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GWOT Dirty Mercs
Jul. 20th, 2018 06:58 pmGWOT Dirty Mercs
Part of the problem of maintaining an oasis of civilization in the midst of dreck is the kind of people who like visiting an oasis - to play in what had been the clear clean water and drop dates in their mouth. And also fruit.
As the blueback exchange rate skyrocketed (greenbacks were an eye-catching toilet paper), we stopped being as open to allowing guests on board. We needed the food more than the money, for example.
But sometimes we didn't have a choice. Apparently Homeland had done us some favors - such as not rounding up our H1-B visa employees and interning them, as they had done at another Bay Area high tech company. Rather suddenly, with buses, and screaming.
So we had a small convoy - by our standards, two vehicles - scheduled to arrive this afternoon. Both were described as "light armor" which could mean anything.
I planned accordingly. Echo 18 Sundries was of course happy to have customers. The perimeter camp was not supposed to officially have customers, but was ready to have them anyway.
There is something about self selected military ranks and paid for hire mercenary scum - such as yours truly. In our case, we used Captain for a variety of roles ... Gate Captain for the person in charge of a gate, Convoy Captain for the person in charge of a convoy, etc. We didn't have any majors, and boy would we regret it once we did.
But just as the A-Team has a Colonel, these particular convoy visitors also had a Colonel. That was the only title he wanted. Colonel. He introduced his crew by their handles: Murderhobo, Dozer, Snake, Rabiddog, Hydra and Raptorhawk. They looked the part, and smelled worse.
Any team sports athlete can tell how good another team is by watching how they gear up, warm up, work out and practice.
These seven mercenaries were really, really good. State of the art weapons and equipment. Thermographic sights, which pre-Firecracker were thirty _thousand_ dollars a pop and were now unobtanium at any price.
So why weren't they in China with the other paramilitaries and mercenary units?
I'll get to that.
Murderhobo made our Tiny look ... well, tiny. He carried among other equipment a sharpened fire axe. Dozer made Murderhobo look tiny. Snake could just about fit under Dozer's armpit. Knife specialist. Rabiddog had bad prison tattoos, spoke bad English and worse Mexican, and liked drinking vodka. Hydra and Raptorhawk were a matched pair of predatory bitches, not to insult dogs overmuch. The short one was Hydra, the tall one with the many-times-broken nose was Raptorhawk.
All carried firearms far too large for them. In the case of Murderhobo, that was a M249 light machine gun. Dozer had an M60 _medium_ machine gun, you know, the Rambo one. The other four had fully automatic ARs in 7.62 (Rabiddog and Raptorhawk) and 5.56 (Snake and Hydra) respectively.
The Colonel didn't carry a rifle. He carried a fully automatic assault shotgun. It seemed to fit his personality.
The first problem was when they signed in. Their credentials bore their handles; policy required their names. That just wasn't going to happen, so I let it go. But that meant they weren't going into certain buildings at all (Data Center, H) and were restricted to first floor in most of the others.
That was OK with them. After sneering at the cafeteria and laughing at the motor pool, they made their way to the perimeter camp, throwing around bluebacks and precious metals like they were popcorn.
In exchange, they got what they wanted -- hookers and blow. Yes, really. Sex and cocaine.
Because it was the perimeter camp, just about the only thing I could do was watch and have a reaction team prepared.
This proved to be very fortunate when Snake decided that his fun involved adding failure to pay to the equation. His team backed him up.
By the time React arrived, they had wrecked the pub, broken three jaws, and spilled all the alcohol they hadn't drunk.
The Reaction Team leader called me on radio.
"Echo 18, be advised, we're just going to call it a night out here."
Fuck me what?
Found out later that he'd transmitted while dangling upside down by his tied ankles from a spinning ceiling fan. Then the blade had broken and dumped him on his head.
I brought an entire convoy to respond - eight vehicles, two of them armored trucks and our patented barbed wire festooned very own Hate Truck. Never leave your perimeter without one.
That gave us one pedestal or hardpoint mounted heavy weapon per mercenary, making the odds even, or slightly in their favor.
The extra was doubled up on the Colonel, as I dismounted to speak to him.
"What the fuck you gonna do, sonny?" he asked while leveling the shotgun at me.
I did not reply, to him.
"Echo 18, H5, ring the bell."
A single shot rang out from H5 and pinged loudly off the camp alarm bell.
"Colonel, your unit is under observation from a superior force. We both know you can wipe out this convoy whenever you like, but you _will_ lose people breaking contact, and you might not get your vehicles out. You won't be taking ours. Kill switches."
For the first time, he started to frown. Then he laughed.
"You REMFs are all the same. Can't handle real soldiers. We'll be going now."
Snake bit the lip of one of his victims and pushed her bloodied face away. Hydra laughed and laughed with grenades in both her hands.
I waited for them to get some distance from the camp. The convoy paced them, slowly. I regretted the gasoline but I regretted letting them in even more.
It hadn't been my call. The SLE had been blunt.
"We can't keep them out. Too many favors owed. They have heavy paper from Homeland. They do the shit Homeland can't. Or in some cases won't."
And they had a mission. We were merely resupply and R&R on their way in.
They reached their vehicles, parked near the gate. We adjusted formation.
The Colonel mounted up and tooted his rig's Confederate Dixie style horn.
They flew huge flagpoles just like Homeland. But the Colonel's lead rig had a Confederate flag and the APC driven by Dozer flew a single black flag. No skull, no crossbones. Just no quarter. No mercy either. You were one of them or you were shit.
That's when Snake decided to open his bloody handkerchief and show off the severed fingers.
"Check fire," I muttered into my throat mike. "Check fire."
I couldn't even send stretcher bearers to the perimeter camp. Stretched too thin.
Snake grinned. He bit into one. Behind me, Arturo retched.
Brooke stood up in the flanking trench fifty meters east where she had lain concealed all this time, with a big black tube over her shoulder and a laser painting the side of the Colonel's rig.
"You're bluffing," he asserted.
"Tell it to the Javelin," I replied.
Fire and forget. Top attack missile. Range 3000 yards or more. Eats battle tanks for breakfast.
Also a harmless simulator, stolen from our training facility ... which I certainly hadn't let them visit or find out about.
The Colonel's eyes narrowed.
He motioned with a hand and his crew rolled out. My gate crew, from trench and bunker shelter, let them leave.
Murderhobo turned in his gunnery harness and flipped us the finger, pumping it.
The H5 sniper showed great restraint by not blowing him away.
I gave it a fifty-fifty chance if they suddenly turned around and attacked. But even if we won, they would do so much damage that the site would be indefensible afterwards. And if they won, a few severed fingers would be kid stuff compared to what they would do next.
They trundled off west, into the setting sun.
Destination, the Santa Cruz Mountains. "To suppress antipatriotic elements."
I cordially hoped they rolled off the side of a mountain road, and wished I could help.
Brooke broke squelch.
"Permission to stand down?"
"Granted."
Fucking mercs.
###
Janine raged at me.
"Why the fuck didn't you do anything?"
"What was our casualty count?"
"Two dead, both female dependents, eight seriously wounded -- including the React guy's head injury, the three broken jaws and the four rape survivors."
"Cheap at the fucking price," I growled.
"What?!??"
"Janine, if I had gone toe to toe with those assclowns, I would be dead, you would be dead, everyone in the perimeter camp would be dead, Brooke and Arturo would be dead. How long do you think we'd last with Sarah as senior surviving security lead? And no Fire Brigade, and no meaningful reaction force. No stretcher bearers. An infirmary full of critical cases, none of whom can fight another day. _Then_ we'd have to deal with Homeland's reaction, which might just be to bulldoze the site and inter - as opposed to intern - the survivors.
"I chose not to fight. We took ten casualties. _We got off easy_. Really we did."
"Tell it to them," she snapped, pointing to the line of stretchers being carried from the perimeter camp to the infirmary.
"That is one of my tasks, yes," I agreed.
Janine stormed off, to try to talk her team through what they had just witnessed. The Fisher Price Lego Tinkertoys starter pack, compared to what they would do with a helpless, prostrate site at their mercy.
"Wyatt. Got it?"
"Got it," he said savagely.
Pictures. DNA - try not to think about how. Height and weight, the former from video against known background and the latter from a concealed floor scale in a corridor. In full gear but you can't have everything.
Their big mistake was not wrecking the site when they left. Because we had them on file, and so long as we survived, we would have long memories.
Dirty mercs.
Part of the problem of maintaining an oasis of civilization in the midst of dreck is the kind of people who like visiting an oasis - to play in what had been the clear clean water and drop dates in their mouth. And also fruit.
As the blueback exchange rate skyrocketed (greenbacks were an eye-catching toilet paper), we stopped being as open to allowing guests on board. We needed the food more than the money, for example.
But sometimes we didn't have a choice. Apparently Homeland had done us some favors - such as not rounding up our H1-B visa employees and interning them, as they had done at another Bay Area high tech company. Rather suddenly, with buses, and screaming.
So we had a small convoy - by our standards, two vehicles - scheduled to arrive this afternoon. Both were described as "light armor" which could mean anything.
I planned accordingly. Echo 18 Sundries was of course happy to have customers. The perimeter camp was not supposed to officially have customers, but was ready to have them anyway.
There is something about self selected military ranks and paid for hire mercenary scum - such as yours truly. In our case, we used Captain for a variety of roles ... Gate Captain for the person in charge of a gate, Convoy Captain for the person in charge of a convoy, etc. We didn't have any majors, and boy would we regret it once we did.
But just as the A-Team has a Colonel, these particular convoy visitors also had a Colonel. That was the only title he wanted. Colonel. He introduced his crew by their handles: Murderhobo, Dozer, Snake, Rabiddog, Hydra and Raptorhawk. They looked the part, and smelled worse.
Any team sports athlete can tell how good another team is by watching how they gear up, warm up, work out and practice.
These seven mercenaries were really, really good. State of the art weapons and equipment. Thermographic sights, which pre-Firecracker were thirty _thousand_ dollars a pop and were now unobtanium at any price.
So why weren't they in China with the other paramilitaries and mercenary units?
I'll get to that.
Murderhobo made our Tiny look ... well, tiny. He carried among other equipment a sharpened fire axe. Dozer made Murderhobo look tiny. Snake could just about fit under Dozer's armpit. Knife specialist. Rabiddog had bad prison tattoos, spoke bad English and worse Mexican, and liked drinking vodka. Hydra and Raptorhawk were a matched pair of predatory bitches, not to insult dogs overmuch. The short one was Hydra, the tall one with the many-times-broken nose was Raptorhawk.
All carried firearms far too large for them. In the case of Murderhobo, that was a M249 light machine gun. Dozer had an M60 _medium_ machine gun, you know, the Rambo one. The other four had fully automatic ARs in 7.62 (Rabiddog and Raptorhawk) and 5.56 (Snake and Hydra) respectively.
The Colonel didn't carry a rifle. He carried a fully automatic assault shotgun. It seemed to fit his personality.
The first problem was when they signed in. Their credentials bore their handles; policy required their names. That just wasn't going to happen, so I let it go. But that meant they weren't going into certain buildings at all (Data Center, H) and were restricted to first floor in most of the others.
That was OK with them. After sneering at the cafeteria and laughing at the motor pool, they made their way to the perimeter camp, throwing around bluebacks and precious metals like they were popcorn.
In exchange, they got what they wanted -- hookers and blow. Yes, really. Sex and cocaine.
Because it was the perimeter camp, just about the only thing I could do was watch and have a reaction team prepared.
This proved to be very fortunate when Snake decided that his fun involved adding failure to pay to the equation. His team backed him up.
By the time React arrived, they had wrecked the pub, broken three jaws, and spilled all the alcohol they hadn't drunk.
The Reaction Team leader called me on radio.
"Echo 18, be advised, we're just going to call it a night out here."
Fuck me what?
Found out later that he'd transmitted while dangling upside down by his tied ankles from a spinning ceiling fan. Then the blade had broken and dumped him on his head.
I brought an entire convoy to respond - eight vehicles, two of them armored trucks and our patented barbed wire festooned very own Hate Truck. Never leave your perimeter without one.
That gave us one pedestal or hardpoint mounted heavy weapon per mercenary, making the odds even, or slightly in their favor.
The extra was doubled up on the Colonel, as I dismounted to speak to him.
"What the fuck you gonna do, sonny?" he asked while leveling the shotgun at me.
I did not reply, to him.
"Echo 18, H5, ring the bell."
A single shot rang out from H5 and pinged loudly off the camp alarm bell.
"Colonel, your unit is under observation from a superior force. We both know you can wipe out this convoy whenever you like, but you _will_ lose people breaking contact, and you might not get your vehicles out. You won't be taking ours. Kill switches."
For the first time, he started to frown. Then he laughed.
"You REMFs are all the same. Can't handle real soldiers. We'll be going now."
Snake bit the lip of one of his victims and pushed her bloodied face away. Hydra laughed and laughed with grenades in both her hands.
I waited for them to get some distance from the camp. The convoy paced them, slowly. I regretted the gasoline but I regretted letting them in even more.
It hadn't been my call. The SLE had been blunt.
"We can't keep them out. Too many favors owed. They have heavy paper from Homeland. They do the shit Homeland can't. Or in some cases won't."
And they had a mission. We were merely resupply and R&R on their way in.
They reached their vehicles, parked near the gate. We adjusted formation.
The Colonel mounted up and tooted his rig's Confederate Dixie style horn.
They flew huge flagpoles just like Homeland. But the Colonel's lead rig had a Confederate flag and the APC driven by Dozer flew a single black flag. No skull, no crossbones. Just no quarter. No mercy either. You were one of them or you were shit.
That's when Snake decided to open his bloody handkerchief and show off the severed fingers.
"Check fire," I muttered into my throat mike. "Check fire."
I couldn't even send stretcher bearers to the perimeter camp. Stretched too thin.
Snake grinned. He bit into one. Behind me, Arturo retched.
Brooke stood up in the flanking trench fifty meters east where she had lain concealed all this time, with a big black tube over her shoulder and a laser painting the side of the Colonel's rig.
"You're bluffing," he asserted.
"Tell it to the Javelin," I replied.
Fire and forget. Top attack missile. Range 3000 yards or more. Eats battle tanks for breakfast.
Also a harmless simulator, stolen from our training facility ... which I certainly hadn't let them visit or find out about.
The Colonel's eyes narrowed.
He motioned with a hand and his crew rolled out. My gate crew, from trench and bunker shelter, let them leave.
Murderhobo turned in his gunnery harness and flipped us the finger, pumping it.
The H5 sniper showed great restraint by not blowing him away.
I gave it a fifty-fifty chance if they suddenly turned around and attacked. But even if we won, they would do so much damage that the site would be indefensible afterwards. And if they won, a few severed fingers would be kid stuff compared to what they would do next.
They trundled off west, into the setting sun.
Destination, the Santa Cruz Mountains. "To suppress antipatriotic elements."
I cordially hoped they rolled off the side of a mountain road, and wished I could help.
Brooke broke squelch.
"Permission to stand down?"
"Granted."
Fucking mercs.
###
Janine raged at me.
"Why the fuck didn't you do anything?"
"What was our casualty count?"
"Two dead, both female dependents, eight seriously wounded -- including the React guy's head injury, the three broken jaws and the four rape survivors."
"Cheap at the fucking price," I growled.
"What?!??"
"Janine, if I had gone toe to toe with those assclowns, I would be dead, you would be dead, everyone in the perimeter camp would be dead, Brooke and Arturo would be dead. How long do you think we'd last with Sarah as senior surviving security lead? And no Fire Brigade, and no meaningful reaction force. No stretcher bearers. An infirmary full of critical cases, none of whom can fight another day. _Then_ we'd have to deal with Homeland's reaction, which might just be to bulldoze the site and inter - as opposed to intern - the survivors.
"I chose not to fight. We took ten casualties. _We got off easy_. Really we did."
"Tell it to them," she snapped, pointing to the line of stretchers being carried from the perimeter camp to the infirmary.
"That is one of my tasks, yes," I agreed.
Janine stormed off, to try to talk her team through what they had just witnessed. The Fisher Price Lego Tinkertoys starter pack, compared to what they would do with a helpless, prostrate site at their mercy.
"Wyatt. Got it?"
"Got it," he said savagely.
Pictures. DNA - try not to think about how. Height and weight, the former from video against known background and the latter from a concealed floor scale in a corridor. In full gear but you can't have everything.
Their big mistake was not wrecking the site when they left. Because we had them on file, and so long as we survived, we would have long memories.
Dirty mercs.
