“Inspection… arms!”
“This Ka-Bar is not sharpened.” A fast-clip on an M4 sling snapped when she yanked on it. “Dirty gas tube.” A helmet strap weakened from wear. Faith didn’t appear to check a single item that was cosmetic. All she checked was what they were going to need in combat.
It took nearly two hours while the Marines stood at parade rest or attention sweating in the sun. They were sweating not so much from the heat as from the reality that a thirteen-year-old was making some of them look like dumb recruits. And Barnard was slowly acquiring a pile of equipment that did not meet her lieutenant’s satisfaction.
Finally it was done and Faith marched back to the front of the formation followed by Barnard. Faith paused for a moment looking at the Marines balefully.
“Sergeant Smith, front and center!” Faith barked.
When Smitty was in place, at attention, Faith gestured from the staff sergeant to the sergeant.
“Staff Sergeant, transfer that pile to Sergeant Smith.” Once the transfer was complete she gestured back to the formation with her chin. “Resume your position, Marine.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am,” Smitty snapped, double timing back to his place.
“When I say ‘fall out,’ fall in on the gear locker and carry on with your previous mission,” Faith boomed. “Fall OUT. Staff Sergeant, a moment of your time,” she finished. It was very nearly a whisper.
When the Marines were gone, Faith gestured to the rail.
“Staff Sergeant, the colonel gave me an order,” Faith said mildly. “That order was to ‘command voice’ every word that came out of my mouth. I think he’ll forgive me for not command voicing this. If I start in on command voice, by the time I’m done they’ll hear me belowdecks and I think this should be between us, don’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Barnard said.
“Staff Sergeant, how many tours did you do in combat zones, pre-Plague?” Faith asked. “I assume you were in the Sandbox.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Barnard said. “Six, ma’am.”
“Your MOS is… administrative, isn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Barnard said. “Oh, One-Eleven.”
“Was the Fall your first taste of combat?” Faith asked.
“I was in a couple of ambushes in Afghanistan, ma’am,” Barnard said. “I wasn’t just a fobbit on my last tour. I had to go outside the wire as part of my duties. Outside the wire there wasn’t much that was safe, ma’am. And we took a good bit of mortar and rocket fire.”
“So, total, maybe, what, ten hours?” Faith asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” Barnard said.
“And in the Fall, when did you go to free-fire?” Faith asked. “I get that it was pretty much the last day.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Barnard said.
“So maybe ten more there?” Faith asked. “Because, sorry, standing on a rooftop does not count.”
“About that, ma’am,” Barnard said.
“When people ask me ‘how many times have you done this’ I generally say ‘I’d have to check the log,’” Faith said. She pulled out her H&K, slid back the slide with her thumb, checked for a round, dropped the mag and pressed down to make sure it was full all without looking and without a break in speaking. “So after I got done talking with the colonel and the preplanning meeting, I decided to actually check the log. I am technically credited with seven thousand hours of direct infantry combat against infected.” She reinserted the mag and holstered the weapon, again without looking, and just kept staring out to sea.
“Thousand, ma’am?” Barnard said, her mouth dropping open.
“Thousand, Staff Sergeant,” Faith said. “Kind of surprised me. And that is in the last six God-damn months. The point to that is not that I’m a billy bad-ass. It’s that every single item I checked was something that fucked up on me, Sergeant. In combat. Because, yeah, I’ve seen that much combat. I’ve got that much experience of fighting for my life, generally at short ranges when seconds count. I’ve had guns jam, straps break, knives not be sharp enough to cut a throat. And, Staff Sergeant, don’t ask me how many throats I’ve cut because there’s no log for that. My point is that thing about assumptions. I assumed that a Marine staff sergeant would understand what her boss meant by ‘make sure all the gear is straight and get anything that needs it DXed.’ That’s on me. I should have made sure you understood what I was saying. And now we got to get it fixed on the float instead of back at Gitmo where there was a bunch of spare shit. Oorah?”
“No excuse, ma’am,” Barnard said, stone-faced.
“The point to this stuff we just did was not to make you look or feel like a fool, Staff Sergeant,” Faith said, still not looking at her. “I know I don’t work real good when people make me feel stupid. I figure most people are like that. I just realized a couple of things after the colonel was done ‘counseling’ me. Since you didn’t trust me you didn’t trust that I knew what I was talking about. You didn’t trust my experience ’cause I was a kid and a second lieutenant. You were, Staff Sergeant, assuming. And you didn’t understand what I meant. Not with this. I don’t mean to cut you down in any way, Staff Sergeant. But you’re a clerk. You’re not infantry. I don’t know if you wanted to be infantry but you couldn’t ’cause you were a girl. But you’re not, and you’re not real experienced at it.
“You don’t know how shit fucks up at the best of times in combat. Forget that ‘fog of war’ crap. I’m talking about an M4 jams with a bunch of infected running at us and the guy has to remember how to clear it and ends up ADing his buddy in the ass. And our M4s are gonna jam. ’Cause we have to cover them in oil to keep the salt from fucking them up but as soon as we hit the fucking beach that fine sand is gonna stick to them and jam them like a son of a bitch. That kind of ‘shit fucks up in combat.’
“Now, I realize that you probably didn’t understand that and you so you didn’t understand the order. Again, my bad. That doesn’t mean I think I know everything, Staff Sergeant. I’m not…what’s that word? I’m not salty. I don’t know shit about the Marine Corps. You’ve got me in spades on that. I can find Parris Island on a map, now, but all I know is that Quantico is in Virginia someplace. And what the fuck is that thing about a Tavern?
“And you can probably score high expert on a rifle range and I’d maybe score marksman. Hell, if you hadn’t been getting the platoon in tune, I’d have brought you in to explain all the paperwork crap the colonel’s been throwing at me ’cause I spend most of my time trying not to cry I’m so fucking clueless. And I hate feeling stupid. I’m getting so fucking frustrated with all this paperwork and planning crap…
“But day after tomorrow we’re going ashore on what is sure to be a really great little island, the overheads are awesome, to go do the only thing I do know, which is killing the fuck out of infected. And Staff Sergeant, for God’s sake, if you don’t understand one of my orders, please, Cindy, ask. Because if you don’t, you’re going to get some of my Marines killed. And that will really piss me off. And, Cindy, you don’t want somebody like me pissed off.”
She turned and looked the staff sergeant in the eye.
“Because I don’t do words real good, Staff Sergeant, and I don’t know how to do that crap where you write an evaluation report that sounds good but makes people look like shit. I can’t do that stuff good. When I say I’m gonna kill somebody, Staff Sergeant, I ain’t talkin’ about their career. Oorah?”