“Remember, these are friendlies, but be on the alert,” Sergeant Vinter reminded them.
Liege was assigned to the Green triage team, which would be back at the assembly area and conduct the initial assessment. Blue, with more of the senior corpsmen, would conduct the secondary assessment and start treatment, and Purple, made of Fox corpsmen, would go into the burning mess and do on-the-spot triage and life-saving measures.
For the moment, though, Liege was still a member of the squad. She took her place beside Sergeant Vinter, her M99 at the ready.
Within a few minutes, the first two hostages stumbled past, looking dirty and bedraggled. These were followed by more, and most of them showed signs of injury. Many needed help to walk.
These were the lucky ones. Others had collapsed along the way, unable to move, and even more would still be inside the market—hopefully alive. The corpsman in her wanted to rush to their aid, but she was supposed to remain with her squad. A SevRev could be hiding among the hostages, and if he attacked the Marines, she had to be ready to act.
“Doc!” Wythe called out.
Liege looked over to where Jessie was helping a man lower an injured woman to the ground. She hesitated for only a moment before slinging her weapon and rushing over to them.
The woman was badly burned and in shock, her breathing rapid and shallow. It was hard to tell with all the soot and tattered clothing, but it looked like she had third-degree burns over 20% of her body. She should make it, but she was in bad shape for the time being. Liege pulled out her injector, dialing in a Series 1. A skin injector wasn’t going to work here, so she deployed the needle. Next, she knew she needed to get fluids into her.
Liege was supposed to be conducting triage, not treating patients. There still could be others who were hurt worse and needed treatment quicker. But there looked to be only 50 or so hostages who had gotten out of the market, and there were more than enough corpsmen to handle that few.
Wythe helped the other man to his feet and asked, “Are you hurt, too? Are you OK?”
“I’ve got information, sir. I need to talk to your commander. Lives are at stake!” the man said, his voice fraught with stress.
“Corporal Wheng!” Wythe called out. “This guy says he needs to talk to the commander.”
The corporal was taking a small child from the arms of her mother, pointing out the way to the initial collection point.
He barely gave Wythe a glance over the crying toddler, but he said, “Take him, then,” as he nodded to where the battalion commanding officer was standing with her staff.
Liege took out the saline. Over the centuries, there hadn’t been much improvement on how to manage an IV. Liege held the rectangular package with one hand, thumbing the catch. The packet flipped open, a long tube falling free. With her right hand, she held the needle to the woman’s forearm, right over the cephalic vein. Three quick presses activated the snake, and within moments, the needle wormed its way into the vein, and the saline began to flow.
She pulled out her field stand, extended it, and hung the pack, letting gravity power the flow of the saline.
“What the fuck?” Jessie Wythe shouted.
Liege looked up to see Tamara tackling the man who had helped bring up the woman. Jessie was knocked back, and as all three of them hit the ground, Tamara was grabbing at the man’s hand.
“Veal! What the hell?” Wythe shouted, rolling away from her. “Are you bat-shit crazy?”
Tamara was big, but the man was at least 25 kg heavier than her, and he looked like a bull. He was jerking his arm, shaking Tamara as he rained punch after punch on her head with his free hand.
Liege took several steps toward them, her mind trying to make sense out of what she was seeing. All she knew was that someone was beating up her friend.
She started into a run, leaving the wounded woman behind, when the man’s head jerked and blood poured out of the side of his head, drenching Tamara. Tamara still held onto the man when Sergeant Priest, the company police sergeant, leveled his old Piedmaster and blew away the hostage’s neck and half of his face.
“Don’t let go, Marine!” a voice called out.
Priest, Wythe, and Korf, were kneeling around Tamara, reaching out to keep her hands closed around the hostage’s—although it was pretty clear now he hadn’t been a hostage but was a SevRev—hand.
“We’ve got it now,” the first sergeant said, standing over her. “Keep holding it, and we’ll get someone here to disarm this guy.”
Liege stepped up, giving Tamara the once over, but the blood covering her didn’t seem to be hers.
“Hey, Korf, can you get off me?” Tamara asked weakly.
“Oh, shit, sorry,” the PFC said, moving his knee from out of her side.
“Just don’t let go. I’m a little woozy, I think.”
By now a crowd had gathered. The first sergeant ziptied the three Marines’ and the dead SevRev’s hands together.
Liege stood there a moment longer, but no one other than the SevRev was hurt, and there wasn’t anything she could do for him. She left the gathered Marines and went back to the woman. The IV pack was still flowing.
“Go report to the Chief,” Sergeant Vinter told her.
“But my patient?”
“Is she stable?”
“Yeah, for now,” Liege admitted.
“Well, you get back to wherever you’re supposed to be, and we’ll get her back to you.”
Liege knew that made sense, so she started back to where Green team would be forming. The people around Tamara were being pushed back, and an EOD tech, in full disposal suit, stood over Tamara, Jessie, and Korf. Evidently things were pretty serious, but Liege had to let the EOD Marine take care of it. She had her own job to do now.
“Neves! Help Dingo,” HM2 Dykstra, the Green Team leader, told her as she walked up to him.
Liege spent the next ten minutes helping HM3 Jim “Dingo” McAllister evaluate the wounded coming back to the triage station. She had hoped to have more work, but unless Fox pulled more survivors out of the wreckage, the butcher’s bill was pretty high. Only 48 hostages had made it back to the collection point. Twelve of them were seriously hurt and being treated.
Liege kept listening for an explosion from over where the EOD tech was working. To her relief, there wasn’t one.
The operation was being touted as a success, at least from what she could tell from the newsies who were hovering around. Only four Marines were WIA, none seriously. At least twenty SevRevs had been killed, either by Marines or by their own hands. And 62 hostages—48 escaping to the front and another 14 out the back—had been saved. And then there was Tamara’s exploits, which had been captured by numerous camcorders.
With almost 500 dead hostages, though, it didn’t feel like a victory to Liege. She was glad when the trucks came up to take them back to the stadium in town for the shuttle back up to the ship.
TARAWA
Chapter 6
“I see you’ve got a good start on things, Jessie,” Liege said as she slid onto the bench seat.
Wythe lifted a half-empty stein in a salute and simply announced, “Doc!”
Liege took one of the unused steins on the table and filled it from the only one of the three pitchers that still had beer in it.
“So, where’s the belle of the ball?” she asked.
“Veal? Don’t know. She’ll be coming soon, I’m guessing. Ask her bunkie.”
“She wasn’t in the room when I left, but she’ll be here,” Fanny said.
With the unexpected mission to Wyxy interrupting their shake-down cruise, their scheduled full deployment had been pushed back to let the battalion and the ship finish hitting their pre-deployment checks, so they were all back on Tarawa. Tempo was high, but the battalion had moved into their final admin stand-down, which meant the junior Marines had been cut loose after noon chow, and they had the evening free. When Tamara Veal had said she wanted to meet everyone at the Down ‘N Out, it seemed like a goo
d excuse to have one last party on Tarawa before shipping out.
Liege took a sip of the beer and made a grimace.
“What’s this Munchen piss-water?” she asked. “Let me get something decent,” she added, standing up.
“They’re your credits,” Wythe said. “But I’ll drink whatever you bring back.”
Liege bought three pitchers of Wolfshead Red and brought them back to the table. Wythe drained his stein, refilled it with the Red, and immediately drained half of it.
“Oh, I’ve got to hang out with you more, Doc. This is the good stuff!” he said. “But it sure runs through you. I’ve got to go pay the rent,” he said, getting up to use the head.
Within the next ten minutes, the entire squad, minus Veal and Vinter, had arrived, and spirits were high. It was good to unwind like this, Liege thought as she sat back for a moment, just listening to the chatter.
“So what’s the scuttlebutt about Crow?” Corporal Francewell Sativaa asked no one in particular.
“Hell of a shot, hot as a volcano, but rather a bitch, from what I hear,” Tyrell Goodpastor said. “Why do you ask?”
“Veal invited her here, you know, to thank her for zeroing that SevRev.”
Liege hadn’t known that someone else would join them this evening. She felt a little disappointed. But Tamara had organized the party, so it was her call.
“You’re right about her being hot,” Vic Williams said. “She hits the gym late sometimes like me, when it’s less crowded, and she’s mighty fine to look at. Won’t talk to anybody, though.”
“And did little Vic try to pick up on the corporal? Get turned down?” Fanny asked as if talking to a baby.
“Not me,” Vic said with conviction. “I like me a woman with a little personality, if you please.”
“Oh, yeah, sure. Like that green-haired dancer on Left Out?” Killer Wheng shouted as most of the table erupted into laughter.
Vic mumbled something, his face turning bright red. Liege hadn’t been with the squad the last time they were training on Left Out, so she had no idea what they were laughing about. But if the volume of the laughter was any indication, she sure wanted to know that story.
“What’re you laughing about?” Wythe asked, returning from the head.
Corporal Wheng said, “Vic and the dancer on Left Out.”
Wythe started laughing himself as he took his seat again. Since no one started to expound on the story, Liege cleared her throat to ask.
She wasn’t about to find out anything as Fanny shouted out, “Hey, it’s The Blonde Terror!”
Tamara Veal was making her way through the tables to join them, a sheepish smile on her face.
“Sit down, Veal. I’ve got a pitcher with your name on it!” Wythe said, waving a mostly full pitcher of beer.
Tamara wormed her way onto the bench seat against the wall.
“Took you long enough,” Fanny said. “We’ve almost drunk all the beer Jessie here bought for you, and the next pitcher’s on you.”
“That true, Wythe? You buy this?”
“True that. I told you on the Caracas I was buying, didn’t I? An’ a Marine never goes back on his word, am I right?”
Doc understood Tamara’s hesitance to believe that. Wythe was well-known for his credit-pinching—and mooching—ways. Besides, that particular pitcher was one of the Wolfhead Reds she’d bought.
Wythe poured her a stein, and Tamara took a slow, deep swallow, making a show of smacking her lips, and then said, “The skipper wanted to see me. Couldn’t get out of that.”
While the rest of them laughed, Wythe made a fist, put his nose in the hole made by his thumb and forefinger, and rotated it back and forth. Tamara rolled her eyes and gave Wythe a wicked punch to the arm.
“That’s ’cause you’re a bleeding hero,” Fanny said, drawing out the “e” in hero.
“Eat me,” Tamara said as the others laughed.
In the favelas, the smack talk that Marines seemed to love was there, but not to the same extent. It would be too easy to step over the line and instigate a fuedo.[9] Here in the Marines, though, it seemed to be simply part of the landscape.
“Eh, you’ll get one, maybe a BC1,” Vic said, reaching his stein over the table to clink with hers.
Tamara half stood, then leaned over to accept his clink.
“Hey, watch it. I don’t need your boobs in my face when I’m drinking!” Wythe shouted out, spilling some of his beer.
Laughter and shouts of “Oh, you love it,” and “That’s as close as you’re going to get to any,” greeted his statement.
Tamara turned a bright shade of red.
She’s embarrassed! Liege realized. Maybe the smack talk’s a little much for her.
“This one’s on me!” Tamara shouted, too loudly and obviously trying to change the subject. She grabbed the pitcher and asked, “What are we drinking? San Miguel?”
“You can’t tell? What a lightweight!” Liege said. “That’s Wolfshead Red, Tammy.”
“That’s Tamara, Doc. I’m not a freaking Tammy. But Wolfshead Red it is. What about Corporal Medicine Crow? Did she show up yet? I owe her more than I owe you guys.”
“The Ice Bitch is coming?” Wythe asked.
Oh, someone else didn’t know that the sniper was coming, Liege thought, relieved that she wasn’t the only one left in the dark.
“The Ice Bitch?” Tamara repeated, confused.
“Yeah. Crow. Hot as snot on the outside, but cold as Hades on the inside.”
He clinked his stein with Vic’s in a toast.
“Well, she sure ‘iced’ that SevRev,” Veal said, looking smug.
“Touché, Tammy,” Liege said. “We girls have to stick up for each other. Wythe’s just mad because he’s like all the rest of the guys in the battalion, lusting after Corporal Crow when she won’t give any of them the time of day.”
“Tamara, Doc, Tamara. But if it’s raging hormones talking, then I need to get the beer to cool these guys off.”
The “Tammy” had slipped out naturally, but it took Liege slightly aback to get corrected like that. No one else seemed to have noticed as Veal made her way back to the bar.
“So what happened on Left Out?” Liege asked.
“You had to be there,” Wythe said. “But you can ask ‘Little Vickee’ there and see if he’ll man up.”
Wythe drew out the “Vickee” in some sort of weird accent.
Liege shook her head, knowing she’d never get the story. The conversation drifted to Corporal Medicine Crow, and bets were made on whether she was a lesbian or not. Wythe and Goodpaster were firmly in the “likes girls” camp, while Wheng, Acosta, and Dolsch insisted that was just sour grapes because the sniper didn’t date anyone in the battalion.
I don’t date anyone here, either, Liege thought.
But she knew that was different. She didn’t hide her socializing with men outside of the battalion. And looking over at the adjacent table, a rather good-looking Marine had caught her eye a few times and smiled an invitation. Maybe when this broke down, she’d go give him a look-see.
Veal came back with a pitcher, which was immediately passed around, and the talk ran the gamut from one topic to the other, and more than once, several topics were on the table at the same time. Before Liege knew it, it was midnight, and first two of them, followed five minutes later by three more, took their leave.
Liege looked over to where the Marine who’d had his eye on her was sitting, but he’d evidently lost patience, and the table was empty. She wasn’t crushed, but she was a little disappointed. They’d be deployed for at least six months, and that meant no dating for the duration.
Oh, well, that just means time for one more beer.
“So Vic, or should I say ‘Vickee,’ you sure you won’t tell me about Left Out?” she asked, leaning over the table.
She didn’t think he’d give in that easy, but it could be a long six months, and given the time, she was confident she could break the guy.
The squad milled about in the barracks commons, waiting for Tamara and Fanny. Tamara had insisted on no big send-off, but no one in the squad paid any attention to that. Tamara was family, and family didn’t send off one of their own without acknowledgement. Tamara still had to check out with the CO, and Liege could see the lieutenant and the staff sergeant waiting outside, but inside the barracks was their territory. Some of the other Marines from the platoon were outside waiting as well, but they had ceded the commons to First Squad.
All heads swiveled as Tamara and Fanny came down the steps. Tamara carried her lone seabag, which seemed too small to represent all the Marine owned.
“Hey, I said no send-off,” Tamara said, even if she looked pleased.
“You don’t got no choice, Veal. You are one of us, even when you’re out there on Malibu getting all trained up,” Wythe said.
Sergeant Vinter nodded to Corporal Wheng who opened his cooler and took out twelve bottles of San Miguel, Tamara’s brew of choice. Alcohol in the barracks was forbidden, but even if the staff sergeant and the lieutenant could see through the window at what they were doing, neither made a move.
As soon as everyone had their bottle, Sergeant Vinter raised hers and said, “To Lance Corporal Tamara Veal, who’s going to be the baddest gladiator of them all. Ooh-rah!”
Everyone echoed the “ooh-rah” before tilting back their bottles.
“You’re going in as a Fuzo,” the sergeant continued, “and you’ll always be part of the squad. So wherever your life takes you, know that we are with you in spirit.”
Liege thought she saw a tear form in the corner of Tamara’s eye.
“And kick some Klethos ass!” Wyth shouted, which was followed by more “ooh-rahs.”
Liege felt conflicted. She knew being selected as a gladiator, from all the billions of humanity, was a great honor. But it was also a death sentence. Tamara could earn untold glory, but even if she survived the Klethos, she probably had fewer than five years before the Brick[10] claimed her. The modification her body would undergo was just too drastic to keep the Brick at bay. She liked Tamara and considered her a friend. As a human being, as a sailor, she felt pride at what Tamara was going to do, but as a friend, she mourned her sacrifice.
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