Strange Company Read online

  Bullets are quick, but gas’ll do the trick, I once heard a merc say when we hit an entrenched bunker with nerve agents. The bunker was so deep and well-built, it had survived all our AT and arty. We’d cracked the front door and lost two squads on the threshold. Just like that. Fifteen seconds of full-auto sentry-gun murder. So we regrouped and gassed ’em and then went in later after they were all dead.

  Either way they were gonna end up dead. The only difference is, there were just less of us dead when the equation solved for the same outcome. Breach, or Gas. Either way it’s gonna get done.

  Still, the thought of going to an advanced protective posture to keep us safe from chemical agents was going to add to the suck of an already long day getting longer, and hotter by the second. Jingo walked by sweating and proclaimed that the weather analysis for the battle was all off. It was supposed to be cool and foggy. Instead it was hot, humid, muggy, and foggy. And it felt like the sun was going to burn off all that cover any second. Then it’d just get hotter. Lotsa fun in full-assault battle rattle. But I complain too much. Back to the hassle of using chemical agents in warfare. First off everyone would have to get a lot of extra gear out of their personal supply. Or Sergeant Biggs, Go Biggs or Go Home as our supply sergeant likes to say every time over initiated comm, for no clear reason, would have to come forward with the crawler for an additional personal gear draw.

  All kinds of problems with that. Not the least of which was it would give our position away to enemy observers watching our line and waiting for the attack out there. Then they’d have a pretty good idea of where to drop some artillery rounds once we were out in the open.

  “Nah,” laughed Chief Cook in that quick friendly-psycho machine-gun bark-mutter of his. Waving his hand as though dismissing an offer of more cake at a lady’s high tea. “I got some retro-agent doses for you and the boys that are going to shift the effects on you for a bit. Not saying it’s going to be pleasant, but… at least the nerve agent won’t be lethal if you don’t get a full dose. Theoretically. I tried the stuff on myself last night. And a little this morning to be honest. It’s fun and I feel great. Seeing the connections in the universe and the big-picture stuff if you know what I mean, Sergeant Orion. Worked for me. Real trip though. Ever try pharmaceutical-grade acid, Sar’nt?”

  I had not.

  “Of course you haven’t. Stuff doesn’t exist if you believe Monarch Psyops. Well,” he said, heading off to the truck in a business-like manner and waving at unseen insects, I supposed, “you’re in for some fun. Damn bats are everywhere today!”

  He opened the truck and I saw the Little Girl in there. When he came back with an OD-green medical bag and started rummaging around for our retro-agent doses I asked him about her.

  “What’s she doing in there, Cook?” I whispered because I didn’t want her to hear us talking about her.

  He made a Who? face, looking up from the bag and seemingly perplexed at my perfectly logical question. I couldn’t tell if this response was genuine or not. He was starting to act strange. Which was saying something even for him.

  “Natalie,” I hissed, not wanting her to hear me. “You know who I’m talking about!”

  I was angry and it came through. I was just hoping the fear didn’t also.

  He looked back at the dark Little Girl sitting in the passenger seat of the big chemical transport crawler. Seemingly unconcerned with us. Which was a good thing. She scared the hell out of me. She was small. Even for ten years old. She looked like any other refugee from all the worlds where wars got fought and no one cared much about the victims. Even the least and most vulnerable. Which she was not. She was pale. But olive-skinned. Wide dark eyes. Dark short hair. Big green coat someone in Strange had given her. Little more than a shift for a dress underneath. A black potato sack. But who makes potato sacks in black, amirite? Large oversized combat boots she painted happy faces on with white breaching marker. She’d been with us since the contract on Blue.

  Her name was Natalie. But we called her The Little Girl.

  She was a freak too. But too freaky even for Voodoo. Even Stinkeye got all quiet around her when she silently appeared, muttering, “Little Brujita” and making mystical and religious signs with his leathered old hands dangling with prayer beads as he did his best to shuffle on out of her presence.

  “Oh, her,” said the psyops chief. He returned to rummaging in his medical bag. “Thought she and her… friend… might be useful out there today. You never know… but I have a feeling it’s gonna get hairy, Sergeant Orion. Just a feeling, mind you. I’ve learned to trust them and I’ll tell you, Orion, I got it this time. And that’s not just the acid talking… I mean retro-agent. It’s not that.” He waved at the bats again and muttered at them to “Stay back!”

  Okay, I said to myself.

  “Listen,” began Chief Cook anew. “I didn’t have to be here with you and Reaper. But I got that feeling back at the TOC when the Old Man was studying the battle. Told him, ‘Sir, that right there is gonna be the lynchpin to this whole operation. Where Reaper is going, and I need to be out there with Reaper when it happens. Right in the mud and blood and guts, sir.’ He just stared at me that way he does, y’know how he does, and then nodded that I could go do my thing. So I brought her, Orion, and myself, down here to help you and Reaper not get killed. Today. And before you go getting all weepy thinking I’m some kind of noble spectacuthriller hero… I ain’t, Sergeant. Three of your guys owe me sizeable gambling debts. I can collect if they’re alive. If they’re dead… well, you know how it goes. Gambling debts get paid last in Strange. Even if they’re inside the company. So I’m here purely for financial interests. Purely. This is business, Sergeant Orion. I can’t do this much longer. I have this idea to start a multi-world conglomerate specializing in buying high and selling low. Don’t ask me how it works… it just works.

  “Here, take these tabs. Hand them out to your men and when I give the signal, put them on your tongues and hold on to your butts ’cause it’s gonna get real weird real fast. Also kill everyone you think might be the enemy. Even if they look weird. I’m not gonna use the psychotropic gas until we’re on the objective. Then I need you to keep them off me until I can find a main AC conduit and flood the terminal’s external intakes with this stuff. Then we dose up and go in, guns blazing, Sergeant Orion. Guns. Blazing. And kill ’em all and let the universe sort. Did I tell you it was gonna be freaky?”

  He did.

  “Good,” he muttered, nodding to himself. “Told myself last night to really make that point to you, Orion. Seemed pretty important when the walls started melting. A little.”

  Twenty minutes later Reaper was on the move, combat wedge with all four squads and the big chemical transport half a click behind us and waiting for the signal to move on to the objective. The drifting smoke was thick, and we were getting good cover from it. There was some incoming, but we kept our alignment and formation, tracking a good course through the tall dead grass as we made for the landing apron in the mist and haze of late morning.

  None of the other units were moving yet. And I won’t lie to you, we felt real naked out there. Someone had to start shooting at someone first. And usually that was the first bunch to appear on the battlefield. Surprise, it’s us. I could almost feel some sniper out there watching our skulls and thinking who to nail first. Or some LT getting all excited about dropping arty all over us. Life is fun for an NCO that way.

  “We’re out front, Sar’nt?” asked Choker in disbelief as we waded through the tall dead grass that hadn’t been seen to in eight months of fighting. “Ain’t anyone else moving? Man… I gotta get out of this platoon, Sar’nt. I wanna be a Ghost. I wanna be unseen.”

  “Tip of the spear, Choke,” answered Punch for me as we moved forward ready to deal some death. “Tip o’ the spear.”

  First Squad was the top of the wedge. Second and Third to my right. Fourth Squad to my left.
We moved into the battlespace, ready to do as much harm as we could, and stay alive while doing it.

  Mercenaries don’t die for causes. Other people do. True believers. We kill people for money. That’s what we do.

  The black smoke really kicked up from the fire at the loading docks and the burning starship and for a moment we couldn’t see anything ahead of us. Not even each other. It was like darkness had fallen over the world in judgment and we’d never ever see again. Or like someone had opened a portal into some hell that specialized in burn pits and we’d just blindly gone on in, doomed to wander for all eternity for sins we had a pretty good idea we’d committed.

  You could smell bodies burning on the hot morning wind and that made the moment feel darker than it already did. The defenders at the cargo admin were roasting. I reminded myself to eat a power bar so I could throw up. I hadn’t. And I forgot to as one of my boots landed on the concrete apron of the starport’s LZ. We were in their kill zone now, even though they couldn’t see us through the hot black smoke boiling up into the schmazy day.

  My combat lens had been tracking the route and suddenly both eyes updated the data feed and corrected for our location. They’d been doing that lately. Either because of the efforts of enemy jamming assets, or because my gear was whack. I didn’t know.

  This war had been hard on personal gear, among other things. Some were like that. Others not so much. Every conflict was its own personal thing with an identity you could almost talk about like it was a real person. The problems came when it started talking back. But that’s another story.

  The black smoke cleared for a second and I could see the rest of Reaper from my position at the tip of the spear. We emerged from the dark drifting banks of black smoke like killers in the business of making trouble for others. I felt just a moment of pride as I studied my platoon on the move. Observed them. Watched their homicidal swagger and predator’s caution. First was led by Punch as the squad leader. Choker in the medic slot. Hoser in the gunner position. Hustle as the AG. Boom Boom in the squad designated marksman position. Then Firsty, then New Guys One, Two, and Three, and finally the Kid.

  The “New Guy” designation for the three in Reaper First Squad was the first step after getting called “Kid.” You got “New Guy” and a number, especially in Reaper because we always had two or three floating around. New Guy Two was about to get tagged as Farts for obvious reasons. Apparently, a lot of our chow disagreed with him. Badly. He didn’t mind and he was known to hang tough in a firefight. The other two New Guys were indistinguishable so far. The Kid was still the Kid and it was best not to get attached to him until he proved he wasn’t gonna get waxed right off the bat.

  So far he had not. But you never knew. Today seemed like one of those days where someone was gonna buy it. So why not him?

  And as I always told myself, And why not you, Orion. Sergeants get killed too.

  It’s best to be honest about these things. Trust me. Don’t lie to yourself about the bad things you’re facing in life. It could happen to you. And a lotta the times they, the dead, don’t just go away.

  “All right Reaper,” I said over the platoon comm. “Get it on.”

  What I saw before me was a good three hundred meters of open hot concrete apron where we should have been completely murdered by enemy marksmen if it weren’t for Chief Cook making sure the docked starship in front of us was billowing burning starship fuel from her portside tanks and obscuring our approach to the objective. Flames were spreading across the tarmac, igniting support vehicles and engulfing offloaded cargo around the ship. If it were a normal day of starport operations, this would be a real mess complete with evacuation and screaming sirens and even emergency assistance vehicles. For us it was just today’s mission.

  For Strange Company it was just another day on the job.

  And like I said, I was glad for that burning starship, otherwise all the enemy defenders currently holding the main terminal up there in the green ring would have started shooting at us down here on the runway.

  We were nothing but out in the open and vulnerable to traversing fire.

  As if on cue, artillery strikes crossing over our heads, indirect shells screaming through the smoky atmosphere above, fell and savaged the ornate roof of the terminal. If there had been enemy snipers up there they would be dead now. Blown to shreds in every direction.

  I checked the rest of Reaper as we came out of the smoke, making sure both ends of the wedge were clear. Some were ducking. Incoming artillery could make you feel like it. Even if it was yours. It wasn’t like dumb shells fired using physics discriminated about who they landed on. But mainly my guys were moving forward through drifting black smoke and falling shrap. And that was good. Shrapnel had a tendency to get your mind working about the thousand ways to die. And that made you harder to kill. Not impossible. But at least harder. This war had turned Reaper into killers. The New Guys and problem children had had their major malfunctions corrected and were starting to soldier the Strange Company way. Realizing that their brothers in the Strange needed them to do their jobs if everyone was going to make it through this one and get paid. That had made better fighters out of most of them.

  Chances were, I was gonna get cleaned out of New Guys to resupply the other platoons that had taken losses, and would take losses today. And believe me, I’m fine with that. Each of my soldiers was ready to serve in the other platoons and that was the gold standard for the sergeant who ran Reaper. Sort and select the ones that would go deeper into the mysteries of the Strange Company. Weed and wait for death for those that wouldn’t, or couldn’t, cut it.

  Like I said… it’s best to be honest about these things.

  Hauser, the Third Squad leader, gave me the thumbs-up that we had everyone and hadn’t left anyone in the smoke. I got us moving with an “All right Reaper. At the double. Move to the engines.”

  I blinked in my combat lens field of view and my retina tagged the shadowy area beneath the Clipper’s massive main starship engines where I wanted us to concentrate. Not everyone had combat lens capability, but the squad leaders did and Hauser didn’t need it. He was a cyborg after all. His brain was a giant supercomputer. And a very advanced one at that.

  We were on the double and the air was hot and acrid with chemicals and smoke. Choking us and making our lungs burn. You could taste the burning chemicals in your mouth and nose. If I sounded out of breath when I contacted Chief Cook to check his progress, it was due to that. And the fear too. As we crossed that three hundred meters, I was just waiting for a symphony of medium to heavy machine-gun fire to open up and end Reaper as it was known that day.

  “Holding in the smoke,” smiled Chief Cook pleasantly over the static of the comm. I could hear the onboard AC whirring heavily in the driver’s cab. There was melodic and almost hypnotic music chanting in the background of our communication. “Once you’ve secured the starship, I’ll bring the whale in and we’ll begin the breach, Sergeant Orion.”

  Unbelievably, the defenders had actually sent armed men down to attempt to stop the flames and assist terminal personnel in assessing the damage to the beautiful and fantastic docked starship currently ruined and burning along her port side. I’m sure they were concerned damage to its reactor might be a little problem for everyone within a ten-mile radius.

  I saw them, the enemy riflemen, watching the maintenance personnel work and try to minimize the cascading damage. One guy was spraying white billowy foam on the wing tanks and no one was waiting for an impending enemy ground attack. Burning starships had a tendency to draw the eye.

  “Do not open fire,” I whispered into my comm, hoping everyone in Reaper had their ears on. I wanted to cross as much of the sweltering runway as we could before a firefight broke out. At one hundred meters the dream of surprise attack intersected with the enemy’s sudden awareness of our presence.

  “First,” I called out over the comm, “
engage and keep moving forward. Second and Fourth, secure right. Third get ready to assault through. Get it on, Reaper!”

  There was at least a small enemy squad there near the massive blast-blackened starship engines watching the maintenance people do practically nothing to stop the spreading and out-of-control flames licking at the central hull. At least a small enemy squad was what I could see as we approached. First brought their primaries up and slowed to a fast walk, continuing forward motion, and began to fire at the enemy troopers. Of course, Boom Boom painted the first dude right off the bat with his rifle. I saw that one take a solid hit, body armor or no body armor, and go spinning away into a luggage cart that was on fire nearby. A gaping hole from Boom Boom’s Tesseract Archer Rifle. The .308 Magnums he fired didn’t care about modern plate armor. Now flaming luggage was falling all over that dead guy.

  Wisely, Hoser and his AG kept moving, keeping pace with the wedge, and scanning for what we in Reaper liked to call “The Other Guys.” The ones you never see until you open fire. The gunner would suppress while everyone else did the singles in the initial target group.

  It’s a personal thing for me. There’s always another shooter nearby, and best to train that way. Even if you’re engaging an enemy group, all carrying, most likely there’s someone you don’t see. Bad guys always travel in pairs. Even if those pairs are groups.

  The New Guys, and Choker and Punch, along with the Kid, did the rest of the enemy squad, who were caught flatfooted and watching maintenance guys who themselves weren’t too keen about the safety of the situation as they tried to figure out if everyone was about to get nuked by a sudden core melt from the starship’s onboard reactor.

  Everyone who’s not engineering on a starship has an inherent fear of the onboard reactor. Bad things can happen and the fear is neither superstitious nor unwarranted.