A/N: In response to a reviewer question: elements from fan-made mods like Rise of the Reds will not feature in this story, as the author has not played them. Echo Nine mainly draws from Red Alert 1 and 2, Generals, Tiberian Dawn and Renegade, as well as their affiliated expansions. Thank you for reading and reviewing!
The Defense
In the modern world, great leaders resolve their conflicts with words.
-First line of UN General Assembly Resolution (49/233) condemning the invasions of Aldastan and Kazakhstan
November 3rd, 1995 - Bishkek, Liberated Aldastan (former Kyrgyzstan) - 0745 hours
The Rangers got moving the instant Colonel Burton finished giving his orders to defend the building. They worked fast and as a team, overturning tables and clearing away bodies and setting up firing positions while King radioed Bravo Squad to fall back. Every second they worked, the sound of gunfire got louder outside.
"Corporal Westbrook, get upstairs with Collins and dig in on the roof," Burton said to his grenadier, who nodded crisply and turned away, followed by the automatic rifleman. "Lopez, cover me. I'm stepping outside."
Burton waited for the pop-pop-pop of Bravo Squad's smoke grenades to fill the air outside with billowing white clouds. Screened by the smoke, Bravo's fireteams peeled away from their engagements and slipped inside under covering fire from Alpha, just like the Colonel had trained them. The intersection fell silent for a moment, hushed by the clouds like a foggy early morning.
"I got you, sir," Private Lopez whispered as he slowly poked his rifle out the Market's side door, sweeping it over the street. "All clear."
Burton slipped outside, moving fast and low. Bullets whined and snapped above his head, gouging into the dirt of the street. The GLA were firing into the smoke from across the intersection, and his Rangers were giving him cover from within the building. The far-off crack of a 'Pierce' sniper rifle told Burton that Overwatch was still at work, picking off enemies from their position in the abandoned communications tower to the West. A tattered green-clad body was slumped over the toppled garbage can in front of the building. Burton carefully moved it aside.
"I know just what you need," Burton murmured as he reached into the garbage can.
He was back inside within sixty seconds. While he'd been gone, the Americans had finished turning the Black Market into a fortress. King's fireteam had been reinforced by the eight Rangers of Sergeant Sharp's Bravo Squad, and they had put a barricade at every entry point and a gun at every window, with spare ammo and supplies stacked neatly near their firing positions. The Rangers had equipped thermal scopes on their rifles and were shooting into the smoke, calling out 'tango down' as they steadily dropped enemies across the street.
Sergeant Sharp, square-jawed, barrel-chested and blue-eyed, saluted Burton smartly as he crouched behind an upended table in the central tea room.
"Sir. My people are in position. No casualties so far. We'll hold until relieved, as ordered."
"Roger that, Sergeant." Burton nodded to him. "I'm headed upstairs. King, you good?"
King was busy firing out the front window. "We're solid down here," he yelled over his chattering rifle, the muzzle flash glinting off his silvered shades. "You gotta call Overwatch though!"
From upstairs, Burton could hear Westbrook shouting orders in his Texan drawl, directing Fireteam One's fire above. Lopez darted upstairs to join them, with the Colonel behind him. He took the stairs two at a time, one hand on his weapon and the other on his radio.
"Achilles Six to Overwatch. Report at once, over."
"Overwatch One to Achilles Six. Colonel, we've wilco'd orders from Achilles Five and are engaging priority targets comin' at your position. Looks like the whole city's trying to kill you. Gives a whole new meaning to calling it the 'target building,' over."
"Solid copy Overwatch, but lose the commentary. Interrogative: is your position secure? Over."
"All good for now. Looks like Gladys hasn't found us yet. You're the center of everyone's attention, Colonel- blushing yet?" Parker kept talking before Burton could reprimand him. "We've also glassed three enemy mobile triple-A units in our vicinity. Requesting permission to engage, over."
Burton halted, almost to the top of the stairs, and frowned at his radio. "Overwatch, repeat your last. You want to attack enemy armour with sniper rifles? Over."
"Negative, Achilles. I'll go mobile, infiltrate through enemy positions, scavenge up some explosives, and neutralize the triple-A so you can start exfil. Overwatch Two will hold position and maintain sniper support. Just let me off the leash Colonel, and I'll clear the skies for the flyboys to get your team home. Over."
Burton stared at his radio for a moment. Then he spoke loudly and slowly, making sure that Parker couldn't miss a word he said.
"Overwatch One, absolutely not, repeat, that is a hard negative. You are ordered to continue providing overwatch to Achilles Team while we hold this position until relieved. Stay put and stick to the plan. That is a direct order. Six out."
He cut the transmission before Parker could argue, shaking his head at the young Marine's 'one man army' fantasies. Then Colonel Burton loped up the last few stairs and emerged onto the rooftop patio of the tea house.
Bullets whined and snapped around him, chipping into the wall next to his head, and an RPG whooshed past the tower, leaving behind a serpentine trail of white vapour. He could hear shouted orders and battle cries in Arabic from down below, suggesting that foreign fighters were leading the assault. Bravo Squad's smoke was thinning to a haze, and the GLA were pushing hard on the Americans' position.
Westbrook had things nicely squared-away. Thick wooden tables had been overturned and leaned against the balcony's solid stone railing as makeshift parapets. The M249 SAW was set up facing south, blazing away with suppressive fire under Collins' steady hand.
Lopez and his rifle were covering the west, alongside Westbrook himself. Both men were firing steadily. The long, lethal tube of a 'Missile Defender' shoulder-launched anti-armour system was stowed behind the parapet amongst piles of spare ammunition, medical supplies and water, all within easy reach.
Burton moved low across the patio until he could clap Westbrook on the shoulder and scream into his ear, making himself heard over the roar of battle and the Corporal's ear protection.
"Good work!" He pointed across the street, where machine gun fire was blazing from the windows of opposing homes. "Grenade those windows!"
"Yes sir, cleaning house!"
Westbrook scooted over for the Colonel to kneel on the firing line, and carefully raised his rifle to the proper angle. The underslung grenade launcher thumped as it neatly dropped a 40 mm grenade into one of the windows across the street. The window vomited smoke and debris into the intersection as the grenade obliterated its insides, along with the enemy machine gunner. Westbrook immediately reloaded and targeted the next house.
Burton spotted two gas-masked men carrying toxin sprayers approaching the building from further down the street, crouching and moving along a wall. He sighted through his rifle's scope and fired twice, recoil drumming its familiar beat into his shoulder. They fell, and Burton lowered his weapon to scream at Private Lopez.
"Reposition south side! Back up Collins!"
"Yes sir, repositioning south!" Lopez screamed back, slamming a fresh magazine into his rifle. "Be real fuckin' nice to have a fuckin' Chronosphere right now, wouldn't it?"
"No chatter! Now move!"
Burton could and had written entire papers on the Allies' secretive, uncooperative non-use of their magical war-winning teleportation superweapon. A firefight wasn't the time.
Lopez moved, staying low and behind cover like Burton had trained him. Westbrook's launcher thumped again and again, and more windows exploded across the way. A suicide bomber charged into the intersection, clutching a detonator to his heart. Burton gunned him down, touching off the man's bomb vest in a burst of fire and flesh, tainted with green vapour curling skyward. Chemicals.
"Achilles Five to Achilles Six. We're holding down here, but have eyes on enemy chemical weapons. We're masking up, recommend you do the same up there, over."
"Solid copy, King. Maintain position. Six out." Burton tugged his gas mask back on, and signaled the rest of Fireteam One to follow suit. Then he kept shooting, rattling off a string of three-round bursts, prioritizing enemies with RPG launchers, LMGs, and other heavy weaponry.
More and more GLA fighters were encircling the their position. Most wore the rag-tag green uniforms of local militias, but others were in civilian clothes, ordinary people brandishing rusty AKs and fresh Molotov cocktails, moving and fighting like raw amateurs. Flames licked around the Black Market as fiery bottles crashed against its walls. Smoke and sparks burst among the civilians as King's forces tried to scatter them with flash-bang grenades, the sharp detonations echoing from nearby walls.
Burton swore to himself. Parker hadn't dispersed the angry crowd as ordered.
The Colonel aimed and fired, aimed and fired, reloaded, aimed and fired. He was killing GLA as fast as he could sight them, which meant that it was Westbrook who first spotted the next threat.
"Contact 12 o' clock! Enemy armour - one Quad, two Technicals!"
Burton saw them, rumbling through the haze of battle with their weapons blazing, blanketing the building with a rapid-fire hail of bullets and shells. Enemy infantry waved their weapons as the vehicles passed, cheering them on. Burton gritted his teeth, then turned to Westbrook again.
"Nail the Quad! I've got the Technicals!"
"Engaging armour, copy sir!" Westbrook yelled as he reached backwards, hoisted the 'Missile Defender' to his shoulder and rose to a firing position. "Enabling laser sights!"
Burton glanced over his shoulder. "Backblast clear!"
"Rocket!"
Westbrook fired. The launcher bucked on his shoulder. At this range, with the Quad rolling right at them, it was almost impossible to miss. And Westbrook was a surgeon with the Missile Defender.
The armour-piercing projectile struck dead-center on the ammunition box of the quad-barreled turret. The Quad exploded with a thunderous flash and a flurry of razor shrapnel, blasting apart the vehicle and flipping over the nearest Technical like litter in a storm.
The other Technical came onwards, pushing right into the intersection, rusted armour sparking from bullet impacts, spitting close-range gunfire at the defenders as it knocked aside the fallen garbage can in the street. Burton could see it was crammed with enemy personnel riding in back, including more toxin sprayers.
Burton screamed into his radio. "King, get down! Ordnance, danger-close!"
King's acknowledgement crackled in his ear as Burton grabbed the remote detonator from his belt, and pressed his thumb twice onto the activation button for the remote demolition charge he'd planted in the garbage can.
A fireball rose above the intersection, preceded by a hot, rushing wind filled with razor shrapnel, drowning out all other noise. Burton ducked as shattered bits of metal and concrete rained down around him. Something clumped down between him and Westbrook, and he looked to see a smoking green boot lying there, a charred foot still inside.
A ringing hush settled over the embattled Black Market alongside the debris from the explosion. The shooting paused. Lopez and Collins whooped with joy from the other side of the patio. Westbrook joined in.
"Out-standing, sir!" He grinned. "Out-fucking-standi-"
The sniper's bullet took Corporal Westbrook in his left shoulder, destroying the joint in a spray of blood. Westbrook screamed and dropped, clutching his wound, face pale from pain. Burton hit the ground beside him, yelling over the gunshot's echo.
"Sniper! Man down!"
It was no flesh wound, Burton could see that at a glance. The sniper had destroyed the delicate assembly of bone and tendon joining Westbrook's arm to his torso, turning it into red mangled meat. The Corporal bit his lip hard enough to draw blood, trying not to pass out from the pain.
"Lopez! Get pressure on that wound and get him downstairs!" Burton roared.
The young rifleman crab-crawled to Westbrook, moving as fast as he dared while not letting an inch of his helmet peek above cover. "Holy shit," he hissed, seeing the wound. "Jesus fuck."
Burton shook him with his free hand. "Move, Private!"
Lopez moved, ripping open his first-aid kit and flinging antiseptic and gauze at the wound with trembling fingers. Then he hooked the Corporal under his shoulders to drag him. Westbrook moaned deeply. His eyes rolled up in his head and he went limp as the two of them vanished downstairs.
Jarmen Kell - if it was Kell behind that scope, and Burton suspected it was - had taken two soldiers out of combat with one bullet. He'd silenced their machine gunner too, with Collins lying flat on the ground instead of firing his SAW.
Another rifle shot rang out, breaking through the tumult of the firefight resuming around them. Two more followed. The sniper was shooting King's men on the ground floor, picking them off through the windows. The sniper's one rifle was achieving what hundreds of GLA had failed to do, silencing Achilles Team's defense.
"Achilles Five to all call signs, I have men down, repeat, three men down. Does anyone have eyes on the sniper, over?"
Burton didn't. But he knew who could. He got on the radio.
"Achilles Six to Overwatch One, order IMMEDIATE counter-sniper support to our South, over."
No answer. Burton realized he hadn't heard any shots from Overwatch's Pierce rifle recently.
"Achilles Six to Overwatch One, respond immediately. Come in, over."
A pained, raspy groan floated from the radio, so faint that Burton strained to hear it over the battle.
"Colonel. Overwatch Two here." Another groan. Private Diaz's voice was higher and thinner than Parker's. "Sniper got me… I'm hit bad. Uh, over."
Something rolled over in Burton's gut. From below, a new series of pop-pop-pops announced that King's downstairs Rangers were tossing out a fresh round of smoke grenades, raising a new cloud of concealment over their position to screen the sniper's fire. Smart, the tactical, analytical part of Burton noted distantly. GLA usually doesn't have thermal scopes. Usually.
"Diaz, where the hell is Overwatch One? Over."
A long pause. Then: "Uh, Overwatch One went mobile a couple mikes ago. Went after… enemy triple-A. Fuck, it hurts! Said to tell you he's got a comms malfunction…"
Burton closed his eyes, leaned his head against the parapet, and took a deep breath. This was it. Abandoning his post, disobeying direct orders in the middle of a shit-storm. Parker was done. Whether through a court-martial or Burton killing him with his own hands, Parker was done.
Parker was for later. Here and now, ranting and screaming wouldn't get his team home alive. Only focusing on the mission would do that.
"Copy, Overwatch. Sit tight, routing Dustoff to you ASAP. Six out."
There was nothing else he could do, except hope that General Townes had suppressed enemy anti-air to the point that CASEVAC choppers could get Diaz out of the comms tower alive. Burton had to focus on the sixteen other American lives under his command right now.
Their position was now fully shrouded in white smoke once more. Burton couldn't hear any more sniper fire. He motioned for Collins to stay down. Then he slowly poked his head above the table-turned-parapet and carefully scanned the area with his rifle's thermal scope, deeply missing the safe aerial surveillance the drone feed had provided him.
Jet engines were roaring overhead again, overlapping with the hateful sewing machine sound of firing Quad Cannons, punctuated by thunderous explosions. The Air Force had regrouped and was hitting back against the GLA, hopefully opening up enough airspace to evac Diaz. But whatever air power was making it through, it wasn't enough to take pressure off Achilles Team.
The enemy was everywhere, having closed in while their sniper suppressed defensive fire. The target building was completely surrounded now, taking fire from every angle, every building and every scrap of cover. The blazing hulks of the vehicles destroyed by Burton's team were being used as new firing positions for more GLA.
The whistle of incoming ordnance above his head told Burton that the situation had become even worse. He looked up and had a moment to bitterly regret his lack of ground-based Point-Defense Lasers. The next moment, a hail of armour-piercing rockets fell upon the target building.
Burton threw himself flat and covered his head. All sound left his world except the trembling roar of overlapping explosions, and the thin sound of Collins screaming somewhere behind him. Green vapour burst across his vision, swirling and oozing over their position. The rockets were tipped with poison.
Then Burton felt the teahouse patio move beneath him, lurching downwards a few degrees, and heard concrete cracking and crumbling around him. The rockets had knocked the Black Market's central tower askew, and the roof was collapsing underneath him.
Colonel Burton scrambled to his feet, his ears ringing, and saw Collins lying on the patio deck, bleeding from his right side and clutching the shattered visor of his gas mask, coughing and choking as gas seeped into his throat. The Colonel hauled him up and over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. He lunged for the stairs, suddenly running uphill as the angle of the drooping patio became more and more severe, and crossed the threshold just as he felt the floor fall out from beneath his feet.
The patio rumbled behind him as it toppled into the street. With it went the rest of Fireteam One's spare weapons, water, medical supplies, and ammunition.
Burton half-stumbled, half-fell down the rest of the stairs to the ground floor, carrying Collins. The central tea room downstairs was a different world from the disciplined, organized fighting position he'd left behind minutes ago. The air was choked with gunsmoke, concrete dust, and chemical vapours. The floor was strewn with spent bullet casings and chunks of collapsing ceiling where it wasn't filling up with wounded.
Four out of sixteen Rangers were out of action - five, after Burton laid Collins down among them. Hendricks, Bravo Squad's deeply tanned, round-faced medic, was holding a bag of plasma over Westbrook. The Corporal was unconscious, but the men next to him were not: Randall was sobbing, Alavi was moaning, and Sergeant Sharp was screaming into his hand. All three had been wounded in a limb, the sniper aiming to disable rather than kill outright.
Definitely Kell's work, Burton thought, grimacing.
The Colonel counted the tactical toll: a Sergeant, two grenadiers and two automatic riflemen out of the fight. A solid chunk of Achilles Team's firepower was bleeding on the dusty floor instead of defending a position that was now surrounded and literally collapsing around them. The Americans still had riflemen firing from every window, but that wouldn't be enough to hold for much longer.
"Contact, enemy armour, my twelve o' clock, end of the street!" Screamed Lopez, still up and shooting from one of the front windows. Bullets smacked into the windowsill in front of his face, but he didn't seem to notice. "Two, check, three vehicles, looks like junked-up tractors or some shit! They're closing!"
Burton clenched his jaw. He knew these tractors. They would be decked with slabs of improvised armour, protecting the pumps and coils of piping connecting chemical tanks to the nozzles and vents that sprayed poison on the GLA's enemies.
The Toxin Tractors would roll up to the building while the sniper and other attackers kept Achilles Team suppressed. They would hose the Americans with toxins powerful enough to overwhelm any MOPP gear, spraying the interior of the building with acid and poison. And then Bruce Burton would die screaming as he watched his team melt in front of him.
Burton's eyes found King, still up and firing from his own window. His second-in-command looked at him from behind his silvered shades, and just shook his head. Nothing else needed to be said.
"Lopez, stop shooting and get on the radio."
"Sir?" Lopez turned to stare at Burton and the bloody ledger he was holding out.
"Contact Pinpoint and start transmitting all the intel we found in here. This info needs to get to the Strat Center, no matter what."
Lopez stared at the ledger, stared at Burton, then swallowed. "But we're gettin' out of here, right? I mean… fucking come on! Sir."
"Just do it, Private." Burton pinned Lopez's dark eyes with his steady gaze. "Stay focused and get it done."
Burton turned away from Lopez before the kid could waste any more time. He got on the radio to the Command Centre.
"Achilles Six to Pinpoint, IMMEDIATE. Urgently request support, we are pinned down with multiple wounded and are in IMMINENT danger of being overrun. Repeat, we are about to be overrun. Need immediate REVELATION support around our position." He paused. "Tell the General that this is it. Time to bring down the fire, over."
"Pinpoint to Achilles. Wait one- connecting you to allied forces, over."
Allied forces? Burton glanced up at the cracking ceiling as though it held a clue, then darted to the side as a chunk of it collapsed down where he'd been standing, letting in the cold blue sky above them.
"Tractors, hundred-fifty metres and closing!" Yelled King. His grenade launcher thumped and something exploded outside, but King didn't call out a kill. The tractors were still coming.
"Iron Tiger to Achilles Six. Colonel Burton, I am Lieutenant Lin Zhong of the People's Liberation Army. China is happy to help our American allies against the terrorist threat. Please confirm that no friendly forces are in your grid location outside of your current position, over."
Burton frowned at the radio for a moment. Then he accepted that this was no time to distrust China's intentions.
"Be advised Iron Tiger, friendly in the Comms Tower three blocks to our North. Everything else in this AO is confirmed clear and full of hostiles, over."
"Understood. Commencing close fire support now. Suggest taking cover, over."
"Heads up!" King shouted from his firing position. "Tractors entering firing range!"
The space swelled with the roar of jet engines, filling the building with the sound of overwhelming power, drowning out the cacophony of gunfire and screams within. Burton looked up through the hole in the ceiling and saw aircraft overhead, low enough that he could make out the red stars on their wings, contemptuous of the missiles and shells reaching up to swat at them. Some were already trailing smoke from damage, but the Chinese pilots pressed on.
Burton recognized them. Xian H-6 jet bombers, China's premier heavy bomber. Most frequently used in carpet bombing.
"Incoming, danger close! Everyone down, now!" The words grated in his throat as he yelled, raw from screaming and screaming. Burton flung himself down once more, just as the first bombs began to fall.
The whistle of inbound ordnance was immediately swallowed by a cataclysm of detonations outside. Dust and debris rushed in through every opening, a hot, jagged wind blowing away most of the GLA's gas.
The explosions kept coming, and coming, and coming. Hendricks flung himself over Westbrook's body to shield him as more chunks of ceiling rained down, some striking wounded Rangers. Lopez kept screaming "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" like a prayer.
It stopped. There was a faint hiss and clatter of falling debris, and more roars from aircraft passing overhead. But there were no more explosions, and no more gunfire.
Burton slowly got back to his feet, aching everywhere. He crouch-walked to the nearest window and looked out.
Earlier, in the helicopter, Colonel Burton had thought that Bishkek looked like the apocalypse had already come to Earth. What he saw after Chinese carpet-bombing was more like the apocalypse come to the surface of the Moon.
Aside from a few warped scraps of metal and rubber, there was almost no trace of the Toxin Tractors, nor the other GLA forces that had been moments from overrunning them. If any civilians had stuck around during the battle, perhaps sheltering in their homes, there was no sign of their remains, whether buried or vapourized. It was as though the bombardment had turned everyone outside the building to smoke.
The Black Market was the only building left standing within Burton's eyesight, although his vision was clouded by the thick, yellow-white dust blanketing the area from the bombing. The houses and shops around the target building were just gone, razed to their foundations, with only a few stubborn columns or broken walls left sticking out of the ground, like broken teeth to signify that a mouth had once held a smile. This part of Bishkek had simply been removed from the Earth, leaving behind craters and rubble.
King stood at Burton's right side, wiped dust from his silver sunglasses, and heaved a sigh.
"Damn," he said. "Remind me never to piss off the Chinese."
As Achilles Team crawled out of the half-collapsed Black Market, carrying their wounded and their intel, they saw endless columns of Chinese aircraft flying to the North of Bishkek, where the steppe was flat and even. Dart-shaped MiG fighters - technically their Chinese-produced equivalents, officially designated J-9s - escorted thick-bodied propeller-driven transport planes. The transports buzzed like a swarm of giant flies as they flew in orderly rows, dropping fluffy white parachutes behind them.
There were hundreds of parachutes, floating like dandelion seeds in the wind. Dangling from them were men, supply crates, even whole vehicles: battle tanks, construction dozers, supply trucks. Looking through his binoculars, Burton estimated that he was seeing the airdrop of an entire Chinese division into the heart of GLA territory.
"Reinforcements have arrived," Lieutenant Zhong said into his ear. "Your extraction is inbound now." One benefit of the area being leveled: there was now enough open space for helicopters to land in front of the target building, without Achilles Team carrying their wounded back to the original Landing Zone.
"China's rescuing us?" Lopez peeled off his gas mask and spat on the ground, carrying Westbrook's limp body between him and Hendricks. "Our planes can't help, but theirs can? That shit ain't right. Hey Colonel, what the hell is 'Revelation?'"
"Need to know, Private. Eyes up, that sniper might have survived somehow." Burton kept watching the parachutes.
Lopez was right, though. Now that he wasn't under siege, the humiliation was sinking in. Someone at the Command Centre had badly fucked up, first by missing the Quads that had ambushed them, then by holding back air support during the siege, and now by handing China a propaganda victory. Burton would talk to General Townes back at base. In private, and at length.
That wasn't the only reason he was grinding his teeth. The Chinese paratroops were landing all but unopposed. GLA attention and resources had been fixed on the American raid in the center of the city, leaving them fatally distracted when the PLA launched their attack. Burton now knew why China had tipped the USA on Doctor Thrax's supposed location. He still didn't know why every terrorist in the target building had already been dead when Achilles Team arrived.
Colonel Burton did not like being humiliated. He did not like unanswered questions. And he absolutely did not like being used as bait.
He took solace in one fact: he had kept his vow. Despite all their injured, not one American had died today.
Rotors in the sky announced their ticket out. Two Chinooks and a Chinese Assault Helix, flying side-by-by-side, a picture-perfect image of the new Chinese and American alliance against terrorism. Burton had no doubt that footage of the three choppers would be on the news tonight.
The wind of their landing blew away most of the dust cloud, giving Burton a clear look at the people stepping off the choppers. There was the expected swarm of medics, who quickly took charge of Westbrook and the other wounded. A Chinese officer armed with a camera hung back to document the scene, squinting her eyes and angling herself to get the most dramatic shot of the rescue. The short Japanese officer in the blue UN helmet was new to him, but she was wearing a medic's armband over her tan uniform and changing a bandage on Private Diaz's leg as he lay on a stretcher within the Helix.
Burton knew all about the other figure in UN colours, although he'd never met him. King walked towards him, and stopped a good six feet away, standing stiffly.
"Jim."
"Ben."
"You work for China now?"
Captain James Solomon shook his head. "I'm glad you're all right, Ben. I would've been here days ago, but my team couldn't get permission to land at your base."
Solomon shot Burton a look on that last point. Burton ignored it, as he'd previously advised General Townes to ignore the UN's ridiculous request to host their 'fact-finding mission' at Air Base Dugan. He had more important things to deal with than King's little brother. One of them was stepping off one of the choppers now.
Lance Corporal Nick Parker was covered in dirt and had lost his helmet and uniform jacket. He was stripped to his undershirt, exposing tanned skin and a red, peeling burn on his well-muscled left arm. But he was still grinning ear-to-ear as he swaggered off the Chinook, sniper rifle slung over his shoulder alongside a bandolier of non-regulation grenades and explosives. His green eyes sparkled like Christmas morning, and he gave a jaunty wave.
"Check it out, Colonel! Three Quad Cannons down. Where's my medal?"
Colonel Burton walked up to him and punched him in the jaw. Parker's eyes went glassy as he collapsed. Burton turned to the nearest medic, ignoring Captain Solomon's raised eyebrow.
"Get him out of my sight. And when he wakes up, place him under arrest."
November 4th, 1995 - Tashkent, Uzbekistan, USA Air Base Dugan - 0900 hours
"Can you define 'hopeless' for me, sir?"
Captain Solomon had to yell over the noise. Air Base Dugan was sizzling with activity, with some aircraft taking off to pound GLA positions across the border and others landing with fresh troops and supplies to feed the growing war in Central Asia. The whole region was catching fire, with Chinese tanks pouring over Aldastan's Eastern border and Russian troops invading Kazakhstan from the North.
Striding toward the Command Centre over the dusty ground with the UN man trailing at his heels like a dog looking for treats, Colonel Burton kept his eyes on the reports in his hand. It was hard to ignore Solomon, especially with that idiotic giant plane of his taking up valuable runway space nearby. Solomon's assistance with the rescue, coupled with political pressure from the UN, had swayed General Townes to overrule Burton's objections. The UN team would be hosted at Air Base Dugan. At least for now.
"I mean what I say," he said, flipping a page to take in another casualty chart. Westbrook had lost his arm, but would pull through. "Talent's worth nothing if you don't follow orders. Teamwork wins battles, and going rogue gets people killed. Diaz is lucky to be alive after the stunt Parker pulled."
"So he's a failure."
Burton clenched his hand around the folder it, halted, and turned around so suddenly that Solomon stumbled a bit as he came up short. Colonel Burton had a good head of height over the younger Captain.
"Exactly that. Frankly, it was a mistake letting him on the Task Force to begin with. After this, his only future in the military involves a discharge or a cell. You really want that kind of material on your… 'fact-finding' mission, Solomon?"
Solomon surprised Burton by smiling broadly.
"He's perfect. We'll take him."
A/N: REVELATION will be, er, revealed later. In real life, J-9 was the designation of a cancelled Chinese interceptor - in Echo Nine's verse, it's the designation of the Chinese-produced multirole MiG fighters seen in Generals.
Thank you for reading, hope the chapter was enjoyable!