This one was difficult to write. The change in voice, the fact it was longer than Lightning Strike, and the fact it was more focused on the events going on than any direct conflict.
The conflict is more between the world itself and Bomber than any particular individual. Bomber is more Man VS Fate or Man VS Self.
I'd intended a short story, but it's going to be novella sized after the rewrite. I'm thinking about expanding on some things. If I write about Pripyat, it would be a novel rather than a short story or novella.
I really need to expand on some of the other characters. Cromwell in particular. Despite being central to several of the later books (Including "Carousel Blues"), she really doesn't appear much in the earlier stories. She's missing in the next story, attending Special Weapons NBC Field Medicine Specialist school at Blackbriar and the other facilities. The 3 agents that accompanied Timmons were non-entities, but nobody gives a damn about background characters, although maybe I should have named them.
Like it was said in the comments before, Bomber is a more reliable narrator than Stillwater.
It's a complicated and difficult story. I'm definitely going to rewrite it though.
And Henley is a fun character to write. He's so goddamn abrasive, but at the time, the Army had officers like that, who treated soldiers like he did.
There was a reason for that.
He was a former NCO, he got close to his men, and his men had a terrible job that was fraught with danger. Men died, and by dehumanizing them in his own eyes, he figured it didn't hurt when something like Atlas exploding happened. It still hurt him though.
Bonnham may have looked like a complete unexpected heel turn, but the radiation exposure, the moving to Special Weapons protocol, altered her thinking. She was standing at a crossroads. She could give in to cowardice like Sergeant Reddings did, a road that it's difficult to come back from, or she could buckle down and join the others in performing their duty no matter what the cost. She realized that she would have to possibly sacrifice the Special Weapons soldiers, that she would have to command those in reserve, while Stillwater led everyone else to what could very well be slow, painful death.
Seeing someone else walk willingly into what might be horrible death without complaint or hesitation changed her right there.
Additionally, she saw that the female Special Weapons soldiers willingly followed Stillwater and Bomber into the abyss. Being a female in the military is difficult in any era, and the 80's were difficult in particular. She would have faced a lot of prejudice, a lot of sexism as she was in a difficult posting commanding men and women who were among the elite. Part of her decision was the fact that if she did not nut up it would effect every woman in the unit, every female soldier that the other soldiers met. That is a big reason Groom and Sawmoth were willing to walk downrange.
There was no way she would go through her career as the woman who chickened out.
I appreciate any comments you have, as this story has a different tone, different voice, different subject matter, and different pacing than the others that are from Stillwater's point of view.
And thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy the "Damned of the 2/19th" series.