Strange Company by Nick Cole (best ebook reader for ubuntu txt) 📕

gotta go make some big, big trouble for these little commies.” He swore, spat, and took a pull from a dented hip flask as he glared around at us. “You remember, you little whelps… only good commie is a dead commie,” he mutters to himself. I have no idea what a “commie” is. And I’ve never seen the mangy old flask empty. There’s a superstition in the company that if it ever is, then it means the old soldier we call Stinkeye is probably dead somewhere. And despite his bad behavior, it means we’re probably in a lot of trouble. That perhaps our luck has run out. Good, or bad. The galaxy has had it with our collective troublemaking.

Stinkeye is the literal walking, living, breathing, meaning of Necessary Evil.

But as we say in the Strange, “He’s our evil.”

Technically all the freaks in Voodoo Platoon of Strange Company are counted as warrant officers. Which means they outrank everyone except the Old Man as company commander, and they don’t have to answer to anyone, or show up anywhere, for anything. But of course, that’s always been true of all warrant officers in all armies everywhere. Always has been. Always will be until the heat death of the universe.

Or at least that’s what I suppose.

“We ain’t had chow yet,” I told the old wreck. One of our little enlisted jabs back at the warrant freaks of Voodoo is that we don’t stand on ceremony. No one in any of the other platoons would ever call Stinkeye “sir.”

Stinkeye hit the flask again and held it out to me. I declined. Punch walked by, coming from the shower, grabbed the flask, hit it, winced, and exhaled as he handed it back. Then my assistant platoon leader started wiggling into his tactical equipment carrier over the top of his striker pants and t-shirt.

The t-shirt told everyone to have a nice day.

Stinkeye laughed. More to himself than anyone. And it wasn’t a pleasant laugh. Punch continued to shudder from the gutter liquor and even looked like he was gonna hurl at one point as he laced up his boots. Still he kept right on getting into his battle rattle because whether we liked it or not it was time to get it on.

Time for this war to get going and make something of itself. Even if we had to jumpstart the beast.

Drunk or poisoned you’re gonna soldier in the Strange Company. That’s a fact, Jack.

“Might not want to eat much on this one, Sergeant Orion,” Stinkeye whispered confidentially, leaning in. “Gonna be a lotta bodies out in the sun by noon. Smell real bad. Especially if there’s gutshot in some of ’em. That’s the worst.”

He muttered like a ragged tent flap on a windy night with a bad case of having just swallowed weapons cleaner solvent. Again, the “space war wizard” character on display in the play of himself.

I cast the side-eye at the old chief as I shrugged into my plate carrier. It hadn’t been shot to pieces yet in that war where we made a dark alliance with one of the masters of the universe, as they think of themselves. The Monarchs. But that was coming. Out on the horizon like a bad storm you were driving into. Looking back, that’s how it was. You were stupid if you couldn’t taste, smell, or touch it. Like the first few minutes when you think the Sikhan street tacos aren’t gonna sit so hot and you start looking for a shot of Ginquil to maybe kill the bacteria where it’s breeding in your gut before you start sweating, shaking, vomiting, and exploding all at once.

Most of our equipment was, if not the best, at least still in good condition at the beginning of this mess on Crash. Sometimes you mark your time by the condition of your gear. It makes you feel old and lucky at the same time. Which is a good thing to be when you’re a soldier. Both old and lucky. And without too much metal left in you.

“What’re you gonna do?” I asked Stinkeye. “Make ’em all sick when the shooting starts?” He’d done that before. Caused equilibrium imbalances resulting in massive waves of nausea as we attacked an enemy position. You almost felt bad for a guy with a load in his fatigues who couldn’t stand up as you shot him down. And his friends too. It’s awful to die bad. Embarrassed to death as you go. Trust me, I’ve seen enough of that. But then you remember they were probably going to do something equally horrible to you and it’s best to get it done to someone else first before they do it to you.

Rules to live by in the Strange Company.

“Somethin’ like that,” muttered the malevolent old warrant officer as he gave everyone the evil eye again. “Trucks leave in twenty. Be on ’em, Orion. You… and your men.”

He was right. We shouldn’t have eaten that day. But we did, all of us grabbing breakfast burritos from the cantina that served as our chow hall inside the developing FOB near Sa’Farm City. We ate until we linked up with Ghost, who’d secured our actual transportation elements into the area of operations that day.

The “battlefield.”

Four technicals that could have been any boomba rancher’s utility truck. Enclosed cab. High-performance engines. Big fat all-terrain traction balls. Open flatbed with sides. Ghost Platoon had located the type of vehicles they’d want for this op since they’d be the ones doing the shooting. They’re the snipers and scouts of Strange Company. Shooters every one of ’em. Our job, Reapers, was just to provide three-sixty security, for the snipers to do their business.

The four snipers from Ghost working this op, and their spotters, would lie down in the back of the truck beds. We’d cover them with tarps and drive the trucks down into the capital area the kids calling themselves whatever passed for “loyalist” on this mess of a world were currently rioting and looting