Rage & Fury

by Darryl Hadfield

  “Shit, Smaj, that’s… razor sharp.”

  “Sure is. We’ll talk about that later, but for now, I have something I want you to practice – it’ll keep your mind off of being bored, and I don’t think you’ll master it quite so easily, or quite as fast, as a lot of other things.” He held out his hand and I reversed the knife, putting the hilt in his palm.

  Faster than my eye could track, he flicked his hand. I flinched, and looked over at the door, where his knife was quivering after embedding itself nearly an inch deep in the door. “Holy shit!”

  “Nah, just takes practice… now you try.”

  I pulled out mine, and tried to flick my hand like he did… the knife hit the door, sideways, and clattered to the ground. It sure was loud when it hit the door, which amplified the sound and reverberated in the room and out the now empty doorway.

  He gave me a few tips about different ways to throw it, and suggested I start closer to the door. By the time I was able to consistently get it to embed, point-first, there were a couple other guys taking turns with me, and we were bouncing ideas off of each other about it.

  Things were slow, and we ended up spending most of the rest of the afternoon messing with throwing knives, contemplating why we might want to throw and have the pommel (which had a glass-breaking point on it) hit instead of the point. The discussion deviated even further afield, and we got a short history lesson from one of the guys.

  “So, like, back when Portland got pasted in the 8 Day War, there was a company there called Gerber – that’s where these things were originally made. There was some racist who made a big deal about it and the company was given preferential treatment for government contracts – which is why they started getting this thing, “ and he waved his LMF III in the air, “into the Army and other units. There were other versions, ones that were a little different for each of the armed services, but when we transitioned to the Consolidated Army, they went with just the one – it’s actually what the Air Force used to use, minus some retarded little hook that was included. Now, it’s just the knife, with a few mods to address that little hook not being included, plus some other stuff, but I dunno what.”

  RSM Ballard came out right about then, and laughed… “Yeah, that hook was for cutting the straps on the aircrew’s seat restraints, and it was more than a little stupid – it’s why we have this wicked hook on the tail end, now.” He pointed to the indent near the glass breaker end, which apparently was meant to cut straps. “If you guys ever do jump school with the special forces training group, you’ll get training on how to use it.”

  He pointed outside. “There’s more to it, too. That arkscraper? What makes those things possible to build to retarded heights is the metal technology – a combination of titanium and a magnesium alloy – the magnesium alloy is so light it floats on water, and titanium is what most aircraft are made with. “ A bunch of us laughed in disbelief. “Yeah yeah, pipe down you apes. Anyway, Harry had it right – Gerber made a prior version of this before Portland got wasted, it was in use by the military services, but after, they got a ton of cash from those fuckwits in the government and they used it for R&D. End result, this stuff, and this blade. The deal was, any proceeds from R&D had to have a government use, and they flipped it back to the consolidated armed forces with a discounted price… which is why you fuckheads have such a great piece of gear.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “What the fuck are you rolling your eyes at, cockbreath?” Ballard was frowning at me. “You already know what kind of edge these things can hold, and I showed you what they can do, when used right.”

  “Serge… SMaj, it’s bulky. It feels like… a brick. It’s too big, doesn’t feel right.”

  “Oh, so it’s not a stylus, slim and short, like your dick?” Everyone else laughed, and I felt my face heat up.

  “No SMaj. Like this.” I drew Rage out of the sheath I’d mounted sideways on my belt. No-one had seen it – Colonel Bradburry had made it a “religious waiver” – and uhh.. yeah, it was, it was from a ‘holy’ shit moment in my life where it was the object of my salvation. Yeah, that’s it, it’s a RELIGIOUS item. Ballard knew I had it, but I’d never shown him or anyone else, and you could tell that he and others were more than a little impressed.

  “Kid, you don’t have any idea what you have there, do you?” He sounded almost accusatory. “I knew Bradburry had signed a religious waiver for you, but goddamn, that thing really is.”

  “I found it… before. Why?” He walked over and took it from me.

  “Years ago, LONG before the LMF3 was even an idea, was the LMF2 – it was designed for infantry. If you think this thing, “ and he waved his own blade, held between two fingers, “is bulky, THAT thing was a goddamn sledgehammer by comparison.

  “THIS, “ he exclaimed, holding Rage up so everyone could see, “came out about ten years after the LMF 2. It incorporates a lot of the same features, because they made sense – as they still do. It also had a few other features that might not necessarily apply today, but for it’s day, it was a hell of a knife. Blade only slightly longer than our LMF3’s, about the same profile, but the tang was notably thinner – but stronger than the LMF2. The LMF3 was, in fact, partly modeled after this, “ and he wobbled Rage, again, “baby. You are one lucky kid to have one of these – they stopped being available for sale less than three years after they were made, mostly because they were so goddamn expensive, for what they were designed for. Less than a thousand ever made, and they were HANDMADE in Europe – which was a big deal, back then, and they were made for the special forces teams of that era.”

  “I’ll bet all of you kids probably have no idea how much more you can do with your fighting blades – I know, since some of you came through basic either in my training companies, or in others that I was watching. Wolf! You mentioned earlier that the blade on my LMF3 was pretty sharp – that’s thanks to using the built-in sharpener on the sheath, but also because I strop it. Does anyone know what stropping is…”

  The discussion went on from there, and it was clear that Ballard had done a lot more in his past with knives than most of us ever would in the future. He was good with firearms – you had to be, to make it that far up in rank, since a core requirement of promotion had been drilled into us from our first week at Basic Training: You must know your tools, and you must be able to use them. Some promotions – like from recruit to Private, or to Private First Class, or Lieutenant to Captain - were automatic based on time. Beyond that, however, you had to be good, and it had to be very clear that you were good at your job – namely, defending, attacking, and/or killing the enemy. We weren’t always in declared conflicts as a nation, but we had a pretty long history of deploying to Areas of Responsibility (AORs) that needed an armed presence to calm down – kind of like we were doing, here. Apparently there used to be a law – Posse Comitatus – that meant the military couldn’t be used for domestic disturbances. That had changed after 2062, and now we were called in anytime the local police were no longer able to handle whatever the disturbance was.

  Long story short, things calmed down – as they inevitably did, anytime the military was called in. Despite the mild protests against being called all kinds of nasty names by the civilian populace, we actually lived up to the names, and those not in arkscrapers knew not to fuck with us.

  The patrol went cleanly the next day, and for a while, I was told to report back to Lieutenant Bloggins, who had me filling in for a Corporal who’d been hospitalized as as result of a minor riot force that the platoon had been front and center of. Poor guy took a baseball bat to the head, and didn’t lean into it – and took the brunt of the force directly against his skull instead of against his kevlar.

  It wasn’t much of a surprise, since the rest of the squad were all privates, and I was a PFC.

  The surprise, though, was that when we finally returned to garrison in Ohio, nearly nine months later, I celebrated my birthday and got a pleasant surprise.

  02 APR
2094

  In Re:Private Wolf

  S/N 20690401142857

  Subject soldier promoted from E2 rank to E3 rank, effective 2 April 2134.

  …

  I guess those patrols weren’t just to keep me from being bored – or, at least, that wasn’t the outcome, when all was said and done.

  The orderly – Corporal Satish – smiled as he handed me the paperwork. “Congrats, Corporal… Welcome to the club – that is, you DO know there’s a club, right?”

  “Uhh.. I know I’m technically an NCO now, but I sure don’t feel like it.”

  “Oh, you will. Before you hit the local bars tonight and start drinking that extra pay, come over to the Junior NCO club.”

  So, I did. Imagine my surprise when it wasn’t only other Junior NCOs there – There were Senior NCOs as well. Not all NCOs were there, however… Everyone was enjoying themselves and chatting back and forth.

  I walked in, and the crowd cheered.. And Sergeant Major Ballard came up to me.

  “Uh, Sergea-“

  “NO RANK IN THE MESS! Kid, you’re gonna hafta start tuning into how things work in the real world, I swear…” He was grinning, though, and not unkindly. “In here, I’m Sean. Come with me, James.”

  Chapter 16: Tidying up.

  He rounded up a few other guys in the area by eye, nodding his head towards the back of the room. Opening the door to a darkened private event area, he walked in and stood at one of the larger high-top tables towards the back of the room.

  The dozen or so guys that had followed us – ranging from Private all the way up to the RSM - stood around a table. I wasn’t sure what to do, so… I just went along with it.

  Ballard took a small candle and a lighter out of a pocket, and lit the candle. Then he pulled a small flask out of his pocket, and put it on the table in front of him.

  Everyone at that point pulled out their issued fighting knives – well, most of them did. A few others, like Satish, had other edged weapons with them. Satish, a Sikh, had a wicked looking blade that I later learned was called a “Kirpan.” Ballard had pulled a massive knife, damn near a sword, out of somewhere – a Bowie. Most of the guys had their LMF3’s with them – and I had pulled Rage out of my belt sheath.

  All of the knives were laid on the table, pointed roughly toward the center.

  Ballard lit the candle and set it in front of him, stroking his hand across the flame towards his Bowie. He nudged it along the table to the guy on his left, who again, left it on the table, but stroked his hand several times through the flame as if to draw smoke towards them.

  I wasn’t sure what the hell this was, but I knew I didn’t want to embarrass anyone, or myself – so when it came to me, I did likewise, and pushed the candle to the next soldier.

  When it returned to the Sergeant Major, he pushed it towards the center of the table. Then he unscrewed the flask, and dripped a drop or two of whatever it was – I later learned it was Irish Whiskey, Jameson to be exact – onto his blade, and again, passed it to his left.

  This was…. Weird. Different. I can’t say that it was uncomfortable, though. The faces of all of the soldiers around me, dimly lit by the candle in front of us all, were thoughtful.

  When the flask got back to Ballard, he capped it and set it down on it’s side.

  Next, he pulled out a bottle of lubricant, the same stuff we used to oil our primary weapons, and sprinkled some on a cloth he pulled out of his collar, and, once again, passed it to his left. He didn’t pass the cloth, though, just the little tube of lubricant. Each person, as the gun oil came to them, pulled out a cloth out from near or on the collar of their uniform. I didn’t have anything, and when it came to me, I shrugged slightly, looking at Ballard. He pulled a small folded bundle out of his pocket, and passed it to his right, this time – which meant it took a longer time to get to me. When it did, I went to pass it, and then noticed Ballard shaking his head.

  I realized, then, and opened it. It was a microfiber cloth, the sort people use to clean personal optics, but this one was different – it was a dark gray – almost the same gray as our uniforms, and it had embroidery in the same color of thread on it – a snake, with words below it: DON’T TREAD ON ME.

  I sprinkled some of the lube on it and passed the tube on. When it got back to Ballard, it too was capped and put onto its side.

  Everyone picked up their knives at that point, with their right hand, and holding the cloth and lubricant in their left hand, cleaned the alcohol off the blades, oiling them at the same time. I wiped off the whiskey and looked around, watching to see what everyone else was doing. As each person finished wiping their blades, the cloths – which appeared to all be the same – were shoved under each person’s collar, or inside their uniform top.

  Ballard started speaking and everyone joined in.

  “Our Blades, Our Bodies, Our Souls – for God, Goddess, and Freedom.”

  Everyone passed the blades across their palms towards their fingertips, as if cutting off a part of themselves, and then sheathed the weapons.

  No other words were spoken, and I felt like I’d just witnessed something very important, and very secret. Everyone stood, and filed out single file, to the next room where everyone else was still laughing and drinking. Ballard pulled me aside before I could walk out of the room.

  “Come see me tomorrow, and we’ll talk about this. I think you either understand already, or you will, with just a little bit of encouragement, but I already know you have the basics.”

  “um…. Okay, Serg… Sean.”

  I walked into the bar area of the mess… and got another cheer. I got playfully jostled and shoved to the bar, with lots of congratulations and well wishes offered to me, for the promotion. When I got to the bar, the bartender had a Rum and Coke waiting for me – and pushed it across the bar. When I got out my ID to deduct it from my bank account, he laughed… “No, you don’t need to use that tonight, you got promoted!” Hot damn – free drinks? I wasn’t a huge drunk, but still.. I enjoyed myself.

  Fuckheads didn’t tell me the bar tab comes out of the pay of the person who’s been promoted, automatically.

  I spent the weekend relaxing, knowing that I had to finish in-processing back into base the next week.

  Monday afternoon, I went to see the Regimental Sergeant Major.

  I knocked on the open door – I could already see Ballard sitting down at his desk, working on paperwork. “Pri.. Corporal Wolf, Reporting as ordered!” Damn, I was going to have to get used to that.

  “At ease, and wait one, Corporal.” Okiedokie. He finished writing something, and then stood up, grabbed his cap, and walked past. “On me.” I followed him down the hall, and out the door. “Get in,” he said, as he walked to his personal vehicle – oddly enough, it reminded me of the Jeeps we’d refurbished in the Bronx, years and years ago. His was similar, even to the point of not having any electronics inside.

  “Got your civilian comm with you, Corporal?”

  “No, Sergeant major, I wasn’t expecting to be anywhere out of range.” I realized he’d driven us out the front gate and off the base, headed north.

  “Good. I left mine in the office; we’re going to have a little chat. Don’t expect many like this, since I’m busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest, getting ready for our next deployment.”

  That was interesting. I hadn’t heard anything yet, but it sounded like maybe that’s why we were heading north towards I-75, no top on the jeep, and no comms connectivity to sweet fuck all.

  “The Oath of Blades tends to be a little unnerving for most people who aren’t expecting it, James, and I’m pretty sure you have some questions about it. I’ll give you about an hour; that’s about how long it should take before we get back to base.”

  Wow, that wasn’t at all what I was expecting… in fact, I’d mostly forgotten about it. Now that he mentioned it, though… “Smaj, what is it? I’m no civvie, but I’m not a noob either. I’ve never heard of it before.”

/>   He kept his eyes on the road, not saying anything at first. “Do you remember the words we said? The only words we said, in that room?”

  “Yeah, something about god and goddess and liberty.”

  “That’s part of it. It was, ‘Our Blades, Our Bodies, Our Souls, for God, Goddess, and Freedom.’ The words aren’t in any textbook anywhere you’d ever have read them – and for god damned sure not in any textbook any of the Arkie kids would have read them. You obviously get that I like knives. I’m sure you do, too, that pretty little pigsticker of yours is never very far from you – and I’m pretty sure that there’s precisely zero religious bullshit in it for you, regardless of what Colonel Bradburry put in that bullshit waiver he gave me.”

  “Ummm… no, Smaj, not really.”

  “Spit it out James. Not to Smaj, but to Sean. Take the opportunity; you won’t get it again.”