The platoon jogged into view, everyone dressed to some degree. Bull continued to carry the Hawkoid. They stopped in front of Cain and turned as one, remaining in formation while they waited for the next instruction.
“Let’s have a little uniform inspection, see how we’re doing at dressing ourselves,” Cain announced. The Wolfoids were a mixed bag of how they wore their vests and harness. One wayward soul wore neither.
“Which one are you? Mountie?” Cain asked. The Wolfoid nodded. “Where’s your stuff?” The Wolfoid shrugged.
“That’s okay,” the major said soothingly, patting the Wolfoid’s shoulder. “Everybody else is going to crouch or get into the pushup position and that’s how they’ll stay until you return fully dressed. Do you understand?” His tone was conversational, keeping Mountie off guard.
“Crouch!” he yelled. “You better hurry, or this mob isn’t going to be very happy,” he told the wayward soul. The Wolfoid realized his predicament. No one wanted to be hated by their pack-mates. He jumped from formation and dropped to all fours, tearing up the ground in his rush to get to billeting.
The Wolfoids crouched while Cain put the humans and the one Lizard Man in the pushup positon. Cain sat on the ground, leaning against one of the obstacles on the course, and hummed to himself. The suffering had begun. He knew that he had to give Mountie a way to redeem himself. The humans were the first to start grunting, huffing, and puffing. Cain decided that they needed a change of scenery.
“Pushup, down,” he instructed and those doing pushups dropped to the ground. He went into his unhinged routine, screaming at them to stay off his deck. One of the people laid there, unable to push himself back up.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Cain screamed, three inches from the human’s face.
“I didn’t sign up for this. I’m an academic!” he cried, continuing to lay on the ground.
“What part of, “We will have to fight our enemies,” did you miss? Violence, blood, pain. You will have to be comfortable with all of those things if you want to be a Marine. How do you think you can get there if you don’t strengthen your body?”
“But I can’t do it!” the young man cried.
Cain stood up and focused on breathing. The recruits were watching him and the next thing he did was critical. He could physically discipline the man further. He could chase him away, send him back to his class in Space School. Or he could seek the advice of his betters. ‘Brutus?’
He heard claws on wood. Looking up, he saw the ‘cat sitting at the top of the wall, the first obstacle in the course. ‘So that’s how it’s going to be, huh? I do all the hard work while you lay about down there and get fat,’ the ‘cat started. Cain held out his hands in his usual “what the hell?” gesture.
‘He will be okay. He is just physically weak. Most of them are nowhere near your standards, Cain. It’s your job to help them get there. You have time. Use it wisely.’ Brutus licked his paw and started cleaning his face.
“Everyone up!” he yelled, not as loud as he could have. The group struggled to their feet. “Sergeant, what do you think is going to happen next?”
Night Stalker turned her head, unsure of what the major wanted. He nodded, encouraging her to speak. “Into the mud pit, sir.”
“Why?”
“Because we weren’t disciplined enough to not shake when we came out of the mud pit, and we showered you in mud and water,” she replied.
“Listen up, people. Showering me doesn’t matter. It’s the failure to control your own actions that matters,” he told them. “I see that the second time you came out of the mud, not a single one shook until you were given permission. What if you were sitting in an ambush and it’s raining? Shaking could give you away. We have to use our minds to conquer our bodies. That is what self-discipline is all about.” Cain worked his way through the ranks until he was at the academic’s side.
“What’s your name?” Cain asked.
“Foucault, major. Pleased to meet you!” he said, holding out a hand. Cain looked at it as if it was a disgusting bug.
“No. I am not calling you that. Your mother can call you Foucault, but I’m calling you Fickle, and put your hand down. We’re not into shaking hands while in formation. Maybe if you graduate, but probably not then either, Fickle.” Cain walked through the formation, noting that many were still breathing hard from their efforts.
“Okay, people. Is there any doubt about whether I’ll dump you into the mud or not?” Everyone shook their head. Cain smiled evilly. He saw the expressions on their faces droop. “Formation run–make a lap around the outside of the course, then return here. Maybe Mountie will be back by then.”
The group ran at a much slower pace than Cain considered reasonable, but they stayed in formation, helping each other through the uneven footing. Zisk was the slowest of the group, despite the fact that he seemed to be working the hardest of them all. They made it back and resumed standing in a tight formation, waiting for Cain to issue another order.
“Here’s what we’re going to do. If I can find one volunteer to spend the night in the mud pit, the rest of you will get to sleep in your bunks.” There was some initial questioning looks, but Stalker was first step forward.
“I’ll do it,” she said.
“Back in formation, Sergeant,” Cain told her.
“I’d be honored to be allowed the privilege of taking one for the team, Major,” Zisk offered, stepping forward.
“What kind of sacrifice is this for you, Zisk?” Cain asked, putting the Lizard Man on the spot.
“Actually, I would much prefer this to sleeping on a dry mattress,” Zisk conceded, his facial expression unreadable.
“And that, people, is how you allocate your resources. Everyone here has a special ability, a special talent. You need to know what every other member of this platoon brings and you have to count on them to watch over you, just like you’ll do for them. Recruit Zisk, enjoy your evening. Now get in the mud pit and don’t enjoy it too much!” Cain leaned close as the Lizard Man stripped out of his skin suit. “I’ll have someone bring you dinner.” Zisk nodded and ran for the mud pit like a little kid racing for the swimming pool.
“Sergeant, where do you think Mountie is?” the major asked.
“Halfway back to Livestel?” she offered. Cain smirked. The other Wolfoids snickered.
‘Would anyone in the ‘cat nation know where our wayward recruit is?’ Cain asked over the mindlink.
‘He has his spear and has left school,’ one of the ‘cats replied. Cain sobered quickly. He walked to his sergeant.
“All good jokes have an element of truth,” he whispered to Stalker. “How did you know that he was thinking about leaving?”
“He couldn’t hack it, sir. He was offered by his family. He’s capable, same as the rest of us, but he didn’t want this.” Cain nodded and put a hand on her shoulder, thanking her for the insight.
“It seems like Tan Mountain has left the program. One more lap, in his honor. Go!” The only reason Cain made them run another lap was to kill time until Stinky and Pickles returned. He accessed his neural implant.
‘Holly, scratch Tan Mountain off the recruit list. He’s headed home and I don’t want any bad marks on his official record, whatever that might look like for someone not in the SES. It wasn’t for him. No hard feelings. Better now than later, when we’re on the ship and a thousand light years from home. Since we’re talking people, I’d like Peekaless and Black Leaper to both wear the rank of a Marine lieutenant, one silver bar for their uniforms,’ Cain told the AI.
‘It will be done, Master Cain. I have to say that I’m quite pleased with your progress,’ Holly added, leaving the conversation open. Cain had spent enough time talking with Holly that he knew the AI had feelings.
‘I don’t hold that thing with the video against you, Holly. We’re all following someone’s orders, aren’t we?’
‘That we are, Major Cain. I’m sorry you had to see it that way. I know
you didn’t want anyone to find out that you used SI Hendricks’s body as a shield. But he was already dead and that maneuver saved both your lives,’ Holly said, trying to placate Cain’s concerns.
‘I know that and you know that, Holly, but it looked really bad.’ Cain shook his head as he watched the platoon return.
“Crouch!” he called. There was minor groaning, but they assumed the position quickly. “Wolfoids, keep time with the humans. Up. Down. Up. Down.” He made them do ten pushups, but even with that few of a number, the humans were spent.
“Stand up!” he ordered, seeing the furtive glances toward the mud pit. Cain looked and saw Zisk floating on his back, casually tooling around. “Recruit! Remember, you’re sacrificing for the others, try to look like it,” Cain yelled. Zisk stood, muddy water hitting him mid-chest. Cain smirked, then bit his lip as Stinky and Pickles finally joined them.
“I was running out of things to do, waiting on you two layabouts! Could it have possibly taken you any longer?” Cain needled.
“Well, we had to eat. It had been days!” Stinky offered. Days real time, but probably only hours once the matter transfer time was deducted.
“Congratulations, you’ve both been promoted to Lieutenant of Marines. Let me introduce you to the mob.” He turned them toward the recruits.
“Lieutenant Black Leaper and Lieutenant Peekaless are now in your chain of command. You will report to them. You will follow their orders. You will become better Marines because of them. I’ve been in combat with these two and there are no finer warriors. I respect them, and they will earn your respect, too,” Cain commanded.
‘Wait, orders? What kind of orders are we going to be giving?’ Stinky asked Cain in his thought voice.
‘We’ll figure that out as we go!’ Cain replied.
A number of the recruits snickered. Cain looked confused. Stinky slapped his head. ‘Nice one, dumbass,’ Lutheann told him. He saw her white form in the edge of the trees.
He had broadcast his thoughts to everyone.
“Sergeant!” he yelled. “Form new squads. I want each squad to have a variety of talent. Don’t assign yourself to a squad.” He asked his new lieutenants to oversee the process, taking two squads each as their own.
There were a total of eleven Wolfoids, one Lizard Man, one Hawkoid, who looked ridiculous trying to do pushups but Cain didn’t have the heart to tell him to stop, and ten humans. Twenty two in four squads and a sergeant out front. He could not have been happier that she volunteered to spend the night in the pit, lead from the front, show the others that she was willing to sacrifice for them.
She kept Bull and Ascenti together. The two seemed to be a tight pair. He expected that they would work well together.
She split up the humans, three in First Squad, two in the others. She added three Wolfoids to First Squad, including Bull. The Hawkoid rounded out the team. Stalker continued fleshing out the squads. Stinky and Pickles watched her closely as they tried to determine which two squads would be theirs.
Zisk was assigned to the second squad, so Pickles took the first two squads. The last two were limited to humans and Wolfoids, but Stinky thought he could teach them a trick to two, in order to even things out. From Cain’s perspective, he didn’t want the competition between the squads to degenerate the overall cohesiveness of the unit. He made sure that Stinky and Pickles were clear on that point.
Stalker finished, but she wasn’t done. “Sir, who do you wish to fill the roles of squad leaders?”
Cain nodded to his two lieutenants. They had been on board for twenty minutes. They had no idea, so they did what good officers are supposed to do. They delegated. “You choose and make it quick!” Stinky said in a commanding voice. Since Briz modified his vocalization device, Black Leaper’s expressiveness had grown by orders of magnitude.
“Listen up,” she said. They suspected that she tried to yell, but her device wasn’t picking it up properly. So she waved the recruits close to her. “I’m picking Wolfoids as the first squad leaders only because they’ve been on board for a full day. As we’ve already seen, the squad leaders can and will be fired, probably fairly often. I don’t want any of you to think I’m prejudiced, because I’m not. Work your way up, then get fired like the rest of us,” she said boldly, within the constraints of the technology wrapped around her neck.
“That is true,” Bull added as he absentmindedly stroked Ascenti’s crest feathers.
“In formation!” Cain yelled, noting that Tracker, Slayer, Flash, and Fang were at the front of their respective squads, the four that had worked together to carry the mattresses. He didn’t see a better choice, not at that point, where they knew almost nothing about the individuals. “Run back to billeting, correct your uniform issues, and we’ll have another inspection. Go!”
Cain, Stinky, and Pickles waved goodbye to Zisk, who resumed frolicking in the muddy water. “He’s yours, Pickles, so make sure you send him something for dinner. I promised, which means you get to make sure I’m not a liar.”
“Of course,” Pickles committed. “So what are we really doing here?”
Stinky leaned close to catch every word.
“We are going to drive them to the edge of exhaustion and then we are going to challenge their minds and bodies, just when they are on the verge of quitting. They need to be able to go farther, faster, and better than anyone else. Then they need to fight like a team as if they were fresh from a nap. They need to shoot and shoot well.” Cain looked at Pickles accusingly.
“For the first couple weeks, we are going to drill on the obstacle course, in the open, and in the woods. We are going to break them down, physically. That started today. And then we’re going to build them back up. We always wear our gear and that includes me. Because of events, I will wear my ballistic vest and leggings. Holly has already made some up. Same for you, Pickles and Stinky, you get the saddle blanket version of the vest. It’ll protect you if we take incoming fire.”
“Paranoid much, Cain?” Stinky asked.
“Holly urges caution and Admiral Jesper didn’t leave me feeling overconfident. He didn’t seem surprised by the attack in the rainforest and that bothers me more than anything. For reference, the director of Space School is not a fan, not a fan at all. If we see him, we’ll do the honorable thing and go the other way. I’ll work with Holly to arrange transportation and all that for the six weeks of training on Vii. There are too many of us to use the matter transfer system between here and the Traveler, so at the end of it all, I’ll get us a shuttle to take us to space. We’ll do some training on the Traveler in zero-g, then we’ll transfer to the shipyard. We’ll rejoin the crew a good week before we ship out. Believe it or not, that is my complete plan.”
“Seems kind of sparse,” Stinky replied. Pickles agreed.
“That’s why you’re here. I need help putting flesh on those bones. I’ll take the crew for the rest of today while you get caught up on instructional videos. Holly has the full list.”
Stinky and Pickles headed back toward their quarters while Cain continued to billeting, where he expected to malign his recruits lineages’ all the way to their family’s arrival on Cygnus VII a millennium prior. Bad genes, he’d tell them that they all had bad genes. ‘Are you with me, Brutus? Are we going to get them bouncing off the walls or what?’ Cain said happily, not sure where his friend was.
‘We will do what needs to be done,’ Brutus allowed.
‘When can we introduce the recruits to the ‘cats? Maybe we can have another fight over seats in a jumper?’ Cain taunted Lutheann.
‘I think we shall make an appearance this evening,’ Lutheann replied. Cain appreciated it. Nothing like getting to know the people you were going to be stuck on a spaceship with before you were actually trapped on board.
‘Cats, Dogs, and Chaos
Cain had them reorganize the bay three times, each meeting with a little more approval, until he had them put it back the way it was at the start. Twenty-three mattresses lined
the sides of the bay, equally spaced for the best appearance, with a foot locker behind each. All the room dividers, bunks, and other furniture was stacked neatly at the end.
Cain took them to chow, but he let Stalker and the squad leaders make sure everything happened. He had Stalker get a tray of raw meats and vegetables for Zisk. He called Pickles and let him know that he didn’t need to do anything, overruling his previous order. Cain ate with his recruits. The other instructors didn’t seem to care for him. Dr. Starsgard also seemed to be ostracized. He knew that when he made the decision to join, it would come at a price. Cain knew that he had to keep Starsgard no matter what. The professor needed protection from the director as much as it seemed Cain did.
The platoon returned to billeting, where Holly had a bot deliver the history of the Marines and basic infantry tactics in written form, one copy for each new recruit. Cain almost felt bad about monopolizing the industrial fabricators at the Space School, but it was a small price to pay to save lives. That was how he looked at every mission the Marines would undertake, whether it was the lives of the Cygnus-12 crew or the lives of the Concordians who’d been oppressed for too long.
Cain was surprised to see the ‘cats stroll in, the twenty in addition to Brutus. The Wolfoids nodded to them, while watching the major to make sure he saw them being polite. He tried to remember which Wolfoid he punched in the head during the scrum on the jumper, but they were all wet and looked different now. It was better that he didn’t know.
Cygnus Expanding: Humanity Fights for Freedom (Cygnus Space Opera Book 2) Page 12
