by Eric Vall
“That was my thought as well,” I told her.
“We’re not just going to let them surrender, are we?” Tara asked. “After everything they’ve done, all the people they’ve killed. They don’t just get to give up, right?”
“Technically, in the rules of war, they do,” Paige said.
“What the fuck?” Tara asked, and her platinum-blonde eyebrows furrowed together. “Since when does war have rules?”
“I mean… I think it has for a long time,” Anna said, and she shrugged. “But I’m with you. Fuck these guys.”
“It’s called the Geneva Convention,” Paige explained. “It’s basically a set of international rules that are supposed to protect people from inhumane treatment during war.”
“Isn’t inhumane treatment kind of the point?” Tara asked, and she cocked her head to the side slightly. “I mean, if these fuckers haven’t been treating people inhumanely, then I don’t know what inhumane is.”
“Fair point.” Paige nodded.
“Tav?” Bailey asked, and she bit her lip. “What are we going to do?”
I glanced back to the road where the white flag was still waving. Paige was right, technically I was supposed to take their surrender, but that was the last thing I wanted to do.
I had to quell my anger, though, and remind myself that these assholes could still be useful. Even if I wasn’t about to let them surrender, it would be stupid to kill them now without at least interrogating them.
I pulled my walkie up to my mouth and radioed the ship.
“Minji, come in,” I said.
“Tav, we’re here,” the Korean woman said quickly. “Is everyone okay?”
“Everyone here is fine,” I told her. “And you all?”
“We’re good,” she said. “I see the white flag.”
“That’s why I’m radioing,” I told her. “I need you to come to shore.”
“Right,” Minji replied. “I’ll be right there.”
I hung the radio back on my hip and turned to the girls who all stared at me with wide, expectant eyes. They were waiting for me to speak, but I wasn’t sure they were going to like what I had to say.
“I don’t want to let these assholes surrender, either,” I explained. “But they are, and it would be stupid of us to take a kill shot when we could interrogate them instead.”
“Tav’s right,” Anna sighed. “We should see what they know.”
“Fine, but I call dibs on stabbing them in the dicks if Tav decides we can kill them,” Tara said with an eye roll.
“Why?” the redhead asked, and she narrowed her eyes and shook her head. “Why are you always trying to stab people in the dick?”
“Because a guy’s dick is, like, sacred to them.” Tara shrugged. “I want to fuck them up in the worst way possible, and that’s literally every guy’s worst nightmare.”
“You know what, that is a very good point.” Anna nodded. “You got me, I’m on board. Let’s stab ‘em all in the dicks.”
“What if they’re girls?” Bailey asked.
“Then we’ll stab ‘em in the vagina,” Tara said.
“You might be on your own with that one,” Anna said. “I don’t know if I could do that.”
“Don’t be such a pussy,” Tara countered.
“I’m not,” the redhead replied. “I just don’t want to be a pussy stabber.”
“Yeah, let’s leave that up to Tav,” Paige said with a laugh, but Tara and Anna just looked at her seriously. “What? Not funny?”
“A bit crass, don’t you think?” Tara asked.
“What!” Paige screeched. “You’re the most crass person ever!”
“Yeah, I know, we’re just fucking with you,” Tara laughed. “It was funny.”
“Girls,” I said to get them to focus.
“Right,” Tara sighed. “I guess we should go apprehend these assholes before we interrogate them.”
“That’d probably be a good idea.” I nodded.
The soldiers were still waving the flag, but I didn’t trust them totally, so I readied my weapon and made my way toward the road. Hammer and his SEALs joined us on the way there, and we all had our weapons at the ready.
“Show me your hands!” I yelled, but then I remembered they probably wouldn’t understand a damn word I was saying. Where was Minji?
The white flag went down, and for a second I thought they’d tried to trick us. We had enough firepower here to take them down even if that had been the case, but it wasn’t. To my surprise, several men walked out from behind the vehicle with their hands raised above their heads. I wasn’t sure if they had actually understood what I’d said, or if that action just seemed like the next logical step, but I kept my gun raised at them just in case they tried anything. I wouldn’t put it past these assholes to try some form of suicide bombing, so I watched them carefully as they walked out from behind the vehicle.
One of them was shirtless since he’d taken it off to use as the white flag, and they were all incredibly dirty and bloody. Some of them had worse wounds than others, but they were all fucked up in some way or another, and I was astounded they were even still alive after the blast they’d just gone through.
“You think this is for real?” Hammer whispered at me from the side.
I studied the men once more, and my gut told me they weren’t looking to fight any longer. They were all dirty and broken down, and while part of me wished they’d continued to fight, I could see why they wouldn’t want to. The rest of their battalion was dead, and they were hurt, so it probably seemed useless to try and fight at this point. Besides, they had to know that we’d find them if they tried to stay hidden or run. We’d already proven we were a force to be reckoned with.
“I think so.” I nodded.
“Alright,” Hammer agreed, and he nodded to a couple of his men. “Get some rope from the jeep.”
“Yes, sir,” Rivers said as he holstered his weapon and took off behind us.
“I already called for Minji,” I informed Hammer.
“I see her coming up on the raft now,” the SEAL said, and I looked out to the water to see that he was right. Minji was halfway to shore already.
I did a quick count of the men in front of me. There were six soldiers, each more beat up than the last. The shirtless one had a massive gash on his forehead and blood running down his face.
All of the men had small bloody scrapes and cuts all over their face and hands from the howitzer blast and all the rubble it shot everywhere. A couple of the men had larger gashes, like the shirtless soldier, one had blood dripping down his leg and a limp to match, and another had a burn wound on the back of his hands, most likely from where he’d tried to shield his face from the blast.
Rivers returned after a moment, and he and a couple of the other SEALs tied up the NK soldiers while Minji made her way to shore and over to me.
“Hey,” she said quietly as she walked up to me. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” I assured her, and I looked her over quickly. “You look good, too.”
“I’m uninjured,” she said with a smile, then she glanced behind her at the men being tied up. “What do you want me to do?”
“I need you to translate again,” I told her. “I want to know what information they have about the troops down south.”
“At the foothills of the Appalachians.” Minji nodded.
“Right,” I agreed. “And I want you to be nice at first, these men surrendered, so we need them to think that means something to us.”
“Does it?” the Korean woman asked, and her eyes narrowed on me slightly.
“That depends on their answers,” I said cooly.
“What do you want me to ask first?” Minji asked.
“Ask them their names,” I said after a moment. If I wanted them to give us information, then they needed to think their surrender meant they’d be getting out of this alive.
“Alright,” she agreed, and she turned around and walked over to the men
.
Rivers and the other SEALs had tied the NK soldiers’ hands behind their backs and placed them on their knees for interrogation.
Minji walked over to them and began to speak in Korean, but they didn’t seem wholly focused on her, instead, they each eyed me suspiciously.
Their focus was split, and they weren’t about to answer Minji’s question until I introduced myself, so I figured it was time to do so.
I stepped forward and put my hand on Minji’s shoulder to stop her from speaking. The man on his knees in front of her had his eyes on me the whole time I walked up, and they remained on me then, too. His brown eyes narrowed on me, and I could tell he didn’t trust me.
“What’s your name?” I asked the man, and my gaze didn’t leave his as Minji stood next to me and translated the question.
“Young-chul,” the man said after Minji spoke, but his eyes never left mine.
“Young-chul.” I nodded. “I have a few questions for you.”
Minji translated, but the man didn’t respond, instead, he shook his head.
“He surrendered,” Tara said from the sidelines. “What the fuck is he doing?”
“Just because he surrendered doesn’t mean he has to give us information,” Paige said. “It just means we can basically take him as a prisoner of war.”
“Doesn’t that mean we can just torture him to get information?” Tara asked.
“I don’t think that’s exactly how that works,” Paige remarked.
“Ask him how many troops there are in Atlanta,” I told Minji.
“Right.” The Korean woman spoke to the man, but once again, he refused to speak, he simply shook his head.
“Tell him he can either tell me now and save his own ass, or he can tell me after I kill one of his friends here,” I said, and I smiled slightly at the soldier just to add to the asshole effect.
Minji repeated what I said, and for a split second I saw fear flash through the soldier’s eyes as his body instinctively tensed before he could stop himself.
The soldier’s eyes narrowed on me even more as he thought about what he was going to do here.
Finally, the man spoke to Minji.
His voice was low, and his face had relaxed some with defeat.
“He says they have three divisions,” Minji said, and I could hear her voice shake slightly as she spoke.
That was about what I had anticipated, but still, hearing the number sent a chill down my spine. I couldn’t let the soldier see that, though, so I kept my composure as I continued to stare him down.
“And their weapons?” I asked.
“What about them?” Minji pushed. “Do you want me to ask how many or what they are?”
“Both,” I told her. “Just say ‘tell me about your weapons’.”
“Alright,” the Korean woman agreed, and she translated to the soldier.
The man sighed and turned to look at Minji. It seemed he was done with our staring contest now that he’d decided to give up the rest of his army to save his own ass.
“He says they modified weapons like the ones their troop had, except larger and more of them,” Minji said.
“Like what?” I asked, and Minji translated again.
“They have tanks,” Minji said as the man talked. “With plasma cannons hooked to the top of them. And helicopters and MiGs with plasma cannons, too.”
Shit.
“What else do they have?” I asked.
“He says they have large tankers,” Minji said. “A virtually unlimited supply of plasma liquid, and he says they were working on other weapons, but he doesn’t know what they are.”
“Doesn’t know, or won’t tell me?” I asked.
Minji translated to the man, and his eyes flashed wide for a second before he turned to me with narrowed eyes and spoke quickly in Korean.
“He claims that he doesn’t know,” Minji said.
“Do you believe him?” I asked her.
“I do.” The Korean woman nodded.
“Alright.” I nodded back. If Minji believed him, then I would, too, at least for the moment.
If they had other weapons this guy didn't even know about, though, then we were in for a serious fight once we got down there. The tanks and helicopters would be bad enough, but with how innovative these sonsabitches were, there was no telling what other sorts of weapons they might have created to try and take us down.
They’d already created plasma that was volatile enough to cause massive explosions. For all we knew, they could have created another substance that was just as deadly.
I turned and walked over to where Hammer and the girls stood.
“Did Minji say he doesn’t know what all the weapons are?” Paige asked when I walked up.
“That’s right.” I nodded.
“But they have tanks and helicopters equipped with plasma cannons,” Anna said with a shake of her head. “Shit.”
“And more MiGs,” Tara added dryly.
“Right, the MiGs, how could I forget about the MiGs?” the redhead asked rhetorically, and she put her hand on her forehead and gave it a good frustrated rub before she opened her eyes and looked at me. “What are we going to do here?”
“Is there anything else we need to know?” Paige asked.
“We could ask him where exactly the troops are located,” Bailey suggested.
“That’s a good idea.” I nodded.
“We could ask how they’re communicating with them,” Hammer added. “If any of their radios still work, we may be able to figure out a way to speak with the troops down there directly.”
“These are all great,” I told my group.
“Okay, but still, what are we going to do with them?” Tara asked. “We can’t just keep them around while we head to Atlanta, can we? They’re just dead weight.”
“They’ve surrendered,” Paige pointed out. “So technically, we’re not supposed to kill them.”
“They’ve violated the Geneva Convention a hundred times over,” Hammer said through clenched teeth. “I can’t count the number of civilians they’ve killed just because they were in the way.”
“Wait, it’s illegal to kill civilians?” Tara asked.
“It violates international humanitarian laws.” I nodded.
“Well, then, fuck these guys,” the platinum-blonde scoffed. “Why is this even a discussion?”
“It’s not,” I said.
“I guess I hadn’t considered they’d violated the treaties already,” Paige whispered.
“I know you’re trying to follow the laws here,” Hammer said. “But we’re past that now. This is the worst war I’ve ever seen. These assholes have come onto our land, killed our citizens to try and take it over, and had zero regard for the innocent people they’ve slaughtered. As far as I can see, killing them is the only way to deal with them.”
“Hammer’s right,” I said. “This is the worst war I’ve seen, too. You girls saw Washington on our way down here.”
“It was just rubble,” Bailey said softly, and she looked down and bit her lip.
“I was expecting the white house to still be standing at least,” Anna said with a shake of her head.
“The whole drive down was terrible,” Tara said. “Everywhere is destroyed. Even after this war is over, it’s going to take years to rebuild everything.”
“Probably closer to decades,” Paige corrected, and she closed her eyes for a second, then she looked at me. “I’m with you. We need to take these assholes out.”
I smiled softly at Paige. She was always the good girl who followed the rules, but this was not the time for that, and I was glad she was able to see that. The brunette’s eyes were hard as she looked at me and nodded.
Anna caught my eye, and the redhead’s jaw was set with anger. I couldn’t blame her, though. Thinking about the drive down got my blood boiling, too. Every city we’d come across had been reduced to virtually nothing.
Bailey’s eyes were pricked with tears as she stared at the gr
ound. I knew my hippie girl was thinking about all the lives that had been lost in this war, and from the looks of her clenched fists, she wasn’t only sad about it, she was angry. Honestly, I had been surprised she hadn’t sided with Paige and tried to get us to follow the Geneva Convention, but I think she was more concerned about the lives we’d lost than the lives of these traitorous assholes who’d given up so easily. Not to mention, none of the girls had seen their families in two years now, and that was because of the NK army. As much as I hated to think about it, my girls’ families could all be dead at the hands of these motherfuckers.
My eyes landed on Tara last, and I couldn’t help the anxious feeling I got when I saw her. The platinum-blonde had her arms crossed over her chest and her eyes were narrowed past me at the soldiers we had lined up on the ground.
I couldn’t help but think of the child of mine that was growing inside of her. The United States had been turned to rubble, but I wasn’t going to allow that to be my baby’s future. I was going to win this war.
I turned around and walked back over to where the men were on their knees.
“Is everything alright?” Minji asked quietly.
“Ask him where the troops are at,” I said.
Minji didn’t push the issue, she just nodded and translated for me.
“He says he doesn’t know their exact location, it hasn’t been given to them yet,” the Korean woman said.
“How are they communicating with each other?” I asked, and my eyes narrowed on the shirtless man in front of me.
“He says they were too far away to use their radios directly,” Minji translated. “There was a ship that came from Georgia up to Boston to relay messages, but that stopped when they were told to move out.”
“Minji,” I said. “Did you all ever see a different ship around?”
“Yeah,” the Korean woman said, and her eyes widened with realization. “But only once, maybe a month or so before you all showed up.”
“That was probably the only time it stopped at Norfolk.” I nodded. “To let those assholes know that these assholes were headed south, and they should head down, too.”
“I never really thought about it.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, I should have told you.”
“It’s alright,” I assured her. “Ask him if there’s anything else he’d like us to know, and make sure to tell him that his life depends on it.”