Kilo-61 (Damned of the 2/19th Book 19)- Ongoing

The Facade

Blackbriar Ridge Training Facility
Secure Military Area (Decommissioned)
North Dakota
United States of America
18 Feb, 2002
1840 Hours

It was getting dark, the sun set behind the hills that made up the walls of the valley. The only light was the lights from the five sedans, three OD green and two black, and the old 1990 version of the M1044A1 w/ winch version, with an up-armor package and an NBC protection system that never really was used outside of DARPA tests in 1994.

Everyone was getting out the vehicles, all of us masked. Kincaid was blocking everyone from seeing what he was doing, his hands busy snapping together a ChemCorps standard M9-A4-X3 flamethrower, and I knew he was replacing the brass fittings with the steel ones and would probably dick with the ignitor trigger. I'd made sure there were two tanks of enhanced TPA (Thickened Pyrophoric Agent) for the weapon this time. When he'd first used it he'd been forced to use the thermite enhanced binary system from the 1970's, the one he would be packing this time was one that was developed and produced in the late 1980's, that never made it beyond certain Special Weapons units before the program had been shut down. Unlike common knowledge, the M9-A4-X3 had a seventy-five meter range on full pressure, adaptable pressure switching, and carried enough fuel for sustained use for six minutes.

Enough to cover three goddamn football fields in liquid fire.

"I'm setting it to minimum range, five meters with a twenty-five meter max spread," Kincaid said loud enough for me to hear.

"It's all you, baby," I said, watching Donaldson walk over to the Colonel.

Heather scooted up to me and I looked at her face. Her eyes were bright and glittery, Melissa DeMarky was drowning in a sea of neuro-chems. She smiled, stood on her tiptoes to kiss my cheek, then looked at the group of soldiers surrounding Donaldson. "They're all going to die, you know that, right?"

I just nodded.

"Who's going in?" She asked.

Looking around I noted that the snow was intact as far as the smoke and drifting ashes would let me see. "All of us. I can't risk leaving them out here."

She just nodded, her smile getting wider.

Goddamn 2/19th for contaminating us all.

"Get the NBC aid bag, and get ready, we're probably going to have to suit up to go through the tunnels," I said.

She made a face. "Ugh, internal environmental always smells bad and makes me dry up until my sweat turns the inside of my suit into a goddamn sauna."

I laughed at that. "Stop being a brat, now's not the time for that, brat." I swatted her on the butt and she laughed again, a slight bit of brittle madness in it.

"Sergeant," Donaldson's voice made me turn to look at him. He was waving me over. I put my hands in my jacket pockets, knowing it would irritate the NCO's and officers in the group, and sauntered over.

"Sup?" I asked, looking around.

"Are we going to need them to accompany us?" Donaldson asked.

I pretended to think about it. Hmm, let's see, drag a bunch of retards through a compromised facility that the charges had already destroyed a major section of, while looking for data that may or may not be still intact so that they could ultimately stand around holding their dicks while I did all the work, or leave them outside and do it all myself without them breathing in my ear while I was trying to work.

I pointed at the Lieutenant. "Bring her."

"What? Me? Why?" She asked.

"Operational planning concerns," Donaldson said smoothly. He looked around. "Has anyone here operated in an NBC environment for long periods of time before this?" Nobody said anything or moved. "Anybody?" He sighed, "We will be here for an unknown amount of time gather intelligence that will lead us to our next mission objective," He waved his hand, "Think of this as a dumb ass quest chain in whatever baby's first RPG you idiots play."