Chapter LXXVII: …are against us.
1400hrs, 26 December 2013, Socotra, Yemen
"Why, why, Lord, Why do you reward me thus? I gave jewels for the Madonna's mantle, And songs for the stars, in heaven, That shone forth with greater radiance. In the hour of grief, Why, why, Lord,
Ah, why do you reward me thus?" Vissi d'arte, Tosca
"There's a man going 'round taking names. And he decides who to free and who to blame. Everybody won't be treated all the same. There'll be a golden ladder reaching down. When the man comes around." Johnny Cash, The Man Comes Around.
"Bringing up the drone feed right now, Madame President." The video zoomed in on the people who had just left one of the entrances to the base. The Air Force had finally unfucked itself and had several drones now flying over the island, in addition to the KH-13 satellite hovering above in space. This particular drone was flying over one of the entrances to the base that the special operations people have entered earlier. POTUS squinted at the screen…she could see someone…no, five people walking out of the entrance.
"I don't believe it…" It was the SAILOR team. They had survived inside…and presumably, all the special operations forces that had gone in after them were now dead or subdued.
"Ma'am, I'm getting a message from USCINCSOC," Jorge, the COS, said to her.
"General," POTUS said to USCINCSOC, very displeased. "What is that unit doing alive?"
"Ma'am," Overlord said to her. "They took both of the SEALs and Delta Force teams we sent down there."
The first words that flashed into the President's mind were there usual; Oh Shit. If the SAILOR team could take down Delta and SEAL units, then there was no stopping them, short of bombarding the place to smithereens. Of course, that would let everyone know that something was up, and generate more suspicion on her part. "And how do you know this?"
"We were contacted by them, directly. They used one of the SEAL's HUDs to talk to me, and they wished to be left alone, and that you should retract whatever order that you gave them."
POTUS was now in a bind. She could retract the order…but they had come too far just for this team to mess things up.
"Madame President." Amy's voice snapped out of her thoughts. POTUS wanted to respond, but the decision had already been made. There was no turning back. The President had already made up her mind long before then.
"Madame President, please, retract your orders. I don't know why you've done this…but it's just another trick that the Nakanishi Group is setting up for you. Whatever you've heard from them, I promise you, we can make it up to you. Please, Madame President, all we want is this nightmare to be over…" Amy started to tear up. "All we want to do is go home and be with our parents, to get on with our lives that were shattered six months ago by an explosion that took more than our arms and legs. The Nakanishi Group took our freedom, our dreams, our hopes, whatever great plan we had for our lives and tossed them out the door." The tears ran down her face freely now. Mina came up to her and placed her arms around Amy, comforting her. She cried just as much as she was; in fact, the entire SAILOR team was in tears now, the magnitude of the situation was so great.
"Whatever you do after this point, if you continue down this path, they will have ultimately won. You will have secured their legacy in history by letting our story die here."
She took a breath in, and wiped away the tears on her face. Amy removed herself from Mina's embrace, and looked into the HUD one last time.
"We're going to come outside now. Make your decision. If you let us live…then, contact us again through Overlord on our own HUDs. If not…then I guess we'll know."
Amy placed the HUD on the ground, and stomped on it, and then again, breaking it into a bunch of pieces.
"What do you think she'll do?" Raye asked her, wiping away some of the tears on her face. She was just as shaken as the rest of them.
"I don't know," Amy said, looking at the ground.
"Hey, what's that?" Lita pointed to something near the entrance, some fifty meters out. She jogged over to it.
"Lita, be careful!" Serena said to her, but Lita was already over there, looking at it.
"It's a buggy," she said.
Amy took a look at it with her HUD. "A Light Strike Vehicle, used by special operations forces, especially by the US."
"Can we use it to get out of here?" Serena asked her.
"Yeah…I think. Let me try to get it started up."
While Amy and Mina worked on getting the vehicle up and running, Lita and Raye walked around the vehicle, inspecting it.
"That's a lot of guns on it."
"Well, special operations forces use it for behind enemy lines type of work, so…"
"Lita, Raye, pull security why don't you?" Serena said to them tersely.
"Fine." Lita and Raye stopped their gawking and began patrolling around the vehicle, looking for any more of those infernal youma/UGV thingies that had given them so much trouble over the last couple of hours.
"What are you going to do when we get out of here?" Lita asked Raye, who was fiddling with her HUD.
"I don't fucking know," Raye snapped back. "If we even fucking get out of here."
"Raye, I'm just trying to make conversation, come on."
Raye sighed, knowing that her response was a very bad one, but they were under a lot of stress.
"Sorry. Okay, so hypothetically speaking?"
"Yeah, hypothetically speaking."
"Well, I would take over the temple, provided that hasn't gone to hell after grandpa…" She hesitated for a second, remembering her late grandfather. "After grandpa died. I'm sure that my whore of a dad probably sold it or something."
"Whore of a dad?" Lita thought that was kind of harsh. At least she had parents. But then again, maybe it was better to have good dead parents than deadbeat alive parents. She kicked at a pebble on the ground.
"I thought we had this conversation awhile back," Raye added. "My dad. Going to be PM, but wasn't…"
"Oh yeah, forgot about that."
"What about you?" Raye asked, a bit tired of all these questions that Lita was asking her. Mostly, she just wanted to go to a nice spa, have a nice bath, put her feet up and take a nice long sleep.
"Same as always. Get married. Have kids. Run a shop. The end."
Raye scrunched her nose up at that statement. "That sounds boring."
"After this? " Lita said. "I could use some boredom, thank you very much."
"You got a point there," Raye said. There was a slight pause in the conversation as Raye and Lita continued to patrol the area. "Although I'm not quite sure if a shop will do so good in this economy."
"Hey, I didn't say I would be living in Japan," Lita said back.
Raye shrugged at that. They continued to patrol the area, looking out for any targets. There didn't seem to be any though, surprisingly.
"What do you think about Amy and Mina?" Raye asked Lita, looking at the duo try to start the buggy up. Amy was on her tablet computer, looking at the specifications of the vehicle while Mina was poking at some of the wires near the steering column.
"What about them?"
"You know, being together and all that?" Raye was sure persistent in getting into other people's business.
"Mina seems to be more into it that Amy is," Lita replied, taking another look at Amy and Mina. Amy seemed to be a little flustered, apparently at something that Mina had said. Mina on the other hand, was trying not to laugh. Even that made Lita smile a little bit. At least someone could find humor in this shit situation.
"Amy doesn't seem to show much emotion though. It might be one of those type of relationships."
"Raye, stop butting into other people's business," Lita said to her.
"But Amy kept poking around in my porn stash!" Raye protested. That was my own personal stuff she thought to herself.
"Come on, it was all in good fun," Lita said back with a smile. "She probably won't do it again after this. Plus, you might have some more ammo on them once the relationship really heats up."
Raye shook her head. "Uh, huh. I'll believe that when I see it."
"Got it." The buggy started up with a roar, interrupting their conversation.
"Nice work Amy," Mina said, giving her a big hug. Amy tried not to wince too much, since she still was in pain from the massive melee with the special operations operatives back in Beryl's room.
"Everyone, climb on inside," Serena said, pointing to the buggy. "Mina, you drive."
"Sounds good." Mina climbed in the front seat, along with Amy and Serena, who crammed themselves in the passenger seat. Lita and Raye got into the back, with the mounted machine gun. Raye wondered how this was going to help them, as it was going to make them an even bigger target. Oh well.
Mina floored the accelerator, and start to drive down the riverbed.
The Marines guarding the town had been gathering up the bodies of their fallen comrades onto some of the LCACs. It had been a grizzly task; some of the bodies simply weren't. Arms and legs were everywhere, and while some black humor made itself apparent ("I've got two right hands and two right legs!" one Marine noted), they did the work in silence, respecting their fallen comrades.
A Marine lieutenant, HItman 3-1, was collecting the dogtags from the Marines when a bullet snapped past. He quickly dove for cover, as did the rest of the Marines in the town. Hitman 3-1 could see several UGVs coming at them from the mountains, their machine guns opening fire at the Marine company. He got on his radio to inform command of the recent developments.
"This is Hitman 3-1, we are under extremely heavy fire from enemy UGVs, over."
His radio crackled with the response. "Hitman 3-1, this is Gambit Actual, tank support is on the way, just hang in there, over."
Tank support had been "on the way" for the last hour or so, and command had really managed to fuck itself over this time. The LCACs had taken damage from the enemy artillery fire so that had to be repaired. Then, one of the M1A2 Abrams to lose a tread while loading into the LCAC, and then after that, a crew member had gotten stuck underneath the tank while trying to get the tread back on. It was just one big clusterfuck after another, and it was costing lives out there.
"Sir, the artillery fire can only hold off the UGVs for so long," Hitman 3-1 said to Gambit Actual. "We need to take the fight to these guys or else we're going to lose this beachhead again! Over."
"I understand Hitman 3-1, but the tanks are having some problems, over. We're getting more helicopter support from the Bonhomme Richard."
Mina was driving down the riverbed when a couple of Marine AH-1Zs flew overhead, their rotors thumping throughout the air. She cringed in her seat as they flew overhead; they were a good target, all exposed here in the riverbed.
"Juliet 4-1, we need you to do a pass by the beachhead, over."
That didn't sit well with the pilot. "Uh, Gambit Actual, we're running pretty close on fuel here, and we're almost out of ordnance, over."
"Do what you can Juliet 4-1, out."
Juliet 4-1 would have thrown his hands up in frustration, if he hadn't been piloting the helicopter at the time.
"Hey, look down there," the gunner said to Juliet 4-1. From what he could see, there was a dune buggy bouncing around, trying to suspiciously avoid them. Well, they looked suspicious enough for them to take the buggy out, and Juliet 4-1 made the call to shoot.
"How many 20 mike mike you got left?" he asked the gunner.
The gunner checked his instruments. "150 rounds."
"Rockets? Missiles?"
"That's a negative. We used them all off trying to get those UGVs off of that MSOR team back there."
"Dammit." Juliet 4-1 wanted to just blow the buggy up; a nice Hellfire missile would have easily done the job, but they didn't have any at the moment. In addition, they also carried two Sidewinder missiles, "just in case", which had turned into "oh shit, we need to actually use those today", moment when a UAV had tried to shoot them down. Needless to say, it was a miracle that a helicopter managed to kill an "aircraft" per se, even if it was a drone.
"Try to get a couple of bursts off. I don't want to waste any more ammo than we have to," Juliet 4-1 ordered.
"Roger that." The gunner simply looked at the buggy, which was on his left at this point. The cool thing about it was, that the gun itself was "slaved", or connected to the gunner. This meant that when he looked at something, the gun also pointed in that direction too. It made targeting a whole lot simpler, and was pretty cool to boot. The gunner fired two bursts, but missed due to Mina throwing the buggy all over the riverbed.
"I guess we got the President's answer," Raye said bitterly, swiveling the rear mounted M60 machine gun to face the Marine's Viper attack copter before Serena stopped her. The two bursts from the helicopter had made everyone jump a little bit and scrunch up in their seats, what little that would do for them.
"No, Raye. Just don't."
Raye swore, but she knew that Serena was right. Plus, that dinky M60 wasn't going to do anything against a heavily armored attack helicopter.
"Maybe they just didn't get the order yet…" Amy quietly said.
"Amy, don't be naïve," Raye shot back. "You're smarter than that."
That shut Amy up quick. She looked down at her computer, Raye's words echoing for a second in her mind.
"Don't be so harsh," Lita whispered to Raye. Raye glared at her, but she was right. She went back to her machine gun, watching that goddamned helicopter try to come around for another pass.
"Fuck, more of those Youma!" Mina announced, pointing in front of them. They were in a line formation, and were about to attack toward the coast. The Light Strike Vehicle was some 100 meters behind them, and was making enough of a scene for a couple of them to peel off from the formation to engage them.
"Okay, now Raye!" Serena yelled to her.
"With pleasure." As the buggy approached the formation, Raye opened up with the machine gun. A shell casing snapped up from the ejection port and hit her in the face. She felt a slight burning sensation, but she ignored it and continued firing, pumping round after round into the formation. Lita added to the fire, and in a couple of seconds, several UGVs had been destroyed.
"Turn it around!" Amy yelled out. "We can't do anything this way!"
"Alright." Mina turned the LSV around, skidding on the pebbles and sand. She quickly shifted gears, hit the accelerator again, and quickly sped back the way they came.
"I can get those guys with a cannon!" the gunner said to Juliet 4-1.
"No time!" was the response. "Those UGVs are attacking those Marines again!" Juliet 4-1 broke off the chase and moved the helicopter closer to support the Marines at the beachhead. The Viper gunner opened up at the formation of youma, which was coming into range. The cannon mounted underneath his seat spat out 20mm shells, ripping apart several youma.
"Keep it coming!" Hitman 3-1 shouted over the radio, seeing the UGVs being destroyed left and right. The Marines also cheered from their shallow foxholes, happy to see that something was at least going right today.
Juliet 4-1 swore at himself for having to let the dune buggy go, but it didn't really matter at this point. Anyone in their right mind would have to come to the conclusion that they were royally screwed and that they would just die tired if they continued to run.
"Serena, this isn't working out," Mina said to her after attempt after attempt to get to the coast was beaten back by the UGVs that were swarming the entire place. They had also dodged some naval gunfire, who rightfully assumed that they were enemy forces trying to escape from inside the fortress.
Amy was looking at her tablet computer; she noted that the battery was running low. She had been running that thing all day, and it was only natural that the battery would go out at this point. Oh well. "If we follow this road, "S-1", here, it'll take us further into the island, and we can perhaps find a place to hide out…" She put it up on their HUDs.
"What good will that do us?" Raye asked sarcastically. "There's no place to hide now, with spec ops and youma crawling all over the place."
"We can at least regroup and try to figure something out," Mina replied. "We're running desperately around, and we don't have all day to try to figure something out. Sooner or later, the United States and allied forces are going to completely control this island, and if we don't do something rational, we're going to get shot. Again."
"Fine," Serena said, her voice weary from making all of these decisions. "Just get us there."
Mina drove as fast as she cold toward the location, hoping that those helicopters didn't come back.
"This is Hitman 3-1, the UGVs are pulling back. Looks like we got them." From what he could see though, it wasn't that the UGVs were retreating; it looked like they were actually attacking in another direction. Where they were going, he was glad that they weren't attacking his Marines anymore.
"Thanks Juliet 4-1," Hitman 3-1 said over the radio to them.
"No problem. Out." Switching over to the Bonhomme Richard, Juliet 4-1 announced their status. "Gambit Actual, we are RTB, out."
"Affirmative Juliet 4-1. Out."
"I hope we can go after that buggy again," the gunner complained to Juliet 4-1.
He shook his head at that, as if the gunner could see him; the gunner was in the front seat while the pilot sat behind him. "Probably not. One of the other flyboys will probably get it. Oh well." Juliet 4-1 continued his flight out to sea, passing over the beachhead, which was obscured by a thick, dark smoke that billowed in the afternoon sky.