I threw out a few chuckles at my own expense with them.
Trying to ignore the pack of hyenas outside, I pounded my fist against my forehead and escaped into my tent. After drying myself off, I snuggled into my bunk, bringing my blankets up to my nose. I felt like I’d aged three decades.
I still couldn’t believe it.
A baby?
A baby.
I couldn’t help but smile again at the thought.
XI
Mission Entry #11
Jacob Hunter
Tripolis, Syria — October 42, A.D.
Well, folks… it’s been fun.
This may very well be my last journal entry because two very different things might happen in the next few hours. Behind door number one, and a much more preferable outcome, is a successful mission consisting of Agrippina’s capture and our obtainment of the last orb. Behind door number two, and the more attractive game show girl (that’s always how they get you!) is our deaths.
Fun, eh?
Oh, should I mention Helena’s pregnant?
Pregnant!
As if I didn’t have enough to worry about. Apparently, there really isn’t a stork that magically brings children into the world. Well there goes that bubble. Poof. Cue little wisp of smoke. To make matters worse, Helena insists on going on the mission. We couldn’t leave her behind since she’d find a way to join us anyway, and even though Madrina was staying behind, she couldn’t stop Helena even if she tried, despite her size. And as much as I want to, chaining the mother of my child to a pole doesn’t exactly seem like the best option either.
Sigh.
I think I’m going insane. I can only imagine what my blood pressure must be like. Maybe I should ask Wang to give me a checkup…
The human body is not designed for so many fluctuations in emotions.
But anyway, I know I said I wouldn’t bring it up anymore, but this is a biggie. I’m going to have a baby for crying out loud.
And isn’t this what journals are for? Writing down my thoughts and feeling!?
What’s that you say?
You don’t want to hear it?
Fine!
Look at me. I’m arguing with myself in a print medium. Normally I just fought with myself in my head, and that was bad enough. This is getting ridiculous.
As for the mission, we’re going in slow and meticulous. We don’t know what awaits us within Agrippina’s little stronghold, but we’re used to unknown terrain. We also have a full complement of troops with us, and the additions of Gaius, Marcus and Titus helped our odds just that much more. The two former legionnaires were handier with a sword than any of us, and Titus had been training with rifles for years. He wasn’t the best shot in the group, but in the CQB environment we’ll soon operate in, he would do just fine.
All right then. There isn’t much more to say. Nor is there much time to say anything, if there was anything to say at all.
There’s a mouthful.
Well. Wish us luck.
It’s been real.
“Are you done with that thing yet, Jacob?” Helena whispered from atop the sand dune.
“Yeah,” I replied, tying off the notebook and tossing it in my bag, maybe for the last time. “Any word from Bravo Team?”
“Not yet,” she said, scanning the dock area of the complex with her DSR1. “They’re late.”
“You know how Santino likes to make an entrance,” I quipped.
Helena didn’t respond, diligently performing her sniper duties, only five rounds left in her rifle. I glanced over at Vincent, who crouched next to me behind the dune. His rifle hung at his right side by a strap around his neck as he practiced reloading magazines one handed. I’d watched him practice the maneuver over the past few months now, and he was good at it. Every attempt he made to secure a fresh magazine into the dangling rifle’s magazine had been successful so far. I just hoped he’d be able to do it during the insanity of a combat situation.
“Ready to get back in the saddle, Vincent?” I asked.
He looked up at me when my interruption caused him to miss his reload for the first time. He gave me a disgruntled look.
“I’m not so old that you can put me out to pastures quite yet, Hunter,” he reported. “I am not completely worthless.” He smiled. “Not yet.”
I heard Helena grumble something similar from atop the dune.
So far Santino’s little comedy posse only assumed Helena was pregnant. His little joke, as it turned out, had only been just that, and not an insight into her internal workings. After she’d joined me in the tent, we decided to keep her situation under wraps for the time being. We didn’t need to worry everybody.
So, I ignored her.
I offered him a smile. “The thought never crossed my mind, sir.”
He nodded and went back to work practicing his maneuver. Meanwhile, I hunkered down against the sand and looked up at the stars. They were far brighter than any variety back home and there were so many more. More than I could ever hope to count.
“Get up here, Jacob,” Helena ordered, interrupting my stargazing.
I rolled onto my feet and climbed my way to the top of the dune. On my way up, I accidentally knocked sand on Vincent and he glared up at me as he shook himself clean.
“What have we got?” I asked, pulling out my binoculars and focusing them down range.
Once again, she didn’t respond. She didn’t need to. The view was telling enough.
By the time I focused my optics, two men were already climbing out of the water, their dark figures slowly emerging from the murky depths like in any good Navy SEAL promotional video. I watched four guards fall to the docks before the two figures even climbed onto the wooden planks. Once they hauled themselves up, they cautiously made their way towards the shore — low, slow and silent. A third figure emerged behind them and quietly lowered the dead bodies into the water as the first two men passed by them.
I quickly shifted my attention to the right, and watched as two more guards sitting near the seaside entrance to the courtyard stood from their chairs. They must have noticed something was amiss, but they didn’t have much time to think on it before Wang and Santino of Bravo Team gunned them down with their suppressor equipped rifles.
As gravity pulled them to the ground, all three members of Bravo Team were rushing forward to plant themselves firmly against the perimeter wall. My view was obscured in that moment, but I was able to watch as Wang and Santino rounded the corner of the outer wall’s entrance and disappear into the complex. I shifted my attention to the other known guard positions within my line of sight. Each contained their occupants, seemingly unaware of what was happening around them, and then they too were removed from the game.
Two minutes later, Santino’s voice came over the com. “Alpha Lead, this is Bravo Actual.”
“Go ahead,” I answered.
“Beachhead secure. Give us five mikes to change out of our wetsuits, and regroup at rally point one.”
“Roger, Bravo Actual. Charlie Actual, howcopy?”
“Solid copy,” Bordeaux’s voice came back. “Rally point one, five mikes.”
I sent him a double click and waited with Helena and Vincent for a very long five minutes. When time was up, we rose to our feet and double timed the one hundred yards to the southern end of the beach side perimeter wall. Charlie Team would be coming in from the north. We made the trip in seconds, arriving at the outer wall just before Charlie.