by R. K. Syrus
Darned thing of it was, Ennis didn’t have to be there. He’d passed basic training the previous year but flunked his academics. If he had qualified for Cadet Field Training with the rest of the second years, it was unlikely he would have been with Sienna’s plebe class at all.
Later, Ennis would recount he was only there to get a look at the incoming students. And, to hear Sienna tell it, swat slowpokes along with the flat of that sword he always carried.
During the Battle of Beast March, Cadet Reidt killed a farmer’s peck of the rifle-wielding terrorists. Even took down a machine gun strongpoint, armed only with his ceremonial antique sword. He also employed Sienna’s bowie knife to gruesome effect. He saved many lives until his collarbone was shattered by an assailant’s bullet. In the aftermath, Ennis was immediately locked up in an asylum.
He was placed under psychiatric hold for the maximum period allowed. The attack on the students was appalling, but even cynical New York coroners blanched at the savagery Ennis had inflicted on the bodies of the terrorists. With his blades, he had carved a bloody tapestry of retribution on their flesh.
Only Ennis’s family connections and a lack of living witnesses had kept him in the Academy. Eventually, the shrinks and lawyers, paid for by Ennis’s parents, had their day. Charleston’s notorious son was found not insane enough to be barred from a career with the Army. This diagnosis became a running joke, a new spin on the old catch-22.
Back at the Academy, things went better. The powers that be recognized the grit he’d displayed and made him First Captain, essentially class president. Sienna, who had by far the superior academic record, became his second-in-command.
• • •
The summer before her graduating year, Bryan and Ennis came out to West Point’s Tate Rink. Sienna was competing for All Forces boxing gold. Reidt proudly sported his polished First Captain insignia. The sports facility was filled with hundreds of people who were completely unimpressed. They were from Navy and had come a long way to see their girl beat the stuffing out of Bryan’s and the Army’s best girl.
Fat chance of that happening, he thought as he waded through the hostile side of the arena and absorbed more than a few jabbing blows from sailors’ elbows.
Tate Rink’s floor was, in the season, normally covered by hockey rink ice. Plywood had been laid down for some maintenance work. Tate was the perfect intimate setting for an inter-service throwdown. Army supporters’ faces were painted gray. Visitors, many from Annapolis, glowered back.
Hard-core Navy fans were as ready to be in a fight as watch one. Campus MPs paced nervously.
Bryan noticed the look of determination on Sienna’s face.
“You’re going to do great,” he told her. “Cut the ring off like we practiced and watch out for the southpaw switch. She pulls that in the last round. And don’t stress. At the end of it all, we’re on the same side.”
“Speak for yourself, Sergeant,” Ennis belted. “I hate these swabbies worse than backtalking plebes. Sie, go on and give her an epic thumpin’ for us all now, y’hear?”
He grinned, and in case they missed his speech, gave the Navy side of the arena a casually aimed finger. Bryan grimaced.
“Seconds out!”
Ennis exchanged shoulder punches with Sienna and jumped down from ringside. He started his side of the crowd off in a preemtptive strike of spirit.
“HOO-AH!”
The Army, Navy, and Marines had a similar exclamation, but each pronounced it differently. Some Marine special operators and SEALs, all older and battle-worn, led the counter chant in the angry-sounding Marines’ style:
“OO-RAH!”
A duo with Styrofoam shark heads plastered on shaved scalps pointed to their T-shirts:
The battle of decibels grew as the boxing match started. The ref gave final instructions. Once again Bryan saw who had real grit and leadership abilities. Ennis was the hothead who incited fights. Sienna was the closer who would finish them one way or another. It was Sienna who trained months to defend the Army’s honor in the ring, while Ennis, with the purest of intentions, tried to incite a flash riot.
That was why he’d consented to Sienna’s repeated requests to lead the Dogs of D Group when she graduated. She knew the Post better than anyone. She had left more skin and hair and blood on the toughest obstacle course on the Post than any future Delta operator. This first active duty command would bring her back home. Bryan needed to keep her close in a world that did not allow for do-overs.
The match went mostly like he figured. In the fading moments of the fourth round, going into the last, he did a tally. Sienna had to be up by two with the rest possibly even. The Navy girl was slower but a little taller. She had tried switching up stances a few times, but just ended up being pummelled by a forewarned and forearmed Army champion and ultimately knocked on her butt.
Suspiciously, the ref ruled it a slip. Still, it had to add weight to the overwhelming balance in Sienna’s favor. Any sane judge had to be counting the dozens of unanswered blows cleanly landing on the scoring areas of the Olympic-style gloves.
The Navy girl had long elbows, and her belt hitched way high. If nothing else, she was pretty skilled at evading shots. The other team thought they could tire Sienna out rope-a-dope style. In five rounds?
Sienna? Hell no. Not in fifty!
“HOO-AH!”
“OO-RAH!”
Clang.
Bryan pulled out the stool. Ennis gave her some water. As a cornerman, he was pretty useless. He spent most of his time scowling at the ref and anyone else that would meet his gaze.
“Hey, you got this,” Bryan said.
Sienna, mouthpiece out, gulped air deeply and evenly. She was far from exhausted.
“Damn if her belt,” Sienna said between breaths, “her belt was any higher, it would be a turtleneck.”
She smiled as she fit her mouthpiece back in.
“Just keep up the pace,” Bryan told Sienna. “She’s tired after a hard day’s work as your punching bag.”
“Seconds out,” the ref, an older guy who liked his dip, wheezed at them. “Final round! Final round!”
“HOO-AH!”
“OO-RAH!”
Sixteen seconds to go, and just like they planned, Sienna wound up with a finishing flurry to put herself over the top on the scorecards. She backed her opponent into the ropes, hit a series of hooks, and then slipped back and right, out of harm’s way. Textbook style.
She’s so got this! Bryan thought. Now just a final combination, keep her on her heels while the clock runs out.
Then the other girl rose up unexpectedly—
“TIME!”
The crowd, Sienna, and her opponent teetered on the edge of credulity.
“Are you kidding, ref?” Ennis yelled, his face turning purple. “Are you calling that low?”
In the audience, elbows, chairs, and fists flew. No one was wearing gloves. Bryan barely noticed the melee. The ref smugly addressed each of the three judges in turn:
“One point.”
“HOO-AH!”
“One point.”
“OO-RAH!”
“One point.”
Time-in began with Sienna’s opponent shaking her head with her gloves raised in a shrug. The Navy girl apologized to her for the referee’s inexplicable call.
The final bell could not be heard over the rising belligerent ruckus inside the enclosed arena. MPs hustled match officials out of the building. Through bullhorns they requested everyone clear the auditorium. They were holding tear-gas canisters when they made that request.
The one lost point made the contest a draw. It put Sienna in second spot overall. This was her senior year. She’d never get another chance. She’d been robbed.
A few weeks later, the president and General Halley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, shook her hand, and she was officially a butterbar second lieutenant.
Bryan really wanted to see her accept a plum posting in Hawaii or a safe one in Ge
rmany. Nothing ever happened in Germany. He also knew that was not her true inclination. So he called in every favor and bent every ear that would listen to get her request for assignment to his squad on the Post approved.
7
12 MONTHS AGO
FORT BRAGG
NORTH CAROLINA
“So, Sarge, we gettin’ a new CO, huh?” Probationary Private T-Rex asked as he opened the door of a countertop convection oven door. With a flourish, he brought out his homemade Mexicali surprise muffins.
Delicia “Snakelips” Ortiz wrinkled her nose at the chili powder smell. It reminded everyone of pepper spray. She nodded. “Yup, straight out of the Academy.”
“What ever happened to raisin’ up people from the ranks?” T-Rex griped. “In the Civil War, the Army made a general out of a twenty-year-old.” He flipped the muffins onto a big plate. They landed with tiny thudding sounds. “I don’t know how long I’m gonna stay with an organization that limits my personal horizons.”
“Rex,” Petr “Whitebread” Whitbrodsniewski, rumbled from his double-sized cot, “to get promoted, first you’d have to get uncourt-martialed.”
“That’s just paperwork. My legal team’s on it.”
“I hope this butterbar lieutenant is more tech-savvy than the last guy,” Nobu said.
He was their radio and communications security repairer, a.k.a. COMSEC, occupational specialty 94E. Everyone used the retro Army specialty “RTO.” At the moment, he was glued to his gaming goggles and multidigit joystick.
He pointed to his long, wide shelf of personal electronics. “Last one tried to use my Glowforge 3-D laser lathe as a microwave oven to cook his lunch.”
“Still smells like burned catfish in here.”
“Just after we got rid of the dog smell.”
Their command post had previously been a kennel for the service canines assigned to the Post. When it got too run-down to be decent housing for the pampered German Shepherds and Belgian Malinois, Bryan and his squad were moved in. That also gave the jokers in A Squadron (their main nemesis in Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta) the perfect nickname to tag on to Bryan’s team.
He picked up one of T-Rex’s muffins. The only surprise about them was how bad you’d get heartburn. He ate it anyway. It would be MRE pouches and iodized water for a spell.
“I didn’t want to say anything until the duty assignment was official”—Bryan checked his watch—“which it is as of three minutes ago. Some of you may know Second Lieutenant McKnight from the little hostage rescue in Ess Alüm.”
“The cadet trainee you brought along?”
“Has it been that long?”
“Time flies when you’re dodging incoming rounds.”
“I remember her, she’s a real Army brat,” Whitebread said. “She had the best sniper ghillie suits, was always hiding and betting the Delta boys they couldn’t find her before she could nail them with a paintball gun.”
“Little assassins grow up so fast, don’t they,” T-Rex said nostalgically.
“Mierda!” Snakelips said. “Now I’m really embarrassed about this place. You guys got to help me clean it up, no slacking this time.”
“That’s the other good news,” Sarge Bryan said with a mouthful of burning chilies.
Soldiers liked good news, they appreciated it before you asked them to follow orders that might get them hurt or killed.
“Besides getting ourselves issued a first-rate second lieutenant who graduated with honors and a double major in history and irregular warfare, our new officer comes with a brand-new command post. Location TBA.”
“Righteous!”
“Finally.”
“Hold on, hold on,” T-Rex cautioned. “Before we commit, let’s make sure there’s all the right plumbin’. I got my eye on a Galaxy GX58 Jacuzzi.”
T-Rex whipped out a fat brochure.
“Lookit this, it’s got forty-eight supercharged jets to take your flotation massages to a whole new level, an’ it’s got a seventy-seven-inch 3-D OLED TV with twelve marine-grade surround-sound speakers, an’ best of all, aromatherapy an’ waterline LED lighting, which ‘sets the perfect mood for intimate moments.’”
Snakelips cursed. “You are not having ‘intimate moments’ with yourself or anyone in our new CP.”
“Rex,” added Nobu more calmly, “you’re broke. Government stopped your checks until you’re reinstated. How are you affording all that?”
“My cousin in LA’s gittin’ me a sweet deal. Open-box discount.”
“Is that new barracks for sure?” Whitebread asked.
“Commandant signed off this a.m.”
“Location TBA, huh?”
Bryan looked around at the leaky roof. The former kennel was one of the most dilapidated structures on the Post.
“I’m sure we’ll like it better than this old shack.”
“And…?”
That quiet thinker Whitebread would know there was an “and.”
“And…” Sarge said.
Petr, T-Rex, Snakelips all snapped to. Nobu took out one of his gaming earbuds.
“Before Lieutenant McKnight is due to arrive, we snagged ourselves a nice cushy little support gig babysitting some Worldwide Help scientists. In Africa.”
8
DOD POWER STATION TALOS
NEAR THE NIGER RIVER
SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
“RIP rounds incoming!” Bryan shouted over the crack-crack-crack of gunfire coming from the tree line. “Everyone keep behind hard cover.”
He watched as his people quickly crossed the distance between the tree line and the automated power station.
He grabbed T-Rex. “That does not include the hippo grass in this here marsh, soldier!”
The high-tech rounds let off their secondary charges left and right of them. Pop-pop-pop. Sarge ducked the shrapnel by flopping down on Private Rex’s legs.
“Ow, man, have you gained weight?”
Bryan rolled over to better cover. He thought quickly about his deployment and the threat. They could absolutely not get pinned down in the jungle. Insurgents had appeared in a disorganized but deadly-as-heck ambush. They were outnumbered four or five to one. How could they hold the generating station until help arrived?
Bryan pulled his enlisted man behind a concrete buttress.
“Sarge!” T-Rex yelled at him over the secondary explosions of individual-portion-sized cluster munitions. “About that cushy gig you promised us…”
“Shut it, Private.”
Redundantly Invasive Projectiles split off into needles if they hit flesh. Each fragment had a little charge. This would make them pop into even smaller fragments seconds or even minutes later. An RIP bullet that missed the first time could cap you in its own sweet time.
What a crappy time to be a soldier.
“Why aren’t those big stealth drones helping us?” Nobu complained as he let off some cover fire. “They’ve been circling for a half hour.”
“We’re too close to the FOB’s reactor,” Snakelips said. “Can’t risk damaging it,”
“About time to remind them we’re government property too.”
“Not as valuable or dangerous as the uranium nitride that’s in the containment vessels.”
Snakelips zeroed in on the most active of the muzzle flashes in the tree line. Her custom rifle spat a suppressed round. That flash stopped, but five more took its place from all angles.
“Sarge,” Whitebread said, “do these insurgents know this is a set-it-and-forget-it reactor? If they break it open, which would take three days of digging and drilling, they’ll burn to death or die from radiation.”
Crack-crack-crack.
Pop-pop-pop.
Fire was incoming from a wide semicircle surrounding the station. Scattered at first, it was zeroing in on the Dog’s firing positions.
“Probably not,” Bryan said. “They seem more like learn-on-the-job types.”
There was a lull in the firing. RIP rounds were twi
ce as heavy as normal bullets and less accurate. The enemy might be resupplying or positioning for a better shot at them.
“Let’s teach ’em to keep their heads down. Suppressive fire—now!”
A few minutes later, things continued to suck.
The mission Bryan was leading was supposed to be “human augmentation of automated systems.” Worldwide Help doctors and scientists needed access inside the perimeter of an American Forward Operating Base: automated generating station called TALOS. There was a fever outbreak nearby. While WWHI were here helping the locals, they also wanted to study some artifacts of the Saan people.
All that was cool, until Nobu shut down the robot sentries. On cue, local a-holes in the form of a well-armed militia came after the TALOS’s mini nuke generator. Built by the Army Corps of Engineers, it was available to support the establishment of an Army main operating base on short notice. In the meantime, it provided electricity to thousands of farmers and fishermen.
Repositioning under fire, Bryan and the Dogs had regrouped inside the generator’s bunker-style entrance. He didn’t like that at all. Shrapnel rounds would bounce around between reinforced concrete walls. Even a cheap homebrew version of sarin gas could incapacitate them in a closed environment.
“Who said no active air support?”
“The regional combatant commanders at AFRICOM,” said Bryan, pushing a sandbag up to a window gap.
“Where are they again?”
“Germany.”
T-Rex cursed. “Now, let me think. If I had the choice of sloggin’ through a malaria-infested jungle or gettin’ a lap dance from a Fräulein in lederhosen…”
“Even before the insurgents took hostages, bombing was off the table,” Sarge said. “Now it’s doubly off.”
The WWHI doctors and scientists got overrun first. They were taken prisoner and were now mixed in amongst the insurgents. Shrapnel didn’t follow rules of engagement.
“Sarge,” Nobu ran in, panting. “There’s got to be fifty hostiles. They knocked down both of my drones.”