Atlas Reloaded - Book Five of the Damned of the 2/19th

Rings

"My training doesn't really cover any of this," Cromwell told me, staring at the inventory sheets of medical supplies that were stored in the Quonset hut. "I can treat a bullet wound or a broken leg, but putting together an aid station is more an officer or NCO job."

I looked over at SFC Ashton, the Ranger medical specialist. "Can you train her?"

He nodded slowly. "To be honest, this is more Special Forces work than Ranger work."

"You guys just blow shit up and kill everyone then get the fuck out, Ess-Eff hangs around and builds rebel infrastructure," I said, shrugging. "Can you do it?"

Major Mitchell watched him carefully.

"It'll be good training for me. I'll need manuals and other reference guides," He told me.

"Foster," I snapped.

"What?" He asked.

"Call 2/19th Pubs, I want a complete double-strength library of anything below Secret out here by sixteen hundred," I said. "Tel lwhoever is bringing it out to stop by Alfenwehr Pubs and grab a couple of boxes of Soldier's Bibles. About two thousand should do the trick."

"Roger," Foster said. He picked up the phone and I tuned him out.

I put my hands on the table and leaned forward, staring at the map of Atlas as if I  could divine the future from it.

In a way, I guess I could.

The Infantry commander stared at it with me.

"I want your mortar platoon back here. I'll get the engineers to use a bulldozer out there and build you a berm to cut the ATP from the mortars themselves, with a movement notch in it," I told him. "I'll load you up with around a hundred conventional rounds, but we'll need to put some VX and G in place, probably a dozen of each."

I looked up at him. "All right, from here on out, if you can't mask in less than 15 seconds, I want you restricted to the tents and trained until you can. I'd prefer Special Weapons standard of twelve, but that's asking too much."

"They'll do twelve or they'll find a new MOS," the Colonel told me. "Three seconds is life and death with NBC."

I nodded, grabbing a cigarette out of the open pack. I'd grabbed a carton from Mobster's cache and we'd been smoking them all morning.

The lighter snapped loudly when I closed it, staring at the back edge of Atlas. There was a railhead out there, in some places buried by dirt, but there all the same. A two mile long switch-back set and offloading. The concrete pads were gone.

One of the Rangers pushed his ugly mug through the tent flaps. "A Captain Hessler here to see you,  he's got paperwork that says he's from 54th Combat Engineers. He's got an aide and two NCO's with them."

"Just him and his aide. Tell the NCO's to stand fast," I said.

The Ranger nodded and vanished. I threw the canvas over the table right before the Captain came in with a Specialist following him.

"Captain Hessler, 54th Combat Engineers out of Wildflicken," He told me. He handed me a piece of paper that I glanced at. Orders putting Golf Company TDY at Atlas. There wasn't a Golf Company with 54th, but I could tell by the wording that it was just a transparency over what we were doing that allowed him to scoop who he wanted from the battalion.

"Corporal Stillwater," I said, holding out my hand. He shook it. "That's my radioman Foster, my Crew Medical Chief Cromwell," for some reason saying that made goosebumps rise up on my lower back and I could faintly smell apple blossoms. "Those two are Rangers," I pointed at them. "They don't need names," I pointed at the taller Blackbriar Bitch. "That's Ms. Smith."