"Now we are out of cereal!" Jeff whined as he poured the last bowl of it.
"Yea, but I think you're ready to venture out." I sighed. "I took the stitches out two days ago, and you're still shut." I chuckled.
"Gee thanks!" He protested.
"I wouldn't let you go out unless i thought you could handle the turret." I pointed out.
"Really?" He asked excitedly.
I nodded. "Yes, you handle the saw pretty well, the turret is just mounted." We took the humvee down towards downtown, I was driving when from behind us I heard a pop then the tink of small arms hit the side of the humvee.. I floored it.
"Uhh?" Jeff asked as he spun the turret towards the pop. A lot more pops and tinks. I almost shouted at him to fire, the Saw let loose in long bursts, concrete shattered behind us. "Eat shit bitches!" He shouted.
My right foot slid off the gas and hard into the break. "We have bigger fish!!!" I shouted. The turret spun and let out a Bang, bang, bang... bang.... B....A....N....G. I quickly realized, we were in over our head, this was an ambush, one I should have seen. A dozen men quickly surrounded the front of the Humvee.
My pulse was racing so fast, it felt like a hummingbirds wings, I reached for Kate, she had saved my life so many times, in so many unexpected ways. True she was a gun, and I was gay, but she was my wife. There had men many nights I fell asleep, deep in hostile territory, holding her close to my chest. Now I saw my self holding Jeff,, when I thought about things like that.
"Stay there!" I shouted at Jeff, as I kicked the door open. I jumped down, I rolled on my shoulder and landed on my feet, crouching behind a newspaper display, and a trash can.
"They ain't military!" One of the mob shouted. A woman.
"Are you sure?" I shouted.
"If you are you're dead!" She shouted I winced, thinking about my brothers and sisters on the base. "There's a price on your head!" I sighed, nodded at Jeff, who was being so brave, desppite his green skin, his face was calm and steady, but his fingers were completely devoid of blood. Just before he turned to fire, I made the face, and hand gesture he often gave me when he told me to breathe, I had woken up a few times, in terror. He always looked at me, a comically serious look on his face, raising his fist to his mouth, then slowly pulling it down to his chest. There was something calming about it, I only hope he got it.
He nodded back at me, small arms fire hit the newspaper boxes making clanks that made me doubt my cover. I set Kate down, slung my AR 15 off my shoulder. I barely heard the SAW, I only heard it shells hit the ground.
I took my breath, stood, and opened fire, the cover news box offered, was bad, but the mob exposed. and distracted from the Rain of bullets from Jeff. Pop... pop... pop... the closest one fell, pop... pop. pop... the second fell before the remainder could figure out that I had moved, and was raining hell on them too. In the chaos, half turned to me, but I had gotten two more. Jeff wasn't hitting them, but he was keeping them shooting mostly limited to shooting blindly. I approached them walking towards them, not flenching, as bullets whirred by me, fearless, in every sense of the word. The life of the man I cared for was at risk. Each step towards them, rage took fears, place, I got the closest one, my gun jammed.
The dirty man, looked relieved. "This guy is fucking phsyco!" He shouted as he put his finger on his trigger. I Swung kate off my back, knocking his gun awayfrom me before he could pull the trgger. For one split second, he looked stunned, the next I ran the butt of kate up into his jaw, he groaned and fell back. The guy next tto him ran, down the street the ambush came from.
The woman shot me a glare as if burning my face into her mind. "They're not worth it! Fall back!" She shouted, I ducked behind a large concrete potted plant. I nodded a Jeff to continue shooting. The humvee was maybe fifteen feet from where the gang was running, a bullet from the Saw caught, one in the chest, and he exploded, blood and guts hitting the bumper. Jeff had become a man. Part of him died, mostly his innocence... I wept for him. Clearing my eyes, i noticed the saw had stopped firing. I stood, the gang was running or sprinting. I pumped my grenade launcher, and enough to take out the last few fleeing gang members, just enough to fully demoralize the remaining members.
"Jeff?" I ran to the door into his turret, I stood in a pile of his vomit. He stood staring at the torso and pile of parts. I looked over at him. "Are you hurt?" He just started panting. "Hang in there, I'll get us to safety!" I shouted. He was gone to shock. I slung my door open started the humvee. I threw it in gear, and grabbed the radio.
"Foxtrot Unform, we took fire and are coming in hot..." I yelled into it.
"We got ya!" A voice said back on the radio, it was familiar, but not the commanders. What that meant, and who it was, I didn't have time to think, between scanning the roads and avoiding flotsam spilt from buildings surely from that gang. I turned on to Dell Range, past two humvees facing the gate, their turrets tracking us. They stayed there a second then sped off after us. I slowed and entered the gate A medic team rushed at us as I parked. I threw my door opened, the Jeff's, I pulled him out of the turret, he fell, but he didn't look hurt, I fell with him, catching before he thwatched into the ground. The medics ran in but I waved them off. He sat curling up into a ball and rocked. I dropped behind him, wrapped my legs and arms around him, and rocked with him. This is what you wanted to every over soldier, wanted to do for every one of his brothers or sisters, but couldn't. It is what we all wanted someone to do for us. Jeff called me strong, only because war had made me into a killer, and that is how killers live with themselves.
I cried for Jeff.
"It's ok!" I whispered. His overly rigged posture slowly melted into sobbing. "You did what you had to." One of the medics figured out what had happened, and slowly approached with a syringe. "It was your life or his." I said a bit louder to calm him, the medic put the needle in his arm, and his body relaxed, then he fell asleep.
"That was amazing." The commander said as he helped me get Jeff up. "Is that what is is like in the battle field?" He asked, not quite aware of how personal that question was.
"No sir!" The voice from the radio said it was the 'Marine', from the humvee. I smiled at him, but there was a certian understanding, two actually. The first was, that those battlefield moments, were private and that he was acutally correct, there was so much more going on here.
"Thanks for the support." I nodded, at the commander.
"Hey!" He chuckled as he rubbed his jaw where I punched him, the last time I saw him. "You were right..., It seems, that while you were in the hells, you learned what really matters." He sighed. I held back a wince, of course he was right.
"Percy!" He said to the grey hazed lit figure next to him. "Please see to his needs, arrage for a resuply, and escorted out of the hostile zone..." He sighed. "And make sure we update the boundries now. Then report to us in my office."
"Sir!" He saluted.
"I've told you all to stop that." He sighed again, something eating at him, I could see it, in my mind: A dark, looming wolf, knawing on his confidence like a bone.
"Best damn airmen I have!" The commander chuckled.
"Commander!" I stood at attention and saluted. He recoiled at my salute, his eyes spittig discut my direction. "He is a Marine by birth!" I stood at ease. The commander was now confused. "He just wanted to fly."
I followed the commander to his office. "Well, he is your go-to now, you seemed to get along better than we have." He sighed. The change in direction was much like the Colorado river jumping its banks, to find a new place to flow. It was, a bit uneasy. He looked at me. "I am serious, thanks." He monited me to sit
"Troubles?"
"We have taken heavy fire, the last three days..."
"I heard there is a price on your heads."
He nodded. "It ranges from a few scrapes of meat, to clothes, food, water, and medicne." He shook his head and paused. "How do I compete with that?"
I looked out the window at the base, the now defunct airport's runways and terminal. Like many small airforce bases, it was on a regional airport. " I think I can assume, that your end goal is to rebuild some kind of government?" He sighed and nodded.
"Military strategy would say, make it safe, then try to bring order...." he nodded at me. "People, can't be predicted when they are this damn scared... They will act out of deep needed phsyclogal needs, driven by impusles to bring some kind of stablity back. Hence the bounties, and attacks. It time you do a little 'creature comfort stimulus." .
He grinned and nodded. "What did you think?"
I pointed to a runway. "A BBQ., open the base up offer tours, take care of the sick, and send home some extra food, tell them, that isn't going to change...."
"We can't sustain more right now." he objected. There was a knock at the door. "Come." Percy came in, and he was montionted to sit next to me. "Our friend here was telling me, to open the base, have a BBQ, and increase rations. I told him that wouldn't be sustainable. You?"
Percy look at me. "Commander, I think it's time we do something like this, people are so damn scared they've gone ape shit." He paused. "Sir." He corrected. "We could increase ration and medical treatments, another 20%, and still have three months to find more.
I grunted. "Give you patrols Candy." I sighed, the Commander instantly knew why, and look appalled. "No one is going to shoot at you with kids around, but those kids have parents, who will be happy to see them excited..." He went to speak. "From now on, everything you do, has to have two, hell or more, reasons you do it, it has to all be done with as much 'positive PR' you can muster. You worry about the power, Let me handle the food issue...."
"Really?" The commander chuckled. "Such a change of heart? I am not the one to lick a gift horse in the mouth, but this is a big gift."
"Yes!" I roared laughing. "It is, but you have changed, I never didn't 'like' you, just saw you as someone I'd have to work though..." I glared at him. "Still might!" I returned my gaze to normal. "But as long as we have common interests, I don't see why we can't cooperate." I pierced my lips.
"What about the police?" The commander asked, quickly, seemingly dismissing my comments.
"A well trained, and decently armored trained defensive force, or something, they won't be doing what the police did, and calling them police, might cause further, difculties'..." The commander nodded. "It would give people something to rally behind, in addition to bringing back some order."
"Idle hands and all." Percy said.
"Brilliant!" The commander said, in a stroke of genius. "A trade center!" He pointed to the terminal for the airport.
"Hey I like that!" Percy said.
"I am glad you like it, It is your baby now." The commander smirked at Percy.
"Sir!"
Despite looking a bit relieved The dark wolf still was knawing on its bone. "Why are you still sitting here?!" The commander sounded annoyed, but it wasn't natural. "Make it happen!"
"Sir!" He stood, and left.
"You wanted to talk alone?" I asked.
"Was it obvious?" He chuckled.
"Only because I pay attention, and you did sound 'guanine'." He said accenting harder than usual my last word.
"That is a bit scary..." He sighed. "We went into Fort Collins." His long sigh followed by his even longer pause, caused my heart to stop. "It was gone."
"How?" There were so many questions I wanted, but that one came out, in shock.
"Downtown was burnt, down most of the college too, but, it was dease =, that took the people...."
My heart almost died, I thought of the cute little prayer Dogs, the black death they could carry. "Black death?" I muttered loud enough for him to hear.
"That was most of it, but in the post-nuke chaos, dead were left everywhere, who knows what did them in."
"Did you count the bodies?"
"I gave my team the option to start counting, or to come home...." He paused. "They counted five hundred or so, but stopped and came home.... They still aren't cleared for duty... And wee can't give them the anxiety meds they need."
"That I can help with." I smiled. "And I am pretty sure, with some good old fashioned antibiotics."
"Thank God!" He sighed, then paused staring me down. "Pretty sure?" He croaked deep from his throat.
"Follow me, and I will explain." I said while standing. We walked back to the humvee, I opened the back passenger door.
"Is that?" He said pointing to the two one-gallon bags of CBD flower.
"CBD, and not the kind you could get in Denver." I chuckled. "Had I remembered it was back here, it would have worked just as well for Jeff, as what the medics gave him, and he would still be awake."
"I am still not sure." The commander said firmly.
"Look, when you're people are suffering, and you live in the end of the world, you have to think outside the box." He didn't buy it. "Look, how did we win the voluntary war?"
"We didn't follow European War conventions." He sighed and then smirked. "This is another time when it doesn't make 'Military sense'?" I nodded eagerly at him, he was starting to see things, not by what he learned in officer school, but in the grey the world was.
We walked to the infamy, picked up Jeff, and returned to the commander's office. "Doesn't Cheyenne have a College with a Dorm?" I asked.
"Yes!" Jeff said. "I was going to go, in the Fall." He sighed.
The commander smirked and nodded at me. He was far more intuitive than I thought. If he were a watch, before he was wound too tight, his gears were caught up in things not important. Now that he was wound right, they moved in perfect harmony. It was truly a surprise, and a pleasure to work with him now, a mind that worked on 'my level'.
"Am I missing somthing?" Jeff asked.
"Beds for at least 300, a kitchen, and a dining hall." The commander grinned, from ear to ear.
"And a Pool, gym, and enough class rooms, we could probably fit Half of Cheyenne, in it if we had too." Jeff grinned. "Between the base, Airport, mall, and LCCC, We could hide everyone." Jeff was bright, it was perhaps what I liked about him the most, our downtime conversations, were always interesting. Ranging from defunct politics, the cutting edge of science, now frozen in time, an unmoving mountain, the rage in SCI-FI.
"That is where you should go next." I said. "But I haven't spent much time on that side of the tracks...."
"It's mostly untouched...." The commander said. "The food was taken, some vandalism."
"Sounds easy." I said. The three of us, sat there, all of our gears clicking. Slowly, our clicks became one, and we devised a plan. Eight humvees would go in two per entrance, take the buildings, secure them, and report back. I had wanted four, Jeff wanted to send the entire base, and an awesome show of force, which wasn't a terrible idea. But the commander spoke almost with the voice of God. "8" Jeff almost spoke trying one last time, but the authority in "8" cast enough doubt, he didn't.
Jeff shot up. "Count me in!" He wobbled and I caught him.
"Well, I'm going to cancel that escort." The commander frowned. "You are doing nobody any good today, soldier." He chuckled at Jeff. He turned to me. "Would you two be my guests?"
"I am sleeping in the Barracks tonight!" Jeff exclaimed loudly, still a bit loopy. Making is earlier deep thinking, more impressive. Not doped up, he was probably sharper than I or the commander were.
"Kid..." The commander started.
"He's a man now." I correct, gruffly and low.
"Sorry, when the commander of a military base invites you to be a guest, you don't sleep in the barracks." The commander turned to me., asking me.
"It would be an honor..." I said. It was truly, a rare honor to stay in the commander's house, at least it used to be.