Brannigan leaned against the armored personnel carrier as he pushed first one leg, then the other into his suit. "This is what we were trained for," he said. "What did you expect?"
"What I mean," Starky said as he helped Brannigan with his helmet. "Isn't it odd that this thing blew up just as we finished our training? It gives me the creeps, I tell you. You don't suppose they arranged this for our benefit, do you?"
The lieutenant walked along the line of vehicles and blew a whistle. "Five minutes to zero! Zip up and check in!"
Starky and Brannigan adjusted their helmets and configured their radios. "What's the code of the day?" Starky asked.
Brannigan held up his chip so Starky could read the number, the plugged it into his collar slot. There was a reassuring hiss in his earphones. "Carol, are you there?"
"Hi, PT. I have been waiting. What's your situation? I am not getting any telemetry."
"We are ready to move out. How are you doing?"
Carol laughed and Brannigan was cheered by it. "Don't worry about me," she said. "We are so far underground they can't hurt us." There was a pause, then she added in a subdued tone, "They have been lobbing shells toward us, but nothing has landed close yet."
"You aren't nervous, are you?"
"The only thing I am worried about is you, Baby. What's your situation?"
"I told you," Brannigan said. "We are suited up and ready to go."
"Okay, give me control of the unit."
Brannigan swung the external control box around, plugged it in, then moved the selector to remote. "You got it," he said, as he put the control box away.
"Super! Super! Everything is coming up now!" Carol said in a voice that seemed unnaturally bright. "Let's do the check list."
They ran rapidly through the checklist and Carol summed up. "Perfect, Baby. Everything is perfect. Vitals, weapon systems, communication, sensors, medical systems, all green. I need for you to move up to the AP now and get under cover until they give the signal. Okay?"
"Sure thing." Brannigan waved to Starky and moved out. He was a little behind the others; he saw faint camouflage shapes fading into the jungle, all on diverging courses.
"How are things where you are?" he said.
"Great," she said. "We have everything we need here in the command bunker. This is going to be just like a sim."
"This is not a sim, Carol," he reminded her. "They are going to be shooting live rounds at me."
"I know, PT." He was pleased that she sounded slightly abashed. As he approached the attack position, he was beginning to feel edgy.
"Just don't forget it."
"You don't have to yell at me, PT," she said. "I can read you five-five."
"I wasn't yelling, Carol."
She did not say anything until Brannigan reached the attack position. He lay there under cover waiting for the go signal and wondered why it did not come. "Maybe I better dig in."
"You'll be moving out soon," Carol told him. "Save your strength."
He waited and waited for the go signal, but still it did not come. Then the shelling started. The rounds passed overhead and landed somewhere far behind. Were they going for the command bunker?
"They got our range," Carol said, her voice tight with tension. "I can hear the explosions getting closer. You better dig in PT."
"Now you tell me," he growled, but he was already hard at work. He just hoped he would be in deep enough before the brownies dropped their elevation.
The lights inside the bunker were dim and dust filtered down between the wooden timbers supporting the sandbags. The rows of combat operators looked up as the general coughed. He opened his mouth to speak, but one of the radar positions shouted, "Incoming!" and everyone dived beneath their tables except the general who stood erect while the bunker rocked.
The next explosion sent another shower of dust sifting down. When the women raised their heads they saw the general smiling down from his platform like a kindly, gray haired father. "Don't worry about the shells, girls," the general said in a deep, resonant voice. "Just think about your guys. Let's get them moving. Keep moving them forward. Keep it loose, but don't open up any gaps." He turned and laid his hand on the map behind him. "The objective is those damned guns. Take care of your man, but don't be afraid to run a necessary risk. Casualties are part of the game." Another shell came close and shook the bunker. This time, the operators looked up at the ceiling but not one left her console. "That's better, girls," the general said. "It's okay to be scared. Just don't let him know you are scared."
Brannigan lay on his belly in ugly green bushes. As far as he could tell, he was completely alone. He thought about the last night that he and Carol had spent together before deployment and was glad that she was safe, far behind the lines. He knew he was going to make it, because he had something to go back to. Brannigan raised his head and peered left and right, then to the front, but all he could see were ferns and cane stalks. "PT ," Carol said. "You see anything?"
"Nah. Don't see nothing," said Brannigan. "Where the hell is Starky?"
"About a hundred meters to your left," Carol said. "Can you move up some?"
Brannigan realized his mouth had gone dry. "Yeah, I guess so."
"Okay, good. The brigade is jumping off now. Be careful and stay low, okay?"
Brannigan raised up and started walking, his weapon pushed out in front of him. "Give me bursts of eight," he said. "Take the safety off." Immediately, he could feel the click of the mechanism in his hands as Carol reconfigured the rifle.
"Bursts of eight," she said. "Safety is off. Be careful, PT. Intelligence says civilians are in the fire zone."
Brannigan snorted. "I'll try not to shoot any fucking civilians."
"Drink some water, PT. You are getting dehydrated."
"Shut up," he said. He crouched slightly and continued to move forward, scanning the undergrowth for some sign of the enemy.
"All right, I am starting an IV," Carol said.
"Suit yourself," he snapped.
Brannigan could see very little in any direction, but suddenly he pushed his way between a stand of cane and found himself on the edge of a flat, grassy meadow. "Shit!" He threw himself flat on his belly and lay still for a moment, listening for the snap of rifle fire.
"What is it?" Carol said. "Are you hit?"
"No, I just ran out of cover," he snarled. "Why didn't you warn me about the clearing?"
"Oh, god, I am sorry," Carol said. "I meant to, but I got distracted."
"Never mind." He raised his head up just high enough to see over the grass. Despite the heavy armored suit that covered his entire body, Brannigan felt naked and vulnerable. "Is there any way around this thing?"
There was a pause. "I don't think so," Carol said. She would have a map on her console. He could see her brow wrinkle as she studied it. "It is an old rice field left dry when we bombed the irrigation system. It goes for hundreds of meters in either direction. The shortest way across is straight ahead."
"Shit." Brannigan pulled down his visor and said, "Zoom to 7." Using the simulated field glasses of his video scanner, Brannigan studied the tree line on the opposite side of the clearing. "What's the orders?"
There was tension in Carol's voice now. "The brigade is going across. Can you see anything?"
"Nothing. Where's Starky?"
The radio chirped as the satellite switched over. "He is moved out quite a bit now," Carol said. "He's about two hundred meters to your left front. You want to talk to him?"
"Never mind. I am going to move forward another fifty meters."
"Stall a few seconds," Carol said. "See if Starky draws any fire."
Brannigan pretended he had not heard her. "Here goes."
He rose and started running in a low crouch, listening for the beginning of the fusillade that might end his life. He was just about ready to hit dirt again when he saw a head pop up above the waisthigh grass. The figure was dark and had a bulge like a pack. Brannigan fired two quick bursts and the dark figure fell in a limp way that meant death. "Nailed him," Brannigan said with a growl. He trotted forward toward the body.
Brannigan pushed the grass apart and studied the twisted corpses of the peasant woman and her child for no longer than it took to see that he had made a mistake. "Hell. It was a woman and a kid." He ran forward a few meters dropped down in the grass just as a machine gun opened up from the trees on his right.
"Are they still alive?" Carol said.
"Not likely," he said. "There is a machine gun up ahead. Where is Starky now?"
"Starky is fifty meters to your left. PT , you gotta go back and find out if they are alive or not."
"Too risky," he snapped. "Now give me some artillery on that machine gun. Range about two hundred yards, bearing zero three zero."
"Okay, I am working on it." Judging by her voice, she seemed more afraid than he was. The first ranging shots fell short and Brannigan called in a correction. The next rounds shut the damned thing up for good. "I think you got it," he reported. There was a cloud of smoke and dust across his front, so he got up and started running.
"PT , what about the civilians? Aren't you going to see if they are alive?"
"No," he said, and kept running. "Now shut up about it."
"But, PT !" Carol protested. "You shot a woman and a child! You shot civilians!"
Brannigan did not say anything more until he was across the clearing and safe in the undergrowth. There was firing off to the left and he heard Starky's reconfigurable rifle stutter several times. "I got good cover here," Brannigan said. "But I can't see anything. How much farther to the objective?"
There was a pause before Carol replied. "About another two hundred meters." There was a bleakness in her voice that worried him. "They are shelling us pretty heavy, PT. You got to get in there and silence those guns."
"I am trying, Baby," he said. "Now keep your shirt on." He worked his way carefully forward, never allowing himself to be exposed for more than a couple of seconds. After awhile, Carol told him the complex of bunkers was just ahead. He went down on his belly and crawled forward slowly till he saw what looked like earth works. "I got them," he said. They were close! Brannigan took a deep breath. "Look, no artillery. I am right on top of them. I am going to toss a grenade into the nearest one."
Before he could move, Carol's voice screamed in his ear. "PT ! You are too deep! They are popping up behind you!"
Brannigan twisted his head around in time to see half a dozen slight figures moving swiftly through the trees across his line of sight. He opened up with the rifle and kept firing until he could no longer see anything to shoot at. Then he started crawling toward the left rear, trying to link up with Starky. "I am moving back," he told Carol. "What about Starky?"
Carol's voice verged on panic. "He's moving back, but there is a nest of them right in front of him. Damn it, PT , you got to help him!"
Suddenly, there were insurgents everywhere. Brannigan fired in every direction, tossed two grenades and ran like hell. "Give me a bearing for Starky."
Carol was sobbing as she reeled off the numbers. "Oh shit, PT ! He's not moving! There's no vitals! Oh shit! They never told me it would be like this!"
Brannigan saw distant figures firing as he ran, small brown men with ragged uniforms and antique weapons. He felt bullets thud into his kevlar body armor, but at long range the spent slugs could not penetrate. A string of explosions marched through the jungle from his right to his left. Seventy-five millimeters, by the look of them. These guys never throw anything away. They probably have had those guns since Dien Bien Phu.
On the edge of the clearing, Brannigan saw the prone figure of Starky stretched out in the buffalo grass, looking in his combat suit like a fallen robot. Brannigan glanced around for insurgents, then ran to Starky's side. It was obvious Starky was dead; even a combat suit can't stop a seventy-five. "Starky's dead," he muttered. "There's brownies everywhere and artillery too. They are shelling their own positions."
"The brigade is pulling out," Carol said. "Can you get back to the rally point?"
"I am sure as hell going to try," he said. "They are all around me. How about air support?"
A pause, then: "Sorry, PT. No air. They got shoulder launched missiles." Brannigan noted that Carol had recovered some of her professional composure, but he didn't like the quaver in her voice.
Brannigan gazed across a flat sea of buffalo grass. From nowhere he saw a stream of tracers arch across his field of view, disappearing into a wall of smoke and dust from artillery. The noise would have been deafening, if his head were not wrapped in six inches of kevlar and padding. The outside sound receptors were equipped with automatic gain circuits that masked off the tremendous thunder of the seventy-fives bursting all around. The effect was that when the shelling began, the battle seemed to become faint and distant to his ears. "I am going to make a run for it," he said. "Carol, don't let me get tired."
"What do you mean?"
"Give me something to keep me going, when I need it. You can do it, can't you?"
"Well, I could give you some adrenaline and flood your system with endorphins to make you feel good, but I don't think --"
"It's my only chance," he told her. "When I call for it, give me whatever it takes to keep me going."
"Okay, PT," she said. "But I don't like it."
Brannigan laughed. "I don't like any of this. This whole operation has been one big fuck up."
For a moment, Brannigan lay down on the ground, his gauntleted fingers digging into the earth. He was aware of Carol's voice in his headphones telling him how it wasn't her fault. He wanted to tell her to shut up and give him something to make the fear go away, but he needed to keep his edge. He took a deep breath and felt the filtered air pour into his lungs. It might be the last air he would ever breathe. He thought about abandoning the rifle, but he might need it so he hung onto it. "Here goes," he said, sprang to his feet, and ran like hell.
Brannigan felt the rounds thudding against his kevlar body armor. It was rifle fire at 400 yards and couldn't penetrate. He ran twenty steps and threw himself into a shell hole while the earth shook all around him. He lay there a few seconds, steeling himself for the next rush, and as he did, he noticed the sudden cessation of shelling.
Brannigan stuck his head up and looked around. The field was coming to life with figures, rising up and running. They seemed to be going the way he was going, toward the American lines, their rifles at the slope. He gasped when he realized how many there were. "We been snookered," he said.
Once again, Brannigan jumped to his feet and ran. He expected to be shot, but the insurgents paid no attention to him, although he could clearly see them on all sides, some as close as a hundred yards away. "Carol, tell them to shake a leg. I am coming back and I have an insurgent division on my ass!"
There was no acknowledgement, and he concluded that either Carol was dead, or the brigade had pulled out and left him. Brannigan ran and ran, clutching his rifle. All around him, the insurgents were doing the same, nobody was stopping to shoot at him. It was like a dream, it seemed so unreal. If this kept up, he could make it back to the jungle and then maybe he would have a chance.
But Brannigan realized it wouldn't do any good to reach the rally point at the same time as the enemy. "It's a goddam foot race," he thought. "And I got all this shit to carry!"
Suddenly he heard Carol say, "What's your situation, PT?"
"Give me something," Brannigan said. "I got to out run these bastards!"
"I wouldn't advise it," Carol said. "You could damage your kidneys."
"Goddammit! If I don't outrun these bastards, I won't need any kidneys! Give me something now!"
"All right, allright," Carol said. "Here it comes."
The effect was apparent in seconds. Renewed energy surged through his blood, his limbs felt light and springy. He started to gain on the charging insurgents and he looked at them and laughed.
"Oh, by the way," Carol said. "General says jettison weapons. Just get yourself back here."
"Allright!" said Brannigan. He unplugged the rifle and tossed it away. His grenades went next followed by his extra ammunition. He tossed the helmet, but not the headset, and then he saw the lieutenant a few yards ahead of him, pumping his legs back to the trucks, bare head bobbing against the palm fronds. Brannigan overtook the lieutenant and as he passed him he said "What do they call this drill, Lieutenant?"
The lieutenant glanced over his shoulder and shouted, "This is called a chicken scuttle, private!"
When they reached the trees, Brannigan lost site of the lieutenant and slogged forward, trying to make the best time he could. He was still about 400 yards from the assembly point when she said, "The general has called for final protective fire, PT. You have about thirty seconds to get clear."
"Tell him to hold off, Carol," Brannigan yelled into his microphone. "We still got men out there!"
There was a pause, then a voice that was not Carol's said, "He can't, PT. Our position is about to be overrun."
Brannigan heard the first shells go screaming overhead. "Cat? Where the hell is Carol?"
"She went to get her gear, PT. We are going to shut down here in a few minutes and head for the air strip," said Cat. "How you doing?"
Friendly fire started dropping all around him. "I am about 200 yards from the assembly point," said Brannigan. "I don't think I am going to make it, Cat."
"Got to go, PT," said Cat. "There are two big girls here who want to load up this console. Here is a little going away present." She didn't say anymore and the hiss in his earphones abruptly ceased.
Cat must have unloaded the whole med kit into him, because Brannigan just lifted up and floated all the way back to the armored personnel carriers. He made it in time to be dragged aboard as the last vehicle started to back out. The machine gunner was a scared looking kid who looked down at Brannigan and asked, "Do you trust Jesus?"
"Hell," Brannigan said. "If you can't trust Jesus, who can you trust?" Or at least that is what Brannigan remembered later. When they unloaded him in Okinawa he slept and peed for 36 hours, straight and he came out of that feeling better than he could remember.
Two days later, the brigade was redeployed back to the U.S. The complex of bunkers would be someone else's problem. On the transport plane, Brannigan avoided Carol and tried to console Cat as best he could, but she wasn't having any of it. Cat sat smoking one cigarette after another and ignored his attempts to get her to talk about Starky or about the action. "He was my buddy," said PT. "We joined up together. I know how you feel."
Cat looked him in the eye then and hissed, "No, you don't."
When they got back to the base in Texas, Brannigan felt his euphoria slipping away to be replaced by a heavy melancholy. He knew he should call Carol, but he found it hard to speak to her since the debriefing. When he did call, she sounded hurt and angry on the phone.
"We were redeployed three days ago," she said. "Where have you been?"
"I had to be by myself for awhile. I was shook up about seeing Starky get it."
"That was rough," said Carol, her voice warming. "But you should have called. It's easier to handle these things if you have somebody to help. We could help each other."
"Maybe. Let's meet at Maxwell's. We can have the buffet and talk things over."
"I don't like Maxwell's," Carol said. "Everybody goes there and I don't feel like seeing--"
"I'll meet you in an hour."
"PT, I would rather not--" He pretended not to hear and hung up.
When Carol showed up at Maxwell's, Brannigan put on a big grin. "My treat," he said. "You want wine? How about champagne? We got something to celebrate!"
Carol had put on her civilian dress and she looked foxy as hell. "We do have something to celebrate, don't we?" She ventured a cautious smile. "We came through our first action okay."
"Except for the debriefing," he said, and watched her smile wink out.
"That examiner dumped a load on us," she said.
"Don't pay any attention to that jerk. His hemorrhoids were probably hurting him." He signaled the waiter and ordered champagne.
"I am glad to see you are coming out of your funk," she said. "You had me worried for awhile. They say some guys are never the same after their first time under fire. It wasn't so bad, was it? I was under fire too, and it wasn't so bad."
"You were under twenty feet of sand bags," he pointed out.
Carol looked down at the table. "I know, but I was pretty scared. A direct hit could have buried us alive down there. I got the job done, didn't I?" She looked at him, her eyes begging his approval.
"You sure did," Brannigan said and reached across the table to give her a pat on the hand. "I gave you good marks on the evaluation, didn't I? I owed you that."
"I appreciate the way you stood up for me at the debriefing," Carol said. "I gave you a good evaluation, too."
"Except for that stuff about failing to maintain contact along the front. Why did you put that in, Carol? You know I did my best to keep up with Starky."
Carol's lips tightened. "Now PT, you know very well that if you and Starky had coordinated properly, the insurgents would never have gotten behind the brigade. I hope you aren't suggesting it was my fault."
"I am not suggesting anything," he said. "But you didn't have to put that in the report. It makes it look like me and Starky screwed up the operation. It doesn't look good on my record."
"But PT, the point of the evaluation is not to put blame on anyone," Carol protested. "The purpose is to help each other to improve. We are a team."
Brannigan saw a way to get to the point, so he let her have it. "We are not a very good one, Carol."
Carol's eyes were big as saucers. "What do you mean, PT?"
"I mean, we don't work well together."
Carol saw it coming now, and her voice shook. "Why do you say that? What about all the sims? Everybody said we were the perfect combat team. We have been as close as two people can be! Good god, PT, h-how can you say that?"
"Sometimes you don't really know until you get into combat," he said. "You got to have trust in a relationship like ours. You have to trust me and I have to trust you. Only you didn't trust me."
Carol's face got very hard and her tone was icy as she said, "What makes you think I don't trust you?"
Brannigan kept his voice low and even as he replied. "You know you screwed up--"
"What do you mean, I screwed up? I didn't screw up!"
"Let's just say you were inefficient, then," Brannigan continued. "You expected me to blow on you, so you put that negative stuff on me in your report to cover yourself. You didn't trust me to cover for you."
"I told the truth," she said. "Except for the civilians you shot. I covered for you on that one." Her eyes narrowed. "Are you saying I lied?"
"I am saying you didn't trust me."
For a second, Carol stared at him, and then her face twisted with rage. "Bastard! I know your game. I saw you talking to Cat on the transport. You were making a play for her, weren't you? I guess this proves it." She got up from the table, reached into her purse, and brought out a couple of bills. "No thanks for dinner PT. Here is my share of the tab."
"You don't need to do that," he said. "We haven't had anything yet."
She dropped the money on the table and marched out of the dining room without looking back.
Brannigan watched her go with relief and sadness. He remembered how lucky he had felt when he first teamed up with Carol back in basic training. Starky had been so jealous of his classy operator. It was not from any false sense of honor that he had not slept with Carol since redeployment; he had been afraid he would not have been able to leave her, and it was his butt.
The waiter brought the champagne and Brannigan told him not to serve it yet. He ordered a brandy and thought about Carol and how in the eighteen months they had been together he had revealed himself to her. He had trusted her in the blind, wishful way that only a man can trust a woman. It had been hard to let go of the illusion he had created.
Cat showed up, right on time, came to Brannigan's table and sat down. She had not bothered to dress up, she was wearing jeans and a black woolen sweater with paint spots on it. "How did it go?" she said.
Brannigan was leaning backward in his chair, relaxed with the brandy in his hand. "About as good as can be expected," he said. "She'll be all right."
"She'll be assigned to radar," Cat told him.
"How do you know?"
Cat wore a smug grin. "I have powerful friends in H.Q. Clerk typists." Cat was not as pretty as Carol. She was shorter, a little too bony, and she was four years older than Brannigan. There was something in her eyes, though, something feral and dangerous. He liked that quality, now.
Cat lit a cigarette and dropped the lighter back into her belt pack. "Are you sure you want to do this?"
Brannigan nodded, then asked, "How about you? Are you having any second thoughts?"
Cat shook her head. "I reviewed your tapes. Your heart rate never got above 85 during the action. But you might have some second thoughts, and I wouldn't blame you. I lost my man."
"It wasn't your fault." Was Cat more wounded than she seemed? "Starky just had a bad break," he said.
"I am going to level with you," Cat said, leaning toward him. She had a brassy voice that would cut through a barrage, but she lowered it now until he could barely hear her over the cacaphony of the surrounding diners. "When we are on duty, I am the boss. That is the only way I work. Starky got killed because he stopped to argue with me once too often."
"That's not what you said in the debriefing," Brannigan said, wearing a little smile.
Cat brushed the remark aside. "When you are in the suit, you will do as you are told. Can you handle that? If you can't, then I am walking."
Brannigan nodded, his smile broadening into a grin. "I can handle that. Anything else?"
She talked rapidly, taking drags on her cigarette between sentences. "Yes, there is one more thing. I don't expect you to sleep with me. Just because we are teamed, doesn't mean we have to move in together."
"You mean now...or never?"
"I mean that is a separate issue. We'll be seeing a lot each other and if it happens, it happens. But don't think you own my body because you are wearing my suit."
Brannigan nodded, but a mischievous impulse caused him to say, "Then you would not mind if I see other women?"
Cat tilted her head back and slowly blew smoke out between pursed lips. "Don't be an idiot," she said and stubbed out her cigarette with a quick energetic movement. "Now give me some of that champagne."
Cary Semar is an Aerospace Engineer with The Boeing Company in Houston, Texas. Cary lives in a house by Galveston Bay with his wife, the beloved Mariata.
E-mail: csemar@ghg.net
URL: http://www.ghgcorp.com/csemar
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