by Richard Fox
Hoffman took an involuntary step back and then inwardly cursed his reaction. “I haven’t heard of this. Why wasn’t I informed?” He looked through a tall, institutional window at Opal in the garden where a score of people performed the warrior, downward dog, and baby cobra poses.
A smile grew on his lips as two patient young women, combat Marines by the look of their scars, guided him into the tree pose.
“The government nationalized Ibarra Industries while you were off world. Seems the president realized that with both Ibarra and his sole heir missing and presumed dead, there’s no one to inherit the company. The government taking it over makes things easier. Could you imagine a probate court ruling slowing ship construction? But, as for Opal 6-1-9, I know you’ve some affinity for that unit, but let’s be honest, Lieutenant, it is time to move forward.”
“What are you talking about?”
Opal’s yoga adventure ended and he wandered over to a female sailor in a wheelchair. Her mechanical arms and hands struggled to twist something Hoffman couldn’t quite see.
“You changed your baseline features years ago. Why you would go to such lengths and still keep your bonded unit confuses me. You’re a Strike Marine now; time to leave doughboy garrison duty behind,” Dr. Nimms said.
“Opal is…never,” Hoffman said, gathering his thoughts. “I promised him we’d stay together. I won’t do anything to change that.”
“You seem distracted,” Dr. Nimms said.
Hoffman watched Opal thread flowers into a ring and place it on the head of the woman in the wheelchair. When a bee spotted the arrangement and moved in, Opal chased the black-and-gold trespasser away with his huge hands and a determined look. The other people in the garden moved out of his way, avoiding the bull in the china shop, doing so easily, as though this wasn’t the first time something like this had happened.
Hoffman laughed despite himself and it felt good.
“Cute,” Dr. Nimms said. “And amazing. I doubt Ibarra expected doughboys to be such good companions. Like a big, goofy dog.”
Hoffman clenched his jaw, avoiding looking at her. “He’s neither an attack dog nor a companion dog.”
“Oh, Hoffman. You’re a good man. So generous. Doughboys were made to be attack dogs…guard dogs at the very least.”
“You haven’t spent as much time with him—or the others before they died—as I have,” Hoffman said.
Dr. Nimms shook her head as though warming up for a lecture. “None of them died, Lieutenant. They would have had to have lived for that. Opal is a bio-computer.”
In the garden, Opal carefully pushed the woman in the wheelchair around a fountain, earning smiles from his new friend despite her devastating injuries.
“He cares about people,” Hoffman said.
“He was designed to care or, more accurately, protect us.”
Hoffman exhaled, wondering if he needed to de-stress with a yoga session.
“Listen to me,” Nimms said.
“I heard you.” Hoffman turned his back on the doctor. “Thank you for the very enlightening conversation.”
“Lieutenant,” Dr. Nimms said, “think about what I said. My colleagues and I would treat him well.”
Hoffman stared at the scene in the garden. “I’m sure.” He hesitated. “You know they gave the doughboys only enough medical care during the war to keep them moving.”
“Smart,” the doctor said. “More economical to retire them and build another than repair such a complex biological system. That was then. This is now. I hope we have shown our good faith on this issue. Having him here at Mercy is most unusual.”
The subtle hint, the roundabout attempt to intimidate him, wasn’t lost on Hoffman. “I understand.”
“Listen, Hoffman. He’d be no better off in the Dotari hospital on Hawaii,” Nimms said. “I’m not the villain in this scenario.”
Hoffman shrugged. “I know where he belongs and where he’s going. Good day, Doctor.”
“Lieutenant, the world is not the way you wish it to be,” she said just before her phone rang. She answered it curtly and said, “Excuse me. I have to take this. Don’t go anywhere.”
Hoffman nodded absently toward the woman and went into the garden. “Opal.”
“Sir!” The doughboy’s eyes flashed wide. He ran to Hoffman, seized him in a bear hug, and lifted him off his feet. “Sir came back!”
“Yeah, big guy. I’m back. Now…can you put me down?”
Opal lowered him carefully to the ground. “Opal is glad Sir came back.”
“Is he leaving?” asked the sailor in the wheelchair.
Hoffman didn’t know what to say.
“Well, you better take care of my friend, boss,” she said. The tears that accompanied her smile warmed Hoffman’s heart.
“Good bye, Opal,” the sailor said.
Opal trotted toward her, throwing his arms wide to grab her as he had seized Hoffman a moment earlier.
“Opal, no hugging!” Hoffman said.
Instantly, the heavily muscled giant snapped his arms down to his side, hesitated, then knelt before the woman in the wheelchair. “Goodbye, Petty Officer 1 Benckle, Susan D.”
Her smile spread farther across her face as she looked him in the eyes. “You stay safe out there, Opie. I don’t want to see you in the hospital ever again.” She tried to touch him with her mechanical hands but struggled with the controls.
Opal pressed his forehead to hers, hands still obediently at his side.
“Time to go, Opal,” Hoffman said.
“Sir,” Opal said, rising immediately.
Hoffman and Opal walked out of the garden.
Up close, the size and strength of the doughboy still surprised Hoffman, and that was after leading a full platoon of them during the last Xaros attack on Earth.
Nimms slipped her phone back into her lab coat as she walked up to the pair.
“Opal 6-1-9,” the doctor said, “why did you initiate skin-to-skin contact with that patient?”
“Petty Officer 1 can’t hug goodbye. Acceptable responses limited. Sir cancelled all mouth-to-mouth contact,” Opal said.
“Kissing, Opal. You’re not allowed to kiss anything…or anyone.” Hoffman faced the doctor. “There was a slight incident a few years ago.”
“How far has he deviated from his base programming?” the doctor asked, her voice low and alarmed.
“He’s been learning for years. He can adapt,” Hoffman said, watching gears turn in the doctor’s head he didn’t like. None of the conversation had been reassuring, but this could make someone like the doctor take Opal away from him. “Opal, let’s go.”
“Sir,” Opal said.
Hoffman headed toward the main exit, stopping only in the large foyer to pay his respects in front of a shrine to St. Kallen—fist to heart, then knuckles to lips. The statue evoked deep emotion. Situated on a marble foundation, the woman in the wheelchair sat with her hands folded in her lap. He wanted to look into her slightly downturned face but would have made a spectacle of himself, kneeling before the statue. Hoffman’s reverence for the saint was complex. He felt love, fear, kinship, and hope at the same time as he wondered what it had been like for Kallen, Elias, and the other Armor soldiers inside the war machines.
“Sir?”
Welling in his chest was the need to pray, something he didn’t feel often, but also something he didn’t ignore. If he took the time to pray now, though, Opal would be confused and Hoffman was too tired from fencing with the doctor to explain.
“Let’s go, Opal. No more hospitals for you.”
“Like Petty Officer 1 Benckle, Susan D. said,” Opal said.
****
Sergeant Madilyn Booker watched Eric Garrison eat. The young corporal gripped a shatterproof glass of whole milk in one hand as he shoveled bacon and scrambled eggs into his mouth with a fork in the other hand. Between bites, he drank milk and nodded to indicate he was tracking the conversation.
Corporal Kate Adams sat sides
addle on the bench next to Booker, staring at Garrison. “How are you not five hundred pounds…what do you weigh?”
“One eighty-five, plus or minus,” Garrison said as he chewed. “Keeping up with you ladies takes a lot of energy.”
“I still say New Bastion was our last mission together,” Booker said, glancing at the food line and deciding she wasn’t hungry.
“Now pancakes?” Adams asked Garrison. Her own selection of food—only half-eaten—looked meager in comparison to the spectacle the unit’s breacher was making.
“French toast,” Garrison said. “Where’s your sense of culture?” He set down the fork so he could pour syrup over the entire plate, including what remained of the eggs. “I set a PR for dead lifts yesterday…and ran this morning. Are you going to drink your milk?”
“You’re a freak,” Adams said. “I’m gaining weight just watching you.”
Booker and Garrison laughed at that. Adams was tall and thin, looking about as athletic as a runway supermodel, despite being the exact opposite—a buzz-cut death-metal chick who spoke three languages and could drive anything with wheels or treads.
Adams gave Garrison the finger, then faced Booker. “Why do you keep talking like the lieutenant isn’t coming back? You sound like Garrison.”
“I heard he took a real ass chewing after we got back from New Bastion,” Garrison said.
Booker nodded. “That goat fornication wasn’t completely his fault.”
“That’s not what he’d say,” Garrison said.
“Eat your pancakes,” Booker said.
“French toast.”
“Whatever. I have to admit everything went sideways, but no officer can control Murphy. Especially when there are a bunch of aliens in the mix,” Booker said.
“Alien Murphys are the worst,” Adams said, picking at what was left of her food.
“They train us to overcome and adapt, which is what the lieutenant did,” Booker said.
Garrison sat straighter. “Right after we blew up the most expensive part of the city. Man, I loved that part. Boom!”
Adams slugged Garrison in the shoulder as he started to finish his milk.
“That’s not what got our boss in trouble and you know it.” Booker wanted to say more but held her tongue.
Adams laughed, watching Garrison choke on milk as she listened to Booker. “Blowing stuff up is what we do, but it probably wasn’t good when Duke assassinated an alien in full view of a hundred witnesses.”
“That guy can shoot,” Garrison said, tears—or possibly milk—filling his eyes.
“I’m not blaming Duke,” Adams said. “Just to be clear.”
“You’re just blaming Lieutenant Hoffman,” Booker said.
“Well, not exactly. Murphy happens, like you said.” Adams shifted as though she might stand and leave, but rubbed the back of her neck instead.
None of them spoke as Garrison cleared his throat, then looked longingly at the cafeteria tray between his calloused hands.
“Officially, none of it happened,” Booker said. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“Yeah,” Adams said, “that gives me goose bumps. It’s my first time under a black ops gag order.”
“Hush,” Garrison said. “There could be listening devices everywhere. You’re going to get jammed up for spreading rumors about Lieutenant Hoffman. And for assaulting an honest Marine while he’s trying to eat.”
“Shut up,” Adams said.
Booker’s head ached. Trying to have a serious conversation with these two was like playing checkers with her sister’s kids. She scanned the room out of habit, cataloging the tables of Marines, sailors, and soldiers in their groups. A Marine from another platoon, commanded by Lieutenant Fallon, entered the room and scouted a table too close for her comfort, but she decided not to mention it to Adams and Garrison yet.
“We haven’t been pulled from assignment rotation,” Booker said.
“How do you still have security clearance?” Adams asked.
Booker chose not to answer.
Garrison leaned forward, lowering his voice. “I heard from a friend who may or may not have access to the NCO rumor train that Hoffman isn’t coming back. This friend of this guy talked to a clerk in HQ who saw transfer paperwork with Hoffman’s name all over it.”
Gunnery Sergeant King walked into the mess hall, glanced briefly at the gathering of Fallon’s team, then ignored them as he sat across from Booker.
“Gunney,” she said.
He nodded once, then faced the food line as though making a tactical decision. A moment later, he looked Booker in the eyes. “What are we doing here?”
“You look like hell, Gunney,” Adams said. “Have you slept this week?”
He didn’t respond, keeping his attention on Booker.
“Our internal intelligence specialist here,” Booker said, indicating Garrison, “has rock-solid information that Lieutenant Hoffman is being transferred.”
King stared down Garrison, who started looking for something more to eat.
“You know how I feel about rumors,” King said, the scar on his face adding severity to his already stern tone.
“Yes, sir,” Garrison said.
“Aren’t you going to eat, Booker?” King asked.
She shook her head.
“Remember the good times?” Garrison asked. “I miss running security for the Pathfinder Teams. Worst thing we had to worry about were the mosquitoes on Daursk.”
“And the six-legged squirrel-things that weren’t safe to eat,” Booker said.
Garrison put down the crust of toast he’d stolen from Adams’ leftovers and held his stomach. “They were not.”
Adams laughed while Booker smiled appreciatively.
King watched Fallon’s team dropping food trays on their table and sliding onto the benches, laughing and telling overlapping stories.
“If Hoffman did take a reassignment, would Opal go with him?” Booker asked.
King gave her the eye.
Garrison pushed aside his empty tray. “I don’t understand the lieutenant and Opal. Why so loyal to a lost cause?”
“The lieutenant isn’t a lost cause,” Adams said.
“You know I meant Opal.”
“You’re the lost cause,” Adams said.
“Say that again the next time you need a door breached.” Garrison looked away from King, who sat like a god of silent disapproval. “Wouldn’t Opal stay with us?”
“Now you care?” Adams said. “I thought you and the big lug didn’t get along.”
“I’m not a total jerk,” Garrison said, pounding a burp from his chest with his fist.
“He’s dumber than a bag of hammers, but nice to have around in a firefight,” King said. “Hell of a lot bigger than Garrison, more sponge for the bullets than the pipe-cleaner here.”
“I’m just trying to be lean and mean like you, Gunney,” Garrison said.
“Careful, Corporal,” King said, only half paying attention to the breacher as Lieutenant Fallon and the rest of his entourage quieted down at the nearby table.
“What’s an officer doing here?” Adams said. “Their side of the mess hall is way over there.”
Booker wondered the same thing but kept her mouth shut. She watched King instead and saw a vein twitch in the gunnery sergeant’s neck. If it weren’t for the chain of command and about a thousand rules and traditions, she thought there would be a brawl soon.
Booker, Garrison, Adams, and King watched Fallon’s team. Blessed with nothing but good luck and a golden reputation, they were laughing and joking again. Their boss sat at the head of the table, quietly removed from the enlisted ranks yet present as a benevolent and much-loved overlord. Other Strike Marine teams nodded respectfully or saluted Fallon as they selected tables that wouldn’t crowd his team.
“All hail the A team,” Garrison murmured.
“Be thankful we don’t work for that prima donna,” King said, refocusing on Booker, Garrison, and Adams
. “At least we have two extra weeks of leave. I’m heading to the armory. Some of our gear might qualify for replacement.” He stood and walked away without another glance at his former boss.
“Awkward,” Garrison said.
“You think?” Adams said, watching King exit the mess hall.
Booker wanted to get King alone and question him further. There was only so much the gunnery sergeant would say in front of the team. She didn’t know the circumstances surrounding King and Fallon’s relationship, only that King had requested a transfer and it hadn’t gone over well.
Two tables away, Fallon stood and went for a walk with two captains and a major, crossing decisively over to officer’s territory. Moments later, another pair of enlisted Strike Marines from Fallon’s platoon approached Booker’s table, ignoring her to accost Garrison and Adams.
“Where’s your boss?” the instigator said.
“Bend over and I’ll show you, Keith,” Garrison said.
Booker was on the verge of pulling rank, hating the idea and pissed off Fallon wasn’t minding his shop. For all she knew, the jack wagon had sent them over to push Garrison’s buttons. The breacher had a bit of a discipline history for brawling before Hoffman calmed him down.
She stood.
Fallon’s Strike Marines looked her up and down appreciatively.
“Sorry, ma’am,” Keith said. “Garrison and I go way back. Wasn’t trying to start trouble.”
Adams popped to her feet. “Good, because she can’t fix stupid. She’s a sergeant and a medic, dumbass. Just because she won’t throat-punch your rank and Garrison’s on probation doesn’t mean I wouldn’t take you to the dance.”
“I’d like that, Adams,” Keith said.
“I guarantee you wouldn’t,” Adams said.
This was where Booker knew she should order Adams to stand down, but she let the moment draw out. “Is there anything we can do for you,” she glanced at the man’s name tape, “Corporal Landon?”
