Read Terms of Enlistment 01.2: Measures of Absolution for Free Online Page A

minutes.
    From the moment they leave the roof and go down into the service area underneath the roof, Jackson has a strange feeling about this call, a little nagging voice in the back of her head. The place isn’t restless enough to justify a company of TA. Something feels all wrong to her. Maybe Detroit has made her shell-shocked, paranoid even, but when she’s forced to pick between staff officer judgment and her own instincts, she knows which to pick.
    “Hold on,” she tells her squad as they wait for their turn to take the elevator down to the atrium. The other three squads of the platoon are already down there, and there’s no gunfire, no distress calls, but that nagging voice in the back of Jackson’s head screams at her not to let her squad go on that elevator.
    “Hunter 2, this is Hunter 22 Actual, do you copy?” she sends over the platoon channel. The Lieutenant doesn’t respond. She checks the TacLink, but there’s no status update for the first three squads of her platoon, all down in the secure area of the atrium by now. The short-range TacLink signal sometimes doesn’t have the pop to go through a hundred floors of reinforced concrete, but she should be getting at least something . Thirty troopers down there, and none of them in a spot to get a good signal?
    “Something’s fishy,” she tells her squad. “We’re not taking the elevator. I’m checking in with Company.”
    She walks to the door leading back to the rooftop. When she pushes the unlock button, the light flashes red. She tries again, gets the same result.
    “What’s going on, Corporal?” one of her fire team leaders asks.
    “It’s locked,” she says. “They locked it behind us. I can’t get on the roof to get better comms. Secure that emergency staircase over there.”
    One of her troopers tries the door of the escape stairwell.
    “It’s locked too.”
    “Those are never locked from the inside,” she says. “Break that son of a bitch open.”
    Two of her troopers take turns trying to kick down the stairwell door, but it’s a fireproof hatch with tamper-proof cladding, to prevent the residents from breaking into the maintenance spaces from the outside. They kick it a few times, but for all the good they’re doing, they might as well shoot spitballs at it.
    “Kelly, Grenade launcher,” she says to one of her fire team leaders. “Load buckshot. Aim at the spot where the main lock meets the frame. Everyone else, back to the other door. Cover the elevator door.”
    “What about the rooftop hatch?” Specialist Kelly asks.
    “That’s ten centimeters of laminate,” Jackson replies. “Can’t blow our way through that one without blowing ourselves up with it. Now move it and get that stairwell access open.”
    “What the fuck is going on?” one of the privates asks.
    “Don’t know yet,” she says. “No comms, and they’ve locked us in remotely. You want to take that elevator down and find out for sure?”
    “Negative,” the private says and eyes the elevator door.
    Specialist Kelly chambers a buckshot round in her grenade launcher and walks over to the staircase door. The other troopers get out of her way with some haste.
    “Fire in the hole,” Kelly announces.
    Her rifle’s launcher barks its deep authoritative thunder. The sound reverberates in the small service area. The buckshot load from the oversized caseless 40mm shell punches into the lock and doorframe like a wrecking hammer. Kelly walks up to the door and gives it a sharp kick, and the heavy steel door pops out of its shattered lock and swings open.
    “Where are we going, Corporal?” Kelly asks.
    “The fuck away from here,” Jackson answers. “Get to the floors below. Reassess the situation. Try to get the rest of Company back on the radio. Now move your asses.”
    They move down the stairwell to the floor below in tactical formation, rifles at the ready. Jackson can tell that some of the troopers think she's being mental, but she'd rather err on