Alpha
At ten years old, Sebastian Roth should have been too young to understand what it meant that his father was deploying. Unfortunately, he understood the reality all too well. It was his father's third deployment to the Sandbox since he was born. He even understood what the Sandbox was and knew it wasn't at the park.
His father, Master Sergeant Joseph Roth, US Army, was a man of honor who believed it was every man’s responsibility to serve his country. He was a third-generation soldier. He was a loyal husband and a loving father.
After embracing and kissing his wife, he laid his hand on Sebastian’s shoulder. “You’re going to be the man of the house again until I get back. I know you’ll honor your mother and help her as much as you can. And I know you’ll help look after your little sister,” he said.
His dad had only been home for six months this time. Young Sebastian couldn’t believe he was going again so soon. “Yes, sir,” he said. “How long will you be gone this time?”
“Until the mission is complete, son, until the mission is complete.” He hugged his son and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. Those words were the last the master sergeant ever said to his son.
Sebastian watched him cross the tarmac with his duffle bags and fall into formation with the rest of his unit near the military aircraft that waited to take them all far from home. His mother had tears trickling down her cheeks. She picked up Kelly, his five-year-old sister, and hugged her tightly. Sebastian wouldn’t cry. He didn’t want his father to look back and see him not being a man.
The flag-draped coffin made him cry, though. The soldiers folded the flag and handed it to his mother, seated beside him. That was when he swore that when he grew up, he would serve as his father had and he would finish the mission. He never forgot that promise he made himself that day.
Twenty Years Later
There was no such thing as a routine mission. That was the first thing SO Roth learned when he was assigned to SEAL Team Four. He had begun his Naval service as a corpsman. But several years in, he decided to fulfill his dream of becoming a SEAL.
He completed the grueling training, finishing at the top of his class. After all, he had several years of serving in the Navy and had successfully completed several schools. He knew how to excel at training given by the Navy. Combat Medic Training was the highlight of the training for him, though. He wanted to serve where he could do the most good, and at the moment of injury, that was the place. Add in the Special Warfare Training, BUD/S and Jump School and he knew he brought everything to the table.
Earning his Budweiser Badge was the achievement he was the proudest of.
The camaraderie with his fellow SEALs satisfied something inside of him that just serving as a corpsman didn’t. It was a different bond than what he felt with his coworkers at the Naval Hospital. They were his brothers, and they were the elite. He respected the courage and dedication his fellow SEALs had. It inspired him to rise to higher levels, just by being in their ranks. Yes, he was honored to be one of them.
He’d successfully completed several missions with his team a year into his time as a SEAL. They pulled off what others thought was impossible. They worked hard and played even harder. And they spent all their time together. His team’s last assignment was running covert missions into Afghanistan to extract assets left behind after the U.S.’s fucked up withdrawal.
Operating out of Ayni Air Base, Tajikistan, Roth and his team had successfully extracted thirteen people since deploying on this mission. There had been several close calls, but so far, they’d lost no one.
That would change in the blink of an eye.
It was zero dark thirty. Their usual time to board the chopper that would drop them inside Afghanistan. Many of the men were superstitious and had pre-mission rituals. His team lead always kept a half-smoked cigar in his shirt pocket. It was his good luck charm. That night, as the chopper lifted off, he discovered it wasn’t there. An ‘off’ feeling settled over the team as the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk flew across the border.
They always altered their LZ, not wanting to have a pattern if the Taliban were on them. But that night, they landed in an area they’d set down in before, two clicks north of a farmhouse where a safehouse had been established by a kindly old couple who had helped the U.S. forces while they were in-country. It was time for that couple to be extracted, as they now feared for their lives after helping to get others out.
The drone flew in first, as always, and showed only two heat signatures coming from inside the small farmhouse. The rest of the area was quiet. The team received real-time reports as they neared. After one last weapon’s check, the eight men donned their NVGs, secured their helmets, and lined up on either side of the chopper to fast rope in.
The doors slid open, bringing in the cool breeze that whipped through the chopper. One by one, the men jumped out into the dark night and dropped from view. Roth went last. When he reached the ground, he found one of his teammates had landed on a rock and fucked up his ankle. He couldn’t walk. Not only would they be down one man, but the chopper also then had to land to pick him up, spending more time on station. This was problematic as it could draw more attention. Not what they wanted. The injured man was helped in, and then the chopper lifted back off as Roth and the others headed in the direction of the farmhouse.
“See, L.T.” Roth whispered to his CO. “The hex already played out from not having your cigar. No worries now.”
Lieutenant Palmer wasn’t so sure. Something was nagging at him about this mission. But he didn’t share that ominous feeling with any of the men.
They were a good distance from the farmhouse, but close enough to see it through binoculars. They’d never approached the structure because in prior pickups, the target to extract would be brought out to a rendezvous location about a click away from the house to a predetermined meeting spot.
“Have the drone make one more pass before we approach,” L.T. Palmer transmitted.
Roth noticed that he was being extra cautious.
The seven men hunkered down and waited. Two heat signatures inside were confirmed. Only then did they approach the structure and take up positions near it. Palmer, whose callsign was PawPaw, and Bentley, whose callsign was Mercedes, approached the house. Bentley was their only team member who spoke the local language.
They crept up to the door. PawPaw opened it and they stepped into the dark interior. Through comms, the team heard the conversation in the local tongue, a male and female. The team relaxed a bit.
“Crash, need you inside,” PawPaw transmitted.
Roth knew that meant there was a medical issue with one of the targets for extraction. Shit. This could make the exfil go a lot slower. He hoped whoever it was could walk. “Roger, on my way,” he replied.
He was nearly to the door when the sound he knew all too well approached from the east, as through his comms, the Operations Center at base transmitted a dire warning. “Incoming drone and it’s not ours.”