Possibly-Cannon Omake: Somewhere In The Democratic Republic of The Congo, 198X
CthuluWasRight
Fresh Meat for the SV Grinder
- Location
- Canada
Somewhere In The Democratic Republic of The Congo, 198X
No matter how much time he spends patrolling this damned jungle, Sergei never gets used to the heat. It leaves the cotton of his summer fatigues soaked like he's just forded a river, dark rings of sweat staining the armpits of his sailor's blue-and-white striped undershirt. It pours down his brow and stings his eyes and leaves him feeling like he's walking through treacle.
He's a son of the Urals through and through, born in Magnitogorsk, but after spending long enough amid the acrid smoke of the refineries and seeing the creeping, coughing death for those who followed their fathers into the metalworks, he punched the ticket the VDV man watching the conscripts train had offered him and was whisked away to special training and then to foreign lands, to do his part in the battle for socialism
Or in this case, the battle for who controlled the cobalt mines hacked out of the jungle. But Premier Ilunga calls himself a Communist and lets Soviet enterprises run the mines and ship the ore home to their factories, so as far as the Party and the VDV is concerned it's essentially the same thing.
This patrol, at least, hadn't been too bad: they'd set out in the morning, when the air was still somewhat cool, and amid the shadows of the jungle canopy Sergei and the men of his squad almost don't feel like they're being slowly boiled alive. The Congolese soldiers they're with hardly seem to feel the heat at all, but between the fitness expected of any member of Uncle Vasya's Forces and the hesitancy of the Congolese to push too far ahead of them, the pace they set remained an easy one.
And then somebody had had to go and shoot at him. It hadn't been a very good shot, but he'd hit the ground nonetheless and started snapping off shots into the brush. A few minutes later he'd cautiously risen to his feet only to find the shredded foliage devoid of any corpse, conveniently holding a rifle or otherwise, and now the commander of the Congolese platoon had gotten it into his head that the offending would-be sharpshooter must be found.
He had probably just been some militiaman separated from his unit, or more likely some nearby villager with a rifle doing his level best to warn off any gangs of armed men prowling near his home and family. He'd shot at Sergei, the Russian advisor, not the government troops, but he didn't mind it too much. Just about all sides of this nightmare of a civil war had gotten their hands on at least some Soviet kit, and with faces smeared with camouflage paint and Africankas tipped low over their eyes his squad looks just about identical to the platoon they're "advising". Which, of course, is the point. Don't want to leave any juicy photographs of your pale face for the capitalists to wave around, soldier, or they might start sending the doshman Stingers, and then there'd be hell to pay.
So he's indifferent about the whole affair, really, in an emotional way, not a combat-readiness way. Just sort of pissed off about keeping this little trek going even in the midday heat because the big-chested lieutenant and the men with him seem to be part iguana. The hotter it gets, the harder they seem to push. And then suddenly the lead Congolese holds up his hand and everyone freezes. There's a clearing in front of him, and in the clearing is a small village: he can see their fields off in the distance, though the farmers have stopped for lunch. Hunger, at least, is something the Congolese and the Soviets seem equally prey to. They rest in the shade of one of the houses, eating and passing around bottles of beer. He'd give anything for a cold Zhigulevskoye right about now. The lieutenant, crouching beside the lead man and conversing with him in hushed tones, waves him over, and even though he can't see anything dangerous he knows enough to stay low and maintain concealment. Bloody-minded they may sometimes be, but these soldiers are cunning, dedicated and keen-eyed. As well they should be, given that VDV men had trained them.
"There." The lieutenant whispers to Sergei, pointing to a distant shape out in the fields. He can see that it's a watchtower: he thinks he can see someone up there, though whether he's armed or not the paratrooper can't tell. A smart move, with so many soldiers and bandits criss-crossing the area. Better to see danger coming. The officer points lower and to the right, and he sees that up against one of the outbuildings on their side of the clearing a young man is leaning, maybe fifteen or sixteen, listening to a radio. It's some kind of dance music, sounding scratchy as half-notes carry to him on the wind. A hunting rifle is propped against the wall next to him, forgotten.
"They have defenses, and armed men in the village. It needs to be cleared out." One rifle and a watchtower that looks like something out of a castaway story hardly seems like a fortress to Sergei, and he tells the lieutenant so, but the man just shakes his head adamantly. "The rest of the company has been taking contact in this area for the last month. Trucks going to Kinshasa have been robbed, trails mined. We have been looking for the place supporting these rebels, and now we have a watchtower and two sentries, way off the map. It all fits. That's probably the rifle that shot at us this morning."
It's a laughable bit of intelligence work. But only for him, the advisor who will go home at the end of the year when his tour is up. Then perhaps to Jakarta, or maybe Angola. But either way, his fate is not tied to the work they do here. The lieutenant is different: he lives in Kinshasa, where one word from a superior can see him stripped of everything this job may provide for him or his family, or even his life. And it may cost the lives of two men, but once they've moved in and searched the village they'll simply go on their way. Let the villagers dig two graves and then get back to the spring planting. So he turns and motions for the other three men in his squad to prepare, and asks the Lieutenant how he wants to attack.
"I want an airstrike." He says, which is a fucking waste of a Comb's payload, but when he's told so he motions at the jungle around them, the hills that encircle them. "This is where the guerrillas operate from." He says, "But they will not be in the village. They will be out in the bush, and when they hear shooting they will rush to catch us as we depart- or worse, while we're still clearing out resistance within. Get me an airstrike, so we can destroy their supply caches and kill their sentries, plus whatever headquarters they may have in the village. Then we'll leave, and come back at company strength to mop up."
Sergei wants to try and argue further, but it's not his place to pick this fight. He's here to guide and assist, not play general, and it's the lieutenant's country, anyway, and his neck if he doesn't feather his cap with enough victories, real or exaggerated. So he shrugs, and waves Senka over with the radio.
It's a quick call for fire, the same sort of formula that the pilots flying the Sukhois probably mutter in their sleep: enemy infantry under light canopy in the open. Grid to suppress, grid to mark. A few corrections as the pilot talks his way on to the target in the same detached, butter-smooth voice they all seem to have, except for when some ancient triple A emplacement fires on them and then they sound like schoolgirls being doused in ice water. Then they retreat a few hundred yards into the brush and wait.
The Sukhoi comes screaming in, first a howling shriek and then the crackle of a thunderstorm being dragged in its wake as it makes a low pass over the village. Too fast for the man in the watchtower to spot. Sergei watches through his binoculars as for an instant the boy listening to music stumbles back against the wall of the house, his rifle toppling from its place towards the earth. It doesn't hit the ground before the earth is shook by the rumble of cannon fire, and then comes the flash of the explosion and Christ, the pilot must have been having a slow day because he just dropped two thermobarics on it.
He doesn't see the kid, the rifle, the watchtower. All the world in front of him is aflame. He waits for a minute or two, watching as the corrugated wall of one shack starts to glow red hot and buckle and it's melting, actually melting before his eyes, like the aluminum in the furnaces of the refineries back home. The Comb turns and makes one more pass over the village. Senka reports good effect on target, thanks the pilot and wishes him a safe flight back to base. The Lieutenant claps him on the shoulder and thanks the squad for their assistance, apologizes for the argument.
There's one more sound that sticks with him as he turns to leave, one that he's been hearing since the flash, muffled by the roar of the flames and the jet engines. High-pitched and shrieking, a wailing chorus, coming from the burning huts and the torched fields.
It's the heat, the sound of the air being sucked out of pockets trapped indoors by the sheer heat of the flames, their hunger for oxygen. That's what it is. The attacks on cobalt convoys slow that month. The lieutenant leads the follow-up patrol that comes up empty, and a second two months later that finds rebels with French kit. From Rwanda, most likely. He makes captain for it. Sergei's squad ships out a month after that. Heading home, for rest and leave before they're redeployed someplace else. Probably Angola, the squad decides, except for Arkady, who thinks they'll head to Zimbabwe. He sits in the back of the Antonov and feels the weightlessness of lift off, hears the whirring of the undercarriage coming up as they soar over Kinshasa. He should pull his hat over his eyes and try to get some sleep. He stares down at the jungle instead.
Those huts couldn't have trapped air in them.
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AN: Another possible future for you, from Discord.
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