* * *
After twenty-one days and two hops, we arrived in the Mtali system. GRN 86 in Eridanus is a K0 with about 40% the luminosity of Sol. Our factory ship, FMS Force, and its destroyer escort peeled off for the meager planetoid belt. It would be hidden to everyone but its support crew and send us regular supplies that it created from raw materials and stellar output from 86. It didn't eliminate our logistics train, but it did reduce it immensely. I have to wonder why no one else has come up with a similar concept? Maybe because we lack capital ships and need such support? I think I prefer logistics insystem to dragging supplies for dreary parsecs, with the delay involved.
We cleaned out our bunkroom and headed for our assault boat. I did it as a ritual. Rituals comfort people and give them stability. From the rear of the compartment, each troop moved out into the companionway, flipping his (or her) mattress as he went. All locker doors were left open. All gear hatches open. When the compartment was empty, bare white and gray polymer panels and doors with dull mattresses, I went in and closed each opening personally, doing a final check. There wouldn't be a dust mote left in there unless it showed me authorization. We had everything we brought, there were no mistakes so far, and we were ready to land.
Then all we had to do was sit aboard our shuttle for a div while UN Space Control, Mtali got its thumbs out of its collective anus and gave us clearance. There were nervous conversations and card games in the stifling bay. At least it seemed stifling. There was adequate air flow and the temperature was 16 degrees, to allow for our clothing and armor. The dull background noise turned to cheers and battlecries as the clamps released us and we shoved off.
Down from orbit, bucking through the atmosphere. It read like a script. Officers maintained our calm, professional, "nothing to worry about" expressions to reassure the troops, while being terrified inside. Experienced troops cracked jokes to scare the newer ones so they could pretend not to be scared. The somewhat experienced ones nodded and agreed and grinned hugely to hide their fear. The new kids sassed back and boasted so as not to appear ready to wet their pants. It's a traditional illusion.
We were lucky. We were neither shot at, directed into a collision by bad control nor suffered any equipment malfunctions. Down we went, and when we hit the cloud level, sighs could be heard all around, the acts of earlier forgotten.
We all felt nervous again as we thudded down. Now we were in hostile territory, and not yet with weapons loaded. I planned to fix that ASAP. We rolled out quickly, our pilots understanding our concerns, and since they relied upon us as we did them, they gave us no hassle. We slowed, I rose, and as the ramp dropped I went out. It was sunny, warm and clear, with industrial and chemical odors in the air.
"Hot!" the pilot yelled. "Attack warning!"
We unassed in a hurry, skittering across the apron and diving into the green nearest us. It was thick and tangled and great concealment from whatever the hell was about to hit us.
It was a drainage sluice. The weeds were thick because it was boggy and wet. Slimy mud smeared across me, and warm, oily water splashed straight through the fabric of my uniform. I only noticed it after I felt my heart pounding enough to oscillate me on the ground.
There was nothing immediately in sight, so I pulled up my comm while transmitting, "Form in immediate teams with nearest troops, minimize movement, prepare for incoming threats."
A glance showed nothing nearby. What was the threat? Incoming kinetics to blow us to vapor? A terrorist somewhere getting off a shot? A real military assault with combined arms?
Nothing. Nothing on my comm, either. I sent out an inquiry, as water capillaried up to my neck. Nothing.
I don't know if it was the spaceport control having a wiseass joke at our expense, or if it was an attempt at pilot humor. He insisted he'd heard a warning, but he couldn't place the source. I intended to find out. A joke like that called for a retort.
"False alarm," I said in disgust. "Let's go get dry."
They followed me, Frank in the rear, and we sought some shade; the south temperate zone of Mtali gets quite bright. I found a convenient location near a maintenance building off the flight line, and we took a look at our gear. It was filthy, but only on the outside. Everything was wet, of course.
We were already armed with our basic weapons, but the extra squad equipment needed to be checked and prepped. While we did that, I had the teams take turns cleaning and inspecting their personal kits.
We had one brief, pleasant encounter with some of the departing Unos, as we took to calling them. A unit of US Marines came by, trudging on foot to their shuttle. Why they were slogging it and not on a vehicle I'm not sure, but I'd blame UN Logistics. They never were very reliable.
The Master Sergeant First Class in charge of eight troops was following their Field Officer (yes, they really do have fifteen enlisted ranks, and yes, they really do need an officer to authorize every operation), turned to face us, and grinned what he probably thought was a scary smile. He said, "So, you're here to fight the factions, hey?"
I matched his style and grinned a warface that would scare the dead. "No. We're here to kill the factions," I replied, slapping a clip home as I said so. He walked off shivering. We laughed.
Despite that, I made sure everything my troops and I had was inspected and solid. Weapon. Basic ammo load. Harness. Canteens. First aid kit. Tools. Tactical helmet and all vision choices—sonic, IR, visual, enhanced, magnification. Body armor. Blades . . . you can never have enough blades. I had my wakizashi, a short bolo, a dagger in my left boot, a heavy locking folder in my pocket and another on my gear, not to mention a folding multitool and a tiny one in another pocket. The knife was one of our first tools, and will always be one of the most important. I made sure everyone's blades were secure. We adjusted our optical sights for the .79 G and the odd magnetic field, which is nearly twenty degrees from the poles. Then we all checked our basic load of ammo for cracks, warps or other flaws.
I did all that as a precaution, assuming for safety's sake that the area was hostile and would remain that way. I was correct, it turned out. Professional paranoia scores another win. Once our heavy gear was ready, we formed up for airlift/convoy to the UN headquarters, which was for some odd reason not attached to the starport. This is what comes of letting diplomats and politicians with no military experience run your war plans.
At least the stark and sere compound, near the northern edge of town and easily reached by roads or air, had ringed perimeters and solid roadblocks and berms. I landed with half the unit as the other half brought vehicles, so as to clear our squad area ahead of time. The buildings were modern, basic and clean, far better than anything I expected in a combat zone. The chow hall was roomy, as were the theater, exchange, gym . . . I tried to decide if this was a war or a summer camp? The UN has the material and starlift capacity, but it struck me that being overly comfortable encouraged a long stay and lack of ardor in the fight. Best to move in, do the job and go home, not turn a developing nation (submerging, even) shithole into a parody of home.
* * *
The key to understanding the UNPF is to remember that they are all effectively reservists. A reserve unit needs some shakedown training and time before deploying on a mission, and so did they. In the case of reserves, it's that they only train a few days a month. With the UNPF, it's due to inadequate training and poor budgets.
Consider their "training": In basic, they shoot one string of "live" ammo with the charges reduced to near nothing. Beyond that, they shoot non-lethal weapons only once a year, and usually simulate that with a machine. They fire a simulated string of "live" ammo every five Earth years, if they stay in that long. Their first aid and other support training is all done by watching videos and answering true/false quizzes, which are corrected to 100%. If it isn't in the soldier's specific tasking, he gets either next to no training, or is denied training and told to "leave that to the experts." The infantry handles real weapons only once per month, and shoots only once per ye
ar.
Before deploying, all personnel shoot another "live" string, officially. But commanders often skip that to avoid the adminwork, as every single round of ammo has to be accounted for. Since they don't allow people to possess weapons and account for them every time they go in or out, it seems redundant to count electrically fired cartridges that cannot be used as more than firecrackers without a weapon, but understanding the rationale of paranoid sheeple has never been my strong suit.
It shows in their chain of command—officers supervise every little task, they have constant roll calls and accountability and they have civilians and contractors handle cooking, maintenance and other support chores even in a combat zone. These are technically noncombatants under the Mars Protocols, but accidents do happen. I consider those people braver than the troops; they have no weapons, little armor and only occasionally a single guard per detail.
The FMF has no noncombatant personnel. We shoot weekly or monthly, depending on unit. We use live ammo. Our training consists of going to the field and doing it. We constantly seek tougher challenges (such as Mtali) to increase the difficulty of that training. We issue our troops weapons in basic and, unless court-martialed and discharged, they keep them for life. Ammo is ordered by the truckload and dispensed by the kilogram, not by the round. I figured we'd outmatch them about ten to one. I was correct.
The biggest giveaway was when we met General Bruder. He seemed a bit on the slimy side. Not only that, he had a camera crew. Now, we have public affairs people, too, but this clown had a personal crew and a director to oversee the shots. Unbelievable. Especially as his acting resembled a tree, his face would jam an M-23, and his voice was a soft, whiny tenor to match his pale, sluglike body.
This wasn't a military operation; it was a PR circus. All it needed was ten clowns getting out of a little car. Then I saw his staff limousine. Yes, limousine. Naumann had a plain SPV-46 command car, armored and gunned. No flash. But then, Naumann has nothing he needs to prove.
I had a crawling feeling along my neck and shoulders. This couldn't be a serious operation. It had to be a dream, or a joke. Any second now, he'd smile, brace up, laugh and become a commander. Any second now. Any second. Now would be good.
It wasn't a dream. But it was a nightmare. Then it got worse. Someone panned the camera across the crowd. Across me.
I spun, getting my face out of view, slumping my shoulders to hide my posture, and flipped my visor down and my scarf up, as did my nearby squadmates. One of the crew came over to reassure me about permission forms and all that. I politely said, "Point a camera at me and I'll hack your throat open with a saw." He gibbered and left. So did I. This was no place for an Operative. It was no place for a soldier. It was no place for a real military.
Which was exactly why we were there.
Chapter 8
Nothing happened for three days. Nothing. We moved into our squad bay in the barracks, pinned our ghillies and cloaks up to create privacy screens, swept out the dust left by the last pigs and got moved in. We swapped damaged bunks for good ones on a late night scrounging mission, mostly from empty barracks, but Frank and Tyler couldn't resist the urge to sneak into an occupied hooch with troops drinking out front, hoist a mattress off a bunk with the sleeping soldier still snoring within the blankets, and swap frames underneath him. He'd wake up with a dry-rotted, squeaky, saggy bed and wonder what the hell had happened. But that was all the excitement we had.
It was tedious. Our weapons were loaded, our gear was ready, our vehicles maintained and primed. We had provisions, spoke the languages, knew as much as we could know without getting out there to look, and were required to stay where we were until we could have a scheduled briefing.
I suppose part of that was the fault of the FMF for having the gall to arrive on schedule. Or maybe we were being punished for the sin of being efficient. Either way, we had to wait for a briefing of all the things we already knew: factions, terminology, chain of command (although the briefing officer was under the mistaken impression that we took orders from the UN), emergency procedures, etc. We were told we'd be securing a warm sector against faction activity. Then we were told we'd be holding and reinforcing a secured area.
Finally, we went out to guard a retail strip plaza.
No, that is not a typo. They sent us, possibly the most lethal, brutal squad of professional killers in the system, out to guard a strip plaza. All of us. I could handle that job with three. My kids swore, I politely complained, Naumann sarcastically asked if they needed us to pick up any takeout while we were there, but it was a choice of guard the stores or do nothing.
Okay, it was a bit tougher than I expected. It did, in fact, call for all of us. Or all of any squad. Legion Infantry could have handled it. A squad of reserve Security Patrollers could have handled it. Even our base support personnel were more than adequate to the task. So we took it.
We did get a map. I did get to meet with the previous officer, a Belgian with good French and adequate English who was honest and forthcoming but seemed a bit frazzled.
"Mostly ground traffiique, not air," he said. "It was bizzee juring the eevenings, and on weekends, despite the relijious hollidays."
"How many people per hour?" I asked. It was a reasonable question.
"I am not sure."
Terrific. An unspecified variable. There were more of those. I took the map, drew up some basic response routes and stations for our vehicles, and drilled everyone on paper and on a comm simulation. I'd play it as it came when we got there.
Rather than run the half-day shifts from local midnight to local noon and vice versa, so everyone gets some daylight and is only half a day off schedule, the UN has a ridiculous "6 am to 6 pm" shift using a variation of Earth's 24-hour clock adapted to local requirements. It could have been worse; they'd started by using Earth's clock, which was nearly forty minutes different, so the shifts rotated around the local clock. While that was unpredictable for the locals at first (purely by coincidence), it kept everyone tired and off kilter. So the 6–6 schedule was adapted to the local day, but still meant one shift never saw daylight to speak of and one never saw night. The night shift wasn't worth much because of that, and even though they had an easier task (the stores were not open after local 10 pm for some cultural reason I never really grasped), they were a weak point we didn't need. We changed to our midnight/noon shifts. It was no big deal as far as scheduling went, because the place had been unguarded the last three days. Yet we were told it was a common hangout for weapons sales and exchanges. How? If there are troops guarding it even sporadically, dealers should move elsewhere.
I braced my troops and we laughed at the "make every effort to subdue militants with non-lethal weapons before calling for authorization to use lethal force." As we saw it, if anyone pulled a gun, we'd shoot them twenty times and have Orbital drop a bar on the corpse. Anyway, we didn't have non-lethal weapons. The UN had apparently forgotten that, or not asked, and we were not going to volunteer the info.
So, just before noon the next day we entered in teams through the narrow, cluttered alley and the broad front, and made a quick sweep from each end of the L-shaped facility to the corner. The corner was what I was interested in—they were serving lunch. It was a neat, well-kept little Indonesian place, and smelled great. I walked in the back door with Frank, as Adam and Kit hit the front and we gave it the once over. White, clean, cluttered with utensils, family employees running back and forth with dishes and fairly tight quarters. There was an auto shotgun behind the door, which I ignored; a person has a right to defend his business and it wasn't a long enough range weapon to pose a real threat to us. I did make sure they knew I'd seen it, and let them ponder how we were different from the Unos, who would have seized it mindlessly, because "guns in private hands are dangerous." The owner, short and skinny and absolutely cowed by my towering presence, gradually recovered from the shock as we strode through. We checked the kitchen for obvious threats before sliding through the counter and into
a booth. We were joined by the rest of First Team shortly, and nearly filled the place; our rucks and gear over the seats made it a very tight fit. I kept two teams out patrolling the corner and rotated everyone through to eat.
Like many Freeholders, I have Indonesian ancestry. My maternal grandmother was second generation from Kalimantan, and I did recall some of what she taught me, as well as having recordings I'd reacquired to study once I started languages. I never thought I'd need it, and wasn't very good at understanding it, but I could memorize phrases and my pronunciation was okay. I ordered for everyone by holding up a wad of credits and saying in Indonesian, "Tolong disediakan gulai ayam untuk dua puluh orang dan air jeruk nipis untuk minumannya." ("Sweet chicken for twenty, lemonade to drink, please.")
The owner seemed surprised that I spoke his tongue, and I knew that would go into the stories about us. He said, "Boleh saja, mohon tunggu beberapa menit." ("Of course, people. It will be a few minutes.")
The server was the eldest daughter, probably sixteen Earth years old. She was cute, but lacked the doe-eyed innocence young adults should have. She didn't look abused, but she'd clearly seen enough violence acted out on the streets to make her tired and worn. We were polite, tipped well and treated her as a lady, not as a peasant wench. She and her family were probably some former Indonesian Muslim sect, similar to some of our founders, and likely as disillusioned by the idiotic squabbles as we were quickly becoming. I made it a point that we'd treat everyone as decent adult human beings unless and until they acted otherwise, in which case we'd deliver justice with large ordnance.