*****
All three squads had just finished getting their base ID badges made at the personnel offices. It had taken a little while to get their service jackets found and processed; and more than just a wee bit of discussion with Colonel Mitchell on whether or not the squads should have their real names put on the badges since the database was accessible by defense contractors as well.
A compromise was reached when Colonel Mitchell gave a command override and each of the squad members were given ID badges with either a nickname or call sign, to be chosen by each member. The people assigning the badges were not happy about it and some of the operators got more than creative with some of the names to the point that the people in Personnel absolutely refused to put the names on the badges.
Most of the squad got their nicknames. When Gus Tracy requested ‘Iron Man’, they allowed it. Lamb requested and was given ‘Hunter’, Ing Jacobs requested and was given ‘Gunner’, but when Tufo requested ‘Captain Poopy-Pants and the Diaper Gravy Brigade’ they balked…big time. He settled for ‘Zombie Slayer’, but he wasn’t really thrilled with it. Jack wasn’t sure if he should run with ‘Phoenix’ or ‘Chief’, but since it was just a base ID, he told the people in Personnel to surprise him. The first one they handed him had ‘Asshole’ printed on it. To his credit, he didn’t get angry. He laughed and said it was a perfect fit and clipped it to his shirt. But the cute little brunette behind the counter pushed past the sour older woman and handed him his real one that had ‘Chief’ printed on it. He tried, but failed, to keep the first one.
The squad members filed out of Personnel in twos, threes and fours. The last group was Jack, Tufo, and Apollo, each looking at the other’s picture and making fun of how they looked. “Go ahead, laugh it up.” Tufo smirked. “I’ve never took a good picture. You should see my driver’s license.”
“They’s a reason for that, little man,” Apollo joked. “It’s ‘cuz you UGLY.” He guffawed.
Jack laughed and the two high-fived.
Mark shook his head. “At least I can wipe my own ass without bending over and rubbing against a tree, you overgrown ox.”
“Aw, man, that was a bad joke, even for you, Tufo,” Apollo groaned.
“Yeah, true,” he admitted. “How about this? At least I don’t chase cars by the moonlight?” he shot back. “There! I gotcha with that one.”
“We may hike on trees, but we don’t chase cars,” Apollo muttered back.
Tufo mimed having a stick and throwing. “Here, boy, get the stick, want the stick? Want the stick? Get the stick, go get the stick!”
“Okay, that’s enough, you two.” Jack held a hand up between the pair.
“Man, he’s just jealous ‘cuz we can bench press a truck and he can barely lift his old wrinkled ass out of bed in the morning,” Apollo said.
“Bull. I can keep up with you mongrels any day of the week…” Tufo began to argue when Nadia called to Jack from across the parking lot.
“Jack!” She waved to get his attention.
“Hey, you two go finish this argument somewhere else. I’m gonna go see my lady.” Jack took off at a trot. He rushed up to Nadia and embraced her, swinging her around and pulling her into a sweet embrace. “I’ve missed you, beautiful.” He pulled her close and kissed her gently.
“Mm-hmm, I bet you have,” she teased. “What do they say of military men? A woman at every port?”
Jack laughed and squeezed her tighter. “This is no sea port, I can assure you.” He tucked her hair behind an ear and stared into her eyes. “I can’t get over how beautiful you look.” He held her face gently and pulled her into another kiss.
She pulled back to speak, “Jack, I need to tell you something.”
He nodded and took her by the hand, leading her toward the barracks where their room was. “Okay, but first, have you found where our room is yet? I claimed the one at the end of the hall because it has a larger window.”
She shook her head. “No, I…they placed me in a room by mother,” she explained, taking Jack by surprise. “But that isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Wait. Why would they do that? They know we’re married. I’ll talk to Colonel Mitch…”
“Jack!” she interrupted him. “This is important. Please.”
He paused and gave her his attention. “Okay. Sure, go ahead. I’m listening.”
“I must tell you something,” She began. “And I’m not sure how you’re going to take it.” He stopped and turned to face her. “I am with child, Jack,” she said softly, her eyes searching his.
Jack froze, his mouth falling open, his eyes widening…he wasn’t sure he heard her correctly, yet somehow he knew exactly what she had said. “You’re…what?”
“I am with child,” she repeated, slightly slower this time.
He had to remember to inhale to keep breathing, his eyes darting to the side. “A baby? We’re going to have a baby?” Panic started to rise as he thought of all the things that could go wrong…the upcoming battle, the vampire attack, all of the other wolves that would be coming here, Thorn’s vampires, the Elven warriors…too many fighters for her to be around…he had to protect her…
“Say something, Jack.” Her eyes began to tear up.
“We need to get you out of here, Nadia. It isn’t safe for you here.” He almost began to shake. “You need to go back to the island!”
Her eyes widened in shock. “Are you not happy that we are to have a child?”
“What?!” he exclaimed. “Of course I am, but I need to keep you safe! It isn’t safe here, Nadia. We’re about to fight a war! You could be hurt, the baby could be…” He lowered his eyes to her stomach and his features softened. “Our baby could be hurt.” He raised his eyes to meet hers, sadness rimming his features. “I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to either of you.” He pulled her to him and held her. “I love you too much to risk you…either of you,” he whispered in her ear. He could feel her tremble in his arms and it frightened him, the idea that anything could happen to her or the baby. “I need to get you home.”
“And I need to be with you.”
He pulled back from her, his eyes wide. “No, no…Nadia. We can’t risk that. We can’t risk anything happening to you now.”
She smiled at him and held his face, her tears running freely. “As long as you are with me, I will be safe. I know this.” She smiled. She kissed him fiercely. “I have foreseen it.”
He pulled back from her and stared at her hard. “A vision?”
She nodded, catching great gulps of air between sobs. “Yes.” She finally choked out, “A vision.”
Jack shook his head. “I don’t like it, Nadia. Not at all.” He still felt that she needed to be as far from this place as possible.
“I will be fine, Jack.” She pulled herself into his arms again. “I will be fine.”
He held her tightly and breathed her scent. He could feel her shaking in his arms, and he didn’t want to let go. The biggest part of him wanted to steal a truck and take her into the night and never look back. Maybe go back to the island; maybe make off for parts unknown. He didn’t care; he just wanted to be away from all this. Take her away from anything that might endanger her or the baby.
The baby…he was going to be a father! The thought struck him hard, yet it didn’t seem foreign. The idea of Nadia and him raising a child…it just felt right. Natural. Normal. He sighed heavily and squeezed her in his arms. “I love you so much,” he whispered into her ear.
“And I love you.”
4
Dominic knew that the sun would be up shortly and his time was limited. He needed to make better time, and the only way to do that would be to steal a car. He had found an old map in the trash and was able to figure out roughly where he was and where he needed to go. He was maybe an hour from Aviano by vehicle, but without money to rent a car or get a bus ticket, he was left with less than honorable means of getting there.
He found a few vehicles parke
d along the empty street, but they were too modern. Too hard to hotwire. Near the corner was an old Renault, a piece of crap if ever there was one, but old enough to hotwire. He approached the vehicle carefully and braced himself to knock out the window. Just as he was about to break the glass, he looked down and saw that the door was unlocked. Stupid move, friend. Might as well put a sign up that says ‘steal me’. He opened the door and waited for a siren or for the horn to honk, an alarm of some kind, but…nothing. He glanced at the ratty interior of the car and shook his head. This thing had obviously seen better days.
With a heft and a heave, Dom got down and ripped the lower part of the dash out. It was then that he saw the keys dangling in the ignition. You gotta be fucking kidding me? He sat back up and glanced around, surely thinking that it was a setup of some kind.
After ensuring that nobody was indeed watching him, he wedged his large body behind the wheel of the little car and tried to start it. It fought him and belched and backfired, popping and wheezing, bit it finally came to life and sputtered. Dom thought that surely the little rusted car had woken the entire neighborhood, but no lights in the nearby windows had come on. He slammed the door shut and pulled out as quickly as he could…which wasn’t very quickly. He had to baby the car to keep it running. He prayed silently and desired greatly to beat the dash but feared the entire car would break and he would be left walking again.
He glanced at the fuel gage and it read half a tank. Surely that was enough to get him to the Air Force base. Dom forced the little car onto the highway and began working his way toward Aviano, a prayer on his lips that the little car made it without incident, the vehicle fighting him the entire way, belching and farting and backfiring as it slowly picked up speed. Just once I’d like to steal a Benz and cruise in style, he thought as the little Renault shook and shimmied along the road. Dom felt as though he was trapped in a paint shaker and the little machine was trying to loosen his back teeth.
He drove for nearly forty minutes, closing the distance to the base when the little car’s sputtering became much worse. It would lurch forward and then pull back, lurch and pull; and finally…it sputtered to a stop, the lights on the dash all lighting up as the engine stopped entirely. Dom fought with the car and worked it to the side of the road, a few cars speeding by him, some laying on their horns as they flew by. He noticed that, although he had driven for over a half hour, the fuel gage never moved. Great! I steal a car with a broken gas gage and no gas in the tank!
He forced his way out of the car and slammed the door hard, causing the side mirror to fall off and shatter on the ground. He reared back to kick the little machine before realizing it wasn’t the machine’s fault that he had shitty luck.
Dominic chuckled to himself and laid his head across the top of the car. “Too bad, old girl. I was just getting used to you shaking the shit out of me.”
He turned and looked up the lonely highway, a smattering of vehicles racing past him. Dom shrugged and stuck his thumb out. With a little luck, he might catch a ride.
*****
“So what did the cutie-patootie major have to say?” McDonald asked.
“Same old, same old, ‘try to play nice with the wanna-bes because they’re going to be here for a while’. That sort of crap.” Captain Roberts poured himself another cup of coffee.
“What did you tell her?”
“What do you think I told her, James? I just said ‘yes, ma’am’ and ‘we’re professionals, we can deal with a little friction’ and basically kissed her ass.”
McDonald shot him an evil smile. “I’d like to kiss on that ass. She sure fills that uniform out good, if you know what I mean.”
Roberts shot the man a vicious look. “No, James, I don’t know what you mean. Why don’t you explain it to me.”
McDonald blew him a kiss. “You know exactly what I mean. I bet you probably tore a piece of that off already, ain’t ya, boss?”
Roberts rolled his eyes. “Jesus, McDonald. Could you be any more uncouth?”
“Tell me what a couth is and I’ll try to be one.”
Roberts sipped his coffee and turned back to the daily reports. It appeared that at least the commandos had gotten ID badges, but…why in the hell wouldn’t they be issued under their real names?! How could he pull their service records if he didn’t have names? He went through the list of badges issued. Padre, Spanky, Apollo, Zombie Slayer…he laid the list aside and sighed. Mitchell was screwing with him again and it was really starting to piss him off.
“James, I need you to do something.”
“If it’s that major, just say the word, boss. I got the perfect tool for the job.”
Roberts rolled his eyes again. “Would you fucking grow up, please?” McDonald snapped to and almost appeared hurt. “I need you to go to Personnel. See what that old bitch that works behind the counter can give us on those commando-types that went through there today. I want real names, branches of service, the whole ball of wax.”
McDonald glared at him before getting to his feet. “Yes, sir.” He stormed out of the room, slamming the door on his way out.
Roberts watched him leave and debated writing him up for his comments about the major and for insubordination, but decided against it. The man was volatile enough without being provoked. He would simply keep his chain shortened and watch him to make sure he didn’t do something any more stupid than he normally did.
But the commandos…now they were another story. Roberts would stop at nothing to discover what their story was and why they decided to invade his base. He knew that something was up, and that this new base commander had something to hide. He was just too…shifty. He could smell it on him. He had pulled all he could on Mitchell but the guy was a freaking Boy Scout. Not so much as a parking ticket. It was as if he graduated high school, went to college, did nothing but attend class and then signed up for the military where he slept, ate and breathed his job. He flipped through his report on Mitchell again and shook his head.
“Nobody is this fucking clean.” He shoved the file into his private cabinet and locked it.
Captain Roberts grabbed a Motorola on his way out and signed out of the Man-Cave. He took the keys to his Jeep Cherokee and headed out to do a perimeter check. He needed to clear his thoughts and the outer perimeter always helped him with that.
*****
Laura felt her stomach rumble and realized that she had skipped another meal. Her hands were beginning to shake a little as her blood sugar dipped so she handed over her manifests to the CDO and asked Tufo to join her for lunch.
“I could eat.” He patted his midsection. “I can always eat!” The two left the new site of the Operations Command Center and worked their way to the base cafeteria. Having not been there before, Laura hoped that they didn’t only serve food at specific times, as eating out of a machine didn’t appeal to her at the moment.
As they entered the building, Apollo and Donovan were exiting, Williams carrying a large fruit basket and Mylar balloon that said ‘Get Well Soon’ on it. “Where are you going?” she asked.
She could have sworn that Apollo blushed as he lowered his face. “Uh, we headed to the infirmary.”
Donovan decided to chime in and explain a bit more, “Apollo felt guilty for beating the bejeezus out of that security guard, so we’re taking him a fruit basket and a balloon.”
Tufo grinned. “They were out of teddy bears, huh?”
Laura grinned at them. “That’s very sweet of you.” Her stomach growled in protest and she turned to follow the scent of the food inside. “Just, be nice when you give it to him, okay?”
“Of course.” Apollo actually appeared wounded by her words. “That’s the whole point.”
“Hey, boss, as much as I enjoy a nice meal with a pretty lady, I think I might hang with these two. Keep them out of trouble.” Mark hooked his thumb toward Apollo and Donovan.
Laura gave him a smirk but swatted him on the butt as he turned and left. “Traitor!” she teased
as he took off. She turned and entered the cafeteria as Mark took off after the other two.
“So, you were really feeling guilty, or what?” he asked as he caught up to them.
Donovan turned and shot him a smirk. “Mitchell says we have to play nice, so…”
Mark snorted. “So you think a fruit basket is appropriate for ‘sorry I broke your wrist when you tried to blow my buddy’s head off’?”
“Personally, I think a bullet with his name on it and a nice written warning is appropriate,” Donnie laughed.
“Now, now,” Apollo said, mocking them, “you boys play nice. They can’t help it that they stupid.”
All three chuckled as they approached the infirmary. Apollo took the lead and asked the charge nurse where the security guard was at. She directed him to the room and the three marched to the end of the hall.
Donovan slowly pushed the door open and Apollo stuck his head in. “Hello?”
“Yeah, come on in,” the security officer said. He was sitting up in a hospital bed, his forearm in a cast and a bandage around his head.
“Ooh, shit, man,” Apollo said and meaning it. “I really didn’t mean for that…”
The man waved him off. “Don’t sweat it. I get a four week vacation and all the ice cream I can eat.” Then he thought a moment and smiled. “Wait…I think that’s when you get your tonsils out.” He shrugged. “Whatever.”
Apollo gave him an apologetic smile. “I really am sorry, man, I was just trying to keep you from shooting my pal.”
“Meh. I wouldn’t have shot him.” He glanced around to make sure nobody was listening. “But we were given directions to give you boys a ration of shit.” He eyed the three of them questioningly. “Any idea why?”
The three shrugged. “Not exactly, but I think we all got off on the wrong foot.” Tufo pulled up a chair. “Who told you to give us hell…if you don’t mind me asking?”
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