Unknown - The_Growing_589064

As she watches, two groups of fifty or more lumber through the massive gates, some walking, some riding in decrepit vehicles, all with possessions strapped to their backs and the same look of hollow-eyed dread and merciless hope coloring their features.

The scene brings to her mind something she’d seen in history class once, a picture of destitute farmers fleeing the dust bowl, all of their worldly possessions strapped to backs, horses and trucks that looked like they would go another mile before quitting completely.

“’Give me your tired, your poor,’” she whispers, watching them stream onto the base, “’your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, the tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.’”

A passing man hears her whisper and gives her a strange look. She returns it with a steely glare, complete with raised eyebrow. He quickly finds something else to capture his attention, scurrying away like a rat after cheese.

As she continues on her way, she begins to notice things that raise the hackles on the back of her neck. Ahead, two middle-aged women argue over what looks to be a basket of half-rotten fruit. Their arms swing in wild gesticulations, and Dakota knows it’s only a matter of time before one of those wild swings catches, starting an all-out scrap.

Off to her left, in the middle of the street, two men are brawling like a couple of overweight, over-the-hill boxers. They’re quite obviously drunk as skunks. One man’s nose is a bloody mess. The other has one eye puffed up to the size of a cue ball. A full bottle of cheap booze lies shattered on the ground between them, the glass shards shining like trumpery diamonds.

A uniformed MP stands to one side, her face a mask of indecision. Koda can almost read her thoughts.

These are civilians.

Who has jurisdiction over them?

Should she intervene?

Or should she simply stand by and let them decide the outcome?

“Great,” Dakota mutters, half under her breath. “Looks like the honeymoon is over.”

Just as she’s about to head in that direction, both men go down, either too drunk or too injured to continue. The MP stares dumbly down at them before raising her head and shooting Koda a pleading look. Dakota shrugs in reply, as unsure of the current legal situation as the MP. A uniformed man bearing the rank of Major runs toward the scene, and Dakota moves on, content for the moment to let events play out as they will without her direct intervention.

She knows, however, that changes are going to need to be made. And soon.

*

“Doctor Rivers!” the young man calls out, snapping to full attention so quickly that his spine fairly creaks with the effort.

Koda looks over the young private, remembering him as one of Tacoma’s advance machine gunners who had charged a group of retreating droids, disabling several and getting winged in the neck for his troubles. “Private Holloway. How’s the neck?”

A rosy flush spreads over the Private’s fair features at the realization that this beautiful woman—who he had seen doing things on the battlefield that even the most courageous of his buddies would never even attempt—knows his name.

“Ma’am!” he shouts, straightening even further. “Just fine, Ma’am!”

Biting her cheeks to keep a smile from coming to her lips at the young man’s earnestness, she settles instead for a brisk nod. “Good to hear, Private. Permission to enter?”

“Ma’am, yes, Ma’am!”

“Thank you, Private.”

“Ma’am?”

Dakota turns, leveling her gaze at him and causing his blush to deepen. He holds an arm out, a facemask dangling from his hand. “You…um…might want to use this, Ma’am.”

Koda smiles. “Thanks, but…I’ll be okay.”

With a final nod, she leaves him standing at his post, and enters the cavernous hanger. The interior is dim, cool, and ripe with the high, sickly sweet stench of death and decay. It’s a scene she’s known most of her life, and while it will never replace a fine cologne, her stomach no longer folds in upon itself when she detects it.

Standing at the entrance, she lets her gaze glide over the neat rows of corpses wrapped in sheets—the supply of bodybags having been decimated after the first conflict—and covered by American flags.

So many rows. So many bodies. So much courage, and honor, and loyalty left to rot beneath a flag whose meaning has been forever changed. So much blood. So much grief. So much loss.

Silent as a shadow, she glides between the rows, reading each name and committing it to memory. Here and there she stops to touch a marble hard wrist, a frozen cheek, a statue’s foot, honoring these brave men and women as best she can and thanking them for their sacrifice.

“Wakhan Tanka,” she murmurs, breath a freshet fogging the air before her, “guide these souls and keep them. Ina Maka, give them comfort, hold them close. Honor them as they have honored us. Keep them safe. Give them peace.”

A shadow falls across the last body, and Dakota looks up to see her brother standing at the entrance to the morgue, posture ramrod stiff, medals, buttons and boots polished to a high-gloss shine. His face is a granite mountain, but his eyes…to Koda, who knows him well, they are grief writ large and black. A scuff of rubber on cement, and a small squad of litter bearers form rank behind him, faces and bearings so identical that they look as if they’ve rolled fresh from an assembly line.

Dakota crosses the floor, narrowing the distance between then until there is none. His hand is warm and dry as it engulfs her own, and it bears a minute, internal tremor signaling the grief his face tries to mask. They share a look of complete understanding. Their troops. Their responsibility. Their blood on hands that will never be clean.

“Hoka hey,” she whispers, eyes bright and shining with unshed tears.

The granite splits for just a moment, letting the tiniest of smiles curve the corner of his mouth. Joined hands lift and he briefly strokes her cheek with the back of his knuckles, thanking her, loving her. “Hoka hey.”

The sound of a payloader’s engine coming choppily to life breaks the moment.

Somewhere in the distance, a lone bugler plays Taps.

*

This time, Dakota accepts the sun’s welcoming warmth as she steps out of the hangar and into the brightness of the day. Her soul, if not at peace, is at rest for the moment, and she leaves the task of burial to the others as she allows her feet to take her where they will.

Her stride is long, easy, and unhurried as it takes her out of the base proper, past rows of abandoned military vehicles standing in formation like the army toys of a giant child who’s gone to bed. It’s a melancholy sight, bringing to mind things taken for granted in a past that will never be again. Pushing those thoughts from her mind, she strolls back into the residential area, purposefully steering clear of Maggie’s home, not ready to return there just yet.

She watches idly as several families, and parts of families, take over abandoned military housing, moving in their meager belongings while casting furtive glances over their shoulders, as if expecting such a windfall to be snatched from their grasps without so much as a “how d’ye do”.

She shakes her head as she passes a ramshackle, half-bombed out house on a prime corner lot, looking on through narrowed eyes as two families nearly come to blows over its possession. This time, the MPs are quick to step in and separate the feuding families, though not without receiving the sharp side of several tongues in rapid succession.

“We need a census taker,” she mutters, watching as a group of strangers, attracted by the impending brawl, gather on the corner like rubberneckers at a highway accident. She doesn’t recognize one face, and that puts her hackles up again.