Writing writing yay!

I have rediscovered the joy of coffee, and managed to nearly finish the next chapter of Frontier, (and some of the chapter after that) and even got down part of one of the Recruits' intro chapters for Chuck & Sarah vs the Recruits.

Why couldn't I have done that at 4 in the afternoon instead of 4 in the morning, you ask? Your guess is as good as mine. As I'm feeling generous, you'll find that bit of Recruits after the break.

Excerpt from Kevin's intro Chapter:

Kevin went back into the barracks to put together his duffel for the flight to Langley, Virginia, and for a moment became worried when he couldn't find his .45. The M9 the Army had issued him was an acquired taste, and Kevin preferred 8 rounds he knew would each take a man down than 15 that might. If the gun didn't jam. Aside from better stopping power, control, and reliability, it was also, strictly speaking, an antique, unlike his nearly-new service weapon, and had been in the Woodcombe family for four generations and five, no, six wars now. His great grandfather had been issued it in 1916, carried it through the end of World War One and instead of returning it to the Army quartermaster as he was supposed to upon his discharge, he'd brought it home. Grandpa Ken had taken it with him to Jump School when he joined the 82^nd airborne, and held onto it all the way through D-Day, the battle of the Bulge, and Berlin. He'd taken it to Korea as well, as a matter of fact, before passing it on to Kevin's father, Woody, when he'd shipped out to Vietnam. Doctors in the military didn't necessarily get issued sidearms, but Grandpa Ken had insisted that if Woody was going to war in a jungle he needed a weapon, doctor or no.

Woody wasn't much for guns, and he'd given it back when his tour was up, but it still counted as going to war. Grandpa Ken had taught Kevin to shoot with this same old beat-up 1911, and then willed it to him when he passed, and Kevin had taken it to Afghanistan, and then Iraq, (which he wasn't sure he should count as a second war, as he'd only been in country for a month or two) and now finally it and he were both coming home. If he could find it, anyway.

He'd had the thing out two nights ago, to make sure the gun oil hadn't dried out in the few weeks he'd been on the ground in Baghdad. It wasn't really that big a deal if it had. Antique though it was, it wasn't original. The bluing was stripped or fading in more places than the finish remained unmarred. Over the years, the barrel and the grips, and all the springs had had to be replaced at least a couple of times, and Kevin had replaced more than a few parts himself, for functionality, but he kept the beat-up frame and the slide with the tiny dent from where it had been run over by a German Panther tank in 1944, if Grandpa Ken's war stories were to be believed. Resale value wasn't ever going to be an issue, and his main concern was that the thing shoot straight, not the historical value of the nearly a century-old pistol. The serial number told him it had been made in 1915, so still a couple years to go for the centennial celebration.

Of course, if they'd let him stay in Delta, he'd have been able to carry his old beat-up antique .45 if he wanted, (as long as it could still shoot straight, which it did) instead of the standard-issue 9mm, and if he'd been able to carry it into combat, then his personal weapon wouldn't have got lost in his footlocker. But his now-former Captain had been a stickler. The .45 had been phased out decades earlier for the Beretta, because 15 rounds was obviously better than 7, or eight if you always kept one in the chamber like Kevin. And since the M9 was standard, that's what you carried, sentimental attachment to 96 year old relics notwithstanding.

The transition had been a bit of a trial for him, even after OCS. When they'd put him back in the Rangers and shipped him off to Iraq, there had been something of a culture shock. It wasn't that he didn't like being a Ranger, that's why he'd enlisted in the first place, after all, but his shift over to 'the dark side' as his fellow officers called his time at Fort Bragg and then the wilds of Afghanistan with Delta Force, had left him with some bad habits to be ground down and away, and OCS hadn't planed off all the rough edges.

A couple of times, his captain had had to remind him to visit the barber when his hair had actually become visible on his head from more than three feet away. And there was no growing a beard in Captain Cunningham's unit, though he'd known Ranger units in Afghanistan who'd succumbed to peer pressure on that front.

“Hey, LT,” his squad sergeant, a rail thin black man called out as he came across the barracks. “What're you looking for?”

“My grandpa's .45,” he explained.

“You can't carry that on patrol, Sir. Captain's orders.”

Kevin shook his head. “No more patrols for me, Sergeant Toomes,” he said, and brandished his new orders.

“Shit, transferred out already?” Toomes said. “Back to Delta? Knew you couldn't handle cutting off that pretty hair of yours.”

“Bite me, Sergeant,” Kevin said. Toomes dutifully sank his teeth into Kevin's shoulder. He shoved the older man off and Sergeant Toomes boomed a laugh. “Wiseass,” Kevin complained.

“Didn't want to get courtmartial-ed for failure to obey orders,” But then Toomes blinked, as he took in the change from yellow to silver at Kevin's collar. “When did you make O-2?”

Kevin shrugged. “About five minutes ago. Came along with a silver star, and the free flight to Virginia,” he said, and tossed the box.

Toomes was impressed. He put the medal down after a moment. “That any shit you can talk about?”

He shook his head in reply. “The secrets police say no. And now, jump for joy,” he said, “I get to work for them full time.”

“When're you shippin' out? The guys'll want to see you off in style.”

Kevin snorted. “Soon as I find that .45,” he said. “Orders say to bring a sidearm, and be there two days ago.”

Sergeant Toomes peered into the footlocker. “For an O-2 you're awful disorganized, Lieutenant. Try under that bundle of socks.”

Kevin batted the socks aside, and saw the edge of the old fashioned leather holster poking out from under one of his t-shirts. “You're a lifesaver, Sergeant Toomes.”

Toomes grinned. “Literally, in some cases,” he shook his head. “You know, I'm going to miss having a lieutenant came up from Staff Sergeant. Made my job a whole hell of a lot easier, not having to babysit some kid fresh out the Point, keep him from sitting on an IED.”

“You'll manage,” Kevin said. “Keep your head down.”

“You too, LT,” he said. “Don't end up no star on a damn wall.”