John O'Brien - Reckoning

With Blue Team lined across the back, she bellows, “Everyone freeze! Don’t move an inch and, if you would be so kind, hang up your phones.”

Four technicians near the front bolt from their workstations toward a door situated near a corner on the far wall. The tiered room descends toward the front with each line of workstations a step lower than the ones behind. This layout is so a supervisor at the back can oversee the whole room, which gives Horace a commanding field of view. Before the four have taken two steps, Horace nods to her team members.

With Horace covering the rest of the room, the other three direct suppressed gunfire against the four attempting to make it to the door. Their clothing puffs from multiple bullet strikes, sending them headlong to the floor where they lie in a heap next to and over each other.

“Now, let’s try this again,” Horace states, as the three bring their weapons back into alignment, aimed at the rest of the technicians. “No…one…move!”

The last command wasn’t necessary as everyone in the room has frozen in their tracks.

“Okay, if everyone would be so kind to hang up their phones. No more words, just set them into their cradles. And then place your hands on the monitors in front of you.”

One of the technicians to the side continues talking with someone on the other end, his words unheard but, by his facial expressions, he is rushing to get his words spoken.

Horace lifts her carbine, centers her red dot, and pulls the trigger. A single round coughs out of the end of her barrel. The sub-sonic bullet streaks over terminals to crash into the side of the man’s head. A small spray of blood leaps into the air from the brute force of the impact. His head jerks to the side and he falls across his workstation looking as if he’s taking a nap, his hand still gripping the telephone handset. Several streams of blood, mixed with bone and tissue, run down the monitor screen in front of him.

Nodding to one of her teammates by the door, he strolls to the station. Removing the bloodied handset from the man’s grip, he places it on the cradle. There is the sound of multiple handsets being hurriedly placed in their respective cradles, and Horace notes everyone’s hands in sight on top of the monitors. She has control of this operations center but it’s a tentative one. What she does securely have is everyone’s attention.

Nodding to her other teammate by the door, she has him take out the overhead camera.

“Who’s in charge here?” Horace asks, bringing her carbine back to cover the entire room.

Several eyes dart to a man standing in the first row of workstations. The others in the room look from her, to her team standing watch, to the bodies on the floor in the front, their shirts darkened with blood, to the man lying in a widening red pool at his terminal.

“I… I am,” the man answers.

“Okay, you are now responsible for what happens to your people. You do what I say, when I say, and don’t cause any trouble, you all get to live. You don’t and…” Horace says, leaving the last part unsaid but nods toward the bodies.

The man hangs his head, understanding that, for him and his group, the fight is over before it really began. It’s not that they are fighters to being with, but the realization that they’ve lost hits him. He can only imagine what is going on inside the rest of the complex. Whatever it is, he and his staff will not be of any help.

“What is it you that want us to do?” the man asks, looking up.

“First, are any of you armed? With any kind of weapon? I don’t care if it’s a butter knife or a letter opener, I want to know,” Horace asks.

The man shakes his head.

“Know that we’re going to search you. If we find a weapon on anyone, they die along with the person next to them. So, let’s be sure of your answer. Is anyone armed?”

“No, we’re just support staff. We don’t have any weapons,” the man answers.

Turning to the teammate next to her, Horace has him go down to the far door the four were running for and wedge it closed. There are only eleven personnel remaining in the operations center but, with two doors and having to cover all of them, she feels spread thin.

She has the technicians line up against the wall and searches them. The supervisor is true to his word; not a one of them has a weapon. After removing a phone from a windowed conference room to the side of the main control room, she herds her captives into it, telling them not to talk with each other.

“Just so we’re clear. If there’s a word spoken between anybody, or if I think anyone is passing messages in any fashion, they’ll meet the same fate as those other unfortunate ones,” Horace tells the supervisor.

He nods his understanding and enters the conference room with the others.

“The operations center is under control,” Horace speaks into her radio.

Sergeant Montore is jolted awake by the alarm blaring in the squad room. Only temporarily confused, he springs into action, jumping off his upper bunk to the left side so he doesn’t come slamming down on his bunkmate below. Dressing quickly, he grabs his carbine hanging from the bunk post, slams a mag in and checks that the safety is on. There’s a flurry of activity as the others of his squad are doing the same.

Fucking drills , Montore thinks as the lieutenant enters from his room in the back, yelling for them to form up by the door. At least it does break some of the monotony .

Forming with his teammates, Montore has a fleeting thought that maybe this isn’t a drill knowing what happened to Bravo Company the other week. The lieutenant makes his way through the waiting squad to the door. Opening it, he waves them through, telling them to meet in the equipment bay to await further orders. The ones in front of Montore enter the hallway, some still donning their vests.

Montore is about to enter behind the others when a large blast fills the corridor. Those outside are torn apart and thrown down the hallway. Smoke rolls past the doorway carrying the smell of gunpowder. Stunned, Montore reels backward.

Amidst the instantly confused scene, he notes sparks showering off the walls and floor. Before he stumbled away from the door, through the smoke, he caught a brief glimpse of winking lights coming from the vicinity of the vehicles. Even startled and stunned as he is, he knows they are under attack by someone inside the complex.

Heavy caliber slugs begin impacting the walls, tearing large chunks from the concrete. Those remaining of his squad hunker by the door in shock. To step out of the door is to walk into a shower of steel and death. Several try to direct fire into the equipment bay from the doorway but are immediately hit. One heavy round slams into the door frame as Montore screams for those of his remaining squad to get back inside. Dragging their wounded, they leave the door and take positions behind semblances of cover, ready to repel any invasion into their room.

Lynn directs fire from the teams into the hallways. Inside their narrow confines, with the smoke clearing, she sees several bodies in each one. They are really nothing more than dark lumps within the gloom. They have the upper hand at the moment, but she knows that may not last. Once the soldiers, whom they have momentarily pinned down, overcome their initial shock, they’ll react. She’s outnumbered but has the advantage of position. However, even with that, she has to do something if they are to maintain their fire superiority.

The blast of the siren stops. With the alarm gone, the sound of the fight comes to the forefront. Behind her, there is the heavy thud of the .50 cals as they send their heavy bullets into the hall. To the sides, there is the tinkling of empty cartridges bouncing across the concrete floor and vehicles, the calls of ‘reloading’, and mags hitting the floor with metallic rings. The M-240s chatter away, adding their fire. Lynn walks down the line, talking to each solder, telling them to conserve ammo and put out just enough bursts to keep the opposing force’s heads down.