Danger Close #3 Drop Trooper

by Rick Partlow

  It was a waste of time. I already knew it. Scotty told me once that there are two types of majors. One is what he called the perennial staff officer, the one who knows they’re not going to be promoted, or if they are, it’s years away, and until then they’re stuck in one staff position after another. A few are bitter with their lot in life, but most are fairly cool about it. Brena was one of those other type of majors who had his eye on Lt. Colonel and knew it was so close he could taste it. He was sitting in a Lt. Colonel’s position so he had to expect the notification any day. That by itself didn’t necessarily make him an asshole, but if an officer had any assholish tendencies, this was the situation that would bring them to the forefront.

  “You are an insubordinate piece of gutter trash from the Underground,” he growled at me, leaning across his desk and jabbing at me with his finger, just begging to get it broken for him. “I don’t know who’s been filling your head with the idea you can come in here, into my command and tell me what’s real and what isn’t, but that’s not going to be my problem from now on.”

  He pulled a tablet out of a drawer and tapped at it with a stylus until he reached the page he was looking for and then he held it in front of me. I didn’t bother to try to read it, but I caught a fleeting glimpse of my name and rank before he set it back down on the desk in front of him.

  “You are here at the pleasure of the Marine Corps and at my discretion, Sergeant.” Not cadet, I noted. He’d said sergeant. “And I am recommending,” he went on, tapping the stylus against a control, “that you be dropped from this course effective immediately.” His sneer of satisfaction really needed a fist through it, but as much as I hated to return to my unit a failure, staying in the brig for a few months first didn’t really appeal to me, either. “It will be reviewed by the brigade commander’s office, but that’s mostly a formality. You should go pack your shit, Sergeant. You’ll be on the next ship back to the front.”

  The barracks floor was comfortably cool under me and I had lost track of how long I’d sat there, staring at my open footlocker, before the others started to file in from training.

  “What’s going on?” Freddy asked, dropping his tablet and stylus on his bunk, following it with his sweat-soaked cover. “What did Gunnery Sgt. Reznick want?”

  “Yeah, man,” Fuentes said, snickering, “they kick you out or something?”

  “Yeah.” He’d been joking. I wasn’t.

  Fuentes’ face froze somewhere between a sarcastic, teasing smile and a look of utter disbelief.

  “No shit?” Bethany Chang asked, stopping her tracks and staring at me. “What the hell happened?”

  “Reznick took me to Brena’s office,” I explained, amazed at how dispassionate I sounded for all that my gut was still roiling. I pulled open my duffle bag and stuffed my running shoes into the bottom of it, still unable to work up the energy to put any real effort into packing. “He told me I was insubordinate and disrupting their training and he was recommending to the brigade commander that I be dismissed from the course.”

  “That is such bullshit!” Fuentes raged, and I was a bit surprised at the passion behind the words. “Jesus, dude, you are the only motherfucker in this place who cared if we learned a damned thing or not.” He slammed his fist into the wall and if it hurt, he didn’t seem to register it. “Goddammit!”

  “What’s going on?”

  It was Tomasi, the new cadet platoon leader. I’d gotten to know him a little bit since our first simulator run. He wasn’t the smartest guy I’d ever met, but he wasn’t a dick, either, and if I’d thought otherwise when he’d been in charge of our movement to contact a few weeks ago, well, he’d been just as nervous as the rest of us. He’d hurried over as soon as he came in, sensing something was out of place in his newly acquired platoon.

  “That stupid motherfucker Brena is kicking Cam out of the program,” Chang said, nearly as vehement as Fuentes, “because he programmed those alternate training programs into the simulator for us.”

  “Oh, dude, that sucks,” Tomasi said, his long, horsey face suddenly stricken. “Those were the best training I’ve ever had!”

  “Yeah, that was some awesome shit, man.” Vin Lee Trang agreed. I didn’t know him beyond his name, but he was in Third squad and he’d been there for the off-hours training. “It was even more intense than the real combat I seen.”

  “Thanks, guys,” I said. I tried to smile but I thought it came out more of a grimace. “You just keep on working, keep your noses clean and go be some first-rate officers, okay? Maybe I’ll get lucky and have one of you for my platoon leader.”

  “Umm…,” Tomasi dithered, “we gotta get ready for lunch. We only have ten minutes before we have to be out in formation.” He brightened a bit. “You coming with us, Cam?”

  “I don’t really have much of an appetite right now,” I said. “Besides, I still have to pack. If I’m not here when you get back, well....” I shrugged. “I’ve got you guys’ ‘link addresses and I’ll make sure to keep in touch.”

  It was a nice thought, but probably as much of a fantasy as me becoming an officer. Once I left here, I’d likely never see any of these people again.

  “Officer on deck!”

  I sprang to my feet out of habit, coming to attention microseconds before I remembered it was probably that stick-up-his-ass Steiner. Oh well, we respected the rank even if we couldn’t respect the person.

  But it wasn’t Steiner, and it wasn’t even Brena. The woman who walked through the door to the platoon bay was older than either of them. It was harder to tell in the military than it had been in the Underground, and harder there than Tijuana, because the availability of advanced medical care decreased with each step down that ladder, but after a while, I’d learned how to spot them. The docs might be able to stop the aging process, might be able to make someone a hundred years old look like they were thirty, but there’s a difference to the way an older person carries themselves, a certain care to their stride, a weight that I thought had to come from knowing how easy it was to get killed and having lived long enough to try to avoid that at all costs.

  There was something in the face, too, something I couldn’t quite define. Not exactly a weathering, not physical anyway. More a set to the eyes and the jaw, the sort of jaded cynicism someone might develop when they’d seen the worst humanity had to offer for longer than the human consciousness was built to last.

  This woman was old. Not as old as Top or the Skipper, who were both pushing two hundred, but somewhere north of a century. And the golden eagles on her shoulders proved she hadn’t wasted that time. She was a full bird colonel in the Marines, with a chest-full of fruit salad, campaign ribbons, commendations and medals for valor that had to date back to the First War with the Tahni.

  “I’m looking for a Cadet Alvarez,” she said, her voice clear and almost lyrical, like she’d once been a trained singer.

  “Ma’am!” I sounded off, the bombastic energy I thought I’d lost somehow back in my bellowing reply. “This cadet is Cadet Alvarez, ma’am!”

  “Cut that ooh-rah shit out, Marine,” she said, sounding more amused than impatient, a mischievous twinkle in her grey eyes. “I’m Colonel Bell, commander of the 33rd Training Brigade. I’d like to talk to you.” She turned a baleful glare on the others. “Alone. Get everyone out of this barracks and get to the mess hall.”

  “Ma’am, yes, ma’am!” Tomasi said, reddening as the last part came out in a squeak. “Platoon! Everyone out now! Drop what you’re doing and form up outside! Double-time!”

  It took less than a minute for the whole platoon to rush out the doors, some of them pulling on boots or fastening their fatigue blouses as they went, and I thought it must have been some kind of record.

  “At ease, Alvarez,” Bell told me. “Actually, as you were.”

  I nodded my thanks, though I didn’t actually go back to as I was, because I had been sitting cross-legged on the floor. But the command gave me leave to speak, which I wouldn’t h
ave had standing at ease.

  “You’re probably wondering why I’m here, Cadet Alvarez,” she said.

  “And why you’re still calling me ‘cadet’ instead of ‘sergeant,’ ma’am,” I agreed. “I thought I’d been dismissed from the program.”

  “Major Brena doesn’t have the authority to dismiss OCS candidates,” she told me. “He can only make recommendations to me, and I make the final decision.”

  Bell moved over beside my bunk and leaned against the frame, her stance casual, as if we were of equal rank and she was shooting the shit.

  “Sit down,” she invited, waving at Freddy’s bunk.

  I hesitated, more from not wanting to mess up Freddy’s perfectly-made bed than fear of accidentally disrespecting her, but I sat down anyway. I could always fix it for him before I left.

  “Something else Major Brena didn’t have the authority to do was to have Lt. Manzer relieved. That should have run across my desk before the fact rather than being presented to me as a fait accompli after Josip had already found a replacement.” She grinned. “Just in case you’re wondering, I did not drop everything and rush down here simply because Brena sent your name across my desk. I’d had my adjutant looking into this ever since Manzer had been relieved, and seeing the report recommending your dismissal, put together with Manzer’s testimony gave me all the information I needed.”

  “To do what, ma’am?” I asked, treading carefully. This was a full colonel, probably close to being promoted to general, and I was an E-5 and close to being thrown in the brig.

  “To have the man relieved, Cadet Alvarez.” She cocked an eyebrow at me. “Believe it or not, it was not the intent of the Marine Corps to turn OCS into a punishment intended to flunk most of you out and discourage enrollment. This is a work in progress and there’s a lot of pushback, but we will get it working eventually.” She snorted a humorless laugh. “Probably about the time the war ends. But the Corps needs officers, and I think, from your record, you know why.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I confirmed, a grim frown settling on my face at the memories.

  “And we need them trained well. Which is why I am ordering your scenarios programmed into the simulators on a permanent basis. Along with a few more we’ve collected from students in other companies. And I’m also reinstating Lt. Manzer as your platoon trainer. My adjutant, Major Breslov, will take over the battalion temporarily, until a permanent replacement can be found.”

  I realized I was staring at her, open-mouthed, and I shook myself like a dog shedding water and smiled.

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “Don’t thank me, Alvarez,” she warned. “I’m not doing this because I like you. I’m doing this because you have experience that’s valuable to the Corps and to the Drop Troopers. If you want to thank me, help others learn from it. And pass this fucking course so we can plug you and the rest of these cadets here into platoons and keep fighting the damned war.”

  I jumped to my feet and came to attention, feeling as if God Himself had breathed life into me.

  “Ooh-rah, ma’am!”

  6

  “Hi, Cam.” Vicky gave a little wave at the camera and I waved back at the recorded message even though she couldn’t see, my breath catching in my chest at the sight of her.

  It hadn’t been that long, just four months, yet I thought there was something different about her. Maybe it was the two-D flat screen, or maybe it was the lighting in the barracks room where she’d recorded the video, but there was something harder about the lines of her face, something sharper in her cheekbones, some darker glint to her eyes.

  “I hope you’re doing okay. I know you have to be close to graduation by now.” She smiled and the harshness I’d perceived melted away. “I guess that means you didn’t fuck up too badly and you’re actually going to be an officer, which seems like it should be scary as shit, but I’ve seen some of the Academy kids they’re kicking out lately and OCS grads can’t be any worse.”

  She sobered, the smile fading.

  “I hope this doesn’t get censored. I mean, I don’t know why it would.” She shrugged. “The enemy already knows and no one has told us it’s a secret. But we’ve been on an operational hold since just a couple weeks after you left. The scuttlebutt is that the whole kinetic strike strategy is being shelved. I guess that must mean it either worked or someone decided it was a bust. I don’t know if we’ll ever be told which is the truth. But I’ve heard it has something to do with a colony world called Canaan.”

  “Canaan,” I mumbled. “Where the hell is that?”

  “I don’t know where the hell it is, either,” she said as if she heard me. “Some Periphery colony that happens to be a Transition line hub. I guess the Tahni occupied it over a year ago, a few months after Demeter. Well, the word is, we took it back.” She grinned. “Fucking citizen’s militia of some kind working with intelligence spooks set something up and some guys I know from the 3rd of 598th Drop Troopers came in for the clean-up. They said it was a beautiful operation. The spooks knocked out the ground defense lasers and tied up the Tahni forces while the Fleet jumped insystem and launched an attack. The Marines barely had to do anything, just take out a few hold-outs. I kind of envied them the milk run.”

  She seemed to lean in toward the video pickup as if she was sharing a confidence with me that she didn’t want anyone else to hear.

  “I think the Fleet brass needed this, like a kick in the ass telling them it was time to start trying to take back the occupied colonies. I talked about it with the Skipper and he says it’s what they call a ‘tipping point.’ He thinks that’s what’s going on, that we got the Tahni to withdraw their fleet back to protect their core systems and now we’re going to dig out the troops they left behind on our worlds. I don’t know how long we have before it kicks off…so, I’m doing this now.”

  “Doing what?” I whispered, knowing she was about to tell me and suspecting I might not want to hear it.

  “I asked the Skipper to put me in for OCS.”

  There it was, the other shoe dropping. It was a gut-punch. It meant she would be in a different platoon, likely a different company unless ours had another opening at platoon leader I hadn’t heard about. But I was, I decided, happy for her. She deserved it, and she’d be good at it.

  “I leave for Inferno in three weeks,” she went on, a hint of regret in her eyes, in the fall of her voice. “I don’t know if you’ll be back before I go. I hope so. I’d like to get the chance to see you again before I go. If I don’t….” The breath went out of her. “I love you, Cam. And I know we’ll find each other once this is over.”

  She reached out a hand to touch a control on her ‘link and the image froze as the recording ended. I touched my fingers to the screen to meet hers and answered under my breath.

  “I love you, too.”

  I put the tablet down on the drum-tight bedding of my bunk, pulled out the ear bud that had kept the audio private, and began fastening the brass buttons of my dress blues.

  “Why we gotta wear this shit for the graduation ceremony anyway?” Fuentes whined, tugging at the collar of his uniform. “Brass buttons and medals…this is like from a hundred years ago. And it’s gonna be hot as shit out there in these damn jackets.”

  “It’s tradition, Hector,” Freddy told him. “The Marines are all about tradition, man.”

  “Yeah, and the fucking tradition makes us spend a month’s pay on these stupid fucking monkey suits we’re never gonna wear again.” Fuentes wandered off toward the head, probably looking for a mirror, and Freddy turned back to me.

  “Was that your girlfriend?” he asked, nodding toward the tablet. “The one you keep talking about?”

  “Yeah.” I didn’t really want to say anything else, but I knew Freddy by now, and I knew he wasn’t going to give up until I’d had some long, heartfelt conversation because that was what they did in his family, and we were all his family now. “She’s leaving for OCS. Probably be gone before I get back.”
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  “Oh, man, I am so sorry,” he said, putting a supporting hand on my shoulder. “That’s rough.”

  “That’s how it goes,” I said, shrugging, trying to act more blasé and accepting about the whole thing than I really felt. “We were lucky to get the time we had. You hear much from your girlfriend back home, Freddy?” I asked, hoping to change the subject. “I see you recording messages to her all the time, but I don’t know that I’ve ever seen you watching one she sent back the whole time we’ve been here.”

  “She doesn’t like to do video messages,” he said. “She just does text.”

  “Just admit it, Freddy,” Horan said, nudging Freddy in the shoulder. “She ain’t real. You’re in love with a computer simulation you met on one of them lonely hearts sites or something!”

  “Yeah, you’re just jealous, X,” Freddy pushed him back, but they were both laughing. “Just because you haven’t found a girl willing to put up with your smelly, hairy ass…”

  “Officer on deck!”

  We came to attention, but Lt. Manzer waved it off quickly. He was all smiles and I knew why. I’d asked around and the graduation rate for the average OCS class was just over sixty percent. Our company was commissioning ninety percent of the cadets, and the only reason it wasn’t more was that we’d had a couple drop out. And our platoon had stayed intact for all sixteen weeks, not a single failure, not a single drop-out. Together with the Brigade Commander being in his cheering section, Manzer was looking at the fast-track to captain.