"Bloodlust differs from a lust for blood.

I was susceptible to bloodlust.

Aine lusted for blood.

Guess which incited which

in the dark and cold."

2/19thSpecial Weapons Group
Restricted Area, Alfenwehr West Germany

Late Winter- January, 1986
Day 12 of Repairs
Day 4 of the Second Incident
Early Morning

We started up the stairs, staying to the side of the stairwell. I led the way, slinging my rifle, drawing my .45 and loading a round in chamber. We were silent, only heavy breathing and light footsteps, up to the access for Hammerhead Hall. I held up my fist and everyone came to a stop. I crouched down and they joined me.

"I'll go in first, Bomber, Nagle, you follow. Nagle, take the bathroom. Bomber make sure anyone I put down stays down," I said softly, using the frost on the floor to draw a sketch of the room. At least two people were using the IR lamp, despite the battery drain, which made the map plain as day. "Aine, you stick out here with King and Stokes, you'll be King's assistant. King, you watch toward near Hammerhead, Stokes, you watch toward the far stairwell. This is a friendly free zone, so use the pig if you get targets of opportunity." The sketch wasn't good, but it worked. They all nodded. I looked up at Aine. "I'd advise you to do solely what I tell you, McCullen."

She nodded. "I'll be good," she promised.

"You're always good. Just behave," I said. She smiled, and something lightened between us as we all chuckled at the old joke.

"I want either Captain Duloc or the Colonel alive," I growled. "I want to discuss a few things with them. If they're both there, I'll kill Duloc." I looked at everyone. "No matter what, they are mine, you understand?"

Murmured assent answered me and I stood up. The door whined as the cold took its toll on the metal insides. We moved down the hallways, keeping to either side, with me in the middle.

"King, Aine, Stokes, word of advice?" Nagle said softly.

"Always," King said.

"It's about Stillwater, isn't it?" Stokes said.

"Stay out of his way," Nagle said. "He feels off."

"His blood burns for revenge," Aine breathed. "He must his avenge his cousin in blood or die trying."

"Maintain noise discipline," Bomber snapped.

When we got to my door King moved a step past, Stokes stayed a step behind, and Aine pressed herself into the door that I'd threw her against an eternity ago. I put my hand on the door, checking it and finding it unlocked when the door opened slightly, and nodded to Bomber, then to Nagle. We could hear voices on the other side.

"On three," I said. They nodded again. "One." Cassius' face appeared in my mind, his mouth open in a shocked 'O', blood dribbling down his chin. "Two." His mother's tear streaked face. "Three!" The lizard snarled, thrashing his tail, and put up the plan superimposed over the room diagram. Snarling, rage making my limbs tremble, I whipped open the door.

Two men were leaning against the desk holding their weapons, looking further into the room, and I recognized them as two of the Colonel's men in the split second as my vision kept going through the room. Two men in Soviet camouflage by the refrigerator and window, their AK-47's against the radiator as they talked to themselves in Russian. None of them had seen us coming in, our appearance and the door opening hadn't registered to them. Coming in fast, I brought up the pistol and started pulling trigger, following the lizard's plan.

Double tap, change sight picture, moving moving, double tap, both men falling as the blood explodes from their chests, still moving, double tap, in the chest, switch sight picture, moving, single shot into the chest, drop the empty pistol. Keep moving forward, five steps and pivot, right leg extended slightly as I slide into the room like I was showing off for my friends. Pivot at the waist, angle my boots with a squeal of combat boot sole on tile. Captain Duloc and the Colonel standing there with a guy in Russian camouflage. Get my balance, knife in hand, come in fast and hard.

My brain was replaying Cass's 12th birthday over and over, his death over and over, drinking beer out back of the 8th grade prom with him and my other cousins and our dates, going out the back of his house to find him huddled in our fort after his dad was killed, and the way he collapsed after the second stab.

I was bellowing, roaring, pure audible violence as I came in with the knife in my hand. The lizard was snarling, expanding, no longer thinking but reacting, pure driven instinct, muscle memory, and raw primal rage.

Behind me there was a short burst from an M-16 right after there was the crash of the door being kicked open. "Clear!" Nancy called out from the bathroom. I was moving into the room fast as Bomber started banging shots from his '16. The bayonet on my LBE cleared the scabbard smoothly into my left hand without thought, without even planning on it, just doing it at the subconscious urging of the lizard.

Duloc was trying to bring his rifle into play, the Colonel was stepping forward, and the Russian was grabbing for his pistol on his LBE. I ducked under a roundhouse kick from the Colonel, slashing along his thigh as I did so, the spray of blood hot against my cheek, the lizard licking his chops. The Russian's mouth opened in an 'O' when I slammed the bayonet into his chest, just left of the center, releasing my hold on the bayonet, knowing without understanding how that it was hung up on the ribs. I roared again and spun to face Captain Duloc. More shots from behind me. The Colonel was holding his thigh with one hand and trying to grab a pistol off the dresser behind him.

I didn't care. I had blood in my eyes and steel in my fist. The lizard was flexing his claws with his fangs bared. Cass's face appeared, the shocked look on his face, with his mother's tearful face behind his.

"Miss me, pumpkin?" I asked, not taking my eyes from Duloc as I moved in on the Colonel. I didn't need to pay attention to the Colonel, the lizard had already started my body moving. The lizard hissed at Duloc, opening and closing his claws, tearing at the stainless steel floor of his control room with his rear claws. I was clenching my toes inside my boots in unconscious reflexive imitation. I grabbed the front of the Colonel's LBE belt and snatched him against me, stabbing him in the stomach, twisting and yanking it out, stabbing him in the side, and repeated it again. He was finished, he'd live for days or hours, but he was out of the fight and the lizard let me know when I yanked the blade free after the third stab.

Duloc squawked when I kneed the Colonel in the balls and threw him straight away from me with the hand that was holding his LBE belt, tangling him with Duloc. Duloc's pistol went flying when the Colonel hit him and he hit the bunk beds, and he pushed the Colonel away angrily and got to his feet.

"Mine!" I bellowed out as Bomber put a pair of short bursts into the two men in front of the windows.

"SEALs like me eat..." Duloc started, dropping into a karate pose like he was in a cheap movie.

The lizard laughed in his own way.

When he started speaking I just stepped into him, grinding my teeth. He jerked back, startled by the fact I wasn't talking, and screamed when I drove my knife into the left side of his chest at the collarbone. The lizard wanted urged me to bite his face off, as I felt the blade grate along the bone, yanked it out, and stabbed him high in the right side of the chest, holding him up by his LBE.

"You ain't a SEAL," I told him. His screams got a bubbling sound to them. "Didn't work out how you thought it would, did it, pumpkin?" I asked, smiling.

"If it was, it was a really shitty plan," Nancy said from behind me in the dimness.

Bomber hit the lights and the world brightened. Duloc was pounding on me, but it wasn't having any effect on me, the two deep stab wounds having robbed him of his strength. I threw him to the side, stripped off the helmet and NVG's, and stood there, breathing heavy and staring at the three men.

"Goddamn it, you wasted the fucking Spetz Colonel," Bomber bitched. "He might have told us something."

"Wasn't gonna say shit," I growled at him, kneeling down. "Combatant."

Nancy broke in. "Besides, we couldn't keep him alive, we can't take him to the War Fighter Tunnels, and Stillwater was in a fucking hurry." Captain Duloc was on his side and I rolled him onto his back. He tried to lift his arms and failed, just groaning.

"You and Ms. Pointy Thing are going to talk, pumpkin, then I'm gonna talk to the good Colonel here." I smiled at him. "Bomber, help the good Colonel take a seat, I want him to see this." I looked over, seeing Aine, King, and Stokes coming in the room. Nancy was checking the pulse on the four men I'd shot coming in and Bomber had made sure would stay down on his way in.

"Anyone who doesn't want to answer questions at trial might want to leave." I smiled down at Captain Duloc. "This is going to get ugly."

"Gotta handle the gear," King said, dropping the M-60 on the desk. He started pulling stuff from around his neck and dropping it on the other side of the pig. "You do what you gotta do, I'll do what needs to be done on my end."

"I wanna watch," was all Aine said.

Stokes tossed the ammo cans on Bomber's bed. "Fuck it. We aren't getting off this mountain alive."

"In for a pfennig in for a court martial," Bomber said, dragging up the Colonel. King swung a chair around and Bomber half threw him into the chair, eliciting a scream and the Colonel folded around his belly.

"I'm with you, Stillwater," Nancy said.

"Thank you," I said, staring down at Duloc. "Hold him down."

Bomber and Nancy moved over to me, Bomber grabbing Duloc's wrists and pulling them straight over his head, Nancy grabbing his ankles and holding his legs down with all her weight. He screamed at being pulled around, blood seeping out of his uniform and onto the floor. Blood sprayed out of his mouth when he coughed at the end. I'd nicked both lungs at the top.

The lizard and I couldn't give a shit less. Cass didn't give a shit less. Cass' mother would only stop crying if I gave her blood.

Tradition, the clan, the Matrons, they all demanded nothing less.

Grinding my teeth, I stomped over to him, staring down at him, a red haze tinting my vision. With a snarl I straddled him, sitting down and holding up the knife. I looked down and smiled at him.

"Time for you and Ms. Pointy Thing to have a talk," I told him. I grabbed the bottom of his BDU shirt and slid the knife up the front seam, the buttons popping free and bouncing across the floor.

"I'm a fucking SEAL, you little shit, you can't..." Whatever I couldn't do was broken by him coughing.

"Except I trained SEAL Team Three this summer, and you. Weren't. There," I said, leaning forward so our noses were touching. The lizard hissed in hatred. I slid the knife through his brown shirt with a quiet whisper of parting cloth.

"Do you know who I am, who I work for? You can't touch me, bastard, you'll be in for a world of hurt." He coughed again as I sat up.

I drove the knife low into his right side, twisting it twice. I waited until he was done screaming before I leaned back and looked at him. "Touch."

"I think he can touch you, scumbag." Bomber grinned, leaning down so he was looking at his face.

"Just stab his ass and get done with it, Ant, I'm bored and horny," Nancy said from by his feet.

"I like the blood and screams," Aine said softly. A glance showed me she'd taken off her top and was standing there in her T-shirt, boots, an BDU bottoms, licking her lips as she stared at Captain Duloc.

The blade made a sucking sound when I pulled it free. I didn't say anything, just slammed it back into the other man's abdomen right at the point I'd just stabbed him, twisting the blade and just letting him scream till he was done.

"Touch." The lizard purred.

Aine sighed.

"Goddamn that's getting on my nerves," King grumbled.

I twisted the blade again and let him scream. "Touch." I pulled the knife out and sliced down the long muscles on his side, not caring about his screams. I switched to the other side, slicing through muscle. I held his head down with my left hand on his forehead and pushed the tip of my knife into the bridge of his nose, twisting the blade. The lizard seemed to grow inside my mind. My thoughts started to fade, consumed by the need to hurt someone, break something.

"What do you want to know?" Duloc gasped when I leaned back and moved my arm in a circle to loosen up the muscle.

Bomber leaned back down. "I don't think he cares about anything you have to say."

I slid the blade in the meat of his upper arm and scraped it along the bone, not caring about the screams. I leaned back, lifting up the knife and staring at it. The lizard was gnashing his teeth, demanding I avenge Cass, avenge the pack, repay blood with blood.

"Wait! Wait! I'll tell you anything, just... don't, please, don't!" Duloc yelled, staring at the knife. The smell of apple blossoms and the dinosaur worthy hiss of rage from the not so little any more lizard burned away any bit of reason I had left as I saw Cassius' face in my mind. A pain stabbed me in the middle of the chest and I ruthlessly destroyed it with red hot rage. "Anything... I'll tell you anything..."

"TELL ME HOW TO BRING MY COUSIN BACK TO LIFE!" I screamed at him, and drove the blade into his belly button, yanking it out in a spray of blood and driving it into him twice more screaming "TELL ME!" with each stroke. I grabbed his forehead, holding it down, and carved on his face, long stripes, exposing bone and teeth.

Aine was behind me, whispering 'blood, blood, blood' with each slice of the blade, the smell of apple blossoms and blood was overwhelming as I kept carving into him. He was babbling things, trying to tell me something to make me stop what I was doing to him, but I didn't care what he had to say, all I cared about was that my cousin was dead and this sorry motherfucker was to blame. I listened to the lizard when he whispered where to cut to hurt him, how to tear at him but keep him alive so the blood flowed and the screaming continued. When I took his eyes he was screaming that he'd been a soldier like us, in Vietnam, before he'd been recruited, and to please stop, but it didn't matter what he was in the past, right then he was nothing but a thing for me to vent my rage and pain upon.

When he shit himself I didn't stop, slicing under the ribcage and sliding my hand up inside. I clenched my fist around the first thing I felt and pulled it free, stabbing my blade into Duloc's throat to brace myself as I repeated it, yanking things out of him and throwing them to the side after tearing them free. I was beyond caring about whether or not I should do it, the lizard was in control and it felt good to let go of the rage that had building inside of me all my life.

I was tearing at him for Cass. For the little boy that had been Annie. For the little girl who had been Innie. For Nancy. For Bomber. For what was done to us at Atlas. For Westlin. For the men who had died the month before. For my hatred at the whole fucking world.

"For me? How traditional of you, Annie. You're such a good boy." Aine said softly after I pulled a handful of stuff from inside Duloc and threw it to the side.

I was growling like an animal, and I didn't care. Tearing at one of the men I blamed for the death of my cousin. I finally leaned back, knowing I was covered in blood. The Colonel coughed and groaned, reminding me he was alive when the lizard hissed in hatred and pointed at his picture on the blood spattered wall behind it. My head whipped around and I stared at him for a long moment, my hand still jammed inside Captain Duloc. The Colonel was pale with the lack of blood, tied to the chair with 550 cords, including a loop around his neck. With a growl I stood up and turned around, staring at the 'Colonel' who I knew had arranged all of it.

"Colonel's turn," I growled from between grinding teeth, stepping forward.

The light had dimmed in the room, and it was full of something, a thing that had weight, had a pressure of its own, for all that it was invisible. It pressed at me, driving at me, feeding off of my rage and pain and hatred. Its invisible tentacles wrapped around the others, reaching inside of them, connecting us all together.

Aine had a hunk of meat in her blood covered hands, her small sharp teeth tearing large chunks out of it, her eyes rolled back in her head as she shuddered with each bite, blood running down her chin.

"Ever heard the term 'world of pain', Colonel? I think Stillwater here is about to give you a ticket there," King said with false sympathy, lighting a cigarette with one hand and patting the Colonel's head with the other. "Which is all right with me. See, one of your boys killed a girl name Queens. She was part of my crew, and we were very good friends."

Stokes glared at the Colonel when he turned to look pleadingly at her. "Cassius was the cousin of two people who I love very very much, and he's dead because of you. Your friends killed mine. I can live with whatever happens here." She lit a cigarette of her own. "Nobody on this mountain cares about what happens to outsiders when it gets dark and cold, Colonel. Your men let the winter in, so enjoy the cold."

"Oh God, don't, please, don't..." the Colonel said, his eyes flicking from Aine to me and back again.

"Blood," I snarled, stepping over the dead man. My rage still burned hot, my hands still ached to tear into him, my teeth ground, the side of one of my repaired molars sheering off almost unnoticed.

"I want more," Aine whispered, licking her empty palm. He nipples were obviously hard beneath her brown T-shirt and she shivered as her long tongue licked across her palm and up her bloody thumb.

"Please, stop him," the Colonel begged, looking at Nancy.

"You hurt my boy. I should let him do what he wants. God knows a scumbag like you deserves it." Nancy stood up, grabbing my arm at the biceps and stopping me. "But, we should at least ask him why," she said.

"Don't care. Blood for blood," I growled at her, but didn't shake her free. I could see Cassius' expression of shock and fear in my mind. See his still body laying in the Rec-Room with the other casualties. See the black streaks that the mop left behind.

Bomber stood up, wiping off his face, and moving in front of the Colonel. When he spoke his Texas accent was thicker than I'd hear it since Basic Training. "Weeell now, it ah'pears ta me that ya might be inna spot o' trubble, Cull-nul." He squatted down, looking in the Colonel's face. "Ya see, all Stillwater thair cares 'bout is if'n are nawt ya know how to bring his purr ol' cous'n back ta life." I growled and took a step forward. Nancy tightened her grip on my bicep, grabbing with her other hand, and pulled me toward her. I stopped as Bomber kept speaking. "Now me, Ah wan' ta know cert'n thangs." He smiled and patted his .45. "Tell me, and Ah'll make it fast." He pointed at me. "Other-wise, Stillwater's cous'n was wonna tha men that done got killed. You c'n try beggin', but as you saw..." He chuckled and his accent instantly cleared up when his face hardened. "He doesn't seem to care."

"Blood demands blood, it's the McDaur'n way," Aine said, giggling. The Colonel looked at her as she stepped forward and pressed her bloody middle finger just under my right eye, her fingernail clicking against the rim of my glasses. "He has to face Cassius' sisters and mother after this." Her giggle was like ground glass against thoughts, but fire spread from her finger along my nerves. "They'll need to hear about every slice, every stab, every drop of blood," she leaned forward and smiled, her finger still on my cheek, "and every scream." She breathed as she wrapped her little hands around my biceps.

The Colonel looked at me, the two female soldiers holding onto my biceps, my face, arms, and the front of my body covered in blood, the way I leaned toward him, breathing heavy between gritted teeth, my shoulders bunched and my body shaking with the need to hurt him, mangle him. The lizard was hissing, raking his feet across the steel floor. The Colonel was staring at six feet of out of control killing machine aimed at him.

He broke right there. He blurted it all it out, his words tumbling over themselves, in his haste to tell us anything that would keep Nancy and Aine's hands on my biceps.

"That all?" Bomber asked, tapping the drawn .45 against his thigh.

"I swear. That's everything. I'll tell you anything else you want, just... please," the 'Colonel' pleaded. He was breathing fast, licking his lips as the dry mouth that accompanied blood loss dug its claws in deep.

"Naw, I got what I need," Bomber said, standing back.

The 'Colonel' stared at him for a second, then whipped his head around to look at me, fear blossoming on his face as Bomber kept talking.

"Special Agent Taylor of the CIA is all yours, Ant." Bomber had a big shit eating grin on his face. The girls let go of my arms. "I promised to let go a US Army Colonel, not some nun raping CIA scumbag."

Taylor screamed, struggling against the 550 cord with terror lent strength.

"Blood," Aine whispered.

I tackled him, taking him to the floor, chair and all, my knife already flashing in the dim light as I started stabbing as soon as I hit him like a blood covered avalanche of rage and hatred. The rage, which had been simmering the entire time he spoke and had only been reigned in due to the touch of Aine and Nancy, roared up inside me. I didn't care where the blade hit, as long as it was buried in the traitor's flesh.

He'd agreed to sell the site data and the tactical/strategic plans of 2/19th to the Russians, had sold out Rear-D and had intended to kill them all to cover it up. The Vympel were supposed to help him make it look like we'd all gone crazy again and destroyed the barracks. Major Mallory and SFC Thurston had each sold out to keep their disgusting secrets hidden. Taylor had sold out his country for a few hundred thousand dollars and a new identity in a Soviet satellite state. The "SEALs" were all Vietnam Era CIA deniable assets turned CIA funded mercenaries that Taylor had bought out with promises of money and the easy life in some Warsaw Pact nation.

I didn't blame the Vympel. I didn't blame the Soviet Union. I blamed Special Agent Taylor. I blamed his traitorous men.

Even after he quit screaming I kept stabbing at him, tearing at him with my free hand, roaring in rage and hatred. I threw my knife aside and went at him with bare hands, smashing and tearing with fists and fingers. My right shoulder was burning with pain, my arms trembling with exhaustion, so I stood up and began kicking at him, smashing at his face with my combat boots. Stomping at him, trying to obliterate him from the face of the earth as if it would bring back my cousin.

"Ant," Nancy said softly, stepping up and touching my right shoulder. I stopped at looked at her, still feeling the rage boiling inside of me. "It's over."

"Aw." Aine sounded disappointed. I turned and looked at her, and she pouted. When I growled she smiled, stepping forward and reaching for my face.

Nancy yanked me to the side, out of Aine's reach. "Get up, Ant needs a shower and a clean uniform," she said. Aine's eyes flashed hatred. "Get the dead bodies out of the bathroom and hurry." She turned and stood in front of me, staring in my eyes. I stared back, still shaking with the need to destroy. "I'll keep him calm."

"Help me throw these dead assholes out the window," Bomber said, moving past Aine and heading for the bathroom. "Try to keep Ant's head on straight, Nancy. Let's go, Aine."

I was still panting when Nancy drew me back over by the mess that had been Captain Duloc. She reached up and started undoing the buttons of my BDU top one button at a time, speaking softly and slowly to me as she worked.

"I love you, Anthony," she said gently, helping me out of my top. My shoulder made a loud popping noise, and she caressed the blood soaked T-shirt over that shoulder with one hand. "Nothing that happened or happens will ever change that, Anthony." She rolled the soaked T-shirt up over my chest, still staring into my eyes. "I won't turn away from you, John still cares about you, your brother will still love you, and your Father will understand and approve and love you." The T-shirt came off over my head and she ran her fingers over the upraised welt of the shoulder surgery. "You're not an animal." Her fingers traced my collarbone. "You're not just a boy." She put her fingers on the right side of my jaw, then put her thumb and forefinger on either side of my jaw and held my face still. "You're my Ant," she whispered, her eyes unguarded and soft. "I love you." She kissed me, slowly and tenderly.

I watched as she slowly knelt down, looking up at me, her fingers seeking out the top of my boots and pulling the laces out from where I'd tucked them inside the top of the combat boot. She stared at me, a shy smile appearing, pulling the bows out of each and then loosening the laces.

"Lift, love," she said softly. I lifted one foot and then the other. She rolled my socks off, and then kissed my belt buckle, still looking up at me. She undid my belt buckle and slowly moved my pants down, still staring into my eyes. There was the screech of nails being pulled free and a cold wind began to blow around me, but I didn't care. I was mesmerized by Nancy's eyes.

I could see old and new pain in them, and fear, but most of all, love. She wasn't afraid of me, she was afraid for me, for what had just happened to me.

She left my boxers on, standing up and kissing me gently again. I closed my eyes, taking her face in my hands.

"Enjoy your snacks, Tandy!" Bomber yelled from behind me. I knew he was throwing the bodies out the window and into the snow. "King, Aine, go the utility closet next to the laundry room by the double doors, get a mop and a mop bucket, fill the mop bucket full of hot water, bring the bleach." He sighed. "We just GI'd the room and stripped the floor, goddammit."

"You'll be all right, Ant," Nancy was saying, her hands on my face, "It'll be all right. It will all be all right. I love you. John loves you. We're here. Together." She kissed me again, soft and lingering, and broke the kiss a second before a warm hand touched my back.

"Bathroom's clear, Nancy. Clean my boy off," Bomber said. His hand was making small circles on my skin. "Jesus, he feels like he's burning up. Take care of him."

Aine giggled. "Now you see what he is. What a McDaur'n boy is."

"Shut up, bitch!" Stokes rounded on her. "You don't know what you're talking about, goddamn it!"

Nancy led me past the two women, Bomber's hand still on my left shoulder, holding skin to skin contact.

"I know a McDaur'n, Miranda Elizabeth Stokes, do you?" Aine asked. She sniffed at the other woman as we passed. "Oh, you do. You've lain under one, moaning, mingling sweat. But you don't know what they are, what they're bred to be."

We moved into the hallway, Bomber's hand disappearing from my back.

"You said you'd behave, Aine," Bomber growled, his accent back. "I will cut your skinny throat and throw you into the snow. Step off Miranda now."

"Follow me, Ant, follow me," Nancy was saying softly, leading me into the bathroom. She reached into the shower while I stared in the mirror, the sounds from the main part of our room coming to me clearly.

"I'll behave, John," Aine purred.

"What's the plan now?" King asked.

I was only half hearing them, instead starting at the man in the mirror. The face covered in blood, the mad staring eyes, the curled back lip twisting the side of his face as a muscle tremor below the eye jerked it upwards.

...Nobody likes you. You are worthless beyond the fact that you will die so that someone better than you will survive...

...you should have died, not Cass...

...you will never be worth anything more than whatever good your death can do...

...you have your duty, we have ours...

...Nobody will ever love you...

...I love you, Ant...

...everyone can barely tolerate you...

...I'm here, brother....

... you deserve nothing good...

...I love you, Ant...

...You will die alone...

...We aren't getting off this mountain alive...

...nobody will know or care that you are gone...

...when it's dark and cold, nobody cares what happens to outsiders...

The words rang in my head like the tolling of a bell. My mother's voice. Bomber's. Stokes. Nancy. My own voice.

In the main room Aine and King had moved into the hallway, and Stokes and John were talking.

"Did you see his face?" Stokes.

"What about it?" Bomber asked.

Nancy lit me a cigarette and put it between my lips, standing behind me, sliding down my boxers after she let go of the cigarette. The smoke didn't obscure my reflection, and I still hated the man who looked back at me.

"Did he get like this last month?" Stokes asked. I heard a lighter snap.

"No. If he'd gone at that guy like that, it would have been over." Bomber paused for a moment and I heard a Zippo crack open then snap closed. "No, he wasn't like that. There's something different, maybe the head wound?"

...Aine...

"I've heard William talk about Cassius before. Cassius was the first non-adult outside of the family that Stillwater would talk to," Stokes said.

"If'n they'd killed my cousin, I probably would have done the same," Bomber said.

"Ant, come here, get in the water," Nancy said, gently steering me toward the water.

"Yeah, but..." Miranda said.

"He's my brother, Stokes, you didn't have to be here. You could have stayed with the LT," Bomber said. "It's an Atlas thing, Miranda."

I stepped into the water, missing Stokes' answer. Nancy turned me around, facing her, keeping the shower curtain open so I could watch her take off her bloodstained BDU's and get naked.

She took her top and T-shirt off first, then stood there for a moment in her sports bra. She smiled at me, then took off the sports bra, letting her heavy breasts sag against her torso. Her dark nipples shivered and hardened in the cool air of the room, the areoles crinkling up. The puncture scar was purple and puckered, a silent reminder of her ambush by the guy in the cold weather mask.

The same guy she'd taken an axe to.

The same guy who had stood in front of the tempered glass and driven that cruel axe against the glass.

Her belt buckle rattled and her pants fell to the floor, revealing she didn't wear any panties. She'd taken off her boots, and when she stepped out of the puddle of her BDU bottoms she was gloriously, lushly naked. Her perma-tanned skin soft looking, She stood in front of me for a moment, then opened the cabinet and removed the half-empty bottle of Wild Turkey from inside of it before stepping into the shower with me.

She took the cigarette out of my mouth, turned, and flipped it into the toilet before uncapping the bottle and handing it to me.

"Drink, Ant," she said, pressing against me. Her head nestled against my left shoulder, her arm around my back so she held onto the opposite hip, her right hand pressed against my chest. I glanced down and saw that the water was red-tinged as it poured down my body.

"No," she said softly, taking her hand from my chest and putting two fingers under my chin to lift my head. "Just drink, Ant."

The whiskey burned as I drank, and the lizard shivered in pleasure. Whether it was the residual adrenaline, Nancy's touch, or the whiskey, I didn't know.

Blood lust. That's what I'd been caught up in. My Father had warned me about it, when I got in a fight in High School and had seriously injured the two guys who had jumped me. He'd told me about when he'd got caught up in it, during the Chosin Reservoir, how injury, fear, and rage at his brother dying in his arms had turned him into an animal, a predator who hunted the Chinese soldiers, rather than the soldier he had been trained to be. I'd never understood what he had talked about, never really got it.

I did now.

Nancy leaned me back, into the water, and I closed my eyes as she worked the shampoo into my hair, murmuring to me the entire time. She finally pushed me forward and began working on my back with the soap and a washcloth.

I could still see Cass' face as he was stabbed, and felt a surge of guilt over the fact that I hadn't understood what was happening. I should have. I shouldn't have just stood there. I should have grabbed him and pulled him off the knife. I should have smelled him, heard him, something, anything other than sit in the fucking chair while some Vympel hardass cut the life from my cousin.

Nancy's arms went around me as I began sobbing, sagging against her, the sobs moving to open crying. She guided me down onto the three inch deep tub that made up the shower's floor, holding me as I rocked back and forth and cried.

Cass had never cared that I didn't talk. He'd talked enough for both of us. We'd explored the woods behind his house, behind the house the Army gave my Father in upper officer housing. The Army had understood he took in kids nobody wanted any more, and shown its approval by making sure he had a large house to care for all of them. When I had first gone to live with my Father he was in between a one-star Brigadier-general and a full bird Colonel. Neither officer had ever shown any displeasure at my Father being in officer country when he was an NCO, both men had come to a few Sunday dinners, their children played with us.

Still, Cass had been with me the whole time. I'd understood how a lot of people hated him just because his skin was dark, and he told me about when his father was stationed in South Carolina he'd been called names, spit on, and beaten up.

When I'd finally spoken he'd acted like I had spoken the entire time, just still telling stories. We were 10, our stories were full of pirates, robots, space adventures, and all the children make-believe that fills summer afternoons.

Now I was crying because he was gone. And the stress of being on the mountain had made it so I wasn't that friendly to him in our last exchange. He had been trying to adjust to what I'd become, and I'd been too focused on figuring out how to make sure as many people as possible survived.

Guilt. Grief. Loneliness. All of it wrapped up so that I was being held in Nancy's arms while I cried.

I cried for Cass, dead on a Vympel knife. Queens, never going to sing again. Warrant, his wife a widow and their child unable to understand why daddy won't come home. Lewis, dead on a table. Westlin, dying on a helicopter. So many lost. For what?

When I was clean, and cried out, Nancy slowly turned me around, kissing under my eyes and then my lips, her eyes still soft, missing the hardness that was so often in them. When the kiss broke she looked at me, one hand over my heart.

"If I tell you something, will you promise to still love me?" she asked me.

"Always," I told her, kissing her.

"Do you know how I ended up in 2/19th?" she asked. There was pain in her eyes, and a need for me to understand.

"You killed some guys. Shot them in their barracks room with your M-16," I told her.

She nodded slowly. "That's not all of it." She sighed, bringing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them so she could hug herself. "Our MOS was male only until a little over two years ago." I nodded, I knew that. My class was the first co-ed class. The class before that had been segregated, and the class before that was like the others had been since 1958, male only.

"I was in the first class. Thirty females, all of them reclassifying to a new MOS. I was proud, I'd been in the military for two years, and jumped at the chance to be one of the first women in the MOS." She squeezed herself again and I reached out and squeezed her knee. She let go of her legs with her right arm and put her hand over mine. "I've always hated that as a female I can't be sniper, can't be a Ranger, can't be a tanker or infantry." She smiled, a shy thing that matched the hurt in her eyes.

"Only six of us graduated. I was an E-4 at the time, made it due to time in grade, not like you." Her eyes squeezed shut, her brow furrowing, and I knew she was crying in the water. "I went back to my original, told that they would move us into existing units as soon as it was possible." She grimaced. "But nothing was different. The NBC NCO treated me like shit, so did his assistants. Half the time I wasn't even allowed to be in the NBC locker. I got called names, told I was uppity, and worse. Told that women didn't belong in the Army, much less Special Weapons. It was insane."

I reached out with my other hand and began gently stroking her calf as she kept speaking.

"We were out in the field, I was responsible for the tear gas, when four guys from my unit: Krevlin, Barker, Tollson, and Michaels, caught me alone." She shuddered, and her eyes were full of a pain I couldn't make go away. "They took turns on me." She squeezed my hand. "I wasn't a virgin, it didn't make me into girls or anything like that. I've always liked to fuck. But they beat me. They raped me the entire afternoon, left me laying on the ground, naked, and took the time to tear up my uniform before pissing all over me."

She rested her head against her knees, but I could still make out her voice. "I reported it, told my chain of command. That night all four of them came into my room, pushed my roommate out of the room, and raped me again. On my own bed. In my own room. And told me that 'stupid bitches need to keep their mouths shut.' while they did it. Then they told me that they'd rape me every night, whenever they wanted, until I dropped the charges."

She raised her head. "So I killed them." She shook her head. "No. I did more than kill them. The next day I drew my weapon to 'clean it' although I think the armorer knew what I was going to do. I went in their room. I disabled them. I shot them in the crotch. I pulled down their pants and shoved the barrel of my rifle in their ass and pulled the trigger. I mutilated them with my weapon." Her face hardened. "Then I put down the weapon, sat on their bed, smoked their cigarettes, and waited for the MP's to arrest me. When I gave my side of it they put me in a cell. Then I was told if I accepted a PCS to a unit being put together and never did anything about what had happened, I wouldn't be charged. And like a chickenshit, I took the PCS instead of taking it to court martial."

We were silent for a moment, it was probably shorter than it felt, but I could feel the tension in her, the surrounded her, and see the fear in her eyes.

"So what happened that might make me stop loving you?" I asked. "I would have taken my knife to them."

She laughed. "I love you, Ant."

"I love you, Nancy," I answered back.

"I know," she told me before kissing me again. "Stay here, I'm going to get us uniforms, we can get dressed so Bomber can clean off."

I nodded silently, watching as she left, appreciating the way she looked.

After a few moments she came back with my uniform, dressing while I sat in the shower and watched. Once she started brushing her hair I got out, dried off, and got dressed silently. She leaned forward and kissed me gently.

"Say you love me," she whispered.

"I love you, Nancy."

"I know," she said, kissing me again. When the kiss broke her eyes were hard again, her shield back up, the wall she kept up between her and the world back. She put two fingers against my chest. "Stay in here a moment. Bomber will need to talk to you."

I nodded handing her the bottle so she could take a drink, then taking one of my own when she left the bathroom. Capping the bottle of Wild Turkey, I set it on the small shelf below the mirror. I sat the toilet after putting my stuff in my pockets. My lighter, my cigarettes, my little green friend the notebook, my Skillcraft ballpoint black pen, the whetstone, my wallet, the sewing kit, and the other stuff. I lit a cigarette when John came in.

"You doing all right, brother?" he asked me. He was spattered with blood. He grabbed the bottle, opened it, and took a long pull off of it.

"A little," I admitted. He handed me the bottle and I held onto it.

He skinned out of his clothing, throwing them in the pile of bloody clothing, and stepped into the shower we'd left running. He washed off, shampooed, then shut off the water, grabbing a towel and wrapping it around his waist. He took the offered bottle and took a long drink off it.

"You're still my brother," Bomber said, motioning at my cigarette. I lit him one and handed it to him. "I don't care what Aine says. You aren't a fucking animal, you're my friend." He took a long drag off the cigarette as I scooted to the side to drop mine in the toilet. "Everyone else is still with us. King doesn't seem to care, Miranda was shook up, and Aine, well, Aine is Aine."

I chuckled and stood up. He scooted to the side to let me get by him. "Yeah."

He put his hand on my arm, stopping me when I went to leave. When I looked at him he gave me his Texas grin. "When this is over we'll go back out to Atlas and drink till we end up in blackout drive." He held out the hand. "Last of the bottle is mine."

I laughed as I left the bathroom, walking into the main room.

Aine's uniform was somehow spotless, not a spot of blood anywhere on her. Stokes and King were spattered, but didn't seem to care. The bodies were gone, the room smelled of bleach, and the tile was dusty looking and bone white. The plywood was back over the window, the light dim but bright enough to see easily, and the stereo, HAL, was playing Dreamweaver quietly.

King handed me a cigarette, lighting himself one, and held out a bottle of Asbach to me. The bottle smacked into my hand and I took a long drink off of it before handing it back to King. When I turned around, Stokes tossed me an MRE. Dehydrated Beef Patty, one of my favorites. I grabbed the chair the unfortunate Special Agent had been tied to, which had obviously been cleaned, and sat down in it. The wood was gouged here and there, where the blade of my knife had struck it.

Bomber came out, dressed, and caught a tossed MRE, groaning when he noticed it was Chicken and cat shit, but still leaned against the radiator and tore into it.

We were mostly silent eating. Only the sound of us tearing into the foil packages or chewing and the music filling the room. When we were down to the gum, King turned to me.

"What's the plan now?" he asked.

"We take the fight to the Vympel," I told him. "No way they'll pull back, not when they're here. They'll go after the secure data, and then get out. That means they leave with what they wanted and don't have to pay." I rubbed the side of my face, the burn stinging. "I wasn't paying attention, Bomber, fill me in on what the good Colonel had to say."

Bomber chuckled, reminding me that it was a full Vympel team with backup, a political officer and his two aides, and the KGB officer and his GRU agents. We'd taken 15 of them so far, including the Vympel leader, but that meant we still had a few of them left to go. Special Agent Taylor didn't know where the Vympel were holed up, but he did know it was close by. While he spoke, and the others filled in gaps and we all made guesses, we loaded up the gear we figured we would need. We left what we couldn't carry, as well as reloads, carefully set on the desk and dressers.

"Think they're in the barracks?" King asked. "It isn't the motorpool, or we would have seen more of them."

"Chow hall?" Stokes asked.

"No," Aine said, looking up from the braid she making out of hair. It was her own hair, stained with blackish stuff. We all looked at her and she smiled, flashing those tiny sharp teeth. "They're at the dispensary. They seized our medical right off, to deny us that. The vehicles are disabled, so there's no help there. They don't need the chowhall, it has no tactical or strategic value, which leaves the dispensary."

We all looked at each other and slowly nodded.

She had a point.

The dispensary was a good distance away, shielded by an outcropping of the mountain from any blast outside of an airburst that might take out the barracks area.

The problem was, it was a half mile away. Through the dark, the cold, and the blizzard outside.

"Can we get there without Tandy tearing us apart?" King asked.

"We could take the War Fighter tunnels," Bomber suggested.

Nancy shook her head. "The LT might not let us back out."

"We'll never make it to the dispensary," I said. "The mountain almost killed us between the motorpool and here. What do you think it'll do to us in the time it'll take us to reach the dispensary?"

"Massacre us," Stokes said. "Tandy, lightning, an avalanche. Hell, fucking wolves for all we know."

"So?" Nancy asked. "What's the plan?"

I stood up, grabbing my rifle. It still felt wrong in my hands.

"We take the War Fighter tunnels," I told them. "The LT isn't a coward, he'll agree with me." I headed for the door. "Let's move out, Actual."

We headed down, and I noted that the hallway was icy, frost floating in the air, the air dead and still. Cold as hell, with our breath pluming out in front of us. Two of the vents up by the ceiling were covered in ice as we passed them.

We hit the stairwell and headed down, still keeping a close eye out for anyone moving in on the attack.

The klaxon didn't sound, and the none of the other one's kicked in as far as we could hear. King checked the short hallway but didn't find anyone in there.

When we cracked the door I knew that the plans we made didn't matter. Everything we had planned to do had just fallen through.

We could hear automatic weapons fire echoing through the War Fighter tunnels.

"This isn't good," Bomber said.

...no shit...