“Damn it’s hot,” said a troop in Galen’s squad.
“Can’t believe we’re pacifying rebels,” said another.
“Shut up,” said Galen. He studied his tranquilizer rifle. It was a weapon designed to incapacitate rather than kill an opponent. The magazine held ten rounds tipped with a packet of needles containing a powerful sedative. Galen knew the weapon was ineffective beyond the range of thirty meters. He also knew the needles wouldn’t penetrate body armor. However, scoring a hit anywhere the needles could find their way into the blood stream would take an opponent down. The needles would eventually dissolve in the victim’s body, making it relatively harmless compared to conventional weapons.
“Fall in!” yelled Mortinson.
The troops of antitank platoon formed back up in front of their Chief. He faced the mercenaries and said, “This is the deal. The company will liberate the factory and secure the major buildings of the town beside the factory. Our job will be the jail house. We’ll take it over and get the prisoners ready to be shipped out. All the prisoners. That means the ones we take, the political prisoners held by the rebels and the common criminals who were in jail before all this started. The Mandarins will sort out who’s who. As far as we’re concerned, we treat them all like scum because we don’t know one from the other. Don’t believe a thing any one of them says, and if one gives you a hard time, shoot ‘em with the tranq gun, in the ass. Right now we rest until sunset, then mount up on the combined maneuver platoon’s APCs and ride in to attack the rebels. Any Questions?”
No one spoke.
“Good. Fall out until nineteen hundred.”
Chapter Nine
Galen went back to his place by the river. He sat down and placed his night vision goggles on the ground, facing the small solar panel towards the sun so the batteries could recharge. He peered out at the river and eavesdropped on a conversation between two troops. One he knew, the other was a recent replacement.
“Horst, man, why’d you stay out here?”
“I didn’t want to rotate in last time. We were a troop short so I volunteered.”
“That’s crazy. You have to go in to get training to get promoted.”
“Who cares about promotion?”
“What about pass time? When you go in you get a week off plus weekends off and five day passes every month. Plus a week off before you come back out to the field.”
“Well I’m not taking my pass time; I’m letting it build up.”
“What for?”
“I’ve been here eight months so they owe me about two months off. My last three months here I’ll go to garrison so I can be a Corporal when I go out to the fleet. Then I’ll skip all my pass time out there.”
“Why?”
“I want to cash in all my accrued pass time so I can finish my five year contract in four years.”
“You’re nuts.”
“I’m saving up enough money to go to the Ostwind Military Academy. But to get in the academy I have to be under the age of twenty-seven. The only way I can do both is by cutting my enlistment short by a year. To do that, I have to skip most of my pass time.”
“Why not just do like me and make an enlisted career in the Panzers? I’ll be retired when I’m thirty eight.”
“I want to be an officer.”
Galen stopped listening and thought about how lucky he was. Sure, he didn’t do very well at the academy but he did graduate. Unlike most of his freshman class, he actually made it to graduation. Although he didn’t make the cut for acceptance to the Ostwind officer corps, he did get a job. In about ten months he would be assigned a tank platoon. He would make his mother proud and pay her back for her sacrifice. After he finished his obligation to the Panzers, maybe he would become a gladiator and make a fortune in the arena. Or he would take a civilian job doing something safe. Maybe he would be a janitor or an apartment manager or something.
Spike and Tad joined him on the river bank. Galen skipped a rock. His friends also skipped rocks. None of them spoke, just sat there skipping rocks. Finally Tad stood and walked away. Galen skipped another rock.
“Later,” said Spike, standing to walk away.
“Later,” said Galen.
Spike walked away. Galen skipped another rock. It splashed only twice.
At eight o’clock in the evening local time, Galen was standing in the commander’s hatch of the same APC he had commanded during his ride from the welcome center to the company headquarters. The engine growled and the tracks rumbled as the vehicle pushed through the forest north of the factory. Galen heard Mortinson’s voice over his personal communicator. Mortinson was commanding the first vehicle and leading the heavy weapons squad.
“When we burst from the tree line, we’ll be fifty meters from the prison fence. Drivers, be prepared to flip on your headlights, on high beam, when I give the command.”
Galen ducked to avoid a low tree branch. Suddenly his vehicle was tearing across open ground at full speed. Two APCs were on line to his left, the other was twenty five meters to his right. The driver kept the vehicle at full speed as it approached the outer fence of the prison. The chain link fence was five meters high and topped by a triple row of razor wire. Two meters inside that fence was a lower chain link fence with a single roll of razor wire along its top edge.
The track on Galen’s right side fired a burst of twenty millimeter rounds into the nearest guard tower. Galen sent a stream of bullets just over the top of the flat prison roof, aiming a meter above it to discourage enemy gunmen from showing their faces. Galen ducked into his vehicle to avoid being injured by the fence as his APC crashed through. Just as the vehicles hit the fence, Galen noticed a muzzle flash from a first-floor prison window. The track to his left, immediately after hitting the second fence, fired a six-round burst into the window. Tad was a good shot.
“Headlights on!” ordered Mortinson.
As Galen’s vehicle tore through the second fence, the prison yard was lit up by the headlamp high-beams of the four APCs. Galen’s night vision goggles compensated for the brightness. Twenty five meters closer to the prison building’s wall, and fifty meters to go.
“Headlights off!” ordered Mortinson.
Galen’s goggles dimmed for a moment, and then brightened. He knew the rebels wouldn’t get their night vision back so quickly, they didn’t have night vision goggles. Galen waited anxiously until the last possible moment. When the vehicle was as close to the wall as good judgment would allow Galen said, “Hard right and stop, driver.”
He held on to the rim of the hatch with his left hand and gripped the handle of the heavy machine gun with his right. The APC made a ninety degree turn and slid sideways about a meter, coming to a stop by slamming into the prison wall. “Ramp down! Dismounts post!”
The driver let the assault ramp free-fall. The troops of Galen’s squad sprang out. The first troop blew out the nearest window with a small gob of plastic explosive. The second mercenary tossed a concussion grenade into the room. Galen stood under the window, his back to the wall and his hands cupped to form a stirrup. One by one his troops stepped into his hands and Galen launched them into the room. Galen looked back to make sure the driver was behind the APC’s machine gun, and then jumped up and climbed through the prison window himself.
He heard a few air-hissing pops, the sound of suppressor-equipped tranq guns firing. One troop waited for Galen in the room. The rest were spreading out through the prison. The troop, a new replacement, gave Galen a thumbs-up. Galen waved his gun at the open door and they ran through, turning right in the corridor. Troops were standing in doorways, giving the thumbs-up to show their rooms were clear. The mercenaries held their positions, waiting for the Chief to ask for reports. Galen looked in all the rooms. He counted sixteen incapacitated rebels. All of them had been armed with some sort of weapon. Most had knives, one had a sword and two had pistols. They were the type of pistol a prison guard might use. Galen removed his goggles. It was pitch-dark in the prison, so he put them back on.