Krieger Platoon

by Jay Ivanovich

  She maneuvered her way over to the cockpit window, and watched as the dark side of Mars, with all the brightly glowing lights from civilization passed below her. The bright red sand of the dessert gleamed in the sunlight on the far side of the planet, and the shallow ocean shined like blue glass across the northern face of the planet. Thousands upon thousands of stars she had never seen before were glowing brightly out the opposite side of the window, and one of the moons was visible pretty nearby. It always just looked like an asteroid to her. It was a breath taking sight, all things said. Funny…the world’s problems seemed so small up here… So trivial. Everything was so peaceful.

  That feeling didn’t last long though. Nothing about what happened made sense to her. Why did those Navy guys attack her team and destroy the data stub? Now Reagan, Stevens, Harrison… They were dead… She felt herself get choked up again, but tried to fight back the tears.

  She took in a deep breath and reached into her pocket, pulling out the small data stub the Admiral had given her. A lot of people have died over that thing… It had better be worth it… One way or another she was going to find out who was responsible for this mess…for getting her team killed… One way or another they were going to pay.

  Chapter 19 – Partial Recall

  “Hey, wake up! It’s time to wake up!”

  Bag opened his eyes as he lay in the sunny and comfortable confines of his childhood room, still decorated in the same way it had been since before he went off to boot camp. His old wooden desk with the beat up and painfully annoying alarm clock he once used to get up for school. He was pretty sure he threw it away at one point, but then it reappeared back on his desk and everyone denied knowing a thing about it. The glass aquarium on top of his dresser where he kept the tarantula his brother had caught when they were kids… The thing was actually older than him! The joke was it’d probably outlive them all too. Most prominently though were the pictures. The timeworn framed picture of his mom, sister, and brother together at the beach, with the old yellow lab Sydney. That dog was such a brat, she had a mind of her own and only listened when she felt like it. Very friendly and loyal dog though. Best dog they ever had…

  Bag wiped the sleep from his eyes, then glanced up toward where the voice had come from. His mother stood in the doorway, smiling back at him. “Hey, breakfast is ready and the whole family is waiting for you to come down! You just can’t sleep through their visit.”

  Bag yawned loudly as he rolled out of the thick down sheets of his bed, and passed his mother a not too thrilled look. “I thought they weren’t going to be here for another few hours? I kind of wanted to get a quick run in.”

  She sighed and smiled. “It’s already going on 11 o’clock. Jenny said she would run with you a little later. Now come down stairs and say hello to everyone!” Her tone was always kind and loving, but Bag knew when she was serious about something. This was one of those times. He wasn’t getting out of it and he knew it.

  Bag followed his mother down the stairs and over to the large dining room table where his brother, his sister, his Aunt and Uncle, even his grandparents were all sitting. The table was full of a wild combination of American and old ethnic Yugoslavian breakfast foods, and the room was alive with the happy conversing and joking of close family. It was all perfectly the same, but something felt odd to him. He had a nagging feeling but didn’t know what it was about. He’d probably just forgotten some last minute errand his family wanted him to run. He’d figure it out soon.

  Bag slowly made his way over to the vacant seat next to his brother and sister, as the whole family happily greeted him and offered him more food than he could ever finish. Yugoslav yeast pancakes (which are like a crape), fruit juices, homemade berry syrup, fluffy scrambled eggs, hash browns…it was a feast. His Aunt leaned across the table and smiled just as he began dishing up. “We’ve been hearing about all the exciting things you’ve been up to! Are you really getting stationed on Mars?”

  His mother answered for him, she had a tendency of doing that. “He is! We can’t wait to come visit him there, and we’ll have a free place to stay! Mars isn’t cheap. I already looked up the space fairs and it’s more than I could afford in a month.”

  Bag smiled and shook his head. He didn’t really want to talk about work…but he couldn’t say no to them. “I’m excited to be going to be sure, but the trip over is incredibly dangerous, especially for civilian craft.”

  His uncle nodded, agreeing with him. “I’ve been following the progress of infrastructure there quite a bit, and I heard that the Navy is having quiet the pirate problem lately. Seems like so much so, that they only allow ships to travel in a convoy now. It’s drove prices up pretty drastically.”

  Bag nodded back to him. “Yeah…things have gotten pretty bad, but thankfully I’ll be stationed on the surface and not with the Navy…”

  His grandmother smiled brightly from across the way. “Have you met any nice girls yet?”

  Bag laughed and half-smiled. Oh, that topic too… “Um, no. I’m way too busy for anything like that right now…”

  His brother Christopher nudged him hard on the shoulder and laughed. He didn’t buy his brother’s excuse for a second. He knew he was just shy when it came to that sort of thing. “Yeah whatever, little bro... Same lame excuses.”

  Bag laughed and shrugged it off. “I’m not a ladies man like you, Chris.”

  His grandfather leaned across the table toward him, and his tone was clearly serious. “Jordan, what can you tell us about this forced relocation they’re talking about for civilians? You’re in the military, you’ve had to have heard something!”

  His grandfather was heavily involved in politics, to the point of being unpleasant at times. Hopefully it stayed away from that. Bag shook his head and began to answer when he was cut off by his aunt and uncle who began talking about the injustices of living under such a war time government. Bag sighed loudly and was pat on the back by his sister Jennifer. “It’s always a chore to get a word in with our family.”

  “Most of the time it seems like I shouldn’t even try.” Bag sighed and began to drink from his water glass, before he noticed the calendar hanging on the kitchen wall. November 20th, 2102. He stared at the calendar, suddenly very confused. “The date’s wrong… It’s not 2102 anymore…”

  The family turned to him and laughed; his uncle pointed to the calendar, but his words became nonsensical and then totally silent. Bag glanced out the window as the sky turned red and began raining ash, and billowing black clouds of smoke poured into the sky from some nearby structure fires.

  “Bag…”

  As he turned back to the table, he looked on in shock as his family was nowhere to be seen, and the table had been overturned and severely broken. The entire room transformed into a twisted, broken ruin with the charred remains of…something off in the corner. The furniture was broken and burned, and trails of mostly old, but some very new blood were streaked through the burnt carpet and across the tile into the kitchen. Bag jumped up from the chair as he heard movement. Behind him stood a deathly pale, and malnourished man staring back at him with lifeless dull eyes.

  “Bag…”

  Bag reached for his side arm that was no longer in its holster or anywhere to be found. The man began walking toward him, holding a rusted and jagged knife. Several other figures began coming at him from around different corners of the room. He spun about trying desperately to find a weapon, and when he turned back around, the malnourished man was standing directly in front of him and raising his jagged weapon up to strike. Bag felt a sudden overwhelming feeling of helplessness and fear! He was surrounded…they were going to kill him!

  “BAG!”

  Bag snapped opened his eyes and began to kick and punch, desperately trying to escape the clutches of whatever was holding him down. “DAMNIT BAG! It’s alright! Stop moving so much, the bio seal still hasn’t set in yet!” Matt screamed out at him and held him down on top of the troop bay seats in one of their ARVs.
Bag began to hyperventilate, but slowly regained control of his senses as he spotted the rest of his team members talking out the back of the open troop bay. Bag stared up at Matt in grave confusion, who just sighed and offered him his canteen. “Here, drink this.”

  Bag continued to stare for a long moment, then grabbed the canteen and drank as if he hadn’t in days. Matt leaned up against the side of the troop bay. “You were making some really strange noises man…but that’s a lot better than how you were before.”

  Bag sat up on the seats and rubbed his now bandaged chest, with the recently bio-seal filed wound. It still felt horrible…but at least the knife was gone. That had actually happened… “Damn…how long was I out for?”

  James and Cholius walked into the squad bay and sat down on either side of Bag; Matt nodded to them and responded in a way that reinforced Bag’s own suspicion of how close to dyeing he really was. “For about an hour now… For a while there, we couldn’t even get a good reading on your vitals. The knife missed your heart by just a few centimeters, you’re lucky to be alive.”

  James smiled brightly and spoke kind of like a pep talk. “Yeah, but you pulled through! Hah, nothing can kill a Krieger soldier!”

  Matt grunted a laugh at James’ mannerism, but Cholius didn’t share the humor of it. Lee had literally just died, and they had almost lost a second team member to Sempra. It wasn’t funny. Matt realized that upon seeing Cholius expression, and changed direction. “Truth be told, Jon was the one who saved you. He was on the spot with the first hit of bio seal and managed to stop the bleeding before it got any worse. Hell, he carried your ass all the way back here. Willits was the one that stabilized you though, it’s nice to have a medic on the team again.”

  Bag nodded cheerlessly. Well, he owed Jon now…again. Bag was never going to hear the end of it, not that he wasn’t thankful. “Yeah, I’ll go thank both of them… Do you still have all my gear? I don’t really want to walk around without being fully equipped.”

  Cholius reached under the seat and grabbed a duffle bag of various armor pads and equipment, and the now bloodied armored chest piece with the large gaping slash where the knife once was. The sight made Bag shudder. “I couldn’t find a replacement vest, but everything else is good.” Cholius said bleakly.

  James smiled widely and motioned over to several random scraps and components of enemy armor. He was quiet proud of himself for taking it all. “There’s also a few pieces of stuff I managed to grab off of those stealth assholes… It’s pretty shot up, but I thought it’d be good to study or something.”

  Bag took the small black armor plate out of the duffle, and held it up in the light. The plate had a small module of some kind, though it no longer functioned due to the excessive bullet damage, it would still be valuable to Army Intel in some way. Strangest part was the entire plate felt warm and had an electro-static feel to it; Bag dropped it back into the duffle and began to redress himself. “That was good thinking, James.”

  Cholius nodded in agreement, but directed his voice in a clear and firm warning. He knew Bag a little too well. “Just take it easy, Bag. Let the bio seal do its job before you try to run a marathon.”

  Matt sat down in a seat across the troop bay and reiterated Cholius’ tone. “Yeah, you really need to have Phil look at that as soon as we get back to base. This shit is only meant to be a quick fix.”

  Bag carefully dropped the armor plating over his head and down around his chest. The bandage bulged out enough to rub again the plate and put pressure on the wound and it just didn’t feel too great. “Thank you all again, really… How are the rest of the soldiers doing?”

  James sighed and dropped his head slightly. His voice had lost its cheer. “They could be better… They’re taking Lee’s death pretty hard, a lot of the new guys went to boot with him I think… He was a good kid.”

  That bad huh? Bag should have expected that. He had a feeling it was going to be a rough few days for everyone. “Damn… What happened with Sempra after uh…I blacked out?” He came off a little more inquisitive than he should have. He remembered that Jon shot him, but he sincerely hoped they hadn’t killed him. He had questions he needed to ask…

  James grunted and curled his face in disgust. “They took off like cowards... but it’s more important we got you out of there.”

  Matt took in a deep breath as he recalled the day’s events himself. Things could have been a lot worse…by far. “Yeah seriously… I think the best thing to do now is just get back to base and chill for a bit. Pierce called about…uh, twenty minutes ago now and said to stay put until evac arrived. I still don’t trust the douche bag, but I couldn’t argue against a ride home.”

  Bag began to reattach the shin, thigh, shoulder, and forearm armor and strap it down snuggly. “Pierce and Sempra… Today is just not adding up…” He whispered, more thinking out loud than talking.

  Cholius agreed with a subtle nod. He seemed just as suspicious, if not more. “I’m certain Pierce had something to do with what happened down there. I can’t tell you why I feel that way…it’s just a hunch. How did Sempra get access if the building was on lockdown? Furthermore how did they come by cloaking technology like that? Willits said she thought she’d seen something in the hallways before we were ambushed…right before we entered the core. If it was them, they could have killed the whole team before we even went in, so why didn’t they? They must have known we had the data stub at that point… I suggest we speak to Patriot about this as soon as possible.”

  James nodded almost reluctantly. “Yeah Bag, we all agree that this has been seriously FUBAR. The sooner we get away from all this the better. Plus, I haven’t had a good workout in like four days… I got to whip these arms back into shape!” He ended with an upswing.

  Matt laughed and smirked at him. “Yeah, you’re looking a little flabby there James. I’m starting to worry.” James passed Matt a not too amused glare.

  Bag reattached his equipment belt, strapped on his helmet, and powered up the heads up display. “I agree that something is FUBAR and we need to reach Patriot on a secure line ASAP… maybe patch it through directly to his personal phone, hell anything. Just make sure we’re the only ones talking to him.”

  Bag stood up and instantly felt a sharp intense ache jet across his chest, causing him to fall back against the bulkhead and wince in pain. James reached over to help him back up, but Bag waved him away. “It’s alright… Just stretching pains… Get me that secure line…and get the teams ready to move…roger?”

  The three nodded. “Yes Sir.”

  Bag picked up an assault rifle from the seat next to him, assuming it was his, and ensured the weapon had a fresh magazine before slinging it over his shoulder. He slowly walked out of the troop bay, and onto the roof of the multistory parking garage, where the three armored vehicles had taken up temporary residence. Groups of two and three were patrolling around the top few levels of the garage, and the rest of the team were quietly chatting in the backs of their respected ARVs. All the conversations were a little more bleak than usual.

  Jon was off by himself at the far corner of the roof, staring back at the large black building they had just come from several blocks to their south. Bag hobbled over carefully, and leaned up on the concrete railing next to him. “I saw you shoot Sempra in the neck…nice shot.”

  Jon grunted and continued staring out at the vacant and trashed streets. “Don’t ever do that again.” He stated flatly.

  Bag semi-laughed but stopped from the pain it caused. “Well, I couldn’t exactly dodge his knife at the last second. Sorry that I almost died.”

  Jon turned to him and glared, and his tone became irritated. “Yeah that’s what I mean, don’t almost die. You’re a pain in the ass…” There was a mild sense of humor behind his words though.

  Bag grinned and gave him a thankful nod, then gazed off in thought. A thousand possibilities were running through his head, was his family really alive? He wanted so badly to hope that were true, that
he’d see them again. No…it couldn’t be true, could it? Maybe? He had to know for certain! Sempra… he knew! He had to find him!

  Jon gently nudged him a good thirty seconds of silence later and pulled him from his daze. “Hey…are you alright? I’m not just talking physically.”

  Bag sighed softly. He wasn’t very good at hiding when something bothered him, at least not to Jon. He had to be honest… “It was something Sempra said… He said ‘I’ll say goodbye to your family for you’ and then that I still don’t know what happened to them…”

  Jon stared at Bag curiously, then just waved his hand dismissively. “He’s an asshole. Probably just wanted to get under your skin. No pun intended.”

  Bag winced at the bad joke. “No…it’s just the way he said it…the way his eyes were. He actually knows something!”

  Jon shrugged and smiled deviously. “Yeah, and the next time we see him we’ll ask him about it. Right before I beat him to death with my bare hands, resuscitate him, blow his knee caps off, and then water board him with gasoline until he drowns…then light him on fire.”

  Bag took in a deep breath and shook his head seriously. “No, we can’t kill him…not until I know for sure…”

  Jon crinkled his brow with frustration. Bag really believed that Sempra knew something? That’s just plain stupid. They were talking about Sempra, right? “Like hell we can’t kill him! Fuck…how the hell can you even ask me to do something like that? Jesus, he’s tried to kill us both several times, and this time he almost did!”

  Bag shook his head again and stepped up the seriousness of his tone. Why was Jon being so difficult about this? “Jon, until I can find out for sure, we cannot kill him. He might be the only lead I have left.”

  Jon let out a frustrated sigh and glared, just as Matt ran out of the troop bay of Armor One. “Jon! Bag! You’d better take a look at this!”

  Jon walked off toward the tank by himself, Bag a few seconds behind him. The conversation had taken a turn for the frustrating, and neither wanted to continue it. As they walked back into the tank, Matt was sitting next to the small internal workstation and patched into the amplifying antenna, flipping through various radio channels on his wrist coms. “So, I was trying to modify one of our old com channels to reach Patriot, and I came across this on channel 27.58…” Matt patched his radio through the tanks speakers, which played static for a moment until Sarah’s voice came through. “This is Krieger One Bravo, calling all Krieger units. Please respond, over.”