“A company. We can get what we need, though.”
“Company’s fine. I’ll go over the perimeter with you, and you can decide how you want to handle it. We had a similar arrangement with some guys from the 24th MEU (SOC),” added Danny, pronouncing the words as if they were “Mew-sock.” “Seemed to work out. We can get you some of our como gear, but not the helmets we use.”
Danny smiled. “You’d never give ’em back,” he added.
“Okay. I heard a little about you,” said Peterson.
“Me or my unit?”
“Both. You sure you’re not Marines under those black vests?”
Danny knew he was being buttered up — but still, Peterson seemed all right. They’d get along okay.
“So what’s with the prisoner?” asked the Marine.
“Native we found approaching our perimeter,” said Danny. “She’s not really a prisoner. Technically.”
“Don’t think she’s a guerrilla?”
“No,” said Danny quickly. He’d decided he was holding on to her himself until he had things figured out. Giving details of what had happened — such as the fact that she had a gun — would jeopardize that.
He wasn’t just going out on the limb personally here, but potentially endangering the entire mission. Yet he knew that wasn’t the case. She hadn’t been trying to attack them; she was just protecting herself, as he would have done.
Danny was sure he was right. He just needed some time to talk to her, to prove it. Until then, they’d keep an eye on the village. They could take it out quickly enough.
“How can you be sure she’s not a guerrilla?” said Peterson.
Danny shrugged. “There’s a tiny little village in the other side of that hilltop there, down the slope, across a swamp.”
“Going to have to evac it, no?”
“Well, I didn’t want to,” said Danny. “Kinda sucks telling people they have to leave their homes.”
Peterson took of his soft campaign cap, scratching his head. For a Marina, he had relatively long hair — it might measure a full inch. Most of it stood straight up, as if at attention.
“We gotta do what we gotta do,” said Peterson finally.
“Yeah. I know. At the moment, I want to make sure she’s okay, then find out what she’s up to, move off of that.”
“Who we talking about?” said Colonel Bastian.
“Colonel.”
Peterson saluted sharply. Danny introduced him, then told him about the girl — still leaving out the detail about the gun. “She can’t stay here,” said Dog. “What has she seen?”
“She just came to. She hasn’t not gone out of the tent,” said Danny. “I want to see what she was up to.”
“Captain, excuse me a second,” Colonel Bastian said to Peterson.
“Yeah, I have some things to check out,” said the Marine. “Captain Freah, if I could meet you at the Whiplash observation post in an hour maybe? If you can get the radios for us, I’d appreciate it.”
“That’d be good.”
“There more to this than you’re saying?” Colonel Bastian asked after the Marine and his two men left.
“How so, sir?”
“You sound a little protective.”
“No, sir.”
“Why was she unconscious?”
“We had to knock her out to take her into custody,” said Danny.
“You weren’t thinking of setting her free, were you?”
“Absolutely not,” said Danny truthfully. “I’m honestly not sure what to do with her, though. I mean, frankly — she hasn’t done anything except cross an invisible line we set up in the jungle. I’m not sure what I can do. And the local government — from what I heard, it’s best not to get them involved.”
Colonel Bastian had a way of pushing up his cheeks and squinting when he heard something he found difficult to believe. Danny saw that look now.
If this had been Dreamland, Danny would have had the girl in a hood before being transported to the medical area. While she was isolated there, her prints would have been checked against innumerable databases. She’d be in Dreamland-issued clothing. She’d be guarded by two tiers of guards. He’d have a list of legal charges — civilian as well as military — pending against her. All might ultimately be dropped, but they’d be signed and sealed, ready to be used if necessary.
This wasn’t Dreamland. Still, he was definitely being lax, at least by his standards/
He felt — what? Sorry for her?
She would have killed him, though.
“All right, Captain. For now, keep her isolated. We’re going to have to consult with Admiral Woods on what to do with her,” said Bastian. “But under no circumstances is she going anywhere without my specific approval.”
“Of course, sir.”
“Even if Woods tells you something else.”
“Yes, sir.”
Dog frowned. The steady hum of a Megafortress grew in the distance. “We’ve been chopped to PACCOM, but we’re supposed to maintain strategic security,” added the colonel. “I’m not exactly sure how we’re supposed to accomplish that. Especially given that Admiral Woods is a class-one—”
The roar of a Megafortress landing on the nearby runway drowned out the end of Dog’s sentence, but it wasn’t particularly difficult to fill in the blank.
Bree absentmindedly ran her hand along the back of her husband’s wheelchair, listening as the Navy intelligence officer continued his briefing about the layout of Chinese and Indian forces in the area. Her father stood next to him, arms tightly folded and eyes fixed in a glare. He’d already snapped twice at errors the man had made when talking about the Megafortresses’ capabilities. He appeared fully capable of strangling him if he misspoke again; his glare looked more potent than the Razor antiaircraft laser.
Breanna hadn’t seen him so belligerent since his first few weeks at Dreamland. He didn’t like Woods, that much was clear — he frowned every time the admiral started to speak. Breanna had heard about the admiral’s antics during the Piranha test, and so she understood there’d be some competitive animosity, but this seemed to go beyond that. Woods, though a bit gruff and obviously used to having his way, seemed competent and intelligent, traits her father normally held in high regard.
There were two battle groups in the South China Sea; the Chinese were at the north, the Indians at the south. Numerically, the Chinese held a serious advantage. They now had two small aircraft carriers with supporting destroyers and a cruiser. The Chinese carriers were a little less than seven hundred feet long and drew about twenty thousand tons fully loaded; by contrast the U.S.’s
The Indians currently had eight destroyers and two guided-missile cruisers heading toward the Chinese fleet. About a day behind them was an ancient aircraft carrier named
Her aircraft complement was unknown, but certainly included first-generation Harrier jump jets. There were also reliable reports that a version of the MiG-29K had been adapted by the Russian specifically for the Indian aircraft carrier. The MiG had lost a fly-off to the sea version of the Su-27/Su-33 as the preferred multirole fighter for
