I think this mission was the one that finally made me wonder if Captain Freedom really was a death-magnet. I was aware of his record when he was recruited for the project and I became his First. It’s a bullcrap superstition. But with the way things turned out, you have to wonder.
Yuma was overrun. We’d gotten word of different groups of survivors holed up throughout the city. There was a big group down on the south side. Colonel Shelly had run the numbers and was sending us to get them. We’d expected to find a few dozen exes at a time. Maybe as many as two hundred. It would be a good mission for the Unbreakables, a chance to flex our collective muscles and burn off some restlessness.
We moved out of the Proving Grounds in one long convoy as planned. Three sections from the Unbreakables were in the front carriers, backed up by equal numbers of norms. Behind us were a dozen Humvees. Captain Freedom was in the lead with section Eleven. I was with him. He likes to be in the front, setting an example and sharing in the threat with his soldiers. More than a few people think he has a death wish.
To be clear, Freedom’s a good man for an officer. Like most people, brass tend to be fifty-fifty. Half of them think they’re superior to any enlisted man, no matter how many years of experience you’ve got over what they learned in a classroom. Freedom’s in the other half. He’s decisive and confident, but he’s not so chock-full of ego it makes him stupid. He listens to his intel. He listens to his First. He listens to his gut. And he makes great calls because of it. He’d seen Colonel Shelly’s warning order and heard the S2 directives culled from intel coming in from all over the country. No body shots. No grenades. No intimidation. Just head shots.
If I may make an observation, though, there’s a point where this becomes useless. That’s what the brass never gets. You can’t spend years training a soldier to do A and then expect him to switch to B in a day just because some intel told him to. Oh, he’ll get it right during that week of drills, but once he’s on mission those years of training are going to kick back in and override that week.
I know training. I was a drill sergeant for seven years before I joined Project Krypton. There’s something special when a fuzzy hears he’s been assigned to Sgt. Paine. You can see the dread on their faces before you even start talking. So I knew—I know now—we were overconfident and our brains were filled with the wrong kind of training. We went into Yuma and all that training kicked back in.
Yeah, even for me, too. I was a former drill sergeant who could throw a refrigerator fifteen feet. Damn straight I was well trained and overconfident.
The convoy went forward down Freeway 95, the long stretch when the road runs east-west but before the locals start calling it County. The first exes were sighted at approximately oh-nine-forty-five hours. They crawled out from behind cars or staggered out of ditches. You could hear their teeth clicking before you saw them. They were put down.
All the Unbreakables were carrying M240 Bravos. One of those will put a trio of rounds through a skull with no problem. The downside to the Bravo is it’s damn loud. We knew sound attracted the exes. Rather than four or five targets at a time, we’d have a dozen or so staggering at us at one mile an hour. We didn’t think it’d be a big deal. Even if one got close, all the Unbreakables were wearing the newest ACUs. They still had pockets for knee and elbow pads, but were also triple layered at the shoulder, forearms, and calves—all the major bite points.
We found our first large cluster of about ten exes close to ten-fifteen hours. They were heading our way, stumbling down 95, bouncing off abandoned cars and trucks. Freedom already had sections Eleven and Thirty-one flanking them when he saw the movement. I think I saw it at the same time, but I’m not sure.
There was another cluster just a few yards behind the first one, maybe as many as fifteen of them. They were almost close enough to be one big group. And there were two or three lone exes stumbling along either side of the street. Freedom pulled in Twelve and also brought up two sections from Charlie platoon for support. Charlie’s most of the washouts from the program, and Delta’s the only control platoon left at Krypton. They’ve started calling themselves the Real Men. It’s probably going to stick.
Section Twelve and the Real Men started at the back and worked in. It took about two minutes to put down all the exes with head shots. I remember I saw a few rounds punch through chests and barked an order down the line to confirm targets. Looking back, I should’ve seen where it was going right then.
Captain Freedom made a point of grabbing the last ex and twisting its head off with his bare hands. It was a heavy man with long hair and a thick mustache. He tossed the head underarm, letting it roll up the street like a bowling ball. A couple soldiers chuckled at that. It was a good morale boost. We needed it. The road was getting too clogged for the Humvees.
By ten-thirty-five the convoy had gone another mile and a half and killed another three dozen exes. Sections Twelve and Thirty-three dropped back to reload. The other downside to the Bravo, for us, is it eats ammo like candy. The spare ammo boxes were awkward things for a soldier to carry. Even for a soldier who can bench nine-hundred pounds.
We’d also found four survivors in a mobile home. Family of three and the son’s girlfriend. We loaded them in one of the last Humvees. We had three with us just for potential survivors.
From here we could see the intersection of 95 and East County 9 1/2 a hundred yards or so ahead. It had a gas station and a Circle K. Everyone stops there if you’re taking the long way back to the proving grounds after a night in Yuma.
There were a lot of cars there. I couldn’t tell if it was a huge fender-bender or everyone in this part of the city decided to drive out and all abandon their cars at the same place. There were two or three big trucks as well, including one semi stretched right across most of the intersection. We could see a few exes milling around the vehicles. Nine, maybe ten. One or two of them had seen us or heard our weapons.
We moved up nice and slow. Another four exes stumbled out from between the cars while we did. They were finding a path through the pile-up. We got close enough to hear their teeth clacking together.
But there was a lot of clacking. Too much for the exes we were seeing.
Two or three looks, a couple of gestures, and Freedom had Twelve and Thirty-one flanking either side of the intersection. Sections Twenty-two and Thirty-three dropped back to watch our rear. The Humvees were about fifty yards behind us now. Section Twenty-one moved forward towards the baker’s dozen of exes.
By now, most of us knew how strong and fast we are. There was a period of broken doorknobs, torn shirts, and lots and lots of snapped bootlaces. We went through bootlaces like you wouldn’t believe. But that was long past. Section Twenty-one flitted across the open space and eliminated the exes. They grabbed skulls, twisted, and moved on to the next one before any of the dead guys could raise their arms. You can only get two or three that way, but six people doing two or three each is a lot of damage in less than ten seconds. Not one shot fired.
The last ex hit the pavement and Twenty-one leaped up into the air one by one like it was the most natural thing in the world. A fifteen foot vertical jump. They came down on top of the semi.
“Oh, screw me,” said Taylor. We could hear him forty feet away. He didn’t say “screw.” I see no need to use his exact phrase, even in an informal report.
A voice crackled over my radio. Sergeant Harrison, Twenty-one’s leader. “Unbreakable Seven,” he said. “This is Unbreakable Twenty-one.”
“Unbreakable Twenty-one, this is Seven,” I answered.
“Seven, this is Twenty-one. Six is going to want to take a look at this, sir.”