Nightcrawler
Member
I got an itch to write something completely different. So, if Oleg will forgive me, I present a (very) short story: The Sands of Zanzibar
I know I'm no David Weber or John Ringo. I just knocked this section out in an hour or so. There'll probably be two or three more parts. This won't be a long running story like the Trilogy. Nor is it intended to be "hard" SF.
I basically just had fun with it. I know it's rough. Please enjoy all the same.
*******************
I’m sorry, but I need to wrap this up. We’re heading off to some town to search for a suspected weapons cache soon. Don’t worry about me, Jen. I’ll be okay. Oh, and make sure you tell everybody that Wally’s going to be okay. He was hit pretty bad, but the Doc said he should make a full comeback in a few months. They’re discharging him to let him recover. He’ll probably arrive on the same ship this letter does, actually.
Take care of yourself, Sis. I miss you. I’ll write again when I get a chance.
Love, Oz
PS: Try to find Wally a girlfriend when he gets home. He almost died a virgin. He was home-schooled and he has a really hard time talking to girls. If coming home a wounded war hero can’t get him laid the boy’s just beyond help.
PPS: Larry Steiner was killed last week. I didn’t really know him, he’s over in Charlie Company. We went to high school together though. His family might be getting the notice on the same ship this letter arrives on. Tell his mom I’m sorry.
“Ozzy, come on,” Sergeant First Class DuPont said, peering around the pile of empty supply crates that Corporal Oswald Wanderman had set up his bunk in. “We’re getting ready to go. We’re going light, so just your rolling gear. Leave your ruck. We shouldn’t be on the ground for more than three hours.”
“Roger that, Sarge!” Ozzy said crisply, clicking send on his email browser and closing his personal computer. The email would take weeks to get home; sending it only uploaded it to the server, where it would be downloaded by the next courier ship headed out of the system. Eventually, it’d make it to his sister Jennifer back home. Hopefully.
Ozzy placed his small computer into his duffel bag, locked it, and pushed it back underneath his cot. He stood up and grabbed his equipment off of the concrete floor, and placed it onto his cot next to his weapon. Ozzy first put his camouflage uniform shirt back on, then strapped himself into his armor vest. The vest was bulky and heavy, but the thick, semi-flexible layer of interlocking ceramic-composite rings could take quite a pounding and had saved many a trooper’s life; no one complained about the armor. Most troops didn’t wear the groin extension, the bicep protection, or the big collar, though. The collar pushed your helmet up and made it hard to fire from the prone. The bicep protection made it hard to move your arms freely, and the groin protector had a bad habit of smashing the wearer’s proverbial family jewels if he moved the wrong way.
His armor on straight and strapped down, Oz first put on his goggles then plopped his helmet on his head and secured the chin strap. Doing so turned it on, activating both its integrated active hearing protection system and his squad radio. The nice thing about the hearing protection was that it actually improved one’s hearing; it amplified sounds and allowed one to have a conversation despite all but the most deafening background noise. On the other hand, it automatically and instantly muffled sounds that were above a certain decibel level, so as to protect the trooper’s hearing.
Ozzy then sat on his cot and put on his knee and elbow pads; some guys didn’t wear them, but Ozzy always did. He stood up and went over his gear one last time. Night vision, check. Emergency medical kit, check. Flashlight, check. Knife, check. Water, check. Ammo…crap. Checking the pouches on his vest, Ozzy realized he only had two spare magazines for his rifle. He’d have to get more before they went out.
Satisfied with everything else, Oz grabbed his rifle and trotted off to meet Sergeant DuPont. He found him in the area they called the Lounge. The Lounge was little more than a few tables, some old couches that came from God-knows-where, and enough campground cooking equipment for the occasional barbecue. It was something nearly everyone in Ozzy’s company had pitched in to put together, though, and soldiers from other units were only allowed in if invited. The entire battalion was housed in a small, partitioned warehouse, and Bravo Company had an entire quarter of it to themselves.
“Sergeant DuPont!” Ozzy said has he entered the room. “I need more mags.”
“I know,” the Sergeant said, a foul-smelling cigar clutched between his teeth. “We got a shipment in. They’re over there.” Sergeant DuPont pointed across the Lounge to an opened crate against the wall. Several men from Ozzy’s platoon were pulling out ammo cans and removing magazines from them. Ozzy walked over and crouched down in front of one of the cans.
Removing one of the heavy, three column, thirty-six-round magazines, Ozzy peeled the shipping seal off of the mouth and checked it. The fat, composite-cased cartridges looked brand new. Satisfied, Ozzy stuffed the magazine mouth-down into one of his ammo pouches, then retrieved another one. He filled up the remaining four ammo pouches on his vest, giving him a total of two hundred and fifty-two rounds if he included the full magazine already in his weapon.
Standing up, Ozzy noticed the date code on the ammo can. Shaking his head, he walked back over to where Sergeant DuPont was waiting for the rest of the platoon to assemble.
“Hey Sarge,” Ozzy said as he approached, “that ammo can is eighty years old!” Sergeant DuPont shrugged.
“It’ll still be good,” he said, not looking up from his PDA. “The loaded magazines are supposed to have a shelf life of a hundred and twenty standard years before the springs go bad. You ready?”
“Roger that, Sarge.”
“Good, Ozzy. Grab some couch for a few minutes then. You have time for chow if you eat fast. El-Tee will be here to start the briefing in about fifteen minutes.” Oz nodded and headed toward the far wall of the Lounge, where a few other members of his squad were sitting against the wall eating rations.
“Hey guys,” Ozzy said, sitting down with his comrades next to an open box of Meals, Ready to Eat. He laid his rifle across his lap, making sure the muzzle wasn’t pointed at anybody, and grabbed one of the MREs from the box. He dropped the food pouch into the little self-heater unit, and pulled the string. While waiting for the small chemical heater to make his food hot (well, hot on the bottom, cold on the top), he looked down at the weapon in his lap.
It was a stubby thing, boxy and businesslike in appearance. The weapon was green, dark gray, and black in color, made of titanium and composites. It was a Mk.48 Mod. 6 semi-automatic infantry rifle. It fired 8x40mm Armor-Piercing Anti-Personnel rounds from a fat thirty-six round magazine that fed into the weapon just behind the pistol grip. The fore end of Ozzy’s rifle was equipped with a bright, two hundred and twenty lumen white light. Originally he’d been issued a low-magnification range-finding scope for his weapon, but most of his company had recently been issued no-magnification reflex sights. Oz found he preferred the new sight; it was faster on target and perfectly usable at the short engagement ranges one commonly encountered. Most of Ozzy’s platoon mates preferred the reflex sights over the older optics, but some stuck with the battle scopes they were used to.
One person in his platoon that still had a magnifying optic was Sergeant DuPont. His scope was different, though, a commercial model of superior quality. Sgt. DuPont had been through Sniper School and was the best rifle shot Oz had ever seen. The Sergeant’s rifle was also equipped with a longer, heavier barrel and a folding bipod. Like the scope, the Sergeant had purchased these items himself.
The Mk.48 was an old weapon. Ozzy had learned to shoot on one when he was a kid; his father had served the Concordiat Marines and had purchased his weapon from the Corps after the last war. They were replacing them with the newer, small caliber Mk.52s anyway, so they let him buy it for about half of what it was worth. It was a fairly heavy weapon, but accurate and powerful. Ozzy was delighted to be issued what was then the latest variant of the Mk.48, the Mod. 5, when he enlisted in the Colonial Guard. They were surplus Federal weapons that Ozzy’s Colonial Government had been able to purchase at low cost.
Now that the war was on, though, the Mk.48 was updated to Mod. 6 form and put back into production. The changes were all minor, though, except for the fluted barrel, which saved weight, and the improved magazines. Most troops who were issued the Mk.48 loved it, even though it was heavier than the Mk.52 series. Its heavy 8mm slug penetrated body armor more reliably and offered better terminal ballistics than smaller rounds like the 6x32mm that was now standard.
It was just as useless against powered armor as any other shoulder arm, though, so most units were more concerned with acquiring compact anti-armor weapons than they were with a few scattered complaints of the 6mm Mk.52 not having enough stopping power.
Ozzy didn’t dislike the 6mm rifles; the Metropolitan Police in Camelot, the capital city of Avalon, his home Colony world, used them. He just preferred the biggest gun he could get his hands on.
After heating it for a few minutes, Ozzy figured that his food was as hot as it was going to get. He took off his helmet, tore open the package, and began to eat with the oversized plastic spork that the meals all came with. It was some kind of compressed meat brick with a thirty standard year shelf life. Oz couldn’t tell if it was pork, beef, or poultry; it all pretty much tasted the same. Hunger is the best spice, though, and he wolfed down the meat brick without a second thought.
“So where we going this time?” Ozzy asked, digging into the package of chocolate-esque pudding that came with his meal.
“There’s a town out west a ways,” Sergeant Wayne, Ozzy’s fire team leader, said. “They think the insurgents are using an old civic building of some kind to stockpile weapons. Enemy ships have been slipping in and out of the system for the last year, and they’ve been dropping supplies to the insurgents every chance they get. They’re trying to keep us bogged down here, wasting resources that would be better used at the front.”
“Pretty smart move, really,” Corporal Manwe said. “This is a friendly system, and the Zanzibar government is our ally. Most of the people support the government, but if we go in too hard and slag the place from orbit, we’ll kill a lot of civilians and opinion will turn against us.”
“So we end up doing this two-bit ****,” Private First Class Isaacson said. “We gonna have air cover this time Sarge?”
“Yeah,” Sergeant Wayne said, “Coupl’a gunships overhead. We’ll be too far away for artillery support, so the birds’ll hang with us as long as they can. We shouldn’t be on the ground too long. Just a smash & grab.”
“Well thank God for that,” Ozzy said. “Last time was a bitch.” Everyone nodded in agreement. No one liked trying to engage the insurgents on their home turf without air support. The enemy Olympian Navy had been able to equip their puppet insurgents with impressive firepower, and had provided advisors to train them in their use.
“Gunships gotta stay nap of the earth, though,” Sergeant Wayne went on, absentmindedly playing with his long moustache. “Insurgents got themselves a coupl’a mobile anti-aircraft lasers out there. They haven’t been able to nail them all yet, and the damned things have a range of a hundred klicks or more. They can even shoot down artillery shells. That’s one of the reasons we had such a hard time breaking up that stronghold last month. They had five of the damned things and kept burning our artillery barrages out of the sky.”
“Yeah, that one was a bitch,” Manwe said. Everyone quietly grunted in agreement. Ozzy’s platoon had lost three men in that assault, and no one liked to talk about it.
“Attention on deck!” Sergeant DuPont barked, standing up and saluting as Lieutenant Waters strode into the room.
“At ease,” Lt. Waters said. “Sit back down, gentlemen, keep eating.” Lt. Waters commanded Third Platoon as was well liked by his men, including Oz. He’d been a non-commissioned officer in the Concordiat Marine Corps before marrying an Avalonian woman and retiring to Ozzy’s homeworld. He quickly got bored and went into the Colonial Guard. He was sent to Officer Candidate School within two years and became a platoon leader after returning. Lt. Waters, at thirty six standard years of age, was a bit older than most men of his rank, but he loved commanding his platoon and had refused promotion twice.
Tall and confident, Lt. Waters was admired by his men. His camouflage uniform was immaculate, even under his armor vest, and his helmet was tucked neatly under his left arm. Strapped to his right leg was his issue sidearm, a 10mm pistol, and slung muzzle-down on his right shoulder was his rifle. His black hair was cropped short; a long scar ran up the right side of his dark face, giving him an imposing grimace.
The shoulder pads of his armor vest had gray Lieutenant’s rank insignia embroidered on them. On his left shoulder was the flag of the Concordiat, a white star and circle insignia on a dark blue background. Underneath that was the flag of the Avalon Colony, a green and white standard emblazoned with the sword Excalibur. On the Lieutenant’s right shoulder was the patch of the Concordiat Navy 5th Fleet. The Concordiat Marines didn’t wear unit patches on their uniforms, but the Avalonian Colonial Guard did. Even though they were attached technically to the 511th Marine Expeditionary Force, the 511th had no unit patch, so the Avalonians used the patch of the 5th Fleet instead.
Aside from that, their multi-terrain camouflage fatigues were identical to those of the Marines. Some Colonies’ Colonial Guards wore different uniforms, but most used the same uniform as the Federal Forces to simplify logistics. Concordiat planners had enough headaches trying to integrate, upgrade, or replace the mish-mash of weapons, equipment, and tactics from the dozens of Colonial forces that were working with the Federal Forces without having to get different uniforms for everyone as well.
“Listen up, Third Platoon,” Lt. Waters said, his deep voice booming across the Lounge. “We’ll be moving out in about fifteen minutes, so I need all my NCOs to make sure their men are squared away. Our target is the town of Cairo, about three hundred clicks to the west, on the edge of the desert. Intel reports that the Popular Front for the Liberation of Zanzibar has been stockpiling weapons there, in the basement of a public library. Cairo was hit hard by the economic collapse in Zanzibar a few years ago. When people are living in poverty, they become more open to the bull**** promises of justice and strength preached by the Olympians. The entire town must be considered hostile. That said, I expect you all to use your best judgment and to exercise discretion out there. We need to avoid any unnecessary civilian deaths. Every time a civilian dies, the PFLZ uses it for propaganda.
“Assisting Third Platoon will be a platoon from the Zanzibar National Guard. These guys are mostly locals and have combat experience. More importantly for us, they’ve proven themselves loyal to the Zanzibar government. I know some of you are going to be uncomfortable working with them after what happened to Delta Company, but we need to be professionals about this. Don’t get complacent though. Any questions?”
“Expected resistance, sir?” someone asked.
“Intelligence estimates that the enemy numbers are manageable. This of course means that they don’t know. Recon drones sent over the town haven’t spotted any heavy weapons, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there. We won’t have real-time satellite cover, as every time we deploy a satellite the sons of bitches manage to shoot it down or sabotage it. The Navy was, I think, a bit optimistic when they declared space superiority over Zanzibar.” Lt. Waters flashed a toothy grin, and his men chuckled sardonically.
Very little about the Zanzibar campaign had gone according to plan. Olympian Navy ships continually lurked in the Zanzibar System, sending in raiding parties to distract and occupy the Concordiat Navy, often getting close enough to destroy satellites and drop supplies. The ON had taken heavy losses in these attacks, but they had the numbers to absorb the casualties without slowing down.
“We will have air support this time. Two gunships will follow us all the way in and linger overhead. This won’t be an extended operation, just a quick smash & grab. We’re going to land in the middle of town, hit the building, clear it, destroy the weapons cache if we find it, then move out. A company from the Zanzibar National Guard will arrive a few hours later to secure the village and establish a command post, but it’ll be their problem then, not ours.
“I went back and forth with the Old Man about the Zanzibarans, gentlemen. He assures me that they’re a proven unit and that we won’t have any problems. Still, be careful out there, but not paranoid. I trust the Colonel’s judgment, and so should you. That said, if you hear Code Zulu over the radio, light the bastards up. I want everyone to come back alive. Is that understood?”
“Yes Sir!” Ozzy and his comrades said in tattered unison.
“Alright then,” Lt. Waters said. “Form up by squad and head to the armory. I want everyone to draw as many grenades as they can carry. Make sure we’ve got plenty of spare ammo for the belt-feds and rockets for the SMAW teams. On the bounce! Move out!”
“HOO-YAH!” Ozzie shouted along with everyone else, jumping to his feet and putting his helmet back on.
******************
I know I'm no David Weber or John Ringo. I just knocked this section out in an hour or so. There'll probably be two or three more parts. This won't be a long running story like the Trilogy. Nor is it intended to be "hard" SF.
I basically just had fun with it. I know it's rough. Please enjoy all the same.
*******************
I’m sorry, but I need to wrap this up. We’re heading off to some town to search for a suspected weapons cache soon. Don’t worry about me, Jen. I’ll be okay. Oh, and make sure you tell everybody that Wally’s going to be okay. He was hit pretty bad, but the Doc said he should make a full comeback in a few months. They’re discharging him to let him recover. He’ll probably arrive on the same ship this letter does, actually.
Take care of yourself, Sis. I miss you. I’ll write again when I get a chance.
Love, Oz
PS: Try to find Wally a girlfriend when he gets home. He almost died a virgin. He was home-schooled and he has a really hard time talking to girls. If coming home a wounded war hero can’t get him laid the boy’s just beyond help.
PPS: Larry Steiner was killed last week. I didn’t really know him, he’s over in Charlie Company. We went to high school together though. His family might be getting the notice on the same ship this letter arrives on. Tell his mom I’m sorry.
“Ozzy, come on,” Sergeant First Class DuPont said, peering around the pile of empty supply crates that Corporal Oswald Wanderman had set up his bunk in. “We’re getting ready to go. We’re going light, so just your rolling gear. Leave your ruck. We shouldn’t be on the ground for more than three hours.”
“Roger that, Sarge!” Ozzy said crisply, clicking send on his email browser and closing his personal computer. The email would take weeks to get home; sending it only uploaded it to the server, where it would be downloaded by the next courier ship headed out of the system. Eventually, it’d make it to his sister Jennifer back home. Hopefully.
Ozzy placed his small computer into his duffel bag, locked it, and pushed it back underneath his cot. He stood up and grabbed his equipment off of the concrete floor, and placed it onto his cot next to his weapon. Ozzy first put his camouflage uniform shirt back on, then strapped himself into his armor vest. The vest was bulky and heavy, but the thick, semi-flexible layer of interlocking ceramic-composite rings could take quite a pounding and had saved many a trooper’s life; no one complained about the armor. Most troops didn’t wear the groin extension, the bicep protection, or the big collar, though. The collar pushed your helmet up and made it hard to fire from the prone. The bicep protection made it hard to move your arms freely, and the groin protector had a bad habit of smashing the wearer’s proverbial family jewels if he moved the wrong way.
His armor on straight and strapped down, Oz first put on his goggles then plopped his helmet on his head and secured the chin strap. Doing so turned it on, activating both its integrated active hearing protection system and his squad radio. The nice thing about the hearing protection was that it actually improved one’s hearing; it amplified sounds and allowed one to have a conversation despite all but the most deafening background noise. On the other hand, it automatically and instantly muffled sounds that were above a certain decibel level, so as to protect the trooper’s hearing.
Ozzy then sat on his cot and put on his knee and elbow pads; some guys didn’t wear them, but Ozzy always did. He stood up and went over his gear one last time. Night vision, check. Emergency medical kit, check. Flashlight, check. Knife, check. Water, check. Ammo…crap. Checking the pouches on his vest, Ozzy realized he only had two spare magazines for his rifle. He’d have to get more before they went out.
Satisfied with everything else, Oz grabbed his rifle and trotted off to meet Sergeant DuPont. He found him in the area they called the Lounge. The Lounge was little more than a few tables, some old couches that came from God-knows-where, and enough campground cooking equipment for the occasional barbecue. It was something nearly everyone in Ozzy’s company had pitched in to put together, though, and soldiers from other units were only allowed in if invited. The entire battalion was housed in a small, partitioned warehouse, and Bravo Company had an entire quarter of it to themselves.
“Sergeant DuPont!” Ozzy said has he entered the room. “I need more mags.”
“I know,” the Sergeant said, a foul-smelling cigar clutched between his teeth. “We got a shipment in. They’re over there.” Sergeant DuPont pointed across the Lounge to an opened crate against the wall. Several men from Ozzy’s platoon were pulling out ammo cans and removing magazines from them. Ozzy walked over and crouched down in front of one of the cans.
Removing one of the heavy, three column, thirty-six-round magazines, Ozzy peeled the shipping seal off of the mouth and checked it. The fat, composite-cased cartridges looked brand new. Satisfied, Ozzy stuffed the magazine mouth-down into one of his ammo pouches, then retrieved another one. He filled up the remaining four ammo pouches on his vest, giving him a total of two hundred and fifty-two rounds if he included the full magazine already in his weapon.
Standing up, Ozzy noticed the date code on the ammo can. Shaking his head, he walked back over to where Sergeant DuPont was waiting for the rest of the platoon to assemble.
“Hey Sarge,” Ozzy said as he approached, “that ammo can is eighty years old!” Sergeant DuPont shrugged.
“It’ll still be good,” he said, not looking up from his PDA. “The loaded magazines are supposed to have a shelf life of a hundred and twenty standard years before the springs go bad. You ready?”
“Roger that, Sarge.”
“Good, Ozzy. Grab some couch for a few minutes then. You have time for chow if you eat fast. El-Tee will be here to start the briefing in about fifteen minutes.” Oz nodded and headed toward the far wall of the Lounge, where a few other members of his squad were sitting against the wall eating rations.
“Hey guys,” Ozzy said, sitting down with his comrades next to an open box of Meals, Ready to Eat. He laid his rifle across his lap, making sure the muzzle wasn’t pointed at anybody, and grabbed one of the MREs from the box. He dropped the food pouch into the little self-heater unit, and pulled the string. While waiting for the small chemical heater to make his food hot (well, hot on the bottom, cold on the top), he looked down at the weapon in his lap.
It was a stubby thing, boxy and businesslike in appearance. The weapon was green, dark gray, and black in color, made of titanium and composites. It was a Mk.48 Mod. 6 semi-automatic infantry rifle. It fired 8x40mm Armor-Piercing Anti-Personnel rounds from a fat thirty-six round magazine that fed into the weapon just behind the pistol grip. The fore end of Ozzy’s rifle was equipped with a bright, two hundred and twenty lumen white light. Originally he’d been issued a low-magnification range-finding scope for his weapon, but most of his company had recently been issued no-magnification reflex sights. Oz found he preferred the new sight; it was faster on target and perfectly usable at the short engagement ranges one commonly encountered. Most of Ozzy’s platoon mates preferred the reflex sights over the older optics, but some stuck with the battle scopes they were used to.
One person in his platoon that still had a magnifying optic was Sergeant DuPont. His scope was different, though, a commercial model of superior quality. Sgt. DuPont had been through Sniper School and was the best rifle shot Oz had ever seen. The Sergeant’s rifle was also equipped with a longer, heavier barrel and a folding bipod. Like the scope, the Sergeant had purchased these items himself.
The Mk.48 was an old weapon. Ozzy had learned to shoot on one when he was a kid; his father had served the Concordiat Marines and had purchased his weapon from the Corps after the last war. They were replacing them with the newer, small caliber Mk.52s anyway, so they let him buy it for about half of what it was worth. It was a fairly heavy weapon, but accurate and powerful. Ozzy was delighted to be issued what was then the latest variant of the Mk.48, the Mod. 5, when he enlisted in the Colonial Guard. They were surplus Federal weapons that Ozzy’s Colonial Government had been able to purchase at low cost.
Now that the war was on, though, the Mk.48 was updated to Mod. 6 form and put back into production. The changes were all minor, though, except for the fluted barrel, which saved weight, and the improved magazines. Most troops who were issued the Mk.48 loved it, even though it was heavier than the Mk.52 series. Its heavy 8mm slug penetrated body armor more reliably and offered better terminal ballistics than smaller rounds like the 6x32mm that was now standard.
It was just as useless against powered armor as any other shoulder arm, though, so most units were more concerned with acquiring compact anti-armor weapons than they were with a few scattered complaints of the 6mm Mk.52 not having enough stopping power.
Ozzy didn’t dislike the 6mm rifles; the Metropolitan Police in Camelot, the capital city of Avalon, his home Colony world, used them. He just preferred the biggest gun he could get his hands on.
After heating it for a few minutes, Ozzy figured that his food was as hot as it was going to get. He took off his helmet, tore open the package, and began to eat with the oversized plastic spork that the meals all came with. It was some kind of compressed meat brick with a thirty standard year shelf life. Oz couldn’t tell if it was pork, beef, or poultry; it all pretty much tasted the same. Hunger is the best spice, though, and he wolfed down the meat brick without a second thought.
“So where we going this time?” Ozzy asked, digging into the package of chocolate-esque pudding that came with his meal.
“There’s a town out west a ways,” Sergeant Wayne, Ozzy’s fire team leader, said. “They think the insurgents are using an old civic building of some kind to stockpile weapons. Enemy ships have been slipping in and out of the system for the last year, and they’ve been dropping supplies to the insurgents every chance they get. They’re trying to keep us bogged down here, wasting resources that would be better used at the front.”
“Pretty smart move, really,” Corporal Manwe said. “This is a friendly system, and the Zanzibar government is our ally. Most of the people support the government, but if we go in too hard and slag the place from orbit, we’ll kill a lot of civilians and opinion will turn against us.”
“So we end up doing this two-bit ****,” Private First Class Isaacson said. “We gonna have air cover this time Sarge?”
“Yeah,” Sergeant Wayne said, “Coupl’a gunships overhead. We’ll be too far away for artillery support, so the birds’ll hang with us as long as they can. We shouldn’t be on the ground too long. Just a smash & grab.”
“Well thank God for that,” Ozzy said. “Last time was a bitch.” Everyone nodded in agreement. No one liked trying to engage the insurgents on their home turf without air support. The enemy Olympian Navy had been able to equip their puppet insurgents with impressive firepower, and had provided advisors to train them in their use.
“Gunships gotta stay nap of the earth, though,” Sergeant Wayne went on, absentmindedly playing with his long moustache. “Insurgents got themselves a coupl’a mobile anti-aircraft lasers out there. They haven’t been able to nail them all yet, and the damned things have a range of a hundred klicks or more. They can even shoot down artillery shells. That’s one of the reasons we had such a hard time breaking up that stronghold last month. They had five of the damned things and kept burning our artillery barrages out of the sky.”
“Yeah, that one was a bitch,” Manwe said. Everyone quietly grunted in agreement. Ozzy’s platoon had lost three men in that assault, and no one liked to talk about it.
“Attention on deck!” Sergeant DuPont barked, standing up and saluting as Lieutenant Waters strode into the room.
“At ease,” Lt. Waters said. “Sit back down, gentlemen, keep eating.” Lt. Waters commanded Third Platoon as was well liked by his men, including Oz. He’d been a non-commissioned officer in the Concordiat Marine Corps before marrying an Avalonian woman and retiring to Ozzy’s homeworld. He quickly got bored and went into the Colonial Guard. He was sent to Officer Candidate School within two years and became a platoon leader after returning. Lt. Waters, at thirty six standard years of age, was a bit older than most men of his rank, but he loved commanding his platoon and had refused promotion twice.
Tall and confident, Lt. Waters was admired by his men. His camouflage uniform was immaculate, even under his armor vest, and his helmet was tucked neatly under his left arm. Strapped to his right leg was his issue sidearm, a 10mm pistol, and slung muzzle-down on his right shoulder was his rifle. His black hair was cropped short; a long scar ran up the right side of his dark face, giving him an imposing grimace.
The shoulder pads of his armor vest had gray Lieutenant’s rank insignia embroidered on them. On his left shoulder was the flag of the Concordiat, a white star and circle insignia on a dark blue background. Underneath that was the flag of the Avalon Colony, a green and white standard emblazoned with the sword Excalibur. On the Lieutenant’s right shoulder was the patch of the Concordiat Navy 5th Fleet. The Concordiat Marines didn’t wear unit patches on their uniforms, but the Avalonian Colonial Guard did. Even though they were attached technically to the 511th Marine Expeditionary Force, the 511th had no unit patch, so the Avalonians used the patch of the 5th Fleet instead.
Aside from that, their multi-terrain camouflage fatigues were identical to those of the Marines. Some Colonies’ Colonial Guards wore different uniforms, but most used the same uniform as the Federal Forces to simplify logistics. Concordiat planners had enough headaches trying to integrate, upgrade, or replace the mish-mash of weapons, equipment, and tactics from the dozens of Colonial forces that were working with the Federal Forces without having to get different uniforms for everyone as well.
“Listen up, Third Platoon,” Lt. Waters said, his deep voice booming across the Lounge. “We’ll be moving out in about fifteen minutes, so I need all my NCOs to make sure their men are squared away. Our target is the town of Cairo, about three hundred clicks to the west, on the edge of the desert. Intel reports that the Popular Front for the Liberation of Zanzibar has been stockpiling weapons there, in the basement of a public library. Cairo was hit hard by the economic collapse in Zanzibar a few years ago. When people are living in poverty, they become more open to the bull**** promises of justice and strength preached by the Olympians. The entire town must be considered hostile. That said, I expect you all to use your best judgment and to exercise discretion out there. We need to avoid any unnecessary civilian deaths. Every time a civilian dies, the PFLZ uses it for propaganda.
“Assisting Third Platoon will be a platoon from the Zanzibar National Guard. These guys are mostly locals and have combat experience. More importantly for us, they’ve proven themselves loyal to the Zanzibar government. I know some of you are going to be uncomfortable working with them after what happened to Delta Company, but we need to be professionals about this. Don’t get complacent though. Any questions?”
“Expected resistance, sir?” someone asked.
“Intelligence estimates that the enemy numbers are manageable. This of course means that they don’t know. Recon drones sent over the town haven’t spotted any heavy weapons, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there. We won’t have real-time satellite cover, as every time we deploy a satellite the sons of bitches manage to shoot it down or sabotage it. The Navy was, I think, a bit optimistic when they declared space superiority over Zanzibar.” Lt. Waters flashed a toothy grin, and his men chuckled sardonically.
Very little about the Zanzibar campaign had gone according to plan. Olympian Navy ships continually lurked in the Zanzibar System, sending in raiding parties to distract and occupy the Concordiat Navy, often getting close enough to destroy satellites and drop supplies. The ON had taken heavy losses in these attacks, but they had the numbers to absorb the casualties without slowing down.
“We will have air support this time. Two gunships will follow us all the way in and linger overhead. This won’t be an extended operation, just a quick smash & grab. We’re going to land in the middle of town, hit the building, clear it, destroy the weapons cache if we find it, then move out. A company from the Zanzibar National Guard will arrive a few hours later to secure the village and establish a command post, but it’ll be their problem then, not ours.
“I went back and forth with the Old Man about the Zanzibarans, gentlemen. He assures me that they’re a proven unit and that we won’t have any problems. Still, be careful out there, but not paranoid. I trust the Colonel’s judgment, and so should you. That said, if you hear Code Zulu over the radio, light the bastards up. I want everyone to come back alive. Is that understood?”
“Yes Sir!” Ozzy and his comrades said in tattered unison.
“Alright then,” Lt. Waters said. “Form up by squad and head to the armory. I want everyone to draw as many grenades as they can carry. Make sure we’ve got plenty of spare ammo for the belt-feds and rockets for the SMAW teams. On the bounce! Move out!”
“HOO-YAH!” Ozzie shouted along with everyone else, jumping to his feet and putting his helmet back on.
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. Not to sound ungrateful but... when do we get more? (Please)
