"All right, listen up," he commanded. "This is us." He dropped a finger onto the map. "We're with the right hand prong of the pincer - the plan... is to advance along this line, eventually joining up with the left hand prong, squeezing the Chigs between us." McQueen looked up at them. "Headquarters command has advised that there is no room for delay. This initiative will begin as a night assault. So saddle up, we're awaiting orders to move out."

He turned his head slowly, letting his eyes fall on each face in turn, some familiar and well loved, some not so familiar, and some entirely new to him. Vansen, Wang. West, who did not look as fit as McQueen would have liked, but whom the doctors had okayed anyway. Hawkes. And then there were Terry and Watts who had been with the Five-Eight only a short time, but who seemed like good men. Haskell, who was a school teacher in civilian life and who had left two young children behind in her mother's care to come fight this war. Williams and Conroy, who they had just picked up.

He turned his attention to the surrounding landscape. Even the romance of a sunset could not make Delores Prime any more attractive. The ugly, pitted terrain would make this battle so much the harder - there was little significant natural cover, and the ground was so riddled with buried ledge that digging into foxholes and trenches would be damn near impossible. He understood why the Chigs utilized the underground caverns wherever they could. The rocky ground would do more than just make digging in difficult; it would make the battle itself all the more deadly as shards of blasted rock formed projectiles as mortal as enemy bullets and shell fragments. This one was going to be smash-mouth, and belly-to-the- ground all the way. Who would return from this night was something McQueen would not allow himself to contemplate. People would die tonight, many, many Marines, and some of them were bound to be his people. But he would not think about that.

He turned his attention, again, to the Fifty-Eighth as they drifted back toward him with their packs and rifles in hand. As was common before battle, there was little conversation among the veterans. Dropping packs to the ground, they merely stood around, or squatted, each alone, deep in personal thought and prayer. The new kids huddled together in clumps, but even they did not talk much. McQueen stifled a sigh. Then he looked more closely at Vansen. The young captain was staring across the camp, her face twisted in distress. McQueen followed her gaze and found Frank Patrick staring back at her. The correspondent's expression was unreadable, but there was no doubt in McQueen's mind that something had happened between these two that had upset Vansen deeply. McQueen felt hot anger shoot through him as his eyes darted between the two. Whatever her problem was, he now believed the reporter was at the root of it. Patrick turned, then, and looked at him directly, and McQueen's anger turned to blind rage. He forced himself to calm down. It would help nothing if he let Frank Patrick distract him from the mission at hand, and besides, if the correspondent had done something to hurt the girl, she might be upset enough to forget herself out there. Forgetting could get her killed. He was going to have to keep an eye on her, at least until he was sure she was going to be all right. It was not something he usually had to worry about, where Vansen was concerned and he felt another hot flash of anger. Patrick simply turned around and walked away. McQueen turned found Vansen watching him. As soon as his eyes found her face, though, she looked away from him.

A runner came up beside him.

"Colonel McQueen! We move out in ten mikes, sir!"

McQueen nodded. "All right, people, look alive, this is it! Grab your gear, we're moving out..."

Vansen knew that her colonel was worried about her, that he was aware something was going on. How could he not be, she knew her face reflected her turmoil. That knowledge was almost as upsetting as its cause.

All the way down to the planet, Vansen had struggled to get control of her galloping emotions. Whatever other considerations assailed her, she was heading into battle, and she had a job to do. She needed her full concentration during the next few hours. She owed it to her squad mates, and she owed it to McQueen. Now, more than ever, she felt she needed to prove herself. To herself. To him. She could not let personal concerns interfere with her duties and responsibilities. Losing herself could lose lives; her own, or the lives of people she loved.

People she loved. Swallowing hard, Vansen struggled to steel herself. McQueen had explained the realities of the upcoming battle. It would be some of the worst fighting she had seen. And the Five Eight had picked up a lot of new people, a lot of unknowns. She was going to have to stay alert and focused. McQueen was counting on her. And that *mattered*. It mattered a lot.

But it was very hard. She felt as if she was riding a run-away train, out of control, desperate. Frank Patrick had rocked the very foundations of her stability with his news of her mother's betrayal - and it was a betrayal, no matter what the man had said. No matter what the justification. Shane felt her own identity slipping in the face of it - as if someone had knocked the picture askew. Logically, she knew it was absurd to fee that way, but logic had little to do with it. Seeing him, all of the sudden, across the command post, now, had blocked out everything else, even McQueen's voice beside her, left her with nothing but the wild sliding sense of dislocation. Nothing made sense to her anymore. She did not know who she was. And she was afraid that McQueen knew it.

Vansen turned and found the colonel watching her thoughtfully. The worry in his eyes hit her like an insult. She sucked in her breath. McQueen relied on her to hold it together, to hold the others together, and nothing Frank Patrick said would make her lose that now. She squared her shoulders and pushed all other thoughts out of her mind but the coming battle. The call had come to move out. Whatever else, she was still a Marine. She would not let her people, or her colonel, down.

His Catholic antecedents had always maintained that confession was good for the soul. Francis Xavier Patrick was not so sure about that, but he did sense that the ensuing catharsis that followed confession was liberating, in a weird sort of way.

Confession was the only reason he could find for the odd sadness that washed over him as he walked across the Headquarters compound. He refused to allow that Colonel McQueen's angry glare had driven him away. Somehow, the fight had just gone out of him. This was not depression, as he had experienced so regularly, and it was not the precursor to excitement and fear that he expected once the battle had started. This was different, and he was not sure why. But for some reason he had the strangest, most dislocated feeling, that he did not know who he was.

He understood that part of the problem was Shane Vansen. He had expected the girl to hate him for what he had told her. Maybe he had even looked for it, needed her hatred to cleanse him. She did not hate him, though. She felt sorry for him, that was all. She pitied him, and then she had walked away to rejoin her tank commander and get on with her war. As if she realized that Frank Patrick was not important enough for hatred.

Patrick knew that Shane Vansen saw right through him. He suspected, now, that Molly had always seen through him, too. Found him charming, maybe, fun to be with. A diversion. But not someone to take seriously. And maybe someone of whom to be slightly suspicious, someone not to entirely trust. Maybe the whole world had felt that way. He was nothing but a story-teller, the Mother Goose of war, who had made the mistake of believing his own press releases. And now, here he was, on the brink of another battle, and the only thing he knew for certain was the collection of myths he had created about himself. And about so many others. So few knew the truth. McQueen did. McQueen knew him. Tyrus Cassius McQueen knew him for what he really was.

It was funny, but he almost believed that his life was going to end here on this wretched planet. He did not understand why he knew, but he did know that there was nothing uncommon about the feeling. He had interviewed countless GIs who had expressed just such sentiments, and then had gone on to die. He wondered, idly, if he would die a "good" death. Odd how it did not bother him.

Patrick looked around. All around him were men and women, children most of them, preparing to die. Most of the faces he saw would not be there in the morning. And he sensed that they knew it. And yet every brow he saw was calm. Even those whose expressions showed their fear were quiet in the face of it. No one cried. No one shouted. No one pleaded with God. For perhaps the first time in his life, Frank Patrick looked around him and saw what was really there. He wondered what it meant.

The order had just come down to move out - he could hear the runners spreading the word. He would not be going out with them on this first wave of the assault, of course, although he would later be following the main body of troops up the line. He could watch them though, as the Marines got ready. He let his eyes drift back to the spot where the Fifty- Eighth squadron was grouped. He saw Vansen reach for her pack and shoulder it expertly. He saw her heft her rifle, which she would never call a gun. He saw her step a little closer to her colonel, look up at him. McQueen must have spoken because Patrick saw the girl suddenly smile. Her smile was so much like her mother's. Frank Patrick felt a sorry pang. Even this tank commander owned more of Shane Vansen's regard than he ever would. And he understood that it was not merely a question of command. If T.C. McQueen died tonight, Shane Vansen would mourn him deeply and sincerely. And personally. Would she mourn Frank Patrick? he wondered.

The Marines moved out. There was nothing to do, now, but watch her go. Dropping onto the dirt beside his pack, Patrick pulled out a pad and a stub of pencil. He had just enough time to scratch together the draft of his next, perhaps last, dispatch before it was time for his troops, the men he would go with, to move out, too. There were no lap tops, no technological middlemen between him and his words, here. The fact was oddly comforting as he scribbled down the words "Delores Prime."

Their position was better than they could have hoped for, but it was still very, very bad. McQueen rolled up onto his elbows and looked out over the soft dirt mound at the battle before him. Even with night goggles, he could not see much. Smoke from exploded ammunition glowed with each new shell burst, casting a ghostly light over the landscape, but it did nothing to increase visibility, and the air around them was thick with obscuring dust. They were forced to direct their rifle fire as much by sound as sight, and McQueen wondered bitterly how many lives would be lost that night to friendly fire because of it. At least the Five-Eight had decent cover, better than he had ever anticipated. Whether the product of earlier shelling, or a natural formation, they had found a small sink hole in the dirt surrounded on the forward side by a shallow embankment they had been able to shore up with more frantic digging. McQueen did not know how long they would be allowed to maintain this position before they were ordered to move up again, but for the moment, he was grateful for the relative safety, and the relative absence of rocks.

Getting there had been horrific. Initially, Chig resistance had been minimal, and the first thrust had taken them deeper into enemy territory than they had anticipated. Then McQueen realized why. The Chigs had let them come, relatively unchallenged, in the hopes of cutting them off from their own lines behind them. He had ordered the advance halted, radioed back what he knew, and then the Chigs had poured it on heavy. The shelling had not let up since. Advancement from that point was measured in feet, not yards, and sometimes in hand breadths. Very slow, and very, very bloody. Bodies, and parts of bodies, littered their path. The ground was slick with gore and air stunk of it; clotted blood, effluvia and the acrid reek battle. It made his stomach twist and the back of this throat feel raw. McQueen knew his hands and gear were covered with the gore he had crawled through, though in the dim light he could not see it. Behind him, he could hear someone, Conroy maybe, or Terry, wretching. And someone else whimpered. He could not tell who. He heard Vansen's voice murmuring reassurance and he felt a faint rush of pride. Whatever the young woman's personal problems, she had pulled herself together as soon as they hit the field. There had been no hint of distraction in her actions - she was right there with him, all the way.

A thump behind him made him turn. West squirmed up on his belly until he was even with McQueen. "Command just radioed in, sir. We're ordered to move up."

McQueen nodded, but his heart sank. He was loath to leave this nice hole, knowing they were unlikely to find such good cover anywhere before them. "How you doing?" he asked West.

"I'm okay, sir," the young man replied.

McQueen rolled enough to look back over his shoulder. He could barely see his people outlined to the left and right of him, and behind. "All right, column formation, behind me! We're moving out!" he ordered.

The shell that hit them had come from close by; he never heard the signature whistle before the ground to his left exploded. For a brief instant the sounds of screaming mingled with the roar. The impact threw McQueen into West, and the two of them into the 'Cards to their right.

"Get down, get down!" he screamed as his leveraged himself free of the tangle. "They're right on top of us!" He swung around and looked directly into Haskell's shocked face. The young woman sat there with a torn and dismembered torso draped across her body - the shattered face was unrecognizable, but the patch on the uniform identified the dead man as Conroy. Haskell scrambled backwards, gasping, on the verge of hysterical screams. McQueen twisted up, reaching toward her; if the woman panicked now she would take the rest of them with her. He had to get to her fast.

He need not have worried. Even as he lunged up, Vansen swung over beside the other woman, dragged the body off, and grabbed Haskell by the arms. She did not say anything, just stared into the panicking Marine's face. Haskell struggled a moment, then relaxed. Vansen nodded. Haskell nodded back. Then she jerked wildly, swung her rifle up and started firing. Vansen ducked and swung around. The Chig landed almost on top of them. Gasping himself, now, McQueen leaned back toward West.

"Get Headquarters on the line, we're not going anywhere. The enemy is hard on our twelve o'clock. Give them the scoop ask them to advise..."

West nodded and pushed back on his hands and knees. Vansen scrambled up to take his place beside McQueen.

"Good work back there," he murmured to her as she dropped down beside him. Vansen just nodded.

"They seem to be coming down from the left," she said. "Can we move out up the right line?"

McQueen shook his head. "We abandon this position, we leave the left flank vulnerable," he replied. "We have to hold this line."

Vansen looked into her commander's face, and understood what he was telling her. They stayed until they died. It was what they had been trained to do, and she had always known it might come to this someday. Still, it angered her, to die down here in the dirt instead of up in the sky, in her cockpit. If she had had her choice of deaths. She closed her eyes a moment, then opened them, and nodded at her colonel. She turned back toward the incoming fight, raised her rifle, then screwed up her face and scowled. She pulled her night goggles on.

"What the hell?"

"What is it?"

Vansen pointed. "Sir, is that Frank Patrick?"

McQueen snapped on his goggles and looked where she was pointing. An eerie sense of deja vu settled over him. "What the fuck? I don't believe this..."

Well, at least the man was not fumbling around, waving his arms in the air and begging for mercy this time. But it was definitely Frank Patrick, hunkered down about a hundred yards ahead of them. How the hell he had gotten all the way up here was more that McQueen could imagine. Nor did he really care. Let the damned enemy have him, this time. He pulled his goggles off, and turned to Vansen.

She was just looking at him. Waiting for him to do something. To tell them what to do. He shifted around and saw the rest of them watching him, their eyes frightened but confident that he would know how to fix this. McQueen blew out a breath sharply. Of course he could not leave the dumb bastard hanging out there to die without at least trying to save him. Probably, he would not have done it even if the Wild Cards had not been there, watching him. He reached over and clasped Vansen's shoulder.

"Keep them here, and keep them buried," he ordered. "Cover me as best you can. I'll be *right* back!" And then he disappeared over the embankment.

Vansen just watched him go. For a moment she wanted to call him back, to beg this man who had come to mean so much to her not to risk his life for a man who had torn her world apart. She could not say it - she knew too well that she wanted them *both* alive. And then McQueen was out of reach, anyway, and it was out of her hands. She turned to the others behind her.

"All right! Get down!"

As soon as McQueen left the safety of the Fifty Eighth's foxhole, he lost sight of Frank Patrick. Enemy fire pinned him against the hard ground, and he cursed whatever misguided sense of duty had inspired him to abandon his position and risk his life to rescue a man he so deeply loathed. He had no clear idea why he was out there, lying on his belly in the dirt, exposing himself to death and dismemberment. Except, perhaps, that his kids expected it of him. And that he expected it of himself. Protecting lives from the enemy was his job, his life's work. It was the thing for which he had been created, and the one thing, in all his life, that gave his existence meaning. He was not asked to judge the value of the lives he defended. He was only asked to defend them. And Frank Patrick was a life.

Pushing forward slowly, he blinked to clear his vision. Smoke and dust filled his eyes, despite the goggles, obscuring what little sight he had, and he wished the damn fool in front of him would cry out or something, so at least he would know where he was. He touched his helmet headset.

"Vansen? I lost him."

"He's off to you left. He disappeared into some hole."

Good place for him, thought McQueen, sourly. By some miracle, the shelling overhead had subsided for a moment, leaving him in darkness, but at least he could raise his head. Pushing up onto his hands and knees, he gazed out into the gloom. Patrick was twenty or thirty feet in front of him, he could just see the top of the man's head. Pulling his legs under him, McQueen sprang forward.

Had he believed in luck, McQueen would have damned his. Enemy fire resumed as soon as his body left the ground. He did not know if it was a bullet, or shell fragment that caught him, he only felt a searing heat in his right shoulder, and his rifle clattered into the rocks. The impact spun him backward, cracking his head as he fell, and he heard the static chatter of his radio go dead as the impact killed it. Lying back for a moment, McQueen closed his eyes. There was no pain yet, but he knew it would soon follow. He could feel the blood running down his arm. He also knew he was a good as dead if he stayed there, he had to keep moving. He had to find cover. Forward or back. Back was preferable. Forward was closer. Rolling onto his stomach again, he reached with his left hand until his fingers closed around his rifle. Tucking the weapon close to his body, he scrambled forward as best he could.

Frank Patrick nearly stabbed him as McQueen slid into the earthen depression the correspondent had found.

"What the hell are you doing out here, Patrick," he snarled, batting the man's knife hand away with the muzzle of his rifle. "Put that thing down."

Frank Patrick just stared at him, his eyes showing whitely in the dark grime that covered his face. "McQueen," he spat. McQueen did not respond. Leaning back against the dirt wall of the depression, he dropped his rifle, and dug a wad of bandages out of the first aid pouch on his cartridge belt.

"You're hit," Patrick observed as McQueen shoved the bandages inside his flack jacket and pressed them against the wounded shoulder. McQueen just grunted. The fragment, if that was what it was, had hit him right where his arm left the jacket's protection. He felt around at the gaping tear with his fingers, cried out softly at the pain. He could not tell much by touch, but what he could feel felt pretty ugly. He pressed the bandages more securely with his left palm, but he knew they would do little more than soak up blood. He needed medical attention, and he needed it soon. And he was not going to be able to get out of this alone. What great cosmic irony had placed his life directly in the hands of the worst person he could think of, McQueen did not know. He looked up and glared at the other man.

"What the hell *are* you doing out here?"

Patrick had the good grace to look embarassed. "I got lost."

MCQueen did not get a chance to answer as enemy fire intensified over head. He rolled down onto the floor of the foxhole. "Get your head down, you idiot."

"Shut up, tank," Patrick barked, throwing himself flat on the ground. "Don't think you can give me orders..."

"Fine with me, get yourself killed," McQueen said. "Do us all a favor. I don't know why the hell..." he gasped as he tried to shift into a safer position "... I came out here for you, anyway."

"Nobody asked you to come."

McQueen refrained from answering. He pressed his hand more firmly against his bleeding shoulder. He right arm was going numb. For a few minutes, the two men were silent as the battle continued over their heads. Finally, Patrick spoke.

"Can you radio for help?"

McQueen shook his head. "Busted when I got hit. Not that anyone could reach us through this, anyway."

"So we die out here."

McQueen shrugged. Letting years of habit and training take over, he closed himself off to everything but the immediate problem, and considered their position. Basically, it sucked. He was hit bad, and rapidly loosing blood and control of his gun arm. Stuck with this traitor. This... coward. He tried to look back the way he he had come, but the murk was too thick for him to see anything. The Five - Eight could not be that far behind him, maybe fifty yards or so. It might as well have been fifty miles, though, for all the hope he had of joining them again. He struggled against the bitterness that welled up inside him. He should be back there, with them, with his kids, getting them through this. Not stuck up here, bleeding to death, with this... person. Vansen would do it, though. Vansen had pulled herself together, as he had known she could, and she would get his kids out okay, even if he could not be there. She would get them through.

McQueen turned back to Patrick, his expression knotted with anger. "What's going on between you and Vansen?" he demanded, suddenly needing to know. Patrick just stared at him. "I know you said something to her," McQueen insisted.

Patrick looked away. Around him, the landscape flashed into brilliance, then faded. He hesitated, then he shrugged. What the hell, anyway. There was no reason not to tell him, anymore.

"I knew her mother," he said. "Back before the AI war, when Shane was just a baby."

Somehow McQueen understood that the acquaintance had not been casual. "And you told her about it?" he hissed, hot anger pumping through him. "You son of a bitch."

"What the hell is it to you?" Patrick retorted.

"My people *matter* to me, Patrick," McQueen sputtered back, "though I doubt you would understand that loyalty. If you've hurt that girl, if anything you've said to her... " He shook his head, incredulous that anyone could be so callous. "That's her *mother*..."

"Like you'd know anything about it. Tank."

McQueen glared. "I understand enough. I know enough to know how much you've upset her and if she gets hurt out here because of it, so help me..." he twisted forward, toward the other man, and the pain that shot through him nearly caused him to black out. He dropped back weakly against the dirt. When his head cleared, again, he saw Patrick staring at him strangely.

"I *loved* Marion Vansen," the man said quietly. "Though I doubt you'd understand *that*. Tanks don't love anything."

I love, thought McQueen, hotly. He turned away. A shell burst beside them kicked dirt and rocks into the hole. It was some minutes before Patrick spoke again.

"She's all right?" he asked quietly. "Shane? Those other kids, they're okay?"

McQueen just blinked at him. Then he answered. "We lost Conroy. The others were still okay when I came out here to get you. By now, though..." He did not finish the thought. He did not need to, as the enemy fire intensified again around them. McQueen pressed himself closer to the wall of their foxhole. After a second's hesitation, the other man did the same.

Patrick winced at the whistling sound of the incoming. "Can we get back to them?" he asked. McQueen just shook his head.

"Not though this. Not unless we can take out some of this enemy fire." He made a decision, and pushed his rifle toward Patrick. "Take this. I can't use it. My arm is useless. Take it and do what you can with it..."

Patrick looked as if McQueen had just handed him something poisonous. "I don't know how..."

"Just point and shoot. You don't even have to aim it, there's plenty of Chigs out there. You fire it by squeezing the stock..."

Patrick shook his head, refusing the rifle a second time. "We could try to run for it," he insisted. "We might make it."

"Why?" he snapped in helpless frustration. He knew full well that, he at least, could not run anywhere. And he did not put it past Patrick for a minute to just leave him there. "So you can do to them what you did to those wounded soldiers back in Guatemala?"

Patrick turned and glared, and for a moment McQueen thought the man might attack him. He doubted he was strong enough to defend himself, if he did. Then the reporter looked away.

"I always knew you didn't get it," he said with surprising calm. "How could anyone expect a *tank* to understand?"

"What's there to understand?" McQueen growled. "You betrayed seven wounded men and women and three unarmed corpsmen to the enemy, turned them over to be slaughtered. Without a second thought."

"I didn't want to do it!" Patrick cried. "They had me. They tortured me... I had no choice. They would have killed me if I hadn't."

I would have let them kill me, first, McQueen thought. But some memory in the back of his mind tickled, and he wondered. There was a lot about his own POW experience that McQueen did not remember. He did remember, though, what AI torture had driven Paul Wang to. Wang, who was not that much younger than Patrick had been...

"I'd take it back if I could," Patrick said. McQueen just looked at him. There was nothing to say. Patrick looked at him slyly. "You never tried to stop it."

"We tried," McQueen countered. " We were outnumbered five to one."

"And you never told any one," Patrick continued. "You're just as guilty as I am."

McQueen's head told him it was not true. But his heart clutched at the words and he remembered the days that had followed, almost welcoming the brutal discipline that had been heaped on him for leaving his post. Praying that Frank Patrick was dead so that he would never have to confront the things he had witnessed. Terrified to say a word, and riddled with guilt because of it. He remembered how he had felt when he learned that F. X. Patrick was still alive. And that he, alone, shared that man's guilty secret. He knew he would not tell. He would live with the horror for the rest of his life. And the guilt. And the dreams. Yes, he was guilty. But he knew it was not the same.

"Yes, I never told any one," he agreed. "And maybe I should have, maybe that was wrong. But don't try to stick me in the same catagory as you, you slimy bastard. It's not the same thing. I didn't hand those people over to be butchered. That was your doing." He wondered though. He had meant the words he had just spoken, but somehow, the anger that should have been behind them just was not there. Loss of blood was making him light headed, he knew that. A vague sense of peacefulness washed over him, and he closed his eyes.

From his side of the dug out, Frank Patrick just stared at the dirt. Damn tank, accusing him. But, somehow, there was not much anger in him about it. Somehow, the past just did not matter any more. The secrets. The prejudices, they were just too much effort. McQueen was going fast, he would probably be dead soon. Probably, they both would be. And so little of what had happened fifteen years ago mattered. There was only this odd sadness.

"Do you dream, McQueen? Do you ever dream about it?" he mused softly. "But everyone knows tanks don't dream..."

"I dream," McQueen replied, his voice weak and echoey. "I dream."

"I have such horrible dreams," Patrick went on, as if he had not heard. "You wouldn't understand..."

McQueen tried to shake off his lethargy. They were not dead yet, he could not give up. He could not let Patrick give up. "I understand one thing," he said, forcing an energy into his voice that he did not feel. "I understand we're gonna die out here, in this ditch, if you don't do something. And those kids back there are gonna die with us. I can't save your ass for you this time, Frank."

Patrick just stared at the rifle.

"I don't care about my own life," McQueen went on quietly. "Leave me here, if you want to. But I care about them..." His voice slowly faded, and he closed his eyes, again. "Don't let them die..."

And so it had finally come down to this. This moment, this decision. Frank Patrick thought about the things he knew he ought to think about: Molly, and Molly's little girl. His wife, who he had never fathomed, and whom he had probably wronged. Those dead, in Guatemala. Every dispatch he'd ever written. Every story he'd ever told. This man, this *tank*, this torn and bleeding creature before him, who would do this thing, willing, selflessly, if he was able. Of that Frank Patrick had no doubt. Strangely, these thoughts all seemed so far away, as if he was considering them in the third person. He felt his world turn black with terror, and then the terror went away. There was no more fear, no other considerations at all. Just this thing he had to do. It was right there in front of him.

Reaching out, Patrick grabbed McQueen's rifle. McQueen opened his eyes.

"Just lean up against the side," he tried to instruct the other man. "And try to keep your head down. Just keep firing, they're practically on top of us, anyway..."

But even as he spoke, Patrick, sprang to his feet, and threw himself out of the hole.

"Frank!" McQueen shouted with his last burst of energy. He tried to sit up, the a wave of pain and dizziness staggered him. He dropped back, helpless, as consciousness slipped away. It occurred to him, then, that he was dying. He was not going to make it back, this time. The only thing he regretted was his kids. He would miss them. He hoped they made it.

The last thing he saw was Frank Patrick haloed in a shell burst, firing wildly into the night.

SCNV: USS SARATOGA
The room came slowly into focus, white on white, radiant. For a moment, McQueen thought he was dead, surrounded by 'the light' that natural borns spoke of. And then he considered the possibility that he was still back in Virginia, healing from his severed leg; that everything that had happened since the aborted peace mission had been a dream. He tried to turn his head and choked hoarsely.

"Easy, sir, it's all right..."

He looked up and saw Vansen beside him. He felt her hand close around his. "It's okay."

McQueen nodded, tried to swallow. His mouth tasted gummy, his throat dry. Seeing him struggle, Vansen slipped her hand behind his head and lifted him up until she could bring a glass to his lips. He sipped; and the water tasted sweeter than anything he had ever imagined. He tried to smile as she settled him gently back onto the pillow.

"The others?" he asked hoarsely.

"Safe and sound, sir," Vansen replied with a smile. McQueen closed his eyes, and nodded. Then he opened them again and searched her face.

"Patrick?"

Vansen hesitated, shook her head, and McQueen was surprised to see her eyes fill. He reached out, took her hand. She took a breath, smiled again, wanly.

"You scared us, sir. For a little while, there, we were afraid we were gonna have to break in a new CO..."

McQueen squeezed her hand. "Can't let that happen," he smirked. "I heard about what you kids did to the poor bastard who got you while I was gettin' my new leg..."

Vansen laughed out loud, fighting tears for real, this time. A noise behind them rescued her and she turned to see Hawkes standing in the hatchway.

"He's awake," she said, her voice shaky with emotion. Hawkes face lit up, and he stepped into the room, followed by West and Wang and Damphousse. McQueen gave them a half smile as they formed a circle around his bed. Then he frowned at something in Hawkes hand, an envelope.

"What is that?"

Hawkes looked guiltily down at this hand, then passed envelope in it to Vansen. She looked at it curiously. It was addressed to McQueen.

"We found it in Patrick's pack..." Hawkes said quietly.

McQueen raised an eyebrow, then nodded at Vansen. "Open it."

She was not sure it was a good idea. Whatever the dead man had written, he and McQueen had not been friends, and the colonel was still a sick man. It would not do to upset him. But they were all watching her expectantly, and McQueen had that stubborn look in his eyes, so she slid her thumb under the flap and drew out a single sheet of paper. F.X. Patrick's last dispatch.

"Read it," McQueen said. Vansen gave him a worried frown. "Go on," he insisted. "It's all right."

Vansen took a breath, and began reading:

"DELORES PRIME, October 16, 2064: I never really knew what courage was until this night. Oh, sure, I wrote about the bravery of our troops, both in this war and the last one. I praised high self-sacrifice, without ever understanding that this was really the response to the dearth of choices; I condemned what I saw as cowardice, when in fact it what I witnessed was merely the innate human desire to survive. In almost twenty years of covering war, I never really understood what I was looking at. Until tonight.

The air around our command post is charged with a kind of energy that crackles like static and smells like ozone - the men here all know that this is do or die. And most likely die; the brass anticipates an eighty percent or higher casualty rate among the first assault troops, the Marines, and fifty percent or more among those who follow. There can be no holding back. This will be a battle of sheer numbers. Two thirds of the men and women now seated in the dark throughout the surrounding countryside will not be alive in the morning if command has got its numbers right. And yet they sit, quietly, these doomed soldiers, some praying, some listening. Some even trying to catch a bit of sleep. They keep their solemn vigil and await orders, knowing they will surely die.

This is courage. And I have not understood it.

I may die tonight. It is a possibility. It comes to me that it is a greater possibility than I have ever faced before, and that knowledge turns my thoughts inward, to the things I have, in the past, written, said, done. Have I ever misrepresented? Have I mistaken lies for good copy? Have I wronged another, for the sake of my own happiness? Do I have regrets?

The answers are yes, and yes, and yes, and yes. It is too late, now, to go back and re-write history. I can only hope that I will live to write a better future, and more true. And if I die, I can only hope that those I have wronged, both the dead and alive, will grant forgiveness if they are able. Though I have no right to ask it. You know who you are. And I know, now, that it is you who have had the true courage. You who kept on, in the face of all the lies. You will prevail, despite me, never fear that.

The order has come down. We're moving out. What this night will prove, if I will be here in the morning to complete this dispatch by the light of Delores Prime's yellow sun, I am not sure.

But at least I understand, now."

The End

Sheryl Clay
© 1996

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