It was cold. Cold to his very bones. It was always cold in Alaska, or so it seemed to Beorn. It was really dark today as well, the moon must be covered by clouds. He would need to get out of bed soon and check on his men. First Sergeant Nate Carson ran a tight ship, but it was important that the company commander be seen with his men. Nate and Beorn had known each other for years...
A bright light seemed to pierce his eye with all the force of a commie bayonet. He was not in Alaska, his men were not preparing for an enemy attack. He was in a box. A cushioned metal coffin. In front of him he could see a viewport, mostly frosted over, yellow light flashed rhythmically on the other side. His head really hurt, his fingers were numb, and his mind was slow to respond. His memory fogged over just like the viewport.
A sudden hiss and depressurization. His ears popped and his head swam. Falling forward he hit the door of the pod with his head as it swung open, dumping him unceremoniously onto the cold concrete floor. A klaxon sounded in the background and a female voice came over the intercom. "Cryogenic failure detected. Please exit the vault." Beorn took a deep breath, but his body forcibly emptied the contents of his stomach onto the floor. This did not help the headache, or anything else.
Once his body had stopped retching he rolled onto his back and lay there in a daze. He must have fallen asleep again because he found himself back in Alaska, on the front line with his old buddy Nate beside him...Or had the frozen pod been the dream? He couldn't tell. "There was a lot of activity across the valley last night. I stayed up with Crispin and Elliott to watch. We couldn't see much in the way of detail, but there were a lot of bodies moving about." Nate said.
Beorn had a sense of deja vu, like he had been here before. Images flashed in his mind, an assault, bullets and artillery everywhere. Nate lying in the snow, his eyes lifeless and staring...
The klaxon beat on his head like a drummer and the incessant voice of the woman on the intercom grated on his nerves, why didn't she shut up! His fogged mind started to clear and he realized it was a recording. He was in an underground vault. Nuclear devastation had spread across the nation if the newsman was to be believed. A nuke had gone off just south of Boston as he and Nora...Nora!
He remembered another dream. The dark, cold box was still there, the frosted glass. Through it he saw two figures approach another pod and open it up. He could hear Nora's voice as she argued, cut off by the sharp report of a gunshot...
He tried to lift himself from the ground, found that his arms and legs had regained most of their strength, if a bit shaky. He turned to see the pod where he had last seen Nora. The window was frosted over as well. He could not see in, but the frost was splattered with red. He hastily looked for the manual release mechanism and found it, he had to see what he already knew.
The pod hissed and the door swung up. There she was. Her beautiful black hair still falling just past her shoulders. Her body covered in hoary frost. It reminded him of Nate's body back in Alaska...the memories of that terrible day flooding in to mix with those of this one. He knew she was dead. The back of the pod was covered in blood and brain matter, now browned with the passage of time. It had not been a dream. It had been some time since that terrible waking nightmare. Beorn had been hunting, tracking, and fighting for long enough to know that whoever had done this had a huge lead on him.
Shaun wasn't there. The thought that he had been avoiding since he woke finally hit him and he collapsed to his knees in front of Nora's body. "Soldiers don't cry!" The voice of his old friend Nate told him in the back of his mind. Beorn didn't care. He cried. The tears running between his fingers as he held his head. Oh that this were a nightmare his mind cried out. His physical senses told him that it was not. He had no way to know how long he knelt there, long enough that when he finally tried to stand his legs were numb again. The tingling sensation helped to bring him back to the moment though.
Despite the brutality of her murder Nora's body was well preserved. He touched the beautiful mocha skin of her cheek, melting the frost with the warmth of his hand. He gently held her hand one final time, leaving her wedding ring and arranging her body to appear as if in gentle repose. Then he closed the pod again, sealing her coffin. Perhaps one day he would return. For now, he had to find Shaun.
The sadness had run its course and a burning anger was starting to build. He would find those who had done this. He would find out what happened to Shaun. He would settle the score.