USEC was such bullshit. The recipe was simple: a serving of "ask no questions" combat vets mixed with a fat dollop of corporate double-speak. It made money and covered asses. Win win.
As I've mentioned before, USEC didn't have the usual officer ranks. Instead of Lieutenants, Captains, Colonels, we had Managers, Directors and Vice Presidents. And instead of Warrant Officers and Sergeants we had Team Leads. And we had teams because, I kid you not, "there is no 'I' in 'Team'".
"There's no 'I' in 'squad'", I pointed out to the drone giving us the mandatory bullshit corporate presentation.
"There's no 'I' in 'division' neither" chimed in Jerry.
"There's two 'I's in 'division'", corrected the drone.
"Actually there's three 'I's in 'division'", I corrected.
You get the idea. Where was I? The helicopter. So after the helicopter was shot down I was pretty well freaked out. On one hand, the expected things happened - the police and fire department showed up (where were they when the crowd was trying to kill us?). Ambulances began to take away the bodies of the living and the dead. A fire hydrant was flushing away the helicopter fuel before it ignited and killed us all. Once the police had established their ownership, Jerry and I and some others went to the cafeteria and I got a plate of pelmeni and tried to keep my shit together. But on the other hand, things were definitely not normal. I was carrying a rifle, my magnetic wand had disappeared I don't know when. I had just faced down a murderous crowd and watched a helicopter get shot down right above me. And I still didn't have a clue why.
Police, ambulances, cafeteria, pelmeni - things still worked. It didn't even occur to me at the time that they wouldn't. I was freaked out about what had just happened but barely considering what might be coming. That's a rookie mistake - I had been out of the field too long. Sudan and Tarkov had made me soft.
I had just put my fork in my last dumpling when my campus security manager showed up and told us to head to Reception C. The campus buildings mostly form a ring facing outwards, and inside the ring is a lawn and tennis courts for the TerraGroup Labs employees, various other smaller buildings and a circular loop road that forms Reception C. It's used by the airport shuttle, and sometimes VIPs.
There were three full-size buses parked there along with five Escalades and an enormous Uran SUV. The buses were being loaded with a crowd of TerraGroup employees. Not all of them, obviously - there were more than seven thousand that badged in daily to this campus. But some of them, and with families, maybe 150 total. They were scared. Not just the kids - all of them. And seeing them made me scared - this day wasn't returning to normal. They should have been happy they weren't on the helicopter. A fairly big USEC detail was there already. We were split up, some assigned to the buses, the rest of us piled into the SUVs. I was ordered to drive one of the Escalades (I'm NOF but didn't question the order), seated next to me was the USEC vice president in charge of TerraGroup Labs Security Operations, Tarkov. The SUV had an in-dash clip for securing my weapon and a digital map and comms setup. We did a quick comms check and headed out, my vehicle in the lead. Mr. Vice President giving orders on his headset.
We departed the campus bearing in the direction of the airport. But we didn't head to the expressway, our route was roundabout. The VP had one of those ruggedized laptops and it had some sort of live satellite feed. From glancing over I could see that he was tracking a lot of motion on the screen, not just us, not just surrounding traffic.
"Speed up here, take the third left. We want everyone to get through that light." he ordered.
I sped up. Took the third left. Round and round the city we went, and as we did I began to see with my eyes what he could see on the screen: Russian armed forces were slowly moving through the city, cutting it up, choking off the expressway and other main arteries.
We pushed into one of the more industrial sections of the city, well out of the way of the shortest path. As we went, the caravan reconfigured, SUVs were now entirely in front of the buses, instead of intermingled.
"Butterflies stop before the next corner - Moths, take the right turn and fall out - be prepared to engage." he ordered. (When did we get codenames? Was that in one of the employee lectures I skipped?)
I took the corner. There was a sole little UAZ-469 jeep parked in the middle of the road, not even big enough to block it. Four bored soldiers stood around it. They were surprised to see us. One of them held out his hand in the universal symbol for "halt!" and stepped gingerly forward, grinning, his buddies watching him.
"No time for you my friend" muttered the VP. I brought the vehicle to a stop and began to open the door and reach for my weapon. He put his hand on my forearm - "You stay." he commanded without even glancing at me.
The teams fell out. "Engage." he ordered over the mic. There was a hesitation, maybe someone asked for clarification on the comm channel. "Engage! Shoot to kill. That is an order".
We engaged. The soldiers fell over dead. I don't remember if they were even armed. And as fast as they fell over, the teams re-boarded their vehicles, the buses cornered and our caravan resumed.
We crossed the rubicon. This was some heavy shit. We just killed Russian regular forces - that is serious act-of-war shit. But we had done it - we had punctured the hasty barrier and now were able to make our way slowly to the airport unimpeded.
I often wonder about the kids on the buses. Hearing the shots, then turning the corner and having their buses crawl by those murdered regulars.
We eventually made it to a road cut parallel to a runway, another USEC team was already there waiting for us, with the fence tore down. We drove through the gap. A 737 waited on the runway, stairs running down to the tarmac. The buses drove up next to the stairs, the SUVs made a protective semi-circle around them. Everyone fell out.
The Vice President closed his case and carrying it he came around the vehicle to me. "Thanks for driving" he said to me and shook my hand. He noticed my empty holster and then took out his service pistol and handed it to me. "Good luck."
I took it, but what I really wanted was that satellite fed laptop. He caught my eyes on it, smiled uncomfortably and turned on his heel and went and joined the crowd climbing the stairs to the plane. As he got in line I recognized coffee manager, wearing a blazer instead of that ill-fitting body armor. The vice president was greeted by coffee manager and others. As the sun set, they went up into the plane together, along with the lucky TerraGroup Lab employees and their families. The stairs were pushed away, the plane took off.
Did the entire USEC management chain just bug out?
There was confusion on what to do next. The team leads began talking amongst themselves. And this is the moment I constantly return to in my dreams. The Tarkov airport is well outside Tarkov. Just a short expressway leads to the M10 and from there St. Petersburg, maybe half a days drive? The fucking Vice President of Security Operations, Tarkov had just left. We had shot Russian civilians earlier in the day and then followed that stunt with murdering Russian regular army. We should not stay. We should go. I should have gone. Walked if I had to.
But there's no 'I' in team. Team leads came back and said the decision was to return to campus. We left the buses, squeezed into the SUVs and returned to Tarkov. The loss of the satellite laptop was offset by the cover of darkness. Using Yandex we slowly wormed our way through the city and managed to return without any more shooting. We arrived back at TerraGroup Labs sometime after midnight. Cafeteria was closed for the day, and it never re-opened.
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