Teen Ink

Six

Djimbi Airbase
Brunner got off the beaten truck and dragged himself back to Headquarters, trying to avoid his skin wound on his leg. It only took the skin off near his heel, but the scratch was beginning to hurt and itch. He grabbed more bandages and wrapped his leg.
The mess hall has been temporarily changed to a medical emergency room for injured soldiers. The other groups of transporters suffer similar fates, although none lost as many people as that of their group. Entering the mess hall, the once brightly lit room was darkened by the blood stains and screams that echo in the darkness. Teams of doctors and nurses rushed from one soldier to another, trying to stop bleeding, apply bandages, as well as to calm the patients down. Brunner and Holly asked a nearby nurse if they needed any help, being certified in first aid, Brunner decided he should do whatever is in his power to support his teammates.
"Go and help the injured P.S.A. and Special Operations members if they are still awake. We've given them a sedative to keep them calm; they might be sleeping by now." She told them before rushing to stop the bleeding from a soldier lying on a stretcher.
Holly and Brunner went to the corner of the room; there were over a dozen beds each with an injured P.S.A. or Special Operations member on it. Brunner looked at the anesthetized people sprawled on the beds; most only sustained non-life threatening injuries.
"Well, looks like the Brunner and his girl made it aren't you lucky." Somebody said behind the two. Turning around they saw that it was O' Dooley.
"We made it out, along with Kabins and Meenen, but the rest of the team along with the entire Army force that was sent to help us wasn’t so lucky." Holly quietly said.
"Damn, well bad luck hits every us now and then. The President isn’t going to be too happy about this." O' Dooley added as he lit a cigar and stuck it in his mouth.
"No he's not." Brunner sighed.
O' Dooley chewed hard on his cigar, then spat out the contents into the trash can, "Ef those damn bastards, the S.H. I mean. What the hell are they up to anyways?"
Suddenly Brunner remembered something, "Major, when we were pinned down at the ridge, a freakin' Drone came after us. At first I thought it was friendly and was sent by you guys to help us out or something, but it turned out that it was there to kill us."
"Shit, are you sure it was a drone?"
"Positive, we towed it's wreckage to the base, Greene analyzed that thing, he just called me ten minutes ago to tell me that it was definitely Russian."
"Crap, I can't believe it got through this quick." O' Dooley said under his breath.
"Excuse me sir?" Holly asked
"You must not have heard yet, the president called and said that the United States government planned a new type of remote control drone. It is said to be capable of flying for extended periods of time and has an arsenal of machineguns, C4 carpet drops, and AMG missile attachments all in one. Fearing that the technology of this drone was too powerful to be exposed, the government coded all the information regarding the drone plane along with other secret weapons into a small microchip that they installed into a satellite. The satellite was then launched into orbit. Originally, the plan was for the Russian Black Operations Branch of the Government and Military to consider the satellite as just another one of the many scientific research satellites launched every year. Somehow or another, information regarding the satellite was captured by Russian Black Ops. In less than twenty-four hours, those bastards shot the damn thing down, along with all the information regarding new weapons and technologies such as the T1106 drone. They transported the Satellite to the facility in Chernobyl, where they have decoded the blueprints of the Drone. Luckily, they have not yet managed to decode other information quite yet as far as I know of. A P.S.A. member has been sent to retrieve the downed satellite from Chernobyl earlier today. And that, Ryan and Kaitlyn, is why you met the drone, the Russians decoded the informational blueprints just a week ago, and now...well, you saw what you saw."
"That's just great, more people to have to deal with. I hope the Russians aren't as bright as they think and just ignore the fact that we know of the satellite's location." Brunner said
In an annoyed tone, "Great, at least do you know the status of the mission to retrieve the drone?" Holly asked.
"Not yet, as far as I know of, it is still in the process of being retrieved.
Brunner blinked from all the information. "I thought Chernobyl was a stupid ghost town due to that accidental meltdown in 86'."
"Ha, that's what you think, that is what it always was thought of, but it was all set up by a man named Victor Chernkov. Apparently he wanted to remove the local people to use the facility for his own good. He wanted to get his hands on nuclear material. Unfortunately for him, the government wouldn't obey. In April of 1986, Chernkov sent a team to take over the facility by force. The facility officers were forced to detonate and surge a meltdown in order to prevent the power plant from falling to enemy hands. But after the whole incident he created, it took a further decade before the radiation levels were safe for humans to begin working there. Chernkov decided that once the government dumped concrete and did all those things to stop radioactive leakage. He would go back and take whatever he needed. Now, the inside is a massive warehouse for illegal trade and new, never seen weapons."
Holly closed her eyes and shook her head. "Why was this not told to me? And why did no one ever bother to check for illegal activities?" she questioned again.
"Whoa, hold it there girl, I love it when people ask questions, but one at a time!" O' Dooley chuckled. "The reason nobody knew and nobody checked was because nobody thought that anyone with the right mind would be sneaking around a radioactive city just for the good of it. Also, the reason why you didn't know was because of the fact that the president didn't want to worry you on too much information."
Holly sighed, "How typical and cliché, I can't believe Russia's now in this whole terrorist mess, I just hope we get out of this hell-hole now."
"With luck, we'd be out of here tomorrow morning, but as far as I know of we're going to be around for a bit." O' Dooley told them as he chewed on his cigar
"One more question sir, how did the information get leaked out?" Brunner conveyed in a tired voice
"Not sure, but it must have somehow slipped during transcription. Or we got a spy up in our system." O' Dooley told him before he threw his cigar in the trash, "Damn, I am tired, looks like the medical staff is calming down just a bit, the ones who can be saved are saved, and the ones who can't are done for it. Not much else we can do around here. I need a Scotch to calm me down a bit, you guys want to join me?"
"Yeah sure, at least it'll be better than standing here right?" Holly announced
"I'm with you." Brunner sighed out.

After having a small amount of red wine, Brunner felt a lot less tense. He decided to take a visit with Holly to Greene's laboratory. At first Holly said she would rather just watch TV in her room, but Brunner insisted on doing so. The two walked down to Greene's lab, to their surprise, O' Dooley, Meenen, Kabins, and a few others were there as well. "Looks like we all had the same thoughts" Meenen said. Entering the lab, Greene quickly told the group to come to the back room.
There he showed the group a piece of the wreckage of the Drone plane that Brunner shot down earlier. "I got some important info, so just listen." Greene told the group with his annoyingly loud voice. "I have analyzed the wreckage even more, it is definitely Russian in origin, but I found a stunning discovery, this particular section has a unique language on it. It's not Russian or American, it's Portuguese. So that means that this thing wasn't assembled in Russia, but in a Portuguese speaking country."
"Where though?" Meenen asked.
"Good question, the two main countries I could think of off the top of my head is Portugal and Brazil. I thought it would be Brazil because of the gang wars erupting over there. At first I was suspicious of the fact, but this section of metal confirmed my hypothesis." Greene said as he showed the group. On the piece of charred metal, one could still make out the statue of O' Cristo Redentor or Christ the Redeemer.
"So that settles the fact that there is a good chance it was assembled in Brazil." Brunner said.
"Pretty much, I don't see where else it can be. There is good proof that Brazilian Gangs are assembling secret Russian weapons."
"Wait, why exactly are they doing this?" Holly asked.
"It's simple, the Russians give money to the gangs, the gangs builds the weapons, the weapons are shipped to where they are needed, and the Russians saved both money and manpower." Greene told the group.
"Looks like we need to inform the President on these issues soon." Kabins said.
"Yes, he is on a flight to the base right now it fact." O' Dooley commented, "Just got the message, the meeting will take place in an hour and a half. He left the States for Djimbi as soon as he got news of the overseeing disaster."
"Another restless night for all of us." Meenen droned.
"Might as well get ready for it, see you in a bit Ryan." Holly said. She hugged him and patted his back before opening the door to leave Greene's laboratory. The smell of hot dogs drifted in from Jesse's hot dog stand outside.