Chapter 11: No Going Back
The convoy shuddered to a halt in a dense copse of pines, engines sighing into silence. Soldiers emerged from the vehicles, their movements stiff and practiced, immediately pulling faded nets and bundled brush from compartments to drape over the ambulence and trucks. A low murmur of pain and purpose filled the clearing as they began unpacking field medical kits, moving between their own wounded and the civilians they’d extracted, faces drawn but hands steady. Tim helped Jack sit up, his fingers pressing gently against the pulse in her wrist while his eyes tracked the rise and fall of her bandaged chest. “Vitals are holding, but you need real imaging,” he said quietly, his thumb brushing a smudge of dirt from her cheekbone.
The transport shuddered over a pothole, the jolt making Jack grit her teeth. "You know that, I know that, but we have to make do." Spooks came up with a map. An hour later, huddled in the back of a gutted supply truck, the remaining team crowded around a topographic sheet illuminated by a single, low-hanging LED bulb. Calloused fingers traced potential routes over the paper, whispering arguments about choke points and clean extraction lines, while Tim watched their shadows, large and tense, dance against the metal walls.
Jack was quiet, taking into the information being presented, her eyes closed not to sleep but in assessment. “We head to base omega, they are going to expect the movement to the nearby bases. Omega also has the best stocked armory.”
“Get us rolling,” Jack murmured into her comms, her eyes closing as the drugs finally pulled her under. The convoy lurched into motion, a segmented metal serpent slithering onto a narrower, climbing road. Hours later, it ascended into a raw concrete throat cut straight into the mountain, disappearing behind steel blast doors thick enough to silence the world. Inside, the air smelled of damp rock and diesel, the walls studded with recessed sensor arrays and shielded gun ports. Tim watched the immense doors seal behind them.
The beep was swallowed by the groan of the ambulance’s suspension as Jack leaned forward, her movements stiff but deliberate. "Okay, inventory," she said, her voice all business, pushing the personal moment aside like a used gauze. She nodded toward the rear compartments. "Check how many units of O-neg we’ve got left, and count the morphine syrettes." Tim moved, the familiar task a welcome anchor, his hands automatically finding the cold metal latches. They started to take into account what they had, getting patients to somewhere and getting them settled, a silent agreement passing between them that survival, for now, meant focusing only on the next mile, the next wound, the next breath.
When the dust started to settle, Spooks begged for Jack to get some rest. Asking Tim to try and convince her to sleep.
Tim and Jack had a quiet private talk. “He’s right though,” Tim said, leaning against the supply shelves, but he remembered how her brain worked, it had a hard time shutting off. “That’s easier said than done,” she replied, her voice thin with exhaustion, her eyes fixed on the ceiling as if scanning for threats. Tim then remembered the one move that he used when he had to get her to sleep before; he took a seat next to her on the narrow cot and said, “Come here.” Jack let him help her sit up and shift next to him, and Tim gently rubbed her back, his fingers using gentle pressure, making small, relaxing motions against the tense muscles under her thin shirt. It took five or so minutes and she was asleep.
Once she was asleep, Tim got her comfortable under a blanket
Tim gave her hand a final squeeze before moving toward the front, where a man in a faded gray sweatshirt was monitoring a bank of screens. “Spooks,” Tim said, sliding into the passenger seat, his voice drained of everything but a blunt need for truth. The man didn’t look up from the grainy feed showing the empty base they’d just evaporated from. “She played you because you wanted to be played, Walker,” Spooks stated flatly, finally turning, his eyes reflecting the screen’s cold light. “You needed a damsel, and she needed a patsy—it was a cozy fit until the bullets started flying for real.”
Tim just nodded in agreement, Spooks finally asks a question, “I honestly never pictured you the rule follower type, you know the bottom?”
“Haha,” Tim chuckled the exaggerated laugh pulling a quiet chuckle from the both of them. “So you know who you pissed off?”
Tim shook his head, “I can’t think of any outside Jack. And you”
“well aside from Jack and me.”
“everyone..”
Spooks gave a curt nod, as it wasn’t really a lie, “one of the cases that the rat was asked to bury, we picked it up.”
Spooks handing Tim a file, “smuggling ring, apparently you pointed out a few things about an arm wound and called it in.”
“the rat getting it.”
spooks nodded, “then she showed up at your door. The bastards the guy hired, were actually nut cases, which is why that place went to hell. One liked pretty ladies.”
Tim took in the information, “that’s why, basically let killers loose in a hospital with a target and the rest are collateral.”
Spooks nodded, “Bastard even said they’ll put up a little memorial and the public will forget in a week. She didn’t expect to be attacked. The gun she had didn’t fire actual bullets for a few of the rounds, those were dummy.”
Spooks then had a thought on Tim’s girl problem, “you know what Walker? I think I know why the rat did everything she got jealous, she got jealous of you and Jack hence she decided to destroy it all. The rat may have thought she was loosing you to our side, especially since you agreed to come back in.
she didn’t have a play toy anymore and you were getting your brain cells back.”
Tim had to think about it all a moment. “It makes sense.”
“and Jack sounds like a fellas name, just out of curiosity, did you and Jack actually ever sleep together?”
Tim looked a little shocked but calmed a little and shook his head, “I got to base 1.5-2 the farthest.”
Spooks gave a low whistle. “Well, that explains the nuclear option.”
Tim stared at the concrete floor, the oil stains blurring as Spooks’ words settled like shrapnel in his gut. “She burned a city block to ash because I shared a bed with someone who never even touched me?” The hum of the ancient ventilation system seemed to grow louder, filling the silence that followed. Spooks just shrugged, the gesture utterly devoid of judgment. “Love makes people stupid,” he said, finally pushing himself off the stool to check the reinforced door, “but fear makes them inventive