Chapter One "Vasquez, take put those guards, Bastion, go around back and find a good sniping position"Kennedy said," I'm going to plant the charges sir""Negative Kennedy. Bastion has been sitting in a bush for three days and he knows the guard shifts. You're with me instead." He understood. They all did. That was our jobs as SEALs and my team was the best damn team in the US. I'm their leader, lieutenant first-class Matthew Spillman. Our mission: destroy the weapons facility and take out terrorist leader Victor Petrenko. Vasquez and Kennedy followed me to Petrenko's location, they stayed outside though, in case we had visitors. I finally found his room. He was standing there with a glass of champaign. Right when I pulled out my Barretta M9, he said," Ah, Mr.Spillman, how nice of you to come. You're late though.""How do you know my name?" A voice behind me answered instead." It's easy to know when you have someone who told." I quickly turned around. There was Bastion with Vasquez's and Kennedy's dogtags in hand."Why Bastion?You sold out your own team!" He chuckled."Because I'm tired of working for one peron. I'm broadening my employers, starting with Mr. Petrenko. He hired me to kill you guys." I foolishly turned away from Petrenko and aimed at Bastion. Before I could squeeze the trigger, Petrenko had a gun to my head. I was outgunned, outnumbered, and betrayed....but I wasn't outsmarted. I put ten things of C4 all around this building. I quickly took out the detonator and pressed the it. All I remembered is my ears exploding and me being dragged by somebody. I was unconscious the next second.
I awoke hearing the sound of helicopter blades. I looked up and saw one person at the controls. It was an old friend of mine."Poseidon, how the hell have you been?" He answered with a grin."Better than you apparently. You must have gone crazy exploding a building with yourself in it. Not too smart on your part." "What can I say, I was desperate." Me and Poseidon go back to the early days, since our SEAL training. The difference was that he was better than me and got recruited into a secret military branch that almost nobody knew about. Next thing he knows, he's doing special ops all over the world, including Iraq, Afghanistan, and even Siberia. This is the first time I've seen him in over five years."I can see that Spillman, so what happened back there?" "We were betrayed by Bastion" He replied with,"I never liked that basterd. He was more mercenary than SEAL." I just sat there for a second. Me and Bastion have been on the same team for over six years. How could he just sell us out like that? I was interrupted when Po said "We're here,buddy." "Where?" "Welcome to the USS Ronald Reagan."
The USS Ronald Reagan, a Nimitz class aircraft carrier fueled by nuclear power. It was able to be at sea without refueling for over 30 years. "Haven't been here for along time. Is Pease still in charge here?" "Ask him yourself, Matt" I looked down to see an old friend, Admiral Dylan Pease, commanding officer of the Reagan. As we started our descent, I noticed a
an unknown person there beside him. When we landed, both me and Poseidon got out of the chopper and saluted our old teacher. "Admiral Pease, nice to see you again." He answered gruffly "The same to you Spillman. Sorry about your team." I was gonna ask him how he knew that but I didn't. "You shouldn't be sorry, but when I get my hands on Bastion, he'll be the one sorry..." He stopped me right there. "Before you try to get your vendetta, we need you." "For what?" He answered with a sigh."The North Koreans...they've taken the south."
Before I could check out my burns and wounds, me, Poseidon, Pease, and the others were hurrily going down the metal corridors of the Reagan. "When did this happen, Pease? When I left for the mission, I didn't recall the North attacking the South on the tv or news." Pease turned around and said, "They attacked hours after you left. The invasion lasted a mere two hours." "How the hell did they do it so fast." This time he stopped completely."They used American weapons. M4s, Abram tanks, F-16s, you name, they used it." We continued walking down the hallway."So I'm going in but sir, last time I checked, I needed a team." "We'll get to that later, Spillman. For now, we need to do a little interigating." I looked confused for a moment."Who sir?" He opened the door to the holding sells and there sat our prisoner. I started smiling."Petrenko, long time no see."
There he was, just sitting there pretending to be asleep. He looked just as bad as me with the burns and bruises, except he smelled like vodka while I smelled like a Saturday afternoon BBQ. I sat down at the chair opposite of him. There was also a crewman behind me with a large water bottle. I started the talking."Petrenko, how's it been buddy?" He slowly turned his head at me."Go to hell, you American basterd!" When he said that, I could smell the liquor from his breath from the other side of the table. I then took out a towel out of my pocket. He then looked concerned."I'm gonna guess you know what I'm about to do."He then answered calmly,"I am no stranger to interrogation and torture techniques. I will not be broken easily." When I heard this, I felt like a little kid at a birthday party."Good, 'cause I'm gonna enjoy this." Two Hours Later... After Chinese water torture, bamboo shoots in his fingernails, and even making the faucet leak to drive him crazy, he finally cracked."Yankee asshole, come here." He then whispered everything we needed. I then turned to leave but I was stopped by Petrenko."он ь корее, то ь корее." I grinned and left the room. Pease immediately asked me what he said. I responded with,"Bastion's in Korea."
Chapter 6 After I went to the doctor to get patched up, I went to an empty room and slept for about ten hours. When I woke up I looked at my watch and noticed it was twelve at night. So I started walking around my temporary home. Went to the mess hall and surprisingly found it still open, I guess in case someone wanted a midnight snack. I got some fried chicken with a side of sweet potatoes. I then noticed that I wasn't the only person in there. It was the same guy who was standing next to Pease on the ship's deck. I went over and sat down. He started talking first. "Mr.Spillman, I would care to eat my dinner alone." "After you answer my question." He stopped eating. "And that would be..?" "Who are you and how are you involved in this?" "I'm General Marquis Powell. I was assigned by the the president to help you in the following conflict." That changed my view of him just then. I expected him to be another suit-wearer who was going to boss us around while we were on the mission. "I'm guessing you're coming with us." "That's correct." Ok what I figured out so far was that he was both a general and close to the president, and if he was ordered by the president himself, this may be a harder mission than I thought. "Spillman, I know what your trying to do and I'm kind of impressed." He then got up and left. "One more question, I still don't have team for this mission. Who are the others gonna be." He turned and said, "We'll discuss that matter tomorrow morning." I then went back to my room and fell asleep again.
Chapter 7 I woke up at 7am with Poseidon face staring right at me. It startled me at first, but then I noticed he was sleeping with his eyes opened. First time I saw that was in training camp and I scared the hell out of me. I got out of bed and got breakfast. They had nothing special there today, just some cereal and fruit. After I ate, I went to Pease's office and found him and Powell in there. "Morning, Matt. Gen. Powell was just telling me about the mission. Do you know when Po will be up.?" Just as I about to answer, Po barged in. "Yeah yeah, I'm up Pease. So what's with the big war meeting?" "Meeting, Pease?" He then put up a 3-dimensional map of our target. "This is were we are attacking first." It was a village in the Korean mountains and probably home to forty or fifty people. "Why here?" "Because Spillman, they have three mobile SAM sites here and we're going to take them out." It was the oldest trick in the book, they take a town and put either surface-to-air missile systems or SAMs or surface-to-surface missile or SSMs in it so that they can't get bombed out of fear of the attackers causing civilian casualties. "Ok, we take out the SAMs, then we get evaced." "Wrong, Poseidon, unfortunately we're by ourselves on this one. We aren't getting any more reinforcements until we get the South back. That's where you guys come in." Me and Poseidon looked at each other with surprised faces. Poseidon then asked,"Sir, I was told after I helped on Matt's mission, that I would have a two year leave." "I'm sorry Po, but that'll have to wait. You do this and you'll be done for a long time." So you're the teams by the way." Powell then gave us two large piles of files. "You choose." We both got the piles and left the room. I went toward my room while Po went to the cafeteria. I read through over a hundred files, looking at medics, riflemen, snipers, and whatever else was essential to the mission. I got the files at 0830 and got done at 1445. I then went to Pease and handed him five files. "These are the lucky winners, Pease. I need them here by the end of the week."
Chapter Eight Pease started looking at the files. He seemed intrigued and yet concerned. "Ok, you seem to got the basics, sniper, medic, assault team, but one thing surprised me. Some of them are straight out of bootcamp." "The problem being?" "You were the leader of the best SEAL team in the world.Why would you pick a couple of greenhorns to replace your old team.?" "I'm trying to teach future soldiers how to be the best. I picked by experience, skill, and maybe a bit of luck.I'm need them by Saturday." Pease grinned. "I can get 'em Thursday." "Thanks Pease. If you need me I'll be in the gym."
The next few days went by almost smoothly, besides the random storm that knocked us offcourse. The night before the new squad was about to come in, I had a dream of the past. It was mine and Bastion's first mission together. I slowly went back to that day five years ago. Kandahar airfield base, Afghanistan, December 12, 2010 I quickly woke up and got out of the barracks. Today was the first mission that I would be the leader of a team. I readily ate my breakfast and went to the commanding officers office. There I saw General Wonsik at his desk with three soldiers there in front. "Lieutenant Spillman, how are you thus morning?" "Other than a little nervous, I'm great." "Good man. I would now like to introduce you to your new team." He started with the medium sized Latino. "This is Alexander Vasquez. Specializes in close quarters combat and silent takedowns." He then went to a slightly larger black man. " Deron Kennedy. Once a marine. He's your technilogical and demolition man."
He finally stopped at the last man. "This is James Bastion. All around good soldier and excellent sniper." I introduced myself to each of them and together walked to the conference table. "This is your target. We only know her as Gloomi. He's a ex-operative to some highup agency. Agent Poseidon of the same agentcy has been following her for over a month. We know have a definitive location on her. You're to bring here back alive. Am I clear?" we all replied in unison, "SIR YES SIR!". "Know get ready. You leave in an hour
As we entered the Blackhawk, I took notice of the team. Vasquez seemed to listen to music, I'm guessing to calm himself for the fight ahead. Kennedy was looking at a picture of his family, as a reminder of what's waiting for him after this. Bastion...well he was a different story. He checked his weapons two times before we even took off. I either slept or read before I went on a mission. Our pilot told us to get ready as we started our ascent. Our target was a little town that was about fifty miles northwest of the base. As we were flying, I just started asking questions to the team. "So Kennedy, how much you know about computers and stuff like that?" "I went to MIT and joined the military after I graduated. I guess I'm carrying on a tradition because my old man was a marine and his old man was in world war ll." "Interesting, how 'bout you, Vasquez?" He didn't hear me at first because he was still listening to his music. I had to wave my hand in his face to get his attention. "I went to Miami University. Know if you don't mind, I'm going back to my music." I didn't even ask Bastion. He knew what was about to say. "I grew up in Manhatten. Don't need to tell you anything else." Wow, my first day as team leader and I'm already disliked by two of them. Our pilot then interrupted, "Hey guys we're almost there. Start getting your crap together." All of a sudden Vasquez just yell "Finally, let's do this!"
Before we knew it, we were dropped off on a nearby roof. "Far as I can go. Good luck. I'll pick you guys at the evac site at 1800." That gave us two hours to get this done. "Ok men let's go." We started our climb down the building. We looked around each corner, making sure we weren't being followed or ambushed. We walked for about fifteen minutes betweeb the empty clay houses. I then stopped. "Bastion, sniper on the second story house. Take the sh-" Before I could finish, I heard a bullet wiz by my ear and saw the guard go down. "Nice shot, James." We continued into the desolate city. We finally made it to Gloomi's location, an old tea house. There were probably over twenty men just outside alone. "Vasquez, go with Bastion." They then went down the hall to our left. Me and Kennedy both went into position. "Vasquez, how 'bout you ring the doorbell." "My pleasure, sir." At that moment, I saw a grenade go behind a group of men and explode.That's when me and Kennedy started the assault from our side. We took out all the guards outside with ease. "Start phase two of the operation."
"Vasquez,Bastion go in the back way. Kennedy, you and me are front door." I was waiting for Bastion to confirm he was in position when I was suddenly shot at from the roofs. I quickly looked up and nailed him with my M4. Kennedy then said,"If they didn't know we were here before, they do know." I then heard Vasquez on the com-link. "Well it wouldn't be as fun if they didn't know we were coming." "Funny Vasquez. You at the back door yet?" "Yeah yeah we're here. Just tell us when to go." "On three. One...Two...THREE!" At that moment Kennedy threw in a flashbang and we started taking out disoriented targets. We quickly turned over a a couple tables and started firing at the ones just coming to. We then saw a guy with a Saiga-12 shotgun coming down the stairs with guns blazing. That's when we saw Vasquez come out the kitchen and shoot him in the head. "Vasquez, where's James?" We had split up in the kitchen. He went looking for Gloomi." Right after he said that we started hearing shots from upstairs.
We quickly went up the stairs, checking every room before we moved on. When we got to the last room m, there was Bastion with his pistol aiming right at Gloomi. "Damn Bastion, you took out all those guys." "So what if I did? Let's just get her tied up and get to the evac site." "Agree, Kennedy put her in zipties." After he did this, we exited the tea shop and went to our next destination. I looked at the time. "We got ten minutes 'til our pilot touches down." Kennedy answered with sarcasm, "That should be enough time for me to get one of these rugs. These things go for over $200 in the states, but here, you can get one for the price of a jug of milk." "Maybe later, Kennedy, right now we need to take our guest to her ride." We then saw our heli come over the horizon. We put Gloomi in the chopper and saw that there were more soldiers in there who got out as soon as the Gloomi was secured. I asked the pilot, "Who are these guys?" "They're here to eliminate the hostiles in the north part if the town." "Ok just get us back to base." "No problemo." Well our teams first mission and it went by smoothly without a hitch. I looked around and I saw three great soldiers who had done an excellent job. At that moment I woke up from my little flashback and found out it was 0830. "Ah damn it! The new team is arriving soon!"