It was going to be another one of those birthdays where Eli was going to take time off from work and hobbies to let those around him drag him out of his preferred solitude to be social on purpose. Having been in the Military for 5 years now, he knew that fighting against his soldiers to use him as an excuse to party was futile. They would show up at his apartment or find some other way to drag him into it. So, for the past two years, he just lets it happen. He was in his apartment getting dressed in his usual jeans boots and a t- shirt when there was a knock at his door. He opened it and saw that it was Trev, his new boss that had just transferred in. Eli was not sure how he knew his address or why he was there but he didn't speak and after a few seconds gestured for him to come inside.
Trev sat on the couch and Eli stood in the living room, arms crossed, waiting for him to speak. Eli's apartment didn't have much furniture or decoration to it and Eli was between Trev and the door, a move that Trev did not miss.
"I've only been on base for a week and it's obvious that everyone in your squad looks up to you, hell from the rumors it seems that everyone does." Trev said.
Eli kept staring at him, waiting for him to get to the point he was building up to.
"So," Trev said, drawing it out in an obvious display of nervousness. "I was hoping you could give me a few pointers on the people in the unit. Who to keep an eye on, who to go to for specific strengths, or who needs some work."
Eli gave him a long look, staring at him for several seconds before speaking.
"Stevens and Berk are go to guys, they can make things happen when needed. Anything else you will have to see for yourself." Eli said.
He knew this was not nearly enough information to actually help Lieutenant Trev Wilks, but as a proud enlisted man he felt it wasn't his job to make an officer's life easier. Eli saw his role in the army was to get the job done. As a squad sergeant, he was given a job and he made sure his squad completed it, no more, no less. An officer's role was a bigger picture than Eli liked to live, anything more than his job got too complicated and the lines between things began to grey. Eli preferred the line between mission success and mission failure. There was a comfort in knowing where that line was and being able to steer things in the right direction.
"Well, I was hoping for more than that. The C.O. says you're his problem solver and if I run into anything during deployment I should ask you before I bother him." Lt. Wilks said
Eli stared at him for another 5 seconds before checking his watch and walking to the door and opening it. While waiting for him to get up and leave, Eli idly wondered if this new guy was going to be one of those officers that made his life harder because they needed to feel in charge.
Trev stood up and shook his head, "I thought we could work together to make our deployment more successful."
"I have somewhere to be, I'll see you at work on Monday Lieutenant Wilks." Eli said with a gesture out the door and a hard stare.
Trevor got back in his car and took a few heavy breaths to steady himself. His hands were shaking and sweat was rolling down the back of his neck. The C.O. warned me that Sergeant Kenzok was a very intense person, but this was way beyond what I expected, he thought while trying to calm himself. He wiped his hands on his pants and finally felt like he could breathe again. Starting my career in the SOCOM Psyops unit was starting to feel like a mistake, but since my father could put me anywhere in the military with his connections, I thought this was going to be the best place to start. For the first time in Trevor's adult life, he felt like he may have bitten off more than he could chew.
*****************
Eli arrived at the sports bar that he had chosen for his birthday dinner and drinks with his squad. It was a sports bar far enough away from the base that not too many other soldiers would be there but close enough that they liked to give discounts to active duty. His squad of 5 were all there, Stevens, Derk, Lambert, Aimes, and Lopez. They didn't talk much while they ate but a couple conversations cropped up between Lopez and the rest of the squad. Eli just ate and listened, something they were all used to since they had been around him long enough to know he was a quiet person.
The six of them were all leaving for deployment to North Africa in 6 weeks, and it was going to be Lopez's first deployment. They mostly talked about if He was scared or some things to make sure and pack and what to expect when they get there. None of them knew the details since they were deploying as part of a group with the Agency to establish strong relations with a few warlords in the area. The spooks never give out details until everyone is on the ground, they never trusted anyone. Trust wasn't something Eli did either, he wasn't the type to have close friends and he didn't have any family except his little sister from his first foster home. Even with these trust issues, he knew when something wasn't right and when it was just a normal baseline of mistrusting feelings.
Eli would call it his gut, every boss and girlfriend he has ever had just called it impulse control issues. He knew that from the outside it seemed like he would just wander off or cancel plans at the last minute for no reason, but it was almost like the core of his being would force the issue. It was possible to force his way past it but things always ended up worse off in the long run when he did that, then when he did what his gut told him. Now, his gut was telling him this deployment was not what it seemed and he knew he was going to have to work 20 hours a day to keep everything on the mission success side of the line.
After they finished with food and they were just messing around throwing darts and drinking, the serious questions started, and they were all directed at Eli. When he felt something was off, they could sense it, these people knew him the best and when he was anxious, they were anxious. He did his best without going into what he knew from the spooks who were in the meeting with him and the rest of the unit leadership. His normal short sentences for answers followed by a look that said, I wish I could tell you more. However, Lopez did not know his looks and kept on drilling him with questions about threat assessments and what security they would have. This would be a good time to test Lopez's ability to read subtlety, Eli thought, so he let a few things slip in small ways to see if he would pick up on it.
"It's normal to be scared for your first deployment," Eli said while tapping his chin, "I can tell you that we will have a team protecting us and our local contacts have a place for us to stay fit for war." Then he walked towards the restroom.
"I don't get it," Lopez said to Stevens, "how am I supposed to be comforted by vague statements like that?"
"It is his specific words you have to pay attention to, The Sergeant will always use as few words as possible. So when he says a full sentence he is including words that are clues to something he has figured out and isn't allowed to say." Stevens said with a slight slur to his words.
Lopez thought for almost 10 seconds and said, "So, we will be working with SEAL teams?"
"Possible," Derk replied, "you can never be sure with him. But what you can be sure of is he knows how to get the job done. Stevens had been with him the longest, and says he's never lost anyone. People quit, but none of his people have died yet."
"Yet? That doesn't make me feel better, and that's not the same thing as being safe," Lopez retorted with a worried look on his face.
"That is true," Lambert said as she put her arm around Lopez, "but you don't volunteer for this part of the military to be safe." She cleared her throat and started to speak again with awe in her eyes, "Kenzok won't promise you safety or comfort, but what you get for following him into whatever hell we get sent to is adventure and crazy stories. If you pay attention you may even learn a few things. My family is convinced that I made him up from the stories I've told them."
"Lambert might be biased since she stalks him pretty fiercely," Stevens said, waiting for a punch from Lambert that never came. "But he will take a bullet for you, I've seen him do it twice. And he always knows just what to do, so if you keep your head down and do what he tells you, everything will work out."
"I wouldn't say everything, he still hasn't helped Stevens here get a girlfriend," Derk said as they all laughed. Stevens locked eyes with Lambert who gave him the look she always did when this came up, it was a look that said she was sorry but she didn't feel that way about him. Stevens did his best to not resent his boss because the girl he liked didn't want him. Some days it was hard though since he seemed to be able to get any girl's attention, being tall, handsome and mysterious.
Eli was washing his hands and trying to shake the anger he has towards the spooks from the meeting out of his head. They knew that this deployment was going to suck, he could tell from the way they had no confidence in what they were saying, from how they looked at each other after saying it was going to be easy. And from how they felt to him, his gut told him not to trust them, at all, with anything. This one would not be easy to survive, he smiled at himself in the mirror, just the way he liked it. He loved the feeling of when his life was on the line, its the only time he felt alive.
He reached for the door to join his squad and the world went black. What looked like a computer screen popped up in his vision, he read it slowly:
"Administrator Torst welcomes you to the initialization of the system to your world."
"Scanning for an appropriate tutorial…"
"Inherent magic too high, Scanning…."
"No tutorial found to fit inherent power…."
"Requesting assistance from the Administrator…."
"Returning to earth, more information to follow…"