The Kabul Incident(6)

“Don’t worry about it, Davis…with the Pinos on board, it’ll be another Groundhog Day mission like all the rest,” joked another solider, one whose name Brazier failed to catch.

“Watch the ‘Pino’ shit, jarhead,” snapped Talborg from the position just off Arias’s left shoulder she’d claimed at the start of the mission briefing. The woman was a master at insuring her position in the center of things…a trait Brazier new he’d have to perfect if he wanted to move up in the Project Hardwired hierarchy.

“What’s our opposition?” The smooth, slow Southern drawl of Cestus calling out from the rear of the group startled everyone present. He’d said no more than ten words during the entire trip down from Berlin…most of the team had forgotten he was a living, breathing thing.

Arias, having dealt with the cyborg super soldier on a number of occasions, seemed to be the only one not thrown off by the man’s question. “Rum-int has no more than thirty hostiles on site. The Syrians are set to arrive with the stolen ordnance just before dawn with another dozen or so men.”

Gauss laughed, winking at his monitor. “We’ll go in hard and fast…I’ll walk right in the front gates and bring the whole place down on their heads. They won’t know what hit ‘em.”

“No,” refuted Cestus in a calm voice that still commanded the attention of those crowded around the briefing. “Designate Gauss will provide support and insertion for me into the enemy camp.”

A glare that could have killed blasted out from Gauss. The cyborg’s fists clenched tightly, his chrome eye lighting up like a star, as Gauss started to snap back at his rival.

“‘Support?’ Are you fucking kidding me?” Every piece of metal in the room responded to the chrome-armed cybernetic warrior’s agitation, twitching and jerking into his direction. “Where do you get off trying to take lead, Cestus? This is as much my op as it is yours!”

The power Gauss contained in his arms and the fusion generator housed in his spine were enough to cause Brazier to take a few rather deep, worried breaths. No telling what a loose cannon like Gauss could do in a military base filled with a nearly unlimited supply of ferrous metals to cause havoc with.

Spittle sprayed out from the mouth of Gauss, showering Cestus with liquid as the two super soldiers faced off. Explosions between the two top members of the Project Hardwired team had become more and more frequent as Cestus’s star began to rise and eclipse that of the more veteran Gauss. Only the omnipresent control of the Abraxas Array hot linked into the computerized brains of both men had kept their skirmishes from resulting in catastrophic violence…something Scott Brazier thanked God for even as he instinctively backed away from the blustering robot-men.

“Data shows an increase of friendly casualties by a factor of three with a frontal assault. The chances of hostiles retaliating with the chemical weapons on local citizens also increase by nearly forty-seven point three-one percent,” countered Cestus calmly. “Covert entry reduces collateral damage down to zero. Of the two of Prime Designates assigned, I am far more qualified to take point.”

Lieutenant Arias seemed to share Gauss’s incredulity. “Best guesses put the number of hostiles at thirty armed men or more. How do you propose to stop them on your own, Designate Cestus?”

“Kill them.”

“You arrogant little prick!” A vein throbbing on the forehead of Gauss seemed on the verge of rupture.

Fifteen pairs of battle-hardened US Marine hands gripped the weapons slung over their shoulders. They all had seen first-hand the sort of devastation both cyborgs were capable of creating and none of the soldiers were ready for a display.

“Lieutenant?” Sergeant Height’s voice seem to raise two octaves in concern. He wasn’t sure there was enough firepower on the entire base to take down one of the pissed-off cyborgs let alone two.

“Agent Talborg, get your man under control ay-sap,” ordered the mission’s military officer, sweat beading up across his brow. Lieutenant Arias’s hand hovered just over the dark gray grip of the Beretta nine-millimeter pistol holstered high on his right hip.

Before the thirty-something woman could respond, a voice squeaked out from the rear of the gathering.

“Abraxas agrees with Cestus’s recommendation.” The lilt and twang intruding upon Brazier’s voice did little to reinforce the air of authority he’d hoped to throw out. Nothing killed a man’s self-confidence more than twenty pairs of eyes all aimed at him.

Gauss visibly deflated. Although every fiber of the cyborg’s being wanted to protest, both he and Agent Talborg had received notification from the artificial intelligence system back at Project Hardwired in the United State at the same instant Brazier did. They were all linked to the same information in real time and it was useless for the mechanical-eyed soldier to argue—impossible considering the override instructions coded into his brain. There was no way for one of the Prime Designates to rebel against his programming. At the merest hint of trouble, one of the on-site monitors, or even Abraxas-1 itself, could initiate a shutdown protocol to stop the cyborgs in their tracks. Having seen what kind of damage creatures like Gauss and Cestus could do terrified Brazier down deep and knowing shutdown was a couple of keystrokes away let him sleep better at night.