The dim dawn light turned the harbor a glowing neon fuchsia as James pulled into his designated parking spot behind the USS Constitution Museum. To his right, the three ships in the museum yard each sat like dark statues with only a few small watch lights breaking the silhouettes, while the few buildings in the yard glowed softly in the light growing in the east. Stepping from his Mustang, he studied the compound again, taking special note of the few places that he’d noted the day before.
He moved quickly across the empty log and staging area to the small brick building that was his new headquarters. With his hand on his sword, he kept his fey sight off so that he wasn’t as jumpy where the cameras could see him. Despite all of his efforts to remain calm, every shadow held another one of the dark beings that had tried to kill him the day before.
As his attention began to dart from one false threat to another, his mind began to fill in the threat with the sights and sounds of the last time he’d been under this level of threat. Instead of the dock that he was very familiar with, his mind shifted to see the desert cities of Iraq, where bullets, RPGs, and IEDs had been the monsters in the shadows. Stepping through the door, he pressed his back against the whitewashed brick inside as he breathed deeply to calm his racing heart.
As he finally started to calm, he stepped over to the desk that held his name plate and sank into the mildly uncomfortable chair. With his mind and body still fighting him, he began his normal processes to try to force himself back to a routine.
He powered on the computer and slid his ID into the slot to unlock the device. Turning away, he pulled his notepad from his bag and began setting up his desk. He pulled out his water bottle and his display rack for the half dozen challenge coins that he’d collected throughout his military career. Each thing that he pulled from the box brought back waves of good memories that fought back the bad, including several with Vic.
A loud thump came from around the corner where no one should be, ripping his attention from the basic work. His instincts took over as he grabbed the nearest object and raised it since his sidearm was locked up in the armory. With his stapler raised like a club or knife, he rose to his feet and advanced on the sound.
Two warriors stepped around the corner dressed in naval uniforms that didn’t seem to completely fit. The gray-haired man in the standard camouflage uniform of a Chief Petty Officer with the black bar and rockers on his left shoulder slightly canted was the first to step into full view. James dropped the stapler and let his hand fly to the hilt of his sword as he felt it move against his leg to remind him that it was there. He partially drew it as he took a much stronger stance to resist these imposters.
Before he could draw, Lugh emerged from around the corner, his hands raised towards James. The thin, wiry woman who had been barely visible behind the large man followed closely behind Lugh as he approached. Her hands held a loose grip on an ornately accented sniper rifle before swinging it up onto her shoulder. The god’s voice was calm, but the tension of the moment gave it a slight rise as he spoke.
“Hold, Gunney, these are friends. They’re here to help us with our mission, so I need you to stand down. I have coffee in the meeting room, so how about we go in there and get started on the things that brought us here.”
James slowly slid his weapon back into the scabbard and turned to pick up his notebook and locked his computer by removing his secure ID. Rubbing his eyes to ease the headache that was slowly building as the adrenaline drained out of him, he forced his body to relax. The stiffness and exhaustion from the fight the day before made the short walk feel like a ruck with 60 pounds on his back.
He slumped down into the chair in the corner and studied the two newcomers as they took seats around the rectangular faux wood table. When all four of the warriors were seated, Lugh turned to face James and tried his best to give an apologetic smile as he spoke.
“Sorry for the surprise. I expected you to be late today after everything that happened yesterday. Hopefully you can forgive my lack of forethought.”
He gestured at the two warriors who sat across the table from James.
“The big man you nearly attacked is Gymendor. He’s a Dryad that’s been working with me for hundreds of years and is a great fighter. The big perk with him is that he can’t be corrupted by touch of the Dullahan due to his bark skin. He can be a little quiet and gruff, but he’s great in a scrap.”
Gymendor glanced over his shoulder at the closed door before letting his form shift to reveal his true nature. Instead of the gnarled old face of a battle hardened warrior, it quickly changed to the nearly lifeless face of a partially carved wooden statue. The only part that showed true life were the glowing emerald green eyes that stared back at him. After Gymendor offered a nod of greeting, Lugh turned to the woman in the room and introduced her as well.
“And this is Alyndra Qivaris. She’s an Aos Si, or what you might know as an Elf. Despite being the youngest member of the team, she’s quickly become an expert markswoman. Between these two we should have every angle covered. You and I already know what's coming, so you know why we need the help.”
Alyndra took a seat across from James, giving him the first good look at her. Jet black hair framed her pale face and stormy gray eyes, drawing him in with her beauty. The raw danger and beauty of the elf threatened to be intoxicating, but he did his best to bury it as he greeted his new team and pulled out his notebook.
“I’m glad to have the help, because we’re in much worse shape here than we originally thought. I located nine different locations just around the shipyards that are all showing signs of corruption. We’ll want to move on those quickly so that we’ll have a secure place to operate from.”
A look of concern crossed the god of war’s face as he glanced down at the notebook that James had slid in front of him. The nine locations that James had marked the evening before were each noted along with the strength of the black smoke that he’d seen. For several moments, Lugh studied the list, glancing over at a map of the facility that had been hung on the side of the whiteboard above a map of the greater Boston area.
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He pulled the small box of magnets from the tray by the side of the whiteboard and began placing the red painted dots over the locations that James had marked. When every site was marked, Lugh returned to the table, James jumped in and continued to speak.
“Before we start the battle plan, the next thing we need to discuss is how we’re going to hide these two. If we’re going to be operating from this base, they’ll need to be seen arriving and leaving the base. On top of that, their faces will have to be logged in the military database, or they will be flagged as intruders. We can’t have the normal guards rolling up on us while we’re busy and put their lives at risk without ever knowing that there was a threat. Beyond that we need to have a clear chain of command that will be easy to work with and deal with base command.”
Lugh sat back down into his seat and met his gaze as he spoke.
“You aren’t wrong about that, but my team doesn’t really operate like your military does. We tend to just do our jobs and not have to worry about who’s in charge. It will take a little getting used to for all of us. What do you think would be best since you know this base better than I do?”
James moved over to the maps that were pinned to the wall. Picking up one of the dry erase markers, he quickly wrote a few words in his tight, sharp script. When everything was in place, he pointed at the top word on the small command tree that he’d drawn.
“You’re an admiral and people here know you as that. This means that you can come and go as you please and order anyone around for any valid reason. Because of the mission that we told the Captain, bringing in a team would make sense. The only question is how we explain two people who don’t act like modern military members.”
James met the stern gaze from Gymendor before glancing over at the elf that looked more bored with the meeting. When Lugh gave him a nod to continue instead of speaking, he went on.
“I think Alyndra will be the easiest to explain, as long as you have connections in the Irish military. Her attitude and appearance are very similar to the Army Ranger Wing snipers that I’ve worked with in Iraq. As long as we can get her an ID that matches that, it wouldn’t be weird to have a sniper like her in the unit.”
A small smirk crossed the slouching sniper’s face as she glanced over at her friend. Gymendor sat forward and studied James, his glare growing with every second as he tried to think of a good way to make this work. Lugh saved James from having to find an answer that would explain his unique appearance and strange accent.
“I worked with a unit a long time ago that would make sense to work with on a special mission. What if we put him in the uniform of the 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment from the French Foreign Legion? That way people wouldn’t be too likely to really question where he’s originally from.”
James sat back and smiled as he studied the three etheric warriors before him. When he spoke, his voice was more relaxed as he finally had a way to explain these beings.
“That should work, but we still have a lot of work to do before we can let them be seen outside of this building. Lugh, you’re going to need to get them added to the respective military systems and then get them official orders to your detachment. After that, we need to find a place in the city to billet them so that they are seen entering and leaving the base at the beginning and end of every day. Finally, we need to make sure that neither of them have a rank higher than mine. The DOD would have a problem with an American not being the lead NCO on this team with foreign soldiers on it. Once we have all of that in place we’ll be able to get our mission underway.”
Lugh stood as he addressed the group, his mind already drifting off to what he needed to do.
“I’ll take Gymendor with me since his paperwork will take a lot longer to get in place. Once we have that, I’ll get him set up at my compound and bring him in like a normal human soldier. Until then I’ll have Alyndra give you a run through of the armory and get you fitted for the rest of your weapons and armor.”
Without a word, the hulk of a man rose and followed Lugh, disappearing into the small ring of mushrooms with a pop. When the two were left alone, the elf stood and walked towards the door of the conference room as she spoke.
“Now that the buzz kills are gone, how about we go find some toys to play with?”
Not waiting for a response, Alyndra disappeared around the corner with a walk that most women would be jealous of. Scooping up his now flat energy drink, James followed after her. For how lazy the elf had been, she moved quickly through the corridor-like bullpen, reaching the secure room by the time James entered the office space.
James managed to catch up as the door to the armory popped open and let them in. He scanned his hand on the pad to acknowledge his entry before stepping into the cold room that glowed with a light that mimicked a spring afternoon. Alyndra was hard at work, lifting the breastplate that James had tried on the night before from its mount. Stepping over to James the small woman lifted the armor over James’s head without any sign of strain as she spoke.
“It looks like you already got to know your new armor. Once this fits you, we’ll change it so that it visually matches a flak jacket so that you don’t look weird walking around with a bronze breastplate on. You can also summon it with a word, with some practice.”
The second the straps touched, the torso armor reformed to the same shape that it had held the night before, letting James move more freely then he ever had with a flak jacket on in combat. It moved more like a stiff jacket as he stretched and turned to test it out. After a few moments, Alyndra returned with a bronze helmet with its cheek pieces sticking far down beyond the base of the helmet.
“Well, that was easier than expected. I think your armor likes you. Let's see if the helmet reacts as well. Once we have that, we can get on to my favorite part, the weapons. What kind do you normally carry?”
James shifted the oversized helmet as he put it on his head, feeling like a small boy trying on his father’s hat. When the weight of the bronze settled on his head, it quickly shrank to fit him perfectly. He shook his head to test the fit as he responded.
“I mostly trained on the M4 and M27, and I normally carry a SIG as my sidearm. I am skilled with blades but mostly knives, so I’m not sure how many of these weapons will actually be useful.”
The elf sharpshooter brushed a strand of her nearly ink-black hair out of her eyes before handing James a handheld crossbow and a longbow. After picking up two quivers of arrows, she stepped over to the long steel table before continuing the conversation.
“The best part of magic weapons is that they will easily shift to their modern equivalents. The only time they give us problems is when we try to change them too much.”
Alyndra pressed her hands on the two quivers and spoke a few words in the old Irish tongue. With a flash of golden light, the quivers disappeared, and four magazines for an M27 appeared in its place, fully loaded with rounds that seemed to glow with unnatural light. When those were done, she stepped over to James and placed a hand on his armored chest and his helmet to repeat the step.
