Battlestar Galactica 13 - Apollo's War

by Glen A. Larson

  His thoughts shifted to the natives of Yevra. He had been attached to the early reconnaissance team which had scouted the planet during a truce period. The team's job had been to assess the possibilities of useful combat on Yevra. During the investigation, Sarge had had a chance to study the people of Yevra, their culture and their ways. He had discovered they were an innocent people who had rejected their own advanced technology for the joys of a simpler life. They had been untouched by any kind of war for at least half a millenium. While he could not have enjoyed living in the too primitive fashion of the Yevran natives, he had to admit that their contentment was admirable. They had adopted some odd superstitions, with which they controlled the potentially lawless in their society, but on the whole they were a people who did not deserve to have their planet destroyed by a war fought by invaders from elsewhere in the galaxy. If he had had the power of decision, he would not have involved the Yevrans in the war. However, the other side had fled to Yevra and were firmly entrenched. Sarge's side, the Army of the Rightful Destiny, had no choice but to engage the enemy in battle on Yevra. The Rightful Destiny armies had landed on Yevra and the war had been reinstated in earnest.

  Sarge regretted that the rules of the war called for the recruitment of locals into the armies, whichever army got to the able-bodied types first. Both armies had been lucky that so many curious otherworlders had been lured to Yevra and abducted through the force fields that were always set up around the war. All of these draftees were necessary for the fighting of the war. It was so difficult to transport large armies across space that it had become essential to depend on recruits for hand-to-hand combat. The best warriors had to be saved for high-risk missions, the kind of missions that ultimately would turn the tide of the war to one side or the other. Still, Sarge thought, it was unfortunate that the recruits had to be conditioned to fight in a war for which they would have ordinarily felt no emotional involvement or commitment.

  It was rare, he thought, for anyone to even care about the recruits. Perhaps he would not, except that he had to deal with them on a regular basis. He had to lead them to battle, watch them die. It was not a popular duty in his army, but he had shown himself to be suited to it long ago, and it seemed that now he would never be detached from it. They were all, recruits and noncoms, under the watchful eyes of the cold and distant officers who manipulated the war from impenetrable faraway bastions. The war had become little more than intellectual exercise for the officers. None of them had been in the field for ages, few of them even cared for the ordinary footsoldier. Mention the word infantry around them and they tittered while taking another sip of wine. Footsoldiers were merely pieces in the game. The war itself was all. The idea of acquiring territory was long gone. Who wanted the territory of the ruined planets they left behind? There was usually little left for the natives to rebuild. Sarge figured that the natives of the planets the war had already passed through were probably dying off, whole civilizations dying because of a war whose reasons were lost in obscurity.

  When he started rehashing all the old stuff about the war, he knew it was time to end his relaxation period and get to the real work. He could never afford much time for relaxation, anyway. There was always too much duty. As always at the end of relaxation periods, it was time to review tapes.

  He rocked himself like a cradle two or three times and then sprang to his feet. As soon as his feet touched the floor he began walking to his duty-cubicle.

  In the cubicle, on a long table, were the several tapes representing the day's training. On each strip of tape was recorded the physical, emotional, and flashes of the mental activity of each trainee. These activities were transmitted to the tapes in Sarge's command headquarters from sensor-transmitters placed in series throughout the sweatband each of the trainees wore. The sweatband devices gained their power from the mechanisms of the belts. The belts controlled the trainees, told them their every movement, guided their skills, punished their resistance.

  Sarge reviewed several tapes quickly, by donning a receiver-sweatband and pressing each tape against it. He did not enjoy this duty. In an instant he received not only the basic information he sought about the trainees' entire day, but he also got a sense of their pain and emotional turmoil. The negative qualities would decrease as the trainees became more conditioned. For the moment, they were the least enjoyable part of Sarge's job. At least he received the information from each tape so quickly that he did not have to dwell upon the pain and emotion.

  He came to Xiomara's tape, put it on.

  Xiomara's battle skills had sharpened at a rapid rate. She had become a most promising prospect in spite of the problems she created among her fellow soldiers because of her grotesque face.

  Sarge did not understand why her face was considered so ugly. All their faces were ugly to him. She had a special resentment for another recruit named Beskaroon. He not only hated her, he insulted her frequently and tried to interfere with her training.

  She hated this military life, but was compelled to continue to learn killing abilities. Her thoughts were frequently on a fellow Yevran named Trelon, an earlier recruit to the Army of the Rightful Destiny. Sarge remembered no Trelon. Apparently he was recruited into another outfit. Xiomara, he knew, believed Trelon to be dead. She realized she was being conditioned and the unremovable belt had something to do with the control that was being placed over her, but she could not get it off no matter how hard she tried. Sarge was impressed with how firmly she resisted the emotional conditioning of the belt, and yet how well she performed the physical tasks to which the belt guided her.

  She had been assigned to the obstacle course today. Beskaroon, next in line for this training, managed to sneak into the course and hide behind a rock. Xiomara moved easily but cautiously through the first set of obstacles, then came to the area where Beskaroon crouched. As the hologram of an enemy appeared suddenly, jumping down from the large branch of a tree, Beskaroon flung a handful of dirt into her face. She nearly fell but, in the midst of her fall, quickly leveled her laser pistol and destroyed the hologram. After she hit the ground, she quickly rolled over past the rock where Beskaroon crouched and aimed her weapon at his face. Beskaroon stood stock-still, seeing his death about to emerge from the barrel of her laser-gun. However, guided both by the belt and her own peaceful instincts, she twisted the gun just a bit to the right at the last moment and managed to fire a beam just past Beskaroon's left ear. He retreated rapidly. At the edge of the obstacle course, the observers laughed mockingly at him. It was clear from the expression on his face that he planned further revenge. Sarge was quite impressed by Xiomara's quick instinctive reactions. She was clearly ready for battle. Soon.

  He removed the Xiomara tape from his sweatband and looked through a few other tapes. When he selected the Croft tape, he put it against his sweatband with some reluctance. He did not like being in Croft's mind, even for an instant. It was too foreign to him. He did not understand cynicism, especially human cynicism. He could be cynical himself, about the war at times, about his loneliness at other times, but his own cynicism seemed mild and insignificant when compared to Croft's.

  Croft's adaptability to the training process and its conditioning was as good as Xiomara's, but it manifested itself in different ways. He had succumbed more to the controls in the belt and sweatband. He trained coldly and without much feeling for the others. Sarge did like Croft's coldness, although he hated to experience it. It was clear that Croft was the type who could be sent into the most dangerous combat situation with a good chance of surviving the experience. Croft, in a way, was the perfect trainee and would evolve into the perfect soldier.

  Today Croft had been assigned to a combat simulation, one that required him to put the goals of the mission over the brutality of action. Sarge did not assign every trainee to this test. The experience of it, even when they failed, sometimes had too devastating an effect on the trainees' mental and emotional faculties. Croft had been ordered into an encampment of nomads. The noma
ds were Yevran natives who had been hired to portray this tribe.

  Croft led a squad into the encampment. He had been told that the nomads were a tribe of noncombatants who had, however, conspired with the enemy to direct their fire toward the camps of the Army of the Rightful Destiny. He strode into the encampment with authority, giving orders out of the side of his mouth to his squad. Coolly, without much apparent thought, dutifully, he and his squad leveled their weapons at the peaceful-looking nomads and mowed them down with efficiency. As they fell to the ground, the faces of the nomads, who had not been instructed to expect this action, displayed fright and surprise. Sarge was impressed by Croft's emotionless attention to duty in this exercise. He had succeeded at the highest level of rating. In fact, Sarge knew, the exercise had been so successful that, afterward, when the nomads were revived, they all had long periods of disorientation, not believing that the weapons had been set at mild stun levels. They were all, in fact, convinced that they must be really dead. It would be impossible to use these natives for another exercise like this one. Sarge was quite satisfied with Croft's progress. Croft's partner, the one named Apollo, had already shown himself too compassionate to even be allowed to attempt this exercise. Apollo had significant abilities but strict obedience was not one of them. Yet.

  Sarge considered reviewing Apollo's tape, but he was not ready yet to confront the strong personality of the determined and stubborn young man. He would have to check out the Apollo tape eventually, but he needed some easier ones first.

  He chose the Beskaroon tape next. Assuming the personality of Beskaroon, even for a moment, was a revolting experience, but the man's devious cruelty did make him good material for combat. He would be at least the kind of cannon fodder who would take a few of the enemy with him before dying himself. After the man's stupid trick on Xiomara, Beskaroon went through the obstacle course with efficiency. His skills were not as adept as Xiomara's, but he showed a brutal efficiency that Sarge admired. Still, he was relieved to remove the Beskaroon tape.

  After a few routine tapes, he came to Sheba's. He was always a bit uncomfortable reviewing Sheba's tapes. Her emotionality made her a difficult trainee, although she had displayed sufficient battle skills. Sarge was not convinced she would make a good soldier. He put on her tape.

  Sheba eased into her training exercise almost mindlessly. Sarge could detect very little emotion in her this time. She did not even seem to be thinking. He had noted that, in recent days, she had become more zombie-like. There was a strong feeling that she was just out to get the job done, to do what she had to before getting back to her bunk and sleep. The drill took place at the firing range. She used a pistol developed by Sarge's species. The weapon was not well adapted for human fingers. One had to stretch one's hand to grip it. Nevertheless, Sheba handled the gun well.

  Her orders were to fire one of the explosive pellets with which the gun was loaded, then guide the pellet to its destination. The direction of the pellet could be changed by subtle movements of the soldier's fingers. Its course could be corrected to left or right, up or down. It could be made to glide, swoop, even make loops. The shooter could maneuver it to the exact spot on a target or the most vulnerable area of an enemy's body. The only way the enemy could dodge the pellet was to get out of its way with split-second timing. Even that did not save the target, since the enemy maneuver had to force the pellet to explode against some other surface. Otherwise, the shooter could make the pellet turn in a reverse loop and aim it at the enemy target again.

  The pellet traveled at normal speed. However, the grip of the pistol contained an anti-chronometric device which, in effect, slowed down time for the shooter, who could then follow the pellet's path precisely.

  The pellets Sheba was shooting in training did not contain a lethal explosive charge, so they only stunned their live targets. Most of these targets, Sarge realized, were soldiers from the front lines. Most of them were burned out and stricken with battle fatigue. Some of them would respond to rehabilitation procedures, but most would be sent back to the battle as cannon fodder. Even the rehabilitated soldiers usually did not last long when they were returned to the front lines. They never really regained their former abilities, but they were useful to the army because they kept newer troops from being killed prematurely. The whole war, Sarge thought, was run so pragmatically. Computer information rated who was expendable and who wasn't. The word went down, and the right soldiers were theoretically deployed into the right places. The expendable were put in vulnerable areas; the new trainees were put in relatively protected but good fighting positions; the best soldiers were assigned to roam the battle area, looking for the best shots and actions.

  Sheba had a gun in each hand, and she used them with a deadly efficiency. She guided two pellets simultaneously and still managed to hit two targets at about the same time. She was a chilling trainee to observe, Sarge thought, so perhaps after all she would make a good soldier.

  Putting the Sheba tape down, Sarge thought about the trio of human recruits who had come down to Yevra in their sleek airships. These three, and the woman Apollo had saved, would make an excellent team, a squad that might achieve wonders in combat. Sarge believed they all had abilities beyond what the average training leader usually saw, and he could make good use of them. After this training period, he was due to be reassigned to front-line duty. He wanted to take the four recruits with him. With him as their sergeant, they could make a crack fighting unit, an elite squad.

  Like all careerists, Sarge wanted to move up the regular army promotional ladder. He had been in grade for too long, and it would be a waste if he didn't impress his superiors and move up in rank. Since his skill in the field would gain him the necessary combat-points to make him eligible for review by the promotion board, he believed that a unit that could function as a superteam would only enhance his possibilities. With these four, he could even, perhaps, get a commission as an officer.

  He was not even sure he wanted to become an officer. Officers in his army had become world-weary intellectuals, governing the war behind their impenetrable walls, no longer seeing the war as a reality involving living beings. Still, he was getting tired of the dreary regimen of training troops and leading them in battle. Before his caution had always held him back from joining the officer ranks. Now he was ready to do something about it.

  Nevertheless he must first attend to Apollo, the new recruit who showed so many leadership qualities that he threatened to take the shine of glory away from Sarge if he did qualify for Sarge's crack squad. Although it was rare for a humanoid to become an officer in the Army of the Rightful Destiny, Apollo could become one of the exceptions. Sarge wasn't so sure he wanted Apollo to become an officer, to outrank him. It might be better to allow Apollo to be killed during a military mission, get him out of the way at the right time. On the other hand, Apollo might be the key to the success of Sarge's special squad. In the training he pushed the others to performing well. It would probably be better to let Apollo survive, at least while he represented no danger to Sarge's ambitions.

  Reluctantly Sarge picked up the Apollo training tape. He didn't want to review it, but his duty was to review the tapes of all the trainees.

  Apollo had reached the most advanced stages of the training regimen. He generally passed each training test with the highest scores, even though he was continually trying to resist the demands put upon him by the mechanisms within his belt and sweatband. The noncoms in charge of each phase of training had had to increase the power of the mechanisms in order to force him to train properly. Sarge noted how delicate this aspect of training was. The trainee must be controlled through transmitted pain, but there could never be an excess of the pain. Too much pain could kill the trainee. But he had to order the highest safe levels of pain to be used on Apollo. The man was too skilled to be allowed to settle quietly into the general ranks.

  The noncoms had had to give Apollo heavy doses of pain to make him perform skillfully today. The required exercise
was a survival drill involving the use of the laser-sling. Apollo was taken to a nearby forest and forced to use the weapon on animals. A large furry animal with long legs and a thin, twisted horn had been placed by a stream where it was drinking peacefully. Apollo was ordered to kill it with the laser-sling. He refused vocally, mentally and emotionally to disturb the life of the peaceful animal. The noncoms, used to the man's resistance to any logical order, increased the voltage of his belt and sweatband. Slowly, fighting the moves every step of the way, Apollo removed the laser-sling from its case. As the pain increased, so did Apollo's movements. He could not resist anymore. He twirled the sling a few times above his head, then flung his "stone" at the animal. The stone, a compact force-field generator, was guided to its destination by a laser setup within the sling itself. When the stone detected the body warmth of the animal, it immediately expanded and draped a narrow force field around the creature. The animal, sensing attack, bolted and butted its head against the wall of the force field. Sarge had helped develop the laser-sling. It was designed to capture enemies and keep them within the force-field cage until someone retrieved them. The animal kept butting the wall for a long while, until it had butted itself to death. It fell to the ground.