Third Person - Complete

Eavesdropping

Lewis was glad of the dim light as she walked out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around her waist and another wrapped around her hair. Her eyes felt sore after the day's excitement and the shower had helped ease her sore muscles. Heather was laying on her stomach on the bed, reading what looked like an anatomy book; Miranda was sitting in the chair, watching porn with a cigarette in her mouth and a beer in her hand.

Lewis sat down in the chair, sighing. She'd spent a good hour after she had returned cleaning her equipment, turning in her weapon and the assistant gunner's bag, and the rest of the gear. After that, she'd properly put away all of her gear, ignoring the sore muscles.

"Catch," Heather suddenly said. Lewis looked up just in time to see the squeeze tube of Ben-Gay flying at her, barely enough time to catch it before it hit her in the face.

"Thanks," Lewis said. She popped the cap, squeezed some into her hand, and started rubbing it into her thighs.

"Good training, huh?" Miranda said, not looking away from the porn.

"It was... different," Lewis said.

"That was just on the fly. Monkey had an idea and the Colonel and Sergeant Mills let him run with it. They were gauging his ability to put together plans on the fly," Miranda said. "Not bad, to be honest."

"How's the eye?" Heather asked.

"Hurts, but the swelling's gone down," Lewis said honestly. "I swear I'm going to spend my whole time in the unit with a black eye."

That made both the women chuckle.

"That butterbar got the Colonel's attention," Miranda mused, still watching the porn.

"How so?" Lewis asked, putting her ankle on her thigh and starting to work the cream into her calf muscle.

"Ant pulled a bunch of officers in that emergency draw. That butterbar you were with really showed he's got potential," Miranda clarified, "He didn't want to be a 'typical butterbar' so he busted his ass to hone his Land-Nav skills. When he didn't know something he let the enlisted that knew the stuff take charge. He was showing the qualities that a lot of Lieutenants never manage to develop and because of that they never leave the first two officer ranks."

Lewis frowned. "So?" Her thumbs caught a knot buried in her calf muscle and she groaned.

"Third Magazine Platoon lost its First Section Leader in the artillery hits, and that's a hard posting. The Colonel let me know that starting the week after next that Lieutenant will be put in that slot," Miranda said quietly. "You guys have another week of inprocessing training, then we'll all be deploying back out to the sites."

"You won't be going there before then?" Lewis asked, switching legs.

Miranda shook her head. "Hang on," She said.

Money shot time. Lewis joined the other two women in urging the man to squirt all over the woman and then encouraging the woman in what to do next.

"NATO and the German government are doing examinations of the site environments," Miranda explained. "V Corps Chemical Corps liaison is out there. We're not allowed out there to prevent us from interfering or swaying the results is the official line."

Lewis slid forward in the chair and began rubbing the cream onto her sore stomach muscles. "What's the unofficial line?"

"Captain Hayes, who's in charge of Support Platoon Medical, basically she's Group MEDCOM, wants Group together to help ease the psychological damage from me losing half my patients," Heather answered, her voice full of bitterness. "She believes that Group taking two weeks to mingle, feel that the unit is being put back together, and that we're still all alive and the military is doing its best to take care of us."