The Fate Of Nations: F.I.R.E. Team Alpha: Book One

                       Ray Chilensky

                              The Fate of Nations

                          Dedication:

This book is dedicated those who have fallen. As well as to those who will fall; so that this nation shall not perish from the Earth.

“In the final choice a soldier’s pack is not so heavy a burden as a prisoner’s chains.” Dwight D. Eisenhower 1953

                    
Prologue: Rebirth

              Fort Meade, Maryland

                            25, May 2099

              Douglas Carter had always hated hospitals. In his long military career he had spent much time in hospitals; either recovering from wounds, or visiting wounded friends. He hated that harsh, sickly-clean, artificial scent of chemicals intended to mask the odor of the sickness and pain the hospital existed to combat. A military hospital in a time of war was even worse; especially when that war was being lost. No chemical, no antiseptic spray, and no amount of scrubbing could mask the smell of drying blood and festering wounds. The smell of death escaped the hospital walls and with it came the
feeling
of death.

              Carter could feel it now. He sensed death’s looming presence as he approached Fort Meade’s recently constructed base hospital. Oddly, he had never sensed death while he was on the battlefield. On the battlefield, he had developed a kind of detached indifference to death; both to his own death and to that of others. But, at hospitals and forward aid stations, he always sensed it. Death, it seemed, would rather wait for prey that could no longer fight back.

              The two Army military police guards at the hospital’s main entrance were armed with old M-16 rifles that had obviously been refurbished many times. They were old men; too old for anything but the lightest duty and they should have been living in comfortable retirement. But, in order to free as many younger men as possible for combat roles, they and many like them, had been assigned to auxiliary and reserve units. Carter knew that boys as young as twelve had been organized into work details that were performing maintenance at military bases. When they reached the age of sixteen most of them would be sent to the front. Girls of the same age were pressed into service as couriers, hospital volunteers, and other vital but unglamorous tasks. Older girls were at the front fighting alongside the men.

              The guard’s uniforms, although aged and use-worn, were clean and maintained as well as could be expected. Uniforms, like everything else, were in short supply. Seeing military personnel in uniforms that were in disrepair was a common thing. Carter’s own uniform had been mended many times by his own hands. He knew the beret on his head had faded from its once vivid forest green color to a paler yellow-green hue and that the knees of his trousers were nearly thread-bare.

              Having been ordered to report directly to Fort Mead after being withdrawn from a combat assignment in the Ozark Mountains, he had only had time to shower, shave and dress before reporting to the base’s hospital. He had shaved the three weeks of growth that had accumulated on his face, but his head, which had been clean shaven when he had deployed to the Ozarks four months earlier was now coated with just enough hair to require combing.

              Although exhausted from nearly two days without sleep and a journey that involved two helicopters and a nerve-taxing ride on an ancient C-130 cargo plane that had landed with only three out of four engines working, he refused to let his six-foot two inch frame slouch. He knew his light-brown eyes always showed his fatigue by the darkening of the skin beneath them; there was nothing he could do about that, but he had learned to maintain a disciplined alertness no matter how tired he was. Personal weakness was something he could not abide in himself.    

              The hospital lobby was crammed with patients and visitors. The facility, built only three years earlier to treat the ever-growing number of war-wounded, was taxed well beyond its capacity. The siege of Saint Louis was in its third month and the United States and the Free Nationalist Forces that were holding the globalist armies at the Mississippi River were only just hanging on. The patients in this hospital were those the doctors at the field hospitals and aid stations believed had a chance for survival. If the doctors didn’t think that a wounded soldier had a chance, they simply walked away. Most wounded troops had decided that if they went to a hospital they would have to be carried. If they could walk, or even limp, they could fight.

              Carter showed his orders to a Navy Petty Officer who was manning the reception desk. He was elderly as well. His right eye was an artificial replacement and his left arm was a prosthetic. The eye was an advanced bio-neurological implant; such implants were now too expensive for use on anyone but front-line combat troops. The arm was less sophisticated. It was a simple device attached at the shoulder by nylon straps and Velcro. Wires controlled by the few remaining muscles of the shoulder allowed the Petty Officer to perform simple grasping and lifting actions. Even combat troops were finding modern bio-neural prosthetic limbs to be in hard to obtain because the factories were painfully short of raw materials and component parts. Cloned replacement limbs were given only on the rarest occasions.  

              Following his instructions, Carter moved as quickly as he could down the hospital corridors. They were jammed with the wounded.  The stricken were everywhere: sitting unattended in wheelchairs or on the floor, leaning dejectedly against walls, and lying helplessly on gurneys. The few doctors and nurses Carter saw were doing their best to care for their patients, but they were too few caring for too many. The hospital personnel were so weary that they seemed almost as afflicted as their patients. They helped those they thought needed it most urgently while trying to ignore the pleas of those who were forced to wait and endure. This was hell, Carter thought. On the battle field you could fight back; fight death. In this place all you could do is try to hold on and hope that the doctors could eventually save your life or, at least, ease your pain.

              He saw some of the wounded trying to aid their more severely injured comrades. There were civilian visitors tending their loved one’s wounds with makeshift supplies they had obviously brought themselves. The hated chemically masked smell of blood and human waste was so thick now that it seemed to have a physical, smothering weight. It combined with the sounds of painful moans, muffled sobs, and distant screaming until another, ever-darkening, world seemed to exist within the hospital walls. It was hell.

              He followed the corridors until he came to an elevator that was once used only by doctors, but was now a secure access point to top two floors of the hospital; those floors being inaccessible from the main elevators. There was a transparent Lexan partition separating the elevator from the hallway; creating a small vestibule that accommodated two Marine Corps guards and a small desk. These guards were younger, young enough to be at the front. Their uniforms were old like Carter’s but, Carter noticed, their weapons and body armor were new. While the whole facility stank, not only of death, but of defeat; these guards were not defeated. Their eyes were sharp and clear; they had a mission, and they knew it was important.

              Carter slid his orders and identification through a slot in the partition and they were received by a grizzled, flat-faced Gunnery Sergeant who scrutinized the credentials carefully; looking up several times to compare the photograph on Carter’s identification card to his face. The sergeant pushed a button on a remote control that hung around his neck and a door in the partition opened with a click, allowing Carter to enter. The sergeant nodded to the blond, very short, Corporal who held a portable biometric scanner attached by wire to a laptop computer on the desk. The corporal extended the clipboard-sized device toward Carter. Carter placed his right palm on the scanning surface and the Corporal used another pen-like scanner to read Carter’s retina. After a few seconds an electronic tone came from the laptop.

              The corporal looked at the sergeant. “I.D. is verified. Major Douglas Rafael Carter is cleared for access.”

              The sergeant returned Carter’s credentials. “Sir, an escort will meet you on the tenth floor. Security protocols for this facility dictate that you do not speak to anyone you may meet in the corridors.” The sergeant handed Carter a plastic visitor’s badge. “Please wear this clearly displayed at all times.”

              “Thank you Sergeant, Corporal,” Carter said.

              On the tenth floor the elevator doors opened to reveal another guard post. Three more guards met Carter as he exited. There was a steel blast door to his right and another Lexan partition to the left. He showed his credentials again. One guard; a bald, grim-looking Army Master Sergeant, carefully examined the documents while another, a red-haired Army private, consulted a palm-sized data-pad. When the sergeant was satisfied, he looked at the private with the data-pad and nodded.

              “Sir,” the private said. “Were you given a codeword?”

              Carter nodded. “Cottonmouth,” he said.

The private looked at the pad. “Major Douglas Rafael Carter is verified and cleared for access,” he said after consulting the data-pad.

              The third guard, an acne-scared, black-haired Army corporal, stepped forward. “Major, if you will follow me,” he said, moving toward the blast door. He stood in front of a scanner recessed into the door’s threshold, placed his palm on the scanner’s pad, allowed his retina to be scanned, and waited a few seconds. The blast door slid open with a loud, metallic thump. Carter followed his escort down the hallway, passing several medical personal that seemed to be very focused on their duties. They didn’t seem as fatigued as their colleagues on the lower floors, though. Their clothes were new, and so was their equipment.

              The sickening stench of the hospital was less profound here. Carter suspected that the ventilation system on this floor had been overhauled and equipped the latest high efficiently filters: the kind used on the newer tanks and armored personnel carriers to filter out biological and chemical weapons. Those kind filters were expensive and very hard to come by. Whatever was being done here, Carter thought, it was high priority.

              The escort stopped in front of a wooden door, opened it, and stepped aside so Carter could enter. As soon as Carter was over the threshold the escort closed the door; his footsteps could be heard echoing in the corridor as he left. Carter found himself in a waiting room with eight people wearing uniforms from various military services. They all looked as haggard as Carter did; making him wonder if they had been pulled in abruptly from the field as he was. Three of the men wore beards which, in most cases, would be against regulations but, were allowed in some special warfare units that needed to blend in with local populations.

              One of the beaded men, wearing the black and brown uniform of the FNF: the
Free Nationalist Forces
, called the room to attention when he saw Carter’s rank. He had Canadian flag patches and the stripes of a Master Sergeant on both shoulders. Other patches on his uniform identified him as a member of the Canada’s elite Joint Task Force Two.

              “As you were,” Carter said.

The room was a small lounge that was apparently used by the medical staff under normal circumstances. Two tables were at the room’s center; each was ringed by six chairs. A counter on the far wall held a microwave oven, a coffee maker, and dispenser for Styrofoam cups. A small sink was next to the counter. To the left was a folding table stocked with an assortment of cold-cults, bread, and bottles of water. Carter fought the urge to go directly to the table and devour the pile of roast beef that was at the center of the cold-cut platter. It had been weeks since he had eaten anything more than one ration-pack a day and at least a year since he had even seen real beef. The ration packs would sustain life, but they were far from satisfying.

              “It’s real, not that simulated shit,” the Canadian sergeant said, gesturing toward the beef. “Believe it or not, they brought more when we ran out. I think they’re fattening us up so for the slaughter.”

              The sergeant had a rough-hewn but easy manner. His eyes were too wise for his age. The kind of wisdom Carter saw in those eyes was earned by long and persistent exposure to struggle and pain. The Canadian’s beard and hair were both a very dark brown, as were his eyes. He was of slightly less than average height, but his shoulders were broad; his body was compact and stout.

              “How long have you all been here, Sergeant?” Carter asked, unable to look away from the food despite his best efforts. His nose twitched at the aroma of it.

              “John McNamara,” the sergeant said, extending a hand, which Carter shook, finding the grip firm and genuine. “I’ve been here since zed seven hundred and it’s going on sixteen-hundred now. The captain here was already here when I showed up.”