The Weapon

by Michael Z. Williamson

  Physical conditioning was a huge part of our early training. It was done both out of necessity—it's a job requirement to be strong, and to both find out if we had the mindset to stick with the program through pain and to teach us to deal with discomfort.

  I'll bet most readers think they're in pretty good shape. My guess is, if you're a surface dweller on Earth or another urbanized planet and reading this, you can't bench press more than 20 kilograms. Want to know how much I can push?

  One hundred eighty. And I can do them in Grainne's or Novaja Rossia's gravity. Deni, being female, has less upper-body strength. She could only do 100. I do 150 reps every day. I leg press 500 kilos. That leaves you with the myth of physical strength and mental ability being incompatible. Please continue to think that; it's a weapon we can use that we don't have to carry with us.

  Do you want to know how that type of prowess is achieved? It's very simple. You have to want it. Hurt for 2000 seconds every morning, and you'll be this strong within a year or two. That's all it takes. Or is that bowl of pseudofood you're munching while you read more important to you?

  Guess we can rule out you having more willpower than I, then can't we?

  Of course, we aren't superhuman. A lot of people would like us to be, so they can feel comfortable not being on par with us. The reality is, we are mortal humans, simply at the far end of the curve. When we show up and kick your ass up around your shoulders, it means that in the evolutionary state of existence, we're better. If that bothers you, tough. I proved myself to Senior Sergeant Yeoh. I didn't have to prove anything to anyone else then. I don't now. My record speaks for itself.

  * * *

  I'll tell you one thing: I don't ever want to meet Sergeant Yeoh's grandmother. That first day, I must have done a thousand pushups, and he kept screaming in my ear from six centimeters that his grandmother could do better than that. She must be the vac-sled bitch of the century, and her virility clearly explained his testosterone overdose.

  He wasn't the worst. The worst was Sergeant Irina Aleksandrovna Belinitsky, immigrant from Novaja Rossia. She was decent-looking, but with huge boobs three sizes too large for the rest of her leopard-lean, muscled body. To describe her in one word, she was a sadistic bitch. And that's what we called her when she couldn't hear: "The Bitch." She was a runner. How she could run as far as she did without stopping still amazes me.

  I was matched up with Trooper Tom Parker as buddy. Tom was . . . a character. He was blatantly bisexual and flaunted it as jokes. He loved to talk about "ze Revolooooshun!" that was coming someday. Brash, loud and not much of a runner. But he could do pushups. I can run, I just hate it. I could do pushups, too. He'd keep me company by reciting the manual for the M-5 Weapon, Soldiers, Individual, from memory, page after page. "Disassembly is accomplished by: One: unloading the weapon. Two: squeezing the trigger to disengage the firing mechanism. Three: rotating the takedown lever down and to the rear. Four: Withdrawing the takedown lever . . ."

  Pushups. Situps. Pullups. Leglifts. Jumps and jerks and running. I thought it would never stop. Then I found out that they'd lied to us. No one was allowed to quit. If you wanted to quit, you had to race for this bell at the admin building and ring it. If you moved toward it, the instructors would beat the snot out of you. All you had to do to quit was suffer worse pain than we already had. It was unfair, I was pissed off, and I started screaming at one of the instructors—Corporal Vic Daniels—about how I'd have his ass in detention. He laughed in my face, punched me in the cheek and hit me in the guts so hard I puked. While I was puking he shoved me back into my slot in formation. The Training Center commander, Captain Ntanga, just watched from the deck of his office and made no move to interfere. So that's how it was to be played.

  "Is it time yet for ze Revolooooshun?" Tom asked.

  "I'm beginning to think so," I gasped, swallowing bile.

  We actually got a hot evening meal, a hot shower, and two divs of sleep. The next morning, they gave us a friendly lecture, and I decided it had been a test. I was right. And wrong.

  After breakfast, we got screwed by a three-meter dick. I'm not joking. They dragged up this three-meter-long penis carved from a thick bluemaple trunk and told us it went everywhere we did for the duration. We were required to heave it onto our shoulders and run with it. Anytime we weren't doing something else, we were carrying the dick. It hurt the collar bones, it splintered into our arms and ears and abraded the skin over the bones. It made our weapons bang into our shoulders and spines. Sometimes, the instructors would ride atop it. Belinitsky would crack jokes while she did so; that might have been funny under normal circumstances. Tom cracked a few jokes back, and we all got dropped for pushups. If anyone dropped out for exhaustion or injury, that just left the rest of us with more to carry. We started at Iorise, carried it through our calisthenics and around an obstacle course from hell, took shifts holding it while eating, then carried it to class. We tumbled it end over end on runs, did pushups and situps by squad with it lying across our chests or spines. There's not a millimeter of that log I don't remember. Though it may have changed; seeing scars left by the last victims, we spent every moment we could unobtrusively picking splinters off it with our fingernails. It couldn't have reduced the mass much, but it was the only way we had of fighting back, so we did it.

  Class wouldn't start until everyone was present at the chosen location. Each squad had its own dick, and sometimes the riding instructor would beat on us. Whichever team arrived last had to do pushups in mud while being beaten until someone collapsed or threw up. All our comms had clear waterproof covers, because we were all filthy, all the time. We took class sitting on logs while the instructors used a comm and screen under an awning to protect it from the weather. Note that I didn't say it protected us from the weather. We got Iolight, rain, a freak snowshower, hail, birdshit and everything else that came from above. We'd sit there, burning and blistering, teeth-chattering numb and frozen stiff, pounded senseless by drops, straining to hear the voice of an instructor who more than likely was sitting in a lounge chair sipping a soda and munching cookies, neither of which we could have. Sometimes they'd grill lunch for themselves, upwind of us. The aroma of marinated venison or turkey would waft down over us. Bastards. There is worse torture than mere pain. I learned that then.

  Beyond the bruises, splinters, scrapes, UV burn from Iota, bugbites, feet blistered and ground into sausage and aching, oxygen-starved muscles was the cold. Water has a better thermal transfer rate than air, and so sucks the heat right out of you. That's true of "warm" water in the 30 degree range. "Cold" water in the 20 degree range is brutal. Mirror Lake is fed by mountain streams, and is in a deep fault valley. It averaged 5-10 degrees, just barely above freezing. A few seconds in it gave me a pounding headache from the chill effect on my ears and neck. My muscles shrank up even tighter than my gonads, and I was so tooth-rattling numb I could barely stand. Then the coughing started. Skinny runts like me have no insulation to slow the effect.

  We found a way to alleviate that, sort of. Body heat. Someone reacting to the chill would pee as they swam. The next person would feel the slight warmth, and they'd pee. By the time twenty people had done so, there was a substantial volume of water that was three to five degrees warmer. It was a few seconds, but it was relief from the vampiric cold for those few seconds. Tom would be just behind me, and I'd say, "Ahhh!" when I hit the spot.

  "Why, thank you . . . Ken. I look forward . . . so much . . . to you peeing . . . on me every morning."

  "I could . . . do it late . . . at night in . . . your rack," I offered.

  "I have a . . . better way to keep . . . warm," he replied. "Maybe you . . . and that lovely redhead . . . what's her name?"

  "Trooper . . . Denise Harlett." It was seriously hard to breathe while swimming and talking, but any chat was a welcome diversion.

  "Yes . . . you two could . . . join me in my rack . . . and . . ."

  "Only if . . . I can sell . . . tickets."

&nbs
p; "See, I was . . . going to have you . . . be behind me . . . so I wouldn't have . . . to look at your face," he said. We went on like that whenever we had enough breath to spare. I have no idea how much of it was serious, or if it was all persona. But it was bizarrely amusing, now that I think back. Tom's dead now. He was annoying and strange, but a first-class troop. His griping was always cheerful, and he always got the task done. I miss him.

  We'd spend all day splashing along the shoreline, our sand-filled uniforms rasping our skin off and wicking away heat as they dried, only to be soaked again. If you want an idea what it was like, fill a tub with cold water and add about ten trays of ice. Then lie in it for most of a day, fully clothed, getting out periodically to step into a walk-in cooler. Refresh the ice as needed. Peel out of the clothes and sandpaper the joints of your legs, behind your knees, anywhere skin meets skin, and rub dirt into the abrasions. Put the wet clothes back on, run a few kilometers with rocks in your boots then get back in the tub. Now, imagine that goes on all day, every day, for weeks.

  Why did we stick with it? Probably because we were ornery little bastards who took personal offense to the often-stated theory that we were all geeks who couldn't do it and would run home crying to our mommies and daddies. They made us mean and determined, and we were going to go through hell just to prove these assholes wrong. Which was, of course, exactly what they wanted. You do this because you have something to prove to yourself. No one else will notice.

  Then we hit Week Three.

  Sorry. Did I capitalize that? I meant WEEK THREE!!!

  I don't remember much of week three. I don't want to. Week three was the first of several plateaus we had to cross. They woke us at one div (2.8 hours after midnight), and dragged us out in the cold rain wearing only our shirts and shorts and boots. We formed squares, linked legs over shoulders and did tabletop pushups until we collapsed. They beat us around to be sure we really had collapsed, then they made us throw our dicks over our shoulders and run. We ran until people dropped out and fainted and puked to more beatings, then we ran some more. That extra 25 kilos of dick per person became 30, then 35, then 40 as bodies fell out. Eventually, someone was bound to get squashed as it fell, and I was determined to make sure it wasn't me.

  Finally, we dropped our dicks and did our calisthenics to warm up for exercise. While we did them, they doused us with a fire hose. It not only stings like hell in the face, it makes it impossible to breathe. If we turned our heads, we got slapped. If we ducked, we got kicked. We dealt with it, did our 300 pushups, 300 sit-ups, 50 pull-ups, our ten kilometer run, and the obstacle course. Then they brought us back and told us we'd be exercising until breakfast.

  Breakfast was at noon. Belinitsky tossed a box of crackers into the mud in front of a group of us and the fight started. I hurt three people getting to them. I think Deni was one of those. Screw her if she couldn't hack it. I managed one pack of about ten crackers from the box, and had lacerations and bruises all over from the fight. Tom and I shared what we had, and handed a couple of spares over to the others in our squad, so Deni got hers anyway. It was very confused.

  That afternoon, I felt the twinges that told me my lower back was about to go. I asked Yeoh for sick call and he nodded. A hand wave brought a medic over, who did a quick scan, asked me about it, then told me, "It's superficial. It isn't actually a permanent danger or incapacitating. You can deal with it, it's just pain." I expressed my own obscene opinion of what pain was. I don't know if you've ever had nerve injuries in your lumbar region, but they hurt like a dogfucker, and they are incapacitating. I found out you can deal with the pain, if you are desperate enough. It's no harder than holding still while someone stabs you repeatedly with a red hot needle.

  The rest of the week was a daze. We ran, jumped, hauled weights, swam across one arm of Mirror Lake (which, I remind you, is fed by frigid mountain streams) that was more than five kilometers wide at that point, hauling a heavy rock in one hand with our weapons slung across our backs and fighting off instructors in boats who thought it was the height of humor to run an inflatable boat over us to hold us under. The swimming was the worst. I could swim for whole kilometers. I'd been on the school team. Ever tried it in frigid, choppy water? It curls you into a gasping, struggling ball. The bottom is too deep to touch. Clothes, weapon and a rock weigh you down. I was absolutely terrified, and more so after I watched someone else sink from exhaustion. They brought him up gasping and choking. Eventually. It had to be a hundred seconds or more they just watched the water, waiting to see if he would learn how to breathe it. They dosed him with oxygen and tossed him back in like a too-small fish. Tom kept cracking jokes to encourage me, about what he'd do with my corpse.

  "You can . . . do me if . . . you get them to stop," I told him. I think I meant it.

  So the crazy son of a bitch asked them.

  Three thousand pushups for us both later . . .

  We were taunted by civilian gawkers from town, crawled across hot, sharp rocks, got beaten, abused, flogged, ate perhaps once a day—and at the little we were given and the metabolic rate we were running, that was not enough—and slept perhaps ten divs total (that's 28 hours in a 280-plus-hour week). The "sleep" was hardly worth it, because we were put on watch. The watch duration was 100 seconds. After 100 seconds on watch, the first person thus assigned grabbed the second and formally was relieved. "TROOPER, I RELIEVE YOU!" and "TROOPER, I STAND RELIEVED!" shouted every 100 seconds is not conducive to sleep. Even worse is that it was an alphabetical rotation, so you had to try to sleep on your back so you could be identified, assuming your shirt was clean enough they could read your name. When you were on watch, you were on a dead run to find your replacement, not caring who you stepped on to find them. We finally figured out that we should sleep in alphabetical order. But by then, day three, we were too exhausted to decide what that order was.

  Note that I didn't mention showers. Note also that I didn't mention latrine breaks. Again, I'm not kidding. We were cold and wet enough all the time that my clothes smelled only of dirt and mildew when we were done, not sweat, piss, or shit. They sure felt dirty, though.

  The tenth day, Belinitsky ran us until noon, probably thirty kilometers, then told us we were done and to rest. I fell asleep on a pile of rocks and didn't notice until I woke up with blood blisters and Ioburn. They let us shower and clean up then, and eat a full meal. I think I ate about 10,000 calories. My uniform was in rags and I tossed it. The medics stretched my back back into shape, handed me a bottle of basic painkillers, and told me to get back to it. I'd spend the rest of training with that "minor scoliosis" they'd discovered during my physical leaving me wincing and teary-eyed in agony.

  We run up to ninety-five percent of applicants out in training. It's efficient compared to some. We're very picky about who we take, and hold them as long as possible before even giving them the option to quit. Of course, a few do wind up in giggle wards for restruct. We'd only lost sixty percent so far, although ten percent more needed medical work before resuming training.

  The beginning of week four, they doubled our PT requirement. We didn't notice. No amount of physical distress could bother us now. The classes were the tough part, and we covered space physics (the effects of microgravity and various atmospheres on the human body) in paranoid detail, because mistakes would kill us. We'd covered it in Basic. We covered it again. I was glad to see that Deni was still with us, and she didn't seem to hold the pasting I gave her against me. It came to me that I had a really good friend cooking in her, as well as a great sex partner. Then I stopped thinking about it, because I had more to do.

  We moved to space the next week, and the ride was in a stripped cargo shuttle at high gees—I found out later it was seven—without padding. I gripped my harness in terror. I wasn't in control of the vehicle, couldn't see out of the vehicle, was at the mercy of others. I've never liked that. I don't like violent rides, I don't like chaotic maneuvers and I don't like being a bug in a box. The docking was bumpy and desi
gned to make us puke, and I did. After I cleaned the mess up, I made my way to the lock, and was cycled through with three others.

  What they hadn't told us was that we weren't docked. I assumed we were and that the lock was a safety measure. As soon as we got in, the air vented fast, and we were in a panic state, beating on the inner hatch as we gasped at nothing. Ever seen a fish out of water? Ever wanted to know what that's like? As the atmosphere cleared, the outer door popped and there was a vacsuited instructor with a large sign that read, "grab the line and move across quickly."

  I moved with what you might call alacrity. The stabbing in my eyes and ears and nose and chest was not fun, and I was sure I was going to die. I snatched the rope, swarmed across hand over hand into the station, then pounded my fists on the inner hatch there waiting for Tom and the other two to cross. It was eerie, to hit so hard and hear not a sound besides your heart galloping. I think I actually heard my adrenal glands working. I gasped for air and got nothing. It affects the brain at a fundamental level and is disorienting and almost hallucinogenic. I got smart, snatched the handle and heaved, trying to let myself in, but nothing happened. I passed out from hypoxia while doing so.

  They dosed me with straight oxy to wake me up. It was all part of the plan. I coughed and hacked and wheezed and wasted the oxygen swearing up a storm at the instructors, the asshole who was last across, the military and the human race in general. The instructor just laughed, slapped me and told me to shut up.

  It became a daily ritual to Cross the Gap. The instructors made it worse by using retch gas and tear gas (they work even better when they have no air to hinder the spray projection, and your membranes are unshielded), "harassing" us (a fancy way of saying they beat anyone who was too inefficient), and then requiring us to stay tethered and fight our way back in. After twelve days of that, I found a way to grind myself a knife in the ship's shop and conceal it on my belt, which is where we came in in this story. I got points for that, for being creative and devious. That was always the goal. I also got beaten to a pulp by the two instructors in question. Although some of that likely had to do with me fighting back (we were encouraged to), and breaking Yeoh's arm.