It was a cold and dark winter night in the flooded New York City, as Jason Long crept through a ramshackle Brooklyn apartment building. Jason was a gangly young man in his late teens, with slightly tanned skin, curly black hair, blue-green eyes that matched his Hawaiian shirt (a memento of his past life), and thick bushy eyebrows. He had been given a Smith & Wesson M&P pistol, and had been specifically told to shoot his target with it. The man he was sent to kill was an elderly Italian who was believed to have connections to the remnants of the city's Mafia chapter. He went up the fire escape until he found himself on the twenty-ninth floor of the building. Fortunately for him, the corridors were empty, unlit, and silent; everyone on this floor was fast asleep.
"2901, 2902..." he counted the numbers on the doors. "Here we go. 2903."
He stopped at a door marked with the number 2903. Getting out a screwdriver and bobby pin, he picked the door's lock and hurried inside before anyone outside could have noticed. He was in a large dark room with no windows, but two connecting doors on the left and right. The left door led to the bathroom, which meant that it didn't take the loud snoring of the apartment's occupant to tell him that the bedroom was through the right door. He snuck inside to find his target, who was frail with graying brown hair, resting on his back on the bed. Jason looked around to make sure there was no pet that could wake up and attack him, but found no animal anywhere. Then he crouched down and crept to the side of the bed. From his position, he was unable to aim accurately at the man's head. So he put the pistol up to the man's shoulder like he would done so with a syringe, and pulled the trigger.
BANG!
"Aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!" yelled the Italian, more in surprise than in pain.
The gun had fired and while the muzzle flash scorched his shoulder, there was no rip in the man's nightshirt, much less anything indicating an entry wound. Immediately, the Italian climbed quickly out of bed and started yelling at Jason.
"You shot me! You shot-a me!" he furiously yelled over and over at Jason. "You son of a bitch! You shot me!"
Jason pointed the gun at him again, but the man was unfazed by it. Then hoping he could at least get the old man to succumb to a stroke or heart attack, he walked out of the bedroom, and marched in circles around the living room with the angry old man following him and shouting himself hoarse many times over. He made no attempt to attack Jason or run away, nor did he try to call for help. As such, Jason ignored the shouting and checked his pistol. He feverishly removed the magazine and examined it. As soon as the gun had failed him, he immediately suspected that it was loaded with blank cartridges. Clearly, he had been set up. But there was no time to inspect the magazine's contents, and he had to do something quick before this rambling old coot woke up the whole building.
"You shoot-a me in the shoulder!" yelled the man. "You bad man! You shoot-a me where it hurt! What the hell do you think you're doing? I'm gonna call the boys to kill you, do you understand?"
Just then, there was a series of heavy footsteps coming towards the apartment door. Jason went over to the door with the man behind him following and yelling at him. He opened the door, and seeing that there was a large muscular man with a weapon in his hands, crouched and hid under the cover of darkness. So instead, the old man was the one that ended up getting struck in the face with a heavy blunt instrument, and fell to the ground dead with a broken neck and a bleeding brow.
"Shut up!" yelled the man at the door, who left and went up the hallway to his own apartment.
Not bothering to think of how conveniently his work had been done for him, Jason left the apartment after him before the rest of the people on the floor could get out into the hallway, and went back down the fire escape. Eventually, he reached an opening where a jetski was floating adjacent to a submerged landing. Jason climbed aboard and sped off through the water as the sun began to peek over the clouds and skyscrapers.
Anchored just off the "shores" of what was once Staten Island, a heavily modified cutter that once belonged to the United States Coast Guard, sat in the deep water. The vessel had multiple gun emplacements on board, including a very large and long-barreled deck gun. Two men and a woman were sitting in the galley, listening to a radio broadcast*.
"In other news, a border dispute is taking place between the countries of Norway and Sweden, following the dissolution of the Scandinavian Alliance. United Nations diplomats have been assigned to dispel the conflict before it gets worse. If the fighting escalates, NATO may be forced to send a contingent of peacekeeping troops into the area. However, with similar conflicts taking place in Africa, Asia, and both Americas, NATO may already have its hands tied. We spoke with the Prime Minister of Norway, and he has offered to open his country's borders to anyone that will aid him in the conflict. Unfortunately, this border conflict coincides with rumors of an outbreak in the northern parts of Scandinavia, after several men and women were found carrying a virus of unknown origin. Scientists speculate that the virus had lain dormant beneath the ice until it was freed back in 2054, when Dr. Zorndyke unleashed a barrage of SLBMs containing nuclear warheads to melt the polar ice caps."
"Sounds like we Americans aren't the only ones with a big problem." said the woman, who had feathered brown hair and wore a red-and-white tracksuit with worn-out sneakers.
"Got that right, Roxy." said one of the men.
They continued eating their hard-earned food quietly, when suddenly the door swung open and Jason pelted his way inside.
"Zack!" he yelled to the captain, a middle-aged man with a graying beard. "Zack! That bastard set me up!"
"Calm down, son! What happened?" asked Zack.
"That scumbag that hired me to deal with that Mafioso guy gave me a gun that was loaded with blanks!" Jason said, as he took out the magazine, which he had opened with his screwdriver, and sprinkled ten blank cartridges, one of which had already been fired, on the table. "When I tried to shoot him, the gun didn't kill him and I almost got attacked."
"So the target is still alive?"
"No, thankfully the man's screaming was louder than the gun, so he was the one that got attacked and killed by one of his neighbors!"
"Well that's convenient." said Roxy.
"Tell me about it." said Jason. "I say we go over to that guy and teach him a lesson."
"Good idea." said the other man, a bearded man with a shaved head.
"All right, Tobey." said Jason. "Let's go."
In a building in the ruins of Manhattan, Jason and Tobey both walked down a corridor. Tobey's laughter echoed through the corridor.
"You really tried shooting him in the shoulder?" asked Tobey. "That wasn't going to kill him, even if you did have live bullets!"
"Hey, take it easy on me!" said Jason. "I'm not exactly an expert on assassination. It was my first job alone!"
"You could've aimed for the head!"
"Well, I wanted to shoot him quick before he woke up." said Jason. "His shoulder was closer, and I thought maybe I'd hit an artery or something and make him bleed all over the place. He was a frail old dude, anyway. If the gunshot wasn't enough to kill him, it should've at least bought me more time to aim for a more vital part of his body. I'm not exactly an expert on human anatomy either, since I never even got to finish high school because Zorndyke flooded my hometown!"
"Well if you aimed for the head and fired just an inch away, then live or blank, the gunshot would've killed him."
They entered a dark office room. The only light in the room came from behind a large glass screen that was blurred so that neither of them could see from the other side. On the other side of the screen was a tall, muscular man in a business suit. They could not see his face, but they could still make out his outline. Clearly, whoever he was didn't want anyone to see what he looked like.
"Hey, asshole!" said Jason. "What was the big idea of giving me a handgun loaded with blanks?! I could've been ambushed!"
"I see, sorry!" said the man behind the screen. "But what's done ees done! Go on, come back again later!"
The man was strangely animated, moves his arms up and down in an exaggerated manner. But the most unusual part with his high-pitched annoying voice combined with the worst and least intimidating attempt at an Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonation ever uttered by a human being. It didn't sound the least bit muffled by the glass, as if it were coming from somewhere else in the room.
"No, that was bullshit!" said Jason.
"No, you're bowlsheet, leetle man! You screw with me and I will destroy you!"
"No, There's no excuse for it. There's only one reason why you would set me up like that, and that's if you didn't really want me to kill that old guy."
"Und deed you, anyway?!"
"No, but someone else did it for me." said Jason.
"Well, that sure sucks!" said the man. "But that the deal was that you keeled him! Sorry, but I can't pay you for it! No outside help allowed in this business!"
"What, are you kidding me?" asked Jason. "But it's fair! Look, we need that money so we can afford to feed and house ourselves! It's not my fault when you..."
Then that man started to babble incoherently with a made-up language that was probably meant to be Austrian but sounded nothing even remotely like it. All the while, he was moving his arms around randomly.
"This guy is messed up in the head." thought Jason, since he was physically at a loss for words.
"Hey, wait a minute..." said Tobey, cocking his head to the right suspiciously.
He paused, quickly took out his sawed-off shotgun, and pointed it at the glass towards the man's head, and pulled the trigger.
BANG!
The buckshot went straight through the glass and obliterated the man's face, whatever it originally looked like, as he fell backwards dead on the far side of the screen.
"Tobey, what the hell?!" asked Jason, shocked at what his friend did.
But to his surprise, the cheesy Austrian voice spoke again, from a wall-mounted speaker that they could see now that the glass screen had been shattered:
"Oh sheet, you keeled me! I am outta here, rah-bah-bah-bah-bah!"
There were hurried footsteps outside the door; the real person behind the voice was retreating. Jason and Tobey ran out the door just in time to see a skinny shape in an oversized trench coat about to turn the corner.
"Get him!" yelled Jason.
They ran down after him and went around the corner. The escaping man was halfway down the corridor, and as soon as he realized the two mercenaries were behind him, he threw up his arms, waved them maniacally side-to-side, and yelled obnoxiously in a high-pitched girly manner. Tobey pulled out his Colt Commander pistol and fired after him twice, but he missed both times. The pursuit continued all throughout the building. At one point, the mysterious figure deliberately knocked over a gumball machine, causing candy to spill all over the floor in the hall. this provided the man with enough time to go down two floors while Jason and Tobey tried to navigate through the mess without slipping or falling on the sweets.
Eventually, Jason and Tobey made it down to the last floor that remained unflooded, and crossed a makeshift walkway into a marketplace area built atop the roof of a completely submerged building. There were dozens of men and women here, both vendors and their customers. But the man in the overcoat was skulking among them. As soon as he left the building, he had stopped running and assumed a calm, casual pace as if he were just another guy on the street. This allowed his pursuers to catch up until he was within their line of vision. The man, who they saw was middle-aged and had slick black hair, a short beard, and was wearing glasses, noticed that they were nearby. Thinking quickly, he grabbed a female pedestrian and with an insidious grin attempted to lift her shirt off by the hem.
"Show me your belly-button!" he said excitedly, now speaking with an American accent.
Then he let of her shirt go immediately once she forced it back down to her waist.
"You jerk!" she yelled at him, and raised her arm to slap him.
But the man ducked just in time and the woman ended striking a large African-American male standing behind him, who looked like he was in a really foul mood. He turned around as soon as he got hit, glared murderously at the woman, and charged over to her.
"You bitch!" he yelled as he struck her across the face.
The two started fighting, and more people joined in. Some to watch and others to join in on either the Black man or the woman's side. Regardless of what was happening, it gave the man in the coat the distraction he needed. But just before he cleared the marketplace, he grabbed a Mega Mouse hat from a nearby vendor's stand, slapped it onto his head, and started to do some kind of silly dance as if he weren't taking anything seriously, before taking off again. Despite the short pause, Tobey and Jason were unfortunate enough to be caught in the brawl as it escalated, delaying them for a good five minutes until they discharged their firearms into the air to dispel the fighting.
Back on the cutter, Zack spoke with his crew about their mercenary career. Since Jason and Tobey left, several more crew members had entered. Among them were a muscular Caucasian woman with naturally tan skin, freckled face, green-yellow eyes, and long fluffy orange hair. Then a young almond-eyed Hispanic woman in a tank top (even in spite of the cold weather), her brown hair tied back in a ponytail. And then a tall, bald African-American man with a slim build and a constantly frowning face.
"Yo, captain!" said the redhead woman, with a dense Bronx accent. "Did Jace come back wit da dough or what?"
"Sadly, no." said the captain. "It seems it was another botched job. Jason took Bennett with him to straighten it out with his contact."
"Oh, this ag'in!" said the redhead. "Same ol' story ovuh and ovuh! Botched job dis, dead cawntact dat! Well I'm starvin' right now! When are we gonna get paid?!"
"Well, Rosie, why don't you learn how to go fishing so you can catch your own food?" asked Roxy.
"Fishin'?" asked Rosie. "Me? Go fishin'? I've gotta nuff perverted weirdos eyeballin' me every day at the bwah. I don't need da fisha-men doin' the same ta me!"
"Sal, I know you could beat up anyone that gave you a hard time." said Roxy.
"Nah, she's too much of a spoiled princess to do anything for herself!" said the Hispanic woman.
"Princess? 'Scuse me!" said Rosie. "I'll show ya a princess, ya scrawny li'l broad! Why don't you come here for a sec?"
"Settle down, girls." said Zack. "Save the aggressive behavior for our jobs."
"Well ya need'ta do a bettuh job of finding us a job, or I'm jumpin' ship!" said Rosie. "Literally if I gotta!"
"Calm down, Rosie! Please!" said the black man with a soft, gentle voice. "You know I hate seein' so much negatively between us. It just bums me out!"
"Okay. Sorry, Johnson." said Rosie. "I hate to see ya get sad, big guy. I just get a li'l stressed out sometimes."
"Now listen, I've been really thinking about what we should do with this crew that I put together." Zack said. "This is the fifth time in a row one of our mercenary jobs here in New York went wrong. I thought that the Musuca one was the worst."
A couple of days ago, they had been hired by the acting mayor of New York City to salvage the remains from a Musuca that had beached nearby. But the Navy got to it first, and their proposed raid led to an intense naval battle that left several of their crew dead or wounded before they were forced to escape. Thankfully, the military did not pursue them back to the city. But they since they returned empty-handed, they did not receive their payment.
"So whatcha got in mind, Captain Matthews?" asked the black man.
"A few minutes ago, we were listening to a radio broadcast. Apparently there's a border conflict in Scandinavia. Norway's looking for outside help. I'm suspecting mercenary work will be needed."
"So we're goin' there?" asked the black man.
"I've been thinking about it, Dennis." said Zack.
"Must be pretty bad if Vikingland needs outside help!" said Rosie. "Okay, I say let's go kick some Swedish ass!"
"Same!" said the Hispanic woman. "This city's too full of weirdos anyway."
Sometime after inciting the brawl, the bearded man in the overcoat walked along a makeshift jetty adjacent to another half-submerged building, with a sneering looked out onto the jetty, where a motorboat was waiting for him. He looked out into the water, and saw a dolphin leap up from out of the water.
"Aw, that's nice." he smiled.
Until suddenly, he heard two sets of fast footfalls on the wood-and-metal surface of the jetty and was accosted by the heavily bruised Jason and Tobey, both of whom looked and felt they were 100% done with his nonsense.
"Damn i-ih-it!" whined the man with a shaking voice.
"All right, who are you?" asked Jason, grabbing the man by the throat.
"Look, look, look." said the man calmly. "I know what you're thinking. That I set you up. Well, kinda. You see, the truth is..."
"Wait a minute, I know you!" said Tobey. "You're that tabloid guy, Judd Crocker! I used to watch your blog videos all the time! They were hilarious. Like when you did a report on the vice president's pet chimpanzee at the White House Christmas party."
"Yes, yes, it's me." the man said with a nervous grin but still keeping a casual tone in his voice. "Glad you really liked them..."
"Look, whoever you are, we don't care about your stupid Internet videos!" said Jason. "What I want to know is what was up with that phony Arnie shit back there, and why did you hire me to kill that old Italian mobster guy just so you could set me up?"
"And who was that guy I shot?" asked Tobey.
"Nobody, it was an animatronic dummy." said Judd. "I salvaged it from Coney Island, then spent five months getting that thing to work, and you blew it away. Nice going, guys!"
"Cut the crap! I want to know why you set us up." interrupted Jason, who wanted to get back to the original topic. "Why the blanks?"
"Uh, look." said Judd. "The truth is that I didn't actually have enough money to pay you for killing him. So I gave you a gun full of blanks hoping that you'd get caught or killed on the way back so that I wouldn't have to pay you."
"So that's it?!" asked Jason. "Okay, that's it. You're gonna get it."
"Hey, hey!" protested Judd. "Listen! When Hamlet stabbed Polonius through the tapestry thinking that he was Claudius, did he tell him to go to Hell afterwards? No? Then accidents can happen! Just let me make it up to you!"
"Sure, after you come with us." said Tobey. "So you can meet our miserable starving crew and explain why you ripped them off before they line up to kick your ass."
"Sorry, but that's not gonna happen."
"Why not?"
"Because...because." stammered Judd.
The dolphin jumped out of the water again. Jason and Tobey quickly turned to investigate the splash they heard. Judd took advantage of this distraction by rushing up to Jason to take the Smith & Wesson out of his hand.
"Ah-ha!" he yelled triumphantly. "You can't kick someone's ass if he's dead!"
With a big smile, he pointed the gun at his head, and pulled the trigger. The gun fired, but it was still loaded with blanks, so it did nothing to seriously injure him. His overjoyed expression shifted immediately to despair.
"Goddamn it!" he screeched, dropping his pistol onto the boardwalk.
"You should've put the gun closer to your head!" said Jason. "It was all the way over there. A few more inches, and the gun would've killed you, even with blanks."
"Oh, now you tell me!"
Jason and Tobey pulled out their own guns (Jason had brought an extra pistol with him), and pointed them at Judd, who jumped backwards off the jetty and swam away, evading their gunshots.
"Damn it!" cursed Jason.
Suddenly, the dolphin from before leaped out of the water just a couple feet next to Judd and came down on him hard. Both were submerged in the iron-gray water, but Judd surfaced a few seconds later followed immediately by the dolphin, who started circling him like a shark.
"You're gonna be sorry!" Judd yelled. "This isn't over! I'm gonna find out where you live and kick your asses! I'm gonna get a whole bunch of guys and then they'll-"
Then the dolphin started to push Judd out further into the water, as if to get the obnoxious man out of there. But Judd kept spouting death threats at the two men until he was out of earshot. Then there was a long awkward silence.
"Should we go after him?" asked Tobey. "I mean the boat's right there."
"Don't bother." said Jason. "I imagine we've got bigger problems to worry about than that idiot! Let's just go back to the cutter. I hope we can get better pay somewhere else."
"Tell me about it!" Tobey fingered a shiner around his left eye. "The business we're getting here isn't doing us any favors, for our wallets or our health. I'd be fine if it was one or the other!"
Jason and Tobey returned to the cutter, where Zack as well as several other men and women were waiting. Many of them were fitting on armor and studying the integrity of their assorted firearms.
"What's going on here?" asked Jason.
"Well, son." said Zack. "We're finally setting out. En route to Scandinavia in fact."
"Scandinavia? Why?"' asked Tobey.
"Norway's hiring mercenaries to fight the Swedes. As mercenaries, we go where the work takes us." said Zack.
"Good." said Jason. "I'm glad to be going somewhere different. Got enough bad memories here in the states anyway. My family, my hometown."
"I know, Jason." nodded Zack. "But it's a good thing you're with us now."
"You've got that right." Jason smiled a little. "So when do we go?"
"As soon as we got our rations for the voyage, and make sure everyone is armed for battle. After that, the Midnight Star sails!"
"Right." said Jason. "Oh, and let's make sure nobody stows aboard."
Fort Snöskred, The impregnable citadel of the Swedish military, lay on the foothills of the Scandinavian Mountains. Due to the recent outbreak, all personnel that were assigned to patrol the outer perimeter were instructed to wear gas masks to protect their faces. But they did not need orders to cover the rest of their skin since the cold, that could only come from close proximity of that lofty mountain range, had all of them clad in full winterized combat armor.
Inside the complex, many tanks, APCs, and helicopters were covered in large tarps so that their metal would not be frozen over. While there were many fortifications on the surface, even more structures had been built underground. In one of the many subterranean chambers, about three dozen soldiers, men and women sat in front of a room containing a holographic projector. The projector depicted a 3-D hologram of Norway, Sweden, and Finland. Their commanding officer Överste Jon Fulkenberg was briefing them on their next mission.
"Now listen, all of you." said Fulkenberg. "For weeks, the Norwegian city of Narvik has been a site of conflict, with no end in sight. Our troops have been fighting there with every bit of hardware our military has to offer. But the defenders fight furiously to protect it, but not as furious as you will. If we take this city, then we will able able to split their country in two. Their Northern territories will be completely at our mercy, even in spite of the increased numbers of infected. You, the Berzerkers, will enter Narvik from the East and eliminate all resistance. Then you shall advance into the North and purge the Northern areas of all infected so that the rest of our troops can safely enter the settlements and claim them for Sweden. Do not worry, for the rage-dust will heighten your resistance to most diseases, possibly even the Arctic plague."
"Ja, but what about that giant robot that the Norwegians are supposed to have?" asked a Berzerker. "The rage-dust may make us unstoppable against ground troops, but even we may find trouble fighting an oversized walking tank!"
"That is why, Hellström, I am sending a detachment to raid the headquarters of Elgen Electronics to recover the schematics for their machine, so that we may discover a weakness." said Fulkenberg. "It will be a small force, lightly armed. This matter will require stealth to enter the facility, so heavy military hardware will not be supplied. But I will be able to spare three Berzerkers: Allisson, Holmberg, and Viklund."
Three Berzerkers stood up: Allisson, a young and thin brown-haired woman in her late teens; Viklund, a lean thirty-year-old man with red hair cut in a mohawk, dark green eyes, and an assortment of tattoos on his forearms; and Holmberg, a middle-aged, muscular man with a shaved head, a short dirty blond beard, and dark watery eyes. The latter two, aside from their military uniforms, both looked like they belonged in a biker gang, while Allisson looked like she should be training for ballet. While her two comrades were grim and stoic, Allisson looked somewhat bored.
"You three are expected to depart before tomorrow morning. Do not fail me, or you will fail our entire nation."
"Ja, sir!" said Holmberg with a salute.
"Now the rest of you, arm and outfit yourselves for battle. You will show our former Norwegian allies who the true sons and daughters of Odin are! Now go to Narvik, and give them Blodbad!" shouted Fulkenberg very loudly, with a raised fist.
"Blodbad!" hollered all of the Berzerkers in a chorus of responses, pumping their fists in the air. "Blodbad!"
"Dismissed!"
The Berzerkers all rose from their seats in unison, with a subtle, but dreadful aura in their movements that made even Fulkenberg uneasy. The bulk of the Berzerkers all marched out, while Holmberg's unit stayed behind.
"Where will we find Elgen's headquarters?" he asked.
"I will send the coordinates to the squad I am attaching you three to." said Fulkenberg. "All other information is confidential."
"Well, let's go then!" said Allisson. "No point in sticking around here."
Holmberg and Viklund turned their heads slightly to the young woman between them.
"All right, I'll be quiet." Allisson shrugged.
"Head to the armory, Beatrix." said Viklund. "And don't forget your face-mask."
Allisson nodded, and turned around. She skipped towards the door, bent forward to roll, and then cartwheeled through to the corridor outside. Then she ran to the armory.
"Do you think this will be the right mission for her?" asked Holmberg. "She's only just started serving with us."
"She will be better suited for this mission since I would not trust her to fight on the frontlines...not just yet anyway." said Fulkenberg. "Now you are dismissed."
Holmberg and Viklund nodded their hands, and silenty walked away.
The dark gray fog loomed over the Midnight Star and her ragtag crew. Jason Long stood at the bow. He was wearing a knit cap along with weather-worn kevlar body armor, with the rims, sleeves, and collar of his blue-green Hawaiian shirt poking from underneath. He had both hands on the railings, as he listened to the water rushing against the vessel.
They had been out here on the Atlantic Ocean for almost two weeks. But very soon, he would get his first sight of another country since leaving the United States of America. He wanted to be there to see it when it loomed on the horizon. But it was too foggy and the sky was too dark to make much out at the moment. Still, he would not give up.
On either side of him, shadowy forms of other boats and ships of various sizes and classes were joining the cutter on a parallel course. Some equal to her in size, others far larger, and a handful that were no more than makeshift rafts that were rowed with long planks of wood. The larger ships were laden with armed men, some fully armored and others so shabbily clad in torn clothing that they would have been mistaken for tramps and vagabonds in the pre-flooded world. But in truth, many of them were no more than tramps and vagabonds.
A horn blared from one of the nearby ships, indicating that land had been sighted. Gradually, the fog started to thin, and Jason could see a far black shore lined with harbors and dilapidated buildings. Jason braced himself for the land that would become his opportunity for a new lease on life. Him and all of the other men and women on all the other ships. More of the Midnight Star's crew came out to join Jason in viewing the dark seaport, just as lights became visible on the waterfront. They could see many people walking to and fro, and stopping to wave their hands at the newcomers.
"Well, you ready to see your first sight of Europe?" asked Zack.
"I'm ready for anything, Zack." said Jason, still facing forward. "Let's get ready."
The crew was in the cutter's armory, equipping themselves for battle.
"Now listen up, folks!" said a short bespectacled man in a bulletproof vest, holding an Uzi in his hand. "We're going to run through this only one more time."
He fumbled with a suppressor in his other hand and carefully fitted it onto the Uzi's barrel.
"First, these are properly known as suppressors for a reason, and not 'silencers'. While it's true that a suppressor will reduce the sound that is made when a gun is fired, it will not mute it completely; people that are nearby, like in the same room for example, will still hear the gunshots. That means that all those movies and video games where people use 'silenced' weapons are just a bunch of nonsense! So it is recommended that if you have to shoot a target with stealth using a suppressed firearm, make sure that the gun is fired in a remote location so that nobody else will hear it."
"Or in an environment that's noisy to begin with, right?" asked the Hispanic woman. "It'll be hard to hear a muffled gunshot if there's loud music being played in the same room."
Some of the other crew members laughed.
"It certainly will, Arlena." said the man with glasses. "Second, shoulder wounds. Don't even bother unless you plan to capture or stun the target. Otherwise, just aim for the head or torso."
Jason growled.
"Third, if ever you suspect that your ammo replaced with blank cartridges, make sure you shoot the target as closely as possible. Even a blank cartridge should be enough to kill or seriously injure someone. Fourth and most importantly, be careful not to shoot each other, nor our allies out there. I don't want any of us getting in trouble with the Norwegian government for friendly fire!"
"Yeah, yeah, Frank." said Dennis, quietly. "We know. You don't need to remind us every time we go on a mission!"
There was static from the ship's loudspeaker.
"All hands on deck!" said Zack. "We're going to be docking in a few minutes."
After a while, the ships all docked along the waterfront. A few hundred men and women of various races, nationalities, and creeds were departing from their boats, ships, and rafts. All of them carrying some kind of weapon in their hands. But they were not here to invade the port. They were here to help. They advanced silently beyond the waterfront and towards the rundown town square, where a large raised platform was placed in the middle. Atop the platform, a man in a suit, flanked by two soldiers in uniform, was standing to greet the disheveled horde.
"Welcome, all of you, to our once fair country of Norway." said the man with a Trøndersk, or Central Norwegian, accent. "I am Fred Mendensen, son of Norway's Prime Minister. All of you have come to our lands for many a reason. To return to reclaim your old homeland, to start a new life in a new homeland, to selflessly save our citizens in their time of need, or simply to make yourself rich on cold cash. Whatever these reasons may be, we will not judge you for your motivations. Instead, we express our gratitude that you have come to take up arms in our cause, against our former brethren in neighboring Sweden. Know that we will honor you for service to our country as if you were our own, and will be most handsomely rewarded for your triumphs on the battlefield."
Many of the recruits clapped.
"Now if you will please proceed down along the road to the local school building. There you will register yourselves, then be treated to refreshments after your long journey here. Then there will be many trucks on the outskirts that will take you straight to designated military installations, where you will be outfitted for your missions and briefed on your objectives."
Jason and his teammates from the Midnight Star went down the road with the rest of the mercenary army. The various crews and squads were split and intermixed together, including the mercenaries from the Midnight Star. They all entered the school building's gymnasium to register and then be refreshed, and then they were each given color-coded patches to wear on their arms, with each color corresponding to a truck with an identically colored flag mounted on it. Two hours later, Jason found himself down the street towards the trucks, along with several men that he had never met before, and many of them appeared to be from Europe and Africa judging by the different languages and accents. There were many trucks, APCs, and other ground vehicles that were escorted by armed Norwegian servicemen.
One of the men walking a couple of yards away from him was a South African, with a deep rumbly voice and a thick Boer accent. Underneath his winter jacket, he was wearing a khaki uniform that made him look like he should be on a safari in the Congo instead of fighting in the winter-blanketed lands of Scandinavia, though he did not seem to be bothered by the cold. He had a tall, muscular body with a slightly hunched back, as well as short graying reddish-brown hair with a messy beard, a hooked nose, and watery brown eyes, one of which had a slight scar on it. A machete was sheathed on his belt, and he had an IWI Galil ACE 52L assault rifle slung on his back. The men around him, which were similarly dressed and armed minus the machete, were a slew of tough, mean-looking White and Black Africans.
"Let me tell ya...you don't want to get a British person mad." said the Afrikaner to one of the men he was walking next to, pointing at the scar on his eye. "They ain't like those milk-soppin' Americans. When ya get a British person angry, dey'll rough you up gud! But when ya an American angry, they just go..." He continued with a stereotypical high-pitched American-accented 'nerd' voice that reminded Jason of Judd Crocker: "Damnit, damnit, damnit!"
A couple of his men, apparently his squadmates since they were wearing similar uniforms, laughed. Jason growled a little and rolled his eyes.
"What about the Swedes?" asked the man he was talking to.
"I don't know shit about the civilians, but the military are dumb brutes." said the Afrikaner. "Just like their Viking ancestors. In fact, you better watch out. I heard that they've got super-soldiers that take after the berserkers from the Viking days!"
"Ja, Matthys?"
"Ja!" said Matthys. "They'll break your neck with their bare 'ands, then they'll bash yer brains into da pavement even after yer dead. Animals, all of 'em. Not as much as the beasties mind ya, but I wouldn't want to get one of them after you! Unless you've got a bazooka, or a nice and sharp machete to slice their head off with."
He took out his machete, and swung it through the air twice with blinding speed, slicing the strap off a nearby British mercenary's Browning Automatic Rifle, causing it to fall off his shoulder to the ground.
"Wow, the noive of dat guy!" growled Rosie, who was walking behind Jason.
She ran up to grab the gun, and hurried to the British mercenary.
"Hey, mistah!" she said. "Ya dropped yer gun!"
The Englishman turned around. He was a handsome blond man with pale blue eyes.
"Ah, thank you." said the Englishman.
He noticed the patch Rosie was wearing on her sleeve and saw it was the same as his.
"Looks like we're on the same truck." he said with a smile. "Care to join me?"
"Sure." nodded Rosie, as the two of them got on the truck together.
"Who the hell is he?" Jason asked Zack, as soon as he caught up, pointing at the Afrikaner.
"I've heard of him: Matthys Krige from Johannesburg, South Africa." said Zack. "He fought Zorndyke's creatures along the Ivory Coast...or what's left of it. The man is completely demented, but don't let that fool you. He's still one of the most dangerous mercenaries you'll ever meet. I was unfortunate enough to have a couple of run-ins with him during my early voyages."
The trucks started to move away from the port, and drove along the makeshift dirt road, taking them further inland.
"Ay, Rowan!" Matthys Krige called over to the squadmate he had been talking to.
"Ja, sir?"
"When we get to Narvik, remind me to have the men desert for a while and raid one of the bars. The Norwegians must have something decent to drink."
"Good idea, sir."
As soon as everyone reached the trucks, Zack gave his leave to Jason and several of his squadmates.
"Good luck out there, kiddo." said Zack. "I'm going back to the ship. I've unloaded those of us that can fight on land. Now I'm taking the rest of us North to provide naval support."
"Good luck, boss." said Jason, as he and the rest of his squad got onto the last truck.
*=The same radio broadcast from Chapter 11.
A/N: Yes, this is a rather long chapter. But I currently plan on capping Blue Submarine No. 6: The Atlantic War at 52 chapters total, which means the remainder of the story will be made up of very long chapters like this one.
PS: The posting of this chapter coincides with my 28th birthday.