A
Wolf In The Fold
Hangar 3, Eastern Island, is a place where the Landing Force Detachment
Spontoons does stuff. There are offices and storerooms and workshops
along the sides. And Sylvie Baginski was sitting in a rather
un-military comfy chair, watching.by Antonia T. Tiger Chapter Two In which Sergeant Wolf Baginski jumps out of a perfectly serviceable aircraft, and shares an umbrella with a Priestess. Wolf was at a long table, packing his parachute. A young skunk was standing by him, watching. He's explained the routine to her, the parachutists always working in pairs, each checking the other's work. It was your parachute, and your mistake that would kill you, but your mate backed you up. And it was a drink in the in the bar if they spotted something you missed. It was the first time she'd seen Wolf in his working clothes, and there was something different in the way he moved. He didn't wear the standard Army Union jumpsuit. This had reinforcement over knees and elbows, and was printed with blotches of green and brown and faded-yellow and a little black. It wasn't so unlike what a hunter might wear in sun-dappled woodland, but it had more pockets. The Detachment, she mused, was spoiling her rotten, because they didn't really know what else to do. And it was how they could show they cared. And maybe it was as much for Wolf as her. She'd been a fool to marry him. But there was Rule Zero. And, yeah, Wolf wasn't an obvious choice, and if she'd had her health she'd likely never even have met him, and he had unexpected brains. He might not have the data some of her co-workers had, with all their years of schooling, but none of these guys were dumb. The skunk was named Alberto Gonzales, Mixtecan parents who had been on the losing side of one of the revolutions, and fled to Rain Island. Nice guy, and a tough enough Alfie to get selected for the Parachute School. “I hate balloon jumps, Ma'am. Everybody hates balloon jumps. No airspeed, and so you have to drop around two-hundred feet to set enough airspeed for the 'chute to open. Today we're doing a static-line jump, from very low level, so if anything does go wrong...” He'd stopped then, face twisted by the realisation of what he'd said. “He ain't going to jump no more,” quoted Sylvie. “The Parachute School isn't that far from the University. I once walked into a bar where they were singing that song.” And it was scary that the song had been written, but maybe it meant that she could have met Wolf, in some other world. “Were they Alfies?” “Likely,” he said. “Wolf might have been one.” Maybe, in some other world, she was poring over geological survey maps, and worrying just as much about Wolf as she was today. Wolf had put on his assault vest, another Alfie thing, and over it the Jump Smock. That, she'd seen before. He and Alberto didn't look so very different now. And the jump helmets must hurt your ears. And she had a pretty good idea of why Wolf was walking oddly once he had his parachute on. Those straps had been pulled tight. At least he didn't have to worry about his tail. “We carry a lot of our gear in bags strapped to our legs, and they get dropped on ropes, so they're hanging about twenty feet below us when we land. Less strain for us when you hit the ground, and, in the dark, you know to be ready.” Wolf had been explaining things, how everybody checked everything, hooking up in the plane and hurling yourself into space when the green light came on, checking the 'chute, releasing the leg bags. “On a jump like this, you're almost too busy to pray.” “Almost?” “You find you can pray damn fast.” A Navy truck had arrived. Fully-loaded parachutists are not very mobile. Crimson Otter was waiting for them, with an Osprey. “Bye, Sylvie,” said Wolf. She nodded. “You make sure you come back.” Louder. “You all make sure you come back.” Getting them into the truck might almost have been comedy. And then they were gone. Sylvie prayed, silently and intently. “If one of us must die today, let it be me, and not Wolf or one of his comrades...” “A couple of hours until they get back. We're doing the drop over the ranges, so we need to get out there and take charge.” Sergeant Esterhazy grinned. “Ever done any shooting?” “Not really.” “Well, one of the things we train for is fomenting rebellion, which means teaching folk about guns.” He grinned. “We'll try and make it interesting.” OK, Sergeant, you don't want me brooding over what might happen. But you're going to end up telling me just what Wolf might be facing after a parachute drop. “Can I throw grenades instead?” She gave him a wicked little grin. “How about pouring nitroglycerin down oilwells?” That, she thought, was an idea that scared him a little. --oOo--
“This is the Starling-Terrapin Mark 2 Machine Carbine, capable of
firing five hundred rounds a minute of nine-millimetre pistol
ammunition.” The Alfie, a black-eared ferret whose ancestors had been
raising hell on the Great Plains since before Rome had an Empire,
almost chanted the words. “Ya don' need ta know any of that.” He
grinned. “What really matters is that the bullets come out this end, So
ya don' point this end at anythin' ya'd lose sleep over putting a
bullet through.”Sylvie noticed that he was pointing the gun skyward. It looked ugly, nothing like a Mouser. Sure, folks could think a gun ugly for what it was meant to do, but some still had a grace of form. This was form very closely following function, and there was an elegance to the design, if you thought like an engineer. Sylvie had picked up enough to at least fake that thinking. She could feel the sense of engineering parsimony, and in some ways it looked pretty crude, no more than a length of steel pipe. But she'd seen tools on the rigs that had started out as a length of steel pipe. “Now, Ma'am, let's go see how this baby shoots.” Sergeant Esterhazy watched from a distance, mostly to judge the instruction. He'd have to ask Sylvie, she was some sort of teacher. “Callahan?” “Sarge?” “She's not looking good.” Callahan was the Naval Syndicate medic on duty at the range. “She just isn't good, Sarge. I got briefed. We all did. Not something we expect, not like battlefield triage. She's walking and talking, maybe a bit affected by the morphine. But it's what the Ethics Committee call Stage Four.” He paused. “She has the right to choose how much she takes, even a fatal dose. I can't tell her no. There's a lot of places where the Doctors insist they know best, and then they'll give you a fatal dose, whether or not you want to die today.” “She doesn't,” Esterhazy took his pipe from his pocket. Sylvie loaded the gun, her movements very precise, very much by the book, and he wondered if she was testing herself. And then she was shooting. Single shots. “Wolf gives her a reason to live.” “I've not seen the guy.” “Good soldier. And he does this crazy thing of marrying the girl, putting his career on the line, because he didn't think she ought to be alone.” Callahan slowly nodded. “Should be more people in the world like him. I've seen some real shits when I've been doing training at Seath'l General.” “Some of them, they can't look death in the face. Don't be too harsh.” Esterhazy paused in loading his pipe. “Sylvie, she's staring death in the face, and giving him the finger.” He watched while Sylvie fired full-auto—a five-round burst, and she seemed to be keeping the muzzle under control. “It might still break Wolf.” Callahan shrugged. “She seems like the sort of girl an Alfie would like.” “Ain't she just,” Esterhazy checked his watch. “I wonder what the boys have been cooking?” “That, I'll leave to you to find out. I brought bagels and lox from the galley for my lunch.” “Damn navy layabouts.” “Snake-eaters,” countered Callahan. Esterhazy laughed, and headed back over the little ridge to the rest of the detachment. It was tactical eating, but he was sure they'd be trying to impress Sylvie. Don't worry about Wolf, they were saying. We'll look after him. He paused and sucked on his pipe. He had an uneasy feeling that he was more scared of telling her things than Wolf was. Wolf had been pretty direct about what could go wrong today. He had finished, “Since I packed the 'chute, I can assure you that I shall never forgive myself if it doesn't open.” --oOo--
After a while, you stopped noticing how your ears hurt, folded down
inside the padded helmet. And you could move enough on the benches to
ease the stiffness. And if you were smart enough you held back on
drinking before the flight—coffee was right out.So mostly you were left with the noise of your engines, and your own thoughts, and if you shied away from some thoughts, Wolf was finding, you concentrated on the details of the mission. They were flying a low-level combat approach, with some hard turning on the run over the lagoon, twisting and dodging the supposed archie. And he rather suspected that some of the hypothetical gun positions were not far from a hidden reality. Standing, hooked-up, would be difficult, but some minor hero had found an answer. One hand sliding the strop along the wire rope, the other holding on to a nice, solid, hand-rail up the middle of the cabin. If this were for real they would be flying the approach at night, and it was a good thing that Crimson Otter was a feline. Feline and pilot-qualified in the top ten per-cent: they were the absolute essentials for an Air-Drop rating. The jumpmaster didn't need to be pilot-qualified, but still needed good night vision. Low level, full throttle, twisting and turning. The Rhinos were getting some sort of really heavy machinegun from France, which were going onto their ships. Tracer at night is rather pretty when you're nowhere near it. And then there would be a short zoom-climb, trading speed for altitude. Throttles closed. Cargo door open. Red-light glowing, and then flicking to green. And a really good Team could be all out of the plane before it had travelled two hundred yards. And about ten seconds after he was down he could have this damn helmet off his ears! --oOo--
“No, really, this is great stuff.” Sylvie looked around. “You want
desperate cooking, try an oil rig in Texas after a hurricane has passed
over.” She grinned. “I'm a geologist, and I'm good at it, and so they'd
pay well: dry holes are expensive.”“Hard-working scum,” said a corporal. “Not for this outfit.” “I was once told that I was the only woman for a hundred miles who wasn't a whore. That's when I decided I'd stay in my office at the University.” “Good move,” said Esterhazy. He checked his watch. “Five more minutes, and then we move out. Sylvie, if you've been in places like that, I can see why Wolf might look good.” She sighed. “I wasn't looking for marriage. Just some fun, and there was this very athletic, available, young bear. Not the only available guy on the ship, but he wasn't boasting. And I knew he was Army Union: if I wanted to stop when we got here, he'd have things to do. I had my affairs settled. And then, it'd be Goodnight, sweet Prince, and maybe flights of angels would sing me to my rest.” “Hope not,” said O'Bannon. “That last Act of Hamlet is a seriously bad tactical position.” “Hamlet versus Wolf Baginski: I've only just met the guy but he'd be the one to bet on.” “I'd be a bit sorry for Fortinbras.” “Are you guys all Shakespeare buffs?” Sylvie was trying not to laugh. There was silence for a moment, and then everyone looked back at Sylvie. “So what's wrong with that?” --oOo--
“Stand up! Stand up!” The Jumpmaster was checking his safety straps.
“Hook Up!”Wolf snapped his static line to the wire, and made very sure that the hook was locked. If it came off, you would end up dead. He checked Alberto's. Alberto checked his. The cargo door was open, one of the really nice things about jumping out of this model of the Osprey, but you could see far too much water, far too close and moving fast. Red on. Wolf realised he needed three hands with the legbag. But Alberto was leaning back a little: that worked better. The plane started weaving, and he knew he had a good pilot. A good pilot makes even the fast changes feel smooth. Wolf didn't have the exact flightplan in mind, but he knew they would not fly straight. The predictors on the heavy guns might never get a usable solution, and the biggest problem would be fuse setting. The plane lurched a little, and what might have been a boat flashed into view. Nobody had time to look. “Two minutes.” Wolf didn't know the Spontoons well enough to recognise any landmarks. And he wished he didn't have to keep his eyes open. And then over land, a flash of water in the sun, and the zoom climb. There was a single flash of the green light, red still on, a test and a warning. He felt the plane level and saw the vertical movement of the outside world. Green on! Go! Go! Go! Leaping into nothingness, feeling the first tug of the static line jerking the inner bag from the outer, snapping the strings he'd tied. And there was the wind, shaking him like a terrier shakes a rat. He did notice the pop as the canopy came out of the bag, on extended rigging lines, and the drag freed the risers, and then the whoomf as the canopy opened and down became a direction again. Check Canopy! Check Right! Check Left! Look down. Was that the ground! Lower the legbag. Damn the release! Now, down it goes, twenty feet of rope. Grab the risers, try to get a better angle to the wind. No time! You felt the legbag hit, Knees bent, ankles firmly together. Down! Hit the release, one hand to the carbine. Not much wind, easy to get the chute under control and bundled roughly with the harness. Helmet off, at last. What the yiff, that was a bullet going past! Bastards! The legbag wasn't meant to be easy to carry, but it was smaller and lighter than a sailor's kitbag, and Wolf wasn't going to waste time getting to cover. But which way to move? He took the time to look around, see where the guys were, what cover there was. “Squad!” Seven heads turned to look at him. He used hand signals, clear and simple. “With me!” Up with the bag and start running. He was only thirty yards from the butts, and the working trench was certainly cover. “That's cheating,” said O'Bannon. “Guess I forgot to tell him,” said Esterhazy. He lowered his rifle. “Cease fire.” “Smarter than the average bear,” said O'Bannon “He took the time to check where people were, and figured the fastest way to get them all to cover.” “Looks good,” agreed Esterhazy. He looked around. “Sylvie!” --oOo--
“Wolf, this isn't unexpected, but...” The Base Surgeon seemed a little
nervous.“Tell me what you know, Doc.” Wolf was mostly looking out of the office window. “The tumour is where it can affect the part of the brain which handles the left eye. She's getting crazy visual patterns, essentially noise, and it makes it hard to see anything. She's also losing muscle control. That's why she fell. And, without the morphine, she'd be in agony.” “Damn, it was a fun day.” “Esterhazy told me. Anyway, as of two hours ago, you're on open-ended compassionate leave. He does want to check a few things with you about the drop. And I want to make arrangements for nursing support. That bit of tactical medical training you boys get covers the morphine, but you need breaks.” “I can cope, sir.” “I know, but not alone. Never alone.” “Sorry, sir.” “Sergeant, I'm the one who should apologise. There's nothing I can do.” --oOo--
RINS Base Hospital, SpontoonsBase Surgeon's Log Wednesday 4th October 1933. 06:57 Sgt Wolf Baginski reported the death of his wife, Sylvie Baginski, Duty Surgeon attended and confirmed death. Body temperature consistent with death occurring at about 02:00 Death reported to Spontoonie Chief Medical Officer, and after due consideration of medical records, it was agreed that no further medical investigation was required. 08:45 Dr, Meffit, Spontoonie Chief Medical Officer attends, and interviews Sgt. Wolf Baginski. Countersigns Death Certificate for Sylvie Baginski. Looks very worried about Wolf. I know I am. --oOo--
Private Medical Journal of Dr. James Meffit.Wednesday 4th October Sylvie Baginski died this morning, and of course it was suicide. But she was dying anyway. Wolf is taking it badly. I would. It was the morphine that killed her, not the cancer. The time I met her, I liked her, but there was something that feels wrong in what she persuaded Wolf to do, that last evening. If he works out she was expecting to die, I can't answer for his sanity. I hope his luck is as good as mine was, when I went crazy in my war. --oOo--
There would have been no problem if Sylvie had been Christian, though
Wolf was a bit doubtful. It had been a bit Rain Island, a bit local,
and six Army Union Sergeants had carried her to her grave. Wolf looked
at the grave marker, not caring about the rain. No date of birth: that
wasn't so unusual for rural Rain Islanders who had been young when the
Influenza came through. The records were there, but they didn't feel
quite real. Not like the date your family told you.“Professor Sylvie Baginski”. Professor? And then the date. The water was trickling over the stone. “Sergeant?” He hadn't realised that Spontoonie Shamen were all women. This one was old enough to be his mother. “Ma'am?” She opened an umbrella. “We'll look after her.” He blinked. He remembered the words. “We know not which Gods Sylvie prayed to, but she has died here, and chosen to be laid to rest here, and we pray our Gods will guide her spirit to peace, and let their grace fall on those that loved Sylvie in the World.” He blinked again. Pretty decent of them, really. “I reckon you will.” “Anything I say today is going to be wasted, but at least come in out of the rain.” Nobody else here, just him and a very damp Spontoonie Shaman. Not bad to look at either. Oh Gods, here was Sylvie fresh buried, and he was thinking about yiffing a Shaman! She smiled slightly. “To everything there is a season. And the storms at a change of season can be ferocious. Come on.” And somehow it seemed the right thing to walk with her, away from the grave. Nothing more, not yet, but one day, he knew, there would be somebody, Sylvie had told him there would be. He didn't doubt her. How could he?. next |