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Johnson
were you in the war?”
    The senior agent nodded. “Fleet. I served five
years on the Yorktown, battleship class.”
    “Then you understand some of the horrors of war
but Fleet had it easy compared to Strike; no offense intended. Now, don’t get
me wrong, I would’ve hated Fleet. Your whole life in the hands of the ship’s captain
and if you got holed, you were dead men.” Lt.. Kristopher shook his head, “No,
I didn’t want your job but Strike had to get up close and personal.”
    “I have heard this argument before.”
    “Good, then you understand how deadly men in
Strike can be. Well, in a time when kills were a judge of a man’s merit, Iaido
was king.”
    “What did his duties involve?”
    With a shrug of his shoulders, Lt. Kristopher
snickered. “What didn’t they? It was war. It was nasty business. Officially, he
was a member of Omega Squadron.”
    The younger agent heard the sharp intake of breath
from his partner. Glancing between the NAPD lieutenant and his partner Agent
Smith asked, “What? What’s so special about Omega Squadron?”
    Lt. Kristopher turned his attention to the young
federal agent. “What do you know about the Mars Incident?”
    Agent Smith shrugged. “Only what I learned in
school. Some terrorists took the college students hostage and when the military
was called in, the terrorists blew up the spaceport killing themselves in the
process and releasing a toxic chemical that killed every living soul on the
base.”
    Lt. Kristopher shook his head. “That is what the
media was told. That is not what happened.”
    “So, what really happened?” the senior agent
asked.
    “You really want to know this?”
    Both feds nodded.
    “Okay, part of your story Agent Smith is correct,
the starport was destroyed and everyone on the base died or should I say were
killed. However the starport wasn’t blown up by them, it was destroyed by us. I
was a young ensign assigned to Omega as a handler when we got the call.
Blasting out of Starbase Alpha we were in Mars’ orbit within forty-eight hours.
The official story was that some scientists had been developing a virus to use
against the bugs but there had been a containment breech and the entire base
was infected. Our battlecruiser the Agamemnon bombed the starport on approach
destroying the three transports docked there and killing an unknown number of
civilians. Landing our shuttles, we stepped into chaos. The civilians were
going crazy. They were attacking anything that moved. It was like a scene out
of those late twenty-first century zombie films. Omega Squadron had orders to
‘pacify’ the population.”
    Special Agent Johnson found his voice first and
asked, “How…how many?”
    “There were ten thousand registered students and
almost one thousand staff member plus some odd numbered visitors or workers.
Moments after we landed the three hundred members of Omega went hunting. A
small squad of regulars stayed with our ship commander, Major McDowell. I was among
them. It was a long night. I can’t tell you which was worse, the screams or the
silence that followed. At dawn, the men returned covered in gore and blood. There
wasn’t a living soul on the base. Within the hour, a UNCF HazMat team arrived
and we blasted off to another part of the war. During that terrible time, if
there was a job too messy for other units, we were sent in. Omega Squadron
never failed a single mission, not until…”
    Special Agent Johnson finished the sentence in a
quiet voice. “Gilese.”
    Lt. Kristopher nodded his head. “Then you know.”
    Looking back and forth between the two veterans,
the young agent nearly screamed to get their attention. “What was Gilese?”
    Draining his orange juice, Lt. Kristopher reached
into his desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of Kentucky bourbon. Filling his
glass, he poured a second glass for the older agent. The two war veterans
raised their glasses in a silent toast before draining their drink in one gulp.
    Lt.