Texas Nights - Book 13 of the Damned of the 2/19th

The Crystal Ball

She cocked her head slightly. "You make it sound like someone is keeping tabs on you."

I nodded. "Of course," I took off my shades and smiled widely. "It would be criminally negligent not to keep track of me."

She shuddered slightly, whether it was from the grin, the words, or revealing the scars on my face, I didn't know.

It didn't matter.

I put back on my sunglasses. "But to continue: The weapons are ready, the NBC Room is ready. The sensitive items are being PMCS'd, and inventoried. The ammunition is ready to be taken to the range. All in all, you took me aside and tasked me with getting the unit ready to deploy in less than six hours notice, and I'm laying a good foundation to do what you asked me to do."

She nodded, jotting down notes. "I'll make it plain at the close of business formation that the range tomorrow is non-discretionary and that nobody gets out of it unless they have a profile specifically for no helmet and no weapon."

"I want them in full battle rattle. I'll need a list of everyone with a profile and what their profile is, the data I have is all two months old and out of date," I said.

She jotted down a note. "I'll let everyone know that you want anyone with a profile to come by your office before we leave for the range."

That was good enough for me, except one minor thing.

"Office?" I looked around.

"I had a partition put in to divide the First Sergeant's rather large office in half. He can just deal with it, since right now it's empty space," She said. She gave me a grin full of more viciousness than I thought the petite woman had in her. "You both scare and intimidate him. I think it will good for him to feel my eyes on him when he's in his office."

I nodded at that.

"Tomorrow afternoon will be the range, on Thursday morning we're having a Class-A inspection," She glared at me.

I sighed, took another swig off my soda, and set the can down. "All right, I'll be there," I took off my sunglasses and rubbed carefully under my eyes and at the scars where my nose joined my face. Mainly to buy myself time, but they also had started itching again. Finally I looked up at her, squinting in the bright light.

"Turn off the light, there's enough light coming in through the windowshade," She snapped at Donovan. The male soldier moved over and turned off the lights and I sighed, opening my eyes further from the narrow squint I was using.

"When you are in my office, I will have the lights off," She stated.

"What if it's night?" I asked, smiling.

She opened her top drawer and lifted up a handful of red chemlights. "I'll crack these and toss them next to you."

I sighed again.

"I want to see your face. I want to talk to you face to face, not stare at those sunglasses," she said gently. "It will humanize you, because right now I feel like I'm talking to some kind of weird model of terminator sent back to get us all ready for the war against Skynet."

I snickered at that. "All right, Ma'am, fair enough," I leaned back slightly, feeling the tension drain from the muscles in my face. It was still bright in the office to me, bright enough I could still read the writing on the chemlight wrapper she had set on her desk.

She cocked her head and looked at me. "How good is your night vision now, Chief?"

I shrugged. "On a clear, moonlight night, it's like high noon," I told her. "On a moonless, starlit night, I can see clearly. I have trouble at night, with clouds, or if there is no light at all."