"Think we should call it 'Frank'?'" Agatha commented. She slammed shut the engine compartment hatch on the MTVR. "I think we had to patch it up with every spare part we had."
"Shall I pull ze svitch, mein Lance-Corporal?" Private Capelli replied. The beefy motor technician mimed clutching a lever. "Just one lightning bolt, and our creation will be ALIIII--"
"Just start her up, Capelli," Agatha said. She stripped off rubber gloves covered with grease and oil. "And remember, clutch out and brakes on. We don't want you busted down to recruit for forgetting that."
"One time," the New Jersey reservist muttered, clambering into the drivers cab of the six by six wheeled truck. "It was only one hole in the wall. And the Hummer wasn't even damaged."
A cough, a roar, and the seven-ton came to life. Cocking her head, Agatha listened to the tone of the engine when it settled into idle. Years spent hanging around her Uncle Earl's garage and machine shop had taught her how to judge a car's health by ear. Every vehicle had its sweet spot, where air and spark and fuel came together in a happy mix. By the sound of it, Frank was back to walking wounded rather than wreck. A miracle, considering the damage one overconfident butterbar lieutenant could do by insisting he "knew how to drive one of these things". Waving a hand, she ordered Capelli to shut it down. Together she and the rest of her motor pool squad finished a full inspection of the truck. No leaks, mechanicals fine, electricals good. Ticking off the boxes, she signed off the inspection report for submission to the maintenance platoon sergeant.
She cracked her back. She had been working since oh-dark-thirty fixing up a raft of Hummers and MTVR's. A landscape full of mines, RPG-bearing Taliban, and the odd idiot officer kept her squad busy. Noticing Capelli's puppy dog look, she jerked a thumb in the direction of the enlisted mess. Private Capelli almost raised dust heading for the chow hall. Agatha smirked. A gifted mechanic, but one day he'd get his fat butt quarter-decked by the gunny for the extra meat he had put on during the winter. At least he had remembered to grab his M16. The epic chewing out he had gotten from the company gunnery sergeant for neglecting that detail had nearly brought an avalanche down on the base. She herself donned her deuce gear, helmet, and rifle before leaving the confines of the motor pool. The captain had ratcheted up combat readiness even within the wire. The Taliban were a lot friskier these days after a winter's hibernation. They'd even taken to the odd shelling, although they couldn't aim their mortars worth for shit..
She paused for a moment. The sun was going down behind the mountains surrounding Camp Iwo. The high Hindu Kush rising above the plateau was a ways more forbidding than the Appalachian hills she had roamed since birth. More like the Sierras she had seen on brief leaves stateside, although the crags and peaks seemed sharper than back in Cali. One thing they shared with the country around Tarquin, Tennessee: a fair number of hill people with a rifle and a serious grudge. Give some of the Pashtuns around here a Bible and jeans and a flannel shirt, Agatha thought, and they could stand in for some of the rougher folks back home. She hunched down a bit while she walked across the open ground. At least the people at home stuck with rock salt in a shotgun against trespassers. The jihadis preferred a more lethal reception. Just last week a grunt manning an Ma Deuce during a convoy had been hit in the throat by a sniper with an old--but damned accurate--Lee Enfield. Afghanistan's good old boys could shoot well if they chose.
Even in the evening, Iwo was a busy place. Agatha couldn't help marvel at it. Super Cobra gunships revved up on the helo pad for night sweeps against infiltrators. A patrol of Humvees roared in through the gate. A Marine M240 team field-stripped and cleaned their weapon against the ever-present dust. On the far side of the parade deck, two groups of men in high-and-tights and desert-camouflage utilities sparred with each other in combatives practice. One squad from the Army Rangers mixing it up the Recon boys the regular line infantry company supported. She smirked as she watched the two rival units play with each other like Rottweilers and German Shepherds. Being a female Marine could be dirty, boring, and downright infuriating at times. Watching twenty brawny examples of US military physical conditioning was a heck of a perk.
"Those Ranger boys are good, but raw," boomed a voice behind her. "Rather have my men behind me. At least they got a few years in divisional recon before coming to Force."
"Ah--" Agatha stiffened. At a short inch below six feet, she was taller than all the women and a fair few of the men. The stocky black man who had come up behind her had her beat on sheer mass. What demanded her immediate attention was the crossed rifles, three chevrons, and bottom rocker on his collar insignia: the mark of a gunnery sergeant, damn near the voice of God Himself to an enlisted. Twin badges--parachute wings and a combatant diver pin--revealed he was the senior NCO of the Force Reconnaissance platoon.
"At ease, Lance-Corporal," the gunnery sergeant said, never taking his eyes off the men. Lifting up his helmet, he wiped sweat off his brow with a corner of the brown-and-white checked shemagh wrapped around his neck. "Putnam, right? Staff Sergeant Hartigan told me about you. Asked me to check in on you when we rotated in."
"He did, Gunnery Sergeant?" Agatha could not help a fond smile. "How is he?"
"Still the cheating bastard at poker," the recon marine growled. "After he finished cleaning me out of a week's pay, he asked me to look in on his favorite motarded student."
"Oh." Agatha's ears blushed. She hated that. "I didn't mean to pester him about MCAP training, Gunnery Sergeant. It was something to do aside from changing oil and repairing glow plugs."
"No shame in that." He turned to her, features that wouldn't have been out of place on a Zulu impi commander about to have a motivational talk with the British at Isandlwhana. "I heard you gutted two hajis in Twenty Nine stumps. Good work--none of my boys ever managed that."
"Just defending myself, Gunnery Sergeant," Agatha said, quietly. Memories she had been trying to keep nailed down stirred within her. "Not something I'm much proud of. Doing what had to be done."
"Hmmmm." The recon man took something from his belt. A sheathed Ka-bar fighting knife. "Hartbreaker sent this along. He talked NCIS into releasing it once the investigation was finished."
"Oh thanks!" Agatha beamed. "You know, this was my Grand-Uncle Mort's. Carried it going into Inchon and running out of Chosin."
"Family tradition, the Corps?"
"More like hiding from an angry husband chasing him clear across the county with a shotgun, gunny." Uh oh! Agatha gulped. A Marine never called a man of his grade like that without permission. "Right sorry, I didn't mean--"
"It's fine," he said, ignoring the lapse into familiarity. "I like gunny better. Gunny Oliver Powell. Now, I have to break up those swinging dicks down there before someone gets hurt."
Gunny Powell stalked off to break up a pair of men rolling around in the dirt. Agatha just stood dumbfounded for a minute. It had been akin to the Archangel Micheal with his flaming sword dropping by to chat in your parlour like he was a state senator pressing the flesh. Ordinarily, an E-3 like her getting the personal attention of an E-7 was more ominous than pleasant. After a bit the weight in her hand brought her back to the blade he had returned to her. The honed steel slid out if the leather sheathe with a hiss. She thoughtfully ran her finger along the edge. Knives like these had been made more for busting open spam cans than slitting throats. She supposed her late uncle Mort had done nothing more exciting than that despite surviving his stint in Korea. Still, the old Ka-bar had felt so...right in her hand that December night. Scared shitless, running from those things. In her nightmares she thought they were some kind of monster, silly notion that it was. Agatha had drawn it more in instinct than any conscious act to defend herself. Yet in the dark and terror there had been the echo of something--she didn't know what--rising within her. Something that set her teeth bared and her spine straight.
The sun was behind the mountains. Agatha shuddered as the darkness descended on Camp Iwo. Hurrying on, she followed the rooster trail of dust Capelli had left behind to the mess and wamth and light.
Agatha felt better after a meal. Especially the comedy of watching Capelli chow down. She swore one day she'd see a seven-ton backing up to his table. She lounged on her rack in the enlisted women's barracks. The men on Camp Iwo were territorial like the service branches they belonged to. There was Marine country, Army territory, the forbidden zones of the various special forces units who temporarily called the base home. The small contingent of women on base, however, bunked together in their own little colony. The enlisted women's quarters were nothing special--hooches converted from shipping containers. Still, at least they were snug and free of the macho craziness of a bunch of young men revved up for combat. A place of their own, where a girl could secure her rifle beneath her rack and read, oh, a romance novel if she wanted.
Agatha glanced sheepishly at the bare-chested man on the paperback in hand. She had meant to study up for the Corporal's Advancement Course, really...
Dust-laden wind blew through the hooch. Squinting against the grit, Agatha saw it was her rack-mate of three months. Dik Soon Jae struggled to close the doors. The Army combat medic stood five foot nothing in her socks at the best of times. It was pure determination that got the doors closed before Agatha got up to help. The 68 Whiskey snarled in Korean while she ruffled Afghani soil out of her jet-black hair. That was an odd departure from her usual calm. One of the reasons Agatha got along with her as a roomie was her quiet nature. Concerned, Agatha helped her strip off the LBE webbing.
"Bad day, huh, Dixie?" Agatha said. Dik Soon Jae's fate had been set the minute a Texas sergeant in the Army medical platoon had mispronounced her name a particular way.
"Filthy, evil barbarians!" Tears tracked down Dixie's cheeks. "I hate this place, I hate these people. I should have stayed in Seoul."
"Whoa there!" Agatha sat next to her friend on the rack. "What happened?"
"I was--" Dixie sniffled. "I was with the men going to the village east of here, yes? Sergeant Dawson asked if I would help."
"Oh, yeah." Agatha chuckled. "That'd be the Green Beret medic."
"Yes," Dixie said. "He knows very much. We speak often about techniques."
"Yeah." Agatha winked. "'Course, I bet you don't notice at all he has biceps out to here."
"Big as his head--" Dixie laughed. "Thank you, Aggs. I needed that. Is plain, I look at him?"
"Don't worry, I'll hose you down afore you start humping his leg."
"Gah. I'll have a cold shower next morning." Dixie sighed. "We were there for a heart and brain--wait, is that right? I have trouble with expressions, sometimes."
"Hearts and minds, I think they call it," Agatha amended. "And don't worry about that either, you talk American better than half of Tarquin."
"Yes, hearts and mind. Help the sick." Dixie leaned back, eyes haunted. "We come to one house, they try to stop us. The sergeant, he knows Pashto, he say they warn about curse. Demon. Superstition, yes? Only when he go in. Bad. Very bad."
"What was it?" Agatha couldn't help feeling like when her cousins had told ghost stories, flashlights under their faces to creep her out.
"A woman. Head cut off, heart cut out." Dixie hugged herself. "Why I come here, for people like this? At least you, you have country to serve. Reason for vengeance. I only join for money to send home, maybe get citizenship and send for my family."
"Worse reasons." Agatha patted Dixie on the back.
"I guess." Dixie leaned back. "Excuse, I have to sleep."
"Might as well do the same myself."
Getting under the blanket, Agatha switched off the single electric bulb in the ceiling. She lay back while listening to Dixie's breath slowing into the cadence of sleep. Vengeance and patriotism, Dixie had said. Well, yes. She'd joined up like so many others after that terrible day of watching fires burn and towers crumble. Truth was, though, during that summer between graduation and national tragedy there had been the sense that she was supposed to do something. She didn't know what. The hard weeks of training at Parris Island had seemed to fulfill that need. The pride and joy of surviving the Crucible and parading in front of her relatives in dress blues on Graduation was among her fondest memories. Still, that nagging little itch remained. She had worked her ass off to earn her MOS and get to a combat theatre. Maybe that was what she was supposed to do, even if it was just rotating tires and changing oil She had known going in that even in a base in theatre Congressional rules and Corps policy forbade her from active combat. Little jobs meant as much as big ones, as her dad always said.
Her hand reached out to touch the Ka-bar. The one thing she was done with was that. The reality of ducking away from crazy bastards who wanted to gut you killed fantasies about combat right quick. Sticking cold steel into those terrorists hadn't been satisfying beyond the exhilaration of being alive after. Far as she was concerned, day she had to pick this up again in anger could stay away until the Last Trump.
Her eyes fluttered closed. Maybe, she thought before tipping into sleep, I'll find out what I'm supposed to do when the time comes.
In the darkness, her digital watch switched to 8:30 pm.
And halfway across the planet, in a small town in California on the mouth of hell, the world changed yet again.