*Journada del
Muerte*
(Journey of Death)
by Dwane M. Bowen
__<dmbowen@carlisle.microserve.com>__
"Hateful is
the power, and pitiable is the life, of those who wish to be
feared rather than loved."
Cornelius Nepos
***
Felicity-OH turned to face the
silicate standing next to her and playfully raised her eyebrows.
Saying nothing, her modem's chirps, bleeps and tones spoke
volumes. As the other silicate nodded and left, a sweet smile
played across her face and her dimpled cheeks flushed with
excitement.
***
"Nathaaan!!"
Please, God. Not again!
Another scream ripped from the
soul of Shane Vansen.
"Nooooo!"
Muzzle flashes strobed in the
dark, and she saw two bodies falling. In her mind's eye she saw
the body of her father slowly crumple forward from the waist.
Outside, in the moon light, she saw Nathan's body rocked
backwards.
Hammered, blow by blow, he fell
from view.
Oh, God. Not again....
***
"Hi-didilly-Ho there,
neighbor."
Damphousse's head snap-cracked
through ninety degrees, and blood spilled from her mouth. Reeling
from the blow, she fell to her knees. Gasping and unable to
breathe, Vanessa had nothing left to give when her stomach began
to heave.
"Its a wonderful day in the
neighborhood... Won't you be my neighbor..." Felicity-OH
wistfully sang as she drew back, preparing to drop kick Vanessa
into low earth orbit.
'Phousse knew the kick was
coming, but the best she could do was to hunch over and try to
take it where it wouldn't kill her.
"This must be the good-cop
bad-cop routine", 'Phousse thought. "But just this
once,... I wish the bitch would sing on key...".
Night, swift and sure, drew
across the landscape. Vanessa never felt the last blow land.
***
"Well, Wang Paul, it is time
for me to say 'Good night, sweet prince'.Parting is, indeed, such
sweet sorrow. "
"I had hoped so much to
further... explore our relationship. But I'm afraid that I have
some bad news..."
Elroy-L stepped out from behind
the medical equipment ringing Paul's bed, idly throwing a switch
here, pressing a button there.
"It seems... that we have
come to a fork in the road."
Several lights began flashing,
and something back behind Paul's head began a strident beeping.
"And, dear Paul..."
Elroy-L said, as he turned one machine off after another.
"You will be taking the path least traveled".
Elroy-L silenced the beeping
machine that had been attesting to the danger Paul was in.
No one took a breath; Elroy-L
didn't need to, and Paul couldn't. There was total silence in the
room, and it looked like it was going stay that way for a long,
long time.
***
"Mercy among the virtues is
like the moon among the stars... It is the light that hovers
above the judgment seat." Edwin Hubble Chapin
"Aw, man. This is to hinky
to believe. What's with you and Damphousse anyway?" Coop
hissed loudly. "You think you know where Vansen is? And
'Phousse is with her? Why am I 'getting a bad feeling' about
this."
"Shut up Hawkes, you're
going to get us shot".
Saunders glanced back and forth
between Coop and Nathan. Just as he was about to speak West said
"You don't want to know, just now."
Saunders couldn't help feeling
what it would be like when these guys really had an argument to
settle.
West, Hawkes, and Saunders had
moved back over a small ridge, concealing them from the recently
captured compound.
West said "This should be
OK." and began pulling a small satcom unit out of his
backpack. "Coop, give me your comp pad."" Pulling
the fiber-optic link from the satcom transceiver, he plugged it
into the computer.
Nathan logged on and began
accessing the local ephemeral database for the body they were on.
"OK... I had the dream, or whatever it was, about 0330 ship
time."
"Yeah, right. Any later and
we could have waited for breakfast!"
"Shut up, Coop" Will
and Nathan said together. West smiled for the first time in a
long while. "Will, you're shaping up to be a Wildcard."
"0330 works out to be about
local mid-night for our 'longitude'. Vansen was in a cell, with a
couple of small windows and a skylight, and the moon was shining
almost straight overhead. She couldn't have seen it at all, if it
wasn't..." West began to type away on the keyboard flap.
Saunder's finished the thought;
"So, if the moon was overhead Vansen at 0330, the computer
will tell us where she is; or rather, what part of the planet the
moon was directly overhead at 0330. We know where she is
East-West wise, but not North-South wise"
Nathan spoke up. "Yeah, but
our friends over at the 76th might have an idea. The strike-recon
guys have the hot skinny on where the Chig installations on this
mudball are."
West finished typing, and fiddled
with the folding antenna of the satcom transceiver. Two beeps
signaled a good hookup.
"I'm tapping into the
combat-intel database... and downloading the
analysis/interpretation synopsis for that line of longitude, plus
or minus15 degrees." Two icons flashed in unison on the
screen for three or four seconds, then one ghosted over, silent.
Nathan began to speak. " All
done, now I've..."
"Oh, shit. Oh, shit! Here
comes Fairbanks". Hawkes brought his M-590 to bear, and
sighted in right on Fairbanks' heart. But he couldn't do it.
Outright murder wasn't in his book of tricks, but God, was he
tempted.
"Go! Get the hell out of
here! I'll keep her busy until you get away." It wasn't much
of a plan, but what did you expect from a seven year old anyway.
"No way, not this time! We
stay together. 'Stay with the dead', remember? 'Stay with the
dead!'" Nathan was furiously scrambling for an idea, but he
knew he didn't want to resort to Coop's initial reaction.
Well, pretty sure, anyway.
Suddenly, Saunders stood up, and
started fumbling with his combat harness. Struggling with his
BDUs, he dropped his trousers and bunny hopped out from behind of
the small hill. Just as Fairbanks spotted him, he drew up his
pants and started adjusting his gear, ignoring Fairbanks as if he
hadn't seen her.
"Saunders, what in the hell
are you doing out here with your fanny flying around like a
bullseye. Do you want to gain immortality as the Chigs' 'Maggie's
Drawers'?. Zip it up, and spill your guts, Lieutenant."
"Well sir, Uh... Ma'am"
Saunders stammered. "That's exactly what I was doing. The
LT's sent me out to scout this terrain feature, Ma'am. I was
taking advantage of the moment... Ma'am."
Listening while they maneuvered,
Hawkes whispered "Hey, how about that. This boy can lie
through his teeth at the drop of a hat. Well, trousers,
anyway."
"Thinks pretty quick on his
feet, too." West whispered back, as he and Hawkes flanked
Saunders and Fairbanks by crawling up and over the small ridge.
"Where are those jarheads
anyway, Lieutenant."
"Ma'am, I don't
know..." Saunders answered as he watched Hawkes creep up
behind Fairbanks. He had his rifle clutched like a Louisville
Slugger.
"Right here, bitch."
Cooper's swing would have hit one
well into the center field upper-tier. Fairbanks helmet caught
enough of the impact to save her life, but she was going to have
the mother of all headaches. She went down without a sound.
"Well, what now?"
"I don't know, West. I'm
improvising, adapting and overcoming. The Marine's Manual of
Common Tasks didn't list Mutiny in it's ToC." Coop
responded.
Saunders spoke up. "Its
right there after Assaulting an officer, and before Prison,
sentencing to thereof". He grinned, to show that he was only
ninety-five percent serious.
West thought for a moment, as
Hawkes and Saunders policed the area, and dragged Fairbanks back
behind the ridge.
"Listen up. Here's what we
do. Tie her up. I mean tie her up good. Check her breathing, too.
We can't give her anything to keep her quiet without risking her
dying. I'm going to put a delayed message on the OPS net, and
tell them to search for her in four hours. By then, whatever
happens, it won't matter what they know. We'll be long
gone."
"Will, this is the line in
the sand for you. If you go with us, you won't be coming back as
a hero, no matter what happens to us. I don't want you to throw
your life away. Its not your fight."
Will looked at Coop and Nathan.
He knew it was way past the time for long stories and complicated
answers. "I've been to the Alamo. And I'm a Marine. Semper
Fi. 'Always faithful'. You know my answer."
"OK." Everything had
been said. All questions asked, and all answers given. It was
time to do.
Nathan opened up the com unit and
tapped into the local node. He quickly issued the pick up message
for Fairbanks then engaged the satellite transceiver.
"Rover one, Rover One. This
is Old King Cole. Execute Three Blind Mice. Repeat, execute Three
Blind Mice. Reference Trinity, reference Humpty Dumpty, reference
Squad 51. Authentication is Romeo Zulu Bravo Niner Niner Six.
Break."
* * * * *
Part 8 [2/2]
*Journada del
Muerte*
(Journey of Death)
by Dwane M. Bowen
<<"The
gods conceal from men the happiness of death, that they may
endure life.">> Lucan
***
"I don't know how you got
that dustoff call routed through OPS, but I'm with you. I always
dance with who brought me." said Jess Dugan.
"I've got a guardian
angel..., and friends in high places", Nathan said.
Obviously..., thought Jess. As
she walked back from the cockpit of the ISSACP, she looked down
at West's comp pad.
"Nope..., those two
'installations' were overrun two days ago. One had been an ammo
forward supply point, and the second seemed to be a
communications relay or listening post."
"How about this one?"
said West, pointing to the screen.
"Observation and sensors say
it's a small group of buildings, possibly a mine head or
geothermal tap. Seismic data indicates some sort ofintermittent
subterranean activity. It was still 'contested territory' as of
yesterday."
"But if I were hiding
somebody in this sector, that's where I'd do it." mused
Dugan. "Want to 'take a chance'?"
"You don't know the half of
it." West said. "Take us down."
In the rest of the transport, the
seven other members of Jess' team began to finish their final
preparations. It took someone special to want to risk laying down
their life to "bring 'em all back".
These were very special people.
The ISSAPC made a low-level
stealth approach, and landed several kilometers from the group of
buildings that Nathan had indicated.
Several high loiter time drone
had been launched immediately prior to landing, and were
delivering information back to the ISSAPC.
"See this, right here.
What's that remind you of?", asked Nathan.
"Seems like some sort of
Chig transport, hidden in that building. It looks like their
loading it up, see how they've bunched everything up around the
Cargo hatches. They're definitely getting ready to pull
out..." Coop said, as he analyzed the images on the comp
pad.
"Infrared and ground radar
indicate that just two other buildings are occupied. One looks
like a possible match for your 'skylight' palace, Nathan. We got
to go in!" Coop couldn't help but sound rushed. The Chigs
were making for a major retrograde troop movement. "They're
pulling out, man. We gotta go now!"
West stood up, and started off
fast and didn't look back. "OK, everybody, here's the scoop.
Jess, I know you and your team don't know how we work. We don't
even know yet. We haven't drilled with you, or your operating
procedures and tactics. This isn't going to be pretty. In fact,
this is going to happen in a bad way. I hope I don't get anyone
of you killed."
"You've all seen the
pictures. Vansen and Damphousse. Kill everything else that moves.
There may be AI's in there, too. I say again. If it isn't Shane
or 'Phousse, kill it. We don't have enough people to split up and
flank them, much less form a security detail.
That will help us. We go in
together, but don't bunch up. Cover the compass, and watch your
sixes. We do Coop's 'Palace' first. If we have to, we fight our
way to the Chig transport."
"We disengage as soon as we
find them. The ISSAPC's pilots will wait here, with engines and
guns hot. When you hear us light 'em up, come and get us. Cover
that transport. I want you between us and the transport as a
screen. Fire at anything you see moving, outside of us. Don't let
that transport lift off."
I want to feel the breeze on my
back-side from liftoff as soon as we cross the hatch. If you
don't hear or see us after the firing stops, get the hell out of
Dodge, and tell our Mom's we did our best."
"Any questions?..."
Nathan looked around. "All right, lets do it."
***
The grenade blew out the door of
the "Palace", and alerted the residents that visitor's
were calling. Two Chigs were literally ripped in half from the
cross-fire of six or seven M-590s. "Watch your fire, watch
your fire!", Nathan yelled. "Coop take the left, I'll
take the right. Will, you and Jess cover our backs, and keep the
Chigs honest. Ready?"
Will, and half of Jess' team move
just forward of everybody, and pointed their weapons at the front
door of the hallway running through the Palace. Jess, and the
rest of her team covered the entrance they had just made. One SAR
marine, a staff sergeant, suddenly emptied half a magazine into a
Chig coming to investigate the recent addition to the Palace.
"Hey, look! I got an
officer", she said as she quickly loaded a newmagazine.
Dropping to cover, she pocketed the half-empty one.
***
So far West was 0 for 1, with
Coop batting no better despite his earlier practice. West nodded
to a marine with a shotgun sighted up on the locking mechanism of
the second door. The marine squeezed the trigger.
***
Shane was having the dream again.
The Chig guard awkwardly turned to the door, raising his gauntlet
weapon. Nathan kicked the door in, and started to shift his rifle
from low carry to the ready position, but it was too late.
"Nathan, run!... NO!"
It wasn't real, it never was, but it always hurt the same. Shane
felt trapped, ready to die inside again, just as she did every
time she had this dream.
***
The Chig fired at the same
instant West did. It was a interesting trade-off. The M590
stitched the Chig from crotch to shoulder, and he started
spooging immediately. The Chig's gauntlet weapon caught Nathan
right over the sternum, and blew him back into Coop. The marine
with the shotgun got off a lockbuster round. The ounce of
sintered, compressed metal blew itself to powder by ripping open
the helmet of the Chig, just like a can opener.
Coop grabbed Nathan with one arm,
and brought his M590 around with his other. He was about to fire
when he saw something, no, someone lying on the floor.
"Jess, help me!" Coop
cried. Trying to cover the dead Chig while dodging the random
shots from the room on the right, Coop lowered Nathan to the
ground.
West moaned, and startled, tried
to backpedal. The movement caused him to spasm, and he began to
cough violently as he rolled over.
***
The door next to Will Saunders
splintered with fire from the inside. Prone, Will rolled over and
began to fire into the room. He aimed high, trying to pin down
the Chig or Chigs behind the door without hurting any friendlies
on the other side.
Signaling to one of Jess's team
to keep up the fire, Will maneuvered away form the door enough to
rise to a squat, with his back to the wall.
***
The team medic broke off from the
rear guard and came to inspect West. There was a scorched hole in
his battle armor. The ceramic metal-alloy trauma plate was
fractured, and splashed with the remains of the Chig's
projectile. There wasn't any blood the medic could see... but
Nathan's lungs sounded bad.
Coop had let go of West for only
one reason. Shane Vansen lay on her side, curled up on a pile of
rags. Shielding her face with her knees, her arms grasped her
legs in embrace.
She was semi-conscious, severely
beaten, and dehydrated. When she looked up to see Cooper Hawkes,
her eyes spoke terribly for the need of human company. She
whispered hoarsely, "'Phousse, next ... door"
Coop reached her just as she
passed out, not even seeing Nathan laying on the floor.
Cooper lowered Vansen, and
signaled one of the SAR team to recover Shane.
"'PHOUSSE,...HIT THE
DECK!" Coop screamed for all he was worth. Knowing it was to
late for anything else, he emptied an entire magazine chest high,
right through the partition.
***
Vanessa knew it would soon be
over. The two Chigs in her room had been standing guard since she
woke up form her last 'interrogation' with Felicity. Unable to
move munch since the last beating, 'Phousse lay on her bedding,
thinking about home, her ex, those few sweet minutes with Paul,
and how stupid she had acted after them...
An explosion, followed by gunfire
and several more explosions echoed through the building. There
were more explosions outside, and something cast a flying shadow
through the skylight and windows. The Chigs turned towards the
door, and started firing through it.
Vanessa heard someone shout her
name. "HIT THE...", and she covered her head with her
arms
***
"...DECK!". Saunders
heard the shout, and jumped across the hall, spinning around 180
degrees. Doing the same thing Coop was, he emptied his magazine
into the room at the same height. The marine who had just blown
the lock in the door, backed up and finished the magazine of the
shotgun, too.
Two empty mags hit the floor, one
after another. Everyone who had fired changed magazines, and the
door buster stuffed shells into his shotgun.
Saunders shouted "Cease
fire, Cease fire...!", and kicked the door in.Sweeping the
room through a 180 degree arc, high and low, Will searched for
targets. Nothing was standing, but there was a lot of fizzy green
stuff speckling the walls and ceiling.
"All clear!"
Covering the remains of two
Chigs, Will Saunder's said "You must be Vannessa
Damphousse."
***
The ISSAPC's pilot spoke out on
the common channel. "Jess, we've got FLASH traffic. Inbound
hostiles, this sector. ETA is three minutes. Sensors indicate a
Chig squadron." In the background, as the co-pilot manning
the manual turret fired, the sound of the guns echoed the radio.
"Roger, we're picking up the
pieces and coming out. Keep that transport pinned, or she'll blow
us out of the sky when we run for it." As Jess spoke,
everyone made for the entry blown open earlier.
Jess helped the medic to
manhandle West outside, preceded by two of her squad. Coop and
the staff sergeant moved Shane, while Will and the Marine with
the shotgun carried Vanessa. The last two marines covered the
retreat. "We're coming out. Prepare for liftoff"
The pilot, hearing Jess' last
order, began throttling up the engines andpreparing for launch.
His co-pilot shouted "Here they come", and opened the
armored door of the ISSAPC.
At that moment, two human figures
ran from the front of the building, heading for the Chig
transport. The pilot followed them for a second, then heard the
second crewman shout "All aboard. Wheels up, Wheels
up!"
Then who the hell were those
figures running toward the Chigs? "Are you positive all
souls on board, Randi?" the pilot said. "I've got two
people running for..."
"Roger on the passengers!
All accounted for. Go, go, go!" she yelled,sealing the hatch
and shoving her way forward to the cockpit.The pilot set all guns
on auto, assigning the buildings and transport asprimary targets.
The chin turret, now freed for fire, started blasting any targets
that swung through its covered arc.
As the ISSAPC started to rise and
rotate around to pull away, the pilot saw two humans rushing up
the ramp to the Chig transport carrying what looked like a
flimsy, tinted-glass coffin. He hit the manual override on the
fire-control system. Having lost their assigned targets, the guns
quit firing and stowed themselves in cruise mode.
He quickly examined the image
from the FLIR/LL3DO pod slaved to the chin turret.. In the
low-level lighting, it really looked like they were carrying a
slab of lime-green Jell-O. With something, or someone, in it. He
selected GUN/CAMERA on the flight data recorder console, and
pulled the trigger button on his stick, saving the stereo digital
images.
The pilot continued his rotation,
and accelerated onto his new course.
***
Jess came up to the cockpit. Not
wanting to interrupt the pilot, she spoke to the co-pilot.
"Randi, get on the command
freak, tell them were heading back to the Sara with liberated
MIAs. Have them vector any CAP Hammer-heads to cover our
withdrawal." Jess turned to the pilot,
"What's the ...".
The ISSAPC rocked side to side,
and dipped for the ground. As the pilot began to compensate, the
terrain-following radar fired thrusters for and aft, helping to
right the craft. The Chig transport had taken off almost
vertically, racing for the edge of the atmosphere. Its wake and
exhaust plumes had caught the ISSAPC in an artificial
micro-burst.
"HooRahhh! Let's do it
again" Jess looked over the tactical display on the main
console. "OK. Now, once again, what's the ETA on that Chig
squadron?"
"Sixty plus seconds, Jess.
If we don't get the hell out of here, they'll be close enough to
wave to before we ..."
Randi broke in. "I've got
two CAP squadrons heading inbound, and told them to gun for
anything that wasn't squawking our IFF. We're cleared for direct
orbital insertion, and rendezvous with the Sara and her
escorts."
"OK, we got everybody we
came for. Let's go home. I'll head back and tell them what the
inflight movie is."
"What about the two that ran
for the Chig transport?" asked the pilot.
"Which two, everybody's
onboard?" Jess answered, confused.
"These two"...
The monitor showed a still image
of Felicity-OH and Elroy-L carrying what appeared to be the
remains of Paul Wang, wrapped in a huge sandwich bag filled with
Jell-O, up the ramp of the Chig transport. And Paul's eyes were
open.
"Holy buckets! Talk about
your ever-freaking miracles." Jess turned and made for the
rear compartment.
***
"Shane, wake up! Stay awake,
Shane" Coop said, as he checked Vansen for any injuries that
needed immediate attention. Shooting through the walls had been
the best of a bunch of bad choices, and Coop knew the risks of
tumbling high-velocity rounds.
"'Phousse? Where's
'Phousse!" Shane whispered hoarsely.
"I'm right here, Shane. I'll
be OK. We... we're going home."
Shane shut her eyes, and put her
head back down. A single tear fell from her cheek.
Jess came back alongside West,
who had just come around. "Listen up, Wildcards..."
***
"The value of
compassion cannot be over-emphasized. Anyone can criticize. It
takes a true believer to be compassionate. No greater burden can
be borne by an individual than to know no one cares or
understands." Arthur H. Stainback
-------
Cooper Hawkes stepped out of the
shower stall and grabbed his towel. Not one to fluff and pat, he
ran the towel through his wet hair and began to scour his body
dry. Hawkes rubbed the navel on his neck, imagining, not for the
first time, that it wasn't there.
"The only good thing about a
milspec 'high and tight'" Hawkes thought, " Is that it
dries in two minutes... I wish the shower lasted that long."
The Sara had a lot of energy, but fresh water was always at a
premium in a closed-cycle environment.
Hawkes secured the towel around
his waist and padded into the washroom of the head. and looked up
into the mirror. He stood there, trying to see the back of his
neck. Twisting his back one way or the other, no matter how much
he tried, he just couldn't get the angle right. After a couple of
minutes, he gave up.
If he couldn't see it, why did
something so small make such huge difference.
"Well, not to
everybody..." he said to himself.
Hawkes looked around. The squad
bunk-bay was quiet. Shane and 'Phousse were in sick bay, But held
by the Chigs and the AIs.
The rest of the fifty-eighth was
still at breakfast, or heading to the ready room.
Except maybe for Fairbanks. After
their last round of "gentlemanlydiscourse", she might
have learned some caution. But she was also still seeing a medic
every morning. Well, so was West for that matter.
In light of the several
'accidents' and the upcoming rescue mission, though, he knew that
it wasn't a afternoon nap they were planning for Lt. Cooper
Hawkes. And just possibly, Vansen and Damphousse may be in more
danger now than they were before.
Or West and Saunders, for that
matter.
Hawkes glanced back into the
mirror. The look of determination in his eyes didn't hide the
redness from exhaustion and lack of sleep. But something
unfamiliar flared in Coop's eyes. Rage. Rage and fear. He was
torn between being afraid of what the next step was in the
conspiracy to kill off the five-eight, and the rage at not being
able to do something about it NOW.
It was clouding his judgment and
consuming what little patience he had learned from West and
Vansen. What had been becoming his more usual look of confidence
in the mastery of his life was no where to be seen.
Cooper brushed his hand back
through his hair, and decided to skip shaving.
Walking over to the wall lockers,
Coop pulled out a flight suit and a pair of boots. Turning
around, he tossed the suit on his bunk and the boots on the
floor. Bending back into the locker, he fished around in the
built-in drawers for a pair of skivvies and some socks. Throwing
the towel into, or more closely, into the general vicinity of the
laundry hamper, Coop walked over to his bunk and got dressed.
Across the study desk lay the
manual that Coop had been bitching and moaning about over lately.
"NATOPS Flight Manual: SA-43 Hammerhead and Variants".
The entire section of the manual covering the SA-43R, the
reconnaissance variant, was already dog-eared..
Coop's next mission was an
intel-gathering jump. Coop was going to help find out who was
going to be strenuously objecting to giving Wang a lift home.
This was going to be a big one, the mother of all knife fights!
You needed a sharp blade to do the best you could.
"MIRGS, hockey pucks, Easter
eggs, and Dixie cups. Jeez!. Who thinks up these names? 'Lions
and tigers and bears, Oh My!'". Coop went over to the book,
and stood there for a minute.
The introductory material on the
Recon suite for the SA-43R Raven covered stealthed multi-spectral
sensors ('hockey pucks'), multi-modefrequency-agile
transmitter-relays ('Easter eggs'), and the container/dispenser
unit (which sort of looked like the paper cup-holder inthe head).
Supposedly the Easter eggs gathered the raw data from the hockey
pucks and the MIRGS gathered the data from the Easter eggs,
collating, encrypting, and relaying it into deep space. In the
one hundred and sixteen pages of that section, there were exactly
seven pictures, and one line drawing. And nowhere in the book did
it explain what an "Easter egg" was.
Saunders had said it all made
sense to him, and had even tried to explain why they were called
Easter eggs in the first place.
"Well, maybe he's a better
man than I am.", Coop observed.
"...Naahh".
Like the Wizard behind the
curtain, Coop had more than he could handle to make things work.
And he wasn't sure of which levers to pull or buttons to push. It
just seemed that everybody in Oz wanted a piece of the
five-eight's ass. The monitors at the Philadelphia center hadn't
gotten around to explaining this kind of stuff to him, much less
teaching him the 687th way to kill a human being. But before he'd
had to excuse himself from the curriculum, Number 27 had worked
just fine.
Coop knew that he would find a
way to deal with it. One way or another.
-------
"Men do less
than they ought, unless they do all that they can."
ThomasCarlyle
-------
There was still a lot of planning
left to do to get to Wang. And Hawkes intel was going to be a
major part of that planning. The interrogation of the few
prisoners captured on the raid on 2063-R Sat-3 was still ongoing.
The three available SAR teams, including Jess Dugan's team, were
prepping for the rescue mission. And as humanely possible,
'Phousse and Shane were being debriefed.
It was Paul's turn for rescue; no
one was getting left behind this time.
"Everyone's coming home from
this one." Coop thought. "That's a promise."
Hawkes turned and opened the
hatch. Stepping through, he let the hatch sigh shut and sealed it
with a muffled clang. Inside the empty bay, the lights turned
themselves off.
**********************************
End of Part Eight
[2/2]
Dwane M. Bowen
dmbowen@carlisle.microserve.com