by Jean Johnson
“Break it up!” she ordered. It was a good guess that it was the heat and high humidity that was making everyone cranky and easily irritated by each other, but there wasn’t anything she could do about the summer thunderstorms plaguing the northern end of the continent. Except maybe enjoy the touch of home in the air, in those rare moments when her attention wasn’t needed elsewhere. Like right now. Unfortunately, the only thing she could do was physically stop them by placing herself between the pair. “No fighting in the barracks!”
“Oh, like you’re so superior!” Arstoll snapped from his bunk halfway across the locker room, surprising her. Jumping down, boots still unlaced, he stalked toward her as she pushed Kaimong and the other recruit apart. “Ooh, look, I’m Recruit Ia! I’m so special, I get picked to be first at everything. Like you’re some sort of big damn hero-in-training!”
That hit a little too close to home. Hands going to her hips, making sure she stood sideways to the other two so that they were separated further by the span of her elbows, Ia met his glare. “And you are missing the point of all of this, Arstoll. Just like Kaimong and the rest of E Squad. They’re not singling me out because I’m ‘special,’ they’re singling me out—and Kaimong, and several of the rest of you—to beat us down. They’re deliberately picking on us so they can find our weakest spots.”
“Oh, really?” Arstoll challenged her, hands going to his own hips.
“What do you think the military is about?” Ia asked him. “We are all still civilians. We don’t have the mind-set and the willpower to survive combat—do you think the Salik, if they ever broke out, would invite us over for tea and crumpets and a discussion of who’s going to sleep with whom on the latest vidsoap? We’d be the crumpets! And you can bet as sure as hellfire and damnation that they wouldn’t be nice to us while they’re interrogating us, one tasty slice at a time! It is our instructors’ job to be nasty to us as recruits, in the hopes of toughening us up!”
“Oh, really? Well, maybe I don’t want to be constantly compared to some backwater heavyworlder nobody,” Arstoll shot back, stepping forward. “The men and women on both side of my family have served in one Branch or another of the Space Force since the first twenty years of its inception. I may not have the muscles or the reflexes of a heavyworlder, but I am tough enough for the Marines without heavyworlder advantages. I intend to get a Field Commission,” he boasted, jerking his thumb at his chest. “Unlike you, I’ve studied tactics and strategies for years. I’m ready for battle!”
“I wish I could believe you,” Ia stated flatly. Their own fight had diffused the tensions between Kaimong and the others, but now she had to pick her words carefully. Very carefully. Her statement caused her squad mate to bristle, but she continued briskly. Implacably. “If you had taken your lessons in tactics and strategies to heart, you would realize just how foolish it is to antagonize someone you know is supposed to watch your back in the future. Military forces which are torn apart by internal antagonism are as weak as a cheap plexi net. The holes caused by internecine strife make it that much easier for the enemy to tear through them on the way to their goal.
“What you should be doing is seeking ways to help each other. To turn your fellow soldiers into a solid shield wall.” She glanced to either side, taking in Kaimong and his teammates. Returning her gaze to Arstoll, who was sneering, she lifted one of her brows in return. “If you want that Field Commission, Arstoll, you’re going to have to prove you can lead. Not just boast about it. Family connections only gave you certain opportunities to learn whatever and how much of it that you studied. Whether or not you comprehend it is another matter.
“And, for the record, you do not know my background and education level, Arstoll. Nor do I know yours. I, however, will give you the benefit of the doubt.” Tightening her towel, she moved past him. “Prove, or disprove, that you have what it takes to lead. Don’t just boast. Do.”
“What, like you can?” Arstoll countered, sneering at her. “Just because you have boot chevrons—”
Whirling to face him, Ia cut him off. “That is a discussion which will have to wait until lunch. Right now, you are wasting everyone’s time. We have six minutes left before our prelunch inspection, and some of us haven’t showered yet.” Turning around, she gave everyone pointed looks. “Well? Move! Unless you all want more demerits . . . ?”
They moved. So did she. Returning to her bunk and locker, Ia exchanged the towel for fresh clothes. Between the humidity and the heat, all of their outdoor activities, which took place until noon, left each of them drenched in sweat. From lunch to supper, they spent their time indoors in training classrooms, learning about the rules, regulations, history, and organization of the Space Force and its four Branches. That meant being clean and presentable so that forty-five sweat-soaked bodies didn’t stink up the place.
Sung, perched on the edge of Ia’s bed so that she could lace her boots, looked up at her bunkmate. “He really can’t see past his own eyebrows, can he?”
Ia gave her a curious look.
“You just led. Good job,” she added lightly.
“Thanks, but I still have a very long way to go,” Ia muttered, thinking of her goals.
“Maybe . . . and maybe not. I got a cousin working in the DoI. He says people who show leadership even in boot camp get promoted real quick.” Tightening the last of her laces, Sung stood and made room for Ia to don her own boots. “The Department of Innovations will have its eye on you, and soon. I don’t need to be a precog to foresee that.”
Funny, Ia thought wryly, though she kept that thought carefully to herself, I had to be one, in order to see it coming.
“So, Recruit Ia,” Arstoll drawled, tearing his roll in half as he looked down the table in Ia’s direction. “About those fancy boot chevrons . . .”
Ia chased down her mouthful of chicken with some of the water in her cup. After training hard all morning, everything looked and smelled delicious. Mostly because she herself hadn’t been forced to cook it. “You’re confusing temporary with permanent, Recruit Arstoll.”
“Oh, really? How so?” he challenged her.
“No one in the entire history of all four Branches of the Space Force has ever kept their boot chevrons for the entire length of Basic Training. Being envious of a boot chevron is like being envious of a soap bubble. It’s pretty while it lasts, but it never lasts long.”
“Wait a pico,” Kumanei interjected. “You don’t get to keep your boot chevrons?”
“Ey, that’s a bituva gyp, innit?” Spyder agreed, reaching for one of the pitchers of fruit juice dotting the length of their table. “Wassa point a’ havin’ ’em if y’ don’t get t’ keep ’em?”
“That’s the difference between lesson and implementation.” At Spyder’s blank look, Ia explained. “Giving someone a higher rank during Basic Training is a teaching tool. For the rest of you in this squad, it teaches you how to follow orders from someone of even so much as a slightly higher rank than you. Even if you don’t like that person,” she added, glancing at Arstoll. “Or just think you don’t. Learning how to take orders from others is vital to the smooth operation of any organization, and particularly a military force, because what we do can literally be deadly: to the enemy if we get it right, or to ourselves if we do it at the wrong time or in the wrong way. Therefore we all need to learn how to take orders from our superiors.
“For the person with the promotion, it teaches you something a little more complex. But it can be broken down into four parts,” Ia said. She speared a couple vegetables and popped them in her mouth.
“Oh, really? I didn’t know you were an expert in military psychology,” Arstoll challenged her.
She met his green stare levelly, swallowing before she spoke. “I don’t claim to be. I know these things because I read a lot of military and psychology texts, but that isn’t the same as understanding what I read. Like you, I’m still trying to figure out how to put theory into real-world implementation. Part of the problem i
s, not everyone here has studied the same material. That makes it harder, because the others don’t know what I’m trying to do. But there are four things I do know. First off, boot chevron promotions teach a squad leader what it means to live in a position of command.”
“And that means, what? The heady rush and thrill of bossing people around?” Mendez asked as Ia poked at some of the vegetables on her tray.
Setting down her fork, she shook her head. “No. It means to be alienated from the others, to be disliked and envied by those who resent you for their own lack of promotion, to be fawned over by those who hope that your friendship will get them special privileges . . . envy, distrust, sycophantic fawning, all sorts of pleasant social interactions.
“The second thing boot chevrons teach a squad leader is how to command . . . usually through trial and error. How to give an order so that others will obey, and how to re-bridge enough of that gap caused by the distancing of rank and command to soothe ruffled feelings and ease dislikes before they can turn to hatreds.”
“Ha! Effective leaders have to keep some distance from their troops,” Arstoll countered. “Excessive familiarity always breeds contempt and laziness in the troops.”
“True, but they can’t be too distant, either,” Mendez pointed out. “Or the people they’re leading won’t know how their leadership will react in a given situation, or to a particular piece of bad news.”
“Mendez is right about that,” Ia agreed, looking at the others. “There has to be a certain level of trust in a military organization, and if your cadre is too distanced by formality, you won’t know them, deep down to your bones . . . and if you don’t know ’em, how can you trust ’em?”
“So . . . it’s like a tightrope, ey?” Spyder reasoned it out. “Formal enough f’ discipline, but friendly enough t’inspire trust. ’N th’ more th’ ranks trust you, th’ better they’ll be when it comes time t’ poon’n’slag.”
“Sweet stars, Spyder,” Sung protested, wrinkling her nose. “You still say poon? That was last decade—my aunt said stuff like that.”
“I’m from a mining station, sweets,” Spyder enunciated, leaning over the table toward her. “You’re lucky I know how t’ say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.”
“. . . Break it up,” Ia ordered lightly, without force behind her words. She paused, then said. “And that, just now, is an example of how to lead under different circumstances. Compared to earlier in the barracks, this moment isn’t nearly as tense as what happened with Kaimong.”
“Kaimong Wong Ta should’ve been named Kaimong Wrong Ta,” Arstoll muttered.
Ia ignored that. It was a problem that would deal with itself later. “Look, whatever our happy Camp instructors might do, it is not necessary to yell and spit each and every time you give someone an order. So the first two lessons of boot chevrons are how to put up with the distance a higher rank and status creates, and how to lead across that rank and status gap.”
“So what about the third and fourth lessons?” Casey asked, leaning past Crosp so he could get at the nearest pitcher. A and B Squads were sharing the same table, and some of their nearer members seemed to be listening to Ia’s lecture. Ia answered him, getting back on track.
“Right. The third and fourth lessons you learn from gaining boot chevrons always go together—and I do mean always. Boot chevrons teach authority and responsibility. You cannot have one without the other.”
“Wait—isn’t that th’ same thing as th’ second one?” Spyder challenged her. “I mean, authority ’n how t’ lead th’ others?”
“Nope. Authority is partly that, but it’s also more. It’s about giving an order and having it obeyed, yes. But if it isn’t obeyed, it’s about having the power to implement punishments. If it is obeyed, it’s having the authority to praise and reward. Without going overboard on either end of the spectrum. That’s where the responsibility comes into play,” Ia pointed out. “Abuse of power, or even the laziness of not using enough of it, does not make for effective leadership. You have to strike a balance, and it’s not an easy thing to do. Particularly when they’re trying to beat us down, find our weakest spots, and toughen them up.
“Infractions must be punished, to prevent them from being repeated. Accomplishments must be praised, to encourage greater efforts.”
These weren’t just words to her; these were things Ia had tried to absorb into her bones over the last three years. Things she needed to believe. Not just in preparation for her career in the Space Force, but for all the preparations she had tried to make before leaving her homeworld.
“But to punish someone arbitrarily—like me ordering Crosp to do fifteen push-ups just because I feel like being nasty—isn’t a good use of my authority,” she continued. “Nor would giving him excessive amounts of praise, because too much of it starts to cheapen the value of that praise. There’s not enough time for these four lessons of boot chevrons to really sink in during Basic Training, but you do get a taste of it, enough to maybe plant a seed of ability.
“The idea is that hopefully that seed will sink in, germinate, and start to grow. Particularly if it lands in an open, thoughtful mind. These are all the things a good leader has to remember and implement in the right way at the right time.” Poking at her food with her fork again, Ia shrugged. “I myself need to learn how to lead in the practical sense, not just the theory of it. I can’t do anything about my background, or my family connections. All I can do is remember what I read, try to apply it, and see how I can make it actually work. To do that, I try to think ahead of time what all the possible outcomes might be, particularly if I use or abuse my position as squad leader.
“You can get mad at me, Arstoll, if that’s what you really want. It’s a free universe. But if I were you, I’d try to think about what the results will be if you keep trying to slag me just because I got a bit of temporary power. Of course, however you choose to act, I have to figure out how to work around that.” She gave him a tight, ironic smile. “Every time you act like a pain in the asteroid, it just makes me all the more determined to win your cooperation. Your attitude is helping me figure out how to lead.”
“Yeah, but what good does that do us?” Crosp asked, speaking before Arstoll could. “You’re the one with the boot chevrons. Not Arstoll, or Sung, or even me. How does that help us learn how to lead?”
Sung answered for her. Ia let her, since that gave her a chance to eat and drink again.
“That’s where the part about boot chevrons never lasting the whole length of training comes in. Look, we’re in training for twenty Terran Standard weeks, right?” Sung asked the others. “The Drill Instructors swap ’em every two weeks or so, rotating who gets to be squad leader through the whole of the squad so that everyone gets a chance, anywhere from ten to twenty days. Sometimes it’s swapped a little sooner, sometimes a little later. It depends on the size of the training class. My cousin in the DoI told me all about it.
“Ever since they created the Department of Innovations in the modern military, and backed it up with opportunities for people to start learning and displaying leadership qualities, it’s really made a difference on the effectiveness of the cadre, both noncoms and officers alike.” Sung shrugged her slender shoulders. “Sure, you can get an education degree before you join up, take the MAT, and try for a shot at being an officer right from the start, but all that guarantees is a desk job at some point. A lot of combat officers rise through the ranks through Field Commissions. Just because you sit in classes all day at an Academy, learning about tactics and strategy, troop deployments and logistics, doesn’t mean you really understand how to lead. Particularly in a battle zone.”
Swallowing the last of her food, Ia nodded. “Exactly. A lot of the officers who go straight into an Academy after their MAT end up in noncombat positions. These positions are important—for every soldier in the field, officer or enlisted, there are at least seven or eight support personnel back home keeping them supplied, provisioned, healthy, and paid.
As for how it can help you right now, you can always observe me, and try to figure out if the things I’m doing are good or bad, right or wrong, effective or ineffective.
“From there, you can extrapolate what thing you yourself could do, once you get your own boot chevrons. Not that my boot chevrons count for much, since we’re all still learning how to be soldiers, but at least we’re learning,” Ia pointed out, shrugging.
“The learning’s the important thing. Everyone who sits on the Command Staff has to have served in a combat zone, and specifically as a combat officer at some point during their career,” Mendez agreed. “That’s why I chose to start out as an enlisted soldier. Don’t get me wrong; based on my MAT scores, I could’ve gone on to college and then straight into an Academy, but four out of the six officers in my family history started out as enlisted, and one of them made it all the way to Rear Admiral before she retired.”
“Field Commissioned officers get more respect from the troops,” Arstoll stated. “That’s why I want to get a commission that way. FC officers know what it’s like to be a mud-slogger. They’re not going to ask you to do the impossible, because they know whether or not it’s possible. Commissioned officers who’ve only ever been to an Academy aren’t tested and tempered quite like we are.”
“Speaking of which,” Mendez warned them, lifting his chin at the chrono on the cafeteria wall, “it’s almost time to be cleaning up and clearing out.”
“Man, if we get more history lessons right after lunch,” Kumanei muttered, “I’m gonna fall asleep. I don’t care how many push-ups they assign me. I could use another hour of sleep each night . . . At least here in the military, they make sure you get enough to eat. I didn’t always get that back home. That part’s nice. But I miss the sleep.”
“I’m still wondering how she manages to eat so much, and not gain weight,” ZeeZee quipped, poking a thumb at Ia.
The comment amused her. “Cellular density,” Ia explained, gathering up her utensils and cup on her tray. “I have more bone mass, which requires more calcium, and more muscle mass, which requires more protein. Most people require two thousand calories a day to maintain a healthy weight. People living on Sanctuary require closer to four thousand.”
