AN: To the reader who pointed out Dom is a corporal. I did look it up on Gearspedia, and it says he is a corporal. However, I don't think the people at Epic or Traviss have any idea what a corporal is, especially in the American military. The rank of corporal implies a position of leadership, a junior NCO (non-commissioned officer), often the role of sergeant without the pay of a sergeant. There are only so many people who 'apply' for sergeant who actually get promoted every month, and so sometimes an enlisted man in the role of squad leader will be promoted from specialist (or similar rank) to corporal (typically this isn't permanent, and eventually they get promoted to sergeant, I don't think it's actually super common in infantry). Baird is a corporal in that sometimes he takes charge of men, sometimes an entire squad. Since Dom has absolutely no leadership responsibilities, I've ranked him as I've seen him in the games and in the books - in the role of a private. He would probably be a higher grade of private, or even a specialist (being a specialist at the age Dom was when E-day occurred is not uncommon), but not a corporal in the sense of the term as I know it. That is why Dom is classified as a private in this story.
Clay's light nap ended when the big rig hit a pot hole, giving him just enough of a jerk to bring him irrevocably to wakefulness. Casting his gaze around the cab of the truck, he found Charlie still in the driver's seat beside him, Tina still riding in the back, and their small convoy still making steady progress down a winding, dusty highway cutting through rolling hills dotted with brown scrub grass.
Stretching both arms over his head, Clay arched his back until it popped and then twisted to either side.
Charlie raised one eyebrow at him. "You going to make it?" she asked, using her 'boy' voice. When it was just the two of them, she'd started to use her real voice more frequently.
"Just working out the kinks. I'm telling you kids, it's rough getting old. Your joints get stiff, you actually have to shave more than once a year..." He gave Charlie a teasing look, one eyebrow arched. Yeah, honey, I'm talking about you.
Seated on the bunk in the back of the truck, Tina giggled, appreciating any effort at teasing their driver. Two months after the hotel fire that brought Charlie's secret to light, the rest of the team still had no clue there was a second woman in their midst. Tina's major crush on Charlie had amused Clay before, but now he had to bite back fits of laughter. He wished he could tell Dan the truth and have a partner to share in his mirth, but he'd promised Charlie he wouldn't.
He still didn't know Charlie's real name, but she'd started to open up to him a little. At first she probably thought he'd spill the beans, or take advantage of her, but after a few weeks she'd started to loosen up, enjoy not needing to pretend around him. Lately, they'd been almost friendly. When alone, anyway.
Tina had begged to ride in the truck today so she could 'watch and learn.' Karver had grudgingly allowed it, so long as Clay or Dan rode shotgun. Even so, it was a nod of trust to their driver. When it came to his daughter, Erek could be a bit...overly protective...
Tina sat delicately on the edge of the bunk, her long legs crossed, one supporting arm behind her allowed her to push her ample assets forward. Her thick eyelashes batted up a storm. She'd gotten her dark features from the mother she'd lost in childhood, because her father was a northern blond giant. Which left Clay wondering where exactly Tina had stocked her bag of 'come hither' tricks. Without a female influence in her life, where had that behavior come from?
Glancing between Tina and Charlie a few times, he started to wonder if perhaps he should advise Charlie to express interest in Tina. Currently, the stoic non-acknowledgement of Tina's obvious affections seemed to only make her more determined.
Then again, if Charlie expressed interest, Tina might just jump her bones. The younger woman positively secreted suppressed sexual energy without much tempering maturity. Clay wondered sometimes if Karver had a plan for Tina. The girl was over eighteen, and very aware men liked to look at her. With such a nomadic existence, she was bound to run into trouble eventually. Erek couldn't watch her every minute.
If Tina ever slipped into Clay's bed after dark, he'd have a hard time turning her down, and Clay generally wished no harm upon the girl—or on himself, because if Karver couldn't kill him, Dan surely would.
"We should stop for lunch soon. I'm starving," Charlie said.
"I packed you a lunch, Charlie," Tina almost crooned, causing Charlie to visibly flinch.
Tina wasn't the brightest tool in the shed. Sometimes Clay felt a little sorry for her. She tried so hard to get Charlie to like her, and she had no idea why 'he' didn't return her affections. Maybe Charlie should tell the girl 'he' liked men? It would be the truth, although not in the way Tina would think. Then again, if that sort of rumor got back to Fitz, life with the team might become unlivable for Charlie.
With an amused grin shaping his face, Clay grabbed the CB handset off the dash and depressed the button on the side with his thumb. "What do you think, Danny? Is it lunch time?" He released the button and after a moment his brother's voice interrupted the static.
"I'm surprised you made it to oh-fifteen-hundred, Clayton. Usually by now you've gone beyond bitching about being hungry and started threatening to go into a coma."
Clay almost slipped up. He almost responded with some flippant remark about not needing food when he was surrounded by such delicious young women, or working up an appetite while satisfying the needs of his female company. Something stupid like that. Something that would make the rest of the team give him weird looks, and might even give away Charlie's secret. He'd have to watch out for that.
Clay's large thumb pressed down the button on the handset. "Yeah, well. You know Chuck. He's a slave driver." With that said, he flashed Charlie a wicked grin, pleased to see the barest hint of a smile turning up one corner of her mouth even as she shook her head.
"Take your COG oh-fuckteen-hundred hours and shove it, Carmine," Fitz spat over the line. "Out in the real world we use standard time."
"Standard time for a substandard man. Roger that," Dan fired back, his voice dripping with disdainful sarcasm.
Out of the corner of his eye, Clay could see Charlie shaking her head, lips pursed. There went Fitz, making unnecessary trouble again. He'd backed off Charlie a little since the burning hotel incident. Ever since then Dan had railed Fitz at every turn, nailing his ass for every little mistake, and sometimes things got tense at the team powwows.
"Knock it off, both of you!" Karver came online, once again attempting to keep the peace with all the grace and subtlety of a sledge hammer.
The road widened down a straight stretch, and that's where their team pulled over, getting out to stretch their legs and eat the food they'd packed for lunch. Sometimes they drove for days between settlements and had to buy enough rations to carry them through, although Clay and Dan had become proficient hunters and in many areas wildlife was plentiful. When the two brothers invited Charlie to join them hunting, they found out she could indeed handle the shotgun she toted around, although she struggled with Clay's Lancer because the chainsaw and fuel tank made it so front heavy. Without a great deal of upper body strength, the small fuel tank on a Lancer and the sloshing liquid within played havoc on one's ability to aim consistently.
Ideally, Charlie needed a modified Lancer without any bayonet. Or a Hammerburst. She'd expressed interest in obtaining a pistol to carry on her belt, similar to the service pistol Dan carried. She didn't care for Clay's Boltoc, even though the revolver was more reliable and had more stopping power. It would've been easier to procure a Boltoc for her. Although it wasn't uncommon for Gears to walk away with their armor and weapons—severance compensation after fourteen years of service without pay—once discharged, it often became difficult to procure COG weaponry. Karver had paid a hefty price at auction for the two APCs he currently owned, and even then he'd had to scrape together two working vehicles out of three damaged units he bought.
After eating lunch, their group started to load up. Fitz took off in the smaller APC, leaving them to scout ahead. He didn't like hanging with the rest of them much, and everyone relaxed a little after he went off on his own. Dan piloted the bigger APC, driving back the way they'd come to scout their tail.
"Tina, you come along with me," Karver called just before his daughter could hop into the eighteen wheeler's cab ahead of Clay. "I need you to navigate when we get to the city."
Tina pouted a little, but she went without much fuss and got into the Humvee with her father. They too headed off down the road, soon making the next bend in the road and riding out of sight.
Charlie came around from the back of the trailer. He'd done a spot check to make sure none of the radio equipment they were transporting had walked away, and they hadn't picked up any unwanted guests.
"Tina gone?" she asked, slipping out of her boy character even faster than usual. She slipped off her bandanna, letting tangles of blonde hair fall down on her cheeks and the back of her neck. She used the cloth to wipe the sweat from her forehead, finger-brushing her lengthening hair. If she let it get too much longer, she'd have a tougher time keeping it covered, although at this point she did still look like a boy. The grit and raggedness of her general appearance went a long way toward hiding her true sex.
"They're all gone," Clay informed her, watching with mild interest while she found a place to rest her back against the cab of the truck, allowing herself a long, tired sigh.
"I can't hide from them forever. Eventually they'll find out, and then I won't have anything," she said, dabbing at her face with the blue handkerchief and casting her gaze down toward her boots. He knew she wasn't proud of the deception, and Clay often wondered why she didn't just end it. Somehow she seemed to think the others wouldn't understand, and Clay couldn't talk her out of the notion. She'd more than proved herself, so perhaps there was some other reason why she didn't come clean? Clay never asked. Whenever he started to push for answers, she clammed up.
Clay shrugged, moving to stand in front of her. "Honestly, I can't wait to see their faces when they find out," he said, speaking the truth. Clay knew Dan wouldn't give a damn about Charlie. Karver might, but he'd been in business with Charlie for over six months already, and business had been good. He might cut Charlie's wages for deceiving them, but would he really risk losing such a valuable driver?
Fitz would be the hard sell. Tina might cry, and that wouldn't be pleasant, either.
"Thanks for not ratting me out, Clay," she said after a minute of getting lost in thought. "I know I didn't give you any reason to trust me, but you did. You've been great."
A smirk crept onto Clay's face. He stepped a little closer and brushed her jaw-length hair back over her ear. "You know, usually I hear about how great I am after I've gotten a girl in the sack."
Charlie smiled in return. He suspected she still didn't quite know what to make of his flirting, but she'd learned to let it roll off her better. It had gotten harder to shock her, but easier to make her smile.
"I'll bet you do," she countered.
Giving her a chuck on the chin, he turned to go get in the truck on the passenger side, only to feel her catch his shirt with one hand, the light pull giving him pause.
"Nothing I don't ask for, right?" she asked, eyes downcast.
Clay nodded, hands down at his sides. She'd be making all the first moves. "Nothing changes when you cross that line, babe. I can keep it separate if you can."
After some hesitation, she tugged him a little closer, her hands sliding under his arms at the elbows, her touch against his ribs affectionate, if not entirely sure. She didn't quite go ahead and kiss him, but she did step into his embrace and breathed him in, making the lightest contact everywhere she touched, like a bird ready to take flight at the first sign of trouble. One of Clay's large hands went around to support her back, and the other skimmed the nape of her neck; just the barest touch of his fingertips so he wouldn't startle her. She'd pretended to be a boy for a long time. None of this would come easily, even without whatever baggage she still had from before.
Then, all of a sudden, she relaxed. It almost felt like she went boneless, sagging against him. Clay wondered if she felt the same way he did after the Locusts fell. So loose it made him worthless, because for just a moment he could rest.
He kissed her. She didn't ask for it, or initiate it, but it felt right. Some kisses were like avalanches, starting off slow and building to a raging fury. This one came like a steady summer rain; even, warm and healing.
When it ended, he grinned, pressing his forehead against her hair. She really was short. A foot shorter than him. He chuckled.
"What?" she asked, but she sounded too complacent to care what he found amusing.
"I've seen you half naked," he said, his grin turning cheesy.
The comment earned him a disapproving eye roll, and he savored it. "Keep it up, buddy. At this rate you'll never see me all naked."
"Oh, I don't know about that. I think I'm growing on you, babe." With that, his left hand gave her butt a squeeze through her cargos and he could've sworn she shivered against him. But that didn't stop her from smacking him on the shoulder for his impertinence.
"You watch it, bud," she said, without any venom. It was the first time she'd flirted with him in return.
Clay let her slide out of his arms, amused by her rebuff. They piled into the cab of the truck, strapped in and got underway.
Charlie tied the bandanna back over her hair before turning over the truck's engine and putting it in gear, but she didn't quite make it back into character. During the ride her eyes were bright and she seemed genuinely happy for once, almost at home. Slouched down in his seat, Clay studied her for a while, amused. He couldn't help but take a little bit of pride in lifting her spirits.
They didn't make it far down the road before the truck's emergency radio with the large antenna on top of the cab began to pick up COG emergency transmissions.
Even though Karver's operation ran within the limits of the law, he still liked to keep an ear to the ground. More than once, communications on the military emergency band had warned them away from road hazards, skirmishes with Stranded, and even inclement weather. The APCs and the Humvee all had smaller radios set to pick up COG transmissions, and unlike the battery-powered handsets they carried for inter-team communication, these radios were hardwired into the vehicles. Since they had a larger antenna range, they needed more juice. Clay wasn't entirely sure where Karver got the radios, since the COG tended to keep a tight grip on them. The COG decryption key was programmed into each radio, and that meant anyone who had one could listen into the military's secure communications.
The radio crackled, and at first the voice only came through in bits, but the message sounded urgent.
Reaching forward, Clay played with the various knobs on the radio beneath the dash on the passenger side of the truck, trying to get the voice to come in clearer. Finally, he could hear the broadcast well enough to discern it.
"This is Sergeant Dominic Santiago, requesting assistance. My squad is pinned down in the hills off highway 85 by over a dozen armed Stranded..." Santiago listed off his location in longitude and latitude, and Clay punched the numbers into the truck's old GPS system.
"They're close. Ten miles north off a parallel highway," Clay said.
When he glanced over at Charlie, her jaw was clenched and her knuckles had turned white from gripping the steering wheel so hard. She didn't speak. Maybe she was afraid. Whenever they went into the city, she always avoided the COG. Maybe she was running from them.
Clay fumbled with the battery-powered CB handset, depressing the button even as he began to reach behind his seat for the duffel bag containing his plate armor. His fingers wrestled with the stubborn zipper.
"Dan, you hear that transmission from Santiago?"
"I didn't catch all of it. Can't ever get this damn thing to work right. You get the location, Clay?"
"Yeah, I got it. They're ten miles north of us. The turn-off is coming up in a couple miles. Karver, I know Santiago. I served with him. The man wouldn't call for help if he weren't seriously fucked. Let me and Dan go and help him."
Static ensued after Clay released the button. He waited for a long beat before another voice came on, but it was Fitz, not Karver. "Karver went ahead to make arrangements at the delivery. He's expecting us to be there in a couple hours."
"Charlie can drive on ahead with you, Fitz. Let me and Dan lend a hand here. You know Karver would love it if the COG owed him a favor."
"Absolutely not. That APC is a company asset. You two jerk-offs can walk if you really want to help, but I promise you won't have jobs even if you do make it back alive."
Dan came on after that and just exploded, tearing Fitz a new asshole. In a rare display of violent emotion, Dan insulted Fitz's manhood, his mother, his pathetic existence on the planet-which, Dan promised to end the next time Fitz's ugly face came within range. There were few things Dan took as seriously as commitment to his fellow soldier. He took the Commando creed very seriously: Squad above all else.
With the turn-off quickly approaching, Clay felt helpless. In spite of his generally flippant attitude, he did require a job. And this was a damn good job. If he and Dan took off in the APC, Karver would hear the story from Fitz. He might report the APC stolen and then they'd have warrants on their heads.
All of a sudden Charlie stomped on the brake, bringing the rig to a squealing halt right in the middle of the t-intersection. She put the truck in gear once more, cranking the steering wheel over until the truck's nose pointed north. Clay soon became aware of his jaw hanging open, slack in disbelief. All he could do was stare at her. This was the absolute last thing he'd expected her to do.
When they'd gotten up to speed on their new course, Charlie held out a hand to Clay and simply said, "Give me the radio," and Clay complied.
"Fitz," she said, addressing the formerly Stranded man directly for the first time in Clay's memory, her voice cool and flat enough to perfectly balance a level. "I'm going to drive a vehicle into that skirmish and save those soldiers. It can be your APC or it can be this rig, but I'm driving in there, and I'd love to see you stop me."
"I'll make sure you're fired. I'll make sure you never work again! Do you understand me, boy?" Fitz had lost control of the situation, and it showed in the slightly hysterical note in his voice.
Unfazed, Charlie pushed down the button once more. "You haul ass and get that APC to me, Fitz. I'm pulling over in another couple of miles. You can stay with the truck and have my job for all I care, you cowardly son-of-a-bitch." With that, she tossed the CB back onto the bunk.
"Goddamn, that was sexy." Clay couldn't help the wide grin spreading across his face. He pulled his chest plates from the duffel and threw them on over his head, securing various belts at his side. "My little girl's all grown up and I'm so turned on it's ridiculous."
Charlie didn't smile. Instead of savoring giving Fitz what-for, she seemed preoccupied, focused but unsure. Her eyes darted back and forth across the road, anxious and almost worried. "Clay, we need to get there in time," she said.
Unable to fathom why this mattered to her so much, Clay didn't bother wasting the brain power on figuring it out. If he didn't find out when they got there, then he'd ask her later. Reaching over, he patted her on the back, perhaps a little too enthusiastically. "We will," he promised. "And after we kick their Stranded asses, I'm going to do my damndest to get you in bed."
Clay wasn't really sure how Dan had gotten suited up in his armor while driving, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know. When Charlie pulled over, Dan pulled up along the side of the road behind them. He'd had their back door the entire trip and when he got out of his APC he was already suited up with Lancer ready.
Fitz pulled up behind the first APC and jumped down, looking like he'd love to chew all of them out. By then they all had their boots on dirt and Charlie had locked up the truck, her Gnasher slung over one shoulder and a Hammerburst from the truck's lock box cradled in her arms. The Hammerburst suited her better than a Lancer because it was shorter, lighter, and had no bayonet. It kicked harder, but she'd used it before in target practice with Clay and Dan and she'd done well with it.
"I'm not going to let you do this." Fitz was all but foaming at the mouth while walking toward them. Flecks of spit flew when he shouted. "Karver will have your asses and mine! He'll fire all of us!"
When Fitz came within reach, Dan drew his sidearm and placed the muzzle against Fitz's temple. All of them stopped, and for a moment silence ensued.
"Now you can tell him we put a gun to your head," Dan informed him. "I'm not wasting another second arguing with you. It's your choice. Either man up and get on that APC turret or stay here with the truck. Give me your keys."
Fitz forked over the keys. He didn't make a move to get up on the turret, even after Dan holstered his pistol.
"Charlie's right. You are a coward," Dan growled in farewell, jogging over to collect Fitz's APC.
Charlie slid behind the steering wheel of the first APC, and Clay swung up onto the turret. He had the GPS from the truck, and set it where Charlie could see it even as she pulled out, screeching the tires and quickly rolling up to well over a hundred miles per hour. Even though the road was paved, their high speed travel kicked up the dust that had blown over the seldom-used road. Behind them, Dan kept up just fine in the lighter APC.
"Get on the radio," Charlie said, navigating the bumpy road at high speed with uncanny efficiency. She was completely focused. "Tell them we're coming."
Clay reached down to grab the handset from the radio set in the center column. "You got your ears on, Santiago? This is Clay Carmine, over."
Santiago came on after a minute and he sounded vastly relieved, "Ah, shit, Clay. It's damn good to hear your voice. Please tell me you're coming with a unit." The sound of sporadic gun fire could be heard in the background of the transmission.
"Negative," Clay said. He didn't have time to talk and then check the turret fifty-cal, so he was multi-tasking, checking the belt of ammo feeding into the action, and making sure he had additional ammunition at hand. "I'm privately employed these days, but I've got three rifles and two APCs with fully functional turrets closing on your position, and we're coming in blazing hot. I'd say we're about a klick out."
"Shit, we'll take it. They've got us cornered from three sides in rough terrain and we've got a sheer cliff at our backs. I'm going to need your turret APC to come in behind them on the high ground. I'll give you the vector when you get closer. We can cover the second APC on the way in and give you a man for the turret."
"Roger that. You boys hang tight," Clay said, sliding back the bolt to double check there was a round in the chamber. "Help is on the way."