A Legacy left Behind - Initial encounters

Part 1

Whoever they were, these Marines were scarily competent as they had the whole detaining facility and the adjoining admin block in complete lock-down in mere minutes. The professional soldier in him admired the swift, no-nonsense handling of the offenders. The military and non-military personnel, who had imprisoned Sheppard, were zip tied and herded in to the conference room area in the admin building.

The Marine who identified himself as Sergeant Bates seemed mildly annoyed when inquired; but did let Steve know that they would be questioned by one of the higher ups shortly. He also politely requested that Steve should remain here to give a statement on his part of this cock up. Bates then posted a guard near the small office Steve had been escorted into, to make sure that he did as asked. Steve was just grateful that he wasn't being tied and thrown in with the others; the Sergeant certainly looked like he wanted to.

Not that he could blame him, Steve thought to himself tiredly. He had briefly seen Sheppard when they had broken into the holding cell. He wished he hadn't. Every time he closed his eyes he could see the half naked and broken body of John lying on the cold floor in a pool of blood. The image was burned into his retinas and the soft whimper that escaped him when the Marine medic checked him was ringing in his ears.

........

When he and his team apprehended John and brought him here, Steve was confident he was doing the right thing. He'd had to listen to someone he knew, a good friend, die over a radio frequency. Freddie's last halting words were how the reckless zoomie had left them all to die, that cowardly bastard; and then a burst of an explosion had ended the tenuous connection Steve had to his friend. And when they had finally caught up to the said zoomie, he was covered in dirt, grime and blood and was wandering towards the downed helicopter in a daze. He had been silent throughout his apprehension, and the accusations Steve hurled at him had fallen on deaf and unresponsive ears. His team hadn't been gentle hauling Sheppard into the Humvee and they had brought him directly here to hand him over to the Parwans' CO for detention.

Then they had returned to their own naval complex on the other side of the Bagram base. Steve had been summoned by his CO, Commander Joe White, for a debrief where he had given a succinct account of the day's events. Joe White was not very happy about the fact that Steve had diverted from his objective, which was to keep observing the weapons supply convoy they had been tracking for days and had blundered into a downed black helicopter site, but he had understood. Freddie Hart was a SEAL no matter what or where and had needed help; Steve had responded.

Five days after that, Colonel Marshall Sumner, leading the band of black clad Marines had shown up out of nowhere and demanded to see Major Sheppard. He had given absolutely zero information about why he was looking for Sheppard. And whatever he had said to Commander White had him caving in to the Colonel's demands alarmingly quickly. Steve had been promptly ordered to take the Colonel and his team to the detention facility.

Instead of finding the Major sitting in a cell waiting to be processed back to the States, they had found him tortured and half dead in a pit. This made no sense to Steve. This was not what they did to their own soldiers. There was something else going on and it was connected to the downed helicopters and this classified band of Marines, and Sheppard had gone and got himself tangled in the middle of it.

..........

Steve just sat there on a rickety chair with his head bowed down and prayed that they had got to Sheppard on time. He didn't know if he could forgive himself if Sheppard died. He had hand delivered him to these wackos in the first place and the guilt was already eating away at him.

He didn't know how long he sat there like that when the Colonel entered the office. Steve stood to attention automatically and the Colonel waved him down with a flick of a wrist. His feelings must have somehow shown through the neutral mask he wore when facing superior officers; because the Colonel took a seat opposite the small desk with a sigh and opened the dialog with an update.