"Back to the Army again, sergeant,
Back to the army again.
'Ow did I learn to do right-about-turn?
I'm back to the Army again."—Rudyard Kipling, "Back to the Army Again"
"Could I see you, Kendra?" Hiroki asked quietly, looking rather upset.
"Cert," she agreed. "What goes?" She followed him into his office. He offered her a seat. She saw both Karen and Citizen Hernandez as she took it, and felt suddenly bothered.
"The city has had to cut our stipend totally," Hiroki said.
Hernandez continued, "Not by choice. But the economic crunch is hitting us. We have a duty to provide support to the military, and with trade reduced, our contributions from corporate sources have shrunk. There are several areas that can no longer be funded for the foreseeable future."
Hiroki picked up, "As I'm sure you've figured, Karen and I are the only permanent contractors. The others are hired as-needed, and the labor pool are all court prisoners. We've cut into the budget for landscaping, raised the fees for rental, but what it finally comes down to is we have no work for you to do and no money to pay you. We are very regretfully going to have to terminate your contract." He flushed red at the admission and looked thoroughly ashamed. Kendra had learned that terminating an employee for other than disciplinary reasons was considered very discourteous, almost criminal.
She replied, "I understand, Hiroki. It's not your fault." After a moment's silence and a nod from him, she turned to Hernandez and asked, "My contract is being resold then? How much input do I get?"
"Your contract was paid by the park," Hernandez said, leaning back. "So it is terminated with no prejudice to you. It's the least we can do, since you are going to be out of work. Your debt is paid. I'll be happy to help you find something else. And possibly advance you funds for travel or such."
"Thank you, sir, but I have savings," she insisted. "And I'd like to explore my own resources first."
"Please come by to visit whenever you like," Karen said. She apparently had been there as emotional support for Hiroki. "And if something comes up, we'll let you know immediately."
"Thank you," Kendra said, her brain considering possibilities. She made awkward small talk that tapered off and finally said goodbye and left, retrieving her few possessions from her locker. She headed back for Marta's, having no other place to go at the moment.
"Okay," Rob said after she told him, "So you are paid off less than halfway through your contract, unemployed and have savings. There are far worse situations."
"Oh, sure," she agreed, "but I'm still unemployed and have limited savings. And I don't think anyone wants a cultural assessment of Earth at this point." She smiled wryly.
Marta came through from the kitchen and said, "You can stay here as long as you want, love. You know that."
"Thanks," she said. "But I won't take charity. I'll pay for my board."
Marta started to object, but caught Rob's expression. She didn't understand it, but she held her comments.
Rob knew she felt out of place and why she couldn't take charity from friends. She might take it from a government, but there was no such here. The irony was amusing, since most Freeholders were diametrically opposed to her position, from the same motives.
"Come," Rob said with a gesture. "There's someone I want you to meet." He rose and headed for the vehicle bay. She followed him and strapped in.
He drove across town to a smaller business park, Park North. Like most, it actually was a privately owned, publicly accessible park with commercial and light industrial businesses surrounding it. He stopped near one edge, in what was technically a retail area. The sign above them said Military Recruiting Station.
Kendra said, "But—" but he cut her off and led her inside.
By the end of the day, she was back in the military. She liked serving and being useful, and part of her homesickness had been for her military life. The Freehold forces impressed her and it hadn't taken much suggestion. The recruiter naturally was eager to meet his quota, but few slots were available. However, hearing of her prior service had made his job easier and he'd offered her the rank of corporal. She accepted, signed and was initially sworn in. In back, the old routine of placement tests and physical examination was almost comforting, despite its impersonality. The adminwork was as brief as she was coming to expect and they even had space in logistics. Part of her was nervous, but another part was thrilled at being part of a team again, of belonging to society. Rob had stressed that she needed placement soon and the recruiter scheduled her to leave a week hence. She cheerfully went home and sat down to a celebratory feast with her family, as she was coming to think of them, and slept soundly after gathering her possessions and making plans and lists.
The week was tense. She felt eagerness mixed with anxiety and took it out physically on Rob, who reciprocated even more passionately than usual. They spent a lot of time talking about nothing in particular, and some time talking about training, but always skirting the issue of departure and separation.
"I'm betting this is very different from the UNPF recruit training," he said to her one day at lunch. They were all staying at Marta's for the time being, and the pair of them were sitting at the heavy, carved bluemaple dining table.
"Why?" she asked, between sips of soup.
"Different philosophies," he said. "We're a nation of cooperative loners, doing what has to be done because it's reasonable. Earth for the most part is very social, everyone cooperating because they've been raised to do so. We think differently. And the UN officially regards force as undesirable, talks around the subject and always pretends it's using less than it is. They've got lots of money and personnel and don't have to be efficient. So they have a small operations force within a huge support structure, aimed at bringing strays back into the fold. Whereas we . . . well, what do we need a military for?"
That was something she'd wondered herself. "I'm not really sure."
"Neither are we," he said. "But being independent, we have to have our own. It's small, the ratio of operations to support is huge and the line between them blurred, and we can't expect to fight in nice urban settings, with all the water, power, roads and facilities we'd like."
He described training to her and she knew she should be listening, but it really wasn't what either of them wanted to talk about. She knew he wanted her to stay, she knew he understood why she had to do this, and they were both avoiding the issue.
At least they didn't fight.
Marta was less vocal about the military, more so about missing Kendra. The contrasts between the two women were small enough for them to be good friends, sufficient for Kendra to find interest in everything Marta suggested, even if she decided most of it wasn't to her taste. They spent the week hitting club after club at Mar's urging, building up socialization against the coming enforced weeks of spartan discipline.
Their goodbye was teary. Once again, Kendra was being uprooted from her home and dragged to a strange place to start anew. She'd thought it would be easier, having fewer possessions and family to worry about. It seemed that the dearth thereof made what she had that much more precious.
They all went to the port and sat around a café table, drinking chocolate and coffee, eating spiced snacks and plain quesadillas. "You're staring at me," Kendra said after a while.
"We're going to miss you," Rob said. He was staring at her face, her body, her face again. It was unnerving. Marta said nothing, just gripped her hand.
"I'll be back," she said, smiling. It was forced. Inside, she was nervous. Basic all over again. And what would it be like, with all her experience, to be a raw recruit again?
Soon enough, her flight was called. From habit, they walked briskly, then waited again at the departure lounge. It was still odd not to have any kind of security check. A token few employees stopped eager visitors from walking onto the planes and shuttles and that was it.
She was hugged from both sides, Rob and Marta seemingly determined to cling to her until the last moment. Then Marta kissed her. "Take care, be careful, and hurry back," she said.
Rob in turn gripped her tightly, pulled her close, firm muscles pressing against her from knee to shoulder, and kissed her hard and long. His hands held her at neck and waist. When they broke at last, he said, "Good luck. Love you."
"Love you," she agreed, her eyes damp.
The two hurried away, not looking back.
Kendra arrived in the town of Rockcliff in late afternoon and had to find her own way to the base. The taxi ride gave her the chance to look at the scenery of the western coastal range, much younger and sharper than the blurred edges of those near the capital. The landscape was vigorous, blue-green and yellow, with purple hazy peaks to the tallest mountains far off to the east.
Rockcliff was actually a considerable distance inland, despite being situated above the west coastal plain, and Mirror Lake was a perfect blue that blended into the sky. With few major roads and only a bare two centuries of development, the city seemed to well up out of the landscape. A modern, geometric corporate headquarters building grew like a massif out of the trees and she marveled again at the sheer, overwhelming sensuality of Grainne's scenery.
Dropped at the gate of the base, she was held until a student escort from training depot could come to get her, then dropped off at a huge barracks complex. She was led to a hundred-bed bay, stifling in the afternoon heat, and introduced to an instructor.
"Sergeant Carpender," her escort said, "Recruit Pacelli."
Carpender was tall, taller than she, and broad shouldered with a barrel chest. His hair was short and wavy brown and his face round and intense. He glanced at his comm and said, "A little early, aren't you?" His voice boomed.
"Transportation problems, sir," she said.
"What's the problem with being early? Never complain about that. You can help over here." He gestured.
Two recruits already in uniform were aligning beds and laying out fresh linen. She assisted by dragging the bedclothes from a truck outside and dropping a bundle on each bed. They were done shortly.
"You two are released back to your section," Carpender told them. "Pacelli, let's get dinner." She followed him across to a dining hall that was blowing out wonderful smells. She knew from more than a year of experience that Freeholders demanded excellent food, even at government facilities, and loaded her plate high after signing in. It wasn't dissimilar from UN facilities so she felt comfortable.
"So, can I ask about your accent?" Carpender inquired, sitting across from her. He'd filled his tray to capacity and then some, and dug in as he sat.
She explained her background in detail, since the recruiters had all the data anyway. He nodded periodically and asked some leading questions. He didn't seem to find her story problematic.
"I've heard all kinds of backgrounds here," he said. "Don't sweat it."
Then he asked, "Am I right that you are a bit below things as far as physical strength?" She agreed. "Okay," he nodded. "Then understand this: on the one hand, there aren't any allowances for that. On the other hand, we don't want you hurt. Keep me informed if there are any problems and we'll either get you supplemental training or, not likely, medical treatment if necessary. If anything has you confused or is outside your experience, ask. You have the right to know you are being treated within our safety requirements, and we need to know about any problems to do that."
She agreed politely and thankfully and returned to the barracks with him. Three other recruits arrived that evening. There were thumping and banging noises at night and when she awoke there were eleven of them. The main rush arrived by bus at 3 divs, bringing the total to fifty.
They were walked rather than marched to the training depot and had all their documentation from the recruiters redone for clarity. Some minor points were corrected and one person sent home on medical profile. He was directed to return in three months. Kendra never found out why.
Next, they were lined up for medical exams—very complete medical exams. Nanoprobes, electronic scans, and physical tests, including samples of blood, skin and hair. They were immunized with both nanos and a few hypodermics and given paper copies of the transaction as well as datachips. There were several briefings on training, procedures and other details. Kendra learned that there were Christian chaplains on base, including a Roman Catholic, although not a Catholic Reformed. Still, it was something. And she had a choice of local clock or Earth clock for worship. She decided that every ten local days was adequate, not being exceptionally devout. Besides, the idea of adapting every seven Earth days at twenty-four hours to the local schedule was bound to create waves and get her noticed.
"Strip," Carpender ordered. "Place your civilian clothes in the bag and line up here for haircuts. No talking, and keep your noses in your study manuals when not otherwise occupied." She was almost used to nudity with strangers, and peeled out of her unitard and slacks. She joined a cluster that was getting sorted into lines, and fell in.
They were lined up by height, which put Kendra near the front as the tallest woman by far, and the first one in. She could see ahead of her the men having their heads shaved. It was hard for her to believe that barbaric rituals like that were still part of a modern military. She pretended to keep her nose in her book, as ordered, but watched obliquely. Some of them were relaxed and expecting it, others nervous.
She was quickly at the front of the line and wondered how short they'd clip her. Collar? Neck? She stepped forward as a chair emptied,and a bib was slipped around her neck. "How short?" the . . . well, "barber" was the wrong word, but . . .
"Collar-length?" she half inquired.
"Back to the collar," he agreed sadistically, as the shears swept back from the center of her forehead. She gasped. They shaved women, too?? She quickly was despising the medieval thugs who had designed this course of training. What the hell were they thinking?
She was bald in seconds and urged out of the chair. She remembered her doccase through her daze, walked through the indicated door, and stifled her outrage. She fumed silently, afraid to touch her head and feel the stubble.
She joined the lines for uniforms and snuck a glance at the man currently on the pad. Light beams scanned him quickly, calculated sizes and reported it to a duty soldier. They still drew uniforms from the racks by hand! Why such a primitive approach? Automation existed for such minor details.
She stepped forward, ready to be scanned, when a firm grip on her arm pulled her aside. "Over here, recruit," a woman's voice ordered. She turned to see a sergeant and a private. "Legs spread and arms straight out. Eyes front," the sergeant continued. Turning to address the private, she said, "Around the neck—" and Kendra felt a band wrapped around her throat. It dropped away and the private yelled, "Thirty-four!"
The sergeant continued, "Chest and waist," and the private ordered, "Breathe in and hold, recruit." She complied. In seconds, she'd been measured by hand and sizes scribbled on a sheet. She was urged toward one of the troops drawing uniforms and as she handed her measurements over, heard the sergeant say, "Not bad. Try the next one." Apparently it was a training exercise. Well, it was good to know how to measure if the system was down. It would never happen on Earth, of course. Touching someone without a specific invite was grounds for criminal action. The detailed waivers doctors had their patients sign was proof of that.
She was handed a stack of uniforms and pointed at a painted square on the floor. "Get dressed and keep all gear inside the lines!" someone ordered. She'd give them this: they were very fast and efficient. And, she found out seconds later, they issued uniforms that fit. It took only segs to be back outside, carrying a duffle full of clothes.
The remainder of the day was all processing. Typical military, but with little "hurry up and wait." No one wasted any time and the recruits were processed fast. They were fed, escorted back to the barracks and bedded down.
The next morning, Carpender was an utterly different human being, if that was the term. He entered the bay shouting, kicking and throwing things. If asked, Kendra would have admitted she'd never dreamed such language would be used in a civilized nation's military.
"Dry those sticky fingers and hit the fucking decks, you worthless worms! Three fucking seconds! I want you outside in three fucking seconds! Did I say grab any clothes? Move your saggy, no-load asses! Don't talk! Don't think! When I want any shit out of you I'll rip off your head and scoop it out!"
Shocked senseless, Kendra swarmed outside with the others. Few wore more than the shirt and underwear she did, some were naked. It was cold outside. She wrapped her arms around herself and wondered what the hell was going on.
Suddenly, he was in front of her. "Where the fuck are you from, loser?"
"Minneapolis . . . on Earth, sir."
"I can't hear you! one would think with a chest like that there'd be lungs underneath somewhere . . . Well?"
Unbelievable! Sexual innuendoes? Kendra decided she would not be the first to complain. But Rob's warning seemed shallow in comparison to the reality. Carpender was about to bellow again, so she inhaled and shouted, "Yes, sir!"
" 'Yes, sir,' what??"
"I have lungs, sir!"
"Glad to hear it," he said and began pacing. "Because they are crucial to surviving recruit training and you will exercise them regularly. Do you all understand?"
There was a ragged chorus of "Yes, sir."
"Bullshit! I want to hear balls and titties shaking when you answer! The commander is getting a little deaf, and can't hear you over there in his insulated office. If he can't hear you, he thinks I'm not doing my job. So you will sound off loud enough to reassure him and keep me gainfully employed shattering your wills. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir!" came the bellowed reply.
"Work on it," he advised, and strode back to Kendra.
"Don't they have cold in mini-no-place?" he bellowed, nose almost touching hers.
"Yes, sir!" she replied, loud enough to hurt her throat.
"Then suck it up and take it, princess, because it is going to get colder and hotter than you can imagine!"
"Yes, sir!" she shouted.
He addressed the whole formation again. "There are footprints painted on the ground. Put your feet on them. Knees relaxed, backs straight. Arms straight down, thumbs along where your pants seams would be if you had any. This is the position of 'attention,' and it draws excess blood away from the brain, enabling miserable, vomitous, slimy little shitballs like yourselves to listen more clearly.
"I am Senior Sergeant Recruit Instructor Joseph P. Carpender, and you are worthless maggots. You will refer to anyone higher in rank than yourselves, which is anyone, by their rank and rating. Since you are all clearly too stupid to memorize 'Senior Sergeant Recruit Instructor Carpender' and since the war would be lost before you could say it . . . I'm not laughing, why are you, maggot? . . . You will address me as 'sir.' Can anyone spell 'sir?' "
"S-I-R?" someone replied.
Without looking, he demanded, "You will state your name when answering and address me properly. Try it again, assmunch!"
"Asher Denson, Sir! Sir is spelled 's-i-r,' sir!"
He strode over and looked down at the recruit, who was in the younger-than-average category. "Your first name is 'recruit,' maggot! Maybe someday you Will get a manly pair of balls and be allowed the honor of changing it to 'soldier!' Make your corrections."
"Recruit Denson, sir! I'm sorry for the error, sir!"
"You're sorry, all right. Now apologize. Shut up!" he bellowed contradictorily as the kid tried to reply. He turned and paced again. "For your information, 'sir' is spelled 'g-o-d.' I am god, and you will learn from me or be struck down."
He was clearly reciting from rote as he continued, "This is without a doubt the sorriest bunch of limp-dicked, banana-tittied, ass-breathed, masturbating, runny-nosed, slack-jawed, potbellied, macaroni-muscled, shit-sucking, gutless little trolls I have ever had the misfortune to have assigned to me! I do believe the commander is pissed off at me for being too gentle! Therefore, I will be harder! In the past, I have crushed the souls of some genuine ladies and men with my thespian talents. I feel my skills will be wasted reducing such a sorry bunch of nail-biting, pud-pounding, pussy-stretching, panty-wetting, jabbering yokels to tears and soggy pants!
"But it is my duty, and I will do it.
"You do not have to, and will not, enjoy anything that happens here for the next eighty-six days. You will ache, you will cry, you will be humiliated and degraded, you will bleed. All this will do one of two things: either send you back to mama with your eyes bloodshot and teary or qualify you to become a proud member of the freehold military forces—the meanest, baddest, most brutal bunch of professional KILLERS who ever struck the fear of the god and goddess into an enemy ten times their size.
"Learn now the first lesson," he said as he came to attention and faced them. "anything you do can get you killed. Doing nothing will get you killed. You have all taken those psych tests where there are no wrong answers. This is a test with no right answers.War does not determine who is right. War determines who is left.
"None of you are dressed as prescribed in the recruit Training Manual. Since you have not yet been read the relevant section, and since your literacy is questionable, I will be lenient. You should each be wearing nine articles of clothing minimum on this and every day of your existences from now on. You will each count how many articles you are wearing, subtract it from nine, multiply the result by twenty. That is how many pushups you will do as a reminder. Don't even think of fucking with me by trying to do less. You are not paid to think, and I can and will multiple track you. Now drop and pump!"
A hundred and forty pushups?? Kendra thought to herself as she threw herself at the ground. In this gravity?? But Carpender was counting and she tried grimly to keep up with the count. Then she fell behind. She kept her own count as they progressed, until she collapsed at forty-three. She hadn't thought she could do that many.
"Problem, princess?" Carpender snapped from above, almost gently.
"My arms won't support me, sir," she grunted.
"Your arms will do anything your brain and guts want them to. Get with it," he said, then moved through the ranks to haze others. She forced her muscles to respond and shook through twelve more. The ranks were thinning as some finished and headed inside, but Kendra had plenty of miserable companions to keep her company.
Carpender came back. "That's ninety, isn't it, princess?"
"I have only finished fifty-five, sir!" she half howled, half whimpered.
"Well, there's no rest for the honest. You will stay here, with your tits freezing to the ground, until such time as you finish," he advised. "So suck it up and pump 'em out." He hoisted her aloft by her shirt collar, the fabric biting into her neck, and let go. She fell painfully down, banging her chin. "Take that one as a freebie," he said, walking off, "just for being honest."
Kendra was last to finish and struggled inside. Her arms were blessedly numb and most of her body was, also. She fumbled, shivering, into a uniform and back outside into formation.
Carpender flicked his eyes at her, but said nothing as she filled in the last slot. "Walk this way," he ordered.
They straggled along, not quite in step, and were passed by several platoons of more advanced trainees. Insulting cadences and jeers rang out, most of them familiar to Kendra, if blunter and ruder. She smiled inwardly. More roots she could recognize.
"Recruit, recruit, don't feel blue
My recruiter fucked me too."
And
"Ain't no sense in looking down,
Ain't no discharge on the ground . . ."
They walked until they reached the issue depot again. Inside, they were tossed more gear, this time suspension vests and packs, body armor, tools, canteens . . . and rifles. They were issued their rifles once and expected to keep them for life. That shocked Kendra at first, but upon consideration, it made sense. A soldier who was honorably discharged was no different a person the next day, and no less trustworthy. Here, as in the UN, all veterans could be recalled to duty if needed. It did seem reasonable that they have their gear with them, rather than needing a reissue that would take days at best.
Back outside, Carpender went through excruciating detail on how to wear every item. "If you survive to become a soldier," he said, "you can wear it any way you wish. That is the privilege of the soldier. But as filthy little maggots, you will wear it in the fashion prescribed by the book. This is so the cadre can tell you haven't conveniently lost any items to try to wimp out on us.
"You will be armed at all times, on and off base, with at least a sidearm. It will be your duty to the Freehold to protect the Freehold and you cannot properly protect it unarmed."
He led them down several roads and into tall grass that had been beaten down by use.
"When soldiers walk, it is called marching. Before you can learn to walk, however, you must learn to crawl. We will spend the rest of the day learning to crawl. On your hands and knees."
They dropped quickly and gratefully. Then they realized that the gear was heavy and crawling hard work, especially when you weren't allowed to contact the ground with your torso.
Kendra was forced to her elbows, her arms not having enough strength to keep her upright. It had been a miserable morning, a boring lunch of field rations and an excruciating afternoon. The heat hit before noon and continued until well past the break for dinner. Sweat and grime mingled in a greasy film on everything.
After dinner, they walked back to the barracks and grounded all gear except rifles. They fell in outside again and Carpender took his usual position. "No-load," he said, using the moniker he'd attached to one recruit.
"Yes, sir!"
"Front and center. And Icebitch." After a few moments, he added, "That's you, Pacelli. Are you waiting for an engraved fucking invitation? Did you decide this morning you were going to fuck up my schedule and my life?"
"No, sir, no sir, and here, sir!" she shouted as she hit the line in front of him.
"Well, that's funny," he said as titters ran through the ranks. "Ever consider comedy?"
"No, sir!" she replied.
"Good. You'd starve. If you have energy for jokes, you have energy to give me twenty. So does anyone who laughed. And anyone who groaned can make it thirty! And you, and you, and you, who don't have the integrity to admit to laughing can make it fifty!"
Several segs later, they resumed. Kendra and No-load were back at attention in front of Carpender. "About, hace!" he ordered. Kendra swiveled on her heel.
"These two have prior service," he explained. "Not what anyone competent would properly call military service, but at least they learned how to march. At least, I hope you two know how to march, with your records," he said viciously, breathing over Kendra's shoulder, "because if you embarrass me, it will not bode well for the next eighty-six days."
"Split into three squads, here and here," he waved his hands to indicate. "Icebitch, take the left, No-load, take the right. I'll take the middle. If they can walk and turn corners without tripping before a div has passed, you won't have to give me fifty more."
Kendra waited a moment to see what Carpender did. He waved his group into a circle, so she followed suit.
She began the process of showing them attention again, facing movements, forward march, column right and left and left and right wheel. Then was the laborious time of getting a handful of people to learn left from right and remember that forward march commenced on the left foot. In exasperation, she handed several of them rocks to hold in their left hands. It actually did work.
A div later, Carpender came over and snapped orders. "Squad, by my command, Aten shut! Left hace! About, hace! Right, hace! About, hace! Forward, harch! Column left, harch! Column right, harch! Squad, halt! Adequate. At least they don't trip over their feet. You will be squad leader, and march them every night until they are competent. Say, 'Yes, sir.' "
"Yes, sir!"
"Shower, Shave, Shit and Sleep. Look for your names on the watch roster. Dismissed." He strode inside.
Kendra had never been more exhausted in her life. She couldn't lift her arms above mid-chest and could barely stand in the shower. It didn't help that the water was now cold; the heat had been turned off. She dried as best she could manage, drew on a shirt and underwear against the growing cold and straightened her bay area. She was too shocked by the day to lie down, so sat on her chair for a while. Open bay barracks, shaved scalps, screaming profanity and exercise as punishment. It was like something out of the Middle Ages. Rob had warned her that it would be harder than her UN training, but the magnitude of the difference was staggering. She ran a hand over her stubbly bald head again, and breathed deeply to avoid crying. She could hear occasional sobs and restless movement from some of the younger recruits. Some were barely sixteen Earth years. How would they survive this?
Feeling cold, she finally dragged her aching body into bed. Her head bristled on the pillow and someone was snoring to do justice to a shuttle landing. She began griping in her head and was asleep before she could frame three words.
As soon as she closed her eyes, it seemed, Carpender was roaring for them to get up. She snatched on her pants, stuffed her feet into her boots and dragged the rest of it with her. The result of her efforts was a mere fifty pushups for not being dressed properly. Those who lacked clothing items did thirty per item and fifty more. She decided to sleep dressed from now on. Quickly finishing, her arms feeling bruised from the abuse of the last two days, she waited for orders. After a run that made her almost vomit, they hit an obstacle course. She hated climbing up and down the two artificial cliffs, even with the provided ropes. She gritted her teeth as she clambered up a cargo net into twenty meters of free space, then back down. She slipped on a swinging rope and was soaked in frigid water, then soaked again crossing a log bridge. They didn't change, but went straight to breakfast.
She choked down food to keep her strength up, and started to drink a bottle of liquid loaded with protein and muscle-building nanos. These were issued to all the women and some of the smaller men. The physical standards of the FMF were very high and were not adjusted for gender or disability as the UNPF's were. There were few women recruits, she noted, only about fifteen percent, and most of them on the tall and rangy side, and even then they needed the extra muscle builders to keep up with the men. It had seemed degrading, but Carpender's quick, pointed comment about the difference between men's and women's Olympic records drove the point home. Men average bigger and stronger than women, and the FMF took only the best physical specimens. Women and small men started with a physical disadvantage and had to work that much harder to meet the standards.
The glop was slimy and cold and she slurped it with distaste. Finishing, she dismally followed the others. As they were marched out to one of the many huge open fields, she pondered the next three years, drinking protein goo and working out at the gym daily to meet standards. It kept her morose as she stood in formation and waited. The usual confusing orders did little to shift her thoughts.
"Today, we begin unarmed combat training," Carpender said in his near-bellow. Kendra and her platoon mates stared across the grass at a more advanced class. They had disconcerting leers and grimaces on their faces. She shifted imperceptibly and uncomfortably. She was standing in what was called "horse riding stance," legs wide, body squatting low, until her thighs and calves burned with exertion. In seconds, Carpender was in front of her. "What's the matter, Pacelli? Too hot for you?"
"Weather is fine today, sir!" she shouted back. If "fine" was identified as somewhere north of 30 degrees, calm and dry at 3.5 divs, Io still with half the morning to rise and get hotter. The weather here in the Dragontooth Mountains was bizarre, frigid one day, scorching the next. The thinner atmosphere probably had something to do with it, but understanding it didn't make it enjoyable. Her clothes had dried from the morning run through a stream and the "confidence" course and were itching. Her breakfast was a greasy weight in her stomach.
Carpender turned and continued, "You will learn how to strike with hands and feet, how to grapple, how to avoid blows.
"Fingers locked behind your heads. Tense your abdominal muscles. Harder." Kendra stiffened as he ordered. "This is the basic position from which you will learn the first lesson today and every day.
"That lesson is how to take blows. Platoon two-seven-one-three, advance and strike."
With whoops and cheers, the other class charged them. One short kid who'd had his eye on Kendra the entire time closed and drew back. He punched her hard in the midriff.
The air wooshed out of her and she bent double. His second blow landed his knuckles in her ribs, the third squashed her right breast. Three more blows buffeted her shoulder, her jaw and her temple. As he retreated, she stood, fuming, stinging and gasping for breath. That was uncalled for and she intended to take it back with interest.
Then she recovered and steadied herself. It wasn't the kid's fault; he was just taking orders. Perhaps a bit too zealously, but anger wouldn't help the situation. Carpender's voice interrupted her thoughts.
"Do you feel that? Do you? Good! Controlled anger can be a useful tool. Uncontrolled anger will get you killed. So let us learn control. Attack again!"
Twice more she got thumped by upper students. The minor bruises on her face stung, but the blows to the guts and ribs were definitely debilitating. Just as she thought this, Carpender said, "Body blows cause injury. Face wounds are ugly and can be a psychological advantage, but body blows will take them out. Remember that." She made note of that. That phrase was hint they would see it on a test.
The first week was spent as a target for upper students' pent-up resentfulness. They began learning to block the second day and had great incentive to learn to block well. She learned to block inside or outside with either hand, then her legs and gradually, to twist her body around the blows without losing her balance.
They added punches to their daily drill, then kicks. Sweeps, parries, counters, grapples, throws, headbutts and gymnastic contortions that bent an opponent's attack back on himself. They practiced with restrictions: hands only, feet only, blindfolded, shackled, doused with incapacitating agents, then combinations thereof. The drills increased her respect for Rob's and Marta's skill. She was beginning to realize how tremendously learned they were.
When it came their time to initiate recruits, Kendra had no trouble doing so. They needed incentive to learn and it was her duty to do it well. She hit them hard and reliably. The murderous glares in response only made her smile. She'd pulled her punches enough to avoid actual injury, but her victims looked at her with hatred.
Four weeks in, they began adding weapons. So-called "unarmed" combat made use of everything in the soldier's inventory except projectiles, from boots, sticks, entrenching tools and wire, to climbing spikes, helmets and even the rifle as a club. The simulators and dummies were revolting. Blood splashed, jaws and limbs separated, guts spilled and horrible screams brought home just how deadly a human can be when properly trained. More important than the physical skills, Kendra learned, was that it encouraged a willingness to engage the enemy and an attitude of capability. It required closing with an opponent and getting hurt and in that regard, she agreed it made for better troops than those who trained in sterile rooms with electronic aids. She slept poorly, bothered by the violence involved, but realized that it could be necessary to save her life. The sparring with dummy weapons was painful in blows taken and she could mark her progress in bruises from fresh bloodred to stale yellow. She had a tooth regenerated after one vigorous bout with a man twice her mass, all muscle. The lesson she learned from that was to never try to outbrute a larger, stronger opponent. Stealth and careful grappling were the tools of the small against the large, sheer force only for use against a smaller opponent.
They spent time on the weapons range every day, with their rifle/grenade launcher combination weapons and the school's machineguns, mortars, rockets and other ranged weapons. They practiced stripping and rebuilding weapons in the dark, while restrained and even behind their backs. She learned to separate actual components from bogus parts tossed in to confuse her and even to separate parts from unnamed weapons out, and assemble all the pieces into their appropriate forms. She could identify a weapon, strip it, clean it, assemble it, shoot it and clear malfunctions, whether it was Freeholder, UN, Ramadanian, Caledonian or from one of the smaller colonies.
The M-5 Weapon, Personal, Rifle/Grenade Launcher Combination, was a nasty piece of hardware. At five kilos plus, it wasn't very light, but it did everything. It fed the rifle from a solid clip of fifty rounds of ammunition, breaking off individual rounds at stressed seams. The cartridge was consumed in use for excellent thermal efficiency, leaving no empty case. It was suppressed to a loud coughing noise and had a two-stage trigger. Squeezing the trigger changed it to fire single shots, gripping the trigger back fired the weapon automatically. The grenade launcher fed from its own fifteen-round clip and the charges were programmable for proximity, impact, delay or delay-on-impact fusing. The optical sight could see in infrared, low light, adjust for different gravity and instantaneous wind conditions and had a graduated reticle for range. The construction was solid and easy to maintain. The fit and finish was flawless to Kendra's eyes. She knew good machine work when she saw it.
They trained with the heavier support weapons, vehicles and comm gear. Everyone was given at least a passing familiarity with every ground combat weapon and most vehicle- and aircraft-mounted support weapons. The files of the training manual's text were in the tens of megabytes. She hadn't realized there was that much involved with basic military training.
Military training indeed. She now knew how woefully inadequate UN training was. The UN forces trained to oppress unarmed insurgents and civilians. The Freehold forces trained to fight any enemy, known or not, no matter how well armed. She was surprised when an alert was called on base and the instructors armed them with live ammunition, placed them in positions, then prepared themselves to engage an intruder. It was merely an exercise and over in segs, but they treated every one as if it were real, every time.
Orienteering, battlefield first aid, field sanitation, nutrition, military law and the laws of war, dealing with prisoners, riot control, firefighting, reconnaissance for unexploded ordnance, building emplacements and fighting positions, laying traps and explosives, more shooting—one hundred rounds a day, every day—swimming, climbing. The list went on. They rose with Io, started at "can," ate field rations, worked through twilight and stopped at "can't."
They had lessons in "space physics," the workings of the human body when away from gravity, the oxygen cycle and respiration and all the other text details of survival in space. Carpender and the others hammered into them that any mistakes in this block of instruction would cause them to wind up dead. They paid strict attention. Ship profiles and internal maps were provided for the twelve hull types and twenty-four variants currently in use in the Freehold, and various foreign military vessels they would be likely to encounter. Daily quizzes and drills were thrown at them and Kendra struggled to absorb the reams of data. She fell asleep at night to a mantra of "fleet carrier, cruiser, destroyer, stealth cruiser, gunboat, assault boat, factory ship, logistics ship, fighter, ELINT boat, missile frigate, rescue cutter, shuttle, ASP, ASP carrier, drop pod, satellite boat, fuel boat, yard boat, mine boat, intercept boat, cargo boat, jump point station, orbital intercept station, command and control station . . ."
The morning of the fifty-first day, they lined up to board a shuttle. Kendra had assumed they'd go to the starport for space training, but there was a strip at the base. They did a rough-field launch and were bound for orbit. The gees pressed them back into their cushions as the sky changed from brilliant blue to purple, then to black.
They would be in microgravity for nine days, with no breaks. As soon as they docked, they were rushed into the training ship, a cruiser. They were crammed into wartime troop quarters, six people bunked in a small cube, with three shifts on rotation. Their meager gear was stowed and they were immediately ordered to suit up for EVA.
There was a knot of total confusion at the airlock. Few of them had spaced, fewer been exposed to microgravity for any length of time. Some were sick. Kendra was thankful to not be bothered by it. Once outside, they snapped long tethers to the side of the ship and flopped around like fish, attempting to learn how to control their movements. The instructors let them play to acclimate for half a div, then shoved them into a formation and showed them the basics. They stayed out for another two divs, rehearsing basic maneuvers, eating and drinking from their helmet rations and getting exhausted.
Kendra would never have thought of microgravity as tiring, but it required constant attention to every muscle in the body, with no gravity to reference to. She swam in afterward feeling somewhat competent and decided she'd shower and sleep as soon as possible. She had a slight headache from excess blood flow to the brain and reminded herself to drink, even though she didn't feel thirsty.
No luck getting a shower. They stowed their gear after performing field maintenance on them, then ate a cold snack. They were given antiseptic wipes to help kill surface bacteria and wipe away grime, but no showers were available to them.
They rose early and were back outside practicing small arms in vacuum. They worked with basic shipboard repair gear, started learning first aid for vacuum, rescue procedures and survival. They spent all day practicing again. Suit maintenance again. No shower, again.
Day three, they began learning "boarder repel." She thought it most unlikely that anyone would actually board a modern ship, rather than just blasting it to shreds, but she learned what they taught her. Unarmed combat was very different with no gravity, requiring awareness of the surroundings to use as leverage. Weapons use called for pinpoint accuracy and the necessity of a suit and helmet, which made aiming awkward, despite the vid sights attached to the weapons. There was a minor casualty as someone misaimed and one kid screamed into his mike. The instructors cut away a section of his skintight suit, slapped a bandage over the wound and rushed him to the infirmary. He was back the next day, looking bedraggled and doped on painkillers, but working earnestly.
They started practice operations, swarming through and over the vessel, responding to an "attack" by instructors. They lost. They attacked the instructors. They lost again. They had no time to rest, but went straight to shipboard basic skills training after each drill. Some of them would be assigned shipboard duty immediately, the rest would almost certainly wind up in a habitat at some point. "As important as ground infantry tactics," the instructors insisted and ran them through more drills. Kendra got a quick shower on the fifth day. She was assigned to suit repair and was last in, so she was alone for four whole segs. Unbelievable luxury!
The sixtieth training day, they stayed aboard at tasks until dinnertime, when they were herded back into the shuttle as an abandon ship exercise and dropped to the surface. Trucks met them as the pods landed, rolled them across the base and delivered them back to their barracks, which had been kept manicured by lower recruits. They gratefully took cold showers and dropped back into their bunks, only to be awakened for a late-night exercise.
That morning, survival training, groundside. Very early, short of sleep, groggy. A heavy transport lifter, a VC-6 Bison, waited on the field. They boarded, along with three recruits recycled from failed exams, strapped in and were whisked north to the tundra of the Hinterlands district. Howling wind and snow awaited them and they clung together for three long days in tiny shelters, two people per for body heat. They built windbreaks of snow reinforced with tough grass, tried with little success to light fires and dug bugs, moss and small rodent analogs out of the matted surface. Kendra felt queasy at the thought of eating any of it, but did so. There was nothing else provided and the cold burned calories at an alarming rate.
The lifter returned, they boarded and were dropped on rafts into the East Sea, right at the iceberg line. They scavenged water from bergs at the instructor's direction, choosing the older and glacial ice that was low in salt, and managed to snag a few slimy fish to eat, raw. The moss from the tundra hit them then, causing screaming diarrhea. The little water they had went to prevent dehydration. Teeth chattering behind cracked lips, Kendra swore under her breath, keeping herself going with thoughts of what she'd like to do to the instructors, who had a heated, roofed raft-shelter to work from. The students weren't allowed within five hundred meters of it.
They gratefully scrambled aboard the vertol again two days later and flew southwest across the continent. They landed again, at 25 degrees latitude, in the middle of the Saltpan Desert. The temperature was over 35 degrees and the wind was their enemy once more. After the rafts, most of them were barely able to walk. They scavenged bitter alkali water from cacti and scrub in their solar stills, wrapped cloth around their faces to minimize the dust, and munched that dust with the meager rations they were issued, supplemented by a few more rodents dried in the scorching heat or cooked on stones that were hot enough to fry. They huddled in the shade of a few rocks and dozed fitfully in the heat.
Once again they were lifted and dragged farther south. Trucks met them at a rough forward base and drove them into the deep jungle. It was fascinating; a riot of green, yellow and orange hues, with multiple canopies and thick growth. Water was readily available, of course, bitter and slimy after decontamination with nanos, and she had no trouble shooting a bird-analog for food. The diarrhea persisted, but at least one could wash in a warm jungle. Biting flies were Freehold pests, not Terran, but the chemistry wasn't precisely compatible. Every bite raised a huge, hard welt that would sting for days.
Once trucked back aboard the lifters after that ordeal, the instructors handed out mugs of hot stew, chocolate and candy. Kendra hadn't thought she could be so hungry. She wolfed down everything offered, then was airsick, as were quite a few others. She wondered if the sadistic bastards planned that, too.
Then they underwent prisoner training, being stripped and searched, herded into cages, screamed at and prodded in a fashion that made their treatment so far seem positively pedestrian. They were blindfolded with stifling hoods for three days, denied food and given little water. They each had a code word the cadre tried to force them to reveal, with the promise of dire consequences if they did. No permanently injurious tactics were allowed, but they were exercised to collapse, forced to sleep on cold, damp floors with no blankets and glaring lights overhead, then woken before they could properly rest. The second day of it, Kendra was made to hold two buckets of sand at arm's length, muscles screaming, being rewarded with a stinging riot prod when her arms slipped. She'd heard rumors of the version of this used by Special Warfare troops, and shuddered. It could be worse, and that terrified her into dealing with it. She gritted her teeth, swore silently and stood it out.
Mercifully, the showers at the barracks were warm when they returned. They were allowed to sleep an extra half div the next morning, also. Once awake, they were told to pack their gear for their final exam. Eight days to go, then two days of processing. It was a tantalizing promise.
Kendra could tell a VC-6 by the sound of its engines, now. They were hauled back past the woods and landed in open, bumpy, rolling scrub. She was handed a compass and a map with destinations marked.
"Listen up!" Carpender bellowed. "This is a solo test until you reach your destination. Any maggot attempting to help or get help from another recruit will be recycled to the beginning of survival training." That announcement was greeted with silence.
"You will each take an emergency transponder and flare with you. Do not open the packets unless necessary, because there are no 'accidents.' You trigger it, you get pulled. You can also call on your comm. No 'accidents.' We hear your voice, you get pulled.
"Is there any maggot here who feels ill or otherwise unable to take this test?"
Silence.
"When next we meet, those of you who succeed will be soldiers." Kendra felt a thrill at that, even though she knew it was all part of the mind game.
"Go." He turned away.
She bunched up with the others and leaned forward into her load. Despite the "solo" nature of it, the first leg was a route march, a brisk walk with all basic gear, of fifteen kilometers. They had one div to finish. Eleven minutes per kilometer might sound generous, but she knew better. There were blazes along the trail, but all she had to do was follow the pack. Her long legs lent her an advantage in walking speed, her background shackled her with a handicap in endurance. She kept a steady pace throughout, gasping and remembering to keep her water level up.
It was tiring, and she was soon panting for breath, her legs knotting into cramps before blissfully going numb from the pounding beat. Her thighs burned above her tingling, throbbing knees and her shoulders began to ache from the load. She wondered how far they had come, and sighted a blaze up ahead. She read it as the figures became visible and groaned. Four klicks. Damn. She checked the time on her comm, groaned again and increased her pace.
Stride stride stride stride . . . She slipped on a pebble, recovered and kept moving. It was unbelievable how far away that halfway point was. Fifteen klicks! In heavy clothes, on a rough road, with a basic combat load of more than twenty kilos. She took another swallow of water, which went down the wrong way. A coughing jag started and she staggered a few steps before recovering. When she fought her way upright again, she could see the halfway point ahead of her. An intermittent breeze was catching her. It felt revitalizing, but slowed her progress. She was sweaty and sticky in her uniform and wondered how much grungier she would get.
The platoon was strung out along several hundred meters by this point and she was surprised to find herself near the front of the main group. A quick glance behind showed several people having problems at the far back. She turned and slogged on. Endorphins were flooding her brain and she felt a bit dizzy. More water. Her galloping heart and rasping breath kept time as she walked and walked and walked. Another gust blew grit into her face and she snarled. Trying not to rub her eyes, she let them tear, flushing out most of the dust. A few persistent grains drove her nerves to distraction.
She could see people gathering up ahead of her and felt another blast of air. It cooled her heaving, sweating chest slightly, then chilled her ears, but it also slowed her pace further. She cursed, stretched out her stride and pumped out paces. Eyes on the ground in front, arms swinging for balance.
"Pacelli! Stop! You're done!" A voice called. She stumbled three more steps before she could turn around and look back. She was past the line. "Your time was point nine two, five nine," the evaluator informed her. She nodded and leaned forward, hands on her knees for balance. Breath sandpapered in her throat and she waved a hand at the medic nearby. The woman trotted over.
"What's wrong, recruit?" she asked.
"Dust . . . eyes," she hissed.
The medic sat her down and proceeded to flush them with water. She was better in seconds and had to reassure her friends that she was okay. The water ran down her back, mingling with sweat and cooling her. Then it oozed into her underwear.
She stood back up, her strength returning despite the loud drumming of her heart in her ears. She looked toward the evaluator, who was just clocking the last member of the platoon. It was little recruit Marissa Welker, not quite seventeen Earth years and barely 150 centimeters. She might mass fifty kilos, soaking wet in a snowsuit. "C'mon, Welker!" she shouted, adding encouragement to the other voices.
The girl stumbled across the mark and sprawled flat on her face. She dragged herself to her knees and threw up. Choking and gasping, she sucked down some water and looked up at the evaluator with scared eyes. He looked down at her and said, "point nine nine, nine two. You made it." There was a cheer all around. Hands helped her to her feet and over to a log to sit.
"Leg One, listen up!" the evaluator shouted. Kendra was part of Leg One. She turned and listened to the instructions. "You now will follow individual routes to the final rendezvous point. There will be tests given en route and you have four days from . . . right now. Move out, no talking and good luck."
Kendra flipped open the paper map and pulled up the compass. Her first point was . . . that way. Into the damned hills. 10,165 meters. She sighed and paced off, grabbing a string of black plastic beads to keep count. The grass was waist high, the ground full of dips, depressions and holes, and short, stunted trees blocked her every few steps. She'd taken a rough sight on a peak and simply headed toward it, figuring to calculate back azimuths once close. If there were no landmarks one would normally use satellite positioning. Only if it wasn't available was it necessary to use dead reckoning and, under those circumstances, she'd expect to be dead. That would indicate a lifeless desert or plain with no commo support.
The hill was bluff-covered and fairly steep and the trees got larger as she rose. Carefully guiding around them, she tried to calculate the distance off each pace that deviated from straight line while still keeping a bearing on her destination. Nine thousand. Not much longer. She scrambled up one of the bluffs in her way, slipping in the loose dirt that had fallen from it and looked back, estimating the horizontal distance involved. She made notes, flipped her beads and kept walking.
There was a clearing ahead, quite broad, and she entered it. A small tent was pitched and an evaluator sat in front of it, quite relaxed, heating chocolate over a field stove. He stood and nodded as she approached. "What's the drill, Evaluator?" she asked.
"I can't answer that until you find your mark," he replied.
She looked at him. Find my mark? She thought for a moment. This was the spot and the tent was right there . . . unless the tent was not on the exact mark and thereby giving away its location. She nodded and reached for her compass and what might have been a smile crossed his face. She found the mark on the map, sighted three peaks to orient to, and decided she should be farther west. Another fifty-three paces, then twelve south. And there was a metal disc set into the ground, invisible under the grass. She wrote down the number on it and came back to the tent. He signed off her arrival and time on his comm and hers and said, "Now you can test. Actually, as bad as this one seems, you'll probably thank me later for being first. You need to reduce your gear by six kilos."
Six kilos! That would make her walk lighter, but there wasn't much excess in her ruck. She sat and began fumbling. Ammo could be lightened a bit. . . and she could get rid of the spare uniform, as long as she could stay dry . . . better keep it . . . dammit! Nothing came to mind.
She pondered for a moment. Then asked, "From my total mass or from my gear?" Was this a transport mass question or just a weight question?
The evaluator recited again, "You need to reduce your gear by six kilos."
Only from her gear. She nodded and showed him a full canteen and a ration. "I'm going to eat and drink those. That's one point five," she explained and started munching while she sorted. She pulled spoons and other accessories from her remaining rations, and a few bulky components that didn't pack the calories of some others. He dropped the items on a scale and kept track. By carefully stuffing remaining ration components into as few packages as possible, along with excess ammo packaging and a few other items, she brought her total to 3.2. A good start, but not enough.
She dropped one magazine and a grenade, added her spare uniform and poured out another liter of water. She could refill it from a stream and save that bottle for emergencies. 5.2. She lost her spare undershirt and added the shoulder pads from her ruck. Socks could double as shoulder pads, but not vice versa. 5.9. Too bloated to drink more, she sloshed a bit of water out and he nodded. She finished the rations and because she was suspicious, asked, "Now that I've lightened it, can I pick the gear up again?"
"Only what you can swallow," he grinned. "But points for asking. I'll note that. You can go."
She thanked him and turned, comparing her map. Then she remembered that the mark was sixty meters away. He gave her a thumbs-up as she headed that way.
Her next mark was down a ravine and across a stream. Luckily, there was a downed log to keep her dry. When she was halfway across, a startling bang!, flash and whistle in front of her told her it had been boobytrapped. Shit. Since she was dead, she finished the crawl and stopped at the far side. "I flunked, right?" she said aloud, assuming the evaluator was nearby.
The evaluator dropped out of a tree a few meters away. "Yes, you did. The easy way is usually suspect," she said. She was a wiry, mean-looking woman with a hawk nose and gray eyes. She fished out another boobytrap from her gear and got to work setting it. "That's all for this one."
Kendra nodded and resumed looking for her mark. It was impossible to see landmarks inside the woods and she fought down panic. Pace count couldn't possibly work in terrain like this, so she must be missing something. There was the stream on the map . . . and she needed one other reference point . . . got it! She sighted Io through the trees, as well as she could, pulled up an ephemeris on her comm and compared the time. It should be . . . about there, and the stream was there, so the mark must be that way.
And there it was, at the base of a tree. She logged it and had the evaluator, already finished setting her next trap, sign off.
The water was getting to her and she hurried off to find a tree in private. That done, she stomped deeper into the woods for her third mark. It was as tough as the previous one, as it was 1003 meters from a large outcropping clearly marked on the map and the only landmark nearby, but in trees deep enough to hide it. She very carefully measured her paces, chose her route to intersect as few trees as possible, and stopped. It should be in an arc along here.
She looked up, startled, as another recruit tromped into view. She didn't recognize him, but there were at least three platoons on the course. "Hi," he said.
"Hi."
"I'm hopelessly lost," he said, cheerful and frustrated. "I think it's off to the left, but I can't see the outcropping and—"
"I can't help you," she warned him.
"Well, I know, but this one's a real virgin," he persisted. "If you—"
"I said I can't help you. Now please move away before you get us both disqualified." She was getting angry with this idiot.
"No prob, you pass," he said. "I'm the evaluator." He grinned at her.
Barely believing, she said, "That's nice. Now, where do I meet you, after I find the mark?"
"Right here," he laughed, realizing she wasn't going to trust him.
She walked along the arc her calculations suggested and then back. She had it narrowed down to a fifty- meter stretch, but for some reason she wasn't finding it. She was sure of the distance and checked the direction again, and again. The evaluator, if he was, was still in her way in the same spot he'd last been in. Then she figured it out.
"Please move your right foot," she asked him.
He stepped back laughing. "Damn! I get about nine out of ten." He signed off and made another positive note in her favor on his log.
She angled back toward the plain. Io was low when she got there and she realized she'd covered thirty-five kilometers, at a near run, in rough terrain and without stopping. No wonder her feet suddenly felt as if they were squeezing out of her boots. Well, she'd camp on the plain. She had four days and had covered three marks today, which left three days for seventeen others.
Which was an average of five a day, or almost six a day for the remaining days. She'd figured on four each of the next three days, but that left her five short. She'd failed one and could fail two more. Four was not an option.
So, rest now and rush later? But she knew that if she stopped now, exhaustion would claim her. Push on tonight, rest later. Assuming the evaluators were there. If not, she'd camp out on the mark.
Glad she hadn't dumped her torch to save mass, she flicked it on to get a better view of her map in the fading dusk. Next one was almost eight more kilometers, across the plain to the north. Well then, slog on.
Bats and bat analogs fluttered by, spooking her. Not good. She was reminded again that nights on Grainne were really dark. Gealach was down and there were no city lights glowing anywhere on the horizon. It was creepy. Beautiful, but creepy. The stars were incredible, when she stopped to catch her breath. Then she flopped her goggles down and dialed up the enhancement. She had to see where she was going. Every few meters, she turned to look around, realizing it was illogical, but scared of the wilderness.
She dragged out her cloak to keep warm and fastened it down to her waist, leaving the bottom open for easier walking. When her breath started to mist she pulled her hood up. Keep your head warm to maintain body heat, she'd been drilled again and again.
Night vision enhancement was a tricky beast. It showed shadows, depressions and bottomless holes as dark areas. One had to either be very sure of the terrain or very careful or both to avoid injury. Her rate slowed considerably. She hadn't considered that, either.
Well, there was an evaluator's tent. Now to find the mark. She used the same trick as earlier, finding Vega and Sirius and referring to the ephemeris. Now, for some kind of landmark. The peaks were all but invisible, whether enhanced or not. Infrared showed little, as the mountains cooled quickly.
There was a fast, faint light to the west. Quickly turning, she confirmed it was a shuttle launch and zeroed the direction. Not exact, but close and you take luck when you find it. The city of Andrews was . . . there.
She found the mark in a few segs. It showed quite obviously on her goggles and she wrote the number down then approached the tent. The evaluator nodded and signed off. "What's to stop someone from waiting for another recruit and tracking them?" she asked.
"Me," he smiled. "Why, did you?"
"No!" she protested.
"I'm kidding," he assured her.
She finally noticed the other form hunched near the tent. "Breaktime?" she asked.
"If you like," he agreed. "Just don't talk any details."
The figure resolved up close as Welker. "Hey, how's it going?" She asked the girl. Well, legally woman, but seventeen Earth years would always be "girl" to Kendra.
"Flunking," was the reply, and the poor kid was straining to avoid crying.
"I thought so too, but you can make it," she said.
"I found two and failed both," Welker almost sobbed, cloak hugged around her skinny shoulders. "Then I got told I can't score this one, just because I arrived at it as another recruit did. If I hadn't had so much trouble getting close, I would have scored . . . but he says it was 'unintentional assistance.' I have to do seventeen more and not miss any."
Kendra whistled inside. That was tough. "Hey, you can do it!" she insisted. "Look at me. I didn't handle a weapon until I was seventeen, here. I come from lower gravity and thicker air." Leaning closer, she whispered loud enough the evaluator could be sure she wasn't cheating, "And this terrain, with no signs of civilization at all, is scaring the piss out of me."
Welker snickered softly. Kendra continued, "Rest up, sleep if you need to. Then go at it again." She stood and adjusted her ruck. "I'll see you at the rendezvous. I'm going out to wet my pants."
She strode off and could hear the evaluator chuckling and Welker giggling over her sobs.
The evening of the fourth day, Kendra felt pretty good. She'd forgotten that they had all night and early morning the next day to finish. She'd been tricked into thinking in day/night, rather than elapsed time. So she'd taken a full night's rest, along with her occasional naps, and had only two marks left, one of which was the rendezvous.
The tests had been grueling, but she'd passed so far, missing only the one the first day and one today. One mark was set into the side of a cliff, requiring one to either climb a nearby tree and swing close, scale the cliff or hang far over the ledge. Several courses of fire were graded and there were no limits on rounds used. The trick was that many recruits tossed ammo to save weight at the first station she'd hit. Recruits had to make every shot count, hoard rounds and not waste ammo on targets one couldn't hit—some were beyond effective range or so hidden as to be beyond the accuracy specification of the weapon. But it was necessary to pass as many as possible and hope to fail only one for lack of ammo. By her calculations, if one kept every round, dropping food instead, and made every shot count, it was just possible to pass every course.
She had five rounds of ammo. That made her load lighter, but she would fail another range test. She figured that poor Welker would fail because of that, but she was sure the kid would bravely go through survival training again and do it one more time.
And she was out of food. Had she saved ammo insted of food, she'd be worse than hungry by now. "Not who is right, but who is left," she remembered Carpender bawling at them. There were no right answers on this test.
Her second to last mark should be just ahead. She took a back azimuth from a peak and measured Io and Gealach both. Right about here.
There were two discs in the ground, about a meter apart. She swore. Looking around, she found another one. Then three others. Everyone was getting a different one, but all in proximity.
It was too late to trudge back and try dead reckoning. She sat and thought, then decided she could miss this if she had to; the odds were good against another range fire. She took very careful measurements of Io as it set and shot Gealach again. She measured two peaks. All three lines converged and became a blob on the screen of her comm. If there wasn't enough detail there, there certainly wouldn't be on the paper map. She swore again and tried it one more time with just the last sliver of Io and Gealach. They were as close to point references as she'd get and far easier to measure than terrain features. She double-checked, sighed and moved over a few meters. There were three discs around her in a rough triangle.
Checking Gealach once more and using a peak in lieu of the now vanished Io, she narrowed it down to two. One seemed marginally closer, so she wrote it down.
The evaluator was almost two hundred meters away. She trudged over, handed him her log and he said, "Are you sure of this? You can't pick another one."
"Yes," she replied firmly, while inside, her brain said "no."
He signed off. "You made it."
"That was the test here, right?" she asked, gratefully exhaling a held breath.
"Mostly," he agreed. "You turn in your comm here and do the last leg on paper."
She opened her mouth then closed it. "I want a receipt," she said automatically, old habit from the UNPF, as she handed it over.
He raised his eyebrows. "Well. You're the first recruit to ask for one, this cycle." He turned, scrawled the serial number on a slip and handed it over. He had a pad of them ready to write. "Your mark will have directions to the rendezvous. Good luck."
Sighing, she looked at the directions and walked off.
Two divs later, she was groggy from lack of sleep, cold and hunger. The dark was slowing her down and spooking her again. Every time a critter made a sound or stopped making one, her pulse hammered and adrenaline flooded her body. It was damn tiring.
The mark should be about here. Gealach gave her enough light to measure from one snow-capped peak and she figured her direction and distance as close. Now to find the mark.
There it was! And all alone, not surrounded by fifty others. Relief washed over her and she bent over to find directions. There were none.
There was a board where they would have been clipped, but nothing there. She growled and shouted in exasperation. Great. Should she wait for some bozo to figure it out and run back? Call for help and hope they wouldn't recycle her? Wait for others to arrive and figure it out?
While she pondered, the sounds of a vehicle became audible. There was the bare buzz of a silenced engine, the bumps of suspension and occasional squeaks. A GUV rolled up nearby, and an evaluator hopped out. "Looking for this?" she asked.
"Yes, thank you," she said, relaxing several orders of magnitude.
"No prob. One very tired recruit thought it was his personally and dragged it with him. I'll stay nearby so it doesn't happen again," she explained.
Kendra read the directions, grinned and took off. The rendezvous was due north three thousand meters. The training site happened to be at five mils magnetic, so this would be easy.
She stopped in less than a seg, realized that it was five mils the other way and tried to backtrack.
The evaluator had moved. Then she realized she had run back without measuring. Fatigue. But excuses wouldn't do it. She'd run less than two hundred meters, so figure the five degrees and that would be close. The rendezvous couldn't be that small. It was just one last lesson she'd remember.
There were seven shelters pitched in the hollow that was the rendezvous. She made it eight, pitched her bag and crawled in, after reporting to the evaluator huddled next to a small fire. She was asleep almost before she could fasten the door.
She woke to voices and reluctantly crawled out, still short of sleep. There were over forty shelters now, and more people arriving on foot every few segs. Someone threw her a sealed ration pack that she dug into gratefully. She stowed her gear, and tried to work the kinks out of her legs. She had a huge blister, too, but it would have to wait. There was cheerful chat all around, realizing that the personal test aspect was over. The next four days of combat simulation would be sheer hell, but hard for an individual recruit to fail. It was experience for them, a test for the student NCOs and officers who would be running it.
Only segs before deadline, Welker limped over the edge, grinning hugely. Her ankle was bound for support, but she stumped forward and leaped up in triumph.
"I shot a perfect score!" she crowed.
"I knew you could do it!" Kendra lied as she drew near. A medic shoved them aside and pulled out a kit. "Now we can do a proper job on that," he told her. They would have to immobilize, inject fast-working nanos and do some therapy on the swelling and other tissue damage, but she'd be ready for the combat sim.
Two more recruits arrived in the last few moments and one dragged up the rear, past the deadline by less than ten seconds. He looked ready to kill when told he'd have to repeat from survival training forward. Kendra was transported out before the last stragglers arrived.