Difference between revisions of "Atlantis Rising: Chapter 1"

Revision as of 15:23, 16 July 2009

The first chapter in my book, Phoenix Rising. To visit the homepage: Atlantis

Chapter 1 major renovations are complete. Enjoy!

Also see: Reaper's First Drop

14:07 Hours, December 10, 2012 (Military Calendar), crowded city street of Paris, France

"We need you to come with us." The quiet voice reverberated through the crowded street. Despite the noise it was clearly audible.

Matt Kenderson paused in the act of examining a book, replacing it on a shelf in the vendor's stall. "Sorry?" he asked, low and deadly.

The three soldiers simply stood, not bothering to answer.

"What, exactly, is supposed to happen if I say no?"

"Then I would be very unhappy. And you wouldn't want to see that, no you wouldn't." The leader of the three soldiers spoke up, slowly, with only a trace of a French accent in his tone.

"Riiight.... No. What're you taking, again?"

"We were told you would not cooperate. No matter. We have other means of... persuasion." The army guy responded. Although le merchand, the stall-vendor, didn't speak English, the tension building in the air couldn't have been cut with a blowtorch, and the guy picked up on it. He suddenly decided he'd rather be someplace else at that moment, and hurriedly slammed the metal curtain of the street-stall and locked it.

The other citizens and tourists along the road appeared to have similar reactions. Several teenagers walking past threw anxious looks at the ominous scene and hurriedly walked on. A family at a cafe suddenly got up and left. Within several minutes, the entire street was basically empty.

Except for a bunch of mean-looking, burly guys dressed in Camouflage fatigues and black Kevlar, toting the French Foreign Legion's FAMAS assault rifles. Eight of them moved to surround Matt, with two men on the roof of the apartment complex across from him. One shooter, one spotter.

Matt cursed. This would either be really fun or really painful. Probably the latter.

Matt took another glance around. He was on the corner of a what-used-to-be crowded intersection, swarmed by cafe's and cute shopping stalls selling all kinds of trinkets. Across the now empty street was the hotel complex, behind him was the cafe, and along the road to both sides were more shops and dwellings.

Without a second's warning, the lead French soldier dove for Matt.

Matt was sixteen. He was 5 feet and 11 inches tall, 180 pounds, and in top physical condition. He was built solid and strong, but the French soldier had a good three inches on him and somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 pounds.

Matt fell under the soldier's heavy tackle but came out of it on top, knee pressed into the soldier's poorly armored kidney and fists mashing the Frenchie's face into a pulp. The soldier's buddies converged, but Matt rolled away suddenly as one swung his rifle. Matt jumped onto that one's back and wrestled the rifle from the soldiers grip, tossing the soldier over his hip as he did so, copying an effective move he had learned from his friends at school who took wrestling.

Before the Frenchies had time to regroup, Matt sprinted off for the hotel complex, weaving in and out of the passing cars as the soldiers opened fire.

Real bullets, too, he discovered, as they shattered windshields, blew tires, and peppered the chassis of the different cars he was putting in between himself and the assault rifles.

Then the snipers up top started firing, just to add to the fun. Matt ducked and rolled and weaved as bullets landed all around him, still clutching the stolen rifle.

The soldiers on the ground got up and followed him. Matt's keen ears picked up the irregular whines of police sirens not far away, and the beat of a helicopter rapidly approaching. As he ran, he pulled his cell and started dialing Jamie's number. This wasn't good. If he was under attack, so were the others.

Matt had come with his three best friends, Jamie Campbell, Holly Dayne, and Scarlett Miller. Two guys and two girls on winter vacation in Grande Paree.

Jamie answered on the second ring. As Matt happened to know he was wearing jeans, that was quite a feat. "They're after you too, huh?" Jamie asked, sounding out of breath.

"You don't say," Matt gasped as he ran through the door of the hotel, ducked a security guard. He kept running for the elevator, dodging and weaving in between security, trying to get out of the line of fire. "Get in here. The hotel."

"I'm right outside."

Matt dove behind the security desk and hit the emergency button. One of the extremely worthless and expensive anti-criminal sheet metal walls slid down from the low ceiling and into the desk. Then he slammed and locked the door, buying himself a little time. The elevator was dead ahead.

"The lobby's full. There's a side door. The alley. West side. Are they on your tail?" Matt asked.

"What do you think?" Jamie shouted, then was followed by a muffled thunk.

"Jamie?! You there?" He yelled frantically.

"Yeah, I'm good. One less Frenchie to worry about."

Matt didn't have time to answer him before Matt dropped low to the ground, swept out his attacker's legs, and clubbed the soldier with the rifle. Matt pilfered the man's sidearm, too, and some extra ammo off his thinly-moaning body, then kicked out the side door leading to the alley. Jamie was outside, wrestling another soldier. Matt took aim and fired into the soldier's foot, which gave Jamie enough of an advantage to wrestle him to the ground and put him out.

Jamie pocketed his cell and dove through the opening. Matt slammed the heavy metal door behind him and lowered the bar across it.

"Sup."

Jamie had some weaponry of his own. Another assault rifle. Matt nodded to him, and we stepped into the waiting cargo elevator.

"I'm calling Holly." Matt announced. Before he could dial her, she called him.

"They after you yet?" She asked.

"Yeah. You too? Great. Scar's with you?"

"Yeah."

"Jamie's with me. We need to regroup. Any ideas?"

"Not really."

"Uhmm... How bout - among friends?"

"Gotcha," Holly acknowledged. "See you in ten?"

"Yeah, but lose the tails first. And maybe more like twenty."

"That bad, huh? Alright, see ya, don't die on me. They're using real bullets."

"So I discovered. Bye."

Just as Matt returned his cell to a Velcro pocket of his cargo shorts, a shuddering, banging sound filled the elevator shaft. He pulled the charging handle halfway, to make sure there was a round in the chamber, then thumbed the safety off. They knew how to use these.

Matt, Jamie, Holly, and Scar had all known each other since elementary. They did everything together.

Two years ago, their parents had had the great idea of sending them off to a military training academy. They hoped the discipline of the army would keep the kids in check. They also wanted the kids to be able to take care of themselves anywhere. But most importantly, they wanted the kids to have a head start if the army ever called them up for war. Rumors were circulating around about a draft that was going to come out. Tensions were high and it was not getting any better.

So if there was a draft, their parents all wanted to make sure that they would have a good chance for Officer Candidate School (OCS).

Jamie and Matt were shoe-ins for the stuff. They were both old hands at shooting, both being Eagle Scouts and having the Riflery Merit Badge. Scar got in unopposed as the team medic, second to none. Holly had a thing for stealth and fighting with her head as well as her body. She was the team's grenadier. Jamie and Matt, riflemen. They had been run through basic training and advanced academics, all passed with flying colors.

So this thing about running and gunning down French commandos was no big deal, as of now.

Matt punched the elevator roof piece out as the box ground to a halt, let Jamie out, then started to climb up. He had half his body out of the elevator when a door in the shaft above him opened, and two French soldiers leaned out. One of them held a grenade, which he primed and dropped into the shaft. Luckily the shaft was dark enough to conceal the two, but unluckily the grenade still fell next to Matt.

He quickly kicked it into the empty elevator shaft, then pulled the rest of his body out quickly. The threat of having his legs blown off and riddled with shrapnel would get anyone out of anywhere pretty quick.

Matt rolled over to the very side of the shaft. He was pretty near the top; Jamie had jabbed the button for the 20th Floor.

Then the shaft exploded, and Matt noticed the service ladder on the other side of the shaft in the brief glow of light. Then the elevator started dropping alarmingly after it was done blowing up.

Matt ran along the roof of the destroyed elevator, the downward speed slowing him down.

Matt jumped at the last second for the ladder and felt his feet give way before him. Matt barely made it, but then his fingers curled around the metal and he got a stronger hold as the elevator plummeted below him, then abruptly hit rock bottom. Literally.

Matt looked around wildly for a moment, then noticed Jamie dangling crazily from the suspended elevator cables.

Matt was on the 6th floor, Jamie on the tenth. The two Frenchies now assumed they were dead.

But then their luck seemed to turn again. Matt spoke okay French, after having taken 3 years of it in Middle School. Several of his neighbors back in the States were French too. Matt's goal was to be able to have a basic conversation in a bunch of different languages. So far he had achieved that ability in French, Spanish, and English, and he was working on Russian.

But due to his language ability, he was able to understand the two soldiers in the shaft.

"Open up a few rounds, just to make sure." One ordered the other.

The second one just grunted, hefted his FAMAS, and pulled the charging handle.

The two commandos were about to accidentally kill them.

Matt still had his own FAMAS assault rifle, plus the handgun. Plus his knife.

Due to the unfortunate fact that firing a rifle one-handed was rather difficult, Matt drew the handgun from the waistband of his shorts.

Matt cocked the slide on the Glock 18 Automatic Handgun. One of the more preferred automatic sidearms in the business.

The two soldiers must have heard the metallic clack of the gun, but in the pitch-dark, incredibly grimy interior of this shaft, they couldn't see anything, and it caused the rifle-wielding soldier to hesitate. Matt took full advantage of this, pulling back the trigger to its stop and keeping it there, expending the whole 15 round clip of 10mm ammunition in a matter of seconds.

Matt struggled to keep his aim one-handed as he clutched the ladder for support, because he figured it would really suck to hit Jamie. As each bullet left the barrel, Matt felt like my ears were about to burst. Inside the enclosed shaft, each sound ricocheted off each wall and reverberated throughout the space, filling it entirely with loud bangs and the explosive report of a gun.

Matt screamed silently against the pain, but for the two soldiers, and Jamie, it would be even worse, because the barrel and thus the sound waves were pointing right at them. Not to mention the extremely lethal 10mm anti-personnel rounds that hit both soldiers in alternating sequences.

The reason they called anti-personnel bullets anti-personnel was because each bullet had a soft tip to it, so that when it hit something the tip of the bullet deformed, spreading out for a higher surface area to chew up as it went through your body. The problem was that for the same reason, these bullets weren't very effective against Kevlar armoring.

But because these soldiers wore only a Kevlar vest and helmet, that left the arms, shoulders, and the artery-filled legs to hit.

Both soldiers went down under the light kick of the gun. Even though it was an automatic, it was a very classy automatic, and had built in recoil absorbers and other fancy gizmos that used the recoil force from the previous shot to load the next round into the chamber, lightning quick. It was all rather slick.

Then Matt was crawling upwards along the ladder until he reached Jamie. He was still hanging on, but the look on his face was not happy.

We both reached out as far as we could hang, and I barely managed to grasp his fingers. But then I pulled him a bit closer, swaying on the ladder, and got a stronger grip around his wrist.

"On three?" He asked. Matt nodded.

"One - two - Three!"

Jamie let go of the cable, letting it slide through his hand. Matt swung him towards the ladder, wincing from the weight, even though he was skinny. The rifle weighed about 8 pounds, not to mention the ammo and Glock, plus the body.

Jamie crashed against the side of the shaft, flailed, and then grabbed the ladder. Mission accomplished.

They caught their breath, then started climbing. They stopped at the open shaft door to survey the two soldiers.

One was most definitely dead; spread of shots hit his neck. The other had gone down from multiple shots to the shoulder, arm, and body, which, although armored, still left huge bruises and knocked the wind out of him, if not a couple broken ribs.

Matt knew the soldiers were trying to kill him, but Matt was no cold-blooded murderer. He acted only in self defense. In all the movies, in all the games, Matt would have just shot him dead. But that just wasn't him.

So instead Matt dropped his handkerchief and a small bottle of disinfectant he kept in one of his endless pockets.

The two boys pilfered the soldier's grenades and spare ammo, Matt jamming a second sidearm into his waistband. Then they got back on the service ladder, and started climbing.

Holly burst out of the crowded seafood restaurant, sprinting down the grimy back alley fire exit. Scar was right behind her.

She ran right through the lone French soldier that stepped out to block their path, jamming him into the wall and then flipping him head over heels back out into the street. Scar picked up the guy's rifle, and Holly pilfered his sidearm.

She opened up a few covering shots as two soldiers stepped out of the front entrance to the restaurant, causing them to duck back in alarm. Another followed and took up aim, but then Scar turned, running backwards, and opened up the whole rifle magazine, firing from the hip like in the movies.

The tourists scattered at the sound of the heavy gunfire, and the three soldiers scrambled for cover. One took hits in the leg and went down. The other two kept their heads between their tails long enough for Holly and Scar, who was loading in a new clip as they ran, to disappear behind another alley and climb the fire escape to the roof.

Holly yelled a string of curses at the helicopter that rose to follow them as Scar fired a few carefully controlled bursts at the bird. Then the two of them were running again as shots from a chain gun mounted on the helo's side opened up, tearing chunks out of the roof at the girls' heels.

They scattered as the gunner brought the gun's path up, rolling to either side. Holly primed the grenade she had pilfered, and while Scar was distracting the helo with assault rifle fire, Holly pitched the grenade up next to the helo.

The grenade exploded, rocking the helicopter and throwing it away like an angry child. But it wasn't destroyed, just heavily damaged, because the helo righted itself and began to turn towards the roof again.

Which was empty now. Oops. Someone was gonna get it.

Jamie and Matt burst onto the roof from the stairwell, both clutching stolen assault rifles. I turned to fire a few rounds down the stairs at the soldiers pursuing us and had just pitched a grenade, slightly off target, when Jamie yelled something and tackled me from the side.

A huge crack filled the air, and the concrete where my head had been burst apart as if exploding itself.

My grenade detonated, filling the air with smoke, collapsing the stairwell, and temporarily stalling the soldier's advance. But I had forgotten about the snipers on the roof. Obviously they had been waiting for us.

Jamie threw me one way and rolled the other as bullets kicked up gravel along a path right between us, then I was up and firing my sidearm at the spotter while Jamie went for the sniper.

I emptied the rest of the clip and threw it at the guy, who ducked. He'd taken one round in the arm and the rest in the armor, but apparently he didn't mind being shot, because he came straight for me. Before I had time to draw my rifle, he was right next to me.

He swung a heavy punch at my head. God, luckily he wasn't a trained martial artist, but he was big.

That was okay. I hadn't trained in Kung-Fu either, but I had picked up a few tricks from watching some moves. And the military academy. His weight became his downfall.

The Frenchie drove in with his other, meaty hand, but I simply sidestepped, jabbed him quickly in the kidney, stuck my leg behind his, and bowled him over with my shoulder. He went flying and hit his head on the smoking concrete stairs, or what was left of them, and I turned to see Jamie taking out the sniper with various kicks and swings.

I turned and saw the Frenchie soldier still lying on the ground. "Oh, get up!" I yelled at him, then kicked him viciously between the legs.

To make sure he stayed out, I shot him in the foot. Cruel, I know, but I didn't have time to knock him out, and anyways giving him a concussion might be worse. Bullet wounds could be fixed, a damaged brain couldn't.

"Now how do we get out of here?" Jamie yelled.

"You like rock climbing, right?" I yelled back, over the noise of the high winds.

Jamie groaned. "I know that look."

Without stopping to think about it, because that might have made me stop and reconsider, I turned and jogged for the edge of the roof. Below us were rows and rows of balconies, for the different condos. I turned, grabbed the edge of the roof, and swung down onto the topmost balcony. Jamie reluctantly followed.

"This is insane." He told me.

"I know," I replied cheerfully.

Then I swung one leg over the rail, swung the other leg over, and then let myself down to the next one.

Then the Frenchies burst out onto the roof, having cleared the rubble of the destroyed stairs. This was too slow.

I landed on the second balcony from the top. Realizing the problem, I kicked out the rail and started backing up, watching the rail fall a looonnnggg 18 stories to the ground. Then it shattered. "How do you feel about going swimming?" I yelled to Jamie.

I backed up in order to get a running start. Jamie swung down, eyebrow raised. I didn't wait for him, but sprinted as hard as I could do the edge of the balcony and jumped off. Hopefully the pool was deep enough.

If I hadn't gotten far enough out, this was gonna suck.

Holly flattened herself against the ground, prone, as Scar opened fire with the rifle. She laid down a couple bursts from the Glock as well, and the duo of soldiers fell to the ground with multiple hits.

Then they were back up and running. The soldiers still didn't know where they were exactly after they had lost the helo, but the Frenchies knew they were somewhere around here, and that last burst of gunfire hadn't exactly helped.

Holly sprinted forward and grabbed a rifle. Thank God. Finally, some real ordnance.

She tossed Scar a belt of extra rifle clips, belted one onto herself, and then they were running again, disappearing down another back alley as more soldiers came calling.

I hit the water at a speed no human body was made to withstand.

Jamie hit right after me.

The pool was 20 feet deep, fortunately, and had a whole bunch of diving boards surrounding it, now empty in the overcast sky. But entering the water from 18 stories up was like hitting loose concrete. The shudder passed all the way up my legs, into my chest, and nearly shattered both my femurs and a couple ribs. I blacked out; that went without saying. I flew straight through the 20 foot deep water, and hit the bottom. Hard.

Luckily this time I was able to inadvertently collapse to one side to disperse the shock, but my eardrums spiked painfully. I was out, gone far away, so I couldn't do anything to relieve the pressure. Or start swimming up. I had about a minute of air in me, before I started to die.

The French soldiers gazed down off the roof. They hadn't seen the splashes, but they'd heard something. It sounded like human bodies going splat.

They looked wildly about the roof and the grounds below, but the pool was too deep and too dark to see into the bottom. And there were plenty of shrubs and whatnot to screen a person too.

As one, the soldiers reached for their earpieces and pressed a button, wincing as the sound changed from static to orders. Orders to fan out, search the grounds for two suicide victims. What a lovely day.

I came to almost out of breath, Jamie tugging on my shirt next to me. It felt as if every bone in my body had been shattered and then put back together by a toddler.

As one we pushed off from the bottom of the pool.

My head felt constricted from the lack of air. My lungs were bursting with the suppressed desire to expand, to breathe. I had a headache, too, and my throat felt constricted. My heart pumped rapidly.

Darkness started to creep in on the edges of my vision. Jamie, next to me, was having a similar problem. My limbs grew sluggish, my muscles lacking the air needed to make them move. My eyes drooped lazily despite my best efforts, as if weights had been tied to each one. To forestall the inevitable blackness, only five feet from the surface, I started forcing what little, depleted air I had left into my mouth, then back into my lungs, trying to trick my brain and heart into working for just a bit longer.

Finally I couldn't take it anymore. I gave one last kick, then sucked in. At that point, I honestly didn't care whether or not it was air or water. I needed to breathe.

I broke the surface of the water, my mouth as wide as a gaping fish. The first breath came right back up, laced with fluids, but the second was clear, and the third.

Below me, Jamie had nearly passed out.

He reached up as I dove under and grasped his arm, pulling him up above the surface, where he too started coughing up water.

I gave him a second to clear his lungs. "Come on, let's get out of here."

We met Holly and Scar at the US Embassy. The outside wasn't even barricaded by Frenchies. Probably had something to do with the detachment of US Marines that had set up shop by the gates. Plenty of sand-bag bunkers and fixed MG emplacements. A couple burned out French APCs were scattered over the courtyard facing the Embassy.

Oh, this kept getting better and better. We would likely have a full-scale war on our hands, now.

Holly and Scar nodded as we came to the entrance, our hands held high, our weapons dropped behind us. So we had lost our tails. Good.

The lead Marine stepped up to the lip of the bunker as we approached.

Apparently he didn't have time for full sentences. "ID?" He growled. "American?"

I wordlessly handed him my driver's permit, and my passport. He scanned each of ours in turn, then nodded, checking four more off his list attached to his gauntlet. "You're expected inside. The EVAC Op begins in fifteen minutes. I'd hurry if I were you." The marine said. I couldn't help but cast an envious eye at all his gear. The big marine sent a pair of his soldiers out to collect our weaponry.

I approached the gate, the rest of the crew in tow. The gate's wrought iron entry was open, but the actual pavement was blocked by a huge M1 ABRAMS Main Battle Tank (MBT). Where the crap where they keeping that thing in the Embassy? Parked in the basement garage?

Two more soldiers were posted here, with mini sand-bag bunkers set up on the tank itself. The tank apparently had no intention of moving, so we were forced to clamber over the top of it, carefully avoiding the vicious looking MGs. The rest of the concrete wall was being patrolled by another squad of Marines, and on the roof I could see a squad of Embassy Guards with snipers and more machine guns and even a couple rocket launchers entrenched up there, again with the sand-bag bunkers.

Finally we got to the Embassy door itself, which was guarded by two more Embassy Guards, stiffly holding assault rifles in place of their normal decorational Bolt-Action rifles. I reached for the heavy brass doors. This was gonna be fun.

"Your name, please?"

I ran my eyes over the young receptionist. The dark-wood interior of the Embassy was a far cry from the combat zone I had just stepped out of. I looked around quickly, sizing everything up. Polished marble floors, mahogany paneled walls, large, plate glass windows looking deeper into the building and back out to the open courtyards outside. These last had been recently barred over, by the looks of the fresh weld marks on the joints and seals. A bright crystalline chandelier hung from the ceiling. A balcony ran overhead, lining the entire room, with more doors leading off to God knew where.

It would've been a good position for an ambush, except for the fact that it was inside the US Embassy walls, guarded by about a hundred marines and advanced armor and weaponry.

"Kenderson. Matt." I said, stepping forward.

"Campbell, James." Jamie said after me. Scar and Holly gave their names.

"Now how bout some answers, lady?" I demanded. "What's all this about? Why are the French suddenly taking up American citizens?"

The blond receptionist's artificial smile wavered momentarily. "I'm just here to take the list, sir. Please proceed down the stairs ahead and you will come to a lobby where all the other evacuees are currently waiting."

She wasn't paid to answer the questions. I shrugged and motioned for my crew to follow.

The two sneaks vaulted over the high wall, one after the other, carefully timing their approach so that the guards wouldn't see. Contrary to the popular belief, spies did not wear a classic skin-tight jet black uniform. Even in the dead of night, nothing is truly black, bit instead a dark shade of gray. And in real life, spies like these wore baggy suits that tried to break up the outline of a humanoid figure with irregular spacing of different sized pockets. Nothing was symmetrical about these two French SpecOps.

The two assassins clutched their silenced SMGs tightly. If anything went wrong, there was pretty much nothing their backup could do.

The two darted quickly across the lawn, both decked out in olive-drab camouflage fatigues and lightly armored.

A passing guard caught a glimpse of movement out of his eye, but by the time he turned to look the two SpecOps saboteurs had hit the deck, looking like just another part of the shrubbery. The guard returned to his rounds as one of the saboteurs took out a small plasma knife and started melting through the brick and reinforced steel while the other covered the first.

This was too easy.

The mass of Americans inside the Embassy was anything but quiet. Single men and women stood holding briefcases, dressed in expensive suits, yelling for lawyers. Families stood in corners, peering oddly at anyone that came too close. A group of drunk teenagers stood in the middle, singing random snatches of song.

And above all the din was a man standing on a desk in the middle of the lobby, dressed in a tailored black suit, with two similarly dressed Secret Service men flanking him. He held a loudspeaker and was attempting to get the crowd under control.

I strode up to him, my crew in tow. I looked him over, then tapped his knee to get his attention.

The man bent over and hopped to the ground, nimbly for such a tight-fitting suit.

"May I help you?" He asked warily.

"Kenderson, Matt. Private First Class, US Army." I said, saluting. "Mind if I ask, sir, what the hell is going on here?"

"Good, good, someone who knows what he's doing." The Suit said. "Major Charles Morrison."

I saluted again, tightly.

"Tensions have been high for some time, leading up to December 12th. Well, today, they snapped. Charles de Fontaine was assassinated. And France thinks America is to blame."

I blinked. "The French president? Evidence?"

"De Fontaine was in America at the time. He was visiting at the White House. Went in, never came out.

I whistled. "That's some pretty heavy evidence."

"The VP ordered a nation-wide collection of all Americans in France. Naturally, we couldn't let that happen. We've sent marine squads out into Paris to track down any Americans still in the city. I'm surprised you didn't meet up with any."

"That's just our luck, then." Jamie put in over my shoulder. "We had to jump off a twenty story hotel into a fricken' pool."

"Orders?" I asked.

"Report to Sgt. Carter in the armory. I have a feeling he'll be wanting you to suit up for some action."

Carter was stereotypically gnawing on an unlit cigar. "Alright, boys!" He yelled as we entered, tossing us matte-black padded undersuits. "Get changed. No gawking. Move it!" He seemed oblivious to the fact that Holly and Scar were not guys. I assumed he wasn't one of the sexist girls-can't-fight-worth-crap types.

The four of us glanced at each other, then turned and started stripping down to our boxers and underwear, pulling on the dark combat suits. Carter waited impatiently, then lead us into the actual armory. Suits of matte-black impact plating armor lined one wall, and on the other were stocked dozens of highly-lethal-looking rifles and weaponry. The room was lit with a classic fluorescent-and-bare-white candor.

Each of us donned a suit of impact-plates. Carter tossed all of us helmets with a built-in HUD and wireless communications linkup.

Jamie strode forward and grabbed two G36c assault rifles, tossed one to me, and started distributing ammo. "Let's move, ladies!" Carter yelled, holding the door open as we and three other fully suited marines marched out, Carter giving us the specs of the armor we were wearing. A prototype. I hated prototypes.

The armor was some sort of ballistic-assault-vest with integrated comm. system, Head-Up Display (HUD), and zoom functions in the helmet, which was semi-enclosed, meaning most of our faces were covered but not our mouth, nose, or cheeks. The armor consisted of a plated vest, shoulder guards, greaves, gauntlets, knee, elbow, and shin guards, and the helmet. We would be pretty hard to kill.

Five minutes later we were in the back of an armored Humvee. Carter was driving. I was on the M60 MG. Jamie was riding shotgun, and the girls were in the back with the three other marines, who as of yet had proved silent and unresponsive.

"What're we out here for?" I yelled above the wind as we hurtled at about 80 miles an hour down the deserted road.

"Two teams got pinned down in a restaurant not far from here. Command estimates about 40 civilians. We're gonna crash the party." Carter yelled back, flooring the accelerator as we drifted out of a 90 degree turn.

I held on grimly to the MG, while in the passenger seat Jamie whooped. The girls got tossed around a bit in the back, but then we were riding smoothly again.

"ETA 30 seconds!" Carter called a minute later. I made sure a belt was locked in the gun and chambered a round, setting the crosshairs where I imagined an enemy jeep to be. Carter relayed a live vid feed to our helmets from a tactical UAV drone. In the rapidly sinking sunlight I observed a blockade around a multi-story restaurant and hotel complex, and flashes of gunfire going in between. A grenade sailed through the chaos, landing beneath a French troop transport truck and shredding all the nearby materials.

I zoomed out from the image and spotted our Humvee, about a block away and rapidly approaching.

I canceled out of the UAV image as Carter relayed firing zones and suppressive positions we were supposed to cover.

Then we hit the intersection next to the restaurant and swung into another 90 degree turn, Carter accelerating off the curve.

Just as quickly he slammed the brakes and threw the Humvee into another 90 degree turn, stopping us mere yards away from the French soldiers. I opened fire with the MG before they even knew what happened, spewing 7.62mm NATO hollow-point anti-personnel rounds at the remaining French troops while Jamie kicked the door open and hopped out, still going about 20 miles an hour. He hit the ground rolling and was quickly followed by the three marines in the back, who were followed by Scar and Holly. Carter got out a second later and opened fire one handed while he primed a grenade in the other, adding to the murderous suppressive angle I was laying down.

The French forces were now divided between multiple targets, and we strafed them mercilessly. Carter hurled his grenade. Frenchies fell from all directions, and the MG grew hot in my gloved hands. I shredded any target that popped up, and Holly lobbed another grenade. Jamie and Scar sprinted for the building while Carter and two of the marines flanked left.

Holly dove for cover as the Frenchies returned fire with some kind of grenade launcher, and the third marine was consumed in a roiling cloud of fire. I winced, ducking behind the metal shield of the MG as the gun clacked to let me know it was out of ammo. I flipped the top open, grabbed a fresh belt, and fed it into the receiver.

While I was reloading, the Frenchies took advantage of the lull in the fire to regroup, and another grenade hurtled right for Holly.

Duck! I thought quickly, and Holly heeded. She threw herself against the ground so hard I felt the breath knocked out of her, and the 40mm Napalm-filled hollow grenade whistled right past her left ear. It exploded with a slightly muffled thud a couple yards behind, igniting a hot-dog stand.

I chambered the first round and opened fire again, and the exposed soldiers fell from multiple hits. Jamie crashed through the barricaded front door of the restaurant, Scar right behind him with medical gear in hand. Carter had been steadily advancing from cover to cover, now the 30-something-year-old seasoned veteran vaulted a car that the Frenchies were using as cover and opened fire from behind while I layed down covering fire. The other two marines took peaking shots from overturned vehicles and mounds of rubble in the street.

And then their was silence. No return fire. No screaming. Only the background crackling as the napalm consumed the vendor stand and the muted cracks of gunfire from somewhere else in the city. The Frenchies were all dead or had surrendered.

Sergeant Carter had just earned my permanent respect from having vaulted over the car. I stayed on the MG and tracked the medical helicopter that hovered down to the pavement, ready to evac the civilians. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted the two marines cuffing the soldiers that had surrendered, and Carter plucking the tags off the burned marine. Poor guy. He would be the first of many to die in this war.

The French saboteur gave a small grunt of impatience as the plasma knife cut the last brick out of the wall. It was nearly nightfall. A warm, dusky golden glow had settled over the landscape, accentuated by the clear, Wintery electric-blue sky. The leafless trees swayed in time with a gentle wind, and the sounds of machine gun fire and explosions seemed oddly far off. It was almost peaceful.

Then the saboteur kicked in the neatly melted hole in the red bricks, and the two gained entrance to the US Embassy. And they didn't come with plans of world peace.

On the way back, Jamie insisted on manning the MG. Carter drove again, and one of the two marines rode shotgun. Me, Holly, Scar, and the last marine were in the back, and Scar was patching up a small groove in my cheek where a bullet had apparently grazed me. I hadn't even noticed, I was so wired on adrenaline. She grinned slightly as I hissed with pain from the antiseptic sting. "Why is it you don't notice getting shot in the face but you complain when I clean it out?" She asked.

"Hormones?" I suggested. She nodded, grinning.

Scar was good with the medic stuff. Jamie was the pyromaniacal sniper who loved explosives and large weapons. Holly was my rifleman/grenadier/all-around down-to-earth girl. And I was the techno-computer-battlefield engineering dude. We would make the perfect team, given a little more training and experience. I was still pretty jittery from being shot at, and coming down off the adrenaline high. God, I loved adrenaline.

"Good work, soldiers. You did well. Mission accomplished." Carter said eventually. He sounded reluctant.

"Thankya' kindly, Sarge!" I said, putting on a heavy Southern accent. His lips twitched. I'm not sure if it was possible for Carter to grin, but that was about his version of it, more or less.

We sped through the back entrance to the Embassy, where the garage was. Another M1 Abrams Tank was idling in the parking lot, and a Bradley Assault Transport Vehicle was parked in a corner, next to a couple more Humvees. An unsmiling and serious green-on-olive clad soldier waved us through to the poorly lit parking garage.

A couple minutes later, Carter was leading back down to the Embassy. I stumbled when we entered the main room; nearly everyone was gone, and a slowly moving line lead back the way we had come, to the parking garage where I saw a helicopter landing. We met up with the major at his desk again.

"That's everyone, Major." Carter reported.

"Good, good. In about five minutes we'll have the rest loaded onto the helos, and then all we have to do is make it across the country, to the open ocean. The president is sending a carrier fleet to the Mediterranean. We'll hop aboard and tag a ride back to the States."

Just then Holly walked up and tapped my shoulder. "I don't like this. Something's wrong." She whispered quietly.

And then the world exploded. I had just enough time to hug Holly close to me and raise my arm, casting a reflexive telekinetic field around my crew, Carter, and Morrison, before we were enveloped in fire. I remember mentally straining back against the enormous pressure trying to penetrate my shield, and then it broke. Holly and I were thrown back, but I blacked out as we came into violent contact with a solid marble object. So much for psichological powers....

Phoenix Rising: Chapter 2