Strike Force 11

by Forest Getter

  “That’s great news, I will be back at the base in 30 minutes. We can install the update then go have a talk with our prisoners,” I replied.

  I arrived at the hanger at 1030. Melissa had me sit down, and she triggered the upload. This is going to take about an hour as it is a complete replacement of the software that is currently installed, so you will lose vision in your cyber-eye several times during the process. You can move around but don’t leave the hanger and make sure you take a seat when it tells you it needs to reboot the system. It should reboot three times. You should also make sure you’re not holding anything during a reboot. The reboots may throw off your equilibrium for a few seconds,” She told me then started the update. I told Melissa that Alley said she would take care of the tribal wedding when we were ready. She kissed me and said, “That’s great. I am so excited to join your tribe. My people have a strong bond with our tribes and part of us achieving world peace was the joining of warring tribes, and a lot of our society still depends on strong tribal bonds. My family is part of one of the ruling tribes, and our joining will join my world with your tribe; I only wish my family could be here.”

  “I promise that when we find a way to establish transit between our worlds, we will go to your world and have a second wedding for your family,” I said. She hugged and kissed me then said she would really like that.

  During the last reboot of my system, I blacked out for a few seconds but when I came to the new software was up and running. I got a message in my head “Hello, my name is RANDI I am your new AI Assistant,” A female voice said in my head.

  RANDI continued talking, giving me a complete rundown of the system changes that occurred with the update. She informed me that over the next 24 hours she would be upgrading my bio connections, this would improve the quality of our link and allow her to process data arriving from all my senses and increase her response times to my commands. Melissa explained that RANDI would act as my own personal bionetwork and that she would make it possible for me to overload nearby bionetworks and once the interface update was completed, I would be able to hack other bionetworks and take full control of them. RANDI would act as a command and control interface for any bionetwork.

  It was almost 1200 when we finished, so we all loaded up in the hummer and went to the Skippers mess for lunch. The Skipper decided that all the senior personnel would do meals together. This would allow everyone to meet and share updates without having to schedule separate briefings. This also allowed everyone to come together and brainstorm.

  The Skipper started talking once everyone was seated “I am sending Charlie Platoon out to locate the base and set up surveillance in three days they will rotate out with Delta Platoon If we haven’t moved in for the kill by then. Gunny is on base and needs everyone to rotate their railguns through him for some upgrades. He said the new upgrade only takes about 10 minutes to install and that he can walk full squads through it at the same time He said to tell you squids not to come in groups larger than 10 at a time because he wants to personally inspect each one before they leave his armory. Make sure everyone carries a sonic mosquito repeller with them at all times we have already had three people go to sickbay from bites.”

  I gave the contract for the land to the Skipper and said, “The land around us is ours.” I also let him know that the update was installed in my head and that the new system would be fully active in a day. It was a quick lunch, and then everyone was back off to work.

  20. Orc

  in a Kilt

  I grabbed Holly and our team, and we headed over to see the Gunny get our railguns upgraded. I hadn’t checked to see what the upgrades were so it would be a surprise.

  “So how did your hand to hand training go with Leroy?” I asked Holly.

  “It was amazing the man has forgotten more about hand to hand combat that the two of us know. I didn’t stand a chance against him. He said that he was nowhere near as good as Kevlar. If we ever must fight them, I suggest you shoot them in the head from half a mile while they are asleep, otherwise, we are screwed,” She said.

  “That good, guess I will have to talk with Kevlar to see if he will train with me,” I replied.

  “Yea I have a feeling that with you’re the new updates Melissa installed in your head I won’t be able to keep up with you much longer. I was talking to her about the effects of this latest update, and she said when it was fully integrated that it would double your quickness and reflexes.” She said.

  “Actually, it will increase them by 150% when the basic integration is completed, and it will continue to increase as your body becomes accustomed to the changes. Topping out at about a 300% increase of where they were before the upgrade,” RANDI told me.

  “RANDI, the AI in my head says that it will start out at 150% and top off at 300% of what I was before the update,” I told her.

  We both went silent for a couple of minutes before she finally said, “I want one of those chips in my head” Then we both laughed.

  “We should talk with Melissa and see about getting them for the entire team.” I answered.

  I thought I had seen everything during my time as a SEAL, but I was wrong. When we pulled up at the armory there was a makeshift work area set up out front with ten workstations setup standing in front of the area by the door to the armory was a 500lb Orc wearing a USMC t-shirt combat boots and a black kilt. I was so shocked I almost ran the Hummer into a light pole. I couldn’t decide if it was scary or creepy. One thing was for sure I was not going to be the one to tell him he couldn’t wear a kilt. I picked up my phone and called Skipper. “Hey, Skipper we need you at the armory ASAP,” I said to him. He asked what the issue was, but I just told him that I would explain when he got here and hung up. Holly and I broke out laughing and decided to stay in the Hummer until the Skipper got here.

  When the Skipper arrived, he pulled up next to my Hummer and got out. He walked to my door not noticing the Gunny. I rolled down my window as he approached.

  “What’s the issue?” he asked me. I pointed to the Gunny standing in front of the armory.” He turned around and spotted the Gunny

  “Holy shit” he said. The thought passed through my head

  “What do you say to a 500lb Orc wearing a Kilt? Nice legs.” And I broke out in another laughing fit.

  “Come on you two.” the Skipper said to us. Then the three of us with our railguns walked up to the Gunny.

  The Skipper looked at the Gunny and said: “Gunny, why are you wearing a kilt?”

  “Because it’s so hot here I was sweating my balls off. Why anyone would want to live here I have no idea. If there weren’t ladies on the base I would be standing here in the buff. We have areas like this on my world and you know what we do with that land. Nothing it’s too damn hot!” The Gunny replied in an almost scowl. I had known from previous conversations with the Gunny that his world was much colder than ours with the highest temperature on his planet was only about 85°, but the cold areas are icy. There were no global warming issues on his world; it was actually quite the opposite they were always one environmental disaster away from the next ice age so I could understand how the Gunny hated the weather here. Hell, I was born and raised here, and I hated it here. Looking at the kilt had me considering seeing if we could make it part of the team’s uniform.

  The Skipper stood there saying nothing before deciding this was not a battle he wanted to fight and then handed the Gunny his railgun and said, “Can you upgrade my rifle for me?”

  “No problem Skipper,” He said before looking at Holly and I and saying,” You two and your team take workstations and follow along, and you can do your own.” We did as the Gunny instructed replacing the coils in the rifles with new ones. “The new coils are about 200% more effective and will send the round out of the barrel at nearly Mach 10,” The Gunny told us.

  I thought to myself that any man that can make a rifle shoot a round at Mach 10 can wear whatever he wants. It took about twenty minutes to install the new coils an
d another ten for the Gunny to inspect them all before he gave us the thumbs up and sent us on our way.

  As we drove away, I rolled down the window and yelled out “Nice legs Gunny”

  I heard a “Frack you Go-go!” come from the Gunny.

  We had about an hour until we were to meet up with Kevlar and head over to integrate our prisoners, so Holly and I did what any good chiefs do.

  “Coffee?” I said.

  “Coffee.” She agreed.

  As anyone who has ever served in the Navy can tell you. Chief doesn’t drink coffee because they require caffeine. They drink coffee for the safety of those they must interact with. We decided to drive around the base just to get a better feel for it before we went to the Chief’s mess. I suddenly slammed on the breaks bringing the Hummer to a screeching stop in the middle of the road

  “What the hell Go-go?” Holly said then she looked at where my had was pointing. They’re sitting on the corner of the street lay the holy grail. There was a Coffee Shop called “The Grinder” I was familiar with this small Coffee chain. It was unique to this part of Florida, and they were known for fresh roasting their beans daily, and they were the company that I order my own personal coffee supply from. I had made their coffee so popular that our team orders it in 100lb bags, and they named the blend we got the SEAL blend. We pulled into a parking spot in front of the building and walked in. Standing there behind the counter was one of my favorite persons in the world, the owner of the chain, my Aunt Mary. I walked behind the counter and embraced her in a hug.

  “Aunt Mary, what are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Well when I was notified that the base was changing command, I came here to make sure that everything here at the coffee shop was in order and to meet the new base commander in case we needed to update our contract with the base.” She turned and looked at the barista working the coffee station and said, “Two SEAL specials one with Splenda and the other with sugar and two chocolate croissants.” She turned back to me and said. “So, seeing you here I am guessing Todd is the new base commander?”

  “Yea he just arrived yesterday. I will tell him to stop by today and see you.” I replied. We grabbed our coffees and croissants and took a seat at a table with Mary.

  “What brings you back home,” she asked.

  “Well some nasty guys are hiding out in our swamp, and we were sent down here to find them and remove them, and this base is going to be turned into a full military base and become our new homeport,” I replied to her.

  “Off hunting aliens again are you.” She said with a smirk on her face. Holly turned to face Aunt Mary with a surprised look on her face “Oh don’t look surprised Holly. He didn’t tell you I use to be a ghost hunter and that I was the first to discover that the ghosts were really aliens.” Aunt Mary said.

  “Yes, Aunt Mary and as a matter of fact we have a few of them here on base working with us,” I said.

  “Oh, really! When can I meet them?” She asked.

  “How about I bring them by for coffee after dinner tonight,” I told her.

  As we were talking with Aunt Mary, the rest of our squad worked their way through the line getting their own coffee. Holly and I said goodbye to Aunt Mary and went by the hanger to pick up Kevlar and go visit the prisoners.

  21. Int

  errogations

  As we walked into the brig, RANDI said, “Bionetworks detected security protocol activated, I am pulling the ID of the users.” “Ok RANDI is pulling ID’s,” I told Kevlar and Holly.

  “Don’t do anything else until Jamie and Melissa arrive. We want them on hand in case there are any issues.” Kevlar said.

  “No problem,” I said as I handed him the cup of coffee, I had brought for him from the Grinder.

  “I bet you if we just let them taste this coffee and then threaten to take it away from them, they would tell us everything we wanted to know but that would require one of you to give up your cup.” Kevlar said with a smile on his face.

  “Yea that’s not going to happen,” Holly said.

  I laughed and then Kevlar and Holly joined in. It was then that Melissa and Jamie walked in.

  “What did we miss?” Melissa asked. We told them about Kevlar’s crazy plan. “I think you would have a better chance of just going in there and asking them nicely to tell you what you want than to get one of them to give up their coffee,” She said.

  “Ok are we ready to try this, RANDI has identified a Major Blane as the highest rank prisoner. We will start with him first.” I said to the group, then I instructed RANDI to begin hacking his bionetwork.

  “On it, boss,” she said.

  All we could do was to sit back and wait while my AI did her job. It was 20 minutes before we were in. RANDI acted as a bridge between the Major’s internal storage and my command pad transferring all he knew to my pad. We were halfway through the transfer when RANDI suddenly disconnected from the Major.

  “Everyone down!” I yelled as I dove, grabbed Melissa, and took cover behind a desk. Just then the Major exploded, killing himself and the other prisoners. As everyone in the room began to slowly stand up, I felt the burning pain in the back of my leg, where I must have taken some shrapnel. I looked down to see a piece of metal stuck in my lower left leg. It wasn’t bad, but it would need a couple of stitches. “RANDI tells me that when the download reached 75%, a security protocol activated that tried to send a virus across the connection and at the same time activated a cortex bomb implant,” I said to everybody.

  While I was talking, Melissa pulled out her bag and began removing the shrapnel from my leg then she sprayed it with instant stitch and wrapped it in a clean bandage.

  “No stitches required. You are fine.” She said to me. I looked at Kevlar, who had a shocked look on his face. Jamie spoke before Kevlar had a chance telling us that they had never seen anything like this before.

  “Your implant is unique, and this is the first time we have ever been able to hack into someone’s bionetwork. I have never heard of or seen anyone blow themselves up like this before,” Jamie said.

  “RANDI is sure that the Major didn’t blow himself up; it’s likely he didn’t even know he had a bomb in his head. It was hidden in the bionetwork software. RANDI just barely detected the virus before it got in my head.” I told everyone. I tossed my command pad to Kevlar “This is what we got now it is up to you and the Dungeon Master to do the rest,” I told him. We all loaded up and headed back to the hanger so the geek squad could get to work on the data we got from the Major’s head. On our way to the hanger, I called the Skipper and told him what had happened, and he said he would get a cleanup crew to get the mess I made cleaned up.

  When we arrived back at the hanger Kevlar, and the DM went straight to work on the data from the major. I turned to the rest of my squad and told them to get PO Young to give their command pads a one over while we were here and to also make sure they get the security update installed. I could feel the pain meds Melissa must have given me when she took care of my leg and told Holly I was going to go relax in the conference room while we waited. I walked into the conference room and turned the TV in the room to the National News Channel (NNC). The news was talking about a recent massive explosion in Eastern Europe of unknown cause. No nation or terrorist groups have claimed responsibility for it. This may be something we need to investigate, I thought. I picked up the phone to call the Skipper just as it rang. I saw from the caller ID it was the Skipper calling me. I answered the phone, and the Skipper said, “Turn on the news.”

  “I was just about to call you and tell you the same thing, the explosion in Eastern Europe, right?” I said.

  “Need you to compare the dots on the maps to the location of the explosion and decide if we need to send some of our people to check it out. Oh, and have the DM distribute the map to everyone’s command pads asap. Let me know what you find out. I will have a couple of Cygnus M3s fueled up at homestead and waiting in case we need them.” The Skipper said.

&nb
sp; “Roger that Skipper, I am on it. I’ll have Cpt. America get the platoon on standby.” I replied, then disconnected.

  I sent an alert to Lt. Rogers and walked back out to the Geek Farm to talk with John. With a mental command, I had RANDI Bring the news up on the big screen in the main hanger. The room went silent as everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at the story playing out on the news. Within seconds John had the Holo-map with the gate target locations up and had overlaid the site of the explosion on to it. It looked as if the explosion had taken place within about 50 miles a gate location. “John send that map out to all personal include the SECNAV and CMCPON,” I said.

  A few seconds later, he responded back with a “Done.”

  “Get me more information on what is going on there,” I said.

  “on it, Boss” John replied.

  Just then I heard a squeal of tires as a hummer came to a stop in front of the hanger and the Skipper and Lt. Rogers exited it and headed to the hanger.

  “We are re-tasking satellites and scrambling two drones out of Ramstein Air Base in Ramstein-Miesenbach, Germany. We should have eyes on the target in 30 minutes,” John said out loud.

  “I’ll be in NNC’s databases in 5,” PO3 Ramsey said.

  A few Minutes later PO3 Ramsey reported that they did not have any actual footage of the site but that they had a team in root that should arrive in about another twenty minutes. As more information came in, we got an exact location of the explosion. The explosion took place just outside of Donetsk in Ukraine not far from its border with Russia.

  “Well, this is going to be a mess I will get on the horn with the SECNAV and have him get us clearance to enter Ukraine and have him let Russia know we will be working in the area. As soon as he gets back to me with the go-ahead get alpha platoon in the air. I’m putting Kevlar, Jamie, and Leroy with your platoon.” The Skipper said to Lt Rogers, Holly and me.