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

Duty

FSTS-317/NATO Site 93
Classified Location
Edge of the 1K Zone
Fulda Gap, Western Germany
26 April, 1986
1700 Hours

Stillwater pulled one of the little radiation meters out of his pocket, holding it out for moment, the rain pouring down on us. It hadn't been raining when I'd first headed up, but the rain felt heavy. He looked at his hand for a moment, and way before the detector could have told him anything he yanked his hand back.

"Ponchos, now!" He snapped, tucking the radiation meter with one hand and yanking the poncho out of his cargo pocket with the other. I cursed, going to drop my ruck, when Stillwater's voice stopped me. "Don't. Don't drop anything."

I looked at him. His helmet was darker than it should have been.

"The rain," Aine said, her voice trembling as she pulled her helmet off and pulled it over her head before putting her helmet back on.

Stillwater had pulled his poncho on. "Which pocket?"

I shuddered as I realized the rain was leaving black streaks. "What the fuck?" I gathered myself, let training slot into place to separate me from the panic I could feel welling up. "Rear middle pocket."

"Black rain. It happened after Hiroshima and Nagasaki," Stillwater said. "My aunt was there afterwards, she was a Navy doctor, told me about it."

Aine was shuddering, hugging herself under her poncho. Stillwater pulled the poncho out and moved in front of me.

"There's been a major nuclear event," He told me. "Or, well, somewhere in the Urals a volcano's gone off like Saint Helens did."

I shook my head, flapping the poncho out. "No, Corps said there was no seismic or tectonic event," I told him, pulling the poncho on quickly. I noticed everyone else's was streaked with black.

"Stokes, take Aine inside, she'll have another seizure, she's going to be way more sensitive to this than we are," He said. Stokes nodded and turned to Aine. I noticed the diminutive woman had speckles on her face like she had a case of measles going on and her lips were slightly bluish.

"She's that sensitive? How did she survive AIT?" Timmons asked.

"That was short exposure, not like this," Stillwater said, "This is nasty real world. She could probably function, but I'm not going to risk it," He looked at Stokes, who was helping Aine toward The Fort, then at Nancy, "Ladies, I would not ask you to move downrange with the rising radiation levels, but this is a Real World Event, and..." His voice trailed off.

"Duty, Honor, Courage," Nancy's tone was warm as she recited the Stillwater family motto.

Stillwater just nodded.

"I'm with you," Stokes said, "Wait for me to get back."

"Double-time it," Stillwater said, then turned away from Aine, who was protesting that she could help. She was too weak to pull away from Stokes, though, and she reminded me of a wilted flower.

We started walking down the dirt road, the rain blackening out ponchos, staining our pants. The radiation detector that Groom had hung on my ruck began crackling, and hard.

"Don't pay too much attention to that, the rain's getting into the sensor, making the reading higher than we're taking," Stokes said.

"Except that we all know that we're going to take that much from the rain on our clothes," I said grimly, knowing my Texas accent was backing and cursing the fact that it basically made people knock 50 points off my IQ when they heard it.