Heart of Assassin

Chapter 18

The plane was a jump equipped C-130, there were fourmen, and one other woman on board. The rest of the cargoarea was filled with drop rigged equipment. These peoplewere more talkative than my last flight, and two of the menseemed to know each other. They introduced themselves.They were Pollux and Castor, the others group members wereJarvis, Markley, and Georgia, then there was me, Skank, but Isaid,

 "Please don't tell anyone, because it got me "killed" thelast time."

 "Well, welcome to the undead, Skank," Castor boomed,squeezing my shoulder.

 "You look pretty good for being dead," Markley said, ahuge African American with a face that looked like helaughed a lot. 

"Thank you," I answered, 

"As it turns out, being dead isnot so bad." 

"Here here, dead like us," Castor called out, raising hisarm as in a toast. 

"Dead like us," Pollux repeated, 

we all laughed about it,but the proclamation of being dead seemed to worry Jarvis. Ifound out during the flight that Pollux and Castor werenicknames that came from two impish brothers in old 1950sSciFi stories. They'd known each other as boys, and got thenames from Castor's grandfather. They were team leaders forthe infiltration and attack teams. Jarvis was the real last namefor a geeky college type kid who, like Cali, was a specialweapons expert. Georgia was a nickname; she, like me, was amap reader and shooter.Our heading told us that we were not going to Iraq. Afterseveral hours of flight time, we were called to jump readiness.There would be two passes, the first would be for theequipment, the second for us. The huge cargo door opened,revealing nothing but blackness outside as the cool night airswirled around the plane's interior. A warning buzzersounded, the ramp started, and the cargo slid into the darkness past the opening. The plane banked, we linked up, the orderwas given, and we marched out of the plane into the coldnight sky. Off to the right at the extreme horizon, I could seetiny pinpoints of light. After what seemed like severalminutes of floating in space, I sensed more than saw theground rapidly approaching. Readying for landing slightly toolate, I went tumbling like a weed in a ghost town, but hit onlysoft sand, and was quickly on my feet dealing with thecanopy. I heard the others landing around me and saw redmoving lights to the left. I could hear the others moving in thedirection of the lights. 

"This way, this way!" voices werecalling. 

We were gathered together, and names were calledoff, making sure we were all accounted for. Then, we headedoff with the red LED flashlights our only illumination besidesthe vast dome of the Milky Way overhead. I was indeed dead,and this was heaven.

We were guided into what at first looked like a very largetent, but inside the stars were not completely blocked. 

"Skank, Georgia, this is your place here, get some rest,tomorrow comes early." He lifted the flap to an actual tentwith six cots, some were occupied, and we took two that werenot claimed. 

"No loud noises, and absolutely no lights," ourguide said,

 then closed the flap as he left.Our wakeup call came just before first light. We lined upon packed sand, still too dark to make out faces, but I couldsee that there were a number of people standing around between large vehicles and equipment in a very unmilitaryformation.

 Someone walked up in front of us and addressedus in a low, but strong voice.

 "Welcome to Zombie unit, we do not exist, and we arenot here, when you write home you will tell everyone howboring being stationed in Kuwait is, you will send fakepictures we have available and you will pine away about notseeing any action. Also do not, I repeat, do not go out fromunder the netting during daylight hours. Because what you areabout to do did not happen, do you understand. DO YOUUNDERSTAND?"