The lights in the building suddenly flashed on in a blinding and dizzying flash, and was accompanied by the sound of children cheering and a party horn being blown. The squads dove in every direction and under every available piece of furniture or large debris they could find, desperately trying to regain control of their senses and prepare for the firefight that was about to happen…
But there were no shots fired… There was a long period of silence, during which Matt’s vision began to stabilize enough to see that the entire building was now blanketed with colorful confetti, balloons, and a variety of other cheap party ornaments. Along with that, two distinct figures were sitting on the bar, laughing, and passing a bottle of what looked like alcohol between them. “Yall did pretty good.” A voice called out.
Matt sighed to himself after unquestionably recognizing the Texan drawl of Jon’s voice, and then yelled for his squad. “Everyone stand up… we’re clear.”
The Squad began to crawl out from their hiding places, slightly confused, and slowly regrouped in front of the bar. Bag took a swig off a very old bottle of whiskey and then passed it to Jon, who took an even longer swig and then slammed the bottle down. “Haha, I just remembered something… Hey Bag, what’s the first thing that happens in a football game?”
Bag grunted a laugh, knowing exactly what was coming. “Not this again…”
Jon smiled deviously and keyed his radio. “Hey Armor One… Alighten, you there?”
There was a momentary pause. “This is Alighten, who am I speaking to?”
“Yeah it’s Jon, but hey I have a question!”
Alighten’s voice became suspicious. “Uh…Yeah what’s up, Jon?”
Jon began to snicker to himself as he changed around the settings on his radio. “So… What’s the first thing that happens during a football game?”
“Um… a coin toss?”
“No no, after that!”
There was a short pause before Alighten answered, now even more suspicious and hesitant. “Um…a kick off?”
Jon pressed a series of buttons and began to laugh hysterically just as Alighten started to speak again. “Um, why did yo-” And then his voice completely dropped from the channel, which prompted Jon to howl with laughter.
Bag smirked but started to shake his head disapprovingly, as Jon took another drink off the bottle of whiskey. “Haha, I’ll fix it… one minute.” Jon pressed another series of buttons then spoke into his radio, trying not to laugh. “Hey, Alighten, are you there?”
There was a second of silence before Alighten’s responded in clear cut annoyance. “…Fuck you, Jon.”
Jon began to laugh hysterically again. “I’m just kidding Alighten, but come on that was pretty funny right?”
“…Alighten out.” Alighten dropped himself from the channel, as Jon took another drink of whiskey in between the gasps of air from laughing. Bag sighed and dropped his gaze. Though he knew Jon was doing it to be funny, he also knew Alighten really didn’t like Jon at all, let alone being the butt of one his jokes again. He’d let Jon get it out of his system this time, but he couldn’t let that happen anymore. He’d apologize to Alighten for that…
The trainees exchanged confused glances to each other. What the hell just happened in the last five minutes? This entire thing was strange… Lee turned to Matt, who had a disapproving frown and obviously had expected what had just happened. “I don’t get it, Sir?”
Matt shrugged back to him and responded unenthusiastically. “What’s the first thing that happens in a football game? It’s a kick off, because you get ‘kicked’ off the channel.”
Lee shook his head and shrugged, still not understanding the humor of the joke. “Uh…I guess…”
Jon chuckled with victory. “I had a guy do that to me once. I was mad at first until I realized how funny it was.”
Bag nodded to Lee, his tone almost apologetic. “Yeah, he’s done it to all of us.”
Jon yawned loudly and obnoxiously, his tone going straight to serious. “Yeah…well back to why yall are here. Cholius, your team did good but I kept seeing the barrel of one of your guys’ guns from around wherever you were in cover. Kind of a dead giveaway.”
Willits punched Lee in the shoulder, just hard enough to make her point. “I told you they could see that!”
Bag turned towards Matt’s team. “Your team did pretty well too, but I heard you coming from a mile away. I heard you against the water tanks, and also in the street when you kicked the bottles. Pay attention to your surroundings because if I had been an enemy, you would be still out in that street; pinned down or dead.” Hawkins took in a deep breath and nodded to himself, as Kazowski was shaking and still recovering from the adrenaline overload he’d just experienced. Bag then nodded over to Cholius respectfully. “Do you have anything for them, Cholius?”
“You and Jon covered it. Everything else I have to say, I’ll do individually…” Cholius replied before he harmlessly kicked one of the vast amounts of balloons toward Matt. “Balloons and confetti, really guys?” His tone was calm and unchanged to the trainees, but to the veterans it had clear scolding overtones. Cholius always got after Bag and Jon when they’d start to argue and their professionalism would go out the window. He helped keep them in line and acting like Officers…respectfully of course.
Bag smiled and shrugged his hands up. “Well, I thought it was pretty funny.” Then keyed his radio. “Hey Valor, can you come pick us up?”
Valor came in with a bit of static. “You know it! I’m already half way there. Give me a few.”
Kazowski cautiously raised his hand toward Bag. His voice hesitant. “Sir, I thought we were supposed to meet up with First Squad here?”
Bag nodded to him supportively. “That’s what was said, yes, but they were done running drills about forty minutes before you guys even dropped. We put them through the same stuff on the other side of town. They’re just waiting for pick up now, same as us.”
Kazowski looked as if he wanted to ask more, but just stayed quiet. “Yes sir...”
Jon yawned again, this time more deliberate. “Well…I’m tired, so that means get all your stuff packed up and be ready to move. We’re leaving right now.”
“Hold on, I still have a few things to say.” Bag jumped down from the bar and leaned his back against it. He had to reinforce the lesson before he could let them relax. Especially with the obvious problems that had occurred with the trainees. “The purpose of this scenario was to test how you handled a dangerous and unpredictable situation. All of you completed basic training and it shows that you were trained ALMOST correctly… I saw you guys working together pretty well for our first time out, so just keep it up alright? Lean on each other and trust each other above all else, that’s what it means to be a part of this team.”
The trainees nodded in acknowledgment. “Yes sir.”
Jon began to tap his foot impatiently on the bar, and stared at Bag as if he were irritated. Bag glanced toward him, saw his expression, and laughed in response. “Ok…NOW we can leave.”
Chapter 7 – Keeping it real
Valor stood in the open hatch on the turret of his Armored Response Vehicle’s main turret; the crisp morning air rushing up and over the armored hull and engulfing his head in resounding wind. The sun had begun to rise to the East, over the towering dunes and jagged mountains in the far beyond. Valor took a quick look around the landscape with the zoom feature on his combat goggles, scanning for any signs of danger from the bandits and smugglers so prevalent in the more established regions of the badlands. It was mostly just for good practice, since they had been riding along the dirt road for over an hour and it ALL looked the same at this point.
Valor closed the top metal hatch and flopped down onto the uncomfortable metal seat in the cramped gunner’s compartment. Though it wasn’t as cramped as compared to the M3A1 Main Battle Tank, which was solid armor inside and out, and you literally had to crawl on your hands and knees just to get to your seat in the damn thi
ng. Good luck getting out in a hurry if, say, the thing was on fire and cooking you alive. Old world mass produced vehicles with no thought of comfort or safety in mind…
Luckily the Army handed these ARV-40’s over to Valor and the team, which were less tank and more armored personnel carrier with a bonus anti-armor turret, but they did the job alright. Valor’s compartment was a small box connected directly behind the driver’s compartment, and directly in front of the troop bay. It was wall to wall computer terminals with one large view screen off to the left side, where the gunner chair and weapon controls are mounted. The drivers compartment on the other hand was exactly what you would think, it had a driver chair in the center surrounded by digital gages and computer monitoring equipment, and of course the physical steering wheel, peddles, and a few other outdated things.
Though it wasn’t all bad since the interior was now filled with to the brim with all manner of stereo equipment and a wide assortment of snacks and beverages that both he and Alighten secretly installed before leaving Fort Gregg. Of course such a setup was prohibited in the regular Army, Krieger didn’t have to follow those same rules since Bag and the Officer’s simply didn’t enforce the pointless ones. If you’re going into a war, why wouldn’t you let your guys enjoy themselves a little? The Army just didn’t get it…it’s like every policy they make is aimed to make a regular soldier’s life more miserable in some way. Yeah, like shutting down the civilian food courts on base to force everyone to eat at the shitty chow hall… They call it ‘Keeping the team focused on the military’ but all they did was piss everyone off.
Oh Damn! Alighten had even picked the old classic dub step and was bumping the whole cabin with the beat. It was almost like home, just way better armored. He had missed this! Valor smiled and grabbed a hold of an already open and somewhat spilled bag of potato chips from under the seat, and popped open the plastic twist top of a cola with his free hand. The noise of which made Alighten immediately demand one himself. “Hey, pass me up a bag of chips!”
Valor grabbed a nearby bag of Ultra-Spicy Cheese O’Puffs and threw them (intentionally) below the driver seat. Alighten grunted with annoyance, kept one hand on the wheel, and began to reach behind his seat with the other to try to find it. “Nice throw, jackass…”
“Haha, I can’t make it too easy for ya!” Valor leaned back into his reclining seat and put his feet up on the fire control monitor in front of him. “Hey, how far are we away from base?”
Alighten stopped looking for the snack after some failed attempts, and instead pulled up a map on his front console after an indicator light began to blink. “Looks like an hour and forty minutes or so till we get back to base.”
“Damn…we probably gonna miss chow.” Valor spoke with genuine concern.
“Nah, they‘re open all day. But really, it’s just nasty synthetic shit.” Alighten retorted.
Valor chuckled. “Not for breakfast! Only the greatest meal of the day, son!” He knew Alighten was right, but the breakfast variation of the dehydrated military food was descent enough to seem real. Damn he missed real eggs…and steak…and orange juice that was made with actual oranges… He’d have to go into the city to get anything even remotely real from the greenhouses. Overpriced though…
Alighten grunted a laugh, and began to browse through his massive collection of music on his wrist coms until settling on another song. Though some would argue, particularly the new recruits, that this sort of music was just old and weird. Dub Step was always going to one of the greatest classic music and a binding factor of friendship between himself and Valor. “Oh damn, Trillits is the…sshhhhiiittttt!”
“Turn that shit up!” Valor spoke out in excitement as the beat began to drop.
Alighten twisted the volume control all the way up, drowning the cabin in stereo sound. Thankfully the rest of the platoon had all crammed into the other two vehicles, for what reason Alighten didn’t know, but at least there was no one would complain about the music this time.
Valor was bobbing his head to the sound of the beat, but then shifted in his chair after an annoying background noise just wouldn’t go away. “Hey, what the hell is that beeping…? Oh shit, turn it down!”
Alighten turned the volume to zero just as they both realized the communication indicator light was blinking red and beeping; aka someone was trying to contact the vehicle urgently. Valor adjusted his headset and hit the virtual switch on the forward screen. “Yo this is Armor 1, what’s up?”
Bag’s voice came over the radio, calm and friendly as ever, but with a hint of it being forced. “Hey Valor. You enjoying that tank, man?”
Valor glanced to the call log and noticed Bag had been trying to call them for almost 5 straight minutes... Bag was pretty chill about things, but this still made Valor feel bad. “Yo Bag, I was blasting some tunes… Didn’t hear you trying to beep in ya know. How you doing?”
Bag continued in the same tone, but now without a trace of it being forced. “Just fine man, but I need you to extend the long range amplifier and link it in with the other tanks. There’s a message trying to come through from command and we need the power of all three amplifiers way the hell out here.”
“Yeah bro, just let me hit the switch!” Valor flipped off the coms switch and put Bag back on hold. His tone became very serious. “Alighten, I’m bringing up the antenna. Keep that music low.”
“For sure.” Alighten turned the music off completely, then became completely focused on driving properly, since he had been getting a little too into the music and started drifting on the road. Valor pressed the touch screen button for the long range antenna, ran through several commands on the local network, and then took Bag back off hold. “Bag, the antenna is up and on.”
“Thanks Valor. This may take a while so stand by.”
A few minutes went by, which Valor took as an opportunity to finish eating his bag of chips; then crumpled the empty bag it into a ball and pitched it at the back of Alighten’s head.
“Hey! What the hell, Valor?” Alighten glared back at him.
Valor laughed, put his feet back on the monitor, and then opened the channel Bag was speaking on. Though he knew he wasn’t supposed to listen in, Bag was gonna tell the platoon all about it sooner or later, right?
Bags voice came in over the radio. “Command, this is Actual. Do you read?” He repeated himself two more times before Brett’s voice interrupted him. “Krieger Actual, this is Command. Sorry to cut the pleasantries, but I have some bad news.”
Bag obviously hesitated to respond, his tone now more suspicious than anything. “What kind of bad news?”
“The kind that supersedes everything else going on. We just received a distress signal from Camp Iron; the message said exactly ‘They are taking everyone, please help!’ Immediately after that we lost contact with them; that was at 05:22 this morning. I need you to head over there at once and find out what exactly is going on. I trust I don’t need to remind you how important of a trading hub that place is...”
Bag responded in a bleak tone. “That was almost an hour ago, Sir. Why didn’t you tell us sooner?”
Brett was obviously frustrated and his tone illustrated that. “Well, the powers that be insisted we authenticate the message before we respond…and then they took their sweet damn time deciding whether or not it was worth it to help our own people survive a bandit raid… That’s beside the point now; all local military assets have gone dark, and you’re the closest and only unit we have in the area. Go and take care of whatever the problem is.”
“Roger... Do we have any support?”
“I’m working on that, Bag. General Francis, in all his wisdom, has commandeered all the air-wings, including Krieger, to assist the 25th on the tundra. I know they’re supposed to be on standby for us, but this isn’t the only distress call that’s gone out today. There have been hundreds of distress calls from practically every town and settlement on the frontier, and frankly we don’t have the assets to respond to all of
them… It’s starting to look like the raiders are launching another offensive. This entire thing is becoming a shit storm.”
Bag replied in a dry, sarcastic tone. “Hmm, so you’re sending a bunch of recently reactivated soldiers, alone, and into the heart of raider country… You know what? Why not!”
Travis let out a long sigh. “Look, I’m trying to fight the politics of this thing, but it’s exactly that; politics. I’ll let you know when I have more for you. Patriot out.”
The coms went dead for a moment, then Bag came over the armor column’s network intercom. “Morning everyone, I have some good news and some bad news. Bad news is that the town of Camp Iron sent out a distress call. Good news is that we‘re close enough to do something about it if it turns out to be legitimate. I estimate it will take us about an hour or so traveling north east at our current speed to reach the city. All units change heading to 0-7-5 true, Armor One is lead. Bag out.”
Alighten dumped his acquired bag of chips noisily into his mouth, and then pitched a broken chip back toward Valor. Valor ignored the gesture and grabbed another soda can from his ruck sack. “Hey Alighten, did you catch all that?”
“Yeah, but I can’t talk right now. I’m waiting.”
“Waiting for what?” Valor popped the top off his soda and brought it up to his mouth, just as the Tank suddenly jerked hard to the right, causing the sticky grape flavored soda to spill out and all over Valor’s lap. “Damnit Alighten!”
“HAHAHA!” Alighten smirked back deviously.
***
The Armored column sped across open desert for close to two hours, being careful to stay on the rocky and hard packed areas, for fear of being swallowed up by the often deep and misleading sands dunes, which happened much too often to be relaxed. The vehicles created a massive tell-tail dust trail in their wake, but in this particular case the situation clearly called for speed over subtly. The closer they went toward the city, the more evident the large billowing plumes of black smoke had become. This wasn’t a fabricated distress call, this was real. Every second counted…
Krieger Platoon Page 9