by Allen Ivers
As though he could; she was the power in their home, both a more genuine leader than her father and a greater pain in the ass. Her piercing green eyes felt more akin to a venomous snake, never blinking and just waiting for the moment you do.
“Colonel, you can’t really intend to go through with this?” Talania demanded of a military officer who had trained from adolescence to serve with Imperial Infantry, Joint Command, and Orbital.
He wondered if the newly minted adult had completed something other than a five-page op-ed in her entire life.
Riley paused, sliding into what little decorum he had to spare, “Wasn’t my idea, but a man works with what he has on offer.”
“They signed up for hard labor, not combat,” she spat at him, pointing toward the field now packed shoulder to shoulder with bone and sinew and meat.
Signed up. That’s a laugh.
He had to admit, with the casual glance, they bore more than a passing resemblance to raw recruits. They may not all be as young, but they were fit and eager. This might not have been such a bad idea after all.
“Ms. Dedria,” Riley chose his words, “It’s an all hands on deck situation.”
“Get it from the citizens,” she was almost pleading, “There are more than enough people begging for the chance to defend their homes.”
Riley glanced back at a nearby aide, "I feel like I've had this conversation before. Oh wait — I did!" He spun back around, "Your father beat you by fourteen hours. Step up your game."
"There is no need for-"
“They would die,” Riley stated the fact as simple as breathing the air around him. "The mind may be willing, even brave, but the common folk are soft and comfortable. Criminals know hardship, pain, and determination. A starving thief will fight and run long after the baker runs out of breath."
“So you’d rather send slaves to die in their stead?”
“My preferences don’t factor into it,” Riley began, “My job is to protect the citizenry, not throw them to the wolves. This is a voluntary program. Any one of those Capitals are free to take the jump seat back to Sol.”
“Colonel, these people haven’t been ‘free’ for a long time,” Talania sniped back at him.
That was the key word, though not the one she thought it was. He could no longer stop his mouth from running off the reservation.
“People?” He blurted, “Ma’am, I guaran-goddamn-tee you, that those ‘people’ on that field don’t think you are a person.”
No answer? No pithy comeback, just a pouted lip and hand on hip? Fine.
Riley pointed at the assembly, “They see you, and they see an opportunity. They do not have compassion. They do not have empathy. They do not have their humanity. And those that once did, lost it in deep in the Pits. You and I and everyone else on this field are giving them a chance to prove otherwise. If they can sacrifice for us, as much as they have taken from us, then maybe they can go home. That’s an offer the Empire would never make.”
“But you would?” She caught him up.
There was the truth of it all. The world may not be, but he was gracious, kind, charitable. How dare he try to do two good things at once!
Frustrating, maybe, but she was right. He had overstepped his authority. This wasn’t a promise he could keep, not really.
Riley ground his teeth, hearing the molars squeak against each other, “Please tell your father I’ll need an accurate estimate from the silos before I can make rationing recommendations… Ms. Dedria.”
Riley blew past her, taking the steps up the bleachers two at a time.
She didn’t usually wind him up this much. Her previous complaints had been of the more adorable variety, seeking comments on whatever sob story of the week her Press office was towing at the time. Maybe it had something to do with how correct she actually was.
Slavery.
Even besides that, they were gambling the survival of the colony on the backs of criminals with guns.
This only ended one way. Eleven-year-old him would be ashamed.
Riley trudged up toward the post commander. He was a broad-shouldered man, built like a brick or a block of slate, with no edge or curve to his muscled body. His blonde hair was cut close, giving an unsettling brighter tint to his otherwise dark and leathery skin. His tan & brown BDU stuck out amongst the gray steel all around him.
The Gunnery Sergeant had a storied history written in his chest candy; there were ribbons from half a dozen armed conflicts, Purple Heart with Cluster, and a Bronzed Bar with filigree -- singular heroism in defense of his post.
This man had likely seen more combat than Riley had read about.
He must’ve heard Riley’s approach. “Ten-HUT!” The man barked with the gravel of a few bad habits and a lifetime of shouting. The technicians dropped their work and snapped to a crisp attention.
“Sergeant Bray,” Riley affirmed, “Stand at ease. We’ve work to do.”
“Yes, sir,” Bray effused, a devilish smile locked away behind that drill instructor’s iron mask, “We’ve put together a program that oughta thin out the field for us.”
Riley’s lips tightened, souring on that thought. “If we don’t find enough talented folk on that field, Sergeant, our stay may be shorter than planned, so let’s not take such glee in ‘thinning the field.’”
Bray nodded, keeping whatever dissenting opinions he held back behind his teeth. That’s not very useful. Expertise is only useful when shared widely and frequently.
“Speak freely, Gunny,” Riley ordered, his eyes tilted to the floor. He wasn’t entirely sure he could keep a straight face if Bray had any truly colorful objections.
“Due respect, Colonel,” Bray started, “If I speak free, you’re going to frog march me out to the firing squad. So why don’t we stay focused?”
Riley managed to choke back the laugh that leapt up in his chest. The man twice his age was trying everything he could to show due deference.
Bray was a career rifleman and Riley an officer crafted from birth. But while Bray knew more about the world, he also knew his place. A good commander would use Bray like the well-tuned instrument he was, “No, Sergeant. Let me have it. You also disapprove of our recruits?”
Everyone was watching now. They would sell tickets if they could.
Bray ground his teeth, his hand forced but deciding with how much passion he wanted to present. “Sir, Capitals aren’t trusted when holding a toothbrush. You want me to gather together a regiment of them, train them, arm them, and trust them with border security?”
Riley’s head bobbed from side to side, weighing his own screwball response, “I don’t disagree on any particular point, but I trust you to… whip the prospects into shape, Sergeant.”
“This is a gulaw farm animal prom, sir.”
“Ain’t it just?” Riley agreed, dropping into his seat, “Rest easy. Nobody’s comfortable with it, Sergeant. But I think when you put them on that Wall, and they measure their adversary… they’ll decide where their loyalties lie very quickly.”
Bray chewed on his cheek, masking a twitch.
“At Holkstad, they used to say each Command has to reinvent the wheel for each theater. That’s all we’re doing.”
“Can an old grunt share a bit of his wisdom?” Riley gestured for him to proceed. “The Academy trained you, but they ain’t here. Use your head, not theirs.”
“Do you why we're here, Gunny?" Riley asked the veteran, "I mean – why did you volunteer to stay?"
Bray shuffled a bit, uncomfortable with the line of questions.
"It's not a trick question. There's a lot of good answers. I'm just curious."
Bray swallowed hard before answering, "Just seemed like the right thing to do."
"Defying your orders in wartime?" Bray was silent, so Riley pressed on, "That's what makes the right thing hard. You don't do the right thing because someone's got a biscuit for you. You don't do it because it makes you warm and fuzzy. You do it, even when you know you're going to g
et hit for it. Because it is the right thing to do."
Bray opened his mouth to say one more word but resumed his parade rest.
But Riley wasn’t going to let that slide, “You’ve manned the Wall?”
Bray looked up and away. The only answer that was needed.
Riley nodded, “They’re not Regulars down there, Gunny. But tell me the few folks we got left wouldn’t give their left nut to have a few more bodies between them and the wild? Let’s give ‘em everything we have in stock, huah?”
"Huah, sir." Bray nodded, softening his stance a bit. Sour disposition aside, he turned to his radio to begin the exercises.
There were a few simple and tactical truths about the Capitals that Riley knew, foremost among them that if these criminals remained they would be made assets or deleted liabilities. The mining platform and accompanying Pits were to be shuttered.
Those that could not be enlisted, would be shipped off-world in packing crates, bound back to their host prisons to serve the remainder of their sentences. They were too dangerous to leave unattended and every hand worthy of a gun had higher priorities than babysitting scum.
And they deserved all the creature comforts of a bag of cement.
Two separate incidences of unrest had already been put down at that news -- one of which involved some deaths. A faction of Capitals felt they were entitled to their hard labor and modest accommodations.
In all fairness, a day working was better than a day stewing in the hot boxes on Charon. But they forgot the most critical of penalties they suffered upon their convictions: they weren’t entitled to the air they breathe, let alone anything else.
This was a gift, a mercy, an olive branch from the civilized to the monster, to coax it back from the abyss. Reject that kindness, and there was no reason to tolerate the existential threat they represented. They were alive today because of the Empire’s mercy, not because of their long-lost ‘rights.’
Riley didn’t need these Capitals to be much. Expectations weren’t high. He needed them to be functional, cooperative.
And desperate.
If the Capitals could match the physical requirements of a soldier, Bray could fill in the rest.
The first challenge was a simple cardiovascular exercise that Regulars ran twice a week. With forty-pound packs, troopers would hard march in the morning cold three straight miles before stepping up the pace. Rough terrain and inclement weather would neither defer nor delay these exercises, sometimes forcing the march through hard rain or dust storms.
The Capitals were given stones, something more familiar to them. After being broken into loose groups, they were herded in a circle around the field, like a Sisyphean hell-march. The computers kept time and distance as the giant Ouroboros wound its way about the track, an undulating mass of the two conflicting feelings: hope for a future and a dire regret of the present.
The monitors in the bleachers quivered on their moorings. Nearly a thousand feet pounding dirt in a circular march was enough to shake the ground.
The acrid stench of sweat and fluids assaulted Riley’s eyes. He blinked it away, refusing to let any water flush out the toxins. Too many years of training and too many badges to give a patriot’s shower over a little rancid air; not with Bray so close by, anyway.
Not every person was capable of making such a forced march. Dozens were setting down their stones to catch their breath, only to be driven on by cattle prods.
The Capitals could resign this opportunity at any time, and march off the field to the bloated transports that waited outside the Stadium gates. They would be tagged, indexed, and chained for their shipment to a more fitting cell.
Some were smart enough to recognize their limitations and choose the prison.
Others simply protested the shocks. They spouted off about fairness or health or safety before being driven on by their taskmasters’ prods. They spat back at their shepherds, shouting epithets that Riley lip-read through the video feed.
How charming.
But to most, the prospect of freedom was too enticing. They marched until their feet bled. The dirt warmed to a bronze with the reddish stains left by hundreds of blistering footfalls.
This was no senseless parade; it was a trial of mental fortitude. The average mind could not will itself past injury to continue: a feat required daily for soldiers. Outrunning, outlasting a threat was important, no matter how much the feet begged for pause.
Riley found himself surprised -- though he shouldn’t have upon reflection -- that the Capitals bore this trait in great numbers. Their everyday involved working through injuries and past exhaustion. They lived without water and food. Warmth was the something mothers would beat them to sleep with. Hardship was their crucible and their nightly bed.
Though chaos was barely averted near the end of the march. The Capitals began dropping; the mind could push only so far. It cannot make a man walk when a tendon snaps or a knee buckles. The exhausted and spent were swiftly buried under the thousand footfalls of their comrades, reducing them to paste before anyone knew what had happened.
The sheer density of the crowd overwhelmed and subsumed them, painting streaks of red along the already sanguine sand.
The Capitals grew uneasy, restless and distressed, shocked at the discovery of their compatriots under their toenails. Their perseverance and the prodding of instructors had caused fatalities.
Murmurs were rippling through that crowd.
Bray’s guards opened the ammo cans, ready for the worst.
A small Capital collapsed in the middle of his group, a wounded deer and a foregone conclusion. But for the quick action of two of his fellows, he would surely have also been trampled.
Instead, the flow broke around the fallen man like a river bend. The two heroes reached down amongst the pounding feet to snag the man and his stone.
But the sand of the track had gone thick with sweat and gore, clinging to clothes and flesh. Just a few inches deep, but it seemed to suck the little one back down to the ground. And with each failed attempt, the two Capitals redoubled their efforts.
Before their group had advanced, they had heaved the man back to his feet and returned his load, urging him onward.
It was almost inspiring.
Riley leaned over to Bray. “Make a note of those two,” he said, indicating the two champions on the screen.
Bray tapped at his keys, triggering the facial recognition software and comparing to what he found. After three failed matches and some mild cursing, he found the two faces in question. “Franklin Carmona and Aaron Havenes,” he muttered, scribbling notes. “Violence convictions both, but no marks on their prison records.”
“Stamina, awareness, concern for fellows, executive action under duress…” Riley smiled wide with an infuriating self-assurance, “What do you think, Sarge?”
Bray didn’t answer, preferring instead to chew on the discovery.
Riley had spoken too soon. The forced march was only the first challenge.
The Capitals laid down their stones, thirsty and exhausted. Some even stooped to suck on the moist ground under their feet, unthinking or uncaring that it also contained the blood of their colleagues.
But there would be no rest. They weren’t testing for physical fitness, alone.
Bray instructed over the loudspeaker, the Capitals were to pair off. With one friend across their shoulders, they would now run across the field. At the opposing side, they would switch places and run back. Failure to complete this action within forty minutes would result in immediate failure.
Exhausted, tired, and afraid -- with all of these mental handicaps, could they still coordinate?
Some picked up the nearest person they could find without so much as a friendly greeting. One giant of a man picked the smallest feather of a human he could grasp. Riley could only laugh at the giant’s simplistic perspective. Did he really think that his wee little load would be able to carry his girth all the way back? His impulsive behavior doomed the both o
f them.
Others burned precious time trying to select the most ideal person to carry. They debated body weights and lifting strengths, while others blazed reckless trails across the field. Some even began scuffling over the desirable partners. They were willing to fight for their tickets to freedom, even if it meant each other.
This was more of what Riley expected. Selfishness. Violence. Malice. Hardly a soldier’s temperament.
The first duo came back across the field. A thin man, but lean and with a blank expression, moved with slow and deliberate strides. The weight on his shoulders was a woman twice his size, tall and solid, with a shaved head but for a single long braid of blonde hair thicker than a fuel line. That was a weapon in itself.
They had made their moves early and with calculated precision, deliberate caution, never rushing but never hesitating.
“Our first winners,” Bray huffed, “Solomon Lipkin & Keira Ladd.”
Riley snorted, “He looks like her child.”
“Lipkin killed fifteen men with a spoon,” Bray deadpanned. Riley tilted his head around, uncertain if Bray was pulling his chain. Bray’s eyes were the only thing smiling, “Not all at once, sir.”
“A serial killer? Or just resourceful?” Riley lamented, “That’s an auspicious beginning.”
“Yes, sir,” Bray conceded, “And Keira Ladd was the lineman for a bank heist team. They hit seven locations in two systems before the team was captured." He paused, "They had to be separated after they were re-captured."
Riley snorted at that.
Bray didn't hide his own smirk, consulting a nearby display, "Says these two were known associates inside the Pits. Rarely ever separate.”
Riley had asked for coordinated people in peak physical shape. They fit the profile. Perhaps he needed to be more specific.
What was curious were the two heroes -- Aaron and Carmona. They huddled around the little one they had saved from the stampede. There was discussion, some kind of heated haggling. There was no way the exhausted and beaten child they had ripped from the river of death could complete this next task. Carmona was urging him to quit the field.
