"Get out of my way, you Celtic forest dwelling dancing weirdo," a rough voice growled. "Go find some brain dead IRA fleeing Gaelic faggot hopped up on Guinness, peat bog moss, and inbreeding to turn into a frog to ride to the Summer Queen's palace in Tir na Nog or some shit, you backwoods Washington trailer park witch."

I slapped the folders shut, covering the brass knuckles with a piece of paper. Foster jumped up, poured a cup of coffee while I uncorked the bottle of Wild Turkey. Foster had just sat down and I was in the middle of pouring the bourbon into the canteen cup when the tent door opened.

Hatred pushed its way into the tent.

Short, barrel chested with a pot-belly. No neck, thickly built shoulders. Coal black skin and even blacker eyes. Black hair cut severely close. A scarred face and neck, large heavy hands, and a face twisted with rage and hatred. The BDU's he wore seemed to barely be able to contain the rage and hatred that infused the thing that looked like a man that looked over the inside of the GP Small with a sneer.

"Stillwater, you potato famine fleeing twin sister humping orphanage rejected jumped up Irish bog monkey," he snarled, stomping over and sitting down in the chair. Behind him Specialist Bowman slid into the tent holding an arm full of camo colored plastic covered folders as well as manila folders, gripping a rolled up canvas map cover in one hand and trying desperately not to drop any of it.

"Chief Warrant Officer Two Henley," I said gravely, staring at him.

He locked eyes with me for a long moment. The lizard hissed in hate and fear as something old, dark, and ugly moved in the back of his black eyes. Not dark brown. Not a trick of the shadow. Actual black irised eyes. I felt the cold burning rage rise up despite my self control, matching the hot hate in his eyes.

I heard Foster inhale sharply.

Henley broke into a grin that was no less terrifying than his rage. "There's the trailer park refugee backwoods knuckle dragging serial killer atomic testing mutant hill billy I sent to those jumped up mealy mouthed prima donna trainer faggots in Baumholder," he more snarled than anything. "If they'd ruined my personal murder machine I'd have shot you in your inbred face and then purged the faggoty cadre of that hippy mantra spouting fag-factory with piano wire."

The rage eased back down and the lizard relaxed.

He lit a cigarette and I matched his movements, leaving my pack of cigarettes with my lighter on top at the edge of the desk.

"I see you opened the packet," he growled. I just nodded and he snorted out cigarette smoke from his nose. "Another bright idea by those unblooded shit gobbling morons who hid under bunks in Saigon while real killer crackers and niggers slaughtered gooks all over Da Nang that they managed to sell to that jumped up actor fagging up the White House."

"The Department of Defense," I started.

"Is packed with know-nothings, losers, cowards, gutless faggots, women, and worse," he snarled. "Most of those milk drinking egg heads think we're not engaged in a fucking war out here."

I just nodded.

Henley was worried and stressed. I could tell by the lack of profanity and insults.

"They're fielding untested scrap metal out here to try to offset whatever experimental rusted garbage those godless vodka swilling communist walking abortions sent out here to try to offset my pet murder machine," he said. He stood up, facing away from me. "If a psycho with an axe couldn't do you in, if a goddamn Spetsnaz company couldn't stop you, if a fucking Soviet infantry battalion couldn't put you down, if whatever the fuck happened up on the mountain the dark and cold couldn't kill you, then mouth breathing child murdering Mujahedin butchering Princess raping Bolshevik rejects have no chance in the Seven Hells of even slowing you down no matter what trash they managed to scrape out of their garbage fire of a country."

The tent seemed to get colder.

"That goddamn meat puppet who stumbles around behind you got split wide open by a bayonet and there he sits like nothing happened," he said softly. The bulb seemed to dim slightly. "That scar faced halfbreed and that cow punching retard are running around doing whatever tasks you felt you could trust them with like this winter never happened, and that goddamn unhung war criminal Carmichael is lurking around looking for a gook to butcher, and some dipshits in the Kremlin think that they can field something to take this place?"

He turned and faced me.

"My orders are as follows, Corporal," he growled.

I jumped to my feet, going to attention.

"You will defend FSTS-317/NATO-93 with extreme prejudice, up to and including a full Total War Protocol operation on Eastern Europe with the intent on wiping out Moscow with nuclear fire," he snarled. "You will not allow the Soviet Union or any other group, allied or not, to interfere with the rearming of this site and maintaining Seventh Army's war fighting capability. Am I understood, Corporal?"

"Yes, sir," I replied. "I am to defend this site with extreme prejudice up to and including pre-emptive military operations. I will insure the integrity and operational ability of my area of operations with extreme prejudice to the maximum of my abilities, even if that includes the invasion of Eastern Europe."

Henley slapped the pile of documents, the two canvas map covers rolled up, and the piece of paper he had laid on top of it all.

"Don't fuck this up, you walking talking trailer park white trash abortion," he snarled. "If you try to jumpstart World War Three to fulfill some weird fetish of yours I will personally reach down your throat and pull your heart out like we're on an 1800's plantation and you're a run away bush nigger," he snarled.  "I have enough to do riding herd on the rest of you brain damaged lemurs at the other sites. You do what you have to do, no matter what, to accomplish this mission.

He waved at the chair. "Take your seat, Corporal."

I sat.

"Do you have any concerns?" He asked me.

I nodded. "I looked over the transit data sheets and the shipping manifests," I told him honestly. "I've been given forty-five days from today to move all of that from the ship holds to here to shutting the bunker doors after moving the old ammo to Bremerhaven," I said. I shook my head. "I'll be honest with you, Chief Warrant Officer Two Henley," I took a deep breath. "I can't do it with just us. I need reinforcements, and I need them bad."

He nodded. "The fact you realize that is why you're still in charge," he told me. "What's your option?"

I swallowed. "Activate Group's reserve component. Not just mine, but 21st Trans Battalion, they don't have the trucks or trailers to move all this shit even if I kept them running 24/7 and magically unloaded and loaded the trailers instantly."

He nodded, looking thoughtful. After a minute he blinked twice and stared at me, his black eyes intense. "You are formally requesting that I request to Blackbriar, ChemCorps, 7th Army, V Corps, and the Pentagon that they activate 2/19th's and 21st's reserve components and deploy them here to back up your mission?"

I nodded. "I don't care if they don't have any Special Weapons soldiers, I'll take fifty-five bravos right now. I just need the manpower and I know that since the same thing is happening across Europe, hell, across the entire United States military, the only place to get it is from our catastrophic and war-time reserve components."

"Are you planning on turning over command to the CO of that component?" He asked me.

I snorted. "Pfft, fuck no. It would take weeks to catch him up to speed, and who knows how long it'll have been since he was in uniform. The last thing I need is to try to explain modern SOP to someone who's last chow was before MacArthur got sacked."

"What did the Blackbriar Bitches have to say about your plan?" He asked me.

"They told me to relay it with you, but the responsibility is mine," I said.

He nodded. "All right. I'll make the calls. I'll tap 11th ACR to chopper them out to you as they arrive. It'll probably be Work Horse who do the job. You'll have to refuel them."

"I'll send up my POL guys from Support Platoon to handle that when it happens," I told him.

Something flickered in his eyes and he tapped the butt of his .45 with his fingers for a moment before his eyes focused on me again.

"Beach," he started.

"Understands that if she gets in my way or impedes me in the performance of my duties I'll shoot her in the back of the head," I interrupted.

"Use commo wire. Save the Army the money," he replied. "Do you think you can salvage her?"

"Either that or she dies here," I told him.

"I could swap her out for a new medic," he told me. "Captain Woolworth's twat gets drippy for you for some reason, I could see if she's willing to slide out here on a trail of cunt slime."

I shook my head. "Things are too critical. I'm not going to saddle another NCO or officer with her and then find out her arrogance and egotistical attitude got someone wasted. I'll handle it internally. Last I heard, Captain Woolworth is our Acting CO. Last thing we need is for her to step on a mine or get shot in the face by Ivan."

Henley shook his head. "All right. If you're sure."

He sounded doubtful.

"This is Atlas. Accidents, even lethal accidents, happen out here all the time. Hell, the Krauts lost six men since October out here. It's happened before, it'll happen again, only this time it'll do some use," I said.

"You talk to your counterparts yet?" Henley asked. The sudden change of topics confused me for a second, then I shook my head. "Good. There's some MI dingus that followed me out here, wants to talk to you about some stupid plan him or some other drooling MI retard dreamed up. I'll send him in and you can deal with his dumb ass."

"Gee, thanks," I drawled before I could stop myself.

"Don't fuck this up, Stillwater," Henley told me, then farted and left.

I sighed, lighting another cigarette.

"Henley's stressed," Foster said.

"You fucking noticed?" I asked without looking at him.

"Yeah. He didn't once threaten to have you sodomized, beaten to death, or eaten by wild dogs," Foster said. "You think they're really going to reactivate our reserves?"

"Our TO&E says Group strength is supposed to be at three hundred and twenty five. We're barely at two hundred, we've got no chain of command, half the unit's got battle fatigue the other half is either crazy or untrained, and we're trying to handle twelve different FSTS's with only fifty men in the Mag Platoon. Hell, William is in charge of Perseus and Poseiden," I told him.

"Speaking of which, Monkey asked if you're going to be sending him back Stokes, Midland, and Walters," Foster said.

I sighed. "I shouldn't. I fucking need them," I shook my head. "How long would it take you to run them out there?"

"Round trip? Two and a half hours," he told me.

I sighed. "All right. Have Perez take over for you. I'll just deal with the manpower loss. Take Johnson, Jackson, and Lewis to Hercules while you're at it."

"I won't be back till around twenty-two hundred," he told me.

"Take PFC Jude with you to keep you awake. Take Blazer-Sixteen," I said.

"All right," he told me. He stood up and stretched. "I'll go wake Perez up."

I glanced at my watch. Only eleven hundred hours.

"Have him grab me an MRE, will you, Foster?" I asked, stretching and yawning. Dammit, it was fucking contagious.

Foster nodded, setting down the headphones and grabbing his weapon and battle rattle.

"Drive safe," I told him.

"Be careful," he answered and headed out the door.

About ten minutes later Pv2 Perez came in and took Foster's place, handing me a chicken ala king MRE for me to snack on.

I ripped it open, spreading it around, and went back to looking over all the information that Henley had dropped off for me.

The maps were of Western and Eastern Europe, all the way to Moscow.

Mannhiem, Dresden, Krakow, Stalingrad, then Moscow, in that order.

If they pushed me...

...I'd burn them with nuclear fire.

As ordered.