Teaser for a new story
Title: Beyond the Call
Author: DuWinter
Fandom: DWP
Pairing: Miranda/Andy
Rating: PG-13
Summery: A teaser for a new story I'm working on.
Disclaimer: The Devil Wears Prada and it's characters do not belong to me. No profit being made here. I'm just playing with them for a short while and I promise to put them away neatly when I'm through with them.
Comment: Comments and constructive criticism eagerly encouraged. This is a teaser to judge interest. Comments will help continue the story.
Notes: Deus ex machina in full effect. This is a work of fiction. I'm sure that some of my audience will find parts of it in error or stretching their credibility.
A/N 1: While I know that members of the Ohio National Guard have served bravely in the conflicts overseas, I don't know for a fact that the 284th Supply Brigade has ever been deployed to Afghanistan.
A/N 2: This work has been written very diffrently from most of my writing endeavors. While the idea for this story has been in my mind for some time it only recently demanded to be written. I did not engage in the level of research I normally engage in. Some of my materials are pure fiction culled from watching TV and movies. I ask the reader to suspend disbelief and go with it.
A/N 3: I apologize in advance to anyone my use of the word 'bitch' offends. It seemed like the best choice in the context which it is used.
Special Thanks: to Ragelikeafire who is the most understanding and encouraging of betas.
The Corporal's arm screams pain as she crawls on her belly through the ruins of the sandbagged bunker towards the M60 machine gun emplacement. Incoming fire divots the area around her. In the dim light provided by her burning re-supply truck she can see the gunner is dead. They're all dead.
The squad that manned this forward guard post, her partner from the re-supply truck, even the TV news crew that rode out here with them to photograph this desolate pass and this forward post. A post at the ass end of nowhere which would be withdrawn in a few days. It was only here to guard the road through the pass. Only going to be here until the Italian medical team in the Afghan village below had completed their humanitarian work with the women and children refugees that were there and returned to Kabul.
The soldiers that manned this position had been caught out in the open, most of the squad excitedly hamming it up for one of the TV crew's cameras. She and her partner were unloading supplies from the truck and moving them into the bunker. She was approaching the open door to the bunker carrying an arm-full of MRE rations. The TV crew's second camera man, who'd been attempting to flirt with her outrageously, was filming her from inside the bunker door when the first rocket grenade had hit. Most of the TV crew and half the squad were gone in an instant. The rest had been picked off in the next handful of seconds by stifling automatic weapons fire and fierce rocket grenades as the soldiers tried to respond to the surprise attack. One of the deadly missiles had rocketed past her ear, missing her by only inches and passed through the open portal into the bunker. Its detonation had blown off the roof and violently thrown the Corporal backwards, knocking her off her feet. Her ears ringing, half blind from blood covering her face and running into her eyes the tried to rise and discovered her left leg wouldn't hold her weight. The left sleeve of her jacket was in bloody shreds and her arm was alive with pain. She found it hard to breathe as she began to crawl, knowing that the rubble of the bunker was her best chance for some kind of cover.
The Corporal was aware that this was an attack in force, that the Taliban insurgents were here in serious numbers. The number of AK-47's she heard firing on her position told her that. She thought of the women and children in the village below. They will be treated as collaborators. The Italian medical team will likely be killed outright. At least the men will be. She's heard stories of what happens to women that the insurgents consider enemy military personnel. She had no intention of allowing such things to happen to her. Her rifle was slung on its webbing on her left shoulder. It had been torn away from her when she was hit and now lays in the open where to try an retrieve it would require her to move from behind cover. Her best hope is to find a weapon in the wreckage of the bunker. She's cold and aware she's losing a lot of blood from her shrapnel wounds. Her ballistic armor likely saved her life but her leg, arm, armpit and the side of her neck weren't protected. Her left arm and leg are virtually useless. She was truly scared now, because her leg didn't hurt. It just felt like dead weight. She's heard that when you're really badly wounded, shock shuts your pain responses down. She pulled herself farther into the rubble, tears forming in her eyes as she struggled. She drews herself up behind the heavy machine gun and looked out. She could see the insurgents moving up. They were confidently out in the open, as if convinced that the bunker was no longer a threat. They would over run the position and then attack the village below. She sighted down the barrel of the weapon on the advancing enemy and in the acrid stench of gunpowder and the chattering of the heavy gun firing she proveed their assumption wrong. It was hopeless. She knew it. There was only so much ammunition in the bandoleer feeding the weapon. There was no one to resupply her. She thought of the young male nurse she met yesterday when she was bringing provisions to the medical team. A sweet young man who pinged on the Corporal's gaydar. His laughing smile and dark hair reminded her a great deal of her best friend back home. She remembered the Afghan mother with her twin daughters. The twin teens' dark eyed similarity reminded her of the blue eyed identical twins she had left behind. Blue eyes so much like their mother's. She had promised their mother that she would come home safe. It was one of the last things she'd said to the woman that had come to be her whole world. Her ammunition all but gone she closed her eyes as she grabbed for the radio, knowing what she must do.
“Foxfire Two Actual this is Sierra Four One, do you copy?” she shouted above the chatter of incoming gunfire.
“Foxfire Two Actual, we copy.” the tinny voice from the radio replied.
“Foxfire Two Actual, Position is over run! Squad down! We have hostiles in the front door and headed out the back. Require immediate artillery support!” The soldier screamed into the mike. The insurgents were moving up again, although more cautiously this time. As she ducked behind what's left of the sandbagged wall she in-congruently noticed that the record light is still lit on the TV camera lying in the ruble next to the mangled body of its operator.
“Sierra Four One, provide barrage coordinates.” the speaker on the radio replied.
The Corporal closed her eyes and reached her blood covered good hand up to her uninjured shoulder activating the emergency IRF retrieval beacon that hung there. “On my beacon!” she hollered into the mike. “Let it rain! I repeat! Let it rain!”
“Sierra Four One, barrage on your signal will put you at ground zero of the strike....” replied the tinny voice of the radio operator.
A tear ran down her cheek as she dared to glance out the gun port. The nearest of the Taliban were close enough that she could see their faces. She quickly pulled her head back down. “It's a shame some of my last words to Miranda have to be a lie....” she whispered. “Foxfire Two Actual,” she yelled into the radio, “civilian refugees and a non combatant medical team in the village below. Enemy in-force headed for the back door! I repeat again, on my location! Let it rain! Let it rain!”
Miles away the radio operator looked to his Commanding Officer, who nodded. The radio operator spoke into his microphone, “Duck and Cover Sierra Four One. Incoming.” He clicked off the mike, closed his eyes and quietly whispered “and God's speed you brave crazy bitch.” Seconds later the eight Howitzers of the battery roared into life sending screaming death into the sky. Seconds after that the forward guard post and everything around it for more than a hundred meters disappeared in the hellish aftermath of a heavy artillery shelling.
Half a world away Cassidy Priestly sat, bored, in 7th grade Contemporary Social Studies watching web articles about the war in Afghanistan on her laptop computer. Try as she might she couldn't bring herself to care about that conflict so far away. She really didn't understand why American soldiers need to be there. She changed websites going to CNN and the images of a breaking news story caught her eye. The camera angle was terrible, the lighting poor as an American soldier crawled past the camera. The body of the soldier obscured the lens for a moment but Cassidy could clearly see the bloody shoulder and the name on the breast of the jacket; SACHS. A. Cassidy covered her mouth to stifle the gasp of shock as she watched the soldier crawl away from the camera and struggle to pull herself up behind a machine gun. As the weapon began to fire Cassidy's eyes widen as she watched the horror of the scene unfold.
Andy had gone to Afghanistan. Mother had told them so. Mother had told them that Andy was part of a supply unit for the National Guard and had to go, because the country needed her. It was her duty. Mother had said Andy would be stationed in the city of Kabul where she would be safe. The images from CNN didn't tell the same story. Andy wasn't safe. Andy was scared and screaming into a radio and then there were explosions before the image went black. The commentator said the camera had belonged to a news man that had been killed in the attack. It had captured the images of the heroic American soldier protecting women and children refugees and an Italian medical team. That the images had been transmitted from the camera by satellite and only ended when the camera had been destroyed by the shelling of American artillery that the soldier had called down on her own position to protect the village below. The talking head on CNN said that the soldier had bravely given her life in the defense of innocent civilians. Cassidy stood from her chair, knocking it over backward, her vision blinded by tears running down her cheeks. Andy was Mother's friend. Was becoming her and Caroline's friend. She had to find Caroline and then she had to call her Mother. Andy made her Mother happy. The horror of realization made her mind retreat into rationalizations. She became the little girl again. Mummy needed to know what CNN was saying. Mummy could make them tell the truth. Make them say Andy was alright. Ignoring the objection of her teacher she blindly made for the classroom door. Caroline would be in English Lit just a few rooms down the hall. It was hard to see through the tears but she had to get to Caroline and then call Mummy.....