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

The TMC

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(R)eboot, (A)bort, (I)gnore
>I
I

I

I spread my arms and legs out, knowing I was going to hit face first into the snow, and my guts clenched. The lizard screeched, his fear of falling bursting the forefront, and started hammering on the panic button. I hit with a soft impact, despite the lizard's insistence that we were going to smash onto rocks where larger beasts would eat us because we wouldn't be able to get away, plunging into the snow after a second and a half drop from over thirty-five feet. It still knocked the breath out of me and made my previously numb skin tingle with impact pain.

Once I'd stopped moving I immediately began to swim upward, struggling and kicking at the snow until my head broke the surface and I gasped. I knew my face was bruised, the goggles pushed into my face.

"You always lead with your face, Ant," Westlin laughed, reaching down and pulling on my belt, helping me struggle to my feet.

Her hand was warm.

"'m a boy," I slurred, staggering forward. I knew where I was, only a few hundred yards from the Dispensary. I'd just have to cross the road, and there it would be. "Face just t'keep mah skull warm," I finished.

Westlin laughed, skipping across the top of the snow next to me, disappearing in and out of the darkness.

The TMC was three stories high, with a high peaked roof, making it forty-five feet high total, but higher up, nearer the barracks, the snow was at least twenty meters, sixty feet, since the barracks itself was completely covered, and that was five stories with a peaked roof.

Surprisingly, again, they'd cleaned the roof, unlike the motor pool and the barracks. The motorpool was roughly thirty feet high inside, so that was a lot of snow to move, where the barracks were less.

The Chow Hall had leadership in Captain One-Ear, and I was willing to bet that the Dispensary had leadership of some type.

Well, I wasn't falling for a sucker play again.

I backed off the roof, moving back to the ridge, and followed it till I found an easy way up. I took the time, moving slowly and deliberately, to sink in the pitons, tie off the rope, and then scale the cliff. Ten paces in each direction showed me the best firing position.

Toward the barracks.

I took the time to lay the rifle to the side, then started stripping away equipment and caching it next to where I'd set the rifle. I used the poncho to cover everything. I knew that it would get covered by snow, but a quick scratch on the rock at an angle that let me see it when I moved down the ridge shelf but wouldn't be visible from the ground. That, and it was exactly five steps from where I'd be firing.

I took two things as I headed back. I took the time to set up the Claymore again, down to only one more left on my ruck, leaving the wire coiled up and the battery disconnected so I didn't hit my own tripline and blow my fucking face off. The next part required me to be sneaky. To move slowly and carefully through the snow.

Nobody was on the roof clearing it, but it was easy to do what I needed to do, run the wire, and leave the clacker next to where I would be able to find it.

When I started circling the Dispensary, looking for the way in, I spotted it a split second before it hit, exhaling and closing my eyes. My skin prickled and my ears popped. I felt blood trickle down one ear as the temperature dropped to the point it sucked all the heat out of the gaps between the layers of clothing I was wearing.