22. Ukr
aine
An hour later, the word came in for us to head out. We took helicopters from the base to Homestead where we boarded aircraft for Ramstein Air Base from there we would board C-130’s for a HALO drop about a mile outside the target area and hike in from there.
As we were flying to Ramstein, I turned to Holly and said “An atheist was seated next to a young female Navy Chief who just transferred from her ship and was on an airplane going home on leave. He turned to her and said,
“Do you want to talk? Flights go quicker if you strike up a conversation with your fellow passenger.”
The female Chief, who had just started to read her book, replied to the total stranger. “What would you want to talk about?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said the atheist. “How about why there is no God, or no Heaven or Hell, or no life after death?” as he smiled smugly.
“OK,” she said. “Those could be interesting topics but let me ask you a question first, so she asked. “A horse, a cow, and a deer all eat the same stuff - grass. Yet a deer excretes little pellets, while a cow turns out a flat patty, but a horse produces clumps. Why do you suppose that is?”
The atheist, visibly surprised by the female Chief’s intelligence, thinks about it and says, “Hmmm, I have no idea.”
To which the female Chief replies, “Do you really feel qualified to discuss why there is no God, or no Heaven or Hell, or no life after death, when you don’t know shit?”
A laugh came up from all of those around us. An hour later we landed, were fed a quick meal then we loaded up into the C-130’s.
In-flight to our jump zone I gave Kevlar and his guys a quick rundown on how to use the jump gear.
“So, let me get this right HALO stands for High Altitude Low Open parachute jump as in Jumping out of this airplane?” Leroy said nervously.
“Don’t worry it’s all automated your jump computer will take care of everything just bend your knees and roll when you land,” I said to him.
“Well, what if the Jump computer fails?” he asked.
“I’ve never heard of one failing,” Lt Roberts said.
“Oh God, you should have never told him that,” Jamie chimed in.
Leroy went pale and looked like he was going to get sick “I’m going to die,” Leroy said with a quiver in his voice.
“Calm down Leroy if for some reason the jump computer fails, pull this black ring it will manually deploy your shoot, if that fail pull the red ring it will deploy the backup shoot. I’ll be next to you the entire jump, and if all your safeties fail, I will grab you, and we go tandem,” I said to him in an attempt to calm him down.
Holly leaned over next to him and whispered something in his ear, and he calmed right down and got a smile on his face. Just then the red light came on everyone put their masks on, and I signaled the pilot we were ready, he then lowered the ramp.
“Stand up, hook up shuffle to the door” I said.
The platoon responded back, “Going to jump on the count of four.”
The green light came on, and we all sounded off “one two three four” then we all ran out the ramp and into the night air. When we all landed safely, Leroy still had the red ring in his hand when I unclipped him from my harness. Holly walked up to us, Lifter her shirt flashing her black lace bra at us and laughed.
Leroy turned starred at me and said, “It was worth it.” I laughed.
We sent 3rd squad with Jamie to go scout out the area of the explosion while the rest of us set up camp. The temperature here was about 65° here which was a real improvement over Florida and had me wondering if I could have this mission drag out for a few months until Florida started cooling down. I set up my satellite phone and called the Skipper, letting him know we were on station and had a camp set up. Because of the derby cloud and some sort of jamming going on we were never able to get info from the drones or satellite, so we were going in blind. We did know that something happened to the news when they got here, and they had not been heard from since shortly after they arrived. After camp was set up, I sent 2nd squad out to check out the last known location of the news crew. We placed Claymore and cameras with friend or foe triggers on them at critical approaches to the camp. PO1 Anderson began brewing coffee. The fourth squad took the first patrol splitting off into two-man teams and running random patrols up to a half-mile out from the camp. It was just a waiting game for the rest of us until 2nd, and 3rd squad returned. Whatever was jamming our drones also prevented us from communicating with the two squads beyond a half-mile from our base camp. The second squad was the first to report back Chief Nelson reported that they found the smoking remains of the news team’s vehicle it looked like it had been hit by a rocket. With that information, I sent them back out to be backup for 3rd squad. It was an hour later that both squads returned to camp.
“It was defiantly a gate explosion, and it has caused a tear in the dimensions where the gate would have been. It’s huge, we couldn’t get too close there was a lot of heat coming out of it.” Jamie said. He then showed us the video that they recorded. After watching the video, I sent it across the satellite back to the Florida base.
When the Skipper saw the size of the rift, he said he was scrambling Bravo and Charlie Platoons. We decided we would run hard wires to camera’s that could view the breach and move forward as far as we could and still stay in contact with the Skipper back at headquarters. After about 30 minutes the Skipper called me back
“I’ve got bad news for you Go-go we took the video you shot over to Aunt Mary, and she confirmed that it’s a demon portal.” He said.
“Guess we got lucky she happened to be there on base she is one of the best paranormal investigators in the world,” I replied.
“That’s not the bad news, the bad news is that it is the largest one she has ever seen, which means you should be ready for something massive to come through there.” He continues.
“Oh, crap,” I said.
“We’ve got two platoons of our guys on their way to you and another battalion of Rangers out of USAG Ansbach in Germany. So, don’t go doing anything heroic before your back up arrives.” The Skipper told me.
“Don’t worry no heroes here Skipper just us squids and a couple of aliens,” I said.
I could hear the Skipper spitting out whatever he was taking a drink of. “Yea..” He said. For the next few days, until everyone arrived at the party, we were in a holding pattern while we watched the portal.
It would take at least three days to get our backup on the station. We had supplies dropped so that Kevlar and his boys could build a device that when it exploded, it would close the portal if we were lucky. Now we just had to hope and pray that nothing came through the portal before we could close it.
23. The
Demon Portal
Hopes and prayers only last up until the moment twenty-foot-tall demon steps through the demon portal. If anyone ever tells you that they don’t get scared, they are either lying to you, or they are completely crazy. At that moment, looking at the screen in front of me watching the demon step through the portal, I had to check my pants to make sure I didn’t piss myself.
“Holy Nerfhearders” I heard Lt Rogers say from behind me.
Leave it to him to say something so completely off the wall that it broke the tension in the tent and brought us back out of our stupor.
“Alright everyone to your positions. Anderson get ahold of the Skipper and find out how far out reinforcements are. Holly get the patrols back in camp and break out the big guns. Let’s see where this big bastard is heading. Once we have a direction of travel, Anderson, have the Skipper try to get the civilians out of the way, and someone get me in touch with the Russian border guard and see if they have any tanks in the area that can assist us.” I said.
I heard a cry of “Aye, Master Chief” comes from those around me as we all moved into high gear.
I stepped out of the tent and said: “hooyah, Let’s get some!” I
shouted out across the camp which was followed up by a “Hooyah Master Chief” from the rest of the platoon.
“You know this may only be the first it’s going to take at least another day for us to have the device ready to close the portal. The only way to close it before then would be to drop a nuke on it.” Kevlar said to me.
“We will keep that as a plan B. If it gets to where it looks like we are going to be overrun I will tell the Skipper to Nuke the place,” I told him.
Anderson came running out of the tent, yelling “INCOMING!” and tackled me just as a ball of fire hit the tent and exploded.
I looked to my left to see Lt. Rogers lying next to me the back half of his body smoking from the fire. He turned and looked at me without a single trace of hair on his head and face and announced loudly, “I hate fire!”
“Medic!” I yelled as I made sure that no other part of him was still on fire. It was a good thing our BDU’s were fire-resistant, or we may have lost Lt. Rogers. Everyone ran for cover as fireballs continued to rain down around us.
“What’s going on?” I said to Anderson
“The demon held a sword up in the air, and fireballs started shooting out in all directions.” He said.
“Ok, let’s move in and take this bastard out before he kills us all,” I said across our battlenet. “First squad and Kevlar front assault, the second and third squad with Jamie left the flank, fourth and fifth squad with Leroy take the right side.
“Master Chief the Skipper says the rangers are 10 minutes out,” Anderson said. I turned and saw him with the satellite phone in his hand. He then began speaking Russian into the phone. “I have the CO of the Russian Border Guard on the phone he says he has three tanks on their way to us and he will call for air support. His name is Major Vasily Mahanenko, he said that he knows you and request a command network link with us. He said to tell you that you can run the show, but you will owe him a bottle of Vodka.” PO1 Anderson said.
“Let him know if we make it through this, I’ll buy him two then patch the old Russian in,” I said.
Then I heard a Russian voice across the battlenet. “Go-go what the hell is going on out there, my friend? We have fireballs falling from the sky here. They haven’t reached us yet, but we are starting to get worried.” The Major said to me.
“Well Vasily, we have a twenty-foot demon standing out in the middle of the area where the explosion when off not too long ago and he is shooting fireballs into the air out of a big ass sword. Just have your boys move into range to start dropping round into the demon and wait for my signal.” I told him.
“Right they will be in firing position in 10 minutes they are running full out.” He replied.
We spread out and began to surround the demon. Big mean and ugly was an understatement. There he stood twenty feet tall red skin horns outfitted in what looked to black medieval armor, but it seemed to be as thick as the armor of a modern tank.
“Rockets everyone,” I said across the battlenet. With that, I saw ten rockets shoot across the sky and impact into the demon’s chest. It took about a minute for the smoke to clear. All the missiles had hit just about the same area, but there was little more than a slightly melted spot in the armor. Although the impact had caused the demon to stumble off balance for a moment, he quickly recovered. The demon began to laugh. It was the type of laugh that chilled you to the bone. I took careful aim at the demon’s eye then pulled the trigger. The demon screamed in rage as my round pierced his eye, causing it to explode. “Aim for the fleshy areas. Vasily tell your guys to open fire as soon as they are in range,” I said.
“I’ll tell them.” He replied.
“Alright, team target the soft spots,” as I said that I saw the eye starting to grow back. “Target the Left eye” I relayed across the battlenet. I heard from beside
“I get this one,” come from Kevlar as he pulled out a glowing red knife from his combat vest and said, “Just Keep it busy.”
I pulled out my desert eagle and ran beside him. “What’s the plan?” I asked.
“I thought that you keep it distracted while I climb on its back and shove my blade into the demon’s brainstem, and we hope it kills it or at least disables it long enough for us to force it back through the portal.” Kevlar said.
I grabbed a plasma grenade off my vest, activated it an threw it into the face of the demon, but he batted it away with his sword causing it to explode just before it reached him. But it was enough that his attention turned to me. So, I moved to the left making sure to get it turned away from Kevlar, just then a tank round impacted with the demon causing it to drop to one knee two more rounds came in quick succession keeping the demon kneeling while its leg regenerated. It was then that I saw Kevlar leap from a nearby tree. Just then the demon rolled forward an and back kicked Kevlar in the chest with his good leg sending him flying back into the trees. As the demon looked up, he found himself just inches from my face just as I shoved a plasma grenade into his mouth, then I dove for cover. His headed exploded just as a tank round enter his body under his arm, exploding inside his chest. His armor was so well built that it worked to protect me from the exploding tank round, but it also allowed the round to turn his upper body into a fine red mist.
“I thought you were supposed to be the distraction and I was going to kill it,” Kevlar said across the battlenet.
“But you were much better at being a distraction than I was,” I replied.
He started to laugh but then moaned in pain “Ouch I think I broke a couple of my ribs” He responded back.
I laughed, then called for a medic to assist him.
“Master Chief I think we are going to need a few new tents,” Anderson said across the battlenet.
“Non-sense, we have room at our base for all of you,” Vasily said.
“You heard the Major let the Skipper know where we are moving to.
When we took a headcount, we found out we had lost 2 men to the fireballs and had 8 walking wounded. We got the wounded moved to the medical center on the Russian base. Within a day the all wounded would be back up and running, although it would take quite a bit longer for Lt. Rogers to grow his hair back as cell regenerators did not grow back hair.
We were just cleaning up our camp when we saw the Rangers parachuting in. It took about ten minutes for them all them touchdown a form up. Lt Rogers was in medical, so Ensign Miller and I went and met the Commander of the Rangers Col. Ryan.
“You and your team go get some rest we will set up a perimeter guard. We will connect to your battlenet and let you know if anything comes through. We have tanks and field artillery arriving in the morning. Let’s meet for coffee at 0730,” Col. Ryan said.
“That would be great AJ glad you could join us,” I said then we saluted.
“Good to see you still kicking Go-go,” he said before we headed out to the Russian Barracks. A jeep and a few APC’s arrived to take us to the base.
24. Rus
sian Hospitality
When we arrived at the base, the Major had a warm meal and hot coffee waiting for us.
“I’m glad your government sent you here. Moscow was about to send a platoon of Spetsnaz, but when Washington said they were sending you, they decided to leave the investigation to you. They gave me orders to assist you if you requested. But to leave the operation to you.” The major told us over dinner. “Before you leave, we will open a bottle of Vodka together.” He said with a smile on his face.
“As long as time allows, we are only here until we close the portal. We’ve got a big mess on our hands, and this isn’t the only location with issues.” I replied.
“You know that was only a scout we fought today. The next one to come through will be much tougher.” Leroy announced.
“Well shit that’s not good,” I said without thinking.
“You can say that again.” The major said as he opened a bottle of Vodka.
He poured 3 glasses and passed one to Kevlar and me. We both drank them down without th
inking and gave the glass back to Vasily for a refill. After he refilled our glasses, he passed the bottle down the table then got up and grabbed a second and third bottle from a cabinet behind him. He gave the second around and opened the third and refilled his own glass.
“Alright guys get your gear in order grab a shower and relax; it is going to be a long night,” I said. Then I turned to Holly and said, “I am going to check on our boys in medical care to join me.”
“Right behind you. Master Chief,” She replied.
“I have four Mi-28NM Havocs arriving here in about an hour they are yours if you need them. I requested they be equipped as tank busters” The Major told us as we headed out. I turned gave him a salute and said thanks.
As we were headed to Medical my phone the caller ID popped up in my eye letting me know it was the Skipper “What’s up Skipper” I answered,
“I’ve got Aunt Mary here with me, and she has some information about your Demon friend you may need to know.” He said then Aunt Mary began to talk.
“Hey Go-go, the demon you fought today was a scout from the house of Leviathan one of the more powerful houses in hell I would guess you only have a couple of hours after the scout came through before someone will come looking for him. It is the scout’s job to clear a perimeter around the portal then report back so that forces can start to be brought across. When he doesn’t report back in time, and the portal is still open, they will likely send across a couple of brutes to look for him. Those bastards are twice the size of the scouts.”
“Got it thanks for the info, we will take care of them just have fresh coffee for us when we get back,” I said to her. She laughed, and then we disconnected.
I popped up connections with the battlenet “Listen up everyone I got word that we should expect two more demons twice the size of the one we just took out to come through the portal within the next two hours. We don’t know exactly when they will come through because we don’t know when the scout is scheduled was to report back in. Everyone be ready to roll in a moment’s notice we have to hold this place for another four hours before Bravo and Charlie get here.” With that said I pulled out an alcohol detox tab and took it I saw Holly do the same as we continued to medical.
Strike Force 11 Page 9
