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The empty Globemasters left a ringing silence in their wake, and Repeth felt the oppression of isolation as she stood on the roof of the Humvee, binoculars out and scanning. She was certain her troops felt it too. Forty-seven people and two Humvees to cover three hundred yards of frontage spread them dangerously thin.
“Keep your eyes on the treeline!” she yelled as some looked at their rides, now receding dots in the western sky. Others glanced inward at the Civil Affairs company rapidly setting up the Tactical Operations Center in the space between the four airfield buildings. They would barely have enough time to get concertina wire strung and some patrols out by dusk.
Tonight would be dangerous. There had been no time for any recon.
Repeth had protested the arrival time. They should have landed just after dawn, to have a full day to secure the area. “The airplanes are fully scheduled. Deal with it,” had been the response from the Air Liaison Officer. She’d been tempted to deal with him, and had to remind herself that no one was going to overlook an NCO clocking an officer, no matter how much of a jerk he was. Sometimes she longed to be back in FC spec-ops, where expertise counted for more than rank.
Maybe I should have accepted that commission after all.
She wondered where the Homies were. They should have been either securing a piece of the perimeter or helping set up the TOC but she didn’t see their distinctive dark navy blue uniforms anywhere.
A pair of Super Hornets roared low overhead just sub-Mach, unseen until they were almost past. The noise barely preceded their arrival but it lingered with their climbing departure, showing their hot twin tails. “WHAT’S THAT SOUND?” Repeth bellowed when she could be heard again.
A couple of her people knew the right answer. “THAT’S THE SOUND OF FREEDOM, MASTER SERGEANT!”
“You damn right,” she responded cheerfully. “Now get your eyes back on the treeline!” With guilty smiles they returned to their sectors. She nodded in satisfaction. Not too bad. Unless we get assaulted by a real combat unit, we should be able to handle anything.
It took two hours, twice as long as it should have, to get all the pallets broken down and loaded onto the vehicles. Once that was done, they began a tense road march. This was the most worrisome part of the whole operation, the movement from the airfield to the bivouac site near Fredericksburg.
There’d been debate about the wisdom of moving closer. AP Hill Army Airfield was about twenty miles from Fredericksburg, though, and they didn’t have enough wheeled transport to operate from that distance. Their mission was to assist the Fredericksburg population – like it or not – to become a functioning town again, the northernmost outpost of civilization on the south side of Washington D.C. They couldn’t do that with twenty-mile supply lines.
So they marched. Fast. More like jogged.
It wasn’t quite Ranger standard, she thought, but it was a damn fine effort. Fifteen miles in a little over three hours. They used the back roads through the base, as the aerial photos showed the civilian highways clogged. When they ran out of back roads they picked up the Fredericksburg Turnpike and bivouacked on an abandoned golf course just south of town. Two months of neglect and it already looked like some pretty good pastureland. Might be some good deer hunting. At least we got here before the sun went down.
She spread her platoon out to recon and guard their sector as the Civil Affairs troops began hastily unloading at the abandoned clubhouse complex. She’d normally have been happy to send some MPs to help with the tent setup but she needed every one of her people to stretch along the perimeter. She ran her eyes over the terrain, then looked back and touched her push-to-talk. “Charlie One Alpha this is Papa Four Alpha. How long are we going to be static?” She meant, how long until she could send out recon patrols.
Captain LeBrun responded. “Just until the Fox team shows up and gives us their report. I don’t want any fratricide.”
“Yes, sir. Friendly fire – isn’t. Why haven’t they called?”
“Not sure, Master Sergeant. You’re the Marine, you tell me.”
“I have an idea, but you’re not going to like it.”
“Oh?”
“They’re going to try to sneak in and show us up.”
LeBrun’s voice was incredulous. “With live ammo? Cocked and locked like we are? And I assume they’re not even Edens. Somebody could get killed.”
“You don’t know Force Recon, sir. They’ll take the risk, if they’re anything like they used to be. In fact...stand by, sir. I need to check on something.” She hopped off the Humvee, seating her PW10 into her shoulder, trigger finger extended and ready, and walked through the knee-high grass toward the treeline. Grasshoppers fled her feet, clicking and buzzing in flight. She stopped near some bushes, calling to the troops that had recently walked past and beyond them. “Smith, Martin, turn around. Look my direction. What do you see here inside our lines?”
The two men in question did as they were told, scanning. Smith shrugged. “What are we supposed to see?”
Repeth pointed at the bushes, low scrubby things, six of them in a rough ring.
“What? Bushes?” asked Martin.
Repeth said nothing, but took three long strides forward, turned to her left and kicked the nearest scrubby plant. Instead of a swish and a rustle her boot connected with something solid, eliciting a grunt.
Suddenly the bushes rolled onto their knees and revealed themselves as camo-painted Marines wearing Ghillie suits, coverings made of cloth strips, twine, burlap and foliage. Near-perfect camouflage. Their stubby assault rifles pointed out in a ring, and all except one had his weapon trained on a nearby MP.
The exception had Repeth’s PW10 at his throat, her hand locked on the barrel of the man’s assault rifle, forcing it skyward. She raised her voice. “Very impressive, gentlemen. But I made you from fifty yards. If I’d wanted to do a little recon by fire with that .50 cal on the Humvee you’d all be dead. So let’s stand down. We’re all friendlies here, right?”
Jill’s man made a hand signal and rose to his feet, as did the rest of his team, lowering their weapons. “Made by a split-tail,” he said in disgust.
Resisting the urge to punch him, she just chuckled, loud and for effect. “That’s Master Sergeant split-tail to you, Gunny. Next time stick to your TTPs and move at night. Less ‘Force’ and more ‘Recon.’”
The troops around laughed, some of the Recon team joining in. The team leader let his weapon retract on its sling, then pulled out a can of dip and stuck some behind his lip. It smelled like Pepto. He held her eyes, challenging. “They’re making Master Sergeants pretty young these days,” he observed neutrally.
The question lurking beneath that observation irked her. “Never ask a woman her age, Gunny. But I earned my stripes; I’ve got almost fourteen years in service. Welcome to the new Corps. You’ll just have to get used to us Sickos.” It occurred to her how right they were about owning your own epithet. She felt the insult lose power every time she turned it around on someone.
Surprisingly, he didn’t flinch, but he did grin sourly under his face paint. His voice was resigned, ironic. “Eden, huh? Oo-rah, Master Sergeant.”
Still watching him, Repeth touched her radio. “Charlie One Alpha this is Papa Four Alpha, I have your Fox Romeos, bringing them in.” She gestured to the team. “Follow me, gentlemen, you can make your report to the battalion commander.” She started walking toward the buildings. Without looking she called, “Grusky, get their eyes back on those sectors.”
Turning to the Recon team leader walking beside her, she stuck out a hand. “Repeth. They call me Reaper sometimes, though with this new Plague inbound I’m not sure that’s the best handle I could have.”
“Gunderson.” He shook her hand with a leather paw.
“They call you ‘Swede’?”
“Inevitably. Though I’m Danish.”
“I could have a lot of fun with that line. Ich Bin Ein Gunderson!”
Drily, “Oh, a comedian.”
She snorted. “I’ll keep my day job.”
“The world thanks you.”
“Do they select Force Recon for their smart mouths, Gunny?”
“No, just their outstanding good looks.”
“I thought that was SEALs.”
“Ouch, low blow. I’ll shut up now, Mas-tah Sar-junt.”
She let him get in the last word, since it was actually a capitulation. Twilight stole over the battalion encampment, and they heard one of the battalion’s two generators rattle to life.
As a special operator she hated the things. They destroyed the quiet of the night and called attention to their positions. And electricity brought lights, and lights killed night vision. For a unit in the rear, they were necessary. But now they were on the front lines and she really wished they could have done without until the area was secured. Eventually they would be dug in, with earth to muffle the sound somewhat.
They saw lights come on in the clubhouse building and nowhere else, and blinds drop rapidly down. Well, at least the glare will be confined, once they black everything out. She closed her shooting eye as she nodded at the door guard and led the team inside into the bright. She found Captain LeBrun, who led them to the battalion commander.
She was about to withdraw when LeBrun told her to stay. “Your people will be fine. Remember, you’re covering for your nonexistent LT. That means it’s your job to listen to the intel briefings.”
She grunted unwilling assent.
Inside a room crowded with officers and senior NCOs, Swede made his report to LTC Muzik. “We’ve been in the area three days. Do you have a map?” The Battalion intel officer ran to get his easel. “As I understand it you want to work your way northward, start to reestablish law and order, and see how bad D.C. is. Right now you have two main problems.”
“We. We have two main problems, Gunnery Sergeant, since your orders are to attach yourself to my battalion.” Muzik’s declaration was confident, his manner easygoing.
“Uh, yes, sir. We have two main problems. First is the crazies. Packs of them, some of them forty or fifty together. They look like people but they act like apes or something. You can’t tell what they’ll do for sure. Some just run away. Some scare with a few shots. And some attack. We had to kill one group of ten or so that came after us with rocks and sticks.”
Muzik nodded. “Those must be Twosies. The ones with Demon Plague Two. We should be able to handle them. All of our small arms fire Needleshock, and the Eden Virus should pacify and cure most of them, supplant the Demon Plagues. It remains to be seen what kind of minds they will retain. Oh, and make sure you draw Needleshock for your weapons. You can have your lethal rounds back when you leave my command.”
“Aye aye, sir.” He looked unhappy at that order. “The other problem is more serious.” Swede stopped, looked around as if not knowing quite how to explain. Finally he said, “It’s Fredericksburg. It’s...hostile.”
“Explain please.” Muzik’s tone was light but firm.
“Well, sir...all we know for sure is they have roadblocks and checkpoints, and picket lines and fences, and no one except the crazies –”
“– Twosies –”
“– Yes sir, no one except the Twosies live outside of their defense lines. We approached a checkpoint with weapons slung and our hands empty, but they fired on us anyway. We E-and-E’d out of there as quick as we could. Then we reconned most of their lines. We split up and went left and right.”
“Show us on the map.”
Swede traced the edges of the Fredericksburg defenses. They ran up the Rappahannock to the East, along Route 3 on the south, and along Interstate 95 to the west. “We didn’t get all the way around, but if they follow the terrain the north end should be about where the river meets the freeway.”
“Roughly the northern half of Lee’s position on December tenth, 1862,” Muzik mused. “Burnside took a beating. The terrain is very defensible. Five miles between us and them. We have no artillery, no armor, just some air if the Navy can spare it. We’re not a maneuver unit anyway, we’re Civil Affairs. We can’t intimidate them, so we have to find a way to talk. A white flag?”
“I’ll go, sir,” Repeth volunteered. “They’re more likely to talk to a woman. And I’ll heal in case of trouble.”
“Ah, sir, my men –” Swede began.
“Are normals, right? Are you even inoculated with the Plague vaccines?”
“Yes, sir. They flew some out to the LPD.”
Muzik grunted. “Then you can back her up. But I mean back. Pick up Plague injectors ASAP, and tomorrow we’ll have a medical team with Eden Plague standing by. This isn’t a battle, Gunnery Sergeant, it’s a parley. We need to know who these people are. What they’re afraid of, what they’re forted up against. They’re our own citizens, people. They’re not the enemy.”
“Unless they choose to be, sir.” Swede stuck his jaw out. “They did shoot at us.”
Muzik’s Adonis smile broke out wintry. “Understood. But let me say again, and very clearly, Gunny,” as his eyes bore into Gunderson’s, “these are Americans, no matter how misguided. We’re not looking for a fight.” He raised his voice. “All right, everyone back to work. Make sure your people get some sleep. We initiate the parley at 0700 tomorrow.”
