Site Kilo-29 Winter-1993 Day Four-Morning It was snowing inside the shaft, fat gentle flakes that slowly fell from above us to built a soft pillowy landscape around where we were crouching, falling past us in the dim light to vanish below us. We'd all either subconsciously or consciously adjusted our breathing so it wasn't audible in the shaft, quietly waiting for the people we knew were coming. Every once in awhile Kincaid or Donaldson would rub at their chests, and I would rub my shoulder trying to keep it from stiffening up in the cold. It seemed like we waited in the there an eternity, but I knew the way time slowed down could be deceiving when you were stressed and waiting on someone else to do something. Oakes and Kebble were still going on, giggling with Agent Killain about the various things that the agents who had the other guys prisoner had done. A litany of filthy, betrayal, murder, rape, theft, and worse. Much of it was probably lies, or distortions, but hearing it still effected me, and despite what I wanted, despite how I tried to block them out, I still listened to their voices as they gleefully recited all of the evils done by the Agents who had my men in their power. They mentioned two names I knew. Both officers who had been found dead, ruled suicide with suspicious details. A third name I thought I recognized, thought it was the name of one of the chemical weapon deployment instructors I'd worked with, but I couldn't be sure about it. Donaldson and Kincaid's "sins" that the three dead women had listed wasn't so much something to make me look at them badly, but it was something that would give them doubts about themselves, and was supposed to give me doubts about them. The sex thing was new, before it seemed like Tandy couldn't really understand about sex, personal relationships, or anything like that. Something had changed him, maybe Bishop, maybe Oakes and Kebble, or maybe it was something else, something we'd overlooked with the constant fear of Tandy. Still, it was obvious that whatever malevolent thing Tandy was expected to change the way I viewed D and K-Bar. Which revealed it still really didn't understand the way people thought. Being under fire changes a man. That was something I understood, and knew that whatever the two men had been before the doors had closed and locked us in the mountain were gone, just like the teenagers they'd been when they'd signed up were gone, ground away during the precise and controlled dehumanizing basic training. Kincaid may have been afraid when we started out, but that was just a normal response to the situation. I'd been terrified at times, to the point that all I could do was stand and stare. Sure, both Kincaid and Donaldson had bother frozen up, but that was normal too. They weren't psychos, like I had become, they were decent people who'd never been in this kind of situation, never had something that hated them for existing hunting them, never been outnumbered and had an enemy that viewed you as a food source or worse. I'd only had a place that hated me and something that like to play with its food hunting me, I'd never dealt with what was locked inside the mountain, so I knew that they didn't have it any easier than I did. We were just normal men, and we were in way over our heads. Training for the battlefield was one thing, and while it helped to help us keep it together, to push down physical and psychological trauma, to keep going even when we were on the edge of running out of gas, on the edge of collapse, training couldn't prepare us for the kind of shit we were in. The only thing it did was help us keep on going. There's no real noble reason for it, you don't do it to be manly or because you're some kind of super-patriot. You do it just to survive. During the Cold War I'd been trained that I'd always be outnumbered, that the chain of command would have been shattered by the Red Steamroller and nuclear fire, that the odds would be overwhelming. They'd trained me to push down the fear, and keep fighting, to keep going and there is always a chance of fighting your way free, of managing to fight long enough to survive till the bitter end. That training made it so that being outnumbered by the things that lived here was nothing more than the status quo. I had the edge in training, weaponry, size, strength, and just sheer meaness. Together we had the edge in discipline and mutual support. We'd stick together till the bitter end. When the door above us rise, we knew we were close to the bitter end. The CS gas had been drifting down the stairwell for awhile. At first it had been a thick yellowish fog, now it was almost dispersed, but I could still smell it through the filters of my mask. The smell was bitter, sour, and the denatured charcoal that filtered the gas gave the air a distinctive smell and taste. It had frozen to the walls, layered into the snow, but still filled the air. Curious I'd broken the seal on mask twice. The first time my eyes had itched a little and the cut on my lip had stung, but the second time I hadn't noticed anything but the smell of it, and only because I was really familiar with it. The snow made it so you couldn't really see the remaining haze, and it would take a few moments for the CS to really start to set in. Just according to plan. We heard them coming in the door, heard the crunching of the snow, hear them coming into the passage. "There's the stairwell access." We heard Shads say. "That'll take us up to the main level where everyone is." "Just keep being so cooperative, Mr. Donaldson, and your men will live to get out of here." One of the agents said, the same one that had been running his yap, and the same one who shot Donaldson in the chest. "We'll even make it quick for you." Another one said, and the rest chuckled. One of them coughed. I had my pistol in my hand, Kincaid had my rifle, Donaldson had his. I had an SMG draped from my neck. The other two strapped to Donaldson's ruck, and I had the ammunition in my pockets. It was subsonic ammunition, and we'd found silencers on the agents. I knew there would be holes drilled in the barrel to bleed off the compression against the bullet in order to lower the speed so between it and the low power loads the bullet wouldn't break the sound barrier. That's what had saved Donaldson's life. 9mm bullets, lower speed, the Kevlar vest. "We'll need to be careful in the stairs, they're unstable, there's no lights, and there's wild animals that got into the facility that live several levels up." Shads continued. "I'll go first." "No, Mister Donaldson, I don't think," The Agent broke off to cough. "I want you to have the chance to run. We'll go first. Agent Miles, Agent Willis, you two follow them, if they try anything, start shooting them." There was more coughing. shit, that wasn't according to plan... "What's wrong with the air in here?" One of them coughed. "Insulation caught on fire when Sergeant Ant blew open the panel. The whole corridor and the stairwell was full of smoke." Shads said. I heard him grunt. "There's something wrong with the air on several of the levels, which is why Sergeant Ant had us carry out chemical gear." "What kind of 'something', Mr. Donaldson?" Mr. In Charge asked. "He wasn't sure. He said something about denatured blister agent or something like that." "Wait, we're breathing in mustard gas?" One of the agents asked. "No, not really. Sergeant Ant said that the blister agent had been out in the air too long, that it had degraded, dispersed, something like that, so it would cause mild irritation but nothing too much." Shads lied smoothly. "He told us it wasn't more than just old tear gas smell now." "Then why the mask?" One asked, coughing between each word. I could hear the others coughing too. "His chemical alarm went off when he sent it down to some of the lower levels on the elevator, he said that it has recent live blister agent leakage." Shads told them. He coughed a few times. "Give us your masks." Mr. In Charge said. "We took them off because the filters are clogged. They're useless right now, we were going to change out the filters after we ambushed you." Shads told them, another lie. "The smoke was poisonous, and clogged up the filters, so it's dangerous to wear them." "Goddamn it." More coughing from an agent I hadn't heard speak before. "What about that other stuff, the live blister agent?" They were getting closer. "Sergeant Ant said it was heavier than air, it'll stay in the lower levels, once it becomes inert it gets lighter and will drift up through the ventilation systems, but cooling it makes it go inert faster, which is why the ventilation system is blowing so much cold air." Shads lied. I could hear them now, their footsteps in the snow, even with their voices. Goddamn, was that hallway that fucking long? "That's why some vents are blowing snow?" Another agent asked. "Yes, Sergeant Ant had me help reroute the ducting pathways to run the air through a bunch of huge freezers in part of the complex, and then we turned on the fire sprinklers." One of my crew, Jacobs I thought, said easily. He coughed a few times. "The snow helps bind the blister agent, and it's water soluble, so it binds it up and makes it inert even faster." "Wait, these snowflakes are full of blister agent?" Another agent asked, his voice held the edge of panic. "It's no big deal. You just shower afterwards, you might get a sunburn." Someone said. "Breathing it in is risky, but it'll just give you pneumonia, and once we get out of here, some time in the hospital and we'll be fine." "Shut the fuck up, all of you." Mr. In Charge ordered, but I could hear the panic behind the bravado. "Let's get up these stairs so we can have a nice talk with your CO. Let's get moving." I heard them step on the metal plate, heard the plate squeal slightly with the weight. My eye had adjusted the darkness and the dim red light from the emergency lights, and I watched as the special agents started to enter the stairwell. I turned my head, facing away from the entrance, as they started mounting the steps. I saw the other two men do the same, and they both emulated me lifting my arm up to shield my eyes as well as opening my mouth to reduce the blast effects. One of them hit the tripwire I'd ran across the steps most of a level above us. The flashbang went off, the light reflected and magnified off the snow and steel walls of the corridor, the majority of the flash was blocked the steel plate I'd hidden it under, mainly scattering out into the hallway. Still the detonation echoed and punished the ears. No words, nothing, just a quick motion and we moved rapidly up the steps, knowing the ringing in the agent's ears would cover our steps. I saw the agents on by the entrance, pawing at their eyes, with the other four up the steps. Donaldson pulled up his rifle, socking it to his shoulder, and started pulling the trigger. I kept moving up, firing my pistol as I moved, all the years of practice and experience paying off. Kincaid was hot on my heels as Donaldson kept firing, the two in the entrance dropping. Out in the hallway someone fired the submachinegun. I could hear cursing, my hearing coming back pretty fast. When I came out into the corridor one of the guys was down, holding onto his stomach with one hand and levering himself back up, his face twisted in an angry snarl. The blood covering his fingers was steaming in the cold, but he wasn't down. Shads had one guy down, and the guy pulled the trigger on the weapon again, the slugs hitting the steel wall and dimpling it, but Shads had the guy's arm pinned with his knee as he was punching the guy in the face with one hand, the other one digging into the guy's throat. The other guy was being held in a full nelson, and before I could say anything one of the new guys pulled the agent's knife off his gear and buried it in the agent's stomach, wrapping his other hand around his wrist and wrenching it up. "Shads!" I yelled. Too late. Shads drew back his arm, his fingers curled, hand cocked back at a 90 degree angle, and he slammed the heel of his hand upwards against the agent's nose twice before I could stop him. In the two steps it took to reach Shad's he'd released the guy's throat, straightened his hand and drove his curled fingers in the guy's throat with a sharp outcry. The gunshots in the stairwell stopped. "Check Jacobs, Sergeant." Shads said, starting to stand up. "You all right?" I asked, skidding to a stop next to him and almost busting my ass on the snow slicked floor. Shads pivoted at the said, grabbing my LBE belt and arm to steady me. Pain ran up my arm as the pressure was put on my shoulder joint. "Steady, Sergeant." He said in his soft voice. "Thanks." I answered, then looked at him. "You all right?" "Fine, but I think Jacobs is hurt." "I'm shot, goddamn it!" Jacobs yelled. I glanced back to see the other man had managed to get to his feet, his hand pressed to his stomach. "Fucker shot me in the gut." "Yeah, he's shot." I said, grinning. "He'll be fine." There was six paced shots from the stairwell behind me as we were talking. Donaldson and Kincaid making sure. "Get two men to help Jacobs, we need to keep moving. We have to head back down." I said, turning away from Shads. I raised my voice. "Kincaid, you and Donaldson search the bodies then burn them."

"Roger that, you guys OK out there?" Donaldson yelled back. "We're OK." I told him, turning to look at the other agent. The guy who had been holding him in a full nelson had dropped him face down in the snow, the snow spreading red around him. He wasn't moving, and the guy who had pulled the knife off the agent's belt was wiping it off on his pant leg. When I looked at him, he stared at me and slid the knife into the loop on his LBE to the right of the buckle. "Fucking mine now." The guy said. I couldn't see his nametag, his body armor covered it. I just smiled and nodded. "We gotta get back to the Major." One of them told me. I wasn't sure but I thought his name was Michaels. "We've got a bigger problem." I told them. "Search these two, then we'll have Kincaid burn the bodies." "He's lying to all of you. He wants to bring you down into the dark and cold so we'll take you first." Kebble laughed. "He's given us many many people to stay with us in the dark." "Christ, I wish those bitches would shut the hell up." Jacobs said, leaning against the wall with his hand against his stomach. "They're worse than being shot in the guts." "How bad is it?" I asked him, moving up next to him. "All breakwater teams report to positions immediately. Breakwater team leaders report to command." The woman who had been giving orders over the intercom told us all. "Fucking hurts." Jacobs answered. "You two, help him, once we get to where we're going I'll check him out." I pointed at two of them I didn't really know, including the one with the knife, and they moved over to the wounded man. "Do we take their weapons?" Michaels asked, lifting up one of the SMG's. "Strip weapons and any intel off of them, then we'll have Kincaid burn them so they don't come back around." I told them. "Who came back besides your old CO?" Shads asked, moving up next to me. His hands were shaking and he clasped them together. "Agent Killain got back up when we were in the egg." I told him, then nodded at his hands. "Don't worry, it happens to all of us first time we kill a man." He nodded, his eyes shadowed. "You aren't going to take him down to the hospital?" Shads asked, referring to Jacobs. "There's one down where we're going. It's someplace we pretty much missed." I told him. "We'll take care of what I'm worried about, and then get him to the hospital." "Can you deal with it?" Donaldson had left the stairwell, dragging one of the dead agents by the equipment gear straps. "Nancy could have, but I've only got a vague idea of what to do." I was honest. "But I know how to run an ultrasound and an X-Ray machine, so I can get a good idea of where the bullet went." Kincaid came out of the gap in the wall, dragging another. "I'll burn these fuck's down to grease, and we'll head out." "Anything good?" I asked, reaching up for my pocket and coming up empty. I remembered that the pack was sitting in the egg, and my extra cartons were sitting in the Gypsy Wagon. "Nope." Kincaid grinned. "Just two packs of smokes, Winston and Camel." "Toss me one." I told him. He nodded and tossed the Camels, which I caught and opened. The person he'd taken them from had the same habit I did, stripping out the foil and turning one of the back ones upside down as a lucky. I pulled one out, examined it real quick, then lit it. "Can I have one?" Jacobs asked. He was sweating bad. "Sure." I handed him the lit one, then pulled out another one and lit it. "Undo your top, I want a look at that wound." One of the others helped him open up his LBE and Kevlar, then his top so he could lift us his shirt. The wound was just to the right of his bellybutton, slowly leaking dark blood. "Put a pressure dressing on him, that'll hold him till we can get a better look at it in the hospital section of where we're going." I said. I dug in my pocket until I pulled out my bottle of Vicoden. I scraped the back of my hand on one of the 9mm magazines. "Take one of these." I told him, handing him the bottle. He nodded, uncapped the bottle, and took one before handing the capped bottle back. I shoved it back in my pocket, then dug out the bottle of my boosters. I watched Kincaid and Donaldson drag the bodies out while I chewed one of them to paste with my false teeth. Kincaid burned them all down to nothing but charred flinders, the snow around the spot where they'd been laid out steaming in the cold. The whole time Kebble, Oakes, and Killain didn't shut the hell up. Afterwards we started moving through the corridors, stopping every once in awhile for Jacobs to catch his breath. Each time we checked the map, making sure we were following the right path. Everyone stayed pretty silent while we moved, not asking questions. Mainly because of the repeated request for "breakwater teams" as well as Killain, Oakes, and Kebble babbling over the intercom. My vision kept doubling and redoubling, and the headache would recede for a few minutes before coming rumbling back, bad enough to make me sick. A couple of times I staggered, but Donaldson was there each time to steady me. When we got to the elevators we stood there for a long time, waiting for the elevator to arrive. "You don't look too good, Sergeant." Michaels said, looking at me. "You're bleeding from one of your ears." "That's because it isn't blood, the goddamn idiot's brain is still swelling." Nancy answered from where she was standing next to Kincaid, dressed in Levi's and a Ratt T-Shirt. "Been a hard couple of days." I answered. He just nodded. "I'll wash up when we get to the hospital area. How you holding up, Jacobs?" "Not too good. Feel like shit, Sergeant." He told me. "Painkiller's making it tolerable." "Maintenance and activation teams to assigned positions." The intercom lady ordered. "Pre-launch check teams to stations." "Pre-launch? What launch?" Donaldson asked, looking up suddenly. His face went pale as he suddenly got it. "You have to fucking kidding me." He said. "Nope." I said, when I went to continue the doors opened up with a screech and we could see the two desks we'd put there to give us cover the last time we'd used the elevators. "Let's go." We moved into the elevator and I punched the button to take us down where the vaults were. It made sense, in a paranoid fashion. Bury the most important things as deep as possible, with as much solid rock around it as possible, then shock dampen the shit out of it. If I'd read the maps right, there were the vault sections, old records from corporations, individuals, government agencies stored in them; control sections, emergency barracks, two armories, a small dedicated hospital section, and stuff that was only labeled by serial numbers. We wanted the control sections. The elevator shook and squealed the whole way down, making speech impossible. Kincaid and I passed out cigarettes as we rode the elevator down. Everyone took one. When the doors opened up I held my hand. "Don't go screwing with those vaults. They probably have security charges that will blow your fucking head off at the least, destroy the records and kill all of us at the worst." I told them. "We'll head to the control section first, take care of something, then take Jacobs to the hospital." Everyone nodded. Michaels and Jacobs stubbed out their cigarettes, and I led the way, the map folded and in my hand. It kept blurring, but it was good enough to lead the way. "How about some of us take Jacobs to the hospital section while you take care of the other part?" Michaels asked. "We stay together." Donaldson said before I could say anything. "We get separated, we'll get picked off one by one." I nodded in agreement. "Kincaid, Shads, the Sergeant and I already figured that one out." Nobody scoffed this time. They'd all seen the reanimated creatures coming at us in the living quarters. "Keep your eyes sharp, we don't want any more surprises." I added. "You see anyone covered in ice, yell for K-Bar, he'll take 'em out." "Can't we just shoot them?" Michaels asked. "Doesn't work." Kincaid said, popping the igniter on the flamethrower. "No, it doesn't." Donaldson said. "If they've got ice on them bullets don't seem to phase them." "What are they?" Jacobs asked. His voice was still full of pain. "We don't know." Donaldson told him. "Do you know, Sergeant?" Michaels asked me. "No, I don't. They shouldn't even be here." I answered. "Wait, you've seen it before? Where?" Jacobs asked. "Stop for a second, my gut's fucking killing me." The two men carrying him stopped and helped him lean heavily against the wall, his hands pressed to his abdomen, his face pale in the fluorescent lights. "Can I have another cigarette?" He asked me. I nodded, digging out another pack and lighting it before handing it to him. I lit one for myself, then put the pack away. Kincaid passed out some from his pack, and we all stopped. "Let me see the map, Sergeant." Donaldson said, holding out his hand. I handed to him and he spread it out on the floor, crouching over it and tracing our path with his finger. "Where the hell did you run into shit like those frozen guys?" Jacobs asked again. "They're some straight up Hollywood bullshit." "More like straight up what's wrong with white people." Michaels said, "You never here of no dead brothers terrorizing the hood." I snorted with laughter at that, then groaned in pain as the pain my head exploded, my vision tunneling and then vanishing for a second. "You all right, Sergeant?" Michaels asked. "Fine, just been a hell of a couple of days." I answered. "He got hit by a landmine, he's probably still a little woozy." Shads said. "So our new squad leader is the fucking Terminator? Christ, I get out of this alive, I'm writing a fucking book." The one I couldn't remember the name of said, grinning. "More like Jason Vorhees." Kincaid said from where he was bent forward, the bottom edge of the tank case against the wall. It looked uncomfortable, but I knew it took the weight of the pack off of his back. "You should see him swing a fucking machete." "I'd rather the Terminator or Jason Vorhees had my back rather than some of the pussy ass motherfuckers that have been charge of me." Michaels said, taking a long drag off the Winston Kincaid had handed him. "Fuck, why couldn't one of those assholes smoked a decent cigarette? I'd kill them all again for a fucking Kool." "Like who?" Mystery Guy said. "Like Sergeant Larrett?" Michaels looked like he wanted to spit. "I hated that shamming cheese eating fucker. Sending us down to the motorpool in the Louisiana heat while he slept in his fucking office." "Remember when we were at NTC and he refused to leave the tent because the guys on guard duty said they saw coyotes out there and he sent me and you out there because he was afraid they'd attack them." Mystery Guy laughed. I leaned against the wall and slowly slid down it, closing my eyes and letting them talk. I was exhausted, my body felt heavy and numb. I wasn't really in pain anymore. I was aware of the pain, but it was like it was someone else's pain. My body had the weird numbish feeling that a finger got when it was suddenly broken, right between the breaking and the pain, that second or two of numbness that kicked in as your body tried to figure out what happened to it. I closed my eyes, hoping to make the nausea ease up when the whole world wasn't tilting. Closing my eyes just made me feel like the room was spinning around me, and I put one hand on the floor, both to steady myself and to remind me exactly which was was down and that the world wasn't really tilting and spinning. "God, he was such a pussy." Michaels said. "Sergeant First Class Horns told me that when they got orders to advance when the Ground War kicked off, Sergeant Larrett was crying in the vehicle when they rolled out." Everyone laughed. "Yeah, and to hear him talking after Desert Storm was over, you'd think he won the war all by himself." Mystery Guy laughed. "He went around telling everyone his old CO wouldn't give him a medal because he was jealous." "Better than what happened to me." Mystery Guy said, his voice suddenly bitter. "Oh, that shit at Fort Hood?" Michaels said. "No shit." "What happened?" Shads asked. "I got a fucking Bronze Star out of the whole thing. We were pulling drag on the convoy, watching for any vehicles that were disabled so we could call in the wrecker, or use the winch on my 5-ton to pull them free if they got stuck. My squad leader's Humvee hit a land mine, blew the ass end off of it, caught it on fire. Right about then some Republican Guard assholes started firing at us from this shitty little warehouse looking building a little ways away. I jumped out of my 5-ton, ran up there, and drug him and three other guys from my squad out of the burning wreckage and threw them in the back of my 5-ton. I went back to see if I could pull the M-60 off the ringmount, since the Iraqis were shooting at me, and that was the last thing I remember. I didn't wake up till I was at 15th Evac, and they told me I'd gotten back up after the Humvee exploded, my face all bloody, ran to the 5-ton, jumped behind the wheel, and drove till we caught up with the main body. Apparently they saw me coming, and had stopped the convoy and were getting ready to send the QRF after me since I wasn't answering my radio. I didn't stop right and hit the tool truck when I passed out behind the wheel." Mystery Guy's voice sounded almost bland, as if he was recounting going out to check the mail. "They gave me a Bronze Star while I was in the hospital." It was silent for a minute. "So what happened?" K-Bar asked. "I get to Fort Hood, right? With a handful of medals from the Storm, my combat patch, and all thrilled to death at being a PFC with more medals than some fucking Captains I'd seen." Mystery Guy's voice turned hard and bitter. "The fucking Battalion Commander decided to 'investigate' all of us who had combat patches and medals, to 'ensure they were given out properly' because he said he was tired of guys getting medals for shit that when he was in Vietnam nobody would have even cared about, but because Desert Storm was nothing more than a big 'PR event' everyone got medals for nothing." "And they took away your medals." Shads said quietly. "Yeah. Every fucking one of us with anything more than a goddamn ARCOM out of it had our medals rescinded by that jackass." Mystery Guy said. "I heard it was happening all through First Cavalry Division. That they didn't do shit in the war, so they were making sure that everyone else didn't get shit either." "Assholes." K-Bar grunted. I heard his lighter snap as I took a long drag off my cigarette. It tasted of peaches and weirdly greasy. "Yeah, I got fucked out of my medals by some asshole who was just jealous that all he did was sit there and watch everyone else fight. 'Vital support role' my ass, nobody trusted those fuckups to do anything right." Michaels said. "Actually, First Cavalry was pretty important during the war." I said quietly. "Saddam and his analysts figured we'd lead with First Cav because of their reputation and they're pretty fucking famous. By having them sit there and pound Iraq with MRLS fire and attack helicopters, his planning staff watched them real close and missed where the initial thrusts were going to come from. Once everything was in motion, Saddam's planners figured First Cav was just going to sit there, and that's when they rolled in." I told them. "And most of the chemical units in First Cav made sure that First Cav would have been protected when the chemical rounds started getting thrown." My eyes were still closed, but I was seeing the planning tent at Log Base Echo. "Wanna know something cold blooded?" "Sure, Sergeant." Mystery Guy said. "First Cavalry was being held in reserve because artillery units had received their chemical rounds and our analysts figured out of the hundred thousand or so combat troops going in on the first wave, only the tankers would survive the chemical weapon attack." I told them, taking another long drag in the middle of it. I couldn't feel the heat of the cherry yet, so I figured I had a few more drags left. "The initial assault would take 80% casualties from chemical weapons, the USS Missouri would hit Baghdad with a cluster of nuclear tipped Tomahawks in the 125 kiloton range, other Naval and Air Force assets would hit the units that launched the chemical rounds with smaller nukes to destroy the chemical weapon reserves and wipe out the artillery units, then First Cavalry would spearhead the second assault into the country to turn the place into a fucking parkinglot." Kincaid whistled, low and long, at that. "So we were about two inches from using nuclear weapons for a second time during a war?" Kincaid said. "Holy shit." "The French volunteered to use the nukes, but Bush said we'd take the responsibility for it." I told them. "What about the Russians?" Shads asked. "They approved the plan, as far as I knew. I know that at a couple of briefings I was present for regarding the possible use of chemical rounds there were a couple of Russian officers present. Russia was involved with the planning pretty heavily." I told them. "Why didn't he use them?" Shads asked. Jacobs coughed then moaned in pain. "The commanders on the ground refused to use them." Donaldson broke in. "Many of them had fought in the Iran/Iraq War, and knew what those things did, and the Air Force dropped a shitload of leaflets on the ground around those units telling them in no uncertain terms that if they fired those weapons, we'd turn their family into fucking carbon." Someone must have looked at him weird because he continued after a second. "During AIT our instructor talked about it. He showed us the little cartoon leaflets he picked up off of the ground during the invasion." It suddenly dawned on me I was started to fall asleep, so with some effort I opened my eyes and looked at everyone. Everyone was slightly blurry, and the lights seemed to have a weird whitish halo around them, but my eyes were open again. Bomber and Taggart were looking at the map with Donaldson, and Nancy and Heather were sitting near Jacobs talking in whispers to one another. "Get Jacobs to his feet, we need to get moving again." I said, struggling up. I hoped it looked easier than it was. Gravity had grabbed the ass of my pants and was tugging hard, trying to keep me on the floor. I rolled the cherry off my cigarette, crushed it, and put it in my pockets. Mystery Guy and Jacobs just dropped theirs and toed them out, while Kincaid followed my example before pulling the hood back over his head and sealing the suit again. "OK, I'm ready." Jacobs said, holding his arms up. "Help me up." Mystery Guy and Michaels heaved him to his feet, putting his arms over his shoulders. Donaldson folded up the map and handed it to me, and Kincaid pushed himself away from the wall with a grunt that was muffled by his suit. "Figure anything out?" I asked Donaldson as we started walking down the brightly lit corridor. The brushed steel walls didn't throw back our reflections, the hallway was wide enough to drive two golf carts down side to side, and the highly polished tile floor looked weird after the days of blood, filthy, and wreckage. We hung a left at the T intersection, heading for the dead center of the area. "No response on all channels." The lady on the intercom had a different voice, with the strange accent that someone gets after years in the military. "No response to condition requests from any sites. No response from Kilo Primary." shit "That's not good, brother." Bomber said. I just nodded. He was dressed in Levi's, a button shirt, his cowboy hat and boots, with a silver bolero at his neck. "Whatcha gonna do about that head wound of yours?" "Don't know, Bomber." I told him. On the other side of him Kincaid glanced at me through the face shield then popped the igniter twice. "Don't have Nancy with us this time, might be the end of the line this time, brother." I got a few odd stares, but nobody said anything as we moved further into the command center. The walls felt thicker, there was a heavy weight to the air, a feeling of pressure that I couldn't put my finger on. "Don't do this to us, Ant. Come back, please." Heather said. She was dressed in a loose flower print dress and a tie-dyed T-shirt that was hiked up to expose one breast that the baby was on, sleepily nursing. "You can make it, brother. You know you can." Bomber told me. "Just don't be your usual idiotic self and keep getting injured, you thick-skulled redneck, for fuck's sake, have the common sense God gave a goat and take care of yourself, you ignorant backwoods moron." Nancy said, her voice quiet and sorrowful, at odds with her words. She was like that sometimes. "Don't leave these men to go on without you, Sergeant Ant." Sergeant Tee said, leaning against a doorway that read "External Operations Analysis Section" on it. He was dressed in winter woodland BDU's, looking just like he did the last time I saw him, trying to keep the LT from turning the barracks into a bloodbath. "You know that leadership is important, and these men need what we all saw in you when we promoted you without waiting for you to make the promotion points." "I'll do my best, Sergeant Tee." I answered. Kincaid popped his igniter again. "You have to accomplish the mission, Ant, but remember that you have to get your men, and the Major's men, out of here too." Taggart told me. I glanced over at her. She was dressed in BDU's, the tip of her nose a bluish black from frostbite, the cut on her head bleeding down her face. "The mission isn't over until..." "You're sitting in the NCO club with two fingers in a blond and a redhead has her lips wrapped around your cock under the table." I finished. Someone laughed, and Kincaid popped the igniter. Someone else started to ask something, but someone shushed them before they could more than the first syllable out. "Duty, Honor, Courage, boy." My Father told me. He was wearing Desert BDU's, his CSM rank on his collar. He had on a Kevlar vest and was carrying a battered M-16A1 with an M-203 underneath. The lights brought out the scars on his face from where a Nazi artillery shell had gone off less than 20 feet from him and almost taken his eye. "This is more than about you, if you're right about what's going on here." He turned to face me as he matched pace with me down the corridor. "You need to think about what you're going to do. You need to remember that you're injured and not thinking clearly. Think about the repercussions of your actions." "I will, Father." I promised him. "It's all on you. We can't help you with this." His tone was serious. "But I know you'll do your best." He nodded, smiled, and dropped back, letting the rest of my new team pass through him and obscure him from view. The halls were brightly lit, the air was warm, and the walls were completely unmarked. No labels on the doors, just simple numbers, that was it. On the walls were reminders to wear security badges at all times, be prepared to show ID for random security checks, stuff like that. All of it government-ese for "You wouldn't be in here if we didn't have to have to have you, and we'd replace with you loyal robots in a hot second" as well as "If you're a spy we'll just shoot you right where you're standing." We passed through three guard points, passed several intersections, Donaldson and I remembering the path we had to take. "Breakwater Technical Teams, please report to your assigned positions. Pre-flight teams are now overdue by fifteen minutes, all Pre-Flight Team Leaders please take status reports and report to Launch Operations immediately." She demanded. "Why do I have the feeling that cannibal mutants and some dead guy stalking us through an impossible snowstorm are the least of our problems?" Mystery Guy asked as we headed through a checkpoint with armored firing shields and the logo "STOP AT LINE! DO NOT APPROACH WITHOUT CLEARANCE!" on the floor in front of a red dotted line underneath the polished wax. "Because you've been with us in this fucking mountain the last couple days and your brain is doing more than keeping your skull from caving in?" Jacobs said, laughing for a moment then groaning again. "Shit." "Because we're in a full blown supervillain base?" Kincaid suggested. "This shit is straight out a fucking Superman comic book." "Only without Lex Luthor." Michaels answered. "We see him, I call dibs on punching him in his bald ass head." Donaldson tossed in, stopping in front of the heavy blast door labelled "MILITARY MASTER CONTROL". The panel to the right of the door had an alpha-numberic hexidecimal key set with keys labeled red, blue, green, yellow, as well as delete, cancel, enter, and reset. "Code, Sergeant?" I dug out my green book, opening the pages and scanning for where I'd written down all the code groups. "We'll try Agent Killain's code." I told him the code and he punched in all 12 digits and three colors, then pressed Enter. Did he wonder if the security charges were going to blow us all into hamburger, like I was, or was he not even thinking of that? We waited while the hydraulics for the door first pressurized, then began to slowly lift the door. I pulled out the cigarettes and pulled one out, noting I was down to just three smokes and whatever was left in my ruck. I lit it and inhaled gratefully as the door began to slowly rise. "Negative response from all command authority, Operations Commander please confirm DEFCON status." The new woman said. She sounded irritated to me. "Automation sequences on standby, countdown timer to full automation sequence engagement is running. No response from internal command authorities. Please consult chain of command lists and fill authority positions immediately. Confirmation is required. Confidence level is unknown." She sounded like a playground teacher ordering everyone to stop screwing around and get to class. "Wait, automation?" Mystery Guy said. "You mean this site doesn't even need anyone to do whatever it is she's talking about?" "That's what I'm afraid of." I admitted. "This might be a last chance system." The door rose, and the woman cut off halfway through her second repetition of her automation warning. The room inside was about the size of a university lecture all, in a circle, a terrace of consoles six high, leading to huge white boards. One the walls were the giant television screens, all of them showing black backgrounds and glowing green letters. NORAD: NO RESPONSE PENTAGON: NO RESPONSE WHITE HOUSE: NO RESPONSE AIR FORCE ONE: NO RESPONSE MOUNT WEATHER: NO RESPONSE SITE ALPHA-SEVEN: NO RESPONSE the list kept going. At least thirty sites, and not one response. Another screen held a handful of network addresses and satellite link addresses, all of them reading "NO RESPONSE" afterwards. A third screen held a few simple words, repeated eight times, words that made my blood run cold when I recognized them through the doubling and blurring. FUEL SYSTEMS CHECK: 70% COMPLETE SYSTEM CHECK: 80% COMPLETE GUIDANCE SYSTEMS CHECK: COMPLETE IMPLOSION TRIGGER CHECK: COMPLETE MATERIALS CHECK: COMPLETE TARGETING UPDATE: COMPLETE TARGETING SELECTION: 0% THRUSTER CHECK: COMPLETE COVER CHARGE CHECK: COMPLETE FUEL LOAD: 0% PRELAUNCH SYSTEMS CHECK: 30% And much much more. A fourth screen had a world map on it, showing parabolic arcs, flight times, all of them starting from the same point and ending in different locations. Each arc was labeled, and it looked like there were 8 sets of 10 different arcs. The little dotted lines seemed so innocent. A fifth was a status report on the site itself. Everything from confidence level, to estimated population, to which levels had been written off as compromised, to how military and civilian control had been shifted to this area. It even had slowly blinking letters telling us that the system had identified a possible insurrection among military and civilian personnel that had damaged the rest of the site. The sixth had a huge list of positions, all of them with <> after the titles. Fun titles like "Excursion Commander" and "Targeting Operations Command" and "Site Security Command" and my personal favorite: "Population Control Commander" which sounded so nice for something so ruthless and cold blooded. The seventh was streaming data, seismic data from the look of it, with almost all of the data saying "NO RESPONSE" from reporting stations. Only the site itself was reporting any seismic data. The site was trying to figure out if, where, and when there had been any major seismic events that might be within the range of Soviet nuclear weapons. Right in front of me a full half of them went from "NO RESPONSE" to "PRESUMED DESTROYED" between one heartbeat and the next. The eight through tenth ones were the rough ones. It showed the US population, as well as the population of Europe and military strength numbers, circa 1980's, along with Warsaw Pact and other nations. The numbers didn't look good. ESTIMATED CASUALTIES WORLDWIDE: 60% ESTIMATED NATO MILITARY CASUALTIES: 80% ESTIMATED CONUS CASUALTIES: 70% then it listed states and major cities estimated casualty percentages, with estimates of the death toll at the bottom. ESTIMATED POPULATION: 5,273,000,000 ESTIMATED CURRENT CASUALTIES: 2,900,150,000 - 3,427,450,000 ESTIMATED CASUALTIES YEAR ONE: 3,954,750,000 - 4,482,050,000 ESTIMATED CASUALTIES YEAR TEN: 4,613,875,000 - 5,141,175,000 ESTIMATED CASUALTIES WITHIN EXPECTED RANGE After that it broke the casualties down by Warsaw Pact, NATO, Unaligned, then by continent, then by nation, then by major cities. All of them spoke silently of casualty estimates, not the dozens or scores, or even the hundreds. They spoke in the tens of thousands, in the hundreds of thousands. In the millions. They spoke of MAD. They spoke of what I was supposed to ensure. They spoke of me. What could have been my life, my job, my contribution to humanity in cool green glowing numbers. Only an unexpected twist in world history had stopped it from becoming harsh reality. "Hoooly fuck." Michaels said softly. "Is that what I think it is?" "Yeah." I said softly, looking at the terminals. They were all on, streams of data flowing by at old 1980's processor speeds. "It's the ultimate in dick moves, and it thinks that it's on its own right now." I finished. "It doesn't know anything but what it was programmed to know." "But, but, the Cold War is over." Michaels blurted. "For fuck's sake, Russia's our friend now!" "Nobody programmed that into them." Kincaid said, his voice horrified. "Why would something like this even be built?" "Because America doesn't like to lose." Shads said softly. "So I could do my job." I answered, stepping up and running a hand over the nearest monitor. It was asking for confirmation of the status of Section 2271A, the blinking cursor seemingly impatient. It wanted casualty estimates for that region, along with the grid coordinates, estimated tonnage, and time of any strikes within that had hit within that section. On the first screen a timer kicked on at the bottom of the screen, in six inch high letters in bold. ESTIMATED TIME TO FULL AUTOMATION ENGAGE: 04:30:00:00 AUTHORITY OVERRIDE CAPABILITY WILL CEASE IN: 05:15:00:00 It held for a long moment, then began counting down. Four hours and thirty minutes. Four hours and thirty minutes till the timer ran out. Four hours and thirty minutes until a Kilo site, rendered blind and deaf in order to keep us from calling for help, responded to programming that was only supposed to kick off in the case of a sneak attack that had destroyed the infrastructure that would allow us to strike back. Four hours and thirty minutes until the Kilo site began swinging like a blind man trying desperately to hit the foes he knows are right there. Four hours and thirty minutes until the Kilo site decided where it needed to land those punches to punish everyone in the world for what it thought was the murder of everyone it had been programmed to keep watch over. Four hours and thirty minutes until the site fired up the automation to prepare the eight ICBM's that had been sitting in their camouflaged bunkers for a launch at enemies that weren't enemies any longer. With one hand I caressed the top of the monitor, the other I brought up to my mouth to take another drag of my almost finished cigarette, my eyes watching the timer count down, that last two digits a blur that looked like double eights. Beautiful.