AN - Sorry for the long delay, busy semester at uni! But here's the new chapter.

The character of Grace Mason of course belongs to Jem, and I am now thrilled to say you can read Grace on here:

Story ID: /10691430/

Chapter 17: Drifting

One positive about being a Berserker was that Casey was rooming with Lee again. When the 2nd Mass had first arrived at the airport, Casey had opted to set up a space inside one of the hangars to keep Etta under a solid roof. Doing so also kept Etta near Anne in case the baby got sick or something. But even though being a part of the Berserkers meant Casey and Etta were back outside, at least she had Lee.

Casey could leave Etta to sleep with Lee nearby and not worry about the baby. She couldn't shake the feeling that if she left Etta alone with Boon and Lyle, somehow Etta would wind up drunk. Not that she thought they would hurt Etta, but Casey could envision them thinking how funny it would be to see if an infant could get a little tipsy. Lee would stop that from happening. And Lee's nickname for Etta, "MB", was catching on amongst the Berserkers. Casey had overheard Tector using it to welcome the baby back when Casey was moving her things into Lee's tent. Casey couldn't really think of a negative to the Berserkers playing around with Etta. They could very easily complain about Etta's crying and they didn't. If it was as close to being an official member of the Berserkers as Casey got; she'd be happy.

Casey tucked Etta's blanket around her middle and left her and Lee to sleep. She left her tent with the plan of washing some of her clothes when Ben's frantic scream roared throughout the camp.

"DR. GLASS!"

The blur of Ben sprinted past Casey through airfield with Jimmy in his arms and his sister jogging to keep up behind him. Both Masons were splattered in blood and dirt, but Casey's eyes focused in on Jimmy. The boy was unconscious, his youthful face as pale as stone. A tree branch as thick as Casey's arm stuck through Jimmy's middle.

Casey reached the hangar just in time to see Ben carrying Jimmy into the medbus. Grace was hunched over out the front of the bus, blood decorating her muddy clothes. She had her hands clasped together and up against her face like she was praying, but she seemed to just be trying to catch her breath.

"Grace?" Casey approached the girl and turned her around by her shoulder. Grace's clothes were a mess, but she didn't appear injured. "Whose blood is this?"

"Jimmy's." The blood on Grace's hands smeared across her cheeks as she dropped her arms to her side.

"What the hell happened?"

"We were patrolling," Grace sniffed and wiped her sleeve under her nose. "A skitter got a hold of Jimmy and skewered him to a tree."

"Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine." And then she just walked off.

"Whoa," Casey tried grab her but Grace just shrugged away. "Where are you going?"

"To look for Jimmy's compass," Grace didn't slow down. "He must have dropped it on the way back. He'll want it when he wakes up."

Casey watched her leave the hangar. It was pointless to try and stop her; she was a Mason. They all had that "act now, think later" mentality. Casey's father used to talk about it as a quality he looked for in his football players. They made good leaders, he said, but when it came to tough decisions, they really toed the line between brave and careless. And more often than not they fell over onto the careless side.

The heavy clang of boots on metal made Casey turn around. Tom and Weaver were marching down the ramp out of the medbus. Both of them looked a mix of terrified and furious. When Weaver saw Casey, he pointed right at her.

"Casey, my tent right now."

"I can't, Etta-"

"I said now!" Weaver didn't even slow down as he passed her. "That's an order!"

Casey clamped her mouth shut and followed Tom out of the hangar and back outside. The trio were silent as they sloshed through the mud and into Weaver's tent, but once inside both men seemed to explode. Tom kicked the table and knocked over a chair. Weaver punched his weapons locker once, twice and then a third time before resting his hands heavily on the table and hanging his head low.

Jimmy's pale face hovered in Casey's mind. "Is Jimmy…?"

"Anne's working on him," Tom said. "But it's bad."

"I never should've let those two go out on patrol three nights in a row," The Captain muttered.

Tom looked about ready to flip over the table. "I'm his father - I didn't even know Ben was on patrol!" He took a few steadying breaths, then righted the chair he'd knocked over and sat down. "I should've been paying better attention," he said. "I can't protect them anymore. We can't protect them anymore. All we can do is prepare them for the world that's in front of them, and it's a world where kids have to grow up too fast," he sighed deeply and clasped his hands together in a tight ball. "And there's gonna be consequences and there's gonna be casualties."

Weaver shook his head and let out a low breath. "I wish that that gave me some comfort, Tom," he said. "But it doesn't."

"No," Tom said. "Me either."

"We need to make sure that our location is still secure," Weaver finally looked up at Casey. "Wake Pope up from his beauty sleep, you and Tom have the Berserkers sweep the area."

Casey's eyes widened. "Me?"

"You wanted me to assign you to the Berserkers, that means you will follow my orders. Is that clear?"

Casey swallowed, and nodded. "Yes, sir."

xxx

Casey managed to rope Maggie into watching Etta, and soon found herself trudging through the cold night beside Lee as the Berserkers, complete with Casey and Tom, swept the perimeter. Everyone was armed, but Casey definitely had the least impressive gun. It was her handy little revolver. Not fancy to look at, but she didn't mind. It was much better than nothing, and she was getting very used to it. But Lee was less than happy with her weapon.

"It's a child's toy," Lee said as they made their way through the mud. "Be more suited with MB than with you."

"It's still deadly," Casey pointed out. "Don't test me."

"Remind me to show you how to shoot a real gun tomorrow." Lee proudly held up her shotgun.

"If that's a teaching offer, I accept."

Lee grinned. "You're on."

"Well, there's a pretty sight." Pope said from up ahead.

The sudden smell of burned flesh made Casey gag as the group came to a clearing where two blackened skitter bodies lay in the mud. Casey blocked her nose to stifle the rancid scent and surveyed what was left of the skitters. At least Grace and Ben had scorched them good.

"Blackened Skitter," Tector squatted down beside a charred alien corpse. "Yum."

Pope knelt by Tector. "That's our dragon's breath," he said inspecting what looked like a bullet hole in the charred skitter body. "Little bastards used our ammo."

Tom spotted something on the ground and bent over to pick it up.

"What do you got there?" Pope asked him.

Tom let the item hang from his fingers. "It's Jimmy's compass."

"Really?" Casey stepped forwards. "Grace was looking for that."

Tom looked up at her. "What do you mean?"

Casey held the compass against her palm as it dangled off Tom's knuckles. "She came back out here to find it before Jimmy woke up."

Tom's pulled the compass out of Casey's hand. "Wait – she's still out here? You let her come back out here?"

Casey was taken aback by the sharpness in his voice. "No, I didn't let her do anything-"

The wet chitter-chattering of skitters suddenly rattled out from the tree line. Tom, Pope and the Berserkers all snapped to attention and pointed their guns towards the noise. Casey copied them and raised her revolver.

"Take up defensive positions in those trees," Tom nudged Casey ahead of him. "Go! Go! Go!"

Pope stood his ground. "What?"

"Now!" Tom ushered Pope along with the Berserkers to the safety of the shrubs nearby.

Casey flattened herself on the ground between Tector and Tom listening to the thumping of her heartbeat. She shrunk lower into the ground and watched two skitters come into the clearing and towards the burned bodies of their comrades. The live skitters made clicking noises at each other and circled the bodies. They didn't once look around to see if they were being watched, or hunted.

"Let's light 'em up." Pope whispered.

Casey aimed her gun, thinking she might be able to get a headshot from this angle, but Tom reached his arm across her and Tector to keep them from firing.

"No, hold your fire." Tom said.

"Did you just give my guys an order?" Pope hissed.

"They're just collecting their dead." Tom said.

"Tector, Lyle - blow their heads off."

"No," Tom kept his arm across Casey and Tector. "Don't, don't, don't.

"Do it!"

"No, don't."

The heavy thunking of metal footsteps shook the ground and they all shut up. A Mech marched into the clearing.

"Well, crap." Tector muttered.

Casey could feel Tector's body tense beside her. But the Mech didn't attack. Instead it stood patiently by the burnt skitter bodies, lowered its thick metal arms and lifted up both of the corpses.

"Just let them get what they came for." Tom said.

Casey tried to reign in her breathing, she felt like she was huffing way too loud. She bit down on her lower lip and inhaled through her nose. It was such an odd scene to watch, the skitters and the Mech retrieving their dead. It was an almost human action, but of course it couldn't be. They must have a plan, a reason to take the bodies back. Maybe they had some sort of reanimation device somewhere. Casey didn't believe they were collecting the bodies out of the goodness of their hearts.

The Mech stomped off with the dead bodies draped across its guns, and the two skitters trailed away after it into the night.

"Well, that was damn close." Lee said when the aliens were out of earshot.

Casey gave Tom a sideways smile. "Good call, Tom."

"Yeah, Pope snarled. "Good call."

"Dad?"

"Grace?" Tom sprung up off the ground in a flash.

Casey pushed herself to her feet and saw Grace coming into the clearing to meet her father. She looked white as a sheet. Casey knew Tom was right about letting her come back out here. She should have cuffed the girl to the medbus.

"You don't even have a weapon," Tom scolded his daughter. "Why are you out here?"

"You found it!" Grace took Jimmy's compass out of Tom's hands.

Tom's face softened. He reached out and smudged the blood off of Grace's cheek. "Let's go back, okay?" He put his arm around his daughter and turned to the Berserkers. "Come on."

Casey let her gun fall to her side and followed Tom's direction.

"Mason drama seems to follow us," Pope slung his gun across his shoulder as he fell into step by Casey. "You realize that, don't you?"

Casey smirked. "Mason drama or Berserker drama?"

"That's funny."

"Well, if you ask me," Casey said. "Most of the drama is between you and Tom. Not among the Masons."

"The guy was bugged." Pope said. "You saw it; that worm crawled right out of his eye."

"Yeah, and now it's gone and he's fine."

"Yeah," Pope strode forwards away from Casey. "Sure he is."

xxx

Etta was wide awake when Casey arrived back at the airfield, but then again most of the 2nd Mass were buzzing around. News of Jimmy's injury had spread, and it seemed everyone was concerned. Casey, Grace and Tom found Maggie with Etta, Hal, Dai, Weaver and Ben in the dining section of the hangar. Ben was sitting alone at a table staring at his hands, Hal and Maggie and Etta were by the coffee pot on the foldout table, and Dai was sitting with Weaver

"Any news?" Tom clapped his hand on Ben's shoulder.

Weaver rose from his seat. "He's still in surgery."

"We ran into skitter patrol," Tom said. "But they were headed in the other direction. I think we're safe for now.

"I think she's hungry," Maggie said as she passed Etta off to Casey and handed her a full bottle of formula.

"Thanks," Casey adjusted Etta in the crook of her arm and took a seat across from Ben to feed her.

"Find anything out there?" Maggie sat down next to her.

Casey shrugged. "Dead skitters.

"Oh, and this," Grace reached under the table and pulled out Jimmy's compass. She slid it across the table to her brother. "Give it to him when he wakes up."

Ben didn't speak, but he picked up the compass and held it between his hands as though it were delicate as an Autumn leaf.

"Berserkers behave themselves?" Weaver asked Casey.

Casey nodded. "They listened to Tom, if that's what you mean." If he had more to say, he didn't get the chance to ask because Casey saw Anne approaching from over Weaver's shoulder.

"How is he?" Tom asked her when she arrived.

"I've done everything I can," Anne said. Her clothes were dotted with blood, and she had bags under her normally bright eyes. "It's up to Jimmy now."

"Jimmy's a fighter," Weaver said firmly. "Always has been."

Ben suddenly jumped to his feet and headed for the hangar exit, ignoring his father's calls of his name.

"Hal, Grace, go after him," Tom said to his eldest children. "Make sure he's okay."

The eldest Mason children had barely left the hangar when a sound outside made them all freeze. It wasn't Mechs or skitters, it was an engine. And it was in the air.

"Soldiers, ready!" Weaver yelled as he grabbed his gun. "We got incoming!"

Etta squirmed in Casey's arms as she took the bottle from her mouth. Casey followed Maggie and Dai out of the hangar towards the sound of the engine. Even in the darkness, she could see the culprit soaring through the sky.

It was a plane. A red, single-engine plane. It curved around in the sky and then descended onto the runway. It landed safely and rolled towards the hanger only to be greeted by half of the 2nd Mass and most of Weaver's armed soldiers. The plane engine shuddered to a stop and the window rolled down. A pretty blonde woman with a friendly grin stuck her head out the window.

"Well," she said, not seemingly bothered by the two dozen or so guns pointed at her. "Who do we have here?"

"2nd Massachusetts." Weaver said. "I'm Captain Dan Weaver. And who, may I ask, are you?

"Name's Avery Churchill," She grinned and pointed casually at Weaver. "I've been lookin' for you."

xxx