The radio was largely quiet. Just idle chatter picked up here and there. I had the frequency agile channel scanner on tonight, listening to everyone's conversations as the frequency agile hardware scanned multiple bands and tricked onto the strongest one.
Someone from 1/68th Armor Battalion was doing radio checks from downrange. Another unit using the callsign "Oscar Five Epsilon" in Wildflicken checking the guards in the foxholes. Someone else out at something called "Forward Observation Delta Nine Sigma" was using cryptography gear that the big decryption hardware DARPA had brought in and taught me to use was translating for me, but it was a boring conversation full of random words and phrases. I'd set up the gear to record all the chatter off of that channel so I could turn in the recording to III CosCom Military Intelligence. Another channel had a woman who would pop up, recite eight single-digit numbers, then go silent for sixty to ninety seconds. The last channel was out of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and was some guy with a heavy Canadian accent ranting and raving about how the Canadian government was plotting to kill everyone in the whole world.
In other words, another boring night for a radioman in West Germany.
I couldn't sleep. The pain in the side of my face was overwhelming the painkillers that were slowly being processing out of my system. I'd only taken them two hours ago, I couldn't take another one for an hour or so.
But I was used to pain. I just let it trickle into the emptiness inside my chest, where it slowly leaked away into nothing.
The fact that when I closed my eyes I relived what happened earlier in the week sure wasn't helping me. I was tired, my eyes scratchy and dry feeling, but any time I tried to blink I ended up not opening my eyes, and it all swarmed back to me.
Glancing in the rear view mirror just in time to see the lightning hit the ground. Then the sudden flash. The oncoming wave of dust and debris. Then the truck was airborne. It flipped twice in mid-air, slammed down on the road, the windows shattering as the earth-shattering sound of the explosion rolled over the still running vehicle, then the secondary blast wave caught it, flipped it again, and bounced it across the blast ditch.
All of it in slow motion. Then it replayed again. SFC Mattrell taking off his helmet and bending over to set it on the floorboards of the truck. I glanced back, and again, everything slowed down. The blast wave was raising dirt from behind me, and I could see the blast wave coming.
None of the three men in the back had a chance to even know what was coming as the blast wave hit us moving faster than the speed of sound. Sergeant First Class Mattrell didn't even get a chance to scream. On the first flip he hit the dashboard badly, and I saw his neck go.
When the truck slammed down the final time, the window frame denting on the door as side of my face rammed into it. Consciousness vanished. When it returned, Nancy's dirty and tear streaked face was staring at me, her lips moving, the world silent around me, only my right eye working and everything blurry.
With a jerk I woke back up. I opened my eyes and stared at the dimly lit ceiling of the Commo Room. My domain. Just as much my space as Stillwater's office was his. People didn't come in here, except for my assistant. Full of cutting edge cryptography and communications gear.
Most of it useless now that the satellite links had been destroyed in the blast.
Sleep wasn't going to come anytime soon. It hadn't since the blast had destroyed the entire goddamn site and killed almost everyone I knew.
I kept coming back to the blast. Like I was still in mid-air.
There was a knock on the door of the Commo Room, three quick, sharp raps. It opened as I looked over to see who wanted in. It could be that weirdo CIA guy running the operation, it could have been someone from 1/68th Armor. The whole site right now was nothing more than some weird CIA psy-op as far as I could tell.
Instead, it was the most unlikely person I thought I'd see.
Aine shut the door quietly,. Her BDU's were baggy, her LBE and Kevlar were buckled and closed, and her helmet was hanging by the chinstrap from her canteen. Her weapon was body-slung.
Bomber, and then Stillwater, had insisted that everyone wear full battle-rattle no matter what. You could sleep without your Kevlar, LBE, and helmet, but they better be within arm's reach. Most of us just took off our LBE, leaving on our Kevlar vets, wearing our helmet and supporting our neck with a rolled towel.
Aine was dressed like she was about to charge across the 1K Zone.
She moved over and knelt down, putting her hand on my chest.
"Paul Foster?" She asked quietly. I noticed she didn't ask if I was awake.
"Yes, McCullen?" I asked her, frowning. That singing emptiness inside of me seemed to fade slightly, warmth spreading from her hand.
"I was on patrol with Groom," She said softly.
Two-Man Rule.
"I could hear your discomfort in the rumbling of the great engines powering the tanks," She said softly. "You are troubled, I could taste your discomfort on the breeze."
I just nodded.
"May I sit with you, Paul Foster? I am off of guard patrol duty," She said. "There are no tasks for me to be concerned with."
"Sure, McCullen," I said. I shifted over and rolled on my side, my back pressed against the cinderblocks. "I need to be able to see the commo gear."
She giggled slightly, "Call me Aine, Paul Foster," her voice was full of amusement. Removing her LBE so she didn't push her gear into me, she stood there for second, chewing on her lower lip, before removing her Kevlar vest and BDU top, setting all of it on the back of one of the chairs in front of the radios. Smiling, she moved over and looked down at me. "I would like to sit with you, Paul Foster," She sat down on the edge of the cot, resting her hand on my side.
Her firm bottom was warm against my stomach.
"What is troubling you so, Paul Foster?" She asked gently.
I pushed the heel of my hand against my one good eye. The other one was covered in an eye patch, with surgical wounds below it where they had replaced the orbital bone with a metal plate. They said I'd be able to see when the swelling went down.
"I can't believe I lived," I told her honestly. My voice was quiet in the darkness.
She nodded. "The blast?" I nodded and we were quiet for a long moment. The radio chattered. One of the Delta 108th Rangers calling in that the tank crews on the Soviet side were bunking in a tent behind the cinderblock buildings, all over 100 paces from the shut down tanks.
Jesus, what a pack of fucking incompetents. They were putting the least amount of stress as possible on their tanks, but you could drop FASCAM's or Hotel-104's on the gap between their tent and the tanks and completely deny them access. The Soviets would be forced to cross a minefield that the FASCAM artillery shells or the MRLS rockets could drop on them in less than 30 seconds. Hell, we had the new FASCAM anti-armor mines, the explosively forged penetrator models that just came out earlier in the year. Not only could we drop APERS (Anti-PERSonnel) mines between them and the tanks, we could cover their tanks in AARM (Anti-ARmor Mines).
"Paul?" Aine's voice pulled me back from staring at the map on the wall.
"Sorry," I told her.
"I did not wish you to return to your memories of that horrible moment," She said softly. She shuddered. "It was horrible. There are many shades that are confused, unaware of how they passed from this life to the afterworld," Aine said softly. "Each circuit I make of this poisonous land I meet at least one who is confused," She shivered slightly. "Between one instance and the next even their physical forms were destroyed."
"Yeah," I said softly. When I closed my eyes I could still see the truck flipping. Ground. Sky. Ground. Sky. Impact. Bounce. Ground. Sky. Impact. Darkness. I opened them again.
"I find myself questioning," Aine admitted.
"Why you survived," I guessed.
"Why any of us survived," She corrected.
I chuckled at that. "Not surprised Bomber and Stillwater survived, I don't think anything can kill those two."
Aine choked back a sob. "No, where their thread ends I can see. I do not want to, but I do. It is not hear."
I nodded. "May I touch you?"
She looked at me, giving me a smile. Her green eyes were soft, warm. "Like you did when you bathed me in blood and fed me meat still bloody?"
I smiled, then groaned as it pulled the muscles under my eye. "Yes."
She nodded slowly and I reached up, rubbing my hand on her back. I could feel her muscles beneath her brown T-shirt. I was struck again how they felt subtly different, but the warmth of her skin bled through her shirt, warming my hand. I could feel a warm honey tingling feeling moving down my arm as I rubbed her back.
Aine purred, arching her back and pulling her shoulders forward.
I tugged her T-shirt from her pants, then reached underneath, starting to scratch at her skin with my fingernails. That made her start to shiver and I stopped.
"Are you..." I started to ask.
"Don't stop," Her voice was more of a mewling sound. She made another pleased mewling noise as I kept scratching her back. I could feel dead skin rolling up under my fingernails, but it had been a little while since we'd been able to have a shower.
The Decon Shower wasn't even usable. The artesian tap had been damaged and Bomber had watched as Timmons instructed his two secret agents how to cap it off so the whole area didn't get flooded with water.
We were running off of a single water buffalo full of potable water.
Which meant water rationing. Which meant, if you wanted to bathe, you had to use some of your drinking water. Which meant you'd end up rubbing a damp rag on your skin.
"That feels so good," she moaned softly. She shivered. "It feels so wicked to allow you to touch me like this, Paul Foster."
I stopped. "Should I?" I started.
"Do not stop," she moaned, rocking back and forth. I kept scrubbing her back.
After a long moment I stopped, pulling my hand out from under her shirt and groaning, cupping my hand over my damaged eye and cheek.
After a moment I heard her voice. "Your injury, is it paining you?" Her voice was concerned as her hand rested on my side.
"Yeah," I told her.
"Move your hand, Paul Foster," she said softly. "I will return your comfort."
I moved my hand, ignoring that my fingers were trembling as a side effect of the pain. She took my wrist, lifting my hand up to kiss my fingertips. I felt a tingling start where her lips brushed my fingers. It made under my fingernails tingle with warmth, then it moved down my fingers to my hand. The trembling stopped after a moment.
"Do not fear this, Paul Foster," she whispered. She leaned over, putting her hand on the right side of my face to hold my head still.
Her mouth opened slightly, her lips parting, and I could smell honeysuckle on her breath as she came closer. Her little red tongue, pointed, long, and feline-like, slipped from between her lips. She ran her tongue across the stitches under my eye and immediately a stinging heat pushed away the bone deep throbbing pain, feeling like my skin had been brushed by a stinging nettle. Her lips moved slightly and she was looking down at me, her green eyes hot and intent.
She kissed me suddenly, then leaned back, gasping. She put her hand over her mouth, her face shocked.
"I am sorry, Paul Foster, I forgot," she jumped to her feet, grabbing her gear, and ran out of the my Commo Room.
My lips tingled and throbbed even as I fell asleep.
I dreamed of Aine looking down at me.