Chapter 15

New characters appearing in this and other chapters:

Admiral Stanfield

Commander of Task Force Franklin, and the Heavy Cruiser Benjamin Franklin, 5’-10’’ tall, 180 pounds, 52 years old, gray hair, hard eyes.

CPO Wurst, Klaus

Chief Petty Officer, Navy Corpsman assigned to the Marines, 5’-11’’ tall, 170 pounds, 37 years old, dark blond hair, blue eyes

PO Asthon, Zawe

Petty Officer, Navy Corpsman assigned to the Marines, 5’-8’’ tall, 145 pounds, 36C-24-36, 31 years old, long black hair in a bun, light blue eyes, a very beautiful woman

When we arrived back at the headquarters building, the wounded had already been brought in, and patrol 2 was on its way back.

As we approached the headquarters, we were challenged by someone in the assault vehicle, which was stationed on the approach road to the building.

“Halt and identify yourselves!” a voice from the vehicle demanded. We had already halted, having been alerted to the vehicle by my Partners.

“Rollins, get your head out of your ass. Who do we look like? Who else has Partners?” Hanson demanded in an irritated voice.

“Come on, Sarge. You know the LT would have my ass if I didn’t challenge you,” the voice returned.

“Fine, you know who we are. We have everyone intact plus five civilians with us. They work for the headquarters,” Hanson told the person in the vehicle.

“Yes, okay. The LT says to come ahead,” the voice returned after a few seconds, and we moved out.

On reaching our wards, I had Hanson take charge of the Marines, and detail a couple of men to watch the laundry workers until we could find a place for them to stay. The Colonel, Miranda, and I went to check on the wounded, while Luther took care of our Partners.

On reaching our building, we found that Captain Mellifont was already operating on Clare, who had been wounded in the attack. Her clinic was in the hotel.

SFC Atchine, the Senior Medical Technician and her people, plus the two Navy Corpsmen, CPO Wurst and PO Nixon, were already working on MSG Maharaj and the two Marines who had been wounded. Atchine had her office and clinic in the hotel with us, and the two Navy Corpsmen had set up a treatment facility in the third building.

The Colonel and I went to check on Maharaj first, while Miranda went to see where we could house the laundry workers, who were exhausted from the run. It wouldn’t be until things had calmed down some, and we had time to deal with them. We arrived at Atchine’s clinic to find Natalie in a panic.

“How is Clare? She was bleeding when we were brought in. You have to find out how Clare is. I can’t contact her or feel her! She was very close to the mine when it went off,” Natalie was saying in a panicked voice.

“Take it easy, Natalie. She’ll be all right. I can’t work on you with you getting up and bouncing around,” Atchine was telling the other woman when we arrived.

“You have to send someone to check on Clare. I won’t be all right until I know that she is okay. I can’t lose her,” Natalie was saying, as tears flowed down her face. I remembered that she had lost a Partner previously, so understood her concern.

“Goa, go over to Dr. Mellifont’s clinic and check on Clare, or I’ll never be able to finish working on Natalie,” Atchine told her assistant, who hurried out past us.

Goa soon returned, and Atchine had gotten Natalie to settle down some so she could work on her.

“You won’t believe what is going on over there!” Goa said in surprise on returning. “Dixon is in there calming Clare down while Dr. Mellifont follows the instructions the older Irish girl is giving her about repairing the wounds. I never saw anything like that before,” he finished in an amazed voice.

“Really!” Atchine asked in surprise. “I’ll have to check with her when we have time.”

“You’re sure!” Natalie demanded in a worried voice.

“Absolutely,” Goa assured her with a smile.

“Now you know, so settle down Natalie, so I can finish what I’m doing,”Atchine told her patient.

“How seriously is she injured?” the Colonel inquired, when she could get a word in.

“The injury isn’t too bad. The bullet passed all the way through, but it’s in an area that bleeds a lot. I need her to calm down, so her blood pressure drops, and I can work on her more easily,” Atchine told us.

Kanisha had figured out where we were and approached us now with a status report.

“I’m glad that you’re back. Everyone is nervous and on edge. All the assault vehicles are manned and are guarding the approaches to the area. The Marines are all on alert and are guarding the perimeter. There are wards up from all of the Magic users that are here,” she told us to bring us up to date.

“Where are the injured Marines being cared for?” the Colonel asked.

“The Corpsmen have them over in their clinic in the third building,” we were told.

“All right. Cleve, as soon as you can, go over and see how they are. When the other patrol gets in, we need to talk to Captain Roanoke and find out exactly what happened. With the Franklin in orbit, we are no longer the highest authority here, and we will need to report what occurred to the Admiral. Things could get very sticky,” the Colonel told us.

Patrol 2 was still a good 10 minutes out on their return when I checked on their progress, so I went to check on the Marines who had been wounded. I found the two Navy Corpsmen in the clinic they had established in building 3. They were nearly finished working on the wounded Marines when I arrived. It turned out that I didn’t know the two Marines, as they hadn’t been on Addison III with us. The Corpsmen were new to me also.

“Can we help you, sir?” CPO (Chief Petty Officer) Wurst asked on looking up from what he was doing as I entered the clinic.

“Don’t let me interrupt you, Chief,” I told him. “I’m Captain Jensen, S-3 of the First Mobile Headquarters Team,” I told him.

“Yes sir, we heard about you and your Partners from the Corpsmen who were on Addison III with you. These two Marines aren’t badly wounded. The first one was shot in the arm just below his protective armor. The other Marine was wounded by shrapnel in her legs. She’ll be on profile for a couple of weeks, as she won’t be able to do a lot of walking for a while. My assistant, Corpsman Nixon, is taking care of her,” he assured me, as Nixon looked up from what she was doing. Even in a blood splattered surgical gown, I could see that she was a very beautiful woman.

“If there is anything that you need or the patients need, let me know, and we will do our best to acquire it,” I told them before leaving.

Patrol 2 was just arriving as I exited building 3. Khawam and O’Flannagain immediately approached me.

“How is Natalie?” Dan asked as they approached me. Millie had already flown up to the roof of the hotel and her nest there.

“She and Clare are doing well. Get cleaned up and then come up to the conference room. We’ll be holding the debriefing there. Captain Roanoke and the Marine Squad Leaders will be joining us. We’ll need to report exactly what happened to Admiral Stanfield,” I told them.

“Will Natalie be there?” Naomi asked in a strained voice.

“That’s up to the medics,” I told her, before moving over to Captain Roanoke and his Squad Leaders, who were waiting for me.

“Didn’t do very well staying out of trouble,” Roanoke told me, as I joined them.

“We didn’t start it, did we?” I asked to be sure.

“No, they were cocked and primed as we approached. I didn’t even get a chance to talk to them before they started shooting and set off that mine, or whatever it was,” he told me.

“Didn’t Clare detect it, if it was a mine? The Tigers are very good at detecting explosives,” I told him.

“No, she was in the lead, walking point with Sergeant Maharaj. There was no indication from her that she had detected anything,” he told me.

“That’s not good. I have to wonder if it was a mine then. Could it have been a mortar shell?” I asked.

“That is a possibility, but we’ll never know for sure now. The destroyer’s fire took out everything that was there,” he told me.

“Maybe we can see something on one of the helmet cam videos. Get them downloaded, and we’ll look at them after the debriefing. I’ll get Team A-31’s videos and have them ready. Clean up and meet us up in the conference room in an hour or so,” I told them, before we went to take care of our responsibilities. Roanoke headed for the dispensary to check on his Marines. The Colonel was waiting for me when I entered the headquarters.

“How are the injured Marines?” she asked.

“Not too bad. One was shot in the arm, and the other one was hit by shrapnel in the legs,” I told her.

“Not too bad then. What’s Roanoke’s assessment of what happened?” she asked, as she had seen me talking to him and his men.

“He told me that those on the roadblock were ready for a fight as he approached their position, and he never even had a chance to talk to them before the shooting started, and the explosion went off,” I told her.

“I noticed that you avoided saying mine,” she observed.

“There is some question as to what it was. Apparently, Clare never detected it before it went off, which would leave out a mine or something similar,” I told her. “We’ll be checking the helmet cam videos to see if there is anything there,” I told her.

“All right, go ahead and get cleaned up, then start on that,” she told me. Luther came into the lobby just then, and I looked over at him.

“Do you want our Team there for the debriefing?” I asked the Colonel.

“I’m not sure, but it might be a good idea to have them there. More eyes to look at things. It sounds like we’ll need Natalie and Clare there if they are able to attend,” she told me. “I’ll check on that with the medics and them,” she finished before leaving.

“How are the Partners?” I asked Joel, who had been looking after them while I was busy.

“Bob and Susie ate and are taking a nap. Reed and Ward are up on the roof and have taken care of all of our feathered Partners. This sure is different than things were on Addison III and our other deployments. We always took care of our Partners ourselves before this,” he told me.

“Yeah, you’re right, buddy. Things, they are a changing. I’m not sure if it’s for the better,” I told him. “Go ahead and get cleaned up. We’ll start the debriefing in a bit less than an hour. The Colonel wants all of us there to help look for why this happened,” I added.

“Right, I’ll see you up there,” Joel said and headed upstairs. I was ready to follow him, but stopped in the S-3 first. Platner and Fleming were on duty there. I reminded them to download the videos from Team A-31’s helmet cams and to have them ready for us to look at in the conference room.

I was headed upstairs to clean up when Miranda entered the lobby.

“Anything on where to keep the laundry people?” I asked as she approached me.

“Actually, yes,” she told me with a smile. “There is a building just on the other side of the building the Marines are using. I’m not sure of what it was, perhaps a private club or a whore house, but it has a number of furnished bedrooms, a kitchen, and two bathrooms in addition to a bar room or club room. We can ward it at night, and the Marines’ guards can keep an eye on it at night also. We can ward it during the day also to be sure no one gets in there,” she told me. I let her know about the debriefing, and then headed upstairs to clean up.