When the Devil Dances

“I had to go to battalion looking for it,” Tommy said obliquely, opening the door to the company commander’s office. “Permission to enter, ma’am?”

“Oh, come in, Sunday,” Captain Slight said. “Did you find the undergel?”

“Alas, no, ma’am,” Sunday said, coming to attention with a long face. “It appears it has all been expended by Charlie Company, ma’am. However, I remembered in my reading that alternate materials can sometimes be substituted,” he continued, pulling the case of K-Y jelly out of the paper bag and setting it on the company commander’s desk, “and I thought that, given the specifications, this might satisfy your needs.”

Captain Slight blushed bright red as Bogdanovich broke into howls of laughter. “Why, yes, sar… Lieutenant. I suppose that… could be a useful substitute in some cases.”

Captain Slight shook her head in chagrin. “Major O’Neal warned me not to do this.”

“I think we should listen to him next time, ma’am,” Boggle said, wiping the tears out of her eyes. “Tricky, L-T.”

“I almost considered it over the top,” Sunday admitted. “I considered simple Vaseline, but I was afraid it wouldn’t get the point across quite as effectively.”

“Don’t push it,” Slight said with a smile. “We got the pun. Okay, to business. I’ve decided that the best choice is to put you with the Reapers.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Sunday said with a puzzled expression.

“The Reapers are almost entirely long service,” she said. “However, in Roanoke their former platoon sergeant got hit and is going to be in the Regen tanks for a while. We’re short on NCOs so you’re basically going to be your own platoon sergeant as well as platoon leader. Normally that’s the sort of thing that I’d throw on an experienced NCO…”

“But you don’t have any,” Sunday said with a smile. “And I am an experienced NCO. What am I getting?”

“Well, they all know their job,” First Sergeant Bogdanovich answered. “And they do it, in combat.”

“And in garrison they’re impossible,” Sunday said.

“Well, we haven’t been ‘in garrison’ in a long time,” the company commander said. “But… the Bravo Reapers tend to be… a bit of a handful. This little charade we went through was, as much as anything, a test to…”

“See if I knew how to handle a practical joke?” Sunday said with a huge grin. “They like to play games, huh? I love to play games.” He grinned ferally. “I am a master of playing games.”

“Well, then you should have fun,” Captain Slight said with a smile. “You got anything else?”

“No ma’am,” the lieutenant said, reaching for the case of KY jelly. “I guess I’ll return this.”

“No, no,” she said, putting her hand on the case. “I think I’ll keep it. As an object lesson. You go get ready for the return of your troops; they’ll be back tomorrow morning, most of them, hung over and unhappy.”

“That I will, ma’am,” Sunday said, saluting and stepping out the door.

He paused in the outer office and pursed his lips in thought. “AID, let’s start looking at records of the Bravo Reapers. I want both combat reports, live audio-video whenever possible, and personal records.” Know thine enemy, he thought with a chuckle.

* * *

Major Ryan was of the opinion that there was no substitute for checking up on the progress of the defense works in person. Especially on Sundays when it was just as likely that everyone was laying out.

Today they’d probably be busy, though. He could already hear Colonel Jorgensen’s precious artillery tubes firing on the approaching horde; he imagined that somebody would be up and ready to receive them. Indeed, the Wall appeared to be a veritable beehive of activity; it even looked a bit like one.

The Wall was over seven stories high at the point that it passed through Black Mountain gap, with each level sporting a different mix of weaponry. These ranged from Shrike light anti-lander systems to giant sheets of directional mines called Longswords. In the last five years only one attack had made it to the Wall, and that one had been repulsed by the Longswords.

He climbed up one of the back stairs and looked out over the secondary defenses. 23^rd Division had just replaced the 103^rd, and that division was well to the rear, but the 49^th was currently at work on the trench lines that backstopped the Wall.