yeah,” Westin confirmed.
I thought for a moment then fixed on the lieutenant.
“Look, our people are in Skagway. Everything we found here, and everything you’ve said, points to that as fact. We’d be with them if we’d been in town when this evacuation happened. You’re going to Skagway, and that’s where we’re supposed to be. Wouldn’t you just be transporting civilians to safety? Isn’t that something you’d do in other circumstances?”
She considered the scenario I was laying out, but wasn’t buying it yet.
“The circumstances here are the two stops we have to make before heading to Skagway could very well be hot. Hotter than this. I’m talking combat situations. Ketchikan is twenty miles up the coast from here. Twenty miles. If these Russians came from anywhere, Ketchikan is a logical spot.”
“Which means the garrison there could have suffered the same fate as this one,” Lorenzen said.
“Ma’am,” Westin said, and Schiavo looked to him. “If we transmit a request in two hours, there’s a six hour wait for the next opportunity to receive a reply.”
“Eight hours,” Lorenzen said, clearly not relishing that much time on Mary Island.
Neither, I could see quite plainly, was the lieutenant.
“We’re not going to get in your way,” Neil assured her. “And, just so you know, we know how to fight. We’ve had to fight to stay alive.”
Schiavo considered the three of us for a moment, some decision rising.
“Okay,” she said. “You need anything from your boat?”
I shook my head. We’d left the Sandy with all we needed. The supplies in her hold wouldn’t be necessary anymore. What would have been a week or more journey through Alaska’s inside passage might now be completed in eight hours.
Might.
“Do you really think the Russians are in Ketchikan and Juneau?” Elaine asked.
“I don’t know,” Schiavo said, maybe doubting the suggestion she’d made before. “Kuratov had a regiment. But what’s a regiment in this new reality? Fifty men? Sixty? I should have a platoon of thirty, but I’ve got a weakened squad of five. If he’s stretched as thin as we are, he could have lost half his force trying to take this island. The rest could be heading back to Kamchatka for all I know. Or dead.”
She quieted then. Something about her hardening.
“But I know that however low the probability of contact is, I have to be ready to kill every living thing that’s not on our side.”
“Ooo-rah,” Lorenzen said with fierce calm, his concurrence almost timid compared to the sentiment it validated.
“Sergeant,” Schiavo said, looking to her number two. “Police up any food from the cellar. And anything from the boat. Get it aboard the chopper and let’s get out of here. We’ll transmit a status report from Ketchikan.”
Her troops moved quickly on her orders. We assisted lugging cases of MREs up the trail from the dock. In twenty minutes everything was aboard the Sea Stallion.
But there was something still to do. A matter of honor to attend to.
Westin, Hart, and Enderson broke out shovels and began digging. In just ten minutes they had a communal grave dug. A few minutes more and they’d transferred the remains of the fallen Americans from inside the building to their final resting place. The bodies, whole and mangled alike, were covered with ponchos, then with dirt. Schiavo said a few words. Lorenzen recited the Lord’s Prayer.
There was no marker left. The only record that they had fought and died were the dog tags collected from each. Schiavo slipped those into a pocket and that was that.
“Time to go,” she said.
The rotors began to turn as we followed Schiavo and her unit to the Sea Stallion and climbed into the cabin. Hart and Acosta were already on the side miniguns. The loading ramp folded upward and Enderson helped secure us in the simple seats folded out from the fuselage, Elaine and Neil across the cabin from me.
Schiavo stepped past us, slipping into a
I thought for a moment then fixed on the lieutenant.
“Look, our people are in Skagway. Everything we found here, and everything you’ve said, points to that as fact. We’d be with them if we’d been in town when this evacuation happened. You’re going to Skagway, and that’s where we’re supposed to be. Wouldn’t you just be transporting civilians to safety? Isn’t that something you’d do in other circumstances?”
She considered the scenario I was laying out, but wasn’t buying it yet.
“The circumstances here are the two stops we have to make before heading to Skagway could very well be hot. Hotter than this. I’m talking combat situations. Ketchikan is twenty miles up the coast from here. Twenty miles. If these Russians came from anywhere, Ketchikan is a logical spot.”
“Which means the garrison there could have suffered the same fate as this one,” Lorenzen said.
“Ma’am,” Westin said, and Schiavo looked to him. “If we transmit a request in two hours, there’s a six hour wait for the next opportunity to receive a reply.”
“Eight hours,” Lorenzen said, clearly not relishing that much time on Mary Island.
Neither, I could see quite plainly, was the lieutenant.
“We’re not going to get in your way,” Neil assured her. “And, just so you know, we know how to fight. We’ve had to fight to stay alive.”
Schiavo considered the three of us for a moment, some decision rising.
“Okay,” she said. “You need anything from your boat?”
I shook my head. We’d left the Sandy with all we needed. The supplies in her hold wouldn’t be necessary anymore. What would have been a week or more journey through Alaska’s inside passage might now be completed in eight hours.
Might.
“Do you really think the Russians are in Ketchikan and Juneau?” Elaine asked.
“I don’t know,” Schiavo said, maybe doubting the suggestion she’d made before. “Kuratov had a regiment. But what’s a regiment in this new reality? Fifty men? Sixty? I should have a platoon of thirty, but I’ve got a weakened squad of five. If he’s stretched as thin as we are, he could have lost half his force trying to take this island. The rest could be heading back to Kamchatka for all I know. Or dead.”
She quieted then. Something about her hardening.
“But I know that however low the probability of contact is, I have to be ready to kill every living thing that’s not on our side.”
“Ooo-rah,” Lorenzen said with fierce calm, his concurrence almost timid compared to the sentiment it validated.
“Sergeant,” Schiavo said, looking to her number two. “Police up any food from the cellar. And anything from the boat. Get it aboard the chopper and let’s get out of here. We’ll transmit a status report from Ketchikan.”
Her troops moved quickly on her orders. We assisted lugging cases of MREs up the trail from the dock. In twenty minutes everything was aboard the Sea Stallion.
But there was something still to do. A matter of honor to attend to.
Westin, Hart, and Enderson broke out shovels and began digging. In just ten minutes they had a communal grave dug. A few minutes more and they’d transferred the remains of the fallen Americans from inside the building to their final resting place. The bodies, whole and mangled alike, were covered with ponchos, then with dirt. Schiavo said a few words. Lorenzen recited the Lord’s Prayer.
There was no marker left. The only record that they had fought and died were the dog tags collected from each. Schiavo slipped those into a pocket and that was that.
“Time to go,” she said.
The rotors began to turn as we followed Schiavo and her unit to the Sea Stallion and climbed into the cabin. Hart and Acosta were already on the side miniguns. The loading ramp folded upward and Enderson helped secure us in the simple seats folded out from the fuselage, Elaine and Neil across the cabin from me.
Schiavo stepped past us, slipping into a
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