by Leo Champion
Legion had been better than prison too, but there were still too many uppity fucks bossing you around. During Chauncy he’d been too exhausted to act much on being pissed off, but two months out of training he’d gotten fed up and belted a punk-ass lieutenant in the face. With his knucks on. Two sergeants followed by a bunch of grunts had dogpiled him, but he’d put in a few good blows before being subdued.
That had been fourteen months ago, and he had twenty-two months left in the Gangs. It had originally been a two-and-a-half year sentence, but they’d added another six months after he’d gotten fed up with overseer bullshit and tried to take a swing at his gang boss.
That had taught him to take the bullshit, keep his head down and plan. In Gang Eighteen he’d assembled a small crew, most of them armed. Sooner or later the gang was going to be sent somewhere isolated, where twenty men – and Kaggs was the undisputed shot-caller of Eighteen, the others would go along – could overrun five.
And now that time looked like it was going to come.
Kaggs felt the blade of the shiv and smiled.
* * *
The trucks came to a stop, by Sujit Janja’s estimate only forty miles east-southeast of Hubris. Their two trucks were the second pair to tail off, the others retreating to the distance as his team disembarked.
Himself, Corporal – still leader of First Squad, despite his reduction in rank – Hill. Mandvi, the former untouchable turned engineer-in-spirit and his old Rajput comrade Dashratha, who had fought alongside him in the war against Bahwahlpur-Kahpur.
“All right,” came the voice of their military police escort, Sergeant Greene. He was a tall blond man with a handlebar moustache, and Janja didn’t like him.
Greene was too rough on their charges – yes, they were prisoners doing penance, but they were to be reformed and the fire team’s job was essentially to protect them like sheepdogs. Not abuse them like wolves. “Get your lousy fucking asses out of there and get the shit out of the second van.”
“No need,” Janja called back with a nod at Dashratha. “We’ll do it.”
Mandvi had, smart man that he was, already figured out how to unbolt the trailers from the stanchions in the bottom of the truck’s deck. Janja himself was lean and aristocratic, but the massive six-foot-five Dashratha had no problem picking up the former lieutenant’s slack as they pulled the full water tanker trailer down the ramp from the truck to the ground.
“Janja, keep an eye on them. Take one more man to get the supplies and the tools off,” said Corporal Hill. “Or you want me to throw in?”
The Black Gangers were milling around in the shade of what looked like a big silvery toadstool, the well. It reached fifteen feet into the air, a shaft surrounded by a twenty-foot-radius solar panel on top, with a windmill above that. The solars provided power when it was sunny; the wind did when it wasn’t. On good days you’d get both.
The power wasn’t for general purposes; there were aquifers, rock lakes, deep beneath the ground around here. The panels and windmill generated power so the well could pump water up from those for the steam trains, not to mention irrigating the land around. Soon this barren ground would be dotted with these things; soon the barren ground would become fertile land and the nomads would become wealthy.
“Got this,” said the massive Dashratha.
“Got the wheels,” said Mandvi. “Go, Dash.”
Dashratha heaved on the puller of the small – relatively small, it fit inside the tray of the five-ton truck but not by very much – equipment trolley. The huge man moved it with relative ease, brought it down the ramp and to the ground.
“Janj, help me cover this crew,” came Hill. “Mandvi, throw down those tools.”
“You got it sarge— uh, corp,” said Mandvi.
It hadn’t escaped Janja’s notice that Mandvi had been the fastest to learn fluent English. By a few weeks into training, given the immersion environment, everyone could speak at least enough to get by. But the former untouchable knew the slang, the idioms and the engineering jargon as well; the man spent his evenings reading engineering textbooks.
That man, lean and slim, came out with an armful of picks and shovels. Dumped them on the ground. Went back for another handful.
Dashratha got the equipment trolley down on the ground and went back to help Mandvi. Soon two dozen picks and shovels were lying on the ground next to the trolley. Hill and Dashratha, followed by Mandvi a second later with the last load, got to moving them aside.
“You guys good?” asked the driver of the lead truck, an Army combat engineer.
“We’re good,” said Hill, nodding to Greene. “Everything unloaded. Good damn Indians.”
“We’re good,” Greene said to the truck drivers.
Mandvi was examining the well, of course. Hill called him over.
“So, we going to get started?” Hill asked Greene, while Dashratha – his M-25 slung across his broad shoulders – held the ten-gauge automatic shotgun he’d picked up on New Virginia, not pointed at the milling Black Gangers but ready in case one of them tried something.
“Let’s get started,” Greene said. His whip was already in his hand, and now he flicked it in the air.
“Get moving, you lousy vermin! Come on!”
“Sergeant, hadn’t we better lay the flags first?” asked Mandvi. There were a bundle of them, triangular orange flags on thin aluminum sticks, under his arm.
The surveyors had drilled in, fifty or so feet apart, RFID chips into the ground. It was known the nomads, clueless eaties that they were not knowing what was good for themselves, would only mess with flags. So the surveyors had instead gone with Radio Frequency ID chips, drilled a few inches into the ground.
Now Mandvi, his phone in front of him and the Western Territories Improvement Program app no doubt open on it, was sticking flagged poles into the ground every ten or so feet where the RFIDs said to.
“All right, you scum!” Greene shouted. “You know what to do. Get to work!”
He cracked his whip. The Black Gangers, grumbling, picked up their tools and got moving, starting to clear a railroad path between the flags as they’d been told to.
This is not how you manage people, thought Janja as the crew got to work.
* * *
“Newbauer could have been a bit better organized than this,” said Marsha Dunwell to Croft as the officers gathered again for a meeting in the lieutenant-colonel’s office at Hubris.
With them also was the leader of the Air Force medical contingent, a black-haired captain – and doctor – named Leora Cramer. She was beautiful in a sharp, Jewish kind of a way, with short-cut hair and intelligent eyes. She wore dull-blue Air Force uniform and she seemed profoundly unhappy at being stuck out in the middle of shit nowhere with only her medical section.
“Newbauer can go fuck himself,” Senior Lieutenant Gardner muttered. “Idiot.”
“Respect for rank, people,” suggested dark-skinned Master Sergeant Ortega. “Just a suggestion.”
“Rank gets respect when it’s earned,” Williams shot back. “Master Sergeant.”
“Wiseass,” Ortega muttered.
“Gentlemen. Lady,” Newbauer cleared his throat and addressed the gathered officers as he came in. “Legion trash. We have an excess of Legion rejects. I am going to make some reassignations.”
He gestured at the map.
“We have an excess of Black Gangers. We have an excess of staff to guard them. Therefore, more trash will be assigned.”
Lieutenant-Colonel Newbauer looked at Croft. “Company staff will be reassigned to guard the troops nearest to Fort Kandin-dak. Lieutenant – uh, Third Platoon – your First Squad will be reassigned to cover the ground heading southeast from Point Diamond North, headed toward Vasimir. New trucks will be assigned.”
* * *
“They’re moving us already?” Hill grumbled.
“You heard the rooster,” said the truck driver. “All First Squad to head east. Radio men and other company staff taki
ng over your jobs.”
Dashratha had finished pulling the second trailer/cart back onto the truck, with Hill’s help. Now, with a nod to McGallagher, Janja got back into the truck. The Black Gangers had already been loaded up.
“You radio guys up to this?” Hill asked MacGallagher.
“Yeah,” the sergeant said. His own Black Gangers were offloading now, men from the company Signals team. Robinson and another man were apparently being left behind at Hubris, but most of the company command staff were being assigned to guard Black Gangs.
“Heading off, Team Nine? Hill, get your boys on board,” called one of the truck drivers.
Hill extended a hand to MacGallagher, who shook it.
“See you in a bit, Sergeant.”
“See you, Sergeant— Corporal, sorry.”
Hill mounted up into the truck, securing a position near Janja and the Indians.
“Ready to go!” MP Sergeant Greene called.
The trucks began to move.
* * *
Some endless hours into the night, after bumping all day and then well past midnight, Janja’s truck slowed and stopped.
Janja had been half-asleep; so had Hill and Dashratha, and Sergeant Greene. It was Mandvi who, slumped against the canvas back of the truck mostly asleep, awoke when the trucks stopped and woke the rest of them up.
“All right, into formation you useless fuckups!” Greene was shouting before he was out of the truck. His whip was out, Janja noticed in his half-asleep state.
Absently he unslung his M-25, didn’t chamber a round. In the shoes of the poor damn Black Gangers Greene was abusing, he’d have stuck up and done something nasty. If he’d been a criminal, which Sujit Janja was not.
But he was no thug either – he was fairly certain the Americans had appropriated the word of ‘thug’ from his subcontinent’s ancient ‘Thuggee’ cult, and in any case he as an honorable man had the same disgust for both meanings – and he wasn’t in favor of Greene’s whip-slashing random men for no reason.
So, without looking at Hill, he took command.
“Sergeant Greene!” His old lieutenant’s voice. “Stop it! Corporal Hill, make sure he does.”
Oh, he’d read the power dynamics of this group a long time ago. Greene was in charge, but only insofar as Hill’s fire team backed him up. And Dashratha, definitely would do what Janja said. Mandvi probably, although he doubted the former untouchable would incriminate himself over it.
Hill was a fighting man, though. The team leader liked a good fight, which from Janja’s read implied he didn’t much like beating up on the weak more than perhaps was strictly necessary. Defending the weak from a bully like Greene – the man who outranked him would be open to that. Janja was betting on it now.
“You men!” Janja yelled. “Get to your tents. It’s” – he checked his watch – “three in the morning.”
They were under the starlight-shadow of a well with its mushroomed-out solar panels and windmills. Apparently all of First Squad – Ciampa’s team and Lennon’s as well – had been sent out this far.
Amazing how many stars you could see out here, Janja thought. Away from any light at all, as hadn’t been the case really anywhere on forested New Virginia, not on Chauncy and certainly not on the Subcontinent. Here in the clear chilly near-desert night, stars were everywhere.
He wondered which was Sol.
“Tents up!” Hill took over. It was more than quarter past three in the morning, and Janja mentally commended the former sergeant for knowing his leadership responsibilities and taking over.
“Get your damn tents up,” the squad leader commanded. “And into bed, because tomorrow’s gonna be a rough day for you.”
Sergeant Hill had been exchanging shouts with the truck driver. Now Dashratha was heaving an empty-again water carrier off the truck, Mandvi helping him steer it down. Soon, as the Black Gangers got to erecting their ten-man tents, everything was off the trucks and they drove off – east toward Vasimir, following the two trucks with Lennon’s fire-team and their associated Black Gangers.
Under the shadow of the mushroom well, Janja watched the Black Gangers erect their big tents. He and Hill stood guard while Mandvi and Dashratha figured out how to hook their empty water trailer up to the well and refill it, then made that water available to the Gangers.
The Gang knew how to hook their latrine-cleaning taps up to the trailer. Greene, with his submachinegun, had been watching the whole time; he told them when to knock off, then said,
“Ding ding ding, kids, time to sleep. It’s three already, and you’ll be starting on Vazhao time tomorrow morning.”
Janja hadn’t been sure, but Mandvi had clued him in earlier and he did know. That actually gave them three more hours of rest than they’d have otherwise had.
Lucky bastards, although they probably didn’t know it.
Dashratha, solid man that he was, was already erecting the fire team’s own pair of two-man tents. No food, although Janja knew where the rations had been placed. He’d snacked on a couple of bars after immediately leaving their work location, was good.
Time to sleep, with another work day tomorrow.
“Mandvi, you good on being night watch?” Hill asked.
“Give me a caff-bar or two and I’m good, Corp,” Mandvi shot back.
“Help yourself. Night!”
The tent was already up and knowing his loyal squad-leader from the Indian war, Janja knew he was set up to rest.
“Night, Mandvi.”
“Rest well, Lance, I got us covered,” said Mandvi in English Janja envied him the ability to speak so well.
* * *
Too soon in the morning, Janja woke to someone blowing a whistle.
A glance at his watch showed: 06:30. Wake time.
Dash was already scrambling off his mat, leaving his sleeping bag uncurled behind it. Hill was, muttering curses under his breath, pulling on shirt and pants.
A tired-looking Mandvi was outside, with Sergeant Greene, who had his own tent and didn’t look tired at all.
“Caffeine?” Mandvi asked, offering a pill jar.
Janja would have liked some real coffee, but this was field duty.
“Any breakfast?” Hill asked.
“Bars,” said Mandvi with a gesture at the supply cart. “Tasty, tasty ration bars.”
While out on guard duty, possibly for the lack of anything else constructive to do, Mandvi had gotten to work with the flags, marking one of them – little orange pennants on thin aluminum poles – every ten feet according to the RFID chips’ placements, for a hundred yards. They were going to do more than that today, but Mandvi had presumably not wanted to stray too far from the sleeping Black Gangers he’d been charged with guarding.
Now, Greene was taking handfuls of the plastic-wrapped bars from the supply cart, throwing them at the Black Gangers as they emerged from their two big tents.
“Five minutes to get your worthless shit together,” the MP was telling them, whip in his belt and submachinegun slung in front of him. “Chow down, drink up and pick up your tools, fuckers!”
“Anything I need to do?” Dashratha asked Hill.
“Probably wouldn’t hurt if you gave them their gear,” the squad leader replied. For security reasons, the Black Gangers were required to give up their tools on retiring to bed every night.
“You got it,” the big man said and went to the supply cart.
Soon the Black Gangers had had their morning water and ration bars. Dashratha had issued them with picks and shovels and they were getting started clearing a way between the flags for the railroad to run – a straight path of flat tamped-down dirt about five feet wide, on which sleepers and railroad tracks would be laid. There was a small ditch, about a foot deep, on either side; more work was involved with digging those ditches than in laying the actual ground for the track.
Mandvi, after some time checking out the well and its functions, and filling the water cart while he was about it, went to bed
. Hill, Janja and Dashratha spread out to cover the gangers, but Greene was keeping them too busy – not flashing his whip, but holding it and giving directions, although they seemed to know what to do well enough on their own, to the Gangers.
They’d been shown videos, and the work itself wasn’t star-drive science; you dug the ditch and you cleared the ground along the path the surveyors had established.
From Janja’s perspective, as the day wore on, his own work was boring. Nobody came by the flat lands, with rolling hills to both the east and the west. Sooner or later, combat-engineer contingents would come to blow paths through the steeper of those hills; modern railways could make their way over the milder ones.
Soon Hill was reading a book, some pulp superhuman crap probably, on his phone. The internet out here wasn’t worth shit; you got occasional connections when a satellite happened to pass over, but that seemed to be maybe every few hours for a few minutes at a time.
Besides, Janja was a professional soldier with a job to do. He’d have rather been given something more challenging, but you didn’t always get to pick your assignments. He was a soldier of the United States and his job was to do his duty.
So he checked his rifle for the nth time, fingered the taser clipped to his belt that he hoped Greene would never have him use, kept an eye on the Black Gangers and another eyer out for external security, and did the job a former Kshatriya of Rajputana was expected to.
Chapter Nine
Billy Kaggs drank on his water bottle then nodded at Longneck Simon, a spare blond man who was his deputy shot-caller. There was something wrong with Simon’s eyes, a twistiness to them. He’d allegedly enlisted of his own free will but Kaggs had at times wondered what Simon was really running from; cho-mo, perhaps?
Child molester that meant. In prison those people got fucked in every sense of the word. Joining the Legion ahead of an indictment made sense to Kaggs. But he didn’t care. Longneck Simon was a solid man who had his back; they both knew what was going on and what to do about it.