Dogsoldiers

by James Tarr

  “We’re in sorry shape for any kind of action,” George reminded him.

  “I know, I know.”

  They’d done an equipment check right before the briefing and it was as bad as it had ever been. George had the most ammunition of any of them, sixty rounds. Ed only had forty-two for his rifle – the pouches all across his chest were filled with magazines, but only one of them was loaded, and that only partially. Everyone in the squad carried at least one pistol and had spare ammo for it, but pistols were last ditch defensive weapons. There was only one round left for Ed’s grenade launcher, and the entire squad had but one hand grenade. George took that; he had the best aim and they’d yet to see him get rattled under fire. Even with the grenades, if they ran into anything larger than a squad of dismounted infantry they’d be down to knives and harsh language in no time.

  They had three rechargeable batteries they rotated in the drone jammer, which used to last a whole day; now they barely went eight hours. They hadn’t had a working drone in over a year. The squad had only one working set of night vision goggles and the batteries on those were twitchy. The NV scope on Ed’s carbine had plenty of juice but two working NV units for an eight-man squad heading into enemy territory was far less than a good situation. The filter elements of their water purifiers were long past needing replacement, but of course they had no spares. For the moment, almost all of their canteens were full, but in the city water could be an elusive creature. Food was another matter altogether—they had a day’s rations apiece, no more. But it was a rare day they weren’t hungry; hunger was just another enemy they had to deal with.

  Their first aid supplies were nearly exhausted, not that they’d ever really had that much. They had bandages and compresses by the dozen, a few tourniquets, but the painkillers were gone, and there were only a handful of antibiotics left.

  Ed sighed. They’d been in worse shape, a lot worse—nobody was dead or bleeding—but this time they didn’t have the luxury of pulling back to wait for a trickling resupply through the Underground Railroad, as they liked to call it. That Byzantine web of doctors, safehouses, of locally grown food, smuggled guns, ammo, and other supplies clandestinely fed to guerilla squads like theirs had kept them in the fight during the worst of times, but to tap into it they’d need to go north, south, or west of the city, and there was no time. They’d just have to make do with what they had, somehow. They always did.

  “We’ll head for the general store as soon as we get south of the border,” Ed said gamely, staring at the map. “Then sweep up back northeast to the RP.” He shut off the penlight finally and darkness descended.

  “Assuming the cranky bastard’s still alive and in business, and actually has something useful on hand,” Weasel’s voice floated out of the gloom.

  “I guess we’ll find out. He’s always got news, if nothing else.” Ed looked to George. “You have anything to add?”

  “I want everyone to keep their eyes open and their brain in gear when we get moving.” His gravelly voice was barely more than a murmur. “We don’t know what’s up but that doesn’t mean our friends on the other side don’t. We have to assume they’re on alert, looking for us coming south, just waiting to call in the fast movers and barbeque our asses. Get your shit in order, and your head on straight, or it’s going to be a short trip.”

  After a few seconds of silence, Mark’s voice echoed from over by the windows. “Another cheery pep talk from Dale Carnegie. Good thing it’s dark, I’m all weepy now.”

  Everybody had to strangle their laughter so as not to violate noise discipline, but Jason heard snorting on both sides of him. The meeting, which had been much more informal than what he’d been expecting—no saluting, or Yes Sirs!—broke up. The squad members climbed to their feet and drifted apart, finding their own space. Jason stood up as well and made his way over to the squad’s leader, who was conferring quietly with George. Behind them stood a decaying office partition that looked like someone had once unsuccessfully tried to light it on fire. He had to clear his throat to be noticed.

  “Yes?”

  “Yeah, um, well, a couple things,” Jason said. “What do I call you—lieutenant, sergeant? What’s your rank? Should I say Sir? I’ve never been in the army.”

  Ed tried hard to suppress a smile, glanced at George. “Well, you’re not in it now, either. The Army’s the people we’re trying to kill. And who are trying to kill us.”

  “Plus the Air Force,” George added helpfully.

  Ed rolled his eyes. “Yeah, them too.” He sighed and told Jason, “You’re in the ARF Irregulars, kid, and hell, we can’t even agree on what ARF originally stood for. Armed Resistance Fighters, American Reacquisition Forces, whatever, but if you’re a dogsoldier you’ve decided to take a stand and fight for freedom against those of our fellow citizens who have lost their way and those pure bastards who know what they’re doing and are just plain evil. Not that you necessarily need to join up to join in, plenty of killing in this war has been done by people just too fed up to take it any longer, shooting out the front door of their house with their deer rifle or shotgun at soldiers, and before that at cops tasked with enforcing all the new illegal laws. That’s pretty much how the war started, and it’s still happening to this day. Those souls are the true Irregulars, we’re just…semi-regular.” He smiled at his own joke. “As for rank, I’ve got a rank, it’s written down somewhere, but I don’t think it’s really that important right now. Besides, George here has more experience than me and I don’t even think he has a rank. Everybody here’s a volunteer. They can get up and walk out that door right now if they want to. You too. They’re here because they believe in what they’re doing. Fighting the good fight. They put me in charge because I make the right decisions more often than not. That stops, they’ll start listening to someone else.”

  The truth was the Irregulars were a lot more organized and regimented than it appeared from the outside, and he did have a rank, just like the squad had a codename, Theodore, but just because they’d found no evidence that the kid was a plant didn’t mean they trusted him. Not completely, not yet.

  “You’re in charge because you’re lucky,” Weasel called out quietly.

  “Yeah? How is that rib?” Quentin asked the hawk-faced man.

  “Coulda been my head,” Weasel shot back. “And we didn’t lose anybody during that thing, not us or the other squad. And we chewed them up bad. Twelve KIA.”

  “Only if you’re counting some of them two or three times.”

  “The confirmed kill numbers they claim to the media, I think the Army counts actual dogs they shoot as dogsoldiers,” Weasel said.

  “That sounds about right,” Mark said with a laugh.

  “I don’t care if you call me Ed or Sir or Luke Skywalker,” Ed told the young man. “What I care about is the squad. If George or I or Early, or anybody for that matter, tells you to do something, you do it. Don’t ask why, don’t think about it, just do it. You understand?” Jason nodded quickly.

  George spoke up, voice low but full of steel. “You don’t know anything, and don’t think you do. And that’s just fine, everybody was green once. Look around. Ask questions if you need to. Keep up, stay quiet, and when the shooting starts watch what the other guys are doing and imitate them. Soldiers get eight weeks of basic training; we don’t have that luxury. You’re going to learn on the job. We do expect you to make mistakes at first.” He stepped close to the young man, and leaned forward. “At first, you understand me?”

  Jason nodded quickly. The grizzled veteran did not appear reassured.

  “Get some sleep.” There was just enough of a reflection for Ed’s eyes to be invisible behind the lenses of his glasses. “I want everybody sharp for tomorrow. Weasel!” Ed jerked his thumb at Jason. “Check out the kid’s gear. See what he’s got, throw away any dead weight, get him ready to run.”

  “You got it, Captain.”

  “Sweet dreams,” George growled at him as he turned away.

&n
bsp; Weasel had Jason hold a small muted flashlight as he dug through the boy’s pack. “How many clothes you got?” Weasel muttered. “Hell, all you’ve got is clothes, I was hoping you’d have some food.”

  “What does that mean?” Jason asked, gesturing at the letters inked on Weasel’s plate carrier above his rifle magazine pouches. LGBTNBBQ.

  Weasel looked down to see what the kid was indicating, then looked up with a smile. “Liquor, Guns, Beer, Titties, and Bar-B-Que. Not necessarily in that order.”

  “Oh. Uh, how often do you—do we—run into Army soldiers?” Jason asked.

  Weasel’s shrug was almost missed in the dark. “We know where they’re headquartered, but we don’t have the numbers or equipment to take them on there, it’d pretty much be suicide, so we patrol and try to ambush them when they’re out looking for us. Or when they’re not. We’ve gone weeks without even seeing a soldier. And we’ve shot up two different convoys in the same day. You never know.” He sighed and looked at the kid.

  “Look, what you’ve got in the city, what we do, this isn’t the ARF. The ARF’s out there with its divisions, Gators, Longhorns, everybody else, and they’re actually fighting the war, with tanks and planes and drones and, well, everything else that we don’t have. They’re the real soldiers. What we are is rats. We scurry around this shithole city, hiding in the dark, waiting for someone to walk by. When we see something, we dart in, bite the shit out of it, and disappear. What we’re doing isn’t going to win the war. What we are doing is keeping this city an open wound in the side of those assholes, one that hopefully keeps them weak and distracted from the real fight. Every soldier they station here is one more not on the front. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get your head blown off if you’re not paying attention. So pay fucking attention.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The rear three-quarters of the building was a high-ceilinged, single room machine shop. Most of the machines were gone now; the lathes, the mills, the grinders, even the chairs. All that was left of them were pale outlines on the grimy floor.

  The tall, small-paned, steel-framed windows, greasy as they were, let in a lot of early morning light. Dust motes danced in the yellow glow like clouds of gnats. Jason sneezed once, then looked around to see if the sharp noise would get him in trouble. Most of the squad was scattered throughout the big room, gearing up to move out, and paid him no mind.

  His urine, as it splashed onto the grate in the floor, was bright yellow. He knew what that meant, and as soon as he was zipped up took several deep swallows from his full canteen. He would’ve liked more, but everyone seemed paranoid about water—how much they had, where would they get more, would this or that rain trap still be in place. He had just the one canteen, and planned to make it last as long as he could.

  Jason had been sleeping on the ground or hard floors for weeks but he still wasn’t used to it. Even using his pack as a pillow his back was stiff every morning, but the discomfort didn’t tame the fire he was feeling. Looking around at the others he felt scared and excited at the same time. By the light of day they didn’t seem so scary, but maybe that was just his initial shock wearing off. They looked competent enough. Not that he had any experience to judge them by.

  Mark had roused Jason shortly after dawn with a hand on his shoulder. At first he couldn’t remember where he was—he’d been having a dream about that last fight with his father, where he’d grabbed the rifle, stuffed a few things into his pack, and stomped out. He wondered what his father would think if he could see him now. Probably nothing different, that Jason was making a mistake. His father thought that if he minded his own business the war would just go away and things would go back to normal. Of course they wouldn’t, couldn’t, but his father’s only political conviction seemed to be cowardice.

  “Uh, Sir?” The word felt strange in his mouth. Ed was crosslegged underneath one of the windows, in shadow. Parts from a water purifier were strewn across yellowed newsprint on the floor before him. There was a pistol in a holster strapped to his thigh and its butt scraped on the concrete floor as he shifted his weight.

  “Yes?” Ed didn’t look up. He picked up a small cylinder and looked at it dubiously, then blew into it.

  “You said I should ask if I had any questions, and I, uh…” He was embarrassed to ask, which was stupid. It was a valid question. He was trusting his life to these people, wasn’t he? “How come we’re traveling during the day and not at night? Wouldn’t it be safer at night?”

  The commander didn’t seem the least perturbed by the implied accusation inherent in the question. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Ed said. He peered at another small part. Beside him on the floor lay his ugly mottled rifle with what Jason thought was a silencer hanging off the muzzle, and an even uglier weapon. At least, Jason assumed it was a weapon. It resembled a break-top single-shot shotgun, but the proportions were all wrong. The barrel was too short, and far too fat. It was dark green, and the wood stock was scratched and dinged. He was already thought of as the new kid that didn’t know anything, and he didn’t want to reinforce that image by asking Ed what that thing was, so Jason bit his tongue.

  Not too far away Mark was cleaning his weapon. He was in charge of their SAW, Squad Automatic Weapon, a small-caliber belt-fed machinegun, and he had it broken apart in pieces on the floor. Without looking up he said “Flurr.” Jason turned his head.

  “That’s it,” Ed said.

  “That’s what?”

  “FLIR,” Ed repeated. “Forward, uh…”

  “Looking,” Mark volunteered.

  “Right. Forward Looking Infrared. The Army owns the sky, and all of their choppers, those Kestrels, have FLIR. You know what infrared is?”

  “Heat, right?”

  “Right. The FLIR cameras can find you ‘cause of your body heat. Doesn’t matter if you’re hiding behind bushes or have a camouflage tarp covering your body. The heat you’re giving off lights you up like fluorescent paint.”

  “I’ve heard that if it’s cold enough they can even see your footprints,” Bobby chimed in from the corner, where he was pissing onto the grate.

  “I don’t know about that,” Ed said. He looked at Jason. “But it only works when there’s a substantial difference in temperature between your body and its surroundings.”

  “Nighttime,” Jason said.

  “You got it. Cold weather, too, that’s why we really scale it back during wintertime. You think the heat and humidity’s bad, operating in winter’s like Russian roulette. Add to that the fact that at the moment we’ve got about zero night-vision capability, daylight becomes the only time we’ve got anything close to a level playing field.”

  Jason nodded. “Got it.” He frowned, wondering if he should ask any more questions. “Um, what were those sheets you guys had pinned up all over the walls and ceiling?” And most of the windows, he could have added. They’d been some sort of quilted fabric that resembled heavy duty burlap.

  “Originally it was a space-age material used to wrap steam pipes,” Mark told him. They had looked like something from a spacecraft, Jason had to admit. The material was a butterscotch color with a basketweave pattern.

  “I’ve heard there’s copper or even woven ceramic in there,” Ed told him. “Feels like some sort of thick polyester knit, but I’ve heard if you put a blowtorch on it…it does nothing. Barely even discolors it. Those sheets reflect heat. So anyone with a thermal scope or a FLIR unit, which sees body heat, doesn’t see the outline of a body. Blocks it entirely or spreads it out, not sure which, but it keeps us from being spotted through the walls. Or, at least it’s a lot tougher, especially on warm days like this.”

  “Really?”

  “You think we like the smell of moldy blankets?” Ed looked up at him. “We don’t want to die any more than you do, son.” Whenever possible they staged a cotton or wool blanket or two under slow drips in buildings they frequented to get them soaked with water, as spread wet blankets concealed heat signatures too, and th
ey only had so many of the heat blankets. A soaked mattress was better yet. However, when it came to portability….

  Jason’s face flushed. “No, I, uh…”

  “You just remember to do what we tell you, when we tell you, when you’re out in the field.” Mark said. “You don’t understand something, you ask later.”

  Mark was the only one of them wearing camouflage clothing, pants, but his trousers were cut off at the knee, revealing large, tanned calves above dusty boots. Above the butchered pants, underneath his plate carrier, he wore, of all things, a green and blue Hawaiian shirt. “Why aren’t you guys wearing camo?” Jason asked him. It unnerved him a bit to see a Hawaiian shirt on a man carrying a belt-fed machine gun. These days, possession of any firearm was a felony, even if it was just a single shot duck gun.

  “City’s still full of people,” the big man told him. “So just wandering around down there won’t necessarily set off alarm bells. And sometimes we need to blend in. It’s easy to stash your rifle and plate carrier, just takes a couple of seconds. Takes a lot longer to change clothes, if you’ve even got a spare set.”

  Jason frowned. “But camo helps you blend in.”

  Quentin was nearby, listening, and he snorted. “To what? Rusty cars? Concrete? Half-burned houses? We ain’t trudging through the jungles of Vietnam where everything is green, we’re fighting in a city. Sure there’s a lot of green there, camo would be nice, but your eye spots movement a lot better than it does color. As long as you’re not wearing something that’s bright red or yellow or electric pimp-hand purple, if you’re hunkered down most people won’t see shit until you move.” He pointed at Mark. “Even with the blue that Hawaiian shirt’s great camo, from a distance the blue just looks like shadow. That’s why we’re the Irregulars, we don’t wear uniforms. Being able to blend in with other people helps keep you alive too.”

  Jason nodded and hurried off, looking at the floor, feeling like a bit of an ass for asking so many questions. Ed and Mark exchanged a grin, then the commander checked his watch.