good at juggling balls for Team 1.69.
Paul and Z were out on a basic dismounted patrol—no suit, again. The colonel, Mike, and he had discussed the mission on halo link the night before. Yes, there was an explosives-hazard threat. Yes, Paul and Z might get shot at. No, no real force-on-force situation was foreseen that the unarmored soldiers of Second Company probably couldn’t handle.
“Force-on-force” was the vernacular for a creditable infantry opposing force. Nagamas was thought not to have many shooters around. Therefore, there was no measurable force-on-force threat.
So Second Company’s advisor team was out on the feet God had given them and not the Plastlar paws of a suit. Tough to look a villager in the eye when all the villager could see was the visor of a suit. Eye contact and the intuitive feel it gave were indispensable tools in a counterinsurgency fight.
This approach—the dismounted bomb patrol—Paul thought it could be called the “maybe we’ll be blown up, maybe we won’t” technique. It was what it was. Paul was resigned to the threat. The colonel had given Paul a mission. Second Company’s extraterrestrial Pashtuns were on foot; therefore, so were Paul and Z-man.
Paul knew that under his feet, in a culvert or something, could be a big honkin’ bomb. It was a creepy-crawly feeling. There were lots of culverts; they were everywhere. The Pashtuns liked to cross irrigate their rice fields. Therefore,there were tons of hollow spaces under roads, trails, and dikes. Weapons, drugs, and bombs could be stashed in those spaces, to be used at the villagers’ and the dissidents’ discretion. Also, the culverts were frequently a hiding place for the infamous orange-and-blue-striped Juneau “scorpion,” whose venom awaited those with incautious hands.
Paul hated culverts.
He was walking in the vicinity of Bashir, as usual, in the middle of long columns of twos that snaked along the road leading to the village. Every now and then, the column would divert into a field to look at something or to ask villagers questions. Sometimes Paul would be in on the questioning; sometimes, not; but he was always scanning the rooflines of the compounds, the tree lines, and passing donkeys.
Paul’s eyes were never still. And his body was never still. Trauma-weave cams or not, being shot would not be a pleasant experience; he would at least be violently thrown to the ground—maybe break a rib or two. If he kept his body and eyes moving, he would be alert, in motion, and harder to hit.
As Second Company finally neared Nagamas, some of the troopers started to get a little skittish. The Juneau Army troopers started to question everyone. One little boy was gesturing frantically in the direction of a bridge. It was directly in front of the village, about 250 meters away. The exchange, taking place about halfway between Paul and the bridge, caught his attention, so he listened in to the conversation via his halo.
“So, did you plant it, you little donkey fucker?” asked the Juneau trooper.
“No, I swear it by the Holy Koran!” answered the boy, with a pleading, desperate tone.
“You little drop of sweat on a camel’s twat—you are too ignorant to read of the Koran’s holy words. I do not believe you. Where is your father—that we may speak with him?” The trooper was really boring in on the kid. But thequestioning wasn’t really crazy, and Paul was more concerned with the bridge dead ahead.
Was there really a bomb underneath the bridge, or was this yet another false alarm? Paul pinged Bashir’s halo and sent him a standard explosive-hazard search diagram, the age-old inverted V.
The inverted V looked just like that, a V. Imagine the object one wants to look at as being in the center and just ahead of the V’s arms, with the patrol leader being somewhat toward the bottom tip of the V, where he could see everything that was happening.
The theory was that the troopers to the right and left of the
Paul and Z were out on a basic dismounted patrol—no suit, again. The colonel, Mike, and he had discussed the mission on halo link the night before. Yes, there was an explosives-hazard threat. Yes, Paul and Z might get shot at. No, no real force-on-force situation was foreseen that the unarmored soldiers of Second Company probably couldn’t handle.
“Force-on-force” was the vernacular for a creditable infantry opposing force. Nagamas was thought not to have many shooters around. Therefore, there was no measurable force-on-force threat.
So Second Company’s advisor team was out on the feet God had given them and not the Plastlar paws of a suit. Tough to look a villager in the eye when all the villager could see was the visor of a suit. Eye contact and the intuitive feel it gave were indispensable tools in a counterinsurgency fight.
This approach—the dismounted bomb patrol—Paul thought it could be called the “maybe we’ll be blown up, maybe we won’t” technique. It was what it was. Paul was resigned to the threat. The colonel had given Paul a mission. Second Company’s extraterrestrial Pashtuns were on foot; therefore, so were Paul and Z-man.
Paul knew that under his feet, in a culvert or something, could be a big honkin’ bomb. It was a creepy-crawly feeling. There were lots of culverts; they were everywhere. The Pashtuns liked to cross irrigate their rice fields. Therefore,there were tons of hollow spaces under roads, trails, and dikes. Weapons, drugs, and bombs could be stashed in those spaces, to be used at the villagers’ and the dissidents’ discretion. Also, the culverts were frequently a hiding place for the infamous orange-and-blue-striped Juneau “scorpion,” whose venom awaited those with incautious hands.
Paul hated culverts.
He was walking in the vicinity of Bashir, as usual, in the middle of long columns of twos that snaked along the road leading to the village. Every now and then, the column would divert into a field to look at something or to ask villagers questions. Sometimes Paul would be in on the questioning; sometimes, not; but he was always scanning the rooflines of the compounds, the tree lines, and passing donkeys.
Paul’s eyes were never still. And his body was never still. Trauma-weave cams or not, being shot would not be a pleasant experience; he would at least be violently thrown to the ground—maybe break a rib or two. If he kept his body and eyes moving, he would be alert, in motion, and harder to hit.
As Second Company finally neared Nagamas, some of the troopers started to get a little skittish. The Juneau Army troopers started to question everyone. One little boy was gesturing frantically in the direction of a bridge. It was directly in front of the village, about 250 meters away. The exchange, taking place about halfway between Paul and the bridge, caught his attention, so he listened in to the conversation via his halo.
“So, did you plant it, you little donkey fucker?” asked the Juneau trooper.
“No, I swear it by the Holy Koran!” answered the boy, with a pleading, desperate tone.
“You little drop of sweat on a camel’s twat—you are too ignorant to read of the Koran’s holy words. I do not believe you. Where is your father—that we may speak with him?” The trooper was really boring in on the kid. But thequestioning wasn’t really crazy, and Paul was more concerned with the bridge dead ahead.
Was there really a bomb underneath the bridge, or was this yet another false alarm? Paul pinged Bashir’s halo and sent him a standard explosive-hazard search diagram, the age-old inverted V.
The inverted V looked just like that, a V. Imagine the object one wants to look at as being in the center and just ahead of the V’s arms, with the patrol leader being somewhat toward the bottom tip of the V, where he could see everything that was happening.
The theory was that the troopers to the right and left of the
Similar Books
