Arctic War 4
The Arctic War
Into The Rats Nest
Dear Igor,
I know you haven't been gone more than a week, but I miss you like you've been gone for a lifetime. The Suerinian's are still demanding that we either start trading with them or they will continue to crush us. We continue to say we will not give in and we will not falter in our efforts to force them out of our land. The war continues to go in our favor. Your sisters are doing just fine they miss you almost as much as I do...
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Mail came today, I read all of the important letters, and bills were stopped of course. I found among these the letter that Linda sent to me the beginning was really all I had time to read, I felt better reading it though along with that she sent a revealing candid snapshot. She was wearing a simple black leather studded collar with a bell on it, she was wearing a thin see-through night gown, her legs spread wide open with a pillow covering her lower lips, her tail had string wrapped around it leading into her jaw, and written on the back was, "You Lucky Dog", all I could think was yes I am. I couldn't help but think that maybe I wasn't meant for her, she is a ten, and I'm like a six. Hell she got offers from other women. Then I heard someone breathing over my shoulder, I looked up and there was a PFC standing over me looking at the picture.
"How can I help you," I asked.
"Oh, uh... Sorry, sir, uh Colonel Peterson wants to see you in the command tent. Sir, if you don't mind me asking, is she available," he asked.
"Can I see your bayonet Private," I asked.
He reached down to his pocket and handed me the bayonet, "Here, sir."
I looked it over thoroughly I found a bit of rust on it, I moved it up to his face and asked him, "Do you see what I see Private? I think that you need to spend more time managing your equipment rather than asking a commanding officer if his girlfriend is available," I struck his bayonet on top of his helmet as hard as I possibly could. I then handed it back to him, and walked off.
It was snowing yet again, they forecasted blizzard weather. It wouldn't be a big problem for us; our enemy however, was not from here so it was going to be hell on them. I walked over to the command tent with snow flying by in winds up to fifteen miles per hour. I love the snow it reminded me of when mom, Sabrina, and I would play hide and seek outside. We could look for mom for hours but we never found her. When we quit she was already inside, but we didn't mind she would make us a cup of hot chocolate, after being outside so long it was a relief.
The same procedure as last time. I then entered he was actually looking up this time. The walls were covered in maps. The new map on his desk wasn't of the surrounding area but of some sort of facility, mostly below ground. A standard issue k-bar, 14 inch with a serrated edge was stuck in the center of it.
"Sir, you wanted to see me, sir," I said.
"Yes I did... you know you look familiar," he said.
"Well, Sir, I can say the same about you too," I said.
"No not from the other day, some nineteen years ago," he said.
"Sir, I was born that long ago, is it possible you knew my mother at the time," I offered.
"Oh, you must mean Lieutenant Colonel Ricker, I remember her. She had a feisty attitude. Married some cripple if I remember correctly, lucky bastard. She was going places by now she probably would have been a three star general," he said with an odd look in his eye, I guess you could call it a twinkle in his eye.
"Sir," I asked, his eyes seemed to have a glazed over look.
"Good times, anyway why I called you over here is because I have a mission for you," he said after shaking his head of the apparent cobwebs, "you are going to be heading out into the middle of their territory, they have taken refuge in a base that has since been abandoned some ten years ago. It was some sort of civilian run weapons design facility, with a small military presence. I want you to get them out of there. There is a hangar inside, that's how they were able to locate us, and sneak up on us like they did the other day. The aircraft take off vertically, the only way the place was actually able to get parts and shit like that. Take a small group of six and collect the plans we need as well as any of the old blueprints they have and prototypes would also be satisfactory. Kill any of the enemy, if you see them kill them. That is all now get moving."
He removed the knife from the center of the map and handed it over to me. It looked like there was one level above ground; the other eleven were below ground. This was going to be a close quarter's fight. I think resistance inside would be minimal due to the fact that these guys were always moving around, outside we come across like 10 squads of them per day.
I gathered the most experienced soldiers. Gave a quick speech about how this can't go wrong. We have too much to lose; our country is riding on this, and we shall be ever vigilant if this goes over perfectly we will have new weapons to use in this war. Well as they were getting ready Felierta walked up and handed me a clip and said, "Those are explosive tipped rounds, use those if you find yourself in a situation, and if you get yourself killed I'll make sure you don't get an honorable mentions." That being said I checked their equipment, two arctic wolves, a lynx, polar bear, and another arctic fox, all of their equipment was accurately suited with the close quarter's combat we would be going through. I looked over my gear twice and then marched off with them following behind me.
"What do you think we will come across, Sir," Sergeant Hood (the polar bear) asked.
"I don't rightly know, they are on the move constantly so there won't be many people in there." A second later I said "I hope," under my breath.
We marched for several hours we finally came across the facility. The front door was wide open, so we cautiously headed in. the lights were off so I had to switch to night vision, most the rest of us did as well. I then continued on into the facility with the lynx watching our six. There was lab equipment strewn all over the place, along with a wide array of weaponry. It looked like most of it had been knocked over in a scramble, they don't scare easily so whatever they found must have made them shit themselves just by looking at them.
Along with the crap that was all over the floor there was a trampled body. This wasn't uncommon but to this degree, it was as if all of his insides had been stomped on. All of this was very unusual; there hasn't been one of these assholes since we arrive in here except for the dead one. The other thing is that this facility was running the other day, the door was closed and no one went in unsecured. I didn't like this at all; it just feels different, like something was wrong.
I we continued till we got to the stairs. I opened the door and there was a small little fox about six years old sitting on the foot of the stairs. I started walking over to her Sergeant Hood put a paw in front of me and said, "Let me check her sir it might be a trap." He started walking over to her and put a paw on her shoulder. The next few seconds are kind of hazy, his hand and most of his arm were ripped off and then we started firing upon her then all of that was over and they were both dead. I took a step and then she roused again so I shot her in the head four times. Then the thought came to my head what if that had been Mira?
"Sir, are you alright," the lynx asked.
"Yeah I'm fine, just I have a sister about the same age," I responded.
"Sir, should we go back," he asked.
"No, we need to press forward. I'll radio headquarters. This is Snowing Thunder, calling Snowy Owl, come in over," I said.
"Go ahead Snowing Thunder, this is Snowy Owl," came the response.
I filled them in on what just happened and subsequently was ordered to proceed with caution, yeah that helps. Sergeant Hood was being cautious and look at what happened to him. So we checked the floors systematically looking around every corner and jumping at shadows. We were about half way through the sixth sub-level when a vent cover fell from the ceiling and a small African wild dog fell with it. I raised my hand up to keep them from firing she seemed odd even in this dark light.
I reached into my pocket and grabbed a candy bar, "Hey there are you hungry, this is food and it is good."
Sitting there she holds it and looks back up, pointing at the candy bar she asked, "What is it?"
A frown spread across my face apparently she had never had one I said, "We call it a candy bar, and they are delicious. Open it up and put it in your mouth, and chew."
"Let's kill it, Sir, before it kills one of us," the wolf on my left said.
She started mimicking my movements I made she had a knife in her hand before I saw her move and cut the top off. Putting it in her mouth she sucked it out of the wrapper and chewed on it. Smiling she exclaimed, "It's sweet," and ate the rest of it. Standing up she said, "There was a box full of these but I didn't know what they were. If I can have more I'll help you."
I collected two from the others and added my second one and gave them to her I asked, "So do you have a name or am I going to have to call you 'her' and 'she' because those aren't good names."
She looked up to the ceiling muttering several things before saying, "Call me Demella."
"We should call it dead, as far as I'm concerned," the wolf on my left piped in once more.
"Private, one more word out of you and I'll leave you here," I retorted getting angry.
She pointed down the hallway, "The main computer is in the third cell section, the second cell is their living quarters on this floor, there is a computer nearby but all it does say that there is a malfunction and then shows a map."
"Well can you show me the way to the main computer so we can turn these lights on," I asked.
Nodding she walked up to a wall and put her hand on a pipe there and pulled herself up. Turning around she looked at me and said, "If you don't want to fight through them follow me. By the way, I just want you warn you, I'm the only one that can actually talk." She then disappeared into a vent in the wall.
I took off all of my equipment and handed it to Private Steel. He looked at me then put all of my equipment along with everyone else's into a duffle bag. I pulled my side arm out and so did everyone else. Private Steel then tied a tether around his waist. I climbed in after her; Steel was in the middle the lynx still bringing up the back. It took about ten minutes to get there, through twisting and turning vents. Then she climbed out of a vent and I followed her.
The room was dark but just as she had promised there was a computer in this room. The others climbed out of the vent and secured the room. Demella climbed up next to me and looked at me expectantly. I opened up the menu and something caught my eyes, experiments. I opened a few of these video logs and watched them. Pretty scary shit, apparently there was at least a good two thousand of them roaming around down there. I took a thirty two terabyte flash drive and stuck it into the USB port and uploaded all of the information. It would take a little bit considering all of the information being transferred.
"So, how old are you," I asked Demella.
Pressing a paw against a panel on the computer so a series of numbers came up she looked at it and said, "Looks like I'm seven. Now how old are you?"
"Me? Well I'm about nineteen years old. I have a sister about your age," I said while remembering the fox.
Cocking her head to the side and looking at me she said, "Your scent changed, and you aren't happy, what are you thinking about?"
"About the only other one of these things we came across and how that I just killed it without thought and what if that had been my sister. Nothing you'd understand," I said putting my hand on her shoulder.
"You're right. There's never been anyone to talk to besides SICIS. But he stopped talking around two years ago, he said it stood for Singular Independent Computerized Intelligence System." she said.
"So all you know is what he taught you. No other family that has some sort of non-animalistic intelligence," I asked worried about her.
Putting a hand on her jaw she seemed to think for a moment and then said, "I don't know what family means, SICIS raised me basically by showing me boxes that had the word food written on them."
After hearing this I started to cry. No one should not know what a family is, "Oh, you poor sweet, girl." I then reached over and hugged her.
As I pulled back she just sat there and then said, "What is this feeling, I don't seem to have felt anything like this before."
I looked at her not amazed that she hadn't felt any kind of love and said, "Well when you have a family, they tend to express an emotion called love and they show it by hugging mostly."
As she began to talk her ears twitched and she whispered, "Quiet, there is one of the others by the door, elephant from the sounds of breathing and footsteps."
All of a sudden the elephant charged in. In the corner of my eye I was Demella race forward to meet this ugly beast. I tried to grab her but she ducked under my paw and jumped onto the arm of the elephant. She half ran half climbed up his arm as she went up a long gash appeared on his arm, from one of her knives. She got behind his head stuck two knives on the base of each side of its ear and started to turn until its head was facing her. She pulled her blades out and hopped off and said, "They aren't easy to kill but snapping their neck typically does the tick, how long until whatever you're doing is done?"
I looked over at the computer and as soon as I did it was done, "It's complete; now let's get the hell out of here."
"Yeah let's leave the freak behind," Private Steel piped in.
I walked over to him and punched him as hard as I could. I picked him up and threw him over my shoulder. I then grabbed the duffle bag and put it over my other shoulder. "Now let's get the hell out of here. Snowy Owl, this is Snowing Thunder please respond. Corporal, activate every system now!" All of the lights came on all door were now activated by sensors. I ran towards an elevator and it opened I held it while waiting for everyone. Once everyone was in I pressed the only logical button the first floor.
"This is Snowy Owl, go ahead Snowing Thunder," came the reply of the receiver on the other end.
"We are evacuating, this facility was abandoned. We have got all pertinent information. We have also picked up a little girl, can you send a helicopter to pick us up," I asked.
"Roger that, there is a helicopter in the area, ETA five minutes," the receiver said.
Once we got to tie first floor we thundered down the hallway. We got outside and saw the helicopter. I heard the creatures coming for us. I arrived at the helicopter first and unloaded the extra weight. I then came back and picked up Demella and carried her back to the helicopter. By the time I got back everyone else was already prepared to go. I told the pilot to get us the hell out of here. The flight was relatively dull; Demella fell asleep in my arms. She admittedly was different, the coloration was off, and so was the pattern. The helicopter came on down near the base we all got off. I walked over to my tent and set her down. She's going to need appropriate clothes if she's going to stay out here. I swear I won't let any harm come to her. I swear it upon my life, no matter how short it will be.
Felierta walked in my tent and I said, "Hey, thanks for the clip it probably would have helped."
Nodding she stopped and looked at me and said, "You didn't use it?"
I shrugged and said, "There wasn't anyone to kill really, only killed two things in there."
Sitting she pointed at Demella and said, "Who's the squirt, she looks ready to kill something, her muscles are tense."
Looking over at Demella I said, "Oh, her name is Demella. We found her in that facility. It is a horrible place technically she has no family, she doesn't know much of anything outside of the facility."
Nodding she said, "I'd like to talk to her when she's awake, her arm keeps twitching to where she hid a knife on her thigh," standing up she walked most the way out of the tent before she ducked and a blade passed over her head. Turning around she saw Demella had released the tension that had been her body and looked back at me, "That girl has really good senses, watch out for her," and she walked out of the tent shouting, "Anyone see a knife go flying?"
As soon as Felierta left Demella sat bolt up upright and I grabbed her and held her tight, sitting there letting me hold her she started to cry and said, "I was so afraid it was so real, they killed you and dragged me back."
"Don't worry, I swear I won't let anything happen to you. I will make sure that place is destroyed, no more of those things will come back I swear it to you." I looked down at her while still holding her and continued, "I know it must have seemed real but things like that don't happen. Just try not doing anything too noticeable they might want to get rid of you. But I have to convince the commander that you aren't dangerous. First you need better suited clothes."
I couldn't help but smile as I said, "Well that may have been ok back in that facility but it's below freezing outside, and those are for a warm room not out in the cold."
Giving a little nod she said, "I don't think your clothes will fit, and I'm not changing in front of you, SICIS said that it's bad for a girl to change in front of a guy, don't know why, I know we smell different."
"Well do you want to catch a cold, and I can go outside while you change," I responded sternly.
Staring at me she pointed at the ground and said, "There is a girl's footprint there, the snow is like the dust in the facility, it keeps the outline safe. Do get whoever it belongs to."
I looked at her and said, "Fair enough, you stay here alright, will you okay being alone?"
Nodding she put her hand against her thigh and stopped nodding, checking her back and arm said, "One of my knives is missing."
"Don't worry I'll get it, along with her," I said as I walked out of the tent, heading in the direction of Felierta's tent.
I arrived at her tent and asked, "Sir, permission to come in?"
From behind me she said, "Go ahead, I was finding your friend's knife, she needs new clothes?" before she pushed past me and held the entry open.
I walked in seeing an array of tools on a small table I said, "I see you have replaced the tools you lost a little while back, and yes she does need clothes. I am the one who insisted upon it she'd be happy going like she is. She insisted upon me going and getting clothes from you, mine wouldn't fit her that well."
Handing me the knife she opened a series of boxes with several different types of clothes in each. Opening the third box she pulled out several different sets of upon seeing my face said, "Command gave me new clothes when my tent got destroyed, they screwed up the sizes twice, these should fit her, of course they're designed for my legs so she might be uncomfortable, we'll see." Grabbing the knife back from me she led me back to my tent and handed Demella her knife, "You threw it at me in your sleep." Turning around she pushed me back out of my own tent and said, "Wait out here."
Understanding I stood outside and said, "Just let me know when you two are done."
Walking out of the tent Demella looked like Felierta did the day when I first met her, the fabric on her right leg was torn to fit her even. Following Her out Felierta handed me a pile of rags and said, "I imagine you can sew considering you had a sew kit on the side of your cot, see what you can make with this. She rather likes these things that were clothes.
"I can do something with these I learned how to sew shortly after my mom died. She was good to us all I can't fill her shoes," I said, looking at the tattered clothe and thinking I could make a blanket out of these.
Nodding Felierta said, "I'll let you introduce her to the commander," Crouching down behind Demella she said, come talk to me later I want to show you how to use a wrench, throwing one is a bit different than a knife."
Felierta walked off and I picked up Demella I headed towards the Colonels tent. On the way she looked around interested in what there was in the camp. After realizing not much was really happening she became rather bored of the place. I arrived at his tent and went through the same procedure. I entered and he was sitting behind his desk so I walked up to it and set Demella down on top of it. I gave him a salute, and stood at ease.
"Why the hell is there a child with you Gunny," he asked.
"Sir, because I couldn't morally leave her in the facility, you can discharge me if you want, Sir," I said as honestly as I could.
"No, I couldn't do that, now what else do you have," he asked.
"Just this flash drive that has all information from inside the facility," I said.
"Well I would say get rid of her but from looking at her she seems attached to you. So from now on you aren't going to be in combat roles," he said.
Looking at him over her shoulder she put three knives next to his paw in opposite directions pinning his paw to the desk. Turning in place she said, "I know how to protect myself."
"Be that as it may if he were to die I'd have to send you to an orphanage and I'd rather not have to do that," he responded.
Opening her mouth she closed it again and pulled the knives back out so quick that I only saw her sheath the last one on her arm, "So show me how to shoot a gun, I can put a knife in an eye at two hundred paces."
"Demella, its fine, I don't want to be on the front line, I want to be able to go home and see my family," I told her while putting my hand on her shoulder.
Looking at me she said, "Okay, can I still take apart a gun?"
"You can ask Felierta she'll show you how," I said.
Hopping off the desk she said, "Then can we go see her now she's funny."
"You go on ahead I have to discuss a few more things that you wouldn't really care to hear about," I told her.
As she walked past me I felt her relieve me of my sidearm and said, "You can go see her without my gun." Giving it back to me she ran out of the tent and shouted, "Teach me!" after that I heard something that I never thought I'd hear from Felierta, she started laughing as the snow crunched under their feet.
As she left I stood up and said, "Sir, I think you do know me, as well as my mom."
"Why do you say that," he asked.
"My mother would have only been 17 when you knew her, I was born when she was that age, plus my fur matches the coloration of your albino fur," I concluded.
"Now wait just a minute...," he started to say but I cut him off.
"Have a nice day, dad," I said and walked off.
I started thinking about my predicament; I was now safe till the end of the war. I had become a surrogate father to Demella, not that I minded, she was entertaining. I watched Felierta show her how to take a gun apart, and chuckled to myself she really loved being here. Whereas I wanted to go home but I had to stay till this war was over. Then that fox came back to my mind and I suddenly felt sick. I can't think about that, it wasn't Mira and it never will be. I think I'll go and start on that blanket...