“Oh, good, and that’s why I love you,” he said, leaning over to give her a kiss. “I promise, I’ll be there.”
He got out of the car, feeling only a twinge of guilt as he waved at Chance. He’d just been released from the Naval Hospital, and the first thing he was doing was going to the platoon. It might be screwed up, but he needed it.
His stay in the hospital had been short, only four days. And since he’d been in stasis ever since they’d dragged him out of the Anvil, for him, the fight on St. Gallen had only been four days ago. He’d seen his family every day in the hospital, and most of his fellow Marines had stopped by to see him, but he still didn’t have a firm grasp of all that had happened, only hearing some of the basics. The rescue had gone about as well as could be hoped, he knew. Over 5,000 hostages had been killed, but that meant that 10,000 had been saved. And when Noah had ordered the Anvil to breach the wall, 1,314 of the hostages had managed to escape through the opening they’d made. One-thousand, three-hundred, and fourteen. That number, at least, had been cemented into his brain.
Crashing the Anvil into the wall hadn’t been a sure thing. The Anvil, which had been written off as a total loss and had been left on St. Gallen at their request, had hit with enough force to penetrate the wall, but not bring it down, at least not immediately. The mass of wall had stood for close to a minute before tumbling down, burying the Anvil and her crew, but leaving a large gap over which the hostages could scramble out. The terrorists had pursued, shooting some hostages even after they had reached the other side before the FCDC troopers engaged the terrorists in a fierce firefight.
He hadn’t yet seen a recording of the crash, but Lessa had told him it was pretty spectacular. The commonly held opinion was that without the foam, none of the three would have survived. The foam had acted as a cushion.
Technically, none of them had survived. Diego, who as the driver was located at the furthest point forward in the tank, had been killed upon impact. Noah and Llanzo had survived the impact, but suffocated after; however, the fire foam had been designed to take into account that a tanker might not be able to exit a tank after the foam had been activated. While a human could not breath the foam (oxygenated foam wouldn’t put out fires, after all), it was treated to help prevent cell trauma to the lungs as well as lower the activity of brain cells. It had taken almost six hours to dig out the Anvil and retrieve the three Marines. Six hours was longer than what was recommended for a body before it could be put into stasis, but for Llanzo and Noah, the foam mitigated the delay. Even with Diego, the foam had lessened the trauma to his body. He was still in regen, but the docs expected a full recovery.
And that’s about all Noah knew. But he needed to find out more before his enforced week-long vacation at home.
“Look who the cat dragged in,” Lessa said as Noah entered the office.
She stood and came to him, kissing him on the cheek.
“Is that Sergeant Lysander I hear out there?” the lieutenant shouted from his office.
“Yes, sir, it’s me.”
“Well, get your ass in here!”
The lieutenant met him halfway around his desk, hand out to shake, saying, “Good to see you’re back, but I didn’t expect to see you for another week.”
“Just stopping by, sir, to get up to speed.”
“Good on you. Do you want to make your report now?”
“Well, sir, I’m supposed to be on light duty, and I just came in to check in—”
“Of course,” the lieutenant said, holding up a hand to stop him. “We’ve got plenty of time to get to it when you’re back on full duty.
“The CO, that’s the battalion CO, wants to see you ‘as soon as that young man gets back,’ as he said, but I think that can be next week, too.
“Actually, I’d love to talk to you, too, but I’ve got a maintenance meeting with the Four[33] in a few minutes that I can’t miss.”
The lieutenant had seen him every day while he was at the hospital, but they’d almost assuredly been told to steer away from “serious” conversations while he recovered.
“Gunny Chimond,” he told his PA, then as she picked up on her side, “Gunny, we’ve got our prodigal son here. Why don’t you stop by and pick him up?”
“Roger that, sir,” she replied.
“Look, sorry to run, but I’m going to be late. Stop by again before you go, OK?”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
As the lieutenant left, Lessa came strolling in, her hand in a fist and rubbing her nose in the space between her folded forefinger and thumb, coughing out “Brown-noser, brown-noser.”
Noah gave her the finger.
“So, now you’re a zombie,” she said, sitting on the corner of the platoon commander’s desk.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he said, realizing it for the first time.
Being resurrected was an exclusive, if not desired club. To Noah, a zombie better referred to someone like WB, or his father, for that matter. He and Llanzo had merely suffocated, and with foam that was designed to act as it did. Since coming to in the hospital, he hadn’t really considered the fact that he’d “died.”
“So, how did it feel? I mean, what was it like?” she asked, her eyes bright.
“I don’t know. Like I went to sleep on St. Gallen and woke back up here.”
She seemed a little disappointed he hadn’t anything more profound to say, but he hadn’t really considered it much until she’d mentioned it.
They chatted about their respective families while waiting for the gunny. One thing that wasn’t mentioned was Staff Sergeant Cain. Aside from a single thanks hurriedly given on St. Gallen, it wasn’t mentioned between the two of them. And that was more than fine with Noah.
“Sergeant Lysander, coming back to the scene of the crime?” Gunny Chimond asked, stepping into the office.
Somehow, she and Noah hugged, something that had never happened before. It was short, quickly broken off, but it was a hug, nonetheless.
“How’s your family?” she asked as if trying to change the subject. “I’m surprised your wife let you come in.”
“It was touch and go with her, Gunny. But I promised to be a good boy until next week if I could just stop by.”
Both Lessa and Gunny laughed at that, and if the gunny hadn’t been there, Noah was pretty sure Lessa would have had a dismissive, if profane, comment about him being “whipped.”
The gunny pulled out her PA, touched the screen, then held it out to Noah, saying, “We weren’t supposed to show you this while you were in the hospital, but you’re out now, so here it is.”
Noah took a look and saw a frozen image of a tank, an open area, the city walls, and the church. He immediately reached forward and hit the play command.
It seemed weird to watch, the image, a tank that was the Anvil, but didn’t feel like it to him, race across the parkland, picking up speed, then slamming into the wall with a cloud of dust. The Anvil slowly appeared as the dust cleared, three-quarters of the way through the wall. People started running out of the church, most headed for the wall, which still stood. They slowed, and some started to change directions when slowly, ever so slowly, the wall started to lean before collapsing in a shower of rubble, burying the Anvil from sight. Within moments, the people started scrambling over the rubble and emerged on the outside of the wall, running to meet the other people who were rushing forward.
Noah turned off the recording. He knew that the terrorists would appear and start killing the people before the FCDC troopers took them down, and he didn’t need to see that.
“Pretty fucking awesome, huh?” Lessa said.
Noah shrugged, not knowing what to say.
“At least this time, we’ve got proof of someone destroying Marine Corps property,” the gunny said, lightening things up.
“Oh, yeah, Gunny. My man Noah’s going to have his pay docked for a hundred years. What’s a Davis worth these days?”
“Heck, I wasn’t driving. It was WB!�
��
“You were the tank commander, Sergeant.”
“Temporary, Gunny. Don’t forget that.”
“OK, OK, you win!” the gunny said, accepting defeat.
All three laughed, and it felt damned good. It brought a sense of normalcy to him, a reset. He’d been feeling a little off, as if the universe had been skewed by a few degrees, and now it suddenly clicked back into place.
“If you’re up to it, how about coming with me to the ramp?” the gunny asked.
“Sure, but I’d like to know more about what happened. I know the big stuff, but what about the other Marines? Even the troopers we had with us.”
Lessa was a font of knowledge, which she spewed out like a mini-volcano as they walked to the ramp. From the Marine point of view, there had only been eight WIA’s and five KIA’s, the Anvil’s crew being three of them, and the other two were also in regen. That wasn’t too surprising. Marines were professionals, after all, and terrorists generally weren’t.
The FCDC had suffered more, with over 50 WIA and 35 KIA—ten of the KIA were too far gone for resurrection, to include Spec 5 Nelson, who’d been killed protecting the hostages fleeing from the church.
That piece of news sobered Noah. He hadn’t been too impressed with the specialist, but evidently, the soldier had stepped up, and stepped up big.
She was still relating all the facts she could dredge up when they reached the ramp, and almost all of the Marines there gathered around and welcome him back. The hug-fest continued with most of them grabbing and enveloping him. Noah wasn’t anti-hug, but this was something new to him.
He kind of liked it.
Then as if they were the Red Sea parting, the gathered Marines stepped aside to where Pure Dick, Pop, and Gretchen were standing up against a brand new Davis, so new he could still smell the polyurethane coating that was sprayed on every tank before it left the factory.
Despite the gunny’s affection for the maintenance chief, Noah was still not overly fond of the man, but he could greet the man. He stepped forward, hand out to shake.
“Try not to break this one, Sergeant,” Pure Dick said.
Noah faltered, his hand half-lowering.
“What?”
“I said, try not to break this one. We can’t just keep going back and getting new ones every time you decide to smash one into a wall or something.”
Noah turned around to the gunny, confused.
“He’s right. She’s yours, so yeah, try not to break her.”
“But—”
“Unless you don’t want her. I’ll have to tell Sergeant Shearer that he’ll have to find a new TC. He’s already claimed the gunner’s spot.”
Noah had less than a year on station, and he was supposed to spend that behind a desk in the Three shop. He certainly hadn’t expected to be back in a tank. And with the Anvil gone, there weren’t any openings, either. Until now, he realized, looking at the tank with covetous eyes.
He knew he should say no. He knew Miriam expected him to say no. But he looked around at the rest of the Marines, almost the entire company, and there was only one thing for him to say.
“Oh, I want her.”
“I thought so,” the gunny said. “And one more thing. The skipper said you’re the tank commander. No more temporary, so if you break this one, you really will have to pay for her.”
Epilogue
“You hanging in there, WB?” Noah asked.
“I keep telling you, I’m fine,” the corporal said as he shut down the tank’s motor.
“Yeah, I know you did, but it still took me a few days to get my rhythm back. Same with Llanzo.”
Noah had been surprised when Corporal White Bear had returned after less than three months. In Noah’s experience, most people who underwent regen took nine months or longer to return to duty. Knight Lewis was still in rehab, for example. Doc Anders told him that WB was back because while he’d suffered skull fractures when the Anvil had hit the wall, his cause of death had been a severed carotid. He’d bled out. The regen techs had regrown his blood vessels, which evidently was not a lengthy process. It has taken longer for his brain to knit and then for him to undergo cerebral rehab. The bottom line, though, was that his driver was back. He had to let Corporal Lin go, which hadn’t been fun to do, but she’d known her position had been temporary until White Bear returned.
Noah looked at his driver for a moment, trying to see if the corporal seemed at all woozy. He looked fine, and if his driving over the last four hours was any indication, he was fine.
“OK, let’s get her cleaned up,” Noah said as he hopped out. “I think we can go right to the power-washer,” he added after checking the tracks, which were mud-free.
That’s one benefit of all this dry weather we’ve had lately, he thought.
“I’ve got it,” Llanzo said, walking into the gear shed.
Noah conducted a simple walk-around, inspecting his tank. As usual, he stopped as he got to the front, and then reached out, touching the gold Anvil II painted there. He wasn’t sure why he did that, but it had become a habit.
“So, what do you think of the power?” he asked WB as the corporal started uploading the data from the morning.
“Me likey. Very much.”
The Anvil II was the first tank in the battalion with the new Springer 405 motor. The fusion generator was still the same and so put out the same amount of power, but the new motor was supposedly 18% more efficient, could create more torque, and was supposed to last up to 30% longer than the older motors. But like any new innovation, factory numbers were not always replicated in the field, so the Anvil II, along with eight other tanks throughout the Corps, were the final field trial for the new Springer. And that was why uploading the data back to the Marine Corps rep at the Springer plant was so important.
The data was holding true so far, and Noah was pretty sure that when the trial was over in another month, the switch-out with the rest of the Corps’ Davises would commence.
Llanzo rolled up with the power-washer, handed Noah a nozzle, and the two of them began spraying the Anvil II clean. With both of them on the two spray nozzles, WB grabbed the hand vac and jumped back in the crew compartment.
Twenty-five minutes later, in almost record time, with the Anvil II clean and the analytics completed, they were done.
“Early chow’s about to start. You going?” Llanzo asked.
“No, you two go ahead. I’ve got to go up to company. We’ve got class at 1330, don’t forget.”
“Hell, wills and powers of attorney, how can I forget that fun-filled afternoon,” Llanzo said as he started up the ramp to return the power-washer.
Noah left the ramp, walking toward the company offices. He took his time, going over everything yet one more time. Even now, he was wavering back and forth, and he wished he had longer. But with his EAS at exactly 90 days, he had to make his decision before COB or have it made for him.
This morning hadn’t been fun. Miriam was at seven months, and as with Hannah, she was pretty cranky—and from what he’d been told, she’d been even worse with Chance with Noah gone. Noah’s job search had not been going well. He’d had offers, but to both his and Miriam’s surprise, when benefits were added to his Marine Corps salary, none of the jobs except for one paid as much as what he was now pulling in. Of course, some of those jobs had nice upsides, but with a baby on her way, expenses were going to increase, and a raise in two years after probation was not going to do them much good.
The one job that paid better—much better, in fact—was on Prophesy, working for his Uncle Barrett. Noah knew nothing about water management, but his Uncle assured him that he could learn. Uncle Barret had offered a job to his father as well, probably the same one, which financially would have paid him more than when he was a general, but he’d told Noah more than a few times that he knew nothing about a working in a civilian business, and, more than that, he would never have been able to live on his brother-in-law’s largess. Noah thought that his f
ather was being a little harsh on himself; if he could become the Chairman of the Federation, he could learn water management. As for Noah, when it came to his family, what mattered is that he provided for them, not if a job was “fun” or not.
Miriam went back-and-forth on the job offer. She professed to love his extended family, and she thought it would be good for the kids, but then she chaffed sometimes at the idea, telling Noah she didn’t want to be controlled.
Finally, as he left early this morning, she’d told him to do what he thought he should do. Noah tried to read into that, to know what she wanted, but he was lost. It really was up to him. He had a gut feeling that no matter what, Miriam would find reason to complain, but he also resented the fact that she was laying everything on him. They were a family, and some decisions should be made by the family, not just one person.
He hesitated outside the company offices, checking the time. It was 2237 GMT, so technically, he had almost an hour-and-a-half. He almost turned around to go to the chow hall, hoping that with a full belly, things might be clearer, but he knew that was just an excuse to delay. He took a deep breath and opened the front hatch.
An unknown corporal had the duty, but during normal working hours, she was there more as a runner than to check who was entering the building. Noah walked past her and down the passage to the Charlie Company office. He didn’t hesitate, pushing the door and stepping inside. There wasn’t anyone at the desk, but the first sergeant’s door was open, and she looked up as he entered.
“Sergeant Lysander, cutting it close, aren’t we?”
“Still time, First Sergeant.”
Noah’s relationship with First Sergeant St. Cloud was strange, to say the least. Miriam and Fierdor had become quite close, and Chance’s best friend was Hans, the first sergeant’s youngest, so the two families socialized quite often. Miriam called the first sergeant Eve, and Noah called Fierdor by his first name, but between them, it was always “Sergeant” and “First Sergeant.”
“Well, are you ready?” she asked.
“Yes, I think I am.”
The United Federation Marine Corps' Lysander Twins: The Complete Series: Books 1-5 Page 75