Alpha Contracts

by Chris Kennedy

  “Are you done?” Shirazi asked.

  “Have I made my point?”

  “That you don’t like getting shot at?” Kazemi nodded. “Eminently clear.”

  “Then yes sir, I’m done.”

  Shirazi gave him a wry look and continued, “As I was saying, we are providing a diversion so that local forces can recapture a town that insurgents have taken.”

  He laid a map and several overhead images on the table, and everyone stood up to get a better view.

  “The town is here,” Shirazi said, pointing to a spot on the map. The walled town was wedged in the highlands between two enormous crevasses. On the north side was a large plateau that was desert. The terrain gave way fairly steeply down the south side, which was all open terrain for several miles. The southern approach was also guarded by—

  “Fuck!”

  “Is that a freaking gun?!”

  “Holy shit!

  “Yes, that’s a gun,” Shirazi said, “and if you’d all sit down, I’ll tell you why I took this mission.”

  With a lot of muttering and headshaking, the staff returned to their seats. A gun big enough to be seen by the small-scale satellite imagery was nothing short of immense.

  “So, yes, that is a gun pointed downslope from the town. Two of them, in fact, like a double-barreled shotgun. And anyone that tries to come up that slope is going to get absolutely slaughtered.”

  “Please tell me that isn’t us charging up that hill,” Captain Samir Rajavi, the Alpha Company Commander, said.

  “No, that isn’t us,” Shirazi said. The staff gave a common sigh. “If you remember, I said we’d be in the desert. See that?” He pointed to the north of the town. “That’s where we’ll be landing. I do have to tell you, however, that the guns are on a revolving tracked system mounted to the interior of the fortress wall.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Staff Sergeant Parsi, one of the squad leaders.

  “It means the gun can move around to face into the desert.”

  The headshaking began again.

  “Why doesn’t the main assault force just land in the center of the town?” Rajavi asked. “Why land to the side and then need a diversion? It just seems like an awful lot of moving parts when you could just do a massive invasion and not have to face those guns.”

  “I’m glad you asked,” Shirazi replied. He threw a couple of overhead imagery photos on the table. “See here?” he asked, pointing. “And here, here, here, and here? Those are anti-aircraft missile systems. They can reach out to orbit; however, by galactic law, you can’t shoot at them outside of 10 miles.”

  “Why the hell not?” Rajavi asked. “That’s stupid. Just drop some big rocks on the missile systems, land in the town square, declare victory, and go home. Job done.”

  “Apparently there was a big war in the past where lots of planets were destroyed from orbit. It scared everyone so much they swore never to do it again, and they made all these laws to ensure it never would. The bottom line is we can’t do it—I asked—or other mercs could come here and do it to Earth.”

  “Like they haven’t already done that to us,” Staff Sergeant Mohsen muttered.

  “As much as it galls me to say, they’ve followed their laws—such as they are—in what they’ve done to us. That said, we need to become more conversant with the new laws we will be living under. We must know them, so we can use them against the aliens.”

  “Damn right, sir,” Mohsen said, nodding.

  “Our mission,” Shirazi said, pressing on, “is to land in the desert north of the city and pretend like we are going to assault the town from the north. The big guns will rotate around to take us under fire, and while we’re occupying their attention, a big force of Besquith will charge up the hill and attack the town.”

  “And what happens if the Besquith don’t show up to do their part?” Kazemi asked.

  “Then there will probably be a lot fewer of us when we’re done retreating.”

  “What happens if we attack, and they don’t rotate the gun?”

  “Then we do our best to get inside the wall, disable the gun, and open the gates for the Besquith to attack.”

  “Will the defenders be shooting at us as we approach the walls?”

  “Presumably.”

  “And how high are the walls?”

  “Twenty feet.”

  “And how many defenders?”

  “At least a company of MinSha, as well as an unknown number of insurgents.”

  “So if everything goes right, we probably only lose a few people, but if it goes bad…”

  “It could be nightmarish,” Shirazi finished.

  “Out of curiosity,” Kazemi said, “why did you happen to pick this one, out of all of the contracts that were offered?”

  “Two reasons. First, if we successfully get the gun to rotate to the north, we get paid our fee of five million credits, even if the assault fails.”

  “That’s all we make?” Captain Rajavi asked. “Five million?”

  “Well, considering that a single credit is trading for 45,000 U.S. dollars on the New York Stock Exchange today, that means our five million galactic credits is actually worth 225 billion U.S. dollars.”

  Several people whistled.

  “Correct. There are also other bonuses that we’ll get paid for completing various other tasks. If the town is successfully recaptured because of our assistance, our fee is doubled.”

  “Holy shit!” one of the squad leaders whispered.

  “You said two reasons,” Kazemi reminded.

  “The other reason is that the insurgents had assistance when they captured the town. Along with the armed insurgents, like I said, there is a company of MinSha there.”

  “And we get to kill them?”

  “As many as we can.”

  “Screw the rest of that shit,” Kazemi said. “I get to kill MinSha? I’m in.”

  “Me, too.”

  “And me.”

  “I’m in.”

  It was unanimous. The assault was on.

  * * * * *

  Asbaran Solutions - 10

  “So, we get to kill the MinSha,” Sergeant Major Kazemi said. “How exactly are we going to do that?”

  “Asymmetric warfare,” Colonel Shirazi said.

  “What?”

  “Asymmetric warfare,” Colonel Shirazi repeated. “It was something the American said while he was here. At the time, it annoyed the piss out of me, but now I see what he meant. How many MinSha did we kill when they attacked Chabahar?”

  “Five,” said Captain Abbasi.

  “And how were they killed?”

  “Two with a thermobaric RPG round from behind, one with grenades as the MinSha tried to search a soldier’s body, and two of the crazy Qud fuckers jumping on them with suicide vests.” He realized the Second Squad leader was a former member of the Qud company. “No offense,” he said, looking at the soldier.

  “None taken,” Staff Sergeant Avesta replied. “We did, after all, kill two of them.”

  “Yes, you did,” Shirazi said. “So we killed five, total. We also captured one when a crane operator at the port dropped an open conex box on top of it. It hit its head and the alien got knocked out, and the crane operator shut the door before it came to. The steel in the box must have cut its comms, because they never came looking for it. What do all of these things have in common? They are asymmetric.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but I still don’t understand what you mean by that,” Staff Sergeant Parsi said.

  “When we went force-on-force with them, we lost,” Shirazi said. “It was only when we did sneaky things that we had any success. They are prepared to fight big stand-up battles, but are less prepared for guerrilla warfare.”

  “So we get to be sneaky,” Kazemi said. “I like that.”

  “We also know a lot more about them now than we did before they landed,” Shirazi continued. “Having analyzed the one we captured, we know where their weak points are. For example,
if you can get above them, their carapace is significantly weaker on top where their wings are than in the front. Not only that, we also have three of their laser rifles. Admittedly, their batteries are low and we only have a few replacements that we scavenged from their dead, but they will not expect us to have those, and they may be used to our advantage to force an opening where we might not have had one before.”

  He looked around the table and could see the men start to believe the mission could be completed. Good. That was the first step. “This mission is possible, and we can complete it—and survive it as well—or I wouldn’t have taken it. Are there any other questions?”

  “What’s next?” asked Abbasi.

  “We have three weeks before our transport arrives to pick us up. First we plan, then we train, then we go kill aliens.”

  “And get paid, right, Colonel?” Kazemi asked. “We’re mercs now, so we get paid, too?

  “Absolutely,” Shirazi said. “Kill aliens and get paid. That’s our new lifestyle.”

  “I like it.” Kazemi nodded. “Where do I sign?”

  * * *

  The dropship swayed as it lifted from the docking bay, turned, and accelerated into space. Shirazi looked down the rows of his troops in the cargo hold. Veterans of numerous wars and battles in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, his men looked like all veterans prior to combat—resigned to their fate. Sure there were some who were praying—he had put in a few prayers before they launched, too—but most appeared to be going over the parts they were supposed to play in their heads. Several had their eyes closed and were visualizing it, their hands moving of their own accord and fingers pulling an invisible trigger from time to time. Several of the longest-serving were sleeping.

  “How long until we’re on the ground?” he asked on the command channel.

  “Fifteen minutes,” the pilot, a SleSha, said. He had seen the flight crew when they boarded—giant flightless wasps, they were another of the merc races. Their appearance hadn’t filled him with confidence, but one of the Jeha ground crew for the dropship said they were two of the best pilots he’d ever seen, and that they always brought the dropship back—usually without too many holes in it.

  Shirazi hoped that was Truth.

  His eyes swept the troops again, and Shirazi smiled back at all the ones who met his eyes, giving them his best ‘Hunter’s Grin.’ He then closed his eyes, preparing himself with the litany he’d learned in his childhood. Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds. He repeated it several times, focusing on the meaning of the words with the hope that he would be worthy in the upcoming hours. In the end it was all the preparation he needed for meeting the MinSha again. His good deeds would be to send them to hell.

  “Five minutes!” the pilot called, and then, “Entropy! Missiles! What the—?” His voice changed to the intercom, so everyone could hear. “Hold on! Maneuvering!”

  The ship went through a number of radical maneuvers, where up became down and then down became up. Alternately, they were slammed into their seats with six to seven gravities of force, and then pulled the other way, where the only thing holding them down was their straps.

  Private Hashemi either hadn’t done up his straps right, or they had failed, because he was launched out of his seat and crashed into the roof of the craft. As the shuttle continued to maneuver, he became a giant pinball inside the dropship, slamming into all of the bulkheads as his comrades tried to grab and hold him down. At first, he tried to curl into a ball to protect himself, but after slamming into a piece of the dropship’s machinery during a particularly violent maneuver, he lost consciousness and stopped defending himself. Blood trickled out of his mouth as he bounced several more times. Two of the troopers finally got hold of him and threw a couple of straps over him, but it looked to Shirazi like it was too late.

  All of a sudden, something slammed into the side of the ship and the craft went into a long, sustained yaw, where the troops were all pinned to the left as the craft seemed to spiral out of control. Shirazi desperately wanted to know their altitude—were they going to crash? Someone screamed.

  “Hang on everyone!” a new voice said on the intercom. “Crash positions!”

  Shirazi leaned forward and put his head between his knees with his arms over his head.

  The dropship hit with a jolt, although it was far less than a full-fledged ‘crash.’ The jolt was followed by several seconds of flying and then another jolt as the dropship came back to earth, this time to stay, and skidded along for several seconds. Shirazi could feel the craft skidding along through the soles of his boots, and it was the best feeling in the world—they were down! He didn’t care how. Maybe the sand had helped cushion the blow. Maybe the pilots were as good as he’d been told. It didn’t matter—he was down!

  The lights went out, but then the emergency lanterns kicked on, providing a minimal amount of light. When the motion stopped, he popped the quick release on his harness. “Get everyone organized, Sergeant Major,” Shirazi ordered. “I want to be able to move out in five minutes. They’ll probably come looking for us, and we need to be gone!”

  Shirazi grabbed his rifle and pack and went forward. When he reached the cockpit, he found the canopy shattered, with a hole on the pilot’s side. The pilot was leaning forward in his straps, a large piece of canopy protruding from his chest carapace. He wouldn’t be bringing the shuttle back, after all.

  The copilot flipped a few more switches, shutting down the craft, then turned to face Shirazi.

  “What happened?” the colonel asked.

  “We thought we were outside their sensor and missile range,” the copilot replied. “We weren’t. Apparently they got better equipment than what we were briefed on.”

  “Where are we? Did we make it to our landing zone?”

  The copilot gave what was translated as a bitter laugh. “We aren’t close.” He pointed out the window. “It’s about 50 miles in that direction.”

  “The target?” Shirazi asked. He did some mental calculations. The increased distance would add a day of travel. Water would be tight.

  “No,” the copilot said. He gave another bitter laugh. “It’s 50 miles to where we were supposed to land. The target is another 25 miles on the far side of that.”

  Shit. An extra two days of hard travel. They wouldn’t have enough water, even if they conserved it. “What’s the chances of getting another dropship down here for retrieval or resupply?”

  “Exactly zero,” the copilot replied. “The other dropships got bagged at the same time we did, including the ones the Besquith were on, but they got bagged hard. They’re all dead. I got out an encrypted message that we were going in, but I thought I could land it, so I expect them to be back to take a look. The problem is that all of the dropships got shot down, so the transport will have to go back to our home planet and pick up more ships and pilots before they can come get us. Rescue is at least two weeks away.”

  Great. Not only were they going to run out of water before they got to the target, the main assault force they were supposed to be supporting wasn’t going to show up. Shirazi shook his head. It didn’t really matter—they wouldn’t have been there in time to support it, anyway.

  “Well, c’mon,” Shirazi said. “We need to get the hell out of here.”

  “What do you mean?” the copilot asked. “I’m staying with the ship.”

  “If you want to cook inside it, that’s fine with me, but we’re going to torch the ship. I want it to look like we all died on impact. You can either come with us or burn up with him.” He jerked a thumb toward the pilot.

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “Good choice.”

  Shirazi led the copilot to the back. “Rajavi!”

  “Here sir!”

  “We’re taking the copilot with us. He can have Private Hashemi’s gear. Also, get him to show you what we can strip from the ship. Anything useful like water or medical supplies, bring it along. Also, get him to show you where the fuel dumps are. I want to blow
this ship into about a million pieces, so the MinSha are sure we’re all dead. You’ve got about four minutes to get all that done, so get on it!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Abbasi! Kazemi!”

  “Yes, Colonel?”

  “Come with me.” He let the two men a little way further into the craft to talk privately. “Here’s the deal. We’re a long way from where we’re supposed to be.”

  “How far?” Kazemi asked.

  “Fifty miles. I don’t know how much water this ship has, but we’re probably going to be low on water. We don’t have to worry about the timing for the attack—all the forces we were supposed to support are dead. We’ve got two choices: surrender to the MinSha or take the fight to them.”

  “I’d rather die in the desert than surrender to those goat fuckers,” Kazemi said immediately.

  “Me, too.” Abbasi agreed.

  “My thoughts as well. So, we need to get out of here, because I expect they’ll come looking to confirm our deaths. I want to be a long way away from here when they do.”

  “We don’t want to go toward them and help them find us,” Kazemi said. “East or west?”

  “East. It’s a little closer to the ravine that way. Maybe we can find some harder ground than this damn sand so we can speed up our pace. Otherwise, we’ll run out of water and die before we get there.”

  “Works for me,” Kazemi said. “I’ll get the men organized.” He turned and went to the back of the ship.

  Shirazi turned to Captain Abbasi. “We’ll have to watch the men—water is going to be tight. We’ll conserve sweat, not water, so keep them drinking. Remember, people are often found dead in the desert with water still in their canteens. We will travel at night and sleep during the day. When we get closer to the city, we’ll use our UAVs to surveil the defenses and figure out how we’re going to proceed. The only way we can win is if we kick their asses, so that’s what we’re going to do. Any questions?”

  “None.”

  “Good, let’s go.”