by Chris Bunch
“What’s that?”
“You must’ve come from a pretty decent world,” Dill said. “A lot of Confederation planets use that as a last resort for crooks. Three times, and they put a little voice in your head telling you what you can and can’t do. Nasty shit.”
“Where I was,” Garvin said, “when I enlisted, they didn’t do anything like that. Just shot you for any serious offense.”
“Humanitarians, every one,” Dill agreed. “Now quit lazin’ about and get your ass out on detail. We’re gonna do some real soldiering and give the caud’s lawn a haircut.”
• • •
“Recruit Yoshitaro,” Monique Lir shouted an inch from Njangu’s ear, “that log isn’t heavy, is it?”
“NO, DEC.”
“It’s your favorite toy, isn’t it, Recruit Yoshitaro?”
“YES, DEC!”
“Thought so. Squad … on the count of three, switch shoulders … one, two, THREE!”
In unison the five trainees lifted the eight foot long chunk of wood from their left shoulder to the right.
“Sloppy, very sloppy,” Lir shouted. “Prepare to ground log, on the count of three … one, two, THREE.”
The chunk of wood thudded to the ground.
“Squad, ten-hut! Three deep breaths, in unison …”
Yoshitaro sucked air, tried to blink sweat from his eyes. He’d never hurt so bad in his entire life, not from his father’s beatings, not from anything from the police. Why he didn’t tell Lir to shove it and go find a place in a rifle company was beyond him.
Possibly, he thought, pure terror from what the drill instructor would do to me if I even thought of quitting.
He might’ve considered Lir beautiful on meeting, but now she was a slavering demon from the worst pits of a hell he hadn’t believed in until recently. As for bee-kissed, he hoped the mythical bee was about the size of a Grierson, and would come back for a return bout soon.
“Are we happy, squad?” Lir bellowed.
“YES, DEC.”
Njangu wondered how the other four in the team had managed to survive two weeks of torment before he got there. D-Cumbre natives must be tougher than they looked. Three days into this degradation, he knew little more about them than their names and what they’d done before. By the time Lir allowed them to crawl into the tents they slept in, across the street from the barracks Njangu now thought more palatial than any luxury hotel he’d ever burgled, there wasn’t much inclination for idle chitchat.
Hank Faull was a former ’Raum, one of the miner/cultists Petr had told him about, seventeen, eighteen hundred years ago on the Malvern, when he didn’t hurt all the time everywhere. But so far Faull hadn’t proselytized, hadn’t said much outside duty requirements other than when he showed Yoshitaro how to pitch his shelter, and told him not to worry, that Lir would certainly kill them all in the next few days and they could relax while the last rites were being read. None of the body-wrenching workouts Lir put them through, from the calisthenics before the sun rose to the night cross-country runs seemed to bother him.
Erik Penwyth must’ve been heavy before Lir got her hands on him, for his skin was a little loose around his gut. Now he was as skinny as everyone else. He spoke in an affected drawl, and Njangu gathered he came from one of D-Cumbre’s rich families. Njangu thought Penwyth must be the insane member of the family, for why else would he be eating mud here at Camp Mahan instead of lolling about with whatever and whoever richies on D-Cumbre lolled with.
Angie Rada was short, small-breasted, and instantly made Njangu think of black silk restraints, scented candles, and sex wilder than anything he could dream of. He actually wondered what Lir would do if a little tent-swapping happened, but realized he was being really foolish, since he was too tired to raise even a smile.
The last was Ton Milot. He was also small, but very solidly built, always laughing. Like Faull, he never seemed tired or sore, and had told Njangu that Lir was a foam-bubble. Nothing she could come up with was as much an ass-buster as fishing.
“Plus,” he said, “she hasn’t figured out a way to drown us.”
“Yet,” Penwyth added.
The five stood by their log about fifty meters from the company mess hall. The sun was straight overhead, and soldiers were filing into the building.
“Is everybody hungry?”
“YES, DEC.”
“No, you’re not. Are you?”
“NO, DEC!”
“We don’t want to eat, we want to run, don’t we?”
“YES, DEC.” Njangu felt his stomach start gnawing on his lungs.
“That wasn’t loud enough! Right … hace. Forward, harch! Double-time … HARCH! Straight down to the beach, people. Let’s see if we can run all the way to the swamp before anybody falls out! Maybe then we’ll have a nice, refreshing crawl for a few hundred meters.”
• • •
Garvin checked the torque setting once more, put a little extra muscle on the wrench, and the nut snapped cleanly in half.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered, remembering what Dill had said about the fate of those who were redlined. Would this take the Aerial Combat Vehicle off READY status? He pushed gingerly on the Grierson’s intake shield, and it wiggled visibly. No way around it … somebody’d notice the bare bolt sticking out of the Greierson’s roof and they’d be for the solvent tubs, great barrels cut in half, filled with corrosive muck used to clean weapons and parts. Jaansma climbed off the ACV’s roof and started out of the hangar toward the far-distant Supply.
Half an hour later, he trailed disconsolately back. No such animal, the clerk had said snippily. Back-ordered. Sounds like you’re down, he’d said, malicious glee in his voice. Always need a good ‘cruit to polish some of the mung off these drive rollers, and maybe the rest of your crew’ll give you a hand. Tough titty.
Garvin suddenly stopped. Were all those bolts holding the hangar’s door-slider in place really necessary? They certainly looked the right size. He got his wrench and buzzed one nut free. Perfect, he congratulated himself, tossing the nut in the air and catching it.
“What the hell’re you doing?”
Garvin jumped a meter, spun, and saw First Tweg Malagash, red face sculpted into a scowl.
“Uh … nothing, top. Just took a break, and I’m going back to — ”
“With what in your hand?”
“Uh … nothing. Just this nut.”
“Which you’re doing what with?”
Garvin tried to look innocent.
“You ever hear the word mil-spec, young soldier?” Malagash grated. “As in military specification? That nut you just pirated off the door isn’t authorized on any Grierson I’ve ever ridden.”
“Nossir, but — ”
“ARE YOU ARGUING WITH ME?”
“Nossir, First Tweg, sir.”
“Perhaps you’d like to finish your training with the motivational platoon?”
Garvin shuddered. Their duties were simple — dig a hole on the first day, fill it in on the second day, dig another hole on the third day, and so forth, their shovelwork interspersed with extreme physical training.
“Nossir, First Tweg, sir.”
Malagash glared at him for a moment, relented.
“Go get your vehicle commander, young soldier. We’ll have a chat about what you did … and whether he’s giving you proper leadership. Then report to the mess hall. Tell the mess sergeant his grease trap needs cleaning.”
• • •
“This is what, in the end, you’re all about,” Lir said. Njangu examined the rounded, black-anodized box in his hand. It was about 18cm long, 8cm wide, and 13cm high, and was featureless except for two locking clips on top, a guarded trigger mechanism and a safety switch on the bottom, and a feed slot in front of the trigger guard. It was also surprisingly heavy — about a kilo and a half.
“Blaster Mark XXI Operating Mechanism,” Lir went on. “This is the guts to almost everything you’ll be carrying. Look.” She held up an id
entical box to the ones the recruits held. Behind her in the arms room were several weapons. One was short, about the length of Yoshitaro’s arm from shoulder to wrist; another, nearly identical but a meter long with a heavier butt, longer barrel, and fitted with a more elaborate optical sight. A third, even larger, sat on bipod legs and a fourth was on a low tripod mount.
Lir picked up the stubby weapon, turned it over, dropped the box into it, and snapped the locks closed. “Now you’ve got your basic-issue carbine. Pull the guts back out” — and she did — “put them in this, and you’ve got a sniping rifle. This one’s a basic Squad Support Weapon, and this one on the tripod’s a Medium Crew-Served Blaster. All of them take the same mechanism, and the ammo is fed in through the base. Sometimes it’ll be in a magazine like this, or a belt, or even a drum, which is what we generally carry on patrol, since I&R’s policy is to hit ‘em hard, break contact and scoot.
“A magazine’ll give you thirty chances to kill somebody, drum a hundred, and the belt holds two-fifty or five hundred. Here’s what the ammunition looks like.” She picked up a rounded cylinder the diameter and length of her little finger.
“Neat, no muss, no fuss. All the energy goes out the barrel, burning up the case while it goes, so you don’t have to worry about leaving a pile of empty ammo for the goblins to find.”
Goblins, Yoshitaro noted. Petr’d used the same word. Obviously a generic I&R term for bad guys.
“We’re now going to spend the rest of the morning learning how to field-strip and clean these suckers. Then we get to run and lift weights all afternoon,” Lir went on.
“Tomorrow morning, we’ll start dry-firing, which is about as much fun as screwing your hand. But we’ll do that for about five days, then we go out to the range and see what we shall see.”
• • •
“Gunner!” Dill warned. “Stand by! Target!”
An alarm clanged on Jaansma’s control panel.
“Enemy scanning,” Kang’s voice said. “Reaching … I have their TA radar diverted. They’re blind.”
“Take it on down,” Dill ordered. “Half meter nap of the earth.”
“Doing it, Skipper,” Gorecki said.
“Gunner! Search to the front.”
Garvin obeyed clumsily, moving his helmet back and forth, searching the display inside the faceplate. All he saw at first was a rocky formation, with a cluster of huts to one side.
“Gunner!”
Garvin looked more closely, and one of the huts moved.
“Target acquired, Dec … I mean, Skipper,” he said hastily. “Enemy track … no, there’s two of them.”
“Fire when ready.”
“Launch one,” Jaansma said, squeezing the soft grip in his right hand. The Grierson lurched, and a wisp of smoke curled past Garvin’s vision as the missile spat out of its tube. Jaansma squeezed the grip in his left and became the missile. He moved the grip in his left back, forth, and the large track grew closer, blast-cannon aiming, then nothing.
“Hit!” Dill said. “No flames, but it’s dead!”
“Launch two,” Garvin said, keeping back the urge to exult, and became the second missile. The track at the center of his vision spouted fire, and Garvin rolled, bucked, was upside down, and the missile slammed into the hut beside the tank.
“Miss … launch three,” he said, and another missile went out from the Grierson, through the shock wave of another cannon blast, and exploded against the track.
Garvin jerked back to main control in time to see the tank’s center turret flip back, tearing armor like paper, and flames gout.
“Area clear,” Dill began. “Lift — ”
“Negative,” Jaansma shouted, seeing movement. “They’re still out — ”
“Shuddup, Gunner,” Dill said. “I have them. Enemy infantry in the open, range three hundred meters.”
“Get them quick,” Kang broke in. “They’ve got missiles, and they’re seeking us. I’ve got serious indicators.”
Jaansma hit the selector bar with his chin to choose the chaingun and crosshairs appeared across the landscape. He found the infantrymen, put his sights in their center.
He slid a crossbar on his right grip, pulled his index fìnger tight, and the chaingun outside the Grierson roared. A red blast swept the center of the formation, and Jaansma hosed it back and forth.
“Targets destroyed,” he reported, and the landscape faded. He took off the helmet.
“Not bad,” Dill grudged over the intercom. “Now, let’s try it aerial. Another scenario.”
Garvin wiped sweat, put the helmet back on.
He … and the Grierson … were in close orbit off some asteroid. Below him on the surface missile launchers opened fire at other Griersons trying to land, and heavy gunships — Zhukovs — slammed smart shells down.
“Target,” Dill said. “Enemy starcraft taking off.”
Jaansma looked back and forth, didn’t see anything, then saw the ship — he didn’t know what kind it was — climbing from behind a bluff.
“Acquired, Skip — ”
He heard a dull thud, glanced down, below his faceplate, saw a cylindrical grenade land on the deck beside his chair in the simulator. An instant later, it exploded, and white, strangling smoke boiled out, enveloped Jaansma and tears poured from his eyes. He choked, gasped, tried to breathe.
“Come on, Gunner,” Dill’s amused voice came. “Where’s the friggin’ starship? Come on, man. Like I warned you, anybody can do it when it’s easy.”
• • •
Njangu Yoshitaro lay in perfect position in the dirt, looking across a brushy field with dirt splotches here and there. His legs were splayed, toes pointing, feet flat on the ground at a forty-five-degree angle to his body. He was on his elbows, blaster tucked securely into the pit of his right shoulder.
Lir dropped down beside him, on his right, very close. She held a small transmitter in her left hand.
“Ready?”
“Ready, Dec.”
“Load and lock one round.” She handed him one shell. He slid it into the feed slot, worked the blaster’s operating rod.
“First time you’ve ever shot for real?”
“Yeh,” Njangu lied.
“Safety off.”
He clicked the lever.
“Look downrange. Stand by.”
He obeyed, both eyes open, looking through the small optical sight. Lir’s thumb twitched on the transmitter.
Movement! A man’s torso and head came up from nowhere. Njangu put the dot in the sight’s center on it, touched the stud.
There was a whiplash crack, the blaster’s butt tapped his shoulder gently, and flame gouted in the center of the target.
“Hit. Center.” Lir said, handing him another round. He loaded.
“Downrange. Stand by.”
Ten rounds later, ten targets had gone down.
“You sure you’ve never shot at anything before?”
“Would I lie?”
Lir suddenly grinned, tapped him on the shoulder.
“Not bad, troop. You may make it.”
She came lithely to her feet, and moved to where Rada lay.
Yoshitaro sniffed, smelt ionized air, something else. It was gentle, flowering, a bit like violets, a bit like frangipani.
Njangu decided his drill instructor, while certainly not human, had good taste in perfume.
CHAPTER
9
“It’s easy to dream about what will happen when Cumbre is ours, and we’ve finally got a chance to change things so all practice the Way of the ’Raum,” Comstock Brien said to the seven men and women in the jungle clearing, “all knowing the Truth, all obeying the Truth, all empowered by the Truth.
“But to sit and dream is ultimately against the Cause, for the Planetary Government has real spies, their soldiers have real bullets, and death is a serious rebuttal to rhetoric. First we fight, then we debate.” He allowed himself a smile, and six of the seven laughed obediently.
B
rien noted Jord’n Brooks’ immobile face.
“You don’t agree?”
“Of course I agree,” Brooks said. “But there’s nothing funny about our Duty. And we must always be sure we’re following the right track, or we run the risk of falling into the same traps as the soh, our elders who taught that time and understanding would bring the Way to everyone, and were ground under by the pigs on the Heights.”
“Of course, brother. But we must never forget the human values of love, laughter, kindness, even in the midst of our struggle.”
“Humanity,” Brooks said flatly, “is for after we hold the Heights, and eliminate PlanGov.”
Brien’s face grew grim, then calm.
“Very well, brother. We can debate this matter this evening. But now is the time for action and learning.” He unstrapped a canvas roll, took out seven small weapons.
“Perhaps you recognize these, if you have children. They aren’t quite toys,” Brien continued, “but a young hunter’s learning device. They’re fairly accurate for about twenty meters, which is the real distance most fighting is done in these hills. The gun is air-powered, hand-pumped, and shoots small balls of copper. They strike hard enough to kill a bird or felmet … or blind a man.
“We cannot afford firing ranges like the Confederation has, nor do we have sufficient ammunition for training. But these will do well to teach you how to shoot … and hit.”
He passed six out, plus a palmful of the copper shot. Brooks was the only one he didn’t give a weapon to.
“The first exercise we shall attempt is tracking. One of us will be a fleeing fugitive, the rest will be a patrol trying to find him.
“When you find him, please try to remember not to aim at his face. We cannot afford to lose a gun, but we can afford less to lose a man. Brother Ybarre, you will command the patrol.
“Brother Brooks,” Brien said, an unpleasant smile on his face, “I’m sure, since you breathe and eat the theory of revolution, you’ll happily be willing to play the part of the properly revolutionary fugitive.”
Brooks stood.
“You have a count of twenty,” Brien went on. “Then we shall come after — ”
Jord’n Brooks sprinted into the brush. Brien looked after him in surprise, then shrugged, and began counting. At fifteen he broke off. “There is no fairness in battle,” he said. “Go after him.”
