Fast-Tracked And Other Stories

Extraction Point

'Wilcox is dead, soldier! We have to move— now!' Barnes hoists the hunkered Turner then shoves the butt of his assault rifle between the lad's shoulder blades. 'Go!'

A drone drops an air-to-ground missile on Wilcox's corpse. The blinding explosion throws Barnes and Turner through the glass door of Hagerty Tower.

Barnes regains his feet before the dust settles. No time to waste. 'Son, you still with me?' He serenely bends over to remove a blade of shrapnel from his left calf. White noise rings in his ears. He tosses the red shard behind reception with little concern. 'Son?' The young soldier rises from the rubble. He is sooty, singed around the ears and has a hash shaped cut on one cheek (the ladies'll love a scar like that, Barnes thinks), but otherwise, the lad looks right as rain.

'He can't be dead!' Turner picks up where he left off outside. 'He... he's a human battering ram, engineered to kill and protect! He— !' Barnes strides across the wrecked lobby—jagged pain streaks up his leg— and slaps Turner.

'Don't go into hysterics on me, soldier! Wilcox served his purpose— we're still alive, aren't we? His acts are already the stuff of legend.'

'Without Wilcox—'

'We will avenge everyone, Wilcox included. Here,' Barnes unshoulders his field pack and takes out his flask. 'Drink— slowly!— and pull yourself together.'

Barnes snatches the flask back after Turner takes two hungry glugs. 'Collier shouldn't know we are here. Even then, how did he get drones in the sky? You said this is a comms blackout zone.' He bags the flask and reshoulders his field pack.

'It is!' Turner jumps to his own feverish defence. 'No ULS gear is working within twenty miles of Hagerty Tower. All our signals are disabled— are your comms not down, Sergeant Barnes? Looks like we aren't Collier's only arms supplier! ...Or do you think I got Wilcox killed?' He asks limply.

'Nothing of the sort, squirt. Combat scenarios are always changing. The only time anything's gone to plan for me is in the simulator. All we can do is continue with the mission— it won't be long until they clock that there's only one corpse in the rubble.'

With that, Barnes leads the way to the stairs. Injured or not, he doesn't want to go out making his last stand in the elevator shaft. Too risky. He climbs the stairs to the thirty-eighth floor without moaning or stopping for a breather. Trailing him all the way, Turner observes the patch of blood on Barnes' calf grow and grow. By the final flights, the sergeants left bootheel is stencilling bloody semi-circles on the beige carpet.

Finally their ascent is complete. Turner unbuckles his helmet and removes it. 'There should be a first aid kit around here somewhere. We need to get a bandage on you.'

'There's no time for such niceties. I'll kick back with a bag of B-type after. Get your tools ready because I'm going to have that door blown off its hinges in a jiffy, then you're up, kid.'

The data farm spans the entirety of the thirty-eighth floor. Collier opting to hide his intel in plain sight at Hagerty Tower is so very, well, Collier. He'd have been snuffed out years ago if he'd acted predictably.

Turner wires in his laptop. 'I'm in. Low security. He wasn't expecting us, sir.'

'Good.'

Barnes sets remote charges on a window.

Soft thuds above them. The young soldier's eyes flick to the ceiling but, mercifully, the intent expression doesn't leave his face and he keeps pecking the keyboard. It's Collier's troops, they're sweeping the building from top to bottom. Barnes doesn't like it. He didn't expect Collier to get boots on the ground this quick. He is prepared to blow floor thirty-eight to high hell if it comes to it, but their mission is to bring the intel home.

'Soldier, do you believe Jesus is alive?'

Turner stops typing to run a shaking hand through his cropped hair. 'With all due respect, what does that have to do with the price of bread?' Then: 'Sir, do you even know my name?'

'Listen to me, soldier. He survived death. How do I know? Think about it, who does everyone and their granny cry out to in their time of need? That's right— Jesus. He collected scars for them, just like Wilcox bled greatness for the free world, and just like you and me have done, as well. They will never understand what we've gone through but you can be certain they will never let us die, soldier. Your name will never die.'

'Maybe a god can do that... but us? Me?' A tear cleans a line down Turner's uncut cheek. 'Are you saying this is it for us?'

'What I'm saying, Turner, is that you are going to finish your work, I am going to start the timer on this plastique, and then we are getting out of Dodge. History will look after the rest.'

After that, it all happens very rapidly. Collier's men come in like gangbusters. Barnes and Turner's only advantage is that Collier has ordered his troops not to damage the mainframes. 'Kid, wrap it up.'

'Another second.'

'Leave it. Engage evac plan. I've got your six, now move it or lose it.'

Turner pockets the data sticks and abandons the terminal. It is the only thing he's been good for on this mission and now it is over.

Barnes has two final tricks up his wily old sleeve— he lobs smoke grenades impartially down the aisles, then detonates an EMP. Confusion mushrooms through Collier's men as their augment gear flickers offline and they lose their bearings in the smoke. It gives Barnes and Turner the reprieve they need to escape through the blown-out window and glide away. Battered and bleeding, they are home free if they can reach the extraction point.