Red company contact, p.1
Red Company: Contact, page 1
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RED COMPANY:
CONTACT
by
B. V. Larson
(Book #3 of the Red Company Series)
The RED COMPANY Series:
First Strike!
Discovery
Contact
Copyright © 2023 by Iron Tower Press, Inc.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the author.
Chapter 1: Training the Worst Losers on Mars
The first day of training was ending. I stood on the broad slopes of Olympus Mons with Sergeant Cox. We were watching our newest, lamest recruits struggle in the low Martian gravity. We were both silent for a moment, taking in the chaos, as the trainees tried to catch their breath.
Sergeant Cox finally broke the silence. “Corporal Starn, is it just me or do these new fish look worse than usual?”
I snorted. “You’re not wrong, Sergeant. They’re having a hard time adjusting to the gravity and the environment. It’s always rough on the first day.”
We were on the edge of the training grounds. Rust-red dust was everywhere. Caked in it, the new recruits fumbled their way through various exercises. Our eyes settled on one particularly green loser who appeared to be attempting suicide with his practice rifle.
“Look at that one, Starn,” Sergeant Cox said, shaking his head in disbelief. “I’ve never seen a recruit hold a rifle like that before.”
I couldn’t help but scoff as I watched the young man grip the rifle awkwardly, his fingers wrapped around the emitter instead of the stock. “That’s a good way to burn your face off.”
“Hey, Marek!” Sergeant Cox bellowed inside everyone’s helmet. “What in the hell are you doing with that rifle? You trying to cook yourself some Martian barbecue?”
The recruit froze, his face turning a deep shade of red as he realized his mistake. He hastily adjusted his grip, ignoring the hoots and pointing fingers of his fellows.
Cox shook his head, his expression full of outright disgust. “I’ve seen some sorry sights in my day, but this batch... I swear, they’re greener than that algae-shit they grow under the dome.”
Feeling a sense of competition, I tried to outdo him. “I’ve got two boots on, and there are a lot of highly kickable asses in front of them today.”
Cox liked my banter. He raised an eyebrow at me. “You know, Starn, you’ve got a gift for this job. That’s why I trust you. I know you’ll help me turn these fuck-nuts into real marines.”
“If we can’t do it, it can’t be done.”
We were fat on recruits right now, but low on noncoms. It was always harder to hire good, experienced men. Borag didn’t have the best pay—or the best rep. Anyone who lived long enough tended to move on. Most of our veterans were already serving on other ships—or they were dead.
We watched longer, and I noticed Cox kept doing odd stretches.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him. “Back hurting?”
He glanced at me. “I remember when I was their age,” he said, gesturing toward the recruits, “all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. But now…” he sighed, rubbing his lower back. “I think I’m getting too old for this business. My butt hurts every day.”
I laughed. “You? Old? Come on, Cox. You’re one of the toughest guys I know.”
He gave me a wry smile. “Appreciate the compliment, but it’s not just the aches and pains. I’ve noticed something else... Something that’s got me worried.”
“I get that way too… when I need to take a dump-squat.”
“Don’t I wish that’s all it was…”
My expression shifted from amusement to concern. “Um… what’s up? Did you land wrong on one of those carryall jumps and crack a bone, or something?”
“Nah,” he said, then he hesitated. “It’s just that I’ve got this weird, growing ache in my lower back. At first, I thought it was just from all the physical exertion, but now… I’m not so sure.”
I furrowed my brow, my mind jumping to a troubling possibility. “Sergeant, you don’t think it’s a mutation, do you?”
He glared at me. “I didn’t until you brought it up. But now that I think about it, it’s possible, isn’t it? If that’s the case, it’s probably your frigging fault, Starn. Just being around you might’ve given me this damned alien disease!”
I frowned, wanting to refute his accusation, but I couldn’t rule it out entirely. “Maybe you should get it checked out.”
“Yeah right, like I’m rushing to Mars City to do that... If it does turn out I’ve got a mutation growing, you better believe I’m gonna be pissed.”
Thinking it over, I felt kind of sorry for Cox. He’d gone into the alien ruins and labs, the same as I had, but he hadn’t been exposed for long. Could it be that everyone who went in there was doomed? Or that it was slowly spreading around the ship? Were all of us on Borag going to end up as circus freaks? I didn’t want to believe it—but it was possible.
Cox’s eyes met mine, searching for any hint of ridicule. I don’t think he found any. “Starn. I just... I can’t help but wonder what’s going to happen to us if we can’t keep control of these mutations.”
I shrugged. “If we’re screwed, we’re screwed—but we’ll adapt. Red Company is a tough outfit.”
Sergeant Cox managed a weak smile. We turned back to watching the recruits again, and we immediately found reasons to howl at them.
By the end of the day, when the troops were exhausted and gasping for breath, Sergeant Cox turned to me with a glint in his eye. “You know what, Corporal? I don’t think they’ve had enough yet. What do you say we give them a taste of Martian combat?”
I grinned, already anticipating the fun that would ensue. “Sounds like a plan, Sergeant. Let’s split them into two squads and run a low-powered laser rifle exercise in the hills. Give them a feel for the terrain.”
Cox nodded in agreement. “All right, I’ll take a third of them with me in one carryall, and you take the rest in yours. We’ll set up a scenario and see how they handle it.”
We each gathered our respective squads and loaded them into the balloon-tired carryall vehicles. I couldn’t help but notice that Sergeant Cox selected the best men for his group—but at least I had more bodies in my pack of losers.
The recruits groaned at the prospect of more training, but we didn’t give a shit. In Red Company, complaints tended to make the noncoms grin.
“Listen up, greenies!” Sergeant Cox barked as we rumbled through the rocky Martian terrain. “We’re going to see how well you can handle a combat situation in these hills. You’re going to be using low-powered laser rifles, so we don’t have to worry about you killing each other—but if you don’t take this seriously, you’ll wish you’d been shot for reals.”
When he shut up, I addressed my squad. “Pay attention and follow orders. This is a taste of what you’ll face out in the field. If you can’t handle Mars, you won’t last long in Red Company.”
The recruits exchanged nervous glances. Their exhaustion was momentarily forgotten. They were fearing whatever goat-roping event we had planned for them—and that was the right attitude.
Once I reached a low spot in the southern hills, I brought my carryall to a halt and kicked the recruits out of the vehicle. They stumbled out into the red dust, struggling to move fast enough to avoid the business end of my boots.
Sergeant Cox was already out there about a mile off, marshaling his own lame team. I eyed the landscape, and I made my tactical choices. “We’ll go for the high ground. The top of that ridge. Move-out!”
We began to march uphill, and the recruits listened to my plans with varying levels of attentiveness. Some were still trying to slump over a boulder whenever they could. It was disgusting.
“You, get off your ass!” I shouted, watching as men scrambled to comply. “You have five minutes to find cover before the exercise begins!”
Sergeant Cox signaled me when we got to the top of the ridge. “I’ve seen potatoes with more energy than your lot,” he told me via radio. “Get them lined up, or we’ll leave them out here to find their own way back!”
When I relayed these sentiments to my men, they groaned, but it did seem to liven them up a bit.
Cox and his recruits attempted to set up an ambush, and when they were in position, he signaled me to make my bullshit patrol. This was going to be a rough introduction to Martian combat for my boys, but I was kind of looking forward to seeing how much of a mes
Night was falling. The sun was going down on the far side of Olympus Mons, and once it did, it would plunge the Martian landscape into darkness. I urged my squad forward, and they began navigating the treacherous terrain with limited visibility. The recruits shuffled ahead of me, stumbling and cursing under their breaths. They had no idea they were about to walk straight into an ambush set up by Sergeant Cox and his squad.
We rounded a bend in the rocky terrain and were met by a flurry of low-powered laser shots that suddenly lit up the night. My squad instinctively dove for cover, but we were hopelessly outmatched by Cox’s ambush. It was a monkey and a football scenario. Some of my guys even tripped over each other as they scrambled to get away from enemy fire. The men were wearing harnesses to simulate injury, which gave them a good shock when the gear registered a hit. The unmistakable sound of recruits thumping on the hard ground filled my ears.
My guys nailed a few of the ambushers, sure. Some of my men even tried to flank and catch Cox in a crossfire—but it was not to be. Before long, it was clear that Cox’s squad had emerged victorious.
He and his men swaggered over the battlefield, smirking at the “dead” recruits strewn across the ground, their harnesses buzzing.
“You call that a fight?” Cox jeered. “Your men are pathetic, Starn. I’m calling everyone’s mommy to tattle on them tonight.”
I couldn’t help but wince at the truth of his words. My squad had been unprepared for the ambush, and it showed. Now that the shock-harnesses had switched off, I noticed that some of my defeated recruits didn’t seem to mind playing dead, as it allowed them a chance to rest their tired bodies.
Sergeant Cox began checking the wargame records to ensure the authenticity of each “casualty.” His anger rose as he came across one recruit who hadn’t been hit at all, but who was still lying on the ground, feigning death to get some rest.
Cox grabbed the man by the collar and hauled him to his feet. “Private Marek? Is that really you—again? What the fuck do you think you’re doing? According to my records, you weren’t even hit! You’re just faking it to get out of the fight, aren’t you?”
“I—I thought I got hit, Sergeant,” Marek stammered, desperately trying to bullshit up an excuse. “It was a mistake, see?”
“A mistake?” Cox snarled, his helmet almost touching Marek’s. “Boy, you’re so dumb, if you fell into a barrel of tits, you’d come out sucking your own thumb! No more slacking off in the middle of a training exercise! Get your sorry ass back into line!”
Merek hastily obeyed, scrambling to rejoin the rest of my defeated squad.
As the exercise ended, the message was clear: most of these boys weren’t ready for the real thing.
Chapter 2: Duty Calls
I woke up before dawn with big plans. It was my first time playing solo drill instructor with a full squad, and I was kind of into it. The previous day’s defeat fueled my resolve to turn these recruits into real soldiers. I was going to whip my squad into shape.
My first move was a classic. I grabbed a metal ammo box and banged on it. The loud clanging echoed through the bubble-dome tent.
“Rise and shine, ladies! Time to get up and show me what you’re made of!” I yelled, walking between the rows of sleeping recruits. The men groaned and stirred in their sleeping bags, cursing under their breaths.
One particularly surly recruit had the balls to complain openly. “Can’t we get five more minutes, Starn? I’m cramped up from yesterday.”
I slammed the ammo box down on the deck, and the noise made him jump. Then I used my bigger left arm to scoop him out of the bunk and onto his feet. His eyes were enormous, and his cramps vanished in a hurry.
“Five more minutes?” I yelled at him. “You think the enemy’s gonna give you five more minutes? Get your ass hopping, now!”
He stood at attention in his undies until I moved off to hassle the next slacker. I thought I heard the word “freak” behind me, but I pretended not to. I didn’t want to have to beat his head in—besides, my left arm was twice the size of my right, so “freak” wasn’t an entirely inaccurate description.
My arm bothered me a little, as it was a mutation. The only good thing about it was my girlfriend’s response: she kind of liked it. She was a very visceral woman named Ana who had, until recently, been a pirate from the outer planets. I’d used a big portion of my cash-out from our last mission to help Ana buy herself up to a C-Class contract, and we’d been getting along really well since then.
Grumbling, the recruits crawled out of their sleeping bags and prepared for the day ahead. I paced in front of them, listing the torments and trials I’d planned out for them.
“Today, you’re going to learn how to operate as a squad. You’ll be carrying your injured comrades, working together to survive an obstacle course—and learning how to communicate efficiently while under pressure. The fun part comes in the details as always, so here’s the kicker: You’ll do all this shit with minimal rest and rations. Even your oxygen mix will be thinned down a touch, to simulate emergency conditions.”
The recruits didn’t look happy. They exchanged alarmed glances, and a few of them looked sick. Private Ledbetter, my ever-loyal sidekick, smirked. He knew what was coming, and he was looking forward to it.
“If any of you think you can just lie down and fake it like yesterday,” I continued, “think again. I’ll be watching you closely, and anyone caught slacking off will answer to me personally. Is that understood?”
The recruits responded in unison, “Yes, Corporal Starn!”
I did the whole “I can’t hear you” thing a few times, making them shout louder. At last, I accepted their response. “Good enough. Move out!”
Dawn was breaking over the Martian landscape as we came out of our dome and stepped onto the sands of Mars. The first red rays of sunlight crept over the horizon. The distant sun threw a gentle glow on the slopes of Olympus Mons.
The enormous shield volcano, the largest volcano of any kind in the known universe, stood silent and dead behind us. It was like a silent sentinel, a massive presence that dominated the barren land.
The Martian atmosphere, despite decades of terraforming efforts, was still thin and tenuous. Looking up, it gradually transformed from a rich shade of blue near the horizon to the deep black of the night above. As the sun rose, there was a pinkish-orange glow behind Olympus Mons.
The weak sunlight refracted through the thin air, scattering the longer wavelengths of light. This resulted in the planet’s signature orangey hue. There were scattered clouds overhead comprised of carbon dioxide and water ice. They shimmered with iridescence as they caught the sun’s rays, giving off a weird quality you would never see back on Old Earth.
The slopes of the dead volcano were a mess of rugged terrains and smooth lava flows. The ground was painted in shades of russet and ochre, reflecting the iron-rich composition of the Martian soil.
The vast expanse of the volcanic plateau was astounding. The region stretched for a hundred miles in all directions. Patches of lichen and other hardy pioneer species dotted the landscape, a success story that was long in the making. Our ongoing terraforming efforts had gradually transformed Mars into a more habitable environment.
The day’s training started off mean, and it only got worse as the day progressed. I put my squad through their paces, forcing them to hustle and work together as a team. There was no room for the lazy or dishonest recruit in my squad. Only through hard work and perseverance would they become Red Company men.
Sergeant Cox approached me sometime after noon. He had a bemused smile on his face. For a time, he watched with his arms crossed as I tormented my recruits with gusto.
“You know, Starn,” he said, “I gotta hand it to you. You sure know how to light a fire under their tailpipes.”
I grinned back at him. “You gotta be tough on them, Cox. It’s the only way they’ll learn.”
As we continued to watch the trainees, Sergeant Cox’s gaze turned toward his own body, and his expression darkened. “You know, Starn, this damn virus is messing with us. I’ve looked… and… I think I’ve got a tail sprouting out of my ass.”
