Time/Date Error (Damned of the 2/19th-Book Six) - Done

She Doesn't Need to Know All the Options

Room 275
Second Floor "Far Hammerhead Hall"
2/19th SWG Barracks
2/19th Special Weapons Group Area
Secure Area, Alfenwehr
West Germany
28 October, 1987
0600

The room was still cold, but nothing new. The heat from the steam of the shower had warmed it up, even if it had covered everything with a thin layer of ice and frost. Westlin sat on the dresser, blood trickling down from the scrape on her cheek as she sat, watching us, her chin in her palm. Cromwell sat on one of the chairs, smoking a cigarette, a glass of Wild Turkey and Coke in her hand. She had a large knot at the corner of her jaw, marking where I had reset her dislocated jaw. She'd screamed, but that was all right.

...there is no shame in honest tears or pain filled screams, son...

I'd used two pencils, broken in half, to splint her fingers that she had broken, stitched up her thumb where she had gashed it when she had stabbed those men in the hallway to death.

I had gone into the hallway and checked.

The bodies were gone. Just blood remained.

"Any plan, Cromwell?" I asked her. I reached up and shifted the field dressing she had wound around my head, using the thick gauze pad to cover my left eye.

She looked up suddenly, almost as if she had forgotten I was there. Her blue eyes were dark, haunted by pain and trauma. She stared at me for a long moment, as if she had forgotten how to speak. I didn't interrupt her, just took a long drink off of my Wild Turkey and Orange Crush.

"No," She said, shaking her head. "I just wanted to try to survive, me and the preggos both."

"You armed them with the weapons you found here, right?" I asked.

The lizard, still slightly angry at me wresting control of my body from him, hissed angrily while running my options.

She nodded again. "Everything I could find, then I had to leave."

That got a grin from me. "Good move, there, running. You did the right thing. You got a danger away from the remaining non-combatants as expediently as possible. Out of no good choices, you took the best one."

"Don't do that," She said, shuddering. "I'm still trying to get used to the fact you aren't going to hunt me for sport and then rape me to death."

I shrugged, "Yeah, sorry about that. I wasn't really in charge, you know?"

She nodded at that. "I know, it's just..." her voice trailed off and she shuddered again.

"Post combat drop," I told her. "Drink. It'll help."

She nodded, taking a long drink, pulling down almost half of it. She wiped her mouth and looked at me. "You... you have a plan?"

I smiled at her. "I'm coming up with one." I told her honestly. "Follow my chain of logic here."

She nodded slowly, taking another drink.

"We have groups. Two in the barracks that we have engaged forces from. You believe one or both groups have engaged in cannibalism to survive. One group at the dispensary, one group at the motor pool that was formerly part of the group holing up in the supply area, and the last at the chow hall in possession of the food." She nodded again at that. "Our combat assets include the two of us as an offensive force. The two men with the pregnant women are chapters, neither with combat experience, and we have ten pregnant women."

Again she nodded. I could see her brain start to work. Good. Military training was slotting inbetween trauma and necessity.

"We have limited weaponry, we are outnumbered, with assets that must be protected at all costs," I finished, leaning back and lighting another cigarette. I handed it to Cromwell as she nodded.