Following Cole, a short, stocky Marine First Sergeant with very short strawberry-red hair introduced himself. “Steve Adamski, Sir,” the corporal said; “Marine Special Operations Regiment, First Battalion.”
He was short and stout, with very broad shoulders. He moved with a deliberate, precisely controlled, grace that Carter had always attributed to truly dedicated body-builders; men who had to consciously manage each movement in order to control their great strength. Adamski was a solid mass of muscle that made it obvious that he spent every spare moment at a gym. He had a harsh, humorless face with sculpted, angular cheeks and a hawkish nose.
“So we don’t know what we’re waiting on; do we know why we’re waiting?” Carter asked
Williams answered. “When I first arrived, a Marine sergeant simply told me that I would be joined by other people who would be arriving throughout the day.”
“So, we’re waiting on more operators to come in from the field,” Carter said, finally finding himself unable to resist the roast beef and moving toward the table. He began constructing a sandwich.
“It would seem so,” Garba confirmed.
Carter had just taken his first bite his sandwich when the door was opened by the corporal that was serving as escort and a tall, raven-haired woman in a United States Air Force uniform entered. Although she wore the insignia that marked her as belonging to one of the Air Force’s elite Special Operations Squadrons, it was obvious that she had not just come in from the field.
Her hair was not only much longer than regulations allowed; it was worn loosely about her shoulders, and had obviously been attended to recently by a talented stylist. She wore expertly applied make up and seemed well nourished and rested. Even in the time-worn uniform she wore, she was stunning. She had the kind of body-shape that made almost any clothing look attractive.
She paused briefly realizing that all eyes in the room were on her. Her bright, green eyes panned appraisingly over the each of the people in the room before identifying Carter as the senior officer present. “Captain Monica Winters reporting, Sir,” she said, coming to stand in front him.
“Not to me you’re not, Captain,” Carter told her. “Whatever’s going on here isn’t my show.”
“So you don’t know what this is all about either, Sir?” Winters asked; her voice tinged with frustration.
“Not a clue,” Carter responded. “Everyone here was pulled out of their normal duties and told to report here as quickly as possible.”
“It was the same for me,” Winters offered. Carter and the others looked at her curiously. Winters realized that her unruffled appearance stood in stark contrast to the rest of the battle-weary group.
“I was in the middle of a deep cover operation; I won’t go into all the details,” she explained. “The DIAs computer flagged me as the perfect type of woman to attract the attention of certain WCA general. They pulled me out of my squadron about a year ago and placed me undercover as a civilian computer technician on his staff. It took months, but I got close enough to him get access to a lot of classified information that saved a lot of lives. Then, out of the blue, I got orders to pull out.”
“No one was throwing stones, Captain.” Carter assured her; pointing to the scarlet beret in her left hand. “We all know that a combat controllers and para-rescuemen work for a living,” he added referring to the U.S. Air Force’s renowned special operations units.
“What is so God damned important?” Winters demanded of no one to particular.
The door opened then. “How about changing the course of the war? Is that important enough for you Captain?” A deep, raspy voice asked. The door closed behind a United States Army General with a sharply angled, severe looking face and three stars on each of his shoulders. He was of medium height and build, but had a dominating presence born from years of military service.
Winters, came to attention; Carter and the others mimicked her. “Yes Sir,” Winters answered quickly.
“As you were,” the General said. “Relax Captain Winters, if they pulled me out of an op, shipped me hundreds of miles, and then didn’t tell me shit about why, I’d be pissed too.”
The general took a step further into the room; closing the door behind him. “I am General Jeremiah Hicks: commander of this facility. You are all here to be given a chance to participate in a project that may turn the war around for us. This is strictly voluntary but, until you do volunteer, I can’t tell you anything about the project.”
Hicks paused briefly, waiting for questions, then continued. “I can tell you that will be fatal for some of you; and very painful for all of you. But, if you survive, you’ll be better soldiers; better warriors than you ever were before. I said before that you could change the course of the war, and I meant it.”
Hicks opened his brief case and removed several legal forms. “If you’re up for it, then sign these wavers and non-disclosure forms. If not, then you’ll be returned to your units and nothing more will be said.”
The room fell silent for a moment. All eyes turned to Carter. “Sir,” he said finally. “You said that this project, whatever it is, would be fatal for some of us. I’m sure none of us here are afraid of taking risks, but I also think that I speak for everyone here when I say that we should, at least, be allowed to know what that risk is.”
Hicks fixed Carter’s Gaze. Carter stared unflinchingly back. “Aright, that’s fair enough,” Hicks said, nodding. “You’re being asked to undergo a medical procedure that will drastically improve your physical and mental capabilities. The process will almost certainly kill at least two of you and, for those that survive, it will be excruciatingly painful.”
“Just how much improvement are we talking about, Sir?” McNamara asked.
“I can’t elaborate,” Hicks replied. “But the improvement is beyond substantial.”
McNamara stepped closer to Hicks. “With all due respect, Sir; you’re asking us to take one hell of a leap of faith.”
“I know that, Sergeant,” Hicks conceded. “All I can do is give you my word that your participation in the project can help win this war. I wouldn’t ask anyone to take this kind of risk if I didn’t believe that.”
Carter looked at Hicks and his expression softened. “Your word has always been good enough for me, Sir.”
Hicks smiled slightly then. “Thank you, Major,” he said.
Carter sat at one of the tables and signed the documents; Williams followed his example and signed as well, but the others still hesitated. It was silent again for long moments before McNamara sat at the table and took up a pen. “Hell,” he grumbled. “I haven’t made my dumbass mistake for this month yet.”
Winters was the next to sign and the others followed her. At that moment they became a unit; a shared, unknown danger binding them together. Hicks could feel it happening. He could feel the camaraderie and fellowship building. They were extraordinary people already, he thought. He knew that at least two of them would be dead within a few weeks. He knew that those deaths would be prolonged and painful. He shivered as he watched them; the world seeming to have gotten abruptly colder.
[][][]
It had been three weeks since the group, now designated Red Team, had first been brought together. Those weeks had been spent undergoing a conditioning regimen that included daily exercise, carefully planned diets, and medical screenings of all sorts. The aim of that regimen was to ensure that each team member was in as close to perfect physical condition as possible in hopes of maximizing the chances that they would survive the still mysterious procedure they had volunteered to undergo.
On this morning, however they would finally learn the exact nature of that procedure. On the following day, they would actually undergo it. The team had assembled in a briefing room normally used by the hospital staff. It was arranged like and auditorium, with rows of seats staggered on five, progressively higher tiers.
The seats closest to the raised speaker’s podium were reserved for the ten volunteers, while the
others were filled with forty or so medical staff. There were five chairs behind the podium; presumably for Hicks and some other high-ranking officials.
McNamara was pacing in front his seated teammates. “I wish they’d forget about all the preliminary shit, and get on with it; I hate waiting.”
Carter chuckled at the Canadian’s frustration. “You might as well relax, Sergeant. Whatever they’re going to do to us, it must be as revolutionary as the General claims. They’re not just going to finally tell us what Red Team is about; it looks like they expecting some brass that’s higher up the food chain than General Hicks. The brass like their ceremonies and briefings; it gives them a chance where their medals and get out of their offices.”
“Thank God I’m a Sergeant,” McNamara snorted.
“Amen to that,” Garba said, patting her own sergeant’s stripes.
“Major, you never did tell us how you know the General?” Winters said from her seat at Carter’s left.
Carter turned slightly to face her. “Not much to tell,” he said. “When I was a kid, I was buddies with the General’s son, David. The general and my father were best friends. When Dad was stationed at Fort Brag, the general’s and his family lived next door to us. Sometimes my dad was deployed and the general wasn’t, and vice-versa, so each looked out for the other’s family when the other was away."
Carter paused briefly, as though he was deciding rather or not to continue. “When I was twenty-four, my dad was killed in the Amazonian War. David was killed early on in this war. After that, the general and I just sort of adopted each other.”
“So, you are close, then?” Winters asked.
“The general is the closest thing to family I have left,” Carter admitted.
“So he puts you on the list to play lab-rat for the Frankensteins?” Beauchamp asked.
“He’s a soldier, and so am I” Carter replied; something in his voice saying that that was all the explanation he would offer to Beauchamp.
An Army Major entered the room and called the military personnel to attention. Hicks came into the room first, moving to stand in behind the podium. He looked at Carter; his eyes showed a combination of pride and regret. It was the same look Hicks had had when Carter and the general’s son, David, had graduated from West Point. There was pride because the young men had done well at the academy; and there was regret because Hicks knew, even then, that another war was coming, and that Carter, David, and the other young people his class would be among the first to fight in it.
A few steps behind Hicks were a U.S. Navy Admiral that Carter recognized as Thad Collier: the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Collier was unremarkable in appearance; average in both height and weight. He was not average or unremarkable, though. Eight years ago, when the current war had begun, Collier had been in command of Nationalist American forces during the war’s first battle. He had been in command of the guided missile cruiser Gettysburg’s surface action group, and had refused an order from the newly formed World Central Authority to bring his ships into a French port and allow his ship and crew to be interned until they could be absorbed into the world government’s forces.
Collier’s defiance had begun what later came to be called the Captain’s Rebellion. Following his example, over a two hundred US Navy ship’s captains, as well as captains from several other of the world’s navies, had refused to submit to the WCA edicts. When the WCA dispatched a force of a formerly French heavy cruiser, two destroyers and three frigates to force Gettysburg’s group into the French port of Brest, Collier’s fleet sank four of the six WCA ships and forced the others to withdraw with heavy damaged. Collier, by most accepted accounts, had fired the first shots in the war that the United States was now fighting: the Sovereignty War.
Carter frowned when he saw the next officer to arrive. Richard Pope was a Colonel in the US Army. He had a soft, almost mushy, face. His eyes were thin and deep-set with thick, bushy eyebrows atop them. He was tall and too slim for his height. His uniform was new and freshly pressed. In Carters opinion, Pope was an incompetent, conniving coward. Carter had experienced all of those qualities in Pope first hand. That experience had cost Carter the lives of at least one friend, almost cost Captain Williams his career, and earned Carter one of his five Purple Hearts.
“What does Pope have to do with this operation?” Williams asked from his place at Carter’s right.
“I don’t know,” Carter said. “His kind always manages to float to the top without trying.”
“Like a turd,” McNamara observed.
Carter smiled and chuckled. “That’s exactly right; Sergeant, like a turd.”
Another officer appeared in the doorway. She wore an FNF uniform and walked with cane carved with lion’s head for a handle. Her hair was dark but just beginning to gray and her face was thin and gaunt. It seemed as though she had to exert great effort to walk to her chair.
“That is General Sasha Khazanov: the commanding General of the FNF,” Captain Price announced. “She was one of the first high ranking officers to flee to America and form the FNF after the European Union’s military was absorbed into the WCA.”
“It would seem that we have some very important people here to watch us die tomorrow,” Muller said in the sardonic manner that the team had slowly come to realize was his way of being humorous.
Hicks stepped up to the podium and the room quieted. He looked carefully at Carter, and then each of the team members one at a time. His eyes held a disconcerting gentleness. For a brief interval, Hicks was not a military officer addressing ten people who had volunteered for a dangerous task; he was a father who knew that ten of his children were in danger.
“Be seated,” Hicks ordered.
“There are ten volunteers seated before me this morning. They volunteered to participate in a project about which they knew nothing about; except that it involved great personal risk and the possibility of death. Each of them has already done their duty as warriors. Each of them has proven themselves in battle. Today, for the first time, they will be told what exactly it is that they have volunteered for.”
Hicks paused for a breath and scanned the audience with eyes that had regained a soldier’s hardness. He looked passed the team and panned his eyes over the medical personnel behind them. “Some of you have been with Doctor Atkinson from the beginning; others have only recently come to the project. Very few of you know everything about it. “
Hicks paused to draw another breath. “Project Seed Corn will make these already fine warriors who are with us today even better. They will be able to go further and faster while carrying more. They will shoot straighter, hit harder, and take more punishment than any other soldiers alive. They will become living nightmares for our enemies.”
Hicks paused again, keeping his gaze on the medical staff.
“The members of the project’s medical staff are, in a way, as elite as our volunteers. Each of you, from the doctors to the physical therapists, has been hand-picked. You are responsible for the health and well being of the volunteers. You will help them to develop the full potential of this project.” Hicks paused again; his face took on an intense, determined look.
“Make no mistake; this project is as important as the Manhattan Project was during World War Two. It has the potential not only to win this war for the United States and its allies, but it may also reshape the way wars are fought.”
Hicks turned to the lab-coat clad man sitting behind the podium, next to the Admiral. “So that you all may understand what exactly it is our volunteers will be subjecting themselves to; Doctor Atkinson, the project’s scientific director, will outline the nature of the project.”
Atkinson was shorter than average and a bit heavier than he needed to be. He had short, immaculately groomed brown hair and neatly trimmed moustache. He wore a pair of wire-framed glassed, with oval-shaped lenses that called attention to his bright, discerning eyes. His voice was even; his inflections precisely controlled.
“Th
e process which volunteers will to undergo involves a radical reengineering of their genetic structure,” Atkinson began without preliminaries.
“Within the DNA of all human beings is genetic material with a purpose that has been unknown to science. Until now, this material has been called ‘junk’ DNA. In reality, as my research staff and I have discovered, so called junk DNA contains the genetic instructions that make evolution possible. It is in this part of the DNA that the next step, perhaps the next several steps, of human evolution exists. Under normal circumstances, this evolution would take hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of years. However, my staff and I have developed a process in which certain individual’s evolution can be accelerated.”
Atkinson stopped and looked at Carter and his team. “We have found, in certain rare individuals, a dormant DNA sequence that would, were it no longer dormant, produce an array of para-normal abilities that, for lack of a better term, can be called super-human. These abilities, when possessed by people with the extraordinary combination of training and combat experience possessed by our volunteers, will allow them to form a unit with a striking power usually associated with a force that is many times larger in number. We have developed a process to activate that DNA sequence in our volunteers. Further, once our volunteers are fully operational, we have identified many other subjects with the required DNA sequence that can be activated using the same procedure. For ease of reference, this DNA sequence has been referred to simply as the para-gene; the people who posses that gene are referred to as paranormals.” Atkinson paused then; waiting for a reaction.
Carter stood. “Doctor, just what kind of enhanced abilities are we talking about?” he asked.
The Fate Of Nations: F.I.R.E. Team Alpha: Book One Page 2