Danger Close #3 Drop Trooper

by Rick Partlow

  “Third squad over here!” I said, raising a hand and stepping back towards my bunk. Again, I hated being the one to take charge, but I couldn’t take the chance no one else would.

  The others began separating while nine more people crowded in around me and Freddy. Five males, five females, and I thought the other squads seemed evenly divided too. There wasn’t time for more than first impressions and snap judgements and we’d all have to hope those were enough to make our decision.

  “I’m Cam Alvarez,” I told them, then nodded to Freddy and he introduced himself.

  “Bethany Chang.” That was the blond who’d thrown me my bag. She eyed me suspiciously, as if she didn’t trust anyone else to handle anything so complicated as introductions.

  “Xavier Horan.” Not bald but with the sides of his head shaved back to keep the curly black hair clear of his interface jacks.. His eyes were blue and steady, the set of his jaw strong. Everything about him gave an impression of solid, soft-spoken reliability, but I had the instant impression that he was a follower, not a leader.

  “Trey Thompson.” Tall, rangy, powerful. Brown hair in a flattop, blue eyes clear and piercing and somehow accusatory.

  “Emily Harris.” Dark eyes and hair just long enough that it took me a second to tell she had to be Recon. Medium height, medium build, nondescript, average. What you’d get if someone went to a rack in the supply room and asked for Fleet Marine, Drop Trooper, Female, one each.

  “I’m Corporal Lea Pineda,” a short, dark-haired younger woman piped up with more enthusiasm than I would have had after the last couple of hours of this place.

  “You’re Cadet Pineda,” Harris reminded her, an edge to her voice that told me she was a sergeant back in her unit. “None of us have any rank other than cadet while we’re here.”

  I revised my opinion of Harris. She had a take-charge attitude and wasn’t afraid to tell other people off, even if she’d just met them. Not so generic after all. Pineda took it silently, seeming a little embarrassed.

  “Marisa Vasquez.” Nothing there, nothing I could make out past her buzzed hair and interface jacks. She was as much of a cipher as Harris had been before her rebuke of Pineda.

  I wondered if they were trying to avoid revealing anything about themselves because they didn’t want to get picked for a leadership position. That might have made sense before, in Boot and Armor school, but this was a school about leadership and I didn’t think any of us was going to get away with flying under the radar here.

  “Makenzie Krause.”

  She had a face that could stop a battlesuit in its tracks, and that was impressive in a day when even chawners on the dole in the Underground could get the standard genetic cleanup kit for their children to make sure they were at least average when it came to health and attractiveness. From the colonies then, and not the nice, core colonies like Eden here in the 82 Eridani system. She was from the Periphery, way out where health care was only for those who could afford it and everything that couldn’t be produced on a cheap fabricator had to be imported.

  The last one in the squad was about my height, close to my build, with the sort of mélange of racial characteristics usually found in the megacities where various ethnic groups had merged, pulled asunder, and merged again over the last two hundred years. He had high cheekbones and the generic light tan skin tone that was practically uniform in Trans Angeles and a hint of suspicion in his eyes that was also uniform in the Underground in my city or any other.

  “Hector Fuentes,” he said like it was a combination of a curse and an insult. “I’ve heard of you, Alvarez,” he added. “You were on Brigantia. Some guys in my unit were there, said it was a real shit show.”

  “It was,” I agreed. “But a lot of people were there.”

  “Not a lot of them personally took down the deflector shield.”

  That got me a lot of stares and I hissed out a sigh.

  “We’re all here because we got noticed,” I said, trying to deflect the matter. “But right now, we have to choose a squad leader and have someone to nominate to the rest of the platoon for Platoon Leader and Platoon Sergeant.” I jumped ahead of the train before someone could recommend me. “I nominate Harris for squad leader.” I cocked my head to the side. “Anyone object?”

  “Yeah, I fucking object,” Harris said, but then she rolled her eyes. “But yeah, whatever. I’ll do it.”

  “What about the rest?” Chang demanded. “Who’re we gonna tell them for PL and PSG?”

  “You volunteering for platoon sergeant?” I asked her.

  She scowled but in a thoughtful way, as if she was considering how much work it would be versus how much more control she’d have over her own fate.

  “Yeah, fine.”

  “Hey!” I spoke up, waving a hand for attention from the other squads. Way too many eyes were staring at me, but I supposed I’d have to get used to that if I was going to be an officer. “We got a nominee for platoon sergeant. Cadet Chang here.” I waved at the blond woman. “Anyone else want it?”

  Silence answered me, along with a dance troupe of shaking heads.

  “What about Platoon Leader?” someone asked. I couldn’t make out who with all the people clustered together, but it set off a buzz of conversation, until Hector’s voice cut through the confusion.

  “This guy is Cameron Alvarez,” he said and I turned on him, eyes bugging out, ready to tell him to shut up. “He’s the one who was all alone on Brigantia with a bunch of civilians and managed to take down the Tahni deflector shields. I think we should make him platoon leader.”

  “Yeah, that’s good with us.”

  “Better him than me.”

  And one accession after another and I was just opening my mouth to object when the door slammed open and Reznick blew through it like a thunderstorm.

  “At ease!”

  “Time’s up!” she said, even though I knew for fucking certain we still had ten minutes left. “Somebody better be reporting to me in ten seconds or your asses are grass and I’m a fucking brushfire.”

  Shit.

  I stepped forward and came to attention.

  “Cadet Alvarez reports, Gunnery Sergeant Reznick!”

  How do I get myself into these things?

  2

  “…and you should be aware that your Commonwealth Military Class Three retirement plan will not transfer to any of the Class Four civilian plans if you should separate from the military at the end of the war before you’ve put in a full ten years since your initial enlistment…”

  The captain giving the lecture was in love with graphs and charts and the fancy holographic display he was presenting them on, and in love with the sound of his own voice. If they’d kept the temperature cold enough in the classroom, I might have even been able to appear as if I were paying attention, but the combination of the mid-day summer heat of Tartarus, the forty OCS cadets and all the hot air from Captain Economics kept forcing my head back and my eyes closed. I just knew that Gunny Reznick would catch me at the exact instant I nodded off.

  I had my issue tablet out, not that I planned on taking a single note on it, and I touched a control with my stylus, opening a message box. I couldn’t send anything from here—that would have to wait until I had free time. But I could write it now and save it for later and Mother of God I needed something to keep me awake.

  Dear Vicky,

  I’m sorry I haven’t written lately, but we don’t get much free time. I’m currently writing this while I’m supposed to be taking notes on a lecture about investment strategies for my post-military life. Silly me, I thought I was here to learn about being an officer and leading Marines in combat. Instead, the first two weeks of this sixteen-week course have been occupied with three days on how to properly wear a dress uniform, two days on how to write an Article-15, three days on how to conduct a formation on a parade ground and now two days of this shit.

  Sorry, I don’t mean to sound like I wrote you just to whine. It’s been frustrating
though, particularly since these morons went and made me the cadet platoon leader. I thought it was going to be bad leading troops in combat, but being in charge of a bunch of know-it-all wannabe officers is so much worse. Every single one of them thinks they could be doing my job better and they sure as hell don’t hesitate to tell me so, and to tell me what mistakes they think I’ve made. When you put that together with how often the training NCO tells me I’m fucking up, you’d think I couldn’t take a shit without someone around to help me wipe my ass.

  Anyway, I hope things are going okay there. I’ve heard you guys are in an operational hold for a while. The rumor is there’s going to be some kind of shift in strategy, and I keep seeing propaganda pieces talking about the “Heroes of Silvanus,” the Marines who got trapped behind enemy lines on the colony when it was occupied by the Tahni. The powers-that-be wouldn’t say a word in public about the people on the occupied worlds at all this last year and change, and suddenly they’re talking all about it. That tells me something is about to change.

  I looked up, sure I appeared to be totally engrossed in the lecture as well as keeping track of what my platoon was doing, in case one of the combat-seasoned NCOs suddenly went nuts and urinated in the middle of the classroom.

  “…and as you can see in this chart,” the Financial Services officer droned on, indicating something red and green and shaped like a pie split into pieces, “much of the investment the military provides for your retirement account is in the way of long-term government bonds, so it really is in your best interest to….”

  The people in my platoon are all older, most at least a couple years older than me, with more time in the service. Even the corporals have more time in the Corps than I do. Not a one of them has more combat experience, though. I’m not sure if I’d count that as a plus, given the nightmares. Are you still having them? I stopped taking the medication because it made me feel sluggish in the morning. I’d rather just deal with the dreams. At least here, I don’t have to worry about waking you up, just Freddy, the guy in the bunk beneath me, and he’s a heavy sleeper. He’s from Lagos, all the way over in Africa, which would have seemed a hell of a long way away back when I was in Trans Angeles, but hell, it’s all on the same planet.

  It’s probably hot in Lagos, but at least Earth has cooler spots. I had almost forgotten how much I hated Inferno. If I live through this war and get out of the service, I am never, ever coming back to this planet. It’s the armpit of the galaxy, and it’s a sweaty, hairy armpit where the hair is all tangled into knots and smells like the galaxy hasn’t take a shower in a week.

  Sorry, I may be getting a bit whiney again. I just really hate this place. Fourteen more weeks. Then I get to see you again. I don’t know what we’re going to do when that happens. According to the regs, we can’t have a relationship if I’m the platoon leader and you’re even in the same company as me, because I might have to take command of the company. But I know you love your squad and you love being their leader and I can’t ask you to change that for me. Maybe I can get Captain Covington to put me into another company.

  Shit, I don’t want to think about that right now. That seems far away and as my mom used to say, “sufficient to the day is the evil thereof.” Or in this case, the boredom thereof. Right now, I just wanted to see how everyone was doing. Tell Scotty it’s so boring here, I even miss his stupid jokes and those history lessons he used to teach us when we were eating lunch during live fire exercises. Seriously though, I miss him and the guys from my squad and I’d appreciate if you could tell them I was thinking about them.

  And about you. I think about you a lot. I miss you. I feel selfish for worrying about us with everything going on, with the war, with Lt. Ackley dying. But I can’t help it. I love you, and I hope me making the decision to go to OCS doesn’t wind up ruining the best thing that ever happened to me.

  Write me back. I need something to keep me sane in this place.

  See you in four months.

  Cam.

  My eyes flickered upward at a hint of movement, an instinct that probably went back to apes in the trees catching the motion of a leopard, but rather than a jungle cat, I found myself being stalked by Gunny Reznick. I reacted with speed my anthropoid ancestors would have been proud of and tapped the screen with my stylus, hiding the message and bringing back up the note-taking page.

  “Cadet platoon leader Alvarez,” Reznick snapped, “are you paying attention to this lecture?”

  “Yes, Gunnery Sergeant!” I barked with much more enthusiasm than I’d ever felt about anything, including sex.

  “I’m not sure I believe you, Cadet Alvarez.” She leaned down into me, her nose just a few centimeters from mine, her eyes so close that her face was nearly out of focus. “You strike me as one of those know-it-alls who comes through here thinking they don’t need to listen, that they should just be kicked up to an officer’s rank because they’re hot shit on a stick. Is that what you are, Alvarez?”

  The instructor had stopped talking and was watching the show with a scowl of annoyance, like he had a certain amount of information he was required to get through and this bullshit was just making his day longer. The students seemed less impatient and more fascinated, just as bored with the class as I had been and ready to be entertained.

  “No, Gunnery Sergeant!” I assured her, though what I wanted to ask was how many classes they’d actually had and how many know-it-alls she’d managed to encounter in that stretch.

  “Is that so?” She cocked her head to the side, squinting like she’d figured out she was too close to actually see me and wanted to get a better look. “Then why don’t you tell me what Captain Gilliam was teaching the class?”

  I sighed and tried very hard not to roll my eyes.

  “He was explaining to us that military retirement is based on investment in government bonds,” I said, droning in an almost unconscious imitation of the captain’s tone. “And that because of the long-term nature of the investment, it’s in our best interest not to cash out if we retire at the minimum ten years, but to get a loan secured against the retirement account and use it to invest in short term stocks.”

  She frowned, drawing back a step, then motioned at the tablet.

  “Is that in your notes?”

  “No, Gunnery Sergeant,” I admitted. “I just have a good memory.” And I’d read ahead in the documentation they’d put in the class syllabus because what the hell else was there to do with my time here?

  “You’re the cadet platoon leader,” she scolded, sounding angrier that she didn’t really have anything to be angry about. “The others look to you as an example. Always take notes! Your memory might fail you!”

  “Yes, Gunnery Sergeant!”

  I didn’t even have to turn my head to see a half a dozen barely-smothered laughs, though whether it was at my predicament or Reznick’s declaration that I was some sort of role model, I wasn’t sure.

  Fourteen more weeks.

  “You know, they say simulators are indistinguishable from real combat nowadays,” Freddy Kodjoe mused, sitting half in and half out of the pod next to mine in the training bay. “But I think that’s bullshit. Even with the interface jacks….” He pulled one of the cables out of the pod and plugged it into his implant socket. “…I can still tell the difference. What about you, Cam? What do you think?”

  “I think,” I told him, settling into the armor simulator, “that I’m glad I’m not the platoon leader for the very first simulator run. Everyone here has some kind of combat experience and they’re all used to being in charge. This is going to be all kinds of fucked until people get used to working together.”

  “You got that right, streetboy.” I leaned out of the pod and looked back at Fuentes. He was eyeing me again.

  “Streetboy” was a term from the Trans-Angeles Underground, a very specific word referring to people like me, the homeless but also those who refused to join one of the gangs. It wasn’t something the average chawner would say, and not som
ething I would have called myself. It was meant as an insult and there was only one group that used it.

  “Who did you run with?” I asked him. I don’t know if I intended to make the question as harsh and clipped off as it came out.

  “Kibera 1087s.” His smile wasn’t at all friendly and I suddenly understood why he’d been so curious about me when we’d met.

  “I should thank you, then,” I told him. “If you assholes hadn’t sent a totally incompetent gun thug to guard your shipment of Kick a few years back, and if he hadn’t gotten himself killed by a train chasing me, I wouldn’t have wound up in the Marines.” I shrugged. “Which, despite the obvious drawbacks of almost getting killed and watching some good friends die, has still managed to be a net positive.”

  He laughed.

  “Yeah, I heard about that. It made you a little famous back home. I think they still have a price on your head, so if I were you, I might avoid coming home to Trans Angeles when the war’s over.”

  “Trans Angeles was never home,” I assured him. “And if I never see it again, I won’t be crying any tears.”

  “All right, cadets, cut the chatter!”

  The training officer was a slender woman named Perry, her mouth twisted into a perpetual frown and like everyone else I’d met at OCS, she didn’t seem too happy to see us. She was a captain, and it seemed odd to me that I hadn’t seen any trainer above that rank since I’d arrived apart from the battalion commander, and he was a major. For an institution the Marines had deemed necessary to the war effort, no one seemed to be putting much importance to it.

  “Everyone knows why you’re here unless you’re a complete idiot,” she said, already endearing herself to all of us with her personable nature. “This is your first simulator session, the first of many, and from these sessions, you will learn how to lead a platoon in combat. You may think you already know all there is to know about combat, but I am here to tell you that you are not ready to take men and women into combat. You may be hot shit in a Vigilante battlesuit, but being able to lead your platoon, keep yourself alive and concentrate on accomplishing a big-picture mission is something you have not experienced.”