Balls and Bayonets
Even now, after five years of war, Malcolm Reynolds wasn't sure why the 57th Overlanders was called the "Balls and Bayonets Brigade."
Like, he sort of knew – the name sounded "kewl." Sounded like something that would strike something fearful into the hearts of the Alliance, and give a transfusion of hope into the hearts of every Browncoat from this side of the 'Verse to the other. Hope entering the heart through the capillary, filtering back out through the vein, and doing all manner of stuff befitting those who spent inordinate amounts of time on metaphors.
He wasn't big on metaphors right now. Similes? He was fine with that. Like, making his way through the scrubs of Mowbray Heights, he was fine with phrases like "this battle's going down as fast as a meteor," or "we're going to be on the purple bellies like a pack of wolves." Not the most intricate of phrases, but they were at least true. Because up here on the heights overlooking the city of Shi Leung, capital of the continent of Xiang Fong of the planet Du Khang, he could see what everyone else could. The Alliance dominated the skies, and they dominated the heights. Right now, balls and bayonets couldn't do much about the first problem. Dealing with the artillery however? The 57th Overlanders could do a mighty fine job. Or at least the thirty of them that had been drafted/volunteered to take part in this move behind enemy lines, to silence the artillery raining down on Shi Leung. What the Independents' plans were to deal with the Alliance's air support wasn't details that Mal wasn't privy to, but he hoped they existed. The Independents needed a victory. And while they could win some on the ground, the Alliance could always retreat to space, an area in which they could practically operate uncontested.
He knew, as every other Browncoat did, that the Alliance could do to every world from here to Hera what they'd done to Shadow. That unless they developed or retrieved some magic tech, their only hope was to keep the Alliance bleeding, and hoping that the hearts in Parliament bled long enough for them to sue for peace. Shadow had been reduced to a world befitting its namesake, but it was a world that the Alliance couldn't use. No-one could. Crouching down in the shrubs, looking at the muzzle fire of the artillery pieces, he-
"Hey."
…looked at Lieutenant Marriot.
"Don't go zoning out on me Sergeant."
"Ain't zoning out, zoning in." He gestured towards the Alliance gun battery.
"Really," Marriot said. "And how far are they from our position?"
"…one-hundred metres?"
"One-hundred and twenty-five."
"Seriously? How'd you know?"
Marriot took out a pathfinder. A red light was shone on one of the 40mm guns that were lobbing shells down into the city below. A second later it disappeared, and Marriot looked at the pathfinder's LED.
"123.4 metres," he said.
"Yeah, well, rounding down," Mal muttered.
"You always like this with your CO Sergeant?"
"Heck, I've seen so many people with your bars come and go I've lost count," Mal said. "Usually I'm doing the work you people are meant to do."
"Yes, and you've got a good corporal too I hear. Any, ah, balls and bayonets there?"
Mal said nothing.
"Well, whatever," Marriot said. "I'm here. You're here. You follow my orders, and hopefully you'll see one less pair of bars heading into a body bag."
Mal decided not to bring up how most lieutenants that he'd served under didn't get the luxury of body bags. Nor did he mention that he was quite happy being a sergeant because being returned to Mother Earth wasn't something he was too keen on either. And he most certainly didn't mention that the 57th Overlanders wasn't called the Balls and Bayonets Brigade because of the plumbing its members had. And…
"Alright," Marriot said. "Poole, Chan, come here."
The platoon that Marriot had cobbled together had thirty men and women – all taken from the 57th, but not from any one unit within the brigade itself. Mal knew that Poole and Chan were decent soldiers, but he'd never served with them before. By night's end, they'd probably never see each other again for whatever reason. Regardless, the two came over – three sergeants, three squads, assaulting an artillery battery in a bid to save thousands.
No pressure, right?
Marriot began giving his orders. First and second squad would advance under Reynolds and Poole, Third Squad would provide fire support. Mal simply nodded every time Marriot asked him something. He got tactics. Understood the need for tactics. He just wondered if Marriot had ever been in the position he'd found himself in more times than he could count, when tactics went out the airlock, and Murphy docked his shuttle in the proverbial spaceship, grinning like an idiot and asking "did you miss me?"
"Alright," Marriot said. "Get to your squads, move on my order. Reynolds, I'm with you."
Well, at least Marriot had his own balls to lead from the front Mal thought, even if it might mean another dead lieutenant. He'd give Marriot that at least, even if not his trust. He looked too…clean. Having been on this world for months, there wasn't a single person in the 57th that could claim that, especially since running water was now a thing of the past in this area.
"So," Mal said, as he and Marriot crouched down in the scrub, the first two squads forming staggered lines. "How quick do you think we can cover 123.5 metres?"
"123.4," Marriot said, getting out a rifle and a knife. "And to answer your question, at a crouch run, probably…what?"
"What?"
"What?" Marriot said.
Mal gestured towards the knife, currently mounted at the tip of the rifle.
"What?" Marriot repeated.
"A bayonet?" Mal asked. "Seriously?"
"What's wrong with a bayonet?"
"Y'know that bayonets were out of fashion even before leaving Earth-That-Was? That only about 1 percent of all wounds in this war have been attributed to these weapons?"
"Well ain't you something," Marriot said. "And here I thought you were just a regular country bumpkin."
"Oh I prefer the term country larrikin."
"Duly noted." Marriot tapped a grenade on his belt. "Balls." He tapped the knife. "Bayonet. Figure I'm one of you now."
"Y'know that's not how it actually works right?"
"All I know is that one of us will likely be dead within the next five minutes." Marriot smirked. "Cheer up Reynolds. One of us may even get to be among the one percent."
Somehow, the notion of being gutted like a fish didn't do Sergeant Malcolm Reynolds's state of mind any favours. Nonetheless, he formed up.
Marriot gave the order to move forward seconds later. Twenty men and women moving through the shrubs, armed with an assortment of weapons, and barely any body armour. Looking through the gloom, he could make out the muzzle fire of the guns, and the shadowed figures either loading or guarding them, but it was a guess as to how many purple bellies would be up here. But all one of them had to do was turn around, let out a yell, and then the 57th might find itself short 20 members. 30 if Chan didn't bug out. All that remained was to see how long it would take the Alliance to discover the brown among the green.
As it turned out, it wasn't long.
Mal wasn't sure how it happened. There was a shout, either from his side or the enemy's. Seconds later, shooting began, and again, he couldn't tell who began firing first. Marriot yelled at the troopers to get down. As one, they dropped, though not all of them hit the ground alive. Some people screamed. Some people swore. All of them began firing.
Balls and bayonets, Mal thought to himself as he joined in the cacophony of gunfire. Balls and bayonets.
It wasn't a prayer. Usually he'd pray to God in a situation like this, because so far the guy upstairs had kept him alive. He'd even done a number on Murphy a few times, even if that old bastard kept crawling his way out of Hell. But maybe God was with him today. That, or Third Squad, which opened fire from everything from bolt-action rifles to machine guns. Shouts and screams came from the Alliance line. Marriot got to his feet and yelled something that Mal couldn't make out. But he got the hint. Move forward.
First and Second Squad did so.
They ran. The defenders of the artillery had to divide their attention between the fifteen or so angry Browncoats headed their way, and the ten Browncoats that were firing on them from afar. It wasn't enough to save everyone. But it was enough to allow the first two squads to get up to the line itself. And when Marriot shot a flare into the air, illuminating the battlefield…that was when the first two squads opened fire.
Mal included himself among his number. Aiming down the sights of his rifle, he let out a burst of gunfire. One of the purple bellies manning their machine guns fell to the ground. Another kill. Another death.
"Third Squad, hold position. First and Second, move forward!"
The Browncoats advanced – not exactly a sea of brown moving forward to gobble up the emplacement, but if it was a trickle, it was still enough to drown the defenders. Mal guessed that the purple bellies might have had around fifteen troopers between them, along with the gunnery crews, who were either fleeing, or picking up arms to join the fight. He saw one draw his pistol…
No you don't.
…and drop it, as a burst of fire went into the poor bastard's chest.
Five years of war, and Mal had never murdered. Killed, yes, but not murdered. Five years had taught him the difference. He'd seen murder – it was what he killed to prevent. So he kept firing. Kept killing. Doing it to stop the murder going on on this planet, and dozens of others.
"Cease fire!"
Some people kept shooting. Some of the 57th, even having taken the gun position, were about to slip into murder.
"Cease fire!" Marriot yelled again.
The guns fell silent – the big guns, the small guns, everything. All that remained was the sound of moaning and wailing. Through the gloom, Mal saw Marriot talking over the radio.
"Third Squad, hold position, keep your eyes peeled for any armour or aircraft." He got off it. "Poole, see to the explosives. Reynolds, get the wounded on their feet."
They weren't personal orders – more "do this, and by do this, get the people under your command to do it." Which Mal did, assigning Barnett and Sun on injury duty. In the meantime, he walked over to Marriot.
"Sergeant."
"Lieutenant," he said.
"Something you want to say?"
Mal shrugged. "Only…good job?"
"Good job."
"Yeah. Like, you had a plan, did the plan, and I don't see another pair of bars added to the body bag."
Marriot smirked.
"Notice your bayonet didn't get anything though."
Marriot said nothing. He unfasted the blade but didn't pocket it.
"What about the wounded?" Mal asked.
"Thought I had you on duty."
"Yeah, I mean…" He nodded towards the purple bellies on the ground…the ones that were still alive. "I mean…y'know…"
Marriot gave Mal a look that he'd only seen a few times. The look that was reserved for people who said bad things about people's mothers.
"This how you get off?" Marriot asked.
"Pardon?"
"Fifty-seventh. Playing games like this?"
"Sir, I don't…Sir?"
Marriot was walking over to one of the artillery crew members. Her body was slumped against the gun, blood pouring out from a number of chest wounds. Heavily wounded, but not beyond saving. Though as Marriot grabbed her shoulder, causing Mal to wince and the purple belly to whimper…well, the idea of being "saved" right now in any sense of the world was becoming very far-fetched, very quickly.
"Tell me Reynolds," Marriot said. "You grew up on Shadow right? Y'know, the planet the Alliance bombed from here to the Stone Age?"
"Sir, if you could-"
"What you do, Reynolds? Before all this?" He gestured with his free hand, still holding the knife – all this, as in, the bodies of the dead, the silent guns, and the Browncoats going around their business as if nothing was happening.
"Well?"
"Sir…" Mal swallowed, averting his gaze as the girl looked at him, eyes wide like a frightened animal. "I was a rancher, sir."
"Rancher eh?" Marriot nodded. "Good job. Worked on a farm myself."
"That's nice sir, but-"
"Me though? I was a pig farmer."
Mal went to say something. But he got no words out before Marriot slit the girl's neck, kicking the body down into the ground.
Mal still said nothing. He couldn't. Because like Marriot, he had killed. But unlike Marriot, he had never murdered. So as Marriot cleaned his blade, he said nothing. As Marriot walked over, he said nothing.
"Balls and bayonets Reynolds," Marriot said, patting Mal on the shoulder. "Least we got to use one of those things today."
And still, standing there, rooted to the spot…said nothing.
Thinking that "57th Overlands" was the only name his unit needed right now.