Eye of the Storm

by John Ringo

  "Yeah," Keren said. "Did it for a while."

  "What do you do now?"

  "Pretty much retired," Keren replied. "But I'll admit I was getting bored."

  "I managed a hobby shop," Balmoral said. "And, yeah, I was bored. And the pay was less than joining back up. Even as a private. Thank God we're on Fleet Strike rates."

  Finally they passed some ranges where laborers with armed security were setting up the facilities. Crossed a bridge, turned around a hill and entered a security gate. The camp was, clearly, still under construction. But it was wired in so the ferals would stay out.

  Their bus pulled up in front of a cluster of five two-story buildings. There was a single individual waiting for the bus with a spread-out formation behind him.

  "Fall out of the buses and form on me," the man said through a megaphone.

  As the group formed in a semi-circle around him, the man smiled. Keren smiled, too. The sergeant major hadn't spotted him, yet, but with Wacleva here . . .

  "Welcome to Bravo Company, First Battalion, Fourteenth Regimental Combat Team. My name is Ser First Sergeant Stanislav Wacleva. You will not address me as Top or First. You will address me as First Sergeant Wacleva. You are all old soldiers who have taken a reduction in rank to reenlist. This is admirable. I'm practically crying I'm so worked up. You all know how the game is played, you all probably have a program you intend to enact. You've got your plans on how you're going to ghost through being privates until you can get back to your real rank.

  "Be aware that I and every other member of the cadre of the Fourteenth Regiment are also old soldiers who have taken a reduction in rank. Some of us not quite so voluntary. Your brigade commander, Colonel Tobias Pennington, was an Army commander in California during the Posleen Scuffle. Your battalion commander led a corps. In the case of myself, your first sergeant, I was a member of the Polish Airborne in World War Two and dropped at Arnhem. Since then I have been in just about every war the United States has fought on five continents. I retired the first time as brigade sergeant major of Third Brigade Eighty-second Airborne. Before that I'd held that post as well as division sergeant major and Eighteenth Corps sergeant major for nearly twenty years. The second time I retired as the sergeant major of the Ten Thousand. So if any of you yardbirds think you're more old-soldier than me, you can just bring it on!"

  The first sergeant looked around the formation, searching for a challenge. Keren considered ducking but figured that it was pointless. It wasn't like the first sergeant wasn't going to find out he was in the unit sooner or later.

  When Wacleva's gimlet eye hit the café au lait complexion Keren saw the first crack in his stern complexion. He blinked in obvious puzzlement, trying to place the face, then in surprise.

  "Captain Keren? What the fuck are you doing in this group, if you'll pardon my French, sir?"

  "That would be Sergeant Keren, First Sergeant," Keren said, grinning. "I'm one of your mortar maggots."

  "Well ain't that some shit," Wacleva said, shaking his head. "To continue. Your company commander, who some of you might see in passing in the next few weeks, is Captain Thomas Cutprice. Like myself and at least one of you, he is a veteran of the Six Hundred. We are all old soldiers here. We are all old soldiers who understand that being the best you can possibly be is the only way that we're going to survive this new war. For your general information, in just seven weeks, we are shipping out for Gratoola, which in the direct path of this newest enemy."

  He waited for the expected murmuring and gave it a few seconds.

  "At ease. Between now and then, we are going to have to get everyone in-processed, get these fucked-up barracks straightened out, get you all in uniforms, weapons and gear, reacquire your skills, train you on the new systems, kill the skills you had that are wrong, prepare for movement and ship out. Every one of you have some conception of just what a cluster fuck this could be. The way to prevent it from being a cluster fuck is for every one of you to act in the most expeditious way possible at every task you are assigned. What is asked of us is impossible. But this is all old stuff to us. Which is exactly why we are going to do it."

  "What are you here for?" Wacleva shouted as the group circled him. The company was trotting in a circle, lifting and lowering weights.

  "TRAINING, FIRST SERGEANT!"

  "What kind of training?" the NCO shouted.

  "HA-A-A-RMY TRAINING, FIRST SERGEANT!"

  The group was performing PT on two hours' sleep. First they'd unloaded all the cleaning supplies stored in the tractor trailers. Then they'd GI'd the barracks, supply building, armory, company headquarters and messhall. They'd policed the company area and picked up all the trash the construction crew had left behind. They'd scraped away the paint from the windows. They'd fixed the misemplaced electrical sockets.

  Only then did they start moving in the furniture. First for the company areas, offices, supply and armory, then for their individual barracks. Then they'd cleaned up the mess they made moving furniture.

  Then came issue. New uniforms, none of which fit, new boots which fit a bit better. PT gear and running shoes since it was the New Army. All of it then had to be put away to standard. Haircuts were simple buzz cuts; there were no barbers to tend to that and nobody really cared about hair. Then clean up the mess from issue and barbering. They were starting to look like soldiers again. Hell, they were starting to look like teenaged recruits for all that most of them were pushing eighty.

  When they were done, at two-thirty in the morning, they were permitted to sleep.

  At four-thirty they'd been awakened by their platoon sergeants. Clean the barracks again. Finally they were out doing PT. Forty minutes of calisthenics to get warmed up. A four mile run. Wind-sprints. And now combination training.

  "When I give you the command to fall out, fall out and fall in to your platoon areas," Wacleva bellowed. "Each platoon has fifteen minutes for breakfast. First training session is at 0830. Figure you are going to snap and pop every minute of every day for the next five weeks. We do not have time for fuck-around. Fall out and fall in!"

  Sergeant First Class Frederick Moreland had been the Third Brigade Sergeant Major, 78th Mechanized Division during the war. Prior to the war he'd been a mech mortar NCO for damned near twenty years.

  What he'd never been was a drill sergeant. He knew the theory, but with this group "breaking them down and building them back as soldiers" didn't really count. So when the platoon fell into the platoon area, he didn't play drill sergeant. He was their platoon sergeant. He didn't have to.

  "Fall in and shit, shower and shave," Moreland said mildly. "We're last on the roster for chow. Do not fuck up the barracks. Ten minutes prior to chow I'll give the word. Clear up anything that's out of place. You all know the drill. Most of you know why the drill exists. You need to get back in the zero defect mentality. You're all good, everything is going to be perfect. Or I will start playing drill sergeant and you won't like it."

  "I'll shower last," Keren said. He'd been temporarily appointed the squad leader for Two Gun of the four gun section. Two Gun was the premium spot in a mortar platoon, being the gun that all other guns adjusted to. To keep the gun, though, he was going to have to prove that he was the best squad leader of the four available. Best should mean his gun was the quickest and the most accurate. But since they weren't going to start training on guns immediately, for the time being "best" meant the cleanest, neatest and most prompt. "Oppenheimer is up first, then Griffis, Adams and Cristman. While everyone else is showering, we're going to be taking care of our areas of responsibility. Every single day. Understood?"

  "Done this before, Keren," Cristman said. As the senior specialist, he was up for the gunner position. There were arguments that assistant gunner was a better slot—the AG got to actually drop rounds—but gunner was the doorway to squad leader. Cristman was a former mortar platoon sergeant in 36th Division and had actually held out for a while before retiring. Phlegmatic and much larger than his squad leader, he
seemed to move slow but was the most efficient guy Keren had ever seen. "Let's get started. Opie, don't dawdle."

  The squad worked in teams fixing the bunks and wall-lockers. By keeping in their socks they didn't mess up the waxed floor. Uniforms were laid out, ready to don and as each of the soldiers rotated through the shower they returned to carefully hang their PT gear to dry and got it on.

  The new uniforms were made of a material similar to the Fleet Strike grays, but were digital camouflage. With an attached, form-fitting hood they also had cloaking capability. That hadn't been explained yet and everyone kept their hands away from the pull-tab low on the left bicep.

  The boots were designed around civilian hiking boots, comfortable and well made but being very odd to the soldiers in that they were bright, reflective, silver.

  "I can't believe they gave us, like, chrome fucking boots," Specialist Elden Adams said. The assistant gunner was medium height with hazel eyes and, until last night, had light brown hair. He held the boots up and considered his reflection in their mirror shine. "What the fuck?"

  "And we're not supposed to polish them," Keren noted, picking a bit of paint off a window that someone had missed last night. The squad had completed all their personal tasks and were working on the remaining platoon tasks while waiting for chow-call. Keren still hadn't gotten to the shower; Cristman was, apparently, less efficient at showering. "Just wipe them down with a light rag."

  "What's the fucking point?" Adams asked as Cristman emerged from the shower-point. "They're fucking mirrors."

  "Hopefully that will get explained in training," Keren said, grabbing his towel and trotting to the shower.

  "We've got no time," Sergeant Stacy Miller said. First squad had the duty of cleaning the latrine when everyone had cycled through. They were waiting impatiently for the last few soldiers to get done showering.

  "Two of my guys are ready to go," Keren said, turning on the water. The shower was open-bay, four shower heads firing into a ten by ten plastic cubicle. Two of them were still in use. The rest of the head was being rapidly cleaned by first squad but they still had to wipe down the shower before they could stand inspection. "Grab them to help if you need it."

  "I think we've got it," Miller replied. He was a massive guy with the look of a former football player. Keren suspected anyone making fun of his first name was going to go through a wall. "If you don't take too long."

  "Done," Keren said, turning off the water. He'd gotten his pits, head and face and scraped off what little beard had formed. He'd always been lucky in that regard. He thought there must have been some American Indian in his lineage because he had virtually no beard.

  He trotted back to his bunk, wiping his feet before he left the head, and donned his uniform. Some of the clasps and connections were new, so it took him a bit to get it on. He was just tabbing his blouse closed when the door at the far end of the bay burst open.

  "AT EASE," Staff Sergeant Carter Richards bellowed, striding down the center of the squad bay. The sergeant was the FDC section leader and assistant platoon sergeant. Apparently, Moreland was going to be using him as a ramrod. "Keren, why ain't you dressed, yet?"

  "No excuse, Sergeant," Keren said, facing forward.

  "Get your shit done up and prepare for inspection," the staff sergeant said, walking to the latrine. "Miller! You call this clean? This is the most fucked-up head I've ever seen! There are streaks on my mirrors, Miller!"

  The rapid inspection found fault in every area the sergeant looked. Some of it was germane. Much of it was, in Keren's professional opinion, chickenshit. The flip side was, Fire Direction Control was a very finicky business and the people who were best at it tended towards obsessive compulsive disorder. Having an OCD section leader would be a pain in the ass in garrison but might save their ass in combat. Keren decided to just put up with the chickenshit.

  "Fall out for chow," Sergeant Moreland said from the doorway. "And move like you're fucking recruits."

  The platoon, released from the scathing inspection, fell out into formation and marched "expeditiously" to chow. Some of them had forgotten how to march, as was apparent when the unit tried to do a column right to the mess hall. They did a bit better at breaking down into files. Fortunately, it wasn't far.

  Fifteen minutes is less time than it normally takes to get an entree served. It's about half the time that most people take to eat a casual breakfast. It required eating very fast.

  Fortunately, it was one skill Keren had retained. People often commented on how fast he ate. And he was hungry. They'd worked most of the night without supper then done the hardest PT he'd experienced in decades. He wolfed down some underdone eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits, toast, orange juice and really bad coffee in well under the requisite time.

  He fell out of the mess hall and just stood in the light rain. Early morning rain was a constant of being outdoors, such a one that there was a civvie song that had become a famous marching song about it. It was a hell of a first day and it had barely started. He'd forgotten how much he truly hated the chickenshit part of the Army even when he knew most of it had a purpose.

  Oppenheimer followed hard on his heels, then stopped and pulled out a pack of Marlboros. A flick of a lighter and he was sucking down cancer smoke, the cigarette cupped to keep the light rain off.

  "Socks," Keren said. Oppenheimer had gotten gigged for not having them rolled to specifications.

  "Got it," the driver said, making a face. He was a lanky guy who had had a mane of mid-back-length red hair when he arrived. "Sorry. I'll make sure they're strac first chance I get."

  "You got nothing better to do than stand around in the rain, Keren?" Sergeant Richards asked as he exited the mess hall. He, too, pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one.

  "If I had anything to do, Sergeant, I'd be doing it," Keren responded.

  "You was the artillery coordinator for the Ten Thousand, right?" Richards said, a touch of nervousness in his voice.

  "I'm not going to tell you how to do your job, Sergeant," Keren replied. "But, yeah, I was."

  "I heard about that Spanish Inquisition you used to run," Oppenheimer said, chuckling. "Gawd, I wished you'd run it on our damned division arty. They purely sucked."

  "What was you?" Richards asked.

  "Same as you, Sergeant," Oppenheimer said. "FDC section leader. No interest in having the job again; I prefer to be on the guns. Besides, I was talking with Gist on the bus. Motherfucker's a human calculator. He still remembers all his tables. Got 'em memorized by heart."

  "Yeah, but we're not using the same mortars," Richards said. "These are electrodrive systems. Completely different ballistics."

  "Ballistics are ballistics, Sergeant," Sergeant Gist said, walking out of the mess hall. Part of the rejuv process was to permanently fix any eye problems but Gist just looked as if he should have coke-bottle glasses. He was slight, pale and had a stoop. For all that, he'd kept up with the massively fucked run this morning. "And for Opie's information, I didn't remember the tables; I just calculate them from raw data. Give me the raw for the new mortars and I can do the same. It's really not hard. And we will, of course, have computers."

  "Won't have much time to get used to them," Richards pointed out.

  "We can train on the ship," Keren said. "Keep one system out for gun training. And you guys, well, all you do is run the calculations. Hell, we can even set it up so we train in the troop bay. The main thing that's got me worried is getting into action fast enough."

  "Everybody's out," Sergeant Moreland said from the doorway. "Head straight to the company training office. We've got five minutes before training starts."

  Oppenheimer took a drag off his cigarette and, holding the smoke, crumpled out the last of the tobacco, pocketed the butt and started to trot.

  "I wanna be an airborne Ranger," he squeaked, smoke coming out of his nose and mouth.

  "Oh, shut the fuck up," Keren said, chuckling as he ran alongside.

  * * *

/>   "Welcome to the company and all that."

  Staff Sergeant Edgar McCrady was the company operations officer, the guy responsible for making sure that all the paperwork was complete and that everyone had been trained to Army standard. Given that he was the ultimate paperpusher for the company, he was already looking haggard.

  "Since you're all prior service, training is going to skip anything that it possibly can," McCrady said. "Therefore, don't expect classes on VD prevention, personal hygiene, consideration of others or how to balance a checkbook. However, there is some paperwork that simply has to be done prior to training, notably wills and living wills as well as insurance and basic safety orientation. This is normally a day-long affair. We will compress it into this hour."

  There were fourteen terminals arrayed along the wall. Hooked into internet databases, they could search for relevant personal information in seconds. But it still took time. Many of the former soldiers didn't have a will or hadn't updated it in some time. Some hadn't used a computer in a fifty years.