SEAL Team 666

25

The peregrination back home had been one of tired solemnity. Fratolilio was laid in state in the middle of the Starlifter that had picked them up from Guam. It had taken six hours for the submarine that had recovered them to rendezvous with the aircraft carrier USS George Washington. Both the sub commander and the carrier-group commander had wanted to relieve them of the body, but Holmes and the other SEALs vigorously ignored the attempts to get them to relinquish their teammate. They’d never left a SEAL behind and they wouldn’t start now. The mission started at Coronado and it would end at Coronado. For Fratty it would end there forever.

Signal officers aboard the George Washington took possession of the hard drive from the target ship. Their job wasn’t to decode or decrypt any of the data, but to transfer it to SPG so that it could be worked on while the team was in transit back to base. Once extracted by SPG, the raw data would be analyzed for future target allocation, if possible. Reports from the submarine’s sonar crew, as well as local reports from Macau fire and rescue, told a tale of the ship aflame and sinking in the harbor.

Only the team and a few drunken revelers from the cruise ship knew the truth. One report of masked hockey players with a dog attacking the ship made it through the Internet lockdown, but that would likely die the death of a thousand spams as soon as the world read it, then dismissed it as a mad tweet from a drunken cruise passenger.

No one was in much of a mood to talk. The mission had left them numb. The constant adrenaline surge required to stay alive would send any normal person into a coma-like recuperative state. Even the SEALs with their hypermetabolisms found themselves leaden and exhausted, unwilling and partially unable to relive and recount the events that had just transpired. The electrolytes and intravenous nutrition provided on both the submarine and the carrier helped greatly, but no man-made drugs could ever repair the hole in their hearts and their idea of self, represented succinctly by the man lying in the middle of the aircraft.

Still, Walker had a lot of thoughts working in his mind, not the least of which was the reality that there were creatures and forces out there that had an intent to harm his great Red, White, and Blue, if not the world. He’d been preparing to fight other men only to discover that he was now fighting creatures whose existence could only be foretold in myth and legend.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Laws. “How you doing, FNG?”

“I’m not an FNG anymore,” Walker said softly.

“Why is that?”

“My first mission is behind me.”

Laws nodded. “Normally that would be the case. But you see, you’re the FNG until someone new comes to replace Fratty. Whether it’s a day, month, or year … until that happens, you’re the FNG.”

“Who made up those rules?” Walker asked.

“The great god of FNGs.” Laws leaned back and closed his eyes. “Now get some shut-eye. No telling what’s going to happen when we land.”

Walker remained silent for a long while. His head rested on a pile of cargo netting. Finally he prodded Laws in the shoulder. “Is it always like this?”

Laws opened one eye. “What do you mean?”

“Going out and fighting creatures that aren’t supposed to exist. All in a day’s work, right?”

“We don’t always fight creatures. Sometimes it’s the usual type of monster … the human kind.”

“But fighting the creatures … the monsters are a pretty common trend with Triple Six, right?”

“Sure.” Laws yawned. “Now get some sleep.”

But Walker was too wired to sleep. “I’m so damn juiced, I feel like Superman. I feel like I could fly if given the chance.”

Laws opened both eyes and propped himself up on an elbow. “Batman. Not Superman. You want to feel like someone, feel like Batman.”

“What?”

“Superman is bullshit.”

“What?” Walker asked, drawing out the word. “Superman is bullshit? What the hell does that mean? He’s the most powerful superhero ever created.”

Laws shook his head. “Nah, I call bullshit on the Man of Steel. Look … he’s so powerful because of Earth’s yellow sun, right? He doesn’t even have to try, as soon as he landed here, he was all-powerful.”

“And Batman has no powers. He had to do everything himself. Okay. I see.”

“Do you? Because the folks at DC went miles trying to hide the obvious.”

“Okay, now you lost me. What is this conspiracy involving Superman?”

“Hey, don’t roll your eyes at me. You’re the one who couldn’t sleep and had to keep talking.” Laws paused, flashing a menacing grin. “And yes, ‘conspiracy’ is a good word. It’s simple. The fact is that Superman should be fat. He should he a lard-assed superhero with flabby arms, a beer gut, and soft muscles.”

Walker laughed softly as he imagined that version of Superman. “Okay, man. You gotta explain that one. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Okay. Look at Batman. He’s buff, right?”

Walker nodded.

“And why is that?”

“Like I said, because he works out.”

“Like U.S. Navy SEALs, right?”

“Right.”

“Great. But when Superman bench-presses a Cadillac, he doesn’t even break a sweat. It’s like picking up a bag of feathers. Would Batman be buff if he bench-pressed feathers? Because that’s essentially what Superman does every day.”

Walker thought about it. The stronger you were, the more you had to do to keep that strength. SEALs weren’t muscle mammoths, but they were in elite shape, much like Batman. They went for strength rather than size. He did know that if he didn’t keep up the exercise, he’d lose it faster than it took to gain.

Walker thought on this for a moment. “Holy shit, you’re totally right. Why doesn’t anyone ever talk about this?”

“Conspiracy,” Laws whispered. “Now sleep.”

Walker laughed, then turned over and forced himself to close his eyes. Soon he was dreaming of Batman as a U.S. Navy SEAL, embracing old Stumpy with the rest of them.