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Zulu Time
Disclaimer: Characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel: the Series are property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Kuzui Enterprises, Sandollar Television, the WB, and UPN.
Part III
So, for what came next … well, you need to have a bit of basic background to really understand it.
We worked a lot with the ANA — Afghan National Army — and had them inside the wire quite a bit, but that was only during the daytime. There were two reasons for this. First, a good many of these guys were hard, tough, committed (though their army as a whole never seemed as committed as the Taliban they were supposed to be fighting), but overall soldier quality varied a lot, and we were still trying to teach them the basics of building up a strong backbone of NCOs. As a result, the quiet word that passed among us was that if we ever took fire, we’d better hug the ground hard because the ANA would start shooting in all directions without paying too much attention to where the bullets were going. (One of Murphy’s Laws of Combat: Friendly fire, isn’t.) Second, you just plain never knew when some Afghan soldier would decide that a higher duty to Allah meant he should open up on his ‘allies’ — or sometimes his own comrades — and we all just plain slept easier knowing it was only Americans and their western allies inside the walls at night.
The ANA had their own compound nearby, and we coordinated with them on a daily basis. Sometimes they’d get attacked on their way to joining up with us, sometimes our opposition would hold off till we went out on joint patrols together, and then attack that, and sometimes the ANA compound would take sporadic fire just as ours did … but more often for them, because the Taliban had learned some bloody, costly lessons about American night-
vision equipment, counter- battery artillery, and coordination with helicopter gunships. Even if we were a harder target, though, we were a more desirable target. Jihadis would happily kill anybody who disagreed with them, or didn’t agree enthusiastically enough, but we were the invaders and the ones they really wanted to hit with some payback. All of those guys had grown up hearing stories about the fight against the Russians, or had actually been in that fight themselves, and even if they hadn’t yet worked out how to pull it off, what they wanted more than anything else was to completely overrun an American base.
So, because of that, explosions in the middle of the night were regarded as not a good thing.
Explosions inside our walls? Not-
good kicked up a quantum level or two. Up and had my pants on in seconds, Tsien turned on the light while I was sticking my feet into boots without bothering with socks. I ignored my uniform top and grabbed for body armor, we needed to be in place fast and we could make things nice later. My men followed my example, we were out of the door in under a minute, with me cursing that I hadn’t had time yet to effect the weapons upgrade I’d planned. Outside, there was a lot of motion but no panic, men hastily armed and hastily clad — like us — scrambling to get to duty stations or assemble for direction, the darkness was only a partial handicap because we knew the camp layout well by now and there was periodic illumination from poled lamps.
My overriding duty was to our mission, base protection in this case, but Vi and Andrew had been made my responsibility so I couldn’t simply disregard them; in fact, when I showed up I could expect Hardass to want a report on their status. So I headed for their quarters first, banged on the door and called their names, I’d stress for them to stay put and send back one of my men to safeguard them if that was the order. No answer, I banged and yelled again, this time remembering to identify myself, then tried the door and found it unlocked and the interior empty.
My language wasn’t unusual among soldiers but I tried to maintain more self-
control when dealing with my men. “We don’t have time to hunt for them,” I announced. “Call out if you see them, but let’s go!”, and we took off for our company HQ. More explosions had been going on while all this was taking place, and there had been something about them that I had registered without having time to think about it; with the next one, my unconscious kicked to the forefront. We’d taken a few mortar hits when we first got in-
country, but our radar could spot the source of those before the shells landed and respond with artillery or helicopters, so the locals had taken to using rockets instead: more complicated, but radar couldn’t trace a ballistic point-of-origin for those, and they could be set up on a timer or fired remotely while the users were focusing their attention elsewhere. The sounds I was hearing weren’t mortars or rockets, there was a flat- clap quality to them that reminded me of something but I couldn’t — “There!” Tsien sang out, and we whipped around to see a quick-
moving form run behind a row of buildings about forty yards away, just that glimpse made me think female and something in the movement reminded me of Vi. I shouted her name and started after her, we couldn’t afford to play hide- and- seek but she might respond and we could get her to a known location before continuing on our way. Something in the back of my mind was trying to say this wasn’t right, we hadn’t seen Andrew but if he was around he’d be following Vi rather than running ahead of her, but events were speeding faster than I could process them. I cut around the same corner, Scott and Tsien right behind me, and there was another of those explosions and this time I registered it as the detonation of a fragmentation grenade. Still no time to stop and think, but sometimes you just know, and instant understanding slapped at me: grenades inside the wire meant enemy inside the wire, which was an escalation of bad beyond my ability to measure it, the explosions weren’t close but we’d been getting closer, did that mean Vi was running toward them —? We’d gained some on the figure I’d spotted, as if she had stopped for just a moment, but then she started running again and we went after her, me once more calling her name.
The change of angle had put Scott and Tsien a couple of steps ahead of me on our new course, so I was trailing slightly as we rounded the last corner … at which point, things went to shit all at once.
It was so fast I couldn’t even see what happened, just that Tsien went flying, an agonized grunt coming a fraction of a second after a hard smack! of impact, and he hit with only slightly more grace than a punctured sandbag. Scott yelped and started to bring his M-4 to bear, but we hadn’t been ready for action at that exact moment and you always kept a weapon on safe till time to use it, there was a flash of motion and this time he let out something that was half-
yell and half- scream, his legs tangled as he tried to turn and back up at the same time and he lost balance and fell, and light from one of the poled lamps was just enough for me to see the handle of a large knife protruding from where it had gone past the collar of his body armor and slantwise into his shoulder, barely missing his throat. Then the unknown threat was on me, and I was down before I had the least bit of time to react. I had no idea what had hit me, it was as unexpected (and almost as cataclysmic) as being caught in a grenade blast … which was fitting in a way, because I found out well afterward that I’d been hit with a sack of grenades. Like that scene in Death Wish where Charles Bronson tries out a bunch of nickels in a sock as a weapon? only about twenty times bigger, and the force that hit me was likewise multiplied. I caught some of it on my shoulder, some against the body armor below, some whanged off the side of my helmet, and even if I didn’t lose consciousness I was out of the fight as of that moment.
Which is why, from where I landed and couldn’t rise again, I was able to see what came next.
No, our attacker wasn’t Vi. I’m pretty sure I would have known that already (if I’d had any time at all for my mind to process thought), but any doubt was dispelled when Vi came streaking out of the shadows to drive into our adversary … and from there, it was on.
I once, back in west Texas, happened to see two wildcats fighting. What I was watching now was like that, only more: force, savagery, and total brutal commitment, but at speeds that went beyond what human eyes could track and understand.
This was two women — yes, we’d been right that the running figure was female — but I’d never seen any woman capable of what was taking place in front of me, much less a pair of them. It simply wasn’t possible … except that I was seeing it, which didn’t change that it wasn’t possible. At first it seemed that Vi was overmatched, but she kept fighting all the same, and (don’t ask how I understood this, I could just feel it) I saw that she wasn’t actually trying to win but just to hold off the other woman. Trying to talk to her, in fact, I kept hearing “doost” and “lotfan” — I recognized the first word as Dari for ‘friend’, found out later that the second was ‘please’ — but she wasn’t getting anywhere, the other woman was speaking (or cursing) in a harsh, unending stream of probably-Dari too fast for me to follow, as ferocious and unswerving as her assault. Vi seemed to have realized this, because she stopped talking and stepped up her efforts, beginning to launch counterstrikes that stalled the other woman and drove her back. They struck and tore at each other with pitiless, unrelenting force —
Then the base was rocked by the biggest explosion of all.
The source was far enough away that the concussion didn’t affect us, but the ground leaped under our feet. Both women tumbled, the Afghan woman (I knew that by now) letting out a cry of frustration and surprise, but recovering more quickly … and then Vi cried out herself, dismay and warning, and that was Andrew staggering out with some kind of pistol in his hand, and the Afghan woman streaked at him like an arrow leaving the bow.
I had thought the two women were roughly equal in speed, power, determination, and application of violence. They weren’t, Vi simply hadn’t yet pulled out all the stops. Till now. The Afghan woman really was quick, she almost reached Andrew before Vi was on her … and there was an awful crack! and the other woman fell limp and lifeless, and Vi’s bristling intensity held for another few moments before slumping into disappointment and regret.
Andrew was staring, but then he began to stammer, “I … I’m sorry, it’s my fault, I just thought I could —”
“No.” Vi shook her head. “No, the dart wasn’t going to stop her, she was riding too much adrenaline by now. Nothing was going to stop her, she was …” She shook her head again. “She was already too far gone before we ever got here.”
“Oh,” Andrew said. His lip began to quiver like he was afraid he would start crying. He wriggled his shoulders, seemed to regain control. “I’m still sorry. I know you wanted to …” He broke off, and his eyes widened. “Uh, Vi, what about —?” And he inclined his head in the general direction of me and my fallen team.
Vi spun, her mouth widening in distress as she took in the sight of us. “Oh, no,” she breathed. “Oh, crumminy!” And she started toward us.
There really were a lot of questions I wanted to ask her. I didn’t get the chance to do that. My body decided it had put in enough overtime, and I passed out.
* * *
Over the next several days, I learned a few things and watched as other issues sorted themselves out.
Scott and Tsien were both medevac-ed — Tsien had broken ribs and collarbone, and Scott was going to need careful surgery for the knife wound — and I was checked to rule out concussion but pronounced generally sound.
The Afghan woman who had incapacitated us? not a woman, actually, but a girl: the life there aged them fast, but this one couldn’t have been more than seventeen, and fifteen was a better guess. I’m not sure why we automatically recognized her as female, she was dressed in the standard wool cap/
long vest/ loose trousers favored by Taliban men, there must have just been something about the way she moved: even in full fighting mode, you simply didn’t think ‘male’ when you saw that. As my own witness had indicated, cause of death was a broken neck. The big boom at the end? That had been part of a coordinated attack. Pieced together from various reports, which included rumors picked up by the ANA and complaints from wounded-
and- captured Taliban fighters, the overall story went something like this: They called the girl Zahra, which may have been her actual name or might have been chosen because it had been the name of one of Mohammed’s daughters. Different reports gave different opinions of her: she’d insisted on joining the fight, but wouldn’t follow anyone’s direction, she listened to advice from various sources and then made her own decisions; this was not well received in an almost pathologically patriarchal culture, but she couldn’t be controlled and her ferocity in combat meant she was a valued asset if not a popular one. Most of her fighting had been in small intertribal raids, both to avoid letting the American invaders know what was coming and to help consolidate the various fighting groups into a large enough body of men that could finally be directed against a U.S. military target.
She had made her own way into the FOB, no one quite knew how but according to her reputation this ability was well known of her, and her task had been to create enough of a distraction (by running around throwing grenades) to get everyone on alert but focused on interior attack; after the first few minutes, a big military truck had started from the direction of the ANA compound, radioing ahead that they were sending soldiers to our aid. It was actually a truck bomb, designed to blow a big enough breech in the outer wall that the nearly three hundred gathered Taliban could get inside and mount a full-
scale attack. I really don’t see any way that such a relatively small force could have overwhelmed the entire FOB, but surprise does count for a lot, and they seemed to have been counting on Zahra smashing any forming pockets of resistance before those could come together for counterattack. The brief distraction when she paused to deal with us, and the longer one when Vi intervened, shorted the interior disruption that had been planned; with enough attention still focused outward, the approaching truck had been challenged, and then fired on when it didn’t respond correctly and didn’t stop, and it exploded far enough away to leave the wall intact. Some of the gathered fighters tried to press the attack (they didn’t lack for stubborn, and nobody had ever accused them of being cowards), but there really wasn’t anything they could do except shoot at the outer barriers, and eventually they had to give it up and retreat.
Finally, I heard a few minutes of Vi speaking with SFC Hartis. They had come to see how I was doing, before I was judged fit and released, and I suppose the partitioning in the med facility had kept them from realizing I was close enough to make out what they were saying. Which went as follows:
“… tried,” Vi was saying. “I really tried, but she was probably half-
crazy by then. Killing people … it does something to us. She would have thought it was her duty, but it would have just kept building in her.” A pause. “I wanted … it just isn’t fair, she never really had a chance, not getting the activation here, NOW.” Then Hartis: “From everything I can tell, you didn’t have much of a choice there.”
Vi, forlorn: “We try to stay away from wars, what our destiny wants us to do just gets … snarled up when it’s a fight between people. Her bad luck that she woke up in the middle of a war that was already happening. Not even her fault, but she was still the one who wound up paying for it.”
Hartis again: “And what about you? You’re not much older than she was, will you be okay?”
A sigh. “I’ll talk to somebody. We have people who … anyway, yes, I’ll talk with somebody. They’ll make sure I do.” Now a pause. “We’re still recovering, still building. We could really use someone who —”
“No.” (Hartis.) “I never got the call, and this is where I am now, and I think it’s where I’m supposed to be.” Believe it or not, I could hear the smile in her voice. “And I’ll keep an eye out for if any of our female soldiers start showing the signs.”
And then they came in look in on me, and I couldn’t learn anything else from either of them, even though I probed as carefully as I could.
* * *
So.
You know Scott’s end of this, how the infection that cropped up kept him in the hospital till our deployment was over. And now he’s up for re-enlistment, but doesn’t know if he wants to stay in the Army, even questions whether he’s still fit to serve. And, if he’s anything like me, he feels like a total wuss over being shaken so badly by only a few seconds of action.
Maybe it’s harder on him because he doesn’t know enough of the background to face even more questions. Or maybe it’s easier. I’ve wondered, but I can’t make up my mind. I’m still working through my own issues on this.
Hartis wasn’t being completely honest with us, I can see that. The way she was talking … she just had a familiarity with what was going on, that she never let on to us. From what she said to Vi at the end, it seems pretty clear that she’d kept our ‘newschick’ informed of background that we ourselves didn’t have, and I honestly have to wonder if Vi’s people, whoever they were, might have got their original alert from Hartis herself.
What did she mean by ‘never got the call’?
Why did Vi seem to feel such a kinship to a girl she’d never seen before, one she’d wound up fighting literally to the death?
I’ve tried to tell you enough to make it clear: Scott’s problems are real, but they’re not because of anything wrong with him. I’m dealing with the same things, and I believe I’m coming to terms with all of that, but it’s not completely settled yet.
I saw a teenaged redhead kill an Afghan girl with her bare hands … and she did it to keep the other girl from killing an armed-
and- armored combat- ready team, and God knows how many others after that. And the things she touched on, in the conversation I overheard … well, ever since then I can’t stop myself from wondering. If Zahra was going crazy because she was going after rival Taliban, and then Americans, instead of following out her destined duty, then what was her duty? If a female fighting machine wasn’t supposed to be setting herself against the enemies of her people, then what was she supposed to be fighting? I’ll probably never get the answer to that, and I don’t know if I can be satisfied with never knowing; but, if I ever did find out the truth, would I ever again be able to sleep at night? Back when I still thought she was a newschick, I kept saying about Vi, she just doesn’t get it. That wasn’t ignorance from me, or arrogance, that was something I’d seen in dozens of people, civilians of various stripes, and everything about Vi said it was true of her as well.
Maybe I wasn’t entirely wrong about her, but I’ve come to suspect that, at best, I wasn’t as right as I believed I was. And there doesn’t seem to be any escaping that, from her perspective, I was the one who ‘just didn’t get it’. There’s another world out there, inside the one I thought I knew, and I hate the thought of staying in the dark, but just the glimpse I got was enough to make me wonder if I’d be able to take it if I did know.
Anyway. If you want to understand what Scott is facing, I hope this helps you to understand. It’s all I have to offer, and if it makes you wonder if I’m delusional, you’ll at least know that he’s not alone in this.
The world is what it is, even the parts we know we don’t fully see, and we just have to deal with it all as best we can.
At any rate, I genuinely wish you the best of luck, and the same to Scott. You both deserve it.
Sincerely,
Tom Stieglitz
SGT, U.S. Army
– end –