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"Were you just there to look?" Valentine asked.
"We can't discuss operations", one of the other scouts said. "Need to know, you know".
"Except to say girlfriend here is deadly with that gun of hers", the other scout said. "One time a Reaper picked up on our smell or whatever. She killed it with one shot. It just fell over and froze up. Never seen the like".
"Robie!" the senior one warned.
The scout shrugged. "Shit, PeaBees are still Pacific Command. Don't tell me you weren't happy to see the uniform comin' out of that ditch".
"Kinda friendly with the Pee-Pants, aren't you?" the senior said to Gide as she sat next to Valentine, back against the cold concrete brick wall.
Gide took off her helmet. She'd cut her hair almost down to the skin. "I knew him in another life. It's been too long, David. You can get in touch through Ranger Group, if they let you write".
Joho churned rather than stirred the mush on the little camp stove. "I'll do a damn sight more than write if you like. I've got six months' lead in my pencil, wantin' to get out", he muttered.
"Hey, Snakes", Robie piped up. "Whaddya call your gun again? 'Big David'? Any relation? This PeaBee packin' 'Little David' maybe?" The other scout chuckled.
Gide warmed her hands on the hot bowl of mush. "Need to know, guys, need to know. And speaking of secrets..." She turned toward Valentine, unzipped her camouflage Windbreaker, and unbuttoned the top of her uniform shirt. Valentine saw a leather thong around her neck, holding a little modified wallet. She opened it and showed the four remaining Quickwood bullets resting between her breasts.
"I think of them as four little guardian angels", she whispered.
* * *
November came in dark and blustery. Up in the mountains they had snow, but on the rim of Seattle's suburbs the brief days and lengthening nights of the season just saw more drizzle, only now it was a little colder and a lot more uncomfortable.
Like a branch snap that starts an avalanche, the next disaster in Valentine's illfated trip began with a sound. In this case it was the muffled roar of tires on wet pavement outside another church.
Valentine, Mofrey, and eleven "trustees" of First Platoon were waiting out the wee hours of the morning in the basement of a church that had been converted to a New Universal Church Community Center, but abandoned thanks to its nearness to the war zone. Valentine rested his head against the orange silhouette of a child. A border of colorful kids holding hands ran around the basement wall.
Mofrey always took Valentine on the trips when they were assigned to 775 Company. To the men, Valentine was just an officer who had a good "nose" for the enemy, pulled them back if he felt there was a Reaper in the neighborhood, and usually could be relied on to find a gap in the Quisling positions.
Eight Seattle residents were readying themselves for a run into Free Territory, two parents and their five kids, and a older aunt, the sister to the patriarch. They were divesting themselves of their bright-colored KZ clothing and flimsy galoshes for heavier outdoor work clothes, boots, hats, and jackets for the run to their safe house. Ordinary civilians in the Kurian Zone got only the thinnest kind of outerwear, perhaps to discourage exactly this kind of attempt.
The parents were obedient, the kids wary and asking questions as soon as they forgot that they'd been told to keep quiet. The Resistance Network member, a pinch-faced woman with nervous eyes, kept flitting back and forth between Mofrey and the family. Once they were properly dressed and fed, they'd cross no-man's-land under the guidance of the short platoon.
"They couldn't tell the kids until they left. Too much chance of letting something slip at what passes for school nowadays", the Network woman explained. "They're confused, naturally".
Valentine watched Joho clown for the kids, but expected he really had eyes for the oldest teen, a well-blossomed young woman with lovely hair who even made the shapeless KZ overalls look good.
Valentine heard the tires outside before the others, found his hand falling to the butt of his wire-stocked assault rifle. The rest of the platoon had to make do with hunting weapons or shotguns, little better than the weapons issued to the militia.
A sound echoed downstairs, an impressive rendition of an alley-cat screech. That was the signal for trouble from Spencer, a PeaBee with a talent for imitative noises, who was keeping watch from the choir balcony.
"I'll go, sir", Valentine said. He signaled two men to their feet and they hurried upstairs. Valentine wondered if his spell in Pacific Command's Punishment Brigade would start and end in a church.
Valentine saw Spencer framed against the balcony window, next to a pane of glass that had been replaced by cardboard and plastic. Valentine went to a different window, saw Pacific Command soldiers - worse, Bears - piling out of a pickup and setting up a clean alley of fire from what had been a bakery.
Valentine hurried down to the basement, waved Mofrey over.
"It's an Action Group", he reported.
"Here? Someone got their wires crossed. LeHavre wouldn't send us into an operation. Better run for it". He lifted off his helmet, ran his fingers through his hair. "Contact One", he said to the Resistance Network woman.
Now the civilians looked alarmed. Picking up on the anxiety, one of the kids began to cry.
She approached. "We've got to get out of here now, and quiet..."
Now wasn't soon enough. The door upstairs crashed, shouts followed.
