Chapter LXXX: Aftermath

1745hrs, 26 December 2013, Yemen.

"If in truth unto my husband I have proved a faithful wife, Mother Earth, relive thy Sita from the burden of life! Then the earth was rent and parted, and a golden throne arose, held aloft by jeweled Nagas as the leaves enfold the rose. And the Mother in embraces held her spotless sinless Child, Saintly Janak's saintly daughter, pure and true and undefiled. Gods and men proclaim her virtue! But fair Sita is no more, Lone is Rama's loveless bosom and his days of bliss are over!" Uttara Kanda, Ramayana.

Kathie Hanson was walking on the docks, wondering if the battle would really change anything. Those corporations were in charge of everything nowadays, and by herself, she could not do anything. Then again, that's why she was here, dammit. Doing good, and trying to make someone's life a little bit better at least.

A loud commotion at the docks brought her back to reality.

"Hey, come on, bring that boat over here!" a fisherman yelled out.

Blessed with the knowledge of Arabic, she saw a gaggle of fishermen near some boats, crowding around to help out or to merely see what was going on.

"How many did you get?" a fisherman said to his mate.

The other guy replied with great gusto. "Two of them! They look in bad shape."

"Do you think they'll make it?" the other one asked.

"Inshallah." That was the typical response in this part of the world if you didn't know something. It meant, "God willing," as in, "Is the bus late?" "Inshallah." "When will the movie start?" "Inshallah." "Will this person die after being pulled out of an aircraft wreck, severely injured and barely conscious?"

"Inshallah."

"Ugh…" One of them was a woman, with a desert flecktarn uniform. The other was a man, with the same outfit. They looked really fucked up, and it was clear that they needed medical attention right away.

"We need to take them to a hospital!" one of the fishermen said.

"I can take them!" Kathie spoke up. The fishermen turned a looked at this blonde-haired, blue-eyed, 165 centimeter tall woman in front of them speaking fluently in Arabic. Now that was an uncommon sight. Although she had become known to the community at large in this city, it still was…weird, seeing her boss around rough and tumble fishermen.

"You have a car?" one of the fishermen asked. Most people here didn't own a car. It was expensive, and someone could steal it or more importantly, the fuel inside of the tank.

"Yeah, I've got one. I'll bring it over here!"

Kathie ran over to where she had parked her white Hyundai Getz near the docks and brought it over to where the gaggle of fishermen were standing. Quickly, she got out of the car and opened up the two rear doors while another one of the fishermen opened up the passenger door.

"Careful now!" Kathie said to them as they hauled the poor woman, who was groaning in extreme pain. "Put her in the back seat," she ordered them. Most of the time, women didn't have much in the way of rights here, but Kathie was forceful enough and persistent in her endeavors that the locals had learned not to fuck with her. Any attempt at leering or groping was met with a flurry of foul and direct curses, shaming the perpetrator into scurrying off.

"Okay, thanks guys!" she yelled at the fishermen, who slammed the car doors shut. Kathie floored the accelerator, spinning the wheels a little bit before finally shooting off onto the main road.

"Nearest hospital…that might be Ibn Sina Hospital. Better get on that," she muttered, looking at the poor woman next to her. The nametag on her uniform said "Kitsune"…wasn't that a Japanese name? Kathie didn't have much time to worry about that, as she was busy dodging traffic, trying to save these two from death.

The President, after witnessing the entire battle go down and having her orders ignored by COMUSNAVCENT, was in a foul mood. So when the idea hit her, she contacted USCINCSOC immediately, hoping that at least someone in the chain of command would respect her. So far, at least one general had his head screwed on straight.

"Overlord, I want those bodies and I want them yesterday, do you understand?" she said into the phone receiver. If nothing else, they could be used for some more research. Perhaps something good would come out of this clusterfuck.

"Uh…"

"General…" she growled into the phone.

That made up Overlord's mind real quick. "Of course. Right away Madame President."

"Red troop, you know your objectives?" one of the brigadiers aboard the HMS Ocean said to the SAS team on the ground.

Meanwhile the SAS team had been inserted a couple of minutes earlier via helicopter, and were making their way toward the last stand of the SAILOR team.

"That's affirmative," Daimler said over the radio. If the President was going drag the UK PM down, he'd better get something out of this entire mess. The death of the SAILOR team was not only watched by the US President, but other nations had their own methods of watching the battle. And the PM Robinson knew exactly what had to be done. "Retrieve three bodies, should be easy to pick out next to all of the destroyed…UGVs, over."

"Roger that Red troop. Blue troop, secure the server room and await further instructions, out."

Daimler, Jordan and Baker started walking the kilometer or so distance to the SAILOR team, picking their way through the shattered husks of the youma.

"I have never seen this many destroyed robot…thingies since I watched Attack of the Clones," Jordan complained, looking at the mountains of destroyed UGVs. There would be enough recovered materials to build several dozen tanks, helicopters, and planes in the coming months. But it wasn't their job to clean up that mess; they were coming here to fix another.

Baker was not happy with the popular culture references. "Jordan, if you make one more fucking Star Trek reference…"

That made Jordan extremely upset. "It is not ruddy Star Trek! It's Star WARS! A big fucking difference."

The other SAS operative still was confused. "They both take place in space, right?"

"It's not that simple!" Jordan shot back. "And plus, those three prequels were not as good as…"

"You two, knock it off!" Daimler hissed at both of them. "Or else I'm going to put a bullet in each one of you!"

That shut the two SAS operatives up.

"Where is this thing again?" Jordan asked Daimler, shifting his C8 rifle around, a Canadian produced/modified version of the M16.

Daimler shrugged at his question. "Um…Baker has the map, take a look at it."

Daimler was clearly getting back at the other two for being so off topic when they were supposed to be watching out for those robot…things. Baker glared at Red Troop leader, but there was nothing he could do except get out the map and match it to their mission objectives.

"Location is at the following," Baker said, in a mocking tone. "39, Papa Yankee Papa, 917790."

It wouldn't do much good if Baker wasn't showing the map to Daimler. "Well gee, thanks very much for that," Daimler said to him, returning the mocking tone. "Now point it out on the map for me."
"No need. It's right there." Baker pointed at a buggy sitting near some rocks, surrounded by even more destroyed UGVs. Irritated that they wasted several moments on petty squabbles, Daimler made Baker put the map away and get out a set of binoculars to survey the damage.

"Jesus," Jordan said, looking at the devastation before them. "What the hell happened here?"

"Whatever it was, we should be quick about finding those bodies," Daimler snapped to the two other SAS operatives. "Quickly now."

The three of them sprinted across the plain, to the riverbed, over destroyed UGVs, and finally arrived at the buggy in less than two minutes.

"Not too bad," Daimler commented to the other soldiers. He was extremely fit, just like anyone in the UK Special Forces, but even more so than the usual SAS operative; he had successfully completed three triathlons and swam half the English Channel before bad weather forced an abort. And that was just for fun, let alone for his real job. "Think you can do that back home when we train the new guys?"
"Shut the fuck up," Jordan gasped back to him. "So, we're looking for three bodies?"

"Yep. Should be easy, seeing that they were the only ones that were human in this last battle," Daimler noted. The three of them started looking around, but it was slow going trying to sort through the UGV carcasses. A few minutes passed before Daimler and Baker were called over to Jordan's position, a small mound in the center of the dry riverbed. Hundreds of shell casings lay scattered about, along with a MGL with no grenades, and an M16A4 with a shotgun attachment. Whoever had died here, went down fighting like a true soldier. He could also see the vague outline of another soldier, pinned underneath a destroyed UGV near a small mound, and further up the riverbed, the faint outline of a blonde soldier near some rocks.

"Hey, I found one." Jordan was standing over a body of…a girl?

Daimler knelt down and took a closer look. The girl had long jet black hair and slightly slanted eyes, making her one of those oriental people he occasionally saw when he was on leave in London. "Is this what command wanted?" he muttered to himself, wondering how the hell this situation came about.

He didn't have much time to think about it though.

"Oh shit, look, over there." Baker was looking toward the north, where the river lead to the road.

Daimler turned around to see what looked like soldiers coming up the riverbed.

"Fuck." The Americans, more than likely, and they were going to be asking questions about where one of the bodies went.

Thinking fast, Daimler sprang into action.

"Jordan, Baker, take the body and prop it up against that rock over there," he ordered, pointing to a particularly large rock on the bank of the riverbed. "Pretend like you're treating…her?"

"It's a her," Baker said back. He'd checked.

"From now until we get extraction, she's an SAS operative. Do you understand?"

"Got it, guv."
"Don't fucking call me guv, I work for a fucking living," Daimler cursed at Baker, but they were already moving the body to the rock, propping Raye against it.

Seconds later, the Americans came running up to them, weapons drawn.

"US Marines!" one of them called out. "Drop your weapons!"

"Hey, hey, relax cowboys," Daimler said to them, raising his hands in the air. "We're SAS."

There were now about eight or so soldiers…no, marines, surrounding him now, their fingers itchy on their triggers.

"SAS? I wasn't told that there were any SAS teams in this area," the team leader said, looking suspiciously at Daimler. He got on his radio to ask for confirmation.

"Overlord, this is Charlie 4-2, we've run into what seems like an SAS team at our objective point. Confirm that SAS is operating in this area, over."

"Standby, Charlie 4-2."

Since the UK Special Forces obviously didn't fall under USSOCOM, and since this was a multinational operation, trying to sort out all the operations plans and units was going to be a clusterfuck unto itself. Mistakes would happen, people would get lost, and so on and so forth. Overlord contacted his Ministry of Defence contact, who told him that SAS were operating in that area, since manpower had been severely depleted by the destruction of the two Marine companies. Overlord didn't buy it at all, but that was the official explanation.

"Charlie 4-2, SAS units are supposed to be operating in this area, but not at this moment," Overlord reported back. If he thought what those SAS units were doing, then he'd better get them out of there ASAP. "Escort them out of the AO, out."

"Roger that," Charlie 4-2 said. "Out."

"You see? We just got…a bit lost. Sorry about that," Daimler politely said to the marines.

"Yeah, uh-huh," Charlie 4-2 distractedly said to him. "We're going to have to ask you to leave this area. Please."

It was a ballsy move on the Marine's part. Asking one of the most elite and experienced special forces units in the world to back off was incredibly brave, incredibly stupid, or both.

Oh well, Daimler thought to himself. Better one than none.

"Fine, we're leaving." Daimler turned to leave, when Charlie 4-2 noted something.

"Who's that over there?" Charlie 4-2 asked, looking over Daimler's shoulder at gaggle of SAS troopers by a large rock.

"We suffered a casualty from those…robot things," Daimler quickly replied. "We're just prepping him for extraction."

"Extraction? I thought you were patrolling this area."

"Well, you know, things change," Daimler said.

Charlie 4-2 furrowed his eyebrow at that excuse. "Do you need any help? My medic can…"

Daimler quickly shook his head. "No, no, we're fine. Nothing against your medic, but he's needs proper medical attention, okay?"

Charlie 4-2 nodded. His response was briefly drowned out by an AH-1Z flying overhead, but he repeated himself so that Daimler could hear him.

"I said, if you need any help, we're here."

Red troop leader simply just nodded his head in acknowledgement, and Charlie 4-2 went back to looking for more bodies.

"This is Red Troop," Daimler said over the radio to command. "Extraction for four, over."

Command was not happy about that. "Four? You're supposed to bring six…"

"I said, extraction for four," Daimler hissed into the receiver.

Command got the hint. Oh well, something was better than nothing at least. "Roger that Red Troop, the bird is on its way. Standby for extraction, out."

Daimler put his radio away and watched the marines sift through the wreckage of the battle.

"Did you happen to find any dead bodies, by chance?" Charlie 4-2 asked him, poking at a chunk of fused metal, presumably caused by a grenade explosion.

Shit. Daimler thought his options through. He could not give away the location of the other body in the ditch, but risking losing what they had, and giving the body away and releasing any suspicion on their part. He chose the latter.

"Yeah, I saw a body in that mound over there, with a pistol in hand." Daimler pointed out the body, some twenty meters away from them. A destroyed youma lay nearby the small mound, almost covering up but upon closer inspection, the marines found a long lock of brown hair sticking out of the debris.

"Thanks!" Charlie 4-2 waved some of his marines over to that location, and they were soon preoccupied in getting the destroyed UGV off of the dead soldier.

Daimler's radio crackled to life. "Red Troop, this is Bravo 2-0, ETA one minute," the helicopter pilot announced.

And just in time too, he thought to himself. "Thanks Bravo 2-0, we're going to pop green smoke."

"Looking for the green smoke, roger."

Daimler put the radio away and yelled at one of his troops to mark a LZ. "Baker! Pop green smoke!"

"On it!" Baker went over to a suitable piece of land about fifty meters away and unhooked a smoke grenade from his tactical vest.

"Always liked the green stuff," he muttered to himself. Baker pulled the pin and set the smoke grenade on the ground, running back to where both Jordan and Daimler where carrying their "fallen comrade".

"Bullshit, they should know that we don't go back for injured comrades," Jordan said to Daimler as they safely climbed aboard, hefting the body onto the floor of the Merlin helicopter. Daimler slammed the door shut, and they safely took off, leaving the Marines down there to deal with that entire mess.

"What are they going to do with her?" Baker asked Red Troop leader, looking at the body of the young girl sprawled out on the floor.

"I have no fucking clue," was the reply from Daimler. "Not my problem anymore. So stop worrying about it."

The helicopter flew back to the HMS Ocean, where the SAS team was offloaded and went for a pint in the canteen. Raye was put on dry ice, loaded into a body bag, covered with more dry ice, then put into a sealed container that would be transported by helicopter to the nearest airport, then by plane back to the United Kingdom.

"Juliet 4-1, provide cover for India 6-7 while they make their approach to rescue the civilians, over," one of the staff officers said to the helicopters approaching Mina and Amy's position.

"Roger that," Juliet 4-1 said back. "Goddamn, look at all those destroyed UGVs." There were certainly a lot of them down, littering the landscape. Whoever was going to have to clean that up was going to have their job cut out for them.

"Glad we're in this helicopter then," the gunner said back to them. As they flew over the SAILOR team's last stand position, the gunner noticed something briefly.

"Hey, there's that buggy we were chasing after earlier." The gunner could see that were several soldiers standing in the general vicinity of the vehicle, apparently staring down each other. Whatever was going on there, he didn't want to know. All he had to do was cover for the rescue operation going on at the other end of the island. Don't know, don't care.

"Hey!" One of the crew chiefs in the SH-60 yelled out to the chalk of marines riding in the back. "We're approaching the drop point, get ready to secure those civvies."

"Got it, thanks." First Lieutenant John Thames was relatively new in the US Marine Corps, but had proven himself in a particularly nasty ambush in Helmand province, Afghanistan, on his first (and last) tour of that hellhole. His troops were actually with the Headquarters and Service Company, obviously not meant for frontline service, but with two companies KIA, they needed everyone that could shoot a weapon. Thankfully in the Marine Corps everyone was a rifleman, so that really wasn't much of a problem. Unless you weren't on the frontlines every day.

Lt. Thames thought that a nice speech to motivate the men would be appropriate for this occasion. He stood up in the cramped space, and made sure to grab onto something so that he didn't fall out of the helicopter.

"Alright guys, I know that this is completely different than what we've trained for, but these guys need our help, and we're going to give it to them!"

"Lieutenant…" A Staff Sergeant, Jackson Howard, who had also been involved in the Iraq War, shook his head at the Lt. "Save your speeches for another time."

"Oh." He still had a lot to learn in his time in the Marine Corps.

"Twenty seconds," the pilot announced.

"Get ready!" SSgt Howard yelled to the rest of the group. The sounds of weapons being loaded and checked resounded through the helicopter, only to be drowned out by the noise of the rotors.

"India 6-7, approaching the drop point in five…four…three…two…one…"

Mina was completely oblivious to the helicopters flying overhead. She just stared and stared at the lifeless body of Amy, her eyes blankly staring blankly back at her. How did it come to this? Why didn't Amy tell her that things were not working out between them? Why did she sleep with me? Why did…why did…

"Go go go!" The chalk poured out of the helicopter, fanning out around the landing zone. Several AH-1Zs hovered overhead, providing overwatch, while a flight of four F/A-18s screamed overhead. A couple of Harriers followed soon afterward, dropping some napalm off in the distance on one of the remaining groups of youma still patrolling the island.

Lt. Thames slowly approached the motionless girl in front of him. She was holding another person, looking down at her silent.

"Ma'am…ma'am?" he said, his M4 carbine pointed at her body, just in case. "We're here to help."

Mina ignored him and continued to stare at Amy's lifeless corpse. Lt. Thames cautiously advanced forward, approaching from her left side. He could see a multitude of spent brass around, which meant that…

"She's got a weapon!" he yelled out to the group. Instantly, his squad trained their guns on her, ready for anything. They might be clerks and accountants, but they were no slouches when it came to killing.

"Drop the weapon!" SSgt Howard repeated, pointing his own M4 carbine at the girl.

"Do it!"

Mina complied, setting her shotgun and sidearm aside, and then taking off Amy's MP5 and P90. The marines moved in and took the weapons away. She looked at Amy one last time before standing up and being escorted to the helicopter, carrying her body all the way there.

"Nice going there, India 6-7," Juliet 4-1 said to the helicopter taking off from the LZ. He saw a blonde woman carry what seemed like a body to the SH-60, while the rest of the Marines watched her carefully, making sure that she didn't try anything on them. They too got into the helicopter, preparing to leave this infernal place.

"Thanks Juliet 4-1. We're RTB." The SH-60 took off from the impromptu LZ, returning to the Carl Vinson.

"Looks like we are too, out." Juliet 4-1 took the AH-1Z back to the Bonhomme Richard for some much needed rest and repair. It had been a long day for everyone involved, and the pilots were almost at their effective limit for flying time. Anything after this could probably result in accidents and more casualties, something that definitely wasn't needed after today's battle.

Luna finally remembered waking up in a strange hospital, with gibberish speaking doctors and nurses surrounding her, taking her vitals, poking her incessantly with needles and other things in areas that she wouldn't want to mention in good company.

So this is what the SAILOR team must have gone through, she thought to herself.

She turned her head to see…a blonde woman? What was she doing here? Behind her, she could see Artemis, much in the state that she was in.

"Ah…" Luna tried to speak, but nothing was coming out.

"Hey, take it easy there," the woman said to her. For a moment, she looked like Serena, but as she blinked away the crud in her eyes, she could see that it was not her.

"Who…who are you?" Luna finally found the strength to speak to her.

"I'm Kathie Hanson, of the NGO United World Relief Fund. Some fishermen dragged you out of the sea, barely alive."

"Oh…how did I get here then?"

"You speak pretty good English," Kathie noted, pleasantly surprised by that fact. "I drove you here, along with another guy."

"Another guy?"
"Yeah, his name was Tanaka or something like that." She pointed at the guy behind her, the one that Luna had spied earlier.

She leaned back in her uncomfortable hospital bed and thought the situation through.

Why weren't they in a military hospital though? Why were they picked up by civilians? They were on a secret mission, but that didn't mean that they were going to be outright abandoned…right?

"Have you contacted the military officials here?" she asked Kathie.

"Not yet. I was going to, since you were wearing military uniforms and all."

She thought back to the plane…something about their escorts breaking off. Beryl was in there too, in a radio transmission, saying how…wait as second. Beryl. F-15 escorts. Flash of light. Explosion. Luna came to a conclusion real fast about what had happened.

"Wait, don't."

"Don't?" Kathie looked at her, confused.

"Don't tell anyone we're here, alright? Our mission was extremely secret and we can't let anyone know we're here. Especially in this hospital."

"Oh really now?" Kathie crossed her arms and sat back in her chair. "Why should I?"

"Because you'll probably end up dead," Luna said stoically.

That made her raise an eyebrow, but it didn't worry her too much.

"Look, I get death threats around here all the time, so I'm not too concerned that…"

"Listen!" Luna snapped at her. "If you tell anyone, and I mean ANYONE knows if we're alive here, then there's going to be a shitload of US soldiers banging down the door of this place and killing everyone in it!"

Kathie's phone starting ringing, interrupting Luna's outburst. "Give me a second, okay?" She looked at who was calling; it was the BBC reporter, probably looking for more leads.

"Amber here, you got anything?"

She looked at Luna for a second, then decided against it. "Nah, the fishermen came back. Nothing to be salvaged." The reporter would figure out that they had actually brought someone in, but Kathie though it might buy her some time anyway.

"That's a shame. Thanks anyway though. Keep in touch if you hear anything."

"Will do." Kathie terminated the call.

"Who was that?" Luna asked suspiciously.

"It was a reporter."

"Shit. That's the last thing we need." Luna tried to sit up, but having just survived a plane crash, the damage to her body was too great. She was in no condition to walk down the hall to the toilet, let alone evade and escape trained military personnel.

Kathie knew that she couldn't take the risk. The person laying on that bed there seemed to be extremely convincing, if blunt.

She looked inside her purse at the wad of money that the reporter had given her earlier today…well, better make it count.

"Fine. But you have to tell me what was going on at that island, okay?" Kathie stared Luna down, hoping to get something for her trouble.

"Yes, yes…just make sure no one finds us here."

Kathie stood up from her chair, wondering why the hell she was doing this, but at least she finally might get some answers out of this Japanese person. She walked down the hall, looking for the doctor in charge, who would walk away from his shift tonight a slightly richer man.