In the Valley

by Jason Lambright

  “Two-Three, I see yellow smoke…red smoke…Which one is you?” The colonel sounded a little perturbed.

  Paul, being a good soldier, really didn’t like to confuse his commander. “Yeah, Five, those are both me. Long story—thought I had a dud.” It sounded lame, but it was oh so true.

  “Two-Three, I have a positive visual on you from here. Be advised: looks like some locals are moving up on your position, and Bashir has moved into the village. My guidance is to get him out of the village. That is the job of the provincial police! And tell those locals to scram.”

  Paul was having trouble seeing through all the damn smoke that he had just created. What locals? And what the hell was Bashir doing? He was getting excited again. Paul took a deep breath and forced himself to concentrate on one thing at a time.

  Remember your priorities of work, he told himself. The first priority of work was to “Establish Local Security,” and right now he wasn’t convinced he had it. Where was this group of locals coming up on him? They had to be a pretty ballsy group to roll up on the guys who had just taken over their village and shot the place up.

  Aha! Looking around some more, Paul spied a group of six old men in their funny man-dresses coming up on the other side of his yellow-red smoke when a breeze shifted the billowing cloud. He brought his M-74 up to cover them and was rewarded with an instant, vivid memory of a man tumbling to the ground under his red aiming chevron. He blinked back to the present and carefully eased his finger off the trigger. Paul called out in the local language, translated through his halo, “What the fuck do you assholes want?” (or the equivalent in Juneau-Farsi).

  The men put their hands in plain sight when they saw the barrel of his rifle covering them. Unlike the inhabitants of Roodeschool 5, however, they did not flinch. These were tough hombres, no doubt. One of the dress dudes replied, “We are here to claim our dead and wounded.”

  Paul pegged the guy as the village headman. His eyes were like little pieces of obsidian, dark and glinting. These villagers were an efficient bunch. Paul thought they must have had lots of practice.

  “Will you let us have them?”

  Paul thought about it. Bashir’s men had stripped the dead guys; there was no more intelligence gathering to be done with them. The wounded, however, were not open to negotiation. They still had value. Besides, it would be a waste of the force’s resources. Z-man had done a tremendous job on them, laboring like a machine to staunch the blood coming from the gaping holes in their bodies. Paul yelled back to them, “The dead you may have; the wounded are ours. Come and get them, but do not come close.”

  The men did as Paul instructed. They surrounded the first dead guy and lifted him up, two guys to a side. Then they walked away, staggering under their leaking burden. The headman supervised and shot a murder-glance at Paul.

  A murder-glance was something you had to experience to know what it was. This asshole was shooting one at Paul. Paul smiled back and patted his M-74. The asshole looked away, but Paul knew that the hate was in his heart.

  As the cleanup crew exited stage left, Paul was struck by the ease and casualness of the departing villagers; their actions bore the signs of familiarity with the task. Then he shifted his attention to Bashir’s disappearance into Pashto Khel with a gang of his boys.

  Who knows, Paul thought, maybe Bashir is just following instructions and getting his men out of the town. Yeah, he thought, and maybe pigs will fly out of my ass on this glorious day. Movement attracted Paul’s attention by the village wall. Right on cue, a group of provincial police was walking toward him. Sweet, he thought, now I can dump my prisoners and chase after Bashir—one problem solved. Paul’s gut clenched, however, at what he might find in the village. Walking toward the yelling and the cheery-sounding pops of gunfire didn’t strike him as a lot of fun. But it was his duty.

  One would think that human societies and their militaries would have evolved past the brutalizing experience that is basic training for the combat-arms soldier. To Paul’s unpleasant and undying surprise, society and basic training had not moved on.

  He had a new halo—the recruit halo. The damn thing only showed approved icons. It spied on him wherever he went. And worse, there were no portals to access porn. In short, Paul was in hell. His recruit halo blared the sound of trashcans being spilled over into his auditory nerves, and his drill instructor’s ugly face popped up in his central icons, oversized and apparently in his face.

  It irritated Paul that something as trivial as icon location had to be done the forces way, too. He preferred that they be lined up on the left, not in the middle of his view—the view that now held his assistant drill instructor, a prick named Staff Sergeant Garlock. Paul secretly admired and tried to emulate him, but not at that moment.

  “You bitches, get the fuck out of your cozy racks—on your feet!” Garlock’s icon screamed.

  Paul’s eyes popped open; his legs swung off the edge of the plastic, indelibly stained rack. His torso, with head attached, snapped upright. In two seconds, wide awake, he was out of bed and standing on the edge of a polished “death strip”—a meter-wide strip of polished plastic. No force recruit was allowed to defile it with his feet.

  That mistake had been made earlier, and everyone had been harshly punished. No one had stepped on it in weeks. There was nothing like rolling around and doing calisthenics in a sand pit in the middle of the night for perceived infractions. Such exercise tended to sharpen the senses and strengthen the body—and keep people’s damn feet off the death strip.

  In classic form, the recruits’ beds touched the edge of the mirror-smooth strip. Their meager possessions were open to instant inspection by the training cadre. Of course, the cadre didn’t have to be present for inspections; they could review the state of a recruit’s gear by toggling his halo and seeing it through the aspiring and woefully inadequate recruit’s eyes.

  Twelve weeks of misery had strengthened, quickened, and brutalized Paul into a soldier-shaped mold. Basic had been everything Paul had imagined and read about, and then some. However, much like losing one’s virginity, a person had to go through basic to know how bad it sucked.

  But today was different. Today was the Big Day, the day they officially became force infantry. In a fancy ceremony, the recruits would become soldiers and infantrymen. Their drill instructors would officially pin the crossed rifles of the infantry on their dress browns. With new respect, their drill instructors would congratulate each one of them and welcome the recruits into the brotherhood. They would shine and admire each other’s new and improved soldierly look.

  Or so they thought.

  Paul stood there shivering in his underwear and wondered what the fuck was going on. This was just like the so-called red phase, when each and every day and hour was filled with horrible, demeaning punishments and brutal training lessons—lessons such as “Don’t Step on the Death Strip.”

  From what he had heard, they would be treated like gentlemen after completing infantry basic. After all, just yesterday they had completed the final march and graduation exercise of their training. The graduation gut check had been a twenty-kilometer timed hike in full kit with a deliberate attack at the end. There were three little treats during the walk: a hasty ambush and then near and far ambushes. There was lots of movement.

  So much misery could be packed into that one word—movement. Paul hated to look at a training schedule and see something like “movement to the field” or “movement to chow.” Poorly executed “movements” tended to be accompanied by more calisthenics, strengthening exercises, and frank encouragement by their instructor cadre. Movement.

  In short, the final exercise had been a bad experience. When Paul had completed the field problem and culminating event, however, he felt like he had really accomplished something. He felt like a man among men (and some girls).

  But standing there by the head of his bunk in his underwear, he felt like a bitch.

  Braced at the position of “attention,” he saw
his chief drill instructor, an icy woman named Sergeant First Henderson, parading in front of them with scorn-filled eyes. She looked each recruit up and down while walking the death strip down the ranks, thirty men to a side, sixty total. She was carrying a cheap cardboard box.

  Paul’s halo popped with a new icon. It looked like a cheesy certificate. Underneath it was another icon labeled MOVEMENT ORDERS.

  Henderson turned and spoke as she reached the end of the strip.

  “I hate each and every one of you fuckers,” she ground out.

  Sergeant First Henderson hefted the cardboard box and heaved it down the center of the strip. Small pieces of glittery metal crashed everywhere when the box crashed down. They were the crossed rifles insignia! Where was the pinning ceremony, the show of pride and dignity for the forces’ newest infantrymen?

  With dawning awareness, Paul realized this was the ceremony. It was like the cherry on the sundae that was basic.

  “Here’s your fucking insignia, assholes! Welcome to the infantry!” Without another word, Sergeant First Henderson left the building.

  One recruit started to cry. Everyone ripped on him and called him a pussy while they picked up their insignia off the floor. The recruits had made it.

  That afternoon, in accordance with his orders, Paul left for Fort Sill in Lawton, Oklahoma. It was time for advanced infantry training, otherwise known as “Suit School.” But at least he was still on Terra Firma.

  Paul was cleaning his rifle, eyeballing a reluctant Z-man cleaning his own piece, when the colonel walked up.

  “Hey, Paul, let’s go to a meeting. And by the way, leave your halo here; we’re not going to need them.” Paul raised his eyebrow and looked at the colonel. The colonel just made an exasperated noise and a come-on gesture.

  So Paul did a quick reassembly on his rifle, placed it on his rack, and stood up. First, though, he felt at his hip for his pistol. Yup, there it was. The M-3a1 was loaded with fifteen rounds of caseless 9.5 mm, and the safety was on. Inside the perimeter, that’s all he should need, in theory. You never went anywhere unarmed, ever, on Juneau 3. He hurried a little to catch the colonel.

  “What’s up, sir?” This couldn’t be just any old bullshit; the colonel wasn’t one for show.

  “Commander Mohammed is in Pashto Khel, and we’re going to go get him.”

  A jolt of adrenaline surged through Paul at the colonel’s words. A trip to meet up with Commander Mohammed, the local shithead-and warlord-in-chief, could only mean one thing—combat.

  Paul often thought that combat was the ugliest word in the English language. When he thought of that sour word, he thought of a woman falling down a set of stairs. He thought about an antiarmor round detonating right next to his suit. He saw his medic’s eyes narrowed in fear. Combat wasn’t just a word; it was a state of mind.

  Combat—so much to look forward to. He had a headache.

  “Great,” Paul said. “Where’s Green at? Is he in on this?” Life without a halo was tough. Paul would have known the answer to his question already if he had his on. The colonel gave him an answer instead.

  “Yeah, he’s waiting for us in Fasi’s tent. Only Fasi and the company commanders are going to be in on this. You know how it goes when all the June-bugs know what we’re doing.”

  Damn straight, thought Paul. Intel and operational security were porous concepts when working with the Juneau 3 Army. If you told any of them anything, you could bet it would go straight to one of their relatives or friends, and then you could forget all about any kind of secrecy. Or worse yet, you’d walk into an ambush. As anyone who has been in combat will tell you, it’s always better to give than to receive. The situation was starting to look as if this time Third Battalion would be the givers. Well, thought Paul, this is a start in the right direction.

  Colonel Fasi, like the advisors, had his tent pitched down on the flat step of Firebase Atarab. It was dead ahead, a dirty white tarp.

  Monkey-Boy, one of Mighty Mike’s Juneau Army soldiers, walked by and waved to Paul. He wore a childish grin on his gawky, swarthy face. Paul had seen Monkey-Boy lift a 150-liter barrel of water once, unassisted, like it was a joke. The Monkey might not be the smartest guy in the world, but he was ungodly strong. Maybe next time Paul had to do suit maintenance, he’d whistle him up.

  Paul waved back to him and then stepped into the tent with the colonel. His eyes took a second to adjust to the dim light in the tent. Damn the necessity, Paul thought. Life was just easier with the halo; there would have been no transition from the blinding white sun outside to the dark interior of the tent. Once his eyes adjusted, Paul spotted Green sitting on a cot in the tent. He was discussing something earnestly with Captain Bashir, Paul’s sidekick.

  Colonel Fasi spotted the colonel, who had come in after Paul. He stood and shook his hand.

  “My friend, how are you?” said Fasi. The colonel looked at him and smiled while they exchanged more pleasantries. One thing Paul had noticed the past couple of weeks was how the colonel’s smile never quite got to his eyes anymore. The man was maxed out at ten-tenths of capacity, and it was beginning to tell.

  Finally, Fasi and the colonel sat down, and Paul and company got to the brass tacks.

  The colonel had had a special paper map made of the Baradna Valley, just for haloless meetings like this. The guy really did think of everything, Paul thought. He spread it out on the ground between the opposing cots, where the five men were seated. The colonel sat next to Fasi, and Green, Bashir, and the First Company commander sat on the other cot. Paul chose to stand.

  The sheer primitive grubbiness of the surroundings struck Paul. There was a map on the dusty ground and six sweating guys in a tent. Usually, this would be done with halo overlays, data extracted from the cloud, or micros—everything would have a seamless, professional feel. But not today—the meeting was strictly low-tech.

  Good, Paul thought. If the price he had to pay to catch Commander Mohammed was a little inconvenience and low-tech, then all to the better. That particular shithead and his gang had tried to kill Paul his teammates during the original assault into the Baradna Valley. His merry dissident crew had set up a rocket-assisted 155 mm round, oriented in such a way that it would shoot into the ground-car of the team as they rode in.

  That trick would probably have worked on the Juneau Army. Fortunately, Third Battalion’s advisors had requested some help from some forces armored engineers who happened to be kickin’ around on the June-bug without a mission. The colonel had given those guys from the Eighteenth Engineers a job, and they had performed. The engineers were thrilled to find the bomb. It was a lot like watching kids at a candy store when they came across a device and saved someone from being blown up.

  No doubt Commander Mohammed had been pissed. Well, thought Paul, fuck him. And now Third Battalion, Juneau Army, was going to come calling.

  The two colonels hashed out a basic plan and sought input from the others. Bashir suggested telling the provincial police that the battalion was going to be operating ten klicks in the opposite direction from where the battalion would actually be; Fasi laughed and thought that was a great idea.

  Pashtuns sure did love dirty tricks. Paul thought sometimes that they drank treachery with their mother’s milk. When Paul had first gotten this mission, he had done a little research on the inhabitants of this planet, and he’d found out that such glee at mayhem was a Pashtun trait from Old Earth. Some things just never change.

  Paul was chagrined he hadn’t thought of that bit of deceit himself; bringing the provincial police in on what the battalion was actually doing would have been the height of folly. They leaked info like a sieve compared to the army, which wasn’t all that great, except in comparison. After everyone present at the meeting added tidbits to the plan, the planning session was adjourned.

  Green caught up with Paul outside the tent. “Hey, Paul, what was that?” he asked.

  “What was what?” Paul muttered. He wanted nothing so much as to go back t
o his crater and eat some field rations. They were delicious, and Paul had saved a hamburger for this night’s fine dining. Green was slowing him down.

  “That planning session, of course. Was it just me, or did we just plan a battalion-scale combat operation in less than half an hour?” Green looked at Paul expectantly.

  Paul’s headache worsened. With a sigh, he reached for a near-cig. He offered one to Greenie, who took it. Paul held out a lighter, and both men lit up. He looked at Green after taking a drag.

  “That was actually pretty good, planning wise, Green. When we first got here, that meeting would have taken just five minutes. As it was, we got a good suggestion out of Bashir. Everyone knows what he is doing and when approximately he will be doing it. Can’t ask for much better than that. What’d ya expect: the ‘military decision-making process’ bullshit that turns force briefings into nightmares?” Paul took another drag and waited.

  Green was a good guy with a strong infantry background. It wasn’t his fault he had been doing the team’s intel work on this rotation and hadn’t gotten out onto many missions. Tomorrow would be his first basic dismounted movement, and it was a movement with a high potential for “contact” as well. Contact was mil-speak for the point at which someone tries to kill you. So, yeah, Paul could see where Greenie was coming from. He could also see that Green was sweating things a little.

  “Well, no, I didn’t expect MDMP, but I thought there’d be more than that.” Green sounded crestfallen.

  Cig finished, Paul just said, “Nope, there ain’t. I gotta take a shit. See you in the morning, Green.” He walked away, leaving Green to his consternation.

  Paul had a delicious beef patty to eat, and then he was going to rack out. It was a plan, and Paul intended to stick to it—after he checked Z’s weapon. Z-man was a good medic, but his basic soldiering skills needed work.