Free In the Valley by Jason Lambright Page A

reason for that was that the dissident movement on Juneau was strongest in an area that was ethnically Pashtun. The Pashtun, like on Old Earth, had a problem with female leadership, so FMAT 1.69 had to be comprised of males only.
    Yay, thought Paul at the time, a stag party. Having only males did tend to simplify administration, though. And after learning something about his teammates, Paul and the colonel were gratified that this was an all-male show.
    Enter the colonel, the team’s leader. He had been whiling away his time to retirement at Force Staff HQ in Montevideo, on Old Earth. The force’s vice commander noticed that the colonel was manning a desk and thought him ill suited for such a job. So the vice commander asked the colonel to head back into space to lead an FMAT against the dissidents on a world 208 light-years from Earth. The colonel, being the warrior and quiet professional that he was, said not just yes, but hell yes.
    Eleven months’ transit time later, with a quick stop to see the lay of the land in Juneau, the colonel showed up on Canton 2, the next system over. He awaited the arrival of his potential teammates with some trepidation, as the forces had seemingly just pulled names out of a hat. The first to arrive from elsewhere was a Lieutenant Paul Thompson.
    Lieutenant Thompson was fresh from a low-intensity combat assignment as a rifle platoon leader on Roodeschool 5. The veteran soldier had come up from the ranks, having graduated OCS, so he was a (much) older LT than most units had.
    Paul was in his late thirties, with salt-and-pepper hair and dark brown eyes. He had a naturally ruddy complexion thanks to his partially Hispanic and native North American background. He stood one meter seventy-three and weighed about ninety-five kilograms. Like most line soldiers, he had a somewhat stocky build and a runner’s physique.
    The colonel thought he might be a good fit but wasn’t entirely convinced at first. After all, the colonel had spent his entire career in Special Forces, and he had some prejudices against the line.
    The colonel immediately put Paul to work with administrative issues. The force had created the mission but didn’t bother with small potatoes, such as ammunition allotments, a training schedule, and so forth. The force hadhowever set up a halo-extension combat-advisor course for the twelve-man team to take on Canton 2 when everyone showed up. The colonel had his doubts about extension learning, so he planned to go off the reservation and form his team as he saw fit, once it was assembled.
    The next soldier to show up was Mighty Mike. Mike had come from Forces Rangers—First Battalion, specifically. (Rangers call them “Batts.”) He had definite ideas about how teams like this were supposed to be run; and he and the colonel got together and formed a plan. Mike was the team sergeant—the NCO ramrod that made the colonel’s vision and mission statement a reality.
    Mike was good shit, Paul reflected, even though, having been an NCO himself, he and Mike came into conflict from time to time, especially thanks to the colonel’s philosophy that the team sergeant would occasionally have operational control over ranking officers (like a certain Paul Thompson). Still, it was the colonel’s show, so Paul went along with the call. He became even more willing after Ranger Mike demonstrated his tactical and technical excellence at key points during their train up on Canton 2.
    Team 1.69 may have been the colonel’s baby, but it had a lot of Mighty Mike’s grubby fingerprints on the overall concept. Mighty Mike had an easy smile, ten layers of bullshit, and a devious streak a mile wide. He was of stocky build with sandy-brown hair and peculiar hazel cat eyes that would focus on his intended victim with laser intensity.
    For Paul, a line soldier from the beginning, working with a Special Forces (SF) guru and an experienced Ranger was an eye-opener and a challenge. Those guys were pros, and Paul