Chapter 4: Arrival
If a woman chooses to take it, shouldn't she be allowed to?
Clayton was forcibly reminded of Olivia's words when he got off the transport at Fort Bragg a week later. Because there, getting off another transport that had gotten there just slightly ahead of his, was a woman.
Short, maybe five foot four or five, with a slender build, but he was willing to bet she had muscle in there somewhere by the way she hefted a pack on her back and a duffel along her side, both of which looked too large and heavy for her. She was wearing a regulation cover (Olivia would have called it a hat, his mind corrected, amused) but what he could see of her hair was dark. And when she turned around he got another surprise.
Asian.
Not completely Asian, he reassessed as he turned back to get his pack out of their transport. Her skin was the wrong color, and even though she had the almond-shaped Asian eyes, the rest of her features—he'd seen those high carved cheekbones on two of his own soldiers, Frank Talltree and Charlie IronKnife, and he knew that some part of her heritage must have come from a Native American tribe. It seemed like it would be an unusual mix, but he wasn't the kind of person who would look at a soldier's skin color. It was what was under the skin that mattered; what the soldier's character was, what skills they had that could be an asset, whether they were team players.
There were fourteen soldiers assembling here at Fort Bragg for transport to Camp Mackall, thirty-five miles away, and he knew the organizers of this August's SERE class would have decided to send all of them at once in one truck. The trainees were gathering in the open space in front of Fort Bragg's barracks, talking, introducing themselves.
A young man, mid twenties, with a light fuzz of carrot-red hair walked up to Hawk and held out his hand. "Hi."
Clayton took it with a smile. "Hi. Clayton Abernathy. They call me Hawk." He didn't want to mention his rank; a quick look at the assembled soldiers and he had the feeling he would be one of the most senior here, if not the senior, even over the trainers and the base commander. And explaining his posting would also be problematic; while the official cover story was that he was posted at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, and Base Commander Colonel Michael Gold would answer in the affirmative if anyone not acquainted with the G.I. Joe classified project asked him about Clayton, he still didn't like lying, so he evaded mentioning it altogether.
"Ken Ryder. They call me Red Ryder. Ranger." With that red hair, his nickname was self-explanatory.
Another man walked up behind Ken and clapped him on the shoulder; tall, with espresso skin and dark eyes. "Making friends, aren't we?" He looked Clayton over and raised an eyebrow. "You are?"
"Clayton Abernathy. They call me Hawk."
The new guy held out a hand. "Shawn Miller. They call me Demolition, or just Demo, because I'm good at blowing things up. I'm also a Ranger." He grinned as another man came up. "This here's Marco Blasetti. We call him Mark because no one can beat him while shooting. He's part of our Ranger squad."
"Hi. Clayton Abernathy. I'm called Hawk."
"Soldiers! Fall in!" came a shout, and a moment later the person who had shouted came up. Ryder, Demo and Mark moved out of the way so that this new guy could meet Hawk; Hawk knew instinctively that this guy had natural command presence when he marched up to him and held out a hand. "Nicholas Warren. They call me White Knight, or just Knight. US Army Rangers. Actually, most of us here are Rangers. It seems like a mostly-Ranger class."
"Former Ranger." Hawk ventured. "I'm currently on assignment with another government project but I started out with the Rangers."
"Great! So we actually are all Rangers. Except maybe the chickie over there." He pointed to the young woman, who was digging around in her pack, seemingly trying to rearrange the load. Demo jog-trotted across the space to help her, and at his greeting, her face broke into a brilliant smile, one that transformed her strong features into something…well, she'd never be called pretty, but there was something else there that made you want to look again.
Knight strode over to Demo, and Ryder, Mark, and Hawk followed; Clayton because he was curious and wanted to meet her. Knight got there first, and Clayton heard him say, loudly enough that everyone currently in the immediate vicinity could hear, "Another chickie trying to grow some balls?" Hawk stiffened in outrage at the rudeness, but refrained from saying anything; it wasn't his fight, and he wanted to see how the woman would handle this.
The expression on her face never changed as she rose gracefully from the ground and stood facing Knight, tilting her head backward to look up at him, seemingly unfazed by the height difference. "No thanks, I'm perfectly happy being female." Her voice was level and even, with no sign if the irritation Hawk was feeling at Knight's rude introduction.
"What are you, like twelve?" From his full height of about six three White Knight towered over the young woman.
"What are you, like forty?" her tone and inflection was a perfect mimic of Knight's own; around them, the other Rangers broke into chuckles, and Knight glared at her for a moment, tightly, then he snapped, "Ryder, Demo, Mark. Come on."
Demo had her pack in his hands and was working at the zipper, which appeared to be stuck; at Knight's command, he looked uncertain, then handed it back to her. With a muttered 'sorry', he hurried after Knight, Ryder and Mark.
Hawk watched them all go. Knight had natural leadership presence, and the others followed him even when they didn't want to. He filed that away for future reference and turned back to the woman.
If he'd looked a moment later he would have seen only a smooth impassive mask. But in that brief instant before she locked down her emotions he saw hurt and a measure of loneliness there, and when she smiled at him, there was a hint of uncertainty in it, a feeling that she was going to be cautious because she didn't know how he was going to react. "Cameron Arlington. Polaris."
"Clayton Abernathy. Hawk." He took the pack from her, surprised at how much it actually weighed, and put it down on the ground, dropping to one knee as he fought with the recalcitrant zipper. "Polaris is the name for the north star, right?"
"Yes," and she dropped to her knees beside him. "The largest star of the Big Dipper, the indicator of true north. My commander tagged me with it because my primary MOS is navigation—I can navigate through anything. He sponsored me into Ranger School and once I pass this I'll be assigned to the 75th Rangers, the Regimental Reconnaissance Detachment."
"Wow." The 75th RRD was the elite Ranger regiment for the US Army. "But…the Rangers don't let women in."
She laughed. "Right now they don't. I'm content to work support; if I work hard and blow them out of the water eventually they'll have to admit a girl can be just as good as The Guys and maybe they'll change their mind. I was the equal of everyone in my class at hunting, tracking, and unfamiliar terrain navigation."
"I'll bet your Native American heritage helped with that."
She looked at him in astonishment. "How did you know that? Most people look at me and see the Korean side of my heritage."
"There are a couple of Native Americans on my base. Charlie IronKnife and Frank Talltree are from the Southwest tribes and I see some of the same facial structure and skin color on them in you." The zipper finally came unstuck and he wiggled it a bit to close it, then handed it back to her. "Here you are, all fixed." Then he saw what was sticking out of the pack. "Is that…a sword?"
She grinned. "Twin blade baton, actually." She put her pack down, took the long cylinder out of the pack, then pulled on it from each end to reveal the twin blades that fitted into each others' hilts. The weapons looked well-used and well-cared for, and he had to wonder what she did with them that would put that kind of wear on antiquated weapons. Snake Eyes' swords looked like that, but…well, he was Snake Eyes, they were part of him. "I've never gotten any formal training, but I can defend myself with them if I have to."
Hawk grinned. "I got a woman soldier good with swords at my base. I always take care not to get her pissed off at me."
That she apparently understood, and she laughed as she sheathed the swords, thrust the now harmless-looking baton into her pack. "If it makes you feel any better, I've never actively threatened anyone with it. Self-defense a couple of times but never offensively."
And at that moment the base commander's voice rang out over the arrival ground. "SERE students, fall in!"
Military discipline reigned and moments later there was a straight line of eighteen SERE students standing at attention. Clayton stood at one end; those that had come in groups, like Knight, Demo, Ryder and Mark grouped themselves in the middle. He noticed that Polaris was standing with a group of three on the other end of the line. Correction; she was standing near them but not 'with' them; there were subtle clues in their body language that effectively shut her out.
Looks like Knight isn't the only one who has a problem with women in Ranger school, Hawk thought, and listened closely as the other three members of her training cadre named themselves as David Harper, aka Jammer, Communication Specialist; Tony Walker, aka Pioneer , demolition target analysis, and Anthony Valverde, aka Airwalk, military free fall operations. Cam stepped forward, last in line, announced her name as Cameron Arlington, aka Polaris, primary MOS as field recon and unfamiliar terrain navigation, secondary MOS as first aid and emergency medical training.
Hawk wasn't familiar with the others but he did know Tony Walker. Part of the 75th Ranger Regiment was devoted to a tactical Regimental Reconnaissance Detachment, which was organized into three teams of four each; Tony Walker had a good standing record and had been recommended for the Joes special project. Hawk had seen his file, had been impressed with his service record and had been considering adding the guy to the team.
But looking at the way he was pointedly excluding an assigned member of his team didn't bode well for his chances. Hawk knew it wasn't fair to base his entire assessment of the man on just this quick observation of him, but first and foremost Hawk picked soldiers who were team players, who would obey any orders given them and would treat everyone the same, and right now looking at the way he was shutting one of his own team members out—if he tried that at Joe base Allie would hand him his head during training and Scarlett would hand him his balls. On a silver platter. With garnish.
Introductions over, everyone knew the names of the other fourteen people who would be going through the SERE training for the next month with them, and they were all told to pile into the covered truck that would transport them to Camp Mackall for the next four weeks. Clayton maneuvered his way through the crowd until he got to Tony Walker's detachment, then got into the truck right after the man so he could sit beside him. "Hey. Clayton Abernathy."
"I know, I heard you. Former Ranger, now at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn. Cushy assignment." Walker shook Clayton's hand.
"Not really, though it has its moments," Clayton said, involuntarily remembering his stay at Villa Velez in Columbia a couple months before. "You're RRD?"
"Yep. Detachment Two, Team Leader. Jammer's our communications specialist, Airwalk's our Freefall Ops specialist, and Arlington's been assigned as our navigator and long range reconnaissance specialist." He leaned in close to Hawk as if to speak confidentially, but there was no way Polaris, sitting on the other side of Hawk, could have missed hearing his next words. "Base Commander Dixon only assigned her to us because she's half-Indian and they're traditionally good at tracking and navigation. I betcha she's never even been out in the field. He's just trying to make it hard for me to get the posting I requested."
"Really? Where is that?"
"Some classified project the military has called G.I. Joe. They only take the best. I know I'm the best the Rangers have and I want that post, and I'm not going to let an affirmative-action ass-kissing chick get in my way."
Hawk had just about enough of Walker. His chances of getting into the Joes had dropped dramatically in the last minute or so, unbeknownst to him. "No commander assigns someone whose abilities they aren't sure of, so he must feel that Polaris has a valuable contribution to make to your team." He felt Cam stiffen next to him, felt her eyes staring at him, and steadfastly ignored her as he fixed Tony Walker with the penetrating glare that had become part of Hawk's legend around Joe base.
The guy didn't get it. "Well, she can make those contributions to someone else's team, not mine. As soon as this training's over I'm going to the Joes and she's going to go somewhere else. I don't care where." No, he really didn't get the point Hawk was trying to make.
"Don't like women in the military?" Knight chimed in from where he sat on the other side of the truck from Pioneer.
Pioneer shook his head. "Women shouldn't be soldiers. They're too weak and stupid. They aren't aggressive enough and they don't have the fortitude to be soldiers and anyone who thinks otherwise has never served with one. I picked the Rangers because I'm the best at those skills and because they didn't have any silly girls, and now here they are sticking me with one."
Hawk took a quick glance sideways, and saw Cam's face, shuttered and expressionless. What they'd said had to hurt, but she wasn't about to say anything—and his respect for her rose a notch.
"Hey. Dude. Chill," Demo said, loud enough for all of them to hear. "Let's just get there and get through this training, okay?"
"Yeah, okay," Pioneer subsided.
Hawk thought the conversation over as he sat back and closed his eyes, not paying much attention as the conversation drifted on to other topics (fortunately not involving Polaris, and all women by extension, and their role in the military.) Walker could kiss the Joes goodbye; there was no way he was even setting foot on Joe base, not after what Hawk had just heard. One of the important parts of being a team player was to put aside your personal feelings for the good of the team, and while liking your team members and being friends with them was important, if it really came down to it you didn't have to like the person, you just had to work with them, and Walker was apparently not getting that.
And aside from that, Hawk could imagine a handful of scenarios at Joe base involving Lady Jaye, Scarlett, and Cover Girl meeting up with Pioneer's attitude, and none of those scenarios were going to end well…for Pioneer.
Not to mention what Flint, Snake Eyes, and Beach Head would think of to say to Pioneer when word got out of what he'd said about and to the three ladies in question.
And what those three ladies would say to Hawk himself. Particularly Scarlett. No matter how many stars you had on your shoulder epaulets, no man in his right mind would piss off a woman as good with a sword—and other sharp pointed objects—as Shana O'Hara.
On the other hand, Lady Jaye, Scarlett, and Cover Girl were always telling him the base could use more women. And granted, there weren't many 'exceptional' women in the military, not in the way that Allie, Shana, and Courtney were 'exceptional'…but if Cam Arlington's Base Commander Dixon had seen fit to not only allow her into Ranger school, but also to assign her to an RRD and sponsor her into this Level C SERE training, he had to have a very high opinion of her abilities indeed.
Hawk would have to see how she did on this training.