Chapter Two
The loss on Astralon, or Crash, was ignominious.
It’s been six months since Stinkeye’s First Landing Mall Massacre kicked this whole mess off. “Astralon” was what the new upstart micro-empire paying us for our services wanted to tag their world, after they rebranded themselves and threw off the yoke of the Monarchs, ditching the name “Crash” that had been marked on the stellar maps for more than eight hundred years. The company took a brutal beating there, on Astralon, or Crash, as did all the other private military contractors fighting that loser of a war. But of course, that’s what we get paid to do. Fight for the losers when no one else wants to. On the last day, or so we thought it might be but it wasn’t, when the pols were hammering out some kind of cease-fire that was really just a surrender, and while we, all the merc companies, were being thrown under the bus in hopes of avoiding payment of services, we were fighting to hold the evac LZ at Syro so we could get all the NGOs and Astralonian Resistance units off-world to wherever it was they thought they could run to and hide from the Monarchs.
It had been implied that we, the merc companies, were somehow going to get a ride off-world too. Implied being the active word. File that under Hopes and Dreams and, trust me on this one, have I got a deal for you.
But sometimes all you got is hope and so you keep playing your part as though there’s actually a good outcome besides the one you know you’re gonna have to pay for. Dreams are what you tell yourself you once had before you became a private military contractor. A mercenary.
I knew we were getting close to something when the First Sergeant came into the burned-out building Reaper was holding, with a new recruit for the company. Some local kid, I thought. Just like every local kid who ever ended up being a part of Strange Company. New. Frightened. And just trying to look hard because somehow he thought he was a pro now that he’d signed up to merc with an off-world company. Just like we all once looked. Even me.
You have to be honest about those things. Especially about yourself. There’s something in all of us that we see in the people we have casual contempt for. Even ourselves.
“Sergeant Orion!” shouted the First Sergeant grandly. Everyone in the company loved him because there was just no other choice but to. “Got you a new one, Sar’nt Orion. Kid’s as hard as nails and twice as tough. Never seen another like him ’cept maybe myself back when I was a cold-blooded killer with the batts and all. Trust me. Hells o’ Suth, if he don’t remind me of myself when I was tough as anyone you ever met. He’s new to the company and I thought he’d be a good fit for your platoon. Put him with the best so he learns the company right and all, Sar’nt Orion.”
All that was just advertising for the kid’s sake.
Every new recruit to the company, on every world we managed to end up dying on, started out in the Reapers. SOP. Standard Operating Procedure. Just like I did, once and a long time ago. Just like everyone else did once and also long ago. The fun was when they realized it was always so. It usually took about two weeks. Everyone started in Reaper. Reaper was the bastard child of Strange Company.
Eventually they all realize that. If they live long enough to do so. But by then it’s too late.
We called my platoon Reapers because it made the new ones think they’d ended up in something elite right from the get-go. How else were you gonna get someone to sign the contract that would land them with a bunch of mangy war dogs that did all the dirty that needed doing? Reaper just makes it sound cool. You can almost see the old First Sergeant rubbing his chin during the intake interview as he smooths his bone-white handlebar mustache, studying the kid now standing here in front of me. Giving the new recruit a look that indicates he sees something extra-special in this one.
Joke’s on them. They are far from special. They’re just new. And new is nothing in warfare. Now old… old is something to measure twice and cut once on. You meet an old guy in battle rattle out on the field one day and you best be careful. This ain’t a business you grow old in. Unless you’re good at it. And that means you’re deadly.
Reapers are the intake platoon, and we’re used for all the worst jobs. That’s the other reason it’s called Reaper, because most new intakes don’t survive past here. If they do, given a campaign or two, or sometimes even just one nasty firefight, then they’re pushed out into the other platoons who’ve taken casualties.
Ghosts. Good for them. Nice outfit.
Dogs. Whoops. You really are unlucky, buddy.
Or if they’re particularly jacked up in the head… but got some special skill—read “weird” for special—then Voodoo. Which is just the unluckiest kind of luck to draw if you ask me for comment. It’s like you can’t play Cheks at all.
“He’s all kitted with the basic setup, Sergeant Orion,” continued the First Sergeant as though he were delivering a speech at some awards ceremony instead of a very hot war zone that had seen brutal fighting within the hour. “So take good care of him and show him the ropes, won’tcha, Sar’nt?” The old man in his ever-pristine battle rattle
