The War for Profit Series Omnibus

by Gideon Fleisher

Captain Thews replaced Captain Shuttler at the ALOC terminal. Major D said nothing, just turned and left.

  I peered at the portion of Tumbler’s surface as viewed by the ship’s sensors. It was zoomed in on the Gilani tribe, parked at the edge of the receding ice cap. The wasteland was getting wider and I doubted they could get back across it again. I turned toward Captain Blythe.

  “Hey Sir, what do you think they’re up to?”

  He leaned toward the screen. “Not much. Think we should send some drop boats down to rescue them?”

  “Hell no. They’re assholes. Their Chief is, any way. He tried to get me killed.”

  “Huh.” Captain Blythe went back to skimming reports on his own monitor.

  I zoomed in more. The image was grainy and blurry, but I could tell the Gilani Clan was blasting at the face of the ice. Making a tunnel that would melt in a couple of weeks anyway. But it kept them busy and inside the safe zone and that was fine by me. I read an ebook, its image projected from my personal communicator onto the wall by my desk. After each chapter I’d glance at the monitor and see what the Gilani Indigs were up to. Five hours into my shift, it happened.

  The Indigs were nowhere to be seen. All of them had entered the ice tunnel an hour before. But a slice of ice had lifted to what had to be a hundred meters. Then the ice tilted to one side and slid away to reveal a floating disc. At the angle I was viewing from, it looked like a silver cigar but the secondary image from our remote sensor showed it was more like a dinner plate, shiny silver. And huge, five kilometers across at least.

  I tapped Captain Blythe’s shoulder. “Sir, you don’t want to miss this.”

  He looked. “Wow.”

  Captain Thews said, “I don’t think they’re in the safe zone any more.”

  The flying disc rose straight up, slowly. Well, when viewed from my monitor it looked slow. “How are they doing that?”

  Captain Thews said, “If I had to guess, I’d say they were using magnetic levitation against the planet, rising above the pole.”

  I looked. “They saved their old ship?”

  Captain Blythe typed at his terminal. “Looks that way, Big Sarge.”

  The silver disc hovered above the pole, just outside the atmosphere. We had a clearer view without the atmosphere in the way so I zoomed in so that the disc reached from side to side of my screen. It showed some dings and scratches, pitted in places, dark horizontal streaks from resting on the ground and under ice. But it was still functional, obviously, with a rugged, reliable look to its design.

  Propulsion nacelles extended from under its belly and it tilted its top toward the jump point and began moving. Sensors tracked it and estimated its acceleration at half a G. Better than nothing. Besides, the ship had to be at least fifteen hundred years old.

  I said, “Looks like somebody really hates the Frogs.”

  Captain Thews said, “The important question is what are we supposed do about it? They are clearly outside the safe zone.”

  Captain Blythe said, “Both of you, read this portion of our contract to make sure I have it right.”

  We stood and read over his shoulder.

  Captain Blythe said, “It designates the area we’re supposed to keep them out of, not the area we’re supposed to keep them in. Am I reading that right?”

  Captain Thews said, “Yep. Otherwise, all the Indigs on the Acadia would be in violation. Once they leave Tumbler’s atmosphere, they aren’t our problem any more.”

  “Yessir, Ma’am, that’s how I read it.”

  “All right then. I’m calling D.”

  Major D came to the ops center a minute later. He looked at the information, listened to our best guesses. Re-read the contract and contacted the Acadians. Finally he said, “That’s it, folks. We’re heading home. We’ll follow them toward the jump point. In thirteen days this contract is officially closed.”

  I stood, too excited to sit. Major D said to me, “It’ll take us four months to reach the jump point. Go find yourself a stasis pod, Sergeant Slaughter. If I need anything from you I’ll wake you up.”

  Didn’t have to tell me twice. I went back to my room, woke up Emily and explained while I packed my bags. Then I moved with a purpose to the upper pod bay and stuffed my gear in the nearest pod’s foot locker and lay in the pod waiting for a technician to come by and put me under.

  ***

  Major D woke me up. “Good morning, Sunshine.”

  “Where are we?”

  “One day out from Mandarin. I need your opinion on something.”

  “Yessir.” I sat up, climbed out of the pod and followed him to the ops center. It was packed up except for the A-3’s terminal. He sat me in front of it and pointed at the screen.

  “Well?”

  It was an Op Order that contained lists of data, personnel slot vacancies and openings, school slot requests, crew qualifications tables, new-equipment fielding schedules, training land and ranges requirements, time tables for unit collective training…all packaged up nice and neat, all the considerations and finer points taken care of, each nuance of Schools, Tasking, Training and Movement wrapped up in the most beautiful Operations Order I had ever seen. A real work of art. I knew that commanders were supposed to have a working knowledge of these things, the theory that commanders needed Sergeants to handle these tasks because commanders simply didn’t have the time; that the Sergeant would naturally develop a higher degree of expertise through specialization. But this! This Op Order was magnificent. Every last detail of rebuilding both the Mech and Stallion battalions were covered, and in an achievable, realistic way. My chest tightened a bit to behold such beauty.

  I turned to Major D and said, “Sir, I could not have done it better myself. It transcends perfection.”

  He patted me on the shoulder. “Thank you, Sergeant Slaughter. That means a lot to me, coming from you.”

  “Yessir.” My voice nearly squeaked. I could feel tears trying to get past my eyelids.

  “Go revive the unit. We need them loaded up and ready to drop in eighteen hours.”

  “Yessir.” I turned to go, stopped, glanced at the Op Order again, and then left.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  My skimmer was tied down in the cargo area of the first drop boat to land on Mandarin. I was buckled into the Vehicle Commander’s seat, Emily in the Driver’s seat and Major D was in the back seat. The boat touched down and taxied and stopped, lowered its cargo ramp. I dismounted and removed the tie-downs and looked behind. The Command Post Carrier and the Stallion tank and the IFV that followed were ready to roll. I got back in the skimmer and gave Major D a thumbs-up. He popped the hatch and stood behind the turret rail gun. He dropped back down and grabbed his duffle bag from the cargo area and laid it across the back seat and stood on it, stood back up in the hatch. Standing tall he put on his helmet and said, “Let’s go, driver.”

  We moved off the boat and across the marshalling yard to the vehicle gate and then down the street toward the Brigade headquarters area. In the quadrangle between the corporate HQ and the unit HQ buildings, block formations of the troops of the other Battalions in the Brigade faced us and came to attention and saluted as we passed by. Behind the four vehicles of my group came the cargo trucks, pallets of zinc coffins holding our fallen brothers and sisters, an oversized Brigade Guidon draped over each pallet. Then the units followed, the tanks and IFVs and recovery vehicles, various types of combat support, with the chuck wagons—I mean, mobile kitchen vehicles—at the very end.

  The column split at the next intersection and the vehicles returned to either the Stallion Battalion or Mechanized Infantry Battalion motor pools. The cargo trucks with the coffins continued on to the stadium. Emily parked the skimmer in its designated spot in the Mechanized Infantry motor pool and powered down. Major D dismounted and said, “Thirteen hundred, stadium, dress uniform.”

  Emily said, “Roger, Sir.”

  He turned and strode toward the walk-through gate, rucksack on his back and duffle b
ag slung on his left shoulder.

  I said, “Emily?”

  “Yes?”

  “You have somebody here?”

  She shrugged. “Like a boyfriend?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Nope.” She looked into my eyes.

  “We get two weeks off starting tomorrow. We should go somewhere, together.”

  She smiled. “Like a honeymoon?”

  “Sure. Like a honeymoon.”

  She opened the cargo area hatch and handed out our bags, turned to face me. “Are you asking me to marry you?”

  “Well. I mean, not today. It’s a funeral day. But if I asked you tomorrow, what would you say?”

  She squinted. “Do you think I’m pretty?”

  I said, “Hell no.” Her face went blank. “You’re a grown woman, handsome and sexy.”

  She turned away and picked up her bags. She spoke as she walked away. “Ask me tomorrow. And do me a favor; secure the vehicle before you leave. I’m not coming back here today. I’ll be at the stadium…”

  Her voice faded as she walked farther away, to where I couldn’t hear. I secured the vehicle and carried my bags to my barracks room, cleaned myself up, had lunch at the snack stand, back to my room to put on my dress uniform and then to the stadium.

  Coffins draped in Brigade Guidons sat on gurneys, arranged in a neat formation on the playing field of the stadium, five meters between each coffin. Mourners stood by the coffins of their loved ones. Groups of twenty or more by some, other coffins stood alone. I walked past and saw that each had a white ceramic headstone with a picture of the deceased carved into it, along with name and rank and unit below that, with date of birth and death on the bottom line. A group, three stooped-over old men and two old ladies, made their way to each coffin to place a fresh-cut white lily atop each. Beyond the coffins were fold-up chairs with velvet slipcovers, the chairs facing the stage ahead of that. An usher, a Troop from the Hercules Heavy Tank Battalion, handed me a program and said, “Right this way, Sergeant Slaughter.”

  I followed him and he sat me next to Emily. She looked particularly handsome in her dress uniform, modified to have a black gauze veil hanging from the brim of her hat. I noticed no service stripe on the cuff of her left sleeve; still on her first enlistment. I had two service stripes, would get my next one in a couple of years. I’d been in for over twelve. Eight years to retirement.

  On the stage, Stallion Six’s coffin lay in state. Two guards stood, one at the head and one at the foot, facing each other. On a raised platform behind the coffin was a podium where the Brigade Chaplain stood, robes of office showing his Master Sergeant rank on the sleeves. I read the program. The names of all the dead were listed. A few minutes later the Chaplain spoke, his voice carried by the sound system.

  “Today we honor the fallen. We honor Lieutenant Colonel Guillermo Camacho and the brave men and women who died in battle, serving this Brigade on the planet Tumbler. And their passing is a tragedy certainly, so much potential lost, so many more lives disrupted. But today is about grieving and acceptance and moving on. To those who grieve I say this: the pain will pass, your lives will go on. But grieve as long as you need to grieve, there is no shame in that.”

  He bowed his head, silent for a full minute. The he looked up and said, “Colonel Raper will now say a few words.”

  The Chaplain stepped back and to the left. The Brigade Commander, Colonel Raper, took his place at the podium. He was tall with light brown hair, square face, cleft chin, square shoulders, face bronzed from being outdoors most of his life.

  “What can I say about Lieutenant Colonel Camacho that hasn’t already been said about other mercenaries, to grant justice to the supreme sacrifice that he made in combat? The aphorism that the death of one person is a tragedy, the death of hundreds a statistic, will not suffice. This old quote of dubious origin misses the mark when it comes to battle. In this violent profession, the death of a brave professional fighter is so commonplace that its fundamental heartbreak is often lost to the impersonal and statistical big picture. Telling the tale of the fallen mercenary, emphasizing the dreams unrealized and the potentials unfulfilled, then, helps us appreciate the sacrifice all the more. Guillermo Camacho was nearing the end of his career, preparing for a long, happy retirement with his fiancé, a fiancé who died in that same battle on that same hill. I heard him speak of a ten hectare hobby farm on Ostreich, of children and grandchildren. His dreams were not too different from most of us here today. We were a lot alike, him and you and me. We are mercenaries. We fight for money, politics be damned. But do we really? We enlist for money and we choose this profession for the pay and benefits certainly. But when we fight, we fight to support the mercenaries around us and we fight to meet the obligations of our contracts. And when the fight is over we have no enemies. We fight with honor, for honor. And I knew no more honorable a mercenary than Lieutenant Colonel Guillermo Camacho.”

  Colonel Raper swallowed hard. His voce was louder, unsteady. “He will be missed.”

  Then he stepped back and the Chaplin stepped up. “Burial will take place at fifteen hundred at the Silent Saber Cemetery. That is all.”

  An hour and a half. The cemetery was a fifteen minute walk away. I stood. “Emily?”

  She looked up at me, looked back down at her feet.

  “Emily, I have to swing by the museum. Come with me?”

  “Sure.” She stood.

  The crowd dispersed slowly, many people going back to stand by the coffins of the people they knew. I thought about trying to find the coffin of the one troop I’d pulled from school for that contract but I couldn’t remember her name. Some troops browsed around, stopping at several coffins for a moment. They’d lost several friends.

  The pall bearers, six Troops from the Hercules Battalion, came and took Stallion Six’s coffin and placed it on the cargo bed of an open-topped skimmer and took their seats inside along with Colonel Raper and the Chaplain and rode off to the cemetery.

  Emily walked with me to the museum and the curator met us at the door. He was a retired Captain, an original member of the Brigade when it had first been chartered as an independent Battalion Combat Team more than forty years earlier. He waved us in and led us to the display and said, “What do you think?”

  “Awesome.” It was a life-size statue of Stallion Six carved from marble, standing in full war gear. On the wall behind his statue was the tattered, battered Guidon of the Stallion Battalion, brought back from Tumbler. Eight framed pictures flanked each side. The pictures showed him getting commissioned, getting promoted, getting a medal pinned on his chest. Another picture showed him posed in formal wear with Captain Fiaco at a dance, she holding her left hand out to show the engagement ring he had just given her. More pictures: him in the cupola of a Stallion tank, him in field uniform firing a rifle from the prone position. In one picture he stood with his brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and in-laws and nieces and nephews, a group the size of a platoon. They wore bright summer civilian clothes and a grill cooked meat in the background.

  The curator said, “Do you have that data I asked for?”

  “Yessir.” I pulled a data stick from my personal communicator. As much info as I could piece together about what happened from the time we left Mandarin to the time we got back, special emphasis on details about Lieutenant Colonel Camacho. “It’s a rough draft now. I’ll be back in a couple of weeks to answer any questions you might have, discuss any changes we should make.”

  He nodded. “Thank you, Sergeant. This will cap off the official biography. I appreciate this.”

  Emily tugged at my sleeve. I said, “We must be going, Sir.”

  He nodded, we left.

  We arrived at the cemetery a little early and stood a hundred meters back. Seats were set up at graveside, the chair at the front left reserved for Guillermo Camacho’s sister. She sat dressed in black, a round wide-brimmed hat with a black gauze veil obscuring her face. Emily said, “What about the other troops who
died?”

  I said, “Most of the coffins are shipping out for burial on the home worlds of the troops. Others, from local recruits, are going out to civilian cemeteries on Mandarin. A few more burial ceremonies take place here tomorrow. Better to wait, so that this one doesn’t overshadow them.”

  Emily said, “What about Captain Fiaco?”

  “Tomorrow. She’s getting buried right next to him.”

  “Okay.”

  We approached the grave site and stood in the group of other uniformed mercenaries. The pall bearers dismounted with their Eliminator shotguns and marched to twenty five meters Northeast of the grave and stacked arms, marched back to the skimmer and pulled the coffin off, carried it to the grave and sat it on the lowering device, then marched back to un-stack arms. The Chaplain moved to stand at the head of the coffin and sprinkled Holy Water on it, read a prayer, quoted a passage from the Bible and stepped away. Colonel Raper nodded at the pall bearers, stepped forward and took his place at the head of the coffin.

  The funeral team NCOIC gave commands in a low but firm voice.

  “With blank ammunition, load.”

  The firers inserted blank rounds into their shotguns.

  “Ready.” They worked the action, to chamber a round.

  “Aim.” They pointed the shotguns up at a four hundred mil angle.

  “Fire.” The Eliminator shotguns fired. Loud. Most of the mourners flinched. I did too, jumped nearly an inch off the ground.

  “Ready.”

  “Aim.”

  “Fire.” The second volley. The sister of the deceased let out a single sob.

  “Ready.”

  “Aim.”

  “Fire.” She broke into tears. She leaned into the man next to her, her brother. His eyes leaked tears too. He put his arm around her, offered a tissue. She took it and wiped her nose.

  “Present Arms.”

  The firers held their shotguns straight up and down, the muzzles even with the tips of their noses, fifteen centimeters away. All the uniformed military personnel present held proper hand salutes. A bugler played taps. The song ended