If he needed counseling during the deployment to Llalande, Garroway’s assigned chaplain was Lieutenant Maillard. He doubted that he would need to talk with her, however. Wiccans, for the most part, handled their own priestly duties without the need of clergy.
He did wonder why this ritual, this time set apart, was so important to him now but decided he didn’t need to look further than the bewildering avalanche of sights, sounds, emotions, and impressions of the past twenty-some hours. Pressley’s shocking death…the news that the Derna had been crippled in orbit…the destruction of An-Kur…the battle at the north wall…He felt as though he’d lived years in a day’s span of time.
Now there was an interesting twist on the whole question of objective versus subjective time.
An old, old saying held that religion was for those who feared Hell, while spirituality was for those who’d been there.
He felt the faint, nails-on-blackboard tingle on his spine that he thought of as energy rising from the earth, filling him, recharging him. He needed this as much as he needed sleep; it was a reminder of who he was, of what he was, and why. An old military saying held that there were no atheists in foxholes.
If his religion had not been important to him before, save as a weapon to wield against an abusive and drunken father, it was vitally important to him now.
He was scared. Alone and scared.
The word had come down from the LM command post earlier that day, along with the news of the promotions and medals. They were looking for forty-eight volunteers for an airborne assault on the pyramid in the east. He’d given it some thought, then decided to put in his name.
He still wasn’t entirely sure why he’d done it. Hell, “never volunteer” was the unwritten cardinal rule for all enlisted personnel, a rule probably going back to the time of Sargon the Great. But he was still feeling a bit…detached was the only way he could phrase it. Numb. The loss of so many men and women he’d come to know over the past subjective days had left him feeling as though he needed to reach out and reattach himself, to put down new roots, forge new bonds.
Volunteering for what they were calling Operation Suribachi seemed the best way to do that.
Of course, they might turn him down for lack of experience, the way Gunny Valdez had. Somehow, though, he felt now as though he carried an entire world of experience squarely on his back.
The Wiccan ritual was a good way to ground himself with earth and with now as well.
“God and Goddess, Marduk and Ishtar…speed the passing of friends and comrades from this world to the next. Make bright their ways. Strengthen those they’ve left behind…”
A long time later—all of thirty minutes, perhaps, though it seemed like hours—Garroway closed his circle and returned to the phenomenal world of space and time.
He still felt numb, but he did feel stronger. A little, anyway.
He sheathed his athame—a standard Corps-issue Mk. 4 combat knife once again—and returned to the patch of open ground in front of Building 12, where he’d stowed his sleep roll and gear.
Now, he thought, he might be able to sleep.
MIEU Command Center
Legation Compound
New Sumer, Ishtar
1545 hours ALT
“The walkers are through the east gate,” Major Anderson reported. “No contact.”
“Very well, Major,” Colonel Ramsey said as he continued watching the big monitor screen mounted on one bulkhead of the command LM. The view was of a dusty New Sumer street, a view that lurched unsteadily from side to side as the camera platform stalked ahead on two scissoring plasteel and carbon fiber legs. The legend at the bottom of the screen reported that the image was being transmitted from Gunwalker Seven. A red crosshair reticle floated about the scene, marking the aim point of the walker’s Gatling laser.
To Ramsey’s left a line of seven Marine technicians sat at a long, makeshift console with bread-boarded processor blocks and salvaged monitors. Each watched his or her own screen closely, making moment-to-moment adjustments on the joystick controls in front of them.
“So far, so good,” General King said, edging up beside Ramsey and peering up at the big screen. “How much farther?”
“Half a kilometer, General, thereabouts.”
“Coming up on East Cagnon and Rosenthal Street, Colonel,” one of the techs said. “Making the turn north onto Rosenthal.” The image on the screen swung sharply as the teleoperated walker veered left; Ramsey caught a glimpse of another walker making the turn—an ungainly looking device that reminded him of a neckless ostrich cast as modern sculpture. The Gatling laser, slung beneath the body and between the legs in blatantly phallic display, pivoted left and right, seeking targets. “Still no contact.”