Into Africa
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: I own no Castles. Or Becketts. Rating: K+ for language. Time: The present day, but in an alternate universe.
"The little cocksuckers have played this game before, sir. They're too far away for my grenadier to drop one on their asses and the motherfuckers keep moving." The sergeant yelled at his SAW gunner. "Dammit, Red, will you shoot at their fucking muzzle flashes."
The gunner fired two short bursts. "Every fucking time I try, the little shits move on me. Let me do my fucking job and quit yelling at me." He fired another short burst and yelled. "I saw sparks, like I hit metal. I hope I fucked his whole day up."
"Keep your team at it."
"Will do, sir."
Rick crawled over to Beckett. "Okay, I'm going to take you back to the command bunker. Ready?"
She shook her head. "No."
"No? Are you hurt?"
"I can't go to the command bunker."
"Why not?"
She leaned close to him and whispered in his ear. "I peed in my pants."
He whispered back. "Christ, Beckett. Every soldier has done that, or worse. When the Sumerians went off to conquer their empire five thousand years ago, half of the spearmen were wetting their loincloths. And when the ranks fall in for Armageddon at the End of Days, they'll be doing the same. Don't worry about it."
"I'm a woman in a profession dominated by very macho men. If I show up in the command bunker looking like this, I'll always be known as the girl who peed in her pants. This is my first serious dig that I'm running by myself. I will not have my career ruined. I'll stay here. You go back to the command bunker."
"I'm not leaving you out here with no body armor and no weapon in the middle of a firefight. You come with me. No one will say a thing."
"The hell they won't."
"You're a very stubborn woman, Dr. Beckett."
She made no reply.
"Okay, we're going to crawl twenty meters back to dip in the ground. It's deep enough so you won't get hit by any direct fire. You stay there and I'll crawl back to your tent and get some clean shorts and underwear for you."
"No! You could get shot. I won't…"
"Yes, you will. I'm not arguing with you anymore. This is a military operation and you do as I say. Understand?"
Once they had crawled to the dip, Rick made sure the dip was deep enough to keep Beckett from being hit. "Okay, stay right there."
"Wait!" She called to him.
"Wait? What for?"
"I'm taking off my wet things. Don't look."
"I won't look. Where are your clean clothes?"
"Here." She handed him her wet shorts and panties. "In a set of drawers to the left as you go in. Top drawer."
Rick crawled to the tent, wondering how he had managed to get involved with this woman. He tossed her wet things on the bed and got fresh clothes for her. Then he crawled back.
"Don't look." She said.
He decided not to say anything.
"I'm ready." She said, sticking her head up over the dip.
"Okay, let's get…" Suddenly a familiar person loomed up out of the night. "Myron? Captain Fields, what the fuck do you think you're doing out here?"
"There are wounded out here."
"So you came here without your protective vest, helmet and with no weapon? You should be in the medical bunker waiting for the medics to bring in the wounded. That's the way it works." Rick yelled angrily.
"I do have my medical bag." Dr Fields said quietly.
That doesn't mean a damned thing if you're dead. Now get…"
Rick was interrupted by the arrival of an ATV. "Captain Fields? I got two wounded here. Can you ride on the handlebars?" The driver asked.
Fields looked at Rick.
"Go on. Get the hell out of here. We'll talk later."
As the ATV roared off, Rick pulled Beckett out of the dip. "I'm going to give you my flak jacket and helmet, then we'll…"
"No." She interrupted.
"No? Are you afraid someone will complain because you wore body armor in a firefight?"
"No, but if you get shot, I won't know what to do or where to go. You keep the body armor and take care of me. Okay?"
"You are without a doubt…."
"The stubbornest woman you've ever met." She finished for him. "Can we go now?"
He put his right arm around her and pulled her close. This close, he smelled cherries in her hair.
During the walk back to the command bunker, Rick heard the heavy beat of the .50 caliber machine gun. He managed to turn his head far enough to see the Humvee mounted gun blasting the spire formation on the eastern rock formation. He wondered where the minigun was.
Because of his night vision goggles, Rick could see where he was going and tried to guide Beckett as bullets zipped by. Even so, she stumbled a few times, but both stayed upright and moving.
Finally, they were almost there.
"Dr. Beckett, we're going down some steps. Then there'll be two curtains. We'll make sure one is closed behind us before we open the inner one. That way no light will leak out and give away our position. Understand?"
Beckett took his arm. "Thank you for coming after me tonight. And I intend to apologize publicly to you for not listening to you. I really am very, very sorry for all of this. Both my students and your troops are in danger because of me."
"From my point of view, we're getting shot at because that's what jihadis do. You did give them a better target though, Dr. Beckett."
"Can you please start calling me Kate?"
"Okay, and I'm Rick. Now let's get into the bunker."
Warrant Officer Reed called to Rick as soon as they were inside. "Sir, you'll want to see this. We've got a drone up and the minigun is about to unload."
"Where the hell have they been?" Rick demanded. "I expected they'd be there when the other Humvee got there."
Lt. Glass answered. "They got stuck in a big fucking pothole. The crew had to lift the thing out. But look…."
Rick's eyes went to the feed from the drone. What looked like a solid red line ran from the minigun and hosed the ridgeline on the eastern mountain in bright red. The bullets ricocheted in all directions as they hit the rocks.
"Are those all bullets?" Kate asked, stunned by the sight.
Rick shook his head. "What you can see are just the tracers. There's one tracer round out of every five rounds. The minigun fires about two thousand rounds per minute. If that doesn't kill them, it's sure going to scare the shit out of them."
They watched for another few minutes as the minigun worked over the mountain. Then one of the drone operators spoke. "They're running, sir. They're headed down the far side of that damned rock as fast as they can go. Do you want me to spot some mortar fire on them?"
Rick shook his head. "As steep as that thing is, if we missed them by six inches, the round would keep going to the bottom before it exploded. We don't have that much mortar ammo. We'll keep it for when we have a better chance of hitting something."
Rick turned to Lt. Glass. "Get your people to cease firing. I'm betting there's no one left over there."
Rick was just starting to relax when he heard a high-pitched scream from outside.
"That's a woman's scream." Kate said, heading for the bunker's exit.
Rick grabbed her. "It's probably from the medical bunker. You stay here. I'll go."
She pulled his hand off of her. "If it's a woman, it's one of my students. I'm going."
Rick started to say something, but thought better of it. "Mr. Reed, we're borrowing your flak jacker and helmet."
As Rick helped Kate into the body armor, Reed smiled. "Never looked that good on me, sir."
As they left the command bunker, Rick took Kate's hand without thinking. When he realized what he'd done, he tried to let her hand go, but she held on tightly. Once inside the medical bunker, they found one of the women from the dig laying on a stretcher, screaming. "Oh, God! It hurts so bad. I'm going to die, I know it. I don't want to die. I'm too damned young to die. Why did I come here? Why didn't I stay in New York?"
"How bad is she hurt, Myron?" Rick asked.
Myron shook his head. "She broke her wrist, but every time I try to give her something to knock her out so I can set it, she starts trying to hit me."
Kate walked over to the woman. "Laura?" The woman made no reply, but began sobbing. "Laura! Laura Glass! You're going to be okay. You just need the doctor to…"
"Oh, God! Dr. Becket, I'm in agony. I'm dying. I know it."
"Laura, the doctor is just going to…"
Fields was hovering in the background with a hypodermic needle.
Laura screamed. "I've seen this in the movies. When you're going to die, they give you a fatal dose of morphine so you die quietly and don't upset the other patients. Don't let them kill me, Kate, please. I want to live. I want to go home!"
As Laura screamed, Kate turned to the doctor. "If Captain Rodgers and I hold her arms, can you give her a shot?"
"Absolutely."
She looked at Rick. "Let's do it, then."
They both grabbed Laura and the doctor gave her a shot. Laura kept screaming for a while, then passed out.
"Thank god I can do some work now." Myron said.
"How about your other patients, Myron?" Rick asked.
Dr. Fields began setting Laura's wrist. "The worst are Sergeant Woods and Specialist Dobbler. Woods has a through and through GSW to the right thigh. Missed the femoral artery and the femur. We'll be medevacking him out tomorrow. Dobbler got sprayed with some rock fragments when a bullet hit his sangar, one piece of rock went into his eye. Luckily, it was a small fragment, but he'll go out with Woods as well. I can't do anything about it here."
"The others?" Rick asked.
"Mr. Blum, from the dig, was dancing around the fire when the firefight began. He sensibly dropped to the ground. Not so sensibly, he dropped on top of the fire. First degree burns to the stomach and the forearms. I'll treat him here, as well as PFC. Martinez who got hit in the helmet, but not the head. He has a strained neck and a bad headache. I'll keep him here for a while. Since you've been treated by a doctor, that's me, Martinez, you'll have a Purple Heart as well as Woods and Dobbler. Sorry, Blum, nothing for you."
Blum laughed. "Just as long as the story doesn't get out about how I got injured."
Kate laughed too. "When you get back to Duquesne, you can tell everyone you were throwing blazing logs at terrorists, and no one will contradict you."
They were interrupted by a radio call asking that Rick and Kate return to the command bunker.
"Captain Fields, we're going to have a talk about your actions tonight, but you're going to be busy tonight, so it'll keep until tomorrow. But we will have a talk."
Once in the command bunker, Rick found one of the Ranger medics, Sergeant Johnstone, sporting the makings of a first-class black eye. Standing by him was a tall, leggy blonde.
"What happened, Johnstone?"
"Sir, I was just trying to do my job."
"I saw everything, Dr. Beckett. Everything."
"What happened, Chris?" Kate asked.