Free Pilliars in the Fall by Ian Daniels Page B

and unstable, then you keep me bored and sitting around with nothing to do,” I had their attention now and was going to take the opportunity to lay it out there before they kept up anymore of this bullshit.
    Then turning to look at Blake directly, I laid into him, even if he didn’t know me as well as when we were kids, we had the same mentality. If anyone, I knew he could identify with where I was coming from the most.
    “You’ve been gone a long time but you should still know that I’m at my best when I’m working on something that has me sweating and keeping my mind occupied. I don’t want any more of this kid gloves shit, alright? If you’ve got something for me then you put me to work and don’t second guess it or try to watch over me ‘cause I’ll leave all your asses in the dust. I’m a damn expert on getting stuff done when the walls are crumbling down, so right now, this is my world; you just try and keep up.”
    “Sorry man, you know how it is,” he said in the frank way that we could talk to each other.
    And that was it. There was no animosity or hurt feelings, just two people on the level that could be honest about themselves with the other one. Clint could see it and knew it, even if he wasn’t right along with us, but I was sure Danielle would take some more time in coming around, and I understood that too.
    “So who do you want to help you get set up?” I asked Clint, getting us back on track.
    “I’ll keep Danielle here with me. You take Blake out and get him broken back in to our way of things,” Clint smiled, taking his own turn at stirring a hornet's nest.  
    “What the hell's that supposed to mean?” Blake asked incredulously.
    “It means you’ve got a ton of good experience with exactly what we don’t have, so you’re going to have to relearn, or at least remember and adjust,” I tried saying.
    “I don’t get it,” Danielle voiced.
    "Yeah man, we were in a damn war zone, I think I can manage," Blake said defensively.
    “It's different here. You guys were part of an infrastructure,” Clint attempted to fill in the blanks. I could see that Blake didn’t want to listen to his explanation so I jumped in.  
    “Remember how you told me about riding out on that Blackhawk to recover a stuck rig on your first tour?” I knew he remembered it because he had told me how that was one of a handful of times when he was truly scarred for his life and felt completely on his own while over there.
    “Yeah…” he invited me to continue, waiting for the pieces to fill in on what Clint and I were driving at.
    “Well you had maintenance crews and pilots to get you there, security to watch out for you, supply to keep you going, and a cafeteria to come back to when you were tired and hungry… all that is on you now. I know I know, you’ve done this before,” I said holding up my hands to cut off the predictable objection. “It’s not like this is something new, it’s just different then what you’re used to.”
    “I’ve been out hunting a few times on leave; I’m not totally out of it.”
    “I know, but it’s not hunting, it’s combat hunting. It’s understated and discrete and a thinking game. We are all on our own and have to execute like it."  
    "What do you mean?" Danielle asked again, still trying to bridge the gap between theories.
    “Well for the most part you guys saw the shock and awe thing; rolling noisily down Main Street to intimidate the yokels. You get spotted by a sniper and you have a platoon and medics available, and worst case, you just blowup the building he's in with an air strike."
    "Well obviously we don’t have all that here," Blake rolled his eyes, still resistant to accept the differences.
    "Just figure it this way, the military has moved into what I think the current buzzword is Full Spectrum Operations. Meaning that every unit has to be able to do everything from peace keeping to counterinsurgency to high intensity operations... even though they