The Winter Tyrant

Colonel Nathaniel Cross reviewed the reports from his recon team returning from the north. They had reported directly to him after arriving back at the bunker.

And the reason for this secrecy was simple: he had not received proper authorization to dispatch them north.

But he was glad that he did. The information they provided was more than enough to finally get the fools back in Washington to pull their heads out of their asses and order a proper assessment of territory previously abandoned to the ice.

Far more people had survived than anyone thought was remotely possible. And though the reports included that most of them were struggling just to keep themselves warm and fed.

The existence of a group that was capable of tracking his men with drones that had been properly camouflaged to blend in with the storm and their surroundings was something out of the ordinary.

Nathan typed away at his personal terminal, ensuring that everything recorded, every bit of evidence, and his own personal admission of guilt was included in the statement. Then he typed three final words.

"Unidentified Rogue Actors (URA)"

He let them sit for a long time. After the Long Winter began, the Union of Columbia retreated into prepared bunkers. From there, it maintained what remained of governance and civilization.

And as a result, much of the land had been temporarily occupied by rogue actors. There were generally three levels of identification used for contacts out in the snow.

Foreign State Actors (FSA) were the designation given to the remnants of other old world governments, specifically in regard to their assets embedded topside.

Then there were Identified Rogue Actors (IRA.) These were survivor settlements, communities, and compounds that, as far as the Union of Columbia was concerned had no form of legitimacy and were unlawfully occupying Columbian land.

They were however, identified and classified as per threat level. However, there was a third and final category. Unidentified Rogue Actors (URA.)

And they were the most troublesome, because they had yet to establish formal contact or gathered sufficient intelligence to gauge their capabilities.

One was established by the abbreviation URA if there was some degree of evidence of their existence, and their capabilities from the evidence gathered was advanced, or threatening enough to warrant further investigation.

For Colonel Cross to label Elysium as a URA, it meant that it would receive priority from the higher ups, and forced them to recognize that the so called "uninhabitable zone" was actually quite habitable, and thus had become a blind spot for their own intelligence.

Nathan sighed and shook his head after crossing his Ts and dotting his Is. He had effectively just admitted to high command that he had acted in insubordination, and because of this he poured himself a stiff drink.

He grimaced upon letting the taste touch his tongue. As always, it burned like diesel, and was no smoother to drink, but it got the job done.

And once he was well and truly loose, he sighed once more and pressed the enter key, leaning back in his seat as he watched the file upload to the proper channels.

He would likely be made an example of for this. There was no doubt in his mind, and yet, he knew that it needed to be done.

He looked around his office as he poured himself another drink, loosely letting his thoughts escape his lips as he did so.

"I won’t miss this place."

His thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door, and a voice he was all too familiar with.

"Colonel Cross, do you have a moment?"

Truthfully, if Nathan was being honest, he was actually glad that his forward observation post did not have a bunch of sticklers to decorum and "etiquette."

Many of the men shot from the hip and spoke like it too. And the moment he heard that voice he pulled out a second glass and poured another drink.

"Come on in, James...."

The door opened to reveal the captain who had led the reconnaissance team north. The man had changed out of his winter coveralls and multi-layered sub-zero clothing.

Instead, he wore normal fatigues as he stepped forward and sat down without ceremony. Lifting the glass that the Colonel had prepared for him, as if he were trying to drown out the memories he had recently made.

The liquid vanished in a matter of seconds, and it was only once it was all gone that James spoke again.

"Sir... If I may be so bold... I can’t stop thinking about what happened out there. There are a handful of operators on the planet who could catch us off guard and keep an eye on us without notice. If that drone was watching us as we were staking out the area, it means they clocked our movements much earlier. No way that was LSOR. Not a chance... they don’t have the stones, nor the capacity to catch us with our pants down like that."

Nathan smirked as he heard the words before handing over his notes on the file he had submitted to Central Command. He tapped the three letter abbreviation that James quickly read aloud in shock.

"URA... you can’t possibly mean-"

But Nathan cut him off as he nodded his head.

"Yup... one of our men is out there.... I don’t know who he is, what unit he served with, or what his objectives are. But there’s no doubt about it, we left someone behind by mistake who was either one of us or with Special Recon, and now he’s building an army."

The very thought froze Jame’s veins, he couldn’t even move. But he could still speak.

"Do you think we should reach out to him, see if he’s willing to come back to our side?"

James couldn’t expect the look of pity, or perhaps envy that overcame him the moment he finished his own drink.

"If Central Command had left your ass in the snow, only for someone like me to find you after six months later after you have already survived on your own, would you be willing to submit and accept our apology?"

There was no answer... because they both already knew what it was.