Extinction (15 page)

Mr. Wilks looked a little
embarrassed, “No, Gunny, I’m just a big military history buff. So why are you
out here at the field?”

“I’m with the special detailing
recruiting office. We look for students who might be more suited for Special Forces
and similar assignments. Out here on the field is where we tend to find those
sorts of kids.” The gunny waved his hand towards the athletes who were warming
up. “Do you think any of these kids might be interested?”

Mr. Wilks thought for a second. “Maybe
a couple. I’ll put them through a bit of a warm-up and let you take a look at
them in action.”

Mr. Wilks called in his group of
athletes and told them that they were going to be putting in a little bit more
of an effort today but he didn’t tell them why. They went through the 5K warm-up
and then the obstacle course. Mr. Wilks was pushing hard today; a few of the
students dropped out, along the way calling him crazy. Then they went on to the
decathlon again, but still pushing it pretty hard.

When they got done, the gunny and
two of his fellow marines walked over. “Very impressive. How would all three of
you like to be Force Recon Marines?”

Mr. Wilks looked around; there
were only two students left at the end of the workout. “Three? Which other
student are you talking about?”

“For a smart guy, you’re pretty
dumb.” The gunny handed the three athletes his business card. “You two will
have to graduate first, but you, sir,” now talking directly to Mr. Wilks, “can
sign up today if you’d like. In fact, I’m sure with your education, you can
probably apply to Officer Candidate School.”

“I don’t want to be an officer. I
want to be in the field more.” Mr. Wilks was absently looking at the business
card.

“Sounds like you already made up
your mind. We can go to my office and fill out the paperwork right now. I can
probably get you started as a corporal after boot camp, given your college
education. Maybe even get you in to a sergeant fast-track program.”

Mr. Wilks was amazed as the words
came from his mouth, almost without permission from his conscious self, “Can
you guarantee me a spot in Force Recon?”

“No”, the gunny said flatly. “But
I can absolutely promise you a shot at trying out for it. You won’t have any
problem getting in to training, I’m sure of that. Staying in and graduating,
that’s your problem.”

“Let’s go.” Mr. Wilks looked back
at his athletes. “I’m sorry, but I can’t stay here any longer. It’s not you,
kids, it’s me.”

One of his favorite students,
Matt Snyder, stepped up. “We know, Mr. Wilks. You should go. You deserve
better.” Matt flicked the corner of the business card in his hand. “I’ll look
you up when I get there.”

“You better.” Wilks walked away
to start his new life.

Dig Site One – A Reunion
of Sorts

When they reached the hole, Emily used
her new link to call the Recon team to her air car. The twelve marines sauntered
over with more ego than she felt would fit down that immense crater. “Staff
Sergeant Wilks and Recon fifth platoon reporting as ordered, ma’am!” he said
with a stiff salute and a hint, no more than a hint, of sarcasm in his voice.

“Wilks, I’m Lieutenant Riley and this is
Sergeant Davies and Doc.” She thumbed in Daria’s direction, whose back was
still to the group. “Doc is my second-in-command and you follow her orders. Is
that understood?”

Emily was becoming more accustomed to a
rank structure, mostly because Daria almost forced her to. When they were alone,
they were on a first-name basis but if anyone came within earshot, Daria either
spoke in a way that allowed her not to use names or said ma’am instead. And at
this moment, Emily knew that this arrogant sergeant needed to know his place
rather than her looking too soft in his hardened eyes.

“Ma’am, with all due respect, she’s a
corpsman and they don’t ever hold a command position unless it’s an emergency
and can’t be avoided.” There were some murmurs of agreement from his men. Emily
was about to respond when Daria walked up to the sergeant.

She had recognized his voice and when
she turned around, she noticed a scar on his right cheek that looked as though
it had come from say, a beer bottle. She knew who he was and could tell that he
hoped that she didn’t. “How’s your dick, sergeant? Is it still dry? Would you
like me to take another look at it for you?”

Emily didn’t quite understand what this
transaction was all about when Davies said to her, “They’re old drinking
buddies. I don’t think Wilks will have a problem with the command structure
you’ve presented him with. Will ya, Wilks?”

“No, no problem. Doc’s in charge, guys,
listen to her as you would me. Got it?” Acceptance was given, if not quietly.
Wilks gave Daria a nod of approval and in part, an apology.

Drunk or not, he knew that he was wrong
that night in the bar and pretty much deserved what he had gotten. Although, he
wished that it hadn’t come from a woman. Based on that incident, he could
respect her command with the knowledge of her abilities that only he and two of
his buddies in the group knew of.

He looked at his two drinking buddies
and noticed that they were rubbing their old wounds that had been inflicted by
Daria so many months before. They also nodded their approval.

Daria nodded back with an implied look
that said, “Don’t worry, I won’t tell them. But you know, and I know, and
that’s enough.“ She didn’t much like Emily’s decision either. Corpsman didn’t
take command because they needed to be free of all responsibilities when the
need arose to take care of wounded. They had to be able to focus on the one
goal of keeping people alive.

But then again, she remembered the day before
once more. If the shit hit the fan, there wouldn’t be anyone left to put
together. So why not be in charge? It would be a nice change.

The first team of six Force Recon
soldiers placed their piston loaded piton devices to the ground two meters back
from the edge of the hole. In unison, they triggered the devices, which shot a
twenty-centimeter long piton spike into the hard rock. Then they attached a two
hundred meter static line to each anchor and walked to the edge and threw the
line out twenty-five meters, allowing it to drop to its full length along the
crater’s wall.

The precision in which they operated
gave Daria confidence in the team. She knew she had to rethink her underlying
feelings about their sergeant. He may be a bad drunk but he sure knew how to
train and command his troops.

The advance team carried twenty pitons
each, along with extra rope and hanging devices. They would descend one hundred
and fifty meters and then set up a breaking station at which point they, and
the teams that followed, could switch to the next line. This would continue
until they reached the bottom of the hole.

The six members turned to one another to
recheck their descent gear and with that complete, casually walked to the edge
and continued walking straight down. An advantage of descending in a forward
position was that you could have your weapon drawn and engage any target that
came from below. Not that anyone thought there were any targets in the hole to
engage, but better safe than sorry.

“Team one is at one hundred and fifty
meters”, the lead corporal reported. “Breaking pitons and slings are set.
Secondary line set. Team one is on secondary line. Team two, proceed with
descent on line one.”

“Team two copies”, Daria said, motioning
to Wilks and Davies. Wilks picked out three more of his unit to join team two.
One of them was a Trizite. His name was, well, unpronounceable. Almost every
non-human language was impossible for a human to speak properly without years
of formal training. As a result, most soldiers from other races got nicknames
or human names that came somewhat close to sounding like their given ones.

This Trizite was called “Scan.” He was
empathic, which meant that he could read emotions of the people around him.
Full-blown telepaths were almost unheard of. Empaths seemed to be common in
many aquatic-based species throughout the Coalition.

Several races that humans encountered
did not use sound-produced speech as much as humans did. Much more posturing
and visual cues were used for communications. Most other species could usually
tell the exact emotional make-up of a human just by watching them for a minute
or two. They said that human emotions were too plain and stood out like a sore
thumb. Scan was an actual empath, so he could tell your emotions just by being
within a certain physical range of a subject. This range varied depending on
the species he was scanning and how strong their mental output was.

Daria was glad to have him along because
he would be able to act like an early warning device if anything was still
alive down there. A lot of empaths could detect presence of life even before a
scanner could.

Scan was short, even by human standards,
standing at one point six meters tall. He had a much denser molecular structure
that brought him to an even two hundred pounds. He was almost as thin as Daria
but his densely packed muscle made him about five times as strong.

Small spikes surrounded both his eyes.
Although they looked incredibly hard and jagged, they were very soft if
touched. Of course, if you touched them, that meant you were about to mate with
the owner of the spikes. It was quite an erogenous zone for the Trizites, which
also made an easy target during a bar fight. A black eye for them would ball
them up as though you had hit a human right in the nuts with a sledgehammer.

Scan wore clear goggles that protected
his spikes from any unwanted contact. His green skin was smooth and adapted for
swimming as eighty percent of his home planet was water. Some Trizite soldiers’
webbing on both hands were surgically reduced so they could use a variety of
human weapons with greater ease. In Daria’s short glimpse of Scan’s hands, she
noticed his webbing looked like it had been traumatically removed. There was a
lot of scar tissue that wouldn’t be present if it had been done correctly.

“Team two, attach rigging and prepare
for descent”, Daria continued. She felt odd giving orders, especially because team
one performed their task without saying a single word to one another. She
guessed that had the Recon team been completing this mission alone, no words
would have been spoken at all. “Team two, descend.”

With that, all six soldiers walked over
the edge with weapons and scanners drawn. The outer two men had weapons and the
inner four used handheld scanners to map the hole and to keep an eye on the
lead team. When team one reached three hundred meters, they repeated the drill
and set up the third line. After they switched to the third line, team two
switched to the second line and called for team three to begin their descent.

“Team three, attach rigging and prepare
for descent”, Emily said, hoping she got it right. The remaining two Force
Recon soldiers saddled up and doubled-checked Emily’s rigging. “Team three,
descend.” The last team all had weapons drawn upon descent. If anything
happened, team one and team three would protect team two, who didn’t have
immediate access to their weapons. They also had equipment stowed on the three
empty lines for the descent into the hole. The trading off of descent lines
continued until they all reached the bottom, two kilometers down.

Once on the ground, six soldiers set up
a perimeter defense while supplies were lowered and put into position. The hole
was close to one kilometer across. Until they had all the supplies down and they
performed a preliminary search, they wouldn’t know whether they descended into
just an empty hole or something else entirely. The smoothness of the rock had
reflected almost all scanning attempts. No one was sure of what they would find
once on the bottom.

Once the main scanning equipment was
unloaded, Daria called Emily and Wilks over to her. “We’ll separate into three,
five-man squads. El-tee will take her team through the center of the hole,
Wilks and I will take our teams around the two edges, and we’ll all meet up
directly on the other side.”

Daria knew that she had to let the sergeant
save some face in front of his men, so this she said a little louder for
everyone to hear, “Wilks, you know your men. Please put together three teams in
whatever way you feel is the best deployment of personnel.”

“Aye, aye, Doc”, he said with a thin
smile of gratitude. “Scan, you go with Doc and Davies on team one. Take Bloom
and Fang with you.” Bloom was already holding a scanning device while Fang was
armed to the teeth with weaponry. As a Shirka, he could hold almost as much
inventory as two human soldiers. “Hood, Martinez, Snyder, and Patz, go with the
el-tee on team two. You other slugs are with me, team three.”

Daria recognized Hood and Martinez as
being the other two marines who were with Wilks that night on Clandestine. “Everyone
will have their comlinks on an open channel so we don’t lose track of anyone.
Team one will take the perimeter to the right and team three will circle to the
left.”