Gunnery Sergeant Ellis had years of experience controlling the display of her emotions. Her career was a long charade of maintaining professional cool for the scared rookies around her, or manufacturing righteous outrage that was akin to parents yelling at a child to keep themselves from laughing hysterically. For days, she'd been resisting the urge to grab three grunts she trusted the competence of — there were five total, which meant she could even leave someone in charge — and take the Black Tusk MRAP behemoth out, leaving a trail of knocked heads across northern Virginia.

Unfortunately, leaving a corporal and a PFC in charge of the entire northwestern third of town was tantamount to dereliction of duty. They'd be hard pressed even if it was just a matter of maintaining security and order amongst the rabble that passed for a garrison. Mix in expanding fortifications, building a logistics & aid distribution center, and interdicting threats before they localized the civilian settlements, and even she was starting to feel the strain. This was the kind of shit officers were supposed to deal with while she just worried about getting things done — and about her people.

Even the news the kid was up and around, and now that they'd be arriving before nightfall, was only a partial relief. She'd checked to see if there was a patrol that could divert to escort them, but the best Fairbanks could offer was a drone recon pass. All his people in that direction were tied up investigating a warehouse and clearing a route for civvies the gang liberated from that fucking modern plantation.

South will rise again, my ass. If it does, it'll just be face first into my boot.

She'd come to accept that having Rebecca around was good for her sanity. She spent too much time trying to talk Ronnie into impromptu therapy sessions, but was dependable and good for a laugh, even before her broken heart started to mend. She and Sam played off each other well, and both seemed happier for it. All four of the kids brought their own bit of expertise to their little fortress of normalcy, and in their absence, everyone was coming to her about things they would have squared away.

Nothing makes you miss someone like stupid shit they used to handle falling apart after their departure. Nothing makes you worry about them like hearing they'd been in one firefight after another while they were outside the wire.

Even Epstein had a growing to-do list waiting for him, random vehicular shit that had broken over the last week and more importantly, the turret upgrade the last group up from the airfield dropped off as a present from Fairbanks a few days ago. Ronnie was inspecting it right now, in fact. It didn't look like much, the only obvious thing setting it apart from an unarmored manually operated mount was the cluster of lenses underneath the empty weapon bracket, currently staring lifelessly back at her. But once they used the forklift as an improvised crane to swap it onto the MRAP, the onboard systems should hopefully recognize the milspec hardware and let them remotely operate any mounted weapon from inside the cabin.

As she knelt to wipe a smudge from the glossy IR lens, she wished the kids that setup a couple days ago. Country yokels versus a dozen tons of armored vehicle sporting a joystick-controlled fifty cal in the hands of the video game generation? That would be popcorn-worthy. Seemed like everything in her official career had always been 'just one more time the hard way' or 'sure would've been nice to have that before'. No reason to expect that wouldn't continue to hold true just because she wasn't getting paid anymore.

Maybe we oughta take the beast out for a few joyrides. The Humvees were official-looking enough, but old hat to anyone who'd grown used to seeing armed military vehicles on US soil over the last year-plus. In the absence of a tank, put it at the front of a show-of-force patrol and you could probably still watch the neighborhood get real quiet, real fast.

She was pulled out of her daydreaming by the loud crash of something heavy impacting the concrete floor on the far side of the building. Getting up with a groaning facepalm Rebecca would have been proud of, Ronnie went to see who she had to express her feelings at this time.

**

Rebecca indulged a brief flashback to the first time she departed the Broadway settlement. A lot of the same people had been involved, but this time, Sam smiled at her from the front, not in the rear view mirror. Sue continued his traditional mournful yowl from his carrier, despite Laura's ongoing explanation that he hadn't been to the vet in two years and there weren't any open to take him to. That conjured up a memory of a cat leash and harness at the pet store when they first brought Rufus home, and Rebecca wondered if that would go over any better.

She was eager as hell to get moving, but couldn't shake the feeling that something else was going to happen. She couldn't even convince herself the car was going to start — no offense to Epstein — until it did. There was a ticking noise she could swear wasn't there before, but it only had to last forty minutes or so. Less if they pushed it, now that the roads were clearer, but the sight of the wadded-up airbags duct taped into their housings made her nervous about another front impact.

The others must have shared the thought, because Chrissie was adamant about taking the lead position. On top of that, Sam insisted on driving. Rebecca conceded it made sense to not have the person who recently experienced vision problems and consciousness loss be at the wheel. She fretted a little about Sam's lingering discomfort from yet another crash, but Sam insisted she was the logical choice since Laura didn't have wheel time in the SUVs. Rebecca started to suggest that Christine and Patrick would probably agree to each driving one vehicle, but Sam placed a hand on her cheek and insisted in a slow and unyielding voice that she was fine. It even got a look from Laura in the background, not that Rebecca hadn't already figured out it was time to shut up and go with the flow.

That actually left her with a responsibility that she was uniquely suited to — picking music for the drive that her mother and girlfriend both found acceptable. It shouldn't be too hard, right?

Famous last words.

She couldn't quite say she would've preferred another gunfight over that diplomatic challenge, but it took less than ten minutes to decide she'd have taken a rigorous training session with Ronnie instead. Eventually, she fell back on the lessons learned from the the very same, and just aimed for the middle. Unoffensive Nineties stuff it is.

Once they were on the road, she couldn't help yawning. The rhythmic thrumming of riding in a car always made her drowsy, and they were moving at a low enough speed the run-flat tires weren't overly harsh.

Sam glanced over sympathetically. "Sorry, sugar. I'd encourage you to take a nap, but we still need your eyes."

"Yeah, I know... maybe I should have taken the time to get some tea before we left."

Sam reached over to pat Rebecca's hand encouragingly on the broad armrest between them. "We'll be home soon, and you know our water filters taste better. Or you can pass out in our lovely pillow-top bed."

Rebecca looked over at her with a dourly skeptical expression. "You think Rufus is actually going to let me sleep any time soon?"

"I mean, eventually? Maybe you can go hide at Allie's for a snooze."

"True, her doting is likely to be more restrained than his. Thoughts of the meathead's energetic attention reminds me though." Rebecca looked back over her shoulder at Laura — and Sue, sprawled on the fancy leather seat next to her. I guess a few claw marks in the leather won't stand out amongst all the bullet holes. "What're we going to do about the two of them?"

Laura scratched Sue behind his ears and started him purring in tune with the engine and tires. "Let Sue bop him on the nose a couple of times and establish some boundaries?"

"Mom! No! Rufus is a big loving doofus! He'll probably be traumatized."

"So then it should be fine, right?"

"You can't just have Sue come in and terrorize him in his own home!"

Sam glanced over to interject. "Maybe he'll lick Sue to death? They might end up buddies. It'd be cute, right?"

Rebecca sighed and turned to face forward again, pausing her eyes on Sam. "We still have that spray bottle from the rosemary plant, right?"

That made Sam laugh, and Laura was giving them both a disapproving look when Rebecca glanced back at her.

Well, good! Now she knows how I feel! Scaring my big baby by letting her cat swipe him across the nose. Plus, what it gets infected?

The conversation moved to less adversarial topics, like what kind of furniture Laura thought she'd need first, or when Allie was expecting. Sam fielded some of those, which let Rebecca's attention wander outside.

As she watched their surroundings go by through the battered polycarbonate windows, the streets were somewhat familiar. She remembered many of the names, but their present state bore an unsettlingly vague resemblance to her memories.

Swaths of last year's decaying leaves piled up in the size of heavy snowdrifts. They accumulated on the windward sides of abandoned cars, crept up the sides of garbage heaps, and filled the gutters. She couldn't even tell where some of the roads transitioned up a curb to the sidewalks — the only hint was the occasional patches of grey instead of black. The mottled patterns looked like entire streets had been painted in mockeries of military camouflage. That mental image was reinforced by grass and bushes starting to grow out of the decomposing organic matter, many in disconcerting places where no plants rightfully belonged — the base of a car windshield, an overturned shopping cart, a corner trash can.

She realized their route must be frequented by the patrols and convoys, simply because she could see pavement, and was glad this part of town was slightly elevated. At least they wouldn't have to worry about being cut off from Broadway by flooding because of blocked storm drains.

Rebecca sighed, recognizing that she was drifting off into unnecessary spiraling, and glanced over at the driver's seat. Not that someone over there was a habitual touchstone, or anything.

Sam was already glancing her way, watching her. When she saw Rebecca's look, her cheek lifted in an approving smirk.

See, I can self regulate! Sometimes... occasionally. Once in blue moon. Rebecca shook her head with a chagrined silent chuckle and checked the next song in the shuffle queue.

**

Ronnie would've liked to say she didn't know where Fairbanks found this latest batch of idiots, but sadly, she did. It really wasn't helping her impression of them any. The four ROTC kids meant well and tried hard — that was part of the problem though, sometimes they were trying too hard. They were about the same age as Rebecca, but even more of a set of lost ducklings than she was day one.

To think I used to think transitioning to an ROTC instructor might be a valid retirement offramp.

Then there were the three corrections officers out of the state prison system. Separately, maybe everyone would have been fine, but they got recruited around the same time and Fairbanks sent them over as one batch of manpower. The college kids were looking for someone to lead them, and the CO's were used to bossing people around. Nature took its course, but it definitely wasn't a compatible grouping. Not enough people knowing what they did and din't know. Too many misunderstandings, some of which led to accidents — like that mess in Storage 3 for now, and maybe worse down the road if she didn't unfuck it.

Her chain of command was getting too damned complicated. The different branches self-arranged well enough — the Army didn't have Gunnery Sergeants, the Navy didn't have sergeants at all, an Army PFC was higher than a Marine PFC. Fortunately, underneath all that, they had their uniform pay grades to fall back on. If you were an E-2, you listened to the E-3 from another service even if they had the same title. Like one big semi-dysfunctional family reunion, they all eventually figured out who they were in relation to everyone else. Organized chaos was enough for her to work with.

The pittance of civilian medical staff pretty much did as they were told if there were bullets flying, and maintained an unspoken authority the rest of them. When the fighting was over, all the troops did what anyone nicknamed "Doc" told them to if they knew what was good for them.

Now that Captain Tierman was bringing law enforcement officers into her organization, how the hell was that going to work? They all shut up and listened to Ronnie, but where do they fit in further down the food chain? What rank was enough to give them orders if she wasn't around? What happened when a police or fire "lieutenant" showed up and looked at her three chevrons?

Polite suggestions or requests were well and good for everyday bullshit, team projects or whatever. But when fit hit the shan there was no time for butting heads and wrangling egos.

What a fucking headache.

At least with the Broadway kids , everyone knew 'Echo team' was a cooperative, competent, attached-but-independent element. Tell them something needed doing, they weren't going to bitch about it. They need help? See what you can do for 'em. Like field work with good civilian contractors, almost.

Maybe Fairbanks was hoping the same idea would work with this batch of reinforcements he sent over, but Ronnie just couldn't see it happening. At least that was working just like it used to... officers handing stuff downhill for her to solve.

Speaking of Rebecca though... Jesus. Not looking forward to finding out how she reacts to the presence of prison guards. Who knows what kind of things she heard from her man.