Strange Company

by Nick Cole

  Second and Third fanned to their tagged positions to get under the starboard wing and react to any ground forces coming out of the terminal docking bays. Covered by the wing they should be safe, I told myself.

  Fourth came up on First and I told Punch to tell the maintenance techs to scatter and get lost. They were more than happy to.

  Choker finished a couple of the downed enemy troopers with double taps to the skull and remarked on the poor shooting of the new guys in not getting kills in the first pass. “Make sure dead guys are really dead, guys!” he shouted pedantically, considering the middle of a battle to be a teachable moment as he stood there on the hot burning tarmac beneath a starship’s main engines. He’s right though. Fights teach you in ways training never can. You just have to live long enough to learn the lesson they’re trying to drive into your thick skull. Choker’s only the squad medic because our company physician, Chief Cutter, gave him a first aid class once. Before that he was the AG until Klutz got killed at Tebibi Field three weeks ago. Ironically, it wasn’t Klutz’s fault. For once.

  We lost the last medic there too. Bad day.

  Klutz just stepped on a jolt mine connector and got an eighty-thousand-volt burst through his central nervous system. That could happen to anyone. Trust me. Jolts are real hard to spot. It’s a good thing they’re expensive otherwise there’d be a lot more of them lying around for us to step on.

  And like I said, it was a good thing our gunners, Hoser and Hustle, scanned and waited to engage the second group we hadn’t spotted. They were ready to go and had most of a belt to use up when the first of the enemy troopers came pouring out of the rear landing ramp just below the burning ship’s main engine nozzles. So of course… Hoser hosed. Opening up with the IG-M89 medium man-portable rapid defense gun. A beauty made by Colt-Horakawa, it dumps over five hundred rounds a minute. Nano-cooled barrel means no barrel changes. Cybernetic assist harness means “the Pig,” as we call it, can be hauled around by one man as long as he’s got an AG with him to keep feeding the thing belts of ammo. Which it devours. Hoser opened up with a judicious burst of 7.62 AP and tore the first Loyalist troopers to shreds. These were their regular units, not the guerrillas we’d been facing in the first few weeks. And not mercs. These were enlisted and officers with formal military training on what they felt was the right side of the war. Crash’s military, except for a few high-speed units and the heavy combat forces, had defected to the Loyalists, sensing an upgrade in pay if the Monarchs had a firmer grip on the situation. That was a smart play. That was usually a Monarch first step. Reward the military for all the brutality it was about to be asked to do now that regime change had begun. Plus, it had a tendency to teach everyone fear and respect.

  Which, spoiler, and sorry if you watch the news feeds or believe the propaganda, fear and respect are the basis of the entire Monarch empire.

  It works. Trust me.

  Hoser’s Pig tore the reacting troopers, probably part of some detachment that had been sent in to check on the ship’s internal reactor, to shreds. Like I said. The Pig also tore through the boarding ramp because I insisted it be supplied and fed by high-grain load AP. When I ordered the Pig deployed, I wanted it to make its point effectively. Regardless of cover. And it did. Very much so in fact.

  It just ruined stuff in a cone of outgoing lead-death.

  Enemy fire came from the terminal after that. They didn’t have great angles, but they knew they needed to get something done. New Guy Two took a round right through the thigh and started limping around swearing before he fell to one side. Choker was quick and grabbed him by the drag handle to get him under the engines and out of the line of enemy fire.

  I had two jobs to do right here and right now. We’d secured the point of entry. The plan was to board the wrecked and burning starship and make our way forward, and up a few decks of course, and then we could drop into the terminal directly through the hard connect boarding ramp.

  What if they’ve got it mined or rigged with explosives I only now wondered in the middle of the plan and battle because that’s what kind of tactical genius I am.

  Job one was to get the breach underway. I ordered Third in to assault and clear a path through Engineering to the ship’s transport system along the main spine. Then I ordered Second to pull back to the aft engine boarding ramp and support the assault there. First I got organized on the perimeter and ready for an enemy QRF to come and ruin our day.

  Fourth was going to help here.

  Sitrep to the First Sergeant who was with the captain and ran ops control for the company.

  “Good work, Sar’nt Orion. Casualties?” bellowed the First Sergeant too loudly over the hectic comm.

  I almost said “none” and then remembered New Guy Number Two had taken a round through the thigh. I tapped the comm for hold and asked Choker for an update on Farts’s medical status.

  If you got hit, we usually advanced you to getting your earned tag. Kinda like a motivation to stay alive.

  “He good, Sar’nt,” shouted Choker over the incoming and outgoing gunfire. “Went through the meat. Anti-coag in effect. Medi-sealant attached. Two pops of morphidol.”

  Two was a lot.

  “I don’t want him drooling, Choke!”

  “He good, Sar’nt.” Then off comm, “You in the game, right, Farts?”

  Farts nodded and his eyes rolled back in his head for a second.

  “Hitting him with Quick now, Sar’nt. He’ll be good to go, trust me.”

  Quick is our medical amphetamine and combat enhancer. It tends to make one extremely violent. But I couldn’t see how that would hurt for what we had ahead of us.

  Choker hauled the man to his feet and had him walk a few steps. Farts swore and made it with difficulty.

  Choker told him to quit complaining.

  I tapped for the First Sergeant.

  “We got one hit but he’s still effective.”

  The First Sergeant would make the call as to whether we had him return to the rear or wait for the main body to catch up. Sometimes our senior-most NCO would just drive out in his Mule and pick the wounded man up. Regaling the casualty with horror stories of gruesome wounds the First Sergeant had received, seen, or handed out.

  You weren’t really Strange Company until you got that experience. Or so some of the company old guys like to say. And yes, I’d had the pleasure.

  “Good,” said the First Sergeant over the comm. “Make a man out of him. Captain says we’re moving forward now. Punch us a hole, Sergeant Orion.”

  I switched over for Chief Cook and had him bring the crawler in, warning him we were taking fire from the terminal.

  “Hammer down, Orion!” shouted Chief Cook with a giddy war whoop that seemed out of place. Above the gunfire and flames, I could hear the chemical transport’s big engines spool up and begin to howl through the drifting smoke that surrounded the besieged starport out there like some wounded beast.

  I wondered what would happen if the thin-skinned crawler did actually take a round in its supply tanks as it came in. Leaking deadly hallucinogenic gas would be a problem for those of us on the ground outside the terminal but not so much for those inside, entrenched, and defending. Against us.

  “Fourth and First, covering fire on the terminal!” I shouted to be heard. “Engage any targets and give the crawler time to get close to the ship!”

  Now I needed to identify an AC conduit that led into the terminal. Chief Cook had given me three locations to spot, and I toggled the combat lens with my watch controls to assess and scan. I found the closest one that wasn’t too far away from the back of the starship and ran for it, hearing rounds chasing me across the burning cement.

  “Punch, you’re in charge until I get back!”

  I ran for the massive AC condenser and inductor stack and made it fifteen seconds later. I pulled open the service admin panel and checked th
at the unit was operational. It wasn’t. I went through the root commands and switched it over to manual flow. There was no port connector for the crawler’s hose feeds, just ground air getting sucked into the terminal. There was no way to just rig the intake.

  And then I remembered this was Chief Cook’s operation and he’d have to take responsibility for that. Responsibility for hallucinating my men to death inside a firefight. I wasn’t comforted by the lack of accountability and personal responsibility, but I understood that there was math in a battle. Math I wasn’t always good with. Math that made me uneasy. A battle is five percent planning, ninety percent skill, and five percent weird and undefinable magic. There’re some other subcategories in there but that’s what it felt like right now. Don’t canonize that. It’s not Orion’s Law. I have other laws I want to be remembered by for posterity. This one’s not ready for prime time yet. It still needs to be refined.

  But right now, it would do.

  Seconds later the wide, flat, and gigantic crawler rumbled through the black smoke and thundered straight toward the back of the wrecked starship at top speed. I popped purple smoke and waved it at Chief Cook behind the wheel. He mashed the accelerator and I chanced a look at the AC inductors. They were sucking the signal smoke in greedily.

  So that was… mostly good.

  For a second it seemed Chief Cook was just going to run me over. At the last moment, he yanked the gargantuan wheel and the crawler came alongside the AC inductor stack, braking hard. He hopped out, mindless of the fire we were taking, and went to work getting the main hose detached from the crawler in a very businesslike fashion. As though he’d only recently studied and memorized the primary maintenance orders so he could perform this operation. Saying things like “I think this is how it goes” and “Well this is all wrong” and finally, “Let’s give a whirl and see if we can win us a purty girl, Orion.”

  Again, he was heedless of the shooters in the terminal that were actually trying to kill us. But to his credit he was wiry and agile, and he moved like a spider monkey on pure Quick. I assisted his passive defense by trying to spot the shooters and return fire, if just to keep their heads down. Wisely, I did this from the cover and concealment of the tall AC stack.

  One round smashed into the hauler near my defensive position and instantly a jet of necrotic bluish gas began to hiss forth from the crawler’s large tanks and dissipate into the air I was breathing. I had the feeling that it hadn’t actually dissipated. That it had just micro-atomized and was even now overwhelming my sanity via my nose, eyes, and mouth. Still, I shot back at the enemy.

  Keep the main thing the main thing. And killing the enemy is always the main thing in these kinda situations, as the First Sergeant likes to say.

  Chief Cook saw the sudden puncture and ran for it, his run almost comic and over-exaggerated as he pumped his arms and fists. He had a roll of high-speed tape out of his starched fatigues cargo pocket, ripped a strip, tore it with his gappy teeth, and smothered the bullet hole in the tank.

  Then he looked at me.

  “Might wanna dose up now, Orion.”

  Ulp, I thought to myself and placed a tab on my tongue. I’d issued one to everyone and a few extra to Choker.

  Cook looked at me and smiled psychotically.

  “Aren’t you gonna take one?” I asked Strange Company’s psychological warfare specialist.

  He laughed maniacally.

  “One? Already took three, Orion. Get it on, Sar’nt. Get. It. On. Man.”

  Chapter Nine

  We left the chemical hauler full of psychotropic toxins pumping its poison into the green ring’s main terminal AC system and made for the back of the ruined starship that had been making the run between the home world and Crash, or Astralon, before it got permanently ruined by friendly artillery. The enigmatic Chief Cook, our attack’s Voodoo asset, seemingly oblivious to, and unhittable by, incoming enemy fire from the terminal, went back once we were halfway across the burning tarmac and heading for the cover of the aft bulk of the grounded starship. He called out over his shoulder as he comically ran, “Forgot something!”

  If he wanted to get killed by tempting exposure to incoming lead hornets, that was his business. Mine was to get the platoon fighting. It was Reaper’s job to breach and clear the access points into the main terminal as the show kicked off up and down the line for the main body of the attack. Already, out there across the northeastern edge of the starport, Resistance infantry units were underway, sweeping out in wedges in front of the low and menacing Raider tanks and Javelin light-walker mechs. The Raiders had been doing really well with their menacing 140mm recoilless main guns and not so much with their AA pods. The medium armored tanks were brought out because we currently had air superiority and could take the chance to gain some ground as long as the enemy didn’t go for some early close air support.

  As if to make Resistance Tac Plan a liar, two Warbird fighters, Loyalist versions of the vaunted F-705 the Monarchs once armed their ring carriers with, small forward wings swept back for control along the sleek rocket-shaped needle fuselage and aft wings fanned out for max lift at slow flight, rolled in out of the milky morning sun and shot up a Raider tank in the vast sprawl of dead grass just before the terminal apron. Both of the streaking fighters unloaded thousands of rounds of depleted uranium ball and tracer against one of the incoming Raiders there to support our attack. The low ominous BRRRRRRRTTTT of their attack resounded across the early moments of the main attack.

  Enemy close air support had been pulling this kind of attack lately. Coming in slow and low, raking the tanks from above. Raiders were lightly armored along the top of their angular hulls, and the AA pods were hasty installs that had yet to do anything other than badly attempt to acquire targeting data, throw up a cone of fire, and miss as both fighters went to full thrusters after the kill and roared off into the clearing morning mists, leaving a burning tank on the ground. You could tell both streaking fighters had reset their control surfaces for supersonic flight an instant later as sudden twin booms tore through the sky above the rattle of gunfire and the thump and whump of distant arty coming to play.

  I made for the rear maintenance ramp that led up into the wounded Clipper’s engineering decks. It lay below the silent thruster nozzles, giant and looming, massive and circular at the back of the ship. They would probably never fire up again. This state-of-the-art Clipper, part of the lifeblood of humanity’s continuing outward expansion through the stars, was probably destined for scrap now. As much of this world would be once we were finished with deciding who got to own what was left of the pile of rubble on the other side of this conflict.

  I linked up with Punch, who told me Third was inside and securing Main Engineering. Engineers had been sent in by the enemy to make sure the ship’s reactor was offline and cooling. No one wanted an exploding starship to get in the way of anyone’s plans to kill everyone else. They’d had a security detail courtesy of the enemy along for the shutdown. Detail was dead and engineers were in zip ties, thanks to Third Herd.

  Later I’d wonder if the engineers had been sent in to either det the starbird or melt its core, in case the Loyalists started losing. Yet one more time I would figure out how the enemy had had a chance to kill me that I hadn’t known at the time. It was a fun game I couldn’t help playing in the few quiet hours between midnight and dawn I seldom got to myself. Why sleep peacefully when you can think up a thousand new ways to die behind your closed eyelids?

  Since Farts was walkie-talkie, up and moving, I detailed him to watch the prisoners until we secured the ship. Chief Cook came in, towing the Little Girl that’d freaked me out. She was the something he’d “forgotten” back at the chem hauler the enemy was busy shooting at. And he’d gone back for her.

  I had to force myself to remember that was what you were supposed to do for little orphan girls in wars. Keep them safe. Especially in combat zones. Technically she wa
s one. And yes. This was a war for all intents and purposes. But what she was doing here would hurt your morals if you thought too hard, or too much, about it.

  So I didn’t.

  Plus, she was very dangerous. And not just to the enemy. Technically she counted as a company secret weapon. An ace in the hole. But friendlies had died just as easily as enemies when she did her trick. And so it was not a decision made lightly to use her when things got dicey.

  You read the old logs of the Strange Company, and you’ll see we fought some straight-up no-holds-barred battles on all kinds of worlds in all kinds of environments. We had what at the time were considered great weapons and solid gear. The best. There was a time when the Strange Company was equivalent to saying “the galactic boogieman.” But that was way before my time. Back during the early days of outward expansion along the old frontiers and established shipping routes to the outer worlds. We were the something you threatened people with so they’d behave. Little children were told to eat their hyper-peas and carrotini, or “Strange Company’ll get ya.” First Sergeant said to me one time, “Shoulda seen us back then, Orion. We were mean motor scooters if you believe all the old books. Killers every one of ’em. Lifetakers. Heartbreakers. You know…”

  Now we do tricks. Aces in holes. We cavort with the unclean of the galaxy for mere survival just to get to the next gig. The freaks. We need ’em in lieu of state-of-the-art weapons and bad reputation. What thousands of years ago some would have called sorcerers or wizards. Or carnies and hucksters. We cheat. We lie. And yes, we occasionally steal. Our gear sucks and our weapons are third-rate at best. There’s better out there to be had. But what makes us still dangerous… what shows we have a few teeth still left… is that we’re real good with what we got, and we pull dirty tricks on our enemies thanks to the freaks in Voodoo. There really isn’t any trick too low for us that we won’t try it to get the win. At least once.

  Believe me, we’re not proud anymore. Pride died a long time before any one of us ever signed the company contract.