New Threat
Duke, Frost, and the Nighthawks all disembarked from the plane at the secret air strip and were immediately whisked away to a small building toward the end of the runway. Inside, the room was totally empty, except for a small screen on the wall and several chairs and cushions on the ground.
The screen flashed into life, revealing Princess Luna. “Greetings, soldiers and airmen. I trust your mission went well?”
Everyone sat. “Well, we found the patrol,” Duke said.
“It hardly went well, though,” Aprotelese finished.
Luna frowned. “How so?” she asked.
“When we found the patrol, they were all dead,” Duke said. “Ambushed.”
“This is grave news,” Luna said. She clearly didn’t understand the severity of the situation yet, though, as she had not been informed of what happened.
“The patrol wasn’t ambushed by a group, though. At least, it might not have been,” Frost said.
“What?” Luna asked. “How could one gryphon defeat our Earth Guards?”
Duke looked to Frost, then back to the screen. “Ma’am, are you familiar with weaponized chemical agents?”
Luna blinked, startled. “No, I am not.”
“Well, that’s what was used, we believe,” Duke said.
“When we found the bodies, there was a yellowish haze around them in the air. After Aprotelese and his Nighthawks pushed it away, we went down to the bodies.”
“What did you see?” Luna asked.
“The bodies were covered in blisters. Everywhere,” Frost explained. “Legs, bodies, necks, faces... Their mouths were open, so we believe that, whatever agent was used to kill them so gruesomely, they breathed it in, and it destroyed their lungs.”
Luna looked about ready to vomit. “Did you recover them?” she asked.
“We did,” Aprotelese jumped in. “The men here went searching for any enemy combatants. They found a glass bottle, which they say may have been used to disperse some of the agent. The bodies are back home, where they belong, but there may be more like them if we don’t figure this out.”
“He is correct,” Duke said. “Whatever this is, if this was a test run, it was damn effective. They’ll make more of whatever it is. And the worst part is that we don’t know what it is. We can’t possibly treat it, even if somepony did survive initial exposure.”
Luna was silent for a few moments. It was all sinking in, the gravity of this situation. She was trying to process how to best proceed in the face of a new enemy weapon, one that could kill countless ponies in a matter of minutes anywhere it could be easily transported. And it could be easily transported.
“We are not familiar with ‘weaponized chemical agents’,” Luna said. “It sounds like you are. Would you explain them to me?”
“Chemical weapons have a nasty history back on Earth,” Frost started. “The UN banned their use as Weapons of Mass Destruction. Doesn’t stop countries from using them, of course, but this should tell you how bad they are.”
“When one is dropped, the area in which it was dropped can’t be inhabited for a while, or until cleanup can be done,” Duke went on. “Some last a little while. Others take over the ground and water and destroy areas for a long time.”
“They’re one of the nastiest ways to die imaginable,” Frost said. “I’d rather have a nuclear bomb dropped on me. At least it wouldn’t hurt.” No one understood the reference.
“They’re cruel and incredibly effective weapons, especially for terrorism,” Duke said. “They’re like biological weapons. Easy to move or send. Easily kill people. If you don’t take out the source fast, it can mean all kinds of hell for you.”
“These weapons did not previously exist in our world,” Luna said. “Why would they show up now?”
Aprotelese said what everypony was thinking. “If this OGA guy is their captive, and he knows a thing or two about these weapons...”
Duke shook his head. “I don’t like that kind of thinking,” he said. “But I can’t discount it. OGA was from a governmental agency built on secrecy; He could easily know about this weapon and dozens more recipes for death.”
“But why would OGA know about that stuff?” Frost wondered. “He was going into Pakistan to find terror cells.”
“That could be exactly why he was sent there,” Duke said. “But the reason for him going there isn’t relevant to us now. We need to find him. When he gets home, he’ll go back to whatever business it was he was doing when he landed here instead.”
“So how many kinds of these ‘chemical weapons’ are there?” Fog asked.
“A lot,” Duke said. “I had to study some of them in the Air Force academy, for history and chemistry. I studied nerve agents, sulfur mustards, and early weapons, like Chlorine.”
“What kind was used here?” Aprotelese asked.
“I can’t say for sure,” Duke replied. “I only saw blisters and a yellowish haze. It could be any of a large number. Just be glad that this wasn’t a nerve agent; these are bad, but those managed to be worse.”
“Hard to believe it gets worse than what those guys had to suffer,” Moon Moon grumbled.
“Well, imagine it,” Frost said. “Actually, don’t; it’s too nasty.”
“We will look into it further,” Luna said. “If the stallions breathed this chemical in, we may be able to find traces of it in their lungs. If that fails, their clothes may also hold answers.”
“How long will that take?” Mosquito asked.
“It may take some time,” Luna replied dishearteningly.
“Not as long as you think,” Frost said. Everypony looked to him. “This stuff is pretty distinctly unnatural and out of place. If you find something that seems off, that’ll probably be it.”
“Well, that’s good news. Sort of,” Aprotelese said.
Luna nodded. “As good as we can hope for right now,”she said. “You have done your jobs and done them well, stallions and men. You should go back home, get some rest. We may call on you again soon if this danger makes itself known again.”
“Always a pleasure,” Frost said.
The Nighthawks and men walked out of the room and flew back to Ponyville. It was late, around two in the morning, so they were all eager to get back home and get some shuteye. They hadn’t even been out working that long, it was everything after that took forever. Still, it was better than the red tape and debriefings the men had to deal with most of the time back home.
The stallions didn’t have to carry the men this time, they were given a lift in a four-pegasus, helicopter style transport carriage. One at each corner, open top, seat belts for non-pegasi ponies. The landscape was beautiful at night, but no one was thinking anything about the land beneath them other than the danger it was facing.
The carriage dropped them all off at their home and hovered away. The men and stallions entered the house quietly, as Amel would be asleep right now. They carried their gear on their backs to avoid dropping it or ragging on the floor.
Frost entered first, and when he did, he quickly spotted Amel, lying on the couch in the living room. He snickered to himself as he watched her sleeping. Her mouth was wide open, with a bit of drool coming out the side. She snored softly, but still enough that everyone heard it as they came in. She had obviously gotten home and been worried, so she tried to stay up to see the team come home.
After putting his gear away, Frost went back to her and gently picked her up to carry her back to her room. He had his own room, thankfully, so he wouldn’t have to lose the bed again. As he carried her up, she twitched adorably and rolled around in his arms, ultimately hugging his chest and pulling herself in. He was like a giant dream teddy bear.
After gently placing her on her bed in her room, Frost went back downstairs to grab a beer from the fridge. He felt like he could use one about now. The other guys were all already in their beds, sleeping like logs, so sneaking his restless self past them was no issue. In the kitchen, he turned on no lights, instead deciding that drinking in the dark was the better way to go.
He sipped away at his beer and let his mind sleep while his body went on autopilot. It was a talent most special operators developed after a short time, a little more so than conventional military forces. To keep your mind sharp for battle, you turned it off when you didn’t need it but weren’t sleeping. Frost had heard of the Japanese concept of Mushin a long time ago; mastery of something to the point where you do not think about it, you merely do it; and felt that it was something worth pursuing.
When he was halfway done with his beer, the lights clicked on and his eyes clicked shut. He heard the hoofsteps go to the fridge, open it, and pull out another longneck bottle of Samaloco Adams. The hooves soon joined him at the table, and when he opened his eyes, he saw Mosquito in front of him.
“Still awake?” Frost asked.
“Yeah,” Mosquito replied. “So are you.”
“Not really,” Frost said. “Running on cruise control right now.” Mosquito gave him a confused look, which Frost brushed aside with a wave of his hand.
“What’s keeping you up?” Mosquito asked.
Frost shook his head. “Nothing in particular,” he said.
Mosquito nodded. “Well, it is for me,” he said. “I can’t seem to forget about those soldiers tonight. Why did it happen to them?” Mosquito looked to Frost as if the man had the answer. “Why does this have to happen here, anywhere? What is the reason?”
“There isn’t a reason,” Frost said. “You can’t dwell on finding it. If you do, you’ll never sleep.”
“Is that why you aren’t asleep?” Mosquito asked. “Because you can’t forget?”
“No,” Frost said. He gazed into the amber waves of his half-finished beer, searching. “I can’t sleep because I can forget.” He held the beer up to the light, hoping it would shine through. “I’ve seen some shit out there, man. Things you don’t forget. But I did; I forgot the faces of the men I’ve saved, the ones I’ve pulled out of combat zones, fires, crevasses, trees, mountainsides. I’ve forgotten the bodies of my fallen comrades, forgotten what it means to hold a dead body in my arms. I’ve forgotten what the faces of the families look like when they hear that their little man or their little girl was killed in a mortar blast.”
The light shined through the beer, but nothing came. “I’ve phazed out what their faces looked like. What it feels like every time I carry a body onto the chopper. What the men I’ve saved look like when I pull them on a gurney into the hospital. Can I forget? Yes, I always do. I don’t see men any more when I see them, I don’t see women, I don’t see families, I don’t see children. I don’t want to.”
Frost put the beer down. “What does that make me now? I am a Pararescueman; These things I do, that others may live. Am I a man?” Frost took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I don’t know. I’ve given up my attachment to my patients, just like so many others. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have been strong enough to stay in this profession.”
Mosquito looked at Frost’s beer for an answer, too, as the man went on. “If I cared, I wouldn’t be able to keep on saving lives, knowing that those lives are still destroyed. I wouldn’t be able to go out and retrieve fallen Marines, Soldiers, Sailors, Pilots, Airmen... I wouldn’t be able to go out and find the civilians who lost contact with their families on a climbing trip. Shouldn’t I care, though? Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do?”
Mosquito found no answer and continued his silence. “Aren’t I supposed to care about my fellow warfighters, the people we protect? Is this a job, a calling, am I doing it for others or myself now? All I know is that I have to keep doing it, for their sakes and for mine. I just...” Frost shook his head and tapped the bottle to his forehead. “I don’t know. I care, but... I’m not attached. I can’t be. Or I will be destroyed” Frost downed the rest of his beer and sat in silence.
Mosquito looked at the man before him silently. Was this the fate of all men in war, to forget? To choose not to see men or people or ponies, and to see the objective? Was this going to be his future?
“No one can ever know,” Mosquito said.
Frost shook his head and stood. “That’s a goddamn shame, that is,” he said.
Without another word, Frost tossed his bottle into the trash bin and went up to go to sleep, while Mosquito sat in the kitchen a while longer, alone with alcohol and a hope that he never forgot. He believed that there was no such thing as a colt to forget.