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

Blackbriar Girl

Charlie Company Area
15th FSB Operations Area
Fort Hood, Texas
CONUS
4 Feb, 1992
1030 Hours

"Chief!" the yell from the Orderly Room was loud, and I jerked up from the training schedule I was working on. I'd been planning on giving the Company a four day weekend after having them do a practice load-up. That would be throwing every thing we needed for deployment into the backs of the trucks and pull around behind the motor pool, inspection, then clean and put everything away. An all day project that would leave everyone exhausted.

I was up by the time the voice yelled again. First Sergeant Ramirez was standing up, frowning, as Private March yelled again.

"What the hell?" First Sergeant Ramirez snapped as I reached for the doorknob.

I pulled the door open just in time to see a tall male in a black suit reaching for the door. He had a pistol in his hand and there was another man behind him, by the CO's open door, with his 9mm pistol in his hand. Private March had just been struck by a second suited man, pistol whipped, the short woman spinning in her chair.

I reacted without thought.

Seize control of the situation. Full offense mode, bent knuckles into the throat as my hand grabbed the top of his pistol, my thumb finding the magazine release and pressing as I pulled the slide back. The magazine popped out as I pushed the pistol away and got my leg behind his. His hands had gone loose as my hand came back up, raking my fingernails down his face, into his eyes. His scream turned bubbly as I broke his stance, pulling him around, the magazine falling from his weapon and the round that had been loaded flying free.

Pistol disarmed.

By the time I had turned him around, his face sheeting blood from where my short fingernails had torn open his face, gagging on blood from a cracked larynx, the other one was turning toward me. I shoved the guy I had, hard, coming in fast behind him.

The Gerber slid easily into my hand as I kept pushing the guy forward with my right hand. He was swivelling trying to drop into a shooting stance. The fool was teacupping his pistol, his left hand cupping the bottom of his right hand, which was absolutely worthless for stabalizing his pistol. His mouth was opening and he was saying something, but I didn't care.

I was somewhere else. Somewhen else. I recognized the suits, the American flag lapel pin, the ties, the shitty haircuts, the cheap shoes.

I pivoted in place, sensing someone next to me as I left the room. Another suit, bringing his pistol up. Grab the wrist, push it over my head, stab him twice in the armpit, the knife pistoning in and out of his flesh in less than a second. His free hand went to my face, knocking my sunglasses askew, and my eyes started watering in the light. It didn't help him as my body ran on muscle memory. Knee him in the balls to throw him back, pivot. The last guy, standing in front of Captain Jane's door, was trying to hold his friend up and track with me with his pistol at the same time as I ducked down and came in fast and low.

He tried to track me and hold onto his friend and unable to do either smoothly as I came around the desk, snapping my head quickly to get the sunglasses off my face. I popped up, stabbing the guy he was holding deeply between his third and fourth ribs, angling down, on the left side.

I felt his heart stop on the point of the Gerber.

The one I'd controlled in the 1SG's office went to dead weight as my right hand grabbed the dead man and slung him aside, throwing the still mobile guy off balance as my sheer raw power ripped his buddy from his hand. Before he could do anything slammed into him, grabbing his forearm and squeezing it with as much grip as I could muster, putting all of my power into it. I raised his arm as I did it, the positioning bad since I was using my right hand to grab his right hand and we were facing each other, but my strength and his surprise that I was coming at him with steel in my fist and murder in my heart robbed him of his strength.