Devon Ford - The Fall

A boot scuff behind him made him turn, and he found Chalky in the doorway of the windowless room. A puff of renewed air circulation dropped the temperature by a couple degrees as the airflow kicked up a gear to provide enough clean air for the bunker to support live bodies.

“So…” Master Sergeant White said to him, waiting for the personal response to their mission before the official line was given to the team.

“Yeah,” Troy said tiredly, adjusting his weapon, and sitting heavily, kicking up a small cloud of dust, “the shit has well and truly hit the fan, my friend.”

“We’re expecting more though, right?” Chalky asked him hopefully, meaning both in troops and information.

“Three of the standby teams on call to come here were at Bragg,” Troy told him, meaning that they had lost close to a combined thousand years’ worth of fighting experience in one go with the loss of the other teams like theirs along with their air support. “But we’re supposed to be getting two Apaches from somewhere. ETA within the hour.”

That was welcome news to Chalky’s ears, after the crushing blow of discovering their 25 percent now had to act as the 100 percent they originally expected. There was almost nothing quite as lethal on the battlefield than a Boeing AH-64 Apache, and the chances of being supported by two of them to add to their strength would give them an incredible edge over any adversary.

“Well, shit…” Chalky said before he puffed out his cheeks and blew out the air slowly. “I’ll go find us some coffee.” He walked out of the room, leaving Troy alone with his thoughts.

Five minutes later, having been hailed on the secure satphone from a pair of death-dealing air-sharks which hurtled toward their position hugging the terrain at close to 180 mph, he told his extended team to settle in until they arrived. He gulped down his second cup of coffee and took a lap of the main areas, finding the various members of his elite squad busying themselves with equipment or tech, and finding that their additional ammo cache had been carried to the closest armory. The screaming whine of four turboshaft engines penetrated the bunker, and he walked to the door to feel more than watch the angular aircraft settle down on the flat surface. Both aircraft were fully manned, with each pilot and co-pilot occupying their own sealed cockpit, and he watched through the thin moonlight as four men, scratch that , he thought, three men and one woman , based on how the hips of the first pilot swung, all walked toward him. He greeted them on the threshold, seeing that each of them only carried a small pack which would contain their emergency survival equipment. All of them wore M9 pistols similar to his own on their chests, and all of them had clearly abandoned sleep at a moment’s notice when they got the call.

“You must be Gardner,” said the man in the lead who had occupied the front seat of the second helicopter. “Colonel Simon, air force,” he said introducing himself and offered a hand before turning to his other pilots. “Captains Rogers and Harley.” Two men nodded to him, one bearing the call sign ‘Buck’ on his helmet. “Major Healey, army,” he said, indicating at last the hip swinger. Troy shook hands with them in turn, noticing the Ranger patch on Healey’s flight suit and trying not to raise his eyebrows. He was no misogynist, in fact he appreciated a fighting woman more than most, but finding, especially in this sudden shit storm, a young female army major who had successfully attended ranger school was something of a rarity. It was commonplace for advanced-trained aircrew to train as infantry, given their close working relationships with the SF guys on the ground and their likelihood of being shot down in places less than hospitable. Also uncommon was the makeup of mixed arms helicopter crews. Troy assumed they were part of a cross-training exercise when they got the call.

“I’m Gardner, call me Troy,” he told them. “Grab a coffee and meet in the briefing room when you’re set. Empty bunks down the corridor to your left.” They filed inside, loosening their tight flight suits and removing helmets as they passed him.

“Okay, so you’re all clued up as much as I am with the exception of some bad news,” Troy told the twenty-two people present; a few too many for the briefing room leaving a few guys standing. Not counting the two he had standing guard, this was his entire force, but as small as it was, it was certainly formidable. “Fort Bragg was hit by an ICBM, with an expected total loss. Three teams of SF which should have come here won’t be coming at all.” That news hung heavy in the room. The faces of his team registered the facts with anger, processed it, and set it aside to use later. It was clear from the reactions of the Apache crews that they already knew this, but some of the pilots and crew of the 160 thcracked at the news.

“We are waiting for orders and intelligence for counterstrikes, but until such time as we are deployed our mission is to sit tight and wait.” He held up both hands to stay the barrage of protests he knew would come. “I know, I hate that shit just as much as everyone here, but it’s what we’re going to do. Any questions?” By telling them that they now had to sit on their asses and wait to be set on something to kill, he expected few questions.

“Command element and reinforcements?” Dillon asked from a seat near the front.

“Unknown on any other personnel,” Troy said, “and command elements are still in play from unknown locations. Comms via satphone and squad net, which I need you to re-encrypt and rotate. Assume we are compromised by any other means of communication, got it?” They did, so Troy dismissed them, knowing that they would do whatever tasks were necessary without orders.

“Jackson, Miller,” Chalky called out making two men stop and turn, “relieve Valdez and Farrell. Send them to me for the brief.” The two men acknowledged their orders and left.

“Go do your rounds,” Chalky told Troy. “I’ll fill in the others.”

Troy nodded to his friend and set down his coffee cup.

“His Excellency will see you now,” the aide told her, prompting her to stand and smooth down the plain black suit she had been wearing for an entire night and a day. Various high-ranking officials also stood, resplendent in their crisply pressed dress uniforms in honor of seeing the President of the People’s Republic of China face-to-face.

They entered the grand office to find the man himself stood looking out of the huge glass wall over the city sprawling below. Two aides busied themselves in the room and now gathered papers before bowing and leaving, shutting the double doors as they went. All of the invited guests bowed low, waiting for their leader to acknowledge them. He turned, bowed in response, and sat at his desk.

“Tell me,” he began, “how is the operation developing?”

A man stepped forward quickly, bowing again, and gave the report from the perspective of the bombing runs to list a series of grand successes, with his eagerness for praise making the woman in the black suit mindful of a puppy. The president nodded his understanding, then asked for a report on the ballistic missile strikes. His brow wrinkled once on hearing that a missile destined for one of the largest US military bases had been intercepted by advanced anti-ballistic missile technology which they neither knew about or possessed an equal.

“And we are certain that the origin of the attack is not known?” he asked, interrupting the puppy. Silence in the room allowed her to clear her throat and take half a step forward to sketch a further small bow.