by John Murphy
“Mitchell, how much time do we have left?” Kerrington asked.
“I don’t accurately know without the nav tablet. Maybe an hour or so.”
“Is there enough time? I mean, they allotted three hours,” Spalding said.
“Four hours, actually,” Mitchell said.
“Maybe we should just wait on the landing pad,” Dohrn said.
“Gotta finish the mission as best we can,” Sowell said over comms.
* * *
Inside, their footsteps echoed as they scratched on the sandy floor. The few dim lights illuminated doors on the far side of the warehouse, offering several choices.
“We’re looking for the control room, which is the center of the operational structure,” Mitchell said.
“That’s a little vague,” Sowell said. “Do you mean that big tower we saw outside?”
“No, that’s the surface-to-air command tower.” She pointed to a sign over a door. “What we’re looking for is below the surface, at the heart of the mining operation.”
“Like that big-ass door over there?” Vasquez pointed to a door twenty feet high and forty feet wide, large enough to let mining vehicles pass though. It was closed, but it had a smaller access door set inside of it.
Mitchell nodded. “Yes, that must be it.”
They headed for the door. Kerrington and the others hurried to join them, lifting their face shields as they approached.
“You guys!” Goreman whispered, as if they were thieves.
Kerrington matched her hushed tone. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing. We’ve already achieved our objective. We’re here; we’re done!”
Killian reached the access door, found another pair of green and red buttons, and pushed the green one. The access door opened, and he proceeded through.
“The mission is to set off the explosives,” Sowell said. “We’re here, but we’re not done.”
“But this place?” Dohrn looked at the expansive interior. “We’re supposed to blow up this entire place?”
Kerrington shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think we’ve already completed the mission. I agree with Dohrn. This doesn’t look like something we’re supposed to blow up. It’s got to be another decoy.”
Vasquez gave him a surprised look. “You know, for all your entitled cockiness, I’m surprised by your unwillingness to follow through. You think you can just show up and they’ll give you a medal?”
Kerrington counted off on his fingers. “We’ve got one man dead, another missing in action, and two that need to be rescued. I don’t want to take any more risks and make another huge mistake.”
“What if we don’t make it out in time?” Goreman asked.
“The mission is to set off the explosives,” Sowell said, “not to second-guess our orders.”
“Face it, the mission was over when Tucker was blown out of the sky by that freak, Killian!” Kerrington glared at Sowell.
“Tucker was killed by the raptor!” Vasquez said.
Kerrington’s face grew red with anger. “You don’t know that. He might have survived if Killian’s plasma wasn’t always set on kill.”
Sowell closed in, his eyes intense. “He was crushed the moment that raptor grabbed him. Come on, we’ve already wasted enough time on that.”
Mitchell stepped between them. “Quit bickering!”
Kerrington and Sowell stared daggers at each other over Mitchell’s shoulders. Kerrington turned to Vasquez. “Why’d you let that nut job take the explosives?”
Vasquez shook his head. “Damn it, Kerrington, what are you gonna do on a real mission?”
“Put your face shields down and breathe some oxygen,” Mitchell suggested. “I think the atmosphere is clouding your judgment.” She ducked through the doorway.
“No it isn’t, bitch!” Kerrington glared after her. He snapped down his face shield. “Killian, I want you to stand down!” he said over comms. “Goddamn it, we’re here, we’ve reached the objective. Let’s go before anyone else gets hurt!”
“I don’t think he’s listening to you,” Vasquez said. He also ducked through the doorway, followed by Sowell.
Kerrington punched the wall. “You guys are so out of this program! You’re disobeying my direct orders! I’m in charge, goddamn it!”
1 Hour, 15 Minutes to Extraction
The interior mineshaft was so large that the glow from their light sticks barely reached the walls. The shaft below them was black. Thick pipes and a web of catwalks above and below appeared ghostly against the blackness.
By the time Mitchell caught up with Killian, he was returning from a darkened but clearly labeled control room at the end of a long metal catwalk.
“The charge is set,” Killian said. “We’ve got fifteen minutes.”
Mitchell, Vasquez, and Sowell met him halfway, turned, and headed back to a junction platform about twenty feet across. Catwalks lead off in different directions.
The other four joined them at the junction. Kerrington flipped up his face shield.
“Killian, goddamn it, this has got to be the wrong place. Otherwise we’d see where other candidates set explosives before us.”
“What if they pick a different target every time?” Killian asked.
“No! You’re wrong. We’re done! Give me that explosive and let’s go back to the landing pad and wait for the shuttle.”
“If one is even coming,” Spalding muttered.
“Don’t say that,” Goreman said.
“Too late,” said Killian. “It’s already set. The clock is ticking.”
“Then disarm it, and let’s get out of here. We’re done!”
Killian barged past Kerrington. “Too late.”
A loud clatter came from below.
Goreman yelped. “There’s something down there!”
They froze and looked down into the darkness.
Killian grabbed Spalding’s light stick out of his pack.
“Hey!” Spalding said.
Killian tossed the light stick down. It bounced on a junction platform similar to the one they were on, bounced again, and then twirled noiselessly into the dark shaft.
Vasquez whistled. “Holy shit, that’s deep.”
When they turned away from the shaft, Dohrn shrieked in astonishment. A hairy, bedraggled figure stood motionless on the catwalk between them and the exit.
“What are you doing?” he rasped.
“Oh God!” Goreman whimpered.
“What are you doing?” The old man jutted an angry finger at them, his eyes twitching and sporadically rolling back in their sockets.
Killian was the first to find his voice. “Completing a mission. You better get out!”
“You can’t come in here! This is our home!” the old man said.
The candidates exchanged uncertain glances.
“This place is going to blow in less than fifteen minutes,” Killian said, finger on the trigger of his rifle in case there were hostiles ready for ambush. He realized they were clustered dangerously close. “I suggest you evacuate immediately.”
“This is our home!” the old man said. “You need to leave!”
Dohrn burst past the others toward the control room. She found the explosives and hit the disarm button. Sighing with relief, she exited the control room to rejoin the others.
She raised her face shield. “Our commanders lied. Benson was right: there are people living here. We can’t blow it up!”
Dohrn unsheathed her own light stick and cast it to the lower platform, where it bounced, then stayed. In the shadowy glow, the candidates could see a handful of people, also in tattered clothing, looking up at them. They appeared unarmed.
The parallel to the Thai civilians shook Killian. He took his finger off the trigger. Too many civilians had died because of his
plans, regardless of his intentions. His instincts told him that these were not ordinary civilians. However, until they showed hostile intent, they were off-limits. They had to be evacuated before detonating the explosives.
Kerrington stepped forward. “Listen, old man. We’re sorry. We’re on a training mission, and we were given orders to set explosive charges in this mine. We didn’t know anyone lived here.”
The old man’s eyes twitched some more. “But this is our home! You can’t blow up our home!”
Kerrington stepped closer. “You’re right. We’re sorry. We were given bad orders. We didn’t know you were living here. What’s your name?”
The old man stared crazily at Kerrington and the others. “Houlihan. Doctor Houlihan!”
The candidates looked at each other in shock.
“Holy shit,” Vasquez muttered.
“We live here in peace. You can’t come in here and destroy it! We’ve done nothing to you!”
“I’m so sorry, Dr. Houlihan,” Dohrn said. “We were totally mistaken. I stopped the explosives. We’ll leave if you’ll let us.”
“I need you to leave! I need you to leave now!”
Dr. Houlihan’s eyes rolled up, showing only bloodshot whites. He waved his arms frantically and screamed as he lunged at them. Dohrn and Goreman shrieked. The others began pushing one another in a panic.
“Go! Go! Get out!” Kerrington shouted. He pushed Mitchell up the catwalk toward the exit.
Vasquez and Sowell retreated carefully but kept their weapons ready.
Killian moved boldly toward Dr. Houlihan.
“Get out! Get out!” Houlihan shouted, waving his arms vigorously.
Killian thought of the drug-crazed anarchists and suspected a ruse or a trap. He debated over retrieving the device. There was no one to cover for him to protect against ambush or capture. He decided it best to come back in force.
Killian put his hand on Houlihan’s chest. “Back off, old man! We’re leaving.”
Houlihan shouted again, but Killian didn’t flinch. A frantic old man was nothing compared with real enemies. He backed up the catwalk, turned, then marched off toward the exit.
This complication could sink the mission. Either risk collateral damage or fail. Both could land him in prison.
He decided he had to err on the side of following through.
CHAPTER 25
1 Hour to Extraction
THE CANDIDATES POURED out of the mine entrance, the first four in a panic, the second group trotting out one by one. Kerrington led the way to the landing pad fifty yards away. There, the candidates convened and removed their helmets and packs. Killian joined them, ready to lay out a tactical plan for cover and advance.
“All right, candidates. Let’s figure this shit out,” Kerrington said.
“That’s easy,” Killian said. “We go back in there and tell these people we’re going to blow the place up, and they’ve got five minutes to clear out. Sowell and Vasquez can be the advance team and provide cover…”
“You can’t do that!” Dohrn said. “They live here! You can’t blow up their home!”
“Yeah, you can’t go killing innocents, you fucked-up psycho-killer!” Spalding said.
Killian countered, “I didn’t say to kill them. But we can’t just parade back in there and walk into an ambush.”
“No! We can’t do any of that,” Kerrington said.
“Our mission is to set the charge and blow the mine,” Killian said. “We’ll give them fair warning and get them to come out.”
“But these are extenuating circumstances,” Kerrington said. “There are innocent civilians.”
“Listen, I know what innocent civilians look like, and these guys are trouble,” Killian said. “Mitchell, how long can people live on this planet without oxygen?”
“Considering the high concentrations of nitrous oxide in the mine, six months, maybe a year,” she said. “But the toxic effects would render them extremely unstable after two or three months, and likely dangerous.”
Kerrington said, “The command on Blue Orchid obviously didn’t know about them when they gave us the mission. We can’t follow through.”
“Are you kidding?” Killian said. “Blue Orchid knows everything about this planet. We can’t let a handful of brain-damaged miners stop us.”
“They’re not only miners,” Dohrn said. “Like Benson said, they’re people from this program who’ve defected.”
“Fine, they’re deserters, too,” Killian said. “Did they look sane to you?”
“We wouldn’t destroy a mental hospital, either,” Dohrn said.
“This isn’t a hospital,” Killian said. “It’s an abandoned mine, a target given to us by our commanders.”
“Setting off the explosives is too much of a risk,” Sowell said. “We don’t know how many there are.”
“I’m not saying we should kill them,” Killian said. “We urge them to get out.”
“What if they don’t come?” Dohrn asked. “Like you said, they may be unstable and uncooperative.”
“If we don’t even try, then we’re definitely going to fail,” Killian said. “It will be like threading a needle, but we have to try. If they attack us, then they’re hostile.”
“Oh, so now you want to provoke them?” Kerrington asked.
“I think they’re right, man,” Sowell said. “After all, it’s only a training mission. I think we gotta come up with a new plan.”
Kerrington was going to convince them all to give up, which would decide Killian’s fate. He couldn’t let that happen. Killian said, “They said to treat it like a real combat mission, not a training mission. It’s not our position to change the plan on the ground. Our mission is to blow that friggin’ mine.”
“When the military drops bombs on enemy targets,” Mitchell said, “there are inevitably civilians who get hurt or killed.”
“Shut your face,” Kerrington said, pointing at her. “There are no enemies here. This is a training exercise. It would look incredibly bad if we knowingly killed people during a training exercise.”
Killian’s position was crumbling.
He turned to go back to the mine, but Vasquez blocked him and shoved him to the ground. Killian sprang to his feet and readied for another attack.
Vasquez assumed a fighting stance. “We gotta come up with a new plan.”
“No, we don’t,” Killian insisted. “Call them out and set the charge. That’s the mission!”
“Stand down, candidate!” Kerrington said. “These are extenuating circumstances. We can’t call Blue Orchid, so we have no way to verify anything. We have to make a change of plans ourselves. That’s what they would want us to do.”
Killian said, “In real combat, assault teams get cut off and the command would want the team to finish the mission. I’m not going to change it because of brain-damaged squatters living in a mineshaft!”
“Real combat, real combat,” Dohrn mocked. “Like you really know.”
“Listen here, you street punk!” Kerrington snarled. “I’m not going to let you ruin my chances of getting into Black Saber because you want to mindlessly kill everything in sight. This is what leadership is about, taking into account extenuating circumstances and making an effective alternate plan. You don’t belong in Black Saber. You belong in prison for whatever crimes you committed in Bangladesh, or wherever the fuck you’re from.”
“Bang…cock!” Spalding said.
Vasquez stepped behind Kerrington and Spalding to back them up.
Sowell looked apprehensive. “I think we gotta come up with some other plan.”
Kerrington pointed a threatening finger at Killian. “You are so out of this program! Do you hear me, street punk?”
Killian stepped into Kerrington’s face. “You are such an ivory tower pantywaist. To you, war
is nothing but a theory, a game, a bunch of memorized rules of engagement that give advantages to the enemy. But when your enemy is trying to cut your head off, politeness just makes it easier for them to do it. I used to be a naive rich kid like you. It sickens me to think of it.”
Kerrington looked him up and down. “Ha! You’re nothing like me. You’re a lowlife piece of shit.”
“Actually, his mother was the US ambassador killed in the Bangkok Massacre back in 2073,” Mitchell said.
“The Bangkok what?”
“The Bangkok Massacre, the terrorist bombing at the Global Alliance Freedom Conference.”
Kerrington gave her a puzzled look. “Where’d you hear that?”
“How could you not know about the massacre? Your father was vice president…” She gasped and went wide-eyed, staring between Killian and Kerrington.
“Listen, you spoiled little boy,” Killian said. “We’re not training to be negotiators. We’re training to be killers. This isn’t about your résumé. This is about the survival of humankind on planet Earth! Regardless of your ignorance, the Carthenogens and the Global Alliance are rounding up millions of people. I know; I was there! If our commanding officers tell us to kill, then we kill.”
“Oh, and what do you know about killing? Just because you were in a street fight and you stabbed somebody, now you’re an authority on the subject?”
“The Global Alliance wiped out an entire city of twelve million people at the Carthenogens’ directions. I was part of the resistance. I’ve killed thirty-three enemy soldiers!”
The candidates gaped at Killian. There were looks of horror and disbelief, as if he’d just stabbed them. A seismic psychological shift was occurring before his eyes. Things were unraveling.
“Wait,” Vasquez said, “you really killed that many people?”
“Not ordinary people—Global Alliance soldiers who were rounding up and killing civilians.” Killian paused, huffing, blood gushing through his veins. “There, the truth is out. And if any of you make it into Black Saber, you’re going to kill a lot more than that. So wake up. We’re here to kill.”
“Global Alliance? You killed Global Alliance soldiers?” Dohrn shrieked.
