Contract Free Arulco: The Bitch Must Die!

DAY 41 Estoni

Sara was bored. Her squad made it Estoni with little fanfare or sight of the Army’s patrols, as their intelligence had indicated. That same intelligence said there was a large build up of soldiers at the road junction just to the south where the road from Estoni crossed the northern road from Balime.

Gus’s plan was simple; smash that force with a three pronged attacked. Sierra’s squad from the north, Gus’s from the north east and Kilroy’s from the east. But to do that, Kilroy first had to remove the threat of the Army patrol just south of Tixa. So Sierra and her squad got a few hours of down time as they waited for Kilroy and Gus to get into position.

Sara didn’t start to worry until an hour before the estimated time that Kilroy was to engage that patrol. Sara worried a lot these days and was sure a nice size ulcer was building in the pit of her stomach.

To kill some time, Sara twice pestered Jake the junkman about his wares. The word ‘junk’ was an apt description but that didn’t stop some of his items from being useful; they just didn’t seem to last long on the battlefield.

At zero hour minus ten, Kilroy broadcast a simple statement, “Engaging.” Sara found she couldn’t just sit there. Gus had changed the operating procedures; open mikes were no longer allowed and any cross country communications were to be kept to a minimum. No longer could one squad listen while another squad was in action. No longer could Sara keep close tabs on her fellow brothers in arms.

Gus didn’t have to say why the change in procedure, Sara, Kilroy and anyone else who thought about it understood that while the Queen couldn’t listen in on their encrypted comms, she could jam them; in Meduna and Alma. By keeping the comms to a minimum, the Queen’s Army would have that much harder of a time jamming their signals.

It took Sara seventeen minutes to quietly walk the perimeter that she had her squad set up. Ira as always, willingly took point, or in this case guarding the road south; Robber was fifty yards to the west, where he could support the west and south roads as well as the whole of the south west sector. Unsure of MD’s inexperience on the battlefield, Sara had him hole up in the gas station while Big Al was dug in at the entrance to Jake’s junk yard. Finding Hamous was what took Sara the longest, since the quiet Carib was covering all of their northwest territory and had told Sara that he would move from back and forth between three different locations.

At zero hour plus ten Sara felt the pall of a dread feeling overcome her senses. Most of the firefights that the liberators experienced in Arulco lasted roughly ten minutes, the drawn out battles were dreaded because that meant either the enemy was hiding and sniping or they were sending waves of soldiers to overwhelm the mercenaries, with the 2nd Battle of the Drassen Mine sector being the worst example. A battle that was still fresh in Sara’s mind even though it happened a month ago.

A month. Sara stood at Jake’s door way, her mind elsewhere as her hands ran up and down her body like they were confirming her existence.

A nice, elderly male voice broke Sara out of her reverie, “You come to see Jake again?”

Sara knew she was giving the junkman a blank stare but that didn’t stop her from nodding. She was rude and didn’t even pay attention to the man as he tried again and again to sell her the same junk. He wasn’t charging a lot, he knew most of it was junk himself, just enough to get by. Jake’s small one bedroom house was an aberration in his fenced in junk yard. It was very clean with doilies on every piece of furniture that had a horizontal surface. The wallpaper was bright with flowers of yellow and red speckled throughout. Sara could see through the open door to his bathroom; more flowered wallpaper, this time yellow and blue flowers.

The door to the one bedroom in the domicile was kept closed, but Sara had seen Jake come out of the door a couple of times and before Jake had quickly shut the door, Sara was able to glimpse inside Jake’s private sanctum. The color green dominated the room but there were more doilies as well. Under the covers Sara was able to glimpse the lower form of a body. Was that Jake’s wife? Was she alive? Was she sickly or just old? No one had mentioned a Misses and Sara did not feel it right to intrude on the junkman’s privacy to ask.

Sara wasn’t sure how long she stood there before she realized that Jake has stopped talking, his sales pitch, apparently over. Sara just looked at him. She was sure that he was handsome and rugged looking in his day. Soon, maybe in a few hours or days or even a few years, Jake’s life would be over. She wondered if he feared death as only someone who was reaching the end of their natural life could.

She wondered what the man who had lived years and years in Arulco actually thought of his country and the ongoing liberation attempt but while his words were genial, they were not inviting and so Sara asked nothing.

Looking at her watch, it was zero hour plus twenty-eight. Twenty eight minutes and she hadn’t heard from either Gus or Kilroy. Something wasn’t right. She was sure of that.

Pulling out the satellite phone that Scope had given her when she left Sara in charge, Sara dialed Gus’s number. No one answered. She confirmed she had a strong enough signal and called again. No answer.

Her agitation burst and she rushed to check on her squad. Each member was fine if a bit bored but they would not complain because they knew they still had many more miles to walk before they were done in this hell hole that is Arulco.

If any of her squad mates noticed her agitation, they said nothing except for Big Al, which is where she ended her circular route.

“Something is wrong.” She nodded; it was a statement, not a question.

Sara suddenly realized that she didn’t know what to do. Communication had never been an issue since they had been in Arulco. She was always able to get a hold of Kilroy and Gus. Always.

Zero hour plus one hour and twenty. One of the guerilla cells stopped by Estoni. They had just beaten an Army patrol north of Estoni and were looking for another patrol to abuse. They had not heard of anything east of Cambria but they had information about the largest guerilla war party, as they took to calling themselves. The guerilla leader planted his militia soldiers on the outskirts of Grumm and invited the Army Commander in Grumm to attack them.

The Grumm Commander was cautious and waited until reinforcements in the form of two patrols arrived from Meduna and he sent those two patrols to attack. The word was that he didn’t expect much of them since they were two patrols of children warriors. He was right. The guerillas slaughtered the children warriors without losing a man or woman.

Sara gave instructions for Marques, the leader of the small guerilla cell in Estoni to move towards Tixa, reconnoitering to see if he could find out what happened to the two missing mercenary squads.

Marques argued with Sara, stating that he was in charge of an independent cell and not under her jurisdiction. This was expected, Gus had pointed out that some of the locals were resentful of the mercenaries and the resources they controlled; specifically the northern silver mines. Resources that the locals thought would be better utilized by them. The fact that the locals had tried once and gotten their tails kicked seemed to have been forgotten. Just as their very own Rebel leader Miguel and his small band was forgotten as they had yet to exit the hills above Omerta.

When Marques cell left an hour later, Sara asked him one more time to travel towards Tixa and at the least send one of Miguel’s runners with word. Marques gave Sara the evil eye while practicing his international correspondence by flipping her the bird.

That was enough to provoke action out of Sara who ordered everyone to clean their gear and then took MD aside to work on his marksmanship. She almost missed the satellite phone ringing in her breast pocket as MD fired off his third clip of .50AE rounds.

“Gus, is that you?!?” She couldn’t help but scream into the phone.

“No, Kilroy. No time. Failure. Retreating…”

Sara screamed as the satellite phone went dead. “ARRRGHHHHH!” She looked briefly at the phone and resisted her first urge of chucking it against the gas station wall. MD looked at her intently, waiting. MD.

Nodding her head, Sara decided, “Get everyone, we are moving back to the Cambria Mine sector.”

Sara fast marched her squad desperately trying to reach Cambria without having to stop. MD started to complain after the first hour, not bad but enough of a mumble where he was sure everyone heard him. After the second hour Sara was disgusted when she realized that her squad couldn’t maintain that pace but she still drove them forward. It was only when Ira fell trying to climb over a rock embankment that she finally gave the order to rest. She initially ordered a ten minute stop but MD’s complaining backed by the look on Ira’s face, Ira hadn’t complained once but Sara could see the New Yorker was exhausted, was enough for Sara to extend the break to thirty minutes.

Twenty minutes into the break is when Robber finally spoke up, “Something has been bothering me Sierra. We haven’t seen a runner from Miguel in almost three days.”

After taking another swig of her canteen, Sara responded, “I know. Gus mentioned something about the Army rounding up any kids they saw on the road. Not sure how many of those kids are now being forced into serving the Queen but Gus wasn’t sure how much longer Miguel would be trying to keep his runners operating.”

Ira surprised everyone by asking the next question, “What if Gus and Kilroy’s squads have been wiped out? What will you do next? Will you stay or go back home?”

Ira’s face still looked depleted but still was able to convey to all that looked at her that she was going to stick it out. If she didn’t get the Queen then she was going to take down as many as she could before they got to her. She knew that failure was quite possible, but surrender and capture was not.

“I…I don’t know. I am not the only one here. We will have to assess that situation when it arrives. I don’t know what AIM’s response to this would be either. Like I said, I don’t know.”

Looking at those around her Sara was surprised to see that only she and Ira seemed to be disturbed about what may have happened to their brothers in arms and Ira was agitated for an entirely different reason than Sara. Sara was worried that her companions were dead; Ira was worried that the campaign to put the Queen’s head on a pike was dead.

Looking at her watch, the allocated thirty minutes were up, “Okay, let’s go. Normal pace this time and we will stop again in another hour. Rushing is just going to get us killed.”

Three hours later they were in sight of the Cambria Mine Sector when she halted them and had everyone spread out in case of a trap. Through the Leopold scope on her Knight SR-25, she was able to make out numerous militia men but they weren’t moving about, they were in foxholes and on the roof of the mining buildings as if they were expecting trouble.

Flipping her comm. set to the un-encrypted channel the militia was regulated to using, “Sierra One to Jarveris, Sierra One to Jarveris, come in.”

After a few minutes of static with Sierra repeating her broadcast every thirty seconds, a voice responded, “Sierra One, what is the code word?”

The first couple of times that the mercenaries tried to walk back into Chitzena where they had left militia in place, the militia fired at them from a distance, thinking they were the army. Luckily for the mercs, the militia fired outside of the range of their weapons which were only pistols at the time, but it was enough to point out that protocols needed to be set up to keep the blue on blue, friendly fire to a minimum. Now when a militia is set up to protect a town or area, code words were set up in advance so each side knew that there was friendlies looking to come in.

“Roger that Jarveris, the code word is Black Dog; I say again, the code word is Black Dog. What is your authentication code?”

“Dog Day Afternoon.” The code words and authentication codes were related in someway to make it easier to remember with the code word being a title of a rock song and the authentication code a title of a movie; none of them were to written down and they changed immediately after they were used just once because each squad had their own codes.

“Roger that Jarveris, in five we will start our entry towards you coming from the west, numbering six. Repeat, six from the west.”

“Six from the west, word will be past. Good to hear from you. We need to talk when you get in.”

“Affirmative.”

After waiting the designated five minutes to make sure everyone on the militia line knew they were coming and to not shoot, Sara ordered them forward into the sector.

A pimply face boy, not much older than the children warriors the Queen was employing ran to meet the mercenaries as they passed the first line of defense the militia manned, “Lt. Jarveris is waiting for you in the miners office, please hurry.”

The militia had taken to giving themselves honorary ranks, sector commanders were lieutenants, town commanders were majors. The guerilla cells were commanded by an independent captain with the commander of the largest guerilla force outside of Grumm calling himself an independent colonel even though he only commanded twenty one militia men and his success was largely against the Queen’s children warriors.

Unlike most of the men and women in the militia, Jarveris was a former butler from Balime, but those same butler skills made him an excellent leader from an organizational standpoint. He was also older than most.

Sierra, backed by Robber, Big Al and MD rushed into the miners office fearing the worst, that Gus was there bleeding to death. But in the backroom which housed the head miners bed Gus was not to be seen. Laying there with a soaked bandage wrapped around her head was a young militia women, no older than seventeen. Sara had helped train her a week or so earlier and she could remember thinking at the time that her crooked nose and hairy mole on the left side of her face is probably what kept her out of Alma’s sex trade.

Jarveris set the stage for her story, “Rosalee was part of the ten man militia cell that was accompanying Gus’s Squad.” Gus had split his squad right before the order to move out of Cambria was given. He took Flo and Biff with him while ordering Red to take Shank and Dynamo to Estoni via Hamous’s stolen ice cream truck because Shank had insisted that he could convince Jake to sell the liberators gasoline from the black market. By the time Sierra’s squad had made it to Estoni, Red and his crew were all ready gone to San Mona and eventually Drassen on supply runs. Jake had confirmed to Sara the first time she talked to him that he would be selling gas, when he had it of course. His junk he sold cheap, the gas which was worth it’s weight in gold thanks to the Queen’s fuel rationing would cost the liberators the same as gold.

To bolster his weak three man squad Gus convinced one of the newly formed guerilla cells to accompany them, regaling them stories of his legendary exploits with AIM and beyond. The newly brevetted independent captain couldn’t resist his charm.

Gus’s responsibility was to take the west running road south of Cambria and wait for Kilroy to join up with him from the east, from the road to Tixa. Rosalee lying there confirmed what Sara’s gut had told her hours ago, something bad happened.

Rosalee looked up at Sara, both of her eyes were blood shot, probably from the trauma of her head being shot, “We encountered a patrol as soon as we reached the road south of here, Senor Gus ordered us into the rocks on the eastern side above the road while his squad took the heavier rocks on the western side. At first it went well, I even shot one of the Army dung flingers with my Mini-14, and then from the south west we were assaulted fiercely. I was shot in the head by a sniper, but as you can see, it did not kill me.”

Sara looked at MD as he checked over the young Arulcan, silently questioning whether if she was just grazed or if the bullet actually penetrated her skull. MD looked up at Sara and gravely shook his head.

“I must have passed out because when I awoke, I saw the last of my mates fall, to the damnable snipers. I did not see many of the Queen’s men on the ground, just my comrades. I could only see Biff from your other squad on the ground bleeding; but I could hear the other two fire round after round but I saw none of the Army men drop so I do not know who they were firing at.

I heard senor Gus scream three or four times and then he quit firing. The frail looking girl, the French girl, she surrendered when she was surrounded, not that it mattered, I did not see her hit a single soldier. When the soldiers told her to surrender, she threw her rifle down and lunged for Biff, screaming her mad love for him. When the soldiers went to take her away she spit on Senor Gus. Sh…”

MD immediately checked her vitals when Rosalee’s head drooped, “Is she?” Sara had to ask after a few seconds.

“She is alive, but not for long. Best thing for her is some morphine and quiet.”

Sara heeded her physicians warning and backed away, moving closer to Jarveris. “Do you have any clue why Flo spit at Gus?” Jarveris solemnly shook his head as he looked on to his dying country woman.

Looking around the miner’s head office and she saw no other wounded or anyone else who appeared like they had pertinent information for her she turned to leave. At the door, that same pimply faced boy intercepted her a second time.

“Senora, I think I know what you are seeking.” His voice was hushed and timid as his eyes darted left and right.

Sara squatted, her quadriceps screaming as she stretched them, but after her march, felt good as well. “What is you name son?”

“Horus, Senora.”

Nodding, “And what do you think I want to know?”

Horus darted left and right before answering in his hushed voice, “Why the French Flower would spit at Senor Gus.”

‘French Flower’, Sara mused to herself, speculating that Biff wasn’t the only one interested in Flo. “And why is that Horus?”

“A couple of nights ago, I…I happened to see Senor Gus and the French Flower get in an argument.”

Sara knew that Gus couldn’t stand Flo on the battlefield but she didn’t think that would be enough for him to get in an argument with her or for the timid French woman, who actually moaned about the lack of baths she had to endure, having the backbone to stand up to the legendary Gus Tarballs.

“Do you know what they were arguing about, Horus?”

Horus hemmed and hawed for a few seconds, “The French Flower, she had refused Senor Gus’s sexual advances.”

“Refused…” That didn’t really surprise Sara because she felt confident that Flo was very much a racist little French girl, but… “Horus, what were you doing to see this? Were spying on Flo?”

Horus tried to hide his face as it reddened in shame.

“Horus?”

Timidly, “I was watching the French Flower please…Biff.”

“Please Biff?”

Nodding, “Yes, with her…with her mouth.”

Sara couldn’t help but chuckle. That was rich. Here she was stressed and frustrated and the timid wallflower Flo was giving the geek of geeks Biff a blow job in the boonies.

Sara mirth confused the young Arulcan, “It isn’t funny! Senor Gus did not think so when he saw them as well. He screamed at her for not wanting a real man and then he showed them his manhood.”

That was enough for Sara to stifle her chuckles, “Gus walked in on them and then flashed his junk at them?”

Nodding, “Yes, Biff commented on how large his was.”

Understanding where this information was leading, “And what did Flo say?”

“The French Flower? She told Senor Gus that he was disgusting and not a true sensitive man like Biff.”

“Was there anything else said?”

“No Senora, at least nothing that I heard.”

“Thank you Horus.”

Sara left check in on her squad while she mulled over what the young Arulcan had described to her. Gus was jealous of Biff? Over Flo? Simply because she denied him? Was the Legend of AIM that full of himself? Hell, was he dead? If he hated having Flo on the battlefield, why did he insist on taking her with him? Because Biff wouldn’t leave her side and he was hoping that Biff would bite a bullet? Was he that petty?

Sara’s stomach grumbled as her ulcer let itself be known.

Early the next morning after conferring with Jarveris, Sara took her squad to check out where Rosalee said their battle was. Removing bodies from the battlefield was not high on the Queen’s Army’s list of priorities. The few bodies that were removed were done so by their remaining relatives but since news of that sort didn’t travel fast in Arulco it meant most bodies stayed out in the open for a few days. All too often when bodies would go missing Hamous was sure after pointing to the tracks that the Bloodcats were the culprit.

The Bloodcats, for such a large cat, they seemed to be very numerous and very active, humans did not scare them. Hell, they actively hunted humans. And apparently they fucked like rabbits since there was so many of them.

There was no Bloodcats in view at the carnage where Rosalee had said they would find the battle site. Nine lifeless corpses of the militiamen could be found readily enough. As could one cadaver of an Army All Black but there was no body of Gus, nor Flo and Biff. Those three it seems, the Army took.

Sara just stood there looking about the battlefield, mind numb, unsure what to do or even think. Big Al made a comment to her twice but she didn’t even acknowledge that she heard the tall African.

Sara suddenly shivered as if her spine was dosed in ice, but it wasn’t her spine that was causing the reaction. Looking down at her chest she realized it was her satellite phone, on vibration so as not to give her location away in the heat of battle, vibrating. That vibration was reverberating through the titanium plate that was reinforcing her Spectra chest armor.

A gasp expelled from her open mouth as she realized that her left nipple could feel the vibration and was responding to it, strongly.

Flustered, she tore the phone out of its pouch and barked into the receiver, “Sierra actual.”

The voice on the other end, static-ky and weak immediately put a smile on her drawn face. “Sara, good to hear your voice!”

“KILROY! Kara, where the hell are you?”

“Would you believe a gas station on the outskirts of Balime?”

“Balime? What the hell are you doing there? That is miles east of where you are supposed to be!”

“No shit. Needless to say, the Army had something to do about this arrangement.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, it was hairy, touch and go for a long time, but we weathered it.”

“No causalities?”

“No, no injured, except for Maddog. Man took a Glaser round to the side of his head and did not die! He has a real nasty scar on the left side of his noggin’ and half of his ear is missing but he is alive and kicking.”

Sara could hear through the static both disappointment and awe with Maddog still survival. He really seemed to lead a charm, if miscreant life.

“Kara, how are you calling me?”

“We picked up a satellite phone from one of the Queen’s All Blacks. He didn’t need it anymore.”

“Then why did you…?” Sara was sure what question she wanted to ask first.

“It took awhile to get a hold of Gus’s satellite phone number, plus we were sort of running for our lives. The guy must have tried to hook up with AIM because he had a couple of their numbers saved but by the time we were able to talk to Sheila, who was able to give me the number to your satellite phone, the juice to the phone was depleted.”

“That is why…” Sara had tried numerous times to call the number back that Kara had called her on but each time got a ‘phone is out of service’ message. The satellite phone that Gus through Sheila had given her ran on regular AA sized batteries, something that while not abundant, was still able to be found in Arulco. The phone that Kilroy had pilfered ran off of a battery charger and it wasn’t until they reached the gas station at Balime did Kara find an outlet to charge the phone on.

“Sara, I need to let you know that I spent a chunk of change.” Both Sara and Kara had access to the funds generated by the silver mines but the more readily available money was the cash that Tony gave them for the weapons they sold him.

“Was it worth it? What ever you bought?” Sara felt giddy, like she was back in high school and on the phone with her best friend who was telling her of all the great deals she had found at the mall that day.

“I think so, a used army surplus Hummer. No more walking for my aching corns.”

“Does it work?”

“I don’t know, Dave, the gas attendant said it won’t be ready until the morning. I hope so.”

Sara’s mind had switched to a more combat oriented capacity, “You know, with the Ice Cream truck and this Hummer, this will really expand our operational options.”

“I agree. Sara, there is something else, something I need to tell you.”

“If it is about Gus, we are at the sector where the Army fought him. There is no sign of him or Biff and Flo. A militia survivor says that she saw Biff and Flo, well Flo surrender to the Army.”

“That makes sense. When we engaged the Army, we were able to take out the first patrol as planned but then we were rushed, heavily from Gus’s sector. The Army had been jamming us so our comms had a lot of static in them and really shortened their effective range, and then when they rushed us from Gus’s sector they were able to jam them completely.”

“Do you think they have one of our encrypted comms?”

“Think? No. I know. After they rushed us, I gave the order to fall back and they kept chasing after us, not letting up until we reached the gas station. I was tired of running and ordered us to stand our ground. I don’t know why but the force that finally attacked us at the gas station was much smaller than the one that had been chasing us on the road south of Tixa.”

“I think I have that answer, they took Tixa.”

“Well, I am certainly thankful they split up because I am not sure how long we would have been able to hold off that larger body of soldiers.” Sara could hear the tiredness in Kilroy’s voice through the static of the satellite phone.

“Sara, there is something else. Sheila is on her way back.”

“She is?!?” That was the second best thing Kara had said with the first being Sara simply hearing Kara’s voice.

“Did she give any orders or instructions?”

“Just that she thought you were doing a bang up job.”

“FUCK!” Once more someone with more experience was coming to the Arulcan hellhole but leaving Sara holding the reigns. Sara so much wanted to just say, ‘fuck it’ and let someone else develop an ulcer.

“She said she would call when she got in country on her satellite phone.”

“Great, so what do we do next?”

“That is your call, but I need to sit hear until tomorrow afternoon unless you want me to lose my deposit on the Hummer.”

That was something that Sara did not want her brother in arms to do. After hashing it around with first Kara on the satellite phone and then Robber and Big Al in person, she decided to be aggressive and not passive.

She called Kara back and told her that once she had the Hummer and it was operational, for her to drive her squad to the road junction south of Estoni, if there was any opposition on the road, they were to remove them, otherwise Kilroy’s squad was to ignore the Army in Tixa or elsewhere. Sara would move her squad to that junction and remove any of the Queen’s Army stationed to guard the junction.

When Sierra’s Squad made it to the road junction that joined the road from Meduna to Estoni and the northern road from Balime, they surprised the Army squad stationed there who fled at after the first shot from Sara decapitated their lead guard.

Sara didn’t realize it but her and everyone in her squad was in the midst of a bloodlust. They lost three of their own and since they couldn’t get them back they wanted the Army to pay, so she allowed her squad to give chase to the fleeing Army patrol. At the next sector they caught up with the Army patrol again while the soldiers were resting. Hamous and Ira, each firing their M-21 Tactical Sniper Rifle, wounded a soldier; Sara feeling vindictive aimed at the back knee of a fleeing soldier and the 7.62mm NATO round from her Knights Armament sniper rifle delegged the young boy at the knee.

Sara didn’t acknowledge the screaming child as she walked past; intent was her goal of taking out more of the Queen’s bastards. Ira did acknowledge the boy. With a short burst from her Steyr Para SMG; the AET rounds turned the screaming boys head into a very small pile of goo.

When the last two soldiers of the fleeing patrol made it to the next sector, Sara and her squad, their bloodlust finally faltering had been chasing them for over three hours. Though tired, her aim was true and one of the original two soldiers fell as some time in his haste to get away he had threw down his Kevlar helmet and Sara’s sniper bullet found the back of his virgin head with the bullet exploding out of his left eye.

Robber was the one to notice that he and his squad mates were in trouble. Using the 7x Battlescope on his FAMA G2, he was quickly able to count over ten soldiers in that sector, more than a couple of them had their own sniper rifles. After firing a long burst that depleted the entire clip of his Match grade 5.56mm NATO ammo, he screamed at Sierra that retreat might be an option.

Sara ignored Ira’s barb about how the French loved their tactical advancements to the rear and after the All Black she shot in the torso didn’t seemed one bit fazed by her sniper round as he pulled off the Commando mortar strapped to his back, Sara quickly agreed with Robber’s French assessment and ordered the retreat.

Once in the next sector they were all relieved when they understood that the Army stationed on the road there was not currently chasing them. Though she was not only tired, but flat out exhausted from the day’s events and marching, Sara didn’t sleep, fretting about a possible counter attack.