Dragon Team Seven

by Toby Neighbors

  “This cake,” Kal said, rolling his eyes in pleasure at the scrumptious food, “is worth it.”

  “Worth what?” Ty asked.

  “Anything,” Kal said. “I can die a happy man.”

  “I never knew you loved food so much,” Ember said with a giggle.

  “Neither did I,” Kal said. “But I do. I love it. I want to eat until I’m so big they have to lift me with a crane.”

  “I doubt that’s part of the program,” Nick said.

  “Hands down the best food I’ve ever had,” Jules declared.

  “Me too,” Ty agreed.

  Nick drained the last of his fruit punch and sat back in the molded plastic chair. It was made to human specifications and, despite the industrial look, very comfortable. He felt so full and satisfied that he yawned.

  “I guess it’s time to get some sleep,” Kal said.

  “Did you feel the mattresses on the beds?” Ember asked.

  “And the sheets weren’t scratchy and stiff,” Jules added.

  “I can’t believe it,” Kal said. “I mean, I had some serious doubts, and we may all get slaughtered, but this place is much better than I thought.”

  “Maybe they’re just fattening us up so that they can eat us,” Ty said.

  The entire group laughed.

  “Still worth it,” Kal said.

  They emptied their trays—which only had empty dishes—into the receptacle near the exit, then followed the signs back to their barracks. The lights had been dimmed and they had no trouble climbing into their beds and going to sleep. Nick lay on the thick, soft mattress, wondering at the luxury he had suddenly discovered. Nothing in his life had prepared him for such treatment. At home he had been loved, but never pampered. At school he had been little more than a number: just one of hundreds being tasked with learning so much useless information that all he could hope to do was memorize the material long enough to pass the standardized tests each semester.

  And the Unskilled Labor Union seemed like a prison camp in comparison to how he’d been treated at the PMC intake center. He had wonderful new clothes, a comfortable, warm bed, a stomach full of rich food, and—for the first time in his life—genuine hope for the future. As he drifted off to sleep, he had no idea what was in store for them, but he felt a sense of gratitude. The PMC had been a tremendous gamble; they were committed with no way to back out. The promises of better pay, real food, and career advancement could have been all lies. But he was delighted to discover that even though he’d been in the PMC less than a day, so far everything they had claimed to offer recruits was real. It gave him hope for the future and a desire to show his new superiors just what he was really capable of.

  Chapter 10

  There was no clock in the barracks, but Nick was certain it was incredibly early when the lights suddenly flared to life and Sergeant Gomez came storming into the barracks.

  “Wake up!” Gomez snarled. “Get your lazy butts out of those beds and on the ready line!”

  Nick had no idea what the “ready line,” was, but he scrambled out of the warm bed’s soft embrace and hurried to the open space that separated the rows of bunk beds. He had slept in his clothes, not just to be ready for whatever might happen the next day, but also because they were so comfortable he hadn’t wanted to take them off. Most of the others had done the same, but through his bleary eyesight he could see that a few of the recruits were in their underwear.

  “The ready line,” Gomez shouted, “is the red stripe here.”

  He pointed at the floor where a red light was glowing. It hadn’t been there the day before, but it was there now: a bright red line on the floor one large step from the foot of his bed. Nick looked across the space and saw another red line in front of the female bunks. Ember and Jules were across from him, their faces puffy with sleep. Ty was to his left, and Kal came stumbling to Nick’s right.

  “Your training begins now, recruits!” Gomez shouted. “You have two minutes to get fully dressed, brush your teeth, and shave. If you are late you will rue your tardiness till your dying day. Do I make myself clear?”

  Nick nodded, but the sergeant wasn’t satisfied.

  “When I ask you a question, you will reply with a loud ‘Yes, Sergeant’ or ‘No, Sergeant.’ Is that clear?”

  “Yes, Sergeant!” Nick said.

  The others did the same, although there was no unison to their replies. Some rubbed their faces, trying to banish the sleep that had held them so tightly just moments before. Nick realized the rich food had caused him to fall into a deep sleep and he was struggling to shake it off.

  “Good,” Gomez announced. “You have two minutes, people. Go!”

  Nick dashed to his right, following the other men into the bathroom facilities. He had to pee, and two minutes weren’t enough to do everything required of him. He realized too late that he had forgotten his toothbrush. Fortunately, his facial hair grew slowly and he could skip that step. He turned on the sink, used his finger to scrub his teeth, rinsed his mouth with water, then scrubbed his face dry with a towel. Finally, he dashed back out and took his position in front of his bunk. He wasn’t the first to return; Ty was already waiting. The big black boy’s back was straight, his shoulders square, and Nick couldn’t help but envy his friend’s physique. Nick wasn’t as powerfully built. He was thin, his muscles so lean that he looked skinny. Ty had thicker muscles and a broad chest.

  Kal came stumbling back to his place. His raven black hair stuck up in the back, and his brown skin was puffy around his eyes. Like Nick, he was thin, but shorter, and his Pacific Islander blood made him look tough, the lean physique more fitting to his frame. Across the way, Jules’ brown hair looked like an old mop. She wasn’t tan, but she wasn’t pale like Ember, either. She had a thick build through the hips and thighs—not fat, but certainly not dainty.

  Ember had just enough time to pull her red hair back into a ponytail. She was smaller than Jules, but she had a look of fierce determination that Nick knew would see her through whatever Sergeant Gomez had planned.

  “You look like a bunch of lazy, entitled, inbred, dirt-loving rock dwellers,” Gomez stated so loudly that it made Nick wince. “Space Marines are fast, fearless, and deadly. You lot look like you couldn’t fight your way out of a wet paper bag. But that will change. This will no doubt be the toughest week of your sorry lives, and I do not apologize for that. You will do what I say, when I say it, or suffer the consequences. And when I say suffer, it means exactly that. You will suffer. Corporal punishment is alive and well in the PMC. I will run your asses into the ground and make you cry for your mommas and daddies. I will make every inch of your body ache. You’ll think you’re about to die, and we’ll just be getting started. Sound like hell? Well, my worthless, gravity-loving recruits, hell is a step up from intake week. Now follow me.”

  Nick turned and followed Kal, who was following the man in front of him. Of the twenty recruits, fourteen were men and six were women. Ember and Jules were at the back of the line of women but still three people ahead of Nick. The two lines, divided by gender, followed Sergeant Gomez from the barracks into a small room with two chairs. Nick couldn’t see what was happening at first, but soon the sound of laser clippers buzzing through hair was unmistakable.

  Nick watched as first Jules, then Ember, had their long hair shaved away. Both girls left the barber’s chair rubbing the stubble on their pale scalps. The man cutting Nick’s hair was an expert. He shaved off Nick’s hair in less than a minute and sent him hurrying to join the others waiting just inside a large room with exercise equipment.

  “You okay?” Nick asked the girls.

  “Fine,” Ember said. She seemed a little embarrassed but otherwise unfazed by the haircut. Jules had tears in her eyes as her hand rubbed over her head.

  “I can’t believe they cut my hair,” she said.

  “Looks good,” Kal commented.

  “Yeah, you look tough,” Ty added.

  Jules sniffed and looked away, fi
ghting the tears. Nick wasn’t sure what to say, so he said nothing. It wasn’t long until Sergeant Gomez appeared and beckoned them toward a double row of weight machines.

  “These are auto-adjusting weight machines,” Gomez said. “Each one works a particular muscle group, records your effort, and will change your body into a strong, capable machine ready to carry out whatever orders are handed to you. You will each move to a machine now. Move!”

  Nick hurried to a station that had an upright seat. He dropped onto the padded seat and recognized the chest press exercise. He put his hands on the machine’s handles. It beeped softly and a gentle voice said, “Begin.”

  He pushed the handles forward. At first there was no resistance, but it quickly increased. The second rep was much harder, and by the third he knew he had reached his limit. Every muscle in his chest, arms, shoulders, and back flexed with the effort of moving the machine’s handles. Halfway through the fourth rep his arms came to a quivering stop halfway through the motion of pushing the handles away from his body. Then, without any instruction from Nick, the resistance lessened slightly. It felt like someone was pushing with him, and Nick finished the rep. He kept going, pressing the machine’s handles away from his body, then lowering them back down. It was intense, yet thrilling. The machine matched his body’s strength so that even as he grew tired, every rep required his maximum effort—but as long as he didn’t give up, he was able to do every repetition until another beep sounded.

  “Change machines!” Sergeant Gomez shouted. “You have fifteen seconds before the next exercise begins.”

  Nick stood up from the chest press machine’s padded bench. His body trembled from the exertion of the exercise. There was no doubt in the young man’s mind that he had never pushed himself so hard, yet he feared that taking things slow and easy might draw the sergeant’s wrath. He stepped over to the next machine, which was a leg extension exercise. At least, he realized, that by pushing different parts of the body he was able to let the quivering muscles he’d just worked to the limit a slight rest. He got onto the machine, which adjusted automatically. When the chime sounded, he went to work.

  The PT session lasted for a full hour, allowing all twenty recruits to make four circuits on the machines. Nick had never felt so tired. He was sure the machines were offering no resistance by the time he reached the fourth circuit, but each repetition felt like it might kill him. When the lifting finally ended, Nick was drenched with sweat. Of all his friends, only Ty looked as if he could have continued.

  “I’m dying,” Kal said.

  “That was brutal,” Jules agreed.

  “I can’t feel my arms,” Nick said.

  “I can’t feel anything,” Ember countered. “I won’t be able to move in the morning.”

  “That was circuit training,” Gomez shouted at them as if they were unruly children. “Get used to it, people. You’re required to be at optimal strength at all times as Space Marines. You’ll find circuit training on every ship in the Peregrinantes fleet. It’s quick, efficient, and thorough. We will do it every day.”

  “Oh, kill me now,” Kal said.

  The sergeant led them to a row of upright running machines and ordered them to climb on. Nick knew he didn’t have the strength to keep going. He was going to be sick, and even worse, he might collapse. But before they were ordered to begin their cardio exercise, another man came in. He carried bottles of pink hydration liquid.

  “Drink up,” Gomez shouted. “You need to hydrate, and these drinks have a little something special in them.”

  Nick didn’t care what was in the drink. His mouth was dry, and he felt weak. The bottle was flexible with a spray nozzle. He angled the nozzle into his mouth and gave the bottle a squeeze. The pink liquid sprayed into his mouth. It was slightly sweet with a bit of tanginess. Nick, like the other recruits, gulped it down. He finished the entire bottle just before the machine came to life.

  “You will run until I say quit, recruits,” Sergeant Gomez shouted. “You stop running, or get off your machine and I will personally kick you down to the maintenance crew and have you scrubbing toilets with toothbrushes. Now, move!”

  The machine beeped and Nick started moving. His legs pumped up and down while his hands held extendable arms that moved back and forth in time with his legs. Just like the resistance machines, the cardio machine gently pushed Nick into a run. It wasn’t quite a sprint, but it was faster than a casual jog. At first his mind resisted the intense workout, but to Nick’s surprise, his body felt strong. He let the machine set the pace. It projected the usual information in a simple grid directly in front of Nick. His heart rate was one hundred and forty-five beats per minute. His speed was just over eleven kilometers per hour.

  “Man, what was in that sports drink?” Kal said.

  “Must have been some kind of muscle-boosting drug,” Jules said. “I feel better than when we started this morning.”

  “Yeah, baby!” Ty said. “I could run all day.”

  Nick glanced over at Ember, who was to his left. She was running, her face red and set in a mask of determination. She was pushing herself, but he could tell that the sports drink hadn’t affected her as strongly as the others. Farther down the row, some of the recruits looked pale and sick. Several were hunched over, barely moving.

  “Not everyone is feeling it,” Nick said.

  “They’re missing out,” Kal said. “I feel like I could run through a brick wall.”

  They ran for forty-five minutes. Three recruits dropped from their machines, and two more were sick. Nick made the run without slowing. When he stepped down he was tired, but not exhausted. His body felt like it was vibrating with a natural physical strength he’d never experienced before. Ty, Kal, and Jules looked invigorated. Ember looked ready to drop.

  “You okay?” Nick asked her.

  “Never...better...” she said through gasps for breath.

  “Stand up straight, girl,” Jules said, coming up alongside her friend. “Put your hands on your head. Don’t let them see you suffer.”

  It was good advice. Gomez sent five people to the infirmary after their first PT. Nick didn’t know what happened to them, but he never saw them again.

  “How come she didn’t get a kick from the sports drink?” Kal asked in a quiet voice.

  “I don’t know,” Nick admitted.

  “Couldn’t...drink it...all,” she said.

  “It wasn’t easy,” Jules agreed. “I figured I would toss my cookies, but I didn’t care. I forced myself to drink it.”

  “You have to do that, too,” I told Ember. “Whatever Sergeant Gomez gives you, drink it all.”

  She nodded. Gomez ordered the recruits to shower. They had just enough time to rinse the sweat from their bodies and pull on clean sets of the nondescript clothing they found folded neatly on their beds. Then they were rushed through breakfast. It was eggs, fruit, some oatmeal, and milk. Nick and his friends ate ravenously—even Ember, who seemed to bounce back quickly after getting cleaned up. Despite their fatigue and the rigors of their morning, they still reveled at the chance to eat the whole foods provided for them.

  After breakfast they were taken to a small classroom. Gomez went to the front of the class and cleared his throat. The recruits all fell silent.

  “Part of your intake training is a proper understanding of the Peregrinantes, the PMC, and our history. Every day you will be lectured on these points. I suggest you pay close attention. You will be tested on the material, and your scores will affect your placement options.”

  The gruff sergeant walked to the back of the room.

  “Oh man, a test?” Kal complained.

  “And nothing to take notes with,” Ember said, looking around the room.

  Nick saw several of the recruits slumped at their desks, their eyes nearly closed. It felt warm in the classroom, and a wave of drowsiness hit him suddenly.

  “Sit up,” Nick warned. “Don’t get sleepy.”

  The others all sat up straight
.

  “If we want to be assigned to the same unit, we’ve got to do well in every test. No one falls behind. We do our absolute best,” he urged his friends.

  “You know I don’t test well,” Kal argued.

  “We’ll help you,” Jules told him.

  “Yeah, we can quiz each other,” Ember agreed. “But we have to pay attention.”

  “Alright, just like high school,” Ty said. “I can dig it.”

  The lights dimmed, and a hologram of a man in uniform appeared at the front of the class. Nick glanced at the other recruits; some appeared to be sleeping already, while others were close to it. Sergeant Gomez had stepped out of the room, and Nick was certain the classroom was part of some type of test.

  “They’re watching us,” Nick told his friends. “Don’t lose focus.”

  “Watching us?” Ty asked.

  “Yeah, I’ll bet he’s right,” Ember said.

  “It’s not just about the test or the workouts,” Nick said. “It’s about how we respond. How we follow orders.”

  “Welcome to the PMC,” the hologram announced. “Get ready for the most exciting chapter of your life.”

  Chapter 11

  “Let’s begin with a history of the Peregrinantes and their association with the human race,” the hologram said.

  Nick knew most of the history, although he had forgotten the exact dates. It had been a required class in high school. Still, understanding the alien travelers took on much more importance since he had joined the PMC. He listened intently.

  “February 3rd, 2075, the Peregrinantes’ trade ship 2209.384 entered the solar system. That ship made a careful study of the celestial bodies in our system and deciphered the glut of communications coming from our world.

  “April 16th, 2075, first contact was made. At that time, Earth’s population was nine billion people. Wars continued to rage between countries and people groups. Some nations prospered, while others languished in poverty. The arrival of the Peregrinantes changed all of that. Suddenly, our petty differences were seen for what they truly were. Unable to directly translate their native tongue into our own language, the Peregrinantes took the name we know them by. Peregrinantes is Latin for ‘travelers.’