Welcome to the Marines (Corporate Marines Book 2)

by Tom Germann

  We are going to be armoured bringers of death and destruction, acting as our own little pantheon of gods of destruction, able to take down planetary armies. We are walking around in jungle, desert, Arctic and temperate forests, learning how to navigate by the stars and dead reckoning, how to push forward section attacks while calling down artillery on obsolete communication systems. We are conducting Built Up Area Operations, which means clearing a building. They have us clear a thirty-storey office building!

  None of this seems to make much sense, but we spend three weeks pushing forward and doing this.

  I have lost a lot of weight and just feel mean all the time. I shot two surrendering soldiers and another trooper gunned down “prisoners” when we had to move out fast when the enemy forces were counter attacking our positions. We are all mean.

  Stand-downs are not trusted and we maintain 50 percent over watch as the enemy is likely going to announce a renewal of hostilities by blowing something up or shooting us.

  We never once redeploy to anywhere safe. We are constantly in simulated combat. Even during lectures, if anyone slacks off, a random sniper will reach out and touch them.

  Being shot with practice ammunition hurts, but usually does not break any bones that are hit. Usually.

  We practice anything to do with living in the field, obviously, from personal hygiene to eating and having an invisible hide. Our knowledge base is big and we still keep going. We rappel out of Verters (vertical take off and landing) from different heights. We even jump out of in-atmosphere craft during the day and night.

  Finally we are told to disarm and stand down. While we are moved to an airfield, we clean our weapons and equipment. Within two hours, everything is good to go and we turn it back in.

  We are all directed to use the shower facilities and given clean uniforms after. Our old ones are taken and dumped into the incinerators.

  We are returned to one of the training facilities. On the flight, we all rack out immediately. That hour of sleep is great.

  When we land at the facility, we are sent to the main gym where we are handed nutrition bars and water as we go through the door. That tasteless cardboard crap now tastes great and is just chock full of protein and fat. It ends up sitting like a lump in my stomach, but that doesn’t stop me or most of the others from starting to eat another one.

  I look around at the survivors. We are at twenty-six out of the initial ninety that we started the class with. There are five wearing braces and supports because of broken bones, and most of us are covered in bruises.

  Interestingly, there are the same percentage of females to males as we started with. So we have eight females that have made it through to this level of the training.

  During those first few weeks, they were hot as they got super fit. Now after the field exercises, they look like mangy wolves as they eye the power bars. Of course, we all look like that. Strangely, they look even more smoking hot now. A few weeks of field living and after a shower and a minute to think, even the chairs look sexy.

  After the last of us has wolfed down a nutrition bar, three instructors walk out and move to the centre of the stage. The lead calls us in and we gather in a semi-circle looking up at them.

  I position myself so that I have a clear view of the instructors and also of Kellye. Her dirty-blonde hair has grown out pretty ragged and it gives her a feral look. Even after no food and too much physical activity, she still has her killer curves and I find myself starting to fantasize while waiting. She looks around and catches me watching her and blows me a kiss. I look away.

  I wonder what hell is coming now.

  The lead instructor is the same woman from the first phase of the course. She is attractive but scarred up and I had not noticed before that she is missing two fingers from her left hand. She has the look of plant communication for a minute and then she focuses on us.

  “Congratulations to you all for surviving the selection process this far. You have been through several different phases of training; in-class lecture and theory, field training, and small-unit tactics, as well as extreme conditions.”

  Oh, God, this is like an infomercial. I can already feel myself going to sleep on my feet. I give it five minutes before we all pass out. I wonder who hits the ground first.

  “Can any of you tell me why you were put through three weeks of field hell with no armour and in ridiculous scenarios?”

  The question comes as a surprise and throws me off. The answer “because there are too many of us and you want to fail some of us” comes to mind, but I am not going to be the one saying that out loud. The same statement is going through everyone else’s minds, I am sure.

  “The answer is not that we are assholes, nor that there are too many of you still on course so we needed to fail some of you. Corporate will take everyone who can make it through the training. No, your implants are not allowing us to read your minds. Yes, we know what you are thinking when we ask that as we have run a lot of courses and everyone thinks the same initially.”

  She moves off to the side of the stage and the other instructors follow. A series of images start flashing up on the screen. I am awake now.

  There is our arrival, our sizing, first day of class, working out, implant training, briefings. “First you need to be briefed and know what you are getting into. Next we need to build your scrawny bodies into shape so that you can one day wear armour effectively.” More pictures are flashing up and, OUCH, that’s two people I barely remember from training earlier on having sex and they are really athletic. “We weeded out the weak links.” The same two members that had been having sex in the last clip are pictured now holding hands and looking at each other with gaga eyes. “Then we introduced you to the real world.”

  The pictures are now of us in uniforms and non-powered armour firing on ranges, conducting patrols and attacks, making defensive formations, even clearing buildings.

  “In the real world you need to be able to work together as a team in and out of armour. There may be circumstances where your armour is no longer effective and you have to extract the old-fashioned way. You are a huge investment by the Corporation. Not just in your armour but in YOU. The implant suite you have, the training and the experience you will shortly have works out to almost two hundred and fifty million dollars. If things go wrong and we can extract you even without your armour, then we have saved the Corporation the time and money of training a replacement.”

  One of the troopers from one section raises his hand. The instructor nods at him and he asks, “Operational deployments should only be short-term, as in under twelve hours. Our suit batteries are good for twenty-four and we always carry a backup set. Any corporate defence or mission, if deemed to be longer, would have us carrying more batteries. Why this preparation, then, when we likely would not survive without the backup?”

  The picture was stopped at our firefight in the thirty-floor office building. I had a feeling that questions would lead to being cut, so I was keeping my mouth shut and just listening. The instructor nodded. “That’s a good question. The answer should be that anyone out of suit in a hostile situation would not make it. Mistakes happen. Something called Murphy’s Law has happened too many times over the years, which leads to troopers out of power and ammo. Most of that leads to immediate death. In the last forty years there have been six troopers that have come back from operations that went bad. If the Corporation can increase that survival rate and get a few more troopers back, then it is well worth it.”

  She glanced at the screen and the images carried on and then stopped at a section picturing moving an injured trooper on a stretcher while the rest of us had covered them. “If this was not valid, would we have you moving those who are injured by stretcher to cover and removing the casualty from play for a few hours while they quickly heal and hard casts are used to fix them?”

  I could see the point. We could have just carrie
d on and left the injured for treatment by follow-on personnel.

  She continues. “You must be able to work together as a team. You must be able to consider your teammates when they are injured. Unless the circumstances are extreme, recovering the injured is a high priority. We do not want you to throw yourself in front of a missile to save your teammate. It has been found through statistical analysis that when this happens, both troopers’ arc is then left uncovered, which may allow the enemy to bring effective fire on the section. If a trooper is hit by a missile, the trooper often survives, depending on whether the hit is direct on target and what sort of missile it is.”

  She stops and the pictures fade away. The instructors move to the front of the stage again and look at us.

  “Your next stage of training will start tomorrow, and it is the second-last phase of training. This training will consist of a work-up stage and then full powered armour training. You are completely off tonight with no tests or inspections. Have a few drinks, go to sleep early, watch a vid. Whatever you want tonight. Tomorrow will start relatively easy.”

  She turns and, with the other two instructors, walks off the stage and leaves.

  We just look at each other. Completely off and no testing for tomorrow? We can drink? I am in complete shock. There is no such thing as time off and we are always being watched.

  People start drifting out and I follow. We all sort of congregate in the mess and eat, then people start splitting off. I have no friends left so watch a vid in the common room with some of the others, then head for my room for an early night.

  I walk in, grab my shower gear, and head to get cleaned up. I just do not know if I can keep it up. I keep seeing the images in blood and while time is passing, the images and sounds that I am reliving are not fading away. I know it has been less than a year, and that this should not fade away for a bit longer.

  But everything is still crisp and I relive it regularly.

  Maybe a nice, hot, slow shower will wash away some of that and let me sleep through the night.

  No one else is in the shower facility as they ran to go do other activities free of over watch and responsibility for a night. The facilities are great and everything is large and well maintained. We just have not seen them for so long, it’s like a little piece of heaven.

  The shower water is so hot I can barely stand it, and I take the time to soap up twice and clear all the suds off.

  By the time I come out of the shower I look like a soaking wet prune. I feel great. Then, I brush my teeth and comb out my hair.

  It is the little things like this that I can really appreciate now.

  My clothes are just hanging on me and I am going to need to gain back a bit of weight. Then again, we all are.

  I look at myself in the mirror and finally feel human. When I close my eyes for a second, I can hear the screams again. But I can open my eyes and carry on.

  I wipe down the sink with my towel before throwing it into the receptacle.

  I head back to my room, swinging by the cafeteria on the way and see that it’s empty. I see Four from one of the other sections sitting back with his eyes closed and he appears to be running a sim.

  The place is empty and feels like a morgue.

  I am just heading down the hall toward my room when I realize what is missing for me. My every image and thought of this place is busy, frantic activities and constant motion. For a second I wonder if everyone else is just gone and I am alone. If I go back to the cafeteria, will I find the seat empty and no one else at the facility?

  I give my head a shake and carry on. Those of us who have not failed out of the program have headed out to parts of the facility that we are not normally allowed access to and are likely drinking their faces off or doing “fun activities.” I can’t think of what fun is anymore, either.

  Great—I have been here WAY too long.

  I bump my room door open and the lights click on. My books and study guides are where I left them on the desk. Everything is exactly as I left it.

  My locker is still open just a few inches where it didn’t latch when we ran out the last morning.

  I step over and open it up fully. All my clothes have been left just as they were. I guess that no one comes into this part of the facility. The amount of security is amazing.

  The door clicks shut behind me. I didn’t close it.

  I start turning as I hear her voice. “Hi, Slate. How are you doing?”

  I have Kellye standing in my room. Her hair is pulled back in a short pony tail and she is leaning against the frame. The nondescript grey physical training clothing looks good on her frame where it would look like crap on anyone else. She doesn’t look pissed, but the only reason she could be here is that she is irritated that I was checking her out.

  Most of us do not get together and talk or even really socialize, except to study, as that could be too much of an attachment and anything like that was too much of a risk.

  She nods. “I can see you are thinking that you can’t talk to anyone or hang out, you know. That whole attachment briefing we got at the beginning. Yup, we saw lots of that as most of the failures really occurred because people formed real attachments and then did poorly on tests.” She cocks her head to the side and looks me in the eye. “Right?”

  I nod.

  She continues. “You never do talk much, do you? Short answers in class and always trying to just do.” She stops. “I heard you did bad things to get sent here.” She nods to herself. “But that doesn’t matter now. You also did well at the physical fitness side and all the rest of the tests.”

  I am not getting where this is going and I wish she would get to the point as I would love to get some sleep. She is just standing there with her arms crossed, talking at me like I am a potted plant.

  She straightens up. “You know what I don’t get?” She steps up to me with her arms at her sides in a relaxed pose. The top of her head is in line with my nose and she is looking up at me. She has big blue eyes that are just amazing. “I have seen you staring at me pretty regularly. I mean, that’s standard; I’m built. I just don’t know why you don’t ever talk to me. Are you too shy to talk to a pretty girl?”

  Since she is shorter than me, I look down to really look at her and then I notice that her grey gym top is open to the waist and I am looking down her sports bra.

  I feel myself turning red and try stuttering something out, but I’m not quite sure what to say.

  I yank my eyes up and she is looking at me with uplifted eyebrows. “Did you like what you saw? And can you turn any redder?”

  I keep trying to talk. “Yes… I mean, no! I mean, I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to objectify you…”

  She giggles. “Oh, objectify away. I was really worried you were gay or something, but I can see now that you’re just shy.”

  She leans in and pulls me close, snuggling up to me. I can feel how firm her body is after the heavy workouts that we have been involved in for months. She feels incredibly strong and she is warm.

  I feel so distant and can’t stop staring into her deep blue eyes. I can see her smile but it looks nervous. “My family was never really that well off and I always thought that I needed bodymod because I don’t have the perfect build; I’m kinda chunky and I have some birthmarks. I couldn’t afford to have it done so was stuck being okay-looking. That’s unattractive on a chick, you know?”

  I put my arms around her and pull her closer. I feel like I am coming out of a fog and can feel my body reacting. I lean down and nibble on her ear gently.

  After she gasps I whisper, “You are smoking hot.”

  She giggles again and then says, “Lights out.”

  The lights flick off and then I say, “Lights on.”

  They come back on. I never knew you could do that verbally. I lean in and kiss her on the mouth and her tongue slips between my lips and I c
an feel her hands running up and down my body as she presses her body against me.

  We break for a second and she giggles again. “It’s like that, is it?” She sounds nervous, “I’m kind of self-conscious…”

  I nibble on her neck and carefully say, “Lights out.”

  The lights click off and we continue losing the one night of freedom we have to each other.

  I wake up in the morning just before the alarm goes off as she slips out the door. She is so wrong about herself, I thought. She is much more beautiful than any of the Ms. Smirkos out there.

  SIM FIELD TRAINING

  That night was awesome. My back feels like I wrenched it nicely and the scratches are healing up.

  I have seen the results of attachments and that is a bad thing. Therefore, last night was fun, but was just fun. Back to duty.

  I have to run to the auditorium as I am late, but I am not the last to arrive. In fact, a few of the troopers are looking hung over. Three arrives and gives me a smirk as she settles into her seat with her section.

  The last few troopers show up and are quick to seat themselves.

  We are twenty minutes late by the time the last trooper is sitting.

  This will be the first test if the instructors were serious about a relaxed night and day.

  The instructors walk in and move to the centre of the stage. The lead instructor is the badly scarred female again. Let’s see how they respond to our being so late.

  “Good morning. Last night you had off and this morning is going to be a relaxed brief. You will be back at full speed by afternoon and are going to have an easy sim to run through as a first practice.”

  There are some lectures on sims and the high quality that the Corporation uses in training to make the experience as real as possible. Sims are used extensively and are an excellent tool so that troopers are not slaughtered if they make a mistake.

  Sims are also used by sergeants to fully and properly brief the section and cover expected actions and scenarios during orders.