Chapter 4:
The New Menace
August 6, 2027 - 12:54:03

Hesh's dreams often liked to replay the horror of watching his brother forcefully be dragged away by Rorke like a lamb to the slaughter, his brother's uninjured arm helplessly waving for him to grab it and save him. But while Logan was the injured one in danger, Hesh was the weak one by the end of it... too helpless to save his own little brother. He could remember every second, every detail of the moment. The blood which stained the sand, his brothers pleas, himself shouting for his name as though it would make a difference. But what he remembered most was his emotions.

The emotions flooded through him like an emptying drain when he'd collapsed in the jungle, Logan no longer in reach. At that moment when he was alone, it felt as though a boa constrictor had to wrapped itself around him, his breathing becoming unbearable and his whole body feeling weak. All the feeling in his body had now bathed itself in pain and grief, causing him to do nothing more but breakdown. For awhile he'd just sat there and sobbed, refusing to stop calling Logan's name as though if he did he's be gone forever. He hadn't felt so horrible and weak sense the death of their mother; even when their dad died, he could contain himself because he knew he had someone looking at him for support. But now it had all been taken away.

Once the tears had washed away though, Hesh had began to feel nothing and he was certain that this nothingness would be permanent. At that moment he wanted to die. Die like everyone else in his life did, just go away into bleakness and never exist again so he wouldn't have to forever feel responsible for his own actions. To die like their mother and father had, like most of the friends he's come to know and love that the Federation managed to snipe away, like their home that was no more, and to just be nowhere himself like Logan now was. He couldn't take it anymore.

...

His eyes had snapped open abruptly, his heart racing and his breathing intensifying. He was relieved to see that he'd awoken on his bed in the barracks; they'd taken him home. Hesh could see that his arm had been wrapped up after getting shrapnel launched into it last night, but the wound didn't feel as bad as the others might of thought.

Hesh sat up on his bed, observing the room and finding Riley sleeping on the floor beside him, unaware he was now up. Sunlight came in through the small window of the barrack, the place appearing clean and tidy. It was smaller than most barracks, but the cramp feeling was usually welcomed. He would almost had felt like himself if he hadn't of looked over at the bed across from his, the bed that has been empty for a whole month now. Hesh has avoided making eye contact with it since his absence.

The sudden knock on his door brought his attention to the front of his barrack as he could hear Riley waking up from his slumber. Hesh groaned lightly before sitting up from his bed and trudging over to the door, opening it without asking who it was. He wasn't very surprised to be standing in front of Merrick. The sun seemed to reflected off his bald head and glimmer in his well managed beard, his face holding a certain boldness like it usually did. He towered over the twenty eight year old, his arms crossed with a file full of paper between his forearms and a light grin on his face, his eyes going to the wrap on his upper bicep.

"I see you're awake," he said, "Hope I didn't wake you or somethin'. How are you holding up?"

Hesh did't see much point in his trying to make small talk when he knew it wasn't the reason he'd come over. In fact, even if it had been, as of lately, Hesh didn't like it when the others tried to start friendly conversations with him in general. Whenever they did so, he felt like they were pitying him; like they felt bad and didn't want to feel awkward standing around him knowing of his current predicament. He couldn't spend his time in solitude no more without knowing that the others were thinking about him in ways he didn't want them to. Hesh saw these emotions, these problems, as nothing more than something he had to deal with on his own. He appreciated the help on missions, but when it came to coping with it all by the end of it, he didn't need the others to even try and understand what he was going through. He didn't want them to. Hesh knew they only did this because they cared about their teammates like brothers, but right now, he didn't want the sympathy.

So Hesh rather blows off Merrick's question and gets straight to the point when asking, "Did the data come to any use?" He knew Merrick wasn't the sensitive types to get offended by Hesh ignoring his wants to console his partner, and instead straightened himself up a bit. He was glad Hesh decided to cut the foreplay and get straight to business personally. "Do you want the good news first, or the bad news?" Merrick asked. Hesh tensed up a bit by the question, bringing his hands to his sides. "Give me the bad news first."

"Out of all that information you brought back, none of it had anything to do with Logan's exact whereabouts." Of course, Hesh thought to himself. He couldn't help but swear, growing rather mad at how much dedication he'd put into getting that data back to base in the first place, just to find out it was useless information. "So what's the good news?" he then asked, not wanting to dwell on his disappointment too long. He had more important things to do.

"The data you brought back held information far greater for our hopes of both finding Logan and stopping Rorke and possibly even the Federation. Can I come in?" Hesh stepped out of the way, allowing Merrick to step inside and take a seat on Logan's bed. It rubbed off Hesh the wrong way for a few seconds, but he wasn't going to speak up about it as he sat on his bed across from him. He watched Riley climbed onto the bed beside him and rest his head on Hesh's lap, continuing his nap. "So what exactly was on that data then?" Hesh asked, unconsciously using his two front fingers to scratch the back of Riley's ear.

"On the data you recovered was private information about small organizations and plans the Federation is creating for upcoming attacks against vulnerable bases. From what we read, things are getting more serious than they ever have been before now. It's getting bad, but it's nothing we can't handle at this point."

"Bad?" Hesh questioned, "What do you mean?"

"Rorke's setting up, and he's setting up fast. From what we've pulled, both him and the Federation have established a team that works like we do, and it's pretty clear their objective is nothing more than to exterminate us and keep us out of the way of the Federations work. They go by the name of the Reapers; They haven't been around for too long but have already managed to infiltrate and eradicate three of our bases near Northern California alone. The sniper we'd encountered was a member."

"Do you know how many members there are?" Hesh asked, his voice remaining rather bland. "Six," Merrick replied, "Rorke included, being the CO of them. There's more information in these documents I printed out for you, take a look, I'll just summarize these pictures as we go." Merrick passed over the file he'd been holding as Hesh opened it, being greeted to a small stack of papers crowded with information.

The first document had a picture in the right corner similar to a mugshot, showing a male who didn't look much older than Hesh himself, having brown hair styled in an ivy league with dark brown eyes and an emotionless expression on his pale skinned face. "His name is Carter Valentino, his code name being 'Armageddon'. Supposedly he's the team's crack shot, being the best marksmen in the group and even meeting up to Rorke's levels of shooting. He was formally apart of the Special Forces before he was capture on a mission, and it's most likely that the Federation did to him what they did to Rorke."

Hesh moved Valentino's papers out of the folder and onto the bed beside him, being greeted with another picture of a Reaper member. This person, unlike Valentino, looked to be in their late 40's, their light brown hair graying and having a notable five'o'clock shadow on his square jaw line. Their expression looked somewhat quizzical, like the person who took the picture snapped the shot after telling a funny joke, his smile being visible. "Shaun Makentine," Merrick stated, "Code name: Punisher. He plays the role of an interrogator more than anything involving physical contact. It's most likely that a lot of these members of the Reapers broke under his ways of 'persuasion'."

Moving the second set of documents to the side, he noticed that the picture for the third document wasn't a mugshot, and that their face was covered by a black ski mask with a red skull painted on the front of it, looking jagged and menacing from its style of painting. "They didn't have a picture of this guy, in fact they didn't have much information about him at all," Merrick admitted, letting out a deep sigh. "But luckily for us, we know how they work, because this was the guy who was trying to snipe us back at that base we'd been at last night. We couldn't find his first name, but his last name is Rhodes, and his code name is Reaper, being one of the first to be recruited. They specialize in stealth and assassinations, being somewhat of a crack shot himself, but in a loner kind of way. He's the one who goes on the most casual missions with the Federation."

"They're rather small," Hesh commented, seeing on the files that he's only 5'3 and weighing around 128 lbs. "It makes him all the more quick and agile; we've had first hand experience with him, so I wouldn't advice underestimating him." Hesh merely grinned, setting the document to his side and pulling out another one, only this one didn't have a picture connected with it. "This is Ember, that being their code name seeing as their real name wasn't available to us from the data we got. Much isn't known about him other than the fact that he's new to the group and a bomb specialist that works side by side with Reaper for the most part."

"So does that mean if we find Ember, we find Reaper too, or vice versa?" Hesh asked.

"Possibly, but I wouldn't count on it, especially since he wasn't their with him last night. Unless it's group missions, they tend to work separately," Merrick answered, "But the last guy on this list is the guy we need to worry about. Go ahead and take a look." Hesh did so, moving the paper to get yet another pictureless document covered in words.

"There is no name for this guy, in fact we couldn't get much of a description for him at all other than the fact that, like Ember, he's new to the group, going by the name of Exodus. His name is rather ironic if they didn't give it to him on purpose, because in his short time of being apart of the Reapers, he's been the leading force taking out our men and conquering out bases, being Rorke's second in command on the team. The things that this guy has done have been rather unthinkable and remarkable at the same time; it makes me wonder what they did to this guy to get him to join. I bet he's seen hell."

"So you're not saying we're screwed then, right?" Hesh states, placing all of the files to the side of himself.

"No," Merrick says, "I'd ask you to be a little more optimistic about our situation actually, but won't go there with you. This data you've managed to find is very important, because now we know what we're up against, and this gives us our next mission that could play a crucial role in taking down Rorke and the Federation, as well and retrieving Logan."

"How so?"

"Well you've read the documents. If they really are working for Rorke and know just about everything there is to know about how the Federation is operating, then that means if we catch one of these guys and get them to talk, we can find Logan and get some critical information on taking out Rorke and the Federation. Finding any one of them could mean ending this war a lot quicker and with better chances that it'll be us on the side of victory. We're leading an attack soon, and on this attack we'll be looking for one of them. If this is successful, you'll be seeing your brother soon, kid."

Merrick didn't bother giving any formal farewells as he just exited the barrack after finishing his sentence, leaving Hesh to Riley who was looking up at him with large eyes. Hesh clinched his jaw a bit and swallowed before returning his gaze to his dog, somewhat forcing a smile on his face. "Did you hear that Riley?" he said enthusiastically, "Logan will be back soon." When Riley wagged his tell in enjoyment, Hesh rubbed the back of his ears again, soon looking back at the bed that Logan used to sleep on.

He couldn't help but sigh at the dent Merrick had left in it, feeling disappointed that his bed wasn't neatly made anymore. With that in mind he stood up to fix it, not saying anything and barely breathing while doing so. When he felt that the bed was back to its normal pristine look, the twenty eight year old back away from it a bit. The room felt a little more like home again.

Logan always made his bed like Hesh did. In fact, just about everything Logan did reflected on what Hesh did, from difficult things like how they operated on missions to the simple things like the way they held a spoon when they ate. Hesh saw Logan acting like a mirror to him, doing everything his older brother did. So Hesh tried to comfort himself in believing that Logan was fighting wherever he was, trying to rejoin him much like Hesh wanted to with him. If Hesh wouldn't give up, he knew Logan wasn't going to give up either.

They were both fighters, and they weren't going to stop fighting until the end came to stop them.

I hope this chapter wasn't too boring (I tried to make it pretty short), please review and stay tuned~