Exodus: Empires at War: Book 05 - Ranger

by Doug Dandridge

  “Why didn’t you go into town, son,” said the Sergeant, a concerned expression on his face. “This is going to be your life, and possibly your death. You better enjoy the breaks you get.”

  “I really didn’t want to waste my time drinking and playing,” said Walborski, looking over at the NCO.

  “Because you’re on a mission?” said the Sergeant, a frown on his face.

  “Is there anything wrong with that, Drill Sergeant?”

  “Nothing that the Army will find wrong,” said the man, shaking his head. “They want killers right now, and you fit the bill. But something the people around you might have questions about.”

  Walborski turned a cold eye on the Drill Sergeant. My damned wife died. My hopes and dreams died with her. What more do you want with me?

  “You do what you want, son,” said Ferguson, standing up.

  “Drill Sergeant?” said Walborski before the man left the room. The Sergeant turned and looked a question. “Will I be going to Ranger training after graduation?”

  “You will be going to Ranger training,” said the Sergeant with a nod. “But not right after infantry training.”

  “Why not?” asked Cornelius, jumping to his feet. “What could be more important than Ranger school?”

  “Some damn fools thought you might make a good NCO,” said the Drill Sergeant. “Maybe even an officer someday. But the only way you’re going to get there is by taking some leadership courses. Rangers are still gearing up to take on more trainees. There’s a waiting list right now. We can get you in a month after infantry graduation, and the basic NCO course lasts exactly one month. Is that OK with you, PFC?”

  “I guess so, Drill Sergeant,” said Walborski, sitting back down and staring at the trivee.

  The Drill Sergeant shook his head, then walked out of the room, leaving a tortured young man to think about what he would do to the enemy that humanity needed him to hate.

  * * *

  The second to the last week was jump and space training. First it was up into the air in specialized aircars used by the light and medium infantry. It was a day of up in the air, then down, jumping out of the aircars through the side doors to a combat assault in light armor. The next day was rappelling out of the same cars, still in light armor. The troops marched back to the barracks exhausted. Cornelius thought he would not make it, and knowing how fit he was he was sure most of the other trainees felt worse.

  Day three was real high altitude jumps, using medium armor. They popped chutes at a thousand meters, then cut them at a hundred and floated down on grabbers. After five repetitions they went through some ground work on a tower, without the suits, then spent the afternoon jumping without armor, coming down all the way with the chutes.

  Cornelius almost laughed as he saw the expressions on the faces of other trainees as they boarded the shuttles on the next day. They disembarqued on an old spaceship and spent the day working in zero gee and vacuum. There were some upset stomachs that day, and the trainees learned that the suits could handle vomit, absorbing it before it became too much of a hassle. They were dropped on an airless moon for a day and night of vacuum combat exercises, learning the ins and outs of fighting in low gravity with no air resistance.

  Mid-morning of the next day they did their combat drop. Cornelius did not like being shut up in the capsule they put his suit into. He preferred the open, even if he was in a heavy armor suit while in it. The worst part was the waiting as he was queued up. And then the rush of the capsule through the launch tube. Inertial compensators kept things from getting to a crush point, but the fluctuations were nauseating, and for the second time in three days Walborski felt himself vomit. When he left the tube there was no motion at all, until the capsule hit the atmosphere and started moving in eight directions at once. Cornelius waited for it to smooth out like he was told it would. A couple of minutes into the ride he decided that they had lied. It was the most disorienting thing he had ever experienced, and at that point he decided that he had made the right choice in going spec ops.

  At thirty kilometers above the planet the capsule burst open, and Walborski found himself tumbling through the air in the suit. The grabbers took over almost immediately and he was falling backwards, the rear of his suit acting as a heat shield. The view on his faceplate straightened out, showing him the ground as it appeared to his rear camera. At ten kilometers up his suit reoriented and popped its chute. That slowed him considerably, enough so that five kilometers later, when the chute released, his grabbers took over without a hitch. He still fell too quickly toward the ground, following doctrine of not making himself a target. At one hundred meters the grabbers increased their pull and lowered him gently to the ground.

  There was one more thing to do, and Cornelius wanted to get to it, and get it out of the way. He bounced his suit to the nearby landing strip and waited for the rest of his squad to come bounding in. Then it was into the assault shuttle, the suit locking into a cubby and the aircraft lifting into the sky. It rolled over and made an approach to the field. As the light on Cornelius’ HUD went from red to green the hatch above him popped open and his suit was ejected into the air. Compared to the orbital drop this was cake, and moments later Walborski was on the ground. A run back to the barracks and the week was over. There was training over the weekend, simulators and classroom, but the troops were allowed to physically rest over the weekend, so they would be ready for the last week.

  * * *

  “Remember to hit the objective, and don’t let us catch you,” said the Drill Sergeant, holding up a finger.

  “What if you catch us after we hit the objective, Drill Sergeant?” asked Walborski, glancing over at the men and women in his squad. He had thought he would be under someone else in this last exercise, but the man ahead of him had screwed up another exercise, royally.

  “After you hit your objective it doesn’t really matter,” said the grinning Sergeant. “At that point, after you have accomplished the objective, it’s nice if you make it back, but not necessary. Remember, the mission is the most important thing. Not you, not your troops. Mission comes first.” And with that the Sergeant jumped back into the transport and it took off.

  Cornelius looked around for a moment, getting the lay of the land, then pulling up the map on his HUD. They were in light armor for this exercise, so they would be walking. Everyone had military class implants, but the rules of the game were no use, by either side. The Opfor couldn’t track them, though the judges could, in case there was an emergency.

  The map showed him a general lay of the area, and he cursed as he noted that it didn’t give his exact location. He could be anywhere on that map. There was no GPS access for the exercise, simulating a planet that they were either invading, or defending, with the network out. It was still daylight, and he could get a track on the sun, but to get a fix he needed two objects.

  “Let’s get under cover of those trees,” ordered Walborski, pointing to a stretch of woods to his right. If it was the forest he thought it was, there was a stream on the other side reaching into the next valley, a perfect avenue to their target. And he realized that Opfor knew that as well.

  As the sun went down some close bright stars came into view. Walborski looked at those stars, letting his suit computer get a fix on them. After crunching the data for a few moments the map on his HUD gave him a blinking cursor on the map. Now that he knew where he was the suit would keep track of his position through dead reckoning.

  “Bronson, you’ve got point,” said Walborski, motioning in the direction of march while sending a route outline onto the other trainee’s HUD. “Yang, Coltour, you’re flank. Mechum, rear.” Now he had two fire teams of four each in his center, and he set one ahead of the other. “Move out.”

  “Wouldn’t it be easier to follow that stream?” asked Yang, pointing to the running water twenty meters away.

  “You’ve got your orders. Now move.”

  The squad moved with a little bit of grumbling. Corneliu
s ignored it. As long as they did what he said he was satisfied. After about two hours of march they had covered four kilometers, not the fastest march on record, but fast enough to get them where they were going.

  Walborski motioned for everyone to get down when all hell broke loose a kilometer or two to the north. Laser light shined, the crack of hypervelocity rounds sounded through the night. Cornelius looked that way for a moment, then over at his troops lying on the ground out in the open. He knew it was another squad getting ambushed, just as he realized all the sounds were simulations.

  He got to his feet and motioned for everyone to run, to get off the open grassland and to the next stand of trees. Now would be the best time to get moving, instead of lying here worrying about something going on kilometers away. If only we had a continuous woods to maneuver through, he thought. Of course, then he would have to worry about ambushes in the woods.

  They just made the trees when a pair of aircars came sweeping over the open lands, and he breathed a sigh of relief that they had moved and got under cover. One of his soldiers made to shoot at the car, and Cornelius got there just in time to knock her rifle down. “What the hell are you thinking, Mechum?” he hissed, then got everyone moving.

  The night seemed to go on forever, and the squad had several near misses with ambushes. Others were sprung in the night, and Cornelius started to think that no one in the training company was going to accomplish the mission. Well, I am, he thought as he checked his location, and saw that he was only a kilometer from the target.

  Calling the squad together, Walborski set their goals. Fire team B was to be the decoy, going around ninety degrees, finding the enemy perimeter, then fixing them with fire. Cornelius would go through on a straight line as soon as they heard the firefight, and strike at the command post that was their objective.

  He watched B Team move out into the night, wondering if he was doing this right. The sky was starting to lighten, and he knew that dawn was not far away. He had one chance to do this, and he wanted to get it right.

  Fifteen minutes after he sent them off the sounds of an engagement sounded in the night, located by flashes to the south. He hoped they had taken on the enemy as planned, not as part of an ambush of which they were the target. “Move out,” he whispered to his people, leading the seven troops himself, knowing he was the best at moving quietly and picking up movement in the night.

  There was an outpost on the way in, and Cornelius picked it up, just as he had hoped. Motioning the rest of the team to stay down, he moved in until he could spot the two troopers in their position. Pulling his blade simulator, he crept up on the position, then stood and leapt the last five meters, swinging the blade and connecting with one of the Opfor soldiers. As soon as the blade struck the man’s suit froze, registering him as a casualty. He hit the second surprised soldier with a back swing, then waved the rest of his team through.

  They came under fire less than four hundred meters from the target. His team laid down fire while Cornelius readied the rocket. He popped up and sited it in on the flag that designated the HQ, then pulled the trigger of the simulator. A bright flash appeared across his faceplate, right where it was supposed to be. He gave out a quick whoop as he fell back behind cover. One dead HQ, he thought, knowing if this were real a ten kiloton blast had just killed whoever was in charge of the Opfor.

  He motioned his men and women to get away, and they all ran flat out for the assembly area, three kilometers back. They had almost made it when the last ambush went off, and everyone’s suits rang with the alarm that indicated they were hit, while the armor froze up.

  Ferguson came walking out of the woods with a smile on his face as the suits activated again. “Good job, trainees,” said the Sergeant, his helmet retracted and a smile on his face. “You were the only squad to accomplish the mission. Of course you all died, and your commanding officer is going to have to compose beautiful letters to your family. But you took out the enemy HQ, and that’s what counts.”

  The next day was spent on displaying their skills, demonstrating to the training staff what they had learned. Taking apart and reassembling weapons, first aid and suit maintenance, using all the built in gadgets that required an infantryman to be as skilled as any technician.

  That night they set up in positions that they dug and camouflaged, then spent the entire night repelling attacks from the Opfor, men and women who had already been through training and were part of a forming division on the planet. Nobody got much sleep, though Cornelius did figure that they passed the night better if only the person on watch returned fire, while the other person slept.

  The next day was more of the same, tactical exercises, made more difficult because the trainees were exhausted. None were allowed drugs or nanites to alleviate their fatigue. This was part of the test, to see if they could function under the multiple stresses of the battlefield. And stressed they were, marching, attacking, defending, walking into ambushes, setting them up. That night they bivouacked and prepared their own meals over open fires, and everyone got at least some hours of sleep.

  The next morning was the road march, something the rumor mill had been hinting at for weeks. First they had to get out of their light armor, and Cornelius was amazed at the odor that rose from the trainees after almost seventy hours in the suit. Then they were given packs which were conveniently heavy, helmets that reminded Walborski of what he wore in the militia, and of course their rifles.

  Then it was down the road, hour after hour, a ten minute break each hour. They ate as they marched, and Cornelius wondered when they were going to stop for the night. They didn’t, and soon the darkness had enveloped the world around them as they marched on. Cornelius could feel something liquid in his boots about five hours into the night, and he knew that the fluid had to be blood. I’m not giving up, he thought, and he encouraged his team members to keep marching.

  “Just around the next corner,” he told them, telling himself the same thing. “Just around the next bend in the road. You can make it. Just the next one.”

  On rest breaks it was hard to get back on one's feet. Cornelius almost wished they wouldn’t take breaks. Mostly they seemed a lie, and they were just as fatigued when they got back up as they had been when they fell to the ground at the start of break. And then the Drill Sergeants decided to add a new wrinkle, ordering double time for ten minutes, then back to quick time, back and forth. At midnight they were still at it. A couple of troops dropped out of the company, and Cornelius was glad he wasn’t one of them. Recycles they were called, the people who had to go through the whole training cycle again. If they failed a second time they would be assigned other duties. Very few failed the second go through, which didn’t mean Walborski wanted to do this again.

  As the sun was rising he could see the barracks area ahead. A band started marching in front of them, picking up their spirits, and some high ranking officers stood by the side of the road watching them come in. “Look at them,” said one of the officers to the others. “Marching twenty hours and looking like they just started.”

  You try it, son of a bitch, thought Walborski, glaring at the high rankers. Then he thought about it, and realized that they probably had, at one point in their careers. He saw the Ranger flash on one man’s sleeve and realized that the man had been through much worse. The much worse that Cornelius hoped to make it through.

  The band marched them into the barracks area, where food was on, steaks and eggs, bacon and sausage. And beer. As they fell out of their formation the Drill Sergeants started tossing them beer, and many cans were opened and sprayed before any was drunk. But soon the party was on, packs dropped, helmets flung to the ground, only rifles still held on shoulders. The Drill Sergeants moved around with the trainees, drinking and eating with them.

  “You are all infantry now,” said Ferguson, hoisting a beer in the air. “Tomorrow, when you march in graduation, you will wear those gold ropes proudly.”

  All Cornelius wanted to do was to drink, eat a
nd then crawl off to sleep. They were allowed to do that, then woken back up at nightfall so they could get their uniforms ready for the next day, graduation. Cornelius got something to eat, then fell back into a deep sleep, until the Drill Sergeants woke them the next morning. This was a different process though, no banging of cans. The troops were woken gently, and filed in for a breakfast, then told to get into their dress uniforms.

  Ground cars took them to the base parade ground, where reviewing stands had been set up. Everyone was arrayed in dress blues, gold ropes hanging from their left shoulder tabard, qualification ribbons on their chests. Each man and woman had rank on their sleeves, at least Private Second Class, though there were also some PFC stripes, including those worn by Walborski. Again there was a band, and some men and women had been told off to form a color guard.

  Cornelius was thrilled to be picked as the standard bearer for the Imperial Colors. He knew that privilege went to the honor student of the company, not just the platoon, and he proudly held the colors as he marched behind the band. As he marched by the reviewing stands and the high rankers saluted the standard, he realized that they had solved the problem of his Imperial Medal of Heroism very neatly. They had to salute him first, and they had to salute the flag. After the pass in review was over they stood in formation for a speech. When that was finished everyone threw their hats into the air, then retrieved them. Some few then met with family members, those who could travel to the planet, which weren’t all that many. Still, everyone wanted to introduce Walborski, the most famous man in the company, to mom and dad, brothers and sisters. He listened politely to many stories, and multiple conflicting pieces of advice, before excusing himself to catch the first vehicle back to the barracks.

  Orders were posted when the troops got back from the parade. Cornelius looked at his name, and the words NCO Academy next to it, with a jaundiced eye. He had known it was coming, but still had held out hopes that he might be given a reprieve.