The woman’s husband began backing down the driveway. “Quick, Mom, quick!” came the high-pitched voices of her children. She grabbed Stephie’s wrists and said, “Don’t worry. It’ll be…” She faltered and fell silent. It’ll be what? Stephie wondered. It’ll be what? The woman never again made eye contact. The last family on Mason Street left to the sound of squealing tires.
Lieutenant Ackerman took center stage. Staff Sergeant Kurth lent him Kurth’s street. The slender but tall lieutenant was a graduate of The Citadel, which oddly enough had given Third Platoon the nickname “West Point.” The name really derived from Ack’s military-school bearing. During the early days of training, everybody in Charlie Company had longed to be not in Ackerman’s Third Platoon, but in the much more laid back First Platoon called “Malibu,” which was digging in on the next street over. But now, Stephie thought on the eve of their first major battle, “West Point” would do just fine.
“Listen up!” Ackerman ordered loudly. All forty men and women looked his way. Ackerman rarely gave speeches. “The civilians are clear!” Ack announced. “B’talion scouts are five miles out and pullin’ back fast! Since none of ’em are crossin’ the lines anywhere near here,” he said, pointing down Mason Street, “the next folks who come up that street I want you to kill.”
Just after Ackerman’s little pep talk, he had taken a look at the positions being dug in the front lawn by Stephie’s First Squad and had ordered them to fight from inside the newly abandoned house. Kurth had eyed the lieutenant for a moment before relaying the order. Other squads were dug in on lawns, and Animal and Massera had to stay where they were to have a good field of fire. But First Squad was set up to fight from inside the brick house at 3134 Mason Street. Where it’s safer, Stephie thought with irritation.
Stephie had a hard time believing that they actually would. Every time before, the order to retreat had come from on high, where fears of flanking or encircling moves had dictated retreat. But this time, they peered through empty windows with weapons at the ready and no such order came.
Animal and Massera lay hunched behind their machine gun in the water-filled pit just outside. The carpet in the previously immaculate house was tracked from the trench diggers’ muddy boots. The furniture was moved and overturned. Becky Marsh’s face glowed faintly in the light from her multiple, miniaturized screens. Her webbing sprouted black batteries, transceivers, and processors. The screens that bracketed her high-tech helmet went dark as Becky switched to her night reticles. The two tiny, see-through screens an inch from her eyes gave her stereoscopic Panavision.
Stephie left the front window and went to Becky, who lay behind an interior wall and wore a three-quarters suit of Kevlar that draped like a wool greatcoat to her shins. “Where’d you get that body armor?” Stephie asked in disgust.
“I met this guy in aviation. These are for V-STOL pilots. Close air support guys are very particular. They won’t go up, apparently, unless their balls are covered.”
“You mean you screwed this pilot for his body armor,” Stephie translated. “Where’s your fucking fighting load, Becky?” Becky replied that a guy over in transport was “transporting” it for her. “So,” Stephie snapped, “you’re just gonna fuck your way into light duty, live off our rations, and ride the war out inside your little video/Kelvar cocoon! Thanks at least for bringing your rifle!”
“Chill out, Roberts,” Sergeant Collins ordered. “And get back to the window.”
Stephie looked around the room. Her squadmates stared at her from their darkened hollows. No one raised above window level. Stephie looked at Becky and said, “I’m sorry.”
Becky didn’t hear her. She was holding both sides of her helmet and staring into the two reticles. “Here they come,” was all she said.
Stephie got back to the window just in time for a comm check. A thumb switch was aftermounted to her M-16’s pistol grip. Up meant she would talk to Sergeant Collins, the squad leader. Down would radio the words she spoke into her helmet’s mike to the other members of her fire team: Burns, Scott, and Corporal Johnson. “Can you hear me?” John Burns asked over their fire team’s radio net. Stephie looked past Scott to the far side of the window and nodded. “Yes, dear,” Animal replied, mockingly imitating Stephie’s voice over the radio from where he lay in the bushes outside. “I can hear you just fine, sweetie.” A squeaking kiss brought laughter from the others. John changed places with Peter Scott, who started to bitch but ended up just shifting positions. Stephie didn’t complain about John moving closer. He sat on the floor and raised a pencil-thin flexible tube like an aerial. Its end was bent like a periscope. A picture of the street appeared on the four-inch screen at the long tube’s base. “What’s that?” Stephie asked, sitting beside him.
“I got it at Sharper Image,” John mumbled as he scanned the street. The device offered a perfect view of Mason Street without exposing the viewer.
“Oh look,” she said, pointing at a button. “It’s got night vision. How much did this thing cost?” John shrugged. “You don’t know?” she probed. He said nothing in reply. She searched the hard green plastic monitor. It bore no brand name or other marking of any kind.
John abruptly said, “I gotta go to the bathroom.”
Sergeant Collins told him to make it quick. John didn’t go down the hallway, however. He left out the back door. “I’ve gotta go, too,” Stephie said.
But Collins replied, “No way! Get back to your post. Sheesus!”
Stephie waited by the window, listening. They all heard a loud crack of wood breaking from the backyard.
“I’ll go check it out,” Stephie said and hurriedly took off with her rifle while Collins was checking positions in the study. Johnson grabbed Stephie’s leg from where he lay in the darkness. “Don’t be long,” was all he said. On the radio, Animal was complaining about the noise from the rear of the house.
Stephie found John prying boards out of the rotting wood fence at the very back of the property, widening a hole. He had already cut through cyclone fencing on the other side. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“Always make sure there’s a way out,” John replied. “This leads to a storm ditch. Go left. It’s got branches in different directions and some good-sized pipes running under roads. Keep bearing east…”
“Nobody’s running,” Stephie said, indignantly shaking her head. “And where’d you get wire cutters?” she asked.
“Roberts! Burns! Get back in here!” snarled Collins over the squad’s net.
“Any second, now,” Becky counted down. Stephie powered up her night vision goggles and peered over the broken-out windowsill at Mason Street. Black shadows were now lit to brilliant day. A stunning burp of small arms fire erupted from several blocks to their left. The noise rose to a crescendo when the Chinese returned fire. Concussions from tank cannon, missile warheads, mortars, and soon artillery rattled the air. The night sky alit with orange barrages of ten and fifteen rounds at a time, bracketing their position on Mason Street. Stephie’s mouth was so dry she couldn’t swallow. How could anyone survive that? she worried.
“Contact,” came Sergeant Collins’s whispered voice over Stephie’s earphone. “Hold your fire.”