Sic Semper Tyrannis Read online

  Sic Semper Tyrannis

  Marcus Richardson

  © 2015 Marcus Richardson.

  All Rights Reserved.

  1st Digital Edition, 1 April, 2015.

  1st Printing, 30 May, 2015.

  This is a work of fiction.

  The people and events in this book are written

  for entertainment purposes only. Any similarity to

  living and/or deceased people is purely

  coincidental and not intentional.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

  in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical,

  including photocopying, recording, or by any information

  storage and retrieval system without

  prior written consent by the author.

  ISBN:

  ISBN-13:

  Books by Marcus Richardson

  The Future History of America

  Alea Jacta Est

  Sic Semper Tyrannis

  The Wildfire Saga

  Apache Dawn

  False Prey (Novella)

  Dedication

  For those who will never, ever give up.

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank the usual suspects, my family, my friends, and most importantly, my wonderful wife. Once again, your support and encouragement was the fuel that kept my engine of creativity humming along at the red line. Especially this time: from start to finish, from the first idea to “the end” this novel took far less time than any other book I’ve written.

  I would also like to thank my Beta Readers. You know who you are. Without your valuable insights and encouragement, I could not have finished this story. Well…I could, but it wouldn’t be nearly as enjoyable to read!

  Special thanks to ghrit for valuable insights into the US Navy and technical assistance. Without you spotting a few…ahem…glaring mistakes in my part, Hampton might have been flying instead of lurking under the waters of the Atlantic, and Roosevelt would have hydraulic catapults (not that would be something to see…) Thanks!!!

  Some of the stock images used in the cover are from www.pixavay.com with thanks.

  Thank you all!

  Sic Semper Tyrannis

  PART ONE

  U.S. Govt. Property

  CHAPTER 1

  The High Ground

  ERIK LARSSON STARED OUT the tiny, ballistic window at the blurred, green landscape as he sat in the passenger seat of the speeding M-ATV. He gripped his rifle tight as the massive, armored truck lumbered down a narrow gravel road. In the driver’s seat, Sergeant Pinner wore a permanent expression impossible to read. The half-Cherokee soldier had proven his worth as a combat driver more than once in the past three months and had been given the task once more by Ted. Erik turned his attention back outside his elongated, porthole of a window just in time to see a large sign that read KENNEDY SPACE CENTER VISITOR’S CENTER flash by in a red, white, and blue blur.

  “We’re seriously going to break into KSC?” he asked, feeling a smile creep across his face. Sergeant Pinner grunted and put the mine-resistant, ambush-protected, all-terrain vehicle into a gut wrenching turn that took them off the main access road and toward the wide gate at the edge of the space center.

  “Try to keep us on the road, Pinner,” muttered Erik. “We won’t do anyone in Orlando any good if we show up dead.”

  “Relax, lieutenant,” said Ted from the rear. “This thing’s got anti-lock brakes!”

  Erik swallowed his retort and pointed toward the road ahead. “Gate’s already been busted open.”

  “Or left open,” added Pinner. He slowed down the hulking truck to a sedate 20 miles an hour. Erik pulled out a pair of compact field binoculars and scanned the road as it disappeared in the distance.

  “Deserted. I don’t see anyone or any cars.”

  “Alright, Pinner, take us in. Pick up the pace…we’re losing the light and we need to get in place before the storm hits.”

  “Roger that.”

  “May as well—as loud as this thing is, if there’s any Russians within a mile, they already know we’re here,” muttered Erik.

  Erik continued to scan the road as they approached the Visitor’s Center. He saw a scattering of cars in the parking lot, some nondescript white cargo trucks, and a dozen big charter buses. “I got no lights, no movement, no nothing. Just a few cars and buses in the lot. Sure looks empty.”

  “There might be some food in the vending machines or the gift shop,” suggested Pinner. It was the most emotion Erik had ever heard in the man’s voice.

  “I’m just as hungry as you are,” said Ted. “But, mission first. We need to get the surveillance gear set up. HQ is running blind until we get into place. As soon as we’re set up, we’ll head back and check it out.”

  “Hooah.”

  “It’s oorah,” muttered Ted.

  As they rolled past the darkened Visitor’s Center, Erik resumed scanning ahead. “I see the turn-off. Still no movement.” He quickly panned left and spotted the massive Vehicle Assembly Building to the north, the largest building in the country after the Pentagon. Its massive white bulk was impossibly large, even at the distance of a few miles. “I ever tell you I wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid?” he asked absently, eyes glued to the binoculars.

  Ted chuckled. “That’s a new one on me.”

  “Yeah,” said Erik. The M-ATV rocked as it hit a bump in the road and Erik struggled to keep the VAB in his field of view. “I found out that you had to be under six feet to fly Orion and that kinda put a crimp in my plans. Didn’t want to spend my life doing math to get a shot at a mission specialist slot, so I had to give up my dream.”

  “Need a tissue, sir?”

  “Ha ha,” said Erik in a flat tone of voice.

  Ted laughed. “Damn, Pinner. Burn.”

  “I guess it doesn’t really matter,” continued Erik. “They scaled back the whole damn program a few years back…and now I think only the private sector is getting into space anytime soon. Oh. Here’s the turn, two hundred yards.”

  “Now that is a big building,” mumbled Pinner when the VAB swung into view.

  “They built it back in the ‘60s for putting the Saturn V rockets together. The ones that took us to the Moon. They put the whole thing together in that building and then rolled it out on its launchpad. Used it for the Shuttle later. Now they use it for the space station resupply missions, I guess…”

  “So why aren’t we using that thing instead of the towers? It looks a lot bigger,” said Pinner.

  “It is bigger,” replied Erik. “It’s over 500 feet tall, if I remember correctly. Almost twice as tall as the towers.” He looked over his shoulder at Ted. “Why aren’t we using the VAB?”

  Ted shrugged. “The briefing said the advance team couldn’t gain access. They busted open Launchpad 39A instead. So that’s our target.”

  “Seems wrong to be breaking in to NASA.” Erik turned back around. “Like we’re vandalizing history or something.”

  Thunder rumbled from the dark roiling mass of clouds overhead. It was louder than the roar of the big diesel engine that powered the M-ATV.

  “That’s above my pay grade. Let’s get a move on. I don’t want to be doing this in the middle of a thunderstorm - you?”

  “No, sir,” replied Pinner. The speedometer hit 50 miles an hour.

  Erik checked the map in his lap. “Right there…” he said and pointed, “turn there. Cut us through these buildings. The access road should curve to the left a bit.” Up ahead, he could see where the paved road curved away from the twin lanes of crushed gravel and seashells that marked the path to the launch pads. “There it is—follow Crawler Path.”

  “What?” yelled
Ted.

  The sound of the M-ATV’s heavy-duty tires on the extremely flat, yet rough road was nearly deafening at the speed they were traveling. “Crawler,” said Erik as loud as he could. “Think of it as a giant tank without a gun and with a flat top. It carries the launchpad and the rocket out to the launch tower. About three miles, straight ahead!” Erik yelled, pointing towards the gray launch tower visible over the tree tops on the horizon. Farther off behind the tower, he could see lightning illuminate the dark clouds coming in from the Atlantic.

  “That will take us to 39B,” he hollered when they passed a path that split off the to north. In the intersection they had a good view of the second launchpad complex with its massive tower, twin to the one they were driving towards.

  “Damn, everything is big here!” replied Ted with a shout.

  Sergeant Pinner brought the M-ATV to a skidding halt at the base of the mountain-like Launchpad 39A. “We gotta climb that?” he asked.

  “Want me to get you some tissues?” asked Erik.

  “Come on, let’s haul the mail, gentlemen,” Ted announced. “We got to get to the top before the storm hits. Take us right up to the base of that thing, Pinner.”

  “Yes, sir,” replied Pinner. He drove the M-ATV up the long sloping concrete foundation and parked right about where Erik figured the crew vans would stop to let astronauts ascend the height of the launch tower.

  Erik had seen many videos in his youth of shuttle astronauts emerging from white vans in their orange flightsuits, waving to cameras, and walking the ten yards or so to the elevators that would take them up, up, up the metal tower towards the waiting space ship. Then there were the famous slow-motion liftoffs of the Apollo program. He marveled at the tall structure and imagined a Saturn V parked on the pad as it waited for destiny.

  Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins went to the Moon from the top of this thing...

  Erik pulled himself back to reality and opened his door. He automatically looked around. “All clear. There’s nobody out here but the gators and us.”

  Wind gusted in from the ocean, bringing with it the sweetly-sour smell of the salt marshes and mangroves that surrounded the space center. The last time he had smelled the ocean had been when he and Ted had piloted the Tarpon Whistler into the Sarasota Marina to rescue a platoon of soldiers from the Florida National Guard. Back before they’d signed up with the Guard—when they’d still been free.

  He shook his head to clear wind-tossed hair from his face and looked up at the looming shape of the launchpad. And now here he was, about to climb to the top of that as part of the Florida National Guard, himself. He had never intended to join the Army, that was for sure, but the world had been a strange place since the Troubles had started earlier in the summer.

  “Clear.” Pinner’s deep voice rivaled the sound of the distant thunder from the other side of the now silent M-ATV.

  Ted started to pull out the packs and gear they had to lug up the tower. “Here,” he said, handing a heavy OCP backpack to Erik. He gave Pinner one just like the first and slung a boxy-looking olive-drab duffel bag over his own shoulders before picking up his rifle.

  Erik felt silly as he slung the camo pack over his civilian clothes, although he liked the look of the Scorpion W2 OCP pattern over the old gray digital gray pattern they’d been issued when he and Ted had enlisted. He glanced at the rest of their three-man team. All of them were in civilian garb: hiking boots, cargo pants, t-shirts. They all wore tactical harnesses loaded with extra ammo and emergency supplies. The OCP packs made them look like weekend warriors, not Army Scouts. Erik looked at the armored side of the tan colored M-ATV. That thing made them look like…special forces or something.

  A chilling thought occurred to him: soldiers out of uniform were treated like spies. Don’t they still hang spies?

  Ted took a furtive glance toward the Atlantic Ocean, about a quarter-mile in the distance. “Let’s roll, boys, I don’t think the storm is going to wait for us any longer. Pinner, don’t forget to lock the car.”

  Another blast of ocean-cooled wind hit the three soldiers. Erik suppressed a shiver as he looked up, up, up. The dark clouds bubbling over the top of the tower made his stomach churn. Was the tower swaying or was it just an optical illusion?

  Well, this isn’t exactly how I thought I’d get to the top of one of these, but I’ll take it. He started to follow Ted and Pinner up the first set of gray, steel stairs flaked with rust. Their boots made dull slapping sounds as they hoofed up the massive metal structure.

  In between gulps of air to feed his straining muscles Erik panted, “Can you remind me why I signed on for this, again?” Thunder split the air. It felt right on top of them.

  Ted grinned, barely winded. “Because you’re trying to protect your family and serving is the best way you know how. Now quit your bitching and let’s get to the top of this thing.”

  Erik tried to open the crew elevator on the first landing. The doors were stuck fast. He suspected that was likely the case but he had to try, just on the off chance that KSC had its own power supply separate from Florida’s grid. He looked at the set of gray stairs that ran up the side of the exposed elevator shaft.

  “Well,” said Ted. “At least we’ll get some exercise today.”

  MAJOR ALEKSEI STROGOLEV TOOK in the scene before him with a calm that belied the excitement in his heart. Here he was, the great-grandson of Viktor Strogolev, peasant-turned-sniper, hero of the Great War against the Fascists, standing on the shores of America. His father and grandfather had lived their lives under constant threat from the great American Empire, always hungry to devour Mother Russia. All those years they spent training to storm the beachhead and take the fight to the Americans…and here he just climbed out of a boat and walked onto a beach, without a shot fired. It was as if he had been invited.

  If only they could see me now…

  He glanced behind him at the first of his cargo vessels approaching the storm tossed shoreline. His task force would quickly be onshore and pushing inland.

  He took a deep breath, savoring the salt-laced air and the smell of the sea. Growing up in central Russia, he had only smelled the air by an ocean twice in his adult life. It never smelled so sweet as is it did now, so ripe with possibility.

  “Gregor, if we pull this off, it will mean great things for both of us. Promotions for sure—perhaps full membership in the Party or even the Duma. Great things!”

  “Yes, sir,” replied his second in command, Captain Gregor Stepanovich, a dark haired man of base Slavic descent.

  Strogolev rolled his eyes. Gregor was such a dour man. He never saw the beauty or excitement in anything. Strogolev wondered if even a woman could bring a smile to his lieutenant’s face. He felt a grin spread across his own face. Now there’s an idea…maybe while we’re here…

  He brushed aside such fantasies and climbed into the BTR that was waiting in the sand. Once ensconced in the armored turret, he used his large field glasses to find a good route for his men. To the north, along the deserted coast, he saw nothing but coarse sand. The same grainy stuff that formed the long beach the American’s called Cocoa. He frowned looking over the side of the noisily idling BTR. The sand looks nothing like cocoa…Americans made no sense at all.

  To the south he saw more of the same: a wide, grainy beach lined with pastel colored abandoned shops and restaurants. Here and there, large apartment buildings or private residences dotted the palm tree-lined shore. The main thoroughfare was completely empty. There was no traffic—vehicle or pedestrian—that he could see in either direction.

  Thunder rumbled overhead and reminded him that this place was not quite paradise. Yet. This place will make a fine vacation spot for our weary troops when this business is all said and done.

  Strogolev put on a large tanker’s helmet and adjusted the microphone stalk. “Gregor.”

  “Yes, Major.”

  “Have the rest of the men unload here and move inland, following my lead. We�
�re going to commandeer that large building across the street—it has many brightly colored sea creatures painted on the side, do you see it?”

  A pause, then: “The sign reads ‘Surf Shop’, da?”

  “Da,” replied Strogolev. “We should be able to use that building as a rally point for the food and medical supplies. I will lead the advance element and secure the area. Inform me when the last of our forces have landed. I want to move inland as soon as possible!”

  “Understood, Major.”

  Strogolev slapped the roof of the idling eight-wheeled BTR. “Get this rusty pig moving! We have work to do!”

  ERIK PAUSED TO CATCH his breath and leaned on the cool metal railing. Wind whistled through the framework of the launch tower. A sudden gust of cold Atlantic air sent shivers down his spine.

  “Better view than back at the Freehold, huh?” asked Ted as he walked past. He turned the corner and mounted the next flight of stairs. “Come on, Lieutenant, that storm won’t wait much longer.”

  Erik shoved off the handrail and plodded after his friend and Sergeant Pinner. Erik was the largest man of the team, easily able to carry the weight of his weapons, gear, and his share of the surveillance equipment—and then some. On any given day, he’d do better, he had to believe, than the fireplug of an Indian and his older ex-Marine commanding officer. But this…climbing up countless stairs in a three hundred-fifty foot tall lightning rod, with a nasty storm barreling down on them from the ocean…this was no ordinary day.

  He glanced down at the ground and their M-ATV looked like a toy car parked at the base of the tower. “Would have been pretty easy to fend off the attack back home if we were in this thing…” he said between breaths. “Instead of apartment buildings.”