Kilo-29 (Damned of the 2/19th, Book 15)

Part 19

Site Kilo-29
Military Area - Primary Hallways
Winter, 1993
Day Two-Evening

The Fates were howling in my ears as I yanked out my pistol, did an infantry 'spray and pray' over the desk, then reholstered it.

One of the monitors exploded as I crawled across the floor, my ribs and my shoulder full of pain that I just acknowledged, accepted, and let pass through me, heading for the others.

I heard a double clack and there was a scream of overpressured hydraulics and the door shot up with a scream. Someone was briefly silhouetted in the door and sparks flew from the doorframe as a bullet whined off the steel frame. The sudden light made my eyes water and illuminated the Meathead with the injured forearm lunging through the door right after Donaldson, Franks the Meathead slung over his shoulders.

"Eat this!" Kincaid yelled, firing as he backed up.

There was several pistol shots and Kincaid went down between the first row of stations and the second row of stations, his rifle flying up and clattering to the floor.

"Kincaid!" The Major yelled. I saw him dive toward where Kincaid was at.

"Fuck." Kincaid grunted. "Fuck fuck fuck"

"Airlock's clear!" Donaldson yelled.

"Don't kill Fifty Foot Ant, we need him!" Toothpick yelled out. "Kill the others!" More pistol shots.

I yanked two objects out of my cargo pocket where my pills normally were, pulling first one pin then the other and throwing them toward the Suits.

"FLASHBANG OUT!" I yelled. "GAS GAS GAS!"

"You son of a bitch!" Toothpick yelled.

"What now, bitch?" I yelled back, crawling as fast as I could. The Major popped up, Kincaid's arm thrown over his shoulder, Kincaid coughing and stumbling, then going limp as there were two more shots that made him crumble. I crawled under one of the station, coming out where I'd worked on the two Privates. My knife was right where I'd left it.

The flashbang went off, filling the whole room with light and a thunderous roar pressing at the ears and making them ring. I knew the CS grenade was spewing out high concentrate tear gas at the same time.

The Fates were still howling, undisturbed by the ringing in my ears.

"You should have worked with us, Ant..." Toothpick's comments were cut off by coughing.

...just work with us, Sergeant, and let us do our jobs. We'll just go over the incident with each of your soldiers and then be out of your hair...

...Ant, help, Ant...

The Fates were howling, overriding Taggart's screams.

"How you like them apples?" I shouted back, scrabbling to my feet and lunging for the door out of Operations. They were yelling behind me, choking and coughing, and something was screeching loudly. Something bounded over me before I got all the way up, a hunched over human-like shape.

Donaldson popped around the corner of the doorframe, kneeling down with his weapon up. He fired three times and someone screamed. Two shots answered and Donaldson vanished back into the airlock.

I lunged through the door, a shot hitting the far wall and dimpling the steel.

"Hit the lever twice!" I yelled. The Major grabbed the bar, pulling it up then pulling it back and slapping it down. The door dropped down in less than a second, slowing for the last six inches with the scream of overpressured hydraulics. "Throw it to halfway." He left it sticking straight out.

"Fuck, that really hurt." Kincaid groaned. He was trying to stand up. "Bastards shot me."

"Open your vest." I told him. He nodded, unbuckling his LBE and then unbuttoning his shirt. When he opened it, there wasn't any blood on his shirt but he was gasping. "No penetration, but you're going to be fucking hurting."

"I'm all right." He told me, coughing. "Fucking ribs hurt."

"Your Army sucks." Donaldson groaned from where he was leaning against the wall, holding his chest. I chuckled and spit red on the floor. My goddamn tongue hurt from where I'd bitten it to get blood in my mouth. Fucking dentures, you can't tell how much pressure you're really putting on something.

The Major didn't say anything, just held out his hand then hauled Kincaid, Donaldson and myself to our feet. Donaldson picked back up his rifle and moved to the door.

"I lost my rifle, Sergeant." Kincaid said.

"Happens when you get shot, don't sweat it." I told him reaching out and putting my hand on the wall to steady myself. I spit again, still bloody.

"Sergeant Ant, can we get back to my men?" The Major asked.

"We've got to regroup, we're going there now." I told him, stumbling up next to Donaldson. "Throw the bar."

The door took a minute to hiss open, revealing that the main hallway was dark. I fumbled another shell off my bandoleer and loaded the thumper, letting the shell ring on the floor of the airlock.

"203 out!" I called out, puling the trigger and launching a flare down the hallway, angling it so it wouldn't bounce off the roof. It went down the hallway, bounced, and popped, the parachute deploying and the flare lighting up the hallway.

Donaldson banged a couple rounds at the three shapes that darted into the side corridors.

"Let's go, men!" The Major yelled, half dragging the kid with the bandaged head by throwing one arm over his shoulders and pulling.

The light was white and harsh, sputtering on the ground. It made my eye water as we hurried toward it, my hands swapping out the 40mm shell for another flare. When we hit the intersection I fired one down the hallway, then reloaded and fired the other way in one smooth motion. Shapes moved away from the lights when they cooked off a few seconds later.

Unmoving shapes littered the hallway down by the elevators, silent witnesses to the savagery of only a little while before.

"Sergeant Ant, hurry up." The Major said. "The flare's going out."

I hurried up, my knee brace creaking, and caught up to the others.

"My goddamn ribs hurt, Sergeant." Kincaid bitched.

"My fucking chest hurts like a motherfucker." Donaldson added.

"Suck it up, troops." I told him, grinning at them. They grinned back. My head swum and I went to sag against the wall, jerking back when my shoulder hit.

"Keep moving, Sergeant." the Major snapped.

The Fates were barely whispering.

I put my feet in front of each other and kept slogging.

Snow whipped around me and I shivered.

"Donaldson, help Sergeant Ant." The Major said.

"I'm fine." I mumbled, trying to push the other man away.

"Good to go, Sergeant, come on." Donaldson said, grabbing my LBE and half dragging me by it.

The light was flickering, the flare guttering out. They only lasted a few seconds, and this one was a guttering, flickering red glow behind us.

"Almost there, men." The Major told us.

I knew that the egg would be full of CS gas, and with the damage to the terminals the whole egg would be offline, control shifted to a secondary part of the facility that we hadn't seen yet.

"Come on, we're almost there." Donaldson said, and I nodded.

I'm running out of steam...

no not again!

Energy filled me, and I pulled free of Donaldson, standing up and shaking my head with a growl. I moved by the others in the wide hallway, leading the way back to the Enlisted Living Quarters, stopping at the air lock to the section.

"Major, gather up your men, we're going after my vehicle." I said.

"Why?" The Major asked. "What's so important?"

"I've got weapons and ammunition, we can arm up, protect ourselves." I told him.

"You have unsecure weapons?" He asked, then shook his head. "Never mind, I don't care right now." he glanced at everyone. "We've got wounded, let's get to the others and then you can go after the vehicle."

"We've got to do it now." I argued.

"Sergeant, look at yourself, look at our men." He said. "If you go without reinforcements, you might not make it."

I looked at the men surrounding me while the airlock door rose up.

"SECONDARY OPERATIONS CONFIRMS CONTROL! REPEAT, SECONDARY OPERATIONS CONFIRMS CONTROL!" sounded out over the loudspeakers, making me grin.

The men were all wounded. Blood had seeped through Frank's bandages, the other guy was wheezing through the trach tube. The Major's nose was definitely broken. Donaldson was gasping, clutching his chest, and Kincaid was standing there with the whole side of his face covered in crusted blood that had dried on his neck and soaked his uniform.

"I need you, Sergeant." the Major told me. "You can trust me."

...those are my men you're talking about...

There were no snide comments from people who weren't there, so I took a risk and I nodded, the hallway swimming. The doorway locked up, and we moved into the airlock. I leaned against the wall while the interior door raised up.

"Sergeant, how badly are you injured?" The Major asked me softly while the door was thumping and slowly raising.

"I'm still good to go." I told him.

"You're staggering." He told me.

"I'll be fine." I told him, spitting on the floor. It was almost clear. "I'm still on my feet."

He stared at me for a long moment then nodded.

The hallway on the other side was clear, and the Major led us into the hallway.

"Form up in the rec room, I'll gather up the others." The Major said. I nodded, and headed for the rec room. I opened the door and hit the lights, the fluorescent lights flickering for a moment before they lit up the four pool tables, the ping pong table, the old arcade games, and the TV. The other men moved by me, and Franks was set on the pool table at my suggestion. Kincaid and the kid with the trach sat down in the chairs.

"Donaldson, come here a second, bring a flashlight." Donaldson looked up then moved over by me, pulling his flashlight off his LBE. "Shine the light in my eyes, one at a time, tell me if they don't move." I took off my glasses before moving my eye patch.

I winced slightly at the light spearing into my eye, then Donaldson checked my bad eye, then repeated it twice before stepping back. Kincaid had got up and picked up the rifle Donaldson had sat down, pacing back and forth.

"Your left pupil is a little sluggish." He told me. "Is that normal?"

"No, it should work normally." I told him. "I'm concussed."

The door opened up and two men came in, stopping when they saw all of us.

"What the fuck happened to you guys?" One of them asked.

"We got our asses kicked." The Meathead with the injured arm said quietly. "What the fuck does it look like?"

"We got ambushed, but fought our way free." I said, lifting my head up. Kincaid was turning around, glaring.

"Speak for your fucking self." Kincaid snarled, stepping forward. "I'm still on my fucking feet, I'm still alive, and I sure as fuck did not get my ass kicked."

"We didn't get our asses kicked, Meyers, we got fucking ambushed, like the Sergeant said." Donaldson added, yelling at the guy who'd asked. He sounded more than a little pissed. "Be glad you weren't fucking there."

"Not to mention those goddamn CIA assholes trying to kill us." Kincaid said, kicking a chair and send it crashing against the wall.

Three more of the Major's men came in. That made 10 total, if I was remembering right, there was ten more to get. All three of them stopped and stared at Kincaid, who was kicking another chair across the room, a badly stitched wound on his face and blood covering the side of his head, his neck, and soaking the top of the side of his uniform.

"Dude, what the fuck?" One of them asked. One of the Meatheads I hadn't bothered numbering.

"Shut the hell up!" Kincaid yelled.

"At ease that shit, calm down, Kincaid." I said, standing up. My knees went weak and my vision swum. "Take a seat, I don't like repeating myself, so when the Major comes back we'll fill you in." I told them, waving at the chairs.

The four that had come in went over and sat down while I walked over to Kincaid and grabbed his arm.

"Get it out of your system now, Kincaid. I need you, and you need to be thinking straight." I stared at him and he finally nodded, his pupils widely dilated. "You did good, Kincaid, I'm sorry I treated you so rough. You aren't a coward and I shouldn't have called you one. I overreacted."

"Now I know why." He said. He shuddered. "I thought we were going to die by the elevators. It's nothing like training. We could have been killed."

"We didn't. You and Donaldson had what it took when we hit the sharp end of the stick, and know we know how you'll react." I told him, speaking softly and slowly. He was trembling, the effects of endorphins, adrenaline, pain, and rage. "Donaldson, come over here."

When Donaldson came over we moved on the other side of the pool tables from the others as another three came in. Kinciad handed Donaldson back the M16 on the way, pausing long enough to grab a chair and sling it against the wall. When we were as far from the others as we could get, I motioned them close.

"How many of these meat heads can I trust?" I asked quietly. "Don't think if they're a good guy, what kind of shit they talk, but how you think they'd react if they were at the elevators with us."

"Fuck 'em, none of them." Kincaid said.

"Not many." Donaldson answered. "Maybe Natchez...

"He's a punk." Kincaid said, reaching up to touch his sutures. I grabbed his hand.

"and I think Wilkins and Meyers. PFC Purett has a combat patch." Donaldson finished.

"We'll see. I've only got 8 more M16's, not enough to arm everyone, and Kincaid gets one." I sighed. "We're going to need people we can trust with us, there's something we don't know, and we need to find out what it is."

"Can I kill that son of a bitch who's always chewing on a fucking toothpick?" Donaldson asked. "Bastard shot me."

"We see them again, we fucking kill them." I told them, smiling. "Unless we can take them alive." I drew my knife and held it up. "There's a few questions I'd like to ask them."

Donaldson and Kincaid both smiled, the young men who'd I'd met not too long ago long gone, replaced by hard faced men with blood on them.

Four more came in, both repeating the same fucking questions.

"I see what you mean. We'd be halfway done explaining when we'd have to start over." Donaldson said, nodding at the four of them exclaiming over the injuries.

"Go stand by the door." I drew my .45 and handed it to Kincaid after thumbing off the safety. "It's locked and loaded, has a nasty kick, don't fucking drop it or I'll send you to get it even if you drop it down a goddamn shaft." I nodded toward the injured men. "Which one is Franks, things were a little confused."

Kincaid nodded, smiling, as Donaldson answered my question. It was the one with the trach, not the one with the bandaged face like I'd thought, who was Murchison. The two men walked over to the door while I walked over by the TV and turned to face the men, who were all talking animatedly. The kid with the bite on his forearm was showing it to the newcomers.

"Take your seats. As soon as the Major returns, you'll get a briefing and brought up to speed." I told them. They turned and looked at me, seeing me standing in front of them at parade rest, staring at them.

"What's going on?" One of them, with Clark on his nametag, asked me.

"I'll explain when everyone gets back. Take your seat." I told them.

"Fuck that, I want to know now." He continued. "What the fuck happened to Franks and Murchison?"

"Sit down!" I barked. They all found their seats.

The Major came in a few minutes later with the last of them. He moved up next to me.

"What do we tell them?" He asked.

"Let me handle it. Just stand there and look like it's all under control." I answered, then turned back to the gathered Privates. Counting the two wounded men, Donaldson and Kincaid, myself and Major, there were 22 of us. A whole platoon.

"Listen up!" I barked, and the conversation stopped.

"While exploring the facility we were aggressed by a small force of enemy combatants of unknown numbers armed with hand weapons." I said. "At that time Private Franks, Private Murchison, and Private Kincaid were seriously wounded."

They turned and looked at Kincaid, who glared back.

"We managed to break contract and pull back with our wounded to the operations center, leaving behind an unknown number of dead and wounded of the enemy." I continued, pulling their attention back to me. "Once we were in the operations center we gave emergency first aid to the worse cases."

I took a deep breath, the Major shifted uncomfortably next to me.

"It was immediately afterwards that the three Special Agents that accompanied you here attempted to take command of the mission, ordering us to abandon the rest of you here to defend yourself against an enemy you were unaware of." I told them. "At that time Major Darson refused their insistence that he follow their illegal orders and another fight broke out."

The silence was thick.

"At that time the enemy attacked again, and Major Darson ordered a retreat back here, to both inform you of the enemy and the betrayal by the agents. At that time Privates Kincaid and Donaldson were injured by gunfire turned on them rather than the enemy." I could see that some of them didn't believe what they were hearing.

"The following people will accompany Privates Kincaid and Donaldson as well as myself to retrieve equipment from my vehicle. When I call your name, go stand by Private Kincaid." I stared at them. "Private Natchez." The soldier nodded, getting up. "Private Meyers." The Private who'd I'd met a couple of times got up. "Private Purett." I waited till he started moving. "Private Wilkins." The kid looked nervous, but moved over pretty quick. "And you." I pointed at the one who'd been bit on the forearm. "What's your name?"

"Pee Vee Two Shads." He said.

"Go over there." I told him. He nodded and moved over there. "The rest of you will stay here with Major Darson." I pulled my Glock from behind my back and handed it to the Major, who looked startled but took it anyway.

"I'll get my team ready to go then carry out the mission." I told him, then saluted him.

Major Darson passed the pistol to his left hand and saluted me back. "Carry on, Sergeant Ant."

The Major I'd met and disliked was nowhere in the face of the man who faced me.

I moved over to the Privates I'd sent over by the door.

"Anyone got any combat experience?" I asked, having seen Purett's combat patch. It was 7th Corps, I was authorized to wear one just like it but preferred the interlocked triangles of 3rd CosCom myself.

"I do, Sergeant." Purett told me, smiling. "I was in the Storm."

"What unit?" I asked.

"I was with 82nd Airborne."

Did he think I was fucking stupid?

"See any action?" I asked.

"My unit was twenty miles outside of Baghdad when they called everyone off." He told me, puffing out his chest. "We jumped in the day the Ground War started. I killed a bunch of ragheads on the way into Baghdad."

"Report to Major Darson for your assignment." I told him, my lip curling. "Get the fuck out of my face."

"What?" He asked.

"You're a goddamn liar and now I don't trust your ass." I told him. "Now step."

He glared at me but stomped off.

"I do." Shads said quietly.

"Go ahead." I told him. He licked his lips nervously.

"I was on the DMZ in Korea, I came under sniper fire a couple of times." He said, shrugging. He looked like he was about to start walking over to the Major. "They shoot at us all the time."

"And nobody believes you, do they, kid?" I said. "You were with us, you're OK with me."

He looked grateful and I suddenly felt bad for him.

"All right, gentlemen." I said, opening the door and leading them into the hallway. "We're going to the motorpool. I've got weapons and ammunition in my vehicle, we're going to retrieve what we can, then doubletime it back here." Behind us, the door to the rec room locked.

I paused at the door to the main Living Quarters hallway.

"Any questions?" I asked.

"Yeah, what happens if we get attacked?" Shads asked quietly. I wondered if that was his normal tone.

"We kill them." I said simply, and threw the bar.

The door went up and I led them toward the motorpool.

The picture of the 2/19th barracks mocked me as we passed it, but I averted my eyes.

please don't let it be like it was there I begged.

"Hey, was those there in the picture earlier, Kay?" Donaldson asked.

"I don't think so, that's kind of weird." Kincaid said.

I couldn't help myself.

I looked.

In front of the barracks were three snowmen.

One had a bright red slash down the side of the face and snowball sized breasts.

Another had a pink spot on the right of its belly.

And the last had no eyes and a bright red spot on the upper right of the middle part.

oh shit...