"The storm doesn't seem to be dying down," Hawkes commented much later.  "I thought for sure it'd be over before sundown."

"It'll take a while longer," agreed Tyler.

It was the first sentence spoken in the cave for a while, Hawkes having given up the idea of having a decent conversation with Morgan. He had managed to amuse himself by taking out his own portable computer and playing some of the games built into it, but he had been forced to stop by the lack of light.

Hawkes shifted nervously as the cave grew steadily dimmer. In his imagination it seemed to be shrinking around them.   "The fire's dying down," pointed out, just in case she hadn't realized it.  "Maybe you should light that other flare," he suggested.

"We should save that," she answered.  "In case they mount a nighttime rescue."

"I thought you said Ross wouldn't chance it?"

"The Commodore wouldn't," she repeated.  "But just in case we don't want to waste their efforts.  We should be able to signal them somehow."

"So what do we do now?" he questioned.  "It's gonna get a lot colder soon."

She moved closer and repeated her earlier action of placing the back of her hand to his forehead.  Hawkes was ready for it this time and didn't flinch. He realized he sort of enjoyed having her hand there, and the hint of concern lining her features.

"Your temperature has stabilized," she stated, taking away her hand.  "We should be fine."  Then, to his surprise, she went on her knees and unzipped her jacket.

"What are you doing?" he asked uneasily as she shed the rest of her outer clothing with practiced efficiency, folding and laying them neatly on top of her pack.

"Getting comfortable," she answered calmly.  "It's going to be a long night."

With an aplomb Hawkes both admired and hated, Tyler moved back to where he was sitting and drew open the blankets that were still covering him.

"Lie down," she ordered, and when he did so, too befuddled to argue, she lay down next to him, her back against his front, and redrew the blankets over them both.

"Um, Captain…" he began, edging away slightly.

She followed, plastering her back against his skin.  "Stay where you are, Lieutenant," she commanded coolly.  "I'm not about to freeze just because you're shy.  Just close your eyes, pretend I'm someone else and go to sleep."

That should have been easy, he thought.  Since she had arrived that was all he'd been doing.  Every night for the last five weeks he'd closed his eyes and pretended it was someone else lying on the rack across his.  But he'd be lying if he didn't admit that that had been getting harder and harder with each passing day, and that right then and there, with her so near, the heat of her skin warming his, it was impossible.

He tried to get comfortable, but he didn't quite know what to do with his hands.  One served adequately as a pillow, but the other lay uneasily on his side, trying not to touch more of her than he was already.  His indecision was brought to a halt when she casually reached behind her, grabbed his free arm and placed it securely around her waist.

"Stop fidgeting and go to sleep," she ordered again.

He wondered if that was what she was doing, too.  She didn't seem uncomfortable, maybe  she had done this before.  Maybe  she was used to lying beside someone else, his arm wrapped around her waist. Was she thinking of someone else while she lay there, was she wishing he were someone else? Was that why she had been so quick to present her back ­ because it was easier to pretend that way?  He didn't quite know what to think, or feel, about that possibility.

He wished he could talk to Nathan about it, but Nathan would _never_ understand.  He doubted anyone would.

He lay awake long after the darkness claimed the cave, just listening to the sound of her breathing, wondering why he all of a sudden felt so alone.

In minutes the members of the three squadrons arrived at the launch bay on each others' heels.

"Chig attack jets have been spotted 150 MSKs out," announced Ross grimly. "Headed straight for Gethen." <

"How many, Sir?" was Nathan's only question.

"Four squadrons," answered Ross.  "Maybe more."

Lt. Antonio, squadron leader of the 30th, just grinned.  "That's not gonna be a problem for the Wreckers, Sir."

"WildCards, you'll be joining the Wreckers on this intercept."  The Commodore turned to the 17th Squadron.  "Captain Georges, you have the coordinates of both the extraction point and the last recorded position of Captain Tyler and Lieutenant Hawkes.  The StingRays are  to escort the SAR team and assist in this rescue in any way possible."

"Aye, Sir," nodded Captain Georges.

"You have your orders," finished Ross.  "Dismissed."

Lt. Antonio turned to his team and to the WildCards.  "Let's go, men," he ordered.  "We got us some bugs to squash."

Goddammit, she thought.  How the hell had that happened?  She wasn't a sound sleeper, not  by a long shot.  Six years in the Corps had made sure of that.  That unscheduled nap the day before had been bad enough ­ now Hawkes had managed to get up, get dressed and leave the cave, all without her waking.  She was slipping, dammit.  Not acceptable.

She hurriedly dressed and replaced everything in their two packs.  The two extra thermal blankets she placed in the bottom of Hawkes' pack ­ she could always get more and the stupid tank was probably too stubborn to accept that he might need them again someday to get his own.

Hawkes returned just as she was finishing up.  "Well, Lieutenant?" she asked as he came in.  "Anything to report?"

"The storm seems to be over," he answered. "But I couldn't find any more wood."

"Won't be needing it,"  she told him.  "We still need to get out of this ravine and get back to the extraction point.  You up to it?"

"Do I have a choice?" he asked, dryly.

She got on her knees and strapped on her pack.  "I can go ahead and come back for your once I've found one," she answered coolly.  "Or throw you down a rope once I've reached the top.   The last thing I need is a repeat of yesterday's incident.  If you're not up to it then you're better off staying here."

"I can manage," he assured her grimly.

She looked at him carefully and then nodded.  "Alright, let's move out." She frowned suddenly as her ears picked up a  low humming.  "What the hell is that?" she asked rhetorically.

"Chig attack jets," Hawkes identified the sound anyway, hurriedly strapping on his own pack and palming his pistol.

"Shit!" cursed Tyler.  "Did you cover your tracks?" she demanded.

"Tyler, there's no way they can spot --."

"Did you cover your tracks?" she repeated with greater intensity.

He nodded.

"Alright then," she stated.  "We stay here.  Maybe it's just a patrol squadron sent to check out the base.  With luck they'll pass over us."  She palmed her own pistol and peered out of the cave.

"What if they don't?" asked Hawkes.

"Then we get to play in the snow, Lieutenant."

As they spoke, three Tri-Wings flew into their sky, pursued by three Hammerheads.  In the distance, far behind them, two more Hammerheads appeared, flanking an ISSAPC.

"That looks like our ride home," commented Hawkes.

"We need to find a way out of this ravine fast, Lieutenant," stated Tyler. "We can't risk that APC landing on that lake, and with the Chigs around I doubt our people can mount another rescue soon.  We're gonna have to grapple up."

She took off her pack and readied her climbing equipment, checking her ropes and hooks carefully but efficiently.  Hawkes did the same, and they waited till the Chig jets had flown past their position before moving.

More than his Corps training, it was his years as a construction worker that served Hawkes as he climbed the sheer face of the cliff.  Navigating half-completed skyscrapers carrying I-beams on his back had been everyday fare then; climbing the slippery side of a mountain wasn't that much different.  Just had to be careful where you placed your feet and remember not to look down.

He stopped as he realized that Tyler was falling behind him but she waved him on. It was still more than a hundred feet to the top ­ straight up. The cave had obviously been in the deeper part of the ravine.  If this had been they'd fallen the day before they would never have survived.

In the sky above them, the lead SA-43 winged one of the Chig planes, which then faltered and crashed to the ground.  Five planes to go.  The Chig planes retreated back into space, followed closely by the SA-43s.

Below Hawkes, Tyler paused to catch her breath.  Even through the heavy gloves she could feel the rope burning her hands, and her shoulder was aching.  She cursed herself mentally.  She had climbed less than two hundred feet and already she was faltering.

She did her best to hide it, to compensate, but there seemed to be no escaping the fact that she just wasn't as strong as she used to be.  Maybe she should have listened when the doctors prescribed a few more weeks of rest, but she had been in a hurry to get back to war.   She took another deep, steadying breath and resumed her climb with increased determination. Demios had taken so much from her already, it wasn't going to rob her of this, too.

The rope jerked in her hands and she panicked for a split second, thinking it had broken.  Then she realized that Hawkes had reached the top, and was steadily pulling her upwards, aiding her ascent.

Damn, but he's strong, she admitted grudgingly, even enviously.  And he had recovered from his ordeal so quickly.  Must be an InVitro thing.

She accepted the hand he reached down to her, and he pulled her  all the way to the top.  As soon as she was steady on her own legs, she pulled out one of her smoke flares, breaking it in half and throwing it a few dozen feet away in one easy motion. It took a few seconds, but  the APC that had passed their position and was steadily mowing away finally made a U-turn back.

"Cool," said Hawkes, grinning slightly.  "We'll be back in time for breakfast."

Nathan watched silently as Cullen and Rain fussed over Hawkes in the medbay. Rain kept giving Cooper hearty slaps on the back, and Cullen was feeding him breakfast. Hawkes was grinning widely, a little kid enjoying the attention.

Upon alighting from the APC, Tyler had headed straight for the standby medical unit, and conversed quietly with the doctor-on-call.  Before anyone knew it, a team of interns had dragged Hawkes off to medbay for a complete physical.  She had then spared a few moments for the rest of them before going off to report to Ross.

"I see you made it back okay," she had commented to them, before turning to Rain. "Run into any trouble?"

"Nothing we couldn't handle, Captain," Rain had assured her.

"Good," she had stated.  "I'll expect the mission report by 1700 today."

"I'll get on it, Captain," Rain had  nodded.

She had shaken her head.  "No."

"Excuse me, Captain?"

West had been surprised when she had turned to him.  "You do it," she had ordered.

"Excuse me?" he had echoed Rain's question.

"The mission report, Lieutenant," she had repeated.  "In my hands by 1700 today.  I'm sure you're up to it."

She had left then and Nathan could only look helplessly at Rain, expecting the tall Cherokee to resent Tyler's arbitrary pronouncement.

Instead Rain had grinned good-naturedly at Nathan.  "Great.  I hate paperwork."

Now, as he watched the three of them, Nathan had to reconsider his opinion of Cullen and Rain.   They genuinely seemed to care for Hawkes.  And he had to admit that as much as he may dislike or distrust Tyler, she _had_ taken good care of Hawkes.

Hawkes was alright, he thought, and he knew somehow that Hawkes would be fine.  Maybe he could leave and not have to worry.  Maybe he could go home.

Hawkes finally saw him and gave him a huge grin and a thumbs-up signal. Rain and Cullen saw him, too, and made their excuses to Hawkes.

"You guys don't have to leave," he told them as they went past him.

"He says he has something he wants to talk to you about," Cullen said.  "We'll come back later."

"Hey, man." He greeted Cooper as he sat on the bed.  "You okay?  They said you had a cold."

"I sneezed a couple of times, that's all!" Hawkes protested.  "InVitros are immune to the common cold, you know that."

"Well, there's hardly anything common about falling into a lake and practically freezing to death," argued West.  "We could have lost you, man."

"Yeah," said Hawkes, looking thoughtful for a moment.

"Hey, I didn't mean to bum you out."

"It ain't that," said Hawkes.  "Nathan, remember that fight we had about Kylen?"

"Yeah?"

"I know it ain't true.  About you not caring, I mean.   But, heck, you joined the Corps because of her."

"Yeah," he said again.   "So?"

"Then when the war began, you fought because you thought she'd been killed…" Hawkes continued.   "And later on you stayed because you needed to find her… so maybe…"

"Maybe what?"

"Maybe now that she's back on Earth, maybe that's where you should be, too."

Nathan's head snapped up,  his eyes staring at Hawkes like the InVitro had gone insane.  "You think I should leave the Corps?"

"Maybe," said Hawkes.

"But I thought you didn't want me to," he protested.   "I thought…"

"Hey, man," said Cooper, intensely.  "You're the only family I got left.  I need you.  But I'd rather have you back on Earth than watch you get blown up because you ain't paying attention."  He leaned closer, concern and sincerity evident on his face.  "Hell, buddy, you've done so much for this war ­ I bet they'd give you a discharge easy if you asked.  And if they don't, I could always break your leg or something."

Nathan grinned. "You'd do that for me?" he asked in wry amusement.

"In a second," Cooper assured him seriously.

"But what about you?  What about the 58th?"

"Well, Cullen and Rain, they're okay," answered Hawkes, obviously having already considered the question.   "They're okay.  They're not Wang and Damphousse, but they're okay.  They're good guys."

Nathan noticed he didn't mention the other party involved. "And Tyler?"

"Tyler?"   Hawkes' forehead wrinkled slightly in consternation. "I don't know, yet.   But I think I'll be okay.  It's you I'm worried about."

It's you I'm worried about.

That one sentence hit Nathan like a ton of bricks.  Seven year old Hawkes, the product of government who didn't care shit once they found out their experiments were useless, who had been dragged into this war by a judge with a twisted sense of humor, who had lost practically everyone he cared about, who had been screwed by the again and again world his entire life, was worried about him.

He looked at Cooper somberly, wondering how he could have forgotten all that in his self-pity.  The team wasn't gone, he thought.  Cooper was still here. This was still the 58th.  "God, Coop, I'm sorry."

Cooper looked confused.  "Sorry for what?  What'd you do?"

"For worrying you," Nathan answered simply.  "You don't have to do that anymore.  I promise I'll pay attention from now on.  I'll even try to get along with Cullen and  Rain.  I don't know about Tyler, though," he said, teasing Cooper by echoing his earlier words.

Cooper perked up. "So you're not leaving?" he asked, hopefully.

"Not without you."

Cooper blinked, once again confused. "But I already told you -- I'm not leaving."

"That's what I said," agreed Nathan, grinning.  "We're not leaving."

"Glad to see you and Lieutenant Hawkes made it back in one piece, Captain," said Ross as they neared the end of the debriefing session.  "For a while there you had all of us worried."

"There's going to be a few pointed comments about the accuracy of the Intel submitted to me in my report, Commodore," she informed him.  "Not only did they fail to inform us of the storm, there was an entire canyon missing from their maps."

"I'll be sure to reprimand those responsible," he assured her.   "Our latest reports show that the Chigs are leaving this sector.  I'd say this mission is a success, Captain, and with no lives lost."

"I'd say this mission was a success, then, Commodore," she commented.

"Yes," Ross answered.  "Would that all our victories were this easy."

"Let's just enjoy this one, Sir," Tyler responded coolly.

"I suppose you're right," said Ross.

"You'll have my official report by 2000 tonight, Commodore," she added, briskly.  "If there's nothing else I'd like to be excused.  I really need to get into a shower and some fresh clothes."

"Actually, Tyler," Ross said with a small smile, " I do have some additional news for you.  News I believe you've been waiting to hear."

"Let me guess," she said, mock-seriously. "Corps Command has taken pity on me and is giving me another squadron."

"No."  The Commodore shook his head, the smile never leaving his face.  "But in two weeks you will no longer shoulder sole command or responsibility for the 58th."

She looked at him in surprise.  "You found us a new CO?"

"Even better than that," he answered, the smile turning into a full-fledged grin.   "I got your old one back."

She grew cold at the possibility and struggled to keep her expression neutral. "Major MacLaughlin?" she inquired, casually.

"Colonel McQueen."

Epilogue

Captain Morgan Rhianna Tyler sat at a lone computer console accessing all available information on USMC Lt. Colonel Tyrius Cassius McQueen.

Colonel TC McQueen, she thought.  Major Murphy MacLaughlin.  Shit, even their names sounded the same.  She suppressed the instinctive shudder and determinedly went on with her work.

Okay, regroup.

Having a CO was a fact of Marine life, like bad food and rock-hard beds. One of the things she couldn't do anything about.

Well, at least not obviously.

So what if he turned out to be the biggest hard-ass in the Corps and he was coming back to bust her ass from the 'Toga to the Earth for picking on his two sweet-cheeked little boys, which, by the way, they made so easy?

She'd find a way to handle him.

Maybe she'd get lucky and he wouldn't give her any problems.  After all, all signs seemed to indicate an easygoing CO, one whose laxness would be responsible for the insubordination Hawkes and West seemed to thrive on.

Still, an InVitro didn't survive 120 days of solitary and the AI War to become Lieutenant Colonel by being easygoing and nice.  And the man did used to be an Angel.

Why, the Angels had been almost as good as the 'Wings, she thought, smiling wryly.   Amazing what good PR can do for a squadron.

She'd managed to convince the Commodore not to tell the group about McQueen' s return for now.  West and Hawkes were distracted enough as it is, she'd pointed out, and she didn't want them to be disappointed in case anything happened and the plan fell through.   Thankfully, Ross had agreed.  That gave her a little more time to make some plans of her own.

She keyed in the grand total of her knowledge about McQueen so far.

Decanted 2043,  InVitro batch control number 2025 Kappa 9757, Gene pool 13-C, Anchorage Facility.

USMC serial number 821-36-97440.

Divorced.

Cross-reference: Omicron Draconis Mining Colony.

Port Riskin, Munitions Sector.

Artificial Intelligence War.

127th 'Angry Angels'  Attack Squadron.

58th WildCards.

She hesitated a second and then added: US Navy Commodore Glen Van Ross.

SpaceNet had some stuff on McQueen, mostly general information.  Some press articles published by the InVitro Rights Association.  And then there was that video the Armed Forces Network shot and aired earlier in the year. Aside from that there were just stories, mostly urban legend-type stuff. Nothing really very helpful.

She scowled at the console as her search came up empty.  McQueen's military file had been shut tight, ultra-classified.  Served her right for going after the information directly, she thought.  She should have known better. Nothing was ever that easy.

That didn't mean, however, that she couldn't get the information she needed. Ignoring the slight twinge of pain in her hands, she continued, her fingers flew over the keyboard, coaxing the system to respond.

For the good stuff she had to get into the system.

It was a great system, practically foolproof.  After the AIs had rebelled it had been overhauled, redesigned completely from scratch by some of the best minds in the military.  But if there was anything she knew about computers, it was that every system had a backdoor. She'd bet her late grandmother's entire CD collection that there was one here, too, and that she could find it.  Men were always horribly predictable when it came to passwords and key-codes.

Besides, it was just a personnel file.  What kind of security could they have given it?

Two hours and seventeen minutes later, she was in.  She would have been done sooner, but her hands gave her some problems.  She stared at the scars on her right hand for just a moment, then closed her fist and dismissed the pain.

She turned her attention back to the computer monitor.

Come on, Colonel, she silently challenged as it began spewing out information.  Surprise me.

© Jessi Albano December 17, 1998 12:34 AM

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