by Nick Cole
He shoulda been somewhere else, like still sleeping in. We had the rest of the week off. But he was out there in the pit putting up the most weight I’d ever seen him do on the bench in the outdoor rec area we’d had assigned to us by our paymasters. The bar was practically bending.
“Hey Gains,” I said, standing there in my bare feet. The hot afternoon sand feeling good against my feet where the blisters had been filled with chemical injections that made you scream like you were losing your mind for two seconds. And then the pain was so gone it was like it had never been there before and you were ashamed you’d cried out like a spoiled child.
Or at least you used to be when you were just new in the company and the vets laughed at you even though they were screaming too when it came their turn. After a while you stopped being ashamed and just screamed for two seconds and then went on with your life.
So, the warm sand felt good on the soles of my feet.
Gains looked up at me and came back from wherever he was. And wherever that was, it was not a good place. This was not the Gains the company saw every day. The encourager. The positive mental attitude guy who would help you get your weak war-and-liquor-ruined body into some kind of shape.
Today, this Gains, this guy was lifting against some opponent that wasn’t there anymore. Someone not around the two of us in the rec pit.
He began to lift again and that’s when he told me his story. At the end of it he told me to put it down in the company log. Just like everyone else’s story of how they ended up in the Strange. Who they were. What they’d done. Crimes committed. Loves lost. Wrongs avenged.
“The man who was my father, wasn’t,” Gains began as he racked his next set. Adding even more weight. His voice was hoarse and bitter like he hadn’t drunk enough water. Then he was back on the bench and somewhere else, while the rest of the company slept back in the barracks and tried to forget the Long Patrol from Hell.
“Real dad died six months before I was born. My mom and him were young. Teenagers from the same world. Refugees. He joined the merchant service and got slotted onto a tactical supply freighter just before Sulloowa Moon. Joined as a gunner because my mom was having me and they were on their own. Gunner on those things was the only way he could go. So he shipped out and never came home.”
His set was finished, and he lay there, panting and staring up at the sky. He closed his eyes.
No one came home from Sulloowa Moon. It was a real turkey shoot. Freighters and the supercarriers got caught six minutes before jump and were shot to pieces by an armada of Sindo fighters. No one survived Sulloowa Moon.
He stood once again and added more weight to the bar. Then he was back on the bench and pushing. Pumping out reps.
“My dad, the guy she married two years later, not my real dad, he wasn’t bad. Didn’t drink much. Didn’t physically beat us or nothin’. He was a port loader at Crispin’s World. We got fed and I got school and clothes. He did that. But you know… he wasn’t nice about it, Orion. He didn’t hit you… but he could like beat you down with words worse than bein’ in a fight. He used words like weapons. Used ’em like fists.”
He set the bar for more weight once again.
Then he began to rep, and as he did the words came out bitter and full of malice. Each one shot out like a speeding bullet on a date with grim destiny.
“You ain’t nothin’, kid.”
“Your daddy didn’t have what it took. That’s why he’s dead.”
“Why you so weak?”
“Mama’s boy. Your daddy weren’t no Ultra Marine. And you sure as damn hell won’t never be one neither.”
He stopped. Closing his eyes and being there all over again. “That’s the kinda stuff he used to say to me. Used to hit me with.”
He paused, closed his eyes, and let out a long sigh like he’d learned to long ago to deal with memories unpleasant.
Then…
“I used to tell kids in the neighborhood that my real dad was an Ultra that got killed in the Sindo. Had the battle and all memorized. Looked it up. Darshai Beachhead. A real knife-and-gun show as the First Sergeant likes to call all those old battles, know what I mean when he says that, Orion? Got the Legion of War and all, my real dead, imaginary dad, did. He was a real hero to hear me tell it.
“One of the other dads found out and told him. Told my dad who wasn’t my real dad. The one who called himself, and made me, call him Dad. He didn’t beat me or nothing. But one day we were working on this old broke-down racer he had. He’d race on the weekends out at the Barrows which was this track all the wannabe jet jockeys thought they were really something at. We’re working on the thrust inducers and I’m holding the flashlight and he’s trying to track down a leak from the coolers. I drop the light and he starts into me and loses his place in the engine. Then he tells me what he’d heard about me telling everyone about my real dad, and he’s just laughing about it. Mean laugh. Stands up out of the engine and lights the smoke he always kept behind his ear. But it ain’t a kind laughter, Sar’nt. That man could laugh and insult you at the same time. That’s how bitter and critical he was. But, and this is the part that made him right and me wrong… he was right. It was all a lie, Orion. It was all a lie. Everything I wanted to be true was just a lie I’d made up about someone who never ever knew me.”
Gains just sat there, eyes closed, telling me all this.
“Then he really gave it to me.”
“You’ll never be nothin’.”
“Couldn’t make Ultra Boot even if your real dad were the Master of Battle himself’s brood spring, kid.”
“I started crying right there and the worst part is I didn’t want to, Orion. But I couldn’t help myself. I knew I was tougher than that but once it started, he had me dead to rights and he just stayed there for a long time, throwing words at me like they were haymakers. I couldn’t block. Didn’t protect. Didn’t get my fists up. Just sat there crying and took it. Why? Because it was all true.
“So, I bet you can guess where this is going, Sar’nt. I’m eighteen and he had me all set up for the docks along the port for the big haulers coming out of Titan on the tech run. Good job. I remember him saying one night, after he’d complained about the Monarchs and their stranglehold, y’know, the usual jabber, he said that once I was in with the Union, I’d be just like him. Job. Wife. A place in the galaxy. He said it with pride. Like he’d made it all happen for me.
“I didn’t mind that. Job is a job. Working docks, or in an office, same as being a soldier to me, Orion. Y’know how it is. Nah, that’s not what made me try to get off-world and go for the Ultras. It was him sayin’ I’d be just like him. That’s what did it.
“So that night I swear to you, I got out of there. Went to the recruiting station at four a.m. and it was open because that’s how them Ultras are. I got my place set. Take the test and tell ’em I’m ready to go to their basic training world immediate-like. I’d heard they do that. All you gotta do is pass the eval.
“And you know what… my big plans to become a big bad Ultra and show that man I was good enough to be what my imaginary dead dad had been… busted. As in I busted the test right there. Failed psych. Get this… my compassion index was too high to be an Ultra Marine. They gotta be ruthless. Apparently.
“I remember the big Ultra sergeant came out and handed me my score. Didn’t even look at me, like I wasn’t there. Because to him I wasn’t. I didn’t count if I wasn’t an Ultra to him. Or maybe he did see me, and instead the look he gave me was like I was… wrong. Like I wasn’t him. And therefore, beyond his noble obligations to war and duty to understand. Guy had a huge scar that ran right down the side of his face. His dress uniform was sharp. Blue and tan. Swollen chest full of medals. Ultra haircut and ramrod straight. He was a real killer, I tell you that.
“And the message, the look or whatever, was… I wasn’t. He was good enough. And as far as he wa
s concerned, I wasn’t even there. So just blow, kid.
“I’d heard about the Strange Company. I was still busted up, but I scrapped enough to get off-world and hook up with the company at Este Nuevo. You were here but you weren’t in Reaper, were you, Orion?”
I wasn’t. I said nothing and just shook my head, listening.
“The platoon sergeant that ran Reaper, he taught me. Taught me a soldier’s greatest skill is attitude. Even when things look real bad. Find the right attitude for all situations. And there was that guy who got killed in Turio. He got me into weights. Working out. Fitness. And… well, I just started seeing what you could do when you spoke life to people, and taught them how to be healthy, and what it felt like to feel good, instead of cutting them down. I could take a guy and help him develop a better self-image through fitness. Take a drug addict like Junkboy and get him clean. Yeah, it’s sweat and effort, but it’s also something the guy who insisted he was my father never did. It’s also encouragement. And I’ve learned this, Orion, a kind word goes a long way. A real long way. Even in the killing business.
“Out there in the jungle this week, I saw the look in guys’ eyes as they started to go mad from the flying snake bites. They knew it. They knew we were deep behind lines and now was not the time to let the negative emotions start. But they couldn’t help it. That toxin was a demon. A real whispering demon, Sar’nt. But you knew that. Saw you barely keeping it together. Wanna know something? Me too, Orion. That old demon who made me call him Dad and wasn’t, he was right there talkin’ the whole time. The entire time. I was seeing him for real.”
“You can’t help this guy. Hell, you can’t even help yourself, kid.”
“C’mon, just quit. You know you’re done. Everyone knows it.”
“He was like a real live living nightmare inside my head. He was screaming so loud in my ears at times I couldn’t barely think as we crawled up another muddy jungle hill in thin air, humping two and three weapons at a time, plus as much gear as I could handle. But I just kept gettin’ guys sorted, taking their gear, humping it and sweating like all the workouts I’d ever done were for this right now that we were all in. I kept draggin’ everyone upwards because, and I’ll tell you this, Sergeant, I know we fight with each other sometimes, but I know they would have done the same for me. I know it for a fact. So I just kept speaking life, dragging as many as I could, and ignoring the demon who made me call him Dad.
“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 objectiv
e while we still tried to hold on to it. We got the privilege of knowing the indirect was about to fall directly all over our heads. We were supposed to find adequate cover and hold on to our butts.
Work the problem, some old NCO screamed from the crypts of my shattered mind. Curse Chief Cook and his chemicals. I felt shaky and weak. Reality felt that way too. But the old NCO who screamed at me to just do the job I was sent in to do reminded me my brothers in the Strange up there had things in hand. They were doing their job. Covering us with violent gunfire in high doses. I just had to do mine now. And… if we all did all our jobs together, then some of us just might get to live to see the next contract.
That was the promise Strange Company made to one another. We may not like each other, but we’ll get it done together. And then hopefully get paid.
Simple and to the point.
Now our job, my job, was to get the speedball into our possession, deploy whatever weapon system was inside of it, and take out that inbound Savage mechanized walker firing staccato thunder at distant targets. Because light infantry ground troops and fast attack vehicles we could handle. But a heavy ground terminator walker carrying old-school GAU-88s was going to peel back the cover Reaper had inside the terminal via high doses of 20mm ball ammunition. And then riddle us with gunfire.
As if on cue, the two “arms” of the walker opened up and thundered out probably close to three thousand rounds from the onboard cannons. Heat sinks gassed steam and bled heat. Spent shells littered the tarmac. Its legs thunderstruck the hot ground. Behind the terminal, a dropship coming in for close air support exploded in every direction. Aircrew and reinforcements absolutely dead. No doubt.
I hoped that wasn’t the relief drop carrying in Strange elements as I tried to figure our next move.