by John Holmes
“Maybe you should get from behind that desk and come downrange with us sometime, Taylor, you frigging pogue. Where did you get that combat patch, Kuwait?”
“Maybe if you did your job better, the Army wouldn’t have lost a whole Brigade of troops, Nasty! You screwed up again, didn’t you?”
“Oh you motherfucker!” yelled Bognaski, and a ball of lighting appeared in his hand. Smith grabbed his arm and tried hard to hold it down, delaying the strike until the other Sergeant raised a shimmering shield in front of himself. The lightning shattered harmlessly against the shield, sending sparks arcing into the overhead lightning. Soldiers piled on top of each of them, holding them back from each other.
“AT EASE!” came a yell from a doorway, and everyone jumped to Parade Rest. “What the hell is going on here?” The First Sergeant had come back with his coffee and walked in on the confusion.
He glared at Bognaski, but asked the other soldier “Staff Sergeant Taylor, what happened here?”
“Ah, nothing, First Sergeant. One of the lights popped, you know how that happens sometimes around too much magic.”
“Is that right, Staff Sergeant Bognaski?”
He took a second to answer. “Yeah, Top, that’s exactly what happened. Taylor was just helping me clean up.”
The First Sergeant had been in the Mage Corps for more than forty years, starting in Vietnam. He knew that, no matter how hard he pressed, he would never get an answer.
“Listen, if you two have a problem, you settle it out in the playground, not in HQ. Do you understand?”
They both muttered affirmatives, and everyone set about fixing the classroom.
“What’s the playground?” Smith asked Bognaski.
“It’s a dueling area, down by the river, just outside the fort. Guys used to use it back in the eighteen hundreds to actually duel each other to the death. Now, it’s for pusses like Taylor from headquarters to see engage in a wand measuring contest.”
“Are you going down there? Do you need me to be your second or something?”
Bognaski snorted. “Screw him. I’ve forgotten more combat magic than that jerk ever knew.” He set about muttering the spell for C & C, and Smith watched as his own form took on the image of the floor beneath him.
“How does this one work, anyway? I learned the spell in school, it’s a Level One task, but I never actually learned the why behind it.”
“Listen, young Padawan, and I shall tell you. You just have to know a little bit of physics. You don’t actually BECOME invisible, the spell just bends the light around you. So you don’t actually have the light pass through you, it just kinda flows around. Same principle as a slip shield, the spell that lets bullets go around a soldier.”
“That’s pretty cool. I’m big into the history, never thought about the physics.”
Bognaski nodded. “I love that shit; I think once I get too old for this field crap, I’m going to go into Research and Development of kinetic spellcasting.”
“So what are you going to do about him?” asked the now invisible Smith, not realizing that Bognaski couldn’t see who he was pointing to. “Are you OK? You seem to be jumping at everything.”
“I’m burnt out, Smitty. I’m a walking poster child for Post Traumatic Stress, and suddenly my sense of humor seems to have deserted me since the Sergeant Major crawled up my ass. I know how to fix that, though.”
Smith flickered back into view. C & C spells were almost impossible to maintain unless you paid full attention to them. “What are you going to do?”
“You mean what are WE going to do! You, me and Chief York, and another girl I know are going on a road trip. I have to get something from Fort Drum, back at our barracks.”
Smith immediately felt his face flush when he thought of Chief York. Bognaski laughed; even though he couldn’t see Smith, he knew what his reaction would be. “Down boy, down! Heel, I say!” and Smith smirked and shot him the finger, even though the older man couldn’t see him do it.
“… although forbidden under the Geneva Convention Magic Accords of 1963, necromancy can be a powerful temptation for both commanders and Mages alike. Be on alert for this temptation at all times in your fellow Mages.”
~ FM 3-80 BATTLEFIELD THAUMATURGY, DEC 2011
Chapter 19 Central New York, State Route 12, Northbound.
Chief York drove with the top down on their rented convertible, enjoying the warm summer air. Smith rode up front with her, and Bognaski was in the back with a civilian girl that he had called up. She was a student at Skidmore College who he dropped in on whenever he as TDY at Mage HQ.
They had left the base at 1600, and planning on a six hour round trip. They were doing better than 75 MPH and making good time, slowing down through the small farm towns between Utica and Watertown. York had let her blonde hair down, and Smith was having a hard time keeping his eyes off of her, and fumbling through conversation. She laughed at his shyness.
“Don’t worry, X, I’m not going to bite you. Remember, I know what you look like naked.” He blushed and looked out over the landscape. Cows and green rolling hills passed slowly by.
The civilian girl, Jennifer, spoke up from the back, where she was half-heartedly fending off Nasty’s advances. “Why don’t you let Jimmy drive for a while? Maybe you two can get some alone time in the back here.”
York looked over her shoulder at Bognaski, and they both shook their heads. “No way, babe, can’t do.”
She looked puzzled. “Why not?”
“Because he just got off six months of convoy duty. He’s going to trip out over every piece of garbage or pothole on the road, swerve going under bridges, and randomly change lanes. Bad enough these cops in the small towns around here don’t like Fort Drum soldiers. Looking like he’s DUI, and then when they find out he’s a mage? No way, night in the slammer for him and probably the rest of us.”
“What do you mean?”
Smith asked “Where are you from, Jennifer?”
“Like, Seattle.”
“So you’re pretty well off, pretty educated, come from a pretty liberal, accepting place. These small towns around here, well, they don’t like strangers much. Unusual strangers, even more.”
Bognaski put his arm around her and said “Not only that, but I’ve broken so many farmers’ daughters hearts around here that I’m lucky I don’t get shot every time I go into a Stewarts shop!”
They all laughed, but the good humor only lasted into they reached the south gate at Fort Drum. After providing their ID cards and getting a pass for Jennifer, they rolled across post to where the 11th Mountain Division had their barracks. A sense of gloom settled deeper down on them as they passed through Third Brigade’s area. The sun had gone down, but they could still see the lot where the Brigades’ deployed soldiers had stored their cars. York pulled up to Building 4739, where a light illuminated a green and white sign proclaiming “11th ID (Mountain) 3rd BDE Rear Detachment”.
“I just have to get a key to the barracks” said Bognaski. “I’ll be right back. Are you going to need anything, Jaime?”
She shook her head. ‘No, I had an apartment off base, but everything is in storage.”
“What about you, Smitty?”
“Nope. I got to Durkistan right out of the DMI.”
“OK. Be right back.”
The Charge of Quarters NCO was startled to see Bognaski walk in the door. “Nasty, you scared the shit out of me! I thought you were all dead! You’re not dead, are you? Like some kind of wizard ghost? When did you get back? Did anyone else survive?”
Bognaski shook his head, and the CQ, a young E-5, whistled and said “Damn.”
“I think some of the patrols that were away from the FOB made it, but I can’t say who. Sorry, Homer. I just need to get something out of the barracks, and then I’ll be on a flight back out of here.”
“No problem. Sign this” he said, handing him a clipboard with a key sign-out sheet.
“Thanks.” Nasty headed down the co
rridor, past the offices and out of the building, then crossed the street to the two story barracks sitting silent and empty in the summer night. He didn’t turn on a light when he went inside, just sparked some Magelight off his fingers. The glowing ball of energy parked itself over his shoulder and cast long shadows across the dusty hallway that lead to his room.
When he reached the door, he slipped a key from around his neck and unlocked it. His things lay just as he had left them six months before when they had gone wheels up for Durkistan. Within a day or two, someone would come in to take his roommate’s personal effects, box them up, and ship them to his home of record. He had hardly known the guy, an artillery sergeant who had moved in with him a week before deploying. Before that he had had the room to himself, since no one wanted to share a room with a Freak.
Another key on his dog tag chain opened his locker. He swung the doors wide and reached up to the top shelf, way in the back, and pulled out what he was looking for. The dark grey of his Strike Beret seemed to soak up the Magelight, and the silver lightning bolt on the Strike Regimental Crest flashed. The last time he had worn it was to the funerals of the guys on his team who had gone down in the Osprey in Iraq. His team. Five Mage Special Operations Strikers, non-magical weapons experts who carried the sniper rifles, machine guns and small arms; and three Strike Mages. Himself, Kelso and Quick. They had been through three deployments and countless missions together, without a scratch. Now Quick was burned to a crisp, Kelso was brain dead, and all of the Strikers dead too. His fault, and he had been hiding from it for two years.
He stood remembering for a minute, then spoke out loud “I don’t know if I can do this, brothers. X is a good kid, and Jaime, and all the guys on Strike Team Seven, even though they want to kill me.” He felt like complete crap about himself, but then he heard Sergeant Major McGhee’s’ voice. “You may not like it, but you’re a damned good combat mage.”
“Well, shit, yeah, I am pretty damn good” he said to himself. He stuffed the beret in his pocket and walked back out the door and turned in the barracks key to the CQ.
He sat back down in the passenger seat next to Jennifer. York reached forward and put a hand on his shoulder, and he felt the warmth of her friendship flowing through him.
“You OK?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’m OK. We’ve got some work to do, and some bad guys to kill. I’m just pissed that my life seems to have been turned into a Disney movie.”
Chapter 20 The Parting Glass Pub, Saratoga Springs
“Just one more! You can fix me up, Yorkie!” Bognaski started chugging another beer.
“Did he just seriously call me ‘Yorkie’?
They had stopped at one in the morning at a small Irish pub in Saratoga, at Bognaski’s insistence. He claimed he needed to blow off some steam after “coming to grips with his inner self”. York wasn’t sure, but she suspected that he was trying to head off a major case of depression by getting blasted.
His date, Jennifer, actually giggled. “I think Yorkie is a cute name!” The Chief rolled her eyes and gave a ‘please help me’ look at Smith. He tipped his beer to her and mouthed the word “yorkie”.
The Parting Glass was a classic Irish pub, filled with dartboards and horse racing memorabilia. Even though it was a Thursday, the bar was crowded with people there for racing season and college students taking summer classes. Bognaski was working on his fourth beer, despite warnings from York and Smith both about having to be at PT in a few hours..
Smith edged over and inserted himself between York and Nasty’s civilian date, and leaned in close to talk to her over the crowd.
“What’s with Nasty? I don’t really know him all that well, even though he was my roommate back on the FOB.” He had leaned in close to talk, and he also caught a faint whiff of her perfume, and it made his head spin. If she noticed, she didn’t move away, for which he was grateful. He felt even better as she moved a little closer to him, so that their arms were touching.
“He’s just trying to get some liquid courage to confront his demons. Just about his whole team was wiped out in Iraq, and he fell almost five thousand feet out of the back of a burning Osprey, barely caught himself and another guy in time with a Feather spell. Still broke three ribs. He blames himself, and some other people do too. Now he’s trying to face up to going back into Strike.”
“It wasn’t his fault, was it?” He really didn’t want to talk about Bognaski, but he didn’t really know what else to say. She answered him by putting her finger on his lips and taking his hand out to the small dance floor. They started slowly moving to an Irish ballad that neither had ever heard before, but they didn’t care. After a minute, he slid his arms completely around her and leaned in and kissed her. The broke apart, each out of breath.
“Uh, I’ll be right back” he said. “Gotta hit the latrine.”
She smiled and headed back towards the bar. He watched her walk away, and Bognaski, standing at the bar, gave him a big thumbs up. Smith blushed and turned away and shouldering his way through the crowd, heading for the Men’s’ room. He felt the same shaky feeling he had felt in Durkistan, just before the meteorite had slammed into the FOB, only not as strong, but he ignored it in the rush of emotions he was feeling. “Gotta hit the latrine. What a fucking idiot I am!” he thought.
Suddenly the shaky feeling inside leapt upwards and overwhelmed everything else. Smith stopped dead in the center of the room, almost being hit by a flying dart. He spun and took a running dive, yelling “INCOMING” at the top of his lungs. His dive caught Jennifer around the waste and carried her to the floor, and he threw up the best shield he could. Bognaski and York were already in motion, York dropping also and Bognaski starting a protection spell as he dove for cover himself. His reaction time was slowed by the beer he had drunk, and a flash of light came from his hands just as the front wall of the bar blew inward.
The car, a small grey Nissan Altima, had been parked in front of the bar ten minutes earlier. It was old, sagging down on its shocks. The driver sat inside, sweat rolling down his face as he muttered a prayer over and over.
“There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet. There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet.” The man had converted to Islam in prison, and been released from Great Meadows Correctional Facility only three days ago. He had taken a bus to a small town just outside New York City and picked up the car, turning immediately around and heading back north along the NY State Thruway. Doing this in the city itself would have been impossible with the surveillance the NYPD conducted.
Now he sat, hand clutching a detonator, with more than a hundred kilos of Semtex, military grade plastic explosive that had been smuggled in through the Canada – US border in the St. Regis Indian Reservation. The original target was to have been one of the Staten Island Ferries, to be detonated as the boat pulled into the terminal. Last night, though, word had come from his Imam that the target had been changed.
A small figure, dressed in a robe and a green turban, flashed into life on the dashboard. It spoke to the man in English, though the movements of his mouth didn’t match the words. He didn’t know what magic powered the figure, since he had spent his life fighting other gang members in the Bronx, and had little formal education; he knew next to nothing about Mages. The figure cast a final blessing, and the man nodded and called his final prayer. As he squeezed the detonator, he wondered if the promises he had been given were really true.
“ALLAH ALUAKBAR!!!!” and the car vanished in a flash of light.
The immediate effect was to throw the cars parked in front and back of it into the air, flipping end over end, then catching fire as the gasoline in their tanks caught fire. The pressure wave from the explosive crashed into the walls of the low building, scattering bricks and glass in an expanding wave into the crowded pub.
The Mages had been at the far end of the bar, and when the force of the explosion reached them it had already been slightly dissipated from crashing into the brick w
alls. Bognaski’s shield held for a second, but everyone at that end of the bar was hurled backwards against the wall. It protected them from the flying glass, but a piece of lumber found its way through and pierced his leg, causing the shield to flicker out.
Smith rolled over Jennifer, carried along and deafened by the blast and then cast his own shield spell over as much of an area as he could. Head ringing, he held it for as long as he could as debris fell around them, and then his also flickered out as the last brick crashed downward. Jennifer was out cold underneath him, but he felt a strong pulse. He crawled over to Jamie York and looked at her face. Her eyes were wide and concussed, and she seemed dazed, but still breathing. Next he looked at Bognaski, who had a long splinter of wood sticking out of his leg, and who had vomited over his shirt.
Around him screams started to break through his damaged eardrums. They sounded mechanical, like something from a Transformers movie, and he started to shake his head to clear them, but a bolt of pain shot through his neck. He could smell brick dust, explosive residue, and blood.
Getting to Bognaski, Smith saw that he had passed out. He reached in and cleared the vomit from his airway, and was greeted with a rattle of breath and a strong pulse. The next thing he did was to check for blood along Nasty’s body, looking for less obvious shrapnel wounds than the splinter in his leg. Finding nothing, he placed his hand around the splinter wound, being careful not to touch the jagged piece of wood. Blood was flowing free from the wound in pulses, so he moved his hands further up his leg and started chanting one of the Basic Combat Lifesaver spells all Mages were taught. The flesh under his hands constricted in a ring, forming a tight tourniquet just above the wound. The pulse of blood slowed to a trickle, and he continued on with First Aide, placing his palm on Bognaski’s pale forehead and again chanting. The tight grimace of pain faded a bit as the pain reliever spell blocked neurotransmitters in Bognaski’s nervous system. Then he took some blood and wrote T(S) on his forehead to tell the medics that the Staff Sergeant had a spell tourniquet on him.