Casserine (44 page)

“It doesn’t look too bad, General,” Spiros said, as she checked the wound over, closely manipulating the edges of the tear. “I noticed you’re no stranger to scars. Do you care if I just cauterize and seal this up tight? General.”

“He’s out cold, Lieutenant,” Spiros assistant cut in. “He fell asleep before you came back over.”

“Well, maybe we can just get it done without him even knowing it,” Spiros replied. She reached over and took her seam instrument off the equipment table. The tool incorporated a small replaceable tank, which injected an analgesic and antibiotic, mixed with a tissue sealant. “You hitch, and I’ll stitch.”

As her assistants drew the edges of Jake’s wound together tightly, Lieutenant Spiros drew her seam tool over the slice. Within fifteen minutes, the three Med Techs had finished their work, and Jake still slept on comfortably.

“He’s going to have overlapping scars,” Spiros proclaimed as she placed thin skin bandages over the sealed gash. “If he didn’t get the others smoothed over with surgery, I guess he won’t care about this one.”

“It’s good his wife wasn’t here working the Med Station,” her assistant named Bloch commented. The stocky warrant officer tried to lift Jake’s legs, so they could strip off the rest of his uniform, but could not budge him.

Mercer and Dougherty entered the station at a quick jog, in time to see Spiros’ two assistants trying to wrestle Jake’s legs up in the air, while Jake had started to snore lightly. They hurried over to the trio, as the two men had given up trying to move him, and were looking quizzically at Lieutenant Spiros. She turned as Mercer and Dougherty approached in fresh uniforms.

“How is he, Doc,” Mercer asked, “and what were you trying to do?”

“He’s fine,” Spiros answered. “We were going to strip off the rest of his uniform, and check for any other damage, but we weren’t having any luck.”

Mercer glanced at Dougherty, and then said, “we’ll have to get him up for you, Doc. His heavy grav duty on Casserine made him kind of hard to move around.”

“What would…never mind…do whatever you need do,” Spiros replied. “If he can walk, he can get cleaned up and fed. Nice job on the plasma drip, Lieutenant. Have you had some training?”

“We all did on Omaha the first time, right Charlie?” Dougherty said, as he moved to the side of the gurney next to Mercer.

“Yea, when we had plasma to attach a drip with,” Mercer agreed casually, as he leaned over Jake, and began slapping him lightly on the face. “C’mon Honey, wakey, wakey.”

“Major,” Spiros objected. “Can’t you.”

Dougherty turned, and put an arm around the surgically garbed Lieutenant. “The Major knows what’s best, Lieutenant. The General will be okay with it as soon as Charlie here beats him into consciousness. Haven’t I seen you somewhere before, Lieutenant?”

Spiros pulled off her surgical mask and cover, revealing long, dark brown hair, tucked into the back of her surgical gown. Her angular face broke into a smile as she looked at Dougherty more closely. “I served at Genoa. Maybe I saw you there. I don’t think I’d forget red hair like yours though.”

“I was a crew chief on the Tennyson, and we pulled in there all the time,” Dougherty said. “I always had my cap on though, and I didn’t mix around in the officer’s territory. You just look really familiar.”

“Maybe it’s wishful thinking,” Spiros replied with a smile.

‘Tea,” Dougherty answered, looking her over more closely. “I think that may very well be the case.”

“You’re too young to have been on Omaha the first time,” Spiros pointed out.

“I was sixteen.”

“Finest Drop Ship deck gunner I ever served with,” Mercer injected, as he and a groggy Jake walked up beside them.

“I’ll second that,” Jake said, running a hand over his chest. “Nice work, Lieutenant. I hardly feel it. Sorry I zoned out on you.”

“No problem, Sir,” Spiros replied. “We didn’t have all that many casualties. You were the only one we saw with a large wound. Most of the flurry of activity was making sure we cleaned up any Bug residue we found.”

“Better to have more Med Stations than we need,” Jake countered. “Thanks again for the quick service. If you don’t have any special instructions, we’ll be getting out of your hair.”

“Just drink plenty of liquids, and get some chow,” Spiros directed. “I guess you won’t be waiting around to heal up all the way, so stay out of those things reach when you guys take out the next two nests.”

“I will, Lieutenant,” Jake agreed strongly. “The three of us are going to talk over a way to prevent what happened when we broke through, over dinner.”

As Jake led the way out of the Med Station, Spiros caught Dougherty’s arm. “Why don’t we talk over old times after you get done eating, Lieutenant?”

“I have to get some sleep,” Dougherty replied with a smile. He put a hand up to the side of Spiros’ face. “I might need something to calm me down so I can sleep though, Doc.”

“I’ll look you up in about an hour then, okay?”

Dougherty leaned down and kissed Spiros on the mouth lingeringly. “It’s a date,” Dougherty whispered as he pulled away.

He jogged to catch up to his two friends, who had stopped at the exit, and now stood with their arms folded over their chests. Jake and Mercer were both frowning in mock disapproval.

“What is the meaning of this?” Mercer demanded.

“I believe I saw you touch another officer in an inappropriate manner, Lieutenant,” Jake added, shaking his head in feigned disgust.

“Let’s go eat, and get this meeting over with,” Dougherty sighed, grabbing both their arms, and directing them outwards. “I have an important meeting in an hour.”

“It must be the red hair she finds so irresistible, Charlie,” Jake commented as they cleared the exit.

“Nawww, it’s those hypnotic eyes of his,” Mercer retorted. “Right,

Tim?”

“Jake,” Dougherty said, ignoring their comments. “I heard you had a Princess Lea outfit. Can I borrow it?”

Chapter 42 

Communications Breakdown

“I’m fresh out of ideas, guys,” Jake admitted, shoveling another mouthful of food in hungrily.

They sat at a makeshift table inside a designated rest area, where the Marines had been rotated out to during the operation. The room was filled to capacity with Marines and ship’s personnel, eating a meal before rotating back up to the Intrepid and Yorktown. They were all tired after the marathon tunneling operation, but laughter still broke out in the rather hushed atmosphere.

“I don’t see what the big deal is anyway,” Mercer replied. “We didn’t lose a man, and except for you dancing around with one of the Bugs, it wasn’t even all that exciting.”

“Yea right, Charlie, just a walk in the park,” Dougherty grinned. “Maybe you don’t remember the earsplitting whine of those friggin’ Bugs covering our hovercraft as we plummeted to the floor of the cavern.”

“You ain’t getting soft on me now that you’ve found love, are you, Tim?” Mercer joked.

“I haven’t even found it yet,” Dougherty sighed. “I just think it would be worthwhile if we can find a way not to have a repeat performance. At least they were able to dig out our hovercraft. I had too many special things rigged up in there to just abandon it. I hope they can wash out all the Bug guts before we have to take off again.”

“We’ll just have to slow down more when we get close,” Mercer argued. “I should have backed off when we broke through, instead of plunging on ahead.”

“You were driving when you punched through, Charlie?” Jakeasked.

‘Tea, Tim’s a hell of a lot faster with the guns than me, and he doesn’t have any trouble working the digging operation while blowing Bugs to kingdom come. When we hit the opening, I thought we were home free. By the time I realized I was in trouble, they engulfed us, and our ride was plunging to the Chamber floor,” Mercer admitted.

“I can rig up some kind of a probe to punch through when we get close,” Dougherty offered. “You know, sort of like they do on water, when a ship gets into shallow waters. They call it a…ah.”

“Sounding,” Jake asked. “You mean take soundings from where we think the Cavern might be?”

‘Tea,” Dougherty acknowledged. “They used to have a guy in the bow of the ship dropping a weighted, measured line in the water to make sure they didn’t run aground. We can do the same thing. It’ll only slow us down a little. Once we punch through, we’ll really open up with particle beam fire, three abreast at the opening. I’ll fire the shield solution from the tunnel entrance, and then we’ll MAG the Bitch.”

“That works for me,” Jake agreed. “I don’t have anything better.”

“Me too,” Mercer added.

“Good, can I go now,” Dougherty said, getting to his feet.

“Why Tim,” Jake said speculatively. “We really have a lot more to cover. We need to discuss the angles of descent and.”

Dougherty dropped his head to the side of his shoulder with his eyes closed, making snoring sounds as if he had suddenly dropped into deep sleep while standing up. When his friends started laughing, he popped open one eye. “Bored now. Can I go?”

“Tea, go ahead, lover boy,” Jake said. “Take my quarters down here they have rigged up for me in the Command Center. Tell them to get in touch with me if they have any questions.”

“Thanks, Jake,” Dougherty said, gratefully. “We are going back up to the Intrepid for some sleep before the next nest, right?”

“You bet,” Jake said. “They’ll need time to build up another complex on the next LZ, anyway. Now that everyone’s done it once, they don’t need the three of us along for the set up.”

“Good, then can I have your cabin on board the Intrepid?” Dougherty asked.

“Don’t push your luck, Doughboy,” Mercer cut in, pushing Dougherty away, as Jake laughed.

Dougherty waved, and hurried off as Jake and Mercer watched him.

“Suddenly, Bug killin’ ain’t all that important,” Mercer observedwryly.

Jake nodded in agreement. “Did you see the sparks fly between those two strangers?”

“Yea, I think I singed the sleeve of my tunic when we brushed by them,” Mercer replied. “You’d think that boy had never been in a port of call in his life.”

“Near death experiences have that effect on some people,” Jake added. “Besides, Charlie, Tim may look a lot younger, but we’re only a little over a year older than him. We looked a hell of a lot more alike back when we hopped on the first Drop Ship, on Omaha the first time.”

Mercer laughed appreciatively. “Tim comes bounding on board after we climbed in, and Deke stops him cold with one hand in his chest. Deke says, ‘Hey kid, we don’t need no cabin boys this trip’.”

“Tim just smiled, saluted, and ducked right by him to the deck gun,” Jake continued. “When we found out the hard way what happens when you don’t approach the Bugs unless you’re on a rock surface, Tim saved our asses big time.”

‘Tea, I think I still have a few scars left from him putting cover fire over my shoulder on a Bug about to eat my lunch, so close the shots burned slots in my armor.”

“When it came time to go after the nest, Deke volunteered us on one condition: we have Sara piloting, and Dougherty on the deck gun, or he wasn’t going.”

The two sat silently for a moment, remembering a far grimmer time. A young ship’s crewman came up to their table, saluted, and handed Jake a headset.

“General, Colonel Wilcox on the Yorktown wishes to speak to you,

Sir.”

Jake nodded his thanks, and put on the headset. “Matthews here.”

“Sir, I just had an ET cruiser intercepted on its way to your LZ complex. It would not respond when I put a cloaked Command Wing on his tail and tried to communicate, so I had him splashed. Since you’re not on mission, Jas thought I should contact you before I obliterated the entire ET air wing.”

Jake chuckled. “Thanks Doug, have you tried calling on Zaros to find out what kind of stunt it was?”

“Yes Sir, and I’m getting the run around from their Command Control,” Wilcox answered.

“Okay then, you have firing solutions from both the Intrepid and the Yorktown for all ET craft, and military installations, so go to full alert until us ground pounders get some sleep. Keep trying to reach Zaros. Any more little ET cruiser excursions, and I want them sent a message they will never forget.”

“Aye, aye, Sir. We’re taping now, go ahead,” Wilcox replied.

“Matthews, General, USMC, Commandant,” Jake identified himself officially. “Colonel’s Peters and Wilcox, commanding the Starships Intrepid and Yorktown, are hereby ordered to destroy all Passallion military craft and bases, if and when even one more military craft takes flight in disobedience of my order to the Passallion leader, Zaros. The Passallion home world is a no fly zone, and will remain so until I give orders to the contrary. End directive. Okay, Doug?”

“That’ll do her, Sir, get some sleep, and I’ll put your message on a loop to the ET Command.”

“We’ll be rotating up on the Intrepid with the rest of the detachment until they transport our base to the new LZ, so you’ll know where to find me.”

“I won’t disturb you again unless I need to blow up the planet,” Wilcox deadpanned.

Jake laughed for a few moments before signing off. He related the conversation to Mercer, who simply nodded, grinning. “We’ll be lucky if there’s any planet left by the time we wake up, Jake. If I were the ET’s, I’d be careful about launching cruisers on Doug’s watch.”

“Let’s go get some sleep, because if they can’t raise Zaros, we’ll have to go find out what happened to him. I ain’t Bug dancing for a bunch of ET’s bent on stabbing us in the back.”

“Amen to that,” Mercer agreed. “Should we go take the boy wonder into custody?”

“No,” Jake shook his head negatively. “They won’t dismantle the main complex where my quarters are for hours yet. Leave him there till they tear down the room around him, and Lieutenant Spiros.”

“They’ll probably be married before he gets up to the Intrepid, with the way he was looking at her,” Mercer offered.

“As long as he doesn’t wake me up for the ceremony, I don’t care,” Jake said tiredly.

The light chiming of his cabin’s call system announced someone at his cabin entrance. Jake rolled over gingerly, taking note of the soreness emanating from every muscle and joint in his body. He sat up on his bunk, and then stood up slowly. His chest wound felt tight, and he refrained from scratching at it.

“Come in,” Jake called out, as he walked over to pour some of the tea, he kept simmering at all times.

Mercer walked in, followed closely by Dougherty.

“Hi guys, want some tea?”

“How are you feeling, Jake?” Mercer smiled, taking a cup of tea Jake held out to him.

“Sore, but who isn’t?” Jake answered, handing Dougherty a cup. “Any Passallion’s still alive?”

“Yep,” Mercer answered, as they all sat down at Jake’s table. “No movement of any kind, but also no word from ET Command.”

“How long have I been sleeping?”

“Ten hours, Jake,” Dougherty answered. “They’re just finishing up the LZ prep for the second nest now, so there wasn’t any reason to get you up any earlier.”

“Are you married yet?”

“Not yet,” Dougherty replied good naturedly, “but I think I’m working on it. When this ends, do you think you could get me a gig on the same ship or station with Lieutenant Spiros?”

“That serious, huh?” Jake asked. “You’ve got it, if you want it. I have a little experience with close quarter relationships, Tim, under less than domestic conditions. Be careful what you wish for, buddy.”

“I’ve already given him the lecture, Jake,” Mercer put in. “It’s love at first sight, so we’ll just have to get behind it until further notice. You can’t see it, but Tim here’s already wearing the nose ring.”

“That’ll be enough out of you, Han,” Dougherty retorted. “Just remember what they say about payback. I haven’t gone through the vid’s of the hovercraft cabin during our last little trip to a nest. No telling what kind of expression on your face I can find to launch another tee shirt craze with.”

“You only joke like that because you think I won’t let Mr. Snappy do my talking for me, Doughboy,” Mercer replied, pointing his finger threateningly at Dougherty.

“Any ideas on this ET deal?” Jake asked, changing the subject back to business.

“Let’s warn them we’re coming to check on Zaros, and if they get in the way, the Bugs won’t be the only things exterminated on the planet,” Mercer offered.

“You’ve been hanging out with Doug too much, Charlie,” Jake laughed. “That’s the kind of one sentence diplomacy I get into trouble for. I like the idea about warning them to have Zaros on hand for a talk, or we’ll get nasty though. You guys go get the message sent, round up the boys, and prep Alpha for a visit to ET Command, full armor and weapons. Tim, find the Intrepid fire control officer, and see about rigging a firing solution like you did back on Earth for those mobs.”

“Who said negotiations can’t be fun,” Mercer said, standing. “What are you going to do, Jake?”

“Just get some chow, and suit up,” Jake answered. “I’ll see you guys on Alpha. I don’t need to remind you guys of the fact if we didn’t lose anyone down in that damn nest; therefore, I don’t want a single casualty during this chit chat session with the ET’s either, do I?”

“Understood,” Dougherty answered, joining Mercer at Jake’s cabin hatch. “This is getting more dangerous by the minute for our little friends.”

“Hey, it’s their choice, not ours,” Mercer reminded him. “C’mon Doughboy, lets get through with this crap so we can go see the women.”

“Now, you’re talkin’,” Dougherty said, clapping Mercer on the back as they exited. “I’m beginning to get into the mood to nuke this one from orbit.”

“Hey, hey, hey…that’ll be enough of that talk,” Jake objected, as his two friends departed laughing.

Major Corey met Jake outside of Alpha Drop Ship.

“Hi Sara,” Jake greeted Corey after returning her salute. “Any word from ET Command. I haven’t checked in yet.”

“No, really?” Corey kidded him. “Why do you think I’m standing out here like a dork, waiting for you to decide to join us?”

“Charlie put you up to this, didn’t he?” Jake sighed. “Put me on report later. What’s up?”

“No word, and all firing solutions have been programmed in on both the Intrepid and Yorktown. Anything hostile, moving towards our force with an ET DNA signature will be greeted with extreme prejudice. Tim and Charlie have five companies of Nest Marines on board, locked and loaded. Yes, Charlie put me up to it,” Corey concluded with a grin.

Jake nodded, returning her smile. “Sounds like we’re ready. I hope for the ET’s sake, this is just a miscommunication of some kind.”

“One thing though, Jake,” Corey cautioned him. “The Intrepid and Yorktown can not cover you inside their Command Center, and they have increased power to their force field.”

“Rats, that don’t sound good,” Jake mused. “Will we be able to tell if they have the place booby trapped like they did back on the Bazantlan home world?”

“Not through the force field, and their goofy ionic atmosphere, but Tim says we’ll know what they brush their teeth with from down there.”