Warriors by ed George R R Martin & Gardner Dozois

Author:ed George R R Martin & Gardner Dozois [Martin, ed George R R & Dozois, Gardner]
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

II

Master Sergeant Stephen Buchevsky climbed out of the MRAP, stretched, collected his personal weapon, and nodded to the driver.

“Go find yourself some coffee. I don’t really expect this to take very long, but you know how good I am at predicting things like that.”

“Gotcha, Top,” the corporal behind the wheel agreed with a grin. He stepped on the gas and the MRAP (officially the Mine Resistant Ambush Protection vehicle) moved away, headed for the mess tent at the far end of the position, while Buchevsky started hiking toward the sandbagged command bunker perched on top of the sharp-edged ridge.

The morning air was thin and cold, but less than two weeks from the end of his current deployment, Buchevsky was used to that. It wasn’t exactly as if it was the first time he’d been here, either. And while many of Bravo Company’s Marines considered it the armpit of the universe, Buchevsky had seen substantially worse during the seventeen years since he’d taken a deceitfully honest-faced recruiter at his word.

“Oh, the places you’ll go—the things you’ll see!” the recruiter in question had told him enthusiastically. And Stephen Buchevsky had indeed been places and seen things since. Along the way, he’d been wounded in action no less than six times, and, at age thirty-five, his marriage had just finished coming rather messily unglued, mostly over the issue of lengthy, repeat deployments. He walked with a slight limp the therapists hadn’t been able to completely eradicate, the ache in his right hand was a faithful predictor of rain or snow, and the scar that curved up his left temple was clearly visible through his buzz-cut hair, especially against his dark skin. But while he sometimes entertained fantasies about looking up the recruiter who’d gotten him to sign on the dotted line, he’d always reupped.

Which probably says something unhealthy about my personality, he reflected as he paused to gaze down at the narrow twisting road far below.

On his first trip to sunny Afghanistan, he’d spent his time at Camp Rhine down near Kandahar. That was when he’d acquired the limp, too. For the next deployment, he’d been located up near Ghanzi, helping to keep an eye on the A01 highway from Kandahar to Kabul. That had been less . . . interesting than his time in Kandahar Province, although he’d still managed to take a rocket splinter in the ass, which had been good for another gold star on the purple heart ribbon (and unmerciful “humor” from his so-called friends). But then the Poles had taken over in Ghanzi, and so, for his third Afghanistan deployment, he and the rest of First Battalion, Third Marine Regiment, Third Marine Division, had been sent back to Kandahar, where things had been heating up again. They’d stayed there, too . . . until they’d gotten new orders, at least. The situation in Paktika Province—the one the Poles had turned down in favor of Ghanzi because Paktika was so much more lively—had also worsened, and Buchevsky and Bravo

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