Kraken Island Page 2

  “Evening, Colonel.” Vander grinned at him as he took his seat.

  Brannon nodded at him, not knowing what else to say. He never did with Vander. The kid was a comic book and SF junkie to the core, so they didn’t share a lot of common interests outside of guns, women, and their work. Small talk was pointless at a time like this anyway. Brannon needed to brief the whole squad during their flight, so as soon as they were all strapped in, settled, and had their helmet radios tuned into the squad’s private channel, he got down to business.

  “I am sure you’ve all heard of Colonel Jones and his Jackal Boys. Heck, we’re usually the ones competing with them for the better rep. Well, this time, it’s them we’re cleaning up for,” Brannon said.

  “Whoa,” Malcom cut in. “Are you saying the Jackal Boys got toasted? Jones is one tough mother, Colonel. I find that hard to believe.”

  Brannon nodded. “The Jackal Boys were the initial response to the mess we’re headed into. They failed to deal with it. That’s why we’re here.”

  Malcom leaned back in his seat as if someone had gut-punched him. Brannon could hear the sergeant muttering obscenities under his breath even though Malcom had tried to keep them too quiet to be heard over the comlink the squad shared.

  “Don’t mean nothing,” Adam grunted. “Don’t change anything either. No matter who was there ahead of us, we’re the ones who are gonna see the job through now.”

  Vander gave a slight, sideways tip of his head as the two fingers and thumb of his right hand made the shape of a gun, jerking as if firing a single shot.

  Brannon retook control of the informal briefing by saying, “Look, we all know the Jackal Boys were good. Nobody’s perfect though. We’ve all got an appointment with the reaper someday.”

  Pausing, Brannon cleared his throat before continuing. “The island that we’re headed for, after meeting up with DESRON 44, is the suspected base of operations for a very dangerous and very whacko cult. We’re not talking your run-of-the-mill extremists here. These guys make the rag-heads in the Middle East look sane by comparison. Their sole purpose is to make sure the human race bites the farm. They moved in and took over this island last year. Since then, they’ve been using it for Lord knows what but whatever they’re using it for, you can bet it means something bad for the folks back home or we wouldn’t be here.”

  “Bio-weapons?” Vander asked.

  “More likely nukes,” Adam butted in. “It’s almost always nukes with groups like this.”

  Brannon shrugged. “No one really knows. Could be either or both, or maybe even something we’ve never seen before. All I can tell you for sure is that the Jackal Boys went in with orders to kill anything that moved and none of them ever came out. The last thing the ship that carried them in heard from them was screams according to the mission report.”

  “Just how many cultists are we expecting, sir?” Adam ran the fingers of his right hand over the metal of the M-16A4 he held in his lap.

  “Best guess?” Brannon shrugged again. “At the very least dozens, more likely hundreds.”

  “And they expected one team to be able to handle them all?” Malcom demanded.

  “Cool it, Malcom,” Vander cautioned the sergeant. “We’ve dealt with numbers like that before ourselves. It’s not that far outside the normal for an op like this and you know it.”

  “These cultists are for the most part untrained thugs,” Brannon assured Malcom. “Vander’s right. It’s not like they were throwing the Jackal Boys up against professional soldiers. Even if that had been the case, you know it’s a part of the job.”

  “I’ve been trying to leave the job, sir,” Malcom shot back at him. “Some colonel I owe a lot to keeps dragging me back into it.”

  Brannon flinched but otherwise kept his demeanor professional. “If I thought I could have pulled this off without you, Malcom, you know I would have tried.”

  Malcom’s expression spoke volumes about just how much he appeared to believe what Brannon had said.

  “This will be your last op, Sergeant,” Brannon told him, meaning it. “No matter how many strings I have to pull, I’ll see to it. I do need you on this one though.”

  “This DESRON we’re meeting up with,” Vander changed the subject, “I take it that means we’ll have support?”

  Brannon frowned. “More support than we want. There are several squads of marines that will be joining us for the show on the island.”

  “Oh, isn’t that bleeding wonderful,” Vander whined.

  “You’ve got to be kidding, right?” Adam hissed. “They expect us to babysit too?”

  “I said marines,” Brannon reminded the others. “You will treat them and their CO with respect, understood?”

  No one answered. Brannon understood the feeling of superiority that came from being part of a squad like their own, but he couldn’t allow it to get in the way of what they needed to accomplish on the island. His Reapers were just going to have to accept that even they had to work with help sometimes. They had no problem with air support or ships laying down fire from sea, but tell them they had to share the ground with “common grunts” even if those grunts were freaking marines and they got uppity about it.

  “Maybe I didn’t make myself clear,” Brannon snarled at the three of them. “We’re going to show them the respect they deserve as marines.”

  Vander nodded and flashed him a grin. “Sure thing, boss, you got it.”

  “Yes, sir,” Malcom echoed the sniper’s agreement.

  Adam’s features were still twisted in an expression of disgust and contempt. “You know how I feel about being tossed onto the sharp end with folks I don’t know.”

  “I didn’t say I liked it either, Adam,” Brannon pointed out.

  Finally, Adam nodded, “Orders are orders I suppose, sir.”

  “Good.” Brannon smiled. “Glad we got that dealt with here and now.”

  Brannon had read Adam’s last psych-evaluation again on the road to the base their copter had just launched from. He hadn’t liked what he had read it in either but Adam, like the rest of the Reapers, was worth the risks that came with him when you were basically walking into Hell. Even so, Brannon made a mental note to keep an eye on Adam. If the man lost it in the field, he would put him down himself if need be.

  The newbie, Zahn, had kept quiet through it all, perhaps not feeling he had a right to speak up yet. For now, Brannon was okay with that. The kid would either fit in or not, only time and combat would tell.

  The flight was a short one. The copter flew over the waves, under cover of night, and approached the ships that made up DESRON 44. As the DESRON came into view, Brannon was surprised to see how small it was. DESRON 44 was composed of only two destroyers and three frigates. He had no idea it would be such an understrength squadron, but it made sense. With the powers that be back home wanting to keep the assault on the island as quiet as possible, keeping the number of ships involved to a bare minimum was only logical.

  “If that’s a DESRON then I’m a bloody metahuman.” Vander laughed.

  “Don’t,” Adam warned the sniper. “You start talking that geek crap, and I’ll toss you out of this bird to shut you up if I have to. You know I can’t stomach it.”

  “Just because you have no appreciation or understanding of pop culture, good sir,” Vander leaned forward in his seat, “doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t.”

  “Enough.” Brannon stared at the two of them.

  Vander held up his hands, showing Brannon his palms, in a mock expression of surrender. “He started it, sir, not me.”

  Adam appeared on the verge of unstrapping himself so he could have a go at Vander right there in the rear of the copter.

  “Specialist Hall, restrain yourself,” Brannon ordered Adam.

  Adam slumped back into his seat. “Just keep him quiet about all that kid junk and we’re cool, sir.”

  “You heard the man, Vander,” Brannon said. “Let’s all try to stay focused on whatever might be
waiting for us on that island.”

  The copter touched down on the helipad of the USS Nightstalker. As the Reapers disembarked with Brannon in the lead, Surface Commander Wall, a man who was clearly her XO, and two armed marines stood in the rain that was pouring from the night sky waiting on them.

  “Permission to come aboard, ma’am?” Brannon asked, giving Wall a salute.

  “Permission granted, Colonel.” Wall smiled at him. “It’s about time you and your boys got here.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Brannon answered formally.

  ****

  Captain Wall and her XO, Franklin, stood gathered around the planning table with Brannon and Malcom. Brannon had sent Vander, Adam, and Zahn on to meet up with the marines that would be their support on the op.

  A satellite imagery map of the island was rolled out on the table’s top and Brannon proceeded to tell Captain Wall what he thought was the best approach to taking the island with as few causalities as possible. Captain Wall was far from happy with his plan.

  “So, let me get this straight, Colonel,” Wall said, tapping her fingers on the map at the spot where the island’s southern-most beach was located. “You want to use my marines as bait?”

  “Not bait, ma’am. I want to use them as a distraction. It’s not quite the same thing,” Brannon answered.

  Captain Wall glared at him. “I understand that, Colonel, but I still have an issue with you throwing my men into the grinder if there’s a better approach that we can use.”

  “There isn’t,” Malcom chimed in. Brannon shot him a look that told him to keep his mouth shut. Malcom either didn’t notice or care because he went on, “Captain, your men are used to stand-up fights. They can handle it. And frankly, if the cultists are busy raining fire down on them, it leaves us free to move and get the job here done.”

  Sarah Wall was young to be in command of a DESRON. Heck, she was young to be a captain from Brannon’s experience, but she sure appeared to know her stuff. Her actual rank title was COMDESRON 44, but that was a mouthful, so everyone just kept it to captain as she was also the captain of the Nightstalker. It was admittedly a slightly strange thing to do, but it seemed to work for Wall and her crew, so Brannon had just accepted and ran with it. If the lady wanted to be called captain, it wasn’t his place to say otherwise.

  She was a dang attractive woman too, and no matter how professional and competent she came across, there was no hiding that fact. The male brain was wired to notice things like that and it was only human to do so.

  Captain Sarah Wall stood roughly five foot six and her body was hard and toned beneath her uniform. She wasn’t the sort of officer who let herself go because she sat behind a desk pushing papers and making the hard calls when the crap hit the fan.

  Her hair was “bob cut” and followed the curves of her face. Its color was dark blonde and made sharper the color of her fierce, intelligent, blue eyes. Her figure, though boyish in terms of her upper body, was all female from the waist down. More than once, Brannon had to put effort into forcing himself not to check out the butt covered by the tight pants of her uniform. He was sure that Wall was used to such things being trapped at sea with a ship full of men away from their wives and girlfriends, but he was also equally sure she would put him on the deck with a broken jaw if she caught him.

  “Colonel?” she asked, ripping Brannon out of his inappropriate thoughts. “Do you agree with your man’s assessment?”

  “I do, ma’am,” Brannon answered, a bit too quickly. He caught himself and added, “I think it’s the only approach that’s going to work. We’re dealing with an enemy force of unknown size. Better to get them to come to us and put them on the defensive so we can really get a feel for what they have rather than go in completely blind. Any of your men that we lose, well, the info and time their lives buy us might make the difference on how all this plays out.”

  Wall nodded. “My orders said that you were to have complete command over the assault on the island and how it was to be carried out. I want it on record though that I protested this approach.”

  “Understood,” Brannon said, matching the coldness of her tone. She and Vander would certainly get along, he thought. It was a good thing he had sent Vander on to meet with the marines or he might have a whole other problem to deal with as if there wasn’t enough on his plate already.

  “I want your ships ready to lay down some a massive rain of carnage if we need it,” Brannon said. “I don’t think it will come to that but one never knows.”

  “We’ll be ready should the need arise,” Captain Wall assured him.

  “Good.” Brannon smiled. “At dawn then…”

  “At dawn.” Captain Wall nodded.

  ****

  Lieutenant Dustin Sharps wasn’t at all happy about a squad of elite special ops having command over him and his men. Wasn’t much he could do about it though as the boats carrying his platoon splashed towards the island’s beach. This wasn’t his first combat landing on a beach, but they never got any easier. It was like playing Russian roulette. You never knew who was going to catch it from the enemy until a round blew a hole in you and you were either dead or lying in the sand.

  Each of the three small boats carried ten marines, all under his command. They hit the beach in unison, his men spreading out and taking up defensive positions. As yet, they hadn’t seen any indication that the bad guys even knew they were coming. Not that Sharps was going to complain about that. He knew at any moment the beach could turn into a hot zone of flying bullets and the screams of dying men.

  Sharps kept his eyes on the trees above the beach as his men secured their position. When still no resistance came, they moved forward. His fingers tapped the comlink on his helmet as he reported in.

  “Alpha platoon has landed. No resistance. We’re moving inland,” he said before following his men towards the trees.

  The lack of resistance was both surprising and disturbing. Sharps had been briefed to expect the cultists on the island to come at them with everything they had.

  “Where the hell are they, LT?” Corporal Perron whispered as Sharps caught up to him.

  Sharps didn’t have an answer as the platoon continued to move inland. The trees and foliage opened onto a road. Sharps held up a fist signaling the rest of the platoon to halt. There was something sitting in the middle of the road. It appeared to be a small convoy of jeeps. There were men all around the vehicles, but they were all down. Dried blood stained the sides and open interiors of the jeeps as well as the ground around them. Had the special ops guys hit them already? Rationally, Sharps knew that was impossible. Their sniper had been dropped on the other side of the island an hour ago, but there was no way he could have made it here that fast even if he had run straight out without stopping. And the rest of the sniper’s unit wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near here either. They were supposed to be heading from the cultist’s compound where it lay at the island’s center.

  The men around the jeeps were dead though. Of that, there was no question. Sharps motioned for his men to advance on the mess in the road and followed them out of the trees. The closer he got to the carnage on the road, the more disturbing it became. The men around the jeeps hadn’t been shot. They had been torn apart. Some of them were missing arms or legs. Others had their heads ripped completely from their shoulders … and there was no sign of those missing heads.

  One cultist lay sprawled over the hood of a jeep, his open, vacant eyes staring up into the rising sun. The entire middle portion of his body had been dug into. Long, bloated strands of his intestines snaked from the mess that was his stomach to rest in the dirt below where his feet dangled. His mouth was fixed into a permanent, rigid scream.

  Another cultist was face down next to a jeep with a piece of his broken spine sticking up from his mangled back as if something had yanked it partially out of him and was driven away before it finished the grizzly work of removing it completely.

  Shell casings and spent round were ever
ywhere. These men had put up a fight and a dang good one from the look of things, but there was no one else on the road except for them. Whoever or whatever had done this either hadn’t taken any losses or had carried away their own dead as they withdrew with the battle was over.

  “LT!” Perron shouted. “You better come and look at this, sir!”

  Sharps rushed to where Perron knelt beside the corpse of one of the dead cultists.

  “These men…” Perron stammered as if in shock, “they’ve been eaten on, sir.”

  “What?” Sharps rasped.

  “Look, sir,” Perron pointed at the corpse, “I’m a park ranger back home. These wounds here and here, they’re bite-marks, sir. Never seen ones like them, but I swear that’s what they are. You can see the tears where the teeth took out chunks of this guy.”

  “Holy frag,” Sharps breathed, having known Perron long enough to trust his call.

  “What in the devil are we up against here, LT?” Perron asked.

  “Maybe these guys are cannibals and they turned on each other before we got here,” Sharps said and knew it was as lame of an explanation as it sounded even as he said the words.

  “Doesn’t add up and you know it, LT.” Perron shook his head. “These bite marks aren’t human.”

  Perron rolled the corpse over. “Not a bullet hole anywhere in this guy, LT. None of the others that I’ve seen either. Whatever killed these guys did it fast and ‘tooth and nail.’”

  Suddenly, an eerie feeling hit Sharps. He felt like they were being watched.

  He walked over to one of the jeeps. Its driver’s seat was soaked in blood. He reached out and touched it. The blood was dried and cold. “Whatever happened here, it happened a good while before we even hit the beach.”

  “I know,” Perron nodded. “Creeps me out, LT.”

  “Me too.” Sharps gave Perron a nod. “Good work, Perron.”