Strange Company by Nick Cole (best way to read ebooks TXT) 📗

the squad medic because our company physician, Chief Cutter, gave him a first aid class once. Before that he was the AG until Klutz got killed at Tebibi Field three weeks ago. Ironically, it wasn’t Klutz’s fault. For once.

We lost the last medic there too. Bad day.

Klutz just stepped on a jolt mine connector and got an eighty-thousand-volt burst through his central nervous system. That could happen to anyone. Trust me. Jolts are real hard to spot. It’s a good thing they’re expensive otherwise there’d be a lot more of them lying around for us to step on.

And like I said, it was a good thing our gunners, Hoser and Hustle, scanned and waited to engage the second group we hadn’t spotted. They were ready to go and had most of a belt to use up when the first of the enemy troopers came pouring out of the rear landing ramp just below the burning ship’s main engine nozzles. So of course… Hoser hosed. Opening up with the IG-M89 medium man-portable rapid defense gun. A beauty made by Colt-Horakawa, it dumps over five hundred rounds a minute. Nano-cooled barrel means no barrel changes. Cybernetic assist harness means “the Pig,” as we call it, can be hauled around by one man as long as he’s got an AG with him to keep feeding the thing belts of ammo. Which it devours. Hoser opened up with a judicious burst of 7.62 AP and tore the first Loyalist troopers to shreds. These were their regular units, not the guerrillas we’d been facing in the first few weeks. And not mercs. These were enlisted and officers with formal military training on what they felt was the right side of the war. Crash’s military, except for a few high-speed units and the heavy combat forces, had defected to the Loyalists, sensing an upgrade in pay if the Monarchs had a firmer grip on the situation. That was a smart play. That was usually a Monarch first step. Reward the military for all the brutality it was about to be asked to do now that regime change had begun. Plus, it had a tendency to teach everyone fear and respect.

Which, spoiler, and sorry if you watch the news feeds or believe the propaganda, fear and respect are the basis of the entire Monarch empire.

It works. Trust me.

Hoser’s Pig tore the reacting troopers, probably part of some detachment that had been sent in to check on the ship’s internal reactor, to shreds. Like I said. The Pig also tore through the boarding ramp because I insisted it be supplied and fed by high-grain load AP. When I ordered the Pig deployed, I wanted it to make its point effectively. Regardless of cover. And it did. Very much so in fact.

It just ruined stuff in a cone of outgoing lead-death.

Enemy fire came from the terminal after that. They didn’t have great angles, but they knew they needed to get something done. New Guy Two took a round right through the thigh and started limping around swearing before he fell to one side. Choker was quick and grabbed him by the drag handle to get him under the engines and out of the line of enemy fire.

I had two jobs to do right here and right now. We’d secured the point of entry. The plan was to board the wrecked and burning starship and make our way forward, and up a few decks of course, and then we could drop into the terminal directly through the hard connect boarding ramp.

What if they’ve got it mined or rigged with explosives I only now wondered in the middle of the plan and battle because that’s what kind of tactical genius I am.

Job one was to get the breach underway. I ordered Third in to assault and clear a path through Engineering to the ship’s transport system along the main spine. Then I ordered Second to pull back to the aft engine boarding ramp and support the assault there. First I got organized on the perimeter and ready for an enemy QRF to come and ruin our day.

Fourth was going to help here.

Sitrep to the First Sergeant who was with the captain and ran ops control for the company.

“Good work, Sar’nt Orion. Casualties?” bellowed the First Sergeant too loudly over the hectic comm.

I almost said “none” and then remembered New Guy Number Two had taken a round through the thigh. I tapped the comm for hold and asked Choker for an update on Farts’s medical status.

If you got hit, we usually advanced you to getting your earned tag. Kinda like a motivation to stay alive.

“He good, Sar’nt,” shouted Choker over the incoming and outgoing gunfire. “Went through the meat. Anti-coag in effect. Medi-sealant attached. Two pops of morphidol.”

Two was a lot.

“I don’t want him drooling, Choke!”

“He good, Sar’nt.” Then off comm, “You in the game, right, Farts?”

Farts nodded and his eyes rolled back in his head for a second.

“Hitting him with Quick now, Sar’nt. He’ll be good to go, trust me.”

Quick is our medical amphetamine and combat enhancer. It tends to make one extremely violent. But I couldn’t see how that would hurt for what we had ahead of us.

Choker hauled the man to his feet and had him walk a few steps. Farts swore and made it with difficulty.

Choker told him to quit complaining.

I tapped for the First Sergeant.

“We got one hit but he’s still effective.”

The First Sergeant would make the call as to whether we had him return to the rear or wait for the main body to catch up. Sometimes our senior-most NCO would just drive out in his Mule and pick the wounded man up. Regaling the casualty with horror stories of gruesome wounds the First Sergeant had received, seen, or handed out.

You weren’t really Strange Company until you got that experience. Or so some of the company old guys like to say. And yes, I’d had the pleasure.

“Good,” said the First Sergeant over the comm. “Make a