Flip Side of the Coin

[Cassie Granger 0]

Flip Side of the Coin

A Silver-Granger Log

 

“Whoa there.” Gage smirked as Cass chugged the last of the stout. “This ain't the glass of milk your mom pours.”

 

“Never did like milk,” she said, nailing the empty glass. “Colonel put me on to Guinness. Made me promise not to tell my dad.”

 

“Share one with him when you see him again.”

 

Cass shot him a glance, her mood darkened. “He’s MIA, sir. Mom, too. Both disappeared on the Ticonderoga after Vulcan. Probably never see ‘em again.”

 

“You’re a little ray of hope.”

 

“Yeah...,” she sighed. “...helps me keep my focus.” Her retort strained, she eyed her glass, then shoved it aside.

 

“You forget already, Cass? There’s a chance they might be alive.”

 

“Might be alive. Colonel says they found the transponder, no life signs but evidence of bivouac. That’s it. One transponder does not a recovery make. Hell, no telling how it got there.”

 

“Someone had to put it there; he taught you how to survive, right?”

 

There was a long pause and a quick glance in his direction before she responded. “Yeah... okay. He did.”

 

“If you’ve survived this long, Cass, gotta be a chance he has, too.”

 

“Yeah, maybe.” Cass flicked a finger toward the orderly, calling for a refill.

 

“He was good, sir,” she continued quietly, taking her time with the second glass. “Damn good. Call-sign Cat... for a couple reasons I’m sure you can figure out.” She forced a grin, trying to lighten up. “ I could tell stories, but you’d be bored.” The sip went down. Barely.

 

“So bore me.”

 

“Bore you?” She gave a snort. “Okay.” After a minute or two she shifted to lean an elbow on the table. “A lot of what he told me was just before they went down, and it’s classified...” she waved a dismissive hand. Most of what they did was classified anyway, so what the hell, “...of course. But I can tell you there wasn’t a one of his team that could spot him until he was right... there.” A rap on the table emphasized the point. “Footfall like a cat. Not a sound. He could slink through the grass and even the grass wouldn’t know he was there.

 

“From the time I could walk he took me out. Bertaria, where I was brought up? Has a real mix of terrain. Just outside the colony was this...” her fingers clawed the air “... scraggy rock face. Only about 200 feet, but straight up. One way up, one way down, his favorite place for ‘operations’, as he called ‘em. Scale the face and there’s a plateau covered with savanna grass, hiding one of the nastiest batches of wildlife you’d ever want to see - or not see. Planet’s mostly desert, so wherever there’s water, there’s food, and wherever there’s food there’re predators. That’s where I first learned to scale, hunt, snipe, and hide - pretty much everything.”

 

She fell silent, then an impish grin spread across her face. “Bored yet?”

 

“Nope, but got me wondering.”

 

“About?”

 

“If boring your enemies counts as a survival skill.”

 

“If the enemy’s a Fleeter....”

 

“We still out number you. It’ll be a war of attrition.”

 

“We aim for quality, not quantity.”

 

“So did the Germans in WWII.”

 

“And the First at Guadalcanal.”

 

“Your Pacific doesn’t equal my European Theater.”

 

“I’ll see your ET and raise you a question.”

 

“Shoot.”

 

“Why is it always a contest, talking to you, sir?” Cass tapped the table as she talked, a nervous tic brought on by irritation, though she tried to hide it in her expression. “I feel like we’re sniper on sniper here, each waiting for the crack-thump.”

 

“I dunno, Cass. You’re the only one here who seems to be aiming at everyone through a scope.”

 

Her head jerked up. “Really?”

 

“Cass, best I can figure it, we’re just a necessary inconvenience to you.”

 

She blinked. “How you figure that, sir?”

 

“It’s obvious you wanna be somewhere else. The punctilio. The way you treat your crewmates: keepin’ everyone at arm’s length and getting defensive when people get too friendly. You’re the one who thinks this whole thing’s some kind of twisted up metaphor for counter-snipping. But I came here unarmed, Cass. Been unarmed the whole time.”

 

“Punctilio?” A small grunt escaped. “How about professional courtesy? Decorum? Protocol and conducting yourself befitting the rank that’s ‘bestowed upon you’ by those who know you’ll bear it properly?

 

“And while we’re being honest here, sir... you’re unarmed? Hell, you defend yourself by putting up a wall of sarcasm and practical jokes so high not even the local shrink can get over it.”

 

“Shrink isn’t the word I’d use. He was 190 centimeters tall.”

 

“I rest my case, sir.” Suddenly her drink had a whole new meaning. She took a long pull, her eyes diverted, staring at anything but him.

 

“Relax, Cass. It’s just banter: good fun, stress relief. Everybody’s gotta let go once an’ awhile.”

 

“Once in a while, yeah. All the time? Not on your everlovin’,” she replied, still staring into space. “I’ll bet you couldn’t have a straight conversation without joking if your life depended on it.”

 

“That’s funny comin’ from the girl who doesn’t laugh enough. Surprised you haven’t blown a seal keepin’ all of it in like that.”

 

“And how do you know I don’t?” She cocked her head, copping an attitude to match.

 

“You don’t think I noticed earlier? You took a one-eighty, Cass.”

 

“Right. And when was that?”

 

“In the maintenance conduit an hour ago.”

 

“Let my guard down is all.”

 

“Guard. I call it gutless.”

 

“Yeah, well, it takes one... sir...” her jaw clenched, she set the glass down a little too precisely before lowering her voice to a cutting tone “...and I think this conversation is over.” Kicking back her chair, she stood at attention. “Permission to retire, Sir.”

 

“Sit. Down.”

 

“Yes, Sir.” The chair barely held together as she dropped.

 

“What’s it gonna take to crack that guard, Cass?”

 

She sat, eyes front, jaw clenched.

 

“Okay, fine,” Gage said. “You need a guinea pig, I’ll be your guinea pig. Ask me a question, something personal.”

 

“Permission to speak freely, sir?” Eyes still front, as attention as you can get in a chair.

 

“Geeze, Cass,” Gage groaned, “I just gave it.”

 

“Why the hell did you leave the Corps?”

 

“Wanted to try something different.”

 

“Bull sh*t, sir.”

 

“No bull. I met somebody.”

 

“And meeting someone made you leave the Corps? Your team? Your family?”

 

“It was my family, not hers.”

 

“And she wasn’t willing to accept that?”

 

“I didn’t ask her to. It wasn’t about me.”

 

“Can’t imagine that, sir. Our whole family is Corps. Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

 

“Why do you think the Corps exists, Cass? None of what we do is about us.”

 

“Damn right, sir. We stand in the gap. There’s a job to be done, we do it.”

 

“And then we go home.”

 

“The Corps is my home.”

 

“Well, I had a chance to give her the home she wanted and I took it.”

 

“And it didn’t work out.”

 

“It worked better than I’d imagined.”

 

“So you’re married and she’s deployed elsewhere? Or at home, waiting? What kind of life is that?”

 

“You’ve got it all wrong,” Gage said, beginning to smirk.

 

“So you never got married.”

 

Gage incongruously chuckled and replied dryly: “I don’t have a wife. In fact, none of my family had wives. My father didn't like wives. I mean, my mother didn't like my father's wives--”

 

His pitiful attempt at humor snapped her eyes to his; her expression dropped from angry to incredulous. She continued to stare, her mouth trying to form words, nothing coming out.

 

“Spit it out, Cass.”

 

“My dad had one wife.” Her whisper was forcefully restrained, her eyes fixed on his. “Lived 32 years with her. Died with her.”

 

“Meaning what?”

 

“Meaning that their marriage was no joke, sir. They lived together. They fought together. They died together.”

 

“Well, good for them, but you don’t have a monopoly on dead parents,” Gage replied.

 

“No, sir, I_do_not. But I sure as hell had parents who took their commitment seriously.

 

“Permission to retire. Sir.”

 

Gage’s jaw visibly tightened and diverting a hardened gaze to the table, he quietly and sharply waved her dismissal. Cass had just passed his flank when he spoke again, his voice embittered but scarcely heard above the background noise.

 

“She’s dead, Cass.”

 

Cass stopped mid-stride, her eyes still on the exit.

 

“Was on shore rotation when it happened. I could’ve gone home that weekend, but stayed on station,” he continued with his back to Cass and his shoulders visibly sagging. “Didn’t give her the home she wanted in the end.”

 

He stabbed a rigid finger into the challenge coin he’d left on the table, the asperity of his voice rising a bit. “Couldn’t let this go; tried to hide it, but she knew. And one day, out of the blue, she told me I was driving her crazy and had to go back. I let her down and she carried on like everything was okay.” Slipping the coin off the table, he tucked it away in his pocket with a dismissive gesture and stood.

 

Cass turned in time to see the brass challenge coin drop into his pocket. Marine Security Guard Detachment - Hergoyat, Zavijah encircled the Marine globe and anchor, the obverse reading Honor, Courage, Commitment.

 

“Not as strong as you are, Cass,” he said, fixing his gaze on her. “Can’t wake up everyday and take it as seriously as you do. I hit a wall and left pieces behind. Don’t want to think about reality every waking moment; don’t like how messed up and empty it is.”

 

“We all have an emptiness somewhere, sir,” she whispered. “And no one is as strong as they want you to believe.” She paused a beat. “Semper fi.”

 

Gage exhaled cynically at the motto and apparently couldn’t think of an adequate response; no err or taunting, fleeter’s hooyah like before. It seemed those two words had hit him with the subtlety of napalm, a searing reminder of how unfaithful he evidently felt.

 

“Wasn’t trying to look like something I’m not,” he spiritlessly replied and tucked his chair under the table, body language communicating a deeply exacerbated wound.

 

“Just trying to survive after losing it all. Humor got me through BUD/S,” he said and then briefly faltered. Then turning toward the opposite exit, he muttered as he walked away: “Thought it would get me through everything.”

[Crash Calestorm 0]

Pretty raw-edged character log guys, and that's awesome.