Blood & Fur Ch. 00

MajOps B1: Blood and Fur

Chapter 0

Noir, Sandbox, 2012

Stars glittered overhead like diamonds and it was dry here, the earth itself parched and my body echoed the feeling. Without moving my eyes from the target, I took a drink of water from my Camelbak. Someone, our medic I suspected, had tossed in one of the berry flavored electrolyte packets and I wrinkled my nose at the too sweet taste. To my left, my partner and commanding officer, Captain Marcus "Dionysus" Vinos caught my expression and grinned. He'd probably told Patches, our medic, to put in the tablet.

I felt more then saw his expression as we huddled on the top of a tiny ridge, binoculars focused on a cluster of tents surrounding a cave-like entrance into the hills behind them. We were over twenty kilometers from any kind of village and further from any real city, but here were a half dozen tents with four times that many men living in them according to satellite images, deep in the middle of nowhere. The higher ups had decided that this outpost must be hiding the famed weapons of mass destruction or at least stockpiled arms. Since not taking action now might cost lives later, our team had been ordered into action. Reconnaissance of the area and destruction of any weapons we might find. If we could cause a ruckus otherwise, go for it, but nothing that would get any of us court martialed. Keep the casualties to a minimum, especially among any civilians present. Simple orders really.

It was dark, about an hour until dawn and quiet except for the constant wind rushing around us, bring the musty smell of the tents, spicy food and the chemical fires they were using to cook on. Though it was dark, we could distinguish some colors through the night vision glasses and what I could see puzzled me. While the men holding guns were dressed as many of the other desert people I had seen before, some of the men wore robe-like garments, some of them trimmed in possibly metallic threads.

A voice came through the headset I wore, one of the other look out teams. It was thick as hominy and just as Southern. "Looks like some kind of church revival meeting."

"Because all good deacons carry automatics," I added, rolling my eyes as my voice traveled over the close-circuit radio. "There is something religious about this, though."

"Noir, Bat'leth, keep the commentary down," Vino, code name Dionysus, told us with authority. "Why do you say religious, Noir?"

I stared at the robed man that sat next to one of the cooking fires and tried to form an answer. "The robe wearers, they're not the normal people for this region... I think they're... like priests or something. But not of Islam, I've seen those and these aren't them. They have a feel of something older."

"One of them was burning incense just after sun-down," said the other woman on our team, medic Monica "Patches" Vasquez. "Got a whiff of it when the wind shifted earlier."

"Fowl shit, too," said Patches' partner, Jonathan "Lampshade" McCoy added.

Dionysus shifted beside me and I could tell he was thinking. We hadn't seen anything more dangerous than a handful of automatic rifles but there wouldn't be this many people in one place for no reason. Something was going on and the question was what.

"Patches, Lampshade, hold your positions, everyone else creep to them."

It took thirty minutes for the entire team to reach the rally point, primarily because speed and stealth don't mix very often, especially on rocky terrain where a misstep could catch the attention of anyone near. Dionysus and I were the first ones in and Patches crept over to me while Dionysus took her place next to Lampshade, keeping an eye out for problems.

I didn't protest as Patches pushed up my sleeve and took off my glove to check my pulse, her eyes closed as she counted. I'd barely been cleared for this mission, having taken an injury a week prior that had my blood counts low still. However, since half of our unit was either on leave or in worse shape, I'd been tapped. Patches switched off her head set and motioned for me to do so. After I did, she leaned in close and spoke softly in my ear.

"How are you feeling, Noir? Any weakness in your arm?"

I rolled my left shoulder, bringing a twinge from the injury but nothing else. I shook my head and said, "I'm good, Patches. No weakness, no heart rate issues, just thirsty, and I've been drinking slowly. No more spiking my Camelbak, okay? Or at least use the lemon stuff."

Despite the darkness, Patches' eyes sparkled. "Lemon it is, Noir. Keep me aware of any issues."

Even medical was telling me what to do today, I thought. "Got it. Looks like we're all here."

We both switched our headsets back on and took our positions beside our partners. Three other pairs were crowded behind a rocky up cropping about twenty meters away from the tents along with us. Our tech experts, Alt and Ctrl, were sending an encoded status report back to our mobile command station, a Humvee two kilometers away. Jazz and Cody silently did final weapons checks on the entire team while Bat'leth and Tanto pulled out a map to mark what was where on it before we blew things to hell, if we did so.

Using hand signals and few words, Dionysus gave us sum of the intelligence we had found during our evening of observation. There ten soldier types, each armed with an assault rifle and possibly a side arm of some sort. Ten of the tent inhabitants looked like locals, with another four that wore the robes, possibly priests. We were not to shoot the priests, if it could be avoided and the civilians were to be left alone if they didn't attack. It was preferred that we take prisoners instead of leaving corpses, but our top priorities were to stay alive and destroy, disable or seize any weapons they may have. We were to try to get inside the cave complex for a look around if possible. Bat'leth, Tanto and I would head into the cave while the others raised a ruckus outside and took down the soldiers as they came out of their tents. I was being sent inside because of my specialty- I was a Chaplain, one of four Wiccan chaplains in the armed forces.

My bachelors in Religious Theology might seem strange for a Black Ops team second in command but it came in useful. I was the poster child of religious and gender equality in the military. I'd been accept into the chaplaincy program and then into black ops almost as soon as I'd gotten my commission. Because of this, I was almost uniquely qualified to figure out what, if any religious importance the cave contained.

My hands flew in a ritual blessing over my team mates, invoking Skadi, goddess of shadows, to keep us hidden and safe. I gave Dionysus a quick squeeze on the shoulder for good luck and crept out after Bat'leth and Tanto. Bat'leth, at 6'5" and built like a tank, was nearly invisible in the moonless night, his mahogany skin making him appear like a Klingon on the move. Tanto was his silent shadow, pale skin painted black, the short-sword that was his name sake the only non-issued gear on his pack. I followed, my own skin painted black as well, ebony hair in a tight braid under a boonie hat. We moved up to the rocky side of the sheer hill face, beyond the light of the cooking fires in the center of the tent circle.

Bat'leth looked over the land scape, missing nothing as he noted the locations of the three on duty guards, all of them looking out into the blank desert, two of them half asleep. The third one, the one closest to us of course, was wide awake, a cigar glowing brightly in the dim semi-darkness he stood in. The cigar puzzled me but it would give us a clear target to shoot at. I put in my ear plugs and knelt next to the stone wall of the hillside, face turned to the stone with Tanto and then Bat'leth following suit.

Tanto, at Bat'leth's hand signal, activated his head set. "Cavers in place, ready when you are, Dio. Light the sky."

Dionysus gave a command we couldn't see to the diversion team and the night went from silent to the loud only a flash-bang grenade could impart. Three of the grenades hit the ground at the same time, sending up peals of smoke, blinding light and a thunderous "bang" akin to a lightning strike.

The alert guard on our side let out a howl, clutching his eyes as pain seared through his retinas courtesy of the phosphorous in the grenade. The other guards were crying out as well and the two robed men were on the ground, hands to their eyes. I pulled out my ear plugs in a practiced movement, bringing my XM9 to a firing position. The gun was cool in my hands, the composite handle fitted for me alone. One of the benefits to being Spec Ops was that we got cooler toys.

Taking advantage of the chaos the flash-bangs had caused, Bat'leth, Tanto and I ran for the cave entrance, tossing flash-smoke grenades into tent openings as we passed, causing further havoc. The entrance to the cave had looked like roughhewn stone from what we could see through the tents but up close it was obviously designed, if rustically done. I recognized a few pictographs from my current studies into pre-Christianity, pre-Muslim religious studies of the region. "Beware" and "danger" were the most prominent but like any good soldier, I ignored the warnings, assuming they were superstitious in nature. I felt something as we passed through the doors, as if we had entered a room with a different atmospheric pressure.

In contrast to the rough exterior, inside an intricately carved hallway ran about ten feet before opening into a huge cavern with a carved stairwell leading down to the floor of the cavern. Torches filled the room with their flickering light. The floor had been polished in the past and still gleamed in places, though sand covered much it. In my glimpse around the cavern, I saw rings of what looked like gold, silver and lapis lazuli inlaid around a central dais. Three of the robed men sat before the dais and as one they turned to stare at us as Tanto and I followed Bat'leth in. One of them jumped up between the dais and us, as if defending it, though I couldn't see anything on the dais except more rings of precious metal and stones. The other two men screamed at us, with the elder of the two pulling a gun and the younger pulling a sword.

Tanto, our primary Arabic speaker, yelled to men, telling them to drop their weapons or die. Judging from the way the sword wielder ran at us and the gun wielder started to aim at us, their choice wasn't to drop.

The gun recoiled in my hands as I shot, methodically aiming at the center body mass of the man with the gun in his hands. Bat'leth took down the swordsman and Tanto kept his weapon trained on the final man standing in front of the dais.

"Infidels," the man screamed at us. "The ancients will not serve you!"

His hands opened and lightning sprang from his outstretched palms, striking Tanto in the chest. I gasped in horror as I was rolling away, bringing my gun to bear before I finished moving. I fired automatically as I rolled to a stop on my knees, not caring if was overkill, not caring if I hit someone behind him. Lightning came from the sky, not from people's hands. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Bat'leth firing as well and together we riddled the man's body with holes.

Somehow, despite us being able to see through the center of his chest, the man screamed at us before he exploded, peppering Bat'leth and I with blood and thicker things. As he did so, a sound filled the room, the tolling of a huge bell or the sound of a civilization collapsing or the screams of a dying world; it was all of those and none. The dais shimmered, blood coating the outside of an black object there, a sphere atop a pedestal. The sphere was blacker then ebony, as tall as I was and huge cracks in it provided pathways for blood to drain off of its surface. A vibrant light flashed through the cracks, like a light bulb in a cracking crystal ball.

I tore my eyes away from the dais and ran back to Tonto, trusting Bat'leth to cover me if anyone else came in or appeared or whatever else this strange place was going to do. I ran a hand down Tonto's throat, looking for his pulse and not finding one. I leaned in above his lips, hoping to feel his breath. Nothing.

"Get me patches, she has an AED!"

"On my way," Bat'leth answered before jumping over Tonto and me on the stairs.

I tugged him down to the flat cavern floor and began to pull off Tonto's armor and weapons harness, throwing things as they came free, desperate to get to his chest so I could do compressions, get his heart moving. His tonto came free of its sheath as I pulled off his backpack and I flung it away from me viciously, not heeding where it went. I heard a thunk behind me and the sound of breaking glass but didn't look up as I finished stripping down Tonto's chest. Two burn marks marred his skin and I winced in sympathy as I began doing chest compressions. I prayed as I pushed, "Skadi, dark goddess, seer of the future, please help me!"

As I leaned over to breath into his mouth, something behind me gave a crack. After breathing for my fallen soldier twice, I looked over my shoulder to see the sphere cracking further, Tonto's tonto hilt deep in the largest seem. Light poured out, as if pushed from inside and I threw myself over Tonto as the sphere burst. Crystal and rays of light exploded through the cavern, some of it punching through my backpack, bullet-proof vest and into my back. I hissed in pain and could feel the bleeding start as I pushed myself up off Tonto, made myself restart the chest compressions that would make him live. That had to make him live again.

Push for fifteen, two breaths, push for fifteen and two breaths, I counted off in my head, sweat pouring down. Between one push and the next, Tonto gasped, his heart sputtering to life beneath my hands. I pulled him onto his side, into the recover position that had been drilled into my head by Patches during our last Self Aid and Buddy Care class. I laughed, tears running down my face, dropping onto Tonto's bare chest, deep red against his paleness.

"What... Lieutenant..."

"You died on me, soldier," told him bluntly. "Then the thingy blew up and now we're both bleeding. Stay still, that's an order."

He tried to grunt at me but passed out instead. Using my backpack as a bolster, I made sure he'd stay on his side. Shards of crystal rained off of the backpack, not the black of the sphere but the color of the light that had burst from it. In my hand, the crystals seemed to melt, evaporating into the air around me, disappearing. I stared in confusion for a moment.

I heard noise in the entryway and trained my gun upward, moving to the entrance to the cavern. Instead of just Bat'leth and Patches, the entire team was retreating up the stairwell, Alt and Ctrl dragging Jazz and Patches carrying Cody in a fireman's carry. Both had been shot, that much I could see as I threw my remaining flash-smoke grenade up the corridor to land just outside the mouth.

The smell of blood was rich in the cavern, like freshly minted pennies mixed with my favorite chocolate cake. Dionysus flanked the door with me as we waited for the enemy to push their way into the cavern. Pain filled the roof of my mouth as I took a breath, pain unlike anything else I had suffered before. A growing pain that moved from my mouth to a bottomless pain in my stomach, making me whimper.

Dionysus looked to and his eyes grew wide. "What the- your mouth!"

I hissed at him, hearing the bewilderment and aggression in his tone. He was bleeding, I could smell it now, knew where to look. The right thigh of his uniform was torn, blood seeping from a wound that could only be caused by a bullet creasing his flesh. The hunger nearly overwhelmed me, blinded me to the fact he was my commander, my friend, my ally. I screamed as shadows from the reached toward me, like hands from a mother to sooth a child.

Dionysus fired at the shadows to no effect as they enveloped me in a cool embrace that soothed the edge of the hunger, let me think and speak again. "Stop, Dio... the shadows are helping."

"Helping what!?!"

"The hunger, Dionysus," I hissed, turning my gaze to the far end of the tunnel. "How many chased you in here?"

"Five soldiers plus all ten civilians with automatic guns," he answered, shooting a glance at Alt. "We got base contact?"

Alt shook his head. "None, the rocks are blocking my radio waves."

My hands flew to my stomach, trying to hold myself together against the pain that wracked me, made me want to cry and scream and kill everything around me.

Patches yelled from where she was working on Cody with Ctrl helping. "If we don't get med-evac, I'm going to lose Cody, Sir."

The pain worsened and the shadows' cool touch unable to quell the fire. I looked outside and could smell blood at the entrance and beyond. Licking my lips, I looked at my commanding officer. "I... something happened... something exploded... I'm so thirsty, so hungry... I'm going out."

Before he could stop me, I darted toward the entrance to the cave. I yelled over my shoulder, "Give me ten minutes and shoot me if I attack you!"

The sunlight was startling bright against my dark-adjusted eyes as I bowled over the two men at the entrance to the cave. I landed on top of one and the other tried to pull me off, shredding what remained of my BDU jacket and t-shirt in the process. Sunlight poured over the wounds on my back, searing them shut as I grabbed the head of the man beneath me. He screamed as I bared his throat and, following an instinct I don't know how I got, sank my teeth into him. The hands pulling at me were joined by others by the time I had swallowed my first mouthful of the man's blood. I went willingly, letting my fangs be torn out, ensuring he would bleed to death.

With open arms, I flung myself into combat, teeth bared and coated in the blood of my enemies, of my first meal, of my bloody baptism.

When the time limit I had given had passed, I heard movement in the cave behind me. I crouched over the last survivor, fuller then I had ever been. I had pushed him down, broken his collar bone earlier, but he was untouched otherwise. He sat there screaming at me in Arabic and I was debating whether to break his jaw or not when I heard Dionysus say, "Holy shit, Noir."

I looked around at the torn bodies, the pooling blood and finely at my own gore covered self. The wounds on my back weren't bleeding anymore, sealed shut by the sun. I was a rich brown now, darker then the men I had attacked, though yesterday I had barely had enough tan to my skin not to burn on the walk from the gym to the chow hall.

Popping to my feet, I held my hands out to show them empty. "All enemy combatants down, one prisoner incapacitated, Sir."

"Are you going to eat me next?"

"No, Dio, you're not on the menu," I said with a grim smile. "I'm full. Call for med-evac... I want..."

Dizziness overtook me, the ground seemed to fall out from underneath me and I fell to the ground. I felt Dionysus roll me over, screaming at me and I frowned up at him. "I feel hot... sick... too bright..."

The world clouded over then, my vision eaten away by Technicolor bits of color before everything went black.