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

the strategic POV. Pear-shaped was an understatement if I was reading the map right.

Our line, the Resistance front that had been staging a full advance this morning when all this kicked off, was now three klicks to our rear and disintegrating. The attack hadn’t just stalled, it’d turned into a full-blown rout. Tagged enemy units, motorized, walker, and tracked, were sweeping past the terminal as we spoke. Enemy close-air was hitting the division tactical operations center. This was a classic breakout. The Loyalists had stacked everything on one avenue of attack and just busted through. Now they were racing for the rear and chewing up our line from the newly developed flanks. A lot of our people were getting caught by surprise.

A lot of people were dying.

Pear-shape confirmed.

I’ll be honest here. If I was the Old Man, I wouldn’t be coming in to get us, Reaper, out. Chances are those drops were gonna take a lot of ground fire on the way into the LZ we needed to establish. Mobile AA moving might set up, acquire, and tag a bogey for a kill. Things were going so well for the Loyalists today, that wouldn’t be a surprise.

Confirmed that the situation was getting weird. It wasn’t supposed to have gone this way. No. Not at all. But here it was… going that way whether we liked it or not.

“Somethin’ ain’t right, Orion,” said Chief Cook nearby and conspiratorially. “I was all over the Div-TOC during planning. Those boys up at Division had this set up-up pretty good. No small help from yours truly, of course,” he said, puffing out his spindly chest. “But this was supposed to be our breakout. Not theirs.”

He was busy thumbing rounds into his spare mags. His teeth gritted. Sweat running down his tight forehead. I could tell he was feeling it and that somehow made me feel a whole lot better. It was nice not to be the only one stressing. Nice to see one of the most certain blowhards in Voodoo realizing plans never held up much past crossing the line of advance.

“So what’s that mean?” I asked, getting back to business.

“It means…” began the psyops chief, pausing to look up as though trying to see some data crawl I couldn’t. His ever-updating Voodoo intel mixed with Psyops, planning black works of dark magic way beyond my pay grade. “I think it means what I don’t want it to mean, Orion. Aaaaaand…” he said, shoving his last refreshed mag into the TACO mag holder on his pistol belt, “I ain’t gonna say it because if I do, two things. One, it’ll freak everyone out. And two… ain’t a damn thing we can do about it if it’s so. No, Sergeant. We gotta hold that LZ and get outta here. Best guess using Monarch battle planning straight from the Institute on Mars… forty percent of us are gonna ride that last drop outta here alive. And that’s me being real optimistically generous with the numbers, Sergeant.”

He pushed off from our cover and went off to do whatever it is Voodoo chiefs do when you’re surrounded and in the middle of a ongoing firefight. Enemy SDMs were already taking potshots at us from down below, and out behind cover on the ramp. Covering their assault elements moving in now. They were going to some trouble to get us instead of just dropping mobile artillery all over us. If there was a way out of this, it lay that way. Not killing us outright and giving us a chance to shoot someone to fight our way out of here.

The dark Little Girl who gave me the creeps was there, hunched over her knees and staring at me. She had big giant electronic hearing protection cans over her ears. Borrowed or scrounged. Gear from the guys in Strange looking out for her always seemed to find her. Now her big dark eyes watched me as Punch came over and gave me a count on casualties, KIAs, and available munitions. Then Punch was gone, and I tried to figure our next move while one of the Pigs opened up on an assault team that had moved in too fast and too reckless. Caught in the open they got murdered and I listened to the sitrep, planning our withdrawal.

I checked my watch. Seven minutes to take the roof and establish an LZ. I didn’t want to be up there early and telegraph to the enemy our move, or the fact that we were expecting to get pulled out on incoming drops. Hauser had already plotted the route up. It was simple. A VIP escalator up to the top of the terminal where a fantastic lounge and bar had once been the attraction for Clipper and liner passengers coming in to depart the terminal. Through the back of the bar was a roof access stair. Three minutes’ hustle up to the roof and mark the LZ while establishing a defensive perimeter.

At two minutes we moved.

I alerted the platoon.

We’d fall back by fire teams. I’d manage the withdrawal. Punch would lead to the LZ.

I finished my orders and watched the girl. Wondering what to do with her. I’ve seen and done a lot of crazy things during war, battles, whatever you want to call a no-holds-barred bloody street brawl, which is what all military operations really end up being after the plan no longer matches current events outside the window. But the Little Girl, the dark waif staring at me, defied everything known. My natural instinct was to protect her. But she had proven she could protect herself. Well, that wasn’t totally true. She had a protector. But the thing… whatever it was, was just as dangerous to us as the enemy was, if not more. Strange Company had lost allies and company members to the little trick she could do to summon her playmate.

She was dangerous.

But for some reason the captain kept her around. Rumors whispered that it wasn’t his choice. She’d