31 Dec Milk Run

They told me to bomb a hospital or an orphanage.  My choice.

I had a ZAG-05 personal rocket launcher and five rockets, each of which yielded five megatons and provided expedited half-life radioactive decay, allowing for comparatively prompt occupation.  In other words, our troops could move in after six months and the residual radiation caused cancer at a rate of only five percent, more than acceptable by Pentagon standards.  The ZAG-05 was technically verboten per the Geneva Convention, but they couldn’t prosecute rumors.

I had volunteered to destroy both targets, but Command said no.  This was a Nagasaki/Dresden shock-and-awe gravy op, and one target was gratuitous enough.

My unit, Omega Alpha-3, handled bespoke missions demanding we be fearless, ruthless, and discreet; ours were precincts of unspeakable valor.  My last mission involved annihilating the family of Sergei Matlock, ambassador from the Neo-Soviet colony on Mars.  Killing him was too on the nose, and we didn’t need another martyr for their cause.  Better his family perish in traffic, leaving him a dispirited and feckless advocate.

I don’t like thinking too hard about things.  That’s one of the reasons I joined the military.  Morality, ethics, cost-benefit analyses—no thanks every time.  And that’s why letting me choose the target was pissing me off.

Maybe it was a test.  It reminded me of one of the few moral inquiries I’d entertained: Was it better to guard a death camp or kill in one?  Was guarding just cowardice or rationalizing self-acquittal?  Was it the lesser evil of a terrible choice?  Were they equally culpable?  Maybe legally, not morally.  The world was made by the executioners.  The guards just shined their shoes.  I just couldn’t decide if it mattered to Command which target I chose.

* * * * * *

Six months ago, things were pretty mundane.

“A milk run, huh?”

The Major offered a smile I couldn’t read, the kind that said either “I’m a sucker, and he can’t wait to watch me burn up,” or “I hate you, it should be me.”

“Yeah.  Command needs a security detail for a quick lunar drop-off.”

“Security Services?”  Typically transports requiring security went to Security Services, a special corps composed of personnel subject to frequent and unannounced searches and polygraphs.

“Personnel shortage and last-minute transport.  They did a quick roster check and decided on you.”

Great.

“Good news is you won’t be there long enough to need gravity pills.”

Gravity pills were bone density mineral supplements designed to offset the skeletal damage caused by long-term exposure to diminished gravity.  They tasted like a hermetically-sweetened adult diaper adorning a bloated corpse.  Hyperbole, but not by much.  You had to take two or three different anti-emetics just to keep them down.  Studies cut both ways on short-term diminished gravity exposure, such that there was insufficient evidence, at least for Command, to warrant taking them for every visit (the pills cost about $10,000 each, and that was before whatever defense-contractor shenanigans inflated the price).

“Standard twelve-hour turnaround.”

“A milk run.”

“A milk run.”

* * * * * *

I tried not to think about why Command chose to override sensitive cargo protocols, or why they wanted me involved.  Such transfers warranted Level 3 security protocols (three out of five, five being nuclear weapons).  I trusted my questions would be answered at the briefing.

Not so.

In fact, the briefing made it harder for me not to think about how nonroutine it was.

Briefing us was, General Qing Manturk, the intelligence officer running the op.   He vibed that a million people could die and as long as the cargo was delivered it was A+ for him.

“We’re using non-traditional transport to protect this mission’s secrecy.  Security Services isn’t here because we have intelligence—however sketchy—that they may be compromised.”

Security Services marines led a Vestal Virgin existence preserved from most personal attachments.  They were unmarried and childless.  They trained and dwelled apart from the rest of us to insulate them from espionage or blackmail attempts.  Marines completing a two-year Security Services assignment enjoyed automatic promotion and assignment to desirable postings, usually in Hawaii or Italy.  And, like the Vestal Virgins, those betraying us were buried alive publicly to emphasize the gravity of their betrayal.    The traitors’ graves lined the halls of Security Service’s HQ, transparent Plexiglas providing putrefying admonitions to Security Service personnel.

I imagined that if this adventure went tits up I’d be similarly rendered, faultless or not.

The package, about one meter by fifteen centimeters by thirteen centimeters, was on a table before the General.  A titanium chain led to a titanium handcuff around his right wrist, which was anchored to a gauntleted glove on his hand.  The chain and cuffs wore a rubberized coating.

I waited for someone else to ask the obvious question, “What’s in the box?”  Merk obliged.

“Only five people can answer that question, and you aren’t one of them.”

Merk smiled at the answer he’d expected.

“However, I can tell you about the container enclosing it.  Or rather, the three containers enclosing it.”  With his free hand, the General dug a coin from a pant pocket and dropped it onto the container.  It sparked, sending the coin to the floor.  “Two hundred fifty volts.  More than enough to kill any human touching it without—” He lifted his cuffed hand. “Appropriate prophylaxes.”

We chuckled.  “Appropriate prophylaxes” was the term basic marine training manuals used to describe venereal disease abatement, complete with unsparing photos.

With his free hand, the General palmed a remote.  A schematic appeared behind him.  Protecting the cargo were three Russian doll cases.  Inside the electrified case was a second of foam cuddling twenty eight-centimeter metal canisters with jets facing towards the opening of the first.

“Five VX nerve gas, five hydrogen cyanide, five aerosolized hydrochloric acid, and five Beta-Gamma-Zeta IV.”  Even Merk kind of blanched at the last one.  BGZ-IV topped the Geneva Convention’s naughty list, and, even though the GC had become more of a suggestion box than a binding legal mandate, BGZ-IV was its best case for enforcement.  Aerosolized, it caused the central nervous system to overfire until it electrocuted you from within.  While there were no documented deployments against human beings, videos depicting its use against lower mammals commanded on average $300,000 in dark web crush video circles.

Inside the foam was a next-gen claymore mine: plastic explosives embedded with explosive ball bearings. A package potent enough to destroy a standard pillbox with 18-centimeter walls.

The General smiled.  “Within that is a titanium sphere nine centimeters in diameter.  It’s proof against high-end tactical and low-end strategic nuclear bombs, so the case munitions pose it no risk.  Obviously, these defenses target low-information adversaries, up to a hundred of them, we estimate.  Be assured, however, that if the ship is destroyed en route, the cases will protect the cargo.”

He drummed his gauntleted fingers against the case.  “They aren’t total proof, however.  Hence, you guys.  We thought about sending more than three of you but figured any more than three would draw unwanted attention to a supposedly routine cargo flight.

We grew restless.  Kinetics like us (combat marines) weren’t good at sitting still, at least for long, and we weren’t exactly eager to board a ship and sit motionless for two more hours.

The General noticed.  “One more thing.  For this mission, Protocol 11 is in effect.”

Merk, Darwish, and I nodded at each other in a show of respect.  We estimated the danger we might pose to one another.

Protocol 11 was terse and grave, a few bloodless words licensing terrible things: “In circumstances authorized by this Protocol, relevant personnel may, in furtherance of mission and with absolute immunity, deprive military personnel, citizens, and noncombatants of all civil rights ensured by the UCMJ or those ordinarily afforded to them by any and all federal or international laws.”

Protocol 11 didn’t intersect with “milk run” in any Venn diagram, even if the mission looked like a milk run, even if I didn’t want to think about it, and especially because I couldn’t help thinking about it.

* * * * * *

We took off 30 minutes later.  The pilots weren’t read in.  They thought we were replacing personnel poisoned by spoiled cuttlefish.  We had no reason to suspect them.

Our kit was impressive.  First came a Vq-5 German machine pistol with extended 45-round mags and alternating flechette and frangible ammo, both promising especially hideous personal ruin.  Next were Pinky 89 semi-auto handguns chambered in .357 magnum armor-piercing rounds, also with extended 21-round mags and ported muzzles to quell recoil.  The grenades were a cool bonus, three each of high-ex, frag, and boomboxes, sonic weapons designed to disrupt the autonomic nervous system.  We outfitted ourselves discreetly, concealing the weapons under standard issue light-armor jackets.

Once the gun buzz faded, we of course speculated about what we were transporting.  The consensus: it was prototype weaponry, maybe something cool that opened up a doorway to Hell.

“Then again…” Darwish smiled.

“Then again what?”

“My girlfriend’s in Army intelligence.  There’s a video going around, one the Pentagon has mostly suppressed.”  He palmed a small data chip and slipped it into the disposable phone that came standard issue in our kit.  “Some people think it’s fake–really fun–but fake.  My girlfriend says the metadata is intact; the video is unmolested.”

I couldn’t resist. “I like it when you say ‘unmolested.’”

Darwish tapped the screen.  What appeared was like a death camp inside a leper colony inside infected with tertiary syphilis.  Overhead camera security depicted a museum guard holding a ruby sphere in one hand and his sidearm in the other.  His expression was unaccountability retailing homicidal rage.  His colleagues, security and administrative types, were obviously trying to reason with him.  He replied by shooting them.  Bang, a fellow guard’s throat explodes.  Bang, the Asian Collections Director’s spine shatters.  Bang, the Community Outreach Director’s head flies, severed below the nose.  (I didn’t know who these people actually were; I just added the descriptions to distinguish among them.)  I was impressed by the firepower, which forsook second thoughts.  Maybe a bit much, perhaps, for a museum security guard.

Bullets fired off-screen pulverized the guard, separating him from himself twenty times over.  He dropped, and the ruby sphere rolled from his grasp.  SWAT officers swarmed him, kicking away his gun.  One emptied a mag into the corpse, just to be sure.  Another retrieved the sphere, then stopped mid-stride, fugued-out.  Homicidal mania twisted his face.  He pocketed the sphere, then offered his colleagues a full-auto surprise, taking out four of them.  Next came grenades, all he had.   A moment later, a shotgun round obliterated his head.

Merk and I were impressed.  The carnage seemed legit.

“You don’t know if this is real?”

Darwish nodded.  “The only thing we know is that the video comes from a security cam at the Miami Metropolitan Museum.  Of course, someone could have used the camera to fake a massacre, but why would they? And, assuming they knew about it, why would the museum okay it?”

He then smiled.  “There’s a sequel.”  He tapped the screen.  Security footage from the Miami-Dade Metro Police morgue showed two medical examiners and an assistant, gowned and splash-shielded, hovering over a body-bagged cadaver.  The tech unzipped the bag.  Within was a dead SWAT officer.  While the assistant cut off her uniform, one of the MEs withdrew something from the corpse’s left pants pocket.  It was the sphere.

The ME then snagged a scalpel and slashed a smile into the assistant’s abdomen.  While the assistant bled out on the floor, the ME frenzied the other doctor.  He then rose, panting and bloody, sweeping for targets.  The video paused.

Darwish continued.  “It took, like, five more iterations of this before somebody figured out that holding onto whatever that thing is turned you homicidal.”

Merk scoffed.  “So… it’s what?  Cursed or something?”

Darwish shrugged.  “Probably another nerve perv.”

“Nerve perv” was slang for weapons that co-opted or disrupted the target’s nervous system.

I joined in.  “So who’s gonna touch it first?”

* * * * * *

I surveilled the orphanage, then the hospital.  I had Waxe 99 binoculars, the best.  Thermals showed two to three hundred in the hospital, just under a hundred in the orphanage.  They stood two miles apart.

I again wondered if this was some kind of test.  Pick one?  Maybe they wanted me to show initiative and nix both, to cherry the sundae.  If not, which target?  Moral economics held that one kid equaled a sliding scale of two to six adults, depending upon the kid’s cuteness and the adults’ age and infirmity.  This wasn’t a legal matter but rather an emotional one.  Dead kids, especially murdered kids, provided most people primordial horror and sorrow.  Orphan status mitigated this slightly (since people deemed orphans disposable compared with children raised by their natural parents).  Sentimental nonsense, all of it, but quite relevant to my calculations.

Vaporizing an orphanage, however, created fewer collateral problems than vaporizing a hospital.  Orphanages were low-maintenance and easily replaceable.  Earth (or the United States, at least) suffered a massive surplus of social workers, and replacement structures were easily found or built.

Hospitals, not so.  Doctors and nurses were expensive to replace, and so were hospitals, what with their MRIs and other high-tech accoutrements.  And, while orphans were worth two to six adults, doctors were worth three to six orphans and five to fifteen adults, in both moral and economic terms.  The patients were a mixed bag, but there were a lot of them, and who knows how many would die for want of a hospital?  It was all too inky.

I thought about a coin toss, but that seemed a bit callous.

* * * * * *

One of the pilots hailed me.  “Admin’s calling from Lunar-21.  They asked for you.”

I took the call on speaker.

“Sergeant?”

“Yes.”

“Jun Vasquez, Lieutenant Junior Grade and Lunar-21 Base Administrator here.”

“Go ahead.”

“Command ordered we advise you of any possible security issue we encounter before and during your visit.”

“Go ahead.”

“Our security officers have detained a lab tech on suspicion of espionage.  We found some Class 3 propaganda in his quarters after one of his coworkers came to us with ideological fidelity concerns.”

“Class 3, huh?”  Class 3 propaganda materials were arguably a joke.  They were legal and readily obtainable among civilians and comprised little more than pointed criticism of the Pentagon and prevailing political administrations.  Normally, a superior officer would confiscate the stuff and tell the offender to not be a bedwetter.  But, since this was a milk run (but not really), they detained the guy, who probably got the stuff from a commie hooker at Lunar Central.

“What’s your headcount there?”

“Twelve.  Three scientists, four techs, and five marines.”

“And this is the only suspect?”

“So far.  We’re searching everybody’s quarters.”

“Seems like overkill.”

“Command sent us a memo a couple days ago asking for escalated political contraband enforcement.”

Unlikely coincidence?

“Okay.  Keep me apprised.  We’ll be landing in twenty.”

LJG rang off.

Merk, Darwish, and I traded inquiring looks.

“Milk run.”

They chuckled.

Merk went first.  “This feels like Command jitters.”

Darwish smiled.  “Ironic.”

“Command is allergic to irony.”  And, to be fair, so was every military organization ever.   Irony makes it harder to kill people.  “I wonder if they know.”

Merk followed up.  “Know what?”

Darwish understood.  “Protocol 11.”

Protocol 11 tended to make marines trigger happy, which tended to make everybody else nervous.

* * * * * *

Another call came when we landed. It was LJG again, this time more animated.  “We’ve uncovered more propaganda.  All Class 3.”

I sighed.  “Who has them?”

“Another tech, one of the scientists, and one of the marines.”

“But still Class 3, right?”

“Correct.”

“Let me guess: Madam Ludmilla deploys the arts of Eastern love to teach clueless if well-meaning GIs about the pitfalls of capitalism.  Or something.”

“Pretty much.”

I actually distrusted anyone confined to a lunar research lab who didn’t keep a little contraband around to mitigate the insanity of their circumstances.  I therefore pitied the suspects: wrong place, wrong time, nobody cares until they have to, and suddenly they have to.

“Do you want to postpone your delivery?”

Merk and Darwish together shouted, “No!”

I nodded agreement.  “Confine to quarters.  Seek further guidance from Command.”

“Will do, Captain.  See you presently.”

LJG rang off, and Merk, Darwish, and I got going.  Merk carried the case in one hand and his Pinky 89 in the other.  Darwish and I flanked him, Vq-5s readied.  We opened the airlock into the retractable transfer corridor the pilots and base personnel had already secured.  Two marines, armed with Gjk 5.56mm carbines awaited us at the corridor’s far end.  LJG stood between them, nervous and eager.

They waved.  We waved back.

When we reached the corridor’s end, the marines opened the base hatch for us and gestured for us to enter.  When we hesitated, they went first.  After that, we reached the clean room in sixty seconds.

While we walked to the clean room, LJG excitedly updated us a third time about what he no doubt hoped was an espionage cell in the lab.  “We’ve arrested another one of the marines.”

I was unmoved.  “Class 3?”

“Class 2!”  Class 2 contraband was anything evidencing participation in subversive activities, including but not limited to attending the rally of a disfavored political party or corresponding with suspected dissidents.  More personal, less theoretical, more inculpatory.  Enough for an official reprimand, but not for a court martial.

“An anonymous source sent us video of him fraternizing with a Cornell graduate student notoriously affiliated with Neo-Soviet sympathizers.”  He brandished a tablet and played a video.  The early-20s grad student was gorgeous and probably had a camming side gig in case teaching postmodern subversive semiotics didn’t pan out.

“She’s hot.  I approve.”

Merk and Darwish chuckled.

We reached the lab.  At a kiosk in the clean room’s antechamber sat Colonel Hades Gomar, reedy, intense, and hairless.

He smiled weirdly.  We said nothing.  He frowned.  He then handed us a tablet and I signed over custody.  Merk removed his cuff and gauntlet while Gomar deactivated the external case’s charge from his tablet.  Gomar then took the package into an adjacent sterilization chamber.

Merk, Darwish, and I lingered to watch.

A klaxon sounded.  Gomar sealed the sterilization chamber, which one could penetrate with a 10,000-watt, tank-mounted combat laser.  He offered another weird smile.

LJG pointed a MiQ .45 at us.  We traded fire.  Our machine pistols splattered him against the lab door.  Darwish took one dead center and dropped.  Merk went to aid Darwish while I covered the door.  It slid open.  In rolled three frag grenades.  I dove behind the admin kiosk.  Merk followed, carrying Darwish.  We withstood three gobsmacking blasts, thanks to the kiosk catching the shrapnel.  Then, still disoriented, I sprayed the door with my Vq-5 and chased it with three boomboxes, trusting that the kiosk would once again shield us from their effects.

They created a photoelectric storm, disrupting the overhead lighting and electronics and disabling two marines, whose choking noises reminded me I wasn’t dead.  After a moment, I peeked over the kiosk.  The doorway was open.  I tossed two frags through it to thwart any lurking assailants and again took cover, reloading between the explosions.

A voice came into my earpiece.

“Captain?”

“Yes.”

“General Manturk.”

“Sir!”

“I’m told you’re under fire.”

“Yes, sir, but not presently.”

“Good.  I’ve received intelligence, for your ears only.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Obviously, your mission is compromised.  We’ve learned a Neo-Soviet cell is operating within the lab and that your team may be involved.  We don’t know exactly who’s involved.  We do know that you are not.  Accordingly, Command is ordering you to invoke Protocol 11 and to execute everyone in the lab, including Corporal Merk, Private Darwish, and the pilots who flew you there.”

“Sir?”

The General continued as if I hadn’t questioned him.

“You are to spare only Colonel Gomar.  We are convinced that he is also innocent of this conspiracy.  Act now, Captain.”

“Sir!”

I rang off.  Merk and Darwish were good.  Darwish’s armor had stopped the slug.  Both looked to me for orders.  Instead I gave them bullets.  I then rose, saluted Colonel Gomar, and left the lab pod.

Seventeen minutes later, everybody was dead.

I returned to Colonel Gomar, who greeted me eating a cuttlefish burrito from a nearby vending machine.  The case remained unopened in the sterilization chamber behind him.  He nodded congratulations.

“What in hell is going on?” I demanded.

* * * * * *

It was a test.  The whole effing thing.

Six months before, I’d applied to serve in the Omega Alpha corps.  Its missions were ultra-secret, and its pay scale was 150% of standard rank.  Less than one percent of applicants got to join.

Colonel Gomar was Omega Alpha.  He was at the lab to evaluate me.  The actual test wasn’t delivering the package.  It was killing everyone on command, giving no quarter, with no hesitation.  Which I did, because thinking was for the higher-ups.  The transfer mission was bogus.  The case was empty.  The cursed ruby–or nerve perv, or whatever–never existed.  The killing sprees were faked.

“Omega Alphas,” Colonel Gomar explained, “can’t just be elite warriors.  They have to be killers.  This means not only that they don’t hesitate but also that they lack regrets.  We don’t need psyche bills and potentially discoverable session notes.  We need untroubled consciences and unsparing operators.  You are both.”

* * * * * *

Command created Protocol 11 specifically for Omega Alpha.  And it was in force all day every day for them—for me.

I kept scanning the hospital and the orphanage, hoping for inspiration.  It was like having to choose between Christmas and my birthday.

And then there was a voice in my ear, that of General Manturk.

“Captain.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Today’s your lucky day.”

“Sir.”

“Take them both.”