Battleborn the weapon bo.., p.1
Battleborn (The Weapon Book 1), page 1
Battleborn
©2024 Richard Fox
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CONTENTS
Also in Series
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
Thank you for reading Battleborn
ALSO IN SERIES
The Weapon
Battleborn
Red Man
Check out the entire series here! (Tap or scan)
CHAPTER 1
Idon’t like this.
You brought us here.
Get me out… please.
No no… I make the decisions now.
The lieutenant was dead. A black body bag zipped up to his chin, nestling his too-pale face up to a sky that matched his pallor. Thin strips of white tape kept his eyes shut. The tip of his nose and front of his brow had gone to a dirty-snow color as all his blood seeped to the back of his body.
A friend sat beside him, a rifle set between the two of them. The friend was on one knee, one arm bent across his leg, the other hand on the dead man’s shoulder. He half mumbled, half sang something that the two men watching the scene couldn’t pick out.
Cold rain fell. Fat drops that spattered against the ambulance’s hood and smacked against the body bag.
The others stood in front of a field ambulance, idling on the outer edge of a gravel parking lot. Hospital tents marked with red crosses on white flags stirred in the early fall wind. This side of the hospital was nearly as quiet as the rows of body bags laid out on folding tables and litters. A wide doorway led into the graves and registration section of the hospital.
“I’m not supposed to do this,” a soldier in too-tight and too-clean fatigues said. His pistol and ammo pouches were loosely attached to his flack vest, giving off undue noise every time he moved.
The man next to him wore the same tight bodysuit as his lieutenant in mourning. The bullet-resistant fabric’s camouflage patters shifted as he stopped leaning his hip against the ambulance. He lit up a cigarette and took a long drag.
“And?” he slipped his lighter into a small pouch on his shoulder, then glanced at a screen on his helmet set on the hood. “SFC ANDREWS O POS” was stenciled over the rim of the helmet in letters that faded in and out of view depending on the angle.
“I’m supposed to be running this cargo back to the collection point at Wonju right now,” the soldier said. “These guys aren’t exactly on a schedule, but I’ve still got hard times to hit, Sergeant. Lots more runs to make.”
“... our work is done, our course on Earth is run…” carried from the body and the other man with the breeze.
“Yeah? Well the only reason the commies aren’t in Wonju right now is because he held the line,” Andrews pointed two fingers with his cigarette at the lieutenants. “Let him pay his respects to his friend.”
The surviving lieutenant touched the dead man’s shoulder again, then ran his hand down the body bag to his hand.
“H-he’s not supposed to do that,” the soldier stammered. “There’s-there’s contagion risks, and I’m not even supposed to let anyone even touch the zippers.”
The lieutenant patted his hand against the dead man’s through the bag. A slight bulge from a broken finger jutted out against the slick and dark plastic.
“I’m going to have to report this,” the soldier crossed his arms over his chest. “I was trying to do you a favor—”
“I gave you a pack of Reds and told you to take a smoke break,” Andrews said, his cigarette still in his mouth. “Why’re you so nervous all of a sudden? There a problem?”
The other lieutenant shifted over to the foot of the body bag and lifted up a tag in clear plastic attached to the end. His head snapped up, eyes locked on the other soldier.
“I need to get my sergeant major—” the other soldier got one step away before Andrews grabbed him by the collar. “Hey! You can’t do this to me. I’ve got a hard time to hit!”
He squirmed against Andrews’ iron grip as the other lieutenant picked up his rifle and strode toward them. Andrews saw the look in his lieutenant’s eye and spat his just-lit cigarette away with a puff of air.
“Wait, I can explain—”
The lieutenant hooked a punch into the soldier’s stomach, just below the edge of his flack vest, and hit him so hard his boots came off the ground. The soldier collapsed to his hands and knees, struggling to breathe.
“Where is it?”
Good good. I like this.
“Where is it!” the lieutenant punched down, raking his knuckles across the soldier’s lips and blooding them against his teeth.
“Sarge, help me!” he reached for Andrews, who took a step back.
The lieutenant slammed his hands onto the soldier and thrust him against the front of the ambulance. Blood burbled off split lips and stained the soldier’s teeth red.
“You can’t do this to me,” he protested.
“His West Point class ring,” the lieutenant clamped his fingertips around the soldier’s throat. “It’s on his inventory sheet but it’s not on his broken finger. Where. Is. It?”
The soldier managed a gargle of an answer.
“One half of his ring belonged to his father,” the lieutenant said. “I told him not to wear it out here because the commies would take it from him, but it was you. You!”
He let go of the soldier’s neck and yanked a combat knife from a scabbard on his chest rig. He flipped the blade around for the soldier to see, then pressed the blade hard against the side of his neck. Arteries and veins pulsed against the edge as the soldier succumbed to panic.
“It wasn’t me—I didn’t—I mean I was saving it for them!” the soldier squealed as a thin line of blood ran down the blade.
“Where’s the ring?” Andrews barked.
“U-under my seat!” the soldier flapped one arm behind him, trying to point to the driver’s seat.
The lieutenant inched his face closer to the soldier’s, his features set and his eyes burning. He wiggled the knife just hard enough to cut a little bit deeper into the soldier’s neck.
Andrews flung the ambulance driver side door open and rummaged beneath the seat. He pulled out an open MRE bag, the top bristling with trash, and dropped it on the hood. It landed with a heavy metal sound and the clink of jewelry against jewelry. Andrews dumped the bag out. Rings, necklaces, and watches scattered across the hood.
“I was going to give it all back at Wonju,” the soldier pleaded. “We-we do this all the time, swear! Standard operating—”
The lieutenant flicked the knife away from his neck and kneed him in the crotch. The soldier went down with a pathetic groan.
Andrews turned on a small flashlight and held it over the hood. The lieutenant sifted through wedding rings and crucifixes until he picked up a heavy gold class ring. One side was worn down, the gold a different karat than the other side. The lieutenant checked an engraving on the inside, then went back to his dead friend.
A flood light from a vehicle on the other side of a chain link fence lit the ambulance up.
“There a problem?” someone asked.
Andrews looked at the soldier like he was something that had to be scraped off the bottom of his boot, then motioned for the one manning the floodlight to come over.
The lieutenant knelt beside his dead friend and unzipped the side of the body bag.
“Sorry, Rudy,” he said. The bottom of the bag was slick with blood, the dead man s hand stiff and cold against his touch. He slid the ring onto the broken finger and bent it back toward the hand. “I wasn’t there when you needed me, brother. Well done. Be thou at peace.”
He looked back to the ambulance. Andrews spoke with a pair of Military Police. Neither of whom offered the soldier, still writhing from the knee to the testicles, any assistance. Andrews picked up his helmet from the hood and walked over to his lieutenant.
“They’ll take it from here, sir,” Andrews said. “They know who we are, and it’s obvious that shit bag fell out of the truck and hurt himself. Still, best if we be on our way. Our soldiers are supposed to be getting some rest right now, but they’ll find some war crime to break if they’re unsupervised for too long. And maybe someone in the hospital’s got a bleeding hard for shit bags. We should get going.” The sergeant seemed nervous, hesitant to give suggestions.
The lieutenant took his helmet off his belt and put it on. A mask that would cover his mouth and nose dangled from the left side. He stared back at his friend, one hand on the mask.
“Sorry about your buddy,” Andrews said. “At least you could do right by him one last time. We’re less without him.”
You’re all dead men now.
The lieutenant fastened the mask over his mouth and dropped his hand. A skeletal X-ray of what would lie beneath the mask was stenciled over the dark metal. The lieutenant flipped down dark optics built into his helmet, completing the illusion of a skull face within the helmet.
All the dead men are mine mine mine.
CHAPTER 2
Hydraulics clunked and whined as machinery beneath a wide platform came to life. Warning lights built into the walls of the underground bunker spun up, flashing jaundiced light across the dark chamber.
The two-story tall column in the center of the hangar lowered slowly. Humidity flowed down the edges of the platform and misted as it mixed with the colder air of the cavern beneath. The platform lowered an angular black airplane, the matte surface reflecting no light as it sank with the platform. A haze rose from the engine blocks, simple slits along the aft of the craft. It bore no outer markings.
Thick metal plates closed overhead as the plane neared the bottom of the chamber.
A set of double doors slid open. Pure white light flooded into the cavern around two well-built men. One touched a finger to the side of his neck. He had light-olive skin, honey colored eyes and a high faded haircut. The tops of calligraphy letters tattooed to his upper shoulder stuck out from his collar.
“Hux, this is Simko, turn on the rest of the lights already,” he said. “No I’m not going to wait for the timers. I told you to fix—”
Flood lights snapped on just as the platform came to a rest. The stealth craft seemed to cast shadows across itself, at odds with the bright sting of the overhead lighting.
“Why don’t we have these out in the field yet?” the other man limped forward, favoring his right leg. “You think it’s as stealthy as the boss claims it is?” He walked beneath the plane, running his fingers lightly against the hull.
“You think we could operate this close to peninsula and all the commies’ air defense if it wasn’t a ghost ship?” Simko asked. “This thing’s never been painted by radar while I’ve been on it. Granted, there’s robots piloting it and they don’t talk much. You want on the next mission, Graves?”
“Boss takes too much at face value from the Director,” Graves said. “We’re supposed to do our own testing and evaluation on new gear. Bet the nerds at Rucker or Groom Lake will shit themselves when they see it.”
He ran a hand through blond hair that was far too long and unkempt for any parade ground.
“So you don’t want to action the next target,” Simko shook his head and stepped back from the cargo ramp at the rear of the plane. “Let me have all the fun, eh?”
“Excuse me for getting fucking shot,” Graves said. “You think I wanted to lose half a quad? That shit hurt.”
“You Delta boys are always so smart. You’d think you’d know better than to try and build up an immunity to 7.62mm rounds,” Simko pulled a data slate from a pocket and pressed his thumb to the screen.
“Hur hur hur, real funny. That going in your routine when you get out and sell SEAL endorsed protein shakes and hair gel?” Graves asked. “How many Revenant units this shipment?”
“Ten again,” Simko returned the slate to his pocket as the ramp lowered. The inside of the stealth craft was sparse and utilitarian. Auto-gurneys rolled slowly down the ramp. Each held a stiff man in Air Force flight suits, no patches and no boots. All had a uniform eggshell-white color to their skin and were hairless.
“What’s with the pickle suits?” Graves asked as one of the gurneys rolled passed him and to a white cross painted on the floor at the edge of the cavern. The rudimentary driving neural net worked into the gurneys were adept at carrying out short routes and recognizing where to deliver patients. “They ain’t pilots.”
“Boss said something about a better backstop during transfers,” Simko checked a serial number on the front of a gurney. “This goes down over the ocean and maybe the Chinese will fish up the bodies. If they’re wearing the right gear, then it begs fewer questions.”
“That make you nervous?” Graves flicked a finger against the temple of one of the bodies as it rolled passed him. “It’d make me nervous. Boss and the Director admitting their off-the-books airplane isn’t as infallible as they billed it.”
“Who the hell knows how bad shit’s getting up there. Not my circus, not my monkeys. Now let’s get these Revenants to processing and to the lanes for evaluation. Same old battle drill,” Simko said.
“Care package?” Graves jerked a thumb at the ramp.
“Not this time,” Simko shrugged. “We’ve got enough from the last shipment to keep us in our booze ration for a while yet. Don’t go making that nasty hooch of yours.”
“I’m worried about Carol getting her smokes,” Graves grabbed one of the bodies by the chin and turned the face from side to side. “She doesn’t have her pack a day and the werewolf comes out. I think they’re starting to look like me.”
“They ain’t that ugly,” Simko raised a hand to a sensor bulb on the wall and the stealth shuttle raised its ramp. “How many do you think are going to make it this time?”
“Seven,” Graves held out a hand. “I’ll bet some of that hooch you pretend you don’t like against one of your magazines.”
“Eight, and those are collector’s items,” Simko said. “Let’s get them to intake before Carol and Huxley fall asleep.”
“Revenant four set for upload,” Carol Tivoli tapped gray embers into a cut-down water bottle serving as an ash tray. Her control room sat above a white-walled surgical suite where an auto-doc robot bent an unresponsive man up from his gurney and held his arms and shoulders in place. Her auburn hair was in a tight ponytail. She hadn’t bothered with makeup or even a lab coat over her dark-blue scrubs.
“Four logged and primed,” a man yawned behind her. He swayed from side to side in an office chair, watching a bank of monitors with little enthusiasm. The edge of a chubby belly stuck out from the bottom of a t-shirt.
“Imperative hash code amber-Ceres-plum-ninety-four loading into Revenant four now,” Tivoli double tapped an icon and dragged and dropped it over Revenant four on a screen on her desk. A mechanical arm bent from the auto-doc. The tip dipped into a silver box and rose with a dark metal spike on the end as long as her little finger.
“Micros are deploying through the first two Revenants well enough,” the fat man stretched his arms out to his sides. “Bet the colonel will let us go back to sleep once we’re done.”
“The man will not sleep while there’s work to be done, and he won’t let us sleep either, Mr. Huxley. You should pick up on his dedication,” Tivoli plucked at her bottom lip as the spike was inserted into a small port at the base of Revenant four’s skull. “The Director needs to know if there are any issues with the Revenants. The off-site’s always working on the next batch.”
“They don’t sleep there? Wherever that is,” Huxley scratched himself. “Revenant four take?”
“Upload is almost complete,” Tivoli pushed glasses back up the bridge of her nose. On the screen, the surgical arm pulled away from the Revenant.
