Out of the Dark by David Weber Read Free Book Online

like that.”
    “Gotcha, Top,” the corporal behind the wheel agreed with a grin. He stepped on the gas, and the Cougar four-by-four (officially redesignated years ago as an MRAP, or Mine Resistant Ambush Protection vehicle, largely as a PR move after IED attacks had taken out so many Humvees in Iraq) moved away. It headed for the mess tent at the far end of the position, while Buchevsky started hiking towards the sandbagged command bunker perched on top of the sharp-edged ridge.
    The morning air was thin and cold, but little more than a month from the end of his current deployment, Buchevsky was used to that. It wasn’t exactly as if it were the first time he’d been here, either. And while many of Bravo Company’s Marines considered it the armpit of the universe, Buchevsky had seen substantially worse during the seventeen years since a deceitfully honest-faced recruiter had taken shameless advantage of an impressionable youth—a family friend, no less!—to fill his recruiting quota.
    “Oh, the places you’ll go—the things you’ll see!” the recruiter in question had told him enthusiastically. And Stephen Buchevsky had indeed been places and seen things since. Along the way, he’d been wounded in action no less than six times, and at age thirty-five, his marriage had just finished coming unglued, mostly over the issue of lengthy, repeat deployments. He walked with a slight limp the physical therapists hadn’t been able to completely eradicate, the ache in his right hand was a faithful predictor of rain or snow, and the scar that curved up his left temple was clearly visible through his buzz-cut hair, especially against his dark skin. But while he sometimes entertained fantasies about sitting down with“Uncle Rob” and . . . “discussing” his inducements to get him to sign on the dotted line, he’d always reupped.
    Which probably says something unhealthy about my personality
.
Besides, Dad would be really pissed with me for blaming it all on someone else!
he reflected as he paused to gaze down at the narrow twisting road so far below.
    On his first trip to sunny Afghanistan, he’d spent his time at Camp Rhine down near Kandahar. That was when he’d acquired the limp, too. For the next deployment, he’d been located up near Ghanzi, helping to keep an eye on the A01 highway from Kandahar to Kabul. That had been less . . . interesting than his time in Kandahar Province, although he’d still managed to take a rocket splinter in the ass. Which had been good for another gold star on the Purple Heart ribbon (and unmerciful “humor” from his so-called friends). But then the Poles had taken over in Ghanzi, and so, for his third Afghanistan deployment, he’d been sent back to Kandahar, where things had been heating up again. He’d stayed there, too . . . until his battalion had gotten new orders, at least. The situation in Paktika Province—the one the Poles had turned down in favor of Ghanzi because Paktika was so much more lively—had also worsened, and they’d been moved to help deal with the situation.
    At the moment he was on his
fourth
deployment, and he and the rest of First Battalion, Third Marine Regiment, Third Marine Division (known as the “Lava Dogs”), had been operating in Helmand Province, conducting operations in support of the Afghan Army. Although, in Buchevsky’s opinion, it had been rather the other way around as far as who was supporting whom was concerned. Still, like most professional members of the United States military he’d gotten used to the sometimes inventive fashion in which operations’ purposes were described to the public. In this case he even understood why it had to be described that way. And despite his own lingering concerns over the corruption of the national government, the overall situation really had improved a lot. The local governor in Helmand seemed to be working hard to provide the people of his province with genuine security, and most of the