Welcome to the Marines (Corporate Marines Book 2)

by Tom Germann

  With five down, I wonder if there were more when two pop up from behind a control console and start firing their weapons.

  I can’t move and am a perfect silhouette in the door. I take a glancing shot to the helmet and a hit to the chest from their laser pistols. It doesn’t puncture my armour, but I could feel the overload and lose some of my sensors. Thankfully I can still see.

  After firing their three shots each, they drop. Only the fact that they were shaken up from the assault meant that I hadn’t been hit more. I carefully aim just off-centre on the console and open fire with slow-paced shots until the console is a wreck and then a body jerks out from behind the cover. Before I can empty my last few shots into the other side, the alien leaps up. I am still in the same spot so he is already on target.

  The rounds hit him in the head and decapitates him, leaving another body and a bloody mess that quickly freezes and floats around like a disgusting ice carving.

  He had forgotten the other Marine on the floor.

  I reload and then release the mag-lock, taking the rear position. We move in and secure the room. The room is clear and we have both objectives here.

  Our comms lines click. “All units, this is Seven. Objective is taken. Sensor scans indicate that all enemy units are dead. Ending simulation now.”

  The large room around us dissolves from modern blown-apart instrument panels to a dark room with some lights. The size is the same, but the entire station loses its modern appearance and looks like what it really is: a large number of basic habitat modules that are welded together into the semblance of a space station dumped off the normal lanes with a small minder station next to it. As we move back toward the lander, we meet up with the “dead” Marines and pass the scrapped robot models that had tried to fight us off.

  Before we load, we clear our weapons and put the mags away. We load back onto the assault lander and settle into the individual docking spots for our suits after we rack our weapons.

  I haven’t even finished mag-locking myself in when I feel the shakes hit.

  The lander disengages from the target and slowly backs away.

  Now that the mission is over, we have full access to the sensor data. There are two small shuttles coming over. They will remove and replace the damaged doors and fix the holes we have shot the modules full of. They will police up the garbage we left behind and set up new robotic combat drones for future use.

  Armour had told us that there are several sites set up in-system that are always ready for a quick invasion by up to two sections of Marines.

  Robots aren’t as effective as real flesh-and-blood combatants, but we have only gone up against them once. If we did this a dozen times, we would have zero casualties every time and work through twice as fast.

  Small comfort to me or the other Marines that had ended up dead. My armour should have shorted out with the two hits, but the AI running the sim had felt that it held, given its newness.

  We had fired live rounds, but the enemy robots had only used extremely low-power lasers just a bit more powerful than what a kid would use in laser tag. The projectile weapons had used plastic bullets. The AI running the sim had added the reality components, making it as real as we could want it.

  At least newbies like us who have not seen this a thousand times.

  After a short trip, we are back at the in-system cargo ship and transfer over again.

  We strip the armour down and check it over for faults or any potential problems. Armour is there watching, as always.

  You never duck the work if Armour is there. She sees everything.

  I have to change out a small sensor node and once I do that, I’m done. I check the ablative outer component near where the underpowered lasers had hit. Not even a blemish.

  We finish checking and cleaning up and are directed to the tiny mess hall.

  Our debrief is short and harsh, led by Armour, of course.

  We are all sitting at the two tables facing the one side, where Armour is sitting in one of the few chairs facing us. This is a longer, narrow room. Spaceships don’t really have a lot of space, as anytime they build one where there is space, someone comes along and uses it to store supplies or gear.

  Armour just sits there watching us, and the longer she says nothing, the more nervous I feel everyone getting.

  I can bench two hundred and fifty pounds, run ten kilometres in forty minutes, and in or out of armour I can kill.

  But I’m terrified of how bad this is going to go.

  Finally, she leans forward and begins talking. There is no shouting or blame. Her voice is quiet and cold and we strain to hear what she has to say.

  “During a straightforward assault on an enemy-held space station, two sections of Marines were deployed to engage and destroy. Twelve Marines deployed through the use of assault landers. By mission end there were three dead, one seriously wounded, and two with minor suit damage that would impede function over an extended period of time. The mission was completed and all enemy combatants killed and the facility secured.”

  She stops and looks us over, meeting each one of our gazes and holding it for a second. Then she continues.

  “That was complete shit. Your assault was sloppy and took too long. I have reviewed the logs and I saw sloppy moves that resulted in damage to the section. That sloppiness slowed you down, and in the real world where the AI was not running the simulation and the enemy was not fighting for their lives, they would have reacted differently. The aliens in the control room would know that they are already dead. They would have blown the station as soon as you started advancing. I would do that rather than be overrun and either suffocate or get gunned down and then realize that the highly secret work being carried out would be used by an alien race that may have bad intentions toward my people.”

  She pauses. “You needed to shave almost thirty seconds off of your attack, as that is how long it takes to override safety interlocks and overload a reactor.”

  She stands up and takes a bottled drink from the dispenser to her side. She sits back down and pops the top, taking several slow sips.

  “Too many dead based on the scenario. That attack should have been faster and with no casualties. That is the standard you work to. If we had time and faster access to one of the training sites that can handle a group this large, I would run you through again. We do not have that time. We are heading back in-system to Earth and you will be shipped off to your respective duty stations. I will be personally programming several different scenarios that you can run through to improve your abilities. Granted, that will be in sim, but I hope it will help correct the flaws that exist.”

  She stops talking and stands up, dropping the bottle into a recycle point on the wall and then turning to go.

  Mouth speaks up. “Ma’am? How bad did we really do, and how much of what you just said is the standard ‘tear us down to make us better’ part of the training?”

  Armour stops and turns back toward us. She looks at Mouth thoughtfully. “The last time I saw a group as bad as that was in an early video-game sim a very long time ago. That was bad.”

  Then she turns and leaves.

  We all head back to our rooms. I spend the short trip studying up on weapons and tactics and running through several low-level sims, as well as doing more than my normal daily suit maintenance.

  I have to be good enough to survive and stop the enemy.

  We arrive back at Earth in just over a day and take a shuttle back down again, in the cargo bay in full armour with our gear.

  We take the garbage-truck ride back to base and head in.

  After stripping down, we have the night off and most of us head back to our rooms to study and then get some sleep.

  It was going to be an early morning.

  GRADUATION

  The next morning we are up on time and carry out our physical fitness tra
ining routine with no problems. It feels a bit different being back at full Earth gravity, but we are okay.

  During some of my recent reading on what technologies are being worked on now, there were a series of articles on gravity. Space ships can generate some artificial gravity by spinning. Everyone still wears magnetic clothing, mostly the boots to stay anchored. Some of the planets that we are looking at colonizing, though, are going to cause problems. Long-term life on Mars will have issues because the gravity is so much lower than we are used to on Earth. That can be resolved by using gravity plates. Buildings will have specially installed gravity plates so that when you are inside, you will come closer to Earth gravity. This should offset the effect in the short term.

  That’s what I’m thinking about during our morning run. I am becoming smart, finally.

  We get cleaned up and then eat breakfast. Before we can head off to the lab, there is a tingling as my implants receive a signal.

  This had never happened before and I freeze. Then I hear a quiet voice in the back of my head. “All personnel, report to the main auditorium in ten minutes.”

  I look around. Everyone else is looking around and seems nervous.

  Mouth speaks up. “I guess we are full Marines now and our implants are active. Finally!” She gives a little happy yell and starts dancing around.

  It’s funny, but we have to move.

  I dump my plate in the cleaning tray and head off with the rest to the auditorium. The lights are on and no one is there, so we all sit down in the front two rows. There are only twelve of us. So few after the last few months.

  The mad scientist walks in, followed by the same people that had come in on our first day. He immediately starts talking and I regret my decision to sit in the front row, like everyone else must. Then Armour steps forward and pushes him behind the podium. The microphone there picks up what he is saying. “Oh yes, why thank you, I appreciate the repositioning that needed to happen there. Oh my! I can hear myself, finally!”

  Armour cuts him off. “Get to the point. There is not a lot of time, doctor.”

  He continues. “Of course, of course.” He stops and looks at us critically. “Congratulations. You have passed all the testing and everything that we could throw at you. You are now Corporate Marines. Seven, please give them their duties.” He then stops, steps back, and nods at us before turning and walking out of the room. Everyone else leaves as well. Most nod but some don’t bother. In a minute, it is only us and Armour.

  She steps over to the podium and begins talking. “You all passed. Here are your taskings. You will be out of here within the hour and heading off to your next duty station.”

  She starts calling names out. I passed! I am in!

  “Slate.” I almost miss my name, and I am called near the beginning. “You are deploying out to Section 8-3. Deep space.”

  As we are called out, we leave. I head back to my room to check it over. There is a bag inside the door on the bed, already packed, and I look around where I had spent so much time.

  I can hear the sounds of the hundreds of us moving through the facility and the droning voices of the instructors. I am already missing this place.

  There is a quiet knock at my door. I open it and Mouth is standing there with a similar bag on her shoulder. She steps in and closes the door. “Gads, Slate, you move so slow. You were third out and I was seventh. I’m ready to head out. I am heading for patrol on the far side of Ipswith with a newer section while you are going to be on this side providing security.” She steps close to me and looks me in the eye, which means that I have to look down at her again. “Are you going to be okay?”

  I nod. “Yeah, I’ll be fine, with a two-month trip to my new station and all the time in the world to sleep and study.”

  She is still looking at me, searching for something, then she shrugs. “Okay, well, take care of yourself and let me know if you ever get leave in my area.” I swear she is faster than lightning, now having a solid hold on my head and pulling me down into a long, hard kiss. She pulls back and looks at me again.

  I shake my head no and then lean forward, wrapping my arms around her and embracing her with a harder and longer kiss that goes on forever.

  When we finally surface, she giggles at me and smiles. Then she grimaces. “Ahem, no attachments, Slate. Be a good Marine.”

  She kisses me on the cheek and is out the door with a wave. Then she is gone.

  I turn and grab my bag and head out as well. I have to go and check on my armour and gear.

  I hear a ping and another voice starts speaking in the back of my head. “Turn right and head to Section D. Your armour is ready for packing, but it is being left for you to take care of.” There is another quiet ping and then the voice is gone.

  I’ll need to get used to these implants.

  I take off for Section D to pack my gear.

  FINAL EVALUATION

  All three of them are in the small conference room. Seven says it first. “This is a huge failure of the training system.”

  Before either man has a chance to interject, she has already raised her hand to stall them. “I do not mean that what happened before was flawed. What has happened now has created a flaw.”

  Timothy nods. “We never had more than six candidates go through the station scenario. Most of the other scenarios we have set up are meant really for two to four candidates to go through.”

  Seven nods while frowning. “You do know what this means, don’t you?”

  Their final member speaks up quickly. “We need a larger final testing area. Probably farther out on the back side of one of the planets.” His smile is huge. “This is excellent! We can finally turn out the number of candidates that we need for the long term.”

  Timothy grins as well. “Yes!”

  Seven’s sigh cuts across both men’s celebratory noise and they both stop and looked at her.

  She leans forward and puts both hands on the table. “Yes, it is excellent that we have more candidates coming down the pipe. The total number of Marines will slowly increase. That is really great.” She leans back in her seat again and crosses her arms while watching both of them. “So that means we make a bigger footprint, and any alien watching knows we are advancing. When are the bad guys coming back to invade again, gentlemen?”

  Timothy raises a hand as a peace gesture. “I understand what you mean. We are going to take whatever steps we can to minimize the intel we give those out there,” he waves his hand at the ceiling in a gesture of who ‘those out there’ are, “but we need to maintain hope, and we are improving. We just need to improve fast enough so that we can win when they come back.”

  Seven looks down, frowning, then back up. “I know we have to do the best we can. We need to get back to work. The next crowd is going to be arriving in three days and there are a lot of files to review.”

  The government bureaucrat looks at her. “You’re still worried about Slate, aren’t you?”

  She shakes her head no. “I know exactly how he’ll do. He’ll be fine.”

  PREPARING TO DEPLOY

  My gear is packed and I have several large crates to load onto a cargo truck, but I am not up for departure for two hours so I head to the cafeteria for some food. There are a large number of cleaners and staff buzzing through the area. They are refreshing everything so it looks new again. I guess they are getting the new recruits in shortly.

  As I am sitting actually enjoying a cheeseburger and strawberry milkshake, Armour comes in and walks over to me.

  She sits down. “How is the burger?”

  I just start talking through the mouthful. “Mmm, great, ma’am.”

  She grunts at me. “I can see that.”

  She is watching me carefully and, as always, I feel self-conscious of the attention. Part of growing up in the Projects.

  Then she starts in on the real r
eason she wanted to talk to me. “Slate, you are going to deep space. To a combat unit that is in use regularly. You need to be aware. Deep space does things to people sometimes. They get a little weird. You need to stay focused and do more training than they actually ask you to. If you work harder and are as good as they are, you won’t have problems, other than some bad jokes. If you slack off, they’ll be keeping an eye on you all the time, expecting you to screw up. Don’t blow your cool and don’t do anything stupid. You need to survive and come back.”

  I nod. “I understand, ma’am. We had that happen all the time in the Projects. Don’t show fear and be the best at what you do.”

  She nods and gets up. “Good. Do well, Slate. Earth is going to need all of us in a few years.” Then she turns and walks away.

  I finish my burger and milkshake. Everyone has gone and it feels like I am the only one left.

  I get up and drop my tray in the cleaning area and head for my gear.

  I have nothing to worry about. I can still hear the voices screaming, and I can still hear my little sister and dad. They aren’t screaming anymore; they are calling out for me to be safe and to keep everyone else safe too. To be good.

  I know that I am not a good man. I’m just a man like everyone else, and I need to do what’s right.

  I have lots of reasons to live for. I have to protect humanity. More than that, I have to survive all my tours because one day I am going to come back to Earth. I had killed four people because I went a bit nuts. But there had been six people involved. There are two more people somewhere that I have to get payback on one day.

  END

  Coming Soon in the Corporate Marines Series

  Book 3: Star Traders. A novella

  Seven is one of the rare individuals out there. The one in almost a million that could become a Marine. Her body would accept the advanced medical procedures that would enable her to sync up with armour and use the suit and systems to their full capacity.