Chronicle 1, Episode 1, Chapter 3

The Interstell Chronicles

Episode 1 - War from Above

Chapter 3:-

Many philosophers have said pain is the one constant in the universe, so many more have used it to define our existence. We are born to pain. Pain occurs throughout our lives. Invariably, pain is present in some form when we die.
The truth is that pain is little more than an evolutionary tool. We suffer physical pain when nerve cells register effects that could be damaging to us. But it can also provide incentive to effect change to lessen pain, or prevent it happening at all. An extremely useful tool in a fight.
A fist flew in from the front right, while a kick appeared at waist height from the back left. They were both well timed strikes on the part of Matthew Hunter’s opponents. With either one on their own, it would have been all too easy to jump above, or duck below. Or even to have sidestepped the blow altogether. But both at the same time meant that going forward would end with a punch in the face, followed by a kick to the kidneys, and going backward would result in the same, but the other way round. Just going up or down would still result in some form of contact by either opponent, and probably with enough force to really hurt something.
This left Matthew with just one way to go.
Leaning backward, and kicking his legs up in the air, resulted in the kick flying below him, while he punch flew above him. Matthew reached out in mid flight and his arms found contact with the ground, allowing him to support his weight and beat the gravity that would have ended up with him sprawled out on his back. Pushing with all the strength in his body, his legs continued to come up, contacting his forward opponent under the chin, lifting him up and back with the force of the blow, and sending him sprawling. Continuing the maneuver, his legs continued up and over his no upside down vertical body, to find the shoulder of the rear attacker, as they completed their spinning kick that had missed. The blow again landed with enough force to knock Matthew’s attacker off balance and send him face first to the ground.
The maneuver finished with Matthew having executed a back flip to stand a few feet from the middle of the room. Lowering himself into a half crouch to face the third attacker, Matthew consulted his options.
His last opponent was bigger that the other two had been, but was not as fast on his feet. He came lumbering forward, arms outstretched, as though to use a bear hug to crush the air out of Matthew’s lungs. Deciding to strike while his opponent was moving forward, Matthew spring from his half crouch straight into his attackers outstretched arms. As those same powerful arms began to encircle his chest and squeeze the air from his lungs. Matthew hooked his leg behind his attackers and kicked out. This caused them to both fall. The attacker forward, and Matthew backward, still in a bear hug.
Using the other leg to the one that tripped his attacker, Matthew braced it on the ground and, at the last instant pushed off. The result was that Matthew hit the ground shoulders first, with enough momentum to flip both of them over, reversing the situation, Matthew on top, attacker beneath. But the flip had caused the attacker to land head first, causing him to be stunned enough to let go of his bear hug and clasp his head.
Now free, Matthew was free to press up from the ground and swing his legs beneath his arms break-dancer style. Legs sticking at a right angle to his attackers torso, and pushing off the ground with his arms, allowed Matthew to gain a couple of feet height, before landing his leg across the throat of his attacker.
"Well done Hunter!"
The combat instructor moved over and inspected the carnage around the room. Six men lay sprawled over the floor, or slowly sitting up, holding on to heads, arms or just groaning in pain.
Matthew sprung to his feet and faced the instructor as she held out a towel. Taking the offered towel, and moping his brow slightly, he reached down and offered his hand to the man that he had landed his legs across. The man stared at the hand for a moment, before smiling and taking it.
"You fight well comrade!" The Russian accent the man had was extremely thick on his English, but was still understandable. "However, I will get you next time!"
Matthew just gave him a slight lopsided grin and a slight shake of the head, before moving over towards the changing rooms attached to the training hall.
Jogging over to catch up with him, the Russian offered his hand. "IM Dimitry Samozensko."
Matthew gave the Russian a sidelong glance, before offering his hand in return. The Russians grip was like a vice clamping down on his hand, but Matthew returned some of the pressure in his own grip. "I’m Matthew Hunter. Nice to beat you Dimitry!"
The smile on Dimitry’s face didn’t falter in the slightest, so Matthew assumed he had taken the joke at face value. Either that or he no concept of western humor, or did not understand enough English.
"You really beat up those Americans! Did they teach you how to fight like that here?"
By this point in the conversation, they had reached the changing rooms. As he proceeded to his locker, Matthew looked towards Dimitry. "Some of it. The rest just comes naturally."
"You have been fighting long then?"
"No. Just since I joined the training program two months ago." As he said this, Matthew manipulated his arms, moving them around in a big circle at couple of times to ease the discomfort of having landed so heavily on his shoulders.
"Still, you fight like Russian special forces."
Matthew turned back to look at this jubilant Russian and his infectious good nature and smile, and smiled in return. "I’ve never seen a Russian special forces agent. I thought you might have been one."
"No. Am best Russian helicopter pilot though. I am being taught to fight as I will be flying into alien hot spots."
Matthew nodded. "Similar situation for all of us that were just in there. IM a Nurse by profession. Saunters, Hopkirk and James are all attached to the medical staff as well. The other, the American, is Dayton. He’s a copter pilot as well."
Matthew turned back to his locker and removed his uniform. A black T-shirt, with green collar and trimming around the tops of the sleeves. Dark green trousers. Plus a matching jacket with medical armbands picturing the red cross, and a patch with his surname over the left of his chest.
Getting dressed, he said goodbye to Dimitry and the others in the changing rooms and walked out.

The underground base where he had been stationed after his recruitment three months ago was really quite large. Ten levels hidden below a partially disused military barracks on the island of Foulness. It was a natural location for such a facility. Easily defensible, there were only three ways to get to the Island. One was a road and rail bridge, guarded 24 hours a day by a half dozen troops in a reinforced bunker, with enough weapons to fight off a small army.
Another approach was by water. This was guarded by hidden defenses on the sea bed, including sonar stations, and weapon emplacements camouflaged on the shore.
The third way in was by air. This approach was covered by multiple ground to air missile launchers, fitted with an array of warheads and tracking devices.
The lowest level contained the deep storage facilities, and some of the Lab space. The level above had more of the lab facilities, and the living quarters for the scientists. Level three was dedicated mainly to the operations center, where the complex was controlled from. It was also the location of the support services, like power generators, water processing, air filters and sewage control.
Levels four five and six were the rest of the living quarters, and the location of the recreation rooms, canteen training facilities and medical ward. While levels seven and eight were mostly unused, and were there for future expansion of the base.
Finally, levels nine and ten contained the main weapons armory, and the hangar facilities for the organizations vehicles. Which currently were only a few helicopters, but would eventually contain a dozen of the best Interceptor jets the planet had, along with three specially designed assault aircraft, capable of carrying troops and a heavy weapons platform.
Much of the base had now been finished, but as Matthew walked through the heavily reinforced corridors of the former nuclear bunker, work crews were still nearly everywhere. Welding, painting, installing electronic equipment, and generally making lots of noise.
Ducking beneath scaffolding erected in the middle of the hall, he headed towards the rifle range. Since being recruited just over three months ago, he had gone through an intensive training program. Already having a degree in Nursing meant that he was ideally suited for working in the medical bay, but requirements of the job meant that he could be called upon to attend wounded in the field, and so he needed to know how to defend himself.
The classes he had taken included hand to hand combat, and how to handle a weapon. He had found that he excelled at both of these topics. Instructors had said that ‘You have a natural gift for combat…’ Being a member of the medical profession, it seemed wrong to him to be training to use deadly weapons. But the fight was essential if Humans were to survive. That much he was sure of.
Moving through the security station of the elevator shafts, Matthew began to ascend, while still pondering the same thoughts that he had had for weeks.
Over the past month, the political situation has worsened considerably. China had all but closed their boarders to outsiders, and tension was flaring up even more in the middle east, where war was seeming all but inevitable. Worse yet were the reports that UFO activity in these areas was supposed to be high, and that intelligence thought the aliens might be trying to incite a war on earth to make their conquest easier.
It still seemed unlikely to Matthew that he was walking through a secret base, thinking about fighting aliens and saving humanity. Sure, it had been a childhood dream, watching science fiction shows on TV, and playing computer games to save the planet. But not for an instant had he ever thought it would come true.
The thing that really hurt was not being able to tell his parents what he was now doing. British Intelligence had created an avenue for him to leave his job at the local hospital. He had volunteered to join a mercy mission to the middle east to help take care of civilians in refugee camps. The fact that he was participating in a lie to his family did not overly worry him, and that surprised him. He had been brought up in middle class England, had gone to the better schools on the area, had gone on to University and then started a career in medicine. He honestly believed that he combined the best of the ‘old world values’ with the best of the new.
Integrity, honor and respect combined with ‘new age tolerance’ and independence meant that he could be a self-sufficient person, but also he was comfortable working with others. Something that was very useful in his current predicament and as such was one of the contributing factors in being where he was.
The lift stopped at the level just below the surface. Entry and exit to the base from the lifts required passing though the main security foyer. A minimum of ten soldiers were on constant duty in the chamber. The chamber had a station in the middle where entrants were searched to restrict smuggling items like weapons inside. The same went for those coming from inside, going out.
The generally open plan of the chamber meant that the guards on station could fill the room with a lethal crossfire, and there was no cover from walls of other structures, except the security booth in the middle of the room. But it was designed so as not to provide cover from the overhead armored catwalks. Those same catwalks meant that fire could also be rained down from around the edges of the walls. Plus the presence of heavily reinforced airlock style doors into and out of the room meant that any force that tried attacking could be bottled up with little difficulty.
Passing through the security checkpoint, Matthew headed for one of the surface buildings. Again, all of he buildings here were undergoing retrofitting of some kind, including the addition of missile batteries on the roofs, and strengthening of doors and walls. Most of the buildings were mainly for show though. Extra barracks on the surface were crewed by soldiers and support staff, making the place seem like many other military bases in the country, and indeed throughout the world.
The airfield however was a new addition, and would be used to launch the interceptors and helicopters stored in the underground hangars, which had access to the aboveground hangars with lifts, again heavily guarded.
However, Matthew’s course led him past the hangars towards a smaller building nearer the edge of the compound. It was a small armory, and adjacent to the rifle range.
Entering, he checked out one of the new AR-15 rifles. The feeling of power holding a weapon was unmistakable. No expense had been spared equipping the organization with the latest technology. Everything was new and improved. This gave many of the commanders pause for thought. Especially as much of the equipment was not tested in combat conditions.
Moving outside, Matthew headed over to the range, locking an ammo clip home as he went.
Stopping before the range, he prepared himself, then stepped forward and lunged to the ground. Hitting hard, but taking the impact on his forearms and lower legs, he sank to the ground and lined up his weapons. A slight flick of the thumb of his right hand and the safety was off. A slight flick with his index finger on his left hand further down the barrel and the laser sighting was on.
Looking down the scope, he pulled the trigger and felt the weapon spit a bullet at the target 600 yards away, followed by another, and another. Each one hitting the wooden outline of a man and causing lumps to fly off.
Starting with the right arm, coming off at the elbow, then moving across to the torso, and up to the head. The ten bullets that flew dismantled the wooden target. If it had been real, the target would have fallen to the ground after the second or third shot. But it was only wood, and so Matthew felt no remorse as the damage to the outline mounted.
He was as ready as he thought he would be. In peak physical fitness, trained to save lives, but still unsure as to whether he could take them. Even though it would be alien, and trying to kill him.


NOW OUT:- CHAPTER 4