by Tom Kratman
The shakes had worn off as soon as he boarded the transport, hours before. Now, despite the overwhelming pressures of his first operation as company commander, he was composed, focused.
And impatient.
“One minute!”
Senior Lieutenant (acting) Wilsyn Champlain, Second Revanchiste Quebecois Commando, didn’t bother to look back at the sound of the rope master’s voice. It was pitch black inside their aircraft anyway, preventing any last minute checks. Either their rope and personal gear were rigged correctly, or shortly he was going to be the first man-shaped blood stain outside the personal vacation chateau of the Secordian Army Chief of Staff. Landing normally was contraindicated, since they were about to visit entirely unannounced.
And, you know, there was a sort-of-war on.
In the months since their unit had been formed from barracks dregs and all-purpose fuck ups he had learned that Senior Sergeant “Razor” Bowie didn’t need baby sitting. And although he rode the second aircraft with Chalk Two and their Earther advisor, Bowie had trained the rope master on Champlain’s bird. That man, Senior Corporal Tremblay, would sooner depart the aircraft without a rope than face Bowie after a fuck up.
Of course, that’s exactly what Bowie would make Tremblay do anyway, should he or any “his” noncoms screw up the lieutenant’s op.
Approaching the LZ, their aircraft banked hard, and the combined weight of his armor and equipment made Champlain’s knees sag despite his iron grip on the chicken rail that ran the length of the troop bay.
Even though the operation was a supposed to be a quick in and out, Champlain carried more than just his allotment of ammunition and demolitions. He also bore several liters of water, enough to make his equipment webbing and pack straps cut brutally into his shoulders under the increased pull of the aircraft’s deceleration. Between the long-range patrols that their advisor cum instructor had required of them, and the inbred pessimism of a junior noncom breveted to officer, Champlain understood that carrying so much water might slow him down. It still beat the desperation of a parched mouth and swollen tongue while the sun overhead baked you dry, even as enemy rounds pinned you in place and your squadmate moaned uselessly for water from under the bandages that covered his face.
Injuries from Champlain’s own fuck up.
“Thirty seconds!”
As the turbine driven propeller nacelles began to pivot upwards into helicopter mode, the previously smooth if overwhelming humming shifted into a syncopated beating of rotors that would have been instantly recognizable to any pre-space flight aircav soldier.
Suddenly the starboard machine gun began to chug. Inside the fuselage, Champlain couldn’t tell if there were actual targets, or if the gunner was just spraying the buildings surrounding their LZ in order to discourage nosy spectators.
He approved of outgoing fire, just on general principles.
The priceless tilt-rotor slowed and pivoted, orienting the ramp towards the briefed LZ.
“GO!” Tremblay screamed as he kicked the fast-rope off the ramp. The selected method of insertion had been new to the men, since the helicopters and tilt-rotors it required were not commonplace on Terra Nova.
Suddenly the interior of their ride was lit by shockingly brilliant white light. In the moment of insertion, some local, likely inspired by the rotor noise to figure out what jackass was hovering over their quarters, decided to turn on the court lights. The loss of night vision was instantaneous. Without hesitation, Champlain threw himself off the aircraft ramp towards the thick sisal rope, gripping it firmly in his gloved fists. Despite the thick leather, his palms immediately registered the friction heat which was an unavoidable byproduct of the barely controlled descent. The world spun bright-dark-bright as he dropped thirty meters toward the now fully illuminated emerald green tennis court outside the local officer’s mess.
And of course, it left the attacking Rangers pinned to the bright yard like specimens awaiting the collector’s kill jar.
At the last moment, Champlain squeezed the rope as tightly as he could, camming his wrists together. The staggering impact of the cement was only partially absorbed by the composite soles of his boots, but he unlimbered his personal weapon and scrambled sideways in order to avoid the descending size thirteen feet of his radio operator, Royce. He squinted into the brilliance, looking for the nearest concealment.
From somewhere off to his right, the familiar sound of another Quebecois-built thirty caliber machine gun coincided with dozens of sparkling impacts across the rows of court lights, which crashed down faster than a strong man could yank a drapery off a wall.
Trust Bowie to get the job done.
The fire rate on the guns was slow, but the relative simplicity of the two-hundred-year-old design brought them within reach of on-planet industry, unlike the aircraft still vomiting out his platoon of thirty.
More importantly, their maintenance was simple enough that even a backwoods Quebecois Commando could do it.
His night vision was still gone, stolen by the short lived but intense electric lights. However, the voice at his shoulder was as familiar to him as the bolt action carbine that Champlain bore.
“Chalk Three is down,” Major Hermann Kuhlman said conversationally. “Time to send your breach teams in.”
“Why, exactly, was Monsieur le Major Kuhlman actually on the ground with your company?” asked Bin Ra’ad from outside the circle of light that defined the table. “As a United Nations observer, he was specifically enjoined to avoid direct combat. The Charter of Assistance limits the role of our advisors to training!”
The outburst had the flavor of rehearsed outrage.
“The Major led from the front.” Champlain eyed the colonel. The silver globe and wreath of the UN winked conspicuously from the taller man’s light blue collar points. “He trained with us for months, set the example after the original company commander was removed. I was in charge, but he taught us, well, everything. Which I think you know.”
“Where were your Quebecois instructors?” asked DeGrasse. “Why was Kuhlman so deeply involved in your training?”
Champlain considered his answer carefully.
“We still don’t have as much experience in larger formations.” he said. “And our unit wasn’t used to working together, at first. The major’s been to every hotspot on Earth during the last decade. He had five times the combat experience of the most seasoned commando. And he understood us.”
“Understood you?” sneered Bid Ra’ad. “What did he have in common with the rabble that he was supposed to whip into shape?”
“We hated him at first,” admitted Champlain. “But everything we did, he did. Every forced march, each night obstacle course, every live fire training problem—he was soaked by the same rain and ate the same shit food that you allotted us. Can’t do that and not understand the company.”
“Quite,” said DeGrasse. “And he was your mission briefer as well, Lieutenant?”
“Negative,” replied Champlain. “Kuhlman and I planned the actual operation. But Colonel Gagnon supplied our mission parameters.”
“And what did you understand to be the primary operational goal for this mission, Champlain?”
“Gagnon briefed us, lectured us really, about the hostage.” replied the weary yet on edge officer.
He was tired and still reeked with both the mental and physical residue of battle. Champlain needed a drink, a shower and another drink—in that order. This interrogation could not end fast enough. Still, he had to finish the op.
“Everyone knows that Jacques Hebert, son of the foreign minister, was arrested a few months ago on false espionage charges. They let his school friends go but the Secordians had Hebert in a secure location. We were supposed to get in, grab him and such intel as we could, then extract and bring him home. In exchange, we get our convictions reversed.”
Bin Ra’ad snorted derisively.
“That was the deal,” said Champlain, leaning forward. “That’s why you pi
cked us!”
“You and the rest of the men were chosen because we could afford to lose you,” retorted the tall, khaki clad colonel. “You were an expendable forlorn hope. Brig rats. Prison toughs.”
Champlain blinked, shocked at the unexpected honesty of his interviewer. He leaned further, meeting Bin Ra’ad’s sneer.
“My boys were hard enough and aggressive enough, sure.” he answered. “If Command had a better option then they would have taken it. But they needed us and they offered the promise that Quebecois Command would reverse their criminal convictions!”
“And they will, just as soon as we sort out all the questions,” DeGrasse said, smoothing over the sudden electric tension. “The legal arrangement is entirely legitimate.” He stared meaningfully at Bin Ra’ad, who stepped back half a pace and turned indifferently to examine a wall map.
“Now, please continue.”
“Everyone, even our friend from headquarters, made it down in one piece and the tilt-rotors are clearing the area,” Kuhlman reminded him. “They’re too easy to shoot down and we need them for the ride out.”
The company was already spread out, well away from the beaten zone of the LZ, but they remained vulnerable to the inevitable reaction force, which was supposed to be at least thirty minutes away. Third platoon, under Bowie, was detailed to set up a blocking force on the main access road to the compound. Champlain sent Second to screen against the adjoining cluster of military buildings while he personally led First against the officers’ quarters and main residence, keeping Weapons platoon in reserve.
“Right, sir,” Champlain replied. He turned to his faithful radioman Royce, “Pass to all teams, take positions briefed.” Much more loudly he yelled, “Breachers up!”
Two pairs of men ran pell-mell for the main doors just as a spattering of ground fire began.
The building’s stout outer doors were built fortress style for looks rather than to hold off an attacking army, but they still overmatched simple crowbars or hammers.
Plus Champlain was in a tearing hurry.
The breach teams each worked one door, carefully placing the meticulously proportioned charges, just as they had done on the mock-up back home. The pre-made explosives rode flimsy wooden frames whose dimensions were hastily adjusted to each door before the charges were joined with heavily waxed detonation cord.
“Fire in the hole!”
The assaulters and the command group huddled together in the lee of the courtyard, hands over their ears and mouths open to relieve some of the overpressure. The charges went off simultaneously for once and the doors flew apart with a sharp blast and a pattering of wood and stone.
“Attaque!” yelled Champlain even as the first squad rushed the door. He followed immediately upon their heels.
Inside the anteroom there were two men in shirtsleeves, one clutching a pistol, already crumpling. A few more weapons banged as Champlain’s men fired into the hallways on either side. He motioned second squad towards one side and dove towards the other, following the team that had already jumped ahead, yelling like banshees.
The hallway was dimly lit and lined with alternating doors, clearly quarters. Groups of three prepared to tackle each room in turn. Two rooms down a Secordian spun into the hallway, leveling a shotgun. Time slowed suddenly as the bore yawned wider than the mouth of hell. Champlain’s gut tightened futilely against the expected buckshot before the gun boomed. The shot was answered instantly by several carbine rounds, tumbling the figure back into his room, but not before one of Champlain’s men coughed a sheet of blood across his belly and folded onto the floor.
The thick burgundy carpet soaked up Champlain’s footfalls as well as the blood draining from the fresh corpses in the hallway. Ignoring the sharp iron scent of blood, he stepped over the casualties and brought his own bolt action carbine to present as the team cleared the next room. More yelling resulted and was met with the muted thudding of clubbed rifle stocks. Moments later that pair of men stepped out of the now quiet room into the hallway, and the next team kicked their door open.
This time feminine screams met their sally.
There wasn’t time to collect prisoners, so the prostitutes were left in place, once the room was swept for weapons or combatants.
“We need to hurry, Lieutenant!” Champlain was surprised to hear Colonel Gagnon at his elbow. “We need to check both his quarters and the communications building!”
The short, dour-faced colonel was an unusual addition to the ground team. Supposedly only he could confirm Hebert’s identity. In the absolutely regrettable event that the political officer met with an accident, Champlain carried the hostage’s recognition picture as a backup. There couldn’t be too many soft-faced teenagers in a Secordian brigade commander’s headquarters area.
Outside the building more rifle fire rattled as the security element engaged the Secordians who were slowly, but forcefully, reacting. Weapons platoon had been the last on the ground, but judging from the distinctive sound, at least two of their tripod-mounted medium machine guns were now in action. Nothing the Secordians would have immediately on hand could match that.
Or so the intelligence section had assured them.
Champlain could hear more doors splintering as the Rangers cleared the last hallway and entered the target room with a clatter of equipment and the sound of splintering wood.
“Clear left, clear right, one civilian! Wait, he’s not here,” exclaimed one of his troops. “It’s just a girl!”
Champlain shouldered his way into the nicely furnished room. In their haste the searchers had overturned the walnut desk set, and the closet door hung askew from one surviving hinge. The lieutenant saw an obviously terrified young woman in her bedclothes. Sleep tousled bangs framed pale blue eyes and an exquisite heart shaped face whose porcelain skin was the province of only the very young. One of his men watched her at gunpoint.
Champlain stepped closer to the woman, who clutched the deep blue bedspread to her chest.
“Pardon, mademoiselle,” Champlain said. “We are here to find Jacques Hebert, to save him. Quickly, where is he?”
“I . . . I don’t know,” She shook her blonde curls, wide eyed. “I . . . mustn’t say.”
One of his troopers growled and advanced a step; each additional minute that they tarried invited disaster and every commando knew it.
She shrank backwards even as Champlain raised his hand to motion the trooper to the wall. There was so little artifice in her terrified regard that he instinctively chose a softer approach.
“We are friends and we aren’t here to hurt him,” he said. “Or to harm you. Please, help me get Jacques home.”
Gagnon bravely shouldered his way into the cleared room and produced a small, flat automatic pistol. He aimed it menacingly at the shivering young woman.
“Where is Jacques Hebert, slut?” he demanded. “Answer, or your life is forfeit!”
Behind the political officer, one of Champlain’s door kickers visibly rolled his eyes.
“Colonel, I am happy to interrogate . . .” began Champlain but the shorter man waved backwards, irritated.
“I am quite capable, Lieutenant.” Gagnon stepped closer to the woman, moving the pistol closely enough that her eyes crossed as she watched the muzzle approach.
“I don’t know for certain . . .” she stammered. “He was restless, he . . . sometimes he takes his notebooks and writes in the library, I think. Please, please don’t hurt me!”
Champlain fished around in his blouse and withdrew the target map. Scanning for the club area he noted the position of the library and club across the tennis courts, adjacent to a building labeled “Communications.” Behind him he heard Gagnon continue.
“And how many guards will he have?”
“Just the night guard sir, please, please don’t hurt me!” the woman pleaded.
Before Champlain could issue the orders to clear the room and organize movement to where he hoped they would find the target, the report
of a pistol filled the small space.
He snapped his head about in time to see Gagnon holstering his weapon. The stout colonel stepped into the hallway, jostled by Kuhlman, who shouldered his way into scene at the sound of the shot.
He looked at the bed and then exchanged a glance with Champlain. After a pause, both of them turned and followed the political officer.
The teenager lay across the bed, one perfect blue eye staring at the ceiling, and the other a bloody ruin.
“You sound mildly disapproving of the colonel’s interrogation technique, Lieutenant,” stated Bin Ra’ad smugly.
“I was entirely comfortable with his questioning,” retorted Champlain. “I rather object to the murder of noncombatants. Sir.”
His last syllable rhymed perfectly with “curr.”
“You little jumped-up nobo—” Bin Ra’ad began to sputter. This time the other interviewer pushed Bin Ra’ad back lightly before scooting his chair all the way into the illuminated center of the table.
“Now Wilsyn, you don’t mind if I am familiar, do you?” asked DeGrasse.
Champlain raised one hand palm upwards, indicating that he didn’t really care.
“Wilsyn, let’s back up just a little,” He flourished a pack of Earth brand cigarettes.
“Smoke?”
Receiving a nod in reply, DeGrasse tapped out a cigarette and offered it to the lieutenant who accepted both the tobacco and a light.
The little ceremony complete, DeGrasse took a drag on his own cigarette.
“Wilsyn, I want to just briefly touch on your comment about murder,” he said. “Did you actually see Colonel Gagnon shoot the, eh, female?”
“No,” replied Champlain. “But there’s no question that he did it.”
“Yes, certainly. But, isn’t it possible that at the last moment the woman made some motion or reached for a weapon, compelling the colonel to defend himself, and of course the other . . .” Degrasse paused significantly, “. . . loyal Quebecois in the room?”
