Lt. Kane's Story

Lt. Trisha Kane, A.Y. sits calmly outside her superior's office, reading Stars and Stripes, glancing occasionally at the robins chirping outside the window. Every so often she checks the blouse of her Army uniform for specks of food or dirt.

Cleanliness being next to Godliness and all. Though she rather likes the dirt, staring down band of SCR troops and fundamentalist partisans than wasting her time trying to explain to her commanding officer how her "reckless disregard for protocol" saved the lives of thirteen of her own men and countless civilians in a dangerous raid a month earlier.

The familiar buzz of an intercom pierces through the speakers .

"Ms. Jenson, would you send Lt. Kane in please?"

"Yes, sir."

As the secretary escorts her through the door, all she can do is hope and pray that whatever is on Colonel Fisher's to do list it's not sending her to the brig.

"Come on in, have a seat." He gestures toward her.

Lt. Kane sits squarely in the stiff-backed chair opposite the ebony commanding officer, an oak desk separating the two. Fisher gazes piercingly into her eyes as she remains motionless, the very model of the stoic Spartan warrior she's modeled herself to be. She stares straight ahead.

"What is it, sir?"

"The major and I have been going through your after action reports." The captain waves a thick folder in front of her. "It seems that your actions on the twenty third of December have caused quite a stir up the ranks."

"Is there a problem, sir?"

"That's putting a fine point on it, Lieutenant." Fisher retorts. "If it weren't for you and your men the senator's wife would still be alive."

Lt. Kane barely flinches.

"If you're going to use me as a punching bag, commander, go ahead, but leave my men out of it." She tightens her fists. "Secondly, it's not our fault that the terrorists chose to storm a theater and use the patrons as human shields. We did everything we could to minimize civilian casualties. We smuggled gas masks. We told them to wear bright clothing--the whole nine yards. So far as I know the only people who died that day were that Ellroy shit and his terrorist thugs. Pardon my French."

"That still doesn't change the fact that she's dead."

"Five hundred people survived and you're crowing about the only one who didn't?"

Lt. Kane's nose flares.

"You barely had a scratch!" Fisher yells. "She was shot in the chest!"

"I don't see what that has to do with anything." His charge calmly points out.

Fisher breathes in deeply.

"Her husband...her husband is the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence."

Trisha puts her head in her hands and sighs.

"Fuck."

"That's what the generals said. I told them you were one of my best soldiers in the field--how all those diplomats, bird colonels and bootlicking reporters would be dead if it weren't for you. If it were up to them you'd be in Danbury right now. Luckily for you the President and half the national-security conservatives in Congress want this to go away... "

Colonel Fisher clears his throat.

"I get it." Lt. Kane looks through the starboard side window. "Do you want me to turn in my resignation now or later?"

"Neither." Her commanding officer leans back in his chair.

The Lieutenant raises an eyebrow.

"What do you mean?"

"You're been temporarily reassigned to the Coast Guard's maritime patrol in Ocean City. Your plane leaves for Maryland at..." The colonel checks his watch. "1300 hours. I'd suggest you get packing."

Lt. Kane leaves the office muttering a stream of curses under her breath. Yet as she walks back to her on base apartment with her head held high, uncertain about her new prospects yet accepting them all the same. She tries not to think too much about it as she showers, scrubbing her yellow locks as she gets ready for the dreadful assignment.

She groans as her hands travel down her stomach, teasing her bare sex, playing with her clit, fingers rubbing repeatedly as her head drifts back... She gasps as she comes, glad for the release. Before she knows it her alarm clock chimes loudly, snapping her out of her daydream.

She quickly gets dressed and takes the trolley over to the airport, her moment of self-pleasure pushed out of her mind. As she looks down at the row of houses from her cabin seat in the 737, she can only imagine the bureaucratic hell that awaits her below.