CHAPTER 1

Herok, Afghanistan. October 19, 2001. 1624 hours

Jess pressed herself up against the steep slope of the mountain. A few hours ago, the mountain had just been a mountain, but now, it was a mighty beast sheltering her from the enemy fire. Jess' chest rose up and down dramatically as she took deep, fast breaths. Her attempts to stay calm were futile. She could feel the adrenaline pumping through her veins. It was the moment she had been waiting 5 years for and now, she couldn't wait for it to end.

She was baffled by how everything had changed so quickly. One minute she had been sitting around, bullshitting with her closest friends, the next she was running for her life.

Her fear seemed to be the only thing powering her feet. Her energy was long gone. She had lost it 2 hours ago. She wasn't scared of running and being alone. She was scared that she was alone here. Here where she can hear the echo's of mortar explosions and AK fire that was just a few kilometers away.

Her eyes were wide as she looked around. She listened closely. Nothing. She closed her eyes for a second took one last deep breath, then pushed off of the mountain and sprinted to her left. She kept low the whole time to make it harder for people to she her. Her palms were sweaty against her M-4 carbine. The M-4 was her favorite gun to have on her person. She liked some of the other larger weapons better, like the .50 caliber or the MK-19 (called Mark 19), but she would not like to carry either of those around all the time.

She ran about 200 meters before stopping and crouching under a small cliff face. She waited there for 2 minutes before going of again. She needed cover. Real cover. A cave or crevasse or something where she could stay for a while without being seen.

She had no idea where she was or in which direction she was going. She thought, and hoped, that she was going north but she hadn't gotten the chance to look at her compass. The battalion base was north of where Bravo 2, her platoon, had been. She had been unconscious for a short while after the Taliban artillery strike had blown Herok, along with Bravo Company's base, to kingdom come. Herok was a small, mountain-side town in Afghanistan.

Bravo Company had been stationed in Herok for about two weeks before the artillery strike hit. The two weeks prior to the strike had been extremely uneventful. Jess and her fellow marines had entertained themselves with exaggerated stories about things they had done prior to joining the Corps, why they had joined the Corps, and what they were gonna do when they got out. Not that any of them wanted out, but all know that there will be a day when there would no longer be the Marines, when they'd be on their own.

Jess was part of an elite group of Marines called 1st Reconnaissance Battalion. 1st Recon is a special-ops group similar to the Navy SEALS. As their name implies, 1st Recon Battalion is trained to do reconnaissance missions in which they must get as much information about the enemy as possible without being discovered or leaving any trace that they were ever there. Their motto: Swift, Silent, Deadly.

Jess is part of 1st Recon's second company (Bravo), second platoon. Bravo 2 is split up into 4 teams each consisting of around 4-6 Marines. Team 1, the lead team, is about double that, therefore it is split into two parts: Team 1 Alpha and Team 1 Bravo. Jess is on Team 1 Bravo. Not only is Jess the first woman to be in 1st Recon Battalion, she has also managed to get into the lead team of her platoon with only about 1 years experience. Some say it was one huge step for Jess, one fucking enormous step for womankind.

When Bravo was sent to Herok they were only scheduled to wait 4 days before launching their mission to get intelligence on the Taliban group hiding in the mountains. Issues had come up, though.

None of the enlisted personnel were informed about the issues. They were just given orders to sit tight until told otherwise. A change in orders was common. Their job was to follow orders and they did.

The officers did know about the problems with the mission, and what they knew scared the shit out of them. The Taliban group of about 400 people that was supposed to be hiding on one of the nearby mountains, the one they were going to investigate, was gone. Every single member was no where to be found. Their hiding spot was deserted, weapons and everything. There was no sign that they planned to come back. None of the Allied forces had any news on where they had gone. It was just poof, gone. Usually when you're fighting a war, you like to know where your enemy is, or what happened to them. 1st Recon waited two weeks before finding out what happened to theirs.

__________

Jess heart lifted a little as she looked ahead from her position behind a large boulder. She could see the entrance to a small cave. It was in the perfect position. She could hide there for hours and not be seen. She squatted down on her haunches and prepared to spring. After a quick check she launched from her position and sprinted the whole 500 meters to the cave. All in one motion she threw herself into the cave, summer-saulted onto the ground, quickly regained herself, and held up her weapon to the back of the cave in case anyone was hiding. It was a shallow cave and it was totally empty. It was also quite damp but Jess didn't mind, it was cover.

She sat down and leaned against the wall of the cave. She took a couple deep breaths to relax and then pulled out her compass. At first she had trouble keeping her hands steady, but after a few minutes of sitting there she was totally steady.

She looked at her compass and found out she had been going a little to the east to much, but it wasn't much. If she was where she thought she was she could easily and quickly fix this. She didn't have a map so she couldn't be sure of her position, but she was pretty good with directions.

Jess was much calmer now. She was covered, she wasn't that far off course, and she was probably very close to her destination. She took a couple minutes to take in the recent swing of events.

__________

It had been barely three hours ago. She had been sitting around in her team's building with her fellow soldiers, listening to them talk about old girlfriends and how hot they had been and so on. Jess usually didn't take part in these conversations, other than the occasional, playful slam of one of her friends. Jess' closest Marine friend, Shaun Anders, was usually the person she talked with at these times. Shaun would talk about his girlfriends but never in the way that the other men did. They talked about them like all they were was someone to kiss and "get some" with.

Shaun was an amazing soldier, and the officers loved him. He was muscular and an average height for a 23 year old man. His strong jaw was inherited from his father and his browns eyes from his mother. His dark blond hair was always in short, military buzz-cut form. He had over 4 years of experience in the Marine Corps and in that time he had risen to the position of sergeant. He had joined the Marines as soon as he had turned 18. The Corps had been his dream since day one.

He had been the cool jock in high school. Everyone wanted to be his friend. Being handsome and strong often impressed the girls. He hadn't been like all the other jocks, though. He was pretty smart, or at least took and interest in school. No one made fun of him though. He was like a god. Even in the Corps, the younger, newer people always looked up to him and the older guys accepted him, quickly, as one of their own. He had that swagger about him that just made you think, "This guy is good."

In the Corps he was perfect. He did everything he was told, how he was told, and when he was told. He was constantly cleaning his gun. Sometimes he would just get finished cleaning it on his own when the Bravo 2 platoon leader would come and announce a mandatory gun cleaning and he would clean it all over again, meticulously, and perfectly.

One thing that set him apart from the others was his neat uniform. The battalion commander had a very strict grooming standard and Shaun was always careful to comply with it. While everyone else would have their shirts not tucked in or a little five-o-clock shadow growing, Shaun was always clean cut and dressed perfectly.

When Jess came along it changed everything for Shaun. Not because she came but because of what she did. When she had come in she had been mistreated by everyone. No one thought that a woman could do anything in 1st Recon, despite her experience in the Corps prior to 1st Recon. It was a man's job. They would taunt her, usually with sexual jokes. She didn't seem to pay attention at all until her second week with 1st Recon. They had been doing some outdoor training back at Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, California. One of the men, a smart-ass corporal from Boston named Ray Person, had called her a piece of ass and gone on and on, pushing every last button until one word finally made her snap.

Jess stopped in her tracks on her way back to the field. Ray didn't seem to notice. If he did, he didn't stop talking. Jess took a deep breath, turned around, and said, "Shut your fucking guinea trap before I shove my foot so far up your ass, you'll be able to take my boot off through your mouth."

Everyone was stunned. Since she had gotten here she hadn't said anything to anyone other "yes," "no," or "thank you." She had never talked to any of the men other than superiors addressing her.

After getting over the initial shock of her speaking, the men began to laugh and kid.

"She thinks she can beat me?" Ray said to the other men as he laughed hystarically. He turned back towards Jess. "You'd probably go running to dady as soon as you break a nail."

Nobody saw the first blow coming and Jess laid it down down. Her fist smashed into the left side of Ray's face and sent him tumbled towards the ground.

Ray didn't like that. He clenched his jaw and balled his fist as he stood up. He swung his fist at her face. She ducked and then forcefully planted her fist into his abdomen. Ray doubled over. Jess took advantage of it. She punched him in the face breaking his nose. When he straightened up to grab his injured face, she powerfully kicked him in the groin. As he doubled over again, she took two steps around him, turned, and kicked him on the backside. He fell face first onto the ground and everyone around was silent. The entire thing had taken about 20 seconds. The men gaped at Jess as she proudly walked away from her beautiful beat-down.

After that, Jess became one of the guys. They treated her like she was a soldier, not just a woman. She became Shaun's pride and joy. Shaun was her sergeant and team leader. She answered to him, and unlike the other men, she always did as he said and did it well. Some of the others would crack jokes or not get on it right away, but Jess would immediately jump up and get to work, and she always did an amazing job. But she wasn't serious all the time. When she didn't have any orders or it was down time she would screw around just like all the other men. She and Shaun seemed to get along best, though. They had similar views and styles, but not exactly alike.

The Corps hadn't always been Jess's dream. When she had moved in with her father at the age of 14 he had been the CEO of the weapons and armor manufactuering company that provided most of the weapons and armor to the U.S. Military. All through high school she had been around the military and it's people because of her dad, and she had enjoyed every minute of it. During her junior year of high school was when she started considering it for a job. She saw nothing more honorable than serving for her country. Her rough childhood had taken away any fear of dying. Death was simply a part of life for her. If she did die at war, at least she would die with dignity.

She chose the Corps because it had seemed like the biggest challenge, and it had been. She worked hard and kept up with the men. But to her officers, "as good as the men" wasn't good enough. She was never treated like the others. She realized that she was going to have to excel them to really get the respect she deserved, so she did. She started giving up weekend passes to get in an extra shot at the obstacle course. She pushed herself well beyond all of her physical and mental limits, and it showed. Jess' most memorable day in the Corps was the day she was told she was being recommended for 1st Recon.

Less than a year later she was sitting in team headquarters in Herok, bullshitting, when she heard a noise that almost sounded like a dull popping noise. Like the way a MK-19 sounds when it's fired from far away. There was a few seconds of silence among Team 1 as they looked at each other. Then there was a distant, high-pitched, squealing noise, and the scream.

"THEY'VE GOT US ZEROED!!!!"

Before any of Team 1 could react, the artillery round hit. It felt like they were right on top of the world's largest, shortest, earthquake. They all steadied themselves as the building began to crack and crumble. As they quickly picked up their weapons and helmets, they heard another pop. They threw themselves down the stairs and out the door. The second round hit the building next to theirs and threw all of Team 1 to the ground. Ruble and shrapnel flew everywhere. There were screams of men who were hit. Cries for medics.

Jess laid face first on the ground with her hands over her head, holding down her unstrapped Kevlar helmet. She picked up her head a little bit and looked around. She saw the wounded men lying on the ground. Some had huge pieces of shrapnel sticking out of their legs, arms, and other areas. Those who had been close to the explosion had limbs completely blow off. The closest wounded man to Jess was a man missing his right foot. He cried out in pain as he gripped his ankle just above the shredded flesh and jagged bone. Jess felt as if time had slowed down and all sound had gone. Jess looked at the wounded man and saw his mouth open, but couldn't hear his screams.

She felt a hand on her back. She looked over her shoulder and saw Shaun. He was saying something but she couldn't hear. He used a strap on her flak jacket as a handle to shake her. Sound began to return to Jess' ears. She heard Shaun's yells, "Get the fuck up, Jess! Get up we've got to help these men! Get the fuck up!"

Jess was frozen for one more second. She felt her strength flow back through her veins. She pushed herself off the ground and stood up. She forgot that her life was in danger. She forgot about all her fears. She fell almost calm. She looked over at Shaun who was pulling other members of Team 1 off the ground. She strapped her helmet and held herself tall and proud.

"Orders Sir!" she called over to him as he pulled the last man off the ground. He looked proudly at Jess who now seemed unfazed by the events.

"Take care of these men!" he called out pointing at the wounded men. "That goes for all of you!" he said to the other men. "Now!!"

Jess immediately went over to the man without his foot and began to take care of him. The other men followed suit.

This was most of these men's first combat experience. There had been a little bit of small arms fire on the drive up here, but it had been quickly taken care of. The men had trained for this, but had never thought this would be their first taste of combat.

The medics ran around trying to help the wounded. There were people carrying men out on stretchers. Jeeps, trucks, and Humvees were hurriedly being loaded to "casevac" (casualty evacuation) wounded men. A medic came over and dressed the wound of the man Jess was taking care of. He called to another soldier and he came to help Jess carry the wounded man to one of the jeeps. Once the man was loaded Jess went back to Team 1's position. Shaun called her over.

"This isn't the end," he said referring to the fact that only two rounds had been fired on them. "Be prepared for more." He put his head back and looked up at the sky. "I wonder what the hell is taking them so long to fire again."

Then there was another distant pop. Jess looked up in the sky too. She heard the squealing and saw the streak in the sky.

"WATCH OUT!!!"

Jess felt herself being pushed away. She tried to run away from where she thought the round was going to land. She only got a couple steps before she felt it hit the ground. The feeling of the earth shaking came again. Jess felt herself fly through the air from the force of the round's explosion. She hit the ground. She felt pain. Then it went black.

When Jess woke up she found herself face first on the ground. She lifted her head a little. She saw dust floating in the air from the buildings that had blow up. She saw the ruble, all that was left of the buildings. She saw blood splattered all over. A lone helmet.

It was very quiet. For a second she thought she might have lost her hearing, but then she realized that she could hear. She heard moans and cries of wounded men. She heard the wind blowing through the trees. But that was it. No men running around. No more explosions.

Jess didn't know what to think. She started to push herself up on her elbows. She felt a searing pain in her head. She reached up and felt her forehead. It was painful. She winced. She looked at her hand and saw blood. Her helmet was crooked. She fixed it and then tried to stand up. It was hard because she was in pain, and because there was a large amount of ruble on her.

When she finally managed to get up, she looked around. Every single one of the buildings was either just a pile of ruble or was so badly broken there was now way it would stand much longer. She saw bodies strewn around. She didn't see any other people, but she knew that these bodies couldn't be her whole company, there wasn't enough.

She looked at one of the wounded men and gasped. She ran over to him as quickly as she could. It was painful because her ankle was broken, but she ignored it. She knelt down next to the man. It was Shaun.

His breaths were long and wheezy. She could tell he worked harder and harder for every breath. There was an enormous piece of shrapnel sticking out of his abdomen and one side of his face was shredded. Jess knew she couldn't save him. Not on her own. But maybe he could save her.

"Shaun," she said struggling to stay composed.

"Hey Jess," he barely whispered. Blood bubbled in his mouth as he did. "You look good."

"You too," Jess said, hoping he wouldn't think he was hurt as bad as he really was.

"Don't lie to me…I know I won't make it," he wheezed. "But I know…you still have a chance." He paused for a second to take a couple breaths. "I was hit by the last bomb. Everyone was ordered to battalion. Took any wounded man who was alive with them…No dead…Not enough time.

"Ray saw that I was still alive. He tried to…carry me…too heavy…Told him to leave me. Even if they did get me there…nothing the medic can do…waste of energy.

"They must have not seen you…you pretty buried." He took a long wheezy inhale. "You have to go to battalion. You can find it on your own. Your good…have to hurry…They'll need you."

"I'm not leaving you here alone," Jess said strongly.

"I'm dead, Jess," he said frankly. "No doubt…you have a chance…don't get yourself killed because of me…don't let your emotions effect your situational…awareness."

Jess was quiet for a minute. She looked Shaun right in the eyes. She saw emptiness.

"I'm staying here, for now," she finally decided. "I don't want you to be alone."

"Jess…" Shaun protested.

Jess cut him off. "Just a few minutes."

They both knew what she meant. Jess took Shaun's hand and gripped it tightly. She waited until he didn't grip back. She let one lone tear fall. She let go of his hand and laid it gently on his chest. Jess leaned forward and gently kissed his forehead. She pulled back just an inch from his face and whispered, "Go in piece." Then she stood up and held her self tall. She turned herself until she was facing north, and then began to run.

__________

Jess opened her eyes. The thought of Shaun's lifeless eyes had brought tears to her eyes. She wiped them off and regained control. She took a swing from her canteen and rechecked her compass one last time. Then she stood up and brushed herself off. She gripped her M-4 in her right hand and stood tall. She leaned against the walled of the cave near the mouth. She poked her head around the side and looked and listened for people. Clear. She sprinted out of the cave and adjusted her direction so she was straight towards the battalion HQ.

It took her another hour and a half to reach battalion. When she got there she was exhausted. She could barely stand any longer. She was taken to see a medic who fixed her injuries. When she was totally fixed she was sent to be with her platoon. When Jess walked into the quiet room all the men looked up. Their expressions lifted. Some stood up and patted her on the back. A few hugged her. Ray, who had been Jess' second closet friend (unusually), never left her side.

"We didn't even see you," he said as he gripped her shoulder. "We thought you'd been blown to hell."

"Yeah," Jess said quietly. Ray could tell she was fazed. Not in the moment.

Ray offered her his chair. She gladly sat down. The room went quiet again. After a moment Jess looked up.

"Don't stop talking," she said. The men looked confused.

"I just spent the last 4 hours running for my life, listening to nothing but my own thoughts and breathing," she said. "So, right now, they're the last things I want to hear."

Some of the men grinned. They all laughed. Even Jess attempted a little smile. The men began to talk amongst themselves. Ray wanted to talk to Jess but he hesitated. Finally, he thought of a way to ease into it.

"There were no others…um…alive, were there?" he asked.

Jess closed her eyes tightly and nodded.

Ray lightened up a little. "Shaun was…"

Before he could say anything more Jess shook her head. Ray starred at her. His face fell.

"He's…"

Jess nodded. Ray felt the truth hit him like a freight train. He looked toward the ground.

"I watched it."

Ray looked over at Jess. The room seemed to feel the change of feelings in the air. It went quiet again.

"I watched him die. I held his hand. I was the last voice he heard. I was the last face he saw."

The men looked at Jess.

"I watched him take his one last breath."

Ray put his hand on her shoulder. "Shaun was a good man…a good soldier. He would've wanted to die that way."

The men in the room suddenly realized what Ray and Jess were talking about. They hung their heads. A few of them suppressed tears.

Ray knelt down next to Jess. He whispered quietly to her, "And he would've wanted you to be the last person he saw…the last voice he heard."

Jess looked at him. She let one more tear fall. Then, with the strength in her heart for Shaun, she took one more, deep, breath, and stood…straight…tall… and proud…