Gas & Blood (Damned of the 2/19th Novella) - Rough Draft Finished

Panic

FSTS-317/NATO Site 93
Classified Location
Edge of the 1K Zone
Fulda Gap, Western Germany
26 April, 1986
1630 Hours

The Fort was still the same. Smelled of BO, rotting blood, someone's last MRE, and of course, stupidity. Stillwater was laying back on his cot, taking a drink out of bottle of Orange Fanta with a shaking hand. His eyes were still shadowed by what I knew had to be some serious pain, but he lowered the bottle and smiled at me, the side of his face jerking up as that scarred up nerve spasmed.

Stokes looked up from where she was cradling Aine, who was looking around woozily with blood having ran from her nose. "She suffered a seizure about twenty minutes ago."

"Take care of her," I told her. She nodded in reply and Aine gave me a wan smile.

"How is it?" Stillwater asked.

"Things are weird out there," I told him.

"Specialist Bomber, do you have any idea what is going on out there?" Sergeant Bonnham  asked me. Her attitude had changed over the course of the operations, although Sergeant Reddings' hadn't. While Reddings still considered us a pack of incompetent fuckups, Sergeant Bonnham had been downrange repeatedly, watched Stillwater struggle to recover from his injuries, and seen the extent of the injuries the Atlas Crew had sustained.

She'd sat in Stillwater's office and cried after Chief Henley had come down to tell us that out of the all the survivors of the blast, we were the only ones who would not be put out of the military, and then made her be present as he went down with Nagle to see where each of his men had died and listened to how they had died.

When one of the Trans officers tried to climb up my ass, she'd jumped in his with both boots and sent his ass packing off the site and then used the phone to deliver an ass chewing to his boss, then reported his ass to Henley, who had promptly torn off huge chunks of everyone's ass who was involved.

She had seen Atlas the day that it had killed one and injured another of the idiot Trans drivers who had gotten out of his vehicle and gone into the brush to piss and an MRLS bomblet had blown off his legs and only Stoke's intervention had saved the other.

Seen it, and now understood it.

I shook my head. "No clue, Sergeant. I just do what Agent Timmons tells me to," I lied smoothly. "So far he's just got 1/68th Armor running back and forth, I think he's testing 3rd Armor Division's readiness status."

She nodded her head. Something like that would make sense to her. I honestly doubted she was capable of understanding exactly what was going on.

He was pushing the GRU Psycho, the 8th Guards CO, and the 39th Armored Guards to the breaking point. Assessing their crew capabilities, fuel capacity and consumption for the new T-80's, and seeing just how willing they were to lug their tactical nuke armor busters around.

"Specialist Bomber, when are you going to reload the bunkers that the engineers are rebuilding?" Sergeant Reddings asked me, standing up from the cot he was sitting on. He had been pushing Groom back against the wall by sliding his butt against her, and the sleeping woman rolled on her back and farted when he got up. I almost burst out laughing at the anger on his face.

Foster came out of the commo room with Sawmoth, both of them looking grim. He motioned at me from behind Sergeant Bonnham and Sawmoth put her finger to her lips. I frowned and started moving forward as I answered Sergeant Reddings.

"As soon as the concrete sets and cures and the sensors are installed," I told him. "Plus, I don't want any ammo on the pads until the lightning protections are back on."