Merchants of War

by Rick Partlow

  Great. Just when I was getting Dix calmed down, now she’s spun up, too.

  The woman edged past Nate and got into Patty’s face…well, as close as into his face as she could get when she was a head shorter.

  “You know damn well you were off shamming somewhere, trying to avoid getting into the fight! Just that one damned remotely piloted Tagan took out Dix and two U-mechs. What if they’d had two or three of them? Nate and Dix could be fucking dead now!”

  “Back off!” Patty yelled, leaning in closer, finally getting pissed off. “I don’t answer to you and I don’t have to prove anything to you! I was trying to help and you guys had me too far away from your position! You want me to come hold your fucking hand after a fight so you don’t get the shakes, then buy me fucking dinner!”

  Nate saw the shift of Mata’s feet, the redistribution of weight that was a prelude to throwing a punch, and he stepped between the two of them in a smooth, slithering motion he’d learned from an old NCO. Well, someone had learned it.

  “That’ll be enough of this shit.” He tried to project firm authority and wasn’t sure how successful he was. “We just got our asses kicked out there, ambushed. Someone knew where our AO was, and that means we have a leak.”

  “Three guesses who ran their mouth,” Roach spat the words at Patty. “And the first two don’t count.”

  “I said, enough,” Nate snapped. “Patty,” he ground out, not looking at the man, eyes fixed on Roach lest she try something stupid, “go help Ramirez with the crane, get that shit in here ASAP.”

  The tall Kentuckian grunted acknowledgement and brushed past the two of them, heading out to the pier at a sulky drag. Dix said nothing, just watched the younger man go and then stuck his hands in his pockets and headed back to the bunk room. Nate wasn’t worried about Dix; he was a professional and he’d blow it off after he’d had a chance to cool down. Roach, though…

  “You need to get rid of him,” she told Nate, jerking a thumb over her shoulder at the door where Patty had exited. “He’s ten kilos of shit packed in a five-kilo sack and I will never fucking trust him. How the hell do you even work with the carbon?”

  “We take what we can get,” he reminded her, leaning back against the wall to take some of the pressure off his abused knees. “It’s my job to make the team I have work.”

  “Yeah, but only four of us are working, Boss.” She hissed out a breath and closed her eyes, visibly trying to bleed off the rage she’d built up. When she met his gaze again, it was with a calmer visage, but not a kind one. “You’re going to have to cut bait sooner or later. Hopefully, it’s before his screw-ups gets somebody killed.”

  He didn’t know how to respond to that, so it was almost a relief when the woman turned and headed out the door to the pier. Nate let his head rest against the wall, suddenly feeling very tired. He thought about heading back to his rack and trying to grab a nap, but his Hellfire glared at him accusatorily, still ragged and burned and splintered, waiting to be serviced.

  “Serves me right,” he murmured, limping over to the machine, “for being too cheap to hire a maintenance team.”

  Interlude:

  I woke up with a splitting headache, like the worst migraine you ever had multiplied by the kind of hangover you got from mixing cheap, Mexican beer and cheaper Russian vodka.

  What the hell had I done to myself last night? I couldn’t even remember. I slapped at my phone, trying to turn off the blaring alarm without opening my eyes and heard a clatter as it went off the nightstand to clatter on the floor.

  “Shit.”

  I swung my legs out of the bed, flinching a little at the feel of the cold tile on my feet as I leaned down and picked up the phone, opening my eyes just enough to squint at the screen. It wasn’t the alarm, it was a call. I’d muted the ringer when I went to bed, but this was the sort of call that wouldn’t let you mute it.

  I slid the green button to the right to answer and put the phone against my right ear. The pain was beginning to fade now, thank God, or I wouldn’t have even been able to hear the voice on the other end.

  “Stout here,” I said, my mouth feeling as if a sheep had crawled inside it and died last night.

  “Stout, report to the hangar ASAP.”

  “Why, what’s…” I trailed off, realizing whoever it was had hung up.

  I didn’t recognize the voice, but that didn’t mean anything. Clerks, technicians, staffers all rotated in and out of here constantly.

  Here. Where is here, again? Jesus, I must have really tied one on last night.

  I knew where the hangar was, though, and I knew where the light switch was. I tapped the side of the lamp, wincing at the glare of the LED, but following its glow to my flight suit, hanging where it always did on the door of my closet. I slipped into it quickly, fingers working zippers and Velcro fasteners on their own, without conscious thought. My boots were arranged in the usual spot, hanging open so I could just step into them and tighten the straps.

  My mouth was still dry and disgusting so I risked the extra thirty seconds to brush my teeth at the sink beside the door, then the water running reminded me I had to pee, so I did that, too and hoped the extra delay wasn’t the difference between saving the day and the end of the world. If it was, fuck ‘em. A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.

  I didn’t hear any alarm klaxons when I opened the door of my quarters, so we weren’t under attack, which was always a plus. Maybe it was a drill. I checked the time on my phone: 0415. Just about the time the fuckers would call a drill, when everyone had to get up in an hour.

  People were running through the hallways, still fastening fatigue blouses or pulling on tactical vests, some of them with carbines slung over their backs and wearing helmets. The lights were still dimmed, giving the thin sheet rock walls a more solid and substantial look, a sense of permanence they lacked when you saw them in the stark light of day.

  Every military base looked the same and I felt as if I’d been stationed at every one of them. This one could have been in California or Texas or South Carolina or just about anywhere except Hawaii or Florida because it was too chilly for that. I glanced out of the side of my eye at a short, stocky woman jogging about the same speed and direction I was. She wore Army utilities and a helmet that looked too big for her head, and she clutched at her M37 rifle as if it were the only life preserver in a stormy sea. Dark eyes flickered my way but she quickly looked away, as if she didn’t want to engage.

  Had I already developed a reputation here? Had it been that long? Maybe I’d gotten drunk last night and hit on her and she was embarrassed to talk to me. I’d have to ask Bob when I saw him. Hadn’t I gone out with Bob last night? Or maybe it had been the night before.

  I was at the hangar, so I put last night out of my head, wishing I could get rid of the headache as easily. The lights in the hangar were bright, but they were also higher up, giving them the illusion of a softness they didn’t possess. The far-away lamps threw long shadows from the line of Hellfires cradled in their berths, surrounded by maintenance gantries, power cables and diagnostic equipment. The other pilots were already here and I felt like a shit-heel for being so late. They were absorbed in prepping their machines, not even sparing me a glance as I jogged up.

  I hesitated a few steps away from my Hellfire, staring at one of them. A woman, quite attractive, with bobbed red hair and a sort of pixie cuteness to her face. And yet, she looked inexplicably…old. Weathered. It didn’t seem to fit with her hands, her hair, her build and it was nothing as overt as face cracked by the wrinkles of old age. It was more of a beat-up, worn sense I got from her motions, the way you’d expect someone to move when they got to that age where everything hurt. Her uniform advertised her as a captain, just like me. She shouldn’t have been older than thirty, tops; but if you’d asked me, I’d have been willing to swear she was on the downside of the hill.

  Strange.

  “Stout!”

  That was Charlie, loud and bellicose as al
ways, hands perpetually stained with grease and grit, a streak of it across his right cheek. A lump of chewing tobacco bulged at his lower lip, drawing his mouth in what looked like a perpetual snarl.

  “I’m here, Charlie,” I assured him, clambering up the stepladder and pulling the hatch open. “Is she ready?”

  “What do I look like, your fucking turn-down service?” He laughed harshly, then picked up a plastic cup from his toolbox and spat into it. “Of course she’s ready! Get your ass inside before you make me look bad.”

  “Any word on the mission?” I called down to him as I squeezed through the hatch and grabbed a handhold.

  “Nothin’,” he grunted. “I was called here just like you, I just showed up earlier.”

  I snorted as I strapped in, grabbing my helmet off the armrest of the seat.

  “I stopped to brush my fucking teeth, Charlie. Maybe you should try it sometime.”

  “The brass’ll tell you what’s up when you’re sealed in.” Charlie banged on the outside fuselage and began closing the hatch. “Good luck.”

  “I don’t need luck,” I assured him, flicking the power feed switches upward, the turbines beginning to spin to life with a slowly building whine.

  “All Hellfire units, this is Combat Control.” I heard the voice in my headphones almost the instant I set my helmet on and fastened the chinstrap. The tone was familiar even if the voice wasn’t. “We have incoming enemy traffic at seven kilometers due south. Two full squadrons of Russian Tagans on their way. We have intelligence they were launched from a ship off Savannah.”

  Okay, I was in Georgia. Ft. Stewart, or what was left of it. I remembered now. How could I have forgotten? What the hell was wrong with my head?

  “Stout, you take First Squadron and circle to the south, catch them over open ground before they have a chance to target us.”

  “Got it,” I confirmed, not really listening as they gave orders to my counterpart in Second. She was supposed to head north, and I didn’t need to know anything more unless she needed support, and then I’d hear plenty.

  “First Squadron, hit your jets,” I told them. I could see their names on the IFF display, Reynolds, Washburn and Rivers, but for some reason, I couldn’t picture their faces. “Let’s get them before they get us.”

  The hangar door was rumbling open, screeching intermittently as if in pain when the rollers hit a rough spot on the track. The cold grey of predawn hung over the old airstrip, transforming the shapes of helicopters tied down on the tarmac into shadowy, fearsome gargoyles of a lost world.

  They were still useful for transportation, but in combat trials against mechs, it was no contest. Fighter jets were still the clear champion, of course, but those were just too damned expensive. Mechs were the king of the hill now, for however long that would last.

  Probably as long as this war lasts. Which may be until the most advanced weapon around is a rock.

  The helicopters watched in envious silence as their replacements cruised out of the hangar on jets of superheated air. I led the squadron up to their cruising altitude of a hundred meters and top speed of a hundred knots, which didn’t seem like much until you considered you were flying a tank with arms and legs three hundred feet off the ground at a hundred and twenty miles an hour. Then it seemed really fucking badass.

  We curled around what used to be called the Hunter Army Airfield—How do I know that but can’t remember what the other pilots in my squadron look like?—over endless forests of oaks hung with Spanish moss. I remembered going on field training exercises, brushing aside the moss like bead curtains in the parlor of some old-time fortune teller.

  When was that? How many years ago?

  We were heading out towards Shellman Bluff, that was what the tactical overlay said. Shellman Bluff, Sapelo Island. I could remember images from them. Bridges over inlets, fishing boats. Little hole-in-the-wall restaurants with excellent food, my wife and I laughing over beers after…

  My wife? Where the hell was my wife?

  “Stout, you guys okay up there?”

  That was Combat Control. Still couldn’t remember the woman’s name.

  “Fine,” I told her. “We’re about five minutes out from the projected intercept.”

  “Don’t let them through, Stout.” There was genuine concern in her voice, which did nothing for my confidence. “This is the third attack just this month. They took out NAS Jax back in October with a nuke they hauled in on a cargo helicopter after they took out the mech wing there just like this.”

  “Roger that, Combat Control. No pressure.”

  I kept an eye on the heat readings, not wanting the thrusters to redline before we even got into the fight, deciding somewhere on the outskirts of Shellman Bluff to take us down. We landed in a residential street in some subdivision called something-something Cove. I couldn’t make out the top of the sign from the moss hanging over it. The houses looked expensive, or like they had been expensive back in the day, back before civilians had been forced to evacuate the southeastern coastline. Now, they were faded and cracked, roofs covered in moss and tree branches and leaves piled up over the course of years.

  Oh, there were still people on the coasts, ones who’d hidden from the military or wandered back in after the patrols were past. They lived in clusters, fishing for a living, trading their catch for fuel for their boats and their generators. About a third of the country was living on a barter economy now, either because of hyperinflation or just lack of infrastructure.

  I blinked, not halting my Hellfire in its steady clomp down the cracked and pitted streets but shaking my head and trying to focus. All that information felt as if someone else had dumped it into my brain. How did I know all that but couldn’t remember where I was until someone told me? Where the hell was my wife?

  Where was Bob? Bob should have been there when we took off. The Hellfires were his babies. Wait. How many Hellfires did we have? Bob’s lab had been out west, not in Georgia. How the hell did I even get here?

  “We ready to fly again, Captain?” Rivers asked me.

  I glanced down at the solid green on the heat display and nodded, then realized he couldn’t see me.

  “Back in the air,” I ordered. “We’ll stay up till we find them this time.”

  We were getting close to the water. I could see the saltwater marshes passing by beneath us, the gold of first light beginning to burn away the grey shadows. Flocks of water birds passed by above and below us, cattle egrets, storks, pelicans, going about their business as if the world wasn’t spiraling into chaos and destruction. So many people had died, so many were dying every day. Would nature move back in and take over from us when we were gone? Or had we ruined too much of it in our death spasms?

  “There they are.” Rivers again. The man was talkative. He was also right. I could see the radar blips now, eight Tagans in all.

  The Russian mechs were an odd duck. They carried heavier armor than we did, making them slower, but they also had a longer flight time before they had to worry about overheating. Rumor had it they managed that by cutting back on the reactor shielding and their pilots only had a lifespan of about four years once they started regular exposure. After that, the effects would accumulate and cancer or radiation poisoning would make them too sick to fly.

  That seemed wasteful to me. How were you going to keep getting motivated volunteers if they rotated out of the pilot’s chair after just four years, training included? But these were Russians we were talking about, so I hadn’t ruled the story out completely.

  Anyway, the long and short of it was, we had the advantage of speed and heavier weapons and they had range and more armor. And they had twice as many in their formation as we did, which was never good.

  “Second Squadron,” I called, trying to keep the urgency out of my voice. Pilots didn’t do urgent or desperate or scared. We felt it sometimes, but we never showed it on the radio. “I have located the bogies. Come around to our position and back our play.”

  �
��Roger, First,” the Second Squadron leader acknowledged, her voice just as phlegmatic as mine had been. “We will be in range in two mikes.”

  Which was eternity in combat, but never mind, here we were.

  “Washburn and Reynolds,” I ordered, “split left. Rivers, you’re with me on the right. Launch missiles as soon as you’re in range, but don’t latch until Second gets here. Just keep ‘em occupied.”

  I didn’t wait for an acknowledgement, just curled around to the right, about eighty meters above a sheltered inlet. The brown wooden lozenges of boats floated by, sporadically visible through the trees, and I wondered if the people down there knew who was fighting above them or even cared. For them, the United States had been gone for years and all this was just the death throes.

  Years? Had it been years? I wanted to say it had been longer…

  I got tone and launched, diving below them immediately, hoping Rivers would go by the plan and not get himself shot down before the fight even started. Insistent beeping told me the Russians had fired off a pair of missiles at me, but I was coming up right into the middle of their formation and the birds wouldn’t lock with so many friendly IFF signatures in the neighborhood. I wasn’t worried about their missiles, but the 25 mike-mike stuttering towards me was another story. Red dashes ignited the morning air, like Morse code signals saying “fuck you, Yankee,” and I got the message.

  “Stay tight,” I warned Rivers. “Don’t give them space.”

  “I’m good,” he insisted and I didn’t have time to rubberneck and make sure he wasn’t lying.

  The lead Russian squadron was splitting, trying to catch us in a crossfire, and I had to make a coin-flip call which pair to stay with. I was right-handed, so I spun right, getting directly between the two of them, trying to keep them from being able to fire. Somewhere off to the left, my missile warhead exploded, though I couldn’t be sure whether it had gone off of its own volition or been shot down by anti-missile fire.

  Tone again and I fired off another bird, closer this time, only a hundred and fifty meters from the Tagan to my front, barely within minimum arming distance for the Xyston missile. This one definitely hit, and when it did, it blew the Russian mech out of the air, sent it tumbling down toward the inlet in a smoking, roiling inferno.