Chapter 34 – Curahee Debrief

  This time, no one interrupted his downtime until Roxy knocked on his door at 0800 hours, ready for chow. She still had on gym shorts, and now a faded Guns and Roses t-shirt—seemingly an endless supply of old band merch stocked the girl’s closet. Ravenous after eating nothing but flavorless meal bars, Motrin, and GI instant coffee for the previous three days, Cole threw on a shirt and followed her to Howie’s billet, where he promptly told them in no uncertain terms to fuck off. The kid must still have been full of the fungus his secondary class let him eat.

  “I’m so starving I could eat one of those bark-dudes,” said Roxy. They scanned into the dining facility, where it seemed everyone on staff congratulated them on a safe return from Curahee. Cole ordered an omelet and shoveled cheese grits and toast with sausage gravy, which Roxy called shit on a shingle, onto his plate. Roxy ordered six eggs scrambled rare with spinach and devoured the mountain of yellow and green goo with such wild abandon that Cole almost lost what was left of his appetite.

  Owing to nothing more to do before the debrief, Cole filled Roxy in on his early call-in.

  “Apparently, my subclass is a big deal,” said Cole, stirring the last of his grits. “Director Bricker’s been trying to get an Arquebus Engineer for years.”

  “Well, hello, Mr. Fancypants,” teased Roxy. She offered a mock salute and stuck out her tongue.

  “I’m serious,” said Cole. “He said he’d pull me off active teams except to power-level and keep me working in the armory full time.”

  “Holy shit,” said Roxy, suddenly serious. “You weren’t kidding.” She chewed, considering, before continuing. “You’d be wasted in the lab, though. You came in without training and smashed Curahee to pieces, killed multiple hostiles more than double your own level, and helped wrangle the entire push when Morganstern went down. They’d be crazy not to have you lead a team.” She looked down and bit her lip for a second. “If they do, need a tank? Or a medic?”

  Cole laughed. “Sure, only cause there’s no way they’d do that.”

  “No?” asked Roxy, tilting her head. “You took charge pretty well.”

  “Howie was the one that came up with all the plans,” said Cole. “That kid’s sharp.”

  “He’s smart, but his judgment isn’t the best. He may have had ideas. You’re the one who made them plans. I think Morgan picked that up about you, when she sent you to wrangle everyone.”

  Cole shrugged, unconvinced.

  Roxy persisted. “What level did you come out of Curahee, ten? Twelve?”

  “Eleven,” he said.

  Roxy put her fork down. “You know what the average level coming out of Curahee is? Six. Maybe seven if you did a ton of fighting. We’re already higher-level than some Kickers with rescue ops under their belts.”

  Well, their Curahee trial had been anything but ordinary. Multiple otherworld hostiles and a powerful undead king that mid-level Kickers went in groups to face. If they hadn’t managed to pit one against the other, it wasn’t likely any of them would have survived Curahee.

  Finally, the appointed hour for the debrief arrived, and the two of them changed into more presentable clothes and headed to Lewis Hall to meet up with the rest. Howie stumbled into the elevator with them and rode up to the third floor. When they reached the conference room, Besson was already sitting at the far end of the conference table with Nutmeg at his feet. Ken sat next to Han, whose arm was in a sling, but definitely still attached. Cole took a seat across from Han and asked about it. But now, outside Curahee’s Lewis Field, Han once again had a very limited grasp of the local language. Ken answered for him.

  “Medical building has an LF generator so the bio-manipulation Kickers can perform medical magic,” said Ken by way of explanation. He waved his hand. “Well, they call it magic. But there’s no such thing. He’ll be cleared for duty, soon.”

  “Ken,” said Roxy, “There’s literally a mage sitting at the table with us.”

  “Fah!” said Ken. “It’s all sleight of hand.”

  Cole rolled his eyes.

  Bricker walked in before Howie could add his opinion to the mix, along with Morganstern. Everyone stood up.

  “Good morning, everyone, and congratulations on passing your trial-by-fire in Curahee, and condolences on the unfortunate loss of Bart Jordan,” said Bricker, circling to the seat closest to the big screen on the wall, but not yet sitting down. He looked at each of them in turn. “The danger you all faced in Curahee is the price for gaining the extraordinary gifts that allow us to fight in other worlds to bring our people home, and one of the consequences of those gifts is remaining entirely out of the public eye. Mr. Jordan will be missed. I’d like to take a moment of silence to honor his memory before we begin.”

  Cole looked down at the table. He thought about how Bart was the first friendly face he saw after being dragged out of Kevlesh. How the man welcomed him at the Billet with Roxy, offering advice and camaraderie. And how he was cut down by the ram-helmeted otherworld invader, who thought he could just call truce after hunting them and committing cold-blooded murder against a good man. Cole clenched his fists at that, letting the anger simmer. We got the bastard, Bart. He wasn’t sure if the juice was worth the squeeze. Especially since the Department was so classified, Bart’s sacrifice could never really be honored. For his family to never get a body to bury was a hard pill to swallow. But Cole knew he’d be making that same choice every time he stepped through one of those glowing discs.

  Bricker finally took his seat. “Normally I wouldn’t be giving this debrief myself. However, this was anything but a typical Curahee push. Ms. Morgan, if you would?”

  Morganstern hooked a laptop up to a video cable and turned on the TV. “The overall classification of this debrief is SAP. So don’t go out in town spouting about how you ran Curahee, obviously.”

  Even removed from the Army, it didn’t seem like they’d escape Death by PowerPoint. But at least most of the slides were embedded clips from helmet cams highlighting events of the past three days.

  “Analysts have been all over your cams last night trying to compress three days of footage from six people into a twenty-minute slide deck. What it boils down to, is good work, everyone. Once shit hit the fan, you looked out for each other, coordinated well, and used every resource available to your advantage. Though before we dig into the meat, I do want to highlight one clip, please. Slide eighteen, if you would, Morgan.”

  The footage went to a camera Cole quickly realized was his own, in a forest of white gossamer webbing. In it, he was picking up Howie and preparing to launch them through the canopy.

  Bricker had Morgan pause while he turned to the Kickers. “What in God’s name compelled you into the Silk Forest? That horror show causes more tap-outs than anywhere else on Curahee.”

  Cole cleared his throat. “Time, necessity, and total ignorance, sir.”

  Director Bricker shook his head. “And without a proctor. Well, it’s likely even your friend wouldn’t have been willing to follow you in there. Speaking of…”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Morganstern skipped ahead a few slides until she found one with Ram-head, along with a picture-in-picture of the coat of arms on his shield, what looked like four beast skulls on a checkerboard.

  “These proactive assholes,” said Bricker, “have been world-hopping just like we have. Their high-level knights all wear these distinct animal helmets and have the same sigil on their gear. Some sort of beast-cult from an unknown world. Analysts figure they’ve got some of our kids and they’re going out of their way to make sure we don’t take them back. Which is a problem. Because we don’t know where they are. Yet.”

  “For real?” asked Howie.

  “For real, Howard. Make no mistake—these are DOR hunters. And judging by how tough they are, they come from a pretty nasty world with a high-power Lewis Field. They don’t play by our rules. Do not surrender to them. Do not accept their surrender. We’ve learned through blood that such actions are ploys to get close enough to do even more harm. These are essentially suicide cultists dispatched with the singular objective of destroying the Department of Otherworld Rescue. Our modern notions of civilized warfare, unfortunately, do not apply off-world. More Kickers have been killed by the expectation that other worlds ascribe to our values than have been killed by monsters.”

  Cole let that sink in. As much as he’d hated the man, engaging a man that had offered surrender was a questionable action—in the Army, it would be grounds for prosecution. Even if Ram-head had killed Bart. Even though he’d wanted Morganstern to give the order so that he could put the armored giant in the ground. On Earth, prisoners of war had certain rights, certain protections. There was an international expectation of standards of treatment. Had that surrender really been feigned? Would he have just waited for an opportunity to finish them all off? Or was this misdirection from Bricker to cover for unjustifiable actions on the part of his Kickers? He looked over to find the director looking at him.

  “Good work in taking out their mage, Cole. He would have had to drop any barrier he might have been using for a few seconds to cast that tracking spell. It was a one-in-a-million great timing. The other one… well, you saw how he could wade through the entire push’s combined firepower. If you see these guys in the field, do not engage them if possible. At least, not without high-level support.”

  “Does that include local support, like Ludwig?” asked Ken.

  “If you can get local support, use it,” said Bricker. “But don’t trust it. We’re aliens to these people. Super-powered freaks, even by the standards of a Lewis Field world. We don’t have rights off-world, and we can barely enforce international law on Earth, let alone project legal power across thousands of other worlds who would as soon kill us as look at us. Good will and peaceful intent count for very little in most of the places you’ll see in your Kicker careers. But yes, part of using Curahee as a training ground is seeing how you make use of local human resources like Last Fall Hold. And how you process not being able to save everyone.”

  “That seems cruel,” said Roxy. “The way those people are living. Why aren’t we sending them food, clothes, supplies to push back the fungal forest?”

  Bricker sighed. “It’s a fair question, Ms. Doukas. And the answer, I’m afraid, is surprisingly mundane.” He lifted his palms. “It’s not our mandate, and it’s not in our budget. How and where the US delivers aid is above my paygrade. It’s…” He pursed his lips.

  Cole blinked. “Political,” he realized.

  The director snapped his fingers and pointed at Cole. “Bingo. At the end of the day, providing aid to otherworld settlements is outside our mission scope. It’s hard enough to get aid sent overseas. It’s impossible to do it in otherworlds at scale without compromising our operational security. We send informal surplus supplies to LFH semi-regularly, but imagine the shitstorm if Americans ever learned their tax dollars were going to other worlds.”

  “I still don’t like it,” said Roxy.

  “I’m not asking anyone to like it. But our mandate is bringing back Earth children and helping people from Earth. That’s what you’re risking your lives for.” Bricker leaned back and pressed his fingertips together. “And we pay you very well for it. Analysts tallied up your loot and your LF residue that you brought back. As per your contracts, you’re entitled to ten percent the cash value of any residue or crafting materials.”

  Morgan skipped ahead to a bar chart with each of their names on it. Cole leaned forward, wondering if he needed glasses.

  “Uh….” Said Howie, “That’s pre ten percent, right?”

  “Nope,” said Bricker. “Son, gram for gram, LF Residue ranges from a little more valuable than silver to a little less valuable than gold, depending on the purity. It has applications in medicine, aerospace, and energy production. That’s what powers the full-size LF generators on the compound, and it’s what powers the portable units. We charge other areas of the government for sending out portable units and personnel. President Willshire’s ‘surgery’ last year? Performed by one of our high-level healers with a portable generator without ever touching a scalpel. You’re not just helping the kids you pull out of these worlds, you’re helping people you’ll never even meet. Almost eighty percent of our budget is self-funded through the collection and dispersal of LF Residue to US Government entities, hospitals, and powerplants. So your ten percent is an incentive to keep scooping it up at every opportunity.”

  Most of their personal bonuses were in the mid-four figures. Cole and Besson had almost managed to breach five. With the base pay scale of a Kicker being higher than his E5 salary, that would be enough to pay off his truck after another mission. He hadn’t been thinking about the money at all the entire trip. But coming out of it with several months’ salary as a bonus? Well, the higher-level Kickers must have been rolling in dough.

  The narrowed eyes and smile behind his hands betrayed that Bricker knew exactly what they were all thinking at that screen. There weren’t very many people who wouldn’t be champing at the bit—despite the danger. A few years of this, and pretty much anyone could retire—if they survived. It made sense when Bricker’s assistant came in at that moment with a set of binders, much thicker than the first non-disclosure and enlistment agreements.

  Howie groaned, eyeing the mountain of paperwork.

  “Don’t get too excited,” said Bricker. “This is the Department of Otherworld Rescue Standard Operating Procedures, and it will become your bible from here on out. It covers everything from team structures, mission selections, uniforms requisitions, armory procedures, and rules of engagement. It’s dry as hell, and I know because I have to read every version change cover to cover. But it will answer almost every question you have about how things work officially. Everything else, you’ll get from other Kickers in the field or learn for yourselves. Team leads are the final authority when it comes to off-world missions. But that position comes with a lot of extra responsibility.”

  Cole opened his book and thumbed through. There were at least lots of pictures and illustrations, so it wasn’t just dense, cover-to-cover legalese like so many other government documents he’d had to read. Small blessings. The back third was an index of discovered worlds, with brief overviews of their risk assessments and one or more photos of teenagers. Victims, all of them. Cole looked at each of them as he flipped through the pages. When his squad was accidentally taken, they’d had guns and tools and a M-ATV with a medium machine gun. It had let them survive. Barely. What did these kids have? An airsoft rifle? Maybe a deer-hunting rifle if they were lucky? How many had been taken to even worse places with nothing?

  The worlds seemed as varied and strange as they were deadly. Some worlds were nothing more than an endless tower where heroes were sent to climb floors in a futile attempt to reach the top. Others were war-torn hellscapes, scarred by demonic invasion. One, Cole noted, was a land of endless night ruled by hostile, eldritch gods.

  I guess Cthulhu wasn’t too far off, he mused. Curious, he flipped to the K’s and looked for Kevlesh. He found the entry and read the brief.

  Kevlesh — Risk Index 7: Extreme.

  Kickers attempting excursions to Kevlesh should be standard enhancement level 60 at minimum, with weapons enhanced by fire or poison element effects and armor resistant to slashing. Kevlesh equipment drops have been observed with elemental fire, dimensional, and electrical enhancements.

  Kevlesh is an unstable world in the midst of a universal merge with a local hell dimension, resulting in the random appearance of groups of feral demons between two and forty meters in height or length. These demons vary in lethality, but all are immediately hostile to humans. These demons have heavily destabilized the ruling order, production, and population. The local population of Kevlesh is a pre-industrial feudal society ruled by a network of mage knights organized into several duchies. The Lewis Field is administered by a goddess of bloodshed ambivalent to DOR Kickers, and teams furthering rescue efforts should expect abilities to require spilled blood to restore charges. More information available via Termlink.

  Kevlesh was first discovered June 12, 2021 after an investigation into the abduction of Kyle Berman from Chattanooga, Tennessee. Kyle Berman currently remains in Kevlesh, and rescue efforts are ongoing.

  Jesus. Spilled blood to restore charges. As if dealing with the demons wasn’t bad enough, anyone trying to pull this Kyle kid out also had to deal with having to fight just to be able to use abilities?

  “Anyone else rethinking this whole thing?” asked Roxy, flipping through the same section. She said it flippantly, but there were definitely a few mumbles through the table. Cole thought back to what Deadlight had said. Give it a year. This won’t even be in your top ten.