Chapter 7: We Shall Meet Again In Hell
'Let's give these boys a taste of what's it like to mess with the Suicide Squad.' – Rick Flagg, Season 10, Episode 2: "Shield".
May 30th 2012. 06:56 AM UTC-6. Off the coast of the Metinic Island, Maine, USA.
Aboard the Expandable, everybody stool still. The Black King watched the screen ahead of him indicating the depth the submarine reached. The numbers were going down at a fast rate, he started rising a hand, his eyes never leaving the indicator as the rest of the crew stood about the control station.
Everyone had spilled towards the middle section where the captain's lair was located. There were so many people standing around that some were forced to wait outside of the room and wait, anxiously, their ears picking up the first signs of the intense pressure exercising itself on the ship. Crackling sounds were peppering on the bodywork outside. These strange and menacing noises heightened the crew's anxiety.
The Black King gave a quick flick of his hand. "Now!" the captain ordered. Back on the screen, the numbers stilled.
DEPTH: - 1124 ft
Satisfied, the king looked up to the ceiling as if he could sense the destroyers floating above them on the surface, frenetically trying to detect their presence. "Turn off the reactor, the life-pump, everything. We'll live on the air we have now for a couple of hours." he said quietly. "I want everyone to be silent, now."
"What the plan, Commander?" Chloe whispered from her position a few feet on his right.
Everyone had been expectant to know what was going on in the king's mind ever since one of Rick Flag's teams phoned in to declare they'd found the Martian Manhunter – J'onn J'onnzz alive in the facility. Leaving such a asset on his own wasn't an option but exfiltrating him in his condition took too much time and the Expandable had to sink down and wait in the depths of the ocean close to the island.
To most, it had seemed they had left Flag's men to deal with the fallout on their own but the commander wasn't worried, he hadn't been since that mysterious call he'd received hours earlier the same day.
The man smirked, watching the petite woman who hadn't left Oliver Queen's side since he'd come aboard. "All in due time, Oracle." he replied, almost amused. "I guarantee Luthor won't see that one coming."
May 30th 2012. 07:29 AM UTC-6. Metinic Island, Maine, USA.
Rick Flag had made his troops regroup at the eastern exit of the facility. Location X was quite a walk away from the ocean but the eastern side was the closest and would provide the safest route into the water.
"Eden, where are you now?" he asked to the radio device strapped on his shoulder.
A female voice answered an instant later. "I already see your lights, sir." she replied. "ETA 20 minutes."
"Copy. Hurry."
He looked over the twenty-six men and women under his orders. They were stacked against the inner wall of the facility, hidden in the dark and listening for any movement outside.
"You placed the explosives on the other end?" he asked.
One of the team leaders, a young officer, nodded. "As per your orders, sir. They're set and ready to explode." he said. "I'm guessing we'll have to soon because we were already hearing the military trying to get in half an hour ago."
The doors were well-sealed by the efforts of the Green Arrow, Batman and the inmates but they wouldn't hold forever.
"Do it now." Flag ordered. "We can't afford to have them take an alternative path and we'll have enough time to outrun them."
"Yes, sir." the team leader grabbed a remote and activated the bombs. Faint detonations were heard on the opposite end of the facility, blasting the blocked doors open and giving a free-way in for the soldiers.
Rick Flag wasn't worried about them. The facility was big enough that they'd have to spend at least forty-minutes reaching their position, by that time, the remaining members of the Suicide Squad would be long gone. Besides, the military would have another matter to take care of once it discovered the pitiful condition of the inmates, questions were going to be asked and Luthor would be in trouble with his officers then.
"We're here, sir." Eden's voice caught his attention.
They watched as the team of three carried the heavy J'onn J'onzz on a stretcher out of the dark corridors. Flag moved by the martian's side. "Medic!" he called. "Check him up and make sure he's ready for transport." he ordered before looking up at the officer. "You did good, Eve."
She smiled. "Thank you, sir. What's next now?"
Rick Flag mimicked her expression. "We've got twenty minutes before the leaving call." he said. "You'll see then."
May 30th 2012. 07:30 AM UTC-6. Close to the Metinic Island, Maine, USA.
The Vella Gulf, a military cruiser, was halted at safe distance from the Metinic Island. On board, president Lex Luthor was mulling over a map of the northern Atlantic ocean surrounded by his generals advising him as he watched over the situation of Location X, determined not to let the Suicide Squad escape.
He ran his gloved hand right over the american east coast and circled the position of the Metinic Island. "They disappeared some two miles off the eastern side." he said, pointing to the right of the island on the map and tapped his chin. "Where could they go from there?"
"Well," Colonel Casey spoke up by his side. "if we take into account their oxygen autonomy of 90-days underwater and the relative speed they're going to have to respect if they want to keep their engines safe, which is..." he turned towards a navy captain also bent over the map. "Herald, would you know that characteristic of the Tucson?"
"It should be about 25 knots, Colonel" Herald, turned to the president with a polite smile. "About 30 miles per hour, sir."
"Right," Casey continued, tracing his finger across the ocean towards Europe. "That would make that road safer in the beginning but they would need to come up after some time and risk being spotted, so... improbable." he dismissed the hypothesis. "However, if you take another route towards the south, for instance, they could reach Cuba in a matter of weeks if that was their destination."
Lex shook his head. "I don't see these terrorists being in bed with the Cubans." he put his finger to the starting point and moved up slowly, towards the Canadian coast. "What about this way? To the north?"
"Well..." Casey seemed uncertain. "Why would they try to reach Canada? Their governments has always collaborated with us it would be quite gamble!"
"Which is," Lex interrupted. "probably why they would do it. Remind me, Colonel, what's the status of our naval surveillance in this area?"
Casey rubbed his forehead for a moment until his eyes widened. "Inexistent, sir."
"Exactly." the president grinned. "Where are our closest submarines, Captain?"
The navy officer looked taken aback, a bit fearful of the answer he was going to give. "Mr. President," he gulped. "The closest would be at Gibraltar." he admitted. "You had ordered most of them towards the Middle East and the rest of the float is around the sea of China in the Pacific. None of them are in range."
A gloved hand hit the table. "Send them new orders!" Lex barked. "I want every last one of them on the tail of these terrorists!" His face was reddening even as he felt his anger rising up again. This time it was Casey's turn to face the president. "You call up the Air Force, have them bomb the waters off the Canadian coast over a 100 miles radius-"
Casey stuttered. "B... bomb the...? That's not how it works, Mr. President!"
Luthor glared at him. "Are you discussing my orders?"
"I would dare telling the president..." The colonel swallowed his fear back. "If I may, sir, I'd advise you to send our destroyers to that area, we have plenty of these in station waiting for orders..."
"Do it."
"Sir?"
"Are you deaf, Colonel?" Lex said quietly. "I said: do it."
Casey lost his voice and could only nod as he did his best not to run out of the room, leaving the atmosphere cold behind him as the president ignored the presence of his remaining officers as he grabbed a pair of goggles and stared at Location X.
"What's the status of the second assault, General Damartin?"
Luthor's voice broke a long uncomfortable silence, taking the officers by surprise. Damartin cleared his throat and approached the president by the window. "Well sir, they're progressing slowly." he started anxiously. "We've been receiving a lot of calls reporting the existence of a great deal of unarmed people looking like inmates. To be quite honest, sir, I don't kno-"
"And the hostiles, where are they?" Luthor cut him off.
The general hesitated. "All evidence tends to show there would only be a few still on the site, perhaps even none." he said. "I have to remind you sir that our intel is highly unreliable. Perhaps if we had access-"
"Bring on more cruisers, set up a blockade of the island from all sides." Lex once again ignored his officer's requests. "Have one of them carry a regiment to the eastern coast and send them inside to meet the first team in the middle."
"That's an order that should have come hours ago." Herald mumbled by his spot at the table.
Lex's head whipped around. "I'm sorry, captain?"
"It's nothing sir," he backtracked under the president's dark tone. "I was just saying the tide was turning, the cruisers will have to be careful with their navigation."
"Of course... of course..." he handed his goggles to Damartin and started towards the exit. "Make sure to tell your men I want the undesirables mounted on a boat, Damartin. Send them to the nearest port and contact General Slade Wilson. He'll take it from here."
"The... undesirables, sir?" Damartin asked.
Lex looked over his shoulder, a glint in his eye. "The 'inmates' as you called them." he said with the same amount of underlying danger in his voice, leaving the two officer sharing a glance full of confusion and doubt.
May 30th 2012. 07:50 AM UTC-6. Metinic Island, Maine, USA.
Twenty minutes later, the blockade sealed off the island. From whichever way he looked, Rick Flag could only see military cruisers with the exception of a USS frigate coming their way. He smiled when his radio came to life and a familiar voice called.
"Reaching land in thirty-seconds, Bishop now's time to move your ass!"
A moment later the facility's eastern doors were kicked open and the daylight hit the Suicide Squad agents. "Go! Go! Go!" Flag yelled, prompting his soldiers to run towards the sea. "To the boat, board in, don't ask questions! Don't ask questions!"
May 30th 2012. 07:51 AM UTC-6. Close to the Metinic Island, Maine, USA.
Lex stormed on the front-deck of the Vella Gulf, joining a group of men looking over towards the island. "What's happening?" he shouted, catching General's Damartin attention.
"It's the frigate, sir." Damartin started, he looked almost shell-shocked. "It's not carrying our soldiers, it's taking hostiles aboard!"
The president snatched Captain Herald's goggles from his hands and grit his teeth as he watched the boat in question as it finished letting Suicide Squad agents run on board before turning around, preparing to sail away from the island."
"Goddamn it!" Lex threw the goggles out at sea in anger. "What are you waiting for? Gun it down!"
The frigate was already heading out east at full-speed towards the ocean. "What's it doing?!"
"It makes no sense." Herald breathed. "It's heading into the Atlantic, it's going to hit the blockade!"
"It's a suicide attack?" Damartin exclaimed.
Lex turned towards the sailors on the deck. "Gun it down!" he shouted.
Back towards the island, the couple of destroyers that were taking place at the blockade aimed their canons towards the rogue frigate and started firing. One shell missed the boat by a hair and detonated in the water. A second one hit its target dead center. The boat was torn in two until more missiles started raining down from the sky, finishing off any hope the people inside may have had. It blew up into a picture of warm colors above the dark-blue tone of the waters before the remaining pieces started sinking.
Damartin inspected carefully the wreckage. "No sign of any life"
"You don't find that suspicious?" Lex spat. "Not a soul trying to escape a certain death? That's the stupidest thing I've ever seen."
On the president's other side, captain Herald shook his head. "I don't actually believe there was anyone on that boat, Mr. President."
"Come again?"
"Well..."
"Are you saying they just vanished all of a sudden?"
"They... they might have dived underwater just after getting on the frigate." Herald licked his lips. "The rest might have been a distraction."
Lex fell to his knees, holding his head in his hands as he yelled to the skies. Somewhere, he knew it, in the back of his mind, there was his father laughing at him.
May 30th 2012. 08:02 AM UTC-6. In the waters around Metinic Island, Maine, USA.
The Expandable's crew was waiting for all of the divers to get into the airlock, hoping for a quick pick up before they would be detected. The submarine had, per the king's orders, started rising up from the depths it was hiding into so the divers could reach them, letting themselves be vulnerable in the process.
It was only a matter of time before the enemy's radars found them out. "Come on, come on..." the king muttered, staring at the red light above the airlock's door. Once it turned orange, that would be the signal the outer door had closed and everyone was aboard then they would be able to move.
"Contact!" the radio operator called. "Destroyer moving 7-7-1, incoming ping!"
The king growled. Everything rang around them as a single note engulfed the submarine and emitted a strident ping which would reverberate towards the destroyer and indicate their position. There was a murmur of panic going through the crowd while the king gritted his teeth and waited.
The color changed.
"Now!" he yelled.
The submarine winced, its ballasts started filling up with water to accelerate the ship's process of moving deeper into the waters.
"He's right above us!" the operator spoke again.
"Faster!" the captain ordered just when another sound could be heard from above.
The radar operator looked horrified when he picked up the plunging noise. "Depth charges!"
The king looked at the captain in surprise before he was sent stumbling down, catching a pipe at the last moment as everyone cried out in horror when the explosions shook the entire ship.
"Report status!" the captain called.
"One-thousand feet and going down!" another man replied.
The operator jumped again. "Two more!"
The mix of fear and confusion along with that feeling of helplessness was amongst the worst ones the Black King had ever had the displeasure to feel when the ship shook again, violently setting people off-foot crashing into one another and rattling the metal of the outer structure, letting everyone fear the worst.
If one of the charges burst through the metal...
"We can't die now!" A desperate cry came from Sullivan.
"Get us out of here, damn it!" Queen, who had his arms wrapped up against her as he laid back against the wall, yelled at the captain who was already shouting orders.
At this moment, Rick Flag's people came tumbling out of the airlock in panic. "What's going on?" Agent Bishop demanded.
The Black King pushed himself up. "Grab something and let the professionals ride it out." he said nodding towards the captain and his men.
"Two more!" the operator detected again. This time, the explosions had lost their previous violence and their intensity faded as the hurl of the engines started to let themselves be heard. "They're following us!"
The captain held up a hand and addressed himself to the navigator. "Steady bar, give the propulsor full power and get us deeper."
A sailor turned around on his seat, his eyes wide. "We're already past the thousand feet mark, captain!"
The older man's face gave nothing away. "I know, push it down to the limit."
The crew could sense the discomfort of the captain's men as they executed his orders. Already, on the radar panel, the destroyers on their tails were losing speed but kept their course after them. The Expandable was heading north, towards the cold waters off two hundred miles away from the canadian coast.
"Turn off the engine, and life-support!" the captain ordered all of a sudden. "Steady the depth!"
The reactor went silent, leaving the people's ears buzzing and soon after, the first cracklings could be heard. The Expandable was still going down and the pressure increased, producing the uneasy noises that followed as the metal shrank and adjusted to the water's weight outside.
"Stop! Now!" The captain whispered just as the indicators hit the depth of 1475 feet, the absolute limit of the ship.
They all looked up when a series of sounds started rolling over above their position. The water was being disturbed by propulsion engines on the surface. Some people glanced at the radar operator whose eyes were rived towards his screen as his hand held the audio device on his head. He listened carefully the destroyers moving over a thousand feet above them.
Everyone held their breath.
The noises became stronger and, for a moment, it seemed to be constant. In that unending second, a tense chill became contagious and everyone trembled. Nobody wanted to know the outcome if they were to be detected again. It must have been the instant even the most enthusiastic of the crew members started realizing how small the Expandable truly was.
A formidable war machine stranded in the depths of the Atlantic, hoping the american destroyers wouldn't bomb it to death. Suddenly, the war machine felt more like a floating casket. One little metallic box lost in the vastness of an ocean.
The operator sucked in a breath. "It's fading!" he squeaked.
Indeed it was. The engine noises were going past their position and moving ahead, never once stopping. It seemed they still thought the submarine was moving north. "They're out of range!"
A collective sigh of relief took over the crew. Some of them laughed, a few cried but they were all glad to have survived.
The Black King went up to the captain who was wiping his brow and patted him on the back. "You did good, Francis. You did good."
The cafeteria was a large, well-lit space in the middle of the submarine. People sat at the tables, their plates before them as they chatted, laughed and enjoyed their meals. Hours earlier, they were on the brink of death, now, they were relaxing and letting away the pent-up emotions they'd bottled up from the first second of the operation on Location X.
The life-support system had been reactivated even though the Expandable hadn't moved from his last position. The chances of being detected now that the destroyers had lost their tail, were close to impossible. Even the healthy hubbub of the cafeteria wouldn't help them.
These matters were out of everyone's minds at the moment and especially Chloe and Oliver's as they laughed listening to Slade Wilson tell his version of their escape from Location X. They shared a table with the captain of the ship, the Commander, Wilson and Tess Mercer. Both of whom came aboard with the divers.
"You should've seen Luthor's face when he saw us waving at the window!" Wilson spoke up, excitement filling his tone. "He must've gone bonkers just from witnessing that scene!"
The table laughed as Tess smirked. "Yeah, I think you're going way off-script, sir."
"Ah, forget the formalities, Mercer!" Wilson said before taking a sip of his beer.
"What? You're telling me you didn't actually wave at him through the window?" Oliver grinned.
Chloe nearly strangled herself with her drink and they all laughed again. "Can you imagine the picture?"
"Seriously, though," the captain said. "How did it really go?"
"Bah! You know..." Wilson exclaimed. "Once Mercer saved my ass, we called up Max and he put us up to speed with the situation." he explained. "I wasn't about to be benched so I used my rank to take command of one of the navy's frigates at DC's harbor and we rushed to Metinic Island. We waited there and surfed the radio channels until we heard the call for a boat to approach the facility while transporting troops." he shared a glance with Tess. "We decided to make up the lie and volunteer for the task. You know the rest. Rick and his guys got in, we immediately dived underwater through a hole we made in the cargo and we send the boat gunning towards the ocean to get their eyes away from us."
"That's what I call getting out from under the nose of the enemy, right Slade?" The Black King – Maxwell Lord nodded in the other man's direction.
Wilson smirked. "We got them good on that one."
"Well I say..." Maxwell rose from his seat, glass in hand. "It calls for some more beer! Listen up everyone!" he called over the noise, catching everyone's attention. "The last forty-eight hours have been hellish for all of us, I know. At times we came so close to lose everything but we held on! We can all say we've been to hell and back, together, all of us."
Chloe felt Oliver slipping his hand in hers. She gave him a light squeeze as Lord continued his speech.
"We've managed to do that without leaving anyone behind. A little thought to Izzy who's recovery at the infirmary but the bright side is that we lost no one and that, as your Commander, couldn't make me prouder. So..." he rose his glass as a toast. "I thank you people, for your courage, I thank the Justice League," he turned to Chloe and Oliver the only two members of the organization in the room as Bruce – who refused to take off his mask – was watching over J'onn, Dinah and Victor by Izzy's side.
"for helping us take down that scum of Lex Luthor, and I finally, I thank the captain for doing a damn good job at saving us all by the skin of our asses!" The room exploded in a wave of laughter. The king himself, grinned from ear to ear and toasted them. "Salute!" he shouted.
Everyone imitated him. "Salute!" A collective gulp followed as everyone emptied their glasses.
"Come on, chief!" The king shouted. "Let's get these glasses filled up to the brim, that round's on me!"
People whistled and cheered. "Best commander in the entire fucking world!" an agent claimed, prompting his peers to whoop their approval as the King bent over in salutation.
At that precise moment, Chloe could say as she leaned into Oliver that it was the first time in months that she'd felt so happy and light.
Bruce was fast asleep when the couple showed up at the infirmary. He was sat on a chair by the door's side, his arms crossed over his chest and face looking down. He had taken off his cape, the piece of tissue folded and neatly put on a desk but the man had kept his mask on, unwilling to reveal his identity. Chloe and Oliver couldn't blame him. They might be sharing a submarine with allies but trust wasn't entirely established between the League and the Squad.
Though he did look funny, being the only man on board to be wearing a mask.
The Batman, however, may have aged but he remained a light sleeper and woke up when his friends appeared in the doorway. "Meal was good?" he yawned.
Oliver smiled. "You missed something back there buddy, I tell you."
"I'll stop by when everyone's off to their rooms." he replied, purposely avoiding the meaning of Oliver's words.
That had Chloe smirking before she glanced at their bed-ridden friends set further into the room. Izzy, the squad's injured scout, seemed to be recovering well and had asked to be moved to her own room. The ship's doctor, a long-time military officer, wasn't a man to linger by his patients' side. He did his job well and that was it.
He had no doubt the woman would recover to fight again by her peers' side. The man was more concerned about the League's people and Bruce shared his opinion.
"How are they?" Chloe asked, nodding towards the beds.
Bruce sighed and rose to his feet, approaching Dinah's side. "She's still fighting off the drugs she has been given." he said. "she should wake up in the next ten hours or so."
"What about her voice?" Oliver asked.
"The doc doesn't know," Bruce admitted. "She's going to need a scan and there's no such equipment on board. The good news is that she should be physically well. The psychological side, however..."
Chloe pursed her lips. "There's no telling what they'd put her through." she finished for him.
Oliver put his arm around her shoulder, pulling her closer. "We'll help her get better. We'll help all three of them." he promised.
"Yes, well..." Bruce chimed in. "I'm glad you're there because nobody knows what to do with that one," he pointed towards Victor's still form. The cyborg's eyes were open, staring off in the distance but there was no glint in them. They looked, for lack of a better word, dead.
Chloe touched Victor's arm and waved a hand over his face. "He needs to be at Watchtower when we get back. I suspect he might be on power-saving mode. He won't wake up until we change his batteries and check him up, his systems may have been damaged in the fight."
Oliver looked away. "I didn't want to, trust me."
"You have nothing to be ashamed off, Ollie." she smiled. "He'll be alright."
He nodded and pointed to J'onn. "What about him?" he changed the topic. "I heard he's a bit of a miracle."
Bruce grunted. "The martian's even worse." he said. "The doctor won't touch him, he has no idea what to do on his alien immune system and I think he's afraid he might harm him if he tries to do something."
"J'onn is a fighter. He'll pull through." Chloe was confident the manhunter would find the strength to get back to the land of the living. "If he doesn't, I'm sure he'll be happy to finally be reunited with his family. Whatever the outcome, he'll be okay."
"At least they're here." Oliver's hold on her tightened and she rubbed his arm.
"Yeah. I'm actually more worried about Arthur." she admitted. "He likely wasn't at the facility and I'm afraid Lex might act his revenge on him."
"We'll find him." Bruce assured them. "I promised to be there until you find all your friends and they're safe, I'm not going anywhere until that's done."
Chloe smiled. "That's sweet but I sincerely hope you're not going to bail on us when we find AC." she went to hug him.
A small laugh escaped Bruce. "I'll always be around if you need me." he promised. "After all you kids will end up making mistakes again you'll need my experience to fix them."
Oliver snorted, pulling Chloe towards him. "Get back to bed, Grandpa." he smirked, making the three of them chuckle.
"Well that's a good idea, it is late anyway." Bruce humored him.
"Yup, I'm pretty beat." Chloe yawned.
"Come on, you." Oliver dragged her towards the door, waving at his friend. "'Night Batman." he winked.
"Sleep well!" Chloe said from the corridor.
"Get some rest, you two."
At night, once everyone was in their rooms and the noises of daily life aboard the ship stopped, one could realize a submarine wasn't ever entirely silent. There was the constant and faint hush of the life-support system extracting the oxygen from the oceanic waters, the humming of the nuclear reactor powering the entire ship that could be heard even in the Expandable's nose if you strained your ear.
And then there were the external factors. A colony of fishes swimming around the submarine, a whale singing nearby, hunters tracking down their preys... No, life aboard the Expandable wasn't ever silent.
The crew had to make do with what they had. They were used to it after living in the ship for months. The new additions however, hadn't even needed an adaptation period. So exhausted were they that they fell asleep the second they laid down.
Oliver had complained about the small size of their cabin and the presence of only single beds. Chloe had rolled her eyes and found a solution. They had pulled the two mattresses out of the beds and spread them on the ground side by side, covering every inch of free space so they could lie on it.
After the demanding experience of Location X, they were set for a long dreamless sleep. For however long they were to be caught in their healing rest, the outside world was going be ignored. There, in the depths of the Atlantic ocean, they were invisible.
The alarm roared up, snatching them from their sleep and waking up the entire ship to a blaring tune that could only mean trouble. Chloe and Oliver met the King and his officers on the way, they all arrived in the control room in time to see the radar operator looking up from his screen, a terrified expression on his face.
"Torpedo!"