AB (The Blake Reynolds Chronicles Book 1) (17 page)

The SEAL
driving the boat was about to turn around to retrieve the struggling AB behind
them, but the other SEAL grabbed his arm and shook his head.

“This piece of
shit deserves to die,” Blake thought. The three soldiers continued towards the
shore.

The SEALs
escorted Blake until he reached the south gate of his base. Once they unloaded
Munns’s body, the SEALs headed back to their ships. Some medics came down to
the gate to take Munns’s body to the makeshift morgue. Blake walked straight to
the command center to give a report on what had happened in the last
twenty-four hours.

 
“While interrogating the prisoner, he revealed
that they are building some kind of device to send a message just southwest of
here. His exact words were, ‘We are going to send a message back to the
creators.’”

The commander
seemed concerned. “Did he say what the message would contain or where it would
be sent?”

Blake shook his
head. “I think the AB that we interrogated was a low-level grunt that didn’t
know much.”

The commander
leaned forward. “I heard you were bringing him in for further interrogation.
Where is he?”

Blake
accidently let a tiny smile slip across his lips. “Um, he had a slight accident
on the way to shore. We hit a large wave, and he fell overboard. By the time we
got turned around, he had already slipped below the waves.” Blake felt a little
guilty for lying about the last part, but he couldn’t forget what had happened
to Munns. He still needed to talk to Munns’s wife and child.

Blake could tell
from the commander’s eyes that he knew exactly what happened. “Do you want me
to send a man out to notify Munns’s family what happened to him?”

“No, I’ll do
it. It’s the least I can do for him.”

“OK, I will
notify Pacific Command on a secure channel about the message. Talk to Munns’s
family and spend some time with your own. Report back at 0700 tomorrow.”

Blake stood,
saluted, and left the room. He walked down to the tents where the families were
stationed. They seemed far away, but as he approached Munns’s family’s tent, he
wished it were even farther.

As he stepped
closer, he could see Munns’s son playing in the doorway of the tent with some
small action figures. Blake knew he would hear Munns’s wife humming softly
inside. As Blake approached, she stepped outside the tent’s flap and smiled.
“Well, you guys have been gone long enough. Where is that husband of mine? Did
you leave him out on some important assignment to save the world?”

When Blake
didn’t return Sue’s smile, her expression changed. He recounted the story about
the fight and Munns’s bravery. Sue’s emotions started to surface, and her eyes
filled with tears.

“No, no!” she
screamed.

Blake could
only hold her as she beat his chest angrily. By this time, several of the other
women in the camp heard her cries and rushed to her side.

“If it is any
consolation, his last words were of you and your son. I’m so sorry… I wish I
could have done more for him.”

Blake couldn’t
take seeing her anguish anymore and left her to be consoled by the other women in
the camp. The walk back to his tent wasn’t far, but he moved extremely slowly.
When he entered his tent, Tara and Kaya were playing cards on the cot. Kaya
leaped off the bed straight into Blake’s arms. Tara gave him a warm smile that
he couldn’t return.

“Munns didn’t
make it back this time,” he managed to say as he stared at the floor.

Tara’s
expression turned to shock, and she put her hand over her mouth. “I’m so sorry,
Blake! Should I go talk to Sue?”

“No, there are
several women down there to help her. Just sit here and be with me for a while.”
Tara jumped off the cot and crushed him with a comforting hug.

After Lord
Dameon learned his soldiers had failed to kill the James, Lord Dameon went into
panic mode. Nothing could get in the way of getting the message out. He ordered
his brothers to work double shifts until the transmitter was built and the
message was sent. He also feared an attack from the unclean and felt that he
didn’t have enough brothers and sisters to protect their work.

The next
morning after the failed assault, it was reported to Lord Dameon that the enemy
was starting to amass troops not far from them. Lord Dameon’s worst fears were
being realized: An attack was inevitable.

Later in the
morning, as Lord Dameon sat in his office, a large man accompanied by four
others walked in. They carried two large boxes and set them on the floor with a
thud. The large man approached Lord Dameon and smiled.

“We have been
sent north with this gift from Sir. They are creations of the unclean that were
used to kill and destroy each other. I believe they call them nuclear bombs.
These were once mounted on missiles, but we were able to capture one of their
ships and retrieve them. One of my men retains the knowledge to unleash their power,
and we leave it to your discretion on how they will be used.”

Lord Dameon
smiled. “Remind me to thank Sir for his kind gift.” He addressed one of his
military commanders. “We need a prisoner to send a message back to the
unclean.”

The commander
left the room and was back in ten minutes. Behind him, he dragged a tired,
bloodied, and beaten soldier. He was thrown down on his knees in front of Lord
Dameon.

“This is your
lucky day. We are going to let you go. But in exchange for this gift, we
require that you deliver a message for us.”

Lord Dameon
stood from his desk and approached the soldier. He bent down, lifted the
soldier’s head, and pointed to the two cases at the side of the room. “See
those two boxes over there? In them are two devices that you and your kind
created. You call them nuclear bombs. We are prepared to use them to destroy
the west coast of this land. We are not afraid to die; we exist to serve and
further the goals of the creators.”

The soldier
turned his confused gaze from the cases back to Lord Dameon.

“We now have in
our power the ability to destroy us all, but we would rather just be left
alone. The message we want you to deliver is, ‘Just leave us alone and we will
not launch any further attacks on your people. If you attack, we will trigger
the nuclear bombs.’”

Lord Dameon
knew it was a lie, but it was a way to buy some time. He really didn’t care as
long as it helped them achieve their goals. The soldier nodded and was cut
loose.

“We will escort
you north until you are out of our area.” The soldier was dragged out of the
room.

Lord Dameon
stood and addressed everyone in the room. “Brothers and Sisters, let us gather
for one last battle. Once we have sent the message of peace, we will launch our
attack on the plague of uncleanness that infects this planet. Let us purge it
so that we may await our creator’s glorious return. I want runners to be sent
to our entire realm and deliver a message to converge on this location, so we
may all celebrate the glorious day. Then we will begin our attack.”

Several soldiers
gathered in the commander’s office to go over the day’s plans. Blake walked in
and sat down. “So what are we planning?”

The commander
and the other two soldiers glanced at Blake. “You’re sitting this one out,
Captain Reynolds. You need to spend some time healing, and even more, you need some
down time.” Blake stood to protest when the commander raised his hand. “That’s
an order.”

Blake sat back
down and frowned.

“We do need
your advice on a retrieval mission, though. We have orders to capture an AB
that might be able to tell us what they are constructing by the old white
church. Lieutenant Jackson here will be leading the mission.”

Blake opened
his mouth again to protest, but the commander shot him a stern look.

“We would
appreciate your advice on the best way to approach the area where the church is
located, seeing how it is the center of all their activity.”

Blake stood and
spun the map on the desk and pointed to the hills just south of their position.
“When we were on our patrol a few days ago, it seemed the least amount of enemy
patrols were in the foothills. So I would head south and stay just on the east
side of the ridge until you are directly east of the church. Make your way to
the I-5 and that should put you within a quarter mile of the church and close
to whatever they are building. Try to avoid any encounters on the perimeter.
The ABs there probably won’t know any more than what we already know. You
should be able to notice the differences in the ABs the closer you get. A few
still have some smarts and act differently than the others.” He glanced back at
the lieutenant. “So how many men are you taking?”

“I thought ten
would be a good number.”

Blake stroked
his chin. “That could be good or bad. Good to have numbers if you get into a
firefight, but bad if you are trying to keep things quiet. But this is your
mission.”

“Thanks, Captain,
I will take it under advisement,” the lieutenant said as he stood. The
commander stood, and all three soldiers saluted and were dismissed.

After the short
meeting, Blake stopped by the medical tent to get his bandages changed. He then
went to get his family to go to breakfast.

The rest of the
day, Blake enjoyed spending time with his family in the park and had a small
picnic. However, his thoughts kept dwelling on the patrol that was out on the
mission. He knew he was more qualified to lead.

As the day ended,
Tara pulled Blake over to a park bench and motioned for him to sit down. Blake
gave her a confused look. Tara sat Kaya on her lap. They both seemed very
excited about something.

“Kaya and I
have something to tell you,” Tara said with a smile.

“Mommy is going
to have a baby!” Kaya blurted out.

Blake sat there
stunned before Tara broke the silence. “Aren’t you going to say something?”

“Well, um… how
did…” He cleared his throat. “How long have you known?” He shook his head as
the shock fully hit him. “This is wonderful!”

“I wasn’t sure
at first, and then the whole world fell apart. There just wasn’t an opportunity
to tell you. Anyway, I’m about two months along.”

Blake reached
over and clutched both girls into a tight hug. “This is just wonderful.”

It was almost sunset,
and Blake and his family were headed back to their tent to get some much-needed
sleep after the ups and downs of the day. Just as he sat down to take his boots
off, he heard commotion at the southern gate. He knew it was the gate where
this morning’s patrol would be coming in. He looked at Tara, and she nodded her
approval.

Blake sprinted
down the row of tents towards the gate, never taking his eyes off it. The
guards on the towers had their guns trained on the Hummer approaching at high
speed. The vehicle was smoking heavily and swerving all over. It was barely
staying on the road. From what Blake could tell, the Hummer had been in a heavy
firefight, and he wondered how it was even running at all.

The vehicle
stopped at the gate, but no one stepped out. Several medics were running
towards the gate while four heavily armed Marines held up their weapons ready
to fire. By the time Blake reached the truck, the medics were hauling wounded
out and laying them on the grass. The Marines had grabbed two prisoners out of
the back who had been bound and gagged. One had a severe chest wound and was
unconscious; the other had a leg wound but was resisting with great force.

The last person
removed from the vehicle was the driver, Lieutenant Jackson. He wasn’t wearing
his helmet and had sustained a nasty-looking wound to the side of his head.
Dried blood was caked from the top of his head down his face and over his
chest.

Jackson looked
up at Blake and grabbed the side of his arm as he was laid down on the grass.
“We thought we were clear, but it was a trap!”

“Don’t worry
about it now. Just lay back and let us take care of you,” Blake said. Jackson slowly
closed his eyes and fell unconscious.

Blake helped
carry all the wounded to the medical tent. He didn’t know what else to do, so
he found a place to stand out of the way in a corner in case he was needed.

There were more
wounded than the doctor and nurses could handle, so all the soldiers and
civilians who had helped carry the wounded were used to help administer medical
treatment. Once all seven were inside, they went to work on the wounded soldiers.
The two ABs were in the corner under heavy guard.

The commander
walked in and assessed the situation. He saw the two ABs lying in the corner
and immediately commanded everyone's attention. “Listen, I want top priority to
go the two AB prisoners. We need to keep them alive or this whole thing will
have been for nothing.” At first, everyone stared at him with hatred over the
thought of the ABs, but they knew he was right.

The doctor and
one of the nurses went to work on the critically wounded AB, while the other
two nurses went to work on the soldiers. One of the AB men was rushed into
surgery, but the doctor soon returned because it had died on the operating
table. The other AB was less severely wounded, so his wounds were easily
treated. He was then tied to a chair until they decided what to do with him.

With the two ABs
dealt with, the doctor turned his attention to the wounded soldiers. One had
already died due to blood loss. Lieutenant Jackson’s head wound was cleaned,
stitched, and bandaged. He had been awake for the last thirty minutes but was
having difficulty lying in bed, as he kept wanting to get up to help what was
left of his men.

For the last
hour, Blake helped the doctors and nurses treat the wounded. He had gotten
little out of the soldiers as to what had happened. But he felt extremely guilty
and wondered if it had been his suggestions that had led to this.

The base
commander entered the medical tent and headed directly to Blake. “Reynolds, do
you have anything to report yet?”

Blake scanned
the room. “Not really. We have been very busy just trying to keep everyone
alive.”

The commander
walked over to Jackson. “Lieutenant, how is your head doing?”

“I have a
serious headache, but I’ll be fine. Give me twenty-four hours, and I can get
back into the fight.”

“Do you feel
like you are able to do a debriefing of what happened out there?”

“Yes sir. But
parts of it are still a little fuzzy. I’ll do my best.”

“Very well then.
Meet me in my office in twenty minutes.”

The commander turned
to Blake. “Reynolds, I want you there as well.”

“Yes sir.”

When Blake
entered the office, the commander and Jackson had already started the meeting.

“Captain
Reynolds, please sit down. Lieutenant Jackson here was just explaining what happened
on his mission.” He looked back at Jackson. “Please continue.”

“Like I was
saying, we followed the dirt roads and trails heading south like Captain
Reynolds suggested. We saw a few AB drones wandering around gathering supplies.
None of them engaged us. We parked our vehicle behind some trees about a
quarter mile east of I-5. I figured we were about a mile away from the old
white church. We were extremely surprised that we hadn’t hit any patrols up to
this point. But we thought, ‘Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, right?’”

Blake felt
extremely guilty and he knew Jackson could tell. “Captain, your suggestions
were good, so don’t blame yourself for the attack.”

Jackson turned
his attention back to the commander. “So our patrol made its way through the
residential area until we hit I-5. The closer we got, the more I had an uneasy
feeling that we were being watched. As we crossed the I-5, one of the men at
the back of the patrol reported seeing several AB children that seemed to be
shadowing us.”

“We didn’t
think much of it because when we were in Afghanistan the local kids followed us
on a regular basis. We forgot that this is a different kind of enemy. Anyway,
once we crossed the 5 we were just south of the church. We took cover behind
some buildings, and I sent out three two-man groups to scout the area around
the building that had the large satellite dish installed on the roof. One of
the patrols had reported back that he saw several ABs on the outside of the
building in white coats carrying clipboards. I made a call that those two ABs should
be our targets. The rest of us were waiting for the last patrol to return when
we heard gunshots erupt in the direction of where the patrol had gone.”

Jackson
couldn’t look the other two men in the eye anymore. ”From this point,
everything went to hell. I had to make a call. Rush to the aid of the two
soldiers who had made their way to the north or rush at the two identified
targets before they disappeared in the building. I chose to grab the men in the
white coats. I am still questioning whether that was the right choice.”

Blake
interrupted and placed his hand on Jackson’s shoulder. “In battle, there isn’t
a right or wrong call; there’s only the call we have to live with.”

Jackson looked
up and gave Blake a weak smile. “We were able to get close enough to the
warehouse to see a couple of AB technicians talking outside the building. Things
went bad fast, and before we could grab them I had lost a few of my men. Because
of their heroic efforts, we managed to knock out and grab two of the white
coats.

“We made it
back to the truck and had just started to head back when the explosion went
off. I remember glass flying everywhere and shouts and screams coming from the
back. I kept the pedal floored, but things are kind of fuzzy after that. I
think it’s just a miracle from God that I was able to drive us back somehow.”

The commander
and Blake glanced at each other, wondering what to say. The commander cleared
his throat and spoke first. “You made the right calls. It isn’t easy to leave
men behind, but sometimes it is necessary. You can go back to the infirmary and
get some rest now. You’re dismissed.”

After Jackson
left the office and was out of earshot, the commander turned to Blake. “What do
you think?”

“I have been in
the situation before, and it is never easy. But I guess we will know if it was
worth the sacrifice once we find out what the prisoner knows.”

“Agreed. I hear
that you have become adept at extracting information out of AB prisoners. I
would like you to see what he knows.”

“Yes sir. I
will check with the doctor and see if the prisoner is sound enough to be
questioned. If he is, I will start within the hour and report back what I find
out.”

Blake left the
room and walked to the camp doctor to inquire about the state of the prisoner.

“He is stable and
waiting for you in the interrogation room.”

 
As Blake stepped inside to the room where the prisoner
was located, he saw him tied to a chair in the corner. His demeanor was
extraordinarily calm. The blood-stained white lab coat he had been wearing
earlier had been removed, and he was covered in assorted bandages on the upper
part of his torso.

Blake walked up
to the AB man and looked him up and down. He looked up at Blake; his glasses had
slid down his nose. The little man spoke in a high-pitched voice. “Would you
mind sliding my glasses up so I can see you better?”

Blake was
surprised at the calmness in his voice but complied with his request and
adjusted the man’s glasses in hopes it would make it easier to get the answers
he was looking for. It made his dark yellow eyes seem even larger.

“Thank you,”
the man said. Blake almost felt compassion for him but then remembered what was
at stake. The man tried to adjust his position in the chair he was tied to. “So
what can I do for you?”

Once again,
Blake had to remind himself what he was dealing with. “What are you and your
kind building behind the old white church?”

A slow smile
spread across the man’s face. “We are creating a way to communicate with the
creators. We want to let them know that we are here and await their coming with
open arms. They will help us with the final purging of the unclean on this
planet.”

This sent a
chill down Blake’s entire body. He was also surprised that the AB offered up
the information so freely. “And when will this message be sent?”

“We are just
waiting for one last part. It should be here tomorrow – one day to install, and
then the message will be sent.” The man seemed to glow. “I am so honored that I
could be part of all this. There isn’t anything that you can do to stop us. It
is our destiny. We are ready to die for our cause. Can you say the same?”

“Who are the
creators?”

“They are the
ones who created the gift.”