03-05-2015, 10:26 PM
Legion Premiere Training Center, near Arfoud, Morocco.
Major Claude Solomon was the Commandant of the Legion's recruit training center, a relatively small collection of buildings surrounded by some of the finest training grounds to be found in Africa. A Frenchman by birth, Solomon was much like the company's CEO, an ex-pat whom had rarely set foot in the lands of his birth.
Outside, through the open window (there was no AC outside the mess hall and infirmary) Commandant Solomon could clearly hear the sounds of men in training, and the sounds of heavy equipment at work; new buildings were being thrown up to make space for the recent surge in recruits. The CEO's speech some weeks prior had had the desired result. Averaging eighty or so fresh Legionnaires a year, the facility already housed two hundred men from around the world who had been drawn by the CEO's words.
He stood in the small, simply adorned room that served as his office and read the updated training program he had just received from headquarters in Casablanca, signed off by the CEO himself.
Before that day, the company's training had been focused on small team level tactics, the protection of VIPs or high value facilities. Unarmed convoy movements, broad-sweep understanding of regional laws and customs. The sorts of things important to a world-renowned private security company.
The new training program though...calling it new was perhaps incorrect. Many of the training pams and manuals still bore the insignia and name of the Foreign Legion. Hell, most were still written in French, although modern translation software made that a rather moot issue.
The orders were straight to the point; the old training program was to be ceased immediately. All the recruits in training were to be given a chance to re-assess their contracts before the new program would be implemented, but it was to be stressed the focus of the training had drastically changed. The Legion was not training security contractors anymore.
They were training soldiers.
Legion Premiere HQ, Casablanca, Morocco
Commandant Tuff, the senior Legion staff officer in the absence of the CEO, stood in Jacques' office and quietly rubbed his eyes before setting the next of dozens of contracts the company held throughout Africa. To one side of the room was a half dozen clerks who were already starting the paperwork to arrange the transfer of contracts to other companies, and to arrange travel for Legion staff back to Morocco from wherever they were around Africa.
After the loss of almost two hundred in DV, and the rapidly collapsing situation in Sierra Leone and the CEO's insistence for direct involvement there, the company had begun consolidating its personnel, arranging the closure of ongoing contracts across the continent. Only those deemed tactically important were maintained. Egypt, South Africa, Morocco, and the handful that they held in countries surrounding Sierra Leone. Those contracts, and especially their men on the ground there, were a valuable source of up-to-date information on the political and social climates there.
"Commandant? A legal representative of the Dongling Group is on the line next. A Miss Chin Xun."
One of the clerks forwarded a copy of the contract and the CEO's suggestions for transfer of operations to one of the competitor companies.
Tuff took a sip of water then nodded, one more adopting a proper, square-shouldered stance. A moment later, the screen blinked to life and the corner displayed a tiny image of Commandant Tuff and the room at his back for his own reference. A somewhat plain looking Chinese woman in a simple grey power suit was seated at a dark wood desk, and he nodded to her politely.
"Miss Chin Xun. I am Commandant Lochlan Tuff of Legion Premiere. Vice president, would be a more familiar phrase."
The British man held all the social grace and propriety of a career British soldier; gruff of voice and straight of back, little by way of immediately apparent humour.
The woman nodded slightly, "I am familiar with the term, Commandant Tuff. Your company has always been a point of professional curiousity with the legal staff here at Dongling Group. Your CEO has often proven to be refreshingly honest to work with."
Tuff nodded slightly; it was a common misconception; the man was damnably charismatic, and used his rather boyish looks and roguish public reputation to get the best of stiff-collared legal types in the past. Their contracts were often rather stacked in the Legion's favour, whether the signing company realized it or not. "I must appologize for how short-noticed this meeting has been. And for how short I must cut this conversation, Miss Chin Xun, but I have many more of these discussions to have this evening. I trust that our suggestions for contract exchange are satisfactory?"
The woman nodded understandingly and perused the notes on one of her own displays, "You are certain Umkhonto Securities can achieve this time table? Two weeks seems rather short."
"Umkhonto Securities are of near-peer capabilities to Legion Premiere. We have every confidence they will both be able to achieve so tight a schedule, and that you will see little to no change in the level of security of your assets."
The two hammered out a few final details and a short time later Commandant Tuff stood facing a blank display once more.
"How are the share-holders going to take this, Commandant? Our profits are seriously tanking with the cancellation of so many contracts. The CCD did not pussy-foot around on paying for the CEO's fees for Jeddah, but that money will only go so far."
The clerk glanced at the Commandant as they sorted out the next meeting.
He simply harrumphed quietly. The way things in Sierra Leone were going, the share-holders likely were not to be much of an issue in the near future.
North-western Guinea, outskirts of the city of Gaoual
The Legion Premiere convoy had been on the road for three days already. Once upon a time, the drive from Casablanca to Freetown would have been a solid 48 hours drive with no stops, but the past few decades had not been kind. Global economic collapse, rampant disease, social and religious unrest, all had taken it's toll on much of Africa and left vast regions of once scenic highways abandoned and unkempt.
Of course, bad roads alone weren't enough to dissuade the Legion's relief convoy. The company's entire fleet of Panhards, twenty in total, were evenly spread along a kilometer long convoy of crudely up-armoured transport trucks driven by volunteers. Surplus Moroccan military vehicles had been purchased and repurposed as field ambulances, wreckers (towing and maintenance vehicles), supply trucks, and APCs.
The further south into Guinea they traveled, the worse things seemed to get. Some villages along the highway had been destroyed and never repopulated, leaving ruins standing partly reclaimed by nature from decades prior. The outskirts of Gaoual still told the story of the last Ebola outbreak of the early 21st century; abandoned refugee camps, fenced fields of mass graves still sporting bio-hazard warnings in a half dozen languages.
The city itself still stood, but it too was in ruins. Constant power struggles between warlords and gangs had left areas in ruins. Few regions of Guinea still had access to electricity or running water, and Gaoual was not one of those areas. In the early morning light, lights from fires could still be seen.
"Intel reports that this region is currently held by Samori Ture. Birth name is Felix Goodman. The usual vile piece of shit you'd expect from around here. Renamed himself after some Guinean hero of the 19th century. Resisted the Europeans. Controls most of Boke and Kindia prefectures. Has his fingers in drug and sex trade, piracy, the usual shit. The guy is a full-blown traditionalist to boot. Witch doctors and shamans and all that."
Sergant Jackson was an American. Seated in the back of the second-from-the-front Panhard, he scanned over the company's datasheet on the region they were about to enter.
Provost Boipello sat next to the American man, staring out the narrow armoured window-slit at the dark city ahead. "He is not going to let us pass peacefully, is he?"
"Doubt it. He's powerful enough to take a stab at the convoy. Usual small-arms. Mostly re-purposed civilian vehicles. We will probably take some losses, but should be able to get through. They aren't soldiers. A show of force ought to scare most of the rabble off."
Boipello nodded and the convoy rolled forward. The signal went forward and they picked up speed. The lead most Panhards sported heavy grills with which to push through barricades if need be, and all the vehicles had remote weapon systems instead of man'd roof turrets. No Legionnaires would need stick their heads out of the vehicles unless they were to dismount.
Sergeant Jackson was partly right. 'Samori Ture' did try to take the convoy. And his men were little better then bandits and murderers; a display of force did prove enough to turn them away. And they did loose vehicles. He simply underestimated how much power the man really had. Or more accurately, the man's pet shaman.
Samori Ture was ready for the convoy, and waited in person to see its capture. The guns and RPGs and mines were expected by the Legion convoy, and a known threat they could actively counter. The had dealt with such things in the past. The fireball that engulfed the lead Panhard as it barreled down a debris-choked straightaway was, at first, thought to have been a molotov. The flames washed over the armoured vehicle, catching the rubber of the tires aflame but having little immediate effect otherwise.
And then everything went dark around the lead vehicle, a sudden startling absence of light. The driver and crew of the vehicle were understandably spooked, but attributed it to something having been thrown over the vehicle. One of the men threw open the side door, intent on clearing away the covering if he could, only for the vehicle to be struck by a second ball of flames, this one engulfing the interior of the vehicle as well.
The Pahnard careened off the road into the side of a building, the darkness that had encompassed it vanishing with the burst of flames that had killed the crew, their dying screams briefly choking the convoy's comms.
Sergeant Jackson cursed, Provost Boipello was stunned to silence. They, as most of the leadership in Legion Premiere, had received copies of the after action reports of Jeddah, and of Legionnaire Vander's report. The information had been disseminated among the rank-and-file from there, but no amount of reading or video could really prepare a person for what had happened.
"Sorcier!" was heard repeatedly over the radio, and men manning the RWS systems were madly panning their guns in the direction of the fireballs had come.
Boipello leaned over Jackson's shoulder to see the weapons' display. The weapons fire from the warlords' men increased, rounds pinging dangerously off the hardened sides of the Panhards or the crude armour plates of the supply trucks. Few RPGs had been fired yet, as that risked destroying the valuable cargo.
Another burst of flames struck their vehicle next; the shaman was tasked to destroy the Legion's fighting vehicles. Flames again washed harmlessly across the vehicle, but in so doing it drew Jackson's gun. A young man, face traced in tattoos, dressed in leathers and beads of all things, stood on the roof of a building far towards the end of the street, a clear view from which to pick apart the Legion convoy as it passed. The man raised a tribal talisman and screamed to the heavens, and didn't notice the .50 mounted to the Panhard's roof swivel his way.
Magic was fast, but bullets proved faster.
An hour later a tattered but mostly intact convoy emerged from the southern edge of Gaoual. Three Panhards had been lost, and six other vehicles, but Warlord Samori Ture was going to have a rough year from all his losses in the city. Fast moving and well armed, the convoy had proven too hard for the bandits, used mostly to raiding static targets, to pin down.
Past Gaoual, the convoy stopped and regrouped. Field repairs, tending to wounded, and maintenance on weapons. There would be little rest to be had in the leg of the journey to Freetown.
Major Claude Solomon was the Commandant of the Legion's recruit training center, a relatively small collection of buildings surrounded by some of the finest training grounds to be found in Africa. A Frenchman by birth, Solomon was much like the company's CEO, an ex-pat whom had rarely set foot in the lands of his birth.
Outside, through the open window (there was no AC outside the mess hall and infirmary) Commandant Solomon could clearly hear the sounds of men in training, and the sounds of heavy equipment at work; new buildings were being thrown up to make space for the recent surge in recruits. The CEO's speech some weeks prior had had the desired result. Averaging eighty or so fresh Legionnaires a year, the facility already housed two hundred men from around the world who had been drawn by the CEO's words.
He stood in the small, simply adorned room that served as his office and read the updated training program he had just received from headquarters in Casablanca, signed off by the CEO himself.
Before that day, the company's training had been focused on small team level tactics, the protection of VIPs or high value facilities. Unarmed convoy movements, broad-sweep understanding of regional laws and customs. The sorts of things important to a world-renowned private security company.
The new training program though...calling it new was perhaps incorrect. Many of the training pams and manuals still bore the insignia and name of the Foreign Legion. Hell, most were still written in French, although modern translation software made that a rather moot issue.
The orders were straight to the point; the old training program was to be ceased immediately. All the recruits in training were to be given a chance to re-assess their contracts before the new program would be implemented, but it was to be stressed the focus of the training had drastically changed. The Legion was not training security contractors anymore.
They were training soldiers.
Legion Premiere HQ, Casablanca, Morocco
Commandant Tuff, the senior Legion staff officer in the absence of the CEO, stood in Jacques' office and quietly rubbed his eyes before setting the next of dozens of contracts the company held throughout Africa. To one side of the room was a half dozen clerks who were already starting the paperwork to arrange the transfer of contracts to other companies, and to arrange travel for Legion staff back to Morocco from wherever they were around Africa.
After the loss of almost two hundred in DV, and the rapidly collapsing situation in Sierra Leone and the CEO's insistence for direct involvement there, the company had begun consolidating its personnel, arranging the closure of ongoing contracts across the continent. Only those deemed tactically important were maintained. Egypt, South Africa, Morocco, and the handful that they held in countries surrounding Sierra Leone. Those contracts, and especially their men on the ground there, were a valuable source of up-to-date information on the political and social climates there.
"Commandant? A legal representative of the Dongling Group is on the line next. A Miss Chin Xun."
One of the clerks forwarded a copy of the contract and the CEO's suggestions for transfer of operations to one of the competitor companies.
Tuff took a sip of water then nodded, one more adopting a proper, square-shouldered stance. A moment later, the screen blinked to life and the corner displayed a tiny image of Commandant Tuff and the room at his back for his own reference. A somewhat plain looking Chinese woman in a simple grey power suit was seated at a dark wood desk, and he nodded to her politely.
"Miss Chin Xun. I am Commandant Lochlan Tuff of Legion Premiere. Vice president, would be a more familiar phrase."
The British man held all the social grace and propriety of a career British soldier; gruff of voice and straight of back, little by way of immediately apparent humour.
The woman nodded slightly, "I am familiar with the term, Commandant Tuff. Your company has always been a point of professional curiousity with the legal staff here at Dongling Group. Your CEO has often proven to be refreshingly honest to work with."
Tuff nodded slightly; it was a common misconception; the man was damnably charismatic, and used his rather boyish looks and roguish public reputation to get the best of stiff-collared legal types in the past. Their contracts were often rather stacked in the Legion's favour, whether the signing company realized it or not. "I must appologize for how short-noticed this meeting has been. And for how short I must cut this conversation, Miss Chin Xun, but I have many more of these discussions to have this evening. I trust that our suggestions for contract exchange are satisfactory?"
The woman nodded understandingly and perused the notes on one of her own displays, "You are certain Umkhonto Securities can achieve this time table? Two weeks seems rather short."
"Umkhonto Securities are of near-peer capabilities to Legion Premiere. We have every confidence they will both be able to achieve so tight a schedule, and that you will see little to no change in the level of security of your assets."
The two hammered out a few final details and a short time later Commandant Tuff stood facing a blank display once more.
"How are the share-holders going to take this, Commandant? Our profits are seriously tanking with the cancellation of so many contracts. The CCD did not pussy-foot around on paying for the CEO's fees for Jeddah, but that money will only go so far."
The clerk glanced at the Commandant as they sorted out the next meeting.
He simply harrumphed quietly. The way things in Sierra Leone were going, the share-holders likely were not to be much of an issue in the near future.
North-western Guinea, outskirts of the city of Gaoual
The Legion Premiere convoy had been on the road for three days already. Once upon a time, the drive from Casablanca to Freetown would have been a solid 48 hours drive with no stops, but the past few decades had not been kind. Global economic collapse, rampant disease, social and religious unrest, all had taken it's toll on much of Africa and left vast regions of once scenic highways abandoned and unkempt.
Of course, bad roads alone weren't enough to dissuade the Legion's relief convoy. The company's entire fleet of Panhards, twenty in total, were evenly spread along a kilometer long convoy of crudely up-armoured transport trucks driven by volunteers. Surplus Moroccan military vehicles had been purchased and repurposed as field ambulances, wreckers (towing and maintenance vehicles), supply trucks, and APCs.
The further south into Guinea they traveled, the worse things seemed to get. Some villages along the highway had been destroyed and never repopulated, leaving ruins standing partly reclaimed by nature from decades prior. The outskirts of Gaoual still told the story of the last Ebola outbreak of the early 21st century; abandoned refugee camps, fenced fields of mass graves still sporting bio-hazard warnings in a half dozen languages.
The city itself still stood, but it too was in ruins. Constant power struggles between warlords and gangs had left areas in ruins. Few regions of Guinea still had access to electricity or running water, and Gaoual was not one of those areas. In the early morning light, lights from fires could still be seen.
"Intel reports that this region is currently held by Samori Ture. Birth name is Felix Goodman. The usual vile piece of shit you'd expect from around here. Renamed himself after some Guinean hero of the 19th century. Resisted the Europeans. Controls most of Boke and Kindia prefectures. Has his fingers in drug and sex trade, piracy, the usual shit. The guy is a full-blown traditionalist to boot. Witch doctors and shamans and all that."
Sergant Jackson was an American. Seated in the back of the second-from-the-front Panhard, he scanned over the company's datasheet on the region they were about to enter.
Provost Boipello sat next to the American man, staring out the narrow armoured window-slit at the dark city ahead. "He is not going to let us pass peacefully, is he?"
"Doubt it. He's powerful enough to take a stab at the convoy. Usual small-arms. Mostly re-purposed civilian vehicles. We will probably take some losses, but should be able to get through. They aren't soldiers. A show of force ought to scare most of the rabble off."
Boipello nodded and the convoy rolled forward. The signal went forward and they picked up speed. The lead most Panhards sported heavy grills with which to push through barricades if need be, and all the vehicles had remote weapon systems instead of man'd roof turrets. No Legionnaires would need stick their heads out of the vehicles unless they were to dismount.
Sergeant Jackson was partly right. 'Samori Ture' did try to take the convoy. And his men were little better then bandits and murderers; a display of force did prove enough to turn them away. And they did loose vehicles. He simply underestimated how much power the man really had. Or more accurately, the man's pet shaman.
Samori Ture was ready for the convoy, and waited in person to see its capture. The guns and RPGs and mines were expected by the Legion convoy, and a known threat they could actively counter. The had dealt with such things in the past. The fireball that engulfed the lead Panhard as it barreled down a debris-choked straightaway was, at first, thought to have been a molotov. The flames washed over the armoured vehicle, catching the rubber of the tires aflame but having little immediate effect otherwise.
And then everything went dark around the lead vehicle, a sudden startling absence of light. The driver and crew of the vehicle were understandably spooked, but attributed it to something having been thrown over the vehicle. One of the men threw open the side door, intent on clearing away the covering if he could, only for the vehicle to be struck by a second ball of flames, this one engulfing the interior of the vehicle as well.
The Pahnard careened off the road into the side of a building, the darkness that had encompassed it vanishing with the burst of flames that had killed the crew, their dying screams briefly choking the convoy's comms.
Sergeant Jackson cursed, Provost Boipello was stunned to silence. They, as most of the leadership in Legion Premiere, had received copies of the after action reports of Jeddah, and of Legionnaire Vander's report. The information had been disseminated among the rank-and-file from there, but no amount of reading or video could really prepare a person for what had happened.
"Sorcier!" was heard repeatedly over the radio, and men manning the RWS systems were madly panning their guns in the direction of the fireballs had come.
Boipello leaned over Jackson's shoulder to see the weapons' display. The weapons fire from the warlords' men increased, rounds pinging dangerously off the hardened sides of the Panhards or the crude armour plates of the supply trucks. Few RPGs had been fired yet, as that risked destroying the valuable cargo.
Another burst of flames struck their vehicle next; the shaman was tasked to destroy the Legion's fighting vehicles. Flames again washed harmlessly across the vehicle, but in so doing it drew Jackson's gun. A young man, face traced in tattoos, dressed in leathers and beads of all things, stood on the roof of a building far towards the end of the street, a clear view from which to pick apart the Legion convoy as it passed. The man raised a tribal talisman and screamed to the heavens, and didn't notice the .50 mounted to the Panhard's roof swivel his way.
Magic was fast, but bullets proved faster.
An hour later a tattered but mostly intact convoy emerged from the southern edge of Gaoual. Three Panhards had been lost, and six other vehicles, but Warlord Samori Ture was going to have a rough year from all his losses in the city. Fast moving and well armed, the convoy had proven too hard for the bandits, used mostly to raiding static targets, to pin down.
Past Gaoual, the convoy stopped and regrouped. Field repairs, tending to wounded, and maintenance on weapons. There would be little rest to be had in the leg of the journey to Freetown.