Chapter 92

The debriefing I went through was far more extensive than in the past. Hawk grills me on every aspect of the mission, from the weather conditions in the zone to the final fight with the alpha. He probed extensively to the point that it was more like an interrogation on if I encountered any other unusual phenomena in the zone. I was hearing voices or encountering strange unknown entities, that sort of thing.

After almost two hours, I was eventually released. I was sitting in one of the grey tracksuits you got from the de-con tents. In front of where I was sitting, my combat armour was hanging from a transport rig. I could see the damage I had been dealt during the fights within the zone. Overall, against what I had thought, it wasn’t as bad as I had thought it would be. My shield was mauled badly and I needed a new one which would not make Lou happy. Before I left the base to be deployed here, he had a little rant about the amount of equipment I was trashing and the cost that the bean counters were complaining about. As for the armour, it can be repaired relatively easily.

As for me, I was in relatively good shape. No major injuries this time, which for me was a minor miracle with my record. I was bruised across a lot of my body, especially my right arm and I had one hell of a headache from where the alpha had punched me in the helmet. The paracetamol I had been given was starting to take the edge off that. I heard someone approaching and turned to find Hills, like me, in a grey tracksuit walking towards me. She waved as she approached me and I gave a weak one back. She sat beside me on the crates I was on, facing my armour.

“You head back to command soon?”

“They will be sending me back with the rest of you. We know the government only forking out for a high-speed helicopter when there’s an emergency or they need to get to a party quick.”

She sniggered at this, knowing there was a grain of truth within it. But always a waste of public finances when it affects anyone but the government when it suddenly becomes a priority. But that was changing now with everything going so wrong nationally and internationally. Resources are getting scarce and with the government’s rationing system now in place, there was no hiding it.

“I know I said in the zone, but thanks for coming in and getting us out.” She said after a few seconds pause.

“There’s no need. You know it’s part of the job. If there is a fucked up situation, you know they’ll throw me into it if I am free.”

“Yes, they do to me. But thanks anyway.” She lifted her knees up to her chest under her chin as she spoke. “So, in a coma? It was after our last mission was in it?”

“Yes.”

“I knew that they medically evacuated you. I heard you were badly injured but not that bad. Quite a few of us got concerned after we did hear from you for a few months and every time we asked, we were told that you were unavailable.”

“As I said, I was mauled badly.” I hoped she would drop this line of questioning as it brought back memories I did not want and could lead to questions I didn’t want to answer.

“Then things started getting bad. It seemed like every day. We just got more and more bad news. Not just here in Britain but across the world. The number of people I knew from the command we lost in such a short time.” I turned to look at her and realised she was lost in her memories as she hugged her legs against her chest, tight under her chin now and rocking a little bit. “So many, so many and then we lost Henry.”

“I’ve seen him.”

That stops her momentarily and she turns her head to look at me surprised.

“Wow. The rest of us have not been able to see him. How is he?”

‘A few seconds to think about what she has asked and I decide to give her the truth.

“Broken.” I say to her, turning back to look at my armour.

I can see in the corner of my eyes that she slumped slightly at this, hoping there would be more good news with my return. I wouldn’t say I liked it, but I knew that the truth was a harsh mistress I needed to be faced. We fell into a short period of silence again until she started speaking.

“How long do you think we’ve got?” The voice was hollow as all the emotions drained out of her.

“As long as we have.” It was a bad answer. I knew I was the only one I could give her.

Again, we saw quiet, each lost in our thoughts as the bustle of the camp carried on around us. The closure mission was scrapped for today, so the camp will return to monitoring the zone with the additional personnel brought in for the mission being withdrawn.

This is the way things are now. Deep down, I hated it. I hated that I was here again, going into the zones. I hated the fear and the pain. I hated it all and it drove my anger but I was far better at controlling it these days. Not perfect by any means, but a lot better than I was.

“You know what the going do with you next?”

“Me?” I had thought of it. “Most likely prepping for the next mission.”

“So more of the same?”

“Pretty much.”

Neither of us said much more after that as we just sat contemplating our futures, as unpleasant as they were. We just sat there until Gregson came along and told us it was time to leave and we returned to command.

## ## ## ## ##

The knock at the door because Colonel Hawk to look up from the documentation he was reviewing on his digital pad. Not waiting for a response, the door opened and General Holsan walked in. Hawk immediately got to his feet but was waived down by his superior officer.

“Sit, Nathaniel, sit.”

Entering the room, he closed the door behind him and took the chair across from the younger man.

“Just an unofficial visit to see how things went.”

“Understood, sir.”

Holsan got comfortable and nodded to the Colonel to start.

“As you know, sir. The mission was a standard breach closure operation. With the current situation, a larger team of operatives were sent in with an expanded support team if required. Operative Hills was leading the mission and Sgt Grey was in charge of the support team.”

Holsan nodded. He knew all this as he helped arrange the mission in the first place, but he knew it was part of how things were done.

“Well, sir. Things went wrong almost from the start. We can gather that the operatives were about halfway towards the breach when a pack of ghouls attacked them. Several injuries were sustained amongst the operatives and Hills opted to pull out due to them and the strength of the opposition they were facing.”

There was no reaction from Holsan apart from a nod to continue.

“As they withdrew, the attacks intensified and an Alpha was identified as leading the attacks. Operative Hills fired off an emergency flare to call in the support team to get everyone in her team out. Sgt Grey’s team quickly into the zone to support Hills. She made it to the operatives, but they could not get far away from the initial contact site and additional casualties were taken. They were forced to hunker down in a storefront within the town and fired off an additional emergency flare notifying us of the problem and their location.”

“Yes, when we got the message, we were quite concerned. But fortunately, we had one asset available to help.”

“Yes, sir. Operative Harrington’s appearance was quite a surprise.”

“I don’t doubt, but please continue.” Holsan said chuckling.

“As per orders, he deployed straight into the zone. There he located and engaged three ghouls. In Sgt Grey's words, he terminated all three “as if they were just a minor annoyance”. This brought out the alpha, and with the help of Hills and Grey and another support team member, they were able to take it down. Once this was done, they pulled everyone out while the pack was confused.”

“Total casualties?”

“Two operatives wounded. Two support personnel were killed and another four were wounded. The mission failed as the breach is still present and now as a pack of ghouls confirmed located within the zone.”

“A failure then but thankfully not a disaster. We cannot afford any more teams to be wiped out.” Holsan mused.

“Yes, sir.”

“Did Operative Harrington disclose any additional unexplained contacts in the zone?”

“No, sir. I believe him when he told me that nothing else happens as it seems from the data gathered that they happen closer to the breaches in most instances.”

Holsan nodded, leaning back and closing his eyes, thinking about the situation. Hawk waited for his superior to speak, as he had nothing to add at the moment.

“So, I think it’s safe that we can assume that our operative Harrington can handle any threat up to the level of an alpha in a group pack.”

“It seems that way, sir.”

Holsan’s eyes snapped open and focused on his subordinate.

“All right. The formation debriefing will be happening at the prearranged time. We are going to the full details of what happened then. Ensure you have all the additional information on Operative Harrington’s combat effectiveness.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Apart from the injuries and deaths, this could have gone much worse for us.” He got up to leave the office but turned and added one last thing. “Hopefully, we might even have a bit of good news for you as well. By God, we need all we can get these days.”

“Yes, sir. I will see you then.”

## ## ## ## ##

“Bloody hell, John! Another shield ruined and major repairs to your armour!” Lou was ranting and stomping around his workshop. The soldiers under his command were sleeping somewhere else, leaving me to face his ire alone.

“What can I say, Lou? I forgot to ask the monsters in the zone to be nice and not damage my new stuff.”

My sarcasm stopped him in his tracks and he turned to look at me. I heard sniggering behind me but did not turn to see who it was.

“Like that, is it?” He asked the rhetorical question.

“Yes, it is.” I decided to answer.

That caused him to stomp around for a few minutes, cursing and swearing under his breath but loud enough that I could make out some of the stuff they were saying.

“I heard you managed to save who you could.” He suddenly said to me.

“Yes. But I did get there in time to save everyone.”

“You rarely do, boy, you rarely do.”

Look towards my armour and then back to me.

“I’ve been permitted to reinforce it a bit more as you can now take a new weight limit amount.”

“Great. Thanks for the heads up.” My displeasure was evident in my tone.

“No problem. It should be ready for when you next get deployed.”

“The way things are now, that will be long.”

“True enough.” Sadness and exasperation were evident in his voice. Everyone was being pushed harder and harder, and many broke under the strain.

I looked out from the workshop across the base and wondered how long we could keep this up. The stream of helicopters and vehicles in and out of the base was far more than before my last little enforced sleep and I could see the strain everywhere on the machines and the people.