First To Fight (The Empire's Corps Book 11)

by Christopher Nuttall

  “Find your table, then stand behind it,” Guptill ordered coolly, as he strode to the front of the room. “Like your teachers on Earth, I have to instruct you; unlike your teachers from Earth, I have the power to evict you without warning, if you misbehave. That will result in you being recycled, at the very least. You have been warned.”

  He tapped a switch, activating a projector. “Four absolute rules of firearms safety,” he stated, as a list appeared behind him. “One: a weapon is always loaded until proved otherwise. Two: do not point the gun at anything you do not want to hit. If you think the gun is unloaded, see rule one. Three: keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to fire. This is the most important rule; in my experience, violators are responsible for nearly all cases of Negligent Discharge. Again, keep rule one in mind. Four: identify your target and its surroundings. Do not shoot at anything you have not positively identified.”

  There was a pause. “If I catch any of you violating these rules from this moment on, you will be doing hundreds of push-ups,” he warned. “If you make a habit of violating these rules, I will assert my authority as Firearms Instructor and Range Safety Officer to get you dismissed from Boot Camp. I have neither the time nor the patience to deal with idiots who blatantly ignore rules intended to ensure both their safety and the safety of everyone around them.

  “For the record, the punishment for a Negligent Discharge - either a blank or a live round - that injures no one is a major fine and a black mark in your record,” he added. “If you do injure someone, you will be in deep shit.

  “Forget all the crap you might have picked up from the flicks. This is the real world. If you go into this with the wrong attitude, you are likely to get yourself or someone else seriously hurt - or dead.”

  I swallowed. I’d been looking forward to weapons training, but his warnings chilled me to the bone. How many accidents had there been in the movies? I’d seen millions of people gunned down, blood and gore splattering everywhere ... was it really like that?

  “Open the cases,” Guptill ordered. “Do not touch anything inside.”

  I unclipped the case and stared down at the two shiny weapons, both fresh off the production line. One was a pistol, large enough to be intimidating; the other was a rifle, gleaming faintly under the light. My name was engraved into the metal, along with a pair of serial numbers I assumed they used to identify the weapons if they fell out of my hands. I wanted to touch them suddenly, with a passion I hadn't felt since my first girlfriend had taken off her dress in front of me, but I held back. There was no real chance of sneaking a feel without being caught.

  “These are standard issue weapons,” Guptill informed us. “The pistol is a SIW-32, carrying a magazine of nine rounds of ammunition, or cartridges; the rifle is a MAG-47, capable of switching from single-shot to automatic with the flick of a switch. From this moment on, you will be expected to carry these weapons with you at all times, proffering them for inspection upon demand. You will clean them - religiously - every day. Take care of your weapon and it will take good care of you.”

  He held up a pistol of his own. “Your Drill Instructors - and myself - will ask for your weapons,” he said. “When we do, you expose the chamber like so” - he opened the action to demonstrate - “to prove that the gun is unloaded, then you hold it out, careful not to point the barrel at anyone. Your Drill Instructor will be furious if you point the weapon at him. When he has finished his inspection, he will pass it back to you in the same manner. If the weapon is dirty, or shows signs of having been abused, you will be in deep shit.”

  “You are also expected to call us out if we do pass it back to you in any other way,” Bainbridge added, from the back of the room.

  I groaned, inwardly. Another bloody test!

  “You’ll find a cleaning set in the case,” Guptill said. “Take it out, then carefully remove the pistol and check it isn't loaded.”

  I hesitated, then reached for the pistol, feeling ... conflicted. Part of me was nervous at the very idea of touching a weapon, even though I’d spent the last few weeks training on everything from knives to throwing stars and staffs. It felt almost as if I were touching a spider ... the others, save for Viper, seemed to be having the same problem. But then, he would be repeating the class. I opened the chamber, checked there wasn't anything inside, then locked the chamber open and placed the pistol on the table, pointed well away from anyone else.

  “Shit,” Joker said. Something clattered out of his pistol and hit the floor with a sound that made us all jump. “Sir ...”

  “You found one of the training rounds,” Guptill said. “Is the weapon empty?”

  Joker looked hesitant. “This recruit thinks so ...”

  “Not good enough,” Guptill said. He strode over to Joker’s table, then demonstrated how to clear the chamber and check there were no rounds left in the magazine. “Be sure, recruit. Check with me if you don’t understand what you’re doing.”

  I watched closely, then checked my own gun. The magazine was empty. Guptill nodded in approval, then strode back to the front of the room. “Watch carefully,” he said, picking up his pistol and holding it out to prove it was empty. “You take the gun apart like this, piece by piece, and then you clean it carefully ...”

  The gun was a remarkably simple design, I realised, as we worked our way through it. Guptill was a patient teacher, more patient than any of the Drill Instructors, although that could have been because he was used to working with deadly weapons and recruits who had already had several weeks of training. I took the weapon apart, then put it back together; Guptill inspected our work, corrected our mistakes and told us to do it again and again, until we were perfect. The thought of doing the same thing every day was irritating ...

  But you already do plenty of repetitive things every day, my own thoughts pointed out, sarcastically. What’s one more?

  “Very good, for the moment,” Guptill told us. “Now, the rifle is a slightly more complex beast, but quite simple once you get the hang of it ...”

  It was definitely harder, I decided, as we took the rifles apart, cleaned them for the first time and then put them back together. Guptill told us that the best marines could field-strip and reassemble their weapons in under a minute, but none of us believed him until he took Professor’s weapon and showed us exactly how it was done. He didn't seem surprised at the question; he merely proved his point and then moved on.

  “You will not be issued any ammunition until you complete the first two phases of training,” Guptill said, once we thought we knew what we were doing. “You will, however, be carrying exercise magazines, as you will be using them when you start putting everything together for the first time. You can find those magazines at the bottom of the case, marked with a pink line. Take them out and put them on the table.”

  He waited until we were done, then showed us how to load them into the guns. “These behave like real ammunition in all, but one respect,” he said. “They shoot harmless beams of laser light instead of lethal bullets. As you can see” - he pulled the trigger; there was a loud bang and a beam of red light shot out of the gun - “the beam can be switched from visible to invisible with the touch of a button. On exercise, you will be wearing suits that will automatically register a hit, should someone manage to tag you. You will be declared dead and marched off the field.”

  I smiled. We’d heard enough about field exercises to know we wanted to try one. It sounded like fun, from what the older platoon had said. We’d even seen them going back to their barracks once or twice, covered in mud but grinning from ear to ear.

  “They also produce a loud noise, should you have a Negligent Discharge,” he added. He tapped the gun, which emitted another loud bang. “This noise will be heard and you will be yelled at by your Drill Instructors. And, as I said, there will be a fine and a black mark.”

  He paused. “Now, I will take the first squad into the range itself,” he said. “The rest of you; sit here, read the papers in you
r case and practice taking the weapons apart. Any questions?”

  “Yes, sir,” Posh said. “This recruit was wondering if we were allowed to keep the weapons.”

  “Should you graduate Boot Camp, you will be allowed to keep the weapon,” Guptill said. “I suggest you check out the firearms laws before you pick a final destination. Civilians in the Core Worlds tend to get nervous around guns. A colony world, however, will be quite happy to have you and your weapon.”

  He raised his fist. “First squad, with me,” he ordered. “Bring both your weapons, chambers open.”

  I rose, carefully carrying both weapons. Guptill watched us carefully, then led us through a metal door into an antechamber. Two large crates of ammunition sat on a table, sealed with a solid lock. Guptill opened the first one, then produced his pistol and held it open for inspection.

  “You’ll notice that these are dummy rounds,” he said. “The pink line around the bullet signifies the lack of charge. You could pull the trigger all day and nothing would happen, but in all other respects they are identical to standard-issue rounds. As you can see ...”

  I watched, closely, as he demonstrated how to load the magazine with bullets, then insert it into the pistol. “The safety should be on right up until the moment you are ready to fire,” he said, showing us how to click it on and off. “The weapon cannot fire as long as the safety is on. Point towards your target and pull the trigger” - he pulled the trigger; there was a click and the cartridge was ejected from the chamber - “and then keep firing. If you get a dud and the round refuses to fire, snap the chamber open and eject the cartridge. Don’t worry about it hitting the floor. It takes a solid smack to fire a bullet. Any questions?”

  “Yes,” Professor said. “If something is coming backwards ...”

  “The cartridge,” Guptill said.

  Professor nodded. “Is that dangerous?”

  “Probably not to you,” Guptill said. “You’re going to be wearing eye goggles - well, you’re already wearing birth control glasses so it shouldn't be a problem - and earmuffs. But, just to give you a warning ...”

  He leaned forward. “I was assigned to teach a bunch of women to shoot, a couple of years ago,” he explained. “They weren't soldiers, you see; they’d been assigned to serve on some shit-tip of a planet where attacks on offworlders were depressingly common. I gave them pistols and ammunition, then took them onto the range. It might have worked very well if one of them hadn’t been wearing a very low-cut shirt. And the cartridge landed right between her tits.”

  I snickered. I wasn't the only one.

  “So she drops the pistol, screaming her head off, and starts trying to get the cartridge out of her cleavage,” Guptill continued. “It might seem funny now, but the poor bitch was quite badly burned ... the moral of the story is to listen to me when I tell you something, even if it’s merely an order to wear something that will protect you.”

  He shrugged. “I shall be issuing live ammunition once we’re inside the range,” he added. “I expect you to treat it with the respect it deserves.”

  We nodded, hastily.

  “Take a set of earmuffs and goggles, unless you’re already protected,” Guptill ordered, once he’d finished telling us how to stand. “Make sure your ears are completely covered.”

  He checked our protections, then beckoned us through another metal door. This chamber was larger, with a handful of paper targets hanging from the ceiling at the far end. A red line had been painted on the ground, with a warning saying DO NOT CROSS THIS LINE. Guptill walked forward as the door closed, then raised his voice. I was mildly discomforted to discover that I could still hear him through the earmuffs.

  “I’m putting a rest here so you can lean on it to take your first shots,” he said. “Stalker, you’re up first. The rest of you, stay back and watch carefully.”

  I blinked - if he’d wanted someone to do well, Viper might have been the better choice - and then stepped up to the rest. Guptill passed me a set of rounds, each one glinting gold under the light; I felt my fingers shaking as I took them, one by one, and carefully slotted them into the magazine. It was simple enough, yet I was slow ... I had the feeling we’d be doing a great deal of practice with dummy ammunition ...

  “Keep your hand away from the hammer,” Guptill warned. “Point it at your target and then pull the trigger slowly.”

  I peered down towards the target - a simple set of bull’s-eyes - and pulled the trigger. It didn't go off. For a crazy moment, I wondered if he’d given me dummy ammunition, then I realised I’d forgotten to take off the safety. I clicked it off - my hands felt sweaty, all of a sudden - and pulled the trigger a second time. There was a loud bang - I jumped, despite the ear muffs - and a small hole appeared in the paper target. Something rattled down by my feet. I glanced down and saw the cartridge spinning to a stop.

  “You’ll be sweeping those up later,” Guptill warned. “Go on. Fire off the rest of the magazine.”

  I pulled the trigger several times, slowly gaining in confidence. I didn’t quite manage to hit dead centre, but I wasn't doing badly. The final bullet proved to be a dud; I panicked, for a second, then cleared the chamber and discovered there was no more ammunition. I slipped the safety back on, opened the chamber and held the gun out for inspection.

  “Good enough,” Guptill said. He pointed to the wall, then called Joker forward. “Wait there.”

  We rapidly formed a line and went through the shooting exercise three times, before Guptill finally called a halt and detailed us to pick up the cartridges and dump them in the recycling boxes. None of us were entirely confident about picking them up after the horror story, but it turned out they cooled very quickly. Guptill entertained us with a story about how the Marine Corps had sent a team to the Imperial Army’s sharpshooting contest and walked away with all the prizes.

  “We don’t have to account for each and every piece of ammunition fired,” he explained, when we asked him how this had been achieved. “How many bullets did you fire?”

  I tried to calculate it in my head. There were ten of us, the gun could hold nine rounds at a time and we’d each had three turns at shooting ...

  “Two hundred and seventy,” Professor said. Trust him to have the advantage when it came to calculation. “More or less ...”

  “Close enough,” Guptill agreed. “The Imperial Army expects its NCOs to fill in a form for each round of ammunition they requisition, even if they don’t use it. And then, they wonder why their sergeants find it so much easier not to have live-fire practice at all.”

  He cleared his throat. “Back to the classroom, recruits,” he added. “You have papers to read.”

  I didn't believe him at the time, not about the Imperial Army. But, if anything, he understated the case. All marines have to be riflemen first, and ideally they have to have experience of combat, but it’s possible to rise quite high within the army without ever seeing the elephant. And then you lose track of what is actually important and what can be safely ignored ...

  And that, perhaps, explained just what went wrong with the Empire.

  Chapter Eleven

  As hard as it may seem to believe, Ed is also understating the case. One could make a valid case that it was bureaucracy, not the Grand Senate, the Secessionists or anyone else, who actually killed the Empire. If a crowd is only as smart as the stupidest person in it, a bureaucracy is pretty much a brain-dead beast. On one hand, someone could survive a screw-up if that person could demonstrate that they’d followed procedure; on the other hand, someone using common sense could easily be fired.

  -Professor Leo Caesius

  It really was astonishing, I discovered as we moved through phase one, just how much information the Drill Instructors crammed into our heads. Every day started with inspection, then we did callisthenics, unarmed combat training, firearms training and water training ... and then we were introduced to everything from basic medical treatment to survival in the wilderness. By the time we reached t
he first waypoint, the first set of exams to determine if we could proceed into phase two, we felt as if information was leaking out of our ears.

  The Drill Instructors did not, of course, let up. Things they would have let slide at the beginning were now the cause of endless push-ups, while they were happy - sometimes - to let us learn from painful experience. I managed to slice my finger while firing a pistol when the slide rocketed backwards, teaching me a sharp lesson about holding weapons carefully. It might have been smaller than my hand, making it difficult to fire properly, but that was no excuse. The medics healed it up at once, yet I never forgot. None of us did.

  “Marines are thinkers,” Bainbridge bellowed, after we completed the shooting and unarmed combat tests. I’d mastered the art of shooting at stationary targets, although their favourite trick for when one of us was getting a little overconfident was to have us shoot at moving targets instead, which was a great deal harder. “Why are we thinkers?”