Sergeant Parker (Lucas parker)

6/4/2031,

USS WASP,

Philippine sea,

604 km from Guam,

The crackling of fire soon invaded his ears. What was he supposed to do?, what can he do, all he could do was watch helplessly to change things as the fire engulfed the house destroying everything he loved, as it was before, and before… and before, yet every time he is to bear witness this tragedy he feels no different, he feels as he was there all over again, seeing it for the first time…It was all his fault.

The Fluorescent Lights Buzzing above drove him out of his sleep, his eyes automatically went to his watch, 19:30, it was time to get his ass up and work his shift, Lucas looked over the rack to see his rack mate Sawyer heading in to get some sleep.

“Anything I can expect for tonight Sawyer.” I say grabbing the attention of the man across from me, as I begin to get off my rack. And dawn my duty belt and cap.

“Some paper pusher fucked up the paperwork and now we have nearly double in some of our supplies and shit” said sawyer as he started to get into his rack.

“And that means”.

“It means you will be in the storage bay writing down all the extra cargo we have for tonight so we can compare that to the manifest and some other shit, you will see when you get down there now let me gets some god damn sleep” Sawyer said as turned away in his bunk getting ready for an good night's sleep.

“Shit…ok well see you in the morning” I said heading out of the room, hopefully it won't take the whole shift, I mean who wants to read labels all night, it is not appealing. One of the pros to having graveyard shift is that there less people around, and by less I mean a fuck ton. With being on a ship with 3,000 souls on board you don't see this place being somewhat empty, with few marines and sailors walking about. Doing whatever their job entails. So getting graveyard shift is both a blessing and an curse, and trying to sleep during the day when there is a lot of activity.

Entering the storage bay, Parker eyes come across the Lieutenant of his company leaning against an LAV-C2, an communications command vehicle in storage. Briefing a group of marines on what they will be doing tonight, though not Loved by the company, he was seen as one of the decent leaders of the group, and can be quite chill if you get on his good side. And luckily Parker is on his good side.

If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

“Good to see you sir” Parker said approaching once the Lieutenant sent away the marines to do what they were told, hopefully he was in a good mood today.

“ Sergeant... I can't say the same, now someone fucked up and now we ha-”.

“I already have been told the situation sir” I say though it was risky to cut off a Commanding Officer I'm sure he didn't want to explain everything again.

“...yea how it went unnoticed for this long is beyond me, anyway get you and your squad to log all in the shit in the Depot 3 the others squads in the company will be logging depot 2 & 1 in” said Wilkins, it was quite easy to tell how fed up he is with this situation, by the scowl on his face anyone no matter how brain dead there are can tell how pissed he is right now. Doing inventory was not something no one wanted to do but hopefully last shift did most of the work and they could sit around for a bit after finishing it up, but now he must grab his squad and get to work. so off to the vehicle bay to grab his squad.

Entering the vehicle bay, Lucas comes across his squad next to one of the new ACV well just one of his fire teams, most of his squad was on 2nd shift so he had to make due with who is available. Coming up from behind Lucas snatched a magazine from one of his squad members.

“Hey what the hell” said corporal James Madison, one of Lucas’s fire team leaders in his squad. To be exact James was in command of fire team A, the only fire team that still uses the M249 instead of the M27 IAR.

“Is that how you act to your SL James” I say while looking over the magazine that I have snatched from him.

“Shi- wonderful night Sir” James said while Immediately standing at attention from his chair, nearly falling over in the process.

“Relax I ain't going to kill ya, well not yet, anyways really? Hustler, come on man its not 2004 you can find better shit online” I say pushing the magazine into his chest.

“Well yes sir but we don't have any connection to the internet out at sea” said James while Lucas could see him visibly relaxing, which was good, He doesn't want the lower Enlisted to hate him.

“That is why you download that shit before, anyways everyone gather around I got what we will be doing tonight” it was going to be a long night, Lucas just wished there won't be too many distractions.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“This is all just a shit show, I mean seriously we have been dealing with China's constant harassment for about 5 years, it was manageable before that but now ever since they won the war against India its like their ego expanded 100 fold” James Said, he wasn't wrong, it has been quite chaotic sense the second Cold War started, at least Lucas now knows how the US in the 1950-80s felt when going against the soviets, well it seems history always repeat itself.

“Yea I know, that Is why they are sending more Marines, because China might now be stupid enough to invade Taiwan now.” Lucas said leaning on the guardrail, looking over at the ocean. there was a strange calmness the ocean came off, like controlled chaos.

“At least Russia has been quite quiet since the Russo-Ukraine war, still can't say who won that shit show,” he was correct. It was a pyrrhic victory. Who wins in that? “but I don't mind killing some Chinese peasant so I hope this shit blows up.”

“Yea I don't want to end up like Jarhead, I'd love to kill something, that being some Chinese farmer or soldier...what d-” Lucas dropped his cigarette as the ship hit a large wave, watching it fall to the Ocean surface. “Fuck.”

“Ha Tough luck sir” Said James with A smirk. “Do you thi-”.

“Wait are you seeing that…the water…its glowing.”

Then everything when black.