Chapter 7

Ben walked into the mess hall, taking a seat in-between James and Ryan, directly across from Rebecca, Patricia and Steven. Noticing as he arranged his tray of mush beside that of his teammates that Rebecca's upper arm was heavily bandaged, he queried her as to what happened.

"Nothing much," Rebecca said with a grimace, "just a G.E. that snuck up on me while I was blasting some missiles. The son of a bitch stabbed me through my bicep. Still hurts like hell, but that Ghaleran medical technology is pretty great. The docs say I'll be able to use my arm properly within a day or so, so nothing major. Now, changing the topic, I'm supposed to give you guys all a bunch of good news, and a bunch of really bad news. So which do you want first?"

Ben piped up. "Let's hear the bad news already. No need to delay the inevitable." There were a few nods from the four others.

"Okay," she said, "but you aren't going to like it. Apparently, that attack was only a diversionary maneuver. The mainstay of their forces circled around the base at about one hundred kilometers out, breaking through many of the Missouri Defensive Line perimeters. We are now completely cut off and isolated. No backup, no supplies, no anything until we manage to take out the army that has us pinned in."

The entire squadron looked horrified.

"But, ma'am," Patricia began, "how could that happen? What about the other I.D.L. forces in this area? Why didn't they stop them?"

"Well," Rebecca responded, "that's the other bit of bad news. Our forces in the surrounding areas have been hit hard. We've estimated about 10% total troop loss for all of North America. We only lost about 4%... about four hundred troops... from this base, but we were still affected by this new wave of attacks severely. It seems that the Liodammians, for the most part, were targeting our officers. We only lost three hundred normal troops, and one hundred officers. This is severely disproportionate compared to the number of officers to troops on this base, and it means most of the command structure is gone. This, in turn, leads us to our good news."

"Where do you get good news out of that?" Ryan asked incredulously.

"Well, it's quite simple. The Warriors are the strongest, most able, and most durable soldiers we have. Therefore, we were all short listed for promotions when they were looking to replace the officers lost. First of all," Rebecca said, tossing a box to Ben, "that's your purple heart- you were out for over a month due to injuries from that missile, so they decided to give you a medal. Congratulations. Sorry that there is no ceremony or anything, but we're having to give them out far too often to make anything big of them. Second of all, every single member of this squadron has been promoted. Here's the kick: all five of you were enlisted, but are now being promoted to Second Lieutenants. This means you are all officers now. This is highly unusual, but as this isn't the U.S. military, the rules are a little bit different. I myself have been promoted to the rank of Captain. I should also inform you that owing to the fact that the Warriors are now being considered a new section of the I.D.L. with rules all their own, the ranks work slightly different for us. While our respective ranks apply perfectly normally to other Warriors, they do not function so normally to anyone of any other section than the Warriors. You are equivalently one rank higher than you would normally be to anyone outside of the Warrior Corps. In other words, to anyone except a Warrior, you are all First Lieutenants. Anyway, enough banter, let's get to this slop that passes for food around here."

They quickly ate their meals, which had become slightly more meager recently; the cooks evidently had begun rationing the food supply to last a little bit longer, in case no one managed to get supplies through the blockade of Liodammian forces.

Rebecca stopped them all before they got up to leave. "One moment guys. Our next mission begins tomorrow morning, 0600 hours. We... that is, the six of us and no one else, are going to take two tanks and try to blast through the Liodammian occupied Missouri area. Their most heavily reinforced lines are eastward, as they are expecting us to try and break through where the crossing is thinnest. So we are of course going to do exactly the opposite, and push through all the way from Jefferson City to Kansas City... only about two hundred sixty kilometers. Full packs; we don't know if we are going to have to abandon the tanks at some point or not. The only reason we are even using the tanks is so that the Liodammians will end up thinking in the end that both the Warrior Corps and the mechanized divisions are attacking. Now, we're not really wishing to accomplish much by this, except to draw away some of their forces. Six warriors can be quite a potent force when used correctly. We want them to think there is a major attack occurring on the Missouri-Kansas occupied areas. So, we do as much damage we can with the new Bradley Mk. IVs we're being given, and then the rest of the way we use every bit of strength we can muster to wade through enemy group after enemy group. Sound like fun?"

All five members of the rest of the squadron were staring at Rebecca open-mouthed.

"I know, I know," she said before any of them managed to vocalize their objections, "it sounds like a suicide mission, but it has to be done. If we don't pull some of this army away from the base, we'd be crushed soon anyway, and the base can't send out a larger force without leaving itself vulnerable. So this is the best chance we have. Tomorrow, 0600, report to the hangar. The tanks are going to be air dropped into Jefferson- everywhere beyond has A.A. defense- and we are on our own from there."

She handed them all their new ID cards and rank badges as they were leaving, as well as giving them their room assignments; evidently, officers received their own rooms unlike the enlisted men. Ben quickly headed to his own room, which was about the size of a prison cell. Still, it was better than the bunk he had been assigned to before. He dropped onto the small bed that folded out from the wall, with the intention of sleeping for the fourteen hours until they had to go on what sounded a hell of a lot like a suicide mission to him.

Unfortunately, as soon as Ben's head touched the rough, lumpy pillow that was tucked underneath the sheets, a massive explosion went off inside of his skull, sending him rolling off the edge of the mattress and crashing into the floor rather hard. He grabbed at the sides of his head, a scream escaping his lips.

"DAMNIT! NOT AGAIN!" he shouted loud enough to scare a deaf man.

Once again, a flurry of voices, echoes, and indeterminate sounds surrounded his thoughts. He had realized already that these voices he was hearing were people's thoughts; that had been made clear when he overheard the Liodammian plans to attack the I.D.L. base. But now, the voices were not about battle. He tried plucking at the thoughts one after another, sampling them and then ignoring them. He was surprised by the various things he heard.

"Ah, well, Dragon Squadron will be an unfortunate loss... could he like me?... Aw, man, why do I have to work the shift tonight?... I'll miss Commander Isaac... man, how can people trust these Ghalerans, they look exactly like the Liodammians!"

Ben could hear each thought as if it had been spoken with a person's voice, each one distinguishable from the next, but he didn't recognize any of these people's voices. He did, however, recognize the next one that he latched onto.

"You know, Ben is kind of cute... not only that, but he may be the only thing that keeps us alive on tomorrow's mission..."

He raised an eyebrow at that, not having realized that Rebecca had thought he was cute. He couldn't help smirking just a little bit, at the thought that his commanding officer, and a woman that looked to be at least a decade older than Ben, was attracted to him. He quickly withdrew from her mind, however, as he realized that he was essentially eavesdropping, intentionally or not, on someone's most private thoughts. He did notice that as he was brought back into the stream of thousands of thoughts that he was experiencing far less pain than he was at first. He was also starting to hear the voices more clearly, even though he realized he must have been listening to the thoughts of every single person on the base.

"Hmm," he thought to himself, "No one mentioned this as being one of the abilities of the Warriors- this has to be related to that alien DNA they found inside of me..."

Ben nearly got sick, as finally the impact of what the Ghaleran doctor had told him hit him. One of his parents had to have been an alien... and considering both of his parents had been in his life for all eighteen years of it, that meant that extraterrestrials had to have been on Earth two decades before first contact with alien life. But why had that Ghaleran doctor commented that these aliens had probably been on Earth for thousands of years, when it was just as likely that they had shown up within the past couple of decades? Ben quickly walked over to a communications panel built into the wall, getting the Dr. Vla'por's office location from the operator.