BUaDS – Chapter 33 – Pure White Light
Dante Valderez looked through the picture slides from the slide tray, one-by-one, using the light of the single light bulb in the small, windowless concealed room. The sound of the klaaxons blaring in the halls outside the room stopped, and a voice announced, “Hull configuration complete!”
Dante breathed steadily into the respirator covering the nose and mouth portion of his face, and he put down the slide tray next to one of the bars of gold in the opened suitcase on the floor, after selecting a particular slide. He looked closely at the picture on the slide, holding it in his black-gloved hand closer to the light bulb. “Joshua Tree Park..” he rasped in a low voice, reading the pencilled description on the frame of the slide. It depicted a desert oasis of palm trees around a natural spring, framed by low hills. “… and Kenji Nobu. I might have known,” Dante whispered angrily and put the slide back into tray.
He closed the gold-filled suitcase, and stacked it on top of the second one in the room. As he moved the suitcase, the tanks on his back shifted and the respirator over his face pulled down. There was a slight hiss of compressed air escaping, where the seal of mask slipped to reveal the missing portion of his nose and cheek. He quickly re-adjusted the mask to cover the gaping hole and stood still for a moment. He then went to the wall panel leading to the hall and listened for footsteps before gently pulling it open and stepping out into the hall. He closed and locked the panel and headed back to the battleship’s bridge.
Dante walked purposefully down the twisting halls, bringing to nervous attention any of the light-grey uniformed men he met along the way. He glanced surreptitiously at the officers he met along the way, trying to identify each of them. On his way to the stairs leading up to the bridge decks, he walked outside along one of the exterior decks, now lit by the crescent moon in the starry night. The black ocean waves roiled far below, their depths as mysterious as the night sky above them. The reconfigured hull of the battle station was barely visible in the moonlight, with two sides lifted out of the water that were previously the bow and stern. The black-uniformed figure continued towards one of the helicopter pads in the centre of the battle station, and he went up to the cockpit of the large black helicopter sitting on it. “Prepare for departure!” he commanded the pilot waiting inside, “Has the Communications Officer Lucretius Angelus-Jardine contacted you?” The pilot shook his head, and Dante walked away from the landing pad back towards the stairs leading up to the bridge.
He climbed up the stairs to the sound of the helicopter starting up, breathing steadily as he went up the steps and not slowing, in spite of the tanks he was carrying on his back that supplied oxygen through tubes leading over his shoulder to his face mask. His black eyes were steely and un-emotional, and the exposed part of his face along with his bald, scarred head did not reveal any information about his intentions. He entered the busy bridge and approached the balding, pudgy middle-aged man standing self-importantly at one of the windows overlooking the moonlit decks fo the massive battleship. He turned to face Dante on hearing the tall, dark figure’s low, steady voice address him.
“General Thompson, I am preparing to leave,” Dante said, bowing slightly to the clearly-unimpressed General, wearing a similar black uniform. “I request that the Communications Officer accompany me to continue relaying PAB reports on the position of the CIM leader, Kenji Nobu. Has the missing officer been located yet?”
General Thompson responded in an annoyed voice, “We haven’t been able to locate Luc-, whatever his name is. Lucky, they call him, I believe. What do you want with him? I can send another officer with you to monitor PAB communications.”
Dante was silent for a moment and then said, “That won’t be necessary. When I return I will be able to provide a list of new targets for confirmed CIM bases.”
“That would be lovely, Commander Valderez, ” General Thompson said sarcastically, “You do know that the Ojai target provided by your prisoner was an abandoned farm? A disused flower farm, of all things. Some kind of derelict hippie commune. Hah!” The General grinned, revealing yellowed and uneven teeth. “The PABs on site were only able to identify a horse ranch nearby inhabited by a confused old couple. They have nothing to do with the California Independence Movement.”
“What else do the PABs say about the guided missile’s damage to the target?” Dante asked.
“There was a fire that burned down the forest on a nearby hill and decimated what was left of the farm,” the General smirked, “If anything, we learned that the missile’s guidance system reached the target successfully and this was a good test for future launches against any valid targets you might be able to provide.” The General frowned, his thin lips disappearing into he folds of his chin and neck. “Please don’t disappoint me. I know that you are a decorated war hero and hand-picked by the President for this battle station, but I do have the power to send you back into the SEA war. Wouldn’t it be a shame if you were to lose the rest of your face after being sent back to the front lines again?”
Dante remained silent, and bowed deeper to the General, staring at the floor of the bridge.
“Who is the Communications Officer in place of Lucky? You! Go with Commander Valdez and report back to me directly on your findings,” General Thompson barked at the young man sitting at the communications console. “Send out a general announcement to locate the missing Communications Officer. If he is not brought to me in 15 minutes, I will treat his absence as desertion and he will wish that he had thrown himself overboard before I’m finished with him!”
“I will not fail you now, General,” Dante said as he stood up and turned to leave the bridge, followed by the officer assigned to him.
“I indeed trust that you won’t fail me and our mission to crush the California Independence Movement, Commander,” the General lisped and turned back to the window, gazing at the crescent moon shining over the dark ocean. He mused quietly, but just loud enough for Dante to hear, “It’s hard to forget the flash and heat of tactical nukes, don’t you think? How can such a beautiful, pure white light be so damaging and painful? The bang and roar that follow are awesome!”
*** This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. ***