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

I wake up lying next to the tire of the bullet- and impact-riddled fast-attack Mule. I can smell the day coming. It’s quiet. And peaceful. And I just lie there thinking some thoughts and trying to push others away.

I wouldn’t mind if the day could just be this, and not my fears of what it promises to be. I try to think of the Falmorian party girl. But she doesn’t come and say her magic words. All I’ve got is the memory of her, and even that fades in the horrors of yesterday.

So there’s that, I sigh. I don’t know if aloud, or just a whisper in the dark.

A million thoughts from yesterday come rushing at me but I push them all aside again and get upright. And moving. I was so tired I didn’t even take off my chest rig or boots. So I don’t have to do anything but brush dead twigs and dust off of my bloodstained fatigues. I was so exhausted I slept like a dead man regardless of how I went down. Which is how the dead sleep, I think as I try to figure out how we can get attacked where I left us last night. If an attack comes it always comes now when it’s still dark. More NCO thinking. I see Hauser the dark sentinel waiting for it too. A vigilant shadow in the darkness.

So, now it’s almost a new day and all I have to do is get moving. It’s really just that easy, I lie to no one who believes my lies. Including myself.

Hauser the combat cyborg, and my friend, stands still, combat shotgun cradled in both massive arms as his head slowly scans the dark horizon beginning to develop. I pity the attack that thinks it can hit us now. My metal friend will straight-up ruin them long enough to get what’s left of my platoon up and fighting again.

The Monarch squats down next to me. She moved up on me like a silent killer. What was I saying about surprise attacks?

She hands me my smart canteen and I watch her otherworldly exotic eyes for a moment before taking my most-prized possession from her long cool slender hands. I’m not thinking of all the implications of what that means. That she went through my ruck to get it. I’m just watching her and trying to figure out what weird country the Strange Company has gotten itself into now. Direct dealings with a Monarch. Might as well be the end of everything as we knew it and I don’t feel fine. Or maybe I do. They’re masters of the universe. Undisputed.

What’s she doing here? With us. What game are they playing, our masters? Of the universe.

I take the broken canteen that hasn’t worked right for months and take a sip expecting cold watery coffee. It’s hot! It ain’t great because it is ration coffee… but it’s hot! And that’s something.

I nod to myself and wonder why my eyes feel like crying over coffee. I tell them not to and I don’t because mercs don’t cry. But hot coffee…

Orion, I think. Stop asking questions. Things are already one hundred percent better than yesterday. Hot coffee! Who does she want me to kill, ’cause that whoever might just wanna pick out a headstone.

“Fixed it for you, Sergeant.”

I nod once more because I try to use my voice and it’s so dry, parched, and destroyed from smoke, gas, and other caustic chemicals from yesterday that it’s gonna need a few moments to work. Yeah, I tell myself. That’s the ticket. That’s why.

The morning darkness smells like sage and sand. It’s coming from the east. Where we’re going today. What we need to cross in the next two days to hit our rally point is out there and waiting for us in all its unknown weirdness.

I take the coffee and I drink.

Bring it, I whisper to the wasteland.

“So what’s really going on?” I croak as I begin to stretch my legs and calves. Last thing I need right now is a torn Achilles.

The Monarch studies me. Her gear is ready to go. She’s strapping that high-speed matte-black submachine gun on a sling. She’s got a lot of micro-mags in her chest carrier. A few fancy-type grenades, the like I’ve never seen before. But of course, she would. She’s a Monarch. Remember. They have the latest and best gear.

I’m using the front of the Mule to place my coffee and try to stretch out all the soreness. I think about taking off my chest rig, but I’m too tired. And I’d just have to put it back on. That’s how far we are into this operation. The gear never comes off. Maybe when you’re dead. But more than likely, your body will just be out in the weeds with it on until scavengers come. And then you can get it off. Then you can rest. When you’re dead.

“What do you mean, Sergeant?” she asks.

I notice everyone just left Stinkeye right where he was in the Mule. He’s still there. Head still thrown back, mouth open, drool running. I can’t tell if he’s alive or dead. His circuits got fried by whatever it was he pulled to get us out of that tight spot with the Ultras last night.

We’d be dead… if not.

He was a miserable old coot who made a lot of trouble and caused nothing but constant grief, but he was our miserable old coot who caused nothing but constant grief. One time he reduced one of my men to a babbling idiot who went fetal for three days after that guy called the Voodoo chief a shammer. No one ever did that again even though the accusation was mostly true. Yeah, he was all those things. But he was worth his weight in mem. Which has been true of warrant officers for as long as they’ve been around. And as far as anyone knew, he was the oldest and longest-serving member of the