Operation: Sabotage

October, Year 2044… The former United States of America is once again embroiled in a bitter civil war. The divide between the Democratic and Republican parties had grown far too wide, creating factions instead of parties. The Republicans seceded from the Union and formed the Free and Independent Republic of America, while the Democrats formed the Democratic Union of America. This, in turn, sparked the Second American Civil War, also known as Civil War II, or CWII. Foremost among FIRA’s generals was General Joshua Soteras of Kansas. He and his men had just captured California—a state of great importance—from the DUA, causing morale to drop. General Soteras, it seems, was unstoppable. He had the heart of a lion and the nine lives of a cat.

Only six months earlier, the general was arrested in Washington DC while he and his men were camped at the former National Arboretum. His cowardly men fled and he was court martialed, which led to a guilty verdict on the count of sedition and open rebellion against the former United States of America. He was executed and buried under heavy guard, and yet just three short days later, he was alive and well in a bunker in an undisclosed location, releasing a statement surrounded by his traitorous men. It was a mystery how he managed to survive his apparent execution. The doctor on site made sure that he was dead and had confirmed it. It was also a mystery how fast he forgave and reinstated his cowardly men. Any other general would have had them executed. But not Soteras. And now they were back at it again, launching campaigns and taking back states and cities. General Soteras was on the move. He was a man on a mission.

Within the ranks of the DUA’s army was another man on a mission. He was a young man named Colonel Severus Taylor, a brave soldier who was staunchly dedicated to the cause. He enlisted at the very young age of sixteen and served as General Merlin Gatsby’s aide-de-camp. He quickly rose through the ranks, receiving promotion after promotion, medal after medal, commendation after commendation, leading and winning battle after battle, until he reached the rank of colonel at the very young age of only twenty-eight. He also oversaw the execution of a FIRA captain they had taken prisoner, a young man by the name of Captain Gregorio “Greco” Stephanopoulos. He was a favorite of his superiors and was loved, feared, and respected by his men under him and by his fellow officers. Not everyone was happy with the colonel’s leadership, however. Some men—and women—under his command found him to be too rigid and tyrannical. Others eyed his position with greed and jealousy. Why was someone so young already a colonel in the army? If only there was a way to eliminate him so that he could be replaced… That opportunity came in the form of a letter to General Phineas Cullen, General of the Army of the Democratic Union of America. He also wrote to General Cullen’s father-in-law, General Anson Ainsworth, two men who had frightening influence in the army and in the DUA as a whole.

Colonel Taylor sat at his desk inside his tent at Camp MacArthur, tossing a baseball into the air and catching it in his hand as he waited for General Cullen’s reply. Soon enough, a courier entered his tent to hand him a letter.

“A letter for you, sir,” the courier announced, handing him the letter. “From Headquarters.”

“Thank you,” Colonel Taylor acknowledged. “Dismissed.”

“Sir,” the courier said, saluting before exiting the young colonel’s tent.

“As you were,” the colonel said with a nod.

The letter contained General Cullen’s approval of Colonel Taylor’s proposal to lead a division in order for them to catch the rebels off guard and rout them, dealing a major blow to the FIRA army. It also contained a promise of promotion to the rank of major general once Colonel Taylor had successfully carried out his proposed mission.

After ascertaining General Soteras’ base of operations and briefing the men under his command, Colonel Taylor set out with his detachment at dawn, even before the sun could rise. They were going to have to eat their sparse and swiftly dwindling MREs on the road. There was no time to prepare and eat a hearty breakfast. Everything hung on this mission. It was of the utmost importance—to the DUA army, but especially to the young Colonel Taylor. They could not fail. They had to get this right. There was absolutely no room for mistakes. Not this time. This time, it was a matter of life and death.

As they marched through the open fields and wastelands (or “the Deadlands” as some people called it) of Kansas, one of Colonel Taylor’s officers approached him, one Major Joseph Barnes. He was curious and just wanted to clarify one thing.

“Permission to speak, sir,” Major Barnes said cautiously. Colonel Taylor had a reputation for having a stormy temper and he did not want to be on the receiving end of that raging storm.

“Permission granted, Major,” Colonel Taylor said. “What is it? Spit it out, man!”

“I just wanted to know, sir,” Major Barnes said. “Why a detachment? We know the location of the rebel base. Why not just drop a bomb on them and get it over with? A drone strike or an airstrike would have done the trick. We have a plethora of planes and drones at our disposal, sir.”

“Wouldn’t that be nice, Major?” Colonel Taylor said with a smile, every venomous word dripping with sarcasm. “If only… But no. It’s true, we could utilize our surface-to-air missiles and bomb them to Hell, but I want to have the satisfaction of capturing or killing Soteras’ men. And I would love to be the one to re-arrest General Soteras. Do you see now, Major?”

“Clearly, sir,” Major Barnes replied. “You do know what’s best, after all.”

“Besides,” Colonel Taylor said, “A bomb would cause unnecessary civilian casualties. I don’t want any civilians injured or killed. This is not a dictatorship. They still are our fellow Americans, after all—our own brothers and sisters.”

“Understood, sir,” Major Barnes said with a salute before falling back into his place in line.

“Are there any other questions?” Colonel Taylor bellowed and turned around. That was when he noticed a group of soldiers lagging behind near the back.

“You there! Johnson, Benitez, DeVilla, Casper, Colón, Shaw, Salvador, Stevens, Evangelista, Matthews, and Brenner! What the Hell are you doing lagging back there? Keep up! We don’t have all day! And you—yes, you, Private Matthews! In an army that has barely eaten in three months, it’s damn near treason to be fat! I suggest you move your asses along, you good-for-nothing dogs! Move it! Now! Now! Now! Now! Move! Do I have to drag you to prison along with General Soteras’ men and have you shot?”

“Sir, no, sir!” they answered collectively.

“Then what are you ladies waiting for? Move! Move, move, move, move, move! On the double!” the young colonel shouted.

“Asshole,” Private Matthews mumbled under her breath.

“Jerk,” Private Casper muttered.

“So when are we going to make our move?” Private Colón whispered to his coconspirators. “We’re running out of time here. And options.”

“Relax, will you?” Johnson replied through gritted teeth. “We can’t kill him now, he’s too focused. He’d notice if we made a move. We have to wait for a better opportunity—a distraction.”

“Like a skirmish,” Evangelista suggested. “He’d be too busy to notice anything. And then we strike at the right moment.”

“And when people ask, we’ll just say enemy forces were too strong for us and we were outnumbered but he died nobly in battle,” DeVilla mused with a smile. “That will be the official report in every media.”

“Wouldn’t that make him a hero and a martyr though?” Benitez asked. “That’s the last thing we want!”

“Let him be a hero,” Private Brenner countered. “It would take the focus off of us and onto him. They’d think we were heroes too who stood by him and not murderers and traitors. No one would be the wiser.”

“What’s the plan then?” Shaw asked. “Do we have a plan?”

“The plan is to throw all our flashbang grenades at his feet or in his face while we wear our protective sunglasses,” Private Casper said, outlining their plan of attack. “Then while he’s on the ground and incapacitated with temporary blindness, we’ll riddle his body with bullets.”

“But it has to be in the middle of a battle,” Stevens said. “What if we get there and there’s no resistance? What then?”

“Trust me, Stevens,” Casper replied. “There will be resistance. These men will be cornered. I’m pretty sure they’ll be fighting like tigers. And hey, if there’s no battle, then we’ll just have to create one of our own.”

All the conspirators agreed and marched along. At around noon, Colonel Taylor raised his hand as a signal for his men to halt. They were 7.5 clicks away from the FIRA rebel base and General Soteras’ bunker. The company suddenly stopped marching, and at the colonel’s command, hid themselves behind trees, wheat stalks, tall grass, boulders, and bushes. Some crouched down in a squatting position while others lay flat on their stomachs, their sights trained at a small squad of FIRA soldiers going on patrol. The rebels had not yet been alerted to their presence. Colonel Taylor put a finger to his lips.

“Nobody fires a shot or moves a muscle until I say so,” he whispered. “Understood?”

His men nodded. Next, the colonel divided his detachment into three groups. Two groups, led by Major Barnes and Captain Shepherd respectively, would flank the rebels on both sides, while Colonel Taylor himself would lead the rest to face the rebels head-on. Nobody breathed, moved a muscle, or fired a shot as the colonel commanded. Nobody, that is, until Private Johnson cocked her rifle and pierced a rebel soldier in the right eye clean through with a bullet, just like a relative of hers on her mother’s side did back in World War II. On instinct, the rebels immediately retaliated, opening fire at Colonel Taylor and his soldiers. All Hell broke loose.

“Goddammit!” Colonel Taylor swore, pounding the earth with his fist. “Who the Hell was that? Who opened fire? I told you not to shoot until I said so! I will have your goddamn head on a plate! Bloody Hell!”

While both sides exchanged fire, the traitors among Colonel Taylor’s detachment found their long-sought for opportunity. Benitez signaled to his coconspirators with his hand. Five. Four. Three. Two. One… One by one, they put on their protective glasses, yanked their flashbang grenades from their vests, removed the pins from their grenades, and threw them at Colonel Taylor. He wasn’t expecting such a thing. He wasn’t prepared for it.

“Son of a—” Colonel Taylor began to swear but could not form any words in the confusion of the blinding light, the thick haze of smoke, and the sound of gunfire coming from every direction. All he could see was white and not much else. Suddenly, he felt a sharp pang in his right side and knew instantly that it was a bullet. Another struck him in his left. He fought on gallantly, firing blindly every which way—in the air above him, to his left, to his right, in front of him—before succumbing to pain and falling backwards onto the ground. As he lay there, defenseless, he heard a voice but he wasn’t sure who it was.

“It’s time for you to die, Colonel,” the strange voice said.

“Sic semper tyrannis!” joined another voice. Soon, there was a chorus of soldiers shouting, “Sic semper tyrannis!”

He knew he was done for. So this was how he was going to die. At the hands of his own enemies. Or so he thought. Just as he was about to die, he heard the familiar sounds of Humvees and the ack-ack-ack of machinegun fire. And then the pained screams of his would-be assassins. He waited for the final bullet to strike him but it never came. Maybe there was hope for him after all. The cavalry had come. If only he knew which cavalry that was…

Before the bright white haze in his eyes faded to gray and then finally to black, he heard yet another voice.

“I have a job for you, General Taylor,” General Soteras said to the petrified colonel. “Your heart, your unrelenting passion, your skill in battle, your strategic mind, and your bravery would be a great asset to the Republic.”

“Who are you?” Colonel Taylor asked in alarm.

“I’m President Soteras, the man you are hurting,” the rebel general and president answered. “And I have a mission for you. You will serve on my staff as one of my generals. One of the best I will ever have.”

This was all very confusing. From his youth, Severus Taylor had vowed to defend the Constitution of the United States of America, and eventually, the Democratic Union of America, and to hunt down and kill every traitor to his beloved country. His personal motto was “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of all those who threaten it.” He believed the rebels were a grave threat to democracy—a cancerous cell that was to be eradicated as soon as humanly possible. He swore he would never rest until every FIRA rebel was either dead or behind bars. He breathed revenge. He ate revenge. He bled revenge. He sweated revenge. It was etched into every fiber of his being. Above all, he wanted to be the very first man to ever kill the unkillable general. He had made it his life’s work as a soldier to succeeded where everyone else had failed. General Soteras was the Jean Valjean to Colonel Taylor’s Inspector Javert. And yet, just like Jean Valjean before him, General Soteras was offering him mercy. And not just mercy but a mission as well.

Three days later…

Severus Taylor awoke to someone removing the bandage from around his head and eyes. Everything was blurry, like trying to see through chlorinated water or a dirty windowpane, and everyone looked like trees walking around. He blinked once, twice, three times, until his vision cleared. He was in an old, crumbling underground bunker with a flag of the FIRA on the opposite wall. He looked down to see his sides all patched up and bandaged as well.

“Welcome to the cause, General,” a man in an army corpsman uniform greeted him. “How are you feeling today? My name is Dr. Antony Andreas. We patched you back up and replaced your eyes. They were sadly irreparable. You now have a new set of baby blues. My team and I worked for hours.”

In response, Colonel Taylor spat with all the hatred he felt in his heart.

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Dr. Andreas said. “But just so you know, your soldiers were about to kill you. It was a well-planned coup. It was General Soteras and his men that saved you. He didn’t have to, but he did. So I guess that means you owe him your life. Just let that sink in while you rest.”

His men… His own men… And women… It all made sense to him now. Everything came back to him in a flash. A series of images flooded his memory. His own soldiers congregating in the very back, talking in whispers among themselves. Disobeying direct orders not to fire and instigating a firefight between FIRA and DUA forces. It was a distraction. The flashbang grenades. The bullets in his sides. It was all part of the plan. How could his own soldiers do this to him? How could they betray him like this? What had he done to deserve this? Gritting his teeth and ignoring the pain, he angrily pulled out the IV line from his arm and left his makeshift hospital bed. He navigated the halls of the bunker to the kitchen to have some coffee. Coffee always helped to clear his head. Maybe he could make more sense of it all.

In the kitchen, he met another young man only ten years his junior. His name was Sergeant Timothy Kent. A sergeant at only eighteen years of age. That was impressive. Maybe war did help to mature boys and girls quickly.

“Coffee?” Sergeant Kent offered, pouring Colonel Taylor a cup.

“Thank you, Sergeant,” Colonel Taylor said, accepting the proffered cup. “Kent, is it?”

“Yes, sir,” Sergeant Kent answered. “Sergeant Timothy Kent, at your service. So! Is it true that your own soldiers betrayed you?”

“That’s the word,” Colonel Taylor said with a weary sigh. “I don’t know anymore. None of this makes any sense! Why me? Why choose me as a general to lead his troops? Me, an enemy?”

“General Soteras sees great potential in you,” Sergeant Kent replied. “Just as he saw great potential in every man and woman in the FIRA army.”

“How long have you been in the FIRA army?” Colonel Taylor asked.

“I enlisted when I was twelve,” Sergeant Kent responded with a proud smile on his face.

“Twelve?” Colonel Taylor said with a whistle and a raise of his eyebrows. He couldn’t believe his ears.

“I was given a sawed-off shotgun,” Sergeant Kent said proudly. “And a little uniform that looked like I was playing pretend. But everyone knew I wasn’t. This was real. This is real.”

“Why did you decide to join?” Colonel Taylor asked.

“I believed in a cause,” the young sergeant answered. “Something worth fighting for. Something worth dying for. My mother and my grandmother taught me that when you find something that special, you fight for it to your last breath.”

Colonel Taylor was about to respond to this when he felt the building shake all around him. The bunker was being shelled. He ripped off the DUA patch on his uniform and tied a red FIRA bandana on his left arm.