Baylen had been pulled from the SIC last week, a deficit in operational personnel in the FIC having apparently been discovered, and they were once again stuck with Ian as liaison between the instructors and their cadets. Morale had subsequently taken a nosedive. Ray hadn’t been helping things either. His father’s life had been extinguished in the second strike and the cadet’s once-entertaining tantrums had begun to take on a much nastier tone.
His performance in the sims, however, had suffered dramatic improvement.
Despite the brutal increase in the training load, the platoon was still only expected to graduate in the eve of September. The mid-course break had unsurprisingly been cancelled, but there appeared to be no wish from the brass to commit cadets to a fight before full qualification. Toni felt both relieved and annoyed by the decision, although Ray had been furious when the platoon was informed. He had since had a look in his eyes that kept most cadets clear of his path, although Toni still counted him as a friend and therefore listened patiently to the cadet’s vengeful monologues.
“Cadets, time to get up!” Toni suddenly heard someone say.
He turned his throbbing head slowly, feeling every muscle in his neck strain as he did so. An already uniformed Ian stood beside his bed as if expecting his comrades to leap up eagerly from theirs. A few well-deployed blankets ensured that it was still quite dark, but Toni didn’t need the light to know that Ian’s boots were already shining.
Backside-kissing fire-stomper, he thought tiredly, and he wondered whether he should inform medical of his persistent headaches.
All cadets remained where they were. Ian realized that no one was going to move in the predictable future and finally gave up, exiting the casern quietly without a backward glance. Toni suspected the special one was about to inform on them, but he couldn’t have cared less; a day off was a day off in his book, and he was not alone in the thought.
“You guys thinking what I’m thinking?” Gordie croaked out loud. There were several answering grunts.
“If the Special One gives me grief today, I’m gonna fuck him up.” He declared throatily.
“About time.” Someone groaned.
“Make it count.” Someone else added supportively, and similar remarks made themselves heard over the following minutes.
“Choose the time and place carefully, mate ...” was about all Toni could say. There were several agreeing grunts to the somewhat obvious suggestion.
And just like that, Ian Templeton had once again been promoted to target status. There was no need for deep discussion among them; he had simply pissed off too many people too many times for a cadet to be willing to speak in his defense. Comforted by the prospect of justice, Toni found himself drifting towards sleep again.
The lunch-horn rudely woke him.
He had managed to fall deeply asleep, and time must certainly have flown by over the course of his slumber. Glancing at the wall-clock, he found both hands pointing to the number twelve. Surprisingly, Toni didn’t feel hungry in the least, and even Gordie complained that he could have waited another hour or two before stuffing his face. The shift officer might have something to say to that, however, and so all reluctantly left their beds, some complaining loudly over the assortment of injuries they possessed.
There was little time. Within fifteen minutes the platoon would be expected to form up before the canteen, and so there was a hurried rush to the lavatories at the casern’s opposite end, although not without the customary laughing and pushing that normally accompanied the trip. Thirteen brief minutes later, the platoon’s male elements exited their casern at a swift jog and coursed towards the canteen. Something struck Toni as quite odd as he ran; no other platoons or companies were yet formed up inside the bright yellow rectangle at the canteen’s entrance, where a single blonde cadet awaited their arrival. He also noticed that the few observable soldiers remained at their own caserns’ entrances, some clearly showing surprise as they observed the cadets’ progress.
The inertia of habit causing them to continue, the platoon formed up hastily as a beefy shift officer and his sergeant-at-arms joined them from the canteen’s interior. Toni made no effort to remember their names.
“Well, well, just look at all those slumberous faces ...” the captain remarked with a smirk. He then turned towards Ian.
“Cadet, why are there five holes in the ranks?”
The cadet stood at attention and answered.
“Sir, there are only three missing cadets, the others have walked, sir.”
“I see, but where are –” the captain began, but then something at the parade’s opposite side caught his eye. His hardening features gave Toni the feeling the officer had just caught sight of the missing cadets.
Soldiers snorted and laughed as the three femmes crossed the parade at a run. Each requested permission to join the ranks and hastily fell in, Rakaia occupying the empty space before Toni. As he waited for the storm to break, Toni glimpsed the sweaty outline of the Terminator’s neck and wondered briefly whether she had ever been kissed there.
“I patiently await the inadequate excuse for your tardiness. Please take your time.” The captain declared, a sardonic smile tugging at the corners of his almost lipless mouth. Rakaia snapped to attention.
“Captain, sir. We, um, had pressing sanitation issues to take care of, sir,” she answered, earning a quick grin from the officer’s stocky sidekick. The captain appeared unmoved by the explanation.
“I care not about the current state of your menstrual cycle, cadets! There is no justification for such a delay. This platoon is already well into its basic training, and we’re still seeing day-one fuckups here! I have been told your sergeant ordered you to get your rears out of bed over an hour ago. Isn’t that correct? This is so far beyond disrespect, it borders on insubordination!” The captain roared.
A few silent moments passed by and the officer slowly regained his color, having apparently reached some sort of decision.
“Alright, so be it. I’d been pondering a simple chewing out and dismissal, but it seems we will be requiring more drastic correctives. This platoon will remain formed up until the lunch hour arrives. If in the meantime I happen to observe a single cadet twitch in formation, you’ll be spending the remainder of the afternoon in formation as well. That clear?” He finished, flashing them a vicious grin before about-facing and returning to the canteen’s cool interior with confident strides.
There was silence as all digested what had just been said. Toni required no explanation; only Ian was permitted to carry a watch, and the caserns’ wall-clocks were regulated by the shift officer from his office. He wondered idly what time it really was, and whether the stunt had been Ian’s idea or the captain’s.
In truth, it did not matter who the mastermind was. As the volume of whispering began to swell, all eyes became fixed on the blonde cadet standing rigidly at ease before them. Ian’s expression hadn’t changed over the last few minutes, but his eyes occasionally darted towards the cadets standing at ease before him. What he saw there probably didn’t please him, and instead he began to stare long and hard into the void directly over their heads.
The whispers died down after a while and the cadets settled in for the wait until the lunch horn, the sun slowly baking Toni’s ebony cap until he began to feel light-headed. He could usually bank on his unstoppable train-of-thought to entertain him in times like those, but today was a different matter. His body was in such discomfort that he couldn’t focus on anything but the pain, nor could he manage to keep from staring at Ian’s pale throat and imagining his hands wrapped around it.
After a while, base personnel began to loiter beneath the canteen building’s shadowy overhang, curious at the collection of cadets who were suffering under the blood-red sun. Through his discomfort, Toni noticed that a few had huddled together and were talking excitedly amongst themselves, and he saw several credit-notes passed between hands.
Toni suddenly felt himself sway and quickly righted
himself, and there was a sudden flurry of excitement among the huddle of nearby soldiers. That was all he needed to know what they were betting on.
As the platoon’s discomfort began to peak, Toni once again heard dire mutterings from the cadets around him. Ray’s voice was particularly prolific among the renewed threats and insults being hissed at Ian. He remained quiet, however, preferring instead to focus his attention on the canteen door in case the captain were to make an unexpected appearance. Gordie was making a particularly nasty remark about Ian’s lineage when they heard a throat clearing noisily behind them.
“So this is how we treat each other when the brass isn’t looking, huh?” A familiar voice remarked, “It seems we must inform the platoon commander his lessons of unity are failing, mustn’t we?”
The captain slowly stepped around the platoon from behind their formation, his boots beating a slow and steady cadence against the concrete parade ground until he stood before them once more, smiling at their steadily reddening faces. Despite his embarrassment, Toni was quite impressed at the subterfuge. Impressed enough to take a brief glance at his nametag. ALBINO O -, it proudly declared.
Captain Albino had probably left the canteen’s rear entrance and circled around unnoticed between the double-rank of buildings that flanked the parade ground. The captain huffed indignantly, but didn’t waste his time with another scolding.
“As soon as each cadet has had his meal, this platoon is to form up once more. And it will remain in formation for the ‘noon until it has become clear to me that you all understand the error of your ways. Are we clear?” He demanded, waiting for an answer that was reluctant to come.
“I SAID ARE WE CLEAR?” He bellowed. The answering affirmative was loud and angry.
“Good ...” he breathed, and promptly exchanged their company for the relatively cool canteen.
It was three quarters past infinity and Toni’s feet were numb when the proper lunch-horn finally sounded.
There was a smattering of applause from the base personnel as they quickly formed up as well, not to mention a few disappointed faces, perhaps because no member of Toni’s platoon had managed to face-plank into the parade ground.
Serves the bastards right, he thought as the captain took his place before the soldiers to receive them.
Lunch was a silent, tense and all-too-brief affair, and before they knew it the platoon was once again formed up on the ground for the remainder of the afternoon. The day loomed long before them.
It was Toni who came up with the idea. The “Sweet Laurinda” marching song was one that all had become quite familiar with; the LT had made sure of that over the last few months. If the song was sung at its intended tempo, from its first “O sweet Laurinda” to its last “bare your thighs once more”, approximately two minutes would have passed by. The idea was simple enough, and was quietly agreed upon by all members of the platoon (sans Ian) as they stood in formation; when the end-of-lunch horn resounded, the cadet to the front and left side of the formation would sing the marching song in his head until the last verse, which would be sung under his breath, thus signaling the cadet beside him to take up the tune. Once the song had made a full circuit in the formed platoon, they would by then know that about twenty six minutes had elapsed, thus providing them with a reliable measuring stick of time. A quick calculation also made it clear that each cadet would have to sing the “Sweet Laurinda” eight times before they could reasonably expect dismissal.
Toni had prepared for the afternoon in other ways, swiping several packets of sugar and stashing them in his left breast pocket, and loosening his boots so as to provide more irrigation to his feet. It hadn’t been enough. By his second Sweet Laurinda, Toni’s toes were tingling.
“Bare your thighs once more ...” Rakaia breathed tonelessly before him.
The last verse had long ceased to have entertainment value, although Toni would still hear an occasional snort when one of the femmes sang it aloud. He began to carry the tune in his head for the third time, well aware that that meant over an hour had elapsed. As the song approached the part where the departing soldier made indecent proposals to his fair neighbor, Rakaia suddenly began to sway dangerously.
“Knee to the ground, Tani,” Toni whispered urgently before continuing the song in his head, finding it odd that she was showing fatigue after only one standing hour.
“Kaia, put your knee down!” He heard Hannah whisper more forcefully from his left. As the tallest of the three femmes, she was situated in the same rank as Toni, allowing her to see the same thing he did.
“Silence in the ranks!” Ian snapped.
“Shut it, ya peacock!” Ray snapped back to the amusement of his comrades.
There was a sudden intake of breath from Hannah and Toni barely had time to snatch a handful of Rakaia’s uniform; she had begun to swing forward in a classic planking maneuver. Instead she crumpled to the ground like an inanimate puppet.
There was no need for drama. Hannah calmly broke rank to assist her prone comrade as Toni returned to his at ease position. He glanced expectantly at Ian, who didn’t seem too thrilled at the turn of events but had returned to his quiet contemplation of the void above.
“Yo, master and commander. Why don’t you make yourself useful and inform the brass about Tani?” Toni finally demanded. Ian stood where he was for a full minute before reluctantly abandoning formation in search of the shift officer.
The day was a whore, however, and it had only just begun to screw them.
Hirum went down in the sixth Sweet Laurinda. It was an unexpected event, and there had been nothing to warn of it. Toni had been resting his eyelids, a most risky endeavor under the circumstances, when he heard a heavy thump. Had Hirum been any taller than he was, he would have been luckier. Being, however, of shorter constitution than even Rakaia, he had found himself in the first rank and with no one in front of him to break his fall. He performed a ten-point face-plank against the concrete ground, knocking himself out in the process.
The unconscious cadet was carried away shortly afterwards by the shift orderlies, both of whom had been loitering nearby as if expecting another collapse. One of them whispered softly to Gordie before leaving with his new charge. Before a minute had passed, Hannah was whispering the news to Toni.
“Orderly said for us to stop being so damn proud and put a knee to the ground if we’re feeling sick. Otherwise they won’t know there’s something wrong until someone hits the concrete. He’s also saying that Rakaia’s anemic.”
“What? Why?” Toni asked, mystified as to how an illness had slipped through Medical’s fingers.
Hannah shook her head and face forwards with a mysterious smile on her face, leaving Toni to ponder on the matter. He whispered the message to the cadet behind him, getting the same question asked in return. He shrugged his answer.
They were well into their ninth Sweet Laurinda, and Toni had begun to suspect they were singing it too fast, when they were once again visited by the shift officer. The captain gave the platoon a hard look and then chewed their ears out for good measure, before promptly dismissing the cadets for the remainder of the day.
Ian made it easy for Gordie by making his way directly back to the casern. He was followed by the entire platoon.
Toni hurried to keep up beside Gordie who, despite being a first ranker in formation himself, was maintaining a respectful pace for one with such short legs.
“Gordie, you thinking about doing it now?” He asked. The cadet didn’t deign to turn his head at the question.
“Yeah, Gordie, Gordie, let’s take him out, yeah,” Ray blustered on Gordie’s other side, smacking his fist into his palm like a prizefighter.
“He’s mine ...” was all the answer they got from him. His tone was soft, but it brooked no argument. The last few meters were crossed in silence.
Hannah and Sueli, in direct violation of base policy, entered the compartment with the rest of them. The group found Ian standing beside his bed as if awai
ting their arrival, and they remained at the entrance as Gordie approached their senior.
It was strange to Toni, watching the two as they spoke in voices too low for them to hear. Anyone unfamiliar with the pair would have been forgiven for believing that they were two friends in conversation, as outwardly pacific as the exchange appeared to be. Only Ian’s last remark, clearly audible to all those present, was enough to break the illusion.
“– in any case you might want to remember what happened to the whiner, right, chum?”
At the last word, Gordie bunched himself together with a snap and then ploughed both fists into Ian’s torso, driving the cadet back with enough force to lift his feet off the ground and slam him with a deafening clang into an open locker. Hands hurried to close the compartment doors before anyone heard the ruckus.
Gordie’s charge had managed to fit Ian neatly inside his own locker, with only his boots still sticking out. Gordie then began to rain right-handed blows into the locker’s interior, each shaking the metal structure more loudly than the one before. A boot suddenly connected with Gordie’s pelvis and he slide back a couple of meters over the polished floor. The locker then tipped brusquely forwards, lifted up and was then thrown towards him, clothes, books, snacks and a host of unidentified articles flying through the air, colliding against the muscle-bound cadet with a thunderclap. Ian then counterattacked, kicking his adversary viciously in his middle, and then he grabbed a hold of his head as it dipped low and began to repeatedly knee his torso, a mask of rage fixed on his bloodied face. He got as far as two knees before Gordie clamped onto his leg.
Descent into Mayhem (Capicua Chronicles Book 1) Page 18
