In Reaper you either die or get made. Those are the only two ways out. Strange rules for a Strange Company, as the senior-most still like to say. And until you get made you do all the worst stuff with the highest level of promised mortality. It’s really easier for everyone that way. Trust us. If you’re gonna die, then why take the time to come up with a tag to call you by. Tags are a lotta work. Things have to be considered. It’s a waste when they get wasted ’cause you got dead.
There’s only one guy stupid enough to stay in Reaper full-time. Supervise the whack ops and run the miscreants and lost orphans. And that guy would be me. Reaper is my platoon. I’m the guy stupid enough to stick around.
Hey, someone’s gotta do it.
“Slick to Orion…” The leader of Ghost Platoon comes at me over the comms. “Phase Delta. All quiet. Assault teams clear to move on House Party.”
Reaper’s cue to get the hustle on and move into place for the assault against our objective has been given. Tonight’s Strange Company op is a game we like to play called Breaking and Entering.
Breaking and Entering is really just a surprise attack on a fixed position. Surprise being the operative word. If you were in any kind of formal human military unit you learned this there. Whether you learned it in the Saturn Nine Foreign Legions that support the Ultra Marines on occasion, or out in one of the local militaries like the Astralonian Armored Heavy Cav that’s supposed to be fighting this war for the Rebel High Command instead of the dozen merc companies who’ve been hired to defend their sovereignty. The heavy cav and their other famous units are getting held back for the important, and hopefully glorious, work of actually winning the war.
A certainty that seems to change not just day to day, but hour to hour sometimes.
Reaper and Dog are on assault duty tonight. We do the entering. Ghost and Voodoo do the breaking. This is how we do war. This is how we do B and E.
Like I said it’s raining and dark and gray where it isn’t midnight. Everyone is running some sort of night vision, but target lasers and illuminators won’t go live until the captain signals the attack. The Old Man is with Dog Platoon. Dog is straight line infantry and they run it just like they came straight out of the ever-loving true believers of the Monarchs’ Ultra Marines. All hooo-ahhh and dress right dress. Lifetaker and heartbreaker tats underneath combat armor that just isn’t available to the rest of us. Everyone over in Dog carries the same rifle and gear like they’re auditioning for a supporting role in the Monarchs’ guard dog cult.
The Ultra Marines.
We just call ’em Ultras like it’s a dirty word you wouldn’t actually use in their presence. Which is easy. Because if you happen to be in their presence, they’ve most likely come to kill you. And you are most assuredly going to die.
It’s best to be honest with yourself even if you’re lying to the rest of the galaxy. No one fights the Ultras. There’s tough, sure. And then there’s Ultras. They’re just plain homicidally insane. And very well-trained along with fanatical levels of discipline. Best to just run.
Rumor is that the Old Man, Strange Company’s current commander, captain is his official rank, was once Ultra Marine in some long-lost life not this one. But that’s just a rumor of course because everyone knows no one leaves the Ultra Marines alive. They have that tattooed on their bodies first day of Ultra Basic. No One Gets Out Alive. And that’s true. I know that for a fact. The only way you get out of that warped little death cult is on your shield on some world you got sent in to annihilate. So, it’s probably just a rumor. About the captain having once been in. But one the Old Man neither cares to discourage, nor encourage.
He’s an enigma. The Old Man.
But the captain runs Dog, his favorite platoon, like they’re natural-born killers. Because they are. Reaper secures the old lev station, or what remains of it, from which we’ll be attacking across open ground, and I give the signal to Hannibal, Dog Platoon’s sergeant and my personal chief villain in this waking life, to come up along the ruins of the old maglev rail and get in position for the attack. Reaper on the left flank. Dogs on the right.
Jingo, a scout from Ghost, directs our positioning. Crouching in the dark, made into some evil hunchback by the rain-slick poncho that covers his ruck. We move past the scout and fan out into our combat wedges.
“Party time, Orion,” Jingo whispers as I pass close by. I ignore him and knife-hand my men to their positions muttering Strange’s standard SOP response to greetings. “Get it on.”
Dog comes in like pros. Sweeping to the right and moving swiftly to get where they need to be for the attack. Heads on a swivel. Assaulters and weapons teams taking a knee or going prone in the dark mud and broken concrete along the trashed remains of the station. Moving like they’re Ultra Marine Scout Recon come to do everyone in sight.
Gone, inside the skeleton of the lev-rail station, with its fantastic curving metallic loops and bright sweeping angles long-dead societal architects must’ve once thought the very future of Crash would look like as it became a major sector capital in the Stretch. Breaking away from the Monarchs. Taking the reins of
