Peace Warrior

PEACE WARRIOR

Steven L. Hawk

Peace Warrior

Copyright © 2010 by Steven L. Hawk

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

First Paperback Edition - July 2010

ISBN-13: 978-1-4528-9166-8

Cover concept and art by the author.

Background cover art by Sabrina C. Kleis

www.SteveHawk.com

This book is dedicated to two of the driving forces in my life:

To my wife, Juanita, for your patience and endurance during the hundreds of hours I spent in front of my PC. You believed in me – even when I didn’t.

And for my Sister, Deb. One of my earliest memories is of you teaching me how to read and write the alphabet. I love and miss you.

PEACE WARRIOR

PROLOGUE

Death was not lonely. He had his thoughts and memories to keep him company.

* * *

“Sergeant Justice? He’s one of the best I’ve ever seen,” he heard his commander, Colonel Bishop, remarking to a huddled group of nodding generals and politicians. Grant halted less than 10 feet from the group and turned quickly away, not wanting to intrude on the private conversation. The VIPs had been observing field maneuvers for more than a week and had just reviewed the final two days of war games in an attempt to learn how Colonel Bishop’s forces had overcome a much larger and better equipped opposing force. The battle scenes were recorded by numerous ground-, aircraft- and satellite-based cameras. All showed the same vivid scenes of Grant leading his men against the enemy.

“I don’t know anyone else who could have pulled out a win under those circumstances,” Grant heard the colonel continue. “Hell, the exercise was designed to have them lose this. . .” Slightly embarrassed by the remarks from the man he admired above all others, he marched quickly away.

* * *

Just another memory
.

He now knew that death was made up of infinite darkness, random thoughts and old memories. There was
awareness
, but that awareness was without a body. There was no touch, no sound. No smell or taste. His consciousness was a dark sea of remembrances; and, with a few exceptions, he allowed the sea to carry him as it wished. The sea was not overly large. Its boundaries were the borders of his mind. Its waves were the recollections of his thirty-two years.

Even now, after what seemed like an eternity of death, he occasionally stumbled upon a new memory. When that happened, he viewed it in his mind and studied it for every detail. Then, certain that he had recalled it to the best of his ability, he filed it away. He no longer gorged himself as he had in the beginning, replaying each new recollection over and over and over. Now, he stored them away like precious possessions – treasures to be taken out and viewed only when the dark walls of death pressed closest, seeking to finally extinguish the flickering remnant of his existence.

He understood he could not remain aware forever. At some distant point, he would relent – allow the void to crush the thin eggshell of his awareness. But understanding is not the same as conceding and, for now, he fought.

He fought with memories.

And the one he always came back to – the one he visited most often – was the memory of his death…

* * *

The receiver buzzed noisily as the outpost radioed in.

“…geant Justice, this…” the transmission was garbled badly. “… your wa… can you see…”

Justice looked at Sean Taylor, the young corporal lying in the snow next to him. The soldier, a six month veteran to the team who had proved his abilities time and again over those few months, also had a receiver in his ear. A shake of the corporal’s head indicated that he had not heard the transmission any better.

“Damn,” Justice muttered. The sub-zero temperature was severely fucking with their reception. And this was not a good time for fuck ups. Grant cursed the supply sergeant who had issued his team the older, less reliable sets and asked the soldier on the other end, a buck sergeant and a tested veteran, to repeat his last transmission.

For the effort, he received more static.

For a mission this important, you’d think they could find us something manufactured in this century
, he thought. Instead, the communications officer had issued them forty-year old voice activated radios that only worked half of the time under normal conditions. And the blowing snow and frigid cold surrounding the team were far from normal.

Check that,
he corrected.
The snow and cold used to be far from normal.
Even though they were just north of the imaginary boundary that defined the Arctic Circle, Justice knew these conditions were once uncommon for mid-August. Not so much anymore. For the past ten years, the world’s climate had grown quickly and progressively colder. The average annual temperature had dropped more than 5 degrees over that span of time. To a soldier like Justice, that didn’t seem like a lot, but he knew that scientists were concerned. Sixty years earlier, scientists had argued relentlessly about the possibility of global warming. Now, all they argued about was the ever-present cold fronts, decreasing temperatures and the expansion of ice flows moving south. Some argued that the next ice age was upon them. Others countered that this was just a temporary meteorological blip caused by
yadda-yadda-yadda
. At this moment, Justice didn’t care. All he knew was that the weather was an obstacle for him and his team.

The briefing Sergeant Justice’s team received from the unit’s intelligence officer, a younger-than-usual-looking first lieutenant who was rapidly becoming known throughout the brigade for his faulty analysis and missing data, informed them that a heavily armored European Front column was headed their way. If the intelligence was correct, the fission powered tanks and personnel carriers should be passing through this mountain pass any time now, and Justice had a gnawing suspicion that it was getting close. Perhaps that was the info the garbled transmission was trying to pass along. He cursed silently and peered down along the road trying to make out anything in the blowing snow.

His team, or what was left of it after two years of action on the front, had a hard-won reputation for success. They had been given this latest mission of slowing down – stopping, if possible – the armored column. They had been helo’d onto the mountain three days ago, a day before the blizzard set in, and had been waiting for the enemy ever since. Waiting is never easy for a soldier, but it takes on a hellish quality when it happens under extreme conditions that sap the strength and concentration from even the toughest men. And a blizzard is about as extreme as it gets.

In view of the missions they had been drawing lately, Justice had given considerable thought to how long they could remain effective as a fighting team. The odds were high, and had been for some time, that they would eventually bite off more than they could chew, and even money was on it happening sooner rather than later. Grant had recently heard rumors of bets being taken on when they would get their asses chewed up. Normally, it was the kind of thing that Justice would shrug off as inane gossip, started by troops who had too much time on their hands, but lately he had begun to wonder if there might actually be some truth to the rumors. He and his soldiers kept getting sent to the middle of no-fucking-where with instructions to shoot up every-fucking-body.

But his team always performed well and, so far at least, had always made it back from the abyss. They were usually down a few men, but they always returned having dished out much more pain than they had received. This assignment was different. At least it felt different to the veteran fighter. Other than the element of surprise they held, which was not a minor card, the deck was stacked heavily against them in just about every other way. At twenty-six men, they were down to half of their normal fighting strength, which had led him to insist on double rations of ammo for every man. They were also fifteen miles behind the enemy’s front line, freezing their balls off in single digit temperatures, and about to face off with a heavily armored column of the enemy’s latest and greatest weapons and vehicles. In other words, they were in one hell of a shitty situation, and the entire team knew it.

Maybe those clowns back at the Division HQ do have a few bucks riding on this
, he thought.
Fuckers
.

“LP One, this is Sergeant Justice. Say again, over.”

He thanked God and the Army that the radios were encrypted at least. He couldn’t imagine encoding messages in this weather.

After a few more failed attempts, he spoke to the corporal next to him.

“Tay, go see what’s up.”

Justice could tell that Taylor did not enjoy the thought of making his way through a quarter mile of frozen terrain. The young infantryman did not hesitate, though. Like the rest of the team, he was a good soldier. An order was an order and the only way to get through with the task was by beginning it.

Again, Justice thanked the higher powers. This time he thanked them for the men that he led. Unlike the equipment and the assignments, only the best recruits were assigned to his team and he had a final say on who stayed and who didn’t. If they excelled in every task, they stayed. If not, well… All prospective candidates knew the rules and it was a distinction within the Democratic Federation Army to belong to Grant’s hand-picked team. The division commander, upon hearing about the team’s series of successes, had once made an off handed remark in a staff meeting that the team fought like a group of hell’s own warriors when up against the enemy. Word of the comment had spread and, for months after, the team’s informal name was Hell’s Warriors. Their commander, Colonel Bishop, liked the moniker so much, he petitioned the Army to make it an official recognition. It was eventually approved.

At first, Justice was ambivalent to the name and never used it, but those soldiers who were good enough to be on the team embraced it wholeheartedly. They quickly began tattooing the words across various parts of their bodies. Within weeks, a strict code had been established among the team that allowed only those who had been with the team longer than six months to get the words inked into their skin. Soon after that, the preferred location for its placement became the outside of the right calf, and that was made the “official” location by the veterans.

In deference to their leader, the members of Hell’s Warriors incorporated a scale of justice as a key component of the tattoo. Above the scale, in an arch, the word “Hell’s” was written in black. In a reversed arch beneath the scale, the word “Warriors” was placed. Those veterans who already had a tattoo on another part of their body went back under the needle and had a second, official version done. It fostered esprit de corps and gave newer recruits a goal for which to strive. In sum, it provided a positive foundation that helped the team train harder and fight better.

Sergeant Justice saw the benefits of the practice and quietly allowed it to occur. Finally, one night after a few beers, and at the insistent urgings from his team’s veterans, he marched himself into the local tattoo parlor and sat down for his own “Hell’s Warriors” tattoo. He wore it with pride and thought of his team every time he saw it.

Justice fought off the urge to let his mind wander and focused on the task at hand. He passed word down the line to be alert. He had a feeling that the listening post’s last transmission had to do with their intended target. Corporal Taylor should be back soon and he reviewed their position and plan while he waited.

Their ambush position was classic. With the exception of the outpost, they were dug in on a ridge line less than a hundred feet above a narrow, half-mile stretch of winding mountain road. The tanks would be traveling along the road below from right to left on their way to the front. The plan was to allow the column to pass below until the lead vehicle reached the furthest man in the ambush line. When that happened, they would spring their attack and, with luck, be able to knock out most of the lead vehicles and block the road to the rest of the column before having to haul ass to the pick up zone a mile away. With more luck, the weather would allow their transport to actually be there when they needed it.

The road was a thin two-lane, and on the far side of the winding blacktop below them the mountain fell off sharply in a two-hundred foot drop. At the bottom of that cliff-like drop was a deep mountain lake that stretched for more than a mile on either side of the ambush point. A thick layer of ice, still evident despite the time of year, covered the lake. If the team succeeded in blocking the road below, there would be no way for the vehicles in the rear of the column to go around easily. They would have to halt until the road was cleared. But Justice and his men had no intention of being around for that exercise. Once their job was done, they would hightail it to the pick up point and hope their ride was waiting when they got there.

Justice was playing out this scenario in his head when one of those heavy tanks appeared on the road below. The large grey goliath seemed to rise quietly out of the snow. The gusting mountain winds muted what little noise the tank’s nuclear-powered engine made. The silence of the vehicle made it seem even more deadly to Justice.

“FLASH! FLASH! Enemy tank approaching.”

Sergeant Justice passed the sighting along to the other men down the line, alerting them to the approaching column. He hoped his transmissions were not garbled by the weather.

“It is passing my position now. Okay, fellas, let’s do this thing just like we planned. Hold your fire until Sgt. Macon torches the number one tank, then give ‘em hell.”

The familiar surge of adrenalin kicked in as the instructions were passed along. Sgt. Macon was his best missile gunner and the farthest man along the ambush line to his left. He was positioned roughly a quarter of a mile along the ridgeline, and Justice knew that, even if he had not heard the transmission, he would be ready.

The column passed below the team quietly, but quickly. The second tank in the column had a plowing device attached to its front and was easily pushing the 18 inches of snow aside. Justice knew the tanks did not need the road plowed, but the smaller, support vehicles that would follow did. He also knew that the enemy had to be feeling somewhat exposed on the small dual-lane road. After all, it was a great place for an ambush.

Justice wondered why there had been no further transmissions from the listening post as he counted the vehicles below and waited for Corporal Taylor to return. The vehicles were spaced closely together and he smiled at their first turn of luck on this mission. The closer they were spaced, the more his team could torch before having to bug out. He sighted onto each vehicle as it came into view, wanting to hit the one that was the furthest back in the column as possible. He knew it could not be much longer before Sgt. Macon took out the first tank. When that happened, it was up to Grant to take out the one in the rear-most visible position. As the team’s leader, he always assigned himself an important role in the mission. It was an act that his team noticed and respected. He never asked his men to do something that he was not also prepared to do. “Lead by example” was his personal credo.