Earthfall (Book 2): Earthfall 2 [The Mission Continues]

by Knight, Stephen

  EARTHFALL 2

  THE MISSION CONTINUES

  by

  Stephen Knight

  © 2019 by Stephen Knight

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Good morning, Scott.”

  Command Sergeant Major Scott Mulligan looked up from his meeting to find Major General Martin Benchley standing in the doorway to his office. The Old Man was starting to look a little gray and frail, he noticed. Perhaps it was the net result of spending eleven-plus years underground. Or maybe it was because he was past the mandatory retirement age for his grade, and continuing to serve as an elderly man wasn’t sitting well with him.

  “Good morning, sir. What can we do for you?” Mulligan asked.

  Benchley nodded at the three senior NCOs crammed into Mulligan’s small, windowless office. There was no such thing as a plush corner office at Harmony Base. Everyone’s workspace was essentially the size of a broom closet, even Benchley’s.

  “Sorry, folks, I’d thought you’d be done by now.”

  “We ran a little late, but we’re finishing up now, sir.” Mulligan looked at the three first sergeants seated around his desk. “So unless there’s anything else, we can cover enlisted issues next time?”

  First Sergeant Bob Randell favored Mulligan with his patented scowl. His expression hadn’t improved much with age. “Well sure, no need to worry about enlisted affairs when you get to go out into the field on a glory run, right?”

  “Aw, Bobby. Are you jealous, son?”

  Randell snorted. “I’m trying hard to think why. It’s not like I want to go out for a couple of months in an SCEV that’s going to smell like one continuous fart after a week.”

  Benchley chuckled dryly. “First Sergeant, you certainly nailed that one.”

  “Thank you, sir. Do I get a medal ceremony?”

  “You get an ass kicking, you crusty old dog,” Mulligan said. “Now seriously, if there’s nothing else ...?”

  The three NCOs got to their feet, and Mulligan did the same. All of them were in their fifties, two men and one woman. Real salt of the earth types who probably never thought they’d spend the rest of their lives beneath the earth instead of on top of it, but one took the breaks wherever they could be found. Benchley faded back from the doorway to allow them out. One man and the woman pushed past him, carrying their chairs as they withdrew. Randell paused long enough to give Mulligan a fist bump, then showed him three fingers.

  “Read between the lines, Scotty,” he said.

  Mulligan raised his hand and shot Randell the bird. “Because I know reading is hard for you.”

  Randell laughed and hit the door. “Sorry for the wait, sir,” he said to Benchley on the way out.

  “No, not at all. Male bonding is still important.” Benchley looked at Mulligan with a grin and stepped back into the office. “Just a couple minutes of your time, Sarmajor. I know you’re a busy bastard.”

  “Always time for the boss, sir. What’s doing?” As he spoke, he noticed Benchley carried a padded plastic bag in one hand. It was marked with decon clearance stamps. Did the Old Man have something from the surface?

  Benchley closed the office door behind him and slid into the single visitor’s chair facing Mulligan’s desk. He put the padded bag on the desktop and watched Mulligan as he sat back in his chair.

  “I have some of your things,” Benchley said.

  Mulligan regarded the bag for a long moment. “Uh ... my things?”

  “Some of them couldn’t be saved. They were destroyed in the decon process, but we were able to scan most of them and make some hopefully faithful recreations.” Benchley opened the bag and pulled out a series of plastic frames. “The original frames were total write-offs, of course. Especially the metal ones. Too heavily ionized, so they had to be disposed of.”

  Mulligan leaned forward as Benchley arranged the plastic carriers on the desk. At first, he couldn’t believe what he saw. Photos ... all taken from his old rented house in Scott City, where Mulligan’s family had perished in the war. His wife. His daughters. Caught in moments forever lost to him.

  “How ... how did you ...?”

  “When I went back into the house, I gathered as many as I could and put them in my satchel,” Benchley said. “You were busy with your family. So I ...” Benchley rearranged the plastic frames slightly, gazing down on the photos inside. “I thought you might like them. Was I wrong?”

  Mulligan regarded the collection of old memories before him and felt a sharp pain in his chest. “No, sir. You weren’t wrong.” He had to stop then and gather some strength. The shock of being suddenly confronted by his ghosts in his small office was almost overwhelming. Benchley kept his eyes on the pictures, idly moving them around, just busy work so he wouldn’t have to look up and endure the emotion in Mulligan’s eyes. The Old Man’s jaw was set, but Mulligan could see he was about to get emotional as well.

  And they weren’t even his own family.

  “Thank you, sir,” Mulligan said after a time. “Thank you very much for taking the time to do this. And thank you for helping me lay them to rest. You really didn’t need to do that.”

  “Brother, I couldn’t have lived with myself if I hadn’t done that,” Benchley said. “No man under my command is going to walk that line alone.”

  Mulligan wiped his eyes. “Well. This was a surprise.”

  Benchley looked up at him then. “More pleasant than not, I hope.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I’m happy to see them.”

  Benchley leaned back in his chair. “Good. I really didn’t know if it was a good idea or not, but they’ve been waiting down in decon for weeks. I finally decided to nut up and get this done. Wanted to do it before you head out on SCEV Four. Everything good with that? Anything you need to tell me? Unofficially, of course.”

  Mulligan cleared his throat, coming back to the here and now. “Uh ... no, sir. Rig is good to go, crew is good to go. It’s time to get back into the field.”

  “You can still back out if it’s going to be too much for you,” Benchley said. “We have other senior noncommissioned officers who can take your slot. You’re too senior for this work, anyway.”

  “I’m going, sir. I asked for the job, right?”

  Benchley nodded. “You did. Just giving you an easy out, Sarmajor.” He looked down at his hands for a moment, then scowled. “Well, fuck me.”

  Mulligan looked down and saw the general’s hands were trembling.

  “Martin? Something wrong?”

  Benchley looked up at Mulligan, then looked away with a sigh. “I’m not so sure I should spring another surprise on you before you leave, Mulligan.”

  “The hell you say. What is it?”

  “I’ll probably be dead before you get back.”

  Shock replaced the dull mourning that had filled his chest, and it was Mulligan’s turn to lean back in his chair. “What?”

  Benchley reached up and tapped his temple. “Brain cancer. Multiple glioblastomas that keep reoccurring. Pia’s been giving me nano treatments for the past month, but it’s just a matter of time. The treatment can’t keep up with the rate of recurrence. Besides, the nanites have to burn up some healthy brain tissue every time, so eventually the treatment would be as damaging as the tumors themselves.”

  Mulligan grappled with that. “Holy shit, Marty. I mean ... holy fucking shit.”

  “Command group does not know about this yet,” Benchley continued. “Of course, Corrine does. It’s why she finally accepted her promotion. To be honest, I’m surprised the Harmony Base Telegraph hasn’t caught wind of this yet. Or has it?”

  Mulligan shook his
head. “No, sir. My people would be the first to blab about it, and a lot of them wouldn’t be able to keep a secret like that.”

  “Baxter will need you, Mulligan. She’s a fine officer, and top-notch woman. She’ll need a man like you watching her back.”

  “Yes, sir. I’m on that.” Mulligan sighed. “Okay, this changes things. Maybe I should let Four jump out without me. I like Master Sergeant Korecki. He’ll need to start hitting the sims big time, but I’m sure I can get him elevated in time—”

  Benchley waved him to silence. “You need to go, Mulligan. After what happened in San Jose, there’s just no chance I’d send anyone else.”

  “You just told me I could step aside if I wanted, sir.”

  “I was lying. You can’t. You shouldn’t. Harmony’s not in any danger, but those kids out there will be, and you’re the guy who goes where the danger is.” Benchley pointed at the Army Special Forces insignia on Mulligan’s multicam uniform. “Unless that’s actually a signals patch. With all those lightning bolts, an old guy can get confused.”

  “Andrews and Laird are both competent commanders, sir. But please, don’t repeat that to Laird.”

  Benchley snorted. “You do like yanking his coattails, don’t you?”

  “Every officer needs a pet NCO to keep him in formation, sir.” Mulligan drummed his thick fingers on the desktop. “Marty. Really, how long do you have?”

  “Eight to ten weeks with continued treatment. I haven’t experienced any cognitive issues yet, but Pia expects that to happen in around another three weeks. Once that occurs, I’m out on medical. No way around that. And when that happens, I’ll inform the command group that General Baxter is to assume command of Harmony Base.”

  “Jesus. Jesus, sir.” Even though he felt a cold wind rage inside him, Mulligan kept it from reaching his eyes. Benchley didn’t need to see him as anything other than a cool, competent soldier right now.

  “It is what it is, Sergeant Major. Life does what life does. My number’s up, just waiting for the final drawing.” Benchley looked across the desk at Mulligan, and the Old Man’s eyes were clear and unburdened. “I might have something for you before you jump out. Nothing major, and totally voluntary. Haven’t decided if I’ll go there or not, but if I do ...” He shrugged. “Well. Try not to kick my ass.”

  “Intriguing notion, kicking a dying man’s ass.”

  “Finally a fight you might be able to win, you big pussy.”

  Mulligan smiled at that, and Benchley looked away suddenly. Mulligan figured some of the emotion came up in his eyes, and that wasn’t what the general needed to see.

  “Well, I’ll let you get back to work. I wanted to get these things back to you. A man needs to remember his history, and yours was bright.” Benchley rapped his knuckles on the old wooden desk. “Sarmajor, it was a pleasure. Just in case I don’t get to tell you later.”

  He rose then, and Mulligan rocketed to his feet. “Same here, sir. As a matter of fact, it was an honor.”

  Benchley looked at Mulligan for a moment, then shook his head. “You’ve been drinking on duty,” he said. “That’s the only reason a Green Beret would compliment an old infantryman.”

  Mulligan spread his hands. “What can I say? When you’re right, you’re right, sir.”

  Benchley shot him a thumbs-up. “Attaboy. Keep up the good work.”

  Mulligan watched the older man step out of the office. He left the door open behind him. Mulligan slowly sank down into his chair and regarded the framed memories that lay across his desk. The old pain made itself known, that deep loneliness that was like a hole in his soul nothing could ever fill. He gathered them up and put them to one side, and wondered how much mourning a man could take.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The rest of the week passed as all the others had before it: full of mission-planning exercises for the upcoming run, simulated vehicle training, tactical training, and lots of maintenance. Aside from being more reserved, Mulligan was still Mulligan. Kelly Jordello’s dire portents of him becoming a walking dead man or a suicidal maniac after laying his family to rest never materialized. The command sergeant major continued his work, drilling the teams on close-combat techniques and fighting forward through whatever it was he had to work past. The big man was completely focused on his work but also a bit distant. Andrews had asked him twice how he was coming along, and the answer both times had been “Just fine, sir,” so he left him alone after that. Every time he looked at Leona’s tense face, Andrews could see that Mulligan wasn’t being entirely truthful. Just the same, she wouldn’t speak to him about it, either. Andrews didn’t push it. No matter how much he personally liked his executive officer and the base CSM, he knew their private affairs weren’t for him.

  Originally, the plan had been for the reconstituted team of Self-Contained Exploration Vehicle Four to track to the northwest from Harmony’s location in western Kansas to as close to Bend, Oregon, as the rig could get. One way, the expedition would cover over fifteen hundred miles, depending on what kind of terrain they had to deviate around. The general lay of the land was well known, and Andrews had traveled farther once already, to San Jose on a mission to obtain replacement parts for the base’s power generation system. On paper, it didn’t look too intense. But at the last moment, Benchley and the command staff threw in a monkey wrench: a deviation toward Sacramento, California. A replenishment site was there, half-buried in a hillside. In that site were four replacement SCEVs, and Andrews would drop off Jim Laird, Kelly Jordello, and two rig maintainers at the bunker-like structure. There, the team would spend a month reviving one of the stored vehicles then press on to meet Andrews and the others, who would have already started their reconnaissance of the area around Bend. After assisting them in concluding the survey, they would all return home in tandem.

  “Seems like tandem missions are becoming popular,” Andrews had remarked to Brigadier General Corrine Baxter when she’d given him the news. “Or at least on the missions I get.”

  “It’s just a deviation from the SOP, Captain,” Baxter had told him. “It’s not new doctrine. But someone has to get Laird and his crew to the replenishment site, and you happen to be heading that way. And four people are more than enough to operate an SCEV for twelve-hour runs.”

  Andrews nodded, but inside, he wasn’t thrilled about the prospect. Piloting an SCEV across a nearly stygian landscape with a full eight-person crew was no picnic, though with so many hands on board, the rig could operate twenty-four hours a day, continuously advancing toward its objective. And that was how the plan would unfold, at least until they made it to the replenishment site. After that, another three to four hundred miles were all that would separate SCEV Four from its primary objective. Despite the rising terrain, a crew of four would be able to handle that easily enough, as well as complete a decent recon of the vicinity. And after the newly resurrected SCEV Five joined them on-station, the two rigs could take an even deeper look, perhaps press a bit into Bend itself—or if providence was to be found, all the way to whatever remained of Portland, on the other side of Mount Hood. While they had been instructed not to enter the city, a visual and electronic investigation was allowed. It had been subjected to a direct attack during the Sixty-Minute War, so there was little chance human life would be detected. But part of the mission was to take an inventory of major population centers, and Portland was the biggest one in the area.

  The real grind would come during the return trip, when both vehicles would return to Harmony Base fifty percent manned. They would have to stop and shut down for the night, and while continuously traveling overland was already inherently risky, coming to a halt and switching off the rigs was perhaps even more daunting. The vehicles always had the chance of not starting up again, which wasn’t anyone’s idea of a good time.

  Despite the changes and the scope of the mission, Andrews was excited by it. He’d been on several recons before, so he was intimately familiar with just how boring time in the field could be. Though
the mission was vital, it was hardly glamorous. But since the surprising discovery of a small group of survivors eking out a meager existence in the devastated remains of San Jose, the SCEV field teams had become newly energized, and Andrews had been sidelined for almost a full year—it was time to get back to work.

  Then there was the fact that the northwest run was the mission that promised to be the most fruitful.

  So for another three weeks, Andrews and his people worked alongside Laird and his team, prepping the SCEV, getting the planning completed, and training with Mulligan and the rest of the senior trainers. Though they were a bit stale, they still maintained enough proficiency to successfully complete the mission as delivered.

  They were ready. It was time to go.

  ***

  “Two months,” Rachel said as she lay in Andrews’s arms in bed the night before the SCEV was scheduled to jump out. “Maybe three. That’s a hell of a long time.”

  “It is,” Andrews replied.

  “But not as long as ten or eleven months underground, is it?”

  He didn’t know how to respond to that. He wasn’t sure if she was needling him or if she knew the truth, that being trapped in Harmony with nothing to do was anathematic to him. “Don’t really follow you on that one, hon.”

  “Come on. It’s the field. You love it,” she said.

  “It’s not so much that I love it. It just has to be done.” He slapped her rump. “Besides, if you’d followed up, you could have become a rig maintainer.”

  She shook her head. “Not my gig. The Core is where I belong. I figured that out during San Jose.” Rachel had been on that fateful trip and had experienced firsthand what her husband and his teammates dealt with every time they left the base. Of course, that had been a rather extreme example, but it was more than enough to convince her that she was best suited to remaining at Harmony and tending to the turbines that provided power to the base.

  “This won’t be anything like San Jose,” he said.