“We’re not going to make it,” I said under my breath. The man ahead of me grunted in agreement.
At ten minutes I finally collected my allotment—two white flat sheets, two folded gray blankets, something like a fitted sheet, a pillow and a pillow case. I went back to my bunk—me on the top, Thukhan on the bottom—and stared at the bay sergeant’s already-made bunk, wondering how the neat and tidy arrangement had been put together. I dumped my stuff onto the already-made bunk and flipped out my sheets, pulling the fitted sheet up to my eyes and discovering it wasn’t fitted at all. It was like a giant sack. What the hell?
I looked around the bay and saw other men trying to figure out what in the world the sack was for, some of them stealing glances down the bay at the holdover bunks. People began to make their bunks in a ramshackle riot of different manners, until suddenly the corporal looked up from his watch and yelled, “Front-leaning rest position, MOVE!”
The holdovers and half the new recruits—including myself—dropped onto our hands and toes, right where we were. The other men continued to attempt to make their bunks.
“I SAID FRONT-LEANING REST POSITION, NOW!”
The other men complied out of pure shock at the immense volume of the corporal’s voice.
“This is just sad,” said the corporal, resuming his patrol around the edge of the Dead zone while he spoke. “You had plenty of time, and you wasted it.”
Someone down the bay muttered, “Enough time, my ass . . .”
The corporal whirled in that person’s direction and stomped down towards him, adroitly avoiding the splayed hands of those straining to keep their chests in line with their legs.
“SHUT YOUR EFFING MOUTH, RECRUIT!” the corporal screamed. “BY MY WATCH IT’S BEEN OVER AN HOUR AND A HALF SINCE YOU WERE BROUGHT IN HERE AND ISSUED INSTRUCTIONS!”
The entire bay remained silent after that, save for gasps and the shuffling of feet and hands as people struggled to stay in position. The holdovers had all arched their backs and put their butts into the air, and I did likewise, discovering that it made for a slightly less painful experience while I remained facing the floor.
“Bay Sergeant Thukhan,” said the corporal. “What were your orders when these men were placed in your charge?”
“Corporal,” Thukhan grunted, “the instructions were to draw linen, get the lockers ready, and fill the roster, Corporal.”
“Did you not understand these instructions?” said the corporal.
“Corporal, no, Corporal, Recruit Thukhan understood the instructions.”
“How can that be if, when an NCO comes back in here after so much time, nothing has been done? Either you’re lying and you didn’t in fact understand the instructions, or you just didn’t give an eff and decided to make the entire bay pay for your stupidity.”
Thukhan stayed silent.
“No explanation, Recruit?” said the corporal.
“Corporal—” Thukhan began.
“Shut up,” the corporal said, cutting Thukhan off, “I don’t want to hear it anyway. Okay, recruits, since your bay sergeant decided to waste both his time and yours, now you’re on my time, and we’re going to give you an advanced introduction to what the Fleet calls corrective training. I can see that some of you are having a tough time staying in the front-leaning rest. No problem. Roll over on your backs and get your heels in the air.”
The bay complied—with much shuffling, sighing, grunting, and moaning.
“Not with your heels to the sky!” the corporal barked when he saw several men with their boots straight up towards the ceiling. “Heels fifteen centimeters off the floor. Legs straight out. Stick your palms under your butts if you have to, to support yourselves. Make it happen.”
The corporal waited, and waited, and waited.
My thighs and stomach quivered, and I felt my heels dropping irresistibly towards the floor. I grunted and strained to force my legs back up, only to feel them drop again.
The corporal waited, and waited, and waited.
The room was soon filled with quiet whimpering, cursing, and groans.
“Front-leaning rest,” said the corporal. Everyone rolled over.
“DOWN!” Everyone went to the floor.
“UP!” Everyone went back to arms rigid—many shaking.
“DOWN! UP! DOWN! UP! DOWN . . .”
Thirty minutes later, after repeated cycles between front and back, the entire bay was toast. Men—even the ones who’d come to Reception in fair shape—were in such pain, and so thoroughly exhausted, that tears leaked silently from the corners of their eyes.
The corporal watched it all unsympathetically.
“Not even really here yet,” the corporal said, shaking his head, “and you’re already done. I should just go tell the Top that Male Bay Five is worthless, and have him outprocess the entire bunch of you. It would save your drill sergeants a lot of time not having to deal with any of you losers in IST.
“But I’m not going to do that. Not yet. Armstrong Field is a learning center, and while I am convinced that each of you is presently worthless, I’m not yet convinced that some of you can’t learn to be worth something. Eventually. So here is what’s going to happen. Bay Sergeant Thukhan is fired”—I stole a glance in Batbayar’s direction, and saw him smiling broadly—“and I’m putting Thukhan’s bunk mate in charge, as the new bay sergeant. Who is Thukhan’s bunk mate? Sound off.”
“Corporal, here, Corporal,” I said.
“Here who, Recruit?”
“Corporal, Recruit Barlow, Corporal.”
“Barlow, right. Your job is to fix this mess. The entire bay has linens. Nobody has unpacked anything yet—DAMMIT, NOBODY SHOULD BE LYING ON THE FLOOR, GET YOUR ASSES BACK UP—so, Barlow, your orders are to make sure every bunk in this bay is made, and made tight, and that all uniforms and issued items are properly secured in lockers.”
“Corporal, yes, Corporal,” I said.
He let us hang in pain for a few more seconds, then said, “Bay, position of attention, MOVE!”
The holdovers jumped to their feet. The newbies did likewise.
The corporal strode towards the closed locker in the center of the room—ignoring the highly-polished wax on the Dead Zone tile—and opened the doors.
“This is your static display,” said the corporal. “You can look at it as an example of how your lockers will look. But do not step into this Dead Zone for any reason, do you understand, recruits?”
As a bay, “CORPORAL, YES, CORPORAL!”
“Bay Sergeant Barlow, the bunks should all look exactly like this bunk”—the corporal indicated the perfectly-taut bunk next to the static display locker—“but you’ll need some help. Each of these holdovers has been instructed in the fine Fleet art of bunk-making. Several times. So you’re to assign one of them to help several other new people. And they will help, is that understood, holdovers?”
“CORPORAL, YES, CORPORAL!”
“Make it happen, Barlow. You’ve got sixty minutes.” The corporal clicked a button on his chronometer, and strode swiftly from the bay, not looking back.
Everyone broke from rigid position and the bay filled with cursing, moans, complaints, and more cursing.
I marched up to Thukhan and, just centimeters from his face, said, “You effed us over on purpose, didn’t you?”
He smiled coolly. “Welcome to your first command, Bay Sergeant.”
“You could have just told us all what to do to begin with and nobody would have gotten in trouble,” I spat.
“You think you’re tough enough to bring it, Barlow? C’mon, I dare you. You don’t look like the kind of guy who has what it takes to handle a real man like me. I wasn’t kidding when I told you some of us are here instead of prison. If you want to make it easy, just throw the first punch. Cunt.”
I felt my right hand curl into a tight ball. The other holdovers had formed a half-moon at the back of Thukhan, who waited patiently while I glared at him, and the rest of the bay quickly gr
ew silent. Many of the new recruits walked up to stand behind me, each of them glaring angrily at the holdovers.
“There are seventy of us and ten of you,” I said. “And right now, seventy of us would like to bitch-slap the ten of you.”
Loud murmurs of agreement.
Thukhan looked around at the bay, the bravado in his posture faltering, if ever so slightly.
He laughed harshly to cover up for that fact.
“Whatever,” Thukhan said. “Do you know what happens to a recruit who strikes another recruit? Mandatory stockade time. Docked pay.”
“Sounds like you have some experience with that,” I said.
“Maybe.”
“I don’t know why you did what you did,” I said, “but we’re all stuck here, and we don’t have time for your crap.” I looked behind Thukhan to the other holdovers, not all of whom appeared as ready to throw down as the former bay sergeant. In fact, three of them seemed almost embarrassed. I pointed at those three. “You, you, and you, will you help the rest of us?”
Those three looked at Thukhan and the other holdovers—who had turned to look at them—then looked at the rest of the bay.
Silently, my chosen three nodded their assent.
“Good,” I said. “Start showing people how to make bunks. When those bunks get made, the people whose bunks were made need to go help more people, and then those people need to help still more people, everyone understand?”
The bay said that it did—except for Thukhan, Gorana, and the five other holdovers who didn’t seem to give a damn what was happening.
I looked at my watch. “We’ve only got fifty-two minutes left. Let’s get moving. You three holdovers—Cho, Capacha, Jackson—come with me. I’m going to show you who you’re helping first.”
CHAPTER 19
GUNS BLAZED. HUMAN GUNS. MANTIS GUNS.
The room rocked again from the concussion of enemy fire outside the frigate.
My ears were ringing when the captain and I both looked up to see the general and all of his people sprawled bloodily across their side of the room. The Queen Mother had peppered them with projectiles, their bodies pulped and grotesque. Though it seemed the Queen Mother had fared little better. She was down. Or, rather, her disc was down. Sparks spat from numerous holes in the disc’s armored surface. Sabot rounds, I thought. The Queen Mother’s forelimbs scraped and scratched futilely at the deck, her triangular head cocked in my direction and her mouth half open, the teeth looking wicked and deadly.
Her mandibles chattered ferociously, but the disc made no sound. Its translator was rendered useless, along with its weapons.
The Professor—unharmed—floated forward from his previous spot near the far wall, then stopped as the doors were cast open and armed marines flooded in. The instant they saw the general lying dead, they raised their rifles to fire—having previously dispatched the Queen’s guards, per Sakumora’s plan.
Seeing this, Captain Adanaho shrugged me off of her and stood up, shouting, “Cease fire!”
The marines hesitated.
“That’s a direct order,” she said for emphasis.
The room rolled with concussive grumbling.
Lights flickered.
“General Sakumora, sir,” said an alarmed voice through the speaker on the general’s table, “there’s a feedback loop in the deflection matrix. We’re absorbing hits, but we can’t say for how much longer.”
The captain stared at me for an instant, then she looked to the Professor, whose forelimbs dangled dejectedly in front of him.
“I’m assuming you didn’t know the Queen Mother’s plan either,” she said.
“That is correct,” said the Professor. “Though I knew as well as you that the situation was unstable. Had I known the Queen Mother intended to incite conflict, to force us to war, I’d never have come.”
More thunder, more flickering lights.
“Then it seems you’re destined to die with the rest of us,” I said, feeling the cold, dull ache of certain doom closing around my throat. I instantly rued the day Adanaho had entered my chapel.
But then again, was it better to die on Purgatory, alone, or on a Fleet warship among my own kind? Was either of these options preferable to the other? I tried to remember what Chaplain Thomas had once told me, about keeping a stiff upper lip in the face of death, and discovered I couldn’t quite remember his exact words.
The Queen Mother continued to scrape and scratch frantically at the deck, her disc become worthless. It seemed suddenly that the mantes—even this, the greatest of her kind—weren’t all that terrible once you took away their technological advantage. Without the disc, she was as mortal as any man. With the frigate bucking beneath us and the captain and I struggling to keep our feet, I almost laughed as I watched the supreme leader of the enemy struggle helplessly.
Now you know how we felt!
I wasn’t sure if I’d merely thought it, or shouted it.
The captain and every other human were looking at me.
That’s when true disaster struck.
Kakraooooummmmmmm!
The lights vanished entirely as the room tilted ninety degrees and hurled us to the port bulkhead, then back across the space to the starboard bulkhead, before leaving us floating free. Orange emergency lamps snapped on and I fought a savagely instinctual desire to vomit—zero gee proving to be every bit as terrible in the bowels of the Calysta as it had been onboard the shuttle.
Marines flailed and then lapsed into their microgravity training. It had been too long for me, so I kept flailing, eventually feeling Adanaho’s grip on my left ankle. She levered herself up into my face and shouted, “The deflection matrix is falling apart! We’ve got to get to a lifeboat!”
“How?” I said, almost spewing my last meal into her face.
She turned her head, seeing that the marines were way ahead of her. They’d instinctually latched onto and levered each other like extension ladders, until one of them could get a grip on something solid, thus bringing them all into contact with the walls or floor or ceiling.
“We just need to get outside!” she said loudly.
Almost at once, the Professor was there.
His disc moved effortlessly, seemingly unaffected by microgravity.
“Grab on,” he said, a forelimb stretched in our direction. I reached for it and took it, while Adanaho stayed attached to me, and the Queen Mother stayed attached to the Professor’s other forelimb. Her disc trailed drops of mechanical fluid as the Professor began to tow all of us for the nearest open exit. If the marines desired to fire, nobody pulled a trigger. Perhaps because there was no way to shoot without killing both the captain and myself—fratricide being frowned upon, especially when superior officers are involved.
We emerged into the corridor beyond. The gore of dead mantes was everywhere. The marines had done their work well. I suddenly felt embarrassed and mournful. The Queen’s guards had saluted me as I entered, then paid with their lives for that trust. I gaped at the nearest of them, his young face split in two and his insect’s brain oozing out.
That did it.
I turned from Adanaho and emptied the contents of my stomach, which spluttered away from us in a thick, chunky stream.
“Where?” the Professor said sharply to the captain.
Emergency bells were chiming, and an automated vocal warning was issuing from every speaker.
HULL BREACH. VACUUM CONDITIONS ON MULTIPLE DECKS. PROCEED TO YOUR NEAREST SAFE DUTY STATION. REPEAT, HULL BREACH . . .
“There!” Adanaho said, almost climbing up my back so that she could point over the Professor’s shoulder.
A row of hexagonal hatches had opened along the walls, much further down the corridor. Personnel were piling into them. Each hatch was ringed with yellow and black caution striping, with tiny beacon lights spinning rapidly at the corners.
“Find one of those,” Adanaho said.
Though the ones closest to us appeared positively choked with people, all cl
amoring for escape.
Grrrrakkkkaaaaanngggggkt!
The guttural grinding sound of metal announced to even my inexperienced naval ears that the Calysta’s remaining moments were few. A wind had picked up in the corridor—air bleeding out into space. Men and women screamed, redoubling their efforts to seek escape.
For a brief instant, the Queen Mother and I locked eyes—hers as alien as the Professor’s had ever been—while we clung to the Professor’s separate forelimbs. I could not detect emotion behind her alien, multifaceted gaze, but her contorted body posture spoke of both fear and pain, while her mouth gaped in a show of murderous rage. I’d have let go of the Professor in terror—at the sight of those tractoring incisors—if I didn’t feel sure that the Professor, and the mobility of his functional disc, were the only hope I had.
And besides, there was the captain to think of. She clung to my back like a bear cub.
Suddenly the Professor moved in a new direction. Opposite the way we’d all been looking. We shot down the corridor, headed aft, bumping aside crew and marines alike. A few gunshots rang after us, but in the panic of the moment they went wide, embedding themselves into the bulkheads.
The wind spiraled up to become a gale-force howl.
Now, humans no longer floated or pulled themselves along the corridor. They were vacuumed away, shrieking.
My ears suddenly began to hurt.
I wanted to yell at the Professor—to ask where he thought he was going—but then I saw it: an open emergency hatch, unblocked.
The Professor’s disc moved toward it at best possible speed.
We passed through the doorway and the captain had the good sense to reach out and slap the panel just inside the threshold. The doors to the emergency exit snapped shut with a loud clang. Suddenly we were all flattened against the hatch as the lifeboat spat through the disintegrating interior of the Calysta, following a predesignated route. Rapid egress shafts honeycombed the ship—as with all Earth war vessels—such that it took only moments for the lifeboat to be disgorged into the emptiness of space.
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