Sarah nodded in acknowledgment and then glanced over to Pierce, who was silently staring out from under the sheets of his bed in the tiny and windowless corner room. Pierce adjusted himself to sit up straight, and appeared to be not at all in the near death condition that she thought she’d find him in. He cleared his throat, and placed both of his hands out in front of him on top of the sheets. "Sergeant Briar… Are you here to take your revenge on me for your fallen team mates? If so…I honestly won’t try to stop you.”
His cockiness had returned, wonder why? Last Sarah remembered he was pathetically begging for his life. She glared at him as she spoke. "Is that so? Well, I might just take you up on that…but I want to ask something first… Why did you tell Phil here that there were no survivors from Camp Iron?”
Pierce cleared his throat, and slowly took a long sip of water from the nearby drinking tube. He seemed to not want to answer that. Too bad he didn’t have a choice, and he knew it. "Well…because there was no need to. The raider you captured gave me a way around having to report the girl at all.”
Sarah narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Care to elaborate?”
Pierce let out a long sigh. "Well… Your after-action report mentioned a survivor, and also a prisoner, but didn’t give any specific details about either one… So, I just made it seem like they were both the same person... There was no need to push the issue further.”
Sarah leaned against the back wall and crossed her arms. He still hadn’t answered the question. If he kept up the dodging manner of his answers, she might have to remind him of the alternative… “But you’re all about getting rid of loose ends…saving a life doesn’t really fit your style.”
Pierce stared at her blankly. “Hmm, maybe I just didn’t want to see the little girl meet the same fate as her family members…”
Phil scratched the stubble of his chin, and stared at Pierce peculiarly. “You’re avoiding the question.”
Pierce shook his head, and then slowly dropped his gaze. “No… I just don’t find much joy in this particular topic… But if you must know, I use to walk with my sister Lizzy to school every morning. One day after being an irresponsible child, I ran down a different route and left her behind to attempt to scare her. However after several minutes, it became obvious she was not coming. I thought she may had just taken another route, but after school she was still nowhere to be found.”
Phil and Sarah passed each other inquisitive glances. There wasn’t any of the cockiness in his voice anymore, he was just speaking plainly. Pierce took in a deep breath and continued. “Several days later we received a ransom note, demanding only $10,000 dollars or they’d kill her. Of course my father paid the ransom, but when we went to where they said she’d be… they’d just left her dead on the side of the road…”
Pierce turned his face away from his audience of two, and silently choked back a wave of tears. It was hard to say if this was an act or not… Sarah and Phil watched on, curiosity setting in even harder. Phil let out a small sigh and then spoke in the most supporting tone he could muster. Despite what this man did, he was still HIS patient. “That doesn’t sound good at all… What happened to her?”
Pierce continued to keep his gaze away from them, and had a strange, almost sad twang as he spoke. “They had brutally tortured…and killed her…among other things… They left her body there like she was nothing…just garbage to them… She was only 8 years old…she had never done a thing wrong to anyone.”
Phil nodded in understanding. “I’m sorry to hear that…really… But that doesn’t explain why you helped Kelley. There must have been a lot of other children in Camp Iron, so why just her? Did Kelley remind you of your sister?”
Pierce paused for a moment and turned his head toward the life support systems and other medical equipment that had saved his life several hours prior. "The police said they couldn’t find a single bit of evidence pointing toward anyone what so ever. Since they didn’t have the resources to do a state wide man-hunt for suspects, they just ignored us. To top it all off, my father was accused of accepting bribes by his opponents, and lost his reelection because of it… Because of a baseless rumor started by some lower class wretches…” He spat the last part out.
Sarah wasn’t buying into his game, true or not. She just crossed her arms and retorted plainly, “Well, it seems you’re just as bad as the people that killed your sister. Actually, I’d say you’re a whole lot worse...”
Pierce looked directly toward Sarah with an emotionless expression. “My mission is more important than I could possibly describe to you…and must always come first. For what it’s worth, I never intended for your team to be caught up in this, but you provided the perfect fodder for what had to be done. This was nothing personal.”
Phil shook his head, amazed by the man’s sheer disregard for human life. “You’re a very troubled person, Mr. Pierce. In my professional opinion, once you go to prison I highly recommend seeking out the local therapist. They might be able to help you.”
Sarah clenched her fist in anger. Was that supposed to be an explanation as to why he tried to murder her? It simply enraged her. "Nothing personal? Do you think you can just murder my friends and say 'It’s nothing personal'!?” Sarah sneered at him, then turned to Phil and motioned toward the door. She had to leave before she did something she’d regret. “Let’s go…”
Pierce coughed loudly to grab their attention. "I know you see us as the enemy, but what WE are trying to do is for the greater good of everyone. Yes, there must be many unfortunate but nonetheless necessary civilian deaths, but imagine a world where everyone is united and equal under the power of the United States! We could actually thrive again…regain all our lost progress and turn this hell of a planet into a functioning society. We will be the sole and undisputed rulers of humanity!”
Phil shook his head in grave concern. “This is not what the United States is about…”
Pierce shook his head right back, and responded pompously, “It’s pointless trying to convince you if you can’t see reason…”
He spoke like people’s lives were just some sort of tool to him. As if people were disposable! He truly thought he was above other human beings… He was so blatantly guilty and remorseless of his crimes, it made her Sarah sick. She almost hissed out her next words, she was so angry. "So using nuclear weapons to wipe out half the planet is for the greater good? I can’t believe you don’t see the flaws in that plan… You aren’t going to make a better world for us, you’re going to turn the only one we have left into a radioactive wasteland! I thought you were just a cocky bastard…but you really are a soulless monster!”
Pierce opened his mouth to speak but remained silent and emotionless. Sarah stared at him through narrowed eyes; she wanted nothing more than to put a bullet through his skull and make him pay for all the harm he had caused…was trying to cause…but she knew he was more valuable to them alive…at least for now. Instead, she simply marched out of the room before anything else could be said or done.
Chapter 23 – Enemy of my enemy…
The orange, holographic image of General Barsha flashed onto the view screen of the large table monitor, in the now very vacant and thrashed command and control center. She took a quick look around the room via remote camera, and then let out an almost disappointed sigh. “I don’t have much time to spare, so let’s get right down to brass tacks… What evidence do you have on Clarkson and Al Hakam?”
General Travis, Sergeant Major Cholius, and all of Krieger’s Commissioned Officers stood quietly around the central table, as Brett waved his hand in greeting toward Barsha and tried to be pleasant. “Good Morning... We were just discussing-”
Barsha held up her hand to the camera, and snapped back, “Don’t waste my time. What do you have on them?”
Brett sighed and motioned over to Cholius, who plugged the data stub into the table and streamed the same incriminating video from earlier onto Barsha’s console. Barsha stared at the video in amazement
, and her mouth slowly formed into an enormous grin. “This…is…perfect!”
Cholius nodded. “Yes Ma’am, and our current plan is to-”
Barsha smiled wickedly and interrupted Cholius with a wave of her hand. “Don’t worry about ANY planning… Just send me the full video and I’ll handle the rest.”
Bag raised an eyebrow at her. If she thinks she’s just going to take the video, and not contribute to Krieger’s side of the issue, she was very wrong. “To do WHAT exactly?” He asked suspiciously.
Barsha tilted her head and looked at him crossly. “That video will finally give me the cold hard evidence I need to ‘remove’ these traitorous bastards from office… I’m going to do whatever it takes it make sure they are dealt with so our country doesn’t go down in ruins. Do you have a problem with that?”
Bag crossed his arms and stared back at her, along with the rest of the team. They didn’t trust her for an instant. Why hide it? “Yes I do. The only reason we’re even bringing you in on this is because we’ve come across an issue that is Air Force related and we could use your help.”
Barsha narrowed her eyes and gritted her teeth. She no doubt suspected they were trying to exploit her in some way, which in truth they were. It was for a mutual problem, however. “Don’t try to fuck me… If you think for even one second I’m going to play this game with you-”
Brett cut her off before she could continue, trying to be the voice of reason. “General, I’ll put it plainly… We need your help disabling the Hydra system, which we have reason to believe is going to be used by the traitors to launch a preemptive strike against the EU and the rest of the Martian Assembly.”
Barsha’s eyes went wide in surprise, and then narrowed slightly in suspicion. “How do you know about Hydra? Who told you about that?”
Jon grunted loudly in annoyance. “At this point, why the fuck does it matter?”
Brett passed Jon a stern look, which told him just to stay quiet. Cholius cleared his throat and stepped forward. “Ma’am, we were tricked into accepting a mission from a corrupt CIA Agent, who had us blindly reactivate the system. We didn’t know exactly what we had done until it was too late.”
James rumbled out his words with clear looming anger. “You left out the part where they killed two entire squads of our team members… Weak swabby assholes…”
Barsha glanced at James curiously. “Swabby? The Navy attacked you?”
Matt responded bitterly. “The drop ships were Navy type, but the uniforms they had was some blue hexagonal pattern I haven’t seen before. Oh, and the platoon leader introduced himself as Petty Officer. Thought that made it pretty obvious.”
James half-smiled. “He also had a massive stick up his ass...” He added, ALMOST jokingly. That Petty Officer Smith asshole got everything he and his team deserved.
Barsha sighed, and didn’t hide the displeasure from her voice. “Blue hexagonal sounds like Naval Special Warfare…but that’s another issue... If Hydra is really active like you say it is…then good job, you fucked us. Especially so with how much the EU wants to bomb our asses into oblivion now.”
Bag leaned forward across the table and retorted bluntly. “Then we agree that we need a plan of action, yes?”
Barsha stared back at him and crossed her arms. She picked up impolite overtones but also a certain level of urgency. She couldn’t argue with that. They didn’t have time to sit and discuss the irrelevant details of the past, or point blame. “Hmm, do you have something in mind?”
Brett took a step forward toward the holographic map. “Yeah…that’s partly why we wanted to speak to you… We were hoping that you’d have some idea of how to shut it down, seeing as how it was in an Air Force facility after all.”
Barsha laughed; now it made sense why they’d brought her in on this. They were clever to have made the link between the Hydra and the Air Force. Though it still angered her that they helped the traitors seize control of it from her in the first place… “Personally, I don’t have the first clue. Lucky for us though, it IS an Air Force system and we have specialists for this sort of thing. I’ll start setting up a team.”
Brett nodded with appreciation. “Of course...but right now we need to know where the primary station is and how to reach it. If we’re going to work together we need to start trusting each other…and that means openly sharing information.”
Barsha cocked her head slightly at his comment. Was that last part an accusation, or a request? Either way, he was right where she wanted him from the beginning. “Can I take that as a yes to my offer? I’ll need to hear you say it.”
Brett made sure to word his response carefully, and not fall into some awaiting trap of hers. “Our mission is to disable Hydra and to remove all the traitors and insurgents and bring an end to this damn conflict…and that is OUR ONLY mission, General.” He stated firmly back to her.
Barsha thought about the answer for a moment and then grinned. He obviously didn’t want to say yes, but she knew he’d go along with what she said now… At least for the most part. “As long as we both continue to want the same thing, then deal. There’s a government subway that runs the length of New Denver. I know there’s a primary station for Hydra somewhere on the line…but you’ll have to physically go down there to find it.”
James had a feeling they would have to get all the answers they wanted right now, or not at all. She didn’t seem like the type to bother with many details. “Wait up, how do we even get there? What sort of government subway?”
Barsha smiled and countered. “Hold on now, it’s my turn! I want the video.”
Jon laughed loudly, and mockingly. He’d rather shoot himself in the foot than give her the damn video. “Fat chance! My guys have died over that fucking thing!”
Barsha scowled at him. They were using her, just as she was using them. She knew this, but she despised the idea that they had the ONE tool she needed to do her job and they wouldn’t let her have it! “Didn’t we agree to start trusting each other?” She hissed at him, irritably.
Cholius took a step forward, nodded to Barsha, and cut in calmly. “We’ve been discussing hacking into a television network and broadcasting the video to the rest of the world during the President’s upcoming memorial speech… And then using the moment of confusion it causes to move in and capture the traitors before they have a chance to react. If we ‘both’ truly want the same thing, then there’s no reason for us to hand over the video just yet.”
Barsha wanted to personally watch Al Hakam try to squirm out of this one, as she tore his world apart piece by piece, and left him laying broken and alone in a prison cell. However, it was pretty obvious now that Krieger wasn’t going to part with ANYTHING they had on him. Their plan was relatively the same as hers though... She didn’t want to admit it, but she didn’t have a choice in the matter. She nodded and spoke firmly at length. “Then I’ll be sending my own teams to accompany you on both objectives. If you want me to help you, then that’s not an option.”
Brett reluctantly nodded. That was as good a compromise as he was going to get, and he knew it. “Very well. Agreed.”
Barsha quietly snorted, still somewhat irately. Since their fates were now intertwined, she had to make sure they were on the same page and actually did the mission correctly. “Good…but remotely hacking into a network is a poor idea since they can just block the signal for the broadcast and we’d be up shit creek. There’s an emergency broadcasting bunker underneath Congressional Hall that secures control of the entire national data network in case of some catastrophe or another… it should give us a few minutes of working room to get that video out to the public.”
Brett nodded in agreement. “All we need is a few minutes… And in the long run, as long as Hydra’s deactivated, it doesn’t really matter.”
Jon stretched with a loud yawn. “So we take out Hydra first, play the video, and then move in and take the traitors out. Ok, done planning. Let’s go fucking kill them.” He ended with an impatient gro
wl.
Barsha laughed and spoke in a somewhat condescending tone. “Well, you have it all figured out… I’ve already been planning my own little incursion. This coming Saturday, the President is holding a remembrance ceremony at about 10:00 for those killed in the attack; that’s our target date and time. I suggest you shadow some of the larger air freighters in past the initial sensors, but that route would require a pretty low jump down to the city. My teams will be going in the same way.”
Matt grunted, dissatisfied. He was thinking about the possibility of jumping out of a moving freighter and into the city below, but that wasn’t a very probably solution. “The air lanes are only 500 feet up at the most, and those freighters don’t slow down to a safe jump speed until they get over the airport. That will be one hell of a low and fast jump…you sure about that?”
Barsha stared at him blankly. “Yes…”
Matt shrugged. “Ok, it’s not the worst jump I’ve ever done…but just checking.”
James nudged Matt on the shoulder and quietly laughed. “Shit at that height, you don’t even need a parachute…”
Matt snorted at the joke, but it was actually pretty true. 500 feet was an easy jump over open land, but in a city with a lot of high buildings…that wasn’t really a good idea. In fact…it was a terrible idea. “Yeah, well why don’t we just follow one of the freighters in? The radiation exhaust from a freighter could hide a small ship… I mean shit, we’ve done it before!”
James understood the reference to Brush Fire, specifically Krieger’s attack on Hope Space Center, but he still wasn’t too convinced. “Yeah but we did that on some backwards raider city. We’re talking about New Denver here! They have sensors and defenses up the ass, and they actually work.”
Dade, who’d been silent this entire time at the back of the room, decided to cut in. He understand James’ concern, but knowing aircraft and spacecraft as Dade did, Matt’s plan was pretty solid. There were kinks to work out, but still solid. “Yeah but I still think Matt’s idea is a better idea. If we time it right we could dive down between the sensors and avoid jumping at all. Kind of worked out that you guys acquired that drop ship, otherwise flying in an unshielded aircraft with that amount of radiation would kill all of you.” He laughed, but it was a grim reality of space travel.
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