by Scott Moon
“TRAVELING on a transport ship will feel natural after you have done it about a hundred times. Until then, use the puke catchers early and often. Here is a pro tip; don’t inhale when you open the lid the second time and for God’s sake don’t share,” Priest said as SMC Training Shuttle 003240 delivered Kevin and his friends to the transport ship.
He wanted to remember the experience despite the misery. “We are in space.”
Sitting on his right, Joii said, “Don’t remind me.”
On his left, Foster said, “Yeah, thanks.” He unscrewed his Reusable Vomit Receptacle, or RVR, and tried several times not to make a deposit — an effort that failed. Most of the RVR “puke catchers” were in serious use. Kevin’s stomach tightened, loosened, and trembled, but the feeling wasn’t nausea — more like a general muscle weakness and close cousin to dizziness.
“You may have the worst headaches I’ve seen, but at least you are spared this hell,” Foster said as he wiped the corners of his mouth with his fingertips.
Kevin looked at Joii, who was pale but still in charge of her stomach. “I heard training starts immediately.”
“For the love of God and marine commandants, couldn’t they let us get our space legs?” Chaf asked.
Priest walked down the center aisle at that moment. “You need to be ready for action no matter how you feel. Someday, an ultra high-altitude insertion will test you in every possible way.”
“We can’t all be Recon,” a private behind Kevin said.
Priest looked over Kevin’s head, then made eye contact with Kevin as he spoke to the unnamed pessimist. “You won’t make it to Recon. Not with that attitude.” He continued his patrol of the shuttle.
“What the hell does that mean?” Kevin asked his friends.
Joii reached through the armrest and held his hand.
“Don’t worry about it,” Foster said. “He was talking to Sammy behind you.”
“I don’t want to be Recon,” Sammy said. “Look at Lieutenant Lacy. She got her face split by a Void Troll.”
“That’s a rumor,” Foster said. “Don’t talk about it like you know for sure or you will get a private meeting with the company commander.”
“Says the voice of experience,” Joii said.
The shuttle arrived at the UNAS Courageous Roger. A petty officer instructed them on the use of their gravity-normalized quarters, then advised them to sleep for as much of the short trip to Station 89 as possible.
“AIT is on a station?” Kevin asked.
The petty officer looked at him with unexplained malice. “Part of AIT is traveling to distant worlds. You will make several runs to Glendale General Purpose World and the Glendale Combat Training Moon during your time with us. Get used to it.”
KEVIN slept, oddly at peace with the violence of his dreams as though he was the master and not the slave of the chaotic images. The sensation should have been a relief. He awoke feeling less human, like a killing god who annihilated unbelievers. These types of sleep visions were rare, coming once before puberty and once before manhood — more or less.
He put on the SMC Training and Travel jumpsuit, reading the instructions from the wall-screen for each movement. He wasn’t the only one. If Priest had conveyed one message during the SMC travel indoctrination, it was that there was absolutely no room for error with the void of space desiring to freeze and rapidly decompress the blood of careless marines.
Sound boomed around the small, four-person bunkroom. Foster, Chaf, and a kid who transferred from 8972 to 8970 right before weapons qualifications, Blake Edwards, shared the room. Kevin didn’t understand why everyone had to be so loud and said so.
“The ship’s air pressure is out of whack, or maybe it is the gravity normalizer that messes with air pressure. In space, there’s no sound at all, so just be glad you can hear the smooth sounds of my voice,” Foster said.
Edwards laughed too hard.
Kevin, Foster, and Chaf looked at him.
Edwards switched to his nervous laugh that came through his nose and ended with an apology.
“It’s all right, Blake. Foster is a funny guy,” Chaf said.
The door to their room slid open and thudded into the wall with a satisfying sound. From the hallway, Priest and Starship Navy Corps Petty Officer 3rd Class Netanel Moshe called marines out of their bunkrooms.
“Lesson one from Captain Moresby, you marines. Fire drill,” Moshe called in his young voice. “This section will be void of atmosphere in five minutes. Follow the lights to the emergency void suit bunker. Follow the instructions of your petty officer. One of you will wear your emergency void suit incorrectly and die.”
“This is a live drill?” Foster asked. “The first time is for real?”
Kevin didn’t like the sound in his friend’s voice. He had the sinking feeling Foster would be the one needing rescue by the navy corpsmen.
Chaf looked nervous as he fumbled with his T&T jumpsuit as they all hurried down the hallway.
Nothing felt real. Everything happened too fast.
“Welcome to the fog of war, part one,” Priest said to a group of SMC privates hesitating at an intersection despite the guide lights.
“This doesn’t look like the right way,” Joii said.
“Follow the guide-lights!” Moshe boomed, his youthful stature producing a surprising command voice. “Two minutes.”
Joii, at the head of the swarm now, hesitated, then sprinted after the lights that turned off as they traveled rather than leave a permanent path to follow.
“There is no way this is a live exercise,” Foster panted as he ran.
Kevin looked back and did not like the grim expression on Priest’s face. He focused on catching Joii and not tripping over his fellow marines. “Act like it is. This isn’t basic training anymore.”
The scene became as jumbled as the worst moments waking from a nightmare. He could see, hear, and feel everything but control nothing as he moved through the motions.
Huge numbers counted down from sixty on the wall above the emergency void suit bunker door. Fire blackened the hallway, shooting through the gap as the door slammed shut. The air was a red and gold demon that expanded like a sun going nova.
“That’s fire!” Foster screamed, voice cracking and vanishing as he slammed his helmet visor shut.
“It’s the Dream-rider!” Joii’s voice was so full of primal fear that Kevin didn’t believe she knew what she was saying or doing.
He shot an accusing look at Priest, who was already in his suit. Moshe was geared up as well. During basic training, the instructors rarely wore the same protective equipment as the recruits.
Closing his visor and checking the heads-up display as instructed, he looked for others who weren’t figuring it out, the sound of Joii gone now behind her determined cursing as she clawed her way free of the daymare.
Something changed outside of Kevin’s suit.
Fire vanished as atmosphere was sucked through vents to the void. He magnetized his boots right before the hurricane force wind grabbed him.
Joii and Foster flew across the room lit by emergency lights and vanishing flames.
Priest lunged for them, boots slowing his movements.
Moshe caught Foster by a boot heel and hauled him to the floor.
By instinct, Kevin thought the blast of atmosphere would be temporary and had to be nearly over, so he deactivated his magnetized boots and jumped for Joii, clueless as to what good this would do anyone.
“Dream-rider… mercy…”
Joii slammed into the wall with the force of a cannon ball.
When Kevin struck with less force due to the angle of his dive, his faceplate cracked. He fell sideways, unable to control his movements. Priest, Moshe, corpsmen, and SMC military police swarmed the disaster scene. His vision was blurry and confused until Priest led him out of the void suit bunker.
Captain Moresby stood motionless in the center of the carnage, watching with gauntleted fists on hips. “Goddamn
marines.”
17
The Pact
TOO stunned to be angry, Kevin allowed Priest to lead him forward. Hallways on board the UNAS Courageous Roger were wider and taller than the shuttle that first took AIT 8970 into space. Every few steps, he looked at the blood on his gloves, then for something else to focus on. The image of Captain Moresby standing motionless bothered him for reasons he didn’t understand.
Bulkheads were thick and ominous. Lights were too bright, but a voice in his head promised they would fail, leaving everyone in blackness. The floor shifted. He staggered. Priest took him by the arm and pressed him toward a wall to keep him from falling again.
“This isn’t your fault,” Priest said. “You almost saved her.”
Kevin shoved Priest, growling because words refused to come. He turned in the hallway with his red painted gauntlets balled up to fight an enemy that didn’t exist. “I don’t know where to go!”
Priest approached, offered a hand in peace, then took him once more by the arm. “We are going to the medical bay.”
“I’m not the one who got hurt. Why can’t we do something?” Kevin tried to sit down.
Priest pulled him halfway to his feet and gave up, standing over him for a minute, then sitting beside him. Neither spoke as Kevin cried into his bloody palms for several minutes.
“Space is dangerous for humans, even with our machines. Especially with our machines. Joii panicked. Her suit tore, but it was the impact that killed her. There was nothing you could have done.”
“She didn’t panic,” Kevin said, afraid to explain the nightmares that plagued her. He could not stop thinking about what she said and how it had been senseless but familiar to him.
“She was screaming. People don’t scream like that in training,” Priest said.
Kevin studied the SMC veteran, wondering if he could trust the man, fearing accusations of insanity and removal from AIT training. He didn’t want to be recycled to non-military service. That wouldn’t honor his grandfather and would never earn him the travel privileges he would need to search for Ace and Amanda.
“I know about her tattoo,” Priest said. “I heard you two talking after your first day at the range. You said it reminded you of your little brother Ace.”
Kevin held his mouth closed and didn’t make eye contact. He studied the floor where it met the wall.
“I should have separated you two. Relationships are common, but I should have seen what was wrong with her,” Priest said.
Kevin yanked his gaze toward Priest and stared. “What was wrong with her?”
“Don’t take it personal. I wasn’t judging. Listen, Kevin, there is something wrong with all of us.” He paused, looking up and down the hallway as a matter of habit. “She wasn’t here to fight. She was running from something or someone.”
Cold blood pumped through Kevin’s spine. He hated the tears returning to his eyes as he tried to remember Joii’s last words. “I should have done something.”
“Like what?”
“Help her with her void suit before I did mine.”
“Then you’d be dead.”
Kevin pounded his legs with his fists. “Why wasn’t there a practice drill first?”
“That isn’t the way the Navy does things.”
Kevin cursed.
“They want to screen out anyone who will panic before the voyage starts. One person can doom an entire ship. Then everyone dies.”
Kevin covered his eyes with his both hands and tried to breathe right.
THREE days later, men and women of the SMC and SNC gathered in the shuttle hangar for Joii’s funeral. Kevin remembered the ceremony but didn’t want to think about it. Everyone he cared about left or died. Or was stolen.
Internal rage consumed him as he wandered back to his quarters and sat alone for the first time in what felt like ages. Foster and the others checked on him, but left after he claimed he was all right. Priest came and stayed a long time without speaking.
Kevin felt stupid and selfish — and angry that he felt stupid and selfish. Priest had seen a lot of his friends die. Probably he had lost loved ones — a wife or girlfriend or something. Kevin didn’t ask and Priest didn’t talk.
The training cycle allowed him a full hour to grieve and then he went back to work.
“I still think the Navy pukes are crazy,” Kevin said to Foster as they moved storage crates from one storage berth to another.
“No argument there,” Foster said without his usual banter.
“You bastards better start acting normal. Stop tip-toeing around me,” Kevin said. He handed a crate to Chaf, who passed it to Edwards. “Priest explained why they do it, but I still think it is reckless and unnecessary.”
“I doubt you are the first person to think that,” Foster said, voice nearly emotionless.
“What is your problem, Foster?” Kevin asked.
“I almost died,” Foster said.
“Joii did die.”
“I know.”
“I heard we will be training on a planet soon,” Edwards said. “The Glendale Combat Training Moon, actually.”
“Shut up, Edwards,” Kevin, Foster, and Chaf said in unison.
Priest stepped into the hallway that served the storage area. “Prepare for darkness. Training scenario 039 is loss of visual input.”
No one acknowledged the order. Kevin flipped up the hood visor of his T&T jumpsuit and activated night vision and sonar displays.
“Don’t bother with the night vision. There won’t be any light to enhance,” Priest said as he left.
The lights went out.
“This is going to take a lot longer,” Chaf said.
“Damn, because I was planning to go on a bike ride and maybe head to the pool for a few hours,” Foster said.
An eternity later, Kevin’s fire team re-joined AIT 8970, which was now part of 1st Platoon, Zulu Training Company in the cafeteria. Aluminum tables and benches lined the walls of what felt like a converted hallway around the exterior of the ship. They ate in silence.
Marauder veterans led by Lieutenant Natalia Lacy walked down the narrow center aisle. Everyone stopped talking, stopped eating, and stared.
Lacy’s horizontal mass of scars drew a line across her face that made it seem her head had once opened on an impossibly aggressive hinge just above her teeth. There were patches of perfect skin elsewhere on her face, but the area round her left eye was a tangled mess — not swollen and puffy like an untreated injury, but like a pale tattoo on pale skin. To a lesser extent, the wing shaped marks spread from both eyes, disappearing into her hairline. Her blond hair was braided tight but remained thick and somehow luxuriant.
From head to toe, she was the most beautiful woman any of them had ever seen, except for her battle damage. She moved with complete confidence in her profession and her femininity, exuding an almost magical command presence. The platoon commander had been the subject of countless conversations and speculation since BTF 029.
Walking behind her was Francis “Frenchie” Waldon; head too big, thick blond hair just like the lieutenant’s except buzzed down to a flattop, and massive shoulders. His long, delicate fingers moved near his legs as he walked and looked bored.
Next came a civilian Kevin had never seen followed by several other Marauder Recon veterans. The group walked around the corner and out of sight to find a place to eat.
“We are going to be Marauder Recon,” Foster said.
Kevin looked at his friend, glad to see light in his eyes again.
“Everyone but Edwards,” Chaf said.
“Screw you guys. I’ll be Recon too.”
“Sure thing, Eddie,” Kevin said.
“My name is Blake.”
“Peter Foster; glad to meet you, Eddie.” Foster put forth his hand, shaking vigorously when their hands connected.
“Call me Blake.”
“Sure thing, Eddie. Will do,” Kevin, Foster, and Chaf said at the same time.
“You guys ar
e assholes,” Edwards said through his smile.
“Let’s make a pact to honor Joii,” Foster said. “All of us make it to Recon or none of us make it to Recon. That includes you, Blake Eddie Edwards.”
Kevin missed Joii like she had been part of his body. The warm feeling of this new camaraderie both warmed and eased the pain of her loss.
The public address system in the mess hall sounded a gentle admonishment that mealtime was over and other people needed to eat. Kevin left with the strange taste of ship food in his mouth and proceeded to Briefing Room 7A for the afternoon assignment. When everyone was packed onto the cramped benches facing the overhead screens and scowling officers, the lights brightened.
Lieutenant Lacy stepped forward of the other platoon commanders. “Today is a skill test, has to be done. In light of what happened during our first fire drill, Captain Moresby has authorized me to slow roll this one, but the final test in this area will be under simulated combat conditions. Let’s review the procedure for 1) fire drills, 2) void suit acquisition, 3) ship decompression, 4) communication and teamwork.”
Everyone paid silent attention. The drill went flawlessly to completion. Simulated combat conditions were anticlimactic after everything that had happened. Kevin moved through each stage in a slight daze.
18
Training with Frenchie
“CAN anyone of you green beans explain what I did to deserve this assignment?” Frenchie said as he addressed 1st Platoon, Zulu Training Company.
“Your fake accent is terrible,” Foster said.
Frenchie moved close to Foster and stared downward. “I am not your platoon leader or your mother, so I don’t care if you live or die.”
“Maybe you should rethink that monologue,” Chaf said. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense, considering your last lecture on never leaving a marine behind.”
Frenchie looked back across the bay to Lacy and Priest.
Lacy, arms crossed, shrugged and smiled. The effect was both endearing and gruesome. “He may have a point.”
“For the love of God, Lt, these newbies are cocky,” Frenchie said.
