Love and best wishes,

Tula

Eight months later Julia sat braced against the forward bulkhead of the lead chopper. It was the Seventh Cav’s first charge since they’d gone tearing around after Pancho Villa.

She adjusted a shoulder pad as Corporal Gadsden yelled something into her ear about a couple of London barmaids he’d screwed a couple of weeks earlier. What a dick, she thought, but she just smiled and nodded.

Her titanium weave armor was way past its expiration date. It’d been repaired time and again with reactive matrix panels and patches bought, borrowed, and occasionally stolen from other twenty-first-century reporters who didn’t share her enthusiasm for front-line action. So it had taken on the appearance of a camouflage quilt. The ballistic plating was brand new, though, thanks to Rosanna, who had left all her own mostly unused equipment to her friend.

A brief, sad smile died at the edge of Julia’s mouth.

Still lookin’ out for me, babe.

The copilot’s voice crackled inside her powered helmet. “Ten minutes to insertion.”

Amundson repeated the call and held up both hands. Everyone nodded.

Julia could see that the young officer was trying to control his nerves. She guessed it had less to do with fear of being killed than with fear of fucking up and letting everyone down. He was a sweet kid, really. They’d had some good times in London, even if he was a little clingy. In fact, thinking about it, she’d spent more time with Gil than any man she’d been with after Dan had died.

And now the poor kid was shitting himself.

“You and your boys, you’ll be fine, Lieutenant,” she yelled over the uproar. “Don’t sweat it. You’re gonna eat those fuckers alive. Garry fuckin’ Owen.”