“You’ll do just fine here. I expect great things outta you, kid. Sergeant Orion’ll show you how we operate here in the Strange Company and get you up to speed and all. Welcome to the company.”
And then the old NCO was off with his ever-tired driver in tow, headed out through the rubble at the back of the old bank we’d withstood three days of shelling and enemy attacks in. Not to mention a battalion-sized push from the enemy rebels who’d just left their dead down the street we called our sector.
The rest of Reaper, in their improvised fighting positions across the ruins of the bank, noted the new kid and went on with their business. Cleaning their weapons, grabbing some chow out of their rucks, or changing socks.
Changing socks. Changing socks is my big thing. They know. They’ve learned. Most of Reaper has been together for the campaign on this world. Other than the four that got killed here. Sergeant Orion is big on changing your socks. Every one of them will tell you that about me.
“Prior?” I ask the kid, leading him over to the vault and the shot-to-hell teller’s console I’ve been using as a command post.
“What?” he whispers. Low and unsure of himself now that he’s been left alone among trained killers.
“Prior service?”
I’m looking at the kid’s gear and know the answer already. I also know this kid’s a dead man. I’m super optimistic that way of course. The First Sergeant has kitted him with our standard company gear draw. Polymer camouflage OD-green chest armor where I can see some other now-dead guy’s name has been laser-etched off by Biggs who runs the company’s mobile supply crawler. Ballistic shoulder pauldrons. Slightly used TEC. Tactical equipment carrier. Of course, bloodstained, but Biggs got that out with some harsh solvent and bleach. And probably a lot of swearing as his fat lips worked his ever-present chopped cigar. Thigh and shin guards that don’t do squat against most modern ammo types. Brand-new combat boots because the First Sergeant, like me, is a fiend for proper foot care. A helmet with a ceramic patch where someone took one right in the brainpan. Combat tanto to make the kid feel hardcore and all. I doubt he knows how to even fight with it. A very worn ruck to carry everything else one can call their own in.
And an S-16. The all-purpose battle rifle everyone gets issued unless they’re pros from other services who’ve managed to defect with their own personal and preferred weapon systems. Or bought some really slick high-speed gear at some weapons bazaar hauler we’ve docked alongside when we’re slowly crawling between worlds in the Spider.
The S-16.
We call it “the Bastard” because it fights like one and no one wants it. It’s not heavy. Burns through ammo rough and dirty. It’ll shoot dirty too, waterlogged or even recently used as a club at close quarters in a sticky situation that suddenly got outta hand. This tells me one of two things.
If a new guy shows up and Biggs and the First Sergeant have stuck him with one of the seemingly endless supply of S-16 combat rifles we have on hand, rifles the Old Man got paid in surplus for on some pacification gig that went down just before I joined up, this tells me the guy is probably on the run and has no money for a good weapon system to fight for his life with. Most likely he’s wanted for murder or something similar. The other possibility—he’s just some new kid with no prior service in anyone’s military and he wants to get off-world and go kill strange people in exciting new places.
“Prior service?” I ask the kid again as I get him to drop his ruck and sit down at my makeshift little desk for our first interview and welcome presentation to my platoon. “Who’d you serve with?”
The blank stare tells me everything.
No one, and nobody.
I sigh and hand him a protein bar.
“Eat this. No hot chow for the foreseeable future. You murder anyone?”
The kid takes it and doesn’t open the pack. He’s probably ready to vomit from fear because you can hear enemy mobile artillery pounding the hell out of the outskirts of the city. Again. Trying to go for the Astralonian Resistance units doing their best to get to the LZ and off-world quick. In other places, just blocks away, firefights are underway with no sign of letting up until everyone on one side is good and dead.
Any illusions this kid had about what war is really like are being quickly dispelled by the second. I can see it in his eyes. Right now, instead of burning ammo and throwing grenades at close enemies to die gloriously and prove to everyone you’ve left behind that you were actually a real live hero, instead you get to experience what real combat feels like for much of the time you’re in it. Sitting around waiting to get killed by random artillery you can do nothing about. Or suddenly cut to pieces by a hurricane of gunfire stealthily applied your way and which you had no clue about in the last seconds of your very short life.
What he doesn’t know is… we’re fine here right now. The enemy probed an hour ago and we murdered them flat-out. Wasn’t even a fight. They won’t be trying this street until someone figures out that a missing platoon is overdue for check-in. Tries their comm or whatever they’re using for traffic and finds out no one is answering ’cause they’re all dead in the dark and rubble-strewn street out there.
Sucks to be stupid.
But it sucks worse to be dead. Better them than us.
And they were stupid. Walked right into our kill zone, and I just whispered, “Light ’em up.”
And Reaper lit ’em up good.
Ten seconds later a bunch of
