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

Puzzle Pieces

"Send them in," I told Red, picking up my pack of smokes and my Zippo. I snapped the lighter open while Red stood up from his chair and headed toward the far end of the tent. Westlin smiled from where she was sitting in a chair, wearing BDU's with a large bloodstain on the abdomen that glinted wetly in the light. She took a drag off her cigarette and exhaled smoke that smelled of hot blood then winked at me.

While I'd been asleep more of the reserve component had showed up, along with more special forces troops, some of the promised infantry unit, three tanks out of 1/68th Armor, two platoons of Combat Engineers, two platoons of Military Police from Stateside, and a trio of medics from the Wildflecken Dispensary. The chemical guys from the SF teams had made sure everyone had masks, suits, injector packs, and the filters were live and new. After breakfast I'd taken down their MOS's, what they'd been told they would be doing (which was largely nothing, they'd been told only to come out here), and told them to go through our CIF (Central Issuing Facility) mockup to get their TA-50, boots, and uniforms, then line up outside of Nate and Cromwell's medical clinic to get their medical checks.

I looked up as the three dipshits from the night before walked in. They looked the same as before.

Fat.

I waved my hand at the three chairs in front of my little foldable field table.

More people filed in, people I'd heard the names of and what they were in charge of, but I didn't care. It was just every commanding officer of a detachment on site and to be honest, maybe they had names, but some people gave names to miscarriages too.

"Smoke 'em if ya gottem," I grunted, lighting my cigarette. I snapped the Zippo shut and set it on top of my pack of smokes as Red followed them in. The three Blackbrair Bitches followed him in, their faces blank and serene. The CIA agent that was still mobile and not suffering from a serious brain bruise followed them. I looked at the suits and shook my head. "You four have a seat too."

The Blackbriar Bitches nodded with slight smiles as I watched everyone sit down.

Red moved over and poured everyone cups of coffee before moving over to stand next to Foster, who had his eyes closed and was listening to the radio.

"All right, before anything else, I wish to apologize for my attitude last night," I said. I sighed and rubbed the side of my face. "It's been a long few days and every swinging dick and bouncing titty wants to challenge my authority while my chain of command keeps screeching at me to maintain my authority over the site."

I took the cigarette out of my mouth and dropped my hand, staring at them. "I'm tried of getting screeched at by a bunch of brain damaged lemurs," I said. "So I'll say this once more and once more only: the Pentagon, DoD, DoA, Blackbriar, 7th Army, V Corps, III CosCom, 15th Ordnance, and 2/19th have all reaffirmed my authority over the site practically every hour and ordered me to use whatever means necessary to retain command and authority over this site."

I looked them over. "Are there any questions regarding that basic fact?"

Everyone shook their head. A few murmured "No" were vocalized.

I reached over and flipped the canvas up off the mapboard, exposing the map I'd carefully drawn after I'd gotten up. I picked up the pointer and stared for a long moment at the map.

"First of all, I need to warn you right now, this is a hardship hazard posting," I told them, turning and facing them. I went to modified At Ease, holding the pointer in my left hand. I tapped the map. "This is fifteen square miles of irradiated chemically contaminated land, with no living facilities, a damaged artesian well tap, intermittent power, enough ammunition to allow two divisions to fight at Total War for thirty-six hours, and enough equipment to completely rearm those divisions three times total."