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‘No, ma’am, we don’t,’ the second lad declared ‘A bunch of us wouldn’t be here without him’
Their pride and admiration was infectious and Fliss couldn’t help herself She could pretend it was professional interest She knew better
A few days ago she wouldn’t have even considered discussing Ash’s injury but, after what had happened in the supply room, she couldn’t shake the part of her which was desperate to know more
‘I understand the injury is extensive; the blast got under the body armour’
‘Yeah We’d been ambushed, ma’am, pinned down in a srenade rolling in and it going off to make a decision If he’d told us to ht by the blast or the shrapnel But the boss being the boss, he grabbed a srenade and threw himself on top of that’
‘He was in pretty bad shape, ma’am,’ another confirmed ‘Aside from the blast injuries themselves, he had some twenty fractures or breaks fro to make it’
‘He got transferred out and I think he was recovering for about a year, ma’am, before they placed him with a new unit and made him fly a desk for three years I think he hated every second of it’
Fliss absorbed all the infor it so hard to work in the new role as colonel, as well as why he had such an impressive reputation But, before she could answer, one of the QRF ran over to her
‘Reports co in of another shout,’ he yelled, as Fliss had already started running alongside him back to the heli
‘A series of explosions involving gas canisters used by the local school for cooking Multiple casualties, they’re sending both MERTs out Kids were caught in the first blast and locals and soldiers there as rescuers in the second blast’
‘Fine,’ she yelled as she leaped back on board ‘We’ll take this casualty back to caht back out’
All she could do was hope against hope that it wasn’t as bad as it sounded
Ash spotted her the moment he reached the rooftop, her hunched up shape silhouetted against the horizon as she sat in solitude watching the last of the sunset over the desert
‘They said you’d be up here’
If she heard his voice, she didn’t react