By Autumn Rain

They watched as Carol overshot again, and Hartmann instructed her to repeat the exercise. There was an air of resignation hanging over the three men as they settled into watching Carol running back and forth in the Suit, each time missing the mark. The corporal seemed more agitated by the repetition than his superiors, and it reminded Hartmann of his early years of service when he had still been developing his mental discipline.

“You in for the long haul, corporal?” Hartmann grunted.

“No, sir. I’ll be returning to civilian life as soon as my service is up,” Holmes replied stiffly.

“Got a girlfriend?”

“Yessir.”

“Is she faithful?”

“Yessir, she is.” Holmes grinned widely. “We’re getting married after she graduates from college.”

Hartmann nodded. “You’re one of the lucky ones then.” A small part of him hoped that Holmes wouldn’t receive any last minute “Dear Johns”, as he had seen happen so many times before during his years in the military.

Lambert’s growl cut through their conversation as he spoke into the radio, “Again, Carol. You’re not any closer to the mark than you were the first time. Over.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I can’t quite tell where the mark is until I’m practically on top of it,” she answered. “Um, over.”

“You use your eyes to look,” Lambert snapped.

Hartmann smiled inwardly at the captain’s growing irritation, and commented, “She’s not going to be ready for combat at this rate,” knowing that it was an unhelpful thing to say.

“Shut it, MSG Hartmann. You’re here to help train Carol, not to narrate the situation.” Lambert rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“Sorry, sir.” Hartmann held out his hand. “In that case, please allow me to assist in training her, sir.” Lambert slapped the radio into his palm, and he spoke into it smoothly, “MSG Hartmann here. If you can’t see the mark on the ground, then use other landmarks that you know are near it. For example, CPT Lambert and I are in the jeep parked near the line, so the closer you get to us, the closer you get to the mile marker. Over.”

There was silence for a moment, then Carol answered defensively, “I’m not stupid.”

“I know,” Hartmann replied, looking directly at Lambert as he added, “Over.”

“I’m just … overwhelmed … over.” Carol’s voice sounded exhausted.

“We’re all feeling overwhelmed at the moment, but we’ll get through it. At the very least, your connection with the Suit is astounding – too bad you can’t see yourself from the outside. Over.”

“What the fuck are you up to?” Lambert growled, and his frowned deepened as Carol’s voice answered,

“Thank you, master sergeant. Over.”

“Sir, you ordered me to be nice,” Hartmann answered dismissively. “I thought she needed encouragement.”

“Carol is officially a military asset now, MSG Hartmann. You stick to your bar sluts, and don’t get any ideas into your head. She’s off limits.” Lambert continued to scowl.

Hartmann narrowed his eye and shook his head slightly. “Yes, sir,” he replied, emphasizing each word separately. “I was simply following your orders.” He forced a scowl as he added, “Though if I may say, sir, she is not anywhere near as young or sexy as the women that I am accustomed to.”

Lambert grunted. “Good.”

Hartmann wondered if, given the opportunity, the captain would keep to the “off limits” rule himself, or if he was secretly envisioning coming home to the cleaning lady cooking dinner and a couple of kids playing in the yard. The war couldn’t last forever, and one day the military would have to surrender to the fact that Carol was a human being.

Why was Lambert also drawn to her? Why was she like a drop of water in their parched existence? There was a long list of things that she wasn’t, and at the end of it came the feeling of relief.

Carol wasn’t fake.

The best course of action came to him in the middle of the night. Hartmann had seduced the bar chick by playing coy, but she was the exact opposite of Carol in many ways – such a tactic would backfire if he tried it. Carol, the woman who had perfected invisibility to survive, needed to be seen.

If he acted distant or kept her waiting, she would fade away before he had the chance to make his move. He needed to keep her in his sights. He needed to let her know beyond a doubt that he had seen her.

So, the next morning when he rejoined Carol and captain Lambert, he gave her a warm smile. “Hello,” he said. “Are you rested up for more training?”

She nodded, answered, “Yes, master sergeant,” and looked up to meet his eyes. He noticed the fleck of green in her otherwise brown eyes, and thought about how appropriately they matched her. There was something about Carol that was easy to pass over, that hinted at something colorful inside of her, that he was only now beginning to see after all the time he had spent watching her. Hartmann liked her eyes, and only after Lambert gruffly ordered her to approach him did he realize that he had been staring.

“Let’s get this radio on you,” Lambert said, clipping the receiver onto her shirt. “We’re going to practice some maneuvers in the Suit today.”

“Yes, sir.” Carol climbed the ladder up to the cockpit of the Suit, then hesitated and glanced back at Hartmann. He nodded.

“Corporal Holmes is bringing the jeep around for us,” Lambert said quietly to Hartmann. “I want to see how she handles the Suit while we transition outside.”

“She should do much better today, sir,” Hartmann answered, somewhat reluctantly. “Provided that she doesn’t forget how much bigger she is.”

Lambert lifted the radio to his mouth and pressed the button as he asked, “Carol, are you settled?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. We’re going back out to the airfield, where you will be drilled on the essential skills of running and stopping.”

There was something redundant in Hartmann’s presence. As the top pilot, he knew that he belonged there to offer his expertise, but there wasn’t anything new for him to say; Carol was the one who had full access to the Suit, while he had merely mastered the demo version; he had no clue how much more the Suit was capable of. With Lambert coaching her through the drills, Hartmann was left to sit and watch.

“Is that all, sir?” Carol asked, sounding surprised.

“It’s harder than you think, commander.” Lambert shook his head. “Go on and get your ass outside.”

“This is all unorthodox,” Hartmann muttered as they watched Carol precede them through the giant double doors. “I suppose that we aren’t going to bother with teaching her how to stand at attention and salute.”

Lambert shook his head. “Carol is … the classified radical faction in the military. We can skip building her identity as a soldier and go straight into the specifics of what she needs to know.”

“Like how to take out the enemy without blowing up a hospital in the process.” Hartmann smirked. “We’re in trouble, sir.”

“I know.” Lambert lifted the radio up and spoke into it, “Okay, Carol. There’s a mile marker painted on the ground out there. I want you to run as fast as you can, then stop precisely on it without overshooting.”

“Yes, sir,” Carol replied, then took off.

Corporal Holmes was ready with the jeep, so Hartmann waited until they were both settled in their seats with the younger soldier as a witness before he said, “You need to teach her proper radio protocol, instead of using it like you’re chatting on the phone to your girlfriend … sir.”

Lambert’s jaw twitched, and his face turned the slightest bit red. Holmes silently chuckled. “You’re right,” he admitted quietly, then cleared his throat. “She’s going to need to know how to communicate efficiently.”

As they approached in the jeep, Hartmann said, “Looks like she overshot,” and pointed to where the Suit was standing some distance away from the marker.

“Dammit,” Lambert growled, then said into the radio, “Carol, you’re way off. Over.”

“I’m sorry, sir. When I tried to stop, my feet just kept going on their own,” she replied.

“When you’re done speaking, you need to be in the habit of saying over.” Lambert rubbed the bridge of his nose. “You know about stopping distance with driving a car, right? Over.”

“No, sir. I’ve always ridden the bus.” There was a pause, then Carol quickly added, “Over?”

“Of course she wouldn’t know,” Lambert muttered to himself. “That would be too convenient.”

Hartmann took the radio. “MSG Hartmann here. Bigger objects like the Suit get a lot of momentum going, especially when you’re moving fast. If you want to stop on target, you need to start slowing down before you reach it. Try again, now. Over.”

Lambert scowled. With his little comment, Hartmann had put the captain in the position of becoming self-conscious about how he treated his subordinate, and it was starting to eat at him. Especially with corporal Holmes silently bearing witness.