3
The bus came to a stop outside the camp and settled down on its skirts. There was no mistaking the stark walls and shimmering fields above for anything other than a military base, but the trees that peeked from over the wall slightly lessened the impact.
An image of a matronly woman appeared on the screen at the front of the bus. “Welcome to Camp Alissa Nguyen, where you will embark on your journey of service to humanity. We are proud of you for making this commitment to our species’ very survival.”
“I didn’t make the commitment. The judge did,” the guy sitting in front of Rev muttered, just loud enough for him to hear.
Rev snorted but didn’t say anything. He’d seen all the holovids of bootcamp, read the same books, and he was waiting for hell to be unleashed. The Recruit Training Center, Camp Alissa Nguyen website was full of images of good-looking people going about their training with dedicated looks on their faces. The recruits were referred to as “our greatest asset,” and there were assurances that those assets were treasured and cared for.
Rev had talked to a few elderly vets, way past the age when the younger vets were being recalled, and that wasn’t quite how they described their experiences.
“Please debark the bus and line up at Gate C to your left.”
Rev looked out the window. The main gate was a massive affair, done in a retro-style red brick. Vehicles were passing through going in and out of the base. About twenty-meters to the left of the gate was a smaller entrance, a simple “Gate C” printed on a sign over it.
One after the other, the poolees—the term the processing sergeant called them and what they would remain until they were sworn in as recruits—got up and made their way to the door. Rev kept expecting a DI—Drill Instructor—to jump out at them in their shark attack, unleashing their fury, but it was calm. A few of the others chatted softly, but for the most part, it was quiet, just as it has been ever since the fifty or so of them had boarded back at the processing station. Rev figured that like him, most were lost in their thoughts.
Rev had swung back and forth from anger at his situation to nervousness at what was coming. Not all of his anger was at the judge or the system. It had taken him some time, but he knew this was his fault. He’d deviated from his upbringing to try and impress Mia by being a bad boy, so while he still railed against the fairness of the system, he knew he was at fault, too. Whether aimed at himself or the legal system, his anger hadn’t died off. Over time, however, it had dampened to banked coals, not the raging flames of before, but ready to return at the right spark. Nervousness had taken over, and he wiped his palms, which were slick with sweat.
He stepped off the bus, the night air heavy and silent. A queue had already formed at the gate, and a civilian scanned each person before letting them pass through it. Rev rubbed his right hip, where his new ID had been inserted at the processing station. He couldn’t feel anything, of course, but it mentally weighed on him. This one was the military version, and it held much more personal data, both administrative and biological.
And then it was his turn. The older man aimed his scanner, then looked at the display. With only a nod of his head, he indicated Rev to enter the camp.
Here it comes, he told himself, bracing for what was about to happen . . . but it wasn’t what he expected. The gate opened into a white hallway with doors on the left. He joined the end of the line outside one of them.
“Hey, you know what’s going on?” he asked the guy who had said the judge had sent him here.
“Not a clue,” the guy said.
The line was moving quickly, however, and within a couple of minutes it was Rev’s turn. He entered the room where a single tech in medwhites pointed at a triscan, but not any triscan he’d seen before. The big white ring, a full two meters across, making the little triscans in the local clinic look like a Cityscoot to a Kia-Maserati Hyperbolt. It pulsed with power that made Rev’s hair stand on end.
“You want me to go through that?”
“No, I’m sitting here for my health. Just do it, fish.”
Well, I don’t see any bodies on the other side.
He took a deep breath, then stepped through the scanner. He felt the familiar faint touch of the diagnostic beams, but this time it seemed more complete, if he could put it that way, as if every cell in his body had been taken out and examined. It made him feel naked.
Rev shuddered as he stepped onto the platform past the scanner. He looked back at the tech, who simply waved him on while calling in the next person. Rev pushed through the exit and into the night air, where his fellow recruits were milling about in a small grassy area near some bleachers. Behind them, the camp stretched out, the buildings illuminated by the lights. Beyond those was a bullying darkness, pressing in on the buttery circles. Somewhere, a bird shrieked, and then everything was quiet again.
Rev listened and found the silence oppressive. He’d expected to see activity—recruits, and training, and maybe people yelling like hell. Other than the occasional hover coming in and out of the main gate, the place was eerily quiet.
He didn’t want to stand alone like an idiot, so he joined a group of four others who were huddled to the side.
“. . . twenty years,” one of them was saying, a short, slight guy with long, dark hair and an earnest air about him. The guy moved his hands in short, nervous chops, agitated and awkward.
“Twenty? Bullshit,” the lone girl said. If anything, she was even shorter. She turned to Rev and asked, “What about you? What have you heard?”
“Heard about what?”
“How long we have to serve. Cricket here thinks it’s twenty years.”
“Twenty? No way,” he said, shocked by the suggestion, but then he rocked back on his heels, because—he didn’t really know, and his papers didn’t specify. When he asked, he was told his options would be presented at boot camp before he was sworn in.
His offense to get conscripted was minor, and he was hoping for the two-year minimum enlistment offered by the recruiters to volunteers. At least that was what was on the website. Nowhere could he find a definitive answer, and this was one case where no news didn’t mean good news.
The use of the term “options” had to be a good omen, and he planned for whatever was going to give him the least amount of time.
“I’m just telling you what I heard,” the guy named Cricket said. “A year ago, Class Five and better were five-year, and one-through-four were eight. But with the war going as it is—”
“What do you mean?” another guy said, this one a tall blonde, his head hunched over as if he was self-conscious about his height. “We’re winning, right?”
Rev looked at Cricket to see what he was going to say.
“Who knows? We only hear what they want us to hear. But think of it, with Class Thirteens and Fourteens getting conscripted? It was only two months ago that Elevens and Twelves joined the party. Would they be doing that if the war was going well?”
Rev had never considered that. The constant stream of news being fed by the government was that the war was going well, but more effort was needed. The Centaurs had to be defeated.
If this Cricket guy was right, then maybe the status of the war wasn’t so rosy.
“Are you guys all Thirteens and Fourteens?” Rev asked.
He knew his group of poolees were all conscripted, not volunteers, but that was about the breadth of his knowledge.
“I’m Rev Pelletier, and I’m a Fourteen. I was driving manually in an auto zone.”
“Big-time criminal,” the older-looking guy said with a laugh. He held out a hand, palm up in protest when Rev swung to confront him, saying, “Just pulling your chain. I’m in the same boat. Yancey del Rio. Class Fourteen, too. Got caught tagging a bridge.”
“That’s a Fourteen?” Rev asked.
“It is now. Or at least, a third offense is.”
The others turned to look at Yancy, and he added, “Well, if I’d have known it was a Fourteen, and this is where it would get me, I never woulda done it.”
The young woman held out a hand and said, “Tomiko Reiser. Hacked a personal account.” When Rev kept waiting, she added, “Class Nine.”
Within the vast bureaucracy that made up the government, almost every action was stuck into a slot, and that included criminal and civil actions. Without a pad, it was almost impossible to remember what conduct constituted what level of offense.
“And I’m Aroyatan Neem, but everyone calls me Cricket. I . . . uh . . . I got hit with a Class Seven. Fighting.”
That took Rev aback. Cricket was a good name for the small young man. He couldn’t mass more than sixty kilos soaking wet, and he certainly didn’t look like a brawler. With his goofy smile, he looked like the kind of guy who turned in his term paper a week early.
“Ten, you didn’t tell us what you did to rate this little party,” Cricket said.
The last member of the little ad hoc group looked startled. He hesitated a moment, then said. “Class Two, and I’m not telling you what for.”
All four of the others’ mouths dropped open. Class Two? That was for serious crimes. Only Class One offenses were worse, and the punishment for them had been brainwipe for over sixty years. With the war, now they could opt for a life sentence in the military.
Ten looked down to avoid their eyes and toed at the grass. Rev didn’t have a response to him, but his curiosity was piqued, to say the least. He wanted to know what this shy-looking guy had done that was a Class Two, and for a moment he was tempted to push the issue to find out, but they weren’t here to just socialize.
“All you leeches, gather on me!” a voice called out, breaking through the night.
Rev spun around to see six Marines stride out of the darkness.
“Now!” the one in the center called out.
This was what Rev was expecting, but still, his heart jumped to his throat as he hurried to obey, leaving the other four. One thing Mr. Oliva, one of the old vets he’d talked to over the last couple of weeks, had told him to do was to quickly obey the drill instructors no matter what. Rev sometimes chafed at authority, but he vowed he’d try to stay off the skyline and do what he was told. All he wanted was to do his required time then get back home, and time in the brig or on suspension didn’t count toward his obligated service.
The head drill instructor stood his ground in front of them, the other five slowly surrounding them. Rev gave the one nearest him a quick look, afraid of . . . of what, he didn’t know.
“Eyeballs on me!” the top guy said, and Rev swung his head back to him. “All of you leeches, we’re going on a little run. DO . . . NOT . . . FALL . . . OUT.”
There was a collective gasp and protests. Rev looked down at his shoes. Spikes looked fine, but other than maybe kicking somebody up his asshole, they weren’t good for much else. They certainly weren’t running shoes.
“Are we getting issued training gear?” a voice called out.
The head DI smiled and said, “Hell, you leeches aren’t even recruits yet, so why would we be giving you gear paid for by the taxpayer.”
If we aren’t even recruits yet, then why do we have to do what you say?
Rev was ever-so tempted to voice that, and he almost did, but Mr. Oliva’s warning was enough to keep his mouth shut.
Without another word, the head DI turned and started jogging, and the placement of the other DIs became apparent. They were the herd dogs, keeping the flock together. Or more like sharks circling a school of sardines, waiting to catch the one who strayed. Rev maneuvered to the center of the pack to keep as far away from them as possible.
The pace was slow as the group ran about half a klick, passing between buildings and coming around and out onto a field ringed by a track. The bleachers where the DIs had picked them up were now facing them. They’d just done a big circle.
“Now, all of you, run,” the head DI said, pointing down the track.
“What the hell are we doing?” Yancey asked, moving alongside Rev. “I’m already chafing.”
“Hell, look at my spikes,” Rev said.
“Oh, man, that’s gotta suck,” Yancey said with a laugh.
His feet were already beginning to bark, and he could feel the sole of his right shoe coming loose.
“I’m slowing down. These cost me ninety BCs.”
He pulled to the inside of the track, looking for the DIs. To his surprise, they had stopped where the group had entered the track.
All the better.
He slowed down further as the group spread out. People were getting bolder, and conversations were breaking out. The general consensus was that this wasn’t as bad as everyone had thought it would be.
As Rev rounded the far turn, he could see the rabbits, the kiss-asses who’d taken off, being pulled off the track. It took him another couple of hundred meters to see why. As each person reached the DIs, they were directed off the track to where they were doing some sort of exercises. Rev slowed down further. If he had to do something else, he needed his energy. He was running slowly, but still, he was puffing a bit as he reached the DIs.
“Right here, leech,” one of the DI’s told him, pointing to a spot on the grass. “Twenty lifts over your head.”
Rev grabbed the padded ball and hoisted it up. It was maybe fifteen kilos or so. Not heavy . . . for the first five lifts. By twenty, his arms were aching, a slow fire burning that crept up each fiber of his muscle. And he wasn’t done. The DIs were roaming between the struggling poolees, giving them more exercises—rolling a huge log, pushing against a padded sled, more lifting. Rev was puffing hard when a DI came up and shot him with a portable scanner. The DI glanced at the readout and told him to run another lap.
This is bullshit.
His side began to hurt, but he managed somewhat of a shuffle as he tried to catch his breath, his back and arms aching with the exertion. It took him longer to get around the track this time, and not before he was lapped by one of the other poolees. He didn’t care. He just wanted it to be over.
But it wasn’t. There was another round of exercises.
Rev was on his back, passing one of the balls from one side of his body to the other, when the poolee next to him sat up and announced that he was done. He wasn’t going to go on. One of the DIs came up to him, bent over, and whispered something into his ear. Whatever it was made the poolee start exercising again, and Rev took it as a clue that he shouldn’t try something similar.
One of the brown-nosers finished her exercises. A DI shot her, then told her to run back to the building at Gate C.
Not so for Rev. When a DI shot him, the man told him to run another lap.
Rev’s spikes were falling apart before he’d gone another hundred meters, so with a snarl, he ripped them off and tossed them. Anger at losing them gave him power, and for half a lap, he pushed the pace.
“You doing OK, Rev?” Cricket asked as he came alongside the smaller man.
“Bite me,” Rev said, passing him.
The anger-fueled power only lasted until the final turn. He slowed again coming down the home stretch, lungs bellowing like a steam engine. Several more poolees were leaving and heading to the building. He couldn’t be sure, but it looked like three were sitting in the bleachers.
Rev left the track, sidestepping another poolee who was bent over at the waist, puking. The acrid smell made him grimace, but he found a clean piece of grass to lie on so he could do the ball exercise again. He watched yet another poolee, Tomiko this time, get scanned then directed back to the building. It was obvious by now that they wouldn’t be released until the scanner gave the right numbers, and since the ones who were allowed to stop were the ones who were putting out the most, that was their ticket out of this hell.
Rev forced his body to complete each of the eight exercises, blowing hard as he stood to be scanned.
“Another lap,” the DI said, and Rev almost collapsed in frustration. But there was nothing he could do about it except to obey.
Two poolees had collapsed and were lying inert where they’d fallen. A corpsman checked each, then left them in the grass. So much for protecting their “most valuable assets.”
Rev considered just falling as well, faking it. But whatever the DI had told the blonde poolee—or more accurately, her reaction to whatever that was—kept Rev going. He didn’t want to find out what the DI had said.
It took two more laps and exercising, but finally, with only six other poolees left, Rev was told to go to the building at Gate C.
Relief battled anger, but at least he was done with the mindless harassment. He slowed to a jog when a DI bellowed, “Push it or you’re coming back for more.”
Rev wasn’t a hundred percent sure that was directed to him, but he took no chances. He bolted into a sprint for the last 150 meters or so to the building where another civilian waved him inside and directed him to the nearest door.
He entered a carbon copy of the room where he’d been scanned. A different medtech stood at the controls, but the same size triscan dominated the room.
“Please step through,” the medtech said, her eyes on the control panel screens.
Rev wanted nothing more than to collapse on the floor and suck in air, but with an effort, he walked over to the ring and stepped through. He barely noticed the beams this time as they dug out every secret his body held.
“What now?” he asked the tech.
“Go to the bleachers and wait.”
Rev stepped out the exit and back into the night. He leaned up against the wall for a moment, his head dizzy. He could feel his dinner from what seemed like days ago wanting to make an appearance, but with an effort of will, he forced it back down into his belly.
He sucked up his gut, stood tall, and walked over to the bleachers. There was no way he was going to look like a wimp in front of the others. Tomiko, Cricket, and Ten were already sitting on the second row of the nearest set of bleachers. Ten was still sweating, but both Tomiko and Cricket seemed relaxed and ready to go another round if need be.
“Well, that was . . . I’ll say . . . fun,” Tomiko said with a small groan. Evidently, she felt worse than she looked.
“I don’t know why we had to do this tonight,” Ten said.
“I think they were indexing us,” Cricket said.
“What, you mean to see what kind of shape we’re in?”
“Maybe. Or maybe how our bodies react to exercise. Might make sense. I mean, there has to be a shitload of jobs in the Marines, and they’ll need to place us where we can serve best.”
“I just want to do my time and get back in one piece,” Rev said. “A nice desk somewhere would suit me. Hell, I should have been conscripted into the Navy, but the judge didn’t give me any choice.”
Cricket gave Rev a hard stare and said, “You don’t want that, my friend. When the Centaurs take out a ship, it’s all hands lost, as in all hands.”
It took a moment to catch Cricket’s meaning, and then he blanched. He’d never thought of that. The Centaurs had superior ships, and the Union military command couldn’t hide the fact that more and more of their own ships were being lost. There were only so many missing sailors you could hide before families started asking uncomfortable questions.
The people always found out.
Other than briefly, and then only as a back-up plan, Rev really hadn’t thought much of anything about the military. He had been on a guild-track, in a vital industry. And it wasn’t as if there was much he could find out even if he’d tried. There had been a veil of secrecy cast over the war and military in general for the last few years. If Rev had thought anything of it before being conscripted, it was that the government was being overly cautious. Did they think humanity was riddled with Centaur spies? It would be hard for a three-meter-tall mass of armored alien to blend into the crowd.
Yancey came around the corner of the stands, spotted them, and plopped down hard. He leaned back so his head rested on the bench behind them. Someone sitting right beside his head gave him a dirty look—which he ignored—and scooted over half a meter.
“That sure sucked,” he said matter-of-factly as he stared at the stars.
“Not as much as for them,” Tomiko said, pointing back toward the track as gurneys were being loaded with two of their fellow poolees.
The chatter in the stands died out as they watched the gurneys float after the corpsman taking them deeper into the camp, away from the stands.
“What do you think’s going to happen to them?” Ten asked.
No one answered. Whatever it was, Rev didn’t think it would be good. If they were volunteers, maybe they’d be released if they couldn’t hack it, but they were all conscripts here. There would be no release for conscripts until their obligation was fulfilled . . . or they were killed in the war.
“Alright, leeches, listen up,” the head DI yelled as he and the other DIs strode over to them. “The major’s got a few words for you, so you all sit tight while I get him. No jaw-jacking, hear me?”
There were a few “yeses” and one “aye-aye,” but most of the poolees remained silent. Cricket nudged Yancey to sit up. Rev just looked around and wondered what was next as the remaining DIs stood off to the side.
The major must have been close because it couldn’t have been two minutes before he marched up with the head DI. The DIs had been wearing black sweatshirts and camouflaged trousers tucked into black boots, but the major was in full uniform. Not the dress blues in the recruiting posters, but a dark green jacket with a chest full of medals and matching pants. His right hand was a metallic silver, gleaming like a polished coin.
Rev didn’t understand why many vets seemed to tend to the obvious prosthetics. It wasn’t that hard to graft on a new limb. It was a lengthy process, though not a difficult one. But even with prosthetics, there were far more lifelike ones that were difficult to detect. Yet, like this major, Mr. Oliva had two of the same silver-colored legs, in his case, and he had a habit of thumping them for emphasis when he was talking.
“Poolees, welcome to Camp Nguyen and the first step in fulfilling your obligation to humanity.”
“At least he didn’t call us leeches,” Yancey muttered, earning him another elbow shot in the ribs from Cricket.
“I realize that none of you are volunteers,” the major continued. “But that doesn’t matter. Once you complete recruit training, you will all be Marines, the equal of everyone else.”
If the slight sneer taking over the head DI’s lip was any indication, Rev rather doubted that. It didn’t matter, though. This was just something to be endured before he could go back home and hopefully get back into the guild channel.
The major went on, spouting patriotism and duty, about the Centaur threat and what it meant. Rev tuned him out, and took a moment to look over the rest of his fellow poolees. Most were guys, which probably made sense as each of them was there for committing a crime.
Crime? Shit. What I did wasn’t a crime. It was a freaking traffic ticket.
He wondered what the rest of them had done. For that matter, he wondered what Ten had done to get a Class Two. He turned to look at him when something the major said caught his full attention.
“Now, to the question you’ve all been wondering. How long are you going to serve?”
Every single poolee sat up straight, eyes locked on the man.
“The quick answer is that I can’t tell you.”
Groans rose into the night.
“It’s been . . .” the major said, pausing to choose his words. “. . . a moving target. And then there’s your combat class. What you choose will affect that as well.”
Combat class? Is that the “options” the website mentioned?
Rev focused on the major. Whatever was going to get him home the soonest was what he was going to do.
“But I can tell you this. Before you’re sworn in, you’re going to know exactly what your path will be in the Marines.”
The drill instructors let out a loud “ooh-rah” in unison.
“And that’s about all I have for you now. You’ve got a busy three days before you officially become recruits, but as of zero-zero-zero-one this morning, you belong to the Corps. Listen to your DIs, go where you have to be, and do what you’re told to do.”
He turned to the head DI and said, “Senior Drill Instructor Howland, get these poolees to gear issue. I want every one of them in their singlets before morning chow at zero-five-hundred.”
The senior DI (“senior,” not “head” as Rev had been thinking of him) came to a position of attention, facing the major, and yelled out, “Aye-aye, sir!”
He didn’t salute, which struck Rev as odd, but then again, Rev didn’t know much about the military at all.
The senior DI—Howland, the major had called him—waited until the officer was out of sight before he turned back to the poolees. “Get your asses out of the bleachers, leeches. You heard the major. DIs, take over. I want all of your leeches standing tall outside of the chow hall at zero-four-fifty.”
“You sixteen,” one of the DIs shouted, pointing at the poolees around Rev. “Get up and form a line.”
The poolees looked at each other hesitantly, then started to stand up.
“Now, leeches!”
Rev vaulted over the bottom bench and pushed past another poolee to stand at the spot the DI was indicating. The other fifteen hurried into position behind him.
A second DI stepped up to Rev and said, “Stay on my ass,” before he shouted out, “Squad, atten . . . HUT! Forward . . .MARCH. Double-time . . . March!”
Rev just kept eyes on the DI, trying to keep close. He ignored the jostling and stumbling of his fellow poolees.
He didn’t know what was going on, but one thing was for sure: it was going to be a long night.