Free Operation Sea Mink by Addison Gunn Page B

guard interjected. His rifle now shaking slightly, jerked in his arms as he swung it around. “Don’t move!”
    “Easy, now, easy,” Miller said, his hands still raised. “Nobody has to get hurt here.”
    “Hey, is that a woman? Has she been registered?”
    “Registered? Why would...?” Miller didn’t finish his sentence. In a rush of understanding, his hands bunched into fists and he backed up, ever so slightly.
    Women were being registered. Wasps were running rampant. Harris was in command, just as they’d feared. The compound looked empty. And the guards, faced with two armed soldiers, hadn’t asked once if they were Infected.
    Miller’s worst fears were realized—the compound was a lost cause.
    Gray and Lewis were probably dead, or in the brig, if they were lucky.
    The wasps, he suspected, had wiped out not only the Infected, but the uninfected, too. Women were being registered, presumably for breeding. The survivors, no doubt, were under lock and key, someplace ‘safe’ inside the compound, hidden from the outside world, trapped like laboratory rats.
    Walking into the compound, at this point, was suicide. Especially considering the cargo they’d lugged all the way from the Atlantic Ocean.
    Miller continued backing up. His M27 was out of bullets, but he had about ten rounds left in his sidearm. He’d been saving them for an emergency.
    Carefully, he lowered his hand to the holster on his hip. The first guard, sensing the movement, jerked his rifle back toward him, and aimed right at Miller’s head.
    “Both of you,” the guard spat, “stop where you are! Who are you? What’re your names?”
    “Can’t help you, kid,” Miller said. “I’m under orders to report to my commanding officer.”
    “Oh, yeah?” the second guard said, raising his rifle again. “And what would Harris want with you?”
    Miller slid his thumb over the Gallican’s safety. “I’m really sorry. I’m really, really sorry.” Then whispering to du Trieux he said, “I’ve got the left.”
    The second guard frowned at Miller. “What?”
    Miller raised his sidearm just as du Trieux dropped to one knee and drew her pistol. In an instant, shots rang out and both guards slumped to the ground, a single bullet in each of their foreheads.
    Miller sighed. He wished he could feel something about what they’d just done, but he was numb to guilt now. “Let’s go,” he said.
    As the alarm was raised behind them, Miller and du Trieux sprinted down 27th Avenue, jumping over blast holes, skirting around piles of crumbled concrete, and cutting down an alley off 18th. They picked up Morland and Hsiung and kept going. The crate jostled and clanked in their hands.
    Cutting across one building and leading the team into another, Miller hooked a sharp left, catching the others by surprise.
    “Where are you taking us?” Hsiung breathed, gasping for air.
    “There’s an old cache of ammo and supplies stashed ahead, from Wild Tarpan. We should stock up and go for help.”
    “Help?” Morland burst. “If we can’t go inside the compound, who the fuck is left?”
    “I have an idea,” Miller said, kicking down the door of an old donut shop and pulling the tarp off a pile of ammunition boxes.
    “Care to share?” du Trieux asked, bending down and stuffing the pockets of her combat vest with clips and magazines.
    “We find the Archaeans.”
    “The who?” Morland asked.
    “The other Infected. I know somebody on the inside.”
    Hsiung’s eyes were practically bugging out of her head. “We’re going to the Infected? Are you insane? ”
    Miller looked over at du Trieux. She looked pale, but resigned. She nodded and jammed two fresh magazines into her Gilboa.
    Miller slung a fresh canteen over his shoulder and stuffed food pouches in his pockets. “Probably,” he said, ripping open a packet with his teeth and sucking down the processed vegetables in a single swallow.

 
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