But Barry still hadn’t spoken to her outside of duties, which had been a bummer. Had to be something wrong with her, if a nice guy like him was avoiding her. Or so she’d thought until just now.
Thirty seconds…
The Little Bird gave a final flinch in the air. Fifty feet above the ground, the pilot managed to halt their plummeting descent by some miracle of piloting that was impressive even by Night Stalker standards. It wavered in the air for several seconds, then simply fell straight down.
A cloud of dust obscured it from view.
“We’re staying down for this one,” Vince announced. It was a dangerous choice. Normally CSAR dumped off the medics, scooted their twenty-million-dollar bird up to safety, then slid back to ground again when they were ready for pickup. On the ground they were vulnerable, even to simulated forces. Every extra second was a risk for the aircraft, but it was also a second less that it would take to transport the victims.
Penny wondered if anyone else even knew about the emergency other than them. The Mayday had come in on the CSAR frequency—it was standard practice to not disrupt other battle communications.
Chapter Four
Contact!
He and Noreen hit the ground running before the CSAR bird had fully settled on its wheels.
Barry was first on site, and wished he wasn’t. The MH-6M Little Bird, nicknamed the Killer Egg for all the weapons it carried, was little more than a Plexiglass bubble barely big enough for the pilot and copilot. The tiny backseat had been filled with the big ammunition cans for their side guns. Engine behind, rotor above, two skids and a tail boom: that’s all there was to it.
Two things had saved the pilots’ lives. The nose had plowed into the blown-loose dirt around a crater made during some previous training, and their ammo cans were empty—light-based scoring weapons had been mounted in place of the heavy guns. If the cans had been full, a quarter-ton of ammunition would have slammed into the backs of their seats and probably crushed them.
Impossibly, the Little Bird was still running. Its rotor blades had been broken off, but the rotor head still spun fiercely to the screaming whine of the damaged turbine.
Not his problem.
Noreen circled to help the copilot.
Barry’s trained responses were already doing a triage on the pilot. Max Engel. Shit! They had breakfast together this morning over a game of backgammon.
Pulse: fast and light.
Breathing: yes, airway clear.
Eyes: still responsive, though he was out cold.
No obvious breaks. Nearside leg and arm appeared okay. Barry reached over to check Max’s other arm where his hand was still holding onto the collective control beside the seat.
Except it wasn’t. His hand was, but there was no arm attached below the elbow. A chunk of the shattered windshield had sliced it off during the crash landing. If it had happened aloft, Max would already have bled out.
Someone reached in through the missing front windshield and began tapping controls. In seconds, the pained scream of the dying engine began to ease.
It took Barry three tries to get a grip on what was left of Max’s arm. Once he finally had a firm hold on it, he managed to yank free a tourniquet, but couldn’t get it looped on through the spray of blood. The person shutting down the helo reached in and helped him place and tighten it. Max would certainly never fly as pilot again. Talk about a lousy deal of the cards; Max loved to fly.
Unable to do more inside the crumpled cockpit, Barry popped the release on the safety harness. It would take two people to get him out, but Noreen was busy with the semi-conscious copilot.
“Take his head.”
The person tapped three more controls and the helicopter finally fell silent and went dark. All Barry could hear now was the distant crump of flashbangs which had taken the place of major explosives. There were light bursts of simulated fire from the helo’s two miniguns as Mason and Xavier protected the grounded CSAR bird from “enemy forces.”
The person raced around and took careful hold of Max’s helmet.
“Keep his neck in the best alignment with his spine that you can.”
“I know what to do.” Penny. Of course she would be there when needed. He could always count on Penny.
Once they had him prone and Barry had a pair of IVs pumping fluid and blood back into him, Penny turned aside for a moment.
He heard her retching her breakfast out in the dirt, then she was back and helping him with a steady hand.
Chapter Five
You did really great.”
It didn’t feel as if she had. Penny sat in the ER waiting room and stared at the sleeves of her flightsuit, as did most of the other people there. She had washed her hands—scrubbed them hard—but Max’s blood had bathed her up to the elbows, and spattered her everywhere else before they’d staunched the flow.
“Penny,” Barry’s arm came around her shoulders, “you really did. Don’t know if I could have saved him by myself.”
She shook her head.
“Penny?” Barry was worried.
About her mental state. How in hell was she supposed to explain what was really bothering her?
“Hey, Copper,” he made it a tease.
She looked at him.
So close, so kind and worried—she couldn’t ignore that.
“It’s not the blood that’s bothering me. I don’t even think it’s what happened to Max, though I’m sorry as hell for him. He handled a big part of my training—a damn good man to have at your back.”
“Then what is it?”
“Gonna sound stupid.”
“Try me.”
Penny scraped at a bit of dried blood on the back of one of her fingernails. She’d had friends die before—had worn their blood more than a few times.
“C’mon or I’ll start calling you Copper Penny.”
“I am…” Penny wanted to look away from his deep blue eyes, “unconscionably glad to be alive. Time is so goddamn precious and I’ve wasted so much of it. I feel ashamed.”
Barry started chuckling. He jostled her with the arm she hadn’t noticed he still had around her shoulder.
“What?”
“I am sitting next to CSAR pilot Penny Penrose of the 160th SOAR Night Stalkers highly decorated 5th Battalion E Company, right?”
“I know that. That’s not what I’m talking about.”
Barry squinted his eyes his blue eyes at her. “Then…what’s the topic?”
A doc interrupted them. Operation was done, they’d cleaned up the amputation. Max had come out from under the drugs just long enough to show no brain damage from blood loss, but not long enough to know he’d lost both his arm and his career before they’d put him back under. He was stable enough that they were shipping him to the VA hospital near Sacramento so that he’d wake up near his family.
Barry had led her out of the antiseptic hospital and into the clean desert air.
They were out in the cool desert in time to watch the sunrise over the NTTR.
Chapter Six
Why are you talking to me now?”
“What are you so ashamed about wasting time on?” Barry sat outside himself for a moment and wondered how he was actually speaking to Penny Penrose about something other than a mission. But the opportunity was too precious to waste.
As the sunrise progressed, they walked together across the airfield, headed to the SOAR hangar on the Tonopah Airport. Only a mile away, it wasn’t worth requisitioning a jeep. There was traffic associated with the on-going training exercise, but theirs had been the only traffic toward the hospital. No one passed to offer them a lift, for which Barry was grateful.
The sun had warmed the sky to a dusky red that matched the color of Penny’s lovely hair.
“Give, Copper Penny. Or I’ll call you Red next.”
“Like living dangerously, do you, Barry?”
Better to answer with a question than the truth. “Talk to me, Penny.”
She stopped a
nd stared out at the desert. The horizon was shifting from red to pink for three-sixty around. He loved the desert sunrises, where the whole sky colored at once so that it seemed the sunrise could come from any direction and surprise you.
This time he gave her the silence to collect her thoughts.
The sun had finally revealed its plan of attack for the day and was a hard yellow glow, not quite cracking over the Kawich Range yet. The light caught in her hair until it shimmered. Her skin was so pale that a brush of freckles across her nose stood out even in this light.
The sun had broken free of the hills and begun its climb into the morning before she finally spoke.
“David is what I’m ashamed of. The men before him. The time I wasted with them. Max almost died last night.”
“Is it Max you’re interested in?” Please say no. That would be awful in so many ways.
“Max? No. He’s got a girl in San Francisco. Good one, he says. Hopefully she’ll stick when she sees what happened.”
Barry had heard the same news, but he’d missed the whole breakup between Penny and David, so he could have missed something with Max as well.
“After last night, I’m just aware that I don’t want to waste any more time. I’ve wanted to be like Noreen Wallace since the moment I met her, but I could never figure out how. Now I know why I wanted to be like her. She’s happy. She’s honestly and thoroughly happy. On top of that, she’s marrying a damn good man and knows it. I want a good man like that. One who makes me smile and feel good about who he is and who I am. Who we are together.”
She started walking again, kicking up dust as if to watch it catch the light. Or maybe as if kicking away her past choices. Barry liked the second possibility for himself and he fell in beside her to kick away some of his own dust.
“Now tell me why you’ve suddenly started talking to me.”
“The truth?”
“The truth,” Penny nodded emphatically.
“Sure you can handle it?” At the teasing tone, he felt more like himself than he ever had talking to her. Focusing on the upside had always been his goal, and now he truly was.
“I’m sure, Barry,” and the quirk of a smile gave him hope. She was a top flier in the best helicopter unit in the world. And the best feature on the beautiful redhead was her smile.
“What the hell,” he put his bets all in. This time he was playing to win. “I’m hoping to convince you that I’m that good man.”
Chapter Seven
I know you’re a good man. Otherwise—” Then Penny’s brain went sideways on her and she stumbled to a halt.
Barry stopped and watched her. At first his eyes were cautious, but soon she could see the humor rising into them. The smile climbing up in close formation.
“What…” but she didn’t know what she wanted to ask. “Why…” didn’t help either. “But…” she waved her hand helplessly. It might have been toward their CSAR helicopter that they had nearly reached, though now disappearing into the heat shimmer rising off the vast expanse of pavement. Or she might have been waving toward the past.
“Why haven’t I said anything before?”
She could only nod.
“Gearing up the nerve to talk to you took a while.”
“A damn long while.”
“Well, I was almost there, and then you starting seeing David. Seemed like keeping my mouth shut was the right thing to do after that.”
“Almost there? What stopped you?”
“You’re scary as hell, Copper Penny.”
“I am? No I’m not. Even if I am, you’re a combat medic who just saved Max’s life. How can you be afraid to talk to a girl?”
He shrugged uncomfortably, “When it’s you. I am.”
Penny scrubbed a hand through her thick hair, then began walking slowly toward the parked helo. “Why?”
“Because in addition to being drop dead gorgeous, you’re also the most impressive woman I’ve ever met.”
“Me? Maybe the military me. There’s a whole me you don’t know that’s a total mess.”
Barry grabbed the shoulder of her flight suit as she reached to open the cargo door. She wanted to see if they’d cleaned it up yet. He turned her away to look at him.
“It’s exactly the you that I know. I’ve been watching you a long time—on and off the flightline. It’s just that I didn’t realize until last night that you weren’t with David anymore. I wasn’t going to miss my opportunity again, even if the answer was no.”
“The answer to what?” Penny was feeling all muddle-headed. Maybe it was the heat. Or Max’s injury. Or—
“The answer to the question of—will you go out on a date with me?”
“Well, at least you aren’t asking me to marry you and have kids.”
“Not yet,” Barry’s smile said he knew exactly what he’d just done to her brain.
“So what’s this date going to be?” It was the best defense she could come up with to buy her a moment to think. The screens of her life were changing far too fast for her to focus on. All systems…in flux!
“Well, we’re both going to be at Xavier and Noreen’s wedding in a couple days, care to be my date?”
“You want our first date to be a wedding?”
“Sure.” Whatever hesitancy and silence Barry Goldsmith had always shown to her had evaporated with the morning light. “Breaching unknown territory together.”
“Let me guess. You’re expecting me to be the one who catches the bouquet?”
“I can always hope.”
Penny really didn’t know what to do with him. He was handsome as all hell, a great guy, and a top medic with the same elite outfit she’d spent years clawing to get into.
And…she liked him. Liked him a lot. She’d seen his work, his dedication, and his kindness under the very worst of circumstances. And she had no real secrets from him either. He’d had every opportunity to see the good and the bad of her over their last year together.
“A date at a wedding with me catching the bouquet,” she repeated, but it didn’t sound nearly as strange as the first time she’d said it.
“Uh-huh.” His happy tone had her considering various ways she could wipe that smile off his face.
But she didn’t want to. So, rather than following her normal pre-flight procedures with men, she’d implement a change of protocol.
“What do you say, Red?” Now he was just asking for it.
“A date?” She decided that for Barry she just might want to be the woman catching that bouquet. “But we haven’t even kissed yet.”
“I know how to cure that, Penny from Heaven.”
So did she. And if Barry wanted to see her that way, she was going to let him.
Like the good pilot she was, she didn’t bother answering with words.
If you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy:
Her Heart and the "Friend" Command
Military War Dog handler Liza Minot finally lands her big chance. A Delta Force mission requires her and Sergey’s specialty—tracking explosives.
When assigned to Master Sergeant Garret Conway’s squad, her past confronts her. Back in high school days, he ran over her first dog. Rex’s old age and failing health made it a cruelty or a mercy—she still can’t decide which. However, Conway the boy and Conway the man are two very different problems.
Only with her war dog’s help can they both break free of their past to track down Her Heart and the “Friend” Command.
Introduction
I’ve discovered that a lot of the Delta Force short stories have a richness and a depth inherent in their nature. I’m not sure where that comes from, but neither am I complaining. This also makes them run longer than most of my other stories.
Her Heart and the “Friend” Command (by far the longest story this year) picks up less than a year after the fan favorite Her Silent Heart and the Open Sky (2016’s longest story). And it follows the same team, two of whom came out of Delta Force #2, Target Engaged.
&nbs
p; This story, as well as tales like Reaching Out at Henderson’s Ranch and the brand new White House Protection Force #1, Off the Leash, can all be traced back to a fan who sent me an email three years ago. She asked when I was going to start writing about MWDs, Military War Dogs. We started conversing about it.
Her family plays foster home for MWD puppies from Lackland Air Force Base—where most MWDs are raised and trained. The dogs typically spend two years with a foster family before they are tested for temperament and skills prior to training. It acclimatizes them to tight human bonds. She sent me a reading list, and it wasn’t long before I knew she was right, I had to write about them.
That was the real focus of this story. The handler-dog bond runs deep in the field. They depend upon each other for their very lives. They eat together, sleep together, and fight together. And, perhaps most surprisingly—because of the IED-laden battlefields in Afghanistan and Iraq—the dog and their handler lead the way on almost any patrol. It isn’t up to the top warrior to take point, but rather the one who will keep the team the safest.
To set a love story in such a harsh environment has always been a challenge that I’ve enjoyed. So drawing on a dog from the past to shape the relationship in the present seemed like a nice touch and I love the depth it added to this story.
Chapter One
Today’s the day, Sergey.”
He watched her as she lashed on her fatigues, boots, vest, and helmet. His eyes tracked every motion as she stood over her pack in the safehouse bedroom. A grand word for a faded concrete cube, peeling whitewash, and a steel cot that might have once been comfortable, but certainly wasn’t anymore. A tiny window let in the last of the day’s red light and the occasional whirl of the bitter dust that southern Afghanistan used for soil.
“You’d make me feel crazy self-conscious, Sergey, if you weren’t a dog.” Her fifty-five pound Malinois war dog popped to his feet as she knelt beside him to strap on his own Kevlar vest. Normally he’d be kenneled rather than curled up at the foot of her bunk but, since the US military had sent her to a forward operating base in Afghanistan hell, such amenities were non-existent. She far preferred having her big furry boy asleep at her feet. They both did.
The Ides of Matt 2017 Page 17
