Stars & Empire: 10 Galactic Tales Page 6

  I followed him through the door and down the same brightly lit corridor I barely remembered from the day before. The walls were spotless, the floor was polished to a glossy shine. One thing about the Marines—everything was immaculate. Much cleaner than the public areas of the Protected Zone, not to mention the filth of the outer sectors.

  We walked past about a dozen doors just like the one leading to my room—no doubt more little cubbies filled with new recruits sleeping off various medical abuses and other wear and tear. After a short walk we came to a large dining hall, filled with maybe 30 big tables that could each seat 10-12. It was at most one-quarter full, and though my just awakened brain had focused on breakfast, we were actually catching the tail end of lunch.

  Captain Jack wasn’t kidding about the full stomach either. Twenty-third century America was a land where virtually everything was rationed to some extent or another. Things were better in the Protected Zone, of course, but food, clothes, and medicine were still subject to various controls and shortages. So now, a condemned criminal press-ganged into the military as my only escape from execution, I found myself for the first time in my life able to eat as much as I wanted without question.

  While I sat and doggedly attacked the slightly obscene pile of food in front of me, Captain Jack grazed on a salad of some sort and tried to keep enough of my attention to let me know what was ahead of me.

  “So, after we eat we’ll go down to the quartermaster, and you’ll be issued your uniform and kit. Then there are a couple of orientation sessions, and after those you can see how much damage you can do to the dinner menu before your transport leaves for New Houston.”

  I ate as much as I could, on general principle once my hunger was sated, and then we went down to the quartermaster. A few minutes later I walked out wearing my first uniform, a set of gray training fatigues that looked nothing like Captain Jack’s crisp attire. It was the only thing I would wear for a year.

  I was given three sets of fatigues, socks, boots, grooming kit, bedroll, towel, and a duffel bag to carry it all. I was also given a personal data unit, but it was restricted, and the only things I could access were regulations and selected military history.

  The orientation sessions were harmless but boring, and I’m pretty sure I dozed off once or twice during the video presentations. The one thing I did note from the sessions, and this was something no one had mentioned to me up until then, was that the training regimen was six years. Six years!

  Training for the Earthbound army was only three months. Sure, it made sense that fighting in space required more skills, but six years? What could possibly take that long?

  So I’d be 23 years old before I even started to serve my active duty time, and 33 before I could get my discharge. At 17 that seemed like an eternity. Not that I had a choice. Other than a bullet in the head. Or more accurately, a lungful of poison gas.

  After the orientation we went back to the dining hall, with about an hour to go before I had to be on the train. I made a reasonable effort but didn’t match my lunchtime performance. I think Captain Jack was a little disappointed.

  We stowed our trays, and I got 5 minutes for a quick bathroom break before we walked down to an assembly hall. I finally said my goodbyes to Captain Jack there. Watching him walk away I started to feel really alone. I’d only known him for a few days, but he’d been the one thing I could latch on to. Everything around me was unfamiliar, and things were happening quickly. I really had no idea what to expect. A few days before I was in the Bronx, a member of the Wolfpack who lived by terrorizing a bunch of poor workers. Now, after a close brush with death, I was on my way to becoming a Marine? To fighting in space? I couldn’t get my mind to focus on anything. I was in a state of shock.

  The mag-train ride to New Houston was comfortable and quick. Once we cleared the city, the train accelerated to 500 kph, and we reached New Houston in less than five hours.

  The train car I was in was full of other recruits, all dressed in the same gray fatigues I was wearing. They looked like a pretty motley bunch, but of course I must have been too. They were mostly men, but about 20% were women. We all pretty much kept to ourselves, and there was very little conversation. I don’t know how they’d all ended up there, but most of them looked about as stunned as I was.

  It was dark for most of the trip, which was disappointing. I’d never been out of New York, and I would have loved to see some of the scenery. With nothing much to do I slept through most of the ride, and I woke up to the announcement that we would be arriving in fifteen minutes. The trained slowed, and we passed through a large plasti-crete wall and past two security towers before stopping at a long, open platform.

  “Alright boys and girls, up! Let’s get moving. Now!”

  I hadn’t even noticed the sergeant enter the car, but there he was, standing in the doorway barking at us in a voice that seemed half hostility and half amusement. People started getting up and moving toward the front of the car. I reached up to grab my duffel, as about half the others were doing.

  “Don’t forget your bags, kiddies! The porters are all busy elsewhere, I’m afraid! Now move your asses. I want everyone out on that platform in three minutes!”

  We stumbled out of the crowded car, milling around aimlessly until the sergeant came over and yelled at us again and hustled us into a fairly neat line. We marched into one of the buildings where we went through a check in and orientation process that took several hours. Then we were led into a large auditorium.

  We’d only been sitting a minute when a man walked out onto the stage. He was tall and muscular, with thick black hair speckled gray. He wasn’t dressed in the same gray fatigues we and everyone else we’d seen were wearing. He wore a spotless dark blue coat with polished silver buttons and one platinum star on each shoulder. His neatly creased white pants were tucked into shiny black boots, and a short sword with an intricately carved hilt hung from his waist.

  “Hello, and welcome to Camp Puller. My name is Brigadier General Wesley Strummer. As you can see, I’ve worn my dress blues in honor of your arrival. Take a good look, because you probably won’t see another uniform like this unless you graduate. And less than half of you are going to make it that far.”

  He paused for a few minutes to let that sink in, then continued. “If you don’t graduate, you will go back where you came from. For most of you, that wasn’t a very pleasant place. Unless of course you die in training. Which will happen to some of you. Maybe a lot of you.”

  Again, he stopped and let us consider his words. His voice was calm, almost gentle, but without so much as raising his voice he had everyone’s complete attention. You could have heard a pin drop in the room.

  “Those of you who do graduate will join the most elite combat formation in the history of the world. You will serve wherever you are needed, anywhere in explored space, and you will perform that service with valor and distinction. And after you make your first assault, all of your past crimes and offenses will be wiped clean.”

  That was the first hopeful thing he’d said. A bit of carrot to go with the stick.

  “But first you have to complete training. The regimen is unlike anything soldiers have experienced before, and when you have completed it you will be the deadliest human killing machines mankind has ever produced.” He looked out over us as he paused and panned his eyes across the room.

  “But before you even begin your training proper, you are all going to the infirmary. You have had varying health care priority levels, most of them pretty low, so you haven’t had much medical care in your lives. Many of you have had none. Well now you are going to have every treatable deficiency corrected. Plus, we’re going to make some improvements to the original design. When we’re done, you will all see and hear better than any civilian, and you will have enhanced reflexes. You will run faster and you will tire far more slowly. Your bodies will be ready to begin training.” I was starting to get concerned about exactly what this training included.

&nb
sp; “After you are released from medical, you’re going to do six months of basic field training. Trust me, whatever you think you’ve been through before, field training is going to teach you the true meaning of physical fitness. You’ll probably all survive the medical procedures, but some of you could die during field training. So take it seriously.”

  That was the second time he mentioned dying in training. It was unsettling.

  “After we get you in decent physical shape you’re all going to go through a customized remedial education program. Honestly, you’re all ignorant and uneducated—totally unqualified to serve in my Marine Corps. But we’re going to fix that. A Marine private has the equivalent of a six-year post primary education, and you’re going to get it in less than a third of the time it takes lazy civilians.”

  His eyes narrowed, his stare becoming vaguely threatening. “Then, we’re going to teach you to kill. I know your backgrounds, and a lot of you think you already know how, but take my word for it, you are all amateurs. We are going to make you professionals. Stone cold death machines that strike terror into the hearts of our enemies.”

  He looked out at the crowd again, smiling at some of the defiant, tough-guy expressions. “You think you’re a fighter because you abused or murdered a few helpless workers? Or even another gang member?” He laughed derisively for a few seconds, the first sound that came out of his mouth that wasn’t flawlessly polite. “I’ve personally killed at least 75 men and women, and troops under my command have killed over 50,000. And all of them were shooting back. So if I were you, I’d pay very close attention to your training, because all of your instructors are combat veterans who have been where you are going and came back to tell about it.” There was something in his voice, an edge that made the pit of my stomach shrivel.

  “Of course, you need to get through your training first before you have to worry about surviving combat, and it’s going to take everything you’ve got to get to graduation. And if you wash out, remember—you go back to wherever we found you. For almost half of you that’s death row; for most of the rest it’s some miserable cesspool where your life expectancy ranges from a few weeks to a couple years.” He stopped and let that sink in. Whatever bravado some of the hardcases were maintaining, it was pretty certain no one wanted to go back where they’d come from.

  “We offer all of you a chance at redemption, but our price is high. Your mind, body, soul, and every last measure of effort you can muster. If you fail we will leave you dead and bloody on the training field. Or I will personally sign the order to haul your sorry ass back to whatever hangman we snatched you from.”

  He stopped for a few seconds and methodically scanned the room. Every eye in the place was trained on him. It wasn’t just what he said; it was the way he said it. I’d never seen anyone with such a commanding presence and serene confidence. He hadn’t raised his voice or spoken an angry word, yet he’d been as ominous and threatening as anything I’d ever encountered.

  I’d been living in a world of angry confrontation. In the gangs, a dispute over a nutrition bar could get loud and ugly, and likely violent as well. General Strummer spoke softly and politely enough to be sitting at a dinner party. Yet I had no doubt he’d sign an order sending a lazy recruit back to the gas chamber without a second thought.

  “Ok, I think I’ve made my point. I hope you enjoyed my dress blues, because it’s the last free show of respect you’re going to get. From now on you earn everything. Do your best, listen to your instructors, and one day you will see me dressed like this again … on the graduation field.”

  He turned, and walked off the stage, the sound of his boots on the floor echoing loudly in the otherwise silent room. As soon as he’d cleared the stage a captain came out and gave us instructions on getting our billet assignments and meeting with our provisional platoon leaders. Then we were dismissed.

  I made my way through the line to get my bunk assignment, but I was lost in thought the entire time. The general had made quite an impression on me. I’d never encountered anyone like him before. I loved my father, but he had been a gentle sort of man, loving but weak. I’d seen what the world did to people like him.

  When I was with the gang I’d seen the other side of humanity too, the vicious, animalistic, violent side. I’d lived that as well, and in my years with the gang I did some truly terrible things. But I never really felt like one of them. I never understood the needless brutality, the wasteful violence that went beyond opportunistic survival.

  The authority figures I’d met were mostly corrupt, vindictive bullies. Gang leaders, cops, government officials … they all seemed very similar to each other. Certainly none of them commanded any respect. The closest they came to respect was fear, and they extracted that with threats and force.

  But Strummer was different. He left me wanting to know more, to understand his way of things. I had no doubt he could act just as summarily, just as harshly as any gang leader, but I somehow felt his actions would be fair, or as close to that as things got. I didn’t realize it at the time, never having really experienced it before, but these thoughts and feelings were the beginnings of respect for another human being. Real respect. Earned respect.

  Training was an unbelievable experience, and I learned more things than I could have imagined. We started with the medical review. They had all our test results from exams we’d been given on induction, but they still did a lot more checking. Apparently the Corps likes its Marines healthy, and we were going to meet that standard no matter what it took.

  I didn’t have too many problems. As a child my family had a relatively low health care priority rating, but I’d still seen a doctor three or four times. Of course, once we left the Protected Zone there was no real access to medical care. But, I was generally very healthy, and I finished the battery of treatments in less than ten days. Some of my classmates were in the infirmary for three weeks or longer.

  I’d broken my ankle while I was with the gang, and it never healed quite right, so they re-broke it surgically and fused it perfectly. Other than that, they addressed some minor deficiencies caused by years of poor diet and malnutrition, and they corrected a few small genetic abnormalities.

  The improvements were far more noticeable to me than the remedial treatments. The retinal enhancements not only increased my vision over long distances, but I found I could see in very dim light as well. My hearing was more acute, and I felt much more active and energetic. Certainly my reflexes were the best they’d ever been, and I could run faster and jump higher than before. A couple weeks later, when I cut myself during basic training exercises, I realized I also healed faster. Actually, about twice as quickly as before.

  Speaking of basic training, the general wasn’t kidding when he said it would be the hardest physical exertion we’d ever experienced. It was about getting us into great shape, certainly, but it was also about testing us, pushing us to the limits of our endurance. Camp Puller was just outside New Houston, not far from the edge of the quarantined zone around the ruins of the old city. For the record, I can tell you southeastern Texas is hot as hell. And humid. And the worst of our training was thoughtfully scheduled in the middle of the day during the height of summer.

  A lot of people couldn’t take it and washed out, even though the consequences of dismissal were grave for most of us. But the torment was more than just a weeding out process. The rest of us began developing a confidence we hadn’t had before, as we survived challenges we couldn’t have imagined overcoming just a few weeks before.

  I excelled at the early physical training, but I almost lost my new found confidence when we started the classroom portion of the regimen. Everyone needed some level of remedial work, but I hadn’t seen a classroom since I was 8 years old, so I needed a lot. After the initial adjustment period, I took to it pretty well, and by the time we wrapped up course work I had an education roughly equivalent to the one my father had, though mine was a bit more generalized.

  I hadn’t had time to th
ink about anything while they were beating us into the ground in basic, but about halfway through the classroom training it started occurring to me that my life and attitudes had begun to change. I wasn’t a gung ho Marine yet, not by any stretch of the imagination. But up until that point I had been living day-to-day, and to the extent I thought about it, I figured I was there because I had no real choice.

  Now I started to look ahead, to think about what it would be like to get to graduation and beyond. I knew I would be leaving Earth and everything familiar to me, possibly forever. That I would fight on strange worlds and quite possibly die on one of them. Yet I started to look to the future in a way I never had before.

  My performance improved as time went by. I barely made it through the first year of course work without getting washed out, but by the end of the second I finished tenth in the class.

  Then it was on to combat training. We learned hand-to-hand fighting and military history. But most of all we studied and practiced unit tactics. We started with lectures and demonstrations, but soon we were doing non-stop war games, tramping all over the hot, flat terrain killing each other in various simulated ways.

  We took turns acting as squad leaders, but the higher positions were played by actual sergeants and officers. We were learning to be troopers, not commanders, and part of that meant experiencing what it would be like to fight under veteran leaders.

  Once we’d mastered small unit tactics we started learning how to fight in armor. Our fighting suits are the most sophisticated and complex weapons ever constructed, and using one well—and not killing yourself with it—takes extensive training. The armor is powered by a miniaturized nuclear reactor, which is built onto the back of the suit and looks a little lot like a large backpack. The reactor is what really makes the armor such a powerful weapon. The energy created by the mobile plant is sufficient not only to operate the very heavy suit itself but also to power some very potent weapon systems. The Mark V powered infantry suit, the one in current usage, can accept four modular weapons systems, so a Marine’s arsenal can be tailored to each specific mission.