ADAMS501

Nighttime’s a real bitch on Adams501, a giant hothouse three times the size of Earth. The nights are so damn long you stand watch at least once, if not twice each phase. When you aren’t trying to stab giant flying insects out of the air with your knife, you spend hours cleaning the moisture out of your gear, squatting in the dirt near your \'pod, and trying to pick out which star in the sky is home.
The sky is getting light as you collect water in your helmet and toss in some halazone tablets to brush your teeth with. You feel ragged like Andy, but you’ve sweated yourself clean, and you’ve got just enough time to choke down a ration bar before the morning intel brief.
Out comes the map, covered in lines of every color and direction. \"Okay,\" Lt. Mann tells your platoon. \"You’re gonna follow this blue line here up here, turn on this set of numbers, and follow that little green line to this village here,\" and he taps the map to indicate the spot.
He talks a bunch more bullshit, but your guys look at each other behind his back and just shake their heads. You know that look. As far as the platoon was concerned, this was just another chance to get their ass handed to \'em on a bass-ackward planet named after some dead guy who ain’t never set foot on the motherfucker.
And for what?
Hunting down something that didn’t want to be found and didn’t do anything wrong in the first place, that’s what. It doesn’t make a lick of sense! You’ve been to that very spot three times this month and haven’t seen so much as a dried turd, let alone a whole village of AWOLs.
You don’t blame the AWOLs for quitting the Force and turning native. Not a bit. Personally, if you were gonna jump ship, you’d have chosen a better planet. But that’s another argument for a day when you ain’t gotta keep your wits about you if you ever expect to eat chow again, \'cause the people you’re hunting really don’t want to go home. You know your job: orders is orders, and the Force wants the AWOLs back; alive, if possible, to stand punishment, or dead in order to save face.
Halfway along the first track line, you use your rifle scope to check your heading toward the distant mountain peaks against the bearing on the handheld. Squinting through the scope\'s powerful lens array, you can make out the veins on the leaves shifting in the wind halfway up the mountain. And sometimes, like now, you’d swear you could see the trees staring back at you. AWOLs. There just ain’t no way to surprise them, is there?
Point signals you forward, and the platoon drops quietly into the foliage as you slow crawl up and take the binos he’s offering and peer through them at a ring of crude, dome-shaped structures in a clearing.
\"Villa, Sarge. Still looks hot. Whatcha wanna do?\" With a gesture, you send out flanks to protect the main body and prevent an ambush from the sides and back. It’s tough work on the flanks. You should know. You did your time before making the grade, and now you’re giving the orders. You wait while the flank team hacks their way through the brush. Progress is finite and measured in sweat, not inches.
\"Hey, Sarge.\" Someone whispers to your right. It’s Mr. Dawkins, the baby-faced, \"I’m-such-a-fucking-intellectual-cause-I-went-to-college\" ensign.
\"Sir?\" you whisper back, spelling it C-U-R.
\"If they don’t speak English anymore, how we supposed to make ‘em come with us?\" His jug ears are sticking out further than usual today, waiting for an answer, like a pop fly over the center field of his buckteeth.
\"Draw pictures, do an interpretive dance, I don’t fuckin’ know, sir. Mr. Mann says we go there and bring ‘em back, and that’s what we do. He didn’t say nothing about teaching ‘em card tricks or sharing our feelings.\"
There’s a pause as this sinks in.
\"Sarge?\" Apparently it didn’t sink in deep enough.
\"What!\" You hiss in an enraged stage whisper.
\"What are we supposed to draw the pictures with?\"
\"Get away from me, Dawkins,\" you mumble. He just shrugs his shoulders and creeps back to his cover.
Ninety percent of the time, nothing happens on these patrols. Usually you get word that a bunch of AWOLs set off a remote trip sensor or got picked up on FLIR (Forward Looking InfraRed) on a flyover, and the following day is spent sightseeing; humping over rocks and giant tree roots and hacking at vines the size of your head for an hour just to make three feet of progress. But when you finally get there, the site is ice cold. Nothing. Maybe a few words written in the dirt, or carved on a tree: \"WE DO NOT WANT TO COME HOME\" or \"DON’T MAKE US KILL\".
After all, these aren’t dumb animals. Oh, no. You’re hunting the smartest animal there is, and that’s another human being. You’ve been here almost seven months, and only seen ‘em twice! The first time they were far enough away so that by the time your snipers got honed in, they’d vanished into the woods like a damn ghost.
But the second time, you had a shot. Remember? You were camped against a canyon wall three klicks away on a long patrol. It was during the second phase of night, and you were on watch when something made your hackles rise. Quiet as a mouse, you fumbled your rifle up and thumbed the scope to \"MAX\". There he was, and his back was turned to you.
With your shoulders to the wall and the rifle across one knee, you couldn’t ask for a better crack. You had him in your sights, the glowing red crosshair carving tiny figure eights on the back of his head. His body was covered in mud and ash, and his hair was long and matted; decorated with spent shell casings, grenade pins, and campaign ribbons. You were just about to pull the trigger and bag your first confirmed kill when something happened that made your blood run cold.
The AWOL in your scope sniffed the air and whipped around, looking for something. Then he was staring right at you; those red-rimmed and very human eyes boring holes in your skull from almost half a klick away before slowly melting into the trees. You couldn’t even find him on thermal.
Scared you a little, huh? You ain’t the only one. In the past three years, 12 Force grunts have been killed, and 75 just up and vanished. Only two AWOLs have ever been confirmed dead. One was old, and the other one was sick. Two kills, and it ain’t for lack of trying. These aren’t just deserters you\'re hunting. The word around the campfire is something about the planet changed the AWOLs, something they eat, or something they do. In fact, the word \"evolved\" has been heard on more than one occasion.
Intel denies it up, down, and sideways, of course, and HQ has got major wood over it, demanding the AWOLs stand trial for desertion, which explains why you’re too short, humping too much gear too far, wondering if this is gonna be the day you punch your ticket.
For the first few months on Adams501, you had a real missile in your pants. You were hardcore, and you kept your edge anyway you could. Thanks to vitamin injections, you didn’t sleep a wink for almost two weeks. Eventually, the days and the nights and the routine wore you down, and finally you just stopped giving a shit. Maybe that’s what happened to them, too, and why they went AWOL in the first place. Just walked away into the trees and didn’t look back.
The villa looks quiet, same as always. They probably smelled you coming. Nobody home in the little mud huts, faint trails of smoke coming out of the top from a snuffed cooking fire. AWOLs lead a quiet life; they pray to their gods, gather food, come home, and go to sleep. When we find a villa, we just smash the huts up. They’re just dried mud. It’s not like they can’t build another one in a day or two.
\"Sarge?\" Wake up, dickhead. You were daydreaming again.
\"Yeah. Hang on.\" You open a channel to OPS and tell them what you’ve got, already knowing what they’re gonna say. If they want these guys dead so bad, why don’t they just nuke the place from orbit? Why all the fuss?
You squint your eyes against the first of three blazing suns overhead. Second sunrise is in five hours, and it’s only gonna get worse. Sweat stings your eyes as you wait for OPS to reply. What’s the point of this bullshit? What made the AWOLs want to give up the real world so much? There ain’t shit here! The only technology on the whole planet is the gear your boys dropped with, and it’s all death. Rifles, scopes, Sma®trounds, sonics, SATCOMS, grenades, radios, and drones.
OPS gives the orders, and you snap the radio shut and pass the news to the crew. \"Alright, use sonics to check for mines, move in and wreck the huts. Look for intel. Keep your eyes open, ladies. Don’t get careless. You know the drill.\"
The villa was a wash, as you knew it would be. Nobody saw shit, not one goddamned footprint! The woods are hushed, and you get the feeling you’re being watched by a thousand pairs of red-rimmed eyes from the safety in the deep green woods. They’re probably laughing at you.
A few of the guys found what looks like a kid\'s toy, a stick figure made from leaves and twigs. Sometimes the AWOLs leave trinkets, old medals and bits of their gear as peace offerings, and sometimes it’s more.
You were on a patrol last week, crossing a river on the way back home, and painted on a rock in the middle of the cool, cool river were the words \"PLEASE LEAVE US ALONE\". Right where they knew someone would see it when they were coming back hot, tired, dirty, and asking themselves what it all meant. Cool water and a polite request. You were meant to associate those two messages. Like I said, they’re smart.
You wonder how long it’s gonna be before it’s you writing those very words, and staring back at someone else with those red-rimmed eyes.
Shit. If you can\'t beat \'em, join \'em.