James Tarr - Dogsoldiers

At the far end of the block squatted an ugly two-story house of brown brick. From the outside it appeared unremarkable, except perhaps for the fact that it was surrounded on all sides by shorter bungalows. A person looking out its second-floor windows would have an unrestricted view in every direction.

The men inside the house had arrived just after dark the night before and were getting tired of waiting. There were twelve of them in the house, for the most part bloodied veterans of the guerilla war not yet eight months old. The night before they’d sent out two eyeball drones and kept a quiet watch in shifts, peeking out past the sheets tacked to the inside of the empty window frames. Once the sun came out they could move around a bit inside the shadowed rooms, but no one was about to relax south of the border. They still kept watch, but now it was for their informant. He wasn’t late, not yet, but the waiting wasn’t doing anybody any good.

The twelve-man team was the lead element in what really was the first organized probe of Army-occupied territory since the combat at the start of the ground war. The two sides had been trading fire every day since the shooting began, but organized groups larger than one or two six- to eight-man squads were something the Army hadn’t really seen since their decisive victory in the eight-day city-wide battle at the beginning of hostilities. Up-armored pickup trucks had proved no match for the military’s tanks and armored personnel carriers.

This, however, was a recon in force, numerous twelve-man teams moving south in a loose arrowhead formation, going slow and quiet, avoiding contact, gathering intelligence, their ultimate goal a hit and run on the armory/fuel depot near the city’s geographic center. The men were organized into squad-sized cells but the official ARF Irregulars designation, much less the “dogsoldier” moniker, had yet to be coined.

They’d been on the move south for four and a half days, inside the city limits for the last three. The teams kept in contact via frequency-hopping transmitters they were pretty sure were impossible for the Army to home in on. Still, to be safe, they kept transmissions to a bare minimum and relocated immediately whenever possible. It was still early enough in the game that neither side was really sure of what the other was capable of. The government had beaten down the rebels almost everywhere, although at great loss of life, and their thinking was that the war, such as it was, would be over shortly. The newly-reorganized guerrillas hoped to prove them wrong.

All but one of the teams had seen at least one Army patrol. Military presence on the street was a lot higher then. Buttoned-up columns of two to four vehicles was the norm, winding through the rubble-strewn streets at a slow walk, usually led by a poorly armored Growler way out front to draw hasty fire. In a city where every block held a thousand places for a sniper to hide the Army troops had experienced a rekindled love for armor. The lead vehicle was followed by at least one IMP flanked by dismounted infantry to check the buildings to either side. While these patrols weren’t difficult to surprise, at the first shot the army troops would pile into the backs of the IMP’s, button up, then use their heavy weapons to level every building in sight. One sure sign of a veteran patrol was armor crawling down not one but two parallel streets while the dismounted troops searched the yards and houses in-between. This U-shaped formation was hard to evade without being spotted and impossible to ambush effectively, but wasn’t seen as often because it was slower and more work for the troops. Luckily none of the six teams had been spotted on the way down, although there’d been a few close calls.

Ed tried to stay out of the way as much as possible, but there were a lot of bodies and not a lot of room. It wasn’t the smallest house he’d overnighted in, but they’d been there all day and most of the night before, waiting for their contact. He wasn’t late, not yet, in fact they’d been a day early, but everyone was antsy just the same.

Ed had all of a month under his belt. A month since he’d joined up, not really long enough for him to do anything but get armored webgear, a weapon (used, and he didn’t want to think about what might have happened to its previous owner), a few patrols under his belt, and realize just how far in over his head he was. That he was blissfully ignorant of all things military was an understatement—he had no military or police experience, and had only fired guns a few times before the war—paintball guns.

He’d been bounced around from group to group, not really feeling welcome at all. They needed new bodies, but nobody seemed eager to take responsibility for him. Those patrols he’d been on had been terrifying at first, even though he’d learned quickly. Local guerrilla activity was near its high-water mark but somehow his squad was never where the action was. They’d had a few scares, sure, but he still hadn’t seen a soldier closer than two blocks away.

He still wasn’t sure how he’d ended up where he was, a member of the advance unit for a new offensive. They were scouting ahead for enemy positions, trying to gather intelligence on the move as best they could. The squad included the ranking officer of the operation, a curt, professional military veteran, a Captain who had no tolerance for fools. Assisting him were a Lieutenant and a Sergeant, backed up by nine trigger-pullers including, absurdly enough, him. They were one of three or six squads (Ed wasn’t sure), heading slowly but steadily south. Their target was the downtown depot, but they were also tasked with mapping out roadblocks and spotting armor.

Things had been so crazy and hectic when he’d joined up that no one had time to find out if he knew which end of a rifle the bullet came out of. Their solution was to slap a weapon into his hands which gave him the greatest margin for error. Ed had been horrified to discover he was the proud new owner of a grenade launcher. It looked like a short, fat, single shot shotgun, only the shells were bigger around than jumbo-size eggs, not that he’d seen any of those recently. He’d received all of five minutes of training on how to use it, most of that consisting of instructions on how not to blow himself or any of his teammates into hamburger. He also had a pistol on his hip, and he was even less sure of his ability hit anything with that. But… everyone seemed to have a pistol, it seemed to be a badge of honor in a war that was, at least in small part, about guns.

You would think he would’ve been used to the smell of unwashed bodies, but for some reason by now that wasn’t the case. So many nervous men, packed in together—the raw stink filled his nostrils, even though there wasn’t a whole pane of window glass left in the house. The temperature had been in the eighties all week—not too hot, but still they were having trouble finding enough water. It had been a hot summer, and all the rain traps were baked dry.

“Got movement,” one of the lookouts called softly into the house. “Looks like Jasper.”

The Captain looked up from the maps of the city he was constantly studying. He was a stout, imposing figure, with graying hair shaved to stubble and odd-looking ears that curled out at their tops. “’Bout goddamn time,” he growled.

The lookout watched the slender, furtive figure hurry up the street, keeping to the shadows as much as possible, checking over his shoulder constantly. In a previous era his worn, dirty clothes would have identified him as homeless or an addict, now he just fit right in with the rest of the wretched populace still stuck in the city. The Captain had been going to give him another two hours and if he hadn’t shown up by then they would have had to move on without whatever information he had. They’d stayed too long already.