Sanchez turned to controller in charge of electric service for those sectors. He ordered the shutdown and then did the same for the master tram controller. He saw immediately what Bright was doing and wondered how he had never managed to guess it before.
Triad Naval Base was not actually a part of Triad. It orbited two kilometers away from the edge of the city, far enough away so that the risk of the main city being accidentally struck by off-course naval vessels was at a minimum. But TNB and Triad were not completely independent of each other. When viewed from above, the two large structures seemed to be connected by three tiny hairs that stretched out from the west side of Triad to the east side of TNB. These hairs were actually steel tunnels through which freight trams and passenger trams carried people and supplies back and forth. They were the only way to move back and forth between the two places without boarding a space ship.
The sections that Bright had just ordered powered down were the ones that adjoined the connectors for Triad Naval Base. Although the trams that ran from Triad to the naval base were security controlled and separate from the rest of the city's system, and although TNB had it's own internal power supply that could not be controlled from Triad's control building, the power that ran the trams themselves came from Triad's power grid. With a simple command the trams came to a halt at the Triad end of the station. The interiors went dark as night, darker even, and the plan was under way.
"Shaw," Bright spoke into communication link.
"Yes, Colonel?"
"Everything's ready. Execute immediately."
"Executing."
He turned back to his screen and consulted the diagrams for a moment. "Sanchez, please open access hatches 3127 through 3150."
"Access hatches?" Sanchez asked, surprised. These were manholes in the street level that allowed access to the tunnels below the street. The tunnels carried sewage pipes, fresh water pipes, electrical and Internet lines. Were Bright's men down in the tunnels? It was absolutely brilliant.
"Yes, Mr. Sanchez. Open them now please."
"Carla," Sanchez said to the proper technician. "Open access hatches 3127 through 3150."
"Yes sir," Carla said, speaking to her terminal. "Hatches are open."
"And now," Bright said, "please cut power and Internet to section 29-50."
"The FLEB office," Sanchez said, repeating the command to another tech.
When this was done the waiting began.
They had marched for nearly six kilometers through the musty, smelly underworld of Triad. It was a dark, damp, crowded place, narrow and confined. Rats lived down there as well as entire species of bugs and spiders. Their combat goggles allowed them to see in what otherwise would have been complete darkness. Each member of each squad had a map of the complex as well as a map of Triad Naval Base and of their individual objectives programmed into their combat computers. The maps could be superimposed into their goggles allowing the image to seemingly float in the air before them. Each platoon of forty men was equipped with six hundred meters of primacord and the detonation equipment. They fanned out in the tunnels when they reached the staging point, every platoon going to a certain ladder beneath a certain access hatch.
Lon and his squad, who were assigned to second platoon, bravo company, took up position beneath hatch number 3140, which was directly below the southern passenger tram entrance to the naval base. "Okay, guys," he told his men as they waited, "we're gonna be less than sixty meters from the guard positions when we come up. The lights will be out and there will be a lot of confused civilians on the platform, so be careful. If we have to shoot be sure you have a positive ID on your target and be cognizant of where your stray rounds are going to be heading."
They were given the execute command and fifteen seconds later the access hatches slid open, directed to do so by the control room five kilometers away. Men began to climb as fast as they could, hefting themselves up the steel ladders in a controlled manner, separated from each other by a space of only two rungs. From twenty-three hatches, armored and armed men began pouring into the streets of Triad near the tram station that led to the Naval base.
The streets above were in chaos. People were huddled everywhere in corners and on the streets in fear of the pitch blackness that had suddenly engulfed them. Power outages were not unheard of in Triad but they never lasted more than five seconds or so, the amount of time it took for some computer to route a supply around whatever damaged area had caused the failure. In the buildings around them, elevators would be stopped, electric doors would be jammed shut, people would be in panic. It was a pity to do this to fellow Martians but it was needed.
The troops pouring from the access hatch formed into their squads and platoons as they emerged and handed up their heavier weaponry and their equipment packs. They began to move to their first objectives; the entrances to the tram tunnels that led to Triad Naval Base.
The main force, which consisted of two companies, headed for the primary personnel tunnel, since it would lead them to the main foyer of the base and drop them close to the vital control room. Another single company headed for the northern tunnel, which was a secondary entrance for ship crews and dock personnel. The last company of the battalion took the south tunnel, which was a freight tunnel though which fuel, supplies, and other staples entered the base after being shipped from the Triad civilian docks. It was this entrance where the first contact between MPG and Navy military police took place.
The freight loading platform was large and was staffed with a squad of MPs whose job it was to check each incoming train for infiltrators, bombs, or anything else. The MPs were no less confused than the civilians. They had no combat goggles so they were as blind as everyone else in this section of Triad. Their Internet screens had gone dark and they were trying to reach someone on the base over their back-up radio frequency, which did not rely on Internet cables, when the sounds of many feet and clanking armor appeared all around them.
"WestHem MPs!" boomed a voice from an amplifier. "You are surrounded by MPG troops! Surrender immediately or you will be fired upon. Drop your weapons to the ground, walk to the center of the platform, and lay down!"
Sergeant Broker was the twenty-three year old MP in charge of the five-man squad. He heard the voice just as he'd succeeded in getting through to the Naval Base MP barracks inside the main gate. He had heard the number of feet clomping around on the platform and knew that he held a useless position. His people were blind and horribly outnumbered. The greenies would have combat goggles on and probably had beads drawn on all five of them.
"Do what they say, guys," he commanded, his voice shaky with fear. "Do it now."
"Broker!" A voice replied from his radio channel. "What is going on there? Did you say the lights were out? I have reports from the main gate and the secondary of the same thing."
"This is Broker," he said. "My position is under attack from a large number of greenie troops. I am surrendering to them."
"Broker!" the voice yelled. "What did you say?"
He had time for no more. He left the link open so that they would at least be able to hear what was going on. He then walked to the center of the street with his hands in the air, moving gingerly in the darkness. His men did the same. They were quickly handcuffed with plastic ties and left lying on their bellies for the moment. The south gate had fallen without a shot being fired.
At the main gate platform things went a little differently. The MPs were more numerous and more confused by the unheard of darkness. There were also many more civilian and military people standing by the security checkpoints awaiting access to a train that was now stopped in the tunnel. When the MPG troops rushed onto the platform their commander yelled through the intercom for everyone to get down immediately.