Casserine

by Bernard Lee DeLeo

  “Well, that was fun,” Dougherty gasped.

  “I’m so tired, if a Bug popped in here now, I couldn’t even lift my arms to shoot it,” Mercer said tiredly.

  “Did you guys get any time to rest?” Jake asked, his helmeted head leaning back against the bulkhead.

  “We took catnaps on and off coming in,” Dougherty explained. “When do.”

  “Can I take us out, Sir?” Brisby asked.

  ‘Tea, Lieutenant,” Jake answered quickly. “Sorry, we were catching our breath. You did a great job.”

  “I was afraid I’d slam us into the shield, and knock you guys right out of the hatch,” Brisby replied, relief evident in his tone.

  “Shall I order in the mop up, Jake?” Corey asked.

  “It’s all yours, Sara. Relieve everyone in the tunnels, and bring in fresh companies to kill the stragglers. Just MAG50 the shit out of this chamber,” Jake advised. “You all did excellent work. It didn’t go as planned, but we got the job done. I’m off line as of now, Sara.”

  “Aye, aye, Sir.”

  “Can we take these helmets off, Jake?” Dougherty asked tiredly.

  “Just as long as you don’t scratch your nose with those Bug contaminated gloves, young Jedi,” Jake said, taking his helmet off and dropping it next to him.

  “We look good, Obi Wan,” Mercer pointed out, after removing his helmet. “You reek though, pal. Would you scoot over against the other wall please? How’s the chest wound, by the way?”

  Jake took off his gloves and peeled aside the front of his armor, turning towards his two friends. “It stings, and it feels wet with Bug juice, but other than that.”

  Jake stopped talking at the horrified looks on his friends’ faces. Mercer jumped up and ran for the nearest med kit storage locker, while Dougherty threw his helmet on, and told Brisby to streak for the nearest med station. Jake took the hint and ripped open the front of his armor. Mercer had already torn open a large body bandage, and pressed it to Jake’s chest with all his might. Dougherty took off his helmet again, and stuffed it between the wall and the small of Jake’s back.

  “I take it I ain’t feeling as well as I thought, huh?” Jake grinned comically for his friends.

  “Tour suit’s full of blood, Jake,” Mercer explained seriously.

  Dougherty had already tried unsuccessfully to start an IV drip with the plasma kit Mercer had dragged along with him. “I can’t get the needle in, Charlie.”

  “Try the scalpel, Tim,” Jake directed, “just to make a hole.”

  Dougherty ran back to the med kit locker, and came back with a laser scalpel. He did as Jake had directed, and followed it with the needle, successfully hooking up the plasma drip. The hovercraft rocked, as Brisby weaved in and out of the incoming and outgoing craft and Marines.

  “It must be deep,” Jake commented. “Otherwise, I’d have closed up by now.”

  “I could see bone through there,” Mercer told him truthfully. “You must have lost a quart of blood.”

  “We’ll be out of the tunnel shortly, Charlie,” Tim added. “The first med station is just inside the main tunnel channel.

  “Like I told you guys, I heal fast,” Jake said. “The analgesic on the bandage took away the stinging too.”

  “It seems no matter how tough your skin is, that Bug didn’t seem to have much trouble puncturing you,” Mercer replied, as Dougherty reached around his bandage application to fasten it down.

  “Lucky shot.”

  Mercer and Dougherty laughed uneasily, as the hovercraft came to a stop. A moment later, Stassinas exited his deck gun, and walked back to where the three men were getting on their feet. Lieutenant Brisby had jogged up behind him. They both saluted as Jake rolled over carefully, and stood up, waving off Mercer and Dougherty. He returned the salute, and shook hands with each of them, as they gawked openly at the torn armor.

  “We want to thank you guys again for the quick action in there,” Jake said casually, as Mercer opened the rear hatch. “Good work. We’ll need you two on the next one. Hopefully, I’ll come up with a plan of action a little less dangerous at the nest.”

  “We’ll be there, Sir,” Brisby replied. “Can we give you a hand to the Med Station. That looks bad, General.”

  “No, Major Mercer, and Lieutenant Dougherty will accompany me. You two get your craft washed down, and get some chow and rest.”

  “Aye, aye, Sir,” they both called out, saluting again.

  Jake just nodded amiably, and turned to walk out of the hatch, as Mercer and Dougherty stayed at his side in case he could not keep walking. Marines and ship’s crew from the Intrepid snapped to attention in the corridor, as the three men made their way to the Med Station. Jake just waved, and kept repeating ‘Good job’. The Med Tech personnel had already forwarded all the wounded to the next stations. They had only had lacerations and broken limbs, all sustained in the last heated action. With his friends’ help, Jake peeled off his outside armor, and the bloody uniform top underneath directly into a disposal bag.

  “Make sure no one touches that stuff,” Jake directed. “You guys go ahead and get washed off. We’ll plot strategy later for the next nest.”

  “Okay, but don’t go anywhere,” Mercer replied. “Tim and I will be right back.”

  Jake nodded, as the two men hurried out, carefully staying away from other personnel because of the Bug residue. Crews in decontamination suits came along after them to clean up the residue left behind in their wake. Everyone had been prepped about the need to keep clear of anything with Bug DNA.

  “Can we get you something for the pain, Sir?” a young woman with Lieutenant J.G. Spiros on her nametag asked.

  “No, Lieutenant,” Jake replied, as he lay down on the gurney with a sigh. “Just see what you can do to get me patched up. I need to get something to eat, and then some sleep, hopefully in that order.”

  “Aye, aye, Sir,” Spiros grinned.

  She directed her assistants to clean Jake up while she walked over to roll her equipment table over. By the time she returned to the gurney Jake was on, her assistants had removed the bandage, and cleaned all the blood and debris from his upper torso. Blood welled up out of the ragged tear from his right rib cage, diagonally up to his upper left shoulder.

  “It doesn’t look too bad, General,” Spiros said, as she checked the wound over, closely manipulating the edges of the tear. “I noticed you’re no stranger to scars. Do you care if I just cauterize and seal this up tight? General.”

  “He’s out cold, Lieutenant,” Spiros assistant cut in. “He fell asleep before you came back over.”

  “Well, maybe we can just get it done without him even knowing it,” Spiros replied. She reached over and took her seam instrument off the equipment table. The tool incorporated a small replaceable tank, which injected an analgesic and antibiotic, mixed with a tissue sealant. “You hitch, and I’ll stitch.”

  As her assistants drew the edges of Jake’s wound together tightly, Lieutenant Spiros drew her seam tool over the slice. Within fifteen minutes, the three Med Techs had finished their work, and Jake still slept on comfortably.

  “He’s going to have overlapping scars,” Spiros proclaimed as she placed thin skin bandages over the sealed gash. “If he didn’t get the others smoothed over with surgery, I guess he won’t care about this one.”

  “It’s good his wife wasn’t here working the Med Station,” her assistant named Bloch commented. The stocky warrant officer tried to lift Jake’s legs, so they could strip off the rest of his uniform, but could not budge him.

  Mercer and Dougherty entered the station at a quick jog, in time to see Spiros’ two assistants trying to wrestle Jake’s legs up in the air, while Jake had started to snore lightly. They hurried over to the trio, as the two men had given up trying to move him, and were looking quizzically at Lieutenant Spiros. She turned as Mercer and Dougherty approached in fresh uniforms.

  “How is he, Doc,” Mercer asked, “and what were you trying to do?”


  “He’s fine,” Spiros answered. “We were going to strip off the rest of his uniform, and check for any other damage, but we weren’t having any luck.”

  Mercer glanced at Dougherty, and then said, “we’ll have to get him up for you, Doc. His heavy grav duty on Casserine made him kind of hard to move around.”

  “What would…never mind…do whatever you need do,” Spiros replied. “If he can walk, he can get cleaned up and fed. Nice job on the plasma drip, Lieutenant. Have you had some training?”

  “We all did on Omaha the first time, right Charlie?” Dougherty said, as he moved to the side of the gurney next to Mercer.

  “Yea, when we had plasma to attach a drip with,” Mercer agreed casually, as he leaned over Jake, and began slapping him lightly on the face. “C’mon Honey, wakey, wakey.”

  “Major,” Spiros objected. “Can’t you.”

  Dougherty turned, and put an arm around the surgically garbed Lieutenant. “The Major knows what’s best, Lieutenant. The General will be okay with it as soon as Charlie here beats him into consciousness. Haven’t I seen you somewhere before, Lieutenant?”

  Spiros pulled off her surgical mask and cover, revealing long, dark brown hair, tucked into the back of her surgical gown. Her angular face broke into a smile as she looked at Dougherty more closely. “I served at Genoa. Maybe I saw you there. I don’t think I’d forget red hair like yours though.”

  “I was a crew chief on the Tennyson, and we pulled in there all the time,” Dougherty said. “I always had my cap on though, and I didn’t mix around in the officer’s territory. You just look really familiar.”

  “Maybe it’s wishful thinking,” Spiros replied with a smile.

  ‘Tea,” Dougherty answered, looking her over more closely. “I think that may very well be the case.”

  “You’re too young to have been on Omaha the first time,” Spiros pointed out.

  “I was sixteen.”

  “Finest Drop Ship deck gunner I ever served with,” Mercer injected, as he and a groggy Jake walked up beside them.

  “I’ll second that,” Jake said, running a hand over his chest. “Nice work, Lieutenant. I hardly feel it. Sorry I zoned out on you.”

  “No problem, Sir,” Spiros replied. “We didn’t have all that many casualties. You were the only one we saw with a large wound. Most of the flurry of activity was making sure we cleaned up any Bug residue we found.”

  “Better to have more Med Stations than we need,” Jake countered. “Thanks again for the quick service. If you don’t have any special instructions, we’ll be getting out of your hair.”

  “Just drink plenty of liquids, and get some chow,” Spiros directed. “I guess you won’t be waiting around to heal up all the way, so stay out of those things reach when you guys take out the next two nests.”

  “I will, Lieutenant,” Jake agreed strongly. “The three of us are going to talk over a way to prevent what happened when we broke through, over dinner.”

  As Jake led the way out of the Med Station, Spiros caught Dougherty’s arm. “Why don’t we talk over old times after you get done eating, Lieutenant?”

  “I have to get some sleep,” Dougherty replied with a smile. He put a hand up to the side of Spiros’ face. “I might need something to calm me down so I can sleep though, Doc.”

  “I’ll look you up in about an hour then, okay?”

  Dougherty leaned down and kissed Spiros on the mouth lingeringly. “It’s a date,” Dougherty whispered as he pulled away.

  He jogged to catch up to his two friends, who had stopped at the exit, and now stood with their arms folded over their chests. Jake and Mercer were both frowning in mock disapproval.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Mercer demanded.

  “I believe I saw you touch another officer in an inappropriate manner, Lieutenant,” Jake added, shaking his head in feigned disgust.

  “Let’s go eat, and get this meeting over with,” Dougherty sighed, grabbing both their arms, and directing them outwards. “I have an important meeting in an hour.”

  “It must be the red hair she finds so irresistible, Charlie,” Jake commented as they cleared the exit.

  “Nawww, it’s those hypnotic eyes of his,” Mercer retorted. “Right,

  Tim?”

  “Jake,” Dougherty said, ignoring their comments. “I heard you had a Princess Lea outfit. Can I borrow it?”

  Chapter 42

  Communications Breakdown

  “I’m fresh out of ideas, guys,” Jake admitted, shoveling another mouthful of food in hungrily.

  They sat at a makeshift table inside a designated rest area, where the Marines had been rotated out to during the operation. The room was filled to capacity with Marines and ship’s personnel, eating a meal before rotating back up to the Intrepid and Yorktown. They were all tired after the marathon tunneling operation, but laughter still broke out in the rather hushed atmosphere.

  “I don’t see what the big deal is anyway,” Mercer replied. “We didn’t lose a man, and except for you dancing around with one of the Bugs, it wasn’t even all that exciting.”

  “Yea right, Charlie, just a walk in the park,” Dougherty grinned. “Maybe you don’t remember the earsplitting whine of those friggin’ Bugs covering our hovercraft as we plummeted to the floor of the cavern.”

  “You ain’t getting soft on me now that you’ve found love, are you, Tim?” Mercer joked.

  “I haven’t even found it yet,” Dougherty sighed. “I just think it would be worthwhile if we can find a way not to have a repeat performance. At least they were able to dig out our hovercraft. I had too many special things rigged up in there to just abandon it. I hope they can wash out all the Bug guts before we have to take off again.”

  “We’ll just have to slow down more when we get close,” Mercer argued. “I should have backed off when we broke through, instead of plunging on ahead.”

  “You were driving when you punched through, Charlie?” Jakeasked.

  ‘Tea, Tim’s a hell of a lot faster with the guns than me, and he doesn’t have any trouble working the digging operation while blowing Bugs to kingdom come. When we hit the opening, I thought we were home free. By the time I realized I was in trouble, they engulfed us, and our ride was plunging to the Chamber floor,” Mercer admitted.

  “I can rig up some kind of a probe to punch through when we get close,” Dougherty offered. “You know, sort of like they do on water, when a ship gets into shallow waters. They call it a…ah.”

  “Sounding,” Jake asked. “You mean take soundings from where we think the Cavern might be?”

  ‘Tea,” Dougherty acknowledged. “They used to have a guy in the bow of the ship dropping a weighted, measured line in the water to make sure they didn’t run aground. We can do the same thing. It’ll only slow us down a little. Once we punch through, we’ll really open up with particle beam fire, three abreast at the opening. I’ll fire the shield solution from the tunnel entrance, and then we’ll MAG the Bitch.”

  “That works for me,” Jake agreed. “I don’t have anything better.”

  “Me too,” Mercer added.

  “Good, can I go now,” Dougherty said, getting to his feet.

  “Why Tim,” Jake said speculatively. “We really have a lot more to cover. We need to discuss the angles of descent and.”

  Dougherty dropped his head to the side of his shoulder with his eyes closed, making snoring sounds as if he had suddenly dropped into deep sleep while standing up. When his friends started laughing, he popped open one eye. “Bored now. Can I go?”

  “Tea, go ahead, lover boy,” Jake said. “Take my quarters down here they have rigged up for me in the Command Center. Tell them to get in touch with me if they have any questions.”

  “Thanks, Jake,” Dougherty said, gratefully. “We are going back up to the Intrepid for some sleep before the next nest, right?”

  “You bet,” Jake said. “They’ll need time to build up another complex on the next LZ, any
way. Now that everyone’s done it once, they don’t need the three of us along for the set up.”

  “Good, then can I have your cabin on board the Intrepid?” Dougherty asked.

  “Don’t push your luck, Doughboy,” Mercer cut in, pushing Dougherty away, as Jake laughed.

  Dougherty waved, and hurried off as Jake and Mercer watched him.

  “Suddenly, Bug killin’ ain’t all that important,” Mercer observedwryly.

  Jake nodded in agreement. “Did you see the sparks fly between those two strangers?”

  “Yea, I think I singed the sleeve of my tunic when we brushed by them,” Mercer replied. “You’d think that boy had never been in a port of call in his life.”

  “Near death experiences have that effect on some people,” Jake added. “Besides, Charlie, Tim may look a lot younger, but we’re only a little over a year older than him. We looked a hell of a lot more alike back when we hopped on the first Drop Ship, on Omaha the first time.”

  Mercer laughed appreciatively. “Tim comes bounding on board after we climbed in, and Deke stops him cold with one hand in his chest. Deke says, ‘Hey kid, we don’t need no cabin boys this trip’.”

  “Tim just smiled, saluted, and ducked right by him to the deck gun,” Jake continued. “When we found out the hard way what happens when you don’t approach the Bugs unless you’re on a rock surface, Tim saved our asses big time.”

  ‘Tea, I think I still have a few scars left from him putting cover fire over my shoulder on a Bug about to eat my lunch, so close the shots burned slots in my armor.”

  “When it came time to go after the nest, Deke volunteered us on one condition: we have Sara piloting, and Dougherty on the deck gun, or he wasn’t going.”

  The two sat silently for a moment, remembering a far grimmer time. A young ship’s crewman came up to their table, saluted, and handed Jake a headset.