The Last Run: A Novella

by Stephen Knight

  “That would be me, sir,” Baxter told him.

  “We don’t have anyone else who can do that?” Benchley asked, looking around the room. There were nine people present aside from himself, and several of them were substantially lower in rank.

  “I’m not an active player in the meeting, sir, so I don’t mind,” Baxter said. “Don’t worry, I won’t dot the Is with hearts, or anything.”

  Benchley laughed. He liked Baxter immensely, and not only was she was a competent officer, she was a good person. “Very well, then. Okay, on with it. Before we get to the usual business, I want to remind everyone that things are a bit mysterious out there, and this installation could be activated at any moment. Everyone should have their dependants close at hand, and Harmony is to be made as best prepared for any eventuality as it possibly can be. I know we always stand at heightened readiness due to the nature of our mission, but let’s do it with a bit more gusto. I happened to glance at the inventories this morning, and I see that we’re about six weeks from rotating out some long-term food stocks. I want to make sure we keep our eyes on that ball, because even though those stocks are good for another five years, I want to ensure replacement deliveries are on the schedule. I checked the Stock Replenishment System today, and there was no appropriations record for such delivery waiting for my approval. Captain Ellison, can we get that initiated, please?”

  “Yes, sir, I’ll do it now,” Captain Ellison said, pulling her tablet toward her.

  “Much appreciated. I don’t want to sweat the small stuff, but if things start to hit the fan, I don’t want us to get shut out because the logistics trail suddenly gets bogged down. Now, other business: I want to officially recognize Command Sergeant Major Mulligan, who has perhaps outsmarted all of us and submitted his retirement papers. His replacement has already been designated, and I anticipate the change of command to occur in two weeks. During that time, the sergeant major will continue to discharge his duties as normal. Scott, take a bow.”

  There was a smattering of applause, along with some genuine disappointment in the room. Mulligan sighed cavernously at the reaction, embarrassed.

  “I can see you’re all broken up to see me go,” he said. “You’re even applauding. Thanks a million.” That caused a ripple of laughter to course through the room. Benchley laughed as well. Despite his hulking size and no-nonsense attitude while on the job, Mulligan was fairly well-liked by the base staff, military and civilian alike. But the Special Forces soldier had been the ranking NCO of Harmony Base for almost three years, and his time was up. It was a shame the Army’s special operations community hadn’t seen it fit to retain a trooper of his caliber for another few years at least, and Benchley wondered if he might have stomped on a few toes in his day. But Mulligan had put in a solid twenty-seven years of service. It would have been something if he had been able to make it to thirty years, not to mention add a few more thousand dollars to his retirement benefit, but this is how things sometimes worked out.

  You know that from personal experience, old boy.

  “And what about your news, sir?” Mulligan asked, visibly eager to divert the attention from himself.

  “Yeah, I was getting to that,” Benchley said. “I’ll be following the sergeant major out the door. In three months, I’ll be hitting the open road myself. The slate for commanding general, Harmony Base is now officially open, and I expect it will be boarded within a month or so.” The major general looked around the table. “I’d say anyone interested in the job should apply, but for the moment, it’s still a two-banger billet.”

  “When did the two of you decide to separate from the service?” Baxter wanted to know, looking from Benchley to Mulligan. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you planned this.”

  “A serendipitous happenstance, ma’am,” Mulligan said.

  “He’s right, it just worked out that way,” Benchley said. Of course Baxter knew he had been passed over, otherwise his rank would be adjusted to read Promotable. That he was another major general in his mid-fifties who hadn’t made it to the General Officer Management Office’s promotion list pretty much spelled it out. “Don’t worry, Corrine. Mulligan and I aren’t going to buy a boat and reenact a couple of episodes of Gilligan’s Island.”

  “Besides, I get seasick,” Mulligan added.

  Baxter smiled. “Well, let me be the first to say that Harmony Base won’t be same without its two top dogs. You gentlemen have done a heck of a lot of good during your time here, and you’re both going to be missed.”

  There was another round of applause, and Andrews punctuated it with a hearty “Hear, hear!”

  Benchley held up a hand. “All right, all right, save some for the new command sergeant major and commanding general when they arrive,” he said, though in truth he was touched by Baxter’s words more than he showed. A sidelong glance at Mulligan told him that the big senior NCO felt the same way, and his eyes were curiously downcast. There were a dozen other units Mulligan could have gone to, but that he chose to leave the service told another story. He had a wife and two young girls; Mulligan had lived for the Army as much as anyone, but he wasn’t willing to put his family through the same stress that Benchley had. Benchley could respect that, and not for the first time, he wished he’d made some different choices earlier in his career.

  “So that ends my announcements,” he continued. “Now, let’s get back to business.” He spent the next forty minutes listening to the status reports surrounding the base’s welfare and general condition. There had been a water leak in the base’s lower levels, which had required the replacement of several sewage lines and some repairs to the installation’s insulating liner. While it had been a smelly mess, it had been cleaned up and no one had gotten sick from any of the bacteriological contaminants the sewage might have contained. The post’s small security response team had passed its quarterly training cycle, and Mulligan gave the unit his top recommendation—as he should, since he had had a big hand in its training and upkeep. Modernized battery packs had been installed in the base’s fleet of Self-Contained Exploration Vehicles, pressurized, armored rigs based off the Army’s venerable HEMT-T tactical truck that would convey the military and civilian specialists through whatever fate might ravage the country, should a near extinction level event ever occur. The batteries would serve to power each rig’s systems in the event one or both of its turboshaft engines failed, providing greater mobility and flexibility in the field. A new quartet of global positioning satellites had been orbited, reserved solely for Harmony’s use. The satellites were specially shielded and would presumably survive even the mass electromagnetic pulses of multiple nuclear detonations, providing the SCEVs with real-time navigation should the larger, more conventional GPS satellite network be compromised. Harmony’s population of several hundred military and civilian personnel were all in good health and high spirits, despite being mostly restricted to the subterranean facility, as per its charter. All in all, everything was fine with Harmony Base. Its budget was still vast, and it continued to receive both political and financial support from the US government.

  At noon, the meeting ended. As usual, Benchley made his closing remarks.

  “Folks, things are getting dicey out there,” he said. “I’ve received no official orders regarding the disposition of the base, and our alert level remains the same today as it was yesterday. But that could change. It’s pretty obvious that the ‘new’ Russia is interested in proving to the rest of the world that it’s here to stay, and it’s not going to go away as peacefully as it did last time. For those of you who have dependents outside the base, I might encourage you to draw them a bit closer. As you know, if the order comes, this base will be sealed, and I’d hate very much for anyone to have to try and get through the next several years without their families close by.” As he said this, he looked directly at Mulligan. The sergeant major’s family lived well off-post, which in normal times was perfectly fine. But the “new normal” was still being established, a
s Russia and the United States tried to fine-tune their balancing act. “Just some parting words from the old man. Keep them in mind.”

  Benchley and Mulligan both endured another round of well-wishing from the command staff, but after that, it was business as usual. Benchley picked up his tablet and paged through his calendar, looking to see if he had enough time to hit the Commons Area for a quick meal, or if he would be eating at his desk in the command center once again. He was surprised to find he had a full hour free, and then after that, he would have to begin preparing for an official Congressional visit scheduled for the following day. He would have to play the role of Chief Entertainer for several congressmen from one of the various oversight committees that felt empowered to pull his strings on occasion, and that was never a fun thing.

  As he got to his feet, he checked the civilian news feed. A pair of Russian attack jets had buzzed a carrier group in the North Atlantic, and either fighter jets or anti-aircraft defenses aboard the USS George W. Bush had shot them down. Benchley shook his head.

  Things were getting tense out there.

  ***

  “HEY, BABY. What’s doin’?”

  “Same as always,” Mulligan said, back in his office now. He was due in the SCEV prep area in ten minutes, for another training run, and he had taken the opportunity to call home and check in. His wife and two daughters lived in a small house just outside of Scott City, a town not much larger than a postage stamp in the middle of the Kansas plains. It was maybe thirty minutes from Harmony Base’s outer marker, and it had no air conditioning beyond the single window unit in the living room, but Tess preferred it to the sterile, military-drab confines of the base. She and the kids had tried living below ground there for a year, but they’d all gone slowly stir-crazy, developing uncharacteristically short tempers while pining away for sunlight and scenery that wasn’t found in the immediate surroundings of the base’s topside area. It wasn’t mandated that duty personnel have their dependents confined to the base—that was something reserved for the “selects,” the people who had been identified as high-value individuals, like the doctors and physicists and educators that made up a significant portion of Harmony’s population. Folks like Mulligan’s family were welcome, of course, but they were not necessarily compelled to stay. For that matter, neither was Mulligan. Even though he was senior staff, his position at Harmony was a non-hardship duty station, which meant he could lead a fairly normal life and go off-post whenever his work day was done. And, truth be told, he didn’t much fancy living in Harmony full time, either. So to give his family and himself some peace, he had moved them out to the small rented house. After receiving Benchley’s blessing, of course.

  “Are the girls home?”

  “They sure are,” Tess said, and sure enough, Mulligan could hear Chastity and Erica arguing about something in the background. Their voices were distant and muffled, and judging by the sounds of running water and the clink of dishes, he figured that Tess was in the kitchen while the girls played about in the back yard. “It’s hot as heck out there, so I’m going to break out the kiddy pool and set it up for them in a bit. You’ll be home on time?”

  “No reason for me to be late at the moment. The base isn’t in lockdown or anything, and our status hasn’t changed. Which has me a little surprised.”

  “Things are getting crazy out there,” Tess agreed. “I turned off the TV earlier, because I’m getting kind of agitated about Russia. You hear about the Navy shooting down some Russians?”

  “I caught that. Listen, Tessie—”

  “‘Tessie?’ Sounds like you’re about to ask me to do something I’m not going to like.”

  Mulligan sighed. Years of practical experience in Army Special Forces still hadn’t provided him with enough skill to be anything less than completely transparent where his wife was involved. “Yeah, yeah, okay, Doctor Freud. You got me there.”

  “What is it, Scott?”

  “I want you to pack up some stuff and get ready to come to Harmony for a while. We still have reserved quarters, and things are very, very weird out in the world right now. I don’t think it’s going to lead to anything, but I want you and the girls over here, where I can keep an eye on you.”

  Tess groaned, and Mulligan could imagine her running a hand through her honey-blond hair, her green eyes narrowing in consternation. One of the things that had come up during their short stay at the base was that Tess Mulligan was something of a claustrophobe. She’d never encountered it before, but weeks of living beneath the surface of the Earth had exposed her psychological weakness. And even though Harmony was a big installation—it had been designed to support more than a thousand people, and the base was hardly even half-staffed most of the time—things could still feel tight and cramped, especially at night when the noises of habitation faded and those of working environmental machinery took over. Tess was an outdoors girl, a woman who was more at home on horseback or on a motorcycle than anything else, and cooping her up in a controlled environment for more than a couple of days made her edgy. And weeks in Harmony had made her more than just edgy—she had been ready to scratch Mulligan’s eyes out.

  “Is that really necessary? It’s Friday afternoon, and the girls want to go see that new Pixar movie—”

  “Hon, would I even bring it up if I didn’t think it was a good idea?” Mulligan asked, trying to keep the exasperation out of his voice. “I know how much you hate it here, and the girls don’t really dig it that much, either. But there are other kids for them to play with, so we won’t have to worry about them not having anything to do.”

  “For how long?”

  “At least over the weekend, but count on a week,” Mulligan said.

  “A week? Scott, are you sure about that?”

  “No. I’m not sure. But plan on it.” Mulligan leaned back in his office chair and cradled the phone against his ear with his shoulder. “It’s probably going to be nothing, hon, but let’s take some steps to make sure we aren’t caught in the cold. Just in case something does go down.”

  “Do you know anything you’re not telling me, Scott?”

  Mulligan thought about that. Other than a vague premonition of doom that was doubtless caused by the overly-agitated news broadcasts and articles he’d seen over the past several days, he had nothing tangible that had driven him to have this conversation with his wife. And he’d reached out through his friends in the special operations community. Lots of troops were spooling up, getting ready to do their jobs, but no one had any missions yet.

  At least, none that he knew of.

  “No,” he said finally. “I don’t have any inside tracks on anything. But something about this just feels bad. The Russians are being too assertive, as if they’re trying to provoke a response that no one wants. It doesn’t make any sense, and the only answer I can think of is that the Russkies have gone absolutely bat-shit crazy for no particularly good reason.” A reminder of his training appointment popped up on his workstation, notifying him that he had five minutes to un-ass and get up to the SCEV prep area. “Look, just fill up the pool and toss the kids inside, then pack up some clothes and things. I’ll come home, and we’ll all ride back together in the truck. I’m just acting out of an abundance of caution, so don’t flip out. Just accept that you’ll be spending some time in Harmony. This’ll blow out really soon, and if it doesn’t, we’ll be in the best place on the planet.”

  There was a long moment of silence on the phone. Mulligan was about to prompt her when Tess said, “I’ll give you a week, Scott. Then the girls and I are going back to a normal life. Understood?”

  “Hooah, ma’am.”

  There was a trace of a smile in her voice then. “That’s a good soldier, Sergeant Major. What do you have to do now?”

  “Final check ride in One Truck with Pete and CJ. CJ gets her rig certification today, provided everything goes well.”

  “Oh! Well, tell them I say hi. Is CJ any good at driving those things yet?”

  �
��One good thing about the final practical exam in an SCEV is that you don’t have to parallel park in them. Since that requirement was formally removed from the syllabus, she should have no problems.”

  “Ha-ha. I’m going to pass that on to her tonight.”

  “Thanks a mil, hon. Okay, you good to go? I have to run. It’s never a good thing when the senior instructor is late.”

  Tess sighed. “Good to go here, Sarmajor. But I’m warning you, if you intend to keep me underground for more than a few days, there’s going to be hell to pay.”

  “I have my checkbook. Love you, Tess.”

  “Love you to, babe. Call me before you leave, so I can make sure the girls are ready to go.”

  “Roger that,” Mulligan said, and then he hung up.

  ***

  THE SELF CONTAINED EXPLORATION VEHICLE PREP AREA was on the uppermost level of Harmony Base, but you’d never know that, since the plains of Western Kansas were still almost a hundred feet overhead. It was a large room, the third largest in the base, right after the SCEV Maintenance Bay and the Core. The prep area was designed to hold three rigs at a time, where they would be provisioned and fueled prior to jumping out into the field, or be decontaminated and subjected to post-mission checks after returning from an operation. Currently, there were two rigs in the bay, SCEVs One and Seven. Seven had just returned from a training mission, and its crew was just starting the post-mission breakdown. SCEV One—also known as “One Truck,” as it was the queen of the fleet and the designated primary trainer—was parked in the middle of a large yellow circle on the steel-planking floor. Already more than five years old, the rig had been the training workhorse of the ten-rig fleet, and its dull, scratched white paint showed its age. But One Truck was still a fully operational rig, even though it didn’t have any munitions aboard. Mulligan had already conducted the live-fire exercises last week with his current trainees, so there was no need to load the rig with actual, ready-to-launch Hellfire missiles and full magazines of 7.62 millimeter rounds. Instead, inert weapons that weighed the same as their active brethren had been slipped in place, so the rig would have identical acceleration and handling performance during training as it would in a real operation.