Энтони Мелкиорри - Hybrid

For my brother, Captain Vincent Melchiorri, selflessly dedicating yourself to protecting the lives and freedoms of America and her allies. And of course, for being a brother and best friend.

Chief Petty Officer First Class Brendon O’Neil had spent the past decade conducting missions abroad. He had fast-roped into hotbeds of relentless insurgents in Yemen, rescued an Army Corps of Engineers worker in the mountains of central Afghanistan, raided terrorist cells in the Horn of Africa, and hunted down militant groups operating out of Iraq.

He never expected to deploy in his own country.

Especially not against an enemy like the one he now faced.

But this was far from the first time he was being sent somewhere into the United States with a troop of fifteen other SEALs on an assault squadron.

He was certain it wouldn’t be his last.

No matter how many times they were sent into the shit, it sure as hell never got easier being told the group was executing a direct action mission in Connecticut or special recon in DC or security assistance in Florida.

Or like tonight, personnel recovery in Durham, North Carolina.

The thrum of the UH-60 Black Hawk resonated through his nerves. He tightened his grip on the suppressed M4A1. Pre-mission jitters usually got his fingers shaking. Despite the years of experience abroad and now in the States, jumping, diving, or running into a mission, his body never quite got used to it.

Those jitters, that creeping fear seeping into his mind never truly disappeared with experience.

He just got better at dealing with it since his first ride in the sandbox.

Back in Iraq, he had done his requisite deployments with SEAL Team 5, learned how to prepare himself mentally and physically to execute real-world missions, then put in his special request chit for a chance at SEAL Team 6.

Soon as he made the cut, he had found himself hopping in and out of Afghanistan with the US Naval Special Warfare Development Group.

And everywhere he went, those pre-mission jitters accompanied him.

The United States had been no exception.

Those jitters might have even gotten worse. O’Neil wondered just how long he could keep compartmentalizing the horrors he had seen across his own country before he lost it. Wouldn’t be the first person in the service who had to leave the frontlines out of sheer despair and depression.

Across the United States—hell, across the world—a bioweapon had turned men, women, and children into twisted abominations, perverting their normal biology. The bioweapon hijacked their bones, brains, and muscles, turning people into twisted ravenous creatures the science-geeks in the rear echelon called Skulls. Those creatures could strip a man down to his bones in a under a minute. O’Neil had seen the results of Skull attacks more than he cared to.

A group of researchers in what was left of the US government, named the responsible bioweapon the Oni Agent. It was a nod to its origins in Unit 731 in Japan. Oni meant something like demon or troll. Made sense when dealing with the infected.

Those infected with the Agent were so terrifying O’Neil often wished he was back on the mountains of Afghanistan in the middle of winter chasing Taliban fighters instead.

Hell, he would go back there with no boots or cold-weather gear. He would even trudge through those mountains alone, snow up to his hips if it meant they could find a cure for the Skulls and rid the States of the monsters over the next year.

But he knew the chances of that happening were about as good as a brainwashed jihadi renouncing his ways, trekking all the way to Tibet, and joining a Buddhist monastery to live life in peace.

Only way to fight back against the monsters was to retake their country, street by street. And to do that, he needed to focus not on the oppressive state of the world but on the mission ahead.

The Black Hawk took the sixteen-man SEAL troop over dark forests. Trees wet from recent rain glowed softly in the pale light of a waning moon. Looked almost peaceful if it weren’t for the distant fires breaking the blanket of darkness. Those fires flickered and flared as they chewed through what used to be towns and cities. Pillars of smoke rose from the destruction and blotted out many of the stars.

O’Neil thought he could even detect the ashy scent of that smoke between the smells of gun oil, body odor, and earthiness in the troop hold.

This was the troop’s second mission today. Hardly enough time between unloading and loading into the choppers to grab a coffee and take a leak, much less take a shower to cleanse themselves of the smell of combat lingering on their uniforms and bodies.

He looked at the fireteam he led, Bravo. His ‘swim buddies.’

Petty Officer Second Class Jackson Loeb checked over his rifle for the fourth time, his tawny face painted black. He kept licking his lips, brow furrowed like he was deep in thought, four-tube night vision goggles locked up on his helmet. When he wasn’t wearing a helmet, he preferred a leather cowboy hat. Said he’d had it since he was a kid dreaming of competing in the Houston rodeo. Didn’t matter how much crap the other guys gave him, he never got rid of the hat. Said he wouldn’t get rid of it until the rodeo in the States was over.

And if this mission was any indication, the rodeo was a long way from over.

Next to Loeb was Petty Officer Second Class Michael Van with face-paint to match Loeb’s. He was holding a silver cross attached to a thin chain, eyes closed, praying. The guy was the son of Vietnamese refugees who had opened a banh mi shop in midtown, Houston. Grew up in the same city as Loeb, but they couldn’t have come from more different worlds. Van got picked on for his short stature as a kid and vowed he would grow up to be the baddest kid on the block.

Proved he was good on his word when he made the teams and became a SEAL.

O’Neil had known the two since BUD/S. They had been his assigned swim buddies since those first intense days running and swimming and practicing combat diving at Underwater Demolition/SEAL Training.

Petty Officer Third Class Sherman Tate was on O’Neil’s right.

“First time on a real mission with Six,” O’Neil said, catching Tate’s eyes. “You ready?”

“I was born for this,” Tate said, eyes narrowed.

The man’s skin was only a couple shades lighter than his black face-paint. He had been on an Explosives Ordinance Disposal, EOD, team before being recruited to SEAL Team Six. Guy hadn’t actually ever been deployed overseas, but he had served his time in the United States running missions in his hometown of Chicago before the city was lost.

Van had told O’Neil he thought Tate had lost his whole family—parents, brother, two sisters, and a gaggle of nephews and nieces—but Tate hadn’t talked much about it. Said the past was the past, and all he could do was look forward, heading toward whatever plan his Creator had in store for him.

O’Neil wanted to believe there was someone up there looking out for the team but he wasn’t sure the Creator or God or Brahma or whoever was up there had planned any of this. He sure hoped not. Because the world had turned to hell and his troop’s missions had turned into jumping in the middle of that hell, grasping for small victories as humanity rapidly receded into all but certain extinction.

Wasn’t exactly a nice plan by the omnipotent being supposedly in charge of this world.

“Should be a piece of cake, right?” Tate asked.

“You watch my back, I watch yours,” O’Neil said. “Van and Loeb kill any movers we miss. We find our packages, then get our flyboy friends to pick us back up. Piece of cake, yeah.”