章節 13: Project Kingmaker
The next morning Thomas had gathered the squad for PT when two men jogged over in their PT outfits.
"Recruit Brooks and Hardy reporting for duty sir!" The two recruits named Hardy and Brooks saluted Thomas. Thomas looked them over, they were nearly the same height, both medium builds slightly on the muscular side. Brooks had a thick brows and a face that could only be described as intimidating. Meanwhile Hardy had a hawkish face with a somewhat pointed nose, his eyebrows were pretty light on hair in comparison. They both looked like trouble.
"At ease, fall in line recruits." Thomas waved them over and they stood at attention with the rest of the platoon, awaiting the arrival of the drill sergeant. Suddenly they heard the roar of an engine and a loud honk as one of the army jeeps came screeching down the parade grounds. Thomas and squad were in the front row and saw that it was crewed only by the driver who also happened to be the desk sergeant they saw last night.
The jeep stopped in front of Thomas and his squad, "Conlin, you and your squad climb in, new orders from the top," the sergeant ordered.
"Sir!" Thomas and his squad left formation and climbed into the jeep, with the roar of an engine and a couple of honks it took off across the parade grounds. They drove out of Camp Young, Thomas had many questions, but he didn't think the desk sergeant could answer them. Before long they were on the highway going southbound. The occasional military truck or convoy passed on their way north, but other than that the desert highway was pretty empty. Just tumbleweeds and the occasional bird or cactus, not even small animals wanted to be out at this time of morning.
Soon they turned off the road, since the suspensions in military vehicles were non-existent, the ride over the rough terrain was pretty uncomfortable, but Thomas could handle it, he'd been through much worse. Recruit Brooks, the most intimidating one, was looking pale and probably about to throw up. Hardy on the other hand, looked like he was having the time of his life, he was grinning ear to ear at Brook's misfortune. Thomas could tell there was some sort of rivalry between the two, it was clear from the moment they met earlier this morning to now. Whether it will affect the squad was something he couldn't determine yet, only time will tell.
After a couple hours of nonstop driving, they were starting to slow down, it was past noon and in the distance a large set of buildings were appearing. Soon enough the drove right up to a checkpoint with three US soldiers, their rank insignia identified them as First Sergeants. Thomas looked around, it felt like your standard military checkpoint and even looked like it. There was a booth with the guard on duty, probably gate controls as well. Two sandbags piles with mounted MG and accompanying guards on either side of the gate. Standard set-up, yet what was with all the secrecy? It was in the middle of practically nowhere.
The guard from the booth stepped forward to the desk sergeant. "State your business and provide your pass please," stated the guard.
"Staff Sergeant O'Connor here to escort one Private Thomas Conlin and squad to Major General Hughes." Staff Sergeant O'Connor handed over his papers as he was saying all this.
"Okay, everything checks out Staff Sergeant, proceed." The guard lifted his hand to his ear as if he was trying to hear something and then waved his hand out past the gate. The gate then lifted on its own, which greatly confused Thomas, everything felt so familiar and yet alien at the same time. There were words for everything he just saw, but the more he tried to reach for those words, the more difficult and faint it became. He gave up trying, he'll probably know everything soon enough.
They drove past the checkpoint, which closed behind them, the guards resuming their positions. Ahead of them were a lot of steel buildings, steel and concrete, probably enough to build two Carrier-class battleships. They soon stopped at another checkpoint, the guards here were wielding rifles he had never seen before, they were unfamiliar. They looked like machine guns, but they were smaller, they were also matte black in color. Black ops teams maybe? He had heard rumors before he joined the military that such teams existed, elite teams trained in special tactics for high risk high reward missions behind enemy lines. What were they doing here?
The guards at this checkpoint asked them to step out of the vehicle before doing a thorough pat down on everyone and checking the car itself, probably for listening devices. After presenting his papers once again, only Thomas and O'Connor were lead past the checkpoint, the rest of the squad was directed to a nearby barracks where they were to stand by and await further orders.
After passing this checkpoint, Thomas and the desk sergeant were both escorted to a nearby building. No matter where he looked he felt things weren't right, for instance, all the vehicles here looked like tanks, but they had six wheels to a side instead of treads, and a really small gun barrel. Thing probably couldn't even dent a tank, but it looked well armored. This place looked more like one of those black ops R&D sites he heard rumors of, which would probably fit the bill, there were black ops soldiers nearby and strange vehicles, automatic gates, and even the floor looked like concrete, but it was smooth, not rough.
They came to a large building made much like the rest, concrete and steel, no windows. D-WING was written on the building in large print block letters. After walking inside, Thomas felt the ambient temperature drop by at least thirty degrees. Felt more like a place to stash dead bodies rather than a secure black ops building in the middle of nowhere. After walking down a few corridors and going up some stairs, Thomas soon found himself in front of an unmarked door. No nameplate, nothing, just a weird door made of steel. He opened it and walked in. The room was wide, but sparse. There was only a table and two chairs, one of which was occupied.
"Come in and sit down private, I won't bite." The man in front of him had spoken, he was in his late fifties with a scar over one eye and his hair was trimmed to military standards, grey with bits of black in it. On his shoulders was the standard rank insignia of a Major General and numerous medals and ribbons decorated his right chest, he could see from one of them it was from the Battle of Versailles. Thomas walked forward and pulled out the chair, sitting at the table across from Major General Hughes.
"Normally we'd have done this a different way, but we have early bird intelligence suggesting the Japanese plan on attacking us sometime around Christmas." The Major General sighed, "Oh, right. I'm Major General Hughes, and anything that gets said or talked about in this room, stays in this room. We're not allowed to kill you for committing treason, but, we sure can find a deep dark miserable hole to put you in for the rest of your life." That one statement alone gave Thomas the chills, he was pretty sure they'd do it or that they had one prepared already.
"Now on to business!" The Major General rubbed his hands together, "you're here for one specific reason Thomas." The Major General looked at him pointedly, "Operation Kingmaker."
That gave Thomas even bigger chills. Now he knew why everything at Camp Young happened the way it did. Someone found out that he came from the future, somehow. They were going to pick him apart for study, probably here in this lab, no one would ever hear from him again. His eyes darted around, automatically looking for an escape route, there was only one. The door behind him. Before he could even try to leave his seat, the Major General spoke again, "Relax, no one here is going to dissect you. Also, no I can't read minds, but there is one thing I can do." He leaned in smiling, "I can very well tell you all about the future you come from Conlin."
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