Verge of Extinction (Apex Predator Book 3) (29 page)

He thumbed the book again.  It was 127 pages of training, tactical, and operational doctrine.  It covered everything from training troops in head shots to instructions on how to cordon and clear a medium sized city.  He wondered how many lives would be saved in the coming months.

A knock on the door brought his attention back to the present.  Three women stood in the doorway.  Two wore the blue camouflaged uniform of the Navy; the third wore the digital camouflage of the Marines.

She was smaller and younger than the others.  Her uniform looked like she had borrowed it from her older brother.  The eagle with a single chevron pointing down on her collar denoted the girl as a Petty Officer Third Class.  A caduceus was pinned to her opposite collar, marking her as a corpsman.

Navy corpsmen referred to themselves as either blue side, corpsman that took care of Navy personnel or green side, corpsmen who accompanied Marines.  By wearing the green digital camouflage uniform, this young petty officer was proudly displaying that she was, most definitely, green side.

The other women both wore the gold oak leaf clusters of Lieutenant Commander.  Both women also wore a single gold oak leaf on the collar opposite the rank insignia.  The younger, darker skinned women’s single oak leaf had a silver diamond imbedded in it, which indicated she was a physician instead of a nurse.

“May we come in Sergeant Major?” Jen asked.

“Of course you can,” he said as broke into a giant grin.  He missed these three.  His job as the Training Brigade’s senior enlisted soldier kept him away from her for entirely too long.  As the two officers entered, he and Kerry stood at attention.

Jen was used to this behavior.  Ever since Indira’s father had pressed them all into the service, and promoted them to appropriate ranks, Sergeant Major Brown had been a stickler for military customs and courtesies.  Well, he was when they were in public, she admitted to herself.

After arriving in Cuba, things became very emotional for most of the members of the group.  Indira had reunited with her father, one of the politicians who managed to escape.  The rest had been able to let the tragedy of the past several months sink in.  People cried, a lot.  Kerry had insisted that her shrine from the Island be brought to Cuba.  The politician ensured that her wish was granted.

One day, at the shrine, Jen had found herself in Sergeant Major Brown’s arms again, crying over Mike and Jackson.  She hadn’t thought anything of it for a few days.  Then she realized she felt alone when he was not in her company.  Days when he was in the field training troops, were long and hard to deal with.  She had known for a long time that he was her intellectual equal.  She had never once thought of him as a romantic equal. Not until that day.

“How’s business at the hospital?” he asked the women.  “What are you doing in greens?  I thought these two were training you to be a hospital corpsman.”

“They did,” Theresa told him.  “I’m a fully qualified corpsman.  Petty Officer Donaldson told me to tell you that I’m both green and blue side qualified.  I’m not sure exactly what that means, but I do know I’m allowed to go out with the Marines.”

“Like hell you are little lady,” he retorted.  “You are fifteen years old. You will not go gallivanting around the grey zone with a bunch of jarheads while I have anything to say about it. Who signed off on your qualification papers anyway?”

“Oh, that would be Colonel Westergart,” Indira snorted.  “And daddy gave it his blessing.  So, Sergeant Major, you keep your nose out of it.”  She stuck her tongue out at the poor old soldier.

“Alright, but if you’re going to get assigned to a line unit, let me pick one for you.  I’ve got all their training records.  I know the good ones from the not so good ones.”

She squealed from excitement and left the room.

“Oh look,” Jen said.  “You’ve run her off.”

“Run her off?” he asked innocently.  “What do you mean I ran her off?  You know as well as I do where she’s going.  She’s going over to see that boy Blake.”

Jen didn’t think he knew about Blake.  “That’s right, I know.”  He gave her a little crooked smile.  “It’s ok.  I trained the kid.  He’s smart.  He’ll be just fine for her.”

His facial expression suddenly went very cold.  Something was wrong.  “What?” she asked.

“I just remembered; he’s going to 2
nd
Company 3
rd
Mechanized Battalion.”

“So?” the three women asked in unison.

“3
rd
Mech and 2
nd
Armored are going on the CDC run tomorrow.”

The women frowned.  The CDC, with help from a brigade of the 101
st
Air Mobile and an Engineer Battalion of the Georgia National Guard, had managed to stay in business all these months.  Unfortunately, the entire city of Atlanta was clawing at their gates.  There was no way in or out, and food was becoming an issue.

The powers that be had started running replenishment missions.  First, they were using V-22 Ospreys, tilt rotor fixed wing aircraft.  But, two crashed in the span of a week had ended that.  Plus, they couldn’t really carry much in the line of food.  There were upwards of 10,000 people in the Center, as it had come to be known.  That was a lot of groceries for the little V-22’s to carry.

So, last month supply convoys began rolling overland to.  The first convoy lost six vehicles and 22 soldiers.  The numbers of zombies were just too great.  The next convoy only lost two trucks, but 45 men were killed.  The last few convoys had done better, with only nineteen casualties between them.  The CDC run was not, by any stretch of the imagination a milk run.  Oh well, at least Theresa wasn’t going with the Army.  She would be with a bunch of Marines.  They’d take care of her when they went out.  Marines protected their corpsmen better than their sister’s virginity.

He reached into the bottom drawer of his desk and retrieved a bottle of Cuban rum and two glasses. “Sorry ladies,” he told them with a wink.  “I only have enough clean glasses for me and my woman.”  The three women giggled as Kerry shut the door behind her. 
Have fun you two
, she thought. 
You’ve earned it.