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

by Christopher Nuttall

  He jabbed a finger at Thug. “This recruit thinks it is because marines” - we’d been seriously ticked off for calling ourselves marines - “have to fight with less than most, more than most.”

  “True,” Bainbridge agreed. “There hasn't been a battle in the last two centuries where marine units have not been outnumbered at least ten to one. Sometimes, we have been backed up by the regulars; mostly, it's just us, surrounded on all sides by the enemy. We have to learn to make the most of what we have.”

  He paused. “These exams will measure your intellectual development” - he spoke the words as if they were a curse - “and determine if you are allowed to proceed to the next phase or held back to join the newcomers. These are not the pointless exams you might be familiar with from school. I shall be severely displeased if I have any reason to think you are not giving your all.

  “You will be shown to a private room inside the examination building. You will sit down in front of the computer - paper and pencils have also been provided - and answer all the questions as best as you can. You will not attempt to leave the room without an escort; if you need to take a piss, there’s a bucket at the rear. When you have finished, we will be alerted and you will be collected and taken down to the training grounds. We will make some good use of your time while the remainder of the platoon are completing their exams.”

  I nodded, inwardly. Exams at school had been pointless - and, when we were finished, we were expected to just sit quietly and wait for everyone else. Needless to say, we hadn't done anything of the sort; I would have been surprised if anyone did very well on the exams, or even managed to finish them when there was no punishment for failure. But here ... there wasn't one of us who would defy the Drill Instructors, not when they could assign us hundreds of push-ups.

  Bainbridge scowled at us all. “Do you understand me?”

  “YES, SIR,” we shouted.

  “Inside,” he ordered.

  We walked into the building, past a desk manned by a grim-faced woman wearing a green uniform, and down a long corridor. Our names were already written on the doors; I waved goodbye to Joker, when I found mine, and pushed it open carefully. Inside, there was a computer terminal - like the one I’d taken the aptitude tests on, back on Earth - and a small selection of papers and pencils. A water bottle stood next to it, full and sealed. I knew from experience that we were expected to keep hydrated at all times and there might be some hard questions if I didn't. Shaking my head, I sat down and braced myself, then tapped the switch to start the tests. Moments later, the first question flashed up in front of me, a repeat - almost - of the original aptitude test. I worked my way through the questions, one by one, then stopped as a far more complex question popped up.

  “You have proof that your superior officer has been stealing supplies from the logistics centre and selling them on the black market,” I read out loud, parsing out every word. “Do you report him, confront him or ignore him?”

  It was a tricky question. There wouldn't have been any real doubt at all in the Undercity. A superior officer could be a deadly enemy - and he would be believed, not you, if you happened to report him. Besides, his superiors might be in on the racket too. But in the marines ...

  I agonised for long seconds. Would it be better to report him, in line with the instructions to uphold the ideals of the Marine Corps, or to ignore him, on the grounds that I would be snitching on my superior? Who knew which way the chips would fall? But if I was to be a marine, as I had been told often enough, I had to put the interests of the corps ahead of my personal interests. I’d report him ... and handle whatever consequences came my way, when they came. I tapped the answer into the machine, then read the next question. It looked to run along the same lines, but had a far more complex problem. I answered as best as I could, silently praying I never had to face such a problem in real life. It would be damaging no matter what I did.

  The third question threw me for a long moment. “You have discovered that two of your platoon mates are having a sexual relationship,” I read. “Do you report them, confront them or ignore them?”

  I swore under my breath. This was worse than the first question. Loyalty to one’s superiors was important, but loyalty to one’s platoon was vital. Did I betray them, thus undermining the glue holding us together, or ignore their affair, even though it too would be damaging to the platoon? I knew - I thought I knew - the regulations. Sexual affairs between marines were absolutely forbidden, with discharge the mildest punishment laid down in the books. And yet ...

  “I’d have to report them, if I couldn't talk them out of it,” I muttered. Personally, I would have been astonished if anyone had had the energy for a sexual affair, not when we staggered into bunks each day feeling utterly shattered. “What else could I do?”

  It was a relief to discover that the next set of questions were tactical, focused around a number of scenarios the marines had encountered over the years.

  “A marine platoon has taken up residence in a small village,” I read, “and has orders to defend the residents against enemy raiders. Two people in the town are dickers - watching everything the platoon does and reporting them to the enemy. Identify these people from the profiles and state your reasons.”

  I groaned as I read through the seventy profiles. The village seemed tiny compared to a CityBlock (nowhere else had the population density of a CityBlock) but there were still enough residents to make it hard to guess at the enemy agents. I was tempted to blame the policeman - the police on Earth were hopelessly corrupt - but the file indicated that he’d been a decent man, despite his limitations. It wasn't until I started looking at the relationships between the villages that one of the dickers jumped right out at me. He was a complete stranger, as far as I could tell. There were no ties between him and the rest of the villagers.

  “Gotcha,” I said.

  My good mood didn't last. Who was the other dicker? The schoolmaster? No, in my experience schoolmasters and teachers were too cowardly to do anything that might require taking a stand. A housewife? No, the enemy seemed to think that women should remain pregnant, barefoot and in the kitchen ... although, if that were the case, having a housewife as a spy would seem unthinkable. Someone we’d offended somehow ...

  I glanced back through the files and smiled. One of the villagers had had his daughter molested by the platoon’s predecessors. He had an entirely understandable motive to want a little revenge. It was an unfamiliar attitude to me - there were few fathers on Earth who could or would stand up for their children - but it made sense. I tagged him as the second dicker and moved on.

  It felt like hours before I reached the final question and the exam came to an end. The door clicked invitingly, offering me the chance to leave, but I knew better than to step through until the Drill Instructors arrived. Instead, I drank the rest of the water and enjoyed an unaccustomed moment of sheer relaxation. Johnston arrived, just after I’d finished, and beckoned me through the door. I wanted to ask how well I’d done, as he led me down to the training grounds, but I knew I’d find out soon enough. Instead, I joined Joker in running laps around the field.

  “Bet Viper gets held back again,” Joker muttered. Once, running several miles - even pacing ourselves, as we had been taught to do - would have left us both gasping for breath. Now, it felt easy. “We’d finally be rid of him.”

  I nodded in agreement. Everyone else was pulling their weight, to the best of their ability, but not Viper. He should have been stronger than Professor, smarter than Thug - he’d had an entire month of training - yet he was still only doing the bare minimum. It held us back in anything requiring teamwork, putting us at the bottom of the ranking system. I knew it was only a matter of time before the Drill Instructors ‘counselled’ us to do better or someone took a swing at Viper outside the unarmed combat pit.

  “Just think of the poor bastards who’ll get him next,” Joker added. “Maybe we should have given him a thumping after Lights Out.”

  “
Better not,” I said. “The Drills would kill us.”

  Joker frowned, but nodded reluctantly. One of the recruits - not in my squad, thankfully - had started to bully someone he thought wasn't doing very well. Nordstrom had picked him up, carried him out of the barracks and then ... well, I don’t know what happened next, but we never saw the bully again. (We joked that Nordstrom had eaten the bastard and we half-believed it.) His victim might have started slowly, but he was doing very well now.

  The whistle blew as the last of the recruits was escorted out of the examination hall. We were marched down to the shooting range, where we fired off several hundred more rounds from our rifles in our endless quest for accuracy. Guptill had taken to posting our scores on the walls, pushing the squad into competition with the rest of the platoon and the platoon into competition with the senior platoons. The seniors should be well ahead of us; Guptill had told us, mischievously, that if we happened to beat them in a shooting match, they would be in deep shit with their Drill Instructors. It was remarkably motivating.

  “Pick up your brass, recruit,” Guptill snapped. Somehow, I wasn't surprised to discover that it was Viper in trouble. Again. He must not have done well on the exams. “You don’t want to spend your free hour cleaning this place, do you?”

  “No, sir,” Viper said.

  He bent over and started to pick up the shells, one by one. I watched for a moment, then turned my attention back to the rifle and checked my sights, again. Guptill had a habit of adjusting our sights, just to force us to reset them every time we fired. It was a useful thing to learn, although I rather preferred the laser rangefinder. But the Drill Instructors had explained, at some length, that we couldn't rely on being able to use them in the field.

  “Laser rangefinders are not new pieces of technology,” Bainbridge had explained. “They have been in use for longer than the Phase Drive. A smart enemy could protect their installations with sensors intended to detect laser beams, even beams invisible to the naked eye, and call down artillery fire on your position. Or even just shoot back in your general direction.”

  I frowned, remembering. We'd been told not to shoot off the whole magazine at once, as the odds of hitting something were surprisingly low, but there were times in the field when it came in handy. If nothing else, spraying and praying in the enemy’s direction would force them to duck, upsetting them enough to let you get off a more accurate shot. Or so we hoped.

  As soon as we had finished cleaning the range, we were marched back outside and back down to the barracks. Somewhat to my disappointment, Viper was still with us, alone and isolated as always. I might have felt sorry for him, if he’d tried; I wouldn’t have cared if he hadn't wanted to talk with us, if he had pulled his weight. But he wasn't even trying ...

  Professor was weak, when he started, I thought, as we lined up in front of the Drill Instructors. But he worked hard and overcame his weaknesses.

  “You have all completed your exams,” Bainbridge said. “I trust you enjoyed yourselves?”

  “NO, SIR,” we shouted.

  “Good,” Bainbridge said. “You all passed the first set of tests. We will be talking to some of you individually about your answers, over the next couple of days, but the important detail is that you passed. You haven't managed to quite embarrass us.”

  We cheered, loudly. None of us would have dared to deliberately embarrass the Drill Instructors. We might have been the freshman platoon, the maggots who only just got off the shuttle, but we were trying. Even Viper had passed ... my heart sank as I realised we were going to have to put up with him for at least another month or two. Unless he quit, of course, but I had the impression that quitting (for him) was worse than being recycled. I knew how he felt, yet surely he could put in more effort?

  “You are expected to review the details of the next phase of training this evening, in your free hour,” Bainbridge continued. “You will not be expected to make up any exercise routines this evening, unless you want to make your way to the shooting range and fire off some more rounds. Guptill will be on duty until 2000; report to him, draw ammunition and blow some targets away.”

  It was a tiny reward, by civilian standards, but it meant a hell of a lot to us. If nothing else, it was a quiet acknowledgement that we'd proved ourselves competent to handle our weapons without three Drill Instructors looming over our shoulders at all times. An hour of actual free time ...? I agonised backwards and forwards over what I’d do with it, once I’d read through the details of phase two. (I knew better than to think we hadn't been ordered to read the details.) It wasn't as if I had anyone to write to ...

  “One other thing,” Bainbridge said, softly. I tensed. A soft voice meant trouble. “Next week, there will be a new intake platoon, a new set of maggots. You will be expected to assist in training them, as your seniors assisted you. Be professional or spend hours working it off in the pit.”

  “I’m going to be writing to my family,” Joker said, as we relaxed. “Tell them all about passing the first waypoint.”

  I grinned, despite feeling alone. We were one step closer to becoming marines - and, perhaps, we would never be civilians again. Not really. Even if I went back now, I wouldn’t be a true civilian. The learned helplessness that had overshadowed my life on Earth was gone.

  “I don’t have anyone to write to,” I confessed. “You guys are my family now.”

  “Then write to one of us,” Joker said. “Dear Joker; today I did five hundred push-ups and thought myself lucky. Your friend, Stalker.”

  Professor leaned over. “No friends or family at all?”

  “My family is dead,” I said, tartly. The idea of writing to anyone else back home was absurd, really. I had never had any real friends, nor - unlike several of the recruits - had I left a girl behind, waiting for me. (Most of those girls moved on before the recruits finished Boot Camp.) “I have no one else at all.”

  “Well, at least you have us,” Joker said. He smirked. “I suppose you could always write to my sister. I’d have to beat the crap out of you for daring to write to my sister, of course, but you could write to her.”

  “Oh, shut up,” I said.

  Chapter Twelve

  The sensation of being isolated from one’s family and friends is one of the most difficult problems to overcome at Boot Camp. A recruit may write to his family, if he has time, but he will almost certainly not be able to call them in real-time or record video messages for them; he certainly won't be allowed to receive them. This helps to break the links between civilian and military life - recruits are only expected to meet their families after they graduate, thus keeping their training firmly in place - but it also leads to homesickness, depression and other psychological problems. It is quite rare for a recruit to not feel at least a flicker of homesickness during his first week, no matter what the Drill Instructors do.

  -Professor Leo Caesius

  I couldn't help a thrill of anticipation as we marched away from the maggot training grounds - where we had been training for the last month - and into the field training ground. We might be wearing webbing that would sound the alert if we were hit, we might be slipping and sliding our way through the muddy ground, but I still felt excited. And why not? We were going to have a chance to put all of our training to the test for the first time.

  “Welcome to Hellhole,” Bainbridge announced, as we marched past the border fence. “You can go anywhere inside the border, but trying to cross the border without authorisation will be considered cheating. And no, you’re not allowed to shove someone over the border. This is a realistic combat training exercise, not an scaled-up version of Circle.”

  He led us on a long march that took us right through Hellhole (actually, quite a few training grounds were called Hellhole, Shithole or some other less than pleasant designation). It was a small village, just like the one discussed in the exams, surrounded by woodland and - thankfully - completely deserted. We inspected some of the buildings and discovered that the engineers had made t
hem look very realistic, even including clothes in the drawers and food in the fridges. The surrounding landscape looked odd; there were small streams running through the village - and bridges allowing people to cross from the road to their homes - and plenty of hedges and bushes. Birds flew through the air and small animals rustled through the undergrowth, disturbed by our presence. I couldn't help feeling nervous when I saw them, even though I was sure they were harmless; rats and cockroaches infested some of the CityBlocks, spreading diseases throughout the complex. They’d told us that small animals could be eaten - and we would be eating them, when we started to test our survival training on long overnight marches - but I wasn't looking forward to it.

  Bainbridge kept up a running commentary as we crossed the wider river on one side of the village, pointing out details that seemed completely irrelevant to us. It wasn't until we actually began that I realised the village had been carefully designed to provide plenty of training opportunities, if we were prepared to take advantage of them. The river, for example, might make an ideal place to slow an enemy advance ... if, of course, the enemy didn't try to ford the river away from the village. And we could hide in the canals, if we wished; our bodies would be largely invulnerable if the enemy couldn't see them to take aim.