[3D Master]

Hmm, I've never posted the fanfic here, I did post it on the 3drealms board once. I was wondering if it'd be worthwile to post it here?

[Micky C]

Well if it's worth making a thread asking whether it's ok to post a fanfic then it's worth actually posting the fanfic

Feel free to post it up or make it available as a downloadable document.

[3D Master]

Title: Duke Nukem - Origin of an Asskicker

Author: 3D Master

Feedback: 3dmaster@telfort.nl

Website: http://3dmaster.1sweethost.com/

Rating: 15+

Keywords: Duke Nukem, action, asskicking.

Character Listing: Duke Nukem, Brinna Halleström, Colonel Graves.

Summary: Duke and the first EDF unit needs to protect high officials from terrorist hell bent against a united Earth, even a little bit united. Then things go from bad to worse.

Disclaimer: The characters don’t belong to me; they belong to 3D Realms and Apogee.

Author’s notes: The origin of Duke Nukem! Who hasn’t want to know it! Anyway, some, if not all, may know there’s a little tidbit in the Duke3D source code, about a conversation between Duke and a commander; well, this fic will address it, and the ‘war’ that’s talked about. Have fun reading!

Duke Nukem

Origin of an Asskicker

by 3D Master (3dmaster@telfort.nl)
website: http://3dmaster.1sweethost.com


Chapter 1: The Stage is Set

Brussels, Belgium, Army Unit 1
July 15, 2027

The tent of Army Unit 1 was busy. A total of ten people were inside. Cleaning guns, finishing their uniform, or watching the tv. The tv was showing the flags of the countries of the world, after which it zoomed out and came down, to center on a female MNN reporter.

“Six years ago, no one could have foreseen this day. Six years ago was when the alien craft crash landed on the Earth after circling the globe once in such a spectacular manner, no one could possibly cover it up,” the reporter spoke, a microphone in her hand. Her red hair came to her shoulders, and her outfit was becoming - a tight blouse, with a jacket over it. Judging from the lack of fasteners she was wearing a skirt, but that was uncertain due to her lower half not being on screen. She continued, “The craft’s occupants did not survive, but the bit of information that our computer engineers were able to take from the incompatible computer systems pointed out one important fact: there’s at least one hostile alien presence out there, that prefers to enslave entire species. This prompted the nations of the world to come together. And unlike twelve years ago - the countries of the world entered in a shaky alliance to combat the upheaval our solar system went through as a consequence of just discovered subspace physical events - this time it seems to stick. Not in the least of which, because of the remarkable change in China. As everyone knows, for a few months after the crash, China was blacked out, until it emerged back upon the stage of the Earth with a whole new set of leaders. People that were part of the protests in the nineteen nineties and other eras, who decided if they couldn’t change China from the outside of the party, they might as well do it from the inside. This is the biggest reason what will happen today might work out in the long run, because last time it didn’t mainly for China’s position. After several years of negotiations, talks and concession, all of Earth’s nations’ military might - except some limited national militia - will be signed under one United Nations command and become the Earth Defense Force.

“Sadly, not everyone seems to agree this is a major step forward. Several extremists, most notably religious groups, have threatened to bomb this ‘alliance of evil’ as they called it, into hell. Many claiming the alien craft is a fake, because god or Allah created man as the rulers of creation, there couldn’t be any aliens as advanced, and much more so, than us. Therefor, the first international unit under the command of the United Nations, formed from the very best of the best from many different counties, will safeguard the leaders of many nations and the ceremony itself today from any terrorist activity,” the reporter finished.

“I guess she means us,” Galal al-Ahmed said with a grin. “You hear that guys and girl, we’re the best of the best.” He, like all the others, was dressed in army fatigues, with the characteristic blue UN beret. The man had a mustache and his hair was cut short.

“Time to move out,” a much more authoritative voice sounded.

Everyone stood up except for one blonde man who kept looking at the screen, where a male anchor was now seen. “Bennet!” the same man called out to the blonde. After a moment Colonel Graves tried again, “Duke!”

“Hmm?” the blonde said and slowly turned around on his chair, a smug look on his face. His hair was almost shaved off, perfectly aligning his head, his beret strapped to his belt. He was all muscle, easily six feet high and a bit more. Instead of the standard fatigue top, he wore a black, tight, sleeveless shirt.

“The lady said we were supposed to protect some VIPs, Bennet,” the Colonel said, as he came over to turn off the tv.

“Don’t waste your breath, Colonel,” the single female spoke. She stood straight, her fatigues weren’t flattering to her figure, but she had enough curves they were visible. Her long blonde hair was strapped in a pony tail, coming through the back of her blue cap. She too wore a tight, sleeveless shirt, except hers was dark green. Her arms had well-formed muscles that just stopped from being a female body-builder’s arms, there was still a femininity to them. “Bennet here has no brain. He sees a hot chick, and he zones out.”

“Hey,” Bennet defended himself good naturedly as he got up to his six foot two height. “That’s not a sign of stupidity, everyone looks at a good piece of ass. Why, Bombshell, I’ve seen you checking out my ass on occasion.”

The young woman’s face scrunched up, and said with a growl, “I did not check out your ass, American. I’ve got better taste than then, and *stop* calling me Bombshell! The name’s Brinna, Brinna Halleström!”

“Alright then,” Bennet told her with a grin, letting his eyes flow across her body. He thumbed a muscular Japanese man, showing his muscular arms off in the process, and said, “you were checking out Hotaka’s ass instead. Same diff.”

Brinna shrieked as she surged forward. She was ready to fight the smart-mouth asshole, just about to jump and fly at him in fact, when several pairs of strong hands grabbed her by the shoulders and kept her away from the smirking blonde man. “I’m going to kick your ass, Bennet! Mark my words, when I get my hands on you . . .!” she screamed in frustration, as the ones holding her back yelled at her to calm down.

“ATTENTION!” the colonel snapped, and everyone came to attention, even Bennet, although it was a half-hearted attention. The screaming, and Brinna’s attempt to fight Bennet, ended right away. “People! We’re supposed to be the well-oiled team that protects world peace and all that shit. Look at you!” They were all silent as their commanding officer scolded them. “You /are/ the best of the best, as long as you don’t let your god-damned egos get in the way, now move out, and /no/ more talk about asses or any other body parts!”

“Yes, sir!” the unit called in unity and started moving. Brinna gave Bennet a glare, and he returned a smile.

“Bennet,” Graves said, and then softer. “Will you please refrain from baiting her already?”

Duke shrugged, and said with a grin, “I’ll try . . . and call me Duke, only the generals upstairs call me Bennet.”

*****
Duke lay on the rooftop in the corner, peering through the scope. He preferred hands on action, but the idea was they were to be unobtrusive. The streets were lined with throngs of cheering people as the expensive limousines carrying the people gently came down the street. Several body guards of the more clean type - dressed up in penguin suits, more commonly known as tuxedos - were walking along the cars of the presidents and other assorted VIPs. It was no wonder so many people had come: the signing would herald the end of any great wars, only small malcontents and extremists would remain to threaten the security of the world - barring extra terrestrial threats.

The EU council building where the ceremony would be held, was a light brown stoned building. The stone made up the roof border, several narrow columns, and in between were large panes of glass which made up most of the visible parts of the building. The building was a corner one. Instead of a sharp corner, it was basically cut off, making a diagonal glass front. The cut-off corner glass was also the entrance. In front of the entrance was a rather large roundabout, with greenery in the middle. The EU area of Brussels was built with wide roads and large squares for any possible tourists, visitors of events like these, and any demonstrators. The other EU buildings were close by, interspersed with buildings of companies and apartment buildings of many shapes, colors and sizes; but all wide away from each other. There were roads in between nearly every building for an effective traffic system.

The reason the signing of the UN resolution that would produce the Earth Defense Force, or EDF for short, was happening at the EU and not in the UN buildings in New York was simple. They had decided that possible terrorist activity was highly likely, so everybody was being told it would be done in New York, the preparations were made in New York - as well as in Brussels - and now shortly before the actual signing it was changed to the EU. Thus, any terrorists that had been painstakingly preparing for New York, would suddenly have to pack up and make a hasty - thus flawed - plan of attack for the Brussels location. Reasons for making this signing a prime target were more than one; not only did the event signal what the extremists hated, one of the EDF divisions would be an anti-terrorist police force and they had jurisdiction everywhere, /no/ country would deny them access. If this wasn’t stopped, the terrorists had no country to hide in, and a highly advanced investigative division would search them down, after which the military branch would come take them out. In short, chances that there would be no terrorist attack were slim to none; even if one didn’t include any plans for the fake New York location.

“All clear, for now,” Duke said into his mike. There were some suspects, but in this diverse crowd of ecstatic people a ‘suspect’ could turn out to be a pacifist. Making rash decisions now might make him miss the real terrorist a few moments later.

“Same here,” Galal’s voice sounded, and slowly the rest of the team that hadn’t reported yet, gave similar answers.

The crowd steadily kept moving in front of Duke’s eye; nicely enlarged through the scope. He slowed for a moment on the suspicious sight of someone ducking, but it turned out to be a kid desperately trying to recapture his dropped ice cream, before he started crying and the mother picked him up for comforting. He moved the gun onward again, as the first car with the VIPs arrived - two police motorcycles, white with three wide, orange, diagonal strips, up front - to drive around the roundabout, stopping three-quarters on its way, right in front of the corner entrance of EU Council building. One of the tuxedoed guards opened the back door, and out stepped the Belgian Prime Minister.

At that moment Duke took his eyes away from the scope for a moment and saw in the corner of his eyes someone coming into action. Immediately he shifted the gun and looked back to the scope, as from his mike sounded, “Hostile in grid . . .” Duke let the rest of the comment flow as he took aim, noticing the man pulling out a gun, and he relayed his own situation. He fired, and the white man bent down. His rifle allowed for variable shooting speeds so the bullet only entered the terrorist’s brain, and didn’t come out the other end and killed a good person. As with the other hostile, the dampener on Duke’s high powered rifle made sure there was hardly a sound, something the crowd couldn’t hear. That was their design: this way the terrorists didn’t know they were on to them, and the crowd wouldn’t panic, the resulting chaos of which, would give the terrorists cover.

There were several more dampened shots and relays of hostile positions, Duke took out two more, when a crash alerted him, after which there was a steadily, louder-getting heavy sound. He turned his head back into the side street and saw a big tanker truck barreling down it. Several cars were behind the truck. Further down the road the police barricade lay in ruins - the crash must have been the truck barreling right on through. “Damn,” Duke muttered and came into action. He ran back alongside the roof, while relaying the situation through his mike and jumped. He grabbed a drainpipe on the way down and slid alongside it. Even as there were several explosions - undoubtedly caused by his brothers and sister in arms fighting more terrorists - Duke pushed off the wall, and turned around in the air. He landed on the nose of the big tanker truck, the front of which was deep red. Dropping his rifle on the hood of the truck from where it fell to the ground, Duke grabbed the side rearview mirror and slid in place. Luckily the surprised terrorist was sweating like a big in the heat, and had decided to lower the window, or Duke’s next action would have been a lot more painful. In one smooth movement part of the swing around the rearview mirror, Duke smacked his fist across the terrorist’s face, who immediately jerked to the right, and the truck went with him.

Duke opened the door rapidly, pulling the steering back to the left while sitting down in the truck - pushing the terrorist further to the other side with his other hand. Duke kept the truck from just barely smashing into the walls of the four-story building he had just been lying on. While the terrorist pulled out a gun, Duke hit the brakes, the truck starting its screeching halt. The crowd just in front of the truck turned around in startlement and looked with wide eyes, some bolting off to either side. The sudden deceleration pulled Duke and the terrorist forward. Duke forced himself back - the terrorist’s shot went wide, the bullet going just in front of Duke, out through the open window, to finally smash into the wall of the building on the other end of the alley. Bennet pulled his own gun, and his shots hit, the terrorist’s brains splashing against the side window. “You should’ve bought glasses,” Duke told the corpse.

Finally the truck came to a stop, not quite before it smashed into a few people. But with the slow down, the people were only mildly hurt, not dead if not completely crushed. Duke slipped back out, and climbed on top of the cabin, and then jumped on the tanker and ran to the back of the truck. There were three cars standing still, and five men had gotten out. They hesitated as they saw Duke appear. If they hit the tanker, it would blow up. Since the white men and a woman weren’t the type of terrorists who went in with the express reason to die, and if they died now in a fire sea they would fail to get to their targets, they hesitated. That hesitation was enough for Duke to take aim, and start firing. Four were dead right away, one managed to avoid the first shot aimed at him, but got killed with the second one. Several more terrorists tried to get out of the car, but before they could aim they were taken out as well.

“I guess they just had too much gas to be welcome,” Duke muttered, seeing the dead terrorists in various death poses. He slid down from the tanker on the right side then, and noticed his rifle sticking out a bit beneath the truck. He walked over, grabbed it, and then climbed back onto the cabin of the truck. He brought up his rifle and once more scanned the cloud, trusting that his blue UN beret would keep the people from fearing him. Luckily his trust was right; the people had a lot more things to worry about.

On the other side of the main street, Galal had already fired an RPG twice, taking out two trucks that had been reinforced to breach through the blockades on that side, while the rest of the unit were handling similar incursions, or more hidden terrorists amongst the crowd. Part of the crowd was panicking, the other part was too stunned to be anything else. A building onward, Brinna saw that Galal wouldn’t be able to reload on time to take out the final reinforced hummer, barreling toward the crowd and the presidents. The blonde jumped powerfully forward off the five-story building, going down sharply. She reached the other side of the street, grabbing the drainpipe she’d been aiming for at around two and a half stories from the ground. She gritted her teeth at the sharp jolt. Her gloves took most of the impact, but her hands still smarted. On the ground she pulled her gun and jumped forward. Firing, she blew out the hummer’s windows, killing the driver of the hummer at the same time.

Brinna landed on the hummer, and opened the door. She pulled the driver out, letting him drop to the ground, and slid in the driver’s seat. Even as she got in, she shot at the four remaining terrorists in the car, three of which were in the back seat. They got off two shots, and one grazed her right forearm, but she ignored it. She hit the breaks and then looked back. Several more of the Arabic, most likely Muslim, terrorists were on foot a bit behind her. She grinned and put the monster car in reverse, then put the pedal to the metal. The hummer raced backward with smoking tires. The terrorists looked shocked before they started firing at their own reinforced car. One of them loaded a missile launcher, but never got the chance to fire it as Brinna threw the car sideways and slammed into five of the eight terrorists, the one with the launcher among them. The car bobbed up and down as it crashed over the men, audibly crushing bones. Brinna got out, and rolled. One of the remaining three terrorists missed a shot because of it, and lost his life as a bullet from Brinna slammed into his heart. The Amazonian blonde rolled off to the side, avoiding a shot from the remaining two, and killed them too.

She got up, and walked in the direction from whence she came, starting to reload her gun. As she did so, she looked to her right and saw one terrorist she crashed into still alive, groaning as he tried to sit up, and bring his gun to bear. Brinna stopped and told him casually, “So you’re the guys who would like me to sit inside a house, and cover myself from head to toe all the time, huh? I guess this proves that you should try switching with your women, would probably make things run so much better at your home.”

“Bi- . . .” the terrorist managed to groan out as moved his gun in Brinna’s direction. A shot rang out, and with a hole in his forehead the terrorist slumped into darkness.

“Yah, yah, yah, what else is new?” Brinna muttered, and then ran back to help out with whoever or whatever remained.

Back at roundabout things started to quiet down. Duke had taken down another few terrorists that had managed to breach the crowds, others were taken down by the other unit members, the guards in the tuxedos, or the cops on the motorcycles that had ridden up front. Then it happened. Several of the tuxedo-wearing guards were gunned down as a terrorist and his identical twin came from the crowd on the right forward side of the roundabout. The guards fired, the terrorists ducked. Another guard was shot down, even as gunshots seemed to miss or go through the terrorists, who switched places constantly. “Fuck!” Hotaka’s voice sounded across the mike. “He’s got some kind of hologram with him. If I fire through the hologram, I’ll kill the Prime Minister!”

Duke came into action, jumping high over the crowd, landing on fence keeping them back, and immediately jumped forward. As more guards were gunned down, Duke jumped up onto one of the limos in the long queue, and jumped forward from the roof, reaching the greenery. While Duke took several more large running steps, the terrorist had removed all the obstacles between him and the Belgian Prime Minister, who looked at the black males, obviously frightened but keeping a lid on it. Duke stepped on the trunk of the car, and jumped forward, head and arms first. He sailed straight through the first terrorist aiming at the Prime Minister - obviously the hologram - and then crashed into the second. The gun went off, but the shot went wide, and the bullet entered the grass of the middle circle some ways off. The terrorist hit the ground first, while Duke sat up on his knees. The two of them still slid onward across the pavement. Duke’s right fist pulled back, and then shot out. It crashed against the man’s chin, and he slammed with the back of his head against the ground. To be sure, Duke flipped the man over, pulled some cuffs they had gotten for this specific mission, and cuffed the man’s hands behind his back.

Behind him, the hologram kept moving forward and firing uselessly at the Prime Minister who looked at it with wide eyes. Duke grunted, and searched the man, finding a white belt around his waist with several buttons. “Don’t worry, ma’am,” Duke said as to the right of him Brinna arrived, smoothly jumping over the fence as people made way for her blue UN beret. Duke continued, pushing the off button, “Just a hologram.” The hologram disappeared.

Duke turned around and regarded the striking female Belgian Prime Minister. Her skirt reached to her knees, and fit nicely to accentuate her hips. The blouse fit snug around her prominent but not too big breasts. The jacket she wore over it was open where needed, and it didn’t conceal her curves, flowing around her body. Her lips were red, and the lipstick was the only makeup relatively thickly applied; the rest was applied evenly, and with a gentleness to show her femininity, but not become too obtrusively prominent. “I suppose I owe you my life, as well as these men,” the Prime Minister spoke, sadly indicated the dead guards, “Mr. . . .”

“Duke Bennet, ma’am,” Dukes said, saluting slightly with a grin, letting his eyes roam over her body. “And I must say, the pleasure is all mine. Mmh, mmh.”

Brinna groaned, and groaned more as the reporters, flashing photo cameras, and a lot of tv cameras came charging in now that the shooting was over. The Prime Minister looked with wide eyes at Duke, and said, “Thanks . . . I guess . . .”

[3D Master]

Chapter 2: One Calm Prime Minister before the Storm


“Thanks . . . I guess . . .” the Belgian Prime Minister spoke, and that’s where the television screen froze in the army tent. Duke was standing front and center, Colonel Gavenlock a bit off to the side, next to General Burroughs who had the remote in his hand. Behind Duke, his squad was sitting on chairs behind their mess tables, taking the seat.

Bristling the British General took several steps forward, and turned to face Duke. He pointed backward at the screen, and bending forward into Duke’s face as he spat out, “BENNET! Not only did you hit on Prime Minister Vanderlingen like she’s a common bar hussy! BUT YOU ALSO DID IT IN FRONT OF EVERY GOD DAMNED NEWS CAMERA IN THE BLOODY WORLD!!”

“What can I say, it /was/ my pleasure to meet her . . .” Duke spoke, then added before he pissed the general off even more, “sir.” The male members of his unit snickered, and stopped the moment the general flicked his angry eyes toward them. Brinna just sat there with her arms folded across her ample chest in annoyance.

“Lieutenant,” Burroughs hissed out slowly. “You are the most inconsiderate and insubordinate pig I’ve ever met . . .” Duke’s eyebrows raised but stayed put. “Frankly, how the hell you managed not get your ass kicked out of the American army before this EDF business even started is beyond me. Must the same reason you’re not out of here yet; your uncle the General must have been protecting you - and your father before his untimely death.”

“Bullshit . . . sir,” Duke told the general slowly with narrowed eyes. “I’m still here because I get every job done in the fasted most expedient way.” Then he spoke dangerously, “And keep my father out of this”

The two had a staring match for a few moments, and then General Burroughs told Duke clear and slowly, “/You/ will stay the bloody hell away from any head of state in the next few years, got that, soldier?”

“No can do, sir,” Duke told him calmly. The general’s anger grew several levels, easily visible on his face. Duke explained, “Prime Minister Vanderlingen asked me out on a dinner date to thank me for saving her life. It’s hardly my place to disappoint the Prime Minister of Belgium, sir.”

“Stay the hell away from her,” Burroughs hissed in repeat, turned left, dropped the remote on a table and started walking toward the tent’s exit.

“Yes, sir, although I wonder what a pissed of Prime Minister will do because I stood her up when I explain to her /secretary/ I was ordered not to go by you, sir,” Duke spoke calmly, a smirk on his face.

General Burroughs stopped abruptly in his tracks, thought for a moment, and then turned around. “Bennet,” he said slowly and dangerously, “you will make absolutely sure not to piss her off, /then/ you will keep away from every head of state, clear?”

“Crystal, General,” Duke replied. Then the General turned back around, cursing obscenities as he stalked out of the tent.

Once the General had left the tent, the squad started to loosen up and get ready to talk, when the Colonel turned to face them. “Bennet!” he called sharply, shutting everyone up. “Duke, damn you! You got any idea what kind of an ass chewing I got from him and several more generals? For god sakes, Lieutenant, do what he says and don’t ever do /that/ again!” He pointed at the still frozen screen with a grimace.

“Yes, sir,” Duke answered.

“Why the hell don’t I believe you?” Gavenlock spoke slowly. Duke shrugged. The colonel sighed and then went to his own place, leaving the squad.

The squad burst out in talk over the event. Duke turned around, and looked at Brinna. “Well, what’d’ya think of that, Bombshell?” he asked with a grin, making the squad freeze up and look with fear at the big-breasted blonde.

Dangerously the Swedish woman spoke, “Do you think, Bennet, that just because your father’s dead, I’m going to take pity on you?”

Duke grinned at her, and Brinna surged forward, managing a glancing blow on his chest before the rest of the squad managed to drag her back. “Let me at him, damn it! He deserves it!” she screamed trying to move forward, but after a few moments the squad’s number advantage grew too big and she was pinned down onto the floor. “Let me go, you scum suckers!” she screamed out muffled.

Duke looked at the scene with a wide grin, and then Galal looked up and said, “Duke, will you just get dressed for the damn date and get out of here so we can calm her down?” Duke shrugged and turned to leave. “Hey, what the happened to your father anyway?” Galal added, grunting to keep the screaming blonde woman under control.

“He and my mother died in a plane crash when I was fifteen, spent the rest of puberty with the uncle general,” Duke spoke matter-of-factly and then went to his bunk to get put on an appropriate attire.

*****

Wearing a tuxedo, Duke sat in the couch of the tastefully furnished living room of Prime Minister Vanderlingen. The dinner had gone well earlier, and Duke was waiting for the beautiful woman after she said she was getting some more wine, which was starting to take pretty long. He noticed the open brief case on the table once again, and finally couldn’t curtail his curiosity - figuring she wouldn’t leave it open if there was anything sensitive in there. He bent closer and shifted through the papers. He noticed an odd name, and murmured, “Doctor Proton?”

“Yes,” the answer came. Duke looked up as the Prime Minister entered wearing a high-slitted black gown with a deep cleavage. In her hands she held two wind glasses and a bottle of red wine. Duke smiled as she noticed her lovely left leg was now constantly on display, she had obviously changed. As she came over and started pouring the wine she explained, “He’s the genius scientist, expert in subspace physics apparently, who is the biggest candidate for getting the head position on the project to build us space ships, new weapons, defenses. Basically make Star Trek a reality . . . technologically at least.”

Duke gave a contented sound, and said, “That’s good, being able to kick some alien asses when needed.” The Prime Minister sat down, crossing her left leg over her right, making the dress fall back and put her smooth leg on display. “Hmm, Marielle, this is a nice wine.”

“Thank you, Duke,” she said with her lightly accented English. “I must say I’m glad about this, as well as your comment. I was elected three years ago, and since then no man has ever ‘noticed’ I was a woman. I was just Miss Prime Minister this, and Miss Prime Minister that; everyone far too afraid of offending me. You’re the first one since then that has noticed I’m a woman. I may be the Prime Minister, but that doesn’t mean I’m not a human female as well.”

“And what a female too,” Duke complimented her, letting his eyes glide over her luscious, red lips, taking in her deep brown eyes, then let his eyes go down to take in the rest of her body, and what a body. Her bosom and leg that were on display were magnificent, and Marielle Vanderlingen, Prime Minister of Belgium basked in Duke’s appraisal of her femininity.

She shimmied over, taking in Duke’s amazing physique, looked deep into his eyes, and said, “Duke . . . as I’m not married, and everyone’s been peeing themselves in fear around me the last three years . . .”

“Say no more,” Duke said, and pulled her head closer before planting a scorching passionate kiss on her lips, which she eagerly returned. The kiss deepened, the Prime Minister starting pulling of his tuxedo’s jacket. She moaned a bit, and Duke helped her get it off. Then he suddenly got up, and picked a suddenly surprised Marielle off the couch and slung her over his shoulder, hand on her ass. She laughed the surprise off, as Duke said, “That way to the bedroom, I take it?”

“Yes,” she answered and Duke started walking. “I should call my guards,” she added as she relaxed on Duke’s hard muscles.

Duke grinned unseen as he told her, “They’d be out cold in two seconds flat, and I wouldn’t even need to put you down.”

“Oh, Duke,” she muttered before being tossed onto the bed they just reached.

[3D Master]

Chapter 3: The War Starts

“With this signature, I - as president of the Chinese Democratic Republic - give Tibet back their independence; we will pay restitution within possibility, and help rebuild what our unenlightened ancestors destroyed,” the first elected Chinese president spoke, holding up the document with his signature. The Chinese parliament clapped. “The same way; Taiwan is considered completely independent from China, and any ridiculous claims on the land from the past is gone.”

“Damn,” Duke Bennet muttered as he zapped away to another channel. They were in the barracks of their EDF base, formerly of the British army.

“Why?” Hotaka asked Duke, as the rest of the team were around the barracks doing different things, about half of them watching along with Hotaka and Duke.

“If these keeps up, we’re out of a job and we can forget about doing any asskicking ever again,” Duke spoke seriously. “Almost makes one wish the aliens hurry up and get here.” Several of his squad mates chuckled half-agreeing.

“Eating, drinking, asskicking and assfucking is the only thing on your mind, huh?” Brinna question from a few off, reading some soft of Swedish book that was interesting to her. Duke suspected it was a romance novel about hunks making women howl.

“And?” Duke asked her, looking over his shoulder blinding continuing to zap away at the tv.

“There is more to life, you Neanderthal,” Brinna told him with narrowed eyes.

“Yeah, performing a job so you can afford to do good stuff. Lucky for me
I’m smart and made one of the good things my job,” Duke told with a grin. The blonde, sex goddess and elite warrior just narrowed her eyes at him and shook her head.

“Hey! Back!” Galal shouted out. Duke turned his attention back to the tv and let the channels cycle back. “There!” the Arabian spoke and Duke held. On the screen was reports of a communist uprising in the rural country of China. Apparently the Communists hadn’t been completely beaten. Views of tanks and explosions were on the screen as the Chinese national militia fought back as best they could, both sides taking hits.

“Ah! Just when you’re about to despair, the good commies return to offer their asses for my asskicking pleasure,” Duke said with a big grin. “Almost makes you decide to vote for them next election, eh, guys?”

“Before you start selling your bear hide, Duke,” Hotaka spoke up amid chuckles. “Perhaps you should wait until the EDF actually gets called in. For all we now the Chinese solve it themselves in no time flat.”

“ATTENTION!” Colonel Graves voice rang out, as simultaneously the doors to the barracks opened. The squad jumped up and came to attention. “Don’t know if you heard, but this just in. Communists are uprising in China, and his apparently been going on for a few days, but the Chinese government decided to keep a lit on it and try to solve it themselves. They have seen forced to formerly request the UN and the EDF’s help. The UN secretary-general with his security advisors granted their request. We’re going to fight some Communists people!”

“You were saying?” Duke said looking down at Hotaka. The Japanese just looked back annoyed.

*****

“All right, people,” Colonel Graves called out over the heavy sound of the rotor blades of the large transport helicopter. It was day, and the craft’s red lamp burned. “You’ve all been at the briefing, you know what to do . . .”

“We go in, and we kick some communist ass,” Duke summed up smoothly.

Graves and the rest of the team looked at him, and he shrugged. “True,” Graves conceded, then added. “Also, we don’t kill any civilians they may use as shields. Keep the innocent casualties low people; I know you all like to blow things up, /don’t/ overdo it.”

“What are you looking at me for?” Duke wondered out loud.

Graves shook his head, and added, “We’ve got several objectives, people, taking over the communist infested town is one of them, I want the town still /standing/ when we’re done. The communist infested caves you can level with the ground. For all you English challenged folks, let me repeat, in simplest terms: *town - standing, caves - leveled, got that?*”

“Yes, sir,” they answered.

“Alright, for all you not English challenged, keep an eye on the ones that are, I’ll have your asses as well if it’s the other way around!” Graves called sharply again.

“Yes, sir,” came the simultaneous answer.

Graves shook his head, and said, “I have a bad feeling about this.”

The pilot came over the intercom, “We’re over the target area, stand by.”

Graves nodded to everyone, and a few moments later the light turned green. “GO!” Graves commanded, and a few moments later the first of fourteen elite soldiers jumped out the helicopter, Graves being the last.

*****

After having stashed the parachutes away, the group of commandos had made their way across the grassy terrain until they were lying on a ridge, peering at the town of their target with binoculars. Several four wheel drive vehicles, a tank and a lot of people armed to the teeth were crawling around the place. The main road through the town made mostly from wood let out the other end to bigger places. A minor road to the right would lead to the caves they could level. Suffice it to say, most of the squad members were eager to finish off the communist presence in the town so they could get to the demolish work.

“I say we just walk in and start shooting,” Duke said softly.

Brinna groaned and said, “Which part of not leveling the town didn’t you get, lame brain.”

Duke looked to his right at the blonde bombshell, and said, “I’m willing to listen to alternatives if your aim isn’t as good as mine.”

Brinna grimaced, and then said, “Bennet . . .” She paused looking left and right, finding all of her squad mates looking at her. She finished softly, “One of these days I’ll slip through the other’s fingers and I’ll kick your ass.”

Graves took charge of his team, ordering, “Brinna is right, Duke. I’m perfectly confident of all of your aim and my own, just not of theirs.” Everyone including Brinna made a chuckle. “Stealth is the key, people; the rocks to the right should cover us, as well as the bushes to the left. Anyone any questions?” There were none. “Move out.”

The team moved out, crawling on their bellies.

*****

The communist walked to the ditch, zipped down, took out his penis and started peeing. He relaxed with a relieved sound. He suddenly looked shocked, his piss fluttered about and a hand wrapped around his mouth to keep him from calling out in pain. He was pulled back and dragged away. Once the body was out of sight, the man doing the dragging, revealed the bloodied knife from the dead communist’s back. “Yuck,” Gallal muttered wiping his hand clean.

Next to him Duke chuckled softly, and whispered, “Never done that before? I usually wait till after their done.”

“Never one pissing,” Gallal whispered back.

Duke was looking over, and noticed how other two man teams took out several of their targets. They made several signs, and then continued onward.

On the other side of town, Brinna, Graves and Hotaka snuck along a wooden building’s side, and found three communist standing ‘guard’ with their guns pointing up. Brinna aimed her suppressed rifle, and made three quick shots, taking them out. “So, you were really checking out my ass?” Hotaka asked her softly.

Brinna looked back at him, and said, “Don’t you start with me.”

“Sorry,” he returned softly.

“I’m gonna kill him,” Brinna repeated privately to herself.

“Focus,” Graves said, taking a successful shot at a communist on the roof of a building.

Back with Duke, he wrapped his arm around a Chinese communist and as he dragged him back behind the corner he wrenched. With a quick crack, the communist’s neck broke and he slumped.

Duke peered around the corner, then grinned. He took in the others positions for a moment, and then pulled back. He turned to Galal and said softly, “Well, here’s where the stealth part comes to an end, and the fun starts. Ready the launcher.”

Galal nodded, pulling the missile launcher from his back that Duke too had strapped to his. Once the Arabian was ready, he nodded. Duke himself pulled out his trusty assault rifle, and jumped out from behind cover. He aimed at the guy sitting on the roof and took him out with a single shot. Other machine gun fire could be heard around the town, and a little ways off to Duke and Galal, the large contingent of communists in several cars and a tank looked surprised then got ready for action. Duke fired and several of them went down. The communists started shooting back, and the tank’s turret slowly start turning toward them with a rumbling sound. Galal emerged from behind Duke, crouched down, aimed, and fired the rocket launched. With a stream of smoke the missile launched away. Galal quickly went back behind the wall, putting the launcher away.

With a mighty explosion the tank was obliterated, pieces of it falling down among fleeing communists. Galal returned from behind the wall holding his pistol. People started coming from the houses, checking up on the suddenly loud sounds of battle. Duke and Galal ran forward, shooting down the communists trying to find new cover. A rocket shot down from the roof of a building, smoothly blowing up a Jeep. From building to Duke’s and Galal’s right came a man holding a gun. With one quick twist, Duke shot the man. Duke grinned as he and his team mate took down the few remaining communists still trying to come to terms with their destroyed tank. Then the two moved on, entering a building.

Back with Graves, Brinna tossed a grenade into an onrushing jeep. The communists yelped and jumped out of the moving car just before it blew up. Graves and Hotaka shot down the scrambling Chinese men. “That’s why I’ll never drive a convertible,” Brinna said with a grin amidst sounds of gunfire and more explosions.

She blew the brains out of another well-armed communist coming out of the building in front of them, and they entered it.

With a simple kick, Duke kicked in the door. It swung open with a crash, and smash against the wall to the right - no one there. He and Galal stepped into the bedroom, rapidly scanning it. A woman sat huddled on the bed, covering to children that peaked from out behind. “Please, don’t kill me,” she said in Chinese.

“We’re not here to kill anyone except communist scumbags, lady,” Duke returned equally in Chinese, as he and Galal entered deeper, looking around the bedroom, but no one else was present.

Duke nodded, and the two went back out to the hallway, where they continued onward. “Didn’t know you could speak Chinese,” Galal mentioned as two yelling and armed men came from around a corner.

Duke and Galal each shot one of them, and Duke answered, “Just don’t ask me to write any. Twenty-five hundred different symbols were just a few too much.”

“I hear ya,” Galal answered as he jerked his head quickly around the corner. Then he slid in forward into the middle of the corner, gun aimed. Duke followed right after and then they ran forward. Finding stairs and having finished the first floor they climbed them.

Half way the stairs at a corner a rain of bullets smashed into the walls next to them. Duke pulled back, then jumped forward, twisted and shot one of the main firing down. Then he jumped back in time to avoid the next hail. The second time it was Galal that jumped up and forward and finished off another communist. The two of them surged forward, and jumped up on the second floor. The floor went in three directions - one directly alongside the stairs having two bodies, and one long hallway going both ways forming a t-shape with the first. Four doors opened at the same time. Two men came out two of them, one in the first hallway, and one in the t-beam. The final two doors opened in the other side of the t-beam, each emitting one armed communist.

Galal took the two coming out one door in the t-beam, while Duke did the same with the ones on the other side. Shots rang out, and four communists went down. The other two communists fired as well though. Galal let out a painful roar, even as Duke was already turning and ducking beneath the hail of gunfire. With a quick controlled burst from his own assault rifle the two remaining men were killed.

“How bad is it?” Duke asked, keeping an eye out for more opening doors.

“No prob,” Galal told Duke, getting back up straight. As he reached back with his left arm to his backpack, he added, “Just a graze to by right elbow.” He pulled a bandage out his backpack, and wrapped it tightly around his arm. “Good to go,” he finished, and Duke nodded. The two commandos continued on their way.

A quick sweep of the floor proved they had taken out all the communists here, and so they took another set of stairs up to the roof. Once upon the wooden building, they went over to the edge and checked out the sandy streets with grass growing on the sides. They took in the aerial view, assessing the situation. They quickly homed in on the biggest building - and the only building using some stone in key areas - in the town; from the official marks it was town hall, and they saw how the enemy was quickly falling back to it. Several communists rand down below in the street, firing at some of Duke’s and Galal’s team mates. With a quick burst of machine gun fire the four communists were shot down.

“We need to get to the town hall,” Galal voiced both their observations.

Duke chuckled, confirmed, “Yeah, and blow up some communist ass.”

Not taking the same way back, they slid down a slanted outcropped roof just below, which was built like that to protect from the sun and have some shade. Once they were on the ground, they started running. First right - the same direction the communists they just shot were going - then bending immediately left. Several more communists came from side streets, a few jeeps already heading down the road. Duke and Galal didn’t stop running, they simply aimed and fired while doing so. Multiple communists were shot down, some turned and tried to shoot them, but they were no match for Duke’s and Galal’s aim. From the roof another EDF commando fired a rocket, blowing up a Jeep, and damaging another. The communists tried to scuttle out, but Duke’s and Galal’s gunfire ended that notion quickly.

About minute after they slid off of the roof they reached the town hall, or rather the last buildings before the small square in front of it. They were apparently just in the Communist’s range of fire - or just outside of it depending how one looked at it. A grenade was lobbed or fired from one of the building’s windows, and both Duke and Galal jumped aside. Duke to the left, Galal to the right. A moment later the grenade arrived and exploded - harmlessly since the two commandos had just gotten out of the way.

Duke chuckled and said, “They wanna play rough, we’ll just have to play rougher.”

Galal nodded in agreement and pulled his missile launcher from his back again. Duke did so too, putting the assault rifle where the launcher had just been. A moment later both had placed a rocket in the gun. Galal said, “On three.”

Duke nodded, and they jumped back to the middle of the street. Crouching down, Duke counted, “One . . . two-” Both EDF soldiers pushed the fire button and two rockets were on their way. “Hey, you cheated,” Duke accused Galal.

“So did you,” the Arabian returned as the rockets flew through windows and exploded. With a mighty explosion the town hall was torn apart; pieces of wood and stone were launched everywhere as most was vaporized. Burning sawdust and black smoke covered the sky. One communists was flung from the building like a rag doll, screaming all the way till he landed on the ground with a crunch.

“Now that’s what I call a big bang,” Duke said with a job-well-done grin. Galal agreed with him.

“Bennet, al-Ahmed!” Graves thundering voice sounded. The two commandos turned around as Graves, Hotaka, and Brinna came jogging in. Others of their squad came from other directions to look at the devastation. “Didn’t I tell you to leave town standing!”

“It’s just one building, the rest is still standing,” Duke commented with a satisfied grin.

“It’s a wooden town, how about the fire!” Graves answered them.

Duke and Galal turned back and noticed the roofs of the two closest buildings to the town hall being on fire - set ablaze by the burning sawdust. “Oh, yeah,” Galal said sheepishly.

“We just have to put out the fire, big deal,” Duke muttered.

“AARGH!!” Graves yelled.

*****

Fifteen minutes later, after finding the town’s water well, and some heavy lifting and tossing, along with some help from the locals the fires were put out. The squad was standing in the middle of the town in front of the town hall’s wreckage considering it a job well done.

Once the fires were put out though, the people in the town had other things to focus on. The people had surrounded the heavily armed EDF squad, and shouted insults at them, throwing pebbles and the occasional rotten fruit at them. “What are they saying? Ow,” one of the EDF soldiers asked.

“Killers, murders, same old, same old,” Duke spoke in answer.

“You’d expect at least some respect for saving their asses from the communists,” Galal added.

Brinna looked incredulously at the Arabian and told him, “You just blew up their town hall, I’d be pissed too.”

Duke caught something from the corner of his eyes and whirled around. He pulled his pistol with his right hand from his left hip holster in the same move, and fired once. An old woman made a scream that got cut short to a gurgle and dropped to the floor dead. The entire crowd went ballistic, screaming blood murder and attacked the EDF squad with their fists. The squad pushed the people back, knocking a few out the with the but of their guns.

“Duke! What the fuck! You shot that granny!” Graves yelled in rage as Duke calmly walked over to the woman he killed.

Duke bent down, and examined the woman, who had her right hand below her vest at her bosom. Duke grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand free - clutching a gun in a death grip. “Yeah, and she was about shoot us,” Duke said with a grimace.

“That old granny was a commie? Shit, this world seriously fucked up,” Hotaka observed as the squad managed to get the crowd under control somewhat.

Duke got up, and observed the town’s inhabitants. Graves observed the same thing, and said, “Come on, people, move it. We’re not an occupational force, and we’ve got another target to take out.”

“Yes, sir.”

*****

Duke was in his element. The cave was dark, but the night vision goggles helped with that. Communist bastards intent on world domination, starting with taking back China everywhere, and hardly any of his mates in sight, who had their own cave to deal with. His automatic rifle spit death everywhere - another few bad guys dead, their brains splattered on the floor. Duke walked forward, and turned the corner, pulling the trigger, then aiming more accurately. The two communists in the well-lit room at the end died almost instantly. Duke strode onward, and suddenly three more bad guys jumped in the line of fire from and into the tunnel. Their guns fired. Duke jumped to the side, flattening himself with his back against the tunnel wall, even as he aimed and pulled the trigger of his rifle. One communist went down, while the other two jumped back.

Duke surged forward with speed, and as he reached the mouth of the tunnel jumped. The communists still expecting him to be in the tunnel and moving back in for another salvo were too surprised when Duke came sailing out through the air. He blew away the right communist, then twisted in the air. By the time the second communist came into view, Duke had flown past him. The communist was ducking away, firing - Duke was better, and hit him thrice in the torso.

Bennet took in the rest of the room and found no more bad guys; he did however find a nice fire. He took off his goggles, pushing them higher up his head, and took a better look. He found an easel with a blue print on it, as well as Chinese writing. “What the hell were they planning?” Duke muttered taking in the gibberish writing to him. There were a few more papers on scattered on the ground. He grabbed them, and the blue print on the easel, finding a schematic drawn map underneath. He took that too, rolled them all up neatly and stuffed it into his backpack, from which he immediately took a bomb. He went to the back wall and mounted the explosives on it, as he had done in a few more tunnels and rooms. Finished arming the device, he went back the way he came.

*****

When Duke came back out of his cave in the mountain range, he found the few that were left behind to guard still waiting. Brinna had returned from her cave earlier than Duke obviously, and not long after more came back from their foray into the many cave entrances. “Colonel,” Duke said, pulling the rolled up papers from his bag. “I found these, they’re up to something.”

Graves took the papers and rolled them out, and Duke added, “Better send it to the brass and have someone who knows Chinese check it out.”

“I thought you knew Chinese,” Brinna spoke, as the last few of their squad returned from the caves.

“I speak it, I don’t read it,” Duke answered all business.

Graves made a quick inspection of his men to be certain they were all here. “Blow it,” he commanded, and one of the commandos that had remained behind took out a detonator and activated it. With a series of mighty explosions, and resulting bursts of fire from the mouths of the caves that brought a smile to Duke’s and the others’ faces, the caves were completely destroyed, collapsing in on themselves.

Graves pulled out a communicating device not much bigger than a cell phone. It slid open revealing a small LCD screen and several buttons. He pushed a button and after a few beeps the device came further alive, an EDF general appearing on the screen. “Colonel, report,” the general spoke.

“All enemy soldiers taken out, hiding caves wiped out, sir,” Graves spoke solidly. “We found the following papers, you might want to have people check them out and translate them.” Craves then turned the communicator over and pointed camera down at the papers. He pushed another button and their was a flash. Then he moved the device and did the same again, then again until all of it had been photographed and transmitted to base.

“Understood,” the General spoke, and then added, “and you all might want to see this . . .”

The screen of the communicator changed to the view of a male reporter, the MNN logo on the television screen. The whole of squad except a few remaining on look out bent in. Behind the report there were the smoking ruins of a building. “We have found footage by a tourist of the actual explosion,” the reporter said, and the screen turned to the footage. The Chinese government building on the screen, which exploded with a massive fire ball and plume of smoke. The exploding building zipped to the side a bid, admitting a smaller picture of the reporter, who spoke, “For all of you just joining us, that is footage of the Chinese government building being destroyed. We have confirmation that the government was in session at the time, and are most likely all killed in the explosion, although some officials have refused to give up hope. The first democratically elected Chinese government seems to have been killed and . . . hold on . . .” The reporter listened to the piece in his ear, and then added, “The Communist Liberation Army of China has claimed responsibility for the attack- . . .”

The screen on the communicator was cut off, putting the general back on it. “The stakes just went up, /way/ up,” he spoke harshly, as Graves and the rest of the squad looked grimly at the screen. “The Communists are playing for keeps, so we will too. I’m sending you new target information now, familiarize yourselves as you head to the pick up point. A chopper will pick you up, and give resupply you with more ammo. Good luck.”

The screen went black, and Duke voiced everyone’s feelings, “Damn, those Communist bastards are gonna pay for that.”

[3D Master]

Chapter 4: Something Amiss Amongst the Righteous

The sounds of gunfire filled the night sky. The village Duke’s squad had dropped in was now a war zone. The squad of elite warriors had taken the place by surprise, and in combination with a lot of sneaking around and strategic placing of explosives, the communists never stood a chance.

Duke was on the roof of a building, Galal next to him. A tank drove across the darkened road down below - the night vision goggles helping out. The tank’s turret turned to aim at one of their mates. “This time it’s mine,” Duke said, and Galal gave him a go-ahead gesture. Duke pushed a button on a small device, and there was a mighty explosion right under the tank - resulting in a bigger explosion as the tank was blown to pieces. “Ooh, I love blowing shit up.”

“Watch this one, Duke,” Galal said with a grin and brought his rocket launcher to bear. Duke looked in Galal’s aiming direction and noticed several cars trying to get away. A moment later the rocket launched from Galal’s launcher. After a short flight it crashed smoothly in between the three cars, sending all three flying and going overboard. Duke snickered as some gunfire from another position took out the survivors.

Duke turned to survey the scene of panicking communists who most of the time had no idea who hit them and where the fire came from. “I can top that one,” Duke said and pointed out a tank and a car. He waited, waited. The tank came to a halt pivoting its turret to the left toward Brinna and Graves, whose guns didn’t help much against the heavily armored tank. “Now,” Duke said, pushing a detonator. There was an explosion, right under the tanks tracks and the pivoted turret. The tank’s left side was destroyed; and the turret was launched off the tank before the tank completely was destroyed in a following explosion. The turret slowly pivoted through the air, then came down, right on top of the truck crushing it and its occupants. “I love it when a turret and a car come together,” Duke commented with a grin, and Galal shook his head smiling.

The two pulled out their regular guns, and started shooting down armed communists on foot who hadn’t been taken down yet. Ten minutes later the village was cleaned out and the squad joined together in the middle. Several people hesitantly came out of their houses, and looked fearfully at the EDF team.

“Hey,” Duke’s team called out friendly in Chinese. “It’s over; you’re free once more.” The people stayed afraid, and kept their distance, some returned fearfully back into their homes. More came out with suitcases and started running out the village, or taking a carrier bike with their entire family and left as fast as possible. The EDF squad frowned at that.

One man swallowed his fear apparently, and walked over, a lot of the civilians watching with a morbid fascination. The man spoke out in his native Chinese, “Are you going to destroy this town now?”

Duke took a step forward and asked in Chinese, “Are all of you a bunch of bottom-feeding, terrorist, communist bastards intent on world domination?”

“No,” the man answered bitterly.

“Then why would we want to do that?” Duke returned.

The man gave a bitter smile, and said hatefully, “Ask that the inhabitants of Diwal, and Lunan the EDF leveled with the ground.” The man then turned and walked away.

“What did he say?” Hotaka asked a frowning Duke.

“He asked whether we were going to kill them all. I said we had no reason to, and he answered we should ask the inhabitants of two towns he said the EDF destroyed,” Duke translated, thinking it over.

“Colonel,” Brinna spoke up calmly, “do you think the communists destroyed those towns, making it look like the EDF and that’s how they got all the support here?”

“Hmm,” Graves answered.

“Something’s wrong here,” Duke said with a finality, as the people who had earlier returned inside also came out with their important stuff, leaving just like the others, all giving the EDF team hateful glares.

“You mean beside the obvious?” Hotaka questioned him.

Duke was about to answer, but Graves communicator interrupted the conversation. Graves answered and the same General appeared on the screen. He was obviously anxious, and said, “I’ve got a new mission right away, abort this one if necessary.” The General continued onward like a freight train, overriding Graves attempted reply, “You hit the mother load, Colonel. We have the maps translated, it seems the communists know of an abandoned hidden nuclear missile facility from the dark ages of last century’s cold war - one /we/ weren’t aware of - one that they think has operational ICBMs with live nuclear warheads. They are not entirely sure about the position themselves, so they sent several different teams to several different locations . . .” The screen of the communicator changed to a map, highlighting several points. “. . . you will investigate the coordinates nearest to you, while other squadrons have been dispatched to the others. I don’t need to explain to you how important it is you take these bastards out, before they can their hands on this stuff. The transporter should be arriving about now.”

“Moving out right away, sir, we can hear it already,” Graves answered, and indeed the sound of a heavy helicopter became louder already.

*****

A short while later, the team was inside the super heavy transport helicopter, sitting in their new, parachute-equipped, four-man, rapid assault buggies. The cargo bay door slowly lowered as one of the helicopter’s crew hung over the colonel’s buggy. “SORRY ABOUT THE UNARMORED VEHICLES, COLONEL!” the man yelled over the sound of wind and rotor blades become more powerful as the bay doors opened further and further. “BUT THE GENERAL THOUGHT SPEED WAS OF THE ESSENCE IN SEARCHING FOR THIS PLACE AND THE DAMN COMMUNISTS!”

“ARE WE TALKING OR KICKING ASS!” Brinna yelled out in annoyance.

“ALL RIGHT, GO!” the crewman ordered, and the train of four buggies drove out the helicopter, jumping a meter before landing violently on the ground.

As the helicopter took off, Duke called out, “Hey, I expected more for my money. Where are the loops, the sharp turns-”

“This isn’t rollercoaster, Bennet!” Brinna yelled at him from the other buggy.

“My mistake,” he returned, Galal snickering next to him. Duke put the buggy in gear, and drove off, a spray of sand shooting up from the rear tires. The other three followed him.

*****

The dune buggies reached a hill top and slowed down. They surveyed the valley in which another hill was placed. Nothing there; no communists. They had reached the most likely coordinates a while earlier and found nothing. Now they were looking around. “Nothing again,” Graves said and was ready to go on.

“Hold it!” Brinna exclaimed suddenly, and everyone looked either to her, or to the hill. She adjusted her goggles back and forth, and then said, “That heat signature is wrong - that isn’t solid dirt and rock. That’s . . .”

“ . . . metal,” Duke supplied. “Bombshell here is right.”

“*Brinna*,” she hissed in reply, making Duke grin.

“I’ve got an entrance,” Galal muttered, having his goggles zoom in.

“And another one,” Hotaka added, the squad members nodded.

Graves took in the situation, and said, “They’re either not here yet, or they’re already inside.”

There was a low sound, a grumble. A cone emerge from a section half-way the hill. “Take a wild guess,” Duke spoke with a grimace.

“Alright, split up, one group takes one entrance, the other the second one,” Graves quickly ordered. “We gotta stop them before they can launch.”

The squad didn’t need to answer, they simply put the pedals to the metal and drove with best speed down the bumpy hillside and to the nuclear launch facility disguised as a hill.

Once there, Duke stopped the buggy and jumped out immediately; followed by half of their squad, Galal at his side. “Okay,” Galal started, “On three or what?” Duke didn’t say anything, he just smashed the grass covered door with his foot, and it swung creakily open. Echoing gunfire came out right away, making everyone jump aside, and Galal said, “No count at all, of course.”

The moment the firing paused Duke ran inside. The place was a like a giant metal hall, or hanger. Several cross beams with walkways were half-way up the ceiling. Nuclear missiles lined in neat rows; a walkway in between each one. A wall third of the way of the hill took the rest of the facility from sight. Four armed communists were visibly present at the moment. One of them was straight ahead, another two were up on the second level. A second was off diagonally to the left, and ducked behind a missile. Echoing gunfire erupted again, this time Duke’s gunfire was part of it. The one straight ahead went down. Duke aimed up and left, a second communist went down as bullets slammed next to, above, or in front of Duke into the facility’s building material. Duke ducked, and blasted the second communist on the second level, as bullets from the communist’s latest strafe slammed in the wall behind Duke, and would have killed him if he was still standing. Duke jumped, a little to the right, and let his machine gun fire again while still being in the air. The communist appearing back from behind the missile was dead, as his bullets harmlessly went underneath the jumping Duke, slamming in the wall behind him.

Galal and his team mates took exactly one moment, and not a moment longer to admire Duke’s natural affinity for gunfights, then streamed in behind him. Galal saying, “Never seen anything like it.”

“I ain’t the best for nothing,” Duke said with a grin, keeping an eye out for more communists. Once his team was in - and echoing gunfire sounded from the compartment beyond somewhere, where undoubtedly the other half of their squad was encountering resistence - Duke ordered, “Fan out, see if any more are hiding between the little weapons of mass destruction.”

They quickly found there were more hiding, and the responding echoing sounds of gunfire were deafening. With equally echoing screams of pain, the communists went down, but not before one of Duke’s squad mates got hit as well. He gave a yell of pain, and once the communists were dead, the others came to check up on him. One of them was already checking him out. “I’m fine, just took one in the elbow, just means I have to shoot with the other hand,” the European man said with a grimace.

Duke nodded, and said, “You wait here, we’ll be right back.” The man wanted to protest, but Duke didn’t give him the chance.

“Let’s go,” Duke said and turned to walk to the dividing wall, and then to the door leading to the next section, which was in the corner. Once more Duke simply kicked the door down. The sounds of gunfire erupted, but not at them. Duke entered, and shot a communist in the back that was firing somewhere else - most likely the other half of their team. Behind him the rest entered. The new section was similar to the old one - filled with neatly aligned missiles, but with one big difference. In the middle was square walled-off section; most likely the control room.

Several nearby communists noticed the new entries and turned to face Duke’s half of the squad. Wasting no time; Duke’s half once more fanned out, as they fired back. Once again the almost painfully loud echos filled the building. Duke sprinted off to his right, killing a communist on the high beams, then went left toward the middle. Another communist, and Duke ducked to the right, avoiding his bullets, and then killed him with a well-aimed shot. Duke pulled his pistol along with his rifle, and twisted around as he came across the next side way. The missiles stayed calm as Duke gunned down several communists on either side, then continued onward. There a few missiles were a little less calm, some spitting out some smoke as if ready to fly off. Duke sneered to himself, firing his guns at the next crossway, muttering to himself, “These bastards better not think launching is a nice thing to do, if they want enough of themselves left to reach the next life.”

In no time Duke reached the middle structure, and next to the entrance he reloaded both his automatic rifle and his pistol. The rest of his half of the team arrived moments later, Galal muttering, “Why the hell do we even bother coming along?”

“Beats me,” one of the others said.

“To keep me all warm and fuzzy,” Duke answered, kicking against the new door, which easily held. “Damn, reinforced.”

“Warm and fuzzy, coming up,” Galal said, pulling out his rocket launcher and walked a few ways off while loading it.

Duke grinned and he and the rest put some distance between them and the door. A moment later the rocket zipped across the distance, and exploded, shredding the door and much of the wall to pieces, showing a nice big hole - and one two communists. One bloodied and dead, the other bloodied and crawling as he moaned in pain. As another explosion sounded from the other side, Duke strode back in range and killed the communist with a shot through the head. The hole revealed a narrow hallway, which from the looks of things was nice and square, surrounding another final inner structure.

Duke took a look inside, and backed up as two hails of bullets assaulted him. The bullets didn’t come from humans this time around, but an automatic turrets mounted in the ceiling on either corner of the hallway. Duke signaled to one of his mates, and then with a practiced motion both rolled into the hallway, coming up kneeling on one knee. Immediately both of them fired, hitting the turrets. The turrets hail of fire completely missed, and a moment later the perforated turrets stopped firing. As the rest of the team entered the hallway, Duke said with a smile, “Sometimes you wish you brought the anti-rust cream.” The rest of his team mates chuckled.

Duke and his fellow turret-demolisher got up and ran toward the ends of hallway, the others following one of them close behind. Both peered around the corner, peering up to spot more of the turrets. Duke saw the one on his side being covered in bullets before it stopped, and then splatters of blood hitting the wall, after which a jerking, dying communist fell into visibility. On the other side it was duke’s mate that blew up the turret. Duke walked into the narrow hallway, and then Brinna appeared on the other side. “Clear, except the inner sanctum,” Duke called lowly, indicating the dark side hallway in the middle of the hallway.

“This side too,” Brinna replied and more of their squad mates arrived. Duke became aware of the rest of his half arriving behind him - he figured the other side didn’t have a side hall. He walked forward as Brinna did the same, and Graves and Hotaka came into view. Both of them took a quick peek around the new corner and new hails of gunfire erupted. “I counted four of the damn things,” she said in annoyance.

Duke nodded, “Two high, two low.”

“Let me handle these,” Hotaka said with a grin, pulling several pipe bombs from his backpack.

“Hurry it up,” Graves ordered.

Hotaka held the four pipe bombs and juggled as he took a quick peek around Brinna and the corner to get a more accurate position of the turrets. He quickly pulled back as bullets zipped past him. He looked at Brinna for a moment, and she rolled her eyes and said, “If you want to clown around, get the proper makeup.”

“Sorry,” the Japanese guy said, and then deftly threw the pipe bombs into the short hallway. A moment later he pushed the detonator. As the final bullets slammed into the wall, there was a big explosion, the four of bombs blending together, and a jet of flame. Then there were the sounds of crackling fire, and Chinese shouts to hurry from behind the half-destroyed door the turrets were guarding.

“Colonel, I’m thinking we take one alive to interrogate,” Duke said.

Graves answered, “I’m thinking the same, let’s go.”

Duke, Brinna, Hotaka, and Galal were the first to charge into the short mess of a hallway. Duke kicked the half-destroyed door off it’s broken hinges and, and they entered, finding five communists in a computer room. Two of them were sitting in a chair, and the other three were standing. They latter three had guns and started firing the moment they could see their enemies. Duke and Brinna ducked and rolled to either side, while Galal and Hotaka and the EDF soldiers behind them flattened themselves against the crumbling walls.

Four shots later; two from both Duke and Brinna, the gunmen and one of the hackers were dead. Duke walked over to the frantically pushing-buttons remaining hacker and smashed a powerful fist across his jaw, making him slump into unconsciousness.

*****

“Finally awake, huh, you scum-sucking . . .”

“Duke,” Colonel Graves interrupted, as they looked at the tied-up terrorist coming to. The terrorist was tied onto the chair in the middle of the control room. “A thousand word insult doesn’t help much, ask the questions, goes faster.”

Everyone looked at Graves, and Duke was the one to ask, “I thought you didn’t know Chinese?”

“I don’t, but I understand the tone,” Graves said, and then pointed at the communist who was just about appearing lucid.

Duke grunted and bent over the communist computer and/or nuclear expert. “All right, smart guy, start talking. What more have you bastards got planned?”

“What plans?” the communist retorted.

Duke slapped the guy hard across the cheek, and then said, “I repeat; what will be your next target?”

“We don’t have a target, you EDF pigs!” the communist spat out, remarkably the last was in English.

“Well,” Colonel Graves spoke out with satisfaction, “look at that, he speaks English. That’s fortunate. Hello, son, I’m Colonel John Graves, and I’m your friend. Quite simply put; you tell me what I want to know, and get to keep this guy off your back.” The communist snorted. “Let’s start with your name, son,” Graves asked.

The communist chuckled, shrugged, and said, “Tsang Heng.”

“Well, Heng,” Graves asked him. “Tell me, now that you’ve blown up the Chinese government, and failed to get nuclear weapons; what will you do next?”

Heng laughed out loud, and not a ha- ha-got-you-evil-overlord laugh, but a laugh of utter amusement. “That’s a good one, really!” Heng managed to say.

“What’s so funny, pally?” Brinna asked the guy with a frown.

“/We/ blew up the Chinese government?” Heng asked her in disbelief.

Duke interrupted, “Who else?”

Heng snickered, and then asked, “Tell me, blondie, ever since this war started the Chinese governmental building was the most heavily guarded building in the whole fucking world. So exactly how do a couple of understaffed, underarmed, and unorganized people that can be found and defeated by a mere bunch of EDF squads blow it up, huh? Explain me that!”

They stayed silent for several minutes, and then Duke got back down in the guy’s face, and said dangerously, “Who the fuck else?”

“You know,” the communist returned.

“You’re going to tell us everything you know, or- . . .” Graves was cut off by rhythmic sound. The EDF squad looked up as it became louder. A few moments later four men in smooth combat gear, that could almost be qualified as evening wear came into the control room.

“A job well done, Colonel,” the lead men spoke, taking out an ID, “EDF intelligence; we’ll take Mr. Tsang from here.”

Graves and the rest of his team checked out the ID, which turned out to be completely real. The man’s associates went forward and took hold of the communist, who started screaming profanities as he was cuffed, untied from the chair, and dragged along. “You have prevented a grave disaster they had succeeded in launching, but we are better equipped to interrogate Mr. Tsang.”

“We- . . .” Duke started.

“Don’t worry, Lieutenant Bennet,” the suit spoke calmly and resolutely as a screaming Heng was dragged past him. “Your associate is being given medical attention, and the building was sufficiently- ventilated for us to pick up some of the conversation on our way in; if there’s a third party playing both us and the communists, we’ll identify them. I believe you will soon get new orders. It was pleasure, gentleman and lady, have a nice day.”

The man took his ID back, turned around, and walked back out the way he came. “Hey!” Graves started when his communicator beeped. He took it out and opened it.

“Colonel,” General Rittel spoke from the communicator. “Great job! It’s come to my attention that your squad has seen more action than any other squad out there. So, also as a reward for saving all our asses again, you are given a few days leave. Take your time and enjoy yourselves, people, you’ve earned it.”

Most of the squad cheered softly at that announcement. Graves said though, “But, sir . . .”

“That’s an order, Graves,” the general spoke jovially, “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth and all that. Rittel out.” The communicator went dead. Graves grimaced, through lines creasing his brow.

*****

Duke looked out the transport helicopter as it flow almost peacefully across the Chinese landscape. Brinna and Graves were doing the same, and Galal was taking them in. The others were happy. Duke, Graves, and Brinna had entered the helicopter with reluctance, watching as the base was now swarming with EDF troops. Their one wounded was taken by a faster medical helicopter, as they were flown to the main Chinese EDF base.

“No offense, Colonel, but this sucks,” Duke spoke up finally, no longer able to keep it in. The happy chatter died down and took in Duke. “There’s something seriously wrong here.”

Graves didn’t answer, Hotaka however did, “When are you saying, Bennet? You don’t think they can find this third party the communist alluded to. He was probably lying anyway.”

“Yeah,” Brinna answered for Duke, “Just like an entire village fleeing for us; and a granny trying to blow our brains out . . .” Galal took her in, as well as Duke and the curiously absent-from-the-discussion Colonel.

Another member of their team took offense, and said, “What? You can’t be serious? The EDF? What would we want to do? Take over the world? We kinda already did that if you remember.”

“I don’t know what’s going on, but something is, I can smell it. Something stinks about this whole deal,” Duke said thinking out loud, “and it ain’t our farting. ”

“We’ve got leave people, just enjoy it, and stop trying to think things out the higher ups be thinking out as well,” Graves suddenly interrupted with vehemence. “That’s an order.”

Duke gave an annoyed sound, and went back to staring out the window.

[3D Master]

Chapter 5: Family and Friends in High Places

The grey barracks were nothing if not generic and Spartan. The bunk beds had two night stands. One on either side, one for both occupants. The night stands often had some personal belongings displayed, and those were about the only things in there that were out of the norm. Indeed, only the recreational part of the building which sported as much as two TVs, two dart boards, and a Super Playstation with either tv were the only other things non-minimal in the building. Those of course, could be seen that way, the soldiers needing the occasional well-deserved relaxation. In this setting, Duke sat on his bed in his barracks, thinking deeply. Galal was lying above him on the high bed. Duke looked up becoming aware of an annoying, insistent, but silent presence. To his surprise, he found Brinna looking down on him.

“Something’s wrong,” she stated with conviction.

“And?” Duke retorted, as above him Galal sat up, interested in where this conversation was going.

Brinna looked at him with an impatient expressions, before answering, “And I want to know what you’re going to do about it.”

“Who says I’m going to do anything about it?” Duke requested her with aloof face.

Brinna groaned, bent down, much to Duke’s and Galal’s delight, and she said, “Don’t give me that. I saw your face in the chopper, you’re planning something, probably kill every EDF and communist soldier in China just to make sure you didn’t miss any bad guys.”

Duke suddenly grinned, his eyes twinkling, and he told her, “Damn, that could be fun, and I hadn’t even thought of it yet.”

“*Bennet*,” Brinna hissed, holding up a fist, “I can start with the asskicking now, nobody here to stop me this time. Now spill, I want in.”

“Who says any of my plans include anyone but me?” Duke asked more seriously.

Galal decided to cut in, “What are you gonna do, Duke? Take on the whole world all by yourself?” Duke craned his head out and up to take in Galal, as Brinna straightened up to do the same. “Yes, that means I want to know what the hell is going on as well? How did the suits manage to get in there so fast after us? We’re the best of the whole world and sitting on the side lines? I want answers man.”

Duke made an annoyed sound and then got up, after which he said, “Let’s go, I thought it best to start with the colonel. Come on.”

Galal hopped off the bed, and then the three of them left the barracks.

It took them a minute to get to Colonel graves office in the executive barracks, which wasn’t all that more luxury. The just as grey office as their barracks had a dark, wooden desk, and there was one neat pile of paperwork on it. Further there was a computer, a few baskets containing more papers and the occasional other office supplies. Graves himself was sitting behind his desk, and at the knock on his door he barely looked up as he said, “Come in.”

“Colonel Graves, sir,” Duke spoke as he reached the desk. Brinna came to a stop to his right, and Galal to his left.

Now the colonel looked up and took the three of them in. “What the hell do you three want?”

“Simply put; get to the bottom of this crap hole,” Duke said gruffly. Then as an afterthought he added, “sir.”

“I think I already told you what you can do with that,” Graves spoke gravely.

“Sir,” Brinna said, shuffling a few centimeters forward, “Why are old ladies willing to pull guns on EDF personnel? Why are people fleeing a town we just freed from communists? How did the suits get to the facility so quickly after us? How did a bunch of hardly organized communists that just got their asses kicked get into the most heavily guarded city and government building in the world? Something severely stinks around here, sir, and it isn’t the men and their horrible bathing habits for a change.”

Galal added to complete the picture, “Hell, where did they even get the weapons, tanks, and the rest necessary for this and funds needed to buy them? Quite frankly, sir, I don’t believe you think nothing’s going on.” Graves sighed. Galal asked, “So what are we going to do about it, sir?”

“What /can/ we do about it? We got orders,” Graves stated with annoyance.

“That’s what the Nazis said, and I would have loved to kick their asses,” Duke replied with force. This time he didn’t bother with the ‘sir’ at all.

Graves looked up at him, wheels turning in his head. He finally sighed, acknowledging Duke was right, and said, “But there’s nothing we can do. They didn’t give us leave and stuffed us here for nothing.”

Duke grinned, and said, “Sometimes it pays to have family in high places.”

*****

Where the barracks and colonel Graves office were Spartan, EDF orient Headquarters and General St. John “Bulldozer” Bennet’s office were down right criminally luxurious. The place was filled with paintings, luscious carpets, and beautiful windows and doors. In fact, the whole place was designed by an architect that could only be described as an artist, and the headquarters one his masterpieces. Of course, the building wasn’t originally meant to be a military headquarters, but that didn’t mean the Generals had decided to strip its insides from all the nice, shiny things.

As all around the four of them - Colonel Graves, Duke, Brinna and Galal - EDF soldiers, most of them in presentable styled uniforms for public relations reasons, were busy with all kinds of non-combative tasks, they stood gazing around the place for a few moments, until Duke said, “Looks like an old-wives, tea parlor.”

“Yeah, that’s probably all they do here; drink tea,” Brinna agreed with Duke, a rarity.

Galal smiled and added, “Well, at least they do /something/.” The other three looked at him, and he shrugged with a grin, and then they smiled.

“Well, let’s get goin’,” Duke said and started moving forward to the double doors that would lead into his uncle’s office.

As they neared a door a slim secretary in a flattering skirt uniform barred their way. “Sirs, you cannot . . .”

“Out of the way, babe,” Duke interrupted, pushing the brunette aside. He turned her head at her though just as he slammed his palm against the doors, and added, “but I might call ya later.” As the doors swung open, Brinna groaned at Duke’s cheap come on.

The general’s office was just as bad as the outside, except that there were less people. Duke’s uncle sat behind his wide, luxurious desk, and apart from one secretary sitting on the edge of it going over some papers with him. They both looked up as the foursome purposefully strode in the large, shiny office and over to the desk. “Uncle,” Duke greeted curtly with a smile.

“Duke!? What the hell are you doing here?” General Bennet spoke, the smile on his face showing he wasn’t angry.

“Normally, I’d be here for a visit, but I’m afraid this is business,” Duke said with a smirk, the secretary looking surprise.

The secretary they had tossed aside came in after them hastily, and said, “I’m sorry, sir, I tried . . .”

“It’s alright, Edie, it’s my nephew, go on back out,” the general spoke with a gravely, rolling voice that showed where his nickname came from. The secretary left, and the second secretary still on his desk looked at him questioningly - probably wondering whether she should leave as well. St. John Bennet gave a her a quick shake with his head, and a pat on the desk showed she could stay put. “What kind of business, Duke?”

“We’ve come across some disturbing things, uncle St. John,” Duke said and looked over to Graves to start talking.

The colonel was face to face with the general in charge of the area, a famous and well-respected one at that. Obviously he was nervous, as was Galal, Brinna either didn’t seem to know, or didn’t care, she was just as cool as always. “Well, sir,” Graves started, “as you undoubtedly know . . . we just came back from a mission . . . and given leave time . . . for no real reason.” Graves took another breath, and as he started continuing his tale, his nervousness fell away, going on auto pilot, “We were sent into a nuclear facility, all well and good, until we capture a communist alive. We interrogate him, he says they’re not behind the Chinese government building, and right at that moment some suits from intelligence waltz in, take the prisoner away. Then just as they suggest he will, our general calls up, and tells us we’re on leave, no longer having to worry.”

“Colonel,” General Bennet began, tapping his computer, bringing some file up, and then said, “I oversee this whole operation, however no man can do things alone. I give some basic orders and the people directly below me get to fill in the details. It’s true that the intelligence branch seems gruff and out of line, but no order has been given that doesn’t meet my approval. As for your leave you should take that up with the general overseeing the section your team belongs to, Rittel, I believe . . . right, here, it is.” Bennet read of the screen, reading, “Leave for consecutive high stress missions, nothing immediately wrong with that. And interrogating a prisoner should be left to the intelligence division.”

“Yes,” Brinna spoke with a slight disapproving tone. “That however does not explain villagers fleeing their villages after we get rid of the communists, as if afraid we’d burn or bomb the place into non-existence. It doesn’t explain a man outright accusing the EDF of doing exactly that.”

Bennet looked astonished, then over to his nephew, and Duke said, “It’s true, I had to shoot a sweet old granny attempting to shoot us. You put that, and our friends from intelligence together, and you get a load o’ crap.”

“That is disturbing,” Bennet spoke, but his demeanor changed, “the problem is, that I’m overseeing the effort to get red of the communists once and for all, Duke, I don’t have time to investigate, I didn’t really had time for this. I need to get back managing a war, the moment we’re done with the communists, I will make it my top priority to figure out what’s going on with the intelligence division. If anyone did something illegal without me knowing about it, they’ll go down harder than they thought possible. Now, leave me to my work making the world safe for democracy. Enjoy your leave, don’t worry about this anymore, I’ll handle it, and that’s an order.”

“Yes, sir,” Graves said, saluted, and then turned around to leave. Galal did the same, and then Brinna. Duke stayed behind a few moments longer, looking at his uncle, than shook his head in disappointment and followed his brothers and sister in arms out.

*****

The four of them had just left the Headquarters, and walked off the premises into the streets of Hong Kong. “Damn,” Duke muttered in annoyance.

Graves nodded in agreement, and said, “By the time your uncle starts his investigation, it might very well be too late. Whatever it is, that whoever is up to, has got to do with this war.”

“But what are we going to do about?” Galal asked without hope. “If the highest EDF guy and Duke’s uncle won’t do anything . . .”

“We’ll simply go higher,” Duke said with a grin, and pulled his cell phone from his pocket, which looked more like the communicator than a phone. A thin screen slid out, and Duke dialed a number.

“What? Who?” Brinna started, but Duke held up his hand because his screen came to life.

“You’ve reached the private number of Prime Minister Vanderlingen,” a recording stated from a computerized face. “She can’t come to the phone right now, lea- . . .”

“Damn,” Duke said turned off the phone, then connected to the net and searched for a number.

“The Prime Minister of Belgium?” Graves questioned remembering Duke’s saving of her life and the thank-you dinner date that followed. But she was a busy woman, no doubt having no time for military conspiracy theories - or the investigation of an alleged one even for the soldier that saved her life.

Duke had a dialed a number by now, and this time a human being spoke, “Belgische regering, publieke zaken, hoe kan ik u van dienst zijn?”

“Please, tell me you speak English,” Duke told the woman as he came to a stop, his co-investigators stopping around him.

“Of course, sir, Belgian government, public affairs, how may I help you?” the woman spoke.

“Ah, good,” Duke continued with a grin, “I need to speak to Marielle Vanderlingen, could you connect me?”

“The Prime Minister?” the woman asked shocked. Duke nodded. “Sir, with all do respect, she’s a very busy woman, you can’t just- . . .”

“Just tell her its Duke Bennet, she’ll take the call,” Duke interrupted her.

“Oh, you’re the one that saved her life,” the woman apparently recognized Duke’s name from the news.

Duke grinned, and started, “Exactly- . . .”

“I’ve very sorry, sir,” the woman interrupted again, “but that still doesn’t mean you just get to talk to her whenever you feel like it. Besides, I can’t put you through to her, but I will connect you to someone who might be able to, please hold.”

The screen went blank, except for the worlds ‘please hold’, and a lovely melody started playing. “Ah!” Duke said in annoyance turning off the phone, “that’ll take hours if not days . . . we don’t have that much time.”

“You could wait till she’s out from wherever she went and call her private number again,” Galal suggested, and then added, “How did you get her private number anyway.”

Duke grinned at his three companions, and then said, “Nah, that could take too long as well. Face to face she, nor any guards could ignore us . . . and I’ve got just the way.”

Duke opened his phone again, and dialed, leaving the other three looking at each other as if asking if he was insane. “Slipknot here,” sounded from the phone, and then he said, “Duke, what the hell do you want now?”

“Hey, Eric, me and three friends need to go from Hong Kong to Belgium in oh, say, forty-five minutes perhaps an hour,” Duke said with a grin.

In an instant the guy’s face brightened, and he said, “Well, why didn’t you say so right away! I’ve got you covered, Duke, you good for the fee?”

“Yep,” Duke answered, with the other three looked astonished.

“Hong Kong, eh?” Slipknot said, thinking a moment, “All right, you got fifteen minutes to get the helicopter pads of the Peninsula Hong Kong hotel.”

“We’ll be there,” Duke said, closed his phone, and put it away.

“Forty-five minutes? Who the hell is that?” Graves questioned.

“Was a friend of my father’s, he’s a grumpy old bastard with magic hands,” Duke said with a chuckle.

“Don’t mind him,” Brinna interrupted as the foursome started walking again, “I want to know how you think you can just waltz into a Prime Minister’s - wherever she is - and her not turn you away. Hell, for all you know that private number isn’t real, and she’d turn you away even if she wasn’t a Prime Minister.”

Duke gave a short laugh, and said, “I know the exact number how often a woman has to distinctly attest to the existence of god during a single night before she’ll always be happy to see you, that number is five.”

“You didn’t, you . . . you . . .” Brinna said in shock.

“Five times?” Graves groaned out, “Duke, I thought you’d just have dinner and leave - that was what the general ordered and we agreed upon, wasn’t it?”

“Eight,” Duke corrected with a grin, “and on top of that, I saved her life.”

“She must have been craving it,” Galal muttered.

“It had been years,” Duke agreed.

“You lucky son of a bitch,” Galal commented with wide eyes. “If only I were stationed in your position, than I’d have attest to the existence Allah.”

“Galal,” Brinna said a little shocked and mostly disappointed. “I expected better of you.”

Galal turned his head, grinning at her as they walked along the tall Hong Kong buildings and he answered, “I’m a Muslim, not a priest.”

Duke chuckled as Brinna groaned. She then spoke, “Bennet, damn you, at least tell me you used condoms.”

Duke turned to look at her and said, “Of course, just because I like to sleep with beautiful women, doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”

The Swede shook her head and muttered, “That hasn’t been my experience.”

*****

Indeed, fifteen minutes later, with a woosh of air a mighty plain arrived, before its humming went down, it’s landing gear came out, and then slowly lowered vertically down with a few jets mounted beneath the wings. It’s short wings angled from back to forward, underneath which were several big square engines. It had a long, wide, angular body, which came to a point, giving it the appearance of triangle. Once landed the large spacious cockpit canopy opened up, and a gruff, thick, grey-haired man in overalls stood up, grinning wildly. All but Duke looked with open mouth.

“Well, hi there, maties, and ooh, bombshell,” the man spoke, settling his gaze on Brinna, who’s eyes narrowed and she groaned in annoyance.

“Is that . . .” Graves observed in shock at the odd craft, “ . . . an SR-71?”

“Used to be,” Slipknot spoke with a huge grin. “Did me some modifications on this baby, just like those.”

Brinna folded her arms across her ample chest, and she growled at him, “These are real thank you very much.”

“Ooh, boy, that’s just what I wanted to know, dang it,” Slipknot said with a grin.

“I can’t believe it,” Brinna said growling and then turned to an innocent looking Duke. “Now I know where you got it from, but ugh, there’s someone actually worse than you.” The blonde shrugged at her accusation. Slipknot pulled out a small ladder and hung it off the cockpit.

“Man, this is a dinosaur,” Galal spoke as he grabbed the ladder and started climbing it.

“It used to be,” Slipknot spoke with a grin as the others one by one came up the ladder, finding a wide cockpit with four seats, two next to each other and behind them another two. “Made it a little shorter, made the cockpit bigger and passenger worthy, added more modern engines, and stuffed in a good hydrogen-subspace energy source. Can’t really fly around the world without several refuels if we just had the old kerosene.” He made a chuckle, as his four passengers put on their helmets. He grabbed the ladder and pulled it up, saying, “This ferrying passengers at stop speed business is a nice added income, but it doesn’t give me enough for a whole fleet of refueling planes, you know.” He closed the canopy and started pre-flight preparations.

“Can you even buy one of those already?” Galal wondered.

“Not really,” Slipknot told him. “You gotta know your people.” Then the plane lurched as it lifted slowly in the air. A high-pitched wine sounded, and they could see a faint blue glow coming from some openings in the top of the short wings. “Hold on, folks, here we go,” Slipknot spoke and pushed a button on his flightstick. A roar sounded as flames burned from the afterburners and the plane flew off, and rapidly increasing speed.

The four EDF soldiers made themselves comfortably as the plane started vibrating. “Say, old man,” Brinna said a little fear creeping in her, “aren’t these ships optimized for their flying to the extreme? Lowering stresses and all that? This things isn’t going to fall apart after your meddling with it, is it?”

“Of course not, I did the same, after all, you’re not talking to some two-bit, hobby boob, here,” Slipknot remarked with a little venom. “And don’t worry, once this baby hits high enough speed the little vibrations will disappear.”

Brinna looked to her right, giving Graves a not too convince look. Slipknot thought, piped up again, “Say, Duke, why you need to get to Belgium anyway? And what did you get yourself into this time?”

“Oh, need to talk to the Prime Minister about some serious shit being wrong in the China war,” Duke answered keeping it vague.

“Yeah, I figured something like that, since we got two bogeys on our tails,” Slipknot muttered. The other four exclaimed their surprise and tried to look around. “Seems you ain’t using a secure phone, old buddy, and this here thingy isn’t as invisible to that new age sensor stuff as it is to radar; gotta look into solving that.”

“Damn, whoever is responsible for this crap, sure as hell doesn’t want us finding out what they’re up to,” Duke said with annoyance, as the plane steadily gained altitude and the vibrations slowly lessened.

“Is this bad?” Graves asked.

Slipknot actually laughed, and said, “In general perhaps, but don’t worry about this baby. Nothing human-built that isn’t top secret is faster as this thing, not even the Aurora can keep with her. Isn’t that right, snoogums?”

Brinna’s eyebrows were high with disbelief at Slipknot petting the plane and calling it names of a lover. More so when the plan lurched ones with a little audible jolt and then the craft was completely still, as if the plane those answered the guy with a big, ‘Yes, honey.’ Then a shrill peep sounded, but the pilot casually kept flying. “Say,” Brinna spoke with a nervous feeling in her stomach, “correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t that warning sound mean they’ve got a target lock? Not to rain your on your speed parade and all.”

Slipknot chuckled as a verbal warning came through the communications array. “Say, Duke, is she your girlfriend or something? Because she sure sounds like it,” he asked.

“Why you little!” Brinna yelled, her hands clenching to fists. It took some control not to smash something to pieces - something that could be important to the function of the plane. “Him and me - NOTHING! Got that!? That’s insulting, and if you weren’t the only one capable of flying this bucket- . . .” Brinna trailed off as the warning sound became a little more shrill.

“Ooh, they fired two rockets,” Slipknot said with a grin, and pushed another button on his flightstick. The engine whine suddenly with up a tone in pitch, and suddenly there was a flubbering sound, a small bang. The plane suddenly lurched forward, pushing all its occupants even deeper into their seats. Behind the plane, the propulsion turned to steady bangs, making a small round cloud of vapor. “Look at that, the rockets can’t keep up, what a shame,” Slipknot said with a grin as the plane continued to accelerate at an amazing rate.

*****

Right smack in the middle of Brussels, in front of the governmental building, the modified SR-71 Blackbird, came to a halt. And then it slowly descended, downward flames keeping it from crashing to the ground, and they slowly shrunk till the wheels hit the pavement and the flames completely went down. Overhead a jet zoomed passed, unable to take a shot at the grounded plane because the resulting explosion would hurt innocent bystanders as well as the government building. Those bystanders, both tourists and people working and living nearby, looked with open mouth at the unexpected display.

The canopy opened, and four EDF commandos jumped out, as security personnel came running at them from the government building. On the second floor of said building, the vertical landing of a plane right smack in the middle of the governmental square obviously did not go unnoticed. The Prime Minister of Belgium looked outside with raised eyebrows, which shot even further up as she recognized the first man jumping out of the plane. “Duke?” she wondered out loud. The other people of her government behind her looked at her in askance, but she ignored them. She resolutely turned away, and walked to the exit of the room with great strides and a determined face.

The Belgian security officers screamed orders to surrender. With a smooth motions Duke and the other four stepped forward, closing the gap between them and the advanced security personnel rapidly. Duke grabbed one man’s pistol, twisted it up, and yanked him around. He let go to elbow a second guy in his cheek, who went down easily. Brinna close to his right swept a woman’s legs out from under her. Continuing her motion she caught up to a man trying to get to her from that end, and she grabbed his outstretched gun. With a quick motion she turned around, and pulled him up and over her shoulder, making him land painfully on the floor, unarmed, his gun now belonging to Brinna. Graves knocked a man away from with an uppercut, than grabbed another guard’s rifle and swung him around, loosening him from his gun. Galal at the same time bashed a gun from a woman’s hand, caught it with his other, while he used his first hand to push her into his companions.

A female guard swung her rifle aiming right at Duke’s chest. Duke grabbed the nuzzle and pushed it rapidly up, rotating around. The woman grimaced in pain as her wrists strained at the superior force. A moment lather the rifle was placed against her right over her heart. She was still holding the gun, but so was Duke and his finger was at the trigger. She looked in shock, and heard more guns being armed. A moment later four EDF commandos were standing in a sem-square, with about two dozen security guards swarming around her. Both sides having guns pointed at them.

“Hot damn,” Slipknot muttered from his cockpit, casually leaning on the windshield of the cockpit. “They must have been expecting us.”

Everyone took in the man’s words for a moment, and then refocused at the center, as Duke said, “Indeed, nice party, although not much of a surprise.” He smiled at the terrified woman who had her own gun pointing at her heard. Her vest would protect her from death by a bullet like this, she knew, but it would still hurt like hell, and she was going to get a whole lot more then one bullet, which could prove fatal.

“Put the guns down, you’re outnumbered,” a male guard spoke up, apparently the leader of this sorry bunch. “You fire and you’re just as dead.”

“Really? Are you certain about that,” Duke spoke with a calmness and a grin that made the man doubt his words.

Colonel Graves then added, “What you really should be asking though, is whether or not you or your people are willing to die, and whether we are.”

The man hesitated, letting the standoff go on, until a thunderous, yet female voice rang out from the entrance of the government building, “*WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE!!*” Marielle Vanderlingen, Prime Minister of Belgium, came walking out of the middle one of the narrow top-rounded portals above which were Greek-style pillars and triangular roof and were the entrance to the government building. She just came from an conference with international dignitaries where she spoke English, so with the security forces already speaking English because they knew who was coming, she automatically continued into English.

“Ma’am!” the leader said shocked. “You should stay inside. These are dangerous communist sympathizers who violated our airspace, the EDF warned us about them.” Duke and the other three’s eyes narrowed angry at that.

“That, Captain, is Duke Bennet, the man who saved my life six month back. I had a privilege of talking to him at a thank-you dinner after, and I can tell you this, if there’s one man who is /not/ a communist sympathizer, it’s him!” she said angrily. “Now put the damn guns down, or I’m going to pick one up and shoot you myself, captain!”

“Yes, Prime Minister! Guns down!” the captain called and the security forces put their guns down. The four EDF commandos put the stolen guns on the ground, except for Duke who turned the rifle back the right way and gently pushed it into the woman’s righted hands.

“*And /you/!*” Vanderlingen shouted with authority, making the captain look startled, but soon noticed she was addressing the grinning blonde male. Duke looked at her with a smile and waiting raised eyebrows. “What the hell are you doing landing that- that- monstrosity in my backyard!?”

“Hey!” Slipknot called and than soothingly petted the plane whispering something.

Duke’s smile just widened, and said, “I didn’t land it, he did.”

“/Don’t/ get semantic with me, Bennet,” Vanderlingen said dangerously.

Duke’s face went completely serious, and he said, “We need help, it’s very important.”

Vanderlingen reeled back up straight from her predatory stance, and she took in his words. “*You . . .*” she said with authority pointing at Duke with her right index finger, then turned it around and beckoned him that left nothing to do but obey, and finished, “. . . come with me, *you . . .*” she pointed at Slipknot, whose eyes widened, “. . . get that damn thing off my lawn and onto the national militia’s airfield, and *you* get back to your posts.” With finality she turned around and strode back to the entrance, and the onlookers slowly started going back into motion.

“Whhpshh,” Galal mimicked the sound of a whip.

“Yowza,” Slipknot muttered in approval, sitting down.

Graves took a step forward and muttered, “What a woman.”

Brinna took a step forward, and said softly, “I like her, she isn’t as bad as I thought, but uh . . . only eight times?”

“At least four were multiple,” Duke returned soft enough none of the dispersing security could hear.

“Ah, that explains the leniency,” she said as behind her the plane started powering up, “now hut to it Dukey, your woman has ordered.” She chuckled.

“You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?” Duke asked her as he started walking after the Prime Minister. Brinna nodded with an evil grin. Duke grinned back, and said, “Too bad for you, so do I.” Her smile faltered.

“HEY DUKE!”

Duke turned around, looking at Slipknot. The older man tossed something, and Duke caught it, looking at another cell phone. “Secure, I’ve got a feeling you’ll be needing me again, use that one this time, toss your insecure one,” he called and then pulled down the canopy.

*****

A few minutes later they reached a private conference room, a few guards went to stand outside. Inside Vanderlingen and the four EDF commandos sat around a table.

“So what’s so important? And why the hell does the EDF want you captured or killed, I thought you /were/ the EDF,” Vanderlingen gently demanded with a rather concerned face.

“We /are/,” Duke spoke, and he and the others started telling the tale. Of the villagers cursing them, the old granny wanting to kill them, the implying that the EDF had leveled whole villages even before the war started, the captured communist, his statement that they hadn’t blown up the Chinese government, the quick interference from the suited intelligence people coming out of nowhere, trying to convince his uncle, and finally seeing only one remaining option and that was get to her.

Vanderlingen for her part, fell from one amazement to the other, eclipsed only by her concern. At the end the woman grabbed her forehead and rubbed it as if she had a headache. For a moment she wanted to warn Duke that if this was a joke, but she doubted her once bed partner had the pull with his uncle to pull this big one off, at least at war time. “I will have my security and intelligence people start an immediate investigation, undercover obviously; if the EDF is corrupted . . .” she looked up and took the commandos in, and she said, “They’ve got jurisdiction everywhere in the world as you know. They will come, hell they’re probably already here, and although they aren’t allowed to attack a country or its government without express permission from the UN council, the other countries are going to wonder why I blocked the EDF’s entrance to this place . . .”

Graves caught on, saying, “You want us to hide and elude them somewhere else, so you can have plausible deniability.”

Vanderlingen’s voice turned to a poor whimper, as she said, “But how can the security forces of our little country handle the EDF’s elite commandos? We caught them with sheer numbers when they landed, but they soon escaped, I don’t know where they are.”

“I’m starting to like you more and more, but why him?” Brinna asked the Prime Minister with a grin, pointing at Duke.

Vanderlingen took the blonde in for a moment, and then said dryly with just a hint of hostility, “The obvious reasons.” She turned back to the subject at hand at said, “You’re friend is going to have to hide is plane somewhere else as well, satellites will find it far too easily.”

Brinna mimicked Vanderlingen’s whimper, saying, “And your poor, little country’s airforce couldn’t possibly detain a plane faster than the Aurora.”

“Bingo,” Vanderlingen said, smiling her earlier hint of hostility to the woman gone now. “I need to be able to contact you once I find something.”

Duke pulled out the secure phone, clapped it open and looked around it a bit, pushing a few buttons. He soon found the number and told it to Vanderlingen, who wrote it down, as she asked, “That thing secure?”

“Yep,” Duke returned.

Vanderlingen take the four commandos in, and then said, “Well, it was a pleasure meeting you, not many people willing to sacrifice themselves getting to the bottom of stuff like this.”

“When we started, we weren’t under the impression we were; not fully at least,” Galal told her gingerly.

“Indeed,” Graves said, standing up and shaking the beautiful woman’s hand with appreciation. Some quick goodbyes later, had either go in their own direction.

“I’ll get you some Euros so you can get around,” Vanderlingen said, shaking Brinna’s hand. The blonde greeted back.

When Duke came around for the goodbye, Vanderlingen gave the tall, muscular man an actual hug, and she said, “You stay alive, I happen to like you.”

“No problem, babe,” Duke returned the quick hug.

*****

The four of them found themselves back out on the street after an excursion into a clothing store having made good use of a part of their spending money, now wearing less conspicuous clothes than their standard army fatigues. Duke was in jeans, a red, short-sleeved blouse with a white t-shirt underneath, sneakers, and a white cap. He had wanted to put on some dark shades, but the others had said that would make any EDF investigator check him out first, and he concurred. Graves was in jeans and a black turtle neck, while Galal was wearing black designer pants, with a white shirt on it and designer shoes. Brinna wore a knee-length, fluttering skirt, and a spaghetti-strapped red top that left her midriff bare, and showed off her cleavage - always good to draw people’s eyes away from one’s face when one didn’t want to be recognized. Finally all of them wore backpacks in which their fatigues were stored, just in case they needed them again, their present clothes and especially Brinna’s high-heels and Galal’s designer outfit didn’t lend themselves well to fighting.

Taking in the many shoppers walking in the heart of Brussels on this fine summer late afternoon, showed they’d blend right in now. They started a walking in a random direction, and soon were lost in everyone else. “So,” Graves started, having taken the lead, “just walking around will probably get us caught sooner or later. We need to find a place which is the last place they’ll look, and stay there for a good while.”

Duke and Galal looked at each other, chuckled and said simultaneously, “The nudie bar.”

“Male strippers, I like it already,” Brinna cut in with a smile.

“Huh?” the two of them said at the same time.

She looked at them, and then said, “All of the blatant heterosexual generals would know some blatant heterosexual, testosterone filled he-man like you wouldn’t be caught dead in a male stripper club . . . that is what you two meant, right?”

Duke told her disapprovingly, and almost disappointingly, “That would make it the /first/ place they’ll look, we need the /last/ place they’ll look, get with the program, Bombshell.”

Brinna gritted her teeth and was about to explode, when Graves cut her off softly, “Brinna, stop biting at his baiting, the more you bite, the more fun he’ll have at baiting you, and the more he’ll bait you.” Brinna closed her mouth, and looked over to Duke, who grinned and wiggle her eyebrows at her once. She narrowed her eyes at him, as Graves continued, “But I have to agree with them; the concept is so blatantly, in your face, boldly ridiculous to just walk into a strip club and sit down for the show, that they’ll never think to search for us there. But does Brussels even have one”

Brinna sighed in annoyed agreement, and said, “This is Europe, sir, even smaller towns have strip clubs, just a matter of finding the right district. The real question is if we can find one open at this time.”

*****

With a grin, Duke put a five Euro bill behind the girl’s string panties. The club had lovely music, not too loud to overpower the real entertainment, but loud enough they could dance to it, and plenty of flashy lights. Duke sat back in their corner couch seats, as Galal hooked his own bill behind the beautiful, exotic Indian babe as she enticed him with a shake of her ass. Taking a step back she took her bikini top of agonizingly slow and then continued dancing. Graves just took her in more subdued.

Brinna sighed, and said, “Couldn’t we at least have found a club that had /both/ gender strippers?”

“Why?” Duke asked as the striptease dancer finished her show - it was hard to take off her panties without losing her tips after all. She gave them a kiss and a greet goodbye and left, swaying her hips exaggeratedly.

She looked at them with a dry look, and said, “Because I’m straight, just like you two, it’s been hours, and I have been bored out of my skull through it all. I can’t believe you two don’t realize how bad and fake they are. I’ve yet to see one who actually /enjoyed/ it, they’re all cold fish out to get the money, what’s the fun in that?”

“Hey, just because you don’t have fun, doesn’t mean you have to ruin it for us,” Galal complained.

Brinna sighed and said, “I can’t help it, I don’t like looking at naked females, and I’m a woman, I read body and facial language easily.”

“Doesn’t mean you have to tell it to us,” Duke added with an annoyed as a waitress in a skimpy outfit came for their empty glasses.

“Would the gentlemen and lady like something more to drink?” she asked friendly.

“Do me a whiskey this time,” Graves said, looking at his coke glass. He’d been drinking non-alcohol to keep sharp for whatever was to come, but this time he figured one glass wouldn’t matter. The waitress nodded. Duke ordered his new beer, and Galal another lemonade. Brinna got herself a new cocktail.

The waitress thanked them, took their glasses back and left with swaying hips. “Now she was hotter to look at then the strippers,” Brinna commented wryly, “she seems to actually like her job, parading around in a skimpy outfit without taking it off.”

Duke and Galal looked at her, and then Duke shook his head and observed, “So, another lemonade? Even the big chief took a drink.”

“Not allowed too,” Galal said with a grin.

Brinna’s eyes went wide, saying, “You’re in a strip club, but you’re not allowed to drink alcohol?”

Galal grinned, and replied, “I’m a Muslim, not a priest.”

“Is that your standard answer?” Graves wondered out loud.

Galal turned to look at him, and said with a smile, “Well, it does cover a lot of ground.” Duke chuckled at the answer.

An announcer came on loud as the lighting in the club changed drastically to highlight the main stage. They couldn’t understand the Dutch, but they got the gist of it; the, or at least a main attraction for the night came on. A beautiful redhead walked from behind the curtains onto the stage, wearing high heels, stockings, a short dress, a clip on collar with bow tie, and a hat under which most of her red hair was stuffed. Several man got up from their seats and went closer to the stage, obviously regulars who knew what to expect - a treat apparently.

The announcer was done, and a lovely music started to play, the lighting turned to red. The striptease dancer walked onto the stage with provocative steps till she reached the pole. She lazily swung around the pole in time with the music as the lighting turned bright green then to neutral, the swing rode up her skirt showing off the garters attached to the tops of her stockings. Duke’s and Galal’s eyes were wide and the graceful beauty, who came back up straight. She leaned back against the pole and moaned audibly as she rode her back up and down it. Graves frowned and sat up a little straighter. She then took a step forward, and the light turned purple as she gently spread her legs, pushed out her chest, stretched her arms out and down all the way down to the fingers, and finally let her head fall back in her neck, right on time for the purple light to cover her mysteriously in a subtle light and shadow play. She brought her hand up, and took her hat off, shaking her long red hair out and over her shoulders just as the light turned neutral again at the heigh of her head, the purple light slowly moving down as if stroking her entire body, dramatically highlighting her red hair. She turned her head right, and with a an intense look in her eyes, licking her upper lip she lusciously pulled her left hand through her hand. At the same time she turned her head all the way from the left over to the right, making quick eye contact with all of the patrons. Finally she came across the corner and Duke’s partner, ultimately settling on Brinna and giving her a lazy wink with her left eye, smiling seductively.

Brinna sat up, eyes widening. She had noticed this new dancer before, but that wink, lazy smile, and the twinkling in her eyes made it obvious: this one was the real deal, she /loved/, /absolutely/ /loved/ doing this. Brinna’s mouth slowly opened as the girl continued her mysterious dance, the lighting enhancing her every curve, the music casually changing pace with the feeling of her dance. The dancer pulled herself up in a pull, pulled her legs up in a sitting position, straddling the pole with her thighs and then she gently lowered herself down, while arching her back, pressing her ample chest against the pole, and licked gently up it. At the same time, the woman managed to roam her eyes around the room, keeping eye contact with everyone inside. Once again Brinna saw the intensity of glittering in those eyes. As the girl reached the ground the lights suddenly went out, just showing dark. A moment later the lights came on again, as the girl turned out of the darkness into the light, the music going along with it dramatically. She slid on her knees across the shiny stage, reaching a man. “Now she likes her job,” Brinna muttered, taking in the sex goddess with her eyes. The striptease dancer, for she was nothing less, came forward, almost on all fours, except that her left hand held the man’s chin and she placed a loving kiss on his forehead leaving a lipstick stain. The man placed some his money on the stage, he knew apparently. She ignored the money, going back to the middle, by crawling provocatively, the lights flowing in a wave-pattern rapidly switching colors between yellow, white and brown, accentuating the feline, predatory, sexual nature of the crawl.

“Correction, art,” Brinna muttered, feeling the girl’s excitement and even arousal come off of her in waves. “I can get into a person enjoying their art.” No answer came, and Brinna looked back as all through man practically drooled. Brinna shook her head, grinned and looked back at the show, “Now this one you can enjoy.”

When the girl was naked, and completely finished with her dramatic performance, the stage was covered in small and large Euro bills, and the occasional other currency ones when people from out of Europe had ran out of Euros. As she walked off the stage with swaying hips, the whole room burst out in applause and cheering. She turned around, giving them all a final kiss goodbye, and then disappeared behind the curtains. After that a waitress came out with a large wide mop, to collect all the tips. Duke, Galal, and Graves, who had gone closer to the stage to take a better look and place some of their own money on the stage, returned to their seats next to Brinna. “Wow,” Brinna told them still surprised, “if she keeps her clothes on, she can perform that on a stage on Broadway, easily.”

The man sat down with satisfied smiles, and Duke said, “I now know what you mean with not liking their jobs and liking their jobs.”

“I want to marry that girl,” Galal added with glassy eyes.

Brinna rolled her eyes, as she said, “Now you’re going overboard.”

The phone rang, and Duke picked it up, putting it to his ear as it was audio only. He listened for a moment, and said, “Got ya.” He then stood up, shook his head wistfully at the stage one more time, and said, “We gotta go, she’s got something for us.”

*****

Fifteen minutes later the four of them were sitting in a fast food joint. Then Vanderlingen in casual clothes, wearing a cap and a ponytail of all things, and an equally casually-dressed bodyguard entered the restaurant. After a quick scan they came over and sat on the free section of the u-shaped bench, taking in the food the commandos were putting away.

“Things are bad,” the Prime Minister spoke and pulled out a envelope. “That’s what we’ve been able to find out for now. I had to dodge the your EDF buddies by using a look-alike, they definitely think I’m hiding you four.”

“Shit,” Graves muttered.

“So did you manage to elude them?” she asked them as Graves took the envelope.

Brinna grinned wryly and said, “We spent our time in a strip club.” Duke and Galal grinned, as Vanderlingen’s eyes widened. “And I actually had a good time, surprise surprise, one of them actually got me going, and I’m as straight as they come, she was that good,” Brinna finished, shaking her head at the surreal confession.

Vanderlingen looked at Brinna for a moment, and then shook her head to clear it. “Anyway, let me give you a quick summary. It’s going way up there. It’s reached the UN council and I can tell you, some or on of the members there is blocking my inquiries at that level. My people have been investigating, sending out feelers to the other intelligence communities. I’m convinced the EDF did things that were not legal, but what, why, and what for is eluding us. There are some indications it might be genetic, or a test, possibly covering up a malfunctioning weapon . . . or something else altogether. All the traces lead to highest top, right to the EDF headquarters. And that’s where the trail stops, we can’t get in there, we can’t get any answers, every inquiry overt or covert is blocked off once we get close to there.”

“You stopped looking?” Graves asked skimming over the papers.

The Prime Minister shook her head, and explained, “No, but we won’t get any more anytime soon. My people are still searching, I’ve even gotten the Russians to send in a covert intelligence team to China, the damn thing is, any more information will take probably days to uncover.”

“We don’t have that much time,” Duke said with a serious face, “I’ve had a feeling things are coming to a head.”

Brinna shook her head, and said, “It still doesn’t make sense to me, however true it is. What is the motive of whoever is doing whatever it’s their doing it. They’re the /Earth/ Defense Force - apart from pockets of extremists, they are the whole of the Earth, China included. There’s nothing to conquer, any resources they need will be afforded them through the UN council, what do they hope to gain?”

Vanderlingen looked at the four of them, and said, “I don’t know, and I think you’re the only ones who might be able to get the information, if you have any ideas . . .”

Duke’s face split into a huge smile, looked at his death defying companions, and said, “Well, if the trail leads to the EDF headquarters, it’s only a proper we give it a visit.”

“You want to /break/ into the /Pentagon/? It’s /only/ the most heavily guarded base on the /planet/,” Galal asked in shock.

Duke’s grin grew bigger however impossible that seemed, replying, “Actually, I was thinking about /blasting/ our way /in/ and /out/ of the Pentagon.” Everyone looked at him with large eyes.

“Duke,” Brinna said with finality, “it’s official, you belong in a nuthouse.”

“We’ll have to break in. I worked there for a while, I know a bit about its security measures,” Graves overruled Duke much to his disappointed, “Madam Prime Minister, we could use some supplies, how much does your national militia and intelligence community still have left?”

“It should cover your needs, I can also guarantee safe passage within Belgian skies should your friend still be around,” the Prime Minister spoke with a slight smile, “and call me Marielle, all four of you have earned that in spades.”

They looked at Duke, who nodded, and then he said, “Aw shucks, at least if we’re discovered we still get to blast our way /out/ of the Pentagon, right?”

“Ah, man,” Galal spoke out, leaning back, “we’re committing suicide, you guys do understand that don’t you?”

“Not even close. Always bet on Duke,” Duke said with a chuckle.

Vanderlingen shook her head with a smile, and said, “Duke, you are truly the most arrogant son of a bitch I’ve ever come across, I love you. That leaves me only one thing to say to you four, I think, good luck.”

[3D Master]

Chapter 6: Spy Commandos

The four fugitive EDF commandos sat in a room of a building close to the Pentagon. Only the I-395, the Pentagon parking space, and its lawn were in the way. It was in the afternoon, almost evening, and they were looking through binoculars at the building.

Brinna breathed in, and said, “You know, I still think we’re lucky that you Prime Minister friend managed to get Canada to hamper EDF aerial operations.”

“Trust me,” Duke answered for the umpteenth time, “Eric would have found a way without the extra help.”

“Will you two quit it already?” Graves sat annoyed. “We’re here, that’s all that matters.”

Galal nodded in agreement, and said, “Yeah, what we should really be grateful about, is that none of them are humble enough to consider we’d actually attempt this crazy idea, no let’s go over the plan.” The other three turned to him; with Graves explanation of the Pentagon’s security measures and his own ideas on the way to get inside, Galal had completed those ideas in a perfect plan of attack. He pulled out his white overall and said, “Try these one now; if they don’t fit, we can still change them now, but not later, they need to big enough to cover our weapons and equipment.” The other three nodded, not annoyed at the repetition; it was standard procedure; repetition meant their memories absorbed more and not only would they remember it, they would also remember to do it - even if once was enough, this was to be certain.

He continued onward, pointing at a quick model of the Pentagon made from toothpicks, “At 1815 hours, several four-man window cleaning crews will arrive. One crew will do one of the five straight sections of the building, which is compartmentalized in five smaller sections. Each of the smaller sections windows’ alarms will turned off for the duration of the window cleaning. We need to take out one crew and take their place, work our way up cleaning windows to the second floor and get inside. Getting unnoticed onto the parking lot shouldn’t be too much of a problem. There we can replace the real cleaning crew, and go over to our section. Since the crew will have identified themselves at the entrance, we won’t be asked any identification from then on. In order to fool the security cameras, I will loop footage of one of the other crews in the ones monitoring us. There’s a good chance this will be detected, but undoubtedly not right away. It will take a cleaning crew approximately twelve minutes to finish cleaning a section, so we have twelve minutes to get the information on what’s going, why it’s going on and proof that it is going on, get out, and get the information to the president of the US, barring that, get it out in the open. If it takes much longer, they’ll get suspicious and check things out.”

The others nodded and Graves took over, “The inside is protected by cameras, laser detection grids, and a digital, physical key. If all goes well, Galal here should be able to open the doors without a key.” Galal lifted up a drill shaped like a gun with a grin and pulled several times like pushing the gas pedal before driving off - the drill activated each time and made a high pitched sound. Graves nodded, and continued, “We need to get to the office of General Marshal - head of the EDF - and the one the intelligence reports our lovely Belgian Prime Minister identified as the one coordinated the counter actions against the intelligence agencies of other countries. A woman who is leaving the building . . . right now.” The other three picked up their binoculars as well and looked out the window. Indeed, a woman with an extensively decorated uniform came walking out of the main entrance of the Pentagon and headed toward an already waiting care, where she got in. “Her room is on the second floor.” He pulled out a small personal computer, and pushed a button. The others’ personal computers beeped, and they all looked at the blue print and the route they had to take. “Here,” Graves said.

Duke then took over. “In case we are discovered, we can expect to be tracked by satellite. In order to escape successfully, we’ll have switch vehicles several times.” He pulled out a street map. “Under this bridge here, the first car is waiting. We can switch unseen. The van we will sent onward using its basic automatic pilot. Two blocks in the opposite direction in a side street here, I have placed a second car. To be absolutely certain, two blocks ahead in the direction of the White house, there’s a third car. Any questions?”

“Yeah, something that’s been on my mind for quite a while,” Brinna said solemnly. “Duke, the EDF is after us; you realize what that means for your uncle?”

Duke narrowed his eyes, and said, “Either one of two things: either he’s in on it, or they moved him out of the way.” Nobody needed it explained what ‘moved him out of the way’ stood for.

*****

They snuck through the bushes and the grass. They came across a camera and waited calmly till it was looking somewhere else. Then they quickly moved over to the cars and hid behind one. At the next pass of the camera, only the car was visible. They moved onward, quickly as they saw the cleaning vans at the entrance to the parking space - they were a little early.

Maneuvering bent down between the still remaining cars, they soon reached the van that had gone to the section which they needed to break into. As the window cleaners casually chatted amongst each other, putting their belts with cleaning tools, the four fugitive commandos crouched around them. With two cleaners at the left side, and another two at the right, two commandos went to the same sides. Quickly they leaned around a car side, and fired their tranquilizer pistols. The small darts entered the cleaners, who groaned in pain, looking shocked, and then slumped to the ground. Before they could fall, each commando caught one and dragged them into the van. “Hush, little baby, don’t say a word,” Duke whispered with a grin, as he dumped his cleaner with the others. “Sleep tight, sweethearts,” he added. They took the belts with the cleaning tools, and put it onto themselves. A set of keys was lifted as well and they closed the van.

“All right,” Graves said as the four of them looked around. Nobody was coming, no alarms were going off - nobody had noticed. “Onto part two, of this little plan.”

Having taken buckets from the van the four disguised commandos walked confidently over to the side of the building. They soon found a small shed, and a key on the key set to fit. Inside they could fill their buckets with war water, and were the keys to the window-cleaning lift. Graves found an intercom, pushed a button, and said in a clipped tone, “Ready for section one.”

#Section one deactivated,# a voice came from the other side, and then the line went dead.

The four of them grinned at each other, and Brinna said, “Like taking candy from a baby.”

The others grinned and went over to the wall, quickly finding the lift that could move over the entire section, allowing cleaners to get to even the highest windows quickly and easily. Galal had casually checked around, finding two cameras showing the wall, and made note of the brand and make. As they walked onto the lift, and activated with the key, he quickly hacked into the cameras and from there made a connection with the other cameras in the network, making these send the same images as two other cameras to the center. “Done,” Galal said with quick finality, “We’ve got at most twelve minutes.”

The reached a window that could be open shortly after, and Brinna shoved a long flexible sheet of metal between the crack, then angled it upward. A moment later the window swung outward, and they entered the room. With the sun setting, but still out the room was bathed in a yellow / orang light. The room itself had several desks and computers, but they wouldn’t be high enough to be useful. After closing the window behind them they rapidly moved to the office’s exit. Duke pulled out a small tube and pushed it underneath the door. He looked through it, moving it to all sides. “Clear,” he said coolly, getting up.

He tried the handle, and not surprisingly the low priority office wasn’t locked. The others immediately went out the door he opened, and he smoothly followed them, closing the door at the same time. Right they went, reaching a corner left. Graves up front looked around it, the same way Duke looked under the door; using a tiny tube. He made a sign indicating ‘camera’, then counted down. At zero the others zipped around him as the swiveling camera was turning away. They went close by the wall, then as the camera swivelled back, they silently moved onward. They reached a crossroads, and Brinna up front was the one who checked out the sides. She could see through a window in an office to the right where they had to pass by, and there was a late worker. With a sign she and the other three shrank down, and then moved ducked down. Rapidly and silently they passed by the windows. They reached a new crossroads, which Galal rapidly checked. Nobody being there, and a swivelling camera turning away, he continued onward the others following. Once the late worker couldn’t possibly see them anymore, they continued straightened up.

Soon they reached a final corner left, and an office in the end. A camera was looking down the corner which Galal’s little tube easily identified. He took out his little organizer again. Since this camera wasn’t on a wireless network, it had no way to be accessed remotely. So instead he crouched down, turned, and said softly, “Need to scramble it, get to the office door on my signal, and flatten against the wall, then I stop scrambling it.” They gave a cool nod. Galal turned back around, fiddled with his computer, and then made a dramatic gesture before pushing the final ‘enter’ button. Then he motion. Rapidly they all ran quietly, and flattened on either side of the office door. Galal pushed ‘enter’ again, and waited for a second - no alarms went off, the ones watching had bought the temporary malfunction as a glitch.

He pulled out his drill, and moved the folded open palm top above the highly sophisticated, digital passcode key lock, till he found the exact position of the wires in the wall. He put the drill in the wall, and started drilling. He smiled - biggest mistake digital locks made - virtually crack proof lock, but hardly any protection for the wires from the key to the door and the main computer checking the key. After a while he pulled the drill away and put it back in his uniform. He pulled out a wire, put one end on his computer, and clicked the other on the wires through the hole he just drilled. He read the screen, and tapped several keys, smiling as he nodded. “No,” he whispered, “I don’t want you to log that the doors opening, voila.” There was a click from the door. Graves immediately took the handle and entered the office, the others followed.

The office was spacious, the walls in white tones like the rest of the building. To the left there was a couch with some plants. To the right a small conference table with chairs. The back walls were lined with cabinets, and a desk stood in the horizontal middle toward the back. A computer was on the desk, obviously, as well as several in/out-baskets filled with some papers. The desk was neat. “Let’s go,” Graves said, as Duke closed the door behind them. Galal went over to the desk. He hooked his palm top into the computer, and turned both on.

Graves opened the desk drawers, while Brinna checked out the paper contents of the desk. Duke went over to the cabinets and placed himself in front of the ‘c’, saying as he opened the drawer, “Let’s see, communists, China, conspiracy, I guess I’ll start at ‘c’.” As Duke started going through the papers, he speculated, “And after that? Explosion? Killing innocents? Super Secret knowledge? Blowing up governments? Attacking civilians in villages? Hmm . . .”

*****

At the same time, down below, a car pulled up to the building, and a woman in a decorated uniform got out. She went to the main entrance and the guard recognized her instantly. “Back so soon, General?” he asked with a smile.

She smiled at him and said, “Forgot a letter.” She put her passkey into the reader and the doors opened.

*****

Galal looked from screen to screen with a smile on his face. “Those Belgians know their spy kit palm tops,” he said with a grin. “I wouldn’t mind keeping this one.”

Brinna looked at him for a moment, grinning, “Boys and their toys.”

“I thought it was girls and their toys?” Duke said grinning going through more papers, having yet to find anything.

Brinna blinked several times, and then asked, “What’s that supposed to me mean?” Duke shrugged.

“Holy, shit,” Graves spoke, standing up and placing a paper with a weird skull stamp on the top on the desk. Duke turned around and came over, Brinna looked up to as Galal continued with his hack job but keeping an ear out. “The Skulls,” Graves said, pointing at the symbol. Duke looked with a little revelations, while Brinna looked dumbfounded. Graves read out loud, “In light of recent unforseen events, we must conclude that our position is compromised, and we need to reclaim it. Certain plans should be reevaluated, now that China has decided to take greater interest in the global government.”

“The Skulls?” Brinna asked confused.

Graves looked at her and explained, “They’re a secret society, a brotherhood. There are others like them, a lot freemasons, some not. They have power, a lot of it. Virtually every president of the United States in the last century and many before were part of such a society. Quite frankly they are a bunch of shadowy figures with unknown agendas that may, or may not have been steering the world to their own ideals.”

Brinna blinked, and then went to one of the stacks she had just gone through. She rapidly shifted through it again, and pulled out a letter, holding a stamp on the high side - crossed bones. “Bones,” Duke muttered, “Another one of them.”

Brinna skimmed through the paper she had dismissed earlier as unimportant, and read out loud something odd, “With the pole shift and the crash landing of the alien craft, new political parties have risen and gained a presidency. The predictions have come true; the questions we should ask ourselves are multitude. Yadda, yadda . . .”

“Nothing really substantial, but not exactly encouraging,” Graves muttered.

Duke went back to his cabinet, and soon pulled out another letter. He placed it with the one on the table, as Brinna continued to look through the papers on the desk. Duke pointed at the stamp on the top of the letter, showing several triangles interlocking. “That’s another sign of one of those societies, isn’t it?” Duke muttered in annoyance. “It seems every single one of them has its claws into the highest general in the EDF. Why do I feel chillingly cold right now.”

“Oh, my god,” Brinna muttered shocked, and showed another paper with the ‘Skulls’ stamp. “D. Bennet’s predictions and recent events are indeed disturbing, something must be done.” Brinna frowned as she looked at the paper while Duke looked shocked at her, “The rest is gibberish, some kind of code, I guess.”

“Let me see that,” Galal said and took the paper from her, reading it over.

“Daniel Bennet is my father,” Duke muttered feeling pained, and Graves looked grave.

“Could be another ‘D. Bennet’,” Brinna supplied, rather disturbed by Duke’s not so jovial look, which was not the way she had gotten to know him.

Duke looked at her, and said, “You weren’t shouting in shock for nothing; there’s too much coincidence, isn’t there? You don’t know my family members’ names, except my uncle’s, and yet you knew right away.”

Galal was the one who interrupted the darker becoming conversation, saying, “It’s the same code.” They looked at him, as he typed away. “I broke the passcode, but once inside I got just more gibberish. I thought I deciphered it wrong or something, but it’s the same code. They wrote down in their own special code, then encoded it digitally and sent that around. Double encoding, paranoid bunch.”

“My father was /not/ part of this,” Duke spoke resolutely, drawing them all to look at him. “It doesn’t say he was after all, just that he made a prediction. He must have made one that some of them picked up.”

There was a click, and then a sound as the door opened. Duke whirled around, pulling the shotgun from within his cleaning overalls where it was hidden. The open door revealed General Marshal, who immediately pulled her gun. Duke was faster; the shotgun blasted, hitting the woman in her chest and she was launched back. She crashed ass-first on the ground, then fell further on her back. She sat up, starting to aim again, when a new shot from a pistol put a slug in her brain.

“Damn!” Graves yelled seeing Duke and Brinna standing next to each other, he with a shotgun, she with her pistol drawn.

Galal started disconnecting his computer, and Duke quirked his lips, looking back he said, “Wearing a vest to your own office, you were saying about paranoid?” He started pulling off the uncomfortable overalls, and Brinna did the same next to him.

Graves started gathering up the letters in frustration, and a moment later the alarms started blaring, red lights flashing in the corridors. “I guess I get some asskicking in today after all,” Duke said with a grin.

Putting his computer away, Galal said, “That code isn’t digital, it’s some ancient brotherhood secret. The only way we’re getting it deciphered is if we find someone who is part of it, or has been studying it for a long time. Some kind of symbologist.”

Footsteps could be heard coming closer in the distance, as Galal and Graves also finished getting rid of the uniforms that limited their movements. “Let’s get out of here first,” Duke spoke and took point, the others following him, all with drawn guns, Graves with an automatic rifle.

Four armed guards, their guns drawn came around the corner. Duke’s shotgun roared through the corner, and one guard slumped dead to the ground. A second guard went down by Graves fire. The other two quickly jumped back, and the EDF commandos flattened against the wall. A moment later a gas grenade came bouncing into the corridor, and Duke wasted no time. He ran forward and jumped into the corner, pulling his pistol at the same time. The two guards were shocked at the smooth speed with which Duke came flying into their sights, one shotgun and one gun pointing at either of them. Two shots later, both went down, but were alive. The other three came around the corner and kicked the guns away as Duke kept them under cover. “They’ll live,” Brinna announced as she briefly checked out the wounds to their sides.

Duke nodded as he said, “Yeah, how many of these fuckers do you think are in on it? And how many just work here?”

“Don’t know, don’t care, we gotta move,” Graves ordered moving forward. Halfway back to the window a large contingent of guards blocked their way, while behind them another one did the same. Not slowing down, Duke and the others ran straight ahead into the blockade, firing. The four of them wove back and forth through the corridor as they fired, bullets zipping past them as the guards fired back.

Duke’s shotgun brought death by the multitudes, every time a guard showed him- or herself from behind the bullet-proof barrier. The others’ shots were nearly as accurate.

“AH!” Brinna yelled as a bullet grazed her upper arm, her three companions didn’t hesitate continuing firing at the guards, as gunshots started to ring out from their backs. Brinna faltered for only a moment before finding her equilibrium again and killing another guard.

Since she didn’t once complain, the others didn’t gave her another look, they understood too well if she really needed help she’d say that. They jumped over the barricade, and turned left. Duke pulled a pipe bomb from behind his belt, activated it and tossed it behind him in the middle of the barricade and the dead bodies. Soon they reached the final corner, going right, as bullets started slamming in the walls from the back. Duke turned around seeing the other set of soldiers navigating the barricade. Duke smiled and pushed the detonator on his finger. There was an explosion, lots of yelling, and several flying bodies. The other group’s slow down had made it a perfect place for a bomb. Not all were dead or wounded though, and so more soldiers came after them, sporting enraged and pained looks for their comrades. “Damn,” Duke said with annoyance, “Those scum-sucking society bastards are gonna pay for making us do this.” The others nodded with grimacing agreement.

They swung open the door to the office where they first entered, and slammed the door shut behind them. Duke simply blew the window to pieces with his shotgun en route, and they jumped through it onto the waiting lift. Once they were all on a second later, Duke pushed the down button and the lift started its descend. Screeching tires indicated the arrival of two humvees coming around the corner from either side of the wedge of the Pentagon. They simply grimaced, and not to waste any time, they jumped down once the elevator was low enough. They rolled on landing and came up, two of them pointing to one side, and the other two to the other. They fired at the total four humvees instantly as they moved toward the cleaning van. Duke took out the right front tire of the right humvee coming at them from the left. It careened to the right, slamming into the other humvee cutting off its progress temporarily.

On the other side it was Brinna’s one-armed aim that was true, taking out the right hummer as well, but it didn’t crash into the other. A moment later the four of them reached the van, as shots now rang out from the window they just came in. The cleaning van doors easily opened, Galal jumping into the driver’s seat, while the other three went into the back. He gunned the engine and drove of with screeching tires toward the gras surrounding the parking lot. Inside Graves handed his automatic over to Duke, while he pulled out a first aid kit to treat Brinna’s graze wound.

Duke opened the side door, and leaning out fired at the remaining hummer. “Hold tight,” Galal called, “this is going to be bumpy.” They did as told, Duke getting back inside, and then the van entered the grass plane filled with bushes and humps. Indeed the van started bumping up and down and rocking sideways as it drove with all the speed it could muster over the bumpy plain.

“They won’t wake up?” Duke asked, indicating the real cleaners rolling, hobbing about.

Graves took them in for a moment, and said with clattering teeth, “Nope, shouldn’t be able to wake up for at least another twenty minutes. Although they’ll wish they didn’t after this.”

The van noticeably left the ground for a moment, and then skidding landed onto pavement and road. Screeching it made a sharp turn left to actually get straight onto the road. The bumping stopped at the same time and Duke quickly went to the back opening the doors. The humvee built to handle off-road had come a lot closer to the van. One soldier was leaning out the window, firing a pistol. Duke grinned, and fired the automatic rifle at its front tiers. One of them blew, forcing the humvee off the road. Duke noticed humvees and less armored cars roaring out of the main Pentagon entrance, and drove up their road - a road parallel to the I-395 only a little bit to the left.

Duke closed the doors, and going back into the van he said with a grin, “Lots of company coming. I live for this shit.”

He checked for a moment as Graves finished bandaging Brinna and she got up, hefting her gun. Duke placed himself in the passenger seat up front, and watched how Galal pulled open a panel under the steering wheel and then plugged his palm top in. “Hold the wheel,” Galal said, and Duke complied. Using both hands Galal quickly made a connection with the van’s central computer, and then gave in some commands. A moment later the computer screen showed, ‘Uploading automatic pilot program.’

He kept an eye on the road, and the computer, as he heard Graves call from behind him. “They’re getting closer.”

Once the computer showed, ‘Uploading complete’, Galal pulled the link back, and stuffed the computer back in a pocket of his shirt. “Get ready,” he said as he took the wheel, taking in the tunnel underneath the I-395. Once there he went right into it, counter steering through the corner with smoking tires. A few cars drove in the same and different directions, but most of the traffic would up on the freeway. The hit the breaks, and everyone got out, while he pushed a button on the steering wheel, and said, “Home destination.” The little panel on the steering wheel blinked an affirmative and he got out himself, closing the door behind him. With the old program the an would go smoothly, now with the one Galal had uploaded the van sped off with screeching tires as if fleeing pursuers.

That done the four ran across the road, where a Bordeaux-red Ford sat waiting in the grass by the road. They entered it, stuffing the guns low and away. This time it was Duke in the driver’s seat. He gunned the engine and pulled smoothly up on the road, and drove with normal speeds between the little traffic. The military pursuers with flashing lights came screeching around the corner, entering the tunnel, passing them by without thought, all heading for the racing van on auto pilot.

Once the convoy was passed, Duke sped up a bit, but nothing obvious. “How long do you think it’ll take for them to corner the van?” Brinna asked curiously.

“About six or seven minutes,” Graves answered calmly.

Duke grinned and added, “Then all they have to do is check for cars coming out of the tunnel but not in, and track it. By which time we should be well in the next car, and ready to get in the final one.”

Galal nodded, tapping away at his computer, the gibberish text on his screen. A short while later Duke turned right. He parked the car shortly after and they changed to the car he had waiting there - a green Chevrolet. They drove that one for another few minutes, turning right once, then left. There they once more changed cars - a blue Nissan this time around. There their adrenaline slowed down as they knew they were home free for now.

After a while a several police cars with blaring sirens past them. “They’ll be setting up blockades around several perimeters,” Graves said with keen observation.

Duke grinned and added, “Too bad for them, we’re not leaving the city.”

Galal looked up from his computer and sighed. “I really can’t break this code,” he said with annoyance. “We need someone who understands these secret societies.”

“It is said freemasons are the architects of our republic, helped write the Declaration of Independence,” Graves suggested.

“Someone working at the National Archives then,” Duke spoke rapidly.

“On it,” Galal said, logging onto the net. A short while later he said, “Professor M. Salazar, doctorate it symbology, doctorate in US history, main curator at the National Archives; he should be able to figure this out. His address . . .”

Duke grinned as he heard the address and turned right.

*****

“*THEY GOT AWAY!?*” the general yelled with force, making the colonel wince backwards. “*THEY WALK INTO THE PENTAGON, SHOOT GENERAL MARSHAL AND THEY GOT AWAY!? HOW!?*”

“The van ran on automatic, they switched vehicles at least twice, sir, they uploaded a new automatic drive program into the cleaning van, the cleaners are alright,” the colonel timidly spoke.

“*I don’t care about the cleaners!*” the general thundered.

“We’ve set up roadblocks, sir, the skies are being patrolled, we never thought they’d go for the Pentagon . . .” the colonel tried to explain.

The general didn’t like the excuses, thundering, “*How the hell did they get in anyway!?*”

“They knocked out the window cleaners with a drug, and as the alarms on the windows were turned off in the section where they clean, they gained access,” the colonel explained.

“*Why the hell isn’t window cleaning done during the day, when everyone present can see what’s going on!?*” the general thundered with some less intensity.

The colonel cringed, and explained, “Wouldn’t look good for the tourists going on tours, sir.” The general sat down in defeat, uncomprehending, vowing he’d find and kill whoever considered tourists something to consider about military installation. “Sir, one of them . . .” the colonel start.

“Shoot to kill, colonel, shoot to kill,” the general spoke with a defeated sigh, determining to fire whoever cared that much about tourists. “Did they get anything?”

“Nothing’s missing from what we can see, sir, it seems General Marshal interrupted them before they could do whatever they came here for,” the colonel spoke.

“Well, at least something went right today,” the general grumbled.

*****

Drove the car up on the driveway, and casually walked over to the front door. They rung the bell and waited. A moment later a dainty man in a blouse covered by a vest and wearing reading glasses opened the door. “Yes?” he asked.

The four of them waltzed in, Duke grabbing the man by the mouth and pulling their guns free. Brinna shot left through a door and into the living room, where a woman sat on a green couch. Her eyes were wide, frozen in surprise. Brinna was with her in a moment and placed her hand on the woman’s mouth. A moment later the other three and the professor entered. “Kids to bed?” Brinna asked. The wide-eyed frightened woman slowly nodded, hoping that if they asked they had at least no interest in hurting her three children.

“Good,” Graves spoke seriously. “Now, we have absolutely no interest in harming you, we just need something decoded, and Professor Salazar, you happen to be the man who can do it.”

Slowly Duke removed his hand from the man’s mouth. “You’re mad,” he said, looking from one to another. “I recognize you now, you’re those communist terrorists that infiltrated the EDF that everyone’s after. I saw you on the tv, I’m not going to help communists.”

“We’re not communists,” Duke told the man, flexing his muscles gor effect. “We spit on communists after we kick their asses. We were framed. I’m Duke Bennet, I’m the nephew of General Saint John Bennet, do you think I’d be on the communists side?”

The made look with wide fearful eyes. Galal picked up, “We can prove it too, all you need to do is translate this.” He held up the computer showing the coded text.

“Look,” Brinna added in, to both the man and the woman, “We’re the good guys, do you think if we were the bad guys we’d be this patient? This careful about not harming you? I’m Swedish, you can hear the accent; ever heard of a Chinese, communist Swede? We need your help, you translate that, we not only prove to you we’re the good guys, but you also help stop an evil greater than a bunch of disjointed communists scattered throughout China.” It was the woman whose eyes pleaded silently with her husband that convinced him to help.

He nodded quickly, and said, “Fine, fine, what is it?”

Brinna took the hand off the woman’s mouth slowly, but she didn’t scream. Graves explained, “Some letter sent by the Skulls and some other secret societies in their code.”

“You think I can crack it? These people have secrets upon secrets, and . . .” the man said in shock.

“Just try,” Duke interrupted, “You know how these reasons for birth control think, and you know more about them than anyone else at least in this damn city, so crawl in their heads and think how they think.” Graves trusted the letter with the coded text into the professor’s hands.

He looked up, and then nodded, going to his office.

*****

An hour later he still hadn’t decoded it. “I’ve tried everything, I can think of,” he said in desperation, still afraid they might hut him or worse his family. “Known society codes, half-known codes, I’ve taken the temple of Solomon and many of their associated symbols, the holy grail, anything.” He was sitting at a cluttered desk in his office with a mostly wood motif. It was comfy. His computer hooked to Galal’s palmtop was in front o him. Duke was sitting in a couch to the right, Graves sitting next to him, Galal was looking over the man’s should helping out now and then, and Brinna was sitting in a couch across from them, the professor’s wife next to her.

She got up and walked over to the desk, sitting down on it. She bent forward a bit, and smiling she told the frustrated professor, “Relax, I know you can do this, just take a breath sit back and figure this out.”

The professor was leaning his forehead in his head. At first he was looking up at her smiling face, and then looked depressed down, right at her cleavage, the rounded slit between her breasts. His eyes widened, sparkling. He was onto something, and Brinna couldn’t believe it, rolling her eyes because he was been looking at her breasts. Duke chuckled, making Brinna scowl at him, and the professor looked over to Duke and then back at Brinna, then back again. He then looked to his left at the text on his monitor, letters started to move in front of him. “That’s it!” he said in excitement. “That’s it!” Everyone looked at him, and Brinna too. “You too are the key!” he said in excitement, making especially Brinna and Duke frown. “Amun, Egyptian god of the sun, and his consort Amaunet, the mother that is father, the goddess who doesn’t need a husband. The Chinese have no bond with the those traditions, the ones who don’t need the societies’ guidance. Amun thus produced the moon-god Chons with another goddess Mut; the sun, the moon, and the feminine of the chalice, add in the angles of the god’s constellations and . . .” He finished with the ‘enter’ key.

The gibberish text on the screen transformed to perfectly readable text. He started reading, and the others with him. “Oh, my god,” he said in shock, while the others simply looked grim. “Oh, my god.”

“They’re even more sick than I thought,” Galal muttered reading it.

Brinna relayed the contents out loud, “They attacked the villages covertly so they would be inclined to help the scattered pockets of communists, then helped the communists to weapons so they could start a guerilla war. They blew up the Chinese government to get control over the country with martial law, and now they’re planning to get authorization to use nuclear payloads . . . to . . . Jesus.”

“Why? What for?” Graves asked, still not fully grasping their motives.

“Like I said,” the professor spoke sickened, “the ones who don’t need their masculine guidance. It says here too.” The professor placed the letter with the coded text in front of them. “In order to ensure our continued position in world affairs, those who hear not our words- They are from the Egyptian line, the temple of Solomon, Jewish, Christian, Islamic traditions, the Chinese . . .” He looked up from the letter at the others. Wide-eyed he explained, “They’re a bunch of supremacists, and have been engineering world affairs at least according to their beliefs for thousands of years. The Chinese are a third of the world population, and they’re either atheists where communist indoctrination took root, or out of their own volition, and then there are Buddhists, Hindus, Taoists and several related pagan religions. Jewish, Christian, and Islamic beliefs, the Sumerian-Egyptian line are tiny minorities there. There are talks of slowly making a global democratic government, and when the Chinese get to cast their vote . . .”

Graves took over, “None of whom who will be inclined to take heed of any of their machinations, the power they want could very likely be gone almost instantly . . . so they decided to weed out the herd a little bit.”

Brinna finished, “By nuking half of the Chinese population, and making it look like the communists dropped the first so they’re heroes when they drop their own.”

“Those scum-sucking assholes,” Duke commented with a grimace. “I’m going to do a whole lot more than beating the crap out of the- . . . That’s why the damn suits were already present. They knew there was a nuclear base, and they were already looking for it. The entire EDF nuclear arsenal is counted and ID’d. They use any of them, there’s no way they’ll keep that a secret. More nuclear weapons will be gone than they said they used, and sooner or later someone will find out. They needed a different set of god-damned, unknown nuclear weapons. Fuck.”

“But the communists and us got there first, so they sent us away and ordered us not to ask any pesky question, which we did anyway,” Galal finished with a grimace.

“Are you serious?” the professor’s wife spoke. The four men and one woman turned to look at her without a single sense of humor.

The professor nodded, saying, “Yes- oh, boy.” He pulled out a pen and wrote a date on the letter just beneath the coded test - today’s date. “The text on the computer just showed the basic plan, this is the date the nukes start following.” He looked up at the others, “We need to get this to the president, to the UN, I can e-mail it to the White House, and the UN headquarters- . . .”

“Nice,” Galal interrupted straightening up, “but I prefer to hand it over in person, multiple persons. You have an empty disk we can copy the information to?” The professor hastily nodded, opening his desk and taking out a set of information chips, plugging the first into the computer.

“I’ve got a copier for the letters,” he said pointing to a corner of his office.

Brinna took the letters to it, as Galal said, “I think two of us should try and get this to the White House, the other two to the UN in New York. The more people in power see this, the more difficult it is to cover, and we better hurry - once they realize we may have something that needs decoding after all.”

The others nodded, and Duke looked down at the professor, “You better get to a motel, and pay in cash, just in case they come here and decide you might know too much.”

Graves added, “Split up; they know you have a wife and three kids, you don’t want to take the chance the motel keeps meticulous records and they make a search for a man, a wife and three kids.”

“Jesus,” the professor’s wife spoke with wide eyes.

“Done copying,” Brinna announced coming back to the middle of the room.

“This is finished too,” the professor said handing over the chips to them, and taking a third for himself. “If you fail, getting this to the right people is the only thing that can keep my family safe,” he spoke gravely to the commandos questioning looks. They nodded, and they all vacated the office.

Back in the living room the television was still on MNN, where now a reporter spoke of a large scale EDF invasion of China near Shanghai to counter two communist armies. One close to Shanghai, the other deeper into the country which was much smaller.

“The communists don’t have two armies, they might muster one, but never two,” Graves spoke.

Duke sneered and then said, “The one near Shanghai isn’t a communist army, it’s the Chinese national militia trying defend their motherland from invasion; they’ve realized this whole thing is bullshit as well.”

“But . . .” it was the professor’s wife that spoke, and everyone turned to her. “I can’t believe the Chinese EDF soldiers wouldn’t recognize their own militia, they wouldn’t fire, would they?”

Duke grinned at the woman, and said, “You married a smart babe, professor, she’s right. That means none of them are Chinese, and the large majority of those bastards are most likely in on it.”

“Shanghai was the first nuclear target,” the professor spoke up looking at the screen. “Today’s date, it’s already begun.” He then took his wife and scrambled upstairs to get his kids.

“Damn, I’ll have to take a rain check on the UN, guys, somebody has got to stop those bastards from leveling Shanghai and set this crap successfully in motion,” Duke muttered with certainty.

“WHAT!?” Brinna asked him in disbelief. “Are you crazy? What do you think you’re gonna do? Take on two armies and two nukes all by yourself with nothing but a shotgun and a pistol?”

Duke chuckled and turned to look at her, “Actually I was hoping you’d join me, but if you’re not . . . that’s the idea.” He then pulled out the phone, and pushed the speed dial button.

“Duke,” Graves spoke still in shock. “We get this to the authorities and we stop this.”

Duke shook his head, “There’s no way the bureaucracy will stop them in time . . . Eric, tell me they didn’t find you . . . good.”

“Good luck, pal,” Galal spoke.

Graves nodded, “Good luck.”

“You’re nuts!” Brinna yelled at Duke as he started to walk to the front. “You’re completely insane, you know that - /cer-ti-fi-a-ble/!”

Duke looked over his shoulder, grinned and said, “Thanks.”

[3D Master]

Chapter 7: The First Nuke

The modified SR-71 was flying over a brightening Shanghai morning, and tracking radiation. “That’s lots of radiation sources, Duke,” Slipknot commented with annoyance looking at his readout. “Dentists, hospitals . . . you name it, it’s got a radiation source. Any ideas?”

“Hmm, any of them still moving?” Duke asked looking at his own personal readout in the second cockpit. “Have you noticed those two blips coming here rapidly?”

Slipknot actually turned his head to look back, grinning at Duke and he said, “You remember I told you about those experimental craft that were the only ones faster than this baby? That’s two of ‘em, we’re very wanted.”

“Hey, I’ve always been wanted. Well, looky here, a moving radiation source, moving toward center of town, and no reason for it to be there,” Duke said with a grimace.

Slipknot nodded, and said, “And that’s your cue. Slowing down and taking her down.”

A little while later at acceptably slow speeds, Slipknot commented, “You ready, Duke?”

“Always. Can you handle the hotshots?” Duke said as the craft seemed to practically on them; they had made the trip from America in a tenth of the time they had.

Slipknot grinned, “This baby maybe conspicuous running hot and in the air, but turned off and on the ground she’s as invisible as the invisible man.”

Duke nodded, and Slipknot flipped a switch, making the canopy open. Duke warned, yelling to be audible above the wind , “Just don’t put it down too close to the nukes!”

Slipknot gave him a thumbs up, and Duke jumped out of the plane, soaring downward. Then the canopy closed again, after which the plan spun away to a different direction, speeding up once more.

*****

Duke had his hands along his body, legs straight, to have as little air resistance as possible. Thus, he was shooting down to the Earth like a rocket, keeping an eye on his target: a small group of about half a dozen EDF soldiers with three humvees slowly moving down a wide street flanked by tall buildings on both sides. They seemed to be heading toward the one fifty meters from then, on the end of a t-fork in the road - probably planning to place the nuke in its basement, then get the hell out and detonate it.

Waiting to the last moment before his parachute couldn’t help him anymore, Duke pulled the release and his parachute burst open - instantly making the soldiers notice him. Duke had his shotgun strapped to his right leg for the duration of the drop, and now pulled it free, blasting away the first EDF soldier before he could react, as Duke floated sideways over the street, lowering constantly. At the moment the gunshot sounded any civilians out on the street, that hadn’t noticed Duke yet looked up, squinting their eyes against the sun. A moment after that, they ran some of them screaming. Equally people living in the flanking buildings came to look out the window, and when noticing what was going on quickly disappeared from them. A second soldier followed - a perfect shot to a woman’s head which exploded in several pieces. One man in an odd suit made several commands and his middle vehicle sped up, overtaking the front escort.

“Damn,” Duke muttered, seeing the car drive off, while the remaining EDF soldiers yelled alarm, took aim at him and fired. The cars themselves stopped, and opened. Another half-dozen exited. Hanging by his parachute Duke was an easy target - luckily he had lowered to only three stories high, and was approaching a flat and a drain pipe. Out of shotgun ammo - Duke swung the shotgun down. It swivelled through the air until it hit a soldier in the head, and he went down with a loud groan - down, but not out. At the same time Duke made a swing forward as if sitting on a swing, and cut the parachute loose. He fell down and forward, grabbed the drain pipe, and rapidly slid down it as machine gun fires sailed harmlessly overhead - none of the soldiers able to aim at the sudden and unexpected maneuver. Sliding down, Duke pulled his large caliber pistol from the waste of his pants, and shot a soldier through the neck - making him grab it, and go down gurgling. Duke jumped down from the pipe a meter over the ground, and crouched down immediately, bullets sailing over head, and smashing in the ground before him. The EDF soldiers had either aimed too high or had jerked their guns too low. As Duke shot a man in the arm, he said, “You guys should try that too, better than a roller coaster!”

“You fucking bastard!” one of the soldiers yelled as Duke rapidly strafed to his left, and shot another one in the head.

Three soldiers were at the mouth of the alley, if Duke wanted to survive, he had to get out of the pin downed position. He ran to his left and forward, shooting carefully aimed bullets. As he took on step up the wall, he gunned down another soldier. He jumped off the wall, went into a somersault and jumped right over the three soldiers at the entrance. Duke landed on wooden patio of the classical Chinese building - diagonal and flat roof - having colorful signs and mixed in modern influences. The building was one of a few that weren’t modern high-rises - a few buildings to breath the old Shanghai for the tourists. Bullets slammed next to Duke into the wood and chipped at it. Running onward, Duke fired his gun three times, killing three soldiers shooting them through the head. “Take cover!” one man called angrily, and so the remaining soldiers ran to behind the trucks - including the ones Duke had only hurt before.

Duke grimaced as he felt a bullet hit him in the left arm, just as his gun ran out of ammo, but it didn’t stop him from diving for the door in the middle of the building. It swung open with his weight, and he made a roll to end up sitting right next to the door with his back against the wall. Several bullets shot inside, and with a cry someone fell to the floor. Duke observed his surroundings for a split second, realizing he had entered a bar and the patrons had backed up against the bar itself. “Hey, there, folks,” Duke told them as he flipped the release on his .45, the clip sliding out instantly. Outside the guns stopped firing, which was bad - they were ready to pull out something bigger than just bullets. At the same time Duke pulled out a clip with his left arm, giving him time to examine his wound at the same short time - there was a puncture, but not much blood; flesh wound. Nothing Duke couldn’t fix later, he realized as he put the last clip in his gun. “This is cutting it close.”

Duke looked back out the door, seeing them pull out a few grenade launchers; which fired. “You communist?” the bar owner managed to ask fearfully.

“Hell, no, pal, I’m the one saving your asses from something worse,” Duke answered without looking back, still looking out in order to locate the one giving orders. Canisters entered the bar a moment later, some crashing through a window, a few through the door. A moment later they erupted with gas, and Duke’s eyes started watering a little. “Damn,” Duke muttered, pulling his shirt up and in front of his nose. At least it weren’t explosives - but then Duke knew the bastards with the nuke wouldn’t want to have the whole of Shanghai against them before they could place their bomb where they wanted it. The patrons started coughing about the same time Duke’s eyes started watering, and then they panicked, getting out of the bar anyway they could. “There your are,” Dukes said, having identified his quarry.

Duke joined the ones who ran out the front entrance and were shot down by machine gun fire - apparently their leniency with explosives didn’t extend to bullets and running people. Duke spun to his left, and ran diagonally, aiming as the leader of the sorry bunch’s head appeared from behind the left car to see. Duke pulled the trigger and killed him. Outraged screams were the result - good, with the leader gone these fools were a bunch barely trained halfwits who were just as likely to shoot each other - by accident - then him. Duke ran and jumped further to the left, quickly extending beyond the back of the humvee, and shooting several times, bringing down a few more soldiers. The ones behind the far end of the truck or the ones behind the other truck quickly moved forward to catch Duke, but he was at the back end of the truck himself, shooting his gun rapidly at a few retreating soldiers, catching one in the chest - but his vest protected him from death, for now.

In one smooth motion Duke put his now empty pistol back in the waist of his pants, and picked up one of the soldier’s machine guns. A moment later Duke was once more dealing out death, and with the machine gun that was a lot of death. First the ones directly behind the two cars, then bending over the hood to take out the few that had gotten in front to get a better shot at Duke. In no time the remaining EDF soldiers were dealt with, except the driver of the second car, who sped off. Duke got rid of the empty clip of the machine and checked out the gas slowly coming from the bar, then shrugged, especially as the car had screechingly turned around to take out Duke. Duke dipped down to a dead soldier, and smoothly pulled out a belt with a lot of clips in special pouches. Putting the belt on the driver’s seat, Duke climbed in the humvee and gunned the engine. He took a clip, and loaded it while driving off, at the other car speeding back at him. Once in range, Duke put the machine gun out the window, fired at the front tire and then upward at the driver height. Both cars got rained by bullets, but Duke’s superior marksmanship took out a tire and the driver - after which the car careened off to its right slamming into a building and hurling the driver through the glass and against the wall. “Don’t drink and drive - bad for your health,” Duke muttered to himself with a slight grin.

Duke hit the breaks, and sneered with annoyance at some smoke coming from the engine. “Damn,” he said as he pulled the ammo belt and put it on himself. “Now let’s see what’s more in here,” Duke said turning around to check out the back seat. There lay a shoulder ammo harness with grenades in them, and one of the two grenade launchers the soldiers had used earlier. “Heh,” Duke said with a grin taking the harness and examining the contents for a moment. Two gas grenades were left, the others were explosives: three with proximity detonators, three with timer detonators, and three with impact detonators. After strapping the harness on, Duke took the grenade launcher, and muttered, “Heh, heh, and we’re back in the asskicking business.” With practiced ease Duke loaded one impact grenade, and brought the launcher to his back, and the smooth holster for it on the harness. Duke looked forward, to the immensely tall tower the middle car had drove off to. He put his foot back to the gas pedal. Before he pushed it down he looked at the light wisps of smoke still coming from the engine, and he said, “You keep it together for now, baby, just a short distance, more and then you can wait for the nice repair man.” Then he pushed the pedal to the metal and drove of, switching to the higher gears.

*****

Duke drove with all speed straight at the tower. The tower was square, but being built with several different depth levels to the size, as well as indentations and ornamentations, it looked somewhat round from afar. At 420m it was by no means te tallest building in Shanghai, but it was built in the last century and so very much an amazing feat, and had carried the title of tallest building in Shanghai for quite some time. Taking no heed to anything - including the humvee parked right next to the entrance - Duke simply barreled his banged up humvee straight through said entrance, situated underneath a curved canopy.

Inside, off to the right side, a female reporter was making a report in front of a camera; which would go something like, ‘Although most tourists have left China after the terrorist bombing that destroyed the government building in Bejing, normal operations has continued, and people feel safe with EDF protection inside important buildings in.’

The report was obviously cut short as Duke crashed through the glass entrance. The reporter and her camera mean immediately shifted to the disturbance, as people down in the circular lobby - which was golden hued went all the way up to 88th floor, where a round window showed a white-blue circle - ran screaming.

Six more EDF soldiers had been in the third car, and were now scattered around the lobby waiting for Duke’s entrance. Of course, none had expected exactly this entrance, and so were frozen in surprise like most people were. With the humvee landing on the lobby’s floor, Duke pointed his recently acquired machine gun out his left window and pulled the trigger. Gunshots rang echoing out throughout the lobby, making the more people scream and the EDF soldiers jump out of their surprise and fire back. The three close pillars on the left side were smoothly gunned down, along with fifteen civilians, six of whom fatally, who were close by or behind the soldiers some inside shops - mostly food.

The three soldiers on the right side had taken better cover than the first three; one of them was behind a column, a second crouched behind a trough filled with plants, a third behind a second column to the right of the second soldier. Instead of worrying about his own cover, Duke lowered the right window of the humvee using the appropriate button. At the same time he pulled the grenade launcher from his back, put the front end out the now open window, and fired it at the second soldier. As armor-piercing bullets slammed through the humvees armored plating, the grenade sailed nicely through the air, slammed into the trough and exploded, ripping the second soldier to shreds. The powerful explosion took chunks out of both pillars and sent both soldiers spinning away. The closer left soldier was killed instantly as some of the pillar chucks imbedded themselves into him. The explosion killed several more civilians as well, turning the lobby into a sound of fearful, and grieving shrieks and yells.

“Damn,” Duke muttered taking in the devastation, and added another when the humvee gave fully up on life. He got out of the truck, grenade launcher in one hand and loading it with the other holding the machine gun. He put the launcher back on his back as he quickly walked forward finding a moaning and bleeding soldier. Not taking in any changes, Duke killed him.

Duke turned around, looking around the lobby, but not seeing the guy in his odd black suit.

“Let’s go interview the communist,” the reporter told her cameraman who had done his best to catch everything on film.

“Are you crazy? I say we get out of here,” her cameraman spoke.

“He’s going to kill us if we try, and probably even if we don’t, at least this way we get immortalized through this, post-mortem Pulitzer,” she spoke as she walked over. Why he didn’t know, but the cameraman followed her.

The light of the camera shone in Duke’s face, who held up his hand to cover his eyes. “Mr. Communist Terrorist,” the sexy brunette reporter spoke with plain disgust and appall, “how do you feel about killing innocent civilians just going to work!” She yelled out the microphone.

Duke took in the reporter in a short blue skirt and matching smart jacket, and gave a quick annoyed groan at her question. “Listen, babe,” Duke spoke, grabbing her by the arm roughly and jerking her forward, making her look afraid, “I ain’t no communist, I’m the real EDF; and if I gotta choose between killing a few civilians to stop madman from nuking Shanghai, or just letting him do it, I’ll gladly blow a few of them away. Now where the hell did the bastard in the nifty black suit go!” She looked at him in shock and continued appall, so Duke prompted with a good shake of her arm, “Well?”

She blinked, coming out of her shock, and pointing said, “Down the second stairs.”

Duke nodded, and realized his own words: mad man. Was this Skulls or Illuminati or whatever society lunatic mad enough to commit suicide? Additional haste in Duke’s mind, he ran where the reporter had indicated. He came in front of the stairs, and looked down for a second, seeing a square floor going to the left, where the stairs started again. About two-and-a-half meters, Duke simply jumped down. He turned the corner, and seeing a door leading to a cellar or parking garage, he jumped the second chairs as well.

Duke didn’t bother with reaching for the door know, he simply kicked the door in with his mighty boot. He took several steps into underground parking garage. The place, as most parking garages, was grey, and lamp hung on the ceiling. Cars were standing in neat rows stretched out. “Damn, I’m so not in the mood for hide and seek,” Duke muttered to himself, and then out loud he yelled. “Come out, come out, wherever you are, you son of a bitch! If you wanna glow so much, I’ve got a marker pen with me somewhere!”

No answer. “Eeah, when I get my hands on him . . .” Duke muttered, and then started moving forward hastily - he had another nuke to find after all. Duke scanned left and right, seeing nobody, until suddenly a black figure jumped from behind a pillar a few meters away from Duke. The sound of machine gunfire accompanied the appearance, and Duke jumped to his left on pure reflex. Landing with his left feet first he already returned the fire . . . which sparked off the suit.

A laugh came from some microphone in the suit, and the man in it said, “What now, Bennet?” He then sprayed more bullets with the machine gun.

Duke jumped up high and grabbed ahold of the water tubes of the fire suppression system. He swung aside to his right, grabbing the grenade launcher from his back, and said, “If a gun doesn’t work, get a bigger gun.” The man’s face behind the glass or plastic helmet was suddenly a whole lot less happy. With the suit’s bulk, he couldn’t move fast enough to avoid the grenade that was launched at him. There was a tremendous explosion as it smashed against the suit. A moment later the man in the suit landed on the ground, being launched backward of its feet. He slid loudly further across the concrete floor till he came to a stop against a wall. The suit sparked several times, and was damaged, but obviously not enough to hurt the man inside. “And if one shot isn’t quite enough, shoot again,” Duke added as he walked forward and reloaded the launcher. As the man struggled to get up, he saw Duke emerge from the thing smoke cover and the fire remaining from the first explosion. Duke pulled the trigger, and once more there was a might explosion, the first thing going was the gun the man had been holding.

Duke reloaded; a proximity grenade now, seeing as the impact detonated grenades were gone. The smoke cleared revealing a moaning man in a damaged suit with quite a few holes in them. Duke put his grenade launcher away and pulled up the machine gun hanging by a strap from his shoulder again, saying, “Just like a lobster - first you break the cell, then you eat the delicious soft interior,” Duke said with a grin, and took several rapid steps forward, thrusting the machine gun through a hole in the suit’s gut.

“WAIT! WAIT!” the man screamed desperately. Duke looked at him with raised eyebrows. Panicked the man said, “You need the deactivation code.”

“Which is?” Duke requested.

“Do you promise to let me go if I tell you?” the man asked - apparently not a true believer; Duke’s earlier fears were ungrounded.

“I promise,” Duke said, and then the man gave a long code. Duke smiled, and added, “to kill you.” He pulled the trigger and the man jerked about as Duke emptied the remainder of the clip inside the man’s body. Then he stood up, and tossed the empty clip aside, after which he grabbed a new one and stuck it into the gun. He turned around, and saw the reporter and her cameraman stand a few meters behind him. “Liked the show?” Duke questioned with a grin and then walked to his left, where the man had been when he jumped out, looking for the nuke.

Even with the reporter and the cameraman coming after him Duke quickly found a brief case standing inconspicuously next to a corner pillar - as if someone had forgotten it after opening the door to the car. Duke went over, and knelt down. He pulled the suitcase over and opened it. Inside was a computer, with a keyboard, several leavers and blinking lights. Duke entered the code, then pushed a main red button, and the suitcase and bomb went dormant. He picked up the suitcase and turned around.

“So they were communists dressed as EDF soldiers?” the sexy brunette reporter asked.

“Nope, they were EDF, a bunch of Americans from secret societies like the Skulls and then shit,” Duke said as he resolutely passed the reporter and the cameraman who turned around.

“What will you do with the . . . atomic bomb?” she asked after him.

“What does it look like I’m doing; you don’t expect me to leave hear so someone else can turn it back on do you?” he asked her gruffly.

She asked, “Stay, you have to give an interview, you owe it.”

“I owe squat, except a good asskicking to the second nutcase with a nuke,” Duke told her and sped up more, soon finding the door and running up them, four steps at a time.

[3D Master]

Chapter 8: Finding the Final Nuke

Duke stepped back into the lobby of the Jim Mao Tower and took in the truck he’d acquired - it was in shambles. “No matter,” he said, “they left me a nice one.” He rapidly went over to the EDF corpses and searched them one by one, soon finding the key. Duke went outside and quickly found the remaining humvee. He looked inside seeing it wired with electronics, almost like a mobile command center. He unlocked the door and placed the suitcase with the nuke on the passenger seat. “Hmm, now how to find the second one,” Duke said thoughtfully. He couldn’t exactly just drive around from city to city, or from army to army hoping to get lucky. Calling Slipknot would be out of the question, with those super experimental craft around they’d be shot down in no time.

“Wait a moment,” Duke muttered, and then opened the suitcase. He took in the digital system that was the detonator for the nuclear bomb. He remembered looking at it a moment before: no counting-down timer. “Hmm,” he said seeing the nuke didn’t fully cover the suitcase, the sides were open and in the right one was a pad. Duke pulled it out and found it to have a few buttons, one of them marked with ‘detonate’. “I see, don’t want to get blown away if you get caught in traffic, eh?” Duke said with a grin, which then deepened. “Now, wouldn’t you want to be able to detonate the thing if the one who planted it somehow didn’t get out far enough?” he asked the rhetorical question as he felt with his hands at the sides of the nuke via the slits in the sides. Soon he pulled out a component, and Duke grinned. “Looky here, the transceiver array, and guess what I can do with that - that’s right, with a few modifications I’ll be following it to my destination.” Duke knew that the one planting the nuke would still be able to detonate the bomb, but he’d get to the command center a whole lot faster and they’d probably have the location - a detour, but searching randomly would take much, much, much longer.

Duke gunned the engine and drove the car with all it had to the nearest monorail station, where he practically jumped up the stairs to the monorail ready to depart, pushing aside lots of people. His guns set off the metal detectors, but Duke ignored it, security people after him. He slipped inside just on time - the monorail could get from one side of the city to the other in seven minutes, something a car would take one-and-a-half hours to do. Duke not having to go all the way - would get to the edge of the city in an even shorter time. He quickly walked over to a conductor, and the people around him looked fearfully at his heavily armed form. Duke pulled out his ID listing him as an EDF lieutenant and hoped his wanted poster hadn’t arrived in China yet. He showed the ID to the conductor and said, “I’m EDF, I’ve got very important business, don’t worry about the guns - and the bullets are for the bad guys.” The conductor nodded.

Duke held his ID high, and called, “EDF, nothing to worry about!” Luckily people stayed calm, and so he found an empty seat as the magnet train started moving. He opened the suitcase, and set about doing the necessary modifications.

*****

The moment the doors of the monorail opened, Duke was out the door, and weaving along people, pushing one off their feet once in a while, Duke through and out the station. Now he needed transportation out the city - /fast/ transportation out of the city. He looked around, and the smooth lines of a brilliantly red Ferrari F430 just seemed to beckon his eyes. It was just being maneuvered in a parking space on the parking lot across the road - after all, nobody in his right mind entered the city by car if he didn’t have to; the mag-lift train saved one hours.

“Bingo,” Duke said with a grin, and ran across the busy street, smoothly weaving between the cars. He jumped over the parking lot boundary with ease, and reached the car just as its driver got out. “Thank you,” Duke said, taking the keys right out of the woman’s hand. He tossed suitcase in the passenger seat, and got in before the stunned woman could even reply. “EDF, contact UN embassy to reimburse you any damages.”

At the word ‘damages’, the stunned woman’s face suddenly sprung in alarm. “NO!” she screamed, but the door was already closed, and the engine revved alive with a content purr, ready to turn into a roar at the driver’s whim. Smoothly, the Ferrari drove backward and turned. “It’s an antique! Please!” The Ferrari went into forward smoothly. “Over twenty years old!” she yelled trying to catch her car but it was off the parking lot. She stopped her running, looking at her leaving car with dropped jaw. She sank to her knees, and whimpered, “Isn’t made anymore. Priceless . . .”

Inside the car, Duke muttered a little disappointed, “Hmm, seems a little sluggish.” Then his gaze found a series of four buttons in a quarter circle on the right side of the steering wheel. “Traction control, sports?” Duke read questioning, then he grinned. “Aha!” he said as he dipped it all the way up to the forward to last position - allowing the computer just enough control to regulate basic fuel consumption. Immediately the car’s engine roared harder, and Duke was pushed in his seat. “Now this his driving,” Duke said with a grin, going to the next gear by a push at the handle behind the wheel. He was already out the city, out in the farming fields and light forest - the speedometer clocking a smooth 250 km/h, and rising. Passing other cars went as smooth and fast as passing bicycles - Duke grinned.

After a moment of enjoyment of the monster car that was basically a early century formula 1 car in disguise, smoothly reaching 310 km/h now, sadly having to slow down a bit for a shallow curve in the road, Duke pulled out his makeshift homing device, and noticed the signal getting stronger. He was getting closer alright.

It didn’t take long with such speeds to reach the right height, and he went off the main road, onto a smaller one veering right - north. The car took the smaller and more bendy road with the same ease as the larger one; albeit having to slow down more for the curves. Soon Duke had to leave even this smaller road for something that was barely more than a dirt one, and soon after not even that would cut it - and the sounds of gunfire, explosions, and flying machines easily reached him. The farms he noticed, were deserted, the occupants obviously not wanting to be in the way of the conquering EDF army. Taking a change he drove up a short-wowed grassy hill - something the Ferrari was definitely not meant for, but it managed it, barely. On the hill Duke over saw the plain below, and growled in frustration.

A large number of EDF forces were engaging what had to be the communist forces - they certainly weren’t wearing Chinese national militia uniforms. They would still be further on, hopelessly protecting Shanghai from whoever came out of this victoriously. “Damn,” Duke muttered, realizing that these were only a small number of the full armies, and that more were coming his way - toward Shanghai, he was in their way. Where the national militia was, herded together to try and make a stand, and Duke realized, undoubtedly what the second Nuke was for. He looked left, and over another hill there were a few more explosions. He didn’t have the time to take them all out before they got to the city, /and/ take out the threat of the second nuke. He knew that the moment they knew the nuke or nukes weren’t going off; they’d simply do it the old-fashioned way: pillage, plunder, undoubtedly rape, and he wasn’t too optimistic about the time of bureaucracy to get the good side of the UN and EDF to order these fuckers to stand down or face the wrath of the rest of the EDF. Duke sneered; if there was only a way to take the whole lot of them out in one go, should it become necessary.

Duke’s eyes widened and his head snapped to his right; where the tactical nuke lay harmlessly on the passenger seat. He grinned widely, then took a look at the receiver array - his homing beacon. He frowned, and took it and the army before him in. With his knowledge of tactics, strategy, the briefings about his newest battlefield, where he was now, and the strength of the signal he quickly realized the command center couldn’t be too far away, which meant a most likely position. He grinned again - he didn’t need it anymore.

He grabbed the suitcase, and left the car, quickly finding a few rocks. He knelt next to it, and opened the case. First he made sure to change the detonation code so the command center could nuke his ass behind his back, and then fitted the receiver back into the nuke. He stuffed the suitcase underneath the rocks pushing it deep into the sand. He covered the case up with sand after that, and finally piled more rocks up and around it - neatly hiding it from view and keeping it buried in the sand.

Duke took one rock with him, and ran back to his car. Once back inside, he put the gas pedal down. The Ferrari only slowly drove through the gras, but even a slow Ferrari had a little speed to it. It drove down the little hill, onto the plain, where twelve EDF tanks, eight communist tanks, and assorted ground troops battled it out. Seeing as a Ferrari driving through grass was much less of a threat than a well armed tank, the tanks and ground troops did not target Duke, for now. A communist tank exploded, as did an EDF one. Duke moved one window down, and put his machine gun out, shooting down a few EDF people in between him and a tank he was driving toward. When he was only a short distance away from the tank, its barrel slowly swivelled around and down toward him. Duke grinned and opened the door. He put the rock on the gas pedal, and climbed out the door, then balanced on it.

The moment Duke knew the tank was going to fire, he jumped with all he had. The Ferrari was obliterated right behind him, the blast lifting him higher and further as he was already in the air. A moment later landed smoothly on top of the tank. As expected, the entrance hatch started making sounds - it was being opened. After all, if Duke had a bomb on him, there was no way to stop him from blowing them up. Duke was already behind the hatch by the time it opened. He grabbed the soldier that came up armed with a machine gun. “Excuse me,” Duke said, and with a quick grab and yank the man’s neck was broken, “coming through.” Duke took the gun as he pulled the man out and tossed him off the tank. At the same time he stuck both his guns into the man hole, and fired around in a circle. Not giving any survivors a change to regroup, he smoothly jumped down in the cramped cockpit, finding one dead and one groaning man. Another shot took care of him, and Duke put one of the guns in the holsters along his leg, and the other on the opposite side of the grenade launcher.

Duke quickly locked the hatch, and took the controls of the tank. He turned it around a 180 degrees, going back to where the tank came from. With a smile he turned the upper cabin and the barrel of the tank forward to another EDF tank blocking the way. The tank lurched as a shell was shot off; hitting dead center. Duke made the tank rapidly speed up, and as the other tank exploded said, “Just like on the carnival.” The tank barreled smoothly through the burning remains of its rival.

He reached down at loading dock of the tank, unscrewed the handle and opened it with one hand. In the mean time his eyes roamed over the blinking lights of the tank’s dashboard, and quickly found what he was looking for. He pushed the button, and then went back opening three more tubes, and then turned to a pile of shells. “I absolutely love cruise control in tanks,” he muttered to himself, as with a quick motion he picked up a shell, dumped it in the barrel and screwed it closed again. He repeated the process three more times, before taking back control over the tank, yanking the steering handles so the tank banked sharply to the right. An EDF Tank’s shell missed Duke’s, but hit a communist one, who were trying to hit the speeding tank as well. Duke swivelled the canopy to the left and back, fired and blew the tank that had just fired on hip away. While he did this, Duke had kept his eye on the screen in the dashboard showing forward view. The tank lurched at the shot, and went on one side of the tracks. Duke had to steer right to make it fall back to both. The tank barreled up a small incline and jumped high upon reaching the top. “YIIIEEEHAAA!” Duke called out, before the tank slammed back on the ground; the screen now showing a bigger battlefield filled with tanks, people, trucks, and even a few helicopters. “Okay, that was corny,” Duke admitted to himself, as he flipped the cruise control back on. “It’s not even my family name.”

Duke continued to speed up te tank - he had no worries about cover and accuracy of fire, he just needed speed to get to the command center after all. With a smooth motion the canopy turned again, bringing the barrel forward, aiming for a communist tank blocking the way with its side. A shot later and it was a burning husk. The canopy turned to the left, aiming for an EDF tank that would soon be blocking the way. A shot later and the explosion landed just behind the tank. “Damn,” Duke muttered, practically overpowered by the tank engine’s heavy roar. A second shot took care of tank after all.

Duke didn’t care about the cars and the troops; in fact he grinned as he barreled right toward one with a rocket launcher. The man realized he couldn’t get a shot off before the tank would hit him, and he jumped aside. A few more troops behind the soldier with the launcher - disoriented at a friendly tank attacking - failed to move out of the way, and were crushed beneath Duke’s tank’s tracks. A humvee avoiding a tank shell followed - the tank went up lightly as it crashed through it - leaving the compacted humvee with a tank track right through it. Anyone who might have miraculously survived between the tank’s tracks was blown away an instant later as a tank shell blew up the remainder of the car. They were aiming at Duke now too - both sides, and Duke had to swerve a few times to barely miss several shells. Another EDF tank, that was backing up from Duke’s left was about to enter Duke’s path. The barrel once more shifted position, and blew the tank away with a well aimed shot.

Duke shifted to cruise control again, and went back to reload the tank. A helicopter turned to target Duke’s tank from the right diagonal front side. The tank’s alarm blared as it detected a missile’s target lock. Duke dropped the shell he’d gotten, and immediately yanked the tank left. The rocket hit the tank, but just at the border of ground and track. The resulting explosion jerked the right side of the tank up, and then fell down again. The tank had significantly slowed down, and Duke noticed the helicopter turning to take another shot. “Damn,” Duke said, and immediately got out of the tank. He jumped off, and landed running onward. A moment later the tank exploded after the impact of another rocket. Duke had both machine guns out, and mowed down a small half-confused squadron, and blowing out the tires of a humvee.

He turned around and aimed his guns at the approaching helicopter, intent on finishing him off with its guns. Duke fired directly at the pilot, but the bullets ricocheted off of the armored windshield. He moved the right gun to his left hand, and held both with one, while he pulled the grenade launcher from his back. He fired the grenade launcher, and the grenade was lopped high into the air. A shrill beep, that was barely distinguishable between the gunfire, the explosions, the engines and the helicopter’s rotor blades sounded that the motion detector was armed. The pilot refrained from firing his guns as he looked astonished at the odd arc of the grenade. A moment later the motion sensor detected the rapidly moving rotor blades and exploded. The blades and the engine were immediately damage, and with smoke coming out of it, the helicopter spun away, steadily declining, till it crashed with a loud explosion into the ground.

Duke soon noticed a second helicopter veering toward him. “Friggin’ helicopters,” Duke muttered as he crouched to avoid the fire of a group of soldiers, which he took down at the same time. He returned the grenade launcher to his back, and split the guns over two hands again. Duke jumped off to the left to avoid the soldier’s changing aim, and took noticed of a roofless humvee. In it was a soldier with a rocket launcher. “That’s just what I need,” Duke said, starting a dead run at the spinning truck. A passenger soldier leant out the window, firing at Duke. Duke swerved, and fired back - a long burst of fire up the door, then through the window killing the man. His magazines were out, and he pulled his pistol from his waist band. A shot later and the launcher wielding soldier crumbled to the floor of the humvee.

Behind Duke, the sound of heavy gunfire perforating the ground sounded - the helicopter was getting close, but so did Duke. He jumped on the twisting humvee, trying to twist and drive away from Duke. Duke opened the door and the soldier in the passenger seat fell partially out. After shooting the driver in the head, Duke helped the passenger the rest of the way out. Duke climbed in as the heavy gun fire from the combat helicopter got awfully close. Duke quickly helped the driver out, leaving the machine guns on the passenger seat and took control. While racing off, he grabbed behind him out the roll cage, and pulled the rocket launcher to him. He stood up in the racing car, aimed the laser-guided-missile launcher at the close by helicopter and fired. The gunfire stopped just in front of the speeding up humvee, punctuated by the mighty explosion of the combat helicopter. Duke sat back down, putting the launcher down in the passenger seat.

Steering with his knees, Duke rapidly changed the clips of the machine guns, smoothly swerving the car left and right to avoid fire. Then he put a timed grenade set to five seconds in the launcher. Done, he made a sharp turn to the left, grass and dirt being pushed up by the wheels. The maneuver allowed him to duck behind a tank, making a group of communist soldiers that were aiming for him should harmlessly at the tank. Once he emerged from behind the tank, he fired the grenade in a nice arc to his right. A few seconds later in landed with a plump in the grass in the middle of the soldiers. They looked at it for a moment, and then it exploded sending them flying everywhere, screaming to their death.

Duke was silent now, fully concentrated on the overwhelming numbers around him - many of whom luckily weren’t gunning for him. A soldier with a rocket launcher on a humvee behind him though was. Duke ducked out the window with the machine guns, and steering with his knees again, fired rapidly. First the soldier, and then the car’s tires, which rolled over soon after. He went back in, smoothly putting the machine guns down dumping another grenade in the launcher, while become aware of the sound of the final helicopter behind him. Duke put the grenade launcher gun over the window’s edge and fired it at a humvee getting in his way. The humvee was up on a small incline that he just got up on, and the grenade went through the vehicle’s window through which a soldier was firing. Duke veered sharply to his right, away from the car that exploded an instant later. Putting the grenade launcher away, he once again grabbed his machine guns, and fired them out a passenger window at a group of EDF soldiers, many of whom went down. One of them though, managed to fire a grenade while the bullets of the others slammed into the car’s armored plating. Pulling the handbrake, Duke threw the humvee in a sharp right swerve. The back shot off to the left, and the grenade slammed and exploded into the ground where the back was just before. The explosion still rocked the car though, and damaged some of its armor.

Duke floored the gas again, pulling the car right, and then the car jumped off the incline. Duke twisted around, grabbing the launcher, then a missile from the rack in the back in one rounded movement. Getting up, he locked the missile in place, grabbed the car’s steering wheel with his left hand again, and pointed the rocket launcher back, where a helicopter emerged almost explosively over the hill. The rocket shot away, and the car landed roughly on the ground. Duke was shook through a bit, and the laser pointing the rocket to its target jerked around, making the missile move toward the ground. As the car stabilized, Duke quickly switched the laser back up against one of the helicopter’s missiles. Duke’s missile sharply went up again and smashed right there, exploding, and a moment later taking the helicopter with it in an even bigger explosion. “Piece of cake,” Duke muttered sitting back down, having navigated a part of the front successfully. For some distance, there would be hardly any to no fighting going on - just plains and hills. This gave Duke the opportunity to reload both the grenade and missile launchers.

Apparently it was more important defending themselves from the well-armed other side, than to hunt a lone one-man army. That was nice. A bit further on a small group of EDF troops, apparently attempting to make a flanking maneuver. Duke drove on, not bothering with changing direction to avoid them. Getting in firing range he aimed his machine guns and fired at them, quickly mowing a few down. The rest ducked behind some stones for cover, as Duke’s truck barreled past. He ignored the few who survived, swerving the car around a particularly large stone lying in the field. The soldiers had no way of catching up to the truck, so Duke was soon rid of them.

Thus driving on at the humvee’s top speed, Duke passed several grass plains, and small hills. The reason for the place’s lack of fighting became apparent when after half an hour or so of driving, Duke found himself at the edge of a steep rocky cliff. It seemed he was on a plateau, and the fighting was going down below. There must have been an easy incline close by where Duke had blasted his way through two opposing armies. Down below the cliff, was more grassy plains and a small grassy mountain, rising a few hundred meters above Duke’s position. Further the place was guarded by three EDF tanks, a few cars and several squads of EDF soldiers. Oddly enough, there were no communist or Chinese National Militia troops, so what were they doing here? “Bingo,” Duke realized with a grin. Obviously the small mountain contained their command center - a similar old underground place as the nuclear station he and his companions had been sent to find a few days ago.

With a grin stood up, getting the rocket launcher and firing it at one of the tanks, which exploded with a might explosion. The grenade launcher came next - heavily damaging a tank, but not bringing it fully down. As the soldiers called in alarm and found him, Duke gave gas, driving the humvee gently over the cliff. It swiped downward, and as soon as the front wheels hit the rock Duke put the pedal all the way down. Having greater thrust than gravity, the humvee drove down the only slightly sloping cliff wall, while bullets slammed into the rock around it. One tank’s barrel swivelled over. Not wanting to crash nose first into the ground, Duke steered the heavily shaking car lightly to the right, where a small, shallowly downward sloping protrusion was. The slope worked as advertised - the care turned more straight and then jumped the last part of the cliff down, slamming on the ground, wheels first. As a shell exploded the rocky cliff behind Duke, the humvee’s suspension protested audibly. A loud whine and groan came from the car; not even the powerful car could truly handle an almost three meter fall, and albeit not completely destroyed, Duke doubted the car’s suspension would hold up much longer on a normal road, let alone this abuse.

Duke yanked the humvee sharply to its left, so the rock from the explosion above him didn’t crush the car - the suspension of which now creaked constantly and more so during sharp turns. He pulled out the machine gun and as another shell exploded right behind him, he gunned down several more heavily armed soldiers. He put the guns down, banking sharply to the right, and took the wheel with his knees again. With a smooth motion he took the grenade launcher and reloaded it. A shot and a few seconds later there was a second explosion on the damaged tank - a second grenade was too much and it stopped moving altogether.

Duke twisted the car around to his left as humvees, the remaining tank and a lot of troops closed in on him, shooting more holes in the humvee’s armor. He pulled out all three gas grenades, loaded one and fired it at a group of soldiers. He did it again as he entered the fray, making the tank rather useless unless they’d kill their own. He fired another gas grenade out the window and then another - leaving a lot of the soldiers on foot and some of the drivers of the cars coughing - for a short while Duke wouldn’t have to worry about them.

Taking the last remaining grenade, Duke fired the timed grenade at a humvee, blowing it up. Done with that, the dropped the grenade launcher, and went for the missile launcher, taking another missile out the back. Duke drove through and over a group of coughing soldiers, holding his breath as the grenade still vented gas. He then got up and fired a missile at the final tank, blowing it into pieces. “Wholesale destruction is my thing,” Duke said, turning the car in a circle, and then reached back for another rocket.

He noticed a soldier with a missile launcher rising on one of the EDF humvees, and Duke didn’t wait for a perfect firing time. He fired his missile as the EDF soldier did the same. Duke kept the targeting laser perfectly on the other car, not especially maneuvering around - a new form of playing ‘chicken’. Duke’s enemies turned out to be the chickens - the car sharply tried to turn out of the laser’s way, and so the launcher wielding EDF soldier had difficulty keeping the laser on Duke’s car. Duke, in comparison, had no such problem, and so his missile reached the car first, blowing it up quite spectacularly. With the guiding laser gone, the missile simply went harmlessly straight up in the air, till it exploded.

Duke grabbed another missile, and quickly counted the ones he had left. Only a few. He got back up, fired one missile at the remaining humvee twisted around to go for him. He reached back for another missile and fired it in the middle of a squadron that was readying to get back into the thick of things - the gas grenades were out of smoke. The resulting explosion ripped some apart, and sent the others sprawling away to soon die.

He put in another rocket for the remaining squadron, as their bullets started slamming into his humvee. He fired the missile, blowing the remainder of the EDF forces away. The grunted with pain, looking down briefly at a rip in his shirt and deep cut on his side where a bullet had grazed him. “I’ll worry about that later,” Duke said and looked back up, looking around the death field at a job well down. He grinned, and said to himself, “Not even god can sort them out - just the way I like my bad guys.”

Duke got out of the truck, taking the launcher with him, and then took the final missile out of the back. Once done, the truck fell through its suspension with a pathetic whine. Duke patted the car and said, “You did well.” Chuckling to himself he took out a machine gun and mounted it on his back. He checked the ammo briefly, and noticed it was growing low, so instead of taking the second gun with him, he just took its clip. Duke looked at the ripped to shreds soldiers for a moment. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have blown them up after all,” Duke muttered as he stalked over to the mountain. A short round of study quickly identified the entrance - covered with grass to hide it, but the recent opening left a visible, rectangular seam. “Hmm,” Duke said taking the missile launcher off his back, “this thing ain’t practical inside anyway.” Duke put it over his shoulder, put the red dot in the middle of the door and fired. A few moments later the missile hit and with a powerful explosion the door was blown to bits - as well as a good part of the outside and inside of the mountain.

Wasting no time, Duke dumped the rocket launcher, and got out the machine gun, while running to the now open entrance, behind which voices could very well be heard. Duke suspected there weren’t many people inside, or they’d have decided they could have leant a significant hand outside, which was all good with him running low on ammo. He entered the still partially burning entrance; seeing a soldier at a corner some ten meters away, he killed the man instantly. Apparently Duke had succeeded in killing some entrance guards with his rocket - which once more proved one of Duke’s mottos: ‘There’s no such thing as overkill.’ Duke chuckled at it, and went deeper into the installation. Once past the scorch marks, it became readily apparent that it’s insides were very much like the first such installation Duke entered: grey metal, and more grey metal, occasionally painted . . . grey. Duke reached the corner to the left, and simply let himself slide over the smooth grey floor. Two soldiers that were in this corridor, running to get to the entrance, were surprised at Duke’s unorthodox entrance; the result being they were dead by a few well-placed bullets a moment later.

Duke charged forward again. He saw two paths going right, one in the middle, the second at the end, being another corner. He paused momentarily to take a few clips of ammo from the soldiers he had just shot, then continued onward. Duke rapidly checked out the first corridor: one soldier was standing in the middle, another was hidden in a door niche - Duke had found the right path. Duke easily shot the soldier in the middle of the corridor, then jumped aside as a hail of bullets came from the smarter one.

“You’re not taking me, you traitorous bastard!” the soldier yelled at Duke.

Duke smirked, counted a moment between the man’s gun burst, and then counted down. “I’m the one who’ll kill you, you hear me!” the raged angrily. Duke stepped around the corner and fired. A moment later the man stepped in from his niche, but before he could pull the trigger, the bullets Duke had fired a moment earlier slammed into him.

As the soldier slumped to the floor Duke was already on the move, saying to himself with a grin, “Less talk, less regularity, better aim - oh, sorry, a little late with that advice.” Soon Duke reached a door with a stairwell behind it. The stairs ran down in square fashion - stairs, corner plateau, then stairs further down the adjacent wall. Several echoing sounds and voices told Duke there were at least two soldiers down below. To be certain, he unloaded the used clip from his machine gun, and put in a completely full fresh one. Duke then slid down the railing, landed on the corner plateau, and slid down the nest one.

Going down this fashion allowed him to soon make out three soldiers. They shot up at him, making him halt in a corner. Duke fired down, looking into the hole. He noticed the soldiers were half-way the second stairwell down from where he was. Not wanting to wait he simply jumped the stairs, turning in midair. The soldiers were surprised for a moment but, but quickly shot at Duke, who shot back. Duke killed one of the three, and crouched the moment he landed on the next corner slab. Soldiers were aiming too high, and Duke shot underneath the railing. The remaining two soldiers went down.

Duke slid down the railing again, once more, and seeing the bottom, and a final soldier guarding the door. Instead of fighting the soldier was smart and went out the door, closing it behind him. No doubt he was waiting to kill Duke the moment he came through the door, which no doubt meant the door was bullet proof. Duke thought it over for a moment, and then decided to test if the door’s hinges were as good as the door itself; and look the architects had provided a nice metal water main running just above the door for that exact purpose. Duke slid down the railing till he was halfway the last set of stairs. He put the gun on his back, jumped, and grabbed the pipe. He swung forward and slammed with both his feet, and all his might against the door. The test was complete as the door hinges broke and the heavy metal door was launched out of its frame, slamming directly into the surprised soldier standing in wait two meters directly behind the door. He yelled with the pain of the impact and went down to the floor with the door on top of him.

Duke let go of the pipe, already grabbing the machine gun from his back. He ran forward, making an arc from left to right, taking in the small, but wide rectangular room, with a one movement. He found two soldiers on his arc, one to the right. The one to the left Duke shot on the start of this movement. At a sound from his left, having finished the arc half, Duke jumped to his left, turning his body around at the same time. The second soldier shot, and missed. Duke didn’t. The first soldier manage to get the door off of him, which earned him a quick death. Duke finally fully appreciated the room - two adjacent walls of monitors, a whole slew of keyboards on tables that were built into the wall.

This was the control room, undoubtedly. Duke had already verified this on his arc exploratory arc of the room, having noticed a man in the same armor as the first nuke operator. Duke had ignored him at first though, because his bullets would only bounce off of the armor. Luckily this one seemed to be unarmed - apart from a laptop, a pad in one of his hands, and a bunch of cables running from his laptop up into a thick tube, which went up into the ceiling. The armor-clad man was standing in front of the wall of monitors, next to his laptop, and Duke moved over. “Bennet,” the man hissed in annoyance as Duke took position some two meters away from him. “I suppose you managed to disarm the nuke.”

“Ah, you know me,” Duke said with a confident grin, taking the time to study the armor in more detail - for a weakness, or a way to get it off. “Good, then I don’t have to explain anything; where’s the other one, and where’s its handler.”

The man laughed, and said, “Now why would I tell you that?”

“Because if you don’t, I’m gonna kick your ass,” Duke said with a smirk.

The man laughed again, and lifted the pad. “How about you leave, or I detonate the second nuke.”

“You’re going to detonate it anyway,” Duke said with a deep smirk.

The man chuckled, and said, “Yes, and I’m in this armor that your little squirt gun can’t penetrate. It seems I’m holding all the cards.”

“Not quite,” Duke said, pulling his own pad from his pants pocket. “I put it right in front of your advancing masonic EDF army, they should be right on top it now.” The man’s face darkened rapidly. Duke added, “What can I say, I like nuclear weapons - and I like ‘em even more when I get to detonate them.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” the man spoke darkly, “not all of the EDF forces are ours, some are just soldiers following orders.”

Duke shrugged, and said, “And I probably killed a few of them on the way here. Besides, you’ve got the same problem don’t you? If the nuke hasn’t been detonated yet, it means your friends are still in its blast radius.”

The man took Duke in carefully. “Final chance, padre, the detonator and the locations,” Duke said with a grimace.

Then the man laughed, starting to punch in the detonation code, “You won’t do it. My ‘friends’ and I are willing to sacrifice themselves for the cause, and I’m perfectly willing to nuke them. You’re nothing more but a goody two shoes softy out to play hero. Plus, I’m the one with the armored radiation suit. If the blast doesn’t kill us, the radiation /will/ kill /you/ long before you get anywhere.” The man - having remained confident as Duke punched in his own detonation code, pushed a final button on the pad, and one of the monitors went to snow.

“Wrong,” Duke said, and pushing his own final button, just as he launched himself forward at the armored man . . .

Then all went white.

[3D Master]

Chapter 9: Showdown

“SON OF A BITCH!!” General St. John Bennet yelled in frustration and defeat. He was standing not that far away from the edge of the blast radius, wearing normal old fashioned rubber radiation suit. Around him was a squadron of guards and two more generals, similarly attired. The squadron was armed with guns that had a blue pulsing barrel, and several blinking lights. There were two people that were not wearing protective gear, instead their hands were cuffed on their backs. One was an older male, having a shoulder wound, and the second was a stunning blonde that was most men’s sexual fantasy - she had a gun shot in her side and on through her right upper leg.

The mushroom cloud still hung ominously over the devastated area, and far off to the right was a second one. The place where a battle had been raging earlier, was now nothing but a waste land. Scorched fields - hills leveled with the ground, smoke and other gases slowly moving up from the ground, and finally heat distortions everywhere. “GOD, DAMN IT!” Bennet raged in disbelief, and then looked silently at what was left of his section of the EDF - the section that should have made sure others like him would rule the EDF and the UN. “I should have killed him,” Bennet whispered. In Graves and Brinna’s eyes there was a pained sadness as they took in the devastation - there was no way anyone would come out that alive.

Thus the small group of people stood their watching at what could have been. The plot that would have made the Masonic lodges the leaders of the world in one fell swoop, had turned into their almost destruction in one fell swoop. Many, many resources, especially human resources were placed into this - into the EDF, and they’d been wiped out just like that. They stayed watched with anger for several minutes, and frustration at the nuclear wasteland that the masonic EDF had been turned into.

To everyone’s surprise and shock, it was then that the figure became visible. Really no more than a dot at first. A little closer its bulk became obvious, but still just a silhouette - one distorted by the atmosphere’s heat distortions. As it came closer it was obscured by billowing smoke and gases, and as it came closer the legs became visible first. Finally it broke the smoke and steadily came very close. By now, the conspirators had recognized it as one of their environmental armors. “Which one of the three do you think it is?” one of the lower ranking soldiers asked, stepping forward.

General Bennet simply turned his head at the man, looking in anger, “Take three different guesses, and you’ll probably be wrong all three times.” The man and the others, including the prisoners, took in the general for a moment and then it dawned on them. The flipped switches on the guns, who powered up with a slight whine, as Graves’ and Brinna’s eyes became wide with disbelief and hope.

Soon after the dented armor stopped just a meter away from the group. The little window was covered in soot, obscuring the occupant. The arms went up, took a hold of the helmet, and with a hiss it turned and clicked free. The helmet was pulled off and dumped on the ground, revealing Duke Bennet. “Well, hello uncle, how’ve you been?” Duke said, making discrete eye contact with Graves and Brinna. The look in their eyes told Duke enough about Galal’s fate: he was no longer amongst the living. Duke then started taking off the armor. He had taken in the unfamiliar guns, and the confident stance of the conspirators - correctly assuming that unlike bullets whatever the guns fired could easily penetrate the armor. He wanted the maneuverability the bulky armor wouldn’t allow him. “Strangest thing, here I come back to sit in my bunk, and a whole EDF section has gone mad trying to nuke the Chinese National Militia and Shanghai, their biggest economic center.”

“You fucking, little, ungrateful bastard! You’re just like your damn father!” General Bennet thundered in anger and frustration. “I should have killed you when you were just a kid, but no I had some family sentiment - Duke won’t turn out the same way I told myself.”

Graves and Brinna looked with wide eyes at the general, as Duke’s eyes grew hard and cold. “The crash wasn’t an accident,” Duke said icily cold, dropping the torso of the armor.

“Of course not, a little sabotage always helps,” the General growled out, “Mr. Grand Masonic Prophet; you should have heard him. ‘With humanities ever increasing education and avenues of attaining knowledge, even the masses in the streets will stop being ignorant. Soon our guidance is no longer required or wanted, and the end of our reign will come - we should rejoice when that day arrives.’ FOOL! They’re stupid! The whole fucking lot of them! Still are, and ever will be! Only a select few a generation are born with the capability to lead! We make sure they do!”

After dumping the legs part of the armor, Duke said, “Yes, that /must/ be how George Dubya got the presidency twice.”

“You arrogant, ignorant, traitorous fuck!” Bennet yelled at Duke. “We /built/ democracy! We /lead/ it into the world! /We/ are supposed to be leading it into the future as well! Not these Atheist halfwits!”

Duke growled, and then said, “I see you don’t fully grasp the concept of democracy, uncle.” He then let his eyes roam over the people for a moment, and with a sneer grumbled, “I’m going to kill you all, and I’ll have fun doing it.”

General Bennet laughed out loud, and said, “I see you no longer have a gun. Kill him, then kill them.”

Duke moved faster than the squadron of people. While the closest soldier was still raising his gun, Duke just flew at him. He smashing into him, grabbing the gun and wrenching it free. The speed and suddenness of the movement surprised even General Bennet, but not Graves or Brinna who had been preparing for it. The moment of Duke’s move, and the moment they felt their captors surprised reaction, they moved themselves. Graves simply drove himself backward, pushing the soldier off his feet and him going with him. Brinna smashed her foot onto her captor’s, then whipped her body back smashing the back of her head into the soldier’s face. She then twisted around and with kick to the man’s stomach knocked him off his feet.

At the same time, Duke had whirled soldier he had attacked in between himself and the rest of them, pointing the experimental gun at another soldier and pulled the trigger. As several blue spherical bolts slammed into his human shield, burning holes in his body, Duke returned fire, taking out one soldier after another.

As Graves wrestled with his soldier, Brinna simply jumped and used her cuffed hands like a jump rope, grunting at the pain in her side during the sudden movement and in her leg upon landing. She shot down and picked up her groaning guard’s gun, and shot a soldier that was aiming at Graves.

Duke blasted another soldier, running to the side still holding the corpse. The group was thinned to only a few, and new blasts helped out, as expected. It had gone so fast, none of the generals had been able to respond up to now, but seeing his nephew blow away the first of his fellow generals, Bennet pulled his pistol and aimed at Duke. Graves barreled into him at that moment though, making him lose the gun and roll off to the side, as the other conspirators were killed in rapid succession.

A moment later they were all dead except Bennet, and Duke turned around walking over to Bennet who was crawling to a gun. Duke kicked him in the stomach, turning him over and then placed his foot heavily on his uncle’s upper chest, bringing the gun right above his uncle’s forehead. The general looked up to him with hatred.

“DUKE!” Brinna yelled in shock. “He’s still you’re uncle! Let the courts deal with him.”

Duke grinned down uglily at his uncle, “Yeah, and my father was his brother.” The general gave a final defiant yell, before Duke pulled the trigger without wavering. His uncle’s head gained a large U-shaped hole lined with burned brains.

“Jesus,” Brinna muttered at the grisly scene.

Duke turned away from his uncle and took a step toward the nuclear wasteland he had left behind. Graves walked around him and his uncle’s corpse, and took sight at the same scene. How many people not being of the EDF had died in that? In the flight over here, he had heard a few news broadcasts - a good part of Shanghai had been leveled by the bomb that had taken out virtually the entire Chinese National Militia, which Graves figured hadn’t been the one Duke had set off. But this one; at least two small towns had been in its blast radius the news program in the plane had said; and how many EDF soldiers hadn’t been in on it; simply following what they thought were legitimate orders? “Bennet-” Graves spoke appalled.

“*Bennet . . .*” Duke interrupted sharply, looking back and down at his uncle, utter disgust on his face, “died here today.” He turned his head back, continuing, “The name is . . .” What was his name? He pondered it for a moment, looking at the mushroom cloud and the nuked wasteland. Instantly he had it, and finished with a smirk, “Nukem; Duke Nukem.”

Brinna came standing next to Duke on the opposite of Graves, and looked at him with wide eyes.

“Duke,” Graves added and pointed at the wasteland, “how many? This is the biggest death field since Hiroshima! Was it really necessary to spill all that blood; especially the civilian blood.”

Duke grimaced looking at said field of death, and said, “He nuked the National Militia, the only way to keep both the communists from taking over and these bastards from nuking the rest of China, was to use the only weapon available to me.”

“Shit,” Brinna muttered.

*****

One month later
Court martial, UN war crimes tribunal
The Hague, Netherland

Duke was standing in his dress uniform, awaiting sentence. The courtroom had several rows of benchers for spectators. A few were present; most notable Brinna, sitting in her own dress uniform, which consisted of a short green skirt, a blouse, an official wide tie, and a jacked adorned with her medals. John Graves, now General, in contrast was standing next to Duke behind the defendant table, having helped Duke’s lawyer defending him.

Three judges peered down at Duke from a higher place. “Bennet-” the middle one started.

“Nukem, your honor,” Duke interrupted, and finished with a grin, “the name change is now officially through.”

The judge sighed in irritation, and continued, “Although there does not seem to have been any alternative action, and your decisions have kept a conspiracy from doing much greater harm means any prison sentence is unacceptable, we as the court feel, that detonating a nuclear warhead and the total civilian death count of approximately 200,000 as a result, warrants your dishonorable discharge from the EDF, which removes any right to an EDF pension and other EDF benefits.”

“In short,” Duke spoke up with a grimace, “you’re little sentence came from the UN council so as to placate those best described as wimps and softies who are all up in arms about the ‘appalling number of deaths’, and is nothing but some crap political asskissing.”

“You’re out of order, Nukem,” the judge said sharply. Duke shrugged.

“You want fuckin’ out of order!” a surprising voice shouted out loud. Duke looked around and looked with raised eyebrows at Brinna standing there. “You kick Duke out of the EDF, I’m leaving it with him.”

“The sentence has been pronounced,” the judge stated with finality. He slammed his hammer on the desk and then he and the other judges got up and started to leave.

Duke stalked off, turning towards the back, walking down the lane, not giving anyone a second glance, passing Brinna. Brinna made a disgusted sound, and ripped her rank insignias off of her uniform, as Duke simply continued walking. “Brinna!” Graves called, coming from his position toward her in the aisle. “Don’t leave, after Duke, you’re the best. The EDF still needs you.”

“But I don’t need an EDF that drops its soldiers who saved the world because of some political shit,” she told the general with a disgusted face. She turned around and stalked toward the same exit as Duke went.

“Brinna!” Graves called, as Brinna reached the exit and opened it. He ran after her, and said, “Brinna, please!” Brinna paused cocking her head down and back a bit, looking thoughtful, and Graves added, “I don’t like this anymore than you do, but we have a world to protect.”

“Call me Bombshell,” she said and then continued onward to where Duke stood in front of glass doors, sunlight streaming in, placing the blondes in the light. Graves stayed behind, and then slowly returned back into the courtroom.

Duke was grinning, taking her in. She glared at him. He then said, “You should have taken that name a long time ago, like I told ya. Of course, I should have changed my name a long time too.”

“Oh, shut up,” she told him and then went outside, Duke going along. Outside they looked around for a moment, and Brinna asked, “Any idea what you’re going to do now.”

“There may be an EDF, but there are still mob bosses and local warlords, and other scum that need asskicking and lots of people who’re willing to pay to get it done; I do need to eat after all,” Duke said with a grin.

“True,” Brinna spoke, considering the possibilities for herself.

“First though, I thought I’d take a little trip to the ivy league, blow it up, and do some asskicking for free on the fuckwads that managed not to get arrested along with their buddies because of ‘lack of evidence’,” Duke thought, smiling at possibilities.

Brinna smirked, and told him, “I’m coming with you on that one; I still need to dish out some serious payback for two bullet holes.”

“Let’s go then,” Duke said with a grin.

[3D Master]

Epilogue

A few years later

The UN security council summit was bustling with activity. People talked back and forth, and sideways too. Finally the chairman silenced everyone with his hammer, and said himself, “General Graves!”

“Yes, sir,” Graves spoke stepping forward.

“Proton has made a mockery of us by using part of the funding we gave him to build his own private robotic army, and holding the world hostage with these ridiculous demands!” the chairman practically fumed. “You’ve sent in two teams, neither have come back. Sending in the entire EDF after one crackpot, however dangerous, I find rather overkill, not to mention that we can’t control one scientist and our own funds isn’t exactly the, however erroneous, headlines I’d like to read. Please, tell me you have some solution to this mess.”

“Well,” Graves said a little nervously, “he has himself an army, and I can think of only one man who’s ever faced an army all by himself and won - in fact it were two armies he faced all at the same time.”

“Well, who is he, get him out there!” the chairman spoke.

“He’s not in the EDF anymore, Mr. Chairman,” Graves spoke, appreciating the irony, “I’m talking about Duke Nukem.”

“DUKE NUKEM!?” the chairman raged in shock and disbelief. “You have /got/ to be kidding me! He destroyed half the US ivy league universities in search for more evidence more of those people were in on the conspiracy to destroy China!”

“Which he found by the way,” Graves felt the need to point out.

“That’s not the point!” the chairman yelled. “Nukem’s a gun-wielding neanderthal! Whenever he’s ‘employed’ to do a job, all he leaves behind him is ruins! He’s probably /worse/ than Proton! Not to mention the fact that he feels the need to point out how bad and corrupt and horrible this administration is on public news whenever he has the chance! And somehow more and more people consider him a hero!”

“You did throw him out of the EDF, sir,” Graves politely pointed out.

The chairman was about to continue, when the Chinese member rose, and said, “Mr. Chairman, I feel the need to point out that my country would be the one to ‘suffer’ most greatly under Duke Nukem’s actions. However, we find we rather experience two nuclear bombs than many nuclear bombs, and our and the whole world’s subjugation to a bunch of supremacists. To the Chinese people, Duke Nukem is the greatest hero alive, if not of all time. In short, I find General Graves suggestion, more than adequate.”

The other countries’ members nodded, and made agreeing sounds, or just stayed neutral. The chairman caved, and said, “All right; hire Duke Nukem to get rid of Proton, just get him to be discrete.”

“I will do my absolute best, sir,” Graves spoke with a smile.

*****

With a yawn Duke opened the door of his spacious apartment, and as he saw the man behind it, he said, “General Graves, what brings you here?”

“Can I come in?” Graves asked. Duke nodded and gestured.

Graves entered and took in the apartment. The couch was a mess, several clothing pieces starting there to form a trail to the back of the long living room bending right. It wasn’t hard to guess it lead to the bedroom. The rest of the place was rather nice; shelves with some books, a huge tv hung on the wall, the boxes of the theater system here and there. “So?” Duke asked.

Graves grinned, and said, “I’ve seen and read on some of your exploits, Duke. You’ve become quite the hero, people know you practically everywhere, and then the constant berating of the UN, people are lapping it up.”

Duke chuckled, and said, “Yeah, I know - I was born to rock the world.”

Graves smiled, and walked heavily. “The UN and the EDF need your help, Duke,” Graves stated.

“Fuck them,” Duke said pissed, walking deeper into the living room, which had dark blue walls, and a beige carpet.

“Duke, this isn’t some small fry, they’ll pay you double your normal fee, and probably more,” Graves tried with some desperation.

“They dropped me, I drop them,” Duke spoke bitterly.

“It’s Dr. Proton,” Graves spoke in explanation.

Duke turned around, and asked, “What? The guy in charge of UN scientific research; also designer of weapons?” Graves nodded. Duke laughed, “Oh, this is rich, I have to bail there buts out of the fire, forget it.”

Duke started walking to the back, and Graves said, “Duke, if not for the UN, then do it for the world. Proton’s been quietly doing his own research and weapon design behind the UN’s back - he’s had the UN funds backing him, he’s built himself a robotic army. We’ve sent in two EDF commando teams - neither returned. He’s made demands to the UN, if not, he starts blowing up cities. He’s bent on world domination, Duke, and he doesn’t give a damn how many people he has to murder to get it.”

Duke narrowed his eyes at Graves, and then finally said, “Triple my usual fee.”

“Done,” Graves spoke instantly, know Duke’s standard fee.

Duke broke into a grin, and said, “The UN has got itself a deal.” He then turned around to got to the bedroom again.

“Duke, the UN has requested discretion, the demands have only been sent to the UN, they’d prefer it if the general public never gets to know,” Graves asked Duke.

Duke looked over, and then laughed. “Oh, I’ll be discrete alright, right up until I release my book,” Duke said with a big grin.

“Book?” Graves spoke with dread.

“Book. I’m planning to write an autobiography. And this will be the final chapter; the UN that shunned me, now come to beg for my help, showing of just how great I am. I was thinking along the lines of, ‘The Ultimate Asskicker’, ‘Why the UN sucks and I don’t’, or ‘Guide to greatness’, or some such. Haven’t quite settled on the title yet,” Duke told Graves with a big grin. Graves paled, the UN could kiss their discretion goodbye, obviously.

Duke looked around the couch area, frown, and then called, “Paula! Where did we leave our shoes last night? Do you remember? . . . Paula!”

A stunning redhead in nothing but a thong, showing her naked breasts without concern emerged from the bedroom. “Wha!?” she managed barely. Graves swallowed at the sight in front of him.

“Your shoes, my boots,” Duke clarified to the sleepy girl. “Where?”

“Hmm, didn’t we throw them into the kitchen for some reason or something?” she muttered sleepily.

“Right!” Duke said and went off to the left, the opposite side of the bedroom, and said behind him, “Paula, this is General John Graves. Graves, my girlfriend Paula.”

“Oh, hi,” Paula said, waving sleepily.

“Hello,” Graves greeted back. To his surprise, the girl seemed to suddenly wake up out of nowhere.

“Duke!” she yelled with panic. Graves thought the girl would reference her nakedness, that Duke should have warned her about Graves being here. To his surprise though, she said, “Are you going to fight again!? Will you be saving more women? I don’t want you to go.”

Duke with boots on now returned to the living room, and said, “What? Why not? You jealous of those babes I’m saving or something?”

“We got together after you saved me,” Paula pointed out in accusation.

Duke looked at her amused and told, “Listen, babe, I’m not going to cheat, or just trade you in. If I want to get rid of you, I’ll say it straight to your face, and would point out why on beforehand.” Duke then went to a lone cabinet against the right wall of the living room, and said out loud, “Now all I need is my favorite asskicking shirt.”

Paula seemed to stiffen, much to Graves confusion. “AAAH!! What the hell!” Duke’s voice suddenly roared. He pulled a pink shirt out of the cabinet, and turned abruptly to his girlfriend, “Paula?”

“Uhm,” she said nervously, “Well, you see I thought I’d help out more; thought I’d wash the clothes and that one most of slipped into the white wash. I’m really, really sorry.” She batted her eyelashes at him.

Duke groaned, considered a moment, and said, “God, damn it. Well, doesn’t matter, I got more.” Duke disappeared into the bedroom . . . “AAAARGGGHHH!!!!!” Duke came stalking back out, holding two more pink shirts. “Paula, these, and the others too, are /all/ pink.”

“I’m sorry,” Paula said, and Graves looked with wide eyes at the spectacle, “it didn’t go as planned.”

“Remember how I said I’d tell you clearly when we’re breaking up?” Duke asked with barely contained fury. Paula nodded. “Well this is it; we’re through,” he said.

“What!?” Paula asked shocked, tears springing in her eyes.

As Duke put on his favorite now pink asskicking shirt, he nodded, and walking over to Graves, he told her, “By the time I get back from kicking this Screech-wannabe’s ass, I expect you gone from this apartment. That should be about 4 o’clock this afternoon, got that!?”

“But, but . . . it won’t happen again, I’m sorry!” Paula squealed with pain in her voice.

“Let’s go, Graves,” Duke grumbled in annoyance, and Graves fell in step. Duke suddenly stopped, and then turned around to the crying girl, who gained a small spark of hope in her teary eyes. “A tip if you want to your next relationship last,” Duke started grumbling, “either learn how to wash, or don’t wash at all.”

Duke slammed the door to his apartment shut, and stayed standing to cool down a bit. “Four o’clock? He has an army you know. Which reminds me; any preference for your equipment, and weapons?” Graves said, looking at the slightly taller man.

Duke once again smiled, and said, “I’ve heard about this EM zapper thing, this Dr. Proton completed recently.”

“It’s still experimental, its power core will last for years though. Problem is it’s never been tested in the field,” Graves said with wide eyes. “You sure you don’t want something else, or some backup?”

Duke grinned widely, and walking onward said, “Nope, that zapper thing is it; it’s poetic justice to kick this geek’s ass with his own weapon. Besides, if it should quit on me, for an army of dinky toys and a geek, all I need is my mighty boot.”

Graves stopped for just a moment, and then continuing he said, “Brinna was right, you are certifiable.”

Duke chuckled, and thinking of something he said, “About this nerd’s replacement; I suggest Slipknot.”

[Spiker]

Holy fuck!

[Micky C]

Spiker, on May 11 2010, 11:58 PM, said:

Holy fuck!

I think he means the length of that is quite intimidating to read in a thread (that's what I thought at first) either that or more of a 'wow, you've done a good job writing all of that.'

Edit: just wondering, what was in the source code about the conversation? I'm a college student and unfortunately I barely have enough time to roam these forums let alone read a novel

[3D Master]

Micky C, on May 11 2010, 03:39 PM, said:

Edit: just wondering, what was in the source code about the conversation?

I completely can't remember. It's been years since I read, and wrote the fic.

[OpenMaw]

Micky C, on May 11 2010, 06:39 AM, said:

Edit: just wondering, what was in the source code about the conversation? I'm a college student and I unfortunately I barely have enough time to roam these forums let alone read a novel

Says something about people being mutated, makes a reference to "the war" and has the general tell duke to "get the hell out of here." and then quietly wishing him luck. It was pretty vague.



I remember reading this. Some of it is pretty excellent. Some of its a bit wordy. Not a fan of Duke having an alternative name... his name is Duke Nukem. Im not a fan of your politics either, but what can you do? Good setup for the first game.

In any event though, well done on giving Duke a well thought out back story. Certainly more than most others have done over the years. Im shocked at how little fan fiction there actually is to be had.

[3D Master]

Commando Nukem, on May 11 2010, 08:14 PM, said:

I remember reading this. Some of it is pretty excellent. Some of its a bit wordy. Not a fan of Duke having an alternative name... his name is Duke Nukem.

The thing is, I went to look around, and "Nukem" is not an existing family name; it's also too close to "Nuke'em", in fact, that was rather the point when Apogee created the name. As a result, I just can't see Duke Nukem being his original, real family name.

Quote

In any event though, well done on giving Duke a well thought out back story. Certainly more than most others have done over the years. Im shocked at how little fan fiction there actually is to be had.

Thanks!

[OpenMaw]

3D Master, on May 11 2010, 03:12 PM, said:

The thing is, I went to look around, and "Nukem" is not an existing family name; it's also too close to "Nuke'em", in fact, that was rather the point when Apogee created the name. As a result, I just can't see Duke Nukem being his original, real family name.

In Duke's world Nukem could very easily be a last name.

His name wouldnt be the only name to be a euphimism for something else, y'know.

[blackharted]

Commando Nukem, on May 11 2010, 03:54 PM, said:

In Duke's world Nukem could very easily be a last name.

His name wouldnt be the only name to be a euphimism for something else, y'know.

I agree with this. Plus i think that the stroy reminds me of the works of Peter David in particlaur the novel version of the first Iron Man movie, read the beinging to understand what i'm talking about.