| Chapter 5 | Chapter 7 |
Part I
6 Pete
Accra, September 27, 2036Pete was starting to get tired of having the same discussion over and over again.
The presence of his battalion, and of two other NNT battalions had been a politically charged reality. Europe had stressed its neutrality to the extent that former president Kiedis had used the occasion of Russia joining the union to have the union's old name changed from EU-NATO, a name it had carried since the old United States of America had stepped out of NATO and the geopolitical reality of the day had forced NATO and the EU to merge into the federal state it was still today, a name that was still a bit sensitive for some political groups within the newest member state, to its current name: Neutral Northern Territories (NNT) .
So desperate not to be seen picking sides in the Copyright Wars, Pete thought, that its name had to express the spineless nature of its president. Pete had always considered the name change to be a wimp move.
And the new president? Well, he was a little better, or Pete wouldn’t be here now in GNU territory training for war. But if Kiedis had been a president with an empty scrotum, Bianchi’s nuts wouldn’t be much bigger than lentils. Only after New Zion had entered the war, and PUPR had ended up fighting a war on three fronts had president Bianchi dared to sign a ‘secret’ alliance with the South Atlantic GNU Defense Alliance. Yes, there were several NNT regiments fighting in the war against PUPR now, but they were, at least on paper, SAGDA regiments that just by pure chance happened to completely exist of immigrants originating from the Northern Neutral Territories. This way Bianchi could keep playing the neutral card in public.
"So what do you think Bianchi of the Nervous Neutered Territories is going to do next Gottschalk ?"
The wordplay on the NNT had been kind of funny the first few times SAGDA corporal Matatu had used it, but after two months of virtually daily usage the amusing property of the word joke had worn off.
"You think he is going to call you bunch of gay-pride sissies back to Bratislava now that the snob-brigade fled to Mars-One and New Zion is likely to drop out the war soon?"
"For the hundredth time Matatu, all of the soldiers are full SAGDA citizens, Bianchi couldn’t call us back even if he wanted to. In fact, taking in non-refugee SAGDA citizens, even, no especially former NNT citizens could actually threaten NNT’s neutrality right now. You are fucking stuck with us Matatu, so start treating us like family. In fact, pretty boy: Have any sisters you could introduce me to? If your sister has your full and luscious lips, I’d skull-fuck her for hours on our first date Matatu, oh, and I'd probably marry her Matatu so I can become your brother in law, wouldn’t that be nice?"
At the mention of sex with his sister, a sister Pete wasn’t sure before Matatu actually had, Matatu’s eyes looked as if they were going to pop out of his pitch black face. But as soon as Pete had added the idea of him becoming Matatu’s brother in law, Matatu jumped up from the wooden bench standing at the wall of the gym, that he, Pete and four other troopers had been sitting on.
"Well, you little... I warned you about mentioning my family."
While the imposing figure of corporal Matatu was threatening, Pete didn’t even blink or get up. He just put his left hand on his left knee, glanced around the room, and then looked at Matatu’s angry face. A big overly confident grin started to take shape on Pete’s face. A grin that infuriated Matatu even further. Matatu made a fist that together with his shoulder he moved back, ready to take a massive swing at Pete who still was just sitting there grinning.
Then at the very moment, Matatu’s fist started to gain forward momentum, Matatu was hit on the side of his head by a light brown object. It was the brown leather hay ball that they had used on other days in training sessions. The speed and weight of the ball had been enough for Matatu’s head to now hit the wall behind the bench they were all sitting on.
Pete was just about to burst out laughing when he saw the expression on the face of their new combat instructor. The little West Ottoman was not to be messed with and his facial expression clearly showed he had reached a point of diminished patience that anyone in the group could guess was unwise to provoke beyond.
"Corporal Moise Matatu!" The New Ottoman instructor Urzon spoke with an intonation more akin to that of a father who had just caught his ten-year-old son watching porn on the internet than to the tone Pete has grown to expect from combat instructors.
"Corporal Moise Matatu and Corporal Pete Gottschalk! I can’t keep my eyes of you two lovebirds for more than two seconds without the two of you trying to kiss each other? If the two of you can’t keep from touching each other, why don’t you two bitches join me on the mat?
Now! Come on, you two homely ladies, go and stand next to me while I address the men!"
"Men!"
The short but bulky lieutenant shouted. Then his head turned left to glance at Pete and then right to glance at Matatu;
"And girls!"
Urzon shouted even harder.
"We are here today to teach you about real manual combat. The strength of SAGDA till today has been mainly in your cyber warfare divisions. And men, while SAGDA may have a lot of excellent hackers that have been instrumental in bringing many a blow to those nasty Quants, and I do commend SAGDA for that, you sorry lot, however, the SAGDA drone force pilots have according to the statistics lost 3.7 times as many commanders in fights with PUPR than the enemy! That is thirty-seven SAGDA pilots dead just to kill a measly ten PUPR agents."
"It is my honor to have been chosen by the New Ottoman Free Trade Alliance (NOFTA) government to be part of the training force that has been assigned to start training SAGDA pilots in the use of NOFTA ElectroMagnetic Pulse (EMP) technology. In two weeks time, we will start training you in the noble art of EMP archery. Next month we shall spend the whole month on the use of EMP mortars and EMP bombs. I will say this now and I will say this many times over the next few months, but if you ever find yourself needing to actually use an EMP bomb, that will mean one thing and one thing only. It will mean you had no business being a drone pilot; to begin with and SAGDA may be actually better off with you as part of the statistics.
But enough on that. The coming weeks we shall be spending on training you in hand to hand combat. PUPR doesn't have any EMP technology other than crude EMP bombs that they won't use because the agents use implants. However, their agents are skilled at hand to hand combat. Surpassed in skills only by elite New Zion agents and I am proud to say, matched in skills pretty evenly by the lite NOTFA forces that I myself have taken leave from to help improving the disaster that is the SAGDA drone force."
"If in a fight with PUPR agents there is no other resort left than to detonate your personal EMP bomb, or if by dumb luck you find yourself stranded by one of these nitwits sitting next to you their 'friendly' fire, then the skills I teach you in the coming weeks are all that will be standing between you fighting another battle and becoming part of the mortality statistics yourselves."
The Lieutenant glanced once more, first at Matatu who was standing like a huge muscular schoolboy, eyes pointed at the floor near his feet which were positioned less than an inch apart, then at Pete, who in contrast stood with his feet 60 centimetres apart, hands together on his back, chin up with a huge grin on his face.
"Now!" Lieutenant Urzon shouted; "Corporal Gottschalk!"
Pete's grin drop from his face.
"Yes, Corporal, that is right. Don't think I didn't notice that smug grin on your face Mister Overconfident. And don't think I didn't notice you noticing me noticing Matatu!"
"Huh?" Pete exclaimed. Too many noticing in one sentence for Pete's mind to keep up with.
"Not so smug now eh, Gottschalk, shall I repeat it a bit slower for you Corporal?"
Embarrassed by his mind not parsing the Lieutenant's words quite quick enough, Pete had finally managed to grasp what Urzon had said to him.
"No, sir!, I understand, sir!"
The reason Pete had known he could just safely stay seated and grin provocative at Matatu when Matatu had stood up and was ready to punch him in the face, was the fact that he had noticed that Urzon had his eye on Matatu since Matatu had jumped up. Pete hadn't even given it a second thought; one glance at Urzon's alert face, one look at the heavy ball in his hands had been enough for Pete to know Urzon had his back.
"Good Corporal. You have good situational awareness. That's a start. Let's see how much that buys you on the mat against Corporal Matatu. I won't have your back this time."
Pete's face went all white for a split second. Pete was a big and quite muscular guy. One metre eighty-five, muscular, ripped and weighing at 110 kg. Matatu though was not to be discarded easily. While a bit shorter than Pete, Moise Matatu was one scary motherfucker to be honest. The about one metre seventy-five 140 kg black African GNU veteran might have had a bit of a belly, he was as strong as an ox and way more flexible than one would guess looking at his posture. Always at the gym deadlifting weights, Pete couldn't even dream off lifting. Or when he wasn't deadlifting, he might be practicing his Muay Thai at the beach, sparring and kicking palm trees till his legs started bleeding.
Sometimes Matatu would pick out a spot on the road with Banana trees that ran between the obstacle course and the barracks and pick out a banana tree just thin enough for him to master. He would tap the tree for a while until a lone white NNT soldier passed by on his way from the course to the barracks, then he would call out to that soldier, look at him with his piercing eyes of which the white contrasted so sharply with the deep black complexion of his face, then without breaking eye contact, Matatu would use all his strength and kick the banana tree so hard that that single kick would bring it down. This experience could be so intense for the soldier in question that it had the toughest of men wake up screaming in the middle of the night because the dreams they were getting about Matatu.
Pete psyched himself up a bit, made a small calves powered jump, then made a quick cross sign and with a few quick and long steps went to the corner of the mat.
Pete and Matatu had some history already and Pete knew just how to psyche him out. Especially now that he knew how sensitive Matatu was about his sister. Pete made a pointing gesture at Matatu, then, with a broad smile, Pete brought his right hand to his face to make a rude fellatio gesture. Shaking his half-open fist, using his tongue to push out his cheek in the same rhythm.
"Your mama!" Pete shouted out as he made a little dance combined with a slightly humping hip movement.
Like before, Matatu's eyes got bigger and bigger and again they looked as if they were about to pop right out of his skull and drop to the floor. Matatu's chest inflated a bit, he balled his fists, and started quickly striding towards Pete.
"In your corner Matatu, until I give the sign!" Urzon shouted. "And Gottschalk, stop that shit right now!"
Some seconds later, when Urzon gave the sign for the fight to begin Matatu was still so psyched from Pete's provocations the white from his eyes had gone all pink. That and a drop of spit in one corner of his mouth made Matatu look rather menacing. A sight that, combined with the threatening rocking side to side motion that Matatu was making, would scare most men. Not Pete though. Pete knew this was the only way for him to beat Matatu. Make him angry, keep him angry. Pete now made a V with his right hand brought his hand to his mouth and started quickly moving his tongue as to symbol pleasing a woman.
"Your little sister!" Pete said.
At that moment Matatu lost it completely. Matatu stormed forward, used his right foot to propel himself into the air. Then Matatu's left feet came at Pete in a clockwise kick with Matatu still airborne. With a quick roll, Pete got out of the way of danger and Matatu landed relatively controlled.
Again Matatu came at Pete. This time with a punch that Pete blocked with his underarms. 'Fuck, he really hits hard.' Pete thought. Pete then managed to get a few quick punches to Matatu's side before widening the space between the two of them again.
As Matatu now stood only a metre from Pete, he made a high forward kicking motion and as Matatu's right foot touched Pete's right shoulder, Matatu put all of his weight into the kick.
Feeling the momentum of the kick, Pete lifted up his left foot sideways, an act that resulted in the force of Matatu's kick on Pete's shoulder being primarily used to make Pete spin around his body's vertical axis, and less of the force resulting in the effect of toppling Pete toward the ground.
With Matatu's continuing forward motion Pete saw the chance to push Matatu onto his back with his left hand, thereby both pushing Matatu's upper body forward faster than his leg was moving, and stopping his own falling and spinning movements just enough to regain his full balance as Matatu stumbled and fell face down on the mat.
"Well done Gottschalk, well done," Urzon spoke friendly. "Go back to the bench Matatu."
Matatu threw one more angry look at Pete and went back to the bench.
"Now Gottschalk, it's time for the lesson. I'll repeat Matatu's attack, but I'll add in some Nan Quan Kurash for fun."
'Oh boy' Pete thought. NQK was the infamous mixture of Persian, Turkish and Chinese martial arts that made Ottoman agents a force to reckon with. It combined ancient martial arts styles from different cultures within the New Ottoman Trade Alliance with new techniques explicitly devised to counter and exploit the trained reflexes of PUPR agents. What chance would Pete have against that skill set?
'Hell, I'm no PUPR agent, neither do I have PUPR training. Let's see what the Lieutenant has first.' Pete thought.
As Urzon's foot hit Pete's shoulder the exact same way that Matatu had done before, Pete felt much better prepared for the force of the kick than he had with Matatu. The spin around his virtual axis was much more controlled this time. Pete concentrated on the moment. Something was coming. Urzon was to do something different, yet everything seemed to be proceeding exactly as before with Matatu.
Then, at the very moment that Pete was about to push Urzon just below the shoulder as he had done with Matatu, in a fraction of a second, Urzon made half a spin around 'his' vertical axis, grabbed hold of Pete's wrist, turned the momentum of both their twists into a single powerful centrifugal momentum and in one confusing whirl Pete was forcefully smacked to the ground while Urzon rolled away in a Judo like body roll, leaving Pete slightly confused laying face down on the mat. Pete's mind was in a state of confusion: 'Impossible!' Pete thought.
As he jumped up, Pete saw Urzon already standing in starting position like before. Urzon wasn't going to give Pete time to recover.
"This lesson was for Matatu" Urzon spoke, "now for 'your' lesson. Let's see if you are a quick study, Gottschalk."
Before Pete had time to think up a strategy, Urzon's foot hit his shoulder once more. His shoulder was really starting to feel sore now after three kicks. Without thinking, Pete swung his left arm behind his waist while spinning around his axis, grabbed hold of Urzon's belt and gave a yank hard enough to stop his own spinning motion.
As before, again Pete felt himself tumbling over and the mat hit him smack in the face Pete thought to himself: 'Now that was stupid! Why did I go do a stupid thing like that.' But then, with the sound of Urzon groaning softly, Pete realized not just he but Urzon as well had smacked hard into the mat.
"Unconventional Gottschalk, you have reflexes alright. Not much skill but plenty of reflexes I'll say this to you, Corporal. When these two weeks are over you might actually end up standing a chance surviving hand to hand combat with a PUPR agent. Now get your butt back to the bench Gottschalk. Matatu, get back here. You are next."
| Chapter 5 | Chapter 7 |