Krieger Platoon

by Jay Ivanovich

  The elevator doors opened up to the same robotic sounding female greeter, and the team quickly spread out in pairs across all sides of the room. Pierce glanced up from the table in the center a second later, and began to back pedal away in a panic. “ARREST THEM! ARREST THOSE SOLDIERS! NOW DAMNIT!”

  The few Intelligence Specialist still awake began to dive for cover under their desks in fear, just as four Army sentries rushed out from the back of the room and attempted to draw their weapons. Kazowski and Hawkins close-lined the first two, and restrained both with plastic hand cuffs. The other two sentries’ managed to draw their pistols. Just as Matt and Sarah rushed to tackle both, one of the sentries’ fired his pistol, but thankfully the bullet hit nothing but carpet. The shot, however, sent the intelligence specialist into even more fearful hiding.

  Jon and Bag rushed Pierce and slammed him to the ground before he had a chance to fight back, and slapped handcuffs onto him. Shake led Brett over toward the central table and positioned him well within grabbing distance as a precaution. Brett saw this, but he wasn’t going to do anything. He was in this with them, for good or for bad.

  Colonel Martin exited out of her office a moment later and shouted out in a thick New Jersey accent, frustrated by the sudden outburst of noise. “What the ever loving fuck is going on…?”

  All of Krieger drew their weapons and aimed it directly toward her. She stood confused, then backed into her office and slammed the door. “Actually, carry on… I’m too tired to give a shit.”

  Pierce screamed out in anger, as he struggled to free himself from his cuffs. “You’re as good as dead! You’ll be hung as traitors or maybe even worse! Mark my fucking words!” Pierce winced in pain from the almost devastatingly tight handcuffs, then noticed the large knife gash in Bag’s armor. “Too bad the knife missed its mark…” He said snidely.

  Bag holstered his pistol, and then slammed his boot down directly into Pierce’s abdomen, blasting the air from the man’s lungs. He didn’t share in the humor of that comment. “Hung as a traitor? You have some serious delusions…” Bag smiled deviously at him, then pulled Sempra’s viscous looking knife from his satchel and pushed it up firmly against Pierce’s neck. Pierce froze in fear and began to carefully protest. “If you kill me, you’ll never see the light of day again.”

  Bag stared into Pierce’s eyes with uninhibited rage. Really now? Was that a threat? “Don’t worry…I’m not going to KILL you…” Then drove the blade deep into Pierce exposed arm.

  Pierce screamed out in agony. “You fucking peasant! General Travis… control your men!”

  Brett watched the events unfold with great concern, but he knew he was powerless in this. He crossed his arms and replied coolly. “At this point there is nothing I can do to stop them, not that I’d try anyways.”

  Jon cackled at Pierce’s pain. “It’s fucking 1:40 in the morning and you’re still awake… Hard at work trying to kill off more Americans?” He ended hatefully.

  Pierce growled at him, and through the agonizing pain of the blade in his arm. “You have no idea who you’re fucking with! When my agency finds out about this…you’ll wish you were dead! ALL OF YOU!”

  Sarah casually walked over to the central work table, and connected the small data stub the Admiral had given her. She booted up the drive, revealing an enormous list of text files, video, and an abundance of other material; all of which was written in German. “What do we have here…? Look at all this!” She exclaimed to her team mates.

  Bag violently ripped the knife from Pierce’s arm, wiped the blood from the blade onto his suite, and then joined the others over at the table. Pierce whined in agony, and was now bleeding excessively onto the carpet. Good. Cholius pointed at a video file that looked interesting. “Try that one! The one that says Korruption...”

  Sarah clicked on the file and it opened up into a library of various audio and video recordings. Pierce began to squirm as he noticed what was on the drive. “How did you get that? WHO GAVE THAT TOO YOU!?” His voice was more fearful than alarmed. That just solidified Sarah’s belief that that the late Admiral was actually speaking true.

  Matt walked over and kicked Pierce directly in the face. “Shut the fuck up!”

  The Intelligence Specialists all began to peak up from the hiding places around the control room, as Sarah played the first clip. The video showed a very large concrete conference room with a long ornate table in the center, and the angle of the camera made it appear to be security camera footage. At the head of the table sat Vice President Clarkson himself, along with four senators and congressmen who had died in the terrorist attack. On the opposite side of the table, with their backs facing the camera, sat an unknown civilian man in a grey suite with two similarly dressed body guards.

  Kazowski pointed toward the video screen and exclaimed. “Look at the date! This was only recorded two weeks ago!”

  VIDEO BEGINS…

  Clarkson: “We’ve discussed this a hundred times over. If you secure my position as President and take care of my competition…then the deal stands. If not then I could care less about your damn problems.”

  The Man in grey suite’s voice sounded foreign but his accent was very different from any the team had heard before. He spoke: “We will discuss it again then, because you still haven’t come through on your side of the deal. I need workers for some of my…side projects. You have several unruly colonies, which from my understanding have been trying to secede from your ‘perfect’ union. They are trouble to you, and they cost money to keep them in line…”

  Senator wearing a red tie: “Get to the point.” He responded irately.

  Grey suite: “Well…if those residents were to suddenly…disappear, I think such a thing would benefit us both greatly. I would have all the labor I need, and you would no longer have to worry about a rebellion.”

  Clarkson: “Hmm…”

  Grey suite: “If you do this for me, I will make you the President, or King, or whatever it is you want. It doesn’t matter to me.”

  Clarkson thought about it for a moment: “King sounds suitable… Fine, you have a deal. Work out the details with my aides. Now please excuse us, we have other business to discuss.”

  Admiral Al Hakam, Agent Pierce, and another older looking CIA fellow entered into the meeting room, just as the man in the grey suite and his cronies passed by without a second glance. The three new guests immediately sat down at the closest open seats to the Vice President.

  ***

  Matt laugh manically, kicked Pierce’s in the legs, and mocked him. “Aw look, you’re on TV!”

  ***

  Senator wearing the red tie: “So, Mr. Vice President…”

  Clarkson: “That’ll be Mr. President soon enough! You better get in the habit of saying it…”

  Red tie: “…Mr. President, the state of the union address is approaching within a few days. Are we really going to trust the Dawn to come through on their side of the deal? If we’re discovered before then…”

  Clarkson: “I don’t trust them for a moment, and fully intend on smashing their business apart after this. The only business this country…this planet needs…is American business.”

  Al Hakam became impatient: “Is this why this meeting was called? I’m not here to play around in your politics.”

  Clarkson stared angrily at Al Hakam. “Your Navy will get everything I promise, nothing more.”

  Al Hakam: “Yeah, well my fellow flag officers don’t want to let any of that happen…especially the Air Force bitch. I want the merge, I want my new class of ships to be finished ahead of schedule, and I want Naval Special Warfare renewed this month! That was OUR deal!”

  Clarkson slammed his fist on the table: “Do you think I don’t remember this conversation? You will get what we AGREED to and nothing more!” Al Hakam glared in response. Clarkson sat back in his chair and grunted toward the older looking fellow sitting next to Pierce. “Who is this protégé you wanted me to meet?”

  The ol
der fellow spoke. “This is Nathan Pierce, he’ll be overseeing our frontier issues. He comes highly recommended.”

  Clarkson sighed: “Which family is yours exactly? I don’t want peasants in this meeting.”

  Pierce spoke up confidently: “My father is Samuel Pierce, he was the senator of Tundra City…until he was wrongfully forced out of his office.”

  Clarkson nodded: “I know Samuel Pierce, he had his head on straight…didn’t bother with trying to make all the ungrateful masses happy… but why are YOU here? What do you profit from this?”

  Pierce sat up straight: “I want my family name to be restored and respected again, as we deserve to be. I’m ready for whatever it is the job requires. In fact I already have a team setup to deal with any unforeseen situations... I have my bases covered.”

  The older fellow beamed with pride as he watched Pierce: “Agent Pierce is up and coming to greatness himself. He WILL get the job done.”

  Clarkson nodded and leaned in over the table: “Alright. I want you to ensure this colony deal goes over smoothly, and make damn sure they don’t try and double cross us… After that, I have a much more important assignment for you…but we’ll discuss that IF you do this the right way. There can’t be a single word spoken about this, and not one witness, do you understand?”

  VIDEO END…

  Hawkins laughed and gawked over at Pierce. “Damn, I should have brought popcorn!”

  Sarah turned and stared at Pierce with disgust, speaking slowly and deliberately. “That unruly colony you mentioned was Camp Iron, wasn’t it? You kidnapped hundreds of innocent people!”

  “Let me take those for you…” Matt snatched the sunglasses from Pierce’s face before he could reply, then crushed them under the heel of his boot. Pierce’s eyes were almost trembling in fear, he tried to turn his head away, but Jon grabbed him by his hair and forcibly turned his head back toward Sarah. “Don’t even fucking try, shit head.”

  Pierce quivered and stared back into Sarah’s eyes. “Yes it was Camp Iron… Please…don’t kill me!”

  Cholius exhaled heavily in frustration. “Start answering ALL of our questions truthfully. How many other colonies did you sell out, and where did you take all those people?”

  Pierce desperately avoided his eye contact, and trembled as he spoke. It might have been the blood loss as much as the fear. “We ran a mock evacuation…made sure the transition ran smoothly…but that’s it. I don’t know where they took them…but I know that there were at least two other cities like that…just not on Mars…”

  The platoon stared at him with loathing eyes, and began to finger their weapons. Pierce was now in a pool of his own blood, trying desperately to back away out of their immediate reach. “I’m answering the questions!” He pleaded to them.

  Bag moved over, crouched next to him, and asked calmly, “How does Sempra fit into this?” Pierce swallowed hard and remained silent; Bag raised his knife above Pierce’s chest and stared him directly in the eyes with pure rage. “Why was Sempra in Crystal City?”

  Pierce froze. “I hired him… He had been a CIA asset in the past… We just use him when-” Matt finished his sentence. “When you need someone murdered? Hah. You really don’t know who he is, do you?”

  Cholius crossed his arms and leaned back against the table. “I have another question for you, Pierce. What exactly IS hydra?”

  Pierce began to cough and looked increasingly paler. “Hydra...is designed to react to any large scale cataclysm, like a nuclear detonation or an electromagnetic pulse… Its setup so that if all of us died from an attack…the missiles would still launch and destroy whoever attacked us… It’s a detrimental system…”

  Brett nodded, understanding how the name related to the function. “Like the mythical hydra. If you cut off one of its heads, the others will turn to attack… But this doesn’t make any sense…why design a system that would take the rest of the planet with it?”

  Pierce coughed and winced from his wound. “People will be too afraid to ever attack us… We would be a military super power again.”

  Cholius grunted in frustration. That was foolish thinking… The same kind of thinking that destroyed Earth. “I don’t think things will work out that easily… How many facilities are there?”

  Jon stood over Pierce and glared down at him; Pierce tried to avoid his gaze at all costs. “There are several dozen scattered around the country… Not all of them are as big as the one in Crystal City… But I don’t know much about the others…I was only put in charge of the one…”

  The team glanced at each other in shock. “Several dozen?”

  Jon growled and punched Pierce in the stomach. “How do you shut them down? ANSWER FUCKER!”

  Pierce coughed in pain. “Uh…you have to shut down each individual station… But you can’t shut it down! If we don’t act soon, the rest of the world is going to surmount us! We have to act first! Don’t you get it!?”

  Sarah sighed loudly, connecting her earlier run in with the traitors to what Pierce was saying now. “That’s what the pilot meant when he said; ours will be the only fleet worth mentioning. They plan on using this against the Europeans… I think the traitors wanted to bait them into attacking us…and then level the playing field in our favor.”

  Brett shook his head in disbelief. “That’s crazy talk! Why would the Europeans attack us? That could destroy everything!”

  Sarah shook her head back at him. “Reagan’s body was left behind in New Madrid… And they sort of have video evidence of me going into Admiral Ambrose’s house, who was murdered right after… I didn’t do it! But the Admiral knew I was an American… So it makes the situation look pretty bad for us…”

  Pierce began to nod off slightly from the loss of blood. “If the European Union attacks us…we would be justified in defending ourselves…”

  Shake crossed his arms and crinkled his face in confusion. “What will the rest of humanity think when we use nuclear missiles? You’re going to turn everyone against us! Not to mention the nuclear fallout! This is a horrible idea!”

  Pierce weakly shook his head in disagreement. “It won’t matter… We’ll be in control… We can fix the damage…”

  Hawkins shook his head and laughed. “There’s no way WE are the only ones who still have missiles... This shit is going to go downhill so fast…”

  Cholius nodded to him in agreement, then glared back down at Pierce. “Another question, what interest would Sempra have in your data stub?”

  Pierce began to hyperventilate. “He…has the data stub? You were supposed to destroy that!”

  Matt crossed his arms and smirked. “I think you forgot to mention that little detail when we were down there.”

  Bag suddenly became very concerned. “What can Sempra do with that data stub?”

  Pierce weakly shook his head. “Nothing as it is, but they could decrypt the coding and use that as a point of access in any system with that form of encryption… If that were to reach the black market it could compromise the defense network.”

  Jon kicked Pierce’s boot. “You’re saying, he can use it to get into the Hydra system?”

  Pierce was silent for a long moment. “It’s…possible…maybe…”

  Brett rubbed his eyes, suddenly now very frustrated by this new information. “Can that system be activated remotely?”

  Pierce’s gaze began to drift, and he could no longer keep his eyes fully focused on anything. “Uh…if you broadcast from…the primary… You’d need coding…”

  Bag grabbed Pierce by the shirt, and shouted at him. “What Primary? What are you talking about? ANSWER!”

  Pierce began to mumble, but then started to nod off more and more as he approached certain death. Bag sighed loudly, then leaned down next to him with a can of bio seal, and whispered. “I’m not going to let you die now, because you have yet to answer for anything you’ve done... But after this is over...there will not be person alive that can save you from me!”

  Bag quic
kly filled Pierce’s knife wound with the bio seal, then tossed the empty can off to the side of the room. “Kazowski, Hawkins, Shake! Get him to a Medic before he bleeds out completely.”

  The three nodded, picked Pierce up in a Fireman’s carry, and quickly departed on the elevator. Matt watched the elevator doors close, then walked next to Sarah and her workstation. “Sarah, is there anything on that data stub called Hydra or that has anything to do with missiles or weapons what so ever?”

  Sarah shrugged and began to scan around the menu of the computer. “Um…The search came up negative for Hydra. I don’t understand what any of this says on here anyways…I don’t speak German.”

  Cholius gazed at the information on the screen curiously. He didn’t speak German either, but he did remember something about the facility in Crystal City that might help them. “We saw an Air Force Space Command emblem in the lobby of the facility… Maybe Dade or James knows someone who can help us?”

  Brett laughed ironically at that. “I just met the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, General Barsha…and she isn’t particularly happy about our current administration. I’m sure she would be willing to help us, for the information on that data stub.”

  Jon shook his head and firmly stated, “This data stub stays with us. Period.”

  Cholius shrugged his hands. “That isn’t our only problem. We need to expose our government for what they are trying to do before this all spirals out of control. This situation could be devastating to the entire planet.”

  Sarah looked around the room at the faces of the Intelligence Specialists, all of which were watching the events play out from behind their hiding places. She was suddenly suspicious of them… “How do we know these people in here aren’t working with Pierce?”

  Brett quickly glanced around as well, and saw her point. “Good point, Sarah. They’ll stay down here. I’ll post a 23 hour guard and put the base on lock down… Hopefully that will deter the disloyal.”