Coming Home
Part1
The Roughnecks passed though the area of the latest battle. Parts from power suits and bugs were scattered around, a silent testament to the battle that had happened 3 days earlier. Out of a squad of twelve only one survived, and two were MIA. Their job was to find them…or at least the bodies. SICON felt that their disappearance was too suspicious and they wanted to be sure that the MIA troopers had not been infected with the bug virus like Maj. Barcalow
As they looked no one spoke. They all felt that to break the silence that had befallen the battlefield would be to dishonor the fallen troopers. The odds were against the two MIAs. Even if they were alive more then likely the suits would be breached allowing Oxygen to leak out and let in the poisonous unfiltered air. That was a death sentence in its self. Doc had figured that they had about two more hours left to find them and if they were still alive save them.
Razak looked over at Gossard who shook his head; their powersuit's locator beacons weren't transmitting. The two hours were nearly up and still there was no evidence that the MIA troopers were dead or otherwise. Sadly they had to leave; all of them were disturbed. They had wanted to find something that could bring the trooper's family to peace, but also to bring them to peace knowing that they hadn't left one of their own behind. The Lt. looked a little more disturbed, no one knew why and no one was about to ask.
As they doubled back Rico caught sight of the edge of the cliff. Something wasn't right. His mind and eyes didn't see anything out of the ordinary but his gut told him that something was wrong with the picture. Going over to the edge he looked down, on a ledge about 30 feet below were the two troopers. He yelled for the others to come back. Doc set up lizard lines to check on them while Gossard radioed for a med-evac transport.
Joining Doc, Rico went to help with the injured troopers. They were alive, just holding on by a thread, but they were alive. Doc performed a quick scan of them to make sure it was safe to move them. Rico attached a line to one of them. A long slash went down the left side of his face, cutting through his eye. Rico was no medic but he figured it would have to be replaced with a biomechanical one. The second, a female trooper was worse off. A medical patch that was issued to every trooper had been placed over a wound on her back. Stained crimson it brought back unpleasant memories to him. Something struck him as familiar about her, he'd seen her somewhere before but he couldn't place where.
As they gave them over to the medical team Rico caught sight of the female trooper's helmet, the name written across the side caused him to do a double take. Zim? Could it be possible? No, he was a career Sgt. when would he have found the time to have a family? And besides Zim was a common name.
~*~
Zim looked up from his paperwork as a Cpl. from the camp HQ walked into his tent.
The Cpl. saluted him, "Official SICON letter for you Sir." He placed the letter down on the desk, quickly saluting him again he left. Zim looked down at it; he could feel the color drain away from his face. For a time he just did nothing but look at it. He had prepared himself for the news that would be coming; yet part of him was still holding onto the hope that she was alive.
His hand trembled slightly as he picked up the letter and opened it. The first thing that caught his eye was that it was written in Miriam's handwriting.
"Charlie,
Good news, Rebecca has been found alive, a bit banged up but when I checked on her she was doing fine and her prognosis was good. She's a fighter all the way (we know where she gets that from). You should also know that it was Rico who found her. Rebecca will be sent back to earth on the first transport when she's been cleared for it. I will call you when that happens, and to tell you where and when the transport will be coming in.
Sincerely,
Miriam
Zim felt release rush over him. She was alive and she was coming home. Hopefully the transport would be coming during the two weeks he had off after this group of recruits graduated. It might raise a few eyebrows if he left mid way through training. But that didn't matter to him at the moment, all that did was that Rebecca was coming home.
~*~
Slowly Rebecca Zim opened her eyes; the bright lights from the ceiling blurred her vision and caused her to get a headache. Where was she?
"Oh good, your awake." A doctor came over to her a flashed a pen light in her eyes. "How are you feeling Cpl.?"
"Like hell," she groaned. Slowly her faculties were coming back to her. "What happened? Where am I?"
"To answer your first question, your squad was flanked by a bug hoard, and to answer your second question you're on the Valley Forge." The Valley Forge? What was she doing on the Valley Forge? Her squad was from the Saratoga. The Cpl. tried to sit up but pain raced through her body at the slightest movement.
"Where's my squad?" The doctor's face turned solemn at her words.
"You're one of only 3 survivors, not counting the Pvt. who was pulled off active duty because of the fever. You're one of the lucky ones," he said looking over a chart. "You're going to be shipped out on the next transport."
"Home?"
He nodded, "Yes. You're being shipped back to earth." Rebecca felt herself slip into shock. Home? This couldn't be happening. What was so wrong with her that they would be sending her home? She could feel and possessed all her limbs, so what was wrong?
"Why am I being sent back to Earth?"
The doctor looked over the rim of his glasses and gave a strange look. "Well you no longer have a left kidney, you have 4 broken ribs, your ACL on your left leg is gone, your left wrist is broken, and your right shoulder had to be surgically put back into place. Not to mention that your immune system is severely weakened because your power suit was breached."
The tone used by the doctor made her skin crawl. He seemed so unaffected. Then a thought came to her, if she was one of the lucky ones (which she knew she was) what had happened to the other two?
"You were extremely lucky they found you when they did, or your family would have gotten a visit from the chaplain telling them that you were dead, instead of the telegram saying you were found."
Rebecca's mind was still waking up, "What? Who are 'they'?"
Again the Doctor gave her a strange look. "Alpha Squad, the Roughnecks. They were sent out to find you and the other MIA. They found you on the ledge of a cliff." The cliff, a memory flashed through her head, the bugs her and Joe Coonzina fighting for their lives.
"Where's Cpl. Coonzina?"
"Right here." She looked of the side and saw one of her squad mates. A bandage covered half his face. The doctor closed his clipboard and went off to check on his other patients. Coonzina walked over to her bed and sat in the chair next to it.
"You okay?"
She nodded, "As well as I can for a person who's missing an internal organ."
Coonzina gave a sad smile. "Look on the bright side, you've got your billion dollar wound. You're going home." She frowned and closed her eyes.
"I'm not sure I want to go home."
Coonzina raised an eyebrow, "Why not?"
"All my life I've wanted to be a soldier, to make my family proud of me."
He nodded, "Just like your old man huh?"
"What? How'd you know…"
"Oh come off it, I know who your father was since you were assigned to the squad. I went to Currie, and Zim is not a common name. But what I want to know is why you don't want to admit it?"
Rebecca sighed, "I don't want people to think that it's because of him I got where I am. I want to carve out a name for myself." She gave a bitter laugh and continued, "Looks like that won't be happening now."
"They said noting about discharging you, they said you were being shipped home." Coonzina corrected, "You'll probably be stationed on a base somewhere."
Rebecca shook her head, "You don't get it Joe, being a soldier is the only thing I'm good at, I was never good at anything else. Hell I graduated by the skin of my teeth, you know that."
"Yeah I do, but you did graduate and that's what matters. You hung in there, and if you keep on doing that you'll be back here in no time. A little physical therapy back on earth and you'll be taking out bugs left and right." Even at her friend's kind words, she felt a deep fear and sadness start to fill her.
"Hard as it may seem Joe, I'm actually more afraid of going home then I am of fighting in this stupid war."