Ch 121 Intelligence Services (Patreon)

Edited

Chapter 121

Intelligence Services

The assault pilot, Freya decided, was still a jackhole as the crush of bodies finally swayed away from her. The jackhole had taken the last turn pretty hard, and the marines in the back all got slammed into the side of the bulkhead. The same bulkhead that she and Monkeyman had been resting up against. She was not hurt, but that was only because her armor protected her. She turned towards the camera and gave it the finger. As if in response to her hand gesture the ship bounced pretty hard as it landed. Cursing under her breath, Freya rubbed her knees as the ramp to the back of the assault ship slowly lowered.

“Listen up, people.” Kruz said over the radio. “We got a debrief incoming. Play nice with the spooks, because after this we are getting shipped off this Tom-damned planet for a few days. Magic, Monkeyman, wait one. I need to speak to you two.”

“Understood.” Freya replied after Kruz finished talking. Monkeyman was quick to reply after her.

The marines in her platoon disembarked, but Freya stayed where she was with Monkeyman at her side. Once they were gone, Kruz came up to them and motioned for them to follow her. Once they started walking down the ramp, Freya got a notice telling her that she was being connected to a private channel with Sergeant Kruz and Corporal Monkeyman. There wasn’t an accept button. It just happened.

“Just got our orders. They’re some big changes in the works. For one, our platoon is being transferred off the October.” Kruz told them on the private channel.

“Damn.” Monkeyman replied. Freya saw him shake his head from the corner of her eye.

“In four days, the October’s losses have exceeded fifty-one percent. True death, not zeroed out.” Kruz told them. Freya saw her friend looking downwards and knew the losses affected her just as it did herself.

“The big wigs above us decided to keep the Honey Badgers, but split up most of them. You two don’t have anything to worry about. You’ll be staying on as they remake the platoon.” Kruz said, sounding oddly calm.

“Thank god.” Freya replied with genuine relief. The last platoon make up was so stupid in hindsight. She wondered why no one thought that the tunnels wouldn’t be the same size. She did wonder what would have happened if she hadn’t had her vision. She wondered if the squad would even have been able to find the Ketica without her visions. She knew very little about the Ketica and their tactics. She had no idea if they would have stayed hidden so the Federation wandered around the tunnels cluelessly or if the would have attacked.

“You said us two.” Monkeyman replied, confusing Freya for a second. “You didn’t mention yourself, Pin.”

“I’ve been reassigned.” Kruz told them flatly.

“That’s bullshit!” Freya shouted. She stopped in her tracks, filled with rage that they would do that to her friend.

“It’s fine.” Kruz said, holding up her hands in a stop motion in front of Freya. “I’m okay with it. Leave it be.”

“But we need you.” Freya told her friend. “You’re our Pin.”

“I’ll still be your Pin, but just not with the Honey Badgers.” Kruz replied. “I’m being transferred to the Conture with you guys. They need me in another position, and I agreed.”

“But…” Freya started to say, but Kruz interrupted her.

“Enough, Magic. It’s done, and there is no going back.” She told her. “We serve the Federation Marines. If they want someone else to be in charge of the Honey Badgers then that is what they will get. I’ll be around, trust me. Just not with the Honey Badgers.”

“You can’t leave us.” Freya said, fighting off her tears.

“What will be, will be.” Kruz said with a sad smile. “But enough of that. I still have a bunch of things to tell you before the debriefing.”

“You’re being transferred to the Conture. It’s a troop carrier, like the October. I don’t know who's going to take my place, but, from what Captain Thompson told me, he’s good. The ship is still about two or three days out. After the debriefing, you’re going to be sent up in a dropship and despawned. From there you’ll be spawned in your new camp on the Conture.” Kruz told them.

“Apparently, there’s been a huge shake-up with all military SpecOps platoons.” Kruz said, shrugging. “Mostly they have added SpecOps teams to Intelligence Services. Those teams will be called Special Activity Service, or SAS. They will run Intelligence Service missions for the duration of the war. The Honey Badgers itself is now a permanent part of SAS.

“The platoon will also not be assigned permanently to a single ship. They will go where the mission takes them. They will also not have any permanent members, but will take temporary members from all services. You two are going TAD to them. You’ll still be marines, but on temporarily assigned duty with SAS. Since the platoon will be part of SAS, you’ll be a part of them until they send you back. I’m not sure how temporary this thing is or if it will be semi-permanent. I guess it depends how the war goes.” Kruz said as they slowed down in front of the long but thin building that they had their last debriefing in.

“Was it only yesterday?” Freaky thought to herself as Kruz stopped talking to look at the building. “Feels like it’s been longer.”

Krus turned to them and continued to speak. “The SAS platoons are going to be a hunter-killer team.” Kruz told them. “They are being built with the Ketica in mind. It’s going to be a mixture of Marines, Navy, and Army. There will also be a PsyOps agent attached to each platoon, but they will not be part of the chain of command.

“After this, we won’t have that much contact.” Kruz told them. “I won’t be able to drink with you special people anymore. I want to say thanks. Thanks for keeping me alive when things went bad. Thanks for… well, you know.”

“Dammit, Pin.” Freya said breaking protocol and hugging her friend. Monkeyman hesitated for a few seconds then caved in. His arms encircled both of them and for a while they were just friends who survived hell.

“Enough of this shit.” Kruz said, stepping back from them. “I’m getting bombarded by messages. They really want you two in the debriefing room, yesterday. Let's get going.”

Without further ado, Kruz turned around and stormed up the stairs leading to the building. She opened the door and entered it without holding the door for them. Freya smirked as Monkeyman caught the door and held it for her. Giving him a nod, she walked in to find most of the platoon standing around in the small waiting area with the large screen. This time there was a Navy Petty Officer standing in front of the large screen who looked nervous. He saw them enter and waved them forward.

“They're waiting on you three.” He told them as the door closed behind Freya. “Ma’am, you're in room one. Corporal O’Malley, room two, and Corporal Monkeyman, room three.”

Without a word, Freya followed Monkeyman, who followed Sergeant Kruz down the hallway past the rest of their platoon. Kruz took the first room they came to, and Freya took the second open door. She stopped in the doorway to watch Kruz enter her room. Annoyingly, the woman didn’t stop to look at them as she closed the door. Monkeyman smiled at Freya, who rolled her eyes at the room Kruz had entered. He chuckled and closed the door to his room. Freya did the same, and the door closed automatically behind her as she entered.

The room looked exactly like the last room she had been debriefed in before. It was just as small as the one she had been in before. The only difference was that the desk was attached to the left side of the wall instead of the right side. Like before, Freya twisted the chair so that she could face the door while still facing the blank wall in front of her.

Almost as soon as she sat down, the wall lit up with the same Navy Chief that debriefed her before. He smiled at her as soon as he saw her. “Magic, it’s good to see you. You gave us quite a scare with that last mission. I’m glad you made it out.”

“Thank you.” Freya said, oddly pleased with him recognizing her like that.

“It’s Chief Matters.” He told her with a bashful smile that made her smile in return. “I know I have a forgettable face. It’s one reason why Intel Services picked me up.”

“I remember you.” Freya said, trying to put the man at ease.

“Okay, let's get this started. This is an after action interview with Corporal O’Malley, also called Magic.” He said quickly, but oddly confident, like he had done this many times before. “Mission in City Delta 584, Planet Karma. Mission task: enter a suspected Ketica tunnel hole and find then kill any Ketica in the area. Operation, successful.”

“Magic, I need you to start from the very beginning of the mission and tell what happened in your own words. Start at meeting your squad… for the first time? Right, well. Let’s start there.” He said, looking down at something before looking up at her once he was done talking.

He didn’t interrupt her as she told her story on how she met her squad of replacements. She told him how she got to know her people, and the flight to the city. He smiled when she described how bad the pilot was, but didn’t say anything. He was, Freya relearned, a really good listener. He only interrupted her when she started talking about the drive to the warehouse.

“What do you mean when you say that the dead constructs lined up on the side of the road where the ones you fought?” He asked her.

“I recognized the dog-like constructs from before when we fought them at the ammonia plant. The praying mantises with the crocodile mouth were new. Either way, those were the constructs that were waiting at the warehouse. Those were sort of like the dog constructs except bigger and with insect exoskeletons. They had these really flexible paws that were stupidly strong. They broke my arm like it was kindling, like we used to start fires back home.” Freya told him.

“I’m not seeing an injury report on you.” Chief matters said, looking down at something that was off screen. “I’m confused.”

“In my vision.” Freya replied. “It was very real. It was like I lived those visions.”

“Gotcha.” He said, looking up and smiling. “When did you start having those visions?”

“In the tunnel.” Freya told him.

“Perfect.” He replied. “We can get to them in a second. Let’s continue. You were driving down the street and then what happened?”

He stopped her again when she got to the point where she was describing the tunnel entrance. “Now I have to ask this, so please don’t be offended. Did you have any visions or feelings about how small the tunnels were going to be before you got there?”

“No.” She said, shaking her head to emphasize her point.

“Nothing?” He asked, looking confused.

“Nope.” Freya told him. “It took me by surprise. It didn’t occur to me that the tunnel sizes would be different.”

“I see.” He said, nodding and smiling. “Look, between the two of us… and well, the camera, what kind of platoon would you put together for this mission now that you know there will be different size tunnels in the future?”

“One light-armored person per squad.” Freya said immediately. “Two medium and one heavy. I would have had a scout with each team with high perception. I think it was how I figured out that the ground in the cave was wrong. You would definitely need a DO and a demo person. The last would have to be a heavy assault with some serious firepower - for the bigger tunnels, you understand. I would have a bunch of medium assault people on the second squad, to interchange them with the heavy assault personnel in case of smaller tunnels.”

“Not many medium assault templates left in the Marines, nowadays.” The Chief told her.

“I know.” Freya said, nodding. “That’s going to have to change if this war keeps going on and we find ourselves fighting a lot more in tunnels. We also might need androids, and large assault drones.”

“We will not use androids in battle.” Chief Matters said soft, but firmly. “We are not the Empire. We cannot ask them to fight our battles for us. They are our partners, not our slaves. If they choose to fight, that's one thing, but no android has joined any military branch of service since the revolution. Part of our agreement with them during the war was that we will not force them to fight for us or be our slaves again. I believe those laws are very justified.”

“I agree.” Freya said quickly. “I was hoping we had some on our side who would be willing to fight with us.”

He gave her a sad smile before speaking again. “We all do.” He told her. “The battle drones are a great idea, though. Now, let’s get back on track. I believe we left off…”

He stopped and interrupted her a bunch of times when she got to the ripples for some reason. He seemed to be really interested in the difference between the ripples in the tunnel versus the cave. He even wanted to know things like how far apart the ripples were and was the distance between the ripples constant. She told him that, to the best of her knowledge, they were. She hadn’t really paid that much attention to them. He seemed way more interested in the ripples than her vision, although he still asked a bunch of questions on what she saw and how long the visions were.

“So you don’t really know how long the visions could have lasted if you hadn’t died?” He asked.

“No.”

“Did you feel like you had any control over them?” He asked.

“No.”

“But you felt pain in them?” He asked.

“Aside from the distant feelings and how everything felt kind of unreal, it felt like I was there. I felt everything.” She told him.

“What you experienced was what is called future-walking. It’s a somewhat common clairvoyant skill. If you can control it, the time limit of the visions will almost always be very short. Maybe a few seconds, if that. Those who are unable to control the gift tend to have longer visions. Sometimes as long as an hour. According to what I’ve read, you can have both only if you have the control version of the gift first. Meaning those who have the ability to control their visions may, at times, have an uncontrolled vision. We do know that the uncontrolled visions tend to increase in frequency the more perception mods you have.” He told her.

“The part that confused me was how real you said it felt. People with the gift tend to see visions of the future, not experience them like they were really living through them. Feeling everything like that. But then again, I’m not an expert.” He told her.

“Back to the cave where you said there were hundreds of constructs. Did you see any ripples on the floor of that cave?” He said looking down at something out of camera range.

“There were thousands of them, not hundreds, and I couldn’t see the floor.” She told him, a little tired of going over and over the visions. “There were too many of them.”

“I understand. I’m sorry about going over and over the same thing, but I have to get a clear picture of what you saw. There were no feeds of your vision, so the only information we have is what you saw. I know it’s a pain, but please bear with me.”

“I understand.” Freya said, taking a deep breath as he continued with his questions.

They went on for what seemed like an hour. He made her recount the entire mission from start to finish several times, while he would ask the same questions he had asked previously. It was, according to him, to see if he could jiggle out a nugget of information that she might have missed or forgotten. She wasn’t sure if he was successful or not. He never said. He finally let her go after the fifth or sixth time she ran through the mission.

She was never more glad when he ended the interview. “This concludes the interview of Corporal O’Malley for the mission in City Delta 584, Planet Karma. Mission task: enter a suspected Ketica tunnel hole and find then kill any Ketica in the area. This interview is now over.”

“Thank goodness.” Freya said, leaning back in her chair to stretch her aching back.

“Sorry.” Chief Matters said. “Thank you for all that you do, Magic. Keep safe and goodbye for now. I’m sure we will meet again.”

Before she could comment he was gone. The door clicked open by itself, but no one was on the other side. Getting up, Freya looked at the now blank wall. “Yeah, I’ve got a feeling that we will. If I don’t die.”

It wasn’t hard to guess she was the last one to finish up. All the doors were open in the hallway. When she walked around the corner she didn’t find anyone from her platoon waiting either. A waypoint dropped on her mini map as soon as she opened the door to leave. It was hanging over where she knew the landing zone was.

There was no one to meet her when she left the building, so she made her way towards the landing zone by herself. She passed a bunch of marines on the way there. They looked like they were going towards the chow tent. She was hungry, but she knew that eating would be a waste of resources, mainly because she was about to despawn. From experience, she knew when she spawned again she wouldn’t be hungry anymore.

She found her platoon sitting in neat rows by the same assault ship that had taken her up into space for her medical respawn. The one person who was missing besides Seth was Kruz. She didn’t see her former boss anywhere. She did spot Sergeant Collins, who was sitting in front of the platoon. He was talking to Anderson, the female DO who had been with her in the tunnels scouting with her drones. She had been Monkeyman’s partner.

“Honey Badgers, on your feet!” Sergeant Collins called, as soon as he spotted her. “Load up!”

“Rarah, rarah, rarah.” Freya mumbled quietly to herself as she went to join up with the rest of her platoon. She took her place in the back of the line as the platoon marched their way into the assault ship. Monkeyman waved to her, pointing to an empty seat next to him. Smiling, she sat down next to him. He didn’t say anything, but he did hold out his fist for her to bump. She bumped it then settled down and closed her eyes. She was exhausted. Both mentally and physically. She couldn’t wait to get the despawn over with.

She opened her eyes seconds later as the assault ship took off like a rocket. She felt the G-force as it took off way too fast, straight up. Just by the feeling of the effects of the G-forces she knew the stupid pilot was breaking regulations by going too fast. Well, kind of. It was a warzone, so there was some justification. But unless there was a threat of an attack he shouldn’t go as fast as he was. Feeling some dread, she took out her tablet and checked. It was the same Warrant Officer from before. Groaning, she put her tablet away.

Monkeyman looked at her concerned, but she just rolled her eyes. He smiled and leaned his head back into the headrest before closing his eyes. The G-forces were tapering off, so Freya did the same. She was nearly asleep when she heard the instructions about how to despawn. This time it lacked the medical part of the speech.

“No.” Monkeyman said from beside her.

“No?” Freya said, opening her eyes and smiling.

“I’m not carrying your dead body again.” He said, looking like he was genuinely angry. “Not happening again.”

“But he said if we have a suicide mod we should use it.” Freya said, innocently.

“Dammit, Magic, get up and go to the recycling machine.” He told her as her smile got bigger. “I’m serious, ma shiv. Get you bony butt up and go!”

She contemplated making him carry her body, but in the end she got up. She walked up the aisle towards the recycling machine and towards a confused marine in front of her. He looked at her funny as she walked right up to him.

“I need you to sit down, ma’am.” He told her as she stopped.

“But you said if anyone had a suicide mod they should use it.” She told him, acting confused. “My buddy said he was not carrying my body to the recycling machine again.”

“Oh, right.” The marine in front of her said, now smiling. As she set her mod off, she wondered if he was still smiling, now having to carry her dead body, himself, to the recycling machine.

The next thing she knew she was in a pod bay that was crowded with people getting their armor and weapons from lockers. She opened the door and quickly went to the closest locker. As she did, she looked around at the people leaving the bay. Many of them, she noted, were wearing Navy insignias and ranks. Not that there weren’t a lot of marines among them, there were, it was just the Navy people stood out. It seemed that most of them knew each other.

There were a lot of smiles and backs being smacked among the Navy people. Two Navy guys were even chasing each other, naked, which was a big no-no in the Marines. You got to your locker as fast as possible and got equipped with your armor and weapons. Horsing around was very frowned on in the pod bays. Apparently it wasn’t in the Navy, because she saw a few smiles among the watching Navy folk. She also saw a lot of Marine frowns at their antics.

She felt so much better once she was in her working uniform. Her weapons were locked. That usually meant no training, at least for the short-term. Adjusting her sleeveless armor, she made for the door. She stopped as she saw a few frowns thrown at her from the Navy guys. She had no idea why they were giving her ugly looks, but she was glad when a few marines stepped up next to her in support. She didn’t know any of them, but she was a marine. Marines stuck together.

“Ma shiv.” A voice yelled out, making her smile. She turned around to see Monkeyman stepping away from a locker. “You should have seen that guy's face when you up and zeroed in front of him. It was hilarious. He complained to Sergeant Collins, but you know what he did? He told the guy that he should have been more specific. Made him pick your body up and put it in the recycler. I bet the next time we hear his speech it’ll be a bit different.”

Freya joined him, laughing at the image of the guy picking up her dead body. “I bet.” She told him, when her laughter slowed down.

“Enough chitchat!” The man of the hour, Sergeant Collins, hollered. “Get your asses out of the bay, and fall in!”

Freya turned and did as he ordered, along with the few marines who had stepped up to stand with her against the ugly looks she was still getting. Monkeyman also noted the looks and gave them a hard stare back. She noted that none of the Navy people backed down. They didn’t escalate it, but they also didn’t back away either. She had heard about the Navy and Marine rivalry, but hadn’t thought she would ever see it. If this was what this was. She wasn’t sure, mainly because this all started with them giving her ugly looks. It made her wonder what had set them off.

If the pod bay was crowded, the camp was bursting at the seams. At least the quad in front of the huge barracks was. The camp itself was huge. It was gray and looked like Karma’s deserts and included three mountains that looked very familiar. If she wasn’t mistaken, she thought they looked just like the mountains that they had trained on back on the October.

The barracks was the biggest barracks she had ever seen. It was at least five stories tall. It also had four wings that ran in a X shape off of it. The main building had hundreds of windows like an office building. From where she was standing she could see a large lobby through much wider windows on the bottom floor.

There was a large center square right before the barrack building. That was where everyone was standing. She could see that they were standing in their branch’s groups. The Navy guys were in smaller, but more numerous groups while the marines stood in much larger, but fewer groups. At the far end of the quad, in a single but medium sized group, were a bunch of Army folk. They joked with each other, and mostly seemed like they were ignoring everyone else.

Speaking of ships, she got a notification that she had missed. She clicked on it and read what it had to say.

Welcome, you have now been temporarily assigned aboard the Conture.

You have entered SAS compound Camp Adoultine. Named after Seth Adoultine who died fighting the Ketica on Karma. You have been given full resident access rights.

Congratulations, you have ranked up. You are now a Sergeant of the Federation Marines.

All further rewards have been locked until after SAS orientation.

“Holy cow, I’ve been promoted.” Freya said, surprised.

“Me too.” Monkeyman said happily.

“Congratulations, Sergeant Monkeyman.” Freya said, snapping off a salute to him.

“Congratulations, Sergeant Magic, O’Malley.” Monkeyman said with a goofy grin on his face, as he saluted her back.

“Congrats you two, but enough with the glad-handing each.” Sergeant Collins said, coming up beside them. “We got work to do before we can play.”

“Sorry Sergeant.” Monkeyman said, not sounding sorry at all.

“Yeah, yeah.” The former assistant platoon leader grumbled as he passed them, heading towards the front of the quad.

Freya stopped in a mostly deserted corner of the quad. Looking back, she saw most of her platoon following her. She thought about doing the death of a corporal and the rise of a sergeant thing, but with the recent death of Seth she felt it was in bad taste. Instead she stood alone in the crowd, watching them talk to each other.

Monkeyman was in deep conversation with a female marine who had joined their group. She hadn’t been in their platoon before, at least Freya didn’t recognize her. She had only been on one mission with the people around her. The odd thing about that was she felt like they were her family, just like the Iron Hand had been. She didn’t even know them all that well. Still they had been through some bad stuff together and came out the other side alive.

“SAS Company Honey Badgers. Fall in.” Called a voice Freya was very familiar with. In fact she had just said goodbye to her right before the debriefing. “My name is Gunnery Sergeant Kruz, Federation Marines. Your SAS Company Commander.”

“That bitch.” Freya found herself saying. “I nearly cried when…” She stopped talking, afraid she was going to embarrass herself even more.

Monkeyman just laughed a deep belly laugh that seemed to echo across the quad as the rest of the people started to fall in around them. Freya spotted a glowing light near the front of the company to the left hand side of the quad. The light, she realized after a few seconds of looking at it, was only on her HUD. She started towards it as she realized it was where she was supposed to be. Monkeyman shifted slightly to the right, angling away from her.

She looked away from the light on her HUD and towards where Kruz’s voice had come from. She spotted the newly made Gunnery Sergeant standing in front of Captain Thompson and two Warrant Officers. Her HUD informed her that the guy was a Warrant Third Class, and the woman was a Warrant First Class. Also standing next to Captain Thompson was a man in unmarked armor that screamed PsyOps agent. Although he looked tougher than the last two agents she had seen. He seemed to know she was looking at him as his eyes quickly found hers.

“Congratulations, Future Walker.” A male voice said in her head. It was like listening to the radio in her armor, but so much sharper and crisper than any radio she’d ever heard before. “I look forward to working with you.”