Chapter 3
I’m gonna go mount this new sight and hit the range, Kurgan said as we walked out of the depot. Ok, me and Sam McGee here are going over to the shop so I can show him where the magic happens. Kurg gave a low key salute and started walking towards the armory.
How about an animal? Are there any animals you like? Preston stared at me blankly, it started to dawn on me how awkward and out of place this question sounded. We both started to talk at the same time, neither of us hearing the other. Then there was another pause. For your callsign, I mean . Ohhh, Preston sighed in relief. I thought you meant like, for a pet. You know first we got our groceries and then I got a new jacket. I thought you meant that some guys get pets, so I was thinking of something small like a hamster, maybe a bird. I started laughing, no one had made me laugh in a long time, it felt good.
Getting into the golfcart, I said, No, the callsign, you’re just going to need one soon. You haven’t thought about this at all? Not really, he said, it feels like giving yourself a nickname. I guess I thought they’d just give me one when I got here. What do we even need them for? I said, It’s so you don’t get doxxed. We put so much of our footage online, if the enemy happened to get a real name to go with your face they could cyber attack you or your family. It’s just for special forces and drone ops, regular army keeps their names.
What was your gamer handle? I asked, Preston blushed, no that’s just stupid. Sensing his embarressment, I pushed on. Wait, let me guess, HotPress69? P Rock420? He gave me a look like I was speaking gibberish. He said, no, my gamer handle was Moofrat. Moofrat? I asked. His face brightened, Do you know JuJutsu Kaisan? it’s this anime, it’s a..I held up my hand ok, ok, yeah I don’t need to know. It’s time for a new name.
He asked, How did you get Shade? My response was easy, I Googled ‘obscure Marvel villians’ and found Night Shade. Then I explained, Kurgan is from an awesome eighties movie called Highlander. Preston asked, is he the hero? In the movie? I paused, uhh, no The Kurgan is the villian, arguably one of the best villians, and our Kurgan has an uncanny resemblance to the movie Kurgan.
Then I should be a villian. Preston said. Oh I like that, a theme.
I pulled the golf cart to a stop in front of our drone shop. Your other pilot's name was Cheech? Preston asked, What’s a Cheech?, it’s not a villian? My body started to tense, I knew Dylan/Cheech for over two years, we trained together, we bled together. We hunkered down to a six hour artillary barrage together. A Cheech? I said, a Cheech is not the villian, a Cheech is a protagonist, or at least a chaotic neutral. Usually a Cheech is paired with a Chong. I could tell that these references meant absolutely nothing, but Preston kept listening to me as I tried to steer the conversation away from the darkness. Then Preston turned it right back.
How did he die? Did you see him Die? Preston looked me right in the eyes, accusing. Oh shit, they didn’t tell you? You think maybe our pilot’s dead because Kurg and I couldn’t protect him? Preston continued to look at me, waiting for answers.
What a shitty thing to do, they leave that up to us…well, me, to tell you?
I looked away disgusted with my superiors. I turned back to the kid, I sounded defensive. Hey Cheech blew his brains out while he was on leave. I guess in some abstract way we could have protected him, if we knew he needed help. But we didn’t know he was any more messed up than us.
I settled back into the bench seat of the golfcart and the suspension squeaked. Obviously you’re a smart kid if you’ve made it to this point. And we need pilots like you. But there’s something they don’t stress enough in the training. I took a deep breathe and pondered how to continue. Did they explain to you that as an FPV pilot you are gonna have a close up view of the people you’re killing? Preston nodded, and said, they had us fly into some dummys. Yeah, well these won’t be dummys these are going to be people. Poor people who were conscripted to come fight far away from their homes. You’ll see the look of fear on their face, you’ll see if they have a mustache or whether they’re Indian or Columbian.
In the long history of war, men started out killing each other with clubs and swords. They’d get right up in each other's face. Then came the sling and the bow and we started killing each other from further and further away. I mean, Kurgan has a gun that can hit a dot on the horizon. But FPV’s have changed that, it’s a big reset. We are back to up close killing. This high tech weapon has brought us back to medievel times. Preston seemed to tolerate my monologue, I knew I had repeated myself, but the point seemed worth repeating.
I honestly don’t think that’s what got to Cheech, I don’t know what he was carrying around in his head, but he certainly didn’t share it, he kept it hidden down deep. In the beginning we lost a lot of drone teams, we made a lot of mistakes. But, we’ve learned from that. Now we’ve built something to be proud of, we’re the 33rd Air Assault.
Preston said, The Night Rangers. Surprised, I asked, so you know about us? Yeah, I’ve watched almost every video, and the stuff from the 72nd, The Killer Bees. That’s how I chose where I wanted to go. I felt a blossom of pride welling up inside, I helped make those videos. I said, I’m glad you liked them. Preston said, that one video of the FPV chasing the motorcycle was nuts. I grinned, I thought that was the best video too. I said, we make those videos to prove the effectiveness of our unit to get better funding or more donations. I never considered them tools for recruitment.
I stood with a groan and stretched my legs, then I turned back to Preston. So are you ready to fly for the Youtube famous 33rd Air Assault Brigade Night Rangers? He gave a mild, yes! I asked, am I going to be watching edits of your greatest hits? He seemed to brighten up, Yes! I punched his shoulder patch, he flinched and rubbed it. Ok, let me show you what we’re gonna be working with.
CHAPTER 4
We stood in front of a generic, metal sided building with no windows. It had a roll up service door in the center and a man door next to it. I took Preston through the man door and he could see that the exterior of the building was a giant shell sitting over a half buried bunker. Steps led down ten feet to massive steel blast doors. A small pastic Igloo cooler sat open on the ground with black sharpie writing that said PHONES. Preston and I both set ours in the cooler with several others. I pulled the latch and the door swung open on heavy metal hinges gliding smoothly on greased bearings.
The bunker had a low ceiling with rows of LED lights. The acrid smell of melting plastic hit us at the doorway. Six guys worked at different stations around the shop, most looked up and waved or called out greetings. Hey Shade, sorry to hear about Cheech. One of the technicians said. I nodded, Yeah it’s a bummer.
I said to Preston, Come on, I'll introduce you. Don’t touch anything!
We walked to the nearest table where two young soldiers worked on laptops. The laptops were connected to the USB ports on two new drones. They looked up as we approached. This is Mack, I said pointing to a kid with a blond buzzcut and acne, and this is Ocho, I said, bumping fists with a black kid with short tight braids. This is the New Guy I said, pointing at Preston. Hey New Guy, Ocho greeted him with a cheerful smile.
These guys are anonymizing all the new civilian drones that come in, did they teach you about that? Yeah, Preston’s eyes were wide and enthusiastic, he appeared impressed by the shop and the tech start-up vibe it had, plus everyone was close to his age. He said, the drones have to be anonymized so the flight paths and launch points can’t be tracked by imbedded programs. That’s correct, so these are getting software that turns the remote ID off.
Mack pointed to a big cardboard box neatly piled with drones, those are all done. Preston looked impressed by the amount of drones, then he said, tough.
Nice work guys, hey can you each name a movie villain, or any kind of villain, I guess.
Mack answered quickly, totally unaffected by the randomness of the request. Ursula the Sea Witch. Ocho said, ummm, The Babadook? Those are good, I said, thanks.
We walked along the wall on the left side of the room, extension cords were taped to the concrete floor to prevent tripping on them or pulling them out. The orange cords ran to several 3D printers that were all running, creating the melted plastic smell. Each printer was making a simple structure that looked like four triangular blades connected to a ring.
Sitting on a stool, Raf was taking each finished set of fins, cleaning off the extra gobs of plastic and test fitting the fins onto a blue grenade that said INERT. Raf was the chubbiest guy in the room, he had a bushy brown neckbeard and wore safety glasses. He greeted us with a warm smile, hey Shade, how was your R and R? Not bad, but I missed you guys. I bet you did. New pilot huh? Yeah he’s still working on a callsign. What’s the best villian name you know? He thought as he spun the grenade in his palm, I mean it’s not a great callsign, but Vlad the Impaler is the best name for a villain. I nodded in agreement. Hard to argue with that.
We walked past crates of grenades and helicopter rockets that had been cut down to just a warhead. A tech was busy soldering a circuit board and we didn’t bother him. At the next station a young soldier and another in his forties were fitting steel ball bearings into a 3D printed mold that held rows of bearings. Hey Marv, those are looking good, I said to the older man. Grey hair speckled his brown mustache. The younger soldier had an earring and a man bun, he took over the conversation. Check this out Shade, we rolled it into this arc instead of keeping it flat.
He held up a yellow plastic mold filled with rows of steel bearings the size of marbles. It will go over the trench like this and fire the balls downward in a rectangle pattern. I said, like a flying claymore, I love it.
Guys, this is my new pilot, I pulled Preston forward and presented him to the others, they shook hands. We’re trying to find him a callsign and we’re running out of time. Name the first villain you can think of. The younger tech echoed, a villain?... for a call sign, I want to say Thanos, but is he even the villain? Marv answered from across the table, I got one, then he said in a German accent, Hans Gruber. Preston’ started to grin and nod, I like that, then he asked, what’s it even from? We’ll show you when we get a chance, I said, you’ll like it even more. Marv said, yippy kai yay.
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