FSTS-317/NATO Site 93
Classified Location
Edge of the 1K Zone
Fulda Gap, Western Germany
16 April, 1986
2145 Hours

Atlas had done its best to kill us. Plain and simple. We had started the day with nearly fifty of us working at the massive site, and now, after the entire day, I was down to exactly myself and six effectives.

We had a half dozen alive, but completely doped up on painkillers. From Private Cromwell, who was laying on her cot with a bandage on her stomach from surgery, watching us with clouded but still aware eyes; Specialist Nancy Nagle, who's legs were bandaged after surgery for crush damage, sleeping on her cot and smiling faintly; to my boy Corporal Stillwater, who was doped after major surgery. Foster was awake, his ribs taped and a patch over one eye, and he had immediately moved into the communications room to check over what commo gear still worked in order to get Atlas back online as soon as possible. He was not listed as one my effectives, the damage to his ribs and his concussion should have had him on convalescent leave or five days quarters, but as it stood I could only get away with light duty. Our counter-sniper, Little-Bit, was out of action for at least 48 hours. She had suffered massive concussion overpressure and was bruised from her scalp to the bottom of her feet. The overpressure wave had passed over her, pressing her down on the ground, pushing the sniper scope into her face, fracturing her orbital socket.

Four women had been uprange, Cromwell, who was out, Nagle, who was out, and two Privates, Gilly and Sawmoth, both of whom were standing by the door looking worried. The trucks we had ridden in to return to Atlas had eight volunteers from other crews, as well as two medics. PFC Farley and Specialist Stokes. Farley had graduated from 91A, combat medic, less than three months before, where Stokes had graduated nearly five years prior before attending Special Weapons.

Finally, we had SFC Regison, the NCOIC of the hot-sites in Third Magazine Platoon, someone I'd never met; SSG Bonnhem, First Section Section Sergeant, another soldier I was unfamiliar with, who was looking around the wreckage that was our home with a mououe of distaste on her face; and finally, SGT Reddings, who seemed to think he was now in charge of Atlas. He was outside, yelling at the six soldiers who were slowly getting out of the vehicles to hurry up and get their gear inside.

Atlas would kill him for it. Stillwater was barely tolerated by Atlas, and now he was laying on cot with drained tubes in him and enough stitches to make a cross-stitch for the county fair. I could tell SGT Reddings didn't respect Atlas already. I had heard him talking about how he would have Atlas back at running 100% within a week.

There was no way. We had lost two bunkers completely, more or less vaporized and probably in the stratosphere. We had also lost the dirt shielding and cover for twelve other bunkers when the force of the explosion had stripped the sections facing the exploded bunkers down to bare concrete, or worse, down to the reinforcement for four of the bunkers.

That an over a half a million artillery shells that had been caught up in the explosion. A sizable percentage had probably detonated, more had exploded when they dropped back to earth, but that still left, as far as I could figure when computing in blast force, blast wave expansion, parabolic flight arcs, and tensile strength, around two-hundred thousand rounds somewhere on the square miles that made up Atlas.

Turning all of Atlas into a goddamn minefield.

Still, it was what I had to work with, and my daddy always said that a man didn't get no work done by just standing around moaning over what God and life had handed him.

It was a big shit sandwich, and I'd have to take a nice big bite.

"Specialist Bomber," The yell came as soon as Reddings came in the door. "This goddamn place is filthy! Why aren't you having it cleaned up here? It stinks. What is all this crap on the floor? Why aren't you ordering this room be cleaned?"

Great, another asswipe that thought yelling equaled authority and respect.

"I've been here about ten minutes, Sergeant," I told him, looking at him. I could tell he was going to be a problem. He was barely minimum height, scrawny, balding, with bug eyes and a crappy pube-stache. Old enough that he probably just missed Vietnam, and the absence of a combat patch obviously weighed hard on him. Great, belly full of little man's problem and blown self-esteem from being in the military without that dumbass patch.

Of course, seeing me with one probably just made shit worse. I'd gotten mine from six hours of combat right at Atlas, which had been declared a live conflict zone less than a month later to make sure that those who had died would be listed as war casualties rather than training accidents.

"So? Why are these people laying around? Shouldn't they be doing something?" He asked, pointing at Stillwater laying in his cot.

"Those soldiers in their cots have all suffered from serious wounds," I told him. "That's Corporal Stillwater, who happened to not only be less than a hundred feet from ground center zero but also killed seven Soviet soldiers who tried to take him prisoner," I shook my head, "If you think he's going to be any good cleaning this place," I shrugged.

"What about you?" He asked, sneering.

"Collapsed lung, broken arm," I told him, lifting my splint. The doctors hadn't put me in a cast, because chemical and radiation exposure would build up in the cast and cost me my life or my arm.

He sneered and turned away, heading into Stillwater's office. "What's in here?" his voice still held the sneer in it.

"Sergeant, you don't want to go in there yet," I told him. "It hasn't been cleaned and MI hasn't been able to go over it to make sure all the classified data is still intact."

SGT Redding threw open the door, revealing where Cromwell had blown the Russian's skull all over the office. The blood and brains were still on the floor, but at least Grave's registration had removed his body.

"This site is no longer under the authority of an E-4 with delusions of grandeur," SFC Regison said coldly, walking out of the commo room from where he was 'supervising' Foster getting us online. Yeah, supervising, like a monkey supervising a goddamn car mechanic. Foster might as well been raising the dead for all that squinty-eyed fuck understood. SSG Bonnhem walked out of the women's room, where Cromwell, Nagle, and the Russian doctor had turned it into a surgery bay and managed to save almost everyone who had been injured. Her face had a look of disgust, and she was wiping her hands off, and she stopped to stare at the decon shower, where everyone had showered off the blood. The plexiglass still had blood smears on it and the bottom still had blood on it, around the drain.

Atlas liked blood.

The bloodstained bandages were still laying everywhere on the floor of the female's room and the main room, along with discarded, blood smeared medical supplies and instruments. The whole place was a wreck, but that's what happens when you have to quickly whip up a field expedient surgical bay with only whatever you can grab.

Stokes came in from outside, carrying two of the Special Forces aid bags that we kept in the vehicles on her shoulders. The woman was a monster, almost six and a half feet tall and over two hundred pounds of highly trained former medic now Special Weapons Field Warfare Specialist. She winked at me, noticed Redding in Stillwater's office, and shook her head.

"Specialist, get everyone together and clean up this room," Sergeant Bonnhem said. Her voice was a nasally whine. "This decon shower is disgusting."

"And detail someone to mop this floor, pick up all the crap, and get this place dress right dress," SFC Regison barked.

Stokes knelt down next to Nagle, checking her pulse and smiling at my friend when Nagle woke up enough to sleepily stare at Stokes. Nagle's hand automatically went to try to find the assault rifle that only God knew where it was.

Atlas reflexes.

"Specialist, are you paying attention?" SFC Regison snapped.

"Very closely," I said.

I wasn't concerned with whatever the three of them were babbling about. With Stillwater down, and Atlas just waiting to kill the three chuckle-fuck NCO's, I needed to make sure the rest of the squad survived. I was worried about Nancy, she'd been caught up in the explosion of a thermobaric artillery round and could have lost her legs.

"Specialist, are you paying attention?" SSG Bonnham asked, staring at Stokes, who was bending down next to Cromwell and checking her pulse.

"I'm fine, Stokes, just a little doped up," Cromwell protested weakly. Stokes just smiled and nodded, still checking the other woman's pulse.

When the Soviet doctor had decided to go for the classified data, Cromwell had turned his head into a canoe with her M-3 grease gun, but had taken a 7.62mm NATO round through the gut in return. She was anything but fine.

"Yes, Sergeant," I answered.

"Then why aren't you detailing someone to clean this area? It looks like a pig-sty. The Army doesn't pay you idiots to stand around with your thumbs in your asses," The SFC said. I didn't roll my eyes, I wanted to, but I knew that moron would take objection to it.

"And clean up that crap on the floor of that office."

The brains all over the floor? A Russian officer who had intended on snagging Stillwater's paperwork to hand over to the KGB or the GRU was shot by Cromwell. If he had grabbed the right paperwork the Russians would have had the entire loadout, load order, and transportation orders for a large segment of 8th Infantry Division and 3rd Armor Division's conventional and nuclear/chemical elements. That information had been worth his life, and he knew it.

He wasn't a traitor, he went for it, Duty of the State and all that, and Cromwell had killed him. If there was any justice, the Soviet Union would give his family a medal.

I was drifting. I could tell. The anesthetic and painkillers they'd pumped me full of giving me a layer of soft cotton between me and the real world. I knew I was drifting, but I couldn't really focus that well.

"What's going on?" SSG Bonnham asked, turning from where she was staring at Cromwell's breasts while Stokes was listening to her heartbeat through a stethoscope. She licked her lips and I wanted to smack her across the face.

Crowmell was Atlas. How dare she?

"I'm trying to decide what I should do," I said, smiling.

"About?" SFC Regison asked.

"Atlas," was all I said.

"About what caused the explosion?" Bonnham asked, jumping on what she figured was a quick explanation that would make everything go away.

Blame Stillwater and me.

The door slammed open and Sawmoth poked her head in. "Got a vehicle, CUC-V 2-19-72," She said.

"Let them through," I said. Sawmoth nodded and turned to leave.

Great, Chief Warrant Officer Two Henley had arrived. He had been spent most of the last three months bouncing between the hot-sites and the headquarters of VCorps, 8th Infanty, 3rd Armor, some other Brigades, and VII Army HQ. He'd pretty much just called Atlas, yelled at Stillwater or Foster, and slammed down the phone after insulting everyone's parentage.

"Excuse me!" Bonnham shouted at Sawmoth, "Specialist Bomber is not in charge here."

Sawmoth looked at me and I pointed my chin at the door. Sawmoth nodded and shut the door, leaving.

Sawmoth had been at Atlas almost three months, she knew that the NCO's would leave, and she'd have to face me if she betrayed me.

Stillwater forgave, I did not.

"Get back here," Bonnham yelled.

Distraction time, I figured.

"Sergeants?" I barked out. All three turned to look at me, the two men looking startled that I dared snap at them with the command tone that PLDC taught me. Bonnham looked offended, for who knew what reason. She had issues, but that wasn't my problem.

"What, Specialist?" Bonnham sneered.

"What's the plan for dealing with the unexploded munitions?" I asked, pointing at the map of Atlas on the wall. I ignored that there was a bloodsmear from where someone had put their hand on the plexiglass covering the map. Probably out of exhaustion. "We had a couple thousand MLRS rounds cook off and explode, and who knows how many artillery rounds, so what do you plan on doing about it."

"Pfft, we'll just call out the engineers to sweep the area, and get EOD to supervise," SFC Regison said, waving his hand as if he had just solved the entire thing.

"Which unit should I call? 54th Combat Engineers out of Wildflicken are supposed to be handling this stuff, but I'll need authorization from Chief Henley," I said.

stall, Johnny, stall...

"We'll simply call back to Group and let them handle it," Regison waved his hand again.

Vague shit like that was gonna get people killed.

"Chief Henley has..." I started, and stopped when the door opened and the Chief appeared.

Chief Henley was a large man. One of those men that always looked fat. Barrel chested, big arms, stumpy legs, and a belly from too many hours behind a desk. He was in full battle rattle, his XM-16E1 body-slung and a .45 on his LBE. His helmet looked too tight, and he actually had his NVG's on his helmet, which looked weird as hell.

"What about me, you half-witted ape?" Henley snarled, stomping into the room.

"Attention!" Bonnham yelled.

Nagle, Stillwater, and Cromwell all stirred, and Henley's face turned red.

"At ease that shit," Henley snarled, "This is a live fire zone." He glared at everyone and dropped his hand to his .45. "The first one of you shit-gobbling morons that try to salute me, I'll shoot you fucking dead and feed you to wild dogs."

Henley didn't like anyone. We often joked that the only reason he fucked his wife was to hate-fuck her.

All three of the NCO's were still at attention. I leaned back against the wall, moving up and down slightly to scratch my right shoulderblade.

Henley ignored them and moved up in front of me.

"What the hell happened out here, you brainless goddamn Texas retard?" He snarled. That's OK, if Henley talked to me like I was an actual person, I'd probably panic and run away like a little girl.

"Lightning his a six-stack of MRLS pods and they fired off into the bunker. Another bunker went up in sympathetic detonation, and all of the artillery shells on the pad cooked off," I told him, scratching at the back of my wrist. Goddamn it, the arm was already itching like crazy.

"Is everyone accounted for, or did you leave men downrange?" The tone was cruel, but I could see the actual concern behind the glittering anger in his eyes.

"Nobody has found Private McCullen," I told him. "She was pulling patrol, we have no idea where she was when the site exploded."

"Sir, we were about to organize," Bonnham started to say.

"Shut the fuck up until I speak to you," Henley snapped, not even looking, "I want the opinion of three retards, I'll wake up Stillwater and Nagle and talk to Bomber here." His attention returned to me, "Are these all the survivors?"

I nodded and for a second the Chief looked like he was in pain, but it quickly vanished with barely concealed rage. He spun around and looked at all the wounded laying on cots.

"Specialist Stokes, how bad is Stillwater?" He snapped.

Miranda Stokes looked up from where she was checking the drainage tube and shook her head, "He should be in ICU, not laying out here."

"Can you keep his stupid ass alive?" The Chief sneered, "He's dumber than a bag of goddamn hammers and about as useful as a female officer with a map and a compass, but I'll be fucked in the ass by rabid goats before I let him get away with dying just so he can get out of work."

Stokes nodded, pulling out her stethescope and listening to his breathing.

"Answer the Chief, soldier," Bonnham snapped.

"I told you to shut the fuck up, you split tail dyke," Chief yelled, turning from Stokes, his jowls turning red and spittle flying from his lips. "Specialist Stokes can't get any work done with you yapping at her like a goddamn Chihuahua hiding under a couch." SSG Bonnham turned red at the Chief's words, and I knew she'd probably go to EO with a complaint, which would have absolutely zero effect. Chief Henley was certifiably insane, but he kept the hot-sites from exploding into a Lord of the Flies scenario, and while most of us hated him, we respected and feared him enough to follow his orders.

He wasn't fair, but neither was life or Atlas.

"Sir, I must protest at that kind of..." SFC Regison started.

"GET THE FUCK OUT!" Henley screamed, pointing at the door, "All three of you useless rat-turds, get the fuck out of here!" He took two steps forward and slammed his guts into Redding, pushing the other man toward the door, "I'm in charge here, me, not you three rat fucking idiots, GET THE FUCK OUT!"

I stood and watched the Chief belittle and curse at them, physically shoving the three NCO's out the door, using his gut to push them.

For the life of me I couldn't figure out how he could be so abusive and never get any shit for it.

When the door shut, Chief Henley turned back to look over the room. He was silent, his eyes roaming over the room and the open doors. He took in the brains splattered all over the wall and floor, the blood stained bandages and medical supplies, the streaks of blood on the floor and walls, the injured soldiers, and the general wreckage. He was silent for a long time, and the only sound was Stokes checking the injured and the labored breathing from Stillwater.

Finally he moved, walking over to Stillwater's office and motioning me to follow him. He didn't sit behind Stillwater's desk, instead leaning against the wall. He motioned at me to shut the door, and I did so, turning and going to parade rest, my feet shoulder width apart, my back straight, and my hands behind my back, cross over the middle of my belt.

"At ease," he told me, and I relaxed. "How bad is it?" Henley asked, looking at the office.

Wuzzy took that moment to leave his hutch, scurrying over to me. I picked him up and petted him, gathering my thoughts. Henley stood there silently, waiting for me, while I petted the little crippled rabbit.

"Bad," I said, closing my eyes. They burned, and I told myself it was exhaustion rather than grief. "For all intents and purposes, First Squad is gone. Sawmoth and Gilly are the only unwounded we have, and as for survivors, we have me, Nagle, Foster, Cromwell, and if he survives, Stillwater. Other than that, even support squad is gone." I shook my head and looked down at Wuzzy, stroking him gently. "There's unexploded munitions all over the site, we lost both Ranger teams and an entire helicopter of medical personnel, and two bunkers are completely gone."

We were silent for a long moment, only the ticking of the clocks above my head breaking the silence.

"Thirty eight dead," Was all Henley said. His voice was thick, and although he tried to make it so he sounded furious, I could hear the pain in his voice. He may not like us, hell, Henley didn't even like his kids, but we were his troops, and he'd lost most of us. "Christ, if Group used normal manpower I just lost a fucking platoon and ended my career."

I nodded slowly, sinking down to squat against the wall. I closed my eyes and sobbed, tears starting to come.

"You managed to save those you could," Henley continued on, in that horrible tone, his voice becoming more and more dead, more remote and uncaring, "Most of the survivors will probably be put out the military, so out of over forty soldiers, you have five left if you count Specialist Foster and yourself." I sobbed at those words. I knew every single one of the dead. "Your chain of command is shattered, you even lost Lieutenant Demarr, leaving First Section without a Section Leader, and your NCO's are all ignorant of operational realities out here."

He was rambling, telling me shit I already knew, while I tried to lock it all down. It took a lot, but I managed to push aside the grief and pain, wiping my face with my sleeve and slowly standing up. I let Wuzzy run back to his hutch.

"You have any hootch in this shithole?" Henley asked me. I nodded, moving over to Stillwater's desk and pulling the bottle of Wild Turkey out of the top drawer. I uncorked it, passed it to Henley, who took a deep drink and handed it back, and took a belt myself.

It was raw, but I needed it.

"What's your plan?" Henley asked me after we passed the bottle back and forth a couple of times.

"Get 54th Engineers out here with mine-sweeping gear and an EOD attachment to blow all the damaged ammo in place," I told him, turning to look at the map. I stepped forward and picked up one of the grease-pencils, crossing off the two bunkers we lost, "We're going to have MRLS bomblets scattered around, and those will kill a man. Unlike the artillery shells, they aren't going to be sitting in craters, they're designed to just plop onto the ground and wait to kill someone. They're gonna be tough to spot, since they're black and most of Atlas is fucking ash and rubble."

Chief Henley nodded, his eyes on the map.

"Estimating gross explosive weight, adjusting for omnidirectional blast force, then estimating blast retention before rupture," I said, unaware my voice had dropped. I began jotting down numbers and equations, "Then estimating secondary and tertiary blast effects, as well as geographical layout," I began drawing circles from the pads and the bunkers, quickly switching grease-pens and outlining the blast areas, "Then adjusting for mass, inertia, aerodynamics, and explosive propellant force, the majority of bomblets should be in this area, with secondary and tertiary areas here and here. Artillery shells would have traveled further, being of higher mass and able to carry more kinetic energy for ballistic flight distances."

I leaned back against Stillwater's desk and looked at the map. Most of the site was covered in the fallout patterns, and while a lot of it was Wild Ass Guessing, WAG was a hell of a lot better than anything else we had.

"Excellent work," Henley said, nodding. "We'll have 54th Engineers concentrate in that area with their mine-laying gear. At least the bomblets are lighter so they wouldn't have been thrown as far." He turned at looked at the door for a long moment, then turned to me.

"What happened with Stillwater?" He asked.

I shrugged. "One of the privates heard weaponsfire from downrange. I led a quick QRF down there, and we found Stillwater sitting in the middle of seven enemy troops. He was badly injured and only semi-conscious." I shook my head, "He used his knife, so it was close quarters, and he had an abrasion on his neck where it looked like someone tried to control him with a garotte."

Chief Henley nodded. He didn't like Stillwater one bit, or anyone else for that matter, but after last winter he sure as shit knew that Stillwater could go full on combatacon when the right switches were thrown and respected it.

"Were they locals?"

I shook my head again, "No. If I had to guess, I'd guess it's our old friend from Mieningen, that GRU psycho they've got running the show,"

"Sooner or later someone needs to put a bullet in that asshole's face before he starts World War Three," Henley said. "Well, it can't be helped. You can't unstab a man." He turned to face me. "Write it all up, send one copy to me, one to Corps, and one to 108th MI." He took another swig of the Wild Turkey and handed it back to me.

"In the meantime, I'll get what you need out here," He paused, "We have to rebuild those bunkers as fast as possible and get them reloaded. That's a Field Artillery regiment's worth the ammunition missing, and if the balloon goes up they won't have ammo." He shook his head, "We can't get anything done beyond some extra security out here till daylight, I don't want someone stepping on a bomblet or running over an unexploded artillery shell in the dark."

I nodded, taking a swig and corking the bottle.

"Get this shit back online," Henley snarled as we left the office, "The Army doesn't fucking pay you assholes to sit around bleeding, so get back on your feet as soon as possible," He stopped and stared up at Stokes, who just coolly returned his angry gaze, "Don't let any of these fucking retards die, you overgrown Amazon, and don't fuck shit up with those big man-hands of yours, you Midwest gorrilla."

Stokes just nodded. Henley turned away from her and stopped over Stillwater. He waited a few seconds, and sure as shit, Stillwater's eyes opened up. They were cloudy from the drugs, but focused on the Chief.

"You goddamn idiot, I oughta court martial your ass for getting so busted up and playing the goddamn hero instead of making sure the site was secure, your people evac'd out, and coordinating the goddamn response. You're not fucking John Rambo, hell, you aren't even Big Bird, you little halfwit, and you sure as shit left everyone else holding the bag while you ran off to play Jason Vorhees with those stupid Russian cock suckers. You better get on your goddamn feet in the next few days or I'll rip open your head and skullfuck you to death, you goddamn inbred halfwit," Chief snarled at him. Stillwater's eyes crossed and slowly closed at the end of the Chief's rant.

Chief Henley nodded, satisfied, and turned to Stokes, "I'll handle those three cock sucking morons outside, you just keep these retards alive."

"Yes, sir," Stokes answered.

Satisfied, Henley left, with that weird spraddle-legged gait that all fat men seemed to have. The door wasn't even closed before he started yelling, and Gilly and Sawmoth slipped inside before the Chief could turn his attention to them.

"Why aren't you pack of ass licking goat fuckers getting the engineers out here? Why are you standing there ogling those dumbass private's tits instead of getting goddamn 108th Rangers or some of those retarded MP's the Army is full of out here to provide site security instead of standing around like a pack of mouth breathing goddamn..." the door shut as Henley started to wind up, launching into the three NCO's.

I knew they'd be sent packing. Henley knew as well as I did that Atlas would kill anyone it didn't like, and Henley and Atlas were a lot alike in the fact that neither one of them liked anyone.

The door opened again and the six soldiers grabbed from other hot-sites slipped in. All of them were privates or PV2's, which meant that they'd probably been left back by their squad leaders to take care of paperwork or get their incoming soldier briefings.

Still, they didn't need anything but a willingness to follow orders and the brains to complete a task.

"You guys start cleaning up," I told them, "Get trash bags. If it has blood on it and isn't TA-50 or cleanable, throw it away. After that, you're going to have to GI this place." I looked at the wounded laying on cots and shook my head, "I don't want these guys coming down with any infections." I turned to PFC Farley, the medic, whom Stokes had told to stand over to the side and wait for instruction.

"Farley, you're in charge of the cleanup detail. I want this shit clean," I told her.

"Yes, Specialist," She snapped out. She waved at the female room where Cromwell, Nagle, and the Russian doctor had worked on everyone, "Let's start in there. Fill a mop bucket."

"Stokes?" I said. I moved over and sat down on my cot. The painkillers, the stress, and the events of the day, not to mention my collapsed lung, had taken it out of me.

"Yeah, Bomber?" She asked, standing up from where she'd been checking Foster's eyes to see if his pupil was still blown.

"If Stillwater so much as twitches like he's going to wake up I want you to pump him full of meds. I don't want him waking up for at least three days," I told her. I leaned back against my rucksack with a groan, so I was mostly laying down with my torso elevated. "Once those Privates are done GIing the place, make out a guard roster for the night, two men on at all times, full combat load."

"What about you?" She asked.

"Wake me at zero-five," I told her. I pulled my softcap down slightly so it covered my eyes.

"Rest well, Johnny," She told me.

"You too, Miranda," I yawned.

Sleep took me.

And I went back to Texas.