TheeGoatPig
There is no R in my name
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2004
- Posts
- 13,163
This is a non-erotic short story that I started a few months ago. I only ever finished the first chapter (the second one is complete garbage and will be deleted and rewritten someday, maybe 
), and I never got any real feedback on it from other writers. Since I have been integrating myself into this community the last few months, I figured now was as good a time as any to ask what everyone thinks 
Death Sentence (working title)
Chapter 1
The Little White Envelope
Commander Samson Jensen Sat down at his desk and opened the large manila envelope containing his orders for his team’s next mission. There was a cover sheet, the mission rundown, a selection of photos, charts, and timetables, and a smaller plain white envelope made of flash paper, that would burn almost instantly without a trace. The paper on the inside would no doubt be made of the same material. Sam looked over the mission briefing first. The other envelope could wait until later. He knew what it was, it was just a matter of what name was inside of it.
They were a top squad of a special operations unit. They were basically assassins when the government needed a large number of foreign civilians to disappear. They always got the job done, they never left any incriminating evidence, and all of their men always made it back with nothing more than a few scratches. That is of course, unless one of these flammable envelopes arrived with his orders. This was the sixth envelope that Sam had received over the last eight years that he had been leading the squad. He knew that because he never burned the envelopes, only the page inside. His commanders would have a fit if they saw the little white envelopes on the side of his bookshelf. They were supposed to be destroyed with the page inside, but he never did. He liked to keep mementos, and so he kept the envelope to remind him life was short.
The little white envelope only ever contained a name. It confused Sam the first time he received this envelope. He didn’t know what it meant. His old commander hadn’t ever mentioned anything about it, though it wasn’t like he was ever prepared for taking over the team beforehand. Thompson hadn’t returned from his last mission, and never got a chance to hand down any advice on leading the team. Sam was sure it was something off the books, and so when he asked his commanding officer what this name was for, he knew to ask in a private, quiet, secluded area. The officer simply replied that “Oh, he won’t be coming back.” Nothing else needed to be said about it except how to dispose of it. “You might want to burn that,” he was told. Samson understood perfectly what he meant. No one needed to know how it would be done, or where it would happen exactly. All anyone needed was for the named individual to not be a problem anymore. Sam didn’t even ever ask why anyone wouldn’t be coming back. This was their way of solving problems. All of a sudden, Thompson’s failure to return didn’t seem so random.
Wilcot Thompson hadn’t been the commander of the team for all that long when he started getting out of hand. He was starting fights with other squads, entire squads, when not out in the field. The higher ups tolerated him so long as the missions were endangered, but after a little over a year Thompson became more trouble than he was worth, and even started bragging about the last place they were, and how his team annihilated a small village in Brazil, and could take out a platoon of regular army. The generals didn’t appreciate any of this, and so the problem was solved, and Thompson never came home. Sam always wondered who got that order, but by the time he had got the nerve to ask anyone, his team was comprised of entirely new members.
This line of work had a high turnover in employees. The fact that Sam had been in the same squad performing the same missions for twelve years was a miracle. Most people hardly lasted a year, with even less making it to five years. Only a fraction of people stayed for a full ten, and were offered retirement right away at that point. Sam was offered, but he enjoyed it too much. He was a killer at heart, even before he was trained, and returning to civilian life wasn’t for him. He would never be able to cope with it. He would probably go into organized crime if he were ever to be discharged from the service. He would probably have even more fun with life if he were to do that. Criminals were allowed to have fun with their assassinations. Sometimes they were allowed to make a spectacle of their victims. Sam knew he would be a great hitman, but he wasn’t. He was satisfied with what he was doing with his life, and returned to mull over the briefing in front of him.
“Looks like we’ll be hitting Quebec,” he said out loud to himself. He had to say it to himself, he was the only one in the room. He would have to go out the door and down the hall to say something to someone else, and he hadn’t even looked at the name in the little white envelope yet. He couldn’t leave that alone for even a second, and especially not to go tell someone about their secret mission up to a friendly country to eliminate a hidden terrorist militia group.
The mission plan showed an insertion point, where the militia was holed up, various routes of attack, what times would be optimally out of satellite visibility, and what would be done with the camp after everyone was taken care of. Sam had orders to bury the entire camp. A normal person would ask how eight men with no excavation equipment would be able to bury three-dozen men with their tents and whatever else was there. The simple answer is that eight men couldn’t. The briefing would prove you wrong though. It had a way, and it would take as little as two days. Sam had done it before, on foreign soil as well as domestic. That was illegal, but he had done it, several times. His team along with another from the same unit made a small Nebraska town of 65 disappear one week. Yes, it took a week to make the entire town of people, cars, buildings and all, disappear off of the face of the planet. That was five years ago, and he still hadn’t heard anything on the news about it. That’s a job well done.
After an hour of sifting through all of the technical data, Sam was pretty well versed with everything that he needed to brief his team. This one would be difficult, but they all were or a different team would be used. S.E.A.L. teams were used for the easy stuff. “S.E.A.L. teams aren’t used to make towns disappear,” Sam joked to himself as he picked up the little white envelope to finally check to see who the problem was that wouldn’t be returning from this trip.
“So who’s the trouble maker now?” he asked himself as he tapped the little white envelope on his desk. He didn’t like opening these things. It meant that he needed to eliminate one of his team members. They were all disposable, including him. And none of them had any family. That was a prerequisite for the job. Maybe that’s why there was such a high rate of troublemakers? Maybe you needed to be a problem waiting to happen to be the type of person to get this job in the first place? Sam never put much thought into how candidates were selected. He just did his job as best as he could. “I bet it’s Virgil. I never liked that guy.”
He grabbed the knife off of the desktop and slit open the little white envelope. After pulling out the page he feathered his fingers over the edge, still not wanting to see which member he would be losing tomorrow. It would have to be done in the heat of battle so that the rest of the team wouldn’t suspect him of it. He also had to make it look sloppy, to hide his treachery. Sam was good at making his members deaths look like the enemy had done it, even if he had only done it five times before now. Once he got his hands on a Russian grenade, and dropped it behind his buddy. Another he simply got behind the enemy and shot a bullet through the head of one of his team. Everyone just thought it was proof that they weren’t invincible, and that even the best team could be beaten by a nobody. But that wasn’t true. They had never lost a man to enemy fire. All deaths in the unit were from not-so-friendly assassination fire.
Sam unfolded the page and looked at the name, finally revealing to his eyes who the mark was. He then folded it back up and tapped the corner of the page on the desk a few more times. He then opened it back up to double check the name. He had never had to do that before. It only ever took him one look to see who it was. Even that first time when he had to ask the meaning, he knew the meaning the entire time. He just needed confirmation that he wouldn’t be put into the brig for it. After double-checking the name he folded the page up again and closed his eyes for a moment. Then he placed the page back into the little white envelope and put it next to the other little white envelopes on his bookshelf, and went to brief the men on their next mission.
), and I never got any real feedback on it from other writers. Since I have been integrating myself into this community the last few months, I figured now was as good a time as any to ask what everyone thinks Death Sentence (working title)
Chapter 1
The Little White Envelope
Commander Samson Jensen Sat down at his desk and opened the large manila envelope containing his orders for his team’s next mission. There was a cover sheet, the mission rundown, a selection of photos, charts, and timetables, and a smaller plain white envelope made of flash paper, that would burn almost instantly without a trace. The paper on the inside would no doubt be made of the same material. Sam looked over the mission briefing first. The other envelope could wait until later. He knew what it was, it was just a matter of what name was inside of it.
They were a top squad of a special operations unit. They were basically assassins when the government needed a large number of foreign civilians to disappear. They always got the job done, they never left any incriminating evidence, and all of their men always made it back with nothing more than a few scratches. That is of course, unless one of these flammable envelopes arrived with his orders. This was the sixth envelope that Sam had received over the last eight years that he had been leading the squad. He knew that because he never burned the envelopes, only the page inside. His commanders would have a fit if they saw the little white envelopes on the side of his bookshelf. They were supposed to be destroyed with the page inside, but he never did. He liked to keep mementos, and so he kept the envelope to remind him life was short.
The little white envelope only ever contained a name. It confused Sam the first time he received this envelope. He didn’t know what it meant. His old commander hadn’t ever mentioned anything about it, though it wasn’t like he was ever prepared for taking over the team beforehand. Thompson hadn’t returned from his last mission, and never got a chance to hand down any advice on leading the team. Sam was sure it was something off the books, and so when he asked his commanding officer what this name was for, he knew to ask in a private, quiet, secluded area. The officer simply replied that “Oh, he won’t be coming back.” Nothing else needed to be said about it except how to dispose of it. “You might want to burn that,” he was told. Samson understood perfectly what he meant. No one needed to know how it would be done, or where it would happen exactly. All anyone needed was for the named individual to not be a problem anymore. Sam didn’t even ever ask why anyone wouldn’t be coming back. This was their way of solving problems. All of a sudden, Thompson’s failure to return didn’t seem so random.
Wilcot Thompson hadn’t been the commander of the team for all that long when he started getting out of hand. He was starting fights with other squads, entire squads, when not out in the field. The higher ups tolerated him so long as the missions were endangered, but after a little over a year Thompson became more trouble than he was worth, and even started bragging about the last place they were, and how his team annihilated a small village in Brazil, and could take out a platoon of regular army. The generals didn’t appreciate any of this, and so the problem was solved, and Thompson never came home. Sam always wondered who got that order, but by the time he had got the nerve to ask anyone, his team was comprised of entirely new members.
This line of work had a high turnover in employees. The fact that Sam had been in the same squad performing the same missions for twelve years was a miracle. Most people hardly lasted a year, with even less making it to five years. Only a fraction of people stayed for a full ten, and were offered retirement right away at that point. Sam was offered, but he enjoyed it too much. He was a killer at heart, even before he was trained, and returning to civilian life wasn’t for him. He would never be able to cope with it. He would probably go into organized crime if he were ever to be discharged from the service. He would probably have even more fun with life if he were to do that. Criminals were allowed to have fun with their assassinations. Sometimes they were allowed to make a spectacle of their victims. Sam knew he would be a great hitman, but he wasn’t. He was satisfied with what he was doing with his life, and returned to mull over the briefing in front of him.
“Looks like we’ll be hitting Quebec,” he said out loud to himself. He had to say it to himself, he was the only one in the room. He would have to go out the door and down the hall to say something to someone else, and he hadn’t even looked at the name in the little white envelope yet. He couldn’t leave that alone for even a second, and especially not to go tell someone about their secret mission up to a friendly country to eliminate a hidden terrorist militia group.
The mission plan showed an insertion point, where the militia was holed up, various routes of attack, what times would be optimally out of satellite visibility, and what would be done with the camp after everyone was taken care of. Sam had orders to bury the entire camp. A normal person would ask how eight men with no excavation equipment would be able to bury three-dozen men with their tents and whatever else was there. The simple answer is that eight men couldn’t. The briefing would prove you wrong though. It had a way, and it would take as little as two days. Sam had done it before, on foreign soil as well as domestic. That was illegal, but he had done it, several times. His team along with another from the same unit made a small Nebraska town of 65 disappear one week. Yes, it took a week to make the entire town of people, cars, buildings and all, disappear off of the face of the planet. That was five years ago, and he still hadn’t heard anything on the news about it. That’s a job well done.
After an hour of sifting through all of the technical data, Sam was pretty well versed with everything that he needed to brief his team. This one would be difficult, but they all were or a different team would be used. S.E.A.L. teams were used for the easy stuff. “S.E.A.L. teams aren’t used to make towns disappear,” Sam joked to himself as he picked up the little white envelope to finally check to see who the problem was that wouldn’t be returning from this trip.
“So who’s the trouble maker now?” he asked himself as he tapped the little white envelope on his desk. He didn’t like opening these things. It meant that he needed to eliminate one of his team members. They were all disposable, including him. And none of them had any family. That was a prerequisite for the job. Maybe that’s why there was such a high rate of troublemakers? Maybe you needed to be a problem waiting to happen to be the type of person to get this job in the first place? Sam never put much thought into how candidates were selected. He just did his job as best as he could. “I bet it’s Virgil. I never liked that guy.”
He grabbed the knife off of the desktop and slit open the little white envelope. After pulling out the page he feathered his fingers over the edge, still not wanting to see which member he would be losing tomorrow. It would have to be done in the heat of battle so that the rest of the team wouldn’t suspect him of it. He also had to make it look sloppy, to hide his treachery. Sam was good at making his members deaths look like the enemy had done it, even if he had only done it five times before now. Once he got his hands on a Russian grenade, and dropped it behind his buddy. Another he simply got behind the enemy and shot a bullet through the head of one of his team. Everyone just thought it was proof that they weren’t invincible, and that even the best team could be beaten by a nobody. But that wasn’t true. They had never lost a man to enemy fire. All deaths in the unit were from not-so-friendly assassination fire.
Sam unfolded the page and looked at the name, finally revealing to his eyes who the mark was. He then folded it back up and tapped the corner of the page on the desk a few more times. He then opened it back up to double check the name. He had never had to do that before. It only ever took him one look to see who it was. Even that first time when he had to ask the meaning, he knew the meaning the entire time. He just needed confirmation that he wouldn’t be put into the brig for it. After double-checking the name he folded the page up again and closed his eyes for a moment. Then he placed the page back into the little white envelope and put it next to the other little white envelopes on his bookshelf, and went to brief the men on their next mission.
