by Nick Cole
Kudos to them.
Everyone stood there and watched me as I tried to figure what to do with Boom Boom. It was clear what had happened. He’d passed out and we hadn’t checked on him. His injury had bled internally, slowly, and eventually it just bottomed out his pulmonary system. I’d seen this kind of wound before. Without a doc like Cutter it was impossible to treat. And even harder to diagnose.
It was a sneaky injury, and it was enough to catch our brother and snatch him away from our company forever when we were tired and at the end of ourselves.
I told the Kid, who was standing nearby, to find a tarp. We’d take him with us until I could find someplace nice to bury him and let the company lawyers know we needed an official marker. I’d seen a tarp in the Mule’s gear and tool kit. Rolled up and waiting. I guess for a situation just like this.
I was thinking while the Kid went to get the tarp. Thinking about Boom Boom as a consummate shooter. The times he’d come through and put rounds on target when we were pinned or needed to get some target out of the way so we could advance on an objective. To him, marksmanship at extreme range was the perfect mixture of science and art. When he could, he loaded his own rounds. Usually during the two weeks’ ramp-up to planetside ops aboard the Spider before insertion, he could be found loading rounds deep down in machinery stores below the big engines and near the reserve tanks. A place most in the company didn’t like to go down to. It was dark and gloomy down there and of course there were rumors of ghosts. The old crews. But that was standard on every old starship. Comes with the afterburners. But Boom Boom’s workspace was armored enough and compartmentalized to stand up to any kind of internal explosions in case things went that way with his hobby.
Quiet and good-natured, Boom Boom was a listener. And a laugher. He never got into any heated discussions or arguments, the way Stinkeye did with everyone about everything from the direction of the wind to the very cards you were holding in your hand. But if you were telling a story, especially if it was about something ridiculous Stinkeye had gotten up to, then Boom Boom was usually there listening and ready to laugh. What can I say, he got along with everyone. Even Stinkeye, in that Stinkeye had never cursed him with the Voodoo operator’s constant promise of bad luck. Maybe there’re some people you curse, in Stinkeye’s mind, and some you don’t. Snipers and squad designated marksmen are probably on the do-not-curse list. They have a tendency to save your bacon and who wants to fool around with the much-needed magic they make in a perfect shot at just the right moment.
Maybe? I don’t know anymore.
Greatest shot I ever saw him make? Not important even though I was trying to think about it like it was the best I could do in lieu of a funeral or some final words. He’d made enough of them to prevent each one of us getting killed when things were close and pray-and-spray was just about the best we could manage.
I swore suddenly because my sniper was dead. Or at least that’s what I told myself. But I knew it wasn’t that. I knew Boom Boom’s story. It wasn’t exceptional. Like I said, I’ve heard worse. Jaw-droppingly so. Stinkeye only gives me teasers of his horror show and I have to check and see if my hair has gone gray after these nightmare tidbits. Other guys’ are pretty horrific. I always challenge myself not to judge by what happened in their past. To treat them as they are now. Brothers in Strange Company. Strangers to the universe. Boom Boom said he learned to shoot in the Capellas as a kid. Worked for a big-game hunting service on that primeval world of monsters and leviathans straight out of Earth’s prehistoric past. The company passed through one time and he joined up. Said he’d shot enough Saurians and he’d lost the taste for it.
That was the short answer he gave whenever anyone asked. But it wasn’t the whole answer.
Still, he loved to shoot. As they say, he was a shooter. Art and science. That was his intersection. For about a week I learned reloading rounds from him because I wanted some really high-powered and very specialized ammunition for my Bastard. He helped me cook up something similar to the Raufoss rounds a lot of the snipers in Ghost used. Anti-matériel, high-explosive, armor-piercing, and incendiary to boot. I’d found sometimes I needed a little more punch to take out targets that were covering behind solid structures. I’d been using a Spring and ColtX .308 battle rifle I’d acquired. It was heavy but it could punch through a lot of local construction and still kill somebody thinking that out-of-sight meant out-of-mind and that I couldn’t hit you. We’d been fighting pop-up pygmy dog soldiers on the Moons of Karano. They weren’t much for a stand-up fight, but they loved to take pop-up shots and move around behind cover. Hence why we called them Pop-up Pups. I started figuring out their MO with the heavy .308 and just shooting their cover once they hid. But the Spring and ColtX was a real heavy hump. So, some improved rounds for the Bastard that we couldn’t find in any of the weapons bazaars selling old Sindo surplus was what brought me and Boom Boom together for a week of reloading.
Down in his shop as the Spider crawled in-system toward our next contract, we got the rounds together and I had enough for what I thought would be most of the gig. Turns out several firefights inside walled mud-and-brick villages in the first few weeks of that show ran through my supply, and our ship, and Boom Boom’s shop, were out of reach in orbit for the rest of the gig.
But that week reloading was cool. Each day I’d take the long walk back through the Spider’s freight and stores, and the “haunted” weapons lockers and some of our stowed mechs and tanks we couldn’t get planetside because we can’t land and doing an orbital drop means we won’t be able to recover when it’s time to pull out. We spent the week loading and it was nice to get away from the platoon and company duties. We just worked, listened to oldies, and drank some beers on the last day. Then we were planetside later the next week.
But on that last day he asked me the same thing, in a different way, they all ask me. But they do all ask me. That’s the important part. That they ask.
“So, you keep everyone’s story?” Boom asked as we cleaned up. We were drinking beers and I’d grabbed some really salty fried pigskins from bags we’d had a couple of pallets of from a gig two worlds back. They were good with hot sauce.
I nodded and drank. Knew it was coming. His story. It always does.
“I don’t really have one,” said Boom Boom. Then he laughed. “Plus, I don’t think I’m gonna get killed anytime soon. Being the squad designated marksman, I try not to get close enough to actually catch incoming. Reach out and put the touch on someone is the only way to do it. Know what I mean, Orion?”
“Plus you’re the best, brother,” I told him so things didn’t get too heavy and death-laden. This was the important part. Once they told me their story it was easy to get it into their hard drive that the Grim Reaper Astronaut had it out, and was coming, for them. Best to keep it light. I told him, “Old Man says if something happens to Slick, he’s moving you into the ASL position for whoever takes Ghost. That way you’ll be ready to take over someday. So hopefully nothing happens to Slick because Reaper needs you forever.”
We clinked bottles over that.
Then, “I don’t really have one, Orion. A story.” He looked at me seriously. And then he nodded to himself like he was checking in to make sure what he said was true. Windage and elevation on the target he’d just selected. Good sight picture. Time and distance to target.
Truth is, a lot of them say just that. That they don’t have a story. Then they go ahead and tell me why they don’t have a story and that, as I point out later, is actually their story.
“No running from the law or lost love like half these guys, y’know, Sarge?” he said. Continuing. Getting ready to tell it all. “Just got tired of what I was doin’ back in the Capellas and decided to do something else. Love shooting. Didn’t want to give that up. Figured merc’n was a way to keep doing it and not have to do what I used to do.”
“What’d you used to do?”
&
nbsp; “Big-game hunting guide in the Washataw Basin. Take rich people, and sometimes even the occasional Monarch and their entourage, out to bag a sabresaur or a goliahadon. Real fancy stuff. We worked with an outfitter that turned it into a real… I don’t know what you’d call it… but a party is the word that made me walk away from it all finally. It was pretty high-speed for hunting. So much so that it wasn’t. Hunting, I mean. Not anymore.”
“So, why’d you let it go?” I asked.
He thought about my question for a long time. Went to check some rounds we were working on and came back with two fresh beers. That’s when I knew the meter was running on my job as the keeper of Strange Company stories. I like my job. Sometimes I wish I could stop being a platoon leader and just keep everyone’s histories and even the histories of the company and the conflicts we’ve been involved in. History is very comforting. It’s people that get messy.
“Like I said… no crimes. No heartbreaks, Sarge. Just didn’t like what I was doing with the thing I loved. Shooting. Needed to find another gig for it. Didn’t mind shooting bad guys as much as I was afraid I might.”
“We don’t always shoot bad guys in the company, man.” I know. I’m a killjoy. But I can’t do anything but do me. It’s all I know. Your mileage may vary, as I tell guys when they complain about me raining on life with reality and stuff. “We shoot who we get paid to shoot. It’s best not to think about that too much, Boom, if good guys and bad guys is some kind of criteria for you, I mean.”
He pulled his ear and thought about that.
“Animals, they ain’t bad. They’re just animals. People are different. I like everyone. But, in some way, we’re all bad. Animals… they ain’t. Let me tell you this one. The last gig I’m on as a hunting guide is the same gig I’ve worked since I was fourteen years old. This one was even for a Monarch. Eidi. Heard of him? He’s the one who owns Gold Star. The world and the shipping line and a bunch of other stuff. Real creep. His entourage comes out and we get him all set up. He wants to go deep into the basin and bag one of the biggest predators out there, according to him. But see, the terraclops isn’t what everyone thinks it is. They’ve just seen that flick and they all think it really does breathe fire and it’s impossible to kill and all. Truth is, the terraclops is a gentle giant if you understand them. It does breathe fire, but not like the special-effects fires in the spectacuthrillers. It just burns up tall grass, toasts it because it likes to eat it that way. Something to do with their biology.”
He took a pull of his beer. I did too. When they tell me, I don’t write it down. I just listen. Then put it down later. Check details if I need to.
“But, because of the fog and cloud layers on that world, and the terrain, you really gotta hump through the basin to get to the valley where you’re most likely gonna find a terraclops. My pa gave me that gig. He was getting old that year, last year of his life. And the expeditions went to either me, or my cousin who’s a pretty good guy and an excellent guide also. So, three days up the Saya River and then over a ridge and down into the valley where we’ll find the target. Easy stuff. Problem is Eidi, this Monarch tool, he wants to shoot everything along the way. And I mean everything. Soodaclops. Narledons. Shiftraptos. Even go-weasels that don’t hurt anyone. He bags like thirty running in a herd with a quad fifty his people set up on the bow of the barge. Like he’s playing River Raider in the Sindo. You ever see that show? Was cool. This wasn’t. Know what I mean? Anyway, this Monarch is in the main barge following my aeroskiff up along the easier channels of the Saya to get where we need to go. But he just shoots everything he can lay his sights on. Got a fancy all-gold Lyran heavy sniper rifle chambered in .950.”
And now, as I listen… he’s back there. Telling his story in present tense like he’s watching it all one more time…
“The thing is stupid but it’s a beast, Orion. I’ve seen this before. This type of guy. This type of idiot. Wants to just shoot stuff for fun. No skill. No herd management. And even though the Capellas have a reputation for that kind of hunting, we discourage it. Hunting on Capella arose out of need back in our history. I guess their history now. The world when it was first discovered was real violent. Fight-for-survival stuff. Every day. The pioneers had to kill a lot of Saurians just to survive and they used the meat they took to make it until the next colony ship showed up twenty years later. Their original ship broke up in orbit, cluster engine failure and reactor cascade, and they had to drop with minimal supplies to get the colony established as the whole thing cooked off above the surface. Entire world, they find, is filled with lizards that range from the size of small turbo rail cars to entire city blocks. Ten stories tall was the biggest one I ever saw. But I’ve heard bigger.”
He’s not drinking. Just staring at his beer as he talks.
“So, until the conservation movement a few years back, killing ’em was the only way to keep the colony active. Now we discourage willy-nilly shooting because they’re, the Saurians, not just a tourist attraction, they’re beautiful. And majestic, Orion. I’ve seen ones with tiger stripes and feathers so beautiful it takes your breath away. They’re slow and ponderous and for the most part they just go about eating and roaring mindlessly about something. At night, way out on the central savannah, under the three moons, near the obelisks that dot the world, to hear them moving around and roaring in the night is like experiencing something older than humanity itself. Something… mystical. Those obelisks, those are older than any other artifact we’ve ever discovered, and we have no clue about them. I went in one, once, and I lost time, Orion. You ever hear about that phenomenon? Like I was in a dream while I was in there. When I came out, I felt like the dream had been lifetimes and that I’d lived entire other lives in there and had adventures, and I couldn’t remember any of it after walking back out into the moonshine. Crazy. It’s humbling. That world. The giants and the mystery. All of it.
“So, I’m going upriver on that last gig with some nimrod Monarch who just wants to shoot everything that comes down to the Saya for a drink… well, it started getting to me. As he just murdered them. Wasn’t hunting. Just plain ol’ slaughter. And you know why, Orion? Why it was getting to me?”
I didn’t. But I was on pins and needles because this story was the opposite of the guy I’d seen always in the background. Boom Boom our squad designated marksman, just laughing at someone’s story, or a good joke. Or Stinkeye and his antics. The old operator swearing murder and curses at us as he wallowed around in the miasma that was him. Knowing that when we were out there and in it, Boom Boom had our backs and could put good rounds on target when needed.
Like he was a clock in the universe that could be measured by.
“It started getting to me,” he continued. “The slaughter. Because I knew that when we came back downriver, I’d have to see all those corpses just lying there in the sun. I knew those animals and there was a time and place to manage them, and this… this party barge to hell wasn’t it. I’d watched this total tool shooting them up while his harem and his hanger-onners all hypergolf-clapped and drank themselves silly. They didn’t even want to stop and take pictures of what he killed. Just wanted to watch the Monarch shoot more and act ambivalent about it all as he played bump rap as loud as thunder on a clear day. Damn music drew the big ones down to the river because they’re especially sensitive to vibrations on that world. Lotta quakes. So they came down and he shot them as fast as he could. Never got tired. It was… well… it just was. But I didn’t like it. Know what I mean?”
I did.
He paused.
“So, I didn’t want to see it. And I’m just up there in my ride ahead, trying not to get them killed and wondering why I shouldn’t just steer them into a channel that’ll flip the barge and let the tooth serpents get ’em down under the black waters. Probably didn’t do it because that woulda ruined my pa’s biz. So I don’t. I just lead them toward more. More killing. The big… I don’t know… fina
le, I guess you’d call it… happened once we got into Razarsaw Valley. They got carried in by a-grav pallets and then set up on a small hill I’d identified near a terraclops trail I knew of. Couple hours later, near dark, here comes one. I used to call that one Stinky. Big and old. Huge mournful eye that looked like it had seen every day of the universe. It’s dark enough, and they’re drunk enough that I’m hoping they miss Stink and just let him go on and live his life out for what remains of it. But nope. This Eidi tool wants to bag one. Out comes the gold monstrosity rifle and he fires and puts a .950 round right through Ol’ Stink’s right foreleg. Misses the heart and vitals and blows off the shoulder joint. The terraclops goes down in the dark out there and even though the Monarch’s got laser and thermal imaging, he doesn’t want to finish it because he can’t see with his antique scope. He’s got this vintage old-school scope and he fancies that makes him a real hunter compared to everyone else because he doesn’t cheat. ‘I don’t use technology,’ he told me the entire time. ‘And look how good I shoot. Better than even you I suspect, right everyone? I’m the best, of course.’ Everyone claps and agrees.
“‘But you gotta finish it,’ I tell him. ‘Just switch over to thermal and hit him in the head, right about here.’ I pointed toward my skull right above my eyes, Orion. That’s where the terraclops CNS brain is. Take out the central nervous system brain and the thing’ll die faster than killing it in the heart, or the actual brain. It’s right behind and above the big eye. ‘No,’ he says. ‘That one is no longer a challenge. We wait for another. Plus, it’s already dead. Probably. Who cares. It’s just a dumb animal.’