Out of the Fire

Part 17- WTF

Mary tasked Lieutenant Jill Carson to act as Liaison Officer for the Australians and authorised they have free access to anything they wanted to see. It was obvious that they were very interested in the American's technology, the solar powered vehicles, electronic communications and computer technology especially. Having delegated that duty and before attending to the aftermath of the battle, Mary first had to find someone to look after Little Joe, she cornered Brian and Elle in the cavern. With Little Joe sorted, the civilians, now eager to vacate the sanctuary, were getting restless and hungry, it being almost lunch time.

"Almost lunch?" Mary said to herself, "Shit, all that's happened, and it isn't even lunch time, fuck!"

Intercepting a civilian delegation that included the Mayor and the doctors, Mary pointed out to them, that obviously as the area around the farm and Industrial Sectors were littered with dead and dying warriors there may be even some unhurt and dangerous survivors. Advising them also, that the ground was gruesomely blood soaked and littered with bits and pieces of bodies. Did the civilians really want to see that, or did they want to expose their children to it? One of the delegation, a colleague of Brian's, that Mary recognised as an the childhood teacher, went decidedly pale and looked as if she was about to throw up. After a brief discussion among themselves the civilians decided to leave it all to the professionals and retreated to the cavern to advise the rest of the community of the good news.

The civilian problem temporarily resolved, she turned to the waiting Kai, he reported that the clearing patrols were now ready and that preliminary drone recons were underway. Joining with the team sergeants to conducted the final gear check Mary confirmed they were heading out loaded for bear. Each of the soldiers with their game faces set to stoney, were intent on showing the visitors that they were, and always had been, fully capable of looking after themselves and their community. A short message over the section radios from HQ had the teams heading out to their patrol areas. Accompanying them as far as the gap in the wire, Mary headed back to the Medical Centre to check on Charlie and Joe. It was a pity that Joe's return had been overshadowed by the events of the morning because she really needed time with him and it didn't look like that was going to happen any time soon.

She found Jean, Joe and Charlie lounging the waiting room sipping tea and chatting, Charlie still dressed in her pregnant fatigues but not in a bed as Mary expected. Put out, Mary was about to ask, when Charlie held a hand up to cut her off, she explained that the doctor had diagnosed false contractions brought on by stress.

"Dr Dalal tells me that I could still get to lug this critter around for another six weeks," Charlie advised her.

"Well that is good news. Look I haven't even had a chance to thank you for what you did out there," Mary began.

"Anyone would have done it, I didn't have much choice, but thanks for putting in the refuges, that one certainly saved our lives. I was so frightened though, Sally was a tower, and Little Joe was so brave," Charlie responded.

"I can't stay, there is so much to be organised," Mary gave Charlie a huge hug and turned to Joe. "Can you drag yourself away for a while?" she asked, sounding more abrupt than she meant to.

"I was about to come looking for you," he said, "What do you want me to do?"

"Check in to HQ and take command of the clearing patrols, I need Kai and his engineers to begin the battlefield clean up."

Joe embraced Charlie and gave Jean a kiss and followed Mary out. Holding hands as they walked, they chatted awkwardly about the last month or so without going into details. Stopping and dragging Joe to face her, Mary made a point of telling Joe that she was pissed that he had escaped and didn't come straight home.