Free Germline: The Subterrene War: Book 1 by T.C. McCarthy

their helmets with a hiss.
    “Phew,” one said. “Some luck for a change. Let’s see if this rattrap works.”
    I noticed Bauer staring at Bridgette, waiting for something. “Come on, get that helmet off,” he said. “The scout car will shield our therms if it works. You need to conserve, man, unless you got a pack full of spare fuel cells.”
    My palms got slippery. Sweat on the palms and no spit almost made me laugh, because by now they were familiar, my long-lost cousins: Fear and Kaz.
    “No,” she said.
    “ ‘No’? What, are you nuts? Your fuel cells are alreadydraining, they won’t last as long as it’ll take to reach Shymkent. We may have to go as far as Tashkent if Pops breaks the southern line.”
    Bridgette didn’t move. I was too strung out on terror to say anything, but with what might happen next, I thought I’d better keep my own lid on.
    “What’s wrong?” Bauer asked.
    “Nothing.” With one hand on her carbine, she popped her helmet, and they all went slack-jawed.
    “That ain’t O’Brian,” the lieutenant said.
    Bridgette raised her weapon and dropped into a crouch. “Please. Do not move.”
    “Motherfucker,” said one of the others.
“Motherfucker.”
    “Don’t do it,” said Bridgette.
    The guy started lifting the barrel of his grenade launcher and I dove to the ground, waiting for what I knew would come next: a shit storm of a firefight with nowhere to hide, so you could only pray for some way to get small. The man didn’t listen. If only he’d listened, thought for a second before acting like an asshole, he might have lived a bit longer; maybe Bridgette wouldn’t have done anything to them. For a second I wondered: if she
could
do it to them, to friendlies, would she do it to me? First came the sound of a spray, then the firecrackers of fléchettes breaking the sound barrier, snapping through ceramic and slamming into the rock walls beyond. But the man
hadn’t listened.
I opened my eyes and found that all of them had bought it, although one was trying to crawl away, barely alive.
    “Whiskey seven, this is Talon one-five,” the lieutenant said.
    I was about to go to him when she rested a boot on his neck and fired into his head.
    “I am sorry,” she said to me. “I had to. It would have been the end for both of us—for you because you helped me—and these men were too stupid to make it south if I had let them live. It was a tactical decision.”
    But she didn’t have to say sorry, not to me. I didn’t give a shit, not about the stupid. It was over for them; they were lucky. Popov wouldn’t get to catch them in the open and drop thermal gel, toy with them a little before sending Gs to finish the job. Truth be told, I felt nothing. Empty. I even got it when Bridgette started popping their fuel cells, pushing them into a pack that she ripped from the lieutenant’s dead hand, because what else was there to do? The dead didn’t need fuel cells; the dead were at home in the cold. She waved me over after throwing her helmet into the back of the scout car.
    I didn’t like feeling nothing. Wanted something. So I kissed her there, among the silent Marines, and heard our ceramic chests click. The thought of two insects getting it on kind of killed the moment for me, but not for her; there was something new in Bridgette that I hadn’t seen. She was hungry, wouldn’t let me go until
she
had finished, and when she had, Bridgette leaned over to press her mouth against my ear.
    “I need you.”
    It took us a while to get out of our armor, and we shivered, but she had started the scout car and it was warm by the time we were ready to screw. And after we finished in the car, we just lay there. Did it again later, with Popov bearing down and not even a second thought except for
fuck it.
She didn’t know anything; I had to teach her. But she was perfect—dug it and made me feel so
cool
about everything.
    That was when
my
calculus clicked, when I figured out why it felt like a