Hell's Faire

by John Ringo

  He waved the detector over her front and then gestured for her to turn, covering her back and sides as well.

  "Part of the problem is the ground we're on is hot from the spills," Kilzer said in a distracted tone.

  "How bad is it?" she asked, worriedly. He'd been waving a long, thin rod over her chest and hadn't even made a snappy comment. Things were definitely bad.

  "Did you get splashed?"

  "Yes." She wanted to grab him by his suit and shake him. "How. Bad. Is. It?"

  "Bad." He answered shortly. "I'm trying to think what to do. You need a full decon, fast."

  "Oh," she said, then thought about what that meant. "Shit. I can't even accuse you of coming up with an excuse to look at my tits, can I?"

  "No," Kilzer said, keying his radio. "SheVa Nine, I need some help here."

  * * *

  "Move," Indy snapped, lifting the decon kit onto her shoulder as Pruitt followed with a tank of foam. "We have to get out of this mud; it's all hot." Both of the SheVa personnel were in rad suits and sweating up a storm despite the cold of the night.

  "I'm giving you fifteen minutes," Mitchell said over the radio. "The battalion is spread out on the hills on overwatch but the Posleen aren't targeting them. They are, however, moving this way. So you don't have much time."

  "We'll get it done," the engineer said, reaching the two figures standing in the moonlight. Without her Gortex and BDU top LeBlanc was shivering in the cold, her breath puffing silver in the night air. It was just going to get worse.

  "Get the rest of the crew over here," Indy said to Kilzer. "That track is officially deadlined. And they don't need to be sitting around in a radioactive environment."

  "I wish I could consider this fun," Pruitt said, slamming the foam pack to the ground and running back for more gear.

  "We've moving all the tracks out of the mud; it's hot as hell," Indy said as the remaining APCs that had been snuggled to the SheVa's flanks rolled out.

  "Not the Sh-SheVa?" the major asked, her teeth chattering.

  "No," Indy said, throwing a rope up and across a limb of a handy oak. It dropped back down again, naturally, but she got it over on the second try. "It's already contaminated. But we've got gear to handle it. None of you guys do."

  "Oversight on m-my part."

  "I think, given when you took over your battalion, that nobody could complain," Indy said with a grin as Kilzer arrived with the three tank crewmen.

  "Strip, all four of you," the warrant said, hooking a portable shower up to the rope and lifting it into place. "Kilzer, I need light."

  "I'll see what I can do," he replied, hurrying to the SheVa with barely a backward glance.

  LeBlanc sighed and pulled off her undershirt followed by her bra.

  "All my stuff is hot," she muttered, looking at the latter article of clothing. "And I'm not going to be able to find one of these short of Asheville."

  "Not that fits, anyway," Indy sighed, lifting her brush.

  "I hope that wasn't envy," LeBlanc grumped.

  "No, I've got enough back problems."

  * * *

  Kilzer dragged the last of the extension cord up the hill, hooked the drop light to a branch, turned it on and only then looked around at the tableau under the oak.

  The Abrams' driver, his head already shaved as close as a cueball and nicked in places, was shaving the head of the loader while Pruitt was busy scrubbing down the already shorn gunner with decon foam and a bristle brush.

  And Indy was doing the same to Major LeBlanc; she'd started on the major so fast she hadn't even stopped to shave her. As the light came on the major turned towards it and snarled, her lambent eyes seeming to spark like an angry leopardess caught in a spotlight. She was stark naked except for a patchy coating of yellowish-white decontamination foam.

  "Shut up, Major Ma'am," Indy said, rubbing the officer behind an ear. "I need to see."

  Kilzer stood frozen for just a moment, his eyes blinking rapidly; then he shut them and shook his head. "I have got other things I need to be doing," he said in a tone that was trying to sound definite and ending up sounding distracted. "I'm sorry, Major, my crisis override just got overridden."

  "It's okay," the major said, tightly. "I'm more worried about dying of radiation poisoning than being ogled."

  "Ma'am?" the gunner said and sputtered as some of the decon foam got in his mouth. "What about us?"

  "You got less of a dose," Indy said. "Your hair may fall out and you may have some other symptoms, but you're unlikely to die. We need to get you med-evacced soon, though. And all the ambulances are on the other side of the river."

  "What about the major?" the loader said, pushing away the electric razor. "You can quit, now," he said to the driver.

  "They've got good ways to fix this stuff these days," Indy said, but the doubt was clear in her voice.

  Kilzer picked up the portable detector and waved it away from the group, checking the background conditions. Away from the contaminated material, the ground was clear of radiation, but when he swept it back across the clearing the detector immediately began climbing.

  He turned off the audible alarms then swept the wand around the major. After a moment's look he shook his head.

  "Still bad?" Indy asked.

  "Not as bad," he said quietly, looking LeBlanc in the eye. "I'm sorry if I sort of froze there, Major. I have to tell you, though, you're a very pretty woman. Not to mention competent. It's an attractive combination. Especially covered in soft, slippery foam."

  "Why thank you, Mr. Kilzer," the officer replied, dryly. "It's that bad, huh?"

  "Yes, ma'am, it is," he said, holding out two gel-caps. "Rad-Off. It's not going to keep you alive, but it will stretch things out."

  Glennis smiled tightly, her jaw working at the words. "Is anything going to keep me alive?"

  "If we can get you air evac to a Galactic regen tank," Kilzer said. "I'm not an expert in this sort of thing, but from these readings I'd say in a couple more hours the damage will be pretty irreversible. And the nearest regen tank I know of is in Asheville, which, under current conditions, would take about three hours to reach."

  "Oh . . ." Glennis smiled angrily again and shook her head. "That . . . really sucks."

  "I know, Major," Kilzer said, looking at the ground and shrugging his shoulders.

  "Christ, Major," the gunner said. "Can't we do anything?"

  "Short of GalTech there's not much you can do for extreme radiation exposure," Indy sighed, lowering the brush. "If you decon fast enough, sometimes it helps. You guys are pretty okay. But . . ."

  "Shit, why all the glum faces?" LeBlanc said, trying to smile. "Let's get this finished and get on the road. We have Posleen to kill!"

  "You should head back to the division aid station, Major," Indy said shakily.

  "Why? If I'm just going to die anyway?" The commander shrugged, flicking some of the foam off. "Might as well go out in a blaze of glory, right?"

  Indy sniffed and started scrubbing her back again.

  * * *

  Pruitt had finished scrubbing down the Abrams gunner, who had needed it quite frankly, radiation or no radiation, and walked over to the tableau around the naked, shivering major. He touched her, lightly and carefully, on the shoulder and shook his head.

  "I'm sorry too, ma'am," he said, carefully looking her in the eye and nowhere else.

  "Thanks, but that doesn't get my people scrubbed down," she said, pointedly, with a gesture of her chin at the waiting loader and driver.

  Pruitt nodded his head but walked over to Kilzer and looked at the readouts on the counter. He looked at them again then took the counter and waved it at the major's shoulders and back.

  "I want to talk to Mr. Kilzer for a minute," he said, then put his arm companionably around the civilian's shoulders and walked him into the darkness.

  "Okay, how far are you going to push this?" he asked, trying to keep from laughing. Maybe they'll think I'm crying. God, I hope they think
I'm crying.

  "What do you mean?" Kilzer frowned.

  "You didn't realize you had the sensitivity on this thing cranked all the way to the bottom?" Pruitt asked. "I thought you just had a terrific dead-pan! I was waiting for you to make some silly comment about 'well, since you've only got another hour on earth . . .' or 'You don't want to die a virgin, do you?' "

  "Oh, fuck," Kilzer said, snatching the device out of his hands and tapping controls. One adjustment and the radiation bar dropped by two-thirds. When he actually pulled up the recorded rem count, instead of looking at the bar readout, it was about as bad as sitting in an airplane during a solar storm. Major LeBlanc had not, by any stretch of the imagination, been exposed to a lethal dose of radiation. "Shit!"

  "You are so fucked, man," Pruitt said, turning his back to the group under the lights and hoping like hell that his shaking shoulders would be taken for sobs rather than the belly laughs that were threatening to sneak out. "There's no way the river was that hot. Sure, it's going to set off alarms, the fuckers are so sensitive you can set them off with a watch face. But the damned blast was only a few hours ago. There's not enough runoff to kick up the rad count. And there's a dam between us and the fallout."

  "Why didn't you say something!" Kilzer hissed, staring at the readout and wishing it would go away.

  "I just figured it was a way to get Major LeBlanc naked, a goal not to be ignored. Worked like a charm, by the way. The decon foam was a nice touch. Really morale building. I can feel my morale soaring!"

  "I'm so screwed! We didn't even have to decon them!"

  "Yeah," Pruitt said with a shrug, "but we got to see Major LeBlanc covered in ice-cold, slippery foam with a serious case of nipples erecti. And we got to watch Indy washing her down. Sort of a two-fer. I kept trying to think of a way to get the warrant into a white tee-shirt but nothing came to mind. So keep that in mind as your last thoughts because she's gonna fuckin' tie you to the ground, strip you naked, paint you blue and run you over with one of her tanks. Probably from the groin up. Speaking of which, is the tank actually hot?"

  "I dunno, it was pegging but with the counter set that low . . ." Kilzer said. "I'm so screwed!"

  "Just shoot yourself now, dude," Pruitt said, finally breaking down into smothered laughter. "I'm so out of here," he snorted, putting the back of his hand over his mouth and heading for the SheVa's door. Maybe in there he'd be safe.

  * * *

  Indy watched as Kilzer walked back up the hill. He had the Geiger counter in one hand and the other one held protectively in the area of his groin.

  "Where is Pruitt going?" she asked, standing in the cold air with the brush still upraised.

  "He . . . had to go get something out of the SheVa," Kilzer said in a rush and then handed the counter to Indy. He pointed at the gain control and then turned around. "And I have to go help him!"

  Indy looked at the device then at the gain control as Kilzer pounded down the hill. Then she swept it across Glennis' back and arms.

  "Oh." She just stopped for a moment then looked into the darkness at the retreating civilian. "COWARDS!"

  Glennis cocked her head to the side and shivered. "I am b-beginning to think I'm n-not going to die?"

  * * *

  "How's Major LeBlanc?" Mitchell asked as Indy slumped into her station chair.

  "She's fine," the warrant replied wearily. She fumbled out a Provigil and took it without a chaser. "Angry, but fine. Amazing how fast a person can warm up in the jet-turbine exhaust from an Abrams." The engineer looked over at Pruitt and shook her head. "You realize that you're on her shit list, too."

  "Moi, ma'am?" the gunner replied with a butter-wouldn't-melt-in-my-mouth expression. "What did I do?"

  "Failure to point out something like gain fault is the same as intending to see a female battalion commander naked," the warrant said firmly. "Some officers would put you up for an Article Fifteen. I think I'll just let LeBlanc track you down."

  "Oh, shit," the gunner muttered under his breath.

  "I need an honest answer, Pruitt," Mitchell said, quietly. "When did you realize something was wrong?"

  "Honestly, sir, it wasn't until I was scrubbing down the gunner," Pruitt replied. "I started thinking about how many rems they might have taken and I was wondering about the river. Then I had to think about the course it took, and where it would have gotten contaminated. All that didn't take long, no more than a few seconds once I started to think about it, but I all of a sudden realized that it, the river that is, shouldn't have been that hot. And I made a gain-control mistake in training one time; I caught it almost immediately, but I knew what could have happened. And with everybody running around like chickens with their heads cut off . . . So when I was finished scrubbing down the gunner I went and checked and, sure enough, Kilzer had the gain cranked all the way to the bottom. That's the default setting, because you want to catch low-level radiation and then work up to high level. He'd been using it in the SheVa, and the reactor room is high level, so he had the gain cranked way up and he was used to looking at the readouts and figuring it at that gain. I think he just forgot that the system resets when you turn it off. Honest mistake on his part and at least I did think of it." He looked over at the warrant officer pointedly.

  "Instead of, for example, the local radiation expert?" Mitchell grinned.

  "It's not funny!" Indy said. "Major LeBlanc was embarrassed, thought her life was about to end and, and . . ."

  "Got covered in slippery foam?" Pruitt asked. "Look, her loader, her gunner and her driver were all out there, stripped naked and shivering along with her. If you want to play with the boys, you play the same game." The gunner shrugged and then snorted. "At least I didn't try to get you into a white tee-shirt. Now that would have been something to sell tickets for!"

  "Enough, Pruitt," Mitchell replied as the warrant drew in a breath through her nose with a hiss. "And enough, Warrant Officer Indy. We have Posleen to kill. We'll worry about how to manage accidental sexually overtoned situations in a combat environment after we survive the combat environment. Agreed?"

  "Agreed, sir," the warrant replied. "I . . . Never mind. We are still in bad shape physically, the SheVa that is."

  "I'm aware of that," Mitchell said. "We're going to have to go with what we've got. Pruitt?"

  "Hydraulics are still showing yellow," the gunner replied in his most professional voice. "All other systems are go."

  "Then let's get this show on the road again." Mitchell keyed his microphone to the general frequency. "All SheVa attachments, same plan as before. Let's roll."

  * * *

  The plan was for the SheVa to follow the river, with one set of tracks actually in the radioactive water, while the rest of the vehicles followed along on the near bank; despite the fact that they now knew the water wasn't dangerously hot, the scare from the crossing had made a lasting impression. Keeping up was no trouble, however, because with the loss of power from three reactors the SheVa was limited to a maximum speed of about forty kilometers per hour. Keeping out of the spray of mildly radioactive water and mud from its tracks was somewhat more difficult.

  There was a narrow saddle between two of the hills near Porter's Bend. The only way for the SheVa to survive was to limit the number of Posleen that could engage it at any one time. Following the valley seemed like the best bet. The top of the SheVa might be in view over the hills, but beggars couldn't be choosers.

  "Tango Eight-Nine this is Quebec Four-Six." With the passing of the previous day the CEOIs had rotated and everyone had to learn new names. Another one of the happy necessities of military training. Along with the thirty minutes or so after the switch-over while everyone hunted for the correct frequencies and quite often settled on the wrong one.

  "Quebec this is Tango-Papa, over."

  LeBlanc frowned at the radio and wondered why Pruitt, whom she still hadn't forgiven, was answering for the colonel. But sometimes you had to deal with the RTO.

  "I'm sending out a
scout unit at this time," she replied. "And we'll move outward to screen your west flank."

  "Thank you, Quebec." It was Mitchell replying instead of Pruitt. "The Mike unit reports no visuals on the enemy, over."

  "Roger, we'll just have to go find out where they are."

  * * *

  "Unload!" the TC called as the troop door thumped to the ground in the gray moonlight.

  The Bradley had stopped at the base of a wooded ridgeline; the maps said that there was an open area beyond and it was up to the dismounts to check that out.

  Bazzett hefted his AIW and trotted out of the Bradley, fanning out to the left towards the woods. Somewhere to the west, maybe a klick, was Highway 28. For sure the Posleen were using it for movement; it was the job of the scouts to find out whether there was more than light forces in the area.

  Since crossing the river and turning to the east they hadn't seen any of the horses. Generally the Posties got more spread out than was apparent in this area. Maybe that was because of the battle across the river where the rest of the 147th was apparently pounding them.

  But the rest of the 147th was on the far side of the river and until a better crossing point than Iotla, where the Posleen appeared to be reconsolidating, was found, they were going to be staying on the far side of the river.

  The specialist hit the cold ground again and wriggled forward as he came to the end of the light woods. The scrub ended abruptly at a line of fence. The sheep or cows that had once been in the field were gone, but at the far side of the valley he could see some movement in the shifting light. He didn't bother with his monocular this time, just raising the thermal sight on the rifle to his eyes and scanning the distant ridgeline.

  "Fuck me," he muttered again. "Why does this keep happening to me?"

  * * *

  "Tango Eight-Nine this is Quebec Four-Six," LeBlanc said tiredly. She had taken a Provigil and even dropped a tab of meth but she was still tired. Why wouldn't the Goddess-damned horses just go away?