Arisen : Nemesis by Michael Stephen Fuchs

“And I’m good to go.”
    “At least forty hours by my count.”
    “ Captain .”
    He swiveled to face her now. “It’s Brendan,” he said. “Or Bren. And you’re going to get some rack – now.”
    She opened her mouth to protest.
    “I don’t give a shit,” he said before she could get it out. “I don’t know if it’s going to be Zulu Dawn here a few hours from now. And I need you functional in the morning.” There seemed to be something forced about his severe tone. Like he was still trying to establish authority. Then Kate remembered he’d only been in the unit a few months.
    She started to curse under her breath.
    But then she thought about it for two seconds, read between the lines – and realized this didn’t have anything to do with her sleep history, or ability to function, or his exercise of authority. It was because she was the FNG – the new guy, on her first attachment to this ODA. And she didn’t have even five seconds of orientation to this team, their TTPs, how they operated, or what their rhythms were. And this young commander had zero desire to be responsible for her right now – while she was still an unknown quality, never mind while the shit was coming down all around them.
    Her arrival and attachment wasn’t supposed to shake out this way, but things rarely shook out just like they were supposed to. She’d have to deal.
    Jake, the veteran master sergeant, looked over at Brendan, the young captain. Something else had evidently just occurred to him. “What about command?”
    Brendan blinked once, expressionless. “Both the General and the CSM have made it clear that we are forbidden to mount any form of rescue – or to leave the wire for any reason. They say they can’t spare the bodies.”
    “But we’re going anyway,” Jake said.
    “Yeah. We’re going anyway. That’s presuming the camp doesn’t fall first.”
    Jake snorted. “I just secured their camp for them.”
    Elijah leaned forward now, his expression betraying concern. “Wait. We can’t just disobey a direct order from the commander of the task force – can we?”
    “Sure we can,” Jake said without hesitation. “It’s easy. Saddle up and come with us and I’ll show you.”
    “Team room in ten,” Brendan repeated, before trading a last look with Kate, and then heading off toward the JOC.
    In addition to her FNG status, Kate now sensed this group of men was about to go rogue. Maybe Brendan was merely saving her from a court martial.
    Or worse.
    * * *
    Kate followed behind Elijah and Jake now, puppy-like. Their route took them by the half-destroyed guard tower, where Kwon was still on overwatch for this side of the camp. He hopped down lightly and fell in with the others, alert and silent. Kate found something about the man unnerving. Like he was, or at least had the manner of, a cold-eyed killer.
    She was just glad he was on their side.
    As they moved through the floodlit darkness of the besieged and wounded camp, the whole north side now seemed to be swarming with armed soldiers, Marines, even a few airmen. None of these guys looked like they had fired their weapons in anger tonight – and some of them looked like they’d barely walked around with them before, and were worried about dropping them. Kate guessed everyone on post had been called out when shit got real with the VBIED.
    But the majority of them had only turned up after Jake and Kwon and the combat engineers and a handful of others had already saved the day.
    Kate moved through this kaleidoscopic and starkly lit dreamscape, counting her blessings – mainly that no one was shooting at her or trying to blow them up right now. Evidently the Triple Nickel Team Room was on the far side of the base, as their route took them across most of it, including by the main gate.
    There they found a somewhat chaotic, frightening, and tense scene on both sides of the security shack, as MPs tried to open the gate to let returning units back inside – without