by John Ringo
“What I want to know is where all this stuff is coming from,” Sergeant First Class Abe Sanders said. The Ops Sergeant from Second Batt was medium all over. Medium height, weight, build. He had brown hair and brown eyes and regular features. He also had a mind like a steel trap. He’d gotten out as a master sergeant, NCOIC for 20th Corps Operations and had spent most of his time in the Army in one Ops shop or another. “Not knocking it, but that’s one hell of a lot of equipment if you start extrapolating.”
“Fleet Strike put some Panamanian guy in charge of a War Board,” Major Hatch replied. “He’s using Posleen forges to produce stuff and Indowy for the bigger stuff. But not their usual way of building. It’s full up mass production. With enough Indowy and Posleen forges… ”
“What I don’t see is ranges,” Cutprice said.
“I’m sure there around here, somewhere,” Hatch replied.
As the road curved back north they could see more construction up on the hills overlooking the Meramec River. There was a big three-story pre-fab structure going up with smaller buildings stretching down the hill. Down the hill from it were a series of construction trailers inside another fence. From the look of it, the fence had been neglected recently. The gates were hanging off their hinges. But there was a parking lot and a sign:
Camp Ernest Pappas Central Office
Borgon-Cummings Construction Offices
Office of Military Liaison
Ask about Employment Opportunities!
Se Habla Español!
“Something funny, Sergeant Major?” Major Hatch asked as the foursome got out of the SUV.
“Sorry, sir,” Stiffey said, still chuckling. “Just thinking about the likelihood of somebody walking all the way the fuck out here to apply for a job.”
“One thing we ain’t gonna have to worrry about is fights in town,” Cutprice said, grinning. “’Course, that just means we’ll have them on post instead.”
The left-hand trailer had the sign for Office of Military Liaison. Hatch led the way as they entered.
“Sir,” the lieutenant behind the desk said, standing up. “Welcome to Camp Ernest Pappas. I was told to expect an advance party but I hadn’t expected you so soon.”
“We’ve got a very tight schedule,” the major said. “We’ve got about eight hundred hundred officers and NCOs coming in this week. I hope you’ve got rooms for us all.”
“We can find them, sir,” the lieutenant said. “The actual quarters that the cadre are supposed to fill are not entirely complete. But we have barracks prepared that we can put the cadre in until officer and NCO quarters are complete. I’m not sure, though, that all the barracks will be complete when the troops arrive. This is the craziest schedule I’ve ever seen, sir. Not that I’ve been at this long.”
“Why don’t I tell you what we need to know,” Major Hatch said. “Then you can tell us where to find the information.”
“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant said. “Whatever I can do to assist.”
* * *
“You know, somewhere there’s some dude in charge of making sure everybody has a bed to sleep in,” Sergeant Major Stiffey said, looking at the just completed barracks. They were a shambles to a military man. There was still dust everywhere from the construction, parts weren’t fitted properly, there was paint on the windows…
But that was what troops were for.
“It is sorely lacking in bunks,” Sergeant Sanders said, nodding. He walked down the open bay to the end and looked in the bathroom area. “But there’s shitters and showers.” There was a sound of running water and he came back out. “And, more importantly, they work.”
“Now if we only had bunks, it would be like home.”
* * *
“We were supposed to get an additional crew for moving furniture and other small items,” the lieutenant said, pulling out a memo. “But there’s a shortage of labor. I’ve got it all, it’s in trailers that got dropped at one of the log points. That’s assuming a bunch of hasn’t been stolen, but I’ve been doing random checks and most of it’s there. But I don’t have a way to move it into place.”
“It was a question of priorities,” Bill Hammond said. The Site Manager for Borgon-Cummings shrugged. “Did you want roofs over your heads or beds? For that matter, none of the furniture in the messes has been moved in or the clubs. Or the offices. It’s all here, it’s just not in place.”
“We’ll handle it,” Hatch said, nodding. “One way or another. The most important thing is to have barracks and messes for the troops when they arrive.”
“We should make it,” Hammond said. “We’re about three days behind schedule — there were rains that slowed us way the fuck down — but we should make it before the troops arrive. I’m not going to say that there won’t be problems, but we’ll deal with those when we have to. But there should be roofs that don’t leak and four walls. Probably working electric and plumbing. Furniture? Computer set-up? I just don’t have the fucking hands.”
“We’ll set up the in-process for the troops so that… ”
He paused as his Buckley began to chime.
“Sorry about this,” Hatch said, looking at the device. “It’s the Regimental S-3. Yes, sir? Yes, sir.” He set the Buckley down and hit the speaker button. “Go ahead, sir.”
“You guys all there?” Lieutenant Colonel Hardy asked.
“Myself and Captain Cutprice, sir,” Hatch said. “The NCOs are checking out the facilities.”
“Good enough,” Hardy said. “You know what a cluster fuck this is. There is, however, finally some good news.”
“That would be nice, sir,” Cutprice said, frowning.
“We just got additional information on the supplemental personnel roster,” Hardy said, a grin in his voice. “We are not the only guys getting fucked… ”
* * *
“All juvs?” CSM Stiffey said, his eyes gleaming.
“All juvs,” Cutprice agreed, nodding. “That’s why they figure we can stand-up a regiment so fast. All juvs, all with experience as the positions they’re taking, all from higher ranks. The privates are going to be former sergeants, some of the sergeants are going to be officers with prior service as enlisted. It’s not true, you can’t make a unit that fast. But it’s better than getting troops straight out of Basic.”
“Volunteers?” Abe asked. “Because it’s a world of difference between that and unwilling recalls.”
“All volunteers,” Cutprice said.
“And volunteers that are willing to take a cut in pay to get back in uniform,” Stiffey said, nodding. “They’ll probably do.”
“They’re going to be out of shape,” Sergeant Sanders said.
“We can fix that,” CSM Stiffey said. “Although running off-base may be interesting.”
“They’re going to have forgotten most of the skills,” Sanders said, still frowning.
“It’s like riding a bicycle,” Cutprice said. “Former platoon sergeants as buck privates. Think about it.”
“They’re going to want to tell us our jobs,” Sanders said. “Old soldiers, Captain.”
“Older soldiers, sergeant,” Cutprice said, grinning.
“There’s bound to be problems, sir.”
“Sergeant, we’re lifting off-world to fight an invading force that outnumbers us, has better technology and has overrun three worlds with laughable ease. In seven and a half weeks. Starting from scratch. Everybody’s trained soldiers but not trained on this equipment. You betcha there’s gonna be problems.”
* * *
“Wow! I have an office,” Colonel Pennington said, gesturing at the empty room.
The office smelled of new paint and there was dust everywhere. But it had a great view across the Meramec. On the far side he could see laborers setting up a pop-up target range. He’d better get along with the troops. If anybody wanted to, and they were a good enough shot, they could nail him in the back of the head while he was at his desk.
“Yes, sir,” Major Hatch repl
ied. “And your furniture is sitting in the trailer out front. Somewhere.”
“Wellll… let’s go find it. Actually, the first thing to find is the cleaning supplies.”
* * *
“Sorry I’m late, sir,” Staff Sergeant Garland said. The Brigade Information Systems NCOIC was covered in dust. “I had to re-run some cable then pull a buggy server… ”
There were no regular troops for a working party. The officers and NCOs of the various units had worked in teams to set up those same offices. Colonel Pennington had not even ended up putting in his own desk. All that being said, the former Command Sergeant Majors of high positions, Army generals, commanders of corps and divisions, had had a high old time working into the night on a good old-fashioned GI party. As the Regimental Adjutant had said at one point: “It’s good to get your hands dirty from time to time.” And then they’d gotten up early the next morning to discover what new disaster had hit.
“Not a problem, Sergeant,” Colonel Pennington said, not looking up. “I’m on the non-secure server. I need to get my password and username for the secure side, through.”
“Right here, sir,” the sergeant replied, handing over a form. “Glad you’re comfortable with the systems, sir. I’m having to do a bit of hand-holding.”
“Know what I did between wars, Sergeant?”
“No, sir.”
“I was a systems design manager for Cisco. Made VP of systems integration before I got recalled. I’ve got a PhD in this shit.”
“Holy shit,” the sergeant said. “Sorry, sir. Damnit. I knew your name was familiar, sir. I worked for you for a few years.”
“If I have a scrap of time and you need a hand, don’t hesitate to ask… ”
* * *
“Herschel Keren,” Keren said as he sat down. He’d stored his civvie bag in the overhead and now held out his hand to his seatmate.
“David Balmoral,” the guy said. He was slight of stature, like Keren, but with white blond hair and looked about fourteen. “Thirty-Third Division.”
“I was in the Thirty-Third,” Keren said, grimacing. “At Daleville.”
“I hard that was a cluster fuck,” Balmoral said, nodding. “I joined when it was rebuilding. You get out in it?”
“No,” Keren said. “Ten Thousand.”
“Fuck,” Balmoral said, chuckling. “You really love punishment, don’t you?”
“And now this,” Keren said as the bus pulled out. The volunteer recallees had been assembled at Ft. Bragg, which had been rebuilt since the war, then flown by military shuttles to an assembly area near St. Louis. Which told Keren that the base they were headed for didn’t even have a place to set down a shuttle.
“Yeah,” Balmoral said. “You gotta fucking wonder about us. I mean, sure, putting the uniform back on’s one thing. But taking a cut from platoon sergeant to spear carrier?”
“Heh,” Keren said, fingering his left breast where a certain patch used to reside. “Try taking a cut from captain to sergeant.”
They didn’t chat much on the rest of the drive. There wasn’t much to chat about. Keren caught up on his email.
The road turned to gravel as they turned off what was probably an old interstate trace. The Posleen pulled up roads like nobody’s business, but they generally left the road metal in place. By the time humanity got around to rebuilding the roads way out in Posleen controlled areas, they’d started to develop decent sized saplings. But with the road metal in place, it was easy enough to grade them off, replace some bridges and lay down either more gravel or black-top.
They were on the gravel road, though, for over an hour. This place had been dumped way out in the boonies.
The convoy of buses was accompnied by a pair of gun carriers, which said it all about the area they were passing through. There was an occasional bounty farm, none of them looking as prosperous as the ones around Keren Town. This was serious Wild West shit. It got Keren feeling nostalgic.
“Tried bounty-farming for a while,” Balmoral said. “Was not for me. Too much like work. You?”
“Yeah,” Keren said. “Did it for a while.”
“What do you do now?”
“Pretty much retired,” Keren replied. “But I’ll admit I was getting bored.”
“I managed a hobby shop,” Balmoral said. “And, yeah, I was bored. And the pay was less than joining back up. Even as a private. Thank God we’re on Fleet Strike rates.”
Finally they passed some ranges where laborers with armed security were setting up the facilities. Crossed a bridge, turned around a hill and entered a security gate. The camp was, clearly, still under construction. But it was wired in so the ferals would stay out.
Their bus pulled up in front of a cluster of five two story buildings. There was a single individual waiting for the bus with a spread-out formation behind him.
“Fall out of the busses and form on me,” the man said through a megaphone.
As the group formed in a semi-circle around him, the man smiled. Keren smiled, too. The Sergeant Major hadn’t spotted him, yet, but with Wacleva here…
“Welcome to Bravo Company, First Battalion, Fourteenth Regimental Combat Team. My name is Ser… First Sergeant Stanislav Wacleva. You will not address me as Top or First. You will address me as First Sergeant Wacleva. You are all old soldiers who have taken a reduction in rank to reenlist. This is admirable. I’m practically crying I’m so worked up. You all know how the game is played, you all probably have a program you intend to enact. You’ve got your plans on how you’re going to ghost through being privates until you can get back to your real rank.
“Be aware that I and every other member of the cadre of the Fourteenth Regiment are also old soldiers who have taken a reduction in rank. Some of us not quite so voluntary. Your brigade commander, Colonel Tobias Pennington, was an Army commander in California during the Posleen Scuffle. Your battalion commander led a corps. In the case of myself, your First Sergeant, I was a member of the Polish Airborne in World War Two and dropped at Arnhem. Since then I have been in just about every war the United States has fought on five continents. I retired the first time as Brigade Sergeant Major of Third Brigade 82nd Airborne. Before that I’d held that post as well as Division Sergeant Major and 18th Corps Sergeant Major for nearly twenty years. The second time I retired as the Sergeant Major of the Ten Thousand. So if any of you yardbirds think you’re more old-soldier than me, you can just bring it on!”
The First Sergeant looked around the formation, searching for a challenge. Keren considered ducking but figured that it was pointless. It wasn’t like the First Sergeant wasn’t going to find out he was in the unit sooner or later.
When Wacleva’s gimlet eye hit the café au lait complexion it was the first crack in his stern complexion. He blinked in obvious puzzlement, trying to place the face, then in surprise.
“Captain Keren? What the fuck are you doing in this group, if you’ll pardon my French, sir?”
“That would be Sergeant Keren, First Sergant,” Keren said, grinning. “I’m one of your mortar maggots.”
“Well ain’t that some shit,” Wacleva said, shaking his head. “To continue. Your company commander, who some of you might see in passing in the next few weeks, is Captain Thomas Cutprice. Like myself and at least one of you, he is a veteran of the Six Hundred. We are all old soldiers here. We are all old soldiers who understand that being the best you can possibly be is the only way that we’re going to survive this new war. For your general information, in just seven weeks, we are shipping out for Gratoola which in the direct path of this newest enemy.”
He waited for the expected murmurring and gave it a few seconds.
“At ease. Between now and then, we are going to have to get everyone in-processed, get these fucked up barracks straightened out, get you all in uniforms, weapons and gear, reacquire your skills, train you on the new systems, kill the skills you had that are wrong, prepare for movement and ship out. Every one of you have some conception of just what a
cluster fuck this could be. The way to prevent it from being a cluster fuck is for every one of you to act in the most expeditious way possible at every task you are assigned. What is asked of us is impossible. But this is all old stuff to us. Which is exactly why we are going to do it.”
* * *
“What are you here for?” Wacleva shouted as the group circled him. The company was trotting in a circle, lifting and lowering weights.
“TRAINING, FIRST SERGEANT!”
“What kind of training?” the NCO shouted.
“HA-A-A-RMY TRAINING, FIRST SERGEANT!”
The group was performing PT on two hour’s sleep. First they’d unloaded all the cleaning supplies stored in the tractor trailers. Then they’d GI’d the barracks, supply building, armory, company headquarters and messhall. They’d policed the company area and picked up all the trash the construction crew had left behind. They’d scraped away the paint from the windows. They’d fixed the mis-emplaced electrical sockets.
Only then did they start moving in the furniture. First for the company areas, offices, supply and armory, then for their individual barracks. Then they’d cleaned up the mess they made moving furniture.
Then came issue. New uniforms, none of which fit, new boots which fit a bit better. PT gear and running shoes since it was the New Army. All of it then had to be put away to standard. Haircuts were simple buzz cuts; there were no barbers to tend to that and nobody really cared about hair. Then clean up the mess from issue and barbering. They were starting to look like soldiers again. Hell, they were starting to look like teenaged recruits for all that most of them were pushing eighty.
When they were done, at two thirty in the morning, they were permitted to sleep.