The Weapon

by Michael Z. Williamson

  We have few women in Special Warfare as compared to the regular forces, only about three percent, and they drink daily doses of protein enhancers at triple the rate of most women soldiers. We do infiltration and more sheer brute battlefield work. We carry heavier loads. This rules out most women physiologically, even with enhancement chemicals. Don't like it? Hey, reality. Deni is an Operative, but I'm fifty percent stronger than she. There's a reason we teach women in unarmed combat training to grapple—punching it out with a large man is a quick route to suicide. If the opponent is smaller, use brute force. If they are larger, grapple, evade, and outthink. But I digress. More than half who'd made it that far failed the climbing course.

  We had VIPs visit during the latter part of that course (it's four weeks), and we shocked them senseless. We started our daily climb, after having been informed that we were putting on a show for guests, and figured to be mistreated. We weren't disappointed.

  The instructors atop the cliff began dropping small pebbles on us, which stung the hands, chipped flesh even through fabric and clattered on the helmet. Then they threw flashbangs. The booms echoed through the valleys, BANG! bang ang rumblerumbleumbleble . . . BANG! rumblerumble BA-BANG! bang ang . . .

  Through that, we could barely hear the shouts from below. The VIPs were shocked and outraged that this was being done to students, forgetting that we were student killers. Not licensed to kill yet, but we had our learner's permits.

  They were silent a few segs later, when instructors below us began shooting rifles at us. Well, not at us precisely. They were shooting near us, and as we couldn't move very fast, there was minimal risk of them hitting us. If we panicked, however . . . but no one did. We were going up that 100 meter face as if it were a garden wall, and apparently we did impress them, even if the training outraged them.

  We snapped on harnesses, anchored ropes and fast rappelled down, shooting at targets as we went. We hit better than 80% of our targets, and were down the face in fifteen seconds. The hubbub from that told us they were beyond impressed. We went to a meet-and-greet.

  We were camo-painted, dirty, sweaty, grimy, propellant-drenched from the firing and generally not the type of people one would want in the parlor. These diplomats and politicians, with a few almost real military officers scattered in, were rather bothered by our presence. Rabbits. We gave our best grins and put on the rest of the show. Instructor now-Sergeant Daniels had me grab a tree branch and do pull-ups. I did thirty-five, even after all that exertion, and while wearing a twenty-kilo assault pack. And remember that our gravity is 118% of Earth normal. That's a heavy pack, and I even impressed myself. The desk-sitting sheep I was introduced to had to be awed. At his request, I shrugged off the ruck and handed it straight-arm to one of the colonels from the UN. He reached for it, I let him grasp it, then I let go. It hit the ground and staggered him over with it. There were a few chuckles, but I'd impressed, no, terrified these people. My face was an emotionless mask and they thought I was something other than human. It showed in that they never addressed me directly, but always as third person to Daniels. "Can he—," "Would you have him show us—." They were afraid to talk to me. Good.

  Then Daniels threw them a curve. He left, and they had to address me. I loosened up my demeanor, and took the questions as they came. They were very slow to start.

  Finally, the colonel I'd used as a dummy broke the silence. "Private? Jelling is it?" he asked. He needed a rank to place me in his world. "Jelling" was one of many cover names I'd use whenever identified publicly as Special Warfare and not a normal soldier.

  "Blazer, sir. All of us are addressed as Blazer. The idea is that lower echelon troops are not distinguished by rank so as not to question their capabilities. Any Blazer is suited for the task at hand. For the upper echelons, not using rank denies the enemy knowledge of who the actual team or squad leader is." I was taking a slight liberty; I was not a Blazer or Operative yet. I didn't think anyone would mind. And I'd never be IDed as an Operative in public.

  "I understand," he replied. "Can you tell us about your weapon? It's different than our issue, and I'd like to compare."

  He'd even picked a subject on which I was an expert. I could have kissed him. For the next few segs, they all stood slack-jawed as I gave the full, personally annotated lecture on individual weapons. I yanked back the bolts, dropped the clips, locked the receiver and passed my weapon, "Joseph," (after Joseph Merrill, the designer) over to him.

  I started to lecture: "The concept of the assault rifle dates back to World War Two, from 1939 to 1945, Earth calendar. During it, the Germans developed the Sturmgewehr 43 . . .

  "The Soviet Simonov and Kalashnikov designs proved effective, simple and popular . . .

  "Eugene Stoner's work on the AR series, AR-10, AR-15, AR-18 specifically, then showed . . .

  "The US Army battle lab speced and tested, in the early twenty-first century, a unified weapon combining both rifle and repeating grenade launcher. While flawed in many ways . . .

  "Most nations have gone to a design of electrically fired cartridges, however, we find that the mechanical system is only marginally less accurate, and less prone to failure in the field. Now, on to the M-5 Weapon, Soldiers, Individual . . ."

  After that, they no longer thought me a dumb grunt. I'd detailed historical facts that most of them could barely place in a time-line, and they nodded the polite nods of people who are out of their depths. Looking back, I wouldn't have made our capabilities known, but I presume it was an attempt to send a message. We were shown to them as a warning of what capabilities would be unleashed in a war. How sad it didn't work.

  We resumed mountain training, moving up to the high plateaus and glaciers. We didn't do much alpine skiing; we did do a lot of cross-country. We also trained with snowshoes, which are much harder to use than one would imagine, especially when humping a ruck. You have to swing your legs wider to avoid bumping your own ankles and take long steps. I much prefer skis. Actually, I much prefer snow skimmers. Actually, I prefer a warm hotel room with Deni's painted lips wrapped around . . .

  Well, never mind. All I could do was think about it, and it did keep me warm. That's rules one and two of both mountain and arctic survival: Stay warm and keep busy, both physically and mentally. Boredom and slow metabolism will kill you.

  Of course, Tom had comments about that. We dug and piled a snow shelter around our rucks, then crawled in with our cloaks. Body heat was the only way to stay warm.

  "Now, can you imagine if we had a woman in here—"

  "Yes, quite well, Tom. Goodnight." I didn't tell him which woman specifically I was thinking of.

  After that, we actually spent some time in the tropics. We'd covered jungle survival and cold ocean in Basic, but not warm water. What they gave us was basically a class rather than an activity, and then we got on with the matter at hand, which was dive training. You know: air tanks and snorkels.

  Actually, it's a lot more complicated than that. Space has one pressure: effective zero. Under water, the pressure goes up quickly as you go deeper. You must balance oxygen, CO2 and inert gas different ways for different depths. Mistakes there, as with everything we do, will kill you. We did deployments to colder waters, rivers, and even harbors. We swam for kilometers a day, and even "warm" water sucks the heat out of you. Choppy, rolling ocean waves are a bitch to swim through, effectively tripling the distance at least, worse if they're heavy.

  Don't rule diving out as archaic. All human planets have water. We can use that water to move about unseen. We'll use anything we can. We trained on vehicles, basic aircraft, maneuvering sleds and thruster harnesses in space, horses and camels, more parachuting, any way to insert you can think of and a few you can't.

  * * *

  We had yet another survival test after all that. This one had a difference—it was the "Practical Escape and Evasion Tactics Examination." All they told us was to expect anything. It was scheduled rather than sprung on us, so we knew it couldn't be that bad. At le
ast, we thought so. They had a lot of aircraft on hand, which made me wonder exactly what they had planned. I Found Out Soon Enough, as they say.

  I was prepped in a fashion I didn't like (which I'll come back to), driven across the flightline at the AirFac and stuffed onto a VC-3 Hummingbird, which has just enough room for six passengers. Four were already there, Yeoh and I were the other two. We lifted fast and headed north. On most recently settled planets, and at 200 Earth years, Grainne is recent, north is bad. On Grainne, north is even worse.

  So, we flew across the Hinterlands, all low scrub and rough ground with interglacial puddles and swamp, and I knew this was to be one hell of a test. I shortly found out just how sadistic the military could be. I was already wondering what the plan was, as the uniform I had been issued at prep had no laces, zips, mesh, or buttons. I'd had to hold it together with my hands as we boarded.

  The pilot slowed and hovered, then brought us down. Sergeant Yeoh grinned a sick grin at us, and said, "This is it. We'll drop you here. The test lasts up to ten days."

  He continued, "Now, pay attention. In one div, the rescue students will begin searching for you. Pilots, as soon as you are found, you will be pulled and pass."

  Then his grin turned downright vicious. "Operative, you must stay hidden for ten days. You must also keep the pilots hidden for ten days. If one of them escapes and is recovered, you fail, and you know what that means."

  God and Goddess. I didn't ask if he was serious. I knew he was. I thought furiously as the vertol dropped, touched, and the door popped. We were chivvied out and it started.

  First, I grabbed the nearest two pilots and smacked them senseless as the vertol powered away, blasting us with cold breeze and debris. I hobbled them with their flightsuits over their boots and tied the sleeves together as tight as I could manage. Then I took off after the other two. The first one wasn't that far away, but I was hindered by my clothes trying to fall off. I got close and kicked him in the shin hard enough for him to scream. I followed it with a stiff one to the guts and the scream turned to heaves. I pulled his sleeves down and lashed them to his right thigh. He wouldn't be going anywhere for a while. I ran the other way to catch the last one.

  He was a sneaky little bastard. He'd headed off at a sprint in the farthest orientation and had dropped low to crawl. Worse, he seemed to be fairly decent at evasion; I didn't see a trail to start with, and I had to find him soon before the others got free. There was a slight drag through the tall, spiky weeds, but it could be any animal, not just him.

  "I have a deal for you," I yelled. "Show yourself and I'll make sure it's a comfortable ten days. Stay hidden and I'll beat you when I find you, and for the duration. It makes no difference to me."

  No response. I hadn't expected one. I dashed out farther, and began a zigzag back toward the landing site. I figured he couldn't get past me, and would be easier to catch if he headed back in.

  There he was. Coarse grass was rolled over him from both sides, which was easily visible to me, but he had been in a hurry. I ran over and dove for him.

  He fought. He was good, too. I got nailed in the nose and the ribs, and it took a few seconds to beat him into submission. I hoisted him to his feet, twisted his arm into a hold he couldn't break, and marched him gasping back toward the others. I started with the one I'd crippled in the shin, and swiped laces to tie them back to back by their thumbs. Then I grabbed the other two, now struggling free, and repeated the procedure after thumping them again. Then back to the first pair. I was panting by the time I finished, and it must have looked ridiculous—one man with his pants falling off getting intimately close to lash four other people together.

  I dispensed with formal introductions, but did get their names as I worked. Shortly, I was wearing a flightsuit that fastened, the four of them weren't, and their hands were lashed behind them. Spaceboat Flight Engineer Plante was wearing my uniform, which was two sizes too big for her. Close Support Vertol Pilot McKay had her suit, far too snug on him, I wore his, and the other two (Spaceboat Navigator Sereno and Spaceboat Offensive Weapons Systems Operator Hickey) wore each other's. They couldn't go far like that, as their suits would either fall off and hobble them, or were too tight to allow good movement. None of them had bootlaces.

  But I had a deadline to keep to have them hidden. I had them restrained, now I had to cut the deal. I faced Rob McKay, who'd hid and fought me, and kneed his balls up into his throat four or five times. He collapsed and curled up, retching. "I offered you a deal and you refused. I'm a man of my word," I told him.

  "This can be as hard as you want it," I told them. My voice was raspy from exertion in the cold, dry air. "I plan to keep us hidden for ten days. If you go along with it, you'll be mostly comfortable. Mess with me and you'll get back half dead. Or all dead. I really don't care. I'll kill you if you look at me funny. Now, we walk toward that scrub over there," I said, indicating a low spot that had heavy growth, "heavy" being a relative term. It was about five kilometers, and the fact that I could see it that far away gives you an idea of the terrain.

  They walked sullenly through the stalky grass, stepping along as their boots flopped, almost falling off. I prodded them to urge a little eagerness and we made it to the depression. Step three.

  "I'll cut one of you loose to help build a shelter. Try to escape and you'll all be freezing and miserable tonight." I found a lone tree near a wet spot that would serve my purpose and lashed them to it with clothes and laces.

  They didn't fight too hard over that. I left McKay wrapped and used Sereno, supervising while holding a rock. I didn't really need it, but it was an authority symbol, and a primal one. We used reeds and grass and a few precious sticks to lash a lean-to together, and I turned to fetch the others from the knot I'd tied them in.

  Plante had been struggling, trying to break free from the trunk. She stared defiantly at me, until I grabbed her ankle and twisted it in a most unnatural direction. She grimaced, snorted breath through her nose and finally growled as she winced. I kept at it and twisted a bit more to make sure she got the hint. Then I put a stranglehold on her, watching her thrash in instinctive terror until she passed out. I threw her uniform open and left her like that for the night, shivering and cursing quietly. At least, quietly after we had a discussion of the risk noise posed for discovery.

  I stayed awake. I figured one complete day wouldn't hurt me much. Besides, I had things to do. I improved the camouflage slightly, although I didn't plan on staying long in one place. Then I gathered some twigs heavy enough to build a small fire, and tinder and kindling. Next, I expended a few thousand calories patiently scraping ignition compound from a rescue flare to get the fire started. Fire has a primal effect on people, and any camp becomes "Home" psychologically once there's flames. Cooked food was a luxury I could offer them that would dull their desire to leave. I'd make it better for them here than alone and that would make it easier for me. To that end, I had adequate material supplies, having liberated everything the pilots carried. That didn't, for training purposes, include any knives or weapons. A few segs with a flake of rock (damned hard to find) and a stick got me a frog spear. I found not only Earth frogs, dull and slow in the cold and easy to catch in the shallows, but a couple of pseudomanders and some tricky, skinny local frog analogs, the ones we call michigans. I have no idea why they are called that, as they never saw Michigan, which is in North America. They sing loudly, but shut up as soon as anyone comes close.

  They roasted nicely on the coals, and I mean on the coals. I kept the fire small and virtually invisible on sensors, I hoped. To further hide it, I had it under tall grass to break up the image, and doused it as soon as I was done. No, frogs don't taste like chicken. Similar, but that's because they are white meat. I ate enough to keep me going, peeling meat off bones with my teeth, and saved the legs. John Sereno and Pete Hickey woke up, and I let them dig into the rich, tough meat on the hind legs. McKay and Plante gave me murderous looks, but they'd struggled, so they didn't eat. Pu
nishment and reward was how I planned things. I could hear them coughing all night as the cold, now damp, settled into their lungs. They weren't any happier when I gave them their morning thumping, either. McKay got the gonad treatment, Plante got a boot in the belly until she screamed and dry-puked. They were somewhat mollified when I assured them that good behavior would get them dinner and no more beatings.

  After that it wasn't too hard. We all had diarrhea from waterborne parasites, of course. I kept us all fed adequately if not in gourmet fashion, and I released one of them at a time to help build shelters when we moved. I wanted to stay as far ahead of any trackers as possible, so as to delay the inevitable past the deadline. Fires were small and buried, dead brush was used as far as possible and we stayed bundled in our clothes for heat. By the end of ten days, we all stank and were only too grateful for the pickup. I'd wrung what information I could out of my captives and the instructors seemed satisfied. As soon as we debriefed, I was posted to Black Ops Team Three. Tom and I said goodbye and hugged. He was headed for Team One. Deni was posted with me to Team Three and would arrive later, after a stop at Small Arms Repair School.

  Chapter 3

  I arrived on base at Heilbrun feeling only slightly cocky. I knew I was the new guy, and knew they wouldn't let me forget it. Still, I was determined to make a good impression. I managed, but not in the fashion I intended.

  One of the huge advantages of SW is that we don't exist. I don't mean in the secretive sense, but in the hassle and admin sense. We aren't in chain of command for either the Combat Operations Battalions or the Base Battalions. We're "tenant units." This means no hassles in the pecking order, except that sometimes out of the blue, one of our officers will decide he's too old for ops and snag a regular command. This is done the way Operatives and Blazers usually do things—in a fast, brutal and unexpected fashion. A slot will open up, a bunch of aspiring officers will vie for it and, while they're congratulating themselves on their marvelous performances, an SW officer will magically appear in the desk. Next morning, the regulars find themselves reporting to a new commander, with no idea where he came from. Needless to say, this causes some friction.