Brett thought hard for a moment. It suddenly felt like he was being pulled between two world, and neither one of them really cared what happened to him. “What exactly do you want from me?”
Barsha leaned forward, interlaced her fingers, and lowered her voice. “I want you to help me remove them from office, and have them convicted as the traitors they are.”
Brett turned away and looked out the cabin window into the brightly glowing night sky. And there it is! The choice. “Traitor is a big word to be throwing around…”
She narrowed her eyes at his comment, and tossed her long silver hair away from her face. She was not happy. “They ARE traitors! I watched that snake, Al Hakam, walk out of Congress just a moment before the attack went down. Since then he has pulled back every damn naval asset he has and stationed them around New Denver. All the while the frontier is collapsing into civil war! Onto of that, your boss General MacAnthony is political piece of shit! He wasn’t even in the line up to become Chief of Staff when he jumped up three stars and is now practically running the entire fucking military.”
Brett turned and stared out of the window for a number of silent minutes. He actually did agree with her, for the most part. The way the government was running…it wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. Who was to say who was actually loyal to the US still? “How do you expect to force them out of office?”
Barsha smiled deviously and gently tapped the top of her side arm. “By any means necessary… This isn’t about me, or even about the Air Force. This is about trying to save what’s left of our country before its overrun by those vermin. It will be too, if no one does anything about it.”
Brett reluctantly nodded. “I’m inclined to agree with you…but you still haven’t said how you plan on forcing them out.”
Barsha reached into her pocket and produced a boxy, ancient looking wrist coms, first generation probably, and tossed it onto Brett’s lap. “Keep that on you at all times. It’s too old to be traceable. That technology was lost with the last war. Right now you’re on a need to know basis, and you do NOT need to know more than this. I have to protect myself. When the time comes to act, you’ll be informed.”
Barsha stood up and walked into the cockpit, pausing only to speak once more, though her words were venomous now. “Oh, and if you even think about double crossing me… I’ll slit the throats of your entire family while they sleep…and I KNOW where they live.”
Brett waited until the cockpit door closed, then let out a huge sigh of relief and frustration. He had a feeling she actually meant that. What the hell has he gotten himself into? So much for a quiet evening.
***
The platoon quietly lounged around the seats and open ramp of their remaining ARV, Armor Three, after the long and crowded trip some thirty miles outside of Crystal City. The night had come in a flash and the air temperature had dropped to just above freezing. The surrounding desert was mostly flat, save for the occasional loom of light from the City protruding over the distant hills and sand dunes and from a few neighboring towns. It was actually peaceful, they couldn’t even hear the sounds of war anymore.
Every member of the platoon was exhausted mentally and physically, and no one had much to say, not even Ramirez who was normally the talkative comedian of the group. They were ready to leave the troubles and losses of the day behind them. Who could blame them? Likewise Jon and Bag had been patched into the radio with Sarah for the last forty minutes or so, and were attempting to teach her, with much frustration, how to pilot her drop ship down safely.
Jon grunted loudly and whispered to himself. “This would be a lot easier if I were actually there...”
Sarah keyed her radio, and responded irritably. “If you were here, you wouldn’t need to talk me through this…”
Jon removed his helmet and let it drop to the floor. “Yeah, exactly… All you did was hit engage last time and it just went to the coordinates?”
“Yes, that’s it. Like the last five times you asked me.” She responded with a snarky tone. Sarah and Jon didn’t always get along… Jon had that effect on most people, and it was going nowhere. Bag sighed deeply and keyed his radio before they started fighting again. “Ok Sarah, the engines are powered on?”
“Well...yeah.” She responded a little nicer to Bag. They were all frustrated though.
Jon sighed and threw his hands up in frustration at him. Bag shrugged back, but continued calmly. “Ok…well, on the computer is there a button that says reset or reboot or power down or something?”
Sarah was silent for a few moments. “Um…there’s something labeled emergency reset. It says do not push.”
“I don’t care what it says, just push it!” Jon belted out irately.
“Asshole…” Sarah whispered into the radio, but was then went totally silent for what started to become an unnerving amount of time. One minute…three minutes…five minutes. She finally radioed in an instant later. “Ok, the whole ship went dark, but now everything is on and the computer is back to the main screen.”
Bag sighed in relief. “Ok good, now do the same steps we did before. Power on the engines at 75%, wait until they both engage and display available fuel. Once there, input the coordinates I sent you, and just do what you did last time.”
“Ok…” Sarah was silent again, then came back with a relieved tone with the distant low drone of the ships quantum engines firing in the background. “Ok! It’s moving! It says ETA twenty seven minutes.”
Jon stretched and yawned loudly, now seemingly bored and done with the whole ordeal. “Good. Radio silence until you get here. Out.” He said bluntly, then shook his head in frustration. “After all that, we just had to restart the damn thing!”
“That usually how it works… Computers frustrate me...” Bag likewise shook his head and disconnected his wrist coms from the radio. He was SO happy he didn’t become an IT… He would have hated his life… Not that his current job was any less frustrating. He semi-laughed at that thought before he walked out the back of the ARV, and sat down on the edge of the ramp, staring silently up at the night sky.
Jon watched him keenly out of the corner of his eye, but decided to let him do his own thing this time. Bag had to sort that shit out himself now, whatever the hell it was. If he didn’t, Jon would straighten him out later. It usually came to that. Jon propped himself up against one of the open seats, and closed his eyes to doze off.
He awakened an unknown number of minutes later as a sudden frigid gust of sand and air swept through the troop bay. The gusting air became more intense, and created a miniature sand storm, as the stealth drop ship slowly lowered down a few yards away from the ARV. This ship was the larger model, and it was twice as big as the smaller counterpart they shot down in Crystal City. It was designed to lift just about anything, but it didn’t have the right hook-ups to carry the tank, unfortunately. It was the space faring version, and it was designed in its own right to be able to travel anywhere within the quadrant within a few days’ time.
Bag was now walking directly toward its landing site, side arm drawn. Jon sighed at him and began to yell to the rest of the team. “Everyone up! Get up! Weapons at the ready!”
The platoon scrambled up and out of the ARV, then formed a sloppy firing line, as the ARV’s turret spun around and prepared for the unexpected. The drop ship landed abruptly and wound down its engines, as moved Bag off to the side of the ship and readied his pistol.
Sarah walked down the still lowering back ramp and rushed over toward the platoon, much to everyone’s relief. Matt let out a deep breath he had been holding. “Everyone stand down, its Sarah.”
Bag holstered his side arm and walked up next to her, as the platoon exchanged solemn greetings. Bag shouted out to them all, coldly. “Alright everyone, pack up your gear and secure it on the drop ship. Valor, get some charges and rig the ARV to explode. We need to get out of here as quickly as possible. Make it happen everyone!”
James and Matt nodded attentively, then be
gan to hurry their team members along as they prepared to leave. Bag grabbed a toolbox from the back of the ARV and immediately headed to an exterior panel on the underside of the drop ships’ cockpit. Sarah stood there staring at him with a bemused look. Why was he being so detached with everyone? “Good to see you too, Bag…” She spoke out as he passed.
“Yeah…” Bag smiled and waved somewhat half-heartedly, then continued on toward whatever it was he was doing. Jon walked up next to Sarah, and both watched him curiously. Jon grunted and kept his voice low. “He’s been acting weird…”
Jon then strode up next to the open panel just as Bag undid the last few screws on the small box of the GPS module, and violently ripped it from it housing. The drop ship lights suddenly flickered in confusion before stabilizing. Bag ran a quick diagnostic on his wrist coms to ensure the avionics were still functioning, and then closed up the exterior panel.
Jon kicked a small amount of dust at Bag’s boots. “All that avionics training and you just haphazardly rip components out? Hah. Just saying, removing that module is like really illegal.”
Bag back crawled out from under the drop ship, then stood up and quickly dusted himself off. “I really don’t give a shit anymore.”
“Fine by me.” Jon grinned back; this was a new side of him.
Valor walked over from Armor Three, with a look of utter sadness on his face. It was pretty obvious what it was about. What Bag had asked him to do was like…murder almost. “Bag, the charges are setup…ready to detonate the perfectly good tank…whenever…” He said dismally.
“Thanks, could you toss this in there too?” Bag tossed Valor the GPS module, who then just sighed deeply in regret and walked slowly back to the tank. Bag saw how hard it was for him. He had to say something. “Hey Valor, she served us well and got us through the day. She’s going out the way of a warrior.”
Valor semi-smiled at that. “Yeah…still tough for me to do it though, you know?”
Cholius walked over silently and cleared his throat. “Hey, Bag... The bodies of Harrison and Stevens are laying in the back of the drop ship. Do you want us to bury them?”
Bag nodded solemnly and glanced over at the tank. “Lay them in the tank’s troop bay...make sure you take their tags and cover them up properly. We can’t take them with us… and we can’t risk staying here longer than we already are. We’ll give them a proper burial when all of this settles…”
Cholius took in a deep breath and nodded. It was the logical thing to do of course, but it was still grim. “Yes Sir. What about the dead naval crew?”
Bag glanced toward the back of the drop ship, then out to the desert; crinkling his brow in hate. He responded coldly. “Toss them…let them rot. Check if they have anything valuable first though, Intel…or whatever.”
Cholius stood motionless with a troubled expression, astonished by Bag’s unusually cold words. He glanced over to Jon, who didn’t reveal a thing. “…Yes sir...” Cholius replied apprehensively, then walked back to help the rest of the platoon finish loading their equipment.
Whatever it was that made this change for Bag, Jon didn’t mind it too much. He was starting to harden up a little bit. “Starting to like this side of you.” Jon said with a smirk.
Bag held up his hand and opened his mouth as if to speak, but let out a frustrated sigh and walked away wordlessly. The platoon finished loading their gear and began to claim their seats in the cargo bay, as Bag walked straight into the cockpit, secured himself into the pilot’s seat, and began to run pre-checks on the ship. Jon sat down in the opposite pilot seat a moment later, while James began to shout to the rest of the platoon. “Everyone get aboard! Sit down and strap in, we are Oscar Mike!”
The platoon quickly secured themselves with their seat belts, and Valor and Alighten took the two seats closest to the back ramp, detonator in hand at the ready. The drop ship engines roared to life, and began to slowly ascend up and away from the ARV. Valor held the detonator and hovered his thumb over the trigger, but it was too much for him. “Damnit! I can’t do it! I can’t do it, Alighten!”
Alighten casually reached over and pressed the trigger, detonating the tank in a fireball. Alighten patted Valor on the back, who had become instantly depressed, as the ramp sealed closed and the ship rocketed forward low and fast into the night sky.
Chapter 21 – The Serpent’s Head
Brett slowly made his way through the now very empty and darkened headquarters building and back to his office. Even though it was almost 01:00 in the Morning, since Mars had only 23 hour days, he didn’t particularly feel like sleeping. The drop ship had taken about a half hour longer than expected, on account of making a detour to drop General Barsha off in the middle of the damn desert, but oh well. He was back and still alive.
He rounded the corner to his office, unlocked his door with his thumb print, then moved over behind his desk and flopped down exhausted in his chair. He left the lights off, but that was fine for now since he was debating whether he would walk all the way back to his base house, or just sleep right there in his chair. He couldn’t remember why he went to the office, though he knew there was a reason to it. Whatever it was had slipped his mind.
It didn’t matter at this point, he’d remember sooner or later… He closed his eyes and began decompressing from the day, trying greatly to push the most recent additions to his list of problems to the back of his mind. He felt sleep start to take hold of him and pull him into its depths, until a subtle shuffle across the carpet brought his consciousness racing back. He opened his eyes sleepily. His clock read 01:23, he had been asleep for a little over 20 minutes it looked like. He let out a sigh and closed his eyes again… Though it would make sense for him to walk back to his house and actually sleep in his own bed, he was too tired to move.
He heard the shuffle again, clear as day. Someone was in the room with him! He slowly opened his eyes and began to look around, forcing his eyes to adjust to the blanketing dark. He could see several dark figures holding rifles across their chests…looked like four of them all together.
A serious voice whispered out. “Tell me you had nothing to do with it.”
Brett struggled to see the face of the figure that spoke, but…that was definitely Bag’s voice. “Bag? Sorry, I wasn’t expecting you to be here so late.”
Bag let out a subtle sigh. “Tell me it wasn’t you, Brett…” There was an accusation behind his words, one that Brett didn’t quite understand but could hear well enough. Bag must have just found out the program was canceled… Brett wanted to be the one to tell him… He sighed as well, and tried to be apologetic through his exhaustion. “I had no idea until about two hours ago. I didn’t have any say in the matter, the Army just decided on its own. They pulled our funding completely.”
Another voice spoke, obviously angered, and it sounded like Matt. “Yeah…so that’s what it looks like when funding gets canceled? I’ll remember to tell my soldiers that their friends died for the government to save a buck!”
Brett’s eyes had finally fully adjusted and he could make out everyone’s faces; it was Bag…Matt…Sarah…and Cholius. But what did Matt mean by that? “What? What are you talking about? Who died?”
Bag dropped his gaze to the floor. His voice became very somber. “Private Harrison, Private Stevens, Private Second Class Lee, Private Second Class Wallace, Lance Corporal Wolfe, Corporal Conrad, and Sergeant Reagan… all killed in action.”
Oh no… This was all turning out to be worse than he imagined. The missions weren’t supposed to be that dangerous though! Pierce had told him they’d be in an out, no problems. Brett shook his head and let out a saddened sigh. “Damnit…how did it happen?”
Cholius took his helmet off and clipped it onto the side of his belt, and spoke less collected than he usually did. “The crews Pierce sent to pick us up tried to kill us. We we’re lucky to have fought through it.”
Sarah let out a deep breath, her voice had a certain level of sting and anger behind it as
well. “My team wasn’t so lucky…”
Brett carefully processed their words and tried to make sense of the insane day. What could he say at this point? It was obvious they suspected him of having some part in it. How could he explain what happened on his side? Pierce took control, and Brett’s own command supported it! “Jesus… I had no idea… I swear to you all, I had nothing to do with any of this! But if all of that is true, then by God someone will pay… Are you sure it was Pierce?”
Cholius nodded, and a tinge of anger came through as he spoke. “I would personally bet on it, but we only have one way to find out...”
Bag nodded at Cholius in agreement, then turned to Brett and moved toward the door. “Where does he sleep, Brett?”
They were out for blood…there was a controlled fury surrounding them. Brett doubted he could stop them either. Should he tell them? Well actually, he didn’t know either… Pierce never seemed to sleep. “You know…I have no idea… He doesn’t have assigned quarters on base…but he IS always in command and control, so maybe there? You don’t plan on killing him, do you?”
“I won’t make any promises.” Bag responded coldly.
Matt opened the door and motioned for Brett to exit. Brett knew he didn’t have a choice either. “After you, General.”
Brett walked somewhat hesitantly to the door, then was gently grabbed on the arm by Cholius and escorted down the hall toward the secured elevator. The two sentries who normally stood by the doors, were unconscious and handcuffed off to the side of the elevator. Shake, Hawkins, and Kazowski were standing watch in their place. They passed respectful, but obviously suspicious nods to Brett, then activated the elevator with the sentries’ keys. Jon jogged down the hallway and caught the elevator door just before it closed. “Hold on, I had to use the latrine.”
The entire group squeezed into the elevator, which was still playing the same jazzy sound track as before, and sent it descending down to Command and Control. No one spoke a single word on the way down, and Brett could tell they were exhausted but very focused on whatever it was they were planning on doing. It pained him to see them like this, but he could understood their position well enough…
Krieger Platoon Page 29