Eye of the Storm

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Getting to Camp Ernest Pappas was not the easiest thing in the world.

First of all, it was being built near the former town of Steelville, MO, which was about as bumfuckaround as you could find.

With the exception of a few bounty farms the area had yet to be resettled. Which meant that all of the land was in eminent domain, owned by the US Government. Which meant all that the Army had to do was tell a civilian construction company to go in and start building. Security was provided by the same company, which had long experience of building in unreclaimed zones.

The road to the facility from the nearest airport, which was in East St. Louis, was a long damned drive. St. Louis, on the west bank of the Mississippi, had been a fortress city and had held out for nearly two years before the Posleen put in an overwhelming attack. It was starting to rebuild, but slowly.

The road, following the trace of I-44, was four-lane black-top as far as Cuba. From there it was an ‘improved’ road, dirt and gravel, to the camp. Since there were numerous streams and small rivers in the area, Cutprice figured it was going to get cut off at the first big rainstorm.

But the road sure had plenty of traffic. There were tractor-trailer trucks running in both directions, some of them carrying construction equipment but many of them carrying combat systems and support equipment. He had to hope like hell the guys guarding them were honest. Not much hope, but it was something.

There were civilian security guards manning the gate-house. They waved the trucks ahead of the party of soldiers through, but stopped the rented Expedition.

“Advance party for the 14^th Regiment,” Sergeant Major Stiffey said. The Smaj for the brigade was a humongo buck. Cutprice hadn’t known him but Wacleva vouched for him and that was all that counted. He’d been the 101^st Division sergeant major during Vietnam, after two tours at lower positions, and retired as the First Army sergeant major. Which was why he was Wacleva’s boss instead of the other way around. Wacleva had still had more points, just as Cutprice had more points than the Brigade CO. The Army was funny that way.

“Yes, sir,” the gate guard said. She was a cute little thing and Cutprice hoped she had the stones to face a charging feral. “If you’ll follow the signs to the Office of Military Liaison, they said that you were coming.”

“How’s it been?” Stiffey said, ignoring the ‘sir.’

“I just got here,” the guard admitted. “I’m told by some of the older hands it was pretty Wild West at first. But we haven’t had a really serious incident in weeks. We’ve got electrified fence up around the construction zones so it’s safe enough in the base. If you’re going to be training out in the boonies, though, it might get interesting.”

“Thanks,” the CSM said, pulling out.

“Buddy who’s still in told me it’s generally live ammo and weapons free past the perimeter on most bases,” Major Hatch commented.

“The cadre aren’t going to be a problem with that,” Cutprice said. “Not so sure about the recruits.”

“Cross that bridge,” Hatch said.

The signs pointed south then curved back east and up around to the north. All long the road, hardtop this time, there was construction going on. Motorpools arrayed on the flats were already being filled with equipment and logistics areas were lining up with CONEX after CONEX. Equipment might not be a problem. Guys to use it might be a problem, but not equipment. Even if there was some pilfering, and looking at the laborers that was likely, they couldn’t steal it all. There was just too much. If they didn’t have the schedule they were looking at, this might even be a decent war.

“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 20^th 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:

“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 replied. “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 82^nd Airborne. Before that I’d held that post as well as Division Sergeant Major and 18^th 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.

At four-thirty they’d been awakened by their platoon sergeants. Clean the barracks again. Finally they were out doing PT. Forty minutes of calisthenics to get warmed up. A four mile run. Wind-sprints. And now combination training.

“When I give you the command to fall out, fall out and fall in to your platoon areas,” Wacleva bellowed. “Each platoon has fifteen minutes for breakfast. First training session is at 0830. Figure you are going to snap and pop every minute of every day for the next five weeks. We do not have time for fuck-around. Fall out and fall in!”

Sergeant First Class Frederick Moreland had been the Third Brigade Sergeant Major, 78^th Mechanized Division during the war. Prior to the war he’d been a mech mortar NCO for damned near twenty years.

What he’d never been was a drill sergeant. He knew the theory, but with this group ‘breaking them down and building them back as soldiers’ didn’t really count. So when the platoon fell into the platoon area, he didn’t play drill sergeant. He was their platoon sergeant. He didn’t have to.

“Fall in and shit, shower and shave,” Moreland said, mildly. “We’re last on the roster for chow. Do not fuck up the barracks. Ten minutes prior to chow I’ll give the word. Clear up anything that’s out of place. You all know the drill. Most of you know why the drill exists. You need to get back in the zero defect mentality. You’re all good, everything is going to be perfect. Or I will start playing drill sergeant and you won’t like it.”

“I’ll shower last,” Keren said. He’d been temporarily appointed the squad leader for Two Gun of the four gun section. Two Gun was the premium spot in a mortar platoon, being the gun that all other guns adjusted to. To keep the gun, though, he was going to have to prove that he was the best squad leader of the four available. Best should mean his gun was the quickest and the most accurate. But since they weren’t going to start training on guns immediately, for the time being ‘best’ meant the cleanest, neatest and most prompt. “Oppenheimer is up first, then Griffis, Adams and Cristman. While everyone else is showering, we’re going to be taking care of our areas of responsibility. Every single day. Understood?”

“Done this before, Keren,” Cristman said. As the senior specialist, he was up for the gunner position. There were arguments that Assistant Gunner was a better slot — the AG got to actually drop rounds — but gunner was the doorway to squad leader. Cristman was a former mortar platoon sergeant in 36Div and had actually held out for a while before retiring. Phlegmatic and much larger than his squad leader, he seemed to move slow but was the most efficient guy Keren had ever seen. “Let’s get started. Opie, don’t dawdle.”

The squad worked in teams fixing the bunks and wall-lockers. By keeping in their socks they didn’t mess up the waxed floor. Uniforms were laid out, ready to don and as each of the soldiers rotated through the shower they returned to carefully hang their PT gear to dry and got it on.

The new uniforms were made of a material similar to the Fleet Strike grays, but were digital camouflage. With an attached, form-fitting, hood they also had cloaking capability. That hadn’t been explained yet and everyone kept their hands away from the pull-tab low on the left bicep.

The boots were designed around civilian hiking boots, comfortable and well made but being very odd to the soldiers in that they were bright, reflective, silver.

“I can’t believe they gave us, like, chrome fucking boots,” Specialist Elden Adams said. The Assistant Gunner was medium height hazel eyes and, until last night, had light brown hair. He held the boots up and considered his reflection in their mirror shine. “What the fuck?”

“And we’re not supposed to polish them,” Keren noted, picking a bit of paint off a window that someone had missed last night. The squad had completed all their personal tasks and were working on the remaining platoon tasks while waiting for chow-call. Keren still hadn’t gotten to the shower; Cristman was, apparently, less efficient at showering. “Just wipe them down with a light rag.”

“What’s the fucking point?” Adams asked as Cristman emerged from the shower-point. “They’re fucking mirrors.”

“Hopefully that will get explained in training,” Keren said, grabbing his towel and trotting to the shower.

“We’ve got no time,” Sergeant Stacy Miller said. First Squad had the duty of cleaning the latrine when everyone had cycled through. They were waiting impatiently for the last few soldiers to get done showering.

“Two of my guys are ready to go,” Keren said, turning on the water. The shower was open-bay, four shower heads firing into a ten by ten plastic cubicle. Two of them were still in use. The rest of the head was being rapidly cleaned by first squad but they still had to wipe down the shower before they could stand inspection. “Grab them to help if you need it.”

“I think we’ve got it,” Miller replied. He was a massive guy with the look of a former football player. Keren suspected anyone making fun of his first name was going to go through a wall. “If you don’t take too long.”

“Done,” Keren said, turning off the water. He’d gotten his pits, head and face and scraped off what little beard had formed. He’d always been lucky in that regard. He thought there must have been some American Indian in his lineage because he had virtually no beard.

He trotted back to his bunk, wiping his feet before he left the head, and donned his uniform. Some of the clasps and connections were new, so it took him a bit to get it on. He was just tabbing his blouse closed when the door at the far end of the bay burst open.

“AT EASE,” Staff Sergeant Carter Richards bellowed, striding down the center of the squad bay. The sergeant was the FDC section leader and assistant platoon sergeant. Apparently, Moreland was going to be using him as a ramrod. “Keren, why ain’t you dressed, yet?”

“No excuse, sergeant,” Keren said, facing forward.

“Get your shit done up and prepare for inspection,” the staff sergeant said, walking to the latrine. “Miller! You call this clean? This is the most fucked up head I’ve ever seen! There are streaks on my mirrors, Miller!”

The rapid inspection found fault in every area the sergeant looked. Some of it was germane. Much of it was, in Keren’s professional opinion, chickenshit. The flip side was, Fire Direction Control was a very finicky business and the people who were best at it tended towards obsessive compulsive disorder. Having an OCD section leader would be a pain in the ass in garrison but might save their ass in combat. Keren decided to just put up with the chickenshit.

“Fall out for chow,” Sergeant Moreland said from the doorway. “And move like you’re fucking recruits.”

The platoon, released from the scathing inspection, fell out into formation and marched ‘expeditiously’ to chow. Some of them had forgotten how to march as was apparent when the unit tried to do a column right to the messhall. They did a bit better at breaking down into files. Fortunately, it wasn’t far.

Fifteen minutes is less time than it normally takes to get an entre served. It’s about half the time that most people take to eat a casual breakfast. It required eating very fast.

Fortunately, it was one skill Keren had retained. People often commented on how fast he ate. And he was hungry. They’d worked most of the night without supper then done the hardest PT he’d experienced in decades. He wolfed down some under-done eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits, toast, orange juice and really bad coffee in well under the requisite time.

He fell out of the messhall and just stood in the light rain. Early morning rain was a constant of being outdoors, such a one that there was a civvie song that had become a famous marching song about it. It was a hell of a first day and it had barely started. He’d forgotten how much he truly hated the chickenshit part of the Army even when he knew most of it had a purpose.

Oppenheimer followed hard on his heels then stopped and pulled out a pack of Marlboros. A flick of a lighter and he was sucking down cancer smoke, the cigarette cupped to keep the light rain off.

“Socks,” Keren said. Oppenheimer had gotten gigged for not having them rolled to specifications.

“Got it,” the driver said, making a face. He was a lanky guy who had had a mane of mid-back length red hair when he arrived. “Sorry. I’ll make sure they’re strac first chance I get.”

“You got nothing better to do than stand around in the rain, Keren?” Sergeant Richards asked as he exited the messhall. He, too, pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one.

“If I had anything to do, sergeant, I’d be doing it,” Keren responded.

“You was the artillery coordinator for the Ten Thousand, right?” Richards said, a touch of nervousness in his voice.

“I’m not going to tell you how to do your job, sergeant,” Keren replied. “But, yeah, I was.”

“I heard about that Spanish Inquisition you used to run,” Oppenheimer said, chuckling. “Gawd, I wished you’d run it on our damned division arty. They purely sucked.”

“What was you?” Richards asked.

“Same as you, sergeant,” Oppenheimer said. “FDC section leader. No interest in having the job again; I prefer to be on the guns. Besides, I was talking with Gist on the bus. Motherfucker’s a human calculator. He still remembers all his tables. Got ’em memorized by heart.”

“Yeah, but we’re not using the same mortars,” Richards said. “These are electro-drive systems. Completely different ballistics.”

“Ballistics are ballistics, sergeant,” Sergeant Gist said, walking out of the messhall. Part of the rejuv process was to permanently fix any eye problems but Gist just looked as if he should have coke-bottle glasses. He was slight, pale and had a stoop. For all that, he’d kept up with the massively fucked run this morning. “And for Opie’s information, I didn’t remember the tables; I just calculate them from raw data. Give me the raw for the new mortars and I can do the same. It’s really not hard. And we will, of course, have computers.”

“Won’t have much time to get used to them,” Richards pointed out.

“We can train on the ship,” Keren said. “Keep one system out for gun training. And you guys, well, all you do is run the calculations. Hell, we can even set it up so we train in the troop bay. The main thing that’s got me worried is getting into action fast enough.”

“Everybody’s out,” Sergeant Moreland said from the doorway. “Head straight to the company training office. We’ve got five minutes before training starts.”

Oppenheimer took a drag off his cigarette and, holding the smoke, crumpled out the last of the tobacco, pocketed the butt and started to trot.

“I wanna be an airborne Ranger,” he squeaked, smoke coming out of his nose and mouth.

“Oh, shut the fuck up,” Keren said, chuckling as he ran alongside.

“Welcome to the company and all that.”

Staff Sergeant Edgar McCrady was the company operations officer, the guy responsible for making sure that all the paperwork was complete and that everyone had been trained to Army standard. Given that he was the ultimate paperpusher for the company, he was already looking haggard.

“Since you’re all prior service, training is going to skip anything that it possibly can,” McCrady said. “Therefore, don’t expect classes on VD prevention, personal hygiene, consideration of others or how to balance a checkbook. However, there is some paperwork that simply has to be done prior to training, notably wills and living wills as well as insurance and basic safety orientation. This is normally a day-long affair. We will compress it into this hour.”

There were fourteen terminals arrayed along the wall. Hooked into internet databases, they could search for relevant personal information in seconds. But it still took time. Many of the former soldiers didn’t have a will or hadn’t updated it in some time. Some hadn’t used a computer in a fifty years.

In Keren’s case it was dead easy.

“Name and social,” the machine said in a low contralto.

“Herschel Keren, 416-92-1538.”

“Will registered in Rappahanock County, Virginia. Living Will registered in Rappahanock County, Virginia. Designated respondee, Pamela Keren. Primary beneficiary, Pamela Keren. Is this information correct to the best of your knowledge?”

“Yes.”

“Would you like to make… Pamela Keren your insurance beneficiary?”

“Yes.”

“Would you like to increase your basic draw for insurance to increase the payment to the beneficiary?”

“No.” Pam was going to be set anyway.

“Method of burial if body is recoverable?”

“In the ground.”

“Religion still Baptist?”

“Yes.”

“You are recorded as an assistant chaplain for the First Baptist Church of Keren Town. Would you like to be recorded as an alternate chaplain?”

“No.”

“Basic immunizations are… not updated. Advanced immunizations are… not updated. Pay records are… updated. Thank you for your time. Goodbye.”

“File into the armory and draw personal weapons,” Sergeant Richards said. “Don’t get all shocked that they ain’t AIWs.”

Keren, by virtue of being a squad leader, was issued a rifle. He looked at it and snorted, noted the serial number then walked outside with the rest of the platoon.

“It’s a fucking Postie rail-gun!” Adams said, shaking his head.

“Actually, it’s not,” Keren said, looking at the device carefully. “I’ve used a converted rail gun and this is different. I’d say it’s way better designed for humans to use.”

The weapon was almost a sketch of a gun. The shoulder-stock was collapsible and looked flimsy. Keren suspected it was stronger than steel. The pistol-grip and trigger housing were comfortable but lightly built. The barrel was shorter than a Posleen railgun but had the same odd wideness on the horizontal access, a function of the magnetic accelerators. Sights were elevated and included optics that gave at least four power magnification. He suspected there was a way to dial that up. There was a dot reticle for fast firing. The really intimidating part was the magazine well, which looked about the size of a Barrett’s. The gun, by itself, weighed not much more than an M-16 and was a touch shorter. With the magazine he wasn’t going to guess the weight.

“I ain’t gonna march you back,” Sergeant Richards said, walking out of the armory with a railgun in his hand. “Double time back to the barracks, doff your boots and head upstairs. Then we’re going to learn about these things.”

They’d moved the furniture for the training room in the previous night. Simple folding chairs and folding tables were going to be the order of the day. For the next six weeks.

“M264 grav rifle,” Sergeant Richards said, holding one of the rifles up. “The M264 uses linear magnetic acceleration to fire a three millimeter tungsten or steel flechette to a velocity of forty-three hundred meters per second. This is five times the velocity of an M-16 round and nearly six times that of the AIW. The maximum effective range is eight hundred meters while the maximum range is eight thousand two hundred and forty-six meters and it comes complete with a four position firing selector, safe, semi, burst and full rocking auto. The base design we took from the Posties but it has been significantly improved for ergonomics and so that it can, yes, be aimed using the M482 one to twelve power opto-digital firing scope… ”

There was the M238 1mm grav pistol for the gunner and AG. A long barreled weapon with more maximum range and damage than an M-16, it was a nasty thing to fire by hand with a truly brutal recoil. The non-driver ammo bearer got the M825 combination 20mm plasma grenade launcher and railgun.

Paper manuals were distributed and with Sergeant Richards often less than helpful assistance everyone learned to field strip and reassemble their individual weapons. Particular note was taken of red comments about potential ‘issues’. The M264 wasn’t something to be fired if the barrel was blocked but that could be said of most weapons. Just more so in the case of a weapon with its power. The note about ‘potential capacitor accidental discharge’ in ‘over-fire’ conditions — like when you were firing as fast as you possibly could or get overrun — was not a good sign.

But the weapon could fire a round that ripped through a tank if you hit it just right and could fire four thousand rounds per minute. Both were good things. So was the five hundred round magazine with integrated battery compartment. And, yes, it was a heavy motherfucker. But adding it to the weapon actually improved balance and reduced recoil. By the end of the one hour class the experienced soldiers were field stripping their individual weapons to standard already.

It was followed by classes on the new mortar system, the M748 120mm electro-drive mortar system, which they still hadn’t set eyes upon, the M635 mortar sight, the M186 Mortar Carrier for M748, preventative maintenance, track replacement methods and repair of same and on and on and on.

By the end of the first day, which didn’t stop until 2200, Keren’s eyes were bleeding and his head felt stuffed with straw.

“No grab ass tonight,” Sergeant Moreland said as the weary platoon filed into the barracks. “0430 is first call and we do it all over again. Fire guard roster is on the wall. For General Information, the cadre’s already been doing all this shit on their own for a week and I’m going to be hitting the books for another couple of hours. Up to the rest of you if you want to keep going. There’s lights on your bunks. But I want everyone racked out by 2400. See you tomorrow.”

“Oh, I want to get my hands on that thing,” Oppenheimer said as the mortar track ground to a halt.

The cadre had moved the mortar carriers over from the motor pool, possibly the last time they would get a chance to crank track.

“You’ll hate it before you know it,” Adams opined. “Especially the first time you have to stay late to pull PMCS.”

“I wanna see the gun,” Cristman said. “We’d better get a chance to work the gun soon.”

They’d been manual training for a week, completing paperwork and immunizations and studying the minutiae of their new jobs. Much of it was familiar, like learning to ride a bicycle. Other parts were completely different. But they had to know both, perfectly, or their ass was going to be grass.

“And today is the day,” Sergeant Moreland said. “Fall into your tracks, dismount your guns and lay them in for ground mount.”

The process was slow. Everyone had read the steps but that was different from doing them. Finally, with the gunner and the primary ammo bearer carrying the barrel, the assistant gunner carrying the bipod and the primary ammo bearer carrying the baseplate, they got all the stuff out of the track. Keren, as squad leader, had the really tough job of carrying the sight.

Laying the gun in was also slow. Much of it was similar to the 120s they’d all used in the Posleen War. But that was not only a long time ago, there were subtle differences. The barrel locked in differently to both the baseplate and the bipod. The sight locked in differently. The elevation and traverse were both different.

Running out the aiming posts was still the same old pain in the ass.

“I will not ask you to attempt to remount it in the track,” Sergeant Moreland said when Three Gun finally called ‘UP!’ “That is for advanced training. So we will now go through the steps of ground mounting it again. And again. Until you are satisfactory in my eyes.”

“Oh, my aching back!” Griffis said, lowering his end of the barrel to the ground.

The gun systems, in a move that truly shocked Keren, had been turned over to the squad for storage in the barracks. It was nearly 2200 and while they had not ever mounted the gun to Sergeant Moreland’s satisfaction, they were getting faster. Almost up to standard according to the manual.

The problem being, any squad leader expects his team to be faster than standard.

“Your aching back is going to have to wait,” Keren said, looking at the wall mounted clock. “We have until 0430 to learn to mount this gun to my satisfaction.”

“Oh, tell me that you’re kidding,” Oppenheimer said.

“I don’t disagree,” Cristman said. “But we’ve got to do this all over again tomorrow. We’re scheduled for two days of ground mount training. If we’re up all night tonight, there’s no way we’re going to be optimal at end of business tomorrow.”

“We’ll stop at 0200 and get a couple hour’s sleep,” Keren said. “Or when we hit 25 seconds. Adams, think we can hit 25 seconds to mount?”

“We got to thirty at one point,” Adams said. “Standard is thirty five, you know.”

“And if we’re hitting thirty on the first day, the standard isn’t what we should be shooting for,” Keren said. “We all know it. Get the pieces and fall into the platoon assembly area.”

“Easy enough for you to say,” Oppenheimer said, lifting the baseplate with a grunt. “You’re carrying the sight.”

Oppenheimer dropped the baseplate, locking lug aligned downrange, curved to the side in a steady run, trotted to the rear, picked up the aiming posts and bolted downrange. Aiming posts were ancient technology, and there were newer and, arguably, better ways to lay a gun. There had been even before the Posleen had showed up. But there were advantages to the aiming posts, too. Several of the bigger ones were that the posts were completely passive and undetectable by sophistcated means, amazingly simple, and utterly reliable. Perhaps the biggest advantage, though, was that this crew understood aiming posts without any need for explanations or additional training. Given the schedule, this was all to the good.

By the time Opie was curving to the right Cristman and Griffis were dropping the barrel into place. With Adams holding the bipod up to receive it, they dropped it unceremoniously into the curved lower holding yoke. Adams flipped up the closing yoke and Griffis hooked it into place, spinning the locking wheel to lock it down.

While he was doing that, Keren set the sight to 2800 mils, mounted it, then stood back. Oppenheimer had planted the first pole and was hurtling downrange for the second plant point. He knelt down, eyeball aligning the second pole then stood up, holding the stake with one hand.

In the meantime, Cristman had unlocked the sight and spun it around to align on the first aiming stake. Since the rear one was almost on line already, all he had to do was make some small gestures to get Opie to align, then give the gesture to plant, two thumbs poiting straight down. He made sure that Oppenheimer hadn’t planted the stake at an angle then stood back.

“TWO GUN UP!” Keren shouted.

“Twenty-two seconds,” Sergeant Moreland said, looking over at Richards.

“One and Three aren’t up, yet,” Richards pointed out as first one gun then three shouted ‘UP!’

“Twenty-seven and thirty-one,” Moreland said. “We’ve dicked around enough with this. This is one task they can train on on the ship. We need to switch to vehicles. Call the company and tell them that we’re accelerating the training schedule.”

“Cutprice is scary,” Major Knight said as he entered the CO’s office.

The 1/14 S-3 was medium built but extremely tall. In the inter-war years he’d been a high-school history teacher and basketball coach. All fifty. Same small rural high-school. Except when he got a crop of just really impossible players, after the first decade or so he stopped caring if they won the district championship. The Class C school had won the overall state championship for Michigan fourteen times. Five years in a row at one point.

The coaches in districts around him would have been surprised that Buddy Knight thought anyone was scary.

“How so?” Colonel Simosin asked. He was looking over the proposed loading schedule and trying to find any way to cut it down.

“Bravo is twenty percent ahead of the training schedule,” the operations officer replied. “I know he didn’t pick and choose his privates.”

“Napoleon said that good regiments are the result of good officers,” Simosin said, not looking up. “The truth is that it requires good NCOs as well. He picked those very carefully. Sergeant Major was down watching the mortar training. They’re not just ticking things off on a sheet.”

“I didn’t think they were,” Buddy replied. “I just think they’re scary.”

“It’s good to have a scary company in a battalion,” Simosin said. “It keeps the other ones on their toes. If you see the Smaj, tell him to stop by.”

“I didn’t know we could go ahead of the training schedule,” Sergeant First Class Dwyer said. The Alpha Second platoon sergeant watched the fire and maneuver exercise and shrugged. “They’ve got movement by squads down, Smaj. You’re telling me we can move to patrolling?”

“Yes,” Sergeant Major Park said, trying not to roll his eyes. “If you’re comfortable with their proficiency, if they can pass the test, move on. Buckley.”

“Yes, Sergeant Major?” the Buckley said. “You know that it’s all going to end in blood, right? No matter how hard you train… ”

“Just order an NCO call for this evening,” Park snarled. “Purpose, acceleration of the training schedule. And am I gonna have to reset you again? You know how you hate it when I reset you.”