t playing chicken. She intended to crash headfirst into the jet.
Upon impact, Tessa tore through the jet from front to back. The jet exploded into a ball of fire and smoke as the aircraft ripped to shreds. The other two aircraft circled back around to team up on Tessa. This time she reached out with her power and seized the energy in one plane. It glowed with the pinkish-purple hue, and she jerked the plane off its course. The jet de-stabilized, and the pilot ejected from the craft. Tessa hurled the uncontrolled aircraft toward the other, still targeting her. The two aircraft collided midair, bursting to flaming pieces and falling from the sky.
Tessa allowed the ejected pilot to survive. She wanted a witness to return to H.I.V.E and tell them what happened at Cheyenne Mountain. Tessa sent a profound message to those that opposed her. She wanted them to realize there were consequences for their actions. They were no longer an unopposed force on earth. They had a formidable rival. One who would take swift action. One who would hold them accountable for their crimes against humanity. One who would make them pay with blood.
19
By the time Tessa returned to base, most of the surviving refugees were packing up to leave. She knew there would be some who would go, but not in such large numbers. On approach from the air, Tessa could see the extent of the damage, and the outlook for their base was grim. The explosions destroyed most of the living quarters and supply storage. H.I.V.E did their homework and made sure their strike crippled her budding rebellion. They planned a clever inside job and Tessa would find the mole responsible.
Tessa landed outside the main terminal and climbed through the smoking rubble to find her team. The smoke tickled the inside of her nose and burned her eyes. Once inside, she found a group gathered on the second floor in the control room. It was easy to find them all with the walls and windows blown out. The control room was now open to the terminal.
Tessa stepped on broken glass, littering the terminal floor alerting the team to her presence, and they all turned around to look down at her. Arica, Norine, Sam, Finn, Stonewell, Melody, and the gang leaders all gazed on her from above with judgment in their eyes. They didn’t need to ask questions. They knew she did something awful. Stonewell and the gang leaders seemed to approve, but the others were clearly upset by her actions.
Tessa had to face them and make them see it was the only way. She made her way up the stairwell and to the control room door. She noticed tools scattered throughout the room, showing a group effort to restore functionality to their communications at the very least.
Finn wasn’t afraid to confront her first, “You feel better now?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.” Tessa would not lie or apologize. She already weighed the risks and justified her response.
Arica was concerned, “What did you do?”
“I removed Cheyenne Mountain from the playing field.”
“The whole base?” Sam seemed surprised.
“I don’t think there will be anyone walking away with their lives unless they made it to the Denver Airport tunnel.”
Finn shook his head in disapproval as he continued fiddling with his equipment. Stonewell and Melody stood in the room's corner. It surprised Tessa they were still around, but Stonewell wanted to gloat.
“Now you see why it’s so imperative we eliminate H.I.V.E regardless of the cost. There are no innocents when H.I.V.E is involved.” Stonewell couldn’t wait to tout his agenda.
“Wrong.” Tessa pointed at him, “I made a choice to take action on my own. No one manipulated me to do anything. It was my own free will. You really don’t know when to shut your mouth. Do you?”
“You could say that H.I.V.E manipulated you.” He was arguing semantics.
“They didn’t manipulate me; they forced my hand. There’s a difference.” It took every ounce of her will to not let lose her anger on him.
“Is there a difference?”
“I don’t think they planned to manipulate me into destroying one of their bases and killing all their people. H.I.V.E isn’t that stupid. They wanted to close our base and stop our rebellion, but they never planned I would retaliate. They knew we would counterstrike, but not that I would go alone or be capable of such extensive damage.”
Finn looked at Tessa with concern, “And it’s that amount of power that scares me. The fact that you alone can destroy an entire base.”
“Why should you fear me? I’m on your side.”
“For now, what if something changes? You just wiped out hundreds of lives.”
“Hundreds of lives that hunt and kill our kind. People who torture and experiment on us. Why should I show them mercy? You saw what they did to women and children here, and some of those victims were human. They have no regard for life at all, whether it be Evo or human.”
“There’s a line Tessa.” She could see the concern in his eyes.
“What line? They killed Evie.”
“A moral line. Once you cross that line, you lose a piece of your humanity. You might be Evo, but you still have a human side. All the Evo tyrants that rule territories and towns with fear; they lost their humanity. They can’t see themselves as mortal. They believe they are gods, and so they carry out horrific acts.” He paused, “They lost their soul. I don’t want to see that happen to you. Part of why I believed in you is because of your heart, Tessa. You can see the difference between good and evil, and you want justice and peace. Now it seems like you’re on the warpath.”
Tessa understood what he said, but the game changed, “But we’re at war. We might want peace, but H.I.V.E will never allow it. Look around. We will never see peace until they are gone.”
“I don’t disagree, but we need to find another way to fight H.I.V.E. If you continue down this path, then we’re no better than them.”
“And your suggestion?”
He cocked his head and gave Tessa a sideways grin, “We destroy them from the inside out. They won’t even know what happened.”
“I’m listening.” Tessa wasn’t opposed to a more subtle tactic if the result was the same. The end of H.I.V.E.
“Hear me out. We know that Cheyenne Mountain wasn’t the only base. The secondary base at Los Alamos Laboratory has more going on there than at Cheyenne Mountain. Plus, the projects at Los Alamos are top-secret clearance, so only the higher-ups in the organization know these projects even exist. I’ve confirmed the presence of a second arc, but they still don’t have the core which is why they raided our base to get our core and destroy us.” Finn pulled up a virtual map on the table. It flickered, but it was the best he could do with the damaged equipment. “Since Tessa destroyed their Colorado base, they’ll be looking to move whatever they can salvage from the wreckage, and my educated guess is they will transport to Los Alamos. They were working on an arc in Colorado, and they’ve got one in New Mexico, so the consolidation of resources is a natural choice.”
“So, you want to hijack the train?” Sam thought he was following the plan.
Finn had other ideas, “Not necessarily. I want to infiltrate the train.”
“A covert mission then?” Sam clarified.
“We have extra H.I.V.E uniforms. I can whip us up some fake credentials and marching orders, and they won’t even know we’re there.”
Melody seemed impressed, “So what’s the plan when we get to the lab?”
“We plant charges throughout the base and destroy them the same way they destroyed us.”
Tessa failed to see the difference between her response and Finn’s. “So the plan is to destroy the base same as my attack on Cheyenne Mountain. How is this different? I could fly in and take out the lab the same way?”
Finn elaborated, “But we would learn what they are work on. Plus, we wouldn’t pick soft targets like barracks or mess halls. Our targets are the projects and not the people.”
“But the people cause all the problems. If people survive, they will only continue their exploitation.” Tessa felt that if she spared any members of H.I.V.E, then the same problems would continue to resurface. She needed to eliminate them all.
“Maybe some of those soldiers or scientists don’t want to be there working for H.I.V.E. They may not have been whisked away in the dead of night to be experimented on like Evos, but H.I.V.E placed them in working positions whether they liked it or not. Maybe if given the chance to choose, they will pick another path.”
“So, we are hoping people chose to make the right decision?”
Finn shook his head. “Yeah. We founded this whole rebellion on hope. When you went on your first mission with Stonewell, you wanted the opportunity to choose which side to stand on. It only seems fair that you offer others the same chance.”
Tessa couldn’t argue with his logic. She knew Finn was right, and they should target the projects and not the people. If they targeted the people, then they did not differ from their enemy, who slaughtered defenseless women and children. Tessa didn’t want people to see her as a monster. She didn’t want to do the one thing she condemned Stonewell for doing. She wanted to give people a choice.
Tessa allowed Finn to lead their remaining group through his plan. Unfortunately, all the talk of sparing H.I.V.E lives didn’t appeal to the gang leaders. All the Chicago gang leaders backed out of the plan. They lost too many in the attack, and Finn’s proposal seemed like a suicide mission. He was still hashing out some of the details, but with Sam’s help, they plotted a course. Tessa went along with the group majority. If this was the path they wanted to take, then she would agree. It wasn’t a terrible plan. In fact, they could show H.I.V.E that they were also vulnerable to infiltration.
After their meeting, Finn went to work on the credentials, and Sam started collecting what equipment and weapons they had left. Tessa remained behind watching Finn work. He multitasked several machines, and she found his chaotic bouncing endearing. He believed in this mission and wanted to ensure success. Tessa felt relieved that she wasn’t in the leadership position at the moment.
Watching Finn work while she relaxed gave her a moment of peace. She never in a million years would have guessed this would be her future. She never wanted to be a leader. Nor did she want to be an Evo, but some things are just fate. You don’t always get to choose your path. Sometimes it’s already laid out for you.
Tessa helped Finn with his preparations late into the evening. There wasn’t much for her to do, but she wanted to stay near him. She finally wrapped her arms around him, prompting him to finish for the evening. She was exhausted, and he had to be too.
Finn stopped what he was doing to return the favor, embracing Tessa in a tight squeeze. He kissed her forehead and stroked her back. He knew just how to put her soul at ease. The day was stressful, and all Tessa wanted to do was lay down in Finn’s arms and drift off to sleep.
They spent some time kissing and caressing one another, but it didn’t take long for fatigue to set in and pull them toward slumber. Tessa felt safe here next to Finn. He understood her better than most. Sam and Arica had grown up with her and known her longer, but Finn knew her soul.
20
The group spent the days following Tessa’s attack on Cheyenne Mountain preparing for their rebel counterstrike on Los Alamos Labs. Finn got the comm links working again, which also meant the radio functioned again. The H.I.V.E propaganda following the attack on Cheyenne Mountain gave fuel to the government’s fire. The organization preached the scourge of the Evo monster, and Tessa played right into their hands when she destroyed their base.
It sickened Tessa to listen and hear nothing about the assault on their rebel base. H.I.V.E’s covert attack ended many innocent lives with no mention of those murdered for the sake of political gain.
H.I.V.E exploited her actions to tout its anti-Evo rhetoric into overdrive. Tessa almost wished she hadn’t taken such swift action, but what’s done is done. She couldn’t go back in time now and change it, so she swallowed her pill and moved on.
The only upside was that H.I.V.E was distracted with their propaganda, and hopefully wouldn’t see the new threat on the move. Sam and Finn crafted a masterful plan to infiltrate the secret H.I.V.E base at Los Alamos Labs in New Mexico. With final preparations in motion, Tessa and her team prepared to disable H.I.V.E from the inside out.
After the bases H.I.V.E attack, supplies were limited at the airport base. Their team comprised of seven, Tessa, Finn, Sam, Arica, Norine, Melody, and Stonewell; everyone else abandoned their cause. The stakes were too high, and the danger too real. H.I.V.E retaliation for Tessa’s attack was a real fear. Sam collected enough H.I.V.E uniforms for everyone, and most of them fit well enough to look legitimate. Finn handed out badges, credentials, and comms while Sam distributed weapons. Most of their weapons were stolen from H.I.V.E anyway, so they appeared standard issue.
Sam opted to use an old fifteen-passenger van they found on the airport grounds. They couldn’t roll into H.I.V.E territory with a tactical vehicle. They needed to seem like ordinary citizens to get close enough to infiltrate. Their point of entry was the Denver Airport. Finn accessed satellite footage of equipment being salvaged and moved via train from Denver to Santa Fe.
Their journey would take fourteen to sixteen hours to drive. The most direct route would take them through Iowa and Nebraska, which boasted some of the harshest conditions in the remaining states. Nebraska was a wasteland with nothing but dust and death. The sun made the environment a desert with little life. They would need to pack extra supplies in case of an emergency because being stranded in Nebraska often meant death.
Iowa was no laughing matter. Several Evo controlled territories dotted the former state, and any or all of them might be hostile. Tessa was their one saving grace. She could fend off any Evo attacks they encountered, but that didn’t mean hostiles couldn’t sneak up on the group for a surprise attack. They had to be careful.
The team would sleep in shifts, and while awake watch assignments required them to keep a wary eye in all directions. For the plan to work, they needed to arrive in Denver in one piece, so they prepared for the worst and hoped for the best.
Arica packed along extra water and food provisions and a portable medical kit. Sam packed weapons and ammo, and Finn loaded in all the tech gear they needed along with H.I.V.E uniforms and credentials. Tessa, Norine, Melody, and Stonewell were the Evo muscle along for the ride. Tessa let the experts handle their individual areas of expertise.
Five were awake and on watch while two slept, making the sleeping shifts short four-hour bursts. Tessa had a difficult time falling asleep and staying that way, but she needed to get as much rest as possible.
They reached Des Moines, Iowa, in about five hours and stopped to stretch and refuel. Refueling was a trick, requiring them to enter a town and risk being discovered and reported. Stonewell filled the tank at a rural station while Sam conversed with the station attendant. H.I.V.E only allocated a certain amount of gas to each town, and farming received the most fuel rations in this area of the country. Travelers weren’t frequent and raised red flags. Sam’s job was to convince the station attendant to stay quiet. Tessa also knew Des Moines as Nitro’s territory, an Evo with explosive powers. They didn’t want to bring him down on them either.
All seemed to run smoothly as Stonewell finished pumping, and Sam returned to the vehicle. Finn pulled away from the station, and Tessa kept a wary eye as the station disappeared into the distance. They would find out in the next few minutes if anyone spilled the beans about their team.
Tessa remained vigilant as they drove out of town, and just when she took a deep breath to relax, she noticed a line of dust headed toward them. A gang of trucks and motorcycles pulled out in front of them, blocking their path. A stream of curse words escaped the mouth of everyone in the van. Nitro and his gang of thugs had other plans for them. Tessa would rather deal with Nitro than H.I.V.E right now so she would figure it out.
Melody offered to negotiate, “I’ll go talk to them. Maybe a friendly smile will work. Tessa, you got my back?”
Tessa agreed to protect Melody if the situation turned sour. She didn’t like sending her friend out unarmed, but they needed to get through this altercation raising no more alarms. A fight just outside of Des Moines on a major highway would draw H.I.V.E attention. Tessa watched as Melody exited the van with her hands in the air. She approached the group and started talking, but they were too far away to listen to what they said.
“Finn, can you turn on her comms so we can hear what’s going on?” Tessa needed to ensure the conversation didn’t turn hostile. Finn turned on the comms, and they heard what Melody said but not what the gang asked her.
“…on our way to Kansas City.” There was a pause, “Visiting family,” another longer pause, “We have seven people, and only want safe passage through Iowa.” Another pause, “We have nothing of value.”
