Way of the Warrior

by Suzanne Brockmann

  At zero on her countdown, she could feel the shift in her two-inch high hover as the team slammed aboard. She gave the stretcher bearer an extra three seconds to load.

  The “GO!” came just as she racked up on the collective, getting her off the dirt and airborne without a wasted instant.

  Whatever was happening in the cargo bay was no longer her problem. They could do everything that most field hospitals could do. If you were alive when CSAR got you, your life expectancy was very high. And sometimes even if you weren’t.

  Lois punched through the dust brownout kicked up by her own rotors and headed back the way she’d come. She slewed hard to clear the first turn in the road as the battle behind her moved toward the other end of the pass.

  She climbed enough to keep her rotor blades clear of the ground and leaned into the first turn in the ravine.

  She barely had time to see the white-hot streak coming in her direction. “RPG!” the warbling tone of the threat detector screeched out. The rocket-propelled grenade impacted her Number One turbine engine with no chance of an evasive maneuver. Dusty pulled the overhead Fire Suppress T-handle as Chuff’s minigun announced he was taking care of whoever had gotten them. That was no longer the problem.

  The problem was she was in a turn that needed four-thousand horsepower to recover from, and she now only had twenty-six hundred. She cranked the Number Two engine right into redline and yanked up hard on the collective.

  Not enough. The steep rock wall of the pass loomed before them. The night-vision gear gave her a perfect, crystalline view—as well-lit as if it were broad daylight—of the boulder field that was going to kill her Hawk.

  And her crew.

  No! There!

  Normally, she’d pull up on the collective and let the tail hit first and then belly flop the bird down—worked well on a flat landing area. The Hawk could take a lot of abuse that way and could often be bounced off its wheels and they’d be on their way.

  But not with these boulders. The very worst of the damage path would be right through the center of the cargo bay where she had four injured, two medics, and two crew chiefs.

  She slammed over the collective and rammed down hard on the right rudder pedal, intentionally driving the pilot’s side rotor blade into the cliff wall.

  They would tumble in a hard roll, but it offered the best chance of the crew’s survival.

  Only one problem.

  She’d known it even before she’d slammed over the collective and didn’t shy away.

  U.S. Army Captain Lois Lang’s position was the very first point of contact in the developing crash.

  • • •

  Lois jerked awake in a cold sweat.

  No cockpit!

  Crisp white sheets. Soft pillow.

  She let out a long, slow sigh of relief. If the damn dream insisted on waking her every single morning, why did it have to be so utterly accurate. And real. Her adrenaline was through the roof, her heart rate only now cascading down through stratospheric flight levels.

  She was in her own apartment in Fort Lewis post housing. She was still here, housed with the rest of the SOAR 5th Battalion. Like most single soldiers in post housing, her possessions were not a major burden. Most of them were hanging on the white walls: the line of pictures of people she’d served with, the ones she’d dragged out of hell and the pictures of them back in the air or back with their families, and most importantly, her different crews over the years—the ones she’d shed blood and sweat with. Her ROTC graduation certificate and the letter signed by the president to commission her as an officer in the U.S. Special Forces were framed at the center of the wall. She belonged here.

  At least this time she’d woken before the final crash, which she often relived in agonizingly slow motion. She’d count that as a good start to the day.

  She swung up to a sitting position and stared at her options. Start the day on crutches or crutches with the prosthetic. She wanted to ignore the damn foot, but reminded herself that “Night Stalkers Don’t Quit.” NSDQ was a motto commonly heard during tough times, and she’d been saying it a lot lately. Well, if they didn’t quit, that also meant they didn’t shy away from the hard choices.

  Fine. As of this moment, no matter what the medicos said, she was done with the crutches. She reached for the foot and began putting it on.

  Two layers of anti-abrasion sock that rolled up over her knee, at least that was still hers. She’d always been told she had great legs, had enjoyed wearing shorts to the inevitable volleyball or beach gatherings to show them off. Now, not so much.

  She slid on the socket and strapped it into place. She’d tried the suction mount but never liked the slick feel of it. So, socks and straps. They’d offered her two different right-foot prostheses, but she’d only taken the one. She didn’t need some dandied-up version of cosmesis. Her right foot was gone; a transtibial shear-off right at mid-calf as she’d kept the rudder pedal rammed down throughout the entire crash to buy every last ounce of safety she could for her crew. And it had worked. Other than a few broken ribs and a concussion, hers was the only injury. If she had to deal with a false foot, then people would have to accept her as she was.

  For the first time since the crash, she didn’t pull on pants, but chose a skirt instead. If you’re gonna do it, girl, you’re gonna do it all the way. So, no false camouflage either.

  The leg came with a fake, skin-toned covering shaped like a human foot. She considered throwing that in the garbage disposal for good measure, but it would just clog the thing up. Hell, lettuce would clog her damned disposal. She chucked the offending plastic covering—with its fake big-toe gap so she could wear a sandal—in the garbage. She had a custom sneaker that would hide most of the prosthetic’s mechanics, but she bypassed that as well, opting to clip on just the rubber toe and heel pads that left the mechanical foot exposed.

  They’d released her from the WTU yesterday. Thank goodness Joint Base Lewis-McChord had one of the Warrior Transition Units right on the base. That meant she’d been able to go through much of her recovery in her own apartment. Well, if the WTU had decided to declare her healthy, then she’d start acting healthy.

  She was still awkward without the crutches. Once dressed, she walked back and forth across the apartment several times. With a curse, she assessed herself as not stable enough to go out without at least a cane. She’d long since discovered just how badly it hurt when she took an unexpected tumble, and this wasn’t a good day for that.

  They’d promised that this foot with its aluminum core and titanium fittings was solid and durable enough for her to run on, but she still found that hard to credit. The nerve sensations she received from her missing foot had nothing to do with what her new one was doing. She actually did better if she didn’t keep looking down to see when it was on the ground and when it was in the air, but it was hard to break the habit when she couldn’t actually feel the ground. Every step was a surprise when ground contact actually occurred—especially because she felt it in her calf and knee, not her foot.

  At the door, she really, really wished she didn’t have to hold onto the knob for a good ten minutes before she could force herself to go through, but she did. That, too, was part of her new reality.

  Head finally high, she made it out the door and through the small lobby. Thankfully, she had a ground floor unit, as the complex had no elevators. Refusing the ADA-compliant access ramp, between her cane and the railing she did manage the three steps out front. The Medical Evaluation Board offices were only a half mile away. She could have called for a car, but for a woman used to twenty-mile runs, it was too demeaning. NSDQ. NSDQ.

  Summer had given way to fall in the Pacific Northwest while she’d recovered. The blazing arid heat of the high passes of the Hindu Kush would be switching to freezing temperatures and impassible snow. She’d always been a Northwest gal and could smell that fresh snap l
eft by an overnight rain, which would have been snow atop the nearby fourteen-thousand-foot peak of Mount Rainier. The thick smell of evergreen and undertone of moss. She could practically taste the apple cider season on the air. The hint of the ocean from the waters of Puget Sound. The sunlight cool as it shone off the wet paving of the walkway. This was home. At least until the Army medically retired her and said it wasn’t anymore.

  “Hey, Lois. How’s life on the Daily Planet today?”

  “Hey, Clark. Doing just super!” And she was doing a little better for Kendall Clark’s presence. She’d allowed herself an hour to cross the half mile to the MEB building, so she could afford to stop and rest a moment after the first hundred yards. “How about you?”

  “Super, now that I’ve run into you.” And he really did look super. Always a little standoffish but a pleasure to look at.

  “Haven’t seen you in a bit.” Not since before her accident.

  “Was at the Sikorsky home office in Connecticut for some upgrade training the last couple months. Didn’t know you were back until just yesterday.”

  “Back.” Nice way to put it. Nicest she’d heard yet.

  Clark was the Black Hawk specialist embedded at Fort Lewis by Sikorsky—the Hawk’s manufacturer. Part engineer, part instructor, and all around good egg. It was inevitable that they’d been thrown together, aside from the training he provided. With him being almost the Clark Kent mild-mannered alias of the superhero, it had been inevitable.

  Others had picked up on it even before they met. Crazy Tim had started it, of course, going way out of his way to introduce them. Then he’d set off on a quest to find a Jimmy and a Perry to form the “ultimate team against evil.” He hadn’t reported any results yet. Of course, Crazy Tim was still aloft in Afghanistan, and she was permanently grounded in Washington State, a bitter pill she did her best to spit out rather than swallow.

  • • •

  Kendall’s eyes kept tracking down to Lois’s uncovered prosthetic foot. He’d pull them away and look back up at her eyes, but it was clearly giving him trouble.

  “It’s okay, Clark. I’m going to just have to get used to it.” She wasn’t happy about it but tried not to sound too upset either; she was the one who’d chosen the skirt after all. “Go ahead, give it the good once-over.” She leaned on her cane and turned it sideways for him to see.

  He squatted down to look, then had the decency to glance back up at her to make sure it was okay. He was such a geek, one of his more charming features. Actually, one of his many charming features. She’d always liked him once Tim had bumped them together.

  “The Soleus Tactical,” she filled him in. “They designed it specifically for a double amputee named Dale Beatty. National Guard guy who hit an IED over in the Dustbowl.” Iraq and Afghanistan lacked many things, but they had plenty of dust. Six months out and she could still feel it clogging her pores.

  “Slick. The springs are adjustable?”

  It was the first time anyone other than a doctor or physical therapist had even been allowed to see it. If there was anyone to be her “first time,” she liked that it was Kendall. For reasons she didn’t care to contemplate, she was ridiculously tempted to run her hand through his black hair not so different from Clark Kent’s. Was she that desperate for company?

  “Yeah,” was the answer to both questions. “They keep retuning the springs as I get used to it, though they’re pretty well done with changes now. The harder I push down, the more reaction back I get. They say I can run on it. That won’t be anytime soon, I can promise you. Even with the socket, it weighs less than my real foot. Great weight loss plan, huh?”

  The engineer in him came out as he tapped a finger against a couple parts of the armature. It was so personal—almost as if he’d just stroked his hand down her bare foot. She must have reacted somehow, because he suddenly jerked his hand back, looked up at her in shocked apology, and proceeded to tip back onto his butt in an effort to withdraw.

  “Crap!” He’d landed on the wet grass, which responded with a distinct squishing sound. Then he looked up at her again. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have… Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

  He was trying to get up without placing his hands in the mud, as well.

  She braced herself and offered her hand to help him up. He took it and, after testing that she could take the load, managed to get back to his feet and stand.

  He twisted to inspect the damage, his hand still in hers. She gave his hand a slight tug, causing him to expose his wet and muddy behind. He had big hands, good ones. She’d witnessed a thousand times how delicate they were on the controls and how powerful when taking a chopper apart to inspect it for wear and tear.

  “Superman with a wet butt.” She could feel the laugh bubbling up inside her. It came out slow and rough. Her voice was long out of practice with making such a sound, but it did come out. She clamped down on it for fear it would go a little hysterical on her. She retrieved her hand, a bit reluctantly. It was her first non-medical contact in six months, and it was surprisingly powerful. So starved for human contact that even clasping hands for a moment had roared through her nervous system and left her jittery. Pitiful, Lois, really damn pitiful.

  He flexed his hand as if terribly conscious of their contact, as well.

  “Pretty super move there, Clark,” she ribbed him to cover her own unease.

  “Damn! I’ve got a meeting in about twenty minutes. I don’t have a change of clothes in the car.”

  And he lived off post. She remembered a nice party at his house, a bunch of Black Hawk pilots from the 4th and 5th Battalions, a summer’s eve barbecue in a suburban backyard. She and Clark had spent much of the evening chatting quietly beneath the arching branches of an old cherry tree. It was a good memory.

  “Here.” She dug out her key. “Unit 32. Don’t make too much of a mess. Towels and a hair dryer under the bathroom sink. You can bring me the key after your meeting. I’ll be over at the MEB offices. Have to do all the Eval Board paperwork about no longer being medically qualified for active duty.” She rapped her cane against her foot with a dull clank for emphasis, then wished she hadn’t.

  “Sorry about that, Lois. You were damned good.”

  She had been, but it felt different having the resident Sikorsky guy say it. “Thanks. Real fun begins after they boot me over to the PEB. The Physical Evaluation Board is going to medically retire my ass no matter what I say. You better scoot if you want to make your meeting.”

  “Right.” He held up the key. “Thanks.”

  “No problem.” She turned and began clomping off toward the MEB office. This was not what she planned to be doing with her life. A pair of the big twin-rotor Chinooks lumbered by low overhead, hammering their way aloft on a training flight. That’s what she wanted to be doing. Flying. They faded away.

  “Hey, Superwoman!” she turned at Clark’s call and almost ate dirt. Only a quick stab with her cane kept her upright after the unexpected motion.

  He should be halfway to the apartment by now, but he still stood where they’d talked; she’d made a good dozen paces from there. He’d been watching her walk like a total Terminator machine, not like the woman she’d once been. She hoped they were far enough apart for him to not see her blush. She kept her chin up so that her embarrassment wouldn’t show.

  “Unit 32,” she told him, risking a point with her cane, the Chinooks moved off enough that she only had to shout a little to be heard. With someone so sharp, he always forgot the strangest things.

  “Knew that.” He inspected his feet for a moment as if to see if they were prosthetic or as if he didn’t want to look at hers.

  Fine. She didn’t need anyone’s symp—

  He looked up. “Are you free for dinner tonight?”

  “I’m free the rest of my damned life.”

  “That’s a yes then?”

 
Was she low enough to take a sympathy date? After she was done with the Medical Eval Board, she’d be low enough for anything to look good. It didn’t really seem fair to a guy as nice as Kendall to use him to cheer herself up, but he had asked.

  “That’s a yes.”

  “Great! I’ll get your key back before then.” He spun around, stepped off the edge of the concrete walkway, and almost went down in the grass again. Then he righted himself, waved, and rushed off. Odd, he wasn’t a clumsy guy, not at all.

  Lois turned herself carefully and aimed back along the path. She was surprised to discover that her step was a little lighter than it had been when she started out.

  • • •

  “So, did the MEB go like you expected?”

  Lois looked around the restaurant. She figured they’d grab dinner at the post’s mess hall, she’d gather her twenty minutes of sympathy, and he’d be done with her safe in the knowledge he’d performed a kindness. Instead, he’d taken her on a real splurge up to Stanley and Seafort’s, perched on the hillside above the city of Tacoma.

  First, it was off post.

  Second, it had an amazing view of the harbor with its big container ships plying the shining waterways of southern Puget Sound. The Olympic Mountains to the west had just gobbled the sun and earned a stunning blood-orange aura for their trouble.

  Third, it wasn’t the sort of place you had a twenty-minute dinner. It was the sort of place you had a two-hour dinner in nice clothes. She hadn’t worn her dress blues or her ACU—Army Combat Uniform—fatigues. Both reminded her too much of the end of her military career, but now she wished she had for the “armor” it would have given her, the explanation of her amputation. Instead, she’d opted for a nice blouse and the same knee-length skirt she’d worn this morning.

  Damn Clark for not telling her where they were going. Of course if he had told her, she probably would have balked, and the man wasn’t stupid. She hadn’t thought to ask, merely hanked her shoulder-length hair back in a ponytail and called it good. Her dog tags were her only ornament, she’d worn those for strength, but with civilian clothes they now felt ridiculous. She slipped them inside her blouse.