Kingdoms of Sorrow

by JK Franks

  “Apex Actual this is Andes One. Target acquired . . . target down.” Scott remembered Andes was the call sign for the snipers on overwatch. Whatever shots they were taking were at extreme range, in the dark and in the middle of a hurricane, yet listening to the sniper’s tone, you might have thought he was telling his wife he was taking out the trash.

  “Apex Four taking heavy fire. Light ’em up Andes.”

  “Apex Actual be advised Alphadog is down. Repeat, Alphadog is down.”

  “Apex One on the deck, beginning insertion.”

  The Dolphin copter was orbiting the oil field at a distance safely outside of the battle below. Scott felt helpless hearing the communications. Looking over, he saw Todd had gone rigid as he watched through the rain-soaked window. People were dying down there.

  With a small break in the clouds, they got a glimpse of their destination.

  The size of the Devil’s Tower oil platform was staggering. Scott was not sure what he had expected, but this wasn’t it. The behemoth dwarfed everything around it. Sitting on almost two miles of water, it looked more like a hotel under construction what with all the cranes and gantry. Designed to be functional, little thought had gone into its aesthetics. The whole structure sat atop a round pedestal.

  They saw a small explosion on the southwest side of the rig.

  “This is Apex Actual, all units are engaged. rules of engagement are in effect. Repeat, ROE are in effect.”

  More and more radio chatter could now be heard, and the sound of gunfire was fierce.

  The command channel on their headsets was switched. The helicopter pilot keyed the mic. “Traveler Three-five for Bataan. We are bingo fuel in ten. Please advise.“

  Scott knew what that meant: in ten minutes the helicopter would no longer have sufficient fuel to get back to the ship.

  “Acknowledged Three-five, maintain orbit.”

  The comm channel switched back. Voices belonging to soldiers in extreme pain were all they could hear now. “Apex Actual this is Two-two, base level is clear.”

  Over the next several minutes a few other reports came in with similar messages.

  “Are the labs secure?” Scott asked. Only Todd and the helicopter crew could hear him.

  Todd shrugged. “They’ll let us know.”

  “Base, be advised we are at bingo.”

  There was a long pause before the voice of flight control said, “Take ’em down. The LZ Pad on Devil’s Tower is clear, winds gusting to 145 plus, keep rotors hot.”

  As they neared the touchdown point, the pilot spoke to them, shouting above the noise of storm and battle. “The storm has really picked up since the other team went in. I’ll have to keep the engines at full rev pushing us down just to keep it on the deck. It’s going to blow you off the edge if you stand up into the wind. You do not want to go off the edge—it’s a 500-foot drop to the water. Once you clear the prop wash, you still have the hurricane to deal with, and it’s gusting at well over 100 miles an hour right now. Get out the door and drop to all fours. Crawl to the team member waiting there.” Scott and Todd nodded as they prepared to alight. “Good luck, gentlemen.”

  “Thanks, good luck to you, too.” Scott looked up to meet Todd’s eyes. “This is it.”

  Todd grinned. “Fuck what they said. Weapons hot, chamber a round, safety off. Do that with your pistol as well.” They both prepped their weapons. “Remember, I got your back, brother.”

  Scott nodded his thanks, “Same here.” With a quick fist bump, they unlatched their seatbelts and swapped headsets for helmets. The touchdown on the helipad was hard, but they were holding on tight. Todd swung the door back as he had been shown, and the full fury of the early morning weather hit them with gale force impact.

  Both men struggled just to get out of the chopper. The downward force of the propeller and the crosswinds from the storm made it almost impossible. Todd managed to get most of his body out of the door and down to a strut by holding one of the landing wheels. He wrapped a hand around it and helped Scott do the same. Both men were on all fours, holding the landing gear with one hand and their compact MP5 assault rifles in the other. They knew they had to let go and crawl toward the interior edge of the pad, but it seemed there was no way to move against the wind. They were trying to align themselves to knife into the crosswind when they noticed the wheel of the enormous chopper sliding sideways toward the edge of the landing pad.

  “We have to let go!” Todd yelled over the howl of the wind. He did so and flattened himself to the deck. Scott did the same. Unfortunately, the same wind that was blowing the chopper off was pushing them as well. This is proving to be a very undignified entrance onto the battlefield, Scott thought as their slide toward the rig’s edge picked up speed. Todd had grabbed onto Scott, and together they were trying to glue themselves to the deck with what mental and physical powers they had.

  The beautiful Dolphin chopper was separating from them now, and the pilot was trimming the prop to push up instead of down. The change in force allowed Todd to lean up slightly into the crosswind and it pushed him diagonally away from the edge. Scott watched in horror as the chopper tipped over the edge and was lost from sight. A horrendous wrenching of metal followed by a gut-wrenching explosion traveled up the side of the oil rig, momentarily nullifying the storm winds and allowing Todd to reach the tip of a finger through a tie-down built into the helipad surface. Scott just managed to snag a climbing rope that sailed past them and keep hold.

  Looking over, they could just make out the dark-clad man holding onto the other end of the rope. They shouldered the MP5s and began to pull themselves along the ground by the rope and toward the man.

  “Well, that was graceful,” Perez said, giving them a hand down from the raised platform to the relative shelter below it. He spoke into his microphone. “Apex Actual, our friendlies are safe. Traveler 34 was lost, though.” He motioned to them, “Come this way. The platform is mostly secure, although we can’t say with certainty they don’t have soldiers inside the bio-facility. The lab is undamaged, though—no casualties there, and our men are already on-station at the doors.”

  Inside the main deck, Scott saw numerous bodies, both friends, and foes. The rictus of death was already taking hold of the recently departed. “How bad were the losses?” Todd asked Perez. The soldier’s facade cracked slightly so that they got a sense of the day's pain and loss. That was not a discussion for right now.

  The bio-lab was on level 3. In fact, it was all of level 3. The three men donned the bio-suits along with two other black-clad members of the SEAL team who unlocked the door as they approached. Inside the lab, the lights were flickering, and they could hear people crying and talking in hushed voices.

  Inside the bulky suits, it was impossible to get a fix on the sounds, but there were not that many places the medical staff could be. Scott saw Perez take up a firing position in one corner. He had switched to a shotgun that fired a non-lethal Taser-like charge. Several other suited commandos were also entering the facility now. Scott entered the corridor just behind the lead and stopped at the door marked 4. It appeared to be a meeting room. He knocked on the door, and the voices inside quieted.

  He pushed it open with a metal rod he found nearby. No shots. That was a good sign. He entered the room in a single smooth motion with both hands held high. He was facing a group of at least twenty very frightened people. All of them were in lab coats or medical scrubs.

  “We are with the US Navy,” he said, but quickly realized they could not hear him through the suit. He saw Todd and Perez just outside the door, both holdings shotguns. Looking at the med staff, all in normal medical scrubs, he made a quick decision and unzipped the hooded suit from the inside. The quickly deflating suit fell away. A quick glance over revealed a wide-eyed Todd staring at him in shock.

  “DJ, are you in here?”

  Stepping toward the group, Scott was aware that he still looked imposing in the black tactical battle gear, backed by armed men who guarded
the room’s only exit. He tried again, “Is there a DJ in this group?”

  “Scott?”

  Scott was confused by the sound. It was not DJ, nor was it even male.

  “Scott Montgomery?” A woman with red hair—a doctor—was emerging from the group.

  He could only stare. “Gia?” There was no possible way. It could not be the same woman, the friend he had known in college. “Gia Colton? Dr. Colton, that…that, was you?” His head was spinning.

  Todd was speaking into his earpiece. “Where is DJ?”

  He took the several steps between him and Gia and hugged her tightly. He was still in shock. Gia had meant more to him than she ever knew. Now, he realized, she meant so much to the world, as well. “G, we have to get you and your team to safety. These are my friends. Most are with the Navy. They are here to help. You have an assistant named DJ, is he here with you?

  Gia looked up into his face, “Scott, I can’t believe . . . sorry, yes, DJ is in with our subject—behind the safety wall. He’ll have to come through decon first. I can call him.”

  He stopped her, “First, is it safe for my men? Are any other Prae—I mean Grayshirt troops in here with you guys?”

  “No, they never come back here, they’re not allowed.”

  “Todd, Perez, did you get that?”

  Perez came back over the comm. “That’s good news, I’m calling it in to the Bataan now.”

  “Gia, call DJ up, tell him I’m here. He’ll remember me. It’s not safe to stay here. We need to get your team aboard a Navy vessel nearby. They’re also set up to transport your lab. Is that going to be a problem?”

  “No, not at all. Everything is modular, and none of us could stand those jackbooted Grayshirts.” She looked him over again approvingly. “When did you become such a badass?”

  He smiled as she made the call. Other members of the SEAL team began escorting the researchers down to the oil rig’s mooring platform. As he monitored the broadcast, Scott recalled the still raging storm. Transferring all this equipment might have to wait until it subsided, but they could at least move the people now.

  He introduced Gia to Todd who had also shed his bubble suit. “Gia, this is my friend, Todd Hansen.”

  Todd smiled, “Just call me Todd or Cap.”

  She hugged him as well and then gave Scott another embrace before hurrying off to get her team ready to depart.

  “You make a hell of a first impression, dude. You’ll have to fill me in.”

  Scott shook his head, “No deal, it was a college crush, and . . . it was embarrassing.”

  “What are the odds of her being here and the one in charge? Doesn’t look like she thinks you should be embarrassed.” Todd clapped Scott on the shoulder as he walked by.

  Scott grinned. He was relieved at the outcome so far. “Well, the price was high, but I have to say it’s looking like the op is going better than planned.”

  “Hooah that, man!” Todd agreed.

  Twenty minutes later DJ exited from a reinforced lab door followed by someone in a bio-suit who sat down heavily away from the commotion. DJ ran over to Scott and Todd. “God, I am so glad to see you guys! Thank you! How is Kaylie? Does she know I’m here? Are we going there?”

  “Slow down, tiger. Good to see you, too. Kaylie is fine, and yes she knows.” Scott said. “Look, Gia—um, Dr. Colton—is assembling the team to move over to the Navy vessel in a few minutes. They have full bio-labs for all your supplies and samples, but we need your help coordinating that, okay?”

  “Yeah, sure, sure. Glad to help. We have one live subject and a lot of blood samples, but most of the other material is in the freezer. No real danger.”

  Scott glanced over DJ’s shoulder at the seated figure slumped in the chair. “That your subject? Is he well enough to travel?”

  “Yeah, that’s him. He should be fine. He’s mostly asymptomatic, but we have been taking a lot of blood, so he’s weak.”

  “Fucking vampires,” Todd said.

  DJ looked over, “You must be Todd. Kaylie talks about you a lot. She’s very fond of you.”

  “Feeling’s mutual, kid. We gotta get you two back in the same zip code, you got some catching up to do.”

  “Absolutely! Let me go help the doctor, and maybe we can speed this along.” They watched as DJ moved swiftly toward the sound of his boss’s voice.

  The storm outside was raging. Scott shook his head, “You think we can wait for this storm to pass before doing the transfer?”

  “I don’t think our friends will go for that. Remember, they’re assuming the Grayshirts will destroy the facility rather than letting the Navy get it. The whole rig may be wired to blow any minute.”

  “Right, thanks. Now I feel better.”

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Scott watched as Gia came back into view. He cursed himself again for never asking DJ more about his boss. For some reason, he had always just assumed it was a man. Seeing her had flung all the battle plans from his head. Her gorgeous, yet still very innocent face, her striking red hair and her figure that still demanded attention, despite the unflattering lab coat. It all had utterly distracted him, and he retreated back to that schoolboy with a crush in an instant. Old pangs of regret sprung up from deep within the hidden recesses of those memories.

  Todd walked by. “Come on, Romeo, we still got a job to do.”

  Scott could hear Perez on the radio. “Bataan is thirty minutes out. We need to have the teams at the extraction site then. The storm is still intensifying, so they’ll stay 500 yards southeast and send tenders over.”

  Scott looked at his friend, “They’re sending a small boat over in this storm? That sounds very unsafe.” Todd agreed and went to the soldier to find out more.

  Gia came up to Scott and pulled him into another hug. Her eyes were watering. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I just . . . I just didn’t think I would ever see another familiar face. Much less yours.” She smiled with what seemed like relief.

  “I know, G. Listen, I’m—I’m sorry I didn’t stay in touch over the years. It was . . . it was . . . hard.”

  She took his left hand and looked at it. “I know, Scott, I know.”

  “Is Steve—is your family here?” He had heard they had a daughter now, but he wasn’t sure how old she would be, or even where she would be now. A shadow of sadness clouded her face.

  “No, they—” she attempted before swallowing and shaking her head.

  He knew not to press any further. Gia had always been a determined force of nature. Her focus and intensity were, at times, as fierce as the storm outside. Whatever had caused this pain in her had hit deep into her very soul. He could see she had lost a great deal.

  She struggled for a moment but continued. “They didn’t make it. They were on a medical transport that went down near the coast. No cause was ever given, but . . . there were no survivors. When they took me to Tallahassee, Steve kept Jennifer, our daughter. She would have been ten next month.”

  “I’m so sorry. I’m so very sorry.”

  She visibly forced herself to brighten. “What about you, everyone doing okay?”

  The storm was too much to ignore. “We can talk later, we’ll have plenty of time. Right now, we have to get you off this rig and over to the ship.”

  “In this weather?” she asked, concerned.

  Todd had walked up and was speaking into his mic. “Hey, Doc, yeah. The Navy is picking up some activity from some ships nearby they had previously tagged as derelicts. Apparently, Catalyst has active assets in the area. We think they may try and take the lab out rather than let the Navy take it.”

  Scott’s face went ashen. “Oh, shit, we have to move everyone and the lab now. We can’t wait for the Navy med-techs.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Todd responded. Addressing Gia, he said, “Dr. Colton, can you oversee the packaging of the samples and other vital materials? We can start moving any of the non-essential members of your team and equipment in the next few minutes. We can com
e back for the patient and the remainder on the next trip.” She nodded and went to get everyone moving.

  “Todd, are we going to have time for two trips?” Scott asked, his mounting concern evident.

  “The Bataan is nearly on-station. They are sending over multiple transports. We’ll have to load them separately as the mooring point only has space for one at a time. We’ll get as many of the people, samples and essential items as possible to the Bataan, then back off several miles. If the lab isn’t attacked, we can come back in and take everything else. Either way, we need to be on those boats in ten. They’re lowering the platform exit stairs now, so we can all get down to the docking point. The seas are still high, but they expect the eye of the storm to be overhead at that time, so we’ll have a few minutes of relative calm to load.”

  Scott, Perez and another SEAL named Alvarez carried case after case down the metal stairway leading to the lower metal gridwork. The angry sea was pushing up through the grates with a churning ferocity. He saw the first of the modified Barracuda attack boats moving deftly through the waves to the extract point. They handed over the crates to the men inside the next Barracuda, moving with as much care as was possible in the hellish conditions.

  DJ was coming down the stairs behind them with quite a few of the lab techs. They were ushered onto the boats along with several of the remaining SEALs, and the boat disappeared back out to sea. Perez held up five fingers, indicating the next boat would be there in five minutes. Scott was drenched, thankful now for the wetsuit beneath his clothing. His pack was still upstairs, as was Gia, so he went back up the several flights of steps to retrieve it and check on her. The second boat was just coming into view as he opened the door to enter the lab.

  Todd and Gia were coming toward him, both gingerly carrying boxes with biohazard labels all over. Gia was bundled in a storm slicker. She looked at Scott’s drenched uniform and shook her head.