Kyra eventually stopped looking out the windows at the burning skyscrapers and the vast pillars of smoke rising into the air.
Instead, she found her gaze drawn back inboard, towards the happy couple. They'd made it, but she knew this was just a temporary reprieve. Still though, there was something vaguely...hopeful, about seeing Jack and Jennifer together. Given the way they felt about each other, their confidence and skill-set, all they'd done, and no doubt all they would do in the days that would follow...they were a power couple if she'd ever seen one. She wondered if she'd ever find someone she could love, someone she could trust, truly and wholly.
It didn't seem likely.
The transport shifted suddenly, and Kyra felt something inside of her shift. That thing in her that she could only relax, never turn off. Survival instinct, gut feeling, intuition, everyone had a name for it. It was the thing that had kept her alive on the moons of Jupiter, through Hell, and on Earth so far. But it took its toll, she paid a price for her own continued survival. Many, if she was being honest. In general, though, she was glad to pay them, because the gifts it bestowed, gifts that she would now be able to put to full, indiscriminate use, allowed her to do great things. Help people, save people, remove darkness from the universe.
Some people added light.
She removed darkness.
Anderson had been talking with someone quietly over his radio for the past five minutes, glancing occasionally at herself, Jack, and Jennifer. She'd heard their names more than once. Good. He was almost certainly reporting to someone higher up the food chain, someone they could spill all this data to. Kyra stiffened slightly as she felt the landing gear begin to slide into place. Statistically speaking, take-offs and landings were the most dangerous parts of any rides. But they settled onto a hard, flat surface and as the back ramp began to lower again, it wasn't the dismal, dizzying sound of combat she heard, but the familiar, comforting sound of a military base running on high alert she'd heard so many times over the course of her life.
"Morgan, Ward, Taylor, with me. Everyone else, grab showers and chow while you still can!" Anderson said as he got to his feet.
Jack and Jennifer glanced at her, and she just shrugged.
They all got up and followed Anderson down the back ramp, walking briskly into the controlled chaos that was Fort Minor. Dozens of men and women in uniform, and armor, came and went, jogging across landing pads, loading and unloading crates and bodybags and other things. Guns, mostly. Lots and lots and lots of guns.
They paused very briefly as Anderson called over a few Marines, and offloaded the ammo-packed backpacks they'd been carrying, then they pressed on.
They were quickly swallowed up by the base, stepping in through one huge hangar door after crossing the landing pads. The hangar was a chaotic proliferation of work: Marines shifting more crates, Marines receiving their orders, Marines coming and going, launching into the meat grinder. Where they were going to be soon, surely. They left the hangars and plunged into a network of brightly lit, chromed corridors, sticking to one side to allow the human traffic to flow past them. The walked for several more minutes in silence, the traffic thinning out until they were the only ones walking through the corridors.
Anderson stopped suddenly before one of the doors. He opened it up. "You three need to go inside for a debriefing. After that, track me down. We've got big, big plans."
"Understood," Jack replied.
"Take your time though, and be as thorough as possible," Anderson said, then struck off once more, hewing a path to his next destination.
Kyra looked into the room beyond. There was a big screen mounted on the wall, and three chairs set before it.
There was a man on the screen.
He grinned savagely as they came in. "My three Marines!" he boomed, his voice coming out of speakers mounted on the wall. "Please, come in, have a seat. We need to talk."
Kyra studied him as they walked in and shut the door behind them. They each took a seat. The man wore green armor and it wasn't just for show. There were scorch marks, bullet holes, and blood splatters, and his arms were visible as part of the armor was missing apparently. He was pretty damn built, practically a pillar of musculature, six foot four and the kind of bulky that came from a lifetime of pumping iron with intention. He had a curious haircut of darkish red hair, cropped close to his skull, that she could only see how curious it was when he glanced off-screen briefly. It had a very weird pattern to it, as it had rounded grooves cut into it at slanted upwards angles.
"I'll cut to the quick," he said, his voice was pretty gravelly and he looked well into middle age. "I'm General Flynn Taggart. As of right now, at this point...I'm basically the man running the show." He sighed and reached into his front pocket. Extracting a cigar, he reached down and pulled a battered Zippo lighter from his hip pocket. "Not exactly the job I really felt like having, but President Romero felt I could do it better than anyone else who isn't KIA or MIA right now. Now..." Taggart sat down heavily in a chair and stared into the camera. "I've heard tell that the three of you have just dropped in from orbit and you've been to Hell...and back. I want you to tell me everything. Absolutely everything."
Kyra glanced at Jack and Jennifer.
Jack cleared his throat.
"Well...Jennifer and I were exiled to Mars when our glorious government decided to flush us down the fucking UAC toilet, to start with."
Taggart grunted. "Too much of that shit going around. Continue."
"It all started with a distress call from Phobos..."
They told him. Everything. And this time around they took a good long while with their explanations. Taggart had a lot of questions, good questions. Excellent questions, actually. Kyra was just more impressed than ever hearing a less truncated version of events from them. When it came her time to tell, she spelled it out as much as they had. They were probably in that room for at least a solid three hours.
"Well...I'll be goddamned. That's the most impressive pair of tales I've heard in my whole life. And I've made a point of collecting those," Taggart said when they were finished.
"So you believe us?" Jack asked.
"I had a chance to glance over your records when I heard about this. Between that and my gut, as far as I'm concerned, your word is gospel. Now...Ward, Taylor, you two are going to be part of the main event that's brewing at Fort Minor this very moment. Track down Lieutenant Anderson and he'll fill you in. Staff Sergeant Morgan, I need to speak with you for a special assignment. You likely won't see each other for...awhile, at least. Maybe forever, depending on how all this shit plays out. Say your goodbyes now. You've got two minutes."
He made a sharp gesture off screen and the feed suddenly cut.
"Well...shit," Kyra muttered, looking over at them. They all stood. "Uh...I guess this is goodbye."
"For now, at least," Jack said. He offered his hand. "Whatever they got you doing, good luck. And if we all make it out alive, get in touch."
She shook his hand, and Jennifer's. "Oh believe me, I will. You two are way too good in bed to just ignore," she replied, making them both laugh. "Good luck to you, too. Kick ass out there."
"We will."
They lingered for a few seconds longer, as there seemed to be more to say, but none of them spoke. In the end, they just nodded tightly to each other, and then Jack and Jennifer walked out of the room. They closed the door behind them.
A few seconds later, the screen turned back on.
"Staff Sergeant," Taggart said.
She turned back towards the screen. "General."
"I've got a special assignment for you. It's, well, from what I'm hearing, vitally important. You'll receive a full briefing shortly, but here's what I've got for you right now: we received a Tier One level distress call on a secure channel from a UAC facility in Antarctica."
She snorted. Taggart chuckled. "Yeah, I feel you. But the man who sent the message, I trust him. The message indicated that they had something vitally crucial to helping defeat the demonic forces, and requested a team immediately. No contact has been made since receiving that transmission, and the facility has gone dark. Given the state of the world, and how crucial this is, I obviously want one of the best leading a team down there."
"Can't say I'm one of those, but I'll do it," she replied.
He grinned. "A lady after my own heart. Go scare some Private into taking you to Hangar Seventeen B. You'll find a team there prepping and a proper intelligence briefing. You'll be in Antarctica within the next six hours."
"Great," she muttered.
"Yeah, wish I could send you somewhere better. I think we'll all be clocking some hardcore R and R over the next few weeks." He stubbed his cigar out on one boot and then stood up. "Good luck out there, Staff Sergeant."
"You too, General," she replied.
"I've gotta get back to work."
The feed was cut. Kyra turned around and marched out of the room.
So did she.
It took five minutes to track down Anderson.
He and most of the Marines that had initially been with his squad when they'd first found him were in an armory, gearing up. Jack was deeply unhappy to see that the armory was almost totally depleted, and he only grew unhappier when Anderson waved him over and told him he and Jennifer had to throw their weapons and ammo, all of it, onto the central table.
"Sorry, but we need proper distribution," Anderson said.
"Yeah," Jack muttered, laying down his Raptor, shotgun, pistol, and all his remaining ammo. He'd burned through a lot of it making it to Fort Minor, but still, it sucked. They spent a moment sorting it all out, and then Anderson looked reluctantly around the armory at the others.
"Ladies, gentlemen...I'm afraid I need a volunteer," he said.
"For what?" one of the Marines, a Latino man whose nameplate read PFC CORTEZ, A., asked.
"Someone's going to need to go in with just a pistol. There's not enough for all of us," Anderson replied.
Jack sighed. "I'll do it. I volunteer."
Anderson looked at him evenly. "You sure? You don't even know where we're going yet."
"Does it matter? There's gonna be a shitload of demons," Jack replied, picking up one of the DX-12 sidearms laid out on the table and beginning to check it over.
"Fair point. All right then. Let's listen up. Everyone in this room now makes up November Squadron. We're one of a dozen squads of Marines being sent to Haydenfield Starport. The evacuation of planet Earth has begun, and starports like Hayden are, obviously, crucial to the plan. The evacuation was underway, going smoothly, until a massive force of demons mounted an assault. We're talking thousands. In little over an hour, all communications out of Haydenfield ceased. The military managed to scrape together a few teams to go in, but they never reported back. We're assuming they're dead. Two hours ago, a massive shield wall of some kind, what they're calling the Firewall, suddenly erected around the entire port, covering all of it and the open space around it for up to a quarter mile, effectively making it almost impossible to get in, or out. We have no idea what kind of technology it is. We've never seen anything like it."
A few of the Marines in the squad muttered darkly to each other, and Jack didn't blame them. This was news to him. He knew they were grafting metal and guns to themselves, but a goddamned force field? Where had that come from?
"Schematics of Haydenfield indicated close to a hundred points of access still on our side of the Firewall, all of them subterranean. Mostly maintenance tunnels, sewage passageways, even a few old caves they were in the process of converting into underground storage areas. The point is, we have a way inside. So our dozen squads get to be part of Operation Liberation." Here, Anderson hesitated, and Jack knew that couldn't be good.
He looked around at them slowly.
"Unfortunately, this is about as makeshift a plan as I've ever been involved in. We have very little intelligence. We're going to infiltrate Haydenfield and split up. Given the sheer unknown nature of the tunnels and passageways down there, it's been determined that we need to hit as many of them as possible, which means going in by ourselves. We'll all be alone as we infiltrate. The idea is to reunite with any friendly forces and do as much damage as possible, with the ultimate goal being to find and disable the controls to the Firewall."
"That's it?" Hollenshead asked, incredulous.
"Not exactly," Anderson replied. "We'll all be getting holographic maps of Haydenfield, but based on Ward's, Taylor's, and Morgan's testimonies, we have no idea how the demons might warp or alter the interior of the starport. Use the maps, but be prepared to improvise. We also have obvious other goals. Communications will be key. We have no idea if we'll even be able to communicate with each other, let alone the outside. So that will be on the list. Civilians, too. There were...thousands upon thousands of civilians in there. I can't imagine most of them are still alive, but they can't all be dead. We'll also be looking to establish some beachheads in there, some outposts. Security centers will be obviously ideal areas for this, but all of you will be trusted to use your own judgment in the field. So, again ideally, we'll reconnect and establish several outposts of our own, tap into the security grid, rescue civilians and get them to these outposts, and figure out where the dark heart of this demonic infestation is so we can cut it out and eat it."
"Fuck yeah!" Hollenshead yelled, and several others yelled with him.
"I'm not going to lie to you. There's almost certainly going to be a lot of casualties. I know you're all tired, and you've been through a lot, but this is the fight of our lives. We've trained for this. I know-" he hesitated, looked around at them, "I know we've all had a lot of questions over the course of our careers. Are we doing the right thing? Are we just dogs, fighting for the highest bidder? Slaves to our corporate overlords, or the lying sacks of shit in Congress?" He grinned suddenly, savagely. "We don't have to worry about that anymore, do we? We've got honest-to-fucking-God demons to kill. We don't even have a budget anymore. There's not going to be any meetings about this, no moral dilemmas, no hesitating politicians, no questionable orders. No. No more. Now, there really is just us and them. It's blood for blood now, and by the fucking gallon. So we're going out there, and we're shooting every last one of those fucking monsters right in the skull. No hesitation. No doubt. No fear. We're gonna slaughter every last one of those motherfuckers! Can I get a 'hell yes'?!"
"Hell yes!" all of them screamed.
"All right, Marines. Finish getting your gear together. Wheels up in ten."
The time had come again to fight like hell.