Blood Lily Company - Afghanistan - Year 2

XXIX

The next day, Kris was still sleeping when I got up. Baby Jane had slept with him in Erk's big bed and told us that she had given him some of Lin's mixture at his request. He had dreams that were very hard for him, but he refused to tell anyone about them.

After breakfast, we heard from Poll who was able to give us the serial numbers of Erk's guns, but who told us that there was something strange and that he was going to dig.

Mac and her bikes, with JD, Yaka and Quenotte, returned to base. And Yaka threw herself at her bowl when Cook handed it to her, and, glutton as she never is, gobbled up her ration. She made puppy eyes at Cook who gave her half a portion again. And there she calmed down and went to lie down in her kennel, then, as she must have found it a little cold, she went into Alpha's and curled up in a ball, with her nose under her tail and was out like a light.

I knew no one would starve the dog, and JD wouldn't let anyone do it. So...

- Cook, you need to plan large at noon. And what do you have to tide them over while waiting for lunch? I think they're famished, if Yaka ate like that.

- I have cookies and I can make hot chocolate, if they sleep like her while waiting for lunch, we won't lose anything.

- Perfect, Cook. Thanks.

I went to the showers, picked up the dirty laundry and took it to the machines, right next door. Then I went back there and offered to help scrub the patrolmen's backs.

- JD, I said while scrubbing him, how come Yaka was so hungry?

- Erk carries the majority of our rations. We reached the end of what we had, so we had to ration ourselves and return quickly.

- Makes sense. Cook has cookies and will make hot chocolate, to wait until lunch.

Kris being still under the influence of Lin's mixture, the day was rather calm. The weather was beautiful, very beautiful, and it was warm in the sun, and the worst thing for all of us was that the sky was the color of Erk's eyes, that intense blue of a cloudless winter sky.

When Yaka woke up after lunch, she went straight to Kris as soon as he came out to drink herbal tea with us, put her nose on his thigh and looked him straight in the eyes.

- Yes, big girl. I miss him a lot, too, he said, stroking her head.

- She's sorry she couldn't find him, said JD.

- Eh... Knowing my brother, he must have done everything to cover his tracks, even if it meant going down the river and... Have we thought about looking further downstream?

- Not sure, I said. We'll look this afternoon, if we have any satellite time left. And we have the serial numbers on Erk's guns now.

- Why didn't we have them from the start? Kitty asked.

- His guns are bespoke. They were tailor-made for him, Kris replied. The models we had in the Legion were roughly adjustable, but still a little small for him. We had to make extensions for his guns. But here, Lin preferred to give him weapons in his size, because we're going to keep these guns for a long time, given their price and their modularity.

- Modularity?

- Larger mags, the rail to add a scope or anything else, all that... a GPS... A wifi antenna, so that... Fuck!

We jumped. He turned to Bear.

- Bear, you had the idea to listen to their comms, didn't you?

- Yes.

- Archer, what was the result?

- Their comms are well encrypted and we don't have the means to crack that.