Kilo-61 (Damned of the 2/19th Book 19)- Ongoing

Forting Up for the Night

Snowy Pines Motel
Outside Blackbriar Ridge Training Facility
North Dakota
United States of America
19 Feb, 2002
1130 Hours

"Wake up, Sergeant," Donaldson said, thumping my leg with his fist. I shook my head, trying to clear the blurriness from my vision. I'd been dreaming of Atlas and Alfenwehr for the first time in over a year. The dreams were normally held back by medication and either I didn't dream at all or they were just confusing blurs of colors and sounds. This time I'd dreamed of the dark and cold of Alfenwehr, the continual fear and pressure of Atlas. My hand shook as I raised it up and rubbed my face. A glance out the window showed me that it was lightly snowing.

"You were mumbling," Donaldson said, "Everyone else is asleep, but we're here."

Apparently "here" was a two story strip motel, probably from the days when Blackbriar Ridge had provided plenty of traffic. It looked a little run down, but that was fine with me.

"Come with me?" He asked, resting his hand on the door handle.

"Sure," I told him, stretching as best as I could in the interior of the humvee. I turned around and tapped Heather on the shoulder. The private who had been in the ringmount was curled up in her lap, one arm over her shoulders, head hanging down, drooling on her breast.

Her eyes opened and it took a moment for the fire and blood of her dreams to fade. It took about two breaths before she started rubbing the private's back like he was an over-sized child.

"The Major and I are gonna get the room, stay on the stick," I told her. She nodded and I got out of the vehicle, stretching and feeling my sore muscles protest slightly. I lit a cigarette and slogged through the snow after Donaldson.

A quick check of the parkinglot showed that the only people that had driven into the motel was us, a red Subaru hatchback, and that was it. Soda machines, the plastic sun-faded and probably brittle, were under the stairs at all three points. Forty-one rooms all together, twenty above the twenty on the bottom, with one over the office. Single set of windows per room, doors with no peepholes, air conditioner in the window that probably doubled as a heater. There was ice and frost on the windows and some snow on the bannister. Across the parkinglot was the road, which only had tracks from us and the Subaru still evident. Across the street was a closed a gas station and a small store with the windows and doors boarded up. I snapshotted the view in my head, including the snow on the edges around the flat roof.

Donaldson chuckled and I turned my head to look at him.

"You're already planning zones of fire and guard shifts, aren't you?" He asked.

"Uh-huh," I grunted, squinting my one good eye at the partially burnt down video rental store.

"What happened to your glasses?" He asked me, rubbing his hands together and blowing on them.

"I got Lasik, but they couldn't do anything about my blind eye," I told him. "Nerve damage to the optical nerve, damage to the cornea and the meat of the eyeball."

"So it's completely shot?" He asked me, stopping at the door. I looked in and saw there was still glittery tinsel and fake snowflakes still in the window. There was a woman of Asian descent behind the counter, looking vaguely hopeful.

"How far behind us are the others?" I asked.

"Pretty far. The Gypsy Wagon is built for this kind of weather, you keep it in tip-top shape and you've got studded all terrain tires on it. The sedans were made for on-post and don't have chains or snow tires," Donaldson said.

"At the next target I'm thinking we might swap out the sedans for depot vehicles," I told him.

"Talk about it later," He told me, pulling open the door.