by Terry Mixon
To do that right, she needed to understand what they’d be going through. True, she had her own memories of basic training, but she couldn’t trust them as a roadmap.
Senior Sergeant Page had created a detailed timeline of the training program that the recruits would be going through, and she began perusing it in detail. She needed to understand the most significant tasks and where she fit into the scheme of things.
The first three weeks revolved around the customs, courtesies, and traditions of the Corps. They’d also learn basic first aid, leadership and core values, and proper uniform wear.
And then there was marching. So much marching. They’d hate close-order drill by the time they were done, but they’d learn to do it in their sleep, almost literally. It would teach them discipline that might one day save their lives.
It wasn’t to say that the next few weeks would be all bad, though. They’d learn hand-to-hand combat skills and make several runs at the confidence and obstacle courses too. Those were very fun, in her opinion.
It would be interesting to see how Page and the rest of the DIs compensated for Andrea’s implants and genetic advantages during this phase. Balance would be critical. They had to make her work hard, but they couldn’t make her tasks impossible in the process.
None of the other recruits had military-grade implants. A few had civilian rigs, but they wouldn’t be nearly as useful in this kind of environment.
The process of taking these bright kids and molding them into marines was more of an art than a science, and she had to trust that Senior Sergeant Page and the rest of the DIs knew what they were doing.
Really, she didn’t need to trust in that. Their records spoke for themselves.
Still, Sergeant Gomez definitely didn’t seem like she’d welcome Andrea’s presence. Fei imagined that there would be other drill instructors who were displeased about the idea of someone from the Singularity being present too.
And that didn’t even count the recruits themselves. There were going to be confrontations and fights inside the training platoon. The only way she could do her job while making sure that Andrea could take care of herself was to work from behind the scenes and leave Andrea to focus on the training and her fellow recruits.
As hard as that was going to be, it was the right course of action.
She’d just finished going through the training schedule and had begun going back to the beginning to learn it in more detail when there was a knock at her door. That would be the runner on his way back to pick up her tray.
“Come in,” she said, after verifying her assumption through the door’s vid feed.
The door opened, and the runner came in. Rather than grabbing her tray, though, he braced to attention and extended a data chip to her.
“This just came in for you, ma’am.”
She took the chip and frowned. “Where did this come from?”
The young man shrugged. “I’m not certain, ma’am. Battalion commo caught me in the hall and asked me to deliver this when I picked up your tray.”
Without waiting for more instructions, the young man picked up her tray and exited the office.
Battalion sending her a message this way was kind of peculiar. If they wanted her, they could’ve just sent a message directly.
With a mental shrug, she plugged the data chip into the computer built into her desk. It immediately demanded a password. Sadly, she had no idea what the password was supposed to be.
There was a password hint bubble, so she moved the cursor over it, and a question appeared.
“Who makes the best damn stunners in the known universe?”
Her blood went cold. This came from Earl Still Water.
She typed in “Anton Casey,” and the screen cleared to show Still Water sitting at a desk, his brow creased with a frown.
“Lady Na, I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it seems that my plan to sideline Countess Dayton has failed. She disappeared around the same time you left, but I wasn’t aware of her absence until almost a full day later.
“I believe that she took passage on the same liner that you did, though I still have to find some evidence of that. That means you need to increase your vigilance.
“I’ve included a contact number and code phrase in an attachment to this message that will allow you to contact someone in Imperial Intelligence that will be able to assist you. I realize that you’re disinclined to trust them or me, but don’t hesitate to use them if you need anything. Good luck, and please try not to kill the odious woman if she’s really there.”
His image vanished as soon as she accepted the file, and the recording deleted itself. She supposed she was lucky the chip hadn’t burst into flames.
She needed to talk to the major right now because that woman had enough money to corrupt anyone. It was only a matter of time—and probably not very much of that—before something ugly happened.
14
Page stood at the front of the classroom, staring out over the recruits. They were a fairly average-looking bunch, except for Tolliver. Her tattoos virtually leaped off her face without her hair to soften their impact. Whoever had designed the damned things had done an excellent job because they definitely made for a fearful visage.
“Good morning, recruits,” he said, tearing his eyes away from her to look over the rest of the class. “I hope you’ve enjoyed your first taste of training. The next twelve weeks are going to be difficult. Three months sounds like such a short time until you get here.
“Today, we’ll start teaching you the academic basics about what Imperial Marines are and what we do. You may think that you have an idea already, but let me assure you that your visualization is incomplete.”
He stopped for a moment with his hands on his hips and allowed his eyes to survey the crowd. “Most people believe that Imperial Marines live simply to fight. While we do fight, that’s only a small portion of our duties. We’re also responsible for general security and performing damage control and rescue operations on board a ship.
“In fact, I’d say rescue operations are actually a larger part of a marine’s duties throughout their career than fighting. Not only would you be responsible for lifesaving actions aboard your own ship during battle, but you’re going to come across ships in distress. Believe me, that happens far more often than one might imagine.
“In those kinds of situations, you’ll be the ones responsible for ascertaining what’s going on and saving as many civilian lives as possible. That means you need to have a broad education about how to save lives as well as end them. Quite the contradiction, isn’t it?
“In addition to that, we’re going to be covering other topics like the history and customs of the Imperial Marines and other requisite academic matters. Trust me when I say that we’re going to pack your heads full of knowledge over the next few weeks and that there will be tests.”
One of the recruits raised his hand. It was the boy that had been giving Tolliver so much grief.
“Yes, Baker.”
“Why didn’t they make us learn this stuff before we came to training, Drill Instructor? Shouldn’t we be spending our time here on more important things?”
“Do you think that ending lives is more important than saving them, Recruit?”
The boy’s mouth hung open slightly as he realized he might’ve made a mistake. “I’m sorry, Drill Instructor. I was talking about things like the history of the Corps and the other noncombat book learning. All of that won’t matter if a recruit can’t fight or be trusted, right?”
Ah, things became clearer. This was part of his battle with Tolliver. Well, maybe he should let this play out a little bit and see where it led.
“Are you concerned that some of your fellows might not have what it takes when it comes to fighting, Recruit?”
The young man nodded and even smiled a little. “Two people, Drill Instructor. One of them is an enemy of the Empire, and the other just doesn’t have what it takes to fight.”
; “Those are serious allegations,” Page said gravely. “This might come as a surprise to you, Recruit, but often the ones that think they’re the best suited for fighting are the worst fits for the Corps.
“If you think that there are people here that don’t have what it takes, then I’ll allow you to prove it. Tomorrow, we’ll make our first run at the confidence and obstacle courses.
“Would you say, Recruit, that you’re as good as the two you’ve mentioned? If so, perhaps we should have a little competition to see if they can keep up with you.”
Baker’s eyes suddenly widened as he realized where this was going. Then they narrowed, and he nodded.
“I can do that, Drill Instructor. I can prove to you that they don’t have what it takes to be marines.”
“What if they prove the exact opposite?” he asked with a cool smile. “Does that make you unfit? An interesting question and one that I’ll have to explore in more depth tomorrow. I assume that you’re talking about Tolliver and Randall?”
The boy nodded. “Yes, Drill Instructor.”
“Very well, then. I’ll allow you to prove that you’ve got what it takes, but for today, you’re just going to have to learn all that boring academic material anyway.
“Now, we’ll start with the history of the Imperial Marine Corps and what it means for us to be marines. On top of that, we’ll start layering in other subjects so that you’ll have a solid foundation to understand what it means to be an Imperial Marine by the end of the first three weeks of training. Open your books, and we’ll get started.”
Andrea found the morning classes interesting in ways that she hadn’t expected. Fei and Grace had passed along a lot of Imperial Marines Corps history, but having it laid out like an academic course, with concrete examples of what people had done over the past ten thousand years, had really put things into perspective for her.
Each of the book’s examples had built upon others and set up a theme that had been missing when each of the stories was told individually. She could now see how the Corps’ customs and traditions had built up over the millennia to become what they were today.
That wasn’t all her doing that, of course. She was smart, and she knew it, but the implants she’d had since she was twelve were unbelievably good at parsing data to develop options and insights that weren’t necessarily obvious.
She’d flipped ahead in the book—an actual book that they’d issued to each of the recruits—and quickly scanned several chapters in advance. The page flips had been far too rapid to retain anything, but her implants had recorded what she’d seen and had boiled it down, looking for insights and patterns.
Once she’d arrived in the Empire, she’d done some research on her implants and discovered that there were some interesting variations to what seemed at first glance to be ubiquitous hardware.
To begin with, the general populace could also get implants if they wanted, and many of them did. Civilian implants were far less capable than the military versions, which were optimized for tasks that civilians wouldn’t encounter.
For academic tasks like she was using hers for now, the civilian models were excellent at picking up data and finding correlations and presenting reports and insights to any given data.
The military-grade implants that she had could do the same but were different in many ways. First, they were hardened against interference and monitoring while the civilian models were less so.
The versions used by Fleet and the Imperial Marine Corps were physically identical but subtly different. There was software built into the marine versions that involved controlling armor, weapons, and performing other tactical tasks, whereas the Fleet versions were angled toward ship operations and space combat.
That wasn’t to say that hers didn’t have that kind of information built into it as well, but those tasks weren’t given the same priority that things of a tactical nature were.
For example, a threat assessment scan of the recruits in the classroom would’ve rated them as potential threats and give her possible avenues to disable or kill them. She bet that that wasn’t something Fleet personnel used regularly, if at all.
She was making the assumption that Fleet implants even had these capabilities. They might not. The marine versions might be the more capable set. Unless she had a chance to talk with a Fleet person and compare notes, she might not ever find out either.
It was a safe bet that they’d scrub her implants and remove her nanogenerator if she failed basic training, so she needed to use every advantage she had now to succeed. This was her one chance, and she didn’t want to waste it.
She considered all that while standing in line to get lunch at the battalion mess hall. A couple of the drill instructors had marched them from the classroom and made them do push-ups while they waited to get inside.
They’d placed them in line without the option of switching locations, so she wasn’t next to Diana, and that was fine. It gave her time to ponder everything that she’d learned today.
The available foods were set up cafeteria-style, except for cheeseburgers and fries. Those were cooked on a grill as she watched and were the most popular choice by far.
She’d had cheeseburgers before and liked them. After all, her metabolism required more calories than the average human, so she was always happy to add something to her plate. She’d found very few foods that she didn’t care for, which was lucky. Being a picky eater while needing so many calories would’ve been a huge pain in the ass.
Andrea decided to go with cheeseburgers on toasted buns, a heaping pile of fries, and a soda. Soft drinks were still popular in the Empire, and the extra sugar would certainly be useful.
When she’d piled her tray high, and added lettuce, tomatoes, and condiments to her cheeseburgers, she found a long table at the edge of the room with a gap between her and the other recruits and sat down.
“Are they any good?” Diana asked as she sat across from her a few minutes later.
Andrea nodded, chewing on a bite of the first cheeseburger. “They’re just a bit greasy and have a really savory flavor. I approve. The french fries are crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. Who could ask for more?”
“So, what do you think of what Claudio did?” her friend asked, changing the subject as she took a bite of her cheeseburger and nodded approvingly.
“It’s just the kind of crap that I’d expected him to pull. Honestly, I think this confrontation was inevitable, so it makes sense for me to grab the bull by its horns and deal with him once and for all.”
Her friend raised an eyebrow. “And you think this will settle things? If you kick his ass, that’ll just piss him off even more.”
Andrea didn’t disagree. Claudio seemed like the type that didn’t give up easily. She’d have to thrash him severely and then keep doing it until he decided the pain was more trouble than the dominance he wanted to achieve.
“There’s not much that I can do about it,” Andrea said as she dipped a fry in catsup and popped it into her mouth. “He decided to be my enemy the moment he laid eyes on me, and that means I’m going to have to take him down as many times as he comes charging in. I’m sorry that you got caught up in it.”
Diana shrugged and grinned. “I’m not afraid of a challenge. While the drill instructors might be pitching this as something that’s going to get somebody thrown out of training, I don’t believe that for a second. They just want to use the competition between the two of you to encourage the rest of us to greater efforts. Or maybe use Claudio’s behavior as a negative example. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out.”
Andrea pursed her lips and stopped just as she was about to take a bite from the second cheeseburger. “Really? What’s your reasoning?”
“Working in the Imperial Marines is a team effort. To succeed, we’re going to have to add our skills to the group and improve everybody’s odds. Everything we’re learning now will increase our fundamental skills, yes, but only in ways that will help integrate every
thing together by the end.
“The training is meant to build up individuals now, but it won’t be long before things move to training teamwork and finally to working as a platoon. They want us to succeed as a group, not as one person being better than the rest.
“Just like every successful team, whether it be sports or some type of work effort, you want to have one person’s strengths help cover another’s weaknesses. The person with the weaknesses will have their own strengths that will support other people on the team.
“Would it be great to have somebody great at everything? Or maybe have a team full of them? Sure, but how likely is that?”
That was a pretty deep consideration of the challenge they were facing. Andrea hadn’t thought about it from that angle.
“They’ll use Claudio to force us to do better,” her friend continued, “and when we thrash him, he’s going to have to try harder. My guess is that the drill instructors will use that to build competing squads based on him and us. Then the teamwork starts.
“At some point, they’re going to have to settle the conflict, and I have no doubt that they’ve got a plan to do just that. They’ve been training recruits for ten thousand years. They’ve got plenty of data on what needs to be done.
“We just need to focus on succeeding within the bounds of what they find acceptable and let Claudio make mistakes that are going to get him in trouble if he doesn’t learn what the boundaries are.”
Andrea considered her friend for a moment and then nodded slowly. “Wow. You really have this thought out. I had no idea that you were so analytical.”
Her friend blushed lightly and shrugged. “I’ve always been good at gauging what people will do. And, weirdly, my implants seem to be angled more towards figuring out those kinds of things.