“Thanks. You seem well also.” Wraith smiled at her, spurring a grumble from Lemon about unfair treatment. “I was arrested by the Moscow police after the attack, but fortunately they handed me over to the GRU. An instructor from my student days is a high-ranking officer there, so he let me go in exchange for information. If they’d turned me over to the KGB, I’d be freezing to death in a cell right now.”
The KGB and the GRU were the two foremost intelligence organizations in the Soviet Union. The KGB was mainly an extension of the Communist Party, but the GRU was a military organization, and conducted themselves accordingly. Put loosely, the KGB were politicians and the GRU were soldiers, and the GRU had actually been relatively—relatively—cooperative with Mithril in the past.
Still, it was impossible for Mao not to be alarmed at the thought of Wraith giving information to another organization. “What did you tell the GRU?”
“My reasons for looking into Yamsk-11, that kind of thing. Nothing that should make any trouble for you,” Wraith said reassuringly.
“Hmm...”
“I know you can’t trust my word on that, but the GRU just wanted a point of contact for Mithril,” Wraith said. “Their leader has considered Amalgam a threat for a while and wants to be rid of them as much as you do.”
“That’s nice and all, but then shouldn’t you be visiting Tessa right now?” Mao pointed out. “Of course, she’s currently at the bottom of the ocean, which does put a damper on things...”
“That’s actually not why I’m here,” Wraith told them. “I have two pieces of news... Do you have a table somewhere?”
“Of course we don’t. Let’s go over there.” Lemon walked briskly to the nearest container crate, while Mao and Wraith followed behind him.
Wraith unrolled a flexible electronic screen on top of the crate, before turning it on and tapping at it a few times to bring up a detailed map of the missile base that they were heading towards. “This is the latest info from the GRU,” she told them. “There’s information about the electronic locks and security systems inside the facility, as well as the firing system.”
The 3D blueprint provided even had handwritten English notes, assuredly written in by someone who knew the base well. It was far more detailed than the map that Mao and the others had used for planning.
“It’s amazing,” said Mao, playing with the information on the screen in fascination.
“Is it useful?” Wraith asked.
“Yes,” Mao told her. “If we’d charged in there with just the info we had before, we might’ve been in real trouble.”
“Glad to hear it. It felt dangerous to send the information online, so I got your location from Hunter and came running...”
“Why did the GRU give us this?” Mao wondered.
“Why else? They can’t handle the forces occupying the missile base by themselves,” Lemon put in.
“He’s right,” Wraith agreed. “They already tried a counterinsurgency, but it was totally annihilated by the enemy ASes.”
Mao groaned. “Typical. When the fire burns out of control, that’s where we come in. Always sticking us with the tough jobs.”
“But as they say, ‘Who Dares, Wins,’” said Clouseau, who had abruptly appeared behind them to peer at the map. “This will make our jobs a lot easier. Thank you, Wraith.”
“It’s nothing. Now, it’s not as important, but my other bit of news—” she began to say, but was interrupted by Clouseau shouting at the soldiers around him.
“Get over here! There’ll be a few changes in the plan!”
“Ah—”
“Sorry,” Clouseau said apologetically. “But if it’s not important, it can wait. I want to get our plan down first.” The members of the infantry units and their team leaders, Yang Jun-kyu and Roger Sandraptor, gathered around, as Clouseau began giving swift directives about changes in team composition, entry routes, and equipment. The team leaders repeated the changes and inquired about the details.
“...That is all,” he concluded at last. “Any other questions?”
Mao raised her hand. She didn’t have a question, but she’d decided this was probably the end of the briefing, and she had a few words for her comrades. “May I? It’s not a question, but...” She met Clouseau’s gaze. While he had come more recently to the West Pacific Battle Group, Mao was a true member of the old guard.
Clouseau probably realized that as well as she did, because he nodded to her as if to say, Do as you like.
Mao looked around at the people with whom she’d shared so much joy and pain. She knew all their faces well. They seemed relaxed on the surface, but they couldn’t hide it from Mao—they were all nervous as hell.
There were thirty-two of them there in total. There had been more once, but most had transferred away or dropped out, so that these were the only ones left to complete the mission. Of course, many had died or retired due to injury, as well.
“This will probably be our last operation,” said Mao, “so I want to say this to you all. Um...” she started, but couldn’t figure out what to say next. She felt she suddenly understood why Tessa had failed to come up with a good speech during her last ‘briefing.’ Still, her position wasn’t nearly as lofty, and so, like the unremarkable person she was, she could just make do with whatever came to mind.
Yes, she thought. How about this...
“This is a rough situation,” she continued out loud. “This upcoming mission will be difficult, and dangerous, and we probably don’t have the time to see it through. But there’s something that makes it all even worse. You know what it is?”
The men looked at her questioningly.
Mao said, “You assholes are gonna save the world.”
They all burst out laughing. Some slapped their knees, others held their stomachs. Some reeled back, clutching their foreheads. Some hung on the shoulders of their neighbors and guffawed. Clouseau smiled broadly and shook his head as well. But Lemon and Wraith, who were outsiders, didn’t seem to get the joke at all.
Mao grinned and continued speaking. “No seriously, what are we doing? Shouldn’t this be a job for a team that doesn’t suck?”
“Seriously... ha ha,” one man gasped. “Ah, seriously...”
“This is nuts... ha ha...”
“What are they thinking... ha ha...”
These were just a group of good-for-nothing mercenaries. Their natural role was to die on pointless missions, unknown and unsung. So, what the hell was happening here? On the verge of World War III, with billions of lives on the line, they were going to stop a nuclear missile launch? The whole thing was like a joke, and not even a particularly funny one.
“But...” Mao said, after letting the laughter die down. “Our lives leading up to this haven’t been for nothing. All your training, your operations, your sacrifices...they’ve all had meaning.”
Our sacrifices...
The whole group nodded, with some murmuring their agreement.
“The dead are probably smiling at us from the afterlife,” one of the soldiers said.
“I bet Kurz has got a few choice words,” someone else agreed. “He’ll be wishing for us to fail without him, I bet.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet.”
“Yeah, there’s no way he’s rooting for us.”