After several hours, the smooth van came to a halt. The doors swung open and two towering Highborn in powered battle armor gestured for them to hurry out. They did, forming two long lines around a parade ground as more vans disgorged their occupants. All of the recruits were Sydney slum-dwellers.
They were in the desert, several low-built concrete buildings around them. Barracks, no doubt. In all directions stretched a red sand desert. Here and there, gusts of wind stirred up sand. Marten noticed most of the recruits squinted at the harsh overhead sun just as he did. Most of them had probably never been in sunlight before. It was hot—nothing like being underground in carefully selected temperatures. Sweat prickled Marten’s underarms.
“This is great,” Turbo whispered, who tugged at an already damp collar.
With servos whining, the two Highborn clanked to the center of the parade ground as the convoy of empty vans roared away along the single ribbon of road. Marten figured that maybe six hundred other men stood under the sweltering sun. A squad of beefy Earth soldiers in combat vests and armed with machineguns jogged out of the nearest building onto the edge of the field.
“Regular men,” whispered Turbo. All around the field slum-dwellers whispered likewise.
“Silence!”
Everyone fell silent. One of the Highborn had spoken.
Finally, a huge man strode out of barracks. He had to be at least seven feet tall. He was shorter than the Highborn and not quite as muscled. He wore a black cap, uniform and combat boots, with a knife and pistol on a heavy belt. His face was hawkish, with a long, knife-like nose. He didn’t really walk, Marten decided, but strutted, knowing that he was putting on a show. There was something odd about his features; something twisted, out of kilter. Maybe it was his eyes, too focused, or the little superior grin that kept twitching into place.
He took his place in front of the squad of armed Earthlings. He clasped his hands behind his back and scanned the slum dwellers. There was some of that strange vitality to him that all Highborn seemed to have. Yet….
“Greetings, premen. I’m Captain Sigmir of Training Camp Ninety-three C. I will drill you into competent combat soldiers within six weeks or I’ll see you dead. On the seventh week, you will undoubtedly enter combat of the most ruthless sort. Whether I learn to like you or not is meaningless. You are in an army run by Highborn. I wish therefore to reassure you about nothing. What I will say now is perhaps the most important aspect of Highborn philosophy that you will ever learn,” he said, pausing to look at them all. “Remember this: Excellence brings rewards.”
Captain Sigmir paused as he inspected the recruits.
Marten noticed that twitching smile again, and the almost hungry way Captain Sigmir watched them. There was something strange going on here.
“Let me say again,” said Captain Sigmir: “Excellence brings rewards. In terms of your enlistment, the ability and willingness to kill the enemy is what counts. Little else matters. Neither the….” He seemed to choose his words with care. “Neither the ‘end product’ Highborn nor I care about your opinions. Think what you like, as long as you kill the enemy. As long as you are proficient at arms, as long as you obey orders on the instant, yes, then you may say or think what you like. Oh, but if you are not excellent, if you are not proficient at arms…”
Captain Sigmir shook his head. Then he removed his cap. He was bald, and an ugly, twisted red scar slashed across his upper forehead. He touched it.
“You notice this, I’m sure. I received it in combat. It killed me.” He laughed a little too shrilly as they stared and gaped. “Yes, yes, I assure you I died. Enemy shrapnel tore through my helmet and into my brain. Fortunately, I didn’t die on the instant. A fellow officer shot me full of Suspend. I’m sure you’ve heard how the Highborn are very careful to….” He laughed in that weird way again. “They call it revive, but really it’s resurrection from the dead. They fixed my brain as best as possible, restarted my body and—” He leered at them, his grin transfixed. “Here I am, alive again so I may fight again and possibly die again. My reflexes and thinking aren’t quite what they used to be, but who am I to complain? I assure you I’m not that sort of ingrate. Yes, I can still train. Thus, I am proficient at something. Thus, the superiors still give me rank as well as life. You too can gain rank by excellence. Now, an example is in order.”
Captain Sigmir put the cap back on and began to strut down the line of recruits. Most averted their gaze. A few dared look into his strange eyes, Marten being one of them. One fellow shivered in dreadful fear. The captain stopped in front of him.
“Show me your hand,” the captain said softly.
Trembling, the lad did. He was skinny and shallow-faced, with rounded shoulders.
“A nine,” said the captain. He tugged the lad with him into the center of the parade ground. Every eye was riveted upon them. The two armored Highborn clanked to the opposite end of the field as the squad of normal soldiers.
Captain Sigmir let go of the lad’s hand and took several steps away from him. “What is your name?”
“Logan,” whispered the lad.
“Say it louder!”
“L-Logan.”
Captain Sigmir nodded as he scanned the throng around him. The twitchy smile was now firmly in place. “Logan, do you know how to fight?”
The lad looked up at that. He was red-faced and obviously scared. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Good. I want you to defend yourself.”
“What?”
Captain Sigmir tossed his hat aside and unbuckled his belt, dropping his pistol and knife. “I said defend yourself.” He stepped toward the boy, towering over him.
Logan backed up, confused and more scared than ever, although he lifted his fists. Against the huge captain, it was a pitiful gesture.
“In this army, Logan, if you can’t fight then you’re worth nothing at all.”
Logan shook his head.
The captain shouted and kicked. His booted foot swept through Logan’s two fists to strike the center of his chest. Logan crashed to the ground. Captain Sigmir calmly walked to him and proceeded to kick young Logan to death. The boy tried to knock the iron-toed boots aside, until several of his teeth went flying. Then small Logan curled up into a fetal ball, whimpering and pleading through bloodied lips. Sweat glistened on Captain Sigmir’s face. His scar shone bright red, his strange eyes gleamed and a smile jumped into place every time his boot connected.
During the beating, several men in line grew very tense. One of them finally roared with rage and sprinted at Captain Sigmir, who had his back to the man while he kicked Logan across the side of the head. One of the Earth soldiers smoothly bent to one knee, lifted his carbine and fired a single shot. The enraged man grunted and slammed onto his back, his chest exploding in gore and blood.
Captain Sigmir didn’t bother turning around. Instead, he gave Logan a few more kicks until the frail boy relaxed onto his back, dead.
Two soldiers handed their carbines to another in the armed squad. Then they jogged to Captain Sigmir and saluted crisply. The captain nodded as he dabbed his face with a rag. He lifted an eyebrow as he saw the other dead man, but he made no comment. Each soldier grabbed a dead man by the feet and dragged them away.
The recruits, the majority of whom had grown tense, were clearly terrified of huge Captain Sigmir. They whispered their fear, eyeing the two armored Highborn and the watchful soldiers.
“He’s insane,” Stick hissed to Marten.
“Poor Logan,” whispered Turbo.
Marten noticed that Omi and Kang seemed unconcerned, almost as if they understood what had happened. A few others like them, hard-faced recruits, also watched impassively. Marten wondered if they too had once been gunmen like Omi. He shook his head. Here was the primary lesson. Killers ruled among the Highborn. Become excellent killers and they’d pat you on the back. Suddenly he wanted to be far away from here. But that wasn’t an option. He was trapped again. He felt that turmoil in his gut again. He
could sure use a bottle of synthahol.
Captain Sigmir tucked away his rag. “It may interest you to know that I originated from Lot Six. I was one of the experimental firsts. They called us beta Highborn. At the time, it was said that the eugenicists were quite pleased with their efforts. But….” Captain Sigmir glanced at the armored Highborn across the field. “Alas, beta is not superior. Still, a few of us are around; and now they’ve found a place for us—for us… misfits.” He peered at the two, nine-foot tall, armored Highborn. Then he shrugged and faced the men. “Perhaps I am not a superior, but here, as long as I produce well-trained recruits, I may indulge myself in life’s little pleasures. Providing, of course, I avoid unnecessary wastage.
“Now, let me assure you that poor young Logan would never have made a good soldier. His hand had been stamped a nine, the only nine among you, I might add. It meant that he was extremely passive with little to no cunning.” The captain shrugged. “What kind of soldier is passive and without cunning? A soon to be dead soldier. So you see that Logan would have been useless in combat terms. But he still provided use as an example. As such, let us remember Logan. Uselessness brings death. Excellence, well, it provides rank and higher training. Your training here will be hard. Many of you will die, never to rise again. My advice is to make certain you don’t become a useless Logan—or don’t lose your balance and attack a superior officer. That isn’t merely useless, that is rank insubordination. Death is the only reward for that sort of lunacy.
“Also, I wish to address one more issue before you’re assigned barracks. Each of you volunteered to the Free Earth Corps. Second thoughts are bad thoughts. The reason why, is that all volunteer lists are sent to the other side. Unfortunately for you, the leaders of Social Unity consider you traitors. The reason that is unfortunate is that should you be captured….” Captain Sigmir grinned. “Don’t allow yourself to be captured and don’t run to the other side. Torture is what you’ll receive. Believe me, I know, for I’ve seen what they did to my comrades. We overran the enemy holding pens where a few betas had been captured.” The captain shook his head.
“Ripped out balls was the least of it. So! Here you are. Here, as Free Earth Corps, you will live or die. Only victory brings rewards. Defeat…. That brings hideous death, if you’re not already dead by then. Thus, you must learn to fight. Fight, fight, fight, nothing else matters, men. You must learn to fight.”
11.
Marten knew this kind of exhaustion too well. It reminded him of the water tank in the Reform through Labor Auditorium. Pump, pump, pump or you die. But here they switched tasks on you with bewildering rapidity. Knife combat, running, rifle range firing, running, plasma cannon sighting, running, map reading, running, squad tactics to take a hill, running, squad tactics to take a trench line, running, squad tactics to breach a pillbox, running. Day or night, it didn’t matter. Stim-shots came constantly. And they ran and ran and ran.
True, he’d never eaten better than here. Muscles on his legs swelled, his already narrow waist became leaner. Run here, run there, it was endless. He sweated almost every minute of the day and drank water like an auto-digger after a long day of drilling. They never let you sleep long enough, either. Bugles blared you to the parade ground. A kick in the side brought you alert on a desert trek stop. More stims, more food, more training, on and on it went. He climbed ropes, rocks and trees and jumped out of buildings, choppers and moving tanks. He dug trenches, used grenades to blast holes into rock, bayoneted dummies and karate kicked three men into the infirmary. What made it worse was that glaring number two tattooed onto the back of his hand. They sweated him harder than most of the other recruits. They demanded he remember tactics, ploys, tricks and how to call down mortar, artillery and orbital fighter strikes. He could set a bone, start a fire with sticks, and poke out a man’s eye with a stiffened finger. Run, run, run, crawl under barbed wire, zigzag across a field as shock grenades blew. He didn’t dream anymore. The instant his head lay on anything he snored in a coma-like sleep. Catnaps became a way of life.
Some men mutinied. They died. One man foolishly attempted to kill Captain Sigmir. He died, too. A few tried trekking across the desert to anywhere but Training Camp Ninety-three-C. Marten led the unit chasing the deserters. Turbo, Stick, Omi and three other slum dwellers cradled laser rifles as they jogged after Marten. He wore the infrared goggles that saw the fleeing footprints as easily as if they’d been painted in red. Perspiration poured. Their brown uniforms were dark with sweat. Marten especially hated how damp his socks had become.
“Why couldn’t they have just cut their own throats,” Stick muttered as he wiped his forehead. “I’m dying out here.”
“Yeah,” Turbo complained, “my feet are blistering.”
Marten’s gut churned. They were remaking him as a killer. In Sydney, it had been different. They tried to bend you. A brave man could resist. Back at the Sun Works, he’d only used a tangler, although his father had killed. Disobey a combat order here and you died.
The Highborn had lied, he decided. Sure, you could say what you wanted, and that was different than it was in Social Unity. But now he was becoming like Ngo Drang the red-suit, the personal butcher of Major Orlov. His gut churned and roiled. The Highborn had him trained like a good little boy. It was more blatant and subtler all at once.
Marten licked his lips, and he veered from the tracks.
“No!” came over the voice-link clipped to his ear. “Follow the track and slay the deserters or you will all be marked as AWOL and immediately eliminated.”
Marten glanced back. Omi and the others didn’t have the voice-link. But they would be killed just the same. Sure, they had these lasers. They’d all been shown how useless they were against battle armor.
“Warning number two has now been issued,” came over the voice-link.
Warning number three would be auto-cannon fire in their backs. Cursing under his breath, Marten veered back onto the track.
“What’s wrong with these guys?” asked Stick. “Are they drunk?”
Omi jogged faster until he was even with Marten.
“They earned this,” the ex-gunman said. “They knew the rules and they broke them.”
“Yeah?” asked Marten.
“Do not throw our lives away,” Omi said.
“Don’t worry.”
“Ah, you’re correct,” Omi said, as he spotted the fugitives.
Omi barked a command. The ragged hunters, with sweat pouring off them, their chests heaving, halted. One by one, they lifted their laser rifles.
“Do it,” Omi hissed at Marten.
Reluctantly Marten lifted his. He saw the four running shapes in his scope. His knuckles tightened. A harsh red beam stabbed across the desert. The others fired, and the beams touched the deserters. The four fell onto the sand, dead.
That’s how the days went. But not all of the training was practice. They also taught Marten a little theory. He found out why all the volunteer slum dwellers had been packed into the same camp, why Ball Busters, Kwon’s Gang and Red Blades went into platoons of their own kind. Men fought better with their buddies, with other men who knew and cared if they turned coward or not. No one loved the Highborn, but you might stick around and fight when things really got hot if it was your buddies who were on the line. So he, Stick, Omi and Turbo were left together. Nor were his exploits in the deep-core mine overlooked. It was one of the reasons they pumped him full of combat information. And made him an offer.
It happened on the desert target range, during mortar fire training. Captain Sigmir adjusted his scanscope as he looked into the distance.
Marten and his squad waited by their three mortars, two men to each. Marten stood behind them watching, correcting and calling ranges.
In the distance appeared three puffs of smoke, seconds later the sounds of their dull thuds reached them.
“Excellent!” said the captain. “Direct hit, direct hit, eighty-nine percent nearness. The best score so far.”
“Pack up,” Marten told his squad.
Efficiently, his squad dismantled the mortars, tube to one man, the tripod and base to another. Then they waited for directions. They didn’t wait standing at rigid attention, but slouched here or crouched on the ground over there.
Captain Sigmir looked up from his watch. “Marvelous. Marten, walk with me.”
Marten fell one step behind as the captain strode into the desert. Training Camp Ninety-three-C lay beyond the horizon in the other direction. Overhead the sun beat down, but Marten no longer noticed the heat—it had been five weeks since induction. He wore rumpled brown combat fatigues and well-worn boots, a helmet, a vibroknife and a simulation pistol. Spit and polish and other parade ground fetishes mattered not at all to the Highborn or to the drill instructors. The only questions that mattered were could you kill and how fast?
“Walk with me, Marten.”
Marten jogged beside the massive captain, trying to match his long strides. Perhaps the captain was a beta, much smaller than the superior Highborn, but compared to a normal man Captain Sigmir was still a giant.
“Your squads always perform well.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yet…. There is a lack in you, Marten.”
He said nothing to that.
“There, that’s exactly what I mean.”
“Sir?”
“You’re a brooder.”
“Yes, sir.”
“More than that, you’re a loner.”
The five weeks of training had taught Marten one thing, to control his temper, the rage that boiled within him, even as his sense of despair increased. He hated Captain Sigmir, but he felt he masked it so no one knew.
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