“This is team 3, gunfire from the north has stopped, cannot raise anyone on the com, suspect that team 7 is down. Moving to position between 7s last location and Alpha.”
“Team 1 doing the same on western side,”
“team 8 moving to south west, will support team 4 and… wait… movement in the trees… DROP YOUR WEAPONS AND GET ON THE GROUND… I SAID, URGH…”
“alpha, this is team 4, gunfire dead ahead, moving to assist… Two targets sighted… what the… OPEN FIRE! CONTACT, CONTACT!, TEAM 4 AND 9 SOUTHWEST OF …. CSHHHHHH” the channel faded into static as the line went dead.
The com sergeant looked back towards Hammond, the colour completely drained from his face, their eyes met in mutual terror before the young coms officer turned back to his equipment.
“Fuck this!” Reaves said, hoisting his sidearm into the air and marching towards the door.
“What the hell are you doing?!?” Hammond hissed from behind the sofa.
“I am a soldier, I will meet my enemy on the field, weapon in hand!”
“all teams report in!” the com officer shouted in the mic as Reaves approached the door.
“Alpha, this is 1, team 3 is engaged, gunfire from team 9’s last known position has stopped, suspect they are down, all other teams down… we are falling back to alpha to support 10, suggest breaking out the heavy ordinance and setting up defensive…” This was the last Reaves heard as the door slammed behind him.
The cabin was on a raised platform, a small wooded hill behind, a road running east to west at the bottom of the cabins steps and a wooded valley sloping down on the other side of the road. Looking west Reaves could see the dull glow of fire from the position of the western sentry post. More small fires could be seen down the hill. A group of 5 men were running along the road towards the cabin from the west, another group of 5 were taking up defensive positions behind vehicles and sandbags at the foot of the stairs. Heavy machine guns and assault rifles were replacing the submachine guns and sidearms that the agents had started the night with…
Never underestimate your enemy.
“Sir, I need you to get back inside!” an agent barked at him as he surveyed the battlefield from the porch outside the cabin’s front door. The agent was ignored as Reaves made his way down the steps and to the rear of one of the black SUVs.
“I need a weapon, soldier!” he barked at the nervous looking agent who was rummaging around in the trunk.
“Err, yes, sir” the agent spluttered before handing him an M4 Carbine.
“CONTACT!!!” a voice from outside the car yelled. Reaves heard a burst of high-pitched thuds before the louder conventional machine guns opened up with a deafening burst of returning fire.
“AMMO!!” Reaves shouted at the now trembling agent. The agent looked the General square in the eyes, the terror painted on his face as he processed the order, this was the closest that the young man had ever been to combat.
“Y, Yes, S….” his head exploded as a red bolt of energy pierced the ballistically shielded windscreen and struck the agent in the back of the head.
Reaves stumbled back, stunned. Shaking his head clear, he reached into the satchel that the agent had been looking in, careful not to touch the agents still twitching body, pulled out three mags and loaded his weapon. He pulled the toggle switch into single fire mode, released the safety, pulled the cocking handle, raised the stock to his shoulder, took a deep breath, aimed down the sights as he stood to find a target and…
“what the hell is that?!”
His brain was hard wired to identify a target before he fired, it was drilled into you with such ferocity during basic that you never forgot… don’t shoot unless you know what you are shooting at!! But what the hell was he shooting at? it looked like something in one of his son’s old comics! He struggled to identify his target as small arms fire sparked against the attacker’s skin and machine gun tracer rounds bounced harmlessly off ‘it’ and into the night. One of the agents picked up a shoulder mounted rocket launcher, took aim and fired. The second of the two attackers was engulfed in a violent explosion, only to emerge from the flames a few seconds later as if nothing had happened. It quickly dawned on the battle hardened General that a few of these things could take on a whole Marine battalion if this firefight was anything to go by.
The giant, metallic looking creature raised its weapon – white glowing lines streaking down the barrel – and fired. Reaves ducked behind the vehicle as the rounds flew overhead, another two agents dropped to the floor; a grapefruit sized hole smoking in the chest of one of them, half of the other one’s head had been vaporized, both were dead. He was about to take aim again when two more of figures rounded the corner from the north, there was no cover – for a second, the soldier inside him admired the perfect flanking manoeuvre. A rapid-fire burst from each of the two new assailants slammed into the huddle mass of CIA agents, their bodies ripped apart by each successive hit. Reaves looked up, having realised that he wasn’t hurt and watched as the first attacker – his barrel now blue – aimed directly at him and fired. Reaves closed his eyes – at least he had died on his feet.
“Glad you could re-join us, General” I said as Reave’s eyes fluttered open. He didn’t know it, but Douglas Reaves was the first recipient of the stun setting of an X1 battle rifle, it had worked perfectly. The General had been unconscious for about 45 minutes.
Reaves blinked a few times, looking down at his bound body in confusion. “Nope, not dead,” I mocked, “Couldn’t let you die before we had a little talk.” Reaves looked around, he was back inside the safehouse, tied to a chair, Hammond was tied to a chair next to him, a nasty cut across the right side of his forehead. The com sergeant was slumped over his equipment, a smoking hole clearly visible in his back, four of the attackers were standing behind them – two flanking his chair, and two behind Hammond. Sat in front of them was a face he recognised.
“you must be Marcus,” he croaked, the acrid taste of cordite still stinging his throat from the gunfight outside.
I nodded without expression.
“My men?” Hammond asked, the tremble in his voice betraying his fear.
“another 52 men dead because of your orders Mr Hammond.” Came my reply.
“and these… things?” Reaves nodded to the figures towering over him.
“Ah…” I answered, mocking excitement. “You like? They are the Spartans, fully automated combat drones. They…” I crouched infront of the General so our eyes were level. “… are the result of all your hard work.”
Reaves scrunched up his face in confusion. “You see, Doug,” I explained, “Maria Gonzalez – the woman whose death you both ordered – hated the idea of weaponizing our technology, was totally against the idea.” I stood back up and paced between the two seated men, looking each one in the eyes as I spoke. “If she were still alive, there is absolutely no way these Spartans would exist, she simply wouldn’t have allowed it… but she isn’t alive… is she?” I paused, but neither of the men took the opportunity to speak, so I continued, “You hounded her, you threatened her, you intimidated her and when she wouldn’t give you what you wanted, you executed her. This…” I gestured to the Spartans and to the carnage outside, “…is the result of all that work.”
“We were following orders!” Hammond blurted out.
“Shut the fuck up Greg! This is bullshit!” Reaves spat at his colleague.
“I’m not sure I believe you Mr Hammond,” I said, moving closer to the bleeding bald man. “We have checked your systems, every… single… shred of evidence points to you two. There are no emails, no phone calls, no text messages, not even a record of any meetings between you and a higher power to discuss this.”
“It was a standing order from the Joint chiefs! I swear!”
“Greg. Shut your fucking mouth!” Reaves growled again.
I smiled at the restrained General, the cut above one eye from his fall after being stunned had stopped bleeding but would still probabl
y be quite painful. “You see, Mr Hammond, the General here is a soldier; Grenada, Desert Storm, Kosovo, Afghanistan, he has been trained in counter interrogation techniques. I could probably ask him questions all day and he wouldn’t say a word… You however, haven’t seen a day of service in your life. You weren’t even a field agent, were you? You have ridden a desk for your entire career.”
The realisation dawned on Reaves’ face. “You were promoted from the analysts,” I continued to Hammond, “in fact, you have never even left Langley… you’re not someone who gives orders, you’re a middle man – someone who takes official policy and delegates them to people who can make them happen – you’re a pencil pusher, you don’t have any real authority, do you, Greg?”
Gregory Hammond jumped at the lifeline he thought I was throwing him before Reaves could say anything to stop him. “Yes, that’s right… I just passed the orders along. I didn’t want anyone to die, I didn’t have a choice!”
“Well, the question then, Mr Hammond, is whose orders did you pass on?”
Hammond scrunched up his face as if the answer was obvious, “The President’s.” He answered.
“the President?” I coaxed, “the President personally told you to have Maria Gonzalez killed?” Reaves had gone suspiciously quiet by this point – I was starting to understand why.
“Well, no… not exactly. The National Security advisor gave me the order, but he said it came directly from the President.”
“I seeee….” I drew out the last syllable, “and what exactly did he order you to do.”
“Morgan Blake secured the contract for the encryption technology, but got nowhere with the solar panels and had no information at all on anything else Itek was working on. They told me that he was trying to secure more technology by playing the long game, the administration didn’t like that so they told me that if he didn’t get what we wanted in 3 months, I was to pressure the company into… um… complying.”
“Ok, so when was the order given to kill Maria Gonzalez.”
“About 6 months after that.”
“What?!?” Reaves head snapped around to face Hammond. “You told me she killed herself! I asked you directly and you assured me that none of my men had anything to do with it.”
“They weren’t your men!” Hammond snapped back, “Not technically anyway, none of them were under your command!”
“You son of a bitch! This is what Morgan was talking about? Im gonna FUCKING kill you!”
Hammond’s eyes went wide with fear, “Don’t worry Mr Hammond,” I soothed, “General Reaves here is not going to kill you…” he sighed with relief, “…but I will.” His eyes shot back to me, “unless you answer my questions… then I might let him kill you.”
“O…OK…What do you want to know?”
“6 months after Morgan Blake’s time ran out, the order was given to kill Maria Gonzalez… tell me exactly what happened… who gave the order? What did they say? Why did they want it to happen?”
“I was called to the Pentagon - an off-the-books meeting - the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Secretary of Defence and the National Security Advisor wanted to review all the new tech we had acquired of over the year and which ones we should invest in. At some point in the meeting, the solar panels were brought up – they really wanted that tech, it would’ve saved billions off their budget in energy costs – I told them it was a no-go, Gonzalez wasn’t cooperating and there was no way around the encryption tech…”
“The tech Morgan Blake stopped you from having” I added.
“Of course, we had it!” Hammond snorted, “That naïve old fool didn’t honestly think the whole system didn’t share technologies because of a civilian licensing agreement, did he? The CIA had copies of it 24 hours after the contract was signed and the NSA were trying to crack and reverse engineer it 24 hours after that. It was they panels they wanted, but that encryption program couldn’t be hacked by the NSA so we couldn’t just take the blueprints. They told me that I was to put pressure on Itek, the CEO in particular, if she didn’t crack then I was to eliminate her and try again with her successor.”
“So why, then, did the team members who carried out the execution, tell me they answered to General Reaves?” Reaves head snapped back to me; a look of shock clear in his eyes.
“We cloned his command authorisation codes….” Hammond mumbled with his head down.
“untie me and hand me my fucking weapon!” Reaves snarled as he struggled against his binds.
“So, what was General Reaves involvement then if he didn’t command the teams?”
“He oversaw the logistics, and sent the requests out for military volunteers”
“So, just to be clear,” I turned back towards Hammond, “Maria Gonzalez was executed to expedite the governments acquisition of Itek’s solar panel technology.”
“Yes”
“Technology they only wanted so they could save money.”
“Yes,”
“and this order came directly from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Secretary of Defence and the National Security Advisor.”
“Yes.”
“Is there any conceivable way that the President didn’t know about this order?”
“I… err… I mean it’s possible, but I doubt it.”
“So… your only crime was carrying out an illegal order given to you by your superiors?”
“Yes… exactly… please let me go.”
I turned back towards General Reaves; his seething eyes had not left Hammond. “Tell me General. What is the responsibility of any soldier when he is given an order that he knows to be illegal?”
“He is bound by oath to disobey it!” he snarled, his eyes never leaving Hammond.
“would you say that Hammond’s orders were illegal?”
“Fucking right they were illegal.”
“And do you think he knew they were illegal when he carried them out.”
“He damned well knew alright, and he used my god damned codes to do it!”
“Last question general… what did you ask me to do a few moments ago?”
Reaves turned his gaze towards me, the rage barely contained in his eyes. “I told you to untie me and to hand me my fucking weapon!”
I looked up at one of the Spartans behind the General and nodded, an instant later, the General felt his binding become loose and his nickel-plated Barretta was held out to him in a strong mechanical hand. The General stood in one flowing motion – impressive in a man of his years – took the weapon, checked the clip and the chamber, cocked it and aimed it at Hammond.
“Wait… no… plea….”
Hammond never got to finish his pleas as Reaves unloaded his entire clip into Hammonds chest.
“I was wondering if you were going to try and use that on me.” I said as Hammonds body slumped to one side.
“would it have done any good?”
“Nope, none whatsoever.”
“Didn’t think so.” We both looked down on Hammonds corpse, the blood now soaking through his white shirt. “Well, I guess I know why Morgan turned on me now. Can’t say I blame him. How did you know I wasn’t involved?”
“I didn’t,” I answered honestly. “but General Blake has known you for over thirty years, he took a lot of convincing to believe that you were responsible, even when shown all the evidence. He had to have his reasons to be so surprised by your involvement…. So…”
“You played him.” He nodded at Hammond.
“Seemed to work pretty well.”
“You know they won’t let this go right? You’ll be enemy number one. If they would go to all this trouble over some solar panels, what do you think they will do to get their hands on these…” he looked at me inquisitively.
“…Spartans.” I finished.
“Spartans” the General repeated looking the colossal machines up and down. “they are going to hunt you to the ends of the earth.”
“I would strongly recommend you are not among those who t
ry, General.”
“Don’t need to worry about that. I never agreed with Morgan’s methods, I always believed we need to be firm with private companies, but this… this is a line that should never have been crossed. I won’t be aligned with an administration that is willing to do this.”
“So, you’re going to resign?”
“After I have made up with my friend… yes.”
“Well, General…” I turned to face the man I had loathed for so many months, “… don’t take this personally, but I hope I never have to see you again.” I held out my hand.
He took it and shook it firmly, “likewise.” He said, his military composure now fully returned. “I’m going to have to call this in, I’ll tell them I was knocked out.” He pointed at his eye. “you’d better be gone before they get here”
“Good luck, general.” I said with a nod, with that, I exploded into a cloud of Nanites as the Spartans turned and ducked out of the door. The Nanite constructed van was already waiting for them as they passed the western sentry post, the bodies of the dead agents being slowly blanketed as a thin dusting of snow fell from the sky.
Chapter 17
Aftermath
“Eight thousand, two hundred and forty-four direct hits,” Alice announced proudly as she checked over the recently returned Spartans. “Not including seven rocket hits and 2 grenades.”
“huh?”
“that’s how many times they were hit by enemy fire… between them that is.”
“and… any damage?”
“not even a scratch.” She smiled proudly
“Impressive.” I agreed, smiling at her pride. “but maybe we should work on a quicker and more effective way to transport them.”
It had been six days since the assault on the safe house. It would only usually take a little over a day to make the journey directly, but Alice had come up with a route which would make tracking the Nanite vehicles almost impossible if the authorities even managed to detect them.
The most direct route was avoided at all costs, the trucks heading south towards Denver and then Dallas before circling back east and towards home. All highways were avoided, service roads only. Then, wherever possible, the Spartans alighted the vehicle and made their way on foot through densely wooded and remote areas to pick up a different road where a new, different model of truck was waiting for them. It was slow and tedious going which Alice had insisted on for both legs of the journey – 6 days there and 6 days back.
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