O'Neal shook his head as Gunny Pappas came in the door with his hand over his mouth.
"You're sniggering, Gunny."
"I am not," the former marine answered. "I'm snickering. There's a difference."
"I don't think this was a good idea," O'Neal said, taking a puff of the cigar to keep it lit. "Sunday's both smart and former service. I think Slight's in over her head, frankly."
"Maybe she is," the sergeant major said with a shrug. "But this is an old and honorable tradition. What sort of unit would we be if we didn't send the new L-T out on a quest for something that doesn't exist?"
"I dunno," Mike said with a smile. "One that doesn't have a piper?"
* * *
Sunday stood outside the battalion headquarters, one hand on his hip and the other slowly rubbing his chin, a thoughtful expression on his face. He looked around the small cantonment area, searching for a gleam of inspiration until his eye was caught by a poster advertising the new Ground Forces Exchange. He looked at it thoughtfully for a moment and then grinned.
Whistling, he strode down the road towards main post, saluting the occasional passing troop. Any of them that looked at his face, looked away almost immediately; that was not the sort of expression you wanted to see on a person approximately the size of a bulldozer.
* * *
Maggie Findley was a short, petite brunette, seventeen years old and in another year, if she was still alive, would graduate from Central High School ("Home of the Dragons!"). She had applied for the job at the Ground Forces Exchange for two reasons; it was a job and jobs were scarce these days and, all things being equal it might be a good way to meet a nice guy.
This was her first shift all alone on the register and, so far, it had been a quiet Saturday morning. A rather large soldier had entered not too long before and headed to the back but, really, they were generally nice guys.
When she saw him headed back to the front she was momentarily a little nervous; he was not just large he was enormous. But after a moment she noticed the silver bars of a first lieutenant and stopped worrying; officers were gentlemen after all. So it was in this pleasant state of mind that she blushed bright red when the lieutenant set down the small box he had been carrying.
* * *
Tommy smiled at the young lady behind the counter, whose nametag read "Findley." "Would you happen to have any more of this in the back? There were only a few boxes stocked on the shelf."
"Uh," she looked from the box to the officer and blushed again. "You . . . need more?" she squeaked.
"Actually, if you have an unopened case that would be perfect," he said with an unintentionally feral grin. "My company commander and I are . . ." he made some vague hand gestures, " . . . having some difficulty."
"I'll-go-right-now," Maggie said quickly and darted around the counter towards the back.
Tommy stood at the counter, aimlessly whistling through his teeth for a moment, then picked up a copy of Guns and Ammo, one of the few magazines to survive the collapse in publishing. He flipped through a couple of pages looking at the new Desert Eagle .65 design. He, personally, thought that anyone smaller than him would be as likely to knock themselves out as be able to fire the damned thing. But some people just had to have the biggest gun on the block.
The clerk came back from the bag carrying, as surreptitiously as possible, a small blue-and-white box. "We . . . only have it in the brand name. . . ."
"That's fine," Tommy said, putting the magazine away and pulling out his wallet. "Perfect, actually."
"Will that be paper or plastic?" Maggie asked breathlessly, trying not to meet his eye.
"Oh, paper, by all means," Tommy said with a feral grin. "Please."
* * *
"Sergeant Bogdanovich?" Lieutenant Sunday said hesitantly, stepping through the first sergeant's door. "Could you join me for a moment?"
"Certainly, sir," Boggle said, getting up. She nodded at the package. "Is that the undergel?"
"I had to go to battalion looking for it," Tommy said obliquely, opening the door to the company commander's office. "Permission to enter, ma'am?"
"Oh, come in, Sunday," Captain Slight said. "Did you find the undergel?"
"Alas, no, ma'am," Sunday said, coming to attention with a long face. "It appears it has all been expended by Charlie Company, ma'am. However, I remembered in my reading that alternate materials can sometimes be substituted," he continued, pulling the case of K-Y jelly out of the paper bag and setting it on the company commander's desk, "and I thought that, given the specifications, this might satisfy your needs."
Captain Slight blushed bright red as Bogdanovich broke into howls of laughter. "Why, yes, sar . . . Lieutenant. I suppose that . . . could be a useful substitute in some cases."
Captain Slight shook her head in chagrin. "Major O'Neal warned me not to do this."
"I think we should listen to him next time, ma'am," Boggle said, wiping the tears out of her eyes. "Tricky, L-T."
"I almost considered it over the top," Sunday admitted. "I considered simple Vaseline, but I was afraid it wouldn't get the point across quite as effectively."
"Don't push it," Slight said with a smile. "We got the pun. Okay, to business. I've decided that the best choice is to put you with the Reapers."
"Yes, ma'am," Sunday said with a puzzled expression.
"The Reapers are almost entirely long service," she said. "However, in Roanoke their former platoon sergeant got hit and is going to be in the Regen tanks for a while. We're short on NCOs so you're basically going to be your own platoon sergeant as well as platoon leader. Normally that's the sort of thing that I'd throw on an experienced NCO . . ."
"But you don't have any," Sunday said with a smile. "And I am an experienced NCO. What am I getting?"
"Well, they all know their job," First Sergeant Bogdanovich answered. "And they do it, in combat."
"And in garrison they're impossible," Sunday said.
"Well, we haven't been 'in garrison' in a long time," the company commander said. "But . . . the Bravo Reapers tend to be . . . a bit of a handful. This little charade we went through was, as much as anything, a test to . . ."
"See if I knew how to handle a practical joke?" Sunday said with a huge grin. "They like to play games, huh? I love to play games." He grinned ferally. "I am a master of playing games."
"Well, then you should have fun," Captain Slight said with a smile. "You got anything else?"
"No ma'am," the lieutenant said, reaching for the case of KY jelly. "I guess I'll return this."
"No, no," she said, putting her hand on the case. "I think I'll keep it. As an object lesson. You go get ready for the return of your troops; they'll be back tomorrow morning, most of them, hung over and unhappy."
"That I will, ma'am," Sunday said, saluting and stepping out the door.
He paused in the outer office and pursed his lips in thought. "AID, let's start looking at records of the Bravo Reapers. I want both combat reports, live audio-video whenever possible, and personal records." Know thine enemy, he thought with a chuckle.
* * *
Major Ryan was of the opinion that there was no substitute for checking up on the progress of the defense works in person. Especially on Sundays when it was just as likely that everyone was laying out.
Today they'd probably be busy, though. He could already hear Colonel Jorgensen's precious artillery tubes firing on the approaching horde; he imagined that somebody would be up and ready to receive them. Indeed, the Wall appeared to be a veritable beehive of activity; it even looked a bit like one.