Hard Corps

by Paul Mannering

  When the helmet was locked in place he took a panicked breath and felt air waft over his face.

  “Right now, you cannot move!” Kill-Sergeant Mosan’s voice roared in the squad’s helmets. “You will stand until you understand!”

  Following the yelled instructions, Erik and his squad went through a series of operational exercises. They drilled until the communications system, the life-support controls, and the Heads-Up Display that streamed essential information across the inside of their face plates were as familiar as their own thoughts.

  Once they mastered the internal systems, the hydraulics controls were unlocked. The powered armor lightened and even Erik could walk with ease. With the kill-sergeants screaming at them, the squad ran up and down the grounds until the suits were covered in dust and the troopers inside were streaming with sweat and gasping for air. They marched and ran up and down for hours until Erik was on the verge of collapse. The kill-kergeants moved the squad on to the same obstacle course they had conquered every day since their training started.

  The suits didn’t make it easier. The walls were still high, the mud still thick. With the added mass of the suit, more than one trooper got fouled crawling under wire.

  “Stand up! Stand up, you fucks!”

  Erik swayed on his feet. The moisture streaming down his face was absorbed by the suit lining and, from the taste of it, recycled into his fresh water supply.

  “Get in fucking line!” The squad shuffled into position and locked their legs to keep them standing.

  “You will stand there until you are ordered to move!”

  “Yes, Kill-Sergeant!”

  The sergeants walked away and the squad remained standing. Erik stared at the helmet in front of him, waiting for something to happen. The chronometer on his HUD vanished.

  “The fuck…?” he muttered. “Hey, my chrono went out.”

  “Mine too.” The response echoed through the squad.

  “Kill-Sergeant? I think there’s a malfu-” Erik’s comms system clicked off and the clear screen went dark.

  “Stand steady!” The kill-sergeant’s voice roared in his comms.

  A sense of vertigo washed over Erik. With no vision to balance with and a blacked-out HUD, he was entirely cut off. He wondered how the others in the squad were doing. Were they also isolated or were they all standing around laughing their asses off at him swaying and trying to stay on his feet?

  Time meant nothing in the sensory deprivation of the locked-down suit. The only way Erik could tell he was still alive was by counting the slow respiration of each breath. In… out. Still… alive…

  By the time his breathing had slowed and panic had given way to boredom, Erik was sure they had been forgotten. Maybe he was trapped in this suit now? What happened when the air ran out?

  Erik started to hyperventilate, his breath becoming ragged as panic flooded him again. He tried to move, to flex any part of the suit and break free. It remained immobile and added to his frantic unease. There was no escape. He was going to die in this tiny prison.

  The screaming sounded far away. Erik couldn’t be sure it was him. His ears were ringing and the air had run out. Now he was going to die.

  Muffled sounds came through the suit. Something struck Erik hard enough to rock him on his feet. He struggled to retain his balance until a second strike pushed him over.

  Lying in the dirt, Erik waited for his humiliation to end. No one activated his helmet so he lay there in the dark, tears mixing with the sweat dripping off his face.

  II

  You are speaking, Pizak’s presence was suffocating.

  I’m sorry, Noshi clenched her eyes shut and took a deep breath.

  Again.

  She opened her mind to the flowing current of mental activity that swirled around her. Seeing it was the first lesson, becoming one with it, was the next step.

  The mental exercises Pizak had her repeating endlessly could not detract from the wonder she felt at the experience of sight.

  Pizak had explained that her eyes were deformed; the optic nerves were undeveloped and she would never see. Her abilities allowed her to bypass the physical organs of her senses and to comprehend a world she had no concept of.

  To Noshi, light was both terrifying and fascinating.

  She understood light was the reflection of photons on a spectrum. She also saw electro-magnetic frequencies, which she learned were more than colors—this was energy. Energy gave everything form and purpose. The cilia that covered a Diorite’s head were sensitive receptors for frequencies across the energy spectrum. Through the waving fronds they communicated across vast distances and directed their conquest of entire worlds.

  “Conquer… it means to destroy?” Noshi had asked.

  It means to adapt, Pizak replied. The Diorite Commonwealth brings our technology to new worlds. We bring peace to troubled civilizations. We bring a future to worlds without hope.

  “Like the old Earth?” Through Pizak and the growing confidence of her strengthening connection with the network of the Diorite Commonwealth, Noshi learned the truth of human history.

  Her people were explorers who left a blue world in another part of the galaxy to set foot on the sister worlds of their own star system. Then, on the wings of emerging technology, they launched themselves across the vast emptiness of the interstellar void. Generations passed and human civilization collapsed.

  The Helos were the agents of your species destruction, Pizak told her. This was confirmed by everything Noshi learned during the hours she explored the Diorite archives. The Helos were an enemy without mercy who had destroyed billions of humans. The Diorites had rescued her species from extinction, protecting them and giving them sanctuary in domed reservations on a handful of worlds.

  The message from the Diorites was always clear: Without us, your species would be extinct.

  III

  “This weapon is your life! Without it, you are nothing. With this weapon, you will defeat any enemy. Never let it out of your sight. Never put it down. You will sleep with it, eat with it, and shit with it. You will carry it with you to the glory of battle.”

  The rifle was bulky and without the powered armor to support it, Erik was sure he would barely be able to lift it. In his suit, he could heft it, aim it, and fire it with an accuracy of 94%. Holding the weapon, his rifle, Erik felt strong. Invincible. All he needed now was an enemy that he could kill with it.

  Chapter 5

  I

  Erik spat blood into his respirator and blinked the sweat from his eyes.

  “Get the fuck out of the mud, you piece of shit.” The voice of Kill-Sergeant Mosan, the man Erik hated more than anyone he had ever met, screamed in his ear. It would be easier to sink into the mud and drown. To let the impossible weight of the gear he wore drag him into darkness. To do so would let Mosan win and that would hurt more than standing up.

  On leaden legs, Erik stood. He lifted his rifle until it was across his chest and he started running. Each step sinking to the tops of his boots in the muck. The trick was to lift your knees high, clear the mud, and keep moving forward. Mosan moved on to scream at the other troopers who were still crawling.

  “Stand up or die!” This was one of several catch phrases Mosan and the other trainers screamed constantly.

  Erik stayed on his feet. The end of the section was in sight. He glanced back into the swirling yellow mist, checking on the progress of the rest of Grid Squad Cable while ignoring the burn in his muscles and lungs.

  Each day of the ten-cycle exercise, a squad member was promoted to squad leader. This meant more abuse, more work, and a responsibility for the lives of the other recruits. No one volunteered for the role. The kill-sergeants chose someone, seemingly at random. Erik had thirteen hours of squad leadership left. He was counting the minutes until he could pass the burden on to someone else.

  The mud gave way to gravel, and the squad jogged up a shifting slope of loose rock that shifted constantly underfoot. Once it got mov
ing, the scree could become a landslide and would bury anyone unlucky enough to fall.

  At the top, Erik stopped to catch his breath. Behind him a stream of troopers clawed their way through the mud and up the hill. As they reached the crest, Erik reached out a hand and helped his best friend, Timber, the last few steps. “Good run man.”

  “Thought you were going to stay in the mud,” Timber gasped.

  Erik had no breath left for a comeback. He pushed Timber on and helped the next trooper crest the summit. The troopers did not fall. They stayed on their feet, chests heaving, clouds of vapor expelling from their respirators, their masks clear of the condensation which ran down their faces.

  In the first days of their training one of the recruits had died after a malfunction in his respirator. The man had panicked. In the throes of his claustrophobia he managed to rip the sealed mask off his face. Exposure to the sulfur dioxide atmosphere had melted his lungs in seconds. He died in agony with bloody foam spilling down his chin. Mosan made everyone take a good long look at what happened if you panicked. It was a lesson they never forgot.

  The trainers wore the same respirators and ran the same course. They didn’t carry the same amount of war gear as the troopers, but they did spend all day screaming at the trainees.

  “Thirty seconds!” Mosan yelled through the comms.

  Erik focused on his breathing, flexing his muscles and letting the pain work itself out. Using his tongue, he snagged the nutrient tube inside his mask and took a long swallow of liquid life.

  “Ten seconds!” Mosan roared. The squad assumed their ready positions. “Move, you motherfuckers!”

  Erik led the way as they charged across the dry plateau at the top of the hill and toward the rock formations that led down to a flowing river of sulfuric acid.

  Sharp crystal formations of yellow sulfur and dull green apatite crunched underfoot. Timber ran past Erik, leaping from crystal outcropping to rocky bluff as he took the lead in the race to the river bank.

  “Later, bitches!” Timber crowed as he increased his lead.

  Erik moved by reflex, seeing the fractures in crystal formations, knowing in mid-stride if the ground would hold him.

  Ten feet below, Timber jumped again. The apatite shattered as he landed, throwing him off balance. He recovered quickly, twisting and leaping across the gap to the next formation. He seized a solid chunk of sulfur in one hand and swinging from it until he found a foot hold.

  Erik threw himself into space, slamming into the angled edge of the same outcrop. His arms numbed with the shock of impact, he hung there, shoulder to shoulder with Timber.

  “You trying to get yourself burned?” he asked over the squad comms channel.

  “The burn is how you learn,” Timber replied.

  “The fuck are you two shit-stains doing?” Mosan cut in over the troopers’ laughter.

  “Training hard, Kill-Sergeant!” Erik said.

  “Fucking circle-jerk. If I get there and you two fucks are sucking face, I will burn you myself.”

  “Yes, Kill-Sergeant!” both troopers replied with enthusiasm. Pulling themselves up, they continued the descent, arriving at the edge of the river just ahead of the final members of the squad.

  “What is your purpose?!” Mosan roared.

  “To kill!” the squad screamed in unison.

  “How will you achieve that purpose?!”

  “Be faster! Be stronger! Be better!”

  “The fuck you say?!”

  “Faster! Stronger! Better!” The shout in their ear pieces was deafening.

  “Gimme a hundred!”

  The squad dropped prone and began doing pushups with a metronome synchronicity.

  Erik put the burning pain in his muscles out of mind and thought about Noshi. The last time he saw her and the bread they shared.

  “One hundred pushups, one hundred and twenty seconds.” Mosan barked. “Any less, we will start again. No man left behind. Everyone wins. Everyone suffers.”

  The troopers rose and fell until Mosan gave the order to get on their feet.

  “There’s a nice spot to set up some hab-tents and get some sweet shut-eye on the other side of the river. Get there and you get sack time. Now move your asses!”

  Their armored suits were protected by high-density plastic plating. The material was acid resistant, bulletproof, and light-weight. The sulfuric acid wouldn’t be a problem. The depth and the current would be.

  For the first time all day, Mosan and his fell kill-sergeants were silent, giving the squad a chance to solve the problem for themselves. Erik knew it was a test. Everything was a test. You either passed, or you died.

  “How deep do you think that shit is?” Timber asked.

  “Balls deep,” Erik replied, watching the twist and curl of the currents.

  Pikila shouldered her rifle. “Fuck it, let’s go. Last one over cleans my suit.” She started towards the swirling yellow water. The others shrugged and fell into step with her.

  “Hold up,” Erik said. As squad leader, he was meant to be taking the lead and showing his potential.

  “Why? Can’t you swim?” Pikila sneered and the others laughed on cue.

  “We all cross together—it’ll be easier. Like how little spiders cross open space between threads.”

  “The fuck you talking about, shithead?” Pikila bristled. She had fought almost everyone in the squad, earning their respect by being tougher than them.

  “We’re a squad, we’re meant to work together. You go charging into that on your own, you could end up dead. Then we have to waste time and energy dragging your ass out. Maybe more of us die and we have to pull them out too. I don’t want to have to carry more than one of you through the rest of the hike.”

  Pikila’s eyes narrowed behind the transparent panel of her facemask. “Runt like you can barely carry his own shit,” she said. “Let alone one of us.”

  “I know, right? So, we link up. Join arms and lock in. Start up there a way, then walk with the current so we come out the other side right where we want to be.” Erik linked arms with Timber and demonstrated how it would work.

  Herk laughed. “Ain’t you two cute. You gonna dance now, or just fuck?”

  Erik ignored him. It was weird how Herk had a real problem with two men touching each other.

  “Hold your shit, Herk,” Pikila snapped. “You heard our squad leader. Rest of you, cozy up.”

  The troopers fell into line, forming two lines with their arms interlinked. “Now, like on the p’rade floor. We all step in time,” Erik said. “Left, left, left.”

  The linked chain of troopers moved into the water, each body strengthening their fellows against the onslaught of the current. First in line, Erik reached the middle of the river. The dark fluid swirled around them, now reaching up to his shoulders. The current pushed at him like Mosan standing on his chest.

  “Fuck!” Timber yelled as he lost his footing.

  “Hold the fucking line!” Erik set his feet. The ground underfoot was softer than he anticipated. The rest of the line stayed upright, bring Timber back on an even keel. Then Erik’s next step went into a hole.

  Timber yanked Erik up, bringing him above the surface, fluid streaming off his helmet and facemask. “Hole,” Erik explained.

  “You’re just too fucking short, runt.” Timber’s face showed the strain of holding Erik up.

  “What’s the fucking holdup!?” Mosan cut in.

  “Squad leader Erik, Kill-Sergeant!” Pikila yelled.

  “Trooper Erik, you get your short-ass over that river or I will personally strip you!”

  “Yes, Kill-Sergeant!” Erik reached out with one foot and probed the mud for purchase. Something curled around his ankle and jerked him off his feet.

  “Fuck!” The river went dark as Erik was dragged under. The pressure sensors in his leg armor gave feedback that told him he caught by something tentacle like. It ripped him from Timber’s grip and dragged him ten feet up the river in a single jerk.
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  “Erik’s go-!” The transmission cut off as another tentacle wrapped around Erik’s helmet, crushing the transmitter unit.

  His weapon wouldn’t fire underwater and he couldn’t see a target anyway. The suit included three knives in easily accessible sheaths. Erik grabbed one of them and stabbed at the point where the tentacle was squeezing his head. The knife point slid along the armored helmet and then cut through dense tissue. It felt like rubber, resistant to the honed blade at first and then parting under the cutting pressure.

  Another tentacle struck across the faceplate, sending Erik spinning in the current. Muted sounds of weapons fire burst through the water and then the tentacles withdrew. Erik struggled to find the right way up and crawled toward the bank.

  II

  The green-and-yellow mud was thick with grit. It scraped over Erik’s faceplate and filled his view as he crawled out of the river.

  Boots pounded past him, sinking deep in the mud. Weapons fire continued to burn the air and he heard the shriek of a trooper’s pressurized suit being punctured.

  Erik wiped the mud off his screen and regained his feet. The only sound was the ragged rasp of his own breathing and the muffled static of high-capacity weapons fire.

  He lifted his rifle and saw the surface of the river erupting with grey tentacles that lashed out at the troopers on the bank as they worked to pull the wounded out of the current.

  Erik joined the fight, going through the pre-fire checks of his weapon that they had drilled until he saw them in his sleep.

  Slapping the safety into the KILL position, he sighted down the scope and opened fire. The caseless rounds tore through the exposed flesh of the beast. It was the biggest thing Erik had ever seen, and he needed it to die. Splashing into the river, Erik advanced in line with the rest of the squad.