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We break down the changes coming to the ‘Stack and talk about a possible nuke and the drones!

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Internet was weird. Took a long time to upload. Here’s this week’s podcast! Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

Today we have a very important thing to share with you, and so we are making this podcast free for everyone.

Today, Walt Robillard and I are giving you a sneak peek at a new project we’ve been working on. Give it a read (below), or a listen (Above), and check it out, and yeah, that’s Walt’s killer voice doing the narration

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Hobo Recon:

Hard Luck and Trouble

by

Nick Cole and Walt Robillard

Chapter One

Hobos in the Wind

“This is why we can’t have nice things, Troubs!” Hardy shouted across the cargo containers in the yard.

            It’d been a while since he’d had to draw the heater, much less fire it. This wasn’t the gun he’d normally shuck from beneath his worn patchwork “dirty” military jacket when things went south fast and desperate. The dialed-up M4.  This was definitely the shotty he used for tense negotiations with uncertain characters who harbored bad intentions.

Bad intentions was everyday and everyone now days. In these times.

He pulled that shotgun from under the coat where it dangled on a single point underarm sling as he ate up the miles and rode the rails. A model 870 SPS Marine Magnum he’d rattle-canned to look more used, weathered, subdued. On the road and the kinda gun a desperate man lookin’ for work might use to protect himself in these lawless times.

 He’d save his sidearm for the real intense gunfights up close that needed more rounds on target. Less fiddling with the firearm when he wanted to put a hurt on someone. The double stack mag held enough, “go screw yerself,” forty-five caliber ACP. Usually good to get out of whatever scrape he and Trouble had gotten themselves into this time behind enemy lines and in service to SOCOM and the Heartland that was all that remained of the U.S.

             Trouble—because it wasn’t a middle name, it was really… who he was—Troubs had his head shoved into the open cargo container in the shipping yard, using his teeth to strip off the casing around a wire he was working. He had a multi-tool with wire strippers too. The ones all those old EOD guys carried back in the day on their rig and chest plate carriers in the wars in other places not the battleground they found themselves in now… America. Still America regardless of what all factions were involved and especially the ChiComs.

The sudden appearance of a Chinese security agent had Trouble stripping wires with his teeth for expediency in order to, “get it done in one, son.”

It didn’t help that Hard Luck had been muttering that same phrase as he got ready to distribute some hate-spray from the barrel of the rattle-canned 870. Rattle-canned old BDU multicam because that was the way the world was now, and the lands they found themselves in, and was the camo of the day when they’d both started out as Eleven Bravo privates in the last days of the Old Cold War.

Not the hot one now.

            The unlucky and early security agent was currently dead behind where Trouble was kneeling, large caliber holes bleeding over his gray uniform and onto the wet pavement of the yard.

            “Brah, that shot was like Mozart on a motorcycle. That’s how we do it, my brother in combat arms!” Trouble quietly exclaimed as he twisted the end of the newly exposed wire, pumped his fist, and continued whatever Def Leppard song he was keeping time to, to get his EOD on like he’d always done. Then he pumped his fist again and bit his lip, hearing some searing unheard guitar solo from long ago. “Need me a little cover while I finish this last bit, Hardy.”

            Hard Luck.

            SFC James C. Hardy. SOCOM. Eighteen Bravo. Shoulda been a Master Sergeant before retirement. But he spent some unrated time doing dark stuff in uncertain places along the way for shadows that didn’t want to come out into the light before America got sold out by those shadows and all that was left was SOCOM to defend the Heartland and give the Chinese and the rest a bad time. There was the 82nd too, even though they were stuck in the irradiated remains of Russian-occupied Poland and fighting for their lives living on dead horses and hate. The Marines held Sand Diego and were officially listed as insurrectionists and traitors, allies of Russia.

            But that wasn’t true. Not at all.

            Eighteen Bravo.  The weapons sergeant within the Special Forces career field, employs conventional and unconventional warfare tactics and techniques in individual and small unit infantry operations. Employs individual domestic, foreign small arms, light and heavy crew-served weapons, anti-aircraft and anti-armor weapons. He is… a master of all weapons.

            And don’t ask about the Rangers and where they are in the mess we find ourselves in called America’s Darkest Hours on a good day. All four Battalions were dead. As they say in SOCOM, “Ain’t no Rangers here,” and then those that can, point to where they once rolled the scroll and wink. “They just on the fade.”   

            Hardy leaned into the shadows beside his own container he was covering from. No use standing in the same spot as his partner. The guy was either going to blow himself up or get trounced by the incoming security responding to the shots. Why risk both of them getting schwacked?

            “You were supposed to wait,” Hardy muttered as he scanned the misty and wet dark.

            “I was supposed to be a rock star,” Trouble responded, humming metal to himself as he cursed the wire he was working with. “Playing the axe at night; beach, beer, fish tacos by day. Maybe even charm my way to seeing a bikini hanging off the end of the bed post, ya know? Life comes at ya fast, Hardy, but don’t worry… Trouble’s my name and causin’ it is my… game,” he whispered almost to himself as he continued to solve the problems in his hands.

            SFC Stephen X. Bach. Eighteen Charlie.  SFC when he shoulda retired at least an E8 just a few years ago as things began to get truly weird and surreal and even the Army lost its mind and lowered standards, painted nails and even let some girls wear the Ranger Tab when no one who’s actually earned one thinks they even got remotely close to meeting standard without a lotta help along the way.

            Eighteen Charlie. Special Force engineer sergeants are specialists across a wide range of disciplines, from demolitions and constructions of field fortifications to topographic survey techniques.

            Trouble was his tag with SOCOM, and it wasn’t because he was cool. He caused it on mission more than effectively, on behalf of the teams, and didn’t stop back behind the wire when it was generally not needed or in his own best interest.

            So… Trouble had run his mouth about the general current state of affairs, and if he wasn’t so highly decorated that some of his awards were redacted, and so competent at the delicate art of high explosives… then he might have found himself with an even lower rank and very little retirement in light of the various courts martial and articles of offense.

            But he knew real bad guys in high places even there at the end of all things. And so, he’d gotten a chance to walk with some retirement and rank for the last six months of America.

            “Then get it done, and don’t be that guy,” Hardy growled. Trouble liked to talk it up when things were getting thick.

And things were getting definitely thick.

Like the song lyrics from long ago Trouble always had running… It was distracting. Not to mention, Trouble had a tendency to sip his own cool aid, or so Hardy thought. “Got more coming.”

Matter of fact statement. No drama. It was about to be get-it-on-thirty in the midnight yard of bad decisions and insertion behind enemy lines with assets to deny and mayhem to be caused.

            The sound of rushing boots thumping across the wet concrete was getting louder, as was the group barking loudly in Mandarin the way the Chinese do as they approached the x they had no idea they were walking onto. It was funny how the Chinese all ran the same way, or at least, that’s how it sounded to Hardy. And it… bemused him. He was a thinker, and he’d never have used that ten-cent wo…

Today’s podcast is for everyone!