Many soldiers become mercenaries seeking freedom…only to have their dreams shattered the first time they go into town for supplies.
The days of independent sell-swords exploring the world while earning their pay died with the era of swords and shields on Terra, when weapons could be scavenged from dead enemies and the day’s food could be secured by hunting and foraging in the wild.
Nowadays, even the worst-equipped bandit needs bullets for his rifle which must be made in a workshop out of gunpowder, casings and cores…which all require a supply chain from saltpeter mines or chemical laboratories and copper or tungsten mines to refineries and metal presses.
Any proper soldier needs medical equipment to remain healthy in the field, packaged food to remain energetic during combat operations, and a shovel to dig himself a foxhole for cover. The greater the force multiplier, the longer the supply chain and the greater the price or barrier to purchase it.
Therein lies the high cost of mercenaries, for they run on a military budget while still needing to make a profit. The main reason the use of mercenaries remains financially possible —if ill advised— is that it is cheaper to hire an army for six or twelve t-months than maintain an active army for years or decades on end.
Of course, there is also the issue of loyalty. A state army with proper hierarchy is loyal to its senior-most officer and civilian government…yet the former allows for the possibility of coups. An all-too-likely possibility; over half of all colonies in the Outer Worlds with a state military have suffered from coup d’état. Mercenaries, on the other hand, fight solely for coin; a colonial government can be sure that its hired help will fight only as hard as the contract stipulates, and only so long as the money keeps flowing.
So long as the political and economic price of sustaining an army is greater than hiring mercenaries, the industry will remain a staple of Outer Worlds culture.
—Unknown
—
Much of Xandria’s population had stopped for a moment to look up at the sky as the IDS Victoria blazed forth towards orbit on a pair of fusion powered engines.
The last time it had taken off empty, while thousands of troopers and hundreds of vehicles from the Veisgolt Regiment moved east to counter the jessomite advance. Now the threat of oppressed, impoverished and radicalized desert farmers was gone, buried under a mountain of paperwork that secured the colonial government’s stranglehold over trade while keeping Jessom’s followers inside their mountainous deserts farming arid fields by day and praying for death to their oppressors by night.
Victor looked at the gathered crowds from a screen mounted on his seat in the bridge, while the experienced crew handled the pesky work of orbital and trans-atmospheric maneuvers.
Fifteen or twenty years ago, the knowledge that he’d likely ensured a few hundred thousand people remained oppressed would’ve made him bitter if not sick; nowadays he grabbed the money, fed his troops and chucked all the rest in to the depths of his mind.
On most planets, the alternative —rebel, religious extremists, separatists or ideological idealists, the branding hardly mattered— were just as power-hungry as the incumbent government. The Outer Worlds, save for a precious handful of independent colonies which fed, housed, armed and entertained the hordes of mercenaries floating around, were rentier states. Furthermore, unless their homeworlds in the Heartlands decided to lose out on the income and cut them loose, they would remain so until their fertile fields turned to sand and their mines ran dry.
The reign of fleeting violent solutions had persisted too long; humanity’s hallmark, ironically, was impermanence. Everybody just kept kicking the can down the road, lest it explode in their faces.
Victor did much the same, in a sense. For all his achievements as Colonel Steele, commander of one of the best armies to ever fight for a dollar, he was but a particularly well-oiled cog in the shit-eating and shit-producing machine that was the mercenary industry.
…
As the Victoria made its way to the closest hyper-transition bubble, the Regiment licked its wounds.
The job had been rather easy, but easy didn’t mean painless. Men and women had died from both enemy and environment, vehicles had been destroyed and consumables used up.
Recruitment would begin the moment they jumped to the nearest R&R world, by sending out individual teams to select able-bodied farm boys, miners and factory workers from around the Outer Worlds.
While some of the more specialized outfits had contracts with military academies to fill their ranks with well-trained tankers, pilots and technicians, the Regiment trained everybody in-house. The practice kept everybody running on the same frequency, as veterans too old, injured or experienced to be wasted on a frontline battalion trained the newer generation. It was also slightly cheaper; while the rest of the regiment rested for three or four months, the training companies borrowed vehicles, aircraft, artillery and production capacity to train their recruits.
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A greenblood was also almost never ‘cut loose’, as the Regiment could find a place for everyone. The ‘recycling’ clause meant that those who joined to become tankers or airmen were first trained as infantry, and contractually obligated to serve as such for the next two jobs or two t-years if they didn’t make the cut while training for more elite roles.
And in the unlikely case that the infantry companies couldn’t use more manpower…logistics always wanted more. For every soldier meant to fight the enemy, there was another one-and-a-half whose primary role was support; driving supply trucks, providing medical aid, building fortifications or managing the dropship’s autofacs.
The latter was what kept the Regiment supplied, capable of making the mechanical components, electronics and chemical substances necessary to build everything from bullets to panzers. Much of the Victoria’s crew was dedicated solely to keeping them working and maintaining the regiment’s stockpiles of ammunition, consumables and replacements, whether during combat operations or downtime.
It was the Quartermaster’s job —often known as the R4— to ensure all those went where they needed to go…and Major George Flemming was exceedingly capable at it.
Victor had poached the slightly chubby, glass-wearing man out of a managerial position on an industrialized world’s spaceport. In return for replacing his suit and tie for an olive drab uniform and looking through catalogues of rifles and bullets instead of concrete and rebar, he earned four times his previous salary…and worked like a dog.
The man didn’t seem to mind too much; George was a workaholic through and through, often found working through catalogues of requisition forms in the corners of bordellos while oiled-up coingirls full of glitter drove the grunts’ libidos to new heights.
“—battalion needs them for training the recruits, so we should prioritize the new Rhino chassis over increasing ammunition surpluses.”
Victor nodded along as the pair walked through the Victoria’s corridors towards the fore of the ship.
Well and truly done with combat for the next four to six months, the regiment had gone into hibernation. Medical personnel, both army and navy, could combine their skills to treat those heavily injured during the Xandria Campaign under the clean and controlled ship environment, while maintenance crews, swell with numbers from idling frontline personnel, dived into damaged vehicles whose issues had been deemed too complex or cosmetic to solve during combat operations.
Today, they were visiting the latter in the ‘Stable’.
As they crossed one final bulkhead, the pair arrived at floor zero of the massive garage that housed the regiment’s vehicles. From the most humble utility jeep to self-propelled air defence guns and panzers, everything was nestled side by side.
Many of the vehicles were being tended to by soldiers surrounded by tools, spare parts and faulty pieces, crouched between wheels, crawling under chassis or hanging upside-down inside turrets. Rock music played from speakers, maintenance chiefs shouted at their crews, and power tools buzzed with life, combining into a never-ending symphony.
Victor and George moved towards a particular corner of the Nest, where the gutted chassis of six panzers sat in individual cradles while mechanics crawled over them. Before they realized it, a ginger wearing the two-bar insignia of a captain was standing in front of them, performing a salute.
“Welcome, sirs.” The maintenance captain, one Iskander Traub according to the personnel records, said. “I suppose you’re here about the dirty dozen?”
Victor saluted back. “Is that what you’ve taken to calling them, captain?” He gestured to the stripped-down panzers, half of which were missing a turret. Only one had tracks, and two didn’t even have wheels.
Traub shrugged. “Somebody did, and the name stuck around. If you would follow me, sirs?”
“Lead the way, captain.”
The trio walked through piles of fresh and discarded parts, puddles of lubricant and discarded power tools. Victor had seen war zones better organized than this, despite the fact it must’ve felt organized to the gaggle of mechanics looking over his panzers.
“These six are on life support until manufacturing can sift through its previous orders. Engines, sprockets, turret rings…one of them even had its barrel sheared in half by an anti-armor missile. It’s a miracle any of them are worth keeping, in my opinion.”
George smiled, showing Traub the screen of his tablet. “Actually, they were on life support. They’ll be needed to train the newest batch up to standard, so we’re moving up the order for replacement parts you submitted a few hours. Most of the replacement parts ought to be ready in seventy-two hours, maybe a little more for a new engine block.”
“That’s…good.” The mechanic nodded with a smile. “Good thing we have spare electronics…” He paused, looking at Victor with a worried look.
He stared right back with a grimace. “I feel the same way you do, captain; electronics replacements are a bane on the entire regiment. A replacement for our lithography printers is in the works, but I can’t promise too much.”
Traub nodded awkwardly before making up an excuse to go back to work. Victor couldn’t blame the officer; talking with your boss’s boss was weird any way you put it. As he and George walked back to the officers’ quarters, he berated himself for getting soft...then dismissed the entire thing with a shake of his head.
‘All I need is some good R&R…and a good blowj—’
The shrill tone of a klaxon reverberated through the corridor, followed by the panicked words of the Victoria’s captain.
He and George looked at each other for a split second before dashing for the nearest oxygen mask cabinet, smashing the glass with an elbow strike before putting them on. They were on a timer, and it was not going to be pretty.
‘2’
“Where do we—”
“Nest!” Victor replied before the man even finished, pushing him along as they ran for the garage.
Blast doors slammed shut behind them as they entered, sealing off the ship’s most vulnerable area…and their best hope.
‘5’
Mechanics scrambled all over the place, some running around like headless chickens, while most jumped towards the closest good-looking armored vehicle. Victor did as much, rushing to open ramp a nearby infantry fighting vehicle.
“Get in, come on!” he shouted, pushing George inside while a pair of mechanics barreled towards them. “Seal in three!”
‘7’
“Come on, lads!” He shouted, grabbing the pair by the shoulders and bringing them inside.
One of the pair barreled to the floor with a whimper, but Victor barely registered the noise as he slammed the emergency seal button on the side of the ramp. The entire IFV sealed with a hiss and everyone secured themselves using the seats’ harnesses.
‘10…huh, was it a faul—’
Suddenly, he could smell rainbows and taste purple…and then everything went black.