Yesterdays Future

Major charged forward firing direct bursts at the soldiers who dared shoot at him. As he dove for cover he shot two more towel heads. Around him explosions rippled throughout the complex. Eastern Jhardar would, after tonight’s assault, never again threaten the peace in this province.
“Captain! Report!” Major hissed through clenched teeth as he reloaded his weapon. He was shaking with anticipation. Jhardar had been a stronghold for too long, and tonight was the night he led his team to victory.
“Godfather and Savannah are holed up on level two, near the primary engine room. They’re ready to knock it out at any moment.” Yanek shouted back over the noise. He was bleeding from a cut above his eye, but he’d survive. “Scorch and Darkwing have the exits covered with fucking claymores – no one is getting out of here sir.” Yanek looked up and gave the major his most winning smile, a smile that had lured many a soldier into Yanek’s bed. But for the Major it was a sign of deep respect. “And Dragon seems to have got fucking lost. He should have taken out their communications by now. Something must be wrong –“
At that instant a chain gun cut through the crate nearest to Yanek. The bullets tore through him, squirting his bowels over the horrified face of Major.
“NO!” Screamed the old leader, as he held what was left of Yanek’s chest and head in his arms.
“Surrender now you pig dog swine!”
“Fuck you!”
“Major!” Came a cry from above him. In terror Major looked up. On a railing a storey above him Godfather was standing, his arms raised. Behind him an officer in white robes held an AK to his head.
“Don’t you dare –“ Ordered Major, but it was too late. The bullet exploded out of Godfathers right eye. Like some bad rag doll effect he tumbled over the railing and fell to the floor, his brains mosaic’ing the metal grate like some terrible red fractured tombstone.
“You bastard!” Major shouted and sprayed out his anger at his enemies with his MP5. He took down two of them before taking a bullet to his leg. He fell to one knee, but continued to fire. Soon the room was empty and silent. Except the crackle of fire and electrical current arcing between the metal deck plating.
Slowly Major pulled himself up, Yanek’s dog tags clutched in his one hand. In a haze he moved forward and pulled Godfathers chains from his neck.
“I’ll finish this for you GF.” An oath taken must be fulfilled. He began to walk down the corridor towards the command center. Savannah must also be dead. No other way GF would be taken. The corridor wound down steeply into the earth. Deeper and lower Major made his way, idly killing scientists and soldiers as they tried to stop him. Tears flowed down his cheeks. How had it gone so wrong so quickly? His plan had been perfect. He’d followed orders to the letter. Something had gone wrong. Terribly wrong.
He reached the final door sealing the lord of Jhardar in his own soon-to-be tomb. “For the Sentinals!”
He hit the override switch forcing the doors to open. The sudden explosion of bright white light sent him reeling.
“My God…”
“Ah Major – glad you survived this far. Luckily that is about to change.”

Scorch looked across the road to Darkwing. Something was wrong. About five minutes ago their communications had gone dead. Nothing was getting in or out of the building. They’d suspected at the lower levels that perhaps the sheer depth of the place would scramble their signals, but Savannah and Major had worked on a plan to boost the signal strength of their system. Perhaps they were wrong.
“Anything Scorchy?”
“Nada. It’s too quiet. Something is wrong.”
“To quiet? We just heard three big ass fucking explosions, how is that quiet?” Hissed Darkwing from his position behind a large stack of crates.
“Yeah but that’s not the Major’s kind of noise now is it?”
Darkwing had to agree. It wasn’t. The Major had a reputation for making no noise for a long time, and then suddenly blowing half the planet up in one almighty explosion. So three minor explosions were not, as Scorch had correctly said, indicative of a Major styled operation. Something was wrong.
“Let’s go.” Darkwing said as he began to move from his cover.
“And what if they haven’t cleared the interior? What if –“
Suddenly Scorch was covered in bits of scientist. As purple bits of slippery wet stuff slipped inside his suit he threw up. He was new to the art of claymore use, and had still not learned to judge accurately the expected projection of bits when one was set off.
“You alright?” Darkwing shouted as he rose and moved to the center of the street.
“Yeah, fuck. Fuck. Fuck! I’ve got… it’s in my fucking pants… it’s sliding… oh god!” Scorch jumped up dancing like he was on fire.
“Just let it make its way to some crack where it’ll dry out and you can wash it off later, lets go!”
“Easy for you to fuck say, you don’t have someone’s god damned spleen stroking your balls.” Scorch hissed as he limped after Darkwing into the complex.

Bracye looked at her watch for the tenth time that minute. The chopper was waiting for the team to return. She’d been on radio comms listening to everything until the comms had died.
“Screw this.” She finally said, tossing down her headset. If her team was in trouble she wasn’t about to let them go down without her. Gripping her assault rifle she made her way down the dirt track towards the complex. When the explosion from the claymore went off she never dared think it was Scorch’s own that had killed her. How was she to know he’d trapped there, in case anyone of the towel heads had decided to circle around them. After all, he’d expected her to stay in the chopper.

“Please, give me your weapon, Major.”
“You fucking bastard, I’m going to kill you.” Major said as he threw his MP5 onto the floor and kicked it over to Dragon.
“I think you’ll find you’ve swapped some words around major, as it is I –“ Dragon said stepping closer to Major – “who will be killing you.”
With one terrible thrust Dragon, the traitor, jammed a seven inch stainless steel blade up into Majors guts.
For a moment, the world slowed down. A thumping sound began in his chest and moved up to his ears, then his eyes where his vision pulsed to its rhythm. Casually he looked down at his hand coming away from the blade it had instinctively reached for. It was covered in the dark unclean blood of the liver. Even if the blade hadn’t ripped a hole through him, the wound to the liver would be enough to kill him.
Slowly he began to laugh, but each time he did so it sent ripples down his body, ending in sharp lightening like pain at the point of the blade.
Dragon stepped back, a little unsure as to why the Major should be laughing. He watched as Major collapsed to his knees, still laughing. Major looked up and revealed the grenade he had in his other hand. The pin was missing. Laughing he dropped the nade and fell over backwards. Calmly Dragon bent down and picked up the nade, a curious calm passing over him. As he was about to throw it through the doors when a bullet snapped through him, spiraling him backwards.
“Seal the doors! Seal the fucking doors!” He shouted to the tech but it was too late. Scorch and Darkwing had already stormed in. But whilst Darkwing was moving forward, spraying bullets at Dragon, Scorch had stopped and lowered his weapon. He was staring fixedly at the room’s contents.
“Don’t shoot you fool! You’ll kill us all!” Dragon shouted as he hide behind a metal table.
“That is the general idea asshole.” Darkwing shouted as he pulled the trigger and blasted holes through the table and Dragon. Dragon, blood gushing from his mouth looked down as the nade rolled from his lifeless hand.
“Scorch see to the Major.”
“It’s beautiful Darkwing.” Only then did Darkwing look up. In the center of the room was a massive sphere of white energy. It arced and crackled with blue electricity, painting the massive circular discs that enclosed it with ghostly shadows.
“What the fuck is it?”
Scorch turned to look at Darkwing. Time slowed. The nade exploded. At first large pieces of its outer shell ripped through the dead Dragon, then the metal table. Together the metal chunks of the nade and the table sliced into Darkwing, cutting off his arm, his leg at the knee, and slicing through his neck. As he slowly started to fall over, clutching at his neck, the fireball caught up with him, hurling him towards Scorch. Sound stopped, and in silence Scorch tried to dive to the side but his muscles were frozen lumps of lead. Darkwing crashed into Scorch, as more metal and fire enveloped both of them. As the last two members of the Sentinals team crumbled to the floor, Scorch’s pistol fired. The bullet sailed through the air, its trajectory skewed slightly by the flames it passed through. In one terrible instant the bullet smashed into the controlling discs brace. The brace buckled and the ball of energy expanded in a matter of milliseconds to fill the entire complex. For a moment Scorch was aware of the light surrounding him. It was everywhere. Outside him, and now, inside him. It was him. He and the light were one.

The energy ball exploded upwards, working its way through each level of the complex until in one glorious moment it broke the surface. The light sped across the valley, hit the claymores, causing them to detonate, hit the fuel and burnt it up in a moment. Flashed past pieces of Bracye, and then slammed into the chopper. Then as quickly as it had vaporized the complex, it vanished. The Sentinals were all dead. Erased from existence in one brilliant burst of light.

A burst of light inside the brain was more how it felt to Major. He was hugging Yanek and Godfather as hard as he could.
“You fuckers, I don’t know what the fuck just happened, but one minute you spewed all over me and then next Godfather goes down on me, shit it was horrible!”
“Really – sounds kinda fun.” Yanek said as he tried to keep up with the Major, and work out why he felt so nauseous.
“What just happened?” Godfather said, pulling away from the confused Major. “One minute I remember seeing Sav… oh God, he’s dead.” Godfather said as his memory came rushing back to him.
“No I’m not – at least I don’t think I am, but we are in some serious fucking trouble.”
“Savannah! My old chum!” Major said, running to hug his old teammate.
“Sir I don’t think we’re in Afghanistan anymore.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Well – my guess would be because I don’t remember there being a town in this valley before.” Yanek said, as he rubbed his eyebrow. Below them was a small town nestled in a valley. It was night, but the lights in the windows could be clearly seen.
“And look.” Savannah said holding up a buttercup flower.
“Savy you picking fucking flowers? Shit…So?” Major said, sensing the mood.
“I don’t think buttercups grow in Afghanistan.” Godfather said dryly.
“So what the fuck are you saying?”
“What do you last remember… before being here?”
Yanek looked at Major, then Savannah.
“Exactly. I don’t really remember either. I know we were attacking some complex in Jhadar, but I don’t remember Jhadar smelling like this. What the fuck just happened?”
Major was silent. Too silent.
“Major?”
“Drop it captain – alright, spread out, look for the others.”
“Major what do you remember?”
“Yanek I said drop it. Now fucking drop it.”
A moment passed as the two senior officers of the team squared off. But Yanek knew his place.
“Alright, I want GF and Sav to head to that town, find out where the fuck we are. Major and I will head to that hill, see if we can get some perspective on things. Use your night vision, we don’t want any surprises.” But the goggles were useless. So where their communications, cell phones, PDA’s, and it would later be discovered someone’s self stimulating tube, that was in his pocket. Nothing electronic worked.
“That’s very odd.”
A crack of a rifle sounded out. It came from the village. All of them looked back at the Major.
“That sounded like …” Godfather started.
“Single round bolt action.” Major finished.
“Isn’t that a bit of an old weapon to be using? I know that some of the locals like to use grandpappi’s trusted old rifle, but still…” Yanek began. The sound of an approaching convoy made them take cover. As the lights approached Major’s heart sank.

Like Scorch and Darkwing. Except they sank through the roof of the local bar and landed on the dance stage in a cloud of wreckage and dust as the performer was hitting her high note. Which went even higher at the sight of two special ops soldiers landing on the old baby grand.
“My god that must have hurt darling.” She said as she bodily hoisted Scorch up to his feet.
“What the hell just happened?” Scorch demanded.
“Beats me. One minute we’re … did we blow a hole in the floor DW?”
“Well you came in through my ceiling so I don’t think so sweetie.” Said the singer, who’s female voice had dropped an octave or two.
Scorch spun around and tried to focus on the rouged lips, the heavy make-up, the fake eyelashes, the wig, and then promptly tried to unfocus.
Someone in the crowd shouted something, and chaos broke out.
“Oh shit!” The performer hissed before grabbing Scorch’s hand and pulling him and Darkwing off stage.
“What? What’s happening?” Scorch shouted.
“Just keep your fucking head down and don’t move. It’ll be alright, I know the commandant, he’s not a bad man. Just … I can handle him ok. Just stay down.”
“Commandant? Since when are towellies calling themselves commandants?”
Scorch watched from under the floorboards as the singer tripped her/his way back onto stage, and adjusted her boobs.
“Hey Scorchy, I think we just hit gold. This wine –“
A large figure suddenly filled the door. The commandant was obviously a big man, made more so by his black uniform. He strode in, taking in the rooms scattered and shattered appearance. Behind him several more troopers bustled in and began attacking the bar.
“This wine is worth a fortune. It’s vintage! It’s from –“
“1940.” Scorch finished.
“How the fuck did you guess?”
Scorch nodded in the direction of the commandant. From the shadows the imposing figure made its way up onto stage to stand in front of the singer, who held his ground. He was dressed like a Nazi from the 1940’s. A Nazi officer to be exact.
“I see you have no audience to play to.”
“Well… honey, I could always play to you.” Said the singer, rubbing her hand up the commandants crotch. With one fast backhand he floored her/him. As the singer looked down in terror at Scorch under the boards, the commandant stepped over the singer.
“Oh I think not. Not tonight. Tonight we have a guest.”
Another figure entered the door. He wore a long black cape, and was dressed like the commandant – in the Nazi uniform.
“Might I introduce to you Lieutenant Colonel Gabriel Von Kempff.” The colonel stepped forward, his Aryan features distorted by the broken lights.
“Good evening.” He said.
“shit that looks like Gabe!” But Yanek had his hand clamped over DW’s mouth. Something was very fucking wrong. But this didn’t seem like a dream, and there was no way Gabe or Greggra or Dame for that matter had enough cash to pay for this. This was real...