Chapter CLX: Jen

April 10, 2548 (UNSC Calendar)/two weeks later

UNSC Marine Corps FOB, LV-426, Zeta Reticuli System

"Jen can't cry."- First Lieutenant Yassir Dajani

"Not likely he'll do much running in the future," Lieutenant Commander Sigfrid Vinter said calmly. He was clad in an apron that had blood splattered all over it, giving him the look of a butcher and not helping him at all with the almost holy appearance that battlefield doctors were supposed to have. "Fall severed the spine cleanly. With the technology available to us we can have him up and walking, but even for that he's going to need some serious rehabilitation to be able to do that."

I sighed, that was unfortunate.

"He's lost feeling below the waist, meaning that he's going to need to use diapers and be attended to." Vinter looked at the datapad in his hands and sighed sadly.

"I've seen a couple of similar injuries before Frank, you shouldn't worry too much about it. As soon as we get to a decent hospital your man will receive the care that he deserves and he'll be able to feel his lower body once again."

"But meanwhile he's pissing and shitting himself and can't do anything about it," I said.

Vinter shrugged. "I'm sorry Frank, but that's the way it is."

I let out a long, tired sigh. "Is he in pain?"

"Yes."

"A lot?"

He nodded.

"Can you give him any more painkillers?"

He examined his datapad again and frowned slightly. "No, not really. Even if I managed to overlook the fact that we're dangerously low on all kinds of painkillers, Lance Corporal Reeves can't take any more without his body collapsing."

"Dammit," I grunted. "He's one of my men."

"Listen Frank, I know how you feel, but you've done everything you could to make him comfortable and he'll be fine. He's going to make it."

"But the moment he's patched up they're going to discharge him."

The doctor nodded. "It's for his own good. He'll get an honorable discharge and a nice pension to go along with it."

"Dammit. He'll probably be out of a job…"

This time it was Vinter's turn to be annoyed. "Frank, for Christ's sake. Shut up and deal with it. Your man is alive after a fall that would've killed most people I know and he'll be able to walk and move by himself. You're an officer, you need to get used to stuff like this. People will die under your command, get used to that idea." His eyes softened slightly and he gripped my shoulder lightly, much like my uncle would when explaining something to his only nephew. "How do you think I felt when my first patient died? I did everything I could and he still passed. Some things are just beyond our control Frank, this is one of them."

"No, Doc. He was under my command, he was my responsibility."

"If every officer used your logic, we would've lost this war long ago."

I looked at him and considered his words. "Maybe you're right."

"I am right," he said firmly. "Now I want you to get some food and maybe roll around in your bunk with that corpsman girl of yours."

I smiled a little bit. "I didn't know doctors were allowed to assign that kind of treatment."

He grinned in return. "Whatever it takes to keep you away from my daughter."

"Oh come on! That's unfair, Doc."

He spread his hands. "I was just joking, besides, she's got a new boyfriend now."

"If you ever need someone to give him a scare…"

"I know who to call," he assured me. "Now go, you did good for your man, let him rest."

I looked through the small glass window and into Reeves' room. He was asleep, but the grimace in his face was testament to what he was going through. He had been moved from the ICU just a couple of days ago. I had pushed the doctors to attend to him for a couple of days, but they were too busy with what they deemed more serious casualties to even consider looking at Recon Squad's medic. I had been on the verge of killing a nurse when Doctor Vinter spotted my annoyance and intervened, promising that my friend would be taken care of.

After that the series of operations that he had been through had almost cost him his life. None of us had realized that his spine was very likely not the only injured thing in his body. Reeves had sustained internal organ damage and his sternum had cracked. The bones surrounding his eyes had also collided against his visor and several hairline fractures left him with what must've been the worst case of black eye that I ever had the misfortune to witness. In the end it appeared that I had been right to threaten every doctor I came across.

I turned to thank Vinter but he was already walking away and chatting to a nurse, asking quick questions about another patient.

"You know, you should've ordered your men to be careful near the edge. The Covenant blasted the hill quickly and they certainly didn't take measures to prevent landslides," Schitzo said calmly. He was wearing bloodied scrubs to suit the mobile hospital. "You need to think of these things."
"Frank made a sensible choice," Scarecrow countered. "The orders were sound, he couldn't have known that would happen."
I frowned. He was right, I couldn't have known, but Schitzo also had a grain of truth in his words, I should've thought about the possibility.

I dismissed both of their presences with a lazy wave of my hand and walked out of the hospital. The light drizzle that hit my face was cold enough to make me mutter a curse under my breath. The officer's uniform that I was wearing at the moment didn't cover my face or neck, but the rest of my body was comfortably warm. My hair had grown to a decent length in the weeks that we had been here and further shielded me from the rain. I squinted and looked up at the gray sky, it always looked like a storm was about to start, but all we got was this fine drizzle. The locals said that a storm would in fact start eventually, but that it would be at least a day before it happened.

Thunder rumbled in the distance, somewhere over the Covenant lines.

Let's hope some of those bastards get hit by lightning.

It was a stupid thought, but it was an amusing one.

I walked through the muddy dirt, splashing water around with my boots and earning glances from fresh-faced Marines. My ODST uniform was intimidating enough by itself, the fact that I was a Helljumper and an officer as well had most of the new Marines swallowing and wondering whether or not they should salute me. In the end, most did. It was, after all, military protocol to salute any superior officer that you came across.

I walked inside a large tent. It was large enough to house three Scorpion tanks and a couple of Mongoose ATVs. My platoon had been assigned to the tent, we shared it with two Warthogs and a Mongoose. The Scorpion tanks had been moved outside and into the rain. As I walked inside I wondered not for the first time why someone would keep a battle tank inside a tent.

"Sir," Caboose said, standing up the moment I walked in. "What's the prognosis?"

The rest of Recon Squad also stood up immediately and took a few steps towards me. The rest of Platoon Five turned to look at me and listened respectfully. "He'll be fine. Doctor says that Reeves is going to be able to walk, but…"

"But what?" Atkins asked. "Sir."

"But he's going to be discharged, no matter how much care he gets he'll never be able to run without being in pain."

There was a sound that mixed relief with disappointment and no small degree of anger.

Caboose looked at his feet briefly. "I'm without a medic, sir."

I nodded. "I know. If you go solo I'll send Miri or Andy with you, but as long as you're working with the rest of the platoon you'll have to do without."

He nodded. "Thanks, sir."

I looked around the room at my men. They all looked bored and slightly tired. The massive offensive had kept awake for extended periods of time. The strike on the cannons had allowed the bulk of the UNSC forces to bull through the Covenant soldiers. After that we had gotten several other missions, shorter and not as dangerous, but they still kept us busy.

Pavel met my eyes and shrugged. Every time he did that his head seemed to sink into his shoulders like a turtle. It was almost enough to make me laugh. He looked bored and there were bags under his eyes.

"Everybody try to get some sleep," I told the men. "Your bunks are right there."

I received a unanimous sigh of relief.

"You heard the Lieutenant, into your beds," Pavel's voice boomed through the tent. "Sandor, Marv, you're not allowed to share bunks, no matter how cold is it."

The platoon chuckled and started moving towards their beds.

"Where will you be going, sir?" PFC O'Malley asked me.

I shrugged. "Officer's quarters. There's some business I need to attend to."

She nodded, her youthful features looking soft. Her hair was slightly past regulation length and there was something in her eyes that just gave her a friendly look. That, coupled with her dimples and the perpetual smile that seemed to be on her face made her look very appealing. Funny, I hadn't realized earlier.

She also happened to be a subordinate directly under my chain of command. While entertaining those thoughts was all good and well, acting upon them was a big no-no as far as military protocol went.

"Good luck, sir."

I refrained from giving her my flirty grin and instead just nodded her thanks. I shook my head as soon as I left the tent. There were precisely six women that I couldn't entertain sexual thoughts about. Five of them were under my command and the other one worked as a waitress in Paris IV. I did a good enough job on the first five, I wasn't about to failing.

"Francisco, you have the mind of an eighteen year-old boy," Schitzo said.

I had to physically stop myself from drawing my sidearm and shooting him. A lieutenant firing three rounds into empty space for no apparent reason might not be well seen by the rest of the FOB populace.

"Crazy weather, eh?" Domingo said as I walked inside the tent assigned to the officers of Jaguar Company.

Yas laughed and even Weller failed to suppress an amused smirk. "Never took you for one to make small talk," I replied.

"Small talk is the only game I have," he shrugged.

"That I can believe," Yas told him, patting him in the back.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Domingo asked, turning around and hitting Yas with a vicious poke to the ribs that would've made even a grown man double to the side and squirm away.

I grinned at their antics, antics that nobody would've thought becoming of an officer, least of all an ODST officer. Lieutenant Weller rolled her eyes in a way that seemed to say 'boys' with an annoyed but endeared tone. At that point I wondered just how all of us would've interacted if we had met in high school.

Not well, I suppose.

Captain Hayes would've been the bitch that ruled the school with an iron fist, no doubt. I would call her by her first name and she would call me Frank. She'd certainly be an angel to everyone but me and maybe Pavel.

Yes would be her boyfriend, the classic jock that was actually a really nice guy.

Weller would be a loner. With her buzz cut and the scars someone would spread rumors that she was a killer.

Domingo. Domingo would be literally everybody's friend.

And me? I don't know whether I would be that bully that everybody hated but no one dared to face or if I'd be another a jock that was a bit of a dick but everyone knew was nice deep, deep inside.

It was an interesting thought, but the point is that out of all five of us I was certainly the one who would get laid the most.

Next to me Schitzo palmed his face as my train of thought reached that point.

"Whatcha reading Jen?" I asked the other officer not currently embroiled in a wrestling match.

"War and Peace," she replied, glancing up from her datapad.

I raised an eyebrow. "That's some heavy reading."

She shrugged. "I like reading," Weller said simply.

"I have a pretty big library in my datapad," I said, stepping back and away from Yas' and Dom's tumbling bodies. "If you ever feel like it…"

"I'll check it out sometime," Jen said, shrugging. "Don't think I'm going to get much progress with these two louts."

I smiled. "Agreed."

The joke wrestling match ended when Yas slipped under a chokehold that Dom had worked really hard to achieve and reversed into a similar choke. Dom struggled for a moment before going limp and admitting defeat. He held himself pretty well all things considered. Yas was a lot taller and bigger than him.

"How's your man?" Yas asked me.

I sighed. "He'll live, he's not gonna fight ever again."

"Probably the best thing for him," Dom said.

I nodded. "Probably, but it should've been his choice."

Dom shrugged. "Hey, at least he made it."

He was right. Dom and Platoon Four had lost two men during our mission to board the Covenant corvette. Everyone had some minor injuries and the captain's platoon had suffered one KIA during the mission immediately following that one. All things considered we were doing relatively well with four casualties for the company, only three of them killed.

Back when I was only a squad leader four casualties would've been unacceptable, they would've broken my unit. Now, four casualties we could absorb with relatively little trouble. Even my platoon could keep on operating effectively with four casualties.

It bothered me. It also made me wonder how generals would feel about numbers and figures. It was hard to picture myself saying that we had only suffered five hundred casualties.

Damn, the higher-ranking officers could sure use their personal shrinks.

I was glad that Captain Hayes wasn't in here. While she wouldn't do or say anything, the glares that she could manage could put the ones that Marina and Layla used to give me to shame. And I had thought that those could melt through battle armor…

After chatting a little with the other two lieutenants not reading I decided to follow my own advice and head down to bed.

Like every good Marine I fell asleep in seconds.

I woke up after several nightmares. Thankfully I didn't remember much of them, but the last one had made me a general that sent millions of men to their deaths in a desperate attempt to win a battle. It failed.

"Damn," I muttered, getting back up and rubbing my hair.

"You know, somehow I never took you to be the kind of man to wear a wife beater."

I looked at Lieutenant Weller, who appeared to have moved to her bunk to read her book more comfortably. I then glanced to my sleeveless black undershirt and proceeded to crack my neck. "It brings out my eyes," I said finally. "Captain Hayes show up yet?"

"No," she shrugged.

"How long was I out?" I asked her, looking around for my tacpad.

"Almost two hours," Jen said.

I groaned loudly as I got up. "If Hayes hasn't shown up…"

"Yeah, she's planning an op."

"Damn."

"Yup."

I let myself fall back down to my bunk and made what my mom would've called 'annoyed noises.' After indulging in child-like behavior for a couple of seconds I sat up, swinging my feet over the side of the bed. "Finish your book?" I asked her.

"Almost," Jen said. "I'm going to save the last pages for after this next mission."

I smiled and moved towards my helmet, which had been placed in my standard-issue bedside table. "May I?"

"By all means," Jen said, allowing herself a tiny little smile. "Gotta say, your music is…interesting."

I returned the smile, putting on my standard-issue woolen sweater. Black. "Not really my music," I said. "You know Rob Agnarsson? From Platoon One?"

"Bumblebee?"

My smile turned into a wide grin. "That's the one. Well, he's a bit of a nut for old stuff." A weird riff came from the speakers on my helmet. "This is the latest thing he discovered."

"What's their name?"

"Gym Class Heroes," I told her. "Haven't listened to them much yet, but I gotta say I like the name."

I went back down into my bunk, listening to the song. I knew that I tended to misinterpret the lyrics of a song as often as teenage girls did, but when the song consisted largely of a woman telling her man that he would miss her and that she wanted him to 'get his ass back home' it was not difficult to relate to the song.

"Fitting," Jen said about halfway through the song. "And catchy as well."

"Bee has a thing for finding the good stuff," I assured her. "At least when it comes to music, his movie tastes are…well, let's just say that the last Movie Night I went to consisted of us watching Supershark vs. Megalizard Part II and leave it at that."

"Movie Night?"

I smiled at the tent ceiling. "Yeah, Bee used to get us all together and make us watch his crappy movies. It was fun." I sighed, those were the days.

"Wait, but-"

"Yeah?"

"You used to serve with him?" Jen asked. "I mean, before you came to the Flaweless?"

I nodded. "Reaper Squad. We were an unusual bunch. Italian convict, Scottish pyromaniac, Indian street urchin, Finnish supermodel, a dark and brooding mysterious Helljumper whose birthplace I still don't know, Pavel, me, and…and this kid from the Midwest that looked like he could crush an elite's throat without breaking a sweat."

"This Midwest guy, what happened to him?" Jen was an officer and she had lost several men under her command before. She sensed the change in my tone and the hesitation before I mentioned Scarecrow.

"He was killed in action. In Lambari." I closed my eyes, the image of his grizzly dead was etched into my memory. "Before him I had had several men die under my command. They…they didn't mind. Most of them were slightly bad in the head or didn't have anything to live for. For a while I was just like them, you know? They didn't mind jumping into their deaths and I didn't care when they did."

"He changed it?"

"No, not really. I changed with time, by the time we crossed paths I was considerably…saner."

"Well that's a lie," Schitzo sighed.

"He was probably the main reason why I started caring for the men under my command. Other than Pavel of course, he's always been my best friend."

Jen smiled and nodded.

"And then, just like that, he's dead."

"It hurt more than most, didn't it?"

I nodded slowly. "But life went on. Next man I lost was this other great kid, Sander Almers, our squad medic. He died carrying me to safety. Great guy too, a bit of a loudmouth, but nobody's perfect. He was great friends with Serge and Beckel, you know?"

"He died right before the company was formed, right? No wonder both of them are so grim."

"Serge's always been like that. He saw a lot of stuff even before he came into the Helljumpers. Beckel…well, he's changed."

Jen glanced at her datapad and gently put her on top of her traveling chest. "Your first squad…Reaper?"

I nodded.

"Why were you all from Earth? You are from Earth, right?"

I nodded again. "URNA, Mexico to be more precise. Pavel's Polish. I honestly don't know why, I know Grigori's not from Earth, but it is a little bit weird that the rest of us were."

"Grigori… why do you call him Caboose?"

I frowned. I had used the excuse of him being my last pick for Reaper Squad as a cover for his nickname, but honestly I had just used it out of spite. I knew that he was supposed to be spying on me for ONI and had given him an embarrassing nickname for it. "Long story."

"Ah," she smiled. "Maybe I should ask him."

I shrugged, trying to appear as noncommittal as possible.

"And Pavel, what about him?"

I sighed and took a deep breath. This story was a long one. "Our previous ship, the UNSC Inconvenience," Jen snorted at the name, "used to have a rather unconventional purpose, and in turn it had a very relaxed sense of discipline. One day we found ourselves on the beautiful beaches of Jericho VII. I was raised in Jericho VII."

Jen winced involuntarily. The action looked unnatural on the hardened ODST.

"My uncle still lived there, so I broke off from my unit and headed towards Camp Afghan. He was an instructor there. Seeing as Camp Afghan was a military installation the covvies hit it and they hit it hard. Pavel doesn't like to talk about it much, but his entire unit was sent to defend the place. His unit was the… the 105th Drop Jet Platoon."

"Never heard of them," Jen shrugged.

I smiled, it was exactly what I had said. My smile disappeared after a second. "They were wiped out. Pavel was the only survivor."

"Oh."

Oh indeed.

"The point is, I found Pavel, armor scorched, parts of it missing, hell, there were spikes embedded on him too. After that… well, he didn't have a unit, all his friends were dead, and he didn't know what to do. We retreated from the planet on and I guess he just decided to remain on board."

Jen was silent for a few long moments. "And your uncle?"

I shook my head. "Brutes got to him. He got one of them at least, hit it with this huge hunting shotgun he used to show off to everyone that came inside the house."

"I'm sorry."

"Thanks," I said. "It's all in the past."

There was no happiness in the smile that Jen gave me next. "Nothing ever stays in the past."

"Ah, a pessimist."

"A realist."

"Relax, we share schools of thought. Besides, my own personal experience would prove you right. Some things don't like to stay buried."

An uncomfortable silence followed that. Not because I had managed to kill the conversation, but because we both knew how uncomfortably true that was. Now I was thinking back to all those moments that I wished I could forget. I wondered what Jen was wondering behind her frown and she was probably wondering the same thing about me.

All the same, perhaps it was better if this conversation ended right there.

"You don't want to hear my story?"

Or not.

"You don't have to feel like you have to tell me anything," I told her. "Seriously."

She smiled. Jen was attractive, maybe if she had grown her hair just a little bit longer… "It's not polite to talk about yourself and not listen to others," she chided.

"All right. Shoot."

Jen leaned back in her bunk, placing her intertwined hands behind her head and taking a deep breath. "I joined the Corps out of spite more than anything."

"As good a reason as there is," I said simply.

"No sarcasm, please."

"That's just how I deal with my feelings."

"Frank…"

"Sorry, go on."

Jen took another deep breath before she started talking again. "If I had stayed my dad would've paid for my trip to Earth or Paris IV after getting my degree and he would've gotten me into one of the best universities in this side of the galaxy in order to further my education. Not such a bad fate, but it wasn't the one I chose." Jen turned to look at me. "I realize how I must sound, probably the most cliché thing you've ever heard."

"Not ever," I said with a small shrug. "Maybe all day…"

She laughed quietly. "Oh well, maybe I watched on too many movies and decided that I wanted to be independent. Couple that with the incredibly effective propaganda branch of ONI…"

"And you jumped at the opportunity," I finished. It was something of a joke that the only branch of the Armed Forces that was effective against the Covenant was the propaganda that ONI gave out. Even a bitter veteran that had seen his friends slaughtered by the Covenant would feel a little bit patriotic after one of their commercials.

"Joined the Corps, told myself that I'd be there for a few years, kick some alien ass, and then return to Cygnus and actually start my civilian career. First mission, I'm a green-faced lieutenant in charge of a bunch of equally green troops. The only one of my men that had actually seen any combat was my platoon sergeant. We're flying in two Pelicans, fifteen men each."

"Where was this?" I asked.

"Draco III."

I let out a whistle. Draco III hadn't been a good place to be when the Covenant came.

She nodded understandingly. "The other Pelican was shot down almost as soon as we took off. A flight of Seraphs tore through the formation. I heard the screams of my men as they fell to their deaths."

It was most definitely not a nice way to go. I found myself sitting back up, listening intently to what she had to say.

"Our other Pelican made it through in one piece. The pilot was cool and calmer than all of us, save perhaps for my platoon sergeant. He had just seen his over twenty of his friends die and he was telling us that everything would be fine and wishing us good luck."

"Sounds like a hell of a man."

"Yeah. Moment he dropped us off four Banshees hit it hard. The Pelican blew up, no survivors."

I winced.

"So I found myself with an under strength platoon, and that's putting it mildly, with men so scared that they had just about pissed themselves. I wasn't feeling too well either, but I had to keep calm, after all, if I lost my cool then we would all die. I don't think I managed to stay cool and collected because of my men, it was something of a self-preservation thing. If they were alive it meant that I wasn't going to be the first thing they shot at."
I smiled. Spoken like a cynic.

"So we moved towards our objective. With more than half our forces missing we were immediately routed. Our glorious advance turned into a miserable retreat, a retreat that cost me two more men. We fell back to our own lines;the upper-ups congratulated us on our effort, saying that we had bloodied their nose and that losses were to be expected against a fortified enemy. We believed them of course, how could we not?

"Truth is, they botched the operation. I don't think I could've done it better to be honest, but later I found out that Command had messed up. I don't care if they're ten times better than me at planning operations, it's their job to do it well."

"Then you tried to join?"

"No," she shook her head. "But it is when I first came across an ODST unit. I was in our camp, I think I was leaving our small hospital, when I came across four Helljumpers. Three of them were talking and walking, the other one was on a stretched between them. He was missing one of his legs above the knee and was smiling and joking with them."

Wow.

"Later I figured out that they were as worried for their friend as any other human being would've," she continued, "but at that time the only thing that I could think about was that they were hardasses."

"Part of our job description," I shrugged.

"So I decided to become a hardass as well. Shaved my head and did my best to detach myself from useless things such as feelings."

Considering our career choice, her move had been a smart one.

"Two years of the same story in different colors followed that," Jen said. "I had gotten better, of course. I saved some of my men and did some good job, but it never seemed to be enough. Then I joined the ODSTs."

"How's that going so far?"

"Not too shabby," she admitted with a shrug. "First mission was a bitch though. I got my platoon sergeant to enlist with me and both of us were sent to a platoon that had just lost its lieutenant along with a third of their number. I came in a little bit too hard."

I shook my head. "I take it they didn't exactly receive you with open arms."

"No," Jen said, tracing her hand through the A-shaped scar on her cheek. "They didn't."

I waited for her to keep talking.

"We were dropped into action before things got more crazy. Everything changed then, I wasn't the enemy anymore down there. I was their leader, maybe reluctantly, but I still was…" Jen paused and sat back up, facing me. "Long story short, I earned their respect, saved the platoon and lived to tell the story."

It might've been imprudent of me, but I couldn't resist it any longer. "How exactly did you get that scar?"

She smiled. "Three of my men jumped me, they were wearing masks and I managed to fight them off. I couldn't prove anything so they went unpunished. Next time they hit me before jumping me. One of the guys pulled a knife and carved me up nice and slow."

"What did you do to him?"

"Me? Nothing. My good platoon sergeant, on the other hand… Let's say Micah doesn't know who could've tied my aggressor to a chair and beat him within an inch of his life."

I had heard some stuff about us ODSTs, a lot of it was crazy and most of it was true, but something like this was right up there with the craziest stories.

"Micah?" I asked. "Micah Black? The guy that's always smiling and seems about to break into a song?"

"Beware the nice ones," she said simply.

"Damn, never would've imagined." I tried picturing Gunnery Sergeant Black tying a man, an ally, to a chair and beating him until his face was too swollen for anybody to recognize. I couldn't, his face kept shifting to show either Caboose's or mine. "That was your first mission as a Helljumper then?"

"Yeah. I earned my platoon's trust. Not their friendship, mind you. Nobody ever apologized for this ugly scar, but I earned their loyalty and their respect."

"In this world, one might argue that it was a fair exchange."

"One might," she conceded.

"What happened to them?"

She looked away from me, her eyes distant. I had to remind myself that she had lost about four fifths of her platoon less than a year ago.

"All of the troublemakers died in a Covenant ambush. They surrounded us and hit us from all sides. Half my platoon was dead in the opening volley, the rest of us managed to fight our way through. In the end there was only seven of us left."

Jen had brought six men from her previous unit, seven if you counted her. I had skimmed through her file, even the report on her last mission, but hearing it from her own mouth was completely different. I could hear the pain in her words, the failure that she believed herself to be.

"I'm sure there's nothing you could've done better. You saved six of your men from a situation most would call an impossible one."

"I know," she said, her voice breaking slightly. "Doesn't make it any better."

I nodded, wondering if I should say anything. Putting my hand on her shoulder was out of the question, Jen was a woman that wouldn't take pity or comfort from anybody if she could avoid it. In her attempt to pretend to be a hardass bitch she had actually turned into one. I was at a complete loss, watching this woman that could break most men in half singlehandedly, about to burst into tears.

"Damn Frank, you made Jen cry," Dom said from his bunk.

"No way," Yas said a second later. "Jen can't cry. She's physically unable to."

I relaxed at their jokes. Now that Jen knew that they had been listening she would be slightly pissed and would complain some, but she wouldn't lose her cool in front of a peer and could keep herself the toughest lieutenant amongst all four of us.

"You ass," she said, tossing her pillow at Dom.

"Ow! Did you put rocks in it?"

Jen let out a laugh that masked the turmoil of emotions she was going through right now. After that she shook her head and muttered something concerning Dom's lack of verticality before turning over in her bunk and trying to fall asleep.

"Relax Jen," Dom said, his tone changing. "We've all been through some hard stuff. I don't think I can talk about what I went through yet."
Jen once more muttered something that included the words 'sissy' and 'legally a midget' before dismissing him with a wave.

I turned on my bunk to face the other two males in the large tent and gave them a thank you look. Dom shrugged and returned to his bunk. Yas gave me a 'that was close' look and shook his head before pulling his datapad from his table. He started watching some vid and didn't look at me again.

I smiled at the guy. The first time I had come across him he had been a huge douche. Living in the same room had forced us to get along, and with time we discovered that we actually kind of liked each other. But on top of it all, I respected him for not taking sides once Hayes discovered my part in her cousin's death. It took balls to do that, especially considering the story that he and the captain shared.

Which reminded me…

"Yas, what's the story behind you and the captain anyways?" I asked.

Even Jen sat up in her bed, Dom all but squealed with glee at the opportunity to hear about the story behind our Captain and First Lieutenant. I waited for several seconds, watching as Yas finished with his video and a waiting for him to put his datapad away.

"Not for me to say," he said, looking serious.

The rest of us groaned before and dropped back into bed in a motion that looked so practiced that it could've been taken out of a comedy.

I woke up precisely on hour and four minutes later to the flapping of fabric and the sound of wind. The light drizzle had turned into actual rain if the sounds on the ceiling were anything to go by. I opened my eyes slowly and carefully sat up, not really wanting to get dizzy. I looked towards the entrance and saw Captain Hayes, she was clad in her work uniform, the only difference between hers and mine the insignia on her shoulder.

"Captain," Dom greeted from his bed. "News?"

"We've got a new mission, get your men up and ready and head to Landing Pad Twelve in twenty minutes. I'll explain more on the way up." With that, she turned around and left.

"You catch that Jen?" Dom asked.

"Myeah," she replied, groaning.

"Yassir?"

"Got it," he said.

I groaned and stretched me neck. "Should we dress up in full battle gear?"

"Yeah," Yas said. "Come on, let's go."

I groaned again, if only to get some of the frustration out of my system. Jen was already undressing herself and yanking her undersuit out of her trunk. I averted my eyes out of respect and went through my messy trunk in order to find the undersuit. It looked to me like a full-body swimsuit, but I knew that the materials it was made off made it so much more.

Once it was on I flexed every muscle I knew how to and then started yanking at the sections where it was tight. It was around that point that I noticed that Lieutenant Jen Weller had an amazing ass that the tight undersuit she wore helped display. It was not on Cam's level, but I had to admit that it was pretty close.

Jen looked like the kind of woman that would like to be in control in a relationship. She probably preferred being on top.

Yas saw exactly where I was looking at and slapped me in the back of the head as he went. I smiled and once again averted my eyes.

You know, as far as these things went, my life could've been worse.

Thanks to SilasWhitfield for proofreading this chapter.

Hey errbody, this chapter started out as a base-to-battle kind of chapter, I planned to have some fighting in here, but the moment I realized that I could elaborate on Jen's background I just went with it. I had a good time making up a suitably dramatic story without making it so incredibly tragic that it verged on the unbelievable. I guess I did alright.

And I noticed that Frank's quoting Cortana…or is it the other way around. *unecessary evil laugh*

Thanks to all of you for your reviews and I look forward to any comments you might have on this chapter.

Stay strong.

-casquis