Warzone: Nemesis: A Novel of Mars (34 page)

I have the utmost confidence that you will command our men with strength and honor. I’ve recommended you for post commander to GEN Spears. Thank you for being my friend. SEAL out.”

COL SEAL’s family thought that he was still a Navy SEAL on SEAL Team Two and that he was still doing work on Earth that he couldn’t talk about. They lived in Taos, New Mexico. His mother, both sisters and their husbands had a business together that sold authentic Navajo turquoise and silver jewelry, baskets, paintings, blankets and rugs. Jannalee and her mother were weavers and Victoria painted Navajo life in oil and pastels. Other items, like pottery and baskets were made by other Navajos and sold on consignment. Their husbands, Joseph Tso and Jimmy Bluehorse worked as silversmiths, making all the silver and turquoise jewelry.

I’d have to collect all of his unclassified personal belongings to transport them home. An ASDC officer would take the things to one of our lawyers to execute his will. All pictures of him on Mars would be excluded, of course. There were plenty of old unclassified navy photos which we could send to his family for keepsakes. I’d have to clean out his quarters and box up his personal possessions. I couldn’t put it off for long, but his quarters haunted me with an eerie, surrealistic presence. It was like opening a grave that my mentor would never have. I felt like a ten year-old boy, with eyes wide as saucers, hands in his pocket, whistling as he walked past a graveyard and telling himself that everything was all right. But everything was not all right. I knew that I would not ask someone else to do something so personal. Uneasily I rushed through the chore of packing up his belongings, and then quickly vacated the room and returned to my office.

I wrote a letter of condolence to his mother and sisters and added them to the personal effects to be shipped. My mood needed to be lightened; an inspection was just the distraction I needed. Maybe I had just lost my best friend, but I hadn’t lost my
only
friend. Chief Wolverine had befriended me as a junior pilot and was one of my closest friends. I walked down to the hangar deck to check on progress. The Chief was in his usual position, his lanky frame crawling under the console of a tank, with an adjustment tool in his hand.

“Hey Chief, how’s progress?”

“Sir, be ready in a couple hours, sir.” The sadness in his eyes was not just empathetic—he felt the loss, too.

“Then your men will have time to clean up before the service.”

“Yes sir, we’ll all be there.” It was important that the spirit of heaviness that shrouded the post be dispelled.

“Very well, carry on,” I said as I departed.

COL SEAL’S MEMORIAL SERVICE

NINETEEN HUNDRED HOURS

The chapel was packed out at nineteen hundred as MAJ Intercessor brought words of comfort to the men. He delivered a message on a man’s legacy. It touched each of us deeply as the chaplain expounded on how every man leaves something of himself behind in the good he imparts to other men.

Following the chaplain’s message, I told stories of how COL SEAL had impacted my life and that it truly had been an honor to serve under him. I also expounded on the theme of COL SEAL’s life: duty, honor, discipline and courage. I concluded my eulogy and nodded to the bugler and honor guard. The bugler, in his dress uniform and white gloves, was cradling the bugle against himself as though it was a sacred object. He solemnly stepped forward and blew taps. The sound of it was as mournful as a mother bereft of her child. The honor guard of eight men led by Chief Wolverine, fired three volleys of blanks outside of the chapel. There was perfect silence while the shots were being fired and I knew that tomorrow they would be ready. The service was concluded with a prayer. MAJ Intercessor sought a word with me afterward, but I avoided him. What I intended to do had no room for the voice of reason or a conscience.

I stopped MAJ Ricochet in the hall after the service was over. “Major?”

“Sir?”

“In the morning after breakfast, send the usual two squads on patrol. Here is a list of pilots that I want to remain behind to form up two squads. Have the men on that list in my ready room at zero nine hundred.”

“Sir, yes sir.”

I ate breakfast alone in my quarters and lingered over a second cup of tea, contemplating the merits of the plan I had concocted. It was risky, but I believed it would work, I finally decided. I arrived exactly at zero nine hundred to find all the men I had requested were already there.

“Attention!” ordered MAJ Ricochet.

I returned their salutes. “At ease, gentlemen. Please have a seat.”

MAJ Ricochet was now my right-hand man and second-in-command, even though neither of us had yet been officially promoted. There were two long tables in my ready room, one for senior officers and one for junior ones. Since I only had two squads in attendance, only one table was needed, each man seated according to rank. COL SEAL’s death had moved me from the first officer’s place on the camp commander’s right, to my new place at the head of the table. MAJ Ricochet was now occupying my old seat.

“First I want to thank the sweeper team for quick completion of the task assigned. I also hope to convince you that I am still in command of all my faculties.” There were some smiles over that remark, but they were fleeting as the mood soon became serious again. “I have a practical purpose for taking the enemies’ heads. So here is what we’re going to do…”

I dismissed the meeting with orders to deploy in one hour. Following the briefing, MAJ Ricochet requested a meeting with me. Since my ready room was cleared, I closed the door to hear him out. As my acting first officer and oldest friend, he had my ear in a way no one else did.

“Colonel, may I speak freely?”

“You may.”

“This plan is madness.”

“The plan is to feign madness, which is quite sane.” He was not quite sure.

“You quote often from
The Art of War
. May I offer you a passage to consider?”

“Go on.”

“I quote, ‘If you want to feign weakness to induce haughtiness in opponents, first you must be extremely strong, for only then can you pretend to be weak’. Du Mu,
The Art of War
. Weakness is both physical and mental, so building on that thought, let me expound further.”

“I’m listening.”

“Following that line of reasoning, you have to be extremely sane to feign madness. Are you extremely sane?”

MAJ Ricochet was my closest friend and right-hand man. His job was to view any risky plan with skepticism, and he played that part faithfully. I was mindful of the scripture that said; “faithful are the wounds of a friend.” Proverbs 27:6

“I’m quite sane, and the plan is good, but I appreciate your concern. Will that be all?”

Seeing that I would not be swayed from my course, he relented. “No sir, but I want to go on record that I opposed this plan as unnecessarily dangerous. I strenuously disagree with your plan to play “staked goat.”

“The record will show that you have disagreed, quite strenuously. And Tobias?”

“Sir?”

“If you had not voiced your opinion, I would have been disappointed. Is that all?”

“Sir, yes sir.”

“Then you’re dismissed.”

At the appointed time, I met the men at the hangar deck. “You all know what to do, let’s do it.” We all passed through the last transitional airlock of the hangar deck and proceeded north. At a fork in the trail, my wingman CPT Dutchman and I proceeded farther north and the rest of the patrol split and continued north by northeast. We observed radio silence as we traveled northward. We planned to intercept the Soviet patrol where they swung the furthest point from their post and the closest to ours. I was to go forward while the others went to the predetermined destination.

It was time for my wingman to leave me and go meet the others. He hesitated, and then flew ahead. We had a discussion earlier where he tried to allow me to have him stay with me throughout the next part of the plan, and I told him no. I said it wouldn’t work any other way, and I needed everyone else at this point off enemy radar. I wouldn’t have a wingman that wouldn’t have protested this plan. If there were any slip-ups, I could be killed. Now was the time to find out if I was
sane enough
to feign madness.

I proceeded to the intersection point. My radar showed eight ships coming directly at me from due west. I estimated that I would be outside weapons range for about ninety seconds. My heartbeat quickened, and I got my breathing under control and focused on the task ahead. Quickly I hopped out of my tank with the box I’d packed and emptied it on the ground. All five heads of the dead Soviet pilots rolled out. I’d seen bodies on the battlefield and in the morgue, but the sight of the severed heads was obscene and disturbing. I broke off my gaze and remembered that I didn’t have the time to study our handiwork. After hastily jumping back into my tank, I took off at full speed. After firing several quick sprays at the group of ships with my mag cannons, I took off like a scalded dog due east.

LTC Matulevich couldn’t believe his good fortune. The American dog was alone, and he looked as if he were crazy, drunk or stupid—or maybe even all three. Matulevich was already on a fast track for promotion after personally killing COL Squid, having made the very short list of Soviet officers who had killed an American command officer. At first he had thought it a bad thing that the American first officer survived the assassination attempt, but today he had the opportunity to kill his second American commander. With the war effort going against them since COL SEAL took over, it was easy to play on that fool Kiknadze’s fears and manipulate him to launch an assassination squad against the American commander and his first officer. Kiknadze alone bore the decision for breaking the accord: he faced the backlash of the Americans and the political fallout from the Soviet central command alone. He had moved Kiknadze like a pawn on a chessboard and soon he would be in command. Now he could either kill or capture alive the new American commander. Never before had they taken an American commander prisoner. This would further enhance his reputation but would also be credited to his own commander. As much as he wanted to capture him alive and torture him for intelligence, he would not share the credit with Kiknadze. He would kill the American. For Matulevich was loyal to Matulevich.

“This is Sub Colonel Matulevich. We will overtake the American. Do not attack him. I want to kill him myself.”

1LT Daniil Ryzhkov sighed. The honor of killing the American would go to the first officer—again.

My radar showed the enemy ships stopped where I dropped the heads. They hesitated briefly before resuming course at increased speed, attempting to overcome me. I started flying slightly erratically to give the illusion of being either drunk or insane. My instruments showed that they were flying at maximum speed and were probably mad as hornets. This wouldn’t be a good time for engine failure. I was thankful Chief Wolverine was good and thorough. They followed me about thirty-eight kilometers to a place of my own choosing.

We neared an opening that was a narrow defile about sixty meters across with shadows heavy against the rock walls. I neared the preplanned location and begin to slow down, turning completely around and engaged my reverse thrusters. Finally arriving at my prearranged
spot
, I threw out a splinter mortar in front of the lead tank, continuing at full speed in reverse. The mortar caused all of them to stop while it spun in front of the group, throwing fifty caliber projectiles in all directions. The payload of the splinter mortar was constructed of alloy-x shrapnel, propelled outwardly by four small successive mag bomb explosions as the mortar bounced and spun off of the ground like a whirling dervish. Suddenly out of the shadows, all ten of our tanks threw out splinter mortars, surrounding the Soviet tanks’ group with the spinning
death wheels
. The mortars surrounded the enemy tanks, inflicting damage while effectively cutting off their escape. My men and I were charging up our mag cannons while the Soviets were dealing with the mortars. Just as the splinter mortars stopped throwing projectiles; all ten American ships discharged their deadly purple balls of energy toward their targets. The ground shook as all eight tanks exploded in a deafening roar. The mag charge that hit the tank closest to me ripped off its hull like peeling an orange. It took a minute for the smoke and fire to subside so we could count the enemy survivors.