THE FOLLOWING WEDNESDAY WE LEARNED THAT four officers from Ranger Battalion and a dozen others from the rest of the regiment were being transferred out, immediately. The rumors we had heard about the formation of a 2nd Combined Regiment were confirmed. The officers from our regiment were to provide some experienced leadership for the new unit. Friday, we learned that a few sergeants were also being transferred to the 2nd Combined Regiment. The only man transferred from B Company was Junior Lieutenant Eso Vel Hohi, the biraunta who was third platoon’s leader. Tonio told me that we were scheduled to get a new biraunta JL, but that he wouldn’t arrive for another week. All of the officers and sergeants transferred out were supposed to be replaced.
After two and a half months, we were in pretty good shape. Much of the battalion had been together since Dancer and I had been through the combat on Dintsen; all of the wounded were back with their units. With plenty of veterans it had been easier to bring along the replacements for those who had been killed or wounded too badly to come back. All in all, Ranger Battalion was sharper than it had been when we hit Dintsen to liberate that divotect world. That didn’t mean we could just sit on our butts. You hone your skills constantly, looking for that little extrasharpness, knowing that it might mean fewer casualties, might even mean the difference between winning and losing.
We had reached the point where we were doing at least one practice insertion each week—simulating combat landings either by shuttle or airsled. We practiced complicated battle scenarios, spec ops missions and deep penetrations with other army units providing the enemy for us to act against. One of those maneuvers was held in the desert of southern California. Another was on the Panamanian Isthmus. Each lasted three or four days.
General Ransom and Colonel Hansen kept us busy. We started doing night exercises two or three times a week, and those included just about every Friday night, which meant that we wasted a lot of “free” Saturday afternoons catching up on sleep. I called Chrissie a couple of times over the two weeks following our first date, and we had dinner together on the second Sunday, but nothing more. She was very understanding. She knew about the training schedule. It was affecting business at Gen’ral Jimmy’s. There were a lot of soldiers too tired to cross the street for a beer when they could get one cheaper at a club on base.
The next Sunday I took a bus into Clarksville and visited a professional to get laid. I didn’t have to worry about complications, commitment, or polite maneuvering; just a couple of drinks, a few words on what I liked, and we adjourned to a private room. Half an hour later I was feeling much better.
THERE WAS ONE OTHER BENEFIT TO THE INCREASED training schedule. With everybody working day after day until all they wanted to do was sleep when they got off duty, there were a lot fewer fights. I had no trouble at all in my squad, and the spats were becoming minimal throughout the unit. They didn’t disappear completely. You’re always going to have squabbles in an army unit, disagreements that can get out of hand. What was important was that they no longer seemed to result from bigotry among the species, and the men in the various squads took to stopping them before any superiors had to get involved.
We got through the hottest months of summer and into the slight relief of early autumn, with temperatures rarely hitting ninety. The 1st Combined Regiment was close to achieving the four months of training we had been promised. The general finally relented a little on the schedule, occasionally giving us all of Saturday off, supposedly to make up for the earlier intrusions on our weekends. Even during the week our schedule was a little softer. We concentrated on fine points of techniques as well as continuing the routine of physical conditioning, the firing range, and the hand-to-hand combat pits.
“Just means we’re that much closer to being sent out again,” I told Tonio. We were eating supper in the NCO club. It was Friday afternoon, the end of week sixteen of training. One more week and we would have our four months in, all that had been promised to us.
“Probably,” Tonio said. “This time, I think we’re ready for whatever they want us for, even if it’s something as insane as liberating another world like Dintsen with too few men. We’ve had time to jell, time to get most of the problems worked out. We’re sure as hell not going to win the war sitting on Earth. Time for us to earn our pay again.”
“You heard any hot rumors about where they might send us?”
He snorted. “Hundreds of rumors, none worth the energy to repeat. Rumors sending us to just about every settled world in the galaxy, and to a few that aren’t. Anyplace that gets talked about a lot is probably unlikely. Hell, they’re not going to broadcast plans when any news might get to the wrong ears.”
“I know, but … it would be nice to have some idea.”
“You’ve been in the army long enough to know better. Maybe General Ransom and his top staff officers know what’s coming, but the odds of the rest of us being told anything before we absolutely have to know are too small to worry about. They’ll give us a few hours’, maybe a whole day’s, notice that we’re going to ship out, but we won’t be told where we’re going until we’re aboard ship and moving out-system, too late for it to get to the enemy before we get there.”
And we could be shipping out almost any day now, I thought.
THAT STARTED TO NAG AT MY MIND. I WASN’T looking forward to combat—I had been there and knew how horrible it can be—but I was as ready for it as I was ever likely to get. It’s the whole reason for all the training, the fundamental reason for the uniform, the job. Every soldier has to deal with the possibility that the next mission might be the one he doesn’t come back from. Those of us who had been on Dintsen had all seen comrades die. Many of us had been wounded. You can’t forget those things. You just have to find a way to deal with them. You recognize the fear that starts to build as soon as you realize you’re going to be going into combat again, and you do whatever it takes to make sure the fear doesn’t mash your brains to jelly. Maybe it’s easier for some of the other species. Porracci and ghuroh seem more involved with the business of fighting, less concerned with what happens to them personally. But, then, maybe that’s just the way it looks to me. There’s still a lot about the others that I’m not certain I completely understand.
I did call Chrissie Friday evening, and we made a date for Sunday. She wasn’t working that day, so we could spend the afternoon together. I would pick her up at her apartment at one o’clock and we’d decide what we were going to do then. After I linked off, I sat and wondered just why the hell I had called her. I couldn’t find an answer.
“YOU THINK YOU MIGHT BE LEAVING SOON,” Chrissie said just after we said our hellos—punctuated bya very short kiss, an expected type of thing without passion. She wasn’t asking a question, just making a simple statement.
“Sooner rather than later.” I shrugged as I stepped through the doorway and she shut the door. “We’re not going to win this war strutting around Fort Campbell.”
Chrissie’s apartment was small and utilitarian, only three rooms—if you include the bathroom as a separate room—bedroom in the back and combination living room and kitchen. Her complink terminal sat on the kitchen table, the screen aimed into the living room area. There was a direct link for her gamer jack in the living room next to the love seat. There were two straight chairs at the table and a single upholstered chair that matched the love seat, simple drapes on the windows, not much else. I’ve been in hotel rooms that looked more … homey. Hell, my room in the barracks wasn’t much more spartan.
“We don’t have to go out if you don’t want to,” Chrissie said, moving me toward the love seat. “We could maybe watch something on the link, or listen to music and talk. Whatever. I’ve got a few beers in the refrigerator.”
“Whatever you want to do.”
She moved closer to me, until our bodies were touching at several locations. “Let’s stay in, get to know each other better,” she whispered. She initiated the kiss, and it was more than the ritual little peck we had shared at the door. She didn’t have to draw me pictures. Chrissie was ready for our relationship to move to a new level.
What the hell, I thought, moving into the spirit of the moment. We were both adults with full control of our faculties. We’re going to be shipping out soon. No telling where they send us after the next campaign. Might be a world with no human women on it. There hadn’t been females of any sentient race on Dancer, and Dintsen only had divotect women—and their anatomies are too different from humans to make fraternization (the formal military term for sex and other frowned-upon activities) possible even if a horny soldier wanted to try.
• • •
CHRISSIE WAS CERTAINLY NO BLUSHING VIRGIN. I hadn’t expected that, but she demonstrated a few tricks that made me think she had received expert coaching somewhere. That afternoon I think I had the best sex I had ever had without paying for it. By the time we finished I was limp in more ways than one. We lay together in her bed, tangled together. We had spent most of the past several hours there. I was feeling warm and comfortable … and spent, and I remember thinking, I could get used to this. I was having difficulty staying awake, but I did a lot of blinking and tried to suppress any yawns. A man has to have standards.
“Much nicer than going out,” Chrissie whispered, her lips moving right against my ear, tickling.
“Very nice,” I agreed.
“Is this how you got the nickname Dragon?” Chrissie asked, tracing the tattoo on the back of my left hand.
I chuckled. “No, the other way around. I got the tattoo because of the nickname.”
“How did you get it?”
“Right after I finished boot camp, I was out on the town with a bunch of buddies and I tried a really stupid trick I had read about, an old sideshow bit that involved spraying a mouthful of a flammable liquid past a flame, like breathing fire. Someone called me a dragon and the name stuck.” I shrugged. “That and my hair. It was redder then, not washed out the way it is now.”
We stretched the afternoon out a little more, but the waves were gone, and we eventually got out of bed and got dressed. I got dressed. Chrissie just pulled on a dressing gown.
“I hope you don’t ship out too soon,” Chrissie said as she showed me to the door. Then, before she opened it, she sort of melted against me in a way that made me think we were both still naked. “I like being with you.”
“You’re … special,” I whispered, moving some of her hair so I could kiss the side of her neck in a way she reallyliked. She raised up on her tiptoes, pressing harder against me. For an instant, I thought maybe it wouldn’t be necessary for me to leave quite yet, but it was just another tingle, not the real thing. “I don’t think I’ve ever known a girl quite like you.”
She chuckled, then gave me a hard kiss on the mouth. “Call me,” she said, reaching around me to open the door.
I KEPT TELLING MYSELF THAT IT WAS TIME TO END it with Chrissie—before we got too involved for me to break it off at all. She wanted something I wasn’t sure I could give her. I woke in the middle of the night, sweating and shaking at some dream I couldn’t recall—except that it had involved Chrissie and me in some sort of supposedly permanent relationship. Forget her, I told myself. She’ll find someone else soon enough. She must have men waiting in line for a chance.
But forgetting her wasn’t that easy. She kept intruding on my thoughts, even after I promised myself that I wouldn’t call her, wouldn’t see her. It got to the point where I was having trouble keeping my mind on my work, and that can be dangerous even in training. If you lose concentration, you’re inviting an accident, and the tools of my trade are deadly.
I held to my resolution not to call her until Thursday. Then I called, just to talk for a couple of minutes. I didn’t know if we were going to have the weekend off—or even if we would still be on Earth that weekend—but we made tentative plans for Saturday. She was working the early shift, getting off at four in the afternoon, and had all of Sunday off. Chrissie suggested that we spend all that time together. I told her I’d let her know as soon as I found out what my schedule was.
At that minute, I think I would have almost welcomed news that the regiment was going to ship out on Friday, even if it was to go into combat. When we left, it would be easier, I thought. Have time without her so close, then justdon’t pick it up again when we come back. There was always a chance the regiment would be stationed somewhere else the next time and I wouldn’t even have to risk a face-to-face breakup.
I COULDN’T REMEMBER THE LAST TIME I HAD A CTUALLY slept with a woman—slept, not just dozed for a few minutes, but spent the entire night in bed with her. It had been a lot of years; since I was eighteen or nineteen. Since then, it had always been briefer. One of us would get dressed and leave afterward. I wasn’t certain I would be able to sleep in bed with Chrissie, not without a sleep patch. I had two in my pocket when I left base Saturday afternoon.
On the walk to Gen’ral Jimmy’s I kept telling myself that I should turn around and head back to base—hide in my room if I had to—but my feet kept moving. I had a small bag with a change of clothes in it, and I felt self-conscious about that when I went into the tavern, right at four o’clock. I don’t know if anyone noticed the bag. At least I didn’t have to wait for Chrissie. She was ready to go and met me before I had taken two steps inside, before my eyes had time to adjust to the lower light level. By the time the door closed behind us, we had our arms around each other. We couldn’t have been any closer if we had been in a three-legged race.
“We don’t even have to go out to eat,” Chrissie said. “I went shopping and got everything we’ll need. I want to cook dinner for us.” That sentence would have sent danger signals through me but I was too preoccupied with the way her body was rubbing against mine, and the way I was already getting aroused. We talked, but I don’t have any idea what else either of us said until we were inside her apartment and had gone through a kiss that threatened to suck my insides out.
By the time that had ended we had both started stripping. We got naked, but Chrissie danced away from me beforeI could start the next logical sequence. “I’ve got to get supper started first,” she said, laughing. “Get us a couple of beers.” I wasn’t all that steady on my feet, but I got to the refrigerator and got the beers out and open. Chrissie paused to take a sip, but she had already started dinner preparations. I moved back a couple of steps—the better to watch her—and drank my beer too quickly, trying to force patience to the least patient part of my body.
There was something incredibly erotic about watching a naked woman fix food. In five minutes Chrissie had everything cooking that needed to cook and had the table set. “Come here,” she said, gesturing with one finger in a come-hither gesture.
I went to her and she wrapped herself around me. We kissed, and then we made love, standing in the kitchen, with Chrissie leaning back against the counter. We finished just before the timer on the stove went off.
I DID SLEEP THAT NIGHT, A COUPLE OF HOURS each time, separated by more sex. Sunday morning, we slept late. It was past ten o’clock before we got out of bed, showered, and dressed. If I get through today without her mentioning marriage, it’ll be a miracle, I thought when I had a few seconds free for such idle thoughts. I wasn’t sure how I would handle that conversation if it started, but an image of me grabbing my clothes and running for my life darted through my head. I wasn’t naive enough to think that good sex was enough of a basis for marriage … even if I had been inclined toward that sort of thing anyhow.
But the subject did not come up. We ate lunch, then went for a walk in the park—all quite trite and innocent. We spent most of the afternoon out like that, holding hands and walking, talking about nothing much in particular, then went back to her apartment for an hour or so.
“If you leave before we get a chance to see each other again, don’t forget me,” Chrissie said as I got ready to leave her apartment. She touched my cheek in what seemed to be a very possessive gesture.
“I don’t think I’m ever going to forget you,” I said—a confession that tripped my tongue a couple of times before I got it all out. We kissed again and I left.
THE NEXT MORNING, WHEN TONIO GAVE ME THE news that the regiment was going to ship out that night, I almost got down on my knees and thanked him. I needed time away from Chrissie before I got in too far to back out.