SPLAT!
The two inches of standing water in the ragged little clearing surged back from the dead steer, turning red from the blood seeping from it. The rain I'd triggered with my preoccupied handling of the weather that morning was coming down in buckets and splattering across the carcass, churning the water into a thin pink foam.
There was a long pause, then a reptilian head covered with opalescent green feathers slowly emerged from within the cave-like opening. She glanced at the dead steer, then looked up at me where I quietly sat just to the other side of it.
Another long moment passed as we stared at each other. Yeah, maybe she was a gate date/hubby-hunter, and maybe she wasn't. And just who the hell was I to assign human-style motivations to something like her? Neither of us was human, and I, for one, was damn lonely...
She emerged from her den, oblivious to the downpour, stepping over the steer without a second glance. Her golden eyes were locked on mine, and strangely luminous in the dim illumination and occasional lightning.
A moment later she was licking, then nipping at my throat. I closed my eyes, purring, just feeling for a second or so, then slowly bent my head to work her throat with little love bites of my own.
The steer lay in the darkness, forgotten, the rain sluicing off its sides, while out beyond it in the clearing my little green snake and I lay in the rain and the wet and the mud and made insatiable love all the rest of the night.
"Top? You busy?"
First Sergeant McClinton held up a hand, while the other continued to scribble madly upon one of what looked like thousands of pieces of paperwork that completely buried her desk. "Just a minute. . . ." She scribbled her signature at the bottom and flung the document into the out-box. "There! What can I do for you, Sergeant?"
I found myself wincing a bit as I tossed yet another packet of paperwork onto her desk. "Sorry to bother you, but could you give me a quick proofread of this before I put it in?"
"Sure." Top grabbed it up and began to scan the top sheet, then paused. "What the hell is it?"
"It's my retirement packet, Top."
McClinton's head came up with a jerk. "What? Sergeant Halliday, you don't have a full twenty in yet, do you?"
I shook my head. "No, First Sergeant, I don't. But the Pentagon's finally authorized the Early Retirement clause, and I'm applying for it."
McClinton studied the paperwork closely for several long minutes. "I hope you know what you're doing. You know that once this is submitted, there's no stopping it? You have everything arranged? Where you're going to live? Employment?"
I smiled slightly. "Yes, Top, I think I have everything worked out, for the first time in my life..."
The First Sergeant gave me a suspicious look. "Can't change your mind?"
I shook my head. "Sorry, Top. The Reds have thrown in the towel, we have a Liberal in the CINC slot screwing things up, funding has gone to hell, promotions are zip, morale's in the gutter..." I sighed. "It's time to move on."
"We need you, Sarge."
I laughed harshly. "Sorry, Top, but they have one hell of a way of showing it."
"Yeah. . . ." She sighed bitterly, then picked up the packet. "Well, I can't find anything wrong with this. You need to sign here."
I did so. "Thanks, Top. You'll put it in?"
"Yeah. Good luck, Mike."
I smiled. "Thanks, but maybe I won't need it, this time. . . ."
I turned and left, heading back to my hangar office. Along the way, I found myself quietly whistling "Burning Bridges."
Another week, and my feathered serpent finally let me take a look at her eggs. She watched me like a hawk as I gingerly extended my snout and sniffed at them. They smelled . . . alive. Ignoring their mother's warning growl, I carefully placed my paw upon one of them, and was surprised at how warm they were. Something shifted beneath my paw and I jerked it back, staring at the egg. Yes, they were very close.
She quickly hustled me out of there with a series of sharp jabs and nips, and I retreated to the far side of the clearing and watched her coil protectively in front of the nest. She was in excellent form now; in fact, she seemed to be getting a little fat. Perhaps I should cut back on the provisions?
Whatever. She finally calmed down, and after a while decided to get playful again, which was more than all right with me. . . .
"Staff Sergeant Halliday?"
"Yes?"
"This is Specialist Martell at MILPERCEN. I'm to inform you that your retirement's been approved. Your effective date, however, has been moved up from 1-July to 1-April in order to meet our quota for the second quarter. Will this pose any problems?"
"Hmm. . . .No, not at all."
"Ah. Good. Then I'll get started on cutting your retirement orders. Have a nice day, sergeant."
She was waiting for me out in the clearing this evening, and evidently very excited about something; rushing up to me as I landed. Quickly she took the evening's dinner from my jaws and set it aside, then began to chivvy me toward her den. I blinked in confusion: What was this? It took me half the night to ease my way close to her nest the last time, and now she couldn't wait to get me in there.
Okay, okay, I'm in already. Now what the devil . . . I glanced into the nest, then did a double-take and stared. There, laying with the others, was a fourth egg. It was half-again as large as the others, and a blue-gray in color.
My legs went weak, and I sat on the haunches with a thump. A fourth egg. Fourth egg. You mean we….? I stared at the glossy, still-damp shell, my lower jaw sagging in shock while my mate gently rubbed her head against me.
An egg.
My egg.
My child.
Our child!!
Something almost painful slowly welled up inside of me until it threatened to choke me, my eyes growing dangerously wet. Suddenly I whipped about and my mate squawked in surprise as I caught her up in my forelimbs and hugged her, rocking her gently as tears of joy ran down my scaled maw. . . .