Hercules was high in the sky, a wasp-waisted group of stars with a sword raised high. She renamed it Warrior Patty. Four years she’d fought for the U.S. Army. Before that she’d fought against the vortex of her family’s history that had threatened to suck her down into the copper mine as well.
She fell asleep before she’d decided how to rename Cygnus the Swan flying up over the eastern horizon.
3
Tom woke in his lookout “cab” disoriented by the soft dawn light in such a foreign place. His body felt like he’d been battered by the night. The silence was so deep that his ears had rung loud enough to keep him awake. And no matter how deeply he tucked into his sleeping bag, he couldn’t seem to get away from the cold.
And there had been the noises.
With the sunset, the world had gone silent
