Military Fiction – Hot Space Station Justice

child-soldier4

BEASTS AND WILD ANGELS

Scariest thing on the planet is a stoned 11-year old with a Kalashnikov.

His parents are dead, most likely murdered right in front of him. He’s never been to school, can’t read or write or count past twenty, but the little fucker can field-strip and reassemble his AK74 in under ninety seconds, then put three center mass at a hundred yards.

His troop is his family now, his father figure some teen who has survived four or five years in this corner of hell already, who instead of killing him that first day, gave him a hit of heroin and showed him which end was the noisy bit of a gun.

He goes by a war-name – Li’le Piff, Baby 9, TNT, Chop Chop – given after his first kill or rape or village-razing. The one his Mother gave him has long since withered from neglect.

He’s not a rarity either. Some tragic exception. The country is thick with them, roaming in packs like feral dogs, savaging whatever, whoever gets between them and any whim that pops into their little drug-addled minds.

This is where you work. A place with a name you can’t pronounce that’s a bad joke disguised as 21st century nation. The currency is worth less than the paper it’s printed on. The government doesn’t deserve the title. There is no Police, no Fire or Paramedic Emergency Services. The only hospital within a hundred kilometer radius was shelled two years ago by rebels – or the army – and it hasn’t been rebuilt. Not that it matters because all the doctors fled or were rounded up. It’s a place so foreign, so far from normal civilization with 5G WiFi Hot Spot sushi bars and Prime Two-Day Delivery, it might as well be another planet. This is the ‘Mad Max meets Clockwork Orange’ world that you’re stuck in until your contract expires.

Or you do.

Wrote this sample a while back at the request of a company working on a Post-Apoc RPG. Don’t think their project ever took off but I was pleased with this vignette.

***

Trying to get back home…

Balkanized

A neat little term to make someone at a desk feel better. A word-trick to contain what happens when the reins of civilization slip and life-long neighbors flip psychotic overnight. Hell vomits mind-numbing savagery on some little town or village, like Satan’s timeshare, and we expect a clinical description. It is life ripped out by the roots, a world torn and shattered, bodies draped over charred rubble accenting a certain brutalized emptiness.

Like dabbing antiseptic on a gut wound; the sleight-of-hand won’t stop the bleeding, but maybe it’ll take away the sting.

Balkanized…

We were just trying to get to safety. To friendly lines. Back home.

I drew on the stub of my cigarette, embers on the filter, and looked through the binoculars again. The hollow eyes of a hundred broken windows stared back at me. Nothing. No motion. No sound. Not even birds. The town was empty – or at least made to look that way.

I keyed the mike. “I want security 200 meters out on both flanks. No visitors this time.”

“Roger, Boss. 200 meters out. Anders thinks Putin Guard tore through here last week. Probably won’t be anything left.”

“Yep. Probably not,” I sighed. “But we have to look anyway. We’re low on everything. And,” I patted my vest pocket. “I’m out of cigarettes.”

“OK, boss, whatever you say. Two out.”

I cradled the mike and pounded on the roof. “Smiley! Crank her up. We’re going in. Keep your eyes peeled for a gas station.” As the Bradley lurched into gear I grabbed the .50, unlocked it and swung it forward. “Knowles. Load up a TOW. I don’t want any surprises.”

“Sure thing Sarge. Last one though.”

“Well then let’s hope we don’t need it.”

The remnants of my company broke out of the tree line and start downhill into another nameless east European town.

We found two gas stations. Eventually. Both had been raped clean. Whoever it was missed the rental center though. There was a warm dry garage with a lift and tools still scattered across the workbenches. More important there was a 200 gallon diesel tank in a concrete shed out back. Its tin roof had collapsed in the fighting and the scorched frame of a trunk was melted into the asphalt in front of the door. Easy to miss it if you weren’t desperate and didn’t know what to look for.

“Round up everything that even looks like it still works. Bring up the truck and have Dureky’s squad drain this thing. We can fuel up once we get clear of this place. I don’t like being confined.” I jumped down out of the hatch. “Stay here and keep an eye out – I’m going scrounging.”

I kicked in the metal side door and let that rusty dead air and sewage tang billow out. I peered into the gloom of the office area. There’s got to be a break room. Stepping gingerly over the threshold, I started my search. Right away I came across a row of scattered bones shrouded in moldy suits. Lined up in one of the larger offices, all of them were face-down with their skeleton wrists zip tied behind them. Civilian casualties from the early days. Probably the first wave of riots and retaliation. I keep looking.

And there it is: end of the hall next to the bathrooms. Thank Christ the vending machines are still there and one of them has cigarettes. Sobranies, Davidoffs, even Magnas, all dirt cheap Russian smokes but still. I break open the back and start stuffing my cargo pockets.

CRUMP

I feel the explosion through the walls. I freeze. My radio squawks.

“Contact! Contact! I got heavy contact east. Anders is gone. So’s Travino. Michaels is pinned down. It’s Putin Guard! Say again – Putin Guard. I see 3 BMP3s and one, two T80s. I need back up now.” Heavy fire hammers in the back noise.

Shit. Crumpled packs fall from my fingers. I snatch up my M4 and start running to the sound of guns.