They sat there in silence for almost an hour. Just the presence of one another worked as medicine to all wounds for both.
Gillian stood up: “We’re having outdoor training tomorrow. Finally outside again. I think I need to sleep some more for it and I suggest you do too. We’re a team and we need to be ready. Will you walk me back to my room?” John accompanied her to her door. There she looked in his gray eyes, she was four or five inches smaller than him so she needed to look up a bit: “Remember you don’t have to take all hits for me I’m a big girl I can handle a few.” John smiled: “OK, good night big girl.” She smiled too when she closed the door. He walked to his cell still feeling her arms around him. He washed his face and brushed his teeth. It took him seconds to fall asleep. Instead of nightmares or blank dreams he dreamed about Gillian. How she might look in sunlight? He will see tomorrow.
Chapter 2 – Angels of death
Night before action is always difficult. You can’t sleep, adrenaline racing through your veins. You sweat thinking about what might happen. Your mind running through every possible scenario. You are trying to relax but you can’t. He was going to be XO (second in command) today. Fourteen days out outside on stealth-recon mission on fresh air and with Gillian. And no guards looking all the time. Finally some privacy and freedom. They can try to breach the Fence. Looked like perfect two weeks. He read mission briefing on his computer hundreds of times tonight, so did everyone else.
5:00AM. Time to get up and running. Usually good and big breakfast preparing them for next ten hours of walking, running and digging in. Everyone was nervous, he could see that, even hear that from chatter around him. Then he slowly walked to the armory. There was a long table with equipment and two people in there. Armory master James, tough ex-SEAL in his forties repairing broken machine gun and subject Alpha checking weapons and supplies. When he entered James stood up: “You are early here Stump, preparation starts in two hours.” John had more interesting plans than waiting around: “I’m going to spend some time on the shooting range.” As he passed through doors to shooting range James followed him saying: “I must see this. Hey Alpha, you not coming?
John was the best marksman here it was reward for countless hours spend on shooting range. He enjoyed the challenge of hitting long distance targets. He picked up his favorite M39 EMR and enough ammo. When he was ready he pushed button to start. Targets popped up. No matter if they were close or far away, moving or behind cover he picked them one by one, one perfect head shot after another. With help of his brain implants and newly installed Aim assist, projecting trajectory of each shot, it was easy. After an hour he left shooting range with new accuracy record. James wrote this record on the blackboard in armory: “240 rounds fired, 240 head shots, don’t screw with Sb. Beta.”
Time to prepare for mission. John took his body armor, checked pistol, mounted ACOG sight on his M4A1 and synched it to his system. Then M107 sniper rifle. He weighted 50.cal round in his hand when someone laid hand on his shoulder: “That’s gonna hurt, hope you can see the bad guys.” Subject Alpha-Tom, John’s second best friend in here. Tom always looked serious, but he liked jokes: “Hey listen up! Everyone here knows that… uh… you and Gillian have a thing, you know what I mean. If you two want some time alone just say it, we can finish it without you.” John noticed something in his face. Is Tom nervous? “Ask Gillian.” Tom’s eyes filled with obvious desperation: “I already asked. She… agreed.” That small pause revealed him. John sighed: “You dirty little liar. You asked her, but she said no.” Tom lifted his hands in surrender: “Damn it! How can you know that just from my face? How can you know that she said no?” John smiled: “I know you long enough to know when you tell me lie and I know that Gillian would never accept something like this. And I can’t ignore her standing right behind you.” Tom walked away with his hands still raised in surrender. Gillian’s eyes looked tired: “Duty first, isn’t it. I will never like these sleepless nights. How do you handle it?” Tom and few others were watching them. “I got used to it. I think about you. What if something happens to you? What if you die? Life here might be violence and more violence, violence anytime, in any form. You are everything I have, you are my light here. That keeps me alive.” She smiled: “That’s nice of you. I hope you are ready. I wanted to mention that while you was entertaining James I stole some real ammo.” John wanted to hug her and then hug her again… but he had to control himself in front of others. On training missions they always used training rounds but she always managed to smuggle out some real ammo for them. Just for emergency situations or to have some fun. She was somehow reading his thoughts, maybe she could see it on his face: “You can hug me later when no one is looking.” Her smile was priceless. John was certain that he is melting inside.
When they were ready they assembled near the hangar door to wait for C-130 Hercules to pick them up. Doors finally opened, revealing open loading ramp of giant, dark colored plane with four turboprop engines. They loaded in silence. Twenty soldiers slowly walked into the plane. John stopped for a second to watch the sunrise.
Engines roared to life. During flight many of subjects prayed to their gods. John never prayed because there was no god he believed in. There was just Death everywhere. Instead of prayers he cleaned his rifle. It gave him power to take life. With it he could end this complicated game of nature. It was the greatest power he knew of. Some may say that he is ruthless. But he isn’t, he is just trying to survive.
One of the pilots came down and shouted: “Two minutes!” Everyone stood up, made final check of his or her gear. Ramp opened revealing sky behind. Soldiers started to jump out, two at the time. John pressed radio button on his helmet:
“Overlord, this is Dragon 2-1. Angel fall complete. I repeat, all packages are on the ground, over.” He heard uncommon static. Jammers? Frequency adjustment may be necessary. Command finally replied: “Copy that all 2-1. Proceed with mission.” He took a running jump through open ramp. His parachute opened automatically.
Landing went well, he landed on a plain near ridge line where they had to set up observation post. When he managed to bury his parachute under the sand he started to look for Gillian. That was easy task because she landed only few hundred meters south of him. She was covered with asphalt: “I fell into a natural asphalt, quite mess. Don’t ask how I crawled out.” John helped her clean her clothes. Then they moved towards ridge line to settle in.
“2-1 be advised, enemy patrol coming your way from north. Two hostiles and vehicle, confirmed heavy weapons. Recommend you to evade, over.” John looked north and saw jeep heading south. He crouched and raised his left fist. Vehicle stopped, two men jumped out and started to observe their surroundings with binoculars. John fell prone: “Hit the deck!” After hour John and Gillian still laid motionless. John started to slowly crawl towards two soldiers: ”Looks like these guys aren’t going anywhere. I’ll take them out, you will cover my six.” John slowly and quietly drew his pistol and approached two enemies from back. Two quick shots with tazer round took down the first one. John grabbed other one’s throat, threw him on the ground and finished him with a shot. “Yeah, now turn around boy and throw your weapon away!” That words echoed in his head like train, there was no one else. He threw pistol away and turned face to new threat.