End of Winter (Rewrite & Expansions into Book Four)

We're Different Now

"She'd contaminated me."
"It tingled, it burned..."
"It felt wonderful."

2/19th Special Weapons Group Barracks
Restricted Area Bravo, Alfenwehr West Germany
Late Winter- 2 February, 1985
Day 1 of Repairs
Day 1 of the Third Incident
1620 Hours

The barracks were warmer than outside, but that wasn't saying much. Our breath still plumed out in front of us and I could see the glitter of frost on the walls and on the glass of the trophy case. The LT was standing behind the CQ counter, hanging up the phone, and I wondered what kind of sadistic shit he was planning. I had been able to tell from the way he'd spoken, his word choice, and what he'd said that he didn't give a shit about us, only cared about carrying out his orders in the least amount of time possible to make himself look good. In other words, he was pretty much like every other officer in the goddamn military, with the exception of LT James, who was probably going to be put out due to his head injury. LT James was an officer, so of course the military would take his injuries into account and either slap him on the permanently or temporarily disabled listing, while Lancer was enlisted so of course he was up here in uniform completely blind.

"I'll call out your names and you will come up here and show me your profile. If you have an extra copy you will turn it over to me, that way I know who can perform what duties while we get the barracks back up to acceptable condition," 1LT Wright said. "Lieutenant James and his men did significant damage to the barracks for reasons yet unknown," ...unknown? How about fucking Spetz in the hallways for... you know what, I just don't care any more... "but we'll fix it all up so after the Group is finished up at Graf they can return to the barracks."

There were murmurs of assent, and I noticed that the group of people had clustered together into five groups. The new Rear-D/Repair Crew, the DIA investigators, the CID investigators, an unknown bunch in suits, and the MI guys.

A small woman in a black suit, her black hair in a page-boy cut and her makeup subdued, wearing a Chem Corps pin on her left lapel, stood by herself.

The power was still out, the CQ Area dark and cold.

I couldn't remember if we'd disabled the power or the Russians had.

Someone had.

There was no other way. Both of us had to deny the enemy power to run the environmental systems.

I stared at the tile at the corner of the CQ counter, where there was a gap to allow someone back behind the desk.

My cousin had died right here, right in front of me.

Still crying softly the little lizard replayed the memory, laying his head on his control console.

I moved away from everyone else, putting my back against the little section of wall between the stairwell door and the door to Titty Territory. The sign and the bra hung up by the female soldiers was against my back and it suddenly struck me as odd that the frozen bra had survived everything that had happened. The sign that read "You must be this big to live here" had been covered in frost and I figured it was probably melting due to my body heat. The cold felt weird, like it was a normal state of affairs and my body heat was foreign and alien.

Next to me a pool table was flipped onto its side and I knew that the opposite side had divots blown out of it from where the Soviet troops had tried to push into the hallway of Titty Territory and Lancer had driven them back with his XM16E1.

When it had come down to it, Lancer had had what it took.

He'd also paid the cost.

Finally the LT called out my name and I pushed myself off of the wall and moved to in front of the CQ desk. The room was dim, the light reflecting off the snow outside to fill the CQ Area with a wan gray light.