CHAPTER 21: THE SOLDIER, THE JARHEAD, AND THE GLOCK

“You stupid motherfuckers, I’m a US Army Ranger. Let me up.” The man that Rusty had dropped into a corner, hands tied behind his back, was struggling and looking pissed. Rusty hadn’t taken his attention off him, the man’s two Glocks in either hand, but Envy knew they couldn’t sleep like this. She didn't feel anything bad coming off him, but they way he’d held that gun on the kid, he was a dangerous piece of work, and the way they’d ambushed him afterwards wasn’t going to have earned them any favors.

“Sure you are,” Rusty said, tapping the fully loaded Glock against his big knee thoughtfully. “What’d you do to that woman, Mr. Ranger?”

“His name’s Harvey,” Envy said. “Use it.” They’d heard him use it as they’d been hovering outside, listening.

“Okay, Captain,” Rusty said without a hitch.

At the word ‘Captain,’ the man on the floor’s attention sharpened. “What service?” he demanded.

“Huh?”

“In what service are you a Captain?”

“I’m no—” Envy started.

“She’s retired,” Douglass said over the top of her. “Air Force.”

That made the guy grimace like he smelled bad cheese. Still, he seemed to accept it as truth, and Envy made a sideways look of ‘what the fuck?’ to Douglass, who pretended he didn’t notice.

Randy, too, seemed in on the joke, for he smoothly said, “Best Air Force officer I ever had while I was in.”

“Captain,” the man said, addressing Envy directly, now, “this is a big mistake. I didn’t hurt that woman. That guy out there on the ground is a guy from my squad. Sgt. Killearn. I don’t know what happened between him and this woman—I just got here.”

So that’s what Douglass was thinking, Envy said, realizing the strategy in the two guys’ lies. Put me in charge, he has to follow my orders. “Why were you holding a gun on a little girl…” She hesitated, looking at the rank on his collar and having no freakin’ idea what it meant.

“Sergeant Sicara,” Harvey supplied, thankfully. “I thought someone was using her as an ambush prop,” he said. “Captain, I’m one of the good guys.”

“We’ll see,” Envy said. She glanced at Douglass, who was even then sewing up the girl’s wounds with a medikit the Ranger had told them was in the Humvee. “Is she gonna make it?”

“She’s not doing good,” Douglass admitted. “I’m actually surprised she’s still alive.”

“And you didn’t do that to her,” Envy insisted. They of course knew that—they had heard the guy shouting at the little girl like a barbarian—but she wanted to put him on edge.

“No, Ma’am,” the Army Ranger insisted. “She was like that when I got here.”

Envy seemed to consider that. Then, “We just arrived ourselves. What do you think happened? Best guess.”

This time, Sergeant Sicara hesitated, making a face. He looked hesitant to say, then, reluctantly, he said, “You want my real opinion or the PC one?”

“Real opinion please, Sergeant,” Envy said.

“I think he raped her and she was probably high up in one of those Asian martial arts. I think she got in a brawl with him, took his gun from him, and he stabbed her, so she shot him.”

Envy felt her eyebrows go up, despite herself. “A US soldier tried to rape a girl.”

He gave her a slightly surprised look, then schooled his features. “Happens all the time in war, Ma’am,” Harvey said, almost woodenly. “Especially if they think they can get away with it.”

Well wasn’t that great. “What about you, Sergeant?” Envy said. “What brings you up here in the mountains?”

The man frowned a little, looking like he wanted to say something, then cocked his head at her. “You didn’t hear about the mission?”

“So it was the aliens,” Envy sidestepped.

“Yeah,” he said, his face twisting bitterly. “It was the aliens.”

“Any more of your buddies survive?” Douglass asked casually as he sewed, almost like he didn’t care, but Envy knew it was a façade. He was listening too carefully, too intently.

Harvey frowned. “Hey asshole. You say that like you think because I worked with him I might as well have put my dick in her, too.”

“He just wants to know if there’s any other survivors we should know about,” Envy said. “To, you know, regroup.”

Harvey, still scowling at Douglass, turned back to face her slowly. “I didn’t hurt the girl,” he growled.

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“We know that,” Envy said.

“So why the fuck am I still tied up, Captain?” Harvey demanded.

“Because you were goddamn pointing a gun at an eight year old girl,” Rusty snapped, his anger making his voice boom in the tiny cabin. Rusty, Envy had learned over her time living with him, had a soft spot for kids, and she was actually a little surprised that the big man hadn’t put the two-by-four through Harvey’s head, rather than just give him a love-tap.

“Look,” Harvey said, “I’d just engaged the situation. I saw my budd—” he hesitated, making a quick glare at Douglass, “—squadmate who was supposed to be guarding our gear dead on the ground, and I didn’t know who was inside the cabin. I knew it hadn’t been a kid to kill Killearn, so I figured someone was using her as a shield. So I was wrong. So fucking sue me. I just came back from the sandbox, you bucktoothed drooling fuck.”

It seemed likely enough. Envy had heard of the urban warfare doing some fucked up things to people, just as bad as PTSD from the Vietnam jungle, in a lot of cases. And she had heard stuff about people using kids to deliver bombs, or to distract the nice soldier with candy as their parents surrounded him and his buddies.

Envy considered, then said, “Rusty, untie him.”

“He’s been untied the last two hours, Captain,” Rusty said, still watching Sergeant Sicara narrowly, still tapping his Glock against a knee.

Sgt. Sicara blinked. “Huh? Untied? You don’t remember tying me up and dropping me like a sack of shit?”

“Oh, I remember,” Rusty said. Tap. Tap. “Also been payin’ pretty close attention to how you wiggled out of ‘em in the first ten minutes.”

The Ranger glared at Rusty, then turned to Envy and, pulling his hands from behind his back, he said, “All right,” he said, gesturing, “Let’s just start over. If I wanted to, I could kill you, your dumbfuck friend, and your nurse buddy in a flat second.”

“Doubt that,” Rusty said.

Sgt. Sicara gave Rusty a sideways scowl. “I’m not, because I don’t want to.” He picked up a shaving of kindling that had fallen from the firewood stack and started fiddling with it. Then, dropping it, he said, “You were a Marine, weren’t you.”

Rusty’s slow smile was all the sergeant needed to know. “Fuuuuck,” he muttered. “End of the world and I get stuck with an Air Force desk jockey and a braindead jarhead infantry.”

“Motor-T,” Rusty said. “But they kept putting me through combat zones.”

“I’ll bet they did,” the sergeant muttered. To Envy, he said, “So are we cool? Everybody’s cool? No more pointing my own gun at me?”

“Haven’t pointed a gun at you,” Rusty said. He continued to tap the Ranger’s Glock against his kneecap.

“Yeah, okay, I’ll give you that,” Harvey said. “Can I have my gun back now?”

“No,” Rusty replied casually.

Harvey cursed, but made no move to try and take it from him. “Okay, so this is fucking stupid.” He stood up and went over to the bed, where Douglass looked up from what he was doing to watch his approach tensely.

“How is it a blind man becomes a nurse?” Sg. Sicara asked, squatting beside the bed to peruse Douglass’s work.

“Don’t let him near the scalpels,” Rusty noted casually. “Hate to have to blow the pretty boy’s cranium through his nostrils.”

Sgt. Sicara glared at Rusty over his shoulder. Now that Rusty mentioned it, Envy noticed he was pretty. Blond, well-muscled, with a strong jaw and buzzcut… “I’m just checking on the girl, okay, numbnuts?”

Rusty grinned. Dick-waving contest definitely in full swing.

“He’d win,” Envy muttered, thinking of the last time she accidentally saw Rusty naked. He’d been drying off after a shower, his bathroom door open because he thought he was alone in the house. Envy had actually taken three steps into the bathroom with him before she realized he’d gone stock still and his gigantic dick was hanging halfway to his hairy knee. And was starting to rise.

“Who’d win what, Captain?” Rusty asked, interrupting that thought.

She quickly cleared her throat. “Sorry.” She shook herself. To Sgt. Sicara, she said, “Don’t measure dicks with this man. You’ll lose.”

To her surprise, Sgt. Sicara looked Rusty up and down, then said, “I believe you’re probably right,” then chuckled. “God, you musta eaten your Wheaties growin’ up, huh?”

Rusty beamed. “It was my Mama’s sweet potato pie.”

Something about the way he said that must’ve put Sgt. Sicara at ease, because the man sighed and dropped a scalpel back to Douglass’s medical supplies, to Douglass’s surprise. “All right, look,” he said, pointing at Rusty, “You. Gigantor. Give me my gun.”

Rusty glanced at Envy, who nodded. He stood up, walked over, and gave Sgt. Sicara the second gun. Without looking at it or taking it, Harvey gave Rusty a flat look. “That isn’t my gun.”

“It is now,” Rusty said, grinning down at him, crossing his big arms over his big chest, the second gun locked under his armpit.

“This gun’s got one bullet in it,” Harvey retorted. “My gun is full.”

Rusty unconcernedly picked at something in his teeth, still holding on to the man’s preferred weapon out of reach.

Figuring she needed to nip this in the bud if they were going to develop any sort of rapport with the guy who could likely kill them all with a pinkie, Envy said, “Split up the rounds. Each of you get half.”

“I want the bigger half,” Rusty said.

To her surprise, the Ranger said, “Fine. Give.” He held out his hand and wiggled his fingers.

Rusty gave the guy one suspicious look, hesitating.

“Oh Jesus, fine.” The man yanked the clip from his gun and handed it to Rusty. “There you go, you suspicious shit.”

Rusty continued watching Sgt. Sicara for another moment, then pulled the clip from his gun, and in that moment, Envy went tense, knowing that the Ranger probably could have used that moment to disable Rusty, take the gun, and use it to shoot the rest of them. Hovering over the Asian woman, Douglass, too, had gone stiff.

“Oh relax, people, I’m not gonna hurt anybody,” Sgt. Sicara said without looking at them. “I told you. I’m one of the good guys.”

Rusty nonetheless gave him a wary look as he handed back the clip, after he had popped his own clip back into place.

“Thanks, dude,” Harvey said. Then he hesitated. “You’re retired, right?”

“Figure there’s nothing better to get me to reenlist than an alien shitstorm,” Rusty said. “Better than a signing bonus.”

A slow smile broke out on Sgt. Sicara’s face. “I like the way you think.” Then, too quickly, his smile faded. “But honestly, bud, I think we’re screwed in the goat ass. I got a good look at one of the things we’re dealing with. Everyone in my squad did, right before it spat purple napalm at them and squished them like ripe bananas.”

“Wait,” Envy interrupted. “‘It’? It wasn’t a maggot?”

Sgt. Sicara frowned. “What maggots?” He glanced at the little girl. “She said she saw maggots, but I ain’t seen nothin’ like that.  Just a two-by-four to my braincase.”  The last he said with a little sideways look at Rusty.

“So…” Douglass said, wiping blood from his hands with a little frown, “…what did you see?”

Sgt. Sicara hesitated, seeming to chew on his words for some time.  Finally, he just shook himself and said, “I saw a fucking dragon.”