Earth Alone (Earthrise Book 1)

by Daniel Arenson

She nodded, still pressing her face against the pillow. "I don't want to say it properly. I'm shy." She took his hand. "Let's do this."

  Marco hesitated. Here, in the army tent, with the others about to return any moment? And with Kemi still fresh in his mind?

  We might all die tomorrow, he thought, looking at Lailani, and suddenly he "ruved" her too. Not loved. No. They didn't know each other enough for that. But he ruved her—a mumbling, hesitating, awkward sort of feeling, full of shyness and uncertainty. He undressed, and he held her, and he made love to her, but this too was awkward, clumsy, not at all like his time with Kemi. Lailani wouldn't kiss him, perhaps feeling that was too intimate, too scary. She turned her head away whenever he tried to kiss her lips. Their sex was all banging elbows and gasps and giggles when things didn't quite work. Finally he lay at her side, not sure what had happened, feeling disoriented as after a long run, and she lay in his arms.

  Did that even work? Marco thought. What just happened?

  "I liked having sex with you," Lailani whispered into his neck, still shy, not meeting his eyes. "I like you."

  Yes, Marco thought. Whatever just happened, it worked. It was right.

  He stroked her hair and kissed her forehead, and at that moment, Marco loved her—fully, with every beat of his heart, this precious, fragile doll, this broken thing, this fierce warrior.

  They heard voices from outside.

  "No way," somebody was saying. "Santos is the greatest player of all time."

  "You're crazy," rose another voice, moving closer to the tent. "Alvarez is always going to be the greatest. Santos is just famous for modeling and selling hair gel. Alvarez can score."

  Lailani hopped back onto her own cot and pulled her blanket over herself. Marco covered his own nakedness. Both pretended to sleep as two recruits entered the tent, now arguing about who should have won the World Cup of 2078. Lailani peeked from under her blanket at Marco. She gave him a tiny smile and a wink, then closed her eyes and slept, and soon sleep covered Marco again, and even in the sweltering heat of the desert, he missed holding Lailani in his arms.

  * * * * *

  On Sunday night, with another hour of freedom left—at least, as much as one could have freedom within barbed wire fences—Marco walked toward the beacon that rose in the dark desert.

  He paused. Sand blew around him, and the distant shouts of "Yes, Commander!" rose from somewhere in the camp behind him. Marco took a deep breath and walked on. In a rocky field, he reached the phone.

  His hand brushed the receiver.

  It won't work, he thought. It's just an antique like the radios we carried. It can't actually call home.

  Yet he found himself dialing with shaky fingers, and the phone rang.

  "Hello?" sounded a voice on the other end.

  The lump that grew in Marco's throat wouldn't let him speak.

  Again the voice sounded. "Hello?"

  "Dad," Marco said.

  "Marco! Marco, how are you? Is everything all right?"

  "I'm fine, Dad. Everything is fine. I . . ."

  And suddenly tears were flowing down Marco's cheeks, and he hated himself—for being so weak, for being just a boy. He was a soldier now. He was training to kill scum. He had made love to two women. He had fired guns and thrust bayonets. And now he couldn't speak, couldn't breathe, could barely see through his tears.

  "I'm so glad to hear you, Marco," said his father. "Hang in there, buddy. This isn't forever. The first week's the hardest, you know that, right?"

  "Yeah. I know." Marco cleared his throat. "I just called to say hi, to tell you I'm all right, to see how you are."

  It was stupid. It was so stupid. Why had he called? Why was this so hard? Why was this bringing tears to his eyes, making his voice shake?

  I miss home, he wanted to say. I'm scared. I want to come back. I just want to come back home. I miss you.

  But Marco could say none of those things, would not have his father worry. So he only repeated, "I'm good. I'm learning new things. And I'm looking after Addy."

  "Your old room is waiting here for you," Father said. "Next time they let you out—whether it's this Christmas or another holiday—it's all here waiting."

  Marco didn't want to hear that. Thinking about his old home was too painful, and he began to understand why electronics and any contact with the outside world were forbidden here. It wasn't because of any scum spies. It just hurt too much to think of your home. Heaven burned the eyes of those in hell. This was Marco's home now, this desert, and his fellow recruits were his family now. This was all he was, all he could be, or he'd be torn apart.

  "Dad, listen, I have to go now. I'm not sure when I can call again. I'll try to call soon. Addy is fine too. Goodbye, Dad."

  "Goodbye, Marco. Love you."

  "Love you too." Again his voice choked, and his tears fell. He hung up. He walked away, blinking rapidly.

  "Poet!" Elvis ran toward him. "Poet, Poet! Come see! Beast is doing push-ups with Addy standing on his back. You have to see this! Hurry!"

  They ran together back toward their tent, and Marco allowed himself a small smile. Tomorrow at 4:30 a.m. another day of hell would begin, but right now he had a home here. He had friends. And he had Lailani.

  Let me have this day, he thought, before the world collapses again.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The days stretched on, blurring together into one endless nightmare of heat, of burning sunlight, of vomiting from dehydration, of crawling under barbed wire, of running through sand, of climbing fences, of firing guns, of fighting exoskeletons, of shouting. Always shouting. Always heavy eyelids and falling asleep and please, please let us stand up, but the eyelids were so heavy, and the batons of the commanders shocked them, and the radios broke their backs, and finally standing—finally walking—only to find that even then, the eyes began to close, the mind began to drift into sleep, and their backs ached and feet screamed, and please, please let us sit, and the sun still burned, and their bodies broke. And down another notch on Marco's belt, and more runs to the latrine to expel the gray slop and Spam, and another notch down, and his fatigues—once tight—now loose around his body, and his face haggard, his eyes gaunt, and still shouting.

  There was no shame, no modesty in the HDF. They pissed side by side in the sand. They huddled together for warmth in the freezing nights, sleeping in fields, trudging in patrol around the fence. There were long nights in guard towers, staring out into the dark desert, nights of no sleep, watching the darkness, counting the stars. There were long nights alone by the gates, guns in hand, the desert storms stinging. Guarding. Always guarding. Every hour at night—guard duty or more sirens, more scum spotted in the distance, and days of firing their guns, and the smell of gunpowder always on them.

  No days, no nights, just an endless, eternal loop, a cycle of heat and cold, light and dark, pain and exhaustion, thirst and nausea.

  Marco did not read his book. He did not write. He did not think of home, did not worry about the scum, did not remember Kemi. There was no more time to think. Every waking, sleeping moment—a sergeant shouting, shocking him, or corporals punishing them, or Ben-Ari with her icy eyes, and more push-ups, another kilometer to run, another round with the radios. Never time to think. Marco no longer thought, no longer had thoughts, no longer had a mind. He was his rifle. All he was—an organic machine attached to the metal, trained only to obey, only to kill. He no longer knew how to read or write or be human. All he knew—to polish his boots, oil his gun, stand at attention, march, drill, shout, fire, obey, kill, kill.

  Obey.

  They ran, marched, shouted.

  Kill.

  They fired. They screamed.

  Kill.

  Kill. Kill.

  Sometimes when they marched, ran, climbed, crawled, fired, Marco turned to look at Lailani. But she rarely looked his way, and at night they collapsed exhausted into their bunks. He tried to talk to her again, but she seemed shy around him, looking away, distant, afraid
.

  Was it just a one-night stand? Marco thought, trying to catch her gaze, to speak to her. It wasn't one for me, Lailani.

  But whenever he tried to approach, a commander walked by, and they stood at attention, and the training resumed. Marco began to feel like a fool. He had shared his novel and his cot with Lailani, but now she seemed intent on avoiding him, not even meeting his gaze, not even giving him a smile, and washing on the other side of the showers.

  She had lied to him, Marco had begun to realize. For days she dodged him. She didn't truly like him—"ruv" him, as she had called it. She liked somebody else, or she liked nobody here, and maybe that time in their bed had been only a weak moment for her, one she now regretted.

  "Goodnight, Lailani," he said once at night, but the others laughed, mocked him, imitated him. And Lailani ignored him, wouldn't even meet his gaze.

  A one-night stand, he thought. That's all I was to her.

  Marco decided to push Lailani out of his mind, to focus only on his training, only on surviving this training. Yet whenever he lay on his cot, he couldn't help it. He imagined that Lailani lay in his arms again, and when he dreamed, he dreamed of her naked with him, of making love, of scum racing across the desert, and of the endless darkness of space.

  * * * * *

  "Battle formations!" Corporal St-Pierre shouted. "Go! Faster! Now!"

  The platoon scrambled into fireteams of three, the first gunner at the lead, two others flanking their leader. Marco slammed a magazine into his gun and stood, weapon raised. Addy and Elvis, part of his trio, knelt at his sides. Other fireteams loaded their guns around them.

  "Fire!" St-Pierre shouted.

  Marco cursed. He had forgotten to load his gun. He loaded now, and he cursed again. He had forgotten to pull on his earmuffs too. The bullets blazed around him, and he grimaced, the sound deafening. He fired. His gun rang out.

  "Hold your fire!" St-Pierre cried. "Hold your fire!"

  Another two shots were fired, and the guns fell silent. Corporal St-Pierre approached, pulling off her earmuffs, her face red, her blue eyes blazing.

  The rest of the 4th Platoon's commanders were away today, perhaps resting from the vigors of basic training, but there was never any rest for the recruits. For twenty hours a day, they trained for war. Some days of training were not so bad. Whenever Corporal Webb trained them, she was kind enough. As it turned out, Webb had lost her legs in battle only six months ago; the injury had given her compassion to the new warriors she was preparing for battle. Corporal Diaz was harsher but still fair, and while he did punish errant recruits, he never seemed to delight in the task.

  But Corporal Fiona St-Pierre lacked all compassion. Days with St-Pierre were different. Marco often thought that scum would be kinder.

  "Pathetic!" St-Pierre spat, moving between the recruits. "Mikhailov, you're supposed to rest your magazine against your forearm. Yours is dangling in the air like your cock." She moved toward Noodles, the scrawny and spectacled Lord of the Rings fan, and yanked his helmet up. "How do you expect to see the scum devouring your entrails?" Finally she came to stand before Marco, and she glared, blue eyes blazing with hatred. "You fired too late, Emery. You forgot your earmuffs. You nearly got your whole platoon killed." She spat on his boot. "You are a pathetic worm. You are all pathetic worms! What are you?"

  "Worms, Commander!" they shouted.

  "Worms, Pizza!" shouted Pinky with the group, and Marco shot him a glare.

  "She can hear you," Marco hissed.

  Pinky grinned at him. "Good."

  The practical joke had begun to spread through the platoon. Whenever they shouted "Commander!" to St-Pierre, Pinky would shout, "Pizza!" The first few times, Pinky's voice had drowned in the crowd, but slowly more and more recruits were imitating him, calling out the cruel taunt, a reference to St-Pierre's complexion. And Marco knew that the corporal could hear it, that she knew of the nickname. St-Pierre was too proud to admit it, but every time she trained them, she was meaner, more vindictive, determined to punish the platoon for Pinky's prank.

  St-Pierre now pointed at the ground. "Crawl then, worms! Crawl through the sand like the worms you are."

  They flattened themselves on the ground and began to crawl, guns held before them. The sand was hot, the rocks stabbing, and they had not drunk water for hours.

  "Faster!" shouted St-Pierre, and her baton crackled with electricity as she drove it into the backs of recruits. "Under that barbed wire!"

  Marco bit down hard and nearly screamed as her electric baton slammed between his shoulder blades. He crawled faster.

  Elvis crawled at his side, soaked with sweat and matted with sand. "Never thought I'd say this, but I miss Sergeant Singh," he said. "I—" He screamed as St-Pierre placed a boot on his back and shocked him with her baton.

  "Crawl under that barbed wire, worms!" St-Pierre shouted.

  They crawled under a low net of barbed wire. It stabbed at their backs and helmets. As Marco crawled, he suddenly froze and stared.

  A scorpion scuttled across the sand before him.

  Wails of protest across the platoon—everyone was now under the barbed wire—confirmed that the others had met their own arachnids.

  "There are scorpions here, Commander!" Elvis cried.

  "Good," St-Pierre said, walking outside the barbed wire. "Let them sting you. Crawl until you're covered with stings. Go! Faster!"

  They crawled. Marco swung the barrel of his gun before him, flicking the scorpion aside, then crushing it under his muzzle. A scream rose nearby.

  "The son of a bitch stung me!" Sheriff wailed.

  "It hurts!" cried Caveman.

  "Crawl!" shouted St-Pierre.

  Finally they emerged from under the barbed wire. Sheriff and Caveman and three others clutched swelling scorpion bites, and several other recruits were bleeding from the barbed wire.

  "We have to see the medics," said Sheriff. "We—"

  "You will keep training!" said St-Pierre. "The scum won't give you time to see medics, and their stings are worse. Battle formations! Scum ahead! Go!"

  They formed fireteams again. This time Addy took the lead, and Marco and Elvis knelt at her sides. All three pointed their guns forward.

  "Fire!" shouted St-Pierre, and Marco pulled his trigger, and hot casings flew, and—

  "Halt!"

  As soon as St-Pierre's voice rang out, Marco realized his error, and terror froze him.

  Fuck. Fuck.

  He wasn't the fireteam leader in this exercise. And yet, instead of merely providing backup to Addy, he had fired his weapon with her.

  They were firing blanks in this exercise, but had these been live bullets, Marco realized that he could have—in the heat of battle—shot Addy in the back.

  St-Pierre stepped toward him, silent, but her eyes showed her fury.

  Marco straightened and stood at attention. "I'm sorry, Commander. I was imagining the scum, and—"

  She drove her baton into his belly, and electricity crackled. "Down!" she shouted. "Fifty push-ups, shout out each number!"

  Marco dropped and began his push-ups. He had been able to do forty before, never fifty. He began.

  "One!" he said, rising up again.

  St-Pierre kicked him down again. "One, Commander, and shout it. Start over."

  "One, Commander!" He pushed himself up, then down again. "Two, Co—"

  "Louder!" The baton hit him again, knocking him down. "You will shout, or you will do this all day. Start over. Shout!"

  "One, Commander!" Marco shouted, repeating his push-up. "Two, Commander! Three—"

  "Louder!" she shouted, pressing her boot against his back, shoving him down. His face hit the dirt. "Faster!"

  As the other recruits watched, Marco kept doing his push-ups, St-Pierre pressing her boot against his back all the while. Finally he rose, arms trembling.

  "You will complete your training for the day, Emery, then report to the brig," St-Pierre said. "You will sleep there tonight. Is that un
derstood?"

  "Yes, Commander."

  St-Pierre turned toward another recruit. "I did not let you wipe sweat off your forehead, maggot! Run! A full loop around the base. Go!"

  The training with St-Pierre continued for hours of agony, electricity, barbed wire, scorpions, thirst, and burning sunlight. Marco soon missed Sergeant Singh too.

  That night, Marco walked across the base, heading toward the brig—an underground cell he had managed to avoid until now. He took a shortcut, walking around a fenced lot where several armed vehicles parked, topped with .50-caliber guns. Before boot camp ended, the recruits were to train with the weapons, a day which Marco both feared and looked forward to.

  Marco was walking by one of the heavy, olive-green vehicles when he heard voices.

  "I can't do this anymore, ma'am." The voice was soft, pained. "They mock me. They mock me all the time. They don't respect me like they respect Emilio or Railey or Amar."

  Marco froze, suddenly worried he was walking on forbidden ground. It took him a moment to recognize that voice. It was Corporal St-Pierre who was speaking. Marco had never heard her speak so softly, with such vulnerability. He inched forward, peered around a vehicle, and saw the corporal standing on the lot, facing a shadowy figure.

  Who was she talking about? Then it dawned on Marco. Corporal Emilio Diaz. Corporal Railey Webb. Sergeant Amar Singh. Marco had heard their first names weeks ago, had forgotten them.

  "You will earn their respect, Fiona," replied the shadowy figure, and Marco recognized Ensign Ben-Ari's voice. "This is new to all of us."

  "Not to Emilio," said Corporal St-Pierre. "Not to Amar. Not to Railey. They all fought scum, killed scum. What do I know?"

  Ensign Ben-Ari stepped into the light, and her eyes were soft. She placed a hand on St-Pierre's shoulder. "As much as I do, Fiona. I hadn't yet seen action either. I was just a cadet at Officer Candidate School a month ago. Just a hurt, frightened girl with a famous father, trembling to follow in his footsteps."

  "The recruits respect you, ma'am," said St-Pierre. "You're a commissioned officer. And your father was a famous colonel. I'm nothing but a joke to them." Suddenly tears were on her cheeks. "I've failed you."