The vehicle was going over a hundred miles an hour, doing the math in my head I figured that it should take about ten minutes to get to our drop zone. I look to my men to make sure they're doing okay, I saw five was clenched up pretty tight.
"Five, you alright?" My tone is more threatening then concerned, they all knew what I was watching for. He looked directly at me like he was going to reply but only managed a hacking cough followed by a sickening gurgle. My eyes shot wide open, "Four! Six!" was all I yelled, it was all I needed to. Instantly the two men on either side of him jerked the man up by each arm, before he could react six gave a vicious kick to him and sent him flying out of our vehicle. The second he flew by me my hand shot forward at unbelievable speed, ripped the dog tags from his neck and retracted. He disapeared in the dark for the briefest of moments before a bright red flashing light appeared; followed by a thunderous explosion. Figures thatfeature worked. I thought with more then a little contempt. I wonder if the wave, psychic thing the director told us about was even real, probably not. The grunts are expendable resources, being expended is part of the job; I don't mind that I just wish they didn't lie us. These thoughts flew by in a second as a much more important one was at the head.
"Everyone, helmets off! Let me see your faces!" I bark out, I rarely yell; so when I do my men listen. Everyone's came off in a second. except seven. I didn't say anything I just glared, he was tugging at it but I could tell he purposely wasn't removing it. Once again I yelled.
"Eight!" Normally I would be the one to do the dirty deed in this situation, especially when it had to be done to a rookie, but we had to be silent.
"Wait! my helmets just stuck, please no!" He squeaked out. Eights large hand grabbed the top of his head and pulled him back violently, his machete then moved to his exposed neck and severed his windpipe. It's not a painful way to die at least, not compared to the crap that happens to us. Six snatched his dog tags while eight, being a very large man, picked him up and threw him out of the vehicle alone. Eight sat back down and was silent for exactly five seconds before the sound of an explosion rang out behind the car. As soon as it did he put his head in his hands and let out a heavy sob at the loss of his partner. Nine moved to pet him on the shoulder but I spoke and made him jump back.
"GET YOUR SHI*T TOGETHER EIGHT! YOU WANNA CRY OUR YOU WANNA DESTROY THE MONSTER THAT KILLED HIM?" Eight looked up and swallowed hard, he didn't make another noise and nobody said anything about it. I wonder if the anomaly had enough time to figure out who we were, this question was answered for me about a minute later when the vehicle started taking small arms fire. We put our helmets back on and ducked down, the back was standard cloth but our body armor was very good. We made it to the drop zone without serious injury. Not counting of course the other three that we had to kill, it was easy to catch now that we were watching for it. My men got really nervous after we through Ten, Nine, and One out the back; I don't blame them. With protector missions usually everything goes perfect or everything goes horribly wrong, and this one was looking to be the latter.
"The worst is behind us men, time to fight back!" I said raising my gun, they let out a cheer as we dove into the sewers.