James Tarr - Dogsoldiers

“Sounds like it’s directly east of us. A mile, maybe more.”

“Another squad of dogsoldiers?” Ed asked him. “That sounded like someone letting loose with a Mark 19.” George just shrugged. There was no way to know. Being compartmentalized meant they rarely knew where any other squad was, much less what they were doing.

“Whoever it is, they’re burning through a lot of ammo,”

“If they’re still shooting. Wouldn’t be surprised if the Tabs were shooting at each other while the lil’ doggies crept away,” Early opined. It wouldn’t be the first time that had happened. The ARF had observed there were many more young and inexperienced soldiers in the Army than in the ranks of the Irregulars. Which was just fine with them.

The gunfire tapered off to single rounds, then there was a final explosion. Five minutes later a Kestrel roared over their house, heading toward the sound of the firefight, so low and close dust came down off the walls.

“We’re staying the night,” Ed announced, staring up at the ceiling, making a decision. His pronouncement was greeted with a few groans, but that was it. They’d long ago learned the value of discretion. Quentin moved to the small battered table in the basement and began fieldstripping his rifle for cleaning. The squad members, at various times throughout the day, had taken the opportunity to clean and lube their rifles.

Ed sat down beside George and started massaging his aching calves. He couldn’t remember what it was like to have legs and feet that didn’t hurt. Add his back to that list, too.

“I never asked, where’d you get your rifle?” George asked him.

Ed looked down at the rifle, then at George. “Why?”

George frowned, then he got it. “Oh, you’re not a gun guy, are you.”

“All I know about guns is on the job training.”

Unlike a surprisingly large chunk of the dogsoldiers George knew a lot about guns, and he was aware of how things had changed. At the start of the war he’d seen AKs in the hands of more than a few doggies. And ARs chambered in .300 Blackout. Not any more. It wasn’t that the guns wouldn’t run, it was that they couldn’t find any ammo for them. Also, the cheap ARs, the ones which didn’t have pinned gas blocks, generally hadn’t lasted more than a year or two. And, while everyone was running an optic of some sort, usually a battery-powered red dot, a decade of civil war had been quite a ‘survival of the fittest’ petri dish for them. Only the exquisitely tough sights, and those that didn’t chew through batteries quickly, had survived to make it this far.

Another thing that had changed—at the start of the war a lot of the dogsoldier squads had been absolute shitshows. Perhaps only a quarter of the all-volunteer force initially had military experience. Which wasn’t horrible, but many of those who didn’t were also idiots and/or strangers to common sense. The first year of the war had seen a lot of attrition. That was always the case with war, though—combat thinned the ranks, and those left tended to be lucky, or good, or usually a bit of both. Now, after a decade of war, the veterans were solid, and even the new generation of fighters coming into the conflict—like Jason—were tougher than their predecessors. They’d been living with the war, and wartime deprivations, for so long most of them couldn’t remember what life had been like before.

George gestured at the rifle in Ed’s lap, which had been spray-painted a tan camo pattern at one point. Now, years later, half the paint had worn off, but the end result provided just as much of a disruptive pattern. “That’s a Geissele. Doesn’t look nearly as fancy as a lot of things out there, but it’s fancy on the inside, where it counts.”

Ed looked down at the gun. “I’ve had it for years. Took it off a soldier in Cleveland.”

George looked at his squad leader in surprise. “You fought in Cleveland? I thought you were only ever local.”

“I started the war here. After a year or so they asked for volunteers, there was going to be a push in Cleveland. I did three, four months there, just brutal fighting. Then the Tabs brought in shit-tons of armor, Toads and IMPs and everything else, and we had to back out, gave the city over to them. Still pissed about that.” He stared down at the rifle, remembering.

“Did a lot more night ops back then. Actually had batteries for our goggles, and there were so many people still living in the city their drones and FLIR were kinda useless. One night our squad went out on patrol, trying to stir stuff up, make something happen, without much luck. ‘Movement to contact’, I believe the military guys called it. We were heading back to our hidey hole when we hear something. We duck and three pickups go sliding by us, quiet as ghosts. I actually heard their tires on the pavement, not their engines, I think they were electric. Maybe hydrogen. Spooky as hell. They rolled up and stopped a block from where we were pretty sure another squad was hiding out. They bail out of their vehicles and start moving up. They had eight guys, and we were just four, but we hit them from the rear, by surprise. Still, it was close, we lost a guy and all of us were injured. Those guys were good.” He hefted the rifle on his lap. “They were all carrying these, and it was a hell of a lot nicer than my rifle at the time, so I took it. All their gear was top notch.”

George grunted. He knew for a fact the only Army troops who ever carried Geissele rifles into combat were Special Forces, but he wasn’t sure if he should tell Ed that. You didn’t need a fancy gun to get into this war, George knew, plenty of people had gone up against the agents of the state using rusty shotguns and Hi-Point pistol caliber carbines. Hell, at the beginning of the war, he’d heard a few local federal agents had been killed by a very talented and motivated individual with a compound bow. Arrows went right through soft body armor designed to stop pistol bullets.

“Then I get back here,” Ed said, shaking his head, “and I find Canadians working the roadblocks and patrolling the city. Canadians.”

“Oh, that ‘International Peacekeeping Force’? That didn’t last long.”

Mark, listening in, chuckled. “I guess they thought nobody would shoot at them. Who doesn’t love Canadians? Man, were they wrong. I almost felt bad for them. They lost a lot of people before they pulled out. Decided it wasn’t their fight.”

“Problem was,” George observed, “they were backing the wrong horse. Because they’re socialists, or at least their government is.”

Ed made a face at the memory, but George was right.

“Canadians are subjects, not citizens, and they’ve bent over and taken it from their government for years,” Weasel’s bitter voice floated out of the gloom, the words spat with venom. “Should have followed our example, fought for their freedom, but instead they’ve spent the last decade sitting on their asses, when they weren’t here helping the Tabs out. So fuck those guys. Fucking socialists. You know the difference between a socialist and a communist? It’s the difference between a whore who spits versus swallows. She’s still a whore, she just has commitment issues. Socialists are communists, and communists aren’t people.”

Ed and George traded a look. If nothing else, Weasel was very consistent.

“All that hate’s gonna burn you up, kid,” George called out to him, a smile on his face.

“It keeps me warm,” Weasel shot back.

Since George was being talkative, and they weren’t going anywhere for a while… “How’d you get the nickname ‘Bodycount’?” Ed asked him.

George took so long to respond that Ed thought he wasn’t going to. Then, finally, he spoke.

“You don’t want to hear that story,” George said flatly. Ed just stared at him with his typical reasonable patient face until, finally, George sighed. “You know I was a cop, right? Back when the world was sane. Downriver. Small department. Lower-middle-class suburb. I was a Sergeant, I was the Rangemaster, I was the head of the SWAT team, I had a lot of hats. I was also a pretty avid competition shooter. For a cop I was a really good shot. Compared to the guys I competed against I wasn’t that good, but they were really really good. Most cops, much as it pains me to say it, are not very good shots. It’s not that important to them. The gun is as much a sign of the office or their power as it is anything else, they figure that might makes right, just the fact they have a gun is enough, and most of the time they’re correct.” Ed kept his eyes on George but he could sense the other members of the squad within earshot listening as well. This was the most talking anyone had heard out of the man.