Departure!

APRIL 23RD, 2009
TAMPA, FLORIDA
11:15 AM

News of the imminent departure spread through the camps like wildfire. Their excitement was of a decidedly stupid nature: they'd get to see the fighting almost immediately, with only a minimum of training and drill, but that also meant that they would likely be killed without a moment's notice, or at the least prove incompetent soldiers. Under such circumstances, a baptism of fire would likely drown the lot of them. But they celebrated, hooting and hollering, all the same.

Groggy, on the other hand, was not amused. He was in a state of absolute panic, and was demanding an audience with Generals Ale and Jenkins. As eager as he'd been to go to the front lines and fight, he was smart enough to realize that jumping straight into combat with his men as they were was simply suicide.

Jenkins, of course, had not bothered to tell Groggy that his regiment was supposed to be left behind. But he'd be damned if he'd allow orders to delay his satisfaction, and as he chowed down on a stew served up by Lieutenant Ack and swilled a large gallon of rum, he couldn't help but enjoy watching his subordinate and unwitting victim squirm.

"WHERE'S MY RUM!?!" Captain Harriman shouted, looking at the flask.

"Rum is for heroes, Captain," Jenkins said between chews. "You prove yourself a hero, you can drink out of my jug."

"She proved herself well enough in Mexico, sir," Groggy said impatiently.

"Be that as it may," Jenkins continued, "this is my tent." He then took a long, hard swig, much to Harriman's consternation.

"Our departure is in two hours! Why weren't we informed!?" Groggy demanded, his voice high and frantic.

"Well, it's been said by my friend Gary Busey that getting there is half the battle," Jenkins said with a pompous air of faux-profundity. "What the hell's in this stew?" he said to Lieutenant Ack. The chef leaned forward with pride, but his Colonel interrupted him.

"Where must we go first?" Groggy asked frantically.

"To the transports," Jenkins said. "Boats, planes, helicopters, whatever. But there aren't enough of 'em, so you want to swim to Palacios?" He turned back to Ackt. "Mmm, this is nice and crunchy. What is this?"

Groggy and Joe Starbuck rolled their eyes impatiently at their commanding officer. Anna stared angrily at the General's rum flask, but Captain O'Brien met her eyes with a steely glare, preventing her from making a move.

"Ack's new stew," the cook said proudly. "Porcupine, water mocassin, gator, saw grass, tomaters, and some cayenne peppers for flavor."

"Porcupine? Where'd you get that here in Florida?"

"I'm resourceful," Ack said, chuckling to himself.

Groggy cleared his throat and shot the Lieutenant a look which said: Shut the fuck up.

"Sir, we can't just move an entire regiment out of camp, to transport and into a combat zone in six hours!" Joe Starbuck interjected, his voice as frantic as Jenkins' was impassive.

"Well, you've got to, Colonel Starbuck," Jenkins replied. "Don't say 'can't' in my presence, you don't have my authorization."

"We aren't properly trained, properly equipped, let alone prepared to move," Groggy said, helpfully rattling off his own inadequacies for Jenkins.

"Well, you're here on special appointment of the President, and so am I, Colonel," Jenkins said pointedly, sticking his subordinate's ambition back in his own face. "Your boys need to set an example but getting there first and kicking the Russkies' ass before those pansy-ass National Guard pricks with their weekend warrior bullshit can turn off their PS3's and waddle ashore to claim the glory." He then paused for breath after unspooling that doozy of a sentence, and inhaling a whole chunk of tomato in the process.

"You're on transport with the 71st New York," General Ale said. "But there's only room for one regiment, and it better be yours."

Of course, Groggy thought. The one whose Colonel's daughter I fucked. That only makes sense...

"You need to get to your transport planes right now," Jenkins said impatiently, testily chewing another nibble of Ack's indigestible codswallop.

"General Jenkins, we don't have access to any planes," Starbuck said anxiously.

Jenkins swallowed a bite and looked Starbuck in the eye. "COMMANDEER SOME!" he shouted.

As if struck by lightning, Groggy and his officers sprang into action. Groggy and Starbuck rushed immediately out of the tent, while Captain Harriman lingered long enough to knock Jenkins' jug over, spilling. Captain O'Brien angrily rose up and chased her out of the tent, but Jenkins just looked after them, amused. Everything was going according to plan. Then he coughed up something sharp onto the table, and saw that it was, of all things, a porcupine quill. He looked angrily at Lieutenant Ack, who just smiled stupidly at the general.

* * *

JOHNSON AIR BASE
1:00 PM

The 71st New York was assembling on the tarmac, lined up in perfect formation. A cadre of journalists and reporters, among them the ambitious Jim Tate of Llewelyn's New York Spin, were on hand to cover the event. They praised the bravery of these citizen-soldiers, watching with maudlin sentimentality as Colonel Ackatsis hugged his daughter Liz and his wife Tess, and as the little brother of one of the soldiers gave a flower to his brother. It was stuff Fox News and Hugh Llewelyn masturbated to every night.

As this, they didn't notice the "advance guard" of the 1st Volunteer Regiment hovering around the edge of the tarmic. About a dozen men, led by now-Sergeant Delta/Beck, were preparing to move in and seize the transports from under the noses of their intended.

"Aren't we waiting for Dundee's boys?" one of Ackatsis's officers asked, as the Colonel broke off his embrace.

"Nah, didn't you hear?" he answered. "They're being left behind."

"Alright, so it's just us?" the officer asked.

"Affirmative." He gave his daughter and wife one last kiss, then turned back to his men.

As he said this, Beck drew his side arm, and with two other men, Brewer and Buckley, he snuck up on the pilot of the first plane. He knocked on the cockpit door and the pilot opened it.

"Excuse me sir," Beck said in an officious voice, "These planes are being transferred to the 1st Volunteer Infantry."

"Sorry, Sergeant, I was told the 1st Volunteer Regiment was being left behind."

"Well," Beck said, cocking and aiming his sidearm, "You have new orders."

The pilot, bewildered, rose his hands above his head as Beck climbed into the co-pilot's seat. "Just fly when I say fly," he told the pilot calmly, sticking his gun into the pilot's ribs. He then turned back and nodded, signalling for the rest of his team to replicate his action.

By this time, the 71st was finally ready to board. "71st, prepare to board by Company," the sonorious Sergeant Major shouted.

At this, there was a shrill whistle, and to the shock and consternation of all concerned, 780 hell-raising madcaps frog-marched double-time across the tarmac, eagerly leaping into the three transport planes.

"Hey! Hey!" Ackatsis could only cry out impotently as he watched Groggy executed his coup de main. One of Ackatsis's aides rushed up to the Colonel, saluting.

"What the hell is going on here?" Ackatsis demanded.

"Sir, we don't know," the officer reported. "The MPs... there were too many of them to stop."

"What do we do, shoot the bastards?" Ackatsis angrily cried. "I'm gonna shoot that fucking Dundee, anyway," he muttered, gritting his teeth, hand reaching towards his pistol.

Jim Tate, the journalist, had his finger slip on the camera at just the perfect moment. The picture came out, showing the 71st perfectly assembled just as Groggy's hellions burst onto the scene behind him. It was sure-fire Pulitzer material. And now, instead of taking more pictures, he simply watched the anarchic, most unmilitary behavior unfolding with a mixture of awe and admiration.

The crowd behaved with a mixture of shock and indignation, except for Liz Ackatsis, who just smiled at her beau's brave action. She spotted the Colonel, the last man aboard the first plane, just it began to take off, and her slight smile turned into a broad grin.

"THESE ARE MY PLANES, DUNDEE!" the enraged Ackatsis shouted, waving his pistol. Two of his aides rushed forward to restrain him.

"Take off, now!" Beck shouted to the pilot of the first plane.

Groggy's men poked their heads and guns through the doors of the planes. "You want to make something of it?" Dan taunted from the second plane, pointing an M-60 at the crowd of Guardsmen and laughing maniacally.

"You're finished, Dundee!" Ackatsis shouted. "FINISHED!"

Groggy's men were less than civil in celebrating their victory. Just as the plane's engines came to life, one of his men unzipped their jeans and took a long piss on the tarmac below them. Several others pulled down their pants and mooned the Guardsmen en masse. Groggy just stood in the doorway of his plane, beaming with a mixture of pride and disbelief, as the plane took off. Once they were safely above the ground, the shouts of the Colonel and his men still echoing through the air, he climbed safely aboard and closed the door, turning to Captain Harriman, who was missing a strand of hair from her tussle with Captain O'Brien.

"Now THAT'S what I call decisiveness!" Groggy said excitedly. A broadly grinning Harriman could only salute in agreement.