FSTS-317/NATO Site 93
Classified Location
Edge of the 1K Zone
Fulda Gap, Western Germany
17 April, 1986
0935 Hours
I hadn't gotten enough sleep. Between the meds and my injuries and Stokes waking me up every hour or so to check my pupils, the seven hours I had allotted myself to sleep had done little to take the edge off the exhaustion that filled me. My chest hurt from where they had reinflated my lung, my arm itched around the break as well as being filled with an aching throb, and half of my face was swollen up from where I'd smashed into the bottom of the blast ditch.
Still, Cromwell, Nagle, Foster, and Stillwater had all lived through the night. Nagle, Cromwell, and Stillwater were all still out. Stokes and Farley, our two medics on loan from other crews, had put in IV's and kept all three of the badly injured soldiers unconscious. Sometimes while I was asleep either Farley or Stokes had put catheters in all three.
The other six privates had done a bang up job cleaning The Fort. I could still smell the blood, but at least the smell of bleach overlay the stench of rotting blood. They wouldn't be able to get the smell out, the blood had soaked into the concrete cinderblocks used to build The Fort, and we'd just have to deal with the smell of rotting blood being added to the smell of BO and Atlas.
Still, I was tired, which was making me cranky, which was why I had slammed down the phone as hard as I could to cut off the whining droning voice of the idiot from 18th Transportation Battalion who had been whining at me that his troops were all at Wednesday Training and couldn't be tasked to haul the big semi trucks out here. It didn't matter that I had wreckage that needed towed away, all that mattered is he didn't want to do his goddamn job and kept trying to push my request back a day.
Goddamn paper pushing REMF's.
I groaned and leaned forward, putting my good arm on the desk and resting my head on my forearm.
"Problem?" Stokes yawned. She was sitting in the chair in front of me. I'd thought she was asleep, having stayed up all night to check on everyone, but now she was looking at me from under the brim of her softcap.
She had beautiful green eyes.
"Just... holy shit, it's like nobody wants to do their fucking job," I snarled, sitting up and jabbing a finger at the phone, "As soon as they hear I'm an E-4 they basically start throwing around excuses."
"That's probably why Stillwater is such a dick," Stokes chuckled, "People have a tendency to do what you say when you act like he does."
I shook my head, "Ain't my way," I told her.
"Call Corps," she suggested. V Corps would have someone at the ChemCorps liaison office even though Wednesday was used for training all day. Well, bullshit classes nobody wanted to take until lunch, then going to the motor pool to pretend to work on vehicles till close of business.
I shook my head, "I've called them three times already. Once to get 54th Engineers out of their fucking barracks, again to get Delta Company 108th MI out here, and the last time to get some EOD guys out to blow this ammunition," I shook my head again, "I feel like the class snitch running to daddy to tattle."
"When's Delta supposed to get here?" Stokes asked. The Rangers that were currently providing security were on loan from God only knew where, and I needed to get them back in case someone needed them, but at the same time, I needed the Rangers from Delta 108th to provide security until we could get some more guys from the West German Army to provide security. Right now the Rangers were just sitting in the middle of the road closest to the 1K Zone, with orders to try to avoid getting into anything, since the surrounding area was full of MRLS bomblets and unexploded artillery shells. I needed to sweep and clear the area, get guards out, and get the Army Corps of Engineers, or some Combat Engineers, out to rebuild the damaged and destroyed bunkers. That meant making sure they were guarded in case that psycho from Mieningen tried to jump us again.
Out of twenty-eight West German guards, only six remained. Those six were the commander and his staff, the others had been walking patrol when the bunkers exploded, and all of the ones on patrol were confirmed dead.
The German Army wasn't too keen on sending us more careerists to guard us, but we had chemical weapons and nukes, which meant we needed a guard force, and I couldn't expect the Rangers to hang out all day with their dicks in their hands.
"How bad is it out there? I've been in here," Stokes asked, lighting a cigarette. I noticed her hands were shaking.
I pointed at the map beside her and she turned in the chair to look at it.
"The Fort is the only building we have left aside from the German guard building outside the wire," I told her, "It withstood the three hits it took without any damage. The big warehouse we'd turned into a dining hall is gone, I counted six craters in the wreckage. The two storage areas are gone, nothing but debris and wreckage, so that means all of the uniforms, TA-50, body bags, concertina wire, and everything else, including our backup generators, are gone," I pointed at the big roof on the satellite picture, "The vehicle bay is gone, same with all but three vehicles. I've got a Bradley with a blown off track, another one that I think is all right except the external antenna are gone, and a semi-tractor without any windows." I pointed at the downrange section where two bunkers were cross out and eight more were crosshatched, "Bunkers 42 and 45 are just gone. Bunkers 41, 43, 44, 46, 85 to 90 are all damaged to one extent or another." I sighed and scrubbed my face with my hands, "I need to get down there and inspect them, see how badly their comprimised. Bunkers 86 and 90 are nuclear bunkers, I need to make sure that the nukes are intact."
I paused for a moment while Stokes nodded.
"Not to mention you need to crack open every bunker and make sure that none of the stacks have fallen over," she shuddered, "God, the idea that there might be VX leaking from a bunch of those old 8" rounds makes my asshole slam shut."
I grinned. "That's a lot of slamming."
"Shut up," She smiled. She had a beautiful smile too, it lit up the whole room. It vanished though, "You think McCullen is dead?"
I shook my head, "No. I don't think she's human enough to be killed," I told her honestly.
...the Soviet bayonet slamming into her stomach, the Spetsnaz pulling the trigger to blow her off the bayonet, but all she did was swarm up him stabbing and screaming...
...her unmarred belly as she changed clothing in front of everyone to shower...
...BLOOD! BLOOD FOR LUGUS!...
I shuddered, a chill running down my spine, and Stokes nodded.
"She'll come uprange when she remembers that Stillwater is up here," I told her.
"What do you think she looks like right now?" Stokes asked, "Think we'd even recognize her?"
I shook my head, "Doubtful. She probably looks like something our ancestors worshiped." Stokes nodded. She had seen the same things I had in the dark and cold of last winter, and knew that little Aine McCullen wasn't exactly part of our world all of the time.
"How's the patients?" I asked, my stomach knotting.
Miranda sighed, rubbing her face before looking up. I noticed she had dark circles under her eyes. "Stillwater is still out, but I had to shoot him twice with morphine to keep him down," she chuckled, "That boy is about as stubborn as you are," I grinned as she continued, "Nagle and Cromwell are easier to keep down, they aren't burning through the meds. At first I thought Stillwater had a fever, since he was hot to the touch, but his temperature is sitting steady and 99.5, so if it is a fever, it's a low grade one in response to his injuries."
"His body is trying to burn through the drugs," I told her.
"I thought so," She nodded, "Cromwell's drainage tubes look good, and I checked for any unusual vaginal discharge, but it's just left over blood from the bullet that went through her uterus. Nagle's legs are black and blue, but that's expected. Little Bit is awake and I let her eat some applesauce out of an MRE, she's still pretty badly concussed and that broken orbital socket is paining her. Foster's still concussed, but he's mission capable." She grinned, "He's asleep in the radio room right now, he managed to get us back online, but according to him the sat-com gear is pretty much shot and he had to jury-rig it up."
"Another thing we need replaced," I sighed, picking up a pen and jotting down "SATCOM GEAR REPLACEMENTS" and put three stars to prioritize it with everything else I needed.
"How you holding together, Johnny?" She asked me.
"Chest aches, arm hurts, but other than that, not bad," I told her honestly. She held out a pill bottle and rattled it at me. I held out my hand and she shook a single pill into it, " Don't wash it down with whiskey, it's Percocet,"
I nodded, grabbing my canteen cup where I had coffee, and swallowed down the pill.
We sat in silence for awhile, and I could tell by the slight snores that the big Amazon had drifted off to sleep. I didn't want to wake her by arguing on the phone, so I got out some paper and began prioritizing the list better.
The War Stocks could wait. I'd need to inspect the bunkers, the roads, the helipads, the ready areas, the refueling points, and the War Fighter tunnels. The last one was important, I needed to see how well the supposed nuclear proof underground area had withstood a pretty serious artillery bombardment.
All in all, the net explosive weight that we'd lost was staggering.
The German and US governments were claiming that the Red Army Faction had blown up gasoline storage tanks at a refinery, trying to cover up the blast that weighed in at the megaton range. Not nuclear, but holy shit, we might have well as been nuked. I had figured out that the explosion had been sustained for nearly fifteen seconds, with rippling aftershocks as artillery rounds hit the ground for nearly three minutes. The fact that the blast had been drawn out instead of instantaneous like a nuke hit would have been was probably the only reason the other bunkers hadn't gone up.
If the Russians rolled on us, 8th Infantry Division and 3rd Armor Division, as well as some 1st Cav and other Divisions elements would be shit out of luck. Which seriously hampered NATO's war-fighting ability.
Thankfully 144th was able to take the heat off of us as far as conventional rounds went. 8th ID and 3rd AD would get their basic load from 144th Ordnance Company's FSTS's, which was supposed to be handed out about Hour 24, instead of pre-hostility. From what I'd heard 144th had mobilized out to their sites, and another V Corps nuclear ready Group was taking over for us.
Having Atlas taken out of the equation meant that people were working overtime at V Corps and VII Army, not to mention NATO, the Pentagon, and the DoD. From what I'd heard, people had been working at the Pentagon all night trying to figure out how to adjust everything. The Air Force had been maintaining overflights all of yesterday and last night, some of them keeping low to the deck, and I'd heard that they had one of those fancy new AWACS up to watch for any attempts at a first strike by the Soviet Air Force. My contact with 144th had told me that 168th Armor had rolled out to pre-deployment areas with full combat loads.
Atlas being taken out put a massive gap in the strategies to hold off the Red Steamroller, meaning everyone else was scrambling to fill the gap. Heh. Fill the gap in the Fulda Gap. Man, I must be tired. Still, everyone else was scrambling to cover for us, reminding me just how important Atlas was.
It was real hard to feel special when all you saw was the dirt and blood.
The phone rang, jerking me out of my half-asleep musing. Stokes jerked, her fist coming up wrapped around the same M-3 .45 grease gun that Cromwell had used to kill the Soviet officer. She looked around, closed her eyes, and let her hand fall back on top of her First Aid bag.
I managed to grab the handset on the second ring.
"FSTS-317 in the clear, Specialist Bomber, can I help you, sir or ma'am?" It all just spun out without any though due to long practice.
"V Corps ChemCorps in the clear," The voice was familiar, "Major Thesslen here, Specialist," OK, I knew him, "Authorization tree niner six five alpha two november."
He was just making shit up. The last thing we wanted to do is start rattling off authorization codes on a probably tapped line. Supposedly if the Soviet Union got enough of them they'd be able to break the encryption algorithm we used to generate them.
"Verification x-ray tango six two tree oscar tree niner," I answered. I waited a moment, listening to the hisses and pops on the line. Stokes started snoring again.
"Bomber, listen up, things are looking grim on your side," the Major told me, "The Pentagon isn't sure your site is recoverable, and some analysts are saying that it might be easier just to shut everything down and build another site."
"There's no way the German government would let that happen," I told him, pretty confident, "They already don't like that the US has nuclear weapons on their soil, since not too many civvies would get the distinction between stored and depoted, and they'd see right through that 'depot' and 'storage' bullshit we're using to get around SALT."
"That's pretty much what Blackbriar is saying," The Major told me, and I shuddered. Blackbriar, the brain of Special Weapons, the final training area. Full of psychos, sociopaths, and fucking maniacs. Still, there were some of the best minds in the country there, and if they said that the German government wouldn't turn over another fifteen or so square miles, then they were probably right.
"Plus, sir, this is a strategic area, any advance is going to have to come straight through us, and the Soviet Union knows it. They aren't going to give a shit that the place is full of unexploded ordnance, they'll just swarm over it with tanks and APC's, and if they lose a few hundred conscripts, they won't give a shit," I told him.
"Agreed," He said, "All right, what do you need?"
"I need 54th Engineers out here, the material to build about ten bunkers, some Army Corps of Engineers guys to supervise construction, at least a platoon of Rangers in full battle rattle with double combat load, Combat Talon overflights, and about two Batallions of MP's and at least two companies of Infantry. I need at last a whole batallion of transportation with their heavy trucks to haul off the debris and bring in new vehicles," I told him. "I need the MP's for security, the Rangers for QRF, and the Infantry to act as mine-sweeping to look for the unexploded ordnance. I also need a shitload of EOD, but I figure most of it is explode in place, probably with anti-material rifles. I need the Bradleys replaced ASAP, as well as the other vehicles, since the artillery shells destroyed pretty much everything but three damaged vehicles."
I could hear him nodding over the phone, "Hell, if you have some other snake eaters out there that want ground pounding real world experience, send them too, the more the merrier, just remind them that this place is a live fire zone." I chuckled, "Although the Soviets might be keeping their heads down for awhile since Stillwater tore apart some of the Mieningen goons."
"All right, I'll start sending them out. They aren't going to like it, but it's the Army, they don't have to like it," Major Thesslen told me.
"18th Trans was giving me shit," I told him.
"They'll be rolling by lunch," He told me. "These asshole units need reminded that when Special Weapons calls, they're supposed to get to fucking work."
"Yes, sir," I answered, feeling a lot of relief. The Major had a lot of pull, far more than his rank would make it seem. When a V Corps ChemCorps officer said jump, even Brigadier Generals asked how high.
All right, do what you can right now, Specialist, I'll get rolling on my end. Over," He hung up without any preamble, and I knew that he was already making calls.
I got up, turning off the light and closing the door gently so as to not wake up Stokes. PFC Farley was checking Cromwell's pulse, and she ignored me as I walked in and went into the commo room to check on Foster. He was laying on his back, the trunk cable from the outside satellite gear opened up. He was dicking with the wiring, doing God only knew what. Probably rerouting the damaged equipment. I'd seen the Sat-Com area. Two of the dishes were just gone, and the four antenna arrays weren't in much better shape. I'd seen one intact dish and another with chunks taken out of it.
"I need you to route everything to me, don't let the office phone ring," I told him. He looked up and nodded, pointing at the push-button switches on the walls that he had handily labeled. I pressed the two to cut the office phone into Foster's domain.
"How bad is it?" I asked.
He made a connection and started twisting a cap onto the wire. "Bad. The intact dish is screwed, looks like shrapnel from one of the artillery rounds destroyed the motors and gearing and knocked it out of alignment, so it's useless. All four antenna are finished, but we got lucky and one of the antenna trailers from War Stocks was in good enough shape to use, so I cranked it up and am hooking everything into it." He stood up and stretched by putting his hands on his lower back and pushing.
"The whole thing is going to need to be replaced, and since it looks like the concrete pad took at least four hits, the War Fighter Tunnel's commo is going to be offline too," He yawned.
"All right. Stay here and direct traffic. Unless it's something major, just take messages," I told him, turning around.
"Whatcha doin?" He asked me.
"I'm gonna try to get this cluster-fuck under control," I told him, walking out.
I moved from cot to cot and woke up the six privates they sent me by kicking the bottom of their cots. They all got up, rubbing their eyes and bitching about how early it was, but as soon as they saw the clock and that it was ten hundred hours they shut the hell up.
"You guys did good GI-ing The Fort," I told them. That got three smiles and three pleased looks. Shit, I didn't know these people, they were all from different crews, all of them E-1's (Privates) or E-2's (Pv2's) and all looked fresh faced and young. I glanced at Stillwater, who was all of eighteen, with his 19th birthday a ways away, and back at the new recruits. Stillwater's face was scarred up, lines on it from pain, stress, and worry. Hell, the boy had grey hair at the temples I'd never noticed before. The faces of the 'cruits were all unlined, most of them baby-faces, and the four men looked like they didn't even need to shave.
Christ, they were just kids.
"How many of you are Special Weapons?" I asked, referring to the grueling NBC Warfare course where you learned to handle and deploy nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.
None of them raised their hands.
...goddamn it...
"All right, normally, you guys wouldn't be allowed downrange, but with what is going on, I don't really have a choice," I told them. I shook my head, "Normally we'd OJT you onto the site, but, well, the whole thing is screwed."
The J-Suits, both armored and unarmored, all needed their filters changed and cleaned. We'd planned on doing all of that once the ammo was clear of the site, which would have only taken a few more days. Now they were deadlined, blown filters and worse. Hell, the armored suits needed the catheter system replaced to prevent any kind of urinary tract infections from happening.
They stayed silent, I'd give them that.
"Let me guess, you're all fifty-five bravos," I said. All six nodded. Shit, while ammunition specialists were useful, 2/19th was critically low on people who had actually attended Special Weapons schooling. 80% of the crews were 55B's who had OJT'd into Special Weapons.
"OK, real quick: Everything you learned in school, forget it. You learn it the way we teach it to you, or you kill everyone and if I survive I kill you, got it?"
All of them nodded. The blond woman on the right, who couldn't be more than seventeen, frowned and looked like she was going to say something, but I just kept right on going.
"Atlas is fifteen miles of hellscape right now. Normally it's just fifteen miles of contamination. This site has suffered radiation and chemical leaks, which was bad enough, as well as two bunkers full of compromised ammunition awaiting shipment to Johnston Atoll for eventual destruction, but that's not the worst," I sighed, scratching at the itchy spot under my sling, "Yesterday a lightning strike caused a full six stack of MRLS Hotel-104 pods to fire into a bunker. That caused the bunker to explode, sympathetic detonation took out another bunker, and about a half-million artillery shells got blown into the sky. About 40-60% of them survived to slam back into the ground. Of those, only about 10-20% exploded on impact." I pointed at the map, "That means that all of Atlas is covered with unexploded artillery shells and MLRS bomblets from nearly twenty-thousand Hotel-104 pods." I paused for a second, closing my eyes as I suddenly relived the explosion.
"You don't actually expect us to go..." One of them started.
"Don't make me put you at Parade Rest," I snarled, snapping out of the flashback. I was covered in sweat that had nothing to do with the humidity inside The Fort. The big mouth shut his yapping hamburger eating device.
"Artillery shell impacts caused the fuel depots at the Upper Helipad here," I pointed to each spot on the map, "And the Lower Helipad here, as well as these three rearming and refueling points, and finally, our site vehicle refueling point, to all suffer underground tank detonations." I shivered, remembering how it had looked downrange.
"Finally, we have three destroyed helicopters, eight destroyed armored vehicles, and another twelve destroyed utility vehicles all over the site, not counting the eleven forklifts that were destroyed," I paused again.
"I'm not..." Another one started.
"At ease!" I barked. Nagle, Cromwell, Little-Bit, and Stillwater all stirred. "Additionally, Graves Registration were unable to confirm the recovery of four bodies, including one we suspect is either dead or injured somewhere on the site," I told them. My eyes watered, and I wrote it off to pain, "We suffered near-total casualties. Everyone who isn't dead is wounded, with the exception of Privates Sawmoth and Gilly, meaning that First Squad of both Third Magazine Platoon and First Squad of Support Platoon are effectively wiped out."
"Get me up..." Stillwater groaned from his cot.
I glanced over to see Farley kneeling down next to him, injecting something into his IV line. She looked at me and I nodded.
"Keep his ass down," I told her, then turned to the others, "You two females, do either of you have your tubes tied or are sterile due to birth defect or surgery?"
Both looked offended. "I'm on the pill, not that..."
"That's not what I asked," I snapped, overriding her.
"No, Specialist," She said. The other echoed her, the blond sounding sullen.
"Then neither of you two will be going downrange beyond the berm," I told them. "We don't know if we have any increase in radiation, and we've already got a measurable background count. We don't have the proper protective gear any more, so you will stay up here with Gilly and Sawmoth."
"That's sexist," The blonde started, "I want to rile a complaint with..."
"Shut. The. Fuck. Up." Gilly snapped, stepping forward. I went to hold my hand up and stop the other woman, but changed my mind, "You have all the eggs you will ever create, and exposing them to radiation would be criminally negligent on Specialist Bomber's part. Despite the shielding of your internal organs and abdominal wall, female soldiers are more susceptible to radiation damage than males." I saw her fists relax and her body language relax. "Be grateful you don't have to go down there." She finished.
"Why's that?" One of the guy's sneered, "So the bitches don't have..."
I slapped him across the mouth, a hard backhand that flipped him backwards off the cot and onto the concrete floor of The Fort. Before he could do anything I stepped over the cot and put my boot on his chest, pressing him onto the floor.
"Don't ever refer to the female soldiers who work out here as 'bitches' again," I snarled, pressing hard with my boot, "If I don't bust you up, they might kill you," I pressed harder, "Nobody cares what happens at Atlas, as long as we're operational, and there are no cameras, nobody cares what happens to you, and these women might just kill you."
"If you ever refer to me as a 'bitch' I will break your arm," Stokes said, stepping up so her boots were on either side of the big-mouth's head. He looked up and his eyes bugged out as he took in all six foot four inches of Stokes' gargantuan Amazon ass. She lifted up on boot and put it on his biceps of his left arm, leaning into it. "I'm not kidding, 'cruit. I will. break. your. arm."
"Enough," I said, waving her back. I held my hand out to him, heaving him to his feet, "Don't bother trying to file a complaint, nobody cares," I walked back around in front of everyone, "Until we're sure everything is locked down, female soldiers will stay uprange. You'll assist Foster, Stokes, and Farley, but above all, you'll be our QRF in case everything goes sideways on us again."
"QRF?" One of the guys asked.
I shook my head, "Quick Reaction Force. The Russians on the other side of the 1K Zone might decide they can take us out again, and we if get aggressed, it'll be the responsibility of QRF to secure The Fort and then head downrange to assist us in repelling any aggression."
One of the guys made a scoffing noise and I pointed at Stillwater's chest. "My boy here has two gunshot wounds, courtesy of that psychotic GRU officer running Mieningen, and without our counter-sniper up we can't keep track of their sniper and troops movements," I shook my head, "Once we go downrange you will be exposed to sniper fire, chemical contamination, radiation exposure, and unexploded ordinance."
I coughed, feeling a tightness I hadn't been aware of in my chest release with pop. I was able to breathe easier.
"We're going to go downrange, and check the roads. That's our first priority, to clear the roadways. We won't be able to clear the vehicle wreckage, but we can do that later," I told them. "Keep an eye out for any unrecovered body parts, and since we aren't sure about the remains of six people, we might find major body parts around."
"And Aine," Gilly said softly, "Nobody knows if she survived or not."
I nodded, trying to not to think about the diminutive redhead sensualist, "She was pulling a security sweep when the blast went off, we aren't sure where she was when the blast occurred, so she is either vaporized, or injured badly enough that she was not able to return to The Fort. So keep an ear open for any cries for help." I tapped the side of my head, "I was downrange when it happened, I barely made it to the blast ditch, so my hearing isn't too good,"
"Why was she downrange?" The blond asked.
I sighed. Should I explain the real reason, that Aine was descended from a forest creature that mankind used to worship, so she wasn't really human? I was trying to decide when Stokes took the problem out of my hands.
"She can't get pregnant," Stokes said, "That's why she's allowed downrange." Stokes looked at me, "Are you sure they should go downrange without their Sticky Bromide?"
I shook my head, "In a perfect world, no, but..."
"We don't know if there's chemical leaks, it's dangerous, Bomber," Sawmoth said, "Gilly and I are already dosed, are you sure..."
I nodded, "No, you're right." I turned to Stokes, "I'm going to head downrange with Gilly and Sawmoth, if the radiation is too high I'll send them back." I waved my hand at the newbies, "Dose these guys, and we'll see who survives."
Stokes nodded, getting up and heading into the female room. We kept most of our medical supplies, since it had better shielding and wasn't used that often. "I'll get things straight up here, Bomber."
"Foster!" I called out. Foster popped out of the commo room, "I need a prick."
There was a giggle, but I didn't bother to check. Foster dropped back into the commo room and I knew he was making sure a PRC-77 was ready in one of the carrying frames.
"Gilly, Sawmoth, you're with me. Double combat load, grab .45's too and double load those, put M8 chemical alarms on your rucks cranked up," I shook my head, "I've really got concerns about taking you two down there."
"You guys keep saying 'nobody leaves Atlas alive' to us," Gilly said. I noticed the sullen look the female soldier had carried the last two months was gone, replaced by... something else. "We signed up for this, Bomber, and while we aren't Special Weapons, you've been OJTing us for two months." Gilly waved her hand, "We're what you have, Specialist."
I nodded. She was right. I might not like it, I might be breaking regs, but Atlas had always been a special case, and since the munition detonation, things were even more desperate. But it was what Sawmoth said that clinched it.
"When the Russians roll into the Gap, it isn't gonna matter, Specialist," She said softly, "I might be a cook, but like they told us in cook school, when the chips are down, even we're expected to run the guns."
I made up my mind. "All right, you two are right," I said, reaching for my M-60. Gilly picked it up, throwing the sling over her shoulder. Foster came out with a PRC-77 radio in a carrying frame, complete with a encryption module that I knew he had already preset.
"What about us?" One of the newbies asked.
"You're going to tox onto Sticky Bromide. Trust me, in about thirty minutes all you're going to care about is whether or not you're dying," Stokes said, stopping in front of them. She opened her hand, revealing twelve little white pills. "Two each, take them."
"What are they?" One of them asked.
"Pills to give you increased resistance to chemical weapon exposure," Stokes said, watching as the two women grabbed their pills and popped them into their mouths, dry-swallowing them.
...good girls...
"What if I refuse?" One of the guys asked. The other three nodded.
"Then I'll send you back to Group with a notation that you refused," I told them, squatting down to attach the M8 to the side of the radio. I knew I shouldn't be carrying it, not with having a collapsed lung less than 24 hours before, but I didn't have much choice. "Group will probably drop you to 144th Ordnance, and everyone's going to know you're a goddamn coward, so 144th will probably chapter your ass out."
"Take the goddamn pills," Stokes said, staring down at them. They didn't look happy, but they took them.
Well, they'd be even more unhappy when they had their first seizure. They'd be lucky if they didn't shit themselves.
"Ready?" Sawmoth asked. She was packing the gunner's bag for the M-60 and had a box of 7.62mm strapped to her ruck as well as a spare belt crossing over her body. We weren't supposed to carry the rounds like that, but like I'd learned in the dark and cold, sometimes you had to.
"Ready," Gilly answered, hefting the M-60. Her XM-16, an old test-bed weapon from the early years of the Vietnam War, and the standard issue in 2/19th since someone had stolen all of our high end weapons, was on the top of her rucksack.
"Let's do this," I said.
We walked out into Hell.