Chapter 11: The City of Sinners
September 2, 2037
Outskirts of Severja, Yuktobania (Middle Gublina Region)
0430 hrs
In the distance, all I heard were the sounds of Severja dying. Gun battles raged through the city. Explosions from scatter-based artillery and that new stuff, the guided artillery rounds G1 nearly schwacked us with back in the Bayori, were pounding the city's northern points. 1st Marines were battling through the city's streets and alleyways, finding resistance to be much more than they expected. 3rd ID, the thieves of the Army, was fighting to our western flank. The entire city was a kaleidoscope of destruction and mayhem; the entire spectrum had the colors of death. We sat only two miles away and saw it all unfold…while we sat on our hands in reserve.
We were on one quarter watch, but I couldn't sleep at the moment. I was too busy conversing with my parents over Queue. We weren't supposed to be using them in a combat area anymore, but I found a way to hack around it.
To her credit, my mom didn't mention H Corp at all. We talked about my little sister's letter and how everyone made fun of it. I understood all the arrogant posturing though. My mother didn't comprehend the criticism because she'd never lived in the highly charged, satirical environment that was Recon Division. Everyone had the desire to go into Severja to mess the place up, kill the enemy, rape and pillage their houses without mercy. And I smartly did not mention this to my parents.
Then we talked about Lucy. Fortunately, Lucy was safe and sound back in Pikes Hugo. Unfortunately, she was still rather…malnourished as a result of all this hellish stress and life in the vaunted wasteland. My dad asked me what would possess anyone to do this. But as far as we knew, no one had a definite answer about the virus. It was man-made, but new theories were being thrown around and everything Alphonso told me wasn't quite the truth anymore.
My father picked her up in the Sand Island region and took her to a hospital, but there was nothing they could do. Apparently, tongue replacement wasn't their specialty. A day later, he took her to a diner he frequented with his long dead compatriot Alvin C. Davenport. It was an old mom and pop joint known as Marion's at the corner of 34th and Fander Street in Sand Island. They were one of the few regular people who knew my parent's secret. I knew that because they always ate for free, and susquently, I did when I took Dulcinea there many months ago. By the time my dad returned with Lucy, the oldest son had taken over the restaurant. He ordered this pair of cinnamon pancake dishes and the special Cardiac Special, which was sausage wrapped in bacon and steak. Not exactly a healthy dish and my mother gave him hell for it. Lucy ate her meal in less than three minutes. It was shocking…she usually took her sweet time eating. She simply smiled and nearly ate off my dad's plate.
Then one more disturbing note. My dad talked about several break ins around Pikes Hugo. I was shocked when I heard the Miller family had been robbed. Mr. Miller, the mayor's brother and my favorite high school teacher, had been stabbed in a home invasion...but he was alive at least.
I heard the sounds of blades in the air as I looked back at Micho for a second.
"It's not good. Cas-evacs have been going back and forth for awhile." Micho said, interrupting my thoughts. "This has got to piss Captain Morrison off. Letting the straight leg grunts do the job that was supposed to be our task."
I looked up and saw several helicopters flying above. Micho didn't speak as much as the other guys, but lately, he'd been rather talkative. I also noticed Walt may have been right about Micho. He'd been spending a little more time with Suzie. I didn't mind them having any…camaraderie, but we were on the front hood of the LARA, not even on the guns. Micho was lying back on the window with Suzie asleep on his shoulder. That was…danger close, for want of a better term.
"You're worried about the Captain? I don't think he even cares, to be honest. Now me...I'm ticked off that we didn't go in first." I heard a voice say.
Walt, Chapman, and Alphonso had walked up to us. Suzie was drooling all over Micho's shoulder and despite how…wrong it seemed, I couldn't resist the urge to laugh.
"We don't have to be the reason we win the war. We just can't be the reason we lose the war." Alphonso added.
I shrugged it off. Lucy hadn't spoken a word to my parents about what happened. Bohr gave me the skinny the previous day. Lucy had no recollection of how she ended up in the Soma's hands. There was no telling what kind of psychological damage she'd suffered at the hands of the Dogmen, or trying to survive in the wastes of Central Yuktobania.
Recollection or not, I told my parents that the Soma would pay dearly for this. No one said anything, but Lucy had become our motivation for taking out these Jaair Fundamentalist savages, Lucy…our own Helen of Troy.
My mother's response: You want revenge, you better bring two shovels. You need one to dig your enemies' grave. You need the other to dig your own.
I never thought Kei Nagase would ever intentionally make me think she was full of it. She couldn't seriously tell me she didn't seek revenge at some point in her life? Then again, what if she was right? Did she really almost die because of it? I didn't get a chance to ask her before…for whatever reason, Micho switched gears.
"What was Dulcinea talking about that was so important?" he said.
Walt was quick to add, "You think you knocked her up?"
I was caught off guard when Dulcinea asked me that. My wonder was why Micho waited until then to ask. To be honest, I wasn't as worried about Dulcinea possibly being pregnant. I was used to the idea of a baby around the house. Astrid, the little monster she was, was more than enough experience for anyone. I knew Dulcinea wasn't worried about it since she brought it up one time. She said she always wanted to have a family of her own. I wasn't worried about it, but the whole timing was a bit unexpected. It was a strange position to be in. As far as I knew, however, Dulcinea wasn't carrying a baby and instead, she wanted to talk about something more…permanent.
"Well, that was a possibility. But then again, she may have wanted to discuss our…future."
"You're not…serious, right?" Micho said. He sniffed it out like a Doberman, even before I started my second sentence.
"You never know." I said.
"You're seriously thinking about marrying this chick?" Walt asked. He was slower to pick up on it, but he knew as well.
"It's been almost a year since we've dated. I wasn't thinking about it, but she did bring it up a couple of days before we stepped off in St. Hewlett." I said.
Alphonso then added, "Tasha and your parents must have thought you were crazy."
I never liked to keep secrets from people. Well, certain ones; I didn't want my sister to know that fact about me and Dulcinea. I figured it was just deserts for not telling me about her and Rico's relationship. Now, however, things were a bit different. I was learning things about Rico…that I wished my sister knew. And it wasn't all good.
"Well, my parents were a little surprised by her words. Of course, for Tasha…it's hard to be crazy when she doesn't know at all."
"Forget all that crap…we gotta talk. That's the reason I came over here." Chapman said. We'd been wrapped up in our conversation about the womenfolk that we'd ignored Willie a few times. He had a serious look on his granite face, and that told me everything. So I at least decided to give him his undivided attention. Then Suzie started snoring behind me when there was a lull in the artillery barrage.
"What's up Big Willie?" I said.
"Did you hear about what's going on back home?" he asked. "Some guy from the Oured media leaked a story about Hephaestus Corporation absorbing Apex MC."
I was a little offended. This was Big Willie's big news…H Corp absorbing another underachieving company? What was the big deal? Was I missing something, I thought.
Micho asked, "The mining company, right?"
"Yeah. It came out a day before the merger was supposed to happen. Apex was one of the civilian companies that were supposed to help…rebuild this country. They got a huge government contract just a week ago." He said.
Then it hit me. The pause and the skepticism in his voice gave Chapman away. He sounded just like my mom. He was another hardcore liberal blasting Corporate Osea for no reason at all. Now, my mother had her reasons and Cylaron did deserve some criticism, but it seemed childish. Corporate Osea made our UWS work. They built the damn things!
Alphonso asked, "Wasn't Apex the one that got into that anti-trust scandal with Cylaron back in Versua in 2021?"
A piece of the puzzle was found. It was about illegal business. But that couldn't be. After all, it was impossible to run a hundred percent clean business. In order to make money, rules had to be skirted and dirty things had to happen. The only problem was when it became egregious and people started losing their life savings and their jobs because of illegal business. But as far as I knew, Cylaron didn't do anything wrong in Versua. They did bring a ton of jobs to that ruined country and helped stabilize Southern Versua, something no one had been able to do in over seven hundred years.
"Oh yeah…there's a lot of old wounds from the Democrats. Now you've got huge corporations whoring out for government contracts to hide monopolies. They think they're so slick." Chapman said.
I scoffed, "I think I see why my mom was so pissed off at H Corp."
I wasn't sure if monopolizing was an egregious thing. It did starve out competition. However, in my mind, at least what I learned from high school economics, was that big, popular enterprises starved out the incompetent businesses and those companies who are well run thrive because of the success and the availability of other, equally good brands. My economics teacher called it the Big Bad Wolf Theory.
"Brandon, your mom's not alone. It's getting real ugly in Oured. They're protests, demonstrations, people are rioting in Apex plants closing…and you're not going to believe this. There's an anti-war sentiment growing. There's a conspiracy theory that President Shelley started the war illegally or something."
I stopped. All time seemed to freeze at that exact moment. I was caught with my mouth half open and the realization began to dawn on me as slow as a rising sun.
Anti-war sentiment. The three words no soldier ever wanted to hear. This was only going to get worse. It may have been a small issue at the moment, but I knew enough sociologically to know this: it was only going downhill from here. The classic case was the 2010 war. The anti-war sentiment started as a small piece of snow in both countries. But like gravity, it only had to be pushed and down it went. I knew Oseans were gullible for these things. One only needed to look at Hollywood. One thing happened to a big star and everyone followed it. The entire country developed a gang mentality and soon…everything fell like dominoes.
"That's insane." I said.
"That's what my mom tells me." Chapman said.
I began to second guess myself at this point. It wasn't that that Chapman was unreliable as a source, just the opposite was true. However, I wasn't going to trust something his mother said right off the bat. I knew enough about Chapman's mother that she was the last person anyone could rely on for accurate information. Her very job, a hair dresser at a beauty parlor, was the empirical proof of this.
"Dude, I don't trust your stories. You're just like Charles, embellishing facts and changing things around." I said. I sounded cocky and bullish when I said that. Lance Corporal Chapman wasn't buying it.
He replied, "Corporal…I'm dead serious. There's a reason Division had that media ban. Now it's getting out and all the officers are talking about it. They talked about confiscating our Queues."
I didn't have a complete picture, but it all began to make sense. Though, I wondered if Division knew enough about this. They obviously didn't want the media over here or any type of news channel network affecting our morale. They lifted the ban; but that meant that they, and many others in Power Recon's brass, had every reason to think the war was no longer in doubt. Judging from the amount of resistance in Severja, that was obviously premature.
However, if I doubted it, Sergeant Adair did buy into Chapman's story.
"Have you told anyone else?" he asked.
"No. Just you guys." Chapman said cooly.
Alphonso then immediately gathered the entire team, waking them up from their slumber. Planes roared above us. We met in the large tent we'd built for our meeting place. He quickly explained the situation and addressed the issue. Lieutenant MacGruber, who was to take over for Alphonso as team leader after we passed Severja was not present at the time. He was meeting with the Captain. I sort of scoffed the entire thing as one last ditch effort for Alphonso to take advantage of his Alpha status in the team. That wasn't to say that Adair was incapable, far from it. But I had a feeling he was rather bitter about giving up his leadership to MacGruber, who was a rookie soldier, he had the tools necessary to lead us. It wasn't because Alphonso was a bad leader; he was a good leader…but something told me he knew in his saved heart that perhaps MacGruber was a better leader at heart.
"Well, Willie…everyone…I don't want this to leave the tent. Don't mention it to anyone else, you hear? Don't. Say. A. Word. Am I clear? We're not going to have rumors flying around and everyone taking sides for and against. It does no one any good." he said.
As he said that, Lieutenants Frost and MacGruber entered the tent. I turned my head when Frost came up to Alphonso.
"Sergeant Adair…we have a situation." said Frost.
"Lieutenant, sir...what's going on?" Alphonso asked, a bit sheepish. He was probably hiding his contempt for the Belkan officer under humor.
"We have new warning orders in thirty minutes. We're stepping off in sixty. Captain Morrison also informed me that there is a new Division order for the confiscation of all Queue 30s and all media outlets have been banned again, effective as of 2100 hrs Zulu time." said Frost.
Alphonso responded quicker than I could cognate my thought on the BS situation, "Okay, guys. You heard him. I guess we're going back to old fashioned letter writing. Whatever you have to do on the Queue, do it now. We're briefing in twenty five mikes, and we're Red Con One in fifty five."
Everyone began to scatter throughout the area. Some of us left the tent; as we did, Micho and I looked at each other and shared an angry look.
"This is some bullshit." We said in amazing unison.
***
STILL in the Outskirts of Severja, Yuktobania (Middle Gublina Region)
0700 hrs
The briefing was pushed back and most of us had nothing to do until then. Though, I wasn't sure who to blame in this case.
There were only two guarantees in the Corps. Rule One, whenever we were told to move out in twenty, it would take two hours. Rule Two was always the inverse of Rule One. Sometimes I believed that Command did these things on purpose. Sheck said there was a reason for everything. I wasn't sure I believed him. He was just saying the right things a leader should. I was still pissed about getting my Queue taken away because the top officers were affected by soft liberals back home fearing that things were out of control.
Funny thing was this: Tasha believed that officers had no excuse to make mistakes. Though her argument was inherently flawed, she did have a decent one. My twin sister argued that commissioned officers would have had far too much training than the regular enlisted person to do stupid things…most damning of all, getting enlisted guys killed. One idiot officer's decision just the previous day resulted the death of a pair of 82nd Airborne soldiers coming back from patrol. Now, I didn't think someone as dawdling as Lieutenant Finch or insufferable as Frost were going to get people killed. Finch was more…overmatched. Once I learned the truth about some of the officers at Annapolis, it became a little easier to accept. But again, I couldn't tell Tasha because Frost took away our bleeping Queues!
Lieutenant MacGruber openly discussed his time at Annapolis with us during chow hours prior. Apparently, he and Finch, as well as Dyer and Riba, were all at the academy at the same time. They were there during the change to the Shelley Administration. Finch was one of the new breed of officer, the beginning of what MacGruber called the "Prep School Officer" era where the hard working middle class couldn't crack the ranks of the officer schools. Even in college, there was no guarantee of making it to the OCS. The demand for quality officers was high during the advent of Power Recon and other new military organizations, but the qualifications were so strict that middle class people were frozen out. MacGruber derided this, claiming 'they', this new breed of officers were callous and over-educated. However, to Recon's credit, very few of them made Recon. They were shifted to other units…Finch was one of these men, and my sister, to her chagrin, knew how that turned out.
At the time, Chapman and I were pulling roving guard duty when we wandered over near Battalion HQ directly behind our lines. There was a lot of activity around. There were many civilians around the medical tents Battalion and Division had set up in the general area. It wasn't anything new…but it was unusual to see civilian aid stations that close to the front. The battles were still going on in the ruined city.
"What's going on?" Chapman asked.
I knew who to blame for the war of course. We saw our Corpsman, Doc Gray, attending a line of what looked to be preteen kids.
Gray wasn't always a talkative sort. He preferred to let his work do the talking for him. When he did speak, he made his words meaningful, if not concise. His voice was colloquial, a sensual folk and foreign influenced. That was because Gray, like Marco Desormeaux, came from Orleans District. Both Marco and Gray came from old, old Sorle families. Sorle people were the descendants of the Sotoan immigrants who moved to Osea in the 1600s. But ironically, PFC Desormeaux was a city kid. Gray was the one who grew up in the bogs and backcountry. The true Sorles spoke with a tone of breathy, drawn out romanticism. I was convinced that Gray, even though he was married to this belle named fittingly Isabelle Areceaux LeBlanc-Gray, could get any woman to sleep with him with that voice. Of course, Walt thought he sounded like a homosexual, but I thought Walt sounded like a dumbass at times so it was an interesting trade off.
Doc Gray gave us a nod when we approached. He sometimes spoke quickly and sometimes you had to slow him down. Sometimes he spoke quietly and you had ask him to speak up. then there times he'd go off on these Alphonso-like soliloquies.
Gray treated the children who'd suffered light shrapnel wounds in the cross fighting between 1st Marines, Soma regulars, 3rd ID Soldiers, Dogmen and Paramilitary forces. There were twelve pre-adolescent Yukes in front of us on the porch of the main building. In the back of my mind, I wondered if any of them looked like Lucy. That was hard comings, as Hoot would say. The kids, for the most part, looked generic. But they were not the Yukes I knew. They were tan skinned…they were Jaair Yukes. Hazri. It was unusual to find them in this part of the country, but I deduced that they "immigrated" to this city.
They were the children of the Soma.
You could tell the difference without even looking at their skin. Their clothes gave them away. Regular Yukes wore cloth and polyester with one or many colors along with tennis shoes and ironic T-shirts. Girls could wear mini-skirts and tank tops with special bras to highlight their breasts; guys wore jerseys. They dressed like us. Their accents were different from ours but a girl like Dulcinea, who was Yuke, spoke perfect Osean. If you never knew her parents, no one could have assumed my girl was a Yuke from an initial meeting.
But the Hazri's fashion looked three centuries out of date. The old men wore brown and black robes. They dressed like monks. There was nothing unique about them. The six girls in front of me all had to wear these ridiculous headdresses called the Maracals, the fundamentalist head wraps and robes to cover them. Apparently, the Hazri were concerned that someone else viewing their wives or children's skin, even if it was a forearm, was a sin. If a woman took them off, she was either beaten, jailed, killed without legal recourse. And sadly, most women "sinners" were killed. I'd heard stories about women being thrown into lakes with cement shoes, some were strangled, drowned, carved apart with knives, some were even stoned to death and in one tragic case Wash told me a story about his father, a soldier way back when, and some other Marines during Operation Desert Blitz in 2010...finding a woman nailed a cross in a Jilachi civilian hamlet near the front.
I looked at the children. That story couldn't have applied to these kids, I thought. I expected to get some joyish reactions from them. However, the boys gave us sullen, angry looks and refused to talk to us. The girls were shy…or just afraid to speak.
"Even the little ones don't like us." Chapman said.
"I'm not surprised. The adults told the kids not to speak." Doc said simply. "It's ridiculous, really. Even when they're losing they won't abandon their ways."
I couldn't be angry at the kids even though their parents supported, fought in, or helped start this inhumane struggle. Here they were being treated on my parents' tax dollar and they give us the silent treatment. But they were kids. They only knew what their parents had taught them.
However, two of the kids stuck out from the rest. It seemed proper that they were on the end of the row. There were two girls. Unlike the other kids, they seemed a bit…upbeat. They smiled at us. Unlike their counterparts, they had green eyes and freckles. Their skin wasn't as tan and both had those retarded shawls on. It made me furious because I could tell my mission was no longer to avenge Lucy or anyone else and kill the Soma. I was here to liberate their people from this idiotic, dogmatic life.
The girl on the right said we looked cool in her broken Osean. I didn't pay attention to the boy sitting next to her and his offended expression. The girl on the left looked shy and didn't want to acknowledge us, but I saw her smile. They were sisters, I could tell. I'd lived with entirely too many women to know that. The right one was the outgoing one. She encouraged her sister to speak up. Chapman and I were beaming. We looked at each other and got the same idea. I pointed to that dumb headdress.
"Take it off." I said in Yuke. I started to pantomime what I spoke of, and they picked up on it rather quick. "Don't be afraid. You're free now."
The right hand girl didn't hesitate. She flung the headdress off, got up and stomped on the fabric. She cursed the thing. She held her hand out and I brought my right and slapped hands with her lightly. She knew. I saw her hair, fire red with spider silk tips. It looked disturbingly like Nesha Southerland's weird haircut. Then, like her sister…the other girl took hers off as well, although slower. Then, she went nuts. She flung it into the muddy pool of water near us.
The shy girl had the exact same hair as her sister. They were twins!
In an instant, her body language changed. It was as if the girls' head shawls were prison chains. Her angry Yuke voice screamed about how much she hated her father and her brothers for treating her like crap. She said she hated that thing since she was a kid. She hated her father for having her mother killed because she tried to leave the country with them.
These girls…
That was why they were in the wastes. They wanted to be free. Their mother wanted them to be free and she died to make sure that happened. But they couldn't be truly free…until we showed up. There were no more conspiracy theories for me. Now I knew we were fighting a legit war.
"It looks like these girls don't buy into this Soma crap!" Chapman said triumphant. We slapped hands.
In a case of follow the leader, the other girls in the line started to do the same thing. And that was when things took a turn. The boys in the line had held their tongues and the adults in the area had as well. But I saw the looks of shock and worry on their faces…at least the men. The women were standing up and shouting at their significant others or their friends. They too started to remove their moronic, unnecessary clothing. They had no reason to be afraid anymore!
"Damn, bro! You've started a cultural revolution, brother!" Abernathy yelled out from across the ditch.
The men snapped in the blink of an eye. Huge fights broke out. Two boys got involved when we went after the pair of red-haired girls. I pushed them behind me and got in their way, but they still charged at me. Chapman unwisely put his hand on the stock of his X-88 rifle, which was Red Con One. But it stopped them.
It did not stop the third and fourth boy from going to town on one of the girls. Doc tried to intervene but was bum rushed by a pair of teenage boys. Two adult males ran for me, throwing rocks my way.
"Ozandi! Ozandi!" The men yelled at me. "Brsis Ozandi! Osa Ozandi! Maricon!"
Infidel, they called me. Sinner. Godless sinner. Osean sinner. Criminal. Devil. It was whatever synonym a person wanted to use.
I didn't hesitate. I pointed my gun at them. That stopped the men like a wall. MPs arrived to break up the situation. Some of the men ran and some were restrained by the MPs. But it was not a perfect ending. By the time the scene had cleared, one of the girls…and one of the boys, cried over the bloody heap of one of the girls. I walked over and looked her shattered form. Her left eye and her nose were bashed in. She was bleeding from every opening on her face. To her left was a bloody rock. I touched her neck; the skin of a tan skinned raven haired girl. There was no pulse.
She was dead.
The killer? A fifteen year old kid. He was restrained by flex cable.
"Ozandi! Mais forasn dasu!" he spat at me. "Garote masir, maricon!"
He basically called my mother a godless bitch, a whore who deserved to have her throat slit in an alley…and that was being kind, from the general translation.
"You heartless piece of shit!" I shouted at him. I wanted to kill him. I wondered if he was a Soma regular hidden among the civvies. He certainly had a military haircut. Chapman and Abernathy wisely held me back.
"Come on, man. Let him go. Forget it." Abernathy said, dragging me away.
"Garmu! Merkava lana-mara ku, maricon! Sensu arelen, maku dasu!" the right side twin girl angrily replied to the detained teenager.
"What the heck she's sayin'?" Chapman said.
"The boys are just jealous." Abernathy said, saving my translation duty, "She was talking about the Soma and their dream to make Yuktobania their own land. She says their days are done. Smart kid." Abernathy said.
With that action, I knew why. The girl told me everything I needed to know. The Soma taught their youth from an early age to hate Osea. They were turning Yuktobania into a wasteland desert…like Jilachi, their Holy Land.
As we walked away, I was waylaid by Lt. Commander Bohr. She was with her boss Commander Decker, I thought his name was.
She approached me and lifted the visor on her helmet. I could see a few scratches on her face and I saw a wrinkle or two on her obtuse forehead. "I heard the news about Lucy. Thank god that child's safe."
"Yeah." I could only say. Bohr let out a tired sigh looked over the scene and shook her head.
"God…what happened here?" she said. I knew Bohr and she often asked obvious questions not to find out the obvious answer, but to ask a deeper, more philosophical question. I could tell from the tone of her voice.
"Don't ask, Commander." I said.
I just walked away.
***
0715 hrs
"What we got?" Teller asked. We arrived just as everyone was starting to brief. Alphonso and MacGruber had the map sheets out on the 09 LARA's hood.
"We have a very special mission. 1st Marines are tied down in Severja and from what I've heard about the inside of that place…I don't even think we'd want to be there. Be that as it may, we're going anyway. The entire regiment is protecting the Northern flank. Our Battalion has been assigned an area near an ancient railroad town known as Mujae, which is really just a suburb of the city. It's about thirty five klicks north of our position. The reason we're going is because a Dogmen infantry division…is unaccounted for. It's just a big hole in their line." Alphonso said.
"This has got ambush written all over it." Walt said.
"Of course. That's why we're going to set up positions just north of the town and hunt for Dogmen and paramilitaries operating in the area. Those psychos have been putting a real hurting on our fellows in First Marines. We're going to intimidate the Dogmen." Lieutenant MacGruber added.
"What about their commander…this Apache Woman?" Micho asked.
"It's rumored that she's operating in the area. But our goal is not to capture her, not yet. Division's looking for the bigger fish. The ones believed to be behind the Seelow Rot plague." Alphonso added. "Speaking of which, there are changes in Division orders. We are no longer to remove our facial shields or helmets. We're to assume MOPP posture at all times. And Wash, Adrian…Chapman, I'm sorry but we can no longer eat or drink from the wildlife. Assuming, of course, the virus left anything to hunt."
The trio groaned as the LT continued, "We know the virus is man-made and most of the damage has been done around here. I'm warning you guys…better pack a strong stomach because it ain't pretty in Severja. There's a reason they call it the dead city."
Alphonso pointed to the map, "There are seven main roads. MSR Kramer that runs perpendicular to U74 and it goes through the middle of Severja. That's the magic line. No Osean units gone past it. We'll be the furthest unit in the entire AO. There's this road, an unnamed route codename MSR George that runs parallel to Mujae. Then there's MSR Jerry and MSR Elaine, intersecting roads in the lower valley just north of the suburb. That's where we'll be. Captain says we can be as loose with the ROE as we want since the entire map sheet is hostile."
"Are we setting up on the ridge?" Wash asked.
"That's right. To our immediate left will be Griffin Company, 2nd Battalion. They'll have the tank destroyers mounted on their LARAs to engage any and all enemy armor. Get it? Got it? Good. Let's get em." Alphonso concluded.
We broke and prepared to step off. Micho and I were heading left, when Chapman came up to me.
"Corporal, you got a minute?" Chapman said. He pulled me aside.
"Before that fracas at the Battalion station, I was listening to you talk about Dulcinea. I wanted to tell you Rico's been acting real weird since we left BP. But I almost forgot about it."
I was mad, not necessarily that Willie waited so long, but as I saw Rico pass by us, I didn't want to open up wounds. "He's still in love with her! Can you believe that shit? He told me right to my face in Kazar, just before and after we took out those RPG teams."
"How many years was it…three?" Chapman said, staring off into space.
I froze. "What do you mean?"
Chapman added. "They don't remember me, but I went to St. Julia's Parish in November City, just a few streets from St. Julliard's. I remember Rico, used to live across the street from me. I didn't know him that well, but this…thing he's having with Dulcinea, it's not good."
"You think?" I said. I didn't want to think about this at the moment.
"I'm not trying to be glib, but you better get this situation squared away ASAP. Because Rico's behavior is shockingly similar to the way my dad acted after my mom left him. This…has got bad news written all over it. Writing love letters, getting snappy with everyone…he's got stalker written all over him."
I was not sure what to think. I knew better than to take most people's stories at face value. However, Chapman was not really like Charles. I couldn't fully doubt him, even though I wanted to, "I never thought of it that way. He wouldn't have seen her in awhile but…"
Chapman looked distraught, "I met him before he came here. He's a real bastard. There's this story that he was doing this girl that got drugged by this stuff called G…a date rape drug. I trust Rico as far as I can throw him."
"Hey! You two stop messing around, we're Oscar Mike! We got a mission!" Rico shouted at us.
I was not sure if Rico heard that. He probably didn't, but I was unsure what to think. I was hearing more and more stories about Rico. Then I thought, if I'm getting these stories...how many is Tasha getting? Who was the real Rico Lazarus? I walked over to our vehicle and MacGruber was very upbeat about the mission.
"This takes me back to my football days, playing for the Academy. There's nothing quite like the bright lights." MacGruber said, getting into the LARA.
"Well said, sir." I said. I just shook my head.
***
0755 hrs
It seemed strange we weren't going into the city, but the chance to hunt Dogmen was an appealing concept. MSR Elaine was nothing but a wide, broken freeway not unlike the U80 during the near disaster at St. Marie du Maurine or the U74 we used to get into Severja. The only difference was that this highway had no official name. It was actually a highway that was under construction. Suzie told me that Severja's city council bragged about it, even though it would completely bypass their town. She found it embarrassing. It was interesting how I'd forgotten that this was where Suzie lived and the fact she knew Dulcinea at one point. Suzie had, for the most part, slowed down her drug abuse by going cold turkey on the speed meth. Now she was sucking down cigarettes, a slower death than my fear of having to bag her up because her heart exploded. It was interesting that Suzie was riding with us. She, Tatiana and Seto become a back-burner item, as Hoot would say. Their division HQ in the Sonza was struck by Soma aircraft and had no further contact with their command. Thus, they had nowhere to go. The Captain agreed to let them stay, as long as they didn't bring their…recreational drugs. Apparently amphetamines, sixteen year old minds, and Ak-47s were not a good combination. Suzie begged the LT to let her ride with us and Chapman agreed to swap with Martin because Desormeaux wanted to ride with Tatiana, and Micho…and well…it was like a high school drama session.
As much as many of us hated to admit it, the Les Enfants Oublies were a part of our lives now.
In the distance, Suzie reacted to the blasts as we moved into enemy territory. It was here where I felt truly alone even among allies, friends, and tank killers from Griffin.
We discussed the Samizat tanks during the drive. We'd found out the Samizats were not cutting edge after all. It seemed the Yukes had them before the wars of the last twenty seven years. The company that made them went under and abandoned them. Apparently, the Yuke Loyalists who defected to the Soma made an interesting use of these behemoths. Another truth that wasn't as amazing as we thought. But we were only twenty klicks to our objective and the massive city was still in our sights.
"Whoa, 1st Marines are getting some in there." Walt said, noticing the distant chaos.
"Dude, check that out." Rico said.
We then passed along a series of destroyed buildings, but not recently demolished ones. All along the side of the road, there were just bones. Burned skeletons in charred cars, a bone here and there, but I didn't see any dead children. I tried to push everything out of my mind. But I couldn't help but think about those two supergiant star-color haired girls.
"Holy god. What happened in this town?" Micho asked.
"The Soma happened, that's what." Suzie said. I saw Suzie put his hand on his shoulder and I just turned away, leaving that to the future.
"Damn, that's messed up. You buy that rumor about the virus…how the Soma were testing it out on the civilians?" said Micho.
"It wouldn't surprise me. All this started before the Soma attacked." Suzie said.
The explosions and action in the distance increased. We saw planes fly overhead. No one was on the TADs and I didn't worry about it. I hoped we didn't need the air support.
Micho said, "Wow, those guys in 1st Marines were putting down hate and vengeance on the Soma."
Micho wasn't usually that talkative. I guessed the Suze was the reason. "This isn't Soma's wreckage. It's from Loyalist army, from when the Soma blitzed the place. There's no telling what it's like deeper in the city."
"Strange…since I'm seeing a lot more civilian vehicles than military. Bastards."
"Look alert. No friendly units have been where we're going." Alphonso reminded us.
"This is Juliet 1 to all Victors, we've got enemy armor heading from the ridge near MSR Elaine!"
And then, there was an explosion right in front of us. It was about fifty meters out, but it was the same scattering blasts I saw on Highway U80. The blast of scattering fire and death and from each one of them there were smaller bursts destroying the road right in front of us. We all cursed but before we could react any more…
"All Werewolf Victors, break off the attack! I repeat, break off the attack!" Captain Morrison.
I looked to my left, abandoning my sector and watching for the enemy tanks. I couldn't see anything from my limited vantage point. I wanted to make absolute identification on the Samizats. A part of me wanted to see them up close and personal. We knew enough about them, but what were they really like? We knew the LARAs inside and out. But who really created those monsters? Who built them? Where they really as advanced as an Abrams? I had the time to think about all these things…as I didn't have anything to shoot at. Hoot drove into the dry basin and we nearly fell out of our seats when he hit the sharp decline. We were pelted with tank fire as we tried to get the entire convoy turned around.
"Well, I think the missing Dogmen are accounted for now!" said Alphonso.
"Well, no shit!" Hoot shouted back.
We didn't have a lot of practice with an enveloping maneuver, but in this case the only thing we had to do was get the hell out of there. I wasn't afraid though, I was angry. I'd have to wait for my revenge.
"All units, retreat down MSR Jerry to Grid 92, Point XCV821 and hold. We're falling back and dropping artillery." Captain Morrison said.
"Forget that! We're getting run out like bitches. This is embarrassing!" Walt said.
"To hell with this retreating shit." Rico agreed.
"Oh yeah, like we're any match for those Samizat monsters. You keep living in Bizarro World, Rico."
"Maybe this war is bigger than us." MacGruber said. The LT had certainly changed his tune.
"What do you mean?" Alphonso said.
"For some reason, I thought we were the center of this war. Maybe this isn't a war we're meant to fight." MacGruber added.
"We are the derivatives of the old school Recon Marines, though. We should get the tough missions. We're elite. But…seeing those tanks make me feel like we're just another cog in the machine. Maybe we're a big cog…but a cog nonetheless." Alphonso said.
"We're just pieces on the chessboard anyway. But at least we're the powerful ones. We're like the bishops or the knights. We're still in the game." Teller said.
"Forget that. There's that old saying. We can be the queen on the chess board, but we're still just game pieces." Suzie said.
I was shocked. I knew the Suze was a crazy person at times and did pills; as such, I never thought she was capable of such unique and elegant thoughts.
"That's…rather perceptive of you, Suze." I said.
"I don't know…it was just some shit I heard on TV a while back." Suze said, staring out the window.
I wasn't too angry at retreating then. I was confused. My brain just melted for a moment and I had to purge all the insane thoughts from my mind. Then I had to remember everything so I could make sense of it all. But when I did, all I ended up with was more questions. My life had become a never-ending rollercoaster ride. I was high and low, high, low and high…it was driving me crazy. My brain was stretching in a million different directions. Those twin red heads, this bizarre mondo tilt between Me, Tasha, Rico and Dulcinea, Micho and Suzie, my parents, Astrid, this war…the Soma.
My head was killing me. I couldn't breathe again.
***
1500 hrs
Severja, Yuktobania (Lower East Side)
There was a saying about Yuktobania. If you'd seen one city, you'd seen them all. Severja, according to many people, was the exception. But how could it be similar to every city anyway when months of destruction, deterioration and death had left this city flattened. It truly was a dead city. We'd pulled back to the area first secured by 1st Marines, the Lower East. Air pounded the ambushers at the ridge along MSR Elaine and 2/5's armor was pushed up to engage the survivors.
This part of town was secure, but the northern half of Severja was in doubt. While we were mired in the ambush earlier in the day, tons of paramilitary forces moved into Severja's northern areas. It was the perfect place to stage such a resistance. The streets were far too narrow for tanks and it was elevated, giving the Soma a height advantage. The poor section to the northeast was no easy task either. Rain earlier in the day had made the entire dried lake a quagmire.
When we entered the city proper, we found the true extent of the devastation. The Lower Region had been flattened and the downtown's scant few skyscrapers were gone. There were skeletons everywhere. Catholic churches had been burned to cinders, priests and nuns had been hanged in the streets and from light poles, and cemeteries were defiled. Bibles were burned in the streets along with icons, crucifixes and paintings of the Virgin Mother. The libraries had also been burned to the ground. Their books scattered to the four winds of the planet in fiery ash and blackened dust. Schools weren't even safe as they too were burned. Schoolteachers and their classes who were unfortunate to be caught in the chaos were executed. Statues of ancient heroes were torn down and destroyed.
Seelow Rot didn't destroy Severja. It was the flames of revenge. The Hazri came to avenge their ancient blood feud to the city and its inhabitants. But as I learned more, it was obvious that this was about more than simple revenge. The virus, the children in the camp, the men and their wives…the Soma wanted to turn Yuktobania into their land with their rules. No one was going to stand for that.
But there were signs of hope. In addition to the other MSRs, there was MSR Newman and MSR Susan that ran parallel to our position. We were in a low income residential area near MSR Susan. 1st Marines were fighting up MSR Bania and MSR Saccamano. It was fitting that we were on MSR Susan as Micho and I located Suze's place (some shitty apartment on the sixth floor, as she so eloquently put it) in the building next to our HQ. It actually survived most of the devastation, but given the fact she picked up her pill popping habits from her parents and the Soma having taken everything that wasn't nailed down…it wasn't worth much at all. At least she didn't have to deal with her asshole landlord, whom we found stuffed in the incinerator.
Suzie wasn't the girl we knew. She was unable to speak upon coming home. She walked around holding her head with her hands and she couldn't take the memory. Micho embraced her as she started sobbing again and she became the vulnerable girl we saw in the Bayori Wasteland, a time that seemed so long ago…when it had only been about ten days. Micho was holding her like he would Rachel, whom he hadn't talked about at all since he'd arrived in this country. I was a little offended at this after Suzie had left. We were off-TAC and just lazing around not expected to do anything against the enemy armor. The northern part of the city was not a game for the LARAs...mostly. There were simply too many narrow areas. Then again, none of us would have been surprised if someone up at Division or below decided to send us into that mess.
"What are you doing?" I said.
"I'm just being a consoling guy." Micho said simply.
I just shook my head. "Yeah, your wife's having your baby…and you're all lovey-dovey with freaking Suzie? Maybe you should have married someone your own age."
Micho pushed me. "No, dude…it's not like that. She just…she…she reminds me of Leera."
Then the memory slammed into my head. Of course, I thought. The blonde hair, the slight form and the tacky way she dressed…Suzie was the Yuktobanian carbon copy of Leera Alou, Micho's dead sister.
Micho turned away from me and looked into the only thing left in the apartment, a shattered mirror. How fitting he'd do that. That was the way I felt about my own soul. I'd forgotten how much he'd missed his big sister.
"She and I were like this," he said, crossing two of his fingers together, "even before we moved to Alaska. I was like the humble sidekick and she was the hero. When she died, I wanted to kill that guy who destroyed her car with his own…all while shitfaced on vodka. I really did. I took my father's gun one day when he wasn't home…and I stared at it for forty five minutes!"
Micho turned to me with an agonized face, "After I talked to my mother about it, she said she wanted to kill him too. But she then she says, even the thought is a sin. What gives us, people without any legal recourse, the right to kill other people that deserve to die? I would have been no better than he was, she said. I believed it then, but ever since I joined the Corps…things have changed, and you know what I think?"
He pulled out his sidearm, a regular 9mm USP pistol and pointed it at the mirror. Then he angrily put it away and yelled at me with outstretched arms.
"I think it's bullshit! I've killed just about every day I've been here. I've seen nothing but death here. I've seen it a lot of the Yukes' faces. They may be alive, but there's death all over them. And you know what…I see that driver's face in my enemies'. It's like I'm killing him dozens of times over. He sure deserves it. He's in prison getting free cable and a roof over his head on my parent's tax money. But Suzie brings my sister's spirit out in me. She brought out the best in my heart. It's something Rachel can never do. She gave me back a missing piece of my heart." He said.
"While I don't doubt your sincerity…I just think it's ironic that you're still so angry about your sister dying, yet you drink more than anyone in this company. Your absurdities amuse me, Micho. And yet, we're in a land of absurdities…nothing makes sense anymore. And it's only been what…ten days?" I said. Then I slapped my head. Why did I say that?
But Micho wasn't angry at my valid, but stupidly placed comment, "I'm surprised you're so cynical. I'd be real worried about Tasha. It's strange how cynical she is about the right stuff…and yet naïve about the wrong stuff."
"Maybe. I just never thought of it that with you and Suzie." I said.
We walked out of the room and Micho shook his head and sat down on stairs heading up to the seventh floor. "Man, I love Rachel. I really do. Every night I'm worried sick about her, knowing she's doing the same. With this whole protest thing going on…I don't know what's going to happen. It just drives me insane sometimes…but I never talk about it. It gets channeled into this fury I have inside and I'm scared the rage is going to get me killed. It's just this crushing feeling I have."
I thought about what he said with the protests, and wondered about the future. "You sound like my mom way back when. She'd write about wanting to be near my dad a lot. The irony was just that…since she was always close to my father. She flew on his wing."
Micho then laughed as he came over to me and fished out my mother's diary from my smaller pack I carried on me at all times. "I still can't believe your mom let you read her diary from that war." He said.
"My mom's got some fascinating thoughts about everything. Listen to this stuff…she'll kill me if she finds out I read this to you but…"
I opened the book and turned to a random page. It ended up being toward the end, and a passage I didn't see the first time I thumbed through it.
December 28, 2010: "…there are times I think about the future. And it's strange since he and I so clearly wish our future is by each other's side. With him, everything is an affirmation of true love. I can be myself around him. Every kiss, every time he holds me in the darkness of night deep within the bowels of this aircraft carrier, I am reminded of how blessed I really am and how there may be a God after all. The nights in the future hold much promise as I believe this will last in some shape or form when we're both old and gray. Because I know that David was put here just for me. Whenever we marry and make this love official, it comforts me. But it also comforts me to know that David believes I was put on this planet for him. As such, I have to be the same thing to him that he is to me. That way, in the future, whenever he protects me or when he's with our children, or finds himself close to me, or even inside me, I know that my mind, my body and my soul will be…no scratch that…is a place where he will always be loved and respected unconditionally. And the only thing that can separate us…is death.
"Wow…that's some heavy stuff. That's almost poetic-level love. I guess if all families were like that the Marines Corps' ranks wouldn't be as good." Micho said.
I was in disbelief at what I read. I could only think about my girl throughout my entire reading of my mother's love for my father. Unconditional. It was the same way…
"It's almost… hauntingly parallel to the way I feel about Dulcinea." I said.
Micho added, "You know, if my baby was a girl, Rachel wanted to name the kid Potenza, not so much because my mom…but because she thought it was a cool name?"
I laughed.
"It's getting real close though. Only about two and a half weeks. She asked me if I could get a leave if we're in the rear when our boy's born. I told her, hell no. I couldn't. Besides, I didn't tell her I wanted to stay over here." He said.
"You don't have any desire to see your first child born?" I asked.
Micho then got closer to me, "Look, my parents told me straight up that a guy being at his wife's side during childbirth is the most overrated thing since cruise ships; or in your case, Hollywood. There are just some horrifying things that go down when your wife's pushing out a kid. And most women won't admit it, but they don't want you there. You just get in the way. My dad learned that the hard way. When my mom had me, just told my dad to wait in the lobby and he gladly did."
Then we heard the stomping of stairs and we looked down to see an angry Lieutenant Frost coming up the stairs. Both of us shook our heads.
"What the hell going on? Why aren't you two on TAC? We got Team meetings! We're still in a hostile city for god's sake. Let's go!" said Frost.
***
1515 hrs
Unlike Tasha, I never blamed the officers every time something went wrong. Sometimes their decisions were worth blame, but most of the time it was either mistakes by us, simple circumstance or just plain bad luck. Usually when an officer screwed up, we'd blame the S-2 or S-3 people; Frost and Moute for example. Most of the time, it was Frost. Frost drove me freaking nuts and still hadn't forgiven him for his act of blatant stupidity with Lucy days ago. I knew through the grapevine that his sucking up to Major Stanze, the intelligence officer on Colonel Holland's staff, in hopes of a long awaited promotion was driving the NCO's in the Battalion S-2 shop insane. But now, Frost was with us and managed to drag our asses to a Team meeting we were a nearly late for.
Alphonso began, "The Soma's armor is trying to flank us on both sides. CENTCOM's peeled off two armored battalions to deal with the threat. But that leave a big hole on this side of town. The northern half of Severja still remains in the hands of the Soma's regulars. However, we have reports of increasing paramilitary activity in the northeast, a region of town called Baquenta, the poor section. The streets are entirely too narrow for armor to go through. The bridge over the river has been destroyed…that's where we come in."
"We're still not going after the Apache Woman? This is a bummer, man." Rico said.
"Division believed that the majority of the enemy forces pulled out the night before we attacked, leaving behind paramilitary forces to defend the city. What we ran into a few hours ago was no doubt their counterattacking element. But it seems they jumped the gun and didn't wait until we'd secured the city." Alphonso said.
"That's only got to mean one thing, yo. Their command's all out of whack. They hatin' on each other." Abernathy added.
"Crudely put Adrian…but spot on." Alphonso said, unable to hold back a chuckle. "Our company will be clearing out this small little hamlet here on what used to be an island in the lake before Seelow Rot and the drought. We'll be taking the southeast corner."
"It sounds fishy, this little hamlet in the middle of nowhere. There's too much open ground…what gives? It's gotta be a catch."
"It is. G1 sent the order out while you two were hanging out in Suze's house." Alphonso said.
"Any other questions?"
I didn't even bother with the questions. It seemed like everything was being laid out for me. It was happening because I was smart enough to pick up on it first.
"Sweet. We get to be cops for a day. Kicking in doors, taking people out…this is the life." Rico said.
What the hell was he so moto about?
Rico and I still had unfinished business. What was this Chapman meant by screwing a girl pumped up full of date rape drugs? Was this true? If it was…that was just cruel and unusual. I'd heard rumors that Rico's high school days were filled with wild sex parties and some crazy, selfish behavior. But that was high school. We were all crazy back then. Even Micho was and he was not like that as we prepared to step off.
I remembered I initially felt Tasha and Rico wouldn't last as a couple. It just seemed a good hunch. Judging from what I was learning, it seemed my hunch was on the money. Though again, I could have been wrong. There was a part of me that hoped I was wrong. I didn't want my sister to be unhappy. I wanted her to enjoy her life and be happy with the man she loved. But I knew better than to just allow her to be happy to her detriment. We had some shitty town called Baquenta to run through. The truth waited.
Then again, maybe the truth was already there. He was still in love with my girlfriend.
***
1535 hrs
Outskirts of Baquenta
All it took a simple drive up MSR Newman, then a simple turn at 968th and MSR Art Vandelay. Then we'd cross the river bed and we'd be inside Baquenta proper. Suzie wasn't in the vehicle. Chapman was back in the vehicle. Teller was still driving, LT and Alphonso were still doing their thing and Micho and I were sharing probably the last ride in the LARA together before I moved to the Command Victor. There was just one major problem.
As soon as we hit the muddy wadi, the enemy opened up on us from the walls and windows of the labyrinthine adobe buildings of Baquenta. The Seelow Rot and the resulting drought had dried up the river near the area. It created a seven hundred meter ditch where the enemy could lay all kinds of mines, IEDs, and pre-targeted artillery and mortars. The second we hit the river bed, they opened up on us. That wasn't the problem. Rico returned fire with the turret gun as we dispersed into the assault pattern. The vehicles would maintain a constant speed of 50-60 KPH and spread out into a line. It was just as we'd practiced in Naval Assault training.
But one thing Naval Assault training didn't prepare us for…was unusual traps in the landing. We expected machine gun and mortar fire. In fact, Wash and Abernathy, along with elements of Team Two had stayed behind to provide sniper support to our units approaching Baquenta. They were taking out forward enemy observers.
Mortars weren't the problem. It was a gigantic hole in the ground covered with a tarp we didn't see until it was too late. We fell right into it. The only thing that saved us was Captain Morrison ordering a change in direction. We had to slow down and it saved our bacon. The hole was probably about seven or eight feet deep, but it didn't feel that way. The safety bags deployed and abruptly our multimillion dollar machine was a write off. Rico was knocked from the turret down and fell on top of Chapman. Walt went flying out the back and into the front, nearly taking out the LT. Micho and I were in an almost fetal position on the floor. It hurt like crap, but I didn't think about it too much.
"What the hell?!" MacGruber shouted.
"That sure has heck didn't show up on TAC!" Chapman said under a crumpled heap of equipment and bodies. We were lucky nothing went off. I picked myself off the floor and I was lucky I was still holding on to my rifle.
"Any one hurt?" Hoot asked.
"Just my pride, Sergeant." Walt said.
"This is Juliet 1 to Werewolf Alpha, we've fallen into some kind of…mud pit and we're unable to move any direction. We are dismounting and proceeding on foot, over." Alphonso said.
We all began to perform the quick exit maneuver, which wasn't that quick at all. Well, one could say it was easier said than done. We had to use the turret to get out. The only problem was adjusting the turret so it would open, then we had to get out, climb out the hole and get to the objective…while under enemy fire. I had to give the Soma credit for blowing up the bridge and drying the lake.
"Lima 1, this is Beta, roll over to Juliet's position and provide support by fire, over." Dickerson said.
"Roger that. We're Oscar Mike." Sheckenhousen said.
"Let's go!" Lieutenant MacGruber said.
I didn't notice that MacGruber actually had it bayonet out at first. But it didn't matter. We were out in the open, our rear ends exposed to everything the enemy could throw at us. We were about four hundred meters out from the area. Alphonso put his SEAL training to good use and leaped up over the hill, helping some of the other guys get out. Just as we exited the vehicle, the surrounding environment became a death trap. I could see vehicles from Raptor Company taking near miss artillery hits and some of the derelict ships sunken in the river bed as platforms for IEDs. We stayed behind Sheck's vehicle as we began to move into the area. I looked back as a mortar round hit our abandoned LARA right in the roof. I breathed a sigh of relief.
"Keep going forward! Stay with Sheck's LARA!" shouted Alphonso.
It was slow goings so we decided to try an old fashioned maneuver, a dangerous one…but one that worked. We climbed on the sides of the LARA and rode it into town. As we did, a ton of artillery rounds hit the back end of the hamlet. It was obviously those newer rounds; we were, however, danger close within 600 meters. I was amazed because it was just one big fireball. I was concerned about civilian casualties, but the entire area had been declared hostile.
"They're shooting danger close fires! Watch it!" Alphonso shouted.
That fire obviously came from Lieutenant Riba and the sniper teams in the rear. We entered the town under…reduced fire. The streets weren't much different from the ones in Kazar. There was crap all in the streets, but it was just refuse and excrement. The insurgent forces did a good job with the prep work outside the city, but did a terrible job inside; all style, no substance. One good thing about the insurgents, they couldn't hit anything with their rifles. Dulcinea, on one leg and blindfolded could shoot better than these guys could.
We disembarked near our Team's objective and linked up with Cameron and his group. We had to clear the houses on the right side of the street along Route 4, the road closest to the outside of town. After clearing them, we had to investigate them for possible chemical weapons materials. Well, what was left of the hamlets anyway; Desormeaux's gun leveled a few of the hamlets as he continued up the street.
Most of the houses on our side of the road were destroyed and weren't capable of being searched. We moved down the street clearing each area without entering a single building. I saw two guys open up on us from the top floor on the left side. I targeted one and blew his head clean off. Someone got the other one, but I didn't know who.
Finally, we reached the house on the end of the row. We searched it, but nothing was inside except rubble.
Rico was extremely disappointed…at first.
We cleared our section and moved over to the next block to start the second search. We heard the sounds of fighter jets above, prosecuting targets further into the city. Alphonso reached the door of a three story apartment building…all by itself on the block. A white building that was strangely…untouched. Alphonso threw a flashbang grenade through the window and Teller kicked open the door. Right behind him was Rico, then Cameron, then me, then Micho, Walt, Chapman, the LT…
"Breaching, breaching!" Teller shouted.
We cleared each floor, but the only thing we found was a pair of dead insurgents near the windows. I returned to the first floor as we prepared to move out again. On the ground on the first floor, a color caught the corner of my eye. To the left of me, there was a slight discoloration in the ground. I wasn't sure if it meant anything since we had to move out, but my life experience taught me one thing: my eyes knew all. If it looked strange…it probably was out of order. I took a hasty step over to the kitchen area. The room was barren, obviously because the insurgents were using this as a temporary base…but why would the kitchen be almost empty? The signs of a kitchen were there. Plugs and scratch marks where stove and the refrigerator were, the broken dishes and the flowery drapes and curtains. In the middle of the floor, there was the discoloration. It was brand new tile. Now I knew something was up!
"What is it?" Rico asked me.
I pointed my gun at the floor. "This tile…it's a different color than the rest of the floor."
I looked right and saw MacGruber and Alphonso arch their eyes. Alphonso got on the radio. "Juliet 1 to Werewolf Alpha, we've discovered a suspicious area in our location. We're searching the house, over."
"Roger, keep an eye out for any bomb making tools or possible chemical weapons." Morrison replied.
Wilcox, one of the demolition guys, came over with the Blast Scanner, which was actually called the CN-124 ODU (Ordinance Detection Unit) which sniffed out plastic explosives and other agents used in IEDs. They made life a lot easier.
"No explosives detected. Let's see what it does." Wilcox said. It was indeed new tile…and the damning evidence was a crowbar near where the freezer used to be. Rico picked it up and Wilcox got another from the 05 LARA and lifted it up. I thought we needed sledgehammers, but like clockwork, the tile was actually a panel of metal.
"Whoa!" Rico exclaimed.
Alphonso came over and we all looked down. It was a staircase.
"This is Juliet 1, we've uncovered some kind of hidden passageway in the house. We're going in."
"Roger, be cautious." The Captain responded.
Slowly, we all descended down the stairs into the darkness. I was the last person in so I knew it wasn't booby trapped. Once I got down to the bottom…we found ourselves in what appeared to be a laboratory! It was shockingly different than anything we'd seen in Yuktobania. The door was a heavy blast door you'd see in science fiction movies…but it was partially opened. We entered the white room and all we saw were white tubes the size of people. Wilcox, MacGruber and Teller searched to the far left. The room had black tile and there were computers everywhere. Some of those had screens where nothing but numbers and letters ran down them; a hexadecimal waterfall of sorts.
"What is this place?" Walt said. Teller emerged from the area he searched in a panic.
"Jesus Christ! They're bodies everywhere in there! They just shoved them into a meat locker!" Teller shouted.
I was pissed. My mind raced as I tried to come to grips with this reality.
Did the Soma have any sense of humanity? Piling bodies into freezers?! Why were they really doing this? Was there some purpose to this? This lab had to serve some purpose. What are they trying to find out? What twisted science are they trying to uncover?
"Whoa, dudes…check this out!" shouted Micho. We wandered over to Micho's position on the left side of the room. We saw a series of people inside the tubes. There were about six of them suspended in these tombs. At first, I thought they were more bodies stored for special study or they could have been alive; I wasn't sure. The tubes were filled with clear liquid that had a soda-like viscosity. They were all fully clothed and they all varied in age and type. One was a rather young blonde woman in what appeared to be some secretary's outfit. Again, I was not sure if she was alive or dead, but the woman had some type of breathing gear over her face and nose. I pushed my head towards the glass and tapped it lightly. The woman's blue eyes bulged open and banged the glass where my hand was. Bubbles were racing from underneath the breathing mask. She was alive.
"These people are still alive! Get Doc Gray up-up!" I shouted.
"How do we get them out?!" Micho shouted.
I looked down and found a pair of switches marked by Yuke words. The red one said Ecsal, which meant empty or expel. The green switch was Fursi, which meant initiate or start. The woman started pointing down to the red switch…so I flipped it. In a few seconds, the tube emptied and the glass slid up. The woman collapsed out of the tube, struggling to get the mask off. I got it off her face and she started choking and coughing on her own saliva. Micho and I got her off the floor and sat her down on the panel right in front of us.
"You're going to be alright, lady. Just calm down, we're here to help you." Micho said.
Rico then came over and looked at the woman, but she did not speak at all. She was shaking. Micho then saw something on her arm. Chapman started dragging out some of the bodies from the freezer as well. The woman had a marking on her arm. It was a number…a serial number.
XC54567WZ-NO.943 was printed on to her forearm.
Chapman said, disgusted, "Guys, look at this…they've been branded with serial numbers. Branded like freaking cattle."
"I wonder if those bodies we found at St. Maurine were branded too." I said.
Finally, the woman spoke. Her voice was clipped and breathless. "The devil woman…the devil woman…"
"What the hell is that?" I said.
By now, MacGruber was on one of the computers searching for anything of use. Walt and Alphonso were still searching the area as Doc Gray came up on line.
"They even got a truck dock back here!" Chapman added.
"We got a capture, here! A wounded enemy…looks like an officer." Walt shouted out from one of the rooms.
"Search him!" Teller added.
I walked over to his position and there was apparently a older man, probably mid fifties, with an unusual looking uniform. It wasn't Yuke, it wasn't Dogmen insignia. The man had been shot once in the shoulder and another in the stomach. Then Micho made a startling discovery from the light brown skin and unusually colored eyes. By now Dickerson had also arrived down in the basement lab. He asked for a sit rep and Alphonso told him everything.
"Lieutenant, this guy isn't a Yuke…he's a Versuan. A Versuan knows a Versuan, and this guy's a high class item." Micho said, his voice full of contempt.
"Found some ID…passport…" Walt said, looking through the man's pockets.
"What's it say?" Cameron asked.
"Name on the ID…Praeten Percival…what kind of stupid name is that?" Walt said.
Micho's eyes bulged. "Wait…holy shit! I know who this guy is! He's a criminal from the last war! Goddamn terrorist…son of a bitch! This guy built the goddamn Dispater cannon! My dad told me all about it."
And just like that, one odd piece of the puzzle came down low. I knew about the Dispater, of course and how much trouble it caused the Osean and Allied forces back before I was born. It was the Dispater cannon that killed Walt's dad, my dad's friend Hans Grimm, as well as countless Versuan civilians and ground soldiers. But this…was the man responsible? He looked listless…as if he didn't even care. One of the great war criminals of our times…right in our hands. That begged a bigger question.
Why was he here?
What role did he play in this war?
But the gunshot wounds weren't self-inflicted…so what happened here? The woman mentioned…devil woman. Abernathy smartly mentioned, in his BS hip hop tone, that the Soma command was in disarray. The Apache Woman was leading the army…a truck dock, a wounded foreign war criminal…a virus, a lab full of people being experimented on.
"You're kidding me!?" I said.
"I'm not making this up." Micho said, holding up his hands.
"What's going on?" Captain Morrison walked up. By now, most of the other civilians had been pulled from the chambers. One of whom was an older man…who kept looking at me for some odd reason.
"Sir, we got civilians that were held in these space age tubes for some reason. They don't look wounded, but they're a little disoriented. We've also found at least fifteen civilian bodies in that freezer over there. No gunshot wounds…possible asphyxia or blunt trauma." Lieutenant MacGruber said.
Then, the old man spoke up. But when he did, he coughed when he talked, "The virus killed them. They tested it on all of us. The strong people, us, the ones who survived, were put into these tubes. They were going to transport us to the Hazri Highlands."
The man's voice sounded rough. His hair was a mixture of gray and brown. He had a thick form to him…and he looked oddly familiar. He still kept looking at me.
"I wish that Kid was still around. He'd have stopped this stuff the day before yesterday." The old man said. "Hey you, You look kind of like him."
He spoke directly to me…and no one else. I walked over to him.
"Really?" I said.
The old man laughed, and then he coughed again. "Wait a minute. You look exactly like him…both of them! I'll be damned. I knew they were alive but I never thought I'd live to meet their kid."
Now this was getting really weird. "Wait…have we met before? You do look…familiar."
"What the hell? Brandon…check this out!" shouted Micho. Micho had been checking one of the computers. "I think I've located your sister's whereabouts."
I dropped everything I was doing. My body locked up for a moment. Then I ran over to the computer screen. Micho had found a listing of all kinds of names in file folders on the computer's main screen.
"Whoa…they've been doing this shit for months! There's a six month backlog." Micho added. By now, Micho had attracted all kinds of attention. Dickerson took his place on the computer. He scanned down a list of names.
"They're all dead, just about." Dickerson said.
"Not…everyone." Micho said, pointing to my sister's name. I looked on the screen and sure enough…there was Sueltana's name! Next to her name was a status: Alive. Was there any better sign? But there was also a listing of location. There always had to be a catch.
Dajul…wherever the hell that place was.
"She's still alive! I can't believe it." I said. "But what's…Dajul? I've never heard of that place."
Alphonso added. "It's a city…on the outskirts of the Jilachi Desert, only one part of the Holy Land of the Hazri."
Dickerson added. "They've even got your niece…her status is: inconclusive. What in Sam Hill does that mean? Wait…here's the one from this city. There are six people alive…fifteen dead. Twenty one samples…exactly twenty one samples for every site."
I noticed that each of the tubes had a number on them. Dickerson found the number and names on the computer to match the tube number. He called them out.
"Anna Stark…that's the woman you guys pulled out, Yura Barkov, Jack…Jack Bartlett…" he said. Dickerson's face twisted.
"Wait…THE Jack Bartlett? From the Sand Island Squadron?!" Walt shouted.
"Guilty as charged." said the old man. I looked back at him and he simply laughed while coughing at the same time.
Time stood still. We all looked at one another and I looked back at the old man…and he just smiled. My face was frozen in shock. My parents had no idea about this man's whereabouts when I was a kid. They knew before I was born, but then he vanished and had been missing for nineteen years! This was the man who trained my parents in air to air combat. They were forged in the fires of Sand Island and their craftsman was Jack Bartlett, the man they called Heartbreak. In reality, I owed this man a huge debt of gratitude. We all did. After all, he taught my parents how to survive. If my mom and dad had been truly killed in that war, my entire family would have been erased from history.
Catherine would have never have been born. Tasha, me and Astrid would never have existed. And there were the other things to consider. Ocktabursk would have been destroyed in a nuclear fire. Oured would have been destroyed. Or rather, the very base of it all...the war would have gone on into 2011 and more lives would have been lost.
And here was another issue: what about the Verusan War of 2016? Cormorance Alou, Lillian Izzo, Polly Elbe, Michael Saschsenronde, Paulo Scirro, Andrew Fisch, Walter Snow, Hans Grimm, Peter Moore, Ammon Kaida, Baraka Molina, Xalia Masson, Jaklyn Ors, Emmanulle Ganda, Othello Harem, Fritz Mendenhall ...all of them dogfighting legends.
There would be no measuring stick if my parents hadn't survived 2010. There would be no dynasty, no one to show them how air to air combat was done. For the Versuans, there'd be no enemy to give their best shot.
History would have been vastly different. And this tree all started because of Jack Bartlett. He, the legendary taskmaster of Sand Island, and this grizzled old man were one in the same. He was the unfortunate soul we plucked from a sci-fi tube in a city that betrayed the lab's sophistication.
Why did he vanish for nineteen years...and how the hell did he end up the Soma's hands?
Next Chapter: It's Not the Plague that Kills You...