(Author's note: Good afternoon (or morning, or night), dear Fanfickers. Without further ado, here's the second chapter of Cory no Monogatari. Beware, dear reader, for the storm is coming.)
All of a sudden, I fell asleep. The next thing I knew was that I was laying down in a large, old fancy bed, in Mr. Bush's bedroom. Mr. Bush was sitting on a rocking chair next to me, dressed in his pyjamas, reading a paperback book.
"It seems like you're finally awake, Cory." he said, as he stashed a bookmark off his pocket, put it in the book, and placed the book, closed, on top of the nightstand table.
I had no idea, and even today, I still don't know what Mr. Bush was reading back then, but I vividly remember it had a girly shoujo manga-esque cover. Was Mr. Bush reading shoujo manga that day? Was he a dirty weeaboo? I do not know, and I had never thought that before.
After leaving the book on the table, he picked up a plate covered with slices of peeled apples, and asked me "Do you want some apples, Cory?", so I quickly responded with "Yes, thank you very much, Mr. Bush.", and grabbed an apple slice, quickly shoving it my mouth.
He then turned his face towards me, and asked me, while looking straight towards me, "Cory, would you like to fight for our country?"
I contemplated that question for a few seconds, before finally opening my mouth and saying the following: "I would, Mr. Bush. I love the people of our country, and I would be willing to do anything to protect them, our families, our friends, our neighbours."
"Would you be willing to kill those people who wish to harm our loved ones?"
"I would. Those of them who harm us or our loved ones deserve no redemption, and must be punished accordingly." I said, using the most serious tone of voice I was able to make.
"Very well. I hereby appoint you to be the Field Marshall of the United Forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for Operation Enduring Freedom." he declared, as I bowed down, and he placed a medal upon me.
"I humbly accept your offer, Commander-in-Chief Bush." I said, laying my hand on my chest, bowing down, facing Mr. Bush.
The next day, I left over to Afghanistan, taking only 2 things with me, a copy of Sun Tzu's The Art of War, and a picture of my family.
I arrived at the Bagram Air Field 23 hours later, after a brief stopover at the Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan.
I was greeted by Lieutenant General John McColl, then-head of the International Security Asssistance Force.
"Me and the rest of our troops officially greet you, Field Marshall Cornelius Baxter!" he said, doing a military salute, alongside a group of men dressed in military uniforms, as I exited the military plane.
I was guided through the base by Lt. General McColl, who simultaneously gave me a brief explanation of my duties, to lead our men into battle, and to curb Al-Qa'eda and the Taliban's progress. He told me that I could use any possible military strategy I could see fit to accomplish our objective. Our tour of the base ended when we arrived at the command centre, at the centre of the base.
"Field Marshall Baxter, I hereby pass my authority over as commander of the International Security Assistance Force and field director of Operation Enduring Freedom." he said, giving me the field director's medal, which I accepted, doing a military salute immediately afterwards.
"Please take care of our troops, Field Marshall." he said, shortly before departing, with a slightly sad-sounding tone of voice.
"I promise to do so, for the sake of our countries, Lieutenant General McColl." I asserted.
As I sat down on a chair, and opened a box, filled with my materials, dragging my nameplate out of it, and putting the rest of the box down, I saw McColl walking out the door, and heard him crying, with people around him saying "Please don't cry, Lt. General. We promise we will fight our best and survive the war.", presumably trying to cheer him up.
A few days later, the war meeting finally came. The British, German, and Australian war representatives arrived at the base, where I formally greeted them, dressed in my well-kept, custom tailored military suit. I guided them over to the conference room at the command center, where me and the rest of the generals sat down to discuss our plans for the next joint military operation.
After a brief moment of silence, I spoke up and said, "I have an idea I would like to discuss."
The generals, seemingly interested in my idea, said "Please go on, Marshall Baxter."
"According to my research, the Taliban has a strong presence in the sparesly populated southwestern corner of Kandahar province, specifically, in the district of Spin Buldak, where, I believe, Osama bin Laden could be hiding. I would like to commision about 20 remoted-controlled drones to do some surveillance on the city of Spin Buldak. If everything goes according to my keikaku, we will have captured both Osama bin Laden and Ayman Az-Zawari. We could potentially even find Mullah Omar's successor, whoever he might be. I would like to lead a group of 2300 men into battle. The American Army will supply 1500 men. The Royal Army could contribute about 500 men, and then the Australian and German armies could contribute about 150 men each."
"Approved." said General Mustang, General O'Higgins, and Commander Schwansteiner.
"Very well. The Operation Spin Buldak will officially start at 900 hours, on July 20th."
"Field Marshall Baxter, I know of a skilled drone and microrobot operator who could help us on the drone operative, and I have some contacts who could ship me some drones in less than 48 hours." said General Mustang.
"We will accept that. In war, we will require the asssistance of any skilled person who can be useful for us. Please bring him in by Thursday, in other words, two days from now."
"Understood, Field Marshall Baxter." he said, pledging towards me.
"Herr Kommandant Schwansteiner, will you allow us to use the Kandahar Air Base as the landing point for our planes?" I asked, using a nice, warm, yet serious tone of voice.
"Of course. The German Air Forces will always welcome our American cousins with open arms. We shall prepare in advance for your arrival upon first notice."
"Very well. Colonel O'Higgins, should we expect the Australian Army's full co-operation?"
"Gladly! We shall assist you however you may ask us to." said Colonel O'Higgins, with a proud smile on his face. "America has always been our ally, and it shall never cease to be our partner-in-arms."
Days later, the drone controller, a 24-year-old half-Indian British man, named Jeffrey Pakreet dressed in hipster clothes, arrived at the base. I greeted him informally, with a somewhat loose handshake, while he was somewhat nervously smiling at me. As soon as we got off the landing field, I guided him over to the waiting room, where he sat down on a couch, as I offered him some tea and biscuits, which he accepted. Then I walked over to my room and changed to some informal attire, after which I went back to the waiting room. I switched over from my formal military-like type of speech to my informal native Southern Californian idiolect.
"Can I call you Jeffrey?" I asked as I sat down on a black couch facing the white couch he was sitting in.
"Sure, please do so, Marshall Baxter." he said.
"Please call me Cory. I wanna keep things comfortable for you over here."
"Got that, Cory." he said, as he switched over to a Cockney-like lower class British accent.
"Did General Mustang tell you about why you were brought over here?"
"Not really. He told me I was gonna fly some drones, and stuff."
"And that's exactly what we want you to do. We need you to catch some terrorists by spying on them using surveillance drones. We're gonna place 17 drones throughout the town of Spin Buldak, a small town on the border with Pakistan where we think Osama bin Laden might be hiding."
"Do you have a topographic map of the town of Spin Buldak?"
"Sure." I said, taking a Manila folder out and pulling a map out of it, which I placed on the table, and then dragged it over to his side of it.
"May I write on it?", he said, picking up a pen from his pocket.
"We have tons of copies of it, so don't you worry about it!" I said, trying to encourage him to give us some useful ideas, lifting my hand up at the end of the sentence.
"Let's use about 12 drones, with the other 5 being left in reserves. Then let's put about 4 drones in the main town, over here." he said, circling the town centre, "Let's put about 3 more in this village over here, next to the border with Pakistan. Then let's put at least 1 or 2 drones each in these villages.", he said, circling a few more villages and small towns.
"I think your plan is pretty good. How many assistants do you think you'll need?"
"About 8. I can pilot and supervise up to 4 drones at the same time."
"Nice. I'll appoint 24 officers, so that you can have at least 8 assistants at any given time during the day." I said, writing some information down on my notepad. "Your mission will officially start tomorrow. We'll allow you to draw up your own schedule. At what time do you think you can be ready for work?"
"Around 9 AM, local time."
"That seems perfectly good for me. Terrorists are usually most active around daytime. The people of the desert fear the creatures of the night." I said, putting an observation to complement his choice.
"Now, let's talk about something completely different. What kind of stuff do you like?"
"My only hobbies are playing video games and watching anime."
Then we had a long, cringe-filled autistic conversation on those two topics, where we both sperged out talking about some of our favorite video games and anime, and a serious debate on who was best girl from Neon Genesis Evangelion. We were unable to reach a satisfactory conclusion on that topic due to our strong stances on our respective waifus.
I spent the rest of the day masturbating to vintage porn films on VHS, having absolutely no other ideas as to what I could spend my time by doing.
The next day, me and the rest of the men applied for a special permit at the Ministry of Defense of Afghanistan in downtown Kabul, which was approved and signed by President Hamid Karzai himself. Papers, papers, papers. Even field marshalls have to fill out forms, stand in long lines, and deal with bureaucrats.
We had to send Major John de Gonzales by plane over to Kandahar, where he was received by some men from the German Army, and was then taken over to a military checkpoint near Spin Bildak, where he had to present the form over to the station's commanding officer, a rather rude man, who made Major de Gonzales bow down to him and clean his face, and stamped the back of the document. Then he was taken over to the border checkpoint, and had to deal with some soldiers from the Pakistani Army, due to some issues regarding Pakistan's national air space. Their commanding officer over at the city of Quetta spoke to Major Gonzales by phone, and then sent us a call over here to the commanding center at Bagram Air Base, inviting us to use the Pakistani Air Force base at the Quetta International Airport for our upcoming mission, which I had to decline to, by explaining to him that we had some logistical problems related to landing at Quetta. He seemt to have understood, and ended our conversation by saying that he would be willing to support us however we needed. Back at the Chaman border crossing, the Pakistani soldiers OK'd our permission form and stamped it. Several hours later, Gonzales arrived back at our base, while Jeffrey and the rest of the drones team arrived at my office, with a short report on their conclusions on that day's work.
"Field Marshall Baxter, we have found some important information regarding Al Qaeda's speculative base's location. We have been able to round down the following places, due to audio and video evidence regarding mentioned terrorist activities, as well as people seen carrying firearms, and talking about, or preaching Islamist propaganda. The town centre of Spin Buldak is one of the most important potential candidates for Al Qaeda's base, and the village of Solayman Kalay is filled with plenty of suspicious shady people, many of whom were heard talking about somebody they call 'Great Uncle Omar', and even heard one person saying 'Do you mean the Mullah?', which we believe might be a reference to Mullah Muhammad Omar, former ruler of Afghanistan. We spotted a large house which seemt to be heavily guarded by armed men."
"Excellent. Gentlemen, your work here is officially done." I said as they left the papers on my desk.
Gonzales came in through the door and handed me the permission form, covered with stamps and signatures on both sides of the sheet of paper.
"You're dismissed, Major de Gonzales." I told him as I accepted the paper.
"Aye sir." he said as he saluted me and left.
The next day, me and the team left over by plane to Kandahar International airport in a group of 5 planes, being assisted upon arrival by members of the Luftwaffe. There was our rendez-vous point where we met up with the Britons, the Aussies, and the Germans. Together we all went, riding on Jeep trucks and reinforced tanks. We arrived about 4 hours later, and split into 2 teams, one of them headed by me, which headed over to the Spin Budlak town center, and the other one, which headed over to the village of Solayman Karay.
We went driving through the town center, through the empty-looking streets, where there were few people outside of their houses. After a few minutes of driving through narrow, unpaved streets, we arrived upon the town's main square, and parked our vehicles there. We all jumped out, all of us carrying some firearms or some other kind of weapon in our hands and arms.
My Pashto and Persian-language interpreter, Sergeant Abdelaziz Sumhawari, stood next to me, awaiting for my instructions.
"Attention to all the townsfolk, this is Field Marshall Cornelius Baxter, head of the International Assistance Force." I said, speaking with a megaphone in my mouth, which I then passed over to Sumhawari, who translated what I said over to Pashto, and handed me back the megaphone.
"If any of you are members of the Taliban, Al Qa'ida, or any other mujahidīn or resistance/freedom fighter group, and wish to fight against the American Army, please report immediately to the town plaza. Our corpsmen and soldiers will be willing to fight you on a duel, one-to-one, using your weapon of choice." I then said, with a megaphone in my mouth.
A man, dressed in the traditional outfit of the region, wielding an AK-47 (Kalashinov) gun, ran over to us, shooting bullets like crazy, one of which injured Colonel Schmolo.
I then shouted, "Men, you may now open fire.", which was followed by the sounds of gunshots, automatic rifle shots, and grenades exploding inside of houses.
I took out my rifle, and told Sumhawari, "Please assume your position, Sergeant Sumhawari.", which he did, as he ran over to the back of the group.
"Commence Operation Spin Buldak." I shouted, turning my back one last time before marching (or rather, running) forward.
Me and my group of 20 men, orderly arranged all around me, except in my front, walked forward, shooting any targets who dared to get in our way, asking no questions and openly firing at anybody who might seem suspicious, or wear a beard.
The rest of the men dispersed into several large groups who walked around as circles, so as to perform a complete search of the entire town, examining every single house, building, leaving no place unsearched.
In a short while, we were able to flood the main street with blood and corpses, having thoroughly searched plenty of randomly picked houses, which we barged into, saying absolutely nothing to the people living there, and destroying their property, with absolutely no regard for their feelings.
Out of all the 63 houses we searched, we were able to find illegal items, like firearms, explosives, and opium or marijuana in 12 houses.
I had to shoot one man, in his house, in front of his family. I will never forget his wife and his children's terrified looks and screams, as small chunks of internal organs and streams of blood fell on them. That image will forever haunt my nightmares. Even today, I still see that scene playing out in my mind in my dreams.
At 3:22 PM, I was informed, via my walkie-talkie, that Osama bin Laden and Ayman az-Zawahari had both been captured alive. They were found in a large mansion up the hill, on the outskirts of town. Team B, over at Solayman Karay, informed me that Mullah Omar had been shot dead, and so had several other high-ranking militants from the Taliban.
As we walked back to the town square, I was reflected upon what we had done. I was utterly horrified at myself, at my actions, and I looked at my blood-stained hands, as well as all of the corpses that littered the streets, many of whom I had killed.
Several blocks away from the town square, I found a heavily injured, but still breathing small child, dressed in rags, opening their mouth as if trying to speak, but unable to utter any words. I crouched down, and grabbed the frail child, whose life seemt to be quickly slipping away.
Then I started crying, closely holding the child against me, until they stopped breathing, and their heartbeat quickly slowed down until it finally stopped. And she died.
Shocked by the combination of all of these horrors, my mind suddenly blacked out, and I felt nothing.
