purpose was clear.
The pirates lowered victims into the pit after robbing them of everything from gold fillings to the very shoes on their feet. The brigands likely used the pit as intimidation to force their victims to tell them where valuables were hidden. Doc, Billy, and the chief tried and executed the remaining pirates. A burial at sea was held before they opened key valves belowdecks, eventually sending the pirate vessel to the bottom.
Months had passed since, but time would never fade the horror of that dark hold.
• • •
There was no moon when Doc and Billy rolled out into the Texas badlands. Disco and Hawse stayed back to provide security and monitor the radio while the others were outside the wire. During their mission brief before they boarded the C-130, Task Force Phoenix had been provided copies of maps indicating the positions of air-dropped equipment originally intended for Hotel 23’s former commander.
Based on what had been recovered from the other drops, Doc thought this equipment would prove useful to his team and possibly shed some light on what the intelligence reports did not reveal—the identity of the organization responsible for the airdrops, and for wreaking utter mayhem on the former occupants of Hotel 23.
According to the briefing, the previous equipment recovered consisted of some rather advanced hardware. This hardware wasdescribed in reporting as “surpassing current technology by ten years” and “things you might find in an agency directorate of operations back room inventory.”
The Task Force Phoenix operation orders were clear:
Primary mission objectives: Secure Hotel 23, verify her systems are in the green, verify remaining nuclear warhead viability in support of Task Force Hourglass.
Avoid detection.
Secondary mission objectives: Recover abandoned hardware for exploitation, assess the origin of Remote Six, recover supplies for ongoing support of Hotel 23 launch activity.
There was not much left for ambiguity. His primary tasking had been met. Hotel 23 had been secured, secure communications had been established, all networks checked green, and the nuclear payload had passed all function bit checks.
Although unclear as to what exactly the mission objectives of Task Force Hourglass might be, he knew it was something big and something far above his snake-eater pay grade. No matter what the mission of Hourglass, he still had his team’s remaining objectives to meet. Doc never fell short of tasking.
Their target for the evening, an airdrop eight and a half miles east of Hotel 23, was the closest drop identified on the maps. Working east they moved wall-line abreast of one another. No point man, no straggler. They knew they didn’t have enough people to run this excursion safely, so they evolved tactics to mitigate the extreme threat.
Their sleep cycles and circadian rhythms had already adjusted to night operations. Normalizing their bodies to their new living conditions was necessary before heading out. They needed maximum awareness and attention for night reconnaissance like this. Their night observation devices were functioning literally in the green, with fresh lithium batteries as well as back-ups tucked in their packs. Neither Doc nor Billy observed anything out of the ordinary in the night sky. They scanned overhead from time to time, always aware that there might be air assets collecting on them from above.
They hadn’t brought enough water, as they hadn’t wanted to hump it sixteen miles round-trip. The iodine tablets they carriedwould kill any bugs in the stream water they collected along the way.
They were only five hundred yards outbound from Hotel 23 when they had their first encounter.
Billy whispered to Doc, tapping his shoulder. “Three tangos caught in the fence about a hundred yards.”
The field was shaped in such a way that the men had no choice but to pass close to the creatures to stay on course. The other option was to avoid them by
The pirates lowered victims into the pit after robbing them of everything from gold fillings to the very shoes on their feet. The brigands likely used the pit as intimidation to force their victims to tell them where valuables were hidden. Doc, Billy, and the chief tried and executed the remaining pirates. A burial at sea was held before they opened key valves belowdecks, eventually sending the pirate vessel to the bottom.
Months had passed since, but time would never fade the horror of that dark hold.
• • •
There was no moon when Doc and Billy rolled out into the Texas badlands. Disco and Hawse stayed back to provide security and monitor the radio while the others were outside the wire. During their mission brief before they boarded the C-130, Task Force Phoenix had been provided copies of maps indicating the positions of air-dropped equipment originally intended for Hotel 23’s former commander.
Based on what had been recovered from the other drops, Doc thought this equipment would prove useful to his team and possibly shed some light on what the intelligence reports did not reveal—the identity of the organization responsible for the airdrops, and for wreaking utter mayhem on the former occupants of Hotel 23.
According to the briefing, the previous equipment recovered consisted of some rather advanced hardware. This hardware wasdescribed in reporting as “surpassing current technology by ten years” and “things you might find in an agency directorate of operations back room inventory.”
The Task Force Phoenix operation orders were clear:
Primary mission objectives: Secure Hotel 23, verify her systems are in the green, verify remaining nuclear warhead viability in support of Task Force Hourglass.
Avoid detection.
Secondary mission objectives: Recover abandoned hardware for exploitation, assess the origin of Remote Six, recover supplies for ongoing support of Hotel 23 launch activity.
There was not much left for ambiguity. His primary tasking had been met. Hotel 23 had been secured, secure communications had been established, all networks checked green, and the nuclear payload had passed all function bit checks.
Although unclear as to what exactly the mission objectives of Task Force Hourglass might be, he knew it was something big and something far above his snake-eater pay grade. No matter what the mission of Hourglass, he still had his team’s remaining objectives to meet. Doc never fell short of tasking.
Their target for the evening, an airdrop eight and a half miles east of Hotel 23, was the closest drop identified on the maps. Working east they moved wall-line abreast of one another. No point man, no straggler. They knew they didn’t have enough people to run this excursion safely, so they evolved tactics to mitigate the extreme threat.
Their sleep cycles and circadian rhythms had already adjusted to night operations. Normalizing their bodies to their new living conditions was necessary before heading out. They needed maximum awareness and attention for night reconnaissance like this. Their night observation devices were functioning literally in the green, with fresh lithium batteries as well as back-ups tucked in their packs. Neither Doc nor Billy observed anything out of the ordinary in the night sky. They scanned overhead from time to time, always aware that there might be air assets collecting on them from above.
They hadn’t brought enough water, as they hadn’t wanted to hump it sixteen miles round-trip. The iodine tablets they carriedwould kill any bugs in the stream water they collected along the way.
They were only five hundred yards outbound from Hotel 23 when they had their first encounter.
Billy whispered to Doc, tapping his shoulder. “Three tangos caught in the fence about a hundred yards.”
The field was shaped in such a way that the men had no choice but to pass close to the creatures to stay on course. The other option was to avoid them by
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