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

“We all got ’em, Orion. I know that now. That’s what I learned from working with people. People like Junkboy. Everyone’s got a demon. So… you put this down in the record, Sar’nt.”

He stopped lifting, staring at the impossibly overloaded last set, and just shook his head. He was done. His muscles were good and blasted. Devastated into total failure. He held up his hand and I took it, and helped him up once again.

“I lied about my real dad,” he said. “He was probably a really good kid who just got caught up in a war at exactly the wrong time.” He smiled. It was a sad smile. “I would like to have known him. I bet I’m a lot like him, Sar’nt. And hey, I failed the Ultras. Didn’t even make it to boot. Because I’m too soft.” He laughed at that. “The big Ultra sergeant said that to me. ‘Yer too soft, kid,’ he growled and then stalked out of the office like I wasn’t worth the time it took to say Get lost. Put all that down in the log, Sergeant Orion. Like you do for everyone when they think it’s gettin’ close. Yer the keeper. Put it down like I told it. Okay, Sergeant?”

He paused. Then…

“It felt close night before last when they were everywhere like demons in the jungle all around us. Like the jungle was laughing just like he used to, know what I mean, Sar’nt? You were there. You could hear it too.”

I told him he wasn’t close.

That’s standard. That’s what I say. What I do. Like it’s a… benediction at the end of a confession… or whatever it is that the priest does when people go looking for whatever it is they think they’re gonna find… I always tell them, “It’s not close, man.” And then, “You made it.” I remind them of that fact. That they’re still alive. That death lost the last one. That they made it.

Gains.

That was him.

He was one of us. He was Strange Company.

Chapter Nineteen

The speedball, a special weapons package delivered via orbital drop, came in fast and smashed into the tarmac between the ruins of an orbital transport just forward of the line of battle, and a long boarding ramp that led out from the terminal we were defending.

“Speedball down, updating loc to you now,” said Hauser over the comm.

I blinked my combat lens over to the map function and watched as it interfaced with squad telemetry and locked in on any available airborne or electronic intel.

“On the move,” I said, studying as the Kid and I began to make our way to the boarding ramp that extended away from the terminal. The speedball’s transponder was pulsing on my map. Airborne intel was also showing the inbound walker. The intersection of us and it was feeling both inevitable and dangerous. It was days like this that made me wish I’d learned to pilot beyond sub-orbital and gone full scout.

“Third pulling back to the main terminal. Butch is KIA,” updated Hauser flatly. We had wounded in the other squads. If the Old Man and the First Sergeant were going to get us out of here, now would be a really great time. But there were no updates to any of our orders. No “Dustoff” pop-ups indicating an identified, or need to be identified, LZ.

No Christmas presents. No joy. Reaper was getting the short end of the stick. Again.

Kid and me hustled through the darkness regardless, reached an external maintenance pneumatic hatch, and burst out into bright sunshine, hearing protection suddenly torn to shreds as the soundscape revealed rapid automatic gunfire, harsh and plenty, from fast-moving enemy technicals streaking in to make runs against our fortified positions in the terminal above. Off to our left, ruined and smoking, was the remains of a sub-orbital bat-winged dropship that had come in hard to drop assault troops to support the enemy push. I had no idea who’d taken it out, but the ship had been hit during any drop’s most dangerous phase of flight: landing. When it was slow, heavy, and clumsy. Or in other words, one big giant target for any grunt with a launcher and some ambition.

It looked like the damage was the work of Strange Company, or maybe I was just telling myself that because I wanted to feel better about our chances and current events. Because I needed the motivation for what we were about to pull off. Or at least try to.

Recover a speedball down on open terrain in the middle of a shooting gallery. Never mind the inbound walker laden with micro-missiles and dangerous anti-personnel cannons.

Never mind all that, Sergeant Orion. That’s why you get paid the big bucks. They don’t just give these sergeant stripes away to anyone, y’know. You gotta be special. Real special.

Yeah, that’s what I tell myself.

Out there, above the battlefield, at least three stories high, was the inbound enemy walker. The First Sergeant had tagged it as an HGT-306. Heavy Ground Terminator. Some call it by its other name: The Savage. I popped up and assessed, as the Kid sent fire off to our right and identified ground targets over the comm. Above our heads the Pigs fighting from the main terminal in the squads began to bleed brass linkage down onto the hot tarmac all around us. Neutralizing the enemy push off on our right. I was grateful for that.

“Phantoms inside the wire, boss,” said Punch, indicating via company SOP comm that the perimeter was now compromised and unidentified enemy elements were close enough to be considered inside our final line of defense within the terminal.

If an on-the-ground tac commander had artillery on demand, it was usually at this point he’d call for “Broken Arrow.” Meaning friendly arty would shell us like the ammo store was having a going out of business sale, hoping to clear the enemy off the objective while we still tried to hold on to it. We got the privilege